From e4464b6773a25301a96fa73791798ce5fc7cf68f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Ibraheem Saleh Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2026 11:16:15 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] Add poetry collection: 3,155 poems from 15 Gutenberg sources New files: - download_poetry.py: Download/parse script with 15 extractors - poetry/*.json: Pre-parsed poetry from Project Gutenberg Poets included: Shakespeare (154), Dickinson (439), Whitman (383), Blake (43), Keats (10), Poe (108), E.B. Browning (44), T.S. Eliot (5), Frost (82), Yeats (48), Khayyam (176), Burns (563), Wordsworth (51), Shelley (1049) Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com> --- README.md | 45 +- download_poetry.py | 1294 ++++ poetry/blake_songs.json | 303 + poetry/browning_sonnets_portuguese.json | 310 + poetry/burns_poems_songs.json | 3943 ++++++++++++ poetry/dickinson_poems.json | 3075 ++++++++++ poetry/eliot_waste_land.json | 37 + poetry/frost_mountain_interval.json | 247 + poetry/frost_selected_poems.json | 331 + poetry/keats_poems_1820.json | 72 + poetry/khayyam_rubaiyat.json | 1234 ++++ poetry/poe_poetical_works.json | 758 +++ poetry/shakespeare_sonnets.json | 1080 ++++ poetry/shelley_poetical_works.json | 7345 +++++++++++++++++++++++ poetry/whitman_leaves_of_grass.json | 2683 +++++++++ poetry/wordsworth_lyrical_ballads.json | 359 ++ poetry/yeats_wind_reeds.json | 338 ++ 17 files changed, 23447 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) create mode 100644 download_poetry.py create mode 100644 poetry/blake_songs.json create mode 100644 poetry/browning_sonnets_portuguese.json create mode 100644 poetry/burns_poems_songs.json create mode 100644 poetry/dickinson_poems.json create mode 100644 poetry/eliot_waste_land.json create mode 100644 poetry/frost_mountain_interval.json create mode 100644 poetry/frost_selected_poems.json create mode 100644 poetry/keats_poems_1820.json create mode 100644 poetry/khayyam_rubaiyat.json create mode 100644 poetry/poe_poetical_works.json create mode 100644 poetry/shakespeare_sonnets.json create mode 100644 poetry/shelley_poetical_works.json create mode 100644 poetry/whitman_leaves_of_grass.json create mode 100644 poetry/wordsworth_lyrical_ballads.json create mode 100644 poetry/yeats_wind_reeds.json diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 8917067..6cc42e4 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -1,29 +1,34 @@ -# letters +# letters & poetry -A Python app that displays random historic love letters from authentic sources, downloaded from [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/). +Python apps that display random historic love letters and classic poetry from [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/). Includes a web UI for both at [hicalsoft.com/letters](https://hicalsoft.com/letters) and [hicalsoft.com/poetry](https://hicalsoft.com/poetry). ## Quick Start ```bash +# Love Letters python3 love_letters.py # Show a random love letter python3 love_letters.py -n 3 # Show 3 random love letters python3 love_letters.py --list # List available collections python3 love_letters.py --source keats_brawne # Filter by source ``` -The `letters/` directory ships with 1,300+ pre-parsed letters — no download needed. +The `letters/` directory ships with 1,300+ pre-parsed letters and `poetry/` with 3,100+ poems — no download needed. ## Refreshing / Adding Sources -To re-download all letter collections from Project Gutenberg: +To re-download collections from Project Gutenberg: ```bash -python3 download_letters.py # Download (skips existing) -python3 download_letters.py --force # Re-download everything +# Letters +python3 download_letters.py # Download all letter sources python3 download_letters.py --list # List available sources + +# Poetry +python3 download_poetry.py # Download all poetry sources +python3 download_poetry.py --list # List available sources ``` -## Sources +## Letter Sources | Collection | Author → Recipient | Period | Letters | |---|---|---|---| @@ -39,8 +44,34 @@ python3 download_letters.py --list # List available sources | Beethoven's Letters (love letters selected) | Ludwig van Beethoven | 1790–1826 | 30 | | Mozart's Letters (love letters selected) | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1769–1791 | 60 | +## Poetry Sources + +| Collection | Poet | Period | Poems | +|---|---|---|---| +| Shakespeare's Sonnets | William Shakespeare | 1609 | 154 | +| Poems, Three Series | Emily Dickinson | 1890–1896 | 439 | +| Leaves of Grass | Walt Whitman | 1891–1892 | 383 | +| Songs of Innocence and of Experience | William Blake | 1789–1794 | 43 | +| Poems Published in 1820 | John Keats | 1820 | 10 | +| Complete Poetical Works | Edgar Allan Poe | 1827–1849 | 108 | +| Sonnets from the Portuguese | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | 1850 | 44 | +| The Waste Land | T.S. Eliot | 1922 | 5 | +| Mountain Interval | Robert Frost | 1916 | 35 | +| Selected Poems | Robert Frost | 1913–1916 | 47 | +| The Wind Among the Reeds | W.B. Yeats | 1899 | 48 | +| The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam | Omar Khayyam (trans. FitzGerald) | 11th–12th c. | 176 | +| Poems and Songs | Robert Burns | 1771–1796 | 563 | +| Lyrical Ballads | William Wordsworth | 1798 | 51 | +| Complete Poetical Works | Percy Bysshe Shelley | 1810–1822 | 1049 | + All texts are sourced from [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/) and are in the public domain. +## Web UI + +The `hicalsoft.github.io/` directory contains a standalone web interface: +- **[/letters](https://hicalsoft.com/letters)** — Browse love letters by author, with random letter button +- **[/poetry](https://hicalsoft.com/poetry)** — Browse poetry by poet, with random poem button + ## Requirements Python 3.10+ (no external dependencies). \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/download_poetry.py b/download_poetry.py new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04708e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/download_poetry.py @@ -0,0 +1,1294 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env python3 +"""Download and parse poetry collections from Project Gutenberg. + +This is a maintainer-only tool. End users should use the pre-downloaded +poetry files in the poetry/ directory. + +Usage: + python download_poetry.py # Download all sources + python download_poetry.py --list # List available sources +""" + +import json +import os +import re +import sys +import urllib.request + +POETRY_DIR = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)), "poetry") +GUTENBERG_URL = "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/{id}/pg{id}.txt" + + +def fetch_text(gutenberg_id): + """Download and return cleaned text from Project Gutenberg.""" + url = GUTENBERG_URL.format(id=gutenberg_id) + print(f" Downloading {url} ...") + req = urllib.request.Request(url, headers={"User-Agent": "PoetryDownloader/1.0"}) + with urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=30) as resp: + raw = resp.read().decode("utf-8-sig") + # Normalize line endings + raw = raw.replace("\r\n", "\n").replace("\r", "\n") + return raw + + +def extract_body(text): + """Extract text between Gutenberg START/END markers.""" + start = re.search(r"\*\*\*\s*START OF.*?\*\*\*", text) + end = re.search(r"\*\*\*\s*END OF.*?\*\*\*", text) + if start and end: + return text[start.end():end.start()] + if start: + return text[start.end():] + return text + + +def clean_poem(text): + """Clean whitespace from a poem body.""" + lines = text.split("\n") + # Strip trailing whitespace from each line + lines = [l.rstrip() for l in lines] + # Remove leading/trailing blank lines + while lines and not lines[0].strip(): + lines.pop(0) + while lines and not lines[-1].strip(): + lines.pop() + return "\n".join(lines) + + +def make_poem(title, body, author, source, period): + """Create a poem dict, skipping empty poems.""" + body = clean_poem(body) + if not body or len(body.strip()) < 20: + return None + return { + "title": title.strip(), + "body": body, + "author": author, + "source": source, + "period": period, + } + + +# ─── Extractors ───────────────────────────────────────────────── + +def extract_shakespeare_sonnets(text): + """Shakespeare's Sonnets (Gutenberg 1041).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + # Sonnets are separated by Roman numeral on its own line with double newlines + parts = re.split(r"\n\n([IVXLC]+)\n\n", body) + # parts[0] is intro, then alternating: numeral, body + for i in range(1, len(parts) - 1, 2): + numeral = parts[i].strip() + poem_body = parts[i + 1] + p = make_poem( + f"Sonnet {numeral}", + poem_body, + "William Shakespeare", + "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "1609", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + return poems + + +def extract_dickinson(text): + """Emily Dickinson's Poems, Three Series (Gutenberg 12242).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + # Skip the preface - find first poem section + # Poems are grouped by topic headings (e.g., "I. LIFE.", "II. LOVE.") + # Individual poems have titles in ALL CAPS or Roman numerals + + # Split into series sections + # Each poem is preceded by a blank line and a title line (usually short, often ALL CAPS) + # The structure is: section headings, then poems with short titles + + # Strategy: find patterns like title lines followed by poem bodies + lines = body.split("\n") + + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + in_poem = False + section = "" + + # Skip to after TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE section and the first poem + start_idx = 0 + for i, line in enumerate(lines): + if line.strip() == "I. LIFE.": + start_idx = i + break + + i = start_idx + while i < len(lines): + line = lines[i] + stripped = line.strip() + + # Section headers like "I. LIFE.", "II. LOVE.", etc. + if re.match(r"^[IVX]+\.\s+[A-Z]+\.\s*$", stripped): + # Save previous poem + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Emily Dickinson", + "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "1890–1896", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + section = stripped + i += 1 + continue + + # Series dividers + if "SERIES" in stripped and "SECOND" in stripped or "THIRD" in stripped: + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Emily Dickinson", + "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "1890–1896", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + i += 1 + continue + + # Poem title: short line, mostly caps, after blank line + # Dickinson titles are typically short phrases in ALL CAPS + if (stripped and + len(stripped) < 60 and + not stripped.startswith("[") and + stripped == stripped.upper() and + re.search(r"[A-Z]{2,}", stripped) and + not re.match(r"^[IVX]+\.\s+[A-Z]+\.\s*$", stripped) and + i > 0 and not lines[i-1].strip()): + + # Looks like a title - save previous poem + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Emily Dickinson", + "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "1890–1896", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + current_title = stripped.title() + current_body_lines = [] + in_poem = True + i += 1 + continue + + if in_poem: + current_body_lines.append(line) + + i += 1 + + # Don't forget last poem + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Emily Dickinson", + "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "1890–1896", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_whitman(text): + """Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (Gutenberg 1322).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + # Poems have titles on their own lines, followed by poem text + # Some are prefixed with "BOOK I." etc. + # Title lines are typically short, not indented much + lines = body.split("\n") + + # Skip the initial inscription + start_idx = 0 + for i, line in enumerate(lines): + if "One's-Self I Sing" in line: + start_idx = i + break + + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + + # Whitman's poems: title is a non-indented, relatively short line + # followed by indented poem body + # Some titles span multiple lines (rare) + i = start_idx + while i < len(lines): + line = lines[i] + stripped = line.strip() + + # Skip BOOK headers + if re.match(r"^BOOK\s+[IVXLC]+", stripped): + i += 1 + continue + + # Title detection: non-blank, mostly un-indented, short-ish + # Titles in Whitman are like "Song of Myself", "I Sing the Body Electric" + # They are followed by blank line then indented body + if (stripped and + len(stripped) < 80 and + not line.startswith(" ") and + not stripped.startswith("[") and + not stripped.startswith("BOOK") and + i > 0 and not lines[i-1].strip()): + + # Check if next non-blank line is indented (poem body) + j = i + 1 + while j < len(lines) and not lines[j].strip(): + j += 1 + if j < len(lines) and lines[j].startswith(" "): + # This is a title + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Walt Whitman", + "Leaves of Grass", + "1891–1892", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + current_title = stripped + current_body_lines = [] + i += 1 + continue + + if current_title: + current_body_lines.append(line) + + i += 1 + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Walt Whitman", + "Leaves of Grass", + "1891–1892", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_blake(text): + """William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience (Gutenberg 1934).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + # Remove [Picture: ...] tags + body = re.sub(r"\[Picture:.*?\]", "", body, flags=re.DOTALL) + + # Find all poem titles (ALL CAPS on their own line, 3+ newlines before) + # Build a list of (title, start_pos) then extract bodies between them + title_pattern = re.compile(r"\n\n\n([A-Z][A-Z ,'!?:;\-—]+)\n") + matches = list(title_pattern.finditer(body)) + + skip_titles = {"SONGS OF INNOCENCE", "SONGS OF EXPERIENCE", "CONTENTS", + "SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE"} + + for idx, m in enumerate(matches): + title = m.group(1).strip() + if title in skip_titles: + continue + start = m.end() + end = matches[idx + 1].start() if idx + 1 < len(matches) else len(body) + poem_body = body[start:end] + + p = make_poem( + title.title(), + poem_body, + "William Blake", + "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "1789–1794", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_keats(text): + """Keats: Poems Published in 1820 (Gutenberg 23684).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + # Extract the main poems using CONTENTS as a guide + # The poems are: LAMIA (Part I & II), ISABELLA, THE EVE OF ST. AGNES, + # various Odes, FANCY, HYPERION (Books I-III), etc. + # Followed by NOTES sections + + # Find where actual poems start (after the CONTENTS and LIFE OF KEATS sections) + advert_match = re.search(r"\nADVERTISEMENT\.?\n", body) + if advert_match: + body = body[advert_match.start():] + + # Split on major poem titles - these appear in ALL CAPS on their own + # We'll manually identify poem boundaries + poem_titles = [ + ("ADVERTISEMENT", "LAMIA"), + ("LAMIA. PART I", "LAMIA. PART II"), + ("LAMIA. PART II", "ISABELLA"), + ("ISABELLA; OR, THE POT OF BASIL", "THE EVE OF ST. AGNES"), + ("THE EVE OF ST. AGNES", "ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE"), + ("ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE", "ODE ON A GRECIAN URN"), + ("ODE ON A GRECIAN URN", "ODE TO PSYCHE"), + ("ODE TO PSYCHE", "FANCY"), + ("FANCY", "ODE"), + ("ODE\n", "LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN"), + ("LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN", "ROBIN HOOD"), + ("ROBIN HOOD", "TO AUTUMN"), + ("TO AUTUMN", "ODE ON MELANCHOLY"), + ("ODE ON MELANCHOLY", "HYPERION"), + ("HYPERION. BOOK I", "HYPERION. BOOK II"), + ("HYPERION. BOOK II", "HYPERION. BOOK III"), + ("HYPERION. BOOK III", "NOTE ON ADVERTISEMENT"), + ] + + for title_start, title_end in poem_titles: + start = body.find(title_start) + end = body.find(title_end, start + len(title_start)) if title_end else len(body) + if start == -1: + continue + if end == -1: + end = len(body) + + section = body[start:end] + # Remove the title line itself + first_newline = section.find("\n") + if first_newline != -1: + poem_body = section[first_newline:] + else: + poem_body = section + + # Clean title + display_title = title_start.replace(". PART ", ", Part ").title() + if display_title == "Advertisement": + continue + if display_title.startswith("Ode\n"): + display_title = "Ode (Bards of Passion and of Mirth)" + + # Remove editorial line numbers + poem_body = re.sub(r"\s+\d+$", "", poem_body, flags=re.MULTILINE) + # Remove footnote markers + poem_body = re.sub(r"\[\d+\]", "", poem_body) + + p = make_poem( + display_title, + poem_body, + "John Keats", + "Poems Published in 1820", + "1820", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_poe(text): + """Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Gutenberg 10031).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + # Find the start of actual poems (after intro/contents) + # Poems have titles in ALL CAPS separated by blank lines + lines = body.split("\n") + + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + skip_sections = {"CONTENTS", "NOTE", "NOTES", "INDEX", "APPENDIX", + "MEMOIR", "PREFACE", "INTRODUCTION", "BIBLIOGRAPHY"} + + i = 0 + while i < len(lines): + line = lines[i] + stripped = line.strip() + + # Title detection: short ALL CAPS line after blank line + if (stripped and + len(stripped) < 60 and + stripped == stripped.upper() and + re.search(r"[A-Z]{3,}", stripped) and + not stripped.startswith("[") and + not stripped.startswith("BY ") and + not re.match(r"^\d+$", stripped) and + not stripped.startswith("***") and + i > 0 and not lines[i-1].strip()): + + # Check if this is a section to skip + if stripped.split(".")[0].strip() in skip_sections: + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Edgar Allan Poe", + "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "1827–1849", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + i += 1 + continue + + # Save previous poem + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Edgar Allan Poe", + "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "1827–1849", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + current_title = stripped.title() + current_body_lines = [] + i += 1 + continue + + if current_title: + current_body_lines.append(line) + + i += 1 + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Edgar Allan Poe", + "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "1827–1849", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_browning_sonnets(text): + """Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Gutenberg 2002).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + # Split on Roman numeral headers + parts = re.split(r"\n\n\n+([IVXLC]+)\n\n\n", body) + + for i in range(1, len(parts) - 1, 2): + numeral = parts[i].strip() + poem_body = parts[i + 1] + p = make_poem( + f"Sonnet {numeral}", + poem_body, + "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "1850", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_eliot_wasteland(text): + """The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot (Gutenberg 1321).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + section_defs = [ + ("I", "THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD"), + ("II", "A GAME OF CHESS"), + ("III", "THE FIRE SERMON"), + ("IV", "DEATH BY WATER"), + ("V", "WHAT THE THUNDER SAID"), + ] + + # Find each section's actual occurrence (not CONTENTS/NOTES) + # The actual poem sections have the text on a non-indented line followed by poem body + positions = [] + for num, title in section_defs: + pattern = re.compile( + r"^\s+" + re.escape(num) + r"\.\s+" + re.escape(title) + r"\s*$", + re.MULTILINE, + ) + matches = list(pattern.finditer(body)) + # Use the second occurrence (first is CONTENTS) + if len(matches) >= 2: + positions.append((f"The Waste Land: {title.title()}", matches[1].start(), matches[1].end())) + elif matches: + positions.append((f"The Waste Land: {title.title()}", matches[0].start(), matches[0].end())) + + # Find NOTES section (second occurrence, after the poem) + notes_matches = list(re.finditer(r"NOTES ON", body)) + notes_pos = notes_matches[1].start() if len(notes_matches) >= 2 else ( + notes_matches[0].start() if notes_matches else len(body)) + + for i, (title, sec_start, sec_text_start) in enumerate(positions): + end = positions[i + 1][1] if i + 1 < len(positions) else notes_pos + section = body[sec_text_start:end] + # Remove line numbers + section = re.sub(r"\s+\d+$", "", section, flags=re.MULTILINE) + + p = make_poem( + title, + section, + "T.S. Eliot", + "The Waste Land", + "1922", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_frost_mountain(text): + """Robert Frost's Mountain Interval (Gutenberg 29345).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + # Poems have titles in _italics_ markup or ALL CAPS + # Pattern: _TITLE_ or _Title_ on own line + lines = body.split("\n") + + # Find start of poems (after CONTENTS) + start_idx = 0 + for i, line in enumerate(lines): + if "_THE ROAD NOT TAKEN_" in line or "THE ROAD NOT TAKEN" in line: + start_idx = i + break + + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + + i = start_idx + while i < len(lines): + line = lines[i] + stripped = line.strip() + + # Title pattern: _TITLE_ or just an ALL CAPS short line + title_match = re.match(r"^_([A-Z][A-Z ,'!?:\-.—\"]+)_$", stripped) + if not title_match: + # Also match non-italic titles + if (stripped and len(stripped) < 60 and + stripped == stripped.upper() and + re.search(r"[A-Z]{3,}", stripped) and + not stripped.startswith("[") and + i > 0 and not lines[i-1].strip()): + title_match = True + title_text = stripped.title() + else: + title_match = None + else: + title_text = title_match.group(1).title() + title_match = True + + if title_match: + # Check for subtitle on next line + sub_title = "" + if i + 1 < len(lines) and lines[i + 1].strip(): + sub = lines[i + 1].strip() + # Subtitles like "I LONELINESS--HER WORD" + if re.match(r"^_?[IVX]+\s", sub) or re.match(r"^\d+\s", sub): + pass # numbered sub-parts, don't treat as subtitle + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Robert Frost", + "Mountain Interval", + "1916", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + current_title = title_text + current_body_lines = [] + i += 1 + continue + + if current_title: + current_body_lines.append(line) + + i += 1 + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Robert Frost", + "Mountain Interval", + "1916", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_frost_selected(text): + """Robert Frost's Selected Poems (Gutenberg 59824).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + lines = body.split("\n") + + # Find start of poems + start_idx = 0 + for i, line in enumerate(lines): + if "THE PASTURE" in line and i > 50: + start_idx = i + break + + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + + i = start_idx + while i < len(lines): + line = lines[i] + stripped = line.strip() + + # Section dividers like "I", "II", etc. (Roman numerals alone) + if re.match(r"^[IVX]+$", stripped) and i > 0 and not lines[i-1].strip(): + i += 1 + continue + + # Title: ALL CAPS, short, after blank line + if (stripped and len(stripped) < 70 and + stripped == stripped.upper() and + re.search(r"[A-Z]{3,}", stripped) and + not stripped.startswith("[") and + not re.match(r"^[IVX]+$", stripped) and + i > 0 and not lines[i-1].strip()): + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Robert Frost", + "Selected Poems", + "1913–1916", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + current_title = stripped.title() + current_body_lines = [] + i += 1 + continue + + if current_title: + current_body_lines.append(line) + + i += 1 + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Robert Frost", + "Selected Poems", + "1913–1916", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_yeats(text): + """W.B. Yeats' The Wind Among the Reeds (Gutenberg 32233).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + # Poems have ALL CAPS titles separated by blank lines + # After CONTENTS section and dedication + # Find first poem + idx = body.find("THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE\n") + if idx == -1: + return poems + + # Search for the second occurrence (after CONTENTS) + idx2 = body.find("THE HOSTING OF THE SIDHE\n", idx + 10) + if idx2 != -1: + body = body[idx2:] + else: + body = body[idx:] + + # Split on ALL CAPS title lines + lines = body.split("\n") + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + + for i, line in enumerate(lines): + stripped = line.strip() + + # Title: ALL CAPS, after blank line + if (stripped and + len(stripped) < 80 and + stripped == stripped.upper() and + re.search(r"[A-Z]{3,}", stripped) and + not stripped.startswith("[") and + not stripped.startswith("NOTE") and + (i == 0 or not lines[i-1].strip())): + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "W.B. Yeats", + "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "1899", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + current_title = stripped.title() + current_body_lines = [] + continue + + if current_title: + current_body_lines.append(line) + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "W.B. Yeats", + "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "1899", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_khayyam(text): + """The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Gutenberg 246).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + # Extract both First and Fifth editions + for edition, label in [("First Edition", "First Edition"), + ("Fifth Edition", "Fifth Edition")]: + # Find ALL occurrences and use the one that's followed by quatrains + positions = [m.start() for m in re.finditer(re.escape(edition), body)] + ed_start = None + for pos in positions: + # Check if this is followed by "\n\n\nI.\n\n" nearby + chunk = body[pos:pos+200] + if re.search(r"\n\n+I\.\n\n", chunk): + ed_start = pos + break + if ed_start is None: + continue + + ed_body = body[ed_start:] + # Find the end: next edition or Notes section (far away) + # Look for next major section boundary + end_match = re.search(r"\n\n\n\n\n(First|Fifth) Edition", ed_body[200:]) + notes_match = re.search(r"\n\n\n\n\nNotes", ed_body[200:]) + + if end_match: + ed_body = ed_body[:end_match.start() + 200] + elif notes_match: + ed_body = ed_body[:notes_match.start() + 200] + + # Quatrains numbered: "I.\n\n" with varying leading newlines + parts = re.split(r"\n\n+([IVXLC]+)\.\n\n", ed_body) + for i in range(1, len(parts) - 1, 2): + numeral = parts[i].strip() + quatrain = parts[i + 1] + p = make_poem( + f"Quatrain {numeral} ({label})", + quatrain, + "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "11th–12th century", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_burns(text): + """Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (Gutenberg 1279).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + lines = body.split("\n") + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + + # Burns has a very large collection organized by year + # Titles are like "Song—Handsome Nell", "To A Mouse", etc. + # They appear after blank lines, are relatively short, and mixed case + + skip_patterns = {"INTRODUCTORY NOTE", "GLOSSARY", "INDEX", "NOTES", + "APPENDIX", "CONTENTS", "PREFACE"} + + i = 0 + while i < len(lines): + line = lines[i] + stripped = line.strip() + + # Year headings like "1771 - 1779" or "1780" + if re.match(r"^\d{4}(\s*[-–]\s*\d{4})?\s*$", stripped): + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Robert Burns", + "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "1771–1796", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + i += 1 + continue + + # Title detection: non-blank, short-ish, after blank line, + # not all lowercase, contains at least one uppercase word + if (stripped and + len(stripped) < 80 and + not line.startswith(" ") and # Not indented poem body + i > 0 and not lines[i-1].strip() and + re.search(r"[A-Z][a-z]", stripped) and + not stripped.startswith("[") and + not stripped.startswith("Footnote")): + + # Additional checks for Burns titles + is_title = False + + # Song titles: "Song—", "Ballad—", etc. + if re.match(r"^(Song|Ballad|Epistle|Elegy|Epitaph|Ode|Address|Epigram|Extempore|Fragment|Prologue|Lament|Lines|Stanzas|Verses|Inscription)[\s—\-:]", stripped): + is_title = True + # Titles starting with "To " or "On " + elif re.match(r"^(To |On |The |A |My |Tam |Holy |Poor |Bonnie |Highland )", stripped): + is_title = True + # ALL CAPS titles + elif stripped == stripped.upper() and len(stripped) > 5: + is_title = True + # Titles with special chars + elif "—" in stripped or stripped.endswith(":"): + is_title = True + # Check if next non-blank line is indented (poem body) + elif i + 1 < len(lines): + j = i + 1 + while j < len(lines) and not lines[j].strip(): + j += 1 + if j < len(lines) and (lines[j].startswith(" ") or + lines[j].strip() != lines[j].strip().upper()): + # Could be a title, check more + if not any(stripped.upper().startswith(s) for s in skip_patterns): + is_title = True + + if is_title: + # Check for multi-line titles + full_title = stripped + j = i + 1 + while (j < len(lines) and lines[j].strip() and + not lines[j].startswith(" ") and + len(lines[j].strip()) < 60): + # Might be continuation of title + next_stripped = lines[j].strip() + if re.match(r"^(On |In |To |By |At |For |Or |And )", next_stripped): + full_title += " " + next_stripped + j += 1 + else: + break + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Robert Burns", + "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "1771–1796", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + current_title = full_title + current_body_lines = [] + i = j + continue + + if current_title: + current_body_lines.append(line) + + i += 1 + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "Robert Burns", + "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "1771–1796", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_wordsworth(text): + """Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth (Gutenberg 9622).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + # Skip CONTENTS + lines = body.split("\n") + + # Find where poems start (after CONTENTS section) + start_idx = 0 + for i, line in enumerate(lines): + stripped = line.strip() + if stripped == "THE RIME OF THE ANCYENT MARINERE" and i > 50: + start_idx = i + break + + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + + i = start_idx + while i < len(lines): + line = lines[i] + stripped = line.strip() + + # Title: ALL CAPS, after blank line + if (stripped and + len(stripped) < 80 and + stripped == stripped.upper() and + re.search(r"[A-Z]{3,}", stripped) and + not stripped.startswith("[") and + not stripped.startswith("NOTE") and + not stripped.startswith("***") and + not stripped.startswith("PART ") and + (i == 0 or not lines[i-1].strip())): + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "William Wordsworth", + "Lyrical Ballads", + "1798", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + current_title = stripped.title() + current_body_lines = [] + i += 1 + continue + + if current_title: + current_body_lines.append(line) + + i += 1 + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + p = make_poem( + current_title, + "\n".join(current_body_lines), + "William Wordsworth", + "Lyrical Ballads", + "1798", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +def extract_shelley(text): + """Complete Poetical Works of Shelley (Gutenberg 4800).""" + body = extract_body(text) + poems = [] + + lines = body.split("\n") + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + + skip_titles = {"CONTENTS", "NOTE", "NOTES", "PREFACE", "INTRODUCTION", + "APPENDIX", "DEDICATION", "ADVERTISEMENTS", "MEMOIR", + "POSTSCRIPT", "DRAMATIS PERSONAE", "INDEX", + "BIBLIOGRAPHY", "TABLE OF CONTENTS"} + # Skip editorial / prose content patterns + skip_prefixes = ("NOTE BY", "TO ", "INCLUDING", "EDITED", "THOMAS", + "MARY W", "LONDON", "POSTSCRIPT") + + i = 0 + while i < len(lines): + line = lines[i] + stripped = line.strip() + + # Title: ALL CAPS, short, after blank line + if (stripped and + 3 < len(stripped) < 70 and + stripped == stripped.upper() and + re.search(r"[A-Z]{3,}", stripped) and + not stripped.startswith("[") and + not stripped.startswith("***") and + not re.match(r"^(ACT|SCENE|PART)\s", stripped) and + not re.match(r"^[IVX]+\.$", stripped) and + not re.match(r"^\d+\.", stripped) and + (i == 0 or not lines[i-1].strip())): + + title_word = stripped.split(".")[0].strip() + if title_word in skip_titles: + i += 1 + continue + # Skip notes entries + if stripped.startswith("NOTES"): + i += 1 + continue + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + poem_text = "\n".join(current_body_lines) + # Only keep poems with real verse content + # Skip TOC entries (mostly CANTO/CHAPTER lines) and notes + cleaned = poem_text.strip() + if (len(cleaned) > 200 and + not cleaned.startswith("PREFACE") and + not cleaned.startswith("CANTO") and + not re.match(r"^(PREFACE|DEDICATION|CANTO|PART|NOTE|_\d)", cleaned)): + p = make_poem( + current_title, + poem_text, + "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "1810–1822", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + current_title = stripped.title() + # Skip editorial prefixes + if any(stripped.startswith(sp) for sp in skip_prefixes): + current_title = "" + current_body_lines = [] + i += 1 + continue + current_body_lines = [] + i += 1 + continue + + if current_title: + current_body_lines.append(line) + + i += 1 + + if current_title and current_body_lines: + poem_text = "\n".join(current_body_lines) + cleaned = poem_text.strip() + if (len(cleaned) > 200 and + not cleaned.startswith("PREFACE") and + not cleaned.startswith("CANTO") and + not re.match(r"^(PREFACE|DEDICATION|CANTO|PART|NOTE|_\d)", cleaned)): + p = make_poem( + current_title, + poem_text, + "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "1810–1822", + ) + if p: + poems.append(p) + + return poems + + +# ─── Sources ───────────────────────────────────────────────────── + +SOURCES = [ + { + "id": 1041, + "filename": "shakespeare_sonnets.json", + "title": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "extractor": extract_shakespeare_sonnets, + }, + { + "id": 12242, + "filename": "dickinson_poems.json", + "title": "Poems by Emily Dickinson", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "extractor": extract_dickinson, + }, + { + "id": 1322, + "filename": "whitman_leaves_of_grass.json", + "title": "Leaves of Grass", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "extractor": extract_whitman, + }, + { + "id": 1934, + "filename": "blake_songs.json", + "title": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "author": "William Blake", + "extractor": extract_blake, + }, + { + "id": 23684, + "filename": "keats_poems_1820.json", + "title": "Poems Published in 1820", + "author": "John Keats", + "extractor": extract_keats, + }, + { + "id": 10031, + "filename": "poe_poetical_works.json", + "title": "Complete Poetical Works", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "extractor": extract_poe, + }, + { + "id": 2002, + "filename": "browning_sonnets_portuguese.json", + "title": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "extractor": extract_browning_sonnets, + }, + { + "id": 1321, + "filename": "eliot_waste_land.json", + "title": "The Waste Land", + "author": "T.S. Eliot", + "extractor": extract_eliot_wasteland, + }, + { + "id": 29345, + "filename": "frost_mountain_interval.json", + "title": "Mountain Interval", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "extractor": extract_frost_mountain, + }, + { + "id": 59824, + "filename": "frost_selected_poems.json", + "title": "Selected Poems", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "extractor": extract_frost_selected, + }, + { + "id": 32233, + "filename": "yeats_wind_reeds.json", + "title": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "extractor": extract_yeats, + }, + { + "id": 246, + "filename": "khayyam_rubaiyat.json", + "title": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "author": "Omar Khayyam", + "extractor": extract_khayyam, + }, + { + "id": 1279, + "filename": "burns_poems_songs.json", + "title": "Poems and Songs", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "extractor": extract_burns, + }, + { + "id": 9622, + "filename": "wordsworth_lyrical_ballads.json", + "title": "Lyrical Ballads", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "extractor": extract_wordsworth, + }, + { + "id": 4800, + "filename": "shelley_poetical_works.json", + "title": "Complete Poetical Works", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "extractor": extract_shelley, + }, +] + + +def download_source(source): + """Download and parse one source.""" + text = fetch_text(source["id"]) + poems = source["extractor"](text) + print(f" Extracted {len(poems)} poems") + return poems + + +def save_poems(poems, filename): + """Save poems to JSON file.""" + filepath = os.path.join(POETRY_DIR, filename) + with open(filepath, "w", encoding="utf-8") as f: + json.dump(poems, f, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False) + print(f" Saved to {filepath}") + + +def main(): + if "--list" in sys.argv: + print("Available poetry sources:\n") + for s in SOURCES: + print(f" {s['author']:35s} {s['title']}") + print(f" {'':35s} Gutenberg #{s['id']}") + print() + return + + os.makedirs(POETRY_DIR, exist_ok=True) + + total = 0 + for source in SOURCES: + print(f"\n{'='*60}") + print(f" {source['author']} — {source['title']}") + print(f" Gutenberg #{source['id']}") + print(f"{'='*60}") + try: + poems = download_source(source) + if poems: + save_poems(poems, source["filename"]) + total += len(poems) + else: + print(" WARNING: No poems extracted!") + except Exception as e: + print(f" ERROR: {e}") + + print(f"\n{'='*60}") + print(f" Total: {total} poems downloaded") + print(f"{'='*60}") + + +if __name__ == "__main__": + main() diff --git a/poetry/blake_songs.json b/poetry/blake_songs.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09683ce --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/blake_songs.json @@ -0,0 +1,303 @@ +[ + { + "title": "Introduction", + "body": "Piping down the valleys wild,\n Piping songs of pleasant glee,\nOn a cloud I saw a child,\n And he laughing said to me:\n\n‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’\n So I piped with merry cheer.\n‘Piper, pipe that song again.’\n So I piped: he wept to hear.\n\n‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;\n Sing thy songs of happy cheer!’\nSo I sung the same again,\n While he wept with joy to hear.\n\n‘Piper, sit thee down and write\n In a book, that all may read.’\nSo he vanished from my sight;\n And I plucked a hollow reed,\n\nAnd I made a rural pen,\n And I stained the water clear,\nAnd I wrote my happy songs\n Every child may joy to hear.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Shepherd", + "body": "How sweet is the shepherd’s sweet lot!\nFrom the morn to the evening he strays;\nHe shall follow his sheep all the day,\nAnd his tongue shall be fillèd with praise.\n\nFor he hears the lambs’ innocent call,\nAnd he hears the ewes’ tender reply;\nHe is watchful while they are in peace,\nFor they know when their shepherd is nigh.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Echoing Green", + "body": "The sun does arise,\nAnd make happy the skies;\nThe merry bells ring\nTo welcome the Spring;\nThe skylark and thrush,\nThe birds of the bush,\nSing louder around\nTo the bells’ cheerful sound;\nWhile our sports shall be seen\nOn the echoing green.\n\nOld John, with white hair,\nDoes laugh away care,\nSitting under the oak,\nAmong the old folk.\nThey laugh at our play,\nAnd soon they all say,\n‘Such, such were the joys\nWhen we all—girls and boys—\nIn our youth-time were seen\nOn the echoing green.’\n\nTill the little ones, weary,\nNo more can be merry:\nThe sun does descend,\nAnd our sports have an end.\nRound the laps of their mothers\nMany sisters and brothers,\nLike birds in their nest,\nAre ready for rest,\nAnd sport no more seen\nOn the darkening green.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Lamb", + "body": "Little lamb, who made thee?\nDoes thou know who made thee,\nGave thee life, and bid thee feed\nBy the stream and o’er the mead;\nGave thee clothing of delight,\nSoftest clothing, woolly, bright;\nGave thee such a tender voice,\nMaking all the vales rejoice?\n Little lamb, who made thee?\n Does thou know who made thee?\n\nLittle lamb, I’ll tell thee;\nLittle lamb, I’ll tell thee:\nHe is callèd by thy name,\nFor He calls Himself a Lamb.\nHe is meek, and He is mild,\nHe became a little child.\nI a child, and thou a lamb,\nWe are callèd by His name.\n Little lamb, God bless thee!\n Little lamb, God bless thee!", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Little Black Boy", + "body": "My mother bore me in the southern wild,\n And I am black, but O my soul is white!\nWhite as an angel is the English child,\n But I am black, as if bereaved of light.\n\nMy mother taught me underneath a tree,\n And, sitting down before the heat of day,\nShe took me on her lap and kissèd me,\n And, pointing to the East, began to say:\n\n‘Look on the rising sun: there God does live,\n And gives His light, and gives His heat away,\nAnd flowers and trees and beasts and men receive\n Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.\n\n‘And we are put on earth a little space,\n That we may learn to bear the beams of love;\nAnd these black bodies and this sunburnt face\n Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.\n\n‘For, when our souls have learned the heat to bear,\n The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,\nSaying, “Come out from the grove, my love and care,\n And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.”’\n\nThus did my mother say, and kissed me,\n And thus I say to little English boy.\nWhen I from black, and he from white cloud free,\n And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,\n\nI’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear\n To lean in joy upon our Father’s knee;\nAnd then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,\n And be like him, and he will then love me.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Blossom", + "body": "Merry, merry sparrow!\nUnder leaves so green\n A happy blossom\nSees you, swift as arrow,\nSeek your cradle narrow,\n Near my bosom.\n\nPretty, pretty robin!\nUnder leaves so green\n A happy blossom\nHears you sobbing, sobbing,\nPretty, pretty robin,\n Near my bosom.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Chimney-Sweeper", + "body": "When my mother died I was very young,\nAnd my father sold me while yet my tongue\nCould scarcely cry ‘Weep! weep! weep! weep!’\nSo your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.\n\nThere’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,\nThat curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved; so I said,\n‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head’s bare,\nYou know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’\n\nAnd so he was quiet, and that very night,\nAs Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!—\nThat thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,\nWere all of them locked up in coffins of black.\n\nAnd by came an angel, who had a bright key,\nAnd he opened the coffins, and set them all free;\nThen down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run\nAnd wash in a river, and shine in the sun.\n\nThen naked and white, all their bags left behind,\nThey rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind:\nAnd the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,\nHe’d have God for his father, and never want joy.\n\nAnd so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,\nAnd got with our bags and our brushes to work.\nThough the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:\nSo, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Little Boy Lost", + "body": "‘Father, father, where are you going?\n O do not walk so fast!\nSpeak, father, speak to your little boy,\n Or else I shall be lost.’\n\nThe night was dark, no father was there,\n The child was wet with dew;\nThe mire was deep, and the child did weep,\n And away the vapour flew.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Little Boy Found", + "body": "The little boy lost in the lonely fen,\n Led by the wandering light,\nBegan to cry, but God, ever nigh,\n Appeared like his father, in white.\n\nHe kissed the child, and by the hand led,\n And to his mother brought,\nWho in sorrow pale, through the lonely dale,\n Her little boy weeping sought.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "Laughing Song", + "body": "When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,\nAnd the dimpling stream runs laughing by;\nWhen the air does laugh with our merry wit,\nAnd the green hill laughs with the noise of it;\n\nWhen the meadows laugh with lively green,\nAnd the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene;\nWhen Mary and Susan and Emily\nWith their sweet round mouths sing ‘Ha ha he!’\n\nWhen the painted birds laugh in the shade,\nWhere our table with cherries and nuts is spread:\nCome live, and be merry, and join with me,\nTo sing the sweet chorus of ‘Ha ha he!’", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "A Cradle Song", + "body": "Sweet dreams, form a shade\nO’er my lovely infant’s head!\nSweet dreams of pleasant streams\nBy happy, silent, moony beams!\n\nSweet Sleep, with soft down\nWeave thy brows an infant crown!\nSweet Sleep, angel mild,\nHover o’er my happy child!\n\nSweet smiles, in the night\nHover over my delight!\nSweet smiles, mother’s smiles,\nAll the livelong night beguiles.\n\nSweet moans, dovelike sighs,\nChase not slumber from thy eyes!\nSweet moans, sweeter smiles,\nAll the dovelike moans beguiles.\n\nSleep, sleep, happy child!\nAll creation slept and smiled.\nSleep, sleep, happy sleep,\nWhile o’er thee thy mother weep.\n\nSweet babe, in thy face\nHoly image I can trace;\nSweet babe, once like thee\nThy Maker lay, and wept for me:\n\nWept for me, for thee, for all,\nWhen He was an infant small.\nThou His image ever see,\nHeavenly face that smiles on thee!\n\nSmiles on thee, on me, on all,\nWho became an infant small;\nInfant smiles are His own smiles;\nHeaven and earth to peace beguiles.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Divine Image", + "body": "To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,\n All pray in their distress,\nAnd to these virtues of delight\n Return their thankfulness.\n\nFor Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,\n Is God our Father dear;\nAnd Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,\n Is man, His child and care.\n\nFor Mercy has a human heart;\n Pity, a human face;\nAnd Love, the human form divine:\n And Peace the human dress.\n\nThen every man, of every clime,\n That prays in his distress,\nPrays to the human form divine:\n Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.\n\nAnd all must love the human form,\n In heathen, Turk, or Jew.\nWhere Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,\n There God is dwelling too.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "Holy Thursday", + "body": "’Twas on a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,\nThe children walking two and two, in red, and blue, and green:\nGrey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,\nTill into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames waters flow.\n\nO what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town!\nSeated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own.\nThe hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,\nThousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.\n\nNow like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,\nOr like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among:\nBeneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor.\nThen cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "Night", + "body": "The sun descending in the West,\nThe evening star does shine;\nThe birds are silent in their nest,\nAnd I must seek for mine.\nThe moon, like a flower\nIn heaven’s high bower,\nWith silent delight,\nSits and smiles on the night.\n\nFarewell, green fields and happy groves,\nWhere flocks have took delight,\nWhere lambs have nibbled, silent moves\nThe feet of angels bright;\nUnseen, they pour blessing,\nAnd joy without ceasing,\nOn each bud and blossom,\nAnd each sleeping bosom.\n\nThey look in every thoughtless nest\nWhere birds are covered warm;\nThey visit caves of every beast,\nTo keep them all from harm:\nIf they see any weeping\nThat should have been sleeping,\nThey pour sleep on their head,\nAnd sit down by their bed.\n\nWhen wolves and tigers howl for prey,\nThey pitying stand and weep;\nSeeking to drive their thirst away,\nAnd keep them from the sheep.\nBut, if they rush dreadful,\nThe angels, most heedful,\nReceive each mild spirit,\nNew worlds to inherit.\n\nAnd there the lion’s ruddy eyes\nShall flow with tears of gold:\nAnd pitying the tender cries,\nAnd walking round the fold:\nSaying: ‘Wrath by His meekness,\nAnd, by His health, sickness,\nIs driven away\nFrom our immortal day.\n\n‘And now beside thee, bleating lamb,\nI can lie down and sleep,\nOr think on Him who bore thy name,\nGraze after thee, and weep.\nFor, washed in life’s river,\nMy bright mane for ever\nShall shine like the gold,\nAs I guard o’er the fold.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "Spring", + "body": " Sound the flute!\n Now it’s mute!\n Birds delight,\n Day and night,\n Nightingale,\n In the dale,\n Lark in sky,—\n Merrily,\nMerrily, merrily to welcome in the year.\n\n Little boy,\n Full of joy;\n Little girl,\n Sweet and small;\n Cock does crow,\n So do you;\n Merry voice,\n Infant noise;\nMerrily, merrily to welcome in the year.\n\n Little lamb,\n Here I am;\n Come and lick\n My white neck;\n Let me pull\n Your soft wool;\n Let me kiss\n Your soft face;\nMerrily, merrily we welcome in the year.\n\n\n\n\nNURSE’S SONG\n\n\nWhen voices of children are heard on the green,\n And laughing is heard on the hill,\nMy heart is at rest within my breast,\n And everything else is still.\n\n‘Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,\n And the dews of night arise;\nCome, come, leave off play, and let us away,\n Till the morning appears in the skies.’\n\n‘No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,\n And we cannot go to sleep;\nBesides, in the sky the little birds fly,\n And the hills are all covered with sheep.’\n\n‘Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,\n And then go home to bed.’\nThe little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed,\n And all the hills echoèd.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "Infant Joy", + "body": "‘I have no name;\nI am but two days old.’\nWhat shall I call thee?\n‘I happy am,\nJoy is my name.’\nSweet joy befall thee!\n\nPretty joy!\nSweet joy, but two days old.\nSweet joy I call thee:\nThou dost smile,\nI sing the while;\nSweet joy befall thee!", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "A Dream", + "body": "Once a dream did weave a shade\nO’er my angel-guarded bed,\nThat an emmet lost its way\nWhere on grass methought I lay.\n\nTroubled, wildered, and forlorn,\nDark, benighted, travel-worn,\nOver many a tangled spray,\nAll heart-broke, I heard her say:\n\n‘O my children! do they cry,\nDo they hear their father sigh?\nNow they look abroad to see,\nNow return and weep for me.’\n\nPitying, I dropped a tear:\nBut I saw a glow-worm near,\nWho replied, ‘What wailing wight\nCalls the watchman of the night?’\n\n‘I am set to light the ground,\nWhile the beetle goes his round:\nFollow now the beetle’s hum;\nLittle wanderer, hie thee home!’\n\n\n\n\nON ANOTHER’S SORROW\n\n\nCan I see another’s woe,\nAnd not be in sorrow too?\nCan I see another’s grief,\nAnd not seek for kind relief?\n\nCan I see a falling tear,\nAnd not feel my sorrow’s share?\nCan a father see his child\nWeep, nor be with sorrow filled?\n\nCan a mother sit and hear\nAn infant groan, an infant fear?\nNo, no! never can it be!\nNever, never can it be!\n\nAnd can He who smiles on all\nHear the wren with sorrows small,\nHear the small bird’s grief and care,\nHear the woes that infants bear—\n\nAnd not sit beside the nest,\nPouring pity in their breast,\nAnd not sit the cradle near,\nWeeping tear on infant’s tear?\n\nAnd not sit both night and day,\nWiping all our tears away?\nO no! never can it be!\nNever, never can it be!\n\nHe doth give His joy to all:\nHe becomes an infant small,\nHe becomes a man of woe,\nHe doth feel the sorrow too.\n\nThink not thou canst sigh a sigh,\nAnd thy Maker is not by:\nThink not thou canst weep a tear,\nAnd thy Maker is not near.\n\nO He gives to us His joy,\nThat our grief He may destroy:\nTill our grief is fled and gone\nHe doth sit by us and moan.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "Introduction", + "body": " Hear the voice of the Bard,\nWho present, past, and future, sees;\n Whose ears have heard\n The Holy Word\nThat walked among the ancient trees;\n\n Calling the lapséd soul,\nAnd weeping in the evening dew;\n That might control\n The starry pole,\nAnd fallen, fallen light renew!\n\n ‘O Earth, O Earth, return!\nArise from out the dewy grass!\n Night is worn,\n And the morn\nRises from the slumbrous mass.\n\n ‘Turn away no more;\nWhy wilt thou turn away?\n The starry floor,\n The watery shore,\nIs given thee till the break of day.’\n\n\n\n\nEARTH’S ANSWER\n\n\n Earth raised up her head\nFrom the darkness dread and drear,\n Her light fled,\n Stony, dread,\nAnd her locks covered with grey despair.\n\n ‘Prisoned on watery shore,\nStarry jealousy does keep my den\n Cold and hoar;\n Weeping o’er,\nI hear the father of the ancient men.\n\n ‘Selfish father of men!\nCruel, jealous, selfish fear!\n Can delight,\n Chained in night,\nThe virgins of youth and morning bear.\n\n ‘Does spring hide its joy,\nWhen buds and blossoms grow?\n Does the sower\n Sow by night,\nOr the ploughman in darkness plough?\n\n ‘Break this heavy chain,\nThat does freeze my bones around!\n Selfish, vain,\n Eternal bane,\nThat free love with bondage bound.’", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Clod And The Pebble", + "body": "‘Love seeketh not itself to please,\n Nor for itself hath any care,\nBut for another gives its ease,\n And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.’\n\nSo sung a little clod of clay,\n Trodden with the cattle’s feet,\nBut a pebble of the brook\n Warbled out these metres meet:\n\n‘Love seeketh only Self to please,\n To bind another to its delight,\nJoys in another’s loss of ease,\n And builds a hell in heaven’s despite.’", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "Holy Thursday", + "body": "Is this a holy thing to see\n In a rich and fruitful land,—\nBabes reduced to misery,\n Fed with cold and usurous hand?\n\nIs that trembling cry a song?\n Can it be a song of joy?\nAnd so many children poor?\n It is a land of poverty!\n\nAnd their sun does never shine,\n And their fields are bleak and bare,\nAnd their ways are filled with thorns,\n It is eternal winter there.\n\nFor where’er the sun does shine,\n And where’er the rain does fall,\nBabe can never hunger there,\n Nor poverty the mind appal.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Little Girl Lost", + "body": "In futurity\nI prophesy\nThat the earth from sleep\n(Grave the sentence deep)\n\nShall arise, and seek\nFor her Maker meek;\nAnd the desert wild\nBecome a garden mild.\n\nIn the southern clime,\nWhere the summer’s prime\nNever fades away,\nLovely Lyca lay.\n\nSeven summers old\nLovely Lyca told.\nShe had wandered long,\nHearing wild birds’ song.\n\n‘Sweet sleep, come to me,\nUnderneath this tree;\nDo father, mother, weep?\nWhere can Lyca sleep?\n\n‘Lost in desert wild\nIs your little child.\nHow can Lyca sleep\nIf her mother weep?\n\n‘If her heart does ache,\nThen let Lyca wake;\nIf my mother sleep,\nLyca shall not weep.\n\n‘Frowning, frowning night,\nO’er this desert bright\nLet thy moon arise,\nWhile I close my eyes.’\n\nSleeping Lyca lay,\nWhile the beasts of prey,\nCome from caverns deep,\nViewed the maid asleep.\n\nThe kingly lion stood,\nAnd the virgin viewed:\nThen he gambolled round\nO’er the hallowed ground.\n\nLeopards, tigers, play\nRound her as she lay;\nWhile the lion old\nBowed his mane of gold,\n\nAnd her bosom lick,\nAnd upon her neck,\nFrom his eyes of flame,\nRuby tears there came;\n\nWhile the lioness\nLoosed her slender dress,\nAnd naked they conveyed\nTo caves the sleeping maid.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Little Girl Found", + "body": "All the night in woe\nLyca’s parents go\nOver valleys deep,\nWhile the deserts weep.\n\nTired and woe-begone,\nHoarse with making moan,\nArm in arm, seven days\nThey traced the desert ways.\n\nSeven nights they sleep\nAmong shadows deep,\nAnd dream they see their child\nStarved in desert wild.\n\nPale through pathless ways\nThe fancied image strays,\nFamished, weeping, weak,\nWith hollow piteous shriek.\n\nRising from unrest,\nThe trembling woman pressed\nWith feet of weary woe;\nShe could no further go.\n\nIn his arms he bore\nHer, armed with sorrow sore;\nTill before their way\nA couching lion lay.\n\nTurning back was vain:\nSoon his heavy mane\nBore them to the ground,\nThen he stalked around,\n\nSmelling to his prey;\nBut their fears allay\nWhen he licks their hands,\nAnd silent by them stands.\n\nThey look upon his eyes,\nFilled with deep surprise;\nAnd wondering behold\nA spirit armed in gold.\n\nOn his head a crown,\nOn his shoulders down\nFlowed his golden hair.\nGone was all their care.\n\n‘Follow me,’ he said;\n‘Weep not for the maid;\nIn my palace deep,\nLyca lies asleep.’\n\nThen they followèd\nWhere the vision led,\nAnd saw their sleeping child\nAmong tigers wild.\n\nTo this day they dwell\nIn a lonely dell,\nNor fear the wolvish howl\nNor the lion’s growl.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Chimney-Sweeper", + "body": "A little black thing among the snow,\n Crying! ‘weep! weep!’ in notes of woe!\n‘Where are thy father and mother? Say!’—\n ‘They are both gone up to the church to pray.\n\n‘Because I was happy upon the heath,\n And smiled among the winter’s snow,\nThey clothed me in the clothes of death,\n And taught me to sing the notes of woe.\n\n‘And because I am happy and dance and sing,\n They think they have done me no injury,\nAnd are gone to praise God and His priest and king,\n Who made up a heaven of our misery.’\n\n\n\n\nNURSE’S SONG\n\n\nWhen the voices of children are heard on the green,\n And whisperings are in the dale,\nThe days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,\n My face turns green and pale.\n\nThen come home, my children, the sun is gone down,\n And the dews of night arise;\nYour spring and your day are wasted in play,\n And your winter and night in disguise.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Sick Rose", + "body": "O rose, thou art sick!\n The invisible worm,\nThat flies in the night,\n In the howling storm,\n\nHas found out thy bed\n Of crimson joy,\nAnd his dark secret love\n Does thy life destroy.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Fly", + "body": "Little Fly,\n Thy summer’s play\nMy thoughtless hand\n Has brushed away.\n\nAm not I\n A fly like thee?\nOr art not thou\n A man like me?\n\nFor I dance,\n And drink, and sing,\nTill some blind hand\n Shall brush my wing.\n\nIf thought is life\n And strength and breath,\nAnd the want\n Of thought is death;\n\nThen am I\n A happy fly.\nIf I live,\n Or if I die.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Angel", + "body": "I dreamt a dream! What can it mean?\nAnd that I was a maiden Queen\nGuarded by an Angel mild:\nWitless woe was ne’er beguiled!\n\nAnd I wept both night and day,\nAnd he wiped my tears away;\nAnd I wept both day and night,\nAnd hid from him my heart’s delight.\n\nSo he took his wings, and fled;\nThen the morn blushed rosy red.\nI dried my tears, and armed my fears\nWith ten thousand shields and spears.\n\nSoon my Angel came again;\nI was armed, he came in vain;\nFor the time of youth was fled,\nAnd grey hairs were on my head.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Tiger", + "body": "Tiger, tiger, burning bright\nIn the forests of the night,\nWhat immortal hand or eye\nCould frame thy fearful symmetry?\n\nIn what distant deeps or skies\nBurnt the fire of thine eyes?\nOn what wings dare he aspire?\nWhat the hand dare seize the fire?\n\nAnd what shoulder and what art\nCould twist the sinews of thy heart?\nAnd, when thy heart began to beat,\nWhat dread hand and what dread feet?\n\nWhat the hammer? what the chain?\nIn what furnace was thy brain?\nWhat the anvil? what dread grasp\nDare its deadly terrors clasp?\n\nWhen the stars threw down their spears,\nAnd watered heaven with their tears,\nDid He smile His work to see?\nDid He who made the lamb make thee?\n\nTiger, tiger, burning bright\nIn the forests of the night,\nWhat immortal hand or eye\nDare frame thy fearful symmetry?", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "My Pretty Rose Tree", + "body": "A flower was offered to me,\n Such a flower as May never bore;\nBut I said, ‘I’ve a pretty rose tree,’\n And I passed the sweet flower o’er.\n\nThen I went to my pretty rose tree,\n To tend her by day and by night;\nBut my rose turned away with jealousy,\n And her thorns were my only delight.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "Ah, Sunflower", + "body": "Ah, sunflower, weary of time,\n Who countest the steps of the sun;\nSeeking after that sweet golden clime\n Where the traveller’s journey is done;\n\nWhere the Youth pined away with desire,\n And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,\nArise from their graves, and aspire\n Where my Sunflower wishes to go!", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Lily", + "body": "The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,\nThe humble sheep a threat’ning horn:\nWhile the Lily white shall in love delight,\nNor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Garden Of Love", + "body": "I went to the Garden of Love,\n And saw what I never had seen;\nA Chapel was built in the midst,\n Where I used to play on the green.\n\nAnd the gates of this Chapel were shut,\n And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;\nSo I turned to the Garden of Love\n That so many sweet flowers bore.\n\nAnd I saw it was filled with graves,\n And tombstones where flowers should be;\nAnd priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,\n And binding with briars my joys and desires.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Little Vagabond", + "body": "Dear mother, dear mother, the Church is cold;\nBut the Alehouse is healthy, and pleasant, and warm.\nBesides, I can tell where I am used well;\nSuch usage in heaven will never do well.\n\nBut, if at the Church they would give us some ale,\nAnd a pleasant fire our souls to regale,\nWe’d sing and we’d pray all the livelong day,\nNor ever once wish from the Church to stray.\n\nThen the Parson might preach, and drink, and sing,\nAnd we’d be as happy as birds in the spring;\nAnd modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,\nWould not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.\n\nAnd God, like a father, rejoicing to see\nHis children as pleasant and happy as He,\nWould have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel,\nBut kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "London", + "body": "I wander through each chartered street,\n Near where the chartered Thames does flow,\nA mark in every face I meet,\n Marks of weakness, marks of woe.\n\nIn every cry of every man,\n In every infant’s cry of fear,\nIn every voice, in every ban,\n The mind-forged manacles I hear:\n\nHow the chimney-sweeper’s cry\n Every blackening church appals,\nAnd the hapless soldier’s sigh\n Runs in blood down palace-walls.\n\nBut most, through midnight streets I hear\n How the youthful harlot’s curse\nBlasts the new-born infant’s tear,\n And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Human Abstract", + "body": "Pity would be no more\nIf we did not make somebody poor,\nAnd Mercy no more could be\nIf all were as happy as we.\n\nAnd mutual fear brings Peace,\nTill the selfish loves increase;\nThen Cruelty knits a snare,\nAnd spreads his baits with care.\n\nHe sits down with holy fears,\nAnd waters the ground with tears;\nThen Humility takes its root\nUnderneath his foot.\n\nSoon spreads the dismal shade\nOf Mystery over his head,\nAnd the caterpillar and fly\nFeed on the Mystery.\n\nAnd it bears the fruit of Deceit,\nRuddy and sweet to eat,\nAnd the raven his nest has made\nIn its thickest shade.\n\nThe gods of the earth and sea\nSought through nature to find this tree,\nBut their search was all in vain:\nThere grows one in the human Brain.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "Infant Sorrow", + "body": "My mother groaned, my father wept:\nInto the dangerous world I leapt,\nHelpless, naked, piping loud,\nLike a fiend hid in a cloud.\n\nStruggling in my father’s hands,\nStriving against my swaddling bands,\nBound and weary, I thought best\nTo sulk upon my mother’s breast.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "A Poison Tree", + "body": "I was angry with my friend:\nI told my wrath, my wrath did end.\nI was angry with my foe:\nI told it not, my wrath did grow.\n\nAnd I watered it in fears\nNight and morning with my tears,\nAnd I sunnèd it with smiles\nAnd with soft deceitful wiles.\n\nAnd it grew both day and night,\nTill it bore an apple bright,\nAnd my foe beheld it shine,\nAnd he knew that it was mine,—\n\nAnd into my garden stole\nWhen the night had veiled the pole;\nIn the morning, glad, I see\nMy foe outstretched beneath the tree.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "A Little Boy Lost", + "body": "‘Nought loves another as itself,\n Nor venerates another so,\nNor is it possible to thought\n A greater than itself to know.\n\n‘And, father, how can I love you\n Or any of my brothers more?\nI love you like the little bird\n That picks up crumbs around the door.’\n\nThe Priest sat by and heard the child;\n In trembling zeal he seized his hair,\nHe led him by his little coat,\n And all admired his priestly care.\n\nAnd standing on the altar high,\n ‘Lo, what a fiend is here!’ said he:\n‘One who sets reason up for judge\n Of our most holy mystery.’\n\nThe weeping child could not be heard,\n The weeping parents wept in vain:\nThey stripped him to his little shirt,\n And bound him in an iron chain,\n\nAnd burned him in a holy place\n Where many had been burned before;\nThe weeping parents wept in vain.\n Are such things done on Albion’s shore?", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "A Little Girl Lost", + "body": "Children of the future age,\nReading this indignant page,\nKnow that in a former time\nLove, sweet love, was thought a crime.\n\nIn the age of gold,\nFree from winter’s cold,\nYouth and maiden bright,\nTo the holy light,\nNaked in the sunny beams delight.\n\nOnce a youthful pair,\nFilled with softest care,\nMet in garden bright\nWhere the holy light\nHad just removed the curtains of the night.\n\nThere, in rising day,\nOn the grass they play;\nParents were afar,\nStrangers came not near,\nAnd the maiden soon forgot her fear.\n\nTired with kisses sweet,\nThey agree to meet\nWhen the silent sleep\nWaves o’er heaven’s deep,\nAnd the weary tired wanderers weep.\n\nTo her father white\nCame the maiden bright;\nBut his loving look,\nLike the holy book,\nAll her tender limbs with terror shook.\n\nOna, pale and weak,\nTo thy father speak!\nO the trembling fear!\nO the dismal care\nThat shakes the blossoms of my hoary hair!’", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "A Divine Image", + "body": "Cruelty has a human heart,\n And Jealousy a human face;\nTerror the human form divine,\n And Secrecy the human dress.\n\nThe human dress is forgèd iron,\n The human form a fiery forge,\nThe human face a furnace sealed,\n The human heart its hungry gorge.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "A Cradle Song", + "body": "Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,\nDreaming in the joys of night;\nSleep, sleep; in thy sleep\nLittle sorrows sit and weep.\n\nSweet babe, in thy face\nSoft desires I can trace,\nSecret joys and secret smiles,\nLittle pretty infant wiles.\n\nAs thy softest limbs I feel,\nSmiles as of the morning steal\nO’er thy cheek, and o’er thy breast\nWhere thy little heart doth rest.\n\nO the cunning wiles that creep\nIn thy little heart asleep!\nWhen thy little heart doth wake,\nThen the dreadful light shall break.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "To Tirzah", + "body": "Whate’er is born of mortal birth\nMust be consumèd with the earth,\nTo rise from generation free:\nThen what have I to do with thee?\n\nThe sexes sprung from shame and pride,\nBlowed in the morn, in evening died;\nBut mercy changed death into sleep;\nThe sexes rose to work and weep.\n\nThou, mother of my mortal part,\nWith cruelty didst mould my heart,\nAnd with false self-deceiving tears\nDidst blind my nostrils, eyes, and ears,\n\nDidst close my tongue in senseless clay,\nAnd me to mortal life betray.\nThe death of Jesus set me free:\nThen what have I to do with thee?", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Schoolboy", + "body": "I love to rise in a summer morn,\n When the birds sing on every tree;\nThe distant huntsman winds his horn,\n And the skylark sings with me:\n O what sweet company!\n\nBut to go to school in a summer morn,—\n O it drives all joy away!\nUnder a cruel eye outworn,\n The little ones spend the day\n In sighing and dismay.\n\nAh then at times I drooping sit,\n And spend many an anxious hour;\nNor in my book can I take delight,\n Nor sit in learning’s bower,\n Worn through with the dreary shower.\n\nHow can the bird that is born for joy\n Sit in a cage and sing?\nHow can a child, when fears annoy,\n But droop his tender wing,\n And forget his youthful spring!\n\nO father and mother if buds are nipped,\n And blossoms blown away;\nAnd if the tender plants are stripped\n Of their joy in the springing day,\n By sorrow and care’s dismay,—\n\nHow shall the summer arise in joy,\n Or the summer fruits appear?\nOr how shall we gather what griefs destroy,\n Or bless the mellowing year,\n When the blasts of winter appear?", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + }, + { + "title": "The Voice Of The Ancient Bard", + "body": "Youth of delight! come hither\nAnd see the opening morn,\nImage of Truth new-born.\nDoubt is fled, and clouds of reason,\nDark disputes and artful teazing.\nFolly is an endless maze;\nTangled roots perplex her ways;\nHow many have fallen there!\nThey stumble all night over bones of the dead;\nAnd feel—they know not what but care;\nAnd wish to lead others, when they should be led.", + "author": "William Blake", + "source": "Songs of Innocence and of Experience", + "period": "1789–1794" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/browning_sonnets_portuguese.json b/poetry/browning_sonnets_portuguese.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6fdaf0a --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/browning_sonnets_portuguese.json @@ -0,0 +1,310 @@ +[ + { + "title": "Sonnet I", + "body": " I thought once how Theocritus had sung\n Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,\n Who each one in a gracious hand appears\n To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:\n And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,\n I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,\n The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,\n Those of my own life, who by turns had flung\n A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,\n So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move\n Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;\n And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—\n “Guess now who holds thee!”—“Death,” I said, But, there,\n The silver answer rang, “Not Death, but Love.”", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet II", + "body": " But only three in all God’s universe\n Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside\n Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied\n One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse\n So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce\n My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,\n The death-weights, placed there, would have signified\n Less absolute exclusion. “Nay” is worse\n From God than from all others, O my friend!\n Men could not part us with their worldly jars,\n Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;\n Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:\n And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,\n We should but vow the faster for the stars.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet III", + "body": " Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!\n Unlike our uses and our destinies.\n Our ministering two angels look surprise\n On one another, as they strike athwart\n Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art\n A guest for queens to social pageantries,\n With gages from a hundred brighter eyes\n Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part\n Of chief musician. What hast thou to do\n With looking from the lattice-lights at me,\n A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through\n The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?\n The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—\n And Death must dig the level where these agree.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet IV", + "body": " Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,\n Most gracious singer of high poems! where\n The dancers will break footing, from the care\n Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more.\n And dost thou lift this house’s latch too poor\n For hand of thine? and canst thou think and bear\n To let thy music drop here unaware\n In folds of golden fulness at my door?\n Look up and see the casement broken in,\n The bats and owlets builders in the roof!\n My cricket chirps against thy mandolin.\n Hush, call no echo up in further proof\n Of desolation! there’s a voice within\n That weeps . . . as thou must sing . . . alone, aloof.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet V", + "body": " I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,\n As once Electra her sepulchral urn,\n And, looking in thine eyes, I over-turn\n The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see\n What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,\n And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn\n Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn\n Could tread them out to darkness utterly,\n It might be well perhaps. But if instead\n Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow\n The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine head,\n O my Belovëd, will not shield thee so,\n That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred\n The hair beneath. Stand further off then! go!", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet VI", + "body": " Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand\n Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore\n Alone upon the threshold of my door\n Of individual life, I shall command\n The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand\n Serenely in the sunshine as before,\n Without the sense of that which I forbore—\n Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land\n Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine\n With pulses that beat double. What I do\n And what I dream include thee, as the wine\n Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue\n God for myself, He hears that name of thine,\n And sees within my eyes the tears of two.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet VII", + "body": " The face of all the world is changed, I think,\n Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul\n Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole\n Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink\n Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,\n Was caught up into love, and taught the whole\n Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole\n God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,\n And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.\n The names of country, heaven, are changed away\n For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;\n And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,\n (The singing angels know) are only dear\n Because thy name moves right in what they say.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet VIII", + "body": " What can I give thee back, O liberal\n And princely giver, who hast brought the gold\n And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,\n And laid them on the outside of the wall\n For such as I to take or leave withal,\n In unexpected largesse? am I cold,\n Ungrateful, that for these most manifold\n High gifts, I render nothing back at all?\n Not so; not cold,—but very poor instead.\n Ask God who knows. For frequent tears have run\n The colours from my life, and left so dead\n And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done\n To give the same as pillow to thy head.\n Go farther! let it serve to trample on.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet IX", + "body": " Can it be right to give what I can give?\n To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears\n As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years\n Re-sighing on my lips renunciative\n Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live\n For all thy adjurations? O my fears,\n That this can scarce be right! We are not peers\n So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,\n That givers of such gifts as mine are, must\n Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!\n I will not soil thy purple with my dust,\n Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,\n Nor give thee any love—which were unjust.\n Beloved, I only love thee! let it pass.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet X", + "body": " Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed\n And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,\n Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light\n Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:\n And love is fire. And when I say at need\n I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee—in thy sight\n I stand transfigured, glorified aright,\n With conscience of the new rays that proceed\n Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low\n In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures\n Who love God, God accepts while loving so.\n And what I feel, across the inferior features\n Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show\n How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XI", + "body": " And therefore if to love can be desert,\n I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale\n As these you see, and trembling knees that fail\n To bear the burden of a heavy heart,—\n This weary minstrel-life that once was girt\n To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail\n To pipe now ’gainst the valley nightingale\n A melancholy music,—why advert\n To these things? O Belovëd, it is plain\n I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!\n And yet, because I love thee, I obtain\n From that same love this vindicating grace\n To live on still in love, and yet in vain,—\n To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XII", + "body": " Indeed this very love which is my boast,\n And which, when rising up from breast to brow,\n Doth crown me with a ruby large enow\n To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost,—\n This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,\n I should not love withal, unless that thou\n Hadst set me an example, shown me how,\n When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,\n And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak\n Of love even, as a good thing of my own:\n Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,\n And placed it by thee on a golden throne,—\n And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)\n Is by thee only, whom I love alone.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XIII", + "body": " And wilt thou have me fashion into speech\n The love I bear thee, finding words enough,\n And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,\n Between our faces, to cast light on each?—\n I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach\n My hand to hold my spirits so far off\n From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof\n In words, of love hid in me out of reach.\n Nay, let the silence of my womanhood\n Commend my woman-love to thy belief,—\n Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,\n And rend the garment of my life, in brief,\n By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,\n Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XIV", + "body": " If thou must love me, let it be for nought\n Except for love’s sake only. Do not say\n “I love her for her smile—her look—her way\n Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought\n That falls in well with mine, and certes brought\n A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—\n For these things in themselves, Belovëd, may\n Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,\n May be unwrought so. Neither love me for\n Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—\n A creature might forget to weep, who bore\n Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!\n But love me for love’s sake, that evermore\n Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XV", + "body": " Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear\n Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;\n For we two look two ways, and cannot shine\n With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.\n On me thou lookest with no doubting care,\n As on a bee shut in a crystalline;\n Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love’s divine,\n And to spread wing and fly in the outer air\n Were most impossible failure, if I strove\n To fail so. But I look on thee—on thee—\n Beholding, besides love, the end of love,\n Hearing oblivion beyond memory;\n As one who sits and gazes from above,\n Over the rivers to the bitter sea.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XVI", + "body": " And yet, because thou overcomest so,\n Because thou art more noble and like a king,\n Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling\n Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow\n Too close against thine heart henceforth to know\n How it shook when alone. Why, conquering\n May prove as lordly and complete a thing\n In lifting upward, as in crushing low!\n And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword\n To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,\n Even so, Belovëd, I at last record,\n Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,\n I rise above abasement at the word.\n Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth!", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XVII", + "body": " My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes\n God set between His After and Before,\n And strike up and strike off the general roar\n Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats\n In a serene air purely. Antidotes\n Of medicated music, answering for\n Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour\n From thence into their ears. God’s will devotes\n Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.\n How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?\n A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine\n Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?\n A shade, in which to sing—of palm or pine?\n A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XVIII", + "body": " I never gave a lock of hair away\n To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,\n Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully\n I ring out to the full brown length and say\n “Take it.” My day of youth went yesterday;\n My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee,\n Nor plant I it from rose- or myrtle-tree,\n As girls do, any more: it only may\n Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,\n Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside\n Through sorrow’s trick. I thought the funeral-shears\n Would take this first, but Love is justified,—\n Take it thou,—finding pure, from all those years,\n The kiss my mother left here when she died.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XIX", + "body": " The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize;\n I barter curl for curl upon that mart,\n And from my poet’s forehead to my heart\n Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,—\n As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes\n The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart\n The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . .\n The bay crown’s shade, Belovëd, I surmise,\n Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!\n Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,\n I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,\n And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;\n Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack\n No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XX", + "body": " Belovëd, my Belovëd, when I think\n That thou wast in the world a year ago,\n What time I sat alone here in the snow\n And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink\n No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,\n Went counting all my chains as if that so\n They never could fall off at any blow\n Struck by thy possible hand,—why, thus I drink\n Of life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful,\n Never to feel thee thrill the day or night\n With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull\n Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white\n Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,\n Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXI", + "body": " Say over again, and yet once over again,\n That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated\n Should seem a “cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat it,\n Remember, never to the hill or plain,\n Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain\n Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.\n Belovëd, I, amid the darkness greeted\n By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain\n Cry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!” Who can fear\n Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,\n Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?\n Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll\n The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,\n To love me also in silence with thy soul.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXII", + "body": " When our two souls stand up erect and strong,\n Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,\n Until the lengthening wings break into fire\n At either curvëd point,—what bitter wrong\n Can the earth do to us, that we should not long\n Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,\n The angels would press on us and aspire\n To drop some golden orb of perfect song\n Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay\n Rather on earth, Belovëd,—where the unfit\n Contrarious moods of men recoil away\n And isolate pure spirits, and permit\n A place to stand and love in for a day,\n With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXIII", + "body": " Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,\n Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?\n And would the sun for thee more coldly shine\n Because of grave-damps falling round my head?\n I marvelled, my Belovëd, when I read\n Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine—\n But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine\n While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead\n Of dreams of death, resumes life’s lower range.\n Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me!\n As brighter ladies do not count it strange,\n For love, to give up acres and degree,\n I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange\n My near sweet view of heaven, for earth with thee!", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXIV", + "body": " Let the world’s sharpness like a clasping knife\n Shut in upon itself and do no harm\n In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm,\n And let us hear no sound of human strife\n After the click of the shutting. Life to life—\n I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm,\n And feel as safe as guarded by a charm\n Against the stab of worldlings, who if rife\n Are weak to injure. Very whitely still\n The lilies of our lives may reassure\n Their blossoms from their roots, accessible\n Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer;\n Growing straight, out of man’s reach, on the hill.\n God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXV", + "body": " A heavy heart, Belovëd, have I borne\n From year to year until I saw thy face,\n And sorrow after sorrow took the place\n Of all those natural joys as lightly worn\n As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn\n By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace\n Were changed to long despairs, till God’s own grace\n Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn\n My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring\n And let it drop adown thy calmly great\n Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing\n Which its own nature does precipitate,\n While thine doth close above it, mediating\n Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXVI", + "body": " I lived with visions for my company\n Instead of men and women, years ago,\n And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know\n A sweeter music than they played to me.\n But soon their trailing purple was not free\n Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,\n And I myself grew faint and blind below\n Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come—to be,\n Belovëd, what they seemed. Their shining fronts,\n Their songs, their splendours, (better, yet the same,\n As river-water hallowed into fonts)\n Met in thee, and from out thee overcame\n My soul with satisfaction of all wants:\n Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXVII", + "body": " My own Belovëd, who hast lifted me\n From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,\n And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown\n A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully\n Shines out again, as all the angels see,\n Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,\n Who camest to me when the world was gone,\n And I who looked for only God, found thee!\n I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad.\n As one who stands in dewless asphodel,\n Looks backward on the tedious time he had\n In the upper life,—so I, with bosom-swell,\n Make witness, here, between the good and bad,\n That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXVIII", + "body": " My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!\n And yet they seem alive and quivering\n Against my tremulous hands which loose the string\n And let them drop down on my knee to-night.\n This said,—he wished to have me in his sight\n Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring\n To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,\n Yet I wept for it!—this, . . . the paper’s light . . .\n Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed\n As if God’s future thundered on my past.\n This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled\n With lying at my heart that beat too fast.\n And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed\n If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXIX", + "body": " I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud\n About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,\n Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to see\n Except the straggling green which hides the wood.\n Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood\n I will not have my thoughts instead of thee\n Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly\n Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,\n Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,\n And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee,\n Drop heavily down,—burst, shattered everywhere!\n Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee\n And breathe within thy shadow a new air,\n I do not think of thee—I am too near thee.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXX", + "body": " I see thine image through my tears to-night,\n And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How\n Refer the cause?—Belovëd, is it thou\n Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte\n Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite\n May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,\n On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,\n Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,\n As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s amen.\n Belovëd, dost thou love? or did I see all\n The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when\n Too vehement light dilated my ideal,\n For my soul’s eyes? Will that light come again,\n As now these tears come—falling hot and real?", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXI", + "body": " Thou comest! all is said without a word.\n I sit beneath thy looks, as children do\n In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through\n Their happy eyelids from an unaverred\n Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred\n In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue\n The sin most, but the occasion—that we two\n Should for a moment stand unministered\n By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close,\n Thou dove-like help! and when my fears would rise,\n With thy broad heart serenely interpose:\n Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies\n These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those,\n Like callow birds left desert to the skies.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXII", + "body": " The first time that the sun rose on thine oath\n To love me, I looked forward to the moon\n To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon\n And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.\n Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;\n And, looking on myself, I seemed not one\n For such man’s love!—more like an out-of-tune\n Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth\n To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,\n Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.\n I did not wrong myself so, but I placed\n A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float\n ’Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,—\n And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXIII", + "body": " Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear\n The name I used to run at, when a child,\n From innocent play, and leave the cowslips plied,\n To glance up in some face that proved me dear\n With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear\n Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled\n Into the music of Heaven’s undefiled,\n Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,\n While I call God—call God!—so let thy mouth\n Be heir to those who are now exanimate.\n Gather the north flowers to complete the south,\n And catch the early love up in the late.\n Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,\n With the same heart, will answer and not wait.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXIV", + "body": " With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee\n As those, when thou shalt call me by my name—\n Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,\n Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?\n When called before, I told how hastily\n I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game.\n To run and answer with the smile that came\n At play last moment, and went on with me\n Through my obedience. When I answer now,\n I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;\n Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how—\n Not as to a single good, but all my good!\n Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow\n That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXV", + "body": " If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange\n And be all to me? Shall I never miss\n Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss\n That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,\n When I look up, to drop on a new range\n Of walls and floors, another home than this?\n Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is\n Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change\n That’s hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,\n To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove,\n For grief indeed is love and grief beside.\n Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.\n Yet love me—wilt thou? Open thy heart wide,\n And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXVI", + "body": " When we met first and loved, I did not build\n Upon the event with marble. Could it mean\n To last, a love set pendulous between\n Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,\n Distrusting every light that seemed to gild\n The onward path, and feared to overlean\n A finger even. And, though I have grown serene\n And strong since then, I think that God has willed\n A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . .\n Lest these enclaspëd hands should never hold,\n This mutual kiss drop down between us both\n As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.\n And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath,\n Must lose one joy, by his life’s star foretold.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXVII", + "body": " Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make\n Of all that strong divineness which I know\n For thine and thee, an image only so\n Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.\n It is that distant years which did not take\n Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,\n Have forced my swimming brain to undergo\n Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake\n Thy purity of likeness and distort\n Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit.\n As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,\n His guardian sea-god to commemorate,\n Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort\n And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXVIII", + "body": " First time he kissed me, he but only kissed\n The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;\n And ever since, it grew more clean and white.\n Slow to world-greetings, quick with its “O, list,”\n When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst\n I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,\n Than that first kiss. The second passed in height\n The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,\n Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!\n That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown,\n With sanctifying sweetness, did precede\n The third upon my lips was folded down\n In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,\n I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.”", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXIX", + "body": " Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace\n To look through and behind this mask of me,\n (Against which, years have beat thus blanchingly,\n With their rains,) and behold my soul’s true face,\n The dim and weary witness of life’s race,—\n Because thou hast the faith and love to see,\n Through that same soul’s distracting lethargy,\n The patient angel waiting for a place\n In the new Heavens,—because nor sin nor woe,\n Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighbourhood,\n Nor all which others viewing, turn to go,\n Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,—\n Nothing repels thee, . . . Dearest, teach me so\n To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good!", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XL", + "body": " Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!\n I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth:\n I have heard love talked in my early youth,\n And since, not so long back but that the flowers\n Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours\n Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth\n For any weeping. Polypheme’s white tooth\n Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,\n The shell is over-smooth,—and not so much\n Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate\n Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such\n A lover, my Belovëd! thou canst wait\n Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,\n And think it soon when others cry “Too late.”", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLI", + "body": " I thank all who have loved me in their hearts,\n With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all\n Who paused a little near the prison-wall\n To hear my music in its louder parts\n Ere they went onward, each one to the mart’s\n Or temple’s occupation, beyond call.\n But thou, who, in my voice’s sink and fall\n When the sob took it, thy divinest Art’s\n Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot\n To harken what I said between my tears, . . .\n Instruct me how to thank thee! Oh, to shoot\n My soul’s full meaning into future years,\n That they should lend it utterance, and salute\n Love that endures, from life that disappears!", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLII", + "body": " My future will not copy fair my past—\n I wrote that once; and thinking at my side\n My ministering life-angel justified\n The word by his appealing look upcast\n To the white throne of God, I turned at last,\n And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied\n To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried\n By natural ills, received the comfort fast,\n While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim’s staff\n Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.\n I seek no copy now of life’s first half:\n Leave here the pages with long musing curled,\n And write me new my future’s epigraph,\n New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLIII", + "body": " How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.\n I love thee to the depth and breadth and height\n My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight\n For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.\n I love thee to the level of everyday’s\n Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.\n I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;\n I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.\n I love thee with the passion put to use\n In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.\n I love thee with a love I seemed to lose\n With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,\n Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,\n I shall but love thee better after death.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLIV", + "body": " Belovëd, thou hast brought me many flowers\n Plucked in the garden, all the summer through,\n And winter, and it seemed as if they grew\n In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.\n So, in the like name of that love of ours,\n Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,\n And which on warm and cold days I withdrew\n From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers\n Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,\n And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,\n Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to do\n Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.\n Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,\n And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.", + "author": "Elizabeth Barrett Browning", + "source": "Sonnets from the Portuguese", + "period": "1850" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/burns_poems_songs.json b/poetry/burns_poems_songs.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..524c2b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/burns_poems_songs.json @@ -0,0 +1,3943 @@ +[ + { + "title": "Robert Burns was born near Ayr, Scotland, 25th of January, 1759. He was", + "body": "the son of William Burnes, or Burness, at the time of the poet’s birth a\nnurseryman on the banks of the Doon in Ayrshire. His father, though\nalways extremely poor, attempted to give his children a fair education,\nand Robert, who was the eldest, went to school for three years in a\nneighboring village, and later, for shorter periods, to three other\nschools in the vicinity. But it was to his father and to his own reading\nthat he owed the more important part of his education; and by the time\nthat he had reached manhood he had a good knowledge of English, a\nreading knowledge of French, and a fairly wide acquaintance with the\nmasterpieces of English literature from the time of Shakespeare to his\nown day. In 1766 William Burness rented on borrowed money the farm of\nMount Oliphant, and in taking his share in the effort to make this\nundertaking succeed, the future poet seems to have seriously\noverstrained his physique. In 1771 the family move to Lochlea, and Burns\nwent to the neighboring town of Irvine to learn flax-dressing. The only\nresult of this experiment, however, was the formation of an acquaintance\nwith a dissipated sailor, whom he afterward blamed as the prompter of\nhis first licentious adventures. His father died in 1784, and with his\nbrother Gilbert the poet rented the farm of Mossgiel; but this venture\nwas as unsuccessful as the others. He had meantime formed an irregular\nintimacy with Jean Armour, for which he was censured by the\nKirk-session. As a result of his farming misfortunes, and the attempts\nof his father-in-law to overthrow his irregular marriage with Jean, he\nresolved to emigrate; and in order to raise money for the passage he\npublished (Kilmarnock, 1786) a volume of the poems which he had been\ncomposing from time to time for some years. This volume was unexpectedly\nsuccessful, so that, instead of sailing for the West Indies, he went up\nto Edinburgh, and during that winter he was the chief literary celebrity\nof the season. An enlarged edition of his poems was published there in\n1787, and the money derived from this enabled him to aid his brother in\nMossgiel, and to take and stock for himself the farm of Ellisland in\nDumfriesshire. His fame as poet had reconciled the Armours to the\nconnection, and having now regularly married Jean, he brought her to\nEllisland, and once more tried farming for three years. Continued\nill-success, however, led him, in 1791, to abandon Ellisland, and he moved\nto Dumfries, where he had obtained a position in the Excise. But he was\nnow thoroughly discouraged; his work was mere drudgery; his tendency to\ntake his relaxation in debauchery increased the weakness of a\nconstitution early undermined; and he died at Dumfries in his\nthirty-eighth year.\n\n[See Burns’ Birthplace: The living room in the Burns birthplace\ncottage.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "It is not necessary here to attempt to disentangle or explain away the", + "body": "numerous amours in which he was engaged through the greater part of his\nlife. It is evident that Burns was a man of extremely passionate nature\nand fond of conviviality; and the misfortunes of his lot combined with\nhis natural tendencies to drive him to frequent excesses of\nself-indulgence. He was often remorseful, and he strove painfully, if\nintermittently, after better things. But the story of his life must be\nadmitted to be in its externals a painful and somewhat sordid chronicle.\nThat it contained, however, many moments of joy and exaltation is proved\nby the poems here printed.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Burns’ poetry falls into two main groups: English and Scottish. His", + "body": "English poems are, for the most part, inferior specimens of conventional\neighteenth-century verse. But in Scottish poetry he achieved triumphs of\na quite extraordinary kind. Since the time of the Reformation and the\nunion of the crowns of England and Scotland, the Scots dialect had\nlargely fallen into disuse as a medium for dignified writing. Shortly\nbefore Burns’ time, however, Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson had been\nthe leading figures in a revival of the vernacular, and Burns received\nfrom them a national tradition which he succeeded in carrying to its\nhighest pitch, becoming thereby, to an almost unique degree, the poet of\nhis people.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "He first showed complete mastery of verse in the field of satire. In", + "body": "“The Twa Herds,” “Holy Willie’s Prayer,” “Address to the Unco Guid,”\n “The Holy Fair,” and others, he manifested sympathy with the protest of\nthe so-called “New Light” party, which had sprung up in opposition to\nthe extreme Calvinism and intolerance of the dominant “Auld Lichts.” The\nfact that Burns had personally suffered from the discipline of the Kirk\nprobably added fire to his attacks, but the satires show more than\npersonal animus. The force of the invective, the keenness of the wit,\nand the fervor of the imagination which they displayed, rendered them an\nimportant force in the theological liberation of Scotland.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Kilmarnock volume contained, besides satire, a number of poems like", + "body": "“The Twa Dogs” and “The Cotter’s Saturday Night,” which are vividly\ndescriptive of the Scots peasant life with which he was most familiar;\nand a group like “Puir Mailie” and “To a Mouse,” which, in the\ntenderness of their treatment of animals, revealed one of the most\nattractive sides of Burns’ personality. Many of his poems were never\nprinted during his lifetime, the most remarkable of these being “The\nJolly Beggars,” a piece in which, by the intensity of his imaginative\nsympathy and the brilliance of his technique, he renders a picture of\nthe lowest dregs of society in such a way as to raise it into the realm\nof great poetry.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "But the real national importance of Burns is due chiefly to his songs.", + "body": "The Puritan austerity of the centuries following the Reformation had\ndiscouraged secular music, like other forms of art, in Scotland; and as\na result Scottish song had become hopelessly degraded in point both of\ndecency and literary quality. From youth Burns had been interested in\ncollecting the fragments he had heard sung or found printed, and he came\nto regard the rescuing of this almost lost national inheritance in the\nlight of a vocation. About his song-making, two points are especially\nnoteworthy: first, that the greater number of his lyrics sprang from\nactual emotional experiences; second, that almost all were composed to\nold melodies. While in Edinburgh he undertook to supply material for\nJohnson’s “Musical Museum,” and as few of the traditional songs could\nappear in a respectable collection, Burns found it necessary to make\nthem over. Sometimes he kept a stanza or two; sometimes only a line or\nchorus; sometimes merely the name of the air; the rest was his own. His\nmethod, as he has told us himself, was to become familiar with the\ntraditional melody, to catch a suggestion from some fragment of the old\nsong, to fix upon an idea or situation for the new poem; then, humming\nor whistling the tune as he went about his work, he wrought out the new\nverses, going into the house to write them down when the inspiration\nbegan to flag. In this process is to be found the explanation of much of\nthe peculiar quality of the songs of Burns. Scarcely any known author\nhas succeeded so brilliantly in combining his work with folk material,\nor in carrying on with such continuity of spirit the tradition of\npopular song. For George Thomson’s collection of Scottish airs he\nperformed a function similar to that which he had had in the “Museum”;\nand his poetical activity during the last eight or nine years of his\nlife was chiefly devoted to these two publications. In spite of the fact\nthat he was constantly in severe financial straits, he refused to accept\nany recompense for this work, preferring to regard it as a patriotic\nservice. And it was, indeed, a patriotic service of no small magnitude.\nBy birth and temperament he was singularly fitted for the task, and this\nfitness is proved by the unique extent to which his productions were\naccepted by his countrymen, and have passed into the life and feeling of\nhis race.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Handsome Nell^1", + "body": " Tune—“I am a man unmarried.”\n\n\n [Footnote 1: The first of my performances.—R. B.]\n\n Once I lov’d a bonie lass,\n Ay, and I love her still;\n And whilst that virtue warms my breast,\n I’ll love my handsome Nell.\n\n As bonie lasses I hae seen,\n And mony full as braw;\n But, for a modest gracefu’ mein,\n The like I never saw.\n\n A bonie lass, I will confess,\n Is pleasant to the e’e;\n But, without some better qualities,\n She’s no a lass for me.\n\n But Nelly’s looks are blythe and sweet,\n And what is best of a’,\n Her reputation is complete,\n And fair without a flaw.\n\n She dresses aye sae clean and neat,\n Both decent and genteel;\n And then there’s something in her gait\n Gars ony dress look weel.\n\n A gaudy dress and gentle air\n May slightly touch the heart;\n But it’s innocence and modesty\n That polishes the dart.\n\n ’Tis this in Nelly pleases me,\n ’Tis this enchants my soul;\n For absolutely in my breast\n She reigns without control.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—O Tibbie, I Hae Seen The Day", + "body": " Tune—“Invercauld’s Reel, or Strathspey.”\n\n\n Choir.—O Tibbie, I hae seen the day,\n Ye wadna been sae shy;\n For laik o’ gear ye lightly me,\n But, trowth, I care na by.\n\n Yestreen I met you on the moor,\n Ye spak na, but gaed by like stour;\n Ye geck at me because I’m poor,\n But fient a hair care I.\n O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, &c.\n\n When coming hame on Sunday last,\n Upon the road as I cam past,\n Ye snufft and ga’e your head a cast—\n But trowth I care’t na by.\n O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, &c.\n\n I doubt na, lass, but ye may think,\n Because ye hae the name o’ clink,\n That ye can please me at a wink,\n Whene’er ye like to try.\n O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, &c.\n\n But sorrow tak’ him that’s sae mean,\n Altho’ his pouch o’ coin were clean,\n Wha follows ony saucy quean,\n That looks sae proud and high.\n O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, &c.\n\n Altho’ a lad were e’er sae smart,\n If that he want the yellow dirt,\n Ye’ll cast your head anither airt,\n And answer him fu’ dry.\n O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, &c.\n\n But, if he hae the name o’ gear,\n Ye’ll fasten to him like a brier,\n Tho’ hardly he, for sense or lear,\n Be better than the kye.\n O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, &c.\n\n But, Tibbie, lass, tak’ my advice:\n Your daddie’s gear maks you sae nice;\n The deil a ane wad speir your price,\n Were ye as poor as I.\n O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, &c.\n\n There lives a lass beside yon park,\n I’d rather hae her in her sark,\n Than you wi’ a’ your thousand mark;\n That gars you look sae high.\n O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—I Dream’d I Lay", + "body": " I dream’d I lay where flowers were springing\n Gaily in the sunny beam;\n List’ning to the wild birds singing,\n By a falling crystal stream:\n Straight the sky grew black and daring;\n Thro’ the woods the whirlwinds rave;\n Tress with aged arms were warring,\n O’er the swelling drumlie wave.\n\n Such was my life’s deceitful morning,\n Such the pleasures I enjoyed:\n But lang or noon, loud tempests storming\n A’ my flowery bliss destroy’d.\n Tho’ fickle fortune has deceiv’d me—\n She promis’d fair, and perform’d but ill,\n Of mony a joy and hope bereav’d me—\n I bear a heart shall support me still.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—In The Character Of A Ruined Farmer", + "body": " Tune—“Go from my window, Love, do.”\n\n\n The sun he is sunk in the west,\n All creatures retired to rest,\n While here I sit, all sore beset,\n With sorrow, grief, and woe:\n And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!\n\n The prosperous man is asleep,\n Nor hears how the whirlwinds sweep;\n But Misery and I must watch\n The surly tempest blow:\n And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!\n\n There lies the dear partner of my breast;\n Her cares for a moment at rest:\n Must I see thee, my youthful pride,\n Thus brought so very low!\n And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!\n\n There lie my sweet babies in her arms;\n No anxious fear their little hearts alarms;\n But for their sake my heart does ache,\n With many a bitter throe:\n And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!\n\n I once was by Fortune carest:\n I once could relieve the distrest:\n Now life’s poor support, hardly earn’d\n My fate will scarce bestow:\n And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!\n\n No comfort, no comfort I have!\n How welcome to me were the grave!\n But then my wife and children dear—\n O, wither would they go!\n And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!\n\n O whither, O whither shall I turn!\n All friendless, forsaken, forlorn!\n For, in this world, Rest or Peace\n I never more shall know!\n And it’s O, fickle Fortune, O!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Tragic Fragment", + "body": " All devil as I am—a damned wretch,\n A hardened, stubborn, unrepenting villain,\n Still my heart melts at human wretchedness;\n And with sincere but unavailing sighs\n I view the helpless children of distress:\n With tears indignant I behold the oppressor\n Rejoicing in the honest man’s destruction,\n Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime.—\n Ev’n you, ye hapless crew! I pity you;\n Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity;\n Ye poor, despised, abandoned vagabonds,\n Whom Vice, as usual, has turn’d o’er to ruin.\n Oh! but for friends and interposing Heaven,\n I had been driven forth like you forlorn,\n The most detested, worthless wretch among you!\n O injured God! Thy goodness has endow’d me\n With talents passing most of my compeers,\n Which I in just proportion have abused—\n As far surpassing other common villains\n As Thou in natural parts has given me more.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Tarbolton Lasses, The", + "body": " If ye gae up to yon hill-tap,\n Ye’ll there see bonie Peggy;\n She kens her father is a laird,\n And she forsooth’s a leddy.\n\n There Sophy tight, a lassie bright,\n Besides a handsome fortune:\n Wha canna win her in a night,\n Has little art in courtin’.\n\n Gae down by Faile, and taste the ale,\n And tak a look o’ Mysie;\n She’s dour and din, a deil within,\n But aiblins she may please ye.\n\n If she be shy, her sister try,\n Ye’ll maybe fancy Jenny;\n If ye’ll dispense wi’ want o’ sense—\n She kens hersel she’s bonie.\n\n As ye gae up by yon hillside,\n Speir in for bonie Bessy;\n She’ll gie ye a beck, and bid ye light,\n And handsomely address ye.\n\n There’s few sae bonie, nane sae guid,\n In a’ King George’ dominion;\n If ye should doubt the truth o’ this—\n It’s Bessy’s ain opinion!\n\n Ah, Woe Is Me, My Mother Dear\n\n Paraphrase of Jeremiah, 15th Chap., 10th verse.\n\n Ah, woe is me, my mother dear!\n A man of strife ye’ve born me:\n For sair contention I maun bear;\n They hate, revile, and scorn me.\n\n I ne’er could lend on bill or band,\n That five per cent. might blest me;\n And borrowing, on the tither hand,\n The deil a ane wad trust me.\n\n Yet I, a coin-denied wight,\n By Fortune quite discarded;\n Ye see how I am, day and night,\n By lad and lass blackguarded!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Montgomerie’s Peggy", + "body": " Tune—“Galla Water.”\n\n\n Altho’ my bed were in yon muir,\n Amang the heather, in my plaidie;\n Yet happy, happy would I be,\n Had I my dear Montgomerie’s Peggy.\n\n When o’er the hill beat surly storms,\n And winter nights were dark and rainy;\n I’d seek some dell, and in my arms\n I’d shelter dear Montgomerie’s Peggy.\n\n Were I a baron proud and high,\n And horse and servants waiting ready;\n Then a’ ’twad gie o’ joy to me,—\n The sharin’t with Montgomerie’s Peggy.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ploughman’s Life, The", + "body": " As I was a-wand’ring ae morning in spring,\n I heard a young ploughman sae sweetly to sing;\n And as he was singin’, thir words he did say,—\n There’s nae life like the ploughman’s in the month o’ sweet May.\n\n The lav’rock in the morning she’ll rise frae her nest,\n And mount i’ the air wi’ the dew on her breast,\n And wi’ the merry ploughman she’ll whistle and sing,\n And at night she’ll return to her nest back again.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ronalds Of The Bennals, The", + "body": " In Tarbolton, ye ken, there are proper young men,\n And proper young lasses and a’, man;\n But ken ye the Ronalds that live in the Bennals,\n They carry the gree frae them a’, man.\n\n Their father’s laird, and weel he can spare’t,\n Braid money to tocher them a’, man;\n To proper young men, he’ll clink in the hand\n Gowd guineas a hunder or twa, man.\n\n There’s ane they ca’ Jean, I’ll warrant ye’ve seen\n As bonie a lass or as braw, man;\n But for sense and guid taste she’ll vie wi’ the best,\n And a conduct that beautifies a’, man.\n\n The charms o’ the min’, the langer they shine,\n The mair admiration they draw, man;\n While peaches and cherries, and roses and lilies,\n They fade and they wither awa, man,\n\n If ye be for Miss Jean, tak this frae a frien’,\n A hint o’ a rival or twa, man;\n The Laird o’ Blackbyre wad gang through the fire,\n If that wad entice her awa, man.\n\n The Laird o’ Braehead has been on his speed,\n For mair than a towmond or twa, man;\n The Laird o’ the Ford will straught on a board,\n If he canna get her at a’, man.\n\n Then Anna comes in, the pride o’ her kin,\n The boast of our bachelors a’, man:\n Sae sonsy and sweet, sae fully complete,\n She steals our affections awa, man.\n\n If I should detail the pick and the wale\n O’ lasses that live here awa, man,\n The fau’t wad be mine if they didna shine\n The sweetest and best o’ them a’, man.\n\n I lo’e her mysel, but darena weel tell,\n My poverty keeps me in awe, man;\n For making o’ rhymes, and working at times,\n Does little or naething at a’, man.\n\n Yet I wadna choose to let her refuse,\n Nor hae’t in her power to say na, man:\n For though I be poor, unnoticed, obscure,\n My stomach’s as proud as them a’, man.\n\n Though I canna ride in weel-booted pride,\n And flee o’er the hills like a craw, man,\n I can haud up my head wi’ the best o’ the breed,\n Though fluttering ever so braw, man.\n\n My coat and my vest, they are Scotch o’ the best,\n O’pairs o’ guid breeks I hae twa, man;\n And stockings and pumps to put on my stumps,\n And ne’er a wrang steek in them a’, man.\n\n My sarks they are few, but five o’ them new,\n Twal’ hundred, as white as the snaw, man,\n A ten-shillings hat, a Holland cravat;\n There are no mony poets sae braw, man.\n\n I never had frien’s weel stockit in means,\n To leave me a hundred or twa, man;\n Nae weel-tocher’d aunts, to wait on their drants,\n And wish them in hell for it a’, man.\n\n I never was cannie for hoarding o’ money,\n Or claughtin’t together at a’, man;\n I’ve little to spend, and naething to lend,\n But deevil a shilling I awe, man.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Here’s To Thy Health", + "body": " Tune—“Laggan Burn.”\n\n\n Here’s to thy health, my bonie lass,\n Gude nicht and joy be wi’ thee;\n I’ll come nae mair to thy bower-door,\n To tell thee that I lo’e thee.\n O dinna think, my pretty pink,\n But I can live without thee:\n I vow and swear I dinna care,\n How lang ye look about ye.\n\n Thou’rt aye sae free informing me,\n Thou hast nae mind to marry;\n I’ll be as free informing thee,\n Nae time hae I to tarry:\n I ken thy frien’s try ilka means\n Frae wedlock to delay thee;\n Depending on some higher chance,\n But fortune may betray thee.\n\n I ken they scorn my low estate,\n But that does never grieve me;\n For I’m as free as any he;\n Sma’ siller will relieve me.\n I’ll count my health my greatest wealth,\n Sae lang as I’ll enjoy it;\n I’ll fear nae scant, I’ll bode nae want,\n As lang’s I get employment.\n\n But far off fowls hae feathers fair,\n And, aye until ye try them,\n Tho’ they seem fair, still have a care;\n They may prove waur than I am.\n But at twal’ at night, when the moon shines bright,\n My dear, I’ll come and see thee;\n For the man that loves his mistress weel,\n Nae travel makes him weary.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lass Of Cessnock Banks, The^1", + "body": " [Footnote 1: The lass is identified as Ellison Begbie, a servant\n wench, daughter of a “Farmer Lang”.]\n\n A Song of Similes\n\n Tune—“If he be a Butcher neat and trim.”\n\n\n On Cessnock banks a lassie dwells;\n Could I describe her shape and mein;\n Our lasses a’ she far excels,\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n She’s sweeter than the morning dawn,\n When rising Phoebus first is seen,\n And dew-drops twinkle o’er the lawn;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n She’s stately like yon youthful ash,\n That grows the cowslip braes between,\n And drinks the stream with vigour fresh;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n She’s spotless like the flow’ring thorn,\n With flow’rs so white and leaves so green,\n When purest in the dewy morn;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n Her looks are like the vernal May,\n When ev’ning Phoebus shines serene,\n While birds rejoice on every spray;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n Her hair is like the curling mist,\n That climbs the mountain-sides at e’en,\n When flow’r-reviving rains are past;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n Her forehead’s like the show’ry bow,\n When gleaming sunbeams intervene\n And gild the distant mountain’s brow;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n Her cheeks are like yon crimson gem,\n The pride of all the flowery scene,\n Just opening on its thorny stem;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n Her bosom’s like the nightly snow,\n When pale the morning rises keen,\n While hid the murm’ring streamlets flow;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n Her lips are like yon cherries ripe,\n That sunny walls from Boreas screen;\n They tempt the taste and charm the sight;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n Her teeth are like a flock of sheep,\n With fleeces newly washen clean,\n That slowly mount the rising steep;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n Her breath is like the fragrant breeze,\n That gently stirs the blossom’d bean,\n When Phoebus sinks behind the seas;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n Her voice is like the ev’ning thrush,\n That sings on Cessnock banks unseen,\n While his mate sits nestling in the bush;\n An’ she has twa sparkling roguish een.\n\n But it’s not her air, her form, her face,\n Tho’ matching beauty’s fabled queen;\n ’Tis the mind that shines in ev’ry grace,\n An’ chiefly in her roguish een.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Bonie Peggy Alison", + "body": " Tune—“The Braes o’ Balquhidder.”\n\n\n Chor.—And I’ll kiss thee yet, yet,\n And I’ll kiss thee o’er again:\n And I’ll kiss thee yet, yet,\n My bonie Peggy Alison.\n\n Ilk care and fear, when thou art near\n I evermair defy them, O!\n Young kings upon their hansel throne\n Are no sae blest as I am, O!\n And I’ll kiss thee yet, yet, &c.\n\n When in my arms, wi’ a’ thy charms,\n I clasp my countless treasure, O!\n I seek nae mair o’ Heaven to share\n Than sic a moment’s pleasure, O!\n And I’ll kiss thee yet, yet, &c.\n\n And by thy een sae bonie blue,\n I swear I’m thine for ever, O!\n And on thy lips I seal my vow,\n And break it shall I never, O!\n And I’ll kiss thee yet, yet, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Mary Morison", + "body": " Tune—“Bide ye yet.”\n\n O Mary, at thy window be,\n It is the wish’d, the trysted hour!\n Those smiles and glances let me see,\n That make the miser’s treasure poor:\n How blythely was I bide the stour,\n A weary slave frae sun to sun,\n Could I the rich reward secure,\n The lovely Mary Morison.\n\n Yestreen, when to the trembling string\n The dance gaed thro’ the lighted ha’,\n To thee my fancy took its wing,\n I sat, but neither heard nor saw:\n Tho’ this was fair, and that was braw,\n And yon the toast of a’ the town,\n I sigh’d, and said among them a’,\n “Ye are na Mary Morison.”\n\n Oh, Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,\n Wha for thy sake wad gladly die?\n Or canst thou break that heart of his,\n Whase only faut is loving thee?\n If love for love thou wilt na gie,\n At least be pity to me shown;\n A thought ungentle canna be\n The thought o’ Mary Morison.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Winter: A Dirge", + "body": " The wintry west extends his blast,\n And hail and rain does blaw;\n Or the stormy north sends driving forth\n The blinding sleet and snaw:\n While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,\n And roars frae bank to brae;\n And bird and beast in covert rest,\n And pass the heartless day.\n\n “The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,”\n The joyless winter day\n Let others fear, to me more dear\n Than all the pride of May:\n The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,\n My griefs it seems to join;\n The leafless trees my fancy please,\n Their fate resembles mine!\n\n Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme\n These woes of mine fulfil,\n Here firm I rest; they must be best,\n Because they are Thy will!\n Then all I want—O do Thou grant\n This one request of mine!—\n Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,\n Assist me to resign.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Prayer, Under The Pressure Of Violent Anguish", + "body": " O Thou Great Being! what Thou art,\n Surpasses me to know;\n Yet sure I am, that known to Thee\n Are all Thy works below.\n\n Thy creature here before Thee stands,\n All wretched and distrest;\n Yet sure those ills that wring my soul\n Obey Thy high behest.\n\n Sure, Thou, Almighty, canst not act\n From cruelty or wrath!\n O, free my weary eyes from tears,\n Or close them fast in death!\n\n But, if I must afflicted be,\n To suit some wise design,\n Then man my soul with firm resolves,\n To bear and not repine!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Paraphrase Of The First Psalm", + "body": " The man, in life wherever plac’d,\n Hath happiness in store,\n Who walks not in the wicked’s way,\n Nor learns their guilty lore!\n\n Nor from the seat of scornful pride\n Casts forth his eyes abroad,\n But with humility and awe\n Still walks before his God.\n\n That man shall flourish like the trees,\n Which by the streamlets grow;\n The fruitful top is spread on high,\n And firm the root below.\n\n But he whose blossom buds in guilt\n Shall to the ground be cast,\n And, like the rootless stubble, tost\n Before the sweeping blast.\n\n For why? that God the good adore,\n Hath giv’n them peace and rest,\n But hath decreed that wicked men\n Shall ne’er be truly blest.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "First Six Verses Of The Ninetieth Psalm Versified, The", + "body": " O Thou, the first, the greatest friend\n Of all the human race!\n Whose strong right hand has ever been\n Their stay and dwelling place!\n\n Before the mountains heav’d their heads\n Beneath Thy forming hand,\n Before this ponderous globe itself\n Arose at Thy command;\n\n That Pow’r which rais’d and still upholds\n This universal frame,\n From countless, unbeginning time\n Was ever still the same.\n\n Those mighty periods of years\n Which seem to us so vast,\n Appear no more before Thy sight\n Than yesterday that’s past.\n\n Thou giv’st the word: Thy creature, man,\n Is to existence brought;\n Again Thou say’st, “Ye sons of men,\n Return ye into nought!”\n\n Thou layest them, with all their cares,\n In everlasting sleep;\n As with a flood Thou tak’st them off\n With overwhelming sweep.\n\n They flourish like the morning flow’r,\n In beauty’s pride array’d;\n But long ere night cut down it lies\n All wither’d and decay’d.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Prayer, In The Prospect Of Death", + "body": " O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause\n Of all my hope and fear!\n In whose dread presence, ere an hour,\n Perhaps I must appear!\n\n If I have wander’d in those paths\n Of life I ought to shun,\n As something, loudly, in my breast,\n Remonstrates I have done;\n\n Thou know’st that Thou hast formed me\n With passions wild and strong;\n And list’ning to their witching voice\n Has often led me wrong.\n\n Where human weakness has come short,\n Or frailty stept aside,\n Do Thou, All-Good—for such Thou art—\n In shades of darkness hide.\n\n Where with intention I have err’d,\n No other plea I have,\n But, Thou art good; and Goodness still\n Delighteth to forgive.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Stanzas, On The Same Occasion", + "body": " Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?\n Have I so found it full of pleasing charms?\n Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between—\n Some gleams of sunshine ’mid renewing storms,\n Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?\n Or death’s unlovely, dreary, dark abode?\n For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms:\n I tremble to approach an angry God,\n And justly smart beneath His sin-avenging rod.\n\n Fain would I say, “Forgive my foul offence,”\n Fain promise never more to disobey;\n But, should my Author health again dispense,\n Again I might desert fair virtue’s way;\n Again in folly’s part might go astray;\n Again exalt the brute and sink the man;\n Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray\n Who act so counter heavenly mercy’s plan?\n Who sin so oft have mourn’d, yet to temptation ran?\n\n O Thou, great Governor of all below!\n If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,\n Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,\n Or still the tumult of the raging sea:\n With that controlling pow’r assist ev’n me,\n Those headlong furious passions to confine,\n For all unfit I feel my pow’rs to be,\n To rule their torrent in th’ allowed line;\n O, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fickle Fortune: A Fragment", + "body": " Though fickle Fortune has deceived me,\n She pormis’d fair and perform’d but ill;\n Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav’d me,\n Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.\n\n I’ll act with prudence as far ’s I’m able,\n But if success I must never find,\n Then come misfortune, I bid thee welcome,\n I’ll meet thee with an undaunted mind.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Raging Fortune—Fragment Of Song", + "body": " O raging Fortune’s withering blast\n Has laid my leaf full low, O!\n O raging Fortune’s withering blast\n Has laid my leaf full low, O!\n\n My stem was fair, my bud was green,\n My blossom sweet did blow, O!\n The dew fell fresh, the sun rose mild,\n And made my branches grow, O!\n\n But luckless Fortune’s northern storms\n Laid a’ my blossoms low, O!\n But luckless Fortune’s northern storms\n Laid a’ my blossoms low, O!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Impromptu—“I’ll Go And Be A Sodger”", + "body": " O why the deuce should I repine,\n And be an ill foreboder?\n I’m twenty-three, and five feet nine,\n I’ll go and be a sodger!\n\n I gat some gear wi’ mickle care,\n I held it weel thegither;\n But now it’s gane, and something mair—\n I’ll go and be a sodger!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—“No Churchman Am I”", + "body": " Tune—“Prepare, my dear Brethren, to the tavern let’s fly.”\n\n\n No churchman am I for to rail and to write,\n No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight,\n No sly man of business contriving a snare,\n For a big-belly’d bottle’s the whole of my care.\n\n The peer I don’t envy, I give him his bow;\n I scorn not the peasant, though ever so low;\n But a club of good fellows, like those that are here,\n And a bottle like this, are my glory and care.\n\n Here passes the squire on his brother—his horse;\n There centum per centum, the cit with his purse;\n But see you the Crown how it waves in the air?\n There a big-belly’d bottle still eases my care.\n\n The wife of my bosom, alas! she did die;\n for sweet consolation to church I did fly;\n I found that old Solomon proved it fair,\n That a big-belly’d bottle’s a cure for all care.\n\n I once was persuaded a venture to make;\n A letter inform’d me that all was to wreck;\n But the pursy old landlord just waddl’d upstairs,\n With a glorious bottle that ended my cares.\n\n “Life’s cares they are comforts”—a maxim laid down\n By the Bard, what d’ye call him, that wore the black gown;\n And faith I agree with th’ old prig to a hair,\n For a big-belly’d bottle’s a heav’n of a care.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Stanza Added In A Mason Lodge", + "body": " Then fill up a bumper and make it o’erflow,\n And honours masonic prepare for to throw;\n May ev’ry true Brother of the Compass and Square\n Have a big-belly’d bottle when harass’d with care.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Father Was A Farmer", + "body": " Tune—“The weaver and his shuttle, O.”\n\n\n My father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O,\n And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O;\n He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne’er a farthing, O;\n For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, O.\n\n Then out into the world my course I did determine, O;\n Tho’ to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charming, O;\n My talents they were not the worst, nor yet my education, O:\n Resolv’d was I at least to try to mend my situation, O.\n\n In many a way, and vain essay, I courted Fortune’s favour, O;\n Some cause unseen still stept between, to frustrate each endeavour, O;\n Sometimes by foes I was o’erpower’d, sometimes by friends forsaken, O;\n And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst mistaken, O.\n\n Then sore harass’d and tir’d at last, with Fortune’s vain delusion, O,\n I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to this conclusion, O;\n The past was bad, and the future hid, its good or ill untried, O;\n But the present hour was in my pow’r, and so I would enjoy it, O.\n\n No help, nor hope, nor view had I, nor person to befriend me, O;\n So I must toil, and sweat, and moil, and labour to sustain me, O;\n To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred me early, O;\n For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for Fortune fairly, O.\n\n Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, thro’ life I’m doom’d to wander, O,\n Till down my weary bones I lay in everlasting slumber, O:\n No view nor care, but shun whate’er might breed me pain or sorrow, O;\n I live to-day as well’s I may, regardless of to-morrow, O.\n\n But cheerful still, I am as well as a monarch in his palace, O,\n Tho’ Fortune’s frown still hunts me down, with all her wonted malice, O:\n I make indeed my daily bread, but ne’er can make it farther, O:\n But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard her, O.\n\n When sometimes by my labour, I earn a little money, O,\n Some unforeseen misfortune comes gen’rally upon me, O;\n Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my goodnatur’d folly, O:\n But come what will, I’ve sworn it still, I’ll ne’er be melancholy, O.\n\n All you who follow wealth and power with unremitting ardour, O,\n The more in this you look for bliss, you leave your view the farther, O:\n Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore you, O,\n A cheerful honest-hearted clown I will prefer before you, O.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "John Barleycorn: A Ballad", + "body": " There was three kings into the east,\n Three kings both great and high,\n And they hae sworn a solemn oath\n John Barleycorn should die.\n\n They took a plough and plough’d him down,\n Put clods upon his head,\n And they hae sworn a solemn oath\n John Barleycorn was dead.\n\n But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,\n And show’rs began to fall;\n John Barleycorn got up again,\n And sore surpris’d them all.\n\n The sultry suns of Summer came,\n And he grew thick and strong;\n His head weel arm’d wi’ pointed spears,\n That no one should him wrong.\n\n The sober Autumn enter’d mild,\n When he grew wan and pale;\n His bending joints and drooping head\n Show’d he began to fail.\n\n His colour sicken’d more and more,\n He faded into age;\n And then his enemies began\n To show their deadly rage.\n\n They’ve taen a weapon, long and sharp,\n And cut him by the knee;\n Then tied him fast upon a cart,\n Like a rogue for forgerie.\n\n They laid him down upon his back,\n And cudgell’d him full sore;\n They hung him up before the storm,\n And turned him o’er and o’er.\n\n They filled up a darksome pit\n With water to the brim;\n They heaved in John Barleycorn,\n There let him sink or swim.\n\n They laid him out upon the floor,\n To work him farther woe;\n And still, as signs of life appear’d,\n They toss’d him to and fro.\n\n They wasted, o’er a scorching flame,\n The marrow of his bones;\n But a miller us’d him worst of all,\n For he crush’d him between two stones.\n\n And they hae taen his very heart’s blood,\n And drank it round and round;\n And still the more and more they drank,\n Their joy did more abound.\n\n John Barleycorn was a hero bold,\n Of noble enterprise;\n For if you do but taste his blood,\n ’Twill make your courage rise.\n\n ’Twill make a man forget his woe;\n ’Twill heighten all his joy;\n ’Twill make the widow’s heart to sing,\n Tho’ the tear were in her eye.\n\n Then let us toast John Barleycorn,\n Each man a glass in hand;\n And may his great posterity\n Ne’er fail in old Scotland!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "An Unco Mournfu’ Tale", + "body": " As Mailie, an’ her lambs thegither,\n Was ae day nibbling on the tether,\n Upon her cloot she coost a hitch,\n An’ owre she warsl’d in the ditch:\n There, groaning, dying, she did lie,\n When Hughoc he cam doytin by.\n\n Wi’ glowrin een, and lifted han’s\n Poor Hughoc like a statue stan’s;\n He saw her days were near-hand ended,\n But, wae’s my heart! he could na mend it!\n He gaped wide, but naething spak,\n At langth poor Mailie silence brak.\n\n “O thou, whase lamentable face\n Appears to mourn my woefu’ case!\n My dying words attentive hear,\n An’ bear them to my Master dear.\n\n “Tell him, if e’er again he keep\n As muckle gear as buy a sheep—\n O, bid him never tie them mair,\n Wi’ wicked strings o’ hemp or hair!\n But ca’ them out to park or hill,\n An’ let them wander at their will:\n So may his flock increase, an’ grow\n To scores o’ lambs, an’ packs o’ woo’!\n\n “Tell him, he was a Master kin’,\n An’ aye was guid to me an’ mine;\n An’ now my dying charge I gie him,\n My helpless lambs, I trust them wi’ him.\n\n “O, bid him save their harmless lives,\n Frae dogs, an’ tods, an’ butcher’s knives!\n But gie them guid cow-milk their fill,\n Till they be fit to fend themsel’;\n An’ tent them duly, e’en an’ morn,\n Wi’ taets o’ hay an’ ripps o’ corn.\n\n “An’ may they never learn the gaets,\n Of ither vile, wanrestfu’ pets—\n To slink thro’ slaps, an’ reave an’ steal\n At stacks o’ pease, or stocks o’ kail!\n So may they, like their great forbears,\n For mony a year come thro the shears:\n So wives will gie them bits o’ bread,\n An’ bairns greet for them when they’re dead.\n\n “My poor toop-lamb, my son an’ heir,\n O, bid him breed him up wi’ care!\n An’ if he live to be a beast,\n To pit some havins in his breast!\n\n “An’ warn him—what I winna name—\n To stay content wi’ yowes at hame;\n An’ no to rin an’ wear his cloots,\n Like ither menseless, graceless brutes.\n\n “An’ neist, my yowie, silly thing,\n Gude keep thee frae a tether string!\n O, may thou ne’er forgather up,\n Wi’ ony blastit, moorland toop;\n But aye keep mind to moop an’ mell,\n Wi’ sheep o’ credit like thysel’!\n\n “And now, my bairns, wi’ my last breath,\n I lea’e my blessin wi’ you baith:\n An’ when you think upo’ your mither,\n Mind to be kind to ane anither.\n\n “Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail,\n To tell my master a’ my tale;\n An’ bid him burn this cursed tether,\n An’ for thy pains thou’se get my blather.”\n\n This said, poor Mailie turn’d her head,\n And clos’d her een amang the dead!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Poor Mailie’s Elegy", + "body": " Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,\n Wi’ saut tears trickling down your nose;\n Our bardie’s fate is at a close,\n Past a’ remead!\n The last, sad cape-stane o’ his woes;\n Poor Mailie’s dead!\n\n It’s no the loss o’ warl’s gear,\n That could sae bitter draw the tear,\n Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear\n The mourning weed:\n He’s lost a friend an’ neebor dear\n In Mailie dead.\n\n Thro’ a’ the town she trotted by him;\n A lang half-mile she could descry him;\n Wi’ kindly bleat, when she did spy him,\n She ran wi’ speed:\n A friend mair faithfu’ ne’er cam nigh him,\n Than Mailie dead.\n\n I wat she was a sheep o’ sense,\n An’ could behave hersel’ wi’ mense:\n I’ll say’t, she never brak a fence,\n Thro’ thievish greed.\n Our bardie, lanely, keeps the spence\n Sin’ Mailie’s dead.\n\n Or, if he wanders up the howe,\n Her living image in her yowe\n Comes bleating till him, owre the knowe,\n For bits o’ bread;\n An’ down the briny pearls rowe\n For Mailie dead.\n\n She was nae get o’ moorland tips,\n Wi’ tauted ket, an’ hairy hips;\n For her forbears were brought in ships,\n Frae ’yont the Tweed.\n A bonier fleesh ne’er cross’d the clips\n Than Mailie’s dead.\n\n Wae worth the man wha first did shape\n That vile, wanchancie thing—a raip!\n It maks guid fellows girn an’ gape,\n Wi’ chokin dread;\n An’ Robin’s bonnet wave wi’ crape\n For Mailie dead.\n\n O, a’ ye bards on bonie Doon!\n An’ wha on Ayr your chanters tune!\n Come, join the melancholious croon\n O’ Robin’s reed!\n His heart will never get aboon—\n His Mailie’s dead!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—The Rigs O’ Barley", + "body": " Tune—“Corn Rigs are bonie.”\n\n\n It was upon a Lammas night,\n When corn rigs are bonie,\n Beneath the moon’s unclouded light,\n I held awa to Annie;\n The time flew by, wi’ tentless heed,\n Till, ’tween the late and early,\n Wi’ sma’ persuasion she agreed\n To see me thro’ the barley.\n\n Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs,\n An’ corn rigs are bonie:\n I’ll ne’er forget that happy night,\n Amang the rigs wi’ Annie.\n\n The sky was blue, the wind was still,\n The moon was shining clearly;\n I set her down, wi’ right good will,\n Amang the rigs o’ barley:\n I ken’t her heart was a’ my ain;\n I lov’d her most sincerely;\n\n I kiss’d her owre and owre again,\n Amang the rigs o’ barley.\n Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs, &c.\n\n I lock’d her in my fond embrace;\n Her heart was beating rarely:\n My blessings on that happy place,\n Amang the rigs o’ barley!\n But by the moon and stars so bright,\n That shone that hour so clearly!\n She aye shall bless that happy night\n Amang the rigs o’ barley.\n Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs, &c.\n\n I hae been blythe wi’ comrades dear;\n I hae been merry drinking;\n I hae been joyfu’ gath’rin gear;\n I hae been happy thinking:\n But a’ the pleasures e’er I saw,\n Tho’ three times doubl’d fairly,\n That happy night was worth them a’,\n Amang the rigs o’ barley.\n Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song Composed In August", + "body": " Tune—“I had a horse, I had nae mair.”\n\n\n Now westlin winds and slaught’ring guns\n Bring Autumn’s pleasant weather;\n The moorcock springs on whirring wings\n Amang the blooming heather:\n Now waving grain, wide o’er the plain,\n Delights the weary farmer;\n And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night,\n To muse upon my charmer.\n\n The partridge loves the fruitful fells,\n The plover loves the mountains;\n The woodcock haunts the lonely dells,\n The soaring hern the fountains:\n Thro’ lofty groves the cushat roves,\n The path of man to shun it;\n The hazel bush o’erhangs the thrush,\n The spreading thorn the linnet.\n\n Thus ev’ry kind their pleasure find,\n The savage and the tender;\n Some social join, and leagues combine,\n Some solitary wander:\n Avaunt, away! the cruel sway,\n Tyrannic man’s dominion;\n The sportsman’s joy, the murd’ring cry,\n The flutt’ring, gory pinion!\n\n But, Peggy dear, the ev’ning’s clear,\n Thick flies the skimming swallow,\n The sky is blue, the fields in view,\n All fading-green and yellow:\n Come let us stray our gladsome way,\n And view the charms of Nature;\n The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,\n And ev’ry happy creature.\n\n We’ll gently walk, and sweetly talk,\n Till the silent moon shine clearly;\n I’ll grasp thy waist, and, fondly prest,\n Swear how I love thee dearly:\n Not vernal show’rs to budding flow’rs,\n Not Autumn to the farmer,\n So dear can be as thou to me,\n My fair, my lovely charmer!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song", + "body": " Tune—“My Nanie, O.”\n\n\n Behind yon hills where Lugar flows,\n ’Mang moors an’ mosses many, O,\n The wintry sun the day has clos’d,\n And I’ll awa to Nanie, O.\n\n The westlin wind blaws loud an’ shill;\n The night’s baith mirk and rainy, O;\n But I’ll get my plaid an’ out I’ll steal,\n An’ owre the hill to Nanie, O.\n\n My Nanie’s charming, sweet, an’ young;\n Nae artfu’ wiles to win ye, O:\n May ill befa’ the flattering tongue\n That wad beguile my Nanie, O.\n\n Her face is fair, her heart is true;\n As spotless as she’s bonie, O:\n The op’ning gowan, wat wi’ dew,\n Nae purer is than Nanie, O.\n\n A country lad is my degree,\n An’ few there be that ken me, O;\n But what care I how few they be,\n I’m welcome aye to Nanie, O.\n\n My riches a’s my penny-fee,\n An’ I maun guide it cannie, O;\n But warl’s gear ne’er troubles me,\n My thoughts are a’ my Nanie, O.\n\n Our auld guidman delights to view\n His sheep an’ kye thrive bonie, O;\n But I’m as blythe that hands his pleugh,\n An’ has nae care but Nanie, O.\n\n Come weel, come woe, I care na by;\n I’ll tak what Heav’n will sen’ me, O:\n Nae ither care in life have I,\n But live, an’ love my Nanie, O.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Green Grow The Rashes", + "body": " A Fragment\n\n Chor.—Green grow the rashes, O;\n Green grow the rashes, O;\n The sweetest hours that e’er I spend,\n Are spent amang the lasses, O.\n\n There’s nought but care on ev’ry han’,\n In ev’ry hour that passes, O:\n What signifies the life o’ man,\n An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O.\n Green grow, &c.\n\n The war’ly race may riches chase,\n An’ riches still may fly them, O;\n An’ tho’ at last they catch them fast,\n Their hearts can ne’er enjoy them, O.\n Green grow, &c.\n\n But gie me a cannie hour at e’en,\n My arms about my dearie, O;\n An’ war’ly cares, an’ war’ly men,\n May a’ gae tapsalteerie, O!\n Green grow, &c.\n\n For you sae douce, ye sneer at this;\n Ye’re nought but senseless asses, O:\n The wisest man the warl’ e’er saw,\n He dearly lov’d the lasses, O.\n Green grow, &c.\n\n Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears\n Her noblest work she classes, O:\n Her prentice han’ she try’d on man,\n An’ then she made the lasses, O.\n Green grow, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Wha Is That At My Bower-Door", + "body": " Tune—“Lass, an I come near thee.”\n\n\n “Wha is that at my bower-door?”\n “O wha is it but Findlay!”\n “Then gae your gate, ye’se nae be here:”\n “Indeed maun I,” quo’ Findlay;\n “What mak’ ye, sae like a thief?”\n “O come and see,” quo’ Findlay;\n “Before the morn ye’ll work mischief:”\n “Indeed will I,” quo’ Findlay.\n\n “Gif I rise and let you in”—\n “Let me in,” quo’ Findlay;\n “Ye’ll keep me waukin wi’ your din;”\n “Indeed will I,” quo’ Findlay;\n “In my bower if ye should stay”—\n “Let me stay,” quo’ Findlay;\n “I fear ye’ll bide till break o’ day;”\n “Indeed will I,” quo’ Findlay.\n\n “Here this night if ye remain”—\n “I’ll remain,” quo’ Findlay;\n “I dread ye’ll learn the gate again;”\n “Indeed will I,” quo’ Findlay.\n “What may pass within this bower”—\n “Let it pass,” quo’ Findlay;\n “Ye maun conceal till your last hour:”\n “Indeed will I,” quo’ Findlay.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Remorse: A Fragment", + "body": " Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace,\n That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish\n Beyond comparison the worst are those\n By our own folly, or our guilt brought on:\n In ev’ry other circumstance, the mind\n Has this to say, “It was no deed of mine:”\n But, when to all the evil of misfortune\n This sting is added, “Blame thy foolish self!”\n Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse,\n The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt—\n Of guilt, perhaps, when we’ve involved others,\n The young, the innocent, who fondly lov’d us;\n Nay more, that very love their cause of ruin!\n O burning hell! in all thy store of torments\n There’s not a keener lash!\n Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart\n Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime,\n Can reason down its agonizing throbs;\n And, after proper purpose of amendment,\n Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace?\n O happy, happy, enviable man!\n O glorious magnanimity of soul!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On Wm. Hood, Senr., In Tarbolton", + "body": " Here Souter Hood in death does sleep;\n To hell if he’s gane thither,\n Satan, gie him thy gear to keep;\n He’ll haud it weel thegither.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On James Grieve, Laird Of Boghead, Tarbolton", + "body": " Here lies Boghead amang the dead\n In hopes to get salvation;\n But if such as he in Heav’n may be,\n Then welcome, hail! damnation.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On My Own Friend And My Father’s Friend, Wm. Muir In Tarbolton Mill", + "body": " An honest man here lies at rest\n As e’er God with his image blest;\n The friend of man, the friend of truth,\n The friend of age, and guide of youth:\n Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,\n Few heads with knowledge so informed:\n If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;\n If there is none, he made the best of this.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On My Ever Honoured Father", + "body": " O ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains,\n Draw near with pious rev’rence, and attend!\n Here lie the loving husband’s dear remains,\n The tender father, and the gen’rous friend;\n The pitying heart that felt for human woe,\n The dauntless heart that fear’d no human pride;\n The friend of man—to vice alone a foe;\n For “ev’n his failings lean’d to virtue’s side.”^1\n\n [Footnote 1: Goldsmith.—R.B.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ballad On The American War", + "body": " Tune—“Killiecrankie.”\n\n\n When Guilford good our pilot stood\n An’ did our hellim thraw, man,\n Ae night, at tea, began a plea,\n Within America, man:\n Then up they gat the maskin-pat,\n And in the sea did jaw, man;\n An’ did nae less, in full congress,\n Than quite refuse our law, man.\n\n Then thro’ the lakes Montgomery takes,\n I wat he was na slaw, man;\n Down Lowrie’s Burn he took a turn,\n And Carleton did ca’, man:\n But yet, whatreck, he, at Quebec,\n Montgomery-like did fa’, man,\n Wi’ sword in hand, before his band,\n Amang his en’mies a’, man.\n\n Poor Tammy Gage within a cage\n Was kept at Boston—ha’, man;\n Till Willie Howe took o’er the knowe\n For Philadelphia, man;\n Wi’ sword an’ gun he thought a sin\n Guid Christian bluid to draw, man;\n But at New York, wi’ knife an’ fork,\n Sir-Loin he hacked sma’, man.\n\n Burgoyne gaed up, like spur an’ whip,\n Till Fraser brave did fa’, man;\n Then lost his way, ae misty day,\n In Saratoga shaw, man.\n Cornwallis fought as lang’s he dought,\n An’ did the Buckskins claw, man;\n But Clinton’s glaive frae rust to save,\n He hung it to the wa’, man.\n\n Then Montague, an’ Guilford too,\n Began to fear, a fa’, man;\n And Sackville dour, wha stood the stour,\n The German chief to thraw, man:\n For Paddy Burke, like ony Turk,\n Nae mercy had at a’, man;\n An’ Charlie Fox threw by the box,\n An’ lows’d his tinkler jaw, man.\n\n Then Rockingham took up the game,\n Till death did on him ca’, man;\n When Shelburne meek held up his cheek,\n Conform to gospel law, man:\n Saint Stephen’s boys, wi’ jarring noise,\n They did his measures thraw, man;\n For North an’ Fox united stocks,\n An’ bore him to the wa’, man.\n\n Then clubs an’ hearts were Charlie’s cartes,\n He swept the stakes awa’, man,\n Till the diamond’s ace, of Indian race,\n Led him a sair faux pas, man:\n The Saxon lads, wi’ loud placads,\n On Chatham’s boy did ca’, man;\n An’ Scotland drew her pipe an’ blew,\n “Up, Willie, waur them a’, man!”\n\n Behind the throne then Granville’s gone,\n A secret word or twa, man;\n While slee Dundas arous’d the class\n Be-north the Roman wa’, man:\n An’ Chatham’s wraith, in heav’nly graith,\n (Inspired bardies saw, man),\n Wi’ kindling eyes, cry’d, “Willie, rise!\n Would I hae fear’d them a’, man?”\n\n But, word an’ blow, North, Fox, and Co.\n Gowff’d Willie like a ba’, man;\n Till Suthron raise, an’ coost their claise\n Behind him in a raw, man:\n An’ Caledon threw by the drone,\n An’ did her whittle draw, man;\n An’ swoor fu’ rude, thro’ dirt an’ bluid,\n To mak it guid in law, man.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Reply To An Announcement By J. Rankine On His Writing To The Poet,", + "body": "That A Girl In That Part Of The Country Was With A Child To Him.\n\n I am a keeper of the law\n In some sma’ points, altho’ not a’;\n Some people tell me gin I fa’,\n Ae way or ither,\n The breaking of ae point, tho’ sma’,\n Breaks a’ thegither.\n\n I hae been in for’t ance or twice,\n And winna say o’er far for thrice;\n Yet never met wi’ that surprise\n That broke my rest;\n But now a rumour’s like to rise—\n A whaup’s i’ the nest!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To John Rankine", + "body": " Enclosing Some Poems\n\n O Rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine,\n The wale o’ cocks for fun an’ drinkin!\n There’s mony godly folks are thinkin,\n Your dreams and tricks\n Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin\n Straught to auld Nick’s.\n\n Ye hae saw mony cracks an’ cants,\n And in your wicked, drucken rants,\n Ye mak a devil o’ the saunts,\n An’ fill them fou;\n And then their failings, flaws, an’ wants,\n Are a’ seen thro’.\n\n Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it!\n That holy robe, O dinna tear it!\n Spare’t for their sakes, wha aften wear it—\n The lads in black;\n But your curst wit, when it comes near it,\n Rives’t aff their back.\n\n Think, wicked Sinner, wha ye’re skaithing:\n It’s just the Blue-gown badge an’ claithing\n O’ saunts; tak that, ye lea’e them naething\n To ken them by\n Frae ony unregenerate heathen,\n Like you or I.\n\n I’ve sent you here some rhyming ware,\n A’ that I bargain’d for, an’ mair;\n Sae, when ye hae an hour to spare,\n I will expect,\n Yon sang ye’ll sen’t, wi’ cannie care,\n And no neglect.\n\n Tho’ faith, sma’ heart hae I to sing!\n My muse dow scarcely spread her wing;\n I’ve play’d mysel a bonie spring,\n An’ danc’d my fill!\n I’d better gaen an’ sair’t the king,\n At Bunkjer’s Hill.\n\n ’Twas ae night lately, in my fun,\n I gaed a rovin’ wi’ the gun,\n An’ brought a paitrick to the grun’—\n A bonie hen;\n And, as the twilight was begun,\n Thought nane wad ken.\n\n The poor, wee thing was little hurt;\n I straikit it a wee for sport,\n Ne’er thinkin they wad fash me for’t;\n But, Deil-ma-care!\n Somebody tells the poacher-court\n The hale affair.\n\n Some auld, us’d hands had taen a note,\n That sic a hen had got a shot;\n I was suspected for the plot;\n I scorn’d to lie;\n So gat the whissle o’ my groat,\n An’ pay’t the fee.\n\n But by my gun, o’ guns the wale,\n An’ by my pouther an’ my hail,\n An’ by my hen, an’ by her tail,\n I vow an’ swear!\n The game shall pay, o’er muir an’ dale,\n For this, niest year.\n\n As soon’s the clockin-time is by,\n An’ the wee pouts begun to cry,\n Lord, I’se hae sporting by an’ by\n For my gowd guinea,\n Tho’ I should herd the buckskin kye\n For’t in Virginia.\n\n Trowth, they had muckle for to blame!\n ’Twas neither broken wing nor limb,\n But twa-three draps about the wame,\n Scarce thro’ the feathers;\n An’ baith a yellow George to claim,\n An’ thole their blethers!\n\n It pits me aye as mad’s a hare;\n So I can rhyme nor write nae mair;\n But pennyworths again is fair,\n When time’s expedient:\n Meanwhile I am, respected Sir,\n Your most obedient.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Poet’s Welcome To His Love-Begotten Daughter^1", + "body": " [Footnote 1: Burns never published this poem.]\n\n The First Instance That Entitled Him To\n The Venerable Appellation Of Father\n\n\n Thou’s welcome, wean; mishanter fa’ me,\n If thoughts o’ thee, or yet thy mamie,\n Shall ever daunton me or awe me,\n My bonie lady,\n Or if I blush when thou shalt ca’ me\n Tyta or daddie.\n\n Tho’ now they ca’ me fornicator,\n An’ tease my name in kintry clatter,\n The mair they talk, I’m kent the better,\n E’en let them clash;\n An auld wife’s tongue’s a feckless matter\n To gie ane fash.\n\n Welcome! my bonie, sweet, wee dochter,\n Tho’ ye come here a wee unsought for,\n And tho’ your comin’ I hae fought for,\n Baith kirk and queir;\n Yet, by my faith, ye’re no unwrought for,\n That I shall swear!\n\n Wee image o’ my bonie Betty,\n As fatherly I kiss and daut thee,\n As dear, and near my heart I set thee\n Wi’ as gude will\n As a’ the priests had seen me get thee\n That’s out o’ hell.\n\n Sweet fruit o’ mony a merry dint,\n My funny toil is now a’ tint,\n Sin’ thou came to the warl’ asklent,\n Which fools may scoff at;\n In my last plack thy part’s be in’t\n The better ha’f o’t.\n\n Tho’ I should be the waur bestead,\n Thou’s be as braw and bienly clad,\n And thy young years as nicely bred\n Wi’ education,\n As ony brat o’ wedlock’s bed,\n In a’ thy station.\n\n Lord grant that thou may aye inherit\n Thy mither’s person, grace, an’ merit,\n An’ thy poor, worthless daddy’s spirit,\n Without his failins,\n ’Twill please me mair to see thee heir it,\n Than stockit mailens.\n\n For if thou be what I wad hae thee,\n And tak the counsel I shall gie thee,\n I’ll never rue my trouble wi’ thee,\n The cost nor shame o’t,\n But be a loving father to thee,\n And brag the name o’t.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—O Leave Novels^1", + "body": " [Footnote 1: Burns never published this poem.]\n\n O leave novels, ye Mauchline belles,\n Ye’re safer at your spinning-wheel;\n Such witching books are baited hooks\n For rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel;\n Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons,\n They make your youthful fancies reel;\n They heat your brains, and fire your veins,\n And then you’re prey for Rob Mossgiel.\n\n Beware a tongue that’s smoothly hung,\n A heart that warmly seems to feel;\n That feeling heart but acts a part—\n ’Tis rakish art in Rob Mossgiel.\n The frank address, the soft caress,\n Are worse than poisoned darts of steel;\n The frank address, and politesse,\n Are all finesse in Rob Mossgiel.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment—The Mauchline Lady", + "body": " Tune—“I had a horse, I had nae mair.”\n\n\n When first I came to Stewart Kyle,\n My mind it was na steady;\n Where’er I gaed, where’er I rade,\n A mistress still I had aye.\n\n But when I came roun’ by Mauchline toun,\n Not dreadin anybody,\n My heart was caught, before I thought,\n And by a Mauchline lady.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment—My Girl She’s Airy", + "body": " Tune—“Black Jock.”\n\n\n My girl she’s airy, she’s buxom and gay;\n Her breath is as sweet as the blossoms in May;\n A touch of her lips it ravishes quite:\n She’s always good natur’d, good humour’d, and free;\n She dances, she glances, she smiles upon me;\n I never am happy when out of her sight.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Belles Of Mauchline", + "body": " In Mauchline there dwells six proper young belles,\n The pride of the place and its neighbourhood a’;\n Their carriage and dress, a stranger would guess,\n In Lon’on or Paris, they’d gotten it a’.\n\n Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland’s divine,\n Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw:\n There’s beauty and fortune to get wi’ Miss Morton,\n But Armour’s the jewel for me o’ them a’.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On A Noisy Polemic", + "body": " Below thir stanes lie Jamie’s banes;\n O Death, it’s my opinion,\n Thou ne’er took such a bleth’rin bitch\n Into thy dark dominion!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On A Henpecked Country Squire", + "body": " As father Adam first was fool’d,\n (A case that’s still too common,)\n Here lies man a woman ruled,\n The devil ruled the woman.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram On The Said Occasion", + "body": " O Death, had’st thou but spar’d his life,\n Whom we this day lament,\n We freely wad exchanged the wife,\n And a’ been weel content.\n\n Ev’n as he is, cauld in his graff,\n The swap we yet will do’t;\n Tak thou the carlin’s carcase aff,\n Thou’se get the saul o’boot.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Another", + "body": " One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell,\n When deprived of her husband she loved so well,\n In respect for the love and affection he show’d her,\n She reduc’d him to dust and she drank up the powder.\n But Queen Netherplace, of a diff’rent complexion,\n When called on to order the fun’ral direction,\n Would have eat her dead lord, on a slender pretence,\n Not to show her respect, but—to save the expense!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Tam The Chapman", + "body": " As Tam the chapman on a day,\n Wi’Death forgather’d by the way,\n Weel pleas’d, he greets a wight so famous,\n And Death was nae less pleas’d wi’ Thomas,\n Wha cheerfully lays down his pack,\n And there blaws up a hearty crack:\n His social, friendly, honest heart\n Sae tickled Death, they could na part;\n Sae, after viewing knives and garters,\n Death taks him hame to gie him quarters.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On John Rankine", + "body": " Ae day, as Death, that gruesome carl,\n Was driving to the tither warl’\n A mixtie—maxtie motley squad,\n And mony a guilt-bespotted lad—\n Black gowns of each denomination,\n And thieves of every rank and station,\n From him that wears the star and garter,\n To him that wintles in a halter:\n Ashamed himself to see the wretches,\n He mutters, glowrin at the bitches,\n\n “By God I’ll not be seen behint them,\n Nor ’mang the sp’ritual core present them,\n Without, at least, ae honest man,\n To grace this damn’d infernal clan!”\n By Adamhill a glance he threw,\n “Lord God!” quoth he, “I have it now;\n There’s just the man I want, i’ faith!”\n And quickly stoppit Rankine’s breath.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines On The Author’s Death", + "body": " Written With The Supposed View Of\n Being Handed To Rankine After The Poet’s Interment\n\n\n He who of Rankine sang, lies stiff and dead,\n And a green grassy hillock hides his head;\n Alas! alas! a devilish change indeed.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Man Was Made To Mourn: A Dirge", + "body": " When chill November’s surly blast\n Made fields and forests bare,\n One ev’ning, as I wander’d forth\n Along the banks of Ayr,\n I spied a man, whose aged step\n Seem’d weary, worn with care;\n His face furrow’d o’er with years,\n And hoary was his hair.\n\n “Young stranger, whither wand’rest thou?”\n Began the rev’rend sage;\n “Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain,\n Or youthful pleasure’s rage?\n Or haply, prest with cares and woes,\n Too soon thou hast began\n To wander forth, with me to mourn\n The miseries of man.\n\n “The sun that overhangs yon moors,\n Out-spreading far and wide,\n Where hundreds labour to support\n A haughty lordling’s pride;—\n I’ve seen yon weary winter-sun\n Twice forty times return;\n And ev’ry time has added proofs,\n That man was made to mourn.\n\n “O man! while in thy early years,\n How prodigal of time!\n Mis-spending all thy precious hours—\n Thy glorious, youthful prime!\n Alternate follies take the sway;\n Licentious passions burn;\n Which tenfold force gives Nature’s law.\n That man was made to mourn.\n\n “Look not alone on youthful prime,\n Or manhood’s active might;\n Man then is useful to his kind,\n Supported in his right:\n But see him on the edge of life,\n With cares and sorrows worn;\n Then Age and Want—oh! ill-match’d pair—\n Shew man was made to mourn.\n\n “A few seem favourites of fate,\n In pleasure’s lap carest;\n Yet, think not all the rich and great\n Are likewise truly blest:\n But oh! what crowds in ev’ry land,\n All wretched and forlorn,\n Thro’ weary life this lesson learn,\n That man was made to mourn.\n\n “Many and sharp the num’rous ills\n Inwoven with our frame!\n More pointed still we make ourselves,\n Regret, remorse, and shame!\n And man, whose heav’n-erected face\n The smiles of love adorn,—\n Man’s inhumanity to man\n Makes countless thousands mourn!\n\n “See yonder poor, o’erlabour’d wight,\n So abject, mean, and vile,\n Who begs a brother of the earth\n To give him leave to toil;\n And see his lordly fellow-worm\n The poor petition spurn,\n Unmindful, tho’ a weeping wife\n And helpless offspring mourn.\n\n “If I’m design’d yon lordling’s slave,\n By Nature’s law design’d,\n Why was an independent wish\n E’er planted in my mind?\n If not, why am I subject to\n His cruelty, or scorn?\n Or why has man the will and pow’r\n To make his fellow mourn?\n\n “Yet, let not this too much, my son,\n Disturb thy youthful breast:\n This partial view of human-kind\n Is surely not the last!\n The poor, oppressed, honest man\n Had never, sure, been born,\n Had there not been some recompense\n To comfort those that mourn!\n\n “O Death! the poor man’s dearest friend,\n The kindest and the best!\n Welcome the hour my aged limbs\n Are laid with thee at rest!\n The great, the wealthy fear thy blow\n From pomp and pleasure torn;\n But, oh! a blest relief for those\n That weary-laden mourn!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Twa Herds; Or, The Holy Tulyie", + "body": " An Unco Mournfu’ Tale\n\n\n “Blockheads with reason wicked wits abhor,\n But fool with fool is barbarous civil war,”—Pope.\n\n O a’ ye pious godly flocks,\n Weel fed on pastures orthodox,\n Wha now will keep you frae the fox,\n Or worrying tykes?\n Or wha will tent the waifs an’ crocks,\n About the dykes?\n\n The twa best herds in a’ the wast,\n The e’er ga’e gospel horn a blast\n These five an’ twenty simmers past—\n Oh, dool to tell!\n Hae had a bitter black out-cast\n Atween themsel’.\n\n O, Moddie,^1 man, an’ wordy Russell,^2\n How could you raise so vile a bustle;\n Ye’ll see how New-Light herds will whistle,\n An’ think it fine!\n The Lord’s cause ne’er gat sic a twistle,\n Sin’ I hae min’.\n\n O, sirs! whae’er wad hae expeckit\n Your duty ye wad sae negleckit,\n Ye wha were ne’er by lairds respeckit\n To wear the plaid;\n But by the brutes themselves eleckit,\n To be their guide.\n\n What flock wi’ Moodie’s flock could rank?—\n Sae hale and hearty every shank!\n Nae poison’d soor Arminian stank\n He let them taste;\n Frae Calvin’s well, aye clear, drank,—\n O, sic a feast!\n\n [Footnote 1: Rev. Mr. Moodie of Riccarton.]\n\n [Footnote 2: Rev. John Russell of Kilmarnock.]\n\n The thummart, willcat, brock, an’ tod,\n Weel kend his voice thro’ a’ the wood,\n He smell’d their ilka hole an’ road,\n Baith out an in;\n An’ weel he lik’d to shed their bluid,\n An’ sell their skin.\n\n What herd like Russell tell’d his tale;\n His voice was heard thro’ muir and dale,\n He kenn’d the Lord’s sheep, ilka tail,\n Owre a’ the height;\n An’ saw gin they were sick or hale,\n At the first sight.\n\n He fine a mangy sheep could scrub,\n Or nobly fling the gospel club,\n And New-Light herds could nicely drub\n Or pay their skin;\n Could shake them o’er the burning dub,\n Or heave them in.\n\n Sic twa—O! do I live to see’t?—\n Sic famous twa should disagree’t,\n And names, like “villain,” “hypocrite,”\n Ilk ither gi’en,\n While New-Light herds, wi’ laughin spite,\n Say neither’s liein!\n\n A’ ye wha tent the gospel fauld,\n There’s Duncan^3 deep, an’ Peebles^4 shaul,\n But chiefly thou, apostle Auld,^5\n We trust in thee,\n That thou wilt work them, het an’ cauld,\n Till they agree.\n\n Consider, sirs, how we’re beset;\n There’s scarce a new herd that we get,\n But comes frae ’mang that cursed set,\n I winna name;\n I hope frae heav’n to see them yet\n In fiery flame.\n\n [Footnote 3: Dr. Robert Duncan of Dundonald.]\n\n [Footnote 4: Rev. Wm. Peebles of Newton-on-Ayr.]\n\n [Footnote 5: Rev. Wm. Auld of Mauchline.]\n\n Dalrymple^6 has been lang our fae,\n M’Gill^7 has wrought us meikle wae,\n An’ that curs’d rascal ca’d M’Quhae,^8\n And baith the Shaws,^9\n That aft hae made us black an’ blae,\n Wi’ vengefu’ paws.\n\n Auld Wodrow^10 lang has hatch’d mischief;\n We thought aye death wad bring relief;\n But he has gotten, to our grief,\n Ane to succeed him,^11\n A chield wha’ll soundly buff our beef;\n I meikle dread him.\n\n And mony a ane that I could tell,\n Wha fain wad openly rebel,\n Forby turn-coats amang oursel’,\n There’s Smith^12 for ane;\n I doubt he’s but a grey nick quill,\n An’ that ye’ll fin’.\n\n O! a’ ye flocks o’er a, the hills,\n By mosses, meadows, moors, and fells,\n Come, join your counsel and your skills\n To cowe the lairds,\n An’ get the brutes the power themsel’s\n To choose their herds.\n\n Then Orthodoxy yet may prance,\n An’ Learning in a woody dance,\n An’ that fell cur ca’d Common Sense,\n That bites sae sair,\n Be banished o’er the sea to France:\n Let him bark there.\n\n Then Shaw’s an’ D’rymple’s eloquence,\n M’Gill’s close nervous excellence\n\n [Footnote 6: Rev. Dr. Dalrymple of Ayr.]\n\n [Footnote 7: Rev. Wm. M’Gill, colleague of Dr. Dalrymple.]\n\n [Footnote 8: Minister of St. Quivox.]\n\n [Footnote 9: Dr. Andrew Shaw of Craigie, and Dr. David Shaw of\n Coylton.]\n\n [Footnote 10: Dr. Peter Wodrow of Tarbolton.]\n\n [Footnote 11: Rev. John M’Math, a young assistant and successor\n to Wodrow.]\n\n [Footnote 12: Rev. George Smith of Galston.]\n\n M’Quhae’s pathetic manly sense,\n An’ guid M’Math,\n Wi’ Smith, wha thro’ the heart can glance,\n May a’ pack aff.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To Davie, A Brother Poet", + "body": " January\n\n While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,\n An’ bar the doors wi’ driving snaw,\n An’ hing us owre the ingle,\n I set me down to pass the time,\n An’ spin a verse or twa o’ rhyme,\n In hamely, westlin jingle.\n While frosty winds blaw in the drift,\n Ben to the chimla lug,\n I grudge a wee the great-folk’s gift,\n That live sae bien an’ snug:\n I tent less, and want less\n Their roomy fire-side;\n But hanker, and canker,\n To see their cursed pride.\n\n It’s hardly in a body’s pow’r\n To keep, at times, frae being sour,\n To see how things are shar’d;\n How best o’ chiels are whiles in want,\n While coofs on countless thousands rant,\n And ken na how to wair’t;\n But, Davie, lad, ne’er fash your head,\n Tho’ we hae little gear;\n We’re fit to win our daily bread,\n As lang’s we’re hale and fier:\n “Mair spier na, nor fear na,”^1\n Auld age ne’er mind a feg;\n The last o’t, the warst o’t\n Is only but to beg.\n\n To lie in kilns and barns at e’en,\n When banes are craz’d, and bluid is thin,\n Is doubtless, great distress!\n\n [Footnote 1: Ramsay.—R. B.]\n\n Yet then content could make us blest;\n Ev’n then, sometimes, we’d snatch a taste\n Of truest happiness.\n The honest heart that’s free frae a’\n Intended fraud or guile,\n However Fortune kick the ba’,\n Has aye some cause to smile;\n An’ mind still, you’ll find still,\n A comfort this nae sma’;\n Nae mair then we’ll care then,\n Nae farther can we fa’.\n\n What tho’, like commoners of air,\n We wander out, we know not where,\n But either house or hal’,\n Yet nature’s charms, the hills and woods,\n The sweeping vales, and foaming floods,\n Are free alike to all.\n In days when daisies deck the ground,\n And blackbirds whistle clear,\n With honest joy our hearts will bound,\n To see the coming year:\n On braes when we please, then,\n We’ll sit an’ sowth a tune;\n Syne rhyme till’t we’ll time till’t,\n An’ sing’t when we hae done.\n\n It’s no in titles nor in rank;\n It’s no in wealth like Lon’on bank,\n To purchase peace and rest:\n It’s no in makin’ muckle, mair;\n It’s no in books, it’s no in lear,\n To make us truly blest:\n If happiness hae not her seat\n An’ centre in the breast,\n We may be wise, or rich, or great,\n But never can be blest;\n Nae treasures, nor pleasures\n Could make us happy lang;\n The heart aye’s the part aye\n That makes us right or wrang.\n\n Think ye, that sic as you and I,\n Wha drudge an’ drive thro’ wet and dry,\n Wi’ never-ceasing toil;\n Think ye, are we less blest than they,\n Wha scarcely tent us in their way,\n As hardly worth their while?\n Alas! how aft in haughty mood,\n God’s creatures they oppress!\n Or else, neglecting a’ that’s guid,\n They riot in excess!\n Baith careless and fearless\n Of either heaven or hell;\n Esteeming and deeming\n It’s a’ an idle tale!\n\n Then let us cheerfu’ acquiesce,\n Nor make our scanty pleasures less,\n By pining at our state:\n And, even should misfortunes come,\n I, here wha sit, hae met wi’ some—\n An’s thankfu’ for them yet.\n They gie the wit of age to youth;\n They let us ken oursel’;\n They make us see the naked truth,\n The real guid and ill:\n Tho’ losses an’ crosses\n Be lessons right severe,\n There’s wit there, ye’ll get there,\n Ye’ll find nae other where.\n\n But tent me, Davie, ace o’ hearts!\n (To say aught less wad wrang the cartes,\n And flatt’ry I detest)\n This life has joys for you and I;\n An’ joys that riches ne’er could buy,\n An’ joys the very best.\n There’s a’ the pleasures o’ the heart,\n The lover an’ the frien’;\n Ye hae your Meg, your dearest part,\n And I my darling Jean!\n It warms me, it charms me,\n To mention but her name:\n It heats me, it beets me,\n An’ sets me a’ on flame!\n\n O all ye Pow’rs who rule above!\n O Thou whose very self art love!\n Thou know’st my words sincere!\n The life-blood streaming thro’ my heart,\n Or my more dear immortal part,\n Is not more fondly dear!\n When heart-corroding care and grief\n Deprive my soul of rest,\n Her dear idea brings relief,\n And solace to my breast.\n Thou Being, All-seeing,\n O hear my fervent pray’r;\n Still take her, and make her\n Thy most peculiar care!\n\n All hail! ye tender feelings dear!\n The smile of love, the friendly tear,\n The sympathetic glow!\n Long since, this world’s thorny ways\n Had number’d out my weary days,\n Had it not been for you!\n Fate still has blest me with a friend,\n In ev’ry care and ill;\n And oft a more endearing band—\n A tie more tender still.\n It lightens, it brightens\n The tenebrific scene,\n To meet with, and greet with\n My Davie, or my Jean!\n\n O, how that name inspires my style!\n The words come skelpin, rank an’ file,\n Amaist before I ken!\n The ready measure rins as fine,\n As Phoebus an’ the famous Nine\n Were glowrin owre my pen.\n My spaviet Pegasus will limp,\n Till ance he’s fairly het;\n And then he’ll hilch, and stilt, an’ jimp,\n And rin an unco fit:\n But least then the beast then\n Should rue this hasty ride,\n I’ll light now, and dight now\n His sweaty, wizen’d hide.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Holy Willie’s Prayer", + "body": " “And send the godly in a pet to pray.”—Pope.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Holy Willie was a rather oldish bachelor elder, in the parish of", + "body": "Mauchline, and much and justly famed for that polemical chattering,\nwhich ends in tippling orthodoxy, and for that spiritualized bawdry\nwhich refines to liquorish devotion. In a sessional process with a\ngentleman in Mauchline—a Mr. Gavin Hamilton—Holy Willie and his\npriest, Father Auld, after full hearing in the presbytery of Ayr, came\noff but second best; owing partly to the oratorical powers of Mr. Robert\nAiken, Mr. Hamilton’s counsel; but chiefly to Mr. Hamilton’s being one\nof the most irreproachable and truly respectable characters in the\ncounty. On losing the process, the muse overheard him [Holy Willie]\nat his devotions, as follows:—\n\n O Thou, who in the heavens does dwell,\n Who, as it pleases best Thysel’,\n Sends ane to heaven an’ ten to hell,\n A’ for Thy glory,\n And no for ony gude or ill\n They’ve done afore Thee!\n\n I bless and praise Thy matchless might,\n When thousands Thou hast left in night,\n That I am here afore Thy sight,\n For gifts an’ grace\n A burning and a shining light\n To a’ this place.\n\n What was I, or my generation,\n That I should get sic exaltation,\n I wha deserve most just damnation\n For broken laws,\n Five thousand years ere my creation,\n Thro’ Adam’s cause?\n\n When frae my mither’s womb I fell,\n Thou might hae plunged me in hell,\n To gnash my gums, to weep and wail,\n In burnin lakes,\n Where damned devils roar and yell,\n Chain’d to their stakes.\n\n Yet I am here a chosen sample,\n To show thy grace is great and ample;\n I’m here a pillar o’ Thy temple,\n Strong as a rock,\n A guide, a buckler, and example,\n To a’ Thy flock.\n\n O Lord, Thou kens what zeal I bear,\n When drinkers drink, an’ swearers swear,\n An’ singin there, an’ dancin here,\n Wi’ great and sma’;\n For I am keepit by Thy fear\n Free frae them a’.\n\n But yet, O Lord! confess I must,\n At times I’m fash’d wi’ fleshly lust:\n An’ sometimes, too, in wardly trust,\n Vile self gets in:\n But Thou remembers we are dust,\n Defil’d wi’ sin.\n\n O Lord! yestreen, Thou kens, wi’ Meg—\n Thy pardon I sincerely beg,\n O! may’t ne’er be a livin plague\n To my dishonour,\n An’ I’ll ne’er lift a lawless leg\n Again upon her.\n\n Besides, I farther maun allow,\n Wi’ Leezie’s lass, three times I trow—\n But Lord, that Friday I was fou,\n When I cam near her;\n Or else, Thou kens, Thy servant true\n Wad never steer her.\n\n Maybe Thou lets this fleshly thorn\n Buffet Thy servant e’en and morn,\n Lest he owre proud and high shou’d turn,\n That he’s sae gifted:\n If sae, Thy han’ maun e’en be borne,\n Until Thou lift it.\n\n Lord, bless Thy chosen in this place,\n For here Thou hast a chosen race:\n But God confound their stubborn face,\n An’ blast their name,\n Wha bring Thy elders to disgrace\n An’ public shame.\n\n Lord, mind Gaw’n Hamilton’s deserts;\n He drinks, an’ swears, an’ plays at cartes,\n Yet has sae mony takin arts,\n Wi’ great and sma’,\n Frae God’s ain priest the people’s hearts\n He steals awa.\n\n An’ when we chasten’d him therefor,\n Thou kens how he bred sic a splore,\n An’ set the warld in a roar\n O’ laughing at us;—\n Curse Thou his basket and his store,\n Kail an’ potatoes.\n\n Lord, hear my earnest cry and pray’r,\n Against that Presbyt’ry o’ Ayr;\n Thy strong right hand, Lord, make it bare\n Upo’ their heads;\n Lord visit them, an’ dinna spare,\n For their misdeeds.\n\n O Lord, my God! that glib-tongu’d Aiken,\n My vera heart and flesh are quakin,\n To think how we stood sweatin’, shakin,\n An’ p-’d wi’ dread,\n While he, wi’ hingin lip an’ snakin,\n Held up his head.\n\n Lord, in Thy day o’ vengeance try him,\n Lord, visit them wha did employ him,\n And pass not in Thy mercy by ’em,\n Nor hear their pray’r,\n But for Thy people’s sake, destroy ’em,\n An’ dinna spare.\n\n But, Lord, remember me an’ mine\n Wi’ mercies temp’ral an’ divine,\n That I for grace an’ gear may shine,\n Excell’d by nane,\n And a’ the glory shall be thine,\n Amen, Amen!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On Holy Willie", + "body": " Here Holy Willie’s sair worn clay\n Taks up its last abode;\n His saul has ta’en some other way,\n I fear, the left-hand road.\n\n Stop! there he is, as sure’s a gun,\n Poor, silly body, see him;\n Nae wonder he’s as black’s the grun,\n Observe wha’s standing wi’ him.\n\n Your brunstane devilship, I see,\n Has got him there before ye;\n But haud your nine-tail cat a wee,\n Till ance you’ve heard my story.\n\n Your pity I will not implore,\n For pity ye have nane;\n Justice, alas! has gi’en him o’er,\n And mercy’s day is gane.\n\n But hear me, Sir, deil as ye are,\n Look something to your credit;\n A coof like him wad stain your name,\n If it were kent ye did it.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Death and Doctor Hornbook", + "body": " A True Story\n\n\n Some books are lies frae end to end,\n And some great lies were never penn’d:\n Ev’n ministers they hae been kenn’d,\n In holy rapture,\n A rousing whid at times to vend,\n And nail’t wi’ Scripture.\n\n But this that I am gaun to tell,\n Which lately on a night befell,\n Is just as true’s the Deil’s in hell\n Or Dublin city:\n That e’er he nearer comes oursel’\n ’S a muckle pity.\n\n The clachan yill had made me canty,\n I was na fou, but just had plenty;\n I stacher’d whiles, but yet too tent aye\n To free the ditches;\n An’ hillocks, stanes, an’ bushes, kenn’d eye\n Frae ghaists an’ witches.\n\n The rising moon began to glowre\n The distant Cumnock hills out-owre:\n To count her horns, wi’ a my pow’r,\n I set mysel’;\n But whether she had three or four,\n I cou’d na tell.\n\n I was come round about the hill,\n An’ todlin down on Willie’s mill,\n Setting my staff wi’ a’ my skill,\n To keep me sicker;\n Tho’ leeward whiles, against my will,\n I took a bicker.\n\n I there wi’ Something did forgather,\n That pat me in an eerie swither;\n An’ awfu’ scythe, out-owre ae shouther,\n Clear-dangling, hang;\n A three-tae’d leister on the ither\n Lay, large an’ lang.\n\n Its stature seem’d lang Scotch ells twa,\n The queerest shape that e’er I saw,\n For fient a wame it had ava;\n And then its shanks,\n They were as thin, as sharp an’ sma’\n As cheeks o’ branks.\n\n “Guid-een,” quo’ I; “Friend! hae ye been mawin,\n When ither folk are busy sawin!”^1\n I seem’d to make a kind o’ stan’\n But naething spak;\n At length, says I, “Friend! whare ye gaun?\n Will ye go back?”\n\n It spak right howe,—“My name is Death,\n But be na fley’d.”—Quoth I, “Guid faith,\n Ye’re maybe come to stap my breath;\n But tent me, billie;\n I red ye weel, tak care o’ skaith\n See, there’s a gully!”\n\n “Gudeman,” quo’ he, “put up your whittle,\n I’m no designed to try its mettle;\n But if I did, I wad be kittle\n To be mislear’d;\n I wad na mind it, no that spittle\n Out-owre my beard.”\n\n “Weel, weel!” says I, “a bargain be’t;\n Come, gie’s your hand, an’ sae we’re gree’t;\n We’ll ease our shanks an tak a seat—\n Come, gie’s your news;\n This while ye hae been mony a gate,\n At mony a house.”^2\n\n [Footnote 1: This recontre happened in seed-time, 1785.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 2: An epidemical fever was then raging in that\n country.—R.B.]\n\n “Ay, ay!” quo’ he, an’ shook his head,\n “It’s e’en a lang, lang time indeed\n Sin’ I began to nick the thread,\n An’ choke the breath:\n Folk maun do something for their bread,\n An’ sae maun Death.\n\n “Sax thousand years are near-hand fled\n Sin’ I was to the butching bred,\n An’ mony a scheme in vain’s been laid,\n To stap or scar me;\n Till ane Hornbook’s^3 ta’en up the trade,\n And faith! he’ll waur me.\n\n “Ye ken Hornbook i’ the clachan,\n Deil mak his king’s-hood in spleuchan!\n He’s grown sae weel acquaint wi’ Buchan^4\n And ither chaps,\n The weans haud out their fingers laughin,\n An’ pouk my hips.\n\n “See, here’s a scythe, an’ there’s dart,\n They hae pierc’d mony a gallant heart;\n But Doctor Hornbook, wi’ his art\n An’ cursed skill,\n Has made them baith no worth a f-t,\n Damn’d haet they’ll kill!\n\n “’Twas but yestreen, nae farther gane,\n I threw a noble throw at ane;\n Wi’ less, I’m sure, I’ve hundreds slain;\n But deil-ma-care,\n It just play’d dirl on the bane,\n But did nae mair.\n\n “Hornbook was by, wi’ ready art,\n An’ had sae fortify’d the part,\n\n [Footnote 3: This gentleman, Dr. Hornbook, is professionally\n a brother of the sovereign Order of the Ferula; but, by\n intuition and inspiration, is at once an apothecary,\n surgeon, and physician.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 4: Burchan’s Domestic Medicine.—R.B.]\n\n That when I looked to my dart,\n It was sae blunt,\n Fient haet o’t wad hae pierc’d the heart\n Of a kail-runt.\n\n “I drew my scythe in sic a fury,\n I near-hand cowpit wi’ my hurry,\n But yet the bauld Apothecary\n Withstood the shock;\n I might as weel hae tried a quarry\n O’ hard whin rock.\n\n “Ev’n them he canna get attended,\n Altho’ their face he ne’er had kend it,\n Just—in a kail-blade, an’ sent it,\n As soon’s he smells ’t,\n Baith their disease, and what will mend it,\n At once he tells ’t.\n\n “And then, a’ doctor’s saws an’ whittles,\n Of a’ dimensions, shapes, an’ mettles,\n A’ kind o’ boxes, mugs, an’ bottles,\n He’s sure to hae;\n Their Latin names as fast he rattles\n as A B C.\n\n “Calces o’ fossils, earths, and trees;\n True sal-marinum o’ the seas;\n The farina of beans an’ pease,\n He has’t in plenty;\n Aqua-fontis, what you please,\n He can content ye.\n\n “Forbye some new, uncommon weapons,\n Urinus spiritus of capons;\n Or mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings,\n Distill’d per se;\n Sal-alkali o’ midge-tail clippings,\n And mony mae.”\n\n “Waes me for Johnie Ged’s^5 Hole now,”\n Quoth I, “if that thae news be true!\n His braw calf-ward whare gowans grew,\n Sae white and bonie,\n Nae doubt they’ll rive it wi’ the plew;\n They’ll ruin Johnie!”\n\n The creature grain’d an eldritch laugh,\n And says “Ye needna yoke the pleugh,\n Kirkyards will soon be till’d eneugh,\n Tak ye nae fear:\n They’ll be trench’d wi’ mony a sheugh,\n In twa-three year.\n\n “Whare I kill’d ane, a fair strae-death,\n By loss o’ blood or want of breath\n This night I’m free to tak my aith,\n That Hornbook’s skill\n Has clad a score i’ their last claith,\n By drap an’ pill.\n\n “An honest wabster to his trade,\n Whase wife’s twa nieves were scarce weel-bred\n Gat tippence-worth to mend her head,\n When it was sair;\n The wife slade cannie to her bed,\n But ne’er spak mair.\n\n “A country laird had ta’en the batts,\n Or some curmurring in his guts,\n His only son for Hornbook sets,\n An’ pays him well:\n The lad, for twa guid gimmer-pets,\n Was laird himsel’.\n\n “A bonie lass—ye kend her name—\n Some ill-brewn drink had hov’d her wame;\n She trusts hersel’, to hide the shame,\n In Hornbook’s care;\n Horn sent her aff to her lang hame,\n To hide it there.\n\n [Footnote 5: The grave-digger.—R.B.]\n\n “That’s just a swatch o’ Hornbook’s way;\n Thus goes he on from day to day,\n Thus does he poison, kill, an’ slay,\n An’s weel paid for’t;\n Yet stops me o’ my lawfu’ prey,\n Wi’ his damn’d dirt:\n\n “But, hark! I’ll tell you of a plot,\n Tho’ dinna ye be speakin o’t;\n I’ll nail the self-conceited sot,\n As dead’s a herrin;\n Neist time we meet, I’ll wad a groat,\n He gets his fairin!”\n\n But just as he began to tell,\n The auld kirk-hammer strak the bell\n Some wee short hour ayont the twal’,\n Which rais’d us baith:\n I took the way that pleas’d mysel’,\n And sae did Death.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To J. Lapraik, An Old Scottish Bard", + "body": " April 1, 1785\n\n While briers an’ woodbines budding green,\n An’ paitricks scraichin loud at e’en,\n An’ morning poussie whiddin seen,\n Inspire my muse,\n This freedom, in an unknown frien’,\n I pray excuse.\n\n On Fasten—e’en we had a rockin,\n To ca’ the crack and weave our stockin;\n And there was muckle fun and jokin,\n Ye need na doubt;\n At length we had a hearty yokin\n At sang about.\n\n There was ae sang, amang the rest,\n Aboon them a’ it pleas’d me best,\n That some kind husband had addrest\n To some sweet wife;\n It thirl’d the heart-strings thro’ the breast,\n A’ to the life.\n\n I’ve scarce heard ought describ’d sae weel,\n What gen’rous, manly bosoms feel;\n Thought I “Can this be Pope, or Steele,\n Or Beattie’s wark?”\n They tauld me ’twas an odd kind chiel\n About Muirkirk.\n\n It pat me fidgin-fain to hear’t,\n An’ sae about him there I speir’t;\n Then a’ that kent him round declar’d\n He had ingine;\n That nane excell’d it, few cam near’t,\n It was sae fine:\n\n That, set him to a pint of ale,\n An’ either douce or merry tale,\n Or rhymes an’ sangs he’d made himsel,\n Or witty catches—\n ’Tween Inverness an’ Teviotdale,\n He had few matches.\n\n Then up I gat, an’ swoor an aith,\n Tho’ I should pawn my pleugh an’ graith,\n Or die a cadger pownie’s death,\n At some dyke-back,\n A pint an’ gill I’d gie them baith,\n To hear your crack.\n\n But, first an’ foremost, I should tell,\n Amaist as soon as I could spell,\n I to the crambo-jingle fell;\n Tho’ rude an’ rough—\n Yet crooning to a body’s sel’\n Does weel eneugh.\n\n I am nae poet, in a sense;\n But just a rhymer like by chance,\n An’ hae to learning nae pretence;\n Yet, what the matter?\n Whene’er my muse does on me glance,\n I jingle at her.\n\n Your critic-folk may cock their nose,\n And say, “How can you e’er propose,\n You wha ken hardly verse frae prose,\n To mak a sang?”\n But, by your leaves, my learned foes,\n Ye’re maybe wrang.\n\n What’s a’ your jargon o’ your schools—\n Your Latin names for horns an’ stools?\n If honest Nature made you fools,\n What sairs your grammars?\n Ye’d better taen up spades and shools,\n Or knappin-hammers.\n\n A set o’ dull, conceited hashes\n Confuse their brains in college classes!\n They gang in stirks, and come out asses,\n Plain truth to speak;\n An’ syne they think to climb Parnassus\n By dint o’ Greek!\n\n Gie me ae spark o’ nature’s fire,\n That’s a’ the learning I desire;\n Then tho’ I drudge thro’ dub an’ mire\n At pleugh or cart,\n My muse, tho’ hamely in attire,\n May touch the heart.\n\n O for a spunk o’ Allan’s glee,\n Or Fergusson’s the bauld an’ slee,\n Or bright Lapraik’s, my friend to be,\n If I can hit it!\n That would be lear eneugh for me,\n If I could get it.\n\n Now, sir, if ye hae friends enow,\n Tho’ real friends, I b’lieve, are few;\n Yet, if your catalogue be fu’,\n I’se no insist:\n But, gif ye want ae friend that’s true,\n I’m on your list.\n\n I winna blaw about mysel,\n As ill I like my fauts to tell;\n But friends, an’ folk that wish me well,\n They sometimes roose me;\n Tho’ I maun own, as mony still\n As far abuse me.\n\n There’s ae wee faut they whiles lay to me,\n I like the lasses—Gude forgie me!\n For mony a plack they wheedle frae me\n At dance or fair;\n Maybe some ither thing they gie me,\n They weel can spare.\n\n But Mauchline Race, or Mauchline Fair,\n I should be proud to meet you there;\n We’se gie ae night’s discharge to care,\n If we forgather;\n An’ hae a swap o’ rhymin-ware\n Wi’ ane anither.\n\n The four-gill chap, we’se gar him clatter,\n An’ kirsen him wi’ reekin water;\n Syne we’ll sit down an’ tak our whitter,\n To cheer our heart;\n An’ faith, we’se be acquainted better\n Before we part.\n\n Awa ye selfish, war’ly race,\n Wha think that havins, sense, an’ grace,\n Ev’n love an’ friendship should give place\n To catch—the—plack!\n I dinna like to see your face,\n Nor hear your crack.\n\n But ye whom social pleasure charms\n Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms,\n Who hold your being on the terms,\n “Each aid the others,”\n Come to my bowl, come to my arms,\n My friends, my brothers!\n\n But, to conclude my lang epistle,\n As my auld pen’s worn to the gristle,\n Twa lines frae you wad gar me fissle,\n Who am, most fervent,\n While I can either sing or whistle,\n Your friend and servant.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Second Epistle To J. Lapraik", + "body": " April 21, 1785\n\n While new-ca’d kye rowte at the stake\n An’ pownies reek in pleugh or braik,\n This hour on e’enin’s edge I take,\n To own I’m debtor\n To honest-hearted, auld Lapraik,\n For his kind letter.\n\n Forjesket sair, with weary legs,\n Rattlin the corn out-owre the rigs,\n Or dealing thro’ amang the naigs\n Their ten-hours’ bite,\n My awkart Muse sair pleads and begs\n I would na write.\n\n The tapetless, ramfeezl’d hizzie,\n She’s saft at best an’ something lazy:\n Quo’ she, “Ye ken we’ve been sae busy\n This month an’ mair,\n That trowth, my head is grown right dizzie,\n An’ something sair.”\n\n Her dowff excuses pat me mad;\n “Conscience,” says I, “ye thowless jade!\n I’ll write, an’ that a hearty blaud,\n This vera night;\n So dinna ye affront your trade,\n But rhyme it right.\n\n “Shall bauld Lapraik, the king o’ hearts,\n Tho’ mankind were a pack o’ cartes,\n Roose you sae weel for your deserts,\n In terms sae friendly;\n Yet ye’ll neglect to shaw your parts\n An’ thank him kindly?”\n\n Sae I gat paper in a blink,\n An’ down gaed stumpie in the ink:\n Quoth I, “Before I sleep a wink,\n I vow I’ll close it;\n An’ if ye winna mak it clink,\n By Jove, I’ll prose it!”\n\n Sae I’ve begun to scrawl, but whether\n In rhyme, or prose, or baith thegither;\n Or some hotch-potch that’s rightly neither,\n Let time mak proof;\n But I shall scribble down some blether\n Just clean aff-loof.\n\n My worthy friend, ne’er grudge an’ carp,\n Tho’ fortune use you hard an’ sharp;\n Come, kittle up your moorland harp\n Wi’ gleesome touch!\n Ne’er mind how Fortune waft and warp;\n She’s but a bitch.\n\n She ’s gien me mony a jirt an’ fleg,\n Sin’ I could striddle owre a rig;\n But, by the Lord, tho’ I should beg\n Wi’ lyart pow,\n I’ll laugh an’ sing, an’ shake my leg,\n As lang’s I dow!\n\n Now comes the sax-an’-twentieth simmer\n I’ve seen the bud upon the timmer,\n Still persecuted by the limmer\n Frae year to year;\n But yet, despite the kittle kimmer,\n I, Rob, am here.\n\n Do ye envy the city gent,\n Behint a kist to lie an’ sklent;\n Or pursue-proud, big wi’ cent. per cent.\n An’ muckle wame,\n In some bit brugh to represent\n A bailie’s name?\n\n Or is’t the paughty, feudal thane,\n Wi’ ruffl’d sark an’ glancing cane,\n Wha thinks himsel nae sheep-shank bane,\n But lordly stalks;\n While caps and bonnets aff are taen,\n As by he walks?\n\n “O Thou wha gies us each guid gift!\n Gie me o’ wit an’ sense a lift,\n Then turn me, if thou please, adrift,\n Thro’ Scotland wide;\n Wi’ cits nor lairds I wadna shift,\n In a’ their pride!”\n\n Were this the charter of our state,\n “On pain o’ hell be rich an’ great,”\n Damnation then would be our fate,\n Beyond remead;\n But, thanks to heaven, that’s no the gate\n We learn our creed.\n\n For thus the royal mandate ran,\n When first the human race began;\n “The social, friendly, honest man,\n Whate’er he be—\n ’Tis he fulfils great Nature’s plan,\n And none but he.”\n\n O mandate glorious and divine!\n The ragged followers o’ the Nine,\n Poor, thoughtless devils! yet may shine\n In glorious light,\n While sordid sons o’ Mammon’s line\n Are dark as night!\n\n Tho’ here they scrape, an’ squeeze, an’ growl,\n Their worthless nievefu’ of a soul\n May in some future carcase howl,\n The forest’s fright;\n Or in some day-detesting owl\n May shun the light.\n\n Then may Lapraik and Burns arise,\n To reach their native, kindred skies,\n And sing their pleasures, hopes an’ joys,\n In some mild sphere;\n Still closer knit in friendship’s ties,\n Each passing year!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To William Simson", + "body": " Schoolmaster, Ochiltree.—May, 1785\n\n I gat your letter, winsome Willie;\n Wi’ gratefu’ heart I thank you brawlie;\n Tho’ I maun say’t, I wad be silly,\n And unco vain,\n Should I believe, my coaxin billie\n Your flatterin strain.\n\n But I’se believe ye kindly meant it:\n I sud be laith to think ye hinted\n Ironic satire, sidelins sklented\n On my poor Musie;\n Tho’ in sic phraisin terms ye’ve penn’d it,\n I scarce excuse ye.\n\n My senses wad be in a creel,\n Should I but dare a hope to speel\n Wi’ Allan, or wi’ Gilbertfield,\n The braes o’ fame;\n Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel,\n A deathless name.\n\n (O Fergusson! thy glorious parts\n Ill suited law’s dry, musty arts!\n My curse upon your whunstane hearts,\n Ye E’nbrugh gentry!\n The tithe o’ what ye waste at cartes\n Wad stow’d his pantry!)\n\n Yet when a tale comes i’ my head,\n Or lassies gie my heart a screed—\n As whiles they’re like to be my dead,\n (O sad disease!)\n I kittle up my rustic reed;\n It gies me ease.\n\n Auld Coila now may fidge fu’ fain,\n She’s gotten poets o’ her ain;\n Chiels wha their chanters winna hain,\n But tune their lays,\n Till echoes a’ resound again\n Her weel-sung praise.\n\n Nae poet thought her worth his while,\n To set her name in measur’d style;\n She lay like some unkenn’d-of-isle\n Beside New Holland,\n Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil\n Besouth Magellan.\n\n Ramsay an’ famous Fergusson\n Gied Forth an’ Tay a lift aboon;\n Yarrow an’ Tweed, to monie a tune,\n Owre Scotland rings;\n While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an’ Doon\n Naebody sings.\n\n Th’ Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an’ Seine,\n Glide sweet in monie a tunefu’ line:\n But Willie, set your fit to mine,\n An’ cock your crest;\n We’ll gar our streams an’ burnies shine\n Up wi’ the best!\n\n We’ll sing auld Coila’s plains an’ fells,\n Her moors red-brown wi’ heather bells,\n Her banks an’ braes, her dens and dells,\n Whare glorious Wallace\n Aft bure the gree, as story tells,\n Frae Suthron billies.\n\n At Wallace’ name, what Scottish blood\n But boils up in a spring-tide flood!\n Oft have our fearless fathers strode\n By Wallace’ side,\n Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod,\n Or glorious died!\n\n O, sweet are Coila’s haughs an’ woods,\n When lintwhites chant amang the buds,\n And jinkin hares, in amorous whids,\n Their loves enjoy;\n While thro’ the braes the cushat croods\n With wailfu’ cry!\n\n Ev’n winter bleak has charms to me,\n When winds rave thro’ the naked tree;\n Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree\n Are hoary gray;\n Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,\n Dark’ning the day!\n\n O Nature! a’ thy shews an’ forms\n To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!\n Whether the summer kindly warms,\n Wi’ life an light;\n Or winter howls, in gusty storms,\n The lang, dark night!\n\n The muse, nae poet ever fand her,\n Till by himsel he learn’d to wander,\n Adown some trottin burn’s meander,\n An’ no think lang:\n O sweet to stray, an’ pensive ponder\n A heart-felt sang!\n\n The war’ly race may drudge an’ drive,\n Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an’ strive;\n Let me fair Nature’s face descrive,\n And I, wi’ pleasure,\n Shall let the busy, grumbling hive\n Bum owre their treasure.\n\n Fareweel, “my rhyme-composing” brither!\n We’ve been owre lang unkenn’d to ither:\n Now let us lay our heads thegither,\n In love fraternal:\n May envy wallop in a tether,\n Black fiend, infernal!\n\n While Highlandmen hate tools an’ taxes;\n While moorlan’s herds like guid, fat braxies;\n While terra firma, on her axis,\n Diurnal turns;\n Count on a friend, in faith an’ practice,\n In Robert Burns.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Postcript", + "body": " My memory’s no worth a preen;\n I had amaist forgotten clean,\n Ye bade me write you what they mean\n By this “new-light,”\n ’Bout which our herds sae aft hae been\n Maist like to fight.\n\n In days when mankind were but callans\n At grammar, logic, an’ sic talents,\n They took nae pains their speech to balance,\n Or rules to gie;\n But spak their thoughts in plain, braid lallans,\n Like you or me.\n\n In thae auld times, they thought the moon,\n Just like a sark, or pair o’ shoon,\n Wore by degrees, till her last roon\n Gaed past their viewin;\n An’ shortly after she was done\n They gat a new ane.\n\n This passed for certain, undisputed;\n It ne’er cam i’ their heads to doubt it,\n Till chiels gat up an’ wad confute it,\n An’ ca’d it wrang;\n An’ muckle din there was about it,\n Baith loud an’ lang.\n\n Some herds, weel learn’d upo’ the beuk,\n Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk;\n For ’twas the auld moon turn’d a neuk\n An’ out of’ sight,\n An’ backlins-comin to the leuk\n She grew mair bright.\n\n This was deny’d, it was affirm’d;\n The herds and hissels were alarm’d\n The rev’rend gray-beards rav’d an’ storm’d,\n That beardless laddies\n Should think they better wer inform’d,\n Than their auld daddies.\n\n Frae less to mair, it gaed to sticks;\n Frae words an’ aiths to clours an’ nicks;\n An monie a fallow gat his licks,\n Wi’ hearty crunt;\n An’ some, to learn them for their tricks,\n Were hang’d an’ brunt.\n\n This game was play’d in mony lands,\n An’ auld-light caddies bure sic hands,\n That faith, the youngsters took the sands\n Wi’ nimble shanks;\n Till lairds forbad, by strict commands,\n Sic bluidy pranks.\n\n But new-light herds gat sic a cowe,\n Folk thought them ruin’d stick-an-stowe;\n Till now, amaist on ev’ry knowe\n Ye’ll find ane plac’d;\n An’ some their new-light fair avow,\n Just quite barefac’d.\n\n Nae doubt the auld-light flocks are bleatin;\n Their zealous herds are vex’d an’ sweatin;\n Mysel’, I’ve even seen them greetin\n Wi’ girnin spite,\n To hear the moon sae sadly lied on\n By word an’ write.\n\n But shortly they will cowe the louns!\n Some auld-light herds in neebor touns\n Are mind’t, in things they ca’ balloons,\n To tak a flight;\n An’ stay ae month amang the moons\n An’ see them right.\n\n Guid observation they will gie them;\n An’ when the auld moon’s gaun to lea’e them,\n The hindmaist shaird, they’ll fetch it wi’ them\n Just i’ their pouch;\n An’ when the new-light billies see them,\n I think they’ll crouch!\n\n Sae, ye observe that a’ this clatter\n Is naething but a “moonshine matter”;\n But tho’ dull prose-folk Latin splatter\n In logic tulyie,\n I hope we bardies ken some better\n Than mind sic brulyie.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "One Night As I Did Wander", + "body": " Tune—“John Anderson, my jo.”\n\n\n One night as I did wander,\n When corn begins to shoot,\n I sat me down to ponder\n Upon an auld tree root;\n Auld Ayr ran by before me,\n And bicker’d to the seas;\n A cushat crooded o’er me,\n That echoed through the braes\n . . . . . . .", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Tho’ Cruel Fate Should Bid Us Part", + "body": " Tune—“The Northern Lass.”\n\n\n Tho’ cruel fate should bid us part,\n Far as the pole and line,\n Her dear idea round my heart,\n Should tenderly entwine.\n Tho’ mountains, rise, and deserts howl,\n And oceans roar between;\n Yet, dearer than my deathless soul,\n I still would love my Jean.\n . . . . . . .", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Rantin’, Rovin’ Robin^1", + "body": " [Footnote 1: Not published by Burns.]\n\n Tune—“Daintie Davie.”\n\n\n There was a lad was born in Kyle,\n But whatna day o’ whatna style,\n I doubt it’s hardly worth the while\n To be sae nice wi’ Robin.\n\n Chor.—Robin was a rovin’ boy,\n Rantin’, rovin’, rantin’, rovin’,\n Robin was a rovin’ boy,\n Rantin’, rovin’, Robin!\n\n Our monarch’s hindmost year but ane\n Was five-and-twenty days begun^2,\n ’Twas then a blast o’ Janwar’ win’\n Blew hansel in on Robin.\n Robin was, &c.\n\n [Footnote 2: January 25, 1759, the date of my\n bardship’s vital existence.—R.B.]\n\n The gossip keekit in his loof,\n Quo’ scho, “Wha lives will see the proof,\n This waly boy will be nae coof:\n I think we’ll ca’ him Robin.”\n Robin was, &c.\n\n “He’ll hae misfortunes great an’ sma’,\n But aye a heart aboon them a’,\n He’ll be a credit till us a’—\n We’ll a’ be proud o’ Robin.”\n Robin was, &c.\n\n “But sure as three times three mak nine,\n I see by ilka score and line,\n This chap will dearly like our kin’,\n So leeze me on thee! Robin.”\n Robin was, &c.\n\n “Guid faith,” quo’, scho, “I doubt you gar\n The bonie lasses lie aspar;\n But twenty fauts ye may hae waur\n So blessins on thee! Robin.”\n Robin was, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Elegy On The Death Of Robert Ruisseaux^1", + "body": " Now Robin lies in his last lair,\n He’ll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair;\n Cauld poverty, wi’ hungry stare,\n Nae mair shall fear him;\n Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care,\n E’er mair come near him.\n\n To tell the truth, they seldom fash’d him,\n Except the moment that they crush’d him;\n For sune as chance or fate had hush’d ’em\n Tho’ e’er sae short.\n Then wi’ a rhyme or sang he lash’d ’em,\n And thought it sport.\n\n [Footnote 1: Ruisseaux is French for rivulets\n or “burns,” a translation of his name.]\n\n Tho’he was bred to kintra-wark,\n And counted was baith wight and stark,\n Yet that was never Robin’s mark\n To mak a man;\n But tell him, he was learn’d and clark,\n Ye roos’d him then!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To John Goldie, In Kilmarnock", + "body": " Author Of The Gospel Recovered.—August, 1785\n\n O Gowdie, terror o’ the whigs,\n Dread o’ blackcoats and rev’rend wigs!\n Sour Bigotry, on her last legs,\n Girns an’ looks back,\n Wishing the ten Egyptian plagues\n May seize you quick.\n\n Poor gapin’, glowrin’ Superstition!\n Wae’s me, she’s in a sad condition:\n Fye: bring Black Jock,^1 her state physician,\n To see her water;\n Alas, there’s ground for great suspicion\n She’ll ne’er get better.\n\n Enthusiasm’s past redemption,\n Gane in a gallopin’ consumption:\n Not a’ her quacks, wi’ a’ their gumption,\n Can ever mend her;\n Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption,\n She’ll soon surrender.\n\n Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple,\n For every hole to get a stapple;\n But now she fetches at the thrapple,\n An’ fights for breath;\n Haste, gie her name up in the chapel,^2\n Near unto death.\n\n It’s you an’ Taylor^3 are the chief\n To blame for a’ this black mischief;\n\n [Footnote 1: The Rev. J. Russell, Kilmarnock.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 2: Mr. Russell’s Kirk.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 3: Dr. Taylor of Norwich.—R. B.]\n\n But, could the Lord’s ain folk get leave,\n A toom tar barrel\n An’ twa red peats wad bring relief,\n And end the quarrel.\n\n For me, my skill’s but very sma’,\n An’ skill in prose I’ve nane ava’;\n But quietlins-wise, between us twa,\n Weel may you speed!\n And tho’ they sud your sair misca’,\n Ne’er fash your head.\n\n E’en swinge the dogs, and thresh them sicker!\n The mair they squeel aye chap the thicker;\n And still ’mang hands a hearty bicker\n O’ something stout;\n It gars an owthor’s pulse beat quicker,\n And helps his wit.\n\n There’s naething like the honest nappy;\n Whare’ll ye e’er see men sae happy,\n Or women sonsie, saft an’ sappy,\n ’Tween morn and morn,\n As them wha like to taste the drappie,\n In glass or horn?\n\n I’ve seen me dazed upon a time,\n I scarce could wink or see a styme;\n Just ae half-mutchkin does me prime,—\n Ought less is little—\n Then back I rattle on the rhyme,\n As gleg’s a whittle.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Holy Fair^1", + "body": " A robe of seeming truth and trust\n Hid crafty Observation;\n And secret hung, with poison’d crust,\n The dirk of Defamation:\n\n [Footnote 1: “Holy Fair” is a common phrase in the west of Scotland\n for a sacramental occasion.—R. B.]\n\n A mask that like the gorget show’d,\n Dye-varying on the pigeon;\n And for a mantle large and broad,\n He wrapt him in Religion.\n Hypocrisy A-La-Mode\n\n Upon a simmer Sunday morn\n When Nature’s face is fair,\n I walked forth to view the corn,\n An’ snuff the caller air.\n The rising sun owre Galston muirs\n Wi’ glorious light was glintin;\n The hares were hirplin down the furrs,\n The lav’rocks they were chantin\n Fu’ sweet that day.\n\n As lightsomely I glowr’d abroad,\n To see a scene sae gay,\n Three hizzies, early at the road,\n Cam skelpin up the way.\n Twa had manteeles o’ dolefu’ black,\n But ane wi’ lyart lining;\n The third, that gaed a wee a-back,\n Was in the fashion shining\n Fu’ gay that day.\n\n The twa appear’d like sisters twin,\n In feature, form, an’ claes;\n Their visage wither’d, lang an’ thin,\n An’ sour as only slaes:\n The third cam up, hap-stap-an’-lowp,\n As light as ony lambie,\n An’ wi’a curchie low did stoop,\n As soon as e’er she saw me,\n Fu’ kind that day.\n\n Wi’ bonnet aff, quoth I, “Sweet lass,\n I think ye seem to ken me;\n I’m sure I’ve seen that bonie face\n But yet I canna name ye.”\n Quo’ she, an’ laughin as she spak,\n An’ taks me by the han’s,\n “Ye, for my sake, hae gien the feck\n Of a’ the ten comman’s\n A screed some day.”\n\n “My name is Fun—your cronie dear,\n The nearest friend ye hae;\n An’ this is Superstitution here,\n An’ that’s Hypocrisy.\n I’m gaun to Mauchline Holy Fair,\n To spend an hour in daffin:\n Gin ye’ll go there, yon runkl’d pair,\n We will get famous laughin\n At them this day.”\n\n Quoth I, “Wi’ a’ my heart, I’ll do’t;\n I’ll get my Sunday’s sark on,\n An’ meet you on the holy spot;\n Faith, we’se hae fine remarkin!”\n Then I gaed hame at crowdie-time,\n An’ soon I made me ready;\n For roads were clad, frae side to side,\n Wi’ mony a weary body\n In droves that day.\n\n Here farmers gash, in ridin graith,\n Gaed hoddin by their cotters;\n There swankies young, in braw braid-claith,\n Are springing owre the gutters.\n The lasses, skelpin barefit, thrang,\n In silks an’ scarlets glitter;\n Wi’ sweet-milk cheese, in mony a whang,\n An’ farls, bak’d wi’ butter,\n Fu’ crump that day.\n\n When by the plate we set our nose,\n Weel heaped up wi’ ha’pence,\n A greedy glowr black-bonnet throws,\n An’ we maun draw our tippence.\n Then in we go to see the show:\n On ev’ry side they’re gath’rin;\n Some carrying dails, some chairs an’ stools,\n An’ some are busy bleth’rin\n Right loud that day.\n\n Here stands a shed to fend the show’rs,\n An’ screen our countra gentry;\n There Racer Jess,^2 an’ twa-three whores,\n Are blinkin at the entry.\n Here sits a raw o’ tittlin jads,\n Wi’ heaving breast an’ bare neck;\n An’ there a batch o’ wabster lads,\n Blackguarding frae Kilmarnock,\n For fun this day.\n\n Here, some are thinkin on their sins,\n An’ some upo’ their claes;\n Ane curses feet that fyl’d his shins,\n Anither sighs an’ prays:\n On this hand sits a chosen swatch,\n Wi’ screwed-up, grace-proud faces;\n On that a set o’ chaps, at watch,\n Thrang winkin on the lasses\n To chairs that day.\n\n O happy is that man, an’ blest!\n Nae wonder that it pride him!\n Whase ain dear lass, that he likes best,\n Comes clinkin down beside him!\n Wi’ arms repos’d on the chair back,\n He sweetly does compose him;\n Which, by degrees, slips round her neck,\n An’s loof upon her bosom,\n Unkend that day.\n\n Now a’ the congregation o’er\n Is silent expectation;\n For Moodie^3 speels the holy door,\n Wi’ tidings o’ damnation:\n\n [Footnote 2: Racer Jess (d. 1813) was a half-witted daughter of\n Possie Nansie. She was a great pedestrian.]\n\n [Footnote 3: Rev. Alexander Moodie of Riccarton.]\n\n Should Hornie, as in ancient days,\n ’Mang sons o’ God present him,\n The vera sight o’ Moodie’s face,\n To ’s ain het hame had sent him\n Wi’ fright that day.\n\n Hear how he clears the point o’ faith\n Wi’ rattlin and wi’ thumpin!\n Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,\n He’s stampin, an’ he’s jumpin!\n His lengthen’d chin, his turned-up snout,\n His eldritch squeel an’ gestures,\n O how they fire the heart devout,\n Like cantharidian plaisters\n On sic a day!\n\n But hark! the tent has chang’d its voice,\n There’s peace an’ rest nae langer;\n For a’ the real judges rise,\n They canna sit for anger,\n Smith^4 opens out his cauld harangues,\n On practice and on morals;\n An’ aff the godly pour in thrangs,\n To gie the jars an’ barrels\n A lift that day.\n\n What signifies his barren shine,\n Of moral powers an’ reason?\n His English style, an’ gesture fine\n Are a’ clean out o’ season.\n Like Socrates or Antonine,\n Or some auld pagan heathen,\n The moral man he does define,\n But ne’er a word o’ faith in\n That’s right that day.\n\n In guid time comes an antidote\n Against sic poison’d nostrum;\n For Peebles,^5 frae the water-fit,\n Ascends the holy rostrum:\n\n [Footnote 4: Rev. George Smith of Galston.]\n\n [Footnote 5: Rev. Wm. Peebles of Newton-upon-Ayr.]\n\n See, up he’s got, the word o’ God,\n An’ meek an’ mim has view’d it,\n While Common-sense has taen the road,\n An’ aff, an’ up the Cowgate^6\n Fast, fast that day.\n\n Wee Miller^7 neist the guard relieves,\n An’ Orthodoxy raibles,\n Tho’ in his heart he weel believes,\n An’ thinks it auld wives’ fables:\n But faith! the birkie wants a manse,\n So, cannilie he hums them;\n Altho’ his carnal wit an’ sense\n Like hafflins-wise o’ercomes him\n At times that day.\n\n Now, butt an’ ben, the change-house fills,\n Wi’ yill-caup commentators;\n Here ’s cryin out for bakes and gills,\n An’ there the pint-stowp clatters;\n While thick an’ thrang, an’ loud an’ lang,\n Wi’ logic an’ wi’ scripture,\n They raise a din, that in the end\n Is like to breed a rupture\n O’ wrath that day.\n\n Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair\n Than either school or college;\n It kindles wit, it waukens lear,\n It pangs us fou o’ knowledge:\n Be’t whisky-gill or penny wheep,\n Or ony stronger potion,\n It never fails, or drinkin deep,\n To kittle up our notion,\n By night or day.\n\n The lads an’ lasses, blythely bent\n To mind baith saul an’ body,\n Sit round the table, weel content,\n An’ steer about the toddy:\n\n [Footnote 6: A street so called which faces the tent in\n Mauchline.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 7: Rev. Alex. Miller, afterward of Kilmaurs.]\n\n On this ane’s dress, an’ that ane’s leuk,\n They’re makin observations;\n While some are cozie i’ the neuk,\n An’ forming assignations\n To meet some day.\n\n But now the Lord’s ain trumpet touts,\n Till a’ the hills are rairin,\n And echoes back return the shouts;\n Black Russell is na sparin:\n His piercin words, like Highlan’ swords,\n Divide the joints an’ marrow;\n His talk o’ Hell, whare devils dwell,\n Our vera “sauls does harrow”\n Wi’ fright that day!\n\n A vast, unbottom’d, boundless pit,\n Fill’d fou o’ lowin brunstane,\n Whase raging flame, an’ scorching heat,\n Wad melt the hardest whun-stane!\n The half-asleep start up wi’ fear,\n An’ think they hear it roarin;\n When presently it does appear,\n ’Twas but some neibor snorin\n Asleep that day.\n\n ’Twad be owre lang a tale to tell,\n How mony stories past;\n An’ how they crouded to the yill,\n When they were a’ dismist;\n How drink gaed round, in cogs an’ caups,\n Amang the furms an’ benches;\n An’ cheese an’ bread, frae women’s laps,\n Was dealt about in lunches\n An’ dawds that day.\n\n In comes a gawsie, gash guidwife,\n An’ sits down by the fire,\n Syne draws her kebbuck an’ her knife;\n The lasses they are shyer:\n The auld guidmen, about the grace\n Frae side to side they bother;\n Till some ane by his bonnet lays,\n An’ gies them’t like a tether,\n Fu’ lang that day.\n\n Waesucks! for him that gets nae lass,\n Or lasses that hae naething!\n Sma’ need has he to say a grace,\n Or melvie his braw claithing!\n O wives, be mindfu’ ance yoursel’\n How bonie lads ye wanted;\n An’ dinna for a kebbuck-heel\n Let lasses be affronted\n On sic a day!\n\n Now Clinkumbell, wi’ rattlin tow,\n Begins to jow an’ croon;\n Some swagger hame the best they dow,\n Some wait the afternoon.\n At slaps the billies halt a blink,\n Till lasses strip their shoon:\n Wi’ faith an’ hope, an’ love an’ drink,\n They’re a’ in famous tune\n For crack that day.\n\n How mony hearts this day converts\n O’ sinners and o’ lasses!\n Their hearts o’ stane, gin night, are gane\n As saft as ony flesh is:\n There’s some are fou o’ love divine;\n There’s some are fou o’ brandy;\n An’ mony jobs that day begin,\n May end in houghmagandie\n Some ither day.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Third Epistle To J. Lapraik", + "body": " Guid speed and furder to you, Johnie,\n Guid health, hale han’s, an’ weather bonie;\n Now, when ye’re nickin down fu’ cannie\n The staff o’ bread,\n May ye ne’er want a stoup o’ bran’y\n To clear your head.\n\n May Boreas never thresh your rigs,\n Nor kick your rickles aff their legs,\n Sendin the stuff o’er muirs an’ haggs\n Like drivin wrack;\n But may the tapmost grain that wags\n Come to the sack.\n\n I’m bizzie, too, an’ skelpin at it,\n But bitter, daudin showers hae wat it;\n Sae my auld stumpie pen I gat it\n Wi’ muckle wark,\n An’ took my jocteleg an whatt it,\n Like ony clark.\n\n It’s now twa month that I’m your debtor,\n For your braw, nameless, dateless letter,\n Abusin me for harsh ill-nature\n On holy men,\n While deil a hair yoursel’ ye’re better,\n But mair profane.\n\n But let the kirk-folk ring their bells,\n Let’s sing about our noble sel’s:\n We’ll cry nae jads frae heathen hills\n To help, or roose us;\n But browster wives an’ whisky stills,\n They are the muses.\n\n Your friendship, Sir, I winna quat it,\n An’ if ye mak’ objections at it,\n Then hand in neive some day we’ll knot it,\n An’ witness take,\n An’ when wi’ usquabae we’ve wat it\n It winna break.\n\n But if the beast an’ branks be spar’d\n Till kye be gaun without the herd,\n And a’ the vittel in the yard,\n An’ theekit right,\n I mean your ingle-side to guard\n Ae winter night.\n\n Then muse-inspirin’ aqua-vitae\n Shall make us baith sae blythe and witty,\n Till ye forget ye’re auld an’ gatty,\n An’ be as canty\n As ye were nine years less than thretty—\n Sweet ane an’ twenty!\n\n But stooks are cowpit wi’ the blast,\n And now the sinn keeks in the west,\n Then I maun rin amang the rest,\n An’ quat my chanter;\n Sae I subscribe myself’ in haste,\n Yours, Rab the Ranter.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To The Rev. John M’math", + "body": " Sept. 13, 1785.\n\n Inclosing A Copy Of “Holy Willie’s Prayer,”\n Which He Had Requested, Sept. 17, 1785\n\n While at the stook the shearers cow’r\n To shun the bitter blaudin’ show’r,\n Or in gulravage rinnin scowr\n To pass the time,\n To you I dedicate the hour\n In idle rhyme.\n\n My musie, tir’d wi’ mony a sonnet\n On gown, an’ ban’, an’ douse black bonnet,\n Is grown right eerie now she’s done it,\n Lest they should blame her,\n An’ rouse their holy thunder on it\n An anathem her.\n\n I own ’twas rash, an’ rather hardy,\n That I, a simple, country bardie,\n Should meddle wi’ a pack sae sturdy,\n Wha, if they ken me,\n Can easy, wi’ a single wordie,\n Lowse hell upon me.\n\n But I gae mad at their grimaces,\n Their sighin, cantin, grace-proud faces,\n Their three-mile prayers, an’ half-mile graces,\n Their raxin conscience,\n Whase greed, revenge, an’ pride disgraces\n Waur nor their nonsense.\n\n There’s Gaw’n, misca’d waur than a beast,\n Wha has mair honour in his breast\n Than mony scores as guid’s the priest\n Wha sae abus’d him:\n And may a bard no crack his jest\n What way they’ve us’d him?\n\n See him, the poor man’s friend in need,\n The gentleman in word an’ deed—\n An’ shall his fame an’ honour bleed\n By worthless, skellums,\n An’ not a muse erect her head\n To cowe the blellums?\n\n O Pope, had I thy satire’s darts\n To gie the rascals their deserts,\n I’d rip their rotten, hollow hearts,\n An’ tell aloud\n Their jugglin hocus-pocus arts\n To cheat the crowd.\n\n God knows, I’m no the thing I should be,\n Nor am I even the thing I could be,\n But twenty times I rather would be\n An atheist clean,\n Than under gospel colours hid be\n Just for a screen.\n\n An honest man may like a glass,\n An honest man may like a lass,\n But mean revenge, an’ malice fause\n He’ll still disdain,\n An’ then cry zeal for gospel laws,\n Like some we ken.\n\n They take religion in their mouth;\n They talk o’ mercy, grace, an’ truth,\n For what?—to gie their malice skouth\n On some puir wight,\n An’ hunt him down, owre right and ruth,\n To ruin straight.\n\n All hail, Religion! maid divine!\n Pardon a muse sae mean as mine,\n Who in her rough imperfect line\n Thus daurs to name thee;\n To stigmatise false friends of thine\n Can ne’er defame thee.\n\n Tho’ blotch’t and foul wi’ mony a stain,\n An’ far unworthy of thy train,\n With trembling voice I tune my strain,\n To join with those\n Who boldly dare thy cause maintain\n In spite of foes:\n\n In spite o’ crowds, in spite o’ mobs,\n In spite o’ undermining jobs,\n In spite o’ dark banditti stabs\n At worth an’ merit,\n By scoundrels, even wi’ holy robes,\n But hellish spirit.\n\n O Ayr! my dear, my native ground,\n Within thy presbyterial bound\n A candid liberal band is found\n Of public teachers,\n As men, as Christians too, renown’d,\n An’ manly preachers.\n\n Sir, in that circle you are nam’d;\n Sir, in that circle you are fam’d;\n An’ some, by whom your doctrine’s blam’d\n (Which gies you honour)\n Even, sir, by them your heart’s esteem’d,\n An’ winning manner.\n\n Pardon this freedom I have ta’en,\n An’ if impertinent I’ve been,\n Impute it not, good Sir, in ane\n Whase heart ne’er wrang’d ye,\n But to his utmost would befriend\n Ought that belang’d ye.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Second Epistle to Davie", + "body": " A Brother Poet\n\n Auld Neibour,\n I’m three times doubly o’er your debtor,\n For your auld-farrant, frien’ly letter;\n Tho’ I maun say’t I doubt ye flatter,\n Ye speak sae fair;\n For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter\n Some less maun sair.\n\n Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle,\n Lang may your elbuck jink diddle,\n To cheer you thro’ the weary widdle\n O’ war’ly cares;\n Till barins’ barins kindly cuddle\n Your auld grey hairs.\n\n But Davie, lad, I’m red ye’re glaikit;\n I’m tauld the muse ye hae negleckit;\n An, gif it’s sae, ye sud by lickit\n Until ye fyke;\n Sic haun’s as you sud ne’er be faikit,\n Be hain’t wha like.\n\n For me, I’m on Parnassus’ brink,\n Rivin the words to gar them clink;\n Whiles dazed wi’ love, whiles dazed wi’ drink,\n Wi’ jads or masons;\n An’ whiles, but aye owre late, I think\n Braw sober lessons.\n\n Of a’ the thoughtless sons o’ man,\n Commen’ to me the bardie clan;\n Except it be some idle plan\n O’ rhymin clink,\n The devil haet,—that I sud ban—\n They ever think.\n\n Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme o’ livin,\n Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin,\n But just the pouchie put the neive in,\n An’ while ought’s there,\n Then, hiltie, skiltie, we gae scrievin’,\n An’ fash nae mair.\n\n Leeze me on rhyme! it’s aye a treasure,\n My chief, amaist my only pleasure;\n At hame, a-fiel’, at wark, or leisure,\n The Muse, poor hizzie!\n Tho’ rough an’ raploch be her measure,\n She’s seldom lazy.\n\n Haud to the Muse, my daintie Davie:\n The warl’ may play you mony a shavie;\n But for the Muse, she’ll never leave ye,\n Tho’ e’er sae puir,\n Na, even tho’ limpin wi’ the spavie\n Frae door tae door.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Young Peggy Blooms", + "body": " Tune—“Loch Eroch-side.”\n\n\n Young Peggy blooms our boniest lass,\n Her blush is like the morning,\n The rosy dawn, the springing grass,\n With early gems adorning.\n Her eyes outshine the radiant beams\n That gild the passing shower,\n And glitter o’er the crystal streams,\n And cheer each fresh’ning flower.\n\n Her lips, more than the cherries bright,\n A richer dye has graced them;\n They charm th’ admiring gazer’s sight,\n And sweetly tempt to taste them;\n Her smile is as the evening mild,\n When feather’d pairs are courting,\n And little lambkins wanton wild,\n In playful bands disporting.\n\n Were Fortune lovely Peggy’s foe,\n Such sweetness would relent her;\n As blooming spring unbends the brow\n Of surly, savage Winter.\n Detraction’s eye no aim can gain,\n Her winning pow’rs to lessen;\n And fretful Envy grins in vain\n The poison’d tooth to fasten.\n\n Ye Pow’rs of Honour, Love, and Truth,\n From ev’ry ill defend her!\n Inspire the highly-favour’d youth\n The destinies intend her:\n Still fan the sweet connubial flame\n Responsive in each bosom;\n And bless the dear parental name\n With many a filial blossom.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Farewell To Ballochmyle", + "body": " Tune—“Miss Forbe’s farewell to Banff.”\n\n\n The Catrine woods were yellow seen,\n The flowers decay’d on Catrine lee,\n Nae lav’rock sang on hillock green,\n But nature sicken’d on the e’e.\n Thro’ faded groves Maria sang,\n Hersel’ in beauty’s bloom the while;\n And aye the wild-wood ehoes rang,\n Fareweel the braes o’ Ballochmyle!\n\n Low in your wintry beds, ye flowers,\n Again ye’ll flourish fresh and fair;\n Ye birdies dumb, in with’ring bowers,\n Again ye’ll charm the vocal air.\n But here, alas! for me nae mair\n Shall birdie charm, or floweret smile;\n Fareweel the bonie banks of Ayr,\n Fareweel, fareweel! sweet Ballochmyle!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment—Her Flowing Locks", + "body": " Her flowing locks, the raven’s wing,\n Adown her neck and bosom hing;\n How sweet unto that breast to cling,\n And round that neck entwine her!\n\n Her lips are roses wat wi’ dew,\n O’ what a feast her bonie mou’!\n Her cheeks a mair celestial hue,\n A crimson still diviner!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Halloween^1", + "body": " [Footnote 1: Is thought to be a night when witches, devils,\n and other mischief-making beings are abroad on their baneful\n midnight errands; particularly those aerial people, the\n fairies, are said on that night to hold a grand\n anniversary,.—R.B.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but", + "body": "for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and\ntraditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to\ngive some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so\nbig with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion\nof prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human\nnature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some\nentertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with\na perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our\nown.—R.B.\n\n Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,\n The simple pleasure of the lowly train;\n To me more dear, congenial to my heart,\n One native charm, than all the gloss of art.—Goldsmith.\n\n Upon that night, when fairies light\n On Cassilis Downans^2 dance,\n Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,\n On sprightly coursers prance;\n Or for Colean the rout is ta’en,\n Beneath the moon’s pale beams;\n There, up the Cove,^3 to stray an’ rove,\n Amang the rocks and streams\n To sport that night;\n\n [Footnote 2: Certain little, romantic, rocky, green hills,\n in the neighbourhood of the ancient seat of the Earls of\n Cassilis.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 3: A noted cavern near Colean house, called the\n Cove of Colean; which, as well as Cassilis Downans, is\n famed, in country story, for being a favorite haunt of\n fairies.—R.B.]\n\n Amang the bonie winding banks,\n Where Doon rins, wimplin, clear;\n Where Bruce^4 ance rul’d the martial ranks,\n An’ shook his Carrick spear;\n Some merry, friendly, countra-folks\n Together did convene,\n To burn their nits, an’ pou their stocks,\n An’ haud their Halloween\n Fu’ blythe that night.\n\n [Footnote 4: The famous family of that name, the ancestors\n of Robert, the great deliverer of his country, were Earls of\n Carrick.—R.B.]\n\n The lasses feat, an’ cleanly neat,\n Mair braw than when they’re fine;\n Their faces blythe, fu’ sweetly kythe,\n Hearts leal, an’ warm, an’ kin’:\n The lads sae trig, wi’ wooer-babs\n Weel-knotted on their garten;\n Some unco blate, an’ some wi’ gabs\n Gar lasses’ hearts gang startin\n Whiles fast at night.\n\n Then, first an’ foremost, thro’ the kail,\n Their stocks^5 maun a’ be sought ance;\n\n [Footnote 5: The first ceremony of Halloween is pulling each\n a “stock,” or plant of kail. They must go out, hand in hand,\n with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with: its being\n big or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size\n and shape of the grand object of all their spells—the\n husband or wife. If any “yird,” or earth, stick to the root,\n that is “tocher,” or fortune; and the taste of the\n “custock,” that is, the heart of the stem, is indicative of\n the natural temper and disposition. Lastly, the stems, or,\n to give them their ordinary appellation, the “runts,” are\n placed somewhere above the head of the door; and the\n Christian names of the people whom chance brings into the\n house are, according to the priority of placing the “runts,”\n the names in question.—R. B.]\n\n They steek their een, and grape an’ wale\n For muckle anes, an’ straught anes.\n Poor hav’rel Will fell aff the drift,\n An’ wandered thro’ the bow-kail,\n An’ pou’t for want o’ better shift\n A runt was like a sow-tail\n Sae bow’t that night.\n\n Then, straught or crooked, yird or nane,\n They roar an’ cry a’ throu’ther;\n The vera wee-things, toddlin, rin,\n Wi’ stocks out owre their shouther:\n An’ gif the custock’s sweet or sour,\n Wi’ joctelegs they taste them;\n Syne coziely, aboon the door,\n Wi’ cannie care, they’ve plac’d them\n To lie that night.\n\n The lassies staw frae ’mang them a’,\n To pou their stalks o’ corn;^6\n But Rab slips out, an’ jinks about,\n Behint the muckle thorn:\n He grippit Nelly hard and fast:\n Loud skirl’d a’ the lasses;\n But her tap-pickle maist was lost,\n Whan kiutlin in the fause-house^7\n Wi’ him that night.\n\n [Footnote 6: They go to the barnyard, and pull each, at\n three different times, a stalk of oats. If the third stalk\n wants the “top-pickle,” that is, the grain at the top of the\n stalk, the party in question will come to the marriage-bed\n anything but a maid.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 7: When the corn is in a doubtful state, by being\n too green or wet, the stack-builder, by means of old timber,\n etc., makes a large apartment in his stack, with an opening\n in the side which is fairest exposed to the wind: this he\n calls a “fause-house.”—R.B.]\n\n The auld guid-wife’s weel-hoordit nits^8\n Are round an’ round dividend,\n An’ mony lads an’ lasses’ fates\n Are there that night decided:\n Some kindle couthie side by side,\n And burn thegither trimly;\n Some start awa wi’ saucy pride,\n An’ jump out owre the chimlie\n Fu’ high that night.\n\n [Footnote 8: Burning the nuts is a favorite charm. They name\n the lad and lass to each particular nut, as they lay them in\n the fire; and according as they burn quietly together, or\n start from beside one another, the course and issue of the\n courtship will be.—R.B.]\n\n Jean slips in twa, wi’ tentie e’e;\n Wha ’twas, she wadna tell;\n But this is Jock, an’ this is me,\n She says in to hersel’:\n He bleez’d owre her, an’ she owre him,\n As they wad never mair part:\n Till fuff! he started up the lum,\n An’ Jean had e’en a sair heart\n To see’t that night.\n\n Poor Willie, wi’ his bow-kail runt,\n Was brunt wi’ primsie Mallie;\n An’ Mary, nae doubt, took the drunt,\n To be compar’d to Willie:\n Mall’s nit lap out, wi’ pridefu’ fling,\n An’ her ain fit, it brunt it;\n While Willie lap, and swore by jing,\n ’Twas just the way he wanted\n To be that night.\n\n Nell had the fause-house in her min’,\n She pits hersel an’ Rob in;\n In loving bleeze they sweetly join,\n Till white in ase they’re sobbin:\n Nell’s heart was dancin at the view;\n She whisper’d Rob to leuk for’t:\n Rob, stownlins, prie’d her bonie mou’,\n Fu’ cozie in the neuk for’t,\n Unseen that night.\n\n But Merran sat behint their backs,\n Her thoughts on Andrew Bell:\n She lea’es them gashin at their cracks,\n An’ slips out—by hersel’;\n She thro’ the yard the nearest taks,\n An’ for the kiln she goes then,\n An’ darklins grapit for the bauks,\n And in the blue-clue^9 throws then,\n Right fear’t that night.\n\n [Footnote 9: Whoever would, with success, try this spell,\n must strictly observe these directions: Steal out, all\n alone, to the kiln, and darkling, throw into the “pot” a\n clue of blue yarn; wind it in a new clue off the old one;\n and, toward the latter end, something will hold the thread:\n demand, “Wha hauds?” i.e., who holds? and answer will be\n returned from the kiln-pot, by naming the Christian and\n surname of your future spouse.—R.B.]\n\n An’ ay she win’t, an’ ay she swat—\n I wat she made nae jaukin;\n Till something held within the pat,\n Good Lord! but she was quaukin!\n But whether ’twas the deil himsel,\n Or whether ’twas a bauk-en’,\n Or whether it was Andrew Bell,\n She did na wait on talkin\n To spier that night.\n\n Wee Jenny to her graunie says,\n “Will ye go wi’ me, graunie?\n I’ll eat the apple at the glass,^10\n I gat frae uncle Johnie:”\n She fuff’t her pipe wi’ sic a lunt,\n In wrath she was sae vap’rin,\n She notic’t na an aizle brunt\n Her braw, new, worset apron\n Out thro’ that night.\n\n [Footnote 10: Take a candle and go alone to a looking-glass;\n eat an apple before it, and some traditions say you should\n comb your hair all the time; the face of your conjungal\n companion, to be, will be seen in the glass, as if peeping\n over your shoulder.—R.B.]\n\n “Ye little skelpie-limmer’s face!\n I daur you try sic sportin,\n As seek the foul thief ony place,\n For him to spae your fortune:\n Nae doubt but ye may get a sight!\n Great cause ye hae to fear it;\n For mony a ane has gotten a fright,\n An’ liv’d an’ died deleerit,\n On sic a night.\n\n “Ae hairst afore the Sherra-moor,\n I mind’t as weel’s yestreen—\n I was a gilpey then, I’m sure\n I was na past fyfteen:\n The simmer had been cauld an’ wat,\n An’ stuff was unco green;\n An’ eye a rantin kirn we gat,\n An’ just on Halloween\n It fell that night.\n\n “Our stibble-rig was Rab M’Graen,\n A clever, sturdy fallow;\n His sin gat Eppie Sim wi’ wean,\n That lived in Achmacalla:\n He gat hemp-seed,^11 I mind it weel,\n An’he made unco light o’t;\n But mony a day was by himsel’,\n He was sae sairly frighted\n That vera night.”\n\n [Footnote 11: Steal out, unperceived, and sow a handful of\n hemp-seed, harrowing it with anything you can conveniently\n draw after you. Repeat now and then: “Hemp-seed, I saw thee,\n hemp-seed, I saw thee; and him (or her) that is to be my\n true love, come after me and pou thee.” Look over your left\n shoulder, and you will see the appearance of the person\n invoked, in the attitude of pulling hemp. Some traditions\n say, “Come after me and shaw thee,” that is, show thyself;\n in which case, it simply appears. Others omit the harrowing,\n and say: “Come after me and harrow thee.”—R.B.]\n\n Then up gat fechtin Jamie Fleck,\n An’ he swoor by his conscience,\n That he could saw hemp-seed a peck;\n For it was a’ but nonsense:\n The auld guidman raught down the pock,\n An’ out a handfu’ gied him;\n Syne bad him slip frae’ mang the folk,\n Sometime when nae ane see’d him,\n An’ try’t that night.\n\n He marches thro’ amang the stacks,\n Tho’ he was something sturtin;\n The graip he for a harrow taks,\n An’ haurls at his curpin:\n And ev’ry now an’ then, he says,\n “Hemp-seed I saw thee,\n An’ her that is to be my lass\n Come after me, an’ draw thee\n As fast this night.”\n\n He wistl’d up Lord Lennox’ March\n To keep his courage cherry;\n Altho’ his hair began to arch,\n He was sae fley’d an’ eerie:\n Till presently he hears a squeak,\n An’ then a grane an’ gruntle;\n He by his shouther gae a keek,\n An’ tumbled wi’ a wintle\n Out-owre that night.\n\n He roar’d a horrid murder-shout,\n In dreadfu’ desperation!\n An’ young an’ auld come rinnin out,\n An’ hear the sad narration:\n He swoor ’twas hilchin Jean M’Craw,\n Or crouchie Merran Humphie—\n Till stop! she trotted thro’ them a’;\n And wha was it but grumphie\n Asteer that night!\n\n Meg fain wad to the barn gaen,\n To winn three wechts o’ naething;^12\n But for to meet the deil her lane,\n She pat but little faith in:\n\n [Footnote 12: This charm must likewise be performed\n unperceived and alone. You go to the barn, and open both\n doors, taking them off the hinges, if possible; for there is\n danger that the being about to appear may shut the doors,\n and do you some mischief. Then take that instrument used in\n winnowing the corn, which in our country dialect we call a\n “wecht,” and go through all the attitudes of letting down\n corn against the wind. Repeat it three times, and the third\n time an apparition will pass through the barn, in at the\n windy door and out at the other, having both the figure in\n question, and the appearance or retinue, marking the\n employment or station in life.—R.B.]\n\n She gies the herd a pickle nits,\n An’ twa red cheekit apples,\n To watch, while for the barn she sets,\n In hopes to see Tam Kipples\n That vera night.\n\n She turns the key wi’ cannie thraw,\n An’owre the threshold ventures;\n But first on Sawnie gies a ca’,\n Syne baudly in she enters:\n A ratton rattl’d up the wa’,\n An’ she cry’d Lord preserve her!\n An’ ran thro’ midden-hole an’ a’,\n An’ pray’d wi’ zeal and fervour,\n Fu’ fast that night.\n\n They hoy’t out Will, wi’ sair advice;\n They hecht him some fine braw ane;\n It chanc’d the stack he faddom’t thrice^13\n Was timmer-propt for thrawin:\n He taks a swirlie auld moss-oak\n For some black, grousome carlin;\n An’ loot a winze, an’ drew a stroke,\n Till skin in blypes cam haurlin\n Aff’s nieves that night.\n\n [Footnote 13: Take an opportunity of going unnoticed to a\n “bear-stack,” and fathom it three times round. The last\n fathom of the last time you will catch in your arms the\n appearance of your future conjugal yoke-fellow.—R.B.]\n\n A wanton widow Leezie was,\n As cantie as a kittlen;\n But och! that night, amang the shaws,\n She gat a fearfu’ settlin!\n She thro’ the whins, an’ by the cairn,\n An’ owre the hill gaed scrievin;\n Whare three lairds’ lan’s met at a burn,^14\n To dip her left sark-sleeve in,\n Was bent that night.\n\n [Footnote 14: You go out, one or more (for this is a social\n spell), to a south running spring, or rivulet, where “three\n lairds’ lands meet,” and dip your left shirt sleeve. Go to\n bed in sight of a fire, and hang your wet sleeve before it\n to dry. Lie awake, and, some time near midnight, an\n apparition, having the exact figure of the grand object in\n question, will come and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the\n other side of it.—R.B.]\n\n Whiles owre a linn the burnie plays,\n As thro’ the glen it wimpl’t;\n Whiles round a rocky scar it strays,\n Whiles in a wiel it dimpl’t;\n Whiles glitter’d to the nightly rays,\n Wi’ bickerin’, dancin’ dazzle;\n Whiles cookit undeneath the braes,\n Below the spreading hazel\n Unseen that night.\n\n Amang the brachens, on the brae,\n Between her an’ the moon,\n The deil, or else an outler quey,\n Gat up an’ ga’e a croon:\n Poor Leezie’s heart maist lap the hool;\n Near lav’rock-height she jumpit,\n But mist a fit, an’ in the pool\n Out-owre the lugs she plumpit,\n Wi’ a plunge that night.\n\n In order, on the clean hearth-stane,\n The luggies^15 three are ranged;\n An’ ev’ry time great care is ta’en\n To see them duly changed:\n Auld uncle John, wha wedlock’s joys\n Sin’ Mar’s-year did desire,\n Because he gat the toom dish thrice,\n He heav’d them on the fire\n In wrath that night.\n\n [Footnote 15: Take three dishes, put clean water in one,\n foul water in another, and leave the third empty; blindfold\n a person and lead him to the hearth where the dishes are\n ranged; he (or she) dips the left hand; if by chance in the\n clean water, the future (husband or) wife will come to the\n bar of matrimony a maid; if in the foul, a widow; if in the\n empty dish, it foretells, with equal certainty, no marriage\n at all. It is repeated three times, and every time the\n arrangement of the dishes is altered.—R.B.]\n\n Wi’ merry sangs, an’ friendly cracks,\n I wat they did na weary;\n And unco tales, an’ funnie jokes—\n Their sports were cheap an’ cheery:\n Till butter’d sowens,^16 wi’ fragrant lunt,\n\n [Footnote 16: Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them,\n is always the Halloween Supper.—R.B.]\n\n Set a’ their gabs a-steerin;\n Syne, wi’ a social glass o’ strunt,\n They parted aff careerin\n Fu’ blythe that night.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough, November, 1785", + "body": " Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,\n O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!\n Thou need na start awa sae hasty,\n Wi’ bickering brattle!\n I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,\n Wi’ murd’ring pattle!\n\n I’m truly sorry man’s dominion,\n Has broken nature’s social union,\n An’ justifies that ill opinion,\n Which makes thee startle\n At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,\n An’ fellow-mortal!\n\n I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;\n What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!\n A daimen icker in a thrave\n ’S a sma’ request;\n I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,\n An’ never miss’t!\n\n Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!\n It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!\n An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,\n O’ foggage green!\n An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,\n Baith snell an’ keen!\n\n Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,\n An’ weary winter comin fast,\n An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,\n Thou thought to dwell—\n Till crash! the cruel coulter past\n Out thro’ thy cell.\n\n That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,\n Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!\n Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,\n But house or hald,\n To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,\n An’ cranreuch cauld!\n\n But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,\n In proving foresight may be vain;\n The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ’men\n Gang aft agley,\n An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,\n For promis’d joy!\n\n Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me\n The present only toucheth thee:\n But, Och! I backward cast my e’e.\n On prospects drear!\n An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,\n I guess an’ fear!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On John Dove, Innkeeper", + "body": " Here lies Johnie Pigeon;\n What was his religion?\n Whae’er desires to ken,\n To some other warl’\n Maun follow the carl,\n For here Johnie Pigeon had nane!\n\n Strong ale was ablution,\n Small beer persecution,\n A dram was memento mori;\n But a full-flowing bowl\n Was the saving his soul,\n And port was celestial glory.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph For James Smith", + "body": " Lament him, Mauchline husbands a’,\n He aften did assist ye;\n For had ye staid hale weeks awa,\n Your wives they ne’er had miss’d ye.\n\n Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye press\n To school in bands thegither,\n O tread ye lightly on his grass,—\n Perhaps he was your father!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Adam Armour’s Prayer", + "body": " Gude pity me, because I’m little!\n For though I am an elf o’ mettle,\n An’ can, like ony wabster’s shuttle,\n Jink there or here,\n Yet, scarce as lang’s a gude kail-whittle,\n I’m unco queer.\n\n An’ now Thou kens our waefu’ case;\n For Geordie’s jurr we’re in disgrace,\n Because we stang’d her through the place,\n An’ hurt her spleuchan;\n For whilk we daurna show our face\n Within the clachan.\n\n An’ now we’re dern’d in dens and hollows,\n And hunted, as was William Wallace,\n Wi’ constables-thae blackguard fallows,\n An’ sodgers baith;\n But Gude preserve us frae the gallows,\n That shamefu’ death!\n\n Auld grim black-bearded Geordie’s sel’—\n O shake him owre the mouth o’ hell!\n There let him hing, an’ roar, an’ yell\n Wi’ hideous din,\n And if he offers to rebel,\n Then heave him in.\n\n When Death comes in wi’ glimmerin blink,\n An’ tips auld drucken Nanse the wink,\n May Sautan gie her doup a clink\n Within his yett,\n An’ fill her up wi’ brimstone drink,\n Red-reekin het.\n\n Though Jock an’ hav’rel Jean are merry—\n Some devil seize them in a hurry,\n An’ waft them in th’ infernal wherry\n Straught through the lake,\n An’ gie their hides a noble curry\n Wi’ oil of aik!\n\n As for the jurr-puir worthless body!\n She’s got mischief enough already;\n Wi’ stanged hips, and buttocks bluidy\n She’s suffer’d sair;\n But, may she wintle in a woody,\n If she wh-e mair!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Jolly Beggars: A Cantata^1", + "body": " [Footnote 1: Not published by Burns.]\n\n Recitativo\n\n When lyart leaves bestrow the yird,\n Or wavering like the bauckie-bird,\n Bedim cauld Boreas’ blast;\n When hailstanes drive wi’ bitter skyte,\n And infant frosts begin to bite,\n In hoary cranreuch drest;\n Ae night at e’en a merry core\n O’ randie, gangrel bodies,\n In Poosie-Nansie’s held the splore,\n To drink their orra duddies;\n Wi’ quaffing an’ laughing,\n They ranted an’ they sang,\n Wi’ jumping an’ thumping,\n The vera girdle rang,\n\n First, neist the fire, in auld red rags,\n Ane sat, weel brac’d wi’ mealy bags,\n\n And knapsack a’ in order;\n His doxy lay within his arm;\n Wi’ usquebae an’ blankets warm\n She blinkit on her sodger;\n An’ aye he gies the tozie drab\n The tither skelpin’ kiss,\n While she held up her greedy gab,\n Just like an aumous dish;\n Ilk smack still, did crack still,\n Just like a cadger’s whip;\n Then staggering an’ swaggering\n He roar’d this ditty up—\n\n\n\n\n Air\n\n Tune—“Soldier’s Joy.”\n\n\n I am a son of Mars who have been in many wars,\n And show my cuts and scars wherever I come;\n This here was for a wench, and that other in a trench,\n When welcoming the French at the sound of the drum.\n Lal de daudle, &c.\n\n My ’prenticeship I past where my leader breath’d his last,\n When the bloody die was cast on the heights of Abram:\n and I served out my trade when the gallant game was play’d,\n And the Morro low was laid at the sound of the drum.\n\n I lastly was with Curtis among the floating batt’ries,\n And there I left for witness an arm and a limb;\n Yet let my country need me, with Elliot to head me,\n I’d clatter on my stumps at the sound of a drum.\n\n And now tho’ I must beg, with a wooden arm and leg,\n And many a tatter’d rag hanging over my bum,\n I’m as happy with my wallet, my bottle, and my callet,\n As when I used in scarlet to follow a drum.\n\n What tho’ with hoary locks, I must stand the winter shocks,\n Beneath the woods and rocks oftentimes for a home,\n When the t’other bag I sell, and the t’other bottle tell,\n I could meet a troop of hell, at the sound of a drum.\n\n\n\n\n Recitativo\n\n He ended; and the kebars sheuk,\n Aboon the chorus roar;\n While frighted rattons backward leuk,\n An’ seek the benmost bore:\n A fairy fiddler frae the neuk,\n He skirl’d out, encore!\n But up arose the martial chuck,\n An’ laid the loud uproar.\n\n\n\n\n Air\n\n Tune—“Sodger Laddie.”\n\n\n I once was a maid, tho’ I cannot tell when,\n And still my delight is in proper young men;\n Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie,\n No wonder I’m fond of a sodger laddie,\n Sing, lal de lal, &c.\n\n The first of my loves was a swaggering blade,\n To rattle the thundering drum was his trade;\n His leg was so tight, and his cheek was so ruddy,\n Transported I was with my sodger laddie.\n\n But the godly old chaplain left him in the lurch;\n The sword I forsook for the sake of the church:\n He ventur’d the soul, and I risked the body,\n ’Twas then I proved false to my sodger laddie.\n\n Full soon I grew sick of my sanctified sot,\n The regiment at large for a husband I got;\n From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready,\n I asked no more but a sodger laddie.\n\n But the peace it reduc’d me to beg in despair,\n Till I met old boy in a Cunningham fair,\n His rags regimental, they flutter’d so gaudy,\n My heart it rejoic’d at a sodger laddie.\n\n And now I have liv’d—I know not how long,\n And still I can join in a cup and a song;\n But whilst with both hands I can hold the glass steady,\n Here’s to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie.\n\n\n\n\n Recitativo\n\n Poor Merry-Andrew, in the neuk,\n Sat guzzling wi’ a tinkler-hizzie;\n They mind’t na wha the chorus teuk,\n Between themselves they were sae busy:\n At length, wi’ drink an’ courting dizzy,\n He stoiter’d up an’ made a face;\n Then turn’d an’ laid a smack on Grizzie,\n Syne tun’d his pipes wi’ grave grimace.\n\n\n\n\n Air\n\n Tune—“Auld Sir Symon.”\n\n\n Sir Wisdom’s a fool when he’s fou;\n Sir Knave is a fool in a session;\n He’s there but a ’prentice I trow,\n But I am a fool by profession.\n\n My grannie she bought me a beuk,\n An’ I held awa to the school;\n I fear I my talent misteuk,\n But what will ye hae of a fool?\n\n For drink I would venture my neck;\n A hizzie’s the half of my craft;\n But what could ye other expect\n Of ane that’s avowedly daft?\n\n I ance was tied up like a stirk,\n For civilly swearing and quaffin;\n I ance was abus’d i’ the kirk,\n For towsing a lass i’ my daffin.\n\n Poor Andrew that tumbles for sport,\n Let naebody name wi’ a jeer;\n There’s even, I’m tauld, i’ the Court\n A tumbler ca’d the Premier.\n\n Observ’d ye yon reverend lad\n Mak faces to tickle the mob;\n He rails at our mountebank squad,—\n It’s rivalship just i’ the job.\n\n And now my conclusion I’ll tell,\n For faith I’m confoundedly dry;\n The chiel that’s a fool for himsel’,\n Guid Lord! he’s far dafter than I.\n\n\n\n\n Recitativo\n\n Then niest outspak a raucle carlin,\n Wha kent fu’ weel to cleek the sterlin;\n For mony a pursie she had hooked,\n An’ had in mony a well been douked;\n Her love had been a Highland laddie,\n But weary fa’ the waefu’ woodie!\n Wi’ sighs an’ sobs she thus began\n To wail her braw John Highlandman.\n\n\n\n\n Air\n\n Tune—“O, an ye were dead, Guidman.”\n\n\n A Highland lad my love was born,\n The Lalland laws he held in scorn;\n But he still was faithfu’ to his clan,\n My gallant, braw John Highlandman.\n\n\n\n\n Chorus\n\n Sing hey my braw John Highlandman!\n Sing ho my braw John Highlandman!\n There’s not a lad in a’ the lan’\n Was match for my John Highlandman.\n\n With his philibeg an’ tartan plaid,\n An’ guid claymore down by his side,\n The ladies’ hearts he did trepan,\n My gallant, braw John Highlandman.\n Sing hey, &c.\n\n We ranged a’ from Tweed to Spey,\n An’ liv’d like lords an’ ladies gay;\n For a Lalland face he feared none,—\n My gallant, braw John Highlandman.\n Sing hey, &c.\n\n They banish’d him beyond the sea.\n But ere the bud was on the tree,\n Adown my cheeks the pearls ran,\n Embracing my John Highlandman.\n Sing hey, &c.\n\n But, och! they catch’d him at the last,\n And bound him in a dungeon fast:\n My curse upon them every one,\n They’ve hang’d my braw John Highlandman!\n Sing hey, &c.\n\n And now a widow, I must mourn\n The pleasures that will ne’er return:\n The comfort but a hearty can,\n When I think on John Highlandman.\n Sing hey, &c.\n\n\n\n\n Recitativo\n\n A pigmy scraper wi’ his fiddle,\n Wha us’d at trystes an’ fairs to driddle.\n Her strappin limb and gausy middle\n (He reach’d nae higher)\n Had hol’d his heartie like a riddle,\n An’ blawn’t on fire.\n\n Wi’ hand on hainch, and upward e’e,\n He croon’d his gamut, one, two, three,\n Then in an arioso key,\n The wee Apoll\n Set off wi’ allegretto glee\n His giga solo.\n\n\n\n\n Air\n\n Tune—“Whistle owre the lave o’t.”\n\n\n Let me ryke up to dight that tear,\n An’ go wi’ me an’ be my dear;\n An’ then your every care an’ fear\n May whistle owre the lave o’t.\n\n\n\n\n Chorus\n\n I am a fiddler to my trade,\n An’ a’ the tunes that e’er I played,\n The sweetest still to wife or maid,\n Was whistle owre the lave o’t.\n\n At kirns an’ weddins we’se be there,\n An’ O sae nicely’s we will fare!\n We’ll bowse about till Daddie Care\n Sing whistle owre the lave o’t.\n I am, &c.\n\n Sae merrily’s the banes we’ll pyke,\n An’ sun oursel’s about the dyke;\n An’ at our leisure, when ye like,\n We’ll whistle owre the lave o’t.\n I am, &c.\n\n But bless me wi’ your heav’n o’ charms,\n An’ while I kittle hair on thairms,\n Hunger, cauld, an’ a’ sic harms,\n May whistle owre the lave o’t.\n I am, &c.\n\n\n\n\n Recitativo\n\n Her charms had struck a sturdy caird,\n As weel as poor gut-scraper;\n He taks the fiddler by the beard,\n An’ draws a roosty rapier—\n He swoor, by a’ was swearing worth,\n To speet him like a pliver,\n Unless he would from that time forth\n Relinquish her for ever.\n\n Wi’ ghastly e’e poor tweedle-dee\n Upon his hunkers bended,\n An’ pray’d for grace wi’ ruefu’ face,\n An’ so the quarrel ended.\n But tho’ his little heart did grieve\n When round the tinkler prest her,\n He feign’d to snirtle in his sleeve,\n When thus the caird address’d her:\n\n\n\n\n Air\n\n Tune—“Clout the Cauldron.”\n\n\n My bonie lass, I work in brass,\n A tinkler is my station:\n I’ve travell’d round all Christian ground\n In this my occupation;\n I’ve taen the gold, an’ been enrolled\n In many a noble squadron;\n But vain they search’d when off I march’d\n To go an’ clout the cauldron.\n I’ve taen the gold, &c.\n\n Despise that shrimp, that wither’d imp,\n With a’ his noise an’ cap’rin;\n An’ take a share with those that bear\n The budget and the apron!\n And by that stowp! my faith an’ houp,\n And by that dear Kilbaigie,^1\n If e’er ye want, or meet wi’ scant,\n May I ne’er weet my craigie.\n And by that stowp, &c.\n\n [Footnote 1: A peculiar sort of whisky so called,\n a great favorite with Poosie Nansie’s clubs.—R.B.]\n\n\n\n\n Recitativo\n\n The caird prevail’d—th’ unblushing fair\n In his embraces sunk;\n Partly wi’ love o’ercome sae sair,\n An’ partly she was drunk:\n Sir Violino, with an air\n That show’d a man o’ spunk,\n Wish’d unison between the pair,\n An’ made the bottle clunk\n To their health that night.\n\n But hurchin Cupid shot a shaft,\n That play’d a dame a shavie—\n The fiddler rak’d her, fore and aft,\n Behint the chicken cavie.\n Her lord, a wight of Homer’s craft,^2\n Tho’ limpin wi’ the spavie,\n He hirpl’d up, an’ lap like daft,\n An’ shor’d them Dainty Davie.\n O’ boot that night.\n\n He was a care-defying blade\n As ever Bacchus listed!\n Tho’ Fortune sair upon him laid,\n His heart, she ever miss’d it.\n He had no wish but—to be glad,\n Nor want but—when he thirsted;\n He hated nought but—to be sad,\n An’ thus the muse suggested\n His sang that night.\n\n\n\n\n Air\n\n Tune—“For a’ that, an’ a’ that.”\n\n\n I am a Bard of no regard,\n Wi’ gentle folks an’ a’ that;\n But Homer-like, the glowrin byke,\n Frae town to town I draw that.\n\n\n\n\n Chorus\n\n For a’ that, an’ a’ that,\n An’ twice as muckle’s a’ that;\n I’ve lost but ane, I’ve twa behin’,\n I’ve wife eneugh for a’ that.\n\n [Footnote 2: Homer is allowed to be the\n oldest ballad-singer on record.—R.B.]\n\n I never drank the Muses’ stank,\n Castalia’s burn, an’ a’ that;\n But there it streams an’ richly reams,\n My Helicon I ca’ that.\n For a’ that, &c.\n\n Great love Idbear to a’ the fair,\n Their humble slave an’ a’ that;\n But lordly will, I hold it still\n A mortal sin to thraw that.\n For a’ that, &c.\n\n In raptures sweet, this hour we meet,\n Wi’ mutual love an’ a’ that;\n But for how lang the flie may stang,\n Let inclination law that.\n For a’ that, &c.\n\n Their tricks an’ craft hae put me daft,\n They’ve taen me in, an’ a’ that;\n But clear your decks, and here’s—“The Sex!”\n I like the jads for a’ that.\n\n\n\n\n Chorus\n\n For a’ that, an’ a’ that,\n An’ twice as muckle’s a’ that;\n My dearest bluid, to do them guid,\n They’re welcome till’t for a’ that.\n\n\n\n\n Recitativo\n\n So sang the bard—and Nansie’s wa’s\n Shook with a thunder of applause,\n Re-echo’d from each mouth!\n They toom’d their pocks, they pawn’d their duds,\n They scarcely left to co’er their fuds,\n To quench their lowin drouth:\n Then owre again, the jovial thrang\n The poet did request\n To lowse his pack an’ wale a sang,\n A ballad o’ the best;\n He rising, rejoicing,\n Between his twa Deborahs,\n Looks round him, an’ found them\n Impatient for the chorus.\n\n\n\n\n Air\n\n Tune—“Jolly Mortals, fill your Glasses.”\n\n\n See the smoking bowl before us,\n Mark our jovial ragged ring!\n Round and round take up the chorus,\n And in raptures let us sing—\n\n\n\n\n Chorus\n\n A fig for those by law protected!\n Liberty’s a glorious feast!\n Courts for cowards were erected,\n Churches built to please the priest.\n\n What is title, what is treasure,\n What is reputation’s care?\n If we lead a life of pleasure,\n ’Tis no matter how or where!\n A fig for, &c.\n\n With the ready trick and fable,\n Round we wander all the day;\n And at night in barn or stable,\n Hug our doxies on the hay.\n A fig for, &c.\n\n Does the train-attended carriage\n Thro’ the country lighter rove?\n Does the sober bed of marriage\n Witness brighter scenes of love?\n A fig for, &c.\n\n Life is al a variorum,\n We regard not how it goes;\n Let them cant about decorum,\n Who have character to lose.\n A fig for, &c.\n\n Here’s to budgets, bags and wallets!\n Here’s to all the wandering train.\n Here’s our ragged brats and callets,\n One and all cry out, Amen!\n\n\n\n\n Chorus\n\n A fig for those by law protected!\n Liberty’s a glorious feast!\n Courts for cowards were erected,\n Churches built to please the priest.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—For A’ That^1", + "body": " Tune—“For a’ that.”\n\n\n Tho’ women’s minds, like winter winds,\n May shift, and turn, an’ a’ that,\n The noblest breast adores them maist—\n A consequence I draw that.\n\n\n\n\n Chorus\n\n For a’ that, an’ a’ that,\n And twice as meikle’s a’ that;\n The bonie lass that I loe best\n She’ll be my ain for a’ that.\n\n Great love I bear to a’ the fair,\n Their humble slave, an’ a’ that;\n But lordly will, I hold it still\n A mortal sin to thraw that.\n For a’ that, &c.\n\n But there is ane aboon the lave,\n Has wit, and sense, an’ a’ that;\n A bonie lass, I like her best,\n And wha a crime dare ca’ that?\n For a’ that, &c.\n\n In rapture sweet this hour we meet,\n Wi’ mutual love an’ a’ that,\n\n [Footnote 1: A later version of “I am a bard\n of no regard” in “The Jolly Beggars.”]\n\n But for how lang the flie may stang,\n Let inclination law that.\n For a’ that, &c.\n\n Their tricks an’ craft hae put me daft.\n They’ve taen me in, an’ a’ that;\n But clear your decks, and here’s—“The Sex!”\n I like the jads for a’ that.\n For a’ that, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Merry Hae I Been Teethin A Heckle", + "body": " Tune—“The bob O’ Dumblane.”\n\n\n O Merry hae I been teethin’ a heckle,\n An’ merry hae I been shapin’ a spoon;\n O merry hae I been cloutin’ a kettle,\n An’ kissin’ my Katie when a’ was done.\n O a’ the lang day I ca’ at my hammer,\n An’ a’ the lang day I whistle and sing;\n O a’ the lang night I cuddle my kimmer,\n An’ a’ the lang night as happy’s a king.\n\n Bitter in idol I lickit my winnins\n O’ marrying Bess, to gie her a slave:\n Blest be the hour she cool’d in her linnens,\n And blythe be the bird that sings on her grave!\n Come to my arms, my Katie, my Katie;\n O come to my arms and kiss me again!\n Drucken or sober, here’s to thee, Katie!\n An’ blest be the day I did it again.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Cotter’s Saturday Night", + "body": " Inscribed to R. Aiken, Esq., of Ayr.\n\n Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,\n Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;\n Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,\n The short and simple annals of the Poor.\n Gray.\n\n My lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend!\n No mercenary bard his homage pays;\n With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end,\n My dearest meed, a friend’s esteem and praise:\n To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,\n The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene,\n The native feelings strong, the guileless ways,\n What Aiken in a cottage would have been;\n Ah! tho’ his worth unknown, far happier there I ween!\n\n November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh;\n The short’ning winter-day is near a close;\n The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;\n The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose:\n The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,—\n This night his weekly moil is at an end,\n Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,\n Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,\n And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hameward bend.\n\n At length his lonely cot appears in view,\n Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;\n Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through\n To meet their dead, wi’ flichterin noise and glee.\n His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie,\n His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile,\n The lisping infant, prattling on his knee,\n Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile,\n And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.\n\n Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,\n At service out, amang the farmers roun’;\n Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin\n A cannie errand to a neibor town:\n Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,\n In youthfu’ bloom-love sparkling in her e’e—\n Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown,\n Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,\n To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.\n\n With joy unfeign’d, brothers and sisters meet,\n And each for other’s weelfare kindly speirs:\n The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnotic’d fleet:\n Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears.\n The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;\n Anticipation forward points the view;\n The mother, wi’ her needle and her shears,\n Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new;\n The father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due.\n\n Their master’s and their mistress’ command,\n The younkers a’ are warned to obey;\n And mind their labours wi’ an eydent hand,\n And ne’er, tho’ out o’ sight, to jauk or play;\n “And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway,\n And mind your duty, duly, morn and night;\n Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray,\n Implore His counsel and assisting might:\n They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright.”\n\n But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;\n Jenny, wha kens the meaning o’ the same,\n Tells how a neibor lad came o’er the moor,\n To do some errands, and convoy her hame.\n The wily mother sees the conscious flame\n Sparkle in Jenny’s e’e, and flush her cheek;\n With heart-struck anxious care, enquires his name,\n While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;\n Weel-pleased the mother hears, it’s nae wild, worthless rake.\n\n Wi’ kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben;\n A strappin youth, he takes the mother’s eye;\n Blythe Jenny sees the visit’s no ill ta’en;\n The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.\n The youngster’s artless heart o’erflows wi’ joy,\n But blate an’ laithfu’, scarce can weel behave;\n The mother, wi’ a woman’s wiles, can spy\n What makes the youth sae bashfu’ and sae grave,\n Weel-pleas’d to think her bairn’s respected like the lave.\n\n O happy love! where love like this is found:\n O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!\n I’ve paced much this weary, mortal round,\n And sage experience bids me this declare,—\n “If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare—\n One cordial in this melancholy vale,\n ’Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair\n In other’sarms, breathe out the tender tale,\n Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.”\n\n Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,\n A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!\n That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,\n Betray sweet Jenny’s unsuspecting youth?\n Curse on his perjur’d arts! dissembling smooth!\n Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil’d?\n Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,\n Points to the parents fondling o’er their child?\n Then paints the ruin’d maid, and their distraction wild?\n\n But now the supper crowns their simple board,\n The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia’s food;\n The sowp their only hawkie does afford,\n That, ’yont the hallan snugly chows her cood:\n The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,\n To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d kebbuck, fell;\n And aft he’s prest, and aft he ca’s it guid:\n The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell\n How t’was a towmond auld, sin’ lint was i’ the bell.\n\n The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face,\n They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;\n The sire turns o’er, with patriarchal grace,\n The big ha’bible, ance his father’s pride:\n His bonnet rev’rently is laid aside,\n His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare;\n Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,\n He wales a portion with judicious care;\n And “Let us worship God!” he says with solemn air.\n\n They chant their artless notes in simple guise,\n They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;\n Perhaps Dundee’s wild-warbling measures rise;\n Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;\n Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame;\n The sweetest far of Scotia’s holy lays:\n Compar’d with these, Italian trills are tame;\n The tickl’d ears no heart-felt raptures raise;\n Nae unison hae they with our Creator’s praise.\n\n The priest-like father reads the sacred page,\n How Abram was the friend of God on high;\n Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage\n With Amalek’s ungracious progeny;\n Or how the royal bard did groaning lie\n Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire;\n Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;\n Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire;\n Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.\n\n Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,\n How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;\n How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,\n Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:\n How His first followers and servants sped;\n The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:\n How he, who lone in Patmos banished,\n Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,\n And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounc’d by Heaven’s command.\n\n Then, kneeling down to Heaven’s Eternal King,\n The saint, the father, and the husband prays:\n Hope “springs exulting on triumphant wing,”^1\n That thus they all shall meet in future days,\n There, ever bask in uncreated rays,\n No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,\n Together hymning their Creator’s praise,\n In such society, yet still more dear;\n While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere\n\n Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride,\n In all the pomp of method, and of art;\n When men display to congregations wide\n\n [Footnote 1: Pope’s “Windsor Forest.”—R.B.]\n\n Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart!\n The Power, incens’d, the pageant will desert,\n The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;\n But haply, in some cottage far apart,\n May hear, well-pleas’d, the language of the soul;\n And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.\n\n Then homeward all take off their sev’ral way;\n The youngling cottagers retire to rest:\n The parent-pair their secret homage pay,\n And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,\n That he who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest,\n And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride,\n Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,\n For them and for their little ones provide;\n But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.\n\n From scenes like these, old Scotia’s grandeur springs,\n That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad:\n Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,\n “An honest man’s the noblest work of God;”\n And certes, in fair virtue’s heavenly road,\n The cottage leaves the palace far behind;\n What is a lordling’s pomp? a cumbrous load,\n Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,\n Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin’d!\n\n O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!\n For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,\n Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil\n Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!\n And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent\n From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile!\n Then howe’er crowns and coronets be rent,\n A virtuous populace may rise the while,\n And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov’d isle.\n\n O Thou! who pour’d the patriotic tide,\n That stream’d thro’ Wallace’s undaunted heart,\n Who dar’d to nobly stem tyrannic pride,\n Or nobly die, the second glorious part:\n (The patriot’s God peculiarly thou art,\n His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)\n O never, never Scotia’s realm desert;\n But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard\n In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Address To The Deil", + "body": " O Prince! O chief of many throned Pow’rs\n That led th’ embattl’d Seraphim to war—\n Milton.\n\n O Thou! whatever title suit thee—\n Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,\n Wha in yon cavern grim an’ sootie,\n Clos’d under hatches,\n Spairges about the brunstane cootie,\n To scaud poor wretches!\n\n Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,\n An’ let poor damned bodies be;\n I’m sure sma’ pleasure it can gie,\n Ev’n to a deil,\n To skelp an’ scaud poor dogs like me,\n An’ hear us squeel!\n\n Great is thy pow’r an’ great thy fame;\n Far ken’d an’ noted is thy name;\n An’ tho’ yon lowin’ heuch’s thy hame,\n Thou travels far;\n An’ faith! thou’s neither lag nor lame,\n Nor blate, nor scaur.\n\n Whiles, ranging like a roarin lion,\n For prey, a’ holes and corners tryin;\n Whiles, on the strong-wind’d tempest flyin,\n Tirlin the kirks;\n Whiles, in the human bosom pryin,\n Unseen thou lurks.\n\n I’ve heard my rev’rend graunie say,\n In lanely glens ye like to stray;\n Or where auld ruin’d castles grey\n Nod to the moon,\n Ye fright the nightly wand’rer’s way,\n Wi’ eldritch croon.\n\n When twilight did my graunie summon,\n To say her pray’rs, douse, honest woman!\n Aft’yont the dyke she’s heard you bummin,\n Wi’ eerie drone;\n Or, rustlin, thro’ the boortrees comin,\n Wi’ heavy groan.\n\n Ae dreary, windy, winter night,\n The stars shot down wi’ sklentin light,\n Wi’ you, mysel’ I gat a fright,\n Ayont the lough;\n Ye, like a rash-buss, stood in sight,\n Wi’ wavin’ sough.\n\n The cudgel in my nieve did shake,\n Each brist’ld hair stood like a stake,\n When wi’ an eldritch, stoor “quaick, quaick,”\n Amang the springs,\n Awa ye squatter’d like a drake,\n On whistlin’ wings.\n\n Let warlocks grim, an’ wither’d hags,\n Tell how wi’ you, on ragweed nags,\n They skim the muirs an’ dizzy crags,\n Wi’ wicked speed;\n And in kirk-yards renew their leagues,\n Owre howkit dead.\n\n Thence countra wives, wi’ toil and pain,\n May plunge an’ plunge the kirn in vain;\n For oh! the yellow treasure’s ta’en\n By witchin’ skill;\n An’ dawtit, twal-pint hawkie’s gane\n As yell’s the bill.\n\n Thence mystic knots mak great abuse\n On young guidmen, fond, keen an’ crouse,\n When the best wark-lume i’ the house,\n By cantrip wit,\n Is instant made no worth a louse,\n Just at the bit.\n\n When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,\n An’ float the jinglin’ icy boord,\n Then water-kelpies haunt the foord,\n By your direction,\n And ’nighted trav’llers are allur’d\n To their destruction.\n\n And aft your moss-traversin Spunkies\n Decoy the wight that late an’ drunk is:\n The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkies\n Delude his eyes,\n Till in some miry slough he sunk is,\n Ne’er mair to rise.\n\n When masons’ mystic word an’ grip\n In storms an’ tempests raise you up,\n Some cock or cat your rage maun stop,\n Or, strange to tell!\n The youngest brither ye wad whip\n Aff straught to hell.\n\n Lang syne in Eden’s bonie yard,\n When youthfu’ lovers first were pair’d,\n An’ all the soul of love they shar’d,\n The raptur’d hour,\n Sweet on the fragrant flow’ry swaird,\n In shady bower;^1\n\n Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog!\n Ye cam to Paradise incog,\n\n [Footnote 1: The verse originally ran: “Lang syne, in Eden’s\n happy scene When strappin Adam’s days were green, And Eve\n was like my bonie Jean, My dearest part, A dancin, sweet,\n young handsome quean, O’ guileless heart.”]\n\n An’ play’d on man a cursed brogue,\n (Black be your fa’!)\n An’ gied the infant warld a shog,\n ’Maist rui’d a’.\n\n D’ye mind that day when in a bizz\n Wi’ reekit duds, an’ reestit gizz,\n Ye did present your smoutie phiz\n ’Mang better folk,\n An’ sklented on the man of Uzz\n Your spitefu’ joke?\n\n An’ how ye gat him i’ your thrall,\n An’ brak him out o’ house an hal’,\n While scabs and botches did him gall,\n Wi’ bitter claw;\n An’ lows’d his ill-tongu’d wicked scaul’,\n Was warst ava?\n\n But a’ your doings to rehearse,\n Your wily snares an’ fechtin fierce,\n Sin’ that day Michael^2 did you pierce,\n Down to this time,\n Wad ding a Lallan tounge, or Erse,\n In prose or rhyme.\n\n An’ now, auld Cloots, I ken ye’re thinkin,\n A certain bardie’s rantin, drinkin,\n Some luckless hour will send him linkin\n To your black pit;\n But faith! he’ll turn a corner jinkin,\n An’ cheat you yet.\n\n But fare-you-weel, auld Nickie-ben!\n O wad ye tak a thought an’ men’!\n Ye aiblins might—I dinna ken—\n Stil hae a stake:\n I’m wae to think up’ yon den,\n Ev’n for your sake!\n\n [Footnote 2: Vide Milton, Book vi.—R. B.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Scotch Drink", + "body": " Gie him strong drink until he wink,\n That’s sinking in despair;\n An’ liquor guid to fire his bluid,\n That’s prest wi’ grief and care:\n There let him bouse, an’ deep carouse,\n Wi’ bumpers flowing o’er,\n Till he forgets his loves or debts,\n An’ minds his griefs no more.\n\n (Solomon’s Proverbs, xxxi. 6, 7.)\n\n Let other poets raise a fracas\n ’Bout vines, an’ wines, an’ drucken Bacchus,\n An’ crabbit names an’stories wrack us,\n An’ grate our lug:\n I sing the juice Scotch bear can mak us,\n In glass or jug.\n\n O thou, my muse! guid auld Scotch drink!\n Whether thro’ wimplin worms thou jink,\n Or, richly brown, ream owre the brink,\n In glorious faem,\n Inspire me, till I lisp an’ wink,\n To sing thy name!\n\n Let husky wheat the haughs adorn,\n An’ aits set up their awnie horn,\n An’ pease and beans, at e’en or morn,\n Perfume the plain:\n Leeze me on thee, John Barleycorn,\n Thou king o’ grain!\n\n On thee aft Scotland chows her cood,\n In souple scones, the wale o’food!\n Or tumblin in the boiling flood\n Wi’ kail an’ beef;\n But when thou pours thy strong heart’s blood,\n There thou shines chief.\n\n Food fills the wame, an’ keeps us leevin;\n Tho’ life’s a gift no worth receivin,\n When heavy-dragg’d wi’ pine an’ grievin;\n But, oil’d by thee,\n The wheels o’ life gae down-hill, scrievin,\n Wi’ rattlin glee.\n\n Thou clears the head o’doited Lear;\n Thou cheers ahe heart o’ drooping Care;\n Thou strings the nerves o’ Labour sair,\n At’s weary toil;\n Though even brightens dark Despair\n Wi’ gloomy smile.\n\n Aft, clad in massy siller weed,\n Wi’ gentles thou erects thy head;\n Yet, humbly kind in time o’ need,\n The poor man’s wine;\n His weep drap parritch, or his bread,\n Thou kitchens fine.\n\n Thou art the life o’ public haunts;\n But thee, what were our fairs and rants?\n Ev’n godly meetings o’ the saunts,\n By thee inspired,\n When gaping they besiege the tents,\n Are doubly fir’d.\n\n That merry night we get the corn in,\n O sweetly, then, thou reams the horn in!\n Or reekin on a New-year mornin\n In cog or bicker,\n An’ just a wee drap sp’ritual burn in,\n An’ gusty sucker!\n\n When Vulcan gies his bellows breath,\n An’ ploughmen gather wi’ their graith,\n O rare! to see thee fizz an freath\n I’ th’ luggit caup!\n Then Burnewin comes on like death\n At every chap.\n\n Nae mercy then, for airn or steel;\n The brawnie, banie, ploughman chiel,\n Brings hard owrehip, wi’ sturdy wheel,\n The strong forehammer,\n Till block an’ studdie ring an reel,\n Wi’ dinsome clamour.\n\n When skirling weanies see the light,\n Though maks the gossips clatter bright,\n How fumblin’ cuiffs their dearies slight;\n Wae worth the name!\n Nae howdie gets a social night,\n Or plack frae them.\n\n When neibors anger at a plea,\n An’ just as wud as wud can be,\n How easy can the barley brie\n Cement the quarrel!\n It’s aye the cheapest lawyer’s fee,\n To taste the barrel.\n\n Alake! that e’er my muse has reason,\n To wyte her countrymen wi’ treason!\n But mony daily weet their weason\n Wi’ liquors nice,\n An’ hardly, in a winter season,\n E’er Spier her price.\n\n Wae worth that brandy, burnin trash!\n Fell source o’ mony a pain an’ brash!\n Twins mony a poor, doylt, drucken hash,\n O’ half his days;\n An’ sends, beside, auld Scotland’s cash\n To her warst faes.\n\n Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well!\n Ye chief, to you my tale I tell,\n Poor, plackless devils like mysel’!\n It sets you ill,\n Wi’ bitter, dearthfu’ wines to mell,\n Or foreign gill.\n\n May gravels round his blather wrench,\n An’ gouts torment him, inch by inch,\n What twists his gruntle wi’ a glunch\n O’ sour disdain,\n Out owre a glass o’ whisky-punch\n Wi’ honest men!\n\n O Whisky! soul o’ plays and pranks!\n Accept a bardie’s gratfu’ thanks!\n When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks\n Are my poor verses!\n Thou comes—they rattle in their ranks,\n At ither’s a-s!\n\n Thee, Ferintosh! O sadly lost!\n Scotland lament frae coast to coast!\n Now colic grips, an’ barkin hoast\n May kill us a’;\n For loyal Forbes’ charter’d boast\n Is ta’en awa?\n\n Thae curst horse-leeches o’ the’ Excise,\n Wha mak the whisky stells their prize!\n Haud up thy han’, Deil! ance, twice, thrice!\n There, seize the blinkers!\n An’ bake them up in brunstane pies\n For poor damn’d drinkers.\n\n Fortune! if thou’ll but gie me still\n Hale breeks, a scone, an’ whisky gill,\n An’ rowth o’ rhyme to rave at will,\n Tak a’ the rest,\n An’ deal’t about as thy blind skill\n Directs thee best.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Auld Farmer’s New-Year-Morning Salutation To His Auld Mare, Maggie", + "body": " On giving her the accustomed ripp of corn to hansel in the New Year.\n\n A Guid New-year I wish thee, Maggie!\n Hae, there’s a ripp to thy auld baggie:\n Tho’ thou’s howe-backit now, an’ knaggie,\n I’ve seen the day\n Thou could hae gaen like ony staggie,\n Out-owre the lay.\n\n Tho’ now thou’s dowie, stiff, an’ crazy,\n An’ thy auld hide as white’s a daisie,\n I’ve seen thee dappl’t, sleek an’ glaizie,\n A bonie gray:\n He should been tight that daur’t to raize thee,\n Ance in a day.\n\n Thou ance was i’ the foremost rank,\n A filly buirdly, steeve, an’ swank;\n An’ set weel down a shapely shank,\n As e’er tread yird;\n An’ could hae flown out-owre a stank,\n Like ony bird.\n\n It’s now some nine-an’-twenty year,\n Sin’ thou was my guid-father’s mear;\n He gied me thee, o’ tocher clear,\n An’ fifty mark;\n Tho’ it was sma’, ’twas weel-won gear,\n An’ thou was stark.\n\n When first I gaed to woo my Jenny,\n Ye then was trotting wi’ your minnie:\n Tho’ ye was trickie, slee, an’ funnie,\n Ye ne’er was donsie;\n But hamely, tawie, quiet, an’ cannie,\n An’ unco sonsie.\n\n That day, ye pranc’d wi’ muckle pride,\n When ye bure hame my bonie bride:\n An’ sweet an’ gracefu’ she did ride,\n Wi’ maiden air!\n Kyle-Stewart I could bragged wide\n For sic a pair.\n\n Tho’ now ye dow but hoyte and hobble,\n An’ wintle like a saumont coble,\n That day, ye was a jinker noble,\n For heels an’ win’!\n An’ ran them till they a’ did wauble,\n Far, far, behin’!\n\n When thou an’ I were young an’ skeigh,\n An’ stable-meals at fairs were dreigh,\n How thou wad prance, and snore, an’ skreigh\n An’ tak the road!\n Town’s-bodies ran, an’ stood abeigh,\n An’ ca’t thee mad.\n\n When thou was corn’t, an’ I was mellow,\n We took the road aye like a swallow:\n At brooses thou had ne’er a fellow,\n For pith an’ speed;\n But ev’ry tail thou pay’t them hollowm\n Whare’er thou gaed.\n\n The sma’, droop-rumpl’t, hunter cattle\n Might aiblins waur’t thee for a brattle;\n But sax Scotch mile, thou try’t their mettle,\n An’ gar’t them whaizle:\n Nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle\n O’ saugh or hazel.\n\n Thou was a noble fittie-lan’,\n As e’er in tug or tow was drawn!\n Aft thee an’ I, in aught hours’ gaun,\n In guid March-weather,\n Hae turn’d sax rood beside our han’,\n For days thegither.\n\n Thou never braing’t, an’ fetch’t, an’ fliskit;\n But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit,\n An’ spread abreed thy weel-fill’d brisket,\n Wi’ pith an’ power;\n Till sprittie knowes wad rair’t an’ riskit\n An’ slypet owre.\n\n When frosts lay lang, an’ snaws were deep,\n An’ threaten’d labour back to keep,\n I gied thy cog a wee bit heap\n Aboon the timmer:\n I ken’d my Maggie wad na sleep,\n For that, or simmer.\n\n In cart or car thou never reestit;\n The steyest brae thou wad hae fac’t it;\n Thou never lap, an’ sten’t, and breastit,\n Then stood to blaw;\n But just thy step a wee thing hastit,\n Thou snoov’t awa.\n\n My pleugh is now thy bairn-time a’,\n Four gallant brutes as e’er did draw;\n Forbye sax mae I’ve sell’t awa,\n That thou hast nurst:\n They drew me thretteen pund an’ twa,\n The vera warst.\n\n Mony a sair daurk we twa hae wrought,\n An’ wi’ the weary warl’ fought!\n An’ mony an anxious day, I thought\n We wad be beat!\n Yet here to crazy age we’re brought,\n Wi’ something yet.\n\n An’ think na’, my auld trusty servan’,\n That now perhaps thou’s less deservin,\n An’ thy auld days may end in starvin;\n For my last fow,\n A heapit stimpart, I’ll reserve ane\n Laid by for you.\n\n We’ve worn to crazy years thegither;\n We’ll toyte about wi’ ane anither;\n Wi’ tentie care I’ll flit thy tether\n To some hain’d rig,\n Whare ye may nobly rax your leather,\n Wi’ sma’ fatigue.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Twa Dogs^1", + "body": " A Tale\n\n ’Twas in that place o’ Scotland’s isle,\n That bears the name o’ auld King Coil,\n Upon a bonie day in June,\n When wearin’ thro’ the afternoon,\n Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame,\n Forgather’d ance upon a time.\n\n The first I’ll name, they ca’d him Caesar,\n Was keepit for His Honor’s pleasure:\n His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,\n Shew’d he was nane o’ Scotland’s dogs;\n But whalpit some place far abroad,\n Whare sailors gang to fish for cod.\n\n His locked, letter’d, braw brass collar\n Shew’d him the gentleman an’ scholar;\n But though he was o’ high degree,\n The fient a pride, nae pride had he;\n But wad hae spent an hour caressin,\n Ev’n wi’ al tinkler-gipsy’s messin:\n At kirk or market, mill or smiddie,\n Nae tawted tyke, tho’ e’er sae duddie,\n But he wad stan’t, as glad to see him,\n An’ stroan’t on stanes an’ hillocks wi’ him.\n\n The tither was a ploughman’s collie—\n A rhyming, ranting, raving billie,\n Wha for his friend an’ comrade had him,\n And in freak had Luath ca’d him,\n After some dog in Highland Sang,^2\n Was made lang syne,—Lord knows how lang.\n\n He was a gash an’ faithfu’ tyke,\n As ever lap a sheugh or dyke.\n His honest, sonsie, baws’nt face\n Aye gat him friends in ilka place;\n His breast was white, his touzie back\n Weel clad wi’ coat o’ glossy black;\n His gawsie tail, wi’ upward curl,\n Hung owre his hurdie’s wi’ a swirl.\n\n [Footnote 1: Luath was Burns’ own dog.]\n\n [Footnote 2: Luath, Cuchullin’s dog in Ossian’s “Fingal.”—R. B.]\n\n Nae doubt but they were fain o’ ither,\n And unco pack an’ thick thegither;\n Wi’ social nose whiles snuff’d an’ snowkit;\n Whiles mice an’ moudieworts they howkit;\n Whiles scour’d awa’ in lang excursion,\n An’ worry’d ither in diversion;\n Until wi’ daffin’ weary grown\n Upon a knowe they set them down.\n An’ there began a lang digression.\n About the “lords o’ the creation.”\n\n\n\n\n Caesar\n\n I’ve aften wonder’d, honest Luath,\n What sort o’ life poor dogs like you have;\n An’ when the gentry’s life I saw,\n What way poor bodies liv’d ava.\n\n Our laird gets in his racked rents,\n His coals, his kane, an’ a’ his stents:\n He rises when he likes himsel’;\n His flunkies answer at the bell;\n He ca’s his coach; he ca’s his horse;\n He draws a bonie silken purse,\n As lang’s my tail, where, thro’ the steeks,\n The yellow letter’d Geordie keeks.\n\n Frae morn to e’en, it’s nought but toiling\n At baking, roasting, frying, boiling;\n An’ tho’ the gentry first are stechin,\n Yet ev’n the ha’ folk fill their pechan\n Wi’ sauce, ragouts, an’ sic like trashtrie,\n That’s little short o’ downright wastrie.\n Our whipper-in, wee, blasted wonner,\n Poor, worthless elf, it eats a dinner,\n Better than ony tenant-man\n His Honour has in a’ the lan’:\n An’ what poor cot-folk pit their painch in,\n I own it’s past my comprehension.\n\n\n\n\n Luath\n\n Trowth, Caesar, whiles they’re fash’t eneugh:\n A cottar howkin in a sheugh,\n Wi’ dirty stanes biggin a dyke,\n Baring a quarry, an’ sic like;\n Himsel’, a wife, he thus sustains,\n A smytrie o’ wee duddie weans,\n An’ nought but his han’-daurk, to keep\n Them right an’ tight in thack an’ rape.\n\n An’ when they meet wi’ sair disasters,\n Like loss o’ health or want o’ masters,\n Ye maist wad think, a wee touch langer,\n An’ they maun starve o’ cauld an’ hunger:\n But how it comes, I never kent yet,\n They’re maistly wonderfu’ contented;\n An’ buirdly chiels, an’ clever hizzies,\n Are bred in sic a way as this is.\n\n\n\n\n Caesar\n\n But then to see how ye’re negleckit,\n How huff’d, an’ cuff’d, an’ disrespeckit!\n Lord man, our gentry care as little\n For delvers, ditchers, an’ sic cattle;\n They gang as saucy by poor folk,\n As I wad by a stinkin brock.\n\n I’ve notic’d, on our laird’s court-day,—\n An’ mony a time my heart’s been wae,—\n Poor tenant bodies, scant o’cash,\n How they maun thole a factor’s snash;\n He’ll stamp an’ threaten, curse an’ swear\n He’ll apprehend them, poind their gear;\n While they maun stan’, wi’ aspect humble,\n An’ hear it a’, an’ fear an’ tremble!\n\n I see how folk live that hae riches;\n But surely poor-folk maun be wretches!\n\n\n\n\n Luath\n\n They’re no sae wretched’s ane wad think.\n Tho’ constantly on poortith’s brink,\n They’re sae accustom’d wi’ the sight,\n The view o’t gives them little fright.\n\n Then chance and fortune are sae guided,\n They’re aye in less or mair provided:\n An’ tho’ fatigued wi’ close employment,\n A blink o’ rest’s a sweet enjoyment.\n\n The dearest comfort o’ their lives,\n Their grushie weans an’ faithfu’ wives;\n The prattling things are just their pride,\n That sweetens a’ their fire-side.\n\n An’ whiles twalpennie worth o’ nappy\n Can mak the bodies unco happy:\n They lay aside their private cares,\n To mind the Kirk and State affairs;\n They’ll talk o’ patronage an’ priests,\n Wi’ kindling fury i’ their breasts,\n Or tell what new taxation’s comin,\n An’ ferlie at the folk in Lon’on.\n\n As bleak-fac’d Hallowmass returns,\n They get the jovial, rantin kirns,\n When rural life, of ev’ry station,\n Unite in common recreation;\n Love blinks, Wit slaps, an’ social Mirth\n Forgets there’s Care upo’ the earth.\n\n That merry day the year begins,\n They bar the door on frosty win’s;\n The nappy reeks wi’ mantling ream,\n An’ sheds a heart-inspiring steam;\n The luntin pipe, an’ sneeshin mill,\n Are handed round wi’ right guid will;\n The cantie auld folks crackin crouse,\n The young anes rantin thro’ the house—\n My heart has been sae fain to see them,\n That I for joy hae barkit wi’ them.\n\n Still it’s owre true that ye hae said,\n Sic game is now owre aften play’d;\n There’s mony a creditable stock\n O’ decent, honest, fawsont folk,\n Are riven out baith root an’ branch,\n Some rascal’s pridefu’ greed to quench,\n Wha thinks to knit himsel the faster\n In favour wi’ some gentle master,\n Wha, aiblins, thrang a parliamentin,\n For Britain’s guid his saul indentin—\n\n\n\n\n Caesar\n\n Haith, lad, ye little ken about it:\n For Britain’s guid! guid faith! I doubt it.\n Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him:\n An’ saying ay or no’s they bid him:\n At operas an’ plays parading,\n Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading:\n Or maybe, in a frolic daft,\n To Hague or Calais takes a waft,\n To mak a tour an’ tak a whirl,\n To learn bon ton, an’ see the worl’.\n\n There, at Vienna, or Versailles,\n He rives his father’s auld entails;\n Or by Madrid he takes the rout,\n To thrum guitars an’ fecht wi’ nowt;\n Or down Italian vista startles,\n\n Whore-hunting amang groves o’ myrtles:\n Then bowses drumlie German-water,\n To mak himsel look fair an’ fatter,\n An’ clear the consequential sorrows,\n Love-gifts of Carnival signoras.\n\n For Britain’s guid! for her destruction!\n Wi’ dissipation, feud, an’ faction.\n\n\n\n\n Luath\n\n Hech, man! dear sirs! is that the gate\n They waste sae mony a braw estate!\n Are we sae foughten an’ harass’d\n For gear to gang that gate at last?\n\n O would they stay aback frae courts,\n An’ please themsels wi’ country sports,\n It wad for ev’ry ane be better,\n The laird, the tenant, an’ the cotter!\n For thae frank, rantin, ramblin billies,\n Feint haet o’ them’s ill-hearted fellows;\n Except for breakin o’ their timmer,\n Or speakin lightly o’ their limmer,\n Or shootin of a hare or moor-cock,\n The ne’er-a-bit they’re ill to poor folk,\n\n But will ye tell me, Master Caesar,\n Sure great folk’s life’s a life o’ pleasure?\n Nae cauld nor hunger e’er can steer them,\n The very thought o’t need na fear them.\n\n\n\n\n Caesar\n\n Lord, man, were ye but whiles whare I am,\n The gentles, ye wad ne’er envy them!\n\n It’s true, they need na starve or sweat,\n Thro’ winter’s cauld, or simmer’s heat:\n They’ve nae sair wark to craze their banes,\n An’ fill auld age wi’ grips an’ granes:\n But human bodies are sic fools,\n For a’ their colleges an’ schools,\n That when nae real ills perplex them,\n They mak enow themsel’s to vex them;\n An’ aye the less they hae to sturt them,\n In like proportion, less will hurt them.\n\n A country fellow at the pleugh,\n His acre’s till’d, he’s right eneugh;\n A country girl at her wheel,\n Her dizzen’s dune, she’s unco weel;\n But gentlemen, an’ ladies warst,\n Wi’ ev’n-down want o’ wark are curst.\n They loiter, lounging, lank an’ lazy;\n Tho’ deil-haet ails them, yet uneasy;\n Their days insipid, dull, an’ tasteless;\n Their nights unquiet, lang, an’ restless.\n\n An’ev’n their sports, their balls an’ races,\n Their galloping through public places,\n There’s sic parade, sic pomp, an’ art,\n The joy can scarcely reach the heart.\n\n The men cast out in party-matches,\n Then sowther a’ in deep debauches.\n Ae night they’re mad wi’ drink an’ whoring,\n Niest day their life is past enduring.\n\n The ladies arm-in-arm in clusters,\n As great an’ gracious a’ as sisters;\n But hear their absent thoughts o’ ither,\n They’re a’ run-deils an’ jads thegither.\n Whiles, owre the wee bit cup an’ platie,\n They sip the scandal-potion pretty;\n Or lee-lang nights, wi’ crabbit leuks\n Pore owre the devil’s pictur’d beuks;\n Stake on a chance a farmer’s stackyard,\n An’ cheat like ony unhanged blackguard.\n\n There’s some exceptions, man an’ woman;\n But this is gentry’s life in common.\n\n By this, the sun was out of sight,\n An’ darker gloamin brought the night;\n The bum-clock humm’d wi’ lazy drone;\n The kye stood rowtin i’ the loan;\n When up they gat an’ shook their lugs,\n Rejoic’d they werena men but dogs;\n An’ each took aff his several way,\n Resolv’d to meet some ither day.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Author’s Earnest Cry And Prayer", + "body": " To the Right Honourable and Honourable Scotch\n Representatives in the House of Commons.^1\n\n Dearest of distillation! last and best—\n\n —How art thou lost!—\n\n\n Parody on Milton.\n\n Ye Irish lords, ye knights an’ squires,\n Wha represent our brughs an’ shires,\n An’ doucely manage our affairs\n In parliament,\n To you a simple poet’s pray’rs\n Are humbly sent.\n\n Alas! my roupit Muse is hearse!\n Your Honours’ hearts wi’ grief ’twad pierce,\n To see her sittin on her arse\n Low i’ the dust,\n And scriechinhout prosaic verse,\n An like to brust!\n\n [Footnote 1: This was written before the Act anent the\n Scotch distilleries, of session 1786, for which Scotland and\n the author return their most grateful thanks.—R.B.]\n\n Tell them wha hae the chief direction,\n Scotland an’ me’s in great affliction,\n E’er sin’ they laid that curst restriction\n On aqua-vitae;\n An’ rouse them up to strong conviction,\n An’ move their pity.\n\n Stand forth an’ tell yon Premier youth\n The honest, open, naked truth:\n Tell him o’ mine an’ Scotland’s drouth,\n His servants humble:\n The muckle deevil blaw you south\n If ye dissemble!\n\n Does ony great man glunch an’ gloom?\n Speak out, an’ never fash your thumb!\n Let posts an’ pensions sink or soom\n Wi’ them wha grant them;\n If honestly they canna come,\n Far better want them.\n\n In gath’rin votes you were na slack;\n Now stand as tightly by your tack:\n Ne’er claw your lug, an’ fidge your back,\n An’ hum an’ haw;\n But raise your arm, an’ tell your crack\n Before them a’.\n\n Paint Scotland greetin owre her thrissle;\n Her mutchkin stowp as toom’s a whissle;\n An’ damn’d excisemen in a bussle,\n Seizin a stell,\n Triumphant crushin’t like a mussel,\n Or limpet shell!\n\n Then, on the tither hand present her—\n A blackguard smuggler right behint her,\n An’ cheek-for-chow, a chuffie vintner\n Colleaguing join,\n Picking her pouch as bare as winter\n Of a’ kind coin.\n\n Is there, that bears the name o’ Scot,\n But feels his heart’s bluid rising hot,\n To see his poor auld mither’s pot\n Thus dung in staves,\n An’ plunder’d o’ her hindmost groat\n By gallows knaves?\n\n Alas! I’m but a nameless wight,\n Trode i’ the mire out o’ sight?\n But could I like Montgomeries fight,\n Or gab like Boswell,^2\n There’s some sark-necks I wad draw tight,\n An’ tie some hose well.\n\n God bless your Honours! can ye see’t—\n The kind, auld cantie carlin greet,\n An’ no get warmly to your feet,\n An’ gar them hear it,\n An’ tell them wi’a patriot-heat\n Ye winna bear it?\n\n Some o’ you nicely ken the laws,\n To round the period an’ pause,\n An’ with rhetoric clause on clause\n To mak harangues;\n Then echo thro’ Saint Stephen’s wa’s\n Auld Scotland’s wrangs.\n\n Dempster,^3 a true blue Scot I’se warran’;\n Thee, aith-detesting, chaste Kilkerran;^4\n An’ that glib-gabbit Highland baron,\n The Laird o’ Graham;^5\n An’ ane, a chap that’s damn’d aulfarran’,\n Dundas his name:^6\n\n Erskine, a spunkie Norland billie;^7\n True Campbells, Frederick and Ilay;^8\n\n [Footnote 2: James Boswell of Auchinleck, the biographer of Johnson.]\n\n [Footnote 3: George Dempster of Dunnichen.]\n\n [Footnote 4: Sir Adam Ferguson of Kilkerran, Bart.]\n\n [Footnote 5: The Marquis of Graham, eldest son of the Duke of\n Montrose.]\n\n [Footnote 6: Right Hon. Henry Dundas, M. P.]\n\n [Footnote 7: Probably Thomas, afterward Lord Erskine.]\n\n [Footnote 8: Lord Frederick Campbell, second brother of the Duke\n of Argyll, and Ilay Campbell, Lord Advocate for Scotland,\n afterward President of the Court of Session.]\n\n An’ Livistone, the bauld Sir Willie;^9\n An’ mony ithers,\n Whom auld Demosthenes or Tully\n Might own for brithers.\n\n See sodger Hugh,^10 my watchman stented,\n If poets e’er are represented;\n I ken if that your sword were wanted,\n Ye’d lend a hand;\n But when there’s ought to say anent it,\n Ye’re at a stand.\n\n Arouse, my boys! exert your mettle,\n To get auld Scotland back her kettle;\n Or faith! I’ll wad my new pleugh-pettle,\n Ye’ll see’t or lang,\n She’ll teach you, wi’ a reekin whittle,\n Anither sang.\n\n This while she’s been in crankous mood,\n Her lost Militia fir’d her bluid;\n (Deil na they never mair do guid,\n Play’d her that pliskie!)\n An’ now she’s like to rin red-wud\n About her whisky.\n\n An’ Lord! if ance they pit her till’t,\n Her tartan petticoat she’ll kilt,\n An’durk an’ pistol at her belt,\n She’ll tak the streets,\n An’ rin her whittle to the hilt,\n I’ the first she meets!\n\n For God sake, sirs! then speak her fair,\n An’ straik her cannie wi’ the hair,\n An’ to the muckle house repair,\n Wi’ instant speed,\n An’ strive, wi’ a’ your wit an’ lear,\n To get remead.\n\n [Footnote 9: Sir Wm. Augustus Cunningham, Baronet, of Livingstone.]\n\n [Footnote 10: Col. Hugh Montgomery, afterward Earl of Eglinton.]\n\n Yon ill-tongu’d tinkler, Charlie Fox,\n May taunt you wi’ his jeers and mocks;\n But gie him’t het, my hearty cocks!\n E’en cowe the cadie!\n An’ send him to his dicing box\n An’ sportin’ lady.\n\n Tell you guid bluid o’ auld Boconnock’s, ^11\n I’ll be his debt twa mashlum bonnocks,\n An’ drink his health in auld Nance Tinnock’s ^12\n Nine times a-week,\n If he some scheme, like tea an’ winnocks,\n Was kindly seek.\n\n Could he some commutation broach,\n I’ll pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch,\n He needna fear their foul reproach\n Nor erudition,\n Yon mixtie-maxtie, queer hotch-potch,\n The Coalition.\n\n Auld Scotland has a raucle tongue;\n She’s just a devil wi’ a rung;\n An’ if she promise auld or young\n To tak their part,\n Tho’ by the neck she should be strung,\n She’ll no desert.\n\n And now, ye chosen Five-and-Forty,\n May still you mither’s heart support ye;\n Then, tho’a minister grow dorty,\n An’ kick your place,\n Ye’ll snap your gingers, poor an’ hearty,\n Before his face.\n\n God bless your Honours, a’ your days,\n Wi’ sowps o’ kail and brats o’ claise,\n\n [Footnote 11: Pitt, whose grandfather was of Boconnock in Cornwall.]\n\n [Footnote 12: A worthy old hostess of the author’s in Mauchline,\n where he sometimes studies politics over a glass of gude auld\n Scotch Drink.—R.B.]\n\n In spite o’ a’ the thievish kaes,\n That haunt St. Jamie’s!\n Your humble poet sings an’ prays,\n While Rab his name is.\n\n\n\n\n Postscript\n\n Let half-starv’d slaves in warmer skies\n See future wines, rich-clust’ring, rise;\n Their lot auld Scotland ne’re envies,\n But, blythe and frisky,\n She eyes her freeborn, martial boys\n Tak aff their whisky.\n\n What tho’ their Phoebus kinder warms,\n While fragrance blooms and beauty charms,\n When wretches range, in famish’d swarms,\n The scented groves;\n Or, hounded forth, dishonour arms\n In hungry droves!\n\n Their gun’s a burden on their shouther;\n They downa bide the stink o’ powther;\n Their bauldest thought’s a hank’ring swither\n To stan’ or rin,\n Till skelp—a shot—they’re aff, a’throw’ther,\n To save their skin.\n\n But bring a Scotchman frae his hill,\n Clap in his cheek a Highland gill,\n Say, such is royal George’s will,\n An’ there’s the foe!\n He has nae thought but how to kill\n Twa at a blow.\n\n Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him;\n Death comes, wi’ fearless eye he sees him;\n Wi’bluidy hand a welcome gies him;\n An’ when he fa’s,\n His latest draught o’ breathin lea’es him\n In faint huzzas.\n\n Sages their solemn een may steek,\n An’ raise a philosophic reek,\n An’ physically causes seek,\n In clime an’ season;\n But tell me whisky’s name in Greek\n I’ll tell the reason.\n\n Scotland, my auld, respected mither!\n Tho’ whiles ye moistify your leather,\n Till, whare ye sit on craps o’ heather,\n Ye tine your dam;\n Freedom an’ whisky gang thegither!\n Take aff your dram!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Ordination", + "body": " For sense they little owe to frugal Heav’n—\n To please the mob, they hide the little giv’n.\n\n Kilmarnock wabsters, fidge an’ claw,\n An’ pour your creeshie nations;\n An’ ye wha leather rax an’ draw,\n Of a’ denominations;\n Swith to the Ligh Kirk, ane an’ a’\n An’ there tak up your stations;\n Then aff to Begbie’s in a raw,\n An’ pour divine libations\n For joy this day.\n\n Curst Common-sense, that imp o’ hell,\n Cam in wi’ Maggie Lauder;^1\n But Oliphant^2 aft made her yell,\n An’ Russell^3 sair misca’d her:\n This day Mackinlay^4 taks the flail,\n An’ he’s the boy will blaud her!\n He’ll clap a shangan on her tail,\n An’ set the bairns to daud her\n Wi’ dirt this day.\n\n [Footnote 1: Alluding to a scoffing ballad which was made on the\n admission of the late reverend and worthy Mr. Lihdsay to the\n “Laigh Kirk.”—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 2: Rev. James Oliphant, minister of Chapel of Ease,\n Kilmarnock.]\n\n [Footnote 3: Rev. John Russell of Kilmarnock.]\n\n [Footnote 4: Rev. James Mackinlay.]\n\n Mak haste an’ turn King David owre,\n And lilt wi’ holy clangor;\n O’ double verse come gie us four,\n An’ skirl up the Bangor:\n This day the kirk kicks up a stoure;\n Nae mair the knaves shall wrang her,\n For Heresy is in her pow’r,\n And gloriously she’ll whang her\n Wi’ pith this day.\n\n Come, let a proper text be read,\n An’ touch it aff wi’ vigour,\n How graceless Ham^5 leugh at his dad,\n Which made Canaan a nigger;\n Or Phineas^6 drove the murdering blade,\n Wi’ whore-abhorring rigour;\n Or Zipporah,^7 the scauldin jad,\n Was like a bluidy tiger\n I’ th’ inn that day.\n\n There, try his mettle on the creed,\n An’ bind him down wi’ caution,\n That stipend is a carnal weed\n He taks by for the fashion;\n And gie him o’er the flock, to feed,\n And punish each transgression;\n Especial, rams that cross the breed,\n Gie them sufficient threshin;\n Spare them nae day.\n\n Now, auld Kilmarnock, cock thy tail,\n An’ toss thy horns fu’ canty;\n Nae mair thou’lt rowt out-owre the dale,\n Because thy pasture’s scanty;\n For lapfu’s large o’ gospel kail\n Shall fill thy crib in plenty,\n An’ runts o’ grace the pick an’ wale,\n No gi’en by way o’ dainty,\n But ilka day.\n\n [Footnote 5: Genesis ix. 22.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote : Numbers xxv. 8.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 7: Exodus iv. 52.—R. B]\n\n Nae mair by Babel’s streams we’ll weep,\n To think upon our Zion;\n And hing our fiddles up to sleep,\n Like baby-clouts a-dryin!\n Come, screw the pegs wi’ tunefu’ cheep,\n And o’er the thairms be tryin;\n Oh, rare to see our elbucks wheep,\n And a’ like lamb-tails flyin\n Fu’ fast this day.\n\n Lang, Patronage, with rod o’ airn,\n Has shor’d the Kirk’s undoin;\n As lately Fenwick, sair forfairn,\n Has proven to its ruin:^8\n Our patron, honest man! Glencairn,\n He saw mischief was brewin;\n An’ like a godly, elect bairn,\n He’s waled us out a true ane,\n And sound, this day.\n\n Now Robertson^9 harangue nae mair,\n But steek your gab for ever;\n Or try the wicked town of Ayr,\n For there they’ll think you clever;\n Or, nae reflection on your lear,\n Ye may commence a shaver;\n Or to the Netherton^10 repair,\n An’ turn a carpet weaver\n Aff-hand this day.\n\n Mu’trie^11 and you were just a match,\n We never had sic twa drones;\n Auld Hornie did the Laigh Kirk watch,\n Just like a winkin baudrons,\n And aye he catch’d the tither wretch,\n To fry them in his caudrons;\n But now his Honour maun detach,\n Wi’ a’ his brimstone squadrons,\n Fast, fast this day.\n\n [Footnote 8: Rev. Wm. Boyd, pastor of Fenwick.]\n\n [Footnote 9: Rev. John Robertson.]\n\n [Footnote 10: A district of Kilmarnock.]\n\n [Footnote 11: The Rev. John Multrie, a “Moderate,” whom Mackinlay\n succeeded.]\n\n See, see auld Orthodoxy’s faes\n She’s swingein thro’ the city!\n Hark, how the nine-tail’d cat she plays!\n I vow it’s unco pretty:\n There, Learning, with his Greekish face,\n Grunts out some Latin ditty;\n And Common-sense is gaun, she says,\n To mak to Jamie Beattie\n Her plaint this day.\n\n But there’s Morality himsel’,\n Embracing all opinions;\n Hear, how he gies the tither yell,\n Between his twa companions!\n See, how she peels the skin an’ fell,\n As ane were peelin onions!\n Now there, they’re packed aff to hell,\n An’ banish’d our dominions,\n Henceforth this day.\n\n O happy day! rejoice, rejoice!\n Come bouse about the porter!\n Morality’s demure decoys\n Shall here nae mair find quarter:\n Mackinlay, Russell, are the boys\n That heresy can torture;\n They’ll gie her on a rape a hoyse,\n And cowe her measure shorter\n By th’ head some day.\n\n Come, bring the tither mutchkin in,\n And here’s—for a conclusion—\n To ev’ry New Light^12 mother’s son,\n From this time forth, Confusion!\n If mair they deave us wi’ their din,\n Or Patronage intrusion,\n We’ll light a spunk, and ev’ry skin,\n We’ll rin them aff in fusion\n Like oil, some day.\n\n [Footnote 12: “New Light” is a cant phrase in the west of\n Scotland for those religious opinions which Dr. Taylor of\n Norwich has so strenuously defended.—R. B.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To James Smith", + "body": " Friendship, mysterious cement of the soul!\n Sweet’ner of Life, and solder of Society!\n I owe thee much—Blair.\n\n Dear Smith, the slee’st, pawkie thief,\n That e’er attempted stealth or rief!\n Ye surely hae some warlock-brief\n Owre human hearts;\n For ne’er a bosom yet was prief\n Against your arts.\n\n For me, I swear by sun an’ moon,\n An’ ev’ry star that blinks aboon,\n Ye’ve cost me twenty pair o’ shoon,\n Just gaun to see you;\n An’ ev’ry ither pair that’s done,\n Mair taen I’m wi’ you.\n\n That auld, capricious carlin, Nature,\n To mak amends for scrimpit stature,\n She’s turn’d you off, a human creature\n On her first plan,\n And in her freaks, on ev’ry feature\n She’s wrote the Man.\n\n Just now I’ve ta’en the fit o’ rhyme,\n My barmie noddle’s working prime.\n My fancy yerkit up sublime,\n Wi’ hasty summon;\n Hae ye a leisure-moment’s time\n To hear what’s comin?\n\n Some rhyme a neibor’s name to lash;\n Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu’ cash;\n Some rhyme to court the countra clash,\n An’ raise a din;\n For me, an aim I never fash;\n I rhyme for fun.\n\n The star that rules my luckless lot,\n Has fated me the russet coat,\n An’ damn’d my fortune to the groat;\n But, in requit,\n Has blest me with a random-shot\n O’countra wit.\n\n This while my notion’s taen a sklent,\n To try my fate in guid, black prent;\n But still the mair I’m that way bent,\n Something cries “Hooklie!”\n I red you, honest man, tak tent?\n Ye’ll shaw your folly;\n\n “There’s ither poets, much your betters,\n Far seen in Greek, deep men o’ letters,\n Hae thought they had ensur’d their debtors,\n A’ future ages;\n Now moths deform, in shapeless tatters,\n Their unknown pages.”\n\n Then farewell hopes of laurel-boughs,\n To garland my poetic brows!\n Henceforth I’ll rove where busy ploughs\n Are whistlin’ thrang,\n An’ teach the lanely heights an’ howes\n My rustic sang.\n\n I’ll wander on, wi’ tentless heed\n How never-halting moments speed,\n Till fate shall snap the brittle thread;\n Then, all unknown,\n I’ll lay me with th’ inglorious dead\n Forgot and gone!\n\n But why o’ death being a tale?\n Just now we’re living sound and hale;\n Then top and maintop crowd the sail,\n Heave Care o’er-side!\n And large, before Enjoyment’s gale,\n Let’s tak the tide.\n\n This life, sae far’s I understand,\n Is a’ enchanted fairy-land,\n Where Pleasure is the magic-wand,\n That, wielded right,\n Maks hours like minutes, hand in hand,\n Dance by fu’ light.\n\n The magic-wand then let us wield;\n For ance that five-an’-forty’s speel’d,\n See, crazy, weary, joyless eild,\n Wi’ wrinkl’d face,\n Comes hostin, hirplin owre the field,\n We’ creepin pace.\n\n When ance life’s day draws near the gloamin,\n Then fareweel vacant, careless roamin;\n An’ fareweel cheerfu’ tankards foamin,\n An’ social noise:\n An’ fareweel dear, deluding woman,\n The Joy of joys!\n\n O Life! how pleasant, in thy morning,\n Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning!\n Cold-pausing Caution’s lesson scorning,\n We frisk away,\n Like school-boys, at th’ expected warning,\n To joy an’ play.\n\n We wander there, we wander here,\n We eye the rose upon the brier,\n Unmindful that the thorn is near,\n Among the leaves;\n And tho’ the puny wound appear,\n Short while it grieves.\n\n Some, lucky, find a flow’ry spot,\n For which they never toil’d nor swat;\n They drink the sweet and eat the fat,\n But care or pain;\n And haply eye the barren hut\n With high disdain.\n\n With steady aim, some Fortune chase;\n Keen hope does ev’ry sinew brace;\n Thro’ fair, thro’ foul, they urge the race,\n An’ seize the prey:\n Then cannie, in some cozie place,\n They close the day.\n\n And others, like your humble servan’,\n Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin,\n To right or left eternal swervin,\n They zig-zag on;\n Till, curst with age, obscure an’ starvin,\n They aften groan.\n\n Alas! what bitter toil an’ straining—\n But truce with peevish, poor complaining!\n Is fortune’s fickle Luna waning?\n E’n let her gang!\n Beneath what light she has remaining,\n Let’s sing our sang.\n\n My pen I here fling to the door,\n And kneel, ye Pow’rs! and warm implore,\n “Tho’ I should wander Terra o’er,\n In all her climes,\n Grant me but this, I ask no more,\n Aye rowth o’ rhymes.\n\n “Gie dreepin roasts to countra lairds,\n Till icicles hing frae their beards;\n Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards,\n And maids of honour;\n An’ yill an’ whisky gie to cairds,\n Until they sconner.\n\n “A title, Dempster^1 merits it;\n A garter gie to Willie Pitt;\n Gie wealth to some be-ledger’d cit,\n In cent. per cent.;\n But give me real, sterling wit,\n And I’m content.\n\n [Footnote 1: George Dempster of Dunnichen, M.P.]\n\n “While ye are pleas’d to keep me hale,\n I’ll sit down o’er my scanty meal,\n Be’t water-brose or muslin-kail,\n Wi’ cheerfu’ face,\n As lang’s the Muses dinna fail\n To say the grace.”\n\n An anxious e’e I never throws\n Behint my lug, or by my nose;\n I jouk beneath Misfortune’s blows\n As weel’s I may;\n Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose,\n I rhyme away.\n\n O ye douce folk that live by rule,\n Grave, tideless-blooded, calm an’cool,\n Compar’d wi’ you—O fool! fool! fool!\n How much unlike!\n Your hearts are just a standing pool,\n Your lives, a dyke!\n\n Nae hair-brain’d, sentimental traces\n In your unletter’d, nameless faces!\n In arioso trills and graces\n Ye never stray;\n But gravissimo, solemn basses\n Ye hum away.\n\n Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye’re wise;\n Nae ferly tho’ ye do despise\n The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys,\n The rattling squad:\n I see ye upward cast your eyes—\n Ye ken the road!\n\n Whilst I—but I shall haud me there,\n Wi’ you I’ll scarce gang ony where—\n Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair,\n But quat my sang,\n Content wi’ you to mak a pair.\n Whare’er I gang.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Vision", + "body": " Duan First^1\n\n The sun had clos’d the winter day,\n The curless quat their roarin play,\n And hunger’d maukin taen her way,\n To kail-yards green,\n While faithless snaws ilk step betray\n Whare she has been.\n\n The thresher’s weary flingin-tree,\n The lee-lang day had tired me;\n And when the day had clos’d his e’e,\n Far i’ the west,\n Ben i’ the spence, right pensivelie,\n I gaed to rest.\n\n There, lanely by the ingle-cheek,\n I sat and ey’d the spewing reek,\n That fill’d, wi’ hoast-provoking smeek,\n The auld clay biggin;\n An’ heard the restless rattons squeak\n About the riggin.\n\n All in this mottie, misty clime,\n I backward mus’d on wasted time,\n How I had spent my youthfu’ prime,\n An’ done nae thing,\n But stringing blethers up in rhyme,\n For fools to sing.\n\n Had I to guid advice but harkit,\n I might, by this, hae led a market,\n Or strutted in a bank and clarkit\n My cash-account;\n While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit.\n Is a’ th’ amount.\n\n [Footnote 1: Duan, a term of Ossian’s for the different\n divisions of a digressive poem. See his Cath-Loda, vol. 2 of\n M’Pherson’s translation.—R. B.]\n\n I started, mutt’ring, “blockhead! coof!”\n And heav’d on high my waukit loof,\n To swear by a’ yon starry roof,\n Or some rash aith,\n That I henceforth wad be rhyme-proof\n Till my last breath—\n\n When click! the string the snick did draw;\n An’ jee! the door gaed to the wa’;\n An’ by my ingle-lowe I saw,\n Now bleezin bright,\n A tight, outlandish hizzie, braw,\n Come full in sight.\n\n Ye need na doubt, I held my whisht;\n The infant aith, half-form’d, was crusht\n I glowr’d as eerie’s I’d been dusht\n In some wild glen;\n When sweet, like honest Worth, she blusht,\n An’ stepped ben.\n\n Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs\n Were twisted, gracefu’, round her brows;\n I took her for some Scottish Muse,\n By that same token;\n And come to stop those reckless vows,\n Would soon been broken.\n\n A “hair-brain’d, sentimental trace”\n Was strongly marked in her face;\n A wildly-witty, rustic grace\n Shone full upon her;\n Her eye, ev’n turn’d on empty space,\n Beam’d keen with honour.\n\n Down flow’d her robe, a tartan sheen,\n Till half a leg was scrimply seen;\n An’ such a leg! my bonie Jean\n Could only peer it;\n Sae straught, sae taper, tight an’ clean—\n Nane else came near it.\n\n Her mantle large, of greenish hue,\n My gazing wonder chiefly drew:\n Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw\n A lustre grand;\n And seem’d, to my astonish’d view,\n A well-known land.\n\n Here, rivers in the sea were lost;\n There, mountains to the skies were toss’t:\n Here, tumbling billows mark’d the coast,\n With surging foam;\n There, distant shone Art’s lofty boast,\n The lordly dome.\n\n Here, Doon pour’d down his far-fetch’d floods;\n There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds:\n Auld hermit Ayr staw thro’ his woods,\n On to the shore;\n And many a lesser torrent scuds,\n With seeming roar.\n\n Low, in a sandy valley spread,\n An ancient borough rear’d her head;\n Still, as in Scottish story read,\n She boasts a race\n To ev’ry nobler virtue bred,\n And polish’d grace.^2\n\n By stately tow’r, or palace fair,\n Or ruins pendent in the air,\n Bold stems of heroes, here and there,\n I could discern;\n Some seem’d to muse, some seem’d to dare,\n With feature stern.\n\n My heart did glowing transport feel,\n To see a race heroic^3 wheel,\n\n [Footnote 2: The seven stanzas following this were first\n printed in the Edinburgh edition, 1787. Other stanzas, never\n published by Burns himself, are given on p. 180.]\n\n [Footnote 3: The Wallaces.—R. B.]\n\n And brandish round the deep-dyed steel,\n In sturdy blows;\n While, back-recoiling, seem’d to reel\n Their Suthron foes.\n\n His Country’s Saviour,^4 mark him well!\n Bold Richardton’s heroic swell;^5\n The chief, on Sark who glorious fell,^6\n In high command;\n And he whom ruthless fates expel\n His native land.\n\n There, where a sceptr’d Pictish shade\n Stalk’d round his ashes lowly laid,^7\n I mark’d a martial race, pourtray’d\n In colours strong:\n Bold, soldier-featur’d, undismay’d,\n They strode along.\n\n Thro’ many a wild, romantic grove,^8\n Near many a hermit-fancied cove\n (Fit haunts for friendship or for love,\n In musing mood),\n An aged Judge, I saw him rove,\n Dispensing good.\n\n With deep-struck, reverential awe,\n The learned Sire and Son I saw:^9\n To Nature’s God, and Nature’s law,\n They gave their lore;\n This, all its source and end to draw,\n That, to adore.\n\n [Footnote 4: William Wallace.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 5: Adam Wallace of Richardton, cousin to the\n immortal preserver of Scottish independence.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 6: Wallace, laird of Craigie, who was second in\n command under Douglas, Earl of Ormond, at the famous battle\n on the banks of Sark, fought anno 1448. That glorious\n victory was principally owing to the judicious conduct and\n intrepid valour of the gallant laird of Craigie, who died of\n his wounds after the action.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 7: Coilus, King of the Picts, from whom the\n district of Kyle is said to take its name, lies buried, as\n tradition says, near the family seat of the Montgomeries of\n Coilsfield, where his burial—place is still shown.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 8: Barskimming, the seat of the Lord Justice—\n Clerk.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 9: Catrine, the seat of the late Doctor and\n present Professor Stewart.—R.B.]\n\n Brydon’s brave ward^10 I well could spy,\n Beneath old Scotia’s smiling eye:\n Who call’d on Fame, low standing by,\n To hand him on,\n Where many a patriot-name on high,\n And hero shone.\n\n\n\n\n Duan Second\n\n With musing-deep, astonish’d stare,\n I view’d the heavenly-seeming Fair;\n A whispering throb did witness bear\n Of kindred sweet,\n When with an elder sister’s air\n She did me greet.\n\n “All hail! my own inspired bard!\n In me thy native Muse regard;\n Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard,\n Thus poorly low;\n I come to give thee such reward,\n As we bestow!\n\n “Know, the great genius of this land\n Has many a light aerial band,\n Who, all beneath his high command,\n Harmoniously,\n As arts or arms they understand,\n Their labours ply.\n\n “They Scotia’s race among them share:\n Some fire the soldier on to dare;\n Some rouse the patriot up to bare\n Corruption’s heart:\n Some teach the bard—a darling care—\n The tuneful art.\n\n “’Mong swelling floods of reeking gore,\n They, ardent, kindling spirits pour;\n\n [Footnote 10: Colonel Fullarton.—R.B. This gentleman had\n travelled under the care of Patrick Brydone, author of a\n well-known “Tour Through Sicily and Malta.”]\n\n Or, ’mid the venal senate’s roar,\n They, sightless, stand,\n To mend the honest patriot-lore,\n And grace the hand.\n\n “And when the bard, or hoary sage,\n Charm or instruct the future age,\n They bind the wild poetric rage\n In energy,\n Or point the inconclusive page\n Full on the eye.\n\n “Hence, Fullarton, the brave and young;\n Hence, Dempster’s zeal-inspired tongue;\n Hence, sweet, harmonious Beattie sung\n His ’Minstrel lays’;\n Or tore, with noble ardour stung,\n The sceptic’s bays.\n\n “To lower orders are assign’d\n The humbler ranks of human-kind,\n The rustic bard, the lab’ring hind,\n The artisan;\n All choose, as various they’re inclin’d,\n The various man.\n\n “When yellow waves the heavy grain,\n The threat’ning storm some strongly rein;\n Some teach to meliorate the plain\n With tillage-skill;\n And some instruct the shepherd-train,\n Blythe o’er the hill.\n\n “Some hint the lover’s harmless wile;\n Some grace the maiden’s artless smile;\n Some soothe the lab’rer’s weary toil\n For humble gains,\n And make his cottage-scenes beguile\n His cares and pains.\n\n “Some, bounded to a district-space\n Explore at large man’s infant race,\n To mark the embryotic trace\n Of rustic bard;\n And careful note each opening grace,\n A guide and guard.\n\n “Of these am I—Coila my name:\n And this district as mine I claim,\n Where once the Campbells, chiefs of fame,\n Held ruling power:\n I mark’d thy embryo-tuneful flame,\n Thy natal hour.\n\n “With future hope I oft would gaze\n Fond, on thy little early ways,\n Thy rudely, caroll’d, chiming phrase,\n In uncouth rhymes;\n Fir’d at the simple, artless lays\n Of other times.\n\n “I saw thee seek the sounding shore,\n Delighted with the dashing roar;\n Or when the North his fleecy store\n Drove thro’ the sky,\n I saw grim Nature’s visage hoar\n Struck thy young eye.\n\n “Or when the deep green-mantled earth\n Warm cherish’d ev’ry floweret’s birth,\n And joy and music pouring forth\n In ev’ry grove;\n I saw thee eye the general mirth\n With boundless love.\n\n “When ripen’d fields and azure skies\n Call’d forth the reapers’ rustling noise,\n I saw thee leave their ev’ning joys,\n And lonely stalk,\n To vent thy bosom’s swelling rise,\n In pensive walk.\n\n “When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong,\n Keen-shivering, shot thy nerves along,\n Those accents grateful to thy tongue,\n Th’ adored Name,\n I taught thee how to pour in song,\n To soothe thy flame.\n\n “I saw thy pulse’s maddening play,\n Wild send thee Pleasure’s devious way,\n Misled by Fancy’s meteor-ray,\n By passion driven;\n But yet the light that led astray\n Was light from Heaven.\n\n “I taught thy manners-painting strains,\n The loves, the ways of simple swains,\n Till now, o’er all my wide domains\n Thy fame extends;\n And some, the pride of Coila’s plains,\n Become thy friends.\n\n “Thou canst not learn, nor I can show,\n To paint with Thomson’s landscape glow;\n Or wake the bosom-melting throe,\n With Shenstone’s art;\n Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow\n Warm on the heart.\n\n “Yet, all beneath th’ unrivall’d rose,\n T e lowly daisy sweetly blows;\n Tho’ large the forest’s monarch throws\n His army shade,\n Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows,\n Adown the glade.\n\n “Then never murmur nor repine;\n Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;\n And trust me, not Potosi’s mine,\n Nor king’s regard,\n Can give a bliss o’ermatching thine,\n A rustic bard.\n\n “To give my counsels all in one,\n Thy tuneful flame still careful fan:\n Preserve the dignity of Man,\n With soul erect;\n And trust the Universal Plan\n Will all protect.\n\n “And wear thou this”—she solemn said,\n And bound the holly round my head:\n The polish’d leaves and berries red\n Did rustling play;\n And, like a passing thought, she fled\n In light away.\n\n [To Mrs. Stewart of Stair, Burns presented a manuscript copy of\n the Vision. That copy embraces about twenty stanzas at the end of\n Duan First, which he cancelled when he came to print the price in\n his Kilmarnock volume. Seven of these he restored in printing his\n second edition, as noted on p. 174. The following are the verses\n which he left unpublished.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Suppressed Stanza’s Of “The Vision”", + "body": " After 18th stanza of the text (at “His native land”):—\n\n With secret throes I marked that earth,\n That cottage, witness of my birth;\n And near I saw, bold issuing forth\n In youthful pride,\n A Lindsay race of noble worth,\n Famed far and wide.\n\n Where, hid behind a spreading wood,\n An ancient Pict-built mansion stood,\n I spied, among an angel brood,\n A female pair;\n Sweet shone their high maternal blood,\n And father’s air.^1\n\n An ancient tower^2 to memory brought\n How Dettingen’s bold hero fought;\n Still, far from sinking into nought,\n It owns a lord\n Who far in western climates fought,\n With trusty sword.\n\n [Footnote 1: Sundrum.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 2: Stair.—R.B.]\n\n Among the rest I well could spy\n One gallant, graceful, martial boy,\n The soldier sparkled in his eye,\n A diamond water.\n I blest that noble badge with joy,\n That owned me frater.^3\n\n\n\n\n After 20th stanza of the text (at “Dispensing good”):—\n\n Near by arose a mansion fine^4\n The seat of many a muse divine;\n Not rustic muses such as mine,\n With holly crown’d,\n But th’ ancient, tuneful, laurell’d Nine,\n From classic ground.\n\n I mourn’d the card that Fortune dealt,\n To see where bonie Whitefoords dwelt;^5\n But other prospects made me melt,\n That village near;^6\n There Nature, Friendship, Love, I felt,\n Fond-mingling, dear!\n\n Hail! Nature’s pang, more strong than death!\n Warm Friendship’s glow, like kindling wrath!\n Love, dearer than the parting breath\n Of dying friend!\n Not ev’n with life’s wild devious path,\n Your force shall end!\n\n The Power that gave the soft alarms\n In blooming Whitefoord’s rosy charms,\n Still threats the tiny, feather’d arms,\n The barbed dart,\n While lovely Wilhelmina warms\n The coldest heart.^7\n\n\n\n\n After 21st stanza of the text (at “That, to adore”):—\n\n Where Lugar leaves his moorland plaid,^8\n Where lately Want was idly laid,\n\n [Footnote 3: Captain James Montgomerie, Master of St. James’\n Lodge, Tarbolton, to which the author has the honour to\n belong.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 4: Auchinleck.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 5: Ballochmyle.]\n\n [Footnote 6: Mauchline.]\n\n [Footnote 7: Miss Wilhelmina Alexander.]\n\n [Footnote 8: Cumnock.—R.B.]\n\n I marked busy, bustling Trade,\n In fervid flame,\n Beneath a Patroness’ aid,\n of noble name.\n\n Wild, countless hills I could survey,\n And countless flocks as wild as they;\n But other scenes did charms display,\n That better please,\n Where polish’d manners dwell with Gray,\n In rural ease.^9\n\n Where Cessnock pours with gurgling sound;^10\n And Irwine, marking out the bound,\n Enamour’d of the scenes around,\n Slow runs his race,\n A name I doubly honour’d found,^11\n With knightly grace.\n\n Brydon’s brave ward,^12 I saw him stand,\n Fame humbly offering her hand,\n And near, his kinsman’s rustic band,^13\n With one accord,\n Lamenting their late blessed land\n Must change its lord.\n\n The owner of a pleasant spot,\n Near and sandy wilds, I last did note;^14\n A heart too warm, a pulse too hot\n At times, o’erran:\n But large in ev’ry feature wrote,\n Appear’d the Man.\n\n\n\n\n The Rantin’ Dog, The Daddie O’t\n\n Tune—“Whare’ll our guidman lie.”\n\n\n O wha my babie-clouts will buy?\n O wha will tent me when I cry?\n Wha will kiss me where I lie?\n The rantin’ dog, the daddie o’t.\n\n [Footnote 9: Mr. Farquhar Gray.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 10: Auchinskieth.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 11: Caprington.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 12: Colonel Fullerton.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 13: Dr. Fullerton.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 14: Orangefield.—R.B.]\n\n O wha will own he did the faut?\n O wha will buy the groanin maut?\n O wha will tell me how to ca’t?\n The rantin’ dog, the daddie o’t.\n\n When I mount the creepie-chair,\n Wha will sit beside me there?\n Gie me Rob, I’ll seek nae mair,\n The rantin’ dog, the daddie o’t.\n\n Wha will crack to me my lane?\n Wha will mak me fidgin’ fain?\n Wha will kiss me o’er again?\n The rantin’ dog, the daddie o’t.\n\n\n\n\n Here’s His Health In Water\n\n Tune—“The Job of Journey-work.”\n\n\n Altho’ my back be at the wa’,\n And tho’ he be the fautor;\n Altho’ my back be at the wa’,\n Yet, here’s his health in water.\n O wae gae by his wanton sides,\n Sae brawlie’s he could flatter;\n Till for his sake I’m slighted sair,\n And dree the kintra clatter:\n But tho’ my back be at the wa’,\n And tho’ he be the fautor;\n But tho’ my back be at the wa’,\n Yet here’s his health in water!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Address To The Unco Guid, Or The Rigidly Righteous", + "body": " My Son, these maxims make a rule,\n An’ lump them aye thegither;\n The Rigid Righteous is a fool,\n The Rigid Wise anither:\n The cleanest corn that ere was dight\n May hae some pyles o’ caff in;\n So ne’er a fellow-creature slight\n For random fits o’ daffin.\n\n (Solomon.—Eccles. ch. vii. verse 16.)\n\n O ye wha are sae guid yoursel’,\n Sae pious and sae holy,\n Ye’ve nought to do but mark and tell\n Your neibours’ fauts and folly!\n Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,\n Supplied wi’ store o’ water;\n The heaped happer’s ebbing still,\n An’ still the clap plays clatter.\n\n Hear me, ye venerable core,\n As counsel for poor mortals\n That frequent pass douce Wisdom’s door\n For glaikit Folly’s portals:\n I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,\n Would here propone defences—\n Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,\n Their failings and mischances.\n\n Ye see your state wi’ theirs compared,\n And shudder at the niffer;\n But cast a moment’s fair regard,\n What maks the mighty differ;\n Discount what scant occasion gave,\n That purity ye pride in;\n And (what’s aft mair than a’ the lave),\n Your better art o’ hidin.\n\n Think, when your castigated pulse\n Gies now and then a wallop!\n What ragings must his veins convulse,\n That still eternal gallop!\n Wi’ wind and tide fair i’ your tail,\n Right on ye scud your sea-way;\n But in the teeth o’ baith to sail,\n It maks a unco lee-way.\n\n See Social Life and Glee sit down,\n All joyous and unthinking,\n Till, quite transmugrified, they’re grown\n Debauchery and Drinking:\n O would they stay to calculate\n Th’ eternal consequences;\n Or your more dreaded hell to state,\n Damnation of expenses!\n\n Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,\n Tied up in godly laces,\n Before ye gie poor Frailty names,\n Suppose a change o’ cases;\n A dear-lov’d lad, convenience snug,\n A treach’rous inclination—\n But let me whisper i’ your lug,\n Ye’re aiblins nae temptation.\n\n Then gently scan your brother man,\n Still gentler sister woman;\n Tho’ they may gang a kennin wrang,\n To step aside is human:\n One point must still be greatly dark,—\n The moving Why they do it;\n And just as lamely can ye mark,\n How far perhaps they rue it.\n\n Who made the heart, ’tis He alone\n Decidedly can try us;\n He knows each chord, its various tone,\n Each spring, its various bias:\n Then at the balance let’s be mute,\n We never can adjust it;\n What’s done we partly may compute,\n But know not what’s resisted.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Inventory^1", + "body": " In answer to a mandate by the Surveyor of the Taxes\n\n Sir, as your mandate did request,\n I send you here a faithfu’ list,\n O’ gudes an’ gear, an’ a’ my graith,\n To which I’m clear to gi’e my aith.\n\n Imprimis, then, for carriage cattle,\n I hae four brutes o’ gallant mettle,\n As ever drew afore a pettle.\n My hand-afore ’s a guid auld has-been,\n An’ wight an’ wilfu’ a’ his days been:\n My hand-ahin ’s a weel gaun fillie,\n That aft has borne me hame frae Killie.^2\n An’ your auld borough mony a time\n In days when riding was nae crime.\n But ance, when in my wooing pride\n I, like a blockhead, boost to ride,\n The wilfu’ creature sae I pat to,\n (Lord pardon a’ my sins, an’ that too!)\n I play’d my fillie sic a shavie,\n She’s a’ bedevil’d wi’ the spavie.\n My furr-ahin ’s a wordy beast,\n As e’er in tug or tow was traced.\n The fourth’s a Highland Donald hastle,\n A damn’d red-wud Kilburnie blastie!\n Foreby a cowt, o’ cowts the wale,\n As ever ran afore a tail:\n Gin he be spar’d to be a beast,\n He’ll draw me fifteen pund at least.\n Wheel-carriages I ha’e but few,\n Three carts, an’ twa are feckly new;\n An auld wheelbarrow, mair for token,\n Ae leg an’ baith the trams are broken;\n I made a poker o’ the spin’le,\n An’ my auld mither brunt the trin’le.\n\n [Footnote 1: The “Inventory” was addressed to\n Mr. Aitken of Ayr, surveyor of taxes for the district.]\n\n [Footnote 2: Kilmarnock.—R. B.]\n\n For men, I’ve three mischievous boys,\n Run-deils for ranting an’ for noise;\n A gaudsman ane, a thrasher t’ other:\n Wee Davock hauds the nowt in fother.\n I rule them as I ought, discreetly,\n An’ aften labour them completely;\n An’ aye on Sundays duly, nightly,\n I on the Questions targe them tightly;\n Till, faith! wee Davock’s grown sae gleg,\n Tho’ scarcely langer than your leg,\n He’ll screed you aff Effectual Calling,\n As fast as ony in the dwalling.\n\n I’ve nane in female servant station,\n (Lord keep me aye frae a’ temptation!)\n I hae nae wife—and thay my bliss is,\n An’ ye have laid nae tax on misses;\n An’ then, if kirk folks dinna clutch me,\n I ken the deevils darena touch me.\n Wi’ weans I’m mair than weel contented,\n Heav’n sent me ane mae than I wanted!\n My sonsie, smirking, dear-bought Bess,\n She stares the daddy in her face,\n Enough of ought ye like but grace;\n But her, my bonie, sweet wee lady,\n I’ve paid enough for her already;\n An’ gin ye tax her or her mither,\n By the Lord, ye’se get them a’ thegither!\n\n And now, remember, Mr. Aiken,\n Nae kind of licence out I’m takin:\n Frae this time forth, I do declare\n I’se ne’er ride horse nor hizzie mair;\n Thro’ dirt and dub for life I’ll paidle,\n Ere I sae dear pay for a saddle;\n My travel a’ on foot I’ll shank it,\n I’ve sturdy bearers, Gude the thankit!\n The kirk and you may tak you that,\n It puts but little in your pat;\n Sae dinna put me in your beuk,\n Nor for my ten white shillings leuk.\n\n This list, wi’ my ain hand I wrote it,\n The day and date as under noted;\n Then know all ye whom it concerns,\n Subscripsi huic,\n\n Robert Burns.\n Mossgiel, February 22, 1786.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To John Kennedy, Dumfries House", + "body": " Now, Kennedy, if foot or horse\n E’er bring you in by Mauchlin corse,\n (Lord, man, there’s lasses there wad force\n A hermit’s fancy;\n An’ down the gate in faith they’re worse,\n An’ mair unchancy).\n\n But as I’m sayin, please step to Dow’s,\n An’ taste sic gear as Johnie brews,\n Till some bit callan bring me news\n That ye are there;\n An’ if we dinna hae a bouze,\n I’se ne’er drink mair.\n\n It’s no I like to sit an’ swallow,\n Then like a swine to puke an’ wallow;\n But gie me just a true good fallow,\n Wi’ right ingine,\n And spunkie ance to mak us mellow,\n An’ then we’ll shine.\n\n Now if ye’re ane o’ warl’s folk,\n Wha rate the wearer by the cloak,\n An’ sklent on poverty their joke,\n Wi’ bitter sneer,\n Wi’ you nae friendship I will troke,\n Nor cheap nor dear.\n\n But if, as I’m informed weel,\n Ye hate as ill’s the very deil\n The flinty heart that canna feel—\n Come, sir, here’s to you!\n Hae, there’s my haun’, I wiss you weel,\n An’ gude be wi’ you.\n\n Robt. Burness.\n Mossgiel, 3rd March, 1786.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To Mr. M’Adam, Of Craigen-Gillan", + "body": " In answer to an obliging Letter he sent\n in the commencement of my poetic career.\n\n Sir, o’er a gill I gat your card,\n I trow it made me proud;\n “See wha taks notice o’ the bard!”\n I lap and cried fu’ loud.\n\n Now deil-ma-care about their jaw,\n The senseless, gawky million;\n I’ll cock my nose abune them a’,\n I’m roos’d by Craigen-Gillan!\n\n ’Twas noble, sir; ’twas like yourself’,\n To grant your high protection:\n A great man’s smile ye ken fu’ well\n Is aye a blest infection.\n\n Tho’, by his banes wha in a tub\n Match’d Macedonian Sandy!\n On my ain legs thro’ dirt and dub,\n I independent stand aye,—\n\n And when those legs to gude, warm kail,\n Wi’ welcome canna bear me,\n A lee dyke-side, a sybow-tail,\n An’ barley-scone shall cheer me.\n\n Heaven spare you lang to kiss the breath\n O’ mony flow’ry simmers!\n An’ bless your bonie lasses baith,\n I’m tauld they’re loosome kimmers!\n\n An’ God bless young Dunaskin’s laird,\n The blossom of our gentry!\n An’ may he wear and auld man’s beard,\n A credit to his country.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To A Louse, On Seeing One On A Lady’s Bonnet, At Church", + "body": " Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?\n Your impudence protects you sairly;\n I canna say but ye strunt rarely,\n Owre gauze and lace;\n Tho’, faith! I fear ye dine but sparely\n On sic a place.\n\n Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,\n Detested, shunn’d by saunt an’ sinner,\n How daur ye set your fit upon her—\n Sae fine a lady?\n Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner\n On some poor body.\n\n Swith! in some beggar’s haffet squattle;\n There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,\n Wi’ ither kindred, jumping cattle,\n In shoals and nations;\n Whaur horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle\n Your thick plantations.\n\n Now haud you there, ye’re out o’ sight,\n Below the fatt’rels, snug and tight;\n Na, faith ye yet! ye’ll no be right,\n Till ye’ve got on it—\n The verra tapmost, tow’rin height\n O’ Miss’ bonnet.\n\n My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,\n As plump an’ grey as ony groset:\n O for some rank, mercurial rozet,\n Or fell, red smeddum,\n I’d gie you sic a hearty dose o’t,\n Wad dress your droddum.\n\n I wad na been surpris’d to spy\n You on an auld wife’s flainen toy;\n Or aiblins some bit dubbie boy,\n On’s wyliecoat;\n But Miss’ fine Lunardi! fye!\n How daur ye do’t?\n\n O Jeany, dinna toss your head,\n An’ set your beauties a’ abread!\n Ye little ken what cursed speed\n The blastie’s makin:\n Thae winks an’ finger-ends, I dread,\n Are notice takin.\n\n O wad some Power the giftie gie us\n To see oursels as ithers see us!\n It wad frae mony a blunder free us,\n An’ foolish notion:\n What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,\n An’ ev’n devotion!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Inscribed On A Work Of Hannah More’s", + "body": " Presented to the Author by a Lady.\n\n Thou flatt’ring mark of friendship kind,\n Still may thy pages call to mind\n The dear, the beauteous donor;\n Tho’ sweetly female ev’ry part,\n Yet such a head, and more the heart\n Does both the sexes honour:\n She show’d her taste refin’d and just,\n When she selected thee;\n Yet deviating, own I must,\n For sae approving me:\n But kind still I’ll mind still\n The giver in the gift;\n I’ll bless her, an’ wiss her\n A Friend aboon the lift.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song, Composed In Spring", + "body": " Tune—“Jockey’s Grey Breeks.”\n\n\n Again rejoicing Nature sees\n Her robe assume its vernal hues:\n Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,\n All freshly steep’d in morning dews.\n\n Chorus.—And maun I still on Menie doat,\n And bear the scorn that’s in her e’e?\n For it’s jet, jet black, an’ it’s like a hawk,\n An’ it winna let a body be.\n\n In vain to me the cowslips blaw,\n In vain to me the vi’lets spring;\n In vain to me in glen or shaw,\n The mavis and the lintwhite sing.\n And maun I still, &c.\n\n The merry ploughboy cheers his team,\n Wi’ joy the tentie seedsman stalks;\n But life to me’s a weary dream,\n A dream of ane that never wauks.\n And maun I still, &c.\n\n The wanton coot the water skims,\n Amang the reeds the ducklings cry,\n The stately swan majestic swims,\n And ev’ry thing is blest but I.\n And maun I still, &c.\n\n The sheep-herd steeks his faulding slap,\n And o’er the moorlands whistles shill:\n Wi’ wild, unequal, wand’ring step,\n I meet him on the dewy hill.\n And maun I still, &c.\n\n And when the lark, ’tween light and dark,\n Blythe waukens by the daisy’s side,\n And mounts and sings on flittering wings,\n A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide.\n And maun I still, &c.\n\n Come winter, with thine angry howl,\n And raging, bend the naked tree;\n Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul,\n When nature all is sad like me!\n And maun I still, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To A Mountain Daisy,", + "body": " On turning down with the Plough, in April, 1786.\n\n Wee, modest crimson-tipped flow’r,\n Thou’s met me in an evil hour;\n For I maun crush amang the stoure\n Thy slender stem:\n To spare thee now is past my pow’r,\n Thou bonie gem.\n\n Alas! it’s no thy neibor sweet,\n The bonie lark, companion meet,\n Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet,\n Wi’ spreckl’d breast!\n When upward-springing, blythe, to greet\n The purpling east.\n\n Cauld blew the bitter-biting north\n Upon thy early, humble birth;\n Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth\n Amid the storm,\n Scarce rear’d above the parent-earth\n Thy tender form.\n\n The flaunting flow’rs our gardens yield,\n High shelt’ring woods and wa’s maun shield;\n But thou, beneath the random bield\n O’ clod or stane,\n Adorns the histie stibble field,\n Unseen, alane.\n\n There, in thy scanty mantle clad,\n Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread,\n Thou lifts thy unassuming head\n In humble guise;\n But now the share uptears thy bed,\n And low thou lies!\n\n Such is the fate of artless maid,\n Sweet flow’ret of the rural shade!\n By love’s simplicity betray’d,\n And guileless trust;\n Till she, like thee, all soil’d, is laid\n Low i’ the dust.\n\n Such is the fate of simple bard,\n On life’s rough ocean luckless starr’d!\n Unskilful he to note the card\n Of prudent lore,\n Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,\n And whelm him o’er!\n\n Such fate to suffering worth is giv’n,\n Who long with wants and woes has striv’n,\n By human pride or cunning driv’n\n To mis’ry’s brink;\n Till wrench’d of ev’ry stay but Heav’n,\n He, ruin’d, sink!\n\n Ev’n thou who mourn’st the Daisy’s fate,\n That fate is thine—no distant date;\n Stern Ruin’s plough-share drives elate,\n Full on thy bloom,\n Till crush’d beneath the furrow’s weight,\n Shall be thy doom!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To Ruin", + "body": " All hail! inexorable lord!\n At whose destruction-breathing word,\n The mightiest empires fall!\n Thy cruel, woe-delighted train,\n The ministers of grief and pain,\n A sullen welcome, all!\n\n With stern-resolv’d, despairing eye,\n I see each aimed dart;\n For one has cut my dearest tie,\n And quivers in my heart.\n Then low’ring, and pouring,\n The storm no more I dread;\n Tho’ thick’ning, and black’ning,\n Round my devoted head.\n\n And thou grim Pow’r by life abhorr’d,\n While life a pleasure can afford,\n Oh! hear a wretch’s pray’r!\n Nor more I shrink appall’d, afraid;\n I court, I beg thy friendly aid,\n To close this scene of care!\n When shall my soul, in silent peace,\n Resign life’s joyless day—\n My weary heart its throbbing cease,\n Cold mould’ring in the clay?\n No fear more, no tear more,\n To stain my lifeless face,\n Enclasped, and grasped,\n Within thy cold embrace!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Lament", + "body": " Occasioned by the unfortunate issue of a Friend’s Amour.\n\n Alas! how oft does goodness would itself,\n And sweet affection prove the spring of woe!\n\n Home.\n\n O thou pale orb that silent shines\n While care-untroubled mortals sleep!\n Thou seest a wretch who inly pines.\n And wanders here to wail and weep!\n With woe I nightly vigils keep,\n Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam;\n And mourn, in lamentation deep,\n How life and love are all a dream!\n\n I joyless view thy rays adorn\n The faintly-marked, distant hill;\n I joyless view thy trembling horn,\n Reflected in the gurgling rill:\n My fondly-fluttering heart, be still!\n Thou busy pow’r, remembrance, cease!\n Ah! must the agonizing thrill\n For ever bar returning peace!\n\n No idly-feign’d, poetic pains,\n My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim:\n No shepherd’s pipe-Arcadian strains;\n No fabled tortures, quaint and tame.\n The plighted faith, the mutual flame,\n The oft-attested pow’rs above,\n The promis’d father’s tender name;\n These were the pledges of my love!\n\n Encircled in her clasping arms,\n How have the raptur’d moments flown!\n How have I wish’d for fortune’s charms,\n For her dear sake, and her’s alone!\n And, must I think it! is she gone,\n My secret heart’s exulting boast?\n And does she heedless hear my groan?\n And is she ever, ever lost?\n\n Oh! can she bear so base a heart,\n So lost to honour, lost to truth,\n As from the fondest lover part,\n The plighted husband of her youth?\n Alas! life’s path may be unsmooth!\n Her way may lie thro’ rough distress!\n Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe\n Her sorrows share, and make them less?\n\n Ye winged hours that o’er us pass’d,\n Enraptur’d more, the more enjoy’d,\n Your dear remembrance in my breast\n My fondly-treasur’d thoughts employ’d:\n That breast, how dreary now, and void,\n For her too scanty once of room!\n Ev’n ev’ry ray of hope destroy’d,\n And not a wish to gild the gloom!\n\n The morn, that warns th’ approaching day,\n Awakes me up to toil and woe;\n I see the hours in long array,\n That I must suffer, lingering, slow:\n Full many a pang, and many a throe,\n Keen recollection’s direful train,\n Must wring my soul, were Phoebus, low,\n Shall kiss the distant western main.\n\n And when my nightly couch I try,\n Sore harass’d out with care and grief,\n My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye,\n Keep watchings with the nightly thief:\n Or if I slumber, fancy, chief,\n Reigns, haggard—wild, in sore affright:\n Ev’n day, all-bitter, brings relief\n From such a horror-breathing night.\n\n O thou bright queen, who o’er th’ expanse\n Now highest reign’st, with boundless sway\n Oft has thy silent-marking glance\n Observ’d us, fondly-wand’ring, stray!\n The time, unheeded, sped away,\n While love’s luxurious pulse beat high,\n Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray,\n To mark the mutual-kindling eye.\n\n Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set!\n Scenes, never, never to return!\n Scenes, if in stupor I forget,\n Again I feel, again I burn!\n From ev’ry joy and pleasure torn,\n Life’s weary vale I’ll wander thro’;\n And hopeless, comfortless, I’ll mourn\n A faithless woman’s broken vow!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Despondency: An Ode", + "body": " Oppress’d with grief, oppress’d with care,\n A burden more than I can bear,\n I set me down and sigh;\n O life! thou art a galling load,\n Along a rough, a weary road,\n To wretches such as I!\n Dim backward as I cast my view,\n What sick’ning scenes appear!\n What sorrows yet may pierce me through,\n Too justly I may fear!\n Still caring, despairing,\n Must be my bitter doom;\n My woes here shall close ne’er\n But with the closing tomb!\n\n Happy! ye sons of busy life,\n Who, equal to the bustling strife,\n No other view regard!\n Ev’n when the wished end’s denied,\n Yet while the busy means are plied,\n They bring their own reward:\n Whilst I, a hope-abandon’d wight,\n Unfitted with an aim,\n Meet ev’ry sad returning night,\n And joyless morn the same!\n You, bustling, and justling,\n Forget each grief and pain;\n I, listless, yet restless,\n Find ev’ry prospect vain.\n\n How blest the solitary’s lot,\n Who, all-forgetting, all forgot,\n Within his humble cell,\n The cavern, wild with tangling roots,\n Sits o’er his newly gather’d fruits,\n Beside his crystal well!\n Or haply, to his ev’ning thought,\n By unfrequented stream,\n The ways of men are distant brought,\n A faint, collected dream;\n While praising, and raising\n His thoughts to heav’n on high,\n As wand’ring, meand’ring,\n He views the solemn sky.\n\n Than I, no lonely hermit plac’d\n Where never human footstep trac’d,\n Less fit to play the part,\n The lucky moment to improve,\n And just to stop, and just to move,\n With self-respecting art:\n But ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys,\n Which I too keenly taste,\n The solitary can despise,\n Can want, and yet be blest!\n He needs not, he heeds not,\n Or human love or hate;\n Whilst I here must cry here\n At perfidy ingrate!\n\n O, enviable, early days,\n When dancing thoughtless pleasure’s maze,\n To care, to guilt unknown!\n How ill exchang’d for riper times,\n To feel the follies, or the crimes,\n Of others, or my own!\n Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport,\n Like linnets in the bush,\n Ye little know the ills ye court,\n When manhood is your wish!\n The losses, the crosses,\n That active man engage;\n The fears all, the tears all,\n Of dim declining age!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To Gavin Hamilton, Esq., Mauchline,", + "body": " Recommending a Boy.\n\n Mossgaville, May 3, 1786.\n\n I hold it, sir, my bounden duty\n To warn you how that Master Tootie,\n Alias, Laird M’Gaun,\n Was here to hire yon lad away\n ’Bout whom ye spak the tither day,\n An’ wad hae don’t aff han’;\n\n But lest he learn the callan tricks—\n An’ faith I muckle doubt him—\n Like scrapin out auld Crummie’s nicks,\n An’ tellin lies about them;\n As lieve then, I’d have then\n Your clerkship he should sair,\n If sae be ye may be\n Not fitted otherwhere.\n\n Altho’ I say’t, he’s gleg enough,\n An’ ’bout a house that’s rude an’ rough,\n The boy might learn to swear;\n But then, wi’ you, he’ll be sae taught,\n An’ get sic fair example straught,\n I hae na ony fear.\n Ye’ll catechise him, every quirk,\n An’ shore him weel wi’ hell;\n An’ gar him follow to the kirk—\n Aye when ye gang yoursel.\n If ye then maun be then\n Frae hame this comin’ Friday,\n Then please, sir, to lea’e, sir,\n The orders wi’ your lady.\n\n My word of honour I hae gi’en,\n In Paisley John’s, that night at e’en,\n To meet the warld’s worm;\n To try to get the twa to gree,\n An’ name the airles an’ the fee,\n In legal mode an’ form:\n I ken he weel a snick can draw,\n When simple bodies let him:\n An’ if a Devil be at a’,\n In faith he’s sure to get him.\n To phrase you and praise you,\n Ye ken your Laureat scorns:\n The pray’r still you share still\n Of grateful Minstrel Burns.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Versified Reply To An Invitation", + "body": " Sir,\n\n Yours this moment I unseal,\n And faith I’m gay and hearty!\n To tell the truth and shame the deil,\n I am as fou as Bartie:\n But Foorsday, sir, my promise leal,\n Expect me o’ your partie,\n If on a beastie I can speel,\n Or hurl in a cartie.\n\n Yours,\n\n Robert Burns.\n Mauchlin, Monday night, 10 o’clock.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Will Ye Go To The Indies, My Mary?", + "body": " Tune—“Will ye go to the Ewe-Bughts, Marion.”\n\n\n Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,\n And leave auld Scotia’s shore?\n Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,\n Across th’ Atlantic roar?\n\n O sweet grows the lime and the orange,\n And the apple on the pine;\n But a’ the charms o’ the Indies\n Can never equal thine.\n\n I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary,\n I hae sworn by the Heavens to be true;\n And sae may the Heavens forget me,\n When I forget my vow!\n\n O plight me your faith, my Mary,\n And plight me your lily-white hand;\n O plight me your faith, my Mary,\n Before I leave Scotia’s strand.\n\n We hae plighted our troth, my Mary,\n In mutual affection to join;\n And curst be the cause that shall part us!\n The hour and the moment o’ time!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—My Highland Lassie, O", + "body": " Tune—“The deuks dang o’er my daddy.”\n\n\n Nae gentle dames, tho’ e’er sae fair,\n Shall ever be my muse’s care:\n Their titles a’ arc empty show;\n Gie me my Highland lassie, O.\n\n Chorus.—Within the glen sae bushy, O,\n Aboon the plain sae rashy, O,\n I set me down wi’ right guid will,\n To sing my Highland lassie, O.\n\n O were yon hills and vallies mine,\n Yon palace and yon gardens fine!\n The world then the love should know\n I bear my Highland Lassie, O.\n\n But fickle fortune frowns on me,\n And I maun cross the raging sea!\n But while my crimson currents flow,\n I’ll love my Highland lassie, O.\n\n Altho’ thro’ foreign climes I range,\n I know her heart will never change,\n For her bosom burns with honour’s glow,\n My faithful Highland lassie, O.\n\n For her I’ll dare the billow’s roar,\n For her I’ll trace a distant shore,\n That Indian wealth may lustre throw\n Around my Highland lassie, O.\n\n She has my heart, she has my hand,\n By secret troth and honour’s band!\n Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low,\n I’m thine, my Highland lassie, O.\n\n Farewell the glen sae bushy, O!\n Farewell the plain sae rashy, O!\n To other lands I now must go,\n To sing my Highland lassie, O.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To A Young Friend", + "body": " May __, 1786.\n\n I Lang hae thought, my youthfu’ friend,\n A something to have sent you,\n Tho’ it should serve nae ither end\n Than just a kind memento:\n But how the subject-theme may gang,\n Let time and chance determine;\n Perhaps it may turn out a sang:\n Perhaps turn out a sermon.\n\n Ye’ll try the world soon, my lad;\n And, Andrew dear, believe me,\n Ye’ll find mankind an unco squad,\n And muckle they may grieve ye:\n For care and trouble set your thought,\n Ev’n when your end’s attained;\n And a’ your views may come to nought,\n Where ev’ry nerve is strained.\n\n I’ll no say, men are villains a’;\n The real, harden’d wicked,\n Wha hae nae check but human law,\n Are to a few restricked;\n But, Och! mankind are unco weak,\n An’ little to be trusted;\n If self the wavering balance shake,\n It’s rarely right adjusted!\n\n Yet they wha fa’ in fortune’s strife,\n Their fate we shouldna censure;\n For still, th’ important end of life\n They equally may answer;\n A man may hae an honest heart,\n Tho’ poortith hourly stare him;\n A man may tak a neibor’s part,\n Yet hae nae cash to spare him.\n\n Aye free, aff-han’, your story tell,\n When wi’ a bosom crony;\n But still keep something to yoursel’,\n Ye scarcely tell to ony:\n Conceal yoursel’ as weel’s ye can\n Frae critical dissection;\n But keek thro’ ev’ry other man,\n Wi’ sharpen’d, sly inspection.\n\n The sacred lowe o’ weel-plac’d love,\n Luxuriantly indulge it;\n But never tempt th’ illicit rove,\n Tho’ naething should divulge it:\n I waive the quantum o’ the sin,\n The hazard of concealing;\n But, Och! it hardens a’ within,\n And petrifies the feeling!\n\n To catch dame Fortune’s golden smile,\n Assiduous wait upon her;\n And gather gear by ev’ry wile\n That’s justified by honour;\n Not for to hide it in a hedge,\n Nor for a train attendant;\n But for the glorious privilege\n Of being independent.\n\n The fear o’ hell’s a hangman’s whip,\n To haud the wretch in order;\n But where ye feel your honour grip,\n Let that aye be your border;\n Its slightest touches, instant pause—\n Debar a’ side-pretences;\n And resolutely keep its laws,\n Uncaring consequences.\n\n The great Creator to revere,\n Must sure become the creature;\n But still the preaching cant forbear,\n And ev’n the rigid feature:\n Yet ne’er with wits profane to range,\n Be complaisance extended;\n An atheist-laugh’s a poor exchange\n For Deity offended!\n\n When ranting round in pleasure’s ring,\n Religion may be blinded;\n Or if she gie a random sting,\n It may be little minded;\n But when on life we’re tempest driv’n—\n A conscience but a canker—\n A correspondence fix’d wi’ Heav’n,\n Is sure a noble anchor!\n\n Adieu, dear, amiable youth!\n Your heart can ne’er be wanting!\n May prudence, fortitude, and truth,\n Erect your brow undaunting!\n In ploughman phrase, “God send you speed,”\n Still daily to grow wiser;\n And may ye better reck the rede,\n Then ever did th’ adviser!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To the Right Honourable the Earl of Breadalbane, President of the Right", + "body": "Honourable and Honourable the Highland Society, which met on the 23rd of\nMay last at the Shakespeare, Covent Garden, to concert ways and means to\nfrustrate the designs of five hundred Highlanders, who, as the Society\nwere informed by Mr. M’Kenzie of Applecross, were so audacious as to\nattempt an escape from their lawful lords and masters whose property\nthey were, by emigrating from the lands of Mr. Macdonald of Glengary to\nthe wilds of Canada, in search of that fantastic thing—Liberty.\n\n Long life, my Lord, an’ health be yours,\n Unskaithed by hunger’d Highland boors;\n Lord grant me nae duddie, desperate beggar,\n Wi’ dirk, claymore, and rusty trigger,\n May twin auld Scotland o’ a life\n She likes—as butchers like a knife.\n\n Faith you and Applecross were right\n To keep the Highland hounds in sight:\n I doubt na! they wad bid nae better,\n Than let them ance out owre the water,\n Then up among thae lakes and seas,\n They’ll mak what rules and laws they please:\n Some daring Hancocke, or a Franklin,\n May set their Highland bluid a-ranklin;\n Some Washington again may head them,\n Or some Montgomery, fearless, lead them,\n Till God knows what may be effected\n When by such heads and hearts directed,\n Poor dunghill sons of dirt and mire\n May to Patrician rights aspire!\n Nae sage North now, nor sager Sackville,\n To watch and premier o’er the pack vile,—\n An’ whare will ye get Howes and Clintons\n To bring them to a right repentance—\n To cowe the rebel generation,\n An’ save the honour o’ the nation?\n They, an’ be d-d! what right hae they\n To meat, or sleep, or light o’ day?\n Far less—to riches, pow’r, or freedom,\n But what your lordship likes to gie them?\n\n But hear, my lord! Glengarry, hear!\n Your hand’s owre light to them, I fear;\n Your factors, grieves, trustees, and bailies,\n I canna say but they do gaylies;\n They lay aside a’ tender mercies,\n An’ tirl the hallions to the birses;\n Yet while they’re only poind’t and herriet,\n They’ll keep their stubborn Highland spirit:\n But smash them! crash them a’ to spails,\n An’ rot the dyvors i’ the jails!\n The young dogs, swinge them to the labour;\n Let wark an’ hunger mak them sober!\n The hizzies, if they’re aughtlins fawsont,\n Let them in Drury-lane be lesson’d!\n An’ if the wives an’ dirty brats\n Come thiggin at your doors an’ yetts,\n Flaffin wi’ duds, an’ grey wi’ beas’,\n Frightin away your ducks an’ geese;\n Get out a horsewhip or a jowler,\n The langest thong, the fiercest growler,\n An’ gar the tatter’d gypsies pack\n Wi’ a’ their bastards on their back!\n Go on, my Lord! I lang to meet you,\n An’ in my house at hame to greet you;\n Wi’ common lords ye shanna mingle,\n The benmost neuk beside the ingle,\n At my right han’ assigned your seat,\n ’Tween Herod’s hip an’ Polycrate:\n Or if you on your station tarrow,\n Between Almagro and Pizarro,\n A seat, I’m sure ye’re well deservin’t;\n An’ till ye come—your humble servant,\n\n Beelzebub.\n June 1st, Anno Mundi, 5790.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Dream", + "body": " Thoughts, words, and deeds, the Statute blames with reason;\n But surely Dreams were ne’er indicted Treason.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On reading, in the public papers, the Laureate’s Ode, with the other", + "body": "parade of June 4th, 1786, the Author was no sooner dropt asleep, than he\nimagined himself transported to the Birth-day Levee: and, in his dreaming\nfancy, made the following Address:\n\n Guid-Mornin’ to our Majesty!\n May Heaven augment your blisses\n On ev’ry new birth-day ye see,\n A humble poet wishes.\n My bardship here, at your Levee\n On sic a day as this is,\n Is sure an uncouth sight to see,\n Amang thae birth-day dresses\n Sae fine this day.\n\n I see ye’re complimented thrang,\n By mony a lord an’ lady;\n “God save the King” ’s a cuckoo sang\n That’s unco easy said aye:\n The poets, too, a venal gang,\n Wi’ rhymes weel-turn’d an’ ready,\n Wad gar you trow ye ne’er do wrang,\n But aye unerring steady,\n On sic a day.\n\n For me! before a monarch’s face\n Ev’n there I winna flatter;\n For neither pension, post, nor place,\n Am I your humble debtor:\n So, nae reflection on your Grace,\n Your Kingship to bespatter;\n There’s mony waur been o’ the race,\n And aiblins ane been better\n Than you this day.\n\n ’Tis very true, my sovereign King,\n My skill may weel be doubted;\n But facts are chiels that winna ding,\n An’ downa be disputed:\n Your royal nest, beneath your wing,\n Is e’en right reft and clouted,\n And now the third part o’ the string,\n An’ less, will gang aboot it\n Than did ae day.^1\n\n Far be’t frae me that I aspire\n To blame your legislation,\n Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire,\n To rule this mighty nation:\n But faith! I muckle doubt, my sire,\n Ye’ve trusted ministration\n To chaps wha in barn or byre\n Wad better fill’d their station\n Than courts yon day.\n\n And now ye’ve gien auld Britain peace,\n Her broken shins to plaister,\n Your sair taxation does her fleece,\n Till she has scarce a tester:\n For me, thank God, my life’s a lease,\n Nae bargain wearin’ faster,\n Or, faith! I fear, that, wi’ the geese,\n I shortly boost to pasture\n I’ the craft some day.\n\n [Footnote 1: The American colonies had recently been lost.]\n\n I’m no mistrusting Willie Pitt,\n When taxes he enlarges,\n (An’ Will’s a true guid fallow’s get,\n A name not envy spairges),\n That he intends to pay your debt,\n An’ lessen a’ your charges;\n But, God-sake! let nae saving fit\n Abridge your bonie barges\n An’boats this day.\n\n Adieu, my Liege; may freedom geck\n Beneath your high protection;\n An’ may ye rax Corruption’s neck,\n And gie her for dissection!\n But since I’m here, I’ll no neglect,\n In loyal, true affection,\n To pay your Queen, wi’ due respect,\n May fealty an’ subjection\n This great birth-day.\n\n Hail, Majesty most Excellent!\n While nobles strive to please ye,\n Will ye accept a compliment,\n A simple poet gies ye?\n Thae bonie bairntime, Heav’n has lent,\n Still higher may they heeze ye\n In bliss, till fate some day is sent\n For ever to release ye\n Frae care that day.\n\n For you, young Potentate o’Wales,\n I tell your highness fairly,\n Down Pleasure’s stream, wi’ swelling sails,\n I’m tauld ye’re driving rarely;\n But some day ye may gnaw your nails,\n An’ curse your folly sairly,\n That e’er ye brak Diana’s pales,\n Or rattl’d dice wi’ Charlie\n By night or day.\n\n Yet aft a ragged cowt’s been known,\n To mak a noble aiver;\n So, ye may doucely fill the throne,\n For a’their clish-ma-claver:\n There, him^2 at Agincourt wha shone,\n Few better were or braver:\n And yet, wi’ funny, queer Sir John,^3\n He was an unco shaver\n For mony a day.\n\n For you, right rev’rend Osnaburg,\n Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter,\n Altho’ a ribbon at your lug\n Wad been a dress completer:\n As ye disown yon paughty dog,\n That bears the keys of Peter,\n Then swith! an’ get a wife to hug,\n Or trowth, ye’ll stain the mitre\n Some luckless day!\n\n Young, royal Tarry-breeks, I learn,\n Ye’ve lately come athwart her—\n A glorious galley,^4 stem and stern,\n Weel rigg’d for Venus’ barter;\n But first hang out, that she’ll discern,\n Your hymeneal charter;\n Then heave aboard your grapple airn,\n An’ large upon her quarter,\n Come full that day.\n\n Ye, lastly, bonie blossoms a’,\n Ye royal lasses dainty,\n Heav’n mak you guid as well as braw,\n An’ gie you lads a-plenty!\n But sneer na British boys awa!\n For kings are unco scant aye,\n An’ German gentles are but sma’,\n They’re better just than want aye\n On ony day.\n\n [Footnote 2: King Henry V.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 3: Sir John Falstaff, vid. Shakespeare.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 4: Alluding to the newspaper account of a certain\n Royal sailor’s amour.—R. B. This was Prince William Henry,\n third son of George III, afterward King William IV.]\n\n Gad bless you a’! consider now,\n Ye’re unco muckle dautit;\n But ere the course o’ life be through,\n It may be bitter sautit:\n An’ I hae seen their coggie fou,\n That yet hae tarrow’t at it.\n But or the day was done, I trow,\n The laggen they hae clautit\n Fu’ clean that day.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Dedication", + "body": " To Gavin Hamilton, Esq.\n\n Expect na, sir, in this narration,\n A fleechin, fleth’rin Dedication,\n To roose you up, an’ ca’ you guid,\n An’ sprung o’ great an’ noble bluid,\n Because ye’re surnam’d like His Grace—\n Perhaps related to the race:\n Then, when I’m tir’d—and sae are ye,\n Wi’ mony a fulsome, sinfu’ lie,\n Set up a face how I stop short,\n For fear your modesty be hurt.\n\n This may do—maun do, sir, wi’ them wha\n Maun please the great folk for a wamefou;\n For me! sae laigh I need na bow,\n For, Lord be thankit, I can plough;\n And when I downa yoke a naig,\n Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg;\n Sae I shall say—an’ that’s nae flatt’rin—\n It’s just sic Poet an’ sic Patron.\n\n The Poet, some guid angel help him,\n Or else, I fear, some ill ane skelp him!\n He may do weel for a’ he’s done yet,\n But only—he’s no just begun yet.\n\n The Patron (sir, ye maun forgie me;\n I winna lie, come what will o’ me),\n On ev’ry hand it will allow’d be,\n He’s just—nae better than he should be.\n\n I readily and freely grant,\n He downa see a poor man want;\n What’s no his ain, he winna tak it;\n What ance he says, he winna break it;\n Ought he can lend he’ll no refus’t,\n Till aft his guidness is abus’d;\n And rascals whiles that do him wrang,\n Ev’n that, he does na mind it lang;\n As master, landlord, husband, father,\n He does na fail his part in either.\n\n But then, nae thanks to him for a’that;\n Nae godly symptom ye can ca’ that;\n It’s naething but a milder feature\n Of our poor, sinfu’ corrupt nature:\n Ye’ll get the best o’ moral works,\n ’Mang black Gentoos, and pagan Turks,\n Or hunters wild on Ponotaxi,\n Wha never heard of orthodoxy.\n That he’s the poor man’s friend in need,\n The gentleman in word and deed,\n It’s no thro’ terror of damnation;\n It’s just a carnal inclination.\n\n Morality, thou deadly bane,\n Thy tens o’ thousands thou hast slain!\n Vain is his hope, whase stay an’ trust is\n In moral mercy, truth, and justice!\n\n No—stretch a point to catch a plack:\n Abuse a brother to his back;\n Steal through the winnock frae a whore,\n But point the rake that taks the door;\n Be to the poor like ony whunstane,\n And haud their noses to the grunstane;\n Ply ev’ry art o’ legal thieving;\n No matter—stick to sound believing.\n\n Learn three-mile pray’rs, an’ half-mile graces,\n Wi’ weel-spread looves, an’ lang, wry faces;\n Grunt up a solemn, lengthen’d groan,\n And damn a’ parties but your own;\n I’ll warrant they ye’re nae deceiver,\n A steady, sturdy, staunch believer.\n\n O ye wha leave the springs o’ Calvin,\n For gumlie dubs of your ain delvin!\n Ye sons of Heresy and Error,\n Ye’ll some day squeel in quaking terror,\n When Vengeance draws the sword in wrath.\n And in the fire throws the sheath;\n When Ruin, with his sweeping besom,\n Just frets till Heav’n commission gies him;\n While o’er the harp pale Misery moans,\n And strikes the ever-deep’ning tones,\n Still louder shrieks, and heavier groans!\n\n Your pardon, sir, for this digression:\n I maist forgat my Dedication;\n But when divinity comes ’cross me,\n My readers still are sure to lose me.\n\n So, sir, you see ’twas nae daft vapour;\n But I maturely thought it proper,\n When a’ my works I did review,\n To dedicate them, sir, to you:\n Because (ye need na tak it ill),\n I thought them something like yoursel’.\n\n Then patronize them wi’ your favor,\n And your petitioner shall ever—\n I had amaist said, ever pray,\n But that’s a word I need na say;\n For prayin, I hae little skill o’t,\n I’m baith dead-sweer, an’ wretched ill o’t;\n But I’se repeat each poor man’s pray’r,\n That kens or hears about you, sir—\n\n “May ne’er Misfortune’s gowling bark,\n Howl thro’ the dwelling o’ the clerk!\n May ne’er his genrous, honest heart,\n For that same gen’rous spirit smart!\n May Kennedy’s far-honour’d name\n Lang beet his hymeneal flame,\n Till Hamiltons, at least a dizzen,\n Are frae their nuptial labours risen:\n Five bonie lasses round their table,\n And sev’n braw fellows, stout an’ able,\n To serve their king an’ country weel,\n By word, or pen, or pointed steel!\n May health and peace, with mutual rays,\n Shine on the ev’ning o’ his days;\n Till his wee, curlie John’s ier-oe,\n When ebbing life nae mair shall flow,\n The last, sad, mournful rites bestow!”\n\n I will not wind a lang conclusion,\n With complimentary effusion;\n But, whilst your wishes and endeavours\n Are blest with Fortune’s smiles and favours,\n I am, dear sir, with zeal most fervent,\n Your much indebted, humble servant.\n\n But if (which Pow’rs above prevent)\n That iron-hearted carl, Want,\n Attended, in his grim advances,\n By sad mistakes, and black mischances,\n While hopes, and joys, and pleasures fly him,\n Make you as poor a dog as I am,\n Your humble servant then no more;\n For who would humbly serve the poor?\n But, by a poor man’s hopes in Heav’n!\n While recollection’s pow’r is giv’n—\n If, in the vale of humble life,\n The victim sad of fortune’s strife,\n I, thro’ the tender-gushing tear,\n Should recognise my master dear;\n If friendless, low, we meet together,\n Then, sir, your hand—my Friend and Brother!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Versified Note To Dr. Mackenzie, Mauchline", + "body": " Friday first’s the day appointed\n By the Right Worshipful anointed,\n\n To hold our grand procession;\n To get a blad o’ Johnie’s morals,\n And taste a swatch o’ Manson’s barrels\n\n I’ the way of our profession.\n The Master and the Brotherhood\n Would a’ be glad to see you;\n For me I would be mair than proud\n\n To share the mercies wi’ you.\n If Death, then, wi’ skaith, then,\n Some mortal heart is hechtin,\n Inform him, and storm him,\n That Saturday you’ll fecht him.\n\n Robert Burns.\n Mossgiel, An. M. 5790.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Farewell To the Brethren of St. James’ Lodge, Tarbolton.", + "body": " Tune—“Guidnight, and joy be wi’ you a’.”\n\n\n Adieu! a heart-warm fond adieu;\n Dear brothers of the mystic tie!\n Ye favoured, enlighten’d few,\n Companions of my social joy;\n Tho’ I to foreign lands must hie,\n Pursuing Fortune’s slidd’ry ba’;\n With melting heart, and brimful eye,\n I’ll mind you still, tho’ far awa.\n\n Oft have I met your social band,\n And spent the cheerful, festive night;\n Oft, honour’d with supreme command,\n Presided o’er the sons of light:\n And by that hieroglyphic bright,\n Which none but Craftsmen ever saw\n Strong Mem’ry on my heart shall write\n Those happy scenes, when far awa.\n\n May Freedom, Harmony, and Love,\n Unite you in the grand Design,\n Beneath th’ Omniscient Eye above,\n The glorious Architect Divine,\n That you may keep th’ unerring line,\n Still rising by the plummet’s law,\n Till Order bright completely shine,\n Shall be my pray’r when far awa.\n\n And you, farewell! whose merits claim\n Justly that highest badge to wear:\n Heav’n bless your honour’d noble name,\n To Masonry and Scotia dear!\n A last request permit me here,—\n When yearly ye assemble a’,\n One round, I ask it with a tear,\n To him, the Bard that’s far awa.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On A Scotch Bard, Gone To The West Indies", + "body": " A’ ye wha live by sowps o’ drink,\n A’ ye wha live by crambo-clink,\n A’ ye wha live and never think,\n Come, mourn wi’ me!\n Our billie ’s gien us a’ a jink,\n An’ owre the sea!\n\n Lament him a’ ye rantin core,\n Wha dearly like a random splore;\n Nae mair he’ll join the merry roar;\n In social key;\n For now he’s taen anither shore.\n An’ owre the sea!\n\n The bonie lasses weel may wiss him,\n And in their dear petitions place him:\n The widows, wives, an’ a’ may bless him\n Wi’ tearfu’ e’e;\n For weel I wat they’ll sairly miss him\n That’s owre the sea!\n\n O Fortune, they hae room to grumble!\n Hadst thou taen aff some drowsy bummle,\n Wha can do nought but fyke an’ fumble,\n ’Twad been nae plea;\n But he was gleg as ony wumble,\n That’s owre the sea!\n\n Auld, cantie Kyle may weepers wear,\n An’ stain them wi’ the saut, saut tear;\n ’Twill mak her poor auld heart, I fear,\n In flinders flee:\n He was her Laureat mony a year,\n That’s owre the sea!\n\n He saw Misfortune’s cauld nor-west\n Lang mustering up a bitter blast;\n A jillet brak his heart at last,\n Ill may she be!\n So, took a berth afore the mast,\n An’ owre the sea.\n\n To tremble under Fortune’s cummock,\n On a scarce a bellyfu’ o’ drummock,\n Wi’ his proud, independent stomach,\n Could ill agree;\n So, row’t his hurdies in a hammock,\n An’ owre the sea.\n\n He ne’er was gien to great misguidin,\n Yet coin his pouches wad na bide in;\n Wi’ him it ne’er was under hiding;\n He dealt it free:\n The Muse was a’ that he took pride in,\n That’s owre the sea.\n\n Jamaica bodies, use him weel,\n An’ hap him in cozie biel:\n Ye’ll find him aye a dainty chiel,\n An’ fou o’ glee:\n He wad na wrang’d the vera deil,\n That’s owre the sea.\n\n Farewell, my rhyme-composing billie!\n Your native soil was right ill-willie;\n But may ye flourish like a lily,\n Now bonilie!\n I’ll toast you in my hindmost gillie,\n Tho’ owre the sea!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Farewell To Eliza", + "body": " Tune—“Gilderoy.”\n\n\n From thee, Eliza, I must go,\n And from my native shore;\n The cruel fates between us throw\n A boundless ocean’s roar:\n But boundless oceans, roaring wide,\n Between my love and me,\n They never, never can divide\n My heart and soul from thee.\n\n Farewell, farewell, Eliza dear,\n The maid that I adore!\n A boding voice is in mine ear,\n We part to meet no more!\n But the latest throb that leaves my heart,\n While Death stands victor by,—\n That throb, Eliza, is thy part,\n And thine that latest sigh!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Bard’s Epitaph", + "body": " Is there a whim-inspired fool,\n Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,\n Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,\n Let him draw near;\n And owre this grassy heap sing dool,\n And drap a tear.\n\n Is there a bard of rustic song,\n Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,\n That weekly this area throng,\n O, pass not by!\n But, with a frater-feeling strong,\n Here, heave a sigh.\n\n Is there a man, whose judgment clear\n Can others teach the course to steer,\n Yet runs, himself, life’s mad career,\n Wild as the wave,\n Here pause—and, thro’ the starting tear,\n Survey this grave.\n\n The poor inhabitant below\n Was quick to learn the wise to know,\n And keenly felt the friendly glow,\n And softer flame;\n But thoughtless follies laid him low,\n And stain’d his name!\n\n Reader, attend! whether thy soul\n Soars fancy’s flights beyond the pole,\n Or darkling grubs this earthly hole,\n In low pursuit:\n Know, prudent, cautious, self-control\n Is wisdom’s root.\n\n Epitaph For Robert Aiken, Esq.\n\n Know thou, O stranger to the fame\n Of this much lov’d, much honoured name!\n (For none that knew him need be told)\n A warmer heart death ne’er made cold.\n\n Epitaph For Gavin Hamilton, Esq.\n\n The poor man weeps—here Gavin sleeps,\n Whom canting wretches blam’d;\n But with such as he, where’er he be,\n May I be sav’d or damn’d!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On “Wee Johnie”", + "body": " Hic Jacet wee Johnie.\n\n Whoe’er thou art, O reader, know\n That Death has murder’d Johnie;\n An’ here his body lies fu’ low;\n For saul he ne’er had ony.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Lass O’ Ballochmyle", + "body": " Tune—“Ettrick Banks.”\n\n\n ’Twas even—the dewy fields were green,\n On every blade the pearls hang;\n The zephyr wanton’d round the bean,\n And bore its fragrant sweets alang:\n In ev’ry glen the mavis sang,\n All nature list’ning seem’d the while,\n Except where greenwood echoes rang,\n Amang the braes o’ Ballochmyle.\n\n With careless step I onward stray’d,\n My heart rejoic’d in nature’s joy,\n When, musing in a lonely glade,\n A maiden fair I chanc’d to spy:\n Her look was like the morning’s eye,\n Her air like nature’s vernal smile:\n Perfection whisper’d, passing by,\n “Behold the lass o’ Ballochmyle!”\n\n Fair is the morn in flowery May,\n And sweet is night in autumn mild;\n When roving thro’ the garden gay,\n Or wand’ring in the lonely wild:\n But woman, nature’s darling child!\n There all her charms she does compile;\n Even there her other works are foil’d\n By the bonie lass o’ Ballochmyle.\n\n O, had she been a country maid,\n And I the happy country swain,\n Tho’ shelter’d in the lowest shed\n That ever rose on Scotland’s plain!\n Thro’ weary winter’s wind and rain,\n With joy, with rapture, I would toil;\n And nightly to my bosom strain\n The bonie lass o’ Ballochmyle.\n\n Then pride might climb the slipp’ry steep,\n Where frame and honours lofty shine;\n And thirst of gold might tempt the deep,\n Or downward seek the Indian mine:\n Give me the cot below the pine,\n To tend the flocks or till the soil;\n And ev’ry day have joys divine\n With the bonie lass o’ Ballochmyle.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines To An Old Sweetheart", + "body": " Once fondly lov’d, and still remember’d dear,\n Sweet early object of my youthful vows,\n Accept this mark of friendship, warm, sincere,\n Friendship! ’tis all cold duty now allows.\n And when you read the simple artless rhymes,\n One friendly sigh for him—he asks no more,\n Who, distant, burns in flaming torrid climes,\n Or haply lies beneath th’ Atlantic roar.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Motto Prefixed To The Author’s First Publication", + "body": " The simple Bard, unbroke by rules of art,\n He pours the wild effusions of the heart;\n And if inspir’d ’tis Nature’s pow’rs inspire;\n Her’s all the melting thrill, and her’s the kindling fire.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines To Mr. John Kennedy", + "body": " Farewell, dear friend! may guid luck hit you,\n And ’mang her favourites admit you:\n If e’er Detraction shore to smit you,\n May nane believe him,\n And ony deil that thinks to get you,\n Good Lord, deceive him!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Written On A Banknote", + "body": " Wae worth thy power, thou cursed leaf!\n Fell source o’ a’ my woe and grief!\n For lack o’ thee I’ve lost my lass!\n For lack o’ thee I scrimp my glass!\n I see the children of affliction\n Unaided, through thy curst restriction:\n I’ve seen the oppressor’s cruel smile\n Amid his hapless victim’s spoil;\n And for thy potence vainly wished,\n To crush the villain in the dust:\n For lack o’ thee, I leave this much-lov’d shore,\n Never, perhaps, to greet old Scotland more.\n\n R.B.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Stanzas On Naething", + "body": " Extempore Epistle to Gavin Hamilton, Esq.\n\n To you, sir, this summons I’ve sent,\n Pray, whip till the pownie is freathing;\n But if you demand what I want,\n I honestly answer you—naething.\n\n Ne’er scorn a poor Poet like me,\n For idly just living and breathing,\n While people of every degree\n Are busy employed about—naething.\n\n Poor Centum-per-centum may fast,\n And grumble his hurdies their claithing,\n He’ll find, when the balance is cast,\n He’s gane to the devil for-naething.\n\n The courtier cringes and bows,\n Ambition has likewise its plaything;\n A coronet beams on his brows;\n And what is a coronet-naething.\n\n Some quarrel the Presbyter gown,\n Some quarrel Episcopal graithing;\n But every good fellow will own\n Their quarrel is a’ about—naething.\n\n The lover may sparkle and glow,\n Approaching his bonie bit gay thing:\n But marriage will soon let him know\n He’s gotten—a buskit up naething.\n\n The Poet may jingle and rhyme,\n In hopes of a laureate wreathing,\n And when he has wasted his time,\n He’s kindly rewarded wi’—naething.\n\n The thundering bully may rage,\n And swagger and swear like a heathen;\n But collar him fast, I’ll engage,\n You’ll find that his courage is—naething.\n\n Last night wi’ a feminine whig—\n A Poet she couldna put faith in;\n But soon we grew lovingly big,\n I taught her, her terrors were naething.\n\n Her whigship was wonderful pleased,\n But charmingly tickled wi’ ae thing,\n Her fingers I lovingly squeezed,\n And kissed her, and promised her—naething.\n\n The priest anathemas may threat—\n Predicament, sir, that we’re baith in;\n But when honour’s reveille is beat,\n The holy artillery’s naething.\n\n And now I must mount on the wave—\n My voyage perhaps there is death in;\n But what is a watery grave?\n The drowning a Poet is naething.\n\n And now, as grim death’s in my thought,\n To you, sir, I make this bequeathing;\n My service as long as ye’ve ought,\n And my friendship, by God, when ye’ve naething.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Farewell", + "body": " The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer?\n Or what does he regard his single woes?\n But when, alas! he multiplies himself,\n To dearer serves, to the lov’d tender fair,\n To those whose bliss, whose beings hang upon him,\n To helpless children,—then, Oh then, he feels\n The point of misery festering in his heart,\n And weakly weeps his fortunes like a coward:\n Such, such am I!—undone!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Thomson’s Edward and Eleanora.", + "body": " Farewell, old Scotia’s bleak domains,\n Far dearer than the torrid plains,\n Where rich ananas blow!\n Farewell, a mother’s blessing dear!\n A borther’s sigh! a sister’s tear!\n My Jean’s heart-rending throe!\n Farewell, my Bess! tho’ thou’rt bereft\n Of my paternal care.\n A faithful brother I have left,\n My part in him thou’lt share!\n Adieu, too, to you too,\n My Smith, my bosom frien’;\n When kindly you mind me,\n O then befriend my Jean!\n\n What bursting anguish tears my heart;\n From thee, my Jeany, must I part!\n Thou, weeping, answ’rest—“No!”\n Alas! misfortune stares my face,\n And points to ruin and disgrace,\n I for thy sake must go!\n Thee, Hamilton, and Aiken dear,\n A grateful, warm adieu:\n I, with a much-indebted tear,\n Shall still remember you!\n All hail then, the gale then,\n Wafts me from thee, dear shore!\n It rustles, and whistles\n I’ll never see thee more!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To the Rev. James Steven, on his text, Malachi, ch. iv. vers. 2. “And ye", + "body": "shall go forth, and grow up, as Calves of the stall.”\n\n Right, sir! your text I’ll prove it true,\n Tho’ heretics may laugh;\n For instance, there’s yourself just now,\n God knows, an unco calf.\n\n And should some patron be so kind,\n As bless you wi’ a kirk,\n I doubt na, sir but then we’ll find,\n Ye’re still as great a stirk.\n\n But, if the lover’s raptur’d hour,\n Shall ever be your lot,\n Forbid it, ev’ry heavenly Power,\n You e’er should be a stot!\n\n Tho’ when some kind connubial dear\n Your but—and—ben adorns,\n The like has been that you may wear\n A noble head of horns.\n\n And, in your lug, most reverend James,\n To hear you roar and rowt,\n Few men o’ sense will doubt your claims\n To rank amang the nowt.\n\n And when ye’re number’d wi’ the dead,\n Below a grassy hillock,\n With justice they may mark your head—\n “Here lies a famous bullock!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Nature’s Law—A Poem", + "body": " Humbly inscribed to Gavin Hamilton, Esq.\n\n Great Nature spoke: observant man obey’d—Pope.\n\n\n Let other heroes boast their scars,\n The marks of sturt and strife:\n And other poets sing of wars,\n The plagues of human life:\n\n Shame fa’ the fun, wi’ sword and gun\n To slap mankind like lumber!\n I sing his name, and nobler fame,\n Wha multiplies our number.\n\n Great Nature spoke, with air benign,\n “Go on, ye human race;\n This lower world I you resign;\n Be fruitful and increase.\n The liquid fire of strong desire\n I’ve pour’d it in each bosom;\n Here, on this hand, does Mankind stand,\n And there is Beauty’s blossom.”\n\n The Hero of these artless strains,\n A lowly bard was he,\n Who sung his rhymes in Coila’s plains,\n With meikle mirth an’glee;\n Kind Nature’s care had given his share\n Large, of the flaming current;\n And, all devout, he never sought\n To stem the sacred torrent.\n\n He felt the powerful, high behest\n Thrill, vital, thro’ and thro’;\n And sought a correspondent breast,\n To give obedience due:\n Propitious Powers screen’d the young flow’rs,\n From mildews of abortion;\n And low! the bard—a great reward—\n Has got a double portion!\n\n Auld cantie Coil may count the day,\n As annual it returns,\n The third of Libra’s equal sway,\n That gave another Burns,\n With future rhymes, an’ other times,\n To emulate his sire:\n To sing auld Coil in nobler style\n With more poetic fire.\n\n Ye Powers of peace, and peaceful song,\n Look down with gracious eyes;\n And bless auld Coila, large and long,\n With multiplying joys;\n Lang may she stand to prop the land,\n The flow’r of ancient nations;\n And Burnses spring, her fame to sing,\n To endless generations!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Mr. Chalmers, a gentleman in Ayrshire, a particular friend of mine, asked", + "body": "me to write a poetic epistle to a young lady, his Dulcinea. I had seen her,\nbut was scarcely acquainted with her, and wrote as follows:—\n\n Wi’ braw new branks in mickle pride,\n And eke a braw new brechan,\n My Pegasus I’m got astride,\n And up Parnassus pechin;\n Whiles owre a bush wi’ donwward crush,\n The doited beastie stammers;\n Then up he gets, and off he sets,\n For sake o’ Willie Chalmers.\n\n I doubt na, lass, that weel ken’d name\n May cost a pair o’ blushes;\n I am nae stranger to your fame,\n Nor his warm urged wishes.\n Your bonie face sae mild and sweet,\n His honest heart enamours,\n And faith ye’ll no be lost a whit,\n Tho’ wair’d on Willie Chalmers.\n\n Auld Truth hersel’ might swear yer’e fair,\n And Honour safely back her;\n And Modesty assume your air,\n And ne’er a ane mistak her:\n And sic twa love-inspiring een\n Might fire even holy palmers;\n Nae wonder then they’ve fatal been\n To honest Willie Chalmers.\n\n I doubt na fortune may you shore\n Some mim-mou’d pouther’d priestie,\n Fu’ lifted up wi’ Hebrew lore,\n And band upon his breastie:\n But oh! what signifies to you\n His lexicons and grammars;\n The feeling heart’s the royal blue,\n And that’s wi’ Willie Chalmers.\n\n Some gapin’, glowrin’ countra laird\n May warsle for your favour;\n May claw his lug, and straik his beard,\n And hoast up some palaver:\n My bonie maid, before ye wed\n Sic clumsy-witted hammers,\n Seek Heaven for help, and barefit skelp\n Awa wi’ Willie Chalmers.\n\n Forgive the Bard! my fond regard\n For ane that shares my bosom,\n Inspires my Muse to gie ’m his dues\n For deil a hair I roose him.\n May powers aboon unite you soon,\n And fructify your amours,—\n And every year come in mair dear\n To you and Willie Chalmers.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Reply To A Trimming Epistle Received From A Tailor", + "body": " What ails ye now, ye lousie bitch\n To thresh my back at sic a pitch?\n Losh, man! hae mercy wi’ your natch,\n Your bodkin’s bauld;\n I didna suffer half sae much\n Frae Daddie Auld.\n\n What tho’ at times, when I grow crouse,\n I gie their wames a random pouse,\n Is that enough for you to souse\n Your servant sae?\n Gae mind your seam, ye prick-the-louse,\n An’ jag-the-flea!\n\n King David, o’ poetic brief,\n Wrocht ’mang the lasses sic mischief\n As filled his after-life wi’ grief,\n An’ bluidy rants,\n An’ yet he’s rank’d amang the chief\n O’ lang-syne saunts.\n\n And maybe, Tam, for a’ my cants,\n My wicked rhymes, an’ drucken rants,\n I’ll gie auld cloven’s Clootie’s haunts\n An unco slip yet,\n An’ snugly sit amang the saunts,\n At Davie’s hip yet!\n\n But, fegs! the session says I maun\n Gae fa’ upo’ anither plan\n Than garrin lasses coup the cran,\n Clean heels ower body,\n An’ sairly thole their mother’s ban\n Afore the howdy.\n\n This leads me on to tell for sport,\n How I did wi’ the Session sort;\n Auld Clinkum, at the inner port,\n Cried three times, “Robin!\n Come hither lad, and answer for’t,\n Ye’re blam’d for jobbin!”\n\n Wi’ pinch I put a Sunday’s face on,\n An’ snoov’d awa before the Session:\n I made an open, fair confession—\n I scorn’t to lee,\n An’ syne Mess John, beyond expression,\n Fell foul o’ me.\n\n A fornicator-loun he call’d me,\n An’ said my faut frae bliss expell’d me;\n I own’d the tale was true he tell’d me,\n “But, what the matter?\n (Quo’ I) I fear unless ye geld me,\n I’ll ne’er be better!”\n\n “Geld you! (quo’ he) an’ what for no?\n If that your right hand, leg or toe\n Should ever prove your sp’ritual foe,\n You should remember\n To cut it aff—an’ what for no\n Your dearest member?”\n\n “Na, na, (quo’ I,) I’m no for that,\n Gelding’s nae better than ’tis ca’t;\n I’d rather suffer for my faut\n A hearty flewit,\n As sair owre hip as ye can draw’t,\n Tho’ I should rue it.\n\n “Or, gin ye like to end the bother,\n To please us a’—I’ve just ae ither—\n When next wi’ yon lass I forgather,\n Whate’er betide it,\n I’ll frankly gie her ’t a’ thegither,\n An’ let her guide it.”\n\n But, sir, this pleas’d them warst of a’,\n An’ therefore, Tam, when that I saw,\n I said “Gude night,” an’ cam’ awa’,\n An’ left the Session;\n I saw they were resolved a’\n On my oppression.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Brigs Of Ayr", + "body": " A Poem\n\n Inscribed to John Ballantine, Esq., Ayr.\n\n The simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough,\n Learning his tuneful trade from ev’ry bough;\n The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,\n Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush;\n The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill,\n Or deep-ton’d plovers grey, wild-whistling o’er the hill;\n Shall he—nurst in the peasant’s lowly shed,\n To hardy independence bravely bred,\n By early poverty to hardship steel’d.\n And train’d to arms in stern Misfortune’s field—\n Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,\n The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?\n Or labour hard the panegyric close,\n With all the venal soul of dedicating prose?\n No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,\n And throws his hand uncouthly o’er the strings,\n He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,\n Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward.\n Still, if some patron’s gen’rous care he trace,\n Skill’d in the secret, to bestow with grace;\n When Ballantine befriends his humble name,\n And hands the rustic stranger up to fame,\n With heartfelt throes his grateful bosom swells,\n The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.\n\n ’Twas when the stacks get on their winter hap,\n And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap;\n Potatoe-bings are snugged up frae skaith\n O’ coming Winter’s biting, frosty breath;\n The bees, rejoicing o’er their summer toils,\n Unnumber’d buds an’ flow’rs’ delicious spoils,\n Seal’d up with frugal care in massive waxen piles,\n Are doom’d by Man, that tyrant o’er the weak,\n The death o’ devils, smoor’d wi’ brimstone reek:\n The thundering guns are heard on ev’ry side,\n The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide;\n The feather’d field-mates, bound by Nature’s tie,\n Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie:\n (What warm, poetic heart but inly bleeds,\n And execrates man’s savage, ruthless deeds!)\n Nae mair the flow’r in field or meadow springs,\n Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings,\n Except perhaps the Robin’s whistling glee,\n Proud o’ the height o’ some bit half-lang tree:\n The hoary morns precede the sunny days,\n Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide blaze,\n While thick the gosamour waves wanton in the rays.\n\n ’Twas in that season, when a simple Bard,\n Unknown and poor—simplicity’s reward!—\n Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr,\n By whim inspir’d, or haply prest wi’ care,\n He left his bed, and took his wayward route,\n And down by Simpson’s^1 wheel’d the left about:\n (Whether impell’d by all-directing Fate,\n To witness what I after shall narrate;\n Or whether, rapt in meditation high,\n He wander’d out, he knew not where or why:)\n The drowsy Dungeon-clock^2 had number’d two,\n and Wallace Tower^2 had sworn the fact was true:\n The tide-swoln firth, with sullen-sounding roar,\n Through the still night dash’d hoarse along the shore.\n All else was hush’d as Nature’s closed e’e;\n The silent moon shone high o’er tower and tree;\n The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam,\n Crept, gently-crusting, o’er the glittering stream—\n When, lo! on either hand the list’ning Bard,\n The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard;\n Two dusky forms dart through the midnight air;\n Swift as the gos^3 drives on the wheeling hare;\n Ane on th’ Auld Brig his airy shape uprears,\n The other flutters o’er the rising piers:\n Our warlock Rhymer instantly dexcried\n The Sprites that owre the Brigs of Ayr preside.\n (That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke,\n And ken the lingo of the sp’ritual folk;\n Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies, a’, they can explain them,\n And even the very deils they brawly ken them).\n Auld Brig appear’d of ancient Pictish race,\n The very wrinkles Gothic in his face;\n He seem’d as he wi’ Time had warstl’d lang,\n Yet, teughly doure, he bade an unco bang.\n\n [Footnote 1: A noted tavern at the Auld Brig end.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 2: The two steeples.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 3: The Gos-hawk, or Falcon.—R. B.]\n\n New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat,\n That he, at Lon’on, frae ane Adams got;\n In ’s hand five taper staves as smooth ’s a bead,\n Wi’ virls and whirlygigums at the head.\n The Goth was stalking round with anxious search,\n Spying the time-worn flaws in every arch;\n It chanc’d his new-come neibor took his e’e,\n And e’en a vexed and angry heart had he!\n Wi’ thieveless sneer to see his modish mien,\n He, down the water, gies him this guid-e’en:—\n\n\n Auld Brig\n\n “I doubt na, frien’, ye’ll think ye’re nae sheepshank,\n Ance ye were streekit owre frae bank to bank!\n But gin ye be a brig as auld as me—\n Tho’ faith, that date, I doubt, ye’ll never see—\n There’ll be, if that day come, I’ll wad a boddle,\n Some fewer whigmaleeries in your noddle.”\n\n\n New Brig\n\n “Auld Vandal! ye but show your little mense,\n Just much about it wi’ your scanty sense:\n Will your poor, narrow foot-path of a street,\n Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they meet,\n Your ruin’d, formless bulk o’ stane and lime,\n Compare wi’ bonie brigs o’ modern time?\n There’s men of taste wou’d tak the Ducat stream,^4\n Tho’ they should cast the very sark and swim,\n E’er they would grate their feelings wi’ the view\n O’ sic an ugly, Gothic hulk as you.”\n\n\n Auld Brig\n\n “Conceited gowk! puff’d up wi’ windy pride!\n This mony a year I’ve stood the flood an’ tide;\n And tho’ wi’ crazy eild I’m sair forfairn,\n I’ll be a brig when ye’re a shapeless cairn!\n As yet ye little ken about the matter,\n But twa—three winters will inform ye better.\n When heavy, dark, continued, a’-day rains,\n\n [Footnote 4: A noted ford, just above the Auld Brig.—R. B.]\n\n Wi’ deepening deluges o’erflow the plains;\n When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil,\n Or stately Lugar’s mossy fountains boil;\n Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course.\n Or haunted Garpal draws his feeble source,\n Aroused by blustering winds an’ spotting thowes,\n In mony a torrent down the snaw-broo rowes;\n While crashing ice, borne on the rolling spate,\n Sweeps dams, an’ mills, an’ brigs, a’ to the gate;\n And from Glenbuck,^5 down to the Ratton-key,^6\n Auld Ayr is just one lengthen’d, tumbling sea—\n Then down ye’ll hurl, (deil nor ye never rise!)\n And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring skies!\n A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost,\n That Architecture’s noble art is lost!”\n\n\n New Brig\n\n “Fine architecture, trowth, I needs must say’t o’t,\n The Lord be thankit that we’ve tint the gate o’t!\n Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-alluring edifices,\n Hanging with threat’ning jut, like precipices;\n O’er-arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves,\n Supporting roofs, fantastic, stony groves;\n Windows and doors in nameless sculptures drest\n With order, symmetry, or taste unblest;\n Forms like some bedlam Statuary’s dream,\n The craz’d creations of misguided whim;\n Forms might be worshipp’d on the bended knee,\n And still the second dread command be free;\n Their likeness is not found on earth, in air, or sea!\n Mansions that would disgrace the building taste\n Of any mason reptile, bird or beast:\n Fit only for a doited monkish race,\n Or frosty maids forsworn the dear embrace,\n Or cuifs of later times, wha held the notion,\n That sullen gloom was sterling, true devotion:\n Fancies that our guid Brugh denies protection,\n And soon may they expire, unblest wi’ resurrection!”\n\n [Footnote 5: The source of the River Ayr.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 6: A small landing place above the large quay.—R. B.]\n\n\n Auld Brig\n\n “O ye, my dear-remember’d, ancient yealings,\n Were ye but here to share my wounded feelings!\n Ye worthy Proveses, an’ mony a Bailie,\n Wha in the paths o’ righteousness did toil aye;\n Ye dainty Deacons, and ye douce Conveners,\n To whom our moderns are but causey-cleaners\n Ye godly Councils, wha hae blest this town;\n ye godly Brethren o’ the sacred gown,\n Wha meekly gie your hurdies to the smiters;\n And (what would now be strange), ye godly Writers;\n A’ ye douce folk I’ve borne aboon the broo,\n Were ye but here, what would ye say or do?\n How would your spirits groan in deep vexation,\n To see each melancholy alteration;\n And, agonising, curse the time and place\n When ye begat the base degen’rate race!\n Nae langer rev’rend men, their country’s glory,\n In plain braid Scots hold forth a plain braid story;\n Nae langer thrifty citizens, an’ douce,\n Meet owre a pint, or in the Council-house;\n But staumrel, corky-headed, graceless Gentry,\n The herryment and ruin of the country;\n Men, three-parts made by tailors and by barbers,\n Wha waste your weel-hain’d gear on damn’d new brigs and harbours!”\n\n\n New Brig\n\n “Now haud you there! for faith ye’ve said enough,\n And muckle mair than ye can mak to through.\n As for your Priesthood, I shall say but little,\n Corbies and Clergy are a shot right kittle:\n But, under favour o’ your langer beard,\n Abuse o’ Magistrates might weel be spar’d;\n To liken them to your auld-warld squad,\n I must needs say, comparisons are odd.\n In Ayr, wag-wits nae mair can hae a handle\n To mouth ’a Citizen,’ a term o’ scandal;\n Nae mair the Council waddles down the street,\n In all the pomp of ignorant conceit;\n Men wha grew wise priggin owre hops and raisins,\n Or gather’d lib’ral views in Bonds and Seisins:\n If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp,\n Had shor’d them with a glimmer of his lamp,\n And would to Common-sense for once betray’d them,\n Plain, dull Stupidity stept kindly in to aid them.”\n\n What farther clish-ma-claver aight been said,\n What bloody wars, if Sprites had blood to shed,\n No man can tell; but, all before their sight,\n A fairy train appear’d in order bright;\n Adown the glittering stream they featly danc’d;\n Bright to the moon their various dresses glanc’d:\n They footed o’er the wat’ry glass so neat,\n The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet:\n While arts of Minstrelsy among them rung,\n And soul-ennobling Bards heroic ditties sung.\n\n O had M’Lauchlan,^7 thairm-inspiring sage,\n Been there to hear this heavenly band engage,\n When thro’ his dear strathspeys they bore with Highland rage;\n Or when they struck old Scotia’s melting airs,\n The lover’s raptured joys or bleeding cares;\n How would his Highland lug been nobler fir’d,\n And ev’n his matchless hand with finer touch inspir’d!\n No guess could tell what instrument appear’d,\n But all the soul of Music’s self was heard;\n Harmonious concert rung in every part,\n While simple melody pour’d moving on the heart.\n The Genius of the Stream in front appears,\n A venerable Chief advanc’d in years;\n His hoary head with water-lilies crown’d,\n His manly leg with garter-tangle bound.\n Next came the loveliest pair in all the ring,\n Sweet female Beauty hand in hand with Spring;\n Then, crown’d with flow’ry hay, came Rural Joy,\n And Summer, with his fervid-beaming eye;\n\n [Footnote 7: A well-known performer of Scottish music on the\n violin.—R. B.]\n\n All-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn,\n Led yellow Autumn wreath’d with nodding corn;\n Then Winter’s time-bleach’d locks did hoary show,\n By Hospitality with cloudless brow:\n Next followed Courage with his martial stride,\n From where the Feal wild-woody coverts hide;^8\n Benevolence, with mild, benignant air,\n A female form, came from the tow’rs of Stair;^9\n Learning and Worth in equal measures trode,\n From simple Catrine, their long-lov’d abode:^10\n Last, white-rob’d Peace, crown’d with a hazel wreath,\n To rustic Agriculture did bequeath\n The broken, iron instruments of death:\n At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their kindling wrath.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment Of Song", + "body": " The night was still, and o’er the hill\n The moon shone on the castle wa’;\n The mavis sang, while dew-drops hang\n Around her on the castle wa’;\n Sae merrily they danced the ring\n Frae eenin’ till the cock did craw;\n And aye the o’erword o’ the spring\n Was “Irvine’s bairns are bonie a’.”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram On Rough Roads", + "body": " I’m now arrived—thanks to the gods!—\n Thro’ pathways rough and muddy,\n A certain sign that makin roads\n Is no this people’s study:\n Altho’ Im not wi’ Scripture cram’d,\n I’m sure the Bible says\n That heedless sinners shall be damn’d,\n Unless they mend their ways.\n\n [Footnote 8: A compliment to the Montgomeries of Coilsfield,\n on the Feal or Faile, a tributary of the Ayr.]\n\n [Footnote 9: Mrs. Stewart of Stair, an early patroness of the poet.]\n\n [Footnote 10: The house of Professor Dugald Stewart.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lying at a reverend friend’s house one night, the author left the", + "body": "following verses in the room where he slept:—\n\n O Thou dread Power, who reign’st above,\n I know thou wilt me hear,\n When for this scene of peace and love,\n I make this prayer sincere.\n\n The hoary Sire—the mortal stroke,\n Long, long be pleas’d to spare;\n To bless this little filial flock,\n And show what good men are.\n\n She, who her lovely offspring eyes\n With tender hopes and fears,\n O bless her with a mother’s joys,\n But spare a mother’s tears!\n\n Their hope, their stay, their darling youth.\n In manhood’s dawning blush,\n Bless him, Thou God of love and truth,\n Up to a parent’s wish.\n\n The beauteous, seraph sister-band—\n With earnest tears I pray—\n Thou know’st the snares on ev’ry hand,\n Guide Thou their steps alway.\n\n When, soon or late, they reach that coast,\n O’er Life’s rough ocean driven,\n May they rejoice, no wand’rer lost,\n A family in Heaven!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Farewell Song To The Banks Of Ayr", + "body": " Tune—“Roslin Castle.”\n\n“I composed this song as I conveyed my chest so far on my road to\nGreenock, where I was to embark in a few days for Jamaica. I meant it as my\nfarewell dirge to my native land.”—R. B.\n\n The gloomy night is gath’ring fast,\n Loud roars the wild, inconstant blast,\n Yon murky cloud is foul with rain,\n I see it driving o’er the plain;\n The hunter now has left the moor.\n The scatt’red coveys meet secure;\n While here I wander, prest with care,\n Along the lonely banks of Ayr.\n\n The Autumn mourns her rip’ning corn\n By early Winter’s ravage torn;\n Across her placid, azure sky,\n She sees the scowling tempest fly:\n Chill runs my blood to hear it rave;\n I think upon the stormy wave,\n Where many a danger I must dare,\n Far from the bonie banks of Ayr.\n\n ’Tis not the surging billow’s roar,\n ’Tis not that fatal, deadly shore;\n Tho’ death in ev’ry shape appear,\n The wretched have no more to fear:\n But round my heart the ties are bound,\n That heart transpierc’d with many a wound;\n These bleed afresh, those ties I tear,\n To leave the bonie banks of Ayr.\n\n Farewell, old Coila’s hills and dales,\n Her healthy moors and winding vales;\n The scenes where wretched Fancy roves,\n Pursuing past, unhappy loves!\n Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes!\n My peace with these, my love with those:\n The bursting tears my heart declare—\n Farewell, the bonie banks of Ayr!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Address To The Toothache", + "body": " My curse upon your venom’d stang,\n That shoots my tortur’d gums alang,\n An’ thro’ my lug gies mony a twang,\n Wi’ gnawing vengeance,\n Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang,\n Like racking engines!\n\n When fevers burn, or argues freezes,\n Rheumatics gnaw, or colics squeezes,\n Our neibor’s sympathy can ease us,\n Wi’ pitying moan;\n But thee—thou hell o’ a’ diseases—\n Aye mocks our groan.\n\n Adown my beard the slavers trickle\n I throw the wee stools o’er the mickle,\n While round the fire the giglets keckle,\n To see me loup,\n While, raving mad, I wish a heckle\n Were in their doup!\n\n In a’ the numerous human dools,\n Ill hairsts, daft bargains, cutty stools,\n Or worthy frien’s rak’d i’ the mools,—\n Sad sight to see!\n The tricks o’ knaves, or fash o’fools,\n Thou bear’st the gree!\n\n Where’er that place be priests ca’ hell,\n Where a’ the tones o’ misery yell,\n An’ ranked plagues their numbers tell,\n In dreadfu’ raw,\n Thou, Toothache, surely bear’st the bell,\n Amang them a’!\n\n O thou grim, mischief-making chiel,\n That gars the notes o’ discord squeel,\n Till daft mankind aft dance a reel\n In gore, a shoe-thick,\n Gie a’ the faes o’ Scotland’s weal\n A townmond’s toothache!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines On Meeting With Lord Daer^1", + "body": " This wot ye all whom it concerns,\n I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns,\n October twenty-third,\n\n [Footnote 1: At the house of Professor Dugald Stewart.]\n\n A ne’er-to-be-forgotten day,\n Sae far I sprackl’d up the brae,\n I dinner’d wi’ a Lord.\n\n I’ve been at drucken writers’ feasts,\n Nay, been bitch-fou ’mang godly priests—\n Wi’ rev’rence be it spoken!—\n I’ve even join’d the honour’d jorum,\n When mighty Squireships of the quorum,\n Their hydra drouth did sloken.\n\n But wi’ a Lord!—stand out my shin,\n A Lord—a Peer—an Earl’s son!\n Up higher yet, my bonnet\n An’ sic a Lord!—lang Scoth ells twa,\n Our Peerage he o’erlooks them a’,\n As I look o’er my sonnet.\n\n But O for Hogarth’s magic pow’r!\n To show Sir Bardie’s willyart glow’r,\n An’ how he star’d and stammer’d,\n When, goavin, as if led wi’ branks,\n An’ stumpin on his ploughman shanks,\n He in the parlour hammer’d.\n\n I sidying shelter’d in a nook,\n An’ at his Lordship steal’t a look,\n Like some portentous omen;\n Except good sense and social glee,\n An’ (what surpris’d me) modesty,\n I marked nought uncommon.\n\n I watch’d the symptoms o’ the Great,\n The gentle pride, the lordly state,\n The arrogant assuming;\n The fient a pride, nae pride had he,\n Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see,\n Mair than an honest ploughman.\n\n Then from his Lordship I shall learn,\n Henceforth to meet with unconcern\n One rank as weel’s another;\n Nae honest, worthy man need care\n To meet with noble youthful Daer,\n For he but meets a brother.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Masonic Song", + "body": " Tune—“Shawn-boy,” or “Over the water to Charlie.”\n\n\n Ye sons of old Killie, assembled by Willie,\n To follow the noble vocation;\n Your thrifty old mother has scarce such another\n To sit in that honoured station.\n I’ve little to say, but only to pray,\n As praying’s the ton of your fashion;\n A prayer from thee Muse you well may excuse\n ’Tis seldom her favourite passion.\n\n Ye powers who preside o’er the wind, and the tide,\n Who marked each element’s border;\n Who formed this frame with beneficent aim,\n Whose sovereign statute is order:—\n Within this dear mansion, may wayward Contention\n Or withered Envy ne’er enter;\n May secrecy round be the mystical bound,\n And brotherly Love be the centre!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Tam Samson’s Elegy", + "body": " An honest man’s the noblest work of God—Pope.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "When this worthy old sportman went out, last muirfowl season, he", + "body": "supposed it was to be, in Ossian’s phrase, “the last of his fields,” and\nexpressed an ardent wish to die and be buried in the muirs. On this hint\nthe author composed his elegy and epitaph.—R.B., 1787.\n\n Has auld Kilmarnock seen the deil?\n Or great Mackinlay^1 thrawn his heel?\n Or Robertson^2 again grown weel,\n To preach an’ read?\n “Na’ waur than a’!” cries ilka chiel,\n “Tam Samson’s dead!”\n\n [Footnote 1: A certain preacher, a great favourite with the\n million. Vide “The Ordination.” stanza ii.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 2: Another preacher, an equal favourite with the few,\n who was at that time ailing. For him see also “The Ordination,”\n stanza ix.—R.B.]\n\n Kilmarnock lang may grunt an’ grane,\n An’ sigh, an’ sab, an’ greet her lane,\n An’ cleed her bairns, man, wife, an’ wean,\n In mourning weed;\n To Death she’s dearly pay’d the kane—\n Tam Samson’s dead!\n\n The Brethren, o’ the mystic level\n May hing their head in woefu’ bevel,\n While by their nose the tears will revel,\n Like ony bead;\n Death’s gien the Lodge an unco devel;\n Tam Samson’s dead!\n\n When Winter muffles up his cloak,\n And binds the mire like a rock;\n When to the loughs the curlers flock,\n Wi’ gleesome speed,\n Wha will they station at the cock?\n Tam Samson’s dead!\n When Winter muffles up his cloak,\n He was the king o’ a’ the core,\n To guard, or draw, or wick a bore,\n Or up the rink like Jehu roar,\n In time o’ need;\n But now he lags on Death’s hog-score—\n Tam Samson’s dead!\n\n Now safe the stately sawmont sail,\n And trouts bedropp’d wi’ crimson hail,\n And eels, weel-ken’d for souple tail,\n And geds for greed,\n Since, dark in Death’s fish-creel, we wail\n Tam Samson’s dead!\n\n Rejoice, ye birring paitricks a’;\n Ye cootie muircocks, crousely craw;\n Ye maukins, cock your fud fu’ braw\n Withouten dread;\n Your mortal fae is now awa;\n Tam Samson’s dead!\n\n That woefu’ morn be ever mourn’d,\n Saw him in shooting graith adorn’d,\n While pointers round impatient burn’d,\n Frae couples free’d;\n But och! he gaed and ne’er return’d!\n Tam Samson’s dead!\n\n In vain auld age his body batters,\n In vain the gout his ancles fetters,\n In vain the burns cam down like waters,\n An acre braid!\n Now ev’ry auld wife, greetin, clatters\n “Tam Samson’s dead!”\n\n Owre mony a weary hag he limpit,\n An’ aye the tither shot he thumpit,\n Till coward Death behind him jumpit,\n Wi’ deadly feid;\n Now he proclaims wi’ tout o’ trumpet,\n “Tam Samson’s dead!”\n\n When at his heart he felt the dagger,\n He reel’d his wonted bottle-swagger,\n But yet he drew the mortal trigger,\n Wi’ weel-aimed heed;\n “Lord, five!” he cry’d, an’ owre did stagger—\n Tam Samson’s dead!\n\n Ilk hoary hunter mourn’d a brither;\n Ilk sportsman youth bemoan’d a father;\n Yon auld gray stane, amang the heather,\n Marks out his head;\n Whare Burns has wrote, in rhyming blether,\n “Tam Samson’s dead!”\n\n There, low he lies, in lasting rest;\n Perhaps upon his mould’ring breast\n Some spitefu’ muirfowl bigs her nest\n To hatch an’ breed:\n Alas! nae mair he’ll them molest!\n Tam Samson’s dead!\n\n When August winds the heather wave,\n And sportsmen wander by yon grave,\n Three volleys let his memory crave,\n O’ pouther an’ lead,\n Till Echo answer frae her cave,\n “Tam Samson’s dead!”\n\n Heav’n rest his saul whare’er he be!\n Is th’ wish o’ mony mae than me:\n He had twa fauts, or maybe three,\n Yet what remead?\n Ae social, honest man want we:\n Tam Samson’s dead!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Epitaph", + "body": " Tam Samson’s weel-worn clay here lies\n Ye canting zealots, spare him!\n If honest worth in Heaven rise,\n Ye’ll mend or ye win near him.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Per Contra", + "body": " Go, Fame, an’ canter like a filly\n Thro’ a’ the streets an’ neuks o’ Killie;^3\n Tell ev’ry social honest billie\n To cease his grievin’;\n For, yet unskaithed by Death’s gleg gullie.\n Tam Samson’s leevin’!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To Major Logan", + "body": " Hail, thairm-inspirin’, rattlin’ Willie!\n Tho’ fortune’s road be rough an’ hilly\n To every fiddling, rhyming billie,\n We never heed,\n But take it like the unback’d filly,\n Proud o’ her speed.\n\n [Footnote 3: Kilmarnock.—R. B.]\n\n When, idly goavin’, whiles we saunter,\n Yirr! fancy barks, awa we canter,\n Up hill, down brae, till some mischanter,\n Some black bog-hole,\n Arrests us; then the scathe an’ banter\n We’re forced to thole.\n\n Hale be your heart! hale be your fiddle!\n Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle,\n To cheer you through the weary widdle\n O’ this wild warl’.\n Until you on a crummock driddle,\n A grey hair’d carl.\n\n Come wealth, come poortith, late or soon,\n Heaven send your heart-strings aye in tune,\n And screw your temper-pins aboon\n A fifth or mair\n The melancholious, lazy croon\n O’ cankrie care.\n\n May still your life from day to day,\n Nae “lente largo” in the play,\n But “allegretto forte” gay,\n Harmonious flow,\n A sweeping, kindling, bauld strathspey—\n Encore! Bravo!\n\n A blessing on the cheery gang\n Wha dearly like a jig or sang,\n An’ never think o’ right an’ wrang\n By square an’ rule,\n But, as the clegs o’ feeling stang,\n Are wise or fool.\n\n My hand-waled curse keep hard in chase\n The harpy, hoodock, purse-proud race,\n Wha count on poortith as disgrace;\n Their tuneless hearts,\n May fireside discords jar a base\n To a’ their parts.\n\n But come, your hand, my careless brither,\n I’ th’ ither warl’, if there’s anither,\n An’ that there is, I’ve little swither\n About the matter;\n We, cheek for chow, shall jog thegither,\n I’se ne’er bid better.\n\n We’ve faults and failings—granted clearly,\n We’re frail backsliding mortals merely,\n Eve’s bonie squad, priests wyte them sheerly\n For our grand fa’;\n But still, but still, I like them dearly—\n God bless them a’!\n\n Ochone for poor Castalian drinkers,\n When they fa’ foul o’ earthly jinkers!\n The witching, curs’d, delicious blinkers\n Hae put me hyte,\n And gart me weet my waukrife winkers,\n Wi’ girnin’spite.\n\n By by yon moon!—and that’s high swearin—\n An’ every star within my hearin!\n An’ by her een wha was a dear ane!\n I’ll ne’er forget;\n I hope to gie the jads a clearin\n In fair play yet.\n\n My loss I mourn, but not repent it;\n I’ll seek my pursie whare I tint it;\n Ance to the Indies I were wonted,\n Some cantraip hour\n By some sweet elf I’ll yet be dinted;\n Then vive l’amour!\n\n Faites mes baissemains respectueuses,\n To sentimental sister Susie,\n And honest Lucky; no to roose you,\n Ye may be proud,\n That sic a couple Fate allows ye,\n To grace your blood.\n\n Nae mair at present can I measure,\n An’ trowth my rhymin ware’s nae treasure;\n But when in Ayr, some half-hour’s leisure,\n Be’t light, be’t dark,\n Sir Bard will do himself the pleasure\n To call at Park.\n\n Robert Burns.\n Mossgiel, 30th October, 1786.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment On Sensibility", + "body": " Rusticity’s ungainly form\n May cloud the highest mind;\n But when the heart is nobly warm,\n The good excuse will find.\n\n Propriety’s cold, cautious rules\n Warm fervour may o’erlook:\n But spare poor sensibility\n Th’ ungentle, harsh rebuke.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Winter Night", + "body": " Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,\n That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm!\n How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,\n Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you\n From seasons such as these?—Shakespeare.\n\n When biting Boreas, fell and dour,\n Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r;\n When Phoebus gies a short-liv’d glow’r,\n Far south the lift,\n Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,\n Or whirling drift:\n\n Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,\n Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,\n While burns, wi’ snawy wreaths up-choked,\n Wild-eddying swirl;\n Or, thro’ the mining outlet bocked,\n Down headlong hurl:\n\n List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle,\n I thought me on the ourie cattle,\n Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle\n O’ winter war,\n And thro’ the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle\n Beneath a scar.\n\n Ilk happing bird,—wee, helpless thing!\n That, in the merry months o’ spring,\n Delighted me to hear thee sing,\n What comes o’ thee?\n Whare wilt thou cow’r thy chittering wing,\n An’ close thy e’e?\n\n Ev’n you, on murdering errands toil’d,\n Lone from your savage homes exil’d,\n The blood-stain’d roost, and sheep-cote spoil’d\n My heart forgets,\n While pityless the tempest wild\n Sore on you beats!\n\n Now Phoebe in her midnight reign,\n Dark-muff’d, view’d the dreary plain;\n Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train,\n Rose in my soul,\n When on my ear this plantive strain,\n Slow, solemn, stole:—\n\n “Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!\n And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost!\n Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!\n Not all your rage, as now united, shows\n More hard unkindness unrelenting,\n Vengeful malice unrepenting.\n Than heaven-illumin’d Man on brother Man bestows!\n\n “See stern Oppression’s iron grip,\n Or mad Ambition’s gory hand,\n Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip,\n Woe, Want, and Murder o’er a land!\n Ev’n in the peaceful rural vale,\n Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale,\n How pamper’d Luxury, Flatt’ry by her side,\n The parasite empoisoning her ear,\n With all the servile wretches in the rear,\n Looks o’er proud Property, extended wide;\n And eyes the simple, rustic hind,\n Whose toil upholds the glitt’ring show—\n A creature of another kind,\n Some coarser substance, unrefin’d—\n Plac’d for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below!\n\n “Where, where is Love’s fond, tender throe,\n With lordly Honour’s lofty brow,\n The pow’rs you proudly own?\n Is there, beneath Love’s noble name,\n Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim,\n To bless himself alone?\n Mark maiden-innocence a prey\n To love-pretending snares:\n This boasted Honour turns away,\n Shunning soft Pity’s rising sway,\n Regardless of the tears and unavailing pray’rs!\n Perhaps this hour, in Misery’s squalid nest,\n She strains your infant to her joyless breast,\n And with a mother’s fears shrinks at the rocking blast!\n\n “Oh ye! who, sunk in beds of down,\n Feel not a want but what yourselves create,\n Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate,\n Whom friends and fortune quite disown!\n Ill-satisfy’d keen nature’s clamorous call,\n Stretch’d on his straw, he lays himself to sleep;\n While through the ragged roof and chinky wall,\n Chill, o’er his slumbers, piles the drifty heap!\n Think on the dungeon’s grim confine,\n Where Guilt and poor Misfortune pine!\n Guilt, erring man, relenting view,\n But shall thy legal rage pursue\n The wretch, already crushed low\n By cruel Fortune’s undeserved blow?\n Affliction’s sons are brothers in distress;\n A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!”\n\n I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer\n Shook off the pouthery snaw,\n And hail’d the morning with a cheer,\n A cottage-rousing craw.\n But deep this truth impress’d my mind—\n Thro’ all His works abroad,\n The heart benevolent and kind\n The most resembles God.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Yon Wild Mossy Mountains", + "body": " Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide,\n That nurse in their bosom the youth o’ the Clyde,\n Where the grouse lead their coveys thro’ the heather to feed,\n And the shepherd tends his flock as he pipes on his reed.\n\n Not Gowrie’s rich valley, nor Forth’s sunny shores,\n To me hae the charms o’yon wild, mossy moors;\n For there, by a lanely, sequestered stream,\n Besides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream.\n\n Amang thae wild mountains shall still be my path,\n Ilk stream foaming down its ain green, narrow strath;\n For there, wi’ my lassie, the day lang I rove,\n While o’er us unheeded flie the swift hours o’love.\n\n She is not the fairest, altho’ she is fair;\n O’ nice education but sma’ is her share;\n Her parentage humble as humble can be;\n But I lo’e the dear lassie because she lo’es me.\n\n To Beauty what man but maun yield him a prize,\n In her armour of glances, and blushes, and sighs?\n And when wit and refinement hae polish’d her darts,\n They dazzle our een, as they flie to our hearts.\n\n But kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond-sparkling e’e,\n Has lustre outshining the diamond to me;\n And the heart beating love as I’m clasp’d in her arms,\n O, these are my lassie’s all-conquering charms!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Address To Edinburgh", + "body": " Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!\n All hail thy palaces and tow’rs,\n Where once, beneath a Monarch’s feet,\n Sat Legislation’s sov’reign pow’rs:\n From marking wildly scatt’red flow’rs,\n As on the banks of Ayr I stray’d,\n And singing, lone, the lingering hours,\n I shelter in they honour’d shade.\n\n Here Wealth still swells the golden tide,\n As busy Trade his labours plies;\n There Architecture’s noble pride\n Bids elegance and splendour rise:\n Here Justice, from her native skies,\n High wields her balance and her rod;\n There Learning, with his eagle eyes,\n Seeks Science in her coy abode.\n\n Thy sons, Edina, social, kind,\n With open arms the stranger hail;\n Their views enlarg’d, their liberal mind,\n Above the narrow, rural vale:\n Attentive still to Sorrow’s wail,\n Or modest Merit’s silent claim;\n And never may their sources fail!\n And never Envy blot their name!\n\n Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn,\n Gay as the gilded summer sky,\n Sweet as the dewy, milk-white thorn,\n Dear as the raptur’d thrill of joy!\n Fair Burnet strikes th’ adoring eye,\n Heaven’s beauties on my fancy shine;\n I see the Sire of Love on high,\n And own His work indeed divine!\n\n There, watching high the least alarms,\n Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar;\n Like some bold veteran, grey in arms,\n And mark’d with many a seamy scar:\n The pond’rous wall and massy bar,\n Grim—rising o’er the rugged rock,\n Have oft withstood assailing war,\n And oft repell’d th’ invader’s shock.\n\n With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears,\n I view that noble, stately Dome,\n Where Scotia’s kings of other years,\n Fam’d heroes! had their royal home:\n Alas, how chang’d the times to come!\n Their royal name low in the dust!\n Their hapless race wild-wand’ring roam!\n Tho’ rigid Law cries out ’twas just!\n\n Wild beats my heart to trace your steps,\n Whose ancestors, in days of yore,\n Thro’ hostile ranks and ruin’d gaps\n Old Scotia’s bloody lion bore:\n Ev’n I who sing in rustic lore,\n Haply my sires have left their shed,\n And fac’d grim Danger’s loudest roar,\n Bold-following where your fathers led!\n\n Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!\n All hail thy palaces and tow’rs;\n Where once, beneath a Monarch’s feet,\n Sat Legislation’s sovereign pow’rs:\n From marking wildly-scatt’red flow’rs,\n As on the banks of Ayr I stray’d,\n And singing, lone, the ling’ring hours,\n I shelter in thy honour’d shade.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Address To A Haggis", + "body": " Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,\n Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race!\n Aboon them a’ yet tak your place,\n Painch, tripe, or thairm:\n Weel are ye wordy o’a grace\n As lang’s my arm.\n\n The groaning trencher there ye fill,\n Your hurdies like a distant hill,\n Your pin was help to mend a mill\n In time o’need,\n While thro’ your pores the dews distil\n Like amber bead.\n\n His knife see rustic Labour dight,\n An’ cut you up wi’ ready sleight,\n Trenching your gushing entrails bright,\n Like ony ditch;\n And then, O what a glorious sight,\n Warm-reekin’, rich!\n\n Then, horn for horn, they stretch an’ strive:\n Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,\n Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve\n Are bent like drums;\n Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,\n Bethankit! hums.\n\n Is there that owre his French ragout\n Or olio that wad staw a sow,\n Or fricassee wad make her spew\n Wi’ perfect sconner,\n Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view\n On sic a dinner?\n\n Poor devil! see him owre his trash,\n As feckles as wither’d rash,\n His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;\n His nieve a nit;\n Thro’ blody flood or field to dash,\n O how unfit!\n\n But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,\n The trembling earth resounds his tread.\n Clap in his walie nieve a blade,\n He’ll mak it whissle;\n An’ legs an’ arms, an’ hands will sned,\n Like taps o’ trissle.\n\n Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,\n And dish them out their bill o’ fare,\n Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware\n That jaups in luggies;\n But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer\n Gie her a haggis!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To Miss Logan, With Beattie’s Poems, For A New-Year’s Gift, Jan. 1, 1787.", + "body": " Again the silent wheels of time\n Their annual round have driven,\n And you, tho’ scarce in maiden prime,\n Are so much nearer Heaven.\n\n No gifts have I from Indian coasts\n The infant year to hail;\n I send you more than India boasts,\n In Edwin’s simple tale.\n\n Our sex with guile, and faithless love,\n Is charg’d, perhaps too true;\n But may, dear maid, each lover prove\n An Edwin still to you.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Mr. William Smellie—A Sketch", + "body": " Shrewd Willie Smellie to Crochallan came;\n The old cock’d hat, the grey surtout the same;\n His bristling beard just rising in its might,\n ’Twas four long nights and days to shaving night:\n His uncomb’d grizzly locks, wild staring, thatch’d\n A head for thought profound and clear, unmatch’d;\n Yet tho’ his caustic wit was biting-rude,\n His heart was warm, benevolent, and good.\n\n Rattlin’, Roarin’ Willie^1\n\n As I cam by Crochallan,\n I cannilie keekit ben;\n Rattlin’, roarin’ Willie\n Was sittin at yon boord-en’;\n Sittin at yon boord-en,\n And amang gude companie;\n Rattlin’, roarin’ Willie,\n You’re welcome hame to me!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Bonie Dundee", + "body": " My blessin’s upon thy sweet wee lippie!\n My blessin’s upon thy e’e-brie!\n Thy smiles are sae like my blythe sodger laddie,\n Thou’s aye the dearer, and dearer to me!\n\n But I’ll big a bow’r on yon bonie banks,\n Whare Tay rins wimplin’ by sae clear;\n An’ I’ll cleed thee in the tartan sae fine,\n And mak thee a man like thy daddie dear.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Extempore In The Court Of Session", + "body": " Tune—“Killiercrankie.”\n\n\n Lord Advocate\n\n He clenched his pamphlet in his fist,\n He quoted and he hinted,\n Till, in a declamation-mist,\n His argument he tint it:\n He gaped for’t, he graped for’t,\n He fand it was awa, man;\n But what his common sense came short,\n He eked out wi’ law, man.\n\n\n Mr. Erskine\n\n Collected, Harry stood awee,\n Then open’d out his arm, man;\n\n [Footnote 1: William Dunbar, W. S., of the Crochallan Fencibles,\n a convivial club.]\n\n His Lordship sat wi’ ruefu’ e’e,\n And ey’d the gathering storm, man:\n Like wind-driven hail it did assail’\n Or torrents owre a lin, man:\n The Bench sae wise, lift up their eyes,\n Half-wauken’d wi’ the din, man.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Inscription For The Headstone Of Fergusson The Poet^1", + "body": " No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,\n “No storied urn nor animated bust;”\n This simple stone directs pale Scotia’s way,\n To pour her sorrows o’er the Poet’s dust.\n\n\n Additional Stanzas\n\n She mourns, sweet tuneful youth, thy hapless fate;\n Tho’ all the powers of song thy fancy fired,\n Yet Luxury and Wealth lay by in state,\n And, thankless, starv’d what they so much admired.\n\n This tribute, with a tear, now gives\n A brother Bard—he can no more bestow:\n But dear to fame thy Song immortal lives,\n A nobler monument than Art can shew.\n\n\n Inscribed Under Fergusson’s Portrait\n\n Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleased,\n And yet can starve the author of the pleasure.\n O thou, my elder brother in misfortune,\n By far my elder brother in the Muses,\n With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!\n Why is the Bard unpitied by the world,\n Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures?\n\n [Footnote 1: The stone was erected at Burns’ expenses in\n February—March, 1789.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To Mrs. Scott", + "body": " Gudewife of Wauchope—House, Roxburghshire.\n\n\n Gudewife,\n\n I Mind it weel in early date,\n When I was bardless, young, and blate,\n An’ first could thresh the barn,\n Or haud a yokin’ at the pleugh;\n An, tho’ forfoughten sair eneugh,\n Yet unco proud to learn:\n When first amang the yellow corn\n A man I reckon’d was,\n An’ wi’ the lave ilk merry morn\n Could rank my rig and lass,\n Still shearing, and clearing\n The tither stooked raw,\n Wi’ claivers, an’ haivers,\n Wearing the day awa.\n\n E’en then, a wish, (I mind its pow’r),\n A wish that to my latest hour\n Shall strongly heave my breast,\n That I for poor auld Scotland’s sake\n Some usefu’ plan or book could make,\n Or sing a sang at least.\n The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide\n Amang the bearded bear,\n I turn’d the weeder-clips aside,\n An’ spar’d the symbol dear:\n No nation, no station,\n My envy e’er could raise;\n A Scot still, but blot still,\n I knew nae higher praise.\n\n But still the elements o’ sang,\n In formless jumble, right an’ wrang,\n Wild floated in my brain;\n ’Till on that har’st I said before,\n May partner in the merry core,\n She rous’d the forming strain;\n I see her yet, the sonsie quean,\n That lighted up my jingle,\n Her witching smile, her pawky een\n That gart my heart-strings tingle;\n I fired, inspired,\n At every kindling keek,\n But bashing, and dashing,\n I feared aye to speak.\n\n Health to the sex! ilk guid chiel says:\n Wi’ merry dance in winter days,\n An’ we to share in common;\n The gust o’ joy, the balm of woe,\n The saul o’ life, the heaven below,\n Is rapture-giving woman.\n Ye surly sumphs, who hate the name,\n Be mindfu’ o’ your mither;\n She, honest woman, may think shame\n That ye’re connected with her:\n Ye’re wae men, ye’re nae men\n That slight the lovely dears;\n To shame ye, disclaim ye,\n Ilk honest birkie swears.\n\n For you, no bred to barn and byre,\n Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre,\n Thanks to you for your line:\n The marled plaid ye kindly spare,\n By me should gratefully be ware;\n ’Twad please me to the nine.\n I’d be mair vauntie o’ my hap,\n Douce hingin owre my curple,\n Than ony ermine ever lap,\n Or proud imperial purple.\n Farewell then, lang hale then,\n An’ plenty be your fa;\n May losses and crosses\n Ne’er at your hallan ca’!\n\n R. Burns\n March, 1787", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Verses Intended To Be Written Below A Noble Earl’s Picture^1", + "body": " Whose is that noble, dauntless brow?\n And whose that eye of fire?\n And whose that generous princely mien,\n E’en rooted foes admire?\n\n Stranger! to justly show that brow,\n And mark that eye of fire,\n Would take His hand, whose vernal tints\n His other works admire.\n\n Bright as a cloudless summer sun,\n With stately port he moves;\n His guardian Seraph eyes with awe\n The noble Ward he loves.\n\n Among the illustrious Scottish sons\n That chief thou may’st discern,\n Mark Scotia’s fond-returning eye,—\n It dwells upon Glencairn.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Prologue", + "body": " Spoken by Mr. Woods on his benefit-night, Monday, 16th April, 1787.\n\n When, by a generous Public’s kind acclaim,\n That dearest meed is granted—honest fame;\n Waen here your favour is the actor’s lot,\n Nor even the man in private life forgot;\n What breast so dead to heavenly Virtue’s glow,\n But heaves impassion’d with the grateful throe?\n\n Poor is the task to please a barb’rous throng,\n It needs no Siddons’ powers in Southern’s song;\n But here an ancient nation, fam’d afar,\n For genius, learning high, as great in war.\n Hail, Caledonia, name for ever dear!\n Before whose sons I’m honour’d to appear?\n\n [Footnote 1: The Nobleman is James, Fourteenth Earl of Glencairn.]\n\n Where every science, every nobler art,\n That can inform the mind or mend the heart,\n Is known; as grateful nations oft have found,\n Far as the rude barbarian marks the bound.\n Philosophy, no idle pedant dream,\n Here holds her search by heaven-taught Reason’s beam;\n Here History paints with elegance and force\n The tide of Empire’s fluctuating course;\n Here Douglas forms wild Shakespeare into plan,\n And Harley rouses all the God in man.\n When well-form’d taste and sparkling wit unite\n With manly lore, or female beauty bright,\n (Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace\n Can only charm us in the second place),\n Witness my heart, how oft with panting fear,\n As on this night, I’ve met these judges here!\n But still the hope Experience taught to live,\n Equal to judge—you’re candid to forgive.\n No hundred—headed riot here we meet,\n With decency and law beneath his feet;\n Nor Insolence assumes fair Freedom’s name:\n Like Caledonians, you applaud or blame.\n\n O Thou, dread Power! whose empire-giving hand\n Has oft been stretch’d to shield the honour’d land!\n Strong may she glow with all her ancient fire;\n May every son be worthy of his sire;\n Firm may she rise, with generous disdain\n At Tyranny’s, or direr Pleasure’s chain;\n Still Self-dependent in her native shore,\n Bold may she brave grim Danger’s loudest roar,\n Till Fate the curtain drop on worlds to be no more.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Bonie Moor-Hen", + "body": " The heather was blooming, the meadows were mawn,\n Our lads gaed a-hunting ae day at the dawn,\n O’er moors and o’er mosses and mony a glen,\n At length they discover’d a bonie moor-hen.\n\n Chorus.—I rede you, beware at the hunting, young men,\n I rede you, beware at the hunting, young men;\n Take some on the wing, and some as they spring,\n But cannily steal on a bonie moor-hen.\n\n Sweet—brushing the dew from the brown heather bells\n Her colours betray’d her on yon mossy fells;\n Her plumage outlustr’d the pride o’ the spring\n And O! as she wanton’d sae gay on the wing.\n I rede you, &c.\n\n Auld Phoebus himself, as he peep’d o’er the hill,\n In spite at her plumage he tried his skill;\n He levell’d his rays where she bask’d on the brae—\n His rays were outshone, and but mark’d where she lay.\n I rede you,&c.\n\n They hunted the valley, they hunted the hill,\n The best of our lads wi’ the best o’ their skill;\n But still as the fairest she sat in their sight,\n Then, whirr! she was over, a mile at a flight.\n I rede you, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—My Lord A-Hunting", + "body": " Chorus.—My lady’s gown, there’s gairs upon’t,\n And gowden flowers sae rare upon’t;\n But Jenny’s jimps and jirkinet,\n My lord thinks meikle mair upon’t.\n\n My lord a-hunting he is gone,\n But hounds or hawks wi’ him are nane;\n By Colin’s cottage lies his game,\n If Colin’s Jenny be at hame.\n My lady’s gown, &c.\n\n My lady’s white, my lady’s red,\n And kith and kin o’ Cassillis’ blude;\n But her ten-pund lands o’ tocher gude;\n Were a’ the charms his lordship lo’ed.\n My lady’s gown, &c.\n\n Out o’er yon muir, out o’er yon moss,\n Whare gor-cocks thro’ the heather pass,\n There wons auld Colin’s bonie lass,\n A lily in a wilderness.\n My lady’s gown, &c.\n\n Sae sweetly move her genty limbs,\n Like music notes o’lovers’ hymns:\n The diamond-dew in her een sae blue,\n Where laughing love sae wanton swims.\n My lady’s gown, &c.\n\n My lady’s dink, my lady’s drest,\n The flower and fancy o’ the west;\n But the lassie than a man lo’es best,\n O that’s the lass to mak him blest.\n My lady’s gown, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram At Roslin Inn", + "body": " My blessings on ye, honest wife!\n I ne’er was here before;\n Ye’ve wealth o’ gear for spoon and knife—\n Heart could not wish for more.\n Heav’n keep you clear o’ sturt and strife,\n Till far ayont fourscore,\n And while I toddle on thro’ life,\n I’ll ne’er gae by your door!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram Addressed To An Artist", + "body": " Dear _____, I’ll gie ye some advice,\n You’ll tak it no uncivil:\n You shouldna paint at angels mair,\n But try and paint the devil.\n\n To paint an Angel’s kittle wark,\n Wi’ Nick, there’s little danger:\n You’ll easy draw a lang-kent face,\n But no sae weel a stranger.—R. B.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Book-Worms", + "body": " Through and through th’ inspir’d leaves,\n Ye maggots, make your windings;\n But O respect his lordship’s taste,\n And spare his golden bindings.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Elphinstone’s Translation Of Martial’s Epigrams", + "body": " O Thou whom Poetry abhors,\n Whom Prose has turned out of doors,\n Heard’st thou yon groan?—proceed no further,\n ’Twas laurel’d Martial calling murther.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—A Bottle And Friend", + "body": " There’s nane that’s blest of human kind,\n But the cheerful and the gay, man,\n Fal, la, la, &c.\n\n Here’s a bottle and an honest friend!\n What wad ye wish for mair, man?\n Wha kens, before his life may end,\n What his share may be o’ care, man?\n\n Then catch the moments as they fly,\n And use them as ye ought, man:\n Believe me, happiness is shy,\n And comes not aye when sought, man.\n\n Lines Written Under The Picture Of The Celebrated Miss Burns\n\n Cease, ye prudes, your envious railing,\n Lovely Burns has charms—confess:\n True it is, she had one failing,\n Had a woman ever less?", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph For William Nicol, Of The High School, Edinburgh", + "body": " Ye maggots, feed on Nicol’s brain,\n For few sic feasts you’ve gotten;\n And fix your claws in Nicol’s heart,\n For deil a bit o’t’s rotten.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph For Mr. William Michie", + "body": " Schoolmaster of Cleish Parish, Fifeshire.\n\n Here lie Willie Michie’s banes;\n O Satan, when ye tak him,\n Gie him the schulin o’ your weans,\n For clever deils he’ll mak them!\n\n Boat song—Hey, Ca’ Thro’\n\n Up wi’ the carls o’ Dysart,\n And the lads o’ Buckhaven,\n And the kimmers o’ Largo,\n And the lasses o’ Leven.\n\n Chorus.—Hey, ca’ thro’, ca’ thro’,\n For we hae muckle ado.\n Hey, ca’ thro’, ca’ thro’,\n For we hae muckle ado;\n\n We hae tales to tell,\n An’ we hae sangs to sing;\n We hae pennies tae spend,\n An’ we hae pints to bring.\n Hey, ca’ thro’, &c.\n\n We’ll live a’ our days,\n And them that comes behin’,\n Let them do the like,\n An’ spend the gear they win.\n Hey, ca’ thro’, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Address To Wm. Tytler, Esq., Of Woodhouselee", + "body": " With an Impression of the Author’s Portrait.\n\n Revered defender of beauteous Stuart,\n Of Stuart, a name once respected;\n A name, which to love was the mark of a true heart,\n But now ’tis despis’d and neglected.\n\n Tho’ something like moisture conglobes in my eye,\n Let no one misdeem me disloyal;\n A poor friendless wand’rer may well claim a sigh,\n Still more if that wand’rer were royal.\n\n My fathers that name have rever’d on a throne:\n My fathers have fallen to right it;\n Those fathers would spurn their degenerate son,\n That name should he scoffingly slight it.\n\n Still in prayers for King George I most heartily join,\n The Queen, and the rest of the gentry:\n Be they wise, be they foolish, is nothing of mine;\n Their title’s avow’d by my country.\n\n But why of that epocha make such a fuss,\n That gave us th’ Electoral stem?\n If bringing them over was lucky for us,\n I’m sure ’twas as lucky for them.\n\n But, loyalty, truce! we’re on dangerous ground;\n Who knows how the fashions may alter?\n The doctrine, to-day, that is loyalty sound,\n To-morrow may bring us a halter!\n\n I send you a trifle, a head of a bard,\n A trifle scarce worthy your care;\n But accept it, good Sir, as a mark of regard,\n Sincere as a saint’s dying prayer.\n\n Now life’s chilly evening dim shades on your eye,\n And ushers the long dreary night:\n But you, like the star that athwart gilds the sky,\n Your course to the latest is bright.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram To Miss Ainslie In Church", + "body": " Who was looking up the text during sermon.\n\n Fair maid, you need not take the hint,\n Nor idle texts pursue:\n ’Twas guilty sinners that he meant,\n Not Angels such as you.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Burlesque Lament For The Absence Of William Creech, Publisher", + "body": " Auld chuckie Reekie’s^1 sair distrest,\n Down droops her ance weel burnish’d crest,\n Nae joy her bonie buskit nest\n Can yield ava,\n Her darling bird that she lo’es best—\n Willie’s awa!\n\n O Willie was a witty wight,\n And had o’ things an unco’ sleight,\n Auld Reekie aye he keepit tight,\n And trig an’ braw:\n But now they’ll busk her like a fright,—\n Willie’s awa!\n\n The stiffest o’ them a’ he bow’d,\n The bauldest o’ them a’ he cow’d;\n They durst nae mair than he allow’d,\n That was a law:\n We’ve lost a birkie weel worth gowd;\n Willie’s awa!\n\n Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks and fools,\n Frae colleges and boarding schools,\n May sprout like simmer puddock-stools\n In glen or shaw;\n He wha could brush them down to mools—\n Willie’s awa!\n\n [Footnote 1: Edinburgh.]\n\n The brethren o’ the Commerce-chaumer\n May mourn their loss wi’ doolfu’ clamour;\n He was a dictionar and grammar\n Among them a’;\n I fear they’ll now mak mony a stammer;\n Willie’s awa!\n\n Nae mair we see his levee door\n Philosophers and poets pour,\n And toothy critics by the score,\n In bloody raw!\n The adjutant o’ a’ the core—\n Willie’s awa!\n\n Now worthy Gregory’s Latin face,\n Tytler’s and Greenfield’s modest grace;\n Mackenzie, Stewart, such a brace\n As Rome ne’er saw;\n They a’ maun meet some ither place,\n Willie’s awa!\n\n Poor Burns ev’n Scotch Drink canna quicken,\n He cheeps like some bewilder’d chicken\n Scar’d frae it’s minnie and the cleckin,\n By hoodie-craw;\n Grieg’s gien his heart an unco kickin,\n Willie’s awa!\n\n Now ev’ry sour-mou’d girnin blellum,\n And Calvin’s folk, are fit to fell him;\n Ilk self-conceited critic skellum\n His quill may draw;\n He wha could brawlie ward their bellum—\n Willie’s awa!\n\n Up wimpling stately Tweed I’ve sped,\n And Eden scenes on crystal Jed,\n And Ettrick banks, now roaring red,\n While tempests blaw;\n But every joy and pleasure’s fled,\n Willie’s awa!\n\n May I be Slander’s common speech;\n A text for Infamy to preach;\n And lastly, streekit out to bleach\n In winter snaw;\n When I forget thee, Willie Creech,\n Tho’ far awa!\n\n May never wicked Fortune touzle him!\n May never wicked men bamboozle him!\n Until a pow as auld’s Methusalem\n He canty claw!\n Then to the blessed new Jerusalem,\n Fleet wing awa!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Note To Mr. Renton Of Lamerton", + "body": " Your billet, Sir, I grant receipt;\n Wi’ you I’ll canter ony gate,\n Tho’ ’twere a trip to yon blue warl’,\n Whare birkies march on burning marl:\n Then, Sir, God willing, I’ll attend ye,\n And to his goodness I commend ye.\n\n R. Burns", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The following poem is the work of some hapless son of the Muses who", + "body": "deserved a better fate. There is a great deal of “The voice of Cona” in\nhis solitary, mournful notes; and had the sentiments been clothed in\nShenstone’s language, they would have been no discredit even to that\nelegant poet.—R.B.\n\n Strait is the spot and green the sod\n From whence my sorrows flow;\n And soundly sleeps the ever dear\n Inhabitant below.\n\n Pardon my transport, gentle shade,\n While o’er the turf I bow;\n Thy earthy house is circumscrib’d,\n And solitary now.\n\n Not one poor stone to tell thy name,\n Or make thy virtues known:\n But what avails to me—to thee,\n The sculpture of a stone?\n\n I’ll sit me down upon this turf,\n And wipe the rising tear:\n The chill blast passes swiftly by,\n And flits around thy bier.\n\n Dark is the dwelling of the Dead,\n And sad their house of rest:\n Low lies the head, by Death’s cold arms\n In awful fold embrac’d.\n\n I saw the grim Avenger stand\n Incessant by thy side;\n Unseen by thee, his deadly breath\n Thy lingering frame destroy’d.\n\n Pale grew the roses on thy cheek,\n And wither’d was thy bloom,\n Till the slow poison brought thy youth\n Untimely to the tomb.\n\n Thus wasted are the ranks of men—\n Youth, Health, and Beauty fall;\n The ruthless ruin spreads around,\n And overwhelms us all.\n\n Behold where, round thy narrow house,\n The graves unnumber’d lie;\n The multitude that sleep below\n Existed but to die.\n\n Some, with the tottering steps of Age,\n Trod down the darksome way;\n And some, in youth’s lamented prime,\n Like thee were torn away:\n\n Yet these, however hard their fate,\n Their native earth receives;\n Amid their weeping friends they died,\n And fill their fathers’ graves.\n\n From thy lov’d friends, when first thy heart\n Was taught by Heav’n to glow,\n Far, far remov’d, the ruthless stroke\n Surpris’d and laid thee low.\n\n At the last limits of our isle,\n Wash’d by the western wave,\n Touch’d by thy face, a thoughtful bard\n Sits lonely by thy grave.\n\n Pensive he eyes, before him spread\n The deep, outstretch’d and vast;\n His mourning notes are borne away\n Along the rapid blast.\n\n And while, amid the silent Dead\n Thy hapless fate he mourns,\n His own long sorrows freshly bleed,\n And all his grief returns:\n\n Like thee, cut off in early youth,\n And flower of beauty’s pride,\n His friend, his first and only joy,\n His much lov’d Stella, died.\n\n Him, too, the stern impulse of Fate\n Resistless bears along;\n And the same rapid tide shall whelm\n The Poet and the Song.\n\n The tear of pity which he sheds,\n He asks not to receive;\n Let but his poor remains be laid\n Obscurely in the grave.\n\n His grief-worn heart, with truest joy,\n Shall meet he welcome shock:\n His airy harp shall lie unstrung,\n And silent on the rock.\n\n O, my dear maid, my Stella, when\n Shall this sick period close,\n And lead the solitary bard\n To his belov’d repose?", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Bard At Inverary", + "body": " Whoe’er he be that sojourns here,\n I pity much his case,\n Unless he comes to wait upon\n The Lord their God, His Grace.\n\n There’s naething here but Highland pride,\n And Highland scab and hunger:\n If Providence has sent me here,\n ’Twas surely in his anger.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram To Miss Jean Scott", + "body": " O had each Scot of ancient times\n Been, Jeanie Scott, as thou art;\n The bravest heart on English ground\n Had yielded like a coward.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Brother to a young Lady, a particular friend of the Author’s.", + "body": " Sad thy tale, thou idle page,\n And rueful thy alarms:\n Death tears the brother of her love\n From Isabella’s arms.\n\n Sweetly deckt with pearly dew\n The morning rose may blow;\n But cold successive noontide blasts\n May lay its beauties low.\n\n Fair on Isabella’s morn\n The sun propitious smil’d;\n But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds\n Succeeding hopes beguil’d.\n\n Fate oft tears the bosom chords\n That Nature finest strung;\n So Isabella’s heart was form’d,\n And so that heart was wrung.\n\n Dread Omnipotence alone\n Can heal the wound he gave—\n Can point the brimful grief-worn eyes\n To scenes beyond the grave.\n\n Virtue’s blossoms there shall blow,\n And fear no withering blast;\n There Isabella’s spotless worth\n Shall happy be at last.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Elegy On The Death Of Sir James Hunter Blair", + "body": " The lamp of day, with—ill presaging glare,\n Dim, cloudy, sank beneath the western wave;\n Th’ inconstant blast howl’d thro’ the dark’ning air,\n And hollow whistled in the rocky cave.\n\n Lone as I wander’d by each cliff and dell,\n Once the lov’d haunts of Scotia’s royal train;^1\n Or mus’d where limpid streams, once hallow’d well,^2\n Or mould’ring ruins mark the sacred fane.^3\n\n Th’ increasing blast roar’d round the beetling rocks,\n The clouds swift-wing’d flew o’er the starry sky,\n The groaning trees untimely shed their locks,\n And shooting meteors caught the startled eye.\n\n [Footnote 1: The King’s Park at Holyrood House.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 2: St. Anthony’s well.—R. B.]\n\n [Footnote 3: St. Anthony’s Chapel.—R. B.]\n\n The paly moon rose in the livid east.\n And ’mong the cliffs disclos’d a stately form\n In weeds of woe, that frantic beat her breast,\n And mix’d her wailings with the raving storm\n\n Wild to my heart the filial pulses glow,\n ’Twas Caledonia’s trophied shield I view’d:\n Her form majestic droop’d in pensive woe,\n The lightning of her eye in tears imbued.\n\n Revers’d that spear, redoubtable in war,\n Reclined that banner, erst in fields unfurl’d,\n That like a deathful meteor gleam’d afar,\n And brav’d the mighty monarchs of the world.\n\n “My patriot son fills an untimely grave!”\n With accents wild and lifted arms she cried;\n “Low lies the hand oft was stretch’d to save,\n Low lies the heart that swell’d with honest pride.\n\n “A weeping country joins a widow’s tear;\n The helpless poor mix with the orphan’s cry;\n The drooping arts surround their patron’s bier;\n And grateful science heaves the heartfelt sigh!\n\n “I saw my sons resume their ancient fire;\n I saw fair Freedom’s blossoms richly blow:\n But ah! how hope is born but to expire!\n Relentless fate has laid their guardian low.\n\n “My patriot falls: but shall he lie unsung,\n While empty greatness saves a worthless name?\n No; every muse shall join her tuneful tongue,\n And future ages hear his growing fame.\n\n “And I will join a mother’s tender cares,\n Thro’ future times to make his virtues last;\n That distant years may boast of other Blairs!”—\n She said, and vanish’d with the sweeping blast.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Impromptu On Carron Iron Works", + "body": " We cam na here to view your warks,\n In hopes to be mair wise,\n But only, lest we gang to hell,\n It may be nae surprise:\n But when we tirl’d at your door\n Your porter dought na hear us;\n Sae may, shou’d we to Hell’s yetts come,\n Your billy Satan sair us!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To Miss Ferrier", + "body": " Enclosing the Elegy on Sir J. H. Blair.\n\n Nae heathen name shall I prefix,\n Frae Pindus or Parnassus;\n Auld Reekie dings them a’ to sticks,\n For rhyme-inspiring lasses.\n\n Jove’s tunefu’ dochters three times three\n Made Homer deep their debtor;\n But, gien the body half an e’e,\n Nine Ferriers wad done better!\n\n Last day my mind was in a bog,\n Down George’s Street I stoited;\n A creeping cauld prosaic fog\n My very sense doited.\n\n Do what I dought to set her free,\n My saul lay in the mire;\n Ye turned a neuk—I saw your e’e—\n She took the wing like fire!\n\n The mournfu’ sang I here enclose,\n In gratitude I send you,\n And pray, in rhyme as weel as prose,\n A’ gude things may attend you!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Of an Inn at Stirling, on seeing the Royal Palace in ruin.", + "body": " Here Stuarts once in glory reigned,\n And laws for Scotland’s weal ordained;\n But now unroof’d their palace stands,\n Their sceptre’s sway’d by other hands;\n Fallen indeed, and to the earth\n Whence groveling reptiles take their birth.\n The injured Stuart line is gone,\n A race outlandish fills their throne;\n An idiot race, to honour lost;\n Who know them best despise them most.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My imprudent lines were answered, very petulantly, by somebody, I", + "body": "believe, a Rev. Mr. Hamilton. In a MS., where I met the answer, I wrote\nbelow:—\n\n\n With Esop’s lion, Burns says: Sore I feel\n Each other’s scorn, but damn that ass’ heel!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Libeller’s Self-Reproof^1", + "body": " Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name\n Shall no longer appear in the records of Fame;\n Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible,\n Says, the more ’tis a truth, sir, the more ’tis a libel!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Over the Chimney—piece in the Parlour of the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth.", + "body": " Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,\n These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;\n O’er many a winding dale and painful steep,\n Th’ abodes of covey’d grouse and timid sheep,\n\n [Footnote 1: These are rhymes of dubious authenticity.—Lang.]\n\n My savage journey, curious, I pursue,\n Till fam’d Breadalbane opens to my view.—\n The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,\n The woods wild scatter’d, clothe their ample sides;\n Th’ outstretching lake, imbosomed ’mong the hills,\n The eye with wonder and amazement fills;\n The Tay meand’ring sweet in infant pride,\n The palace rising on his verdant side,\n The lawns wood-fring’d in Nature’s native taste,\n The hillocks dropt in Nature’s careless haste,\n The arches striding o’er the new-born stream,\n The village glittering in the noontide beam—\n\n Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,\n Lone wand’ring by the hermit’s mossy cell;\n The sweeping theatre of hanging woods,\n Th’ incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods—\n\n Here Poesy might wake her heav’n-taught lyre,\n And look through Nature with creative fire;\n Here, to the wrongs of Fate half reconcil’d,\n Misfortunes lighten’d steps might wander wild;\n And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,\n Find balm to soothe her bitter, rankling wounds:\n Here heart-struck Grief might heav’nward stretch her scan,\n And injur’d Worth forget and pardon man.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—The Birks Of Aberfeldy", + "body": " Tune—“The Birks of Abergeldie.”\n\n\n Chorus.—Bonie lassie, will ye go,\n Will ye go, will ye go,\n Bonie lassie, will ye go\n To the birks of Aberfeldy!\n\n Now Simmer blinks on flowery braes,\n And o’er the crystal streamlets plays;\n Come let us spend the lightsome days,\n In the birks of Aberfeldy.\n Bonie lassie, &c.\n\n While o’er their heads the hazels hing,\n The little birdies blythely sing,\n Or lightly flit on wanton wing,\n In the birks of Aberfeldy.\n Bonie lassie, &c.\n\n The braes ascend like lofty wa’s,\n The foaming stream deep-roaring fa’s,\n O’erhung wi’ fragrant spreading shaws—\n The birks of Aberfeldy.\n Bonie lassie, &c.\n\n The hoary cliffs are crown’d wi’ flowers,\n White o’er the linns the burnie pours,\n And rising, weets wi’ misty showers\n The birks of Aberfeldy.\n Bonie lassie, &c.\n\n Let Fortune’s gifts at randoe flee,\n They ne’er shall draw a wish frae me;\n Supremely blest wi’ love and thee,\n In the birks of Aberfeldy.\n Bonie lassie, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Humble Petition Of Bruar Water", + "body": " To the noble Duke of Athole.\n\n My lord, I know your noble ear\n Woe ne’er assails in vain;\n Embolden’d thus, I beg you’ll hear\n Your humble slave complain,\n How saucy Phoebus’ scorching beams,\n In flaming summer-pride,\n Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams,\n And drink my crystal tide.^1\n\n The lightly-jumping, glowrin’ trouts,\n That thro’ my waters play,\n If, in their random, wanton spouts,\n They near the margin stray;\n\n [Footnote 1: Bruar Falls, in Athole, are exceedingly picturesque\n and beautiful; but their effect is much impaired by the want of\n trees and shrubs.—R.B.]\n\n If, hapless chance! they linger lang,\n I’m scorching up so shallow,\n They’re left the whitening stanes amang,\n In gasping death to wallow.\n\n Last day I grat wi’ spite and teen,\n As poet Burns came by.\n That, to a bard, I should be seen\n Wi’ half my channel dry;\n A panegyric rhyme, I ween,\n Ev’n as I was, he shor’d me;\n But had I in my glory been,\n He, kneeling, wad ador’d me.\n\n Here, foaming down the skelvy rocks,\n In twisting strength I rin;\n There, high my boiling torrent smokes,\n Wild-roaring o’er a linn:\n Enjoying each large spring and well,\n As Nature gave them me,\n I am, altho’ I say’t mysel’,\n Worth gaun a mile to see.\n\n Would then my noble master please\n To grant my highest wishes,\n He’ll shade my banks wi’ tow’ring trees,\n And bonie spreading bushes.\n Delighted doubly then, my lord,\n You’ll wander on my banks,\n And listen mony a grateful bird\n Return you tuneful thanks.\n\n The sober lav’rock, warbling wild,\n Shall to the skies aspire;\n The gowdspink, Music’s gayest child,\n Shall sweetly join the choir;\n The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear,\n The mavis mild and mellow;\n The robin pensive Autumn cheer,\n In all her locks of yellow.\n\n This, too, a covert shall ensure,\n To shield them from the storm;\n And coward maukin sleep secure,\n Low in her grassy form:\n Here shall the shepherd make his seat,\n To weave his crown of flow’rs;\n Or find a shelt’ring, safe retreat,\n From prone-descending show’rs.\n\n And here, by sweet, endearing stealth,\n Shall meet the loving pair,\n Despising worlds, with all their wealth,\n As empty idle care;\n The flow’rs shall vie in all their charms,\n The hour of heav’n to grace;\n And birks extend their fragrant arms\n To screen the dear embrace.\n\n Here haply too, at vernal dawn,\n Some musing bard may stray,\n And eye the smoking, dewy lawn,\n And misty mountain grey;\n Or, by the reaper’s nightly beam,\n Mild-chequering thro’ the trees,\n Rave to my darkly dashing stream,\n Hoarse-swelling on the breeze.\n\n Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,\n My lowly banks o’erspread,\n And view, deep-bending in the pool,\n Their shadow’s wat’ry bed:\n Let fragrant birks, in woodbines drest,\n My craggy cliffs adorn;\n And, for the little songster’s nest,\n The close embow’ring thorn.\n\n So may old Scotia’s darling hope,\n Your little angel band\n Spring, like their fathers, up to prop\n Their honour’d native land!\n So may, thro’ Albion’s farthest ken,\n To social-flowing glasses,\n The grace be—“Athole’s honest men,\n And Athole’s bonie lasses!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines On The Fall Of Fyers Near Loch-Ness.", + "body": " Written with a Pencil on the Spot.\n\n\n Among the heathy hills and ragged woods\n The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods;\n Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,\n Where, thro’ a shapeless breach, his stream resounds.\n As high in air the bursting torrents flow,\n As deep recoiling surges foam below,\n Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends,\n And viewles Echo’s ear, astonished, rends.\n Dim-seen, through rising mists and ceaseless show’rs,\n The hoary cavern, wide surrounding lours:\n Still thro’ the gap the struggling river toils,\n And still, below, the horrid cauldron boils—", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram On Parting With A Kind Host In The Highlands", + "body": " When Death’s dark stream I ferry o’er,\n A time that surely shall come,\n In Heav’n itself I’ll ask no more,\n Than just a Highland welcome.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Strathallan’s Lament^1", + "body": " Thickest night, o’erhang my dwelling!\n Howling tempests, o’er me rave!\n Turbid torrents, wintry swelling,\n Roaring by my lonely cave!\n\n [Footnote 1: Burns confesses that his Jacobtism was merely\n sentimental “except when my passions were heated by some\n accidental cause,” and a tour through the country where Montrose,\n Claverhouse, and Prince Charles had fought, was cause enough.\n Strathallan fell gloriously at Culloden.—Lang.]\n\n Crystal streamlets gently flowing,\n Busy haunts of base mankind,\n Western breezes softly blowing,\n Suit not my distracted mind.\n\n In the cause of Right engaged,\n Wrongs injurious to redress,\n Honour’s war we strongly waged,\n But the Heavens denied success.\n Ruin’s wheel has driven o’er us,\n Not a hope that dare attend,\n The wide world is all before us—\n But a world without a friend.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Castle Gordon", + "body": " Streams that glide in orient plains,\n Never bound by Winter’s chains;\n Glowing here on golden sands,\n There immix’d with foulest stains\n From Tyranny’s empurpled hands;\n These, their richly gleaming waves,\n I leave to tyrants and their slaves;\n Give me the stream that sweetly laves\n The banks by Castle Gordon.\n\n Spicy forests, ever gray,\n Shading from the burning ray\n Hapless wretches sold to toil;\n Or the ruthless native’s way,\n Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil:\n Woods that ever verdant wave,\n I leave the tyrant and the slave;\n Give me the groves that lofty brave\n The storms by Castle Gordon.\n\n Wildly here, without control,\n Nature reigns and rules the whole;\n In that sober pensive mood,\n Dearest to the feeling soul,\n She plants the forest, pours the flood:\n Life’s poor day I’ll musing rave\n And find at night a sheltering cave,\n Where waters flow and wild woods wave,\n By bonie Castle Gordon.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Lady Onlie, Honest Lucky", + "body": " Tune—“The Ruffian’s Rant.”\n\n\n A’ The lads o’ Thorniebank,\n When they gae to the shore o’ Bucky,\n They’ll step in an’ tak a pint\n Wi’ Lady Onlie, honest Lucky.\n\n Chorus.—Lady Onlie, honest Lucky,\n Brews gude ale at shore o’ Bucky;\n I wish her sale for her gude ale,\n The best on a’ the shore o’ Bucky.\n\n Her house sae bien, her curch sae clean\n I wat she is a daintie chuckie;\n And cheery blinks the ingle-gleed\n O’ Lady Onlie, honest Lucky!\n Lady Onlie, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Theniel Menzies’ Bonie Mary", + "body": " Air—“The Ruffian’s Rant,” or “Roy’s Wife.”\n\n\n In comin by the brig o’ Dye,\n At Darlet we a blink did tarry;\n As day was dawnin in the sky,\n We drank a health to bonie Mary.\n\n Chorus.—Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary,\n Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary,\n Charlie Grigor tint his plaidie,\n Kissin’ Theniel’s bonie Mary.\n\n Her een sae bright, her brow sae white,\n Her haffet locks as brown’s a berry;\n And aye they dimpl’t wi’ a smile,\n The rosy cheeks o’ bonie Mary.\n Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary, &c.\n\n We lap a’ danc’d the lee-lang day,\n Till piper lads were wae and weary;\n But Charlie gat the spring to pay\n For kissin Theniel’s bonie Mary.\n Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Bonie Lass Of Albany^1", + "body": " Tune—“Mary’s Dream.”\n\n\n My heart is wae, and unco wae,\n To think upon the raging sea,\n That roars between her gardens green\n An’ the bonie Lass of Albany.\n\n This lovely maid’s of royal blood\n That ruled Albion’s kingdoms three,\n But oh, alas! for her bonie face,\n They’ve wrang’d the Lass of Albany.\n\n In the rolling tide of spreading Clyde\n There sits an isle of high degree,\n And a town of fame whose princely name\n Should grace the Lass of Albany.\n\n But there’s a youth, a witless youth,\n That fills the place where she should be;\n We’ll send him o’er to his native shore,\n And bring our ain sweet Albany.\n\n Alas the day, and woe the day,\n A false usurper wan the gree,\n Who now commands the towers and lands—\n The royal right of Albany.\n\n We’ll daily pray, we’ll nightly pray,\n On bended knees most fervently,\n The time may come, with pipe an’ drum\n We’ll welcome hame fair Albany.\n\n [Footnote 1: Natural daughter of Prince Charles Edward.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Scaring Some Water-Fowl In Loch-Turit", + "body": " A wild scene among the Hills of Oughtertyre.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "“This was the production of a solitary forenoon’s walk from Oughtertyre", + "body": "House. I lived there, the guest of Sir William Murray, for two or three\nweeks, and was much flattered by my hospitable reception. What a pity that\nthe mere emotions of gratitude are so impotent in this world. ’Tis lucky\nthat, as we are told, they will be of some avail in the world to come.”\n —R.B., Glenriddell MSS.\n\n\n Why, ye tenants of the lake,\n For me your wat’ry haunt forsake?\n Tell me, fellow-creatures, why\n At my presence thus you fly?\n Why disturb your social joys,\n Parent, filial, kindred ties?—\n Common friend to you and me,\n yature’s gifts to all are free:\n Peaceful keep your dimpling wave,\n Busy feed, or wanton lave;\n Or, beneath the sheltering rock,\n Bide the surging billow’s shock.\n\n Conscious, blushing for our race,\n Soon, too soon, your fears I trace,\n Man, your proud, usurping foe,\n Would be lord of all below:\n Plumes himself in freedom’s pride,\n Tyrant stern to all beside.\n\n The eagle, from the cliffy brow,\n Marking you his prey below,\n In his breast no pity dwells,\n Strong necessity compels:\n But Man, to whom alone is giv’n\n A ray direct from pitying Heav’n,\n Glories in his heart humane—\n And creatures for his pleasure slain!\n\n In these savage, liquid plains,\n Only known to wand’ring swains,\n Where the mossy riv’let strays,\n Far from human haunts and ways;\n All on Nature you depend,\n And life’s poor season peaceful spend.\n\n Or, if man’s superior might\n Dare invade your native right,\n On the lofty ether borne,\n Man with all his pow’rs you scorn;\n Swiftly seek, on clanging wings,\n Other lakes and other springs;\n And the foe you cannot brave,\n Scorn at least to be his slave.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Blythe Was She^1", + "body": " Tune—“Andro and his Cutty Gun.”\n\n\n Chorus.—Blythe, blythe and merry was she,\n Blythe was she but and ben;\n Blythe by the banks of Earn,\n And blythe in Glenturit glen.\n\n By Oughtertyre grows the aik,\n On Yarrow banks the birken shaw;\n But Phemie was a bonier lass\n Than braes o’ Yarrow ever saw.\n Blythe, blythe, &c.\n\n Her looks were like a flow’r in May,\n Her smile was like a simmer morn:\n She tripped by the banks o’ Earn,\n As light’s a bird upon a thorn.\n Blythe, blythe, &c.\n\n Her bonie face it was as meek\n As ony lamb upon a lea;\n The evening sun was ne’er sae sweet,\n As was the blink o’ Phemie’s e’e.\n Blythe, blythe, &c.\n\n [Footnote 1: Written at Oughtertyre. Phemie is Miss Euphemia\n Murray, a cousin of Sir William Murray of Oughtertyre.—Lang.]\n\n The Highland hills I’ve wander’d wide,\n And o’er the Lawlands I hae been;\n But Phemie was the blythest lass\n That ever trod the dewy green.\n Blythe, blythe, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Rose-Bud By My Early Walk", + "body": " A Rose-bud by my early walk,\n Adown a corn-enclosed bawk,\n Sae gently bent its thorny stalk,\n All on a dewy morning.\n Ere twice the shades o’ dawn are fled,\n In a’ its crimson glory spread,\n And drooping rich the dewy head,\n It scents the early morning.\n\n Within the bush her covert nest\n A little linnet fondly prest;\n The dew sat chilly on her breast,\n Sae early in the morning.\n She soon shall see her tender brood,\n The pride, the pleasure o’ the wood,\n Amang the fresh green leaves bedew’d,\n Awake the early morning.\n\n So thou, dear bird, young Jeany fair,\n On trembling string or vocal air,\n Shall sweetly pay the tender care\n That tents thy early morning.\n So thou, sweet Rose-bud, young and gay,\n Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day,\n And bless the parent’s evening ray\n That watch’d thy early morning.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph For Mr. W. Cruikshank^1", + "body": " Honest Will to Heaven’s away\n And mony shall lament him;\n His fau’ts they a’ in Latin lay,\n In English nane e’er kent them.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—The Banks Of The Devon", + "body": " Tune—“Bhanarach dhonn a’ chruidh.”\n\n\n How pleasant the banks of the clear winding Devon,\n With green spreading bushes and flow’rs blooming fair!\n But the boniest flow’r on the banks of the Devon\n Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr.\n Mild be the sun on this sweet blushing flower,\n In the gay rosy morn, as it bathes in the dew;\n And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower,\n That steals on the evening each leaf to renew!\n\n O spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes,\n With chill hoary wing as ye usher the dawn;\n And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizes\n The verdure and pride of the garden or lawn!\n Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies,\n And England triumphant display her proud rose:\n A fairer than either adorns the green valleys,\n Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Braving Angry Winter’s Storms", + "body": " Tune—“Neil Gow’s Lament for Abercairny.”\n\n\n Where, braving angry winter’s storms,\n The lofty Ochils rise,\n Far in their shade my Peggy’s charms\n First blest my wondering eyes;\n As one who by some savage stream\n A lonely gem surveys,\n Astonish’d, doubly marks it beam\n With art’s most polish’d blaze.\n\n [Footnote 1: Of the Edinburgh High School.]\n\n Blest be the wild, sequester’d shade,\n And blest the day and hour,\n Where Peggy’s charms I first survey’d,\n When first I felt their pow’r!\n The tyrant Death, with grim control,\n May seize my fleeting breath;\n But tearing Peggy from my soul\n Must be a stronger death.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—My Peggy’s Charms", + "body": " Tune—“Tha a’ chailleach ir mo dheigh.”\n\n\n My Peggy’s face, my Peggy’s form,\n The frost of hermit Age might warm;\n My Peggy’s worth, my Peggy’s mind,\n Might charm the first of human kind.\n\n I love my Peggy’s angel air,\n Her face so truly heavenly fair,\n Her native grace, so void of art,\n But I adore my Peggy’s heart.\n\n The lily’s hue, the rose’s dye,\n The kindling lustre of an eye;\n Who but owns their magic sway!\n Who but knows they all decay!\n\n The tender thrill, the pitying tear,\n The generous purpose nobly dear,\n The gentle look that rage disarms—\n These are all Immortal charms.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Young Highland Rover", + "body": " Tune—“Morag.”\n\n\n Loud blaw the frosty breezes,\n The snaws the mountains cover;\n Like winter on me seizes,\n Since my young Highland rover\n Far wanders nations over.\n\n Where’er he go, where’er he stray,\n May heaven be his warden;\n Return him safe to fair Strathspey,\n And bonie Castle-Gordon!\n\n The trees, now naked groaning,\n Shall soon wi’ leaves be hinging,\n The birdies dowie moaning,\n Shall a’ be blythely singing,\n And every flower be springing;\n Sae I’ll rejoice the lee-lang day,\n When by his mighty Warden\n My youth’s return’d to fair Strathspey,\n And bonie Castle-Gordon.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Birthday Ode For 31st December, 1787^1", + "body": " Afar the illustrious Exile roams,\n Whom kingdoms on this day should hail;\n An inmate in the casual shed,\n On transient pity’s bounty fed,\n Haunted by busy memory’s bitter tale!\n Beasts of the forest have their savage homes,\n But He, who should imperial purple wear,\n Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal head!\n His wretched refuge, dark despair,\n While ravening wrongs and woes pursue,\n And distant far the faithful few\n Who would his sorrows share.\n\n False flatterer, Hope, away!\n Nor think to lure us as in days of yore:\n We solemnize this sorrowing natal day,\n To prove our loyal truth—we can no more,\n And owning Heaven’s mysterious sway,\n Submissive, low adore.\n\n Ye honored, mighty Dead,\n Who nobly perished in the glorious cause,\n Your King, your Country, and her laws,\n\n [Footnote 1: The last birthday of Prince Charles Edward.]\n\n From great Dundee, who smiling Victory led,\n And fell a Martyr in her arms,\n (What breast of northern ice but warms!)\n To bold Balmerino’s undying name,\n Whose soul of fire, lighted at Heaven’s high flame,\n Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim:\n Nor unrevenged your fate shall lie,\n It only lags, the fatal hour,\n Your blood shall, with incessant cry,\n Awake at last, th’ unsparing Power;\n As from the cliff, with thundering course,\n The snowy ruin smokes along\n With doubling speed and gathering force,\n Till deep it, crushing, whelms the cottage in the vale;\n So Vengeance’ arm, ensanguin’d, strong,\n Shall with resistless might assail,\n Usurping Brunswick’s pride shall lay,\n And Stewart’s wrongs and yours, with tenfold weight repay.\n\n Perdition, baleful child of night!\n Rise and revenge the injured right\n Of Stewart’s royal race:\n Lead on the unmuzzled hounds of hell,\n Till all the frighted echoes tell\n The blood-notes of the chase!\n Full on the quarry point their view,\n Full on the base usurping crew,\n The tools of faction, and the nation’s curse!\n Hark how the cry grows on the wind;\n They leave the lagging gale behind,\n Their savage fury, pitiless, they pour;\n With murdering eyes already they devour;\n See Brunswick spent, a wretched prey,\n His life one poor despairing day,\n Where each avenging hour still ushers in a worse!\n Such havock, howling all abroad,\n Their utter ruin bring,\n The base apostates to their God,\n Or rebels to their King.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On The Death Of Robert Dundas, Esq., Of Arniston,", + "body": " Late Lord President of the Court of Session.\n\n\n Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocks\n Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks;\n Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,\n The gathering floods burst o’er the distant plains;\n Beneath the blast the leafless forests groan;\n The hollow caves return a hollow moan.\n Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves,\n Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves!\n Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye,\n Sad to your sympathetic glooms I fly;\n Where, to the whistling blast and water’s roar,\n Pale Scotia’s recent wound I may deplore.\n\n O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear!\n A loss these evil days can ne’er repair!\n Justice, the high vicegerent of her God,\n Her doubtful balance eyed, and sway’d her rod:\n Hearing the tidings of the fatal blow,\n She sank, abandon’d to the wildest woe.\n\n Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den,\n Now, gay in hope, explore the paths of men:\n See from his cavern grim Oppression rise,\n And throw on Poverty his cruel eyes;\n Keen on the helpless victim see him fly,\n And stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry:\n Mark Ruffian Violence, distained with crimes,\n Rousing elate in these degenerate times,\n View unsuspecting Innocence a prey,\n As guileful Fraud points out the erring way:\n While subtle Litigation’s pliant tongue\n The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong:\n Hark, injur’d Want recounts th’ unlisten’d tale,\n And much-wrong’d Mis’ry pours the unpitied wail!\n\n Ye dark waste hills, ye brown unsightly plains,\n Congenial scenes, ye soothe my mournful strains:\n Ye tempests, rage! ye turbid torrents, roll!\n Ye suit the joyless tenor of my soul.\n Life’s social haunts and pleasures I resign;\n Be nameless wilds and lonely wanderings mine,\n To mourn the woes my country must endure—\n That would degenerate ages cannot cure.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Extempore Reply to Verses addressed to the Author by a Lady, under the", + "body": "signature of “Clarinda” and entitled, On Burns saying he ’had nothing else\nto do.’\n\n When dear Clarinda, matchless fair,\n First struck Sylvander’s raptur’d view,\n He gaz’d, he listened to despair,\n Alas! ’twas all he dared to do.\n\n Love, from Clarinda’s heavenly eyes,\n Transfixed his bosom thro’ and thro’;\n But still in Friendships’ guarded guise,\n For more the demon fear’d to do.\n\n That heart, already more than lost,\n The imp beleaguer’d all perdue;\n For frowning Honour kept his post—\n To meet that frown, he shrunk to do.\n\n His pangs the Bard refused to own,\n Tho’ half he wish’d Clarinda knew;\n But Anguish wrung the unweeting groan—\n Who blames what frantic Pain must do?\n\n That heart, where motley follies blend,\n Was sternly still to Honour true:\n To prove Clarinda’s fondest friend,\n Was what a lover sure might do.\n\n [Footnote 1: A grass-widow, Mrs. M’Lehose.]\n\n The Muse his ready quill employed,\n No nearer bliss he could pursue;\n That bliss Clarinda cold deny’d—\n “Send word by Charles how you do!”\n\n The chill behest disarm’d his muse,\n Till passion all impatient grew:\n He wrote, and hinted for excuse,\n ’Twas, ’cause “he’d nothing else to do.”\n\n But by those hopes I have above!\n And by those faults I dearly rue!\n The deed, the boldest mark of love,\n For thee that deed I dare uo do!\n\n O could the Fates but name the price\n Would bless me with your charms and you!\n With frantic joy I’d pay it thrice,\n If human art and power could do!\n\n Then take, Clarinda, friendship’s hand,\n (Friendship, at least, I may avow;)\n And lay no more your chill command,—\n I’ll write whatever I’ve to do.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Love In The Guise Of Friendship", + "body": " Your friendship much can make me blest,\n O why that bliss destroy!\n Why urge the only, one request\n You know I will deny!\n\n Your thought, if Love must harbour there,\n Conceal it in that thought;\n Nor cause me from my bosom tear\n The very friend I sought.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Go On, Sweet Bird, And Sooth My Care", + "body": " For thee is laughing Nature gay,\n For thee she pours the vernal day;\n For me in vain is Nature drest,\n While Joy’s a stranger to my breast.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Clarinda, Mistress Of My Soul", + "body": " Clarinda, mistres of my soul,\n The measur’d time is run!\n The wretch beneath the dreary pole\n So marks his latest sun.\n\n To what dark cave of frozen night\n Shall poor Sylvander hie;\n Depriv’d of thee, his life and light,\n The sun of all his joy?\n\n We part—but by these precious drops,\n That fill thy lovely eyes,\n No other light shall guide my steps,\n Till thy bright beams arise!\n\n She, the fair sun of all her sex,\n Has blest my glorious day;\n And shall a glimmering planet fix\n My worship to its ray?", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "I’m O’er Young To Marry Yet", + "body": " Chorus.—I’m o’er young, I’m o’er young,\n I’m o’er young to marry yet;\n I’m o’er young, ’twad be a sin\n To tak me frae my mammy yet.\n\n I am my mammny’s ae bairn,\n Wi’ unco folk I weary, sir;\n And lying in a man’s bed,\n I’m fley’d it mak me eerie, sir.\n I’m o’er young, &c.\n\n My mammie coft me a new gown,\n The kirk maun hae the gracing o’t;\n Were I to lie wi’ you, kind Sir,\n I’m feared ye’d spoil the lacing o’t.\n I’m o’er young, &c.\n\n Hallowmass is come and gane,\n The nights are lang in winter, sir,\n And you an’ I in ae bed,\n In trowth, I dare na venture, sir.\n I’m o’er young, &c.\n\n Fu’ loud an’ shill the frosty wind\n Blaws thro’ the leafless timmer, sir;\n But if ye come this gate again;\n I’ll aulder be gin simmer, sir.\n I’m o’er young, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To The Weavers Gin Ye Go", + "body": " My heart was ance as blithe and free\n As simmer days were lang;\n But a bonie, westlin weaver lad\n Has gart me change my sang.\n\n Chorus.—To the weaver’s gin ye go, fair maids,\n To the weaver’s gin ye go;\n I rede you right, gang ne’er at night,\n To the weaver’s gin ye go.\n\n My mither sent me to the town,\n To warp a plaiden wab;\n But the weary, weary warpin o’t\n Has gart me sigh and sab.\n To the weaver’s, &c.\n\n A bonie, westlin weaver lad\n Sat working at his loom;\n He took my heart as wi’ a net,\n In every knot and thrum.\n To the weaver’s, &c.\n\n I sat beside my warpin-wheel,\n And aye I ca’d it roun’;\n But every shot and evey knock,\n My heart it gae a stoun.\n To the weaver’s, &c.\n\n The moon was sinking in the west,\n Wi’ visage pale and wan,\n As my bonie, westlin weaver lad\n Convoy’d me thro’ the glen.\n To the weaver’s, &c.\n\n But what was said, or what was done,\n Shame fa’ me gin I tell;\n But Oh! I fear the kintra soon\n Will ken as weel’s myself!\n To the weaver’s, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "M’Pherson’s Farewell", + "body": " Tune—“M’Pherson’s Rant.”\n\n\n Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong,\n The wretch’s destinie!\n M’Pherson’s time will not be long\n On yonder gallows-tree.\n\n Chorus.—Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,\n Sae dauntingly gaed he;\n He play’d a spring, and danc’d it round,\n Below the gallows-tree.\n\n O, what is death but parting breath?\n On many a bloody plain\n I’ve dared his face, and in this place\n I scorn him yet again!\n Sae rantingly, &c.\n\n Untie these bands from off my hands,\n And bring me to my sword;\n And there’s no a man in all Scotland\n But I’ll brave him at a word.\n Sae rantingly, &c.\n\n I’ve liv’d a life of sturt and strife;\n I die by treacherie:\n It burns my heart I must depart,\n And not avenged be.\n Sae rantingly, &c.\n\n Now farewell light, thou sunshine bright,\n And all beneath the sky!\n May coward shame distain his name,\n The wretch that dares not die!\n Sae rantingly, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Stay My Charmer", + "body": " Tune—“An gille dubh ciar-dhubh.”\n\n\n Stay my charmer, can you leave me?\n Cruel, cruel to deceive me;\n Well you know how much you grieve me;\n Cruel charmer, can you go!\n Cruel charmer, can you go!\n\n By my love so ill-requited,\n By the faith you fondly plighted,\n By the pangs of lovers slighted,\n Do not, do not liave me so!\n Do not, do not leave me so!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—My Hoggie", + "body": " What will I do gin my Hoggie die?\n My joy, my pride, my Hoggie!\n My only beast, I had nae mae,\n And vow but I was vogie!\n The lee-lang night we watch’d the fauld,\n Me and my faithfu’ doggie;\n We heard nocht but the roaring linn,\n Amang the braes sae scroggie.\n\n But the houlet cry’d frau the castle wa’,\n The blitter frae the boggie;\n The tod reply’d upon the hill,\n I trembled for my Hoggie.\n When day did daw, and cocks did craw,\n The morning it was foggie;\n An unco tyke, lap o’er the dyke,\n And maist has kill’d my Hoggie!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Raving Winds Around Her Blowing", + "body": " Tune—“M’Grigor of Roro’s Lament.”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "I composed these verses on Miss Isabella M’Leod of Raza, alluding to her", + "body": "feelings on the death of her sister, and the still more melancholy death\nof her sister’s husband, the late Earl of Loudoun, who shot himself out\nof sheer heart-break at some mortifications he suffered, owing to the\nderanged state of his finances.—R.B., 1971.\n\n\n Raving winds around her blowing,\n Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing,\n By a river hoarsely roaring,\n Isabella stray’d deploring—\n\n “Farewell, hours that late did measure\n Sunshine days of joy and pleasure;\n Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow,\n Cheerless night that knows no morrow!\n\n “O’er the past too fondly wandering,\n On the hopeless future pondering;\n Chilly grief my life-blood freezes,\n Fell despair my fancy seizes.\n\n “Life, thou soul of every blessing,\n Load to misery most distressing,\n Gladly how would I resign thee,\n And to dark oblivion join thee!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Up In The Morning Early", + "body": " Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,\n The drift is driving sairly;\n Sae loud and shill’s I hear the blast—\n I’m sure it’s winter fairly.\n\n Chorus.—Up in the morning’s no for me,\n Up in the morning early;\n When a’ the hills are covered wi’ snaw,\n I’m sure it’s winter fairly.\n\n The birds sit chittering in the thorn,\n A’ day they fare but sparely;\n And lang’s the night frae e’en to morn—\n I’m sure it’s winter fairly.\n Up in the morning’s, &c.\n\n How Long And Dreary Is The Night\n\n How long and dreary is the night,\n When I am frae my dearie!\n I sleepless lie frae e’en to morn,\n Tho’ I were ne’er so weary:\n I sleepless lie frae e’en to morn,\n Tho’ I were ne’er sae weary!\n\n When I think on the happy days\n I spent wi’ you my dearie:\n And now what lands between us lie,\n How can I be but eerie!\n And now what lands between us lie,\n How can I be but eerie!\n\n How slow ye move, ye heavy hours,\n As ye were wae and weary!\n It wasna sae ye glinted by,\n When I was wi’ my dearie!\n It wasna sae ye glinted by,\n When I was wi’ my dearie!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Hey, The Dusty Miller", + "body": " Hey, the dusty Miller,\n And his dusty coat,\n He will win a shilling,\n Or he spend a groat:\n Dusty was the coat,\n Dusty was the colour,\n Dusty was the kiss\n That I gat frae the Miller.\n\n Hey, the dusty Miller,\n And his dusty sack;\n Leeze me on the calling\n Fills the dusty peck:\n Fills the dusty peck,\n Brings the dusty siller;\n I wad gie my coatie\n For the dusty Miller.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Duncan Davison", + "body": " There was a lass, they ca’d her Meg,\n And she held o’er the moors to spin;\n There was a lad that follow’d her,\n They ca’d him Duncan Davison.\n The moor was dreigh, and Meg was skeigh,\n Her favour Duncan could na win;\n For wi’ the rock she wad him knock,\n And aye she shook the temper-pin.\n\n As o’er the moor they lightly foor,\n A burn was clear, a glen was green,\n Upon the banks they eas’d their shanks,\n And aye she set the wheel between:\n But Duncan swoor a haly aith,\n That Meg should be a bride the morn;\n Then Meg took up her spinning-graith,\n And flang them a’ out o’er the burn.\n\n We will big a wee, wee house,\n And we will live like king and queen;\n Sae blythe and merry’s we will be,\n When ye set by the wheel at e’en.\n A man may drink, and no be drunk;\n A man may fight, and no be slain;\n A man may kiss a bonie lass,\n And aye be welcome back again!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Lad They Ca’Jumpin John", + "body": " Her daddie forbad, her minnie forbad\n Forbidden she wadna be:\n She wadna trow’t the browst she brew’d,\n Wad taste sae bitterlie.\n\n Chorus.—The lang lad they ca’Jumpin John\n Beguil’d the bonie lassie,\n The lang lad they ca’Jumpin John\n Beguil’d the bonie lassie.\n\n A cow and a cauf, a yowe and a hauf,\n And thretty gude shillin’s and three;\n A vera gude tocher, a cotter-man’s dochter,\n The lass wi’ the bonie black e’e.\n The lang lad, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Talk Of Him That’s Far Awa", + "body": " Musing on the roaring ocean,\n Which divides my love and me;\n Wearying heav’n in warm devotion,\n For his weal where’er he be.\n\n Hope and Fear’s alternate billow\n Yielding late to Nature’s law,\n Whispering spirits round my pillow,\n Talk of him that’s far awa.\n\n Ye whom sorrow never wounded,\n Ye who never shed a tear,\n Care—untroubled, joy—surrounded,\n Gaudy day to you is dear.\n\n Gentle night, do thou befriend me,\n Downy sleep, the curtain draw;\n Spirits kind, again attend me,\n Talk of him that’s far awa!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To Daunton Me", + "body": " The blude-red rose at Yule may blaw,\n The simmer lilies bloom in snaw,\n The frost may freeze the deepest sea;\n But an auld man shall never daunton me.\n Refrain.—To daunton me, to daunton me,\n And auld man shall never daunton me.\n\n To daunton me, and me sae young,\n Wi’ his fause heart and flatt’ring tongue,\n That is the thing you shall never see,\n For an auld man shall never daunton me.\n To daunton me, &c.\n\n For a’ his meal and a’ his maut,\n For a’ his fresh beef and his saut,\n For a’ his gold and white monie,\n And auld men shall never daunton me.\n To daunton me, &c.\n\n His gear may buy him kye and yowes,\n His gear may buy him glens and knowes;\n But me he shall not buy nor fee,\n For an auld man shall never daunton me.\n To daunton me, &c.\n\n He hirples twa fauld as he dow,\n Wi’ his teethless gab and his auld beld pow,\n And the rain rains down frae his red blear’d e’e;\n That auld man shall never daunton me.\n To daunton me, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Winter It Is Past", + "body": " The winter it is past, and the summer comes at last\n And the small birds, they sing on ev’ry tree;\n Now ev’ry thing is glad, while I am very sad,\n Since my true love is parted from me.\n\n The rose upon the breer, by the waters running clear,\n May have charms for the linnet or the bee;\n Their little loves are blest, and their little hearts at rest,\n But my true love is parted from me.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Bonie Lad That’s Far Awa", + "body": " O how can I be blythe and glad,\n Or how can I gang brisk and braw,\n When the bonie lad that I lo’e best\n Is o’er the hills and far awa!\n\n It’s no the frosty winter wind,\n It’s no the driving drift and snaw;\n But aye the tear comes in my e’e,\n To think on him that’s far awa.\n\n My father pat me frae his door,\n My friends they hae disown’d me a’;\n But I hae ane will tak my part,\n The bonie lad that’s far awa.\n\n A pair o’ glooves he bought to me,\n And silken snoods he gae me twa;\n And I will wear them for his sake,\n The bonie lad that’s far awa.\n\n O weary Winter soon will pass,\n And Spring will cleed the birken shaw;\n And my young babie will be born,\n And he’ll be hame that’s far awa.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Verses To Clarinda", + "body": " Sent with a Pair of Wine-Glasses.\n\n\n Fair Empress of the Poet’s soul,\n And Queen of Poetesses;\n Clarinda, take this little boon,\n This humble pair of glasses:\n\n And fill them up with generous juice,\n As generous as your mind;\n And pledge them to the generous toast,\n “The whole of human kind!”\n\n “To those who love us!” second fill;\n But not to those whom we love;\n Lest we love those who love not us—\n A third—“To thee and me, Love!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Chevalier’s Lament", + "body": " Air—“Captain O’Kean.”\n\n The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning,\n The murmuring streamlet winds clear thro’ the vale;\n The primroses blow in the dews of the morning,\n And wild scatter’d cowslips bedeck the green dale:\n But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair,\n When the lingering moments are numbered by care?\n No birds sweetly singing, nor flow’rs gaily springing,\n Can soothe the sad bosom of joyless despair.\n\n The deed that I dared, could it merit their malice?\n A king and a father to place on his throne!\n His right are these hills, and his right are these valleys,\n Where the wild beasts find shelter, tho’ I can find none!\n But ’tis not my suff’rings, thus wretched, forlorn,\n My brave gallant friends, ’tis your ruin I mourn;\n Your faith proved so loyal in hot bloody trial,—\n Alas! I can make it no better return!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To Hugh Parker", + "body": " In this strange land, this uncouth clime,\n A land unknown to prose or rhyme;\n Where words ne’er cross’t the Muse’s heckles,\n Nor limpit in poetic shackles:\n A land that Prose did never view it,\n Except when drunk he stacher’t thro’ it;\n Here, ambush’d by the chimla cheek,\n Hid in an atmosphere of reek,\n I hear a wheel thrum i’ the neuk,\n I hear it—for in vain I leuk.\n The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,\n Enhusked by a fog infernal:\n Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,\n I sit and count my sins by chapters;\n For life and spunk like ither Christians,\n I’m dwindled down to mere existence,\n Wi’ nae converse but Gallowa’ bodies,\n Wi’ nae kenn’d face but Jenny Geddes,\n Jenny, my Pegasean pride!\n Dowie she saunters down Nithside,\n And aye a westlin leuk she throws,\n While tears hap o’er her auld brown nose!\n Was it for this, wi’ cannie care,\n Thou bure the Bard through many a shire?\n At howes, or hillocks never stumbled,\n And late or early never grumbled?—\n O had I power like inclination,\n I’d heeze thee up a constellation,\n To canter with the Sagitarre,\n Or loup the ecliptic like a bar;\n Or turn the pole like any arrow;\n Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,\n Down the zodiac urge the race,\n And cast dirt on his godship’s face;\n For I could lay my bread and kail\n He’d ne’er cast saut upo’ thy tail.—\n Wi’ a’ this care and a’ this grief,\n And sma’, sma’ prospect of relief,\n And nought but peat reek i’ my head,\n How can I write what ye can read?—\n Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o’ June,\n Ye’ll find me in a better tune;\n But till we meet and weet our whistle,\n Tak this excuse for nae epistle.\n\n Robert Burns.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Of A’ The Airts The Wind Can Blaw^1", + "body": " Tune—“Miss Admiral Gordon’s Strathspey.”\n\n\n Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw,\n I dearly like the west,\n For there the bonie lassie lives,\n The lassie I lo’e best:\n\n [Footnote 1: Written during a separation from Mrs. Burns in their\n honeymoon. Burns was preparing a home at Ellisland; Mrs. Burns\n was at Mossgiel.—Lang.]\n\n There’s wild-woods grow, and rivers row,\n And mony a hill between:\n But day and night my fancys’ flight\n Is ever wi’ my Jean.\n\n I see her in the dewy flowers,\n I see her sweet and fair:\n I hear her in the tunefu’ birds,\n I hear her charm the air:\n There’s not a bonie flower that springs,\n By fountain, shaw, or green;\n There’s not a bonie bird that sings,\n But minds me o’ my Jean.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—I Hae a Wife O’ My Ain", + "body": " I Hae a wife of my ain,\n I’ll partake wi’ naebody;\n I’ll take Cuckold frae nane,\n I’ll gie Cuckold to naebody.\n\n I hae a penny to spend,\n There—thanks to naebody!\n I hae naething to lend,\n I’ll borrow frae naebody.\n\n I am naebody’s lord,\n I’ll be slave to naebody;\n I hae a gude braid sword,\n I’ll tak dunts frae naebody.\n\n I’ll be merry and free,\n I’ll be sad for naebody;\n Naebody cares for me,\n I care for naebody.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Written In Friars’-Carse Hermitage", + "body": " Glenriddel Hermitage, June 28th, 1788.\n\n Thou whom chance may hither lead,\n Be thou clad in russet weed,\n Be thou deckt in silken stole,\n Grave these maxims on thy soul.\n\n Life is but a day at most,\n Sprung from night, in darkness lost:\n Hope not sunshine every hour,\n Fear not clouds will always lour.\n\n Happiness is but a name,\n Make content and ease thy aim,\n Ambition is a meteor-gleam;\n Fame, an idle restless dream;\n\n Peace, the tend’rest flow’r of spring;\n Pleasures, insects on the wing;\n Those that sip the dew alone—\n Make the butterflies thy own;\n Those that would the bloom devour—\n Crush the locusts, save the flower.\n\n For the future be prepar’d,\n Guard wherever thou can’st guard;\n But thy utmost duly done,\n Welcome what thou can’st not shun.\n Follies past, give thou to air,\n Make their consequence thy care:\n Keep the name of Man in mind,\n And dishonour not thy kind.\n Reverence with lowly heart\n Him, whose wondrous work thou art;\n Keep His Goodness still in view,\n Thy trust, and thy example, too.\n\n Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide!\n Quod the Beadsman of Nidside.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To Alex. Cunningham, ESQ., Writer", + "body": " Ellisland, Nithsdale, July 27th, 1788.\n\n My godlike friend—nay, do not stare,\n You think the phrase is odd-like;\n But God is love, the saints declare,\n Then surely thou art god-like.\n\n And is thy ardour still the same?\n And kindled still at Anna?\n Others may boast a partial flame,\n But thou art a volcano!\n\n Ev’n Wedlock asks not love beyond\n Death’s tie-dissolving portal;\n But thou, omnipotently fond,\n May’st promise love immortal!\n\n Thy wounds such healing powers defy,\n Such symptoms dire attend them,\n That last great antihectic try—\n Marriage perhaps may mend them.\n\n Sweet Anna has an air—a grace,\n Divine, magnetic, touching:\n She talks, she charms—but who can trace\n The process of bewitching?", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song.—Anna, Thy Charms", + "body": " Anna, thy charms my bosom fire,\n And waste my soul with care;\n But ah! how bootless to admire,\n When fated to despair!\n\n Yet in thy presence, lovely Fair,\n To hope may be forgiven;\n For sure ’twere impious to despair\n So much in sight of heaven.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Fete Champetre", + "body": " Tune—“Killiecrankie.”\n\n\n O Wha will to Saint Stephen’s House,\n To do our errands there, man?\n O wha will to Saint Stephen’s House\n O’ th’ merry lads of Ayr, man?\n\n Or will we send a man o’ law?\n Or will we send a sodger?\n Or him wha led o’er Scotland a’\n The meikle Ursa-Major?^1\n\n Come, will ye court a noble lord,\n Or buy a score o’lairds, man?\n For worth and honour pawn their word,\n Their vote shall be Glencaird’s,^2 man.\n Ane gies them coin, ane gies them wine,\n Anither gies them clatter:\n Annbank,^3 wha guessed the ladies’ taste,\n He gies a Fete Champetre.\n\n When Love and Beauty heard the news,\n The gay green woods amang, man;\n Where, gathering flowers, and busking bowers,\n They heard the blackbird’s sang, man:\n A vow, they sealed it with a kiss,\n Sir Politics to fetter;\n As their’s alone, the patent bliss,\n To hold a Fete Champetre.\n\n Then mounted Mirth, on gleesome wing\n O’er hill and dale she flew, man;\n Ilk wimpling burn, ilk crystal spring,\n Ilk glen and shaw she knew, man:\n She summon’d every social sprite,\n That sports by wood or water,\n On th’ bonie banks of Ayr to meet,\n And keep this Fete Champetre.\n\n Cauld Boreas, wi’ his boisterous crew,\n Were bound to stakes like kye, man,\n And Cynthia’s car, o’ silver fu’,\n Clamb up the starry sky, man:\n Reflected beams dwell in the streams,\n Or down the current shatter;\n The western breeze steals thro’the trees,\n To view this Fete Champetre.\n\n [Footnote 1: James Boswell, the biographer of Dr. Johnson.]\n\n [Footnote 2: Sir John Whitefoord, then residing at Cloncaird\n or “Glencaird.”]\n\n [Footnote 3: William Cunninghame, Esq., of Annbank and Enterkin.]\n\n How many a robe sae gaily floats!\n What sparkling jewels glance, man!\n To Harmony’s enchanting notes,\n As moves the mazy dance, man.\n The echoing wood, the winding flood,\n Like Paradise did glitter,\n When angels met, at Adam’s yett,\n To hold their Fete Champetre.\n\n When Politics came there, to mix\n And make his ether-stane, man!\n He circled round the magic ground,\n But entrance found he nane, man:\n He blush’d for shame, he quat his name,\n Forswore it, every letter,\n Wi’ humble prayer to join and share\n This festive Fete Champetre.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To Robert Graham, Esq., Of Fintry", + "body": " Requesting a Favour\n\n When Nature her great master-piece design’d,\n And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind,\n Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,\n She form’d of various parts the various Man.\n\n Then first she calls the useful many forth;\n Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth:\n Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,\n And merchandise’ whole genus take their birth:\n Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,\n And all mechanics’ many-apron’d kinds.\n Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,\n The lead and buoy are needful to the net:\n The caput mortuum of grnss desires\n Makes a material for mere knights and squires;\n The martial phosphorus is taught to flow,\n She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,\n Then marks th’ unyielding mass with grave designs,\n Law, physic, politics, and deep divines;\n Last, she sublimes th’ Aurora of the poles,\n The flashing elements of female souls.\n\n The order’d system fair before her stood,\n Nature, well pleas’d, pronounc’d it very good;\n But ere she gave creating labour o’er,\n Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.\n Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter,\n Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;\n With arch-alacrity and conscious glee,\n (Nature may have her whim as well as we,\n Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it),\n She forms the thing and christens it—a Poet:\n Creature, tho’ oft the prey of care and sorrow,\n When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow;\n A being form’d t’ amuse his graver friends,\n Admir’d and prais’d—and there the homage ends;\n A mortal quite unfit for Fortune’s strife,\n Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life;\n Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give,\n Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live;\n Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan,\n Yet frequent all unheeded in his own.\n\n But honest Nature is not quite a Turk,\n She laugh’d at first, then felt for her poor work:\n Pitying the propless climber of mankind,\n She cast about a standard tree to find;\n And, to support his helpless woodbine state,\n Attach’d him to the generous, truly great:\n A title, and the only one I claim,\n To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham.\n\n Pity the tuneful Muses’ hapless train,\n Weak, timid landsmen on life’s stormy main!\n Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff,\n That never gives—tho’ humbly takes enough;\n The little fate allows, they share as soon,\n Unlike sage proverb’d Wisdom’s hard-wrung boon:\n The world were blest did bliss on them depend,\n Ah, that “the friendly e’er should want a friend!”\n Let Prudence number o’er each sturdy son,\n Who life and wisdom at one race begun,\n Who feel by reason and who give by rule,\n (Instinct’s a brute, and sentiment a fool!)\n Who make poor “will do” wait upon “I should”—\n We own they’re prudent, but who feels they’re good?\n Ye wise ones hence! ye hurt the social eye!\n God’s image rudely etch’d on base alloy!\n But come ye who the godlike pleasure know,\n Heaven’s attribute distinguished—to bestow!\n Whose arms of love would grasp the human race:\n Come thou who giv’st with all a courtier’s grace;\n Friend of my life, true patron of my rhymes!\n Prop of my dearest hopes for future times.\n Why shrinks my soul half blushing, half afraid,\n Backward, abash’d to ask thy friendly aid?\n I know my need, I know thy giving hand,\n I crave thy friendship at thy kind command;\n But there are such who court the tuneful Nine—\n Heavens! should the branded character be mine!\n Whose verse in manhood’s pride sublimely flows,\n Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.\n Mark, how their lofty independent spirit\n Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit!\n Seek not the proofs in private life to find\n Pity the best of words should be but wind!\n So, to heaven’s gates the lark’s shrill song ascends,\n But grovelling on the earth the carol ends.\n In all the clam’rous cry of starving want,\n They dun Benevolence with shameless front;\n Oblige them, patronise their tinsel lays—\n They persecute you all your future days!\n Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain,\n My horny fist assume the plough again,\n The pie-bald jacket let me patch once more,\n On eighteenpence a week I’ve liv’d before.\n Tho’, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift,\n I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift:\n That, plac’d by thee upon the wish’d-for height,\n Where, man and nature fairer in her sight,\n My Muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song.—The Day Returns", + "body": " Tune—“Seventh of November.”\n\n\n The day returns, my bosom burns,\n The blissful day we twa did meet:\n Tho’ winter wild in tempest toil’d,\n Ne’er summer-sun was half sae sweet.\n Than a’ the pride that loads the tide,\n And crosses o’er the sultry line;\n Than kingly robes, than crowns and globes,\n Heav’n gave me more—it made thee mine!\n\n While day and night can bring delight,\n Or Nature aught of pleasure give;\n While joys above my mind can move,\n For thee, and thee alone, I live.\n When that grim foe of life below\n Comes in between to make us part,\n The iron hand that breaks our band,\n It breaks my bliss—it breaks my heart!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song.—O, Were I On Parnassus Hill", + "body": " Tune—“My love is lost to me.”\n\n\n O, were I on Parnassus hill,\n Or had o’ Helicon my fill,\n That I might catch poetic skill,\n To sing how dear I love thee!\n But Nith maun be my Muse’s well,\n My Muse maun be thy bonie sel’,\n On Corsincon I’ll glowr and spell,\n And write how dear I love thee.\n\n Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay!\n For a’ the lee-lang simmer’s day\n I couldna sing, I couldna say,\n How much, how dear, I love thee,\n I see thee dancing o’er the green,\n Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean,\n Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een—\n By Heaven and Earth I love thee!\n\n By night, by day, a-field, at hame,\n The thoughts o’ thee my breast inflame:\n And aye I muse and sing thy name—\n I only live to love thee.\n Tho’ I were doom’d to wander on,\n Beyond the sea, beyond the sun,\n Till my last weary sand was run;\n Till then—and then I love thee!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Mother’s Lament", + "body": " For the Death of Her Son.\n\n Fate gave the word, the arrow sped,\n And pierc’d my darling’s heart;\n And with him all the joys are fled\n Life can to me impart.\n\n By cruel hands the sapling drops,\n In dust dishonour’d laid;\n So fell the pride of all my hopes,\n My age’s future shade.\n\n The mother-linnet in the brake\n Bewails her ravish’d young;\n So I, for my lost darling’s sake,\n Lament the live-day long.\n\n Death, oft I’ve feared thy fatal blow.\n Now, fond, I bare my breast;\n O, do thou kindly lay me low\n With him I love, at rest!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Fall Of The Leaf", + "body": " The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill,\n Concealing the course of the dark-winding rill;\n How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear!\n As Autumn to Winter resigns the pale year.\n\n The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown,\n And all the gay foppery of summer is flown:\n Apart let me wander, apart let me muse,\n How quick Time is flying, how keen Fate pursues!\n\n How long I have liv’d—but how much liv’d in vain,\n How little of life’s scanty span may remain,\n What aspects old Time in his progress has worn,\n What ties cruel Fate, in my bosom has torn.\n\n How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain’d!\n And downward, how weaken’d, how darken’d, how pain’d!\n Life is not worth having with all it can give—\n For something beyond it poor man sure must live.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "I Reign In Jeanie’s Bosom", + "body": " Louis, what reck I by thee,\n Or Geordie on his ocean?\n Dyvor, beggar louns to me,\n I reign in Jeanie’s bosom!\n\n Let her crown my love her law,\n And in her breast enthrone me,\n Kings and nations—swith awa’!\n Reif randies, I disown ye!\n\n It Is Na, Jean, Thy Bonie Face\n\n It is na, Jean, thy bonie face,\n Nor shape that I admire;\n Altho’ thy beauty and thy grace\n Might weel awauk desire.\n\n Something, in ilka part o’ thee,\n To praise, to love, I find,\n But dear as is thy form to me,\n Still dearer is thy mind.\n\n Nae mair ungenerous wish I hae,\n Nor stronger in my breast,\n Than, if I canna make thee sae,\n At least to see thee blest.\n\n Content am I, if heaven shall give\n But happiness, to thee;\n And as wi’ thee I’d wish to live,\n For thee I’d bear to die.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Auld Lang Syne", + "body": " Should auld acquaintance be forgot,\n And never brought to mind?\n Should auld acquaintance be forgot,\n And auld lang syne!\n\n Chorus.—For auld lang syne, my dear,\n For auld lang syne.\n We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,\n For auld lang syne.\n\n And surely ye’ll be your pint stowp!\n And surely I’ll be mine!\n And we’ll tak a cup o’kindness yet,\n For auld lang syne.\n For auld, &c.\n\n We twa hae run about the braes,\n And pou’d the gowans fine;\n But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,\n Sin’ auld lang syne.\n For auld, &c.\n\n We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,\n Frae morning sun till dine;\n But seas between us braid hae roar’d\n Sin’ auld lang syne.\n For auld, &c.\n\n And there’s a hand, my trusty fere!\n And gie’s a hand o’ thine!\n And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught,\n For auld lang syne.\n For auld, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Bonie Mary", + "body": " Go, fetch to me a pint o’ wine,\n And fill it in a silver tassie;\n That I may drink before I go,\n A service to my bonie lassie.\n The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith;\n Fu’ loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry;\n The ship rides by the Berwick-law,\n And I maun leave my bonie Mary.\n\n The trumpets sound, the banners fly,\n The glittering spears are ranked ready:\n The shouts o’ war are heard afar,\n The battle closes deep and bloody;\n It’s not the roar o’ sea or shore,\n Wad mak me langer wish to tarry!\n Nor shouts o’ war that’s heard afar—\n It’s leaving thee, my bonie Mary!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Parting Kiss", + "body": " Humid seal of soft affections,\n Tenderest pledge of future bliss,\n Dearest tie of young connections,\n Love’s first snowdrop, virgin kiss!\n\n Speaking silence, dumb confession,\n Passion’s birth, and infant’s play,\n Dove-like fondness, chaste concession,\n Glowing dawn of future day!\n\n Sorrowing joy, Adieu’s last action,\n (Lingering lips must now disjoin),\n What words can ever speak affection\n So thrilling and sincere as thine!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Written In Friar’s-Carse Hermitage", + "body": " On Nithside\n\n Thou whom chance may hither lead,\n Be thou clad in russet weed,\n Be thou deckt in silken stole,\n Grave these counsels on thy soul.\n\n Life is but a day at most,\n Sprung from night,—in darkness lost;\n Hope not sunshine ev’ry hour,\n Fear not clouds will always lour.\n\n As Youth and Love with sprightly dance,\n Beneath thy morning star advance,\n Pleasure with her siren air\n May delude the thoughtless pair;\n Let Prudence bless Enjoyment’s cup,\n Then raptur’d sip, and sip it up.\n\n As thy day grows warm and high,\n Life’s meridian flaming nigh,\n Dost thou spurn the humble vale?\n Life’s proud summits wouldst thou scale?\n Check thy climbing step, elate,\n Evils lurk in felon wait:\n Dangers, eagle-pinioned, bold,\n Soar around each cliffy hold!\n While cheerful Peace, with linnet song,\n Chants the lowly dells among.\n\n As the shades of ev’ning close,\n Beck’ning thee to long repose;\n As life itself becomes disease,\n Seek the chimney-nook of ease;\n There ruminate with sober thought,\n On all thou’st seen, and heard, and wrought,\n And teach the sportive younkers round,\n Saws of experience, sage and sound:\n Say, man’s true, genuine estimate,\n The grand criterion of his fate,\n Is not,—Arth thou high or low?\n Did thy fortune ebb or flow?\n Did many talents gild thy span?\n Or frugal Nature grudge thee one?\n Tell them, and press it on their mind,\n As thou thyself must shortly find,\n The smile or frown of awful Heav’n,\n To virtue or to Vice is giv’n,\n Say, to be just, and kind, and wise—\n There solid self-enjoyment lies;\n That foolish, selfish, faithless ways\n Lead to be wretched, vile, and base.\n\n Thus resign’d and quiet, creep\n To the bed of lasting sleep,—\n Sleep, whence thou shalt ne’er awake,\n Night, where dawn shall never break,\n Till future life, future no more,\n To light and joy the good restore,\n To light and joy unknown before.\n Stranger, go! Heav’n be thy guide!\n Quod the Beadsman of Nithside.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Poet’s Progress", + "body": " A Poem In Embryo\n\n Thou, Nature, partial Nature, I arraign;\n Of thy caprice maternal I complain.\n\n The peopled fold thy kindly care have found,\n The horned bull, tremendous, spurns the ground;\n The lordly lion has enough and more,\n The forest trembles at his very roar;\n Thou giv’st the ass his hide, the snail his shell,\n The puny wasp, victorious, guards his cell.\n Thy minions, kings defend, controul devour,\n In all th’ omnipotence of rule and power:\n Foxes and statesmen subtle wiles ensure;\n The cit and polecat stink, and are secure:\n Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,\n The priest and hedgehog, in their robes, are snug:\n E’en silly women have defensive arts,\n Their eyes, their tongues—and nameless other parts.\n\n But O thou cruel stepmother and hard,\n To thy poor fenceless, naked child, the Bard!\n A thing unteachable in worldly skill,\n And half an idiot too, more helpless still:\n No heels to bear him from the op’ning dun,\n No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun:\n No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn,\n And those, alas! not Amalthea’s horn:\n No nerves olfact’ry, true to Mammon’s foot,\n Or grunting, grub sagacious, evil’s root:\n The silly sheep that wanders wild astray,\n Is not more friendless, is not more a prey;\n Vampyre—booksellers drain him to the heart,\n And viper—critics cureless venom dart.\n\n Critics! appll’d I venture on the name,\n Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame,\n Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes,\n He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose:\n By blockhead’s daring into madness stung,\n His heart by wanton, causeless malice wrung,\n His well-won ways—than life itself more dear—\n By miscreants torn who ne’er one sprig must wear;\n Foil’d, bleeding, tortur’d in th’ unequal strife,\n The hapless Poet flounces on through life,\n Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fired,\n And fled each Muse that glorious once inspir’d,\n Low-sunk in squalid, unprotected age,\n Dead even resentment for his injur’d page,\n He heeds no more the ruthless critics’ rage.\n\n So by some hedge the generous steed deceas’d,\n For half-starv’d, snarling curs a dainty feast;\n By toil and famine worn to skin and bone,\n Lies, senseless of each tugging bitch’s son.\n\n A little upright, pert, tart, tripping wight,\n And still his precious self his dear delight;\n Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets,\n Better than e’er the fairest she he meets;\n Much specious lore, but little understood,\n (Veneering oft outshines the solid wood),\n His solid sense, by inches you must tell,\n But mete his cunning by the Scottish ell!\n A man of fashion too, he made his tour,\n Learn’d “vive la bagatelle et vive l’amour;”\n So travell’d monkeys their grimace improve,\n Polish their grin—nay, sigh for ladies’ love!\n His meddling vanity, a busy fiend,\n Still making work his selfish craft must mend.\n\n * * * Crochallan came,\n The old cock’d hat, the brown surtout—the same;\n His grisly beard just bristling in its might—\n ’Twas four long nights and days from shaving-night;\n His uncomb’d, hoary locks, wild-staring, thatch’d\n A head, for thought profound and clear, unmatch’d;\n Yet, tho’ his caustic wit was biting-rude,\n His heart was warm, benevolent and good.\n\n O Dulness, portion of the truly blest!\n Calm, shelter’d haven of eternal rest!\n Thy sons ne’er madden in the fierce extremes\n Of Fortune’s polar frost, or torrid beams;\n If mantling high she fills the golden cup,\n With sober, selfish ease they sip it up;\n Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve,\n They only wonder “some folks” do not starve!\n The grave, sage hern thus easy picks his frog,\n And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.\n When disappointment snaps the thread of Hope,\n When, thro’ disastrous night, they darkling grope,\n With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear,\n And just conclude that “fools are Fortune’s care:”\n So, heavy, passive to the tempest’s shocks,\n Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.\n\n Not so the idle Muses’ mad-cap train,\n Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain;\n In equanimity they never dwell,\n By turns in soaring heaven, or vaulted hell!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Elegy On The Year 1788", + "body": " For lords or kings I dinna mourn,\n E’en let them die—for that they’re born:\n But oh! prodigious to reflec’!\n A Towmont, sirs, is gane to wreck!\n O Eighty-eight, in thy sma’ space,\n What dire events hae taken place!\n Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!\n In what a pickle thou has left us!\n\n The Spanish empire’s tint a head,\n And my auld teethless, Bawtie’s dead:\n The tulyie’s teugh ’tween Pitt and Fox,\n And ’tween our Maggie’s twa wee cocks;\n The tane is game, a bluidy devil,\n But to the hen-birds unco civil;\n The tither’s something dour o’ treadin,\n But better stuff ne’er claw’d a middin.\n\n Ye ministers, come mount the poupit,\n An’ cry till ye be hearse an’ roupit,\n For Eighty-eight, he wished you weel,\n An’ gied ye a’ baith gear an’ meal;\n E’en monc a plack, and mony a peck,\n Ye ken yoursels, for little feck!\n\n Ye bonie lasses, dight your e’en,\n For some o’ you hae tint a frien’;\n In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was taen,\n What ye’ll ne’er hae to gie again.\n\n Observe the very nowt an’ sheep,\n How dowff an’ daviely they creep;\n Nay, even the yirth itsel’ does cry,\n For E’nburgh wells are grutten dry.\n\n O Eighty-nine, thou’s but a bairn,\n An’ no owre auld, I hope, to learn!\n Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care,\n Thou now hast got thy Daddy’s chair;\n Nae handcuff’d, mizl’d, hap-shackl’d Regent,\n But, like himsel, a full free agent,\n Be sure ye follow out the plan\n Nae waur than he did, honest man!\n As muckle better as you can.\n\n January, 1, 1789.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Henpecked Husband", + "body": " Curs’d be the man, the poorest wretch in life,\n The crouching vassal to a tyrant wife!\n Who has no will but by her high permission,\n Who has not sixpence but in her possession;\n Who must to he, his dear friend’s secrets tell,\n Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell.\n Were such the wife had fallen to my part,\n I’d break her spirit or I’d break her heart;\n I’d charm her with the magic of a switch,\n I’d kiss her maids, and kick the perverse bitch.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Versicles On Sign-Posts", + "body": " His face with smile eternal drest,\n Just like the Landlord’s to his Guest’s,\n High as they hang with creaking din,\n To index out the Country Inn.\n He looked just as your sign-post Lions do,\n With aspect fierce, and quite as harmless too.\n\n A head, pure, sinless quite of brain and soul,\n The very image of a barber’s Poll;\n It shews a human face, and wears a wig,\n And looks, when well preserv’d, amazing big.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Robin Shure In Hairst", + "body": " Chorus.—Robin shure in hairst,\n I shure wi’ him.\n Fient a heuk had I,\n Yet I stack by him.\n\n I gaed up to Dunse,\n To warp a wab o’ plaiden,\n At his daddie’s yett,\n Wha met me but Robin:\n Robin shure, &c.\n\n Was na Robin bauld,\n Tho’ I was a cotter,\n Play’d me sic a trick,\n An’ me the El’er’s dochter!\n Robin shure, &c.\n\n Robin promis’d me\n A’ my winter vittle;\n Fient haet he had but three\n Guse-feathers and a whittle!\n Robin shure, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ode, Sacred To The Memory Of Mrs. Oswald Of Auchencruive", + "body": " Dweller in yon dungeon dark,\n Hangman of creation! mark,\n Who in widow-weeds appears,\n Laden with unhonour’d years,\n Noosing with care a bursting purse,\n Baited with many a deadly curse?\n\n\n Strophe\n\n View the wither’d Beldam’s face;\n Can thy keen inspection trace\n Aught of Humanity’s sweet, melting grace?\n Note that eye, ’tis rheum o’erflows;\n Pity’s flood there never rose,\n See these hands ne’er stretched to save,\n Hands that took, but never gave:\n Keeper of Mammon’s iron chest,\n Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest,\n She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!\n\n\n Antistrophe\n\n Plunderer of Armies! lift thine eyes,\n (A while forbear, ye torturing fiends;)\n Seest thou whose step, unwilling, hither bends?\n No fallen angel, hurl’d from upper skies;\n ’Tis thy trusty quondam Mate,\n Doom’d to share thy fiery fate;\n She, tardy, hell-ward plies.\n\n\n Epode\n\n And are they of no more avail,\n Ten thousand glittering pounds a-year?\n In other worlds can Mammon fail,\n Omnipotent as he is here!\n\n O, bitter mockery of the pompous bier,\n While down the wretched Vital Part is driven!\n The cave-lodged Beggar, with a conscience clear,\n Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heaven.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Pegasus At Wanlockhead", + "body": " With Pegasus upon a day,\n Apollo, weary flying,\n Through frosty hills the journey lay,\n On foot the way was plying.\n\n Poor slipshod giddy Pegasus\n Was but a sorry walker;\n To Vulcan then Apollo goes,\n To get a frosty caulker.\n\n Obliging Vulcan fell to work,\n Threw by his coat and bonnet,\n And did Sol’s business in a crack;\n Sol paid him with a sonnet.\n\n Ye Vulcan’s sons of Wanlockhead,\n Pity my sad disaster;\n My Pegasus is poorly shod,\n I’ll pay you like my master.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Sappho Redivivus—A Fragment", + "body": " By all I lov’d, neglected and forgot,\n No friendly face e’er lights my squalid cot;\n Shunn’d, hated, wrong’d, unpitied, unredrest,\n The mock’d quotation of the scorner’s jest!\n Ev’n the poor support of my wretched life,\n Snatched by the violence of legal strife.\n Oft grateful for my very daily bread\n To those my family’s once large bounty fed;\n A welcome inmate at their homely fare,\n My griefs, my woes, my sighs, my tears they share:\n (Their vulgar souls unlike the souls refin’d,\n The fashioned marble of the polished mind).\n\n In vain would Prudence, with decorous sneer,\n Point out a censuring world, and bid me fear;\n Above the world, on wings of Love, I rise—\n I know its worst, and can that worst despise;\n Let Prudence’ direst bodements on me fall,\n M[ontgomer]y, rich reward, o’erpays them all!\n\n Mild zephyrs waft thee to life’s farthest shore,\n Nor think of me and my distress more,—\n Falsehood accurst! No! still I beg a place,\n Still near thy heart some little, little trace:\n For that dear trace the world I would resign:\n O let me live, and die, and think it mine!\n\n “I burn, I burn, as when thro’ ripen’d corn\n By driving winds the crackling flames are borne;”\n Now raving-wild, I curse that fatal night,\n Then bless the hour that charm’d my guilty sight:\n In vain the laws their feeble force oppose,\n Chain’d at Love’s feet, they groan, his vanquish’d foes.\n In vain Religion meets my shrinking eye,\n I dare not combat, but I turn and fly:\n Conscience in vain upbraids th’ unhallow’d fire,\n Love grasps her scorpions—stifled they expire!\n Reason drops headlong from his sacred throne,\n\n Your dear idea reigns, and reigns alone;\n Each thought intoxicated homage yields,\n And riots wanton in forbidden fields.\n By all on high adoring mortals know!\n By all the conscious villain fears below!\n By your dear self!—the last great oath I swear,\n Not life, nor soul, were ever half so dear!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—She’s Fair And Fause", + "body": " She’s fair and fause that causes my smart,\n I lo’ed her meikle and lang;\n She’s broken her vow, she’s broken my heart,\n And I may e’en gae hang.\n A coof cam in wi’ routh o’ gear,\n And I hae tint my dearest dear;\n But Woman is but warld’s gear,\n Sae let the bonie lass gang.\n\n Whae’er ye be that woman love,\n To this be never blind;\n Nae ferlie ’tis tho’ fickle she prove,\n A woman has’t by kind.\n O Woman lovely, Woman fair!\n An angel form’s faun to thy share,\n ’Twad been o’er meikle to gi’en thee mair—\n I mean an angel mind.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Impromptu Lines To Captain Riddell", + "body": " On Returning a Newspaper.\n\n Your News and Review, sir.\n I’ve read through and through, sir,\n With little admiring or blaming;\n The Papers are barren\n Of home-news or foreign,\n No murders or rapes worth the naming.\n\n Our friends, the Reviewers,\n Those chippers and hewers,\n Are judges of mortar and stone, sir;\n But of meet or unmeet,\n In a fabric complete,\n I’ll boldly pronounce they are none, sir;\n\n My goose-quill too rude is\n To tell all your goodness\n Bestow’d on your servant, the Poet;\n Would to God I had one\n Like a beam of the sun,\n And then all the world, sir, should know it!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines To John M’Murdo, Esq. Of Drumlanrig", + "body": " Sent with some of the Author’s Poems.\n\n O could I give thee India’s wealth,\n As I this trifle send;\n Because thy joy in both would be\n To share them with a friend.\n\n But golden sands did never grace\n The Heliconian stream;\n Then take what gold could never buy—\n An honest bard’s esteem.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Rhyming Reply To A Note From Captain Riddell", + "body": " Dear, Sir, at ony time or tide,\n I’d rather sit wi’ you than ride,\n Though ’twere wi’ royal Geordie:\n And trowth, your kindness, soon and late,\n Aft gars me to mysel’ look blate—\n The Lord in Heav’n reward ye!\n\n R. Burns.\n Ellisland.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Caledonia—A Ballad", + "body": " Tune—“Caledonian Hunts’ Delight” of Mr. Gow.\n\n\n There was once a day, but old Time wasythen young,\n That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,\n From some of your northern deities sprung,\n (Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?)\n From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,\n To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would:\n Her heav’nly relations there fixed her reign,\n And pledg’d her their godheads to warrant it good.\n\n A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war,\n The pride of her kindred, the heroine grew:\n Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore,—\n “Whoe’er shall provoke thee, th’ encounter shall rue!”\n With tillage or pasture at times she would sport,\n To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn;\n But chiefly the woods were her fav’rite resort,\n Her darling amusement, the hounds and the horn.\n\n Long quiet she reigned; till thitherward steers\n A flight of bold eagles from Adria’s strand:\n Repeated, successive, for many long years,\n They darken’d the air, and they plunder’d the land:\n Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry,\n They’d conquer’d and ruin’d a world beside;\n She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly,\n The daring invaders they fled or they died.\n\n The Cameleon-Savage disturb’d her repose,\n With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife;\n Provok’d beyond bearing, at last she arose,\n And robb’d him at once of his hopes and his life:\n The Anglian lion, the terror of France,\n Oft prowling, ensanguin’d the Tweed’s silver flood;\n But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance,\n He learned to fear in his own native wood.\n\n The fell Harpy-raven took wing from the north,\n The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore;\n The wild Scandinavian boar issued forth\n To wanton in carnage and wallow in gore:\n O’er countries and kingdoms their fury prevail’d,\n No arts could appease them, no arms could repel;\n But brave Caledonia in vain they assail’d,\n As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell.\n\n Thus bold, independent, unconquer’d, and free,\n Her bright course of glory for ever shall run:\n For brave Caledonia immortal must be;\n I’ll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun:\n Rectangle—triangle, the figure we’ll chuse:\n The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base;\n But brave Caledonia’s the hypothenuse;\n Then, ergo, she’ll match them, and match them always.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Written on the Blank Leaf of a Book, presented to her by the Author.", + "body": " Beauteous Rosebud, young and gay,\n Blooming in thy early May,\n Never may’st thou, lovely flower,\n Chilly shrink in sleety shower!\n Never Boreas’ hoary path,\n Never Eurus’ pois’nous breath,\n Never baleful stellar lights,\n Taint thee with untimely blights!\n Never, never reptile thief\n Riot on thy virgin leaf!\n Nor even Sol too fiercely view\n Thy bosom blushing still with dew!\n\n May’st thou long, sweet crimson gem,\n Richly deck thy native stem;\n Till some ev’ning, sober, calm,\n Dropping dews, and breathing balm,\n While all around the woodland rings,\n And ev’ry bird thy requiem sings;\n Thou, amid the dirgeful sound,\n Shed thy dying honours round,\n And resign to parent Earth\n The loveliest form she e’er gave birth.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Beware O’ Bonie Ann", + "body": " Ye gallants bright, I rede you right,\n Beware o’ bonie Ann;\n Her comely face sae fu’ o’ grace,\n Your heart she will trepan:\n Her een sae bright, like stars by night,\n Her skin sae like the swan;\n Sae jimply lac’d her genty waist,\n That sweetly ye might span.\n\n Youth, Grace, and Love attendant move,\n And pleasure leads the van:\n In a’ their charms, and conquering arms,\n They wait on bonie Ann.\n The captive bands may chain the hands,\n But love enslaves the man:\n Ye gallants braw, I rede you a’,\n Beware o’ bonie Ann!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ode On The Departed Regency Bill", + "body": " (March, 1789)\n\n Daughter of Chaos’ doting years,\n Nurse of ten thousand hopes and fears,\n Whether thy airy, insubstantial shade\n (The rights of sepulture now duly paid)\n Spread abroad its hideous form\n On the roaring civil storm,\n Deafening din and warring rage\n Factions wild with factions wage;\n Or under-ground, deep-sunk, profound,\n Among the demons of the earth,\n With groans that make the mountains shake,\n Thou mourn thy ill-starr’d, blighted birth;\n Or in the uncreated Void,\n Where seeds of future being fight,\n With lessen’d step thou wander wide,\n To greet thy Mother—Ancient Night.\n And as each jarring, monster-mass is past,\n Fond recollect what once thou wast:\n In manner due, beneath this sacred oak,\n Hear, Spirit, hear! thy presence I invoke!\n By a Monarch’s heaven-struck fate,\n By a disunited State,\n By a generous Prince’s wrongs.\n By a Senate’s strife of tongues,\n By a Premier’s sullen pride,\n Louring on the changing tide;\n By dread Thurlow’s powers to awe\n Rhetoric, blasphemy and law;\n By the turbulent ocean—\n A Nation’s commotion,\n By the harlot-caresses\n Of borough addresses,\n By days few and evil,\n (Thy portion, poor devil!)\n By Power, Wealth, and Show,\n (The Gods by men adored,)\n By nameless Poverty,\n (Their hell abhorred,)\n By all they hope, by all they fear,\n Hear! and appear!\n\n Stare not on me, thou ghastly Power!\n Nor, grim with chained defiance, lour:\n No Babel-structure would I build\n Where, order exil’d from his native sway,\n Confusion may the regent-sceptre wield,\n While all would rule and none obey:\n Go, to the world of man relate\n The story of thy sad, eventful fate;\n And call presumptuous Hope to hear\n And bid him check his blind career;\n And tell the sore-prest sons of Care,\n Never, never to despair!\n Paint Charles’ speed on wings of fire,\n The object of his fond desire,\n Beyond his boldest hopes, at hand:\n Paint all the triumph of the Portland Band;\n Hark how they lift the joy-elated voice!\n And who are these that equally rejoice?\n Jews, Gentiles, what a motley crew!\n The iron tears their flinty cheeks bedew;\n See how unfurled the parchment ensigns fly,\n And Principal and Interest all the cry!\n And how their num’rous creditors rejoice;\n But just as hopes to warm enjoyment rise,\n Cry Convalescence! and the vision flies.\n Then next pourtray a dark’ning twilight gloom,\n Eclipsing sad a gay, rejoicing morn,\n While proud Ambition to th’ untimely tomb\n By gnashing, grim, despairing fiends is borne:\n Paint ruin, in the shape of high D[undas]\n Gaping with giddy terror o’er the brow;\n In vain he struggles, the fates behind him press,\n And clam’rous hell yawns for her prey below:\n How fallen That, whose pride late scaled the skies!\n And This, like Lucifer, no more to rise!\n Again pronounce the powerful word;\n See Day, triumphant from the night, restored.\n\n Then know this truth, ye Sons of Men!\n (Thus ends thy moral tale,)\n Your darkest terrors may be vain,\n Your brightest hopes may fail.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To James Tennant Of Glenconner", + "body": " Auld comrade dear, and brither sinner,\n How’s a’ the folk about Glenconner?\n How do you this blae eastlin wind,\n That’s like to blaw a body blind?\n For me, my faculties are frozen,\n My dearest member nearly dozen’d.\n I’ve sent you here, by Johnie Simson,\n Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on;\n Smith, wi’ his sympathetic feeling,\n An’ Reid, to common sense appealing.\n Philosophers have fought and wrangled,\n An’ meikle Greek an’ Latin mangled,\n Till wi’ their logic-jargon tir’d,\n And in the depth of science mir’d,\n To common sense they now appeal,\n What wives and wabsters see and feel.\n But, hark ye, friend! I charge you strictly,\n Peruse them, an’ return them quickly:\n For now I’m grown sae cursed douce\n I pray and ponder butt the house;\n My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin’,\n Perusing Bunyan, Brown, an’ Boston,\n Till by an’ by, if I haud on,\n I’ll grunt a real gospel-groan:\n Already I begin to try it,\n To cast my e’en up like a pyet,\n When by the gun she tumbles o’er\n Flutt’ring an’ gasping in her gore:\n Sae shortly you shall see me bright,\n A burning an’ a shining light.\n\n My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen,\n The ace an’ wale of honest men:\n When bending down wi’ auld grey hairs\n Beneath the load of years and cares,\n May He who made him still support him,\n An’ views beyond the grave comfort him;\n His worthy fam’ly far and near,\n God bless them a’ wi’ grace and gear!\n\n My auld schoolfellow, Preacher Willie,\n The manly tar, my mason-billie,\n And Auchenbay, I wish him joy,\n If he’s a parent, lass or boy,\n May he be dad, and Meg the mither,\n Just five-and-forty years thegither!\n And no forgetting wabster Charlie,\n I’m tauld he offers very fairly.\n An’ Lord, remember singing Sannock,\n Wi’ hale breeks, saxpence, an’ a bannock!\n And next, my auld acquaintance, Nancy,\n Since she is fitted to her fancy,\n An’ her kind stars hae airted till her\n gA guid chiel wi’ a pickle siller.\n My kindest, best respects, I sen’ it,\n To cousin Kate, an’ sister Janet:\n Tell them, frae me, wi’ chiels be cautious,\n For, faith, they’ll aiblins fin’ them fashious;\n To grant a heart is fairly civil,\n But to grant a maidenhead’s the devil.\n An’ lastly, Jamie, for yoursel,\n May guardian angels tak a spell,\n An’ steer you seven miles south o’ hell:\n But first, before you see heaven’s glory,\n May ye get mony a merry story,\n Mony a laugh, and mony a drink,\n And aye eneugh o’ needfu’ clink.\n\n Now fare ye weel, an’ joy be wi’ you:\n For my sake, this I beg it o’ you,\n Assist poor Simson a’ ye can,\n Ye’ll fin; him just an honest man;\n Sae I conclude, and quat my chanter,\n Your’s, saint or sinner,\n Rob the Ranter.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On the Thanksgiving-Day for His Majesty’s Recovery.", + "body": " O sing a new song to the Lord,\n Make, all and every one,\n A joyful noise, even for the King\n His restoration.\n\n The sons of Belial in the land\n Did set their heads together;\n Come, let us sweep them off, said they,\n Like an o’erflowing river.\n\n They set their heads together, I say,\n They set their heads together;\n On right, on left, on every hand,\n We saw none to deliver.\n\n Thou madest strong two chosen ones\n To quell the Wicked’s pride;\n That Young Man, great in Issachar,\n The burden-bearing tribe.\n\n And him, among the Princes chief\n In our Jerusalem,\n The judge that’s mighty in thy law,\n The man that fears thy name.\n\n Yet they, even they, with all their strength,\n Began to faint and fail:\n Even as two howling, ravenous wolves\n To dogs do turn their tail.\n\n Th’ ungodly o’er the just prevail’d,\n For so thou hadst appointed;\n That thou might’st greater glory give\n Unto thine own anointed.\n\n And now thou hast restored our State,\n Pity our Kirk also;\n For she by tribulations\n Is now brought very low.\n\n Consume that high-place, Patronage,\n From off thy holy hill;\n And in thy fury burn the book—\n Even of that man M’Gill.^1\n\n Now hear our prayer, accept our song,\n And fight thy chosen’s battle:\n We seek but little, Lord, from thee,\n Thou kens we get as little.\n\n [Footnote 1: Dr. William M’Gill of Ayr, whose “Practical\n Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ” led to a charge of\n heresy against him. Burns took up his cause in “The Kirk of\n Scotland’s Alarm” (p. 351).—Lang.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Sketch In Verse", + "body": " Inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox.\n\n How wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite,\n How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white,\n How Genius, th’ illustrious father of fiction,\n Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,\n I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,\n I care not, not I—let the Critics go whistle!\n\n But now for a Patron whose name and whose glory,\n At once may illustrate and honour my story.\n\n Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;\n Yet whose parts and acquirements seem just lucky hits;\n With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,\n No man with the half of ’em e’er could go wrong;\n With passions so potent, and fancies so bright,\n No man with the half of ’em e’er could go right;\n A sorry, poor, misbegot son of the Muses,\n For using thy name, offers fifty excuses.\n Good Lord, what is Man! for as simple he looks,\n Do but try to develop his hooks and his crooks;\n With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil,\n All in all he’s a problem must puzzle the devil.\n\n On his one ruling passion Sir Pope hugely labours,\n That, like th’ old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbours:\n Mankind are his show-box—a friend, would you know him?\n Pull the string, Ruling Passion the picture will show him,\n What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system,\n One trifling particular, Truth, should have miss’d him;\n For, spite of his fine theoretic positions,\n Mankind is a science defies definitions.\n\n Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe,\n And think human nature they truly describe;\n Have you found this, or t’other? There’s more in the wind;\n As by one drunken fellow his comrades you’ll find.\n But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan,\n In the make of that wonderful creature called Man,\n No two virtues, whatever relation they claim.\n Nor even two different shades of the same,\n Though like as was ever twin brother to brother,\n Possessing the one shall imply you’ve the other.\n\n But truce with abstraction, and truce with a Muse\n Whose rhymes you’ll perhaps, Sir, ne’er deign to peruse:\n Will you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels,\n Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels?\n My much-honour’d Patron, believe your poor poet,\n Your courage, much more than your prudence, you show it:\n In vain with Squire Billy for laurels you struggle:\n He’ll have them by fair trade, if not, he will smuggle:\n Not cabinets even of kings would conceal ’em,\n He’d up the back stairs, and by God, he would steal ’em,\n Then feats like Squire Billy’s you ne’er can achieve ’em;\n It is not, out-do him—the task is, out-thieve him!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Wounded Hare", + "body": " Inhuman man! curse on thy barb’rous art,\n And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;\n May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,\n Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!\n\n Go live, poor wand’rer of the wood and field!\n The bitter little that of life remains:\n No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains\n To thee a home, or food, or pastime yield.\n\n Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,\n No more of rest, but now thy dying bed!\n The sheltering rushes whistling o’er thy head,\n The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest.\n\n Perhaps a mother’s anguish adds its woe;\n The playful pair crowd fondly by thy side;\n Ah! helpless nurslings, who will now provide\n That life a mother only can bestow!\n\n Oft as by winding Nith I, musing, wait\n The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn,\n I’ll miss thee sporting o’er the dewy lawn,\n And curse the ruffian’s aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "“To the Editor of The Star.—Mr. Printer—If the productions of a simple", + "body": "ploughman can merit a place in the same paper with Sylvester Otway, and\nthe other favourites of the Muses who illuminate the Star with the\nlustre of genius, your insertion of the enclosed trifle will be\nsucceeded by future communications from—Yours, &c., R. Burns.\n\n Ellisland, near Dumfries, 18th May, 1789.”\n\n\n Fair the face of orient day,\n Fair the tints of op’ning rose;\n But fairer still my Delia dawns,\n More lovely far her beauty shows.\n\n Sweet the lark’s wild warbled lay,\n Sweet the tinkling rill to hear;\n But, Delia, more delightful still,\n Steal thine accents on mine ear.\n\n The flower-enamour’d busy bee\n The rosy banquet loves to sip;\n Sweet the streamlet’s limpid lapse\n To the sun-brown’d Arab’s lip.\n\n But, Delia, on thy balmy lips\n Let me, no vagrant insect, rove;\n O let me steal one liquid kiss,\n For Oh! my soul is parch’d with love.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Gard’ner Wi’ His Paidle", + "body": " Tune—“The Gardener’s March.”\n\n\n When rosy May comes in wi’ flowers,\n To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers,\n Then busy, busy are his hours,\n The Gard’ner wi’ his paidle.\n\n The crystal waters gently fa’,\n The merry bards are lovers a’,\n The scented breezes round him blaw—\n The Gard’ner wi’ his paidle.\n\n When purple morning starts the hare\n To steal upon her early fare;\n Then thro’ the dews he maun repair—\n The Gard’ner wi’ his paidle.\n\n When day, expiring in the west,\n The curtain draws o’ Nature’s rest,\n He flies to her arms he lo’es the best,\n The Gard’ner wi’ his paidle.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On A Bank Of Flowers", + "body": " On a bank of flowers, in a summer day,\n For summer lightly drest,\n The youthful, blooming Nelly lay,\n With love and sleep opprest;\n When Willie, wand’ring thro’ the wood,\n Who for her favour oft had sued;\n He gaz’d, he wish’d\n He fear’d, he blush’d,\n And trembled where he stood.\n\n Her closed eyes, like weapons sheath’d,\n Were seal’d in soft repose;\n Her lip, still as she fragrant breath’d,\n It richer dyed the rose;\n The springing lilies, sweetly prest,\n Wild-wanton kissed her rival breast;\n He gaz’d, he wish’d,\n He mear’d, he blush’d,\n His bosom ill at rest.\n\n Her robes, light-waving in the breeze,\n Her tender limbs embrace;\n Her lovely form, her native ease,\n All harmony and grace;\n Tumultuous tides his pulses roll,\n A faltering, ardent kiss he stole;\n He gaz’d, he wish’d,\n He fear’d, he blush’d,\n And sigh’d his very soul.\n\n As flies the partridge from the brake,\n On fear-inspired wings,\n So Nelly, starting, half-awake,\n Away affrighted springs;\n But Willie follow’d—as he should,\n He overtook her in the wood;\n He vow’d, he pray’d,\n He found the maid\n Forgiving all, and good.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Young Jockie Was The Blythest Lad", + "body": " Young Jockie was the blythest lad,\n In a’ our town or here awa;\n Fu’ blythe he whistled at the gaud,\n Fu’ lightly danc’d he in the ha’.\n\n He roos’d my een sae bonie blue,\n He roos’d my waist sae genty sma’;\n An’ aye my heart cam to my mou’,\n When ne’er a body heard or saw.\n\n My Jockie toils upon the plain,\n Thro’ wind and weet, thro’ frost and snaw:\n And o’er the lea I leuk fu’ fain,\n When Jockie’s owsen hameward ca’.\n\n An’ aye the night comes round again,\n When in his arms he taks me a’;\n An’ aye he vows he’ll be my ain,\n As lang’s he has a breath to draw.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Banks Of Nith", + "body": " The Thames flows proudly to the sea,\n Where royal cities stately stand;\n But sweeter flows the Nith to me,\n Where Comyns ance had high command.\n When shall I see that honour’d land,\n That winding stream I love so dear!\n Must wayward Fortune’s adverse hand\n For ever, ever keep me here!\n\n How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales,\n Where bounding hawthorns gaily bloom;\n And sweetly spread thy sloping dales,\n Where lambkins wanton through the broom.\n Tho’ wandering now must be my doom,\n Far from thy bonie banks and braes,\n May there my latest hours consume,\n Amang the friends of early days!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Jamie, Come Try Me", + "body": " Chorus.—Jamie, come try me,\n Jamie, come try me,\n If thou would win my love,\n Jamie, come try me.\n\n If thou should ask my love,\n Could I deny thee?\n If thou would win my love,\n Jamie, come try me!\n Jamie, come try me, &c.\n\n If thou should kiss me, love,\n Wha could espy thee?\n If thou wad be my love,\n Jamie, come try me!\n Jamie, come try me, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "I Love My Love In Secret", + "body": " My Sandy gied to me a ring,\n Was a’ beset wi’ diamonds fine;\n But I gied him a far better thing,\n I gied my heart in pledge o’ his ring.\n\n Chorus.—My Sandy O, my Sandy O,\n My bonie, bonie Sandy O;\n Tho’ the love that I owe\n To thee I dare na show,\n Yet I love my love in secret, my Sandy O.\n\n My Sandy brak a piece o’ gowd,\n While down his cheeks the saut tears row’d;\n He took a hauf, and gied it to me,\n And I’ll keep it till the hour I die.\n My Sand O, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Sweet Tibbie Dunbar", + "body": " O wilt thou go wi’ me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar?\n O wilt thou go wi’ me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar?\n Wilt thou ride on a horse, or be drawn in a car,\n Or walk by my side, O sweet Tibbie Dunbar?\n\n I care na thy daddie, his lands and his money,\n I care na thy kin, sae high and sae lordly;\n But sae that thou’lt hae me for better for waur,\n And come in thy coatie, sweet Tibbie Dunbar.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Captain’s Lady", + "body": " Chorus.—O mount and go, mount and make you ready,\n O mount and go, and be the Captain’s lady.\n\n When the drums do beat, and the cannons rattle,\n Thou shalt sit in state, and see thy love in battle:\n When the drums do beat, and the cannons rattle,\n Thou shalt sit in state, and see thy love in battle.\n O mount and go, &c.\n\n When the vanquish’d foe sues for peace and quiet,\n To the shades we’ll go, and in love enjoy it:\n When the vanquish’d foe sues for peace and quiet,\n To the shades we’ll go, and in love enjoy it.\n O mount and go, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "John Anderson, My Jo", + "body": " John Anderson, my jo, John,\n When we were first acquent;\n Your locks were like the raven,\n Your bonie brow was brent;\n But now your brow is beld, John,\n Your locks are like the snaw;\n But blessings on your frosty pow,\n John Anderson, my jo.\n\n John Anderson, my jo, John,\n We clamb the hill thegither;\n And mony a cantie day, John,\n We’ve had wi’ ane anither:\n Now we maun totter down, John,\n And hand in hand we’ll go,\n And sleep thegither at the foot,\n John Anderson, my jo.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Love, She’s But A Lassie Yet", + "body": " My love, she’s but a lassie yet,\n My love, she’s but a lassie yet;\n We’ll let her stand a year or twa,\n She’ll no be half sae saucy yet;\n I rue the day I sought her, O!\n I rue the day I sought her, O!\n Wha gets her needs na say she’s woo’d,\n But he may say he’s bought her, O.\n\n Come, draw a drap o’ the best o’t yet,\n Come, draw a drap o’ the best o’t yet,\n Gae seek for pleasure whare you will,\n But here I never miss’d it yet,\n We’re a’ dry wi’ drinkin o’t,\n We’re a’ dry wi’ drinkin o’t;\n The minister kiss’d the fiddler’s wife;\n He could na preach for thinkin o’t.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Tam Glen", + "body": " My heart is a-breaking, dear Tittie,\n Some counsel unto me come len’,\n To anger them a’ is a pity,\n But what will I do wi’ Tam Glen?\n\n I’m thinking, wi’ sic a braw fellow,\n In poortith I might mak a fen;\n What care I in riches to wallow,\n If I maunna marry Tam Glen!\n\n There’s Lowrie the Laird o’ Dumeller—\n “Gude day to you, brute!” he comes ben:\n He brags and he blaws o’ his siller,\n But when will he dance like Tam Glen!\n\n My minnie does constantly deave me,\n And bids me beware o’ young men;\n They flatter, she says, to deceive me,\n But wha can think sae o’ Tam Glen!\n\n My daddie says, gin I’ll forsake him,\n He’d gie me gude hunder marks ten;\n But, if it’s ordain’d I maun take him,\n O wha will I get but Tam Glen!\n\n Yestreen at the Valentine’s dealing,\n My heart to my mou’ gied a sten’;\n For thrice I drew ane without failing,\n And thrice it was written “Tam Glen”!\n\n The last Halloween I was waukin\n My droukit sark-sleeve, as ye ken,\n His likeness came up the house staukin,\n And the very grey breeks o’ Tam Glen!\n\n Come, counsel, dear Tittie, don’t tarry;\n I’ll gie ye my bonie black hen,\n Gif ye will advise me to marry\n The lad I lo’e dearly, Tam Glen.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Carle, An The King Come", + "body": " Chorus.—Carle, an the King come,\n Carle, an the King come,\n Thou shalt dance and I will sing,\n Carle, an the King come.\n\n An somebody were come again,\n Then somebody maun cross the main,\n And every man shall hae his ain,\n Carle, an the King come.\n Carle, an the King come, &c.\n\n I trow we swapped for the worse,\n We gae the boot and better horse;\n And that we’ll tell them at the cross,\n Carle, an the King come.\n Carle, an the King come, &c.\n\n Coggie, an the King come,\n Coggie, an the King come,\n I’se be fou, and thou’se be toom\n Coggie, an the King come.\n Coggie, an the King come, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Laddie’s Dear Sel’", + "body": " There’s a youth in this city, it were a great pity\n That he from our lassies should wander awa’;\n For he’s bonie and braw, weel-favor’d witha’,\n An’ his hair has a natural buckle an’ a’.\n\n His coat is the hue o’ his bonnet sae blue,\n His fecket is white as the new-driven snaw;\n His hose they are blae, and his shoon like the slae,\n And his clear siller buckles, they dazzle us a’.\n\n For beauty and fortune the laddie’s been courtin;\n Weel-featur’d, weel-tocher’d, weel-mounted an’ braw;\n But chiefly the siller that gars him gang till her,\n The penny’s the jewel that beautifies a’.\n\n There’s Meg wi’ the mailen that fain wad a haen him,\n And Susie, wha’s daddie was laird o’ the Ha’;\n There’s lang-tocher’d Nancy maist fetters his fancy,\n —But the laddie’s dear sel’, he loes dearest of a’.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Whistle O’er The Lave O’t", + "body": " First when Maggie was my care,\n Heav’n, I thought, was in her air,\n Now we’re married—speir nae mair,\n But whistle o’er the lave o’t!\n\n Meg was meek, and Meg was mild,\n Sweet and harmless as a child—\n Wiser men than me’s beguil’d;\n Whistle o’er the lave o’t!\n\n How we live, my Meg and me,\n How we love, and how we gree,\n I care na by how few may see—\n Whistle o’er the lave o’t!\n\n Wha I wish were maggot’s meat,\n Dish’d up in her winding-sheet,\n I could write—but Meg maun see’t—\n Whistle o’er the lave o’t!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Eppie Adair", + "body": " Chorus.—An’ O my Eppie, my jewel, my Eppie,\n Wha wad na be happy wi’ Eppie Adair?\n\n By love, and by beauty, by law, and by duty,\n I swear to be true to my Eppie Adair!\n By love, and by beauty, by law, and by duty,\n I swear to be true to my Eppie Adair!\n And O my Eppie, &c.\n\n A’ pleasure exile me, dishonour defile me,\n If e’er I beguile ye, my Eppie Adair!\n A’ pleasure exile me, dishonour defile me,\n If e’er I beguile thee, my Eppie Adair!\n And O my Eppie, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On The Late Captain Grose’s Peregrinations Thro’ Scotland", + "body": " Collecting The Antiquities Of That Kingdom\n\n\n Hear, Land o’ Cakes, and brither Scots,\n Frae Maidenkirk to Johnie Groat’s;—\n If there’s a hole in a’ your coats,\n I rede you tent it:\n A chield’s amang you takin notes,\n And, faith, he’ll prent it:\n\n If in your bounds ye chance to light\n Upon a fine, fat fodgel wight,\n O’ stature short, but genius bright,\n That’s he, mark weel;\n And wow! he has an unco sleight\n O’ cauk and keel.\n\n By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin,\n Or kirk deserted by its riggin,\n It’s ten to ane ye’ll find him snug in\n Some eldritch part,\n Wi’ deils, they say, Lord save’s! colleaguin\n At some black art.\n\n Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha’ or chaumer,\n Ye gipsy-gang that deal in glamour,\n And you, deep-read in hell’s black grammar,\n Warlocks and witches,\n Ye’ll quake at his conjuring hammer,\n Ye midnight bitches.\n\n It’s tauld he was a sodger bred,\n And ane wad rather fa’n than fled;\n But now he’s quat the spurtle-blade,\n And dog-skin wallet,\n And taen the—Antiquarian trade,\n I think they call it.\n\n He has a fouth o’ auld nick-nackets:\n Rusty airn caps and jinglin jackets,\n Wad haud the Lothians three in tackets,\n A towmont gude;\n And parritch-pats and auld saut-backets,\n Before the Flood.\n\n Of Eve’s first fire he has a cinder;\n Auld Tubalcain’s fire-shool and fender;\n That which distinguished the gender\n O’ Balaam’s ass:\n A broomstick o’ the witch of Endor,\n Weel shod wi’ brass.\n\n Forbye, he’ll shape you aff fu’ gleg\n The cut of Adam’s philibeg;\n The knife that nickit Abel’s craig\n He’ll prove you fully,\n It was a faulding jocteleg,\n Or lang-kail gullie.\n\n But wad ye see him in his glee,\n For meikle glee and fun has he,\n Then set him down, and twa or three\n Gude fellows wi’ him:\n And port, O port! shine thou a wee,\n And Then ye’ll see him!\n\n Now, by the Pow’rs o’ verse and prose!\n Thou art a dainty chield, O Grose!—\n Whae’er o’ thee shall ill suppose,\n They sair misca’ thee;\n I’d take the rascal by the nose,\n Wad say, “Shame fa’ thee!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram On Francis Grose The Antiquary", + "body": " The Devil got notice that Grose was a-dying\n So whip! at the summons, old Satan came flying;\n But when he approached where poor Francis lay moaning,\n And saw each bed-post with its burthen a-groaning,\n Astonish’d, confounded, cries Satan—“By God,\n I’ll want him, ere I take such a damnable load!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Kirk Of Scotland’s Alarm", + "body": " A Ballad.\n\n Tune—“Come rouse, Brother Sportsman!”\n\n\n Orthodox! orthodox, who believe in John Knox,\n Let me sound an alarm to your conscience:\n A heretic blast has been blown in the West,\n “That what is no sense must be nonsense,”\n Orthodox! That what is no sense must be nonsense.\n\n Doctor Mac! Doctor Mac, you should streek on a rack,\n To strike evil-doers wi’ terror:\n To join Faith and Sense, upon any pretence,\n Was heretic, damnable error,\n Doctor Mac!^1 ’Twas heretic, damnable error.\n\n Town of Ayr! town of Ayr, it was mad, I declare,\n To meddle wi’ mischief a-brewing,^2\n Provost John^3 is still deaf to the Church’s relief,\n And Orator Bob^4 is its ruin,\n Town of Ayr! Yes, Orator Bob is its ruin.\n\n D’rymple mild! D’rymple mild, tho’ your heart’s like a child,\n And your life like the new-driven snaw,\n Yet that winna save you, auld Satan must have you,\n For preaching that three’s ane an’ twa,\n D’rymple mild!^5 For preaching that three’s ane an’ twa.\n\n Rumble John! rumble John, mount the steps with a groan,\n Cry the book is with heresy cramm’d;\n Then out wi’ your ladle, deal brimstone like aidle,\n And roar ev’ry note of the damn’d.\n Rumble John!^6 And roar ev’ry note of the damn’d.\n\n [Footnote 1: Dr. M’Gill, Ayr.—R.B,]\n\n [Footnote 2: See the advertisement.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 3: John Ballantine,—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 4: Robert Aiken.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 5: Dr. Dalrymple, Ayr.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 6: John Russell, Kilmarnock.—R.B.]\n\n Simper James! simper James, leave your fair Killie dames,\n There’s a holier chase in your view:\n I’ll lay on your head, that the pack you’ll soon lead,\n For puppies like you there’s but few,\n Simper James!^7 For puppies like you there’s but few.\n\n Singet Sawnie! singet Sawnie, are ye huirdin the penny,\n Unconscious what evils await?\n With a jump, yell, and howl, alarm ev’ry soul,\n For the foul thief is just at your gate.\n Singet Sawnie!^8 For the foul thief is just at your gate.\n\n Poet Willie! poet Willie, gie the Doctor a volley,\n Wi’ your “Liberty’s Chain” and your wit;\n O’er Pegasus’ side ye ne’er laid a stride,\n Ye but smelt, man, the place where he sh—t.\n Poet Willie!^9 Ye but smelt man, the place where he sh—t.\n\n Barr Steenie! Barr Steenie, what mean ye, what mean ye?\n If ye meddle nae mair wi’ the matter,\n Ye may hae some pretence to havins and sense,\n Wi’ people that ken ye nae better,\n Barr Steenie!^10 Wi’people that ken ye nae better.\n\n Jamie Goose! Jamie Goose, ye made but toom roose,\n In hunting the wicked Lieutenant;\n But the Doctor’s your mark, for the Lord’s holy ark,\n He has cooper’d an’ ca’d a wrang pin in’t,\n Jamie Goose!^11 He has cooper’d an’ ca’d a wrang pin in’t.\n\n Davie Bluster! Davie Bluster, for a saint ye do muster,\n The corps is no nice o’ recruits;\n\n [Footnote 7: James Mackinlay, Kilmarnock.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 8: Alexander Moodie of Riccarton.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 9: William Peebles, in Newton-upon-Ayr, a poetaster,\n who, among many other things, published an ode on the “Centenary\n of the Revolution,” in which was the line: “And bound in\n Liberty’s endering chain.”—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 10: Stephen Young of Barr.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 11: James Young, in New Cumnock, who had lately been\n foiled in an ecclesiastical prosecution against a Lieutenant\n Mitchel—R.B.]\n\n Yet to worth let’s be just, royal blood ye might boast,\n If the Ass were the king o’ the brutes,\n Davie Bluster!^12 If the Ass were the king o’ the brutes.\n\n Irvine Side! Irvine Side, wi’ your turkey-cock pride\n Of manhood but sma’ is your share:\n Ye’ve the figure, ’tis true, ev’n your foes will allow,\n And your friends they dare grant you nae mair,\n Irvine Side!^13 And your friends they dare grant you nae mair.\n\n Muirland Jock! muirland Jock, when the Lord makes a rock,\n To crush common-sense for her sins;\n If ill-manners were wit, there’s no mortal so fit\n To confound the poor Doctor at ance,\n Muirland Jock!^14 To confound the poor Doctor at ance.\n\n Andro Gowk! Andro Gowk, ye may slander the Book,\n An’ the Book nought the waur, let me tell ye;\n Tho’ ye’re rich, an’ look big, yet, lay by hat an’ wig,\n An’ ye’ll hae a calf’s—had o’ sma’ value,\n Andro Gowk!^15 Ye’ll hae a calf’s head o’ sma value.\n\n Daddy Auld! daddy Auld, there’a a tod in the fauld,\n A tod meikle waur than the clerk;\n Tho’ ye do little skaith, ye’ll be in at the death,\n For gif ye canna bite, ye may bark,\n Daddy Auld!^16 Gif ye canna bite, ye may bark.\n\n Holy Will! holy Will, there was wit in your skull,\n When ye pilfer’d the alms o’ the poor;\n The timmer is scant when ye’re taen for a saunt,\n Wha should swing in a rape for an hour,\n Holy Will!^17 Ye should swing in a rape for an hour.\n\n Calvin’s sons! Calvin’s sons, seize your spiritual guns,\n Ammunition you never can need;\n\n [Footnote 12: David Grant, Ochiltree.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 13: George Smith, Galston.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 14: John Shepherd Muirkirk.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 15: Dr. Andrew Mitchel, Monkton.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 16: William Auld, Mauchline; for the clerk, see\n “Holy Willie’s” prayer.—R.B.]\n\n [Footnote 17: Vide the “Prayer” of this saint.—R.B.]\n\n Your hearts are the stuff will be powder enough,\n And your skulls are a storehouse o’ lead,\n Calvin’s sons! Your skulls are a storehouse o’ lead.\n\n Poet Burns! poet Burns, wi’ your priest-skelpin turns,\n Why desert ye your auld native shire?\n Your muse is a gipsy, yet were she e’en tipsy,\n She could ca’us nae waur than we are,\n Poet Burns! She could ca’us nae waur than we are.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Presentation Stanzas To Correspondents", + "body": " Factor John! Factor John, whom the Lord made alone,\n And ne’er made anither, thy peer,\n Thy poor servant, the Bard, in respectful regard,\n He presents thee this token sincere,\n Factor John! He presents thee this token sincere.\n\n Afton’s Laird! Afton’s Laird, when your pen can be spared,\n A copy of this I bequeath,\n On the same sicker score as I mention’d before,\n To that trusty auld worthy, Clackleith,\n Afton’s Laird! To that trusty auld worthy, Clackleith.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet On Receiving A Favour", + "body": " 10 Aug., 1979.\n\n Addressed to Robert Graham, Esq. of Fintry.\n\n I call no Goddess to inspire my strains,\n A fabled Muse may suit a bard that feigns:\n Friend of my life! my ardent spirit burns,\n And all the tribute of my heart returns,\n For boons accorded, goodness ever new,\n The gifts still dearer, as the giver you.\n Thou orb of day! thou other paler light!\n And all ye many sparkling stars of night!\n If aught that giver from my mind efface,\n If I that giver’s bounty e’er disgrace,\n Then roll to me along your wand’rig spheres,\n Only to number out a villain’s years!\n I lay my hand upon my swelling breast,\n And grateful would, but cannot speak the rest.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Extemporaneous Effusion", + "body": " On being appointed to an Excise division.\n\n Searching auld wives’ barrels,\n Ochon the day!\n That clarty barm should stain my laurels:\n But—what’ll ye say?\n These movin’ things ca’d wives an’ weans,\n Wad move the very hearts o’ stanes!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Willie Brew’d A Peck O’ Maut^1", + "body": " O Willie brew’d a peck o’ maut,\n And Rob and Allen cam to see;\n Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night,\n Ye wadna found in Christendie.\n\n Chorus.—We are na fou, we’re nae that fou,\n But just a drappie in our ee;\n The cock may craw, the day may daw\n And aye we’ll taste the barley bree.\n\n Here are we met, three merry boys,\n Three merry boys I trow are we;\n And mony a night we’ve merry been,\n And mony mae we hope to be!\n We are na fou, &c.\n\n It is the moon, I ken her horn,\n That’s blinkin’ in the lift sae hie;\n She shines sae bright to wyle us hame,\n But, by my sooth, she’ll wait a wee!\n We are na fou, &c.\n\n Wha first shall rise to gang awa,\n A cuckold, coward loun is he!\n Wha first beside his chair shall fa’,\n He is the King amang us three.\n We are na fou, &c.\n\n [Footnote 1: Willie is Nicol, Allan is Masterton the writing—\n master. The scene is between Moffat and the head of the Loch of\n the Lowes. Date, August—September, 1789.—Lang.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ca’ The Yowes To The Knowes", + "body": " Chorus.—Ca’ the yowes to the knowes,\n Ca’ them where the heather grows,\n Ca’ them where the burnie rowes,\n My bonie dearie\n\n As I gaed down the water-side,\n There I met my shepherd lad:\n He row’d me sweetly in his plaid,\n And he ca’d me his dearie.\n Ca’ the yowes, &c.\n\n Will ye gang down the water-side,\n And see the waves sae sweetly glide\n Beneath the hazels spreading wide,\n The moon it shines fu’ clearly.\n Ca’ the yowes, &c.\n\n Ye sall get gowns and ribbons meet,\n Cauf-leather shoon upon your feet,\n And in my arms ye’se lie and sleep,\n An’ ye sall be my dearie.\n Ca’ the yowes, &c.\n\n If ye’ll but stand to what ye’ve said,\n I’se gang wi’ thee, my shepherd lad,\n And ye may row me in your plaid,\n And I sall be your dearie.\n Ca’ the yowes, &c.\n\n While waters wimple to the sea,\n While day blinks in the lift sae hie,\n Till clay-cauld death sall blin’ my e’e,\n Ye sall be my dearie.\n Ca’ the yowes, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "I Gaed A Waefu’ Gate Yestreen", + "body": " I gaed a waefu’ gate yestreen,\n A gate, I fear, I’ll dearly rue;\n I gat my death frae twa sweet een,\n Twa lovely een o’bonie blue.\n\n ’Twas not her golden ringlets bright,\n Her lips like roses wat wi’ dew,\n Her heaving bosom, lily-white—\n It was her een sae bonie blue.\n\n She talk’d, she smil’d, my heart she wyl’d;\n She charm’d my soul I wist na how;\n And aye the stound, the deadly wound,\n Cam frae her een so bonie blue.\n But “spare to speak, and spare to speed;”\n She’ll aiblins listen to my vow:\n Should she refuse, I’ll lay my dead\n To her twa een sae bonie blue.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Highland Harry Back Again", + "body": " My Harry was a gallant gay,\n Fu’ stately strade he on the plain;\n But now he’s banish’d far away,\n I’ll never see him back again.\n\n Chorus.—O for him back again!\n O for him back again!\n I wad gie a’ Knockhaspie’s land\n For Highland Harry back again.\n\n When a’ the lave gae to their bed,\n I wander dowie up the glen;\n I set me down and greet my fill,\n And aye I wish him back again.\n O for him, &c.\n\n O were some villains hangit high,\n And ilka body had their ain!\n Then I might see the joyfu’ sight,\n My Highland Harry back again.\n O for him, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Battle Of Sherramuir", + "body": " Tune—“The Cameronian Rant.”\n\n\n “O cam ye here the fight to shun,\n Or herd the sheep wi’ me, man?\n Or were ye at the Sherra-moor,\n Or did the battle see, man?”\n I saw the battle, sair and teugh,\n And reekin-red ran mony a sheugh;\n My heart, for fear, gaed sough for sough,\n To hear the thuds, and see the cluds\n O’ clans frae woods, in tartan duds,\n Wha glaum’d at kingdoms three, man.\n La, la, la, la, &c.\n\n The red-coat lads, wi’ black cockauds,\n To meet them were na slaw, man;\n They rush’d and push’d, and blude outgush’d\n And mony a bouk did fa’, man:\n The great Argyle led on his files,\n I wat they glanced twenty miles;\n They hough’d the clans like nine-pin kyles,\n They hack’d and hash’d, while braid-swords, clash’d,\n And thro’ they dash’d, and hew’d and smash’d,\n Till fey men died awa, man.\n La, la, la, la, &c.\n\n But had ye seen the philibegs,\n And skyrin tartan trews, man;\n When in the teeth they dar’d our Whigs,\n And covenant True-blues, man:\n In lines extended lang and large,\n When baiginets o’erpower’d the targe,\n And thousands hasten’d to the charge;\n Wi’ Highland wrath they frae the sheath\n Drew blades o’ death, till, out o’ breath,\n They fled like frighted dows, man!\n La, la, la, la, &c.\n\n “O how deil, Tam, can that be true?\n The chase gaed frae the north, man;\n I saw mysel, they did pursue,\n The horsemen back to Forth, man;\n And at Dunblane, in my ain sight,\n They took the brig wi’ a’ their might,\n And straught to Stirling wing’d their flight;\n But, cursed lot! the gates were shut;\n And mony a huntit poor red-coat,\n For fear amaist did swarf, man!”\n La, la, la, la, &c.\n\n My sister Kate cam up the gate\n Wi’ crowdie unto me, man;\n She swoor she saw some rebels run\n To Perth unto Dundee, man;\n Their left-hand general had nae skill;\n The Angus lads had nae gude will\n That day their neibors’ blude to spill;\n For fear, for foes, that they should lose\n Their cogs o’ brose; they scar’d at blows,\n And hameward fast did flee, man.\n La, la, la, la, &c.\n\n They’ve lost some gallant gentlemen,\n Amang the Highland clans, man!\n I fear my Lord Panmure is slain,\n Or fallen in Whiggish hands, man,\n Now wad ye sing this double fight,\n Some fell for wrang, and some for right;\n But mony bade the world gude-night;\n Then ye may tell, how pell and mell,\n By red claymores, and muskets knell,\n Wi’ dying yell, the Tories fell,\n And Whigs to hell did flee, man.\n La, la, la, la, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Braes O’ Killiecrankie", + "body": " Where hae ye been sae braw, lad?\n Whare hae ye been sae brankie, O?\n Whare hae ye been sae braw, lad?\n Cam ye by Killiecrankie, O?\n\n Chorus.—An ye had been whare I hae been,\n Ye wad na been sae cantie, O;\n An ye had seen what I hae seen,\n I’ the Braes o’ Killiecrankie, O.\n\n I faught at land, I faught at sea,\n At hame I faught my Auntie, O;\n But I met the devil an’ Dundee,\n On the Braes o’ Killiecrankie, O.\n An ye had been, &c.\n\n The bauld Pitcur fell in a furr,\n An’ Clavers gat a clankie, O;\n Or I had fed an Athole gled,\n On the Braes o’ Killiecrankie, O.\n An ye had been, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Awa’ Whigs, Awa’", + "body": " Chorus.—Awa’ Whigs, awa’!\n Awa’ Whigs, awa’!\n Ye’re but a pack o’ traitor louns,\n Ye’ll do nae gude at a’.\n\n Our thrissles flourish’d fresh and fair,\n And bonie bloom’d our roses;\n But Whigs cam’ like a frost in June,\n An’ wither’d a’ our posies.\n Awa’ Whigs, &c.\n\n Our ancient crown’s fa’en in the dust—\n Deil blin’ them wi’ the stoure o’t!\n An’ write their names in his black beuk,\n Wha gae the Whigs the power o’t.\n Awa’ Whigs, &c.\n\n Our sad decay in church and state\n Surpasses my descriving:\n The Whigs cam’ o’er us for a curse,\n An’ we hae done wi’ thriving.\n Awa’ Whigs, &c.\n\n Grim vengeance lang has taen a nap,\n But we may see him wauken:\n Gude help the day when royal heads\n Are hunted like a maukin!\n Awa’ Whigs, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Waukrife Minnie", + "body": " Whare are you gaun, my bonie lass,\n Whare are you gaun, my hinnie?\n She answered me right saucilie,\n “An errand for my minnie.”\n\n O whare live ye, my bonie lass,\n O whare live ye, my hinnie?\n “By yon burnside, gin ye maun ken,\n In a wee house wi’ my minnie.”\n\n But I foor up the glen at e’en.\n To see my bonie lassie;\n And lang before the grey morn cam,\n She was na hauf sae saucie.\n\n O weary fa’ the waukrife cock,\n And the foumart lay his crawin!\n He wauken’d the auld wife frae her sleep,\n A wee blink or the dawin.\n\n An angry wife I wat she raise,\n And o’er the bed she brocht her;\n And wi’ a meikle hazel rung\n She made her a weel-pay’d dochter.\n\n O fare thee weel, my bonie lass,\n O fare thee well, my hinnie!\n Thou art a gay an’ a bonnie lass,\n But thou has a waukrife minnie.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Captive Ribband", + "body": " Tune—“Robaidh dona gorach.”\n\n\n Dear Myra, the captive ribband’s mine,\n ’Twas all my faithful love could gain;\n And would you ask me to resign\n The sole reward that crowns my pain?\n\n Go, bid the hero who has run\n Thro’ fields of death to gather fame,\n Go, bid him lay his laurels down,\n And all his well-earn’d praise disclaim.\n\n The ribband shall its freedom lose—\n Lose all the bliss it had with you,\n And share the fate I would impose\n On thee, wert thou my captive too.\n\n It shall upon my bosom live,\n Or clasp me in a close embrace;\n And at its fortune if you grieve,\n Retrieve its doom, and take its place.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Heart’s In The Highlands", + "body": " Tune—“Failte na Miosg.”\n\n\n Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,\n The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;\n Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,\n The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.\n\n Chorus.—My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,\n My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;\n Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,\n My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.\n\n Farewell to the mountains, high-cover’d with snow,\n Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;\n Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,\n Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.\n My heart’s in the Highlands, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Whistle—A Ballad", + "body": " I sing of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth,\n I sing of a Whistle, the pride of the North.\n Was brought to the court of our good Scottish King,\n And long with this Whistle all Scotland shall ring.\n\n Old Loda, still rueing the arm of Fingal,\n The god of the bottle sends down from his hall—\n “The Whistle’s your challenge, to Scotland get o’er,\n And drink them to hell, Sir! or ne’er see me more!”\n\n Old poets have sung, and old chronicles tell,\n What champions ventur’d, what champions fell:\n The son of great Loda was conqueror still,\n And blew on the Whistle their requiem shrill.\n\n Till Robert, the lord of the Cairn and the Scaur,\n Unmatch’d at the bottle, unconquer’d in war,\n He drank his poor god-ship as deep as the sea;\n No tide of the Baltic e’er drunker than he.\n\n Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has gain’d;\n Which now in his house has for ages remain’d;\n Till three noble chieftains, and all of his blood,\n The jovial contest again have renew’d.\n\n Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear of flaw\n Craigdarroch, so famous for with, worth, and law;\n And trusty Glenriddel, so skill’d in old coins;\n And gallant Sir Robert, deep-read in old wines.\n\n Craigdarroch began, with a tongue smooth as oil,\n Desiring Downrightly to yield up the spoil;\n Or else he would muster the heads of the clan,\n And once more, in claret, try which was the man.\n\n “By the gods of the ancients!” Downrightly replies,\n “Before I surrender so glorious a prize,\n I’ll conjure the ghost of the great Rorie More,\n And bumper his horn with him twenty times o’er.”\n\n Sir Robert, a soldier, no speech would pretend,\n But he ne’er turn’d his back on his foe, or his friend;\n Said, “Toss down the Whistle, the prize of the field,”\n And, knee-deep in claret, he’d die ere he’d yield.\n\n To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair,\n So noted for drowning of sorrow and care;\n But, for wine and for welcome, not more known to fame,\n Than the sense, wit, and taste, of a sweet lovely dame.\n\n A bard was selected to witness the fray,\n And tell future ages the feats of the day;\n A Bard who detested all sadness and spleen,\n And wish’d that Parnassus a vineyard had been.\n\n The dinner being over, the claret they ply,\n And ev’ry new cork is a new spring of joy;\n In the bands of old friendship and kindred so set,\n And the bands grew the tighter the more they were wet.\n\n Gay Pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o’er:\n Bright Phoebus ne’er witness’d so joyous a core,\n And vow’d that to leave them he was quite forlorn,\n Till Cynthia hinted he’d see them next morn.\n\n Six bottles a-piece had well wore out the night,\n When gallant Sir Robert, to finish the fight,\n Turn’d o’er in one bumper a bottle of red,\n And swore ’twas the way that their ancestor did.\n\n Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautious and sage,\n No longer the warfare ungodly would wage;\n A high Ruling Elder to wallow in wine;\n He left the foul business to folks less divine.\n\n The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the end;\n But who can with Fate and quart bumpers contend!\n Though Fate said, a hero should perish in light;\n So uprose bright Phoebus—and down fell the knight.\n\n Next uprose our Bard, like a prophet in drink:—\n “Craigdarroch, thou’lt soar when creation shall sink!\n But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme,\n Come—one bottle more—and have at the sublime!\n\n “Thy line, that have struggled for freedom with Bruce,\n Shall heroes and patriots ever produce:\n So thine be the laurel, and mine be the bay;\n The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of day!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To Mary In Heaven", + "body": " Thou ling’ring star, with lessening ray,\n That lov’st to greet the early morn,\n Again thou usher’st in the day\n My Mary from my soul was torn.\n O Mary! dear departed shade!\n Where is thy place of blissful rest?\n See’st thou thy lover lowly laid?\n Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast?\n\n That sacred hour can I forget,\n Can I forget the hallow’d grove,\n Where, by the winding Ayr, we met,\n To live one day of parting love!\n Eternity will not efface\n Those records dear of transports past,\n Thy image at our last embrace,\n Ah! little thought we ’twas our last!\n\n Ayr, gurgling, kiss’d his pebbled shore,\n O’erhung with wild-woods, thickening green;\n The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar,\n ’Twin’d amorous round the raptur’d scene:\n The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,\n The birds sang love on every spray;\n Till too, too soon, the glowing west,\n Proclaim’d the speed of winged day.\n\n Still o’er these scenes my mem’ry wakes,\n And fondly broods with miser-care;\n Time but th’ impression stronger makes,\n As streams their channels deeper wear,\n My Mary! dear departed shade!\n Where is thy blissful place of rest?\n See’st thou thy lover lowly laid?\n Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast?", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To Dr. Blacklock", + "body": " Ellisland, 21st Oct., 1789.\n\n Wow, but your letter made me vauntie!\n And are ye hale, and weel and cantie?\n I ken’d it still, your wee bit jauntie\n Wad bring ye to:\n Lord send you aye as weel’s I want ye!\n And then ye’ll do.\n\n The ill-thief blaw the Heron south!\n And never drink be near his drouth!\n He tauld myself by word o’ mouth,\n He’d tak my letter;\n I lippen’d to the chiel in trouth,\n And bade nae better.\n\n But aiblins, honest Master Heron\n Had, at the time, some dainty fair one\n To ware this theologic care on,\n And holy study;\n And tired o’ sauls to waste his lear on,\n E’en tried the body.\n\n But what d’ye think, my trusty fere,\n I’m turned a gauger—Peace be here!\n Parnassian queans, I fear, I fear,\n Ye’ll now disdain me!\n And then my fifty pounds a year\n Will little gain me.\n\n Ye glaikit, gleesome, dainty damies,\n Wha, by Castalia’s wimplin streamies,\n Lowp, sing, and lave your pretty limbies,\n Ye ken, ye ken,\n That strang necessity supreme is\n ’Mang sons o’ men.\n\n I hae a wife and twa wee laddies;\n They maun hae brose and brats o’ duddies;\n Ye ken yoursels my heart right proud is—\n I need na vaunt\n But I’ll sned besoms, thraw saugh woodies,\n Before they want.\n\n Lord help me thro’ this warld o’ care!\n I’m weary sick o’t late and air!\n Not but I hae a richer share\n Than mony ithers;\n But why should ae man better fare,\n And a’ men brithers?\n\n Come, Firm Resolve, take thou the van,\n Thou stalk o’ carl-hemp in man!\n And let us mind, faint heart ne’er wan\n A lady fair:\n Wha does the utmost that he can,\n Will whiles do mair.\n\n But to conclude my silly rhyme\n (I’m scant o’ verse and scant o’ time),\n To make a happy fireside clime\n To weans and wife,\n That’s the true pathos and sublime\n Of human life.\n\n My compliments to sister Beckie,\n And eke the same to honest Lucky;\n I wat she is a daintie chuckie,\n As e’er tread clay;\n And gratefully, my gude auld cockie,\n I’m yours for aye.\n Robert Burns.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Five Carlins", + "body": " An Election Ballad.\n\n Tune—“Chevy Chase.”\n\n\n There was five Carlins in the South,\n They fell upon a scheme,\n To send a lad to London town,\n To bring them tidings hame.\n\n Nor only bring them tidings hame,\n But do their errands there,\n And aiblins gowd and honor baith\n Might be that laddie’s share.\n\n There was Maggy by the banks o’ Nith,\n A dame wi’ pride eneugh;\n And Marjory o’ the mony Lochs,\n A Carlin auld and teugh.\n\n And blinkin Bess of Annandale,\n That dwelt near Solway-side;\n And whisky Jean, that took her gill,\n In Galloway sae wide.\n\n And auld black Joan frae Crichton Peel,^1\n O’ gipsy kith an’ kin;\n Five wighter Carlins were na found\n The South countrie within.\n\n To send a lad to London town,\n They met upon a day;\n And mony a knight, and mony a laird,\n This errand fain wad gae.\n\n O mony a knight, and mony a laird,\n This errand fain wad gae;\n But nae ane could their fancy please,\n O ne’er a ane but twae.\n\n The first ane was a belted Knight,\n Bred of a Border band;^2\n And he wad gae to London town,\n Might nae man him withstand.\n\n And he wad do their errands weel,\n And meikle he wad say;\n And ilka ane about the court\n Wad bid to him gude-day.\n\n [Footnote 1: Sanquhar.]\n\n [Footnote 2: Sir James Johnston of Westerhall.]\n\n The neist cam in a Soger youth,^3\n Who spak wi’ modest grace,\n And he wad gae to London town,\n If sae their pleasure was.\n\n He wad na hecht them courtly gifts,\n Nor meikle speech pretend;\n But he wad hecht an honest heart,\n Wad ne’er desert his friend.\n\n Now, wham to chuse, and wham refuse,\n At strife thir Carlins fell;\n For some had Gentlefolks to please,\n And some wad please themsel’.\n\n Then out spak mim-mou’d Meg o’ Nith,\n And she spak up wi’ pride,\n And she wad send the Soger youth,\n Whatever might betide.\n\n For the auld Gudeman o’ London court^4\n She didna care a pin;\n But she wad send the Soger youth,\n To greet his eldest son.^5\n\n Then up sprang Bess o’ Annandale,\n And a deadly aith she’s ta’en,\n That she wad vote the Border Knight,\n Though she should vote her lane.\n\n “For far-off fowls hae feathers fair,\n And fools o’ change are fain;\n But I hae tried the Border Knight,\n And I’ll try him yet again.”\n\n Says black Joan frae Crichton Peel,\n A Carlin stoor and grim.\n “The auld Gudeman or young Gudeman,\n For me may sink or swim;\n\n [Footnote 3: Captain Patrick Millar of Dalswinton.]\n\n [Footnote 4: The King.]\n\n [Footnote 5: The Prince of Wales.]\n\n For fools will prate o’ right or wrang,\n While knaves laugh them to scorn;\n But the Soger’s friends hae blawn the best,\n So he shall bear the horn.”\n\n Then whisky Jean spak owre her drink,\n “Ye weel ken, kimmers a’,\n The auld gudeman o’ London court,\n His back’s been at the wa’;\n\n “And mony a friend that kiss’d his caup\n Is now a fremit wight;\n But it’s ne’er be said o’ whisky Jean—\n We’ll send the Border Knight.”\n\n Then slow raise Marjory o’ the Lochs,\n And wrinkled was her brow,\n Her ancient weed was russet gray,\n Her auld Scots bluid was true;\n\n “There’s some great folk set light by me,\n I set as light by them;\n But I will send to London town\n Wham I like best at hame.”\n\n Sae how this mighty plea may end,\n Nae mortal wight can tell;\n God grant the King and ilka man\n May look weel to himsel.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Election Ballad For Westerha’", + "body": " Tune—“Up and waur them a’, Willie.”\n\n\n The Laddies by the banks o’ Nith\n Wad trust his Grace^1 wi a’, Jamie;\n But he’ll sair them, as he sair’d the King—\n Turn tail and rin awa’, Jamie.\n\n [Footnote 1: The fourth Duke of Queensberry, who supported the\n proposal that, during George III’s illness, the Prince of Wales\n should assume the Government with full prerogative.]\n\n Chorus.—Up and waur them a’, Jamie,\n Up and waur them a’;\n The Johnstones hae the guidin o’t,\n Ye turncoat Whigs, awa’!\n\n The day he stude his country’s friend,\n Or gied her faes a claw, Jamie,\n Or frae puir man a blessin wan,\n That day the Duke ne’er saw, Jamie.\n Up and waur them, &c.\n\n But wha is he, his country’s boast?\n Like him there is na twa, Jamie;\n There’s no a callent tents the kye,\n But kens o’ Westerha’, Jamie.\n Up and waur them, &c.\n\n To end the wark, here’s Whistlebirk,\n Lang may his whistle blaw, Jamie;\n And Maxwell true, o’ sterling blue;\n And we’ll be Johnstones a’, Jamie.\n Up and waur them, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Prologue Spoken At The Theatre Of Dumfries", + "body": " On New Year’s Day Evening, 1790.\n\n No song nor dance I bring from yon great city,\n That queens it o’er our taste—the more’s the pity:\n Tho’ by the bye, abroad why will you roam?\n Good sense and taste are natives here at home:\n But not for panegyric I appear,\n I come to wish you all a good New Year!\n Old Father Time deputes me here before ye,\n Not for to preach, but tell his simple story:\n The sage, grave Ancient cough’d, and bade me say,\n “You’re one year older this important day,”\n If wiser too—he hinted some suggestion,\n But ’twould be rude, you know, to ask the question;\n And with a would-be roguish leer and wink,\n Said—“Sutherland, in one word, bid them Think!”\n\n Ye sprightly youths, quite flush with hope and spirit,\n Who think to storm the world by dint of merit,\n To you the dotard has a deal to say,\n In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way!\n He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle,\n That the first blow is ever half the battle;\n That tho’ some by the skirt may try to snatch him,\n Yet by the foreclock is the hold to catch him;\n That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing,\n You may do miracles by persevering.\n\n Last, tho’ not least in love, ye youthful fair,\n Angelic forms, high Heaven’s peculiar care!\n To you old Bald-pate smoothes his wrinkled brow,\n And humbly begs you’ll mind the important—Now!\n To crown your happiness he asks your leave,\n And offers, bliss to give and to receive.\n\n For our sincere, tho’ haply weak endeavours,\n With grateful pride we own your many favours;\n And howsoe’er our tongues may ill reveal it,\n Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Sketch—New Year’s Day [1790]", + "body": " To Mrs. Dunlop.\n\n\n This day, Time winds th’ exhausted chain;\n To run the twelvemonth’s length again:\n I see, the old bald-pated fellow,\n With ardent eyes, complexion sallow,\n Adjust the unimpair’d machine,\n To wheel the equal, dull routine.\n\n The absent lover, minor heir,\n In vain assail him with their prayer;\n Deaf as my friend, he sees them press,\n Nor makes the hour one moment less,\n Will you (the Major’s with the hounds,\n The happy tenants share his rounds;\n Coila’s fair Rachel’s care to-day,\n And blooming Keith’s engaged with Gray)\n From housewife cares a minute borrow,\n (That grandchild’s cap will do to-morrow,)\n And join with me a-moralizing;\n This day’s propitious to be wise in.\n\n First, what did yesternight deliver?\n “Another year has gone for ever.”\n And what is this day’s strong suggestion?\n “The passing moment’s all we rest on!”\n Rest on—for what? what do we here?\n Or why regard the passing year?\n Will Time, amus’d with proverb’d lore,\n Add to our date one minute more?\n A few days may—a few years must—\n Repose us in the silent dust.\n Then, is it wise to damp our bliss?\n Yes—all such reasonings are amiss!\n The voice of Nature loudly cries,\n And many a message from the skies,\n That something in us never dies:\n That on his frail, uncertain state,\n Hang matters of eternal weight:\n That future life in worlds unknown\n Must take its hue from this alone;\n Whether as heavenly glory bright,\n Or dark as Misery’s woeful night.\n\n Since then, my honour’d first of friends,\n On this poor being all depends,\n Let us th’ important now employ,\n And live as those who never die.\n Tho’ you, with days and honours crown’d,\n Witness that filial circle round,\n (A sight life’s sorrows to repulse,\n A sight pale Envy to convulse),\n Others now claim your chief regard;\n Yourself, you wait your bright reward.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Scots’ Prologue For Mr. Sutherland", + "body": " On his Benefit-Night, at the Theatre, Dumfries.\n\n\n What needs this din about the town o’ Lon’on,\n How this new play an’ that new sang is comin?\n Why is outlandish stuff sae meikle courted?\n Does nonsense mend, like brandy, when imported?\n Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame,\n Will try to gie us sangs and plays at hame?\n For Comedy abroad he need to toil,\n A fool and knave are plants of every soil;\n Nor need he hunt as far as Rome or Greece,\n To gather matter for a serious piece;\n There’s themes enow in Caledonian story,\n Would shew the Tragic Muse in a’ her glory.—\n\n Is there no daring Bard will rise and tell\n How glorious Wallace stood, how hapless fell?\n Where are the Muses fled that could produce\n A drama worthy o’ the name o’ Bruce?\n How here, even here, he first unsheath’d the sword\n ’Gainst mighty England and her guilty Lord;\n And after mony a bloody, deathless doing,\n Wrench’d his dear country from the jaws of Ruin!\n O for a Shakespeare, or an Otway scene,\n To draw the lovely, hapless Scottish Queen!\n Vain all th’ omnipotence of female charms\n ’Gainst headlong, ruthless, mad Rebellion’s arms:\n She fell, but fell with spirit truly Roman,\n To glut that direst foe—a vengeful woman;\n A woman, (tho’ the phrase may seem uncivil,)\n As able and as wicked as the Devil!\n One Douglas lives in Home’s immortal page,\n But Douglasses were heroes every age:\n And tho’ your fathers, prodigal of life,\n A Douglas followed to the martial strife,\n Perhaps, if bowls row right, and Right succeeds,\n Ye yet may follow where a Douglas leads!\n\n As ye hae generous done, if a’ the land\n Would take the Muses’ servants by the hand;\n Not only hear, but patronize, befriend them,\n And where he justly can commend, commend them;\n And aiblins when they winna stand the test,\n Wink hard, and say The folks hae done their best!\n Would a’ the land do this, then I’ll be caition,\n Ye’ll soon hae Poets o’ the Scottish nation\n Will gar Fame blaw until her trumpet crack,\n And warsle Time, an’ lay him on his back!\n\n For us and for our Stage, should ony spier,\n “Whase aught thae chiels maks a’ this bustle here?”\n My best leg foremost, I’ll set up my brow—\n We have the honour to belong to you!\n We’re your ain bairns, e’en guide us as ye like,\n But like good mithers shore before ye strike;\n And gratefu’ still, I trust ye’ll ever find us,\n For gen’rous patronage, and meikle kindness\n We’ve got frae a’ professions, sets and ranks:\n God help us! we’re but poor—ye’se get but thanks.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines To A Gentleman,", + "body": " Who had sent the Poet a Newspaper, and offered\n to continue it free of Expense.\n\n Kind Sir, I’ve read your paper through,\n And faith, to me, ’twas really new!\n How guessed ye, Sir, what maist I wanted?\n This mony a day I’ve grain’d and gaunted,\n To ken what French mischief was brewin;\n Or what the drumlie Dutch were doin;\n That vile doup-skelper, Emperor Joseph,\n If Venus yet had got his nose off;\n Or how the collieshangie works\n Atween the Russians and the Turks,\n Or if the Swede, before he halt,\n Would play anither Charles the twalt;\n If Denmark, any body spak o’t;\n Or Poland, wha had now the tack o’t:\n How cut-throat Prussian blades were hingin;\n How libbet Italy was singin;\n\n If Spaniard, Portuguese, or Swiss,\n Were sayin’ or takin’ aught amiss;\n Or how our merry lads at hame,\n In Britain’s court kept up the game;\n How royal George, the Lord leuk o’er him!\n Was managing St. Stephen’s quorum;\n If sleekit Chatham Will was livin,\n Or glaikit Charlie got his nieve in;\n How daddie Burke the plea was cookin,\n If Warren Hasting’s neck was yeukin;\n How cesses, stents, and fees were rax’d.\n Or if bare arses yet were tax’d;\n The news o’ princes, dukes, and earls,\n Pimps, sharpers, bawds, and opera-girls;\n If that daft buckie, Geordie Wales,\n Was threshing still at hizzies’ tails;\n Or if he was grown oughtlins douser,\n And no a perfect kintra cooser:\n A’ this and mair I never heard of;\n And, but for you, I might despair’d of.\n So, gratefu’, back your news I send you,\n And pray a’ gude things may attend you.\n\n Ellisland, Monday Morning, 1790.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Elegy On Willie Nicol’s Mare", + "body": " Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,\n As ever trod on airn;\n But now she’s floating down the Nith,\n And past the mouth o’ Cairn.\n\n Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,\n An’ rode thro’ thick and thin;\n But now she’s floating down the Nith,\n And wanting even the skin.\n\n Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,\n And ance she bore a priest;\n But now she’s floating down the Nith,\n For Solway fish a feast.\n\n Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,\n An’ the priest he rode her sair;\n And much oppress’d and bruis’d she was,\n As priest-rid cattle are,—&c. &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Gowden Locks Of Anna", + "body": " Yestreen I had a pint o’ wine,\n A place where body saw na;\n Yestreen lay on this breast o’ mine\n The gowden locks of Anna.\n\n The hungry Jew in wilderness,\n Rejoicing o’er his manna,\n Was naething to my hinny bliss\n Upon the lips of Anna.\n\n Ye monarchs, take the East and West\n Frae Indus to Savannah;\n Gie me, within my straining grasp,\n The melting form of Anna:\n\n There I’ll despise Imperial charms,\n An Empress or Sultana,\n While dying raptures in her arms\n I give and take wi’ Anna!\n\n Awa, thou flaunting God of Day!\n Awa, thou pale Diana!\n Ilk Star, gae hide thy twinkling ray,\n When I’m to meet my Anna!\n\n Come, in thy raven plumage, Night,\n (Sun, Moon, and Stars, withdrawn a’;)\n And bring an angel-pen to write\n My transports with my Anna!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Postscript", + "body": " The Kirk an’ State may join an’ tell,\n To do sic things I maunna:\n The Kirk an’ State may gae to hell,\n And I’ll gae to my Anna.\n\n She is the sunshine o’ my e’e,\n To live but her I canna;\n Had I on earth but wishes three,\n The first should be my Anna.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—I Murder Hate", + "body": " I murder hate by flood or field,\n Tho’ glory’s name may screen us;\n In wars at home I’ll spend my blood—\n Life-giving wars of Venus.\n The deities that I adore\n Are social Peace and Plenty;\n I’m better pleas’d to make one more,\n Than be the death of twenty.\n\n I would not die like Socrates,\n For all the fuss of Plato;\n Nor would I with Leonidas,\n Nor yet would I with Cato:\n The zealots of the Church and State\n Shall ne’er my mortal foes be;\n But let me have bold Zimri’s fate,\n Within the arms of Cozbi!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Gudewife, Count The Lawin", + "body": " Gane is the day, and mirk’s the night,\n But we’ll ne’er stray for faut o’ light;\n Gude ale and bratdy’s stars and moon,\n And blue-red wine’s the risin’ sun.\n\n Chorus.—Then gudewife, count the lawin,\n The lawin, the lawin,\n Then gudewife, count the lawin,\n And bring a coggie mair.\n\n There’s wealth and ease for gentlemen,\n And simple folk maun fecht and fen’;\n But here we’re a’ in ae accord,\n For ilka man that’s drunk’s a lord.\n Then gudewife, &c.\n\n My coggie is a haly pool\n That heals the wounds o’ care and dool;\n And Pleasure is a wanton trout,\n An ye drink it a’, ye’ll find him out.\n Then gudewife, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "At the close of the contest for representing the Dumfries Burghs, 1790.", + "body": " Addressed to R. Graham, Esq. of Fintry.\n\n Fintry, my stay in wordly strife,\n Friend o’ my muse, friend o’ my life,\n Are ye as idle’s I am?\n Come then, wi’ uncouth kintra fleg,\n O’er Pegasus I’ll fling my leg,\n And ye shall see me try him.\n\n But where shall I go rin a ride,\n That I may splatter nane beside?\n I wad na be uncivil:\n In manhood’s various paths and ways\n There’s aye some doytin’ body strays,\n And I ride like the devil.\n\n Thus I break aff wi’ a’ my birr,\n And down yon dark, deep alley spur,\n Where Theologics daunder:\n Alas! curst wi’ eternal fogs,\n And damn’d in everlasting bogs,\n As sure’s the creed I’ll blunder!\n\n I’ll stain a band, or jaup a gown,\n Or rin my reckless, guilty crown\n Against the haly door:\n Sair do I rue my luckless fate,\n When, as the Muse an’ Deil wad hae’t,\n I rade that road before.\n\n Suppose I take a spurt, and mix\n Amang the wilds o’ Politics—\n Electors and elected,\n Where dogs at Court (sad sons of bitches!)\n Septennially a madness touches,\n Till all the land’s infected.\n\n All hail! Drumlanrig’s haughty Grace,\n Discarded remnant of a race\n Once godlike—great in story;\n Thy forbears’ virtues all contrasted,\n The very name of Douglas blasted,\n Thine that inverted glory!\n\n Hate, envy, oft the Douglas bore,\n But thou hast superadded more,\n And sunk them in contempt;\n Follies and crimes have stain’d the name,\n But, Queensberry, thine the virgin claim,\n From aught that’s good exempt!\n\n I’ll sing the zeal Drumlanrig bears,\n Who left the all-important cares\n Of princes, and their darlings:\n And, bent on winning borough touns,\n Came shaking hands wi’ wabster-loons,\n And kissing barefit carlins.\n\n Combustion thro’ our boroughs rode,\n Whistling his roaring pack abroad\n Of mad unmuzzled lions;\n As Queensberry blue and buff unfurl’d,\n And Westerha’ and Hopetoun hurled\n To every Whig defiance.\n\n But cautious Queensberry left the war,\n Th’ unmanner’d dust might soil his star,\n Besides, he hated bleeding:\n But left behind him heroes bright,\n Heroes in Caesarean fight,\n Or Ciceronian pleading.\n\n O for a throat like huge Mons-Meg,\n To muster o’er each ardent Whig\n Beneath Drumlanrig’s banners;\n Heroes and heroines commix,\n All in the field of politics,\n To win immortal honours.\n\n M’Murdo and his lovely spouse,\n (Th’ enamour’d laurels kiss her brows!)\n Led on the Loves and Graces:\n She won each gaping burgess’ heart,\n While he, sub rosa, played his part\n Amang their wives and lasses.\n\n Craigdarroch led a light-arm’d core,\n Tropes, metaphors, and figures pour,\n Like Hecla streaming thunder:\n Glenriddel, skill’d in rusty coins,\n Blew up each Tory’s dark designs,\n And bared the treason under.\n\n In either wing two champions fought;\n Redoubted Staig, who set at nought\n The wildest savage Tory;\n And Welsh who ne’er yet flinch’d his ground,\n High-wav’d his magnum-bonum round\n With Cyclopeian fury.\n\n Miller brought up th’ artillery ranks,\n The many-pounders of the Banks,\n Resistless desolation!\n While Maxwelton, that baron bold,\n ’Mid Lawson’s port entrench’d his hold,\n And threaten’d worse damnation.\n\n To these what Tory hosts oppos’d\n With these what Tory warriors clos’d\n Surpasses my descriving;\n Squadrons, extended long and large,\n With furious speed rush to the charge,\n Like furious devils driving.\n\n What verse can sing, what prose narrate,\n The butcher deeds of bloody Fate,\n Amid this mighty tulyie!\n Grim Horror girn’d, pale Terror roar’d,\n As Murder at his thrapple shor’d,\n And Hell mix’d in the brulyie.\n\n As Highland craigs by thunder cleft,\n When lightnings fire the stormy lift,\n Hurl down with crashing rattle;\n As flames among a hundred woods,\n As headlong foam from a hundred floods,\n Such is the rage of Battle.\n\n The stubborn Tories dare to die;\n As soon the rooted oaks would fly\n Before th’ approaching fellers:\n The Whigs come on like Ocean’s roar,\n When all his wintry billows pour\n Against the Buchan Bullers.\n\n Lo, from the shades of Death’s deep night,\n Departed Whigs enjoy the fight,\n And think on former daring:\n The muffled murtherer of Charles\n The Magna Charter flag unfurls,\n All deadly gules its bearing.\n\n Nor wanting ghosts of Tory fame;\n Bold Scrimgeour follows gallant Graham;\n Auld Covenanters shiver—\n Forgive! forgive! much-wrong’d Montrose!\n Now Death and Hell engulph thy foes,\n Thou liv’st on high for ever.\n\n Still o’er the field the combat burns,\n The Tories, Whigs, give way by turns;\n But Fate the word has spoken:\n For woman’s wit and strength o’man,\n Alas! can do but what they can;\n The Tory ranks are broken.\n\n O that my een were flowing burns!\n My voice, a lioness that mourns\n Her darling cubs’ undoing!\n That I might greet, that I might cry,\n While Tories fall, while Tories fly,\n And furious Whigs pursuing!\n\n What Whig but melts for good Sir James,\n Dear to his country, by the names,\n Friend, Patron, Benefactor!\n Not Pulteney’s wealth can Pulteney save;\n And Hopetoun falls, the generous, brave;\n And Stewart, bold as Hector.\n\n Thou, Pitt, shalt rue this overthrow,\n And Thurlow growl a curse of woe,\n And Melville melt in wailing:\n Now Fox and Sheridan rejoice,\n And Burke shall sing, “O Prince, arise!\n Thy power is all-prevailing!”\n\n For your poor friend, the Bard, afar\n He only hears and sees the war,\n A cool spectator purely!\n So, when the storm the forest rends,\n The robin in the hedge descends,\n And sober chirps securely.\n\n Now, for my friends’ and brethren’s sakes,\n And for my dear-lov’d Land o’ Cakes,\n I pray with holy fire:\n Lord, send a rough-shod troop o’ Hell\n O’er a’ wad Scotland buy or sell,\n To grind them in the mire!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Gentleman who held the Patent for his Honours immediately from", + "body": "Almighty God.\n\n Should the poor be flattered?—Shakespeare.\n\n\n O Death! thou tyrant fell and bloody!\n The meikle devil wi’ a woodie\n Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,\n O’er hurcheon hides,\n And like stock-fish come o’er his studdie\n Wi’ thy auld sides!\n\n He’s gane, he’s gane! he’s frae us torn,\n The ae best fellow e’er was born!\n Thee, Matthew, Nature’s sel’ shall mourn,\n By wood and wild,\n Where haply, Pity strays forlorn,\n Frae man exil’d.\n\n Ye hills, near neighbours o’ the starns,\n That proudly cock your cresting cairns!\n Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing earns,\n Where Echo slumbers!\n Come join, ye Nature’s sturdiest bairns,\n My wailing numbers!\n\n Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens!\n Ye haz’ly shaws and briery dens!\n Ye burnies, wimplin’ down your glens,\n Wi’ toddlin din,\n Or foaming, strang, wi’ hasty stens,\n Frae lin to lin.\n\n Mourn, little harebells o’er the lea;\n Ye stately foxgloves, fair to see;\n Ye woodbines hanging bonilie,\n In scented bow’rs;\n Ye roses on your thorny tree,\n The first o’ flow’rs.\n\n At dawn, when ev’ry grassy blade\n Droops with a diamond at his head,\n At ev’n, when beans their fragrance shed,\n I’ th’ rustling gale,\n Ye maukins, whiddin thro’ the glade,\n Come join my wail.\n\n Mourn, ye wee songsters o’ the wood;\n Ye grouse that crap the heather bud;\n Ye curlews, calling thro’ a clud;\n Ye whistling plover;\n And mourn, we whirring paitrick brood;\n He’s gane for ever!\n\n Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals;\n Ye fisher herons, watching eels;\n Ye duck and drake, wi’ airy wheels\n Circling the lake;\n Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels,\n Rair for his sake.\n\n Mourn, clam’ring craiks at close o’ day,\n ’Mang fields o’ flow’ring clover gay;\n And when ye wing your annual way\n Frae our claud shore,\n Tell thae far warlds wha lies in clay,\n Wham we deplore.\n\n Ye houlets, frae your ivy bow’r\n In some auld tree, or eldritch tow’r,\n What time the moon, wi’ silent glow’r,\n Sets up her horn,\n Wail thro’ the dreary midnight hour,\n Till waukrife morn!\n\n O rivers, forests, hills, and plains!\n Oft have ye heard my canty strains;\n But now, what else for me remains\n But tales of woe;\n And frae my een the drapping rains\n Maun ever flow.\n\n Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year!\n Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear:\n Thou, Simmer, while each corny spear\n Shoots up its head,\n Thy gay, green, flow’ry tresses shear,\n For him that’s dead!\n\n Thou, Autumn, wi’ thy yellow hair,\n In grief thy sallow mantle tear!\n Thou, Winter, hurling thro’ the air\n The roaring blast,\n Wide o’er the naked world declare\n The worth we’ve lost!\n\n Mourn him, thou Sun, great source of light!\n Mourn, Empress of the silent night!\n And you, ye twinkling starnies bright,\n My Matthew mourn!\n For through your orbs he’s ta’en his flight,\n Ne’er to return.\n\n O Henderson! the man! the brother!\n And art thou gone, and gone for ever!\n And hast thou crost that unknown river,\n Life’s dreary bound!\n Like thee, where shall I find another,\n The world around!\n\n Go to your sculptur’d tombs, ye Great,\n In a’ the tinsel trash o’ state!\n But by thy honest turf I’ll wait,\n Thou man of worth!\n And weep the ae best fellow’s fate\n E’er lay in earth.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Epitaph", + "body": " Stop, passenger! my story’s brief,\n And truth I shall relate, man;\n I tell nae common tale o’ grief,\n For Matthew was a great man.\n\n If thou uncommon merit hast,\n Yet spurn’d at Fortune’s door, man;\n A look of pity hither cast,\n For Matthew was a poor man.\n\n If thou a noble sodger art,\n That passest by this grave, man;\n There moulders here a gallant heart,\n For Matthew was a brave man.\n\n If thou on men, their works and ways,\n Canst throw uncommon light, man;\n Here lies wha weel had won thy praise,\n For Matthew was a bright man.\n\n If thou, at Friendship’s sacred ca’,\n Wad life itself resign, man:\n Thy sympathetic tear maun fa’,\n For Matthew was a kind man.\n\n If thou art staunch, without a stain,\n Like the unchanging blue, man;\n This was a kinsman o’ thy ain,\n For Matthew was a true man.\n\n If thou hast wit, and fun, and fire,\n And ne’er guid wine did fear, man;\n This was thy billie, dam, and sire,\n For Matthew was a queer man.\n\n If ony whiggish, whingin’ sot,\n To blame poor Matthew dare, man;\n May dool and sorrow be his lot,\n For Matthew was a rare man.\n\n But now, his radiant course is run,\n For Matthew’s was a bright one!\n His soul was like the glorious sun,\n A matchless, Heavenly light, man.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Verses On Captain Grose", + "body": " Written on an Envelope, enclosing a Letter to Him.\n\n\n Ken ye aught o’ Captain Grose?—Igo, and ago,\n If he’s amang his friends or foes?—Iram, coram, dago.\n\n Is he to Abra’m’s bosom gane?—Igo, and ago,\n Or haudin Sarah by the wame?—Iram, coram dago.\n\n Is he south or is he north?—Igo, and ago,\n Or drowned in the river Forth?—Iram, coram dago.\n\n Is he slain by Hielan’ bodies?—Igo, and ago,\n And eaten like a wether haggis?—Iram, coram, dago.\n\n Where’er he be, the Lord be near him!—Igo, and ago,\n As for the deil, he daur na steer him.—Iram, coram, dago.\n\n But please transmit th’ enclosed letter,—Igo, and ago,\n Which will oblige your humble debtor.—Iram, coram, dago.\n\n So may ye hae auld stanes in store,—Igo, and ago,\n The very stanes that Adam bore.—Iram, coram, dago,\n\n So may ye get in glad possession,—Igo, and ago,\n The coins o’ Satan’s coronation!—Iram coram dago.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Tam O’ Shanter", + "body": " A Tale.\n\n “Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke.”\n\n Gawin Douglas.\n\n\n When chapman billies leave the street,\n And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;\n As market days are wearing late,\n And folk begin to tak the gate,\n While we sit bousing at the nappy,\n An’ getting fou and unco happy,\n We think na on the lang Scots miles,\n The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,\n That lie between us and our hame,\n Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,\n Gathering her brows like gathering storm,\n Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.\n\n This truth fand honest Tam o’ Shanter,\n As he frae Ayr ae night did canter:\n (Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses,\n For honest men and bonie lasses).\n\n O Tam! had’st thou but been sae wise,\n As taen thy ain wife Kate’s advice!\n She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,\n A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;\n That frae November till October,\n Ae market-day thou was na sober;\n That ilka melder wi’ the Miller,\n Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;\n That ev’ry naig was ca’d a shoe on\n The Smith and thee gat roarin’ fou on;\n That at the Lord’s house, ev’n on Sunday,\n Thou drank wi’ Kirkton Jean till Monday,\n She prophesied that late or soon,\n Thou wad be found, deep drown’d in Doon,\n Or catch’d wi’ warlocks in the mirk,\n By Alloway’s auld, haunted kirk.\n\n Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,\n To think how mony counsels sweet,\n How mony lengthen’d, sage advices,\n The husband frae the wife despises!\n\n But to our tale: Ae market night,\n Tam had got planted unco right,\n Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,\n Wi reaming saats, that drank divinely;\n And at his elbow, Souter Johnie,\n His ancient, trusty, drougthy crony:\n Tam lo’ed him like a very brither;\n They had been fou for weeks thegither.\n The night drave on wi’ sangs an’ clatter;\n And aye the ale was growing better:\n The Landlady and Tam grew gracious,\n Wi’ favours secret, sweet, and precious:\n The Souter tauld his queerest stories;\n The Landlord’s laugh was ready chorus:\n The storm without might rair and rustle,\n Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.\n\n Care, mad to see a man sae happy,\n E’en drown’d himsel amang the nappy.\n As bees flee hame wi’ lades o’ treasure,\n The minutes wing’d their way wi’ pleasure:\n Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,\n O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!\n\n But pleasures are like poppies spread,\n You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;\n Or like the snow falls in the river,\n A moment white—then melts for ever;\n Or like the Borealis race,\n That flit ere you can point their place;\n Or like the Rainbow’s lovely form\n Evanishing amid the storm.—\n Nae man can tether Time nor Tide,\n The hour approaches Tam maun ride;\n That hour, o’ night’s black arch the key-stane,\n That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;\n And sic a night he taks the road in,\n As ne’er poor sinner was abroad in.\n\n The wind blew as ’twad blawn its last;\n The rattling showers rose on the blast;\n The speedy gleams the darkness swallow’d;\n Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow’d:\n That night, a child might understand,\n The deil had business on his hand.\n\n Weel-mounted on his grey mare, Meg,\n A better never lifted leg,\n Tam skelpit on thro’ dub and mire,\n Despising wind, and rain, and fire;\n Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet,\n Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet,\n Whiles glow’rin round wi’ prudent cares,\n Lest bogles catch him unawares;\n Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,\n Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry.\n\n By this time he was cross the ford,\n Where in the snaw the chapman smoor’d;\n And past the birks and meikle stane,\n Where drunken Charlie brak’s neck-bane;\n And thro’ the whins, and by the cairn,\n Where hunters fand the murder’d bairn;\n And near the thorn, aboon the well,\n Where Mungo’s mither hang’d hersel’.\n Before him Doon pours all his floods,\n The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods,\n The lightnings flash from pole to pole,\n Near and more near the thunders roll,\n When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,\n Kirk-Alloway seem’d in a bleeze,\n Thro’ ilka bore the beams were glancing,\n And loud resounded mirth and dancing.\n\n Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!\n What dangers thou canst make us scorn!\n Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil;\n Wi’ usquabae, we’ll face the devil!\n The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle,\n Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle,\n But Maggie stood, right sair astonish’d,\n Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d,\n She ventur’d forward on the light;\n And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!\n\n Warlocks and witches in a dance:\n Nae cotillon, brent new frae France,\n But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,\n Put life and mettle in their heels.\n A winnock-bunker in the east,\n There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast;\n A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,\n To gie them music was his charge:\n He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl,\n Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.—\n Coffins stood round, like open presses,\n That shaw’d the Dead in their last dresses;\n And (by some devilish cantraip sleight)\n Each in its cauld hand held a light.\n By which heroic Tam was able\n To note upon the haly table,\n A murderer’s banes, in gibbet-airns;\n Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns;\n A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,\n Wi’ his last gasp his gabudid gape;\n Five tomahawks, wi’ blude red-rusted:\n Five scimitars, wi’ murder crusted;\n A garter which a babe had strangled:\n A knife, a father’s throat had mangled.\n Whom his ain son of life bereft,\n The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft;\n Wi’ mair of horrible and awfu’,\n Which even to name wad be unlawfu’.\n\n As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d, and curious,\n The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;\n The Piper loud and louder blew,\n The dancers quick and quicker flew,\n The reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit,\n Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,\n And coost her duddies to the wark,\n And linkit at it in her sark!\n\n Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans,\n A’ plump and strapping in their teens!\n Their sarks, instead o’ creeshie flainen,\n Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!—\n Thir breeks o’ mine, my only pair,\n That ance were plush o’ guid blue hair,\n I wad hae gien them off my hurdies,\n For ae blink o’ the bonie burdies!\n But wither’d beldams, auld and droll,\n Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal,\n Louping an’ flinging on a crummock.\n I wonder did na turn thy stomach.\n\n But Tam kent what was what fu’ brawlie:\n There was ae winsome wench and waulie\n That night enlisted in the core,\n Lang after ken’d on Carrick shore;\n (For mony a beast to dead she shot,\n And perish’d mony a bonie boat,\n And shook baith meikle corn and bear,\n And kept the country-side in fear);\n Her cutty sark, o’ Paisley harn,\n That while a lassie she had worn,\n In longitude tho’ sorely scanty,\n It was her best, and she was vauntie.\n Ah! little ken’d thy reverend grannie,\n That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,\n Wi twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches),\n Wad ever grac’d a dance of witches!\n\n But here my Muse her wing maun cour,\n Sic flights are far beyond her power;\n To sing how Nannie lap and flang,\n (A souple jade she was and strang),\n And how Tam stood, like ane bewithc’d,\n And thought his very een enrich’d:\n Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain,\n And hotch’d and blew wi’ might and main:\n Till first ae caper, syne anither,\n Tam tint his reason a thegither,\n And roars out, “Weel done, Cutty-sark!”\n And in an instant all was dark:\n And scarcely had he Maggie rallied.\n When out the hellish legion sallied.\n\n As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke,\n When plundering herds assail their byke;\n As open pussie’s mortal foes,\n When, pop! she starts before their nose;\n As eager runs the market-crowd,\n When “Catch the thief!” resounds aloud;\n So Maggie runs, the witches follow,\n Wi’ mony an eldritch skreich and hollow.\n\n Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin!\n In hell, they’ll roast thee like a herrin!\n In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!\n Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!\n Now, do thy speedy-utmost, Meg,\n And win the key-stone o’ the brig;^1\n There, at them thou thy tail may toss,\n A running stream they dare na cross.\n But ere the keystane she could make,\n The fient a tail she had to shake!\n For Nannie, far before the rest,\n Hard upon noble Maggie prest,\n And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle;\n But little wist she Maggie’s mettle!\n Ae spring brought off her master hale,\n But left behind her ain grey tail:\n The carlin claught her by the rump,\n And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.\n\n Now, wha this tale o’ truth shall read,\n Ilk man and mother’s son, take heed:\n Whene’er to Drink you are inclin’d,\n Or Cutty-sarks rin in your mind,\n Think ye may buy the joys o’er dear;\n Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On The Birth Of A Posthumous Child", + "body": " Born in peculiar circumstances of family distress.\n\n\n Sweet flow’ret, pledge o’ meikle love,\n And ward o’ mony a prayer,\n What heart o’ stane wad thou na move,\n Sae helpless, sweet, and fair?\n\n November hirples o’er the lea,\n Chil, on thy lovely form:\n And gane, alas! the shelt’ring tree,\n Should shield thee frae the storm.\n\n [Footnote 1: It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil\n spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any further than\n the middle of the next running stream. It may be proper likewise\n to mention to the benighted traveller, that when he falls in with\n bogles, whatever danger may be in his going forward, there is\n much more hazard in turning back.—R.B.]\n\n May He who gives the rain to pour,\n And wings the blast to blaw,\n Protect thee frae the driving show’r,\n The bitter frost and snaw.\n\n May He, the friend o’ Woe and Want,\n Who heals life’s various stounds,\n Protect and guard the mother plant,\n And heal her cruel wounds.\n\n But late she flourish’d, rooted fast,\n Fair in the summer morn,\n Now feebly bends she in the blast,\n Unshelter’d and forlorn.\n\n Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem,\n Unscath’d by ruffian hand!\n And from thee many a parent stem\n Arise to deck our land!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Elegy On The Late Miss Burnet Of Monboddo", + "body": " Life ne’er exulted in so rich a prize,\n As Burnet, lovely from her native skies;\n Nor envious death so triumph’d in a blow,\n As that which laid th’ accomplish’d Burnet low.\n\n Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget?\n In richest ore the brightest jewel set!\n In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown,\n As by His noblest work the Godhead best is known.\n\n In vain ye flaunt in summer’s pride, ye groves;\n Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore,\n Ye woodland choir that chaunt your idle loves,\n Ye cease to charm; Eliza is no more.\n\n Ye healthy wastes, immix’d with reedy fens;\n Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor’d:\n Ye rugged cliffs, o’erhanging dreary glens,\n To you I fly—ye with my soul accord.\n\n Princes, whose cumb’rous pride was all their worth,\n Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail,\n And thou, sweet Excellence! forsake our earth,\n And not a Muse with honest grief bewail?\n\n We saw thee shine in youth and beauty’s pride,\n And Virtue’s light, that beams beyond the spheres;\n But, like the sun eclips’d at morning tide,\n Thou left us darkling in a world of tears.\n\n The parent’s heart that nestled fond in thee,\n That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care;\n So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree;\n So, from it ravish’d, leaves it bleak and bare.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lament Of Mary, Queen Of Scots, On The Approach Of Spring", + "body": " Now Nature hangs her mantle green\n On every blooming tree,\n And spreads her sheets o’ daisies white\n Out o’er the grassy lea;\n Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,\n And glads the azure skies;\n But nought can glad the weary wight\n That fast in durance lies.\n\n Now laverocks wake the merry morn\n Aloft on dewy wing;\n The merle, in his noontide bow’r,\n Makes woodland echoes ring;\n The mavis wild wi’ mony a note,\n Sings drowsy day to rest:\n In love and freedom they rejoice,\n Wi’ care nor thrall opprest.\n\n Now blooms the lily by the bank,\n The primrose down the brae;\n The hawthorn’s budding in the glen,\n And milk-white is the slae:\n The meanest hind in fair Scotland\n May rove their sweets amang;\n But I, the Queen of a’ Scotland,\n Maun lie in prison strang.\n\n I was the Queen o’ bonie France,\n Where happy I hae been;\n Fu’ lightly raise I in the morn,\n As blythe lay down at e’en:\n And I’m the sov’reign of Scotland,\n And mony a traitor there;\n Yet here I lie in foreign bands,\n And never-ending care.\n\n But as for thee, thou false woman,\n My sister and my fae,\n Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword\n That thro’ thy soul shall gae;\n The weeping blood in woman’s breast\n Was never known to thee;\n Nor th’ balm that draps on wounds of woe\n Frae woman’s pitying e’e.\n\n My son! my son! may kinder stars\n Upon thy fortune shine;\n And may those pleasures gild thy reign,\n That ne’er wad blink on mine!\n God keep thee frae thy mother’s faes,\n Or turn their hearts to thee:\n And where thou meet’st thy mother’s friend,\n Remember him for me!\n\n O! soon, to me, may Summer suns\n Nae mair light up the morn!\n Nae mair to me the Autumn winds\n Wave o’er the yellow corn?\n And, in the narrow house of death,\n Let Winter round me rave;\n And the next flow’rs that deck the Spring,\n Bloom on my peaceful grave!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "There’ll Never Be Peace Till Jamie Comes Hame", + "body": " By yon Castle wa’, at the close of the day,\n I heard a man sing, tho’ his head it was grey:\n And as he was singing, the tears doon came,—\n There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.\n\n The Church is in ruins, the State is in jars,\n Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars,\n We dare na weel say’t, but we ken wha’s to blame,—\n There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.\n\n My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword,\n But now I greet round their green beds in the yerd;\n It brak the sweet heart o’ my faithful and dame,—\n There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.\n\n Now life is a burden that bows me down,\n Sin’ I tint my bairns, and he tint his crown;\n But till my last moments my words are the same,—\n There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Out Over The Forth", + "body": " Out over the Forth, I look to the North;\n But what is the north and its Highlands to me?\n The south nor the east gie ease to my breast,\n The far foreign land, or the wide rolling sea.\n\n But I look to the west when I gae to rest,\n That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be;\n For far in the west lives he I loe best,\n The man that is dear to my babie and me.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Banks O’ Doon—First Version", + "body": " Sweet are the banks—the banks o’ Doon,\n The spreading flowers are fair,\n And everything is blythe and glad,\n But I am fu’ o’ care.\n Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,\n That sings upon the bough;\n Thou minds me o’ the happy days\n When my fause Luve was true:\n Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,\n That sings beside thy mate;\n For sae I sat, and sae I sang,\n And wist na o’ my fate.\n\n Aft hae I rov’d by bonie Doon,\n To see the woodbine twine;\n And ilka birds sang o’ its Luve,\n And sae did I o’ mine:\n Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,\n Upon its thorny tree;\n But my fause Luver staw my rose\n And left the thorn wi’ me:\n Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,\n Upon a morn in June;\n And sae I flourished on the morn,\n And sae was pu’d or noon!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Banks O’ Doon—Second Version", + "body": " Ye flowery banks o’ bonie Doon,\n How can ye blume sae fair?\n How can ye chant, ye little birds,\n And I sae fu’ o care!\n Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,\n That sings upon the bough!\n Thou minds me o’ the happy days\n When my fause Luve was true.\n Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,\n That sings beside thy mate;\n For sae I sat, and sae I sang,\n And wist na o’ my fate.\n\n Aft hae I rov’d by bonie Doon,\n To see the woodbine twine;\n And ilka bird sang o’ its Luve,\n And sae did I o’ mine.\n Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,\n Upon its thorny tree;\n But my fause Luver staw my rose,\n And left the thorn wi’ me.\n Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,\n Upon a morn in June;\n And sae I flourished on the morn,\n And sae was pu’d or noon.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Banks O’ Doon—Third Version", + "body": " Ye banks and braes o’ bonie Doon,\n How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?\n How can ye chant, ye little birds,\n And I sae weary fu’ o’ care!\n Thou’ll break my heart, thou warbling bird,\n That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn:\n Thou minds me o’ departed joys,\n Departed never to return.\n\n Aft hae I rov’d by Bonie Doon,\n To see the rose and woodbine twine:\n And ilka bird sang o’ its Luve,\n And fondly sae did I o’ mine;\n Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,\n Fu’ sweet upon its thorny tree!\n And may fause Luver staw my rose,\n But ah! he left the thorn wi’ me.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lament For James, Earl Of Glencairn", + "body": " The wind blew hollow frae the hills,\n By fits the sun’s departing beam\n Look’d on the fading yellow woods,\n That wav’d o’er Lugar’s winding stream:\n Beneath a craigy steep, a Bard,\n Laden with years and meikle pain,\n In loud lament bewail’d his lord,\n Whom Death had all untimely ta’en.\n\n He lean’d him to an ancient aik,\n Whose trunk was mould’ring down with years;\n His locks were bleached white with time,\n His hoary cheek was wet wi’ tears!\n And as he touch’d his trembling harp,\n And as he tun’d his doleful sang,\n The winds, lamenting thro’ their caves,\n To Echo bore the notes alang.\n\n “Ye scatter’d birds that faintly sing,\n The reliques o’ the vernal queir!\n Ye woods that shed on a’ the winds\n The honours of the aged year!\n A few short months, and glad and gay,\n Again ye’ll charm the ear and e’e;\n But nocht in all-revolving time\n Can gladness bring again to me.\n\n “I am a bending aged tree,\n That long has stood the wind and rain;\n But now has come a cruel blast,\n And my last hald of earth is gane;\n Nae leaf o’ mine shall greet the spring,\n Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom;\n But I maun lie before the storm,\n And ithers plant them in my room.\n\n “I’ve seen sae mony changefu’ years,\n On earth I am a stranger grown:\n I wander in the ways of men,\n Alike unknowing, and unknown:\n Unheard, unpitied, unreliev’d,\n I bear alane my lade o’ care,\n For silent, low, on beds of dust,\n Lie a’\n hat would my sorrows share.\n\n “And last, (the sum of a’ my griefs!)\n My noble master lies in clay;\n The flow’r amang our barons bold,\n His country’s pride, his country’s stay:\n In weary being now I pine,\n For a’ the life of life is dead,\n And hope has left may aged ken,\n On forward wing for ever fled.\n\n “Awake thy last sad voice, my harp!\n The voice of woe and wild despair!\n Awake, resound thy latest lay,\n Then sleep in silence evermair!\n And thou, my last, best, only, friend,\n That fillest an untimely tomb,\n Accept this tribute from the Bard\n Thou brought from Fortune’s mirkest gloom.\n\n “In Poverty’s low barren vale,\n Thick mists obscure involv’d me round;\n Though oft I turn’d the wistful eye,\n Nae ray of fame was to be found:\n Thou found’st me, like the morning sun\n That melts the fogs in limpid air,\n The friendless bard and rustic song\n Became alike thy fostering care.\n\n “O! why has worth so short a date,\n While villains ripen grey with time?\n Must thou, the noble, gen’rous, great,\n Fall in bold manhood’s hardy prim\n Why did I live to see that day—\n A day to me so full of woe?\n O! had I met the mortal shaft\n That laid my benefactor low!\n\n “The bridegroom may forget the bride\n Was made his wedded wife yestreen;\n The monarch may forget the crown\n That on his head an hour has been;\n The mother may forget the child\n That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;\n But I’ll remember thee, Glencairn,\n And a’ that thou hast done for me!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Sent To Sir John Whiteford, Bart", + "body": " With The Lament On The Death Of the Earl Of Glencairn\n\n\n Thou, who thy honour as thy God rever’st,\n Who, save thy mind’s reproach, nought earthly fear’st,\n To thee this votive offering I impart,\n The tearful tribute of a broken heart.\n The Friend thou valued’st, I, the Patron lov’d;\n His worth, his honour, all the world approved:\n We’ll mourn till we too go as he has gone,\n And tread the shadowy path to that dark world unknown.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Craigieburn Wood", + "body": " Sweet closes the ev’ning on Craigieburn Wood,\n And blythely awaukens the morrow;\n But the pride o’ the spring in the Craigieburn Wood\n Can yield to me nothing but sorrow.\n\n Chorus.—Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie,\n And O to be lying beyond thee!\n O sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep\n That’s laid in the bed beyond thee!\n\n I see the spreading leaves and flowers,\n I hear the wild birds singing;\n But pleasure they hae nane for me,\n While care my heart is wringing.\n Beyond thee, &c.\n\n I can na tell, I maun na tell,\n I daur na for your anger;\n But secret love will break my heart,\n If I conceal it langer.\n Beyond thee, &c.\n\n I see thee gracefu’, straight and tall,\n I see thee sweet and bonie;\n But oh, what will my torment be,\n If thou refuse thy Johnie!\n Beyond thee, &c.\n\n To see thee in another’s arms,\n In love to lie and languish,\n ’Twad be my dead, that will be seen,\n My heart wad burst wi’ anguish.\n Beyond thee, &c.\n\n But Jeanie, say thou wilt be mine,\n Say thou lo’es nane before me;\n And a’ may days o’ life to come\n I’l gratefully adore thee,\n Beyond thee, &c.\n\n The Bonie Wee Thing\n\n Chorus.—Bonie wee thing, cannie wee thing,\n Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine,\n I wad wear thee in my bosom,\n Lest my jewel it should tine.\n\n Wishfully I look and languish\n In that bonie face o’ thine,\n And my heart it stounds wi’ anguish,\n Lest my wee thing be na mine.\n Bonie wee thing, &c.\n\n Wit, and Grace, and Love, and Beauty,\n In ae constellation shine;\n To adore thee is my duty,\n Goddess o’ this soul o’ mine!\n Bonie wee thing, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On being asked why she had been formed so little, and Mrs. A—so big.", + "body": " Ask why God made the gem so small?\n And why so huge the granite?—\n Because God meant mankind should set\n That higher value on it.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Charms Of Lovely Davies", + "body": " Tune—“Miss Muir.”\n\n\n O how shall I, unskilfu’, try\n The poet’s occupation?\n The tunefu’ powers, in happy hours,\n That whisper inspiration;\n Even they maun dare an effort mair\n Than aught they ever gave us,\n Ere they rehearse, in equal verse,\n The charms o’ lovely Davies.\n\n Each eye it cheers when she appears,\n Like Phoebus in the morning,\n When past the shower, and every flower\n The garden is adorning:\n As the wretch looks o’er Siberia’s shore,\n When winter-bound the wave is;\n Sae droops our heart, when we maun part\n Frae charming, lovely Davies.\n\n Her smile’s a gift frae ’boon the lift,\n That maks us mair than princes;\n A sceptred hand, a king’s command,\n Is in her darting glances;\n The man in arms ’gainst female charms\n Even he her willing slave is,\n He hugs his chain, and owns the reign\n Of conquering, lovely Davies.\n\n My Muse, to dream of such a theme,\n Her feeble powers surrender:\n The eagle’s gaze alone surveys\n The sun’s meridian splendour.\n I wad in vain essay the strain,\n The deed too daring brave is;\n I’ll drap the lyre, and mute admire\n The charms o’ lovely Davies.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "What Can A Young Lassie Do Wi’ An Auld Man", + "body": " What can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie,\n What can a young lassie do wi’ an auld man?\n Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie\n To sell her puir Jenny for siller an’ lan’.\n Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie\n To sell her puir Jenny for siller an’ lan’!\n\n He’s always compleenin’ frae mornin’ to e’enin’,\n He hoasts and he hirples the weary day lang;\n He’s doylt and he’s dozin, his blude it is frozen,—\n O, dreary’s the night wi’ a crazy auld man!\n He’s doylt and he’s dozin, his blude it is frozen,\n O, dreary’s the night wi’ a crazy auld man.\n\n He hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers,\n I never can please him do a’ that I can;\n He’s peevish an’ jealous o’ a’ the young fellows,—\n O, dool on the day I met wi’ an auld man!\n He’s peevish an’ jealous o’ a’ the young fellows,\n O, dool on the day I met wi’ an auld man.\n\n My auld auntie Katie upon me taks pity,\n I’ll do my endeavour to follow her plan;\n I’ll cross him an’ wrack him, until I heartbreak him\n And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan,\n I’ll cross him an’ wrack him, until I heartbreak him,\n And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Posie", + "body": " O luve will venture in where it daur na weel be seen,\n O luve will venture in where wisdom ance has been;\n But I will doun yon river rove, amang the wood sae green,\n And a’ to pu’ a Posie to my ain dear May.\n\n The primrose I will pu’, the firstling o’ the year,\n And I will pu’ the pink, the emblem o’ my dear;\n For she’s the pink o’ womankind, and blooms without a peer,\n And a’ to be a Posie to my ain dear May.\n\n I’ll pu’ the budding rose, when Phoebus peeps in view,\n For it’s like a baumy kiss o’ her sweet, bonie mou;\n The hyacinth’s for constancy wi’ its unchanging blue,\n And a’ to be a Posie to my ain dear May.\n\n The lily it is pure, and the lily it is fair,\n And in her lovely bosom I’ll place the lily there;\n The daisy’s for simplicity and unaffected air,\n And a’ to be a Posie to my ain dear May.\n\n The hawthorn I will pu’, wi’ its locks o’ siller gray,\n Where, like an aged man, it stands at break o’ day;\n But the songster’s nest within the bush I winna tak away\n And a’ to be a Posie to my ain dear May.\n\n The woodbine I will pu’, when the e’ening star is near,\n And the diamond draps o’ dew shall be her een sae clear;\n The violet’s for modesty, which weel she fa’s to wear,\n And a’ to be a Posie to my ain dear May.\n\n I’ll tie the Posie round wi’ the silken band o’ luve,\n And I’ll place it in her breast, and I’ll swear by a’ above,\n That to my latest draught o’ life the band shall ne’er remove,\n And this will be a Posie to my ain dear May.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Glenriddell’s Fox Breaking His Chain", + "body": " A Fragment, 1791.\n\n\n Thou, Liberty, thou art my theme;\n Not such as idle poets dream,\n Who trick thee up a heathen goddess\n That a fantastic cap and rod has;\n Such stale conceits are poor and silly;\n I paint thee out, a Highland filly,\n A sturdy, stubborn, handsome dapple,\n As sleek’s a mouse, as round’s an apple,\n That when thou pleasest canst do wonders;\n But when thy luckless rider blunders,\n Or if thy fancy should demur there,\n Wilt break thy neck ere thou go further.\n\n These things premised, I sing a Fox,\n Was caught among his native rocks,\n And to a dirty kennel chained,\n How he his liberty regained.\n\n Glenriddell! Whig without a stain,\n A Whig in principle and grain,\n Could’st thou enslave a free-born creature,\n A native denizen of Nature?\n How could’st thou, with a heart so good,\n (A better ne’er was sluiced with blood!)\n Nail a poor devil to a tree,\n That ne’er did harm to thine or thee?\n\n The staunchest Whig Glenriddell was,\n Quite frantic in his country’s cause;\n And oft was Reynard’s prison passing,\n And with his brother-Whigs canvassing\n The Rights of Men, the Powers of Women,\n With all the dignity of Freemen.\n\n Sir Reynard daily heard debates\n Of Princes’, Kings’, and Nations’ fates,\n With many rueful, bloody stories\n Of Tyrants, Jacobites, and Tories:\n From liberty how angels fell,\n That now are galley-slaves in hell;\n How Nimrod first the trade began\n Of binding Slavery’s chains on Man;\n How fell Semiramis—God damn her!\n Did first, with sacrilegious hammer,\n (All ills till then were trivial matters)\n For Man dethron’d forge hen-peck fetters;\n\n How Xerxes, that abandoned Tory,\n Thought cutting throats was reaping glory,\n Until the stubborn Whigs of Sparta\n Taught him great Nature’s Magna Charta;\n How mighty Rome her fiat hurl’d\n Resistless o’er a bowing world,\n And, kinder than they did desire,\n Polish’d mankind with sword and fire;\n With much, too tedious to relate,\n Of ancient and of modern date,\n But ending still, how Billy Pitt\n (Unlucky boy!) with wicked wit,\n Has gagg’d old Britain, drain’d her coffer,\n As butchers bind and bleed a heifer,\n\n Thus wily Reynard by degrees,\n In kennel listening at his ease,\n Suck’d in a mighty stock of knowledge,\n As much as some folks at a College;\n Knew Britain’s rights and constitution,\n Her aggrandisement, diminution,\n How fortune wrought us good from evil;\n Let no man, then, despise the Devil,\n As who should say, ’I never can need him,’\n Since we to scoundrels owe our freedom.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Poem On Pastoral Poetry", + "body": " Hail, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv’d!\n In chase o’ thee, what crowds hae swerv’d\n Frae common sense, or sunk enerv’d\n ’Mang heaps o’ clavers:\n And och! o’er aft thy joes hae starv’d,\n ’Mid a’ thy favours!\n\n Say, Lassie, why, thy train amang,\n While loud the trump’s heroic clang,\n And sock or buskin skelp alang\n To death or marriage;\n Scarce ane has tried the shepherd—sang\n But wi’ miscarriage?\n\n In Homer’s craft Jock Milton thrives;\n Eschylus’ pen Will Shakespeare drives;\n Wee Pope, the knurlin’, till him rives\n Horatian fame;\n In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives\n Even Sappho’s flame.\n\n But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?\n They’re no herd’s ballats, Maro’s catches;\n Squire Pope but busks his skinklin’ patches\n O’ heathen tatters:\n I pass by hunders, nameless wretches,\n That ape their betters.\n\n In this braw age o’ wit and lear,\n Will nane the Shepherd’s whistle mair\n Blaw sweetly in its native air,\n And rural grace;\n And, wi’ the far-fam’d Grecian, share\n A rival place?\n\n Yes! there is ane—a Scottish callan!\n There’s ane; come forrit, honest Allan!\n Thou need na jouk behint the hallan,\n A chiel sae clever;\n The teeth o’ time may gnaw Tantallan,\n But thou’s for ever.\n\n Thou paints auld Nature to the nines,\n In thy sweet Caledonian lines;\n Nae gowden stream thro’ myrtle twines,\n Where Philomel,\n While nightly breezes sweep the vines,\n Her griefs will tell!\n\n In gowany glens thy burnie strays,\n Where bonie lasses bleach their claes,\n Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,\n Wi’ hawthorns gray,\n Where blackbirds join the shepherd’s lays,\n At close o’ day.\n\n Thy rural loves are Nature’s sel’;\n Nae bombast spates o’ nonsense swell;\n Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell\n O’ witchin love,\n That charm that can the strongest quell,\n The sternest move.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Verses On The Destruction Of The Woods Near Drumlanrig", + "body": " As on the banks o’ wandering Nith,\n Ae smiling simmer morn I stray’d,\n And traced its bonie howes and haughs,\n Where linties sang and lammies play’d,\n I sat me down upon a craig,\n And drank my fill o’ fancy’s dream,\n When from the eddying deep below,\n Up rose the genius of the stream.\n\n Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow,\n And troubled, like his wintry wave,\n And deep, as sughs the boding wind\n Amang his caves, the sigh he gave—\n “And come ye here, my son,” he cried,\n “To wander in my birken shade?\n To muse some favourite Scottish theme,\n Or sing some favourite Scottish maid?\n\n “There was a time, it’s nae lang syne,\n Ye might hae seen me in my pride,\n When a’ my banks sae bravely saw\n Their woody pictures in my tide;\n When hanging beech and spreading elm\n Shaded my stream sae clear and cool:\n And stately oaks their twisted arms\n Threw broad and dark across the pool;\n\n “When, glinting thro’ the trees, appear’d\n The wee white cot aboon the mill,\n And peacefu’ rose its ingle reek,\n That, slowly curling, clamb the hill.\n But now the cot is bare and cauld,\n Its leafy bield for ever gane,\n And scarce a stinted birk is left\n To shiver in the blast its lane.”\n\n “Alas!” quoth I, “what ruefu’ chance\n Has twin’d ye o’ your stately trees?\n Has laid your rocky bosom bare—\n Has stripped the cleeding o’ your braes?\n Was it the bitter eastern blast,\n That scatters blight in early spring?\n Or was’t the wil’fire scorch’d their boughs,\n Or canker-worm wi’ secret sting?”\n\n “Nae eastlin blast,” the sprite replied;\n “It blaws na here sae fierce and fell,\n And on my dry and halesome banks\n Nae canker-worms get leave to dwell:\n Man! cruel man!” the genius sighed—\n As through the cliffs he sank him down—\n “The worm that gnaw’d my bonie trees,\n That reptile wears a ducal crown.”^1", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Gallant Weaver", + "body": " Where Cart rins rowin’ to the sea,\n By mony a flower and spreading tree,\n There lives a lad, the lad for me,\n He is a gallant Weaver.\n O, I had wooers aught or nine,\n They gied me rings and ribbons fine;\n And I was fear’d my heart wad tine,\n And I gied it to the Weaver.\n\n My daddie sign’d my tocher-band,\n To gie the lad that has the land,\n But to my heart I’ll add my hand,\n And give it to the Weaver.\n While birds rejoice in leafy bowers,\n While bees delight in opening flowers,\n While corn grows green in summer showers,\n I love my gallant Weaver.\n\n [Footnote 1: The Duke of Queensberry.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram At Brownhill Inn^1", + "body": " At Brownhill we always get dainty good cheer,\n And plenty of bacon each day in the year;\n We’ve a’ thing that’s nice, and mostly in season,\n But why always Bacon—come, tell me a reason?\n\n You’re Welcome, Willie Stewart\n\n Chorus.—You’re welcome, Willie Stewart,\n You’re welcome, Willie Stewart,\n There’s ne’er a flower that blooms in May,\n That’s half sae welcome’s thou art!\n\n Come, bumpers high, express your joy,\n The bowl we maun renew it,\n The tappet hen, gae bring her ben,\n To welcome Willie Stewart,\n You’re welcome, Willie Stewart, &c.\n\n May foes be strang, and friends be slack\n Ilk action, may he rue it,\n May woman on him turn her back\n That wrangs thee, Willie Stewart,\n You’re welcome, Willie Stewart, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lovely Polly Stewart", + "body": " Chorus.—O lovely Polly Stewart,\n O charming Polly Stewart,\n There’s ne’er a flower that blooms in May,\n That’s half so fair as thou art!\n\n The flower it blaws, it fades, it fa’s,\n And art can ne’er renew it;\n But worth and truth, eternal youth\n Will gie to Polly Stewart,\n O lovely Polly Stewart, &c.\n\n [Footnote 1: Bacon was the name of a presumably intrusive host.\n The lines are said to have “afforded much amusement.”—Lang]\n\n May he whase arms shall fauld thy charms\n Possess a leal and true heart!\n To him be given to ken the heaven\n He grasps in Polly Stewart!\n O lovely Polly Stewart, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment,—Damon And Sylvia", + "body": " Tune—“The Tither Morn.”\n\n\n Yon wandering rill that marks the hill,\n And glances o’er the brae, Sir,\n Slides by a bower, where mony a flower\n Sheds fragrance on the day, Sir;\n There Damon lay, with Sylvia gay,\n To love they thought no crime, Sir,\n The wild birds sang, the echoes rang,\n While Damon’s heart beat time, Sir.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Johnie Lad, Cock Up Your Beaver", + "body": " When first my brave Johnie lad came to this town,\n He had a blue bonnet that wanted the crown;\n But now he has gotten a hat and a feather,\n Hey, brave Johnie lad, cock up your beaver!\n\n Cock up your beaver, and cock it fu’ sprush,\n We’ll over the border, and gie them a brush;\n There’s somebody there we’ll teach better behaviour,\n Hey, brave Johnie lad, cock up your beaver!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Eppie Macnab", + "body": " O saw ye my dearie, my Eppie Macnab?\n O saw ye my dearie, my Eppie Macnab?\n She’s down in the yard, she’s kissin the laird,\n She winna come hame to her ain Jock Rab.\n\n O come thy ways to me, my Eppie Macnab;\n O come thy ways to me, my Eppie Macnab;\n Whate’er thou hast dune, be it late, be it sune,\n Thou’s welcome again to thy ain Jock Rab.\n\n What says she, my dearie, my Eppie Macnab?\n What says she, my dearie, my Eppie Macnab?\n She let’s thee to wit that she has thee forgot,\n And for ever disowns thee, her ain Jock Rab.\n\n O had I ne’er seen thee, my Eppie Macnab!\n O had I ne’er seen thee, my Eppie Macnab!\n As light as the air, and as fause as thou’s fair,\n Thou’s broken the heart o’ thy ain Jock Rab.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Altho’ He Has Left Me", + "body": " Altho’ he has left me for greed o’ the siller,\n I dinna envy him the gains he can win;\n I rather wad bear a’ the lade o’ my sorrow,\n Than ever hae acted sae faithless to him.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Tocher’s The Jewel", + "body": " O Meikle thinks my luve o’ my beauty,\n And meikle thinks my luve o’ my kin;\n But little thinks my luve I ken brawlie\n My tocher’s the jewel has charms for him.\n It’s a’ for the apple he’ll nourish the tree,\n It’s a’ for the hinny he’ll cherish the bee,\n My laddie’s sae meikle in luve wi’ the siller,\n He canna hae luve to spare for me.\n\n Your proffer o’ luve’s an airle-penny,\n My tocher’s the bargain ye wad buy;\n But an ye be crafty, I am cunnin’,\n Sae ye wi anither your fortune may try.\n Ye’re like to the timmer o’ yon rotten wood,\n Ye’re like to the bark o’ yon rotten tree,\n Ye’ll slip frae me like a knotless thread,\n And ye’ll crack your credit wi’ mae nor me.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O For Ane An’ Twenty, Tam", + "body": " Chorus.—An’ O for ane an’ twenty, Tam!\n And hey, sweet ane an’ twenty, Tam!\n I’ll learn my kin a rattlin’ sang,\n An’ I saw ane an’ twenty, Tam.\n\n They snool me sair, and haud me down,\n An’ gar me look like bluntie, Tam;\n But three short years will soon wheel roun’,\n An’ then comes ane an’ twenty, Tam.\n An’ O for, &c.\n\n A glieb o’ lan’, a claut o’ gear,\n Was left me by my auntie, Tam;\n At kith or kin I need na spier,\n An I saw ane an’ twenty, Tam.\n An’ O for, &c.\n\n They’ll hae me wed a wealthy coof,\n Tho’ I mysel’ hae plenty, Tam;\n But, hear’st thou laddie! there’s my loof,\n I’m thine at ane an’ twenty, Tam!\n An’ O for, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Thou Fair Eliza", + "body": " Turn again, thou fair Eliza!\n Ae kind blink before we part;\n Rue on thy despairing lover,\n Can’st thou break his faithfu’ heart?\n Turn again, thou fair Eliza!\n If to love thy heart denies,\n Oh, in pity hide the sentence\n Under friendship’s kind disguise!\n\n Thee, sweet maid, hae I offended?\n My offence is loving thee;\n Can’st thou wreck his peace for ever,\n Wha for thine would gladly die?\n While the life beats in my bosom,\n Thou shalt mix in ilka throe:\n Turn again, thou lovely maiden,\n Ae sweet smile on me bestow.\n\n Not the bee upon the blossom,\n In the pride o’ sinny noon;\n Not the little sporting fairy,\n All beneath the simmer moon;\n Not the Minstrel in the moment\n Fancy lightens in his e’e,\n Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture,\n That thy presence gies to me.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Bonie Bell", + "body": " The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing,\n And surly Winter grimly flies;\n Now crystal clear are the falling waters,\n And bonie blue are the sunny skies.\n Fresh o’er the mountains breaks forth the morning,\n The ev’ning gilds the ocean’s swell;\n All creatures joy in the sun’s returning,\n And I rejoice in my bonie Bell.\n\n The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer,\n The yellow Autumn presses near;\n Then in his turn comes gloomy Winter,\n Till smiling Spring again appear:\n Thus seasons dancing, life advancing,\n Old Time and Nature their changes tell;\n But never ranging, still unchanging,\n I adore my bonie Bell.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Sweet Afton", + "body": " Flow gently, sweet Afton! amang thy green braes,\n Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise;\n My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,\n Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.\n\n Thou stockdove whose echo resounds thro’ the glen,\n Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,\n Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear,\n I charge you, disturb not my slumbering Fair.\n\n How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,\n Far mark’d with the courses of clear, winding rills;\n There daily I wander as noon rises high,\n My flocks and my Mary’s sweet cot in my eye.\n\n How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,\n Where, wild in the woodlands, the primroses blow;\n There oft, as mild Ev’ning weeps over the lea,\n The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.\n\n Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,\n And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;\n How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,\n As, gathering sweet flowerets, she stems thy clear wave.\n\n Flow gently, sweet Afton, amang thy green braes,\n Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;\n My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,\n Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Crowning His Bust at Ednam, Roxburghshire, with a Wreath of Bays.", + "body": " While virgin Spring by Eden’s flood,\n Unfolds her tender mantle green,\n Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,\n Or tunes Eolian strains between.\n\n While Summer, with a matron grace,\n Retreats to Dryburgh’s cooling shade,\n Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace\n The progress of the spiky blade.\n\n While Autumn, benefactor kind,\n By Tweed erects his aged head,\n And sees, with self-approving mind,\n Each creature on his bounty fed.\n\n While maniac Winter rages o’er\n The hills whence classic Yarrow flows,\n Rousing the turbid torrent’s roar,\n Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows.\n\n So long, sweet Poet of the year!\n Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won;\n While Scotia, with exulting tear,\n Proclaims that Thomson was her son.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Nithsdale’s Welcome Hame", + "body": " The noble Maxwells and their powers\n Are coming o’er the border,\n And they’ll gae big Terreagles’ towers\n And set them a’ in order.\n And they declare Terreagles fair,\n For their abode they choose it;\n There’s no a heart in a’ the land\n But’s lighter at the news o’t.\n\n Tho’ stars in skies may disappear,\n And angry tempests gather;\n The happy hour may soon be near\n That brings us pleasant weather:\n The weary night o’ care and grief\n May hae a joyfu’ morrow;\n so dawning day has brought relief,\n Fareweel our night o’ sorrow.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Frae The Friends And Land I Love", + "body": " Tune—“Carron Side.”\n\n\n Frae the friends and land I love,\n Driv’n by Fortune’s felly spite;\n Frae my best belov’d I rove,\n Never mair to taste delight:\n Never mair maun hope to find\n Ease frae toil, relief frae care;\n When Remembrance wracks the mind,\n Pleasures but unveil despair.\n\n Brightest climes shall mirk appear,\n Desert ilka blooming shore,\n Till the Fates, nae mair severe,\n Friendship, love, and peace restore,\n Till Revenge, wi’ laurel’d head,\n Bring our banished hame again;\n And ilk loyal, bonie lad\n Cross the seas, and win his ain.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Such A Parcel Of Rogues In A Nation", + "body": " Fareweel to a’ our Scottish fame,\n Fareweel our ancient glory;\n Fareweel ev’n to the Scottish name,\n Sae fam’d in martial story.\n Now Sark rins over Solway sands,\n An’ Tweed rins to the ocean,\n To mark where England’s province stands—\n Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!\n\n What force or guile could not subdue,\n Thro’ many warlike ages,\n Is wrought now by a coward few,\n For hireling traitor’s wages.\n The English stell we could disdain,\n Secure in valour’s station;\n But English gold has been our bane—\n Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!\n\n O would, or I had seen the day\n That Treason thus could sell us,\n My auld grey head had lien in clay,\n Wi’ Bruce and loyal Wallace!\n But pith and power, till my last hour,\n I’ll mak this declaration;\n We’re bought and sold for English gold—\n Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ye Jacobites By Name", + "body": " Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear, give an ear,\n Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear,\n Ye Jacobites by name,\n Your fautes I will proclaim,\n Your doctrines I maun blame, you shall hear.\n\n What is Right, and What is Wrang, by the law, by the law?\n What is Right and what is Wrang by the law?\n What is Right, and what is Wrang?\n A short sword, and a lang,\n A weak arm and a strang, for to draw.\n\n What makes heroic strife, famed afar, famed afar?\n What makes heroic strife famed afar?\n What makes heroic strife?\n To whet th’ assassin’s knife,\n Or hunt a Parent’s life, wi’ bluidy war?\n\n Then let your schemes alone, in the state, in the state,\n Then let your schemes alone in the state.\n Then let your schemes alone,\n Adore the rising sun,\n And leave a man undone, to his fate.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "I Hae Been At Crookieden", + "body": " I Hae been at Crookieden,\n My bonie laddie, Highland laddie,\n Viewing Willie and his men,\n My bonie laddie, Highland laddie.\n There our foes that burnt and slew,\n My bonie laddie, Highland laddie,\n There, at last, they gat their due,\n My bonie laddie, Highland laddie.\n\n Satan sits in his black neuk,\n My bonie laddie, Highland laddie,\n Breaking sticks to roast the Duke,\n My bonie laddie, Highland laddie,\n The bloody monster gae a yell,\n My bonie laddie, Highland laddie.\n And loud the laugh gied round a’ hell\n My bonie laddie, Highland laddie.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O Kenmure’s On And Awa, Willie", + "body": " O Kenmure’s on and awa, Willie,\n O Kenmure’s on and awa:\n An’ Kenmure’s lord’s the bravest lord\n That ever Galloway saw.\n\n Success to Kenmure’s band, Willie!\n Success to Kenmure’s band!\n There’s no a heart that fears a Whig,\n That rides by kenmure’s hand.\n\n Here’s Kenmure’s health in wine, Willie!\n Here’s Kenmure’s health in wine!\n There’s ne’er a coward o’ Kenmure’s blude,\n Nor yet o’ Gordon’s line.\n\n O Kenmure’s lads are men, Willie,\n O Kenmure’s lads are men;\n Their hearts and swords are metal true,\n And that their foes shall ken.\n\n They’ll live or die wi’ fame, Willie;\n They’ll live or die wi’ fame;\n But sune, wi’ sounding victorie,\n May Kenmure’s lord come hame!\n\n Here’s him that’s far awa, Willie!\n Here’s him that’s far awa!\n And here’s the flower that I loe best,\n The rose that’s like the snaw.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To John Maxwell, ESQ., Of Terraughty", + "body": " On His Birthday.\n\n\n Health to the Maxwell’s veteran Chief!\n Health, aye unsour’d by care or grief:\n Inspir’d, I turn’d Fate’s sibyl leaf,\n This natal morn,\n I see thy life is stuff o’ prief,\n Scarce quite half-worn.\n\n This day thou metes threescore eleven,\n And I can tell that bounteous Heaven\n (The second-sight, ye ken, is given\n To ilka Poet)\n On thee a tack o’ seven times seven\n Will yet bestow it.\n\n If envious buckies view wi’ sorrow\n Thy lengthen’d days on this blest morrow,\n May Desolation’s lang-teeth’d harrow,\n Nine miles an hour,\n Rake them, like Sodom and Gomorrah,\n In brunstane stour.\n\n But for thy friends, and they are mony,\n Baith honest men, and lassies bonie,\n May couthie Fortune, kind and cannie,\n In social glee,\n Wi’ mornings blythe, and e’enings funny,\n Bless them and thee!\n\n Fareweel, auld birkie! Lord be near ye,\n And then the deil, he daurna steer ye:\n Your friends aye love, your faes aye fear ye;\n For me, shame fa’ me,\n If neist my heart I dinna wear ye,\n While Burns they ca’ me.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Second Epistle To Robert Graham, ESQ., Of Fintry", + "body": " 5th October 1791.\n\n\n Late crippl’d of an arm, and now a leg,\n About to beg a pass for leave to beg;\n Dull, listless, teas’d, dejected, and deprest\n (Nature is adverse to a cripple’s rest);\n Will generous Graham list to his Poet’s wail?\n (It soothes poor Misery, hearkening to her tale)\n And hear him curse the light he first survey’d,\n And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?\n\n Thou, Nature! partial Nature, I arraign;\n Of thy caprice maternal I complain;\n The lion and the bull thy care have found,\n One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground;\n Thou giv’st the ass his hide, the snail his shell;\n Th’ envenom’d wasp, victorious, guards his cell;\n Thy minions kings defend, control, devour,\n In all th’ omnipotence of rule and power;\n Foxes and statesmen subtile wiles ensure;\n The cit and polecat stink, and are secure;\n Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,\n The priest and hedgehog in their robes, are snug;\n Ev’n silly woman has her warlike arts,\n Her tongue and eyes—her dreaded spear and darts.\n\n But Oh! thou bitter step-mother and hard,\n To thy poor, fenceless, naked child—the Bard!\n A thing unteachable in world’s skill,\n And half an idiot too, more helpless still:\n No heels to bear him from the op’ning dun;\n No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun;\n No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn,\n And those, alas! not, Amalthea’s horn:\n No nerves olfact’ry, Mammon’s trusty cur,\n Clad in rich Dulness’ comfortable fur;\n In naked feeling, and in aching pride,\n He bears th’ unbroken blast from ev’ry side:\n Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart,\n And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.\n\n Critics—appall’d, I venture on the name;\n Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame:\n Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes;\n He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose:\n\n His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung,\n By blockheads’ daring into madness stung;\n His well-won bays, than life itself more dear,\n By miscreants torn, who ne’er one sprig must wear;\n Foil’d, bleeding, tortur’d in th’ unequal strife,\n The hapless Poet flounders on thro’ life:\n Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fir’d,\n And fled each muse that glorious once inspir’d,\n Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age,\n Dead even resentment for his injur’d page,\n He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic’s rage!\n\n So, by some hedge, the gen’rous steed deceas’d,\n For half-starv’d snarling curs a dainty feast;\n By toil and famine wore to skin and bone,\n Lies, senseless of each tugging bitch’s son.\n\n O Dulness! portion of the truly blest!\n Calm shelter’d haven of eternal rest!\n Thy sons ne’er madden in the fierce extremes\n Of Fortune’s polar frost, or torrid beams.\n If mantling high she fills the golden cup,\n With sober selfish ease they sip it up;\n Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve,\n They only wonder “some folks” do not starve.\n The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog,\n And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.\n When disappointments snaps the clue of hope,\n And thro’ disastrous night they darkling grope,\n With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear,\n And just conclude that “fools are fortune’s care.”\n So, heavy, passive to the tempest’s shocks,\n Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.\n\n Not so the idle Muses’ mad-cap train,\n Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain;\n In equanimity they never dwell,\n By turns in soaring heav’n, or vaulted hell.\n\n I dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe,\n With all a poet’s, husband’s, father’s fear!\n Already one strong hold of hope is lost—\n Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust\n (Fled, like the sun eclips’d as noon appears,\n And left us darkling in a world of tears);\n O! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pray’r!\n Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare!\n Thro’ a long life his hopes and wishes crown,\n And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down!\n May bliss domestic smooth his private path;\n Give energy to life; and soothe his latest breath,\n With many a filial tear circling the bed of death!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Song Of Death", + "body": " Tune—“Oran an aoig.”\n\n Scene—A Field of Battle. Time of the day—evening. The wounded\n and dying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the\n following song.\n\n\n Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies,\n Now gay with the broad setting sun;\n Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties,\n Our race of existence is run!\n Thou grim King of Terrors; thou Life’s gloomy foe!\n Go, frighten the coward and slave;\n Go, teach them to tremble, fell tyrant! but know\n No terrors hast thou to the brave!\n\n Thou strik’st the dull peasant—he sinks in the dark,\n Nor saves e’en the wreck of a name;\n Thou strik’st the young hero—a glorious mark;\n He falls in the blaze of his fame!\n In the field of proud honour—our swords in our hands,\n Our King and our country to save;\n While victory shines on Life’s last ebbing sands,—\n O! who would not die with the brave!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Poem On Sensibility", + "body": " Sensibility, how charming,\n Dearest Nancy, thou canst tell;\n But distress, with horrors arming,\n Thou alas! hast known too well!\n\n Fairest flower, behold the lily\n Blooming in the sunny ray:\n Let the blast sweep o’er the valley,\n See it prostrate in the clay.\n\n Hear the wood lark charm the forest,\n Telling o’er his little joys;\n But alas! a prey the surest\n To each pirate of the skies.\n\n Dearly bought the hidden treasure\n Finer feelings can bestow:\n Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure\n Thrill the deepest notes of woe.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Toadeater", + "body": " Of Lordly acquaintance you boast,\n And the Dukes that you dined wi’ yestreen,\n Yet an insect’s an insect at most,\n Tho’ it crawl on the curl of a Queen!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Divine Service In The Kirk Of Lamington", + "body": " As cauld a wind as ever blew,\n A cauld kirk, an in’t but few:\n As cauld a minister’s e’er spak;\n Ye’se a’ be het e’er I come back.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Keekin’-Glass", + "body": " How daur ye ca’ me howlet-face,\n Ye blear-e’ed, withered spectre?\n Ye only spied the keekin’-glass,\n An’ there ye saw your picture.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Grace Before Dinner, Extempore", + "body": " O thou who kindly dost provide\n For every creature’s want!\n We bless Thee, God of Nature wide,\n For all Thy goodness lent:\n And if it please Thee, Heavenly Guide,\n May never worse be sent;\n But, whether granted, or denied,\n Lord, bless us with content. Amen!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Grace After Dinner, Extempore", + "body": " O thou, in whom we live and move—\n Who made the sea and shore;\n Thy goodness constantly we prove,\n And grateful would adore;\n And, if it please Thee, Power above!\n Still grant us, with such store,\n The friend we trust, the fair we love—\n And we desire no more. Amen!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O May, Thy Morn", + "body": " O may, thy morn was ne’er so sweet\n As the mirk night o’ December!\n For sparkling was the rosy wine,\n And private was the chamber:\n And dear was she I dare na name,\n But I will aye remember:\n And dear was she I dare na name,\n But I will aye remember.\n\n And here’s to them that, like oursel,\n Can push about the jorum!\n And here’s to them that wish us weel,\n May a’ that’s guid watch o’er ’em!\n And here’s to them, we dare na tell,\n The dearest o’ the quorum!\n And here’s to them, we dare na tell,\n The dearest o’ the quorum.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ae Fond Kiss, And Then We Sever", + "body": " Tune—“Rory Dall’s Port.”\n\n\n Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;\n Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!\n Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,\n Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.\n Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,\n While the star of hope she leaves him?\n Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me;\n Dark despair around benights me.\n\n I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy,\n Naething could resist my Nancy:\n But to see her was to love her;\n Love but her, and love for ever.\n Had we never lov’d sae kindly,\n Had we never lov’d sae blindly,\n Never met—or never parted,\n We had ne’er been broken-hearted.\n\n Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest!\n Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest!\n Thine be ilka joy and treasure,\n Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!\n Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!\n Ae fareweeli alas, for ever!\n Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,\n Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Behold The Hour, The Boat, Arrive", + "body": " Behold the hour, the boat, arrive!\n My dearest Nancy, O fareweel!\n Severed frae thee, can I survive,\n Frae thee whom I hae lov’d sae weel?\n\n Endless and deep shall be my grief;\n LNae ray of comfort shall I see,\n But this most precious, dear belief,\n That thou wilt still remember me!\n\n Alang the solitary shore\n Where flitting sea-fowl round me cry,\n Across the rolling, dashing roar,\n I’ll westward turn my wishful eye.\n\n “Happy thou Indian grove,” I’ll say,\n “Where now my Nancy’s path shall be!\n While thro’ your sweets she holds her way,\n O tell me, does she muse on me?”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Thou Gloomy December", + "body": " Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December!\n Ance mair I hail thee wi’ sorrow and care;\n Sad was the parting thou makes me remember—\n Parting wi’ Nancy, oh, ne’er to meet mair!\n\n Fond lovers’ parting is sweet, painful pleasure,\n Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour;\n But the dire feeling, O farewell for ever!\n Is anguish unmingled, and agony pure!\n\n Wild as the winter now tearing the forest,\n Till the last leaf o’ the summer is flown;\n Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom,\n Till my last hope and last comfort is gone.\n\n Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December,\n Still shall I hail thee wi’ sorrow and care;\n For sad was the parting thou makes me remember,\n Parting wi’ Nancy, oh, ne’er to meet mair.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Native Land Sae Far Awa", + "body": " O sad and heavy, should I part,\n But for her sake, sae far awa;\n Unknowing what my way may thwart,\n My native land sae far awa.\n\n Thou that of a’ things Maker art,\n That formed this Fair sae far awa,\n Gie body strength, then I’ll ne’er start\n At this my way sae far awa.\n\n How true is love to pure desert!\n Like mine for her sae far awa;\n And nocht can heal my bosom’s smart,\n While, oh, she is sae far awa!\n\n Nane other love, nane other dart,\n I feel but her’s sae far awa;\n But fairer never touch’d a heart\n Than her’s, the Fair, sae far awa.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "I do Confess Thou Art Sae Fair", + "body": " Alteration of an Old Poem.\n\n\n I Do confess thou art sae fair,\n I was been o’er the lugs in luve,\n Had I na found the slightest prayer\n That lips could speak thy heart could muve.\n\n I do confess thee sweet, but find\n Thou art so thriftless o’ thy sweets,\n Thy favours are the silly wind\n That kisses ilka thing it meets.\n\n See yonder rosebud, rich in dew,\n Amang its native briers sae coy;\n How sune it tines its scent and hue,\n When pu’d and worn a common toy.\n\n Sic fate ere lang shall thee betide,\n Tho’ thou may gaily bloom awhile;\n And sune thou shalt be thrown aside,\n Like ony common weed and vile.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines On Fergusson, The Poet", + "body": " Ill-fated genius! Heaven-taught Fergusson!\n What heart that feels and will not yield a tear,\n To think Life’s sun did set e’er well begun\n To shed its influence on thy bright career.\n\n O why should truest Worth and Genius pine\n Beneath the iron grasp of Want and Woe,\n While titled knaves and idiot—Greatness shine\n In all the splendour Fortune can bestow?", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Weary Pund O’ Tow", + "body": " Chorus.—The weary pund, the weary pund,\n The weary pund o’ tow;\n I think my wife will end her life,\n Before she spin her tow.\n\n I bought my wife a stane o’ lint,\n As gude as e’er did grow,\n And a’ that she has made o’ that\n Is ae puir pund o’ tow.\n The weary pund, &c.\n\n There sat a bottle in a bole,\n Beyont the ingle low;\n And aye she took the tither souk,\n To drouk the stourie tow.\n The weary pund, &c.\n\n Quoth I, For shame, ye dirty dame,\n Gae spin your tap o’ tow!\n She took the rock, and wi’ a knock,\n She brak it o’er my pow.\n The weary pund, &c.\n\n At last her feet—I sang to see’t!\n Gaed foremost o’er the knowe,\n And or I wad anither jad,\n I’ll wallop in a tow.\n The weary pund, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "When She Cam’ Ben She Bobbed", + "body": " O when she cam’ ben she bobbed fu’ law,\n O when she cam’ ben she bobbed fu’ law,\n And when she cam’ ben, she kiss’d Cockpen,\n And syne denied she did it at a’.\n\n And was na Cockpen right saucy witha’?\n And was na Cockpen right saucy witha’?\n In leaving the daughter of a lord,\n And kissin’ a collier lassie an’ a’!\n\n O never look down, my lassie, at a’,\n O never look down, my lassie, at a’,\n Thy lips are as sweet, and thy figure complete,\n As the finest dame in castle or ha’.\n\n Tho’ thou has nae silk, and holland sae sma’,\n Tho’ thou has nae silk, and holland sae sma’,\n Thy coat and thy sark are thy ain handiwark,\n And lady Jean was never sae braw.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Scroggam, My Dearie", + "body": " There was a wife wonn’d in Cockpen, Scroggam;\n She brew’d gude ale for gentlemen;\n Sing auld Cowl lay ye down by me,\n Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum.\n\n The gudewife’s dochter fell in a fever, Scroggam;\n The priest o’ the parish he fell in anither;\n Sing auld Cowl lay ye down by me,\n Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum.\n\n They laid the twa i’ the bed thegither, Scroggam;\n That the heat o’ the tane might cool the tither;\n Sing auld Cowl, lay ye down by me,\n Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Collier Laddie", + "body": " “Whare live ye, my bonie lass?\n And tell me what they ca’ ye;”\n “My name,” she says, “is mistress Jean,\n And I follow the Collier laddie.”\n “My name, she says, &c.\n\n “See you not yon hills and dales\n The sun shines on sae brawlie;\n They a’ are mine, and they shall be thine,\n Gin ye’ll leave your Collier laddie.”\n “They a’ are mine, &c.\n\n “Ye shall gang in gay attire,\n Weel buskit up sae gaudy;\n And ane to wait on every hand,\n Gin ye’ll leave your Collier laddie.”\n “And ane to wait, &c.\n\n “Tho’ ye had a’ the sun shines on,\n And the earth conceals sae lowly,\n I wad turn my back on you and it a’,\n And embrace my Collier laddie.” “I wad turn my back, &c.\n\n “I can win my five pennies in a day,\n An’ spen’t at night fu’ brawlie:\n And make my bed in the collier’s neuk,\n And lie down wi’ my Collier laddie.” “And make my bed, &c.\n\n “Love for love is the bargain for me,\n Tho’ the wee cot-house should haud me;\n and the warld before me to win my bread,\n And fair fa’ my Collier laddie!”\n “And the warld before me, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Sic A Wife As Willie Had", + "body": " Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed,\n The spot they ca’d it Linkumdoddie;\n Willie was a wabster gude,\n Could stown a clue wi’ ony body:\n He had a wife was dour and din,\n O Tinkler Maidgie was her mither;\n Sic a wife as Willie had,\n I wad na gie a button for her!\n\n She has an e’e, she has but ane,\n The cat has twa the very colour;\n Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump,\n A clapper tongue wad deave a miller:\n A whiskin beard about her mou’,\n Her nose and chin they threaten ither;\n Sic a wife as Willie had,\n I wadna gie a button for her!\n\n She’s bow-hough’d, she’s hein-shin’d,\n Ae limpin leg a hand-breed shorter;\n She’s twisted right, she’s twisted left,\n To balance fair in ilka quarter:\n She has a lump upon her breast,\n The twin o’ that upon her shouther;\n Sic a wife as Willie had,\n I wadna gie a button for her!\n\n Auld baudrons by the ingle sits,\n An’ wi’ her loof her face a-washin;\n But Willie’s wife is nae sae trig,\n She dights her grunzie wi’ a hushion;\n Her walie nieves like midden-creels,\n Her face wad fyle the Logan Water;\n Sic a wife as Willie had,\n I wadna gie a button for her!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lady Mary Ann", + "body": " O lady Mary Ann looks o’er the Castle wa’,\n She saw three bonie boys playing at the ba’,\n The youngest he was the flower amang them a’,\n My bonie laddie’s young, but he’s growin’ yet.\n\n O father, O father, an ye think it fit,\n We’ll send him a year to the college yet,\n We’ll sew a green ribbon round about his hat,\n And that will let them ken he’s to marry yet.\n\n Lady Mary Ann was a flower in the dew,\n Sweet was its smell and bonie was its hue,\n And the longer it blossom’d the sweeter it grew,\n For the lily in the bud will be bonier yet.\n\n Young Charlie Cochran was the sprout of an aik,\n Bonie and bloomin’ and straught was its make,\n The sun took delight to shine for its sake,\n And it will be the brag o’ the forest yet.\n\n The simmer is gane when the leaves they were green,\n And the days are awa’ that we hae seen,\n But far better days I trust will come again;\n For my bonie laddie’s young, but he’s growin’ yet.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Kellyburn Braes", + "body": " There lived a carl in Kellyburn Braes,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n And he had a wife was the plague of his days,\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n Ae day as the carl gaed up the lang glen,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n He met with the Devil, says, “How do you fen?”\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n I’ve got a bad wife, sir, that’s a’ my complaint,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n “For, savin your presence, to her ye’re a saint,”\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n It’s neither your stot nor your staig I shall crave,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n “But gie me your wife, man, for her I must have,”\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n “O welcome most kindly!” the blythe carl said,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n “But if ye can match her ye’re waur than ye’re ca’d,”\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n The Devil has got the auld wife on his back,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n And, like a poor pedlar, he’s carried his pack,\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n He’s carried her hame to his ain hallan door,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n Syne bade her gae in, for a bitch, and a whore,\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n Then straight he makes fifty, the pick o’ his band,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme:\n Turn out on her guard in the clap o’ a hand,\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n The carlin gaed thro’ them like ony wud bear,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n Whae’er she gat hands on cam near her nae mair,\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n A reekit wee deevil looks over the wa’,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n “O help, maister, help, or she’ll ruin us a’!”\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n The Devil he swore by the edge o’ his knife,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n He pitied the man that was tied to a wife,\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n The Devil he swore by the kirk and the bell,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n He was not in wedlock, thank Heav’n, but in hell,\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n Then Satan has travell’d again wi’ his pack,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n And to her auld husband he’s carried her back,\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.\n\n I hae been a Devil the feck o’ my life,\n Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi’ thyme;\n “But ne’er was in hell till I met wi’ a wife,”\n And the thyme it is wither’d, and rue is in prime.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Slave’s Lament", + "body": " It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthral,\n For the lands of Virginia,—ginia, O:\n Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more;\n And alas! I am weary, weary O:\n Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more;\n And alas! I am weary, weary O.\n\n All on that charming coast is no bitter snow and frost,\n Like the lands of Virginia,—ginia, O:\n There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow,\n And alas! I am weary, weary O:\n There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow,\n And alas! I am weary, weary O:\n\n The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear,\n In the lands of Virginia,—ginia, O;\n And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear,\n And alas! I am weary, weary O:\n And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear,\n And alas! I am weary, weary O:", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O Can Ye Labour Lea?", + "body": " Chorus—O can ye labour lea, young man,\n O can ye labour lea?\n It fee nor bountith shall us twine\n Gin ye can labour lea.\n\n I fee’d a man at Michaelmas,\n Wi’ airle pennies three;\n But a’ the faut I had to him,\n He could na labour lea,\n O can ye labour lea, &c.\n\n O clappin’s gude in Febarwar,\n An’ kissin’s sweet in May;\n But my delight’s the ploughman lad,\n That weel can labour lea,\n O can ye labour lea, &c.\n\n O kissin is the key o’ luve,\n And clappin’ is the lock;\n An’ makin’ o’s the best thing yet,\n That e’er a young thing gat.\n O can ye labour lea, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Deuks Dang O’er My Daddie", + "body": " The bairns gat out wi’ an unco shout,\n The deuks dang o’er my daddie, O!\n The fien-ma-care, quo’ the feirrie auld wife,\n He was but a paidlin’ body, O!\n He paidles out, and he paidles in,\n rn’ he paidles late and early, O!\n This seven lang years I hae lien by his side,\n An’ he is but a fusionless carlie, O.\n\n O haud your tongue, my feirrie auld wife,\n O haud your tongue, now Nansie, O:\n I’ve seen the day, and sae hae ye,\n Ye wad na ben sae donsie, O.\n I’ve seen the day ye butter’d my brose,\n And cuddl’d me late and early, O;\n But downa-do’s come o’er me now,\n And oh, I find it sairly, O!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Deil’s Awa Wi’ The Exciseman", + "body": " The deil cam fiddlin’ thro’ the town,\n And danc’d awa wi’ th’ Exciseman,\n And ilka wife cries, “Auld Mahoun,\n I wish you luck o’ the prize, man.”\n\n Chorus—The deil’s awa, the deil’s awa,\n The deil’s awa wi’ the Exciseman,\n He’s danc’d awa, he’s danc’d awa,\n He’s danc’d awa wi’ the Exciseman.\n\n We’ll mak our maut, and we’ll brew our drink,\n We’ll laugh, sing, and rejoice, man,\n And mony braw thanks to the meikle black deil,\n That danc’d awa wi’ th’ Exciseman.\n The deil’s awa, &c.\n\n There’s threesome reels, there’s foursome reels,\n There’s hornpipes and strathspeys, man,\n But the ae best dance ere came to the land\n Was—the deil’s awa wi’ the Exciseman.\n The deil’s awa, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Country Lass", + "body": " In simmer, when the hay was mawn,\n And corn wav’d green in ilka field,\n While claver blooms white o’er the lea\n And roses blaw in ilka beild!\n Blythe Bessie in the milking shiel,\n Says—“I’ll be wed, come o’t what will”:\n Out spake a dame in wrinkled eild;\n “O’ gude advisement comes nae ill.\n\n “It’s ye hae wooers mony ane,\n And lassie, ye’re but young ye ken;\n Then wait a wee, and cannie wale\n A routhie butt, a routhie ben;\n There’s Johnie o’ the Buskie-glen,\n Fu’ is his barn, fu’ is his byre;\n Take this frae me, my bonie hen,\n It’s plenty beets the luver’s fire.”\n\n “For Johnie o’ the Buskie-glen,\n I dinna care a single flie;\n He lo’es sae weel his craps and kye,\n He has nae love to spare for me;\n But blythe’s the blink o’ Robie’s e’e,\n And weel I wat he lo’es me dear:\n Ae blink o’ him I wad na gie\n For Buskie-glen and a’ his gear.”\n\n “O thoughtless lassie, life’s a faught;\n The canniest gate, the strife is sair;\n But aye fu’—han’t is fechtin’ best,\n A hungry care’s an unco care:\n But some will spend and some will spare,\n An’ wilfu’ folk maun hae their will;\n Syne as ye brew, my maiden fair,\n Keep mind that ye maun drink the yill.”\n\n “O gear will buy me rigs o’ land,\n And gear will buy me sheep and kye;\n But the tender heart o’ leesome love,\n The gowd and siller canna buy;\n We may be poor—Robie and I—\n Light is the burden love lays on;\n Content and love brings peace and joy—\n What mair hae Queens upon a throne?”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Bessy And Her Spinnin’ Wheel", + "body": " O Leeze me on my spinnin’ wheel,\n And leeze me on my rock and reel;\n Frae tap to tae that cleeds me bien,\n And haps me biel and warm at e’en;\n I’ll set me down and sing and spin,\n While laigh descends the simmer sun,\n Blest wi’ content, and milk and meal,\n O leeze me on my spinnin’ wheel.\n\n On ilka hand the burnies trot,\n And meet below my theekit cot;\n The scented birk and hawthorn white,\n Across the pool their arms unite,\n Alike to screen the birdie’s nest,\n And little fishes’ caller rest;\n The sun blinks kindly in the beil’,\n Where blythe I turn my spinnin’ wheel.\n\n On lofty aiks the cushats wail,\n And Echo cons the doolfu’ tale;\n The lintwhites in the hazel braes,\n Delighted, rival ither’s lays;\n The craik amang the claver hay,\n The pairtrick whirring o’er the ley,\n The swallow jinkin’ round my shiel,\n Amuse me at my spinnin’ wheel.\n\n Wi’ sma’ to sell, and less to buy,\n Aboon distress, below envy,\n O wha wad leave this humble state,\n For a’ the pride of a’ the great?\n Amid their flairing, idle toys,\n Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys,\n Can they the peace and pleasure feel\n Of Bessy at her spinnin’ wheel?", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Love For Love", + "body": " Ithers seek they ken na what,\n Features, carriage, and a’ that;\n Gie me love in her I court,\n Love to love maks a’ the sport.\n\n Let love sparkle in her e’e;\n Let her lo’e nae man but me;\n That’s the tocher-gude I prize,\n There the luver’s treasure lies.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Saw Ye Bonie Lesley", + "body": " O saw ye bonie Lesley,\n As she gaed o’er the Border?\n She’s gane, like Alexander,\n To spread her conquests farther.\n\n To see her is to love her,\n And love but her for ever;\n For Nature made her what she is,\n And never made anither!\n\n Thou art a queen, fair Lesley,\n Thy subjects, we before thee;\n Thou art divine, fair Lesley,\n The hearts o’ men adore thee.\n\n The deil he could na scaith thee,\n Or aught that wad belang thee;\n He’d look into thy bonie face,\n And say—“I canna wrang thee!”\n\n The Powers aboon will tent thee,\n Misfortune sha’na steer thee;\n Thou’rt like themselves sae lovely,\n That ill they’ll ne’er let near thee.\n\n Return again, fair Lesley,\n Return to Caledonie!\n That we may brag we hae a lass\n There’s nane again sae bonie.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment Of Song", + "body": " No cold approach, no altered mien,\n Just what would make suspicion start;\n No pause the dire extremes between,\n He made me blest—and broke my heart.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "I’ll Meet Thee On The Lea Rig", + "body": " When o’er the hill the eastern star\n Tells bughtin time is near, my jo,\n And owsen frae the furrow’d field\n Return sae dowf and weary O;\n Down by the burn, where birken buds\n Wi’ dew are hangin clear, my jo,\n I’ll meet thee on the lea-rig,\n My ain kind Dearie O.\n\n At midnight hour, in mirkest glen,\n I’d rove, and ne’er be eerie, O,\n If thro’ that glen I gaed to thee,\n My ain kind Dearie O;\n Altho’ the night were ne’er sae wild,\n And I were ne’er sae weary O,\n I’ll meet thee on the lea-rig,\n My ain kind Dearie O.\n\n The hunter lo’es the morning sun;\n To rouse the mountain deer, my jo;\n At noon the fisher seeks the glen\n Adown the burn to steer, my jo:\n Gie me the hour o’ gloamin’ grey,\n It maks my heart sae cheery O,\n To meet thee on the lea-rig,\n My ain kind Dearie O.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Wife’s A Winsome Wee Thing", + "body": " Air—“My Wife’s a Wanton Wee Thing.”\n\n\n Chorus.—She is a winsome wee thing,\n She is a handsome wee thing,\n She is a lo’esome wee thing,\n This dear wee wife o’ mine.\n\n I never saw a fairer,\n I never lo’ed a dearer,\n And neist my heart I’ll wear her,\n For fear my jewel tine,\n She is a winsome, &c.\n\n The warld’s wrack we share o’t;\n The warstle and the care o’t;\n Wi’ her I’ll blythely bear it,\n And think my lot divine.\n She is a winsome, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Highland Mary", + "body": " Tune—“Katherine Ogie.”\n\n\n Ye banks, and braes, and streams around\n The castle o’ Montgomery!\n Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,\n Your waters never drumlie:\n There Simmer first unfauld her robes,\n And there the langest tarry;\n For there I took the last Farewell\n O’ my sweet Highland Mary.\n\n How sweetly bloom’d the gay, green birk,\n How rich the hawthorn’s blossom,\n As underneath their fragrant shade,\n I clasp’d her to my bosom!\n The golden Hours on angel wings,\n Flew o’er me and my Dearie;\n For dear to me, as light and life,\n Was my sweet Highland Mary.\n\n Wi’ mony a vow, and lock’d embrace,\n Our parting was fu’ tender;\n And, pledging aft to meet again,\n We tore oursels asunder;\n But oh! fell Death’s untimely frost,\n That nipt my Flower sae early!\n Now green’s the sod, and cauld’s the clay\n That wraps my Highland Mary!\n\n O pale, pale now, those rosy lips,\n I aft hae kiss’d sae fondly!\n And clos’d for aye, the sparkling glance\n That dwalt on me sae kindly!\n And mouldering now in silent dust,\n That heart that lo’ed me dearly!\n But still within my bosom’s core\n Shall live my Highland Mary.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Auld Rob Morris", + "body": " There’s Auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen,\n He’s the King o’ gude fellows, and wale o’ auld men;\n He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine,\n And ae bonie lass, his dautie and mine.\n\n She’s fresh as the morning, the fairest in May;\n She’s sweet as the ev’ning amang the new hay;\n As blythe and as artless as the lambs on the lea,\n And dear to my heart as the light to my e’e.\n\n But oh! she’s an Heiress, auld Robin’s a laird,\n And my daddie has nought but a cot-house and yard;\n A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed,\n The wounds I must hide that will soon be my dead.\n\n The day comes to me, but delight brings me nane;\n The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane;\n I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist,\n And I sigh as my heart it wad burst in my breast.\n\n O had she but been of a lower degree,\n I then might hae hop’d she wad smil’d upon me!\n O how past descriving had then been my bliss,\n As now my distraction nae words can express.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Rights Of Woman", + "body": " An Occasional Address.\n\n Spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her benefit night, November 26, 1792.\n\n\n While Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,\n The fate of Empires and the fall of Kings;\n While quacks of State must each produce his plan,\n And even children lisp the Rights of Man;\n Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,\n The Rights of Woman merit some attention.\n\n First, in the Sexes’ intermix’d connection,\n One sacred Right of Woman is, protection.—\n The tender flower that lifts its head, elate,\n Helpless, must fall before the blasts of Fate,\n Sunk on the earth, defac’d its lovely form,\n Unless your shelter ward th’ impending storm.\n\n Our second Right—but needless here is caution,\n To keep that right inviolate’s the fashion;\n Each man of sense has it so full before him,\n He’d die before he’d wrong it—’tis decorum.—\n There was, indeed, in far less polish’d days,\n A time, when rough rude man had naughty ways,\n Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot,\n Nay even thus invade a Lady’s quiet.\n\n Now, thank our stars! those Gothic times are fled;\n Now, well-bred men—and you are all well-bred—\n Most justly think (and we are much the gainers)\n Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners.\n\n For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest,\n That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest;\n Which even the Rights of Kings, in low prostration,\n Most humbly own—’tis dear, dear admiration!\n In that blest sphere alone we live and move;\n There taste that life of life—immortal love.\n Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs;\n ’Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares,\n When awful Beauty joins with all her charms—\n Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms?\n\n But truce with kings, and truce with constitutions,\n With bloody armaments and revolutions;\n Let Majesty your first attention summon,\n Ah! ca ira! The Majesty Of Woman!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram On Seeing Miss Fontenelle In A Favourite Character", + "body": " Sweet naivete of feature,\n Simple, wild, enchanting elf,\n Not to thee, but thanks to Nature,\n Thou art acting but thyself.\n\n Wert thou awkward, stiff, affected,\n Spurning Nature, torturing art;\n Loves and Graces all rejected,\n Then indeed thou’d’st act a part.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Extempore On Some Commemorations Of Thomson", + "body": " Dost thou not rise, indignant shade,\n And smile wi’ spurning scorn,\n When they wha wad hae starved thy life,\n Thy senseless turf adorn?\n\n Helpless, alane, thou clamb the brae,\n Wi’ meikle honest toil,\n And claught th’ unfading garland there—\n Thy sair-worn, rightful spoil.\n\n And wear it thou! and call aloud\n This axiom undoubted—\n Would thou hae Nobles’ patronage?\n First learn to live without it!\n\n To whom hae much, more shall be given,\n Is every Great man’s faith;\n But he, the helpless, needful wretch,\n Shall lose the mite he hath.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Duncan Gray", + "body": " Duncan Gray cam’ here to woo,\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t,\n On blythe Yule-night when we were fou,\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t,\n Maggie coost her head fu’ heigh,\n Look’d asklent and unco skeigh,\n Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh;\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t.\n\n Duncan fleech’d and Duncan pray’d;\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t,\n Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig,\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t:\n Duncan sigh’d baith out and in,\n Grat his e’en baith blear’t an’ blin’,\n Spak o’ lowpin o’er a linn;\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t.\n\n Time and Chance are but a tide,\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t,\n Slighted love is sair to bide,\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t:\n Shall I like a fool, quoth he,\n For a haughty hizzie die?\n She may gae to—France for me!\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t.\n\n How it comes let doctors tell,\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t;\n Meg grew sick, as he grew hale,\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t.\n\n Something in her bosom wrings,\n For relief a sigh she brings:\n And oh! her een they spak sic things!\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t.\n\n Duncan was a lad o’ grace,\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t:\n Maggie’s was a piteous case,\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t:\n Duncan could na be her death,\n Swelling Pity smoor’d his wrath;\n Now they’re crouse and canty baith,\n Ha, ha, the wooing o’t.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Here’s A Health To Them That’s Awa", + "body": " Here’s a health to them that’s awa,\n Here’s a health to them that’s awa;\n And wha winna wish gude luck to our cause,\n May never gude luck be their fa’!\n It’s gude to be merry and wise,\n It’s gude to be honest and true;\n It’s gude to support Caledonia’s cause,\n And bide by the buff and the blue.\n\n Here’s a health to them that’s awa,\n Here’s a health to them that’s awa,\n Here’s a health to Charlie^1 the chief o’ the clan,\n Altho’ that his band be but sma’!\n May Liberty meet wi’ success!\n May Prudence protect her frae evil!\n May tyrants and tyranny tine i’ the mist,\n And wander their way to the devil!\n\n Here’s a health to them that’s awa,\n Here’s a health to them that’s awa;\n Here’s a health to Tammie,^2 the Norlan’ laddie,\n That lives at the lug o’ the law!\n Here’s freedom to them that wad read,\n Here’s freedom to them that wad write,\n\n [Footnote 1: Charles James Fox.]\n\n [Footnote 2: Hon. Thos. Erskine, afterwards Lord Erskine.]\n\n There’s nane ever fear’d that the truth should be heard,\n But they whom the truth would indite.\n\n Here’s a Health to them that’s awa,\n An’ here’s to them that’s awa!\n Here’s to Maitland and Wycombe, let wha doesna like ’em\n Be built in a hole in the wa’;\n Here’s timmer that’s red at the heart\n Here’s fruit that is sound at the core;\n And may he be that wad turn the buff and blue coat\n Be turn’d to the back o’ the door.\n\n Here’s a health to them that’s awa,\n Here’s a health to them that’s awa;\n Here’s chieftain M’Leod, a chieftain worth gowd,\n Tho’ bred amang mountains o’ snaw;\n Here’s friends on baith sides o’ the firth,\n And friends on baith sides o’ the Tweed;\n And wha wad betray old Albion’s right,\n May they never eat of her bread!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On the Duke of Brunswick’s Breaking up his Camp, and the defeat of the", + "body": "Austrians, by Dumourier, November 1792.\n\n\n When Princes and Prelates,\n And hot-headed zealots,\n A’Europe had set in a low, a low,\n The poor man lies down,\n Nor envies a crown,\n And comforts himself as he dow, as he dow,\n And comforts himself as he dow.\n\n The black-headed eagle,\n As keen as a beagle,\n He hunted o’er height and o’er howe,\n In the braes o’ Gemappe,\n He fell in a trap,\n E’en let him come out as he dow, dow, dow,\n E’en let him come out as he dow.\n\n But truce with commotions,\n And new-fangled notions,\n A bumper, I trust you’ll allow;\n Here’s George our good king,\n And Charlotte his queen,\n And lang may they ring as they dow, dow, dow,\n And lang may they ring as they dow.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Poortith Cauld And Restless Love", + "body": " Tune—“Cauld Kail in Aberdeen.”\n\n\n O poortith cauld, and restless love,\n Ye wrack my peace between ye;\n Yet poortith a’ I could forgive,\n An ’twere na for my Jeanie.\n\n Chorus—O why should Fate sic pleasure have,\n Life’s dearest bands untwining?\n Or why sae sweet a flower as love\n Depend on Fortune’s shining?\n\n The warld’s wealth, when I think on,\n It’s pride and a’ the lave o’t;\n O fie on silly coward man,\n That he should be the slave o’t!\n O why, &c.\n\n Her e’en, sae bonie blue, betray\n How she repays my passion;\n But prudence is her o’erword aye,\n She talks o’ rank and fashion.\n O why, &c.\n\n O wha can prudence think upon,\n And sic a lassie by him?\n O wha can prudence think upon,\n And sae in love as I am?\n O why, &c.\n\n How blest the simple cotter’s fate!\n He woos his artless dearie;\n The silly bogles, wealth and state,\n Can never make him eerie,\n O why, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Politics", + "body": " In Politics if thou would’st mix,\n And mean thy fortunes be;\n Bear this in mind,—be deaf and blind,\n Let great folk hear and see.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Braw Lads O’ Galla Water", + "body": " Braw, braw lads on Yarrow-braes,\n They rove amang the blooming heather;\n But Yarrow braes, nor Ettrick shaws\n Can match the lads o’ Galla Water.\n\n But there is ane, a secret ane,\n Aboon them a’ I loe him better;\n And I’ll be his, and he’ll be mine,\n The bonie lad o’ Galla Water.\n\n Altho’ his daddie was nae laird,\n And tho’ I hae nae meikle tocher,\n Yet rich in kindest, truest love,\n We’ll tent our flocks by Galla Water.\n\n It ne’er was wealth, it ne’er was wealth,\n That coft contentment, peace, or pleasure;\n The bands and bliss o’ mutual love,\n O that’s the chiefest warld’s treasure.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet Written On The Author’s Birthday,", + "body": " On hearing a Thrush sing in his Morning Walk.\n\n\n Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,\n Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain,\n See aged Winter, ’mid his surly reign,\n At thy blythe carol, clears his furrowed brow.\n\n So in lone Poverty’s dominion drear,\n Sits meek Content with light, unanxious heart;\n Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,\n Nor asks if they bring ought to hope or fear.\n\n I thank thee, Author of this opening day!\n Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!\n Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys—\n What wealth could never give nor take away!\n\n Yet come, thou child of poverty and care,\n The mite high heav’n bestow’d, that mite with thee I’ll share.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Wandering Willie—First Version", + "body": " Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie,\n Now tired with wandering, haud awa hame;\n Come to my bosom, my ae only dearie,\n And tell me thou bring’st me my Willie the same.\n Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting;\n It was na the blast brought the tear in my e’e:\n Now welcome the Simmer, and welcome my Willie,\n The Simmer to Nature, my Willie to me.\n\n Ye hurricanes rest in the cave o’your slumbers,\n O how your wild horrors a lover alarms!\n Awaken ye breezes, row gently ye billows,\n And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms.\n But if he’s forgotten his faithfullest Nannie,\n O still flow between us, thou wide roaring main;\n May I never see it, may I never trow it,\n But, dying, believe that my Willie’s my ain!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Wandering Willie—Revised Version", + "body": " Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie,\n Here awa, there awa, haud awa hame;\n Come to my bosom, my ain only dearie,\n Tell me thou bring’st me my Willie the same.\n Winter winds blew loud and cauld at our parting,\n Fears for my Willie brought tears in my e’e,\n Welcome now the Simmer, and welcome, my Willie,\n The Simmer to Nature, my Willie to me!\n\n Rest, ye wild storms, in the cave of your slumbers,\n How your dread howling a lover alarms!\n Wauken, ye breezes, row gently, ye billows,\n And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms.\n But oh, if he’s faithless, and minds na his Nannie,\n Flow still between us, thou wide roaring main!\n May I never see it, may I never trow it,\n But, dying, believe that my Willie’s my ain!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lord Gregory", + "body": " O mirk, mirk is this midnight hour,\n And loud the tempest’s roar;\n A waefu’ wanderer seeks thy tower,\n Lord Gregory, ope thy door.\n An exile frae her father’s ha’,\n And a’ for loving thee;\n At least some pity on me shaw,\n If love it may na be.\n\n Lord Gregory, mind’st thou not the grove\n By bonie Irwine side,\n Where first I own’d that virgin love\n I lang, lang had denied.\n How aften didst thou pledge and vow\n Thou wad for aye be mine!\n And my fond heart, itsel’ sae true,\n It ne’er mistrusted thine.\n\n Hard is thy heart, Lord Gregory,\n And flinty is thy breast:\n Thou bolt of Heaven that flashest by,\n O, wilt thou bring me rest!\n Ye mustering thunders from above,\n Your willing victim see;\n But spare and pardon my fause Love,\n His wrangs to Heaven and me.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Open The Door To Me, Oh", + "body": " Oh, open the door, some pity to shew,\n Oh, open the door to me, oh,\n Tho’ thou hast been false, I’ll ever prove true,\n Oh, open the door to me, oh.\n\n Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek,\n But caulder thy love for me, oh:\n The frost that freezes the life at my heart,\n Is nought to my pains frae thee, oh.\n\n The wan Moon is setting beyond the white wave,\n And Time is setting with me, oh:\n False friends, false love, farewell! for mair\n I’ll ne’er trouble them, nor thee, oh.\n\n She has open’d the door, she has open’d it wide,\n She sees the pale corse on the plain, oh:\n “My true love!” she cried, and sank down by his side,\n Never to rise again, oh.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lovely Young Jessie", + "body": " True hearted was he, the sad swain o’ the Yarrow,\n And fair are the maids on the banks of the Ayr;\n But by the sweet side o’ the Nith’s winding river,\n Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair:\n To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over;\n To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain,\n Grace, beauty, and elegance, fetter her lover,\n And maidenly modesty fixes the chain.\n\n O, fresh is the rose in the gay, dewy morning,\n And sweet is the lily, at evening close;\n But in the fair presence o’ lovely young Jessie,\n Unseen is the lily, unheeded the rose.\n Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring;\n Enthron’d in her een he delivers his law:\n And still to her charms she alone is a stranger;\n Her modest demeanour’s the jewel of a’.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Meg O’ The Mill", + "body": " O ken ye what Meg o’ the Mill has gotten,\n An’ ken ye what Meg o’ the Mill has gotten?\n She gotten a coof wi’ a claut o’ siller,\n And broken the heart o’ the barley Miller.\n\n The Miller was strappin, the Miller was ruddy;\n A heart like a lord, and a hue like a lady;\n The laird was a widdifu’, bleerit knurl;\n She’s left the gude fellow, and taen the churl.\n\n The Miller he hecht her a heart leal and loving,\n The lair did address her wi’ matter mair moving,\n A fine pacing-horse wi’ a clear chained bridle,\n A whip by her side, and a bonie side-saddle.\n\n O wae on the siller, it is sae prevailin’,\n And wae on the love that is fixed on a mailen!\n A tocher’s nae word in a true lover’s parle,\n But gie me my love, and a fig for the warl’!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Meg O’ The Mill—Another Version", + "body": " O ken ye what Meg o’ the Mill has gotten,\n An’ ken ye what Meg o’ the Mill has gotten?\n A braw new naig wi’ the tail o’ a rottan,\n And that’s what Meg o’ the Mill has gotten.\n\n O ken ye what Meg o’ the Mill lo’es dearly,\n An’ ken ye what Meg o’ the Mill lo’es dearly?\n A dram o’ gude strunt in the morning early,\n And that’s what Meg o’ the Mill lo’es dearly.\n\n O ken ye how Meg o’ the Mill was married,\n An’ ken ye how Meg o’ the Mill was married?\n The priest he was oxter’d, the clark he was carried,\n And that’s how Meg o’ the Mill was married.\n\n O ken ye how Meg o’ the Mill was bedded,\n An’ ken ye how Meg o’ the Mill was bedded?\n The groom gat sae fou’, he fell awald beside it,\n And that’s how Meg o’ the Mill was bedded.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Soldier’s Return", + "body": " Air—“The Mill, mill, O.”\n\n\n When wild war’s deadly blast was blawn,\n And gentle peace returning,\n Wi’ mony a sweet babe fatherless,\n And mony a widow mourning;\n I left the lines and tented field,\n Where lang I’d been a lodger,\n My humble knapsack a’ my wealth,\n A poor and honest sodger.\n\n A leal, light heart was in my breast,\n My hand unstain’d wi’ plunder;\n And for fair Scotia hame again,\n I cheery on did wander:\n I thought upon the banks o’ Coil,\n I thought upon my Nancy,\n I thought upon the witching smile\n That caught my youthful fancy.\n\n At length I reach’d the bonie glen,\n Where early life I sported;\n I pass’d the mill and trysting thorn,\n Where Nancy aft I courted:\n Wha spied I but my ain dear maid,\n Down by her mother’s dwelling!\n And turn’d me round to hide the flood\n That in my een was swelling.\n\n Wi’ alter’d voice, quoth I, “Sweet lass,\n Sweet as yon hawthorn’s blossom,\n O! happy, happy may he be,\n That’s dearest to thy bosom:\n My purse is light, I’ve far to gang,\n And fain would be thy lodger;\n I’ve serv’d my king and country lang—\n Take pity on a sodger.”\n\n Sae wistfully she gaz’d on me,\n And lovelier was than ever;\n Quo’ she, “A sodger ance I lo’ed,\n Forget him shall I never:\n Our humble cot, and hamely fare,\n Ye freely shall partake it;\n That gallant badge—the dear cockade,\n Ye’re welcome for the sake o’t.”\n\n She gaz’d—she redden’d like a rose—\n Syne pale like only lily;\n She sank within my arms, and cried,\n “Art thou my ain dear Willie?”\n “By him who made yon sun and sky!\n By whom true love’s regarded,\n I am the man; and thus may still\n True lovers be rewarded.\n\n “The wars are o’er, and I’m come hame,\n And find thee still true-hearted;\n Tho’ poor in gear, we’re rich in love,\n And mair we’se ne’er be parted.”\n Quo’ she, “My grandsire left me gowd,\n A mailen plenish’d fairly;\n And come, my faithfu’ sodger lad,\n Thou’rt welcome to it dearly!”\n\n For gold the merchant ploughs the main,\n The farmer ploughs the manor;\n But glory is the sodger’s prize,\n The sodgerpppp’s wealth is honor:\n The brave poor sodger ne’er despise,\n Nor count him as a stranger;\n Remember he’s his country’s stay,\n In day and hour of danger.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The True Loyal Natives", + "body": " Ye true “Loyal Natives” attend to my song\n In uproar and riot rejoice the night long;\n From Envy and Hatred your corps is exempt,\n But where is your shield from the darts of Contempt!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Commissary Goldie’s Brains", + "body": " Lord, to account who dares thee call,\n Or e’er dispute thy pleasure?\n Else why, within so thick a wall,\n Enclose so poor a treasure?", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Inscribed In A Lady’s Pocket Almanac", + "body": " Grant me, indulgent Heaven, that I may live,\n To see the miscreants feel the pains they give;\n Deal Freedom’s sacred treasures free as air,\n Till Slave and Despot be but things that were.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Thanksgiving For A National Victory", + "body": " Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks?\n To murder men and give God thanks!\n Desist, for shame!—proceed no further;\n God won’t accept your thanks for Murther!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines On The Commemoration Of Rodney’s Victory", + "body": " Instead of a Song, boy’s, I’ll give you a Toast;\n Here’s to the memory of those on the twelfth that we lost!—\n That we lost, did I say?—nay, by Heav’n, that we found;\n For their fame it will last while the world goes round.\n\n The next in succession I’ll give you’s the King!\n Whoe’er would betray him, on high may he swing!\n And here’s the grand fabric, our free Constitution,\n As built on the base of our great Revolution!\n And longer with Politics not to be cramm’d,\n Be Anarchy curs’d, and Tyranny damn’d!\n And who would to Liberty e’er prove disloyal,\n May his son be a hangman—and he his first trial!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Raptures Of Folly", + "body": " Thou greybeard, old Wisdom! may boast of thy treasures;\n Give me with young Folly to live;\n I grant thee thy calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures,\n But Folly has raptures to give.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Kirk and State Excisemen", + "body": " Ye men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering\n ’Gainst poor Excisemen? Give the cause a hearing:\n What are your Landlord’s rent-rolls? Taxing ledgers!\n What Premiers? What ev’n Monarchs? Mighty Gaugers!\n Nay, what are Priests? (those seeming godly wise-men,)\n What are they, pray, but Spiritual Excisemen!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Extempore Reply To An Invitation", + "body": " The King’s most humble servant, I\n Can scarcely spare a minute;\n But I’ll be wi’ you by an’ by;\n Or else the Deil’s be in it.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Grace After Meat", + "body": " Lord, we thank, and thee adore,\n For temporal gifts we little merit;\n At present we will ask no more—\n Let William Hislop give the spirit.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Grace Before And After Meat", + "body": " O Lord, when hunger pinches sore,\n Do thou stand us in stead,\n And send us, from thy bounteous store,\n A tup or wether head! Amen.\n\n O Lord, since we have feasted thus,\n Which we so little merit,\n Let Meg now take away the flesh,\n And Jock bring in the spirit! Amen.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Impromptu On General Dumourier’s Desertion From The French Republican Army", + "body": " You’re welcome to Despots, Dumourier;\n You’re welcome to Despots, Dumourier:\n How does Dampiere do?\n Ay, and Bournonville too?\n Why did they not come along with you, Dumourier?\n\n I will fight France with you, Dumourier;\n I will fight France with you, Dumourier;\n I will fight France with you,\n I will take my chance with you;\n By my soul, I’ll dance with you, Dumourier.\n\n Then let us fight about, Dumourier;\n Then let us fight about, Dumourier;\n Then let us fight about,\n Till Freedom’s spark be out,\n Then we’ll be damn’d, no doubt, Dumourier.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Last Time I Came O’er The Moor", + "body": " The last time I came o’er the moor,\n And left Maria’s dwelling,\n What throes, what tortures passing cure,\n Were in my bosom swelling:\n Condemn’d to see my rival’s reign,\n While I in secret languish;\n To feel a fire in every vein,\n Yet dare not speak my anguish.\n\n Love’s veriest wretch, despairing, I\n Fain, fain, my crime would cover;\n Th’ unweeting groan, the bursting sigh,\n Betray the guilty lover.\n I know my doom must be despair,\n Thou wilt nor canst relieve me;\n But oh, Maria, hear my prayer,\n For Pity’s sake forgive me!\n\n The music of thy tongue I heard,\n Nor wist while it enslav’d me;\n I saw thine eyes, yet nothing fear’d,\n Till fear no more had sav’d me:\n The unwary sailor thus, aghast,\n The wheeling torrent viewing,\n ’Mid circling horrors yields at last\n To overwhelming ruin.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Logan Braes", + "body": " Tune—“Logan Water.”\n\n\n O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide,\n That day I was my Willie’s bride,\n And years sin syne hae o’er us run,\n Like Logan to the simmer sun:\n But now thy flowery banks appear\n Like drumlie Winter, dark and drear,\n While my dear lad maun face his faes,\n Far, far frae me and Logan braes.\n\n Again the merry month of May\n Has made our hills and valleys gay;\n The birds rejoice in leafy bowers,\n The bees hum round the breathing flowers;\n Blythe Morning lifts his rosy eye,\n And Evening’s tears are tears o’ joy:\n My soul, delightless a’ surveys,\n While Willie’s far frae Logan braes.\n\n Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush,\n Amang her nestlings sits the thrush:\n Her faithfu’ mate will share her toil,\n Or wi’ his song her cares beguile;\n But I wi’ my sweet nurslings here,\n Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer,\n Pass widow’d nights and joyless days,\n While Willie’s far frae Logan braes.\n\n O wae be to you, Men o’ State,\n That brethren rouse to deadly hate!\n As ye make mony a fond heart mourn,\n Sae may it on your heads return!\n How can your flinty hearts enjoy\n The widow’s tear, the orphan’s cry?\n But soon may peace bring happy days,\n And Willie hame to Logan braes!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Blythe Hae I been On Yon Hill", + "body": " Tune—“The Quaker’s Wife.”\n\n\n Blythe hae I been on yon hill,\n As the lambs before me;\n Careless ilka thought and free,\n As the breeze flew o’er me;\n Now nae langer sport and play,\n Mirth or sang can please me;\n Lesley is sae fair and coy,\n Care and anguish seize me.\n\n Heavy, heavy is the task,\n Hopeless love declaring;\n Trembling, I dow nocht but glow’r,\n Sighing, dumb despairing!\n If she winna ease the thraws\n In my bosom swelling,\n Underneath the grass-green sod,\n Soon maun be my dwelling.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O Were My Love Yon Lilac Fair", + "body": " Air—“Hughie Graham.”\n\n\n O were my love yon Lilac fair,\n Wi’ purple blossoms to the Spring,\n And I, a bird to shelter there,\n When wearied on my little wing!\n How I wad mourn when it was torn\n By Autumn wild, and Winter rude!\n But I wad sing on wanton wing,\n When youthfu’ May its bloom renew’d.\n\n O gin my love were yon red rose,\n That grows upon the castle wa’;\n And I myself a drap o’ dew,\n Into her bonie breast to fa’!\n O there, beyond expression blest,\n I’d feast on beauty a’ the night;\n Seal’d on her silk-saft faulds to rest,\n Till fley’d awa by Phoebus’ light!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Bonie Jean—A Ballad", + "body": " To its ain tune.\n\n\n There was a lass, and she was fair,\n At kirk or market to be seen;\n When a’ our fairest maids were met,\n The fairest maid was bonie Jean.\n\n And aye she wrought her mammie’s wark,\n And aye she sang sae merrilie;\n The blythest bird upon the bush\n Had ne’er a lighter heart than she.\n\n But hawks will rob the tender joys\n That bless the little lintwhite’s nest;\n And frost will blight the fairest flowers,\n And love will break the soundest rest.\n\n Young Robie was the brawest lad,\n The flower and pride of a’ the glen;\n And he had owsen, sheep, and kye,\n And wanton naigies nine or ten.\n\n He gaed wi’ Jeanie to the tryste,\n He danc’d wi’ Jeanie on the down;\n And, lang ere witless Jeanie wist,\n Her heart was tint, her peace was stown!\n\n As in the bosom of the stream,\n The moon-beam dwells at dewy e’en;\n So trembling, pure, was tender love\n Within the breast of bonie Jean.\n\n And now she works her mammie’s wark,\n And aye she sighs wi’ care and pain;\n Yet wist na what her ail might be,\n Or what wad make her weel again.\n\n But did na Jeanie’s heart loup light,\n And didna joy blink in her e’e,\n As Robie tauld a tale o’ love\n Ae e’ening on the lily lea?\n\n The sun was sinking in the west,\n The birds sang sweet in ilka grove;\n His cheek to hers he fondly laid,\n And whisper’d thus his tale o’ love:\n\n “O Jeanie fair, I lo’e thee dear;\n O canst thou think to fancy me,\n Or wilt thou leave thy mammie’s cot,\n And learn to tent the farms wi’ me?\n\n “At barn or byre thou shalt na drudge,\n Or naething else to trouble thee;\n But stray amang the heather-bells,\n And tent the waving corn wi’ me.”\n\n Now what could artless Jeanie do?\n She had nae will to say him na:\n At length she blush’d a sweet consent,\n And love was aye between them twa.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines On John M’Murdo, ESQ.", + "body": " Blest be M’Murdo to his latest day!\n No envious cloud o’ercast his evening ray;\n No wrinkle, furrow’d by the hand of care,\n Nor ever sorrow add one silver hair!\n O may no son the father’s honour stain,\n Nor ever daughter give the mother pain!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On A Lap-Dog", + "body": " Named Echo\n\n\n In wood and wild, ye warbling throng,\n Your heavy loss deplore;\n Now, half extinct your powers of song,\n Sweet Echo is no more.\n\n Ye jarring, screeching things around,\n Scream your discordant joys;\n Now, half your din of tuneless sound\n With Echo silent lies.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigrams Against The Earl Of Galloway", + "body": " What dost thou in that mansion fair?\n Flit, Galloway, and find\n Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave,\n The picture of thy mind.\n\n No Stewart art thou, Galloway,\n The Stewarts ’ll were brave;\n Besides, the Stewarts were but fools,\n Not one of them a knave.\n\n Bright ran thy line, O Galloway,\n Thro’ many a far-fam’d sire!\n So ran the far-famed Roman way,\n And ended in a mire.\n\n Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway!\n In quiet let me live:\n I ask no kindness at thy hand,\n For thou hast none to give.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram On The Laird Of Laggan", + "body": " When Morine, deceas’d, to the Devil went down,\n ’Twas nothing would serve him but Satan’s own crown;\n “Thy fool’s head,” quoth Satan, “that crown shall wear never,\n I grant thou’rt as wicked, but not quite so clever.”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Phillis The Fair", + "body": " Tune—“Robin Adair.”\n\n\n While larks, with little wing,\n Fann’d the pure air,\n Tasting the breathing Spring,\n Forth I did fare:\n Gay the sun’s golden eye\n Peep’d o’er the mountains high;\n Such thy morn! did I cry,\n Phillis the fair.\n\n In each bird’s careless song,\n Glad I did share;\n While yon wild-flowers among,\n Chance led me there!\n Sweet to the op’ning day,\n Rosebuds bent the dewy spray;\n Such thy bloom! did I say,\n Phillis the fair.\n\n Down in a shady walk,\n Doves cooing were;\n I mark’d the cruel hawk\n Caught in a snare:\n So kind may fortune be,\n Such make his destiny,\n He who would injure thee,\n Phillis the fair.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—Had I A Cave", + "body": " Tune—“Robin Adair.”\n\n\n Had I a cave on some wild distant shore,\n Where the winds howl to the wave’s dashing roar:\n There would I weep my woes,\n There seek my lost repose,\n Till grief my eyes should close,\n Ne’er to wake more!\n\n Falsest of womankind, can’st thou declare\n All thy fond, plighted vows fleeting as air!\n To thy new lover hie,\n Laugh o’er thy perjury;\n Then in thy bosom try\n What peace is there!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song—By Allan Stream", + "body": " By Allan stream I chanc’d to rove,\n While Phoebus sank beyond Benledi;\n The winds are whispering thro’ the grove,\n The yellow corn was waving ready:\n I listen’d to a lover’s sang,\n An’ thought on youthfu’ pleasures mony;\n And aye the wild-wood echoes rang—\n “O, dearly do I love thee, Annie!\n\n “O, happy be the woodbine bower,\n Nae nightly bogle make it eerie;\n Nor ever sorrow stain the hour,\n The place and time I met my Dearie!\n Her head upon my throbbing breast,\n She, sinking, said, ’I’m thine for ever!’\n While mony a kiss the seal imprest—\n The sacred vow we ne’er should sever.”\n\n The haunt o’ Spring’s the primrose-brae,\n The Summer joys the flocks to follow;\n How cheery thro’ her short’ning day,\n Is Autumn in her weeds o’ yellow;\n But can they melt the glowing heart,\n Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure?\n Or thro’ each nerve the rapture dart,\n Like meeting her, our bosom’s treasure?", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Whistle, And I’ll Come To You, My Lad", + "body": " Chorus.—O Whistle, an’ I’ll come to ye, my lad,\n O whistle, an’ I’ll come to ye, my lad,\n Tho’ father an’ mother an’ a’ should gae mad,\n O whistle, an’ I’ll come to ye, my lad.\n\n But warily tent when ye come to court me,\n And come nae unless the back-yett be a-jee;\n Syne up the back-stile, and let naebody see,\n And come as ye were na comin’ to me,\n And come as ye were na comin’ to me.\n O whistle an’ I’ll come, &c.\n\n At kirk, or at market, whene’er ye meet me,\n Gang by me as tho’ that ye car’d na a flie;\n But steal me a blink o’ your bonie black e’e,\n Yet look as ye were na lookin’ to me,\n Yet look as ye were na lookin’ to me.\n O whistle an’ I’ll come, &c.\n\n Aye vow and protest that ye care na for me,\n And whiles ye may lightly my beauty a-wee;\n But court na anither, tho’ jokin’ ye be,\n For fear that she wile your fancy frae me,\n For fear that she wile your fancy frae me.\n O whistle an’ I’ll come, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Phillis The Queen O’ The Fair", + "body": " Tune—“The Muckin o’ Geordie’s Byre.”\n\n\n Adown winding Nith I did wander,\n To mark the sweet flowers as they spring;\n Adown winding Nith I did wander,\n Of Phillis to muse and to sing.\n\n Chorus.—Awa’ wi’ your belles and your beauties,\n They never wi’ her can compare,\n Whaever has met wi’ my Phillis,\n Has met wi’ the queen o’ the fair.\n\n The daisy amus’d my fond fancy,\n So artless, so simple, so wild;\n Thou emblem, said I, o’ my Phillis—\n For she is Simplicity’s child.\n Awa’ wi’ your belles, &c.\n\n The rose-bud’s the blush o’ my charmer,\n Her sweet balmy lip when ’tis prest:\n How fair and how pure is the lily!\n But fairer and purer her breast.\n Awa’ wi’ your belles, &c.\n\n Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour,\n They ne’er wi’ my Phillis can vie:\n Her breath is the breath of the woodbine,\n Its dew-drop o’ diamond her eye.\n Awa’ wi’ your belles, &c.\n\n Her voice is the song o’ the morning,\n That wakes thro’ the green-spreading grove\n When Phoebus peeps over the mountains,\n On music, and pleasure, and love.\n Awa’ wi’ your belles, &c.\n\n But beauty, how frail and how fleeting!\n The bloom of a fine summer’s day;\n While worth in the mind o’ my Phillis,\n Will flourish without a decay.\n Awa’ wi’ your belles, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Come, Let Me Take Thee To My Breast", + "body": " Come, let me take thee to my breast,\n And pledge we ne’er shall sunder;\n And I shall spurn as vilest dust\n The world’s wealth and grandeur:\n And do I hear my Jeanie own\n That equal transports move her?\n I ask for dearest life alone,\n That I may live to love her.\n\n Thus, in my arms, wi’ a’ her charms,\n I clasp my countless treasure;\n I’ll seek nae main o’ Heav’n to share,\n Tha sic a moment’s pleasure:\n And by thy e’en sae bonie blue,\n I swear I’m thine for ever!\n And on thy lips I seal my vow,\n And break it shall I never.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Dainty Davie", + "body": " Now rosy May comes in wi’ flowers,\n To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers;\n And now comes in the happy hours,\n To wander wi’ my Davie.\n\n Chorus.—Meet me on the warlock knowe,\n Dainty Davie, Dainty Davie;\n There I’ll spend the day wi’ you,\n My ain dear Dainty Davie.\n\n The crystal waters round us fa’,\n The merry birds are lovers a’,\n The scented breezes round us blaw,\n A wandering wi’ my Davie.\n Meet me on, &c.\n\n As purple morning starts the hare,\n To steal upon her early fare,\n Then thro’ the dews I will repair,\n To meet my faithfu’ Davie.\n Meet me on, &c.\n\n When day, expiring in the west,\n The curtain draws o’ Nature’s rest,\n I flee to his arms I loe’ the best,\n And that’s my ain dear Davie.\n Meet me on, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Robert Bruce’s March To Bannockburn", + "body": " Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,\n Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,\n Welcome to your gory bed,\n Or to Victorie!\n\n Now’s the day, and now’s the hour;\n See the front o’ battle lour;\n See approach proud Edward’s power—\n Chains and Slaverie!\n\n Wha will be a traitor knave?\n Wha can fill a coward’s grave?\n Wha sae base as be a Slave?\n Let him turn and flee!\n\n Wha, for Scotland’s King and Law,\n Freedom’s sword will strongly draw,\n Free-man stand, or Free-man fa’,\n Let him on wi’ me!\n\n By Oppression’s woes and pains!\n By your Sons in servile chains!\n We will drain our dearest veins,\n But they shall be free!\n\n Lay the proud Usurpers low!\n Tyrants fall in every foe!\n Liberty’s in every blow!—\n Let us Do or Die!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Behold The Hour, The Boat Arrive", + "body": " Behold the hour, the boat arrive;\n Thou goest, the darling of my heart;\n Sever’d from thee, can I survive,\n But Fate has will’d and we must part.\n I’ll often greet the surging swell,\n Yon distant Isle will often hail:\n “E’en here I took the last farewell;\n There, latest mark’d her vanish’d sail.”\n Along the solitary shore,\n While flitting sea-fowl round me cry,\n Across the rolling, dashing roar,\n I’ll westward turn my wistful eye:\n “Happy thou Indian grove,” I’ll say,\n “Where now my Nancy’s path may be!\n While thro’ thy sweets she loves to stray,\n O tell me, does she muse on me!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Down The Burn, Davie", + "body": " As down the burn they took their way,\n And thro’ the flowery dale;\n His cheek to hers he aft did lay,\n And love was aye the tale:\n\n With “Mary, when shall we return,\n Sic pleasure to renew?”\n Quoth Mary—“Love, I like the burn,\n And aye shall follow you.”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Thou Hast Left Me Ever, Jamie", + "body": " Tune—“Fee him, father, fee him.”\n\n\n Thou hast left me ever, Jamie,\n Thou hast left me ever;\n Thou has left me ever, Jamie,\n Thou hast left me ever:\n Aften hast thou vow’d that Death\n Only should us sever;\n Now thou’st left thy lass for aye—\n I maun see thee never, Jamie,\n I’ll see thee never.\n\n Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie,\n Thou hast me forsaken;\n Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie,\n Thou hast me forsaken;\n Thou canst love another jo,\n While my heart is breaking;\n Soon my weary een I’ll close,\n Never mair to waken, Jamie,\n Never mair to waken!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Where Are The Joys I have Met?", + "body": " Tune—“Saw ye my father.”\n\n\n Where are the joys I have met in the morning,\n That danc’d to the lark’s early song?\n Where is the peace that awaited my wand’ring,\n At evening the wild-woods among?\n\n No more a winding the course of yon river,\n And marking sweet flowerets so fair,\n No more I trace the light footsteps of Pleasure,\n But Sorrow and sad-sighing Care.\n\n Is it that Summer’s forsaken our valleys,\n And grim, surly Winter is near?\n No, no, the bees humming round the gay roses\n Proclaim it the pride of the year.\n\n Fain would I hide what I fear to discover,\n Yet long, long, too well have I known;\n All that has caused this wreck in my bosom,\n Is Jenny, fair Jenny alone.\n\n Time cannot aid me, my griefs are immortal,\n Nor Hope dare a comfort bestow:\n Come then, enamour’d and fond of my anguish,\n Enjoyment I’ll seek in my woe.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Deluded Swain, The Pleasure", + "body": " Tune—“The Collier’s Dochter.”\n\n\n Deluded swain, the pleasure\n The fickle Fair can give thee,\n Is but a fairy treasure,\n Thy hopes will soon deceive thee:\n The billows on the ocean,\n The breezes idly roaming,\n The cloud’s uncertain motion,\n They are but types of Woman.\n\n O art thou not asham’d\n To doat upon a feature?\n If Man thou wouldst be nam’d,\n Despise the silly creature.\n Go, find an honest fellow,\n Good claret set before thee,\n Hold on till thou art mellow,\n And then to bed in glory!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Thine Am I, My Faithful Fair", + "body": " Tune—“The Quaker’s Wife.”\n\n\n Thine am I, my faithful Fair,\n Thine, my lovely Nancy;\n Ev’ry pulse along my veins,\n Ev’ry roving fancy.\n To thy bosom lay my heart,\n There to throb and languish;\n Tho’ despair had wrung its core,\n That would heal its anguish.\n\n Take away those rosy lips,\n Rich with balmy treasure;\n Turn away thine eyes of love,\n Lest I die with pleasure!\n What is life when wanting Love?\n Night without a morning:\n Love’s the cloudless summer sun,\n Nature gay adorning.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Mrs. Riddell’s Birthday", + "body": " 4th November 1793.\n\n\n Old Winter, with his frosty beard,\n Thus once to Jove his prayer preferred:\n “What have I done of all the year,\n To bear this hated doom severe?\n\n My cheerless suns no pleasure know;\n Night’s horrid car drags, dreary slow;\n My dismal months no joys are crowning,\n But spleeny English hanging, drowning.\n\n “Now Jove, for once be mighty civil.\n To counterbalance all this evil;\n Give me, and I’ve no more to say,\n Give me Maria’s natal day!\n That brilliant gift shall so enrich me,\n Spring, Summer, Autumn, cannot match me.”\n “’Tis done!” says Jove; so ends my story,\n And Winter once rejoiced in glory.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Spouse Nancy", + "body": " Tune—“My Jo Janet.”\n\n\n “Husband, husband, cease your strife,\n Nor longer idly rave, Sir;\n Tho’ I am your wedded wife\n Yet I am not your slave, Sir.”\n\n “One of two must still obey,\n Nancy, Nancy;\n Is it Man or Woman, say,\n My spouse Nancy?’\n\n “If ’tis still the lordly word,\n Service and obedience;\n I’ll desert my sov’reign lord,\n And so, good bye, allegiance!”\n\n “Sad shall I be, so bereft,\n Nancy, Nancy;\n Yet I’ll try to make a shift,\n My spouse Nancy.”\n\n “My poor heart, then break it must,\n My last hour I am near it:\n When you lay me in the dust,\n Think how you will bear it.”\n\n “I will hope and trust in Heaven,\n Nancy, Nancy;\n Strength to bear it will be given,\n My spouse Nancy.”\n\n “Well, Sir, from the silent dead,\n Still I’ll try to daunt you;\n Ever round your midnight bed\n Horrid sprites shall haunt you!”\n\n “I’ll wed another like my dear\n Nancy, Nancy;\n Then all hell will fly for fear,\n My spouse Nancy.”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her Benefit Night, December 4th, 1793,", + "body": "at the Theatre, Dumfries.\n\n\n Still anxious to secure your partial favour,\n And not less anxious, sure, this night, than ever,\n A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,\n ’Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;\n So sought a poet, roosted near the skies,\n Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;\n Said, nothing like his works was ever printed;\n And last, my prologue-business slily hinted.\n “Ma’am, let me tell you,” quoth my man of rhymes,\n “I know your bent—these are no laughing times:\n Can you—but, Miss, I own I have my fears—\n Dissolve in pause, and sentimental tears;\n With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence,\n Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repentance;\n Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand,\n Waving on high the desolating brand,\n Calling the storms to bear him o’er a guilty land?”\n\n I could no more—askance the creature eyeing,\n “D’ye think,” said I, “this face was made for crying?\n I’ll laugh, that’s poz-nay more, the world shall know it;\n And so, your servant! gloomy Master Poet!”\n\n Firm as my creed, Sirs, ’tis my fix’d belief,\n That Misery’s another word for Grief:\n I also think—so may I be a bride!\n That so much laughter, so much life enjoy’d.\n\n Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh,\n Still under bleak Misfortune’s blasting eye;\n Doom’d to that sorest task of man alive—\n To make three guineas do the work of five:\n Laugh in Misfortune’s face—the beldam witch!\n Say, you’ll be merry, tho’ you can’t be rich.\n\n Thou other man of care, the wretch in love,\n Who long with jiltish airs and arts hast strove;\n Who, as the boughs all temptingly project,\n Measur’st in desperate thought—a rope—thy neck—\n Or, where the beetling cliff o’erhangs the deep,\n Peerest to meditate the healing leap:\n Would’st thou be cur’d, thou silly, moping elf?\n Laugh at her follies—laugh e’en at thyself:\n Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific,\n And love a kinder—that’s your grand specific.\n\n To sum up all, be merry, I advise;\n And as we’re merry, may we still be wise.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Complimentary Epigram On Maria Riddell", + "body": " “Praise Woman still,” his lordship roars,\n “Deserv’d or not, no matter?”\n But thee, whom all my soul adores,\n Ev’n Flattery cannot flatter:\n\n Maria, all my thought and dream,\n Inspires my vocal shell;\n The more I praise my lovely theme,\n The more the truth I tell.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Remorseful Apology", + "body": " The friend whom, wild from Wisdom’s way,\n The fumes of wine infuriate send,\n (Not moony madness more astray)\n Who but deplores that hapless friend?\n\n Mine was th’ insensate frenzied part,\n Ah! why should I such scenes outlive?\n Scenes so abhorrent to my heart!—\n ’Tis thine to pity and forgive.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Wilt Thou Be My Dearie?", + "body": " Tune—“The Sutor’s Dochter.”\n\n\n Wilt thou be my Dearie?\n When Sorrow wring thy gentle heart,\n O wilt thou let me cheer thee!\n By the treasure of my soul,\n That’s the love I bear thee:\n I swear and vow that only thou\n Shall ever be my Dearie!\n Only thou, I swear and vow,\n Shall ever be my Dearie!\n\n Lassie, say thou lo’es me;\n Or, if thou wilt na be my ain,\n O say na thou’lt refuse me!\n If it winna, canna be,\n Thou for thine may choose me,\n Let me, lassie, quickly die,\n Still trusting that thou lo’es me!\n Lassie, let me quickly die,\n Still trusting that thou lo’es me!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Fiddler In The North", + "body": " Tune—“The King o’ France he rade a race.”\n\n\n Amang the trees, where humming bees,\n At buds and flowers were hinging, O,\n Auld Caledon drew out her drone,\n And to her pipe was singing, O:\n ’Twas Pibroch, Sang, Strathspeys, and Reels,\n She dirl’d them aff fu’ clearly, O:\n When there cam’ a yell o’ foreign squeels,\n That dang her tapsalteerie, O.\n\n Their capon craws an’ queer “ha, ha’s,”\n They made our lugs grow eerie, O;\n The hungry bike did scrape and fyke,\n Till we were wae and weary, O:\n But a royal ghaist, wha ance was cas’d,\n A prisoner, aughteen year awa’,\n He fir’d a Fiddler in the North,\n That dang them tapsalteerie, O.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Minstrel At Lincluden", + "body": " Tune—“Cumnock Psalms.”\n\n\n As I stood by yon roofless tower,\n Where the wa’flow’r scents the dery air,\n Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower,\n And tells the midnight moon her care.\n\n Chorus—A lassie all alone, was making her moan,\n Lamenting our lads beyond the sea:\n In the bluidy wars they fa’, and our honour’s gane an’ a’,\n And broken-hearted we maun die.\n\n The winds were laid, the air was till,\n The stars they shot along the sky;\n The tod was howling on the hill,\n And the distant-echoing glens reply.\n A lassie all alone, &c.\n\n The burn, adown its hazelly path,\n Was rushing by the ruin’d wa’,\n Hasting to join the sweeping Nith,\n Whase roarings seem’d to rise and fa’.\n A lassie all alone, &c.\n\n The cauld blae North was streaming forth\n Her lights, wi’ hissing, eerie din,\n Athort the lift they start and shift,\n Like Fortune’s favours, tint as win.\n A lassie all alone, &c.\n\n Now, looking over firth and fauld,\n Her horn the pale-faced Cynthia rear’d,\n When lo! in form of Minstrel auld,\n A stern and stalwart ghaist appear’d.\n A lassie all alone, &c.\n\n And frae his harp sic strains did flow,\n Might rous’d the slumbering Dead to hear;\n But oh, it was a tale of woe,\n As ever met a Briton’s ear!\n A lassie all alone, &c.\n\n He sang wi’ joy his former day,\n He, weeping, wail’d his latter times;\n But what he said—it was nae play,\n I winna venture’t in my rhymes.\n A lassie all alone, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Vision", + "body": " As I stood by yon roofless tower,\n Where the wa’flower scents the dewy air,\n Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower,\n And tells the midnight moon her care.\n\n The winds were laid, the air was still,\n The stars they shot alang the sky;\n The fox was howling on the hill,\n And the distant echoing glens reply.\n\n The stream, adown its hazelly path,\n Was rushing by the ruin’d wa’s,\n Hasting to join the sweeping Nith,\n Whase distant roaring swells and fa’s.\n\n The cauld blae North was streaming forth\n Her lights, wi’ hissing, eerie din;\n Athwart the lift they start and shift,\n Like Fortune’s favors, tint as win.\n\n By heedless chance I turn’d mine eyes,\n And, by the moonbeam, shook to see\n A stern and stalwart ghaist arise,\n Attir’d as Minstrels wont to be.\n\n Had I a statue been o’ stane,\n His daring look had daunted me;\n And on his bonnet grav’d was plain,\n The sacred posy—“Libertie!”\n\n And frae his harp sic strains did flow,\n Might rous’d the slumb’ring Dead to hear;\n But oh, it was a tale of woe,\n As ever met a Briton’s ear!\n\n He sang wi’ joy his former day,\n He, weeping, wailed his latter times;\n But what he said—it was nae play,\n I winna venture’t in my rhymes.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Red, Red Rose", + "body": " [Hear Red, Red Rose]\n\n\n O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,\n That’s newly sprung in June:\n O my Luve’s like the melodie,\n That’s sweetly play’d in tune.\n\n As fair art thou, my bonie lass,\n So deep in luve am I;\n And I will luve thee still, my dear,\n Till a’ the seas gang dry.\n\n Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,\n And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;\n And I will luve thee still, my dear,\n While the sands o’ life shall run.\n\n And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!\n And fare-thee-weel, a while!\n And I will come again, my Luve,\n Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Young Jamie, Pride Of A’ The Plain", + "body": " Tune—“The Carlin of the Glen.”\n\n\n Young Jamie, pride of a’ the plain,\n Sae gallant and sae gay a swain,\n Thro’ a’ our lasses he did rove,\n And reign’d resistless King of Love.\n\n But now, wi’ sighs and starting tears,\n He strays amang the woods and breirs;\n Or in the glens and rocky caves,\n His sad complaining dowie raves:—\n\n “I wha sae late did range and rove,\n And chang’d with every moon my love,\n I little thought the time was near,\n Repentance I should buy sae dear.\n\n “The slighted maids my torments see,\n And laugh at a’ the pangs I dree;\n While she, my cruel, scornful Fair,\n Forbids me e’er to see her mair.”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Flowery Banks Of Cree", + "body": " Here is the glen, and here the bower\n All underneath the birchen shade;\n The village-bell has told the hour,\n O what can stay my lovely maid?\n\n ’Tis not Maria’s whispering call;\n ’Tis but the balmy breathing gale,\n Mixt with some warbler’s dying fall,\n The dewy star of eve to hail.\n\n It is Maria’s voice I hear;\n So calls the woodlark in the grove,\n His little, faithful mate to cheer;\n At once ’tis music and ’tis love.\n\n And art thou come! and art thou true!\n O welcome dear to love and me!\n And let us all our vows renew,\n Along the flowery banks of Cree.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Monody", + "body": " On a lady famed for her Caprice.\n\n\n How cold is that bosom which folly once fired,\n How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten’d;\n How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired,\n How dull is that ear which to flatt’ry so listen’d!\n\n If sorrow and anguish their exit await,\n From friendship and dearest affection remov’d;\n How doubly severer, Maria, thy fate,\n Thou diedst unwept, as thou livedst unlov’d.\n\n Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you;\n So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear:\n But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true,\n And flowers let us cull for Maria’s cold bier.\n\n We’ll search through the garden for each silly flower,\n We’ll roam thro’ the forest for each idle weed;\n But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower,\n For none e’er approach’d her but rued the rash deed.\n\n We’ll sculpture the marble, we’ll measure the lay;\n Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre;\n There keen Indignation shall dart on his prey,\n Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Epitaph", + "body": " Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect,\n What once was a butterfly, gay in life’s beam:\n Want only of wisdom denied her respect,\n Want only of goodness denied her esteem.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Pinned To Mrs. Walter Riddell’s Carriage", + "body": " If you rattle along like your Mistress’ tongue,\n Your speed will outrival the dart;\n But a fly for your load, you’ll break down on the road,\n If your stuff be as rotten’s her heart.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph For Mr. Walter Riddell", + "body": " Sic a reptile was Wat, sic a miscreant slave,\n That the worms ev’n damn’d him when laid in his grave;\n “In his flesh there’s a famine,” a starved reptile cries,\n “And his heart is rank poison!” another replies.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle From Esopus To Maria", + "body": " From those drear solitudes and frowsy cells,\n Where Infamy with sad Repentance dwells;\n Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast,\n And deal from iron hands the spare repast;\n Where truant ’prentices, yet young in sin,\n Blush at the curious stranger peeping in;\n Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,\n Resolve to drink, nay, half, to whore, no more;\n Where tiny thieves not destin’d yet to swing,\n Beat hemp for others, riper for the string:\n From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date,\n To tell Maria her Esopus’ fate.\n\n “Alas! I feel I am no actor here!”\n ’Tis real hangmen real scourges bear!\n Prepare Maria, for a horrid tale\n Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale;\n Will make thy hair, tho’ erst from gipsy poll’d,\n By barber woven, and by barber sold,\n Though twisted smooth with Harry’s nicest care,\n Like hoary bristles to erect and stare.\n The hero of the mimic scene, no more\n I start in Hamlet, in Othello roar;\n Or, haughty Chieftain, ’mid the din of arms\n In Highland Bonnet, woo Malvina’s charms;\n While sans-culottes stoop up the mountain high,\n And steal from me Maria’s prying eye.\n Blest Highland bonnet! once my proudest dress,\n Now prouder still, Maria’s temples press;\n I see her wave thy towering plumes afar,\n And call each coxcomb to the wordy war:\n I see her face the first of Ireland’s sons,\n And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze;\n The crafty Colonel leaves the tartan’d lines,\n For other wars, where he a hero shines:\n The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred,\n Who owns a Bushby’s heart without the head,\n Comes ’mid a string of coxcombs, to display\n That veni, vidi, vici, is his way:\n The shrinking Bard adown the alley skulks,\n And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich hulks:\n Though there, his heresies in Church and State\n Might well award him Muir and Palmer’s fate:\n Still she undaunted reels and rattles on,\n And dares the public like a noontide sun.\n What scandal called Maria’s jaunty stagger\n The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger?\n Whose spleen (e’en worse than Burns’ venom, when\n He dips in gall unmix’d his eager pen,\n And pours his vengeance in the burning line,)—\n Who christen’d thus Maria’s lyre-divine\n The idiot strum of Vanity bemus’d,\n And even the abuse of Poesy abus’d?—\n Who called her verse a Parish Workhouse, made\n For motley foundling Fancies, stolen or strayed?\n\n A Workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes,\n And pillows on the thorn my rack’d repose!\n In durance vile here must I wake and weep,\n And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep;\n That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore,\n And vermin’d gipsies litter’d heretofore.\n\n Why, Lonsdale, thus thy wrath on vagrants pour?\n Must earth no rascal save thyself endure?\n Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell,\n And make a vast monopoly of hell?\n Thou know’st the Virtues cannot hate thee worse;\n The Vices also, must they club their curse?\n Or must no tiny sin to others fall,\n Because thy guilt’s supreme enough for all?\n\n Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares;\n In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares.\n As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls,\n Who on my fair one Satire’s vengeance hurls—\n Who calls thee, pert, affected, vain coquette,\n A wit in folly, and a fool in wit!\n Who says that fool alone is not thy due,\n And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true!\n\n Our force united on thy foes we’ll turn,\n And dare the war with all of woman born:\n For who can write and speak as thou and I?\n My periods that deciphering defy,\n And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph On A Noted Coxcomb", + "body": " Capt. Wm. Roddirk, of Corbiston.\n\n Light lay the earth on Billy’s breast,\n His chicken heart so tender;\n But build a castle on his head,\n His scull will prop it under.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Capt. Lascelles", + "body": " When Lascelles thought fit from this world to depart,\n Some friends warmly thought of embalming his heart;\n A bystander whispers—“Pray don’t make so much o’t,\n The subject is poison, no reptile will touch it.”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Wm. Graham, Esq., Of Mossknowe", + "body": " “Stop thief!” dame Nature call’d to Death,\n As Willy drew his latest breath;\n How shall I make a fool again?\n My choicest model thou hast ta’en.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On John Bushby, Esq., Tinwald Downs", + "body": " Here lies John Bushby—honest man,\n Cheat him, Devil—if you can!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet On The Death Of Robert Riddell", + "body": " Of Glenriddell and Friars’ Carse.\n\n\n No more, ye warblers of the wood! no more;\n Nor pour your descant grating on my soul;\n Thou young-eyed Spring! gay in thy verdant stole,\n More welcome were to me grim Winter’s wildest roar.\n\n How can ye charm, ye flowers, with all your dyes?\n Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend!\n How can I to the tuneful strain attend?\n That strain flows round the untimely tomb where Riddell lies.\n\n Yes, pour, ye warblers! pour the notes of woe,\n And soothe the Virtues weeping o’er his bier:\n The man of worth—and hath not left his peer!\n Is in his “narrow house,” for ever darkly low.\n\n Thee, Spring! again with joy shall others greet;\n Me, memory of my loss will only meet.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Lovely Lass O’ Inverness", + "body": " The lovely lass o’ Inverness,\n Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;\n For, e’en to morn she cries, alas!\n And aye the saut tear blin’s her e’e.\n\n “Drumossie moor, Drumossie day—\n A waefu’ day it was to me!\n For there I lost my father dear,\n My father dear, and brethren three.\n\n “Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay,\n Their graves are growin’ green to see;\n And by them lies the dearest lad\n That ever blest a woman’s e’e!\n\n “Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,\n A bluidy man I trow thou be;\n For mony a heart thou has made sair,\n That ne’er did wrang to thine or thee!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Charlie, He’s My Darling", + "body": " ’Twas on a Monday morning,\n Right early in the year,\n That Charlie came to our town,\n The young Chevalier.\n\n Chorus—An’ Charlie, he’s my darling,\n My darling, my darling,\n Charlie, he’s my darling,\n The young Chevalier.\n\n As he was walking up the street,\n The city for to view,\n O there he spied a bonie lass\n The window looking through,\n An’ Charlie, &c.\n\n Sae light’s he jumped up the stair,\n And tirl’d at the pin;\n And wha sae ready as hersel’\n To let the laddie in.\n An’ Charlie, &c.\n\n He set his Jenny on his knee,\n All in his Highland dress;\n For brawly weel he ken’d the way\n To please a bonie lass.\n An’ Charlie, &c.\n\n It’s up yon heathery mountain,\n An’ down yon scroggie glen,\n We daur na gang a milking,\n For Charlie and his men,\n An’ Charlie, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Bannocks O’ Bear Meal", + "body": " Chorus—Bannocks o’ bear meal,\n Bannocks o’ barley,\n Here’s to the Highlandman’s\n Bannocks o’ barley!\n\n Wha, in a brulyie, will\n First cry a parley?\n Never the lads wi’ the\n Bannocks o’ barley,\n Bannocks o’ bear meal, &c.\n\n Wha, in his wae days,\n Were loyal to Charlie?\n Wha but the lads wi’ the\n Bannocks o’ barley!\n Bannocks o’ bear meal, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Highland Balou", + "body": " Hee balou, my sweet wee Donald,\n Picture o’ the great Clanronald;\n Brawlie kens our wanton Chief\n Wha gat my young Highland thief.\n\n Leeze me on thy bonie craigie,\n An’ thou live, thou’ll steal a naigie,\n Travel the country thro’ and thro’,\n And bring hame a Carlisle cow.\n\n Thro’ the Lawlands, o’er the Border,\n Weel, my babie, may thou furder!\n Herry the louns o’ the laigh Countrie,\n Syne to the Highlands hame to me.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Highland Widow’s Lament", + "body": " Oh I am come to the low Countrie,\n Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!\n Without a penny in my purse,\n To buy a meal to me.\n\n It was na sae in the Highland hills,\n Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!\n Nae woman in the Country wide,\n Sae happy was as me.\n\n For then I had a score o’kye,\n Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!\n Feeding on you hill sae high,\n And giving milk to me.\n\n And there I had three score o’yowes,\n Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!\n Skipping on yon bonie knowes,\n And casting woo’ to me.\n\n I was the happiest of a’ the Clan,\n Sair, sair, may I repine;\n For Donald was the brawest man,\n And Donald he was mine.\n\n Till Charlie Stewart cam at last,\n Sae far to set us free;\n My Donald’s arm was wanted then,\n For Scotland and for me.\n\n Their waefu’ fate what need I tell,\n Right to the wrang did yield;\n My Donald and his Country fell,\n Upon Culloden field.\n\n Oh I am come to the low Countrie,\n Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!\n Nae woman in the warld wide,\n Sae wretched now as me.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "It Was A’ For Our Rightfu’ King", + "body": " It was a’ for our rightfu’ King\n We left fair Scotland’s strand;\n It was a’ for our rightfu’ King\n We e’er saw Irish land, my dear,\n We e’er saw Irish land.\n\n Now a’ is done that men can do,\n And a’ is done in vain;\n My Love and Native Land fareweel,\n For I maun cross the main, my dear,\n For I maun cross the main.\n\n He turn’d him right and round about,\n Upon the Irish shore;\n And gae his bridle reins a shake,\n With adieu for evermore, my dear,\n And adiue for evermore.\n\n The soger frae the wars returns,\n The sailor frae the main;\n But I hae parted frae my Love,\n Never to meet again, my dear,\n Never to meet again.\n\n When day is gane, and night is come,\n And a’ folk bound to sleep;\n I think on him that’s far awa,\n The lee-lang night, and weep, my dear,\n The lee-lang night, and weep.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ode For General Washington’s Birthday", + "body": " No Spartan tube, no Attic shell,\n No lyre Aeolian I awake;\n ’Tis liberty’s bold note I swell,\n Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!\n See gathering thousands, while I sing,\n A broken chain exulting bring,\n And dash it in a tyrant’s face,\n And dare him to his very beard,\n And tell him he no more is feared—\n No more the despot of Columbia’s race!\n A tyrant’s proudest insults brav’d,\n They shout—a People freed! They hail an Empire saved.\n Where is man’s god-like form?\n Where is that brow erect and bold—\n That eye that can unmov’d behold\n The wildest rage, the loudest storm\n That e’er created fury dared to raise?\n Avaunt! thou caitiff, servile, base,\n That tremblest at a despot’s nod,\n Yet, crouching under the iron rod,\n Canst laud the hand that struck th’ insulting blow!\n Art thou of man’s Imperial line?\n Dost boast that countenance divine?\n Each skulking feature answers, No!\n But come, ye sons of Liberty,\n Columbia’s offspring, brave as free,\n In danger’s hour still flaming in the van,\n Ye know, and dare maintain, the Royalty of Man!\n\n Alfred! on thy starry throne,\n Surrounded by the tuneful choir,\n The bards that erst have struck the patriot lyre,\n And rous’d the freeborn Briton’s soul of fire,\n No more thy England own!\n Dare injured nations form the great design,\n To make detested tyrants bleed?\n Thy England execrates the glorious deed!\n Beneath her hostile banners waving,\n Every pang of honour braving,\n England in thunder calls, “The tyrant’s cause is mine!”\n That hour accurst how did the fiends rejoice\n And hell, thro’ all her confines, raise the exulting voice,\n That hour which saw the generous English name\n Linkt with such damned deeds of everlasting shame!\n\n Thee, Caledonia! thy wild heaths among,\n Fam’d for the martial deed, the heaven-taught song,\n To thee I turn with swimming eyes;\n Where is that soul of Freedom fled?\n Immingled with the mighty dead,\n Beneath that hallow’d turf where Wallace lies\n Hear it not, Wallace! in thy bed of death.\n Ye babbling winds! in silence sweep,\n Disturb not ye the hero’s sleep,\n Nor give the coward secret breath!\n Is this the ancient Caledonian form,\n Firm as the rock, resistless as the storm?\n Show me that eye which shot immortal hate,\n Blasting the despot’s proudest bearing;\n Show me that arm which, nerv’d with thundering fate,\n Crush’d Usurpation’s boldest daring!—\n Dark-quench’d as yonder sinking star,\n No more that glance lightens afar;\n That palsied arm no more whirls on the waste of war.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Inscription To Miss Graham Of Fintry", + "body": " Here, where the Scottish Muse immortal lives,\n In sacred strains and tuneful numbers joined,\n Accept the gift; though humble he who gives,\n Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind.\n\n So may no ruffian-feeling in my breast,\n Discordant, jar thy bosom-chords among;\n But Peace attune thy gentle soul to rest,\n Or Love, ecstatic, wake his seraph song,\n\n Or Pity’s notes, in luxury of tears,\n As modest Want the tale of woe reveals;\n While conscious Virtue all the strains endears,\n And heaven-born Piety her sanction seals.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On The Seas And Far Away", + "body": " Tune—“O’er the hills and far away.”\n\n\n How can my poor heart be glad,\n When absent from my sailor lad;\n How can I the thought forego—\n He’s on the seas to meet the foe?\n Let me wander, let me rove,\n Still my heart is with my love;\n Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day,\n Are with him that’s far away.\n\n Chorus.—On the seas and far away,\n On stormy seas and far away;\n Nightly dreams and thoughts by day,\n Are aye with him that’s far away.\n\n When in summer noon I faint,\n As weary flocks around me pant,\n Haply in this scorching sun,\n My sailor’s thund’ring at his gun;\n Bullets, spare my only joy!\n Bullets, spare my darling boy!\n Fate, do with me what you may,\n Spare but him that’s far away,\n On the seas and far away,\n On stormy seas and far away;\n Fate, do with me what you may,\n Spare but him that’s far away.\n\n At the starless, midnight hour\n When Winter rules with boundless power,\n As the storms the forests tear,\n And thunders rend the howling air,\n Listening to the doubling roar,\n Surging on the rocky shore,\n All I can—I weep and pray\n For his weal that’s far away,\n On the seas and far away,\n On stormy seas and far away;\n All I can—I weep and pray,\n For his weal that’s far away.\n\n Peace, thy olive wand extend,\n And bid wild War his ravage end,\n Man with brother Man to meet,\n And as a brother kindly greet;\n Then may heav’n with prosperous gales,\n Fill my sailor’s welcome sails;\n To my arms their charge convey,\n My dear lad that’s far away.\n On the seas and far away,\n On stormy seas and far away;\n To my arms their charge convey,\n My dear lad that’s far away.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ca’ The Yowes To The Knowes—Second Version", + "body": " Chorus.—Ca’the yowes to the knowes,\n Ca’ them where the heather grows,\n Ca’ them where the burnie rowes,\n My bonie Dearie.\n\n Hark the mavis’ e’ening sang,\n Sounding Clouden’s woods amang;\n Then a-faulding let us gang,\n My bonie Dearie.\n Ca’ the yowes, &c.\n\n We’ll gae down by Clouden side,\n Thro’ the hazels, spreading wide,\n O’er the waves that sweetly glide,\n To the moon sae clearly.\n Ca’ the yowes, &c.\n\n Yonder Clouden’s silent towers,^1\n Where, at moonshine’s midnight hours,\n O’er the dewy-bending flowers,\n Fairies dance sae cheery.\n Ca’ the yowes, &c.\n\n Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear,\n Thou’rt to Love and Heav’n sae dear,\n Nocht of ill may come thee near;\n My bonie Dearie.\n Ca’ the yowes, &c.\n\n Fair and lovely as thou art,\n Thou hast stown my very heart;\n I can die—but canna part,\n My bonie Dearie.\n Ca’ the yowes, &c.\n\n [Footnote 1: An old ruin in a sweet situation at the\n confluence of the Clouden and the Nith.—R. B.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "She Says She Loes Me Best Of A’", + "body": " Tune—“Oonagh’s Waterfall.”\n\n\n Sae flaxen were her ringlets,\n Her eyebrows of a darker hue,\n Bewitchingly o’er-arching\n Twa laughing e’en o’ lovely blue;\n Her smiling, sae wyling.\n Wad make a wretch forget his woe;\n What pleasure, what treasure,\n Unto these rosy lips to grow!\n Such was my Chloris’ bonie face,\n When first that bonie face I saw;\n And aye my Chloris’ dearest charm—\n She says, she lo’es me best of a’.\n\n Like harmony her motion,\n Her pretty ankle is a spy,\n Betraying fair proportion,\n Wad make a saint forget the sky:\n Sae warming, sae charming,\n Her faultless form and gracefu’ air;\n Ilk feature—auld Nature\n Declar’d that she could do nae mair:\n Hers are the willing chains o’ love,\n By conquering Beauty’s sovereign law;\n And still my Chloris’ dearest charm—\n She says, she lo’es me best of a’.\n\n Let others love the city,\n And gaudy show, at sunny noon;\n Gie me the lonely valley,\n The dewy eve and rising moon,\n Fair beaming, and streaming,\n Her silver light the boughs amang;\n While falling; recalling,\n The amorous thrush concludes his sang;\n There, dearest Chloris, wilt thou rove,\n By wimpling burn and leafy shaw,\n And hear my vows o’ truth and love,\n And say, thou lo’es me best of a’.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To Dr. Maxwell", + "body": " On Miss Jessy Staig’s recovery.\n\n\n Maxwell, if merit here you crave,\n That merit I deny;\n You save fair Jessie from the grave!—\n An Angel could not die!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "To The Beautiful Miss Eliza J—N", + "body": " On her Principles of Liberty and Equality.\n\n\n How, Liberty! girl, can it be by thee nam’d?\n Equality too! hussey, art not asham’d?\n Free and Equal indeed, while mankind thou enchainest,\n And over their hearts a proud Despot so reignest.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Chloris", + "body": " Requesting me to give her a Spring of Blossomed Thorn.\n\n\n From the white-blossom’d sloe my dear Chloris requested\n A sprig, her fair breast to adorn:\n No, by Heavens! I exclaim’d, let me perish, if ever\n I plant in that bosom a thorn!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Seeing Mrs. Kemble In Yarico", + "body": " Kemble, thou cur’st my unbelief\n For Moses and his rod;\n At Yarico’s sweet nor of grief\n The rock with tears had flow’d.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram On A Country Laird,", + "body": " not quite so wise as Solomon.\n\n\n Bless Jesus Christ, O Cardonessp,\n With grateful, lifted eyes,\n Who taught that not the soul alone,\n But body too shall rise;\n For had He said “the soul alone\n From death I will deliver,”\n Alas, alas! O Cardoness,\n Then hadst thou lain for ever.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Being Shewn A Beautiful Country Seat", + "body": " Belonging to the same Laird.\n\n\n We grant they’re thine, those beauties all,\n So lovely in our eye;\n Keep them, thou eunuch, Cardoness,\n For others to enjoy!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Hearing It Asserted Falsehood", + "body": " is expressed in the Rev. Dr. Babington’s very looks.\n\n\n That there is a falsehood in his looks,\n I must and will deny:\n They tell their Master is a knave,\n And sure they do not lie.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On A Suicide", + "body": " Earth’d up, here lies an imp o’ hell,\n Planted by Satan’s dibble;\n Poor silly wretch, he’s damned himsel’,\n To save the Lord the trouble.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On A Swearing Coxcomb", + "body": " Here cursing, swearing Burton lies,\n A buck, a beau, or “Dem my eyes!”\n Who in his life did little good,\n And his last words were “Dem my blood!”", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On An Innkeeper Nicknamed “The Marquis”", + "body": " Here lies a mock Marquis, whose titles were shamm’d,\n If ever he rise, it will be to be damn’d.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On Andrew Turner", + "body": " In se’enteen hunder’n forty-nine,\n The deil gat stuff to mak a swine,\n An’ coost it in a corner;\n But wilily he chang’d his plan,\n An’ shap’d it something like a man,\n An’ ca’d it Andrew Turner.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Pretty Peg", + "body": " As I gaed up by yon gate-end,\n When day was waxin’ weary,\n Wha did I meet come down the street,\n But pretty Peg, my dearie!\n\n Her air sae sweet, an’ shape complete,\n Wi’ nae proportion wanting,\n The Queen of Love did never move\n Wi’ motion mair enchanting.\n\n Wi’ linked hands we took the sands,\n Adown yon winding river;\n Oh, that sweet hour and shady bower,\n Forget it shall I never!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Esteem For Chloris", + "body": " As, Chloris, since it may not be,\n That thou of love wilt hear;\n If from the lover thou maun flee,\n Yet let the friend be dear.\n\n Altho’ I love my Chloris mair\n Than ever tongue could tell;\n My passion I will ne’er declare—\n I’ll say, I wish thee well.\n\n Tho’ a’ my daily care thou art,\n And a’ my nightly dream,\n I’ll hide the struggle in my heart,\n And say it is esteem.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Saw Ye My Dear, My Philly", + "body": " Tune—“When she cam’ ben she bobbit.”\n\n\n O saw ye my Dear, my Philly?\n O saw ye my Dear, my Philly,\n She’s down i’ the grove, she’s wi’ a new Love,\n She winna come hame to her Willy.\n\n What says she my dear, my Philly?\n What says she my dear, my Philly?\n She lets thee to wit she has thee forgot,\n And forever disowns thee, her Willy.\n\n O had I ne’er seen thee, my Philly!\n O had I ne’er seen thee, my Philly!\n As light as the air, and fause as thou’s fair,\n Thou’s broken the heart o’ thy Willy.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "How Lang And Dreary Is The Night", + "body": " How lang and dreary is the night\n When I am frae my Dearie;\n I restless lie frae e’en to morn\n Though I were ne’er sae weary.\n\n Chorus.—For oh, her lanely nights are lang!\n And oh, her dreams are eerie;\n And oh, her window’d heart is sair,\n That’s absent frae her Dearie!\n\n When I think on the lightsome days\n I spent wi’ thee, my Dearie;\n And now what seas between us roar,\n How can I be but eerie?\n For oh, &c.\n\n How slow ye move, ye heavy hours;\n The joyless day how dreary:\n It was na sae ye glinted by,\n When I was wi’ my Dearie!\n For oh, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Inconstancy In Love", + "body": " Tune—“Duncan Gray.”\n\n\n Let not Woman e’er complain\n Of inconstancy in love;\n Let not Woman e’er complain\n Fickle Man is apt to rove:\n Look abroad thro’ Nature’s range,\n Nature’s mighty Law is change,\n Ladies, would it not seem strange\n Man should then a monster prove!\n\n Mark the winds, and mark the skies,\n Ocean’s ebb, and ocean’s flow,\n Sun and moon but set to rise,\n Round and round the seasons go.\n Why then ask of silly Man\n To oppose great Nature’s plan?\n We’ll be constant while we can—\n You can be no more, you know.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Lover’s Morning Salute To His Mistress", + "body": " Tune—“Deil tak the wars.”\n\n\n Sleep’st thou, or wak’st thou, fairest creature?\n Rosy morn now lifts his eye,\n Numbering ilka bud which Nature\n Waters wi’ the tears o’ joy.\n Now, to the streaming fountain,\n Or up the heathy mountain,\n The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly-wanton stray;\n In twining hazel bowers,\n Its lay the linnet pours,\n The laverock to the sky\n Ascends, wi’ sangs o’ joy,\n While the sun and thou arise to bless the day.\n\n Phoebus gilding the brow of morning,\n Banishes ilk darksome shade,\n Nature, gladdening and adorning;\n Such to me my lovely maid.\n When frae my Chloris parted,\n Sad, cheerless, broken-hearted,\n The night’s gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o’ercast my sky:\n But when she charms my sight,\n In pride of Beauty’s light—\n When thro’ my very heart\n Her burning glories dart;\n ’Tis then—’tis then I wake to life and joy!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Winter Of Life", + "body": " But lately seen in gladsome green,\n The woods rejoic’d the day,\n Thro’ gentle showers, the laughing flowers\n In double pride were gay:\n But now our joys are fled\n On winter blasts awa;\n Yet maiden May, in rich array,\n Again shall bring them a’.\n\n But my white pow, nae kindly thowe\n Shall melt the snaws of Age;\n My trunk of eild, but buss or beild,\n Sinks in Time’s wintry rage.\n Oh, Age has weary days,\n And nights o’ sleepless pain:\n Thou golden time, o’ Youthfu’ prime,\n Why comes thou not again!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Behold, My Love, How Green The Groves", + "body": " Tune—“My lodging is on the cold ground.”\n\n\n Behold, my love, how green the groves,\n The primrose banks how fair;\n The balmy gales awake the flowers,\n And wave thy flowing hair.\n\n The lav’rock shuns the palace gay,\n And o’er the cottage sings:\n For Nature smiles as sweet, I ween,\n To Shepherds as to Kings.\n\n Let minstrels sweep the skilfu’ string,\n In lordly lighted ha’:\n The Shepherd stops his simple reed,\n Blythe in the birken shaw.\n\n The Princely revel may survey\n Our rustic dance wi’ scorn;\n But are their hearts as light as ours,\n Beneath the milk-white thorn!\n\n The shepherd, in the flowery glen;\n In shepherd’s phrase, will woo:\n The courtier tells a finer tale,\n But is his heart as true!\n\n These wild-wood flowers I’ve pu’d, to deck\n That spotless breast o’ thine:\n The courtiers’ gems may witness love,\n But, ’tis na love like mine.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Charming Month Of May", + "body": " Tune—“Daintie Davie.”\n\n\n It was the charming month of May,\n When all the flow’rs were fresh and gay.\n One morning, by the break of day,\n The youthful, charming Chloe—\n From peaceful slumber she arose,\n Girt on her mantle and her hose,\n And o’er the flow’ry mead she goes—\n The youthful, charming Chloe.\n\n Chorus.—Lovely was she by the dawn,\n Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe,\n Tripping o’er the pearly lawn,\n The youthful, charming Chloe.\n\n The feather’d people you might see\n Perch’d all around on every tree,\n In notes of sweetest melody\n They hail the charming Chloe;\n Till, painting gay the eastern skies,\n The glorious sun began to rise,\n Outrival’d by the radiant eyes\n Of youthful, charming Chloe.\n Lovely was she, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lassie Wi’ The Lint-White Locks", + "body": " Tune—“Rothiemurchie’s Rant.”\n\n\n Chorus.—Lassie wi’the lint-white locks,\n Bonie lassie, artless lassie,\n Wilt thou wi’ me tent the flocks,\n Wilt thou be my Dearie, O?\n\n Now Nature cleeds the flowery lea,\n And a’ is young and sweet like thee,\n O wilt thou share its joys wi’ me,\n And say thou’lt be my Dearie, O.\n Lassie wi’ the, &c.\n\n The primrose bank, the wimpling burn,\n The cuckoo on the milk-white thorn,\n The wanton lambs at early morn,\n Shall welcome thee, my Dearie, O.\n Lassie wi’ the, &c.\n\n And when the welcome simmer shower\n Has cheer’d ilk drooping little flower,\n We’ll to the breathing woodbine bower,\n At sultry noon, my Dearie, O.\n Lassie wi’ the, &c.\n\n When Cynthia lights, wi’ silver ray,\n The weary shearer’s hameward way,\n Thro’ yellow waving fields we’ll stray,\n And talk o’ love, my Dearie, O.\n Lassie wi’ the, &c.\n\n And when the howling wintry blast\n Disturbs my Lassie’s midnight rest,\n Enclasped to my faithfu’ breast,\n I’ll comfort thee, my Dearie, O.\n Lassie wi’ the, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Dialogue song—Philly And Willy", + "body": " Tune—“The Sow’s tail to Geordie.”\n\n\n He. O Philly, happy be that day,\n When roving thro’ the gather’d hay,\n My youthfu’ heart was stown away,\n And by thy charms, my Philly.\n\n She. O Willy, aye I bless the grove\n Where first I own’d my maiden love,\n Whilst thou did pledge the Powers above,\n To be my ain dear Willy.\n\n Both. For a’ the joys that gowd can gie,\n I dinna care a single flie;\n The lad I love’s the lad for me,\n The lass I love’s the lass for me,\n And that’s my ain dear Willy.\n And that’s my ain dear Philly.\n\n He. As songsters of the early year,\n Are ilka day mair sweet to hear,\n So ilka day to me mair dear\n And charming is my Philly.\n\n She. As on the brier the budding rose,\n Still richer breathes and fairer blows,\n So in my tender bosom grows\n The love I bear my Willy.\n\n Both. For a’ the joys, &c.\n\n He. The milder sun and bluer sky\n That crown my harvest cares wi’ joy,\n Were ne’er sae welcome to my eye\n As is a sight o’ Philly.\n\n She. The little swallow’s wanton wing,\n Tho’ wafting o’er the flowery Spring,\n Did ne’er to me sic tidings bring,\n As meeting o’ my Willy.\n Both. For a’ the joys, &c.\n\n He. The bee that thro’ the sunny hour\n Sips nectar in the op’ning flower,\n Compar’d wi’ my delight is poor,\n Upon the lips o’ Philly.\n\n She. The woodbine in the dewy weet,\n When ev’ning shades in silence meet,\n Is nocht sae fragrant or sae sweet\n As is a kiss o’ Willy.\n\n Both. For a’ the joys, &c.\n\n He. Let fortune’s wheel at random rin,\n And fools may tine and knaves may win;\n My thoughts are a’ bound up in ane,\n And that’s my ain dear Philly.\n\n She. What’s a’ the joys that gowd can gie?\n I dinna care a single flie;\n The lad I love’s the lad for me,\n And that’s my ain dear Willy.\n\n Both. For a’ the joys, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Contented Wi’ Little And Cantie Wi’ Mair", + "body": " Tune—“Lumps o’ Puddin’.”\n\n\n Contented wi’ little, and cantie wi’ mair,\n Whene’er I forgather wi’ Sorrow and Care,\n I gie them a skelp as they’re creeping alang,\n Wi’ a cog o’ gude swats and an auld Scottish sang.\n Chorus—Contented wi’ little, &c.\n\n I whiles claw the elbow o’ troublesome thought;\n But Man is a soger, and Life is a faught;\n My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch,\n And my Freedom’s my Lairdship nae monarch dare touch.\n Contented wi’ little, &c.\n\n A townmond o’ trouble, should that be may fa’,\n A night o’ gude fellowship sowthers it a’:\n When at the blythe end o’ our journey at last,\n Wha the deil ever thinks o’ the road he has past?\n Contented wi’ little, &c.\n\n Blind Chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way;\n Be’t to me, be’t frae me, e’en let the jade gae:\n Come Ease, or come Travail, come Pleasure or Pain,\n My warst word is: “Welcome, and welcome again!”\n Contented wi’ little, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Farewell Thou Stream", + "body": " Air—“Nansie’s to the greenwood gane.”\n\n\n Farewell, thou stream that winding flows\n Around Eliza’s dwelling;\n O mem’ry! spare the cruel thoes\n Within my bosom swelling.\n Condemn’d to drag a hopeless chain\n And yet in secret languish;\n To feel a fire in every vein,\n Nor dare disclose my anguish.\n\n Love’s veriest wretch, unseen, unknown,\n I fain my griefs would cover;\n The bursting sigh, th’ unweeting groan,\n Betray the hapless lover.\n I know thou doom’st me to despair,\n Nor wilt, nor canst relieve me;\n But, O Eliza, hear one prayer—\n For pity’s sake forgive me!\n\n The music of thy voice I heard,\n Nor wist while it enslav’d me;\n I saw thine eyes, yet nothing fear’d,\n Till fears no more had sav’d me:\n Th’ unwary sailor thus, aghast\n The wheeling torrent viewing,\n ’Mid circling horrors sinks at last,\n In overwhelming ruin.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Canst Thou Leave Me Thus, My Katie", + "body": " Tune—“Roy’s Wife.”\n\n\n Chorus—Canst thou leave me thus, my Katie?\n Canst thou leave me thus, my Katie?\n Well thou know’st my aching heart,\n And canst thou leave me thus, for pity?\n\n Is this thy plighted, fond regard,\n Thus cruelly to part, my Katie?\n Is this thy faithful swain’s reward—\n An aching, broken heart, my Katie!\n Canst thou leave me, &c.\n\n Farewell! and ne’er such sorrows tear\n That finkle heart of thine, my Katie!\n Thou maysn find those will love thee dear,\n But not a love like mine, my Katie,\n Canst thou leave me, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "My Nanie’s Awa", + "body": " Tune—“There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.”\n\n\n Now in her green mantle blythe Nature arrays,\n And listens the lambkins that bleat o’er her braes;\n While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw,\n But to me it’s delightless—my Nanie’s awa.\n\n The snawdrap and primrose our woodlands adorn,\n And violetes bathe in the weet o’ the morn;\n They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,\n They mind me o’ Nanie—and Nanie’s awa.\n\n Thou lav’rock that springs frae the dews of the lawn,\n The shepherd to warn o’ the grey-breaking dawn,\n And thou mellow mavis that hails the night-fa’,\n Give over for pity—my Nanie’s awa.\n\n Come Autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and grey,\n And soothe me wi’ tidings o’ Nature’s decay:\n The dark, dreary Winter, and wild-driving snaw\n Alane can delight me—now Nanie’s awa.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Tear-Drop", + "body": " Wae is my heart, and the tear’s in my e’e;\n Lang, lang has Joy been a stranger to me:\n Forsaken and friendless, my burden I bear,\n And the sweet voice o’ Pity ne’er sounds in my ear.\n\n Love thou hast pleasures, and deep hae I luv’d;\n Love, thou hast sorrows, and sair hae I pruv’d;\n But this bruised heart that now bleeds in my breast,\n I can feel, by its throbbings, will soon be at rest.\n\n Oh, if I were—where happy I hae been—\n Down by yon stream, and yon bonie castle-green;\n For there he is wand’ring and musing on me,\n Wha wad soon dry the tear-drop that clings to my e’e.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "For The Sake O’ Somebody", + "body": " My heart is sair—I dare na tell,\n My heart is sair for Somebody;\n I could wake a winter night\n For the sake o’ Somebody.\n O-hon! for Somebody!\n O-hey! for Somebody!\n I could range the world around,\n For the sake o’ Somebody.\n\n Ye Powers that smile on virtuous love,\n O, sweetly smile on Somebody!\n Frae ilka danger keep him free,\n And send me safe my Somebody!\n O-hon! for Somebody!\n O-hey! for Somebody!\n I wad do—what wad I not?\n For the sake o’ Somebody.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Man’s A Man For A’ That", + "body": " Tune—“For a’ that.”\n\n\n Is there for honest Poverty\n That hings his head, an’ a’ that;\n The coward slave—we pass him by,\n We dare be poor for a’ that!\n For a’ that, an’ a’ that.\n Our toils obscure an’ a’ that,\n The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,\n The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.\n\n What though on hamely fare we dine,\n Wear hoddin grey, an’ a that;\n Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;\n A Man’s a Man for a’ that:\n For a’ that, and a’ that,\n Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that;\n The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor,\n Is king o’ men for a’ that.\n\n Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord,\n Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that;\n Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,\n He’s but a coof for a’ that:\n For a’ that, an’ a’ that,\n His ribband, star, an’ a’ that:\n The man o’ independent mind\n He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.\n\n A prince can mak a belted knight,\n A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that;\n But an honest man’s abon his might,\n Gude faith, he maunna fa’ that!\n For a’ that, an’ a’ that,\n Their dignities an’ a’ that;\n The pith o’ sense, an’ pride o’ worth,\n Are higher rank than a’ that.\n\n Then let us pray that come it may,\n (As come it will for a’ that,)\n That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,\n Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that.\n For a’ that, an’ a’ that,\n It’s coming yet for a’ that,\n That Man to Man, the world o’er,\n Shall brothers be for a’ that.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Craigieburn Wood", + "body": " Sweet fa’s the eve on Craigieburn,\n And blythe awakes the morrow;\n But a’ the pride o’ Spring’s return\n Can yield me nocht but sorrow.\n\n I see the flowers and spreading trees,\n I hear the wild birds singing;\n But what a weary wight can please,\n And Care his bosom wringing!\n\n Fain, fain would I my griefs impart,\n Yet dare na for your anger;\n But secret love will break my heart,\n If I conceal it langer.\n\n If thou refuse to pity me,\n If thou shalt love another,\n When yon green leaves fade frae the tree,\n Around my grave they’ll wither.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Solemn League And Covenant", + "body": " The Solemn League and Covenant\n Now brings a smile, now brings a tear;\n But sacred Freedom, too, was theirs:\n If thou’rt a slave, indulge thy sneer.\n\n Compliments Of John Syme Of Ryedale", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Lines sent with a Present of a Dozen of Porter.", + "body": " O had the malt thy strength of mind,\n Or hops the flavour of thy wit,\n ’Twere drink for first of human kind,\n A gift that e’en for Syme were fit.\n\n Jerusalem Tavern, Dumfries.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Inscription On A Goblet", + "body": " There’s Death in the cup, so beware!\n Nay, more—there is danger in touching;\n But who can avoid the fell snare,\n The man and his wine’s so bewitching!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Apology For Declining An Invitation To Dine", + "body": " No more of your guests, be they titled or not,\n And cookery the first in the nation;\n Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit,\n Is proof to all other temptation.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph For Mr. Gabriel Richardson", + "body": " Here Brewer Gabriel’s fire’s extinct,\n And empty all his barrels:\n He’s blest—if, as he brew’d, he drink,\n In upright, honest morals.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epigram On Mr. James Gracie", + "body": " Gracie, thou art a man of worth,\n O be thou Dean for ever!\n May he be damned to hell henceforth,\n Who fauts thy weight or measure!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Bonie Peg-a-Ramsay", + "body": " Cauld is the e’enin blast,\n O’ Boreas o’er the pool,\n An’ dawin’ it is dreary,\n When birks are bare at Yule.\n\n Cauld blaws the e’enin blast,\n When bitter bites the frost,\n And, in the mirk and dreary drift,\n The hills and glens are lost:\n\n Ne’er sae murky blew the night\n That drifted o’er the hill,\n But bonie Peg-a-Ramsay\n Gat grist to her mill.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Inscription At Friars’ Carse Hermitage", + "body": " To the Memory of Robert Riddell.\n\n\n To Riddell, much lamented man,\n This ivied cot was dear;\n Wandr’er, dost value matchless worth?\n This ivied cot revere.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "There Was A Bonie Lass", + "body": " There was a bonie lass, and a bonie, bonie lass,\n And she lo’ed her bonie laddie dear;\n Till War’s loud alarms tore her laddie frae her arms,\n Wi’ mony a sigh and tear.\n Over sea, over shore, where the cannons loudly roar,\n He still was a stranger to fear;\n And nocht could him quail, or his bosom assail,\n But the bonie lass he lo’ed sae dear.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Wee Willie Gray", + "body": " Tune—“Wee Totum Fogg.”\n\n\n Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet,\n Peel a willow wand to be him boots and jacket;\n The rose upon the breir will be him trews an’ doublet,\n The rose upon the breir will be him trews an’ doublet,\n Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet,\n Twice a lily-flower will be him sark and cravat;\n Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet,\n Feathers of a flee wad feather up his bonnet.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O Aye My Wife She Dang Me", + "body": " Chorus—O aye my wife she dang me,\n An’ aft my wife she bang’d me,\n If ye gie a woman a’ her will,\n Gude faith! she’ll soon o’er-gang ye.\n\n On peace an’ rest my mind was bent,\n And, fool I was! I married;\n But never honest man’s intent\n Sane cursedly miscarried.\n O aye my wife, &c.\n\n Some sairie comfort at the last,\n When a’ thir days are done, man,\n My pains o’ hell on earth is past,\n I’m sure o’ bliss aboon, man,\n O aye my wife, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Gude Ale Keeps The Heart Aboon", + "body": " Chorus—O gude ale comes and gude ale goes;\n Gude ale gars me sell my hose,\n Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon—\n Gude ale keeps my heart aboon!\n\n I had sax owsen in a pleugh,\n And they drew a’ weel eneugh:\n I sell’d them a’ just ane by ane—\n Gude ale keeps the heart aboon!\n O gude ale comes, &c.\n\n Gude ale hauds me bare and busy,\n Gars me moop wi’ the servant hizzie,\n Stand i’ the stool when I hae done—\n Gude ale keeps the heart aboon!\n O gude ale comes, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O Steer Her Up An’ Haud Her Gaun", + "body": " O steer her up, an’ haud her gaun,\n Her mither’s at the mill, jo;\n An’ gin she winna tak a man,\n E’en let her tak her will, jo.\n First shore her wi’ a gentle kiss,\n And ca’ anither gill, jo;\n An’ gin she tak the thing amiss,\n E’en let her flyte her fill, jo.\n\n O steer her up, an’ be na blate,\n An’ gin she tak it ill, jo,\n Then leave the lassie till her fate,\n And time nae langer spill, jo:\n Ne’er break your heart for ae rebute,\n But think upon it still, jo:\n That gin the lassie winna do’t,\n Ye’ll find anither will, jo.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Lass O’ Ecclefechan", + "body": " Tune—“Jack o’ Latin.”\n\n\n Gat ye me, O gat ye me,\n O gat ye me wi’ naething?\n Rock an reel, and spinning wheel,\n A mickle quarter basin:\n Bye attour my Gutcher has\n A heich house and a laich ane,\n A’ forbye my bonie sel,\n The toss o’ Ecclefechan.\n\n O haud your tongue now, Lucky Lang,\n O haud your tongue and jauner\n I held the gate till you I met,\n Syne I began to wander:\n I tint my whistle and my sang,\n I tint my peace and pleasure;\n But your green graff, now Lucky Lang,\n Wad airt me to my treasure.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O Let Me In Thes Ae Night", + "body": " O Lassie, are ye sleepin yet,\n Or are ye waukin, I wad wit?\n For Love has bound me hand an’ fit,\n And I would fain be in, jo.\n\n Chorus—O let me in this ae night,\n This ae, ae, ae night;\n O let me in this ae night,\n I’ll no come back again, jo!\n\n O hear’st thou not the wind an’ weet?\n Nae star blinks thro’ the driving sleet;\n Tak pity on my weary feet,\n And shield me frae the rain, jo.\n O let me in, &c.\n\n The bitter blast that round me blaws,\n Unheeded howls, unheeded fa’s;\n The cauldness o’ thy heart’s the cause\n Of a’ my care and pine, jo.\n O let me in, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Her Answer", + "body": " O tell na me o’ wind an’ rain,\n Upbraid na me wi’ cauld disdain,\n Gae back the gate ye cam again,\n I winna let ye in, jo.\n\n Chorus—I tell you now this ae night,\n This ae, ae, ae night;\n And ance for a’ this ae night,\n I winna let ye in, jo.\n\n The snellest blast, at mirkest hours,\n That round the pathless wand’rer pours\n Is nocht to what poor she endures,\n That’s trusted faithless man, jo.\n I tell you now, &c.\n\n The sweetest flower that deck’d the mead,\n Now trodden like the vilest weed—\n Let simple maid the lesson read\n The weird may be her ain, jo.\n I tell you now, &c.\n\n The bird that charm’d his summer day,\n Is now the cruel Fowler’s prey;\n Let witless, trusting, Woman say\n How aft her fate’s the same, jo!\n I tell you now, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "I’ll Aye Ca’ In By Yon Town", + "body": " Air—“I’ll gang nae mair to yon toun.”\n\n\n Chorus—I’ll aye ca’ in by yon town,\n And by yon garden-green again;\n I’ll aye ca’ in by yon town,\n And see my bonie Jean again.\n\n There’s nane sall ken, there’s nane can guess\n What brings me back the gate again,\n But she, my fairest faithfu’ lass,\n And stownlins we sall meet again.\n I’ll aye ca’ in, &c.\n\n She’ll wander by the aiken tree,\n When trystin time draws near again;\n And when her lovely form I see,\n O haith! she’s doubly dear again.\n I’ll aye ca’ in, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O Wat Ye Wha’s In Yon Town", + "body": " Tune—“I’ll gang nae mair to yon toun.”\n\n\n Chorus—O wat ye wha’s in yon town,\n Ye see the e’enin sun upon,\n The dearest maid’s in yon town,\n That e’ening sun is shining on.\n\n Now haply down yon gay green shaw,\n She wanders by yon spreading tree;\n How blest ye flowers that round her blaw,\n Ye catch the glances o’ her e’e!\n O wat ye wha’s, &c.\n\n How blest ye birds that round her sing,\n And welcome in the blooming year;\n And doubly welcome be the Spring,\n The season to my Jeanie dear.\n O wat ye wha’s, &c.\n\n The sun blinks blythe on yon town,\n Among the broomy braes sae green;\n But my delight in yon town,\n And dearest pleasure, is my Jean.\n O wat ye wha’s, &c.\n\n Without my Fair, not a’ the charms\n O’ Paradise could yield me joy;\n But give me Jeanie in my arms\n And welcome Lapland’s dreary sky!\n O wat ye wha’s, &c.\n\n My cave wad be a lover’s bower,\n Tho’ raging Winter rent the air;\n And she a lovely little flower,\n That I wad tent and shelter there.\n O wat ye wha’s, &c.\n\n O sweet is she in yon town,\n The sinkin, sun’s gane down upon;\n A fairer than’s in yon town,\n His setting beam ne’er shone upon.\n O wat ye wha’s, &c.\n\n If angry Fate is sworn my foe,\n And suff’ring I am doom’d to bear;\n I careless quit aught else below,\n But spare, O spare me Jeanie dear.\n O wat ye wha’s, &c.\n\n For while life’s dearest blood is warm,\n Ae thought frae her shall ne’er depart,\n And she, as fairest is her form,\n She has the truest, kindest heart.\n O wat ye wha’s, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Ballads on Mr. Heron’s Election, 1795", + "body": " Ballad First\n\n Whom will you send to London town,\n To Parliament and a’ that?\n Or wha in a’ the country round\n The best deserves to fa’ that?\n For a’ that, and a’ that,\n Thro’ Galloway and a’ that,\n Where is the Laird or belted Knight\n The best deserves to fa’ that?\n\n Wha sees Kerroughtree’s open yett,\n (And wha is’t never saw that?)\n Wha ever wi’ Kerroughtree met,\n And has a doubt of a’ that?\n For a’ that, and a’ that,\n Here’s Heron yet for a’ that!\n The independent patriot,\n The honest man, and a’ that.\n\n Tho’ wit and worth, in either sex,\n Saint Mary’s Isle can shaw that,\n Wi’ Dukes and Lords let Selkirk mix,\n And weel does Selkirk fa’ that.\n For a’ that, and a’ that,\n Here’s Heron yet for a’ that!\n The independent commoner\n Shall be the man for a’ that.\n\n But why should we to Nobles jouk,\n And is’t against the law, that?\n For why, a Lord may be a gowk,\n Wi’ ribband, star and a’ that,\n For a’ that, and a’ that,\n Here’s Heron yet for a’ that!\n A Lord may be a lousy loun,\n Wi’ ribband, star and a’ that.\n\n A beardless boy comes o’er the hills,\n Wi’ uncle’s purse and a’ that;\n But we’ll hae ane frae mang oursels,\n A man we ken, and a’ that.\n For a’ that, and a’ that,\n Here’s Heron yet for a’ that!\n For we’re not to be bought and sold,\n Like naigs, and nowt, and a’ that.\n\n Then let us drink—The Stewartry,\n Kerroughtree’s laird, and a’ that,\n Our representative to be,\n For weel he’s worthy a’ that.\n For a’ that, and a’ that,\n Here’s Heron yet for a’ that!\n A House of Commons such as he,\n They wad be blest that saw that.\n\n\n Ballad Second—Election Day\n\n Tune—“Fy, let us a’ to the Bridal.”\n\n\n Fy, let us a’ to Kirkcudbright,\n For there will be bickerin’ there;\n For Murray’s light horse are to muster,\n And O how the heroes will swear!\n And there will be Murray, Commander,\n And Gordon, the battle to win;\n Like brothers they’ll stand by each other,\n Sae knit in alliance and kin.\n\n And there will be black-nebbit Johnie,\n The tongue o’ the trump to them a’;\n An he get na Hell for his haddin’,\n The Deil gets na justice ava.\n\n And there will be Kempleton’s birkie,\n A boy no sae black at the bane;\n But as to his fine Nabob fortune,\n We’ll e’en let the subject alane.\n\n And there will be Wigton’s new Sheriff;\n Dame Justice fu’ brawly has sped,\n She’s gotten the heart of a Bushby,\n But, Lord! what’s become o’ the head?\n And there will be Cardoness, Esquire,\n Sae mighty in Cardoness’ eyes;\n A wight that will weather damnation,\n The Devil the prey will despise.\n\n And there will be Douglasses doughty,\n New christening towns far and near;\n Abjuring their democrat doings,\n By kissin’ the-o’ a Peer:\n And there will be folk frae Saint Mary’s\n A house o’ great merit and note;\n The deil ane but honours them highly—\n The deil ane will gie them his vote!\n\n And there will be Kenmure sae gen’rous,\n Whose honour is proof to the storm,\n To save them from stark reprobation,\n He lent them his name in the Firm.\n And there will be lads o’ the gospel,\n Muirhead wha’s as gude as he’s true;\n And there will be Buittle’s Apostle,\n Wha’s mair o’ the black than the blue.\n\n And there will be Logan M’Dowall,\n Sculdudd’ry an’ he will be there,\n And also the Wild Scot o’ Galloway,\n Sogering, gunpowder Blair.\n But we winna mention Redcastle,\n The body, e’en let him escape!\n He’d venture the gallows for siller,\n An ’twere na the cost o’ the rape.\n\n But where is the Doggerbank hero,\n That made “Hogan Mogan” to skulk?\n Poor Keith’s gane to hell to be fuel,\n The auld rotten wreck of a Hulk.\n And where is our King’s Lord Lieutenant,\n Sae fam’d for his gratefu’ return?\n The birkie is gettin’ his Questions\n To say in Saint Stephen’s the morn.\n\n But mark ye! there’s trusty Kerroughtree,\n Whose honor was ever his law;\n If the Virtues were pack’d in a parcel,\n His worth might be sample for a’;\n And strang an’ respectfu’s his backing,\n The maist o’ the lairds wi’ him stand;\n Nae gipsy-like nominal barons,\n Wha’s property’s paper—not land.\n\n And there, frae the Niddisdale borders,\n The Maxwells will gather in droves,\n Teugh Jockie, staunch Geordie, an’ Wellwood,\n That griens for the fishes and loaves;\n And there will be Heron, the Major,\n Wha’ll ne’er be forgot in the Greys;\n Our flatt’ry we’ll keep for some other,\n Him, only it’s justice to praise.\n\n And there will be maiden Kilkerran,\n And also Barskimming’s gude Knight,\n And there will be roarin Birtwhistle,\n Yet luckily roars i’ the right.\n And there’ll be Stamp Office Johnie,\n (Tak tent how ye purchase a dram!)\n And there will be gay Cassencarry,\n And there’ll be gleg Colonel Tam.\n\n And there’ll be wealthy young Richard,\n Dame Fortune should hing by the neck,\n For prodigal, thriftless bestowing—\n His merit had won him respect.\n\n And there will be rich brother nabobs,\n (Tho’ Nabobs, yet men not the worst,)\n And there will be Collieston’s whiskers,\n And Quintin—a lad o’ the first.\n\n Then hey! the chaste Interest o’ Broughton\n And hey! for the blessin’s ’twill bring;\n It may send Balmaghie to the Commons,\n In Sodom ’twould make him a king;\n And hey! for the sanctified Murray,\n Our land wha wi’ chapels has stor’d;\n He founder’d his horse among harlots,\n But gied the auld naig to the Lord.\n\n\n Ballad Third\n\n John Bushby’s Lamentation.\n\n Tune—“Babes in the Wood.”\n\n\n ’Twas in the seventeen hunder year\n O’ grace, and ninety-five,\n That year I was the wae’est man\n Of ony man alive.\n\n In March the three-an’-twentieth morn,\n The sun raise clear an’ bright;\n But oh! I was a waefu’ man,\n Ere to-fa’ o’ the night.\n\n Yerl Galloway lang did rule this land,\n Wi’ equal right and fame,\n And thereto was his kinsmen join’d,\n The Murray’s noble name.\n\n Yerl Galloway’s man o’ men was I,\n And chief o’ Broughton’s host;\n So twa blind beggars, on a string,\n The faithfu’ tyke will trust.\n\n But now Yerl Galloway’s sceptre’s broke,\n And Broughton’s wi’ the slain,\n And I my ancient craft may try,\n Sin’ honesty is gane.\n\n ’Twas by the banks o’ bonie Dee,\n Beside Kirkcudbright’s towers,\n The Stewart and the Murray there,\n Did muster a’ their powers.\n\n Then Murray on the auld grey yaud,\n Wi’ winged spurs did ride,\n That auld grey yaud a’ Nidsdale rade,\n He staw upon Nidside.\n\n And there had na been the Yerl himsel,\n O there had been nae play;\n But Garlies was to London gane,\n And sae the kye might stray.\n\n And there was Balmaghie, I ween,\n In front rank he wad shine;\n But Balmaghie had better been\n Drinkin’ Madeira wine.\n\n And frae Glenkens cam to our aid\n A chief o’ doughty deed;\n In case that worth should wanted be,\n O’ Kenmure we had need.\n\n And by our banners march’d Muirhead,\n And Buittle was na slack;\n Whase haly priesthood nane could stain,\n For wha could dye the black?\n\n And there was grave squire Cardoness,\n Look’d on till a’ was done;\n Sae in the tower o’ Cardoness\n A howlet sits at noon.\n\n And there led I the Bushby clan,\n My gamesome billie, Will,\n And my son Maitland, wise as brave,\n My footsteps follow’d still.\n\n The Douglas and the Heron’s name,\n We set nought to their score;\n The Douglas and the Heron’s name,\n Had felt our weight before.\n\n But Douglasses o’ weight had we,\n The pair o’ lusty lairds,\n For building cot-houses sae fam’d,\n And christenin’ kail-yards.\n\n And there Redcastle drew his sword,\n That ne’er was stain’d wi’ gore,\n Save on a wand’rer lame and blind,\n To drive him frae his door.\n\n And last cam creepin’ Collieston,\n Was mair in fear than wrath;\n Ae knave was constant in his mind—\n To keep that knave frae scaith.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Inscription For An Altar Of Independence", + "body": " At Kerroughtree, the Seat of Mr. Heron.\n\n\n Thou of an independent mind,\n With soul resolv’d, with soul resign’d;\n Prepar’d Power’s proudest frown to brave,\n Who wilt not be, nor have a slave;\n Virtue alone who dost revere,\n Thy own reproach alone dost fear—\n Approach this shrine, and worship here.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Cardin O’t, The Spinnin O’t", + "body": " I coft a stane o’ haslock woo’,\n To mak a wab to Johnie o’t;\n For Johnie is my only jo,\n I loe him best of onie yet.\n\n Chorus—The cardin’ o’t, the spinnin’ o’t,\n The warpin’ o’t, the winnin’ o’t;\n When ilka ell cost me a groat,\n The tailor staw the lynin’ o’t.\n\n For tho’ his locks be lyart grey,\n And tho’ his brow be beld aboon,\n Yet I hae seen him on a day,\n The pride of a’ the parishen.\n The cardin o’t, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Cooper O’ Cuddy", + "body": " Tune—“Bab at the bowster.”\n\n\n Chorus—We’ll hide the Cooper behint the door,\n Behint the door, behint the door,\n We’ll hide the Cooper behint the door,\n And cover him under a mawn, O.\n\n The Cooper o’ Cuddy came here awa,\n He ca’d the girrs out o’er us a’;\n An’ our gudewife has gotten a ca’,\n That’s anger’d the silly gudeman O.\n We’ll hide the Cooper, &c.\n\n He sought them out, he sought them in,\n Wi’ deil hae her! an’, deil hae him!\n But the body he was sae doited and blin’,\n He wist na where he was gaun O.\n We’ll hide the Cooper, &c.\n\n They cooper’d at e’en, they cooper’d at morn,\n Till our gudeman has gotten the scorn;\n On ilka brow she’s planted a horn,\n And swears that there they sall stan’ O.\n We’ll hide the Cooper, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Lass That Made The Bed To Me", + "body": " When Januar’ wind was blawing cauld,\n As to the north I took my way,\n The mirksome night did me enfauld,\n I knew na where to lodge till day:\n\n By my gude luck a maid I met,\n Just in the middle o’ my care,\n And kindly she did me invite\n To walk into a chamber fair.\n\n I bow’d fu’ low unto this maid,\n And thank’d her for her courtesie;\n I bow’d fu’ low unto this maid,\n An’ bade her make a bed to me;\n\n She made the bed baith large and wide,\n Wi’ twa white hands she spread it doun;\n She put the cup to her rosy lips,\n And drank—“Young man, now sleep ye soun’.”\n\n Chorus—The bonie lass made the bed to me,\n The braw lass made the bed to me,\n I’ll ne’er forget till the day I die,\n The lass that made the bed to me.\n\n She snatch’d the candle in her hand,\n And frae my chamber went wi’ speed;\n But I call’d her quickly back again,\n To lay some mair below my head:\n\n A cod she laid below my head,\n And served me with due respect,\n And, to salute her wi’ a kiss,\n I put my arms about her neck.\n The bonie lass, &c.\n\n “Haud aff your hands, young man!” she said,\n “And dinna sae uncivil be;\n Gif ye hae ony luve for me,\n O wrang na my virginitie.”\n Her hair was like the links o’ gowd,\n Her teeth were like the ivorie,\n Her cheeks like lilies dipt in wine,\n The lass that made the bed to me:\n The bonie lass, &c.\n\n Her bosom was the driven snaw,\n Twa drifted heaps sae fair to see;\n Her limbs the polish’d marble stane,\n The lass that made the bed to me.\n I kiss’d her o’er and o’er again,\n And aye she wist na what to say:\n I laid her ’tween me and the wa’;\n The lassie thocht na lang till day.\n The bonie lass, &c.\n\n Upon the morrow when we raise,\n I thank’d her for her courtesie;\n But aye she blush’d and aye she sigh’d,\n And said, “Alas, ye’ve ruin’d me.”\n I claps’d her waist, and kiss’d her syne,\n While the tear stood twinkling in her e’e;\n I said, my lassie, dinna cry.\n For ye aye shall make the bed to me.\n The bonie lass, &c.\n\n She took her mither’s holland sheets,\n An’ made them a’ in sarks to me;\n Blythe and merry may she be,\n The lass that made the bed to me.\n\n Chorus—The bonie lass made the bed to me,\n The braw lass made the bed to me.\n I’ll ne’er forget till the day I die,\n The lass that made the bed to me.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Had I The Wyte? She Bade Me", + "body": " Had I the wyte, had I the wyte,\n Had I the wyte? she bade me;\n She watch’d me by the hie-gate side,\n And up the loan she shaw’d me.\n\n And when I wadna venture in,\n A coward loon she ca’d me:\n Had Kirk an’ State been in the gate,\n I’d lighted when she bade me.\n\n Sae craftilie she took me ben,\n And bade me mak nae clatter;\n “For our ramgunshoch, glum gudeman\n Is o’er ayont the water.”\n\n Whae’er shall say I wanted grace,\n When I did kiss and dawte her,\n Let him be planted in my place,\n Syne say, I was the fautor.\n\n Could I for shame, could I for shame,\n Could I for shame refus’d her;\n And wadna manhood been to blame,\n Had I unkindly used her!\n\n He claw’d her wi’ the ripplin-kame,\n And blae and bluidy bruis’d her;\n When sic a husband was frae hame,\n What wife but wad excus’d her!\n\n I dighted aye her e’en sae blue,\n An’ bann’d the cruel randy,\n And weel I wat, her willin’ mou\n Was sweet as sugar-candie.\n\n At gloamin-shot, it was I wot,\n I lighted on the Monday;\n But I cam thro’ the Tyseday’s dew,\n To wanton Willie’s brandy.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Does Haughty Gaul Invasion Threat?", + "body": " Tune—“Push about the Jorum.”\n\n\n Does haughty Gaul invasion threat?\n Then let the louns beware, Sir;\n There’s wooden walls upon our seas,\n And volunteers on shore, Sir:\n The Nith shall run to Corsincon,\n And Criffel sink in Solway,\n Ere we permit a Foreign Foe\n On British ground to rally!\n We’ll ne’er permit a Foreign Foe\n On British ground to rally!\n\n O let us not, like snarling curs,\n In wrangling be divided,\n Till, slap! come in an unco loun,\n And wi’ a rung decide it!\n Be Britain still to Britain true,\n Amang ourselves united;\n For never but by British hands\n Maun British wrangs be righted!\n No! never but by British hands\n Shall British wrangs be righted!\n\n The Kettle o’ the Kirk and State,\n Perhaps a clout may fail in’t;\n But deil a foreign tinkler loun\n Shall ever ca’a nail in’t.\n Our father’s blude the Kettle bought,\n And wha wad dare to spoil it;\n By Heav’ns! the sacrilegious dog\n Shall fuel be to boil it!\n By Heav’ns! the sacrilegious dog\n Shall fuel be to boil it!\n\n The wretch that would a tyrant own,\n And the wretch, his true-born brother,\n Who would set the Mob aboon the Throne,\n May they be damn’d together!\n Who will not sing “God save the King,”\n Shall hang as high’s the steeple;\n But while we sing “God save the King,”\n We’ll ne’er forget The People!\n But while we sing “God save the King,”\n We’ll ne’er forget The People!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Address To The Woodlark", + "body": " Tune—“Loch Erroch Side.”\n\n\n O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay,\n Nor quit for me the trembling spray,\n A hapless lover courts thy lay,\n Thy soothing, fond complaining.\n Again, again that tender part,\n That I may catch thy melting art;\n For surely that wad touch her heart\n Wha kills me wi’ disdaining.\n Say, was thy little mate unkind,\n And heard thee as the careless wind?\n Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join’d,\n Sic notes o’ woe could wauken!\n Thou tells o’ never-ending care;\n O’speechless grief, and dark despair:\n For pity’s sake, sweet bird, nae mair!\n Or my poor heart is broken.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song.—On Chloris Being Ill", + "body": " Tune—“Aye wauken O.”\n\n\n Chorus—Long, long the night,\n Heavy comes the morrow\n While my soul’s delight\n Is on her bed of sorrow.\n\n Can I cease to care?\n Can I cease to languish,\n While my darling Fair\n Is on the couch of anguish?\n Long, long, &c.\n\n Ev’ry hope is fled,\n Ev’ry fear is terror,\n Slumber ev’n I dread,\n Ev’ry dream is horror.\n Long, long, &c.\n\n Hear me, Powers Divine!\n Oh, in pity, hear me!\n Take aught else of mine,\n But my Chloris spare me!\n Long, long, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "How Cruel Are The Parents", + "body": " Altered from an old English song.\n Tune—“John Anderson, my jo.”\n\n\n How cruel are the parents\n Who riches only prize,\n And to the wealthy booby\n Poor Woman sacrifice!\n Meanwhile, the hapless Daughter\n Has but a choice of strife;\n To shun a tyrant Father’s hate—\n Become a wretched Wife.\n\n The ravening hawk pursuing,\n The trembling dove thus flies,\n To shun impelling ruin,\n Awhile her pinions tries;\n Till, of escape despairing,\n No shelter or retreat,\n She trusts the ruthless Falconer,\n And drops beneath his feet.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Mark Yonder Pomp Of Costly Fashion", + "body": " Air—“Deil tak the wars.”\n\n\n Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion\n Round the wealthy, titled bride:\n But when compar’d with real passion,\n Poor is all that princely pride.\n Mark yonder, &c. (four lines repeated).\n\n What are the showy treasures,\n What are the noisy pleasures?\n The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art:\n The polish’d jewels’ blaze\n May draw the wond’ring gaze;\n And courtly grandeur bright\n The fancy may delight,\n But never, never can come near the heart.\n\n But did you see my dearest Chloris,\n In simplicity’s array;\n Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is,\n Shrinking from the gaze of day,\n But did you see, &c.\n\n O then, the heart alarming,\n And all resistless charming,\n In Love’s delightful fetters she chains the willing soul!\n Ambition would disown\n The world’s imperial crown,\n Ev’n Avarice would deny,\n His worshipp’d deity,\n And feel thro’ every vein Love’s raptures roll.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "’Twas Na Her Bonie Blue E’e", + "body": " Tune—“Laddie, lie near me.”\n\n\n ’Twas na her bonie blue e’e was my ruin,\n Fair tho’ she be, that was ne’er my undoin’;\n ’Twas the dear smile when nae body did mind us,\n ’Twas the bewitching, sweet, stown glance o’ kindness:\n ’Twas the bewitching, sweet, stown glance o’ kindness.\n\n Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me,\n Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me,\n But tho’ fell fortune should fate us to sever,\n Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever:\n Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever.\n\n Chloris, I’m thine wi’ a passion sincerest,\n And thou hast plighted me love o’ the dearest!\n And thou’rt the angel that never can alter,\n Sooner the sun in his motion would falter:\n Sooner the sun in his motion would falter.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Their Groves O’Sweet Myrtle", + "body": " Tune—“Humours of Glen.”\n\n\n Their groves o’ sweet myrtle let Foreign Lands reckon,\n Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume;\n Far dearer to me yon lone glen o’ green breckan,\n Wi’ the burn stealing under the lang, yellow broom.\n Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers\n Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk, lowly, unseen;\n For there, lightly tripping, among the wild flowers,\n A-list’ning the linnet, aft wanders my Jean.\n\n Tho’ rich is the breeze in their gay, sunny valleys,\n And cauld Caledonia’s blast on the wave;\n Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace,\n What are they?—the haunt of the Tyrant and Slave.\n The Slave’s spicy forests, and gold-bubbling fountains,\n The brave Caledonian views wi’ disdain;\n He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains,\n Save Love’s willing fetters—the chains of his Jean.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Forlorn, My Love, No Comfort Near", + "body": " Air—“Let me in this ae night.”\n\n\n Forlorn, my Love, no comfort near,\n Far, far from thee, I wander here;\n Far, far from thee, the fate severe,\n At which I most repine, Love.\n\n Chorus—O wert thou, Love, but near me!\n But near, near, near me,\n How kindly thou wouldst cheer me,\n And mingle sighs with mine, Love.\n\n Around me scowls a wintry sky,\n Blasting each bud of hope and joy;\n And shelter, shade, nor home have I;\n Save in these arms of thine, Love.\n O wert thou, &c.\n\n Cold, alter’d friendship’s cruel part,\n To poison Fortune’s ruthless dart—\n Let me not break thy faithful heart,\n And say that fate is mine, Love.\n O wert thou, &c.\n\n But, dreary tho’ the moments fleet,\n O let me think we yet shall meet;\n That only ray of solace sweet,\n Can on thy Chloris shine, Love!\n O wert thou, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment,—Why, Why Tell The Lover", + "body": " Tune—“Caledonian Hunt’s delight.”\n\n\n Why, why tell thy lover\n Bliss he never must enjoy?\n Why, why undeceive him,\n And give all his hopes the lie?\n O why, while fancy, raptur’d slumbers,\n Chloris, Chloris all the theme,\n Why, why would’st thou, cruel—\n Wake thy lover from his dream?", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Braw Wooer", + "body": " Tune—“The Lothian Lassie.”\n\n\n Last May, a braw wooer cam doun the lang glen,\n And sair wi’ his love he did deave me;\n I said, there was naething I hated like men—\n The deuce gae wi’m, to believe me, believe me;\n The deuce gae wi’m to believe me.\n\n He spak o’ the darts in my bonie black e’en,\n And vow’d for my love he was diein,\n I said, he might die when he liked for Jean—\n The Lord forgie me for liein, for liein;\n The Lord forgie me for liein!\n\n A weel-stocked mailen, himsel’ for the laird,\n And marriage aff-hand, were his proffers;\n I never loot on that I kenn’d it, or car’d;\n But thought I might hae waur offers, waur offers;\n But thought I might hae waur offers.\n\n But what wad ye think?—in a fortnight or less—\n The deil tak his taste to gae near her!\n He up the Gate-slack to my black cousin, Bess—\n Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her, could bear her;\n Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her.\n\n But a’ the niest week, as I petted wi’ care,\n I gaed to the tryst o’ Dalgarnock;\n But wha but my fine fickle wooer was there,\n I glowr’d as I’d seen a warlock, a warlock,\n I glowr’d as I’d seen a warlock.\n\n But owre my left shouther I gae him a blink,\n Lest neibours might say I was saucy;\n My wooer he caper’d as he’d been in drink,\n And vow’d I was his dear lassie, dear lassie,\n And vow’d I was his dear lassie.\n\n I spier’d for my cousin fu’ couthy and sweet,\n Gin she had recover’d her hearin’,\n And how her new shoon fit her auld schachl’t feet,\n But heavens! how he fell a swearin, a swearin,\n But heavens! how he fell a swearin.\n\n He begged, for gudesake, I wad be his wife,\n Or else I wad kill him wi’ sorrow;\n So e’en to preserve the poor body in life,\n I think I maun wed him to-morrow, to-morrow;\n I think I maun wed him to-morrow.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "This Is No My Ain Lassie", + "body": " Tune—“This is no my house.”\n\n\n Chorus—This is no my ain lassie,\n Fair tho, the lassie be;\n Weel ken I my ain lassie,\n Kind love is in her e’re.\n\n I see a form, I see a face,\n Ye weel may wi’ the fairest place;\n It wants, to me, the witching grace,\n The kind love that’s in her e’e.\n This is no my ain, &c.\n\n She’s bonie, blooming, straight, and tall,\n And lang has had my heart in thrall;\n And aye it charms my very saul,\n The kind love that’s in her e’e.\n This is no my ain, &c.\n\n A thief sae pawkie is my Jean,\n To steal a blink, by a’ unseen;\n But gleg as light are lover’s een,\n When kind love is in her e’e.\n This is no my ain, &c.\n\n It may escape the courtly sparks,\n It may escape the learned clerks;\n But well the watching lover marks\n The kind love that’s in her eye.\n This is no my ain, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O Bonie Was Yon Rosy Brier", + "body": " O bonie was yon rosy brier,\n That blooms sae far frae haunt o’ man;\n And bonie she, and ah, how dear!\n It shaded frae the e’enin sun.\n\n Yon rosebuds in the morning dew,\n How pure, amang the leaves sae green;\n But purer was the lover’s vow\n They witness’d in their shade yestreen.\n\n All in its rude and prickly bower,\n That crimson rose, how sweet and fair;\n But love is far a sweeter flower,\n Amid life’s thorny path o’ care.\n\n The pathless, wild and wimpling burn,\n Wi’ Chloris in my arms, be mine;\n And I the warld nor wish nor scorn,\n Its joys and griefs alike resign.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Song Inscribed To Alexander Cunningham", + "body": " Now spring has clad the grove in green,\n And strew’d the lea wi’ flowers;\n The furrow’d, waving corn is seen\n Rejoice in fostering showers.\n While ilka thing in nature join\n Their sorrows to forego,\n O why thus all alone are mine\n The weary steps o’ woe!\n\n The trout in yonder wimpling burn\n That glides, a silver dart,\n And, safe beneath the shady thorn,\n Defies the angler’s art—\n My life was ance that careless stream,\n That wanton trout was I;\n But Love, wi’ unrelenting beam,\n Has scorch’d my fountains dry.\n\n That little floweret’s peaceful lot,\n In yonder cliff that grows,\n Which, save the linnet’s flight, I wot,\n Nae ruder visit knows,\n Was mine, till Love has o’er me past,\n And blighted a’ my bloom;\n And now, beneath the withering blast,\n My youth and joy consume.\n\n The waken’d lav’rock warbling springs,\n And climbs the early sky,\n Winnowing blythe his dewy wings\n In morning’s rosy eye;\n As little reck’d I sorrow’s power,\n Until the flowery snare\n O’witching Love, in luckless hour,\n Made me the thrall o’ care.\n\n O had my fate been Greenland snows,\n Or Afric’s burning zone,\n Wi’man and nature leagued my foes,\n So Peggy ne’er I’d known!\n The wretch whose doom is “Hope nae mair”\n What tongue his woes can tell;\n Within whase bosom, save Despair,\n Nae kinder spirits dwell.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O That’s The Lassie O’ My Heart", + "body": " Tune—“Morag.”\n\n\n O wat ye wha that lo’es me\n And has my heart a-keeping?\n O sweet is she that lo’es me,\n As dews o’ summer weeping,\n In tears the rosebuds steeping!\n\n Chorus—O that’s the lassie o’ my heart,\n My lassie ever dearer;\n O she’s the queen o’ womankind,\n And ne’er a ane to peer her.\n\n If thou shalt meet a lassie,\n In grace and beauty charming,\n That e’en thy chosen lassie,\n Erewhile thy breast sae warming,\n Had ne’er sic powers alarming;\n O that’s the lassie, &c.\n\n If thou hadst heard her talking,\n And thy attention’s plighted,\n That ilka body talking,\n But her, by thee is slighted,\n And thou art all delighted;\n O that’s the lassie, &c.\n\n If thou hast met this Fair One,\n When frae her thou hast parted,\n If every other Fair One\n But her, thou hast deserted,\n And thou art broken-hearted,\n O that’s the lassie o’ my heart,\n My lassie ever dearer;\n O that’s the queen o’ womankind,\n And ne’er a ane to peer her.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Written on the blank leaf of a copy of the last edition of my poems,", + "body": "presented to the Lady whom, in so many fictitious reveries of passion, but\nwith the most ardent sentiments of real friendship, I have so often sung\nunder the name of—“Chloris.”^1\n\n\n ’Tis Friendship’s pledge, my young, fair Friend,\n Nor thou the gift refuse,\n Nor with unwilling ear attend\n The moralising Muse.\n\n Since thou, in all thy youth and charms,\n Must bid the world adieu,\n (A world ’gainst Peace in constant arms)\n To join the Friendly Few.\n\n Since, thy gay morn of life o’ercast,\n Chill came the tempest’s lour;\n (And ne’er Misfortune’s eastern blast\n Did nip a fairer flower.)\n\n Since life’s gay scenes must charm no more,\n Still much is left behind,\n Still nobler wealth hast thou in store—\n The comforts of the mind!\n\n Thine is the self-approving glow,\n Of conscious Honour’s part;\n And (dearest gift of Heaven below)\n Thine Friendship’s truest heart.\n\n The joys refin’d of Sense and Taste,\n With every Muse to rove:\n And doubly were the Poet blest,\n These joys could he improve.\n R.B.\n\n [Footnote 1: Miss Lorimer.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment.—Leezie Lindsay", + "body": " Will ye go to the Hielands, Leezie Lindsay,\n Will ye go to the Hielands wi’ me?\n Will ye go to the Hielands, Leezie Lindsay,\n My pride and my darling to be.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment.—The Wren’s Nest", + "body": " The Robin to the Wren’s nest\n Cam keekin’ in, cam keekin’ in;\n O weel’s me on your auld pow,\n Wad ye be in, wad ye be in?\n Thou’s ne’er get leave to lie without,\n And I within, and I within,\n Sae lang’s I hae an auld clout\n To rowe ye in, to rowe ye in.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "News, Lassies, News", + "body": " There’s news, lassies, news,\n Gude news I’ve to tell!\n There’s a boatfu’ o’ lads\n Come to our town to sell.\n\n Chorus—The wean wants a cradle,\n And the cradle wants a cod:\n I’ll no gang to my bed,\n Until I get a nod.\n\n Father, quo’ she, Mither, quo she,\n Do what you can,\n I’ll no gang to my bed,\n Until I get a man.\n The wean, &c.\n\n I hae as gude a craft rig\n As made o’yird and stane;\n And waly fa’ the ley-crap,\n For I maun till’d again.\n The wean, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Crowdie Ever Mair", + "body": " O that I had ne’er been married,\n I wad never had nae care,\n Now I’ve gotten wife an’ weans,\n An’ they cry “Crowdie” evermair.\n\n Chorus—Ance crowdie, twice crowdie,\n Three times crowdie in a day\n Gin ye crowdie ony mair,\n Ye’ll crowdie a’ my meal away.\n\n Waefu’ Want and Hunger fley me,\n Glowrin’ by the hallan en’;\n Sair I fecht them at the door,\n But aye I’m eerie they come ben.\n Ance crowdie, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Mally’s Meek, Mally’s Sweet", + "body": " Chorus—Mally’s meek, Mally’s sweet,\n Mally’s modest and discreet;\n Mally’s rare, Mally’s fair,\n Mally’s every way complete.\n\n As I was walking up the street,\n A barefit maid I chanc’d to meet;\n But O the road was very hard\n For that fair maiden’s tender feet.\n Mally’s meek, &c.\n\n It were mair meet that those fine feet\n Were weel laced up in silken shoon;\n An’ ’twere more fit that she should sit\n Within yon chariot gilt aboon,\n Mally’s meek, &c.\n\n Her yellow hair, beyond compare,\n Comes trinklin down her swan-like neck,\n And her two eyes, like stars in skies,\n Would keep a sinking ship frae wreck,\n Mally’s meek, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Jockey’s Taen The Parting Kiss", + "body": " Air—“Bonie lass tak a man.”\n\n\n Jockey’s taen the parting kiss,\n O’er the mountains he is gane,\n And with him is a’ my bliss,\n Nought but griefs with me remain,\n Spare my Love, ye winds that blaw,\n Plashy sleets and beating rain!\n Spare my Love, thou feath’ry snaw,\n Drifting o’er the frozen plain!\n\n When the shades of evening creep\n O’er the day’s fair, gladsome e’e,\n Sound and safely may he sleep,\n Sweetly blythe his waukening be.\n He will think on her he loves,\n Fondly he’ll repeat her name;\n For where’er he distant roves,\n Jockey’s heart is still the same.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Verses To Collector Mitchell", + "body": " Friend of the Poet, tried and leal,\n Wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal;\n Alake, alake, the meikle deil\n Wi’ a’ his witches\n Are at it skelpin jig and reel,\n In my poor pouches?\n\n I modestly fu’ fain wad hint it,\n That One—pound—one, I sairly want it;\n If wi’ the hizzie down ye sent it,\n It would be kind;\n And while my heart wi’ life-blood dunted,\n I’d bear’t in mind.\n\n So may the Auld year gang out moanin’\n To see the New come laden, groanin’,\n Wi’ double plenty o’er the loanin’,\n To thee and thine:\n Domestic peace and comforts crownin’\n The hale design.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Postscript", + "body": " Ye’ve heard this while how I’ve been lickit,\n And by fell Death was nearly nickit;\n Grim loon! he got me by the fecket,\n And sair me sheuk;\n But by gude luck I lap a wicket,\n And turn’d a neuk.\n\n But by that health, I’ve got a share o’t,\n But by that life, I’m promis’d mair o’t,\n My hale and wee, I’ll tak a care o’t,\n A tentier way;\n Then farewell folly, hide and hair o’t,\n For ance and aye!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "The Dean Of Faculty", + "body": " A New Ballad\n Tune—“The Dragon of Wantley.”\n\n\n Dire was the hate at old Harlaw,\n That Scot to Scot did carry;\n And dire the discord Langside saw\n For beauteous, hapless Mary:\n But Scot to Scot ne’er met so hot,\n Or were more in fury seen, Sir,\n Than ’twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job,\n Who should be the Faculty’s Dean, Sir.\n\n This Hal for genius, wit and lore,\n Among the first was number’d;\n But pious Bob, ’mid learning’s store,\n Commandment the tenth remember’d:\n Yet simple Bob the victory got,\n And wan his heart’s desire,\n Which shews that heaven can boil the pot,\n Tho’ the devil piss in the fire.\n\n Squire Hal, besides, had in this case\n Pretensions rather brassy;\n For talents, to deserve a place,\n Are qualifications saucy.\n So their worships of the Faculty,\n Quite sick of merit’s rudeness,\n Chose one who should owe it all, d’ye see,\n To their gratis grace and goodness.\n\n As once on Pisgah purg’d was the sight\n Of a son of Circumcision,\n So may be, on this Pisgah height,\n Bob’s purblind mental vision—\n Nay, Bobby’s mouth may be opened yet,\n Till for eloquence you hail him,\n And swear that he has the angel met\n That met the ass of Balaam.\n\n In your heretic sins may you live and die,\n Ye heretic Eight-and-Tairty!\n But accept, ye sublime Majority,\n My congratulations hearty.\n With your honours, as with a certain king,\n In your servants this is striking,\n The more incapacity they bring,\n The more they’re to your liking.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Epistle To Colonel De Peyster", + "body": " My honor’d Colonel, deep I feel\n Your interest in the Poet’s weal;\n Ah! now sma’ heart hae I to speel\n The steep Parnassus,\n Surrounded thus by bolus pill,\n And potion glasses.\n\n O what a canty world were it,\n Would pain and care and sickness spare it;\n And Fortune favour worth and merit\n As they deserve;\n And aye rowth o’ roast-beef and claret,\n Syne, wha wad starve?\n\n Dame Life, tho’ fiction out may trick her,\n And in paste gems and frippery deck her;\n Oh! flickering, feeble, and unsicker\n I’ve found her still,\n Aye wavering like the willow-wicker,\n ’Tween good and ill.\n\n Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan,\n Watches like baudrons by a ratton\n Our sinfu’ saul to get a claut on,\n Wi’felon ire;\n Syne, whip! his tail ye’ll ne’er cast saut on,\n He’s aff like fire.\n\n Ah Nick! ah Nick! it is na fair,\n First showing us the tempting ware,\n Bright wines, and bonie lasses rare,\n To put us daft\n Syne weave, unseen, thy spider snare\n O hell’s damned waft.\n\n Poor Man, the flie, aft bizzes by,\n And aft, as chance he comes thee nigh,\n Thy damn’d auld elbow yeuks wi’joy\n And hellish pleasure!\n Already in thy fancy’s eye,\n Thy sicker treasure.\n\n Soon, heels o’er gowdie, in he gangs,\n And, like a sheep-head on a tangs,\n Thy girning laugh enjoys his pangs,\n And murdering wrestle,\n As, dangling in the wind, he hangs,\n A gibbet’s tassel.\n\n But lest you think I am uncivil\n To plague you with this draunting drivel,\n Abjuring a’ intentions evil,\n I quat my pen,\n The Lord preserve us frae the devil!\n Amen! Amen!", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Lass Wi’ A Tocher", + "body": " Tune—“Ballinamona Ora.”\n\n\n Awa’ wi’ your witchcraft o’ Beauty’s alarms,\n The slender bit Beauty you grasp in your arms,\n O, gie me the lass that has acres o’ charms,\n O, gie me the lass wi’ the weel-stockit farms.\n\n Chorus—Then hey, for a lass wi’ a tocher,\n Then hey, for a lass wi’ a tocher;\n Then hey, for a lass wi’ a tocher;\n The nice yellow guineas for me.\n\n Your Beauty’s a flower in the morning that blows,\n And withers the faster, the faster it grows:\n But the rapturous charm o’ the bonie green knowes,\n Ilk spring they’re new deckit wi’ bonie white yowes.\n Then hey, for a lass, &c.\n\n And e’en when this Beauty your bosom hath blest\n The brightest o’ Beauty may cloy when possess’d;\n But the sweet, yellow darlings wi’ Geordie impress’d,\n The langer ye hae them, the mair they’re carest.\n Then hey, for a lass, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Heron Election Ballad, No. IV.", + "body": " The Trogger.\n Tune—“Buy Broom Besoms.”\n\n\n Wha will buy my troggin, fine election ware,\n Broken trade o’ Broughton, a’ in high repair?\n\n Chorus—Buy braw troggin frae the banks o’ Dee;\n Wha wants troggin let him come to me.\n\n There’s a noble Earl’s fame and high renown,\n For an auld sang—it’s thought the gudes were stown—\n Buy braw troggin, &c.\n\n Here’s the worth o’ Broughton in a needle’s e’e;\n Here’s a reputation tint by Balmaghie.\n Buy braw troggin, &c.\n\n Here’s its stuff and lining, Cardoness’ head,\n Fine for a soger, a’ the wale o’ lead.\n Buy braw troggin, &c.\n\n Here’s a little wadset, Buittle’s scrap o’ truth,\n Pawn’d in a gin-shop, quenching holy drouth.\n Buy braw troggin, &c.\n\n Here’s an honest conscience might a prince adorn;\n Frae the downs o’ Tinwald, so was never worn.\n Buy braw troggin, &c.\n\n Here’s armorial bearings frae the manse o’ Urr;\n The crest, a sour crab-apple, rotten at the core.\n Buy braw troggin, &c.\n\n Here’s the worth and wisdom Collieston can boast;\n By a thievish midge they had been nearly lost.\n Buy braw troggin, &c.\n\n Here is Satan’s picture, like a bizzard gled,\n Pouncing poor Redcastle, sprawlin’ like a taed.\n Buy braw troggin, &c.\n\n Here’s the font where Douglas stane and mortar names;\n Lately used at Caily christening Murray’s crimes.\n Buy braw troggin, &c.\n\n Here is Murray’s fragments o’ the ten commands;\n Gifted by black Jock to get them aff his hands.\n Buy braw troggin, &c.\n\n Saw ye e’er sic troggin? if to buy ye’re slack,\n Hornie’s turnin chapman—he’ll buy a’ the pack.\n Buy braw troggin, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Complimentary Versicles To Jessie Lewars", + "body": " The Toast\n\n Fill me with the rosy wine,\n Call a toast, a toast divine:\n Giveth me Poet’s darling flame,\n Lovely Jessie be her name;\n Then thou mayest freely boast,\n Thou hast given a peerless toast.\n\n\n The Menagerie\n\n Talk not to me of savages,\n From Afric’s burning sun;\n No savage e’er could rend my heart,\n As Jessie, thou hast done:\n But Jessie’s lovely hand in mine,\n A mutual faith to plight,\n Not even to view the heavenly choir,\n Would be so blest a sight.\n\n\n Jessie’s illness\n\n Say, sages, what’s the charm on earth\n Can turn Death’s dart aside!\n It is not purity and worth,\n Else Jessie had not died.\n\n\n On Her Recovery\n\n But rarely seen since Nature’s birth,\n The natives of the sky;\n Yet still one seraph’s left on earth,\n For Jessie did not die.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O Lay Thy Loof In Mine, Lass", + "body": " Chorus—O lay thy loof in mine, lass,\n In mine, lass, in mine, lass;\n And swear on thy white hand, lass,\n That thou wilt be my ain.\n\n A slave to Love’s unbounded sway,\n He aft has wrought me meikle wae;\n But now he is my deadly fae,\n Unless thou be my ain.\n O lay thy loof, &c.\n\n There’s mony a lass has broke my rest,\n That for a blink I hae lo’ed best;\n But thou art Queen within my breast,\n For ever to remain.\n O lay thy loof, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "A Health To Ane I Loe Dear", + "body": " Chorus—Here’s a health to ane I loe dear,\n Here’s a health to ane I loe dear;\n Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet,\n And soft as their parting tear—Jessy.\n\n Altho’ thou maun never be mine,\n Altho’ even hope is denied;\n ’Tis sweeter for thee despairing,\n Than ought in the world beside—Jessy.\n Here’s a health, &c.\n\n I mourn thro’ the gay, gaudy day,\n As hopeless I muse on thy charms;\n But welcome the dream o’ sweet slumber,\n For then I am lockt in thine arms—Jessy.\n Here’s a health, &c.\n\n I guess by the dear angel smile,\n I guess by the love-rolling e’e;\n But why urge the tender confession,\n ’Gainst Fortune’s fell, cruel decree?—Jessy.\n Here’s a health, &c.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "O Wert Thou In The Cauld Blast", + "body": " O wert thou in the cauld blast,\n On yonder lea, on yonder lea,\n My plaidie to the angry airt,\n I’d shelter thee, I’d shelter thee;\n Or did Misfortune’s bitter storms\n Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,\n Thy bield should be my bosom,\n To share it a’, to share it a’.\n\n Or were I in the wildest waste,\n Sae black and bare, sae black and bare,\n The desert were a Paradise,\n If thou wert there, if thou wert there;\n Or were I Monarch o’ the globe,\n Wi’ thee to reign, wi’ thee to reign,\n The brightest jewel in my Crown\n Wad be my Queen, wad be my Queen.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "On a copy of the Scots Musical Museum, in four volumes, presented to her by", + "body": "Burns. ^1\n\n Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair,\n And with them take the Poet’s prayer,\n That Fate may, in her fairest page,\n With ev’ry kindliest, best presage\n Of future bliss, enroll thy name:\n With native worth and spotless fame,\n And wakeful caution, still aware\n Of ill—but chief, Man’s felon snare;\n\n All blameless joys on earth we find,\n And all the treasures of the mind—\n These be thy guardian and reward;\n So prays thy faithful friend, the Bard.\n\n Dumfries, June 26, 1769.\n\n [Footnote 1: Written for music played by Miss Lewars, who\n nursed him in his last illness.]", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + }, + { + "title": "Fairest Maid On Devon Banks", + "body": " Tune—“Rothiemurchie.”\n\n\n Chorus—Fairest maid on Devon banks,\n Crystal Devon, winding Devon,\n Wilt thou lay that frown aside,\n And smile as thou wert wont to do?\n\n Full well thou know’st I love thee dear,\n Couldst thou to malice lend an ear!\n O did not Love exclaim: “Forbear,\n Nor use a faithful lover so.”\n Fairest maid, &c.\n\n Then come, thou fairest of the fair,\n Those wonted smiles, O let me share;\n And by thy beauteous self I swear,\n No love but thine my heart shall know.\n Fairest maid, &c.\n\n\n\n\nGlossary\n\n\n A’, all.\n A-back, behind, away.\n Abiegh, aloof, off.\n Ablins, v. aiblins.\n Aboon, above up.\n Abread, abroad.\n Abreed, in breadth.\n Ae, one.\n Aff, off.\n Aff-hand, at once.\n Aff-loof, offhand.\n A-fiel, afield.\n Afore, before.\n Aft, oft.\n Aften, often.\n Agley, awry.\n Ahin, behind.\n Aiblins, perhaps.\n Aidle, foul water.\n Aik, oak.\n Aiken, oaken.\n Ain, own.\n Air, early.\n Airle, earnest money.\n Airn, iron.\n Airt, direction.\n Airt, to direct.\n Aith, oath.\n Aits, oats.\n Aiver, an old horse.\n Aizle, a cinder.\n A-jee, ajar; to one side.\n Alake, alas.\n Alane, alone.\n Alang, along.\n Amaist, almost.\n Amang, among.\n An, if.\n An’, and.\n Ance, once.\n Ane, one.\n Aneath, beneath.\n Anes, ones.\n Anither, another.\n Aqua-fontis, spring water.\n Aqua-vitae, whiskey.\n Arle, v. airle.\n Ase, ashes.\n Asklent, askew, askance.\n Aspar, aspread.\n Asteer, astir.\n A’thegither, altogether.\n Athort, athwart.\n Atweel, in truth.\n Atween, between.\n Aught, eight.\n Aught, possessed of.\n Aughten, eighteen.\n Aughtlins, at all.\n Auld, old.\n Auldfarran, auldfarrant, shrewd, old-fashioned, sagacious.\n Auld Reekie, Edinburgh.\n Auld-warld, old-world.\n Aumous, alms.\n Ava, at all.\n Awa, away.\n Awald, backways and doubled up.\n Awauk, awake.\n Awauken, awaken.\n Awe, owe.\n Awkart, awkward.\n Awnie, bearded.\n Ayont, beyond.\n\n Ba’, a ball.\n Backet, bucket, box.\n Backit, backed.\n Backlins-comin, coming back.\n Back-yett, gate at the back.\n Bade, endured.\n Bade, asked.\n Baggie, stomach.\n Baig’nets, bayonets.\n Baillie, magistrate of a Scots burgh.\n Bainie, bony.\n Bairn, child.\n Bairntime, brood.\n Baith, both.\n Bakes, biscuits.\n Ballats, ballads.\n Balou, lullaby.\n Ban, swear.\n Ban’, band (of the Presbyterian clergyman).\n Bane, bone.\n Bang, an effort; a blow; a large number.\n Bang, to thump.\n Banie, v. bainie.\n Bannet, bonnet.\n Bannock, bonnock, a thick oatmeal cake.\n Bardie, dim. of bard.\n Barefit, barefooted.\n Barket, barked.\n Barley-brie, or bree, barley-brew-ale or whiskey.\n Barm, yeast.\n Barmie, yeasty.\n Barn-yard, stackyard.\n Bartie, the Devil.\n Bashing, abashing.\n Batch, a number.\n Batts, the botts; the colic.\n Bauckie-bird, the bat.\n Baudrons, Baudrans, the cat.\n Bauk, cross-beam.\n Bauk, v. bawk.\n Bauk-en’, beam-end.\n Bauld, bold.\n Bauldest, boldest.\n Bauldly, boldly.\n Baumy, balmy.\n Bawbee, a half-penny.\n Bawdrons, v. baudrons.\n Bawk, a field path.\n Baws’nt, white-streaked.\n Bear, barley.\n Beas’, beasts, vermin.\n Beastie, dim. of beast.\n Beck, a curtsy.\n Beet, feed, kindle.\n Beild, v. biel.\n Belang, belong.\n Beld, bald.\n Bellum, assault.\n Bellys, bellows.\n Belyve, by and by.\n Ben, a parlor (i.e., the inner apartment); into the parlor.\n Benmost, inmost.\n Be-north, to the northward of.\n Be-south, to the southward of.\n Bethankit, grace after meat.\n Beuk, a book: devil’s pictur’d beuks-playing-cards.\n Bicker, a wooden cup.\n Bicker, a short run.\n Bicker, to flow swiftly and with a slight noise.\n Bickerin, noisy contention.\n Bickering, hurrying.\n Bid, to ask, to wish, to offer.\n Bide, abide, endure.\n Biel, bield, a shelter; a sheltered spot.\n Biel, comfortable.\n Bien, comfortable.\n Bien, bienly, comfortably.\n Big, to build.\n Biggin, building.\n Bike, v. byke.\n Bill, the bull.\n Billie, fellow, comrade, brother.\n Bings, heaps.\n Birdie, dim. of bird; also maidens.\n Birk, the birch.\n Birken, birchen.\n Birkie, a fellow.\n Birr, force, vigor.\n Birring, whirring.\n Birses, bristles.\n Birth, berth.\n Bit, small (e.g., bit lassie).\n Bit, nick of time.\n Bitch-fou, completely drunk.\n Bizz, a flurry.\n Bizz, buzz.\n Bizzard, the buzzard.\n Bizzie, busy.\n Black-bonnet, the Presbyterian elder.\n Black-nebbit, black-beaked.\n Blad, v. blaud.\n Blae, blue, livid.\n Blastet, blastit, blasted.\n Blastie, a blasted (i.e., damned) creature; a little wretch.\n Blate, modest, bashful.\n Blather, bladder.\n Blaud, a large quantity.\n Blaud, to slap, pelt.\n Blaw, blow.\n Blaw, to brag.\n Blawing, blowing.\n Blawn, blown.\n Bleer, to blear.\n Bleer’t, bleared.\n Bleeze, blaze.\n Blellum, a babbler; a railer; a blusterer.\n Blether, blethers, nonsense.\n Blether, to talk nonsense.\n Bletherin’, talking nonsense.\n Blin’, blind.\n Blink, a glance, a moment.\n Blink, to glance, to shine.\n Blinkers, spies, oglers.\n Blinkin, smirking, leering.\n Blin’t, blinded.\n Blitter, the snipe.\n Blue-gown, the livery of the licensed beggar.\n Bluid, blood.\n Bluidy, bloody.\n Blume, to bloom.\n Bluntie, a stupid.\n Blypes, shreds.\n Bobbed, curtsied.\n Bocked, vomited.\n Boddle, a farthing.\n Bode, look for.\n Bodkin, tailor’s needle.\n Body, bodie, a person.\n Boggie, dim. of bog.\n Bogle, a bogie, a hobgoblin.\n Bole, a hole, or small recess in the wall.\n Bonie, bonnie, pretty, beautiful.\n Bonilie, prettily.\n Bonnock, v. Bannock.\n ’Boon, above.\n Boord, board, surface.\n Boord-en’, board-end.\n Boortress, elders.\n Boost, must needs.\n Boot, payment to the bargain.\n Bore, a chink, recess.\n Botch, an angry tumor.\n Bouk, a human trunk; bulk.\n Bountith, bounty.\n ’Bout, about.\n Bow-hough’d, bandy-thighed.\n Bow-kail, cabbage.\n Bow’t, bent.\n Brachens, ferns.\n Brae, the slope of a hill.\n Braid, broad.\n Broad-claith, broad-cloth.\n Braik, a harrow.\n Braing’t, plunged.\n Brak, broke.\n Brak’s, broke his.\n Brankie, gay, fine.\n Branks, a wooden curb, a bridle.\n Bran’y, brandy.\n Brash, short attack.\n Brats, small pieces, rags.\n Brats, small children.\n Brattle, a scamper.\n Brattle, noisy onset.\n Braw, handsome, fine, gaily dressed.\n Brawlie, finely, perfectly, heartily.\n Braxies, sheep that have died of braxie (a disease).\n Breastie, dim. of breast.\n Breastit, sprang forward.\n Brechan, ferns.\n Breeks, breeches.\n Breer, brier.\n Brent, brand.\n Brent, straight, steep (i.e., not sloping from baldness).\n Brie, v. barley-brie.\n Brief, writ.\n Brier, briar.\n Brig, bridge.\n Brisket, breast.\n Brither, brother.\n Brock, a badger.\n Brogue, a trick.\n Broo, soup, broth, water; liquid in which anything is cooked.\n Brooses, wedding races from the church to the home of the bride.\n Brose, a thick mixture of meal and warm water; also a synonym for\n porridge.\n Browster wives, ale wives.\n Brugh, a burgh.\n Brulzie, brulyie, a brawl.\n Brunstane, brimstone.\n Brunt, burned.\n Brust, burst.\n Buckie, dim. of buck; a smart younker.\n Buckle, a curl.\n Buckskin, Virginian: the buckskin kye, negroes.\n Budget, tinker’s bag of tools.\n Buff, to bang, to thump.\n Bughtin, folding.\n Buirdly, stalwart.\n Bum, the buttocks.\n Bum, to hum.\n Bum-clock, beetle, cockchafer, Junebug.\n Bummle, a drone, a useless fellow.\n Bunker, a seat.\n Bunters, harlots.\n Burdies, dim. of bird or burd (a lady); maidens.\n Bure, bore.\n Burn, a rivulet.\n Burnewin, the blacksmith (i.e., burn the wind).\n Burnie, dim. of burn, a rivulet.\n Burr-thistle, spear-thistle.\n Busk, to dress; to garb; to dress up; to adorn.\n Buss, a bush.\n Bussle, bustle.\n But, without.\n But, butt, in the kitchen (i.e., the outer apartment).\n By, past, aside.\n By, beside.\n By himsel, beside himself.\n Bye attour (i.e., by and attour), beside and at a distance.\n Byke, a bees’ nest; a hive; a swarm; a crowd.\n Byre, a cow-house.\n\n Ca’, call, knock, drive.\n Cadger, a hawker (especially of fish).\n Cadie, caddie, a fellow.\n Caff, chaff.\n Caird, a tinker.\n Calf-ward, grazing plot for calves (i.e., churchyard).\n Callan, callant, a stripling.\n Caller, cool, refreshing.\n Callet, a trull.\n Cam, came.\n Canie, cannie, gentle, tractable, quiet, prudent, careful.\n Cankrie, crabbed.\n Canna, can not.\n Canniest, quietest.\n Cannilie, cannily, quietly, prudently, cautiously.\n Cantie, cheerful, lively, jolly, merry.\n Cantraip, magic, witching.\n Cants, merry stories, canters or sprees or merry doings.\n Cape-stanc, copestone.\n Capon-castrate.\n Care na by, do not care.\n Carl, carle, a man, an old man.\n Carl-hemp, male-hemp.\n Carlie, a manikin.\n Carlin, carline a middle-aged, or old, woman; a beldam, a witch.\n Carmagnole, a violent Jacobin.\n Cartes, playing-cards.\n Cartie, dim. of cart.\n Catch-the-plack, the hunt for money.\n Caudron, a caldron.\n Cauf, calf.\n Cauf-leather, calf-leather.\n Cauk, chalk.\n Cauld, cold.\n Cauldron, caldron.\n Caup, a wooden drinking vessel.\n Causey-cleaners, causeway-cleaners.\n Cavie, a hen-coop.\n Chamer, chaumer, chamber.\n Change-house, tavern.\n Chanter, bagpipes; the pipe of the bag-pipes which produces the\n melody; song.\n Chap, a fellow, a young fellow.\n Chap, to strike.\n Chapman, a pedler.\n Chaup, chap, a stroke, a blow.\n Chear, cheer.\n Chearfu’, cheerful.\n Chearless, cheerless.\n Cheary, cheery.\n Cheek-for-chow, cheek-by-jowl (i.e. close beside).\n Cheep, peep, squeak.\n Chiel, chield (i. e., child), a fellow, a young fellow.\n Chimla, chimney.\n Chittering, shivering.\n Chows, chews.\n Chuck, a hen, a dear.\n Chuckie, dim. of chuck, but usually signifies mother hen, an old dear.\n Chuffie, fat-faced.\n Chuse, to choose.\n Cit, the civet.\n Cit, a citizen, a merchant.\n Clachan, a small village about a church.\n Claeding, clothing.\n Claes, claise, clothes.\n Claith, cloth.\n Claithing, clothing.\n Clankie, a severe knock.\n Clap, the clapper of a mill.\n Clark, a clerk.\n Clark, clerkly, scholarly.\n Clarkit, clerked, wrote.\n Clarty, dirty.\n Clash, an idle tale; gossip.\n Clash, to tattle.\n Clatter, noise, tattle, talk, disputation, babble.\n Clatter, to make a noise by striking; to babble; to prattle.\n Claught, clutched, seized.\n Claughtin, clutching, grasping.\n Claut, a clutch, a handful.\n Claut, to scrape.\n Claver, clover.\n Clavers, gossip, nonsense.\n Claw, a scratch, a blow.\n Claw, to scratch, to strike.\n Clay-cauld, clay-cold.\n Claymore, a two-handed Highland sword.\n Cleckin, a brood.\n Cleed, to clothe.\n Cleek, to snatch.\n Cleekit, linked arms.\n Cleg, gadfly.\n Clink, a sharp stroke; jingle.\n Clink, money, coin.\n Clink, to chink.\n Clink, to rhyme.\n Clinkin, with a smart motion.\n Clinkum, clinkumbell, the beadle, the bellman.\n Clips, shears.\n Clish-ma-claver, gossip, taletelling; non-sense.\n Clockin-time, clucking- (i. e., hatching-) time.\n Cloot, the hoof.\n Clootie, cloots, hoofie, hoofs (a nickname of the Devil).\n Clour, a bump or swelling after a blow.\n Clout, a cloth, a patch.\n Clout, to patch.\n Clud, a cloud.\n Clunk, to make a hollow sound.\n Coble, a broad and flat boat.\n Cock, the mark (in curling).\n Cockie, dim. of cock (applied to an old man).\n Cocks, fellows, good fellows.\n Cod, a pillow.\n Coft, bought.\n Cog, a wooden drinking vessel, a porridge dish, a corn measure for\n horses.\n Coggie, dim. of cog, a little dish.\n Coil, Coila, Kyle (one of the ancient districts of Ayrshire).\n Collieshangie, a squabble.\n Cood, cud.\n Coof, v. cuif.\n Cookit, hid.\n Coor, cover.\n Cooser, a courser, a stallion.\n Coost (i. e., cast), looped, threw off, tossed, chucked.\n Cootie, a small pail.\n Cootie, leg-plumed.\n Corbies, ravens, crows.\n Core, corps.\n Corn mou, corn heap.\n Corn’t, fed with corn.\n Corse, corpse.\n Corss, cross.\n Cou’dna, couldna, couldn’t.\n Countra, country.\n Coup, to capsize.\n Couthie, couthy, loving, affable, cosy, comfortable.\n Cowe, to scare, to daunt.\n Cowe, to lop.\n Crack, tale; a chat; talk.\n Crack, to chat, to talk.\n Craft, croft.\n Craft-rig, croft-ridge.\n Craig, the throat.\n Craig, a crag.\n Craigie, dim. of craig, the throat.\n Craigy, craggy.\n Craik, the corn-crake, the land-rail.\n Crambo-clink, rhyme.\n Crambo-jingle, rhyming.\n Cran, the support for a pot or kettle.\n Crankous, fretful.\n Cranks, creakings.\n Cranreuch, hoar-frost.\n Crap, crop, top.\n Craw, crow.\n Creel, an osier basket.\n Creepie-chair, stool of repentance.\n Creeshie, greasy.\n Crocks, old ewes.\n Cronie, intimate friend.\n Crooded, cooed.\n Croods, coos.\n Croon, moan, low.\n Croon, to toll.\n Crooning, humming.\n Croose, crouse, cocksure, set, proud, cheerful.\n Crouchie, hunchbacked.\n Crousely, confidently.\n Crowdie, meal and cold water, meal and milk, porridge.\n Crowdie-time, porridge-time (i. e., breakfast-time).\n Crowlin, crawling.\n Crummie, a horned cow.\n Crummock, cummock, a cudgel, a crooked staff.\n Crump, crisp.\n Crunt, a blow.\n Cuddle, to fondle.\n Cuif, coof, a dolt, a ninny; a dastard.\n Cummock, v. crummock.\n Curch, a kerchief for the head.\n Curchie, a curtsy.\n Curler, one who plays at curling.\n Curmurring, commotion.\n Curpin, the crupper of a horse.\n Curple, the crupper (i. e., buttocks).\n Cushat, the wood pigeon.\n Custock, the pith of the colewort.\n Cutes, feet, ankles.\n Cutty, short.\n Cutty-stools, stools of repentance.\n\n Dad, daddie, father.\n Daez’t, dazed.\n Daffin, larking, fun.\n Daft, mad, foolish.\n Dails, planks.\n Daimen icker, an odd ear of corn.\n Dam, pent-up water, urine.\n Damie, dim. of dame.\n Dang, pret. of ding.\n Danton, v. daunton.\n Darena, dare not.\n Darg, labor, task, a day’s work.\n Darklins, in the dark.\n Daud, a large piece.\n Daud, to pelt.\n Daunder, saunter.\n Daunton, to daunt.\n Daur, dare.\n Daurna, dare not.\n Daur’t, dared.\n Daut, dawte, to fondle.\n Daviely, spiritless.\n Daw, to dawn.\n Dawds, lumps.\n Dawtingly, prettily, caressingly.\n Dead, death.\n Dead-sweer, extremely reluctant.\n Deave, to deafen.\n Deil, devil.\n Deil-haet, nothing (Devil have it).\n Deil-ma-care, Devil may care.\n Deleeret, delirious, mad.\n Delvin, digging.\n Dern’d, hid.\n Descrive, to describe.\n Deuk, duck.\n Devel, a stunning blow.\n Diddle, to move quickly.\n Dight, to wipe.\n Dight, winnowed, sifted.\n Din, dun, muddy of complexion.\n Ding, to beat, to surpass.\n Dink, trim.\n Dinna, do not.\n Dirl, to vibrate, to ring.\n Diz’n, dizzen, dozen.\n Dochter, daughter.\n Doited, muddled, doting; stupid, bewildered.\n Donsie, vicious, bad-tempered; restive; testy.\n Dool, wo, sorrow.\n Doolfu’, doleful, woful.\n Dorty, pettish.\n Douce, douse, sedate, sober, prudent.\n Douce, doucely, dousely, sedately, prudently.\n Doudl’d, dandled.\n Dought (pret. of dow), could.\n Douked, ducked.\n Doup, the bottom.\n Doup-skelper, bottom-smacker.\n Dour-doure, stubborn, obstinate; cutting.\n Dow, dowe, am (is or are) able, can.\n Dow, a dove.\n Dowf, dowff, dull.\n Dowie, drooping, mournful.\n Dowilie, drooping.\n Downa, can not.\n Downa-do (can not do), lack of power.\n Doylt, stupid, stupefied.\n Doytin, doddering.,\n Dozen’d, torpid.\n Dozin, torpid.\n Draigl’t, draggled.\n Drant, prosing.\n Drap, drop.\n Draunting, tedious.\n Dree, endure, suffer.\n Dreigh, v. dreight.\n Dribble, drizzle.\n Driddle, to toddle.\n Dreigh, tedious, dull.\n Droddum, the breech.\n Drone, part of the bagpipe.\n Droop-rumpl’t, short-rumped.\n Drouk, to wet, to drench.\n Droukit, wetted.\n Drouth, thirst.\n Drouthy, thirsty.\n Druken, drucken, drunken.\n Drumlie, muddy, turbid.\n Drummock, raw meal and cold water.\n Drunt, the huff.\n Dry, thirsty.\n Dub, puddle, slush.\n Duddie, ragged.\n Duddies, dim. of duds, rags.\n Duds, rags, clothes.\n Dung, v. dang.\n Dunted, throbbed, beat.\n Dunts, blows.\n Durk, dirk.\n Dusht, pushed or thrown down violently.\n Dwalling, dwelling.\n Dwalt, dwelt.\n Dyke, a fence (of stone or turf), a wall.\n Dyvor, a bankrupt.\n\n Ear’, early.\n Earn, eagle.\n Eastlin, eastern.\n E’e, eye.\n E’ebrie, eyebrow.\n Een, eyes.\n E’en, even.\n E’en, evening.\n E’enin’, evening.\n E’er, ever.\n Eerie, apprehensive; inspiring ghostly fear.\n Eild, eld.\n Eke, also.\n Elbuck, elbow.\n Eldritch, unearthly, haunted, fearsome.\n Elekit, elected.\n Ell (Scots), thirty-seven inches.\n Eller, elder.\n En’, end.\n Eneugh, enough.\n Enfauld, infold.\n Enow, enough.\n Erse, Gaelic.\n Ether-stane, adder-stone.\n Ettle, aim.\n Evermair, evermore.\n Ev’n down, downright, positive.\n Eydent, diligent.\n\n Fa’, fall.\n Fa’, lot, portion.\n Fa’, to get; suit; claim.\n Faddom’d, fathomed.\n Fae, foe.\n Faem, foam.\n Faiket, let off, excused.\n Fain, fond, glad.\n Fainness, fondness.\n Fair fa’, good befall! welcome.\n Fairin., a present from a fair.\n Fallow, fellow.\n Fa’n, fallen.\n Fand, found.\n Far-aff, far-off.\n Farls, oat-cakes.\n Fash, annoyance.\n Fash, to trouble; worry.\n Fash’d, fash’t, bothered; irked.\n Fashious, troublesome.\n Fasten-e’en, Fasten’s Even (the evening before Lent).\n Faught, a fight.\n Fauld, the sheep-fold.\n Fauld, folded.\n Faulding, sheep-folding.\n Faun, fallen.\n Fause, false.\n Fause-house, hole in a cornstack.\n Faut, fault.\n Fautor, transgressor.\n Fawsont, seemly, well-doing; good-looking.\n Feat, spruce.\n Fecht, fight.\n Feck, the bulk, the most part.\n Feck, value, return.\n Fecket, waistcoat; sleeve waistcoat (used by farm-servants as both\n vest and jacket).\n Feckless, weak, pithless, feeble.\n Feckly, mostly.\n Feg, a fig.\n Fegs, faith!\n Feide, feud.\n Feint, v. fient.\n Feirrie, lusty.\n Fell, keen, cruel, dreadful, deadly; pungent.\n Fell, the cuticle under the skin.\n Felly, relentless.\n Fen’, a shift.\n Fen’, fend, to look after; to care for; keep off.\n Fenceless, defenseless.\n Ferlie, ferly, a wonder.\n Ferlie, to marvel.\n Fetches, catches, gurgles.\n Fetch’t, stopped suddenly.\n Fey, fated to death.\n Fidge, to fidget, to wriggle.\n Fidgin-fain, tingling-wild.\n Fiel, well.\n Fient, fiend, a petty oath.\n Fient a, not a, devil a.\n Fient haet, nothing (fiend have it).\n Fient haet o’, not one of.\n Fient-ma-care, the fiend may care (I don’t!).\n Fier, fiere, companion.\n Fier, sound, active.\n Fin’, to find.\n Fissle, tingle, fidget with delight.\n Fit, foot.\n Fittie-lan’, the near horse of the hind-most pair in the plough.\n Flae, a flea.\n Flaffin, flapping.\n Flainin, flannen, flannel.\n Flang, flung.\n Flee, to fly.\n Fleech, wheedle.\n Fleesh, fleece.\n Fleg, scare, blow, jerk.\n Fleth’rin, flattering.\n Flewit, a sharp lash.\n Fley, to scare.\n Flichterin, fluttering.\n Flinders, shreds, broken pieces.\n Flinging, kicking out in dancing; capering.\n Flingin-tree, a piece of timber hung by way of partition between two\n horses\n in a stable; a flail.\n Fliskit, fretted, capered.\n Flit, to shift.\n Flittering, fluttering.\n Flyte, scold.\n Fock, focks, folk.\n Fodgel, dumpy.\n Foor, fared (i. e., went).\n Foorsday, Thursday.\n Forbears, forebears, forefathers.\n Forby, forbye, besides.\n Forfairn, worn out; forlorn.\n Forfoughten, exhausted.\n Forgather, to meet with.\n Forgie, to forgive.\n Forjesket, jaded.\n Forrit, forward.\n Fother, fodder.\n Fou, fow, full (i. e., drunk).\n Foughten, troubled.\n Foumart, a polecat.\n Foursome, a quartet.\n Fouth, fulness, abundance.\n Fow, v. fou.\n Fow, a bushel.\n Frae, from.\n Freath, to froth,\n Fremit, estranged, hostile.\n Fu’, full.\n Fu’-han’t, full-handed.\n Fud, a short tail (of a rabbit or hare).\n Fuff’t, puffed.\n Fur, furr, a furrow.\n Fur-ahin, the hindmost plough-horse in the furrow.\n Furder, success.\n Furder, to succeed.\n Furm, a wooden form.\n Fusionless, pithless, sapless, tasteless,\n Fyke, fret.\n Fyke, to fuss; fidget.\n Fyle, to defile, to foul.\n\n Gab, the mouth.\n Gab, to talk.\n Gabs, talk.\n Gae, gave.\n Gae, to go.\n Gaed, went.\n Gaen, gone.\n Gaets, ways, manners.\n Gairs, gores.\n Gane, gone.\n Gang, to go.\n Gangrel, vagrant.\n Gar, to cause, to make, to compel.\n Garcock, the moorcock.\n Garten, garter.\n Gash, wise; self-complacent (implying prudence and prosperity);\n talkative.\n Gashing, talking, gabbing.\n Gat, got.\n Gate, way-road, manner.\n Gatty, enervated.\n Gaucie, v. Gawsie.\n Gaud, a. goad.\n Gaudsman, goadsman, driver of the plough-team.\n Gau’n. gavin.\n Gaun, going.\n Gaunted, gaped, yawned.\n Gawky, a foolish woman or lad.\n Gawky, foolish.\n Gawsie, buxom; jolly.\n Gaylies, gaily, rather.\n Gear, money, wealth; goods; stuff.\n Geck, to sport; toss the head.\n Ged. a pike.\n Gentles, gentry.\n Genty, trim and elegant.\n Geordie, dim. of George, a guinea.\n Get, issue, offspring, breed.\n Ghaist, ghost.\n Gie, to give.\n Gied, gave.\n Gien, given.\n Gif, if.\n Giftie, dim. of gift.\n Giglets, giggling youngsters or maids.\n Gillie, dim. of gill (glass of whiskey).\n Gilpey, young girl.\n Gimmer, a young ewe.\n Gin, if, should, whether; by.\n Girdle, plate of metal for firing cakes, bannocks.\n Girn, to grin, to twist the face (but from pain or rage, not joy);\n gapes;\n snarls.\n Gizz, wig.\n Glaikit, foolish, thoughtless, giddy.\n Glaizie, glossy, shiny.\n Glaum’d, grasped.\n Gled, a hawk, a kite.\n Gleede, a glowing coal.\n Gleg, nimble, sharp, keen-witted.\n Gleg, smartly.\n Glieb, a portion of land.\n Glib-gabbet, smooth-tongued.\n Glint, sparkle.\n Gloamin, twilight; gloamin-shot, sunset.\n Glow’r, stare.\n Glunch, frown, growl.\n Goavin, looking dazedlyl; mooning.\n Gotten, got.\n Gowan, the wild, or mountain, daisy.\n Gowany, covered with wild daisies.\n Gowd, gold.\n Gowdie, the head.\n Gowff’d, struck, as in the game of golf.\n Gowk, the cuckoo, a dolt.\n Gowling, lamenting (as a dog in grief).\n Graff, a grave, a vault.\n Grain’d, groaned.\n Graip, a dung-fork.\n Graith, implements, gear; furniture; attire.\n Graithing, gearing, vestments.\n Grane, groan.\n Grannie, graunie, grandmother.\n Grape, grope.\n Grat, wept.\n Gree, the prize (degree).\n Gree, to agree.\n Greet, to weep.\n Groanin maut, groaning malt, brewed for a lying-in.\n Grozet, a gooseberry.\n Grumphie, the pig.\n Grun’, the ground.\n Gruntle, the face.\n Gruntle, dim. of grunt.\n Grunzie, growing.\n Grutten, wept.\n Gude, God.\n Guid, gude, good.\n Guid-e’en, good evening.\n Guid-father, father-in-law.\n Guid-man, husband.\n Guid-wife. mistress of the house.\n Guid-willie, hearty, full of good-will.\n Gullie, gully, a large knife.\n Gulravage, riotous play.\n Gumlie, muddy.\n Gumption, wisdom.\n Gusty, tasty.\n Gutcher, goodsire, grandfather.\n\n Ha’, hall.\n Ha’ folk, the servants.\n Haddin, holding, inheritance.\n Hae, have.\n Haet, a thing.\n Haffet, hauffet, the temple, the side of the head.\n Haffets, side-locks.\n Hafflins, half, partly.\n Hag, a moss, a broken bog.\n Haggis, a special Scots pudding, made of sheep’s lungs, liver and\n heart,\n onions and oatmeal, boiled in a sheep’s stomach.\n Hain, to spare, to save.\n Hairst, har’st, harvest.\n Haith, faith (an oath).\n Haivers, v. havers.\n Hal’, hald, holding, possession.\n Hale, hail, the whole.\n Hale, health.\n Hale, hail, whole, healthy.\n Halesome, wholesome.\n Hallan, a partition wall, a porch, outer door.\n Halloween, All Saints’ Eve (31st of October).\n Hallowmas, All Saints’ Day (1st of November).\n Haly, holy.\n Hame, home,\n Han’, haun, hand.\n Han-darg, v. darg.\n Hand-wal’d, hand-picked (i.e., choicest).\n Hangie, hangman (nickname of the Devil).\n Hansel, the first gift; earnest.\n Hap, a wrap, a covering against cold.\n Hap, to shelter.\n Hap, to hop.\n Happer, hopper (of a mill).\n Hap-step-an’-lowp. hop-step-and-jump.\n Harkit, hearkened.\n Harn, coarse cloth.\n Hash, an oaf.\n Haslock woo, the wool on the neck of a sheep.\n Haud, to hold, to keep.\n Hauf, half.\n Haughs, low-lying rich lands by a river.\n Haun, v. han’,\n Haurl, to trail.\n Hause, cuddle, embrace.\n Haveril, hav’rel, one who talks nonsense.\n Havers, nonsense.\n Havins, manners, conduct.\n Hawkie, a white-faced cow; a cow.\n Heal, v. hale.\n Healsome, v. halesome.\n Hecht, to promise; threaten.\n Heckle, a flax-comb.\n Heels-o’er-gowdie, v. gowdie.\n Heeze, to hoist.\n Heich, heigh, high.\n Hem-shin’d, crooked-shin’d.\n Herd, a herd-boy.\n Here awa, hereabout.\n Herry, to harry.\n Herryment, spoliation.\n Hersel, herself.\n Het, hot.\n Heugh, a hollow or pit; a crag, a steep bank.\n Heuk, a hook.\n Hilch, to hobble.\n Hiltie-skiltie, helter-skelter.\n Himsel, himselfk\n Hiney, hinny, honey.\n Hing, to hang.\n Hirple, to move unevenly; to limp.\n Hissels, so many cattle as one person can attend (R. B.).\n Histie, bare.\n Hizzie, a hussy, a wench.\n Hoast, cough.\n Hoddin, the motion of a sage countryman riding on a cart-horse\n (R. B.).\n Hoddin-grey, coarse gray woolen.\n Hoggie, dim. of hog; a lamb.\n Hog-score, a line on the curling rink.\n Hog-shouther, a kind of horse-play by jostling with the shoulder;\n to jostle.\n Hoodie-craw, the hooded crow, the carrion crow.\n Hoodock, grasping, vulturish.\n Hooked, caught.\n Hool, the outer case, the sheath.\n Hoolie, softly.\n Hoord, hoard.\n Hoordet, hoarded.\n Horn, a horn spoon; a comb of horn.\n Hornie, the Devil.\n Host, v. hoast.\n Hotch’d, jerked.\n Houghmagandie, fornication.\n Houlet, v. howlet.\n Houpe, hope.\n Hove, swell.\n Howdie, howdy, a midwife.\n Howe, hollow.\n Howk, to dig.\n Howlet, the owl.\n Hoyse, a hoist.\n Hoy’t, urged (R. B.).\n Hoyte, to amble crazily (R. B.).\n Hughoc, dim. of Hugh.\n Hullions, slovens.\n Hunder, a hundred.\n Hunkers, hams.\n Hurcheon, the hedgehog.\n Hurchin, urchin.\n Hurdies, the loins, the crupper (R. B.) (i. e., the buttocks).\n Hurl, to trundle.\n Hushion, a footless stocking.\n Hyte, furious.\n\n I’, in.\n Icker, an ear of corn.\n Ier-oe, a great-grandchild.\n Ilk, ilka, each, every.\n Ill o’t, bad at it.\n Ill-taen, ill-taken.\n Ill-thief. the Devil.\n Ill-willie, ill-natured, niggardly.\n Indentin, indenturing.\n Ingine, genius, ingenuity; wit.\n Ingle, the fire, the fireside.\n Ingle-cheek, fireside (properly the jamb of the fireplace).\n Ingle-lowe, ingle-low, flame of the fire.\n I’se, I shall, or will.\n Itsel’, itself.\n Ither, other, another.\n\n Jad, a jade.\n Janwar, January.\n Jauk, to trifle, to dally.\n Jauner, gabber.\n Jauntie, dim. of jaunt.\n Jaup, splash.\n Jaw, talk, impudence.\n Jaw, to throw, to dash.\n Jeeg, to jog.\n Jillet, a jilt.\n Jimp, small, slender.\n Jimply, neatly.\n Jimps, stays.\n Jink, the slip.\n Jink, to frisk, to sport, to dodge.\n Jinker, dodger (coquette); a jinker noble; a noble goer.\n Jirkinet, bodice.\n Jirt, a jerk.\n Jiz, a wig.\n Jo, a sweetheart.\n Jocteleg, a clasp-knife.\n Jouk, to duck, to cover, to dodge.\n Jow, to jow, a verb which included both the swinging motion and\n pealing\n sound of a large bell (R. B.).\n Jumpet, jumpit, jumped.\n Jundie, to jostle.\n Jurr, a servant wench.\n\n Kae, a jackdaw.\n Kail, kale, the colewort; cabbage; Scots’ broth.\n Kail-blade, the leaf of the colewort.\n Kail-gullie, a cabbage knife.\n Kail-runt, the stem of the colewort.\n Kail-whittle, a cabbage knife.\n Kail-yard, a kitchen garden.\n Kain, kane, rents in kind.\n Kame, a comb.\n Kebars, rafters.\n Kebbuck, a cheese; a kebbuck heel = the last crust of a cheese.\n Keckle, to cackle, to giggle.\n Keek, look, glance.\n Keekin-glass, the looking-glass.\n Keel, red chalk.\n Kelpies, river demons.\n Ken, to know.\n Kenna, know not.\n Kennin, a very little (merely as much as can be perceived).\n Kep, to catch.\n Ket, the fleece on a sheep’s body.\n Key, quay.\n Kiaugh, anxiety.\n Kilt, to tuck up.\n Kimmer, a wench, a gossip; a wife.\n Kin’, kind.\n King’s-hood, the 2d stomach in a ruminant (equivocal for the scrotum).\n Kintra, country.\n Kirk, church.\n Kirn, a churn.\n Kirn, harvest home.\n Kirsen, to christen.\n Kist, chest, counter.\n Kitchen, to relish.\n Kittle, difficult, ticklish, delicate, fickle.\n Kittle, to tickle.\n Kittlin, kitten.\n Kiutlin, cuddling.\n Knaggie, knobby.\n Knappin-hammers, hammers for breaking stones.\n Knowe, knoll.\n Knurl, knurlin, dwarf.\n Kye, cows.\n Kytes, bellies.\n Kythe, to show.\n\n Laddie, dim. of lad.\n Lade, a load.\n Lag, backward.\n Laggen, the bottom angle of a wooden dish.\n Laigh, low.\n Laik, lack.\n Lair, lore, learning.\n Laird, landowner.\n Lairing, sticking or sinking in moss or mud.\n Laith, loath.\n Laithfu’, loathful, sheepish.\n Lallan, lowland.\n Lallans, Scots Lowland vernacular.\n Lammie, dim. of lamb.\n Lan’, land.\n Lan’-afore, the foremost horse on the unplowed land side.\n Lan’-ahin, the hindmost horse on the unplowed land side.\n Lane, lone.\n Lang, long.\n Lang syne, long since, long ago.\n Lap, leapt.\n Lave, the rest.\n Laverock, lav’rock, the lark.\n Lawin, the reckoning.\n Lea, grass, untilled land.\n Lear, lore, learning.\n Leddy, lady.\n Lee-lang, live-long.\n Leesome, lawful.\n Leeze me on, dear is to me; blessings on; commend me to.\n Leister, a fish-spear.\n Len’, to lend.\n Leugh, laugh’d.\n Leuk, look.\n Ley-crap, lea-crop.\n Libbet, castrated.\n Licks, a beating.\n Lien, lain.\n Lieve, lief.\n Lift, the sky.\n Lift, a load.\n Lightly, to disparage, to scorn.\n Lilt, to sing.\n Limmer, to jade; mistress.\n Lin, v. linn.\n Linn, a waterfall.\n Lint, flax.\n Lint-white, flax-colored.\n Lintwhite, the linnet.\n Lippen’d, trusted.\n Lippie, dim. of lip.\n Loan, a lane,\n Loanin, the private road leading to a farm.\n Lo’ed, loved.\n Lon’on, London.\n Loof (pl. looves), the palm of the hand.\n Loon, loun, lown, a fellow, a varlet.\n Loosome, lovable.\n Loot, let.\n Loove, love.\n Looves, v. loof.\n Losh, a minced oath.\n Lough, a pond, a lake.\n Loup, lowp, to leap.\n Low, lowe, a flame.\n Lowin, lowing, flaming, burning.\n Lown, v. loon.\n Lowp, v. loup.\n Lowse, louse, to untie, let loose.\n Lucky, a grandmother, an old woman; an ale wife.\n Lug, the ear.\n Lugget, having ears.\n Luggie, a porringer.\n Lum, the chimney.\n Lume, a loom.\n Lunardi, a balloon bonnet.\n Lunches, full portions.\n Lunt, a column of smoke or steam.\n Luntin, smoking.\n Luve, love.\n Lyart, gray in general; discolored by decay or old age.\n Lynin, lining.\n\n Mae, more.\n Mailen, mailin, a farm.\n Mailie, Molly.\n Mair, more.\n Maist. most.\n Maist, almost.\n Mak, make.\n Mak o’, make o’, to pet, to fondle.\n Mall, Mally.\n Manteele, a mantle.\n Mark, merk, an old Scots coin (13 1-3d. sterling).\n Mashlum, of mixed meal.\n Maskin-pat, the teapot.\n Maukin, a hare.\n Maun, must.\n Maunna, mustn’t.\n Maut, malt.\n Mavis, the thrush.\n Mawin, mowing.\n Mawn, mown.\n Mawn, a large basket.\n Mear, a mare.\n Meikle, mickle, muckle, much, great.\n Melder, a grinding corn.\n Mell, to meddle.\n Melvie, to powder with meal-dust.\n Men’, mend.\n Mense, tact, discretion, politeness.\n Menseless, unmannerly.\n Merle, the blackbird.\n Merran, Marian.\n Mess John, Mass John, the parish priest, the minister.\n Messin, a cur, a mongrel.\n Midden, a dunghill.\n Midden-creels, manure-baskets.\n Midden dub, midden puddle.\n Midden-hole, a gutter at the bottom of the dunghill.\n Milking shiel, the milking shed.\n Mim, prim, affectedly meek.\n Mim-mou’d, prim-lipped.\n Min’, mind, remembrance.\n Mind, to remember, to bear in mind.\n Minnie, mother.\n Mirk, dark.\n Misca’, to miscall, to abuse.\n Mishanter, mishap.\n Mislear’d, mischievous, unmannerly.\n Mistak, mistake.\n Misteuk, mistook.\n Mither, mother.\n Mixtie-maxtie, confused.\n Monie, many.\n Mools, crumbling earth, grave.\n Moop, to nibble, to keep close company, to meddle.\n Mottie, dusty.\n Mou’, the mouth.\n Moudieworts, moles.\n Muckle, v. meikle.\n Muslin-kail, beefless broth.\n Mutchkin, an English pint.\n\n Na, nae, no, not.\n Naething, naithing, nothing.\n Naig, a nag.\n Nane, none,\n Nappy, ale, liquor.\n Natch, a notching implement; abuse.\n Neebor, neibor, neighbor.\n Needna, needn’t.\n Neist, next.\n Neuk, newk, a nook, a corner.\n New-ca’d, newly driven.\n Nick (Auld), Nickie-ben, a name of the Devil.\n Nick, to sever; to slit; to nail, to seize away.\n Nickie-ben, v. Nick.\n Nick-nackets, curiosities.\n Nicks, cuts; the rings on a cow’s horns.\n Nieve, the fist.\n Nieve-fu’, fistful.\n Niffer, exchange.\n Nit, a nut.\n No, not.\n Nocht, nothing.\n Norland, northern.\n Nowt, nowte, cattle.\n\n O’, of.\n O’erword, the refrain; catchword.\n Onie, any.\n Or, ere, before.\n Orra, extra.\n O’t, of it.\n Ought, aught.\n Oughtlins, aughtlins, aught in the least; at all.\n Ourie, shivering, drooping.\n Outler, unhoused.\n Owre, over, too.\n Owsen, oxen.\n Owthor, author.\n Oxter’d, held up under the arms.\n\n Pack an’ thick, confidential.\n Paidle, to paddle, to wade; to walk with a weak action.\n Paidle, nail-bag.\n Painch, the paunch.\n Paitrick, a partridge; used equivocally of a wanton girl.\n Pang, to cram.\n Parishen, the parish.\n Parritch, porridge.\n Parritch-pats, porridge-pots.\n Pat, pot.\n Pat, put.\n Pattle, pettle, a plow-staff.\n Paughty, haughty.\n Paukie, pauky, pawkie, artful, sly.\n Pechan, the stomach.\n Pechin, panting, blowing.\n Penny-fee, wage in money.\n Penny-wheep, small beer.\n Pettle, v. pattle.\n Philibeg, the Highlander’s kilt.\n Phraisin, flattering, wheedling.\n Phrase, to flatter, to wheedle.\n Pickle, a few, a little.\n Pint (Scots), three imperial pints.\n Pit, put.\n Placads, proclamations.\n Plack, four pennies (Scots).\n Plackless, penniless.\n Plaiden, coarse woolen cloth.\n Plaister, plaster.\n Plenish’d, stocked.\n Pleugh, plew, a plow.\n Pliskie, a trick.\n Pliver, a plover.\n Pock, a poke, a bag, a wallet.\n Poind, to seize, to distrain, to impound.\n Poortith, poverty.\n Pou, to pull.\n Pouch, pocket.\n Pouk, to poke.\n Poupit, pulpit.\n Pouse, a push.\n Poussie, a hare (also a cat).\n Pouther, powther, powder.\n Pouts, chicks.\n Pow, the poll, the head.\n Pownie, a pony.\n Pow’t, pulled.\n Pree’d, pried (proved), tasted.\n Preen, a pin.\n Prent, print.\n Prie, to taste.\n Prief, proof.\n Priggin, haggling.\n Primsie, dim. of prim, precise.\n Proveses, provosts.\n Pu’, to pull.\n Puddock-stools, toadstools, mushrooms.\n Puir, poor.\n Pun’, pund, pound.\n Pursie, dim. of purse.\n Pussie, a hare.\n Pyet, a magpie.\n Pyke, to pick.\n Pyles, grains.\n\n Quat, quit, quitted.\n Quean, a young woman, a lass.\n Queir, choir.\n Quey, a young cow.\n Quietlin-wise, quietly.\n Quo’, quod, quoth.\n\n Rab, rob.\n Rade, rode.\n Raep, a rope.\n Ragweed, ragwort.\n Raibles, recites by rote.\n Rair, to roar.\n Rairin, roaring.\n Rair’t, roared.\n Raise, rase, rose.\n Raize, to excite, anger.\n Ramfeezl’d, exhausted.\n Ramgunshoch, surly.\n Ram-stam, headlong.\n Randie, lawless, obstreperous.\n Randie, randy, a scoundrel, a rascal.\n Rant, to rollick, to roister.\n Rants, merry meetings; rows.\n Rape, v. raep.\n Raploch, homespun.\n Rash, a rush.\n Rash-buss, a clump of rushes.\n Rashy, rushy.\n Rattan, rattoon, a rat.\n Ratton-key, the rat-quay.\n Raucle, rough, bitter, sturdy.\n Raught, reached.\n Raw, a row.\n Rax, to stretch, to extend.\n Ream, cream, foam.\n Ream, to cream, to foam.\n Reave, to rob.\n Rebute, rebuff.\n Red, advised, afraid.\n Red, rede, to advise, to counsel.\n Red-wat-shod, red-wet-shod.\n Red-wud, stark mad.\n Reek, smoke.\n Reekie, reeky, smoky.\n Reestit, scorched.\n Reestit, refused to go.\n Reif, theiving.\n Remead, remedy.\n Rickles, small stacks of corn in the fields.\n Rief, plunder.\n Rig, a ridge.\n Riggin, the roof-tree, the roof.\n Rigwoodie, lean.\n Rin, to run.\n Ripp, a handful of corn from the sheaf.\n Ripplin-kame, the wool or flax comb.\n Riskit, cracked.\n Rive, to split, to tear, to tug, to burst.\n Rock, a distaff.\n Rockin, a social meeting.\n Roon, round, shred.\n Roose, to praise, to flatter.\n Roose, reputation.\n Roosty, rusty.\n Rottan, a rat.\n Roun’, round.\n Roupet, exhausted in voice.\n Routh, v. rowth.\n Routhie, well-stocked.\n Row, rowe, to roll; to flow, as a river; to wrap.\n Rowte, to low, to bellow.\n Rowth, plenty, a store.\n Rozet, resin.\n Run-deils, downright devils.\n Rung, a cudgel.\n Runkl’d, wrinkled.\n Runt, a cabbage or colewort stalk.\n Ryke, to reach.\n\n Sab, to sob.\n Sae, so.\n Saft, soft.\n Sair, sore, hard, severe, strong.\n Sair, to serve.\n Sair, sairly, sorely.\n Sairie, sorrowful, sorry.\n Sall, shall.\n Sandy, Sannack, dim. of Alexander.\n Sark, a shirt.\n Saugh, the willow.\n Saul, soul.\n Saumont, sawmont, the salmon.\n Saunt, saint.\n Saut, salt.\n Saut-backets, v. backets.\n Saw, to sow.\n Sawney, v. sandy.\n Sax, six.\n Scar, to scare.\n Scar, v. scaur.\n Scathe, scaith, damage; v. skaith.\n Scaud, to scald.\n Scaul, scold.\n Scauld, to scold.\n Scaur, afraid; apt to be scared.\n Scaur, a jutting rock or bank of earth.\n Scho, she.\n Scone, a soft flour cake.\n Sconner, disgust.\n Sconner, sicken.\n Scraichin, calling hoarsely.\n Screed, a rip, a rent.\n Screed, to repeat rapidly, to rattle.\n Scriechin, screeching.\n Scriegh, skriegh, v. skriegh.\n Scrievin, careering.\n Scrimpit, scanty.\n Scroggie, scroggy, scrubby.\n Sculdudd’ry, bawdry.\n See’d, saw.\n Seisins, freehold possessions.\n Sel, sel’, sell, self.\n Sell’d, sell’t, sold.\n Semple, simple.\n Sen’, send.\n Set, to set off; to start.\n Set, sat.\n Sets, becomes.\n Shachl’d, shapeless.\n Shaird, shred, shard.\n Shanagan, a cleft stick.\n Shanna, shall not.\n Shaul, shallow.\n Shaver, a funny fellow.\n Shavie, trick.\n Shaw, a wood.\n Shaw, to show.\n Shearer, a reaper.\n Sheep-shank, a sheep’s trotter; nae sheep-shank bane = a person of\n no small importance.\n Sheerly, wholly.\n Sheers, scissors.\n Sherra-moor, sheriffmuir.\n Sheugh, a ditch, a furrow; gutter.\n Sheuk, shook.\n Shiel, a shed, cottage.\n Shill, shrill.\n Shog, a shake.\n Shool, a shovel.\n Shoon, shoes.\n Shore, to offer, to threaten.\n Short syne, a little while ago.\n Shouldna, should not.\n Shouther, showther, shoulder.\n Shure, shore (did shear).\n Sic, such.\n Siccan, such a.\n Sicker, steady, certain; sicker score = strict conditions.\n Sidelins, sideways.\n Siller, silver; money in general.\n Simmer, summer.\n Sin, son.\n Sin’, since.\n Sindry, sundry.\n Singet, singed, shriveled.\n Sinn, the sun.\n Sinny, sunny.\n Skaith, damage.\n Skeigh, skiegh, skittish.\n Skellum, a good-for-nothing.\n Skelp, a slap, a smack.\n Skelp, to spank; skelpin at it = driving at it.\n Skelpie-limmer’s-face, a technical term in female scolding (R. B.).\n Skelvy, shelvy.\n Skiegh, v. skeigh.\n Skinking, watery.\n Skinklin, glittering.\n Skirl, to cry or sound shrilly.\n Sklent, a slant, a turn.\n Sklent, to slant, to squint, to cheat.\n Skouth, scope.\n Skriech, a scream.\n Skriegh, to scream, to whinny.\n Skyrin, flaring.\n Skyte, squirt, lash.\n Slade, slid.\n Slae, the sloe.\n Slap, a breach in a fence; a gate.\n Slaw, slow.\n Slee, sly, ingenious.\n Sleekit, sleek, crafty.\n Slidd’ry, slippery.\n Sloken, to slake.\n Slypet, slipped.\n Sma’, small.\n Smeddum, a powder.\n Smeek, smoke.\n Smiddy, smithy.\n Smoor’d, smothered.\n Smoutie, smutty.\n Smytrie, a small collection; a litter.\n Snakin, sneering.\n Snap smart.\n Snapper, to stumble.\n Snash, abuse.\n Snaw, snow.\n Snaw-broo, snow-brew (melted snow).\n Sned, to lop, to prune.\n Sneeshin mill, a snuff-box.\n Snell, bitter, biting.\n Snick, a latch; snick-drawing = scheming; he weel a snick can draw =\n he is good at cheating.\n Snirtle, to snigger.\n Snoods, fillets worn by maids.\n Snool, to cringe, to snub.\n Snoove, to go slowly.\n Snowkit, snuffed.\n Sodger, soger, a soldier.\n Sonsie, sonsy, pleasant, good-natured, jolly.\n Soom, to swim.\n Soor, sour.\n Sough, v. sugh.\n Souk, suck.\n Soupe, sup, liquid.\n Souple, supple.\n Souter, cobbler.\n Sowens, porridge of oat flour.\n Sowps, sups.\n Sowth, to hum or whistle in a low tune.\n Sowther, to solder.\n Spae, to foretell.\n Spails, chips.\n Spairge, to splash; to spatter.\n Spak, spoke.\n Spates, floods.\n Spavie, the spavin.\n Spavit, spavined.\n Spean, to wean.\n Speat, a flood.\n Speel, to climb.\n Speer, spier, to ask.\n Speet, to spit.\n Spence, the parlor.\n Spier. v. speer.\n Spleuchan, pouch.\n Splore, a frolic; a carousal.\n Sprachl’d, clambered.\n Sprattle, scramble.\n Spreckled, speckled.\n Spring, a quick tune; a dance.\n Sprittie, full of roots or sprouts (a kind of rush).\n Sprush, spruce.\n Spunk, a match; a spark; fire, spirit.\n Spunkie, full of spirit.\n Spunkie, liquor, spirits.\n Spunkies, jack-o’-lanterns, will-o’-wisps.\n Spurtle-blade, the pot-stick.\n Squatter, to flap.\n Squattle, to squat; to settle.\n Stacher, to totter.\n Staggie, dim. of staig.\n Staig, a young horse.\n Stan’, stand.\n Stane, stone.\n Stan’t, stood.\n Stang, sting.\n Stank, a moat; a pond.\n Stap, to stop.\n Stapple, a stopper.\n Stark, strong.\n Starnies, dim. of starn, star.\n Starns, stars.\n Startle, to course.\n Staumrel, half-witted.\n Staw, a stall.\n Staw, to surfeit; to sicken.\n Staw, stole.\n Stechin, cramming.\n Steek, a stitch.\n Steek, to shut; to close.\n Steek, to shut; to touch, meddle with.\n Steeve, compact.\n Stell, a still.\n Sten, a leap; a spring.\n Sten’t, sprang.\n Stented, erected; set on high.\n Stents, assessments, dues.\n Steyest, steepest.\n Stibble, stubble.\n Stibble-rig, chief reaper.\n Stick-an-stowe, completely.\n Stilt, limp (with the aid of stilts).\n Stimpart, a quarter peck.\n Stirk, a young bullock.\n Stock, a plant of cabbage; colewort.\n Stoited, stumbled.\n Stoiter’d, staggered.\n Stoor, harsh, stern.\n Stoun’, pang, throb.\n Stoure, dust.\n Stourie, dusty.\n Stown, stolen.\n Stownlins, by stealth.\n Stoyte, to stagger.\n Strae death, death in bed. (i. e., on straw).\n Staik, to stroke.\n Strak, struck.\n Strang, strong.\n Straught, straight.\n Straught, to stretch.\n Streekit, stretched.\n Striddle, to straddle.\n Stron’t, lanted.\n Strunt, liquor.\n Strunt, to swagger.\n Studdie, an anvil.\n Stumpie, dim. of stump; a worn quill.\n Sturt, worry, trouble.\n Sturt, to fret; to vex.\n Sturtin, frighted, staggered.\n Styme, the faintest trace.\n Sucker, sugar.\n Sud, should.\n Sugh, sough, sigh, moan, wail, swish.\n Sumph, churl.\n Sune, soon.\n Suthron, southern.\n Swaird, sward.\n Swall’d, swelled.\n Swank, limber.\n Swankies, strapping fellows.\n Swap, exchange.\n Swapped, swopped, exchanged.\n Swarf, to swoon.\n Swat, sweated.\n Swatch, sample.\n Swats, new ale.\n Sweer, v. dead-sweer.\n Swirl, curl.\n Swirlie, twisted, knaggy.\n Swith, haste; off and away.\n Swither, doubt, hesitation.\n Swoom, swim.\n Swoor, swore.\n Sybow, a young union.\n Syne, since, then.\n\n Tack, possession, lease.\n Tacket, shoe-nail.\n Tae, to.\n Tae, toe.\n Tae’d, toed.\n Taed, toad.\n Taen, taken.\n Taet, small quantity.\n Tairge, to target.\n Tak, take.\n Tald, told.\n Tane, one in contrast to other.\n Tangs, tongs.\n Tap, top.\n Tapetless, senseless.\n Tapmost, topmost.\n Tappet-hen, a crested hen-shaped bottle holding three quarts of\n claret.\n Tap-pickle, the grain at the top of the stalk.\n Topsalteerie, topsy-turvy.\n Targe, to examine.\n Tarrow, to tarry; to be reluctant, to murmur; to weary.\n Tassie, a goblet.\n Tauk, talk.\n Tauld, told.\n Tawie, tractable.\n Tawpie, a foolish woman.\n Tawted, matted.\n Teats, small quantities.\n Teen, vexation.\n Tell’d, told.\n Temper-pin, a fiddle-peg; the regulating pin of the spinning-wheel.\n Tent, heed.\n Tent, to tend; to heed; to observe.\n Tentie, watchful, careful, heedful.\n Tentier, more watchful.\n Tentless, careless.\n Tester, an old silver coin about sixpence in value.\n Teugh, tough.\n Teuk, took.\n Thack, thatch; thack and rape = the covering of a house, and so, home\n necessities.\n Thae, those.\n Thairm, small guts; catgut (a fiddle-string).\n Theckit, thatched.\n Thegither, together.\n Thick, v. pack an’ thick.\n Thieveless, forbidding, spiteful.\n Thiggin, begging.\n Thir, these.\n Thirl’d, thrilled.\n Thole, to endure; to suffer.\n Thou’se, thou shalt.\n Thowe, thaw.\n Thowless, lazy, useless.\n Thrang, busy; thronging in crowds.\n Thrang, a throng.\n Thrapple, the windpipe.\n Thrave, twenty-four sheaves of corn.\n Thraw, a twist.\n Thraw, to twist; to turn; to thwart.\n Thraws, throes.\n Threap, maintain, argue.\n Threesome, trio.\n Thretteen, thirteen.\n Thretty, thirty.\n Thrissle, thistle.\n Thristed, thirsted.\n Through, mak to through = make good.\n Throu’ther (through other), pell-mell.\n Thummart, polecat.\n Thy lane, alone.\n Tight, girt, prepared.\n Till, to.\n Till’t, to it.\n Timmer, timber, material.\n Tine, to lose; to be lost.\n Tinkler, tinker.\n Tint, lost\n Tippence, twopence.\n Tip, v. toop.\n Tirl, to strip.\n Tirl, to knock for entrance.\n Tither, the other.\n Tittlin, whispering.\n Tocher, dowry.\n Tocher, to give a dowry.\n Tocher-gude, marriage portion.\n Tod, the fox.\n To-fa’, the fall.\n Toom, empty.\n Toop, tup, ram.\n Toss, the toast.\n Toun, town; farm steading.\n Tousie, shaggy.\n Tout, blast.\n Tow, flax, a rope.\n Towmond, towmont, a twelvemonth.\n Towsing, rumpling (equivocal).\n Toyte, to totter.\n Tozie, flushed with drink.\n Trams, shafts.\n Transmogrify, change.\n Trashtrie, small trash.\n Trews, trousers.\n Trig, neat, trim.\n Trinklin, flowing.\n Trin’le, the wheel of a barrow.\n Trogger, packman.\n Troggin, wares.\n Troke, to barter.\n Trouse, trousers.\n Trowth, in truth.\n Trump, a jew’s harp.\n Tryste, a fair; a cattle-market.\n Trysted, appointed.\n Trysting, meeting.\n Tulyie, tulzie, a squabble; a tussle.\n Twa, two.\n Twafauld, twofold, double.\n Twal, twelve; the twal = twelve at night.\n Twalpennie worth, a penny worth (English money).\n Twang, twinge.\n Twa-three, two or three.\n Tway, two.\n Twin, twine, to rob; to deprive; bereave.\n Twistle, a twist; a sprain.\n Tyke, a dog.\n Tyne, v. tine.\n Tysday, Tuesday.\n\n Ulzie, oil.\n Unchancy, dangerous.\n Unco, remarkably, uncommonly, excessively.\n Unco, remarkable, uncommon, terrible (sarcastic).\n Uncos, news, strange things, wonders.\n Unkend, unknown.\n Unsicker, uncertain.\n Unskaithed, unhurt.\n Usquabae, usquebae, whisky.\n\n Vauntie, proud.\n Vera, very.\n Virls, rings.\n Vittle, victual, grain, food.\n Vogie, vain.\n\n Wa’, waw, a wall.\n Wab, a web.\n Wabster, a weaver.\n Wad, to wager.\n Wad, to wed.\n Wad, would, would have.\n Wad’a, would have.\n Wadna, would not.\n Wadset, a mortgage.\n Wae, woful, sorrowful.\n Wae, wo; wae’s me = wo is to me.\n Waesucks, alas!\n Wae worth, wo befall.\n Wair, v. ware.\n Wale, to choose.\n Wale, choice.\n Walie, wawlie, choice, ample, large.\n Wallop, to kick; to dangle; to gallop; to dance.\n Waly fa’, ill befall!\n Wame, the belly.\n Wamefou, bellyful.\n Wan, won.\n Wanchancie, dangerous.\n Wanrestfu’, restless.\n Ware, wair, to spend; bestow.\n Ware, worn.\n Wark, work.\n Wark-lume, tool.\n Warl’, warld, world.\n Warlock, a wizard\n Warl’y, warldly, worldly.\n Warran, warrant.\n Warse, worse.\n Warsle, warstle, wrestle.\n Wast, west.\n Wastrie, waste.\n Wat, wet.\n Wat, wot, know.\n Water-fit, water-foot (the river’s mouth).\n Water-kelpies, v. kelpies.\n Wauble, to wobble.\n Waught, a draft.\n Wauk, to awake.\n Wauken, to awaken.\n Waukin, awake.\n Waukit (with toil), horny.\n Waukrife, wakeful.\n Waulie, jolly.\n Waur, worse.\n Waur, to worst.\n Waur’t, worsted, beat.\n Wean (wee one), a child.\n Weanies, babies.\n Weason, weasand.\n Wecht, a measure for corn.\n Wee, a little; a wee = a short space or time.\n Wee things, children.\n Weel, well.\n Weel-faured, well-favored.\n Weel-gaun, well-going.\n Weel-hain’d, well-saved.\n Weepers, mournings (on the steeve or hat).\n Werena, were not.\n We’se, we shall.\n Westlin, western.\n Wha, who.\n Whaizle, wheeze.\n Whalpet, whelped.\n Wham, whom.\n Whan, when.\n Whang, a shive.\n Whang, flog.\n Whar, whare, where.\n Wha’s whose.\n Wha’s, who is.\n Whase, whose.\n What for, whatfore, wherefore.\n Whatna, what.\n What reck, what matter; nevertheless.\n Whatt, whittled.\n Whaup, the curlew.\n Whaur, where.\n Wheep, v. penny-wheep.\n Wheep, jerk.\n Whid, a fib.\n Whiddin, scudding.\n Whids, gambols.\n Whigmeleeries, crotches.\n Whingin, whining.\n Whins, furze.\n Whirlygigums, flourishes.\n Whist, silence.\n Whissle, whistle.\n Whitter, a draft.\n Whittle, a knife.\n Wi’, with.\n Wick a bore, hit a curling-stone obliquely and send it through an\n opening.\n Wi’s, with his.\n Wi’t, with it.\n Widdifu’, gallows-worthy.\n Widdle, wriggle.\n Wiel, eddy.\n Wight, strong, stout.\n Wighter, more influential.\n Willcat wildcat.\n Willyart, disordered.\n Wimple, to meander.\n Win, won.\n Winn, to winnow.\n Winna, will not.\n Winnin, winding.\n Winnock, window.\n Winnock-bunker, v. bunker.\n Win’t, did wind.\n Wintle, a somersault.\n Wintle, to stagger; to swing; to wriggle.\n Winze, a curse.\n Wiss, wish.\n Won, to dwell.\n Wonner, a wonder.\n Woo’, wool.\n Woodie, woody, a rope (originally of withes); a gallows rope.\n Woodies, twigs, withes.\n Wooer-babs, love-knots.\n Wordy, worthy.\n Worset, worsted.\n Worth, v. wae worth.\n Wraith, ghost.\n Wrang, wrong.\n Wud, wild, mad.\n Wumble, wimble.\n Wyliecoat, undervest.\n Wyte (weight), blame.\n Wyte, to blame; to reproach.\n\n Yard, a garden; a stackyard.\n Yaud, an old mare.\n Yealings, coevals.\n Yell, dry (milkless).\n Yerd, earth.\n Yerkit, jerked.\n Yerl, earl.\n Ye’se, ye shall.\n Yestreen, last night.\n Yett, a gate.\n Yeuk, to itch.\n Yill, ale.\n Yill-Caup, ale-stoup.\n Yird, yearth, earth.\n Yokin, yoking; a spell; a day’s work.\n Yon, yonder.\n ’Yont, beyond.\n Yowe, ewe.\n Yowie, dim. of ewe; a pet ewe.\n Yule, Christmas.", + "author": "Robert Burns", + "source": "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns", + "period": "1771–1796" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/dickinson_poems.json b/poetry/dickinson_poems.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed3da4e --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/dickinson_poems.json @@ -0,0 +1,3075 @@ +[ + { + "title": "Success.", + "body": "[Published in \"A Masque of Poets\"\nat the request of \"H.H.,\" the author's\nfellow-townswoman and friend.]\n\nSuccess is counted sweetest\nBy those who ne'er succeed.\nTo comprehend a nectar\nRequires sorest need.\n\nNot one of all the purple host\nWho took the flag to-day\nCan tell the definition,\nSo clear, of victory,\n\nAs he, defeated, dying,\nOn whose forbidden ear\nThe distant strains of triumph\nBreak, agonized and clear!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ii.", + "body": "Our share of night to bear,\nOur share of morning,\nOur blank in bliss to fill,\nOur blank in scorning.\n\nHere a star, and there a star,\nSome lose their way.\nHere a mist, and there a mist,\nAfterwards -- day!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Rouge Et Noir.", + "body": "Soul, wilt thou toss again?\nBy just such a hazard\nHundreds have lost, indeed,\nBut tens have won an all.\n\nAngels' breathless ballot\nLingers to record thee;\nImps in eager caucus\nRaffle for my soul.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Rouge Gagne.", + "body": "'T is so much joy! 'T is so much joy!\nIf I should fail, what poverty!\nAnd yet, as poor as I\nHave ventured all upon a throw;\nHave gained! Yes! Hesitated so\nThis side the victory!\n\nLife is but life, and death but death!\nBliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!\nAnd if, indeed, I fail,\nAt least to know the worst is sweet.\nDefeat means nothing but defeat,\nNo drearier can prevail!\n\nAnd if I gain, -- oh, gun at sea,\nOh, bells that in the steeples be,\nAt first repeat it slow!\nFor heaven is a different thing\nConjectured, and waked sudden in,\nAnd might o'erwhelm me so!\n\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nGlee! The great storm is over!\nFour have recovered the land;\nForty gone down together\nInto the boiling sand.\n\nRing, for the scant salvation!\nToll, for the bonnie souls, --\nNeighbor and friend and bridegroom,\nSpinning upon the shoals!\n\nHow they will tell the shipwreck\nWhen winter shakes the door,\nTill the children ask, \"But the forty?\nDid they come back no more?\"\n\nThen a silence suffuses the story,\nAnd a softness the teller's eye;\nAnd the children no further question,\nAnd only the waves reply.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vi.", + "body": "If I can stop one heart from breaking,\nI shall not live in vain;\nIf I can ease one life the aching,\nOr cool one pain,\nOr help one fainting robin\nUnto his nest again,\nI shall not live in vain.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Almost!", + "body": "Within my reach!\nI could have touched!\nI might have chanced that way!\nSoft sauntered through the village,\nSauntered as soft away!\nSo unsuspected violets\nWithin the fields lie low,\nToo late for striving fingers\nThat passed, an hour ago.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Viii.", + "body": "A wounded deer leaps highest,\nI've heard the hunter tell;\n'T is but the ecstasy of death,\nAnd then the brake is still.\n\nThe smitten rock that gushes,\nThe trampled steel that springs;\nA cheek is always redder\nJust where the hectic stings!\n\nMirth is the mail of anguish,\nIn which it cautions arm,\nLest anybody spy the blood\nAnd \"You're hurt\" exclaim!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ix.", + "body": "The heart asks pleasure first,\nAnd then, excuse from pain;\nAnd then, those little anodynes\nThat deaden suffering;\n\nAnd then, to go to sleep;\nAnd then, if it should be\nThe will of its Inquisitor,\nThe liberty to die.\n\n\n\n\n\nX.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "In A Library.", + "body": "A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is\nTo meet an antique book,\nIn just the dress his century wore;\nA privilege, I think,\n\nHis venerable hand to take,\nAnd warming in our own,\nA passage back, or two, to make\nTo times when he was young.\n\nHis quaint opinions to inspect,\nHis knowledge to unfold\nOn what concerns our mutual mind,\nThe literature of old;\n\nWhat interested scholars most,\nWhat competitions ran\nWhen Plato was a certainty.\nAnd Sophocles a man;\n\nWhen Sappho was a living girl,\nAnd Beatrice wore\nThe gown that Dante deified.\nFacts, centuries before,\n\nHe traverses familiar,\nAs one should come to town\nAnd tell you all your dreams were true;\nHe lived where dreams were sown.\n\nHis presence is enchantment,\nYou beg him not to go;\nOld volumes shake their vellum heads\nAnd tantalize, just so.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xi.", + "body": "Much madness is divinest sense\nTo a discerning eye;\nMuch sense the starkest madness.\n'T is the majority\nIn this, as all, prevails.\nAssent, and you are sane;\nDemur, -- you're straightway dangerous,\nAnd handled with a chain.\nXII.\n\nI asked no other thing,\nNo other was denied.\nI offered Being for it;\nThe mighty merchant smiled.\n\nBrazil? He twirled a button,\nWithout a glance my way:\n\"But, madam, is there nothing else\nThat we can show to-day?\"", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Exclusion.", + "body": "The soul selects her own society,\nThen shuts the door;\nOn her divine majority\nObtrude no more.\n\nUnmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing\nAt her low gate;\nUnmoved, an emperor is kneeling\nUpon her mat.\n\nI've known her from an ample nation\nChoose one;\nThen close the valves of her attention\nLike stone.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Secret.", + "body": "Some things that fly there be, --\nBirds, hours, the bumble-bee:\nOf these no elegy.\n\nSome things that stay there be, --\nGrief, hills, eternity:\nNor this behooveth me.\n\nThere are, that resting, rise.\nCan I expound the skies?\nHow still the riddle lies!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Lonely House.", + "body": "I know some lonely houses off the road\nA robber 'd like the look of, --\nWooden barred,\nAnd windows hanging low,\nInviting to\nA portico,\nWhere two could creep:\nOne hand the tools,\nThe other peep\nTo make sure all's asleep.\nOld-fashioned eyes,\nNot easy to surprise!\n\nHow orderly the kitchen 'd look by night,\nWith just a clock, --\nBut they could gag the tick,\nAnd mice won't bark;\nAnd so the walls don't tell,\nNone will.\n\nA pair of spectacles ajar just stir --\nAn almanac's aware.\nWas it the mat winked,\nOr a nervous star?\nThe moon slides down the stair\nTo see who's there.\n\nThere's plunder, -- where?\nTankard, or spoon,\nEarring, or stone,\nA watch, some ancient brooch\nTo match the grandmamma,\nStaid sleeping there.\n\nDay rattles, too,\nStealth's slow;\nThe sun has got as far\nAs the third sycamore.\nScreams chanticleer,\n\"Who's there?\"\nAnd echoes, trains away,\nSneer -- \"Where?\"\nWhile the old couple, just astir,\nFancy the sunrise left the door ajar!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvi.", + "body": "To fight aloud is very brave,\nBut gallanter, I know,\nWho charge within the bosom,\nThe cavalry of woe.\n\nWho win, and nations do not see,\nWho fall, and none observe,\nWhose dying eyes no country\nRegards with patriot love.\n\nWe trust, in plumed procession,\nFor such the angels go,\nRank after rank, with even feet\nAnd uniforms of snow.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Dawn.", + "body": "When night is almost done,\nAnd sunrise grows so near\nThat we can touch the spaces,\nIt 's time to smooth the hair\n\nAnd get the dimples ready,\nAnd wonder we could care\nFor that old faded midnight\nThat frightened but an hour.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Book Of Martyrs.", + "body": "Read, sweet, how others strove,\nTill we are stouter;\nWhat they renounced,\nTill we are less afraid;\nHow many times they bore\nThe faithful witness,\nTill we are helped,\nAs if a kingdom cared!\n\nRead then of faith\nThat shone above the fagot;\nClear strains of hymn\nThe river could not drown;\nBrave names of men\nAnd celestial women,\nPassed out of record\nInto renown!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Mystery Of Pain.", + "body": "Pain has an element of blank;\nIt cannot recollect\nWhen it began, or if there were\nA day when it was not.\n\nIt has no future but itself,\nIts infinite realms contain\nIts past, enlightened to perceive\nNew periods of pain.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xx.", + "body": "I taste a liquor never brewed,\nFrom tankards scooped in pearl;\nNot all the vats upon the Rhine\nYield such an alcohol!\n\nInebriate of air am I,\nAnd debauchee of dew,\nReeling, through endless summer days,\nFrom inns of molten blue.\n\nWhen landlords turn the drunken bee\nOut of the foxglove's door,\nWhen butterflies renounce their drams,\nI shall but drink the more!\n\nTill seraphs swing their snowy hats,\nAnd saints to windows run,\nTo see the little tippler\nLeaning against the sun!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Book.", + "body": "He ate and drank the precious words,\nHis spirit grew robust;\nHe knew no more that he was poor,\nNor that his frame was dust.\nHe danced along the dingy days,\nAnd this bequest of wings\nWas but a book. What liberty\nA loosened spirit brings!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxii.", + "body": "I had no time to hate, because\nThe grave would hinder me,\nAnd life was not so ample I\nCould finish enmity.\n\nNor had I time to love; but since\nSome industry must be,\nThe little toil of love, I thought,\nWas large enough for me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Unreturning.", + "body": "'T was such a little, little boat\nThat toddled down the bay!\n'T was such a gallant, gallant sea\nThat beckoned it away!\n\n'T was such a greedy, greedy wave\nThat licked it from the coast;\nNor ever guessed the stately sails\nMy little craft was lost!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxiv.", + "body": "Whether my bark went down at sea,\nWhether she met with gales,\nWhether to isles enchanted\nShe bent her docile sails;\n\nBy what mystic mooring\nShe is held to-day, --\nThis is the errand of the eye\nOut upon the bay.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxv.", + "body": "Belshazzar had a letter, --\nHe never had but one;\nBelshazzar's correspondent\nConcluded and begun\nIn that immortal copy\nThe conscience of us all\nCan read without its glasses\nOn revelation's wall.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxvi.", + "body": "The brain within its groove\nRuns evenly and true;\nBut let a splinter swerve,\n'T were easier for you\nTo put the water back\nWhen floods have slit the hills,\nAnd scooped a turnpike for themselves,\nAnd blotted out the mills!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Mine.", + "body": "Mine by the right of the white election!\nMine by the royal seal!\nMine by the sign in the scarlet prison\nBars cannot conceal!\n\nMine, here in vision and in veto!\nMine, by the grave's repeal\nTitled, confirmed, -- delirious charter!\nMine, while the ages steal!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Bequest.", + "body": "You left me, sweet, two legacies, --\nA legacy of love\nA Heavenly Father would content,\nHad He the offer of;\n\nYou left me boundaries of pain\nCapacious as the sea,\nBetween eternity and time,\nYour consciousness and me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": "Alter? When the hills do.\nFalter? When the sun\nQuestion if his glory\nBe the perfect one.\n\nSurfeit? When the daffodil\nDoth of the dew:\nEven as herself, O friend!\nI will of you!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Suspense.", + "body": "Elysium is as far as to\nThe very nearest room,\nIf in that room a friend await\nFelicity or doom.\n\nWhat fortitude the soul contains,\nThat it can so endure\nThe accent of a coming foot,\nThe opening of a door!\n\n\n\n\n\nV.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Surrender.", + "body": "Doubt me, my dim companion!\nWhy, God would be content\nWith but a fraction of the love\nPoured thee without a stint.\nThe whole of me, forever,\nWhat more the woman can, --\nSay quick, that I may dower thee\nWith last delight I own!\n\nIt cannot be my spirit,\nFor that was thine before;\nI ceded all of dust I knew, --\nWhat opulence the more\nHad I, a humble maiden,\nWhose farthest of degree\nWas that she might,\nSome distant heaven,\nDwell timidly with thee!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vi.", + "body": "If you were coming in the fall,\nI'd brush the summer by\nWith half a smile and half a spurn,\nAs housewives do a fly.\n\nIf I could see you in a year,\nI'd wind the months in balls,\nAnd put them each in separate drawers,\nUntil their time befalls.\n\nIf only centuries delayed,\nI'd count them on my hand,\nSubtracting till my fingers dropped\nInto Van Diemen's land.\n\nIf certain, when this life was out,\nThat yours and mine should be,\nI'd toss it yonder like a rind,\nAnd taste eternity.\n\nBut now, all ignorant of the length\nOf time's uncertain wing,\nIt goads me, like the goblin bee,\nThat will not state its sting.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "With A Flower.", + "body": "I hide myself within my flower,\nThat wearing on your breast,\nYou, unsuspecting, wear me too --\nAnd angels know the rest.\n\nI hide myself within my flower,\nThat, fading from your vase,\nYou, unsuspecting, feel for me\nAlmost a loneliness.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Proof.", + "body": "That I did always love,\nI bring thee proof:\nThat till I loved\nI did not love enough.\n\nThat I shall love alway,\nI offer thee\nThat love is life,\nAnd life hath immortality.\n\nThis, dost thou doubt, sweet?\nThen have I\nNothing to show\nBut Calvary.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ix.", + "body": "Have you got a brook in your little heart,\nWhere bashful flowers blow,\nAnd blushing birds go down to drink,\nAnd shadows tremble so?\n\nAnd nobody knows, so still it flows,\nThat any brook is there;\nAnd yet your little draught of life\nIs daily drunken there.\n\nThen look out for the little brook in March,\nWhen the rivers overflow,\nAnd the snows come hurrying from the hills,\nAnd the bridges often go.\n\nAnd later, in August it may be,\nWhen the meadows parching lie,\nBeware, lest this little brook of life\nSome burning noon go dry!\n\n\n\n\n\nX.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Transplanted.", + "body": "As if some little Arctic flower,\nUpon the polar hem,\nWent wandering down the latitudes,\nUntil it puzzled came\nTo continents of summer,\nTo firmaments of sun,\nTo strange, bright crowds of flowers,\nAnd birds of foreign tongue!\nI say, as if this little flower\nTo Eden wandered in --\nWhat then? Why, nothing, only,\nYour inference therefrom!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Outlet.", + "body": "My river runs to thee:\nBlue sea, wilt welcome me?\n\nMy river waits reply.\nOh sea, look graciously!\n\nI'll fetch thee brooks\nFrom spotted nooks, --\n\nSay, sea,\nTake me!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "In Vain.", + "body": "I cannot live with you,\nIt would be life,\nAnd life is over there\nBehind the shelf\n\nThe sexton keeps the key to,\nPutting up\nOur life, his porcelain,\nLike a cup\n\nDiscarded of the housewife,\nQuaint or broken;\nA newer Sevres pleases,\nOld ones crack.\n\nI could not die with you,\nFor one must wait\nTo shut the other's gaze down, --\nYou could not.\n\nAnd I, could I stand by\nAnd see you freeze,\nWithout my right of frost,\nDeath's privilege?\n\nNor could I rise with you,\nBecause your face\nWould put out Jesus',\nThat new grace\n\nGlow plain and foreign\nOn my homesick eye,\nExcept that you, than he\nShone closer by.\n\nThey'd judge us -- how?\nFor you served Heaven, you know,\nOr sought to;\nI could not,\n\nBecause you saturated sight,\nAnd I had no more eyes\nFor sordid excellence\nAs Paradise.\n\nAnd were you lost, I would be,\nThough my name\nRang loudest\nOn the heavenly fame.\n\nAnd were you saved,\nAnd I condemned to be\nWhere you were not,\nThat self were hell to me.\n\nSo we must keep apart,\nYou there, I here,\nWith just the door ajar\nThat oceans are,\nAnd prayer,\nAnd that pale sustenance,\nDespair!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Renunciation.", + "body": "There came a day at summer's full\nEntirely for me;\nI thought that such were for the saints,\nWhere revelations be.\n\nThe sun, as common, went abroad,\nThe flowers, accustomed, blew,\nAs if no soul the solstice passed\nThat maketh all things new.\n\nThe time was scarce profaned by speech;\nThe symbol of a word\nWas needless, as at sacrament\nThe wardrobe of our Lord.\n\nEach was to each the sealed church,\nPermitted to commune this time,\nLest we too awkward show\nAt supper of the Lamb.\n\nThe hours slid fast, as hours will,\nClutched tight by greedy hands;\nSo faces on two decks look back,\nBound to opposing lands.\n\nAnd so, when all the time had failed,\nWithout external sound,\nEach bound the other's crucifix,\nWe gave no other bond.\n\nSufficient troth that we shall rise --\nDeposed, at length, the grave --\nTo that new marriage, justified\nThrough Calvaries of Love!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Love'S Baptism.", + "body": "I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs;\nThe name they dropped upon my face\nWith water, in the country church,\nIs finished using now,\nAnd they can put it with my dolls,\nMy childhood, and the string of spools\nI've finished threading too.\n\nBaptized before without the choice,\nBut this time consciously, of grace\nUnto supremest name,\nCalled to my full, the crescent dropped,\nExistence's whole arc filled up\nWith one small diadem.\n\nMy second rank, too small the first,\nCrowned, crowing on my father's breast,\nA half unconscious queen;\nBut this time, adequate, erect,\nWith will to choose or to reject.\nAnd I choose -- just a throne.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Resurrection.", + "body": "'T was a long parting, but the time\nFor interview had come;\nBefore the judgment-seat of God,\nThe last and second time\n\nThese fleshless lovers met,\nA heaven in a gaze,\nA heaven of heavens, the privilege\nOf one another's eyes.\n\nNo lifetime set on them,\nApparelled as the new\nUnborn, except they had beheld,\nBorn everlasting now.\n\nWas bridal e'er like this?\nA paradise, the host,\nAnd cherubim and seraphim\nThe most familiar guest.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Apocalypse.", + "body": "I'm wife; I've finished that,\nThat other state;\nI'm Czar, I'm woman now:\nIt's safer so.\n\nHow odd the girl's life looks\nBehind this soft eclipse!\nI think that earth seems so\nTo those in heaven now.\n\nThis being comfort, then\nThat other kind was pain;\nBut why compare?\nI'm wife! stop there!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Wife.", + "body": "She rose to his requirement, dropped\nThe playthings of her life\nTo take the honorable work\nOf woman and of wife.\n\nIf aught she missed in her new day\nOf amplitude, or awe,\nOr first prospective, or the gold\nIn using wore away,\n\nIt lay unmentioned, as the sea\nDevelops pearl and weed,\nBut only to himself is known\nThe fathoms they abide.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Apotheosis.", + "body": "Come slowly, Eden!\nLips unused to thee,\nBashful, sip thy jasmines,\nAs the fainting bee,\n\nReaching late his flower,\nRound her chamber hums,\nCounts his nectars -- enters,\nAnd is lost in balms!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "May-Flower.", + "body": "Pink, small, and punctual,\nAromatic, low,\nCovert in April,\nCandid in May,\n\nDear to the moss,\nKnown by the knoll,\nNext to the robin\nIn every human soul.\n\nBold little beauty,\nBedecked with thee,\nNature forswears\nAntiquity.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Why?", + "body": "The murmur of a bee\nA witchcraft yieldeth me.\nIf any ask me why,\n'T were easier to die\nThan tell.\n\nThe red upon the hill\nTaketh away my will;\nIf anybody sneer,\nTake care, for God is here,\nThat's all.\n\nThe breaking of the day\nAddeth to my degree;\nIf any ask me how,\nArtist, who drew me so,\nMust tell!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iv.", + "body": "Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower?\nBut I could never sell.\nIf you would like to borrow\nUntil the daffodil\n\nUnties her yellow bonnet\nBeneath the village door,\nUntil the bees, from clover rows\nTheir hock and sherry draw,\n\nWhy, I will lend until just then,\nBut not an hour more!\n\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nThe pedigree of honey\nDoes not concern the bee;\nA clover, any time, to him\nIs aristocracy.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Service Of Song.", + "body": "Some keep the Sabbath going to church;\nI keep it staying at home,\nWith a bobolink for a chorister,\nAnd an orchard for a dome.\n\nSome keep the Sabbath in surplice;\nI just wear my wings,\nAnd instead of tolling the bell for church,\nOur little sexton sings.\n\nGod preaches, -- a noted clergyman, --\nAnd the sermon is never long;\nSo instead of getting to heaven at last,\nI'm going all along!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vii.", + "body": "The bee is not afraid of me,\nI know the butterfly;\nThe pretty people in the woods\nReceive me cordially.\n\nThe brooks laugh louder when I come,\nThe breezes madder play.\nWherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?\nWherefore, O summer's day?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Summer'S Armies.", + "body": "Some rainbow coming from the fair!\nSome vision of the world Cashmere\nI confidently see!\nOr else a peacock's purple train,\nFeather by feather, on the plain\nFritters itself away!\n\nThe dreamy butterflies bestir,\nLethargic pools resume the whir\nOf last year's sundered tune.\nFrom some old fortress on the sun\nBaronial bees march, one by one,\nIn murmuring platoon!\n\nThe robins stand as thick to-day\nAs flakes of snow stood yesterday,\nOn fence and roof and twig.\nThe orchis binds her feather on\nFor her old lover, Don the Sun,\nRevisiting the bog!\n\nWithout commander, countless, still,\nThe regiment of wood and hill\nIn bright detachment stand.\nBehold! Whose multitudes are these?\nThe children of whose turbaned seas,\nOr what Circassian land?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Grass.", + "body": "The grass so little has to do, --\nA sphere of simple green,\nWith only butterflies to brood,\nAnd bees to entertain,\n\nAnd stir all day to pretty tunes\nThe breezes fetch along,\nAnd hold the sunshine in its lap\nAnd bow to everything;\n\nAnd thread the dews all night, like pearls,\nAnd make itself so fine, --\nA duchess were too common\nFor such a noticing.\n\nAnd even when it dies, to pass\nIn odors so divine,\nAs lowly spices gone to sleep,\nOr amulets of pine.\n\nAnd then to dwell in sovereign barns,\nAnd dream the days away, --\nThe grass so little has to do,\nI wish I were the hay!\n\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nA little road not made of man,\nEnabled of the eye,\nAccessible to thill of bee,\nOr cart of butterfly.\n\nIf town it have, beyond itself,\n'T is that I cannot say;\nI only sigh, -- no vehicle\nBears me along that way.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Summer Shower.", + "body": "A drop fell on the apple tree,\nAnother on the roof;\nA half a dozen kissed the eaves,\nAnd made the gables laugh.\n\nA few went out to help the brook,\nThat went to help the sea.\nMyself conjectured, Were they pearls,\nWhat necklaces could be!\n\nThe dust replaced in hoisted roads,\nThe birds jocoser sung;\nThe sunshine threw his hat away,\nThe orchards spangles hung.\n\nThe breezes brought dejected lutes,\nAnd bathed them in the glee;\nThe East put out a single flag,\nAnd signed the fete away.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Psalm Of The Day.", + "body": "A something in a summer's day,\nAs slow her flambeaux burn away,\nWhich solemnizes me.\n\nA something in a summer's noon, --\nAn azure depth, a wordless tune,\nTranscending ecstasy.\n\nAnd still within a summer's night\nA something so transporting bright,\nI clap my hands to see;\n\nThen veil my too inspecting face,\nLest such a subtle, shimmering grace\nFlutter too far for me.\n\nThe wizard-fingers never rest,\nThe purple brook within the breast\nStill chafes its narrow bed;\n\nStill rears the East her amber flag,\nGuides still the sun along the crag\nHis caravan of red,\n\nLike flowers that heard the tale of dews,\nBut never deemed the dripping prize\nAwaited their low brows;\n\nOr bees, that thought the summer's name\nSome rumor of delirium\nNo summer could for them;\n\nOr Arctic creature, dimly stirred\nBy tropic hint, -- some travelled bird\nImported to the wood;\n\nOr wind's bright signal to the ear,\nMaking that homely and severe,\nContented, known, before\n\nThe heaven unexpected came,\nTo lives that thought their worshipping\nA too presumptuous psalm.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Sea Of Sunset.", + "body": "This is the land the sunset washes,\nThese are the banks of the Yellow Sea;\nWhere it rose, or whither it rushes,\nThese are the western mystery!\n\nNight after night her purple traffic\nStrews the landing with opal bales;\nMerchantmen poise upon horizons,\nDip, and vanish with fairy sails.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Purple Clover.", + "body": "There is a flower that bees prefer,\nAnd butterflies desire;\nTo gain the purple democrat\nThe humming-birds aspire.\n\nAnd whatsoever insect pass,\nA honey bears away\nProportioned to his several dearth\nAnd her capacity.\n\nHer face is rounder than the moon,\nAnd ruddier than the gown\nOf orchis in the pasture,\nOr rhododendron worn.\n\nShe doth not wait for June;\nBefore the world is green\nHer sturdy little countenance\nAgainst the wind is seen,\n\nContending with the grass,\nNear kinsman to herself,\nFor privilege of sod and sun,\nSweet litigants for life.\n\nAnd when the hills are full,\nAnd newer fashions blow,\nDoth not retract a single spice\nFor pang of jealousy.\n\nHer public is the noon,\nHer providence the sun,\nHer progress by the bee proclaimed\nIn sovereign, swerveless tune.\n\nThe bravest of the host,\nSurrendering the last,\nNor even of defeat aware\nWhen cancelled by the frost.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Bee.", + "body": "Like trains of cars on tracks of plush\nI hear the level bee:\nA jar across the flowers goes,\nTheir velvet masonry\n\nWithstands until the sweet assault\nTheir chivalry consumes,\nWhile he, victorious, tilts away\nTo vanquish other blooms.\n\nHis feet are shod with gauze,\nHis helmet is of gold;\nHis breast, a single onyx\nWith chrysoprase, inlaid.\n\nHis labor is a chant,\nHis idleness a tune;\nOh, for a bee's experience\nOf clovers and of noon!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvi.", + "body": "Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn\nIndicative that suns go down;\nThe notice to the startled grass\nThat darkness is about to pass.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvii.", + "body": "As children bid the guest good-night,\nAnd then reluctant turn,\nMy flowers raise their pretty lips,\nThen put their nightgowns on.\n\nAs children caper when they wake,\nMerry that it is morn,\nMy flowers from a hundred cribs\nWill peep, and prance again.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xviii.", + "body": "Angels in the early morning\nMay be seen the dews among,\nStooping, plucking, smiling, flying:\nDo the buds to them belong?\n\nAngels when the sun is hottest\nMay be seen the sands among,\nStooping, plucking, sighing, flying;\nParched the flowers they bear along.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xix.", + "body": "So bashful when I spied her,\nSo pretty, so ashamed!\nSo hidden in her leaflets,\nLest anybody find;\n\nSo breathless till I passed her,\nSo helpless when I turned\nAnd bore her, struggling, blushing,\nHer simple haunts beyond!\n\nFor whom I robbed the dingle,\nFor whom betrayed the dell,\nMany will doubtless ask me,\nBut I shall never tell!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Two Worlds.", + "body": "It makes no difference abroad,\nThe seasons fit the same,\nThe mornings blossom into noons,\nAnd split their pods of flame.\n\nWild-flowers kindle in the woods,\nThe brooks brag all the day;\nNo blackbird bates his jargoning\nFor passing Calvary.\n\nAuto-da-fe and judgment\nAre nothing to the bee;\nHis separation from his rose\nTo him seems misery.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Mountain.", + "body": "The mountain sat upon the plain\nIn his eternal chair,\nHis observation omnifold,\nHis inquest everywhere.\n\nThe seasons prayed around his knees,\nLike children round a sire:\nGrandfather of the days is he,\nOf dawn the ancestor.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Day.", + "body": "I'll tell you how the sun rose, --\nA ribbon at a time.\nThe steeples swam in amethyst,\nThe news like squirrels ran.\n\nThe hills untied their bonnets,\nThe bobolinks begun.\nThen I said softly to myself,\n\"That must have been the sun!\"\n\n * * *\n\nBut how he set, I know not.\nThere seemed a purple stile\nWhich little yellow boys and girls\nWere climbing all the while\n\nTill when they reached the other side,\nA dominie in gray\nPut gently up the evening bars,\nAnd led the flock away.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxiii.", + "body": "The butterfly's assumption-gown,\nIn chrysoprase apartments hung,\n This afternoon put on.\n\nHow condescending to descend,\nAnd be of buttercups the friend\n In a New England town!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Wind.", + "body": "Of all the sounds despatched abroad,\nThere's not a charge to me\nLike that old measure in the boughs,\nThat phraseless melody\n\nThe wind does, working like a hand\nWhose fingers brush the sky,\nThen quiver down, with tufts of tune\nPermitted gods and me.\n\nWhen winds go round and round in bands,\nAnd thrum upon the door,\nAnd birds take places overhead,\nTo bear them orchestra,\n\nI crave him grace, of summer boughs,\nIf such an outcast be,\nHe never heard that fleshless chant\nRise solemn in the tree,\n\nAs if some caravan of sound\nOn deserts, in the sky,\nHad broken rank,\nThen knit, and passed\nIn seamless company.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Death And Life.", + "body": "Apparently with no surprise\nTo any happy flower,\nThe frost beheads it at its play\nIn accidental power.\nThe blond assassin passes on,\nThe sun proceeds unmoved\nTo measure off another day\nFor an approving God.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxvi.", + "body": "'T WAS later when the summer went\nThan when the cricket came,\nAnd yet we knew that gentle clock\nMeant nought but going home.\n\n'T was sooner when the cricket went\nThan when the winter came,\nYet that pathetic pendulum\nKeeps esoteric time.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Indian Summer.", + "body": "These are the days when birds come back,\nA very few, a bird or two,\nTo take a backward look.\n\nThese are the days when skies put on\nThe old, old sophistries of June, --\nA blue and gold mistake.\n\nOh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,\nAlmost thy plausibility\nInduces my belief,\n\nTill ranks of seeds their witness bear,\nAnd softly through the altered air\nHurries a timid leaf!\n\nOh, sacrament of summer days,\nOh, last communion in the haze,\nPermit a child to join,\n\nThy sacred emblems to partake,\nThy consecrated bread to break,\nTaste thine immortal wine!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Autumn.", + "body": "The morns are meeker than they were,\nThe nuts are getting brown;\nThe berry's cheek is plumper,\nThe rose is out of town.\n\nThe maple wears a gayer scarf,\nThe field a scarlet gown.\nLest I should be old-fashioned,\nI'll put a trinket on.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Beclouded.", + "body": "The sky is low, the clouds are mean,\nA travelling flake of snow\nAcross a barn or through a rut\nDebates if it will go.\n\nA narrow wind complains all day\nHow some one treated him;\nNature, like us, is sometimes caught\nWithout her diadem.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Hemlock.", + "body": "I think the hemlock likes to stand\nUpon a marge of snow;\nIt suits his own austerity,\nAnd satisfies an awe\n\nThat men must slake in wilderness,\nOr in the desert cloy, --\nAn instinct for the hoar, the bald,\nLapland's necessity.\n\nThe hemlock's nature thrives on cold;\nThe gnash of northern winds\nIs sweetest nutriment to him,\nHis best Norwegian wines.\n\nTo satin races he is nought;\nBut children on the Don\nBeneath his tabernacles play,\nAnd Dnieper wrestlers run.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxi.", + "body": "There's a certain slant of light,\nOn winter afternoons,\nThat oppresses, like the weight\nOf cathedral tunes.\n\nHeavenly hurt it gives us;\nWe can find no scar,\nBut internal difference\nWhere the meanings are.\n\nNone may teach it anything,\n'T is the seal, despair, --\nAn imperial affliction\nSent us of the air.\n\nWhen it comes, the landscape listens,\nShadows hold their breath;\nWhen it goes, 't is like the distance\nOn the look of death.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iv. Time And Eternity.", + "body": "I.\n\nOne dignity delays for all,\nOne mitred afternoon.\nNone can avoid this purple,\nNone evade this crown.\n\nCoach it insures, and footmen,\nChamber and state and throng;\nBells, also, in the village,\nAs we ride grand along.\n\nWhat dignified attendants,\nWhat service when we pause!\nHow loyally at parting\nTheir hundred hats they raise!\n\nHow pomp surpassing ermine,\nWhen simple you and I\nPresent our meek escutcheon,\nAnd claim the rank to die!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Too Late.", + "body": "Delayed till she had ceased to know,\nDelayed till in its vest of snow\n Her loving bosom lay.\nAn hour behind the fleeting breath,\nLater by just an hour than death, --\n Oh, lagging yesterday!\n\nCould she have guessed that it would be;\nCould but a crier of the glee\n Have climbed the distant hill;\nHad not the bliss so slow a pace, --\nWho knows but this surrendered face\n Were undefeated still?\n\nOh, if there may departing be\nAny forgot by victory\n In her imperial round,\nShow them this meek apparelled thing,\nThat could not stop to be a king,\n Doubtful if it be crowned!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Astra Castra.", + "body": "Departed to the judgment,\nA mighty afternoon;\nGreat clouds like ushers leaning,\nCreation looking on.\n\nThe flesh surrendered, cancelled,\nThe bodiless begun;\nTwo worlds, like audiences, disperse\nAnd leave the soul alone.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iv.", + "body": "Safe in their alabaster chambers,\nUntouched by morning and untouched by noon,\nSleep the meek members of the resurrection,\nRafter of satin, and roof of stone.\n\nLight laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;\nBabbles the bee in a stolid ear;\nPipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence, --\nAh, what sagacity perished here!\n\nGrand go the years in the crescent above them;\nWorlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,\nDiadems drop and Doges surrender,\nSoundless as dots on a disk of snow.\n\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nOn this long storm the rainbow rose,\nOn this late morn the sun;\nThe clouds, like listless elephants,\nHorizons straggled down.\n\nThe birds rose smiling in their nests,\nThe gales indeed were done;\nAlas! how heedless were the eyes\nOn whom the summer shone!\n\nThe quiet nonchalance of death\nNo daybreak can bestir;\nThe slow archangel's syllables\nMust awaken her.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "From The Chrysalis.", + "body": "My cocoon tightens, colors tease,\nI'm feeling for the air;\nA dim capacity for wings\nDegrades the dress I wear.\n\nA power of butterfly must be\nThe aptitude to fly,\nMeadows of majesty concedes\nAnd easy sweeps of sky.\n\nSo I must baffle at the hint\nAnd cipher at the sign,\nAnd make much blunder, if at last\nI take the clew divine.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Setting Sail.", + "body": "Exultation is the going\nOf an inland soul to sea, --\nPast the houses, past the headlands,\nInto deep eternity!\n\nBred as we, among the mountains,\nCan the sailor understand\nThe divine intoxication\nOf the first league out from land?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Viii.", + "body": "Look back on time with kindly eyes,\nHe doubtless did his best;\nHow softly sinks his trembling sun\nIn human nature's west!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ix.", + "body": "A train went through a burial gate,\nA bird broke forth and sang,\nAnd trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat\nTill all the churchyard rang;\n\nAnd then adjusted his little notes,\nAnd bowed and sang again.\nDoubtless, he thought it meet of him\nTo say good-by to men.\n\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nI died for beauty, but was scarce\nAdjusted in the tomb,\nWhen one who died for truth was lain\nIn an adjoining room.\n\nHe questioned softly why I failed?\n\"For beauty,\" I replied.\n\"And I for truth, -- the two are one;\nWe brethren are,\" he said.\n\nAnd so, as kinsmen met a night,\nWe talked between the rooms,\nUntil the moss had reached our lips,\nAnd covered up our names.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "\"Troubled About Many Things.\"", + "body": "How many times these low feet staggered,\nOnly the soldered mouth can tell;\nTry! can you stir the awful rivet?\nTry! can you lift the hasps of steel?\n\nStroke the cool forehead, hot so often,\nLift, if you can, the listless hair;\nHandle the adamantine fingers\nNever a thimble more shall wear.\n\nBuzz the dull flies on the chamber window;\nBrave shines the sun through the freckled pane;\nFearless the cobweb swings from the ceiling --\nIndolent housewife, in daisies lain!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Real.", + "body": "I like a look of agony,\nBecause I know it 's true;\nMen do not sham convulsion,\nNor simulate a throe.\n\nThe eyes glaze once, and that is death.\nImpossible to feign\nThe beads upon the forehead\nBy homely anguish strung.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Funeral.", + "body": "That short, potential stir\nThat each can make but once,\nThat bustle so illustrious\n'T is almost consequence,\n\nIs the eclat of death.\nOh, thou unknown renown\nThat not a beggar would accept,\nHad he the power to spurn!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xiv.", + "body": "I went to thank her,\nBut she slept;\nHer bed a funnelled stone,\nWith nosegays at the head and foot,\nThat travellers had thrown,\n\nWho went to thank her;\nBut she slept.\n'T was short to cross the sea\nTo look upon her like, alive,\nBut turning back 't was slow.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xv.", + "body": "I've seen a dying eye\nRun round and round a room\nIn search of something, as it seemed,\nThen cloudier become;\nAnd then, obscure with fog,\nAnd then be soldered down,\nWithout disclosing what it be,\n'T were blessed to have seen.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Refuge.", + "body": "The clouds their backs together laid,\nThe north begun to push,\nThe forests galloped till they fell,\nThe lightning skipped like mice;\nThe thunder crumbled like a stuff --\nHow good to be safe in tombs,\nWhere nature's temper cannot reach,\nNor vengeance ever comes!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvii.", + "body": "I never saw a moor,\nI never saw the sea;\nYet know I how the heather looks,\nAnd what a wave must be.\n\nI never spoke with God,\nNor visited in heaven;\nYet certain am I of the spot\nAs if the chart were given.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Playmates.", + "body": "God permits industrious angels\nAfternoons to play.\nI met one, -- forgot my school-mates,\nAll, for him, straightway.\n\nGod calls home the angels promptly\nAt the setting sun;\nI missed mine. How dreary marbles,\nAfter playing Crown!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xix.", + "body": "To know just how he suffered would be dear;\nTo know if any human eyes were near\nTo whom he could intrust his wavering gaze,\nUntil it settled firm on Paradise.\n\nTo know if he was patient, part content,\nWas dying as he thought, or different;\nWas it a pleasant day to die,\nAnd did the sunshine face his way?\n\nWhat was his furthest mind, of home, or God,\nOr what the distant say\nAt news that he ceased human nature\nOn such a day?\n\nAnd wishes, had he any?\nJust his sigh, accented,\nHad been legible to me.\nAnd was he confident until\nIll fluttered out in everlasting well?\n\nAnd if he spoke, what name was best,\nWhat first,\nWhat one broke off with\nAt the drowsiest?\n\nWas he afraid, or tranquil?\nMight he know\nHow conscious consciousness could grow,\nTill love that was, and love too blest to be,\nMeet -- and the junction be Eternity?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xx.", + "body": "The last night that she lived,\nIt was a common night,\nExcept the dying; this to us\nMade nature different.\n\nWe noticed smallest things, --\nThings overlooked before,\nBy this great light upon our minds\nItalicized, as 't were.\n\nThat others could exist\nWhile she must finish quite,\nA jealousy for her arose\nSo nearly infinite.\n\nWe waited while she passed;\nIt was a narrow time,\nToo jostled were our souls to speak,\nAt length the notice came.\n\nShe mentioned, and forgot;\nThen lightly as a reed\nBent to the water, shivered scarce,\nConsented, and was dead.\n\nAnd we, we placed the hair,\nAnd drew the head erect;\nAnd then an awful leisure was,\nOur faith to regulate.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The First Lesson.", + "body": "Not in this world to see his face\nSounds long, until I read the place\nWhere this is said to be\nBut just the primer to a life\nUnopened, rare, upon the shelf,\nClasped yet to him and me.\n\nAnd yet, my primer suits me so\nI would not choose a book to know\nThan that, be sweeter wise;\nMight some one else so learned be,\nAnd leave me just my A B C,\nHimself could have the skies.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxii.", + "body": "The bustle in a house\nThe morning after death\nIs solemnest of industries\nEnacted upon earth, --\n\nThe sweeping up the heart,\nAnd putting love away\nWe shall not want to use again\nUntil eternity.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxiii.", + "body": "I reason, earth is short,\nAnd anguish absolute,\nAnd many hurt;\nBut what of that?\n\nI reason, we could die:\nThe best vitality\nCannot excel decay;\nBut what of that?\n\nI reason that in heaven\nSomehow, it will be even,\nSome new equation given;\nBut what of that?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxiv.", + "body": "Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?\nNot death; for who is he?\nThe porter of my father's lodge\nAs much abasheth me.\n\nOf life? 'T were odd I fear a thing\nThat comprehendeth me\nIn one or more existences\nAt Deity's decree.\n\nOf resurrection? Is the east\nAfraid to trust the morn\nWith her fastidious forehead?\nAs soon impeach my crown!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Dying.", + "body": "The sun kept setting, setting still;\nNo hue of afternoon\nUpon the village I perceived, --\nFrom house to house 't was noon.\n\nThe dusk kept dropping, dropping still;\nNo dew upon the grass,\nBut only on my forehead stopped,\nAnd wandered in my face.\n\nMy feet kept drowsing, drowsing still,\nMy fingers were awake;\nYet why so little sound myself\nUnto my seeming make?\n\nHow well I knew the light before!\nI could not see it now.\n'T is dying, I am doing; but\nI'm not afraid to know.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxvi.", + "body": "Two swimmers wrestled on the spar\nUntil the morning sun,\nWhen one turned smiling to the land.\nO God, the other one!\n\nThe stray ships passing spied a face\nUpon the waters borne,\nWith eyes in death still begging raised,\nAnd hands beseeching thrown.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Chariot.", + "body": "Because I could not stop for Death,\nHe kindly stopped for me;\nThe carriage held but just ourselves\nAnd Immortality.\n\nWe slowly drove, he knew no haste,\nAnd I had put away\nMy labor, and my leisure too,\nFor his civility.\n\nWe passed the school where children played,\nTheir lessons scarcely done;\nWe passed the fields of gazing grain,\nWe passed the setting sun.\n\nWe paused before a house that seemed\nA swelling of the ground;\nThe roof was scarcely visible,\nThe cornice but a mound.\n\nSince then 't is centuries; but each\nFeels shorter than the day\nI first surmised the horses' heads\nWere toward eternity.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxviii.", + "body": "She went as quiet as the dew\nFrom a familiar flower.\nNot like the dew did she return\nAt the accustomed hour!\n\nShe dropt as softly as a star\nFrom out my summer's eve;\nLess skilful than Leverrier\nIt's sorer to believe!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Resurgam.", + "body": "At last to be identified!\nAt last, the lamps upon thy side,\nThe rest of life to see!\nPast midnight, past the morning star!\nPast sunrise! Ah! what leagues there are\nBetween our feet and day!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxx.", + "body": "Except to heaven, she is nought;\nExcept for angels, lone;\nExcept to some wide-wandering bee,\nA flower superfluous blown;\n\nExcept for winds, provincial;\nExcept by butterflies,\nUnnoticed as a single dew\nThat on the acre lies.\n\nThe smallest housewife in the grass,\nYet take her from the lawn,\nAnd somebody has lost the face\nThat made existence home!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxi.", + "body": "Death is a dialogue between\nThe spirit and the dust.\n\"Dissolve,\" says Death. The Spirit, \"Sir,\nI have another trust.\"\n\nDeath doubts it, argues from the ground.\nThe Spirit turns away,\nJust laying off, for evidence,\nAn overcoat of clay.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxii.", + "body": "It was too late for man,\nBut early yet for God;\nCreation impotent to help,\nBut prayer remained our side.\n\nHow excellent the heaven,\nWhen earth cannot be had;\nHow hospitable, then, the face\nOf our old neighbor, God!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Along The Potomac.", + "body": "When I was small, a woman died.\nTo-day her only boy\nWent up from the Potomac,\nHis face all victory,\n\nTo look at her; how slowly\nThe seasons must have turned\nTill bullets clipt an angle,\nAnd he passed quickly round!\n\nIf pride shall be in Paradise\nI never can decide;\nOf their imperial conduct,\nNo person testified.\n\nBut proud in apparition,\nThat woman and her boy\nPass back and forth before my brain,\nAs ever in the sky.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxiv.", + "body": "The daisy follows soft the sun,\nAnd when his golden walk is done,\n Sits shyly at his feet.\nHe, waking, finds the flower near.\n\"Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?\"\n \"Because, sir, love is sweet!\"\n\nWe are the flower, Thou the sun!\nForgive us, if as days decline,\n We nearer steal to Thee, --\nEnamoured of the parting west,\nThe peace, the flight, the amethyst,\n Night's possibility!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Emancipation.", + "body": "No rack can torture me,\nMy soul's at liberty\nBehind this mortal bone\nThere knits a bolder one\n\nYou cannot prick with saw,\nNor rend with scymitar.\nTwo bodies therefore be;\nBind one, and one will flee.\n\nThe eagle of his nest\nNo easier divest\nAnd gain the sky,\nThan mayest thou,\n\nExcept thyself may be\nThine enemy;\nCaptivity is consciousness,\nSo's liberty.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Lost.", + "body": "I lost a world the other day.\nHas anybody found?\nYou'll know it by the row of stars\nAround its forehead bound.\n\nA rich man might not notice it;\nYet to my frugal eye\nOf more esteem than ducats.\nOh, find it, sir, for me!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxvii.", + "body": "If I shouldn't be alive\nWhen the robins come,\nGive the one in red cravat\nA memorial crumb.\n\nIf I couldn't thank you,\nBeing just asleep,\nYou will know I'm trying\nWith my granite lip!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxviii.", + "body": "Sleep is supposed to be,\nBy souls of sanity,\nThe shutting of the eye.\n\nSleep is the station grand\nDown which on either hand\nThe hosts of witness stand!\n\nMorn is supposed to be,\nBy people of degree,\nThe breaking of the day.\n\nMorning has not occurred!\nThat shall aurora be\nEast of eternity;\n\nOne with the banner gay,\nOne in the red array, --\nThat is the break of day.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxix.", + "body": "I shall know why, when time is over,\nAnd I have ceased to wonder why;\nChrist will explain each separate anguish\nIn the fair schoolroom of the sky.\n\nHe will tell me what Peter promised,\nAnd I, for wonder at his woe,\nI shall forget the drop of anguish\nThat scalds me now, that scalds me now.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xl.", + "body": "I never lost as much but twice,\nAnd that was in the sod;\nTwice have I stood a beggar\nBefore the door of God!\n\nAngels, twice descending,\nReimbursed my store.\nBurglar, banker, father,\nI am poor once more!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Poems", + "body": "by EMILY DICKINSON\n\nSecond Series\n\n\n\n\nEdited by two of her friends\n\nMABEL LOOMIS TODD and T.W. HIGGINSON", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Preface", + "body": "The eagerness with which the first volume of Emily Dickinson's\npoems has been read shows very clearly that all our alleged modern\nartificiality does not prevent a prompt appreciation of the\nqualities of directness and simplicity in approaching the greatest\nthemes,--life and love and death. That \"irresistible needle-touch,\"\nas one of her best critics has called it, piercing at once the very\ncore of a thought, has found a response as wide and sympathetic as\nit has been unexpected even to those who knew best her compelling\npower. This second volume, while open to the same criticism as to\nform with its predecessor, shows also the same shining beauties.\n\nAlthough Emily Dickinson had been in the habit of sending\noccasional poems to friends and correspondents, the full extent of\nher writing was by no means imagined by them. Her friend \"H.H.\"\nmust at least have suspected it, for in a letter dated 5th\nSeptember, 1884, she wrote:--\n\n\nMY DEAR FRIEND,-- What portfolios full of verses\nyou must have! It is a cruel wrong to your \"day and\ngeneration\" that you will not give them light.\n\nIf such a thing should happen as that I should outlive\nyou, I wish you would make me your literary legatee\nand executor. Surely after you are what is called\n\"dead\" you will be willing that the poor ghosts you\nhave left behind should be cheered and pleased by your\nverses, will you not? You ought to be. I do not think\nwe have a right to withhold from the world a word or\na thought any more than a deed which might help a\nsingle soul. . . .\n\n Truly yours,", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Helen Jackson.", + "body": "The \"portfolios\" were found, shortly after Emily Dickinson's death,\nby her sister and only surviving housemate. Most of the poems had\nbeen carefully copied on sheets of note-paper, and tied in little\nfascicules, each of six or eight sheets. While many of them bear\nevidence of having been thrown off at white heat, still more had\nreceived thoughtful revision. There is the frequent addition of\nrather perplexing foot-notes, affording large choice of words and\nphrases. And in the copies which she sent to friends, sometimes one\nform, sometimes another, is found to have been used. Without\nimportant exception, her friends have generously placed at the\ndisposal of the Editors any poems they had received from her; and\nthese have given the obvious advantage of comparison among several\nrenderings of the same verse.\n\nTo what further rigorous pruning her verses would have been\nsubjected had she published them herself, we cannot know. They\nshould be regarded in many cases as merely the first strong and\nsuggestive sketches of an artist, intended to be embodied at some\ntime in the finished picture.\n\nEmily Dickinson appears to have written her first poems in the\nwinter of 1862. In a letter to oone of the present Editors the\nApril following, she says, \"I made no verse, but one or two, until\nthis winter.\"\n\nThe handwriting was at first somewhat like the delicate, running\nItalian hand of our elder gentlewomen; but as she advanced in\nbreadth of thought, it grew bolder and more abrupt, until in her\nlatest years each letter stood distinct and separate from its\nfellows. In most of her poems, particularly the later ones,\neverything by way of punctuation was discarded, except numerous\ndashes; and all important words began with capitals. The effect of\na page of her more recent manuscript is exceedingly quaint and\nstrong. The fac-simile given in the present volume is from one of\nthe earlier transition periods. Although there is nowhere a date,\nthe handwriting makes it possible to arrange the poems with general\nchronologic accuracy.\n\nAs a rule, the verses were without titles; but \"A Country Burial,\"\n\"A Thunder-Storm,\" \"The Humming-Bird,\" and a few others were named\nby their author, frequently at the end,--sometimes only in the\naccompanying note, if sent to a friend.\n\nThe variation of readings, with the fact that she often wrote in\npencil and not always clearly, have at times thrown a good deal of\nresponsibility upon her Editors. But all interference not\nabsolutely inevitable has been avoided. The very roughness of her\nrendering is part of herself, and not lightly to be touched; for it\nseems in many cases that she intentionally avoided the smoother and\nmore usual rhymes.\n\nLike impressionist pictures, or Wagner's rugged music, the very\nabsence of conventional form challenges attention. In Emily\nDickinson's exacting hands, the especial, intrinsic fitness of a\nparticular order of words might not be sacrificed to anything\nvirtually extrinsic; and her verses all show a strange cadence of\ninner rhythmical music. Lines are always daringly constructed, and\nthe \"thought-rhyme\" appears frequently,--appealing, indeed, to an\nunrecognized sense more elusive than hearing.\n\nEmily Dickinson scrutinized everything with clear-eyed frankness.\nEvery subject was proper ground for legitimate study, even the\nsombre facts of death and burial, and the unknown life beyond. She\ntouches these themes sometimes lightly, sometimes almost\nhumorously, more often with weird and peculiar power; but she is\nnever by any chance frivolous or trivial. And while, as one critic\nhas said, she may exhibit toward God \"an Emersonian self-possession,\"\nit was because she looked upon all life with a candor as unprejudiced\nas it is rare.\n\nShe had tried society and the world, and found them lacking. She\nwas not an invalid, and she lived in seclusion from no\nlove-disappointment. Her life was the normal blossoming of a nature\nintrospective to a high degree, whose best thought could not exist\nin pretence.\n\nStorm, wind, the wild March sky, sunsets and dawns; the birds and\nbees, butterflies and flowers of her garden, with a few trusted\nhuman friends, were sufficient companionship. The coming of the\nfirst robin was a jubilee beyond crowning of monarch or birthday of\npope; the first red leaf hurrying through \"the altered air,\" an\nepoch. Immortality was close about her; and while never morbid or\nmelancholy, she lived in its presence.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Amherst, Massachusetts,", + "body": " August, I891.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n My nosegays are for captives;\n Dim, long-expectant eyes,\n Fingers denied the plucking,\n Patient till paradise,\n\n To such, if they should whisper\n Of morning and the moor,\n They bear no other errand,\n And I, no other prayer.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ii.", + "body": "I bring an unaccustomed wine\nTo lips long parching, next to mine,\nAnd summon them to drink.\n\nCrackling with fever, they essay;\nI turn my brimming eyes away,\nAnd come next hour to look.\n\nThe hands still hug the tardy glass;\nThe lips I would have cooled, alas!\nAre so superfluous cold,\n\nI would as soon attempt to warm\nThe bosoms where the frost has lain\nAges beneath the mould.\n\nSome other thirsty there may be\nTo whom this would have pointed me\nHad it remained to speak.\n\nAnd so I always bear the cup\nIf, haply, mine may be the drop\nSome pilgrim thirst to slake, --\n\nIf, haply, any say to me,\n\"Unto the little, unto me,\"\nWhen I at last awake.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": "The nearest dream recedes, unrealized.\n The heaven we chase\n Like the June bee\n Before the school-boy\n Invites the race;\n Stoops to an easy clover --\nDips -- evades -- teases -- deploys;\n Then to the royal clouds\n Lifts his light pinnace\n Heedless of the boy\nStaring, bewildered, at the mocking sky.\n\n Homesick for steadfast honey,\n Ah! the bee flies not\nThat brews that rare variety.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iv.", + "body": "We play at paste,\nTill qualified for pearl,\nThen drop the paste,\nAnd deem ourself a fool.\nThe shapes, though, were similar,\nAnd our new hands\nLearned gem-tactics\nPractising sands.\n\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nI found the phrase to every thought\nI ever had, but one;\nAnd that defies me, -- as a hand\nDid try to chalk the sun\n\nTo races nurtured in the dark; --\nHow would your own begin?\nCan blaze be done in cochineal,\nOr noon in mazarin?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Hope.", + "body": "Hope is the thing with feathers\nThat perches in the soul,\nAnd sings the tune without the words,\nAnd never stops at all,\n\nAnd sweetest in the gale is heard;\nAnd sore must be the storm\nThat could abash the little bird\nThat kept so many warm.\n\nI 've heard it in the chillest land,\nAnd on the strangest sea;\nYet, never, in extremity,\nIt asked a crumb of me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The White Heat.", + "body": "Dare you see a soul at the white heat?\n Then crouch within the door.\nRed is the fire's common tint;\n But when the vivid ore\n\nHas sated flame's conditions,\n Its quivering substance plays\nWithout a color but the light\n Of unanointed blaze.\n\nLeast village boasts its blacksmith,\n Whose anvil's even din\nStands symbol for the finer forge\n That soundless tugs within,\n\nRefining these impatient ores\n With hammer and with blaze,\nUntil the designated light\n Repudiate the forge.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Triumphant.", + "body": "Who never lost, are unprepared\nA coronet to find;\nWho never thirsted, flagons\nAnd cooling tamarind.\n\nWho never climbed the weary league --\nCan such a foot explore\nThe purple territories\nOn Pizarro's shore?\n\nHow many legions overcome?\nThe emperor will say.\nHow many colors taken\nOn Revolution Day?\n\nHow many bullets bearest?\nThe royal scar hast thou?\nAngels, write \"Promoted\"\nOn this soldier's brow!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Test.", + "body": "I can wade grief,\nWhole pools of it, --\nI 'm used to that.\nBut the least push of joy\nBreaks up my feet,\nAnd I tip -- drunken.\nLet no pebble smile,\n'T was the new liquor, --\nThat was all!\n\nPower is only pain,\nStranded, through discipline,\nTill weights will hang.\nGive balm to giants,\nAnd they 'll wilt, like men.\nGive Himmaleh, --\nThey 'll carry him!\n\n\n\n\n\nX.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Escape.", + "body": "I never hear the word \"escape\"\nWithout a quicker blood,\nA sudden expectation,\nA flying attitude.\n\nI never hear of prisons broad\nBy soldiers battered down,\nBut I tug childish at my bars, --\nOnly to fail again!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Compensation.", + "body": "For each ecstatic instant\nWe must an anguish pay\nIn keen and quivering ratio\nTo the ecstasy.\n\nFor each beloved hour\nSharp pittances of years,\nBitter contested farthings\nAnd coffers heaped with tears.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Martyrs.", + "body": "Through the straight pass of suffering\nThe martyrs even trod,\nTheir feet upon temptation,\nTheir faces upon God.\n\nA stately, shriven company;\nConvulsion playing round,\nHarmless as streaks of meteor\nUpon a planet's bound.\n\nTheir faith the everlasting troth;\nTheir expectation fair;\nThe needle to the north degree\nWades so, through polar air.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Prayer.", + "body": "I meant to have but modest needs,\nSuch as content, and heaven;\nWithin my income these could lie,\nAnd life and I keep even.\n\nBut since the last included both,\nIt would suffice my prayer\nBut just for one to stipulate,\nAnd grace would grant the pair.\n\nAnd so, upon this wise I prayed, --\nGreat Spirit, give to me\nA heaven not so large as yours,\nBut large enough for me.\n\nA smile suffused Jehovah's face;\nThe cherubim withdrew;\nGrave saints stole out to look at me,\nAnd showed their dimples, too.\n\nI left the place with all my might, --\nMy prayer away I threw;\nThe quiet ages picked it up,\nAnd Judgment twinkled, too,\n\nThat one so honest be extant\nAs take the tale for true\nThat \"Whatsoever you shall ask,\nItself be given you.\"\n\nBut I, grown shrewder, scan the skies\nWith a suspicious air, --\nAs children, swindled for the first,\nAll swindlers be, infer.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xiv.", + "body": "The thought beneath so slight a film\nIs more distinctly seen, --\nAs laces just reveal the surge,\nOr mists the Apennine.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xv.", + "body": "The soul unto itself\nIs an imperial friend, --\nOr the most agonizing spy\nAn enemy could send.\n\nSecure against its own,\nNo treason it can fear;\nItself its sovereign, of itself\nThe soul should stand in awe.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvi.", + "body": "Surgeons must be very careful\nWhen they take the knife!\nUnderneath their fine incisions\nStirs the culprit, -- Life!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Railway Train.", + "body": "I like to see it lap the miles,\nAnd lick the valleys up,\nAnd stop to feed itself at tanks;\nAnd then, prodigious, step\n\nAround a pile of mountains,\nAnd, supercilious, peer\nIn shanties by the sides of roads;\nAnd then a quarry pare\n\nTo fit its sides, and crawl between,\nComplaining all the while\nIn horrid, hooting stanza;\nThen chase itself down hill\n\nAnd neigh like Boanerges;\nThen, punctual as a star,\nStop -- docile and omnipotent --\nAt its own stable door.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Show.", + "body": "The show is not the show,\nBut they that go.\nMenagerie to me\nMy neighbor be.\nFair play --\nBoth went to see.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xix.", + "body": "Delight becomes pictorial\nWhen viewed through pain, --\nMore fair, because impossible\nThat any gain.\n\nThe mountain at a given distance\nIn amber lies;\nApproached, the amber flits a little, --\nAnd that 's the skies!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xx.", + "body": "A thought went up my mind to-day\nThat I have had before,\nBut did not finish, -- some way back,\nI could not fix the year,\n\nNor where it went, nor why it came\nThe second time to me,\nNor definitely what it was,\nHave I the art to say.\n\nBut somewhere in my soul, I know\nI 've met the thing before;\nIt just reminded me -- 't was all --\nAnd came my way no more.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxi.", + "body": "Is Heaven a physician?\nThey say that He can heal,\nBut medicine posthumous\n Is unavailable.\n\nIs Heaven an exchequer?\n They speak of what we owe;\nBut that negotiation\n I 'm not a party to.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Return.", + "body": "Though I get home how late, how late!\nSo I get home, 't will compensate.\nBetter will be the ecstasy\nThat they have done expecting me,\nWhen, night descending, dumb and dark,\nThey hear my unexpected knock.\nTransporting must the moment be,\nBrewed from decades of agony!\n\nTo think just how the fire will burn,\nJust how long-cheated eyes will turn\nTo wonder what myself will say,\nAnd what itself will say to me,\nBeguiles the centuries of way!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxiii.", + "body": "A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,\nThat sat it down to rest,\nNor noticed that the ebbing day\nFlowed silver to the west,\nNor noticed night did soft descend\nNor constellation burn,\nIntent upon the vision\nOf latitudes unknown.\n\nThe angels, happening that way,\nThis dusty heart espied;\nTenderly took it up from toil\nAnd carried it to God.\nThere, -- sandals for the barefoot;\nThere, -- gathered from the gales,\nDo the blue havens by the hand\nLead the wandering sails.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Too Much.", + "body": "I should have been too glad, I see,\nToo lifted for the scant degree\n Of life's penurious round;\nMy little circuit would have shamed\nThis new circumference, have blamed\n The homelier time behind.\n\nI should have been too saved, I see,\nToo rescued; fear too dim to me\n That I could spell the prayer\nI knew so perfect yesterday, --\nThat scalding one, \"Sabachthani,\"\n Recited fluent here.\n\nEarth would have been too much, I see,\nAnd heaven not enough for me;\n I should have had the joy\nWithout the fear to justify, --\nThe palm without the Calvary;\n So, Saviour, crucify.\n\nDefeat whets victory, they say;\nThe reefs in old Gethsemane\n Endear the shore beyond.\n'T is beggars banquets best define;\n'T is thirsting vitalizes wine, --\n Faith faints to understand.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Shipwreck.", + "body": "It tossed and tossed, --\nA little brig I knew, --\nO'ertook by blast,\nIt spun and spun,\nAnd groped delirious, for morn.\n\nIt slipped and slipped,\nAs one that drunken stepped;\nIts white foot tripped,\nThen dropped from sight.\n\nAh, brig, good-night\nTo crew and you;\nThe ocean's heart too smooth, too blue,\nTo break for you.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxvi.", + "body": "Victory comes late,\nAnd is held low to freezing lips\nToo rapt with frost\nTo take it.\nHow sweet it would have tasted,\nJust a drop!\nWas God so economical?\nHis table 's spread too high for us\nUnless we dine on tip-toe.\nCrumbs fit such little mouths,\nCherries suit robins;\nThe eagle's golden breakfast\nStrangles them.\nGod keeps his oath to sparrows,\nWho of little love\nKnow how to starve!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Enough.", + "body": "God gave a loaf to every bird,\nBut just a crumb to me;\nI dare not eat it, though I starve, --\nMy poignant luxury\nTo own it, touch it, prove the feat\nThat made the pellet mine, --\nToo happy in my sparrow chance\nFor ampler coveting.\n\nIt might be famine all around,\nI could not miss an ear,\nSuch plenty smiles upon my board,\nMy garner shows so fair.\nI wonder how the rich may feel, --\nAn Indiaman -- an Earl?\nI deem that I with but a crumb\nAm sovereign of them all.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxviii.", + "body": "Experiment to me\nIs every one I meet.\nIf it contain a kernel?\nThe figure of a nut\n\nPresents upon a tree,\nEqually plausibly;\nBut meat within is requisite,\nTo squirrels and to me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "My Country'S Wardrobe.", + "body": "My country need not change her gown,\nHer triple suit as sweet\nAs when 't was cut at Lexington,\nAnd first pronounced \"a fit.\"\n\nGreat Britain disapproves \"the stars;\"\nDisparagement discreet, --\nThere 's something in their attitude\nThat taunts her bayonet.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxx.", + "body": "Faith is a fine invention\nFor gentlemen who see;\nBut microscopes are prudent\nIn an emergency!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxi.", + "body": "Except the heaven had come so near,\nSo seemed to choose my door,\nThe distance would not haunt me so;\nI had not hoped before.\n\nBut just to hear the grace depart\nI never thought to see,\nAfflicts me with a double loss;\n'T is lost, and lost to me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxii.", + "body": "Portraits are to daily faces\nAs an evening west\nTo a fine, pedantic sunshine\nIn a satin vest.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Duel.", + "body": "I took my power in my hand.\nAnd went against the world;\n'T was not so much as David had,\nBut I was twice as bold.\n\nI aimed my pebble, but myself\nWas all the one that fell.\nWas it Goliath was too large,\nOr only I too small?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxiv.", + "body": "A shady friend for torrid days\nIs easier to find\nThan one of higher temperature\nFor frigid hour of mind.\n\nThe vane a little to the east\nScares muslin souls away;\nIf broadcloth breasts are firmer\nThan those of organdy,\n\nWho is to blame? The weaver?\nAh! the bewildering thread!\nThe tapestries of paradise\nSo notelessly are made!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Goal.", + "body": "Each life converges to some centre\nExpressed or still;\nExists in every human nature\nA goal,\n\nAdmitted scarcely to itself, it may be,\nToo fair\nFor credibility's temerity\nTo dare.\n\nAdored with caution, as a brittle heaven,\nTo reach\nWere hopeless as the rainbow's raiment\nTo touch,\n\nYet persevered toward, surer for the distance;\nHow high\nUnto the saints' slow diligence\nThe sky!\n\nUngained, it may be, by a life's low venture,\nBut then,\nEternity enables the endeavoring\nAgain.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Sight.", + "body": "Before I got my eye put out,\nI liked as well to see\nAs other creatures that have eyes,\nAnd know no other way.\n\nBut were it told to me, to-day,\nThat I might have the sky\nFor mine, I tell you that my heart\nWould split, for size of me.\n\nThe meadows mine, the mountains mine, --\nAll forests, stintless stars,\nAs much of noon as I could take\nBetween my finite eyes.\n\nThe motions of the dipping birds,\nThe lightning's jointed road,\nFor mine to look at when I liked, --\nThe news would strike me dead!\n\nSo safer, guess, with just my soul\nUpon the window-pane\nWhere other creatures put their eyes,\nIncautious of the sun.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxvii.", + "body": "Talk with prudence to a beggar\nOf 'Potosi' and the mines!\nReverently to the hungry\nOf your viands and your wines!\n\nCautious, hint to any captive\nYou have passed enfranchised feet!\nAnecdotes of air in dungeons\nHave sometimes proved deadly sweet!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Preacher.", + "body": "He preached upon \"breadth\" till it argued him narrow, --\nThe broad are too broad to define;\nAnd of \"truth\" until it proclaimed him a liar, --\nThe truth never flaunted a sign.\n\nSimplicity fled from his counterfeit presence\nAs gold the pyrites would shun.\nWhat confusion would cover the innocent Jesus\nTo meet so enabled a man!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxix.", + "body": "Good night! which put the candle out?\nA jealous zephyr, not a doubt.\n Ah! friend, you little knew\nHow long at that celestial wick\nThe angels labored diligent;\n Extinguished, now, for you!\n\nIt might have been the lighthouse spark\nSome sailor, rowing in the dark,\n Had importuned to see!\nIt might have been the waning lamp\nThat lit the drummer from the camp\n To purer reveille!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xl.", + "body": "When I hoped I feared,\nSince I hoped I dared;\nEverywhere alone\nAs a church remain;\nSpectre cannot harm,\nSerpent cannot charm;\nHe deposes doom,\nWho hath suffered him.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Deed.", + "body": "A deed knocks first at thought,\nAnd then it knocks at will.\nThat is the manufacturing spot,\nAnd will at home and well.\n\nIt then goes out an act,\nOr is entombed so still\nThat only to the ear of God\nIts doom is audible.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Time'S Lesson.", + "body": "Mine enemy is growing old, --\nI have at last revenge.\nThe palate of the hate departs;\nIf any would avenge, --\n\nLet him be quick, the viand flits,\nIt is a faded meat.\nAnger as soon as fed is dead;\n'T is starving makes it fat.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Remorse.", + "body": "Remorse is memory awake,\nHer companies astir, --\nA presence of departed acts\nAt window and at door.\n\nIt's past set down before the soul,\nAnd lighted with a match,\nPerusal to facilitate\nOf its condensed despatch.\n\nRemorse is cureless, -- the disease\nNot even God can heal;\nFor 't is his institution, --\nThe complement of hell.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Shelter.", + "body": "The body grows outside, --\nThe more convenient way, --\nThat if the spirit like to hide,\nIts temple stands alway\n\nAjar, secure, inviting;\nIt never did betray\nThe soul that asked its shelter\nIn timid honesty.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlv.", + "body": "Undue significance a starving man attaches\nTo food\nFar off; he sighs, and therefore hopeless,\nAnd therefore good.\n\nPartaken, it relieves indeed, but proves us\nThat spices fly\nIn the receipt. It was the distance\nWas savory.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlvi.", + "body": "Heart not so heavy as mine,\nWending late home,\nAs it passed my window\nWhistled itself a tune, --\n\nA careless snatch, a ballad,\nA ditty of the street;\nYet to my irritated ear\nAn anodyne so sweet,\n\nIt was as if a bobolink,\nSauntering this way,\nCarolled and mused and carolled,\nThen bubbled slow away.\n\nIt was as if a chirping brook\nUpon a toilsome way\nSet bleeding feet to minuets\nWithout the knowing why.\n\nTo-morrow, night will come again,\nWeary, perhaps, and sore.\nAh, bugle, by my window,\nI pray you stroll once more!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlvii.", + "body": "I many times thought peace had come,\nWhen peace was far away;\nAs wrecked men deem they sight the land\nAt centre of the sea,\n\nAnd struggle slacker, but to prove,\nAs hopelessly as I,\nHow many the fictitious shores\nBefore the harbor lie.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlviii.", + "body": "Unto my books so good to turn\nFar ends of tired days;\nIt half endears the abstinence,\nAnd pain is missed in praise.\n\nAs flavors cheer retarded guests\nWith banquetings to be,\nSo spices stimulate the time\nTill my small library.\n\nIt may be wilderness without,\nFar feet of failing men,\nBut holiday excludes the night,\nAnd it is bells within.\n\nI thank these kinsmen of the shelf;\nTheir countenances bland\nEnamour in prospective,\nAnd satisfy, obtained.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlix.", + "body": "This merit hath the worst, --\nIt cannot be again.\nWhen Fate hath taunted last\nAnd thrown her furthest stone,\n\nThe maimed may pause and breathe,\nAnd glance securely round.\nThe deer invites no longer\nThan it eludes the hound.\n\n\n\n\n\nL.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Hunger.", + "body": "I had been hungry all the years;\nMy noon had come, to dine;\nI, trembling, drew the table near,\nAnd touched the curious wine.\n\n'T was this on tables I had seen,\nWhen turning, hungry, lone,\nI looked in windows, for the wealth\nI could not hope to own.\n\nI did not know the ample bread,\n'T was so unlike the crumb\nThe birds and I had often shared\nIn Nature's dining-room.\n\nThe plenty hurt me, 't was so new, --\nMyself felt ill and odd,\nAs berry of a mountain bush\nTransplanted to the road.\n\nNor was I hungry; so I found\nThat hunger was a way\nOf persons outside windows,\nThe entering takes away.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Li.", + "body": "I gained it so,\n By climbing slow,\nBy catching at the twigs that grow\nBetween the bliss and me.\n It hung so high,\n As well the sky\n Attempt by strategy.\n\n\nI said I gained it, --\n This was all.\nLook, how I clutch it,\n Lest it fall,\nAnd I a pauper go;\nUnfitted by an instant's grace\nFor the contented beggar's face\nI wore an hour ago.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Lii.", + "body": "To learn the transport by the pain,\nAs blind men learn the sun;\nTo die of thirst, suspecting\nThat brooks in meadows run;\n\nTo stay the homesick, homesick feet\nUpon a foreign shore\nHaunted by native lands, the while,\nAnd blue, beloved air --\n\nThis is the sovereign anguish,\nThis, the signal woe!\nThese are the patient laureates\nWhose voices, trained below,\n\nAscend in ceaseless carol,\nInaudible, indeed,\nTo us, the duller scholars\nOf the mysterious bard!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Returning.", + "body": "I years had been from home,\nAnd now, before the door,\nI dared not open, lest a face\nI never saw before\n\nStare vacant into mine\nAnd ask my business there.\nMy business, -- just a life I left,\nWas such still dwelling there?\n\nI fumbled at my nerve,\nI scanned the windows near;\nThe silence like an ocean rolled,\nAnd broke against my ear.\n\nI laughed a wooden laugh\nThat I could fear a door,\nWho danger and the dead had faced,\nBut never quaked before.\n\nI fitted to the latch\nMy hand, with trembling care,\nLest back the awful door should spring,\nAnd leave me standing there.\n\nI moved my fingers off\nAs cautiously as glass,\nAnd held my ears, and like a thief\nFled gasping from the house.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Prayer.", + "body": "Prayer is the little implement\nThrough which men reach\nWhere presence is denied them.\nThey fling their speech\n\nBy means of it in God's ear;\nIf then He hear,\nThis sums the apparatus\nComprised in prayer.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Lv.", + "body": "I know that he exists\nSomewhere, in silence.\nHe has hid his rare life\nFrom our gross eyes.\n\n'T is an instant's play,\n'T is a fond ambush,\nJust to make bliss\nEarn her own surprise!\n\nBut should the play\nProve piercing earnest,\nShould the glee glaze\nIn death's stiff stare,\n\nWould not the fun\nLook too expensive?\nWould not the jest\nHave crawled too far?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Melodies Unheard.", + "body": "Musicians wrestle everywhere:\nAll day, among the crowded air,\n I hear the silver strife;\nAnd -- waking long before the dawn --\nSuch transport breaks upon the town\n I think it that \"new life!\"\n\nIt is not bird, it has no nest;\nNor band, in brass and scarlet dressed,\n Nor tambourine, nor man;\nIt is not hymn from pulpit read, --\nThe morning stars the treble led\n On time's first afternoon!\n\nSome say it is the spheres at play!\nSome say that bright majority\n Of vanished dames and men!\nSome think it service in the place\nWhere we, with late, celestial face,\n Please God, shall ascertain!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Called Back.", + "body": "Just lost when I was saved!\nJust felt the world go by!\nJust girt me for the onset with eternity,\nWhen breath blew back,\nAnd on the other side\nI heard recede the disappointed tide!\n\nTherefore, as one returned, I feel,\nOdd secrets of the line to tell!\nSome sailor, skirting foreign shores,\nSome pale reporter from the awful doors\nBefore the seal!\n\nNext time, to stay!\nNext time, the things to see\nBy ear unheard,\nUnscrutinized by eye.\n\nNext time, to tarry,\nWhile the ages steal, --\nSlow tramp the centuries,\nAnd the cycles wheel.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Choice.", + "body": "Of all the souls that stand create\nI have elected one.\nWhen sense from spirit files away,\nAnd subterfuge is done;\n\nWhen that which is and that which was\nApart, intrinsic, stand,\nAnd this brief tragedy of flesh\nIs shifted like a sand;\n\nWhen figures show their royal front\nAnd mists are carved away, --\nBehold the atom I preferred\nTo all the lists of clay!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ii.", + "body": "I have no life but this,\nTo lead it here;\nNor any death, but lest\nDispelled from there;\n\nNor tie to earths to come,\nNor action new,\nExcept through this extent,\nThe realm of you.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": "Your riches taught me poverty.\nMyself a millionnaire\nIn little wealths, -- as girls could boast, --\nTill broad as Buenos Ayre,\n\nYou drifted your dominions\nA different Peru;\nAnd I esteemed all poverty,\nFor life's estate with you.\n\nOf mines I little know, myself,\nBut just the names of gems, --\nThe colors of the commonest;\nAnd scarce of diadems\n\nSo much that, did I meet the queen,\nHer glory I should know:\nBut this must be a different wealth,\nTo miss it beggars so.\n\nI 'm sure 't is India all day\nTo those who look on you\nWithout a stint, without a blame, --\nMight I but be the Jew!\n\nI 'm sure it is Golconda,\nBeyond my power to deem, --\nTo have a smile for mine each day,\nHow better than a gem!\n\nAt least, it solaces to know\nThat there exists a gold,\nAlthough I prove it just in time\nIts distance to behold!\n\nIt 's far, far treasure to surmise,\nAnd estimate the pearl\nThat slipped my simple fingers through\nWhile just a girl at school!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Contract.", + "body": "I gave myself to him,\nAnd took himself for pay.\nThe solemn contract of a life\nWas ratified this way.\n\nThe wealth might disappoint,\nMyself a poorer prove\nThan this great purchaser suspect,\nThe daily own of Love\n\nDepreciate the vision;\nBut, till the merchant buy,\nStill fable, in the isles of spice,\nThe subtle cargoes lie.\n\nAt least, 't is mutual risk, --\nSome found it mutual gain;\nSweet debt of Life, -- each night to owe,\nInsolvent, every noon.\n\n\n\n\n\nV.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Letter.", + "body": "\"GOING to him! Happy letter! Tell him --\nTell him the page I didn't write;\nTell him I only said the syntax,\nAnd left the verb and the pronoun out.\nTell him just how the fingers hurried,\nThen how they waded, slow, slow, slow;\nAnd then you wished you had eyes in your pages,\nSo you could see what moved them so.\n\n\"Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,\nYou guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;\nYou could hear the bodice tug, behind you,\nAs if it held but the might of a child;\nYou almost pitied it, you, it worked so.\nTell him -- No, you may quibble there,\nFor it would split his heart to know it,\nAnd then you and I were silenter.\n\n\"Tell him night finished before we finished,\nAnd the old clock kept neighing 'day!'\nAnd you got sleepy and begged to be ended --\nWhat could it hinder so, to say?\nTell him just how she sealed you, cautious,\nBut if he ask where you are hid\nUntil to-morrow, -- happy letter!\nGesture, coquette, and shake your head!\"", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vi.", + "body": "The way I read a letter 's this:\n'T is first I lock the door,\nAnd push it with my fingers next,\nFor transport it be sure.\n\nAnd then I go the furthest off\nTo counteract a knock;\nThen draw my little letter forth\nAnd softly pick its lock.\n\nThen, glancing narrow at the wall,\nAnd narrow at the floor,\nFor firm conviction of a mouse\nNot exorcised before,\n\nPeruse how infinite I am\nTo -- no one that you know!\nAnd sigh for lack of heaven, -- but not\nThe heaven the creeds bestow.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vii.", + "body": "Wild nights! Wild nights!\nWere I with thee,\nWild nights should be\nOur luxury!\n\nFutile the winds\nTo a heart in port, --\nDone with the compass,\nDone with the chart.\n\nRowing in Eden!\nAh! the sea!\nMight I but moor\nTo-night in thee!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "At Home.", + "body": "The night was wide, and furnished scant\nWith but a single star,\nThat often as a cloud it met\nBlew out itself for fear.\n\nThe wind pursued the little bush,\nAnd drove away the leaves\nNovember left; then clambered up\nAnd fretted in the eaves.\n\nNo squirrel went abroad;\nA dog's belated feet\nLike intermittent plush were heard\nAdown the empty street.\n\nTo feel if blinds be fast,\nAnd closer to the fire\nHer little rocking-chair to draw,\nAnd shiver for the poor,\n\nThe housewife's gentle task.\n\"How pleasanter,\" said she\nUnto the sofa opposite,\n\"The sleet than May -- no thee!\"", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Possession.", + "body": "Did the harebell loose her girdle\nTo the lover bee,\nWould the bee the harebell hallow\nMuch as formerly?\n\nDid the paradise, persuaded,\nYield her moat of pearl,\nWould the Eden be an Eden,\nOr the earl an earl?\n\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nA charm invests a face\nImperfectly beheld, --\nThe lady dare not lift her veil\nFor fear it be dispelled.\n\nBut peers beyond her mesh,\nAnd wishes, and denies, --\nLest interview annul a want\nThat image satisfies.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Lovers.", + "body": "The rose did caper on her cheek,\nHer bodice rose and fell,\nHer pretty speech, like drunken men,\nDid stagger pitiful.\n\nHer fingers fumbled at her work, --\nHer needle would not go;\nWhat ailed so smart a little maid\nIt puzzled me to know,\n\nTill opposite I spied a cheek\nThat bore another rose;\nJust opposite, another speech\nThat like the drunkard goes;\n\nA vest that, like the bodice, danced\nTo the immortal tune, --\nTill those two troubled little clocks\nTicked softly into one.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xii.", + "body": "In lands I never saw, they say,\nImmortal Alps look down,\nWhose bonnets touch the firmament,\nWhose sandals touch the town, --\n\nMeek at whose everlasting feet\nA myriad daisies play.\nWhich, sir, are you, and which am I,\nUpon an August day?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xiii.", + "body": "The moon is distant from the sea,\nAnd yet with amber hands\nShe leads him, docile as a boy,\nAlong appointed sands.\n\nHe never misses a degree;\nObedient to her eye,\nHe comes just so far toward the town,\nJust so far goes away.\n\nOh, Signor, thine the amber hand,\nAnd mine the distant sea, --\nObedient to the least command\nThine eyes impose on me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xiv.", + "body": "He put the belt around my life, --\nI heard the buckle snap,\nAnd turned away, imperial,\nMy lifetime folding up\nDeliberate, as a duke would do\nA kingdom's title-deed, --\nHenceforth a dedicated sort,\nA member of the cloud.\n\nYet not too far to come at call,\nAnd do the little toils\nThat make the circuit of the rest,\nAnd deal occasional smiles\nTo lives that stoop to notice mine\nAnd kindly ask it in, --\nWhose invitation, knew you not\nFor whom I must decline?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Lost Jewel.", + "body": "I held a jewel in my fingers\nAnd went to sleep.\nThe day was warm, and winds were prosy;\nI said: \"'T will keep.\"\n\nI woke and chid my honest fingers, --\nThe gem was gone;\nAnd now an amethyst remembrance\nIs all I own.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvi.", + "body": "What if I say I shall not wait?\nWhat if I burst the fleshly gate\nAnd pass, escaped, to thee?\nWhat if I file this mortal off,\nSee where it hurt me, -- that 's enough, --\nAnd wade in liberty?\n\nThey cannot take us any more, --\nDungeons may call, and guns implore;\nUnmeaning now, to me,\nAs laughter was an hour ago,\nOr laces, or a travelling show,\nOr who died yesterday!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Mother Nature.", + "body": "Nature, the gentlest mother,\nImpatient of no child,\nThe feeblest or the waywardest, --\nHer admonition mild\n\nIn forest and the hill\nBy traveller is heard,\nRestraining rampant squirrel\nOr too impetuous bird.\n\nHow fair her conversation,\nA summer afternoon, --\nHer household, her assembly;\nAnd when the sun goes down\n\nHer voice among the aisles\nIncites the timid prayer\nOf the minutest cricket,\nThe most unworthy flower.\n\nWhen all the children sleep\nShe turns as long away\nAs will suffice to light her lamps;\nThen, bending from the sky\n\nWith infinite affection\nAnd infiniter care,\nHer golden finger on her lip,\nWills silence everywhere.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Out Of The Morning.", + "body": "Will there really be a morning?\nIs there such a thing as day?\nCould I see it from the mountains\nIf I were as tall as they?\n\nHas it feet like water-lilies?\nHas it feathers like a bird?\nIs it brought from famous countries\nOf which I have never heard?\n\nOh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!\nOh, some wise man from the skies!\nPlease to tell a little pilgrim\nWhere the place called morning lies!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": "At half-past three a single bird\nUnto a silent sky\nPropounded but a single term\nOf cautious melody.\n\nAt half-past four, experiment\nHad subjugated test,\nAnd lo! her silver principle\nSupplanted all the rest.\n\nAt half-past seven, element\nNor implement was seen,\nAnd place was where the presence was,\nCircumference between.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Day'S Parlor.", + "body": "The day came slow, till five o'clock,\nThen sprang before the hills\nLike hindered rubies, or the light\nA sudden musket spills.\n\nThe purple could not keep the east,\nThe sunrise shook from fold,\nLike breadths of topaz, packed a night,\nThe lady just unrolled.\n\nThe happy winds their timbrels took;\nThe birds, in docile rows,\nArranged themselves around their prince\n(The wind is prince of those).\n\nThe orchard sparkled like a Jew, --\nHow mighty 't was, to stay\nA guest in this stupendous place,\nThe parlor of the day!\n\n\n\n\n\nV.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Sun'S Wooing.", + "body": "The sun just touched the morning;\nThe morning, happy thing,\nSupposed that he had come to dwell,\nAnd life would be all spring.\n\nShe felt herself supremer, --\nA raised, ethereal thing;\nHenceforth for her what holiday!\nMeanwhile, her wheeling king\n\nTrailed slow along the orchards\nHis haughty, spangled hems,\nLeaving a new necessity, --\nThe want of diadems!\n\nThe morning fluttered, staggered,\nFelt feebly for her crown, --\nHer unanointed forehead\nHenceforth her only one.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Robin.", + "body": "The robin is the one\nThat interrupts the morn\nWith hurried, few, express reports\nWhen March is scarcely on.\n\nThe robin is the one\nThat overflows the noon\nWith her cherubic quantity,\nAn April but begun.\n\nThe robin is the one\nThat speechless from her nest\nSubmits that home and certainty\nAnd sanctity are best.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Butterfly'S Day.", + "body": "From cocoon forth a butterfly\nAs lady from her door\nEmerged -- a summer afternoon --\nRepairing everywhere,\n\nWithout design, that I could trace,\nExcept to stray abroad\nOn miscellaneous enterprise\nThe clovers understood.\n\nHer pretty parasol was seen\nContracting in a field\nWhere men made hay, then struggling hard\nWith an opposing cloud,\n\nWhere parties, phantom as herself,\nTo Nowhere seemed to go\nIn purposeless circumference,\nAs 't were a tropic show.\n\nAnd notwithstanding bee that worked,\nAnd flower that zealous blew,\nThis audience of idleness\nDisdained them, from the sky,\n\nTill sundown crept, a steady tide,\nAnd men that made the hay,\nAnd afternoon, and butterfly,\nExtinguished in its sea.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Bluebird.", + "body": "Before you thought of spring,\nExcept as a surmise,\nYou see, God bless his suddenness,\nA fellow in the skies\nOf independent hues,\nA little weather-worn,\nInspiriting habiliments\nOf indigo and brown.\n\nWith specimens of song,\nAs if for you to choose,\nDiscretion in the interval,\nWith gay delays he goes\nTo some superior tree\nWithout a single leaf,\nAnd shouts for joy to nobody\nBut his seraphic self!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "April.", + "body": "An altered look about the hills;\nA Tyrian light the village fills;\nA wider sunrise in the dawn;\nA deeper twilight on the lawn;\nA print of a vermilion foot;\nA purple finger on the slope;\nA flippant fly upon the pane;\nA spider at his trade again;\nAn added strut in chanticleer;\nA flower expected everywhere;\nAn axe shrill singing in the woods;\nFern-odors on untravelled roads, --\nAll this, and more I cannot tell,\nA furtive look you know as well,\nAnd Nicodemus' mystery\nReceives its annual reply.\n\n\n\n\n\nX.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Sleeping Flowers.", + "body": "\"Whose are the little beds,\" I asked,\n\"Which in the valleys lie?\"\nSome shook their heads, and others smiled,\nAnd no one made reply.\n\n\"Perhaps they did not hear,\" I said;\n\"I will inquire again.\nWhose are the beds, the tiny beds\nSo thick upon the plain?\"\n\n\"'T is daisy in the shortest;\nA little farther on,\nNearest the door to wake the first,\nLittle leontodon.\n\n\"'T is iris, sir, and aster,\nAnemone and bell,\nBatschia in the blanket red,\nAnd chubby daffodil.\"\n\nMeanwhile at many cradles\nHer busy foot she plied,\nHumming the quaintest lullaby\nThat ever rocked a child.\n\n\"Hush! Epigea wakens! --\nThe crocus stirs her lids,\nRhodora's cheek is crimson, --\nShe's dreaming of the woods.\"\n\nThen, turning from them, reverent,\n\"Their bed-time 't is,\" she said;\n\"The bumble-bees will wake them\nWhen April woods are red.\"", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "My Rose.", + "body": "Pigmy seraphs gone astray,\nVelvet people from Vevay,\nBelles from some lost summer day,\nBees' exclusive coterie.\nParis could not lay the fold\nBelted down with emerald;\nVenice could not show a cheek\nOf a tint so lustrous meek.\nNever such an ambuscade\nAs of brier and leaf displayed\nFor my little damask maid.\nI had rather wear her grace\nThan an earl's distinguished face;\nI had rather dwell like her\nThan be Duke of Exeter\nRoyalty enough for me\nTo subdue the bumble-bee!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Oriole'S Secret.", + "body": "To hear an oriole sing\nMay be a common thing,\nOr only a divine.\n\nIt is not of the bird\nWho sings the same, unheard,\nAs unto crowd.\n\nThe fashion of the ear\nAttireth that it hear\nIn dun or fair.\n\nSo whether it be rune,\nOr whether it be none,\nIs of within;\n\nThe \"tune is in the tree,\"\nThe sceptic showeth me;\n\"No, sir! In thee!\"", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Oriole.", + "body": "One of the ones that Midas touched,\nWho failed to touch us all,\nWas that confiding prodigal,\nThe blissful oriole.\n\nSo drunk, he disavows it\nWith badinage divine;\nSo dazzling, we mistake him\nFor an alighting mine.\n\nA pleader, a dissembler,\nAn epicure, a thief, --\nBetimes an oratorio,\nAn ecstasy in chief;\n\nThe Jesuit of orchards,\nHe cheats as he enchants\nOf an entire attar\nFor his decamping wants.\n\nThe splendor of a Burmah,\nThe meteor of birds,\nDeparting like a pageant\nOf ballads and of bards.\n\nI never thought that Jason sought\nFor any golden fleece;\nBut then I am a rural man,\nWith thoughts that make for peace.\n\nBut if there were a Jason,\nTradition suffer me\nBehold his lost emolument\nUpon the apple-tree.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "In Shadow.", + "body": "I dreaded that first robin so,\nBut he is mastered now,\nAnd I 'm accustomed to him grown, --\nHe hurts a little, though.\n\nI thought if I could only live\nTill that first shout got by,\nNot all pianos in the woods\nHad power to mangle me.\n\nI dared not meet the daffodils,\nFor fear their yellow gown\nWould pierce me with a fashion\nSo foreign to my own.\n\nI wished the grass would hurry,\nSo when 't was time to see,\nHe 'd be too tall, the tallest one\nCould stretch to look at me.\n\nI could not bear the bees should come,\nI wished they 'd stay away\nIn those dim countries where they go:\nWhat word had they for me?\n\nThey 're here, though; not a creature failed,\nNo blossom stayed away\nIn gentle deference to me,\nThe Queen of Calvary.\n\nEach one salutes me as he goes,\nAnd I my childish plumes\nLift, in bereaved acknowledgment\nOf their unthinking drums.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Humming-Bird.", + "body": "A route of evanescence\nWith a revolving wheel;\nA resonance of emerald,\nA rush of cochineal;\nAnd every blossom on the bush\nAdjusts its tumbled head, --\nThe mail from Tunis, probably,\nAn easy morning's ride.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Secrets.", + "body": "The skies can't keep their secret!\nThey tell it to the hills --\nThe hills just tell the orchards --\nAnd they the daffodils!\n\nA bird, by chance, that goes that way\nSoft overheard the whole.\nIf I should bribe the little bird,\nWho knows but she would tell?\n\nI think I won't, however,\nIt's finer not to know;\nIf summer were an axiom,\nWhat sorcery had snow?\n\nSo keep your secret, Father!\nI would not, if I could,\nKnow what the sapphire fellows do,\nIn your new-fashioned world!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvii.", + "body": "Who robbed the woods,\nThe trusting woods?\nThe unsuspecting trees\nBrought out their burrs and mosses\nHis fantasy to please.\nHe scanned their trinkets, curious,\nHe grasped, he bore away.\nWhat will the solemn hemlock,\nWhat will the fir-tree say?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Two Voyagers.", + "body": "Two butterflies went out at noon\nAnd waltzed above a stream,\nThen stepped straight through the firmament\nAnd rested on a beam;\n\nAnd then together bore away\nUpon a shining sea, --\nThough never yet, in any port,\nTheir coming mentioned be.\n\nIf spoken by the distant bird,\nIf met in ether sea\nBy frigate or by merchantman,\nReport was not to me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "By The Sea.", + "body": "I started early, took my dog,\nAnd visited the sea;\nThe mermaids in the basement\nCame out to look at me,\n\nAnd frigates in the upper floor\nExtended hempen hands,\nPresuming me to be a mouse\nAground, upon the sands.\n\nBut no man moved me till the tide\nWent past my simple shoe,\nAnd past my apron and my belt,\nAnd past my bodice too,\n\nAnd made as he would eat me up\nAs wholly as a dew\nUpon a dandelion's sleeve --\nAnd then I started too.\n\nAnd he -- he followed close behind;\nI felt his silver heel\nUpon my ankle, -- then my shoes\nWould overflow with pearl.\n\nUntil we met the solid town,\nNo man he seemed to know;\nAnd bowing with a mighty look\nAt me, the sea withdrew.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Old-Fashioned.", + "body": "Arcturus is his other name, --\nI'd rather call him star!\nIt's so unkind of science\nTo go and interfere!\n\nI pull a flower from the woods, --\nA monster with a glass\nComputes the stamens in a breath,\nAnd has her in a class.\n\nWhereas I took the butterfly\nAforetime in my hat,\nHe sits erect in cabinets,\nThe clover-bells forgot.\n\nWhat once was heaven, is zenith now.\nWhere I proposed to go\nWhen time's brief masquerade was done,\nIs mapped, and charted too!\n\nWhat if the poles should frisk about\nAnd stand upon their heads!\nI hope I 'm ready for the worst,\nWhatever prank betides!\n\nPerhaps the kingdom of Heaven 's changed!\nI hope the children there\nWon't be new-fashioned when I come,\nAnd laugh at me, and stare!\n\nI hope the father in the skies\nWill lift his little girl, --\nOld-fashioned, naughty, everything, --\nOver the stile of pearl!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Tempest.", + "body": "An awful tempest mashed the air,\nThe clouds were gaunt and few;\nA black, as of a spectre's cloak,\nHid heaven and earth from view.\n\nThe creatures chuckled on the roofs\nAnd whistled in the air,\nAnd shook their fists and gnashed their teeth.\nAnd swung their frenzied hair.\n\nThe morning lit, the birds arose;\nThe monster's faded eyes\nTurned slowly to his native coast,\nAnd peace was Paradise!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Sea.", + "body": "An everywhere of silver,\nWith ropes of sand\nTo keep it from effacing\nThe track called land.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "In The Garden.", + "body": "A bird came down the walk:\nHe did not know I saw;\nHe bit an angle-worm in halves\nAnd ate the fellow, raw.\n\nAnd then he drank a dew\nFrom a convenient grass,\nAnd then hopped sidewise to the wall\nTo let a beetle pass.\n\nHe glanced with rapid eyes\nThat hurried all abroad, --\nThey looked like frightened beads, I thought;\nHe stirred his velvet head\n\nLike one in danger; cautious,\nI offered him a crumb,\nAnd he unrolled his feathers\nAnd rowed him softer home\n\nThan oars divide the ocean,\nToo silver for a seam,\nOr butterflies, off banks of noon,\nLeap, splashless, as they swim.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Snake.", + "body": "A narrow fellow in the grass\nOccasionally rides;\nYou may have met him, -- did you not,\nHis notice sudden is.\n\nThe grass divides as with a comb,\nA spotted shaft is seen;\nAnd then it closes at your feet\nAnd opens further on.\n\nHe likes a boggy acre,\nA floor too cool for corn.\nYet when a child, and barefoot,\nI more than once, at morn,\n\nHave passed, I thought, a whip-lash\nUnbraiding in the sun, --\nWhen, stooping to secure it,\nIt wrinkled, and was gone.\n\nSeveral of nature's people\nI know, and they know me;\nI feel for them a transport\nOf cordiality;\n\nBut never met this fellow,\nAttended or alone,\nWithout a tighter breathing,\nAnd zero at the bone.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Mushroom.", + "body": "The mushroom is the elf of plants,\nAt evening it is not;\nAt morning in a truffled hut\nIt stops upon a spot\n\nAs if it tarried always;\nAnd yet its whole career\nIs shorter than a snake's delay,\nAnd fleeter than a tare.\n\n'T is vegetation's juggler,\nThe germ of alibi;\nDoth like a bubble antedate,\nAnd like a bubble hie.\n\nI feel as if the grass were pleased\nTo have it intermit;\nThe surreptitious scion\nOf summer's circumspect.\n\nHad nature any outcast face,\nCould she a son contemn,\nHad nature an Iscariot,\nThat mushroom, -- it is him.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Storm.", + "body": "There came a wind like a bugle;\nIt quivered through the grass,\nAnd a green chill upon the heat\nSo ominous did pass\nWe barred the windows and the doors\nAs from an emerald ghost;\nThe doom's electric moccason\nThat very instant passed.\nOn a strange mob of panting trees,\nAnd fences fled away,\nAnd rivers where the houses ran\nThe living looked that day.\nThe bell within the steeple wild\nThe flying tidings whirled.\nHow much can come\nAnd much can go,\nAnd yet abide the world!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Spider.", + "body": "A spider sewed at night\nWithout a light\nUpon an arc of white.\nIf ruff it was of dame\nOr shroud of gnome,\nHimself, himself inform.\nOf immortality\nHis strategy\nWas physiognomy.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxviii.", + "body": "I know a place where summer strives\nWith such a practised frost,\nShe each year leads her daisies back,\nRecording briefly, \"Lost.\"\n\nBut when the south wind stirs the pools\nAnd struggles in the lanes,\nHer heart misgives her for her vow,\nAnd she pours soft refrains\n\nInto the lap of adamant,\nAnd spices, and the dew,\nThat stiffens quietly to quartz,\nUpon her amber shoe.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxix.", + "body": "The one that could repeat the summer day\nWere greater than itself, though he\nMinutest of mankind might be.\nAnd who could reproduce the sun,\nAt period of going down --\nThe lingering and the stain, I mean --\nWhen Orient has been outgrown,\nAnd Occident becomes unknown,\nHis name remain.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Wind'S Visit.", + "body": "The wind tapped like a tired man,\nAnd like a host, \"Come in,\"\nI boldly answered; entered then\nMy residence within\n\nA rapid, footless guest,\nTo offer whom a chair\nWere as impossible as hand\nA sofa to the air.\n\nNo bone had he to bind him,\nHis speech was like the push\nOf numerous humming-birds at once\nFrom a superior bush.\n\nHis countenance a billow,\nHis fingers, if he pass,\nLet go a music, as of tunes\nBlown tremulous in glass.\n\nHe visited, still flitting;\nThen, like a timid man,\nAgain he tapped -- 't was flurriedly --\nAnd I became alone.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxi.", + "body": "Nature rarer uses yellow\n Than another hue;\nSaves she all of that for sunsets, --\n Prodigal of blue,\n\nSpending scarlet like a woman,\n Yellow she affords\nOnly scantly and selectly,\n Like a lover's words.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Gossip.", + "body": "The leaves, like women, interchange\n Sagacious confidence;\nSomewhat of nods, and somewhat of\n Portentous inference,\n\nThe parties in both cases\n Enjoining secrecy, --\nInviolable compact\n To notoriety.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Simplicity.", + "body": "How happy is the little stone\nThat rambles in the road alone,\nAnd doesn't care about careers,\nAnd exigencies never fears;\nWhose coat of elemental brown\nA passing universe put on;\nAnd independent as the sun,\nAssociates or glows alone,\nFulfilling absolute decree\nIn casual simplicity.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Storm.", + "body": "It sounded as if the streets were running,\nAnd then the streets stood still.\nEclipse was all we could see at the window,\nAnd awe was all we could feel.\n\nBy and by the boldest stole out of his covert,\nTo see if time was there.\nNature was in her beryl apron,\nMixing fresher air.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Rat.", + "body": "The rat is the concisest tenant.\nHe pays no rent, --\nRepudiates the obligation,\nOn schemes intent.\n\nBalking our wit\nTo sound or circumvent,\nHate cannot harm\nA foe so reticent.\n\nNeither decree\nProhibits him,\nLawful as\nEquilibrium.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxvi.", + "body": "Frequently the woods are pink,\nFrequently are brown;\nFrequently the hills undress\nBehind my native town.\n\nOft a head is crested\nI was wont to see,\nAnd as oft a cranny\nWhere it used to be.\n\nAnd the earth, they tell me,\nOn its axis turned, --\nWonderful rotation\nBy but twelve performed!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Thunder-Storm.", + "body": "The wind begun to rock the grass\nWith threatening tunes and low, --\nHe flung a menace at the earth,\nA menace at the sky.\n\nThe leaves unhooked themselves from trees\nAnd started all abroad;\nThe dust did scoop itself like hands\nAnd throw away the road.\n\nThe wagons quickened on the streets,\nThe thunder hurried slow;\nThe lightning showed a yellow beak,\nAnd then a livid claw.\n\nThe birds put up the bars to nests,\nThe cattle fled to barns;\nThere came one drop of giant rain,\nAnd then, as if the hands\n\nThat held the dams had parted hold,\nThe waters wrecked the sky,\nBut overlooked my father's house,\nJust quartering a tree.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "With Flowers.", + "body": "South winds jostle them,\nBumblebees come,\nHover, hesitate,\nDrink, and are gone.\n\nButterflies pause\nOn their passage Cashmere;\nI, softly plucking,\nPresent them here!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Sunset.", + "body": "Where ships of purple gently toss\nOn seas of daffodil,\nFantastic sailors mingle,\nAnd then -- the wharf is still.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xl.", + "body": "She sweeps with many-colored brooms,\nAnd leaves the shreds behind;\nOh, housewife in the evening west,\nCome back, and dust the pond!\n\nYou dropped a purple ravelling in,\nYou dropped an amber thread;\nAnd now you 've littered all the East\nWith duds of emerald!\n\nAnd still she plies her spotted brooms,\nAnd still the aprons fly,\nTill brooms fade softly into stars --\nAnd then I come away.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xli.", + "body": "Like mighty footlights burned the red\nAt bases of the trees, --\nThe far theatricals of day\nExhibiting to these.\n\n'T was universe that did applaud\nWhile, chiefest of the crowd,\nEnabled by his royal dress,\nMyself distinguished God.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Problems.", + "body": "Bring me the sunset in a cup,\nReckon the morning's flagons up,\n And say how many dew;\nTell me how far the morning leaps,\nTell me what time the weaver sleeps\n Who spun the breadths of blue!\n\nWrite me how many notes there be\nIn the new robin's ecstasy\n Among astonished boughs;\nHow many trips the tortoise makes,\nHow many cups the bee partakes, --\n The debauchee of dews!\n\nAlso, who laid the rainbow's piers,\nAlso, who leads the docile spheres\n By withes of supple blue?\nWhose fingers string the stalactite,\nWho counts the wampum of the night,\n To see that none is due?\n\nWho built this little Alban house\nAnd shut the windows down so close\n My spirit cannot see?\nWho 'll let me out some gala day,\nWith implements to fly away,\n Passing pomposity?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Juggler Of Day.", + "body": "Blazing in gold and quenching in purple,\nLeaping like leopards to the sky,\nThen at the feet of the old horizon\nLaying her spotted face, to die;\n\nStooping as low as the otter's window,\nTouching the roof and tinting the barn,\nKissing her bonnet to the meadow, --\nAnd the juggler of day is gone!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "My Cricket.", + "body": "Farther in summer than the birds,\nPathetic from the grass,\nA minor nation celebrates\nIts unobtrusive mass.\n\nNo ordinance is seen,\nSo gradual the grace,\nA pensive custom it becomes,\nEnlarging loneliness.\n\nAntiquest felt at noon\nWhen August, burning low,\nCalls forth this spectral canticle,\nRepose to typify.\n\nRemit as yet no grace,\nNo furrow on the glow,\nYet a druidic difference\nEnhances nature now.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlv.", + "body": "As imperceptibly as grief\nThe summer lapsed away, --\nToo imperceptible, at last,\nTo seem like perfidy.\n\nA quietness distilled,\nAs twilight long begun,\nOr Nature, spending with herself\nSequestered afternoon.\n\nThe dusk drew earlier in,\nThe morning foreign shone, --\nA courteous, yet harrowing grace,\nAs guest who would be gone.\n\nAnd thus, without a wing,\nOr service of a keel,\nOur summer made her light escape\nInto the beautiful.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlvi.", + "body": "It can't be summer, -- that got through;\nIt 's early yet for spring;\nThere 's that long town of white to cross\nBefore the blackbirds sing.\n\nIt can't be dying, -- it's too rouge, --\nThe dead shall go in white.\nSo sunset shuts my question down\nWith clasps of chrysolite.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Summer'S Obsequies.", + "body": "The gentian weaves her fringes,\nThe maple's loom is red.\nMy departing blossoms\nObviate parade.\n\nA brief, but patient illness,\nAn hour to prepare;\nAnd one, below this morning,\nIs where the angels are.\n\nIt was a short procession, --\nThe bobolink was there,\nAn aged bee addressed us,\nAnd then we knelt in prayer.\n\nWe trust that she was willing, --\nWe ask that we may be.\nSummer, sister, seraph,\nLet us go with thee!\n\nIn the name of the bee\nAnd of the butterfly\nAnd of the breeze, amen!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Fringed Gentian.", + "body": "God made a little gentian;\nIt tried to be a rose\nAnd failed, and all the summer laughed.\nBut just before the snows\nThere came a purple creature\nThat ravished all the hill;\nAnd summer hid her forehead,\nAnd mockery was still.\nThe frosts were her condition;\nThe Tyrian would not come\nUntil the North evoked it.\n\"Creator! shall I bloom?\"", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "November.", + "body": "Besides the autumn poets sing,\nA few prosaic days\nA little this side of the snow\nAnd that side of the haze.\n\nA few incisive mornings,\nA few ascetic eyes, --\nGone Mr. Bryant's golden-rod,\nAnd Mr. Thomson's sheaves.\n\nStill is the bustle in the brook,\nSealed are the spicy valves;\nMesmeric fingers softly touch\nThe eyes of many elves.\n\nPerhaps a squirrel may remain,\nMy sentiments to share.\nGrant me, O Lord, a sunny mind,\nThy windy will to bear!\n\n\n\n\n\nL.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Snow.", + "body": "It sifts from leaden sieves,\nIt powders all the wood,\nIt fills with alabaster wool\nThe wrinkles of the road.\n\nIt makes an even face\nOf mountain and of plain, --\nUnbroken forehead from the east\nUnto the east again.\n\nIt reaches to the fence,\nIt wraps it, rail by rail,\nTill it is lost in fleeces;\nIt flings a crystal veil\n\nOn stump and stack and stem, --\nThe summer's empty room,\nAcres of seams where harvests were,\nRecordless, but for them.\n\nIt ruffles wrists of posts,\nAs ankles of a queen, --\nThen stills its artisans like ghosts,\nDenying they have been.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Blue Jay.", + "body": "No brigadier throughout the year\nSo civic as the jay.\nA neighbor and a warrior too,\nWith shrill felicity\n\nPursuing winds that censure us\nA February day,\nThe brother of the universe\nWas never blown away.\n\nThe snow and he are intimate;\nI 've often seen them play\nWhen heaven looked upon us all\nWith such severity,\n\nI felt apology were due\nTo an insulted sky,\nWhose pompous frown was nutriment\nTo their temerity.\n\nThe pillow of this daring head\nIs pungent evergreens;\nHis larder -- terse and militant --\nUnknown, refreshing things;\n\nHis character a tonic,\nHis future a dispute;\nUnfair an immortality\nThat leaves this neighbor out.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iv. Time And Eternity.", + "body": "I.\n\nLet down the bars, O Death!\nThe tired flocks come in\nWhose bleating ceases to repeat,\nWhose wandering is done.\n\nThine is the stillest night,\nThine the securest fold;\nToo near thou art for seeking thee,\nToo tender to be told.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ii.", + "body": "Going to heaven!\nI don't know when,\nPray do not ask me how, --\nIndeed, I 'm too astonished\nTo think of answering you!\nGoing to heaven! --\nHow dim it sounds!\nAnd yet it will be done\nAs sure as flocks go home at night\nUnto the shepherd's arm!\n\nPerhaps you 're going too!\nWho knows?\nIf you should get there first,\nSave just a little place for me\nClose to the two I lost!\n\nThe smallest \"robe\" will fit me,\nAnd just a bit of \"crown;\"\nFor you know we do not mind our dress\nWhen we are going home.\n\nI 'm glad I don't believe it,\nFor it would stop my breath,\nAnd I 'd like to look a little more\nAt such a curious earth!\nI am glad they did believe it\nWhom I have never found\nSince the mighty autumn afternoon\nI left them in the ground.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": "At least to pray is left, is left.\nO Jesus! in the air\nI know not which thy chamber is, --\nI 'm knocking everywhere.\n\nThou stirrest earthquake in the South,\nAnd maelstrom in the sea;\nSay, Jesus Christ of Nazareth,\nHast thou no arm for me?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph.", + "body": "Step lightly on this narrow spot!\nThe broadest land that grows\nIs not so ample as the breast\nThese emerald seams enclose.\n\nStep lofty; for this name is told\nAs far as cannon dwell,\nOr flag subsist, or fame export\nHer deathless syllable.\n\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nMorns like these we parted;\nNoons like these she rose,\nFluttering first, then firmer,\nTo her fair repose.\n\nNever did she lisp it,\nAnd 't was not for me;\nShe was mute from transport,\nI, from agony!\n\nTill the evening, nearing,\nOne the shutters drew --\nQuick! a sharper rustling!\nAnd this linnet flew!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vi.", + "body": "A death-blow is a life-blow to some\nWho, till they died, did not alive become;\nWho, had they lived, had died, but when\nThey died, vitality begun.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vii.", + "body": "I read my sentence steadily,\nReviewed it with my eyes,\nTo see that I made no mistake\nIn its extremest clause, --\n\nThe date, and manner of the shame;\nAnd then the pious form\nThat \"God have mercy\" on the soul\nThe jury voted him.\n\nI made my soul familiar\nWith her extremity,\nThat at the last it should not be\nA novel agony,\n\nBut she and Death, acquainted,\nMeet tranquilly as friends,\nSalute and pass without a hint --\nAnd there the matter ends.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Viii.", + "body": "I have not told my garden yet,\nLest that should conquer me;\nI have not quite the strength now\nTo break it to the bee.\n\nI will not name it in the street,\nFor shops would stare, that I,\nSo shy, so very ignorant,\nShould have the face to die.\n\nThe hillsides must not know it,\nWhere I have rambled so,\nNor tell the loving forests\nThe day that I shall go,\n\nNor lisp it at the table,\nNor heedless by the way\nHint that within the riddle\nOne will walk to-day!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Battle-Field.", + "body": "They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,\n Like petals from a rose,\nWhen suddenly across the June\n A wind with fingers goes.\n\nThey perished in the seamless grass, --\n No eye could find the place;\nBut God on his repealless list\n Can summon every face.\n\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nThe only ghost I ever saw\nWas dressed in mechlin, -- so;\nHe wore no sandal on his foot,\nAnd stepped like flakes of snow.\nHis gait was soundless, like the bird,\nBut rapid, like the roe;\nHis fashions quaint, mosaic,\nOr, haply, mistletoe.\n\nHis conversation seldom,\nHis laughter like the breeze\nThat dies away in dimples\nAmong the pensive trees.\nOur interview was transient,--\nOf me, himself was shy;\nAnd God forbid I look behind\nSince that appalling day!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xi.", + "body": "Some, too fragile for winter winds,\nThe thoughtful grave encloses, --\nTenderly tucking them in from frost\nBefore their feet are cold.\n\nNever the treasures in her nest\nThe cautious grave exposes,\nBuilding where schoolboy dare not look\nAnd sportsman is not bold.\n\nThis covert have all the children\nEarly aged, and often cold, --\nSparrows unnoticed by the Father;\nLambs for whom time had not a fold.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xii.", + "body": "As by the dead we love to sit,\nBecome so wondrous dear,\nAs for the lost we grapple,\nThough all the rest are here, --\n\nIn broken mathematics\nWe estimate our prize,\nVast, in its fading ratio,\nTo our penurious eyes!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Memorials.", + "body": "Death sets a thing significant\nThe eye had hurried by,\nExcept a perished creature\nEntreat us tenderly\n\nTo ponder little workmanships\nIn crayon or in wool,\nWith \"This was last her fingers did,\"\nIndustrious until\n\nThe thimble weighed too heavy,\nThe stitches stopped themselves,\nAnd then 't was put among the dust\nUpon the closet shelves.\n\nA book I have, a friend gave,\nWhose pencil, here and there,\nHad notched the place that pleased him, --\nAt rest his fingers are.\n\nNow, when I read, I read not,\nFor interrupting tears\nObliterate the etchings\nToo costly for repairs.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xiv.", + "body": "I went to heaven, --\n'T was a small town,\nLit with a ruby,\nLathed with down.\nStiller than the fields\nAt the full dew,\nBeautiful as pictures\nNo man drew.\nPeople like the moth,\nOf mechlin, frames,\nDuties of gossamer,\nAnd eider names.\nAlmost contented\nI could be\n'Mong such unique\nSociety.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xv.", + "body": "Their height in heaven comforts not,\nTheir glory nought to me;\n'T was best imperfect, as it was;\nI 'm finite, I can't see.\n\nThe house of supposition,\nThe glimmering frontier\nThat skirts the acres of perhaps,\nTo me shows insecure.\n\nThe wealth I had contented me;\nIf 't was a meaner size,\nThen I had counted it until\nIt pleased my narrow eyes\n\nBetter than larger values,\nHowever true their show;\nThis timid life of evidence\nKeeps pleading, \"I don't know.\"", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvi.", + "body": "There is a shame of nobleness\nConfronting sudden pelf, --\nA finer shame of ecstasy\nConvicted of itself.\n\nA best disgrace a brave man feels,\nAcknowledged of the brave, --\nOne more \"Ye Blessed\" to be told;\nBut this involves the grave.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Triumph.", + "body": "Triumph may be of several kinds.\nThere 's triumph in the room\nWhen that old imperator, Death,\nBy faith is overcome.\n\nThere 's triumph of the finer mind\nWhen truth, affronted long,\nAdvances calm to her supreme,\nHer God her only throng.\n\nA triumph when temptation's bribe\nIs slowly handed back,\nOne eye upon the heaven renounced\nAnd one upon the rack.\n\nSeverer triumph, by himself\nExperienced, who can pass\nAcquitted from that naked bar,\nJehovah's countenance!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xviii.", + "body": "Pompless no life can pass away;\n The lowliest career\nTo the same pageant wends its way\n As that exalted here.\nHow cordial is the mystery!\n The hospitable pall\nA \"this way\" beckons spaciously, --\n A miracle for all!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xix.", + "body": "I noticed people disappeared,\nWhen but a little child, --\nSupposed they visited remote,\nOr settled regions wild.\n\nNow know I they both visited\nAnd settled regions wild,\nBut did because they died, -- a fact\nWithheld the little child!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Following.", + "body": "I had no cause to be awake,\nMy best was gone to sleep,\nAnd morn a new politeness took,\nAnd failed to wake them up,\n\nBut called the others clear,\nAnd passed their curtains by.\nSweet morning, when I over-sleep,\nKnock, recollect, for me!\n\nI looked at sunrise once,\nAnd then I looked at them,\nAnd wishfulness in me arose\nFor circumstance the same.\n\n'T was such an ample peace,\nIt could not hold a sigh, --\n'T was Sabbath with the bells divorced,\n'T was sunset all the day.\n\nSo choosing but a gown\nAnd taking but a prayer,\nThe only raiment I should need,\nI struggled, and was there.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxi.", + "body": "If anybody's friend be dead,\nIt 's sharpest of the theme\nThe thinking how they walked alive,\nAt such and such a time.\n\nTheir costume, of a Sunday,\nSome manner of the hair, --\nA prank nobody knew but them,\nLost, in the sepulchre.\n\nHow warm they were on such a day:\nYou almost feel the date,\nSo short way off it seems; and now,\nThey 're centuries from that.\n\nHow pleased they were at what you said;\nYou try to touch the smile,\nAnd dip your fingers in the frost:\nWhen was it, can you tell,\n\nYou asked the company to tea,\nAcquaintance, just a few,\nAnd chatted close with this grand thing\nThat don't remember you?\n\nPast bows and invitations,\nPast interview, and vow,\nPast what ourselves can estimate, --\nThat makes the quick of woe!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Journey.", + "body": "Our journey had advanced;\nOur feet were almost come\nTo that odd fork in Being's road,\nEternity by term.\n\nOur pace took sudden awe,\nOur feet reluctant led.\nBefore were cities, but between,\nThe forest of the dead.\n\nRetreat was out of hope, --\nBehind, a sealed route,\nEternity's white flag before,\nAnd God at every gate.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Country Burial.", + "body": "Ample make this bed.\nMake this bed with awe;\nIn it wait till judgment break\nExcellent and fair.\n\nBe its mattress straight,\nBe its pillow round;\nLet no sunrise' yellow noise\nInterrupt this ground.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Going.", + "body": "On such a night, or such a night,\nWould anybody care\nIf such a little figure\nSlipped quiet from its chair,\n\nSo quiet, oh, how quiet!\nThat nobody might know\nBut that the little figure\nRocked softer, to and fro?\n\nOn such a dawn, or such a dawn,\nWould anybody sigh\nThat such a little figure\nToo sound asleep did lie\n\nFor chanticleer to wake it, --\nOr stirring house below,\nOr giddy bird in orchard,\nOr early task to do?\n\nThere was a little figure plump\nFor every little knoll,\nBusy needles, and spools of thread,\nAnd trudging feet from school.\n\nPlaymates, and holidays, and nuts,\nAnd visions vast and small.\nStrange that the feet so precious charged\nShould reach so small a goal!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxv.", + "body": "Essential oils are wrung:\nThe attar from the rose\nIs not expressed by suns alone,\nIt is the gift of screws.\n\nThe general rose decays;\nBut this, in lady's drawer,\nMakes summer when the lady lies\nIn ceaseless rosemary.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxvi.", + "body": "I lived on dread; to those who know\nThe stimulus there is\nIn danger, other impetus\nIs numb and vital-less.\n\nAs 't were a spur upon the soul,\nA fear will urge it where\nTo go without the spectre's aid\nWere challenging despair.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxvii.", + "body": "If I should die,\nAnd you should live,\nAnd time should gurgle on,\nAnd morn should beam,\nAnd noon should burn,\nAs it has usual done;\nIf birds should build as early,\nAnd bees as bustling go, --\nOne might depart at option\nFrom enterprise below!\n'T is sweet to know that stocks will stand\nWhen we with daisies lie,\nThat commerce will continue,\nAnd trades as briskly fly.\nIt makes the parting tranquil\nAnd keeps the soul serene,\nThat gentlemen so sprightly\nConduct the pleasing scene!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "At Length.", + "body": "Her final summer was it,\nAnd yet we guessed it not;\nIf tenderer industriousness\nPervaded her, we thought\n\nA further force of life\nDeveloped from within, --\nWhen Death lit all the shortness up,\nAnd made the hurry plain.\n\nWe wondered at our blindness, --\nWhen nothing was to see\nBut her Carrara guide-post, --\nAt our stupidity,\n\nWhen, duller than our dullness,\nThe busy darling lay,\nSo busy was she, finishing,\nSo leisurely were we!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ghosts.", + "body": "One need not be a chamber to be haunted,\nOne need not be a house;\nThe brain has corridors surpassing\nMaterial place.\n\nFar safer, of a midnight meeting\nExternal ghost,\nThan an interior confronting\nThat whiter host.\n\nFar safer through an Abbey gallop,\nThe stones achase,\nThan, moonless, one's own self encounter\nIn lonesome place.\n\nOurself, behind ourself concealed,\nShould startle most;\nAssassin, hid in our apartment,\nBe horror's least.\n\nThe prudent carries a revolver,\nHe bolts the door,\nO'erlooking a superior spectre\nMore near.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vanished.", + "body": "She died, -- this was the way she died;\nAnd when her breath was done,\nTook up her simple wardrobe\nAnd started for the sun.\n\nHer little figure at the gate\nThe angels must have spied,\nSince I could never find her\nUpon the mortal side.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Precedence.", + "body": "Wait till the majesty of Death\nInvests so mean a brow!\nAlmost a powdered footman\nMight dare to touch it now!\n\nWait till in everlasting robes\nThis democrat is dressed,\nThen prate about \"preferment\"\nAnd \"station\" and the rest!\n\nAround this quiet courtier\nObsequious angels wait!\nFull royal is his retinue,\nFull purple is his state!\n\nA lord might dare to lift the hat\nTo such a modest clay,\nSince that my Lord, \"the Lord of lords\"\nReceives unblushingly!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Gone.", + "body": "Went up a year this evening!\nI recollect it well!\nAmid no bells nor bravos\nThe bystanders will tell!\nCheerful, as to the village,\nTranquil, as to repose,\nChastened, as to the chapel,\nThis humble tourist rose.\nDid not talk of returning,\nAlluded to no time\nWhen, were the gales propitious,\nWe might look for him;\nWas grateful for the roses\nIn life's diverse bouquet,\nTalked softly of new species\nTo pick another day.\n\nBeguiling thus the wonder,\nThe wondrous nearer drew;\nHands bustled at the moorings --\nThe crowd respectful grew.\nAscended from our vision\nTo countenances new!\nA difference, a daisy,\nIs all the rest I knew!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Requiem.", + "body": "Taken from men this morning,\nCarried by men to-day,\nMet by the gods with banners\nWho marshalled her away.\n\nOne little maid from playmates,\nOne little mind from school, --\nThere must be guests in Eden;\nAll the rooms are full.\n\nFar as the east from even,\nDim as the border star, --\nCourtiers quaint, in kingdoms,\nOur departed are.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxiv.", + "body": "What inn is this\nWhere for the night\nPeculiar traveller comes?\nWho is the landlord?\nWhere the maids?\nBehold, what curious rooms!\nNo ruddy fires on the hearth,\nNo brimming tankards flow.\nNecromancer, landlord,\nWho are these below?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxv.", + "body": "It was not death, for I stood up,\nAnd all the dead lie down;\nIt was not night, for all the bells\nPut out their tongues, for noon.\n\nIt was not frost, for on my flesh\nI felt siroccos crawl, --\nNor fire, for just my marble feet\nCould keep a chancel cool.\n\nAnd yet it tasted like them all;\nThe figures I have seen\nSet orderly, for burial,\nReminded me of mine,\n\nAs if my life were shaven\nAnd fitted to a frame,\nAnd could not breathe without a key;\nAnd 't was like midnight, some,\n\nWhen everything that ticked has stopped,\nAnd space stares, all around,\nOr grisly frosts, first autumn morns,\nRepeal the beating ground.\n\nBut most like chaos, -- stopless, cool, --\nWithout a chance or spar,\nOr even a report of land\nTo justify despair.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Till The End.", + "body": "I should not dare to leave my friend,\nBecause -- because if he should die\nWhile I was gone, and I -- too late --\nShould reach the heart that wanted me;\n\nIf I should disappoint the eyes\nThat hunted, hunted so, to see,\nAnd could not bear to shut until\nThey \"noticed\" me -- they noticed me;\n\nIf I should stab the patient faith\nSo sure I 'd come -- so sure I 'd come,\nIt listening, listening, went to sleep\nTelling my tardy name, --\n\nMy heart would wish it broke before,\nSince breaking then, since breaking then,\nWere useless as next morning's sun,\nWhere midnight frosts had lain!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Void.", + "body": "Great streets of silence led away\nTo neighborhoods of pause;\nHere was no notice, no dissent,\nNo universe, no laws.\n\nBy clocks 't was morning, and for night\nThe bells at distance called;\nBut epoch had no basis here,\nFor period exhaled.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxviii.", + "body": "A throe upon the features\nA hurry in the breath,\nAn ecstasy of parting\nDenominated \"Death,\" --\n\nAn anguish at the mention,\nWhich, when to patience grown,\nI 've known permission given\nTo rejoin its own.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Saved!", + "body": "Of tribulation these are they\nDenoted by the white;\nThe spangled gowns, a lesser rank\nOf victors designate.\n\nAll these did conquer; but the ones\nWho overcame most times\nWear nothing commoner than snow,\nNo ornament but palms.\n\nSurrender is a sort unknown\nOn this superior soil;\nDefeat, an outgrown anguish,\nRemembered as the mile\n\nOur panting ankle barely gained\nWhen night devoured the road;\nBut we stood whispering in the house,\nAnd all we said was \"Saved\"!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xl.", + "body": "I think just how my shape will rise\nWhen I shall be forgiven,\nTill hair and eyes and timid head\nAre out of sight, in heaven.\n\nI think just how my lips will weigh\nWith shapeless, quivering prayer\nThat you, so late, consider me,\nThe sparrow of your care.\n\nI mind me that of anguish sent,\nSome drifts were moved away\nBefore my simple bosom broke, --\nAnd why not this, if they?\n\nAnd so, until delirious borne\nI con that thing, -- \"forgiven,\" --\nTill with long fright and longer trust\nI drop my heart, unshriven!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Forgotten Grave.", + "body": "After a hundred years\nNobody knows the place, --\nAgony, that enacted there,\nMotionless as peace.\n\nWeeds triumphant ranged,\nStrangers strolled and spelled\nAt the lone orthography\nOf the elder dead.\n\nWinds of summer fields\nRecollect the way, --\nInstinct picking up the key\nDropped by memory.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlii.", + "body": "Lay this laurel on the one\nToo intrinsic for renown.\nLaurel! veil your deathless tree, --\nHim you chasten, that is he!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Poems", + "body": "by EMILY DICKINSON\n\nThird Series\n\n\n\n\nEdited by", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Mabel Loomis Todd", + "body": " It's all I have to bring to-day,\n This, and my heart beside,\n This, and my heart, and all the fields,\n And all the meadows wide.\n Be sure you count, should I forget, --\n Some one the sum could tell, --\n This, and my heart, and all the bees\n Which in the clover dwell.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Preface.", + "body": "The intellectual activity of Emily Dickinson was so great that\na large and characteristic choice is still possible among her\nliterary material, and this third volume of her verses is put\nforth in response to the repeated wish of the admirers of her\npeculiar genius. Much of Emily Dickinson's prose was rhythmic,\n--even rhymed, though frequently not set apart in lines.\n\nAlso many verses, written as such, were sent to friends in\nletters; these were published in 1894, in the volumes of her\n_Letters_. It has not been necessary, however, to include them in\nthis Series, and all have been omitted, except three or four\nexceptionally strong ones, as \"A Book,\" and \"With Flowers.\"\n\nThere is internal evidence that many of the poems were simply\nspontaneous flashes of insight, apparently unrelated to outward\ncircumstance. Others, however, had an obvious personal origin;\nfor example, the verses \"I had a Guinea golden,\" which seem to\nhave been sent to some friend travelling in Europe, as a dainty\nreminder of letter-writing delinquencies. The surroundings in\nwhich any of Emily Dickinson's verses are known to have been\nwritten usually serve to explain them clearly; but in general the\npresent volume is full of thoughts needing no interpretation to\nthose who apprehend this scintillating spirit.\n\n M. L. T.\n\nAMHERST, _October_, 1896.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Real Riches.", + "body": "'T is little I could care for pearls\n Who own the ample sea;\nOr brooches, when the Emperor\n With rubies pelteth me;\n\nOr gold, who am the Prince of Mines;\n Or diamonds, when I see\nA diadem to fit a dome\n Continual crowning me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Superiority To Fate.", + "body": "Superiority to fate\n Is difficult to learn.\n'T is not conferred by any,\n But possible to earn\n\nA pittance at a time,\n Until, to her surprise,\nThe soul with strict economy\n Subsists till Paradise.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Hope.", + "body": "Hope is a subtle glutton;\n He feeds upon the fair;\nAnd yet, inspected closely,\n What abstinence is there!\n\nHis is the halcyon table\n That never seats but one,\nAnd whatsoever is consumed\n The same amounts remain.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Forbidden Fruit.", + "body": "I.\n\nForbidden fruit a flavor has\n That lawful orchards mocks;\nHow luscious lies the pea within\n The pod that Duty locks!\n\n\n\n\n\nV.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ii.", + "body": "Heaven is what I cannot reach!\n The apple on the tree,\nProvided it do hopeless hang,\n That 'heaven' is, to me.\n\nThe color on the cruising cloud,\n The interdicted ground\nBehind the hill, the house behind, --\n There Paradise is found!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Word.", + "body": "A word is dead\nWhen it is said,\n Some say.\nI say it just\nBegins to live\n That day.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vii.", + "body": "To venerate the simple days\n Which lead the seasons by,\nNeeds but to remember\n That from you or me\nThey may take the trifle\n Termed mortality!\n\nTo invest existence with a stately air,\nNeeds but to remember\n That the acorn there\nIs the egg of forests\n For the upper air!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Life'S Trades.", + "body": "It's such a little thing to weep,\n So short a thing to sigh;\nAnd yet by trades the size of these\n We men and women die!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ix.", + "body": "Drowning is not so pitiful\n As the attempt to rise.\nThree times, 't is said, a sinking man\n Comes up to face the skies,\nAnd then declines forever\n To that abhorred abode\nWhere hope and he part company, --\n For he is grasped of God.\nThe Maker's cordial visage,\n However good to see,\nIs shunned, we must admit it,\n Like an adversity.\n\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nHow still the bells in steeples stand,\n Till, swollen with the sky,\nThey leap upon their silver feet\n In frantic melody!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xi.", + "body": "If the foolish call them 'flowers,'\n Need the wiser tell?\nIf the savans 'classify' them,\n It is just as well!\n\nThose who read the Revelations\n Must not criticise\nThose who read the same edition\n With beclouded eyes!\n\nCould we stand with that old Moses\n Canaan denied, --\nScan, like him, the stately landscape\n On the other side, --\n\nDoubtless we should deem superfluous\n Many sciences\nNot pursued by learnèd angels\n In scholastic skies!\n\nLow amid that glad _Belles lettres_\n Grant that we may stand,\nStars, amid profound Galaxies,\n At that grand 'Right hand'!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Syllable.", + "body": "Could mortal lip divine\n The undeveloped freight\nOf a delivered syllable,\n 'T would crumble with the weight.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Parting.", + "body": "My life closed twice before its close;\n It yet remains to see\nIf Immortality unveil\n A third event to me,\n\nSo huge, so hopeless to conceive,\n As these that twice befell.\nParting is all we know of heaven,\n And all we need of hell.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Aspiration.", + "body": "We never know how high we are\n Till we are called to rise;\nAnd then, if we are true to plan,\n Our statures touch the skies.\n\nThe heroism we recite\n Would be a daily thing,\nDid not ourselves the cubits warp\n For fear to be a king.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Inevitable.", + "body": "While I was fearing it, it came,\n But came with less of fear,\nBecause that fearing it so long\n Had almost made it dear.\nThere is a fitting a dismay,\n A fitting a despair.\n'Tis harder knowing it is due,\n Than knowing it is here.\nThe trying on the utmost,\n The morning it is new,\nIs terribler than wearing it\n A whole existence through.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Book.", + "body": "There is no frigate like a book\n To take us lands away,\nNor any coursers like a page\n Of prancing poetry.\nThis traverse may the poorest take\n Without oppress of toll;\nHow frugal is the chariot\n That bears a human soul!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvii.", + "body": "Who has not found the heaven below\n Will fail of it above.\nGod's residence is next to mine,\n His furniture is love.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Portrait.", + "body": "A face devoid of love or grace,\n A hateful, hard, successful face,\nA face with which a stone\n Would feel as thoroughly at ease\nAs were they old acquaintances, --\n First time together thrown.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "I Had A Guinea Golden.", + "body": "I had a guinea golden;\n I lost it in the sand,\nAnd though the sum was simple,\n And pounds were in the land,\nStill had it such a value\n Unto my frugal eye,\nThat when I could not find it\n I sat me down to sigh.\n\nI had a crimson robin\n Who sang full many a day,\nBut when the woods were painted\n He, too, did fly away.\nTime brought me other robins, --\n Their ballads were the same, --\nStill for my missing troubadour\n I kept the 'house at hame.'\n\nI had a star in heaven;\n One Pleiad was its name,\nAnd when I was not heeding\n It wandered from the same.\nAnd though the skies are crowded,\n And all the night ashine,\nI do not care about it,\n Since none of them are mine.\n\nMy story has a moral:\n I have a missing friend, --\nPleiad its name, and robin,\n And guinea in the sand, --\nAnd when this mournful ditty,\n Accompanied with tear,\nShall meet the eye of traitor\n In country far from here,\nGrant that repentance solemn\n May seize upon his mind,\nAnd he no consolation\n Beneath the sun may find.\n\nNOTE. -- This poem may have had, like many others, a\npersonal origin. It is more than probable that it was\nsent to some friend travelling in Europe, a dainty\nreminder of letter-writing delinquencies.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Saturday Afternoon.", + "body": "From all the jails the boys and girls\n Ecstatically leap, --\nBeloved, only afternoon\n That prison doesn't keep.\n\nThey storm the earth and stun the air,\n A mob of solid bliss.\nAlas! that frowns could lie in wait\n For such a foe as this!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxi.", + "body": "Few get enough, -- enough is one;\n To that ethereal throng\nHave not each one of us the right\n To stealthily belong?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxii.", + "body": "Upon the gallows hung a wretch,\n Too sullied for the hell\nTo which the law entitled him.\n As nature's curtain fell\nThe one who bore him tottered in,\n For this was woman's son.\n''T was all I had,' she stricken gasped;\n Oh, what a livid boon!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Lost Thought.", + "body": "I felt a clearing in my mind\n As if my brain had split;\nI tried to match it, seam by seam,\n But could not make them fit.\n\nThe thought behind I strove to join\n Unto the thought before,\nBut sequence ravelled out of reach\n Like balls upon a floor.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Reticence.", + "body": "The reticent volcano keeps\n His never slumbering plan;\nConfided are his projects pink\n To no precarious man.\n\nIf nature will not tell the tale\n Jehovah told to her,\nCan human nature not survive\n Without a listener?\n\nAdmonished by her buckled lips\n Let every babbler be.\nThe only secret people keep\n Is Immortality.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "With Flowers.", + "body": "If recollecting were forgetting,\n Then I remember not;\nAnd if forgetting, recollecting,\n How near I had forgot!\nAnd if to miss were merry,\n And if to mourn were gay,\nHow very blithe the fingers\n That gathered these to-day!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxvi.", + "body": "The farthest thunder that I heard\n Was nearer than the sky,\nAnd rumbles still, though torrid noons\n Have lain their missiles by.\nThe lightning that preceded it\n Struck no one but myself,\nBut I would not exchange the bolt\n For all the rest of life.\nIndebtedness to oxygen\n The chemist may repay,\nBut not the obligation\n To electricity.\nIt founds the homes and decks the days,\n And every clamor bright\nIs but the gleam concomitant\n Of that waylaying light.\nThe thought is quiet as a flake, --\n A crash without a sound;\nHow life's reverberation\n Its explanation found!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxvii.", + "body": "On the bleakness of my lot\n Bloom I strove to raise.\nLate, my acre of a rock\n Yielded grape and maize.\n\nSoil of flint if steadfast tilled\n Will reward the hand;\nSeed of palm by Lybian sun\n Fructified in sand.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Contrast.", + "body": "A door just opened on a street --\n I, lost, was passing by --\nAn instant's width of warmth disclosed,\n And wealth, and company.\n\nThe door as sudden shut, and I,\n I, lost, was passing by, --\nLost doubly, but by contrast most,\n Enlightening misery.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Friends.", + "body": "Are friends delight or pain?\n Could bounty but remain\nRiches were good.\n\nBut if they only stay\nBolder to fly away,\n Riches are sad.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Fire.", + "body": "Ashes denote that fire was;\n Respect the grayest pile\nFor the departed creature's sake\n That hovered there awhile.\n\nFire exists the first in light,\n And then consolidates, --\nOnly the chemist can disclose\n Into what carbonates.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Man.", + "body": "Fate slew him, but he did not drop;\n She felled -- he did not fall --\nImpaled him on her fiercest stakes --\n He neutralized them all.\n\nShe stung him, sapped his firm advance,\n But, when her worst was done,\nAnd he, unmoved, regarded her,\n Acknowledged him a man.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ventures.", + "body": "Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.\n For the one ship that struts the shore\nMany's the gallant, overwhelmed creature\n Nodding in navies nevermore.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Griefs.", + "body": "I measure every grief I meet\n With analytic eyes;\nI wonder if it weighs like mine,\n Or has an easier size.\n\nI wonder if they bore it long,\n Or did it just begin?\nI could not tell the date of mine,\n It feels so old a pain.\n\nI wonder if it hurts to live,\n And if they have to try,\nAnd whether, could they choose between,\n They would not rather die.\n\nI wonder if when years have piled --\n Some thousands -- on the cause\nOf early hurt, if such a lapse\n Could give them any pause;\n\nOr would they go on aching still\n Through centuries above,\nEnlightened to a larger pain\n By contrast with the love.\n\nThe grieved are many, I am told;\n The reason deeper lies, --\nDeath is but one and comes but once,\n And only nails the eyes.\n\nThere's grief of want, and grief of cold, --\n A sort they call 'despair;'\nThere's banishment from native eyes,\n In sight of native air.\n\nAnd though I may not guess the kind\n Correctly, yet to me\nA piercing comfort it affords\n In passing Calvary,\n\nTo note the fashions of the cross,\n Of those that stand alone,\nStill fascinated to presume\n That some are like my own.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxiv.", + "body": "I have a king who does not speak;\nSo, wondering, thro' the hours meek\n I trudge the day away,--\nHalf glad when it is night and sleep,\nIf, haply, thro' a dream to peep\n In parlors shut by day.\n\nAnd if I do, when morning comes,\nIt is as if a hundred drums\n Did round my pillow roll,\nAnd shouts fill all my childish sky,\nAnd bells keep saying 'victory'\n From steeples in my soul!\n\nAnd if I don't, the little Bird\nWithin the Orchard is not heard,\n And I omit to pray,\n'Father, thy will be done' to-day,\nFor my will goes the other way,\n And it were perjury!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Disenchantment.", + "body": "It dropped so low in my regard\n I heard it hit the ground,\nAnd go to pieces on the stones\n At bottom of my mind;\n\nYet blamed the fate that fractured, less\n Than I reviled myself\nFor entertaining plated wares\n Upon my silver shelf.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Lost Faith.", + "body": "To lose one's faith surpasses\n The loss of an estate,\nBecause estates can be\n Replenished, -- faith cannot.\n\nInherited with life,\n Belief but once can be;\nAnnihilate a single clause,\n And Being's beggary.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Lost Joy.", + "body": "I had a daily bliss\n I half indifferent viewed,\nTill sudden I perceived it stir, --\n It grew as I pursued,\n\nTill when, around a crag,\n It wasted from my sight,\nEnlarged beyond my utmost scope,\n I learned its sweetness right.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxviii.", + "body": "I worked for chaff, and earning wheat\n Was haughty and betrayed.\nWhat right had fields to arbitrate\n In matters ratified?\n\nI tasted wheat, -- and hated chaff,\n And thanked the ample friend;\nWisdom is more becoming viewed\n At distance than at hand.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxix.", + "body": "Life, and Death, and Giants\n Such as these, are still.\nMinor apparatus, hopper of the mill,\nBeetle at the candle,\n Or a fife's small fame,\nMaintain by accident\n That they proclaim.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Alpine Glow.", + "body": "Our lives are Swiss, --\n So still, so cool,\n Till, some odd afternoon,\nThe Alps neglect their curtains,\n And we look farther on.\n\nItaly stands the other side,\n While, like a guard between,\nThe solemn Alps,\nThe siren Alps,\n Forever intervene!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Remembrance.", + "body": "Remembrance has a rear and front, --\n 'T is something like a house;\nIt has a garret also\n For refuse and the mouse,\n\nBesides, the deepest cellar\n That ever mason hewed;\nLook to it, by its fathoms\n Ourselves be not pursued.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlii.", + "body": "To hang our head ostensibly,\n And subsequent to find\nThat such was not the posture\n Of our immortal mind,\n\nAffords the sly presumption\n That, in so dense a fuzz,\nYou, too, take cobweb attitudes\n Upon a plane of gauze!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Brain.", + "body": "The brain is wider than the sky,\n For, put them side by side,\nThe one the other will include\n With ease, and you beside.\n\nThe brain is deeper than the sea,\n For, hold them, blue to blue,\nThe one the other will absorb,\n As sponges, buckets do.\n\nThe brain is just the weight of God,\n For, lift them, pound for pound,\nAnd they will differ, if they do,\n As syllable from sound.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xliv.", + "body": "The bone that has no marrow;\n What ultimate for that?\nIt is not fit for table,\n For beggar, or for cat.\n\nA bone has obligations,\n A being has the same;\nA marrowless assembly\n Is culpabler than shame.\n\nBut how shall finished creatures\n A function fresh obtain? --\nOld Nicodemus' phantom\n Confronting us again!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Past.", + "body": "The past is such a curious creature,\n To look her in the face\nA transport may reward us,\n Or a disgrace.\n\nUnarmed if any meet her,\n I charge him, fly!\nHer rusty ammunition\n Might yet reply!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlvi.", + "body": "To help our bleaker parts\n Salubrious hours are given,\nWhich if they do not fit for earth\n Drill silently for heaven.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlvii.", + "body": "What soft, cherubic creatures\n These gentlewomen are!\nOne would as soon assault a plush\n Or violate a star.\n\nSuch dimity convictions,\n A horror so refined\nOf freckled human nature,\n Of Deity ashamed, --\n\nIt's such a common glory,\n A fisherman's degree!\nRedemption, brittle lady,\n Be so, ashamed of thee.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Desire.", + "body": "Who never wanted, -- maddest joy\n Remains to him unknown:\nThe banquet of abstemiousness\n Surpasses that of wine.\n\nWithin its hope, though yet ungrasped\n Desire's perfect goal,\nNo nearer, lest reality\n Should disenthrall thy soul.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Philosophy.", + "body": "It might be easier\n To fail with land in sight,\nThan gain my blue peninsula\n To perish of delight.\n\n\n\n\n\nL.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Power.", + "body": "You cannot put a fire out;\n A thing that can ignite\nCan go, itself, without a fan\n Upon the slowest night.\n\nYou cannot fold a flood\n And put it in a drawer, --\nBecause the winds would find it out,\n And tell your cedar floor.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Li.", + "body": "A modest lot, a fame petite,\n A brief campaign of sting and sweet\n Is plenty! Is enough!\nA sailor's business is the shore,\n A soldier's -- balls. Who asketh more\nMust seek the neighboring life!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Lii.", + "body": "Is bliss, then, such abyss\nI must not put my foot amiss\nFor fear I spoil my shoe?\n\nI'd rather suit my foot\nThan save my boot,\nFor yet to buy another pair\nIs possible\nAt any fair.\n\nBut bliss is sold just once;\nThe patent lost\nNone buy it any more.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Experience.", + "body": "I stepped from plank to plank\n So slow and cautiously;\nThe stars about my head I felt,\n About my feet the sea.\n\nI knew not but the next\n Would be my final inch, --\nThis gave me that precarious gait\n Some call experience.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Thanksgiving Day.", + "body": "One day is there of the series\n Termed Thanksgiving day,\nCelebrated part at table,\n Part in memory.\n\nNeither patriarch nor pussy,\n I dissect the play;\nSeems it, to my hooded thinking,\n Reflex holiday.\n\nHad there been no sharp subtraction\n From the early sum,\nNot an acre or a caption\n Where was once a room,\n\nNot a mention, whose small pebble\n Wrinkled any bay, --\nUnto such, were such assembly,\n 'T were Thanksgiving day.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Childish Griefs.", + "body": "Softened by Time's consummate plush,\n How sleek the woe appears\nThat threatened childhood's citadel\n And undermined the years!\n\nBisected now by bleaker griefs,\n We envy the despair\nThat devastated childhood's realm,\n So easy to repair.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Consecration.", + "body": "Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,\n Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,\nProud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,\n Not to partake thy passion, my humility.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Love'S Humility.", + "body": "My worthiness is all my doubt,\n His merit all my fear,\nContrasting which, my qualities\n Do lowlier appear;\n\nLest I should insufficient prove\n For his beloved need,\nThe chiefest apprehension\n Within my loving creed.\n\nSo I, the undivine abode\n Of his elect content,\nConform my soul as 't were a church\n Unto her sacrament.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Love.", + "body": "Love is anterior to life,\n Posterior to death,\nInitial of creation, and\n The exponent of breath.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Satisfied.", + "body": "One blessing had I, than the rest\n So larger to my eyes\nThat I stopped gauging, satisfied,\n For this enchanted size.\n\nIt was the limit of my dream,\n The focus of my prayer, --\nA perfect, paralyzing bliss\n Contented as despair.\n\nI knew no more of want or cold,\n Phantasms both become,\nFor this new value in the soul,\n Supremest earthly sum.\n\nThe heaven below the heaven above\n Obscured with ruddier hue.\nLife's latitude leant over-full;\n The judgment perished, too.\n\nWhy joys so scantily disburse,\n Why Paradise defer,\nWhy floods are served to us in bowls, --\n I speculate no more.\n\n\n\n\n\nV.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "With A Flower.", + "body": "When roses cease to bloom, dear,\n And violets are done,\nWhen bumble-bees in solemn flight\n Have passed beyond the sun,\n\nThe hand that paused to gather\n Upon this summer's day\nWill idle lie, in Auburn, --\n Then take my flower, pray!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Song.", + "body": "Summer for thee grant I may be\n When summer days are flown!\nThy music still when whippoorwill\n And oriole are done!\n\nFor thee to bloom, I'll skip the tomb\n And sow my blossoms o'er!\nPray gather me, Anemone,\n Thy flower forevermore!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Loyalty.", + "body": "Split the lark and you'll find the music,\n Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled,\nScantily dealt to the summer morning,\n Saved for your ear when lutes be old.\n\nLoose the flood, you shall find it patent,\n Gush after gush, reserved for you;\nScarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas,\n Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Viii.", + "body": "To lose thee, sweeter than to gain\n All other hearts I knew.\n'T is true the drought is destitute,\n But then I had the dew!\n\nThe Caspian has its realms of sand,\n Its other realm of sea;\nWithout the sterile perquisite\n No Caspian could be.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ix.", + "body": " Poor little heart!\n Did they forget thee?\nThen dinna care! Then dinna care!\n\n Proud little heart!\n Did they forsake thee?\nBe debonair! Be debonair!\n\n Frail little heart!\n I would not break thee:\nCould'st credit me? Could'st credit me?\n\n Gay little heart!\n Like morning glory\nThou'll wilted be; thou'll wilted be!\n\n\n\n\n\nX.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Forgotten.", + "body": "There is a word\n Which bears a sword\n Can pierce an armed man.\nIt hurls its barbed syllables,--\n At once is mute again.\nBut where it fell\nThe saved will tell\n On patriotic day,\nSome epauletted brother\n Gave his breath away.\n\nWherever runs the breathless sun,\n Wherever roams the day,\nThere is its noiseless onset,\n There is its victory!\n\nBehold the keenest marksman!\n The most accomplished shot!\nTime's sublimest target\n Is a soul 'forgot'!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xi.", + "body": "I've got an arrow here;\n Loving the hand that sent it,\nI the dart revere.\n\nFell, they will say, in 'skirmish'!\n Vanquished, my soul will know,\nBy but a simple arrow\n Sped by an archer's bow.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Master.", + "body": "He fumbles at your spirit\n As players at the keys\nBefore they drop full music on;\n He stuns you by degrees,\n\nPrepares your brittle substance\n For the ethereal blow,\nBy fainter hammers, further heard,\n Then nearer, then so slow\n\nYour breath has time to straighten,\n Your brain to bubble cool, --\nDeals one imperial thunderbolt\n That scalps your naked soul.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xiii.", + "body": "Heart, we will forget him!\n You and I, to-night!\nYou may forget the warmth he gave,\n I will forget the light.\n\nWhen you have done, pray tell me,\n That I my thoughts may dim;\nHaste! lest while you're lagging,\n I may remember him!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xiv.", + "body": "Father, I bring thee not myself, --\n That were the little load;\nI bring thee the imperial heart\n I had not strength to hold.\n\nThe heart I cherished in my own\n Till mine too heavy grew,\nYet strangest, heavier since it went,\n Is it too large for you?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xv.", + "body": "We outgrow love like other things\n And put it in the drawer,\nTill it an antique fashion shows\n Like costumes grandsires wore.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvi.", + "body": "Not with a club the heart is broken,\n Nor with a stone;\nA whip, so small you could not see it.\n I've known\n\nTo lash the magic creature\n Till it fell,\nYet that whip's name too noble\n Then to tell.\n\nMagnanimous of bird\n By boy descried,\nTo sing unto the stone\n Of which it died.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Who?", + "body": "My friend must be a bird,\n Because it flies!\nMortal my friend must be,\n Because it dies!\nBarbs has it, like a bee.\nAh, curious friend,\n Thou puzzlest me!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xviii.", + "body": "He touched me, so I live to know\nThat such a day, permitted so,\n I groped upon his breast.\nIt was a boundless place to me,\nAnd silenced, as the awful sea\n Puts minor streams to rest.\n\nAnd now, I'm different from before,\nAs if I breathed superior air,\n Or brushed a royal gown;\nMy feet, too, that had wandered so,\nMy gypsy face transfigured now\n To tenderer renown.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Dreams.", + "body": "Let me not mar that perfect dream\n By an auroral stain,\nBut so adjust my daily night\n That it will come again.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Numen Lumen.", + "body": "I live with him, I see his face;\n I go no more away\nFor visitor, or sundown;\n Death's single privacy,\n\nThe only one forestalling mine,\n And that by right that he\nPresents a claim invisible,\n No wedlock granted me.\n\nI live with him, I hear his voice,\n I stand alive to-day\nTo witness to the certainty\n Of immortality\n\nTaught me by Time, -- the lower way,\n Conviction every day, --\nThat life like this is endless,\n Be judgment what it may.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Longing.", + "body": "I envy seas whereon he rides,\n I envy spokes of wheels\nOf chariots that him convey,\n I envy speechless hills\n\nThat gaze upon his journey;\n How easy all can see\nWhat is forbidden utterly\n As heaven, unto me!\n\nI envy nests of sparrows\n That dot his distant eaves,\nThe wealthy fly upon his pane,\n The happy, happy leaves\n\nThat just abroad his window\n Have summer's leave to be,\nThe earrings of Pizarro\n Could not obtain for me.\n\nI envy light that wakes him,\n And bells that boldly ring\nTo tell him it is noon abroad, --\n Myself his noon could bring,\n\nYet interdict my blossom\n And abrogate my bee,\nLest noon in everlasting night\n Drop Gabriel and me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Wedded.", + "body": "A solemn thing it was, I said,\n A woman white to be,\nAnd wear, if God should count me fit,\n Her hallowed mystery.\n\nA timid thing to drop a life\n Into the purple well,\nToo plummetless that it come back\n Eternity until.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Nature'S Changes.", + "body": "The springtime's pallid landscape\n Will glow like bright bouquet,\nThough drifted deep in parian\n The village lies to-day.\n\nThe lilacs, bending many a year,\n With purple load will hang;\nThe bees will not forget the tune\n Their old forefathers sang.\n\nThe rose will redden in the bog,\n The aster on the hill\nHer everlasting fashion set,\n And covenant gentians frill,\n\nTill summer folds her miracle\n As women do their gown,\nOr priests adjust the symbols\n When sacrament is done.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Tulip.", + "body": "She slept beneath a tree\n Remembered but by me.\nI touched her cradle mute;\nShe recognized the foot,\nPut on her carmine suit, --\n And see!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": "A light exists in spring\n Not present on the year\nAt any other period.\n When March is scarcely here\n\nA color stands abroad\n On solitary hills\nThat science cannot overtake,\n But human nature feels.\n\nIt waits upon the lawn;\n It shows the furthest tree\nUpon the furthest slope we know;\n It almost speaks to me.\n\nThen, as horizons step,\n Or noons report away,\nWithout the formula of sound,\n It passes, and we stay:\n\nA quality of loss\n Affecting our content,\nAs trade had suddenly encroached\n Upon a sacrament.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Waking Year.", + "body": "A lady red upon the hill\n Her annual secret keeps;\nA lady white within the field\n In placid lily sleeps!\n\nThe tidy breezes with their brooms\n Sweep vale, and hill, and tree!\nPrithee, my pretty housewives!\n Who may expected be?\n\nThe neighbors do not yet suspect!\n The woods exchange a smile --\nOrchard, and buttercup, and bird --\n In such a little while!\n\nAnd yet how still the landscape stands,\n How nonchalant the wood,\nAs if the resurrection\n Were nothing very odd!\n\n\n\n\n\nV.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "To March.", + "body": "Dear March, come in!\nHow glad I am!\nI looked for you before.\nPut down your hat --\nYou must have walked --\nHow out of breath you are!\nDear March, how are you?\nAnd the rest?\nDid you leave Nature well?\nOh, March, come right upstairs with me,\nI have so much to tell!\n\nI got your letter, and the birds';\nThe maples never knew\nThat you were coming, -- I declare,\nHow red their faces grew!\nBut, March, forgive me --\nAnd all those hills\nYou left for me to hue;\nThere was no purple suitable,\nYou took it all with you.\n\nWho knocks? That April!\nLock the door!\nI will not be pursued!\nHe stayed away a year, to call\nWhen I am occupied.\nBut trifles look so trivial\nAs soon as you have come,\nThat blame is just as dear as praise\nAnd praise as mere as blame.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "March.", + "body": "We like March, his shoes are purple,\n He is new and high;\nMakes he mud for dog and peddler,\n Makes he forest dry;\nKnows the adder's tongue his coming,\n And begets her spot.\nStands the sun so close and mighty\n That our minds are hot.\nNews is he of all the others;\n Bold it were to die\nWith the blue-birds buccaneering\n On his British sky.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Dawn.", + "body": "Not knowing when the dawn will come\n I open every door;\nOr has it feathers like a bird,\n Or billows like a shore?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Viii.", + "body": "A murmur in the trees to note,\n Not loud enough for wind;\nA star not far enough to seek,\n Nor near enough to find;\n\nA long, long yellow on the lawn,\n A hubbub as of feet;\nNot audible, as ours to us,\n But dapperer, more sweet;\n\nA hurrying home of little men\n To houses unperceived, --\nAll this, and more, if I should tell,\n Would never be believed.\n\nOf robins in the trundle bed\n How many I espy\nWhose nightgowns could not hide the wings,\n Although I heard them try!\n\nBut then I promised ne'er to tell;\n How could I break my word?\nSo go your way and I'll go mine, --\n No fear you'll miss the road.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ix.", + "body": "Morning is the place for dew,\n Corn is made at noon,\nAfter dinner light for flowers,\n Dukes for setting sun!\n\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nTo my quick ear the leaves conferred;\n The bushes they were bells;\nI could not find a privacy\n From Nature's sentinels.\n\nIn cave if I presumed to hide,\n The walls began to tell;\nCreation seemed a mighty crack\n To make me visible.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Rose.", + "body": "A sepal, petal, and a thorn\n Upon a common summer's morn,\nA flash of dew, a bee or two,\nA breeze\nA caper in the trees, --\n And I'm a rose!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xii.", + "body": "High from the earth I heard a bird;\n He trod upon the trees\nAs he esteemed them trifles,\n And then he spied a breeze,\nAnd situated softly\n Upon a pile of wind\nWhich in a perturbation\n Nature had left behind.\nA joyous-going fellow\n I gathered from his talk,\nWhich both of benediction\n And badinage partook,\nWithout apparent burden,\n I learned, in leafy wood\nHe was the faithful father\n Of a dependent brood;\nAnd this untoward transport\n His remedy for care, --\nA contrast to our respites.\n How different we are!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Cobwebs.", + "body": "The spider as an artist\n Has never been employed\nThough his surpassing merit\n Is freely certified\n\nBy every broom and Bridget\n Throughout a Christian land.\nNeglected son of genius,\n I take thee by the hand.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Well.", + "body": "What mystery pervades a well!\n The water lives so far,\nLike neighbor from another world\n Residing in a jar.\n\nThe grass does not appear afraid;\n I often wonder he\nCan stand so close and look so bold\n At what is dread to me.\n\nRelated somehow they may be, --\n The sedge stands next the sea,\nWhere he is floorless, yet of fear\n No evidence gives he.\n\nBut nature is a stranger yet;\n The ones that cite her most\nHave never passed her haunted house,\n Nor simplified her ghost.\n\nTo pity those that know her not\n Is helped by the regret\nThat those who know her, know her less\n The nearer her they get.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xv.", + "body": "To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, --\nOne clover, and a bee,\nAnd revery.\nThe revery alone will do\nIf bees are few.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Wind.", + "body": "It's like the light, --\n A fashionless delight\nIt's like the bee, --\n A dateless melody.\n\nIt's like the woods,\n Private like breeze,\nPhraseless, yet it stirs\n The proudest trees.\n\nIt's like the morning, --\n Best when it's done, --\nThe everlasting clocks\n Chime noon.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvii.", + "body": "A dew sufficed itself\n And satisfied a leaf,\nAnd felt, 'how vast a destiny!\n How trivial is life!'\n\nThe sun went out to work,\n The day went out to play,\nBut not again that dew was seen\n By physiognomy.\n\nWhether by day abducted,\n Or emptied by the sun\nInto the sea, in passing,\n Eternally unknown.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Woodpecker.", + "body": "His bill an auger is,\n His head, a cap and frill.\nHe laboreth at every tree, --\n A worm his utmost goal.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "A Snake.", + "body": "Sweet is the swamp with its secrets,\n Until we meet a snake;\n'T is then we sigh for houses,\n And our departure take\nAt that enthralling gallop\n That only childhood knows.\nA snake is summer's treason,\n And guile is where it goes.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xx.", + "body": "Could I but ride indefinite,\n As doth the meadow-bee,\nAnd visit only where I liked,\n And no man visit me,\n\nAnd flirt all day with buttercups,\n And marry whom I may,\nAnd dwell a little everywhere,\n Or better, run away\n\nWith no police to follow,\n Or chase me if I do,\nTill I should jump peninsulas\n To get away from you, --\n\nI said, but just to be a bee\n Upon a raft of air,\nAnd row in nowhere all day long,\n And anchor off the bar,--\nWhat liberty! So captives deem\n Who tight in dungeons are.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Moon.", + "body": "The moon was but a chin of gold\n A night or two ago,\nAnd now she turns her perfect face\n Upon the world below.\n\nHer forehead is of amplest blond;\n Her cheek like beryl stone;\nHer eye unto the summer dew\n The likest I have known.\n\nHer lips of amber never part;\n But what must be the smile\nUpon her friend she could bestow\n Were such her silver will!\n\nAnd what a privilege to be\n But the remotest star!\nFor certainly her way might pass\n Beside your twinkling door.\n\nHer bonnet is the firmament,\n The universe her shoe,\nThe stars the trinkets at her belt,\n Her dimities of blue.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Bat.", + "body": "The bat is dun with wrinkled wings\n Like fallow article,\nAnd not a song pervades his lips,\n Or none perceptible.\n\nHis small umbrella, quaintly halved,\n Describing in the air\nAn arc alike inscrutable, --\n Elate philosopher!\n\nDeputed from what firmament\n Of what astute abode,\nEmpowered with what malevolence\n Auspiciously withheld.\n\nTo his adroit Creator\n Ascribe no less the praise;\nBeneficent, believe me,\n His eccentricities.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Balloon.", + "body": "You've seen balloons set, haven't you?\n So stately they ascend\nIt is as swans discarded you\n For duties diamond.\n\nTheir liquid feet go softly out\n Upon a sea of blond;\nThey spurn the air as 't were too mean\n For creatures so renowned.\n\nTheir ribbons just beyond the eye,\n They struggle some for breath,\nAnd yet the crowd applauds below;\n They would not encore death.\n\nThe gilded creature strains and spins,\n Trips frantic in a tree,\nTears open her imperial veins\n And tumbles in the sea.\n\nThe crowd retire with an oath\n The dust in streets goes down,\nAnd clerks in counting-rooms observe,\n ''T was only a balloon.'", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Evening.", + "body": "The cricket sang,\nAnd set the sun,\nAnd workmen finished, one by one,\n Their seam the day upon.\n\nThe low grass loaded with the dew,\nThe twilight stood as strangers do\nWith hat in hand, polite and new,\n To stay as if, or go.\n\nA vastness, as a neighbor, came, --\nA wisdom without face or name,\nA peace, as hemispheres at home, --\n And so the night became.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Cocoon.", + "body": "Drab habitation of whom?\nTabernacle or tomb,\nOr dome of worm,\nOr porch of gnome,\nOr some elf's catacomb?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Sunset.", + "body": "A sloop of amber slips away\n Upon an ether sea,\nAnd wrecks in peace a purple tar,\n The son of ecstasy.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Aurora.", + "body": "Of bronze and blaze\n The north, to-night!\n So adequate its forms,\nSo preconcerted with itself,\n So distant to alarms, --\nAn unconcern so sovereign\n To universe, or me,\nIt paints my simple spirit\n With tints of majesty,\nTill I take vaster attitudes,\n And strut upon my stem,\nDisdaining men and oxygen,\n For arrogance of them.\n\nMy splendors are menagerie;\n But their competeless show\nWill entertain the centuries\n When I am, long ago,\nAn island in dishonored grass,\n Whom none but daisies know.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Coming Of Night.", + "body": "How the old mountains drip with sunset,\n And the brake of dun!\nHow the hemlocks are tipped in tinsel\n By the wizard sun!\n\nHow the old steeples hand the scarlet,\n Till the ball is full, --\nHave I the lip of the flamingo\n That I dare to tell?\n\nThen, how the fire ebbs like billows,\n Touching all the grass\nWith a departing, sapphire feature,\n As if a duchess pass!\n\nHow a small dusk crawls on the village\n Till the houses blot;\nAnd the odd flambeaux no men carry\n Glimmer on the spot!\n\nNow it is night in nest and kennel,\n And where was the wood,\nJust a dome of abyss is nodding\n Into solitude! --\n\nThese are the visions baffled Guido;\n Titian never told;\nDomenichino dropped the pencil,\n Powerless to unfold.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Aftermath.", + "body": "The murmuring of bees has ceased;\n But murmuring of some\nPosterior, prophetic,\n Has simultaneous come, --\n\nThe lower metres of the year,\n When nature's laugh is done, --\nThe Revelations of the book\n Whose Genesis is June.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iv. Time And Eternity.", + "body": "I.\n\nThis world is not conclusion;\n A sequel stands beyond,\nInvisible, as music,\n But positive, as sound.\nIt beckons and it baffles;\n Philosophies don't know,\nAnd through a riddle, at the last,\n Sagacity must go.\nTo guess it puzzles scholars;\n To gain it, men have shown\nContempt of generations,\n And crucifixion known.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ii.", + "body": "We learn in the retreating\n How vast an one\nWas recently among us.\n A perished sun\n\nEndears in the departure\n How doubly more\nThan all the golden presence\n It was before!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": "They say that 'time assuages,' --\n Time never did assuage;\nAn actual suffering strengthens,\n As sinews do, with age.\n\nTime is a test of trouble,\n But not a remedy.\nIf such it prove, it prove too\n There was no malady.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Iv.", + "body": "We cover thee, sweet face.\n Not that we tire of thee,\nBut that thyself fatigue of us;\n Remember, as thou flee,\nWe follow thee until\n Thou notice us no more,\nAnd then, reluctant, turn away\n To con thee o'er and o'er,\nAnd blame the scanty love\n We were content to show,\nAugmented, sweet, a hundred fold\n If thou would'st take it now.\n\n\n\n\n\nV.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ending.", + "body": "That is solemn we have ended, --\n Be it but a play,\nOr a glee among the garrets,\n Or a holiday,\n\nOr a leaving home; or later,\n Parting with a world\nWe have understood, for better\n Still it be unfurled.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vi.", + "body": "The stimulus, beyond the grave\n His countenance to see,\nSupports me like imperial drams\n Afforded royally.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Vii.", + "body": "Given in marriage unto thee,\n Oh, thou celestial host!\nBride of the Father and the Son,\n Bride of the Holy Ghost!\n\nOther betrothal shall dissolve,\n Wedlock of will decay;\nOnly the keeper of this seal\n Conquers mortality.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Viii.", + "body": "That such have died enables us\n The tranquiller to die;\nThat such have lived, certificate\n For immortality.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Ix.", + "body": "They won't frown always, -- some sweet day\n When I forget to tease,\nThey'll recollect how cold I looked,\n And how I just said 'please.'\n\nThen they will hasten to the door\n To call the little child,\nWho cannot thank them, for the ice\n That on her lisping piled.\n\n\n\n\n\nX.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Immortality.", + "body": "It is an honorable thought,\n And makes one lift one's hat,\nAs one encountered gentlefolk\n Upon a daily street,\n\nThat we've immortal place,\n Though pyramids decay,\nAnd kingdoms, like the orchard,\n Flit russetly away.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xi.", + "body": "The distance that the dead have gone\n Does not at first appear;\nTheir coming back seems possible\n For many an ardent year.\n\nAnd then, that we have followed them\n We more than half suspect,\nSo intimate have we become\n With their dear retrospect.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xii.", + "body": "How dare the robins sing,\n When men and women hear\nWho since they went to their account\n Have settled with the year! --\nPaid all that life had earned\n In one consummate bill,\nAnd now, what life or death can do\n Is immaterial.\nInsulting is the sun\n To him whose mortal light,\nBeguiled of immortality,\n Bequeaths him to the night.\nIn deference to him\n Extinct be every hum,\nWhose garden wrestles with the dew,\n At daybreak overcome!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Death.", + "body": "Death is like the insect\n Menacing the tree,\nCompetent to kill it,\n But decoyed may be.\n\nBait it with the balsam,\n Seek it with the knife,\nBaffle, if it cost you\n Everything in life.\n\nThen, if it have burrowed\n Out of reach of skill,\nRing the tree and leave it, --\n 'T is the vermin's will.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Unwarned.", + "body": "'T is sunrise, little maid, hast thou\n No station in the day?\n'T was not thy wont to hinder so, --\n Retrieve thine industry.\n\n'T is noon, my little maid, alas!\n And art thou sleeping yet?\nThe lily waiting to be wed,\n The bee, dost thou forget?\n\nMy little maid, 't is night; alas,\n That night should be to thee\nInstead of morning! Hadst thou broached\n Thy little plan to me,\nDissuade thee if I could not, sweet,\n I might have aided thee.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xv.", + "body": "Each that we lose takes part of us;\n A crescent still abides,\nWhich like the moon, some turbid night,\n Is summoned by the tides.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xvi.", + "body": "Not any higher stands the grave\n For heroes than for men;\nNot any nearer for the child\n Than numb three-score and ten.\n\nThis latest leisure equal lulls\n The beggar and his queen;\nPropitiate this democrat\n By summer's gracious mien.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Asleep.", + "body": "As far from pity as complaint,\n As cool to speech as stone,\nAs numb to revelation\n As if my trade were bone.\n\nAs far from time as history,\n As near yourself to-day\nAs children to the rainbow's scarf,\n Or sunset's yellow play\n\nTo eyelids in the sepulchre.\n How still the dancer lies,\nWhile color's revelations break,\n And blaze the butterflies!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Spirit.", + "body": "'T is whiter than an Indian pipe,\n 'T is dimmer than a lace;\nNo stature has it, like a fog,\n When you approach the place.\n\nNot any voice denotes it here,\n Or intimates it there;\nA spirit, how doth it accost?\n What customs hath the air?\n\nThis limitless hyperbole\n Each one of us shall be;\n'T is drama, if (hypothesis)\n It be not tragedy!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Monument.", + "body": "She laid her docile crescent down,\n And this mechanic stone\nStill states, to dates that have forgot,\n The news that she is gone.\n\nSo constant to its stolid trust,\n The shaft that never knew,\nIt shames the constancy that fled\n Before its emblem flew.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xx.", + "body": "Bless God, he went as soldiers,\n His musket on his breast;\nGrant, God, he charge the bravest\n Of all the martial blest.\n\nPlease God, might I behold him\n In epauletted white,\nI should not fear the foe then,\n I should not fear the fight.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxi.", + "body": "Immortal is an ample word\n When what we need is by,\nBut when it leaves us for a time,\n 'T is a necessity.\n\nOf heaven above the firmest proof\n We fundamental know,\nExcept for its marauding hand,\n It had been heaven below.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxii.", + "body": "Where every bird is bold to go,\n And bees abashless play,\nThe foreigner before he knocks\n Must thrust the tears away.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxiii.", + "body": "The grave my little cottage is,\n Where, keeping house for thee,\nI make my parlor orderly,\n And lay the marble tea,\n\nFor two divided, briefly,\n A cycle, it may be,\nTill everlasting life unite\n In strong society.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxiv.", + "body": "This was in the white of the year,\n That was in the green,\nDrifts were as difficult then to think\n As daisies now to be seen.\n\nLooking back is best that is left,\n Or if it be before,\nRetrospection is prospect's half,\n Sometimes almost more.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxv.", + "body": "Sweet hours have perished here;\n This is a mighty room;\nWithin its precincts hopes have played, --\n Now shadows in the tomb.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxvi.", + "body": "Me! Come! My dazzled face\nIn such a shining place!\n\nMe! Hear! My foreign ear\nThe sounds of welcome near!\n\nThe saints shall meet\nOur bashful feet.\n\nMy holiday shall be\nThat they remember me;\n\nMy paradise, the fame\nThat they pronounce my name.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Invisible.", + "body": "From us she wandered now a year,\n Her tarrying unknown;\nIf wilderness prevent her feet,\n Or that ethereal zone\n\nNo eye hath seen and lived,\n We ignorant must be.\nWe only know what time of year\n We took the mystery.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxviii.", + "body": "I wish I knew that woman's name,\n So, when she comes this way,\nTo hold my life, and hold my ears,\n For fear I hear her say\n\nShe's 'sorry I am dead,' again,\n Just when the grave and I\nHave sobbed ourselves almost to sleep, --\n Our only lullaby.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Trying To Forget.", + "body": "Bereaved of all, I went abroad,\n No less bereaved to be\nUpon a new peninsula, --\n The grave preceded me,\n\nObtained my lodgings ere myself,\n And when I sought my bed,\nThe grave it was, reposed upon\n The pillow for my head.\n\nI waked, to find it first awake,\n I rose, -- it followed me;\nI tried to drop it in the crowd,\n To lose it in the sea,\n\nIn cups of artificial drowse\n To sleep its shape away, --\nThe grave was finished, but the spade\n Remained in memory.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxx.", + "body": "I felt a funeral in my brain,\n And mourners, to and fro,\nKept treading, treading, till it seemed\n That sense was breaking through.\n\nAnd when they all were seated,\n A service like a drum\nKept beating, beating, till I thought\n My mind was going numb.\n\nAnd then I heard them lift a box,\n And creak across my soul\nWith those same boots of lead, again.\n Then space began to toll\n\nAs all the heavens were a bell,\n And Being but an ear,\nAnd I and silence some strange race,\n Wrecked, solitary, here.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxi.", + "body": "I meant to find her when I came;\n Death had the same design;\nBut the success was his, it seems,\n And the discomfit mine.\n\nI meant to tell her how I longed\n For just this single time;\nBut Death had told her so the first,\n And she had hearkened him.\n\nTo wander now is my abode;\n To rest, -- to rest would be\nA privilege of hurricane\n To memory and me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Waiting.", + "body": "I sing to use the waiting,\n My bonnet but to tie,\nAnd shut the door unto my house;\n No more to do have I,\n\nTill, his best step approaching,\n We journey to the day,\nAnd tell each other how we sang\n To keep the dark away.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxiii.", + "body": "A sickness of this world it most occasions\n When best men die;\nA wishfulness their far condition\n To occupy.\n\nA chief indifference, as foreign\n A world must be\nThemselves forsake contented,\n For Deity.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxiv.", + "body": "Superfluous were the sun\n When excellence is dead;\nHe were superfluous every day,\n For every day is said\n\nThat syllable whose faith\n Just saves it from despair,\nAnd whose 'I'll meet you' hesitates\n If love inquire, 'Where?'\n\nUpon his dateless fame\n Our periods may lie,\nAs stars that drop anonymous\n From an abundant sky.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxv.", + "body": "So proud she was to die\n It made us all ashamed\nThat what we cherished, so unknown\n To her desire seemed.\n\nSo satisfied to go\n Where none of us should be,\nImmediately, that anguish stooped\n Almost to jealousy.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Farewell.", + "body": "Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,\n Then I am ready to go!\nJust a look at the horses --\n Rapid! That will do!\n\nPut me in on the firmest side,\n So I shall never fall;\nFor we must ride to the Judgment,\n And it's partly down hill.\n\nBut never I mind the bridges,\n And never I mind the sea;\nHeld fast in everlasting race\n By my own choice and thee.\n\nGood-by to the life I used to live,\n And the world I used to know;\nAnd kiss the hills for me, just once;\n Now I am ready to go!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxvii.", + "body": "The dying need but little, dear, --\n A glass of water's all,\nA flower's unobtrusive face\n To punctuate the wall,\n\nA fan, perhaps, a friend's regret,\n And certainly that one\nNo color in the rainbow\n Perceives when you are gone.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Dead.", + "body": "There's something quieter than sleep\n Within this inner room!\nIt wears a sprig upon its breast,\n And will not tell its name.\n\nSome touch it and some kiss it,\n Some chafe its idle hand;\nIt has a simple gravity\n I do not understand!\n\nWhile simple-hearted neighbors\n Chat of the 'early dead,'\nWe, prone to periphrasis,\n Remark that birds have fled!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xxxix.", + "body": "The soul should always stand ajar,\n That if the heaven inquire,\nHe will not be obliged to wait,\n Or shy of troubling her.\n\nDepart, before the host has slid\n The bolt upon the door,\nTo seek for the accomplished guest, --\n Her visitor no more.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xl.", + "body": "Three weeks passed since I had seen her, --\n Some disease had vexed;\n'T was with text and village singing\n I beheld her next,\n\nAnd a company -- our pleasure\n To discourse alone;\nGracious now to me as any,\n Gracious unto none.\n\nBorne, without dissent of either,\n To the parish night;\nOf the separated people\n Which are out of sight?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xli.", + "body": "I breathed enough to learn the trick,\n And now, removed from air,\nI simulate the breath so well,\n That one, to be quite sure\n\nThe lungs are stirless, must descend\n Among the cunning cells,\nAnd touch the pantomime himself.\n How cool the bellows feels!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlii.", + "body": "I wonder if the sepulchre\n Is not a lonesome way,\nWhen men and boys, and larks and June\n Go down the fields to hay!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Joy In Death.", + "body": "If tolling bell I ask the cause.\n 'A soul has gone to God,'\nI'm answered in a lonesome tone;\n Is heaven then so sad?\n\nThat bells should joyful ring to tell\n A soul had gone to heaven,\nWould seem to me the proper way\n A good news should be given.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xliv.", + "body": "If I may have it when it's dead\n I will contented be;\nIf just as soon as breath is out\n It shall belong to me,\n\nUntil they lock it in the grave,\n 'T is bliss I cannot weigh,\nFor though they lock thee in the grave,\n Myself can hold the key.\n\nThink of it, lover! I and thee\n Permitted face to face to be;\nAfter a life, a death we'll say, --\n For death was that, and this is thee.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlv.", + "body": "Before the ice is in the pools,\n Before the skaters go,\nOr any cheek at nightfall\n Is tarnished by the snow,\n\nBefore the fields have finished,\n Before the Christmas tree,\nWonder upon wonder\n Will arrive to me!\n\nWhat we touch the hems of\n On a summer's day;\nWhat is only walking\n Just a bridge away;\n\nThat which sings so, speaks so,\n When there's no one here, --\nWill the frock I wept in\n Answer me to wear?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Dying.", + "body": "I heard a fly buzz when I died;\n The stillness round my form\nWas like the stillness in the air\n Between the heaves of storm.\n\nThe eyes beside had wrung them dry,\n And breaths were gathering sure\nFor that last onset, when the king\n Be witnessed in his power.\n\nI willed my keepsakes, signed away\n What portion of me I\nCould make assignable, -- and then\n There interposed a fly,\n\nWith blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,\n Between the light and me;\nAnd then the windows failed, and then\n I could not see to see.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlvii.", + "body": "Adrift! A little boat adrift!\n And night is coming down!\nWill no one guide a little boat\n Unto the nearest town?\n\nSo sailors say, on yesterday,\n Just as the dusk was brown,\nOne little boat gave up its strife,\n And gurgled down and down.\n\nBut angels say, on yesterday,\n Just as the dawn was red,\nOne little boat o'erspent with gales\nRetrimmed its masts, redecked its sails\n Exultant, onward sped!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlviii.", + "body": "There's been a death in the opposite house\n As lately as to-day.\nI know it by the numb look\n Such houses have alway.\n\nThe neighbors rustle in and out,\n The doctor drives away.\nA window opens like a pod,\n Abrupt, mechanically;\n\nSomebody flings a mattress out, --\n The children hurry by;\nThey wonder if It died on that, --\n I used to when a boy.\n\nThe minister goes stiffly in\n As if the house were his,\nAnd he owned all the mourners now,\n And little boys besides;\n\nAnd then the milliner, and the man\n Of the appalling trade,\nTo take the measure of the house.\n There'll be that dark parade\n\nOf tassels and of coaches soon;\n It's easy as a sign, --\nThe intuition of the news\n In just a country town.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Xlix.", + "body": "We never know we go, -- when we are going\n We jest and shut the door;\nFate following behind us bolts it,\n And we accost no more.\n\n\n\n\nL.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "The Soul'S Storm.", + "body": "It struck me every day\n The lightning was as new\nAs if the cloud that instant slit\n And let the fire through.\n\nIt burned me in the night,\n It blistered in my dream;\nIt sickened fresh upon my sight\n With every morning's beam.\n\nI thought that storm was brief, --\n The maddest, quickest by;\nBut Nature lost the date of this,\n And left it in the sky.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Li.", + "body": "Water is taught by thirst;\nLand, by the oceans passed;\n Transport, by throe;\nPeace, by its battles told;\nLove, by memorial mould;\n Birds, by the snow.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Thirst.", + "body": "We thirst at first, -- 't is Nature's act;\n And later, when we die,\nA little water supplicate\n Of fingers going by.\n\nIt intimates the finer want,\n Whose adequate supply\nIs that great water in the west\n Termed immortality.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Liii.", + "body": "A clock stopped -- not the mantel's;\n Geneva's farthest skill\nCan't put the puppet bowing\n That just now dangled still.\n\nAn awe came on the trinket!\n The figures hunched with pain,\nThen quivered out of decimals\n Into degreeless noon.\n\nIt will not stir for doctors,\n This pendulum of snow;\nThe shopman importunes it,\n While cool, concernless No\n\nNods from the gilded pointers,\n Nods from the seconds slim,\nDecades of arrogance between\n The dial life and him.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Charlotte Brontë'S Grave.", + "body": "All overgrown by cunning moss,\n All interspersed with weed,\nThe little cage of 'Currer Bell,'\n In quiet Haworth laid.\n\nThis bird, observing others,\n When frosts too sharp became,\nRetire to other latitudes,\n Quietly did the same,\n\nBut differed in returning;\n Since Yorkshire hills are green,\nYet not in all the nests I meet\n Can nightingale be seen.\n\nGathered from many wanderings,\n Gethsemane can tell\nThrough what transporting anguish\n She reached the asphodel!\n\nSoft fall the sounds of Eden\n Upon her puzzled ear;\nOh, what an afternoon for heaven,\n When 'Brontë' entered there!", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Lv.", + "body": "A toad can die of light!\nDeath is the common right\n Of toads and men, --\nOf earl and midge\nThe privilege.\n Why swagger then?\nThe gnat's supremacy\nIs large as thine.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Lvi.", + "body": "Far from love the Heavenly Father\n Leads the chosen child;\nOftener through realm of briar\n Than the meadow mild,\n\nOftener by the claw of dragon\n Than the hand of friend,\nGuides the little one predestined\n To the native land.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Sleeping.", + "body": "A long, long sleep, a famous sleep\n That makes no show for dawn\nBy stretch of limb or stir of lid, --\n An independent one.\n\nWas ever idleness like this?\n Within a hut of stone\nTo bask the centuries away\n Nor once look up for noon?", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Retrospect.", + "body": "'T was just this time last year I died.\n I know I heard the corn,\nWhen I was carried by the farms, --\n It had the tassels on.\n\nI thought how yellow it would look\n When Richard went to mill;\nAnd then I wanted to get out,\n But something held my will.\n\nI thought just how red apples wedged\n The stubble's joints between;\nAnd carts went stooping round the fields\n To take the pumpkins in.\n\nI wondered which would miss me least,\n And when Thanksgiving came,\nIf father'd multiply the plates\n To make an even sum.\n\nAnd if my stocking hung too high,\n Would it blur the Christmas glee,\nThat not a Santa Claus could reach\n The altitude of me?\n\nBut this sort grieved myself, and so\n I thought how it would be\nWhen just this time, some perfect year,\n Themselves should come to me.", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + }, + { + "title": "Eternity.", + "body": "On this wondrous sea,\nSailing silently,\n Ho! pilot, ho!\nKnowest thou the shore\nWhere no breakers roar,\n Where the storm is o'er?\n\nIn the silent west\nMany sails at rest,\n Their anchors fast;\nThither I pilot thee, --\nLand, ho! Eternity!\n Ashore at last!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of Project Gutenberg's Poems: Three Series, Complete, by Emily Dickinson", + "author": "Emily Dickinson", + "source": "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series", + "period": "1890–1896" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/eliot_waste_land.json b/poetry/eliot_waste_land.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9135598 --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/eliot_waste_land.json @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +[ + { + "title": "The Waste Land: The Burial Of The Dead", + "body": " April is the cruellest month, breeding\n Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing\n Memory and desire, stirring\n Dull roots with spring rain.\n Winter kept us warm, covering\n Earth in forgetful snow, feeding\n A little life with dried tubers.\n Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee\n With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,\n And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,\n And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.\n Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.\n And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,\n My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,\n And I was frightened. He said, Marie,\n Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.\n In the mountains, there you feel free.\n I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.\n\n What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow\n Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,\n You cannot say, or guess, for you know only\n A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,\n And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,\n And the dry stone no sound of water. Only\n There is shadow under this red rock,\n (Come in under the shadow of this red rock),\n And I will show you something different from either\n Your shadow at morning striding behind you\n Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;\n I will show you fear in a handful of dust.\n _Frisch weht der Wind\n Der Heimat zu\n Mein Irisch Kind,\n Wo weilest du?_\n “You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;\n “They called me the hyacinth girl.”\n —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,\n Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not\n Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither\n Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,\n Looking into the heart of light, the silence.\n _Oed’ und leer das Meer_.\n\n Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,\n Had a bad cold, nevertheless\n Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,\n With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,\n Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,\n (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)\n Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,\n The lady of situations.\n Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,\n And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,\n Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,\n Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find\n The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.\n I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.\n Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,\n Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:\n One must be so careful these days.\n\n Unreal City,\n Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,\n A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,\n I had not thought death had undone so many.\n Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,\n And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.\n Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,\n To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours\n With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.\n There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!\n “You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!\n “That corpse you planted last year in your garden,\n “Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?\n “Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?\n “Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,\n “Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!\n “You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”", + "author": "T.S. Eliot", + "source": "The Waste Land", + "period": "1922" + }, + { + "title": "The Waste Land: A Game Of Chess", + "body": " The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,\n Glowed on the marble, where the glass\n Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines\n From which a golden Cupidon peeped out\n (Another hid his eyes behind his wing)\n Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra\n Reflecting light upon the table as\n The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,\n From satin cases poured in rich profusion.\n In vials of ivory and coloured glass\n Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,\n Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused\n And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air\n That freshened from the window, these ascended\n In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,\n Flung their smoke into the laquearia,\n Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.\n Huge sea-wood fed with copper\n Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,\n In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.\n Above the antique mantel was displayed\n As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene\n The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king\n So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale\n Filled all the desert with inviolable voice\n And still she cried, and still the world pursues,\n “Jug Jug” to dirty ears.\n And other withered stumps of time\n Were told upon the walls; staring forms\n Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.\n Footsteps shuffled on the stair.\n Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair\n Spread out in fiery points\n Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.\n\n “My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.\n “Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.\n “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?\n “I never know what you are thinking. Think.”\n\n I think we are in rats’ alley\n Where the dead men lost their bones.\n\n “What is that noise?”\n The wind under the door.\n “What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”\n Nothing again nothing.\n “Do\n “You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember\n “Nothing?”\n\n I remember\n Those are pearls that were his eyes.\n “Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”\n But\n O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—\n It’s so elegant\n So intelligent\n “What shall I do now? What shall I do?”\n I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street\n “With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?\n “What shall we ever do?”\n The hot water at ten.\n And if it rains, a closed car at four.\n And we shall play a game of chess,\n Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.\n\n When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—\n I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,\n HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME\n Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.\n He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you\n To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.\n You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,\n He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.\n And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,\n He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,\n And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.\n Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.\n Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.\n HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME\n If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.\n Others can pick and choose if you can’t.\n But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.\n You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.\n (And her only thirty-one.)\n I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,\n It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.\n (She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)\n The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same.\n You _are_ a proper fool, I said.\n Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,\n What you get married for if you don’t want children?\n HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME\n Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,\n And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—\n HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME\n HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME\n Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.\n Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.\n Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.", + "author": "T.S. Eliot", + "source": "The Waste Land", + "period": "1922" + }, + { + "title": "The Waste Land: The Fire Sermon", + "body": " The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf\n Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind\n Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.\n Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.\n The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,\n Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends\n Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.\n And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;\n Departed, have left no addresses.\n By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .\n Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,\n Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.\n But at my back in a cold blast I hear\n The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.\n A rat crept softly through the vegetation\n Dragging its slimy belly on the bank\n While I was fishing in the dull canal\n On a winter evening round behind the gashouse\n Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck\n And on the king my father’s death before him.\n White bodies naked on the low damp ground\n And bones cast in a little low dry garret,\n Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.\n But at my back from time to time I hear\n The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring\n Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.\n O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter\n And on her daughter\n They wash their feet in soda water\n _Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!_\n\n Twit twit twit\n Jug jug jug jug jug jug\n So rudely forc’d.\n Tereu\n\n Unreal City\n Under the brown fog of a winter noon\n Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant\n Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants\n C.i.f. London: documents at sight,\n Asked me in demotic French\n To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel\n Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.\n\n At the violet hour, when the eyes and back\n Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits\n Like a taxi throbbing waiting,\n I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,\n Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see\n At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives\n Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,\n The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights\n Her stove, and lays out food in tins.\n Out of the window perilously spread\n Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,\n On the divan are piled (at night her bed)\n Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.\n I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs\n Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—\n I too awaited the expected guest.\n He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,\n A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,\n One of the low on whom assurance sits\n As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.\n The time is now propitious, as he guesses,\n The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,\n Endeavours to engage her in caresses\n Which still are unreproved, if undesired.\n Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;\n Exploring hands encounter no defence;\n His vanity requires no response,\n And makes a welcome of indifference.\n (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all\n Enacted on this same divan or bed;\n I who have sat by Thebes below the wall\n And walked among the lowest of the dead.)\n Bestows one final patronising kiss,\n And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .\n\n She turns and looks a moment in the glass,\n Hardly aware of her departed lover;\n Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:\n “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”\n When lovely woman stoops to folly and\n Paces about her room again, alone,\n She smooths her hair with automatic hand,\n And puts a record on the gramophone.\n\n “This music crept by me upon the waters”\n And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.\n O City city, I can sometimes hear\n Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,\n The pleasant whining of a mandoline\n And a clatter and a chatter from within\n Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls\n Of Magnus Martyr hold\n Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.\n\n The river sweats\n Oil and tar\n The barges drift\n With the turning tide\n Red sails\n Wide\n To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.\n The barges wash\n Drifting logs\n Down Greenwich reach\n Past the Isle of Dogs.\n Weialala leia\n Wallala leialala\n Elizabeth and Leicester\n Beating oars\n The stern was formed\n A gilded shell\n Red and gold\n The brisk swell\n Rippled both shores\n Southwest wind\n Carried down stream\n The peal of bells\n White towers\n Weialala leia\n Wallala leialala\n\n “Trams and dusty trees.\n Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew\n Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees\n Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”\n\n “My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart\n Under my feet. After the event\n He wept. He promised ‘a new start’.\n I made no comment. What should I resent?”\n “On Margate Sands.\n I can connect\n Nothing with nothing.\n The broken fingernails of dirty hands.\n My people humble people who expect\n Nothing.”\n la la\n\n To Carthage then I came\n\n Burning burning burning burning\n O Lord Thou pluckest me out\n O Lord Thou pluckest\n\n burning", + "author": "T.S. Eliot", + "source": "The Waste Land", + "period": "1922" + }, + { + "title": "The Waste Land: Death By Water", + "body": " Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,\n Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell\n And the profit and loss.\n A current under sea\n Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell\n He passed the stages of his age and youth\n Entering the whirlpool.\n Gentile or Jew\n O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,\n Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.", + "author": "T.S. Eliot", + "source": "The Waste Land", + "period": "1922" + }, + { + "title": "The Waste Land: What The Thunder Said", + "body": " After the torchlight red on sweaty faces\n After the frosty silence in the gardens\n After the agony in stony places\n The shouting and the crying\n Prison and palace and reverberation\n Of thunder of spring over distant mountains\n He who was living is now dead\n We who were living are now dying\n With a little patience\n\n Here is no water but only rock\n Rock and no water and the sandy road\n The road winding above among the mountains\n Which are mountains of rock without water\n If there were water we should stop and drink\n Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think\n Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand\n If there were only water amongst the rock\n Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit\n Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit\n There is not even silence in the mountains\n But dry sterile thunder without rain\n There is not even solitude in the mountains\n But red sullen faces sneer and snarl\n From doors of mudcracked houses\n If there were water\n And no rock\n If there were rock\n And also water\n And water\n A spring\n A pool among the rock\n If there were the sound of water only\n Not the cicada\n And dry grass singing\n But sound of water over a rock\n Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees\n Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop\n But there is no water\n\n Who is the third who walks always beside you?\n When I count, there are only you and I together\n But when I look ahead up the white road\n There is always another one walking beside you\n Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded\n I do not know whether a man or a woman\n —But who is that on the other side of you?\n\n What is that sound high in the air\n Murmur of maternal lamentation\n Who are those hooded hordes swarming\n Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth\n Ringed by the flat horizon only\n What is the city over the mountains\n Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air\n Falling towers\n Jerusalem Athens Alexandria\n Vienna London\n Unreal\n\n A woman drew her long black hair out tight\n And fiddled whisper music on those strings\n And bats with baby faces in the violet light\n Whistled, and beat their wings\n And crawled head downward down a blackened wall\n And upside down in air were towers\n Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours\n And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.\n\n In this decayed hole among the mountains\n In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing\n Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel\n There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.\n It has no windows, and the door swings,\n Dry bones can harm no one.\n Only a cock stood on the rooftree\n Co co rico co co rico\n In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust\n Bringing rain\n\n Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves\n Waited for rain, while the black clouds\n Gathered far distant, over Himavant.\n The jungle crouched, humped in silence.\n Then spoke the thunder\n DA\n _Datta:_ what have we given?\n My friend, blood shaking my heart\n The awful daring of a moment’s surrender\n Which an age of prudence can never retract\n By this, and this only, we have existed\n Which is not to be found in our obituaries\n Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider\n Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor\n In our empty rooms\n DA\n _Dayadhvam:_ I have heard the key\n Turn in the door once and turn once only\n We think of the key, each in his prison\n Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison\n Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours\n Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus\n DA\n _Damyata:_ The boat responded\n Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar\n The sea was calm, your heart would have responded\n Gaily, when invited, beating obedient\n To controlling hands\n\n I sat upon the shore\n Fishing, with the arid plain behind me\n Shall I at least set my lands in order?\n London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down\n _Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina\n Quando fiam ceu chelidon_ — O swallow swallow\n _Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie_\n These fragments I have shored against my ruins\n Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.\n Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.\n Shantih shantih shantih\n\n Line 415 aetherial] aethereal\n Line 428 ceu] uti— Editor", + "author": "T.S. Eliot", + "source": "The Waste Land", + "period": "1922" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/frost_mountain_interval.json b/poetry/frost_mountain_interval.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aae26ae --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/frost_mountain_interval.json @@ -0,0 +1,247 @@ +[ + { + "title": "The Road Not Taken", + "body": " _Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,\n And sorry I could not travel both\n And be one traveler, long I stood\n And looked down one as far as I could\n To where it bent in the undergrowth;_\n\n _Then took the other, as just as fair,\n And having perhaps the better claim,\n Because it was grassy and wanted wear;\n Though as for that the passing there\n Had worn them really about the same,_\n\n _And both that morning equally lay\n In leaves no step had trodden black.\n Oh, I kept the first for another day!\n Yet knowing how way leads on to way,\n I doubted if I should ever come back._\n\n _I shall be telling this with a sigh\n Somewhere ages and ages hence:\n Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--\n I took the one less traveled by,\n And that has made all the difference._", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Christmas Trees", + "body": "(_A Christmas Circular Letter_)\n\n\n The city had withdrawn into itself\n And left at last the country to the country;\n When between whirls of snow not come to lie\n And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove\n A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,\n Yet did in country fashion in that there\n He sat and waited till he drew us out\n A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.\n He proved to be the city come again\n To look for something it had left behind\n And could not do without and keep its Christmas.\n He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;\n My woods--the young fir balsams like a place\n Where houses all are churches and have spires.\n I hadn't thought of them as Christmas Trees.\n I doubt if I was tempted for a moment\n To sell them off their feet to go in cars\n And leave the slope behind the house all bare,\n Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.\n I'd hate to have them know it if I was.\n Yet more I'd hate to hold my trees except\n As others hold theirs or refuse for them,\n Beyond the time of profitable growth,\n The trial by market everything must come to.\n I dallied so much with the thought of selling.\n Then whether from mistaken courtesy\n And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether\n From hope of hearing good of what was mine,\n I said, \"There aren't enough to be worth while.\"\n \"I could soon tell how many they would cut,\n You let me look them over.\"\n\n \"You could look.\n But don't expect I'm going to let you have them.\"\n Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close\n That lop each other of boughs, but not a few\n Quite solitary and having equal boughs\n All round and round. The latter he nodded \"Yes\" to,\n Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,\n With a buyer's moderation, \"That would do.\"\n I thought so too, but wasn't there to say so.\n We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,\n And came down on the north.\n\n He said, \"A thousand.\"\n\n \"A thousand Christmas trees!--at what apiece?\"\n\n He felt some need of softening that to me:\n \"A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.\"\n\n Then I was certain I had never meant\n To let him have them. Never show surprise!\n But thirty dollars seemed so small beside\n The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents\n (For that was all they figured out apiece),\n Three cents so small beside the dollar friends\n I should be writing to within the hour\n Would pay in cities for good trees like those,\n Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools\n Could hang enough on to pick off enough.\n A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had!\n Worth three cents more to give away than sell,\n As may be shown by a simple calculation.\n Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter.\n I can't help wishing I could send you one,\n In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "An Old Man'S Winter Night", + "body": " All out of doors looked darkly in at him\n Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,\n That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.\n What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze\n Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.\n What kept him from remembering what it was\n That brought him to that creaking room was age.\n He stood with barrels round him--at a loss.\n And having scared the cellar under him\n In clomping there, he scared it once again\n In clomping off;--and scared the outer night,\n Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar\n Of trees and crack of branches, common things,\n But nothing so like beating on a box.\n A light he was to no one but himself\n Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,\n A quiet light, and then not even that.\n He consigned to the moon, such as she was,\n So late-arising, to the broken moon\n As better than the sun in any case\n For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,\n His icicles along the wall to keep;\n And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt\n Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,\n And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.\n One aged man--one man--can't fill a house,\n A farm, a countryside, or if he can,\n It's thus he does it of a winter night.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "A Patch Of Old Snow", + "body": " There's a patch of old snow in a corner\n That I should have guessed\n Was a blow-away paper the rain\n Had brought to rest.\n\n It is speckled with grime as if\n Small print overspread it,\n The news of a day I've forgotten--\n If I ever read it.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "In The Home Stretch", + "body": " She stood against the kitchen sink, and looked\n Over the sink out through a dusty window\n At weeds the water from the sink made tall.\n She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.\n Behind her was confusion in the room,\n Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people\n In other chairs, and something, come to look,\n For every room a house has--parlor, bed-room,\n And dining-room--thrown pell-mell in the kitchen.\n And now and then a smudged, infernal face\n Looked in a door behind her and addressed\n Her back. She always answered without turning.\n\n \"Where will I put this walnut bureau, lady?\"\n \"Put it on top of something that's on top\n Of something else,\" she laughed. \"Oh, put it where\n You can to-night, and go. It's almost dark;\n You must be getting started back to town.\"\n Another blackened face thrust in and looked\n And smiled, and when she did not turn, spoke gently,\n \"What are you seeing out the window, _lady_?\"\n\n \"Never was I beladied so before.\n Would evidence of having been called lady\n More than so many times make me a lady\n In common law, I wonder.\"\n\n \"But I ask,\n What are you seeing out the window, lady?\"\n\n \"What I'll be seeing more of in the years\n To come as here I stand and go the round\n Of many plates with towels many times.\"\n\n \"And what is that? You only put me off.\"\n\n \"Rank weeds that love the water from the dish-pan\n More than some women like the dish-pan, Joe;\n A little stretch of mowing-field for you;\n Not much of that until I come to woods\n That end all. And it's scarce enough to call\n A view.\"\n\n \"And yet you think you like it, dear?\"\n\n \"That's what you're so concerned to know! You hope\n I like it. Bang goes something big away\n Off there upstairs. The very tread of men\n As great as those is shattering to the frame\n Of such a little house. Once left alone,\n You and I, dear, will go with softer steps\n Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and none\n But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands\n Will ever slam the doors.\"\n\n \"I think you see\n More than you like to own to out that window.\"\n\n \"No; for besides the things I tell you of,\n I only see the years. They come and go\n In alternation with the weeds, the field,\n The wood.\"\n\n \"What kind of years?\"\n \"Why, latter years--\n Different from early years.\"\n \"I see them, too.\n You didn't count them?\"\n \"No, the further off\n So ran together that I didn't try to.\n It can scarce be that they would be in number\n We'd care to know, for we are not young now.\n And bang goes something else away off there.\n It sounds as if it were the men went down,\n And every crash meant one less to return\n To lighted city streets we, too, have known,\n But now are giving up for country darkness.\"\n\n \"Come from that window where you see too much for me,\n And take a livelier view of things from here.\n They're going. Watch this husky swarming up\n Over the wheel into the sky-high seat,\n Lighting his pipe now, squinting down his nose\n At the flame burning downward as he sucks it.\"\n\n \"See how it makes his nose-side bright, a proof\n How dark it's getting. Can you tell what time\n It is by that? Or by the moon? The new moon!\n What shoulder did I see her over? Neither.\n A wire she is of silver, as new as we\n To everything. Her light won't last us long.\n It's something, though, to know we're going to have her\n Night after night and stronger every night\n To see us through our first two weeks. But, Joe,\n The stove! Before they go! Knock on the window;\n Ask them to help you get it on its feet.\n We stand here dreaming. Hurry! Call them back!\"\n\n \"They're not gone yet.\"\n\n \"We've got to have the stove,\n Whatever else we want for. And a light.\n Have we a piece of candle if the lamp\n And oil are buried out of reach?\"\n Again\n The house was full of tramping, and the dark,\n Door-filling men burst in and seized the stove.\n A cannon-mouth-like hole was in the wall,\n To which they set it true by eye; and then\n Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands,\n So much too light and airy for their strength\n It almost seemed to come ballooning up,\n Slipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling.\n \"A fit!\" said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder.\n \"It's good luck when you move in to begin\n With good luck with your stovepipe. Never mind,\n It's not so bad in the country, settled down,\n When people're getting on in life. You'll like it.\"\n Joe said: \"You big boys ought to find a farm,\n And make good farmers, and leave other fellows\n The city work to do. There's not enough\n For everybody as it is in there.\"\n \"God!\" one said wildly, and, when no one spoke:\n \"Say that to Jimmy here. He needs a farm.\"\n But Jimmy only made his jaw recede\n Fool-like, and rolled his eyes as if to say\n He saw himself a farmer. Then there was a French boy\n Who said with seriousness that made them laugh,\n \"Ma friend, you ain't know what it is you're ask.\"\n He doffed his cap and held it with both hands\n Across his chest to make as 'twere a bow:\n \"We're giving you our chances on de farm.\"\n And then they all turned to with deafening boots\n And put each other bodily out of the house.\n \"Goodby to them! We puzzle them. They think--\n I don't know what they think we see in what\n They leave us to: that pasture slope that seems\n The back some farm presents us; and your woods\n To northward from your window at the sink,\n Waiting to steal a step on us whenever\n We drop our eyes or turn to other things,\n As in the game 'Ten-step' the children play.\"\n\n \"Good boys they seemed, and let them love the city.\n All they could say was 'God!' when you proposed\n Their coming out and making useful farmers.\"\n\n \"Did they make something lonesome go through you?\n It would take more than them to sicken you--\n Us of our bargain. But they left us so\n As to our fate, like fools past reasoning with.\n They almost shook _me_.\"\n\n \"It's all so much\n What we have always wanted, I confess\n It's seeming bad for a moment makes it seem\n Even worse still, and so on down, down, down.\n It's nothing; it's their leaving us at dusk.\n I never bore it well when people went.\n The first night after guests have gone, the house\n Seems haunted or exposed. I always take\n A personal interest in the locking up\n At bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off.\"\n He fetched a dingy lantern from behind\n A door. \"There's that we didn't lose! And these!\"--\n Some matches he unpocketed. \"For food--\n The meals we've had no one can take from us.\n I wish that everything on earth were just\n As certain as the meals we've had. I wish\n The meals we haven't had were, anyway.\n What have you you know where to lay your hands on?\"\n\n \"The bread we bought in passing at the store.\n There's butter somewhere, too.\"\n\n \"Let's rend the bread.\n I'll light the fire for company for you;\n You'll not have any other company\n Till Ed begins to get out on a Sunday\n To look us over and give us his idea\n Of what wants pruning, shingling, breaking up.\n He'll know what he would do if he were we,\n And all at once. He'll plan for us and plan\n To help us, but he'll take it out in planning.\n Well, you can set the table with the loaf.\n Let's see you find your loaf. I'll light the fire.\n I like chairs occupying other chairs\n Not offering a lady--\"\n\n \"There again, Joe!\n _You're tired._\"\n\n \"I'm drunk-nonsensical tired out;\n Don't mind a word I say. It's a day's work\n To empty one house of all household goods\n And fill another with 'em fifteen miles away,\n Although you do no more than dump them down.\"\n\n \"Dumped down in paradise we are and happy.\"\n\n \"It's all so much what I have always wanted,\n I can't believe it's what you wanted, too.\"\n\n \"Shouldn't you like to know?\"\n\n \"I'd like to know\n If it is what you wanted, then how much\n You wanted it for me.\"\n\n \"A troubled conscience!\n You don't want me to tell if _I_ don't know.\"\n\n \"I don't want to find out what can't be known.\n\n But who first said the word to come?\"\n\n \"My dear,\n It's who first thought the thought. You're searching, Joe,\n For things that don't exist; I mean beginnings.\n Ends and beginnings--there are no such things.\n There are only middles.\"\n\n \"What is this?\"\n \"This life?\n Our sitting here by lantern-light together\n Amid the wreckage of a former home?\n You won't deny the lantern isn't new.\n The stove is not, and you are not to me,\n Nor I to you.\"\n\n \"Perhaps you never were?\"\n\n \"It would take me forever to recite\n All that's not new in where we find ourselves.\n New is a word for fools in towns who think\n Style upon style in dress and thought at last\n Must get somewhere. I've heard you say as much.\n No, this is no beginning.\"\n\n \"Then an end?\"\n \"End is a gloomy word.\"\n\n \"Is it too late\n To drag you out for just a good-night call\n On the old peach trees on the knoll to grope\n By starlight in the grass for a last peach\n The neighbors may not have taken as their right\n When the house wasn't lived in? I've been looking:\n I doubt if they have left us many grapes.\n Before we set ourselves to right the house,\n The first thing in the morning, out we go\n To go the round of apple, cherry, peach,\n Pine, alder, pasture, mowing, well, and brook.\n All of a farm it is.\"\n\n \"I know this much:\n I'm going to put you in your bed, if first\n I have to make you build it. Come, the light.\"\n\n When there was no more lantern in the kitchen,\n The fire got out through crannies in the stove\n And danced in yellow wrigglers on the ceiling,\n As much at home as if they'd always danced there.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Telephone", + "body": " \"When I was just as far as I could walk\n From here to-day,\n There was an hour\n All still\n When leaning with my head against a flower\n I heard you talk.\n Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say--\n You spoke from that flower on the window sill--\n Do you remember what it was you said?\"\n\n \"First tell me what it was you thought you heard.\"\n\n \"Having found the flower and driven a bee away,\n I leaned my head,\n And holding by the stalk,\n I listened and I thought I caught the word--\n What was it? Did you call me by my name?\n Or did you say--\n _Someone_ said 'Come'--I heard it as I bowed.\"\n\n \"I may have thought as much, but not aloud.\"\n\n \"Well, so I came.\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Meeting And Passing", + "body": " As I went down the hill along the wall\n There was a gate I had leaned at for the view\n And had just turned from when I first saw you\n As you came up the hill. We met. But all\n We did that day was mingle great and small\n Footprints in summer dust as if we drew\n The figure of our being less than two\n But more than one as yet. Your parasol\n\n Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.\n And all the time we talked you seemed to see\n Something down there to smile at in the dust.\n (Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)\n Afterward I went past what you had passed\n Before we met and you what I had passed.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Hyla Brook", + "body": " By June our brook's run out of song and speed.\n Sought for much after that, it will be found\n Either to have gone groping underground\n (And taken with it all the Hyla breed\n That shouted in the mist a month ago,\n Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)--\n Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,\n Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent\n Even against the way its waters went.\n Its bed is left a faded paper sheet\n Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat--\n A brook to none but who remember long.\n This as it will be seen is other far\n Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.\n We love the things we love for what they are.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Oven Bird", + "body": " There is a singer everyone has heard,\n Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,\n Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.\n He says that leaves are old and that for flowers\n Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.\n He says the early petal-fall is past\n When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers\n On sunny days a moment overcast;\n And comes that other fall we name the fall.\n He says the highway dust is over all.\n The bird would cease and be as other birds\n But that he knows in singing not to sing.\n The question that he frames in all but words\n Is what to make of a diminished thing.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Bond And Free", + "body": " Love has earth to which she clings\n With hills and circling arms about--\n Wall within wall to shut fear out.\n But Thought has need of no such things,\n For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.\n\n On snow and sand and turf, I see\n Where Love has left a printed trace\n With straining in the world's embrace.\n And such is Love and glad to be.\n But Thought has shaken his ankles free.\n\n Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom\n And sits in Sirius' disc all night,\n Till day makes him retrace his flight,\n With smell of burning on every plume,\n Back past the sun to an earthly room.\n\n His gains in heaven are what they are.\n Yet some say Love by being thrall\n And simply staying possesses all\n In several beauty that Thought fares far\n To find fused in another star.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Birches", + "body": " When I see birches bend to left and right\n Across the lines of straighter darker trees,\n I like to think some boy's been swinging them.\n But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.\n Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them\n Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning\n After a rain. They click upon themselves\n As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored\n As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.\n Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells\n Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--\n Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away\n You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.\n They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,\n And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed\n So low for long, they never right themselves:\n You may see their trunks arching in the woods\n Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground\n Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair\n Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.\n But I was going to say when Truth broke in\n With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm\n (Now am I free to be poetical?)\n I should prefer to have some boy bend them\n As he went out and in to fetch the cows--\n Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,\n Whose only play was what he found himself,\n Summer or winter, and could play alone.\n One by one he subdued his father's trees\n By riding them down over and over again\n Until he took the stiffness out of them,\n And not one but hung limp, not one was left\n For him to conquer. He learned all there was\n To learn about not launching out too soon\n And so not carrying the tree away\n Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise\n To the top branches, climbing carefully\n With the same pains you use to fill a cup\n Up to the brim, and even above the brim.\n Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,\n Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.\n So was I once myself a swinger of birches.\n And so I dream of going back to be.\n It's when I'm weary of considerations,\n And life is too much like a pathless wood\n Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs\n Broken across it, and one eye is weeping\n From a twig's having lashed across it open.\n I'd like to get away from earth awhile\n And then come back to it and begin over.\n May no fate willfully misunderstand me\n And half grant what I wish and snatch me away\n Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:\n I don't know where it's likely to go better.\n I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,\n And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk\n _Toward_ heaven, till the tree could bear no more,\n But dipped its top and set me down again.\n That would be good both going and coming back.\n One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Pea Brush", + "body": " I walked down alone Sunday after church\n To the place where John has been cutting trees\n To see for myself about the birch\n He said I could have to bush my peas.\n\n The sun in the new-cut narrow gap\n Was hot enough for the first of May,\n And stifling hot with the odor of sap\n From stumps still bleeding their life away.\n\n The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill\n Wherever the ground was low and wet,\n The minute they heard my step went still\n To watch me and see what I came to get.\n\n Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!--\n All fresh and sound from the recent axe.\n Time someone came with cart and pair\n And got them off the wild flower's backs.\n\n They might be good for garden things\n To curl a little finger round,\n The same as you seize cat's-cradle strings,\n And lift themselves up off the ground.\n\n Small good to anything growing wild,\n They were crooking many a trillium\n That had budded before the boughs were piled\n And since it was coming up had to come.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Putting In The Seed", + "body": " You come to fetch me from my work to-night\n When supper's on the table, and we'll see\n If I can leave off burying the white\n Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.\n (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,\n Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)\n And go along with you ere you lose sight\n Of what you came for and become like me,\n Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.\n How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed\n On through the watching for that early birth\n When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,\n\n The sturdy seedling with arched body comes\n Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "A Time To Talk", + "body": " When a friend calls to me from the road\n And slows his horse to a meaning walk,\n I don't stand still and look around\n On all the hills I haven't hoed,\n And shout from where I am, What is it?\n No, not as there is a time to talk.\n I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,\n Blade-end up and five feet tall,\n And plod: I go up to the stone wall\n For a friendly visit.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Cow In Apple Time", + "body": " Something inspires the only cow of late\n To make no more of a wall than an open gate,\n And think no more of wall-builders than fools.\n Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools\n A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit,\n She scorns a pasture withering to the root.\n She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten\n The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten.\n She leaves them bitten when she has to fly.\n She bellows on a knoll against the sky.\n Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "An Encounter", + "body": " Once on the kind of day called \"weather breeder,\"\n When the heat slowly hazes and the sun\n By its own power seems to be undone,\n I was half boring through, half climbing through\n A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar\n And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated,\n And sorry I ever left the road I knew,\n I paused and rested on a sort of hook\n That had me by the coat as good as seated,\n And since there was no other way to look,\n Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue,\n Stood over me a resurrected tree,\n A tree that had been down and raised again--\n A barkless spectre. He had halted too,\n As if for fear of treading upon me.\n I saw the strange position of his hands--\n Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands\n Of wire with something in it from men to men.\n \"You here?\" I said. \"Where aren't you nowadays\n And what's the news you carry--if you know?\n And tell me where you're off for--Montreal?\n Me? I'm not off for anywhere at all.\n Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways\n Half looking for the orchid Calypso.\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Range-Finding", + "body": " The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung\n And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest\n Before it stained a single human breast.\n The stricken flower bent double and so hung.\n And still the bird revisited her young.\n A butterfly its fall had dispossessed\n A moment sought in air his flower of rest,\n Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.\n\n On the bare upland pasture there had spread\n O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread\n And straining cables wet with silver dew.\n A sudden passing bullet shook it dry.\n The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,\n But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Loneliness", + "body": "(_Her Word_)\n\n One ought not to have to care\n So much as you and I\n Care when the birds come round the house\n To seem to say good-bye;\n\n Or care so much when they come back\n With whatever it is they sing;\n The truth being we are as much\n Too glad for the one thing\n\n As we are too sad for the other here--\n With birds that fill their breasts\n But with each other and themselves\n And their built or driven nests.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "House Fear", + "body": " Always--I tell you this they learned--\n Always at night when they returned\n To the lonely house from far away\n To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,\n They learned to rattle the lock and key\n To give whatever might chance to be\n Warning and time to be off in flight:\n And preferring the out- to the in-door night,\n They learned to leave the house-door wide\n Until they had lit the lamp inside.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Smile", + "body": "(_Her Word_)\n\n I didn't like the way he went away.\n That smile! It never came of being gay.\n Still he smiled--did you see him?--I was sure!\n Perhaps because we gave him only bread\n And the wretch knew from that that we were poor.\n Perhaps because he let us give instead\n Of seizing from us as he might have seized.\n Perhaps he mocked at us for being wed,\n Or being very young (and he was pleased\n To have a vision of us old and dead).\n I wonder how far down the road he's got.\n He's watching from the woods as like as not.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Oft-Repeated Dream", + "body": " She had no saying dark enough\n For the dark pine that kept\n Forever trying the window-latch\n Of the room where they slept.\n\n The tireless but ineffectual hands\n That with every futile pass\n Made the great tree seem as a little bird\n Before the mystery of glass!\n\n It never had been inside the room,\n And only one of the two\n Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream\n Of what the tree might do.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Impulse", + "body": " It was too lonely for her there,\n And too wild,\n And since there were but two of them,\n And no child,\n\n And work was little in the house,\n She was free,\n And followed where he furrowed field,\n Or felled tree.\n\n She rested on a log and tossed\n The fresh chips,\n With a song only to herself\n On her lips.\n\n And once she went to break a bough\n Of black alder.\n She strayed so far she scarcely heard\n When he called her--\n\n And didn't answer--didn't speak--\n Or return.\n She stood, and then she ran and hid\n In the fern.\n\n He never found her, though he looked\n Everywhere,\n And he asked at her mother's house\n Was she there.\n\n Sudden and swift and light as that\n The ties gave,\n And he learned of finalities\n Besides the grave.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Bonfire", + "body": " \"Oh, let's go up the hill and scare ourselves,\n As reckless as the best of them to-night,\n By setting fire to all the brush we piled\n With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow.\n Oh, let's not wait for rain to make it safe.\n The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough\n Down dark converging paths between the pines.\n Let's not care what we do with it to-night.\n Divide it? No! But burn it as one pile\n The way we piled it. And let's be the talk\n Of people brought to windows by a light\n Thrown from somewhere against their wall-paper.\n Rouse them all, both the free and not so free\n With saying what they'd like to do to us\n For what they'd better wait till we have done.\n Let's all but bring to life this old volcano,\n If that is what the mountain ever was--\n And scare ourselves. Let wild fire loose we will....\"\n\n \"And scare you too?\" the children said together.\n\n \"Why wouldn't it scare me to have a fire\n Begin in smudge with ropy smoke and know\n That still, if I repent, I may recall it,\n But in a moment not: a little spurt\n Of burning fatness, and then nothing but\n The fire itself can put it out, and that\n By burning out, and before it burns out\n It will have roared first and mixed sparks with stars,\n And sweeping round it with a flaming sword,\n Made the dim trees stand back in wider circle--\n Done so much and I know not how much more\n I mean it shall not do if I can bind it.\n Well if it doesn't with its draft bring on\n A wind to blow in earnest from some quarter,\n As once it did with me upon an April.\n The breezes were so spent with winter blowing\n They seemed to fail the bluebirds under them\n Short of the perch their languid flight was toward;\n And my flame made a pinnacle to heaven\n As I walked once round it in possession.\n But the wind out of doors--you know the saying.\n There came a gust. You used to think the trees\n Made wind by fanning since you never knew\n It blow but that you saw the trees in motion.\n Something or someone watching made that gust.\n It put the flame tip-down and dabbed the grass\n Of over-winter with the least tip-touch\n Your tongue gives salt or sugar in your hand.\n The place it reached to blackened instantly.\n The black was all there was by day-light,\n That and the merest curl of cigarette smoke--\n And a flame slender as the hepaticas,\n Blood-root, and violets so soon to be now.\n But the black spread like black death on the ground,\n And I think the sky darkened with a cloud\n Like winter and evening coming on together.\n There were enough things to be thought of then.\n Where the field stretches toward the north\n And setting sun to Hyla brook, I gave it\n To flames without twice thinking, where it verges\n Upon the road, to flames too, though in fear\n They might find fuel there, in withered brake,\n Grass its full length, old silver golden-rod,\n And alder and grape vine entanglement,\n To leap the dusty deadline. For my own\n I took what front there was beside. I knelt\n And thrust hands in and held my face away.\n Fight such a fire by rubbing not by beating.\n A board is the best weapon if you have it.\n I had my coat. And oh, I knew, I knew,\n And said out loud, I couldn't bide the smother\n And heat so close in; but the thought of all\n The woods and town on fire by me, and all\n The town turned out to fight for me--that held me.\n I trusted the brook barrier, but feared\n The road would fail; and on that side the fire\n Died not without a noise of crackling wood--\n Of something more than tinder-grass and weed--\n That brought me to my feet to hold it back\n By leaning back myself, as if the reins\n Were round my neck and I was at the plough.\n I won! But I'm sure no one ever spread\n Another color over a tenth the space\n That I spread coal-black over in the time\n It took me. Neighbors coming home from town\n Couldn't believe that so much black had come there\n While they had backs turned, that it hadn't been there\n When they had passed an hour or so before\n Going the other way and they not seen it.\n They looked about for someone to have done it.\n But there was no one. I was somewhere wondering\n Where all my weariness had gone and why\n I walked so light on air in heavy shoes\n In spite of a scorched Fourth-of-July feeling.\n Why wouldn't I be scared remembering that?\"\n\n \"If it scares you, what will it do to us?\"\n\n \"Scare you. But if you shrink from being scared,\n What would you say to war if it should come?\n That's what for reasons I should like to know--\n If you can comfort me by any answer.\"\n\n \"Oh, but war's not for children--it's for men.\"\n\n \"Now we are digging almost down to China.\n My dears, my dears, you thought that--we all thought it.\n So your mistake was ours. Haven't you heard, though,\n About the ships where war has found them out\n At sea, about the towns where war has come\n Through opening clouds at night with droning speed\n Further o'erhead than all but stars and angels,--\n And children in the ships and in the towns?\n Haven't you heard what we have lived to learn?\n Nothing so new--something we had forgotten:\n _War is for everyone, for children too_.\n I wasn't going to tell you and I mustn't.\n The best way is to come up hill with me\n And have our fire and laugh and be afraid.\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "A Girl'S Garden", + "body": " A neighbor of mine in the village\n Likes to tell how one spring\n When she was a girl on the farm, she did\n A childlike thing.\n\n One day she asked her father\n To give her a garden plot\n To plant and tend and reap herself,\n And he said, \"Why not?\"\n\n In casting about for a corner\n He thought of an idle bit\n Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,\n And he said, \"Just it.\"\n\n And he said, \"That ought to make you\n An ideal one-girl farm,\n And give you a chance to put some strength\n On your slim-jim arm.\"\n\n It was not enough of a garden,\n Her father said, to plough;\n So she had to work it all by hand,\n But she don't mind now.\n\n She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow\n Along a stretch of road;\n But she always ran away and left\n Her not-nice load.\n\n And hid from anyone passing.\n And then she begged the seed.\n She says she thinks she planted one\n Of all things but weed.\n\n A hill each of potatoes,\n Radishes, lettuce, peas,\n Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,\n And even fruit trees.\n\n And yes, she has long mistrusted\n That a cider apple tree\n In bearing there to-day is hers,\n Or at least may be.\n\n Her crop was a miscellany\n When all was said and done,\n A little bit of everything,\n A great deal of none.\n\n _Now_ when she sees in the village\n How village things go,\n Just when it seems to come in right,\n She says, \"_I_ know!\n\n It's as when I was a farmer----\"\n Oh, never by way of advice!\n And she never sins by telling the tale\n To the same person twice.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Exposed Nest", + "body": " You were forever finding some new play.\n So when I saw you down on hands and knees\n In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,\n Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,\n I went to show you how to make it stay,\n If that was your idea, against the breeze,\n And, if you asked me, even help pretend\n To make it root again and grow afresh.\n But 'twas no make-believe with you to-day,\n Nor was the grass itself your real concern,\n Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,\n Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover.\n 'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground\n The cutter-bar had just gone champing over\n (Miraculously without tasting flesh)\n And left defenseless to the heat and light.\n You wanted to restore them to their right\n Of something interposed between their sight\n And too much world at once--could means be found.\n The way the nest-full every time we stirred\n Stood up to us as to a mother-bird\n Whose coming home has been too long deferred,\n Made me ask would the mother-bird return\n And care for them in such a change of scene\n And might our meddling make her more afraid.\n That was a thing we could not wait to learn.\n We saw the risk we took in doing good,\n But dared not spare to do the best we could\n Though harm should come of it; so built the screen\n You had begun, and gave them back their shade.\n All this to prove we cared. Why is there then\n No more to tell? We turned to other things.\n I haven't any memory--have you?--\n Of ever coming to the place again\n To see if the birds lived the first night through,\n And so at last to learn to use their wings.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "\"Out, Out--\"", + "body": " The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard\n And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,\n Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.\n And from there those that lifted eyes could count\n Five mountain ranges one behind the other\n Under the sunset far into Vermont.\n And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,\n As it ran light, or had to bear a load.\n And nothing happened: day was all but done.\n Call it a day, I wish they might have said\n To please the boy by giving him the half hour\n That a boy counts so much when saved from work.\n His sister stood beside them in her apron\n To tell them \"Supper.\" At the word, the saw,\n As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,\n Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap--\n He must have given the hand. However it was,\n Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!\n The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,\n As he swung toward them holding up the hand\n Half in appeal, but half as if to keep\n The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all--\n Since he was old enough to know, big boy\n Doing a man's work, though a child at heart--\n He saw all spoiled. \"Don't let him cut my hand off--\n The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!\"\n So. But the hand was gone already.\n The doctor put him in the dark of ether.\n He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.\n And then--the watcher at his pulse took fright.\n No one believed. They listened at his heart.\n Little--less--nothing!--and that ended it.\n No more to build on there. And they, since they\n Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Willy-Nilly Slide", + "body": " Brown lived at such a lofty farm\n That everyone for miles could see\n His lantern when he did his chores\n In winter after half-past three.\n\n And many must have seen him make\n His wild descent from there one night,\n 'Cross lots, 'cross walls, 'cross everything,\n Describing rings of lantern light.\n\n Between the house and barn the gale\n Got him by something he had on\n And blew him out on the icy crust\n That cased the world, and he was gone!\n\n Walls were all buried, trees were few:\n He saw no stay unless he stove\n A hole in somewhere with his heel.\n But though repeatedly he strove\n\n And stamped and said things to himself,\n And sometimes something seemed to yield,\n He gained no foothold, but pursued\n His journey down from field to field.\n\n Sometimes he came with arms outspread\n Like wings, revolving in the scene\n Upon his longer axis, and\n With no small dignity of mien.\n\n Faster or slower as he chanced,\n Sitting or standing as he chose,\n According as he feared to risk\n His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,\n\n He never let the lantern drop.\n And some exclaimed who saw afar\n The figures he described with it,\n \"I wonder what those signals are\n\n Brown makes at such an hour of night!\n He's celebrating something strange.\n I wonder if he's sold his farm,\n Or been made Master of the Grange.\"\n\n He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;\n He fell and made the lantern rattle\n (But saved the light from going out.)\n So half-way down he fought the battle\n\n Incredulous of his own bad luck.\n And then becoming reconciled\n To everything, he gave it up\n And came down like a coasting child.\n\n \"Well--I--be--\" that was all he said,\n As standing in the river road,\n He looked back up the slippery slope\n (Two miles it was) to his abode.\n\n Sometimes as an authority\n On motor-cars, I'm asked if I\n Should say our stock was petered out,\n And this is my sincere reply:\n\n Yankees are what they always were.\n Don't think Brown ever gave up hope\n Of getting home again because\n He couldn't climb that slippery slope;\n\n Or even thought of standing there\n Until the January thaw\n Should take the polish off the crust.\n He bowed with grace to natural law,\n\n And then went round it on his feet,\n After the manner of our stock;\n Not much concerned for those to whom,\n At that particular time o'clock,\n\n It must have looked as if the course\n He steered was really straight away\n From that which he was headed for--\n Not much concerned for them, I say;\n\n No more so than became a man--\n _And_ politician at odd seasons.\n I've kept Brown standing in the cold\n While I invested him with reasons;\n\n But now he snapped his eyes three times;\n Then shook his lantern, saying, \"Ile's\n 'Bout out!\" and took the long way home\n By road, a matter of several miles.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Gum-Gatherer", + "body": " There overtook me and drew me in\n To his down-hill, early-morning stride,\n And set me five miles on my road\n Better than if he had had me ride,\n A man with a swinging bag for load\n And half the bag wound round his hand.\n We talked like barking above the din\n Of water we walked along beside.\n And for my telling him where I'd been\n And where I lived in mountain land\n To be coming home the way I was,\n He told me a little about himself.\n He came from higher up in the pass\n Where the grist of the new-beginning brooks\n Is blocks split off the mountain mass--\n And hopeless grist enough it looks\n Ever to grind to soil for grass.\n (The way it is will do for moss.)\n There he had built his stolen shack.\n It had to be a stolen shack\n Because of the fears of fire and loss\n That trouble the sleep of lumber folk:\n Visions of half the world burned black\n And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke.\n We know who when they come to town\n Bring berries under the wagon seat,\n Or a basket of eggs between their feet;\n What this man brought in a cotton sack\n Was gum, the gum of the mountain spruce.\n He showed me lumps of the scented stuff\n Like uncut jewels, dull and rough.\n It comes to market golden brown;\n But turns to pink between the teeth.\n\n I told him this is a pleasant life\n To set your breast to the bark of trees\n That all your days are dim beneath,\n And reaching up with a little knife,\n To loose the resin and take it down\n And bring it to market when you please.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Line-Gang", + "body": " Here come the line-gang pioneering by.\n They throw a forest down less cut than broken.\n They plant dead trees for living, and the dead\n They string together with a living thread.\n They string an instrument against the sky\n Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken\n Will run as hushed as when they were a thought.\n But in no hush they string it: they go past\n With shouts afar to pull the cable taut,\n To hold it hard until they make it fast,\n To ease away--they have it. With a laugh,\n An oath of towns that set the wild at naught\n They bring the telephone and telegraph.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Vanishing Red", + "body": " He is said to have been the last Red Man\n In Acton. And the Miller is said to have laughed--\n If you like to call such a sound a laugh.\n But he gave no one else a laugher's license.\n For he turned suddenly grave as if to say,\n \"Whose business,--if I take it on myself,\n Whose business--but why talk round the barn?--\n When it's just that I hold with getting a thing done with.\"\n You can't get back and see it as he saw it.\n It's too long a story to go into now.\n You'd have to have been there and lived it.\n Then you wouldn't have looked on it as just a matter\n Of who began it between the two races.\n\n Some guttural exclamation of surprise\n The Red Man gave in poking about the mill\n Over the great big thumping shuffling mill-stone\n Disgusted the Miller physically as coming\n From one who had no right to be heard from.\n \"Come, John,\" he said, \"you want to see the wheel pit?\"\n\n He took him down below a cramping rafter,\n And showed him, through a manhole in the floor,\n The water in desperate straits like frantic fish,\n Salmon and sturgeon, lashing with their tails.\n Then he shut down the trap door with a ring in it\n That jangled even above the general noise,\n And came up stairs alone--and gave that laugh,\n And said something to a man with a meal-sack\n That the man with the meal-sack didn't catch--then.\n Oh, yes, he showed John the wheel pit all right.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Snow", + "body": " The three stood listening to a fresh access\n Of wind that caught against the house a moment,\n Gulped snow, and then blew free again--the Coles\n Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,\n Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore.\n\n Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backward\n Over his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying,\n \"You can just see it glancing off the roof\n Making a great scroll upward toward the sky,\n Long enough for recording all our names on.--\n I think I'll just call up my wife and tell her\n I'm here--so far--and starting on again.\n I'll call her softly so that if she's wise\n And gone to sleep, she needn't wake to answer.\"\n Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened.\n \"Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I'm at Cole's. I'm late.\n I called you up to say Good-night from here\n Before I went to say Good-morning there.--\n I thought I would.--I know, but, Lett--I know--\n I could, but what's the sense? The rest won't be\n So bad.--Give me an hour for it.--Ho, ho,\n Three hours to here! But that was all up hill;\n The rest is down.--Why no, no, not a wallow:\n They kept their heads and took their time to it\n Like darlings, both of them. They're in the barn.--\n My dear, I'm coming just the same. I didn't\n Call you to ask you to invite me home.--\"\n He lingered for some word she wouldn't say,\n Said it at last himself, \"Good-night,\" and then,\n Getting no answer, closed the telephone.\n The three stood in the lamplight round the table\n With lowered eyes a moment till he said,\n \"I'll just see how the horses are.\"\n\n \"Yes, do,\"\n Both the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole\n Added: \"You can judge better after seeing.--\n I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here,\n Brother Meserve. You know to find your way\n Out through the shed.\"\n\n \"I guess I know my way,\n I guess I know where I can find my name\n Carved in the shed to tell me who I am\n If it don't tell me where I am. I used\n To play--\"\n\n \"You tend your horses and come back.\n Fred Cole, you're going to let him!\"\n\n \"Well, aren't you?\n How can you help yourself?\"\n\n \"I called him Brother.\n Why did I call him that?\"\n\n \"It's right enough.\n That's all you ever heard him called round here.\n He seems to have lost off his Christian name.\"\n\n \"Christian enough I should call that myself.\n He took no notice, did he? Well, at least\n I didn't use it out of love of him,\n The dear knows. I detest the thought of him\n With his ten children under ten years old.\n I hate his wretched little Racker Sect,\n All's ever I heard of it, which isn't much.\n But that's not saying--Look, Fred Cole, it's twelve,\n Isn't it, now? He's been here half an hour.\n He says he left the village store at nine.\n Three hours to do four miles--a mile an hour\n Or not much better. Why, it doesn't seem\n As if a man could move that slow and move.\n Try to think what he did with all that time.\n And three miles more to go!\"\n\n \"Don't let him go.\n Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you.\n That sort of man talks straight on all his life\n From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf\n To anything anyone else may say.\n I should have thought, though, you could make him hear you.\"\n\n \"What is he doing out a night like this?\n Why can't he stay at home?\"\n\n \"He had to preach.\"\n\n \"It's no night to be out.\"\n\n \"He may be small,\n He may be good, but one thing's sure, he's tough.\"\n\n \"And strong of stale tobacco.\"\n\n \"He'll pull through.\"\n\n \"You only say so. Not another house\n Or shelter to put into from this place\n To theirs. I'm going to call his wife again.\"\n\n \"Wait and he may. Let's see what he will do.\n Let's see if he will think of her again.\n But then I doubt he's thinking of himself\n He doesn't look on it as anything.\"\n\n \"He shan't go--there!\"\n\n \"It _is_ a night, my dear.\"\n\n \"One thing: he didn't drag God into it.\"\n\n \"He don't consider it a case for God.\"\n\n \"You think so, do you? You don't know the kind.\n He's getting up a miracle this minute.\n Privately--to himself, right now, he's thinking\n He'll make a case of it if he succeeds,\n But keep still if he fails.\"\n\n \"Keep still all over.\n He'll be dead--dead and buried.\"\n\n \"Such a trouble!\n Not but I've every reason not to care\n What happens to him if it only takes\n Some of the sanctimonious conceit\n Out of one of those pious scalawags.\"\n\n \"Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe.\"\n\n \"You like the runt.\"\n\n \"Don't you a little?\"\n\n \"Well,\n I don't like what he's doing, which is what\n You like, and like him for.\"\n\n \"Oh, yes you do.\n You like your fun as well as anyone;\n Only you women have to put these airs on\n To impress men. You've got us so ashamed\n Of being men we can't look at a good fight\n Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it.\n Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.--\n He's here. I leave him all to you. Go in\n And save his life.--All right, come in, Meserve.\n Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?\"\n\n \"Fine, fine.\"\n\n \"And ready for some more? My wife here\n Says it won't do. You've got to give it up.\"\n\n \"Won't you to please me? Please! If I say please?\n Mr. Meserve, I'll leave it to _your_ wife.\n What _did_ your wife say on the telephone?\"\n\n Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp\n Or something not far from it on the table.\n By straightening out and lifting a forefinger,\n He pointed with his hand from where it lay\n Like a white crumpled spider on his knee:\n \"That leaf there in your open book! It moved\n Just then, I thought. It's stood erect like that,\n There on the table, ever since I came,\n Trying to turn itself backward or forward,\n I've had my eye on it to make out which;\n If forward, then it's with a friend's impatience--\n You see I know--to get you on to things\n It wants to see how you will take, if backward\n It's from regret for something you have passed\n And failed to see the good of. Never mind,\n Things must expect to come in front of us\n A many times--I don't say just how many--\n That varies with the things--before we see them.\n One of the lies would make it out that nothing\n Ever presents itself before us twice.\n Where would we be at last if that were so?\n Our very life depends on everything's\n Recurring till we answer from within.\n The thousandth time may prove the charm.--That leaf!\n It can't turn either way. It needs the wind's help.\n But the wind didn't move it if it moved.\n It moved itself. The wind's at naught in here.\n It couldn't stir so sensitively poised\n A thing as that. It couldn't reach the lamp\n To get a puff of black smoke from the flame,\n Or blow a rumple in the collie's coat.\n You make a little foursquare block of air,\n Quiet and light and warm, in spite of all\n The illimitable dark and cold and storm,\n And by so doing give these three, lamp, dog,\n And book-leaf, that keep near you, their repose;\n Though for all anyone can tell, repose\n May be the thing you haven't, yet you give it.\n So false it is that what we haven't we can't give;\n So false, that what we always say is true.\n I'll have to turn the leaf if no one else will.\n It won't lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?\"\n\n \"I shouldn't want to hurry you, Meserve,\n But if you're going--Say you'll stay, you know?\n But let me raise this curtain on a scene,\n And show you how it's piling up against you.\n You see the snow-white through the white of frost?\n Ask Helen how far up the sash it's climbed\n Since last we read the gage.\"\n\n \"It looks as if\n Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat\n And its eyes shut with overeagerness\n To see what people found so interesting\n In one another, and had gone to sleep\n Of its own stupid lack of understanding,\n Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff\n Short off, and died against the window-pane.\"\n\n \"Brother Meserve, take care, you'll scare yourself\n More than you will us with such nightmare talk.\n It's you it matters to, because it's you\n Who have to go out into it alone.\"\n\n \"Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he'll stay.\"\n\n \"Before you drop the curtain--I'm reminded:\n You recollect the boy who came out here\n To breathe the air one winter--had a room\n Down at the Averys'? Well, one sunny morning\n After a downy storm, he passed our place\n And found me banking up the house with snow.\n And I was burrowing in deep for warmth,\n Piling it well above the window-sills.\n The snow against the window caught his eye.\n 'Hey, that's a pretty thought'--those were his words.\n 'So you can think it's six feet deep outside,\n While you sit warm and read up balanced rations.\n You can't get too much winter in the winter.'\n Those were his words. And he went home and all\n But banked the daylight out of Avery's windows.\n Now you and I would go to no such length.\n At the same time you can't deny it makes\n It not a mite worse, sitting here, we three,\n Playing our fancy, to have the snowline run\n So high across the pane outside. There where\n There is a sort of tunnel in the frost\n More like a tunnel than a hole--way down\n At the far end of it you see a stir\n And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift\n Blown in the wind. I _like_ that--I like _that_.\n Well, now I leave you, people.\"\n\n \"Come, Meserve,\n We thought you were deciding not to go--\n The ways you found to say the praise of comfort\n And being where you are. You want to stay.\"\n\n \"I'll own it's cold for such a fall of snow.\n This house is frozen brittle, all except\n This room you sit in. If you think the wind\n Sounds further off, it's not because it's dying;\n You're further under in the snow--that's all--\n And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust\n It bursts against us at the chimney mouth,\n And at the eaves. I like it from inside\n More than I shall out in it. But the horses\n Are rested and it's time to say good-night,\n And let you get to bed again. Good-night,\n Sorry I had to break in on your sleep.\"\n\n \"Lucky for you you did. Lucky for you\n You had us for a half-way station\n To stop at. If you were the kind of man\n Paid heed to women, you'd take my advice\n And for your family's sake stay where you are.\n But what good is my saying it over and over?\n You've done more than you had a right to think\n You could do--_now_. You know the risk you take\n In going on.\"\n\n \"Our snow-storms as a rule\n Aren't looked on as man-killers, and although\n I'd rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep\n Under it all, his door sealed up and lost,\n Than the man fighting it to keep above it,\n Yet think of the small birds at roost and not\n In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are?\n Their bulk in water would be frozen rock\n In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow\n They will come budding boughs from tree to tree\n Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee,\n As if not knowing what you meant by the word storm.\"\n\n \"But why when no one wants you to go on?\n Your wife--she doesn't want you to. We don't,\n And you yourself don't want to. Who else is there?\"\n\n \"Save us from being cornered by a woman.\n Well, there's\"--She told Fred afterward that in\n The pause right there, she thought the dreaded word\n Was coming, \"God.\" But no, he only said\n \"Well, there's--the storm. That says I must go on.\n That wants me as a war might if it came.\n Ask any man.\"\n\n He threw her that as something\n To last her till he got outside the door.\n He had Cole with him to the barn to see him off.\n When Cole returned he found his wife still standing\n Beside the table near the open book,\n Not reading it.\n\n \"Well, what kind of a man\n Do you call that?\" she said.\n\n \"He had the gift\n Of words, or is it tongues, I ought to say?\"\n\n \"Was ever such a man for seeing likeness?\"\n\n \"Or disregarding people's civil questions--\n What? We've found out in one hour more about him\n Than we had seeing him pass by in the road\n A thousand times. If that's the way he preaches!\n You didn't think you'd keep him after all.\n Oh, I'm not blaming you. He didn't leave you\n Much say in the matter, and I'm just as glad\n We're not in for a night of him. No sleep\n If he had stayed. The least thing set him going.\n It's quiet as an empty church without him.\"\n\n \"But how much better off are we as it is?\n We'll have to sit here till we know he's safe.\"\n\n \"Yes, I suppose you'll want to, but I shouldn't.\n He knows what he can do, or he wouldn't try.\n Get into bed I say, and get some rest.\n He won't come back, and if he telephones,\n It won't be for an hour or two.\"\n\n \"Well then.\n We can't be any help by sitting here\n And living his fight through with him, I suppose.\"\n\n * * * * *\n\n Cole had been telephoning in the dark.\n Mrs. Cole's voice came from an inner room:\n \"Did she call you or you call her?\"\n\n \"She me.\n You'd better dress: you won't go back to bed.\n We must have been asleep: it's three and after.\"\n\n \"Had she been ringing long? I'll get my wrapper.\n I want to speak to her.\"\n\n \"All she said was,\n He hadn't come and had he really started.\"\n\n \"She knew he had, poor thing, two hours ago.\"\n\n \"He had the shovel. He'll have made a fight.\"\n\n \"Why did I ever let him leave this house!\"\n\n \"Don't begin that. You did the best you could\n To keep him--though perhaps you didn't quite\n Conceal a wish to see him show the spunk\n To disobey you. Much his wife'll thank you.\"\n\n \"Fred, after all I said! You shan't make out\n That it was any way but what it was.\n Did she let on by any word she said\n She didn't thank me?\"\n\n \"When I told her 'Gone,'\n 'Well then,' she said, and 'Well then'--like a threat.\n And then her voice came scraping slow: 'Oh, you,\n Why did you let him go'?\"\n\n \"Asked why we let him?\n You let me there. I'll ask her why she let him.\n She didn't dare to speak when he was here.\n Their number's--twenty-one? The thing won't work.\n Someone's receiver's down. The handle stumbles.\n The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm!\n It's theirs. She's dropped it from her hand and gone.\"\n\n \"Try speaking. Say 'Hello'!\"\n\n \"Hello. Hello.\"\n\n \"What do you hear?\"\n\n \"I hear an empty room--\n You know--it sounds that way. And yes, I hear--\n I think I hear a clock--and windows rattling.\n No step though. If she's there she's sitting down.\"\n\n \"Shout, she may hear you.\"\n\n \"Shouting is no good.\"\n\n \"Keep speaking then.\"\n\n \"Hello. Hello. Hello.\n You don't suppose--? She wouldn't go out doors?\"\n\n \"I'm half afraid that's just what she might do.\"\n\n \"And leave the children?\"\n\n \"Wait and call again.\n You can't hear whether she has left the door\n Wide open and the wind's blown out the lamp\n And the fire's died and the room's dark and cold?\"\n\n \"One of two things, either she's gone to bed\n Or gone out doors.\"\n\n \"In which case both are lost.\n Do you know what she's like? Have you ever met her?\n It's strange she doesn't want to speak to us.\"\n\n \"Fred, see if you can hear what I hear. Come.\"\n\n \"A clock maybe.\"\n\n \"Don't you hear something else?\"\n\n \"Not talking.\"\n\n \"No.\"\n\n \"Why, yes, I hear--what is it?\"\n\n \"What do you say it is?\"\n\n \"A baby's crying!\n Frantic it sounds, though muffled and far off.\"\n\n \"Its mother wouldn't let it cry like that,\n Not if she's there.\"\n\n \"What do you make of it?\"\n\n \"There's only one thing possible to make,\n That is, assuming--that she has gone out.\n Of course she hasn't though.\" They both sat down\n Helpless. \"There's nothing we can do till morning.\"\n\n \"Fred, I shan't let you think of going out.\"\n\n \"Hold on.\" The double bell began to chirp.\n They started up. Fred took the telephone.\n \"Hello, Meserve. You're there, then!--And your wife?\n Good! Why I asked--she didn't seem to answer.\n He says she went to let him in the barn.--\n We're glad. Oh, say no more about it, man.\n Drop in and see us when you're passing.\"\n\n \"Well,\n She has him then, though what she wants him for\n I _don't_ see.\"\n\n \"Possibly not for herself.\n Maybe she only wants him for the children.\"\n\n \"The whole to-do seems to have been for nothing.\n What spoiled our night was to him just his fun.\n What did he come in for?--To talk and visit?\n Thought he'd just call to tell us it was snowing.\n If he thinks he is going to make our house\n A halfway coffee house 'twixt town and nowhere----\"\n\n \"I thought you'd feel you'd been too much concerned.\"\n\n \"You think you haven't been concerned yourself.\"\n\n \"If you mean he was inconsiderate\n To rout us out to think for him at midnight\n And then take our advice no more than nothing,\n Why, I agree with you. But let's forgive him.\n We've had a share in one night of his life.\n What'll you bet he ever calls again?\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Sound Of The Trees", + "body": " _I wonder about the trees.\n Why do we wish to bear\n Forever the noise of these\n More than another noise\n So close to our dwelling place?\n We suffer them by the day\n Till we lose all measure of pace,\n And fixity in our joys,\n And acquire a listening air.\n They are that that talks of going\n But never gets away;\n And that talks no less for knowing,\n As it grows wiser and older,\n That now it means to stay.\n My feet tug at the floor\n And my head sways to my shoulder\n Sometimes when I watch trees sway,\n From the window or the door.\n I shall set forth for somewhere,\n I shall make the reckless choice\n Some day when they are in voice\n And tossing so as to scare\n The white clouds over them on.\n I shall have less to say,\n But I shall be gone._\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Some Recent Poetry", + "body": " Stephen Vincent Benet's\n Heavens and Earth\n\n Thomas Burke's\n The Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse\n\n Richard Burton's\n Poems of Earth's Meaning\n\n Francis Carlin's\n My Ireland\n The Cairn of Stars\n\n Padraic Colum's\n Wild Earth and Other Poems\n\n Grace Hazard Conkling's\n Wilderness Songs\n\n Walter De La Mare's\n The Listeners and Other Poems\n Peacock Pie. Ill'd by W. H. Robinson\n Motley and Other Poems\n Collected Poems 1901-1918. 2 Vols.\n\n Robert Frost's\n North of Boston\n Mountain Interval. New Edition, with Portrait\n A Boy's Will\n\n Carl Sandburg's\n Cornhuskers\n Chicago Poems\n\n Lew Sarrett's\n Many Many Moons\n\n Louis Untermeyer's\n These Times\n ---- and Other Poets\n Poems of Heinrich Heine (Translated)\n The New Era in American Poetry\n\n Margaret Widdemer's\n The Old Road to Paradise\n Factories and Other Poems\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Home Book Of Verse", + "body": " American and English 1580-1918\n Selected and arranged by Burton Egbert Stevenson\n Third Edition Revised and Enlarged\n\nOver 4,000 pages of the best verse in English, ranging all the way\nfrom the classics to some of the best newspaper verse of to-day. In\nseveral different editions.\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + }, + { + "title": "Henry Holt And Company", + "body": " PUBLISHERS\n NEW YORK\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber Notes\n\nTypographical inconsistencies have been changed and are listed below.\n\nArchaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is preserved.\n\nAuthor's punctuation style is preserved, except where noted.\n\nPassages in italics indicated by _underscores_.\n\nPassages in bold indicated by =equal signs=.\n\n\nTranscriber Changes\n\nThe following changes were made to the original text:\n\n Page 46: Added period after =trees= (Tomatoes, beets,\n beans, pumpkins, corn, And even fruit =trees.=)\n\n Page 63: Added stanza break between go and Don't (And\n three miles more to =go!\" \"Don't= let him go.)\n\n Page 63: Single quote changed to double after =through=\n (\"He'll pull =through.\"=)\n\n Page 72: Removed extra stanza break after =stumbles=\n (The handle =stumbles. The= stubborn thing, the way it\n jars your arm!)\n\n Page 74: Removed extra stanza break after =wife=\n (\"Hello, Meserve. You're there, then!--And your =wife?\n Good!= Why I asked--she didn't seem to answer.)", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Mountain Interval", + "period": "1916" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/frost_selected_poems.json b/poetry/frost_selected_poems.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..388164c --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/frost_selected_poems.json @@ -0,0 +1,331 @@ +[ + { + "title": "The Pasture", + "body": "I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;\nI'll only stop to rake the leaves away\n(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):\nI shan't be gone long.—-You come too.\n\nI'm going out to fetch the little calf\nThat's standing by the mother. It's so young,\nIt totters when she licks it with her tongue.\nI shan't be gone long.—-You come too.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Cow In Apple-Time", + "body": "Something inspires the only cow of late\nTo make no more of a wall than an open gate,\nAnd think no more of wall-builders than fools.\nHer face is flecked with pomace and she drools\nA cider syrup. Having tasted fruit,\nShe scorns a pasture withering to the root.\nShe runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten\nThe windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten.\nShe leaves them bitten when she has to fly.\nShe bellows on a knoll against the sky.\nHer udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Runaway", + "body": "Once when the snow of the year was beginning to\nfall,\nWe stopped by a mountain pasture to say \"Whose\ncolt?\"\nA little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall,\nThe other curled at his breast. He dipped his head\nAnd snorted at us. And then he had to bolt.\nWe heard the miniature thunder where he fled,\nAnd we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and\ngrey,\nLike a shadow against the curtain of falling flakes.\n\"I think the little fellow's afraid of the snow.\nHe isn't winter-broken. It isn't play\nWith the little fellow at all. He's running away.\nI doubt if even his mother could tell him, 'Sakes,\nIt's only weather.' He'd think she didn't know!\nWhere is his mother? He can't be out alone.\"\nAnd now he comes again with a clatter of stone\nAnd mounts the wall again with whited eyes\nAnd all his tail that isn't hair up straight.\nHe shudders his coat as if to throw off flies.\n\"Whoever it is that leaves him out so late,\nWhen other creatures have gone to stall and bin,\nOught to be told to come and take him in.\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "An Old Man'S Winter Night", + "body": "All out of doors looked darkly in at him\nThrough the thin frost, almost in separate stars,\nThat gathers on the pane in empty rooms.\nWhat kept his eyes from giving back the gaze\nWas the lamp tilted near them in his hand.\nWhat kept him from remembering what it was\nThat brought him to that creaking room was age.\nHe stood with barrels round him—-at a loss.\nAnd having scared the cellar under him\nIn clomping there, he scared it once again\nIn clomping off;—-and scared the outer night,\nWhich has its sounds, familiar, like the roar\nOf trees and crack of branches, common things,\nBut nothing so like beating on a box.\nA light he was to no one but himself\nWhere now he sat, concerned with he knew what,\nA quiet light, and then not even that.\nHe consigned to the moon, such as she was,\nSo late-arising, to the broken moon\nAs better than the sun in any case\nFor such a charge, his snow upon the roof,\nHis icicles along the wall to keep;\nAnd slept. The log that shifted with a jolt\nOnce in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,\nAnd eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.\nOne aged man—-one man—-can't keep a house,\nA farm, a countryside, or if he can,\nIt's thus he does it of a winter night.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Home Burial", + "body": "He saw her from the bottom of the stairs\nBefore she saw him. She was starting down,\nLooking back over her shoulder at some fear.\nShe took a doubtful step and then undid it\nTo raise herself and look again. He spoke\nAdvancing toward her: \"What is it you see\nFrom up there always—-for I want to know.\"\nShe turned and sank upon her skirts at that,\nAnd her face changed from terrified to dull.\nHe said to gain time: \"What is it you see?\"\nMounting until she cowered under him.\n\"I will find out now—you must tell me, dear.\"\nShe, in her place, refused him any help\nWith the least stiffening of her neck and silence.\nShe let him look, sure that he wouldn't see,\nBlind creature; and a while he didn't see.\nBut at last he murmured, \"Oh,\" and again, \"Oh.\"\n\n\"What is it—what?\" she said.\n\"Just that I see.\"\n\n\"You don't,\" she challenged. \"Tell me what it is.\"\n\n\"The wonder is I didn't see at once.\nI never noticed it from here before.\nI must be wonted to it—-that's the reason.\nThe little graveyard where my people are!\nSo small the window frames the whole of it.\nNot so much larger than a bedroom, is it?\nThere are three stones of slate and one of marble,\nBroad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight\nOn the sidehill. We haven't to mind _those._\nBut I understand: it is not the stones,\nBut the child's mound----\"\n\nDon't, don't, don't, don't,\" she cried.\n\nShe withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm\nThat rested on the banister, and slid downstairs;\nAnd turned on him with such a daunting look,\nHe said twice over before he knew himself:\n\"Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?\"\n\n\"Not you! Oh, where's my hat? Oh, I don't\nneed it!\nI must get out of here. I must get air.\nI don't know rightly whether any man can.\"\n\n\"Amy! Don't go to someone else this time.\nListen to me. I won't come down the stairs.\"\nHe sat and fixed his chin between his fists.\n\"There's something I should like to ask you, dear.\"\n\n\"You don't know how to ask it.\"\n\n\"Help me, then.\"\n\nHer fingers moved the latch for all reply.\n\n\"My words are nearly always an offence.\nI don't know how to speak of anything\nSo as to please you. But I might be taught\nI should suppose. I can't say I see how.\nA man must partly give up being a man\nWith women-folk. We could have some\narrangement\nBy which I'd bind myself to keep hands off\nAnything special you're a-mind to name.\nThough I don't like such things 'twixt those that\nlove.\nTwo that don't love can't live together without\nthem.\nBut two that do can't live together with them.\"\nShe moved the latch a little. \"Don't—-don't go.\nDon't carry it to someone else this time.\nTell me about it if it's something human.\nLet me into your grief. I'm not so much\nUnlike other folks as your standing there\nApart would make me out. Give me my chance.\nI do think, though, you overdo it a little.\nWhat was it brought you up to think it the thing\nTo take your mother-loss of a first child\nSo inconsolably—in the face of love.\nYou'd think his memory might be satisfied----\"\n\n\"There you go sneering now!\"\n\n\"I'm not, I'm not!\nYou make me angry. I'll come down to you.\nGod, what a woman! And it's come to this,\nA man can't speak of his own child that's dead.\"\n\"You can't because you don't know how.\nIf you had any feelings, you that dug\nWith your own hand—-how could you?—-his little\ngrave;\nI saw you from that very window there,\nMaking the gravel leap and leap in air,\nLeap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly\nAnd roll back down the mound beside the hole.\nI thought, Who is that man? I didn't know you.\nAnd I crept down the stairs and up the stairs\nTo look again, and still your spade kept lifting.\nThen you came in. I heard your rumbling voice\nOut in the kitchen, and I don't know why,\nBut I went near to see with my own eyes.\nYou could sit there with the stains on your shoes\nOf the fresh earth from your own baby's grave\nAnd talk about your everyday concerns.\nYou had stood the spade up against the wall\nOutside there in the entry, for I saw it.\"\n\n\"I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed.\nI'm cursed. God, if I don't believe I'm cursed.\"\n\"I can repeat the very words you were saying.\n\n'Three foggy mornings and one rainy day\nWill rot the best birch fence a man can build.'\nThink of it, talk like that at such a time!\nWhat had how long it takes a birch to rot\nTo do with what was in the darkened parlour?\nYou _couldn't_ care! The nearest friends can go\nWith anyone to death, comes so far short\nThey might as well not try to go at all.\nNo, from the time when one is sick to death,\nOne is alone, and he dies more alone.\nFriends make pretence of following to the grave,\nBut before one is in it, their minds are turned\nAnd making the best of their way back to life\nAnd living people, and things they understand.\nBut the world's evil. I won't have grief so\nIf I can change it. Oh, I won't, I won't!\"\n\n\"There, you have said it all and you feel better.\nYou won't go now. You're crying. Close the door.\nThe heart's gone out of it: why keep it up?\nAmy! There's someone coming down the road!\"\n\n\"_You_-—oh, you think the talk is all. I must go—-\nSomewhere out of this house. How can I make\nyou----\"\n\n\"If—-you—-do!\" She was opening the door wider.\n\"Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.\nI'll follow and bring you back by force. I _will!_—-\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Death Of The Hired Man", + "body": "Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table\nWaiting for Warren. When she heard his step,\nShe ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage\nTo meet him in the doorway with the news\nAnd put him on his guard. \"Silas is back.\"\n\nShe pushed him outward with her through the door\nAnd shut it after her. \"Be kind,\" she said.\nShe took the market things from Warren's arms\nAnd set them on the porch, then drew him down\nTo sit beside her on the wooden steps.\n\n\"When was I ever anything but kind to him?\nBut I'll not have the fellow back,\" he said.\n\"I told him so last haying, didn't I?\n'If he left then,' I said, 'that ended it.'\nWhat good is he? Who else will harbour him\nAt his age for the little he can do?\nWhat help he is there's no depending on.\nOff he goes always when I need him most.\n\n'He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,\nEnough at least to buy tobacco with,\nSo he won't have to beg and be beholden.'\n'All right,' I say, 'I can't afford to pay\nAny fixed wages, though I wish I could.'\n'Someone else can.' 'Then someone else will have\nto.'\nI shouldn't mind his bettering himself\nIf that was what it was. You can be certain,\nWhen he begins like that, there's someone at him\nTrying to coax him off with pocket-money,—-\nIn haying time, when any help is scarce.\nIn winter he comes back to us. I'm done.\"\n\n\"Sh! not so loud: he'll hear you,\" Mary said.\n\n\"I want him to: he'll have to soon or late.\"\n\n\"He's worn out. He's asleep beside the stove.\nWhen I came up from Rowe's I found him here,\nHuddled against the barn-door fast asleep,\nA miserable sight, and frightening, too—-\nYou needn't smile—-I didn't recognise him—-\nI wasn't looking for him—-and he's changed.\nWait till you see.\"\n\n\"Where did you say he'd been?\"\n\n\"He didn't say. I dragged him to the house,\nAnd gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.\nI tried to make him talk about his travels.\nNothing would do: he just kept nodding off.\"\n\n\"What did he say? Did he say anything?\"\n\n\"But little.\"\n\n\"Anything? Mary, confess\nHe said he'd come to ditch the meadow for me.\"\n\n\"Warren!\"\n\n\"But did he? I just want to know.\"\n\n\"Of course he did. What would you have him say?\nSurely you wouldn't grudge the poor old man\nSome humble way to save his self-respect.\nHe added, if you really care to know,\nHe meant to clear the upper pasture, too.\nThat sounds like something you have heard before?\nWarren, I wish you could have heard the way\nHe jumbled everything. I stopped to look\nTwo or three times—-he made me feel so queer—-\nTo see if he was talking in his sleep.\nHe ran on Harold Wilson—-you remember—-\nThe boy you had in haying four years since.\nHe's finished school, and teaching in his college.\nSilas declares you'll have to get him back.\nHe says they two will make a team for work:\nBetween them they will lay this farm as smooth!\nThe way he mixed that in with other things.\nHe thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft\nOn education—-you know how they fought\nAll through July under the blazing sun,\nSilas up on the cart to build the load,\nHarold along beside to pitch it on.\"\n\n\"Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.\"\n\n\"Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.\nYou wouldn't think they would. How some things\nlinger!\nHarold's young college boy's assurance piqued him.\nAfter so many years he still keeps finding\nGood arguments he sees he might have used.\nI sympathise. I know just how it feels\nTo think of the right thing to say too late.\nHarold's associated in his mind with Latin.\nHe asked me what I thought of Harold's saying\nHe studied Latin like the violin\nBecause he liked it—-that an argument!\nHe said he couldn't make the boy believe\nHe could find water with a hazel prong—-\nWhich showed how much good school had ever done\nhim.\nHe wanted to go over that. But most of all\nHe thinks if he could have another chance\nTo teach him how to build a load of hay----\"\n\n\"I know, that's Silas' one accomplishment.\nHe bundles every forkful in its place,\nAnd tags and numbers it for future reference,\nSo he can find and easily dislodge it\nIn the unloading. Silas does that well.\nHe takes it out in bunches like big birds' nests.\nYou never see him standing on the hay\nHe's trying to lift, straining to lift himself.\"\n\n\"He thinks if he could teach him that, he'd be\nSome good perhaps to someone in the world.\nHe hates to see a boy the fool of books.\nPoor Silas, so concerned for other folk,\nAnd nothing to look backward to with pride,\nAnd nothing to look forward to with hope,\nSo now and never any different.\"\n\nPart of a moon was falling down the west,\nDragging the whole sky with it to the hills.\nIts light poured softly in her lap. She saw\nAnd spread her apron to it. She put out her hand\nAmong the harp-like morning-glory strings,\nTaut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,\nAs if she played unheard the tenderness\nThat wrought on him beside her in the night.\n\"Warren,\" she said, \"he has come home to die:\nYou needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time.\"\n\n\"Home,\" he mocked gently.\n\n\"Yes, what else but home?\n\nIt all depends on what you mean by home.\nOf course he's nothing to us, any more\nThan was the hound that came a stranger to us\nOut of the woods, worn out upon the trail.\"\n\n\"Home is the place where, when you have to go\nthere,\nThey have to take you in.\"\n\n\"I should have called it\nSomething you somehow haven't to deserve.\"\n\nWarren leaned out and took a step or two,\nPicked up a little stick, and brought it back\nAnd broke it in his hand and tossed it by.\n\"Silas has better claim on us, you think,\nThan on his brother? Thirteen little miles\nAs the road winds would bring him to his door.\nSilas has walked that far no doubt to-day.\nWhy didn't he go there? His brother's rich,\nA somebody—-director in the bank.\"\n\n\"He never told us that.\"\n\n\"We know it though.\"\n\n\"I think his brother ought to help, of course.\nI'll see to that if there is need. He ought of right\nTo take him in, and might be willing to—-\nHe may be better than appearances.\nBut have some pity on Silas. Do you think\nIf he'd had any pride in claiming kin\nOr anything he looked for from his brother,\nHe'd keep so still about him all this time?\"\n\n\"I wonder what's between them.\"\n\n\"I can tell you.\nSilas is what he is—-we wouldn't mind him—-\nBut just the kind that kinsfolk can't abide.\nHe never did a thing so very bad.\nHe don't know why he isn't quite as good\nAs anyone. He won't be made ashamed\nTo please his brother, worthless though he is.\"\n\n\"_I_ can't think Si ever hurt anyone.\"\n\n\"No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay\nAnd rolled his old head on that sharp-edged\nchair-back.\nHe wouldn't let me put him on the lounge.\nYou must go in and see what you can do.\nI made the bed up for him there to-night.\nYou'll be surprised at him—-how much he's broken.\nHis working days are done; I'm sure of it.\"\n\n\"I'd not be in a hurry to say that.\"\n\n\"I haven't been. Go, look, see for yourself.\nBut, Warren, please remember how it is:\nHe's come to help you ditch the meadow.\nHe has a plan. You mustn't laugh at him.\nHe may not speak of it, and then he may.\nI'll sit and see if that small sailing cloud\nWill hit or miss the moon.\"\n\nIt hit the moon.\nThen there were three there, making a dim row,\nThe moon, the little silver cloud, and she.\n\nWarren returned—-too soon, it seemed to her,\nSlipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.\n\n\"Warren,\" she questioned.\n\n\"Dead,\" was all he answered.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "A Servant To Servants", + "body": "I didn't make you know how glad I was\nTo have you come and camp here on our land.\nI promised myself to get down some day\nAnd see the way you lived, but I don't know!\nWith a houseful of hungry men to feed\nI guess you'd find. ... It seems to me\nI can't express my feelings any more\nThan I can raise my voice or want to lift\nMy hand (oh, I can lift it when I have to).\nDid ever you feel so? I hope you never.\nIt's got so I don't even know for sure\nWhether I _am_ glad, sorry, or anything.\nThere's nothing but a voice-like left inside\nThat seems to tell me how I ought to feel,\nAnd would feel if I wasn't all gone wrong.\nYou take the lake. I look and look at it.\nI see it's a fair, pretty sheet of water.\nI stand and make myself repeat out loud\nThe advantages it has, so long and narrow,\nLike a deep piece of some old running river\nCut short off at both ends. It lies five miles\nStraight away through the mountain notch\nFrom the sink window where I wash the plates,\nAnd all our storms come up toward the house,\nDrawing the slow waves whiter and whiter and\nwhiter.\nIt took my mind off doughnuts and soda biscuit\nTo step outdoors and take the water dazzle\nA sunny morning, or take the rising wind\nAbout my face and body and through my wrapper,\nWhen a storm threatened from the Dragon's Den,\nAnd a cold chill shivered across the lake.\nI see it's a fair, pretty sheet of water,\nOur Willoughby! How did you hear of it?\nI expect, though, everyone's heard of it.\nIn a book about ferns? Listen to that!\nYou let things more like feathers regulate\nYour going and coming. And you like it here?\nI can see how you might. But I don't know!\nIt would be different if more people came,\nFor then there would be business. As it is,\nThe cottages Len built, sometimes we rent them,\nSometimes we don't. We've a good piece of shore\nThat ought to be worth something, and may yet.\nBut I don't count on it as much as Len.\nHe looks on the bright side of everything,\nIncluding me. He thinks I'll be all right\nWith doctoring. But it's not medicine—-\nLowe is the only doctor's dared to say so—-\nIt's rest I want—-there, I have said it out—-\nFrom cooking meals for hungry hired men\nAnd washing dishes after them—-from doing\nThings over and over that just won't stay done.\nBy good rights I ought not to have so much\nPut on me, but there seems no other way.\nLen says one steady pull more ought to do it.\nHe says the best way out is always through.\nAnd I agree to that, or in so far\nAs that I can see no way out but through—-\nLeastways for me—-and then they'll be convinced.\nIt's not that Len don't want the best for me.\nIt was his plan our moving over in\nBeside the lake from where that day I showed you\nWe used to live—-ten miles from anywhere\nWe didn't change without some sacrifice,\nBut Len went at it to make up the loss.\nHis work's a man's, of course, from sun to sun,\nBut he works when he works as hard as I do—-\nThough there's small profit in comparisons.\n(Women and men will make them all the same.)\nBut work ain't all. Len undertakes too much.\nHe's into everything in town. This year\nIt's highways, and he's got too many men\nAround him to look after that make waste.\nThey take advantage of him shamefully,\nAnd proud, too, of themselves for doing so.\nWe have four here to board, great good-for-nothings,\nSprawling about the kitchen with their talk\nWhile I fry their bacon. Much they care!\nNo more put out in what they do or say\nThan if I wasn't in the room at all.\nComing and going all the time, they are:\nI don't learn what their names are, let alone\nTheir characters, or whether they are safe\nTo have inside the house with doors unlocked.\nI'm not afraid of them, though, if they're not\nAfraid of me. There's two can play at that.\nI have my fancies: it runs in the family.\nMy father's brother wasn't right. They kept him\nLocked up for years back there at the old farm.\nI've been away once—-yes, I've been away.\nThe State Asylum. I was prejudiced;\nI wouldn't have sent anyone of mine there;\nYou know the old idea—-the only asylum\nWas the poorhouse, and those who could afford,\nRather than send their folks to such a place,\nKept them at home; and it does seem more human.\nBut it's not so: the place is the asylum.\nThere they have every means proper to do with,\nAnd you aren't darkening other people's lives—-\nWorse than no good to them, and they no good\nTo you in your condition; you can't know\nAffection or the want of it in that state.\nI've heard too much of the old-fashioned way.\nMy father's brother, he went mad quite young.\nSome thought he had been bitten by a dog,\nBecause his violence took on the form\nOf carrying his pillow in his teeth;\nBut it's more likely he was crossed in love,\nOr so the story goes. It was some girl.\nAnyway, all he talked about was love.\nThey soon saw he would do someone a mischief\nIf he wa'n't kept strict watch of, and it ended\nIn father's building him a sort of cage,\nOr room within a room, of hickory poles,\nLike stanchions in the barn, from floor to ceiling,—-\nA narrow passage all the way around.\nAnything they put in for furniture\nHe'd tear to pieces, even a bed to lie on.\nSo they made the place comfortable with straw,\nLike a beast's stall, to ease their consciences.\nOf course they had to feed him without dishes.\nThey tried to keep him clothed, but he paraded\nWith his clothes on his arm—-all of his clothes.\nCruel—-it sounds. I s'pose they did the best\nThey knew. And just when he was at the height,\nFather and mother married, and mother came,\nA bride, to help take care of such a creature,\nAnd accommodate her young life to his.\nThat was what marrying father meant to her.\nShe had to lie and hear love things made dreadful\nBy his shouts in the night. He'd shout and shout\nUntil the strength was shouted out of him,\nAnd his voice died down slowly from exhaustion.\nHe'd pull his bars apart like bow and bow-string,\nAnd let them go and make them twang until\nHis hands had worn them smooth as any ox-bow.\nAnd then he'd crow as if he thought that child's\nplay—-\nThe only fun he had. I've heard them say, though,\nThey found a way to put a stop to it.\nHe was before my time—-I never saw him;\nBut the pen stayed exactly as it was\nThere in the upper chamber in the ell,\nA sort of catch-all full of attic clutter.\nI often think of the smooth hickory bars.\nIt got so I would say--you know, half fooling—-\n\"It's time I took my turn upstairs in jail\"—-\nJust as you will till it becomes a habit.\nNo wonder I was glad to get away.\nMind you, I waited till Len said the word.\nI didn't want the blame if things went wrong.\nI was glad though, no end, when we moved out,\nAnd I looked to be happy, and I was,\nAs I said, for a while—-but I don't know!\nSomehow the change wore out like a prescription.\nAnd there's more to it than just window-views\nAnd living by a lake. I'm past such help—-\nUnless Len took the notion, which he won't,\nAnd I won't ask him—-it's not sure enough.\nI 'spose I've got to go the road I'm going:\nOther folks have to, and why shouldn't I?\nI almost think if I could do like you,\nDrop everything and live out on the ground—-\nBut it might be, come night, I shouldn't like it,\nOr a long rain. I should soon get enough,\nAnd be glad of a good roof overhead.\nI've lain awake thinking of you, I'll warrant,\nMore than you have yourself, some of these nights.\nThe wonder was the tents weren't snatched away\nFrom over you as you lay in your beds.\nI haven't courage for a risk like that.\nBless you, of course, you're keeping me from work,\nBut the thing of it is, I need to _be_ kept.\nThere's work enough to do—-there's always that;\nBut behind's behind. The worst that you can do\nIs set me back a little more behind.\nI shan't catch up in this world, anyway.\nI'd rather you'd not go unless you must.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Self-Seeker", + "body": "\"Willis, I didn't want you here to-day:\nThe lawyer's coming for the company.\nI'm going to sell my soul, or, rather, feet.\nFive hundred dollars for the pair, you know.\"\n\n\"With you the feet have nearly been the soul;\nAnd if you're going to sell them to the devil,\nI want to see you do it. When's he coming?\"\n\n\"I half suspect you knew, and came on purpose\nTo try to help me drive a better bargain.\"\n\n\"Well, if it's true! Yours are no common feet.\nThe lawyer don't know what it is he's buying:\nSo many miles you might have walked you won't\nwalk.\nYou haven't run your forty orchids down.\nWhat does he think?—-How _are_ the blessed feet?\nThe doctor's sure you're going to walk again?\"\n\n\"He thinks I'll hobble. It's both legs and feet.\"\n\n\"They must be terrible—-I mean to look at.\"\n\n\"I haven't dared to look at them uncovered.\nThrough the bed blankets I remind myself\nOf a starfish laid out with rigid points.\"\n\n\"The wonder is it hadn't been your head.\"\n\n\"It's hard to tell you how I managed it.\nWhen I saw the shaft had me by the coat,\nI didn't try too long to pull away,\nOr fumble for my knife to cut away,\nI just embraced the shaft and rode it out—-\nTill Weiss shut off the water in the wheel-pit.\nThat's how I think I didn't lose my head,\nBut my legs got their knocks against the ceiling.\"\n\n\"Awful. Why didn't they throw off the belt\nInstead of going clear down in the wheel-pit?\"\n\n\"They say sometime was wasted on the belt—-\nOld streak of leather—doesn't love me much\nBecause I made him spit fire at my knuckles,\nThe way Ben Franklin used to make the kite-string.\nThat must be it. Some days he won't stay on.\nThat day a woman couldn't coax him off.\nHe's on his rounds now with his tail in his mouth\nSnatched right and left across the silver pulleys.\nEverything goes the same without me there.\nYou can hear the small buzz saws whine, the big saw\nCaterwaul to the hills around the village\nAs they both bite the wood. It's all our music.\nOne ought as a good villager to like it.\nNo doubt it has a sort of prosperous sound,\nAnd it's our life.\"\n\n\"Yes, when it's not our death.\"\n\n\"You make that sound as if it wasn't so\nWith everything. What we live by we die by.\nI wonder where my lawyer is. His train's in.\nI want this over with; I'm hot and tired.\"\n\n\"You're getting ready to do something foolish.\"\n\n\"Watch for him, will you, Will? You let him in.\nI'd rather Mrs. Corbin didn't know;\nI've boarded here so long, she thinks she owns me.\nYou're bad enough to manage without her.\"\n\n\"And I'm going to be worse instead of better.\nYou've got to tell me how far this is gone:\nHave you agreed to any price?\"\n\n\"Five hundred.\nFive hundred—-five—-five! One, two, three, four,\nfive.\nYou needn't look at me.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you.\"\n\n\"I told you, Willis, when you first came in.\nDon't you be hard on me. I have to take\nWhat I can get. You see they have the feet,\nWhich gives them the advantage in the trade.\nI can't get back the feet in any case.\"\n\n\"But your flowers, man, you're selling out your\nflowers.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's one way to put it—-all the flowers\nOf every kind everywhere in this region\nFor the next forty summers—-call it forty.\nBut I'm not selling those, I'm giving them,\nThey never earned me so much as one cent:\nMoney can't pay me for the loss of them.\nNo, the five hundred was the sum they named\nTo pay the doctor's bill and tide me over.\nIt's that or fight, and I don't want to fight—-\nI just want to get settled in my life,\nSuch as it's going to be, and know the worst,\nOr best—-it may not be so bad. The firm\nPromise me all the shooks I want to nail.\"\n\n\"But what about your flora of the valley?\"\n\n\"You have me there. But that—-you didn't think\nThat was worth money to me? Still, I own\nIt goes against me not to finish it\nFor the friends it might bring me. By the way,\nI had a letter from Burroughs—-did I tell you?—-\nAbout my _Cyprepedium reginœ_;\nHe says it's not reported so far north.\nThere! there's the bell. He's rung. But you go\ndown\nAnd bring him up, and don't let Mrs. Corbin.—-\nOh, well, we'll soon be through with it. I'm tired.\"\n\nWillis brought up besides the Boston lawyer\nA little barefoot girl who in the noise\nOf heavy footsteps in the old frame house,\nAnd baritone importance of the lawyer,\nStood for a while unnoticed with her hands\nShyly behind her.\n\n\"Well, and how is Mister---\"\nThe lawyer was already in his satchel\nAs if for papers that might bear the name\nHe hadn't at command. \"You must excuse me,\nI dropped in at the mill and was detained.\"\n\n\"Looking round, I suppose,\" said Willis.\n\nWell, yes.\"\n\"Yes,\n\n\"Hear anything that might prove useful?\"\n\nThe Broken One saw Anne. \"Why, here is Anne\nWhat do you want, dear? Come, stand by the bed;\nTell me what is it?\" Anne just wagged her dress\nWith both hands held behind her. \"Guess,\" she\nsaid.\n\n\"Oh, guess which hand? My, my! Once on a\ntime\nI knew a lovely way to tell for certain\nBy looking in the ears. But I forget it.\nEr, let me see. I think 111 take the right.\nThat's sure to be right even if it's wrong.\nCome, hold it out. Don't change.—-A Ram's Horn\norchid!\nA Ram's Horn! What would I have got, I wonder,\nIf I had chosen left. Hold out the left.\nAnother Ram's Horn! Where did you find those,\nUnder what beech tree, on what woodchuck's knoll?\"\n\nAnne looked at the large lawyer at her side,\nAnd thought she wouldn't venture on so much.\n\n\"Were there no others?\"\n\n\"There were four or five.\nI knew you wouldn't let me pick them all.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't—-so I wouldn't. You're the girl!\nYou see Anne has her lesson learned by heart.\"\n\n\"I wanted there should be some there next year.\"\n\n\"Of course you did. You left the rest for seed,\nAnd for the backwoods woodchuck. You're the girl!\nA Ram's Horn orchid seedpod for a woodchuck\nSounds something like. Better than farmer's beans\nTo a discriminating appetite,\nThough the Ram's Horn is seldom to be had\nIn bushel lots—-doesn't come on the market.\nBut, Anne, I'm troubled; have you told me all?\nYou're hiding something. That's as bad as lying.\nYou ask this lawyer man. And it's not safe\nWith a lawyer at hand to find you out.\nNothing is hidden from some people, Anne.\nYou don't tell me that where you found a Ram's\nHorn\nYou didn't find a Yellow Lady's Slipper.\nWhat did I tell you? What? I'd blush, I would.\nDon't you defend yourself. If it was there,\nWhere is it now, the Yellow Lady's Slipper?\"\n\n\"Well, wait—it's common—-it's too _common._\"\n\n\"Common?\nThe Purple Lady's Slipper's commoner.\"\n\n\"I didn't bring a Purple Lady's Slipper\nTo _You_-—to you I mean—-they're both too\ncommon.\"\n\nThe lawyer gave a laugh among his papers\nAs if with some idea that she had scored.\n\n\"I've broken Anne of gathering bouquets.\nIt's not fair to the child. It can't be helped\nthough:\nPressed into service means pressed out of shape.\nSomehow I'll make it right with her—-she'll see.\nShe's going to do my scouting in the field,\nOver stone walls and all along a wood\nAnd by a river bank for water flowers,\nThe floating Heart, with small leaf like a heart,\nAnd at the _sinus_ under water a fist\nOf little fingers all kept down but one,\nAnd that thrust up to blossom in the sun\nAs if to say 'You! You're the Heart's desire.'\nAnne has a way with flowers to take the place\nOf that she's lost: she goes down on one knee\nAnd lifts their faces by the chin to hers\nAnd says their names, and leaves them where they\nare.\"\n\nThe lawyer wore a watch the case of which\nWas cunningly devised to make a noise\nLike a small pistol when he snapped it shut\nAt such a time as this. He snapped it now.\n\n\"Well, Anne, go, dearie. Our affair will wait.\nThe lawyer man is thinking of his train.\nHe wants to give me lots and lots of money\nBefore he goes, because I hurt myself,\nAnd it may take him I don't know how long.\nBut put our flowers in water first. Will, help her:\nThe pitcher's too full for her. There's no cup?\nJust hook them on the inside of the pitcher.\nNow run.—-Get out your documents! You see\nI have to keep on the good side of Anne.\nI'm a great boy to think of number one.\nAnd you can't blame me in the place I'm in.\nWho will take care of my necessities\nUnless I do?\"\n\n\"A pretty interlude,\"\nThe lawyer said: \"I'm sorry, but my train----\nLuckily terms are all agreed upon.\nYou only have to sign your name. Right—-there.\"\n\n\"You, Will, stop making faces. Come round here\nWhere you can't make them. What is it you want?\nI'll put you out with Anne. Be good or go.\"\n\n\"You don't mean you will sign that thing unread?\"\n\n\"Make yourself useful then, and read it for me.\nIsn't it something I have seen before?\"\n\n\"You'll find it is. Let your friend look at it.\"\n\n\"Yes, but all that takes time, and I'm as much\nIn haste to get it over with as you.\nBut read it, read it. That's right, draw the curtain:\nHalf the time I don't know what's troubling me.—-\nWhat do you say, Will? Don't you be a fool.\nYou! crumpling folkses' legal documents.\nOut with it if you've any real objection.\"\n\n\"Five hundred dollars!\"\n\n\"What would you think right?\"\n\n\"A thousand wouldn't be a cent too much;\nYou know it, Mr. Lawyer. The sin is\nAccepting anything before he knows\nWhether he's ever going to walk again.\nIt smells to me like a dishonest trick.\"\n\n\"I think—-I think—-from what I heard to-day—-\nAnd saw myself—-he would be ill-advised----\"\n\n\"What did you hear, for instance?\" Willis said.\n\n\"Now the place where the accident occurred----\"\n\nThe Broken One was twisted in his bed.\n\"This is between you two apparently.\nWhere I come in is what I want to know.\nYou stand up to it like a pair of cocks.\nGo outdoors if you want to fight. Spare me.\nWhen you come back, I'll have the papers signed.\nWill pencil do? Then, please, your fountain pen.\nOne of you hold my head up from the pillow.\"\n\nWillis flung off the bed. \"I wash my hands—-\nI'm no match—-no, and don't pretend to be----\"\n\nThe lawyer gravely capped his fountain pen.\n\"You're doing the wise thing: you won't regret it.\nWe're very sorry for you.\"\n\nWillis sneered:\n\"Who's _we?_—-some stockholders in Boston?\nI'll go outdoors, by gad! and won't come back.\"\n\n\"Willis, bring Anne back with you when you come.\nYes. Thanks for caring. Don't mind Will: he's\nsavage.\nHe thinks you ought to pay me for my flowers.\nYou don't know what I mean about the flowers.\nDon't stop to try now. You'll miss your train.\nGood-bye.\" He flung his arms around his face.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Loneliness", + "body": "(_Her Word_)\n\n\nOne ought not to have to care\nSo much as you and I\nCare when the birds come round the house\nTo seem to say good-bye;\n\nOr care so much when they come back\nWith whatever it is they sing;\nThe truth being we are as much\nToo glad for the one thing\n\nAs we are too sad for the other here—-\nWith birds that fill their breasts\nBut with each other and themselves\nAnd their built or driven nests.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "House Fear", + "body": "Always—-I tell you this they learned—-\nAlways at night when they returned\nTo the lonely house from far away\nTo lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,\nThey learned to rattle the lock and key\nTo give whatever might chance to be\nWarning and time to be off in flight:\nAnd preferring the out- to the in-door night,\nThey learned to leave the house-door wide\nUntil they had lit the lamp inside.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Smile", + "body": "(_Her Word_)\n\n\nI didn't like the way he went away.\nThat smile! It never came of being gay.\nStill, he smiled—-did you see him?—-I was sure!\nPerhaps because we gave him only bread\nAnd the wretch knew from that that we were poor.\nPerhaps because he let us give instead\nOf seizing from us as he might have seized.\nPerhaps he mocked at us for being wed,\nOr being very young (and he was pleased\nTo have a vision of us old and dead).\nI wonder how far down the road he's got.\nHe's watching from the woods as like as not.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Oft-Repeated Dream", + "body": "She had no saying dark enough\nFor the dark pine that kept\nForever trying the window-latch\nOf the room where they slept.\n\nThe tireless but ineffectual hands\nThat with every futile pass\nMade the great tree seem as a little bird\nBefore the mystery of glass!\n\nIt never had been inside the room,\nAnd only one of the two\nWas afraid in an oft-repeated dream\nOf what the tree might do.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Impulse", + "body": "It was too lonely for her there,\nAnd too wild,\nAnd since there were but two of them,\nAnd no child,\n\nAnd work was little in the house,\nShe was free,\nAnd followed where he furrowed field,\nOr felled tree.\n\nShe rested on a log and tossed\nThe fresh chips,\nWith a song only to herself\nOn her lips.\n\nAnd once she went to break a bough\nOf black alder.\nShe strayed so far she scarcely heard\nWhen he called her—-\n\nAnd didn't answer—-didn't speak—-\nOr return.\nShe stood, and then she ran and hid\nIn the fern.\n\nHe never found her, though he looked\nEverywhere,\nAnd he asked at her mother's house\nWas she there.\n\nSudden and swift and light as that\nThe ties gave,\nAnd he learned of finalities\nBesides the grave.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "\"Out, Out----\"", + "body": "The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard\nAnd made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of\nwood,\nSweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.\nAnd from there those that lifted eyes could count\nFive mountain ranges one behind the other\nUnder the sunset far into Vermont.\nAnd the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,\nAs it ran light, or had to bear a load.\nAnd nothing happened: day was all but done.\nCall it a day, I wish they might have said\nTo please the boy by giving him the half hour\nThat a boy counts so much when saved from work.\nHis sister stood beside them in her apron\nTo tell them \"Supper.\" At the word, the saw,\nAs if to prove saws knew what supper meant,\nLeaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—-\nHe must have given the hand. However it was,\nNeither refused the meeting. But the hand!\nThe boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh.\nAs he swung toward them holding up the hand\nHalf in appeal, but half as if to keep\nThe life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—-\nSince he was old enough to know, big boy\nDoing a man's work, though a child at heart—-\nHe saw all spoiled. \"Don't let him cut my hand off—-\nThe doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!\"\nSo. But the hand was gone already.\nThe doctor put him in the dark of ether.\nHe lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.\nAnd then—-the watcher at his pulse took fright.\nNo one believed. They listened at his heart.\nLittle—-less—-nothing!—-and that ended it.\nNo more to build on there. And they, since they\nWere not the one dead, turned to their affairs.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Putting In The Seed", + "body": "You come to fetch me from my work to-night\nWhen supper's on the table, and we'll see\nIf I can leave off burying the white\nSoft petals fallen from the apple tree\n(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,\nMingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled\npea);\nAnd go along with you ere you lose sight\nOf what you came for and become like me,\nSlave to a springtime passion for the earth.\nHow Love bums through the Putting in the Seed\nOn through the watching for that early birth\nWhen, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,\nThe sturdy seedling with arched body comes\nShouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Going For Water", + "body": "The well was dry beside the door,\nAnd so we went with pail and can\nAcross the fields behind the house\nTo seek the brook if still it ran;\n\nNot loth to have excuse to go,\nBecause the autumn eve was fair\n(Though chill), because the fields were ours,\nAnd by the brook our woods were there.\n\nWe ran as if to meet the moon\nThat slowly dawned behind the trees,\nThe barren boughs without the leaves,\nWithout the birds, without the breeze.\n\nBut once within the wood, we paused\nLike gnomes that hid us from the moon,\nReady to run to hiding new\nWith laughter when she found us soon.\n\nEach laid on other a staying hand\nTo listen ere we dared to look,\nAnd in the hush we joined to make\nWe heard, we knew we heard the brook.\n\nA note as from a single place,\nA slender tinkling fall that made\nNow drops that floated on the pool\nLike pearls, and now a silver blade.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Mowing", + "body": "There was never a sound beside the wood but one,\nAnd that was my long scythe whispering to the\nground.\nWhat was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;\nPerhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,\nSomething, perhaps, about the lack of sound—-\nAnd that was why it whispered and did not speak.\nIt was no dream of the gift of idle hours,\nOr easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:\nAnything more than the truth would have seemed\ntoo weak\nTo the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,\nNot without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers\n(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.\nThe fact is the sweetest dream that labour knows.\nMy long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "After Apple-Picking", + "body": "My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree\nToward heaven still,\nAnd there's a barrel that I didn't fill\nBeside it, and there may be two or three\nApples I didn't pick upon some bough.\nBut I am done with apple-picking now.\nEssence of winter sleep is on the night,\nThe scent of apples: I am drowsing off.\nI cannot rub the strangeness from my sight\nI got from looking through a pane of glass\nI skimmed this morning from the drinking trough\nAnd held against the world of hoary grass.\nIt melted, and I let it fall and break.\nBut I was well\nUpon my way to sleep before it fell,\nAnd I could tell\nWhat form my dreaming was about to take.\nMagnified apples appear and disappear,\nStem end and blossom end,\nAnd every fleck of russet showing clear.\nMy instep arch not only keeps the ache,\nIt keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.\nI feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.\nAnd I keep hearing from the cellar bin\nThe rumbling sound\nOf load on load of apples coming in.\nFor I have had too much\nOf apple-picking: I am overtired\nOf the great harvest I myself desired.\nThere were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,\nCherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.\nFor all\nThat struck the earth,\nNo matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,\nWent surely to the cider-apple heap\nAs of no worth.\nOne can see what will trouble\nThis sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.\nWere he not gone,\nThe woodchuck could say whether it's like his\nLong sleep, as I describe its coming on,\nOr just some human sleep.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Birches", + "body": "When I see birches bend to left and right\nAcross the lines of straighter darker trees,\nI like to think some boy's been swinging them.\nBut swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.\nIce-storms do that. Often you must have seen them\nLoaded with ice a sunny winter morning\nAfter a rain. They click upon themselves\nAs the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured\nAs the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.\nSoon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal\nshells\nShattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—-\nSuch heaps of broken glass to sweep away\nYou'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.\nThey are dragged to the withered bracken by the\nload,\nAnd they seem not to break; though once they are\nbowed\nSo low for long, they never right themselves:\nYou may see their trunks arching in the woods\nYears afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,\nLike girls on hands and knees that throw their hair\nBefore them over their heads to dry in the sun.\nBut I was going to say when Truth broke in\nWith all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,\nI should prefer to have some boy bend them\nAs he went out and in to fetch the cows—-\nSome boy too far from town to learn baseball,\nWhose only play was what he found himself,\nSummer or winter, and could play alone.\nOne by one he subdued his father's trees\nBy riding them down over and over again\nUntil he took the stiffness out of them,\nAnd not one but hung limp, not one was left\nFor him to conquer. He learned all there was\nTo learn about not launching out too soon\nAnd so not carrying the tree away\nClear to the ground. He always kept his poise\nTo the top branches, climbing carefully\nWith the same pains you use to fill a cup\nUp to the brim, and even above the brim.\nThen he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,\nKicking his way down through the air to the ground.\nSo was I once myself a swinger of birches.\nAnd so I dream of going back to be.\nIt's when I'm weary of considerations,\nAnd life is too much like a pathless wood\nWhere your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs\nBroken across it, and one eye is weeping\nFrom a twig's having lashed across it open.\nI'd like to get away from earth awhile\nAnd then come back to it and begin over.\nMay no fate wilfully misunderstand me\nAnd half grant what I wish and snatch me away\nNot to return. Earth's the right place for love:\nI don't know where it's likely to go better.\nI'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,\nAnd climb black branches up a snow-white trunk\n_Toward_ heaven, till the tree could bear no more,\nBut dipped its top and set me down again.\nThat would be good both going and coming back.\nOne could do worse than be a swinger of birches.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Gum-Gatherer", + "body": "There overtook me and drew me in\nTo his down-hill, early-morning stride,\nAnd set me five miles on my road\nBetter than if he had had me ride,\nA man with a swinging bag for load\nAnd half the bag wound round his hand.\nWe talked like barking above the din\nOf water we walked along beside.\nAnd for my telling him where I'd been\nAnd where I lived in mountain land\nTo be coming home the way I was,\nHe told me a little about himself.\nHe came from higher up in the pass\nWhere the grist of the new-beginning brooks\nIs blocks split off the mountain mass—-\nAnd hopeless grist enough it looks\nEver to grind to soil for grass.\n(The way it is will do for moss.)\nThere he had built his stolen shack.\nIt had to be a stolen shack\nBecause of the fears of fire and loss\nThat trouble the sleep of lumber folk:\nVisions of half the world burned black\nAnd the sun shrunken yellow in smoke.\nWe know who when they come to town\nBring berries under the wagon seat,\nOr a basket of eggs between their feet;\nWhat this man brought in a cotton sack\nWas gum, the gum of the mountain spruce.\nHe showed me lumps of the scented stuff\nLike uncut jewels, dull and rough.\nIt comes to market golden brown;\nBut turns to pink between the teeth.\n\nI told him this is a pleasant life\nTo set your breast to the bark of trees\nThat all your days are dim beneath,\nAnd reaching up with a little knife,\nTo loose the resin and take it down\nAnd bring it to market when you please.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Mountain", + "body": "The mountain held the town as in a shadow.\nI saw so much before I slept there once:\nI noticed that I missed stars in the west,\nWhere its black body cut into the sky.\nNear me it seemed: I felt it like a wall\nBehind which I was sheltered from a wind.\nAnd yet between the town and it I found,\nWhen I walked forth at dawn to see new things,\nWere fields, a river, and beyond, more fields.\nThe river at the time was fallen away,\nAnd made a widespread brawl on cobble-stones;\nBut the signs showed what it had done in spring;\nGood grass-land gullied out, and in the grass\nRidges of sand, and driftwood stripped of bark.\nI crossed the river and swung round the mountain.\nAnd there I met a man who moved so slow\nWith white-faced oxen in a heavy cart,\nIt seemed no harm to stop him altogether.\n\n\"What town is this?\" I asked.\n\n\"This? Lunenburg.\"\nThen I was wrong: the town of my sojourn,\nBeyond the bridge, was not that of the mountain,\nBut only felt at night its shadowy presence.\n\"Where is your village? Very far from here?\"\n\n\"There is no village—-only scattered farms.\nWe were but sixty voters last election.\nWe can't in nature grow to many more:\nThat thing takes all the room!\" He moved his goad.\nThe mountain stood there to be pointed at.\nPasture ran up the side a little way,\nAnd then there was a wall of trees with trunks:\nAfter that only tops of trees, and cliffs\nImperfectly concealed among the leaves.\nA dry ravine emerged from under boughs\nInto the pasture.\n\n\"That looks like a path.\nIs that the way to reach the top from here?—-\nNot for this morning, but some other time:\nI must be getting back to breakfast now.\"\n\n\"I don't advise your trying from this side.\nThere is no proper path, but those that _have_\nBeen up, I understand, have climbed from Ladd's.\nThat's five miles back. You can't mistake the place:\nThey logged it there last winter some way up.\nI'd take you, but I'm bound the other way.\"\n\n\"You've never climbed it?\"\n\n\"I've been on the sides\nDeer-hunting and trout-fishing. There's a brook\nThat starts up on it somewhere—-I've heard say\nRight on the top, tip-top—-a curious thing.\nBut what would interest you about the brook,\nIt's always cold in summer, warm in winter.\nOne of the great sights going is to see\nIt steam in winter like an ox's breath.\nUntil the bushes all along its banks\nAre inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles—-\nYou know the kind. Then let the sun shine on it!\"\n\n\"There ought to be a view around the world\nFrom such a mountain—-if it isn't wooded\nClear to the top.\" I saw through leafy screens\nGreat granite terraces in sun and shadow,\nShelves one could rest a knee on getting up—-\nWith depths behind him sheer a hundred feet;\nOr turn and sit on and look out and down,\nWith little ferns in crevices at his elbow.\n\n\"As to that I can't say. But there's the spring,\nRight on the summit, almost like a fountain.\nThat ought to be worth seeing.\"\n\n\"If it's there.\nYou never saw it?\"\n\nI guess there's no doubt\nAbout its being there. I never saw it.\nIt may not be right on the very top:\nIt wouldn't have to be a long way down\nTo have some head of water from above,\nAnd a _good distance_ down might not be noticed\nBy anyone who'd come a long way up.\nOne time I asked a fellow climbing it\nTo look and tell me later how it was.\"\n\n\"What did he say?\"\n\n\"He said there was a lake\nSomewhere in Ireland on a mountain top.\"\n\n\"But a lake's different. What about the spring?\"\n\n\"He never got up high enough to see.\nThat's why I don't advise your trying this side.\nHe tried this side. I've always meant to go\nAnd look myself, but you know how it is:\nIt doesn't seem so much to climb a mountain\nYou've worked around the foot of all your life.\nWhat would I do? Go in my overalls,\nWith a big stick, the same as when the cows\nHaven't come down to the bars at milking time?\nOr with a shotgun for a stray black bear?\n'Twouldn't seem real to climb for climbing it.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't climb it if I didn't want to—-\nNot for the sake of climbing. What's its name?\"\n\n\"We call it Hor: I don't know if that's right.\"\n\n\"Can one walk round it? Would it be too far?\"\n\n\"You can drive round and keep in Lunenburg,\nBut it's as much as ever you can do,\nThe boundary lines keep in so close to it.\nHor is the township, and the township's Hor—-\n_And_ a few houses sprinkled round the foot,\nLike boulders broken off the upper cliff,\nRolled out a little farther than the rest.\"\n\n\"Warm in December, cold in June, you say?\"\n\n\"I don't suppose the waters changed at all.\nYou and I know enough to know it's warm\nCompared with cold, and cold compared with warm.\nBut all the fun's in how you say a thing.\"\n\n\"You've lived here all your life?\"\n\n\"Ever since Hor\n\nWas no bigger than a----\" What, I did not hear.\nHe drew the oxen toward him with light touches\nOf his slim goad on nose and offside flank,\nGave them their marching orders, and was moving.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Tuft Of Flowers", + "body": "I went to turn the grass once after one\nWho mowed it in the dew before the sun.\n\nThe dew was gone that made his blade so keen\nBefore I came to view the levelled scene.\n\nI looked for him behind an isle of trees;\nI listened for his whetstone on the breeze.\n\nBut he had gone his way, the grass all mown,\nAnd I must be, as he had been—-alone,\n\n\"As all must be,\" I said within my heart,\n\"Whether they work together or apart.\"\n\nBut as I said it, swift there passed me by\nOn noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,\n\nSeeking with memories grown dim o'er night\nSome resting flower of yesterday's delight.\n\nAnd once I marked his flight go round and round,\nAs where some flower lay withering on the ground.\n\nAnd then he flew as far as eye could see,\nAnd then on tremulous wing came back to me.\n\nI thought of questions that have no reply,\nAnd would have turned to toss the grass to dry;\n\nBut he turned first, and led my eye to look\nAt a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,\n\nA leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared\nBeside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.\n\nI left my place to know them by their name,\nFinding them butterfly weed when I came.\n\nThe mower in the dew had loved them thus,\nBy leaving them to flourish, not for us,\n\nNor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.\nBut from sheer morning gladness at the brim.\n\nThe butterfly and I had lit upon,\nNevertheless, a message from the dawn.\n\nThat made me hear the wakening birds around,\nAnd hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,\n\nAnd feel a spirit kindred to my own;\nSo that henceforth I worked no more alone;\n\nBut glad with him, I worked as with his aid,\nAnd weary, sought at noon with him the shade;\n\nAnd dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech\nWith one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.\n\n\"Men work together,\" I told him from the heart,\n\"Whether they work together or apart.\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Mending Wall", + "body": "Something there is that doesn't love a wall,\nThat sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,\nAnd spills the upper boulders in the sun;\nAnd makes gaps even two can pass abreast.\nThe work of hunters is another thing:\nI have come after them and made repair\nWhere they have left not one stone on a stone,\nBut they would have the rabbit out of hiding,\nTo please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,\nNo one has seen them made or heard them made,\nBut at spring mending-time we find them there.\nI let my neighbour know beyond the hill;\nAnd on a day we meet to walk the line\nAnd set the wall between us once again.\nWe keep the wall between us as we go.\nTo each the boulders that have fallen to each.\nAnd some are loaves and some so nearly balls\nWe have to use a spell to make them balance:\n\"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!\"\nWe wear our fingers rough with handling them.\nOh, just another kind of out-door game,\nOne on a side. It comes to little more:\nThere where it is we do not need the wall:\nHe is all pine and I am apple orchard.\nMy apple trees will never get across\nAnd eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.\nHe only says, \"Good fences make good neighbours.\"\nSpring is the mischief in me, and I wonder\nIf I could put a notion in his head:\n\"_Why_ do they make good neighbours? Isn't it\nWhere there are cows? But here there are no cows.\nBefore I built a wall I'd ask to know\nWhat I was walling in or walling out,\nAnd to whom I was like to give offence.\nSomething there is that doesn't love a wall,\nThat wants it down.\" I could say \"Elves\" to him,\nBut it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather\nHe said it for himself. I see him there\nBringing a stone grasped firmly by the top\nIn each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.\nHe moves in darkness as it seems to me,\nNot of woods only and the shade of trees.\nHe will not go behind his father's saying,\nAnd he likes having thought of it so well\nHe says again, \"Good fences make good\nneighbours.\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "An Encounter", + "body": "Once on the kind of day called \"weather breeder,\"\nWhen the heat slowly hazes and the sun\nBy its own power seems to be undone,\nI was half boring through, half climbing through,\nA swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar\nAnd scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated,\nAnd sorry I ever left the road I knew,\nI paused and rested on a sort of hook\nThat had me by the coat as good as seated,\nAnd since there was no other way to look,\nLooked up toward heaven, and there against the\nblue\nStood over me a resurrected tree,\nA tree that had been down and raised again—-\nA barkless spectre. He had halted too,\nAs if for fear of treading upon me.\nI saw the strange position of his hands—-\nUp at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands\nOf wire with something in it from men to men.\n\"You here?\" I said. \"Where aren't you nowadays?\nAnd what's the news you carry—-if you know?\nAnd tell me where you're off for-—Montreal?\nMe? I'm not off for anywhere at all.\nSometimes I wander out of beaten ways\nHalf looking for the orchid Calypso.\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Wood-Pile", + "body": "Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day\nI paused and said, \"I will turn back from here.\nNo, I will go on farther—-and we shall see.\"\nThe hard snow held me, save where now and then\nOne foot went through. The view was all in lines\nStraight up and down of tall slim trees\nToo much alike to mark or name a place by\nSo as to say for certain I was here\nOr somewhere else: I was just far from home.\nA small bird flew before me. He was careful\nTo put a tree between us when he lighted,\nAnd say no word to tell me who he was\nWho was so foolish as to think what _he_ thought.\nHe thought that I was after him for a feather—-\nThe white one in his tail; like one who takes\nEverything said as personal to himself.\nOne flight out sideways would have undeceived him.\nAnd then there was a pile of wood for which\nI forgot him and let his little fear\nCarry him off the way I might have gone,\nWithout so much as wishing him good-night.\nHe went behind it to make his last stand.\nIt was a cord of maple, cut and split\nAnd piled—-and measured, four by four by eight.\nAnd not another like it could I see.\nNo runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.\nAnd it was older sure than this year's cutting,\nOr even last year's or the year's before.\nThe wood was gray and the bark warping off it\nAnd the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis\nHad wound strings round and round it like a bundle.\nWhat held it though on one side was a tree\nStill growing, and on one a stake and prop,\nThese latter about to fall. I thought that only\nSomeone who lived in turning to fresh tasks\nCould so forget his handiwork on which\nHe spent himself, the labour of his axe,\nAnd leave it there far from a useful fireplace\nTo warm the frozen swamp as best it could\nWith the slow smokeless burning of decay.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Snow", + "body": "The three stood listening to a fresh access\nOf wind that caught against the house a moment,\nGulped snow, and then blew free again—-the Coles\nDressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,\nMeserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore.\n\nMeserve was first to speak. He pointed backward\nOver his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying,\n\"You can just see it glancing off the roof\nMaking a great scroll upward toward the sky,\nLong enough for recording all our names on;\nI think I'll just call up my wife and tell her\nI'm here—-so far—-and starting on again.\nI'll call her softly so that if she's wise\nAnd gone to sleep, she needn't wake to answer.\"\nThree times he barely stirred the bell, then listened.\n\"Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I'm at Cole's. I'm late.\nI called you up to say Good-night from here\nBefore I went to say Good-morning there.—-\nI thought I would.—-I know, but, Lett—-I know—-\nI could, but what's the sense? The rest won't be\nSo bad.—-Give me an hour for it.—-Ho, ho!\nThree hours to here! But that was all up hill;\nThe rest is down.—-Why, no, no, not a wallow:\nThey kept their heads and took their time to it\nLike darlings, both of them. They're in the barn.—-\nMy dear, I'm coming just the same. I didn't\nCall you to ask you to invite me home.—-\"\nHe lingered for some word she wouldn't say,\nSaid it at last himself, \"Good-night,\" and then,\nGetting no answer, closed the telephone.\nThe three stood in the lamplight round the table\nWith lowered eyes a moment till he said,\n\"I'll just see how the horses are.\"\n\n\"Yes, do,\"\nBoth the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole\nAdded: \"You can judge better after seeing.—-\nI want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here,\nBrother Meserve. You know to find your way\nOut through the shed.\"\n\n\"I guess I know my way,\nI guess I know where I can find my name\nCarved in the shed to tell me who I am\nIf it don't tell me where I am. I used\nTo play----\"\n\n\"You tend your horses and come back.\nFred Cole, you're going to let him!\"\n\n\"Well, aren't you?\nHow can you help yourself?\"\n\n\"I called him Brother.\nWhy did I call him that?\"\n\n\"It's right enough.\nThat's all you ever heard him called round here.\nHe seems to have lost off his Christian name.\"\n\n\"Christian enough I should call that myself.\nHe took no notice, did he? Well, at least\nI didn't use it out of love of him,\nThe dear knows. I detest the thought of him\nWith his ten children under ten years old.\nI hate his wretched little Racker Sect,\nAll's ever I heard of it, which isn't much.\nBut that's not saying---- Look, Fred Cole, it's\ntwelve,\nIsn't it, now? He's been here half an hour.\nHe says he left the village store at nine.\nThree hours to do four miles—-a mile an hour\nOr not much better. Why, it doesn't seem\nAs if a man could move that slow and move.\nTry to think what he did with all that time.\nAnd three miles more to go!\"\n\n\"Don't let him go.\nStick to him, Helen. Make him answer you.\nThat sort of man talks straight on all his life\nFrom the last thing he said himself, stone deaf\nTo anything anyone else may say.\nI should have thought, though, you could make him\nhear you.\"\n\n\"What is he doing out a night like this?\nWhy can't he stay at home?\"\n\n\"He had to preach.\"\n\n\"It's no night to be out.\"\n\n\"He may be small,\nHe may be good, but one thing's sure, he's tough.\"\n\n\"And strong of stale tobacco.\"\n\n\"He'll pull through.\"\n\n\"You only say so. Not another house\nOr shelter to put into from this place\nTo theirs. I'm going to call his wife again.\"\n\n\"Wait and he may. Let's see what he will do.\nLet's see if he will think of her again.\nBut then I doubt he's thinking of himself.\nHe doesn't look on it as anything.\"\n\n\"He shan't go--there!\"\n\n\"It is a night, my dear.\"\n\n\"One thing: he dicing drag God into it.\"\n\n\"He don't consider it a case for God.\"\n\n\"You think so, do you? You don't know the kind.\nHe's getting up a miracle this minute.\nPrivately—-to himself, right now, he's thinking\nHe'll make a case of it if he succeeds,\nBut keep still if he fails.\"\n\n\"Keep still all over.\nHe'll be dead--dead and buried.\"\n\n\"Such a trouble!\nNot but I've every reason not to care\nWhat happens to him if it only takes\nSome of the sanctimonious conceit\nOut of one of those pious scalawags.\"\n\n\"Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe.\"\n\n\"You like the runt.\"\n\n\"Don't you a little?\"\n\n\"Well,\nI don't like what he's doing, which is what\nYou like, and like him for.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, you do\nYou like your fun as well as anyone;\nOnly you women have to put these airs on\nTo impress men. You've got us so ashamed\nOf being men we can't look at a good fight\nBetween two boys and not feel bound to stop it.\nLet the man freeze an ear or two, I say.—-\nHe's here. I leave him all to you. Go in\nAnd save his life.—-All right, come in, Meserve\nSit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?\"\n\n\"Fine, fine.\"\n\n\"And ready for some more? My wife here\nSays it won't do. You've got to give it up.\"\n\n\"Won't you to please me? Please! If I say please?\nMr. Meserve, I'll leave it to _your_ wife.\nWhat _did_ your wife say on the telephone?\"\n\nMeserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp\nOr something not far from it on the table.\nBy straightening out and lifting a forefinger,\nHe pointed with his hand from where it lay\nLike a white crumpled spider on his knee:\n\"That leaf there in your open book! It moved\nJust then, I thought. It's stood erect like that,\nThere on the table, ever since I came,\nTrying to turn itself backward or forward,\nI've had my eye on it to make out which;\nIf forward, then it's with a friend's impatience—-\nYou see I know—-to get you on to things\nIt wants to see how you will take, if backward\nIt's from regret for something you have passed\nAnd failed to see the good of. Never mind,\nThings must expect to come in front of us\nA many times—-I don't say just how many—-\nThat varies with the things—-before we see them.\nOne of the lies would make it out that nothing\nEver presents itself before us twice.\nWhere would we be at last if that were so?\nOur very life depends on everything's\nRecurring till we answer from within.\nThe thousandth time may prove the charm.—-That\nleaf!\nIt can't turn either way. It needs the wind's help.\nBut the wind didn't move it if it moved.\nIt moved itself. The wind's at naught in here.\nIt couldn't stir so sensitively poised\nA thing as that. It couldn't reach the lamp\nTo get a puff of black smoke from the flame,\nOr blow a rumple in the collie's coat.\nYou make a little foursquare block of air,\nQuiet and light and warm, in spite of all\nThe illimitable dark and cold and storm,\nAnd by so doing give these three, lamp, dog,\nAnd book-leaf, that keep near you, their repose;\nThough for all anyone can tell, repose\nMay be the thing you haven't, yet you give it.\nSo false it is that what we haven't we can't give;\nSo false, that what we always say is true.\nI'll have to turn the leaf if no one else will.\nIt won't lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?\"\n\n\"I shouldn't want to hurry you, Meserve,\nBut if you're going—- Say you'll stay, you know?\nBut let me raise this curtain on a scene,\nAnd show you how it's piling up against you.\nYou see the snow-white through the white of frost?\nAsk Helen how far up the sash it's climbed\nSince last we read the gage.\"\n\n\"It looks as if\nSome pallid thing had squashed its features flat\nAnd its eyes shut with overeagerness\nTo see what people found so interesting\nIn one another, and had gone to sleep\nOf its own stupid lack of understanding,\nOr broken its white neck of mushroom stuff\nShort off, and died against the window-pane.\"\n\n\"Brother Meserve, take care, you'll scare yourself\nMore than you will us with such nightmare talk.\nIt's you it matters to, because it's you\nWho have to go out into it alone.\"\n\n\"Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he'll stay.\"\n\n\"Before you drop the curtain—-I'm reminded:\nYou recollect the boy who came out here\nTo breathe the air one winter—-had a room\nDown at the Averys'? Well, one sunny morning\nAfter a downy storm, he passed our place\nAnd found me banking up the house with snow.\nAnd I was burrowing in deep for warmth,\nPiling it well above the window-sills.\nThe snow against the window caught his eye.\n'Hey, that's a pretty thought'—-those were his\nwords.\n'So you can think it's six feet deep outside,\nWhile you sit warm and read up balanced rations.\nYou can't get too much winter in the winter.'\nThose were his words. And he went home and\nall\nBut banked the daylight out of Avery's windows.\nNow you and I would go to no such length.\nAt the same time you can't deny it makes\nIt not a mite worse, sitting here, we three,\nPlaying our fancy, to have the snowline run\nSo high across the pane outside. There where\nThere is a sort of tunnel in the frost\nMore like a tunnel than a hole—-way down\nAt the far end of it you see a stir\nAnd quiver like the frayed edge of the drift\nBlown in the wind. I _like_ that—-I like that.\nWell, now I leave you, people.\"\n\n\"Come, Meserve,\nWe thought you were deciding not to go—-\nThe ways you found to say the praise of comfort\nAnd being where you are. You want to stay.\"\n\n\"I'll own it's cold for such a fall of snow.\nThis house is frozen brittle, all except\nThis room you sit in. If you think the wind\nSounds further off, it's not because it's dying;\nYou're further under in the snow—-that's all—-\nAnd feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust\nIt bursts against us at the chimney mouth,\nAnd at the eaves. I like it from inside\nMore than I shall out in it. But the horses\nAre rested and it's time to say good-night,\nAnd let you get to bed again. Good-night,\nSorry I had to break in on your sleep.\"\n\n\"Lucky for you you did. Lucky for you\nYou had us for a half-way station\nTo stop at. If you were the kind of man\nPaid heed to women, you'd take my advice\nAnd for your family's sake stay where you are.\nBut what good is my saying it over and over?\nYou've done more than you had a right to think\nYou could do—-_now._ You know the risk you take\nIn going on.\"\n\n\"Our snow-storms as a rule\nAren't looked on as man-killers, and although\nI'd rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep\nUnder it all, his door sealed up and lost,\nThan the man fighting it to keep above it,\nYet think of the small birds at roost and not\nIn nests. Shall I be counted less than they are?\nTheir bulk in water would be frozen rock\nIn no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow\nThey will come budding boughs from tree to tree\nFlirting their wings and saying Chickadee,\nAs if not knowing what you meant by the word\nstorm.\"\n\n\"But why when no one wants you to go on?\nYour wife—-she doesn't want you to. We don't,\nAnd you yourself don't want to. Who else is there?\"\n\n\"Save us from being cornered by a woman.\nWell, there's\"—-She told Fred afterward that in\nThe pause right there, she thought the dreaded word\nWas coming, \"God.\" But no, he only said\n\"Well, there's—-the storm. That says I must go on.\nThat wants me as a war might if it came.\nAsk any man.\"\n\nHe threw her that as something\nTo last her till he got outside the door.\n\nHe had Cole with him to the barn to see him off.\nWhen Cole returned he found his wife still standing\nBeside the table near the open book,\nNot reading it.\n\n\"Well, what kind of a man\nDo you call that?\" she said.\n\n\"He had the gift\nOf words, or is it tongues, I ought to say?\"\n\n\"Was ever such a man for seeing likeness?\"\n\n\"Or disregarding peopled civil questions—-\nWhat? We've found out in one hour more about\nhim\nThan we had seeing him pass by in the road\nA thousand times. If that's the way he preaches!\nYou didn't think you'd keep him after all.\nOh, I'm not blaming you. He didn't leave you\nMuch say in the matter, and I'm just as glad\nWe're not in for a night of him. No sleep\nIf he had stayed. The least thing set him going.\nIt's quiet as an empty church without him.\"\n\n\"But how much better off are we as it is?\nWe'll have to sit here till we know he's safe.\"\n\n\"Yes, I suppose you'll want to, but I shouldn't.\nHe knows what he can do, or he wouldn't try.\nGet into bed I say, and get some rest.\nHe won't come back, and if he telephones,\nIt won't be for an hour or two.\"\n\n\"Well then\nWe can't be any help by sitting here\nAnd living his fight through with him, I suppose.\n\n-----\n\nCole had been telephoning in the dark.\nMrs. Cole's voice came from an inner room:\n\"Did she call you or you call her?\"\n\n\"She me.\nYou'd better dress: you won't go back to bed.\nWe must have been asleep: it's three and after.\"\n\n\"Had she been ringing long? I'll get my wrapper.\nI want to speak to her.\"\n\n\"All she said was,\nHe hadn't come and had he really started.\"\n\n\"She knew he had, poor thing, two hours ago.\n\n\"He had the shovel. Hell have made a fight.\"\n\n\"Why did I ever let him leave this house!\"\n\n\"Don't begin that. You did the best you could\nTo keep him—-though perhaps you didn't quite\nConceal a wish to see him show the spunk\nTo disobey you. Much his wife'll thank you.\"\n\n\"Fred, after all I said! You shan't make out\nThat it was any way but what it was.\nDid she let on by any word she said\nShe didn't thank me?\"\n\n\"When I told her 'Gone,'\n'Well then,' she said, and 'Well then'—-like a\nthreat.\nAnd then her voice came scraping slow: 'Oh, you,\nWhy did you let him go'?\"\n\n\"Asked why we let him?\nYou let me there. I'll ask her why she let him.\nShe didn't dare to speak when he was here.\nTheir number's—-twenty-one? The thing won't\nwork.\nSomeone's receiver's down. The handle stumbles.\nThe stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm!\nIt's theirs. She's dropped it from her hand and\ngone.\"\n\n\"Try speaking. Say 'Hello'!\"\n\n\"Hello, Hello.\"\n\n\"What do you hear?\"\n\n\"I hear an empty room—-\nYou know—-it sounds that way. And yes, I hear—-\nI think I hear a clock—-and windows rattling.\nNo step though. If she's there she's sitting down.\"\n\n\"Shout, she may hear you.\"\n\n\"Shouting is no good.\"\n\n\"Keep speaking then.\"\n\n\"Hello. Hello. Hello.\nYou don't suppose—-? She wouldn't go out doors?\"\n\n\"I'm half afraid that's just what she might do.\"\n\n\"And leave the children?\"\n\n\"Wait and call again.\nYou can't hear whether she has left the door\nWide open and the wind's blown out the lamp\nAnd the fire's died and the room's dark and cold?\"\n\n\"One of two things, either she's gone to bed\nOr gone out doors.\"\n\n\"In which case both are lost.\nDo you know what she's like? Have you ever met\nher?\nIt's strange she doesn't want to speak to us.\"\n\n\"Fred, see if you can hear what I hear. Come.\"\n\n\"A clock maybe.\"\n\n\"Don't you hear something else?\"\n\n\"Not talking.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Why, yes, I hear—-what is it?\"\n\n\"What do you say it is?\"\n\n\"A baby's crying!\nFrantic it sounds, though muffled and far off.\"\n\n\"Its mother wouldn't let it cry like that,\nNot if she's there.\"\n\n\"What do you make of it?\"\n\n\"There's only one thing possible to make,\nThat is, assuming—-that she has gone out.\nOf course she hasn't though.\" They both sat down\nHelpless. \"There's nothing we can do till\nmorning.\"\n\n\"Fred, I shan't let you think of going out.\"\n\n\"Hold on.\" The double bell began to chirp.\nThey started up. Fred took the telephone.\n\"Hello, Meserve. You're there, then!—-And your\nwife?\n\nGood! Why I asked—-she didn't seem to answer.\nHe says she went to let him in the barn.—-\nWe're glad. Oh, say no more about it, man.\nDrop in and see us when you're passing.\"\n\n\"Well.\nShe has him then, though what she wants him for\nI _don't_ see.\"\n\n\"Possibly not for herself.\nMaybe she only wants him for the children.\"\n\n\"The whole to-do seems to have been for nothing.\nWhat spoiled our night was to him just his fun.\nWhat did he come in for?—-To talk and visit?\nThought he'd just call to tell us it was snowing.\nIf he thinks he is going to make our house\nA halfway coffee house 'twixt town and\nnowhere----\"\n\n\"I thought you'd feel you'd been too much\nconcerned.\"\n\n\"You think you haven't been concerned yourself.\"\n\n\"If you mean he was inconsiderate\nTo rout us out to think for him at midnight\nAnd then take our advice no more than nothing,\nWhy, I agree with you. But let's forgive him.\nWe've had a share in one night of his life.\nWhat'll you bet he ever calls again?\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "In The Home Stretch", + "body": "She stood against the kitchen sink, and looked\nOver the sink out through a dusty window\nAt weeds the water from the sink made tall.\nShe wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.\nBehind her was confusion in the room,\nOf chairs turned upside down to sit like people\nIn other chairs, and something, come to look,\nFor every room a house has—-parlor, bed-room,\nAnd dining-room—-thrown pell-mell in the kitchen.\nAnd now and then a smudged, infernal face\nLooked in a door behind her and addressed\nHer back. She always answered without turning.\n\n\"Where will I put this walnut bureau, lady?\"\n\n\"Put it on top of something that's on top\nOf something else,\" she laughed. \"Oh, put it where\nYou can to-night, and go. It's almost dark;\nYou must be getting started back to town.\"\nAnother blackened face thrust in and looked\nAnd smiled, and when she did not turn, spoke\ngently,\n\"What are you seeing out the window, _lady?_\"\n\n\"Never was I beladied so before.\nWould evidence of having been called lady\nMore than so many times make me a lady\nIn common law, I wonder.\"\n\n\"But I ask,\nWhat are you seeing out the window, lady?\"\n\n\"What I'll be seeing more of in the years\nTo come as here I stand and go the round\nOf many plates with towels many times.\"\n\n\"And what is that? You only put me off.\"\n\n\"Rank weeds that love the water from the dish-pan\nMore than some women like the dish-pan, Joe;\nA little stretch of mowing-field for you;\nNot much of that until I come to woods\nThat end all. And it's scarce enough to call\nA view.\"\n\n\"And yet you think you like it, dear?\"\n\n\"That's what you're so concerned to know! You\nhope\nI like it. Bang goes something big away\nOff there upstairs. The very tread of men\nAs great as those is shattering to the frame\nOf such a little house. Once left alone,\nYou and I, dear, will go with softer steps\nUp and down stairs and through the rooms, and\nnone\nBut sudden winds that snatch them from our hands\nWill ever slam the doors.\"\n\n\"I think you see\nMore than you like to own to out that window.\"\n\n\"No; for besides the things I tell you of,\nI only see the years. They come and go\nIn alternation with the weeds, the field,\nThe wood.\"\n\n\"What kind of years?\"\n\n\"Why, latter years—-\n\nDifferent from early years.\"\n\n\"I see them, too.\n\nYou didn't count them?\"\n\n\"No, the further off\nSo ran together that I didn't try to.\nIt can scarce be that they would be in number\nWe'd care to know, for we are not young now.\nAnd bang goes something else away off there.\nIt sounds as if it were the men went down,\nAnd every crash meant one less to return\nTo lighted city streets we, too, have known,\nBut now are giving up for country darkness.\"\n\n\"Come from that window where you see too much\nfor me,\nAnd take a livelier view of things from here.\nThey're going. Watch this husky swarming up\nOver the wheel into the sky-high seat,\nLighting his pipe now, squinting down his nose\nAt the flame burning downward as he sucks it.\"\n\n\"See how it makes his nose-side bright, a proof\nHow dark it's getting. Can you tell what time\nIt is by that? Or by the moon? The new moon!\nWhat shoulder did I see her over? Neither.\nA wire she is of silver, as new as we\nTo everything. Her light won't last us long.\nIt's something, though, to know we're going to\nhave her\nNight after night and stronger every night\nTo see us through our first two weeks. But, Joe,\nThe stove! Before they go! Knock on the window;\nAsk them to help you get it on its feet.\nWe stand here dreaming. Hurry! Call them back!\"\n\n\"They're not gone yet.\"\n\n\"We've got to have the stove,\nWhatever else we want for. And a light.\nHave we a piece of candle if the lamp\nAnd oil are buried out of reach?\"\n\nAgain\nThe house was full of tramping, and the dark,\nDoor-filling men burst in and seized the stove.\nA cannon-mouth-like hole was in the wall,\nTo which they set it true by eye; and then\nCame up the jointed stovepipe in their hands,\nSo much too light and airy for their strength\nIt almost seemed to come ballooning up,\nSlipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling.\n\"A fit!\" said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder.\n\"It's good luck when you move in to begin\nWith good luck with your stovepipe. Never mind,\nIt's not so bad in the country, settled down,\nWhen people 're getting on in life. You'll like it.\"\nJoe said: \"You big boys ought to find a farm,\nAnd make good farmers, and leave other fellows\nThe city work to do. There's not enough\nFor everybody as it is in there.\"\n\"God!\" one said wildly, and, when no one spoke:\n\"Say that to Jimmy here. He needs a farm.\"\nBut Jimmy only made his jaw recede\nFool-like, and rolled his eyes as if to say\nHe saw himself a farmer. Then there was a French\nboy\nWho said with seriousness that made them laugh,\n\"Ma friend, you ain't know what it is you're ask.\"\nHe doffed his cap and held it with both hands\nAcross his chest to make as 'twere a bow:\n\"We're giving you our chances on de farm.\"\nAnd then they all turned to with deafening boots\nAnd put each other bodily out of the house.\n\"Goodby to them! We puzzle them. They think—-\nI don't know what they think we see in what\nThey leave us to: that pasture slope that seems\nThe back some farm presents us; and your woods\nTo northward from your window at the sink,\nWaiting to steal a step on us whenever\nWe drop our eyes or turn to other things,\nAs in the game 'Ten-step' the children play.\"\n\n\"Good boys they seemed, and let them love the city.\nAll they could say was 'God!' when you proposed\nTheir coming out and making useful farmers.\"\n\n\"Did they make something lonesome go through\nyou?\nIt would take more than them to sicken you—-\nUs of our bargain. But they left us so\nAs to our fate, like fools past reasoning with.\nThey almost shook _me._\"\n\n\"It's all so much\nWhat we have always wanted, I confess\nIt's seeming bad for a moment makes it seem\nEven worse still, and so on down, down, down.\nIt's nothing; it's their leaving us at dusk.\nI never bore it well when people went.\nThe first night after guests have gone, the house\nSeems haunted or exposed. I always take\nA personal interest in the locking up\nAt bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off.\"\nHe fetched a dingy lantern from behind\nA door. \"There's that we didn't lose! And these!\"\nSome matches he unpocketed. \"For food—-\nThe meals we've had no one can take from us.\nI wish that everything on earth were just\nAs certain as the meals we've had. I wish\nThe meals we haven't had were, anyway.\nWhat have you you know where to lay your hands\non?\"\n\n\"The bread we bought in passing at the store.\nThere's butter somewhere, too.\"\n\n\"Let's rend the bread.\nI'll light the fire for company for you;\nYou'll not have any other company\nTill Ed begins to get out on a Sunday\nTo look us over and give us his idea\nOf what wants pruning, shingling, breaking up.\nHe'll know what he would do if he were we,\nAnd all at once. He'll plan for us and plan\nTo help us, but he'll take it out in planning.\nWell, you can set the table with the loaf.\nLet's see you find your loaf. I'll light the fire.\nI like chairs occupying other chairs\nNot offering a lady—-\"\n\n\"There again, Joe!\n_You're tired._\"\n\n\"I'm drunk-nonsensical tired out;\nDon't mind a word I say. It's a day's work\nTo empty one house of all household goods\nAnd fill another with 'em fifteen miles away,\nAlthough you do no more than dump them down.\"\n\n\"Dumped down in paradise we are and happy.\"\n\n\"It's all so much what I have always wanted,\nI can't believe it's what you wanted, too.\"\n\n\"Shouldn't you like to know?\"\n\n\"I'd like to know\nIf it is what you wanted, then how much\nYou wanted it for me.\"\n\n\"A troubled conscience!\nYou don't want me to tell if _I_ don't know.\"\n\n\"I don't want to find out what can't be known.\nBut who first said the word to come?\"\n\nMy dear,\nIt's who first thought the thought. You're\nsearching, Joe,\nFor things that don't exist; I mean beginnings.\nEnds and beginnings—-there are no such things.\nThere are only middles.\"\n\n\"What is this?\"\n\n\"This life?\nOur sitting here by lantern-light together\nAmid the wreckage of a former home?\nYou won't deny the lantern isn't new.\nThe stove is not, and you are not to me,\nNor I to you.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you never were?\"\n\n\"It would take me forever to recite\nAll that's not new in where we find ourselves.\nNew is a word for fools in towns who think\nStyle upon style in dress and thought at last\nMust get somewhere. I've heard you say as much.\nNo, this is no beginning.\"\n\n\"Then an end?\"\n\n\"End is a gloomy word.\"\n\n\"Is it too late\nTo drag you out for just a good-night call\nOn the old peach trees on the knoll to grope\nBy starlight in the grass for a last peach\nThe neighbors may not have taken as their right\nWhen the house wasn't lived in? I've been looking:\nI doubt if they have left us many grapes.\nBefore we set ourselves to right the house,\nThe first thing in the morning, out we go\nTo go the round of apple, cherry, peach,\nPine, alder, pasture, mowing, well, and brook.\nAll of a farm it is.\"\n\n\"I know this much:\nI'm going to put you in your bed, if first\nI have to make you build it. Come, the light.\"\n\nWhen there was no more lantern in the kitchen,\nThe fire got out through crannies in the stove\nAnd danced in yellow wrigglers on the ceiling,\nAs much at home as if they'd always danced there.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Road Not Taken", + "body": "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,\nAnd sorry I could not travel both\nAnd be one traveller, long I stood\nAnd looked down one as far as I could\nTo where it bent in the undergrowth;\n\nThen took the other, as just as fair,\nAnd having perhaps the better claim,\nBecause it was grassy and wanted wear;\nThough as for that the passing there\nHad worn them really about the same,\n\nAnd both that morning equally lay\nIn leaves no step had trodden black.\nOh, I kept the first for another day!\nYet knowing how way leads on to way,\nI doubted if I should ever come back.\n\nI shall be telling this with a sigh\nSomewhere ages and ages hence:\nTwo roads diverged in a wood, and I—-\nI took the one less travelled by,\nAnd that has made all the difference.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Oven Bird", + "body": "There is a singer everyone has heard,\nLoud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,\nWho makes the solid tree trunks sound again.\nHe says that leaves are old and that for flowers\nMid-summer is to spring as one to ten.\nHe says the early petal-fall is past\nWhen pear and cherry bloom went down in showers\nOn sunny days a moment overcast;\nAnd comes that other fall we name the fall.\nHe says the highway dust is over all.\nThe bird would cease and be as other birds\nBut that he knows in singing not to sing.\nThe question that he frames in all but words\nIs what to make of a diminished thing.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "A Vantage Point", + "body": "If tired of trees I seek again mankind,\nWell I know where to hie me—-in the dawn,\nTo a slope where the cattle keep the lawn.\nThere amid lolling juniper reclined,\nMyself unseen, I see in white defined\nFar off the homes of men, and farther still,\nThe graves of men on an opposing hill,\nLiving or dead, whichever are most to mind.\n\nAnd if by noon I have too much of these,\nI have but to turn on my arm, and lo,\nThe sun-burned hillside sets my face aglow\nMy breathing shakes the bluet like a breeze,\nI smell the earth, I smell the bruised plant,\nI look into the crater of the ant.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Sound Of Trees", + "body": "I wonder about the trees.\nWhy do we wish to bear\nForever the noise of these\nMore than another noise\nSo close to our dwelling place?\nWe suffer them by the day\nTill we lose all measure of pace,\nAnd fixity in our joys,\nAnd acquire a listening air.\nThey are that that talks of going\nBut never gets away;\nAnd that talks no less for knowing,\nAs it grows wiser and older,\nThat now it means to stay.\nMy feet tug at the floor\nAnd my head sways to my shoulder\nSometimes when I watch trees sway,\nFrom the window or the door.\nI shall set forth for somewhere,\nI shall make the reckless choice\nSome day when they are in voice\nAnd tossing so as to scare\nThe white clouds over them on.\nI shall have less to say,\nBut I shall be gone.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Hyla Brook", + "body": "By June our brook's run out of song and speed.\nSought for much after that, it will be found\nEither to have gone groping underground\n(And taken with it all the Hyla breed\nThat shouted in the mist a month ago,\nLike ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)—-\nOr flourished and come up in jewel-weed,\nWeak foliage that is blown upon and bent\nEven against the way its waters went.\nIts bed is left a faded paper sheet\nOf dead leaves stuck together by the heat—-\nA brook to none but who remember long.\nThis as it will be seen is other far\nThan with brooks taken otherwhere in song.\nWe love the things we love for what they are.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "My November Guest", + "body": "My Sorrow, when she's here with me,\nThinks these dark days of autumn rain\nAre beautiful as days can be;\nShe loves the bare, the withered tree;\nShe walks the sodden pasture lane.\n\nHer pleasure will not let me stay.\nShe talks and I am fain to list:\nShe's glad the birds are gone away,\nShe's glad her simple worsted grey\nIs silver now with clinging mist.\n\nThe desolate, deserted trees,\nThe faded earth, the heavy sky,\nThe beauties she so truly sees,\nShe thinks I have no eye for these,\nAnd vexes me for reason why.\n\nNot yesterday I learned to know\nThe love of bare November days\nBefore the coming of the snow,\nBut it were vain to tell her so,\nAnd they are better for her praise.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Range-Finding", + "body": "The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung\nAnd cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest\nBefore it stained a single human breast.\nThe stricken flower bent double and so hung.\nAnd still the bird revisited her young.\nA butterfly its fall had dispossessed\nA moment sought in air his flower of rest,\nThen lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.\n\nOn the bare upland pasture there had spread\nO'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread\nAnd straining cables wet with silver dew.\nA sudden passing bullet shook it dry.\nThe indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,\nBut finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "October", + "body": "O hushed October morning mild,\nThy leaves have ripened to the fall;\nTo-morrow's wind, if it be wild,\nShould waste them all.\nThe crows above the forest call;\nTo-morrow they may form and go.\nO hushed October morning mild,\nBegin the hours of this day slow,\nMake the day seem to us less brief.\nHearts not averse to being beguiled,\nBeguile us in the way you know;\nRelease one leaf at break of day;\nAt noon release another leaf;\nOne from our trees, one far away;\nRetard the sun with gentle mist;\nEnchant the land with amethyst.\nSlow, slow!\nFor the grapes' sake, if they were all,\nWhose leaves already are burnt with frost,\nWhose clustered fruit must else be lost—-\nFor the grapes' sake along the wall.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "To The Thawing Wind", + "body": "Come with rain, O loud Southwester!\nBring the singer, bring the nester;\nGive the buried flower a dream;\nMake the settled snow-bank steam;\nFind the brown beneath the white;\nBut whate'er you do to-night,\nBathe my window, make it flow,\nMelt it as the ice will go;\nMelt the glass and leave the sticks\nLike a hermit's crucifix;\nBurst into my narrow stall;\nSwing the picture on the wall;\nRun the rattling pages o'er;\nScatter poems on the floor;\nTurn the poet out of door.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "A Time To Talk", + "body": "When a friend calls to me from the road\nAnd slows his horse to a meaning walk\nI don't stand still and look around\nOn all the hills I haven't hoed,\nAnd shout from where I am, What is it?\nNo, not as there is a time to talk.\nI thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,\nBlade-end up and five feet tall,\nAnd plod: I go up to the stone wall\nFor a friendly visit.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "The Code", + "body": "There were three in the meadow by the brook\nGathering up windrows, piling cocks of hay,\nWith an eye always lifted toward the west\nWhere an irregular sun-bordered cloud\nDarkly advanced with a perpetual dagger\nFlickering across its bosom. Suddenly\nOne helper, thrusting pitchfork in the ground,\nMarched himself off the field and home. One stayed.\nThe town-bred farmer failed to understand.\n\n\"What was there wrong?\"\n\n\"Something you just now said.\"\n\n\"What did I say?\"\n\n\"About our taking pains.\n\n\"To cock the hay?—-because it's going to shower?\nI said that more than half an hour ago.\nI said it to myself as much as you.\"\n\n\"You didn't know. But James is one big fool.\nHe thought you meant to find fault with his work.\nThat's what the average farmer would have meant.\nJames would take time, of course, to chew it over\nBefore he acted: he's just got round to act.\"\n\n\"He is a fool if that's the way he takes me.\"\n\n\"Don't let it bother you. You've found out\nsomething.\nThe hand that knows his business won't be told\nTo do work better or faster—-those two things.\nI'm as particular as anyone:\nMost likely I'd have served you just the same.\nBut I know you don't understand our ways.\nYou were just talking what was in your mind,\nWhat was in all our minds, and you weren't hinting.\n\nTell you a story of what happened once:\nI was up here in Salem at a man's\nNamed Sanders with a gang of four or five\nDoing the haying. No one liked the boss.\nHe was one of the kind sports call a spider,\nAll wiry arms and legs that spread out wavy\nFrom a humped body nigh as big's a biscuit.\nBut work! that man could work, especially\nIf by so doing he could get more work,\nOut of his hired help. I'm not denying\nHe was hard on himself. I couldn't find\nThat he kept any hours—-not for himself.\nDaylight and lantern-light were one to him:\nI've heard him pounding in the barn all night.\nBut what he liked was someone to encourage.\nThem that he couldn't lead he'd get behind\nAnd drive, the way you can, you know, in mowing—-\nKeep at their heels and threaten to mow their legs\noff.\nI'd seen about enough of his bulling tricks\n(We call that bulling). I'd been watching him.\nSo when he paired off with me in the hayfield\nTo load the load, thinks I, Look out for trouble.\nI built the load and topped it off; old Sanders\nCombed it down with a rake and says, 'O. K.'\nEverything went well till we reached the barn\nWith a big jag to empty in a bay.\nYou understand that meant the easy job\nFor the man up on top of throwing _down_\nThe hay and rolling it off wholesale,\nWhere on a mow it would have been slow lifting.\nYou wouldn't think a fellow'd need much urging\nUnder those circumstances, would you now?\nBut the old fool seizes his fork in both hands,\nAnd looking up bewhiskered out of the pit,\nShouts like an army captain, 'Let her come!\nThinks I, D'ye mean it? 'What was that you\nsaid?'\nI asked out loud, so's there'd be no mistake,\n'Did you say, Let her come?' 'Yes, let her come.'\nHe said it over, but he said it softer.\nNever you say a thing like that to a man,\nNot if he values what he is. God, I'd as soon\nMurdered him as left out his middle name.\nI'd built the load and knew right where to find it.\nTwo or three forkfuls I picked lightly round for\nLike meditating, and then I just dug in\nAnd dumped the rackful on him in ten lots,\nI looked over the side once in the dust\nAnd caught sight of him treading-water-like,\nKeeping his head above. 'Damn ye,' I says,\n'That gets ye!' He squeaked like a squeezed rat.\nThat was the last I saw or heard of him.\nI cleaned the rack and drove out to cool off.\nAs I sat mopping hayseed from my neck,\nAnd sort of waiting to be asked about it,\nOne of the boys sings out, 'Where's the old man?'\n'I left him in the barn under the hay.\nIf ye want him, ye can go and dig him out.'\nThey realised from the way I swobbed my neck\nMore than was needed something must be up.\nThey headed for the barn; I stayed where I was.\nThey told me afterward. First they forked hay,\nA lot of it, out into the barn floor.\nNothing! They listened for him. Not a rustle.\nI guess they thought I'd spiked him in the temple\nBefore I buried him, or I couldn't have managed.\nThey excavated more. 'Go keep his wife\nOut of the barn.' Someone looked in a window,\nAnd curse me if he wasn't in the kitchen\nSlumped way down in a chair, with both his feet\nStuck in the oven, the hottest day that summer.\nHe looked so clean disgusted from behind\nThere was no one that dared to stir him up,\nOr let him know that he was being looked at.\nApparently I hadn't buried him\n(I may have knocked him down); but my just\ntrying\nTo bury him had hurt his dignity.\nHe had gone to the house so's not to meet me.\nHe kept away from us all afternoon.\nWe tended to his hay. We saw him out\nAfter a while picking peas in his garden:\nHe couldn't keep away from doing something.\"\n\n\"Weren't you relieved to find he wasn't dead?\"\n\n\"No! and yet I don't know—-it's hard to say.\nI went about to kill him fair enough.\"\n\n\"You took an awkward way. Did he discharge\nyou?\"\n\"Discharge me? No! He knew I did just right.\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "A Hundred Collars", + "body": "Lancaster bore him—-such a little town,\nSuch a great man. It doesn't see him often\nOf late years, though he keeps the old homestead\nAnd sends the children down there with their mother\nTo run wild in the summer—-a little wild.\nSometimes he joins them for a day or two\nAnd sees old friends he somehow can't get near.\nThey meet him in the general store at night,\nPreoccupied with formidable mail,\nRifling a printed letter as he talks.\nThey seem afraid. He wouldn't have it so:\nThough a great scholar, he's a democrat,\nIf not at heart, at least on principle.\nLately when coming up to Lancaster\nHis train being late he missed another train\nAnd had four hours to wait at Woodsville Junction\nAfter eleven o'clock at night. Too tired\nTo think of sitting such an ordeal out,\nHe turned to the hotel to find a bed.\n\n\"No room,\" the night clerk said. \"Unless----\"\nWoodsville's a place of shrieks and wandering lamps\nAnd cars that shock and rattle—-and _one_ hotel.\n\n\"You say 'unless.'\"\n\n\"Unless you wouldn't mind\nSharing a room with someone else.\"\n\n\"Who is it?\"\n\n\"A man.\n\n\"So I should hope. What kind of man?\"\n\n\"I know him: he's all right. A man's a man.\nSeparate beds of course you understand.\"\n\nThe night clerk blinked his eyes and dared him on.\n\"Who's that man sleeping in the office chair?\nHas he had the refusal of my chance?\"\n\n\"He was afraid of being robbed or murdered.\nWhat do you say?\"\n\n\"I'll have to have a bed.\"\n\nThe night clerk led him up three flights of stairs\nAnd down a narrow passage full of doors,\nAt the last one of which he knocked and entered,\n\"Lafe, here's a fellow wants to share your\nroom.\"\n\n\"Show him this way. I'm not afraid of him,\nI'm not so drunk I can't take care of myself.\"\nThe night clerk clapped a bedstead on the foot.\n\"This will be yours. Good-night,\" he said, and\nwent.\n\n\"Lafe was the name, I think?\"\n\n\"Yes, _Lay_fayette.\nYou got it the first time. And yours?\"\n\n\"Magoon.\n\nDoctor Magoon.\"\n\n\"A Doctor?\"\n\n\"Well, a teacher.\"\n\n\"Professor Square-the-circle-till-you're-tired?\nHold on, there's something I don't think of now\nThat I had on my mind to ask the first\nMan that knew anything I happened in with.\nI'll ask you later—-don't let me forget it.\"\nThe Doctor looked at Lafe and looked away.\nA man? A brute. Naked above the waist,\nHe sat there creased and shining in the light,\nFumbling the buttons in a well-starched shirt.\n\"I'm moving into a size-larger shirt.\nI've felt mean lately; mean's no name for it.\nI just found what the matter was to-night:\nI've been a-choking like a nursery tree\nWhen it outgrows the wide band of its name tag.\nI blamed it on the hot spell we've been having.\n'Twas nothing but my foolish hanging back,\nNot liking to own up I'd grown a size.\nNumber eighteen this is. What size do you wear?\"\n\nThe Doctor caught his throat convulsively.\n\"Oh—-ah—-fourteen—-fourteen.\"\n\n\"Fourteen! You say so!\nI can remember when I wore fourteen.\nAnd come to think I must have back at home\nMore than a hundred collars, size fourteen.\nToo bad to waste them all. You ought to have them.\nThey're yours and welcome; let me send them to\nyou.\nWhat makes you stand there on one leg like that?\nYou're not much furtherer than where Kike left you,\nYou act as if you wished you hadn't come.\nSit down or lie down friend; you make me nervous.\"\n\nThe Doctor made a subdued dash for it,\nAnd propped himself at bay against a pillow.\n\n\"Not that way, with your shoes on Kike's white\nbed.\nYou can't rest that way. Let me pull your shoes\noff.\"\n\n\"Don't touch me, please—-I say, don't touch me,\nplease.\nI'll not be put to bed by you, my man.\"\n\n\"Just as you say. Have it your own way then.\n'My man' is it? You talk like a professor.\nSpeaking of who's afraid of who, however,\nI'm thinking I have more to lose than you\nIf anything should happen to be wrong.\nWho wants to cut your number fourteen throat!\nLet's have a show down as an evidence\nOf good faith. There is ninety dollars.\nCome, if you're not afraid.\"\n\n\"_I_'m not afraid.\nThere's five: that's all I carry.\"\n\n\"I can search you?\nWhere are you moving over to? Stay still.\n\nYou'd better tuck your money under you\nAnd sleep on it the way I always do\nWhen I'm with people I don't trust at night.\"\n\n\"Will you believe me if I put it there\nRight on the counterpane—-that I do trust you?\"\n\n\"You'd say so, Mister Man.—-I'm a collector.\nMy ninety isn't mine—-you won't think that.\nI pick it up a dollar at a time\nAll round the country for the _Weekly News_,\nPublished in Bow. You know the _Weekly News?_\"\n\n\"Known it since I was young.\"\n\n\"Then you know me.\nNow we are getting on together—-talking.\nI'm sort of Something for it at the front.\nMy business is to find what people want:\nThey pay for it, and so they ought to have it.\nFairbanks, he says to me—-he's editor—-\nFeel out the public sentiment—-he says.\nA good deal comes on me when all is said.\nThe only trouble is we disagree\nIn politics: I'm Vermont Democrat—-\nYou know what that is, sort of double-dyed;\nThe _News_ has always been Republican.\nFairbanks, he says to me, 'Help us this year,'\nMeaning by us their ticket. 'No,' I says,\n'I can't and won't. You've been in long enough:\nIt's time you turned around and boosted us.\nYou'll have to pay me more than ten a week\nIf I'm expected to elect Bill Taft.\nI doubt if I could do it anyway.'\"\n\n\"You seem to shape the paper's policy.\"\n\n\"You see I'm in with everybody, know 'em all.\nI almost know their farms as well as they do.\"\n\n\"You drive around? It must be pleasant work.\"\n\n\"It's business, but I can't say it's not fun.\nWhat I like best's the lay of different farms,\nComing out on them from a stretch of woods,\nOr over a hill or round a sudden corner.\nI like to find folks getting out in spring,\nRaking the dooryard, working near the house.\nLater they get out further in the fields.\nEverything's shut sometimes except the barn;\nThe family's all away in some back meadow.\nThere's a hay load a-coming—-when it comes.\nAnd later still they all get driven in:\nThe fields are stripped to lawn, the garden patches\nStripped to bare ground, the apple trees\nTo whips and poles. There's nobody about.\nThe chimney, though, keeps up a good brisk\nsmoking.\nAnd I lie back and ride. I take the reins\nOnly when someone's coming, and the mare\nStops when she likes: I tell her when to go.\nI've spoiled Jemima in more ways than one.\nShe's got so she turns in at every house\nAs if she had some sort of curvature,\nNo matter if I have no errand there.\nShe thinks I'm sociable. I maybe am.\nIt's seldom I get down except for meals, though.\nFolks entertain me from the kitchen doorstep,\nAll in a family row down to the youngest.\"\n\n\"One would suppose they might not be as glad\nTo see you as you are to see them.\"\n\n\"Oh,\nBecause I want their dollar. I don't want\nAnything they've not got. I never dun.\nI'm there, and they can pay me if they like.\nI go nowhere on purpose: I happen by.\nSorry there is no cup to give you a drink.\nI drink out of the bottle—-not your style.\nMayn't I offer you----?\"\n\n\"No, no, no, thank you.\n\n\"Just as you say. Here's looking at you then.—-\nAnd now I'm leaving you a little while.\n\nYou'll rest easier when I'm gone, perhaps—-\nLie down—-let yourself go and get some sleep.\nBut first—-let's see—-what was I going to ask you?\nThose collars—-who shall I address them to,\nSuppose you aren't awake when I come back?\"\n\n\"Really, friend, I can't let you. You—-may need\nthem.\"\n\n\"Not till I shrink, when they'll be out of style.\"\n\n\"But really—-I have so many collars.\"\n\n\"I don't know who I rather would have have them.\nThey're only turning yellow where they are.\nBut you're the doctor as the saying is.\nI'll put the light out. Don't you wait for me:\nI've just begun the night. You get some sleep.\nI'll knock so-fashion and peep round the door\nWhen I come back so you'll know who it is.\nThere's nothing I'm afraid of like scared people.\nI don't want you should shoot me in the head.\nWhat am I doing carrying off this bottle?\nThere now, you get some sleep.\"\n\nHe shut the door\nThe Doctor slid a little down the pillow.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Blueberries", + "body": "\"You ought to have seen what I saw on my way\nTo the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day:\nBlueberries as big as the end of your thumb,\nReal sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum\nIn the cavernous pail of the first one to come!\nAnd all ripe together, not some of them green\nAnd some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!\"\n\n\"I don't know what part of the pasture you mean.\"\n\n\"You know where they cut off the woods—-let me\nsee—-\nIt was two years ago—-or no!—-can it be\nNo longer than that?—-and the following fall\nThe fire ran and burned it all up but the wall.\"\n\n\"Why, there hasn't been time for the bushes to\ngrow.\nThat's always the way with the blueberries, though:\nThere may not have been the ghost of a sign\nOf them anywhere under the shade of the pine,\nBut get the pine out of the way, you may burn\nThe pasture all over until not a fern\nOr grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick,\nAnd presto, they're up all around you as thick\nAnd hard to explain as a conjurer's trick.\"\n\n\"It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit.\nI taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot.\n\nAnd after all really they're ebony skinned:\nThe blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind,\nA tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand,\nAnd less than the tan with which pickers are\ntanned.\"\n\n\"Does Mortenson know what he has, do you\nthink?\"\n\n\"He may and not care and so leave the chewink\nTo gather them for him—-you know what he is.\nHe won't make the fact that they're rightfully his\nAn excuse for keeping us other folk out.\"\n\n\"I wonder you didn't see Loren about.\"\n\n\"The best of it was that I did. Do you know,\nI was just getting through what the field had to show\nAnd over the wall and into the road,\nWhen who should come by, with a democrat-load\nOf all the young chattering Lorens alive,\nBut Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive.\"\n\n\"He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he\nfrown?\"\n\n\"He just kept nodding his head up and down.\nYou know how politely he always goes by.\nBut he thought a big thought—-I could tell by his\neye—-\nWhich being expressed, might be this in effect:\n'I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect,\nTo ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.'\"\n\n\"He's a thriftier person than some I could name.\"\n\n\"He seems to be thrifty; and hasn't he need,\nWith the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed?\nHe has brought them all up on wild berries, they\nsay,\nLike birds. They store a great many away.\nThey eat them the year round, and those they\ndon't eat\nThey sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet.\"\n\n\"Who cares what they say? It's a nice way to live,\nJust taking what Nature is willing to give,\nNot forcing her hand with harrow and plow.\"\n\n\"I wish you had seen his perpetual bow—-\nAnd the air of the youngsters! Not one of them\nturned,\nAnd they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned.\"\n\n\"I wish I knew half what the flock of them know\nOf where all the berries and other things grow,\nCranberries in bogs and raspberries on top\nOf the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they\nwill crop.\nI met them one day and each had a flower\nStuck into his berries as fresh as a shower;\nSome strange kind—-they told me it hadn't a name.\"\n\n\"I've told you how once, not long after we came,\nI almost provoked poor Loren to mirth\nBy going to him of all people on earth\nTo ask if he knew any fruit to be had\nFor the picking. The rascal, he said he'd be glad\nTo tell if he knew. But the year had been bad.\nThere _had_ been some berries—-but those were all\ngone.\nHe didn't say where they had been. He went on:\n'I'm sure—-I'm sure'-—as polite as could be.\nHe spoke to his wife in the door, 'Let me see,\nMarne, _we_ don't know any good berrying place?'\nIt was all he could do to keep a straight face.\"\n\n\"If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him,\nHe'll find he's mistaken. See here, for a whim,\nWe'll pick in the Mortensons' pasture this year.\nWe'll go in the morning, that is, if it's clear,\nAnd the sun shines out warm: the vines must be\nwet.\nIt's so long since I picked I almost forget\nHow we used to pick berries: we took one look\nround,\nThen sank out of sight like trolls underground,\nAnd saw nothing more of each other, or heard,\nUnless when you said I was keeping a bird\nAway from its nest, and I said it was you.\n'Well, one of us is.' For complaining it flew\nAround and around us. And then for a while\nWe picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile,\nAnd I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout\nToo loud for the distance you were, it turned out,\nFor when you made answer, your voice was as low\nAs talking—-you stood up beside me, you know.\"\n\n\"We shan't have the place to ourselves to enjoy—-\nNot likely, when all the young Lorens deploy.\nThey'll be there to-morrow, or even to-night.\nThey won't be too friendly—-they may be polite—-\nTo people they look on as having no right\nTo pick where they're picking. But we won't\ncomplain.\nYou ought to have seen how it looked in the rain,\nThe fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves,\nLike two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves.\"", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Brown'S Descent Or, The Willy-Nilly Slide", + "body": "Brown lived at such a lofty farm\nThat everyone for miles could see\nHis lantern when he did his chores\nIn winter after half-past three.\n\nAnd many must have seen him make\nHis wild descent from there one night,\n'Cross lots, 'cross walls, 'cross everything,\nDescribing rings of lantern light.\n\nBetween the house and barn the gale\nGot him by something he had on\nAnd blew him out on the icy crust\nThat cased the world, and he was gone!\n\nWalls were all buried, trees were few:\nHe saw no stay unless he stove\nA hole in somewhere with his heel.\nBut though repeatedly he strove\n\nAnd stamped and said things to himself,\nAnd sometimes something seemed to yield,\nHe gained no foothold, but pursued\nHis journey down from field to field.\n\nSometimes he came with arms outspread\nLike wings, revolving in the scene\nUpon his longer axis, and\nWith no small dignity of mien.\n\nFaster or slower as he chanced,\nSitting or standing as he chose,\nAccording as he feared to risk\nHis neck, or thought to spare his clothes,\n\nHe never let the lantern drop.\nAnd some exclaimed who saw afar\nThe figures he described with it,\n\"I wonder what those signals are\n\nBrown makes at such an hour of night!\nHe's celebrating something strange.\nI wonder if he's sold his farm,\nOr been made Master of the Grange.\"\n\nHe reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;\nHe fell and made the lantern rattle\n(But saved the light from going out).\nSo half-way down he fought the battle\n\nIncredulous of his own bad luck.\nAnd then becoming reconciled\nTo everything, he gave it up\nAnd came down like a coasting child.\n\n\"Well—-I-—be----\" that was all he said,\nAs standing in the river road,\nHe looked back up the slippery slope\n(Two miles it was) to his abode.\n\nSometimes as an authority\nOn motor-cars, I'm asked if I\nShould say our stock was petered out,\nAnd this is my sincere reply:\n\nYankees are what they always were.\nDon't think Brown ever gave up hope\nOf getting home again because\nHe couldn't climb that slippery slope;\n\nOr even thought of standing there\nUntil the January thaw\nShould take the polish off the crust.\nHe bowed with grace to natural law,\n\nAnd then went round it on his feet,\nAfter the manner of our stock;\nNot much concerned for those to whom,\nAt that particular time o'clock,\n\nIt must have looked as if the course\nHe steered was really straight away\nFrom that which he was headed for—-\nNot much concerned for them, I say.\n\nBut now he snapped his eyes three times;\nThen shook his lantern, saying, \"Ile's\n'Bout out!\" and took the long way home\nBy road, a matter of several miles.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Revelation", + "body": "We make ourselves a place apart\nBehind light words that tease and flout,\nBut oh, the agitated heart\nTill someone really find us out.\n\nA pity if the case require\n(Or so we say) that in the end\nWe speak the literal to inspire\nThe understanding of a friend.\n\nBut so with all, from babes that play\nAt hide-and-seek to God afar,\nSo all who hide too well away\nMust speak and tell us where they are.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Storm-Fear", + "body": "When the wind works against us in the dark,\nAnd pelts with snow\nThe lower chamber window on the east,\nAnd whispers with a sort of stifled bark,\nThe beast,\n\"Come out! Come out!\"—-\nIt costs no inward struggle not to go,\nAh, do!\nI count our strength,\nTwo and a child,\nThose of us not asleep subdued to mark\nHow the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,—-\nHow drifts are piled,\nDooryard and road ungraded,\nTill even the comforting barn grows far away,\nAnd my heart owns a doubt\nWhether 'tis in us to arise with day\nAnd save ourselves unaided.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Bond And Free", + "body": "Love has earth to which she clings\nWith hills and circling arms about—-\nWall within wall to shut fear out.\nBut Thought has need of no such things,\nFor Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.\n\nOn snow and sand and turf, I see\nWhere Love has left a printed trace\nWith straining in the world's embrace.\nAnd such is Love and glad to be.\nBut thought has shaken his ankles free.\n\nThought cleaves the interstellar gloom\nAnd sits in Sirius' disc all night,\nTill day makes him retrace his flight,\nWith smell of burning on every plume,\nBack past the sun to an earthly room.\n\nHis gains in heaven are what they are.\nYet some say Love by being thrall\nAnd simply staying possesses all\nIn several beauty that Thought fares far\nTo find fused in another star.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Flower-Gathering", + "body": "I left you in the morning,\nAnd in the morning glow,\nYou walked a way beside me\nTo make me sad to go.\nDo you know me in the gloaming,\nGaunt and dusty grey with roaming?\nAre you dumb because you know me not,\nOr dumb because you know?\n\nAll for me? And not a question\nFor the faded flowers gay\nThat could take me from beside you\nFor the ages of a day?\nThey are yours, and be the measure\nOf their worth for you to treasure,\nThe measure of the little while\nThat I've been long away.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Reluctance", + "body": "Out through the fields and the woods\nAnd over the walls I have wended;\nI have climbed the hills of view\nAnd looked at the world, and descended;\nI have come by the highway home,\nAnd lo, it is ended.\n\nThe leaves are all dead on the ground,\nSave those that the oak is keeping\nTo ravel them one by one\nAnd let them go scraping and creeping\nOut over the crusted snow,\nWhen others are sleeping.\n\nAnd the dead leaves lie huddled and still,\nNo longer blown hither and thither;\nThe last lone aster is gone;\nThe flowers of the witch-hazel wither;\nThe heart is still aching to seek,\nBut the feet question \"Whither?\"\n\nAh, when to the heart of man\nWas it ever less than a treason\nTo go with the drift of things,\nTo yield with a grace to reason,\nAnd bow and accept the end\nOf a love or a season?", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + }, + { + "title": "Into My Own", + "body": "One of my wishes is that those dark trees,\nSo old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,\nWere not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,\nBut stretched away unto the edge of doom.\n\nI should not be withheld but that some day\nInto their vastness I should steal away,\nFearless of ever finding open land,\nOr highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.\n\nI do not see why I should e'er turn back,\nOr those should not set forth upon my track\nTo overtake me, who should miss me here\nAnd long to know if still I held them dear.\n\nThey would not find me changed from him they\nknew—-\nOnly more sure of all I thought was true.", + "author": "Robert Frost", + "source": "Selected Poems", + "period": "1913–1916" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/keats_poems_1820.json b/poetry/keats_poems_1820.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..18d671c --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/keats_poems_1820.json @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +[ + { + "title": "The Eve Of St. Agnes", + "body": "In _Lamia_ and _Hyperion_, as in _Endymion_, we find Keats inspired by\nclassic story, though the inspiration in each case came to him through\nElizabethan writers. Here, on the other hand, mediaeval legend is his\ninspiration; the 'faery broods' have driven 'nymph and satyr from the\nprosperous woods'. Akin to the Greeks as he was in spirit, in his\ninstinctive personification of the lovely manifestations of nature, his\nstyle and method were really more naturally suited to the portrayal of\nmediaeval scenes, where he found the richness and warmth of colour in\nwhich his soul delighted.\n\nThe story of _Isabella_ he took from Boccaccio, an Italian writer of the\nfourteenth century, whose _Decameron_, a collection of one hundred\nstories, has been a store-house of plots for English writers. By\nBoccaccio the tale is very shortly and simply told, being evidently\ninteresting to him mainly for its plot. Keats was attracted to it not so\nmuch by the action as by the passion involved, so that his enlargement\nof it means little elaboration of incident, but very much more dwelling\non the psychological aspect. That is to say, he does not care so much\nwhat happens, as what the personages of the poem think and feel.\n\nThus we see that the main incident of the story, the murder of Lorenzo,\nis passed over in a line--'Thus was Lorenzo slain and buried in,' the\nnext line, 'There, in that forest, did his great love cease,' bringing\nus back at once from the physical reality of the murder to the thought\nof his love, which is to Keats the central fact of the story.\n\nIn the delineation of Isabella, her first tender passion of love, her\nagony of apprehension giving way to dull despair, her sudden wakening to\na brief period of frenzied action, described in stanzas of incomparable\ndramatic force, and the 'peace' which followed when she\n\n Forgot the stars, the moon, the sun,\n And she forgot the blue above the trees,\n And she forgot the dells where waters run,\n And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;\n She had no knowledge when the day was done,\n And the new morn she saw not--\n\nculminating in the piteous death 'too lone and incomplete'--in the\ndelineation of all this Keats shows supreme power and insight.\n\nIn the conception, too, of the tragic loneliness of Lorenzo's ghost we\nfeel that nothing could be changed, added, or taken away.\n\nNot quite equally happy are the descriptions of the cruel brothers, and\nof Lorenzo as the young lover. There is a tendency to exaggerate both\ntheir inhumanity and his gentleness, for purposes of contrast, which\nweakens where it would give strength.\n\n_The Eve of St. Agnes_, founded on a popular mediaeval legend, not being\na tragedy like _Isabella_, cannot be expected to rival it in depth and\nintensity; but in every other poetic quality it equals, where it does\nnot surpass, the former poem.\n\nTo be specially noted is the skilful use which Keats here makes of\ncontrast--between the cruel cold without and the warm love within; the\npalsied age of the Bedesman and Angela, and the eager youth of Porphyro\nand Madeline; the noise and revel and the hush of Madeline's bedroom,\nand, as Mr. Colvin has pointed out, in the moonlight which, chill and\nsepulchral when it strikes elsewhere, to Madeline is as a halo of glory,\nan angelic light.\n\nA mysterious charm is given to the poem by the way in which Keats endows\ninanimate things with a sort of half-conscious life. The knights and\nladies of stone arouse the bedesman's shuddering sympathy when he thinks\nof the cold they must be enduring; 'the carven angels' '_star'd_'\n'_eager-eyed_' from the roof of the chapel, and the scutcheon in\nMadeline's window '_blush'd_ with blood of queens and kings'.\n\nKeats's characteristic method of description--the way in which, by his\nmasterly choice of significant detail, he gives us the whole feeling of\nthe situation, is here seen in its perfection. In stanza 1 each line is\na picture and each picture contributes to the whole effect of painful\nchill. The silence of the sheep, the old man's breath visible in the\nfrosty air,--these are things which many people would not notice, but it\nis such little things that make the whole scene real to us.\n\nThere is another method of description, quite as beautiful in its way,\nwhich Coleridge adopted with magic effect in _Christabel_. This is to\nuse the power of suggestion, to say very little, but that little of a\nkind to awaken the reader's imagination and make him complete the\npicture. For example, we are told of Christabel--\n\n Her gentle limbs did she undress\n And lay down in her loveliness.\n\nCompare this with stanza xxvi of _The Eve of St. Agnes_.\n\nThat Keats was a master of both ways of obtaining a romantic effect is\nshown by his _La Belle Dame Sans Merci_, considered by some people his\nmasterpiece, where the rich detail of _The Eve of St. Agnes_ is replaced\nby reserve and suggestion.\n\nAs the poem was not included in the volume published in 1820, it is\ngiven here.\n\n LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI.\n\n Oh what can ail thee Knight at arms\n Alone and palely loitering?\n The sedge has withered from the Lake\n And no birds sing.\n\n Oh what can ail thee Knight at arms\n So haggard, and so woe begone?\n The Squirrel's granary is full\n And the harvest's done.\n\n I see a lily on thy brow\n With anguish moist and fever dew,\n And on thy cheeks a fading rose\n Fast withereth too.\n\n I met a Lady in the Meads\n Full beautiful, a faery's child,\n Her hair was long, her foot was light\n And her eyes were wild.\n\n I made a garland for her head,\n And bracelets too, and fragrant zone,\n She look'd at me as she did love\n And made sweet moan.\n\n I set her on my pacing steed,\n And nothing else saw all day long,\n For sidelong would she bend and sing\n A Faery's song.\n\n She found me roots of relish sweet,\n And honey wild and manna dew,\n And sure in language strange she said\n I love thee true.\n\n She took me to her elfin grot,\n And there she wept and sigh'd full sore,\n And there I shut her wild, wild eyes\n With kisses four.\n\n And there she lulled me asleep,\n And there I dream'd, Ah! Woe betide!\n The latest dream I ever dreamt\n On the cold hill side.\n\n I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,\n Pale warriors, death pale were they all;\n They cried, La belle dame sans merci,\n Thee hath in thrall.\n\n I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam\n With horrid warning gaped wide,\n And I awoke, and found me here\n On the cold hill's side.\n\n And this is why I sojourn here\n Alone and palely loitering;\n Though the sedge is withered from the Lake\n And no birds sing. . ..\n\n\nNOTES ON ISABELLA.\n\n_Metre._ The _ottava rima_ of the Italians, the natural outcome of\nKeats's turning to Italy for his story. This stanza had been used by\nChaucer and the Elizabethans, and recently by Hookham Frere in _The\nMonks and the Giants_ and by Byron in _Don Juan_. Compare Keats's use of\nthe form with that of either of his contemporaries, and notice how he\navoids the epigrammatic close, telling in satire and mock-heroic, but\ninappropriate to a serious and romantic poem.\n\nPAGE 49. l. 2. _palmer_, pilgrim. As the pilgrim seeks for a shrine\nwhere, through the patron saint, he may worship God, so Lorenzo needs a\nwoman to worship, through whom he may worship Love.\n\nPAGE 50. l. 21. _constant as her vespers_, as often as she said her\nevening-prayers.\n\nPAGE 51. l. 34. _within . . . domain_, where it should, naturally, have\nbeen rosy.\n\nPAGE 52. l. 46. _Fever'd . . . bridge._ Made his sense of her worth more\npassionate.\n\nll. 51-2. _wed To every symbol._ Able to read every sign.\n\nPAGE 53. l. 62. _fear_, make afraid. So used by Shakespeare: e.g. 'Fear\nboys with bugs,' _Taming of the Shrew_, I. ii. 211.\n\nl. 64. _shrive_, confess. As the pilgrim cannot be at peace till he has\nconfessed his sins and received absolution, so Lorenzo feels the\nnecessity of confessing his love.\n\nPAGE 54. ll. 81-2. _before the dusk . . . veil._ A vivid picture of the\ntwilight time, after sunset, but before it is dark enough for the stars\nto shine brightly.\n\nll. 83-4. The repetition of the same words helps us to feel the\nunchanging nature of their devotion and joy in one another.\n\nPAGE 55. l. 91. _in fee_, in payment for their trouble.\n\nl. 95. _Theseus' spouse._ Ariadne, who was deserted by Theseus after\nhaving saved his life and left her home for him. _Odyssey_, xi. 321-5.\n\nl. 99. _Dido._ Queen of Carthage, whom Aeneas, in his wanderings, wooed\nand would have married, but the Gods bade him leave her.\n\n_silent . . . undergrove._ When Aeneas saw Dido in Hades, amongst those\nwho had died for love, he spoke to her pityingly. But she answered him\nnot a word, turning from him into the grove to Lychaeus, her former\nhusband, who comforted her. Vergil, _Aeneid_, Bk. VI, l. 450 ff.\n\nl. 103. _almsmen_, receivers of alms, since they take honey from the\nflowers.\n\nPAGE 56. l. 107. _swelt_, faint. Cf. Chaucer, _Troilus and Cressida_,\niii. 347.\n\nl. 109. _proud-quiver'd_, proudly girt with quivers of arrows.\n\nl. 112. _rich-ored driftings._ The sand of the river in which gold was\nto be found.\n\nPAGE 57. l. 124. _lazar_, leper, or any wretched beggar; from the\nparable of Dives and Lazarus.\n\n_stairs_, steps on which they sat to beg.\n\nl. 125. _red-lin'd accounts_, vividly picturing their neat\naccount-books, and at the same time, perhaps, suggesting the human blood\nfor which their accumulation of wealth was responsible.\n\nl. 130. _gainful cowardice._ A telling expression for the dread of loss\nwhich haunts so many wealthy people.\n\nl. 133. _hawks . . . forests._ As a hawk pounces on its prey, so they\nfell on the trading-vessels which put into port.\n\nll. 133-4. _the untired . . . lies._ They were always ready for any\ndishonourable transaction by which money might be made.\n\nl. 134. _ducats._ Italian pieces of money worth about 4_s._ 4_d._ Cf.\nShylock, _Merchant of Venice_, II. vii. 15, 'My ducats.'\n\nl. 135. _Quick . . . away._ They would undertake to fleece unsuspecting\nstrangers in their town.\n\nPAGE 58. l. 137. _ledger-men._ As if they only lived in their\naccount-books. Cf. l. 142.\n\nl. 140. _Hot Egypt's pest_, the plague of Egypt.\n\nll. 145-52. As in _Lycidas_ Milton apologizes for the introduction of\nhis attack on the Church, so Keats apologizes for the introduction of\nthis outburst of indignation against cruel and dishonourable dealers,\nwhich he feels is unsuited to the tender and pitiful story.\n\nl. 150. _ghittern_, an instrument like a guitar, strung with wire.\n\nPAGE 59. ll. 153-60. Keats wants to make it clear that he is not trying\nto surpass Boccaccio, but to give him currency amongst English-speaking\npeople.\n\nl. 159. _stead thee_, do thee service.\n\nl. 168. _olive-trees._ In which (through the oil they yield) a great\npart of the wealth of the Italians lies.\n\nPAGE 60. l. 174. _Cut . . . bone._ This is not only a vivid way of\ndescribing the banishment of all their natural pity. It also, by the\nmetaphor used, gives us a sort of premonitory shudder as at Lorenzo's\ndeath. Indeed, in that moment the murder is, to all intents and\npurposes, done. In stanza xxvii they are described as riding 'with their\nmurder'd man'.\n\nPAGE 61. ll. 187-8. _ere . . . eglantine._ The sun, drying up the dew\ndrop by drop from the sweet-briar is pictured as passing beads along a\nstring, as the Roman Catholics do when they say their prayers.\n\nPAGE 62. l. 209. _their . . . man._ Cf. l. 174, note. Notice the\nextraordinary vividness of the picture here--the quiet rural scene and\nthe intrusion of human passion with the reflection in the clear water of\nthe pale murderers, sick with suspense, and the unsuspecting victim,\nfull of glowing life.\n\nl. 212. _bream_, a kind of fish found in lakes and deep water. Obviously\nKeats was not an angler.\n\n_freshets_, little streams of fresh water.\n\nPAGE 63. l. 217. Notice the reticence with which the mere fact of the\nmurder is stated--no details given. Keats wants the prevailing feeling\nto be one of pity rather than of horror.\n\nll. 219-20. _Ah . . . loneliness._ We perpetually come upon this old\nbelief--that the souls of the murdered cannot rest in peace. Cf.\n_Hamlet_, I. v. 8, &c.\n\nl. 221. _break-covert . . . sin._ The blood-hounds employed for tracking\ndown a murderer will find him under any concealment, and never rest till\nhe is found. So restless is the soul of the victim.\n\nl. 222. _They . . . water._ That water which had reflected the three\nfaces as they went across.\n\n_tease_, torment.\n\nl. 223. _convulsed spur_, they spurred their horses violently and\nuncertainly, scarce knowing what they did.\n\nl. 224. _Each richer . . . murderer._ This is what they have gained by\ntheir deed--the guilt of murder--that is all.\n\nl. 229. _stifling_: partly literal, since the widow's weed is\nclose-wrapping and voluminous--partly metaphorical, since the acceptance\nof fate stifles complaint.\n\nl. 230. _accursed bands._ So long as a man hopes he is not free, but at\nthe mercy of continual imaginings and fresh disappointments. When hope\nis laid aside, fear and disappointment go with it.\n\nPAGE 64. l. 241. _Selfishness, Love's cousin._ For the two aspects of\nlove, as a selfish and unselfish passion, see Blake's two poems, _Love\nseeketh only self to please_, and, _Love seeketh not itself to please_.\n\nl. 242. _single breast_, one-thoughted, being full of love for Lorenzo.\n\nPAGE 65. ll. 249 seq. Cf. Shelley's _Ode to the West Wind_.\n\nl. 252. _roundelay_, a dance in a circle.\n\nl. 259. _Striving . . . itself._ Her distrust of her brothers is shown\nin her effort not to betray her fears to them.\n\n_dungeon climes._ Wherever it is, it is a prison which keeps him from\nher. Cf. _Hamlet_, II. ii. 250-4.\n\nl. 262. _Hinnom's Vale_, the valley of Moloch's sacrifices, _Paradise\nLost_, i. 392-405.\n\nl. 264. _snowy shroud_, a truly prophetic dream.\n\nPAGE 66. ll. 267 seq. These comparisons help us to realize her\nexperience as sharp anguish, rousing her from the lethargy of despair,\nand endowing her for a brief space with almost supernatural energy and\nwillpower.\n\nPAGE 67. l. 286. _palsied Druid._ The Druids, or priests of ancient\nBritain, are always pictured as old men with long beards. The conception\nof such an old man, tremblingly trying to get music from a broken harp,\nadds to the pathos and mystery of the vision.\n\nl. 288. _Like . . . among._ Take this line word by word, and see how\nmany different ideas go to create the incomparably ghostly effect.\n\nll. 289 seq. Horror is skilfully kept from this picture and only tragedy\nleft. The horror is for the eyes of his murderers, not for his love.\n\nl. 292. _unthread . . . woof._ His narration and explanation of what has\ngone before is pictured as the disentangling of woven threads.\n\nl. 293. _darken'd._ In many senses, since their crime was (1) concealed\nfrom Isabella, (2) darkly evil, (3) done in the darkness of the wood.\n\nPAGE 68. ll. 305 seq. The whole sound of this stanza is that of a faint\nand far-away echo.\n\nl. 308. _knelling._ Every sound is like a death-bell to him.\n\nPAGE 69. l. 316. _That paleness._ Her paleness showing her great love\nfor him; and, moreover, indicating that they will soon be reunited.\n\nl. 317. _bright abyss_, the bright hollow of heaven.\n\nl. 322. _The atom . . . turmoil._ Every one must know the sensation of\nlooking into the darkness, straining one's eyes, until the darkness\nitself seems to be composed of moving atoms. The experience with which\nKeats, in the next lines, compares it, is, we are told, a common\nexperience in the early stages of consumption.\n\nPAGE 70. l. 334. _school'd my infancy._ She was as a child in her\nignorance of evil, and he has taught her the hard lesson that our misery\nis not always due to the dealings of a blind fate, but sometimes to the\ndeliberate crime and cruelty of those whom we have trusted.\n\nl. 344. _forest-hearse._ To Isabella the whole forest is but the\nreceptacle of her lover's corpse.\n\nPAGE 71. l. 347. _champaign_, country. We can picture Isabel, as they\n'creep' along, furtively glancing round, and then producing her knife\nwith a smile so terrible that the old nurse can only fear that she is\ndelirious, as her sudden vigour would also suggest.\n\nPAGE 72. st. xlvi-xlviii. These are the stanzas of which Lamb says,\n'there is nothing more awfully simple in diction, more nakedly grand and\nmoving in sentiment, in Dante, in Chaucer, or in Spenser'--and again,\nafter an appreciation of _Lamia_, whose fairy splendours are 'for\nyounger impressibilities', he reverts to them, saying: 'To _us_ an\nounce of feeling is worth a pound of fancy; and therefore we recur\nagain, with a warmer gratitude, to the story of Isabella and the pot of\nbasil, and those never-cloying stanzas which we have cited, and which we\nthink should disarm criticism, if it be not in its nature cruel; if it\nwould not deny to honey its sweetness, nor to roses redness, nor light\nto the stars in Heaven; if it would not bay the moon out of the skies,\nrather than acknowledge she is fair.'--_The New Times_, July 19, 1820.\n\nl. 361. _fresh-thrown mould_, a corroboration of her fears. Mr. Colvin\nhas pointed out how the horror is throughout relieved by the beauty of\nthe images called up by the similes, e.g. 'a crystal well,' 'a native\nlily of the dell.'\n\nl. 370. _Her silk . . . phantasies_, i.e. which she had embroidered\nfancifully for him.\n\nPAGE 73. l. 385. _wormy circumstance_, ghastly detail. Keats envies the\nun-self-conscious simplicity of the old ballad-writers in treating such\na theme as this, and bids the reader turn to Boccaccio, whose\ndescription of the scene he cannot hope to rival. Boccaccio writes: 'Nor\nhad she dug long before she found the body of her hapless lover, whereon\nas yet there was no trace of corruption or decay; and thus she saw\nwithout any manner of doubt that her vision was true. And so, saddest of\nwomen, knowing that she might not bewail him there, she would gladly, if\nshe could, have carried away the body and given it more honourable\nsepulture elsewhere; but as she might not do so, she took a knife, and,\nas best she could, severed the head from the trunk, and wrapped it in a\nnapkin and laid it in the lap of the maid; and having covered the rest\nof the corpse with earth, she left the spot, having been seen by none,\nand went home.'\n\nPAGE 74. l. 393. _Perséan sword._ The sword of sharpness given to\nPerseus by Hermes, with which he cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa,\na monster with the head of a woman, and snaky locks, the sight of whom\nturned those who looked on her into stone. Perseus escaped by looking\nonly at her reflection in his shield.\n\nl. 406. _chilly_: tears, not passionate, but of cold despair.\n\nPAGE 75. l. 410. _pluck'd in Araby._ Cf. Lady Macbeth, 'All the perfumes\nof Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,' _Macbeth_, V. ii. 55.\n\nl. 412. _serpent-pipe_, twisted pipe.\n\nl. 416. _Sweet Basil_, a fragrant aromatic plant.\n\nll. 417-20. The repetition makes us feel the monotony of her days and\nnights of grief.\n\nPAGE 76. l. 432. _leafits_, leaflets, little leaves. An old botanical\nterm, but obsolete in Keats's time. Coleridge uses it in l. 65 of 'The\nNightingale' in _Lyrical Ballads_. In later editions he altered it to\n'leaflets'.\n\nl. 436. _Lethean_, in Hades, the dark underworld of the dead. Compare\nthe conception of melancholy in the _Ode on Melancholy_, where it is\nsaid to neighbour joy. Contrast Stanza lxi.\n\nl. 439. _cypress_, dark trees which in Italy are always planted in\ncemeteries. They stand by Keats's own grave.\n\nPAGE 77. l. 442. _Melpomene_, the Muse of tragedy.\n\nl. 451. _Baälites of pelf_, worshippers of ill-gotten gains.\n\nl. 453. _elf_, man. The word is used in this sense by Spenser in _The\nFaerie Queene_.\n\nPAGE 78. l. 467. _chapel-shrift_, confession. Cf. l. 64.\n\nll. 469-72. _And when . . . hair._ The pathos of this picture is\nintensified by its suggestions of the wife- and mother-hood which Isabel\ncan now never know. Cf. st. xlvii, where the idea is still more\nbeautifully suggested.\n\nPAGE 79. l. 475. _vile . . . spot._ The one touch of descriptive\nhorror--powerful in its reticence.\n\nPAGE 80. l. 489. _on . . . things._ Her love and her hope is with the\ndead rather than with the living.\n\nl. 492. _lorn voice._ Cf. st. xxxv. She is approaching her lover. Note\nthat in each case the metaphor is of a stringed instrument.\n\nl. 493. _Pilgrim in his wanderings._ Cf. st. i, 'a young palmer in\nLove's eye.'\n\nl. 503. _burthen_, refrain. Cf. _Tempest_, I. ii. Ariel's songs.\n\n\nNOTES ON THE EVE OF ST. AGNES.\n\nSee Introduction to _Isabella_ and _The Eve of St. Agnes_, p. 212.\n\nSt. Agnes was a martyr of the Christian Church who was beheaded just\noutside Rome in 304 because she refused to marry a Pagan, holding\nherself to be a bride of Christ. She was only 13--so small and slender\nthat the smallest fetters they could find slipped over her little wrists\nand fell to the ground. But they stripped, tortured, and killed her. A\nweek after her death her parents dreamed that they saw her in glory with\na white lamb, the sign of purity, beside her. Hence she is always\npictured with lambs (as her name signifies), and to the place of her\nmartyrdom two lambs are yearly taken on the anniversary and blessed.\nThen their wool is cut off and woven by the nuns into the archbishop's\ncloak, or pallium (see l. 70).\n\nFor the legend connected with the Eve of the Saint's anniversary, to\nwhich Keats refers, see st. vi.\n\n_Metre._ That of the _Faerie Queene_.\n\nPAGE 83. ll. 5-6. _told His rosary._ Cf. _Isabella_, ll. 87-8.\n\nl. 8. _without a death._ The 'flight to heaven' obscures the simile of\nthe incense, and his breath is thought of as a departing soul.\n\nPAGE 84. l. 12. _meagre, barefoot, wan._ Such a compression of a\ndescription into three bare epithets is frequent in Keats's poetry. He\nshows his marvellous power in the unerring choice of adjective; and\ntheir enumeration in this way has, from its very simplicity, an\nextraordinary force.\n\nl. 15. _purgatorial rails_, rails which enclose them in a place of\ntorture.\n\nl. 16. _dumb orat'ries._ The transference of the adjective from person\nto place helps to give us the mysterious sense of life in inanimate\nthings. Cf. _Hyperion_, iii. 8; _Ode to a Nightingale_, l. 66.\n\nl. 22. _already . . . rung._ He was dead to the world. But this hint\nshould also prepare us for the conclusion of the poem.\n\nPAGE 85. l. 31. _'gan to chide._ l. 32. _ready with their pride._ l. 34.\n_ever eager-eyed._ l. 36. _with hair . . . breasts._ As if trumpets,\nrooms, and carved angels were all alive. See Introduction, p. 212.\n\nl. 37. _argent_, silver. They were all glittering with rich robes and\narms.\n\nPAGE 86. l. 56. _yearning . . . pain_, expressing all the exquisite\nbeauty and pathos of the music; and moreover seeming to give it\nconscious life.\n\nPAGE 87. l. 64. _danc'd_, conveying all her restlessness and impatience\nas well as the lightness of her step.\n\nl. 70. _amort_, deadened, dull. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, IV. iii. 36,\n'What sweeting! all amort.'\n\nl. 71. See note on St. Agnes, p. 224.\n\nl. 77. _Buttress'd from moonlight._ A picture of the castle and of the\nnight, as well as of Porphyro's position.\n\nPAGE 88. ll. 82 seq. Compare the situation of these lovers with that of\nRomeo and Juliet.\n\nl. 90. _beldame_, old woman. Shakespeare generally uses the word in an\nuncomplimentary sense--'hag'--but it is not so used here. The word is\nused by Spenser in its derivative sense, 'Fair lady,' _Faerie Queene_,\nii. 43.\n\nPAGE 89. l. 110. _Brushing . . . plume._ This line both adds to our\npicture of Porphyro and vividly brings before us the character of the\nplace he was entering--unsuited to the splendid cavalier.\n\nl. 113. _Pale, lattic'd, chill._ Cf. l. 12, note.\n\nl. 115. _by the holy loom_, on which the nuns spin. See l. 71 and note\non St. Agnes, p. 224.\n\nPAGE 90. l. 120. _Thou must . . . sieve._ Supposed to be one of the\ncommonest signs of supernatural power. Cf. _Macbeth_, I. iii. 8.\n\nl. 133. _brook_, check. An incorrect use of the word, which really means\n_bear_ or _permit_.\n\nPAGE 92. ll. 155-6. _churchyard . . . toll._ Unconscious prophecy. Cf.\n_The Bedesman_, l. 22.\n\nl. 168. _While . . . coverlet._ All the wonders of Madeline's\nimagination.\n\nl. 171. _Since Merlin . . . debt._ Referring to the old legend that\nMerlin had for father an incubus or demon, and was himself a demon of\nevil, though his innate wickedness was driven out by baptism. Thus his\n'debt' to the demon was his existence, which he paid when Vivien\ncompassed his destruction by means of a spell which he had taught her.\nKeats refers to the storm which is said to have raged that night, which\nTennyson also describes in _Merlin and Vivien_. The source whence the\nstory came to Keats has not been ascertained.\n\nPAGE 93. l. 173. _cates_, provisions. Cf. _Taming of the Shrew_, II. i.\n187:--\n\n Kate of Kate Hall--my super-dainty Kate,\n For dainties are all cates.\n\nWe still use the verb 'to cater' as in l. 177.\n\nl. 174. _tambour frame_, embroidery-frame.\n\nl. 185. _espied_, spying. _Dim_, because it would be from a dark corner;\nalso the spy would be but dimly visible to her old eyes.\n\nl. 187. _silken . . . chaste._ Cf. ll. 12, 113.\n\nl. 188. _covert_, hiding. Cf. _Isabella_, l. 221.\n\nPAGE 94. l. 198. _fray'd_, frightened.\n\nl. 203. _No uttered . . . betide._ Another of the conditions of the\nvision was evidently silence.\n\nPAGE 95. ll. 208 seq. Compare Coleridge's description of Christabel's\nroom: _Christabel_, i. 175-83.\n\nl. 218. _gules_, blood-red.\n\nPAGE 96. l. 226. _Vespers._ Cf. _Isabella_, l. 21, ll. 226-34. See\nIntroduction, p. 213.\n\nl. 237. _poppied_, because of the sleep-giving property of the\npoppy-heads.\n\nl. 241. _Clasp'd . . . pray._ The sacredness of her beauty is felt here.\n\n_missal_, prayer-book.\n\nPAGE 97. l. 247. _To wake . . . tenderness._ He waited to hear, by the\nsound of her breathing, that she was asleep.\n\nl. 250. _Noiseless . . . wilderness._ We picture a man creeping over a\nwide plain, fearing that any sound he makes will arouse some wild beast\nor other frightful thing.\n\nl. 257. _Morphean._ Morpheus was the god of sleep.\n\n_amulet_, charm.\n\nl. 258. _boisterous . . . festive._ Cf. ll. 12, 112, 187.\n\nl. 261. _and . . . gone._ The cadence of this line is peculiarly adapted\nto express a dying-away of sound.\n\nPAGE 98. l. 266. _soother_, sweeter, more delightful. An incorrect use\nof the word. Sooth really means truth.\n\nl. 267. _tinct_, flavoured; usually applied to colour, not to taste.\n\nl. 268. _argosy_, merchant-ship. Cf. _Merchant of Venice_, I. i. 9,\n'Your argosies with portly sail.'\n\nPAGE 99. l. 287. Before he desired a 'Morphean amulet'; now he wishes to\nrelease his lady's eyes from the charm of sleep.\n\nl. 288. _woofed phantasies._ Fancies confused as woven threads. Cf.\n_Isabella_, l. 292.\n\nl. 292. '_La belle . . . mercy._' This stirred Keats's imagination, and\nhe produced the wonderful, mystic ballad of this title (see p. 213).\n\nl. 296. _affrayed_, frightened. Cf. l. 198.\n\nPAGE 100. ll. 298-9. Cf. Donne's poem, _The Dream_:--\n\n My dream thou brokest not, but continued'st it.\n\nl. 300. _painful change_, his paleness.\n\nl. 311. _pallid, chill, and drear._ Cf. ll. 12, 112, 187, 258.\n\nPAGE 101. l. 323. _Love's alarum_, warning them to speed away.\n\nl. 325. _flaw_, gust of wind. Cf. _Coriolanus_, V. iii. 74; _Hamlet_,\nV. i. 239.\n\nl. 333. _unpruned_, not trimmed.\n\nPAGE 102. l. 343. _elfin-storm._ The beldame has suggested that he must\nbe 'liege-lord of all the elves and fays'.\n\nl. 351. _o'er . . . moors._ A happy suggestion of a warmer clime.\n\nPAGE 103. l. 355. _darkling._ Cf. _King Lear_, I. iv. 237: 'So out went\nthe candle and we were left darkling.' Cf. _Ode to a Nightingale_, l.\n51.\n\nl. 360. _And . . . floor._ There is the very sound of the wind in this\nline.\n\nPAGE 104. ll. 375-8. _Angela . . . cold._ The death of these two leaves\nus with the thought of a young, bright world for the lovers to enjoy;\nwhilst at the same time it completes the contrast, which the first\nintroduction of the old bedesman suggested, between the old, the poor,\nand the joyless, and the young, the rich, and the happy.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION TO THE", + "author": "John Keats", + "source": "Poems Published in 1820", + "period": "1820" + }, + { + "title": "Ode To A Nightingale", + "body": " 1.\n\n My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains\n My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,\n Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains\n One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:\n 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,\n But being too happy in thine happiness,--\n That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,\n In some melodious plot\n Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,\n Singest of summer in full-throated ease.\n\n 2.\n\n O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been\n Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,\n Tasting of Flora and the country green,\n Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!\n O for a beaker full of the warm South,\n Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,\n With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,\n And purple-stained mouth;\n That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,\n And with thee fade away into the forest dim:\n\n 3.\n\n Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget\n What thou among the leaves hast never known,\n The weariness, the fever, and the fret\n Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;\n Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,\n Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;\n Where but to think is to be full of sorrow\n And leaden-eyed despairs,\n Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,\n Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.\n\n 4.\n\n Away! away! for I will fly to thee,\n Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,\n But on the viewless wings of Poesy,\n Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:\n Already with thee! tender is the night,\n And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,\n Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;\n But here there is no light,\n Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown\n Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.\n\n 5.\n\n I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,\n Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,\n But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet\n Wherewith the seasonable month endows\n The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;\n White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;\n Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;\n And mid-May's eldest child,\n The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,\n The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.\n\n 6.\n\n Darkling I listen; and, for many a time\n I have been half in love with easeful Death,\n Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,\n To take into the air my quiet breath;\n Now more than ever seems it rich to die,\n To cease upon the midnight with no pain,\n While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad\n In such an ecstasy!\n Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--\n To thy high requiem become a sod.\n\n 7.\n\n Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!\n No hungry generations tread thee down;\n The voice I hear this passing night was heard\n In ancient days by emperor and clown:\n Perhaps the self-same song that found a path\n Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,\n She stood in tears amid the alien corn;\n The same that oft-times hath\n Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam\n Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.\n\n 8.\n\n Forlorn! the very word is like a bell\n To toll me back from thee to my sole self!\n Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well\n As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.\n Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades\n Past the near meadows, over the still stream,\n Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep\n In the next valley-glades:\n Was it a vision, or a waking dream?\n Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?", + "author": "John Keats", + "source": "Poems Published in 1820", + "period": "1820" + }, + { + "title": "Ode On A Grecian Urn", + "body": " 1.\n\n Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,\n Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,\n Sylvan historian, who canst thus express\n A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:\n What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape\n Of deities or mortals, or of both,\n In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?\n What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?\n What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?\n What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?\n\n 2.\n\n Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard\n Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;\n Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,\n Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:\n Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave\n Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;\n Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,\n Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve;\n She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,\n For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!\n\n 3.\n\n Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed\n Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;\n And, happy melodist, unwearied,\n For ever piping songs for ever new;\n More happy love! more happy, happy love!\n For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,\n For ever panting, and for ever young;\n All breathing human passion far above,\n That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,\n A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.\n\n 4.\n\n Who are these coming to the sacrifice?\n To what green altar, O mysterious priest,\n Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,\n And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?\n What little town by river or sea shore,\n Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,\n Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?\n And, little town, thy streets for evermore\n Will silent be; and not a soul to tell\n Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.\n\n 5.\n\n O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede\n Of marble men and maidens overwrought,\n With forest branches and the trodden weed;\n Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought\n As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!\n When old age shall this generation waste,\n Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe\n Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,\n \"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,\"--that is all\n Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.", + "author": "John Keats", + "source": "Poems Published in 1820", + "period": "1820" + }, + { + "title": "Ode To Psyche", + "body": " O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung\n By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,\n And pardon that thy secrets should be sung\n Even into thine own soft-conched ear:\n Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see\n The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?\n I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,\n And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,\n Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side\n In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof\n Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran\n A brooklet, scarce espied:\n 'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,\n Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,\n They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;\n Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;\n Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,\n As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,\n And ready still past kisses to outnumber\n At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:\n The winged boy I knew;\n But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?\n His Psyche true!\n\n O latest born and loveliest vision far\n Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!\n Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,\n Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;\n Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,\n Nor altar heap'd with flowers;\n Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan\n Upon the midnight hours;\n No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet\n From chain-swung censer teeming;\n No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat\n Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.\n\n O brightest! though too late for antique vows,\n Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,\n When holy were the haunted forest boughs,\n Holy the air, the water, and the fire;\n Yet even in these days so far retir'd\n From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,\n Fluttering among the faint Olympians,\n I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.\n So let me be thy choir, and make a moan\n Upon the midnight hours;\n Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet\n From swinged censer teeming;\n Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat\n Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.\n\n Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane\n In some untrodden region of my mind,\n Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,\n Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:\n Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees\n Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;\n And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,\n The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;\n And in the midst of this wide quietness\n A rosy sanctuary will I dress\n With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,\n With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,\n With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,\n Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:\n And there shall be for thee all soft delight\n That shadowy thought can win,\n A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,\n To let the warm Love in!", + "author": "John Keats", + "source": "Poems Published in 1820", + "period": "1820" + }, + { + "title": "Fancy", + "body": " Ever let the Fancy roam,\n Pleasure never is at home:\n At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,\n Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;\n Then let winged Fancy wander\n Through the thought still spread beyond her:\n Open wide the mind's cage-door,\n She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.\n O sweet Fancy! let her loose;\n Summer's joys are spoilt by use,\n And the enjoying of the Spring\n Fades as does its blossoming;\n Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,\n Blushing through the mist and dew,\n Cloys with tasting: What do then?\n Sit thee by the ingle, when\n The sear faggot blazes bright,\n Spirit of a winter's night;\n When the soundless earth is muffled,\n And the caked snow is shuffled\n From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;\n When the Night doth meet the Noon\n In a dark conspiracy\n To banish Even from her sky.\n Sit thee there, and send abroad,\n With a mind self-overaw'd,\n Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her!\n She has vassals to attend her:\n She will bring, in spite of frost,\n Beauties that the earth hath lost;\n She will bring thee, all together,\n All delights of summer weather;\n All the buds and bells of May,\n From dewy sward or thorny spray\n All the heaped Autumn's wealth,\n With a still, mysterious stealth:\n She will mix these pleasures up\n Like three fit wines in a cup,\n And thou shalt quaff it:--thou shalt hear\n Distant harvest-carols clear;\n Rustle of the reaped corn;\n Sweet birds antheming the morn:\n And, in the same moment--hark!\n 'Tis the early April lark,\n Or the rooks, with busy caw,\n Foraging for sticks and straw.\n Thou shalt, at one glance, behold\n The daisy and the marigold;\n White-plum'd lilies, and the first\n Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;\n Shaded hyacinth, alway\n Sapphire queen of the mid-May;\n And every leaf, and every flower\n Pearled with the self-same shower.\n Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep\n Meagre from its celled sleep;\n And the snake all winter-thin\n Cast on sunny bank its skin;\n Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see\n Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,\n When the hen-bird's wing doth rest\n Quiet on her mossy nest;\n Then the hurry and alarm\n When the bee-hive casts its swarm;\n Acorns ripe down-pattering,\n While the autumn breezes sing.\n\n Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;\n Every thing is spoilt by use:\n Where's the cheek that doth not fade,\n Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid\n Whose lip mature is ever new?\n Where's the eye, however blue,\n Doth not weary? Where's the face\n One would meet in every place?\n Where's the voice, however soft,\n One would hear so very oft?\n At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth\n Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.\n Let, then, winged Fancy find\n Thee a mistress to thy mind:\n Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,\n Ere the God of Torment taught her\n How to frown and how to chide;\n With a waist and with a side\n White as Hebe's, when her zone\n Slipt its golden clasp, and down\n Fell her kirtle to her feet,\n While she held the goblet sweet,\n And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh\n Of the Fancy's silken leash;\n Quickly break her prison-string\n And such joys as these she'll bring.--\n Let the winged Fancy roam\n Pleasure never is at home.", + "author": "John Keats", + "source": "Poems Published in 1820", + "period": "1820" + }, + { + "title": "Ode (Bards of Passion and of Mirth)", + "body": "['BARDS OF PASSION AND OF MIRTH'].\n\nPAGE 128. l. 1. _Bards_, poets and singers.\n\nl. 8. _parle_, French _parler_. Cf. _Hamlet_, I. i. 62.\n\nl. 12. _Dian's fawns._ Diana was the goddess of hunting.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION TO", + "author": "John Keats", + "source": "Poems Published in 1820", + "period": "1820" + }, + { + "title": "Lines On The Mermaid Tavern", + "body": "The Mermaid Tavern was an old inn in Bread Street, Cheapside. Tradition\nsays that the literary club there was established by Sir Walter Raleigh\nin 1603. In any case it was, in Shakespeare's time, frequented by the\nchief writers of the day, amongst them Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher,\nSelden, Carew, Donne, and Shakespeare himself. Beaumont, in a poetical\nepistle to Ben Jonson, writes:\n\n What things have we seen\n Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been\n So nimble and so full of subtle flame,\n As if that any one from whence they came\n Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,\n And has resolved to live a fool the rest\n Of his dull life.\n\n\nNOTES ON LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN.\n\nPAGE 131. l. 10. _bold Robin Hood._ Cf. _Robin Hood_, p. 133.\n\nl. 12. _bowse_, drink.\n\nPAGE 132. ll. 16-17. _an astrologer's . . . story._ The astrologer would\nrecord, on parchment, what he had seen in the heavens.\n\nl. 22. _The Mermaid . . . Zodiac._ The zodiac was an imaginary belt\nacross the heavens within which the sun and planets were supposed to\nmove. It was divided into twelve parts corresponding to the twelve\nmonths of the year, according to the position of the moon when full.\nEach of these parts had a sign by which it was known, and the sign of\nthe tenth was a fish-tailed goat, to which Keats refers as the Mermaid.\nThe word _zodiac_ comes from the Greek +zôdion+, meaning\na little animal, since originally all the signs were animals.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION TO", + "author": "John Keats", + "source": "Poems Published in 1820", + "period": "1820" + }, + { + "title": "Robin Hood", + "body": "TO A FRIEND.\n\n\n No! those days are gone away,\n And their hours are old and gray,\n And their minutes buried all\n Under the down-trodden pall\n Of the leaves of many years:\n Many times have winter's shears,\n Frozen North, and chilling East,\n Sounded tempests to the feast\n Of the forest's whispering fleeces,\n Since men knew nor rent nor leases.\n\n No, the bugle sounds no more,\n And the twanging bow no more;\n Silent is the ivory shrill\n Past the heath and up the hill;\n There is no mid-forest laugh,\n Where lone Echo gives the half\n To some wight, amaz'd to hear\n Jesting, deep in forest drear.\n\n On the fairest time of June\n You may go, with sun or moon,\n Or the seven stars to light you,\n Or the polar ray to right you;\n But you never may behold\n Little John, or Robin bold;\n Never one, of all the clan,\n Thrumming on an empty can\n Some old hunting ditty, while\n He doth his green way beguile\n To fair hostess Merriment,\n Down beside the pasture Trent;\n For he left the merry tale\n Messenger for spicy ale.\n\n Gone, the merry morris din;\n Gone, the song of Gamelyn;\n Gone, the tough-belted outlaw\n Idling in the \"grenè shawe;\"\n All are gone away and past!\n And if Robin should be cast\n Sudden from his turfed grave,\n And if Marian should have\n Once again her forest days,\n She would weep, and he would craze:\n He would swear, for all his oaks,\n Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes,\n Have rotted on the briny seas;\n She would weep that her wild bees\n Sang not to her--strange! that honey\n Can't be got without hard money!\n\n So it is: yet let us sing,\n Honour to the old bow-string!\n Honour to the bugle-horn!\n Honour to the woods unshorn!\n Honour to the Lincoln green!\n Honour to the archer keen!\n Honour to tight little John,\n And the horse he rode upon!\n Honour to bold Robin Hood,\n Sleeping in the underwood!\n Honour to maid Marian,\n And to all the Sherwood-clan!\n Though their days have hurried by\n Let us two a burden try.", + "author": "John Keats", + "source": "Poems Published in 1820", + "period": "1820" + }, + { + "title": "To Autumn", + "body": " 1.\n\n Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,\n Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;\n Conspiring with him how to load and bless\n With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;\n To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,\n And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;\n To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells\n With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,\n And still more, later flowers for the bees,\n Until they think warm days will never cease,\n For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.\n\n 2.\n\n Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?\n Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find\n Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,\n Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;\n Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,\n Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook\n Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:\n And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep\n Steady thy laden head across a brook;\n Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,\n Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.\n\n 3.\n\n Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?\n Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--\n While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,\n And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;\n Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn\n Among the river sallows, borne aloft\n Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;\n And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;\n Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft\n The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;\n And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.", + "author": "John Keats", + "source": "Poems Published in 1820", + "period": "1820" + }, + { + "title": "Ode On Melancholy", + "body": " 1.\n\n No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist\n Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;\n Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd\n By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;\n Make not your rosary of yew-berries,\n Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be\n Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl\n A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;\n For shade to shade will come too drowsily,\n And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.\n\n 2.\n\n But when the melancholy fit shall fall\n Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,\n That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,\n And hides the green hill in an April shroud;\n Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,\n Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,\n Or on the wealth of globed peonies;\n Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,\n Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,\n And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.\n\n 3.\n\n She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;\n And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips\n Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,\n Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:\n Ay, in the very temple of Delight\n Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,\n Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue\n Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;\n His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,\n And be among her cloudy trophies hung.", + "author": "John Keats", + "source": "Poems Published in 1820", + "period": "1820" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/khayyam_rubaiyat.json b/poetry/khayyam_rubaiyat.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6dd2a92 --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/khayyam_rubaiyat.json @@ -0,0 +1,1234 @@ +[ + { + "title": "Quatrain I (First Edition)", + "body": " Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night\n Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:\n And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught\n The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain II (First Edition)", + "body": " Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky\n I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,\n \"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup\n Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain III (First Edition)", + "body": " And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before\n The Tavern shouted--\"Open then the Door.\n You know how little while we have to stay,\n And, once departed, may return no more.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain IV (First Edition)", + "body": " Now the New Year reviving old Desires,\n The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,\n Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough\n Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain V (First Edition)", + "body": " Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose,\n And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows;\n But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields,\n And still a Garden by the Water blows.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain VI (First Edition)", + "body": " And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine\n High piping Pelevi, with \"Wine! Wine! Wine!\n Red Wine!\"--the Nightingale cries to the Rose\n That yellow Cheek of hers to'incarnadine.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain VII (First Edition)", + "body": " Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring\n The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:\n The Bird of Time has but a little way\n To fly--and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain VIII (First Edition)", + "body": " And look--a thousand Blossoms with the Day\n Woke--and a thousand scatter'd into Clay:\n And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose\n Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain IX (First Edition)", + "body": " But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot\n Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot:\n Let Rustum lay about him as he will,\n Or Hatim Tai cry Supper--heed them not.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain X (First Edition)", + "body": " With me along some Strip of Herbage strown\n That just divides the desert from the sown,\n Where name of Slave and Sultan scarce is known,\n And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XI (First Edition)", + "body": " Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,\n A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou\n Beside me singing in the Wilderness--\n And Wilderness is Paradise enow.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XII (First Edition)", + "body": " \"How sweet is mortal Sovranty!\"--think some:\n Others--\"How blest the Paradise to come!\"\n Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest;\n Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XIII (First Edition)", + "body": " Look to the Rose that blows about us--\"Lo,\n Laughing,\" she says, \"into the World I blow:\n At once the silken Tassel of my Purse\n Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XIV (First Edition)", + "body": " The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon\n Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon,\n Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face\n Lighting a little Hour or two--is gone.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XV (First Edition)", + "body": " And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,\n And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,\n Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd\n As, buried once, Men want dug up again.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XVI (First Edition)", + "body": " Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai\n Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,\n How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp\n Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XVII (First Edition)", + "body": " They say the Lion and the Lizard keep\n The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:\n And Bahram, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass\n Stamps o'er his Head, and he lies fast asleep.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XVIII (First Edition)", + "body": " I sometimes think that never blows so red\n The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;\n That every Hyacinth the Garden wears\n Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XIX (First Edition)", + "body": " And this delightful Herb whose tender Green\n Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean--\n Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows\n From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XX (First Edition)", + "body": " Ah! my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears\n TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears-\n To-morrow?--Why, To-morrow I may be\n Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXI (First Edition)", + "body": " Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and the best\n That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest,\n Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,\n And one by one crept silently to Rest.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXII (First Edition)", + "body": " And we, that now make merry in the Room\n They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,\n Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth\n Descend, ourselves to make a Couch--for whom?", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXIII (First Edition)", + "body": " Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,\n Before we too into the Dust Descend;\n Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,\n Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and--sans End!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXIV (First Edition)", + "body": " Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,\n And those that after a TO-MORROW stare,\n A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries\n \"Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXV (First Edition)", + "body": " Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd\n Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust\n Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn\n Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXVI (First Edition)", + "body": " Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise\n To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;\n One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;\n The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXVII (First Edition)", + "body": " Myself when young did eagerly frequent\n Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument\n About it and about: but evermore\n Came out by the same Door as in I went.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXVIII (First Edition)", + "body": " With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,\n And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:\n And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd--\n \"I came like Water, and like Wind I go.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXIX (First Edition)", + "body": " Into this Universe, and why not knowing,\n Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:\n And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,\n I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXX (First Edition)", + "body": " What, without asking, hither hurried whence?\n And, without asking, whither hurried hence!\n Another and another Cup to drown\n The Memory of this Impertinence!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXI (First Edition)", + "body": " Up from Earth's Centre through the seventh Gate\n I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,\n And many Knots unravel'd by the Road;\n But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXII (First Edition)", + "body": " There was a Door to which I found no Key:\n There was a Veil past which I could not see:\n Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE\n There seemed--and then no more of THEE and ME.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXIII (First Edition)", + "body": " Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,\n Asking, \"What Lamp had Destiny to guide\n Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?\"\n And--\"A blind understanding!\" Heav'n replied.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXIV (First Edition)", + "body": " Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn\n My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:\n And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--\"While you live,\n Drink!--for once dead you never shall return.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXV (First Edition)", + "body": " I think the Vessel, that with fugitive\n Articulation answer'd, once did live,\n And merry-make; and the cold Lip I kiss'd\n How many Kisses might it take--and give.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXVI (First Edition)", + "body": " For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,\n I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay:\n And with its all obliterated Tongue\n It murmur'd--\"Gently, Brother, gently, pray!\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXVII (First Edition)", + "body": " Ah, fill the Cup:--what boots it to repeat\n How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:\n Unborn TO-MORROW and dead YESTERDAY,\n Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXVIII (First Edition)", + "body": " One Moment in Annihilation's Waste,\n One moment, of the Well of Life to taste--\n The Stars are setting, and the Caravan\n Starts for the dawn of Nothing--Oh, make haste!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXIX (First Edition)", + "body": " How long, how long, in infinite Pursuit\n Of This and That endeavour and dispute?\n Better be merry with the fruitful Grape\n Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XL (First Edition)", + "body": " You know, my Friends, how long since in my House\n For a new Marriage I did make Carouse:\n Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,\n And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLI (First Edition)", + "body": " For \"IS\" and \"IS-NOT\" though with Rule and Line,\n And, \"UP-AND-DOWN\" without, I could define,\n I yet in all I only cared to know,\n Was never deep in anything but--Wine.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLII (First Edition)", + "body": " And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,\n Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape,\n Bearing a vessel on his Shoulder; and\n He bid me taste of it; and 'twas--the Grape!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLIII (First Edition)", + "body": " The Grape that can with Logic absolute\n The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:\n The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice\n Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLIV (First Edition)", + "body": " The mighty Mahmud, the victorious Lord,\n That all the misbelieving and black Horde\n Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul\n Scatters and slays with his enchanted Sword.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLV (First Edition)", + "body": " But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me\n The Quarrel of the Universe let be:\n And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,\n Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLVI (First Edition)", + "body": " For in and out, above, about, below,\n 'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,\n Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,\n Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLVII (First Edition)", + "body": " And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,\n End in the Nothing all Things end in--Yes-\n Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what\n Thou shalt be--Nothing--Thou shalt not be less.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLVIII (First Edition)", + "body": " While the Rose blows along the River Brink,\n With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink:\n And when the Angel with his darker Draught\n Draws up to thee--take that, and do not shrink.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLVIX (First Edition)", + "body": " 'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days\n Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:\n Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,\n And one by one back in the Closet lays.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain L (First Edition)", + "body": " The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,\n But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;\n And He that toss'd Thee down into the Field,\n He knows about it all--HE knows--HE knows!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LI (First Edition)", + "body": " The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,\n Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit\n Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,\n Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LII (First Edition)", + "body": " And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,\n Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,\n Lift not thy hands to IT for help--for It\n Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LIII (First Edition)", + "body": " With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man's knead,\n And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:\n Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote\n What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LIV (First Edition)", + "body": " I tell Thee this--When, starting from the Goal,\n Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal\n Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtari they flung,\n In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LV (First Edition)", + "body": " The Vine had struck a Fibre; which about\n If clings my Being--let the Sufi flout;\n Of my Base Metal may be filed a Key,\n That shall unlock the Door he howls without.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LVI (First Edition)", + "body": " And this I know: whether the one True Light,\n Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite,\n One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught\n Better than in the Temple lost outright.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LVII (First Edition)", + "body": " Oh Thou who didst with Pitfall and with Gin\n Beset the Road I was to wander in,\n Thou wilt not with Predestination round\n Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LVIII (First Edition)", + "body": " Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,\n And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;\n For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man\n Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give--and take!\n\n\n\nKUZA--NAMA. (\"Book of Pots\")", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LIX (First Edition)", + "body": " Listen again. One Evening at the Close\n Of Ramazan, ere the better Moon arose,\n In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone\n With the clay Population round in Rows.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LX (First Edition)", + "body": " And strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot\n Some could articulate, while others not:\n And suddenly one more impatient cried--\n \"Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXI (First Edition)", + "body": " Then said another--\"Surely not in vain\n My substance from the common Earth was ta'en,\n That He who subtly wrought me into Shape\n Should stamp me back to common Earth again.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXII (First Edition)", + "body": " Another said--\"Why, ne'er a peevish Boy\n Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy;\n Shall He that made the Vessel in pure Love\n And Fansy, in an after Rage destroy!\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXIII (First Edition)", + "body": " None answer'd this; but after Silence spake\n A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:\n \"They sneer at me for leaning all awry;\n What? did the Hand then of the Potter shake?\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXIV (First Edition)", + "body": " Said one--\"Folks of a surly Tapster tell,\n And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell;\n They talk of some strict Testing of us--Pish!\n He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXV (First Edition)", + "body": " Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh,\n \"My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry:\n But, fill me with the old familiar Juice,\n Methinks I might recover by-and-bye!\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXVI (First Edition)", + "body": " So, while the Vessels one by one were speaking,\n One spied the little Crescent all were seeking:\n And then they jogg'd each other, \"Brother! Brother!\n Hark to the Porter's Shoulder-knot a-creaking!\"\n\n\n*****", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXVII (First Edition)", + "body": " Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,\n And wash my Body whence the life has died,\n And in a Windingsheet of Vineleaf wrapt,\n So bury me by some sweet Gardenside.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXVIII (First Edition)", + "body": " That ev'n my buried Ashes such a Snare\n Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air,\n As not a True Believer passing by\n But shall be overtaken unaware.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXIX (First Edition)", + "body": " Indeed, the Idols I have loved so long\n Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong:\n Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup,\n And sold my Reputation for a Song.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXX (First Edition)", + "body": " Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before\n I swore--but was I sober when I swore?\n And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand\n My thread-bare Penitence a-pieces tore.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXI (First Edition)", + "body": " And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,\n And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour--well,\n I often wonder what the Vintners buy\n One half so precious as the Goods they sell.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXII (First Edition)", + "body": " Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!\n That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!\n The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,\n Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXIII (First Edition)", + "body": " Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire\n To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,\n Would not we shatter it to bits--and then\n Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXIV (First Edition)", + "body": " Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,\n The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:\n How oft hereafter rising shall she look\n Through this same Garden after me--in vain!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXV (First Edition)", + "body": " And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass\n Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on The Grass,\n And in Thy joyous Errand reach the Spot\n Where I made one--turn down an empty Glass!\n\n\nTAMAM SHUD.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain I (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " WAKE! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight\n The Stars before him from the Field of Night,\n Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes\n The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain II (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Before the phantom of False morning died,\n Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,\n \"When all the Temple is prepared within,\n \"Why nods the drowsy Worshiper outside?\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain III (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before\n The Tavern shouted--\"Open then the Door!\n \"You know how little while we have to stay,\n And, once departed, may return no more.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain IV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Now the New Year reviving old Desires,\n The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,\n Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough\n Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain V (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose,\n And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows;\n But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine,\n And many a Garden by the Water blows.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain VI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And David's lips are lockt; but in divine\n High-piping Pehlevi, with \"Wine! Wine! Wine!\n \"Red Wine!\"--the Nightingale cries to the Rose\n That sallow cheek of hers to' incarnadine.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain VII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring\n Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:\n The Bird of Time has but a little way\n To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain VIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,\n Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,\n The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,\n The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain IX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say:\n Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?\n And this first Summer month that brings the Rose\n Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain X (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Well, let it take them! What have we to do\n With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru?\n Let Zal and Rustum bluster as they will,\n Or Hatim call to Supper--heed not you.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " With me along the strip of Herbage strown\n That just divides the desert from the sown,\n Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot--\n And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,\n A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou\n Beside me singing in the Wilderness--\n Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Some for the Glories of This World; and some\n Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;\n Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,\n Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XIV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Look to the blowing Rose about us--\"Lo,\n Laughing,\" she says, \"into the world I blow,\n At once the silken tassel of my Purse\n Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And those who husbanded the Golden grain,\n And those who flung it to the winds like Rain,\n Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd\n As, buried once, Men want dug up again.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XVI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon\n Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon,\n Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,\n Lighting a little hour or two--is gone.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XVII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai\n Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,\n How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp\n Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XVIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " They say the Lion and the Lizard keep\n The courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:\n And Bahram, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass\n Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XIX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " I sometimes think that never blows so red\n The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;\n That every Hyacinth the Garden wears\n Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And this reviving Herb whose tender Green\n Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean--\n Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows\n From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears\n TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears:\n To-morrow--Why, To-morrow I may be\n Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " For some we loved, the loveliest and the best\n That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,\n Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,\n And one by one crept silently to rest.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And we, that now make merry in the Room\n They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,\n Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth\n Descend--ourselves to make a Couch--for whom?", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXIV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,\n Before we too into the Dust descend;\n Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,\n Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,\n And those that after some TO-MORROW stare,\n A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries,\n \"Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXVI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd\n Of the Two Worlds so wisely--they are thrust\n Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn\n Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXVII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Myself when young did eagerly frequent\n Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument\n About it and about: but evermore\n Came out by the same door where in I went.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXVIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,\n And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;\n And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd--\n \"I came like Water, and like Wind I go.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXIX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Into this Universe, and Why not knowing\n Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;\n And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,\n I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " What, without asking, hither hurried Whence?\n And, without asking, Whither hurried hence!\n Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine\n Must drown the memory of that insolence!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Up from Earth's Center through the Seventh Gate\n I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,\n And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road;\n But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " There was the Door to which I found no Key;\n There was the Veil through which I might not see:\n Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE\n There was--and then no more of THEE and ME.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn\n In flowing Purple, of their Lord Forlorn;\n Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal'd\n And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXIV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind\n The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find\n A lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard,\n As from Without--\"THE ME WITHIN THEE BLIND!\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn\n I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn:\n And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--\"While you live,\n \"Drink!--for, once dead, you never shall return.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXVI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " I think the Vessel, that with fugitive\n Articulation answer'd, once did live,\n And drink; and Ah! the passive Lip I kiss'd,\n How many Kisses might it take--and give!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXVII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " For I remember stopping by the way\n To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay:\n And with its all-obliterated Tongue\n It murmur'd--\"Gently, Brother, gently, pray!\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXVIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And has not such a Story from of Old\n Down Man's successive generations roll'd\n Of such a clod of saturated Earth\n Cast by the Maker into Human mold?", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XXXIX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And not a drop that from our Cups we throw\n For Earth to drink of, but may steal below\n To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye\n There hidden--far beneath, and long ago.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XL (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " As then the Tulip for her morning sup\n Of Heav'nly Vintage from the soil looks up,\n Do you devoutly do the like, till Heav'n\n To Earth invert you--like an empty Cup.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Perplext no more with Human or Divine,\n To-morrow's tangle to the winds resign,\n And lose your fingers in the tresses of\n The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,\n End in what All begins and ends in--Yes;\n Think then you are TO-DAY what YESTERDAY\n You were--TO-MORROW you shall not be less.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " So when that Angel of the darker Drink\n At last shall find you by the river-brink,\n And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul\n Forth to your Lips to quaff--you shall not shrink.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLIV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside,\n And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,\n Were't not a Shame--were't not a Shame for him\n In this clay carcass crippled to abide?", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " 'Tis but a Tent where takes his one day's rest\n A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;\n The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash\n Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLVI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And fear not lest Existence closing your\n Account, and mine, should know the like no more;\n The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd\n Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLVII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " When You and I behind the Veil are past,\n Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,\n Which of our Coming and Departure heeds\n As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLVIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste\n Of BEING from the Well amid the Waste--\n And Lo!--the phantom Caravan has reach'd\n The NOTHING it set out from--Oh, make haste!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XLIX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Would you that spangle of Existence spend\n About THE SECRET--quick about it, Friend!\n A Hair perhaps divides the False from True--\n And upon what, prithee, may life depend?", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain L (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " A Hair perhaps divides the False and True;\n Yes; and a single Alif were the clue--\n Could you but find it--to the Treasure-house,\n And peradventure to THE MASTER too;", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Whose secret Presence through Creation's veins\n Running Quicksilver-like eludes your pains;\n Taking all shapes from Mah to Mahi and\n They change and perish all--but He remains;", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " A moment guessed--then back behind the Fold\n Immerst of Darkness round the Drama roll'd\n Which, for the Pastime of Eternity,\n He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor\n Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's unopening Door,\n You gaze TO-DAY, while You are You--how then\n TO-MORROW, when You shall be You no more?", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LIV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit\n Of This and That endeavor and dispute;\n Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape\n Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse\n I made a Second Marriage in my house;\n Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,\n And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LVI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " For \"Is\" and \"Is-not\" though with Rule and Line\n And \"UP-AND-DOWN\" by Logic I define,\n Of all that one should care to fathom, I\n was never deep in anything but--Wine.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LVII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Ah, by my Computations, People say,\n Reduce the Year to better reckoning?--Nay,\n 'Twas only striking from the Calendar\n Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LVIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,\n Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape\n Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and\n He bid me taste of it; and 'twas--the Grape!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LIX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " The Grape that can with Logic absolute\n The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:\n The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice\n Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute;", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " The mighty Mahmud, Allah-breathing Lord,\n That all the misbelieving and black Horde\n Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul\n Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare\n Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare?\n A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?\n And if a Curse--why, then, Who set it there?", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " I must abjure the Balm of Life, I must,\n Scared by some After-reckoning ta'en on trust,\n Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink,\n To fill the Cup--when crumbled into Dust!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Of threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!\n One thing at least is certain--This Life flies;\n One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;\n The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXIV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who\n Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,\n Not one returns to tell us of the Road,\n Which to discover we must travel too.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd\n Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd,\n Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep\n They told their comrades, and to Sleep return'd.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXVI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " I sent my Soul through the Invisible,\n Some letter of that After-life to spell:\n And by and by my Soul return'd to me,\n And answer'd \"I Myself am Heav'n and Hell:\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXVII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,\n And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,\n Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,\n So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXVIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " We are no other than a moving row\n Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go\n Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held\n In Midnight by the Master of the Show;", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXIX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays\n Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;\n Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,\n And one by one back in the Closet lays.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,\n But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;\n And He that toss'd you down into the Field,\n He knows about it all--HE knows--HE knows!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,\n Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit\n Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,\n Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,\n Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,\n Lift not your hands to It for help--for It\n As impotently moves as you or I.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,\n And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:\n And the first Morning of Creation wrote\n What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXIV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " YESTERDAY This Day's Madness did prepare;\n TO-MORROW's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:\n Drink! for you not know whence you came, nor why:\n Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " I tell you this--When, started from the Goal,\n Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal\n Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtari they flung,\n In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXVI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " The Vine had struck a fiber: which about\n If clings my Being--let the Dervish flout;\n Of my Base metal may be filed a Key\n That shall unlock the Door he howls without.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXVII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And this I know: whether the one True Light\n Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite,\n One Flash of It within the Tavern caught\n Better than in the Temple lost outright.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXVIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke\n A conscious Something to resent the yoke\n Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain\n Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXIX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " What! from his helpless Creature be repaid\n Pure Gold for what he lent him dross-allay'd--\n Sue for a Debt he never did contract,\n And cannot answer--Oh the sorry trade!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin\n Beset the Road I was to wander in,\n Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round\n Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXXI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,\n And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:\n For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man\n Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!\n\n\n*****", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXXII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " As under cover of departing Day\n Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazan away,\n Once more within the Potter's house alone\n I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXXIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small,\n That stood along the floor and by the wall;\n And some loquacious Vessels were; and some\n Listen'd perhaps, but never talk'd at all.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXXIV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Said one among them--\"Surely not in vain\n My substance of the common Earth was ta'en\n And to this Figure molded, to be broke,\n Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXXV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Then said a Second--\"Ne'er a peevish Boy\n Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy;\n And He that with his hand the Vessel made\n Will surely not in after Wrath destroy.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXXVI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " After a momentary silence spake\n Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make;\n \"They sneer at me for leaning all awry:\n What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXXVII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot--\n I think a Sufi pipkin--waxing hot--\n \"All this of Pot and Potter--Tell me then,\n Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXXVIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " \"Why,\" said another, \"Some there are who tell\n Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell\n The luckless Pots he marr'd in making--Pish!\n He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain LXXXIX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " \"Well,\" murmured one, \"Let whoso make or buy,\n My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry:\n But fill me with the old familiar Juice,\n Methinks I might recover by and by.\"", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XC (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,\n The little Moon look'd in that all were seeking:\n And then they jogg'd each other, \"Brother! Brother!\n Now for the Porter's shoulders' knot a-creaking!\"\n\n\n*****", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XCI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Ah, with the Grape my fading life provide,\n And wash the Body whence the Life has died,\n And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,\n By some not unfrequented Garden-side.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XCII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " That ev'n buried Ashes such a snare\n Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air\n As not a True-believer passing by\n But shall be overtaken unaware.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XCIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Indeed the Idols I have loved so long\n Have done my credit in this World much wrong:\n Have drown'd my Glory in a shallow Cup,\n And sold my reputation for a Song.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XCIV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before\n I swore--but was I sober when I swore?\n And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand\n My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XCV (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,\n And robb'd me of my Robe of Honor--Well,\n I wonder often what the Vintners buy\n One half so precious as the stuff they sell.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XCVI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!\n That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!\n The Nightingale that in the branches sang,\n Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XCVII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield\n One glimpse--if dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd,\n To which the fainting Traveler might spring,\n As springs the trampled herbage of the field!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XCVIII (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Would but some winged Angel ere too late\n Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,\n And make the stern Recorder otherwise\n Enregister, or quite obliterate!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain XCIX (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire\n To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,\n Would not we shatter it to bits--and then\n Re-mold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain C (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " Yon rising Moon that looks for us again--\n How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;\n How oft hereafter rising look for us\n Through this same Garden--and for one in vain!", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + }, + { + "title": "Quatrain CI (Fifth Edition)", + "body": " And when like her, oh Saki, you shall pass\n Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,\n And in your joyous errand reach the spot\n Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass!\n\n\nTAMAM.", + "author": "Omar Khayyam (trans. Edward FitzGerald)", + "source": "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", + "period": "11th–12th century" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/poe_poetical_works.json b/poetry/poe_poetical_works.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6267158 --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/poe_poetical_works.json @@ -0,0 +1,758 @@ +[ + { + "title": "Poems Of Later Life:", + "body": " Dedication\n Preface\n The Raven\n The Bells\n Ulalume\n To Helen\n Annabel Lee\n A Valentine\n An Enigma\n To my Mother\n For Annie\n To F----\n To Frances S. Osgood\n Eldorado\n Eulalie\n A Dream within a Dream\n To Marie Louise (Shew)\n To the Same\n The City in the Sea\n The Sleeper,\n Bridal Ballad\nNotes", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Poems Of Manhood:", + "body": " Lenore\n To one in Paradise\n The Coliseum\n The Haunted Palace\n The Conqueror Worm\n Silence\n Dreamland\n To Zante\n Hymn\nNotes", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Poems Of Youth:", + "body": " Introduction (1831)\n To Science\n Al Aaraaf\n Tamerlane\n To Helen\n The Valley of Unrest\n Israfel\n To----(\"I heed not that my earthly lot\")\n To----(\"The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see\")\n To the River----\n Song\n Spirits of the Dead\n A Dream\n Romance\n Fairyland\n The Lake\n Evening Star\n Imitation\n \"The Happiest Day,\"\n Hymn. Translation from the Greek\n Dreams\n \"In Youth I have known one\"\n A Pæan\nNotes", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Doubtful Poems:", + "body": " Alone\n To Isadore\n The Village Street\n The Forest Reverie\nNotes", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Prose Poems:", + "body": " The Island of the Fay\n The Power of Words\n The Colloquy of Monos and Una\n The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion\n Shadow--A Parable\n Silence--A Fable", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Essays:", + "body": " The Poetic Principle\n The Philosophy of Composition\n Old English Poetry", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Memoir Of Edgar Allan Poe.", + "body": "During the last few years every incident in the life of Edgar Poe has\nbeen subjected to microscopic investigation. The result has not been\naltogether satisfactory. On the one hand, envy and prejudice have\nmagnified every blemish of his character into crime, whilst on the\nother, blind admiration would depict him as far \"too good for human\nnature's daily food.\" Let us endeavor to judge him impartially, granting\nthat he was as a mortal subject to the ordinary weaknesses of mortality,\nbut that he was tempted sorely, treated badly, and suffered deeply.\n\nThe poet's ancestry and parentage are chiefly interesting as explaining\nsome of the complexities of his character. His father, David Poe, was of\nAnglo-Irish extraction. Educated for the Bar, he elected to abandon it\nfor the stage. In one of his tours through the chief towns of the United\nStates he met and married a young actress, Elizabeth Arnold, member of\nan English family distinguished for its musical talents. As an actress,\nElizabeth Poe acquired some reputation, but became even better known for\nher domestic virtues. In those days the United States afforded little\nscope for dramatic energy, so it is not surprising to find that when her\nhusband died, after a few years of married life, the young widow had a\nvain struggle to maintain herself and three little ones, William Henry,\nEdgar, and Rosalie. Before her premature death, in December, 1811, the\npoet's mother had been reduced to the dire necessity of living on the\ncharity of her neighbors.\n\nEdgar, the second child of David and Elizabeth Poe, was born at Boston,\nin the United States, on the 19th of January, 1809. Upon his mother's\ndeath at Richmond, Virginia, Edgar was adopted by a wealthy Scotch\nmerchant, John Allan. Mr. Allan, who had married an American lady and\nsettled in Virginia, was childless. He therefore took naturally to the\nbrilliant and beautiful little boy, treated him as his son, and made him\ntake his own surname. Edgar Allan, as he was now styled, after some\nelementary tuition in Richmond, was taken to England by his adopted\nparents, and, in 1816, placed at the Manor House School,\nStoke-Newington.\n\nUnder the Rev. Dr. Bransby, the future poet spent a lustrum of his life\nneither unprofitably nor, apparently, ungenially. Dr. Bransby, who is\nhimself so quaintly portrayed in Poe's tale of 'William Wilson',\ndescribed \"Edgar Allan,\" by which name only he knew the lad, as \"a quick\nand clever boy,\" who \"would have been a very good boy had he not been\nspoilt by his parents,\" meaning, of course, the Allans. They \"allowed\nhim an extravagant amount of pocket-money, which enabled him to get into\nall manner of mischief. Still I liked the boy,\" added the tutor, \"but,\npoor fellow, his parents spoiled him.\"\n\nPoe has described some aspects of his school days in his oft cited story\nof 'William Wilson'. Probably there is the usual amount of poetic\nexaggeration in these reminiscences, but they are almost the only record\nwe have of that portion of his career and, therefore, apart from their\nliterary merits, are on that account deeply interesting. The description\nof the sleepy old London suburb, as it was in those days, is remarkably\naccurate, but the revisions which the story of 'William Wilson' went\nthrough before it reached its present perfect state caused many of the\nauthor's details to deviate widely from their original correctness. His\nschoolhouse in the earliest draft was truthfully described as an \"old,\nirregular, and cottage-built\" dwelling, and so it remained until its\ndestruction a few years ago.\n\nThe 'soi-disant' William Wilson, referring to those bygone happy days\nspent in the English academy, says,\n\n \"The teeming brain of childhood requires no external world of incident\n to occupy or amuse it. The morning's awakening, the nightly summons to\n bed; the connings, the recitations, the periodical half-holidays and\n perambulations, the playground, with its broils, its pastimes, its\n intrigues--these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were made to\n involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich incident, a\n universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and\n spirit-stirring, _'Oh, le bon temps, que ce siècle de fer!'\"_\n\nFrom this world of boyish imagination Poe was called to his adopted\nparents' home in the United States. He returned to America in 1821, and\nwas speedily placed in an academy in Richmond, Virginia, in which city\nthe Allans continued to reside. Already well grounded in the elementary\nprocesses of education, not without reputation on account of his\nEuropean residence, handsome, proud, and regarded as the heir of a\nwealthy man, Poe must have been looked up to with no little respect by\nhis fellow pupils. He speedily made himself a prominent position in the\nschool, not only by his classical attainments, but by his athletic\nfeats--accomplishments calculated to render him a leader among lads.\n\n \"In the simple school athletics of those days, when a gymnasium had\n not been heard of, he was 'facile princeps',\"\n\nis the reminiscence of his fellow pupil, Colonel T. L. Preston. Poe he\nremembers as\n\n \"a swift runner, a wonderful leaper, and, what was more rare, a boxer,\n with some slight training.... He would allow the strongest boy in the\n school to strike him with full force in the chest. He taught me the\n secret, and I imitated him, after my measure. It was to inflate the\n lungs to the uttermost, and at the moment of receiving the blow to\n exhale the air. It looked surprising, and was, indeed, a little rough;\n but with a good breast-bone, and some resolution, it was not difficult\n to stand it. For swimming he was noted, being in many of his athletic\n proclivities surprisingly like Byron in his youth.\"\n\nIn one of his feats Poe only came off second best.\n\n \"A challenge to a foot race,\" says Colonel Preston, \"had been passed\n between the two classical schools of the city; we selected Poe as our\n champion. The race came off one bright May morning at sunrise, in the\n Capitol Square. Historical truth compels me to add that on this\n occasion our school was beaten, and we had to pay up our small bets.\n Poe ran well, but his competitor was a long-legged, Indian-looking\n fellow, who would have outstripped Atalanta without the help of the\n golden apples.\"\n\n \"In our Latin exercises in school,\" continues the colonel, \"Poe was\n among the first--not first without dispute. We had competitors who\n fairly disputed the palm, especially one, Nat Howard, afterwards known\n as one of the ripest scholars in Virginia, and distinguished also as a\n profound lawyer. If Howard was less brilliant than Poe, he was far\n more studious; for even then the germs of waywardness were developing\n in the nascent poet, and even then no inconsiderable portion of his\n time was given to versifying. But if I put Howard as a Latinist on a\n level with Poe, I do him full justice.\"\n\n \"Poe,\" says the colonel, \"was very fond of the Odes of Horace, and\n repeated them so often in my hearing that I learned by sound the words\n of many before I understood their meaning. In the lilting rhythm of\n the Sapphics and Iambics, his ear, as yet untutored in more\n complicated harmonies, took special delight. Two odes, in particular,\n have been humming in my ear all my life since, set to the tune of his\n recitation:\n\n _'Jam satis terris nivis atque dirce\n Grandinis misit Pater, et rubente,'_\n\n And\n\n _'Non ebur neque aureum\n Mea renidet in dono lacu ar,_' etc.\n\n \"I remember that Poe was also a very fine French scholar. Yet, with\n all his superiorities, he was not the master spirit nor even the\n favorite of the school. I assign, from my recollection, this place to\n Howard. Poe, as I recall my impressions now, was self-willed,\n capricious, inclined to be imperious, and, though of generous\n impulses, not steadily kind, nor even amiable; and so what he would\n exact was refused to him. I add another thing which had its influence,\n I am sure. At the time of which I speak, Richmond was one of the most\n aristocratic cities on this side of the Atlantic.... A school is, of\n its nature, democratic; but still boys will unconsciously bear about\n the odor of their fathers' notions, good or bad. Of Edgar Poe,\" who\n had then resumed his parental cognomen, \"it was known that his parents\n had been players, and that he was dependent upon the bounty that is\n bestowed upon an adopted son. All this had the effect of making the\n boys decline his leadership; and, on looking back on it since, I fancy\n it gave him a fierceness he would otherwise not have had.\"\n\nThis last paragraph of Colonel Preston's recollections cast a suggestive\nlight upon the causes which rendered unhappy the lad's early life and\ntended to blight his prospective hopes. Although mixing with members of\nthe best families of the province, and naturally endowed with hereditary\nand native pride,--fostered by the indulgence of wealth and the\nconsciousness of intellectual superiority,--Edgar Poe was made to feel\nthat his parentage was obscure, and that he himself was dependent upon\nthe charity and caprice of an alien by blood. For many lads these things\nwould have had but little meaning, but to one of Poe's proud temperament\nit must have been a source of constant torment, and all allusions to it\ngall and wormwood. And Mr. Allan was not the man to wean Poe from such\nfestering fancies: as a rule he was proud of the handsome and talented\nboy, and indulged him in all that wealth could purchase, but at other\ntimes he treated him with contumely, and made him feel the bitterness of\nhis position.\n\nStill Poe did maintain his leading position among the scholars at that\nVirginian academy, and several still living have favored us with\nreminiscences of him. His feats in swimming to which Colonel Preston has\nalluded, are quite a feature of his youthful career. Colonel Mayo\nrecords one daring performance in natation which is thoroughly\ncharacteristic of the lad. One day in mid-winter, when standing on the\nbanks of the James River, Poe dared his comrade into jumping in, in\norder to swim to a certain point with him. After floundering about in\nthe nearly frozen stream for some time, they reached the piles upon\nwhich Mayo's Bridge was then supported, and there attempted to rest and\ntry to gain the shore by climbing up the log abutment to the bridge.\nUpon reaching the bridge, however, they were dismayed to find that its\nplank flooring overlapped the abutment by several feet, and that it was\nimpossible to ascend it. Nothing remained for them but to let go their\nslippery hold and swim back to the shore. Poe reached the bank in an\nexhausted and benumbed condition, whilst Mayo was rescued by a boat just\nas he was succumbing. On getting ashore Poe was seized with a violent\nattack of vomiting, and both lads were ill for several weeks.\n\nAlluding to another quite famous swimming feat of his own, the poet\nremarked, \"Any 'swimmer in the falls' in my days would have swum the\nHellespont, and thought nothing of the matter. I swam from Ludlam's\nWharf to Warwick (six miles), in a hot June sun, against one of the\nstrongest tides ever known in the river. It would have been a feat\ncomparatively easy to swim twenty miles in still water. I would not\nthink much,\" Poe added in a strain of exaggeration not unusual with him,\n\"of attempting to swim the British Channel from Dover to Calais.\"\nColonel Mayo, who had tried to accompany him in this performance, had to\nstop on the way, and says that Poe, when he reached the goal, emerged\nfrom the water with neck, face, and back blistered. The facts of this\nfeat, which was undertaken for a wager, having been questioned, Poe,\never intolerant of contradiction, obtained and published the affidavits\nof several gentlemen who had witnessed it. They also certified that Poe\ndid not seem at all fatigued, and that he walked back to Richmond\nimmediately after the performance.\n\nThe poet is generally remembered at this part of his career to have been\nslight in figure and person, but to have been well made, active, sinewy,\nand graceful. Despite the fact that he was thus noted among his\nschoolfellows and indulged at home, he does not appear to have been in\nsympathy with his surroundings. Already dowered with the \"hate of hate,\nthe scorn of scorn,\" he appears to have made foes both among those who\nenvied him and those whom, in the pride of intellectuality, he treated\nwith pugnacious contempt. Beneath the haughty exterior, however, was a\nwarm and passionate heart, which only needed circumstance to call forth\nan almost fanatical intensity of affection. A well-authenticated\ninstance of this is thus related by Mrs. Whitman:\n\n \"While at the academy in Richmond, he one day accompanied a schoolmate\n to his home, where he saw, for the first time, Mrs. Helen Stannard,\n the mother of his young friend. This lady, on entering the room, took\n his hands and spoke some gentle and gracious words of welcome, which\n so penetrated the sensitive heart of the orphan boy as to deprive him\n of the power of speech, and for a time almost of consciousness itself.\n He returned home in a dream, with but one thought, one hope in life\n --to hear again the sweet and gracious words that had made the\n desolate world so beautiful to him, and filled his lonely heart with\n the oppression of a new joy. This lady afterwards became the confidant\n of all his boyish sorrows, and hers was the one redeeming influence\n that saved and guided him in the earlier days of his turbulent and\n passionate youth.\"\n\nWhen Edgar was unhappy at home, which, says his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, \"was\nvery often the case, he went to Mrs. Stannard for sympathy, for\nconsolation, and for advice.\" Unfortunately, the sad fortune which so\nfrequently thwarted his hopes ended this friendship. The lady was\noverwhelmed by a terrible calamity, and at the period when her guiding\nvoice was most requisite, she fell a prey to mental alienation. She\ndied, and was entombed in a neighboring cemetery, but her poor boyish\nadmirer could not endure to think of her lying lonely and forsaken in\nher vaulted home, so he would leave the house at night and visit her\ntomb. When the nights were drear, \"when the autumnal rains fell, and the\nwinds wailed mournfully over the graves, he lingered longest, and came\naway most regretfully.\"\n\nThe memory of this lady, of this \"one idolatrous and purely ideal love\"\nof his boyhood, was cherished to the last. The name of Helen frequently\nrecurs in his youthful verses, \"The Pæan,\" now first included in his\npoetical works, refers to her; and to her he inscribed the classic and\nexquisitely beautiful stanzas beginning \"Helen, thy beauty is to me.\"\n\nAnother important item to be noted in this epoch of his life is that he\nwas already a poet. Among his schoolfellows he appears to have acquired\nsome little reputation as a writer of satirical verses; but of his\npoetry, of that which, as he declared, had been with him \"not a purpose,\nbut a passion,\" he probably preserved the secret, especially as we know\nthat at his adoptive home poesy was a forbidden thing. As early as 1821\nhe appears to have essayed various pieces, and some of these were\nultimately included in his first volume. With Poe poetry was a personal\nmatter--a channel through which the turbulent passions of his heart\nfound an outlet. With feelings such as were his, it came to pass, as a\nmatter of course, that the youthful poet fell in love. His first affair\nof the heart is, doubtless, reminiscently portrayed in what he says of\nhis boyish ideal, Byron. This passion, he remarks, \"if passion it can\nproperly be called, was of the most thoroughly romantic, shadowy, and\nimaginative character. It was born of the hour, and of the youthful\nnecessity to love. It had no peculiar regard to the person, or to the\ncharacter, or to the reciprocating affection... Any maiden, not\nimmediately and positively repulsive,\" he deems would have suited the\noccasion of frequent and unrestricted intercourse with such an\nimaginative and poetic youth. \"The result,\" he deems, \"was not merely\nnatural, or merely probable; it was as inevitable as destiny itself.\"\n\nBetween the lines may be read the history of his own love. \"The Egeria\nof _his_ dreams--the Venus Aphrodite that sprang in full and supernal\nloveliness from the bright foam upon the storm-tormented ocean of _his_\nthoughts,\" was a little girl, Elmira Royster, who lived with her father\nin a house opposite to the Allans in Richmond. The young people met\nagain and again, and the lady, who has only recently passed away,\nrecalled Edgar as \"a beautiful boy,\" passionately fond of music,\nenthusiastic and impulsive, but with prejudices already strongly\ndeveloped. A certain amount of love-making took place between the young\npeople, and Poe, with his usual passionate energy, ere he left home for\nthe University had persuaded his fair inamorata to engage herself to\nhim. Poe left home for the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, in\nthe beginning of 1825. lie wrote frequently to Miss Royster, but her\nfather did not approve of the affair, and, so the story runs,\nintercepted the correspondence, until it ceased. At seventeen, Elmira\nbecame the bride of a Mr. Shelton, and it was not until some time\nafterwards that Poe discovered how it was his passionate appeals had\nfailed to elicit any response from the object of his youthful affection.\n\nPoe's short university career was in many respects a repetition of his\ncourse at the Richmond Academy. He became noted at Charlottesville both\nfor his athletic feats and his scholastic successes. He entered as a\nstudent on February 1,1826, and remained till the close of the second\nsession in December of that year.\n\n \"He entered the schools of ancient and modern languages, attending the\n lectures on Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian. I was a member\n of the last three classes,\" says Mr. William Wertenbaker, the recently\n deceased librarian, \"and can testify that he was tolerably regular in\n his attendance, and a successful student, having obtained distinction\n at the final examination in Latin and French, and this was at that\n time the highest honor a student could obtain. The present regulations\n in regard to degrees had not then been adopted. Under existing\n regulations, he would have graduated in the two languages above-named,\n and have been entitled to diplomas.\"\n\nThese statements of Poe's classmate are confirmed by Dr. Harrison,\nchairman of the Faculty, who remarks that the poet was a great favorite\nwith his fellow-students, and was noted for the remarkable rapidity with\nwhich he prepared his recitations and for their accuracy, his\ntranslations from the modern languages being especially noteworthy.\n\nSeveral of Poe's classmates at Charlottesville have testified to his\n\"noble qualities\" and other good endowments, but they remember that his\n\"disposition was rather retiring, and that he had few intimate\nassociates.\" Mr. Thomas Boiling, one of his fellow-students who has\nfavored us with reminiscences of him, says:\n\n \"I was 'acquainted', with him, but that is about all. My impression\n was, and is, that no one could say that he 'knew' him. He wore a\n melancholy face always, and even his smile--for I do not ever remember\n to have seen him laugh--seemed to be forced. When he engaged\n sometimes with others in athletic exercises, in which, so far as high\n or long jumping, I believe he excelled all the rest, Poe, with the\n same ever sad face, appeared to participate in what was amusement to\n the others more as a task than sport.\"\n\nPoe had no little talent for drawing, and Mr. John Willis states that\nthe walls of his college rooms were covered with his crayon sketches,\nwhilst Mr. Boiling mentions, in connection with the poet's artistic\nfacility, some interesting incidents. The two young men had purchased\ncopies of a handsomely-illustrated edition of Byron's poems, and upon\nvisiting Poe a few days after this purchase, Mr. Bolling found him\nengaged in copying one of the engravings with crayon upon his dormitory\nceiling. He continued to amuse himself in this way from time to time\nuntil he had filled all the space in his room with life-size figures\nwhich, it is remembered by those who saw them, were highly ornamental\nand well executed.\n\n\nAs Mr. Bolling talked with his associate, Poe would continue to scribble\naway with his pencil, as if writing, and when his visitor jestingly\nremonstrated with him on his want of politeness, he replied that he had\nbeen all attention, and proved that he had by suitable comment,\nassigning as a reason for his apparent want of courtesy that he was\ntrying 'to divide his mind,' to carry on a conversation and write\nsensibly upon a totally different subject at the same time.\n\nMr. Wertenbaker, in his interesting reminiscences of the poet, says:\n\n \"As librarian I had frequent official intercourse with Poe, but it was\n at or near the close of the session before I met him in the social\n circle. After spending an evening together at a private house he\n invited me, on our return, into his room. It was a cold night in\n December, and his fire having gone pretty nearly out, by the aid of\n some tallow candles, and the fragments of a small table which he broke\n up for the purpose, he soon rekindled it, and by its comfortable blaze\n I spent a very pleasant hour with him. On this occasion he spoke with\n regret of the large amount of money he had wasted, and of the debts he\n had contracted during the session. If my memory be not at fault, he\n estimated his indebtedness at $2,000 and, though they were gaming\n debts, he was earnest and emphatic in the declaration that he was\n bound by honor to pay them at the earliest opportunity.\"\n\nThis appears to have been Poe's last night at the university. He left it\nnever to return, yet, short as was his sojourn there, he left behind him\nsuch honorable memories that his 'alma mater' is now only too proud to\nenrol his name among her most respected sons. Poe's adopted father,\nhowever, did not regard his 'protégé's' collegiate career with equal\npleasure: whatever view he may have entertained of the lad's scholastic\nsuccesses, he resolutely refused to discharge the gambling debts which,\nlike too many of his classmates, he had incurred. A violent altercation\ntook place between Mr. Allan and the youth, and Poe hastily quitted the\nshelter of home to try and make his way in the world alone.\n\nTaking with him such poems as he had ready, Poe made his way to Boston,\nand there looked up some of his mother's old theatrical friends. Whether\nhe thought of adopting the stage as a profession, or whether he thought\nof getting their assistance towards helping him to put a drama of his\nown upon the stage,--that dream of all young authors,--is now unknown.\nHe appears to have wandered about for some time, and by some means or\nthe other succeeded in getting a little volume of poems printed \"for\nprivate circulation only.\" This was towards the end of 1827, when he was\nnearing nineteen. Doubtless Poe expected to dispose of his volume by\nsubscription among his friends, but copies did not go off, and\nultimately the book was suppressed, and the remainder of the edition,\nfor \"reasons of a private nature,\" destroyed.\n\nWhat happened to the young poet, and how he contrived to exist for the\nnext year or so, is a mystery still unsolved. It has always been\nbelieved that he found his way to Europe and met with some curious\nadventures there, and Poe himself certainly alleged that such was the\ncase. Numbers of mythical stories have been invented to account for this\nchasm in the poet's life, and most of them self-evidently fabulous. In a\nrecent biography of Poe an attempt had been made to prove that he\nenlisted in the army under an assumed name, and served for about\neighteen months in the artillery in a highly creditable manner,\nreceiving an honorable discharge at the instance of Mr. Allan. This\naccount is plausible, but will need further explanation of its many\ndiscrepancies of dates, and verification of the different documents\ncited in proof of it, before the public can receive it as fact. So many\nfables have been published about Poe, and even many fictitious documents\nquoted, that it behoves the unprejudiced to be wary in accepting any new\nstatements concerning him that are not thoroughly authenticated.\n\nOn the 28th February, 1829, Mrs. Allan died, and with her death the\nfinal thread that had bound Poe to her husband was broken. The adopted\nson arrived too late to take a last farewell of her whose influence had\ngiven the Allan residence its only claim upon the poet's heart. A kind\nof truce was patched up over the grave of the deceased lady, but, for\nthe future, Poe found that home was home no longer.\n\nAgain the young man turned to poetry, not only as a solace but as a\nmeans of earning a livelihood. Again he printed a little volume of\npoems, which included his longest piece, \"Al Aaraaf,\" and several others\nnow deemed classic. The book was a great advance upon his previous\ncollection, but failed to obtain any amount of public praise or personal\nprofit for its author.\n\nFeeling the difficulty of living by literature at the same time that he\nsaw he might have to rely largely upon his own exertions for a\nlivelihood, Poe expressed a wish to enter the army. After no little\ndifficulty a cadetship was obtained for him at the West Point Military\nAcademy, a military school in many respects equal to the best in Europe\nfor the education of officers for the army. At the time Poe entered the\nAcademy it possessed anything but an attractive character, the\ndiscipline having been of the most severe character, and the\naccommodation in many respects unsuitable for growing lads.\n\nThe poet appears to have entered upon this new course of life with his\nusual enthusiasm, and for a time to have borne the rigid rules of the\nplace with unusual steadiness. He entered the institution on the 1st\nJuly, 1830, and by the following March had been expelled for determined\ndisobedience. Whatever view may be taken of Poe's conduct upon this\noccasion, it must be seen that the expulsion from West Point was of his\nown seeking. Highly-colored pictures have been drawn of his eccentric\nbehavior at the Academy, but the fact remains that he wilfully, or at\nany rate purposely, flung away his cadetship. It is surmised with\nplausibility that the second marriage of Mr. Allan, and his expressed\nintention of withdrawing his help and of not endowing or bequeathing\nthis adopted son any of his property, was the mainspring of Poe's\naction. Believing it impossible to continue without aid in a profession\nso expensive as was a military life, he determined to relinquish it and\nreturn to his long cherished attempt to become an author.\n\nExpelled from the institution that afforded board and shelter, and\ndiscarded by his former protector, the unfortunate and penniless young\nman yet a third time attempted to get a start in the world of letters by\nmeans of a volume of poetry. If it be true, as alleged, that several of\nhis brother cadets aided his efforts by subscribing for his little work,\nthere is some possibility that a few dollars rewarded this latest\nventure. Whatever may have resulted from the alleged aid, it is certain\nthat in a short time after leaving the Military Academy Poe was reduced\nto sad straits. He disappeared for nearly two years from public notice,\nand how he lived during that period has never been satisfactorily\nexplained. In 1833 he returns to history in the character of a winner of\na hundred-dollar award offered by a newspaper for the best story.\n\nThe prize was unanimously adjudged to Poe by the adjudicators, and Mr.\nKennedy, an author of some little repute, having become interested by\nthe young man's evident genius, generously assisted him towards\nobtaining a livelihood by literary labor. Through his new friend's\nintroduction to the proprietor of the 'Southern Literary Messenger', a\nmoribund magazine published at irregular intervals, Poe became first a\npaid contributor, and eventually the editor of the publication, which\nultimately he rendered one of the most respected and profitable\nperiodicals of the day. This success was entirely due to the brilliancy\nand power of Poe's own contributions to the magazine.\n\nIn March, 1834, Mr. Allan died, and if our poet had maintained any hopes\nof further assistance from him, all doubt was settled by the will, by\nwhich the whole property of the deceased was left to his second wife and\nher three sons. Poe was not named.\n\nOn the 6th May, 1836, Poe, who now had nothing but his pen to trust to,\nmarried his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a child of only fourteen, and with\nher mother as housekeeper, started a home of his own. In the meantime\nhis various writings in the 'Messenger' began to attract attention and\nto extend his reputation into literary circles, but beyond his editorial\nsalary of about $520 brought him no pecuniary reward.\n\nIn January, 1837, for reasons never thoroughly explained, Poe severed\nhis connection with the 'Messenger', and moved with all his household\ngoods from Richmond to New York. Southern friends state that Poe was\ndesirous of either being admitted into partnership with his employer, or\nof being allowed a larger share of the profits which his own labors\nprocured. In New York his earnings seem to have been small and\nirregular, his most important work having been a republication from the\n'Messenger' in book form of his Defoe-like romance entitled 'Arthur\nGordon Pym'. The truthful air of \"The Narrative,\" as well as its other\nmerits, excited public curiosity both in England and America; but Poe's\nremuneration does not appear to have been proportionate to its success,\nnor did he receive anything from the numerous European editions the work\nrapidly passed through.\n\nIn 1838 Poe was induced by a literary friend to break up his New York\nhome and remove with his wife and aunt (her mother) to Philadelphia. The\nQuaker city was at that time quite a hotbed for magazine projects, and\namong the many new periodicals Poe was enabled to earn some kind of a\nliving. To Burton's 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1837 he had contributed a\nfew articles, but in 1840 he arranged with its proprietor to take up the\neditorship. Poe had long sought to start a magazine of his own, and it\nwas probably with a view to such an eventuality that one of his\nconditions for accepting the editorship of the 'Gentleman's Magazine'\nwas that his name should appear upon the title-page.\n\nPoe worked hard at the 'Gentleman's' for some time, contributing to its\ncolumns much of his best work; ultimately, however, he came to\nloggerheads with its proprietor, Burton, who disposed of the magazine to\na Mr. Graham, a rival publisher. At this period Poe collected into two\nvolumes, and got them published as 'Tales of the Grotesque and\nArabesques', twenty-five of his stories, but he never received any\nremuneration, save a few copies of the volumes, for the work. For some\ntime the poet strove most earnestly to start a magazine of his own, but\nall his efforts failed owing to his want of capital.\n\nThe purchaser of Burton's magazine, having amalgamated it with another,\nissued the two under the title of 'Graham's Magazine'. Poe became a\ncontributor to the new venture, and in November of the year 1840\nconsented to assume the post of editor.\n\nUnder Poe's management, assisted by the liberality of Mr. Graham,\n'Graham's Magazine' became a grand success. To its pages Poe contributed\nsome of his finest and most popular tales, and attracted to the\npublication the pens of many of the best contemporary authors. The\npublic was not slow in showing its appreciation of 'pabulum' put before\nit, and, so its directors averred, in less than two years the\ncirculation rose from five to fifty-two thousand copies.\n\nA great deal of this success was due to Poe's weird and wonderful\nstories; still more, perhaps, to his trenchant critiques and his\nstartling theories anent cryptology. As regards the tales now issued in\n'Graham's', attention may especially be drawn to the world-famed\n\"Murders in the Rue Morgue,\" the first of a series--'\"une espèce de\ntrilogie,\"' as Baudelaire styles them--illustrative of an analytic phase\nof Poe's peculiar mind. This 'trilogie' of tales, of which the later two\nwere \"The Purloined Letter\" and \"The Mystery of Marie Roget,\" was\navowedly written to prove the capability of solving the puzzling riddles\nof life by identifying another person's mind by our own. By trying to\nfollow the processes by which a person would reason out a certain thing,\nPoe propounded the theory that another person might ultimately arrive,\nas it were, at that person's conclusions, indeed, penetrate the\ninnermost arcanum of his brain and read his most secret thoughts. Whilst\nthe public was still pondering over the startling proposition, and\nenjoying perusal of its apparent proofs, Poe still further increased his\npopularity and drew attention to his works by putting forward the\nattractive but less dangerous theorem that \"human ingenuity could not\nconstruct a cipher which human ingenuity could not solve.\"\n\nThis cryptographic assertion was made in connection with what the public\ndeemed a challenge, and Poe was inundated with ciphers more or less\nabstruse, demanding solution. In the correspondence which ensued in\n'Graham's Magazine' and other publications, Poe was universally\nacknowledged to have proved his case, so far as his own personal ability\nto unriddle such mysteries was concerned. Although he had never offered\nto undertake such a task, he triumphantly solved every cryptogram sent\nto him, with one exception, and that exception he proved conclusively\nwas only an imposture, for which no solution was possible.\n\nThe outcome of this exhaustive and unprofitable labor was the\nfascinating story of \"The Gold Bug,\" a story in which the discovery of\nhidden treasure is brought about by the unriddling of an intricate\ncipher.\n\nThe year 1841 may be deemed the brightest of Poe's checkered career. On\nevery side acknowledged to be a new and brilliant literary light, chief\neditor of a powerful magazine, admired, feared, and envied, with a\nreputation already spreading rapidly in Europe as well as in his native\ncontinent, the poet might well have hoped for prosperity and happiness.\nBut dark cankers were gnawing his heart. His pecuniary position was\nstill embarrassing. His writings, which were the result of slow and\ncareful labor, were poorly paid, and his remuneration as joint editor of\n'Graham's' was small. He was not permitted to have undivided control,\nand but a slight share of the profits of the magazine he had rendered\nworld-famous, whilst a fearful domestic calamity wrecked all his hopes,\nand caused him to resort to that refuge of the broken-hearted--to that\ndrink which finally destroyed his prospects and his life.\n\nEdgar Poe's own account of this terrible malady and its cause was made\ntowards the end of his career. Its truth has never been disproved, and\nin its most important points it has been thoroughly substantiated. To a\ncorrespondent he writes in January 1848:\n\n \"You say, 'Can you _hint_ to me what was \"that terrible evil\" which\n caused the \"irregularities\" so profoundly lamented?' Yes, I can do more\n than hint. This _evil_ was the greatest which can befall a man. Six\n years ago, a wife whom I loved as no man ever loved before, ruptured a\n blood-vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of. I took leave of\n her forever, and underwent all the agonies of her death. She recovered\n partially, and I again hoped. At the end of a year, the vessel broke\n again. I went through precisely the same scene.... Then again--again--\n and even once again at varying intervals. Each time I felt all the\n agonies of her death--and at each accession of the disorder I loved\n her more dearly and clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity.\n But I am constitutionally sensitive--nervous in a very unusual degree.\n I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. During these\n fits of absolute unconsciousness, I drank--God only knows how often or\n how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to\n the drink rather than the drink to the insanity. I had, indeed, nearly\n abandoned all hope of a permanent cure, when I found one in the\n _death_ of my wife. This I can and do endure as becomes a man. It was\n the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope and despair which I\n could _not_ longer have endured, without total loss of reason.\"\n\nThe poet at this period was residing in a small but elegant little home,\nsuperintended by his ever-faithful guardian, his wife's mother--his own\naunt, Mrs. Clemm, the lady whom he so gratefully addressed in after\nyears in the well-known sonnet, as \"more than mother unto me.\" But a\nchange came o'er the spirit of his dream! His severance from 'Graham's',\nowing to we know not what causes, took place, and his fragile schemes of\nhappiness faded as fast as the sunset. His means melted away, and he\nbecame unfitted by mental trouble and ill-health to earn more. The\nterrible straits to which he and his unfortunate beloved ones were\nreduced may be comprehended after perusal of these words from Mr. A. B.\nHarris's reminiscences.\n\nReferring to the poet's residence in Spring Gardens, Philadelphia, this\nwriter says:\n\n \"It was during their stay there that Mrs. Poe, while singing one\n evening, ruptured a blood-vessel, and after that she suffered a\n hundred deaths. She could not bear the slightest exposure, and needed\n the utmost care; and all those conveniences as to apartment and\n surroundings which are so important in the case of an invalid were\n almost matters of life and death to her. And yet the room where she\n lay for weeks, hardly able to breathe, except as she was fanned, was a\n little narrow place, with the ceiling so low over the narrow bed that\n her head almost touched it. But no one dared to speak, Mr. Poe was so\n sensitive and irritable; 'quick as steel and flint,' said one who knew\n him in those days. And he would not allow a word about the danger of\n her dying: the mention of it drove him wild.\"\n\nIs it to be wondered at, should it not indeed be forgiven him, if,\nimpelled by the anxieties and privations at home, the unfortunate poet,\ndriven to the brink of madness, plunged still deeper into the Slough of\nDespond? Unable to provide for the pressing necessities of his beloved\nwife, the distracted man\n\n \"would steal out of the house at night, and go off and wander about\n the street for hours, proud, heartsick, despairing, not knowing which\n way to turn, or what to do, while Mrs. Clemm would endure the anxiety\n at home as long as she could, and then start off in search of him.\"\n\nDuring his calmer moments Poe exerted all his efforts to proceed with\nhis literary labors. He continued to contribute to 'Graham's Magazine,'\nthe proprietor of which periodical remained his friend to the end of his\nlife, and also to some other leading publications of Philadelphia and\nNew York. A suggestion having been made to him by N. P. Willis, of the\nlatter city, he determined to once more wander back to it, as he found\nit impossible to live upon his literary earnings where he was.\n\nAccordingly, about the middle of 1845, Poe removed to New York, and\nshortly afterwards was engaged by Willis and his partner Morris as\nsub-editor on the 'Evening Mirror'. He was, says Willis,\n\n \"employed by us for several months as critic and subeditor.... He\n resided with his wife and mother at Fordham, a few miles out of town,\n but was at his desk in the office from nine in the morning till the\n evening paper went to press. With the highest admiration for his\n genius, and a willingness to let it atone for more than ordinary\n irregularity, we were led by common report to expect a very capricious\n attention to his duties, and occasionally a scene of violence and\n difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and\n industrious. With his pale, beautiful, and intellectual face, as a\n reminder of what genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not\n to treat him always with deferential courtsey.... With a prospect of\n taking the lead in another periodical, he at last voluntarily gave up\n his employment with us.\"\n\nA few weeks before Poe relinquished his laborious and ill-paid work on\nthe 'Evening Mirror', his marvellous poem of \"The Raven\" was published.\nThe effect was magical. Never before, nor, indeed, ever since, has a\nsingle short poem produced such a great and immediate enthusiasm. It did\nmore to render its author famous than all his other writings put\ntogether. It made him the literary lion of the season; called into\nexistence innumerable parodies; was translated into various languages,\nand, indeed, created quite a literature of its own. Poe was naturally\ndelighted with the success his poem had attained, and from time to time\nread it in his musical manner in public halls or at literary receptions.\nNevertheless he affected to regard it as a work of art only, and wrote\nhis essay entitled the \"Philosophy of Composition,\" to prove that it was\nmerely a mechanical production made in accordance with certain set\nrules.\n\nAlthough our poet's reputation was now well established, he found it\nstill a difficult matter to live by his pen. Even when in good health,\nhe wrote slowly and with fastidious care, and when his work was done had\ngreat difficulty in getting publishers to accept it. Since his death it\nhas been proved that many months often elapsed before he could get\neither his most admired poems or tales published.\n\nPoe left the 'Evening Mirror' in order to take part in the 'Broadway\nJournal', wherein he re-issued from time to time nearly the whole of his\nprose and poetry. Ultimately he acquired possession of this periodical,\nbut, having no funds to carry it on, after a few months of heartbreaking\nlabor he had to relinquish it. Exhausted in body and mind, the\nunfortunate man now retreated with his dying wife and her mother to a\nquaint little cottage at Fordham, outside New York. Here after a time\nthe unfortunate household was reduced to the utmost need, not even\nhaving wherewith to purchase the necessities of life. At this dire\nmoment, some friendly hand, much to the indignation and dismay of Poe\nhimself, made an appeal to the public on behalf of the hapless family.\n\nThe appeal had the desired effect. Old friends and new came to the\nrescue, and, thanks to them, and especially to Mrs. Shew, the \"Marie\nLouise\" of Poe's later poems, his wife's dying moments were soothed, and\nthe poet's own immediate wants provided for. In January, 1846, Virginia\nPoe died; and for some time after her death the poet remained in an\napathetic stupor, and, indeed, it may be truly said that never again did\nhis mental faculties appear to regain their former power.\n\nFor another year or so Poe lived quietly at Fordham, guarded by the\nwatchful care of Mrs. Clemm,--writing little, but thinking out his\nphilosophical prose poem of \"Eureka,\" which he deemed the crowning work\nof his life. His life was as abstemious and regular as his means were\nsmall. Gradually, however, as intercourse with fellow literati\nre-aroused his dormant energies, he began to meditate a fresh start in\nthe world. His old and never thoroughly abandoned project of starting a\nmagazine of his own, for the enunciation of his own views on literature,\nnow absorbed all his thoughts. In order to get the necessary funds for\nestablishing his publication on a solid footing, he determined to give a\nseries of lectures in various parts of the States.\n\nHis re-entry into public life only involved him in a series of\nmisfortunes. At one time he was engaged to be married to Mrs. Whitman, a\nwidow lady of considerable intellectual and literary attainments; but,\nafter several incidents of a highly romantic character, the match was\nbroken off. In 1849 Poe revisited the South, and, amid the scenes and\nfriends of his early life, passed some not altogether unpleasing time.\nAt Richmond, Virginia, he again met his first love, Elmira, now a\nwealthy widow, and, after a short renewed acquaintance, was once more\nengaged to marry her. But misfortune continued to dog his steps.\n\nA publishing affair recalled him to New York. He left Richmond by boat\nfor Baltimore, at which city he arrived on the 3d October, and handed\nhis trunk to a porter to carry to the train for Philadelphia. What now\nhappened has never been clearly explained. Previous to starting on his\njourney, Poe had complained of indisposition,--of chilliness and of\nexhaustion,--and it is not improbable that an increase or continuance of\nthese symptoms had tempted him to drink, or to resort to some of those\nnarcotics he is known to have indulged in towards the close of his life.\nWhatever the cause of his delay, the consequences were fatal. Whilst in\na state of temporary mania or insensibility, he fell into the hands of a\nband of ruffians, who were scouring the streets in search of accomplices\nor victims. What followed is given on undoubted authority.\n\nHis captors carried the unfortunate poet into an electioneering den,\nwhere they drugged him with whisky. It was election day for a member of\nCongress, and Poe with other victims, was dragged from polling station\nto station, and forced to vote the ticket placed in his hand. Incredible\nas it may appear, the superintending officials of those days registered\nthe proffered vote, quite regardless of the condition of the person\npersonifying a voter. The election over, the dying poet was left in the\nstreets to perish, but, being found ere life was extinct, he was carried\nto the Washington University Hospital, where he expired on the 7th of\nOctober, 1849, in the forty-first year of his age.\n\nEdgar Poe was buried in the family grave of his grandfather, General\nPoe, in the presence of a few friends and relatives. On the 17th\nNovember, 1875, his remains were removed from their first resting-place\nand, in the presence of a large number of people, were placed under a\nmarble monument subscribed for by some of his many admirers. His wife's\nbody has recently been placed by his side.\n\nThe story of that \"fitful fever\" which constituted the life of Edgar Poe\nleaves upon the reader's mind the conviction that he was, indeed, truly\ntypified by that:\n\n \"Unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster\n Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden\n bore--\n Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore\n Of 'Never--nevermore.'\"", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "John H. Ingram.", + "body": " * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Noblest Of Her Sex--", + "body": " TO THE AUTHOR OF\n \"THE DRAMA OF EXILE\"--\n\n TO", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "With The Most Enthusiastic Admiration And", + "body": " WITH THE MOST SINCERE ESTEEM.\n\n 1845 E.A.P.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Raven.", + "body": " Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,\n Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--\n While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,\n As of some one gently rapping--rapping at my chamber door.\n \"'Tis some visitor,\" I muttered, \"tapping at my chamber door--\n Only this and nothing more.\"\n\n Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,\n And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.\n Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow\n From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore--\n For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--\n Nameless here for evermore.\n\n And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain\n Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;\n So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating\n \"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door--\n Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;--\n This it is and nothing more.\"\n\n Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,\n \"Sir,\" said I, \"or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;\n But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,\n And so faintly you came tapping--tapping at my chamber door,\n That I scarce was sure I heard you\"--here I opened wide the door:--\n Darkness there and nothing more.\n\n Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering,\n fearing,\n Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;\n But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,\n And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, \"Lenore!\"\n This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, \"Lenore!\"\n Merely this and nothing more.\n\n Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,\n Soon I heard again a tapping, somewhat louder than before.\n \"Surely,\" said I, \"surely that is something at my window lattice;\n Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore--\n Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore;--\n 'Tis the wind and nothing more.\"\n\n Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,\n In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;\n Not the least obeisance made he: not an instant stopped or stayed he;\n But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--\n Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--\n Perched, and sat, and nothing more.\n\n Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,\n By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,\n \"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,\" I said, \"art sure no\n craven,\n Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore--\n Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!\"\n Quoth the Raven, \"Nevermore.\"\n\n Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,\n Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;\n For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being\n Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door--\n Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,\n With such name as \"Nevermore.\"\n\n But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only\n That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.\n Nothing further then he uttered--not a feather then he fluttered--\n Till I scarcely more than muttered, \"Other friends have flown before--\n On the morrow _he_ will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.\"\n Then the bird said, \"Nevermore.\"\n\n Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,\n \"Doubtless,\" said I, \"what it utters is its only stock and store,\n Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster\n Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--\n Till the dirges of his Hope the melancholy burden bore\n Of 'Never--nevermore.'\"\n\n But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,\n Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and\n door;\n Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking\n Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--\n What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore\n Meant in croaking \"Nevermore.\"\n\n This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing\n To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;\n This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining\n On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,\n But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,\n _She_ shall press, ah, nevermore!\n\n Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer\n Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.\n \"Wretch,\" I cried, \"thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath\n sent thee\n Respite--respite aad nepenthé from thy memories of Lenore!\n Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthé, and forget this lost Lenore!\"\n Quoth the Raven, \"Nevermore.\"\n\n \"Prophet!\" said I, \"thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!--\n Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,\n Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--\n On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore--\n Is there--_is_ there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!\"\n Quoth the Raven, \"Nevermore.\"\n\n \"Prophet!\" said I, \"thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!\n By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--\n Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,\n It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--\n Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.\"\n Quoth the Raven, \"Nevermore.\"\n\n \"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!\" I shrieked,\n upstarting--\n \"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!\n Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!\n Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door!\n Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!\"\n Quoth the Raven, \"Nevermore.\"\n\n And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting\n On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;\n And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,\n And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;\n And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor\n Shall be lifted--nevermore!\n\n\nPublished, 1845.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Bells,", + "body": "I.\n\n Hear the sledges with the bells--\n Silver bells!\n What a world of merriment their melody foretells!\n How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,\n In their icy air of night!\n While the stars, that oversprinkle\n All the heavens, seem to twinkle\n With a crystalline delight;\n Keeping time, time, time,\n In a sort of Runic rhyme,\n To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells\n From the bells, bells, bells, bells,\n Bells, bells, bells--\n From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.\n\n\nII.\n\n Hear the mellow wedding bells,\n Golden bells!\n What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!\n Through the balmy air of night\n How they ring out their delight!\n From the molten golden-notes,\n And all in tune,\n What a liquid ditty floats\n To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats\n On the moon!\n Oh, from out the sounding cells,\n What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!\n How it swells!\n How it dwells\n On the future! how it tells\n Of the rapture that impels\n To the swinging and the ringing\n Of the bells, bells, bells,\n Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,\n Bells, bells, bells--\n To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": " Hear the loud alarum bells--\n Brazen bells!\n What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!\n In the startled ear of night\n How they scream out their affright!\n Too much horrified to speak,\n They can only shriek, shriek,\n Out of tune,\n In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,\n In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire\n Leaping higher, higher, higher,\n With a desperate desire,\n And a resolute endeavor\n Now--now to sit or never,\n By the side of the pale-faced moon.\n Oh, the bells, bells, bells!\n What a tale their terror tells\n Of Despair!\n How they clang, and clash, and roar!\n What a horror they outpour\n On the bosom of the palpitating air!\n Yet the ear it fully knows,\n By the twanging,\n And the clanging,\n How the danger ebbs and flows;\n Yet the ear distinctly tells,\n In the jangling,\n And the wrangling,\n How the danger sinks and swells,\n By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells--\n Of the bells--\n Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,\n Bells, bells, bells--\n In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!\n\n\nIV.\n\n Hear the tolling of the bells--\n Iron bells!\n What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!\n In the silence of the night,\n How we shiver with affright\n At the melancholy menace of their tone!\n For every sound that floats\n From the rust within their throats\n Is a groan.\n And the people--ah, the people--\n They that dwell up in the steeple.\n All alone,\n And who tolling, tolling, tolling,\n In that muffled monotone,\n Feel a glory in so rolling\n On the human heart a stone--\n They are neither man nor woman--\n They are neither brute nor human--\n They are Ghouls:\n And their king it is who tolls;\n And he rolls, rolls, rolls,\n Rolls\n A pæan from the bells!\n And his merry bosom swells\n With the pæan of the bells!\n And he dances, and he yells;\n Keeping time, time, time,\n In a sort of Runic rhyme,\n To the pæan of the bells--\n Of the bells:\n Keeping time, time, time,\n In a sort of Runic rhyme,\n To the throbbing of the bells--\n Of the bells, bells, bells--\n To the sobbing of the bells;\n Keeping time, time, time,\n As he knells, knells, knells,\n In a happy Runic rhyme,\n To the rolling of the bells--\n Of the bells, bells, bells--\n To the tolling of the bells,\n Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,\n Bells, bells, bells--\n To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.\n\n\n\n1849.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Ulalume.", + "body": " The skies they were ashen and sober;\n The leaves they were crisped and sere--\n The leaves they were withering and sere;\n It was night in the lonesome October\n Of my most immemorial year;\n It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,\n In the misty mid region of Weir--\n It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,\n In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.\n\n Here once, through an alley Titanic.\n Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul--\n Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.\n These were days when my heart was volcanic\n As the scoriac rivers that roll--\n As the lavas that restlessly roll\n Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek\n In the ultimate climes of the pole--\n That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek\n In the realms of the boreal pole.\n\n Our talk had been serious and sober,\n But our thoughts they were palsied and sere--\n Our memories were treacherous and sere--\n For we knew not the month was October,\n And we marked not the night of the year--\n (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)\n We noted not the dim lake of Auber--\n (Though once we had journeyed down here)--\n Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,\n Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.\n\n And now as the night was senescent\n And star-dials pointed to morn--\n As the sun-dials hinted of morn--\n At the end of our path a liquescent\n And nebulous lustre was born,\n Out of which a miraculous crescent\n Arose with a duplicate horn--\n Astarte's bediamonded crescent\n Distinct with its duplicate horn.\n\n And I said--\"She is warmer than Dian:\n She rolls through an ether of sighs--\n She revels in a region of sighs:\n She has seen that the tears are not dry on\n These cheeks, where the worm never dies,\n And has come past the stars of the Lion\n To point us the path to the skies--\n To the Lethean peace of the skies--\n Come up, in despite of the Lion,\n To shine on us with her bright eyes--\n Come up through the lair of the Lion,\n With love in her luminous eyes.\"\n\n But Psyche, uplifting her finger,\n Said--\"Sadly this star I mistrust--\n Her pallor I strangely mistrust:--\n Oh, hasten!--oh, let us not linger!\n Oh, fly!--let us fly!--for we must.\"\n In terror she spoke, letting sink her\n Wings till they trailed in the dust--\n In agony sobbed, letting sink her\n Plumes till they trailed in the dust--\n Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.\n\n I replied--\"This is nothing but dreaming:\n Let us on by this tremulous light!\n Let us bathe in this crystalline light!\n Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming\n With Hope and in Beauty to-night:--\n See!--it flickers up the sky through the night!\n Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,\n And be sure it will lead us aright--\n We safely may trust to a gleaming\n That cannot but guide us aright,\n Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night.\"\n\n Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,\n And tempted her out of her gloom--\n And conquered her scruples and gloom;\n And we passed to the end of a vista,\n But were stopped by the door of a tomb--\n By the door of a legended tomb;\n And I said--\"What is written, sweet sister,\n On the door of this legended tomb?\"\n She replied--\"Ulalume--Ulalume--\n 'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!\"\n\n Then my heart it grew ashen and sober\n As the leaves that were crisped and sere--\n As the leaves that were withering and sere;\n And I cried--\"It was surely October\n On _this_ very night of last year\n That I journeyed--I journeyed down here--\n That I brought a dread burden down here!\n On this night of all nights in the year,\n Ah, what demon has tempted me here?\n Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber--\n This misty mid region of Weir--\n Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,--\n This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.\"\n\n\n1847.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "To Helen.", + "body": " I saw thee once--once only--years ago:\n I must not say _how_ many--but _not_ many.\n It was a July midnight; and from out\n A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,\n Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,\n There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,\n With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,\n Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand\n Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,\n Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe--\n Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses\n That gave out, in return for the love-light,\n Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death--\n Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses\n That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted\n By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.\n\n Clad all in white, upon a violet bank\n I saw thee half-reclining; while the moon\n Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,\n And on thine own, upturn'd--alas, in sorrow!\n\n Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight--\n Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow),\n That bade me pause before that garden-gate,\n To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?\n No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,\n Save only thee and me--(O Heaven!--O God!\n How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)--\n Save only thee and me. I paused--I looked--\n And in an instant all things disappeared.\n (Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)\n The pearly lustre of the moon went out:\n The mossy banks and the meandering paths,\n The happy flowers and the repining trees,\n Were seen no more: the very roses' odors\n Died in the arms of the adoring airs.\n All--all expired save thee--save less than thou:\n Save only the divine light in thine eyes--\n Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.\n I saw but them--they were the world to me.\n I saw but them--saw only them for hours--\n Saw only them until the moon went down.\n What wild heart-histories seemed to lie unwritten\n Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!\n How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!\n How silently serene a sea of pride!\n How daring an ambition! yet how deep--\n How fathomless a capacity for love!\n\n But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,\n Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;\n And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees\n Didst glide away. _Only thine eyes remained._\n They _would not_ go--they never yet have gone.\n Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,\n _They_ have not left me (as my hopes have) since.\n They follow me--they lead me through the years.\n\n They are my ministers--yet I their slave.\n Their office is to illumine and enkindle--\n My duty, _to be saved_ by their bright light,\n And purified in their electric fire,\n And sanctified in their elysian fire.\n They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),\n And are far up in Heaven--the stars I kneel to\n In the sad, silent watches of my night;\n While even in the meridian glare of day\n I see them still--two sweetly scintillant\n Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!\n\n\n1846.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Annabel Lee.", + "body": " It was many and many a year ago,\n In a kingdom by the sea,\n That a maiden there lived whom you may know\n By the name of ANNABEL LEE;\n And this maiden she lived with no other thought\n Than to love and be loved by me.\n\n _I_ was a child and _she_ was a child,\n In this kingdom by the sea:\n But we loved with a love that was more than love--\n I and my ANNABEL LEE;\n With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven\n Coveted her and me.\n\n And this was the reason that, long ago,\n In this kingdom by the sea,\n A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling\n My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;\n So that her highborn kinsmen came\n And bore her away from me,\n To shut her up in a sepulchre\n In this kingdom by the sea.\n\n The angels, not half so happy in heaven,\n Went envying her and me--\n Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,\n In this kingdom by the sea)\n That the wind came out of the cloud by night,\n Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.\n\n But our love it was stronger by far than the love\n Of those who were older than we--\n Of many far wiser than we--\n And neither the angels in heaven above,\n Nor the demons down under the sea,\n Can ever dissever my soul from the soul\n Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.\n\n For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams\n Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;\n And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes\n Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;\n And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side\n Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,\n In her sepulchre there by the sea--\n In her tomb by the side of the sea.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "A Valentine.", + "body": " For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,\n Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,\n Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies\n Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.\n Search narrowly the lines!--they hold a treasure\n Divine--a talisman--an amulet\n That must be worn _at heart_. Search well the measure--\n The words--the syllables! Do not forget\n The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!\n And yet there is in this no Gordian knot\n Which one might not undo without a sabre,\n If one could merely comprehend the plot.\n Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering\n Eyes scintillating soul, there lie _perdus_\n Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing\n Of poets by poets--as the name is a poet's, too.\n Its letters, although naturally lying\n Like the knight Pinto--Mendez Ferdinando--\n Still form a synonym for Truth--Cease trying!\n You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you _can_ do.\n\n\n1846.\n\n[To discover the names in this and the following poem, read the first\nletter of the first line in connection with the second letter of the\nsecond line, the third letter of the third line, the fourth, of the\nfourth and so on, to the end.]\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "An Enigma.", + "body": " \"Seldom we find,\" says Solomon Don Dunce,\n \"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.\n Through all the flimsy things we see at once\n As easily as through a Naples bonnet--\n Trash of all trash!--how _can_ a lady don it?\n Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff--\n Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff\n Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it.\"\n And, veritably, Sol is right enough.\n The general tuckermanities are arrant\n Bubbles--ephemeral and _so_ transparent--\n But _this is_, now--you may depend upon it--\n Stable, opaque, immortal--all by dint\n Of the dear names that lie concealed within't.\n\n\n[See note after previous poem.]\n\n1847.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "To My Mother.", + "body": " Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,\n The angels, whispering to one another,\n Can find, among their burning terms of love,\n None so devotional as that of \"Mother,\"\n Therefore by that dear name I long have called you--\n You who are more than mother unto me,\n And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you,\n In setting my Virginia's spirit free.\n My mother--my own mother, who died early,\n Was but the mother of myself; but you\n Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,\n And thus are dearer than the mother I knew\n By that infinity with which my wife\n Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.\n\n\n1849.\n\n\n[The above was addressed to the poet's mother-in-law, Mrs. Clemm.--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "For Annie.", + "body": " Thank Heaven! the crisis--\n The danger is past,\n And the lingering illness\n Is over at last--\n And the fever called \"Living\"\n Is conquered at last.\n\n Sadly, I know,\n I am shorn of my strength,\n And no muscle I move\n As I lie at full length--\n But no matter!--I feel\n I am better at length.\n\n And I rest so composedly,\n Now in my bed,\n That any beholder\n Might fancy me dead--\n Might start at beholding me\n Thinking me dead.\n\n The moaning and groaning,\n The sighing and sobbing,\n Are quieted now,\n With that horrible throbbing\n At heart:--ah, that horrible,\n Horrible throbbing!\n\n The sickness--the nausea--\n The pitiless pain--\n Have ceased, with the fever\n That maddened my brain--\n With the fever called \"Living\"\n That burned in my brain.\n\n And oh! of all tortures\n _That_ torture the worst\n Has abated--the terrible\n Torture of thirst,\n For the naphthaline river\n Of Passion accurst:--\n I have drank of a water\n That quenches all thirst:--\n\n Of a water that flows,\n With a lullaby sound,\n From a spring but a very few\n Feet under ground--\n From a cavern not very far\n Down under ground.\n\n And ah! let it never\n Be foolishly said\n That my room it is gloomy\n And narrow my bed--\n For man never slept\n In a different bed;\n And, to _sleep_, you must slumber\n In just such a bed.\n\n My tantalized spirit\n Here blandly reposes,\n Forgetting, or never\n Regretting its roses--\n Its old agitations\n Of myrtles and roses:\n\n For now, while so quietly\n Lying, it fancies\n A holier odor\n About it, of pansies--\n A rosemary odor,\n Commingled with pansies--\n With rue and the beautiful\n Puritan pansies.\n\n And so it lies happily,\n Bathing in many\n A dream of the truth\n And the beauty of Annie--\n Drowned in a bath\n Of the tresses of Annie.\n\n She tenderly kissed me,\n She fondly caressed,\n And then I fell gently\n To sleep on her breast--\n Deeply to sleep\n From the heaven of her breast.\n\n When the light was extinguished,\n She covered me warm,\n And she prayed to the angels\n To keep me from harm--\n To the queen of the angels\n To shield me from harm.\n\n And I lie so composedly,\n Now in my bed\n (Knowing her love)\n That you fancy me dead--\n And I rest so contentedly,\n Now in my bed,\n (With her love at my breast)\n That you fancy me dead--\n That you shudder to look at me.\n Thinking me dead.\n\n But my heart it is brighter\n Than all of the many\n Stars in the sky,\n For it sparkles with Annie--\n It glows with the light\n Of the love of my Annie--\n With the thought of the light\n Of the eyes of my Annie.\n\n\n1849.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n\nTO F--\n\n\n Beloved! amid the earnest woes\n That crowd around my earthly path--\n (Drear path, alas! where grows\n Not even one lonely rose)--\n My soul at least a solace hath\n In dreams of thee, and therein knows\n An Eden of bland repose.\n\n And thus thy memory is to me\n Like some enchanted far-off isle\n In some tumultuous sea--\n Some ocean throbbing far and free\n With storm--but where meanwhile\n Serenest skies continually\n Just o'er that one bright inland smile.\n\n\n1845.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "To Frances S. Osgood.", + "body": " Thou wouldst be loved?--then let thy heart\n From its present pathway part not;\n Being everything which now thou art,\n Be nothing which thou art not.\n So with the world thy gentle ways,\n Thy grace, thy more than beauty,\n Shall be an endless theme of praise.\n And love a simple duty.\n\n\n1845.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Eldorado.", + "body": " Gaily bedight,\n A gallant knight,\n In sunshine and in shadow,\n Had journeyed long,\n Singing a song,\n In search of Eldorado.\n But he grew old--\n This knight so bold--\n And o'er his heart a shadow\n Fell as he found\n No spot of ground\n That looked like Eldorado.\n\n And, as his strength\n Failed him at length,\n He met a pilgrim shadow--\n \"Shadow,\" said he,\n \"Where can it be--\n This land of Eldorado?\"\n\n \"Over the Mountains\n Of the Moon,\n Down the Valley of the Shadow,\n Ride, boldly ride,\"\n The shade replied,\n \"If you seek for Eldorado!\"\n\n\n1849.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Eulalie.", + "body": " I dwelt alone\n In a world of moan,\n And my soul was a stagnant tide,\n Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride--\n Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.\n Ah, less--less bright\n The stars of the night\n Than the eyes of the radiant girl!\n And never a flake\n That the vapor can make\n With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,\n Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curl--\n Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble and careless\n curl.\n Now Doubt--now Pain\n Come never again,\n For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,\n And all day long\n Shines, bright and strong,\n Astarté within the sky,\n While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye--\n While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.\n\n1845.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "A Dream Within A Dream.", + "body": " Take this kiss upon the brow!\n And, in parting from you now,\n Thus much let me avow--\n You are not wrong, who deem\n That my days have been a dream:\n Yet if hope has flown away\n In a night, or in a day,\n In a vision or in none,\n Is it therefore the less _gone_?\n _All_ that we see or seem\n Is but a dream within a dream.\n\n I stand amid the roar\n Of a surf-tormented shore,\n And I hold within my hand\n Grains of the golden sand--\n How few! yet how they creep\n Through my fingers to the deep\n While I weep--while I weep!\n O God! can I not grasp\n Them with a tighter clasp?\n O God! can I not save\n _One_ from the pitiless wave?\n Is _all_ that we see or seem\n But a dream within a dream?\n\n\n1849.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "To Marie Louise (Shew).", + "body": " Of all who hail thy presence as the morning--\n Of all to whom thine absence is the night--\n The blotting utterly from out high heaven\n The sacred sun--of all who, weeping, bless thee\n Hourly for hope--for life--ah, above all,\n For the resurrection of deep buried faith\n In truth, in virtue, in humanity--\n Of all who, on despair's unhallowed bed\n Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen\n At thy soft-murmured words, \"Let there be light!\"\n At thy soft-murmured words that were fulfilled\n In thy seraphic glancing of thine eyes--\n Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude\n Nearest resembles worship,--oh, remember\n The truest, the most fervently devoted,\n And think that these weak lines are written by him--\n By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think\n His spirit is communing with an angel's.\n\n1847.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "To Marie Louise (Shew).", + "body": " Not long ago, the writer of these lines,\n In the mad pride of intellectuality,\n Maintained \"the power of words\"--denied that ever\n A thought arose within the human brain\n Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:\n And now, as if in mockery of that boast,\n Two words--two foreign soft dissyllables--\n Italian tones, made only to be murmured\n By angels dreaming in the moonlit \"dew\n That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,\"--\n Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,\n Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,\n Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions\n Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,\n (Who has \"the sweetest voice of all God's creatures,\")\n Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.\n The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.\n With thy dear name as text, though hidden by thee,\n I cannot write--I cannot speak or think--\n Alas, I cannot feel; for 'tis not feeling,\n This standing motionless upon the golden\n Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,\n Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,\n And thrilling as I see, upon the right,\n Upon the left, and all the way along,\n Amid empurpled vapors, far away\n To where the prospect terminates--_thee only_!\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The City In The Sea.", + "body": " Lo! Death has reared himself a throne\n In a strange city lying alone\n Far down within the dim West,\n Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best\n Have gone to their eternal rest.\n There shrines and palaces and towers\n (Time-eaten towers and tremble not!)\n Resemble nothing that is ours.\n Around, by lifting winds forgot,\n Resignedly beneath the sky\n The melancholy waters lie.\n\n No rays from the holy Heaven come down\n On the long night-time of that town;\n But light from out the lurid sea\n Streams up the turrets silently--\n Gleams up the pinnacles far and free--\n Up domes--up spires--up kingly halls--\n Up fanes--up Babylon-like walls--\n Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers\n Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers--\n Up many and many a marvellous shrine\n Whose wreathed friezes intertwine\n The viol, the violet, and the vine.\n\n Resignedly beneath the sky\n The melancholy waters lie.\n So blend the turrets and shadows there\n That all seem pendulous in air,\n While from a proud tower in the town\n Death looks gigantically down.\n\n There open fanes and gaping graves\n Yawn level with the luminous waves;\n But not the riches there that lie\n In each idol's diamond eye--\n Not the gaily-jewelled dead\n Tempt the waters from their bed;\n For no ripples curl, alas!\n Along that wilderness of glass--\n No swellings tell that winds may be\n Upon some far-off happier sea--\n No heavings hint that winds have been\n On seas less hideously serene.\n\n But lo, a stir is in the air!\n The wave--there is a movement there!\n As if the towers had thrust aside,\n In slightly sinking, the dull tide--\n As if their tops had feebly given\n A void within the filmy Heaven.\n The waves have now a redder glow--\n The hours are breathing faint and low--\n And when, amid no earthly moans,\n Down, down that town shall settle hence,\n Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,\n Shall do it reverence.\n\n\n1835?\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Sleeper", + "body": " At midnight, in the month of June,\n I stand beneath the mystic moon.\n An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,\n Exhales from out her golden rim,\n And, softly dripping, drop by drop,\n Upon the quiet mountain top,\n Steals drowsily and musically\n Into the universal valley.\n The rosemary nods upon the grave;\n The lily lolls upon the wave;\n Wrapping the fog about its breast,\n The ruin moulders into rest;\n Looking like Lethe, see! the lake\n A conscious slumber seems to take,\n And would not, for the world, awake.\n All Beauty sleeps!--and lo! where lies\n (Her casement open to the skies)\n Irene, with her Destinies!\n\n Oh, lady bright! can it be right--\n This window open to the night!\n The wanton airs, from the tree-top,\n Laughingly through the lattice-drop--\n The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,\n Flit through thy chamber in and out,\n And wave the curtain canopy\n So fitfully--so fearfully--\n Above the closed and fringed lid\n 'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,\n That, o'er the floor and down the wall,\n Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!\n Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?\n Why and what art thou dreaming here?\n Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,\n A wonder to these garden trees!\n Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!\n Strange, above all, thy length of tress,\n And this all-solemn silentness!\n\n The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep\n Which is enduring, so be deep!\n Heaven have her in its sacred keep!\n This chamber changed for one more holy,\n This bed for one more melancholy,\n I pray to God that she may lie\n For ever with unopened eye,\n While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!\n\n My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,\n As it is lasting, so be deep;\n Soft may the worms about her creep!\n Far in the forest, dim and old,\n For her may some tall vault unfold--\n Some vault that oft hath flung its black\n And winged panels fluttering back,\n Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,\n Of her grand family funerals--\n Some sepulchre, remote, alone,\n Against whose portal she hath thrown,\n In childhood many an idle stone--\n Some tomb from out whose sounding door\n She ne'er shall force an echo more,\n Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!\n It was the dead who groaned within.\n\n\n1845.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Bridal Ballad.", + "body": " The ring is on my hand,\n And the wreath is on my brow;\n Satins and jewels grand\n Are all at my command.\n And I am happy now.\n\n And my lord he loves me well;\n But, when first he breathed his vow,\n I felt my bosom swell--\n For the words rang as a knell,\n And the voice seemed _his_ who fell\n In the battle down the dell,\n And who is happy now.\n\n But he spoke to reassure me,\n And he kissed my pallid brow,\n While a reverie came o'er me,\n And to the churchyard bore me,\n And I sighed to him before me,\n Thinking him dead D'Elormie,\n \"Oh, I am happy now!\"\n\n And thus the words were spoken,\n And thus the plighted vow,\n And, though my faith be broken,\n And, though my heart be broken,\n Behold the golden keys\n That _proves_ me happy now!\n\n Would to God I could awaken\n For I dream I know not how,\n And my soul is sorely shaken\n Lest an evil step be taken,--\n Lest the dead who is forsaken\n May not be happy now.\n\n\n1845.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "1. The Raven", + "body": "\"The Raven\" was first published on the 29th January, 1845, in the New\nYork 'Evening Mirror'--a paper its author was then assistant editor of.\nIt was prefaced by the following words, understood to have been written\nby N. P. Willis:\n\n \"We are permitted to copy (in advance of publication) from the second\n number of the 'American Review', the following remarkable poem by\n Edgar Poe. In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of\n 'fugitive poetry' ever published in this country, and unsurpassed in\n English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of\n versification, and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift and\n 'pokerishness.' It is one of those 'dainties bred in a book' which we\n feed on. It will stick to the memory of everybody who reads it.\"\n\nIn the February number of the 'American Review' the poem was published\nas by \"Quarles,\" and it was introduced by the following note, evidently\nsuggested if not written by Poe himself.\n\n [\"The following lines from a correspondent--besides the deep, quaint\n strain of the sentiment, and the curious introduction of some\n ludicrous touches amidst the serious and impressive, as was doubtless\n intended by the author--appears to us one of the most felicitous\n specimens of unique rhyming which has for some time met our eye. The\n resources of English rhythm for varieties of melody, measure, and\n sound, producing corresponding diversities of effect, have been\n thoroughly studied, much more perceived, by very few poets in the\n language. While the classic tongues, especially the Greek, possess, by\n power of accent, several advantages for versification over our own,\n chiefly through greater abundance of spondaic feet, we have other and\n very great advantages of sound by the modern usage of rhyme.\n Alliteration is nearly the only effect of that kind which the ancients\n had in common with us. It will be seen that much of the melody of 'The\n Raven' arises from alliteration and the studious use of similar sounds\n in unusual places. In regard to its measure, it may be noted that if\n all the verses were like the second, they might properly be placed\n merely in short lines, producing a not uncommon form: but the presence\n in all the others of one line--mostly the second in the verse\"\n (stanza?)--\"which flows continuously, with only an aspirate pause in\n the middle, like that before the short line in the Sapphio Adonic,\n while the fifth has at the middle pause no similarity of sound with\n any part beside, gives the versification an entirely different effect.\n We could wish the capacities of our noble language in prosody were\n better understood.\"\n\n ED. 'Am. Rev.']\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "2. The Bells", + "body": "The bibliographical history of \"The Bells\" is curious. The subject, and\nsome lines of the original version, having been suggested by the poet's\nfriend, Mrs. Shew, Poe, when he wrote out the first draft of the poem,\nheaded it, \"The Bells. By Mrs. M. A. Shew.\" This draft, now the editor's\nproperty, consists of only seventeen lines, and reads thus:\n\n\n\nI.\n\n The bells!--ah the bells!\n The little silver bells!\n How fairy-like a melody there floats\n From their throats--\n From their merry little throats--\n From the silver, tinkling throats\n Of the bells, bells, bells--\n Of the bells!\n\nII.\n\n The bells!--ah, the bells!\n The heavy iron bells!\n How horrible a monody there floats\n From their throats--\n From their deep-toned throats--\n From their melancholy throats\n How I shudder at the notes\n Of the bells, bells, bells--\n Of the bells!\n\n\n\nIn the autumn of 1848 Poe added another line to this poem, and sent it\nto the editor of the 'Union Magazine'. It was not published. So, in the\nfollowing February, the poet forwarded to the same periodical a much\nenlarged and altered transcript. Three months having elapsed without\npublication, another revision of the poem, similar to the current\nversion, was sent, and in the following October was published in the\n'Union Magazine'.\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "3. Ulalume", + "body": "This poem was first published in Colton's 'American Review' for December\n1847, as \"To----Ulalume: a Ballad.\" Being reprinted immediately in\nthe 'Home Journal', it was copied into various publications with the\nname of the editor, N. P. Willis, appended, and was ascribed to him.\nWhen first published, it contained the following additional stanza which\nPoe subsequently, at the suggestion of Mrs. Whitman wisely suppressed:\n\n\n Said we then--the two, then--\"Ah, can it\n Have been that the woodlandish ghouls--\n The pitiful, the merciful ghouls--\n To bar up our path and to ban it\n From the secret that lies in these wolds--\n Had drawn up the spectre of a planet\n From the limbo of lunary souls--\n This sinfully scintillant planet\n From the Hell of the planetary souls?\"\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "4. To Helen", + "body": "\"To Helen\" (Mrs. S. Helen Whitman) was not published Until November\n1848, although written several months earlier. It first appeared in the\n'Union Magazine' and with the omission, contrary to the knowledge or\ndesire of Poe, of the line, \"Oh, God! oh, Heaven--how my heart beats in\ncoupling those two words\".\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "5. Annabel Lee", + "body": "\"Annabel Lee\" was written early in 1849, and is evidently an expression\nof the poet's undying love for his deceased bride although at least one\nof his lady admirers deemed it a response to her admiration. Poe sent a\ncopy of the ballad to the 'Union Magazine', in which publication it\nappeared in January 1850, three months after the author's death. Whilst\nsuffering from \"hope deferred\" as to its fate, Poe presented a copy of\n\"Annabel Lee\" to the editor of the 'Southern Literary Messenger', who\npublished it in the November number of his periodical, a month after\nPoe's death. In the meantime the poet's own copy, left among his papers,\npassed into the hands of the person engaged to edit his works, and he\nquoted the poem in an obituary of Poe in the New York 'Tribune', before\nany one else had an opportunity of publishing it.\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "6. A Valentine", + "body": "\"A Valentine,\" one of three poems addressed to Mrs. Osgood, appears to\nhave been written early in 1846.\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "7. An Enigma", + "body": "\"An Enigma,\" addressed to Mrs. Sarah Anna Lewig (\"Stella\"), was sent to\nthat lady in a letter, in November 1847, and the following March\nappeared in Sartain's 'Union Magazine'.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "8. To My Mother", + "body": "The sonnet, \"To My Mother\" (Maria Clemm), was sent for publication to\nthe short-lived 'Flag of our Union', early in 1849, but does not appear\nto have been issued until after its author's death, when it appeared in\nthe 'Leaflets of Memory' for 1850.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "9. For Annie", + "body": "\"For Annie\" was first published in the 'Flag of our Union', in the\nspring of 1849. Poe, annoyed at some misprints in this issue, shortly\nafterwards caused a corrected copy to be inserted in the 'Home Journal'.\n\n\n\n* * * * *\n\n\n\n10. TO F----\n\n\n\"To F----\" (Frances Sargeant Osgood) appeared in the 'Broadway Journal'\nfor April 1845. These lines are but slightly varied from those inscribed\n\"To Mary,\" in the 'Southern Literary Messenger' for July 1835, and\nsubsequently republished, with the two stanzas transposed, in 'Graham's\nMagazine' for March 1842, as \"To One Departed.\"\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "11. To Frances S. Osgood", + "body": "\"To F--s S. O--d,\" a portion of the poet's triune tribute to Mrs.\nOsgood, was published in the 'Broadway Journal' for September 1845. The\nearliest version of these lines appeared in the 'Southern Literary\nMessenger' for September 1835, as \"Lines written in an Album,\" and was\naddressed to Eliza White, the proprietor's daughter. Slightly revised,\nthe poem reappeared in Burton's 'Gentleman's Magazine' for August, 1839,\nas \"To----.\"\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "12. Eldorado", + "body": "Although \"Eldorado\" was published during Poe's lifetime, in 1849, in the\n'Flag of our Union', it does not appear to have ever received the\nauthor's finishing touches.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "13. Eulalie", + "body": "\"Eulalie--a Song\" first appears in Colton's 'American Review' for July,\n1845.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "14. A Dream Within A Dream", + "body": "\"A Dream within a Dream\" does not appear to have been published as a\nseparate poem during its author's lifetime. A portion of it was\ncontained, in 1829, in the piece beginning, \"Should my early life seem,\"\nand in 1831 some few lines of it were used as a conclusion to\n\"Tamerlane.\" In 1849 the poet sent a friend all but the first nine lines\nof the piece as a separate poem, headed \"For Annie.\"\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "15 To Marie Louise (Shew)", + "body": "\"To M----L----S----,\" addressed to Mrs. Marie Louise Shew, was written\nin February 1847, and published shortly afterwards. In the first\nposthumous collection of Poe's poems these lines were, for some reason,\nincluded in the \"Poems written in Youth,\" and amongst those poems they\nhave hitherto been included.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "16. (2) To Marie Louise (Shew)", + "body": "\"To----,\" a second piece addressed to Mrs. Shew, and written in 1848,\nwas also first published, but in a somewhat faulty form, in the above\nnamed posthumous collection.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "17. The City In The Sea", + "body": "Under the title of \"The Doomed City\" the initial version of \"The City in\nthe Sea\" appeared in the 1831 volume of Poems by Poe: it reappeared as\n\"The City of Sin,\" in the 'Southern Literary Messenger' for August 1835,\nwhilst the present draft of it first appeared in Colton's 'American\nReview' for April, 1845.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "18. The Sleeper", + "body": "As \"Irene,\" the earliest known version of \"The Sleeper,\" appeared in the\n1831 volume. It reappeared in the 'Literary Messenger' for May 1836,\nand, in its present form, in the 'Broadway Journal' for May 1845.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "19. The Bridal Ballad", + "body": "\"The Bridal Ballad\" is first discoverable in the 'Southern Literary\nMessenger' for January 1837, and, in its present compressed and revised\nform, was reprinted in the 'Broadway Journal' for August, 1845.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Poems Of Manhood.", + "body": " * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Lenore.", + "body": " Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!\n Let the bell toll!--a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river.\n And, Guy de Vere, hast _thou_ no tear?--weep now or never more!\n See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!\n Come! let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung!--\n An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young--\n A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young.\n\n \"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,\n And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her--that she died!\n How _shall_ the ritual, then, be read?--the requiem how be sung\n By you--by yours, the evil eye,--by yours, the slanderous tongue\n That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?\"\n\n _Peccavimus;_ but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song\n Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!\n The sweet Lenore hath \"gone before,\" with Hope, that flew beside,\n Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride--\n For her, the fair and _débonnaire_, that now so lowly lies,\n The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes--\n The life still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes.\n\n \"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,\n But waft the angel on her flight with a pæan of old days!\n Let _no_ bell toll!--lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,\n Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth.\n To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven--\n From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven--\n From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King of Heaven.\"\n\n\n1844.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "To One In Paradise,", + "body": " Thou wast that all to me, love,\n For which my soul did pine--\n A green isle in the sea, love,\n A fountain and a shrine,\n All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,\n And all the flowers were mine.\n\n Ah, dream too bright to last!\n Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise\n But to be overcast!\n A voice from out the Future cries,\n \"On! on!\"--but o'er the Past\n (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies\n Mute, motionless, aghast!\n\n For, alas! alas! with me\n The light of Life is o'er!\n \"No more--no more--no more\"--\n (Such language holds the solemn sea\n To the sands upon the shore)\n Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,\n Or the stricken eagle soar!\n\n And all my days are trances,\n And all my nightly dreams\n Are where thy dark eye glances,\n And where thy footstep gleams--\n In what ethereal dances,\n By what eternal streams!\n\n Alas! for that accursed time\n They bore thee o'er the billow,\n From love to titled age and crime,\n And an unholy pillow!\n From me, and from our misty clime,\n Where weeps the silver willow!\n\n\n1835\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Coliseum.", + "body": " Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary\n Of lofty contemplation left to Time\n By buried centuries of pomp and power!\n At length--at length--after so many days\n Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,\n (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)\n I kneel, an altered and an humble man,\n Amid thy shadows, and so drink within\n My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!\n\n Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!\n Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!\n I feel ye now--I feel ye in your strength--\n O spells more sure than e'er Judæan king\n Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!\n O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee\n Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!\n\n Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!\n Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,\n A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!\n Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair\n Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!\n Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,\n Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,\n Lit by the wan light of the horned moon,\n The swift and silent lizard of the stones!\n\n But stay! these walls--these ivy-clad arcades--\n These mouldering plinths--these sad and blackened shafts--\n These vague entablatures--this crumbling frieze--\n These shattered cornices--this wreck--this ruin--\n These stones--alas! these gray stones--are they all--\n All of the famed, and the colossal left\n By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?\n\n \"Not all\"--the Echoes answer me--\"not all!\n Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever\n From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,\n As melody from Memnon to the Sun.\n We rule the hearts of mightiest men--we rule\n With a despotic sway all giant minds.\n We are not impotent--we pallid stones.\n Not all our power is gone--not all our fame--\n Not all the magic of our high renown--\n Not all the wonder that encircles us--\n Not all the mysteries that in us lie--\n Not all the memories that hang upon\n And cling around about us as a garment,\n Clothing us in a robe of more than glory.\"\n\n\n1838.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Haunted Palace.", + "body": " In the greenest of our valleys\n By good angels tenanted,\n Once a fair and stately palace--\n Radiant palace--reared its head.\n In the monarch Thought's dominion--\n It stood there!\n Never seraph spread a pinion\n Over fabric half so fair!\n\n Banners yellow, glorious, golden,\n On its roof did float and flow,\n (This--all this--was in the olden\n Time long ago),\n And every gentle air that dallied,\n In that sweet day,\n Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,\n A winged odor went away.\n\n Wanderers in that happy valley,\n Through two luminous windows, saw\n Spirits moving musically,\n To a lute's well-tunëd law,\n Bound about a throne where, sitting\n (Porphyrogene!)\n In state his glory well befitting,\n The ruler of the realm was seen.\n\n And all with pearl and ruby glowing\n Was the fair palace door,\n Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,\n And sparkling evermore,\n A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty\n Was but to sing,\n In voices of surpassing beauty,\n The wit and wisdom of their king.\n\n But evil things, in robes of sorrow,\n Assailed the monarch's high estate.\n (Ah, let us mourn!--for never morrow\n Shall dawn upon him desolate !)\n And round about his home the glory\n That blushed and bloomed,\n Is but a dim-remembered story\n Of the old time entombed.\n\n And travellers, now, within that valley,\n Through the red-litten windows see\n Vast forms, that move fantastically\n To a discordant melody,\n While, like a ghastly rapid river,\n Through the pale door\n A hideous throng rush out forever\n And laugh--but smile no more.\n\n\n1838.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Conqueror Worm.", + "body": " Lo! 'tis a gala night\n Within the lonesome latter years!\n An angel throng, bewinged, bedight\n In veils, and drowned in tears,\n Sit in a theatre, to see\n A play of hopes and fears,\n While the orchestra breathes fitfully\n The music of the spheres.\n\n Mimes, in the form of God on high,\n Mutter and mumble low,\n And hither and thither fly--\n Mere puppets they, who come and go\n At bidding of vast formless things\n That shift the scenery to and fro,\n Flapping from out their Condor wings\n Invisible Wo!\n\n That motley drama--oh, be sure\n It shall not be forgot!\n With its Phantom chased for evermore,\n By a crowd that seize it not,\n Through a circle that ever returneth in\n To the self-same spot,\n And much of Madness, and more of Sin,\n And Horror the soul of the plot.\n\n But see, amid the mimic rout\n A crawling shape intrude!\n A blood-red thing that writhes from out\n The scenic solitude!\n It writhes!--it writhes!--with mortal pangs\n The mimes become its food,\n And the angels sob at vermin fangs\n In human gore imbued.\n\n Out--out are the lights--out all!\n And, over each quivering form,\n The curtain, a funeral pall,\n Comes down with the rush of a storm,\n And the angels, all pallid and wan,\n Uprising, unveiling, affirm\n That the play is the tragedy, \"Man,\"\n And its hero the Conqueror Worm.\n\n\n1838\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Silence.", + "body": " There are some qualities--some incorporate things,\n That have a double life, which thus is made\n A type of that twin entity which springs\n From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.\n There is a twofold _Silence_--sea and shore--\n Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,\n Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,\n Some human memories and tearful lore,\n Render him terrorless: his name's \"No More.\"\n He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!\n No power hath he of evil in himself;\n But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)\n Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,\n That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod\n No foot of man), commend thyself to God!\n\n\n1840\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Dreamland.", + "body": " By a route obscure and lonely,\n Haunted by ill angels only,\n Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,\n On a black throne reigns upright,\n I have reached these lands but newly\n From an ultimate dim Thule--\n From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,\n Out of SPACE--out of TIME.\n\n Bottomless vales and boundless floods,\n And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,\n With forms that no man can discover\n For the dews that drip all over;\n Mountains toppling evermore\n Into seas without a shore;\n Seas that restlessly aspire,\n Surging, unto skies of fire;\n Lakes that endlessly outspread\n Their lone waters--lone and dead,\n Their still waters--still and chilly\n With the snows of the lolling lily.\n\n By the lakes that thus outspread\n Their lone waters, lone and dead,--\n Their sad waters, sad and chilly\n With the snows of the lolling lily,--\n\n By the mountains--near the river\n Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,--\n By the gray woods,--by the swamp\n Where the toad and the newt encamp,--\n By the dismal tarns and pools\n Where dwell the Ghouls,--\n By each spot the most unholy--\n In each nook most melancholy,--\n\n There the traveller meets aghast\n Sheeted Memories of the past--\n Shrouded forms that start and sigh\n As they pass the wanderer by--\n White-robed forms of friends long given,\n In agony, to the Earth--and Heaven.\n\n For the heart whose woes are legion\n 'Tis a peaceful, soothing region--\n For the spirit that walks in shadow\n 'Tis--oh, 'tis an Eldorado!\n But the traveller, travelling through it,\n May not--dare not openly view it;\n Never its mysteries are exposed\n To the weak human eye unclosed;\n So wills its King, who hath forbid\n The uplifting of the fringed lid;\n And thus the sad Soul that here passes\n Beholds it but through darkened glasses.\n\n By a route obscure and lonely,\n Haunted by ill angels only.\n\n Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,\n On a black throne reigns upright,\n I have wandered home but newly\n From this ultimate dim Thule.\n\n\n1844\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "To Zante.", + "body": " Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,\n Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!\n How many memories of what radiant hours\n At sight of thee and thine at once awake!\n How many scenes of what departed bliss!\n How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!\n How many visions of a maiden that is\n No more--no more upon thy verdant slopes!\n\n _No more!_ alas, that magical sad sound\n Transforming all! Thy charms shall please _no more_--\n Thy memory _no more!_ Accursed ground\n Henceforward I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,\n O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!\n \"Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!\"\n\n\n1887.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Hymn.", + "body": " At morn--at noon--at twilight dim--\n Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!\n In joy and wo--in good and ill--\n Mother of God, be with me still!\n When the Hours flew brightly by,\n And not a cloud obscured the sky,\n My soul, lest it should truant be,\n Thy grace did guide to thine and thee\n Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast\n Darkly my Present and my Past,\n Let my future radiant shine\n With sweet hopes of thee and thine!\n\n\n1885.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "20. Lenore", + "body": "\"Lenore\" was published, very nearly in its existing shape, in 'The\nPioneer' for 1843, but under the title of \"The Pæan\"--now first\npublished in the POEMS OF YOUTH--the germ of it appeared in 1831.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "21. To One In Paradise", + "body": "\"To One in Paradise\" was included originally in \"The Visionary\" (a tale\nnow known as \"The Assignation\"), in July, 1835, and appeared as a\nseparate poem entitled \"To Ianthe in Heaven,\" in Burton's 'Gentleman's\nMagazine' for July, 1839. The fifth stanza is now added, for the first\ntime, to the piece.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "22. The Coliseum", + "body": "\"The Coliseum\" appeared in the Baltimore 'Saturday Visitor' ('sic') in\n1833, and was republished in the 'Southern Literary Messenger' for\nAugust 1835, as \"A Prize Poem.\"\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "23. The Haunted Palace", + "body": "\"The Haunted Palace\" originally issued in the Baltimore 'American\nMuseum' for April, 1888, was subsequently embodied in that much admired\ntale, \"The Fall of the House of Usher,\" and published in it in Burton's\n'Gentleman's Magazine' for September, 1839. It reappeared in that as a\nseparate poem in the 1845 edition of Poe's poems.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "24. The Conqueror Worm", + "body": "\"The Conqueror Worm,\" then contained in Poe's favorite tale of \"Ligeia,\"\nwas first published in the 'American Museum' for September, 1838. As a\nseparate poem, it reappeared in 'Graham's Magazine' for January, 1843.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "25. Silence", + "body": "The sonnet, \"Silence,\" was originally published in Burton's 'Gentleman's\nMagazine' for April, 1840.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "26. Dreamland", + "body": "The first known publication of \"Dreamland\" was in 'Graham's Magazine'\nfor June, 1844.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "37. To Zante", + "body": "The \"Sonnet to Zante\" is not discoverable earlier than January, 1837,\nwhen it appeared in the 'Southern Literary Messenger'.\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "28. Hymn", + "body": "The initial version of the \"Catholic Hymn\" was contained in the story of\n\"Morella,\" and published in the 'Southern Literary Messenger' for April,\n1885. The lines as they now stand, and with their present title, were\nfirst published in the 'Broadway Journal for August', 1845.\n\n\n\n\n\n* * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "An Unpublished Drama.", + "body": "I.\n\nROME.--A Hall in a Palace. ALESSANDRA and CASTIGLIONE\n\n_Alessandra_. Thou art sad, Castiglione.\n\n_Castiglione_. Sad!--not I.\n Oh, I'm the happiest, happiest man in Rome!\n A few days more, thou knowest, my Alessandra,\n Will make thee mine. Oh, I am very happy!\n\n_Aless_. Methinks thou hast a singular way of showing\n Thy happiness--what ails thee, cousin of mine?\n Why didst thou sigh so deeply?\n\n_Cas_. Did I sigh?\n I was not conscious of it. It is a fashion,\n A silly--a most silly fashion I have\n When I am _very_ happy. Did I sigh? (_sighing._)\n\n_Aless_. Thou didst. Thou art not well. Thou hast indulged\n Too much of late, and I am vexed to see it.\n Late hours and wine, Castiglione,--these\n Will ruin thee! thou art already altered--\n Thy looks are haggard--nothing so wears away\n The constitution as late hours and wine.\n\n_Cas. (musing_ ). Nothing, fair cousin, nothing--\n Not even deep sorrow--\n Wears it away like evil hours and wine.\n I will amend.\n\n_Aless_. Do it! I would have thee drop\n Thy riotous company, too--fellows low born\n Ill suit the like of old Di Broglio's heir\n And Alessandra's husband.\n\n_Cas_. I will drop them.\n\n_Aless_. Thou wilt--thou must. Attend thou also more\n To thy dress and equipage--they are over plain\n For thy lofty rank and fashion--much depends\n Upon appearances.\n\n_Cas_. I'll see to it.\n\n_Aless_. Then see to it!--pay more attention, sir,\n To a becoming carriage--much thou wantest\n In dignity.\n\n_Cas_. Much, much, oh, much I want\n In proper dignity.\n\n_Aless.\n(haughtily_). Thou mockest me, sir!\n\n_Cos.\n(abstractedly_). Sweet, gentle Lalage!\n\n_Aless_. Heard I aright?\n I speak to him--he speaks of Lalage?\n Sir Count!\n (_places her hand on his shoulder_)\n what art thou dreaming?\n He's not well!\n What ails thee, sir?\n\n_Cas.(starting_). Cousin! fair cousin!--madam!\n I crave thy pardon--indeed I am not well--\n Your hand from off my shoulder, if you please.\n This air is most oppressive!--Madam--the Duke!\n\n_Enter Di Broglio_.\n\n_Di Broglio_. My son, I've news for thee!--hey!\n --what's the matter?\n (_observing Alessandra_).\n I' the pouts? Kiss her, Castiglione! kiss her,\n You dog! and make it up, I say, this minute!\n I've news for you both. Politian is expected\n Hourly in Rome--Politian, Earl of Leicester!\n We'll have him at the wedding. 'Tis his first visit\n To the imperial city.\n\n_Aless_. What! Politian\n Of Britain, Earl of Leicester?\n\n_Di Brog_. The same, my love.\n We'll have him at the wedding. A man quite young\n In years, but gray in fame. I have not seen him,\n But Rumor speaks of him as of a prodigy\n Pre-eminent in arts, and arms, and wealth,\n And high descent. We'll have him at the wedding.\n\n_Aless_. I have heard much of this Politian.\n Gay, volatile and giddy--is he not,\n And little given to thinking?\n\n_Di Brog_. Far from it, love.\n No branch, they say, of all philosophy\n So deep abstruse he has not mastered it.\n Learned as few are learned.\n\n_Aless_. 'Tis very strange!\n I have known men have seen Politian\n And sought his company. They speak of him\n As of one who entered madly into life,\n Drinking the cup of pleasure to the dregs.\n\n_Cas_. Ridiculous! Now _I_ have seen Politian\n And know him well--nor learned nor mirthful he.\n He is a dreamer, and shut out\n From common passions.\n\n_Di Brog_. Children, we disagree.\n Let us go forth and taste the fragrant air\n Of the garden. Did I dream, or did I hear\n Politian was a _melancholy_ man?\n\n (_Exeunt._)\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nROME.--A Lady's Apartment, with a window open and looking into a garden.\nLALAGE, in deep mourning, reading at a table on which lie some books and\na hand-mirror. In the background JACINTA (a servant maid) leans\ncarelessly upon a chair.\n\n\n_Lalage_. Jacinta! is it thou?\n\n_Jacinta\n(pertly_). Yes, ma'am, I'm here.\n\n_Lal_. I did not know, Jacinta, you were in waiting.\n Sit down!--let not my presence trouble you--\n Sit down!--for I am humble, most humble.\n\n_Jac. (aside_). 'Tis time.\n\n(_Jacinta seats herself in a side-long manner upon the chair, resting\nher elbows upon the back, and regarding her mistress with a contemptuous\nlook. Lalage continues to read._)\n\n_Lal_. \"It in another climate, so he said,\n Bore a bright golden flower, but not i' this soil!\"\n\n (_pauses--turns over some leaves and resumes_.)\n\n \"No lingering winters there, nor snow, nor shower--\n But Ocean ever to refresh mankind\n Breathes the shrill spirit of the western wind\"\n Oh, beautiful!--most beautiful!--how like\n To what my fevered soul doth dream of Heaven!\n O happy land! (_pauses_) She died!--the maiden died!\n O still more happy maiden who couldst die!\n Jacinta!\n\n (_Jacinta returns no answer, and Lalage presently resumes_.)\n\n Again!--a similar tale\n Told of a beauteous dame beyond the sea!\n Thus speaketh one Ferdinand in the words of the play--\n \"She died full young\"--one Bossola answers him--\n \"I think not so--her infelicity\n Seemed to have years too many\"--Ah, luckless lady!\n Jacinta! (_still no answer_.)\n Here's a far sterner story--\n But like--oh, very like in its despair--\n Of that Egyptian queen, winning so easily\n A thousand hearts--losing at length her own.\n She died. Thus endeth the history--and her maids\n Lean over her and keep--two gentle maids\n With gentle names--Eiros and Charmion!\n Rainbow and Dove!--Jacinta!\n\n_Jac_.\n(_pettishly_). Madam, what is it?\n\n_Lal_. Wilt thou, my good Jacinta, be so kind\n As go down in the library and bring me\n The Holy Evangelists?\n\n_Jac_. Pshaw!\n\n (_Exit_)\n\n_Lal_. If there be balm\n For the wounded spirit in Gilead, it is there!\n Dew in the night time of my bitter trouble\n Will there be found--\"dew sweeter far than that\n Which hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill.\"\n\n(_re-enter Jacinta, and throws a volume on the table_.)\n\n There, ma'am, 's the book.\n (_aside_.) Indeed she is very troublesome.\n\n_Lal_.\n(_astonished_). What didst thou say, Jacinta?\n Have I done aught\n To grieve thee or to vex thee?--I am sorry.\n For thou hast served me long and ever been\n Trustworthy and respectful.\n (_resumes her reading_.)\n\n_Jac_. (_aside_.) I can't believe\n She has any more jewels--no--no--she gave me all.\n\n_Lal_. What didst thou say, Jacinta? Now I bethink me\n Thou hast not spoken lately of thy wedding.\n How fares good Ugo?--and when is it to be?\n Can I do aught?--is there no further aid\n Thou needest, Jacinta?\n\n_Jac_. (_aside_.) Is there no _further_ aid!\n That's meant for me. I'm sure, madam, you need not\n Be always throwing those jewels in my teeth.\n\n_Lal_. Jewels! Jacinta,--now indeed, Jacinta,\n I thought not of the jewels.\n\n_Jac_. Oh, perhaps not!\n But then I might have sworn it. After all,\n There's Ugo says the ring is only paste,\n For he's sure the Count Castiglione never\n Would have given a real diamond to such as you;\n And at the best I'm certain, madam, you cannot\n Have use for jewels _now_. But I might have sworn it.\n\n (_Exit_)\n\n(_Lalage bursts into tears and leans her head upon the table--after a\nshort pause raises it_.)\n\n_Lal_. Poor Lalage!--and is it come to this?\n Thy servant maid!--but courage!--'tis but a viper\n Whom thou hast cherished to sting thee to the soul!\n (_taking up the mirror_)\n Ha! here at least's a friend--too much a friend\n In earlier days--a friend will not deceive thee.\n Fair mirror and true! now tell me (for thou canst)\n A tale--a pretty tale--and heed thou not\n Though it be rife with woe. It answers me.\n It speaks of sunken eyes, and wasted cheeks,\n And beauty long deceased--remembers me,\n Of Joy departed--Hope, the Seraph Hope,\n Inurned and entombed!--now, in a tone\n Low, sad, and solemn, but most audible,\n Whispers of early grave untimely yawning\n For ruined maid. Fair mirror and true!--thou liest not!\n _Thou_ hast no end to gain--no heart to break--\n Castiglione lied who said he loved----\n Thou true--he false!--false!--false!\n\n(_While she speaks, a monk enters her apartment and approaches\nunobserved_)\n\n_Monk_. Refuge thou hast,\n Sweet daughter! in Heaven. Think of eternal things!\n Give up thy soul to penitence, and pray!\n\n_Lal.\n(arising hurriedly_). I _cannot_ pray!--My soul is at war with God!\n The frightful sounds of merriment below;\n Disturb my senses--go! I cannot pray--\n The sweet airs from the garden worry me!\n Thy presence grieves me--go!--thy priestly raiment\n Fills me with dread--thy ebony crucifix\n With horror and awe!\n\n_Monk_. Think of thy precious soul!\n\n_Lal_. Think of my early days!--think of my father\n And mother in Heaven! think of our quiet home,\n And the rivulet that ran before the door!\n Think of my little sisters!--think of them!\n And think of me!--think of my trusting love\n And confidence--his vows--my ruin--think--think\n Of my unspeakable misery!----begone!\n Yet stay! yet stay!--what was it thou saidst of prayer\n And penitence? Didst thou not speak of faith\n And vows before the throne?\n\n_Monk_. I did.\n\n_Lal_. 'Tis well.\n There _is_ a vow 'twere fitting should be made--\n A sacred vow, imperative and urgent,\n A solemn vow!\n\n_Monk_. Daughter, this zeal is well!\n\n_Lal_. Father, this zeal is anything but well!\n Hast thou a crucifix fit for this thing?\n A crucifix whereon to register\n This sacred vow? (_he hands her his own_.)\n Not that--Oh! no!--no!--no (_shuddering_.)\n Not that! Not that!--I tell thee, holy man,\n Thy raiments and thy ebony cross affright me!\n Stand back! I have a crucifix myself,--\n _I_ have a crucifix! Methinks 'twere fitting\n The deed--the vow--the symbol of the deed--\n And the deed's register should tally, father!\n (_draws a cross-handled dagger and raises it on high_.)\n Behold the cross wherewith a vow like mine\n Is written in heaven!\n\n_Monk_. Thy words are madness, daughter,\n And speak a purpose unholy--thy lips are livid--\n Thine eyes are wild--tempt not the wrath divine!\n Pause ere too late!--oh, be not--be not rash!\n Swear not the oath--oh, swear it not!\n\n_Lal_. 'Tis sworn!", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": "An Apartment in a Palace. POLITIAN and BALDAZZAR.\n\n\n_Baldazzar_. Arouse thee now, Politian!\n Thou must not--nay indeed, indeed, thou shalt not\n Give way unto these humors. Be thyself!\n Shake off the idle fancies that beset thee\n And live, for now thou diest!\n\n_Politian_. Not so, Baldazzar!\n _Surely_ I live.\n\n_Bal_. Politian, it doth grieve me\n To see thee thus!\n\n_Pol_. Baldazzar, it doth grieve me\n To give thee cause for grief, my honored friend.\n Command me, sir! what wouldst thou have me do?\n At thy behest I will shake off that nature\n Which from my forefathers I did inherit,\n Which with my mother's milk I did imbibe,\n And be no more Politian, but some other.\n Command me, sir!\n\n_Bal_. To the field then--to the field--\n To the senate or the field.\n\n_Pol_. Alas! alas!\n There is an imp would follow me even there!\n There is an imp _hath_ followed me even there!\n There is--what voice was that?\n\n_Bal_. I heard it not.\n I heard not any voice except thine own,\n And the echo of thine own.\n\n_Pol_. Then I but dreamed.\n\n_Bal_. Give not thy soul to dreams: the camp--the court\n Befit thee--Fame awaits thee--Glory calls--\n And her the trumpet-tongued thou wilt not hear\n In hearkening to imaginary sounds\n And phantom voices.\n\n_Pol_. It _is_ a phantom voice!\n Didst thou not hear it _then_?\n\n_Bal_ I heard it not.\n\n_Pol_. Thou heardst it not!--Baldazzar, speak no more\n To me, Politian, of thy camps and courts.\n Oh! I am sick, sick, sick, even unto death,\n Of the hollow and high-sounding vanities\n Of the populous Earth! Bear with me yet awhile\n We have been boys together--school-fellows--\n And now are friends--yet shall not be so long--\n For in the Eternal City thou shalt do me\n A kind and gentle office, and a Power--\n A Power august, benignant, and supreme--\n Shall then absolve thee of all further duties\n Unto thy friend.\n\n_Bal_. Thou speakest a fearful riddle\n I _will_ not understand.\n\n_Pol_. Yet now as Fate\n Approaches, and the Hours are breathing low,\n The sands of Time are changed to golden grains,\n And dazzle me, Baldazzar. Alas! alas!\n I _cannot_ die, having within my heart\n So keen a relish for the beautiful\n As hath been kindled within it. Methinks the air\n Is balmier now than it was wont to be--\n Rich melodies are floating in the winds--\n A rarer loveliness bedecks the earth--\n And with a holier lustre the quiet moon\n Sitteth in Heaven.--Hist! hist! thou canst not say\n Thou hearest not _now_, Baldazzar?\n\n_Bal_. Indeed I hear not.\n\n_Pol_. Not hear it!--listen--now--listen!--the faintest sound\n And yet the sweetest that ear ever heard!\n A lady's voice!--and sorrow in the tone!\n Baldazzar, it oppresses me like a spell!\n Again!--again!--how solemnly it falls\n Into my heart of hearts! that eloquent voice\n Surely I never heard--yet it were well\n Had I _but_ heard it with its thrilling tones\n In earlier days!\n\n_Bal_. I myself hear it now.\n Be still!--the voice, if I mistake not greatly,\n Proceeds from younder lattice--which you may see\n Very plainly through the window--it belongs,\n Does it not? unto this palace of the Duke.\n The singer is undoubtedly beneath\n The roof of his Excellency--and perhaps\n Is even that Alessandra of whom he spoke\n As the betrothed of Castiglione,\n His son and heir.\n\n_Pol_. Be still!--it comes again!\n\n_Voice_\n(_very faintly_). \"And is thy heart so strong [1]\n As for to leave me thus,\n That have loved thee so long,\n In wealth and woe among?\n And is thy heart so strong\n As for to leave me thus?\n Say nay! say nay!\"\n\n\n_Bal_. The song is English, and I oft have heard it\n In merry England--never so plaintively--\n Hist! hist! it comes again!\n\n_Voice\n(more loudly_). \"Is it so strong\n As for to leave me thus,\n That have loved thee so long,\n In wealth and woe among?\n And is thy heart so strong\n As for to leave me thus?\n Say nay! say nay!\"\n\n_Bal_. 'Tis hushed and all is still!\n\n_Pol_. All _is not_ still.\n\n_Bal_. Let us go down.\n\n_Pol_. Go down, Baldazzar, go!\n\n_Bal_. The hour is growing late--the Duke awaits us,--\n Thy presence is expected in the hall\n Below. What ails thee, Earl Politian?\n\n_Voice_\n(_distinctly_). \"Who have loved thee so long,\n In wealth and woe among,\n And is thy heart so strong?\n Say nay! say nay!\"\n\n_Bal_. Let us descend!--'tis time. Politian, give\n These fancies to the wind. Remember, pray,\n Your bearing lately savored much of rudeness\n Unto the Duke. Arouse thee! and remember!\n\n_Pol_. Remember? I do. Lead on! I _do_ remember.\n (_going_).\n Let us descend. Believe me I would give,\n Freely would give the broad lands of my earldom\n To look upon the face hidden by yon lattice--\n \"To gaze upon that veiled face, and hear\n Once more that silent tongue.\"\n\n_Bal_. Let me beg you, sir,\n Descend with me--the Duke may be offended.\n Let us go down, I pray you.\n\n_Voice (loudly_). _Say nay_!--_say nay_!\n\n_Pol_. (_aside_). 'Tis strange!--'tis very strange--methought\n the voice\n Chimed in with my desires and bade me stay!\n (_Approaching the window_)\n Sweet voice! I heed thee, and will surely stay.\n Now be this fancy, by heaven, or be it Fate,\n Still will I not descend. Baldazzar, make\n Apology unto the Duke for me;\n I go not down to-night.\n\n_Bal_. Your lordship's pleasure\n Shall be attended to. Good-night, Politian.\n\n_Pol_. Good-night, my friend, good-night.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe Gardens of a Palace--Moonlight. LALAGE and POLITIAN.\n\n\n_Lalage_. And dost thou speak of love\n To _me_, Politian?--dost thou speak of love\n To Lalage?--ah woe--ah woe is me!\n This mockery is most cruel--most cruel indeed!\n\n_Politian_. Weep not! oh, sob not thus!--thy bitter tears\n Will madden me. Oh, mourn not, Lalage--\n Be comforted! I know--I know it all,\n And _still_ I speak of love. Look at me, brightest,\n And beautiful Lalage!--turn here thine eyes!\n Thou askest me if I could speak of love,\n Knowing what I know, and seeing what I have seen\n Thou askest me that--and thus I answer thee--\n Thus on my bended knee I answer thee. (_kneeling_.)\n Sweet Lalage, _I love thee_--_love thee_--_love thee_;\n Thro' good and ill--thro' weal and woe, _I love thee_.\n Not mother, with her first-born on her knee,\n Thrills with intenser love than I for thee.\n Not on God's altar, in any time or clime,\n Burned there a holier fire than burneth now\n Within my spirit for _thee_. And do I love?\n (_arising_.)\n Even for thy woes I love thee--even for thy woes--\n Thy beauty and thy woes.\n\n_Lal_. Alas, proud Earl,\n Thou dost forget thyself, remembering me!\n How, in thy father's halls, among the maidens\n Pure and reproachless of thy princely line,\n Could the dishonored Lalage abide?\n Thy wife, and with a tainted memory--\n My seared and blighted name, how would it tally\n With the ancestral honors of thy house,\n And with thy glory?\n\n_Pol_. Speak not to me of glory!\n I hate--I loathe the name; I do abhor\n The unsatisfactory and ideal thing.\n Art thou not Lalage, and I Politian?\n Do I not love--art thou not beautiful--\n What need we more? Ha! glory! now speak not of it:\n By all I hold most sacred and most solemn--\n By all my wishes now--my fears hereafter--\n By all I scorn on earth and hope in heaven--\n There is no deed I would more glory in,\n Than in thy cause to scoff at this same glory\n And trample it under foot. What matters it--\n What matters it, my fairest, and my best,\n That we go down unhonored and forgotten\n Into the dust--so we descend together?\n Descend together--and then--and then perchance--\n\n_Lal_. Why dost thou pause, Politian?\n\n_Pol_. And then perchance\n _Arise_ together, Lalage, and roam\n The starry and quiet dwellings of the blest,\n And still--\n\n_Lal_. Why dost thou pause, Politian?\n\n_Pol_. And still _together_--_together_.\n\n_Lal_. Now, Earl of Leicester!\n Thou _lovest_ me, and in my heart of hearts\n I feel thou lovest me truly.\n\n_Pol_. O Lalage!\n (_throwing himself upon his knee_.)\n And lovest thou _me_?\n\n_Lal_. Hist! hush! within the gloom\n Of yonder trees methought a figure passed--\n A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiseless--\n Like the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and noiseless.\n (_walks across and returns_.)\n I was mistaken--'twas but a giant bough\n Stirred by the autumn wind. Politian!\n\n_Pol_. My Lalage--my love! why art thou moved?\n Why dost thou turn so pale? Not Conscience self,\n Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it,\n Should shake the firm spirit thus. But the night wind\n Is chilly--and these melancholy boughs\n Throw over all things a gloom.\n\n_Lal_. Politian!\n Thou speakest to me of love. Knowest thou the land\n With which all tongues are busy--a land new found--\n Miraculously found by one of Genoa--\n A thousand leagues within the golden west?\n A fairy land of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine,--\n And crystal lakes, and over-arching forests,\n And mountains, around whose towering summits the winds\n Of Heaven untrammelled flow--which air to breathe\n Is Happiness now, and will be Freedom hereafter\n In days that are to come?\n\n_Pol_. Oh, wilt thou--wilt thou\n Fly to that Paradise--my Lalage, wilt thou\n Fly thither with me? There Care shall be forgotten,\n And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all.\n And life shall then be mine, for I will live\n For thee, and in thine eyes--and thou shalt be\n No more a mourner--but the radiant Joys\n Shall wait upon thee, and the angel Hope\n Attend thee ever; and I will kneel to thee\n And worship thee, and call thee my beloved,\n My own, my beautiful, my love, my wife,\n My all;--oh, wilt thou--wilt thou, Lalage,\n Fly thither with me?\n\n_Lal_. A deed is to be done--\n Castiglione lives!\n\n_Pol_. And he shall die!\n\n (_Exit_.)\n\n_Lal_.\n(_after a pause_). And--he--shall--die!--alas!\n Castiglione die? Who spoke the words?\n Where am I?--what was it he said?--Politian!\n Thou _art_ not gone--thou art not _gone_, Politian!\n I _feel_ thou art not gone--yet dare not look,\n Lest I behold thee not--thou _couldst_ not go\n With those words upon thy lips--oh, speak to me!\n And let me hear thy voice--one word--one word,\n To say thou art not gone,--one little sentence,\n To say how thou dost scorn--how thou dost hate\n My womanly weakness. Ha! ha! thou _art_ not gone--\n Oh, speak to me! I _knew_ thou wouldst not go!\n I knew thou wouldst not, couldst not, _durst_ not go.\n Villain, thou _art_ not gone--thou mockest me!\n And thus I clutch thee--thus!--He is gone, he is gone--\n Gone--gone. Where am I?--'tis well--'tis very well!\n So that the blade be keen--the blow be sure,\n 'Tis well, 'tis _very_ well--alas! alas!\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nThe Suburbs. POLITIAN alone.\n\n\n_Politian_. This weakness grows upon me. I am fain\n And much I fear me ill--it will not do\n To die ere I have lived!--Stay--stay thy hand,\n O Azrael, yet awhile!--Prince of the Powers\n Of Darkness and the Tomb, oh, pity me!\n Oh, pity me! let me not perish now,\n In the budding of my Paradisal Hope!\n Give me to live yet--yet a little while:\n 'Tis I who pray for life--I who so late\n Demanded but to die!--What sayeth the Count?\n\n _Enter Baldazzar_.\n\n_Baldazzar_. That, knowing no cause of quarrel or of feud\n Between the Earl Politian and himself,\n He doth decline your cartel.\n\n_Pol_. _What_ didst thou say?\n What answer was it you brought me, good Baldazzar?\n With what excessive fragrance the zephyr comes\n Laden from yonder bowers!--a fairer day,\n Or one more worthy Italy, methinks\n No mortal eyes have seen!--_what_ said the Count?\n\n_Bal_. That he, Castiglione, not being aware\n Of any feud existing, or any cause\n Of quarrel between your lordship and himself,\n Cannot accept the challenge.\n\n_Pol_. It is most true--\n All this is very true. When saw you, sir,\n When saw you now, Baldazzar, in the frigid\n Ungenial Britain which we left so lately,\n A heaven so calm as this--so utterly free\n From the evil taint of clouds?--and he did _say_?\n\n_Bal_. No more, my lord, than I have told you:\n The Count Castiglione will not fight.\n Having no cause for quarrel.\n\n_Pol_. Now this is true--\n All very true. Thou art my friend, Baldazzar,\n And I have not forgotten it--thou'lt do me\n A piece of service: wilt thou go back and say\n Unto this man, that I, the Earl of Leicester,\n Hold him a villain?--thus much, I pr'ythee, say\n Unto the Count--it is exceeding just\n He should have cause for quarrel.\n\n_Bal_. My lord!--my friend!--\n\n_Pol_. (_aside_). 'Tis he--he comes himself!\n (_aloud_.) Thou reasonest well.\n I know what thou wouldst say--not send the message--\n Well!--I will think of it--I will not send it.\n Now pr'ythee, leave me--hither doth come a person\n With whom affairs of a most private nature\n I would adjust.\n\n_Bal_. I go--to-morrow we meet,\n Do we not?--at the Vatican.\n\n_Pol_. At the Vatican.\n\n (_Exit Bal_.)\n\n _Enter Castiglione_.\n\n_Cas_. The Earl of Leicester here!\n\n_Pol_. I _am_ the Earl of Leicester, and thou seest,\n Dost thou not, that I am here?\n\n_Cas_. My lord, some strange,\n Some singular mistake--misunderstanding--\n Hath without doubt arisen: thou hast been urged\n Thereby, in heat of anger, to address\n Some words most unaccountable, in writing,\n To me, Castiglione; the bearer being\n Baldazzar, Duke of Surrey. I am aware\n Of nothing which might warrant thee in this thing,\n Having given thee no offence. Ha!--am I right?\n 'Twas a mistake?--undoubtedly--we all\n Do err at times.\n\n_Pol_. Draw, villain, and prate no more!\n\n_Cas_. Ha!--draw?--and villain? have at thee then at once,\n Proud Earl!\n (_Draws._)\n\n_Pol_.\n(_drawing_.) Thus to the expiatory tomb,\n Untimely sepulchre, I do devote thee\n In the name of Lalage!\n\n_Cas_. (_letting fall his sword and recoiling to the extremity of the\n stage_.)\n Of Lalage!\n Hold off--thy sacred hand!--avaunt, I say!\n Avaunt--I will not fight thee--indeed I dare not.\n\n_Pol_. Thou wilt not fight with me didst say, Sir Count?\n Shall I be baffled thus?--now this is well;\n Didst say thou _darest_ not? Ha!\n\n_Cas_. I dare not--dare not--\n Hold off thy hand--with that beloved name\n So fresh upon thy lips I will not fight thee--\n I cannot--dare not.\n\n_Pol_. Now, by my halidom,\n I do believe thee!--coward, I do believe thee!\n\n_Cas_. Ha!--coward!--this may not be!\n(_clutches his sword and staggers towards Politian, but his purpose is\nchanged before reaching him, and he falls upon hia knee at the feet of\nthe Earl._)\n Alas! my lord,\n It is--it is--most true. In such a cause\n I am the veriest coward. Oh, pity me!\n\n_Pol.\n(greatly softened_). Alas!--I do--indeed I pity thee.\n\n_Cas_. And Lalage--\n\n_Pol_. _Scoundrel!--arise and die!_\n\n_Cas_. It needeth not be--thus--thus--Oh, let me die\n Thus on my bended knee. It were most fitting\n That in this deep humiliation I perish.\n For in the fight I will not raise a hand\n Against thee, Earl of Leicester. Strike thou home--\n (_baring his bosom_.)\n Here is no let or hindrance to thy weapon--\n Strike home. I _will not_ fight thee.\n\n_Pol_. Now's Death and Hell!\n Am I not--am I not sorely--grievously tempted\n To take thee at thy word? But mark me, sir:\n Think not to fly me thus. Do thou prepare\n For public insult in the streets--before\n The eyes of the citizens. I'll follow thee--\n Like an avenging spirit I'll follow thee\n Even unto death. Before those whom thou lovest--\n Before all Rome I'll taunt thee, villain,--I'll taunt\n thee,\n Dost hear? with _cowardice_--thou _wilt not_ fight me?\n Thou liest! thou _shalt_!\n\n (_Exit_.)\n\n_Cas_. Now this indeed is just!\n Most righteous, and most just, avenging Heaven!\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: By Sir Thomas Wyatt.--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Politian", + "body": "20. Such portions of \"Politian\" as are known to the public first saw the\nlight of publicity in the 'Southern Literary Messenger' for December\n1835 and January 1836, being styled \"Scenes from Politian; an\nunpublished drama.\" These scenes were included, unaltered, in the 1845\ncollection of Poems by Poe. The larger portion of the original draft\nsubsequently became the property of the present editor, but it is not\nconsidered just to the poet's memory to publish it. The work is a hasty\nand unrevised production of its author's earlier days of literary labor;\nand, beyond the scenes already known, scarcely calculated to enhance his\nreputation. As a specimen, however, of the parts unpublished, the\nfollowing fragment from the first scene of Act II. may be offered. The\nDuke, it should be premised, is uncle to Alessandra, and father of\nCastiglione her betrothed.\n\n\n\n_Duke_. Why do you laugh?\n\n_Castiglione_. Indeed.\n I hardly know myself. Stay! Was it not\n On yesterday we were speaking of the Earl?\n Of the Earl Politian? Yes! it was yesterday.\n Alessandra, you and I, you must remember!\n We were walking in the garden.\n\n_Duke_. Perfectly.\n I do remember it--what of it--what then?\n\n_Cas_. O nothing--nothing at all.\n\n_Duke_. Nothing at all!\n It is most singular that you should laugh\n At nothing at all!\n\n_Cas_. Most singular--singular!\n\n_Duke_. Look yon, Castiglione, be so kind\n As tell me, sir, at once what 'tis you mean.\n What are you talking of?\n\n_Cas_. Was it not so?\n We differed in opinion touching him.\n\n_Duke_. Him!--Whom?\n\n_Cas_. Why, sir, the Earl Politian.\n\n_Duke_. The Earl of Leicester! Yes!--is it he you mean?\n We differed, indeed. If I now recollect\n The words you used were that the Earl you knew\n Was neither learned nor mirthful.\n\n_Cas_. Ha! ha!--now did I?\n\n_Duke_. That did you, sir, and well I knew at the time\n You were wrong, it being not the character\n Of the Earl--whom all the world allows to be\n A most hilarious man. Be not, my son,\n Too positive again.\n\n_Cas_. 'Tis singular!\n Most singular! I could not think it possible\n So little time could so much alter one!\n To say the truth about an hour ago,\n As I was walking with the Count San Ozzo,\n All arm in arm, we met this very man\n The Earl--he, with his friend Baldazzar,\n Having just arrived in Rome. Ha! ha! he _is_ altered!\n Such an account he gave me of his journey!\n 'Twould have made you die with laughter--such tales he\n told\n Of his caprices and his merry freaks\n Along the road--such oddity--such humor--\n Such wit--such whim--such flashes of wild merriment\n Set off too in such full relief by the grave\n Demeanor of his friend--who, to speak the truth\n Was gravity itself--\n\n_Duke_. Did I not tell you?\n\n_Cas_. You did--and yet 'tis strange! but true, as strange,\n How much I was mistaken! I always thought\n The Earl a gloomy man.\n\n_Duke_. So, so, you see!\n Be not too positive. Whom have we here?\n It cannot be the Earl?\n\n_Cas_. The Earl! Oh no!\n Tis not the Earl--but yet it is--and leaning\n Upon his friend Baldazzar. Ah! welcome, sir!\n (_Enter Politian and Baldazzar_.)\n My lord, a second welcome let me give you\n To Rome--his Grace the Duke of Broglio.\n Father! this is the Earl Politian, Earl\n Of Leicester in Great Britain.\n [_Politian bows haughtily_.]\n That, his friend\n Baldazzar, Duke of Surrey. The Earl has letters,\n So please you, for Your Grace.\n\n_Duke_. Ha! ha! Most welcome\n To Rome and to our palace, Earl Politian!\n And you, most noble Duke! I am glad to see you!\n I knew your father well, my Lord Politian.\n Castiglione! call your cousin hither,\n And let me make the noble Earl acquainted\n With your betrothed. You come, sir, at a time\n Most seasonable. The wedding--\n\n_Politian_. Touching those letters, sir,\n Your son made mention of--your son, is he not?--\n Touching those letters, sir, I wot not of them.\n If such there be, my friend Baldazzar here--\n Baldazzar! ah!--my friend Baldazzar here\n Will hand them to Your Grace. I would retire.\n\n_Duke_. Retire!--so soon?\n\n_Cas_. What ho! Benito! Rupert!\n His lordship's chambers--show his lordship to them!\n His lordship is unwell.\n\n (_Enter Benito_.)\n\n_Ben_. This way, my lord!\n\n (_Exit, followed by Politian_.)\n\n_Duke_. Retire! Unwell!\n\n_Bal_. So please you, sir. I fear me\n 'Tis as you say--his lordship is unwell.\n The damp air of the evening--the fatigue\n Of a long journey--the--indeed I had better\n Follow his lordship. He must be unwell.\n I will return anon.\n\n_Duke_. Return anon!\n Now this is very strange! Castiglione!\n This way, my son, I wish to speak with thee.\n You surely were mistaken in what you said\n Of the Earl, mirthful, indeed!--which of us said\n Politian was a melancholy man?\n\n (_Exeunt_.)\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Poems Of Youth", + "body": " * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "\"Dear B--", + "body": "...\n\nBelieving only a portion of my former volume to be worthy a second\nedition--that small portion I thought it as well to include in the\npresent book as to republish by itself. I have therefore herein combined\n'Al Aaraaf' and 'Tamerlane' with other poems hitherto unprinted. Nor\nhave I hesitated to insert from the 'Minor Poems,' now omitted, whole\nlines, and even passages, to the end that being placed in a fairer\nlight, and the trash shaken from them in which they were imbedded, they\nmay have some chance of being seen by posterity.\n\n\"It has been said that a good critique on a poem may be written by one\nwho is no poet himself. This, according to _your_ idea and _mine_ of\npoetry, I feel to be false--the less poetical the critic, the less just\nthe critique, and the converse. On this account, and because there are\nbut few B----s in the world, I would be as much ashamed of the world's\ngood opinion as proud of your own. Another than yourself might here\nobserve, 'Shakespeare is in possession of the world's good opinion, and\nyet Shakespeare is the greatest of poets. It appears then that the world\njudge correctly, why should you be ashamed of their favorable judgment?'\nThe difficulty lies in the interpretation of the word 'judgment' or\n'opinion.' The opinion is the world's, truly, but it may be called\ntheirs as a man would call a book his, having bought it; he did not\nwrite the book, but it is his; they did not originate the opinion, but\nit is theirs. A fool, for example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet--yet\nthe fool has never read Shakespeare. But the fool's neighbor, who is a\nstep higher on the Andes of the mind, whose head (that is to say, his\nmore exalted thought) is too far above the fool to be seen or\nunderstood, but whose feet (by which I mean his every-day actions) are\nsufficiently near to be discerned, and by means of which that\nsuperiority is ascertained, which _but_ for them would never have been\ndiscovered--this neighbor asserts that Shakespeare is a great poet--the\nfool believes him, and it is henceforward his _opinion_. This neighbor's\nown opinion has, in like manner, been adopted from one above _him_, and\nso, ascendingly, to a few gifted individuals who kneel around the\nsummit, beholding, face to face, the master spirit who stands upon the\npinnacle.\n\n\"You are aware of the great barrier in the path of an American writer.\nHe is read, if at all, in preference to the combined and established wit\nof the world. I say established; for it is with literature as with law\nor empire--an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in\npossession. Besides, one might suppose that books, like their authors,\nimprove by travel--their having crossed the sea is, with us, so great a\ndistinction. Our antiquaries abandon time for distance; our very fops\nglance from the binding to the bottom of the title-page, where the\nmystic characters which spell London, Paris, or Genoa, are precisely so\nmany letters of recommendation.\n\n\"I mentioned just now a vulgar error as regards criticism. I think the\nnotion that no poet can form a correct estimate of his own writings is\nanother. I remarked before that in proportion to the poetical talent\nwould be the justice of a critique upon poetry. Therefore a bad poet\nwould, I grant, make a false critique, and his self-love would\ninfallibly bias his little judgment in his favor; but a poet, who is\nindeed a poet, could not, I think, fail of making a just critique;\nwhatever should be deducted on the score of self-love might be replaced\non account of his intimate acquaintance with the subject; in short, we\nhave more instances of false criticism than of just where one's own\nwritings are the test, simply because we have more bad poets than good.\nThere are, of course, many objections to what I say: Milton is a great\nexample of the contrary; but his opinion with respect to the 'Paradise\nRegained' is by no means fairly ascertained. By what trivial\ncircumstances men are often led to assert what they do not really\nbelieve! Perhaps an inadvertent word has descended to posterity. But, in\nfact, the 'Paradise Regained' is little, if at all, inferior to the\n'Paradise Lost,' and is only supposed so to be because men do not like\nepics, whatever they may say to the contrary, and reading those of\nMilton in their natural order, are too much wearied with the first to\nderive any pleasure from the second.\n\n\"I dare say Milton preferred 'Comus' to either--if so--justly.\n\n\"As I am speaking of poetry, it will not be amiss to touch slightly upon\nthe most singular heresy in its modern history--the heresy of what is\ncalled, very foolishly, the Lake School. Some years ago I might have\nbeen induced, by an occasion like the present, to attempt a formal\nrefutation of their doctrine; at present it would be a work of\nsupererogation. The wise must bow to the wisdom of such men as Coleridge\nand Southey, but being wise, have laughed at poetical theories so\nprosaically exemplified.\n\n\"Aristotle, with singular assurance, has declared poetry the most\nphilosophical of all writings--but it required a Wordsworth to pronounce\nit the most metaphysical. He seems to think that the end of poetry is,\nor should be, instruction; yet it is a truism that the end of our\nexistence is happiness; if so, the end of every separate part of our\nexistence, everything connected with our existence, should be still\nhappiness. Therefore the end of instruction should be happiness; and\nhappiness is another name for pleasure;--therefore the end of\ninstruction should be pleasure: yet we see the above-mentioned opinion\nimplies precisely the reverse.\n\n\"To proceed: _ceteris paribus_, he who pleases is of more importance to\nhis fellow-men than he who instructs, since utility is happiness, and\npleasure is the end already obtained which instruction is merely the\nmeans of obtaining.\n\n\"I see no reason, then, why our metaphysical poets should plume\nthemselves so much on the utility of their works, unless indeed they\nrefer to instruction with eternity in view; in which case, sincere\nrespect for their piety would not allow me to express my contempt for\ntheir judgment; contempt which it would be difficult to conceal, since\ntheir writings are professedly to be understood by the few, and it is\nthe many who stand in need of salvation. In such case I should no doubt\nbe tempted to think of the devil in 'Melmoth,' who labors indefatigably,\nthrough three octavo volumes, to accomplish the destruction of one or\ntwo souls, while any common devil would have demolished one or two\nthousand.\n\n\"Against the subtleties which would make poetry a study--not a\npassion--it becomes the metaphysician to reason--but the poet to\nprotest. Yet Wordsworth and Coleridge are men in years; the one imbued\nin contemplation from his childhood; the other a giant in intellect and\nlearning. The diffidence, then, with which I venture to dispute their\nauthority would be overwhelming did I not feel, from the bottom of my\nheart, that learning has little to do with the imagination--intellect\nwith the passions--or age with poetry.\n\n \"'Trifles, like straws, upon the surface flow;\n He who would search for pearls must dive below,'\n\n\"are lines which have done much mischief. As regards the greater truths,\nmen oftener err by seeking them at the bottom than at the top; Truth\nlies in the huge abysses where wisdom is sought--not in the palpable\npalaces where she is found. The ancients were not always right in hiding\nthe goddess in a well; witness the light which Bacon has thrown upon\nphilosophy; witness the principles of our divine faith--that moral\nmechanism by which the simplicity of a child may overbalance the wisdom\nof a man.\n\n\"We see an instance of Coleridge's liability to err, in his 'Biographia\nLiteraria'--professedly his literary life and opinions, but, in fact, a\ntreatise 'de omni scibili et quibusdam aliis'. He goes wrong by reason\nof his very profundity, and of his error we have a natural type in the\ncontemplation of a star. He who regards it directly and intensely sees,\nit is true, the star, but it is the star without a ray--while he who\nsurveys it less inquisitively is conscious of all for which the star is\nuseful to us below--its brilliancy and its beauty.\n\n\"As to Wordsworth, I have no faith in him. That he had in youth the\nfeelings of a poet I believe--for there are glimpses of extreme delicacy\nin his writings--(and delicacy is the poet's own kingdom--his 'El\nDorado')--but they have the appearance of a better day recollected; and\nglimpses, at best, are little evidence of present poetic fire; we know\nthat a few straggling flowers spring up daily in the crevices of the\nglacier.\n\n\"He was to blame in wearing away his youth in contemplation with the end\nof poetizing in his manhood. With the increase of his judgment the light\nwhich should make it apparent has faded away. His judgment consequently\nis too correct. This may not be understood,--but the old Goths of\nGermany would have understood it, who used to debate matters of\nimportance to their State twice, once when drunk, and once when\nsober--sober that they might not be deficient in formality--drunk lest\nthey should be destitute of vigor.\n\n\"The long wordy discussions by which he tries to reason us into\nadmiration of his poetry, speak very little in his favor: they are full\nof such assertions as this (I have opened one of his volumes at\nrandom)--'Of genius the only proof is the act of doing well what is\nworthy to be done, and what was never done before;'--indeed? then it\nfollows that in doing what is 'un'worthy to be done, or what 'has' been\ndone before, no genius can be evinced; yet the picking of pockets is an\nunworthy act, pockets have been picked time immemorial, and Barrington,\nthe pick-pocket, in point of genius, would have thought hard of a\ncomparison with William Wordsworth, the poet.\n\n\"Again, in estimating the merit of certain poems, whether they be\nOssian's or Macpherson's can surely be of little consequence, yet, in\norder to prove their worthlessness, Mr. W. has expended many pages in\nthe controversy. 'Tantæne animis?' Can great minds descend to such\nabsurdity? But worse still: that he may bear down every argument in\nfavor of these poems, he triumphantly drags forward a passage, in his\nabomination with which he expects the reader to sympathise. It is the\nbeginning of the epic poem 'Temora.' 'The blue waves of Ullin roll in\nlight; the green hills are covered with day; trees shake their dusty\nheads in the breeze.' And this--this gorgeous, yet simple imagery, where\nall is alive and panting with immortality--this, William Wordsworth, the\nauthor of 'Peter Bell,' has 'selected' for his contempt. We shall see\nwhat better he, in his own person, has to offer. Imprimis:\n\n \"'And now she's at the pony's tail,\n And now she's at the pony's head,\n On that side now, and now on this;\n And, almost stifled with her bliss,\n A few sad tears does Betty shed....\n She pats the pony, where or when\n She knows not ... happy Betty Foy!\n Oh, Johnny, never mind the doctor!'\n\n\"Secondly:\n\n \"'The dew was falling fast, the--stars began to blink;\n I heard a voice: it said,--\"Drink, pretty creature, drink!\"\n And, looking o'er the hedge, before me I espied\n A snow-white mountain lamb, with a maiden at its side.\n No other sheep was near, the lamb was all alone,\n And by a slender cord was tether'd to a stone.'\n\n\"Now, we have no doubt this is all true: we _will_ believe it,\nindeed we will, Mr, W. Is it sympathy for the sheep you wish to excite?\nI love a sheep from the bottom of my heart.\n\n\"But there are occasions, dear B----, there are occasions when even\nWordsworth is reasonable. Even Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end,\nand the most unlucky blunders must come to a conclusion. Here is an\nextract from his preface:\n\n \"'Those who have been accustomed to the phraseology of modern writers,\n if they persist in reading this book to a conclusion (_impossible!_)\n will, no doubt, have to struggle with feelings of awkwardness; (ha!\n ha! ha!) they will look round for poetry (ha! ha! ha! ha!), and will\n be induced to inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts have\n been permitted to assume that title.' Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!\n\n\"Yet, let not Mr. W. despair; he has given immortality to a wagon, and\nthe bee Sophocles has transmitted to eternity a sore toe, and dignified\na tragedy with a chorus of turkeys.\n\n\"Of Coleridge, I cannot speak but with reverence. His towering\nintellect! his gigantic power! To use an author quoted by himself,\n\n '_J'ai trouvé souvent que la plupart des sectes ont raison dans une\n bonne partie de ce qu'elles avancent, mais non pas en ce qu'elles\n nient_;'\n\nand to employ his own language, he has imprisoned his own conceptions by\nthe barrier he has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to\nthink that such a mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the\nNyctanthes, waste its perfume upon the night alone. In reading that\nman's poetry, I tremble like one who stands upon a volcano, conscious\nfrom the very darkness bursting from the crater, of the fire and the\nlight that are weltering below.\n\n\"What is Poetry?--Poetry! that Proteus-like idea, with as many\nappellations as the nine-titled Corcyra! 'Give me,' I demanded of a\nscholar some time ago, 'give me a definition of poetry.'\n'_Tres-volontiers;_' and he proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr.\nJohnson, and overwhelmed me with a definition. Shade of the immortal\nShakespeare! I imagine to myself the scowl of your spiritual eye upon\nthe profanity of that scurrilous Ursa Major. Think of poetry, dear\nB----, think of poetry, and then think of Dr. Samuel Johnson! Think of\nall that is airy and fairy-like, and then of all that is hideous and\nunwieldy; think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! and then--and then think\nof the 'Tempest'--the 'Midsummer Night's Dream'--Prospero--Oberon--and\nTitania!\n\n\"A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for\nits _immediate_ object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having, for\nits object, an _indefinite_ instead of a _definite_ pleasure, being a\npoem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting\nperceptible images with definite, poetry with _in_definite sensations,\nto which end music is an _essential_, since the comprehension of sweet\nsound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a\npleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music;\nthe idea, without the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.\n\n\"What was meant by the invective against him who had no music in his\nsoul?\n\n\"To sum up this long rigmarole, I have, dear B----, what you, no doubt,\nperceive, for the metaphysical poets as poets, the most sovereign\ncontempt. That they have followers proves nothing:\n\n \"'No Indian prince has to his palace\n More followers than a thief to the gallows.'\"\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet--To Science.", + "body": " SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!\n Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.\n Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,\n Vulture, whose wings are dull realities\n How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,\n Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering\n To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,\n Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing!\n Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?\n And driven the Hamadryad from the wood\n To seek a shelter in some happier star?\n Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,\n The Elfin from the green grass, and from me\n The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?\n\n\n1829.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n\nPrivate reasons--some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism,\nand others to the date of Tennyson's first poems [1]--have induced me,\nafter some hesitation, to republish these, the crude compositions of my\nearliest boyhood. They are printed 'verbatim'--without alteration from\nthe original edition--the date of which is too remote to be judiciously\nacknowledged.--E. A. P. (1845).\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: This refers to the accusation brought against Edgar Poe\nthat he was a copyist of Tennyson.--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Part I.", + "body": " O! nothing earthly save the ray\n (Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,\n As in those gardens where the day\n Springs from the gems of Circassy--\n O! nothing earthly save the thrill\n Of melody in woodland rill--\n Or (music of the passion-hearted)\n Joy's voice so peacefully departed\n That like the murmur in the shell,\n Its echo dwelleth and will dwell--\n O! nothing of the dross of ours--\n Yet all the beauty--all the flowers\n That list our Love, and deck our bowers--\n Adorn yon world afar, afar--\n The wandering star.\n\n 'Twas a sweet time for Nesace--for there\n Her world lay lolling on the golden air,\n Near four bright suns--a temporary rest--\n An oasis in desert of the blest.\n Away away--'mid seas of rays that roll\n Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soul--\n The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)\n Can struggle to its destin'd eminence--\n To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,\n And late to ours, the favour'd one of God--\n But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm,\n She throws aside the sceptre--leaves the helm,\n And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,\n Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.\n\n Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,\n Whence sprang the \"Idea of Beauty\" into birth,\n (Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star,\n Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar,\n It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt),\n She look'd into Infinity--and knelt.\n Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled--\n Fit emblems of the model of her world--\n Seen but in beauty--not impeding sight--\n Of other beauty glittering thro' the light--\n A wreath that twined each starry form around,\n And all the opal'd air in color bound.\n\n All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed\n Of flowers: of lilies such as rear'd the head\n On the fair Capo Deucato [2], and sprang\n So eagerly around about to hang\n Upon the flying footsteps of--deep pride--\n Of her who lov'd a mortal--and so died [3].\n The Sephalica, budding with young bees,\n Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees:\n And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd [4]--\n Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd\n All other loveliness: its honied dew\n (The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)\n Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven,\n And fell on gardens of the unforgiven\n In Trebizond--and on a sunny flower\n So like its own above that, to this hour,\n It still remaineth, torturing the bee\n With madness, and unwonted reverie:\n In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf\n And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief\n Disconsolate linger--grief that hangs her head,\n Repenting follies that full long have fled,\n Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,\n Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair:\n Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light\n She fears to perfume, perfuming the night:\n And Clytia [5] pondering between many a sun,\n While pettish tears adown her petals run:\n And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth [6]--\n And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,\n Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing\n Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king:\n And Valisnerian lotus thither flown [7]\n From struggling with the waters of the Rhone:\n And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante [8]!\n Isola d'oro!--Fior di Levante!\n And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever [9]\n With Indian Cupid down the holy river--\n Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given\n To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to Heaven [10]:\n\n \"Spirit! that dwellest where,\n In the deep sky,\n The terrible and fair,\n In beauty vie!\n Beyond the line of blue--\n The boundary of the star\n Which turneth at the view\n Of thy barrier and thy bar--\n Of the barrier overgone\n By the comets who were cast\n From their pride, and from their throne\n To be drudges till the last--\n To be carriers of fire\n (The red fire of their heart)\n With speed that may not tire\n And with pain that shall not part--\n Who livest--_that_ we know--\n In Eternity--we feel--\n But the shadow of whose brow\n What spirit shall reveal?\n Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,\n Thy messenger hath known\n Have dream'd for thy Infinity\n A model of their own [11]--\n Thy will is done, O God!\n The star hath ridden high\n Thro' many a tempest, but she rode\n Beneath thy burning eye;\n And here, in thought, to thee--\n In thought that can alone\n Ascend thy empire and so be\n A partner of thy throne--\n By winged Fantasy [12],\n My embassy is given,\n Till secrecy shall knowledge be\n In the environs of Heaven.\"\n\n She ceas'd--and buried then her burning cheek\n Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek\n A shelter from the fervor of His eye;\n For the stars trembled at the Deity.\n She stirr'd not--breath'd not--for a voice was there\n How solemnly pervading the calm air!\n A sound of silence on the startled ear\n Which dreamy poets name \"the music of the sphere.\"\n Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call\n \"Silence\"--which is the merest word of all.\n\n All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things\n Flap shadowy sounds from the visionary wings--\n But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high\n The eternal voice of God is passing by,\n And the red winds are withering in the sky!\n \"What tho' in worlds which sightless cycles run [13],\n Link'd to a little system, and one sun--\n Where all my love is folly, and the crowd\n Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud,\n The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath\n (Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?)\n What tho' in worlds which own a single sun\n The sands of time grow dimmer as they run,\n Yet thine is my resplendency, so given\n To bear my secrets thro' the upper Heaven.\n Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,\n With all thy train, athwart the moony sky--\n Apart--like fire-flies in Sicilian night [14],\n And wing to other worlds another light!\n Divulge the secrets of thy embassy\n To the proud orbs that twinkle--and so be\n To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban\n Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!\"\n\n Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,\n The single-mooned eve!-on earth we plight\n Our faith to one love--and one moon adore--\n The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.\n As sprang that yellow star from downy hours,\n Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,\n And bent o'er sheeny mountain and dim plain\n Her way--but left not yet her Therasæan reign [15].", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Part Ii.", + "body": " High on a mountain of enamell'd head--\n Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed\n Of giant pasturage lying at his ease,\n Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees\n With many a mutter'd \"hope to be forgiven\"\n What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven--\n Of rosy head, that towering far away\n Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray\n Of sunken suns at eve--at noon of night,\n While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger light--\n Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile\n Of gorgeous columns on th' uuburthen'd air,\n Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile\n Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,\n And nursled the young mountain in its lair.\n Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall [16]\n Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall\n Of their own dissolution, while they die--\n Adorning then the dwellings of the sky.\n A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,\n Sat gently on these columns as a crown--\n A window of one circular diamond, there,\n Look'd out above into the purple air\n And rays from God shot down that meteor chain\n And hallow'd all the beauty twice again,\n Save when, between th' Empyrean and that ring,\n Some eager spirit flapp'd his dusky wing.\n But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen\n The dimness of this world: that grayish green\n That Nature loves the best for Beauty's grave\n Lurk'd in each cornice, round each architrave--\n And every sculptured cherub thereabout\n That from his marble dwelling peered out,\n Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his niche--\n Achaian statues in a world so rich?\n Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis [17]--\n From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss\n Of beautiful Gomorrah! Oh, the wave [18]\n Is now upon thee--but too late to save!\n Sound loves to revel in a summer night:\n Witness the murmur of the gray twilight\n That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco [19],\n Of many a wild star-gazer long ago--\n That stealeth ever on the ear of him\n Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim,\n And sees the darkness coming as a cloud--\n Is not its form--its voice--most palpable and loud? [20]\n But what is this?--it cometh--and it brings\n A music with it--'tis the rush of wings--\n A pause--and then a sweeping, falling strain,\n And Nesace is in her halls again.\n From the wild energy of wanton haste\n Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart;\n The zone that clung around her gentle waist\n Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart.\n Within the centre of that hall to breathe\n She paus'd and panted, Zanthe! all beneath,\n The fairy light that kiss'd her golden hair\n And long'd to rest, yet could but sparkle there!\n\n Young flowers were whispering in melody [21]\n To happy flowers that night--and tree to tree;\n Fountains were gushing music as they fell\n In many a star-lit grove, or moon-light dell;\n Yet silence came upon material things--\n Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings--\n And sound alone that from the spirit sprang\n Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang:\n\n \"Neath blue-bell or streamer--\n Or tufted wild spray\n That keeps, from the dreamer,\n The moonbeam away--[22]\n Bright beings! that ponder,\n With half-closing eyes,\n On the stars which your wonder\n Hath drawn from the skies,\n Till they glance thro' the shade, and\n Come down to your brow\n Like--eyes of the maiden\n Who calls on you now--\n Arise! from your dreaming\n In violet bowers,\n To duty beseeming\n These star-litten hours--\n And shake from your tresses\n Encumber'd with dew\n\n The breath of those kisses\n That cumber them too--\n (O! how, without you, Love!\n Could angels be blest?)\n Those kisses of true love\n That lull'd ye to rest!\n Up! shake from your wing\n Each hindering thing:\n The dew of the night--\n It would weigh down your flight;\n And true love caresses--\n O! leave them apart!\n They are light on the tresses,\n But lead on the heart.\n\n Ligeia! Ligeia!\n My beautiful one!\n Whose harshest idea\n Will to melody run,\n O! is it thy will\n On the breezes to toss?\n Or, capriciously still,\n Like the lone Albatross, [23]\n Incumbent on night\n (As she on the air)\n To keep watch with delight\n On the harmony there?\n\n Ligeia! wherever\n Thy image may be,\n No magic shall sever\n Thy music from thee.\n Thou hast bound many eyes\n In a dreamy sleep--\n But the strains still arise\n Which _thy_ vigilance keep--\n\n The sound of the rain\n Which leaps down to the flower,\n And dances again\n In the rhythm of the shower--\n The murmur that springs [24]\n From the growing of grass\n Are the music of things--\n But are modell'd, alas!\n Away, then, my dearest,\n O! hie thee away\n To springs that lie clearest\n Beneath the moon-ray--\n To lone lake that smiles,\n In its dream of deep rest,\n At the many star-isles\n That enjewel its breast--\n Where wild flowers, creeping,\n Have mingled their shade,\n On its margin is sleeping\n Full many a maid--\n Some have left the cool glade, and\n Have slept with the bee--[25]\n Arouse them, my maiden,\n On moorland and lea--\n\n Go! breathe on their slumber,\n All softly in ear,\n The musical number\n They slumber'd to hear--\n For what can awaken\n An angel so soon\n Whose sleep hath been taken\n Beneath the cold moon,\n As the spell which no slumber\n Of witchery may test,\n The rhythmical number\n Which lull'd him to rest?\"\n\n Spirits in wing, and angels to the view,\n A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro',\n Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight--\n Seraphs in all but \"Knowledge,\" the keen light\n That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds afar,\n O death! from eye of God upon that star;\n Sweet was that error--sweeter still that death--\n Sweet was that error--ev'n with _us_ the breath\n Of Science dims the mirror of our joy--\n To them 'twere the Simoom, and would destroy--\n For what (to them) availeth it to know\n That Truth is Falsehood--or that Bliss is Woe?\n Sweet was their death--with them to die was rife\n With the last ecstasy of satiate life--\n Beyond that death no immortality--\n But sleep that pondereth and is not \"to be\"--\n And there--oh! may my weary spirit dwell--\n Apart from Heaven's Eternity--and yet how far from Hell! [26]\n\n What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim\n Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?\n But two: they fell: for heaven no grace imparts\n To those who hear not for their beating hearts.\n A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover--\n O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)\n Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?\n Unguided Love hath fallen--'mid \"tears of perfect moan.\" [27]\n\n He was a goodly spirit--he who fell:\n A wanderer by mossy-mantled well--\n A gazer on the lights that shine above--\n A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:\n What wonder? for each star is eye-like there,\n And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair--\n And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy\n To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.\n The night had found (to him a night of wo)\n Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo--\n Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,\n And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.\n Here sate he with his love--his dark eye bent\n With eagle gaze along the firmament:\n Now turn'd it upon her--but ever then\n It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.\n\n \"Ianthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray!\n How lovely 'tis to look so far away!\n She seemed not thus upon that autumn eve\n I left her gorgeous halls--nor mourned to leave,\n That eve--that eve--I should remember well--\n The sun-ray dropped, in Lemnos with a spell\n On th' Arabesque carving of a gilded hall\n Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall--\n And on my eyelids--O, the heavy light!\n How drowsily it weighed them into night!\n On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran\n With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:\n But O, that light!--I slumbered--Death, the while,\n Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle\n So softly that no single silken hair\n Awoke that slept--or knew that he was there.\n\n \"The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon\n Was a proud temple called the Parthenon; [28]\n More beauty clung around her columned wall\n Then even thy glowing bosom beats withal, [29]\n And when old Time my wing did disenthral\n Thence sprang I--as the eagle from his tower,\n And years I left behind me in an hour.\n What time upon her airy bounds I hung,\n One half the garden of her globe was flung\n Unrolling as a chart unto my view--\n Tenantless cities of the desert too!\n Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,\n And half I wished to be again of men.\"\n\n \"My Angelo! and why of them to be?\n A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee--\n And greener fields than in yon world above,\n And woman's loveliness--and passionate love.\"\n \"But list, Ianthe! when the air so soft\n Failed, as my pennoned spirit leapt aloft, [30]\n Perhaps my brain grew dizzy--but the world\n I left so late was into chaos hurled,\n Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,\n And rolled a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.\n Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar,\n And fell--not swiftly as I rose before,\n But with a downward, tremulous motion thro'\n Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!\n Nor long the measure of my falling hours,\n For nearest of all stars was thine to ours--\n Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,\n A red Daedalion on the timid Earth.\"\n\n \"We came--and to thy Earth--but not to us\n Be given our lady's bidding to discuss:\n We came, my love; around, above, below,\n Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go,\n Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod\n _She_ grants to us as granted by her God--\n But, Angelo, than thine gray Time unfurled\n Never his fairy wing o'er fairer world!\n Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes\n Alone could see the phantom in the skies,\n When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be\n Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea--\n But when its glory swelled upon the sky,\n As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,\n We paused before the heritage of men,\n And thy star trembled--as doth Beauty then!\"\n\n Thus in discourse, the lovers whiled away\n The night that waned and waned and brought no day.\n They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts\n Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.\n\n\n1839.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared\nsuddenly in the heavens--attained, in a few days, a brilliancy\nsurpassing that of Jupiter--then as suddenly disappeared, and has never\nbeen seen since.]\n\n\n[Footnote 2: On Santa Maura--olim Deucadia.]\n\n\n[Footnote 3: Sappho.]\n\n\n[Footnote 4: This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort.\nThe bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated.]\n\n\n[Footnote: Clytia--the Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a\nbetter-known term, the turnsol--which turns continually towards the sun,\ncovers itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy\nclouds which cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat\nof the day.--'B. de St. Pierre.']\n\n\n[Footnote 6: There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a\nspecies of serpentine aloe without prickles, whose large and beautiful\nflower exhales a strong odor of the vanilla, during the time of its\nexpansion, which is very short. It does not blow till towards the month\nof July--you then perceive it gradually open its petals--expand\nthem--fade and die.--'St. Pierre'.]\n\n\n[Footnote 7: There is found, in the Rhone, a beautiful lily of the\nValisnerian kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four\nfeet--thus preserving its head above water in the swellings of the\nriver.]\n\n\n[Footnote 8: The Hyacinth.]\n\n\n[Footnote 9: It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first seen\nfloating in one of these down the river Ganges, and that he still loves\nthe cradle of his childhood.]\n\n\n[Footnote 10: And golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of\nthe saints.--'Rev. St. John.']\n\n\n[Footnote 11: The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as\nhaving really a human form.--'Vide Clarke's Sermons', vol. I, page 26,\nfol. edit.\n\nThe drift of Milton's argument leads him to employ language which would\nappear, at first sight, to verge upon their doctrine; but it will be\nseen immediately, that he guards himself against the charge of having\nadopted one of the most ignorant errors of the dark ages of the\nChurch.--'Dr. Sumner's Notes on Milton's Christian Doctrine'.\n\nThis opinion, in spite of many testimonies to the contrary, could never\nhave been very general. Andeus, a Syrian of Mesopotamia, was condemned\nfor the opinion, as heretical. He lived in the beginning of the fourth\ncentury. His disciples were called Anthropomorphites.--'Vide du Pin'.\n\nAmong Milton's minor poems are these lines:\n\n\n Dicite sacrorum præesides nemorum Dese, etc.,\n Quis ille primus cujus ex imagine\n Natura solers finxit humanum genus?\n Eternus, incorruptus, æquævus polo,\n Unusque et universus exemplar Dei.\n\n--And afterwards,\n\n Non cui profundum Cæcitas lumen dedit\n Dircæus augur vidit hunc alto sinu, etc.]\n\n\n[Footnote 12:\n\n Seltsamen Tochter Jovis\n Seinem Schosskinde\n Der Phantasie.\n\n'Goethe'.]\n\n\n[Footnote 13: Sightless--too small to be seen.--'Legge'.]\n\n\n[Footnote 14: I have often noticed a peculiar movement of the\nfire-flies; they will collect in a body and fly off, from a common\ncentre, into innumerable radii.]\n\n\n[Footnote 15: Therasæa, or Therasea, the island mentioned by Seneca,\nwhich, in a moment, arose from the sea to the eyes of astonished\nmariners.]\n\n\n[Footnote 16:\n\n Some star which, from the ruin'd roof\n Of shak'd Olympus, by mischance did fall.\n\n'Milton'.]\n\n\n[Footnote 17: Voltaire, in speaking of Persepolis, says,\n\n \"Je connais bien l'admiration qu'inspirent ces ruines--mais un palais\n érigé au pied d'une chaîne de rochers steriles--peut-il être un chef\n d'oeuvre des arts!\"]\n\n\n[Footnote 18: \"Oh, the wave\"--Ula Deguisi is the Turkish appellation;\nbut, on its own shores, it is called Baliar Loth, or Al-motanah. There\nwere undoubtedly more than two cities engulphed in the \"dead sea.\" In\nthe valley of Siddim were five--Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah.\nStephen of Byzantium mentions eight, and Strabo thirteen (engulphed)\n--but the last is out of all reason. It is said (Tacitus, Strabo,\nJosephus, Daniel of St. Saba, Nau, Maundrell, Troilo, D'Arvieux), that\nafter an excessive drought, the vestiges of columns, walls, etc., are\nseen above the surface. At 'any' season, such remains may be discovered\nby looking down into the transparent lake, and at such distance as would\nargue the existence of many settlements in the space now usurped by the\n\"Asphaltites.\"]\n\n\n[Footnote 19: Eyraco-Chaldea.]\n\n\n[Footnote 20: I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of\nthe darkness as it stole over the horizon.]\n\n\n[Footnote 21:\n\n Fairies use flowers for their charactery.\n\n'Merry Wives of Windsor'.]\n\n\n[Footnote 22: In Scripture is this passage:\n\n \"The sun shall not harm thee by day, nor the moon by night.\"\n\nIt is, perhaps, not generally known that the moon, in Egypt, has the\neffect of producing blindness to those who sleep with the face exposed\nto its rays, to which circumstances the passage evidently\nalludes.]\n\n\n[Footnote 23: The Albatross is said to sleep on the wing.]\n\n\n[Footnote 24: I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am\nnow unable to obtain and quote from memory:\n\n \"The verie essence and, as it were, springe heade and origine of all\n musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde which the trees of the forest\n do make when they growe.\"]\n\n\n[Footnote 25: The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be\nmoonlight. The rhyme in the verse, as in one about sixty lines before,\nhas an appearance of affectation. It is, however, imitated from Sir W.\nScott, or rather from Claud Halcro--in whose mouth I admired its effect:\n\n O! were there an island,\n Tho' ever so wild,\n Where woman might smile, and\n No man be beguil'd, etc. ]\n\n\n[Footnote 26: With the Arabians there is a medium between Heaven and\nHell, where men suffer no punishment, but yet do not attain that\ntranquil and even happiness which they suppose to be characteristic of\nheavenly enjoyment.\n\n Un no rompido sueno--\n Un dia puro--allegre--libre\n Quiera--\n Libre de amor--de zelo--\n De odio--de esperanza--de rezelo.\n\n'Luis Ponce de Leon.'\n\nSorrow is not excluded from \"Al Aaraaf,\" but it is that sorrow which the\nliving love to cherish for the dead, and which, in some minds, resembles\nthe delirium of opium.\n\nThe passionate excitement of Love and the buoyancy of spirit attendant\nupon intoxication are its less holy pleasures--the price of which, to\nthose souls who make choice of \"Al Aaraaf\" as their residence after\nlife, is final death and annihilation.]\n\n\n[Footnote 27:\n\n There be tears of perfect moan\n Wept for thee in Helicon.\n\n'Milton'.]\n\n\n[Footnote 28: It was entire in 1687--the most elevated spot in Athens.]\n\n\n[Footnote 29:\n\n Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows\n Than have the white breasts of the queen of love.\n\n'Marlowe.']\n\n\n[Footnote 30: Pennon, for pinion.--'Milton'.]\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Tamerlane.", + "body": " Kind solace in a dying hour!\n Such, father, is not (now) my theme--\n I will not madly deem that power\n Of Earth may shrive me of the sin\n Unearthly pride hath revelled in--\n I have no time to dote or dream:\n You call it hope--that fire of fire!\n It is but agony of desire:\n If I _can_ hope--O God! I can--\n Its fount is holier--more divine--\n I would not call thee fool, old man,\n But such is not a gift of thine.\n\n Know thou the secret of a spirit\n Bowed from its wild pride into shame\n O yearning heart! I did inherit\n Thy withering portion with the fame,\n The searing glory which hath shone\n Amid the Jewels of my throne,\n Halo of Hell! and with a pain\n Not Hell shall make me fear again--\n O craving heart, for the lost flowers\n And sunshine of my summer hours!\n The undying voice of that dead time,\n With its interminable chime,\n Rings, in the spirit of a spell,\n Upon thy emptiness--a knell.\n\n I have not always been as now:\n The fevered diadem on my brow\n I claimed and won usurpingly--\n Hath not the same fierce heirdom given\n Rome to the Cæsar--this to me?\n The heritage of a kingly mind,\n And a proud spirit which hath striven\n Triumphantly with human kind.\n On mountain soil I first drew life:\n The mists of the Taglay have shed\n Nightly their dews upon my head,\n And, I believe, the winged strife\n And tumult of the headlong air\n Have nestled in my very hair.\n\n So late from Heaven--that dew--it fell\n ('Mid dreams of an unholy night)\n Upon me with the touch of Hell,\n While the red flashing of the light\n From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er,\n Appeared to my half-closing eye\n The pageantry of monarchy;\n And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar\n Came hurriedly upon me, telling\n Of human battle, where my voice,\n My own voice, silly child!--was swelling\n (O! how my spirit would rejoice,\n And leap within me at the cry)\n The battle-cry of Victory!\n\n The rain came down upon my head\n Unsheltered--and the heavy wind\n Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.\n It was but man, I thought, who shed\n Laurels upon me: and the rush--\n The torrent of the chilly air\n Gurgled within my ear the crush\n Of empires--with the captive's prayer--\n The hum of suitors--and the tone\n Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.\n\n My passions, from that hapless hour,\n Usurped a tyranny which men\n Have deemed since I have reached to power,\n My innate nature--be it so:\n But, father, there lived one who, then,\n Then--in my boyhood--when their fire\n Burned with a still intenser glow\n (For passion must, with youth, expire)\n E'en _then_ who knew this iron heart\n In woman's weakness had a part.\n\n I have no words--alas!--to tell\n The loveliness of loving well!\n Nor would I now attempt to trace\n The more than beauty of a face\n Whose lineaments, upon my mind,\n Are--shadows on th' unstable wind:\n Thus I remember having dwelt\n Some page of early lore upon,\n With loitering eye, till I have felt\n The letters--with their meaning--melt\n To fantasies--with none.\n\n O, she was worthy of all love!\n Love as in infancy was mine--\n 'Twas such as angel minds above\n Might envy; her young heart the shrine\n On which my every hope and thought\n Were incense--then a goodly gift,\n For they were childish and upright--\n Pure--as her young example taught:\n Why did I leave it, and, adrift,\n Trust to the fire within, for light?\n\n We grew in age--and love--together--\n Roaming the forest, and the wild;\n My breast her shield in wintry weather--\n And, when the friendly sunshine smiled.\n And she would mark the opening skies,\n _I_ saw no Heaven--but in her eyes.\n Young Love's first lesson is----the heart:\n For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles,\n When, from our little cares apart,\n And laughing at her girlish wiles,\n I'd throw me on her throbbing breast,\n And pour my spirit out in tears--\n There was no need to speak the rest--\n No need to quiet any fears\n Of her--who asked no reason why,\n But turned on me her quiet eye!\n\n Yet _more_ than worthy of the love\n My spirit struggled with, and strove\n When, on the mountain peak, alone,\n Ambition lent it a new tone--\n I had no being--but in thee:\n The world, and all it did contain\n In the earth--the air--the sea--\n Its joy--its little lot of pain\n That was new pleasure--the ideal,\n Dim, vanities of dreams by night--\n And dimmer nothings which were real--\n (Shadows--and a more shadowy light!)\n Parted upon their misty wings,\n And, so, confusedly, became\n Thine image and--a name--a name!\n Two separate--yet most intimate things.\n\n I was ambitious--have you known\n The passion, father? You have not:\n A cottager, I marked a throne\n Of half the world as all my own,\n And murmured at such lowly lot--\n But, just like any other dream,\n Upon the vapor of the dew\n My own had past, did not the beam\n Of beauty which did while it thro'\n The minute--the hour--the day--oppress\n My mind with double loveliness.\n\n We walked together on the crown\n Of a high mountain which looked down\n Afar from its proud natural towers\n Of rock and forest, on the hills--\n The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers\n And shouting with a thousand rills.\n\n I spoke to her of power and pride,\n But mystically--in such guise\n That she might deem it nought beside\n The moment's converse; in her eyes\n I read, perhaps too carelessly--\n A mingled feeling with my own--\n The flush on her bright cheek, to me\n Seemed to become a queenly throne\n Too well that I should let it be\n Light in the wilderness alone.\n\n I wrapped myself in grandeur then,\n And donned a visionary crown--\n Yet it was not that Fantasy\n Had thrown her mantle over me--\n But that, among the rabble--men,\n Lion ambition is chained down--\n And crouches to a keeper's hand--\n Not so in deserts where the grand--\n The wild--the terrible conspire\n With their own breath to fan his fire.\n\n Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!--\n Is she not queen of Earth? her pride\n Above all cities? in her hand\n Their destinies? in all beside\n Of glory which the world hath known\n Stands she not nobly and alone?\n Falling--her veriest stepping-stone\n Shall form the pedestal of a throne--\n And who her sovereign? Timour--he\n Whom the astonished people saw\n Striding o'er empires haughtily\n A diademed outlaw!\n\n O, human love! thou spirit given,\n On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!\n Which fall'st into the soul like rain\n Upon the Siroc-withered plain,\n And, failing in thy power to bless,\n But leav'st the heart a wilderness!\n Idea! which bindest life around\n With music of so strange a sound\n And beauty of so wild a birth--\n Farewell! for I have won the Earth.\n\n When Hope, the eagle that towered, could see\n No cliff beyond him in the sky,\n His pinions were bent droopingly--\n And homeward turned his softened eye.\n 'Twas sunset: When the sun will part\n There comes a sullenness of heart\n To him who still would look upon\n The glory of the summer sun.\n That soul will hate the ev'ning mist\n So often lovely, and will list\n To the sound of the coming darkness (known\n To those whose spirits hearken) as one\n Who, in a dream of night, _would_ fly,\n But _cannot_, from a danger nigh.\n\n What tho' the moon--tho' the white moon\n Shed all the splendor of her noon,\n _Her_ smile is chilly--and _her_ beam,\n In that time of dreariness, will seem\n (So like you gather in your breath)\n A portrait taken after death.\n And boyhood is a summer sun\n Whose waning is the dreariest one--\n For all we live to know is known,\n And all we seek to keep hath flown--\n Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall\n With the noon-day beauty--which is all.\n I reached my home--my home no more--\n For all had flown who made it so.\n I passed from out its mossy door,\n And, tho' my tread was soft and low,\n A voice came from the threshold stone\n Of one whom I had earlier known--\n O, I defy thee, Hell, to show\n On beds of fire that burn below,\n An humbler heart--a deeper woe.\n\n Father, I firmly do believe--\n I _know_--for Death who comes for me\n From regions of the blest afar,\n Where there is nothing to deceive,\n Hath left his iron gate ajar.\n And rays of truth you cannot see\n Are flashing thro' Eternity----\n I do believe that Eblis hath\n A snare in every human path--\n Else how, when in the holy grove\n I wandered of the idol, Love,--\n Who daily scents his snowy wings\n With incense of burnt-offerings\n From the most unpolluted things,\n Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven\n Above with trellised rays from Heaven\n No mote may shun--no tiniest fly--\n The light'ning of his eagle eye--\n How was it that Ambition crept,\n Unseen, amid the revels there,\n Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt\n In the tangles of Love's very hair!\n\n\n\n1829.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "To Helen.", + "body": " Helen, thy beauty is to me\n Like those Nicean barks of yore,\n That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,\n The weary, wayworn wanderer bore\n To his own native shore.\n\n On desperate seas long wont to roam,\n Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,\n Thy Naiad airs have brought me home\n To the glory that was Greece,\n To the grandeur that was Rome.\n\n Lo! in yon brilliant window niche,\n How statue-like I see thee stand,\n The agate lamp within thy hand!\n Ah, Psyche, from the regions which\n Are Holy Land!\n\n1831.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Valley Of Unrest.", + "body": " _Once_ it smiled a silent dell\n Where the people did not dwell;\n They had gone unto the wars,\n Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,\n Nightly, from their azure towers,\n To keep watch above the flowers,\n In the midst of which all day\n The red sun-light lazily lay,\n _Now_ each visitor shall confess\n The sad valley's restlessness.\n Nothing there is motionless--\n Nothing save the airs that brood\n Over the magic solitude.\n Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees\n That palpitate like the chill seas\n Around the misty Hebrides!\n Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven\n That rustle through the unquiet Heaven\n Unceasingly, from morn till even,\n Over the violets there that lie\n In myriad types of the human eye--\n Over the lilies that wave\n And weep above a nameless grave!\n They wave:--from out their fragrant tops\n Eternal dews come down in drops.\n They weep:--from off their delicate stems\n Perennial tears descend in gems.\n\n\n1831.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Israfel. [1]", + "body": " In Heaven a spirit doth dwell\n \"Whose heart-strings are a lute;\"\n None sing so wildly well\n As the angel Israfel,\n And the giddy Stars (so legends tell),\n Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell\n Of his voice, all mute.\n\n Tottering above\n In her highest noon,\n The enamoured Moon\n Blushes with love,\n While, to listen, the red levin\n (With the rapid Pleiads, even,\n Which were seven),\n Pauses in Heaven.\n\n And they say (the starry choir\n And the other listening things)\n That Israfeli's fire\n Is owing to that lyre\n By which he sits and sings--\n The trembling living wire\n Of those unusual strings.\n\n But the skies that angel trod,\n Where deep thoughts are a duty--\n Where Love's a grow-up God--\n Where the Houri glances are\n Imbued with all the beauty\n Which we worship in a star.\n\n Therefore, thou art not wrong,\n Israfeli, who despisest\n An unimpassioned song;\n To thee the laurels belong,\n Best bard, because the wisest!\n Merrily live and long!\n\n The ecstasies above\n With thy burning measures suit--\n Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,\n With the fervor of thy lute--\n Well may the stars be mute!\n\n Yes, Heaven is thine; but this\n Is a world of sweets and sours;\n Our flowers are merely--flowers,\n And the shadow of thy perfect bliss\n Is the sunshine of ours.\n\n If I could dwell\n Where Israfel\n Hath dwelt, and he where I,\n He might not sing so wildly well\n A mortal melody,\n While a bolder note than this might swell\n From my lyre within the sky.\n\n\n1836.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1:\n\n And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the\n sweetest voice of all God's creatures.\n\n'Koran'.]\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n\nTO----\n\n\n I heed not that my earthly lot\n Hath--little of Earth in it--\n That years of love have been forgot\n In the hatred of a minute:--\n I mourn not that the desolate\n Are happier, sweet, than I,\n But that _you_ sorrow for _my_ fate\n Who am a passer-by.\n\n\n1829.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n\nTO----\n\n\n The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see\n The wantonest singing birds,\n\n Are lips--and all thy melody\n Of lip-begotten words--\n\n Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined\n Then desolately fall,\n O God! on my funereal mind\n Like starlight on a pall--\n\n Thy heart--_thy_ heart!--I wake and sigh,\n And sleep to dream till day\n Of the truth that gold can never buy--\n Of the baubles that it may.\n\n\n1829.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "To The River", + "body": " Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow\n Of crystal, wandering water,\n Thou art an emblem of the glow\n Of beauty--the unhidden heart--\n The playful maziness of art\n In old Alberto's daughter;\n\n But when within thy wave she looks--\n Which glistens then, and trembles--\n Why, then, the prettiest of brooks\n Her worshipper resembles;\n For in his heart, as in thy stream,\n Her image deeply lies--\n His heart which trembles at the beam\n Of her soul-searching eyes.\n\n\n1829.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Song.", + "body": " I saw thee on thy bridal day--\n When a burning blush came o'er thee,\n Though happiness around thee lay,\n The world all love before thee:\n\n And in thine eye a kindling light\n (Whatever it might be)\n Was all on Earth my aching sight\n Of Loveliness could see.\n\n That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame--\n As such it well may pass--\n Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame\n In the breast of him, alas!\n\n Who saw thee on that bridal day,\n When that deep blush _would_ come o'er thee,\n Though happiness around thee lay,\n The world all love before thee.\n\n\n1827.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Spirits Of The Dead.", + "body": " Thy soul shall find itself alone\n 'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone\n Not one, of all the crowd, to pry\n Into thine hour of secrecy.\n Be silent in that solitude\n Which is not loneliness--for then\n The spirits of the dead who stood\n In life before thee are again\n In death around thee--and their will\n Shall overshadow thee: be still.\n The night--tho' clear--shall frown--\n And the stars shall not look down\n From their high thrones in the Heaven,\n With light like Hope to mortals given--\n But their red orbs, without beam,\n To thy weariness shall seem\n As a burning and a fever\n Which would cling to thee forever.\n Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish--\n Now are visions ne'er to vanish--\n From thy spirit shall they pass\n No more--like dew-drops from the grass.\n The breeze--the breath of God--is still--\n And the mist upon the hill\n Shadowy--shadowy--yet unbroken,\n Is a symbol and a token--\n How it hangs upon the trees,\n A mystery of mysteries!\n\n\n1837.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "A Dream.", + "body": " In visions of the dark night\n I have dreamed of joy departed--\n But a waking dream of life and light\n Hath left me broken-hearted.\n\n Ah! what is not a dream by day\n To him whose eyes are cast\n On things around him with a ray\n Turned back upon the past?\n\n That holy dream--that holy dream,\n While all the world were chiding,\n Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,\n A lonely spirit guiding.\n\n What though that light, thro' storm and night,\n So trembled from afar--\n What could there be more purely bright\n In Truth's day star?\n\n\n1837.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Romance.", + "body": " Romance, who loves to nod and sing,\n With drowsy head and folded wing,\n Among the green leaves as they shake\n Far down within some shadowy lake,\n To me a painted paroquet\n Hath been--a most familiar bird--\n Taught me my alphabet to say--\n To lisp my very earliest word\n While in the wild wood I did lie,\n A child--with a most knowing eye.\n\n Of late, eternal Condor years\n So shake the very Heaven on high\n With tumult as they thunder by,\n I have no time for idle cares\n Though gazing on the unquiet sky.\n And when an hour with calmer wings\n Its down upon my spirit flings--\n That little time with lyre and rhyme\n To while away--forbidden things!\n My heart would feel to be a crime\n Unless it trembled with the strings.\n\n\n1829.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Fairyland.", + "body": " Dim vales--and shadowy floods--\n And cloudy-looking woods,\n Whose forms we can't discover\n For the tears that drip all over\n Huge moons there wax and wane--\n Again--again--again--\n Every moment of the night--\n Forever changing places--\n And they put out the star-light\n With the breath from their pale faces.\n About twelve by the moon-dial\n One more filmy than the rest\n (A kind which, upon trial,\n They have found to be the best)\n Comes down--still down--and down\n With its centre on the crown\n Of a mountain's eminence,\n While its wide circumference\n In easy drapery falls\n Over hamlets, over halls,\n Wherever they may be--\n O'er the strange woods--o'er the sea--\n Over spirits on the wing--\n Over every drowsy thing--\n And buries them up quite\n In a labyrinth of light--\n And then, how deep!--O, deep!\n Is the passion of their sleep.\n In the morning they arise,\n And their moony covering\n Is soaring in the skies,\n With the tempests as they toss,\n Like--almost any thing--\n Or a yellow Albatross.\n They use that moon no more\n For the same end as before--\n Videlicet a tent--\n Which I think extravagant:\n Its atomies, however,\n Into a shower dissever,\n Of which those butterflies,\n Of Earth, who seek the skies,\n And so come down again\n (Never-contented thing!)\n Have brought a specimen\n Upon their quivering wings.\n\n\n1831\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Lake.", + "body": " In spring of youth it was my lot\n To haunt of the wide world a spot\n The which I could not love the less--\n So lovely was the loneliness\n Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,\n And the tall pines that towered around.\n\n But when the Night had thrown her pall\n Upon the spot, as upon all,\n And the mystic wind went by\n Murmuring in melody--\n Then--ah, then, I would awake\n To the terror of the lone lake.\n\n Yet that terror was not fright,\n But a tremulous delight--\n A feeling not the jewelled mine\n Could teach or bribe me to define--\n Nor Love--although the Love were thine.\n\n Death was in that poisonous wave,\n And in its gulf a fitting grave\n For him who thence could solace bring\n To his lone imagining--\n Whose solitary soul could make\n An Eden of that dim lake.\n\n\n1827.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Evening Star.", + "body": " 'Twas noontide of summer,\n And midtime of night,\n And stars, in their orbits,\n Shone pale, through the light\n Of the brighter, cold moon.\n 'Mid planets her slaves,\n Herself in the Heavens,\n Her beam on the waves.\n\n I gazed awhile\n On her cold smile;\n Too cold--too cold for me--\n There passed, as a shroud,\n A fleecy cloud,\n And I turned away to thee,\n Proud Evening Star,\n In thy glory afar\n And dearer thy beam shall be;\n For joy to my heart\n Is the proud part\n Thou bearest in Heaven at night,\n And more I admire\n Thy distant fire,\n Than that colder, lowly light.\n\n\n1827.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Imitation.", + "body": " A dark unfathomed tide\n Of interminable pride--\n A mystery, and a dream,\n Should my early life seem;\n I say that dream was fraught\n With a wild and waking thought\n Of beings that have been,\n Which my spirit hath not seen,\n Had I let them pass me by,\n With a dreaming eye!\n Let none of earth inherit\n That vision on my spirit;\n Those thoughts I would control,\n As a spell upon his soul:\n For that bright hope at last\n And that light time have past,\n And my wordly rest hath gone\n With a sigh as it passed on:\n I care not though it perish\n With a thought I then did cherish.\n\n\n1827.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "\"The Happiest Day.\"", + "body": " I. The happiest day--the happiest hour\n My seared and blighted heart hath known,\n The highest hope of pride and power,\n I feel hath flown.\n\n\n II. Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween\n But they have vanished long, alas!\n The visions of my youth have been--\n But let them pass.\n\n\n III. And pride, what have I now with thee?\n Another brow may ev'n inherit\n The venom thou hast poured on me--\n Be still my spirit!\n\n\n IV. The happiest day--the happiest hour\n Mine eyes shall see--have ever seen\n The brightest glance of pride and power\n I feel have been:\n\n\n V. But were that hope of pride and power\n Now offered with the pain\n Ev'n _then_ I felt--that brightest hour\n I would not live again:\n\n VI. For on its wing was dark alloy\n And as it fluttered--fell\n An essence--powerful to destroy\n A soul that knew it well.\n\n\n1827.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n\nTranslation from the Greek.", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Hymn To Aristogeiton And Harmodius.", + "body": " I. Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal,\n Like those champions devoted and brave,\n When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,\n And to Athens deliverance gave.\n\n II. Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam\n In the joy breathing isles of the blest;\n Where the mighty of old have their home--\n Where Achilles and Diomed rest.\n\n III. In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,\n Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,\n When he made at the tutelar shrine\n A libation of Tyranny's blood.\n\n IV. Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!\n Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs!\n Endless ages shall cherish your fame,\n Embalmed in their echoing songs!\n\n1827\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Dreams.", + "body": " Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!\n My spirit not awakening, till the beam\n Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.\n Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,\n 'Twere better than the cold reality\n Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,\n And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,\n A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.\n But should it be--that dream eternally\n Continuing--as dreams have been to me\n In my young boyhood--should it thus be given,\n 'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.\n For I have revelled when the sun was bright\n I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light\n And loveliness,--have left my very heart\n Inclines of my imaginary apart [1]\n From mine own home, with beings that have been\n Of mine own thought--what more could I have seen?\n 'Twas once--and only once--and the wild hour\n From my remembrance shall not pass--some power\n Or spell had bound me--'twas the chilly wind\n Came o'er me in the night, and left behind\n Its image on my spirit--or the moon\n Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon\n Too coldly--or the stars--howe'er it was\n That dream was that that night-wind--let it pass.\n _I have been_ happy, though in a dream.\n I have been happy--and I love the theme:\n Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life\n As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife\n Of semblance with reality which brings\n To the delirious eye, more lovely things\n Of Paradise and Love--and all my own!--\n Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: In climes of mine imagining apart?--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "\"In Youth I Have Known One.\"", + "body": " _How often we forget all time, when lone\n Admiring Nature's universal throne;\n Her woods--her wilds--her mountains--the intense\n Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!_\n\n\nI. In youth I have known one with whom the Earth\n In secret communing held--as he with it,\n In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:\n Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit\n From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth\n A passionate light such for his spirit was fit--\n And yet that spirit knew--not in the hour\n Of its own fervor--what had o'er it power.\n\n\nII. Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought\n To a ferver [1] by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,\n But I will half believe that wild light fraught\n With more of sovereignty than ancient lore\n Hath ever told--or is it of a thought\n The unembodied essence, and no more\n That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass\n As dew of the night-time, o'er the summer grass?\n\n\nIII. Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye\n To the loved object--so the tear to the lid\n Will start, which lately slept in apathy?\n And yet it need not be--(that object) hid\n From us in life--but common--which doth lie\n Each hour before us--but then only bid\n With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken\n T' awake us--'Tis a symbol and a token--\n\n\nIV. Of what in other worlds shall be--and given\n In beauty by our God, to those alone\n Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven\n Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,\n That high tone of the spirit which hath striven\n Though not with Faith--with godliness--whose throne\n With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;\n Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Query \"fervor\"?--Ed.]\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n\nA PÆAN.\n\n\n\nI. How shall the burial rite be read?\n The solemn song be sung?\n The requiem for the loveliest dead,\n That ever died so young?\n\n\nII. Her friends are gazing on her,\n And on her gaudy bier,\n And weep!--oh! to dishonor\n Dead beauty with a tear!\n\n\nIII. They loved her for her wealth--\n And they hated her for her pride--\n But she grew in feeble health,\n And they _love_ her--that she died.\n\n\nIV. They tell me (while they speak\n Of her \"costly broider'd pall\")\n That my voice is growing weak--\n That I should not sing at all--\n\n\nV. Or that my tone should be\n Tun'd to such solemn song\n So mournfully--so mournfully,\n That the dead may feel no wrong.\n\n\nVI. But she is gone above,\n With young Hope at her side,\n And I am drunk with love\n Of the dead, who is my bride.--\n\nVII. Of the dead--dead who lies\n All perfum'd there,\n With the death upon her eyes.\n And the life upon her hair.\n\n\nVIII. Thus on the coffin loud and long\n I strike--the murmur sent\n Through the gray chambers to my song,\n Shall be the accompaniment.\n\n\nIX. Thou diedst in thy life's June--\n But thou didst not die too fair:\n Thou didst not die too soon,\n Nor with too calm an air.\n\n\nX. From more than friends on earth,\n Thy life and love are riven,\n To join the untainted mirth\n Of more than thrones in heaven.--\n\n\nXI. Therefore, to thee this night\n I will no requiem raise,\n But waft thee on thy flight,\n With a Pæan of old days.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Al Aaraaf.", + "body": " Mysterious star!\n Thou wert my dream\n All a long summer night--\n Be now my theme!\n By this clear stream,\n Of thee will I write;\n Meantime from afar\n Bathe me in light!\n\n Thy world has not the dross of ours,\n Yet all the beauty--all the flowers\n That list our love or deck our bowers\n In dreamy gardens, where do lie\n Dreamy maidens all the day;\n While the silver winds of Circassy\n On violet couches faint away.\n Little--oh! little dwells in thee\n Like unto what on earth we see:\n Beauty's eye is here the bluest\n In the falsest and untruest--\n On the sweetest air doth float\n The most sad and solemn note--\n If with thee be broken hearts,\n Joy so peacefully departs,\n That its echo still doth dwell,\n Like the murmur in the shell.\n Thou! thy truest type of grief\n Is the gently falling leaf--\n Thou! thy framing is so holy\n Sorrow is not melancholy.\n\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n31. The earliest version of \"Tamerlane\" was included in the suppressed\nvolume of 1827, but differs very considerably from the poem as now\npublished. The present draft, besides innumerable verbal alterations and\nimprovements upon the original, is more carefully punctuated, and, the\nlines being indented, presents a more pleasing appearance, to the eye at\nleast.\n\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n32. \"To Helen\" first appeared in the 1831 volume, as did also \"The\nValley of Unrest\" (as \"The Valley Nis\"), \"Israfel,\" and one or two\nothers of the youthful pieces.\n\nThe poem styled \"Romance\" constituted the Preface of the 1829 volume,\nbut with the addition of the following lines:\n\n\n Succeeding years, too wild for song,\n Then rolled like tropic storms along,\n Where, though the garish lights that fly\n Dying along the troubled sky,\n Lay bare, through vistas thunder-riven,\n The blackness of the general Heaven,\n That very blackness yet doth fling\n Light on the lightning's silver wing.\n\n For being an idle boy lang syne,\n Who read Anacreon and drank wine,\n I early found Anacreon rhymes\n Were almost passionate sometimes--\n And by strange alchemy of brain\n His pleasures always turned to pain--\n His naïveté to wild desire--\n His wit to love--his wine to fire--\n And so, being young and dipt in folly,\n I fell in love with melancholy.\n\n And used to throw my earthly rest\n And quiet all away in jest--\n I could not love except where Death\n Was mingling his with Beauty's breath--\n Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny,\n Were stalking between her and me.\n\n * * * * *\n\n But _now_ my soul hath too much room--\n Gone are the glory and the gloom--\n The black hath mellow'd into gray,\n And all the fires are fading away.\n\n My draught of passion hath been deep--\n I revell'd, and I now would sleep--\n And after drunkenness of soul\n Succeeds the glories of the bowl--\n An idle longing night and day\n To dream my very life away.\n\n But dreams--of those who dream as I,\n Aspiringly, are damned, and die:\n Yet should I swear I mean alone,\n By notes so very shrilly blown,\n To break upon Time's monotone,\n While yet my vapid joy and grief\n Are tintless of the yellow leaf--\n Why not an imp the greybeard hath,\n Will shake his shadow in my path--\n And e'en the greybeard will o'erlook\n Connivingly my dreaming-book.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Doubtful Poems.", + "body": " * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Alone.", + "body": " From childhood's hour I have not been\n As others were--I have not seen\n As others saw--I could not bring\n My passions from a common spring--\n From the same source I have not taken\n My sorrow--I could not awaken\n My heart to joy at the same tone--\n And all I loved--_I_ loved alone--\n _Thou_--in my childhood--in the dawn\n Of a most stormy life--was drawn\n From every depth of good and ill\n The mystery which binds me still--\n From the torrent, or the fountain--\n From the red cliff of the mountain--\n From the sun that round me roll'd\n In its autumn tint of gold--\n From the lightning in the sky\n As it passed me flying by--\n From the thunder and the storm--\n And the cloud that took the form\n (When the rest of Heaven was blue)\n Of a demon in my view.\n\n\nMarch 17, 1829.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "To Isadore.", + "body": "I. Beneath the vine-clad eaves,\n Whose shadows fall before\n Thy lowly cottage door--\n Under the lilac's tremulous leaves--\n Within thy snowy clasped hand\n The purple flowers it bore.\n Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,\n Like queenly nymph from Fairy-land--\n Enchantress of the flowery wand,\n Most beauteous Isadore!\n\n\nII. And when I bade the dream\n Upon thy spirit flee,\n Thy violet eyes to me\n Upturned, did overflowing seem\n With the deep, untold delight\n Of Love's serenity;\n Thy classic brow, like lilies white\n And pale as the Imperial Night\n Upon her throne, with stars bedight,\n Enthralled my soul to thee!\n\n\nIII. Ah! ever I behold\n Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,\n Blue as the languid skies\n Hung with the sunset's fringe of gold;\n Now strangely clear thine image grows,\n And olden memories\n Are startled from their long repose\n Like shadows on the silent snows\n When suddenly the night-wind blows\n Where quiet moonlight lies.\n\n\nIV. Like music heard in dreams,\n Like strains of harps unknown,\n Of birds for ever flown,--\n Audible as the voice of streams\n That murmur in some leafy dell,\n I hear thy gentlest tone,\n And Silence cometh with her spell\n Like that which on my tongue doth dwell,\n When tremulous in dreams I tell\n My love to thee alone!\n\nV. In every valley heard,\n Floating from tree to tree,\n Less beautiful to me,\n The music of the radiant bird,\n Than artless accents such as thine\n Whose echoes never flee!\n Ah! how for thy sweet voice I pine:--\n For uttered in thy tones benign\n (Enchantress!) this rude name of mine\n Doth seem a melody!\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Village Street.", + "body": " In these rapid, restless shadows,\n Once I walked at eventide,\n When a gentle, silent maiden,\n Walked in beauty at my side.\n She alone there walked beside me\n All in beauty, like a bride.\n\n Pallidly the moon was shining\n On the dewy meadows nigh;\n On the silvery, silent rivers,\n On the mountains far and high,--\n On the ocean's star-lit waters,\n Where the winds a-weary die.\n\n Slowly, silently we wandered\n From the open cottage door,\n Underneath the elm's long branches\n To the pavement bending o'er;\n Underneath the mossy willow\n And the dying sycamore.\n\n With the myriad stars in beauty\n All bedight, the heavens were seen,\n Radiant hopes were bright around me,\n Like the light of stars serene;\n Like the mellow midnight splendor\n Of the Night's irradiate queen.\n\n Audibly the elm-leaves whispered\n Peaceful, pleasant melodies,\n Like the distant murmured music\n Of unquiet, lovely seas;\n While the winds were hushed in slumber\n In the fragrant flowers and trees.\n\n Wondrous and unwonted beauty\n Still adorning all did seem,\n While I told my love in fables\n 'Neath the willows by the stream;\n Would the heart have kept unspoken\n Love that was its rarest dream!\n\n Instantly away we wandered\n In the shadowy twilight tide,\n She, the silent, scornful maiden,\n Walking calmly at my side,\n With a step serene and stately,\n All in beauty, all in pride.\n\n Vacantly I walked beside her.\n On the earth mine eyes were cast;\n Swift and keen there came unto me\n Bitter memories of the past--\n On me, like the rain in Autumn\n On the dead leaves, cold and fast.\n\n Underneath the elms we parted,\n By the lowly cottage door;\n One brief word alone was uttered--\n Never on our lips before;\n And away I walked forlornly,\n Broken-hearted evermore.\n\n Slowly, silently I loitered,\n Homeward, in the night, alone;\n Sudden anguish bound my spirit,\n That my youth had never known;\n Wild unrest, like that which cometh\n When the Night's first dream hath flown.\n\n Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper\n Mad, discordant melodies,\n And keen melodies like shadows\n Haunt the moaning willow trees,\n And the sycamores with laughter\n Mock me in the nightly breeze.\n\n Sad and pale the Autumn moonlight\n Through the sighing foliage streams;\n And each morning, midnight shadow,\n Shadow of my sorrow seems;\n Strive, O heart, forget thine idol!\n And, O soul, forget thy dreams!\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Forest Reverie.", + "body": " 'Tis said that when\n The hands of men\n Tamed this primeval wood,\n And hoary trees with groans of wo,\n Like warriors by an unknown foe,\n Were in their strength subdued,\n The virgin Earth\n Gave instant birth\n To springs that ne'er did flow--\n That in the sun\n Did rivulets run,\n And all around rare flowers did blow--\n The wild rose pale\n Perfumed the gale,\n And the queenly lily adown the dale\n (Whom the sun and the dew\n And the winds did woo),\n With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.\n\n So when in tears\n The love of years\n Is wasted like the snow,\n And the fine fibrils of its life\n By the rude wrong of instant strife\n Are broken at a blow--\n Within the heart\n Do springs upstart\n Of which it doth now know,\n And strange, sweet dreams,\n Like silent streams\n That from new fountains overflow,\n With the earlier tide\n Of rivers glide\n Deep in the heart whose hope has died--\n Quenching the fires its ashes hide,--\n Its ashes, whence will spring and grow\n Sweet flowers, ere long,--\n The rare and radiant flowers of song!\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Prose Poems.", + "body": " * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Island Of The Fay.", + "body": " \"Nullus enim locus sine genio est.\"\n\n _Servius_.\n\n\n\"_La musique_,\" says Marmontel, in those \"Contes Moraux\"[1] which in all\nour translations we have insisted upon calling \"Moral Tales,\" as if in\nmockery of their spirit--\"_la musique est le seul des talens qui jouisse\nde lui-meme: tous les autres veulent des temoins_.\" He here confounds\nthe pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating\nthem. No more than any other _talent_, is that for music susceptible of\ncomplete enjoyment where there is no second party to appreciate its\nexercise; and it is only in common with other talents that it produces\n_effects_ which may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea which the\n_raconteur_ has either failed to entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in\nits expression to his national love of _point_, is doubtless the very\ntenable one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly\nestimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition in this form\nwill be admitted at once by those who love the lyre for its own sake and\nfor its spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach\nof fallen mortality, and perhaps only one, which owes even more than\ndoes music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness\nexperienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man\nwho would behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude\nbehold that glory. To me at least the presence, not of human life only,\nbut of life, in any other form than that of the green things which grow\nupon the soil and are voiceless, is a stain upon the landscape, is at\nwar with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard the dark\nvalleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the\nforests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains\nthat look down upon all,--I love to regard these as themselves but the\ncolossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole--a whole whose\nform (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive of all;\nwhose path is among associate planets; whose meek handmaiden is the\nmoon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose life is eternity; whose\nthought is that of a god; whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies\nare lost in immensity; whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our\nown cognizance of the _animalculæ_ which infest the brain, a being which\nwe in consequence regard as purely inanimate and material, much in the\nsame manner as these _animalculæ_ must thus regard us.\n\nOur telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on every\nhand, notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthood,\nthat space, and therefore that bulk, is an important consideration in\nthe eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move are those\nbest adapted for the evolution, without collision, of the greatest\npossible number of bodies. The forms of those bodies are accurately such\nas within a given surface to include the greatest possible amount of\nmatter; while the surfaces themselves are so disposed as to accommodate\na denser population than could be accommodated on the same surfaces\notherwise arranged. Nor is it any argument against bulk being an object\nwith God that space itself is infinite; for there may be an infinity of\nmatter to fill it; and since we see clearly that the endowment of matter\nwith vitality is a principle--indeed, as far as our judgments extend,\nthe _leading_ principle in the operations of Deity, it is scarcely\nlogical to imagine it confined to the regions of the minute, where we\ndaily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As we find\ncycle within cycle without end, yet all revolving around one far-distant\ncentre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in the\nsame manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all\nwithin the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring through\nself-esteem in believing man, in either his temporal or future\ndestinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast \"clod of\nthe valley\" which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul,\nfor no more profound reason than that he does not behold it in operation\n[2].\n\nThese fancies, and such as these, have always given to my meditations\namong the mountains and the forests, by the rivers and the ocean, a\ntinge of what the every-day world would not fail to term the fantastic.\nMy wanderings amid such scenes have been many and far-searching, and\noften solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through many\na dim deep valley, or gazed into the reflected heaven of many a bright\nlake, has been an interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have\nstrayed and gazed _alone._ What flippant Frenchman [3] was it who said,\nin allusion to the well known work of Zimmermann, that _\"la solitude est\nune belle chose; mais il faut quelqu'un pour vous dire que la solitude\nest une belle chose\"_? The epigram cannot be gainsaid; but the necessity\nis a thing that does not exist.\n\nIt was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region of\nmountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy tarns\nwrithing or sleeping within all, that I chanced upon a certain rivulet\nand island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June, and threw\nmyself upon the turf beneath the branches of an unknown odorous shrub,\nthat I might doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only\nshould I look upon it, such was the character of phantasm which it wore.\n\nOn all sides, save to the west where the sun was about sinking, arose\nthe verdant walls of the forest. The little river which turned sharply\nin its course, and was thus immediately lost to sight, seemed to have no\nexit from its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep green foliage of\nthe trees to the east; while in the opposite quarter (so it appeared to\nme as I lay at length and glanced upward) there poured down noiselessly\nand continuously into the valley a rich golden and crimson waterfall\nfrom the sunset fountains of the sky.\n\nAbout midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one\nsmall circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of the\nstream.\n\n So blended bank and shadow there,\n That each seemed pendulous in air--\n\nso mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely possible to\nsay at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf its crystal\ndominion began. My position enabled me to include in a single view both\nthe eastern and western extremities of the islet, and I observed a\nsingularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one\nradiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eye\nof the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was\nshort, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were\nlithe, mirthful, erect, bright, slender, and graceful, of eastern figure\nand foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a\ndeep sense of life and joy about all, and although no airs blew from out\nthe heavens, yet everything had motion through the gentle sweepings to\nand fro of innumerable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for\ntulips with wings [4].\n\nThe other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest shade.\nA sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom, here pervaded all things.\nThe trees were dark in color and mournful in form and attitude--\nwreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes, that\nconveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass wore the\ndeep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung droopingly,\nand hither and thither among it were many small unsightly hillocks, low\nand narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of graves, but were\nnot, although over and all about them the rue and the rosemary\nclambered. The shades of the trees fell heavily upon the water, and\nseemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of the element\nwith darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower\nand lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it birth,\nand thus became absorbed by the stream, while other shadows issued\nmomently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus\nentombed.\n\nThis idea having once seized upon my fancy greatly excited it, and I\nlost myself forthwith in reverie. \"If ever island were enchanted,\" said\nI to myself, \"this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who\nremain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?--or do\nthey yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying,\ndo they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God little by\nlittle their existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow,\nexhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting tree is to\nthe water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys\nupon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?\"\n\nAs I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to\nrest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island, bearing\nupon their bosom large dazzling white flakes of the bark of the\nsycamore, flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the water, a\nquick imagination might have converted into anything it pleased; while I\nthus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays\nabout whom I had been pondering, made its way slowly into the darkness\nfrom out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect in\na singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom of an\noar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams, her attitude\nseemed indicative of joy, but sorrow deformed it as she passed within\nthe shade. Slowly she glided along, and at length rounded the islet and\nre-entered the region of light. \"The revolution which has just been made\nby the Fay,\" continued I musingly, \"is the cycle of the brief year of\nher life. She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She\nis a year nearer unto death: for I did not fail to see that as she came\ninto the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the\ndark water, making its blackness more black.\"\n\nAnd again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of the\nlatter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic joy.\nShe floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened\nmomently), and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and\nbecame absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the\ncircuit of the island (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and\nat each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person,\nwhile it grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each\npassage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became\nwhelmed in a shadow more black. But at length, when the sun had utterly\ndeparted, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went\ndisconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood, and\nthat she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over all\nthings, and I beheld her magical figure no more.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Moraux is here derived from _moeurs_, and its meaning is\n\"_fashionable_,\" or, more strictly, \"of manners.\"]\n\n\n[Footnote 2: Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise,\n'De Sitû Orbis', says,\n\n \"Either the world is a great animal, or,\" etc.]\n\n\n[Footnote 3: Balzac, in substance; I do not remember the words.]\n\n\n[Footnote 4:\n\n \"Florem putares nare per liquidum æthera.\"\n\n'P. Commire'.]\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Power Of Words.", + "body": "'Oinos.'\n\n Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with\n immortality!\n\n\n'Agathos.'\n\n You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be demanded.\n Not even here is knowledge a thing of intuition. For wisdom, ask of\n the angels freely, that it may be given!\n\n\n'Oinos.'\n\n But in this existence I dreamed that I should be at once cognizant of\n all things, and thus at once happy in being cognizant of all.\n\n\n'Agathos.'\n\n Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of\n knowledge! In forever knowing, we are forever blessed; but to know\n all, were the curse of a fiend.\n\n\n'Oinos.'\n\n But does not The Most High know all?\n\n\n'Agathos'.\n\n _That_ (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the _one_ thing\n unknown even to HIM.\n\n\n'Oinos.'\n\n But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not _at last_ all things\n be known?\n\n\n'Agathos.'\n\n Look down into the abysmal distances!--attempt to force the gaze down\n the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep slowly through them\n thus--and thus--and thus! Even the spiritual vision, is it not at all\n points arrested by the continuous golden walls of the universe?--the\n walls of the myriads of the shining bodies that mere number has\n appeared to blend into unity?\n\n\n'Oinos'.\n\n I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.\n\n\n'Agathos'.\n\n There are no dreams in Aidenn--but it is here whispered that, of this\n infinity of matter, the _sole_ purpose is to afford infinite springs\n at which the soul may allay the thirst _to know_ which is forever\n unquenchable within it--since to quench it would be to extinguish the\n soul's self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without fear.\n Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and\n swoop outward from the throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion,\n where, for pansies and violets, and heart's-ease, are the beds of the\n triplicate and triple-tinted suns.\n\n\n'Oinos'.\n\n And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!--speak to me in the\n earth's familiar tones! I understand not what you hinted to me just\n now of the modes or of the methods of what during mortality, we were\n accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say that the Creator is\n not God?\n\n\n'Agathos'.\n\n I mean to say that the Deity does not create.\n\n\n'Oinos'.\n\n Explain!\n\n\n'Agathos'.\n\n In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures which are now\n throughout the universe so perpetually springing into being can only\n be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the direct or\n immediate results of the Divine creative power.\n\n\n'Oinos.'\n\n Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered heretical in the\n extreme.\n\n\n'Agathos.'\n\n Among the angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.\n\n\n'Oinos.'\n\n I can comprehend you thus far--that certain operations of what we term\n Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain conditions, give rise\n to that which has all the _appearance_ of creation. Shortly before the\n final overthrow of the earth, there were, I well remember, many very\n successful experiments in what some philosophers were weak enough to\n denominate the creation of animalculæ.\n\n\n'Agathos.'\n\n The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the secondary\n creation, and of the _only_ species of creation which has ever been\n since the first word spoke into existence the first law.\n\n\n'Oinos.'\n\n Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity, burst\n hourly forth into the heavens--are not these stars, Agathos, the\n immediate handiwork of the King?\n\n\n'Agathos.'\n\n Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to the\n conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought can\n perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our hands, for\n example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and in so doing we gave\n vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it. This vibration was\n indefinitely extended till it gave impulse to every particle of the\n earth's air, which thenceforward, _and forever_, was actuated by the\n one movement of the hand. This fact the mathematicians of our globe\n well knew. They made the special effects, indeed, wrought in the fluid\n by special impulses, the subject of exact calculation--so that it\n became easy to determine in what precise period an impulse of given\n extent would engirdle the orb, and impress (forever) every atom of the\n atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no difficulty; from\n a given effect, under given conditions, in determining the value of\n the original impulse. Now the mathematicians who saw that the results\n of any given impulse were absolutely endless--and who saw that a\n portion of these results were accurately traceable through the agency\n of algebraic analysis--who saw, too, the facility of the\n retrogradation--these men saw, at the same time, that this species of\n analysis itself had within itself a capacity for indefinite\n progress--that there were no bounds conceivable to its advancement and\n applicability, except within the intellect of him who advanced or\n applied it. But at this point our mathematicians paused.\n\n\n'Oinos.'\n\n And why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?\n\n\n'Agathos.'\n\n Because there were some considerations of deep interest beyond. It was\n deducible from what they knew, that to a being of infinite\n understanding--one to whom the _perfection_ of the algebraic analysis\n lay unfolded--there could be no difficulty in tracing every impulse\n given the air--and the ether through the air--to the remotest\n consequences at any even infinitely remote epoch of time. It is indeed\n demonstrable that every such impulse _given the air_, must _in the\n end_ impress every individual thing that exists _within the\n universe;_--and the being of infinite understanding--the being whom\n we have imagined--might trace the remote undulations of the\n impulse--trace them upward and onward in their influences upon all\n particles of all matter--upward and onward forever in their\n modifications of old forms--or, in other words, _in their creation of\n new_--until he found them reflected--unimpressive _at last_--back from\n the throne of the Godhead. And not only could such a being do this,\n but at any epoch, should a given result be afforded him--should one of\n these numberless comets, for example, be presented to his\n inspection--he could have no difficulty in determining, by the\n analytic retrogradation, to what original impulse it was due. This\n power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and perfection--this\n faculty of referring at _all_ epochs, _all_ effects to _all_\n causes--is of course the prerogative of the Deity alone--but in every\n variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the power\n itself exercised by the whole host of the Angelic Intelligences.\n\n\n'Oinos'.\n\n But you speak merely of impulses upon the air.\n\n\n'Agathos'.\n\n In speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth: but the general\n proposition has reference to impulses upon the ether--which, since it\n pervades, and alone pervades all space, is thus the great medium of\n _creation_.\n\n\n'Oinos'.\n\n Then all motion, of whatever nature, creates?\n\n\n'Agathos'.\n\n It must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the source of all\n motion is thought--and the source of all thought is--\n\n\n'Oinos'.\n\n God.\n\n\n'Agathos'.\n\n I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child, of the fair Earth which\n lately perished--of impulses upon the atmosphere of the earth.\n\n\n'Oinos'.\n\n You did.\n\n\n'Agathos'.\n\n And while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind some thought of\n the _physical power of words_? Is not every word an impulse on the\n air?\n\n\n'Oinos'.\n\n But why, Agathos, do you weep--and why, oh, why do your wings droop as\n we hover above this fair star--which is the greenest and yet most\n terrible of all we have encountered in our flight? Its brilliant\n flowers look like a fairy dream--but its fierce volcanoes like the\n passions of a turbulent heart.\n\n\n'Agathos'.\n\n They _are_!--they _are_!--This wild star--it is now three centuries\n since, with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes, at the feet of my\n beloved--I spoke it--with a few passionate sentences--into birth. Its\n brilliant flowers _are_ the dearest of all unfulfilled dreams, and its\n raging volcanoes _are_ the passions of the most turbulent and\n unhallowed of hearts!\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Colloquy Of Monos And Una.", + "body": " [Greek: Mellonta sauta']\n\n These things are in the future.\n\n _Sophocles_--'Antig.'\n\n\n\n'Una.'\n\n \"Born again?\"\n\n\n'Monos.'\n\n Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, \"born again.\" These were the words\n upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered, rejecting the\n explanations of the priesthood, until Death itself resolved for me the\n secret.\n\n\n'Una.'\n\n Death!\n\n\n'Monos.'\n\n How strangely, sweet _Una_, you echo my words! I observe, too, a\n vacillation in your step, a joyous inquietude in your eyes. You are\n confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the Life Eternal.\n Yes, it was of Death I spoke. And here how singularly sounds that word\n which of old was wont to bring terror to all hearts, throwing a mildew\n upon all pleasures!\n\n\n'Una.'\n\n Ah, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts! How often, Monos, did\n we lose ourselves in speculations upon its nature! How mysteriously\n did it act as a check to human bliss, saying unto it, \"thus far, and\n no farther!\" That earnest mutual love, my own Monos, which burned\n within our bosoms, how vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy\n in its first upspringing that our happiness would strengthen with its\n strength! Alas, as it grew, so grew in our hearts the dread of that\n evil hour which was hurrying to separate us forever! Thus in time it\n became painful to love. Hate would have been mercy then.\n\n\n'Monos'.\n\n Speak not here of these griefs, dear Una--mine, mine forever now!\n\n\n'Una'.\n\n But the memory of past sorrow, is it not present joy? I have much to\n say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I burn to know the\n incidents of your own passage through the dark Valley and Shadow.\n\n\n'Monos'.\n\n And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos in vain? I will\n be minute in relating all, but at what point shall the weird narrative\n begin?\n\n\n'Una'.\n\n At what point?\n\n\n'Monos'.\n\n You have said.\n\n\n'Una'.\n\n Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the propensity\n of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then, commence with\n the moment of life's cessation--but commence with that sad, sad\n instant when, the fever having abandoned you, you sank into a\n breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed down your pallid\n eyelids with the passionate fingers of love.\n\n\n'Monos'.\n\n One word first, my Una, in regard to man's general condition at this\n epoch. You will remember that one or two of the wise among our\n forefathers--wise in fact, although not in the world's esteem--had\n ventured to doubt the propriety of the term \"improvement,\" as applied\n to the progress of our civilization. There were periods in each of the\n five or six centuries immediately preceding our dissolution when arose\n some vigorous intellect, boldly contending for those principles whose\n truth appears now, to our disenfranchised reason, so utterly obvious\n --principles which should have taught our race to submit to the\n guidance of the natural laws rather than attempt their control. At\n long intervals some master-minds appeared, looking upon each advance\n in practical science as a retrogradation in the true utility.\n Occasionally the poetic intellect--that intellect which we now feel to\n have been the most exalted of all--since those truths which to us were\n of the most enduring importance could only be reached by that\n _analogy_ which speaks in proof-tones to the imagination alone, and to\n the unaided reason bears no weight--occasionally did this poetic\n intellect proceed a step farther in the evolving of the vague idea of\n the philosophic, and find in the mystic parable that tells of the tree\n of knowledge, and of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct\n intimation that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant condition\n of his soul. And these men--the poets--living and perishing amid the\n scorn of the \"utilitarians\"--of rough pedants, who arrogated to\n themselves a title which could have been properly applied only to the\n scorned--these men, the poets, pondered piningly, yet not unwisely,\n upon the ancient days when our wants were not more simple than our\n enjoyments were keen--days when _mirth_ was a word unknown, so\n solemnly deep-toned was happiness--holy, august, and blissful days,\n blue rivers ran undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest\n solitudes, primeval, odorous, and unexplored. Yet these noble\n exceptions from the general misrule served but to strengthen it by\n opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon the most evil of all our evil\n days. The great \"movement\"--that was the cant term--went on: a\n diseased commotion, moral and physical. Art--the Arts--arose supreme,\n and once enthroned, cast chains upon the intellect which had elevated\n them to power. Man, because he could not but acknowledge the majesty\n of Nature, fell into childish exultation at his acquired and\n still-increasing dominion over her elements. Even while he stalked a\n God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came over him. As might\n be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he grew infected with\n system, and with abstraction. He enwrapped himself in generalities.\n Among other odd ideas, that of universal equality gained ground; and\n in the face of analogy and of God--in despite of the loud warning\n voice of the laws of _gradation_ so visibly pervading all things in\n Earth and Heaven--wild attempts at an omniprevalent Democracy were\n made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the leading evil,\n Knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking\n cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath\n of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the ravages\n of some loathsome disease. And methinks, sweet Una, even our\n slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-fetched might have\n arrested us here. But now it appears that we had worked out our own\n destruction in the perversion of our _taste_, or rather in the blind\n neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this\n crisis that taste alone--that faculty which, holding a middle position\n between the pure intellect and the moral sense, could never safely\n have been disregarded--it was now that taste alone could have led us\n gently back to Beauty, to Nature, and to Life. But alas for the pure\n contemplative spirit and majestic intuition of Plato! Alas for the\n [Greek: mousichae] which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient\n education for the soul! Alas for him and for it!--since both were most\n desperately needed, when both were most entirely forgotten or despised\n [1]. Pascal, a philosopher whom we both love, has said, how\n truly!--\"_Que tout notre raisonnement se réduit à céder au\n sentiment;_\" and it is not impossible that the sentiment of the\n natural, had time permitted it, would have regained its old ascendency\n over the harsh mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing was\n not to be. Prematurely induced by intemperance of knowledge, the old\n age of the world drew near. This the mass of mankind saw not, or,\n living lustily although unhappily, affected not to see. But, for\n myself, the Earth's records had taught me to look for widest ruin as\n the price of highest civilization. I had imbibed a prescience of our\n Fate from comparison of China the simple and enduring, with Assyria\n the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, with Nubia, more crafty than\n either, the turbulent mother of all Arts. In the history of these\n regions I met with a ray from the Future. The individual\n artificialities of the three latter were local diseases of the Earth,\n and in their individual overthrows we had seen local remedies applied;\n but for the infected world at large I could anticipate no regeneration\n save in death. That man, as a race, should not become extinct, I saw\n that he must be \"_born again._\"\n\n And now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our spirits,\n daily, in dreams. Now it was that, in twilight, we discoursed of the\n days to come, when the Art-scarred surface of the Earth, having\n undergone that purification which alone could efface its rectangular\n obscenities, should clothe itself anew in the verdure and the\n mountain-slopes and the smiling waters of Paradise, and be rendered at\n length a fit dwelling-place for man:--for man the Death-purged--for\n man to whose now exalted intellect there should be poison in knowledge\n no more--for the redeemed, regenerated, blissful, and now immortal,\n but still for the _material_, man.\n\n\n'Una'.\n\n Well do I remember these conversations, dear Monos; but the epoch of\n the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we believed, and as the\n corruption you indicate did surely warrant us in believing. Men lived;\n and died individually. You yourself sickened, and passed into the\n grave; and thither your constant Una speedily followed you. And though\n the century which has since elapsed, and whose conclusion brings up\n together once more, tortured our slumbering senses with no impatience\n of duration, yet my Monos, it was a century still.\n\n\n'Monos'.\n\n Say, rather, a point in the vague infinity. Unquestionably, it was in\n the Earth's dotage that I died. Wearied at heart with anxieties which\n had their origin in the general turmoil and decay, I succumbed to the\n fierce fever. After some few days of pain, and many of dreamy delirium\n replete with ecstasy, the manifestations of which you mistook for\n pain, while I longed but was impotent to undeceive you--after some\n days there came upon me, as you have said, a breathless and motionless\n torpor; and this was termed _Death_ by those who stood around me.\n\n Words are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of sentience.\n It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the extreme quiescence of\n him, who, having slumbered long and profoundly, lying motionless and\n fully prostrate in a mid-summer noon, begins to steal slowly back into\n consciousness, through the mere sufficiency of his sleep, and without\n being awakened by external disturbances.\n\n I breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had ceased to\n beat. Volition had not departed, but was powerless. The senses were\n unusually active, although eccentrically so--assuming often each\n other's functions at random. The taste and the smell were inextricably\n confounded, and became one sentiment, abnormal and intense. The\n rose-water with which your tenderness had moistened my lips to the\n last, affected me with sweet fancies of flowers--fantastic flowers,\n far more lovely than any of the old Earth, but whose prototypes we\n have here blooming around us. The eye-lids, transparent and bloodless,\n offered no complete impediment to vision. As volition was in abeyance,\n the balls could not roll in their sockets--but all objects within the\n range of the visual hemisphere were seen with more or less\n distinctness; the rays which fell upon the external retina, or into\n the corner of the eye, producing a more vivid effect than those which\n struck the front or interior surface. Yet, in the former instance,\n this effect was so far anomalous that I appreciated it only as\n _sound_--sound sweet or discordant as the matters presenting\n themselves at my side were light or dark in shade--curved or angular\n in outline. The hearing, at the same time, although excited in degree,\n was not irregular in action--estimating real sounds with an\n extravagance of precision, not less than of sensibility. Touch had\n undergone a modification more peculiar. Its impressions were tardily\n received, but pertinaciously retained, and resulted always in the\n highest physical pleasure. Thus the pressure of your sweet fingers\n upon my eyelids, at first only recognized through vision, at length,\n long after their removal, filled my whole being with a sensual delight\n immeasurable. I say with a sensual delight. _All_ my perceptions were\n purely sensual. The materials furnished the passive brain by the\n senses were not in the least degree wrought into shape by the deceased\n understanding. Of pain there was some little; of pleasure there was\n much; but of moral pain or pleasure none at all. Thus your wild sobs\n floated into my ear with all their mournful cadences, and were\n appreciated in their every variation of sad tone; but they were soft\n musical sounds and no more; they conveyed to the extinct reason no\n intimation of the sorrows which gave them birth; while large and\n constant tears which fell upon my face, telling the bystanders of a\n heart which broke, thrilled every fibre of my frame with ecstasy\n alone. And this was in truth the _Death_ of which these bystanders\n spoke reverently, in low whispers--you, sweet Una, gaspingly, with\n loud cries.\n\n They attired me for the coffin--three or four dark figures which\n flitted busily to and fro. As these crossed the direct line of my\n vision they affected me as _forms;_ but upon passing to my side their\n images impressed me with the idea of shrieks, groans, and, other\n dismal expressions of terror, of horror, or of woe. You alone, habited\n in a white robe, passed in all directions musically about.\n\n The day waned; and, as its light faded away, I became possessed by a\n vague uneasiness--an anxiety such as the sleeper feels when sad real\n sounds fall continuously within his ear--low distant bell-tones,\n solemn, at long but equal intervals, and commingling with melancholy\n dreams. Night arrived; and with its shadows a heavy discomfort. It\n oppressed my limbs with the oppression of some dull weight, and was\n palpable. There was also a moaning sound, not unlike the distant\n reverberation of surf, but more continuous, which, beginning with the\n first twilight, had grown in strength with the darkness. Suddenly\n lights were brought into the rooms, and this reverberation became\n forthwith interrupted into frequent unequal bursts of the same sound,\n but less dreary and less distinct. The ponderous oppression was in a\n great measure relieved; and, issuing from the flame of each lamp (for\n there were many), there flowed unbrokenly into my ears a strain of\n melodious monotone. And when now, dear Una, approaching the bed upon\n which I lay outstretched, you sat gently by my side, breathing odor\n from your sweet lips, and pressing them upon my brow, there arose\n tremulously within my bosom, and mingling with the merely physical\n sensations which circumstances had called forth, a something akin to\n sentiment itself--a feeling that, half appreciating, half responded\n to your earnest love and sorrow; but this feeling took no root in the\n pulseless heart, and seemed indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and\n faded quickly away, first into extreme quiescence, and then into a\n purely sensual pleasure as before.\n\n And now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses, there\n appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all perfect. In its\n exercise I found a wild delight--yet a delight still physical,\n inasmuch as the understanding had in it no part. Motion in the animal\n frame had fully ceased. No muscle quivered; no nerve thrilled; no\n artery throbbed. But there seemed to have sprung up in the brain\n _that_ of which no words could convey to the merely human intelligence\n even an indistinct conception. Let me term it a mental pendulous\n pulsation. It was the moral embodiment of man's abstract idea of\n _Time_. By the absolute equalization of this movement--or of such as\n this--had the cycles of the firmamental orbs themselves been adjusted.\n By its aid I measured the irregularities of the clock upon the mantel,\n and of the watches of the attendants. Their tickings came sonorously\n to my ears. The slightest deviations from the true proportion--and\n these deviations were omniprevalent--affected me just as violations of\n abstract truth were wont on earth to affect the moral sense. Although\n no two of the timepieces in the chamber struck the individual seconds\n accurately together, yet I had no difficulty in holding steadily in\n mind the tones, and the respective momentary errors of each. And\n this--this keen, perfect self-existing sentiment of _duration_--this\n sentiment existing (as man could not possibly have conceived it to\n exist) independently of any succession of events--this idea--this\n sixth sense, upspringing from the ashes of the rest, was the first\n obvious and certain step of the intemporal soul upon the threshold of\n the temporal eternity.\n\n It was midnight; and you still sat by my side. All others had departed\n from the chamber of Death. They had deposited me in the coffin. The\n lamps burned flickeringly; for this I knew by the tremulousness of the\n monotonous strains. But suddenly these strains diminished in\n distinctness and in volume. Finally they ceased. The perfume in my\n nostrils died away. Forms affected my vision no longer. The oppression\n of the Darkness uplifted itself from my bosom. A dull shot like that\n of electricity pervaded my frame, and was followed by total loss of\n the idea of contact. All of what man has termed sense was merged in\n the sole consciousness of entity, and in the one abiding sentiment of\n duration. The mortal body had been at length stricken with the hand of\n the deadly _Decay_.\n\n Yet had not all of sentience departed; for the consciousness and the\n sentiment remaining supplied some of its functions by a lethargic\n intuition. I appreciated the direful change now in operation upon the\n flesh, and, as the dreamer is sometimes aware of the bodily presence\n of one who leans over him, so, sweet Una, I still dully felt that you\n sat by my side. So, too, when the noon of the second day came, I was\n not unconscious of those movements which displaced you from my side,\n which confined me within the coffin, which deposited me within the\n hearse, which bore me to the grave, which lowered me within it, which\n heaped heavily the mould upon me, and which thus left me, in blackness\n and corruption, to my sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.\n\n And here in the prison-house which has few secrets to disclose, there\n rolled away days and weeks and months; and the soul watched narrowly\n each second as it flew, and, without effort, took record of its\n flight--without effort and without object.\n\n A year passed. The consciousness of _being_ had grown hourly more\n indistinct, and that of mere _locality_ had in great measure usurped\n its position. The idea of entity was becoming merged in that of\n _place_. The narrow space immediately surrounding what had been the\n body was now growing to be the body itself. At length, as often\n happens to the sleeper (by sleep and its world alone is _Death_\n imaged)--at length, as sometimes happened on Earth to the deep\n slumberer, when some flitting light half startled him into awaking,\n yet left him half enveloped in dreams--so to me, in the strict embrace\n of the _Shadow_, came _that_ light which alone might have had power to\n startle--the light of enduring _Love_. Men toiled at the grave in\n which I lay darkling. They upthrew the damp earth. Upon my mouldering\n bones there descended the coffin of Una. And now again all was void.\n That nebulous light had been extinguished. That feeble thrill had\n vibrated itself into quiescence. Many _lustra_ had supervened. Dust\n had returned to dust. The worm had food no more. The sense of being\n had at length utterly departed, and there reigned in its stead--\n instead of all things, dominant and perpetual--the autocrats _Place_\n and _Time._ For _that_ which _was not_--for that which had no\n form--for that which had no thought--for that which had no\n sentience--for that which was soundless, yet of which matter formed no\n portion--for all this nothingness, yet for all this immortality, the\n grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours, co-mates.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1:\n\n \"It will be hard to discover a better [method of education] than that\n which the experience of so many ages has already discovered; and this\n may be summed up as consisting in gymnastics for the body, and\n _music_ for the soul.\"\n\nRepub. lib. 2.\n\n \"For this reason is a musical education most essential; since it\n causes Rhythm and Harmony to penetrate most intimately into the soul,\n taking the strongest hold upon it, filling it with _beauty_ and making\n the man _beautiful-minded_. ... He will praise and admire _the\n beautiful_, will receive it with joy into his soul, will feed upon it,\n and _assimilate his own condition with it_.\"\n\nIbid. lib. 3. Music had, however, among the Athenians, a far more\ncomprehensive signification than with us. It included not only the\nharmonies of time and of tune, but the poetic diction, sentiment and\ncreation, each in its widest sense. The study of _music_ was with them,\nin fact, the general cultivation of the taste--of that which recognizes\nthe beautiful--in contradistinction from reason, which deals only with\nthe true.]\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Conversation Of Eiros And Charmion.", + "body": " I will bring fire to thee.\n\n _Euripides_.--'Androm'.\n\n\n\n'Eiros'.\n\n Why do you call me Eiros?\n\n\n'Charmion'.\n\n So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget, too, _my_\n earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.\n\n\n'Eiros'.\n\n This is indeed no dream!\n\n\n'Charmion'.\n\n Dreams are with us no more;--but of these mysteries anon. I rejoice to\n see you looking life-like and rational. The film of the shadow has\n already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart, and fear nothing. Your\n allotted days of stupor have expired, and to-morrow I will myself\n induct you into the full joys and wonders of your novel existence.\n\n\n'Eiros'.\n\n True--I feel no stupor--none at all. The wild sickness and the\n terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad,\n rushing, horrible sound, like the \"voice of many waters.\" Yet my\n senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness of their perception\n of _the new_.\n\n\n'Charmion'.\n\n A few days will remove all this;--but I fully understand you, and\n feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent what you\n undergo--yet the remembrance of it hangs by me still. You have now\n suffered all of pain, however, which you will suffer in Aidenn.\n\n\n'Eiros'.\n\n In Aidenn?\n\n\n'Charmion'.\n\n In Aidenn.\n\n\n'Eiros'.\n\n O God!--pity me, Charmion!--I am overburthened with the majesty of all\n things--of the unknown now known--of the speculative Future merged in\n the august and certain Present.\n\n\n'Charmion'.\n\n Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will speak of this.\n Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the exercise\n of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward--but back. I am\n burning with anxiety to hear the details of that stupendous event\n which threw you among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse of familiar\n things, in the old familiar language of the world which has so\n fearfully perished.\n\n\n'Eiros'.\n\n Most fearfully, fearfully!--this is indeed no dream.\n\n\n'Charmion'.\n\n Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?\n\n'Eiros'.\n\n Mourned, Charmion?--oh, deeply. To that last hour of all there hung a\n cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow over your household.\n\n\n'Charmion'.\n\n And that last hour--speak of it. Remember that, beyond the naked fact\n of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, coming out from among\n mankind, I passed into Night through the Grave--at that period, if I\n remember aright, the calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly\n unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative\n philosophy of the day.\n\n\n'Eiros'.\n\n The individual calamity was, as you say, entirely unanticipated; but\n analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of discussion with\n astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, that, even when you\n left us, men had agreed to understand those passages in the most holy\n writings which speak of the final destruction of all things by fire as\n having reference to the orb of the earth alone, But in regard to the\n immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault from that\n epoch in astronomical knowledge in which the comets were divested of\n the terrors of flame. The very moderate density of these bodies had\n been well established. They had been observed to pass among the\n satellites of Jupiter without bringing about any sensible alteration\n either in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary planets. We\n had long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations of inconceivable\n tenuity, and as altogether incapable of doing injury to our\n substantial globe, even in the event of contact. But contact was not\n in any degree dreaded; for the elements of all the comets were\n accurately known. That among _them_ we should look for the agency of\n the threatened fiery destruction had been for many years considered an\n inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild fancies had been of late days\n strangely rife among mankind; and, although it was only with a few of\n the ignorant that actual apprehension prevailed, upon the announcement\n by astronomers of a _new_ comet, yet this announcement was generally\n received with I know not what of agitation and mistrust.\n\n The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, and it\n was at once conceded by all observers that its path, at perihelion\n would bring it into very close proximity with the earth. There were\n two or three astronomers of secondary note who resolutely maintained\n that a contact was inevitable. I cannot very well express to you the\n effect of this intelligence upon the people. For a few short days they\n would not believe an assertion which their intellect, so long employed\n among worldly considerations, could not in any manner grasp. But the\n truth of a vitally important fact soon makes its way into the\n understanding of even the most stolid. Finally, all men saw that\n astronomical knowledge lies not, and they awaited the comet. Its\n approach was not at first seemingly rapid, nor was its appearance of\n very unusual character. It was of a dull red, and had little\n perceptible train. For seven or eight days we saw no material increase\n in its apparent diameter, and but a partial alteration in its color.\n Meantime, the ordinary affairs of men were discarded, and all interest\n absorbed in a growing discussion instituted by the philosophic in\n respect to the cometary nature. Even the grossly ignorant aroused\n their sluggish capacities to such considerations. The learned _now_\n gave their intellect--their soul--to no such points as the allaying of\n fear, or to the sustenance of loved theory. They sought--they panted\n for right views. They groaned for perfected knowledge. _Truth_ arose\n in the purity of her strength and exceeding majesty, and the wise\n bowed down and adored.\n\n That material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants would result\n from the apprehended contact was an opinion which hourly lost ground\n among the wise; and the wise were now freely permitted to rule the\n reason and the fancy of the crowd. It was demonstrated that the\n density of the comet's _nucleus_ was far less than that of our rarest\n gas; and the harmless passage of a similar visitor among the\n satellites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted upon, and which\n served greatly to allay terror. Theologists, with an earnestness\n fear-enkindled, dwelt upon the biblical prophecies, and expounded them\n to the people with a directness and simplicity of which no previous\n instance had been known. That the final destruction of the earth must\n be brought about by the agency of fire, was urged with a spirit that\n enforced everywhere conviction; and that the comets were of no fiery\n nature (as all men now knew) was a truth which relieved all, in a\n great measure, from the apprehension of the great calamity foretold.\n It is noticeable that the popular prejudices and vulgar errors in\n regard to pestilences and wars--errors which were wont to prevail upon\n every appearance of a comet--were now altogether unknown, as if by\n some sudden convulsive exertion reason had at once hurled superstition\n from her throne. The feeblest intellect had derived vigor from\n excessive interest.\n\n What minor evils might arise from the contact were points of elaborate\n question. The learned spoke of slight geological disturbances, of\n probable alterations in climate, and consequently in vegetation; of\n possible magnetic and electric influences. Many held that no visible\n or perceptible effect would in any manner be produced. While such\n discussions were going on, their subject gradually approached, growing\n larger in apparent diameter, and of a more brilliant lustre. Mankind\n grew paler as it came. All human operations were suspended.\n\n There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment when the\n comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing that of any\n previously recorded visitation. The people now, dismissing any\n lingering hope that the astronomers were wrong, experienced all the\n certainty of evil. The chimerical aspect of their terror was gone. The\n hearts of the stoutest of our race beat violently within their bosoms.\n A very few days suffered, however, to merge even such feelings in\n sentiments more unendurable. We could no longer apply to the strange\n orb any _accustomed_ thoughts. Its _historical_ attributes had\n disappeared. It oppressed us with a hideous _novelty_ of emotion. We\n saw it not as an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an\n incubus upon our hearts and a shadow upon our brains. It had taken,\n with unconceivable rapidity, the character of a gigantic mantle of\n rare flame, extending from horizon to horizon.\n\n Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was clear that we\n were already within the influence of the comet; yet we lived. We even\n felt an unusual elasticity of frame and vivacity of mind. The\n exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was apparent; for all\n heavenly objects were plainly visible through it. Meantime, our\n vegetation had perceptibly altered; and we gained faith, from this\n predicted circumstance, in the foresight of the wise. A wild\n luxuriance of foliage, utterly unknown before, burst out upon every\n vegetable thing.\n\n Yet another day--and the evil was not altogether upon us. It was now\n evident that its nucleus would first reach us. A wild change had come\n over all men; and the first sense of _pain_ was the wild signal for\n general lamentation and horror. The first sense of pain lay in a\n rigorous construction of the breast and lungs, and an insufferable\n dryness of the skin. It could not be denied that our atmosphere was\n radically affected; the conformation of this atmosphere and the\n possible modifications to which it might be subjected, were now the\n topics of discussion. The result of investigation sent an electric\n thrill of the intensest terror through the universal heart of man.\n\n It had been long known that the air which encircled us was a compound\n of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of twenty-one measures\n of oxygen and seventy-nine of nitrogen in every one hundred of the\n atmosphere. Oxygen, which was the principle of combustion, and the\n vehicle of heat, was absolutely necessary to the support of animal\n life, and was the most powerful and energetic agent in nature.\n Nitrogen, on the contrary, was incapable of supporting either animal\n life or flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would result, it had been\n ascertained, in just such an elevation of the animal spirits as we had\n latterly experienced. It was the pursuit, the extension of the idea,\n which had engendered awe. What would be the result of a _total\n extraction of the nitrogen_? A combustion irresistible, all-devouring,\n omni-prevalent, immediate;--the entire fulfilment, in all their\n minute and terrible details, of the fiery and horror-inspiring\n denunciations of the prophecies of the Holy Book.\n\n Why need I paint, Charmion, the now disenchained frenzy of mankind?\n That tenuity in the comet which had previously inspired us with hope,\n was now the source of the bitterness of despair. In its impalpable\n gaseous character we clearly perceived the consummation of Fate.\n Meantime a day again passed--bearing away with it the last shadow of\n Hope. We gasped in the rapid modification of the air. The red blood\n bounded tumultuously through its strict channels. A furious delirium\n possessed all men; and with arms rigidly outstretched towards the\n threatening heavens, they trembled and shrieked aloud. But the nucleus\n of the destroyer was now upon us;--even here in Aidenn I shudder while\n I speak. Let me be brief--brief as the ruin that overwhelmed. For a\n moment there was a wild lurid light alone, visiting and penetrating\n all things. Then--let us bow down, Charmion, before the excessive\n majesty of the great God!--then, there came a shouting and pervading\n sound, as if from the mouth itself of HIM; while the whole incumbent\n mass of ether in which we existed, burst at once into a species of\n intense flame, for whose surpassing brilliancy and all-fervid heat\n even the angels in the high Heaven of pure knowledge have no name.\n Thus ended all.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Shadow.--A Parable.", + "body": " Yea! though I walk through the valley of the _Shadow_.\n\n 'Psalm of David'.\n\n\nYe who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have long\nsince gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things\nshall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass\naway, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be\nsome to disbelieve and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much\nto ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.\n\nThe year had been a year of terror, and of feeling more intense than\nterror for which there is no name upon the earth. For many prodigies and\nsigns had taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land, the black\nwings of the Pestilence were spread abroad. To those, nevertheless,\ncunning in the stars, it was not unknown that the heavens wore an aspect\nof ill; and to me, the Greek Oinos, among others, it was evident that\nnow had arrived the alternation of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth\nyear when, at the entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is enjoined with\nthe red ring of the terrible Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of the skies,\nif I mistake not greatly, made itself manifest, not only in the physical\norb of the earth, but in the souls, imaginations, and meditations of\nmankind.\n\nOver some flasks of the red Chian wine, within the walls of a noble\nhall, in a dim city called Ptolemais, we sat, at night, a company of\nseven. And to our chamber there was no entrance save by a lofty door of\nbrass: and the door was fashioned by the artisan Corinnos, and, being of\nrare workmanship, was fastened from within. Black draperies, likewise in\nthe gloomy room, shut out from our view the moon, the lurid stars, and\nthe peopleless streets--but the boding and the memory of Evil, they\nwould not be so excluded. There were things around us and about of which\nI can render no distinct account--things material and spiritual--\nheaviness in the atmosphere--a sense of suffocation--anxiety--and, above\nall, that terrible state of existence which the nervous experience when\nthe senses are keenly living and awake, and meanwhile the powers of\nthought lie dormant. A dead weight hung upon us. It hung upon our\nlimbs--upon the household furniture--upon the goblets from which we\ndrank; and all things were depressed, and borne down thereby--all things\nsave only the flames of the seven iron lamps which illumined our revel.\nUprearing themselves in tall slender lines of light, they thus remained\nburning all pallid and motionless; and in the mirror which their lustre\nformed upon the round table of ebony at which we sat each of us there\nassembled beheld the pallor of his own countenance, and the unquiet\nglare in the downcast eyes of his companions. Yet we laughed and were\nmerry in our proper way--which was hysterical; and sang the songs of\nAnacreon--which are madness; and drank deeply--although the purple wine\nreminded us of blood. For there was yet another tenant of our chamber in\nthe person of young Zoilus. Dead and at full length he lay,\nenshrouded;--the genius and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore no\nportion in our mirth, save that his countenance, distorted with the\nplague, and his eyes in which Death had but half extinguished the fire\nof the pestilence, seemed to take such an interest in our merriment as\nthe dead may haply take in the merriment of those who are to die. But\nalthough I, Oinos, felt that the eyes of the departed were upon me,\nstill I forced myself not to perceive the bitterness of their\nexpression, and gazing down steadily into the depths of the ebony\nmirror, sang with a loud and sonorous voice the songs of the son of\nTeos. But gradually my songs they ceased, and their echoes, rolling afar\noff among the sable draperies of the chamber, became weak, and\nundistinguishable, and so faded away. And lo! from among those sable\ndraperies, where the sounds of the song departed, there came forth a\ndark and undefiled shadow--a shadow such as the moon, when low in\nheaven, might fashion from the figure of a man: but it was the shadow\nneither of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing. And quivering\nawhile among the draperies of the room it at length rested in full view\nupon the surface of the door of brass. But the shadow was vague, and\nformless, and indefinite, and was the shadow neither of man nor\nGod--neither God of Greece, nor God of Chaldæa, nor any Egyptian God.\nAnd the shadow rested upon the brazen doorway, and under the arch of the\nentablature of the door and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there\nbecame stationary and remained. And the door whereupon the shadow rested\nwas, if I remember aright, over against the feet of the young Zoilus\nenshrouded. But we, the seven there assembled, having seen the shadow as\nit came out from among the draperies, dared not steadily behold it, but\ncast down our eyes, and gazed continually into the depths of the mirror\nof ebony. And at length I, Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of\nthe shadow its dwelling and its appellation. And the shadow answered, \"I\nam SHADOW, and my dwelling is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and\nhard by those dim plains of Helusion which border upon the foul\nCharonian canal.\" And then did we, the seven, start from our seats in\nhorror, and stand trembling, and shuddering, and aghast: for the tones\nin the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one being, but of a\nmultitude of beings, and varying in their cadences from syllable to\nsyllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the well remembered and familiar\naccents of many thousand departed friends.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Silence.--A Fable.", + "body": "The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags, and caves _are silent_.\n\n\"LISTEN to _me_,\" said the Demon, as he placed his hand upon my head.\n\"The region of which I speak is a dreary region in Libya, by the borders\nof the river Zäire. And there is no quiet there, nor silence.\n\n\"The waters of the river have a saffron and sickly hue; and they flow\nnot onward to the sea, but palpitate forever and forever beneath the red\neye of the sun with a tumultuous and convulsive motion. For many miles\non either side of the river's oozy bed is a pale desert of gigantic\nwater-lilies. They sigh one unto the other in that solitude, and stretch\ntowards the heaven their long and ghastly necks, and nod to and fro\ntheir everlasting heads. And there is an indistinct murmur which cometh\nout from among them like the rushing of subterrene water. And they sigh\none unto the other.\n\n\"But there is a boundary to their realm--the boundary of the dark,\nhorrible, lofty forest. There, like the waves about the Hebrides, the\nlow underwood is agitated continually. But there is no wind throughout\nthe heaven. And the tall primeval trees rock eternally hither and\nthither with a crashing and mighty sound. And from their high summits,\none by one, drop everlasting dews. And at the roots, strange poisonous\nflowers lie writhing in perturbed slumber. And overhead, with a rustling\nand loud noise, the gray clouds rush westwardly forever until they roll,\na cataract, over the fiery wall of the horizon. But there is no wind\nthroughout the heaven. And by the shores of the river Zäire there is\nneither quiet nor silence.\n\n\"It was night, and the rain fell; and, falling, it was rain, but, having\nfallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall lilies,\nand the rain fell upon my head--and the lilies sighed one unto the other\nin the solemnity of their desolation.\n\n\"And, all at once, the moon arose through the thin ghastly mist, and was\ncrimson in color. And mine eyes fell upon a huge gray rock which stood\nby the shore of the river and was lighted by the light of the moon. And\nthe rock was gray and ghastly, and tall,--and the rock was gray. Upon\nits front were characters engraven in the stones; and I walked through\nthe morass of water-lilies, until I came close unto the shore, that I\nmight read the characters upon the stone. But I could not decipher them.\nAnd I was going back into the morass when the moon shone with a fuller\nred, and I turned and looked again upon the rock and upon the\ncharacters;--and the characters were DESOLATION.\n\n\"And I looked upwards, and there stood a man upon the summit of the\nrock; and I hid myself among the water-lilies that I might discover the\naction of the man. And the man was tall and stately in form, and wrapped\nup from his shoulders to his feet in the toga of old Rome. And the\noutlines of his figure were indistinct--but his features were the\nfeatures of a deity; for the mantle of the night, and of the mist, and\nof the moon, and of the dew, had left uncovered the features of his\nface. And his brow was lofty with thought, and his eye wild with care;\nand in the few furrows upon his cheek, I read the fables of sorrow, and\nweariness, and disgust with mankind, and a longing after solitude.\n\n\"And the man sat upon the rock, and leaned his head upon his hand, and\nlooked out upon the desolation. He looked down into the low unquiet\nshrubbery, and up into the tall primeval trees, and up higher at the\nrustling heaven, and into the crimson moon. And I lay close within\nshelter of the lilies, and observed the actions of the man. And the man\ntrembled in the solitude;--but the night waned, and he sat upon the\nrock.\n\n\"And the man turned his attention from the heaven, and looked out upon\nthe dreary river Zäire, and upon the yellow ghastly waters, and upon the\npale legions of the water-lilies. And the man listened to the sighs of\nthe water-lilies, and to the murmur that came up from among them. And I\nlay close within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And the\nman trembled in the solitude;--but the night waned, and he sat upon the\nrock.\n\n\"Then I went down into the recesses of the morass, and waded afar in\namong the wilderness of the lilies, and called unto the hippopotami\nwhich dwelt among the fens in the recesses of the morass. And the\nhippopotami heard my call, and came, with the behemoth, unto the foot of\nthe rock, and roared loudly and fearfully beneath the moon. And I lay\nclose within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man\ntrembled in the solitude;--but the night waned, and he sat upon the\nrock.\n\n\"Then I cursed the elements with the curse of tumult; and a frightful\ntempest gathered in the heaven, where before there had been no wind. And\nthe heaven became livid with the violence of the tempest--and the rain\nbeat upon the head of the man--and the floods of the river came\ndown--and the river was tormented into foam--and the water-lilies\nshrieked within their beds--and the forest crumbled before the wind--and\nthe thunder rolled--and the lightning fell--and the rock rocked to its\nfoundation. And I lay close within my covert and observed the actions of\nthe man. And the man trembled in the solitude;--but the night waned, and\nhe sat upon the rock.\n\n\"Then I grew angry and cursed, with the curse of silence, the river, and\nthe lilies, and the wind, and the forest, and the heaven, and the\nthunder, and the sighs of the water-lilies. And they became accursed,\nand _were still._ And the moon ceased to totter up its pathway to\nheaven--and the thunder died away--and the lightning did not flash--and\nthe clouds hung motionless--and the waters sunk to their level and\nremained--and the trees ceased to rock--and the water-lilies sighed no\nmore--and the murmur was heard no longer from among them, nor any shadow\nof sound throughout the vast illimitable desert. And I looked upon the\ncharacters of the rock, and they were changed;--and the characters were\nSILENCE.\n\n\"And mine eyes fell upon the countenance of the man, and his countenance\nwas wan with terror. And, hurriedly, he raised his head from his hand,\nand stood forth upon the rock and listened. But there was no voice\nthroughout the vast illimitable desert, and the characters upon the rock\nwere SILENCE. And the man shuddered, and turned his face away, and fled\nafar off, in haste, so that I beheld him no more.\"\n\n...\n\nNow there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi--in the iron-bound,\nmelancholy volumes of the Magi. Therein, I say, are glorious histories\nof the Heaven, and of the Earth, and of the mighty Sea--and of the Genii\nthat overruled the sea, and the earth, and the lofty heaven. There was\nmuch lore, too, in the sayings which were said by the sybils; and holy,\nholy things were heard of old by the dim leaves that trembled around\nDodona--but, as Allah liveth, that fable which the demon told me as he\nsat by my side in the shadow of the tomb, I hold to be the most\nwonderful of all! And as the Demon made an end of his story, he fell\nback within the cavity of the tomb and laughed. And I could not laugh\nwith the Demon, and he cursed me because I could not laugh. And the lynx\nwhich dwelleth forever in the tomb, came out therefrom, and lay down at\nthe feet of the Demon, and looked at him steadily in the face.\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Essays.", + "body": " * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Poetic Principle.", + "body": "In speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either\nthorough or profound. While discussing very much at random the\nessentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to\ncite for consideration some few of those minor English or American poems\nwhich best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the\nmost definite impression. By \"minor poems\" I mean, of course, poems of\nlittle length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words\nin regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightfully or\nwrongfully, has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of\nthe poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the\nphrase, \"a long poem,\" is simply a flat contradiction in terms.\n\nI need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as\nit excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio\nof this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal\nnecessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a\npoem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a\ncomposition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the\nvery utmost, it flags--fails--a revulsion ensues--and then the poem is,\nin effect, and in fact, no longer such.\n\nThere are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling the\ncritical dictum that the \"Paradise Lost\" is to be devoutly admired\nthroughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it,\nduring perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum\nwould demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical\nonly when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art,\nUnity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve its\nUnity--its totality of effect or impression--we read it (as would be\nnecessary) at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation\nof excitement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true\npoetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no\ncritical prejudgment can force us to admire; but if, upon completing the\nwork, we read it again; omitting the first book--that is to say,\ncommencing with the second--we shall be surprised at now finding that\nadmirable which we before condemned--that damnable which we had\npreviously so much admired. It follows from all this that the ultimate,\naggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun, is a\nnullity--and this is precisely the fact.\n\nIn regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very\ngood reason, for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but,\ngranting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an\nimperfect sense of Art. The modern epic is, of the supposititious\nancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day\nof these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem\n_were_ popular in reality--which I doubt--it is at least clear that no\nvery long poem will ever be popular again.\n\nThat the extent of a poetical work is _ceteris paribus_, the measure of\nits merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition\nsufficiently absurd--yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly\nReviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere _size_, abstractly\nconsidered--there can be nothing in mere _bulk_, so far as a volume is\nconcerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from these\nsaturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of\nphysical magnitude which it conveys, _does_ impress us with a sense of\nthe sublime--but no man is impressed after _this_ fashion by the\nmaterial grandeur of even \"The Columbiad.\" Even the Quarterlies have not\ninstructed us to be so impressed by it. _As yet_, they have not\n_insisted_ on our estimating Lamartine by the cubic foot, or Pollock by\nthe pound--but what else are we to _infer_ from their continual prating\nabout \"sustained effort\"? If, by \"sustained effort,\" any little\ngentleman has accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for the\neffort--if this indeed be a thing commendable--but let us forbear\npraising the epic on the effort's account. It is to be hoped thai common\nsense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of Art\nrather by the impression it makes--by the effect it produces--than by\nthe time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of \"sustained\neffort\" which had been found necessary in effecting the impression. The\nfact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius quite another--nor\ncan all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this\nproposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received\nas self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as\nfalsities, they will not be essentially damaged as truths.\n\nOn the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief.\nUndue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A _very_ short poem,\nwhile now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a\nprofound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of\nthe stamp upon the wax. De Béranger has wrought innumerable things,\npungent and spirit-stirring, but in general they have been too\nimponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public attention, and\nthus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be\nwhistled down the wind.\n\nA remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a\npoem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the\nfollowing exquisite little Serenade:\n\n\n I arise from dreams of thee\n In the first sweet sleep of night\n When the winds are breathing low,\n And the stars are shining bright.\n I arise from dreams of thee,\n And a spirit in my feet\n Has led me--who knows how?--\n To thy chamber-window, sweet!\n\n The wandering airs they faint\n On the dark the silent stream--\n The champak odors fail\n Like sweet thoughts in a dream;\n The nightingale's complaint,\n It dies upon her heart,\n As I must die on thine,\n O, beloved as thou art!\n\n O, lift me from the grass!\n I die, I faint, I fail!\n Let thy love in kisses rain\n On my lips and eyelids pale.\n My cheek is cold and white, alas!\n My heart beats loud and fast:\n O, press it close to thine again,\n Where it will break at last!\n\n\nVery few perhaps are familiar with these lines, yet no less a poet than\nShelley is their author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal\nimagination will be appreciated by all, but by none so thoroughly as by\nhim who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved to bathe in\nthe aromatic air of a southern midsummer night.\n\nOne of the finest poems by Willis, the very best in my opinion which he\nhas ever written, has no doubt, through this same defect of undue\nbrevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less in the\ncritical than in the popular view:\n\n\n The shadows lay along Broadway,\n 'Twas near the twilight-tide--\n And slowly there a lady fair\n Was walking in her pride.\n Alone walk'd she; but, viewlessly\n Walk'd spirits at her side.\n\n Peace charm'd the street beneath her feet,\n And honor charm'd the air;\n And all astir looked kind on her,\n And called her good as fair--\n For all God ever gave to her\n She kept with chary care.\n\n She kept with care her beauties rare\n From lovers warm and true--\n For heart was cold to all but gold,\n And the rich came not to woo--\n But honor'd well her charms to sell,\n If priests the selling do.\n\n Now walking there was one more fair--\n A slight girl, lily-pale;\n And she had unseen company\n To make the spirit quail--\n Twixt Want and Scorn she walk'd forlorn,\n And nothing could avail.\n\n No mercy now can clear her brow\n From this world's peace to pray,\n For as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,\n Her woman's heart gave way!--\n But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven,\n By man is cursed alway!\n\n\nIn this composition we find it difficult to recognise the Willis who has\nwritten so many mere \"verses of society.\" The lines are not only richly\nideal but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness, an evident\nsincerity of sentiment, for which we look in vain throughout all the\nother works of this author.\n\nWhile the epic mania, while the idea that to merit in poetry prolixity\nis indispensable, has for some years past been gradually dying out of\nthe public mind, by mere dint of its own absurdity, we find it succeeded\nby a heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one which, in\nthe brief period it has already endured, may be said to have\naccomplished more in the corruption of our Poetical Literature than all\nits other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy of _The Didactic_. It\nhas been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that\nthe ultimate object of all Poetry is truth. Every poem, it is said,\nshould inculcate a moral, and by this moral is the poetical merit of the\nwork to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy\nidea, and we Bostonians very especially have developed it in full. We\nhave taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem's\nsake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to\nconfess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and\nforce:--but the simple fact is that would we but permit ourselves to\nlook into our own souls we should immediately there discover that under\nthe sun there neither exists nor _can_ exist any work more thoroughly\ndignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem, this poem _per\nse_, this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written\nsolely for the poem's sake.\n\nWith as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom of man,\nI would nevertheless limit, in some measure, its modes of inculcation. I\nwould limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them by dissipation.\nThe demands of Truth are severe. She has no sympathy with the myrtles.\nAll _that_ which is so indispensable in Song is precisely all _that_\nwith which _she_ has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a\nflaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a\ntruth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be\nsimple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word,\nwe must be in that mood which, as nearly as possible, is the exact\nconverse of the poetical. _He_ must be blind indeed who does not\nperceive the radical and chasmal difference between the truthful and the\npoetical modes of inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption\nwho, in spite of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to\nreconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.\n\nDividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious\ndistinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral Sense. I\nplace Taste in the middle because it is just this position which in the\nmind it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either extreme; but\nfrom the Moral Sense is separated by so faint a difference that\nAristotle has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the\nvirtues themselves. Nevertheless we find the _offices_ of the trio\nmarked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the Intellect concerns\nitself with Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the Moral\nSense is regardful of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience teaches the\nobligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself with\ndisplaying the charms, waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of her\ndeformity, her disproportion, her animosity to the fitting, to the\nappropriate, to the harmonious, in a word, to Beauty.\n\nAn immortal instinct deep within the spirit of man is thus plainly a\nsense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in\nthe manifold forms, and sounds, and odors, and sentiments amid which he\nexists. And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the eyes of\nAmaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral or written repetition of\nthese forms, and sounds, and colors, and odors, and sentiments a\nduplicate source of delight. But this mere repetition is not poetry. He\nwho shall simply sing, with however glowing enthusiasm, or with however\nvivid a truth of description, of the sights, and sounds, and odors, and\ncolors, and sentiments which greet him in common with all mankind--he, I\nsay, has yet failed to prove his divine title. There is still a\nsomething in the distance which he has been unable to attain. We have\nstill a thirst unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the\ncrystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of man. It is at\nonce a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. It is\nthe desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the\nBeauty before us, but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired\nby an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle\nby multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time to\nattain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements perhaps\nappertain to eternity alone. And thus when by Poetry, or when by Music,\nthe most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find ourselves melted into\ntears, we weep then, not as the Abbate Gravina supposes, through excess\nof pleasure, but through a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our\ninability to grasp _now_, wholly, here on earth, at once and forever,\nthose divine and rapturous joys of which _through_ the poem, or\n_through_ the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses.\n\nThe struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness--this struggle, on the\npart of souls fittingly constituted--has given to the world all _that_\nwhich it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and _to\nfeel_ as poetic.\n\nThe Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various modes--in\nPainting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance--very especially\nin Music--and very peculiarly, and with a wide field, in the composition\nof the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has regard only to\nits manifestation in words. And here let me speak briefly on the topic\nof rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty that Music, in its\nvarious modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment in\nPoetry as never to be wisely rejected--is so vitally important an\nadjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not\nnow pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. It is in Music perhaps\nthat the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired\nby the poetic Sentiment, it struggles--the creation of supernal Beauty.\nIt _may_ be, indeed, that here this sublime end is, now and, then,\nattained in _fact._ We are often made to feel, with a shivering delight,\nthat from an earthly harp are stricken notes which _cannot_ have been\nunfamiliar to the angels. And thus there can be little doubt that in the\nunion of Poetry with Music in its popular sense, we shall find the\nwidest field for the Poetic development. The old Bards and Minnesingers\nhad advantages which we do not possess--and Thomas Moore, singing his\nown songs, was, in the most legitimate manner, perfecting them as poems.\n\nTo recapitulate then:--I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as\n_The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty._ Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the\nIntellect or with the Conscience it has only collateral relations.\nUnless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with Duty or with\nTruth.\n\nA few words, however, in explanation. _That_ pleasure which is at once\nthe most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, I\nmaintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the contemplation\nof Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable\nelevation, or excitement _of the soul_, which we recognize as the Poetic\nSentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from Truth, which is the\nsatisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of\nthe heart. I make Beauty, therefore--using the word as inclusive of the\nsublime--I make Beauty the province of the poem, simply because it is an\nobvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring as directly as\npossible from their causes:--no one as yet having been weak enough to\ndeny that the peculiar elevation in question is at least _most readily_\nattainable in the poem. It by no means follows, however, that the\nincitements of Passion, or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of\nTruth, may not be introduced into a poem, and with advantage; for they\nmay subserve incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the\nwork: but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in\nproper subjection to that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the real\nessence of the poem.\n\nI cannot better introduce the few poems which I shall present for your\nconsideration, than by the citation of the Pröem to Longfellow's \"Waif\":\n\n\n The day is done, and the darkness\n Falls from the wings of Night,\n As a feather is wafted downward\n From an eagle in his flight.\n\n I see the lights of the village\n Gleam through the rain and the mist,\n And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,\n That my soul cannot resist;\n\n A feeling of sadness and longing,\n That is not akin to pain,\n And resembles sorrow only\n As the mist resembles the rain.\n\n Come, read to me some poem,\n Some simple and heartfelt lay,\n That shall soothe this restless feeling,\n And banish the thoughts of day.\n\n Not from the grand old masters,\n Not from the bards sublime,\n Whose distant footsteps echo\n Through the corridors of Time.\n\n For, like strains of martial music,\n Their mighty thoughts suggest\n Life's endless toil and endeavor;\n And to-night I long for rest.\n\n Read from some humbler poet,\n Whose songs gushed from his heart,\n As showers from the clouds of summer,\n Or tears from the eyelids start;\n\n Who through long days of labor,\n And nights devoid of ease,\n Still heard in his soul the music\n Of wonderful melodies.\n\n Such songs have power to quiet\n The restless pulse of care,\n And come like the benediction\n That follows after prayer.\n\n Then read from the treasured volume\n The poem of thy choice,\n And lend to the rhyme of the poet\n The beauty of thy voice.\n\n And the night shall be filled with music,\n And the cares that infest the day,\n Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,\n And as silently steal away.\n\n\nWith no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly admired\nfor their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very effective.\nNothing can be better than\n\n\n --the bards sublime,\n Whose distant footsteps echo\n Down the corridors of Time.\n\n\nThe idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem on the\nwhole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful _insouciance_\nof its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the\nsentiments, and especially for the _ease_ of the general manner. This\n\"ease\" or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion\nto regard as ease in appearance alone--as a point of really difficult\nattainment. But not so:--a natural manner is difficult only to him who\nshould never meddle with it--to the unnatural. It is but the result of\nwriting with the understanding, or with the instinct, that _the tone_,\nin composition, should always be that which the mass of mankind would\nadopt--and must perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The\nauthor who, after the fashion of _The North American Review_, should be\nupon _all_ occasions merely \"quiet,\" must necessarily upon _many_\noccasions be simply silly, or stupid; and has no more right to be\nconsidered \"easy\" or \"natural\" than a Cockney exquisite, or than the\nsleeping Beauty in the waxworks.\n\nAmong the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the\none which he entitles \"June.\" I quote only a portion of it:\n\n\n There, through the long, long summer hours,\n The golden light should lie,\n And thick young herbs and groups of flowers\n Stand in their beauty by.\n The oriole should build and tell\n His love-tale, close beside my cell;\n The idle butterfly\n Should rest him there, and there be heard\n The housewife-bee and humming bird.\n\n And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,\n Come, from the village sent,\n Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,\n With fairy laughter blent?\n And what if, in the evening light,\n Betrothed lovers walk in sight\n Of my low monument?\n I would the lovely scene around\n Might know no sadder sight nor sound.\n\n I know, I know I should not see\n The season's glorious show,\n Nor would its brightness shine for me;\n Nor its wild music flow;\n\n But if, around my place of sleep,\n The friends I love should come to weep,\n They might not haste to go.\n Soft airs and song, and light and bloom,\n Should keep them lingering by my tomb.\n\n These to their soften'd hearts should bear\n The thought of what has been,\n And speak of one who cannot share\n The gladness of the scene;\n Whose part in all the pomp that fills\n The circuit of the summer hills,\n Is--that his grave is green;\n And deeply would their hearts rejoice\n To hear again his living voice.\n\n\nThe rhythmical flow here is even voluptuous--nothing could be more\nmelodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The\nintense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of\nall the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to\nthe soul--while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The\nimpression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. And if, in the\nremaining compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or\nless of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or\nwhy we know not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected\nwith all the higher manifestations of true Beauty. It is, nevertheless,\n\n\n A feeling of sadness and longing\n That is not akin to pain,\n And resembles sorrow only\n As the mist resembles the rain.\n\n\nThe taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so full\nof brilliancy and spirit as \"The Health\" of Edward Coote Pinkney:\n\n\n I fill this cup to one made up\n Of loveliness alone,\n A woman, of her gentle sex\n The seeming paragon;\n To whom the better elements\n And kindly stars have given\n A form so fair, that like the air,\n 'Tis less of earth than heaven.\n\n Her every tone is music's own,\n Like those of morning birds,\n And something more than melody\n Dwells ever in her words;\n The coinage of her heart are they,\n And from her lips each flows\n As one may see the burden'd bee\n Forth issue from the rose.\n\n Affections are as thoughts to her,\n The measures of her hours;\n Her feelings have the fragrancy,\n The freshness of young flowers;\n And lovely passions, changing oft,\n So fill her, she appears\n The image of themselves by turns,--\n The idol of past years!\n\n Of her bright face one glance will trace\n A picture on the brain,\n And of her voice in echoing hearts\n A sound must long remain;\n But memory, such as mine of her,\n So very much endears,\n When death is nigh my latest sigh\n Will not be life's, but hers.\n\n I fill'd this cup to one made up\n Of loveliness alone,\n A woman, of her gentle sex\n The seeming paragon--\n Her health! and would on earth there stood,\n Some more of such a frame,\n That life might be all poetry,\n And weariness a name.\n\n\nIt was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have been born too far south.\nHad he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been\nranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which\nhas so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting\nthe thing called 'The North American Review'. The poem just cited is\nespecially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must\nrefer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We pardon his\nhyperboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered.\n\nIt was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the _merits_\nof what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves.\nBoccalina, in his 'Advertisements from Parnassus', tells us that Zoilus\nonce presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable\nbook:--whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He\nreplied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this,\nApollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out _all\nthe chaff_ for his reward.\n\nNow this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics--but I am by no\nmeans sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that\nthe true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood.\nExcellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an\naxiom, which need only be properly _put_, to become self-evident. It is\n_not_ excellence if it require to be demonstrated its such:--and thus to\npoint out too particularly the merits of a work of Art, is to admit that\nthey are _not_ merits altogether.\n\nAmong the \"Melodies\" of Thomas Moore is one whose distinguished\ncharacter as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of\nview. I allude to his lines beginning--\"Come, rest in this bosom.\" The\nintense energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in\nByron. There are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that\nembodies the _all in all_ of the divine passion of Love--a sentiment\nwhich, perhaps, has found its echo in more, and in more passionate,\nhuman hearts that any other single sentiment ever embodied in words:\n\n\n Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer,\n Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;\n Here still is the smile, that no cloud can o'ercast,\n And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.\n\n Oh! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same\n Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?\n I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,\n I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.\n\n Thou hast call'd me thy Angel in moments of bliss,\n And thy Angel I'll be,'mid the horrors of this,--\n Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,\n And shield thee, and save thee,--or perish there too!\n\n\nIt has been the fashion of late days to deny Moore Imagination, while\ngranting him Fancy--a distinction originating with Coleridge--than whom\nno man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact is,\nthat the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other\nfaculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, very\nnaturally, the idea that he is fanciful _only._ But never was there a\ngreater mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet.\nIn the compass of the English language I can call to mind no poem more\nprofoundly--more weirdly _imaginative,_ in the best sense, than the\nlines commencing--\"I would I were by that dim lake\"--which are the\ncomposition of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to remember them.\n\nOne of the noblest--and, speaking of Fancy--one of the most singularly\nfanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His \"Fair Ines\" had always\nfor me an inexpressible charm:\n\n\n O saw ye not fair Ines?\n She's gone into the West,\n To dazzle when the sun is down\n And rob the world of rest\n She took our daylight with her,\n The smiles that we love best,\n With morning blushes on her cheek,\n And pearls upon her breast.\n\n O turn again, fair Ines,\n Before the fall of night,\n For fear the moon should shine alone,\n And stars unrivall'd bright;\n And blessed will the lover be\n That walks beneath their light,\n And breathes the love against thy cheek\n I dare not even write!\n\n Would I had been, fair Ines,\n That gallant cavalier,\n Who rode so gaily by thy side,\n And whisper'd thee so near!\n Were there no bonny dames at home,\n Or no true lovers here,\n That he should cross the seas to win\n The dearest of the dear?\n\n I saw thee, lovely Ines,\n Descend along the shore,\n With bands of noble gentlemen,\n And banners-waved before;\n And gentle youth and maidens gay,\n And snowy plumes they wore;\n It would have been a beauteous dream,\n If it had been no more!\n\n Alas, alas, fair Ines,\n She went away with song,\n With Music waiting on her steps,\n And shoutings of the throng;\n But some were sad and felt no mirth,\n But only Music's wrong,\n In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell,\n To her you've loved so long.\n\n Farewell, farewell, fair Ines,\n That vessel never bore\n So fair a lady on its deck,\n Nor danced so light before,--\n Alas for pleasure on the sea,\n And sorrow on the shore!\n The smile that blest one lover's heart\n Has broken many more!\n\n\n\"The Haunted House,\" by the same author, is one of the truest poems ever\nwritten,--one of the truest, one of the most unexceptionable, one of the\nmost thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and in its execution. It is,\nmoreover, powerfully ideal--imaginative. I regret that its length\nrenders it unsuitable for the purposes of this lecture. In place of it\npermit me to offer the universally appreciated \"Bridge of Sighs:\"\n\n\n One more Unfortunate,\n Weary of breath,\n Rashly importunate\n Gone to her death!\n\n Take her up tenderly,\n Lift her with care;--\n Fashion'd so slenderly,\n Young and so fair!\n\n Look at her garments\n Clinging like cerements;\n Whilst the wave constantly\n Drips from her clothing;\n Take her up instantly,\n Loving, not loathing.\n\n Touch her not scornfully\n Think of her mournfully,\n Gently and humanly;\n Not of the stains of her,\n All that remains of her\n Now is pure womanly.\n\n Make no deep scrutiny\n Into her mutiny\n Rash and undutiful;\n Past all dishonor,\n Death has left on her\n Only the beautiful.\n\n Where the lamps quiver\n So far in the river,\n With many a light\n From window and casement,\n From garret to basement,\n She stood, with amazement,\n Houseless by night.\n\n The bleak wind of March\n Made her tremble and shiver;\n But not the dark arch,\n Or the black flowing river:\n Mad from life's history,\n Glad to death's mystery,\n Swift to be hurl'd--\n Anywhere, anywhere\n Out of the world!\n\n In she plunged boldly,\n No matter how coldly\n The rough river ran,--\n Over the brink of it,\n Picture it,--think of it,\n Dissolute Man!\n Lave in it, drink of it\n Then, if you can!\n\n Still, for all slips of hers,\n One of Eve's family--\n Wipe those poor lips of hers\n Oozing so clammily,\n Loop up her tresses\n Escaped from the comb,\n Her fair auburn tresses;\n Whilst wonderment guesses\n Where was her home?\n\n Who was her father?\n Who was her mother!\n Had she a sister?\n Had she a brother?\n Or was there a dearer one\n Still, and a nearer one\n Yet, than all other?\n\n Alas! for the rarity\n Of Christian charity\n Under the sun!\n Oh! it was pitiful!\n Near a whole city full,\n Home she had none.\n\n Sisterly, brotherly,\n Fatherly, motherly,\n Feelings had changed:\n Love, by harsh evidence,\n Thrown from its eminence;\n Even God's providence\n Seeming estranged.\n\n Take her up tenderly;\n Lift her with care;\n Fashion'd so slenderly,\n Young, and so fair!\n Ere her limbs frigidly\n Stiffen too rigidly,\n Decently,--kindly,--\n Smooth and compose them;\n And her eyes, close them,\n Staring so blindly!\n\n Dreadfully staring\n Through muddy impurity,\n As when with the daring\n Last look of despairing\n Fixed on futurity.\n\n Perishing gloomily,\n Spurred by contumely,\n Cold inhumanity,\n Burning insanity,\n Into her rest,--\n Cross her hands humbly,\n As if praying dumbly,\n Over her breast!\n Owning her weakness,\n Her evil behavior,\n And leaving, with meekness,\n Her sins to her Saviour!\n\n\nThe vigor of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The\nversification, although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the\nfantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which\nis the thesis of the poem.\n\nAmong the minor poems of Lord Byron is one which has never received from\nthe critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves:\n\n\n Though the day of my destiny's over,\n And the star of my fate hath declined,\n Thy soft heart refused to discover\n The faults which so many could find;\n Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,\n It shrunk not to share it with me,\n And the love which my spirit hath painted\n It never hath found but in _thee._\n\n Then when nature around me is smiling,\n The last smile which answers to mine,\n I do not believe it beguiling,\n Because it reminds me of thine;\n And when winds are at war with the ocean,\n As the breasts I believed in with me,\n If their billows excite an emotion,\n It is that they bear me from _thee._\n\n Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,\n And its fragments are sunk in the wave,\n Though I feel that my soul is delivered\n To pain--it shall not be its slave.\n There is many a pang to pursue me:\n They may crush, but they shall not contemn--\n They may torture, but shall not subdue me--\n 'Tis of _thee_ that I think--not of them.\n\n Though human, thou didst not deceive me,\n Though woman, thou didst not forsake,\n Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,\n Though slandered, thou never couldst shake,--\n Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,\n Though parted, it was not to fly,\n Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,\n Nor mute, that the world might belie.\n\n Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,\n Nor the war of the many with one--\n If my soul was not fitted to prize it,\n 'Twas folly not sooner to shun:\n And if dearly that error hath cost me,\n And more than I once could foresee,\n I have found that whatever it lost me,\n It could not deprive me of _thee_.\n\n From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,\n Thus much I at least may recall,\n It hath taught me that which I most cherished\n Deserved to be dearest of all:\n In the desert a fountain is springing,\n In the wide waste there still is a tree,\n And a bird in the solitude singing,\n Which speaks to my spirit of _thee_.\n\n\nAlthough the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the versification\ncould scarcely be improved. No nobler theme ever engaged the pen of\npoet. It is the soul-elevating idea that no man can consider himself\nentitled to complain of Fate while in his adversity he still retains the\nunwavering love of woman.\n\nFrom Alfred Tennyson, although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the\nnoblest poet that ever lived, I have left myself time to cite only a\nvery brief specimen. I call him, and _think_ him the noblest of poets,\n_not_ because the impressions he produces are at _all_ times the most\nprofound--_not_ because the poetical excitement which he induces is at\n_all_ times the most intense--but because it is at all times the most\nethereal--in other words, the most elevating and most pure. No poet is\nso little of the earth, earthy. What I am about to read is from his last\nlong poem, \"The Princess:\"\n\n\n Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,\n Tears from the depth of some divine despair\n Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,\n In looking on the happy Autumn fields,\n And thinking of the days that are no more.\n\n Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,\n That brings our friends up from the underworld,\n Sad as the last which reddens over one\n That sinks with all we love below the verge;\n So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.\n\n Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns\n The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds\n To dying ears, when unto dying eyes\n The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;\n So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.\n\n Dear as remember'd kisses after death,\n And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd\n On lips that are for others; deep as love,\n Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;\n O Death in Life, the days that are no more.\n\n\nThus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavored\nto convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has been my\npurpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is strictly and\nsimply the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation of\nthe Principle is always found in _an elevating excitement of the soul_,\nquite independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the\nHeart, or of that truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason. For in\nregard to passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade rather than to\nelevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary--Love--the true, the divine\nEros--the Uranian as distinguished from the Dionasan Venus--is\nunquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in\nregard to Truth, if, to be sure, through the attainment of a truth we\nare led to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before, we\nexperience at once the true poetical effect; but this effect is\nreferable to the harmony alone, and not in the least degree to the truth\nwhich merely served to render the harmony manifest.\n\nWe shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception of what\ntrue Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple elements which\ninduce in the Poet himself the true poetical effect. He recognizes the\nambrosia which nourishes his soul in the bright orbs that shine in\nHeaven, in the volutes of the flower, in the clustering of low\nshrubberies, in the waving of the grain-fields, in the slanting of tall\neastern trees, in the blue distance of mountains, in the grouping of\nclouds, in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks, in the gleaming of\nsilver rivers, in the repose of sequestered lakes, in the star-mirroring\ndepths of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of birds, in the\nharp of Æolus, in the sighing of the night-wind, in the repining voice\nof the forest, in the surf that complains to the shore, in the fresh\nbreath of the woods, in the scent of the violet, in the voluptuous\nperfume of the hyacinth, in the suggestive odor that comes to him at\neventide from far-distant undiscovered islands, over dim oceans,\nillimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts, in all\nunworldly motives, in all holy impulses, in all chivalrous, generous,\nand self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman, in the\ngrace of her step, in the lustre of her eye, in the melody of her voice,\nin her soft laughter, in her sigh, in the harmony of the rustling of her\nrobes. He deeply feels it in her winning endearments, in her burning\nenthusiasms, in her gentle charities, in her meek and devotional\nendurance, but above all, ah, far above all, he kneels to it, he\nworships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength, in the\naltogether divine majesty of her _love._\n\nLet me conclude by the recitation of yet another brief poem, one very\ndifferent in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by\nMotherwell, and is called \"The Song of the Cavalier.\" With our modern\nand altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare,\nwe are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize\nwith the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence of the\npoem. To do this fully we must identify ourselves in fancy with the soul\nof the old cavalier:\n\n\n A steed! a steed! of matchless speede!\n A sword of metal keene!\n Al else to noble heartes is drosse--\n Al else on earth is meane.\n The neighynge of the war-horse prowde.\n The rowleing of the drum,\n The clangor of the trumpet lowde--\n Be soundes from heaven that come.\n And oh! the thundering presse of knightes,\n When as their war-cryes welle,\n May tole from heaven an angel bright,\n And rowse a fiend from hell,\n\n Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants all,\n And don your helmes amaine,\n Deathe's couriers, Fame and Honor, call\n Us to the field againe.\n No shrewish teares shall fill your eye\n When the sword-hilt's in our hand,--\n Heart-whole we'll part, and no whit sighe\n For the fayrest of the land;\n Let piping swaine, and craven wight,\n Thus weepe and puling crye,\n Our business is like men to fight,\n And hero-like to die!\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "The Philosophy Of Composition.", + "body": "Charles Dickens, in a note now lying before me, alluding to an\nexamination I once made of the mechanism of _Barnaby Rudge_, says--\"By\nthe way, are you aware that Godwin wrote his _Caleb Williams_ backwards?\nHe first involved his hero in a web of difficulties, forming the second\nvolume, and then, for the first, cast about him for some mode of\naccounting for what had been done.\"\n\nI cannot think this the _precise_ mode of procedure on the part of\nGodwin--and indeed what he himself acknowledges is not altogether in\naccordance with Mr. Dickens's idea--but the author of _Caleb Williams_\nwas too good an artist not to perceive the advantage derivable from at\nleast a somewhat similar process. Nothing is more clear than that every\nplot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its _dénouement_ before\nanything be attempted with the pen. It is only with the _dénouement_\nconstantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of\nconsequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the\ntone at all points, tend to the development of the intention.\n\nThere is a radical error, I think, in the usual mode of constructing a\nstory. Either history affords a thesis--or one is suggested by an\nincident of the day--or, at best, the author sets himself to work in the\ncombination of striking events to form merely the basis of his\nnarrative---designing, generally, to fill in with description, dialogue,\nor autorial comment, whatever crevices of fact or action may, from page\nto page, render themselves apparent.\n\nI prefer commencing with the consideration of an _effect._ Keeping\noriginality _always_ in view--for he is false to himself who ventures to\ndispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of\ninterest--I say to myself, in the first place, \"Of the innumerable\neffects or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or (more\ngenerally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present\noccasion, select?\" Having chosen a novel first, and secondly, a vivid\neffect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or\ntone--whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse,\nor by peculiarity both of incident and tone--afterwards looking about me\n(or rather within) for such combinations of events or tone as shall best\naid me in the construction of the effect.\n\nI have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written\nby any author who would--that is to say, who could--detail, step by\nstep, the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its\nultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to\nthe world, I am much at a loss to say--but perhaps the autorial vanity\nhas had more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most\nwriters--poets in especial--prefer having it understood that they\ncompose by a species of fine frenzy--an ecstatic intuition--and would\npositively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes,\nat the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought--at the true\npurposes seized only at the last moment--at the innumerable glimpses of\nidea that arrived not at the maturity of full view--at the fully-matured\nfancies discarded in despair as unmanageable--at the cautious selections\nand rejections--at the painful erasures and interpolations,--in a word,\nat the wheels and pinions, the tackle for scene-shifting, the\nstep-ladders and demon-traps, the cock's feathers, the red paint, and\nthe black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred,\nconstitute the properties of the literary _histrio._\n\nI am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common, in\nwhich an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his\nconclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen\npell-mell, are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner.\n\nFor my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to,\nnor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the\nprogressive steps of any of my compositions; and, since the interest of\nan analysis, or reconstruction, such as I have considered a\n_desideratum_, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in\nthe thing analyzed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my\npart to show the _modus operandi_ by which some one of my own works was\nput together. I select \"The Raven\" as most generally known. It is my\ndesign to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is\nreferrible either to accident or intuition--that the work proceeded,\nstep by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence\nof a mathematical problem.\n\nLet us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem, _per se_, the\ncircumstance--or say the necessity--which, in the first place, gave rise\nto the intention of composing _a_ poem that should suit at once the\npopular and the critical taste.\n\nWe commence, then, with this intention.\n\nThe initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is\ntoo long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with\nthe immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression--for,\nif two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and\neverything like totality is at once destroyed. But since, _ceteris\nparibus_, no poet can afford to dispense with _anything_ that may\nadvance his design, it but remains to be seen whether there is, in\nextent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends\nit. Here I say no, at once. What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely\na succession of brief ones--that is to say, of brief poetical effects.\nIt is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such only inasmuch as it\nintensely excites, by elevating the soul; and all intense excitements\nare, through a psychal necessity, brief. For this reason, at least\none-half of the \"Paradise Lost\" is essentially prose--a succession of\npoetical excitements interspersed, _inevitably_, with corresponding\ndepressions--the whole being deprived, through the extremeness of its\nlength, of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity of\neffect.\n\nIt appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards\nlength, to all works of literary art--the limit of a single sitting--and\nthat, although in certain classes of prose composition, such as\n_Robinson Crusoe_ (demanding no unity), this limit may be advantageously\noverpassed, it can never properly be overpassed in a poem. Within this\nlimit, the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to\nits merit--in other words, to the excitement or elevation--again, in\nother words, to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is\ncapable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct\nratio of the intensity of the intended effect--this, with one\nproviso--that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for\nthe production of any effect at all.\n\nHolding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of\nexcitement which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the\ncritical taste, I reached at once what I conceived the proper _length_\nfor my intended poem--a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in\nfact, a hundred and eight.\n\nMy next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be\nconveyed: and here I may as well observe that, throughout the\nconstruction, I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work\n_universally_ appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my\nimmediate topic were I to demonstrate a point upon which I have\nrepeatedly insisted, and which, with the poetical, stands not in the\nslightest need of demonstration--the point, I mean, that Beauty is the\nsole legitimate province of the poem. A few words, however, in\nelucidation of my real meaning, which some of my friends have evinced a\ndisposition to misrepresent. That pleasure which is at once the most\nintense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in\nthe contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty,\nthey mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect--they\nrefer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of _soul_\n--_not_ of intellect, or of heart--upon which I have commented, and\nwhich is experienced in consequence of contemplating \"the beautiful.\"\nNow I designate Beauty as the province of the poem, merely because it is\nan obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring from direct\ncauses--that objects should be attained through means best adapted for\ntheir attainment--no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the\npeculiar elevation alluded to is _most readily_ attained in the poem.\nNow the object Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the\nobject Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable\nto a certain extent in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose.\nTruth, in fact, demands a precision, and Passion a _homeliness_ (the\ntruly passionate will comprehend me) which are absolutely antagonistic\nto that Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement, or pleasurable\nelevation, of the soul. It by no means follows from anything here said\nthat passion, or even truth, may not be introduced, and even profitably\nintroduced, into a poem--for they may serve in elucidation, or aid the\ngeneral effect, as do discords in music, by contrast--but the true\nartist will always contrive, first, to tone them into proper\nsubservience to the predominant aim, and secondly, to enveil them, as\nfar as possible, in that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the essence\nof the poem.\n\nRegarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question referred to the\n_tone_ of its highest manifestation--and all experience has shown that\nthis tone is one of _sadness_. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme\ndevelopment, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy\nis thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.\n\nThe length, the province, and the tone being thus determined, I betook\nmyself to ordinary induction, with the view of obtaining some artistic\npiquancy which might serve me as a key-note in the construction of the\npoem--some pivot upon which the whole structure might turn. In carefully\nthinking over all the usual artistic effects--or more properly _points_,\nin the theatrical sense--I did not fail to perceive immediately that no\none had been so universally employed as that of the _refrain_. The\nuniversality of its employment sufficed to assure me of its intrinsic\nvalue, and spared me the necessity of submitting it to analysis. I\nconsidered it, however, with regard to its susceptibility of\nimprovement, and soon saw it to be in a primitive condition. As commonly\nused, the _refrain_, or burden, not only is limited to lyric verse, but\ndepends for its impression upon the force of monotone--both in sound and\nthought. The pleasure is deduced solely from the sense of identity--of\nrepetition. I resolved to diversify, and so heighten the effect, by\nadhering in general to the monotone of sound, while I continually varied\nthat of thought: that is to say, I determined to produce continuously\nnovel effects, by the variation _of the application_ of the\n_refrain_--the _refrain_ itself remaining, for the most part, unvaried.\n\nThese points being settled, I next bethought me of the _nature_ of my\n_refrain_. Since its application was to be repeatedly varied, it was\nclear that the _refrain_ itself must be brief, for there would have been\nan insurmountable difficulty in frequent variations of application in\nany sentence of length. In proportion to the brevity of the sentence\nwould of course be the facility of the variation. This led me at once to\na single word as the best _refrain_.\n\nThe question now arose as to the _character_ of the word. Having made up\nmy mind to a _refrain_, the division of the poem into stanzas was of\ncourse a corollary, the _refrain_ forming the close to each stanza. That\nsuch a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of\nprotracted emphasis, admitted no doubt, and these considerations\ninevitably led me to the long _o_ as the most sonorous vowel in\nconnection with _r_ as the most producible consonant.\n\nThe sound of the _refrain_ being thus determined, it became necessary to\nselect a word embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest\npossible keeping with that melancholy which I had predetermined as the\ntone of the poem. In such a search it would have been absolutely\nimpossible to overlook the word \"Nevermore.\" In fact, it was the very\nfirst which presented itself.\n\nThe next _desideratum_ was a pretext for the continuous use of the one\nword \"nevermore.\" In observing the difficulty which I at once found in\ninventing a sufficiently plausible reason for its continuous repetition,\nI did not fail to perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the\npre-assumption that the word was to be so continuously or monotonously\nspoken by a _human_ being--I did not fail to perceive, in short, that\nthe difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the\nexercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here,\nthen, immediately arose the idea of a _non_-reasoning creature capable\nof speech; and very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance,\nsuggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a Raven as equally\ncapable of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with the intended\n_tone_.\n\nI had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven, the bird of\nill-omen, monotonously repeating the one word \"Nevermore\" at the\nconclusion of each stanza in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length\nabout one hundred lines. Now, never losing sight of the object\n_supremeness_ or perfection at all points, I asked myself--\"Of all\nmelancholy topics what, according to the _universal_ understanding of\nmankind, is the _most_ melancholy?\" Death, was the obvious reply. \"And\nwhen,\" I said, \"is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?\" From\nwhat I have already explained at some length, the answer here also is\nobvious--\"When it most closely allies itself to _Beauty_; the death,\nthen, of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in\nthe world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for\nsuch topic are those of a bereaved lover.\"\n\nI had now to combine the two ideas of a lover lamenting his deceased\nmistress and a Raven continuously repeating the word \"Nevermore.\" I had\nto combine these, bearing in mind my design of varying at every turn the\n_application_ of the word repeated, but the only intelligible mode of\nsuch combination is that of imagining the Raven employing the word in\nanswer to the queries of the lover. And here it was that I saw at once\nthe opportunity afforded for the effect on which I had been depending,\nthat is to say, the effect of the _variation of application_. I saw that\nI could make the first query propounded by the lover--the first query to\nwhich the Raven should reply \"Nevermore\"--that I could make this first\nquery a commonplace one, the second less so, the third still less, and\nso on, until at length the lover, startled from his original\n_nonchalance_ by the melancholy character of the word itself, by its\nfrequent repetition, and by a consideration of the ominous reputation of\nthe fowl that uttered it, is at length excited to superstition, and\nwildly propounds queries of a far different character--queries whose\nsolution he has passionately at heart--propounds them half in\nsuperstition and half in that species of despair which delights in\nself-torture--propounds them not altogether because he believes in the\nprophetic or demoniac character of the bird (which reason assures him is\nmerely repeating a lesson learned by rote), but because he experiences a\nfrenzied pleasure in so modelling his questions as to receive from the\n_expected_ \"Nevermore\" the most delicious because the most intolerable\nof sorrow. Perceiving the opportunity thus afforded me, or, more\nstrictly, thus forced upon me in the progress of the construction, I\nfirst established in mind the climax or concluding query--that query to\nwhich \"Nevermore\" should be in the last place an answer--that query in\nreply to which this word \"Nevermore\" should involve the utmost\nconceivable amount of sorrow and despair.\n\nHere then the poem may be said to have its beginning, at the end where\nall works of art should begin; for it was here at this point of my\npreconsiderations that I first put pen to paper in the composition of\nthe stanza:\n\n\n \"Prophet,\" said I, \"thing of evil! prophet still if bird or devil!\n By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore,\n Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aidenn,\n It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--\n Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.\"\n Quoth the Raven, \"Nevermore.\"\n\n\nI composed this stanza, at this point, first that, by establishing the\nclimax, I might the better vary and graduate, as regards seriousness,\nand importance the preceding queries of the lover, and secondly, that I\nmight definitely settle the rhythm, the metre, and the length and\ngeneral arrangement of the stanza, as well as graduate the stanzas which\nwere to precede, so that none of them might surpass this in rhythmical\neffect. Had I been able in the subsequent composition to construct more\nvigorous stanzas, I should without scruple have purposely enfeebled them\nso as not to interfere with the climacteric effect.\n\nAnd here I may as well say a few words of the versification. My first\nobject (as usual) was originality. The extent to which this has been\nneglected in versification is one of the most unaccountable things in\nthe world. Admitting that there is little possibility of variety in mere\n_rhythm_, it is still clear that the possible varieties of metre and\nstanza are absolutely infinite; and yet, for _centuries, no man, in\nverse has ever done, or ever seemed to think of doing, an original\nthing_. The fact is that originality (unless in minds of very unusual\nforce) is by no means a matter, as some suppose, of impulse or\nintuition. In general, to be found, it must be elaborately sought and,\nalthough a positive merit of the highest class, demands in its\nattainment less of invention than negation.\n\nOf course I pretend to no originality in either the rhythm or metre of\nthe \"Raven.\" The former is trochaic--the latter is octametre\nacatalectic, alternating with heptametre catalectic repeated in the\n_refrain_ of the fifth verse, and terminating with tetrametre\ncatalectic. Less pedantically, the feet employed throughout (trochees)\nconsists of a long syllable followed by a short; the first line of the\nstanza consists of eight of these feet, the second of seven and a half\n(in effect two-thirds), the third of eight, the fourth of seven and a\nhalf, the fifth the same, the sixth three and a half. Now, each of these\nlines taken individually has been employed before, and what originality\nthe \"Raven\" has, is in their _combinations into stanzas;_ nothing even\nremotely approaching this combination has ever been attempted. The\neffect of this originality of combination is aided by other unusual and\nsome altogether novel effects, arising from an extension of the\napplication of the principles of rhyme and alliteration.\n\nThe next point to be considered was the mode of bringing together the\nlover and the Raven--and the first branch of this consideration was the\n_locale_. For this the most natural suggestion might seem to be a\nforest, or the fields--but it has always appeared to me that a close\n_circumscription of space_ is absolutely necessary to the effect of\ninsulated incident--it has the force of a frame to a picture. It has an\nindisputable moral power in keeping concentrated the attention, and, of\ncourse, must not be confounded with mere unity of place.\n\nI determined, then, to place the lover in his chamber--in a chamber\nrendered sacred to him by memories of her who had frequented it. The\nroom is represented as richly furnished--this in mere pursuance of the\nideas I have already explained on the subject of Beauty, as the sole\ntrue poetical thesis.\n\nThe _locale_ being thus determined, I had now to introduce the bird--and\nthe thought of introducing him through the window was inevitable. The\nidea of making the lover suppose, in the first instance, that the\nflapping of the wings of the bird against the shutter, is a \"tapping\" at\nthe door, originated in a wish to increase, by prolonging, the reader's\ncuriosity, and in a desire to admit the incidental effect arising from\nthe lover's throwing open the door, finding all dark, and thence\nadopting the half-fancy that it was the spirit of his mistress that\nknocked.\n\nI made the night tempestuous, first to account for the Raven's seeking\nadmission, and secondly, for the effect of contrast with the (physical)\nserenity within the chamber.\n\nI made the bird alight on the bust of Pallas, also for the effect of\ncontrast between the marble and the plumage--it being understood that\nthe bust was absolutely _suggested_ by the bird--the bust of _Pallas_\nbeing chosen, first, as most in keeping with the scholarship of the\nlover, and, secondly, for the sonorousness of the word, Pallas, itself.\n\nAbout the middle of the poem, also, I have availed myself of the force\nof contrast, with a view of deepening the ultimate impression. For\nexample, an air of the fantastic--approaching as nearly to the ludicrous\nas was admissible--is given to the Raven's entrance. He comes in \"with\nmany a flirt and flutter.\"\n\n\n Not the _least obeisance made he_--not a moment stopped or stayed he,\n _But with mien of lord or lady_, perched above my chamber door.\n\n\nIn the two stanzas which follow, the design is more obviously carried\nout:\n\n\n Then this ebony bird beguiling my _sad fancy_ into smiling\n By the _grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore_,\n \"Though thy _crest be shorn and shaven_, thou,\" I said, \"art sure no\n craven,\n Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the nightly shore--\n Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore?\"\n Quoth the Raven, \"Nevermore.\"\n\n Much I marvelled _this ungainly fowl_ to hear discourse so plainly,\n Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;\n For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being\n _Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door--\n Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door_,\n With such name as \"Nevermore.\"\n\n\nThe effect of the dénouement being thus provided for, I immediately drop\nthe fantastic for a tone of the most profound seriousness--this tone\ncommencing in the stanza directly following the one last quoted, with\nthe line,\n\n\n But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only, etc.\n\n\nFrom this epoch the lover no longer jests--no longer sees anything even\nof the fantastic in the Raven's demeanor. He speaks of him as a \"grim,\nungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore,\" and feels the\n\"fiery eyes\" burning into his \"bosom's core.\" This revolution of\nthought, or fancy, on the lover's part, is intended to induce a similar\none on the part of the reader--to bring the mind into a proper frame for\nthe _dénouement_--which is now brought about as rapidly and as\n_directly_ as possible.\n\nWith the _dénouement_ proper--with the Raven's reply, \"Nevermore,\" to\nthe lover's final demand if he shall meet his mistress in another\nworld--the poem, in its obvious phase, that of a simple narrative, may\nbe said to have its completion. So far, everything is within the limits\nof the accountable--of the real. A raven having learned by rote the\nsingle word \"Nevermore,\" and having escaped from the custody of its\nowner, is driven at midnight, through the violence of a storm, to seek\nadmission at a window from which a light still gleams--the\nchamber-window of a student, occupied half in pouring over a volume,\nhalf in dreaming of a beloved mistress deceased. The casement being\nthrown open at the fluttering of the bird's wings, the bird itself\nperches on the most convenient seat out of the immediate reach of the\nstudent, who, amused by the incident and the oddity of the visitor's\ndemeanor, demands of it, in jest and with out looking for a reply, its\nname. The Raven addressed, answers with its customary word,\n\"Nevermore\"--a word which finds immediate echo in the melancholy heart\nof the student, who, giving utterance aloud to certain thoughts\nsuggested by the occasion, is again startled by the fowl's repetition of\n\"Nevermore.\" The student now guesses the state of the case, but is\nimpelled, as I have before explained, by the human thirst for\nself-torture, and in part by superstition, to propound such queries to\nthe bird as will bring him, the lover, the most of the luxury of sorrow\nthrough the anticipated answer \"Nevermore.\" With the indulgence, to the\nextreme, of this self-torture, the narration, in what I have termed its\nfirst or obvious phase, has a natural termination, and so far there has\nbeen no overstepping of the limits of the real.\n\nBut in subjects so handled, however skilfully, or with however vivid an\narray of incident, there is always a certain hardness or nakedness which\nrepels the artistical eye. Two things are invariably required--first,\nsome amount of complexity, or more properly, adaptation; and, secondly,\nsome amount of suggestiveness, some undercurrent, however indefinite of\nmeaning. It is this latter, in especial, which imparts to a work of art\nso much of that _richness_ (to borrow from colloquy a forcible term)\nwhich we are too fond of confounding with _the ideal_. It is the\n_excess_ of the suggested meaning--it is the rendering this the upper\ninstead of the under current of theme--which turns into prose (and that\nof the very flattest kind) the so-called poetry of the so-called\ntranscendentalists.\n\nHolding these opinions, I added the two concluding stanzas of the\npoem--their suggestiveness being thus made to pervade all the narrative\nwhich has preceded them. The undercurrent of meaning is rendered first\napparent in the lines:\n\n\n \"Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!\"\n Quoth the Raven, \"Nevermore!\"\n\n\nIt will be observed that the words, \"from out my heart,\" involve the\nfirst metaphorical expression in the poem. They, with the answer,\n\"Nevermore,\" dispose the mind to seek a moral in all that has been\npreviously narrated. The reader begins now to regard the Raven as\nemblematical--but it is not until the very last line of the very last\nstanza, that the intention of making him emblematical of _Mournful and\nnever-ending Remembrance_ is permitted distinctly to be seen:\n\n\n And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting\n On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;\n And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,\n And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;\n And my soul _from out that shadow_ that lies floating on the floor\n Shall be lifted--nevermore!\n\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + }, + { + "title": "Old English Poetry. [1]", + "body": "It should not be doubted that at least one-third of the affection with\nwhich we regard the elder poets of Great Britain should be attributed to\nwhat is, in itself, a thing apart from poetry--we mean to the simple\nlove of the antique--and that, again, a third of even the proper _poetic\nsentiment_ inspired by their writings, should be ascribed to a fact\nwhich, while it has strict connection with poetry in the abstract, and\nwith the old British poems themselves, should not be looked upon as a\nmerit appertaining to the authors of the poems. Almost every devout\nadmirer of the old bards, if demanded his opinion of their productions,\nwould mention vaguely, yet with perfect sincerity, a sense of dreamy,\nwild, indefinite, and he would perhaps say, indefinable delight; on\nbeing required to point out the source of this so shadowy pleasure, he\nwould be apt to speak of the quaint in phraseology and in general\nhandling. This quaintness is, in fact, a very powerful adjunct to\nideality, but in the case in question it arises independently of the\nauthor's will, and is altogether apart from his intention. Words and\ntheir rhythm have varied. Verses which affect us to-day with a vivid\ndelight, and which delight, in many instances, may be traced to the one\nsource, quaintness, must have worn in the days of their construction a\nvery commonplace air. This is, of course, no argument against the poems\n_now_--we mean it only as against the poets _then_. There is a growing\ndesire to overrate them. The old English muse was frank, guileless,\nsincere and although very learned, still learned without art. No general\nerror evinces a more thorough confusion of ideas than the error of\nsupposing Donne and Cowley metaphysical in the sense wherein Wordsworth\nand Coleridge are so. With the two former ethics were the end--with the\ntwo latter the means. The poet of the \"Creation\" wished, by highly\nartificial verse, to inculcate what he supposed to be moral truth--the\npoet of the \"Ancient Mariner\" to infuse the Poetic Sentiment through\nchannels suggested by analysis. The one finished by complete failure\nwhat he commenced in the grossest misconception; the other, by a path\nwhich could not possibly lead him astray, arrived at a triumph which is\nnot the less glorious because hidden from the profane eyes of the\nmultitude. But in this view even the \"metaphysical verse\" of Cowley is\nbut evidence of the simplicity and single-heartedness of the man. And he\nwas in this but a type of his _school_--for we may as well designate in\nthis way the entire class of writers whose poems are bound up in the\nvolume before us, and throughout all of whom there runs a very\nperceptible general character. They used little art in composition.\nTheir writings sprang immediately from the soul--and partook intensely\nof that soul's nature. Nor is it difficult to perceive the tendency of\nthis _abandon_--to elevate immeasurably all the energies of mind--but,\nagain, so to mingle the greatest possible fire, force, delicacy, and all\ngood things, with the lowest possible bathos, baldness, and imbecility,\nas to render it not a matter of doubt that the average results of mind\nin such a school will be found inferior to those results in one\n(_ceteris paribus_) more artificial.\n\nWe cannot bring ourselves to believe that the selections of the \"Book of\nGems\" are such as will impart to a poetical reader the clearest possible\nidea of the beauty of the _school_--but if the intention had been merely\nto show the school's character, the attempt might have been considered\nsuccessful in the highest degree. There are long passages now before us\nof the most despicable trash, with no merit whatever beyond that of\ntheir antiquity. The criticisms of the editor do not particularly please\nus. His enthusiasm is too general and too vivid not to be false. His\nopinion, for example, of Sir Henry's Wotton's \"Verses on the Queen of\nBohemia\"--that \"there are few finer things in our language,\" is\nuntenable and absurd.\n\nIn such lines we can perceive not one of those higher attributes of\nPoesy which belong to her in all circumstances and throughout all time.\nHere everything is art, nakedly, or but awkwardly concealed. No\nprepossession for the mere antique (and in this case we can imagine no\nother prepossession) should induce us to dignify with the sacred name of\npoetry, a series, such as this, of elaborate and threadbare compliments,\nstitched, apparently, together, without fancy, without plausibility, and\nwithout even an attempt at adaptation.\n\nIn common with all the world, we have been much delighted with \"The\nShepherd's Hunting\" by Withers--a poem partaking, in a remarkable\ndegree, of the peculiarities of 'Il Penseroso'. Speaking of Poesy, the\nauthor says:\n\n\n \"By the murmur of a spring,\n Or the least boughs rustleling,\n By a daisy whose leaves spread,\n Shut when Titan goes to bed,\n Or a shady bush or tree,\n She could more infuse in me\n Than all Nature's beauties con\n In some other wiser man.\n By her help I also now\n Make this churlish place allow\n Something that may sweeten gladness\n In the very gall of sadness--\n The dull loneness, the black shade,\n That these hanging vaults have made\n The strange music of the waves\n Beating on these hollow caves,\n This black den which rocks emboss,\n Overgrown with eldest moss,\n The rude portals that give light\n More to terror than delight,\n This my chamber of neglect\n Walled about with disrespect;\n From all these and this dull air\n A fit object for despair,\n She hath taught me by her might\n To draw comfort and delight.\"\n\n\nBut these lines, however good, do not bear with them much of the general\ncharacter of the English antique. Something more of this will be found\nin Corbet's \"Farewell to the Fairies!\" We copy a portion of Marvell's\n\"Maiden lamenting for her Fawn,\" which we prefer--not only as a specimen\nof the elder poets, but in itself as a beautiful poem, abounding in\npathos, exquisitely delicate imagination and truthfulness--to anything\nof its species:\n\n\n \"It is a wondrous thing how fleet\n 'Twas on those little silver feet,\n With what a pretty skipping grace\n It oft would challenge me the race,\n And when't had left me far away\n 'Twould stay, and run again, and stay;\n For it was nimbler much than hinds,\n And trod as if on the four winds.\n I have a garden of my own,\n But so with roses overgrown,\n And lilies, that you would it guess\n To be a little wilderness;\n And all the spring-time of the year\n It only loved to be there.\n Among the beds of lilies I\n Have sought it oft where it should lie,\n Yet could not, till itself would rise,\n Find it, although before mine eyes.\n For in the flaxen lilies shade\n It like a bank of lilies laid;\n Upon the roses it would feed\n Until its lips even seemed to bleed,\n And then to me 'twould boldly trip,\n And print those roses on my lip,\n But all its chief delight was still\n With roses thus itself to fill,\n And its pure virgin limbs to fold\n In whitest sheets of lilies cold,\n Had it lived long, it would have been\n Lilies without, roses within.\"\n\n\nHow truthful an air of lamentations hangs here upon every syllable! It\npervades all. It comes over the sweet melody of the words--over the\ngentleness and grace which we fancy in the little maiden herself--even\nover the half-playful, half-petulant air with which she lingers on the\nbeauties and good qualities of her favorite--like the cool shadow of a\nsummer cloud over a bed of lilies and violets, \"and all sweet flowers.\"\nThe whole is redolent with poetry of a very lofty order. Every line is\nan idea conveying either the beauty and playfulness of the fawn, or the\nartlessness of the maiden, or her love, or her admiration, or her grief,\nor the fragrance and warmth and _appropriateness_ of the little\nnest-like bed of lilies and roses which the fawn devoured as it lay upon\nthem, and could scarcely be distinguished from them by the once happy\nlittle damsel who went to seek her pet with an arch and rosy smile on\nher face. Consider the great variety of truthful and delicate thought in\nthe few lines we have quoted--the _wonder_ of the little maiden at the\nfleetness of her favorite--the \"little silver feet\"--the fawn\nchallenging his mistress to a race with \"a pretty skipping grace,\"\nrunning on before, and then, with head turned back, awaiting her\napproach only to fly from it again--can we not distinctly perceive all\nthese things? How exceedingly vigorous, too, is the line,\n\n\n \"And trod as if on the four winds!\"\n\n\na vigor apparent only when we keep in mind the artless character of the\nspeaker and the four feet of the favorite, one for each wind. Then\nconsider the garden of \"my own,\" so overgrown, entangled with roses and\nlilies, as to be \"a little wilderness\"--the fawn loving to be there, and\nthere \"only\"--the maiden seeking it \"where it _should_ lie\"--and not\nbeing able to distinguish it from the flowers until \"itself would\nrise\"--the lying among the lilies \"like a bank of lilies\"--the loving to\n\"fill itself with roses,\"\n\n\n \"And its pure virgin limbs to fold\n In whitest sheets of lilies cold,\"\n\n\nand these things being its \"chief\" delights--and then the pre-eminent\nbeauty and naturalness of the concluding lines, whose very hyperbole\nonly renders them more true to nature when we consider the innocence,\nthe artlessness, the enthusiasm, the passionate girl, and more\npassionate admiration of the bereaved child:\n\n\n \"Had it lived long, it would have been\n Lilies without, roses within.\"\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: \"The Book of Gems.\" Edited by S. C. Hall.]", + "author": "Edgar Allan Poe", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe", + "period": "1827–1849" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/shakespeare_sonnets.json b/poetry/shakespeare_sonnets.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b99a24a --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/shakespeare_sonnets.json @@ -0,0 +1,1080 @@ +[ + { + "title": "Sonnet I", + "body": "From fairest creatures we desire increase,\nThat thereby beauty’s rose might never die,\nBut as the riper should by time decease,\nHis tender heir might bear his memory:\nBut thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,\nFeed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,\nMaking a famine where abundance lies,\nThyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:\nThou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,\nAnd only herald to the gaudy spring,\nWithin thine own bud buriest thy content,\nAnd tender churl mak’st waste in niggarding:\n Pity the world, or else this glutton be,\n To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet II", + "body": "When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,\nAnd dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,\nThy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now,\nWill be a tatter’d weed of small worth held:\nThen being asked, where all thy beauty lies,\nWhere all the treasure of thy lusty days;\nTo say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,\nWere an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.\nHow much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,\nIf thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine\nShall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’\nProving his beauty by succession thine!\n This were to be new made when thou art old,\n And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet III", + "body": "Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest\nNow is the time that face should form another;\nWhose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,\nThou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.\nFor where is she so fair whose unear’d womb\nDisdains the tillage of thy husbandry?\nOr who is he so fond will be the tomb,\nOf his self-love to stop posterity?\nThou art thy mother’s glass and she in thee\nCalls back the lovely April of her prime;\nSo thou through windows of thine age shalt see,\nDespite of wrinkles this thy golden time.\n But if thou live, remember’d not to be,\n Die single and thine image dies with thee.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet IV", + "body": "Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend\nUpon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?\nNature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,\nAnd being frank she lends to those are free:\nThen, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse\nThe bounteous largess given thee to give?\nProfitless usurer, why dost thou use\nSo great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?\nFor having traffic with thyself alone,\nThou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive:\nThen how when nature calls thee to be gone,\nWhat acceptable audit canst thou leave?\n Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,\n Which, used, lives th’ executor to be.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet V", + "body": "Those hours, that with gentle work did frame\nThe lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,\nWill play the tyrants to the very same\nAnd that unfair which fairly doth excel;\nFor never-resting time leads summer on\nTo hideous winter, and confounds him there;\nSap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,\nBeauty o’er-snowed and bareness every where:\nThen were not summer’s distillation left,\nA liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,\nBeauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,\nNor it, nor no remembrance what it was:\n But flowers distill’d, though they with winter meet,\n Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet VI", + "body": "Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface,\nIn thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d:\nMake sweet some vial; treasure thou some place\nWith beauty’s treasure ere it be self-kill’d.\nThat use is not forbidden usury,\nWhich happies those that pay the willing loan;\nThat’s for thyself to breed another thee,\nOr ten times happier, be it ten for one;\nTen times thyself were happier than thou art,\nIf ten of thine ten times refigur’d thee:\nThen what could death do if thou shouldst depart,\nLeaving thee living in posterity?\n Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair\n To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet VII", + "body": "Lo! in the orient when the gracious light\nLifts up his burning head, each under eye\nDoth homage to his new-appearing sight,\nServing with looks his sacred majesty;\nAnd having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill,\nResembling strong youth in his middle age,\nYet mortal looks adore his beauty still,\nAttending on his golden pilgrimage:\nBut when from highmost pitch, with weary car,\nLike feeble age, he reeleth from the day,\nThe eyes, ’fore duteous, now converted are\nFrom his low tract, and look another way:\n So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:\n Unlook’d, on diest unless thou get a son.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet VIII", + "body": "Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?\nSweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:\nWhy lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,\nOr else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?\nIf the true concord of well-tuned sounds,\nBy unions married, do offend thine ear,\nThey do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds\nIn singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.\nMark how one string, sweet husband to another,\nStrikes each in each by mutual ordering;\nResembling sire and child and happy mother,\nWho, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:\n Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,\n Sings this to thee: ‘Thou single wilt prove none.’", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet IX", + "body": "Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye,\nThat thou consum’st thyself in single life?\nAh! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,\nThe world will wail thee like a makeless wife;\nThe world will be thy widow and still weep\nThat thou no form of thee hast left behind,\nWhen every private widow well may keep\nBy children’s eyes, her husband’s shape in mind:\nLook! what an unthrift in the world doth spend\nShifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;\nBut beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,\nAnd kept unused the user so destroys it.\n No love toward others in that bosom sits\n That on himself such murd’rous shame commits.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet X", + "body": "For shame! deny that thou bear’st love to any,\nWho for thyself art so unprovident.\nGrant, if thou wilt, thou art belov’d of many,\nBut that thou none lov’st is most evident:\nFor thou art so possess’d with murderous hate,\nThat ’gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire,\nSeeking that beauteous roof to ruinate\nWhich to repair should be thy chief desire.\nO! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:\nShall hate be fairer lodg’d than gentle love?\nBe, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,\nOr to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:\n Make thee another self for love of me,\n That beauty still may live in thine or thee.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XI", + "body": "As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st,\nIn one of thine, from that which thou departest;\nAnd that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st,\nThou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest,\nHerein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;\nWithout this folly, age, and cold decay:\nIf all were minded so, the times should cease\nAnd threescore year would make the world away.\nLet those whom nature hath not made for store,\nHarsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:\nLook, whom she best endow’d, she gave thee more;\nWhich bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:\n She carv’d thee for her seal, and meant thereby,\n Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XII", + "body": "When I do count the clock that tells the time,\nAnd see the brave day sunk in hideous night;\nWhen I behold the violet past prime,\nAnd sable curls, all silvered o’er with white;\nWhen lofty trees I see barren of leaves,\nWhich erst from heat did canopy the herd,\nAnd summer’s green all girded up in sheaves,\nBorne on the bier with white and bristly beard,\nThen of thy beauty do I question make,\nThat thou among the wastes of time must go,\nSince sweets and beauties do themselves forsake\nAnd die as fast as they see others grow;\n And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defence\n Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XIII", + "body": "O! that you were your self; but, love you are\nNo longer yours, than you yourself here live:\nAgainst this coming end you should prepare,\nAnd your sweet semblance to some other give:\nSo should that beauty which you hold in lease\nFind no determination; then you were\nYourself again, after yourself’s decease,\nWhen your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.\nWho lets so fair a house fall to decay,\nWhich husbandry in honour might uphold,\nAgainst the stormy gusts of winter’s day\nAnd barren rage of death’s eternal cold?\n O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,\n You had a father: let your son say so.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XIV", + "body": "Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;\nAnd yet methinks I have astronomy,\nBut not to tell of good or evil luck,\nOf plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;\nNor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,\nPointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,\nOr say with princes if it shall go well\nBy oft predict that I in heaven find:\nBut from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,\nAnd constant stars in them I read such art\nAs ‘Truth and beauty shall together thrive,\nIf from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert’;\n Or else of thee this I prognosticate:\n ‘Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.’", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XV", + "body": "When I consider everything that grows\nHolds in perfection but a little moment,\nThat this huge stage presenteth nought but shows\nWhereon the stars in secret influence comment;\nWhen I perceive that men as plants increase,\nCheered and checked even by the self-same sky,\nVaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,\nAnd wear their brave state out of memory;\nThen the conceit of this inconstant stay\nSets you most rich in youth before my sight,\nWhere wasteful Time debateth with Decay\nTo change your day of youth to sullied night,\n And all in war with Time for love of you,\n As he takes from you, I engraft you new.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XVI", + "body": "But wherefore do not you a mightier way\nMake war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?\nAnd fortify yourself in your decay\nWith means more blessed than my barren rhyme?\nNow stand you on the top of happy hours,\nAnd many maiden gardens, yet unset,\nWith virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,\nMuch liker than your painted counterfeit:\nSo should the lines of life that life repair,\nWhich this, Time’s pencil, or my pupil pen,\nNeither in inward worth nor outward fair,\nCan make you live yourself in eyes of men.\n To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,\n And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XVII", + "body": "Who will believe my verse in time to come,\nIf it were fill’d with your most high deserts?\nThough yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb\nWhich hides your life, and shows not half your parts.\nIf I could write the beauty of your eyes,\nAnd in fresh numbers number all your graces,\nThe age to come would say ‘This poet lies;\nSuch heavenly touches ne’er touch’d earthly faces.’\nSo should my papers, yellow’d with their age,\nBe scorn’d, like old men of less truth than tongue,\nAnd your true rights be term’d a poet’s rage\nAnd stretched metre of an antique song:\n But were some child of yours alive that time,\n You should live twice,—in it, and in my rhyme.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XVIII", + "body": "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?\nThou art more lovely and more temperate:\nRough winds do shake the darling buds of May,\nAnd summer’s lease hath all too short a date:\nSometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,\nAnd often is his gold complexion dimm’d,\nAnd every fair from fair sometime declines,\nBy chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:\nBut thy eternal summer shall not fade,\nNor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,\nNor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,\nWhen in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,\n So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,\n So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XIX", + "body": "Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,\nAnd make the earth devour her own sweet brood;\nPluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,\nAnd burn the long-liv’d phoenix, in her blood;\nMake glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,\nAnd do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,\nTo the wide world and all her fading sweets;\nBut I forbid thee one most heinous crime:\nO! carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,\nNor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;\nHim in thy course untainted do allow\nFor beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.\n Yet do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong,\n My love shall in my verse ever live young.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XX", + "body": "A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,\nHast thou, the master mistress of my passion;\nA woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted\nWith shifting change, as is false women’s fashion:\nAn eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,\nGilding the object whereupon it gazeth;\nA man in hue all ‘hues’ in his controlling,\nWhich steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.\nAnd for a woman wert thou first created;\nTill Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,\nAnd by addition me of thee defeated,\nBy adding one thing to my purpose nothing.\n But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,\n Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXI", + "body": "So is it not with me as with that Muse,\nStirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse,\nWho heaven itself for ornament doth use\nAnd every fair with his fair doth rehearse,\nMaking a couplement of proud compare.\nWith sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems,\nWith April’s first-born flowers, and all things rare,\nThat heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.\nO! let me, true in love, but truly write,\nAnd then believe me, my love is as fair\nAs any mother’s child, though not so bright\nAs those gold candles fix’d in heaven’s air:\n Let them say more that like of hearsay well;\n I will not praise that purpose not to sell.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXII", + "body": "My glass shall not persuade me I am old,\nSo long as youth and thou are of one date;\nBut when in thee time’s furrows I behold,\nThen look I death my days should expiate.\nFor all that beauty that doth cover thee,\nIs but the seemly raiment of my heart,\nWhich in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:\nHow can I then be elder than thou art?\nO! therefore love, be of thyself so wary\nAs I, not for myself, but for thee will;\nBearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary\nAs tender nurse her babe from faring ill.\n Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,\n Thou gav’st me thine not to give back again.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXIII", + "body": "As an unperfect actor on the stage,\nWho with his fear is put beside his part,\nOr some fierce thing replete with too much rage,\nWhose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;\nSo I, for fear of trust, forget to say\nThe perfect ceremony of love’s rite,\nAnd in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,\nO’ercharg’d with burthen of mine own love’s might.\nO! let my looks be then the eloquence\nAnd dumb presagers of my speaking breast,\nWho plead for love, and look for recompense,\nMore than that tongue that more hath more express’d.\n O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:\n To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXIV", + "body": "Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath stell’d,\nThy beauty’s form in table of my heart;\nMy body is the frame wherein ’tis held,\nAnd perspective it is best painter’s art.\nFor through the painter must you see his skill,\nTo find where your true image pictur’d lies,\nWhich in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,\nThat hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.\nNow see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:\nMine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me\nAre windows to my breast, where-through the sun\nDelights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;\n Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,\n They draw but what they see, know not the heart.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXV", + "body": "Let those who are in favour with their stars\nOf public honour and proud titles boast,\nWhilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars\nUnlook’d for joy in that I honour most.\nGreat princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread\nBut as the marigold at the sun’s eye,\nAnd in themselves their pride lies buried,\nFor at a frown they in their glory die.\nThe painful warrior famoused for fight,\nAfter a thousand victories once foil’d,\nIs from the book of honour razed quite,\nAnd all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:\n Then happy I, that love and am belov’d,\n Where I may not remove nor be remov’d.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXVI", + "body": "Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage\nThy merit hath my duty strongly knit,\nTo thee I send this written embassage,\nTo witness duty, not to show my wit:\nDuty so great, which wit so poor as mine\nMay make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,\nBut that I hope some good conceit of thine\nIn thy soul’s thought, all naked, will bestow it:\nTill whatsoever star that guides my moving,\nPoints on me graciously with fair aspect,\nAnd puts apparel on my tatter’d loving,\nTo show me worthy of thy sweet respect:\n Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;\n Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXVII", + "body": "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,\nThe dear respose for limbs with travel tir’d;\nBut then begins a journey in my head\nTo work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:\nFor then my thoughts, from far where I abide,\nIntend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,\nAnd keep my drooping eyelids open wide,\nLooking on darkness which the blind do see:\nSave that my soul’s imaginary sight\nPresents thy shadow to my sightless view,\nWhich, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,\nMakes black night beauteous, and her old face new.\n Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,\n For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXVIII", + "body": "How can I then return in happy plight,\nThat am debarre’d the benefit of rest?\nWhen day’s oppression is not eas’d by night,\nBut day by night and night by day oppress’d,\nAnd each, though enemies to either’s reign,\nDo in consent shake hands to torture me,\nThe one by toil, the other to complain\nHow far I toil, still farther off from thee.\nI tell the day, to please him thou art bright,\nAnd dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:\nSo flatter I the swart-complexion’d night,\nWhen sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even.\n But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,\n And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXIX", + "body": "When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes\nI all alone beweep my outcast state,\nAnd trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,\nAnd look upon myself, and curse my fate,\nWishing me like to one more rich in hope,\nFeatur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,\nDesiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,\nWith what I most enjoy contented least;\nYet in these thoughts my self almost despising,\nHaply I think on thee, and then my state,\nLike to the lark at break of day arising\nFrom sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;\n For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings\n That then I scorn to change my state with kings.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXX", + "body": "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought\nI summon up remembrance of things past,\nI sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,\nAnd with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:\nThen can I drown an eye, unused to flow,\nFor precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,\nAnd weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,\nAnd moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:\nThen can I grieve at grievances foregone,\nAnd heavily from woe to woe tell o’er\nThe sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,\nWhich I new pay as if not paid before.\n But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,\n All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXI", + "body": "Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,\nWhich I by lacking have supposed dead;\nAnd there reigns Love, and all Love’s loving parts,\nAnd all those friends which I thought buried.\nHow many a holy and obsequious tear\nHath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye,\nAs interest of the dead, which now appear\nBut things remov’d that hidden in thee lie!\nThou art the grave where buried love doth live,\nHung with the trophies of my lovers gone,\nWho all their parts of me to thee did give,\nThat due of many now is thine alone:\n Their images I lov’d, I view in thee,\n And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXII", + "body": "If thou survive my well-contented day,\nWhen that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover\nAnd shalt by fortune once more re-survey\nThese poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,\nCompare them with the bett’ring of the time,\nAnd though they be outstripp’d by every pen,\nReserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,\nExceeded by the height of happier men.\nO! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:\n‘Had my friend’s Muse grown with this growing age,\nA dearer birth than this his love had brought,\nTo march in ranks of better equipage:\n But since he died and poets better prove,\n Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love’.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXIII", + "body": "Full many a glorious morning have I seen\nFlatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,\nKissing with golden face the meadows green,\nGilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;\nAnon permit the basest clouds to ride\nWith ugly rack on his celestial face,\nAnd from the forlorn world his visage hide,\nStealing unseen to west with this disgrace:\nEven so my sun one early morn did shine,\nWith all triumphant splendour on my brow;\nBut out! alack! he was but one hour mine,\nThe region cloud hath mask’d him from me now.\n Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;\n Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXIV", + "body": "Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,\nAnd make me travel forth without my cloak,\nTo let base clouds o’ertake me in my way,\nHiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?\n’Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,\nTo dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,\nFor no man well of such a salve can speak,\nThat heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:\nNor can thy shame give physic to my grief;\nThough thou repent, yet I have still the loss:\nThe offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief\nTo him that bears the strong offence’s cross.\n Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,\n And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXV", + "body": "No more be griev’d at that which thou hast done:\nRoses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:\nClouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,\nAnd loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.\nAll men make faults, and even I in this,\nAuthorizing thy trespass with compare,\nMyself corrupting, salving thy amiss,\nExcusing thy sins more than thy sins are;\nFor to thy sensual fault I bring in sense;\nThy adverse party is thy advocate,\nAnd ’gainst myself a lawful plea commence:\nSuch civil war is in my love and hate,\n That I an accessary needs must be,\n To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXVI", + "body": "Let me confess that we two must be twain,\nAlthough our undivided loves are one:\nSo shall those blots that do with me remain,\nWithout thy help, by me be borne alone.\nIn our two loves there is but one respect,\nThough in our lives a separable spite,\nWhich though it alter not love’s sole effect,\nYet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.\nI may not evermore acknowledge thee,\nLest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,\nNor thou with public kindness honour me,\nUnless thou take that honour from thy name:\n But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXVII", + "body": "As a decrepit father takes delight\nTo see his active child do deeds of youth,\nSo I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite,\nTake all my comfort of thy worth and truth;\nFor whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,\nOr any of these all, or all, or more,\nEntitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,\nI make my love engrafted, to this store:\nSo then I am not lame, poor, nor despis’d,\nWhilst that this shadow doth such substance give\nThat I in thy abundance am suffic’d,\nAnd by a part of all thy glory live.\n Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:\n This wish I have; then ten times happy me!", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXVIII", + "body": "How can my Muse want subject to invent,\nWhile thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse\nThine own sweet argument, too excellent\nFor every vulgar paper to rehearse?\nO! give thyself the thanks, if aught in me\nWorthy perusal stand against thy sight;\nFor who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee,\nWhen thou thyself dost give invention light?\nBe thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth\nThan those old nine which rhymers invocate;\nAnd he that calls on thee, let him bring forth\nEternal numbers to outlive long date.\n If my slight Muse do please these curious days,\n The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XXXIX", + "body": "O! how thy worth with manners may I sing,\nWhen thou art all the better part of me?\nWhat can mine own praise to mine own self bring?\nAnd what is’t but mine own when I praise thee?\nEven for this, let us divided live,\nAnd our dear love lose name of single one,\nThat by this separation I may give\nThat due to thee which thou deserv’st alone.\nO absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,\nWere it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,\nTo entertain the time with thoughts of love,\nWhich time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,\n And that thou teachest how to make one twain,\n By praising him here who doth hence remain.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XL", + "body": "Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;\nWhat hast thou then more than thou hadst before?\nNo love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;\nAll mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.\nThen, if for my love, thou my love receivest,\nI cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;\nBut yet be blam’d, if thou thyself deceivest\nBy wilful taste of what thyself refusest.\nI do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,\nAlthough thou steal thee all my poverty:\nAnd yet, love knows it is a greater grief\nTo bear love’s wrong, than hate’s known injury.\n Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,\n Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLI", + "body": "Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,\nWhen I am sometime absent from thy heart,\nThy beauty, and thy years full well befits,\nFor still temptation follows where thou art.\nGentle thou art, and therefore to be won,\nBeauteous thou art, therefore to be assail’d;\nAnd when a woman woos, what woman’s son\nWill sourly leave her till he have prevail’d?\nAy me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,\nAnd chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,\nWho lead thee in their riot even there\nWhere thou art forced to break a twofold truth:\n Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,\n Thine by thy beauty being false to me.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLII", + "body": "That thou hast her it is not all my grief,\nAnd yet it may be said I loved her dearly;\nThat she hath thee is of my wailing chief,\nA loss in love that touches me more nearly.\nLoving offenders thus I will excuse ye:\nThou dost love her, because thou know’st I love her;\nAnd for my sake even so doth she abuse me,\nSuffering my friend for my sake to approve her.\nIf I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain,\nAnd losing her, my friend hath found that loss;\nBoth find each other, and I lose both twain,\nAnd both for my sake lay on me this cross:\n But here’s the joy; my friend and I are one;\n Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLIII", + "body": "When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,\nFor all the day they view things unrespected;\nBut when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,\nAnd darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.\nThen thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,\nHow would thy shadow’s form form happy show\nTo the clear day with thy much clearer light,\nWhen to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!\nHow would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made\nBy looking on thee in the living day,\nWhen in dead night thy fair imperfect shade\nThrough heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!\n All days are nights to see till I see thee,\n And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLIV", + "body": "If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,\nInjurious distance should not stop my way;\nFor then despite of space I would be brought,\nFrom limits far remote, where thou dost stay.\nNo matter then although my foot did stand\nUpon the farthest earth remov’d from thee;\nFor nimble thought can jump both sea and land,\nAs soon as think the place where he would be.\nBut, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,\nTo leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,\nBut that so much of earth and water wrought,\nI must attend time’s leisure with my moan;\n Receiving nought by elements so slow\n But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLV", + "body": "The other two, slight air, and purging fire\nAre both with thee, wherever I abide;\nThe first my thought, the other my desire,\nThese present-absent with swift motion slide.\nFor when these quicker elements are gone\nIn tender embassy of love to thee,\nMy life, being made of four, with two alone\nSinks down to death, oppress’d with melancholy;\nUntil life’s composition be recur’d\nBy those swift messengers return’d from thee,\nWho even but now come back again, assur’d,\nOf thy fair health, recounting it to me:\n This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,\n I send them back again, and straight grow sad.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLVI", + "body": "Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,\nHow to divide the conquest of thy sight;\nMine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,\nMy heart mine eye the freedom of that right.\nMy heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,\nA closet never pierced with crystal eyes;\nBut the defendant doth that plea deny,\nAnd says in him thy fair appearance lies.\nTo side this title is impannelled\nA quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;\nAnd by their verdict is determined\nThe clear eye’s moiety, and the dear heart’s part:\n As thus; mine eye’s due is thy outward part,\n And my heart’s right, thy inward love of heart.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLVII", + "body": "Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,\nAnd each doth good turns now unto the other:\nWhen that mine eye is famish’d for a look,\nOr heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,\nWith my love’s picture then my eye doth feast,\nAnd to the painted banquet bids my heart;\nAnother time mine eye is my heart’s guest,\nAnd in his thoughts of love doth share a part:\nSo, either by thy picture or my love,\nThyself away, art present still with me;\nFor thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,\nAnd I am still with them, and they with thee;\n Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight\n Awakes my heart, to heart’s and eye’s delight.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLVIII", + "body": "How careful was I when I took my way,\nEach trifle under truest bars to thrust,\nThat to my use it might unused stay\nFrom hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!\nBut thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,\nMost worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,\nThou best of dearest, and mine only care,\nArt left the prey of every vulgar thief.\nThee have I not lock’d up in any chest,\nSave where thou art not, though I feel thou art,\nWithin the gentle closure of my breast,\nFrom whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;\n And even thence thou wilt be stol’n I fear,\n For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XLIX", + "body": "Against that time, if ever that time come,\nWhen I shall see thee frown on my defects,\nWhen as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,\nCall’d to that audit by advis’d respects;\nAgainst that time when thou shalt strangely pass,\nAnd scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,\nWhen love, converted from the thing it was,\nShall reasons find of settled gravity;\nAgainst that time do I ensconce me here,\nWithin the knowledge of mine own desert,\nAnd this my hand, against my self uprear,\nTo guard the lawful reasons on thy part:\n To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,\n Since why to love I can allege no cause.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet L", + "body": "How heavy do I journey on the way,\nWhen what I seek, my weary travel’s end,\nDoth teach that ease and that repose to say,\n‘Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!’\nThe beast that bears me, tired with my woe,\nPlods dully on, to bear that weight in me,\nAs if by some instinct the wretch did know\nHis rider lov’d not speed, being made from thee:\nThe bloody spur cannot provoke him on,\nThat sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,\nWhich heavily he answers with a groan,\nMore sharp to me than spurring to his side;\n For that same groan doth put this in my mind,\n My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LI", + "body": "Thus can my love excuse the slow offence\nOf my dull bearer when from thee I speed:\nFrom where thou art why should I haste me thence?\nTill I return, of posting is no need.\nO! what excuse will my poor beast then find,\nWhen swift extremity can seem but slow?\nThen should I spur, though mounted on the wind,\nIn winged speed no motion shall I know,\nThen can no horse with my desire keep pace;\nTherefore desire, of perfect’st love being made,\nShall neigh no dull flesh in his fiery race,\nBut love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade:\n ‘Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,\n Towards thee I’ll run, and give him leave to go.’", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LII", + "body": "So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,\nCan bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,\nThe which he will not every hour survey,\nFor blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.\nTherefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,\nSince, seldom coming in that long year set,\nLike stones of worth they thinly placed are,\nOr captain jewels in the carcanet.\nSo is the time that keeps you as my chest,\nOr as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,\nTo make some special instant special-blest,\nBy new unfolding his imprison’d pride.\n Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,\n Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LIII", + "body": "What is your substance, whereof are you made,\nThat millions of strange shadows on you tend?\nSince every one, hath every one, one shade,\nAnd you but one, can every shadow lend.\nDescribe Adonis, and the counterfeit\nIs poorly imitated after you;\nOn Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,\nAnd you in Grecian tires are painted new:\nSpeak of the spring, and foison of the year,\nThe one doth shadow of your beauty show,\nThe other as your bounty doth appear;\nAnd you in every blessed shape we know.\n In all external grace you have some part,\n But you like none, none you, for constant heart.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LIV", + "body": "O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem\nBy that sweet ornament which truth doth give.\nThe rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem\nFor that sweet odour, which doth in it live.\nThe canker blooms have full as deep a dye\nAs the perfumed tincture of the roses.\nHang on such thorns, and play as wantonly\nWhen summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:\nBut, for their virtue only is their show,\nThey live unwoo’d, and unrespected fade;\nDie to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;\nOf their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:\n And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,\n When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LV", + "body": "Not marble, nor the gilded monuments\nOf princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;\nBut you shall shine more bright in these contents\nThan unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.\nWhen wasteful war shall statues overturn,\nAnd broils root out the work of masonry,\nNor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn\nThe living record of your memory.\n’Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity\nShall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room\nEven in the eyes of all posterity\nThat wear this world out to the ending doom.\n So, till the judgement that yourself arise,\n You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LVI", + "body": "Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said\nThy edge should blunter be than appetite,\nWhich but to-day by feeding is allay’d,\nTo-morrow sharpened in his former might:\nSo, love, be thou, although to-day thou fill\nThy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,\nTo-morrow see again, and do not kill\nThe spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness.\nLet this sad interim like the ocean be\nWhich parts the shore, where two contracted new\nCome daily to the banks, that when they see\nReturn of love, more blest may be the view;\n Or call it winter, which being full of care,\n Makes summer’s welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LVII", + "body": "Being your slave what should I do but tend,\nUpon the hours, and times of your desire?\nI have no precious time at all to spend;\nNor services to do, till you require.\nNor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,\nWhilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,\nNor think the bitterness of absence sour,\nWhen you have bid your servant once adieu;\nNor dare I question with my jealous thought\nWhere you may be, or your affairs suppose,\nBut, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought\nSave, where you are, how happy you make those.\n So true a fool is love, that in your will,\n Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LVIII", + "body": "That god forbid, that made me first your slave,\nI should in thought control your times of pleasure,\nOr at your hand the account of hours to crave,\nBeing your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!\nO! let me suffer, being at your beck,\nThe imprison’d absence of your liberty;\nAnd patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,\nWithout accusing you of injury.\nBe where you list, your charter is so strong\nThat you yourself may privilage your time\nTo what you will; to you it doth belong\nYourself to pardon of self-doing crime.\n I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,\n Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LIX", + "body": "If there be nothing new, but that which is\nHath been before, how are our brains beguil’d,\nWhich labouring for invention bear amiss\nThe second burthen of a former child!\nO! that record could with a backward look,\nEven of five hundred courses of the sun,\nShow me your image in some antique book,\nSince mind at first in character was done!\nThat I might see what the old world could say\nTo this composed wonder of your frame;\nWh’r we are mended, or wh’r better they,\nOr whether revolution be the same.\n O! sure I am the wits of former days,\n To subjects worse have given admiring praise.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LX", + "body": "Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,\nSo do our minutes hasten to their end;\nEach changing place with that which goes before,\nIn sequent toil all forwards do contend.\nNativity, once in the main of light,\nCrawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,\nCrooked eclipses ’gainst his glory fight,\nAnd Time that gave doth now his gift confound.\nTime doth transfix the flourish set on youth\nAnd delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,\nFeeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,\nAnd nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:\n And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.\n Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXI", + "body": "Is it thy will, thy image should keep open\nMy heavy eyelids to the weary night?\nDost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,\nWhile shadows like to thee do mock my sight?\nIs it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee\nSo far from home into my deeds to pry,\nTo find out shames and idle hours in me,\nThe scope and tenure of thy jealousy?\nO, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:\nIt is my love that keeps mine eye awake:\nMine own true love that doth my rest defeat,\nTo play the watchman ever for thy sake:\n For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,\n From me far off, with others all too near.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXII", + "body": "Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye\nAnd all my soul, and all my every part;\nAnd for this sin there is no remedy,\nIt is so grounded inward in my heart.\nMethinks no face so gracious is as mine,\nNo shape so true, no truth of such account;\nAnd for myself mine own worth do define,\nAs I all other in all worths surmount.\nBut when my glass shows me myself indeed\nBeated and chopp’d with tanned antiquity,\nMine own self-love quite contrary I read;\nSelf so self-loving were iniquity.\n ’Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,\n Painting my age with beauty of thy days.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXIII", + "body": "Against my love shall be as I am now,\nWith Time’s injurious hand crush’d and o’erworn;\nWhen hours have drain’d his blood and fill’d his brow\nWith lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn\nHath travell’d on to age’s steepy night;\nAnd all those beauties whereof now he’s king\nAre vanishing, or vanished out of sight,\nStealing away the treasure of his spring;\nFor such a time do I now fortify\nAgainst confounding age’s cruel knife,\nThat he shall never cut from memory\nMy sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life:\n His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,\n And they shall live, and he in them still green.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXIV", + "body": "When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d\nThe rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;\nWhen sometime lofty towers I see down-raz’d,\nAnd brass eternal slave to mortal rage;\nWhen I have seen the hungry ocean gain\nAdvantage on the kingdom of the shore,\nAnd the firm soil win of the watery main,\nIncreasing store with loss, and loss with store;\nWhen I have seen such interchange of state,\nOr state itself confounded, to decay;\nRuin hath taught me thus to ruminate:\nThat Time will come and take my love away.\n This thought is as a death which cannot choose\n But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXV", + "body": "Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,\nBut sad mortality o’ersways their power,\nHow with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,\nWhose action is no stronger than a flower?\nO! how shall summer’s honey breath hold out,\nAgainst the wrackful siege of battering days,\nWhen rocks impregnable are not so stout,\nNor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?\nO fearful meditation! where, alack,\nShall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?\nOr what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?\nOr who his spoil of beauty can forbid?\n O! none, unless this miracle have might,\n That in black ink my love may still shine bright.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXVI", + "body": "Tired with all these, for restful death I cry:\nAs to behold desert a beggar born,\nAnd needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,\nAnd purest faith unhappily forsworn,\nAnd gilded honour shamefully misplac’d,\nAnd maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,\nAnd right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,\nAnd strength by limping sway disabled\nAnd art made tongue-tied by authority,\nAnd folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,\nAnd simple truth miscall’d simplicity,\nAnd captive good attending captain ill:\n Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,\n Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXVII", + "body": "Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,\nAnd with his presence grace impiety,\nThat sin by him advantage should achieve,\nAnd lace itself with his society?\nWhy should false painting imitate his cheek,\nAnd steel dead seeming of his living hue?\nWhy should poor beauty indirectly seek\nRoses of shadow, since his rose is true?\nWhy should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,\nBeggar’d of blood to blush through lively veins?\nFor she hath no exchequer now but his,\nAnd proud of many, lives upon his gains.\n O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had\n In days long since, before these last so bad.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXVIII", + "body": "Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,\nWhen beauty lived and died as flowers do now,\nBefore these bastard signs of fair were born,\nOr durst inhabit on a living brow;\nBefore the golden tresses of the dead,\nThe right of sepulchres, were shorn away,\nTo live a second life on second head;\nEre beauty’s dead fleece made another gay:\nIn him those holy antique hours are seen,\nWithout all ornament, itself and true,\nMaking no summer of another’s green,\nRobbing no old to dress his beauty new;\n And him as for a map doth Nature store,\n To show false Art what beauty was of yore.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXIX", + "body": "Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view\nWant nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;\nAll tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,\nUttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.\nThy outward thus with outward praise is crown’d;\nBut those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,\nIn other accents do this praise confound\nBy seeing farther than the eye hath shown.\nThey look into the beauty of thy mind,\nAnd that in guess they measure by thy deeds;\nThen churls their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,\nTo thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:\n But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,\n The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXX", + "body": "That thou art blam’d shall not be thy defect,\nFor slander’s mark was ever yet the fair;\nThe ornament of beauty is suspect,\nA crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air.\nSo thou be good, slander doth but approve\nThy worth the greater being woo’d of time;\nFor canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,\nAnd thou present’st a pure unstained prime.\nThou hast passed by the ambush of young days\nEither not assail’d, or victor being charg’d;\nYet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,\nTo tie up envy, evermore enlarg’d,\n If some suspect of ill mask’d not thy show,\n Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXI", + "body": "No longer mourn for me when I am dead\nThan you shall hear the surly sullen bell\nGive warning to the world that I am fled\nFrom this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:\nNay, if you read this line, remember not\nThe hand that writ it, for I love you so,\nThat I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,\nIf thinking on me then should make you woe.\nO if, I say, you look upon this verse,\nWhen I perhaps compounded am with clay,\nDo not so much as my poor name rehearse;\nBut let your love even with my life decay;\n Lest the wise world should look into your moan,\n And mock you with me after I am gone.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXII", + "body": "O! lest the world should task you to recite\nWhat merit lived in me, that you should love\nAfter my death, dear love, forget me quite,\nFor you in me can nothing worthy prove;\nUnless you would devise some virtuous lie,\nTo do more for me than mine own desert,\nAnd hang more praise upon deceased I\nThan niggard truth would willingly impart:\nO! lest your true love may seem false in this\nThat you for love speak well of me untrue,\nMy name be buried where my body is,\nAnd live no more to shame nor me nor you.\n For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,\n And so should you, to love things nothing worth.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXIII", + "body": "That time of year thou mayst in me behold\nWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang\nUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,\nBare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.\nIn me thou see’st the twilight of such day\nAs after sunset fadeth in the west;\nWhich by and by black night doth take away,\nDeath’s second self, that seals up all in rest.\nIn me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,\nThat on the ashes of his youth doth lie,\nAs the death-bed, whereon it must expire,\nConsum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.\n This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,\n To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXIV", + "body": "But be contented: when that fell arrest\nWithout all bail shall carry me away,\nMy life hath in this line some interest,\nWhich for memorial still with thee shall stay.\nWhen thou reviewest this, thou dost review\nThe very part was consecrate to thee:\nThe earth can have but earth, which is his due;\nMy spirit is thine, the better part of me:\nSo then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,\nThe prey of worms, my body being dead;\nThe coward conquest of a wretch’s knife,\nToo base of thee to be remembered.\n The worth of that is that which it contains,\n And that is this, and this with thee remains.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXV", + "body": "So are you to my thoughts as food to life,\nOr as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground;\nAnd for the peace of you I hold such strife\nAs ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found.\nNow proud as an enjoyer, and anon\nDoubting the filching age will steal his treasure;\nNow counting best to be with you alone,\nThen better’d that the world may see my pleasure:\nSometime all full with feasting on your sight,\nAnd by and by clean starved for a look;\nPossessing or pursuing no delight,\nSave what is had, or must from you be took.\n Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,\n Or gluttoning on all, or all away.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXVI", + "body": "Why is my verse so barren of new pride,\nSo far from variation or quick change?\nWhy with the time do I not glance aside\nTo new-found methods, and to compounds strange?\nWhy write I still all one, ever the same,\nAnd keep invention in a noted weed,\nThat every word doth almost tell my name,\nShowing their birth, and where they did proceed?\nO! know sweet love I always write of you,\nAnd you and love are still my argument;\nSo all my best is dressing old words new,\nSpending again what is already spent:\n For as the sun is daily new and old,\n So is my love still telling what is told.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXVII", + "body": "Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,\nThy dial how thy precious minutes waste;\nThese vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear,\nAnd of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.\nThe wrinkles which thy glass will truly show\nOf mouthed graves will give thee memory;\nThou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know\nTime’s thievish progress to eternity.\nLook! what thy memory cannot contain,\nCommit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find\nThose children nursed, deliver’d from thy brain,\nTo take a new acquaintance of thy mind.\n These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,\n Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXVIII", + "body": "So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,\nAnd found such fair assistance in my verse\nAs every alien pen hath got my use\nAnd under thee their poesy disperse.\nThine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing\nAnd heavy ignorance aloft to fly,\nHave added feathers to the learned’s wing\nAnd given grace a double majesty.\nYet be most proud of that which I compile,\nWhose influence is thine, and born of thee:\nIn others’ works thou dost but mend the style,\nAnd arts with thy sweet graces graced be;\n But thou art all my art, and dost advance\n As high as learning, my rude ignorance.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXIX", + "body": "Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,\nMy verse alone had all thy gentle grace;\nBut now my gracious numbers are decay’d,\nAnd my sick Muse doth give an other place.\nI grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument\nDeserves the travail of a worthier pen;\nYet what of thee thy poet doth invent\nHe robs thee of, and pays it thee again.\nHe lends thee virtue, and he stole that word\nFrom thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,\nAnd found it in thy cheek: he can afford\nNo praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.\n Then thank him not for that which he doth say,\n Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXX", + "body": "O how I faint when I of you do write,\nKnowing a better spirit doth use your name,\nAnd in the praise thereof spends all his might,\nTo make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!\nBut since your worth, wide as the ocean is,\nThe humble as the proudest sail doth bear,\nMy saucy bark, inferior far to his,\nOn your broad main doth wilfully appear.\nYour shallowest help will hold me up afloat,\nWhilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;\nOr, being wrack’d, I am a worthless boat,\nHe of tall building, and of goodly pride:\n Then if he thrive and I be cast away,\n The worst was this: my love was my decay.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXXI", + "body": "Or I shall live your epitaph to make,\nOr you survive when I in earth am rotten;\nFrom hence your memory death cannot take,\nAlthough in me each part will be forgotten.\nYour name from hence immortal life shall have,\nThough I, once gone, to all the world must die:\nThe earth can yield me but a common grave,\nWhen you entombed in men’s eyes shall lie.\nYour monument shall be my gentle verse,\nWhich eyes not yet created shall o’er-read;\nAnd tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,\nWhen all the breathers of this world are dead;\n You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen,\n Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXXII", + "body": "I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,\nAnd therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook\nThe dedicated words which writers use\nOf their fair subject, blessing every book.\nThou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,\nFinding thy worth a limit past my praise;\nAnd therefore art enforced to seek anew\nSome fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.\nAnd do so, love; yet when they have devis’d,\nWhat strained touches rhetoric can lend,\nThou truly fair, wert truly sympathiz’d\nIn true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;\n And their gross painting might be better us’d\n Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus’d.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXXIII", + "body": "I never saw that you did painting need,\nAnd therefore to your fair no painting set;\nI found, or thought I found, you did exceed\nThat barren tender of a poet’s debt:\nAnd therefore have I slept in your report,\nThat you yourself, being extant, well might show\nHow far a modern quill doth come too short,\nSpeaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.\nThis silence for my sin you did impute,\nWhich shall be most my glory being dumb;\nFor I impair not beauty being mute,\nWhen others would give life, and bring a tomb.\n There lives more life in one of your fair eyes\n Than both your poets can in praise devise.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXXIV", + "body": "Who is it that says most, which can say more,\nThan this rich praise: that you alone are you,\nIn whose confine immured is the store\nWhich should example where your equal grew.\nLean penury within that pen doth dwell\nThat to his subject lends not some small glory;\nBut he that writes of you, if he can tell\nThat you are you, so dignifies his story,\nLet him but copy what in you is writ,\nNot making worse what nature made so clear,\nAnd such a counterpart shall fame his wit,\nMaking his style admired every where.\n You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,\n Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXXV", + "body": "My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,\nWhile comments of your praise richly compil’d,\nReserve their character with golden quill,\nAnd precious phrase by all the Muses fil’d.\nI think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,\nAnd like unlettered clerk still cry ‘Amen’\nTo every hymn that able spirit affords,\nIn polish’d form of well-refined pen.\nHearing you praised, I say ‘’tis so, ’tis true,’\nAnd to the most of praise add something more;\nBut that is in my thought, whose love to you,\nThough words come hindmost, holds his rank before.\n Then others, for the breath of words respect,\n Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXXVI", + "body": "Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,\nBound for the prize of all too precious you,\nThat did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,\nMaking their tomb the womb wherein they grew?\nWas it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,\nAbove a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?\nNo, neither he, nor his compeers by night\nGiving him aid, my verse astonished.\nHe, nor that affable familiar ghost\nWhich nightly gulls him with intelligence,\nAs victors of my silence cannot boast;\nI was not sick of any fear from thence:\n But when your countenance fill’d up his line,\n Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXXVII", + "body": "Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,\nAnd like enough thou know’st thy estimate,\nThe charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;\nMy bonds in thee are all determinate.\nFor how do I hold thee but by thy granting?\nAnd for that riches where is my deserving?\nThe cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,\nAnd so my patent back again is swerving.\nThyself thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,\nOr me to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking;\nSo thy great gift, upon misprision growing,\nComes home again, on better judgement making.\n Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,\n In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXXVIII", + "body": "When thou shalt be dispos’d to set me light,\nAnd place my merit in the eye of scorn,\nUpon thy side, against myself I’ll fight,\nAnd prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.\nWith mine own weakness, being best acquainted,\nUpon thy part I can set down a story\nOf faults conceal’d, wherein I am attainted;\nThat thou in losing me shalt win much glory:\nAnd I by this will be a gainer too;\nFor bending all my loving thoughts on thee,\nThe injuries that to myself I do,\nDoing thee vantage, double-vantage me.\n Such is my love, to thee I so belong,\n That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet LXXXIX", + "body": "Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,\nAnd I will comment upon that offence:\nSpeak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,\nAgainst thy reasons making no defence.\nThou canst not love disgrace me half so ill,\nTo set a form upon desired change,\nAs I’ll myself disgrace; knowing thy will,\nI will acquaintance strangle, and look strange;\nBe absent from thy walks; and in my tongue\nThy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,\nLest I, too much profane, should do it wrong,\nAnd haply of our old acquaintance tell.\n For thee, against my self I’ll vow debate,\n For I must ne’er love him whom thou dost hate.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XC", + "body": "Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;\nNow, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,\nJoin with the spite of fortune, make me bow,\nAnd do not drop in for an after-loss:\nAh! do not, when my heart hath ’scap’d this sorrow,\nCome in the rearward of a conquer’d woe;\nGive not a windy night a rainy morrow,\nTo linger out a purpos’d overthrow.\nIf thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,\nWhen other petty griefs have done their spite,\nBut in the onset come: so shall I taste\nAt first the very worst of fortune’s might;\n And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,\n Compar’d with loss of thee, will not seem so.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XCI", + "body": "Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,\nSome in their wealth, some in their body’s force,\nSome in their garments though new-fangled ill;\nSome in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;\nAnd every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,\nWherein it finds a joy above the rest:\nBut these particulars are not my measure,\nAll these I better in one general best.\nThy love is better than high birth to me,\nRicher than wealth, prouder than garments’ costs,\nOf more delight than hawks and horses be;\nAnd having thee, of all men’s pride I boast:\n Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take\n All this away, and me most wretched make.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XCII", + "body": "But do thy worst to steal thyself away,\nFor term of life thou art assured mine;\nAnd life no longer than thy love will stay,\nFor it depends upon that love of thine.\nThen need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,\nWhen in the least of them my life hath end.\nI see a better state to me belongs\nThan that which on thy humour doth depend:\nThou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,\nSince that my life on thy revolt doth lie.\nO! what a happy title do I find,\nHappy to have thy love, happy to die!\n But what’s so blessed-fair that fears no blot?\n Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XCIII", + "body": "So shall I live, supposing thou art true,\nLike a deceived husband; so love’s face\nMay still seem love to me, though alter’d new;\nThy looks with me, thy heart in other place:\nFor there can live no hatred in thine eye,\nTherefore in that I cannot know thy change.\nIn many’s looks, the false heart’s history\nIs writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange.\nBut heaven in thy creation did decree\nThat in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;\nWhate’er thy thoughts, or thy heart’s workings be,\nThy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.\n How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,\n If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XCIV", + "body": "They that have power to hurt, and will do none,\nThat do not do the thing they most do show,\nWho, moving others, are themselves as stone,\nUnmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;\nThey rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,\nAnd husband nature’s riches from expense;\nThey are the lords and owners of their faces,\nOthers, but stewards of their excellence.\nThe summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,\nThough to itself, it only live and die,\nBut if that flower with base infection meet,\nThe basest weed outbraves his dignity:\n For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;\n Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XCV", + "body": "How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame\nWhich, like a canker in the fragrant rose,\nDoth spot the beauty of thy budding name!\nO! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.\nThat tongue that tells the story of thy days,\nMaking lascivious comments on thy sport,\nCannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;\nNaming thy name, blesses an ill report.\nO! what a mansion have those vices got\nWhich for their habitation chose out thee,\nWhere beauty’s veil doth cover every blot\nAnd all things turns to fair that eyes can see!\n Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;\n The hardest knife ill-us’d doth lose his edge.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XCVI", + "body": "Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;\nSome say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;\nBoth grace and faults are lov’d of more and less:\nThou mak’st faults graces that to thee resort.\nAs on the finger of a throned queen\nThe basest jewel will be well esteem’d,\nSo are those errors that in thee are seen\nTo truths translated, and for true things deem’d.\nHow many lambs might the stern wolf betray,\nIf like a lamb he could his looks translate!\nHow many gazers mightst thou lead away,\nIf thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!\n But do not so; I love thee in such sort,\n As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XCVII", + "body": "How like a winter hath my absence been\nFrom thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!\nWhat freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!\nWhat old December’s bareness everywhere!\nAnd yet this time removed was summer’s time;\nThe teeming autumn, big with rich increase,\nBearing the wanton burden of the prime,\nLike widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:\nYet this abundant issue seem’d to me\nBut hope of orphans, and unfather’d fruit;\nFor summer and his pleasures wait on thee,\nAnd, thou away, the very birds are mute:\n Or, if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,\n That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XCVIII", + "body": "From you have I been absent in the spring,\nWhen proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim,\nHath put a spirit of youth in every thing,\nThat heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.\nYet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell\nOf different flowers in odour and in hue,\nCould make me any summer’s story tell,\nOr from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:\nNor did I wonder at the lily’s white,\nNor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;\nThey were but sweet, but figures of delight,\nDrawn after you, you pattern of all those.\n Yet seem’d it winter still, and you away,\n As with your shadow I with these did play.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet XCIX", + "body": "The forward violet thus did I chide:\nSweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,\nIf not from my love’s breath? The purple pride\nWhich on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells\nIn my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dy’d.\nThe lily I condemned for thy hand,\nAnd buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair;\nThe roses fearfully on thorns did stand,\nOne blushing shame, another white despair;\nA third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both,\nAnd to his robbery had annex’d thy breath;\nBut, for his theft, in pride of all his growth\nA vengeful canker eat him up to death.\n More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,\n But sweet, or colour it had stol’n from thee.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet C", + "body": "Where art thou Muse that thou forget’st so long,\nTo speak of that which gives thee all thy might?\nSpend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song,\nDarkening thy power to lend base subjects light?\nReturn forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,\nIn gentle numbers time so idly spent;\nSing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem\nAnd gives thy pen both skill and argument.\nRise, resty Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,\nIf Time have any wrinkle graven there;\nIf any, be a satire to decay,\nAnd make time’s spoils despised every where.\n Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,\n So thou prevent’st his scythe and crooked knife.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CI", + "body": "O truant Muse what shall be thy amends\nFor thy neglect of truth in beauty dy’d?\nBoth truth and beauty on my love depends;\nSo dost thou too, and therein dignified.\nMake answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,\n‘Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix’d;\nBeauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay;\nBut best is best, if never intermix’d’?\nBecause he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?\nExcuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee\nTo make him much outlive a gilded tomb\nAnd to be prais’d of ages yet to be.\n Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how\n To make him seem long hence as he shows now.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CII", + "body": "My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming;\nI love not less, though less the show appear;\nThat love is merchandiz’d, whose rich esteeming,\nThe owner’s tongue doth publish every where.\nOur love was new, and then but in the spring,\nWhen I was wont to greet it with my lays;\nAs Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,\nAnd stops her pipe in growth of riper days:\nNot that the summer is less pleasant now\nThan when her mournful hymns did hush the night,\nBut that wild music burthens every bough,\nAnd sweets grown common lose their dear delight.\n Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:\n Because I would not dull you with my song.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CIII", + "body": "Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,\nThat having such a scope to show her pride,\nThe argument, all bare, is of more worth\nThan when it hath my added praise beside!\nO! blame me not, if I no more can write!\nLook in your glass, and there appears a face\nThat over-goes my blunt invention quite,\nDulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.\nWere it not sinful then, striving to mend,\nTo mar the subject that before was well?\nFor to no other pass my verses tend\nThan of your graces and your gifts to tell;\n And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,\n Your own glass shows you when you look in it.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CIV", + "body": "To me, fair friend, you never can be old,\nFor as you were when first your eye I ey’d,\nSuch seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,\nHave from the forests shook three summers’ pride,\nThree beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d,\nIn process of the seasons have I seen,\nThree April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,\nSince first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.\nAh! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,\nSteal from his figure, and no pace perceiv’d;\nSo your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,\nHath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv’d:\n For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:\n Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CV", + "body": "Let not my love be call’d idolatry,\nNor my beloved as an idol show,\nSince all alike my songs and praises be\nTo one, of one, still such, and ever so.\nKind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,\nStill constant in a wondrous excellence;\nTherefore my verse to constancy confin’d,\nOne thing expressing, leaves out difference.\n‘Fair, kind, and true,’ is all my argument,\n‘Fair, kind, and true,’ varying to other words;\nAnd in this change is my invention spent,\nThree themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.\n Fair, kind, and true, have often liv’d alone,\n Which three till now, never kept seat in one.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CVI", + "body": "When in the chronicle of wasted time\nI see descriptions of the fairest wights,\nAnd beauty making beautiful old rime,\nIn praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,\nThen, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,\nOf hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,\nI see their antique pen would have express’d\nEven such a beauty as you master now.\nSo all their praises are but prophecies\nOf this our time, all you prefiguring;\nAnd for they looked but with divining eyes,\nThey had not skill enough your worth to sing:\n For we, which now behold these present days,\n Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CVII", + "body": "Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul\nOf the wide world dreaming on things to come,\nCan yet the lease of my true love control,\nSupposed as forfeit to a confin’d doom.\nThe mortal moon hath her eclipse endur’d,\nAnd the sad augurs mock their own presage;\nIncertainties now crown themselves assur’d,\nAnd peace proclaims olives of endless age.\nNow with the drops of this most balmy time,\nMy love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,\nSince, spite of him, I’ll live in this poor rime,\nWhile he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes:\n And thou in this shalt find thy monument,\n When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CVIII", + "body": "What’s in the brain, that ink may character,\nWhich hath not figur’d to thee my true spirit?\nWhat’s new to speak, what now to register,\nThat may express my love, or thy dear merit?\nNothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,\nI must each day say o’er the very same;\nCounting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,\nEven as when first I hallow’d thy fair name.\nSo that eternal love in love’s fresh case,\nWeighs not the dust and injury of age,\nNor gives to necessary wrinkles place,\nBut makes antiquity for aye his page;\n Finding the first conceit of love there bred,\n Where time and outward form would show it dead.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CIX", + "body": "O! never say that I was false of heart,\nThough absence seem’d my flame to qualify,\nAs easy might I from my self depart\nAs from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:\nThat is my home of love: if I have rang’d,\nLike him that travels, I return again;\nJust to the time, not with the time exchang’d,\nSo that myself bring water for my stain.\nNever believe though in my nature reign’d,\nAll frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,\nThat it could so preposterously be stain’d,\nTo leave for nothing all thy sum of good;\n For nothing this wide universe I call,\n Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CX", + "body": "Alas! ’tis true, I have gone here and there,\nAnd made my self a motley to the view,\nGor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,\nMade old offences of affections new;\nMost true it is, that I have look’d on truth\nAskance and strangely; but, by all above,\nThese blenches gave my heart another youth,\nAnd worse essays prov’d thee my best of love.\nNow all is done, save what shall have no end:\nMine appetite I never more will grind\nOn newer proof, to try an older friend,\nA god in love, to whom I am confin’d.\n Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,\n Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXI", + "body": "O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,\nThe guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,\nThat did not better for my life provide\nThan public means which public manners breeds.\nThence comes it that my name receives a brand,\nAnd almost thence my nature is subdu’d\nTo what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:\nPity me, then, and wish I were renew’d;\nWhilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,\nPotions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection;\nNo bitterness that I will bitter think,\nNor double penance, to correct correction.\n Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,\n Even that your pity is enough to cure me.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXII", + "body": "Your love and pity doth the impression fill,\nWhich vulgar scandal stamp’d upon my brow;\nFor what care I who calls me well or ill,\nSo you o’er-green my bad, my good allow?\nYou are my all-the-world, and I must strive\nTo know my shames and praises from your tongue;\nNone else to me, nor I to none alive,\nThat my steel’d sense or changes right or wrong.\nIn so profound abysm I throw all care\nOf others’ voices, that my adder’s sense\nTo critic and to flatterer stopped are.\nMark how with my neglect I do dispense:\n You are so strongly in my purpose bred,\n That all the world besides methinks are dead.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXIII", + "body": "Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;\nAnd that which governs me to go about\nDoth part his function and is partly blind,\nSeems seeing, but effectually is out;\nFor it no form delivers to the heart\nOf bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch:\nOf his quick objects hath the mind no part,\nNor his own vision holds what it doth catch;\nFor if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,\nThe most sweet favour or deformed’st creature,\nThe mountain or the sea, the day or night:\nThe crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.\n Incapable of more, replete with you,\n My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXIV", + "body": "Or whether doth my mind, being crown’d with you,\nDrink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery?\nOr whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,\nAnd that your love taught it this alchemy,\nTo make of monsters and things indigest\nSuch cherubins as your sweet self resemble,\nCreating every bad a perfect best,\nAs fast as objects to his beams assemble?\nO! ’tis the first, ’tis flattery in my seeing,\nAnd my great mind most kingly drinks it up:\nMine eye well knows what with his gust is ’greeing,\nAnd to his palate doth prepare the cup:\n If it be poison’d, ’tis the lesser sin\n That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXV", + "body": "Those lines that I before have writ do lie,\nEven those that said I could not love you dearer:\nYet then my judgement knew no reason why\nMy most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.\nBut reckoning Time, whose million’d accidents\nCreep in ’twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,\nTan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,\nDivert strong minds to the course of altering things;\nAlas! why fearing of Time’s tyranny,\nMight I not then say, ‘Now I love you best,’\nWhen I was certain o’er incertainty,\nCrowning the present, doubting of the rest?\n Love is a babe, then might I not say so,\n To give full growth to that which still doth grow?", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXVI", + "body": "Let me not to the marriage of true minds\nAdmit impediments. Love is not love\nWhich alters when it alteration finds,\nOr bends with the remover to remove:\nO, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,\nThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;\nIt is the star to every wandering bark,\nWhose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.\nLove’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks\nWithin his bending sickle’s compass come;\nLove alters not with his brief hours and weeks,\nBut bears it out even to the edge of doom.\n If this be error and upon me prov’d,\n I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXVII", + "body": "Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,\nWherein I should your great deserts repay,\nForgot upon your dearest love to call,\nWhereto all bonds do tie me day by day;\nThat I have frequent been with unknown minds,\nAnd given to time your own dear-purchas’d right;\nThat I have hoisted sail to all the winds\nWhich should transport me farthest from your sight.\nBook both my wilfulness and errors down,\nAnd on just proof surmise, accumulate;\nBring me within the level of your frown,\nBut shoot not at me in your waken’d hate;\n Since my appeal says I did strive to prove\n The constancy and virtue of your love.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXVIII", + "body": "Like as, to make our appetite more keen,\nWith eager compounds we our palate urge;\nAs, to prevent our maladies unseen,\nWe sicken to shun sickness when we purge;\nEven so, being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,\nTo bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;\nAnd, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness\nTo be diseas’d, ere that there was true needing.\nThus policy in love, to anticipate\nThe ills that were not, grew to faults assur’d,\nAnd brought to medicine a healthful state\nWhich, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur’d;\n But thence I learn and find the lesson true,\n Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXIX", + "body": "What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,\nDistill’d from limbecks foul as hell within,\nApplying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,\nStill losing when I saw myself to win!\nWhat wretched errors hath my heart committed,\nWhilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!\nHow have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,\nIn the distraction of this madding fever!\nO benefit of ill! now I find true\nThat better is, by evil still made better;\nAnd ruin’d love, when it is built anew,\nGrows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.\n So I return rebuk’d to my content,\n And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXX", + "body": "That you were once unkind befriends me now,\nAnd for that sorrow, which I then did feel,\nNeeds must I under my transgression bow,\nUnless my nerves were brass or hammer’d steel.\nFor if you were by my unkindness shaken,\nAs I by yours, you’ve pass’d a hell of time;\nAnd I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken\nTo weigh how once I suffer’d in your crime.\nO! that our night of woe might have remember’d\nMy deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,\nAnd soon to you, as you to me, then tender’d\nThe humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!\n But that your trespass now becomes a fee;\n Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXI", + "body": "’Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d,\nWhen not to be receives reproach of being;\nAnd the just pleasure lost, which is so deem’d\nNot by our feeling, but by others’ seeing:\nFor why should others’ false adulterate eyes\nGive salutation to my sportive blood?\nOr on my frailties why are frailer spies,\nWhich in their wills count bad what I think good?\nNo, I am that I am, and they that level\nAt my abuses reckon up their own:\nI may be straight though they themselves be bevel;\nBy their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;\n Unless this general evil they maintain,\n All men are bad and in their badness reign.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXII", + "body": "Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain\nFull character’d with lasting memory,\nWhich shall above that idle rank remain,\nBeyond all date; even to eternity:\nOr, at the least, so long as brain and heart\nHave faculty by nature to subsist;\nTill each to raz’d oblivion yield his part\nOf thee, thy record never can be miss’d.\nThat poor retention could not so much hold,\nNor need I tallies thy dear love to score;\nTherefore to give them from me was I bold,\nTo trust those tables that receive thee more:\n To keep an adjunct to remember thee\n Were to import forgetfulness in me.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXIII", + "body": "No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:\nThy pyramids built up with newer might\nTo me are nothing novel, nothing strange;\nThey are but dressings of a former sight.\nOur dates are brief, and therefore we admire\nWhat thou dost foist upon us that is old;\nAnd rather make them born to our desire\nThan think that we before have heard them told.\nThy registers and thee I both defy,\nNot wondering at the present nor the past,\nFor thy records and what we see doth lie,\nMade more or less by thy continual haste.\n This I do vow and this shall ever be;\n I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXIV", + "body": "If my dear love were but the child of state,\nIt might for Fortune’s bastard be unfather’d,\nAs subject to Time’s love or to Time’s hate,\nWeeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather’d.\nNo, it was builded far from accident;\nIt suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls\nUnder the blow of thralled discontent,\nWhereto th’ inviting time our fashion calls:\nIt fears not policy, that heretic,\nWhich works on leases of short-number’d hours,\nBut all alone stands hugely politic,\nThat it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.\n To this I witness call the fools of time,\n Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXV", + "body": "Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,\nWith my extern the outward honouring,\nOr laid great bases for eternity,\nWhich proves more short than waste or ruining?\nHave I not seen dwellers on form and favour\nLose all and more by paying too much rent\nFor compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,\nPitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?\nNo; let me be obsequious in thy heart,\nAnd take thou my oblation, poor but free,\nWhich is not mix’d with seconds, knows no art,\nBut mutual render, only me for thee.\n Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul\n When most impeach’d, stands least in thy control.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXVI", + "body": "O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power\nDost hold Time’s fickle glass, his fickle hour;\nWho hast by waning grown, and therein show’st\nThy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st.\nIf Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,\nAs thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,\nShe keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill\nMay time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.\nYet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!\nShe may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:\n Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,\n And her quietus is to render thee.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXVII", + "body": "In the old age black was not counted fair,\nOr if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;\nBut now is black beauty’s successive heir,\nAnd beauty slander’d with a bastard shame:\nFor since each hand hath put on Nature’s power,\nFairing the foul with Art’s false borrowed face,\nSweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,\nBut is profan’d, if not lives in disgrace.\nTherefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black,\nHer eyes so suited, and they mourners seem\nAt such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,\nSland’ring creation with a false esteem:\n Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,\n That every tongue says beauty should look so.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXVIII", + "body": "How oft when thou, my music, music play’st,\nUpon that blessed wood whose motion sounds\nWith thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st\nThe wiry concord that mine ear confounds,\nDo I envy those jacks that nimble leap,\nTo kiss the tender inward of thy hand,\nWhilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,\nAt the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand!\nTo be so tickled, they would change their state\nAnd situation with those dancing chips,\nO’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,\nMaking dead wood more bless’d than living lips.\n Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,\n Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXIX", + "body": "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame\nIs lust in action: and till action, lust\nIs perjur’d, murderous, bloody, full of blame,\nSavage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;\nEnjoy’d no sooner but despised straight;\nPast reason hunted; and no sooner had,\nPast reason hated, as a swallow’d bait,\nOn purpose laid to make the taker mad:\nMad in pursuit and in possession so;\nHad, having, and in quest, to have extreme;\nA bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;\nBefore, a joy propos’d; behind a dream.\n All this the world well knows; yet none knows well\n To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXX", + "body": "My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;\nCoral is far more red, than her lips red:\nIf snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;\nIf hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.\nI have seen roses damask’d, red and white,\nBut no such roses see I in her cheeks;\nAnd in some perfumes is there more delight\nThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.\nI love to hear her speak, yet well I know\nThat music hath a far more pleasing sound:\nI grant I never saw a goddess go;\nMy mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:\n And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,\n As any she belied with false compare.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXXI", + "body": "Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,\nAs those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;\nFor well thou know’st to my dear doting heart\nThou art the fairest and most precious jewel.\nYet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,\nThy face hath not the power to make love groan;\nTo say they err I dare not be so bold,\nAlthough I swear it to myself alone.\nAnd to be sure that is not false I swear,\nA thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,\nOne on another’s neck, do witness bear\nThy black is fairest in my judgement’s place.\n In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,\n And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXXII", + "body": "Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,\nKnowing thy heart torment me with disdain,\nHave put on black and loving mourners be,\nLooking with pretty ruth upon my pain.\nAnd truly not the morning sun of heaven\nBetter becomes the grey cheeks of the east,\nNor that full star that ushers in the even,\nDoth half that glory to the sober west,\nAs those two mourning eyes become thy face:\nO! let it then as well beseem thy heart\nTo mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,\nAnd suit thy pity like in every part.\n Then will I swear beauty herself is black,\n And all they foul that thy complexion lack.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXXIII", + "body": "Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan\nFor that deep wound it gives my friend and me!\nIs’t not enough to torture me alone,\nBut slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be?\nMe from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,\nAnd my next self thou harder hast engross’d:\nOf him, myself, and thee I am forsaken;\nA torment thrice three-fold thus to be cross’d:\nPrison my heart in thy steel bosom’s ward,\nBut then my friend’s heart let my poor heart bail;\nWhoe’er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;\nThou canst not then use rigour in my jail:\n And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,\n Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXXIV", + "body": "So, now I have confess’d that he is thine,\nAnd I my self am mortgag’d to thy will,\nMyself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine\nThou wilt restore to be my comfort still:\nBut thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,\nFor thou art covetous, and he is kind;\nHe learn’d but surety-like to write for me,\nUnder that bond that him as fast doth bind.\nThe statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,\nThou usurer, that putt’st forth all to use,\nAnd sue a friend came debtor for my sake;\nSo him I lose through my unkind abuse.\n Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:\n He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXXV", + "body": "Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy ‘Will,’\nAnd ‘Will’ to boot, and ‘Will’ in over-plus;\nMore than enough am I that vex’d thee still,\nTo thy sweet will making addition thus.\nWilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,\nNot once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?\nShall will in others seem right gracious,\nAnd in my will no fair acceptance shine?\nThe sea, all water, yet receives rain still,\nAnd in abundance addeth to his store;\nSo thou, being rich in ‘Will,’ add to thy ‘Will’\nOne will of mine, to make thy large will more.\n Let no unkind ‘No’ fair beseechers kill;\n Think all but one, and me in that one ‘Will.’", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXXVI", + "body": "If thy soul check thee that I come so near,\nSwear to thy blind soul that I was thy ‘Will’,\nAnd will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;\nThus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.\n‘Will’, will fulfil the treasure of thy love,\nAy, fill it full with wills, and my will one.\nIn things of great receipt with ease we prove\nAmong a number one is reckon’d none:\nThen in the number let me pass untold,\nThough in thy store’s account I one must be;\nFor nothing hold me, so it please thee hold\nThat nothing me, a something sweet to thee:\n Make but my name thy love, and love that still,\n And then thou lov’st me for my name is ‘Will.’", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXXVII", + "body": "Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,\nThat they behold, and see not what they see?\nThey know what beauty is, see where it lies,\nYet what the best is take the worst to be.\nIf eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,\nBe anchor’d in the bay where all men ride,\nWhy of eyes’ falsehood hast thou forged hooks,\nWhereto the judgement of my heart is tied?\nWhy should my heart think that a several plot,\nWhich my heart knows the wide world’s common place?\nOr mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not,\nTo put fair truth upon so foul a face?\n In things right true my heart and eyes have err’d,\n And to this false plague are they now transferr’d.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXXVIII", + "body": "When my love swears that she is made of truth,\nI do believe her though I know she lies,\nThat she might think me some untutor’d youth,\nUnlearned in the world’s false subtleties.\nThus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,\nAlthough she knows my days are past the best,\nSimply I credit her false-speaking tongue:\nOn both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:\nBut wherefore says she not she is unjust?\nAnd wherefore say not I that I am old?\nO! love’s best habit is in seeming trust,\nAnd age in love, loves not to have years told:\n Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,\n And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXXXIX", + "body": "O! call not me to justify the wrong\nThat thy unkindness lays upon my heart;\nWound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue:\nUse power with power, and slay me not by art,\nTell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight,\nDear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:\nWhat need’st thou wound with cunning, when thy might\nIs more than my o’erpress’d defence can bide?\nLet me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows\nHer pretty looks have been mine enemies;\nAnd therefore from my face she turns my foes,\nThat they elsewhere might dart their injuries:\n Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,\n Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXL", + "body": "Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press\nMy tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;\nLest sorrow lend me words, and words express\nThe manner of my pity-wanting pain.\nIf I might teach thee wit, better it were,\nThough not to love, yet love to tell me so,\nAs testy sick men, when their deaths be near,\nNo news but health from their physicians know.\nFor, if I should despair, I should grow mad,\nAnd in my madness might speak ill of thee;\nNow this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,\nMad slanderers by mad ears believed be.\n That I may not be so, nor thou belied,\n Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXLI", + "body": "In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,\nFor they in thee a thousand errors note;\nBut ’tis my heart that loves what they despise,\nWho, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.\nNor are mine ears with thy tongue’s tune delighted;\nNor tender feeling, to base touches prone,\nNor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited\nTo any sensual feast with thee alone:\nBut my five wits nor my five senses can\nDissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,\nWho leaves unsway’d the likeness of a man,\nThy proud heart’s slave and vassal wretch to be:\n Only my plague thus far I count my gain,\n That she that makes me sin awards me pain.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXLII", + "body": "Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,\nHate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:\nO! but with mine compare thou thine own state,\nAnd thou shalt find it merits not reproving;\nOr, if it do, not from those lips of thine,\nThat have profan’d their scarlet ornaments\nAnd seal’d false bonds of love as oft as mine,\nRobb’d others’ beds’ revenues of their rents.\nBe it lawful I love thee, as thou lov’st those\nWhom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:\nRoot pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,\nThy pity may deserve to pitied be.\n If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,\n By self-example mayst thou be denied!", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXLIII", + "body": "Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch\nOne of her feather’d creatures broke away,\nSets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch\nIn pursuit of the thing she would have stay;\nWhilst her neglected child holds her in chase,\nCries to catch her whose busy care is bent\nTo follow that which flies before her face,\nNot prizing her poor infant’s discontent;\nSo runn’st thou after that which flies from thee,\nWhilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;\nBut if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,\nAnd play the mother’s part, kiss me, be kind;\n So will I pray that thou mayst have thy ‘Will,’\n If thou turn back and my loud crying still.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXLIV", + "body": "Two loves I have of comfort and despair,\nWhich like two spirits do suggest me still:\nThe better angel is a man right fair,\nThe worser spirit a woman colour’d ill.\nTo win me soon to hell, my female evil,\nTempteth my better angel from my side,\nAnd would corrupt my saint to be a devil,\nWooing his purity with her foul pride.\nAnd whether that my angel be turn’d fiend,\nSuspect I may, yet not directly tell;\nBut being both from me, both to each friend,\nI guess one angel in another’s hell:\n Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,\n Till my bad angel fire my good one out.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXLV", + "body": "Those lips that Love’s own hand did make,\nBreathed forth the sound that said ‘I hate’,\nTo me that languish’d for her sake:\nBut when she saw my woeful state,\nStraight in her heart did mercy come,\nChiding that tongue that ever sweet\nWas us’d in giving gentle doom;\nAnd taught it thus anew to greet;\n‘I hate’ she alter’d with an end,\nThat followed it as gentle day,\nDoth follow night, who like a fiend\nFrom heaven to hell is flown away.\n ‘I hate’, from hate away she threw,\n And sav’d my life, saying ‘not you’.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXLVI", + "body": "Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,\nMy sinful earth these rebel powers array,\nWhy dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,\nPainting thy outward walls so costly gay?\nWhy so large cost, having so short a lease,\nDost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?\nShall worms, inheritors of this excess,\nEat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?\nThen soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,\nAnd let that pine to aggravate thy store;\nBuy terms divine in selling hours of dross;\nWithin be fed, without be rich no more:\n So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,\n And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXLVII", + "body": "My love is as a fever longing still,\nFor that which longer nurseth the disease;\nFeeding on that which doth preserve the ill,\nThe uncertain sickly appetite to please.\nMy reason, the physician to my love,\nAngry that his prescriptions are not kept,\nHath left me, and I desperate now approve\nDesire is death, which physic did except.\nPast cure I am, now Reason is past care,\nAnd frantic-mad with evermore unrest;\nMy thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,\nAt random from the truth vainly express’d;\n For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,\n Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXLVIII", + "body": "O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,\nWhich have no correspondence with true sight;\nOr, if they have, where is my judgement fled,\nThat censures falsely what they see aright?\nIf that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,\nWhat means the world to say it is not so?\nIf it be not, then love doth well denote\nLove’s eye is not so true as all men’s: no,\nHow can it? O! how can Love’s eye be true,\nThat is so vexed with watching and with tears?\nNo marvel then, though I mistake my view;\nThe sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.\n O cunning Love! with tears thou keep’st me blind,\n Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CXLIX", + "body": "Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,\nWhen I against myself with thee partake?\nDo I not think on thee, when I forgot\nAm of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?\nWho hateth thee that I do call my friend,\nOn whom frown’st thou that I do fawn upon,\nNay, if thou lour’st on me, do I not spend\nRevenge upon myself with present moan?\nWhat merit do I in my self respect,\nThat is so proud thy service to despise,\nWhen all my best doth worship thy defect,\nCommanded by the motion of thine eyes?\n But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;\n Those that can see thou lov’st, and I am blind.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CL", + "body": "O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,\nWith insufficiency my heart to sway?\nTo make me give the lie to my true sight,\nAnd swear that brightness doth not grace the day?\nWhence hast thou this becoming of things ill,\nThat in the very refuse of thy deeds\nThere is such strength and warrantise of skill,\nThat, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?\nWho taught thee how to make me love thee more,\nThe more I hear and see just cause of hate?\nO! though I love what others do abhor,\nWith others thou shouldst not abhor my state:\n If thy unworthiness rais’d love in me,\n More worthy I to be belov’d of thee.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CLI", + "body": "Love is too young to know what conscience is,\nYet who knows not conscience is born of love?\nThen, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,\nLest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:\nFor, thou betraying me, I do betray\nMy nobler part to my gross body’s treason;\nMy soul doth tell my body that he may\nTriumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,\nBut rising at thy name doth point out thee,\nAs his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,\nHe is contented thy poor drudge to be,\nTo stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.\n No want of conscience hold it that I call\n Her ‘love,’ for whose dear love I rise and fall.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CLII", + "body": "In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,\nBut thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;\nIn act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,\nIn vowing new hate after new love bearing:\nBut why of two oaths’ breach do I accuse thee,\nWhen I break twenty? I am perjur’d most;\nFor all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,\nAnd all my honest faith in thee is lost:\nFor I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,\nOaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;\nAnd, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,\nOr made them swear against the thing they see;\n For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured I,\n To swear against the truth so foul a lie.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CLIII", + "body": "Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:\nA maid of Dian’s this advantage found,\nAnd his love-kindling fire did quickly steep\nIn a cold valley-fountain of that ground;\nWhich borrow’d from this holy fire of Love,\nA dateless lively heat, still to endure,\nAnd grew a seething bath, which yet men prove\nAgainst strange maladies a sovereign cure.\nBut at my mistress’ eye Love’s brand new-fired,\nThe boy for trial needs would touch my breast;\nI, sick withal, the help of bath desired,\nAnd thither hied, a sad distemper’d guest,\n But found no cure, the bath for my help lies\n Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress’ eyes.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet CLIV", + "body": "The little Love-god lying once asleep,\nLaid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,\nWhilst many nymphs that vow’d chaste life to keep\nCame tripping by; but in her maiden hand\nThe fairest votary took up that fire\nWhich many legions of true hearts had warm’d;\nAnd so the general of hot desire\nWas, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarm’d.\nThis brand she quenched in a cool well by,\nWhich from Love’s fire took heat perpetual,\nGrowing a bath and healthful remedy,\nFor men diseased; but I, my mistress’ thrall,\n Came there for cure and this by that I prove,\n Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.", + "author": "William Shakespeare", + "source": "Shakespeare's Sonnets", + "period": "1609" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/shelley_poetical_works.json b/poetry/shelley_poetical_works.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2576f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/shelley_poetical_works.json @@ -0,0 +1,7345 @@ +[ + { + "title": "Alastor: Or, The Spirit Of Solitude.", + "body": "[Composed at Bishopsgate Heath, near Windsor Park, 1815 (autumn);\npublished, as the title-piece of a slender volume containing other\npoems (see “Biographical List”, by Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, London,\n1816 (March). Reprinted—the first edition being sold out—amongst the\n“Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Sources of the text are (1) the editio\nprinceps, 1816; (2) “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; (3) “Poetical Works”,\n1839, editions 1st and 2nd. For (2) and (3) Mrs. Shelley is\nresponsible.]\n\n\nThe poem entitled “Alastor” may be considered as allegorical of one of\nthe most interesting situations of the human mind. It represents a\nyouth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius led forth by an\nimagination inflamed and purified through familiarity with all that is\nexcellent and majestic, to the contemplation of the universe. He\ndrinks deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. The\nmagnificence and beauty of the external world sinks profoundly into\nthe frame of his conceptions, and affords to their modifications at\nvariety not to be exhausted. so long as it is possible for his desires\nto point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous,\nand tranquil, and self-possessed. But the period arrives when these\nobjects cease to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened and\nthirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself. He\nimages to himself the Being whom he loves. Conversant with\nspeculations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, the vision in\nwhich he embodies his own imaginations unites all of wonderful, or\nwise, or beautiful, which the poet, the philosopher, or the lover\ncould depicture. The intellectual faculties, the imagination, the\nfunctions of sense, have their respective requisitions on the sympathy\nof corresponding powers in other human beings. The Poet is represented\nas uniting these requisitions, and attaching them to a single image.\nHe seeks in vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his\ndisappointment, he descends to an untimely grave.\n\nThe picture is not barren of instruction to actual men. The Poet’s\nself-centred seclusion was avenged by the furies of an irresistible\npassion pursuing him to speedy ruin. But that Power which strikes the\nluminaries of the world with sudden darkness and extinction, by\nawakening them to too exquisite a perception of its influences, dooms\nto a slow and poisonous decay those manner spirits that dare to abjure\nits dominion. Their destiny is more abject and inglorious as their\ndelinquency is more contemptible and pernicious. They who, deluded by\nno generous error, instigated by no sacred thirst of doubtful\nknowledge, duped by no illustrious superstition, loving nothing on\nthis earth, and cherishing no hopes beyond, yet keep aloof from\nsympathies with their kind, rejoicing neither in human joy nor\nmourning with human grief; these, and such as they, have their\napportioned curse. They languish, because none feel with them their\ncommon nature. They are morally dead. They are neither friends, nor\nlovers, nor fathers, nor citizens of the world, nor benefactors of\ntheir country. Among those who attempt to exist without human\nsympathy, the pure and tender-hearted perish through the intensity and\npassion of their search after its communities, when the vacancy of\ntheir spirit suddenly makes itself felt. All else, selfish, blind, and\ntorpid, are those unforeseeing multitudes who constitute, together\nwith their own, the lasting misery and loneliness of the world. Those\nwho love not their fellow-beings live unfruitful lives, and prepare\nfor their old age a miserable grave.\n\n‘The good die first,\nAnd those whose hearts are dry as summer dust,\nBurn to the socket!’\n\nDecember 14, 1815.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Alastor: Or, The Spirit Of Solitude.", + "body": "Earth, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood!\nIf our great Mother has imbued my soul\nWith aught of natural piety to feel\nYour love, and recompense the boon with mine;\nIf dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, _5\nWith sunset and its gorgeous ministers,\nAnd solemn midnight’s tingling silentness;\nIf autumn’s hollow sighs in the sere wood,\nAnd winter robing with pure snow and crowns\nOf starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs; _10\nIf spring’s voluptuous pantings when she breathes\nHer first sweet kisses, have been dear to me;\nIf no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast\nI consciously have injured, but still loved\nAnd cherished these my kindred; then forgive _15\nThis boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw\nNo portion of your wonted favour now!\n\nMother of this unfathomable world!\nFavour my solemn song, for I have loved\nThee ever, and thee only; I have watched _20\nThy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,\nAnd my heart ever gazes on the depth\nOf thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed\nIn charnels and on coffins, where black death\nKeeps record of the trophies won from thee, _25\nHoping to still these obstinate questionings\nOf thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,\nThy messenger, to render up the tale\nOf what we are. In lone and silent hours,\nWhen night makes a weird sound of its own stillness, _30\nLike an inspired and desperate alchymist\nStaking his very life on some dark hope,\nHave I mixed awful talk and asking looks\nWith my most innocent love, until strange tears,\nUniting with those breathless kisses, made _35\nSuch magic as compels the charmed night\nTo render up thy charge:...and, though ne’er yet\nThou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,\nEnough from incommunicable dream,\nAnd twilight phantasms, and deep noon-day thought, _40\nHas shone within me, that serenely now\nAnd moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre\nSuspended in the solitary dome\nOf some mysterious and deserted fane,\nI wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain _45\nMay modulate with murmurs of the air,\nAnd motions of the forests and the sea,\nAnd voice of living beings, and woven hymns\nOf night and day, and the deep heart of man.\n\nThere was a Poet whose untimely tomb _50\nNo human hands with pious reverence reared,\nBut the charmed eddies of autumnal winds\nBuilt o’er his mouldering bones a pyramid\nOf mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness:—\nA lovely youth,—no mourning maiden decked _55\nWith weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,\nThe lone couch of his everlasting sleep:—\nGentle, and brave, and generous,—no lorn bard\nBreathed o’er his dark fate one melodious sigh:\nHe lived, he died, he sung in solitude. _60\nStrangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,\nAnd virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined\nAnd wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.\nThe fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,\nAnd Silence, too enamoured of that voice, _65\nLocks its mute music in her rugged cell.\n\nBy solemn vision, and bright silver dream\nHis infancy was nurtured. Every sight\nAnd sound from the vast earth and ambient air,\nSent to his heart its choicest impulses. _70\nThe fountains of divine philosophy\nFled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,\nOr good, or lovely, which the sacred past\nIn truth or fable consecrates, he felt\nAnd knew. When early youth had passed, he left _75\nHis cold fireside and alienated home\nTo seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.\nMany a wide waste and tangled wilderness\nHas lured his fearless steps; and he has bought\nWith his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men, _80\nHis rest and food. Nature’s most secret steps\nHe like her shadow has pursued, where’er\nThe red volcano overcanopies\nIts fields of snow and pinnacles of ice\nWith burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes _85\nOn black bare pointed islets ever beat\nWith sluggish surge, or where the secret caves,\nRugged and dark, winding among the springs\nOf fire and poison, inaccessible\nTo avarice or pride, their starry domes _90\nOf diamond and of gold expand above\nNumberless and immeasurable halls,\nFrequent with crystal column, and clear shrines\nOf pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.\nNor had that scene of ampler majesty _95\nThan gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven\nAnd the green earth lost in his heart its claims\nTo love and wonder; he would linger long\nIn lonesome vales, making the wild his home,\nUntil the doves and squirrels would partake _100\nFrom his innocuous hand his bloodless food,\nLured by the gentle meaning of his looks,\nAnd the wild antelope, that starts whene’er\nThe dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend\nHer timid steps, to gaze upon a form\nMore graceful than her own. _105\nHis wandering step,\nObedient to high thoughts, has visited\nThe awful ruins of the days of old:\nAthens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste\nWhere stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers _110\nOf Babylon, the eternal pyramids,\nMemphis and Thebes, and whatsoe’er of strange,\nSculptured on alabaster obelisk,\nOr jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx,\nDark Aethiopia in her desert hills _115\nConceals. Among the ruined temples there,\nStupendous columns, and wild images\nOf more than man, where marble daemons watch\nThe Zodiac’s brazen mystery, and dead men\nHang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, _120\nHe lingered, poring on memorials\nOf the world’s youth: through the long burning day\nGazed on those speechless shapes; nor, when the moon\nFilled the mysterious halls with floating shades\nSuspended he that task, but ever gazed _125\nAnd gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind\nFlashed like strong inspiration, and he saw\nThe thrilling secrets of the birth of time.\n\nMeanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,\nHer daily portion, from her father’s tent, _130\nAnd spread her matting for his couch, and stole\nFrom duties and repose to tend his steps,\nEnamoured, yet not daring for deep awe\nTo speak her love:—and watched his nightly sleep,\nSleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips _135\nParted in slumber, whence the regular breath\nOf innocent dreams arose; then, when red morn\nMade paler the pale moon, to her cold home\nWildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.\n\nThe Poet, wandering on, through Arabie, _140\nAnd Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,\nAnd o’er the aerial mountains which pour down\nIndus and Oxus from their icy caves,\nIn joy and exultation held his way;\nTill in the vale of Cashmire, far within _145\nIts loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine\nBeneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,\nBeside a sparkling rivulet he stretched\nHis languid limbs. A vision on his sleep\nThere came, a dream of hopes that never yet _150\nHad flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid\nSate near him, talking in low solemn tones.\nHer voice was like the voice of his own soul\nHeard in the calm of thought; its music long,\nLike woven sounds of streams and breezes, held _155\nHis inmost sense suspended in its web\nOf many-coloured woof and shifting hues.\nKnowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,\nAnd lofty hopes of divine liberty,\nThoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, _160\nHerself a poet. Soon the solemn mood\nOf her pure mind kindled through all her frame\nA permeating fire; wild numbers then\nShe raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs\nSubdued by its own pathos; her fair hands _165\nWere bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp\nStrange symphony, and in their branching veins\nThe eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.\nThe beating of her heart was heard to fill\nThe pauses of her music, and her breath _170\nTumultuously accorded with those fits\nOf intermitted song. Sudden she rose,\nAs if her heart impatiently endured\nIts bursting burthen: at the sound he turned,\nAnd saw by the warm light of their own life _175\nHer glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil\nOf woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,\nHer dark locks floating in the breath of night,\nHer beamy bending eyes, her parted lips\nOutstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly. _180\nHis strong heart sunk and sickened with excess\nOf love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled\nHis gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet\nHer panting bosom:...she drew back a while,\nThen, yielding to the irresistible joy, _185\nWith frantic gesture and short breathless cry\nFolded his frame in her dissolving arms.\nNow blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night\nInvolved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,\nLike a dark flood suspended in its course, _190\nRolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.\n\nRoused by the shock he started from his trance—\nThe cold white light of morning, the blue moon\nLow in the west, the clear and garish hills,\nThe distinct valley and the vacant woods, _195\nSpread round him where he stood. Whither have fled\nThe hues of heaven that canopied his bower\nOf yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep,\nThe mystery and the majesty of Earth,\nThe joy, the exultation? His wan eyes _200\nGaze on the empty scene as vacantly\nAs ocean’s moon looks on the moon in heaven.\nThe spirit of sweet human love has sent\nA vision to the sleep of him who spurned\nHer choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues _205\nBeyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;\nHe overleaps the bounds. Alas! Alas!\nWere limbs, and breath, and being intertwined\nThus treacherously? Lost, lost, for ever lost\nIn the wide pathless desert of dim sleep, _210\nThat beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of death\nConduct to thy mysterious paradise,\nO Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds\nAnd pendent mountains seen in the calm lake,\nLead only to a black and watery depth, _215\nWhile death’s blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung,\nWhere every shade which the foul grave exhales\nHides its dead eye from the detested day,\nConducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms?\nThis doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart; _220\nThe insatiate hope which it awakened, stung\nHis brain even like despair.\nWhile daylight held\nThe sky, the Poet kept mute conference\nWith his still soul. At night the passion came,\nLike the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, _225\nAnd shook him from his rest, and led him forth\nInto the darkness.—As an eagle, grasped\nIn folds of the green serpent, feels her breast\nBurn with the poison, and precipitates\nThrough night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud, _230\nFrantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight\nO’er the wide aery wilderness: thus driven\nBy the bright shadow of that lovely dream,\nBeneath the cold glare of the desolate night,\nThrough tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, _235\nStartling with careless step the moonlight snake,\nHe fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight,\nShedding the mockery of its vital hues\nUpon his cheek of death. He wandered on\nTill vast Aornos seen from Petra’s steep _240\nHung o’er the low horizon like a cloud;\nThrough Balk, and where the desolated tombs\nOf Parthian kings scatter to every wind\nTheir wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,\nDay after day a weary waste of hours, _245\nBearing within his life the brooding care\nThat ever fed on its decaying flame.\nAnd now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair,\nSered by the autumn of strange suffering\nSung dirges in the wind; his listless hand _250\nHung like dead bone within its withered skin;\nLife, and the lustre that consumed it, shone\nAs in a furnace burning secretly\nFrom his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,\nWho ministered with human charity _255\nHis human wants, beheld with wondering awe\nTheir fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,\nEncountering on some dizzy precipice\nThat spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind\nWith lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet _260\nDisturbing not the drifted snow, had paused\nIn its career: the infant would conceal\nHis troubled visage in his mother’s robe\nIn terror at the glare of those wild eyes,\nTo remember their strange light in many a dream _265\nOf after-times; but youthful maidens, taught\nBy nature, would interpret half the woe\nThat wasted him, would call him with false names\nBrother and friend, would press his pallid hand\nAt parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path _270\nOf his departure from their father’s door.\n\nAt length upon the lone Chorasmian shore\nHe paused, a wide and melancholy waste\nOf putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged\nHis steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there, _275\nBeside a sluggish stream among the reeds.\nIt rose as he approached, and, with strong wings\nScaling the upward sky, bent its bright course\nHigh over the immeasurable main.\nHis eyes pursued its flight:—‘Thou hast a home, _280\nBeautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home,\nWhere thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck\nWith thine, and welcome thy return with eyes\nBright in the lustre of their own fond joy.\nAnd what am I that I should linger here, _285\nWith voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,\nSpirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned\nTo beauty, wasting these surpassing powers\nIn the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven\nThat echoes not my thoughts?’ A gloomy smile _290\nOf desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.\nFor sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly\nIts precious charge, and silent death exposed,\nFaithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,\nWith doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. _295\n\nStartled by his own thoughts he looked around.\nThere was no fair fiend near him, not a sight\nOr sound of awe but in his own deep mind.\nA little shallop floating near the shore\nCaught the impatient wandering of his gaze. _300\nIt had been long abandoned, for its sides\nGaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints\nSwayed with the undulations of the tide.\nA restless impulse urged him to embark\nAnd meet lone Death on the drear ocean’s waste; _305\nFor well he knew that mighty Shadow loves\nThe slimy caverns of the populous deep.\n\nThe day was fair and sunny; sea and sky\nDrank its inspiring radiance, and the wind\nSwept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves. _310\nFollowing his eager soul, the wanderer\nLeaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloft\nOn the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,\nAnd felt the boat speed o’er the tranquil sea\nLike a torn cloud before the hurricane. _315\n\nAs one that in a silver vision floats\nObedient to the sweep of odorous winds\nUpon resplendent clouds, so rapidly\nAlong the dark and ruffled waters fled\nThe straining boat.—A whirlwind swept it on, _320\nWith fierce gusts and precipitating force,\nThrough the white ridges of the chafed sea.\nThe waves arose. Higher and higher still\nTheir fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest’s scourge\nLike serpents struggling in a vulture’s grasp. _325\nCalm and rejoicing in the fearful war\nOf wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast\nDescending, and black flood on whirlpool driven\nWith dark obliterating course, he sate:\nAs if their genii were the ministers _330\nAppointed to conduct him to the light\nOf those beloved eyes, the Poet sate,\nHolding the steady helm. Evening came on,\nThe beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues\nHigh ‘mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray _335\nThat canopied his path o’er the waste deep;\nTwilight, ascending slowly from the east,\nEntwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks\nO’er the fair front and radiant eyes of day;\nNight followed, clad with stars. On every side _340\nMore horribly the multitudinous streams\nOf ocean’s mountainous waste to mutual war\nRushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock\nThe calm and spangled sky. The little boat\nStill fled before the storm; still fled, like foam _345\nDown the steep cataract of a wintry river;\nNow pausing on the edge of the riven wave;\nNow leaving far behind the bursting mass\nThat fell, convulsing ocean: safely fled—\nAs if that frail and wasted human form, _350\nHad been an elemental god.\n\nAt midnight\nThe moon arose; and lo! the ethereal cliffs\nOf Caucasus, whose icy summits shone\nAmong the stars like sunlight, and around\nWhose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves _355\nBursting and eddying irresistibly\nRage and resound forever.—Who shall save?—\nThe boat fled on,—the boiling torrent drove,—\nThe crags closed round with black and jagged arms,\nThe shattered mountain overhung the sea, _360\nAnd faster still, beyond all human speed,\nSuspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,\nThe little boat was driven. A cavern there\nYawned, and amid its slant and winding depths\nIngulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on _365\nWith unrelaxing speed.—‘Vision and Love!’\nThe Poet cried aloud, ‘I have beheld\nThe path of thy departure. Sleep and death\nShall not divide us long.’\n\nThe boat pursued\nThe windings of the cavern. Daylight shone _370\nAt length upon that gloomy river’s flow;\nNow, where the fiercest war among the waves\nIs calm, on the unfathomable stream\nThe boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,\nExposed those black depths to the azure sky, _375\nEre yet the flood’s enormous volume fell\nEven to the base of Caucasus, with sound\nThat shook the everlasting rocks, the mass\nFilled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm:\nStair above stair the eddying waters rose, _380\nCircling immeasurably fast, and laved\nWith alternating dash the gnarled roots\nOf mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms\nIn darkness over it. I’ the midst was left,\nReflecting, yet distorting every cloud, _385\nA pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.\nSeized by the sway of the ascending stream,\nWith dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round,\nRidge after ridge the straining boat arose,\nTill on the verge of the extremest curve, _390\nWhere, through an opening of the rocky bank,\nThe waters overflow, and a smooth spot\nOf glassy quiet mid those battling tides\nIs left, the boat paused shuddering.—Shall it sink\nDown the abyss? Shall the reverting stress _395\nOf that resistless gulf embosom it?\nNow shall it fall?—A wandering stream of wind,\nBreathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,\nAnd, lo! with gentle motion, between banks\nOf mossy slope, and on a placid stream, _400\nBeneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark!\nThe ghastly torrent mingles its far roar,\nWith the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.\nWhere the embowering trees recede, and leave\nA little space of green expanse, the cove _405\nIs closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers\nFor ever gaze on their own drooping eyes,\nReflected in the crystal calm. The wave\nOf the boat’s motion marred their pensive task,\nWhich naught but vagrant bird, or wanton wind, _410\nOr falling spear-grass, or their own decay\nHad e’er disturbed before. The Poet longed\nTo deck with their bright hues his withered hair,\nBut on his heart its solitude returned,\nAnd he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid _415\nIn those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame\nHad yet performed its ministry: it hung\nUpon his life, as lightning in a cloud\nGleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods\nOf night close over it.\nThe noonday sun _420\nNow shone upon the forest, one vast mass\nOf mingling shade, whose brown magnificence\nA narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,\nScooped in the dark base of their aery rocks,\nMocking its moans, respond and roar for ever. _425\nThe meeting boughs and implicated leaves\nWove twilight o’er the Poet’s path, as led\nBy love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,\nHe sought in Nature’s dearest haunt some bank,\nHer cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark _430\nAnd dark the shades accumulate. The oak,\nExpanding its immense and knotty arms,\nEmbraces the light beech. The pyramids\nOf the tall cedar overarching frame\nMost solemn domes within, and far below, _435\nLike clouds suspended in an emerald sky,\nThe ash and the acacia floating hang\nTremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed\nIn rainbow and in fire, the parasites,\nStarred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around _440\nThe grey trunks, and, as gamesome infants’ eyes,\nWith gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,\nFold their beams round the hearts of those that love,\nThese twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs\nUniting their close union; the woven leaves _445\nMake net-work of the dark blue light of day,\nAnd the night’s noontide clearness, mutable\nAs shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns\nBeneath these canopies extend their swells,\nFragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms _450\nMinute yet beautiful. One darkest glen\nSends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine,\nA soul-dissolving odour to invite\nTo some more lovely mystery. Through the dell,\nSilence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep _455\nTheir noonday watch, and sail among the shades,\nLike vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,\nDark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,\nImages all the woven boughs above,\nAnd each depending leaf, and every speck _460\nOf azure sky, darting between their chasms;\nNor aught else in the liquid mirror laves\nIts portraiture, but some inconstant star\nBetween one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,\nOr painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon, _465\nOr gorgeous insect floating motionless,\nUnconscious of the day, ere yet his wings\nHave spread their glories to the gaze of noon.\n\nHither the Poet came. His eyes beheld\nTheir own wan light through the reflected lines _470\nOf his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth\nOf that still fountain; as the human heart,\nGazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,\nSees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard\nThe motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung _475\nStartled and glanced and trembled even to feel\nAn unaccustomed presence, and the sound\nOf the sweet brook that from the secret springs\nOf that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed\nTo stand beside him—clothed in no bright robes _480\nOf shadowy silver or enshrining light,\nBorrowed from aught the visible world affords\nOf grace, or majesty, or mystery;—\nBut, undulating woods, and silent well,\nAnd leaping rivulet, and evening gloom _485\nNow deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,\nHeld commune with him, as if he and it\nWere all that was,—only...when his regard\nWas raised by intense pensiveness,...two eyes,\nTwo starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, _490\nAnd seemed with their serene and azure smiles\nTo beckon him.\n\nObedient to the light\nThat shone within his soul, he went, pursuing\nThe windings of the dell.—The rivulet,\nWanton and wild, through many a green ravine _495\nBeneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell\nAmong the moss with hollow harmony\nDark and profound. Now on the polished stones\nIt danced; like childhood laughing as it went:\nThen, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept, _500\nReflecting every herb and drooping bud\nThat overhung its quietness.—‘O stream!\nWhose source is inaccessibly profound,\nWhither do thy mysterious waters tend?\nThou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness, _505\nThy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,\nThy searchless fountain, and invisible course\nHave each their type in me; and the wide sky.\nAnd measureless ocean may declare as soon\nWhat oozy cavern or what wandering cloud _510\nContains thy waters, as the universe\nTell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched\nUpon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste\nI’ the passing wind!’\n\nBeside the grassy shore\nOf the small stream he went; he did impress _515\nOn the green moss his tremulous step, that caught\nStrong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one\nRoused by some joyous madness from the couch\nOf fever, he did move; yet, not like him,\nForgetful of the grave, where, when the flame _520\nOf his frail exultation shall be spent,\nHe must descend. With rapid steps he went\nBeneath the shade of trees, beside the flow\nOf the wild babbling rivulet; and now\nThe forest’s solemn canopies were changed _525\nFor the uniform and lightsome evening sky.\nGrey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed\nThe struggling brook; tall spires of windlestrae\nThrew their thin shadows down the rugged slope,\nAnd nought but gnarled roots of ancient pines _530\nBranchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots\nThe unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,\nYet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,\nThe smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin\nAnd white, and where irradiate dewy eyes _535\nHad shone, gleam stony orbs:—so from his steps\nBright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade\nOf the green groves, with all their odorous winds\nAnd musical motions. Calm, he still pursued\nThe stream, that with a larger volume now _540\nRolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there\nFretted a path through its descending curves\nWith its wintry speed. On every side now rose\nRocks, which, in unimaginable forms,\nLifted their black and barren pinnacles _545\nIn the light of evening, and its precipice\nObscuring the ravine, disclosed above,\nMid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,\nWhose windings gave ten thousand various tongues\nTo the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands _550\nIts stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,\nAnd seems, with its accumulated crags,\nTo overhang the world: for wide expand\nBeneath the wan stars and descending moon\nIslanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams, _555\nDim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom\nOf leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills\nMingling their flames with twilight, on the verge\nOf the remote horizon. The near scene,\nIn naked and severe simplicity, _560\nMade contrast with the universe. A pine,\nRock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy\nIts swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast\nYielding one only response, at each pause\nIn most familiar cadence, with the howl _565\nThe thunder and the hiss of homeless streams\nMingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river\nFoaming and hurrying o’er its rugged path,\nFell into that immeasurable void\nScattering its waters to the passing winds. _570\n\nYet the grey precipice and solemn pine\nAnd torrent were not all;—one silent nook\nWas there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,\nUpheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,\nIt overlooked in its serenity _575\nThe dark earth, and the bending vault of stars.\nIt was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile\nEven in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped\nThe fissured stones with its entwining arms,\nAnd did embower with leaves for ever green, _580\nAnd berries dark, the smooth and even space\nOf its inviolated floor, and here\nThe children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,\nIn wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,\nRed, yellow, or ethereally pale, _585\nRivals the pride of summer. ’Tis the haunt\nOf every gentle wind, whose breath can teach\nThe wilds to love tranquillity. One step,\nOne human step alone, has ever broken\nThe stillness of its solitude:—one voice _590\nAlone inspired its echoes;—even that voice\nWhich hither came, floating among the winds,\nAnd led the loveliest among human forms\nTo make their wild haunts the depository\nOf all the grace and beauty that endued _595\nIts motions, render up its majesty,\nScatter its music on the unfeeling storm,\nAnd to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,\nNurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,\nCommit the colours of that varying cheek, _600\nThat snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.\n\nThe dim and horned moon hung low, and poured\nA sea of lustre on the horizon’s verge\nThat overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist\nFilled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank _605\nWan moonlight even to fulness; not a star\nShone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,\nDanger’s grim playmates, on that precipice\nSlept, clasped in his embrace.—O, storm of death!\nWhose sightless speed divides this sullen night: 610\nAnd thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still\nGuiding its irresistible career\nIn thy devastating omnipotence,\nArt king of this frail world, from the red field\nOf slaughter, from the reeking hospital, _615\nThe patriot’s sacred couch, the snowy bed\nOf innocence, the scaffold and the throne,\nA mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls\nHis brother Death. A rare and regal prey\nHe hath prepared, prowling around the world; _620\nGlutted with which thou mayst repose, and men\nGo to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,\nNor ever more offer at thy dark shrine\nThe unheeded tribute of a broken heart.\n\nWhen on the threshold of the green recess _625\nThe wanderer’s footsteps fell, he knew that death\nWas on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,\nDid he resign his high and holy soul\nTo images of the majestic past,\nThat paused within his passive being now, _630\nLike winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe\nThrough some dim latticed chamber. He did place\nHis pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk\nOf the old pine. Upon an ivied stone\nReclined his languid head, his limbs did rest, _635\nDiffused and motionless, on the smooth brink\nOf that obscurest chasm;—and thus he lay,\nSurrendering to their final impulses\nThe hovering powers of life. Hope and despair,\nThe torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear _640\nMarred his repose; the influxes of sense,\nAnd his own being unalloyed by pain,\nYet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed\nThe stream of thought, till he lay breathing there\nAt peace, and faintly smiling:—his last sight _645\nWas the great moon, which o’er the western line\nOf the wide world her mighty horn suspended,\nWith whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed\nTo mingle. Now upon the jagged hills\nIt rests; and still as the divided frame _650\nOf the vast meteor sunk, the Poet’s blood,\nThat ever beat in mystic sympathy\nWith nature’s ebb and flow, grew feebler still:\nAnd when two lessening points of light alone\nGleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp _655\nOf his faint respiration scarce did stir\nThe stagnate night:—till the minutest ray\nWas quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.\nIt paused—it fluttered. But when heaven remained\nUtterly black, the murky shades involved _660\nAn image, silent, cold, and motionless,\nAs their own voiceless earth and vacant air.\nEven as a vapour fed with golden beams\nThat ministered on sunlight, ere the west\nEclipses it, was now that wondrous frame— _665\nNo sense, no motion, no divinity—\nA fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings\nThe breath of heaven did wander—a bright stream\nOnce fed with many-voiced waves—a dream\nOf youth, which night and time have quenched for ever, _670\nStill, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.\n\nOh, for Medea’s wondrous alchemy,\nWhich wheresoe’er it fell made the earth gleam\nWith bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale\nFrom vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God, _675\nProfuse of poisons, would concede the chalice\nWhich but one living man has drained, who now,\nVessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels\nNo proud exemption in the blighting curse\nHe bears, over the world wanders for ever, _680\nLone as incarnate death! O, that the dream\nOf dark magician in his visioned cave,\nRaking the cinders of a crucible\nFor life and power, even when his feeble hand\nShakes in its last decay, were the true law _685\nOf this so lovely world! But thou art fled,\nLike some frail exhalation; which the dawn\nRobes in its golden beams,—ah! thou hast fled!\nThe brave, the gentle and the beautiful,\nThe child of grace and genius. Heartless things _690\nAre done and said i’ the world, and many worms\nAnd beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth\nFrom sea and mountain, city and wilderness,\nIn vesper low or joyous orison,\nLifts still its solemn voice:—but thou art fled— _695\nThou canst no longer know or love the shapes\nOf this phantasmal scene, who have to thee\nBeen purest ministers, who are, alas!\nNow thou art not. Upon those pallid lips\nSo sweet even in their silence, on those eyes _700\nThat image sleep in death, upon that form\nYet safe from the worm’s outrage, let no tear\nBe shed—not even in thought. Nor, when those hues\nAre gone, and those divinest lineaments,\nWorn by the senseless wind, shall live alone _705\nIn the frail pauses of this simple strain,\nLet not high verse, mourning the memory\nOf that which is no more, or painting’s woe\nOr sculpture, speak in feeble imagery\nTheir own cold powers. Art and eloquence, _710\nAnd all the shows o’ the world are frail and vain\nTo weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.\nIt is a woe “too deep for tears,” when all\nIs reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,\nWhose light adorned the world around it, leaves _715\nThose who remain behind, not sobs or groans,\nThe passionate tumult of a clinging hope;\nBut pale despair and cold tranquillity,\nNature’s vast frame, the web of human things,\nBirth and the grave, that are not as they were. _720\n\n\nNotes:\n_219 Conduct edition 1816. See “Editor’s Notes”.\n_530 roots edition 1816: query stumps or trunks. See “Editor’s Notes”.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Alastor, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "“Alastor” is written in a very different tone from “Queen Mab”. In the\nlatter, Shelley poured out all the cherished speculations of his\nyouth—all the irrepressible emotions of sympathy, censure, and hope,\nto which the present suffering, and what he considers the proper\ndestiny of his fellow-creatures, gave birth. “Alastor”, on the\ncontrary, contains an individual interest only. A very few years, with\ntheir attendant events, had checked the ardour of Shelley’s hopes,\nthough he still thought them well-grounded, and that to advance their\nfulfilment was the noblest task man could achieve.\n\nThis is neither the time nor place to speak of the misfortunes that\nchequered his life. It will be sufficient to say that, in all he did,\nhe at the time of doing it believed himself justified to his own\nconscience; while the various ills of poverty and loss of friends\nbrought home to him the sad realities of life. Physical suffering had\nalso considerable influence in causing him to turn his eyes inward;\ninclining him rather to brood over the thoughts and emotions of his\nown soul than to glance abroad, and to make, as in “Queen Mab”, the\nwhole universe the object and subject of his song. In the Spring of\n1815, an eminent physician pronounced that he was dying rapidly of a\nconsumption; abscesses were formed on his lungs, and he suffered acute\nspasms. Suddenly a complete change took place; and though through life\nhe was a martyr to pain and debility, every symptom of pulmonary\ndisease vanished. His nerves, which nature had formed sensitive to an\nunexampled degree, were rendered still more susceptible by the state\nof his health.\n\nAs soon as the peace of 1814 had opened the Continent, he went abroad.\nHe visited some of the more magnificent scenes of Switzerland, and\nreturned to England from Lucerne, by the Reuss and the Rhine. This\nriver-navigation enchanted him. In his favourite poem of “Thalaba”,\nhis imagination had been excited by a description of such a voyage. In\nthe summer of 1815, after a tour along the southern coast of\nDevonshire and a visit to Clifton, he rented a house on Bishopgate\nHeath, on the borders of Windsor Forest, where he enjoyed several\nmonths of comparative health and tranquil happiness. The later summer\nmonths were warm and dry. Accompanied by a few friends, he visited the\nsource of the Thames, making a voyage in a wherry from Windsor to\nCrichlade. His beautiful stanzas in the churchyard of Lechlade were\nwritten on that occasion. “Alastor” was composed on his return. He\nspent his days under the oak-shades of Windsor Great Park; and the\nmagnificent woodland was a fitting study to inspire the various\ndescriptions of forest scenery we find in the poem.\n\nNone of Shelley’s poems is more characteristic than this. The solemn\nspirit that reigns throughout, the worship of the majesty of nature,\nthe broodings of a poet’s heart in solitude—the mingling of the\nexulting joy which the various aspects of the visible universe\ninspires with the sad and struggling pangs which human passion\nimparts—give a touching interest to the whole. The death which he had\noften contemplated during the last months as certain and near he here\nrepresented in such colours as had, in his lonely musings, soothed his\nsoul to peace. The versification sustains the solemn spirit which\nbreathes throughout: it is peculiarly melodious. The poem ought rather\nto be considered didactic than narrative: it was the outpouring of his\nown emotions, embodied in the purest form he could conceive, painted\nin the ideal hues which his brilliant imagination inspired, and\nsoftened by the recent anticipation of death.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Poem In Twelve Cantos.", + "body": "Osais de Broton ethnos aglaiais aptomestha\nperainei pros eschaton\nploon nausi d oute pezos ion an eurois\nes Uperboreon agona thaumatan odon.\n\nPind. Pyth. x.\n\n[Composed in the neighbourhood of Bisham Wood, near Great Marlow,\nBucks, 1817 (April-September 23); printed, with title (dated 1818),\n“Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of\nthe Nineteenth Century”, October, November, 1817, but suppressed,\npending revision, by the publishers, C & J. Ollier. (A few copies had\ngot out, but these were recalled, and some recovered.) Published, with\na fresh title-page and twenty-seven cancel-leaves, as “The Revolt of\nIslam”, January 10, 1818. Sources of the text are (1) “Laon and\nCythna”, 1818; (2) “The Revolt of Islam”, 1818; (3) “Poetical Works”,\n1839, editions 1st and 2nd—both edited by Mrs. Shelley. A copy, with\nseveral pages missing, of the “Preface”, the Dedication”, and “Canto\n1” of “Laon and Cythna” is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the\nBodleian. For a full collation of this manuscript see Mr. C.D.\nLocock’s “Examination of the Shelley Manuscripts at the Bodleian\nLibrary”. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903. Two manuscript fragments from\nthe Hunt papers are also extant: one (twenty-four lines) in the\npossession of Mr. W.M. Rossetti, another (9 23 9 to 29 6) in that of\nMr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B. See “The Shelley Library”, pages 83-86, for\nan account of the copy of “Laon” upon which Shelley worked in revising\nfor publication.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Author’S Preface.", + "body": "The Poem which I now present to the world is an attempt from which I\nscarcely dare to expect success, and in which a writer of established\nfame might fail without disgrace. It is an experiment on the temper of\nthe public mind, as to how far a thirst for a happier condition of\nmoral and political society survives, among the enlightened and\nrefined, the tempests which have shaken the age in which we live. I\nhave sought to enlist the harmony of metrical language, the ethereal\ncombinations of the fancy, the rapid and subtle transitions of human\npassion, all those elements which essentially compose a Poem, in the\ncause of a liberal and comprehensive morality; and in the view of\nkindling within the bosoms of my readers a virtuous enthusiasm for\nthose doctrines of liberty and justice, that faith and hope in\nsomething good, which neither violence nor misrepresentation nor\nprejudice can ever totally extinguish among mankind.\n\nFor this purpose I have chosen a story of human passion in its most\nuniversal character, diversified with moving and romantic adventures,\nand appealing, in contempt of all artificial opinions or institutions,\nto the common sympathies of every human breast. I have made no attempt\nto recommend the motives which I would substitute for those at present\ngoverning mankind, by methodical and systematic argument. I would only\nawaken the feelings, so that the reader should see the beauty of true\nvirtue, and be incited to those inquiries which have led to my moral\nand political creed, and that of some of the sublimest intellects in\nthe world. The Poem therefore (with the exception of the first canto,\nwhich is purely introductory) is narrative, not didactic. It is a\nsuccession of pictures illustrating the growth and progress of\nindividual mind aspiring after excellence, and devoted to the love of\nmankind; its influence in refining and making pure the most daring and\nuncommon impulses of the imagination, the understanding, and the\nsenses; its impatience at ‘all the oppressions which are done under\nthe sun;’ its tendency to awaken public hope, and to enlighten and\nimprove mankind; the rapid effects of the application of that\ntendency; the awakening of an immense nation from their slavery and\ndegradation to a true sense of moral dignity and freedom; the\nbloodless dethronement of their oppressors, and the unveiling of the\nreligious frauds by which they had been deluded into submission; the\ntranquillity of successful patriotism, and the universal toleration\nand benevolence of true philanthropy; the treachery and barbarity of\nhired soldiers; vice not the object of punishment and hatred, but\nkindness and pity; the faithlessness of tyrants; the confederacy of\nthe Rulers of the World and the restoration of the expelled Dynasty by\nforeign arms; the massacre and extermination of the Patriots, and the\nvictory of established power; the consequences of legitimate\ndespotism,—civil war, famine, plague, superstition, and an utter\nextinction of the domestic affections; the judicial murder of the\nadvocates of Liberty; the temporary triumph of oppression, that secure\nearnest of its final and inevitable fall; the transient nature of\nignorance and error and the eternity of genius and virtue. Such is the\nseries of delineations of which the Poem consists. And, if the lofty\npassions with which it has been my scope to distinguish this story\nshall not excite in the reader a generous impulse, an ardent thirst\nfor excellence, an interest profound and strong such as belongs to no\nmeaner desires, let not the failure be imputed to a natural unfitness\nfor human sympathy in these sublime and animating themes. It is the\nbusiness of the Poet to communicate to others the pleasure and the\nenthusiasm arising out of those images and feelings in the vivid\npresence of which within his own mind consists at once his inspiration\nand his reward.\n\nThe panic which, like an epidemic transport, seized upon all classes\nof men during the excesses consequent upon the French Revolution, is\ngradually giving place to sanity. It has ceased to be believed that\nwhole generations of mankind ought to consign themselves to a hopeless\ninheritance of ignorance and misery, because a nation of men who had\nbeen dupes and slaves for centuries were incapable of conducting\nthemselves with the wisdom and tranquillity of freemen so soon as some\nof their fetters were partially loosened. That their conduct could not\nhave been marked by any other characters than ferocity and\nthoughtlessness is the historical fact from which liberty derives all\nits recommendations, and falsehood the worst features of its\ndeformity. There is a reflux in the tide of human things which bears\nthe shipwrecked hopes of men into a secure haven after the storms are\npast. Methinks, those who now live have survived an age of despair.\n\nThe French Revolution may be considered as one of those manifestations\nof a general state of feeling among civilised mankind produced by a\ndefect of correspondence between the knowledge existing in society and\nthe improvement or gradual abolition of political institutions. The\nyear 1788 may be assumed as the epoch of one of the most important\ncrises produced by this feeling. The sympathies connected with that\nevent extended to every bosom. The most generous and amiable natures\nwere those which participated the most extensively in these\nsympathies. But such a degree of unmingled good was expected as it was\nimpossible to realise. If the Revolution had been in every respect\nprosperous, then misrule and superstition would lose half their claims\nto our abhorrence, as fetters which the captive can unlock with the\nslightest motion of his fingers, and which do not eat with poisonous\nrust into the soul. The revulsion occasioned by the atrocities of the\ndemagogues, and the re-establishment of successive tyrannies in\nFrance, was terrible, and felt in the remotest corner of the civilised\nworld. Could they listen to the plea of reason who had groaned under\nthe calamities of a social state according to the provisions of which\none man riots in luxury whilst another famishes for want of bread? Can\nhe who the day before was a trampled slave suddenly become\nliberal-minded, forbearing, and independent? This is the consequence\nof the habits of a state of society to be produced by resolute\nperseverance and indefatigable hope, and long-suffering and\nlong-believing courage, and the systematic efforts of generations of\nmen of intellect and virtue. Such is the lesson which experience\nteaches now. But, on the first reverses of hope in the progress of\nFrench liberty, the sanguine eagerness for good overleaped the\nsolution of these questions, and for a time extinguished itself in the\nunexpectedness of their result. Thus, many of the most ardent and\ntender-hearted of the worshippers of public good have been morally\nruined by what a partial glimpse of the events they deplored appeared\nto show as the melancholy desolation of all their cherished hopes.\nHence gloom and misanthropy have become the characteristics of the age\nin which we live, the solace of a disappointment that unconsciously\nfinds relief only in the wilful exaggeration of its own despair. This\ninfluence has tainted the literature of the age with the hopelessness\nof the minds from which it flows. Metaphysics (I ought to except sir\nW. Drummond’s “Academical Questions”; a volume of very acute and\npowerful metaphysical criticism.), and inquiries into moral and\npolitical science, have become little else than vain attempts to\nrevive exploded superstitions, or sophisms like those of Mr. Malthus\n(It is remarkable, as a symptom of the revival of public hope, that\nMr. Malthus has assigned, in the later editions of his work, an\nindefinite dominion to moral restraint over the principle of\npopulation. This concession answers all the inferences from his\ndoctrine unfavourable to human improvement, and reduces the “Essay on\nPopulation” to a commentary illustrative of the unanswerableness of\n“Political Justice”.), calculated to lull the oppressors of mankind\ninto a security of everlasting triumph. Our works of fiction and\npoetry have been overshadowed by the same infectious gloom. But\nmankind appear to me to be emerging from their trance. I am aware,\nmethinks, of a slow, gradual, silent change. In that belief I have\ncomposed the following Poem.\n\nI do not presume to enter into competition with our greatest\ncontemporary Poets. Yet I am unwilling to tread in the footsteps of\nany who have preceded me. I have sought to avoid the imitation of any\nstyle of language or versification peculiar to the original minds of\nwhich it is the character; designing that, even if what I have\nproduced be worthless, it should still be properly my own. Nor have I\npermitted any system relating to mere words to divert the attention of\nthe reader, from whatever interest I may have succeeded in creating,\nto my own ingenuity in contriving to disgust them according to the\nrules of criticism. I have simply clothed my thoughts in what appeared\nto me the most obvious and appropriate language. A person familiar\nwith nature, and with the most celebrated productions of the human\nmind, can scarcely err in following the instinct, with respect to\nselection of language, produced by that familiarity.\n\nThere is an education peculiarly fitted for a Poet, without which\ngenius and sensibility can hardly fill the circle of their capacities.\nNo education, indeed, can entitle to this appellation a dull and\nunobservant mind, or one, though neither dull nor unobservant, in\nwhich the channels of communication between thought and expression\nhave been obstructed or closed. How far it is my fortune to belong to\neither of the latter classes I cannot know. I aspire to be something\nbetter. The circumstances of my accidental education have been\nfavourable to this ambition. I have been familiar from boyhood with\nmountains and lakes and the sea, and the solitude of forests: Danger,\nwhich sports upon the brink of precipices, has been my playmate. I\nhave trodden the glaciers of the Alps, and lived under the eye of Mont\nBlanc. I have been a wanderer among distant fields. I have sailed down\nmighty rivers, and seen the sun rise and set, and the stars come\nforth, whilst I have sailed night and day down a rapid stream among\nmountains. I have seen populous cities, and have watched the passions\nwhich rise and spread, and sink and change, amongst assembled\nmultitudes of men. I have seen the theatre of the more visible ravages\nof tyranny and war, cities and villages reduced to scattered groups of\nblack and roofless houses, and the naked inhabitants sitting famished\nupon their desolated thresholds. I have conversed with living men of\ngenius. The poetry of ancient Greece and Rome, and modern Italy, and\nour own country, has been to me, like external nature, a passion and\nan enjoyment. Such are the sources from which the materials for the\nimagery of my Poem have been drawn. I have considered Poetry in its\nmost comprehensive sense; and have read the Poets and the Historians\nand the Metaphysicians (In this sense there may be such a thing as\nperfectibility in works of fiction, notwithstanding the concession\noften made by the advocates of human improvement, that perfectibility\nis a term applicable only to science.) whose writings have been\naccessible to me, and have looked upon the beautiful and majestic\nscenery of the earth, as common sources of those elements which it is\nthe province of the Poet to embody and combine. Yet the experience and\nthe feelings to which I refer do not in themselves constitute men\nPoets, but only prepares them to be the auditors of those who are. How\nfar I shall be found to possess that more essential attribute of\nPoetry, the power of awakening in others sensations like those which\nanimate my own bosom, is that which, to speak sincerely, I know not;\nand which, with an acquiescent and contented spirit, I expect to be\ntaught by the effect which I shall produce upon those whom I now\naddress.\n\nI have avoided, as I have said before, the imitation of any\ncontemporary style. But there must be a resemblance, which does not\ndepend upon their own will, between all the writers of any particular\nage. They cannot escape from subjection to a common influence which\narises out of an infinite combination of circumstances belonging to\nthe times in which they live; though each is in a degree the author of\nthe very influence by which his being is thus pervaded. Thus, the\ntragic poets of the age of Pericles; the Italian revivers of ancient\nlearning; those mighty intellects of our own country that succeeded\nthe Reformation, the translators of the Bible, Shakespeare, Spenser,\nthe Dramatists of the reign of Elizabeth, and Lord Bacon (Milton\nstands alone in the age which he illumined.); the colder spirits of\nthe interval that succeeded;—all resemble each other, and differ from\nevery other in their several classes. In this view of things, Ford can\nno more be called the imitator of Shakespeare than Shakespeare the\nimitator of Ford. There were perhaps few other points of resemblance\nbetween these two men than that which the universal and inevitable\ninfluence of their age produced. And this is an influence which\nneither the meanest scribbler nor the sublimest genius of any era can\nescape; and which I have not attempted to escape.\n\nI have adopted the stanza of Spenser (a measure inexpressibly\nbeautiful), not because I consider it a finer model of poetical\nharmony than the blank verse of Shakespeare and Milton, but because in\nthe latter there is no shelter for mediocrity; you must either succeed\nor fail. This perhaps an aspiring spirit should desire. But I was\nenticed also by the brilliancy and magnificence of sound which a mind\nthat has been nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by a just\nand harmonious arrangement of the pauses of this measure. Yet there\nwill be found some instances where I have completely failed in this\nattempt, and one, which I here request the reader to consider as an\nerratum, where there is left, most inadvertently, an alexandrine in\nthe middle of a stanza.\n\nBut in this, as in every other respect, I have written fearlessly. It\nis the misfortune of this age that its Writers, too thoughtless of\nimmortality, are exquisitely sensible to temporary praise or blame.\nThey write with the fear of Reviews before their eyes. This system of\ncriticism sprang up in that torpid interval when Poetry was not.\nPoetry, and the art which professes to regulate and limit its powers,\ncannot subsist together. Longinus could not have been the contemporary\nof Homer, nor Boileau of Horace. Yet this species of criticism never\npresumed to assert an understanding of its own; it has always, unlike\ntrue science, followed, not preceded, the opinion of mankind, and\nwould even now bribe with worthless adulation some of our greatest\nPoets to impose gratuitous fetters on their own imaginations, and\nbecome unconscious accomplices in the daily murder of all genius\neither not so aspiring or not so fortunate as their own. I have sought\ntherefore to write, as I believe that Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton\nwrote, with an utter disregard of anonymous censure. I am certain that\ncalumny and misrepresentation, though it may move me to compassion,\ncannot disturb my peace. I shall understand the expressive silence of\nthose sagacious enemies who dare not trust themselves to speak. I\nshall endeavour to extract, from the midst of insult and contempt and\nmaledictions, those admonitions which may tend to correct whatever\nimperfections such censurers may discover in this my first serious\nappeal to the Public. If certain Critics were as clear-sighted as they\nare malignant, how great would be the benefit to be derived from their\nvirulent writings! As it is, I fear I shall be malicious enough to be\namused with their paltry tricks and lame invectives. Should the Public\njudge that my composition is worthless, I shall indeed bow before the\ntribunal from which Milton received his crown of immortality, and\nshall seek to gather, if I live, strength from that defeat, which may\nnerve me to some new enterprise of thought which may not be worthless.\nI cannot conceive that Lucretius, when he meditated that poem whose\ndoctrines are yet the basis of our metaphysical knowledge, and whose\neloquence has been the wonder of mankind, wrote in awe of such censure\nas the hired sophists of the impure and superstitious noblemen of Rome\nmight affix to what he should produce. It was at the period when\nGreece was led captive and Asia made tributary to the Republic, fast\nverging itself to slavery and ruin, that a multitude of Syrian\ncaptives, bigoted to the worship of their obscene Ashtaroth, and the\nunworthy successors of Socrates and Zeno, found there a precarious\nsubsistence by administering, under the name of freedmen, to the vices\nand vanities of the great. These wretched men were skilled to plead,\nwith a superficial but plausible set of sophisms, in favour of that\ncontempt for virtue which is the portion of slaves, and that faith in\nportents, the most fatal substitute for benevolence in the\nimaginations of men, which, arising from the enslaved communities of\nthe East, then first began to overwhelm the western nations in its\nstream. Were these the kind of men whose disapprobation the wise and\nlofty-minded Lucretius should have regarded with a salutary awe? The\nlatest and perhaps the meanest of those who follow in his footsteps\nwould disdain to hold life on such conditions.\n\nThe Poem now presented to the Public occupied little more than six\nmonths in the composition. That period has been devoted to the task\nwith unremitting ardour and enthusiasm. I have exercised a watchful\nand earnest criticism on my work as it grew under my hands. I would\nwillingly have sent it forth to the world with that perfection which\nlong labour and revision is said to bestow. But I found that, if I\nshould gain something in exactness by this method, I might lose much\nof the newness and energy of imagery and language as it flowed fresh\nfrom my mind. And, although the mere composition occupied no more than\nsix months, the thoughts thus arranged were slowly gathered in as many\nyears.\n\nI trust that the reader will carefully distinguish between those\nopinions which have a dramatic propriety in reference to the\ncharacters which they are designed to elucidate, and such as are\nproperly my own. The erroneous and degrading idea which men have\nconceived of a Supreme Being, for instance, is spoken against, but not\nthe Supreme Being itself. The belief which some superstitious persons\nwhom I have brought upon the stage entertain of the Deity, as\ninjurious to the character of his benevolence, is widely different\nfrom my own. In recommending also a great and important change in the\nspirit which animates the social institutions of mankind, I have\navoided all flattery to those violent and malignant passions of our\nnature which are ever on the watch to mingle with and to alloy the\nmost beneficial innovations. There is no quarter given to Revenge, or\nEnvy, or Prejudice. Love is celebrated everywhere as the sole law\nwhich should govern the moral world.\n\n\n\nThere is no danger to a man that knows\nWhat life and death is: there’s not any law\nExceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful\nThat he should stoop to any other law.—CHAPMAN.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 1.", + "body": "1.\nWhen the last hope of trampled France had failed\nLike a brief dream of unremaining glory,\nFrom visions of despair I rose, and scaled\nThe peak of an aerial promontory, _130\nWhose caverned base with the vexed surge was hoary;\nAnd saw the golden dawn break forth, and waken\nEach cloud, and every wave:—but transitory\nThe calm; for sudden, the firm earth was shaken,\nAs if by the last wreck its frame were overtaken. _135\n\n2.\nSo as I stood, one blast of muttering thunder\nBurst in far peals along the waveless deep,\nWhen, gathering fast, around, above, and under,\nLong trains of tremulous mist began to creep,\nUntil their complicating lines did steep _140\nThe orient sun in shadow:—not a sound\nWas heard; one horrible repose did keep\nThe forests and the floods, and all around\nDarkness more dread than night was poured upon the ground.\n\n3.\nHark! ’tis the rushing of a wind that sweeps _145\nEarth and the ocean. See! the lightnings yawn\nDeluging Heaven with fire, and the lashed deeps\nGlitter and boil beneath: it rages on,\nOne mighty stream, whirlwind and waves upthrown,\nLightning, and hail, and darkness eddying by. _150\nThere is a pause—the sea-birds, that were gone\nInto their caves to shriek, come forth, to spy\nWhat calm has fall’n on earth, what light is in the sky.\n\n4.\nFor, where the irresistible storm had cloven\nThat fearful darkness, the blue sky was seen _155\nFretted with many a fair cloud interwoven\nMost delicately, and the ocean green,\nBeneath that opening spot of blue serene,\nQuivered like burning emerald; calm was spread\nOn all below; but far on high, between _160\nEarth and the upper air, the vast clouds fled,\nCountless and swift as leaves on autumn’s tempest shed.\n\n5.\nFor ever, as the war became more fierce\nBetween the whirlwinds and the rack on high,\nThat spot grew more serene; blue light did pierce _165\nThe woof of those white clouds, which seem to lie\nFar, deep, and motionless; while through the sky\nThe pallid semicircle of the moon\nPassed on, in slow and moving majesty;\nIts upper horn arrayed in mists, which soon _170\nBut slowly fled, like dew beneath the beams of noon.\n\n6.\nI could not choose but gaze; a fascination\nDwelt in that moon, and sky, and clouds, which drew\nMy fancy thither, and in expectation\nOf what I knew not, I remained:—the hue _175\nOf the white moon, amid that heaven so blue,\nSuddenly stained with shadow did appear;\nA speck, a cloud, a shape, approaching grew,\nLike a great ship in the sun’s sinking sphere\nBeheld afar at sea, and swift it came anear. _180\n\n7.\nEven like a bark, which from a chasm of mountains,\nDark, vast and overhanging, on a river\nWhich there collects the strength of all its fountains,\nComes forth, whilst with the speed its frame doth quiver,\nSails, oars and stream, tending to one endeavour; _185\nSo, from that chasm of light a winged Form\nOn all the winds of heaven approaching ever\nFloated, dilating as it came; the storm\nPursued it with fierce blasts, and lightnings swift and warm.\n\n8.\nA course precipitous, of dizzy speed, _190\nSuspending thought and breath; a monstrous sight!\nFor in the air do I behold indeed\nAn Eagle and a Serpent wreathed in fight:—\nAnd now, relaxing its impetuous flight,\nBefore the aerial rock on which I stood, _195\nThe Eagle, hovering, wheeled to left and right,\nAnd hung with lingering wings over the flood,\nAnd startled with its yells the wide air’s solitude.\n\n9.\nA shaft of light upon its wings descended,\nAnd every golden feather gleamed therein— _200\nFeather and scale, inextricably blended.\nThe Serpent’s mailed and many-coloured skin\nShone through the plumes its coils were twined within\nBy many a swoln and knotted fold, and high\nAnd far, the neck, receding lithe and thin, _205\nSustained a crested head, which warily\nShifted and glanced before the Eagle’s steadfast eye.\n\n10.\nAround, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling\nWith clang of wings and scream, the Eagle sailed\nIncessantly—sometimes on high concealing _210\nIts lessening orbs, sometimes as if it failed,\nDrooped through the air; and still it shrieked and wailed,\nAnd casting back its eager head, with beak\nAnd talon unremittingly assailed\nThe wreathed Serpent, who did ever seek _215\nUpon his enemy’s heart a mortal wound to wreak.\n\n11.\nWhat life, what power, was kindled and arose\nWithin the sphere of that appalling fray!\nFor, from the encounter of those wondrous foes,\nA vapour like the sea’s suspended spray _220\nHung gathered; in the void air, far away,\nFloated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap,\nWhere’er the Eagle’s talons made their way,\nLike sparks into the darkness;—as they sweep,\nBlood stains the snowy foam of the tumultuous deep. _225\n\n12.\nSwift chances in that combat—many a check,\nAnd many a change, a dark and wild turmoil;\nSometimes the Snake around his enemy’s neck\nLocked in stiff rings his adamantine coil,\nUntil the Eagle, faint with pain and toil, _230\nRemitted his strong flight, and near the sea\nLanguidly fluttered, hopeless so to foil\nHis adversary, who then reared on high\nHis red and burning crest, radiant with victory.\n\n13.\nThen on the white edge of the bursting surge, _235\nWhere they had sunk together, would the Snake\nRelax his suffocating grasp, and scourge\nThe wind with his wild writhings; for to break\nThat chain of torment, the vast bird would shake\nThe strength of his unconquerable wings _240\nAs in despair, and with his sinewy neck,\nDissolve in sudden shock those linked rings—\nThen soar, as swift as smoke from a volcano springs.\n\n14.\nWile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength,\nThus long, but unprevailing:—the event _245\nOf that portentous fight appeared at length:\nUntil the lamp of day was almost spent\nIt had endured, when lifeless, stark, and rent,\nHung high that mighty Serpent, and at last\nFell to the sea, while o’er the continent _250\nWith clang of wings and scream the Eagle passed,\nHeavily borne away on the exhausted blast.\n\n15.\nAnd with it fled the tempest, so that ocean\nAnd earth and sky shone through the atmosphere—\nOnly, ’twas strange to see the red commotion _255\nOf waves like mountains o’er the sinking sphere\nOf sunset sweep, and their fierce roar to hear\nAmid the calm: down the steep path I wound\nTo the sea-shore—the evening was most clear\nAnd beautiful, and there the sea I found _260\nCalm as a cradled child in dreamless slumber bound.\n\n16.\nThere was a Woman, beautiful as morning,\nSitting beneath the rocks, upon the sand\nOf the waste sea—fair as one flower adorning\nAn icy wilderness; each delicate hand _265\nLay crossed upon her bosom, and the band\nOf her dark hair had fall’n, and so she sate\nLooking upon the waves; on the bare strand\nUpon the sea-mark a small boat did wait,\nFair as herself, like Love by Hope left desolate. _270\n\n17.\nIt seemed that this fair Shape had looked upon\nThat unimaginable fight, and now\nThat her sweet eyes were weary of the sun,\nAs brightly it illustrated her woe;\nFor in the tears which silently to flow _275\nPaused not, its lustre hung: she watching aye\nThe foam-wreaths which the faint tide wove below\nUpon the spangled sands, groaned heavily,\nAnd after every groan looked up over the sea.\n\n18.\nAnd when she saw the wounded Serpent make _280\nHis path between the waves, her lips grew pale,\nParted, and quivered; the tears ceased to break\nFrom her immovable eyes; no voice of wail\nEscaped her; but she rose, and on the gale\nLoosening her star-bright robe and shadowy hair _285\nPoured forth her voice; the caverns of the vale\nThat opened to the ocean, caught it there,\nAnd filled with silver sounds the overflowing air.\n\n19.\nShe spake in language whose strange melody\nMight not belong to earth. I heard alone, _290\nWhat made its music more melodious be,\nThe pity and the love of every tone;\nBut to the Snake those accents sweet were known\nHis native tongue and hers; nor did he beat\nThe hoar spray idly then, but winding on _295\nThrough the green shadows of the waves that meet\nNear to the shore, did pause beside her snowy feet.\n\n20.\nThen on the sands the Woman sate again,\nAnd wept and clasped her hands, and all between,\nRenewed the unintelligible strain _300\nOf her melodious voice and eloquent mien;\nAnd she unveiled her bosom, and the green\nAnd glancing shadows of the sea did play\nO’er its marmoreal depth:—one moment seen,\nFor ere the next, the Serpent did obey _305\nHer voice, and, coiled in rest in her embrace it lay.\n\n21.\nThen she arose, and smiled on me with eyes\nSerene yet sorrowing, like that planet fair,\nWhile yet the daylight lingereth in the skies\nWhich cleaves with arrowy beams the dark-red air, _310\nAnd said: ‘To grieve is wise, but the despair\nWas weak and vain which led thee here from sleep:\nThis shalt thou know, and more, if thou dost dare\nWith me and with this Serpent, o’er the deep,\nA voyage divine and strange, companionship to keep.’ _315\n\n22.\nHer voice was like the wildest, saddest tone,\nYet sweet, of some loved voice heard long ago.\nI wept. ‘Shall this fair woman all alone,\nOver the sea with that fierce Serpent go?\nHis head is on her heart, and who can know _320\nHow soon he may devour his feeble prey?’—\nSuch were my thoughts, when the tide gan to flow;\nAnd that strange boat like the moon’s shade did sway\nAmid reflected stars that in the waters lay:—\n\n23.\nA boat of rare device, which had no sail _325\nBut its own curved prow of thin moonstone,\nWrought like a web of texture fine and frail,\nTo catch those gentlest winds which are not known\nTo breathe, but by the steady speed alone\nWith which it cleaves the sparkling sea; and now _330\nWe are embarked—the mountains hang and frown\nOver the starry deep that gleams below,\nA vast and dim expanse, as o’er the waves we go.\n\n24.\nAnd as we sailed, a strange and awful tale\nThat Woman told, like such mysterious dream _335\nAs makes the slumberer’s cheek with wonder pale!\n’Twas midnight, and around, a shoreless stream,\nWide ocean rolled, when that majestic theme\nShrined in her heart found utterance, and she bent\nHer looks on mine; those eyes a kindling beam _340\nOf love divine into my spirit sent,\nAnd ere her lips could move, made the air eloquent.\n\n25.\n‘Speak not to me, but hear! Much shalt thou learn,\nMuch must remain unthought, and more untold,\nIn the dark Future’s ever-flowing urn: _345\nKnow then, that from the depth of ages old\nTwo Powers o’er mortal things dominion hold,\nRuling the world with a divided lot,\nImmortal, all-pervading, manifold,\nTwin Genii, equal Gods—when life and thought _350\nSprang forth, they burst the womb of inessential Nought.\n\n26.\n‘The earliest dweller of the world, alone,\nStood on the verge of chaos. Lo! afar\nO’er the wide wild abyss two meteors shone,\nSprung from the depth of its tempestuous jar: _355\nA blood-red Comet and the Morning Star\nMingling their beams in combat—as he stood,\nAll thoughts within his mind waged mutual war,\nIn dreadful sympathy—when to the flood\nThat fair Star fell, he turned and shed his brother’s blood. _360\n\n27.\n‘Thus evil triumphed, and the Spirit of evil,\nOne Power of many shapes which none may know,\nOne Shape of many names; the Fiend did revel\nIn victory, reigning o’er a world of woe,\nFor the new race of man went to and fro, _365\nFamished and homeless, loathed and loathing, wild,\nAnd hating good—for his immortal foe,\nHe changed from starry shape, beauteous and mild,\nTo a dire Snake, with man and beast unreconciled.\n\n28.\n‘The darkness lingering o’er the dawn of things, _370\nWas Evil’s breath and life; this made him strong\nTo soar aloft with overshadowing wings;\nAnd the great Spirit of Good did creep among\nThe nations of mankind, and every tongue\nCursed and blasphemed him as he passed; for none _375\nKnew good from evil, though their names were hung\nIn mockery o’er the fane where many a groan,\nAs King, and Lord, and God, the conquering Fiend did own,—\n\n29.\n‘The Fiend, whose name was Legion: Death, Decay,\nEarthquake and Blight, and Want, and Madness pale, _380\nWinged and wan diseases, an array\nNumerous as leaves that strew the autumnal gale;\nPoison, a snake in flowers, beneath the veil\nOf food and mirth, hiding his mortal head;\nAnd, without whom all these might nought avail, _385\nFear, Hatred, Faith, and Tyranny, who spread\nThose subtle nets which snare the living and the dead.\n\n30.\n‘His spirit is their power, and they his slaves\nIn air, and light, and thought, and language, dwell;\nAnd keep their state from palaces to graves, _390\nIn all resorts of men—invisible,\nBut when, in ebon mirror, Nightmare fell\nTo tyrant or impostor bids them rise,\nBlack winged demon forms—whom, from the hell,\nHis reign and dwelling beneath nether skies, _395\nHe loosens to their dark and blasting ministries.\n\n31.\n‘In the world’s youth his empire was as firm\nAs its foundations...Soon the Spirit of Good,\nThough in the likeness of a loathsome worm,\nSprang from the billows of the formless flood, _400\nWhich shrank and fled; and with that Fiend of blood\nRenewed the doubtful war...Thrones then first shook,\nAnd earth’s immense and trampled multitude\nIn hope on their own powers began to look,\nAnd Fear, the demon pale, his sanguine shrine forsook. _405\n\n32.\n‘Then Greece arose, and to its bards and sages,\nIn dream, the golden-pinioned Genii came,\nEven where they slept amid the night of ages,\nSteeping their hearts in the divinest flame\nWhich thy breath kindled, Power of holiest name! _410\nAnd oft in cycles since, when darkness gave\nNew weapons to thy foe, their sunlike fame\nUpon the combat shone—a light to save,\nLike Paradise spread forth beyond the shadowy grave.\n\n33.\n‘Such is this conflict—when mankind doth strive _415\nWith its oppressors in a strife of blood,\nOr when free thoughts, like lightnings, are alive,\nAnd in each bosom of the multitude\nJustice and truth with Custom’s hydra brood\nWage silent war; when Priests and Kings dissemble _420\nIn smiles or frowns their fierce disquietude,\nWhen round pure hearts a host of hopes assemble,\nThe Snake and Eagle meet—the world’s foundations tremble!\n\n34.\n‘Thou hast beheld that fight—when to thy home\nThou dost return, steep not its hearth in tears; _425\nThough thou may’st hear that earth is now become\nThe tyrant’s garbage, which to his compeers,\nThe vile reward of their dishonoured years,\nHe will dividing give.—The victor Fiend,\nOmnipotent of yore, now quails, and fears _430\nHis triumph dearly won, which soon will lend\nAn impulse swift and sure to his approaching end.\n\n35.\n‘List, stranger, list, mine is an human form,\nLike that thou wearest—touch me—shrink not now!\nMy hand thou feel’st is not a ghost’s, but warm _435\nWith human blood.—’Twas many years ago,\nSince first my thirsting soul aspired to know\nThe secrets of this wondrous world, when deep\nMy heart was pierced with sympathy, for woe\nWhich could not be mine own, and thought did keep, _440\nIn dream, unnatural watch beside an infant’s sleep.\n\n36.\n‘Woe could not be mine own, since far from men\nI dwelt, a free and happy orphan child,\nBy the sea-shore, in a deep mountain glen;\nAnd near the waves, and through the forests wild, _445\nI roamed, to storm and darkness reconciled:\nFor I was calm while tempest shook the sky:\nBut when the breathless heavens in beauty smiled,\nI wept, sweet tears, yet too tumultuously\nFor peace, and clasped my hands aloft in ecstasy. _450\n\n37.\n‘These were forebodings of my fate—before\nA woman’s heart beat in my virgin breast,\nIt had been nurtured in divinest lore:\nA dying poet gave me books, and blessed\nWith wild but holy talk the sweet unrest _455\nIn which I watched him as he died away—\nA youth with hoary hair—a fleeting guest\nOf our lone mountains: and this lore did sway\nMy spirit like a storm, contending there alway.\n\n38.\n‘Thus the dark tale which history doth unfold _460\nI knew, but not, methinks, as others know,\nFor they weep not; and Wisdom had unrolled\nThe clouds which hide the gulf of mortal woe,—\nTo few can she that warning vision show—\nFor I loved all things with intense devotion; _465\nSo that when Hope’s deep source in fullest flow,\nLike earthquake did uplift the stagnant ocean\nOf human thoughts—mine shook beneath the wide emotion.\n\n39.\n‘When first the living blood through all these veins\nKindled a thought in sense, great France sprang forth, _470\nAnd seized, as if to break, the ponderous chains\nWhich bind in woe the nations of the earth.\nI saw, and started from my cottage-hearth;\nAnd to the clouds and waves in tameless gladness\nShrieked, till they caught immeasurable mirth— _475\nAnd laughed in light and music: soon, sweet madness\nWas poured upon my heart, a soft and thrilling sadness.\n\n40.\n‘Deep slumber fell on me:—my dreams were fire—\nSoft and delightful thoughts did rest and hover\nLike shadows o’er my brain; and strange desire, _480\nThe tempest of a passion, raging over\nMy tranquil soul, its depths with light did cover,\nWhich passed; and calm, and darkness, sweeter far,\nCame—then I loved; but not a human lover!\nFor when I rose from sleep, the Morning Star _485\nShone through the woodbine-wreaths which round my casement were.\n\n41.\n‘’Twas like an eye which seemed to smile on me.\nI watched, till by the sun made pale, it sank\nUnder the billows of the heaving sea;\nBut from its beams deep love my spirit drank, _490\nAnd to my brain the boundless world now shrank\nInto one thought—one image—yes, for ever!\nEven like the dayspring, poured on vapours dank,\nThe beams of that one Star did shoot and quiver\nThrough my benighted mind—and were extinguished never. _495\n\n42.\n‘The day passed thus: at night, methought, in dream\nA shape of speechless beauty did appear:\nIt stood like light on a careering stream\nOf golden clouds which shook the atmosphere;\nA winged youth, his radiant brow did wear _500\nThe Morning Star: a wild dissolving bliss\nOver my frame he breathed, approaching near,\nAnd bent his eyes of kindling tenderness\nNear mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss,—\n\n43.\n‘And said: “A Spirit loves thee, mortal maiden, _505\nHow wilt thou prove thy worth?” Then joy and sleep\nTogether fled; my soul was deeply laden,\nAnd to the shore I went to muse and weep;\nBut as I moved, over my heart did creep\nA joy less soft, but more profound and strong _510\nThan my sweet dream; and it forbade to keep\nThe path of the sea-shore: that Spirit’s tongue\nSeemed whispering in my heart, and bore my steps along.\n\n44.\n‘How, to that vast and peopled city led,\nWhich was a field of holy warfare then, _515\nI walked among the dying and the dead,\nAnd shared in fearless deeds with evil men,\nCalm as an angel in the dragon’s den—\nHow I braved death for liberty and truth,\nAnd spurned at peace, and power, and fame—and when _520\nThose hopes had lost the glory of their youth,\nHow sadly I returned—might move the hearer’s ruth:\n\n45.\n‘Warm tears throng fast! the tale may not be said—\nKnow then, that when this grief had been subdued,\nI was not left, like others, cold and dead; _525\nThe Spirit whom I loved, in solitude\nSustained his child: the tempest-shaken wood,\nThe waves, the fountains, and the hush of night—\nThese were his voice, and well I understood\nHis smile divine, when the calm sea was bright _530\nWith silent stars, and Heaven was breathless with delight.\n\n46.\n‘In lonely glens, amid the roar of rivers,\nWhen the dim nights were moonless, have I known\nJoys which no tongue can tell; my pale lip quivers\nWhen thought revisits them:—know thou alone, _535\nThat after many wondrous years were flown,\nI was awakened by a shriek of woe;\nAnd over me a mystic robe was thrown,\nBy viewless hands, and a bright Star did glow\nBefore my steps—the Snake then met his mortal foe.’ _540\n\n47.\n‘Thou fearest not then the Serpent on thy heart?’\n‘Fear it!’ she said, with brief and passionate cry,\nAnd spake no more: that silence made me start—\nI looked, and we were sailing pleasantly,\nSwift as a cloud between the sea and sky; _545\nBeneath the rising moon seen far away,\nMountains of ice, like sapphire, piled on high,\nHemming the horizon round, in silence lay\nOn the still waters—these we did approach alway.\n\n48.\nAnd swift and swifter grew the vessel’s motion, _550\nSo that a dizzy trance fell on my brain—\nWild music woke me; we had passed the ocean\nWhich girds the pole, Nature’s remotest reign—\nAnd we glode fast o’er a pellucid plain\nOf waters, azure with the noontide day. _555\nEthereal mountains shone around—a Fane\nStood in the midst, girt by green isles which lay\nOn the blue sunny deep, resplendent far away.\n\n49.\nIt was a Temple, such as mortal hand\nHas never built, nor ecstasy, nor dream _560\nReared in the cities of enchanted land:\n’Twas likest Heaven, ere yet day’s purple stream\nEbbs o’er the western forest, while the gleam\nOf the unrisen moon among the clouds\nIs gathering—when with many a golden beam _565\nThe thronging constellations rush in crowds,\nPaving with fire the sky and the marmoreal floods.\n\n50.\nLike what may be conceived of this vast dome,\nWhen from the depths which thought can seldom pierce\nGenius beholds it rise, his native home, _570\nGirt by the deserts of the Universe;\nYet, nor in painting’s light, or mightier verse,\nOr sculpture’s marble language, can invest\nThat shape to mortal sense—such glooms immerse\nThat incommunicable sight, and rest _575\nUpon the labouring brain and overburdened breast.\n\n51.\nWinding among the lawny islands fair,\nWhose blosmy forests starred the shadowy deep,\nThe wingless boat paused where an ivory stair\nIts fretwork in the crystal sea did steep, _580\nEncircling that vast Fane’s aerial heap:\nWe disembarked, and through a portal wide\nWe passed—whose roof of moonstone carved, did keep\nA glimmering o’er the forms on every side,\nSculptures like life and thought, immovable, deep-eyed. _585\n\n52.\nWe came to a vast hall, whose glorious roof\nWas diamond, which had drunk the lightning’s sheen\nIn darkness, and now poured it through the woof\nOf spell-inwoven clouds hung there to screen\nIts blinding splendour—through such veil was seen _590\nThat work of subtlest power, divine and rare;\nOrb above orb, with starry shapes between,\nAnd horned moons, and meteors strange and fair,\nOn night-black columns poised—one hollow hemisphere!\n\n53.\nTen thousand columns in that quivering light _595\nDistinct—between whose shafts wound far away\nThe long and labyrinthine aisles—more bright\nWith their own radiance than the Heaven of Day;\nAnd on the jasper walls around, there lay\nPaintings, the poesy of mightiest thought, _600\nWhich did the Spirit’s history display;\nA tale of passionate change, divinely taught,\nWhich, in their winged dance, unconscious Genii wrought.\n\n54.\nBeneath, there sate on many a sapphire throne,\nThe Great, who had departed from mankind, _605\nA mighty Senate;—some, whose white hair shone\nLike mountain snow, mild, beautiful, and blind;\nSome, female forms, whose gestures beamed with mind;\nAnd ardent youths, and children bright and fair;\nAnd some had lyres whose strings were intertwined _610\nWith pale and clinging flames, which ever there\nWaked faint yet thrilling sounds that pierced the crystal air.\n\n55.\nOne seat was vacant in the midst, a throne,\nReared on a pyramid like sculptured flame,\nDistinct with circling steps which rested on _615\nTheir own deep fire—soon as the Woman came\nInto that hall, she shrieked the Spirit’s name\nAnd fell; and vanished slowly from the sight.\nDarkness arose from her dissolving frame,\nWhich gathering, filled that dome of woven light, _620\nBlotting its sphered stars with supernatural night.\n\n56.\nThen first, two glittering lights were seen to glide\nIn circles on the amethystine floor,\nSmall serpent eyes trailing from side to side,\nLike meteors on a river’s grassy shore, _625\nThey round each other rolled, dilating more\nAnd more—then rose, commingling into one,\nOne clear and mighty planet hanging o’er\nA cloud of deepest shadow, which was thrown\nAthwart the glowing steps and the crystalline throne. _630\n\n57.\nThe cloud which rested on that cone of flame\nWas cloven; beneath the planet sate a Form,\nFairer than tongue can speak or thought may frame,\nThe radiance of whose limbs rose-like and warm\nFlowed forth, and did with softest light inform _635\nThe shadowy dome, the sculptures, and the state\nOf those assembled shapes—with clinging charm\nSinking upon their hearts and mine. He sate\nMajestic, yet most mild—calm, yet compassionate.\n\n58.\nWonder and joy a passing faintness threw _640\nOver my brow—a hand supported me,\nWhose touch was magic strength; an eye of blue\nLooked into mine, like moonlight, soothingly;\nAnd a voice said:—‘Thou must a listener be\nThis day—two mighty Spirits now return, _645\nLike birds of calm, from the world’s raging sea,\nThey pour fresh light from Hope’s immortal urn;\nA tale of human power—despair not—list and learn!\n\n59.\nI looked, and lo! one stood forth eloquently.\nHis eyes were dark and deep, and the clear brow _650\nWhich shadowed them was like the morning sky,\nThe cloudless Heaven of Spring, when in their flow\nThrough the bright air, the soft winds as they blow\nWake the green world—his gestures did obey\nThe oracular mind that made his features glow, _655\nAnd where his curved lips half-open lay,\nPassion’s divinest stream had made impetuous way.\n\n60.\nBeneath the darkness of his outspread hair\nHe stood thus beautiful; but there was One\nWho sate beside him like his shadow there, _660\nAnd held his hand—far lovelier; she was known\nTo be thus fair, by the few lines alone\nWhich through her floating locks and gathered cloak,\nGlances of soul-dissolving glory, shone:—\nNone else beheld her eyes—in him they woke _665\nMemories which found a tongue as thus he silence broke.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 2.", + "body": "1.\nThe starlight smile of children, the sweet looks\nOf women, the fair breast from which I fed,\nThe murmur of the unreposing brooks,\nAnd the green light which, shifting overhead, _670\nSome tangled bower of vines around me shed,\nThe shells on the sea-sand, and the wild flowers,\nThe lamp-light through the rafters cheerly spread,\nAnd on the twining flax—in life’s young hours\nThese sights and sounds did nurse my spirit’s folded powers. _675\n\n2.\nIn Argolis, beside the echoing sea,\nSuch impulses within my mortal frame\nArose, and they were dear to memory,\nLike tokens of the dead:—but others came\nSoon, in another shape: the wondrous fame _680\nOf the past world, the vital words and deeds\nOf minds whom neither time nor change can tame,\nTraditions dark and old, whence evil creeds\nStart forth, and whose dim shade a stream of poison feeds.\n\n3.\nI heard, as all have heard, the various story _685\nOf human life, and wept unwilling tears.\nFeeble historians of its shame and glory,\nFalse disputants on all its hopes and fears,\nVictims who worshipped ruin, chroniclers\nOf daily scorn, and slaves who loathed their state _690\nYet, flattering power, had given its ministers\nA throne of judgement in the grave:—’twas fate,\nThat among such as these my youth should seek its mate.\n\n4.\nThe land in which I lived, by a fell bane\nWas withered up. Tyrants dwelt side by side, _695\nAnd stabled in our homes,—until the chain\nStifled the captive’s cry, and to abide\nThat blasting curse men had no shame—all vied\nIn evil, slave and despot; fear with lust\nStrange fellowship through mutual hate had tied, _700\nLike two dark serpents tangled in the dust,\nWhich on the paths of men their mingling poison thrust.\n\n5.\nEarth, our bright home, its mountains and its waters,\nAnd the ethereal shapes which are suspended\nOver its green expanse, and those fair daughters, _705\nThe clouds, of Sun and Ocean, who have blended\nThe colours of the air since first extended\nIt cradled the young world, none wandered forth\nTo see or feel; a darkness had descended\nOn every heart; the light which shows its worth, _710\nMust among gentle thoughts and fearless take its birth.\n\n6.\nThis vital world, this home of happy spirits,\nWas as a dungeon to my blasted kind;\nAll that despair from murdered hope inherits\nThey sought, and in their helpless misery blind, _715\nA deeper prison and heavier chains did find,\nAnd stronger tyrants:—a dark gulf before,\nThe realm of a stern Ruler, yawned; behind,\nTerror and Time conflicting drove, and bore\nOn their tempestuous flood the shrieking wretch from shore. _720\n\n7.\nOut of that Ocean’s wrecks had Guilt and Woe\nFramed a dark dwelling for their homeless thought,\nAnd, starting at the ghosts which to and fro\nGlide o’er its dim and gloomy strand, had brought\nThe worship thence which they each other taught. _725\nWell might men loathe their life, well might they turn\nEven to the ills again from which they sought\nSuch refuge after death!—well might they learn\nTo gaze on this fair world with hopeless unconcern!\n\n8.\nFor they all pined in bondage; body and soul, _730\nTyrant and slave, victim and torturer, bent\nBefore one Power, to which supreme control\nOver their will by their own weakness lent,\nMade all its many names omnipotent;\nAll symbols of things evil, all divine; _735\nAnd hymns of blood or mockery, which rent\nThe air from all its fanes, did intertwine\nImposture’s impious toils round each discordant shrine.\n\n9.\nI heard, as all have heard, life’s various story,\nAnd in no careless heart transcribed the tale; _740\nBut, from the sneers of men who had grown hoary\nIn shame and scorn, from groans of crowds made pale\nBy famine, from a mother’s desolate wail\nO’er her polluted child, from innocent blood\nPoured on the earth, and brows anxious and pale _745\nWith the heart’s warfare, did I gather food\nTo feed my many thoughts—a tameless multitude!\n\n10.\nI wandered through the wrecks of days departed\nFar by the desolated shore, when even\nO’er the still sea and jagged islets darted _750\nThe light of moonrise; in the northern Heaven,\nAmong the clouds near the horizon driven,\nThe mountains lay beneath one planet pale;\nAround me, broken tombs and columns riven\nLooked vast in twilight, and the sorrowing gale _755\nWaked in those ruins gray its everlasting wail!\n\n11.\nI knew not who had framed these wonders then,\nNor had I heard the story of their deeds;\nBut dwellings of a race of mightier men,\nAnd monuments of less ungentle creeds _760\nTell their own tale to him who wisely heeds\nThe language which they speak; and now, to me\nThe moonlight making pale the blooming weeds,\nThe bright stars shining in the breathless sea,\nInterpreted those scrolls of mortal mystery. _765\n\n12.\nSuch man has been, and such may yet become!\nAy, wiser, greater, gentler even than they\nWho on the fragments of yon shattered dome\nHave stamped the sign of power—I felt the sway\nOf the vast stream of ages bear away _770\nMy floating thoughts—my heart beat loud and fast—\nEven as a storm let loose beneath the ray\nOf the still moon, my spirit onward passed\nBeneath truth’s steady beams upon its tumult cast.\n\n13.\nIt shall be thus no more! too long, too long, _775\nSons of the glorious dead, have ye lain bound\nIn darkness and in ruin!—Hope is strong,\nJustice and Truth their winged child have found—\nAwake! arise! until the mighty sound\nOf your career shall scatter in its gust _780\nThe thrones of the oppressor, and the ground\nHide the last altar’s unregarded dust,\nWhose Idol has so long betrayed your impious trust!\n\n14.\nIt must be so—I will arise and waken\nThe multitude, and like a sulphurous hill, _785\nWhich on a sudden from its snows has shaken\nThe swoon of ages, it shall burst and fill\nThe world with cleansing fire; it must, it will—\nIt may not be restrained!—and who shall stand\nAmid the rocking earthquake steadfast still, _790\nBut Laon? on high Freedom’s desert land\nA tower whose marble walls the leagued storms withstand!\n\n15.\nOne summer night, in commune with the hope\nThus deeply fed, amid those ruins gray\nI watched, beneath the dark sky’s starry cope; _795\nAnd ever from that hour upon me lay\nThe burden of this hope, and night or day,\nIn vision or in dream, clove to my breast:\nAmong mankind, or when gone far away\nTo the lone shores and mountains, ’twas a guest _800\nWhich followed where I fled, and watched when I did rest.\n\n16.\nThese hopes found words through which my spirit sought\nTo weave a bondage of such sympathy,\nAs might create some response to the thought\nWhich ruled me now—and as the vapours lie _805\nBright in the outspread morning’s radiancy,\nSo were these thoughts invested with the light\nOf language: and all bosoms made reply\nOn which its lustre streamed, whene’er it might\nThrough darkness wide and deep those tranced spirits smite. _810\n\n17.\nYes, many an eye with dizzy tears was dim,\nAnd oft I thought to clasp my own heart’s brother,\nWhen I could feel the listener’s senses swim,\nAnd hear his breath its own swift gaspings smother\nEven as my words evoked them—and another, _815\nAnd yet another, I did fondly deem,\nFelt that we all were sons of one great mother;\nAnd the cold truth such sad reverse did seem\nAs to awake in grief from some delightful dream.\n\n18.\nYes, oft beside the ruined labyrinth _820\nWhich skirts the hoary caves of the green deep,\nDid Laon and his friend, on one gray plinth,\nRound whose worn base the wild waves hiss and leap,\nResting at eve, a lofty converse keep:\nAnd that this friend was false, may now be said _825\nCalmly—that he like other men could weep\nTears which are lies, and could betray and spread\nSnares for that guileless heart which for his own had bled.\n\n19.\nThen, had no great aim recompensed my sorrow,\nI must have sought dark respite from its stress _830\nIn dreamless rest, in sleep that sees no morrow—\nFor to tread life’s dismaying wilderness\nWithout one smile to cheer, one voice to bless,\nAmid the snares and scoffs of human kind,\nIs hard—but I betrayed it not, nor less _835\nWith love that scorned return sought to unbind\nThe interwoven clouds which make its wisdom blind.\n\n20.\nWith deathless minds which leave where they have passed\nA path of light, my soul communion knew;\nTill from that glorious intercourse, at last, _840\nAs from a mine of magic store, I drew\nWords which were weapons;—round my heart there grew\nThe adamantine armour of their power;\nAnd from my fancy wings of golden hue\nSprang forth—yet not alone from wisdom’s tower, _845\nA minister of truth, these plumes young Laon bore.\n\n21.\nAn orphan with my parents lived, whose eyes\nWere lodestars of delight, which drew me home\nWhen I might wander forth; nor did I prize\nAught human thing beneath Heaven’s mighty dome _850\nBeyond this child; so when sad hours were come,\nAnd baffled hope like ice still clung to me,\nSince kin were cold, and friends had now become\nHeartless and false, I turned from all, to be,\nCythna, the only source of tears and smiles to thee. _855\n\n22.\nWhat wert thou then? A child most infantine,\nYet wandering far beyond that innocent age\nIn all but its sweet looks and mien divine;\nEven then, methought, with the world’s tyrant rage\nA patient warfare thy young heart did wage, _860\nWhen those soft eyes of scarcely conscious thought\nSome tale, or thine own fancies, would engage\nTo overflow with tears, or converse fraught\nWith passion, o’er their depths its fleeting light had wrought.\n\n23.\nShe moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, _865\nA power, that from its objects scarcely drew\nOne impulse of her being—in her lightness\nMost like some radiant cloud of morning dew,\nWhich wanders through the waste air’s pathless blue,\nTo nourish some far desert; she did seem _870\nBeside me, gathering beauty as she grew,\nLike the bright shade of some immortal dream\nWhich walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life’s dark stream.\n\n24.\nAs mine own shadow was this child to me,\nA second self, far dearer and more fair; _875\nWhich clothed in undissolving radiancy\nAll those steep paths which languor and despair\nOf human things, had made so dark and bare,\nBut which I trod alone—nor, till bereft\nOf friends, and overcome by lonely care, _880\nKnew I what solace for that loss was left,\nThough by a bitter wound my trusting heart was cleft.\n\n25.\nOnce she was dear, now she was all I had\nTo love in human life—this playmate sweet,\nThis child of twelve years old—so she was made _885\nMy sole associate, and her willing feet\nWandered with mine where earth and ocean meet,\nBeyond the aereal mountains whose vast cells\nThe unreposing billows ever beat,\nThrough forests wild and old, and lawny dells _890\nWhere boughs of incense droop over the emerald wells.\n\n26.\nAnd warm and light I felt her clasping hand\nWhen twined in mine; she followed where I went,\nThrough the lone paths of our immortal land.\nIt had no waste but some memorial lent _895\nWhich strung me to my toil—some monument\nVital with mind; then Cythna by my side,\nUntil the bright and beaming day were spent,\nWould rest, with looks entreating to abide,\nToo earnest and too sweet ever to be denied. _900\n\n27.\nAnd soon I could not have refused her—thus\nFor ever, day and night, we two were ne’er\nParted, but when brief sleep divided us:\nAnd when the pauses of the lulling air\nOf noon beside the sea had made a lair _905\nFor her soothed senses, in my arms she slept,\nAnd I kept watch over her slumbers there,\nWhile, as the shifting visions over her swept,\nAmid her innocent rest by turns she smiled and wept.\n\n28.\nAnd, in the murmur of her dreams was heard _910\nSometimes the name of Laon:—suddenly\nShe would arise, and, like the secret bird\nWhom sunset wakens, fill the shore and sky\nWith her sweet accents, a wild melody!\nHymns which my soul had woven to Freedom, strong _915\nThe source of passion, whence they rose, to be;\nTriumphant strains, which, like a spirit’s tongue,\nTo the enchanted waves that child of glory sung—\n\n29.\nHer white arms lifted through the shadowy stream\nOf her loose hair. Oh, excellently great _920\nSeemed to me then my purpose, the vast theme\nOf those impassioned songs, when Cythna sate\nAmid the calm which rapture doth create\nAfter its tumult, her heart vibrating,\nHer spirit o’er the Ocean’s floating state _925\nFrom her deep eyes far wandering, on the wing\nOf visions that were mine, beyond its utmost spring!\n\n30.\nFor, before Cythna loved it, had my song\nPeopled with thoughts the boundless universe,\nA mighty congregation, which were strong _930\nWhere’er they trod the darkness to disperse\nThe cloud of that unutterable curse\nWhich clings upon mankind:—all things became\nSlaves to my holy and heroic verse,\nEarth, sea and sky, the planets, life and fame _935\nAnd fate, or whate’er else binds the world’s wondrous frame.\n\n31.\nAnd this beloved child thus felt the sway\nOf my conceptions, gathering like a cloud\nThe very wind on which it rolls away:\nHers too were all my thoughts, ere yet, endowed _940\nWith music and with light, their fountains flowed\nIn poesy; and her still and earnest face,\nPallid with feelings which intensely glowed\nWithin, was turned on mine with speechless grace,\nWatching the hopes which there her heart had learned to trace. _945\n\n32.\nIn me, communion with this purest being\nKindled intenser zeal, and made me wise\nIn knowledge, which, in hers mine own mind seeing,\nLeft in the human world few mysteries:\nHow without fear of evil or disguise _950\nWas Cythna!—what a spirit strong and mild,\nWhich death, or pain or peril could despise,\nYet melt in tenderness! what genius wild\nYet mighty, was enclosed within one simple child!\n\n33.\nNew lore was this—old age with its gray hair, _955\nAnd wrinkled legends of unworthy things,\nAnd icy sneers, is nought: it cannot dare\nTo burst the chains which life for ever flings\nOn the entangled soul’s aspiring wings,\nSo is it cold and cruel, and is made _960\nThe careless slave of that dark power which brings\nEvil, like blight, on man, who, still betrayed,\nLaughs o’er the grave in which his living hopes are laid.\n\n34.\nNor are the strong and the severe to keep\nThe empire of the world: thus Cythna taught _965\nEven in the visions of her eloquent sleep,\nUnconscious of the power through which she wrought\nThe woof of such intelligible thought,\nAs from the tranquil strength which cradled lay\nIn her smile-peopled rest, my spirit sought _970\nWhy the deceiver and the slave has sway\nO’er heralds so divine of truth’s arising day.\n\n35.\nWithin that fairest form, the female mind,\nUntainted by the poison clouds which rest\nOn the dark world, a sacred home did find: _975\nBut else, from the wide earth’s maternal breast,\nVictorious Evil, which had dispossessed\nAll native power, had those fair children torn,\nAnd made them slaves to soothe his vile unrest,\nAnd minister to lust its joys forlorn, _980\nTill they had learned to breathe the atmosphere of scorn.\n\n36.\nThis misery was but coldly felt, till she\nBecame my only friend, who had endued\nMy purpose with a wider sympathy;\nThus, Cythna mourned with me the servitude _985\nIn which the half of humankind were mewed\nVictims of lust and hate, the slaves of slaves,\nShe mourned that grace and power were thrown as food\nTo the hyena lust, who, among graves,\nOver his loathed meal, laughing in agony, raves. _990\n\n37.\nAnd I, still gazing on that glorious child,\nEven as these thoughts flushed o’er her:—‘Cythna sweet,\nWell with the world art thou unreconciled;\nNever will peace and human nature meet\nTill free and equal man and woman greet _995\nDomestic peace; and ere this power can make\nIn human hearts its calm and holy seat,\nThis slavery must be broken’—as I spake,\nFrom Cythna’s eyes a light of exultation brake.\n\n38.\nShe replied earnestly:—‘It shall be mine, _1000\nThis task,—mine, Laon!—thou hast much to gain;\nNor wilt thou at poor Cythna’s pride repine,\nIf she should lead a happy female train\nTo meet thee over the rejoicing plain,\nWhen myriads at thy call shall throng around _1005\nThe Golden City.’—Then the child did strain\nMy arm upon her tremulous heart, and wound\nHer own about my neck, till some reply she found.\n\n39.\nI smiled, and spake not.—‘Wherefore dost thou smile\nAt what I say? Laon, I am not weak, _1010\nAnd, though my cheek might become pale the while,\nWith thee, if thou desirest, will I seek\nThrough their array of banded slaves to wreak\nRuin upon the tyrants. I had thought\nIt was more hard to turn my unpractised cheek _1015\nTo scorn and shame, and this beloved spot\nAnd thee, O dearest friend, to leave and murmur not.\n\n40.\n‘Whence came I what I am? Thou, Laon, knowest\nHow a young child should thus undaunted be;\nMethinks, it is a power which thou bestowest, _1020\nThrough which I seek, by most resembling thee,\nSo to become most good and great and free;\nYet far beyond this Ocean’s utmost roar,\nIn towers and huts are many like to me,\nWho, could they see thine eyes, or feel such lore _1025\nAs I have learnt from them, like me would fear no more.\n\n41.\n‘Think’st thou that I shall speak unskilfully,\nAnd none will heed me? I remember now,\nHow once, a slave in tortures doomed to die,\nWas saved, because in accents sweet and low _1030\nHe sung a song his Judge loved long ago,\nAs he was led to death.—All shall relent\nWho hear me—tears, as mine have flowed, shall flow,\nHearts beat as mine now beats, with such intent\nAs renovates the world; a will omnipotent! _1035\n\n42.\n‘Yes, I will tread Pride’s golden palaces,\nThrough Penury’s roofless huts and squalid cells\nWill I descend, where’er in abjectness\nWoman with some vile slave her tyrant dwells,\nThere with the music of thine own sweet spells _1040\nWill disenchant the captives, and will pour\nFor the despairing, from the crystal wells\nOf thy deep spirit, reason’s mighty lore,\nAnd power shall then abound, and hope arise once more.\n\n43.\n‘Can man be free if woman be a slave? _1045\nChain one who lives, and breathes this boundless air,\nTo the corruption of a closed grave!\nCan they whose mates are beasts, condemned to bear\nScorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare\nTo trample their oppressors? in their home _1050\nAmong their babes, thou knowest a curse would wear\nThe shape of woman—hoary Crime would come\nBehind, and Fraud rebuild religion’s tottering dome.\n\n44.\n‘I am a child:—I would not yet depart.\nWhen I go forth alone, bearing the lamp _1055\nAloft which thou hast kindled in my heart,\nMillions of slaves from many a dungeon damp\nShall leap in joy, as the benumbing cramp\nOf ages leaves their limbs—no ill may harm\nThy Cythna ever—truth its radiant stamp _1060\nHas fixed, as an invulnerable charm,\nUpon her children’s brow, dark Falsehood to disarm.\n\n45.\n‘Wait yet awhile for the appointed day—\nThou wilt depart, and I with tears shall stand\nWatching thy dim sail skirt the ocean gray; _1065\nAmid the dwellers of this lonely land\nI shall remain alone—and thy command\nShall then dissolve the world’s unquiet trance,\nAnd, multitudinous as the desert sand\nBorne on the storm, its millions shall advance, _1070\nThronging round thee, the light of their deliverance.\n\n46.\n‘Then, like the forests of some pathless mountain,\nWhich from remotest glens two warring winds\nInvolve in fire which not the loosened fountain\nOf broadest floods might quench, shall all the kinds _1075\nOf evil, catch from our uniting minds\nThe spark which must consume them;—Cythna then\nWill have cast off the impotence that binds\nHer childhood now, and through the paths of men\nWill pass, as the charmed bird that haunts the serpent’s den. _1080\n\n47.\n‘We part!—O Laon, I must dare nor tremble,\nTo meet those looks no more!—Oh, heavy stroke!\nSweet brother of my soul! can I dissemble\nThe agony of this thought?’—As thus she spoke\nThe gathered sobs her quivering accents broke, _1085\nAnd in my arms she hid her beating breast.\nI remained still for tears—sudden she woke\nAs one awakes from sleep, and wildly pressed\nMy bosom, her whole frame impetuously possessed.\n\n48.\n‘We part to meet again—but yon blue waste, _1090\nYon desert wide and deep, holds no recess,\nWithin whose happy silence, thus embraced\nWe might survive all ills in one caress:\nNor doth the grave—I fear ’tis passionless—\nNor yon cold vacant Heaven:—we meet again _1095\nWithin the minds of men, whose lips shall bless\nOur memory, and whose hopes its light retain\nWhen these dissevered bones are trodden in the plain.’\n\n49.\nI could not speak, though she had ceased, for now\nThe fountains of her feeling, swift and deep, _1100\nSeemed to suspend the tumult of their flow;\nSo we arose, and by the starlight steep\nWent homeward—neither did we speak nor weep,\nBut, pale, were calm with passion—thus subdued\nLike evening shades that o’er the mountains creep, _1105\nWe moved towards our home; where, in this mood,\nEach from the other sought refuge in solitude.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 3.", + "body": "1.\nWhat thoughts had sway o’er Cythna’s lonely slumber\nThat night, I know not; but my own did seem\nAs if they might ten thousand years outnumber _1110\nOf waking life, the visions of a dream\nWhich hid in one dim gulf the troubled stream\nOf mind; a boundless chaos wild and vast,\nWhose limits yet were never memory’s theme:\nAnd I lay struggling as its whirlwinds passed, _1115\nSometimes for rapture sick, sometimes for pain aghast.\n\n2.\nTwo hours, whose mighty circle did embrace\nMore time than might make gray the infant world,\nRolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space:\nWhen the third came, like mist on breezes curled, _1120\nFrom my dim sleep a shadow was unfurled:\nMethought, upon the threshold of a cave\nI sate with Cythna; drooping briony, pearled\nWith dew from the wild streamlet’s shattered wave,\nHung, where we sate to taste the joys which Nature gave. _1125\n\n3.\nWe lived a day as we were wont to live,\nBut Nature had a robe of glory on,\nAnd the bright air o’er every shape did weave\nIntenser hues, so that the herbless stone,\nThe leafless bough among the leaves alone, _1130\nHad being clearer than its own could be,\nAnd Cythna’s pure and radiant self was shown,\nIn this strange vision, so divine to me,\nThat if I loved before, now love was agony.\n\n4.\nMorn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended, _1135\nAnd we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere\nOf the calm moon—when suddenly was blended\nWith our repose a nameless sense of fear;\nAnd from the cave behind I seemed to hear\nSounds gathering upwards!—accents incomplete, _1140\nAnd stifled shrieks,—and now, more near and near,\nA tumult and a rush of thronging feet\nThe cavern’s secret depths beneath the earth did beat.\n\n5.\nThe scene was changed, and away, away, away!\nThrough the air and over the sea we sped, _1145\nAnd Cythna in my sheltering bosom lay,\nAnd the winds bore me—through the darkness spread\nAround, the gaping earth then vomited\nLegions of foul and ghastly shapes, which hung\nUpon my flight; and ever, as we fled, _1150\nThey plucked at Cythna—soon to me then clung\nA sense of actual things those monstrous dreams among.\n\n6.\nAnd I lay struggling in the impotence\nOf sleep, while outward life had burst its bound,\nThough, still deluded, strove the tortured sense _1155\nTo its dire wanderings to adapt the sound\nWhich in the light of morn was poured around\nOur dwelling; breathless, pale and unaware\nI rose, and all the cottage crowded found\nWith armed men, whose glittering swords were bare, _1160\nAnd whose degraded limbs the tyrant’s garb did wear.\n\n7.\nAnd, ere with rapid lips and gathered brow\nI could demand the cause—a feeble shriek—\nIt was a feeble shriek, faint, far and low,\nArrested me—my mien grew calm and meek, _1165\nAnd grasping a small knife, I went to seek\nThat voice among the crowd—’twas Cythna’s cry!\nBeneath most calm resolve did agony wreak\nIts whirlwind rage:—so I passed quietly\nTill I beheld, where bound, that dearest child did lie. _1170\n\n8.\nI started to behold her, for delight\nAnd exultation, and a joyance free,\nSolemn, serene and lofty, filled the light\nOf the calm smile with which she looked on me:\nSo that I feared some brainless ecstasy, _1175\nWrought from that bitter woe, had wildered her—\n‘Farewell! farewell!’ she said, as I drew nigh;\n‘At first my peace was marred by this strange stir,\nNow I am calm as truth—its chosen minister.\n\n9.\n‘Look not so, Laon—say farewell in hope, _1180\nThese bloody men are but the slaves who bear\nTheir mistress to her task—it was my scope\nThe slavery where they drag me now, to share,\nAnd among captives willing chains to wear\nAwhile—the rest thou knowest—return, dear friend! _1185\nLet our first triumph trample the despair\nWhich would ensnare us now, for in the end,\nIn victory or in death our hopes and fears must blend.’\n\n10.\nThese words had fallen on my unheeding ear,\nWhilst I had watched the motions of the crew _1190\nWith seeming-careless glance; not many were\nAround her, for their comrades just withdrew\nTo guard some other victim—so I drew\nMy knife, and with one impulse, suddenly\nAll unaware three of their number slew, _1195\nAnd grasped a fourth by the throat, and with loud cry\nMy countrymen invoked to death or liberty!\n\n11.\nWhat followed then, I know not—for a stroke\nOn my raised arm and naked head, came down,\nFilling my eyes with blood.—When I awoke, _1200\nI felt that they had bound me in my swoon,\nAnd up a rock which overhangs the town,\nBy the steep path were bearing me; below,\nThe plain was filled with slaughter,—overthrown\nThe vineyards and the harvests, and the glow _1205\nOf blazing roofs shone far o’er the white Ocean’s flow.\n\n12.\nUpon that rock a mighty column stood,\nWhose capital seemed sculptured in the sky,\nWhich to the wanderers o’er the solitude\nOf distant seas, from ages long gone by, _1210\nHad made a landmark; o’er its height to fly\nScarcely the cloud, the vulture, or the blast,\nHas power—and when the shades of evening lie\nOn Earth and Ocean, its carved summits cast\nThe sunken daylight far through the aerial waste. _1215\n\n13.\nThey bore me to a cavern in the hill\nBeneath that column, and unbound me there;\nAnd one did strip me stark; and one did fill\nA vessel from the putrid pool; one bare\nA lighted torch, and four with friendless care _1220\nGuided my steps the cavern-paths along,\nThen up a steep and dark and narrow stair\nWe wound, until the torch’s fiery tongue\nAmid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.\n\n14.\nThey raised me to the platform of the pile, _1225\nThat column’s dizzy height:—the grate of brass\nThrough which they thrust me, open stood the while,\nAs to its ponderous and suspended mass,\nWith chains which eat into the flesh, alas!\nWith brazen links, my naked limbs they bound: _1230\nThe grate, as they departed to repass,\nWith horrid clangour fell, and the far sound\nOf their retiring steps in the dense gloom was drowned.\n\n15.\nThe noon was calm and bright:—around that column\nThe overhanging sky and circling sea _1235\nSpread forth in silentness profound and solemn\nThe darkness of brief frenzy cast on me,\nSo that I knew not my own misery:\nThe islands and the mountains in the day\nLike clouds reposed afar; and I could see _1240\nThe town among the woods below that lay,\nAnd the dark rocks which bound the bright and glassy bay.\n\n16.\nIt was so calm, that scarce the feathery weed\nSown by some eagle on the topmost stone\nSwayed in the air:—so bright, that noon did breed _1245\nNo shadow in the sky beside mine own—\nMine, and the shadow of my chain alone.\nBelow, the smoke of roofs involved in flame\nRested like night, all else was clearly shown\nIn that broad glare; yet sound to me none came, _1250\nBut of the living blood that ran within my frame.\n\n17.\nThe peace of madness fled, and ah, too soon!\nA ship was lying on the sunny main,\nIts sails were flagging in the breathless noon—\nIts shadow lay beyond—that sight again _1255\nWaked, with its presence, in my tranced brain\nThe stings of a known sorrow, keen and cold:\nI knew that ship bore Cythna o’er the plain\nOf waters, to her blighting slavery sold,\nAnd watched it with such thoughts as must remain untold. _1260\n\n18.\nI watched until the shades of evening wrapped\nEarth like an exhalation—then the bark\nMoved, for that calm was by the sunset snapped.\nIt moved a speck upon the Ocean dark:\nSoon the wan stars came forth, and I could mark _1265\nIts path no more!—I sought to close mine eyes,\nBut like the balls, their lids were stiff and stark;\nI would have risen, but ere that I could rise,\nMy parched skin was split with piercing agonies.\n\n19.\nI gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever _1270\nIts adamantine links, that I might die:\nO Liberty! forgive the base endeavour,\nForgive me, if, reserved for victory,\nThe Champion of thy faith e’er sought to fly.—\nThat starry night, with its clear silence, sent _1275\nTameless resolve which laughed at misery\nInto my soul—linked remembrance lent\nTo that such power, to me such a severe content.\n\n20.\nTo breathe, to be, to hope, or to despair\nAnd die, I questioned not; nor, though the Sun _1280\nIts shafts of agony kindling through the air\nMoved over me, nor though in evening dun,\nOr when the stars their visible courses run,\nOr morning, the wide universe was spread\nIn dreary calmness round me, did I shun _1285\nIts presence, nor seek refuge with the dead\nFrom one faint hope whose flower a dropping poison shed.\n\n21.\nTwo days thus passed—I neither raved nor died—\nThirst raged within me, like a scorpion’s nest\nBuilt in mine entrails; I had spurned aside _1290\nThe water-vessel, while despair possessed\nMy thoughts, and now no drop remained! The uprest\nOf the third sun brought hunger—but the crust\nWhich had been left, was to my craving breast\nFuel, not food. I chewed the bitter dust, _1295\nAnd bit my bloodless arm, and licked the brazen rust.\n\n22.\nMy brain began to fail when the fourth morn\nBurst o’er the golden isles—a fearful sleep,\nWhich through the caverns dreary and forlorn\nOf the riven soul, sent its foul dreams to sweep _1300\nWith whirlwind swiftness—a fall far and deep,—\nA gulf, a void, a sense of senselessness—\nThese things dwelt in me, even as shadows keep\nTheir watch in some dim charnel’s loneliness,\nA shoreless sea, a sky sunless and planetless! _1305\n\n23.\nThe forms which peopled this terrific trance\nI well remember—like a choir of devils,\nAround me they involved a giddy dance;\nLegions seemed gathering from the misty levels\nOf Ocean, to supply those ceaseless revels, _1310\nFoul, ceaseless shadows:—thought could not divide\nThe actual world from these entangling evils,\nWhich so bemocked themselves, that I descried\nAll shapes like mine own self, hideously multiplied.\n\n24.\nThe sense of day and night, of false and true, _1315\nWas dead within me. Yet two visions burst\nThat darkness—one, as since that hour I knew,\nWas not a phantom of the realms accursed,\nWhere then my spirit dwelt—but of the first\nI know not yet, was it a dream or no. _1320\nBut both, though not distincter, were immersed\nIn hues which, when through memory’s waste they flow,\nMake their divided streams more bright and rapid now.\n\n25.\nMethought that grate was lifted, and the seven\nWho brought me thither four stiff corpses bare, _1325\nAnd from the frieze to the four winds of Heaven\nHung them on high by the entangled hair;\nSwarthy were three—the fourth was very fair;\nAs they retired, the golden moon upsprung,\nAnd eagerly, out in the giddy air, _1330\nLeaning that I might eat, I stretched and clung\nOver the shapeless depth in which those corpses hung.\n\n26.\nA woman’s shape, now lank and cold and blue,\nThe dwelling of the many-coloured worm,\nHung there; the white and hollow cheek I drew _1335\nTo my dry lips—what radiance did inform\nThose horny eyes? whose was that withered form?\nAlas, alas! it seemed that Cythna’s ghost\nLaughed in those looks, and that the flesh was warm\nWithin my teeth!—a whirlwind keen as frost _1340\nThen in its sinking gulfs my sickening spirit tossed.\n\n27.\nThen seemed it that a tameless hurricane\nArose, and bore me in its dark career\nBeyond the sun, beyond the stars that wane\nOn the verge of formless space—it languished there, _1345\nAnd dying, left a silence lone and drear,\nMore horrible than famine:—in the deep\nThe shape of an old man did then appear,\nStately and beautiful; that dreadful sleep\nHis heavenly smiles dispersed, and I could wake and weep. _1350\n\n28.\nAnd, when the blinding tears had fallen, I saw\nThat column, and those corpses, and the moon,\nAnd felt the poisonous tooth of hunger gnaw\nMy vitals, I rejoiced, as if the boon\nOf senseless death would be accorded soon;— _1355\nWhen from that stony gloom a voice arose,\nSolemn and sweet as when low winds attune\nThe midnight pines; the grate did then unclose,\nAnd on that reverend form the moonlight did repose.\n\n29.\nHe struck my chains, and gently spake and smiled; _1360\nAs they were loosened by that Hermit old,\nMine eyes were of their madness half beguiled,\nTo answer those kind looks; he did enfold\nHis giant arms around me, to uphold\nMy wretched frame; my scorched limbs he wound _1365\nIn linen moist and balmy, and as cold\nAs dew to drooping leaves;—the chain, with sound\nLike earthquake, through the chasm of that steep stair did bound,\n\n30.\nAs, lifting me, it fell!—What next I heard,\nWere billows leaping on the harbour-bar, _1370\nAnd the shrill sea-wind, whose breath idly stirred\nMy hair;—I looked abroad, and saw a star\nShining beside a sail, and distant far\nThat mountain and its column, the known mark\nOf those who in the wide deep wandering are, _1375\nSo that I feared some Spirit, fell and dark,\nIn trance had lain me thus within a fiendish bark.\n\n31.\nFor now indeed, over the salt sea-billow\nI sailed: yet dared not look upon the shape\nOf him who ruled the helm, although the pillow _1380\nFor my light head was hollowed in his lap,\nAnd my bare limbs his mantle did enwrap,\nFearing it was a fiend: at last, he bent\nO’er me his aged face; as if to snap\nThose dreadful thoughts the gentle grandsire bent, _1385\nAnd to my inmost soul his soothing looks he sent.\n\n32.\nA soft and healing potion to my lips\nAt intervals he raised—now looked on high,\nTo mark if yet the starry giant dips\nHis zone in the dim sea—now cheeringly, _1390\nThough he said little, did he speak to me.\n‘It is a friend beside thee—take good cheer,\nPoor victim, thou art now at liberty!’\nI joyed as those a human tone to hear,\nWho in cells deep and lone have languished many a year. _1395\n\n33.\nA dim and feeble joy, whose glimpses oft\nWere quenched in a relapse of wildering dreams;\nYet still methought we sailed, until aloft\nThe stars of night grew pallid, and the beams\nOf morn descended on the ocean-streams, _1400\nAnd still that aged man, so grand and mild,\nTended me, even as some sick mother seems\nTo hang in hope over a dying child,\nTill in the azure East darkness again was piled.\n\n34.\nAnd then the night-wind steaming from the shore, _1405\nSent odours dying sweet across the sea,\nAnd the swift boat the little waves which bore,\nWere cut by its keen keel, though slantingly;\nSoon I could hear the leaves sigh, and could see\nThe myrtle-blossoms starring the dim grove, _1410\nAs past the pebbly beach the boat did flee\nOn sidelong wing, into a silent cove,\nWhere ebon pines a shade under the starlight wove.\n\n\n_1223 torches’ editions 1818, 1839.\n_1385 bent]meant cj. J. Nettleship.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 4.", + "body": "1.\nThe old man took the oars, and soon the bark\nSmote on the beach beside a tower of stone; _1415\nIt was a crumbling heap, whose portal dark\nWith blooming ivy-trails was overgrown;\nUpon whose floor the spangling sands were strown,\nAnd rarest sea-shells, which the eternal flood,\nSlave to the mother of the months, had thrown _1420\nWithin the walls of that gray tower, which stood\nA changeling of man’s art nursed amid Nature’s brood.\n\n2.\nWhen the old man his boat had anchored,\nHe wound me in his arms with tender care,\nAnd very few, but kindly words he said, _1425\nAnd bore me through the tower adown a stair,\nWhose smooth descent some ceaseless step to wear\nFor many a year had fallen.—We came at last\nTo a small chamber, which with mosses rare\nWas tapestried, where me his soft hands placed _1430\nUpon a couch of grass and oak-leaves interlaced.\n\n3.\nThe moon was darting through the lattices\nIts yellow light, warm as the beams of day—\nSo warm, that to admit the dewy breeze,\nThe old man opened them; the moonlight lay _1435\nUpon a lake whose waters wove their play\nEven to the threshold of that lonely home:\nWithin was seen in the dim wavering ray\nThe antique sculptured roof, and many a tome\nWhose lore had made that sage all that he had become. _1440\n\n4.\nThe rock-built barrier of the sea was past,—\nAnd I was on the margin of a lake,\nA lonely lake, amid the forests vast\nAnd snowy mountains:—did my spirit wake\nFrom sleep as many-coloured as the snake _1445\nThat girds eternity? in life and truth,\nMight not my heart its cravings ever slake?\nWas Cythna then a dream, and all my youth,\nAnd all its hopes and fears, and all its joy and ruth?\n\n5.\nThus madness came again,—a milder madness, _1450\nWhich darkened nought but time’s unquiet flow\nWith supernatural shades of clinging sadness;\nThat gentle Hermit, in my helpless woe,\nBy my sick couch was busy to and fro,\nLike a strong spirit ministrant of good: _1455\nWhen I was healed, he led me forth to show\nThe wonders of his sylvan solitude,\nAnd we together sate by that isle-fretted flood.\n\n6.\nHe knew his soothing words to weave with skill\nFrom all my madness told; like mine own heart, _1460\nOf Cythna would he question me, until\nThat thrilling name had ceased to make me start,\nFrom his familiar lips—it was not art,\nOf wisdom and of justice when he spoke—\nWhen mid soft looks of pity, there would dart _1465\nA glance as keen as is the lightning’s stroke\nWhen it doth rive the knots of some ancestral oak.\n\n7.\nThus slowly from my brain the darkness rolled,\nMy thoughts their due array did re-assume\nThrough the enchantments of that Hermit old; _1470\nThen I bethought me of the glorious doom\nOf those who sternly struggle to relume\nThe lamp of Hope o’er man’s bewildered lot,\nAnd, sitting by the waters, in the gloom\nOf eve, to that friend’s heart I told my thought— _1475\nThat heart which had grown old, but had corrupted not.\n\n8.\nThat hoary man had spent his livelong age\nIn converse with the dead, who leave the stamp\nOf ever-burning thoughts on many a page,\nWhen they are gone into the senseless damp _1480\nOf graves;—his spirit thus became a lamp\nOf splendour, like to those on which it fed;\nThrough peopled haunts, the City and the Camp,\nDeep thirst for knowledge had his footsteps led,\nAnd all the ways of men among mankind he read. _1485\n\n9.\nBut custom maketh blind and obdurate\nThe loftiest hearts;—he had beheld the woe\nIn which mankind was bound, but deemed that fate\nWhich made them abject, would preserve them so;\nAnd in such faith, some steadfast joy to know, _1490\nHe sought this cell: but when fame went abroad\nThat one in Argolis did undergo\nTorture for liberty, and that the crowd\nHigh truths from gifted lips had heard and understood;\n\n10.\nAnd that the multitude was gathering wide,— _1495\nHis spirit leaped within his aged frame;\nIn lonely peace he could no more abide,\nBut to the land on which the victor’s flame\nHad fed, my native land, the Hermit came:\nEach heart was there a shield, and every tongue _1500\nWas as a sword of truth—young Laon’s name\nRallied their secret hopes, though tyrants sung\nHymns of triumphant joy our scattered tribes among.\n\n11.\nHe came to the lone column on the rock,\nAnd with his sweet and mighty eloquence _1505\nThe hearts of those who watched it did unlock,\nAnd made them melt in tears of penitence.\nThey gave him entrance free to bear me thence.\n‘Since this,’ the old man said, ‘seven years are spent,\nWhile slowly truth on thy benighted sense _1510\nHas crept; the hope which wildered it has lent\nMeanwhile, to me the power of a sublime intent.\n\n12.\n‘Yes, from the records of my youthful state,\nAnd from the lore of bards and sages old,\nFrom whatsoe’er my wakened thoughts create _1515\nOut of the hopes of thine aspirings bold,\nHave I collected language to unfold\nTruth to my countrymen; from shore to shore\nDoctrines of human power my words have told,\nThey have been heard, and men aspire to more _1520\nThan they have ever gained or ever lost of yore.\n\n13.\n‘In secret chambers parents read, and weep,\nMy writings to their babes, no longer blind;\nAnd young men gather when their tyrants sleep,\nAnd vows of faith each to the other bind; _1525\nAnd marriageable maidens, who have pined\nWith love, till life seemed melting through their look,\nA warmer zeal, a nobler hope, now find;\nAnd every bosom thus is rapt and shook,\nLike autumn’s myriad leaves in one swoln mountain-brook. _1530\n\n14.\n‘The tyrants of the Golden City tremble\nAt voices which are heard about the streets;\nThe ministers of fraud can scarce dissemble\nThe lies of their own heart, but when one meets\nAnother at the shrine, he inly weets, _1535\nThough he says nothing, that the truth is known;\nMurderers are pale upon the judgement-seats,\nAnd gold grows vile even to the wealthy crone,\nAnd laughter fills the Fane, and curses shake the Throne.\n\n15.\n‘Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds _1540\nAbound, for fearless love, and the pure law\nOf mild equality and peace, succeeds\nTo faiths which long have held the world in awe,\nBloody and false, and cold:—as whirlpools draw\nAll wrecks of Ocean to their chasm, the sway _1545\nOf thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw\nThis hope, compels all spirits to obey,\nWhich round thy secret strength now throng in wide array.\n\n16.\n‘For I have been thy passive instrument’—\n(As thus the old man spake, his countenance _1550\nGleamed on me like a spirit’s)—‘thou hast lent\nTo me, to all, the power to advance\nTowards this unforeseen deliverance\nFrom our ancestral chains—ay, thou didst rear\nThat lamp of hope on high, which time nor chance _1555\nNor change may not extinguish, and my share\nOf good, was o’er the world its gathered beams to bear.\n\n17.\n‘But I, alas! am both unknown and old,\nAnd though the woof of wisdom I know well\nTo dye in hues of language, I am cold _1560\nIn seeming, and the hopes which inly dwell,\nMy manners note that I did long repel;\nBut Laon’s name to the tumultuous throng\nWere like the star whose beams the waves compel\nAnd tempests, and his soul-subduing tongue _1565\nWere as a lance to quell the mailed crest of wrong.\n\n18.\n‘Perchance blood need not flow, if thou at length\nWouldst rise, perchance the very slaves would spare\nTheir brethren and themselves; great is the strength\nOf words—for lately did a maiden fair, _1570\nWho from her childhood has been taught to bear\nThe Tyrant’s heaviest yoke, arise, and make\nHer sex the law of truth and freedom hear,\nAnd with these quiet words—“for thine own sake\nI prithee spare me;”—did with ruth so take _1575\n\n19.\n‘All hearts, that even the torturer who had bound\nHer meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled,\nLoosened her, weeping then; nor could be found\nOne human hand to harm her—unassailed\nTherefore she walks through the great City, veiled _1580\nIn virtue’s adamantine eloquence,\n’Gainst scorn, and death and pain thus trebly mailed,\nAnd blending, in the smiles of that defence,\nThe Serpent and the Dove, Wisdom and Innocence.\n\n20.\n‘The wild-eyed women throng around her path: _1585\nFrom their luxurious dungeons, from the dust\nOf meaner thralls, from the oppressor’s wrath,\nOr the caresses of his sated lust\nThey congregate:—in her they put their trust;\nThe tyrants send their armed slaves to quell _1590\nHer power;—they, even like a thunder-gust\nCaught by some forest, bend beneath the spell\nOf that young maiden’s speech, and to their chiefs rebel.\n\n21.\n‘Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach\nTo woman, outraged and polluted long; _1595\nGathering the sweetest fruit in human reach\nFor those fair hands now free, while armed wrong\nTrembles before her look, though it be strong;\nThousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright,\nAnd matrons with their babes, a stately throng! _1600\nLovers renew the vows which they did plight\nIn early faith, and hearts long parted now unite,\n\n22.\n‘And homeless orphans find a home near her,\nAnd those poor victims of the proud, no less,\nFair wrecks, on whom the smiling world with stir, _1605\nThrusts the redemption of its wickedness:—\nIn squalid huts, and in its palaces\nSits Lust alone, while o’er the land is borne\nHer voice, whose awful sweetness doth repress\nAll evil, and her foes relenting turn, _1610\nAnd cast the vote of love in hope’s abandoned urn.\n\n23.\n‘So in the populous City, a young maiden\nHas baffled Havoc of the prey which he\nMarks as his own, whene’er with chains o’erladen\nMen make them arms to hurl down tyranny,— _1615\nFalse arbiter between the bound and free;\nAnd o’er the land, in hamlets and in towns\nThe multitudes collect tumultuously,\nAnd throng in arms; but tyranny disowns\nTheir claim, and gathers strength around its trembling thrones. _1620\n\n24.\n‘Blood soon, although unwillingly, to shed\nThe free cannot forbear—the Queen of Slaves,\nThe hoodwinked Angel of the blind and dead,\nCustom, with iron mace points to the graves\nWhere her own standard desolately waves _1625\nOver the dust of Prophets and of Kings.\nMany yet stand in her array—“she paves\nHer path with human hearts,” and o’er it flings\nThe wildering gloom of her immeasurable wings.\n\n25.\n‘There is a plain beneath the City’s wall, _1630\nBounded by misty mountains, wide and vast,\nMillions there lift at Freedom’s thrilling call\nTen thousand standards wide, they load the blast\nWhich bears one sound of many voices past,\nAnd startles on his throne their sceptred foe: _1635\nHe sits amid his idle pomp aghast,\nAnd that his power hath passed away, doth know—\nWhy pause the victor swords to seal his overthrow?\n\n26.\n‘The tyrant’s guards resistance yet maintain:\nFearless, and fierce, and hard as beasts of blood, _1640\nThey stand a speck amid the peopled plain;\nCarnage and ruin have been made their food\nFrom infancy—ill has become their good,\nAnd for its hateful sake their will has wove\nThe chains which eat their hearts. The multitude _1645\nSurrounding them, with words of human love,\nSeek from their own decay their stubborn minds to move.\n\n27.\n‘Over the land is felt a sudden pause,\nAs night and day those ruthless bands around,\nThe watch of love is kept:—a trance which awes _1650\nThe thoughts of men with hope; as when the sound\nOf whirlwind, whose fierce blasts the waves and clouds confound,\nDies suddenly, the mariner in fear\nFeels silence sink upon his heart—thus bound,\nThe conquerors pause, and oh! may freemen ne’er _1655\nClasp the relentless knees of Dread, the murderer!\n\n28.\n‘If blood be shed, ’tis but a change and choice\nOf bonds,—from slavery to cowardice\nA wretched fall!—Uplift thy charmed voice!\nPour on those evil men the love that lies _1660\nHovering within those spirit-soothing eyes—\nArise, my friend, farewell!’—As thus he spake,\nFrom the green earth lightly I did arise,\nAs one out of dim dreams that doth awake,\nAnd looked upon the depth of that reposing lake. _1665\n\n29.\nI saw my countenance reflected there;—\nAnd then my youth fell on me like a wind\nDescending on still waters—my thin hair\nWas prematurely gray, my face was lined\nWith channels, such as suffering leaves behind, _1670\nNot age; my brow was pale, but in my cheek\nAnd lips a flush of gnawing fire did find\nTheir food and dwelling; though mine eyes might speak\nA subtle mind and strong within a frame thus weak.\n\n30.\nAnd though their lustre now was spent and faded, _1675\nYet in my hollow looks and withered mien\nThe likeness of a shape for which was braided\nThe brightest woof of genius, still was seen—\nOne who, methought, had gone from the world’s scene,\nAnd left it vacant—’twas her lover’s face— _1680\nIt might resemble her—it once had been\nThe mirror of her thoughts, and still the grace\nWhich her mind’s shadow cast, left there a lingering trace.\n\n31.\nWhat then was I? She slumbered with the dead.\nGlory and joy and peace, had come and gone. _1685\nDoth the cloud perish, when the beams are fled\nWhich steeped its skirts in gold? or, dark and lone,\nDoth it not through the paths of night unknown,\nOn outspread wings of its own wind upborne\nPour rain upon the earth? The stars are shown, _1690\nWhen the cold moon sharpens her silver horn\nUnder the sea, and make the wide night not forlorn.\n\n32.\nStrengthened in heart, yet sad, that aged man\nI left, with interchange of looks and tears,\nAnd lingering speech, and to the Camp began _1695\nMy war. O’er many a mountain-chain which rears\nIts hundred crests aloft, my spirit bears\nMy frame; o’er many a dale and many a moor,\nAnd gaily now meseems serene earth wears\nThe blosmy spring’s star-bright investiture, _1700\nA vision which aught sad from sadness might allure.\n\n33.\nMy powers revived within me, and I went,\nAs one whom winds waft o’er the bending grass,\nThrough many a vale of that broad continent.\nAt night when I reposed, fair dreams did pass _1705\nBefore my pillow;—my own Cythna was,\nNot like a child of death, among them ever;\nWhen I arose from rest, a woful mass\nThat gentlest sleep seemed from my life to sever,\nAs if the light of youth were not withdrawn for ever. _1710\n\n34.\nAye as I went, that maiden who had reared\nThe torch of Truth afar, of whose high deeds\nThe Hermit in his pilgrimage had heard,\nHaunted my thoughts.—Ah, Hope its sickness feeds\nWith whatsoe’er it finds, or flowers or weeds! _1715\nCould she be Cythna?—Was that corpse a shade\nSuch as self-torturing thought from madness breeds?\nWhy was this hope not torture? Yet it made\nA light around my steps which would not ever fade.\n\n\n_1625 Where]When edition 1818.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 5.", + "body": "1.\nOver the utmost hill at length I sped, _1720\nA snowy steep:—the moon was hanging low\nOver the Asian mountains, and outspread\nThe plain, the City, and the Camp below,\nSkirted the midnight Ocean’s glimmering flow;\nThe City’s moonlit spires and myriad lamps, _1725\nLike stars in a sublunar sky did glow,\nAnd fires blazed far amid the scattered camps,\nLike springs of flame, which burst where’er swift Earthquake stamps.\n\n2.\nAll slept but those in watchful arms who stood,\nAnd those who sate tending the beacon’s light, _1730\nAnd the few sounds from that vast multitude\nMade silence more profound.—Oh, what a might\nOf human thought was cradled in that night!\nHow many hearts impenetrably veiled\nBeat underneath its shade, what secret fight _1735\nEvil and good, in woven passions mailed,\nWaged through that silent throng—a war that never failed!\n\n3.\nAnd now the Power of Good held victory.\nSo, through the labyrinth of many a tent,\nAmong the silent millions who did lie _1740\nIn innocent sleep, exultingly I went;\nThe moon had left Heaven desert now, but lent\nFrom eastern morn the first faint lustre showed\nAn armed youth—over his spear he bent\nHis downward face.—‘A friend!’ I cried aloud, _1745\nAnd quickly common hopes made freemen understood.\n\n4.\nI sate beside him while the morning beam\nCrept slowly over Heaven, and talked with him\nOf those immortal hopes, a glorious theme!\nWhich led us forth, until the stars grew dim: _1750\nAnd all the while, methought, his voice did swim\nAs if it drowned in remembrance were\nOf thoughts which make the moist eyes overbrim:\nAt last, when daylight ‘gan to fill the air,\nHe looked on me, and cried in wonder—‘Thou art here!’ _1755\n\n5.\nThen, suddenly, I knew it was the youth\nIn whom its earliest hopes my spirit found;\nBut envious tongues had stained his spotless truth,\nAnd thoughtless pride his love in silence bound,\nAnd shame and sorrow mine in toils had wound, _1760\nWhilst he was innocent, and I deluded;\nThe truth now came upon me, on the ground\nTears of repenting joy, which fast intruded,\nFell fast, and o’er its peace our mingling spirits brooded.\n\n6.\nThus, while with rapid lips and earnest eyes _1765\nWe talked, a sound of sweeping conflict spread\nAs from the earth did suddenly arise;\nFrom every tent roused by that clamour dread,\nOur bands outsprung and seized their arms—we sped\nTowards the sound: our tribes were gathering far. _1770\nThose sanguine slaves amid ten thousand dead\nStabbed in their sleep, trampled in treacherous war\nThe gentle hearts whose power their lives had sought to spare.\n\n7.\nLike rabid snakes, that sting some gentle child\nWho brings them food, when winter false and fair _1775\nAllures them forth with its cold smiles, so wild\nThey rage among the camp;—they overbear\nThe patriot hosts—confusion, then despair,\nDescends like night—when ‘Laon!’ one did cry;\nLike a bright ghost from Heaven that shout did scare _1780\nThe slaves, and widening through the vaulted sky,\nSeemed sent from Earth to Heaven in sign of victory.\n\n8.\nIn sudden panic those false murderers fled,\nLike insect tribes before the northern gale:\nBut swifter still, our hosts encompassed _1785\nTheir shattered ranks, and in a craggy vale,\nWhere even their fierce despair might nought avail,\nHemmed them around!—and then revenge and fear\nMade the high virtue of the patriots fail:\nOne pointed on his foe the mortal spear— _1790\nI rushed before its point, and cried ‘Forbear, forbear!’\n\n9.\nThe spear transfixed my arm that was uplifted\nIn swift expostulation, and the blood\nGushed round its point: I smiled, and—‘Oh! thou gifted\nWith eloquence which shall not be withstood, _1795\nFlow thus!’ I cried in joy, ‘thou vital flood,\nUntil my heart be dry, ere thus the cause\nFor which thou wert aught worthy be subdued—\nAh, ye are pale,—ye weep,—your passions pause,—\n’Tis well! ye feel the truth of love’s benignant laws. _1800\n\n10.\n‘Soldiers, our brethren and our friends are slain.\nYe murdered them, I think, as they did sleep!\nAlas, what have ye done? the slightest pain\nWhich ye might suffer, there were eyes to weep,\nBut ye have quenched them—there were smiles to steep _1805\nYour hearts in balm, but they are lost in woe;\nAnd those whom love did set his watch to keep\nAround your tents, truth’s freedom to bestow,\nYe stabbed as they did sleep—but they forgive ye now.\n\n11.\n‘Oh wherefore should ill ever flow from ill, _1810\nAnd pain still keener pain for ever breed?\nWe all are brethren—even the slaves who kill\nFor hire, are men; and to avenge misdeed\nOn the misdoer, doth but Misery feed\nWith her own broken heart! O Earth, O Heaven! _1815\nAnd thou, dread Nature, which to every deed\nAnd all that lives, or is, to be hath given,\nEven as to thee have these done ill, and are forgiven!\n\n12.\n‘Join then your hands and hearts, and let the past\nBe as a grave which gives not up its dead _1820\nTo evil thoughts.’—A film then overcast\nMy sense with dimness, for the wound, which bled\nFreshly, swift shadows o’er mine eyes had shed.\nWhen I awoke, I lay mid friends and foes,\nAnd earnest countenances on me shed _1825\nThe light of questioning looks, whilst one did close\nMy wound with balmiest herbs, and soothed me to repose;\n\n13.\nAnd one whose spear had pierced me, leaned beside\nWith quivering lips and humid eyes;—and all\nSeemed like some brothers on a journey wide _1830\nGone forth, whom now strange meeting did befall\nIn a strange land, round one whom they might call\nTheir friend, their chief, their father, for assay\nOf peril, which had saved them from the thrall\nOf death, now suffering. Thus the vast array _1835\nOf those fraternal bands were reconciled that day.\n\n14.\nLifting the thunder of their acclamation,\nTowards the City then the multitude,\nAnd I among them, went in joy—a nation\nMade free by love;—a mighty brotherhood _1840\nLinked by a jealous interchange of good;\nA glorious pageant, more magnificent\nThan kingly slaves arrayed in gold and blood,\nWhen they return from carnage, and are sent\nIn triumph bright beneath the populous battlement. _1845\n\n15.\nAfar, the city-walls were thronged on high,\nAnd myriads on each giddy turret clung,\nAnd to each spire far lessening in the sky\nBright pennons on the idle winds were hung;\nAs we approached, a shout of joyance sprung _1850\nAt once from all the crowd, as if the vast\nAnd peopled Earth its boundless skies among\nThe sudden clamour of delight had cast,\nWhen from before its face some general wreck had passed.\n\n16.\nOur armies through the City’s hundred gates _1855\nWere poured, like brooks which to the rocky lair\nOf some deep lake, whose silence them awaits,\nThrong from the mountains when the storms are there\nAnd, as we passed through the calm sunny air\nA thousand flower-inwoven crowns were shed, _1860\nThe token flowers of truth and freedom fair,\nAnd fairest hands bound them on many a head,\nThose angels of love’s heaven that over all was spread.\n\n17.\nI trod as one tranced in some rapturous vision:\nThose bloody bands so lately reconciled, _1865\nWere, ever as they went, by the contrition\nOf anger turned to love, from ill beguiled,\nAnd every one on them more gently smiled,\nBecause they had done evil:—the sweet awe\nOf such mild looks made their own hearts grow mild, _1870\nAnd did with soft attraction ever draw\nTheir spirits to the love of freedom’s equal law.\n\n18.\nAnd they, and all, in one loud symphony\nMy name with Liberty commingling, lifted,\n‘The friend and the preserver of the free! _1875\nThe parent of this joy!’ and fair eyes gifted\nWith feelings, caught from one who had uplifted\nThe light of a great spirit, round me shone;\nAnd all the shapes of this grand scenery shifted\nLike restless clouds before the steadfast sun,— _1880\nWhere was that Maid? I asked, but it was known of none.\n\n19.\nLaone was the name her love had chosen,\nFor she was nameless, and her birth none knew:\nWhere was Laone now?—The words were frozen\nWithin my lips with fear; but to subdue _1885\nSuch dreadful hope, to my great task was due,\nAnd when at length one brought reply, that she\nTo-morrow would appear, I then withdrew\nTo judge what need for that great throng might be,\nFor now the stars came thick over the twilight sea. _1890\n\n20.\nYet need was none for rest or food to care,\nEven though that multitude was passing great,\nSince each one for the other did prepare\nAll kindly succour—Therefore to the gate\nOf the Imperial House, now desolate, _1895\nI passed, and there was found aghast, alone,\nThe fallen Tyrant!—Silently he sate\nUpon the footstool of his golden throne,\nWhich, starred with sunny gems, in its own lustre shone.\n\n21.\nAlone, but for one child, who led before him _1900\nA graceful dance: the only living thing\nOf all the crowd, which thither to adore him\nFlocked yesterday, who solace sought to bring\nIn his abandonment!—She knew the King\nHad praised her dance of yore, and now she wove _1905\nIts circles, aye weeping and murmuring\nMid her sad task of unregarded love,\nThat to no smiles it might his speechless sadness move.\n\n22.\nShe fled to him, and wildly clasped his feet\nWhen human steps were heard:—he moved nor spoke, _1910\nNor changed his hue, nor raised his looks to meet\nThe gaze of strangers—our loud entrance woke\nThe echoes of the hall, which circling broke\nThe calm of its recesses,—like a tomb\nIts sculptured walls vacantly to the stroke _1915\nOf footfalls answered, and the twilight’s gloom\nLay like a charnel’s mist within the radiant dome.\n\n23.\nThe little child stood up when we came nigh;\nHer lips and cheeks seemed very pale and wan,\nBut on her forehead, and within her eye _1920\nLay beauty, which makes hearts that feed thereon\nSick with excess of sweetness; on the throne\nShe leaned;—the King, with gathered brow, and lips\nWreathed by long scorn, did inly sneer and frown\nWith hue like that when some great painter dips _1925\nHis pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.\n\n24.\nShe stood beside him like a rainbow braided\nWithin some storm, when scarce its shadows vast\nFrom the blue paths of the swift sun have faded;\nA sweet and solemn smile, like Cythna’s, cast _1930\nOne moment’s light, which made my heart beat fast,\nO’er that child’s parted lips—a gleam of bliss,\nA shade of vanished days,—as the tears passed\nWhich wrapped it, even as with a father’s kiss\nI pressed those softest eyes in trembling tenderness. _1935\n\n25.\nThe sceptred wretch then from that solitude\nI drew, and, of his change compassionate,\nWith words of sadness soothed his rugged mood.\nBut he, while pride and fear held deep debate,\nWith sullen guile of ill-dissembled hate _1940\nGlared on me as a toothless snake might glare:\nPity, not scorn I felt, though desolate\nThe desolator now, and unaware\nThe curses which he mocked had caught him by the hair.\n\n26.\nI led him forth from that which now might seem _1945\nA gorgeous grave: through portals sculptured deep\nWith imagery beautiful as dream\nWe went, and left the shades which tend on sleep\nOver its unregarded gold to keep\nTheir silent watch.—The child trod faintingly, _1950\nAnd as she went, the tears which she did weep\nGlanced in the starlight; wildered seemed she,\nAnd, when I spake, for sobs she could not answer me.\n\n27.\nAt last the tyrant cried, ‘She hungers, slave!\nStab her, or give her bread!’—It was a tone _1955\nSuch as sick fancies in a new-made grave\nMight hear. I trembled, for the truth was known;\nHe with this child had thus been left alone,\nAnd neither had gone forth for food,—but he\nIn mingled pride and awe cowered near his throne, _1960\nAnd she a nursling of captivity\nKnew nought beyond those walls, nor what such change might be.\n\n28.\nAnd he was troubled at a charm withdrawn\nThus suddenly; that sceptres ruled no more—\nThat even from gold the dreadful strength was gone, _1965\nWhich once made all things subject to its power—\nSuch wonder seized him, as if hour by hour\nThe past had come again; and the swift fall\nOf one so great and terrible of yore,\nTo desolateness, in the hearts of all _1970\nLike wonder stirred, who saw such awful change befall.\n\n29.\nA mighty crowd, such as the wide land pours\nOnce in a thousand years, now gathered round\nThe fallen tyrant;—like the rush of showers\nOf hail in spring, pattering along the ground, _1975\nTheir many footsteps fell, else came no sound\nFrom the wide multitude: that lonely man\nThen knew the burden of his change, and found,\nConcealing in the dust his visage wan,\nRefuge from the keen looks which through his bosom ran. _1980\n\n30.\nAnd he was faint withal: I sate beside him\nUpon the earth, and took that child so fair\nFrom his weak arms, that ill might none betide him\nOr her;—when food was brought to them, her share\nTo his averted lips the child did bear, _1985\nBut, when she saw he had enough, she ate\nAnd wept the while;—the lonely man’s despair\nHunger then overcame, and of his state\nForgetful, on the dust as in a trance he sate.\n\n31.\nSlowly the silence of the multitudes _1990\nPassed, as when far is heard in some lone dell\nThe gathering of a wind among the woods—\n‘And he is fallen!’ they cry, ‘he who did dwell\nLike famine or the plague, or aught more fell\nAmong our homes, is fallen! the murderer _1995\nWho slaked his thirsting soul as from a well\nOf blood and tears with ruin! he is here!\nSunk in a gulf of scorn from which none may him rear!’\n\n32.\nThen was heard—‘He who judged let him be brought\nTo judgement! blood for blood cries from the soil _2000\nOn which his crimes have deep pollution wrought!\nShall Othman only unavenged despoil?\nShall they who by the stress of grinding toil\nWrest from the unwilling earth his luxuries,\nPerish for crime, while his foul blood may boil, _2005\nOr creep within his veins at will?—Arise!\nAnd to high justice make her chosen sacrifice!’\n\n33.\n‘What do ye seek? what fear ye,’ then I cried,\nSuddenly starting forth, ‘that ye should shed\nThe blood of Othman?—if your hearts are tried _2010\nIn the true love of freedom, cease to dread\nThis one poor lonely man—beneath Heaven spread\nIn purest light above us all, through earth—\nMaternal earth, who doth her sweet smiles shed\nFor all, let him go free; until the worth _2015\nOf human nature win from these a second birth.\n\n34.\n‘What call ye “justice”? Is there one who ne’er\nIn secret thought has wished another’s ill?—\nAre ye all pure? Let those stand forth who hear\nAnd tremble not. Shall they insult and kill, _2020\nIf such they be? their mild eyes can they fill\nWith the false anger of the hypocrite?\nAlas, such were not pure!—the chastened will\nOf virtue sees that justice is the light\nOf love, and not revenge, and terror and despite.’ _2025\n\n35.\nThe murmur of the people, slowly dying,\nPaused as I spake, then those who near me were,\nCast gentle looks where the lone man was lying\nShrouding his head, which now that infant fair\nClasped on her lap in silence;—through the air _2030\nSobs were then heard, and many kissed my feet\nIn pity’s madness, and to the despair\nOf him whom late they cursed, a solace sweet\nHis very victims brought—soft looks and speeches meet.\n\n36.\nThen to a home for his repose assigned, _2035\nAccompanied by the still throng, he went\nIn silence, where, to soothe his rankling mind,\nSome likeness of his ancient state was lent;\nAnd if his heart could have been innocent\nAs those who pardoned him, he might have ended _2040\nHis days in peace; but his straight lips were bent,\nMen said, into a smile which guile portended,\nA sight with which that child like hope with fear was blended.\n\n37.\n’Twas midnight now, the eve of that great day\nWhereon the many nations at whose call _2045\nThe chains of earth like mist melted away,\nDecreed to hold a sacred Festival,\nA rite to attest the equality of all\nWho live. So to their homes, to dream or wake\nAll went. The sleepless silence did recall _2050\nLaone to my thoughts, with hopes that make\nThe flood recede from which their thirst they seek to slake.\n\n38.\nThe dawn flowed forth, and from its purple fountains\nI drank those hopes which make the spirit quail,\nAs to the plain between the misty mountains _2055\nAnd the great City, with a countenance pale,\nI went:—it was a sight which might avail\nTo make men weep exulting tears, for whom\nNow first from human power the reverend veil\nWas torn, to see Earth from her general womb _2060\nPour forth her swarming sons to a fraternal doom:\n\n39.\nTo see, far glancing in the misty morning,\nThe signs of that innumerable host;\nTo hear one sound of many made, the warning\nOf Earth to Heaven from its free children tossed, _2065\nWhile the eternal hills, and the sea lost\nIn wavering light, and, starring the blue sky\nThe city’s myriad spires of gold, almost\nWith human joy made mute society—\nIts witnesses with men who must hereafter be. _2070\n\n40.\nTo see, like some vast island from the Ocean,\nThe Altar of the Federation rear\nIts pile i’ the midst; a work, which the devotion\nOf millions in one night created there,\nSudden as when the moonrise makes appear _2075\nStrange clouds in the east; a marble pyramid\nDistinct with steps: that mighty shape did wear\nThe light of genius; its still shadow hid\nFar ships: to know its height the morning mists forbid!\n\n41.\nTo hear the restless multitudes for ever _2080\nAround the base of that great Altar flow,\nAs on some mountain-islet burst and shiver\nAtlantic waves; and solemnly and slow\nAs the wind bore that tumult to and fro,\nTo feel the dreamlike music, which did swim _2085\nLike beams through floating clouds on waves below\nFalling in pauses, from that Altar dim,\nAs silver-sounding tongues breathed an aerial hymn.\n\n42.\nTo hear, to see, to live, was on that morn\nLethean joy! so that all those assembled _2090\nCast off their memories of the past outworn;\nTwo only bosoms with their own life trembled,\nAnd mine was one,—and we had both dissembled;\nSo with a beating heart I went, and one,\nWho having much, covets yet more, resembled; _2095\nA lost and dear possession, which not won,\nHe walks in lonely gloom beneath the noonday sun.\n\n43.\nTo the great Pyramid I came: its stair\nWith female choirs was thronged: the loveliest\nAmong the free, grouped with its sculptures rare; _2100\nAs I approached, the morning’s golden mist,\nWhich now the wonder-stricken breezes kissed\nWith their cold lips, fled, and the summit shone\nLike Athos seen from Samothracia, dressed\nIn earliest light, by vintagers, and one _2105\nSate there, a female Shape upon an ivory throne:\n\n44.\nA Form most like the imagined habitant\nOf silver exhalations sprung from dawn,\nBy winds which feed on sunrise woven, to enchant\nThe faiths of men: all mortal eyes were drawn, _2110\nAs famished mariners through strange seas gone\nGaze on a burning watch-tower, by the light\nOf those divinest lineaments—alone\nWith thoughts which none could share, from that fair sight\nI turned in sickness, for a veil shrouded her countenance bright. _2115\n\n45.\nAnd neither did I hear the acclamations,\nWhich from brief silence bursting, filled the air\nWith her strange name and mine, from all the nations\nWhich we, they said, in strength had gathered there\nFrom the sleep of bondage; nor the vision fair _2120\nOf that bright pageantry beheld,—but blind\nAnd silent, as a breathing corpse did fare,\nLeaning upon my friend, till like a wind\nTo fevered cheeks, a voice flowed o’er my troubled mind.\n\n46.\nLike music of some minstrel heavenly gifted, _2125\nTo one whom fiends enthral, this voice to me;\nScarce did I wish her veil to be uplifted,\nI was so calm and joyous.—I could see\nThe platform where we stood, the statues three\nWhich kept their marble watch on that high shrine, _2130\nThe multitudes, the mountains, and the sea;\nAs when eclipse hath passed, things sudden shine\nTo men’s astonished eyes most clear and crystalline.\n\n47.\nAt first Laone spoke most tremulously:\nBut soon her voice the calmness which it shed _2135\nGathered, and—‘Thou art whom I sought to see,\nAnd thou art our first votary here,’ she said:\n‘I had a dear friend once, but he is dead!—\nAnd of all those on the wide earth who breathe,\nThou dost resemble him alone—I spread _2140\nThis veil between us two that thou beneath\nShouldst image one who may have been long lost in death.\n\n48.\n‘For this wilt thou not henceforth pardon me?\nYes, but those joys which silence well requite\nForbid reply;—why men have chosen me _2145\nTo be the Priestess of this holiest rite\nI scarcely know, but that the floods of light\nWhich flow over the world, have borne me hither\nTo meet thee, long most dear; and now unite\nThine hand with mine, and may all comfort wither _2150\nFrom both the hearts whose pulse in joy now beat together,\n\n49.\n‘If our own will as others’ law we bind,\nIf the foul worship trampled here we fear;\nIf as ourselves we cease to love our kind!’—\nShe paused, and pointed upwards—sculptured there _2155\nThree shapes around her ivory throne appear;\nOne was a Giant, like a child asleep\nOn a loose rock, whose grasp crushed, as it were\nIn dream, sceptres and crowns; and one did keep\nIts watchful eyes in doubt whether to smile or weep; _2160\n\n50.\nA Woman sitting on the sculptured disk\nOf the broad earth, and feeding from one breast\nA human babe and a young basilisk;\nHer looks were sweet as Heaven’s when loveliest\nIn Autumn eves. The third Image was dressed _2165\nIn white wings swift as clouds in winter skies;\nBeneath his feet, ‘mongst ghastliest forms, repressed\nLay Faith, an obscene worm, who sought to rise,\nWhile calmly on the Sun he turned his diamond eyes.\n\n51.\nBeside that Image then I sate, while she _2170\nStood, mid the throngs which ever ebbed and flowed,\nLike light amid the shadows of the sea\nCast from one cloudless star, and on the crowd\nThat touch which none who feels forgets, bestowed;\nAnd whilst the sun returned the steadfast gaze _2175\nOf the great Image, as o’er Heaven it glode,\nThat rite had place; it ceased when sunset’s blaze\nBurned o’er the isles. All stood in joy and deep amaze—\n—When in the silence of all spirits there\nLaone’s voice was felt, and through the air _2180\nHer thrilling gestures spoke, most eloquently fair:—\n\n51.1.\n‘Calm art thou as yon sunset! swift and strong\nAs new-fledged Eagles, beautiful and young,\nThat float among the blinding beams of morning;\nAnd underneath thy feet writhe Faith, and Folly, _2185\nCustom, and Hell, and mortal Melancholy—\nHark! the Earth starts to hear the mighty warning\nOf thy voice sublime and holy;\nIts free spirits here assembled\nSee thee, feel thee, know thee now,— _2190\nTo thy voice their hearts have trembled\nLike ten thousand clouds which flow\nWith one wide wind as it flies!—\nWisdom! thy irresistible children rise\nTo hail thee, and the elements they chain _2195\nAnd their own will, to swell the glory of thy train.\n\n51.2.\n‘O Spirit vast and deep as Night and Heaven!\nMother and soul of all to which is given\nThe light of life, the loveliness of being,\nLo! thou dost re-ascend the human heart, _2200\nThy throne of power, almighty as thou wert\nIn dreams of Poets old grown pale by seeing\nThe shade of thee;—now, millions start\nTo feel thy lightnings through them burning:\nNature, or God, or Love, or Pleasure, _2205\nOr Sympathy the sad tears turning\nTo mutual smiles, a drainless treasure,\nDescends amidst us;—Scorn and Hate,\nRevenge and Selfishness are desolate—\nA hundred nations swear that there shall be _2210\nPity and Peace and Love, among the good and free!\n\n51.3.\n‘Eldest of things, divine Equality!\nWisdom and Love are but the slaves of thee,\nThe Angels of thy sway, who pour around thee\nTreasures from all the cells of human thought, _2215\nAnd from the Stars, and from the Ocean brought,\nAnd the last living heart whose beatings bound thee:\nThe powerful and the wise had sought\nThy coming, thou in light descending\nO’er the wide land which is thine own _2220\nLike the Spring whose breath is blending\nAll blasts of fragrance into one,\nComest upon the paths of men!—\nEarth bares her general bosom to thy ken,\nAnd all her children here in glory meet _2225\nTo feed upon thy smiles, and clasp thy sacred feet.\n\n51.4\n‘My brethren, we are free! the plains and mountains,\nThe gray sea-shore, the forests and the fountains,\nAre haunts of happiest dwellers;—man and woman,\nTheir common bondage burst, may freely borrow _2230\nFrom lawless love a solace for their sorrow;\nFor oft we still must weep, since we are human.\nA stormy night’s serenest morrow,\nWhose showers are pity’s gentle tears,\nWhose clouds are smiles of those that die _2235\nLike infants without hopes or fears,\nAnd whose beams are joys that lie\nIn blended hearts, now holds dominion;\nThe dawn of mind, which upwards on a pinion\nBorne, swift as sunrise, far illumines space, _2240\nAnd clasps this barren world in its own bright embrace!\n\n51.5\n‘My brethren, we are free! The fruits are glowing\nBeneath the stars, and the night-winds are flowing\nO’er the ripe corn, the birds and beasts are dreaming—\nNever again may blood of bird or beast _2245\nStain with its venomous stream a human feast,\nTo the pure skies in accusation steaming;\nAvenging poisons shall have ceased\nTo feed disease and fear and madness,\nThe dwellers of the earth and air _2250\nShall throng around our steps in gladness,\nSeeking their food or refuge there.\nOur toil from thought all glorious forms shall cull,\nTo make this Earth, our home, more beautiful,\nAnd Science, and her sister Poesy, _2255\nShall clothe in light the fields and cities of the free!\n\n51.6\n‘Victory, Victory to the prostrate nations!\nBear witness Night, and ye mute Constellations\nWho gaze on us from your crystalline cars!\nThoughts have gone forth whose powers can sleep no more! _2260\nVictory! Victory! Earth’s remotest shore,\nRegions which groan beneath the Antarctic stars,\nThe green lands cradled in the roar\nOf western waves, and wildernesses\nPeopled and vast, which skirt the oceans _2265\nWhere morning dyes her golden tresses,\nShall soon partake our high emotions:\nKings shall turn pale! Almighty Fear,\nThe Fiend-God, when our charmed name he hear,\nShall fade like shadow from his thousand fanes, _2270\nWhile Truth with Joy enthroned o’er his lost empire reigns!’\n\n51.52.\nEre she had ceased, the mists of night entwining\nTheir dim woof, floated o’er the infinite throng;\nShe, like a spirit through the darkness shining,\nIn tones whose sweetness silence did prolong, _2275\nAs if to lingering winds they did belong,\nPoured forth her inmost soul: a passionate speech\nWith wild and thrilling pauses woven among,\nWhich whoso heard was mute, for it could teach\nTo rapture like her own all listening hearts to reach. _2280\n\n53.\nHer voice was as a mountain stream which sweeps\nThe withered leaves of Autumn to the lake,\nAnd in some deep and narrow bay then sleeps\nIn the shadow of the shores; as dead leaves wake,\nUnder the wave, in flowers and herbs which make _2285\nThose green depths beautiful when skies are blue,\nThe multitude so moveless did partake\nSuch living change, and kindling murmurs flew\nAs o’er that speechless calm delight and wonder grew.\n\n54.\nOver the plain the throngs were scattered then _2290\nIn groups around the fires, which from the sea\nEven to the gorge of the first mountain-glen\nBlazed wide and far: the banquet of the free\nWas spread beneath many a dark cypress-tree,\nBeneath whose spires, which swayed in the red flame, _2295\nReclining, as they ate, of Liberty,\nAnd Hope, and Justice, and Laone’s name,\nEarth’s children did a woof of happy converse frame.\n\n55.\nTheir feast was such as Earth, the general mother,\nPours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles _2300\nIn the embrace of Autumn;—to each other\nAs when some parent fondly reconciles\nHer warring children, she their wrath beguiles\nWith her own sustenance, they relenting weep:\nSuch was this Festival, which from their isles _2305\nAnd continents, and winds, and oceans deep,\nAll shapes might throng to share, that fly, or walk or creep,—\n\n56.\nMight share in peace and innocence, for gore\nOr poison none this festal did pollute,\nBut, piled on high, an overflowing store _2310\nOf pomegranates and citrons, fairest fruit,\nMelons, and dates, and figs, and many a root\nSweet and sustaining, and bright grapes ere yet\nAccursed fire their mild juice could transmute\nInto a mortal bane, and brown corn set _2315\nIn baskets; with pure streams their thirsting lips they wet.\n\n57.\nLaone had descended from the shrine,\nAnd every deepest look and holiest mind\nFed on her form, though now those tones divine\nWere silent as she passed; she did unwind _2320\nHer veil, as with the crowds of her own kind\nShe mixed; some impulse made my heart refrain\nFrom seeking her that night, so I reclined\nAmidst a group, where on the utmost plain\nA festal watchfire burned beside the dusky main. _2325\n\n58.\nAnd joyous was our feast; pathetic talk,\nAnd wit, and harmony of choral strains,\nWhile far Orion o’er the waves did walk\nThat flow among the isles, held us in chains\nOf sweet captivity which none disdains _2330\nWho feels; but when his zone grew dim in mist\nWhich clothes the Ocean’s bosom, o’er the plains\nThe multitudes went homeward, to their rest,\nWhich that delightful day with its own shadow blessed.\n\n\n_2295 flame]light edition 1818.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 6.", + "body": "1.\nBeside the dimness of the glimmering sea, _2335\nWeaving swift language from impassioned themes,\nWith that dear friend I lingered, who to me\nSo late had been restored, beneath the gleams\nOf the silver stars; and ever in soft dreams\nOf future love and peace sweet converse lapped _2340\nOur willing fancies, till the pallid beams\nOf the last watchfire fell, and darkness wrapped\nThe waves, and each bright chain of floating fire was snapped;\n\n2.\nAnd till we came even to the City’s wall\nAnd the great gate; then, none knew whence or why, _2345\nDisquiet on the multitudes did fall:\nAnd first, one pale and breathless passed us by,\nAnd stared and spoke not;—then with piercing cry\nA troop of wild-eyed women, by the shrieks\nOf their own terror driven,—tumultuously _2350\nHither and thither hurrying with pale cheeks,\nEach one from fear unknown a sudden refuge seeks—\n\n3.\nThen, rallying cries of treason and of danger\nResounded: and—‘They come! to arms! to arms!\nThe Tyrant is amongst us, and the stranger _2355\nComes to enslave us in his name! to arms!’\nIn vain: for Panic, the pale fiend who charms\nStrength to forswear her right, those millions swept\nLike waves before the tempest—these alarms\nCame to me, as to know their cause I lept _2360\nOn the gate’s turret, and in rage and grief and scorn I wept!\n\n4.\nFor to the North I saw the town on fire,\nAnd its red light made morning pallid now,\nWhich burst over wide Asia;—louder, higher,\nThe yells of victory and the screams of woe _2365\nI heard approach, and saw the throng below\nStream through the gates like foam-wrought waterfalls\nFed from a thousand storms—the fearful glow\nOf bombs flares overhead—at intervals\nThe red artillery’s bolt mangling among them falls. _2370\n\n5.\nAnd now the horsemen come—and all was done\nSwifter than I have spoken—I beheld\nTheir red swords flash in the unrisen sun.\nI rushed among the rout, to have repelled\nThat miserable flight—one moment quelled _2375\nBy voice and looks and eloquent despair,\nAs if reproach from their own hearts withheld\nTheir steps, they stood; but soon came pouring there\nNew multitudes, and did those rallied bands o’erbear.\n\n6.\nI strove, as, drifted on some cataract _2380\nBy irresistible streams, some wretch might strive\nWho hears its fatal roar:—the files compact\nWhelmed me, and from the gate availed to drive\nWith quickening impulse, as each bolt did rive\nTheir ranks with bloodier chasm:—into the plain _2385\nDisgorged at length the dead and the alive\nIn one dread mass, were parted, and the stain\nOf blood, from mortal steel fell o’er the fields like rain.\n\n7.\nFor now the despot’s bloodhounds with their prey\nUnarmed and unaware, were gorging deep _2390\nTheir gluttony of death; the loose array\nOf horsemen o’er the wide fields murdering sweep,\nAnd with loud laughter for their tyrant reap\nA harvest sown with other hopes; the while,\nFar overhead, ships from Propontis keep _2395\nA killing rain of fire:—when the waves smile\nAs sudden earthquakes light many a volcano-isle,\n\n8.\nThus sudden, unexpected feast was spread\nFor the carrion-fowls of Heaven.—I saw the sight—\nI moved—I lived—as o’er the heaps of dead, _2400\nWhose stony eyes glared in the morning light\nI trod;—to me there came no thought of flight,\nBut with loud cries of scorn, which whoso heard\nThat dreaded death, felt in his veins the might\nOf virtuous shame return, the crowd I stirred, _2405\nAnd desperation’s hope in many hearts recurred.\n\n9.\nA band of brothers gathering round me, made,\nAlthough unarmed, a steadfast front, and still\nRetreating, with stern looks beneath the shade\nOf gathered eyebrows, did the victors fill _2410\nWith doubt even in success; deliberate will\nInspired our growing troop; not overthrown\nIt gained the shelter of a grassy hill,\nAnd ever still our comrades were hewn down,\nAnd their defenceless limbs beneath our footsteps strown. _2415\n\n10.\nImmovably we stood—in joy I found,\nBeside me then, firm as a giant pine\nAmong the mountain-vapours driven around,\nThe old man whom I loved—his eyes divine\nWith a mild look of courage answered mine, _2420\nAnd my young friend was near, and ardently\nHis hand grasped mine a moment—now the line\nOf war extended, to our rallying cry\nAs myriads flocked in love and brotherhood to die.\n\n11.\nFor ever while the sun was climbing Heaven _2425\nThe horseman hewed our unarmed myriads down\nSafely, though when by thirst of carnage driven\nToo near, those slaves were swiftly overthrown\nBy hundreds leaping on them:—flesh and bone\nSoon made our ghastly ramparts; then the shaft _2430\nOf the artillery from the sea was thrown\nMore fast and fiery, and the conquerors laughed\nIn pride to hear the wind our screams of torment waft.\n\n12.\nFor on one side alone the hill gave shelter,\nSo vast that phalanx of unconquered men, _2435\nAnd there the living in the blood did welter\nOf the dead and dying, which in that green glen,\nLike stifled torrents, made a plashy fen\nUnder the feet—thus was the butchery waged\nWhile the sun clomb Heaven’s eastern steep—but when _2440\nIt ‘gan to sink—a fiercer combat raged,\nFor in more doubtful strife the armies were engaged.\n\n13.\nWithin a cave upon the hill were found\nA bundle of rude pikes, the instrument\nOf those who war but on their native ground _2445\nFor natural rights: a shout of joyance sent\nEven from our hearts the wide air pierced and rent,\nAs those few arms the bravest and the best\nSeized, and each sixth, thus armed, did now present\nA line which covered and sustained the rest, _2450\nA confident phalanx, which the foes on every side invest.\n\n14.\nThat onset turned the foes to flight almost;\nBut soon they saw their present strength, and knew\nThat coming night would to our resolute host\nBring victory; so dismounting, close they drew _2455\nTheir glittering files, and then the combat grew\nUnequal but most horrible;—and ever\nOur myriads, whom the swift bolt overthrew,\nOr the red sword, failed like a mountain river\nWhich rushes forth in foam to sink in sands for ever. _2460\n\n15.\nSorrow and shame, to see with their own kind\nOur human brethren mix, like beasts of blood,\nTo mutual ruin armed by one behind\nWho sits and scoffs!—That friend so mild and good,\nWho like its shadow near my youth had stood, _2465\nWas stabbed!—my old preserver’s hoary hair\nWith the flesh clinging to its roots, was strewed\nUnder my feet!—I lost all sense or care,\nAnd like the rest I grew desperate and unaware.\n\n16.\nThe battle became ghastlier—in the midst _2470\nI paused, and saw, how ugly and how fell\nO Hate! thou art, even when thy life thou shedd’st\nFor love. The ground in many a little dell\nWas broken, up and down whose steeps befell\nAlternate victory and defeat, and there _2475\nThe combatants with rage most horrible\nStrove, and their eyes started with cracking stare,\nAnd impotent their tongues they lolled into the air,\n\n17.\nFlaccid and foamy, like a mad dog’s hanging;\nWant, and Moon-madness, and the pest’s swift Bane _2480\nWhen its shafts smite—while yet its bow is twanging—\nHave each their mark and sign—some ghastly stain;\nAnd this was thine, O War! of hate and pain\nThou loathed slave! I saw all shapes of death\nAnd ministered to many, o’er the plain _2485\nWhile carnage in the sunbeam’s warmth did seethe,\nTill twilight o’er the east wove her serenest wreath.\n\n18.\nThe few who yet survived, resolute and firm\nAround me fought. At the decline of day\nWinding above the mountain’s snowy term _2490\nNew banners shone; they quivered in the ray\nOf the sun’s unseen orb—ere night the array\nOf fresh troops hemmed us in—of those brave bands\nI soon survived alone—and now I lay\nVanquished and faint, the grasp of bloody hands _2495\nI felt, and saw on high the glare of falling brands,\n\n19.\nWhen on my foes a sudden terror came,\nAnd they fled, scattering—lo! with reinless speed\nA black Tartarian horse of giant frame\nComes trampling over the dead, the living bleed _2500\nBeneath the hoofs of that tremendous steed,\nOn which, like to an Angel, robed in white,\nSate one waving a sword;—the hosts recede\nAnd fly, as through their ranks with awful might,\nSweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom swift and bright; _2505\n\n20.\nAnd its path made a solitude.—I rose\nAnd marked its coming: it relaxed its course\nAs it approached me, and the wind that flows\nThrough night, bore accents to mine ear whose force\nMight create smiles in death—the Tartar horse _2510\nPaused, and I saw the shape its might which swayed,\nAnd heard her musical pants, like the sweet source\nOf waters in the desert, as she said,\n‘Mount with me, Laon, now’—I rapidly obeyed.\n\n21.\nThen: ‘Away! away!’ she cried, and stretched her sword _2515\nAs ’twere a scourge over the courser’s head,\nAnd lightly shook the reins.—We spake no word,\nBut like the vapour of the tempest fled\nOver the plain; her dark hair was dispread\nLike the pine’s locks upon the lingering blast; _2520\nOver mine eyes its shadowy strings it spread\nFitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast,\nAs o’er their glimmering forms the steed’s broad shadow passed.\n\n22.\nAnd his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust,\nHis strong sides made the torrents rise in spray, _2525\nAnd turbulence, as of a whirlwind’s gust\nSurrounded us;—and still away! away!\nThrough the desert night we sped, while she alway\nGazed on a mountain which we neared, whose crest,\nCrowned with a marble ruin, in the ray _2530\nOf the obscure stars gleamed;—its rugged breast\nThe steed strained up, and then his impulse did arrest.\n\n23.\nA rocky hill which overhung the Ocean:—\nFrom that lone ruin, when the steed that panted\nPaused, might be heard the murmur of the motion _2535\nOf waters, as in spots for ever haunted\nBy the choicest winds of Heaven, which are enchanted\nTo music, by the wand of Solitude,\nThat wizard wild, and the far tents implanted\nUpon the plain, be seen by those who stood _2540\nThence marking the dark shore of Ocean’s curved flood.\n\n24.\nOne moment these were heard and seen—another\nPassed; and the two who stood beneath that night,\nEach only heard, or saw, or felt the other;\nAs from the lofty steed she did alight, _2545\nCythna, (for, from the eyes whose deepest light\nOf love and sadness made my lips feel pale\nWith influence strange of mournfullest delight,\nMy own sweet Cythna looked), with joy did quail,\nAnd felt her strength in tears of human weakness fail. _2550\n\n25.\nAnd for a space in my embrace she rested,\nHer head on my unquiet heart reposing,\nWhile my faint arms her languid frame invested;\nAt length she looked on me, and half unclosing\nHer tremulous lips, said, ‘Friend, thy bands were losing _2555\nThe battle, as I stood before the King\nIn bonds.—I burst them then, and swiftly choosing\nThe time, did seize a Tartar’s sword, and spring\nUpon his horse, and swift, as on the whirlwind’s wing,\n\n26.\n‘Have thou and I been borne beyond pursuer, _2560\nAnd we are here.’—Then, turning to the steed,\nShe pressed the white moon on his front with pure\nAnd rose-like lips, and many a fragrant weed\nFrom the green ruin plucked, that he might feed;—\nBut I to a stone seat that Maiden led, _2565\nAnd, kissing her fair eyes, said, ‘Thou hast need\nOf rest,’ and I heaped up the courser’s bed\nIn a green mossy nook, with mountain flowers dispread.\n\n27.\nWithin that ruin, where a shattered portal\nLooks to the eastern stars, abandoned now _2570\nBy man, to be the home of things immortal,\nMemories, like awful ghosts which come and go,\nAnd must inherit all he builds below,\nWhen he is gone, a hall stood; o’er whose roof\nFair clinging weeds with ivy pale did grow, _2575\nClasping its gray rents with a verdurous woof,\nA hanging dome of leaves, a canopy moon-proof.\n\n28.\nThe autumnal winds, as if spell-bound, had made\nA natural couch of leaves in that recess,\nWhich seasons none disturbed, but, in the shade _2580\nOf flowering parasites, did Spring love to dress\nWith their sweet blooms the wintry loneliness\nOf those dead leaves, shedding their stars, whene’er\nThe wandering wind her nurslings might caress;\nWhose intertwining fingers ever there _2585\nMade music wild and soft that filled the listening air.\n\n29.\nWe know not where we go, or what sweet dream\nMay pilot us through caverns strange and fair\nOf far and pathless passion, while the stream\nOf life, our bark doth on its whirlpools bear, _2590\nSpreading swift wings as sails to the dim air;\nNor should we seek to know, so the devotion\nOf love and gentle thoughts be heard still there\nLouder and louder from the utmost Ocean\nOf universal life, attuning its commotion. _2595\n\n30.\nTo the pure all things are pure! Oblivion wrapped\nOur spirits, and the fearful overthrow\nOf public hope was from our being snapped,\nThough linked years had bound it there; for now\nA power, a thirst, a knowledge, which below _2600\nAll thoughts, like light beyond the atmosphere,\nClothing its clouds with grace, doth ever flow,\nCame on us, as we sate in silence there,\nBeneath the golden stars of the clear azure air;—\n\n31.\nIn silence which doth follow talk that causes _2605\nThe baffled heart to speak with sighs and tears,\nWhen wildering passion swalloweth up the pauses\nOf inexpressive speech:—the youthful years\nWhich we together passed, their hopes and fears,\nThe blood itself which ran within our frames, _2610\nThat likeness of the features which endears\nThe thoughts expressed by them, our very names,\nAnd all the winged hours which speechless memory claims,\n\n32.\nHad found a voice—and ere that voice did pass,\nThe night grew damp and dim, and, through a rent _2615\nOf the ruin where we sate, from the morass\nA wandering Meteor by some wild wind sent,\nHung high in the green dome, to which it lent\nA faint and pallid lustre; while the song\nOf blasts, in which its blue hair quivering bent, _2620\nStrewed strangest sounds the moving leaves among;\nA wondrous light, the sound as of a spirit’s tongue.\n\n33.\nThe Meteor showed the leaves on which we sate,\nAnd Cythna’s glowing arms, and the thick ties\nOf her soft hair, which bent with gathered weight _2625\nMy neck near hers; her dark and deepening eyes,\nWhich, as twin phantoms of one star that lies\nO’er a dim well, move, though the star reposes,\nSwam in our mute and liquid ecstasies,\nHer marble brow, and eager lips, like roses, _2630\nWith their own fragrance pale, which Spring but half uncloses.\n\n34.\nThe Meteor to its far morass returned:\nThe beating of our veins one interval\nMade still; and then I felt the blood that burned\nWithin her frame, mingle with mine, and fall _2635\nAround my heart like fire; and over all\nA mist was spread, the sickness of a deep\nAnd speechless swoon of joy, as might befall\nTwo disunited spirits when they leap\nIn union from this earth’s obscure and fading sleep. _2640\n\n35.\nWas it one moment that confounded thus\nAll thought, all sense, all feeling, into one\nUnutterable power, which shielded us\nEven from our own cold looks, when we had gone\nInto a wide and wild oblivion _2645\nOf tumult and of tenderness? or now\nHad ages, such as make the moon and sun,\nThe seasons, and mankind their changes know,\nLeft fear and time unfelt by us alone below?\n\n36.\nI know not. What are kisses whose fire clasps _2650\nThe failing heart in languishment, or limb\nTwined within limb? or the quick dying gasps\nOf the life meeting, when the faint eyes swim\nThrough tears of a wide mist boundless and dim,\nIn one caress? What is the strong control _2655\nWhich leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb,\nWhere far over the world those vapours roll\nWhich blend two restless frames in one reposing soul?\n37.\nIt is the shadow which doth float unseen,\nBut not unfelt, o’er blind mortality, _2660\nWhose divine darkness fled not from that green\nAnd lone recess, where lapped in peace did lie\nOur linked frames, till, from the changing sky\nThat night and still another day had fled;\nAnd then I saw and felt. The moon was high, _2665\nAnd clouds, as of a coming storm, were spread\nUnder its orb,—loud winds were gathering overhead.\n\n38.\nCythna’s sweet lips seemed lurid in the moon,\nHer fairest limbs with the night wind were chill,\nAnd her dark tresses were all loosely strewn _2670\nO’er her pale bosom:—all within was still,\nAnd the sweet peace of joy did almost fill\nThe depth of her unfathomable look;—\nAnd we sate calmly, though that rocky hill,\nThe waves contending in its caverns strook, _2675\nFor they foreknew the storm, and the gray ruin shook.\n\n39.\nThere we unheeding sate, in the communion\nOf interchanged vows, which, with a rite\nOf faith most sweet and sacred, stamped our union.—\nFew were the living hearts which could unite _2680\nLike ours, or celebrate a bridal night\nWith such close sympathies, for they had sprung\nFrom linked youth, and from the gentle might\nOf earliest love, delayed and cherished long,\nWhich common hopes and fears made, like a tempest, strong. _2685\n\n40.\nAnd such is Nature’s law divine, that those\nWho grow together cannot choose but love,\nIf faith or custom do not interpose,\nOr common slavery mar what else might move\nAll gentlest thoughts; as in the sacred grove _2690\nWhich shades the springs of Ethiopian Nile,\nThat living tree which, if the arrowy dove\nStrike with her shadow, shrinks in fear awhile,\nBut its own kindred leaves clasps while the sunbeams smile;\n\n41.\nAnd clings to them, when darkness may dissever _2695\nThe close caresses of all duller plants\nWhich bloom on the wide earth—thus we for ever\nWere linked, for love had nursed us in the haunts\nWhere knowledge, from its secret source enchants\nYoung hearts with the fresh music of its springing, _2700\nEre yet its gathered flood feeds human wants,\nAs the great Nile feeds Egypt; ever flinging\nLight on the woven boughs which o’er its waves are swinging.\n\n42.\nThe tones of Cythna’s voice like echoes were\nOf those far murmuring streams; they rose and fell, _2705\nMixed with mine own in the tempestuous air,—\nAnd so we sate, until our talk befell\nOf the late ruin, swift and horrible,\nAnd how those seeds of hope might yet be sown,\nWhose fruit is evil’s mortal poison: well, _2710\nFor us, this ruin made a watch-tower lone,\nBut Cythna’s eyes looked faint, and now two days were gone\n\n43.\nSince she had food:—therefore I did awaken\nThe Tartar steed, who, from his ebon mane\nSoon as the clinging slumbers he had shaken, _2715\nBent his thin head to seek the brazen rein,\nFollowing me obediently; with pain\nOf heart, so deep and dread, that one caress,\nWhen lips and heart refuse to part again\nTill they have told their fill, could scarce express _2720\nThe anguish of her mute and fearful tenderness,\n\n44.\nCythna beheld me part, as I bestrode\nThat willing steed—the tempest and the night,\nWhich gave my path its safety as I rode\nDown the ravine of rocks, did soon unite _2725\nThe darkness and the tumult of their might\nBorne on all winds.—Far through the streaming rain\nFloating at intervals the garments white\nOf Cythna gleamed, and her voice once again\nCame to me on the gust, and soon I reached the plain. _2730\n\n45.\nI dreaded not the tempest, nor did he\nWho bore me, but his eyeballs wide and red\nTurned on the lightning’s cleft exultingly;\nAnd when the earth beneath his tameless tread,\nShook with the sullen thunder, he would spread _2735\nHis nostrils to the blast, and joyously\nMock the fierce peal with neighings;—thus we sped\nO’er the lit plain, and soon I could descry\nWhere Death and Fire had gorged the spoil of victory.\n\n46.\nThere was a desolate village in a wood _2740\nWhose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fed\nThe hungry storm; it was a place of blood,\nA heap of hearthless walls;—the flames were dead\nWithin those dwellings now,—the life had fled\nFrom all those corpses now,—but the wide sky _2745\nFlooded with lightning was ribbed overhead\nBy the black rafters, and around did lie\nWomen, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly.\n\n47.\nBeside the fountain in the market-place\nDismounting, I beheld those corpses stare _2750\nWith horny eyes upon each other’s face,\nAnd on the earth and on the vacant air,\nAnd upon me, close to the waters where\nI stooped to slake my thirst;—I shrank to taste,\nFor the salt bitterness of blood was there; _2755\nBut tied the steed beside, and sought in haste\nIf any yet survived amid that ghastly waste.\n\n48.\nNo living thing was there beside one woman,\nWhom I found wandering in the streets, and she\nWas withered from a likeness of aught human _2760\nInto a fiend, by some strange misery:\nSoon as she heard my steps she leaped on me,\nAnd glued her burning lips to mine, and laughed\nWith a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee,\nAnd cried, ‘Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed _2765\nThe Plague’s blue kisses—soon millions shall pledge the draught!\n\n49.\n‘My name is Pestilence—this bosom dry,\nOnce fed two babes—a sister and a brother—\nWhen I came home, one in the blood did lie\nOf three death-wounds—the flames had ate the other! _2770\nSince then I have no longer been a mother,\nBut I am Pestilence;—hither and thither\nI flit about, that I may slay and smother:—\nAll lips which I have kissed must surely wither,\nBut Death’s—if thou art he, we’ll go to work together! _2775\n\n50.\n‘What seek’st thou here? The moonlight comes in flashes,—\nThe dew is rising dankly from the dell—\n‘Twill moisten her! and thou shalt see the gashes\nIn my sweet boy, now full of worms—but tell\nFirst what thou seek’st.’—‘I seek for food.’—‘’Tis well, _2780\nThou shalt have food. Famine, my paramour,\nWaits for us at the feast—cruel and fell\nIs Famine, but he drives not from his door\nThose whom these lips have kissed, alone. No more, no more!’\n\n51.\nAs thus she spake, she grasped me with the strength _2785\nOf madness, and by many a ruined hearth\nShe led, and over many a corpse:—at length\nWe came to a lone hut where on the earth\nWhich made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth,\nGathering from all those homes now desolate, _2790\nHad piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearth\nAmong the dead—round which she set in state\nA ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate.\n\n52.\nShe leaped upon a pile, and lifted high\nHer mad looks to the lightning, and cried: ‘Eat! _2795\nShare the great feast—to-morrow we must die!’\nAnd then she spurned the loaves with her pale feet,\nTowards her bloodless guests;—that sight to meet,\nMine eyes and my heart ached, and but that she\nWho loved me, did with absent looks defeat _2800\nDespair, I might have raved in sympathy;\nBut now I took the food that woman offered me;\n\n53.\nAnd vainly having with her madness striven\nIf I might win her to return with me,\nDeparted. In the eastern beams of Heaven _2805\nThe lightning now grew pallid—rapidly,\nAs by the shore of the tempestuous sea\nThe dark steed bore me; and the mountain gray\nSoon echoed to his hoofs, and I could see\nCythna among the rocks, where she alway _2810\nHad sate with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.\n\n54.\nAnd joy was ours to meet: she was most pale,\nFamished, and wet and weary, so I cast\nMy arms around her, lest her steps should fail\nAs to our home we went, and thus embraced, _2815\nHer full heart seemed a deeper joy to taste\nThan e’er the prosperous know; the steed behind\nTrod peacefully along the mountain waste;\nWe reached our home ere morning could unbind\nNight’s latest veil, and on our bridal-couch reclined. _2820\n\n55.\nHer chilled heart having cherished in my bosom,\nAnd sweetest kisses past, we two did share\nOur peaceful meal:—as an autumnal blossom\nWhich spreads its shrunk leaves in the sunny air,\nAfter cold showers, like rainbows woven there, _2825\nThus in her lips and cheeks the vital spirit\nMantled, and in her eyes, an atmosphere\nOf health, and hope; and sorrow languished near it,\nAnd fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit.\n\n\n_2397 -isle. Bradley, who cps. Marianne’s Dream, St. 12. See note at end.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 7.", + "body": "1.\nSo we sate joyous as the morning ray _2830\nWhich fed upon the wrecks of night and storm\nNow lingering on the winds; light airs did play\nAmong the dewy weeds, the sun was warm,\nAnd we sate linked in the inwoven charm\nOf converse and caresses sweet and deep, _2835\nSpeechless caresses, talk that might disarm\nTime, though he wield the darts of death and sleep,\nAnd those thrice mortal barbs in his own poison steep.\n\n2.\nI told her of my sufferings and my madness,\nAnd how, awakened from that dreamy mood _2840\nBy Liberty’s uprise, the strength of gladness\nCame to my spirit in my solitude;\nAnd all that now I was—while tears pursued\nEach other down her fair and listening cheek\nFast as the thoughts which fed them, like a flood _2845\nFrom sunbright dales; and when I ceased to speak,\nHer accents soft and sweet the pausing air did wake.\n\n3.\nShe told me a strange tale of strange endurance,\nLike broken memories of many a heart\nWoven into one; to which no firm assurance, _2850\nSo wild were they, could her own faith impart.\nShe said that not a tear did dare to start\nFrom the swoln brain, and that her thoughts were firm\nWhen from all mortal hope she did depart,\nBorne by those slaves across the Ocean’s term, _2855\nAnd that she reached the port without one fear infirm.\n\n4.\nOne was she among many there, the thralls\nOf the cold Tyrant’s cruel lust; and they\nLaughed mournfully in those polluted halls;\nBut she was calm and sad, musing alway _2860\nOn loftiest enterprise, till on a day\nThe Tyrant heard her singing to her lute\nA wild, and sad, and spirit-thrilling lay,\nLike winds that die in wastes—one moment mute\nThe evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute. _2865\n\n5.\nEven when he saw her wondrous loveliness,\nOne moment to great Nature’s sacred power\nHe bent, and was no longer passionless;\nBut when he bade her to his secret bower\nBe borne, a loveless victim, and she tore _2870\nHer locks in agony, and her words of flame\nAnd mightier looks availed not; then he bore\nAgain his load of slavery, and became\nA king, a heartless beast, a pageant and a name.\n\n6.\nShe told me what a loathsome agony _2875\nIs that when selfishness mocks love’s delight,\nFoul as in dream’s most fearful imagery,\nTo dally with the mowing dead—that night\nAll torture, fear, or horror made seem light\nWhich the soul dreams or knows, and when the day _2880\nShone on her awful frenzy, from the sight\nWhere like a Spirit in fleshly chains she lay\nStruggling, aghast and pale the Tyrant fled away.\n\n7.\nHer madness was a beam of light, a power\nWhich dawned through the rent soul; and words it gave, _2885\nGestures and looks, such as in whirlwinds bore\nWhich might not be withstood—whence none could save—\nAll who approached their sphere,—like some calm wave\nVexed into whirlpools by the chasms beneath;\nAnd sympathy made each attendant slave _2890\nFearless and free, and they began to breathe\nDeep curses, like the voice of flames far underneath.\n\n8.\nThe King felt pale upon his noonday throne:\nAt night two slaves he to her chamber sent,—\nOne was a green and wrinkled eunuch, grown _2895\nFrom human shape into an instrument\nOf all things ill—distorted, bowed and bent.\nThe other was a wretch from infancy\nMade dumb by poison; who nought knew or meant\nBut to obey: from the fire isles came he, _2900\nA diver lean and strong, of Oman’s coral sea.\n\n9.\nThey bore her to a bark, and the swift stroke\nOf silent rowers clove the blue moonlight seas,\nUntil upon their path the morning broke;\nThey anchored then, where, be there calm or breeze, _2905\nThe gloomiest of the drear Symplegades\nShakes with the sleepless surge;—the Ethiop there\nWound his long arms around her, and with knees\nLike iron clasped her feet, and plunged with her\nAmong the closing waves out of the boundless air. _2910\n\n10.\n‘Swift as an eagle stooping from the plain\nOf morning light, into some shadowy wood,\nHe plunged through the green silence of the main,\nThrough many a cavern which the eternal flood\nHad scooped, as dark lairs for its monster brood; _2915\nAnd among mighty shapes which fled in wonder,\nAnd among mightier shadows which pursued\nHis heels, he wound: until the dark rocks under\nHe touched a golden chain—a sound arose like thunder.\n\n11.\n‘A stunning clang of massive bolts redoubling _2920\nBeneath the deep—a burst of waters driven\nAs from the roots of the sea, raging and bubbling:\nAnd in that roof of crags a space was riven\nThrough which there shone the emerald beams of heaven,\nShot through the lines of many waves inwoven, _2925\nLike sunlight through acacia woods at even,\nThrough which, his way the diver having cloven,\nPassed like a spark sent up out of a burning oven.\n\n12.\n‘And then,’ she said, ‘he laid me in a cave\nAbove the waters, by that chasm of sea, _2930\nA fountain round and vast, in which the wave\nImprisoned, boiled and leaped perpetually,\nDown which, one moment resting, he did flee,\nWinning the adverse depth; that spacious cell\nLike an hupaithric temple wide and high, _2935\nWhose aery dome is inaccessible,\nWas pierced with one round cleft through which the sunbeams fell.\n\n13.\n‘Below, the fountain’s brink was richly paven\nWith the deep’s wealth, coral, and pearl, and sand\nLike spangling gold, and purple shells engraven _2940\nWith mystic legends by no mortal hand,\nLeft there, when thronging to the moon’s command,\nThe gathering waves rent the Hesperian gate\nOf mountains, and on such bright floor did stand\nColumns, and shapes like statues, and the state _2945\nOf kingless thrones, which Earth did in her heart create.\n\n14.\n‘The fiend of madness which had made its prey\nOf my poor heart, was lulled to sleep awhile:\nThere was an interval of many a day,\nAnd a sea-eagle brought me food the while, _2950\nWhose nest was built in that untrodden isle,\nAnd who, to be the gaoler had been taught\nOf that strange dungeon; as a friend whose smile\nLike light and rest at morn and even is sought\nThat wild bird was to me, till madness misery brought. _2955\n\n15.\n‘The misery of a madness slow and creeping,\nWhich made the earth seem fire, the sea seem air,\nAnd the white clouds of noon which oft were sleeping,\nIn the blue heaven so beautiful and fair,\nLike hosts of ghastly shadows hovering there; _2960\nAnd the sea-eagle looked a fiend, who bore\nThy mangled limbs for food!—Thus all things were\nTransformed into the agony which I wore\nEven as a poisoned robe around my bosom’s core.\n\n16.\n‘Again I knew the day and night fast fleeing, _2965\nThe eagle, and the fountain, and the air;\nAnother frenzy came—there seemed a being\nWithin me—a strange load my heart did bear,\nAs if some living thing had made its lair\nEven in the fountains of my life:—a long _2970\nAnd wondrous vision wrought from my despair,\nThen grew, like sweet reality among\nDim visionary woes, an unreposing throng.\n\n17.\n‘Methought I was about to be a mother—\nMonth after month went by, and still I dreamed _2975\nThat we should soon be all to one another,\nI and my child; and still new pulses seemed\nTo beat beside my heart, and still I deemed\nThere was a babe within—and, when the rain\nOf winter through the rifted cavern streamed, _2980\nMethought, after a lapse of lingering pain,\nI saw that lovely shape, which near my heart had lain.\n\n18.\n‘It was a babe, beautiful from its birth,—\nIt was like thee, dear love, its eyes were thine,\nIts brow, its lips, and so upon the earth _2985\nIt laid its fingers, as now rest on mine\nThine own, beloved!—’twas a dream divine;\nEven to remember how it fled, how swift,\nHow utterly, might make the heart repine,—\nThough ’twas a dream.’—Then Cythna did uplift _2990\nHer looks on mine, as if some doubt she sought to shift:\n\n19.\nA doubt which would not flee, a tenderness\nOf questioning grief, a source of thronging tears;\nWhich having passed, as one whom sobs oppress\nShe spoke: ‘Yes, in the wilderness of years _2995\nHer memory, aye, like a green home appears;\nShe sucked her fill even at this breast, sweet love,\nFor many months. I had no mortal fears;\nMethought I felt her lips and breath approve,—\nIt was a human thing which to my bosom clove. _3000\n\n20.\n‘I watched the dawn of her first smiles; and soon\nWhen zenith stars were trembling on the wave,\nOr when the beams of the invisible moon,\nOr sun, from many a prism within the cave\nTheir gem-born shadows to the water gave, _3005\nHer looks would hunt them, and with outspread hand,\nFrom the swift lights which might that fountain pave,\nShe would mark one, and laugh, when that command\nSlighting, it lingered there, and could not understand.\n\n21.\n‘Methought her looks began to talk with me; _3010\nAnd no articulate sounds, but something sweet\nHer lips would frame,—so sweet it could not be,\nThat it was meaningless; her touch would meet\nMine, and our pulses calmly flow and beat\nIn response while we slept; and on a day _3015\nWhen I was happiest in that strange retreat,\nWith heaps of golden shells we two did play,—\nBoth infants, weaving wings for time’s perpetual way.\n\n22.\n‘Ere night, methought, her waning eyes were grown\nWeary with joy, and tired with our delight, _3020\nWe, on the earth, like sister twins lay down\nOn one fair mother’s bosom:—from that night\nShe fled,—like those illusions clear and bright,\nWhich dwell in lakes, when the red moon on high\nPause ere it wakens tempest;—and her flight, _3025\nThough ’twas the death of brainless fantasy,\nYet smote my lonesome heart more than all misery.\n\n23.\n‘It seemed that in the dreary night the diver\nWho brought me thither, came again, and bore\nMy child away. I saw the waters quiver, _3030\nWhen he so swiftly sunk, as once before:\nThen morning came—it shone even as of yore,\nBut I was changed—the very life was gone\nOut of my heart—I wasted more and more,\nDay after day, and sitting there alone, _3035\nVexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.\n\n24.\n‘I was no longer mad, and yet methought\nMy breasts were swoln and changed:—in every vein\nThe blood stood still one moment, while that thought\nWas passing—with a gush of sickening pain _3040\nIt ebbed even to its withered springs again:\nWhen my wan eyes in stern resolve I turned\nFrom that most strange delusion, which would fain\nHave waked the dream for which my spirit yearned\nWith more than human love,—then left it unreturned. _3045\n\n25.\n‘So now my reason was restored to me\nI struggled with that dream, which, like a beast\nMost fierce and beauteous, in my memory\nHad made its lair, and on my heart did feast;\nBut all that cave and all its shapes, possessed _3050\nBy thoughts which could not fade, renewed each one\nSome smile, some look, some gesture which had blessed\nMe heretofore: I, sitting there alone,\nVexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.\n\n26.\n‘Time passed, I know not whether months or years; _3055\nFor day, nor night, nor change of seasons made\nIts note, but thoughts and unavailing tears:\nAnd I became at last even as a shade,\nA smoke, a cloud on which the winds have preyed,\nTill it be thin as air; until, one even, _3060\nA Nautilus upon the fountain played,\nSpreading his azure sail where breath of Heaven\nDescended not, among the waves and whirlpools driven.\n\n27.\n‘And, when the Eagle came, that lovely thing,\nOaring with rosy feet its silver boat, _3065\nFled near me as for shelter; on slow wing,\nThe Eagle, hovering o’er his prey did float;\nBut when he saw that I with fear did note\nHis purpose, proffering my own food to him,\nThe eager plumes subsided on his throat— _3070\nHe came where that bright child of sea did swim,\nAnd o’er it cast in peace his shadow broad and dim.\n\n28.\n‘This wakened me, it gave me human strength;\nAnd hope, I know not whence or wherefore, rose,\nBut I resumed my ancient powers at length; _3075\nMy spirit felt again like one of those\nLike thine, whose fate it is to make the woes\nOf humankind their prey—what was this cave?\nIts deep foundation no firm purpose knows\nImmutable, resistless, strong to save, _3080\nLike mind while yet it mocks the all-devouring grave.\n\n29.\n‘And where was Laon? might my heart be dead,\nWhile that far dearer heart could move and be?\nOr whilst over the earth the pall was spread,\nWhich I had sworn to rend? I might be free, _3085\nCould I but win that friendly bird to me,\nTo bring me ropes; and long in vain I sought\nBy intercourse of mutual imagery\nOf objects, if such aid he could be taught;\nBut fruit, and flowers, and boughs, yet never ropes he brought. _3090\n\n30.\n‘We live in our own world, and mine was made\nFrom glorious fantasies of hope departed:\nAye we are darkened with their floating shade,\nOr cast a lustre on them—time imparted\nSuch power to me—I became fearless-hearted, _3095\nMy eye and voice grew firm, calm was my mind,\nAnd piercing, like the morn, now it has darted\nIts lustre on all hidden things, behind\nYon dim and fading clouds which load the weary wind.\n\n31.\n‘My mind became the book through which I grew _3100\nWise in all human wisdom, and its cave,\nWhich like a mine I rifled through and through,\nTo me the keeping of its secrets gave—\nOne mind, the type of all, the moveless wave\nWhose calm reflects all moving things that are, _3105\nNecessity, and love, and life, the grave,\nAnd sympathy, fountains of hope and fear,\nJustice, and truth, and time, and the world’s natural sphere.\n\n32.\n‘And on the sand would I make signs to range\nThese woofs, as they were woven, of my thought; _3110\nClear, elemental shapes, whose smallest change\nA subtler language within language wrought:\nThe key of truths which once were dimly taught\nIn old Crotona;—and sweet melodies\nOf love, in that lorn solitude I caught _3115\nFrom mine own voice in dream, when thy dear eyes\nShone through my sleep, and did that utterance harmonize.\n\n33.\n‘Thy songs were winds whereon I fled at will,\nAs in a winged chariot, o’er the plain\nOf crystal youth; and thou wert there to fill _3120\nMy heart with joy, and there we sate again\nOn the gray margin of the glimmering main,\nHappy as then but wiser far, for we\nSmiled on the flowery grave in which were lain\nFear, Faith and Slavery; and mankind was free, _3125\nEqual, and pure, and wise, in Wisdom’s prophecy.\n\n34.\n‘For to my will my fancies were as slaves\nTo do their sweet and subtile ministries;\nAnd oft from that bright fountain’s shadowy waves\nThey would make human throngs gather and rise _3130\nTo combat with my overflowing eyes,\nAnd voice made deep with passion—thus I grew\nFamiliar with the shock and the surprise\nAnd war of earthly minds, from which I drew\nThe power which has been mine to frame their thoughts anew. _3135\n\n35.\n‘And thus my prison was the populous earth—\nWhere I saw—even as misery dreams of morn\nBefore the east has given its glory birth—\nReligion’s pomp made desolate by the scorn\nOf Wisdom’s faintest smile, and thrones uptorn, _3140\nAnd dwellings of mild people interspersed\nWith undivided fields of ripening corn,\nAnd love made free,—a hope which we have nursed\nEven with our blood and tears,—until its glory burst.\n\n36.\n‘All is not lost! There is some recompense _3145\nFor hope whose fountain can be thus profound,\nEven throned Evil’s splendid impotence,\nGirt by its hell of power, the secret sound\nOf hymns to truth and freedom—the dread bound\nOf life and death passed fearlessly and well, _3150\nDungeons wherein the high resolve is found,\nRacks which degraded woman’s greatness tell,\nAnd what may else be good and irresistible.\n\n37.\n‘Such are the thoughts which, like the fires that flare\nIn storm-encompassed isles, we cherish yet _3155\nIn this dark ruin—such were mine even there;\nAs in its sleep some odorous violet,\nWhile yet its leaves with nightly dews are wet,\nBreathes in prophetic dreams of day’s uprise,\nOr as, ere Scythian frost in fear has met _3160\nSpring’s messengers descending from the skies,\nThe buds foreknow their life—this hope must ever rise.\n\n38.\n‘So years had passed, when sudden earthquake rent\nThe depth of ocean, and the cavern cracked\nWith sound, as if the world’s wide continent _3165\nHad fallen in universal ruin wracked:\nAnd through the cleft streamed in one cataract\nThe stifling waters—when I woke, the flood\nWhose banded waves that crystal cave had sacked\nWas ebbing round me, and my bright abode _3170\nBefore me yawned—a chasm desert, and bare, and broad.\n\n39.\n‘Above me was the sky, beneath the sea:\nI stood upon a point of shattered stone,\nAnd heard loose rocks rushing tumultuously\nWith splash and shock into the deep—anon _3175\nAll ceased, and there was silence wide and lone.\nI felt that I was free! The Ocean-spray\nQuivered beneath my feet, the broad Heaven shone\nAround, and in my hair the winds did play\nLingering as they pursued their unimpeded way. _3180\n\n40.\n‘My spirit moved upon the sea like wind\nWhich round some thymy cape will lag and hover,\nThough it can wake the still cloud, and unbind\nThe strength of tempest: day was almost over,\nWhen through the fading light I could discover _3185\nA ship approaching—its white sails were fed\nWith the north wind—its moving shade did cover\nThe twilight deep; the mariners in dread\nCast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.\n\n41.\n‘And when they saw one sitting on a crag, _3190\nThey sent a boat to me;—the Sailors rowed\nIn awe through many a new and fearful jag\nOf overhanging rock, through which there flowed\nThe foam of streams that cannot make abode.\nThey came and questioned me, but when they heard _3195\nMy voice, they became silent, and they stood\nAnd moved as men in whom new love had stirred\nDeep thoughts: so to the ship we passed without a word.\n\n\n_2877 dreams edition 1818.\n_2994 opprest edition 1818.\n_3115 lone solitude edition 1818.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 8.", + "body": "1.\n‘I sate beside the Steersman then, and gazing\nUpon the west, cried, “Spread the sails! Behold! _3200\nThe sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing\nOver the mountains yet;—the City of Gold\nYon Cape alone does from the sight withhold;\nThe stream is fleet—the north breathes steadily\nBeneath the stars; they tremble with the cold! _3205\nYe cannot rest upon the dreary sea!—\nHaste, haste to the warm home of happier destiny!”\n\n2.\n‘The Mariners obeyed—the Captain stood\nAloof, and, whispering to the Pilot, said,\n“Alas, alas! I fear we are pursued _3210\nBy wicked ghosts; a Phantom of the Dead,\nThe night before we sailed, came to my bed\nIn dream, like that!” The Pilot then replied,\n“It cannot be—she is a human Maid—\nHer low voice makes you weep—she is some bride, _3215\nOr daughter of high birth—she can be nought beside.”\n\n3.\n‘We passed the islets, borne by wind and stream,\nAnd as we sailed, the Mariners came near\nAnd thronged around to listen;—in the gleam\nOf the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear _3220\nMay not attaint, and my calm voice did rear;\n“Ye are all human—yon broad moon gives light\nTo millions who the selfsame likeness wear,\nEven while I speak—beneath this very night,\nTheir thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight. _3225\n\n4.\n‘“What dream ye? Your own hands have built an home,\nEven for yourselves on a beloved shore:\nFor some, fond eyes are pining till they come,\nHow they will greet him when his toils are o’er,\nAnd laughing babes rush from the well-known door! _3230\nIs this your care? ye toil for your own good—\nYe feel and think—has some immortal power\nSuch purposes? or in a human mood,\nDream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude?\n\n5.\n‘“What is that Power? Ye mock yourselves, and give _3235\nA human heart to what ye cannot know:\nAs if the cause of life could think and live!\n’Twere as if man’s own works should feel, and show\nThe hopes, and fears, and thoughts from which they flow,\nAnd he be like to them! Lo! Plague is free _3240\nTo waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow,\nDisease, and Want, and worse Necessity\nOf hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny!\n\n6.\n‘“What is that Power? Some moon-struck sophist stood\nWatching the shade from his own soul upthrown _3245\nFill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood\nThe Form he saw and worshipped was his own,\nHis likeness in the world’s vast mirror shown;\nAnd ’twere an innocent dream, but that a faith\nNursed by fear’s dew of poison, grows thereon, _3250\nAnd that men say, that Power has chosen Death\nOn all who scorn its laws, to wreak immortal wrath.\n\n7.\n‘“Men say that they themselves have heard and seen,\nOr known from others who have known such things,\nA Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between _3255\nWields an invisible rod—that Priests and Kings,\nCustom, domestic sway, ay, all that brings\nMan’s freeborn soul beneath the oppressor’s heel,\nAre his strong ministers, and that the stings\nOf death will make the wise his vengeance feel, _3260\nThough truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.\n\n8.\n‘“And it is said, this Power will punish wrong;\nYes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain!\nAnd deepest hell, and deathless snakes among,\nWill bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain, _3265\nWhich, like a plague, a burden, and a bane,\nClung to him while he lived; for love and hate,\nVirtue and vice, they say are difference vain—\nThe will of strength is right—this human state\nTyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate. _3270\n\n9.\n‘“Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail\nThan yon dim cloud now fading on the moon\nEven while we gaze, though it awhile avail\nTo hide the orb of truth—and every throne\nOf Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon, _3275\nOne shape of many names:—for this ye plough\nThe barren waves of ocean, hence each one\nIs slave or tyrant; all betray and bow,\nCommand, or kill, or fear, or wreak, or suffer woe.\n\n10.\n‘“Its names are each a sign which maketh holy _3280\nAll power—ay, the ghost, the dream, the shade\nOf power—lust, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly;\nThe pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made,\nA law to which mankind has been betrayed;\nAnd human love, is as the name well known _3285\nOf a dear mother, whom the murderer laid\nIn bloody grave, and into darkness thrown,\nGathered her wildered babes around him as his own.\n\n11.\n‘“O Love, who to the hearts of wandering men\nArt as the calm to Ocean’s weary waves! _3290\nJustice, or Truth, or Joy! those only can\nFrom slavery and religion’s labyrinth caves\nGuide us, as one clear star the seaman saves.\nTo give to all an equal share of good,\nTo track the steps of Freedom, though through graves _3295\nShe pass, to suffer all in patient mood,\nTo weep for crime, though stained with thy friend’s dearest blood,—\n\n12.\n‘“To feel the peace of self-contentment’s lot,\nTo own all sympathies, and outrage none,\nAnd in the inmost bowers of sense and thought, _3300\nUntil life’s sunny day is quite gone down,\nTo sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone,\nTo kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe;\nTo live, as if to love and live were one,—\nThis is not faith or law, nor those who bow _3305\nTo thrones on Heaven or Earth, such destiny may know.\n\n13.\n‘“But children near their parents tremble now,\nBecause they must obey—one rules another,\nAnd as one Power rules both high and low,\nSo man is made the captive of his brother, _3310\nAnd Hate is throned on high with Fear her mother,\nAbove the Highest—and those fountain-cells,\nWhence love yet flowed when faith had choked all other,\nAre darkened—Woman as the bond-slave dwells\nOf man, a slave; and life is poisoned in its wells. _3315\n\n14.\n‘“Man seeks for gold in mines, that he may weave\nA lasting chain for his own slavery;—\nIn fear and restless care that he may live\nHe toils for others, who must ever be\nThe joyless thralls of like captivity; _3320\nHe murders, for his chiefs delight in ruin;\nHe builds the altar, that its idol’s fee\nMay be his very blood; he is pursuing—\nO, blind and willing wretch!—his own obscure undoing.\n\n15.\n‘“Woman!—she is his slave, she has become _3325\nA thing I weep to speak—the child of scorn,\nThe outcast of a desolated home;\nFalsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have worn\nChannels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn,\nAs calm decks the false Ocean:—well ye know _3330\nWhat Woman is, for none of Woman born\nCan choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe,\nWhich ever from the oppressed to the oppressors flow.\n\n16.\n‘“This need not be; ye might arise, and will\nThat gold should lose its power, and thrones their glory; _3335\nThat love, which none may bind, be free to fill\nThe world, like light; and evil faith, grown hoary\nWith crime, be quenched and die.—Yon promontory\nEven now eclipses the descending moon!—\nDungeons and palaces are transitory— _3340\nHigh temples fade like vapour—Man alone\nRemains, whose will has power when all beside is gone.\n\n17.\n‘“Let all be free and equal!—From your hearts\nI feel an echo; through my inmost frame\nLike sweetest sound, seeking its mate, it darts— _3345\nWhence come ye, friends? Alas, I cannot name\nAll that I read of sorrow, toil, and shame,\nOn your worn faces; as in legends old\nWhich make immortal the disastrous fame\nOf conquerors and impostors false and bold, _3350\nThe discord of your hearts, I in your looks behold.\n\n18.\n‘“Whence come ye, friends? from pouring human blood\nForth on the earth? Or bring ye steel and gold,\nThat Kings may dupe and slay the multitude?\nOr from the famished poor, pale, weak and cold, _3355\nBear ye the earnings of their toil? Unfold!\nSpeak! Are your hands in slaughter’s sanguine hue\nStained freshly? have your hearts in guile grown old?\nKnow yourselves thus! ye shall be pure as dew,\nAnd I will be a friend and sister unto you. _3360\n\n19.\n‘“Disguise it not—we have one human heart—\nAll mortal thoughts confess a common home:\nBlush not for what may to thyself impart\nStains of inevitable crime: the doom\nIs this, which has, or may, or must become _3365\nThine, and all humankind’s. Ye are the spoil\nWhich Time thus marks for the devouring tomb—\nThou and thy thoughts and they, and all the toil\nWherewith ye twine the rings of life’s perpetual coil.\n\n20.\n‘“Disguise it not—ye blush for what ye hate, _3370\nAnd Enmity is sister unto Shame;\nLook on your mind—it is the book of fate—\nAh! it is dark with many a blazoned name\nOf misery—all are mirrors of the same;\nBut the dark fiend who with his iron pen _3375\nDipped in scorn’s fiery poison, makes his fame\nEnduring there, would o’er the heads of men\nPass harmless, if they scorned to make their hearts his den.\n\n21.\n‘“Yes, it is Hate, that shapeless fiendly thing\nOf many names, all evil, some divine, _3380\nWhom self-contempt arms with a mortal sting;\nWhich, when the heart its snaky folds entwine\nIs wasted quite, and when it doth repine\nTo gorge such bitter prey, on all beside\nIt turns with ninefold rage, as with its twine _3385\nWhen Amphisbaena some fair bird has tied,\nSoon o’er the putrid mass he threats on every side.\n\n22.\n‘“Reproach not thine own soul, but know thyself,\nNor hate another’s crime, nor loathe thine own.\nIt is the dark idolatry of self, _3390\nWhich, when our thoughts and actions once are gone,\nDemands that man should weep, and bleed, and groan;\nOh, vacant expiation! Be at rest.—\nThe past is Death’s, the future is thine own;\nAnd love and joy can make the foulest breast _3395\nA paradise of flowers, where peace might build her nest.\n\n23.\n‘“Speak thou! whence come ye?”—A Youth made reply:\n“Wearily, wearily o’er the boundless deep\nWe sail;—thou readest well the misery\nTold in these faded eyes, but much doth sleep _3400\nWithin, which there the poor heart loves to keep,\nOr dare not write on the dishonoured brow;\nEven from our childhood have we learned to steep\nThe bread of slavery in the tears of woe,\nAnd never dreamed of hope or refuge until now. _3405\n\n24.\n‘“Yes—I must speak—my secret should have perished\nEven with the heart it wasted, as a brand\nFades in the dying flame whose life it cherished,\nBut that no human bosom can withstand\nThee, wondrous Lady, and the mild command _3410\nOf thy keen eyes:—yes, we are wretched slaves,\nWho from their wonted loves and native land\nAre reft, and bear o’er the dividing waves\nThe unregarded prey of calm and happy graves.\n\n25.\n‘“We drag afar from pastoral vales the fairest _3415\nAmong the daughters of those mountains lone,\nWe drag them there, where all things best and rarest\nAre stained and trampled:—years have come and gone\nSince, like the ship which bears me, I have known\nNo thought;—but now the eyes of one dear Maid _3420\nOn mine with light of mutual love have shone—\nShe is my life,—I am but as the shade\nOf her,—a smoke sent up from ashes, soon to fade.\n\n26.\n‘“For she must perish in the Tyrant’s hall—\nAlas, alas!”—He ceased, and by the sail _3425\nSate cowering—but his sobs were heard by all,\nAnd still before the ocean and the gale\nThe ship fled fast till the stars ‘gan to fail;\nAnd, round me gathered with mute countenance,\nThe Seamen gazed, the Pilot, worn and pale _3430\nWith toil, the Captain with gray locks, whose glance\nMet mine in restless awe—they stood as in a trance.\n\n27.\n‘“Recede not! pause not now! Thou art grown old,\nBut Hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth\nAre children of one mother, even Love—behold! _3435\nThe eternal stars gaze on us!—is the truth\nWithin your soul? care for your own, or ruth\nFor others’ sufferings? do ye thirst to bear\nA heart which not the serpent Custom’s tooth\nMay violate?—Be free! and even here, _3440\nSwear to be firm till death!” They cried, “We swear! We swear!”\n\n28.\n‘The very darkness shook, as with a blast\nOf subterranean thunder, at the cry;\nThe hollow shore its thousand echoes cast\nInto the night, as if the sea and sky, _3445\nAnd earth, rejoiced with new-born liberty,\nFor in that name they swore! Bolts were undrawn,\nAnd on the deck, with unaccustomed eye\nThe captives gazing stood, and every one\nShrank as the inconstant torch upon her countenance shone. _3450\n\n29.\n‘They were earth’s purest children, young and fair,\nWith eyes the shrines of unawakened thought,\nAnd brows as bright as Spring or Morning, ere\nDark time had there its evil legend wrought\nIn characters of cloud which wither not.— _3455\nThe change was like a dream to them; but soon\nThey knew the glory of their altered lot,\nIn the bright wisdom of youth’s breathless noon,\nSweet talk, and smiles, and sighs, all bosoms did attune.\n\n30.\n‘But one was mute; her cheeks and lips most fair, _3460\nChanging their hue like lilies newly blown,\nBeneath a bright acacia’s shadowy hair,\nWaved by the wind amid the sunny noon,\nShowed that her soul was quivering; and full soon\nThat Youth arose, and breathlessly did look _3465\nOn her and me, as for some speechless boon:\nI smiled, and both their hands in mine I took,\nAnd felt a soft delight from what their spirits shook.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 9.", + "body": "1.\n‘That night we anchored in a woody bay,\nAnd sleep no more around us dared to hover _3470\nThan, when all doubt and fear has passed away,\nIt shades the couch of some unresting lover,\nWhose heart is now at rest: thus night passed over\nIn mutual joy:—around, a forest grew\nOf poplars and dark oaks, whose shade did cover _3475\nThe waning stars pranked in the waters blue,\nAnd trembled in the wind which from the morning flew.\n\n2.\n‘The joyous Mariners, and each free Maiden\nNow brought from the deep forest many a bough,\nWith woodland spoil most innocently laden; _3480\nSoon wreaths of budding foliage seemed to flow\nOver the mast and sails, the stern and prow\nWere canopied with blooming boughs,—the while\nOn the slant sun’s path o’er the waves we go\nRejoicing, like the dwellers of an isle _3485\nDoomed to pursue those waves that cannot cease to smile.\n\n3.\n‘The many ships spotting the dark blue deep\nWith snowy sails, fled fast as ours came nigh,\nIn fear and wonder; and on every steep\nThousands did gaze, they heard the startling cry, _3490\nLike Earth’s own voice lifted unconquerably\nTo all her children, the unbounded mirth,\nThe glorious joy of thy name—Liberty!\nThey heard!—As o’er the mountains of the earth\nFrom peak to peak leap on the beams of Morning’s birth: _3495\n\n4.\n‘So from that cry over the boundless hills\nSudden was caught one universal sound,\nLike a volcano’s voice, whose thunder fills\nRemotest skies,—such glorious madness found\nA path through human hearts with stream which drowned _3500\nIts struggling fears and cares, dark Custom’s brood;\nThey knew not whence it came, but felt around\nA wide contagion poured—they called aloud\nOn Liberty—that name lived on the sunny flood.\n\n5.\n‘We reached the port.—Alas! from many spirits _3505\nThe wisdom which had waked that cry, was fled,\nLike the brief glory which dark Heaven inherits\nFrom the false dawn, which fades ere it is spread,\nUpon the night’s devouring darkness shed:\nYet soon bright day will burst—even like a chasm _3510\nOf fire, to burn the shrouds outworn and dead,\nWhich wrap the world; a wide enthusiasm,\nTo cleanse the fevered world as with an earthquake’s spasm!\n\n6.\n‘I walked through the great City then, but free\nFrom shame or fear; those toil-worn Mariners _3515\nAnd happy Maidens did encompass me;\nAnd like a subterranean wind that stirs\nSome forest among caves, the hopes and fears\nFrom every human soul, a murmur strange\nMade as I passed; and many wept, with tears _3520\nOf joy and awe, and winged thoughts did range,\nAnd half-extinguished words, which prophesied of change.\n\n7.\n‘For, with strong speech I tore the veil that hid\nNature, and Truth, and Liberty, and Love,—\nAs one who from some mountain’s pyramid _3525\nPoints to the unrisen sun!—the shades approve\nHis truth, and flee from every stream and grove.\nThus, gentle thoughts did many a bosom fill,—\nWisdom, the mail of tried affections wove\nFor many a heart, and tameless scorn of ill, _3530\nThrice steeped in molten steel the unconquerable will.\n\n8.\n‘Some said I was a maniac wild and lost;\nSome, that I scarce had risen from the grave,\nThe Prophet’s virgin bride, a heavenly ghost:—\nSome said, I was a fiend from my weird cave, _3535\nWho had stolen human shape, and o’er the wave,\nThe forest, and the mountain, came;—some said\nI was the child of God, sent down to save\nWoman from bonds and death, and on my head\nThe burden of their sins would frightfully be laid. _3540\n\n9.\n‘But soon my human words found sympathy\nIn human hearts: the purest and the best,\nAs friend with friend, made common cause with me,\nAnd they were few, but resolute;—the rest,\nEre yet success the enterprise had blessed, _3545\nLeagued with me in their hearts;—their meals, their slumber,\nTheir hourly occupations, were possessed\nBy hopes which I had armed to overnumber\nThose hosts of meaner cares, which life’s strong wings encumber.\n\n10.\n‘But chiefly women, whom my voice did waken _3550\nFrom their cold, careless, willing slavery,\nSought me: one truth their dreary prison has shaken,—\nThey looked around, and lo! they became free!\nTheir many tyrants sitting desolately\nIn slave-deserted halls, could none restrain; _3555\nFor wrath’s red fire had withered in the eye,\nWhose lightning once was death,—nor fear, nor gain\nCould tempt one captive now to lock another’s chain.\n\n11.\n‘Those who were sent to bind me, wept, and felt\nTheir minds outsoar the bonds which clasped them round, _3560\nEven as a waxen shape may waste and melt\nIn the white furnace; and a visioned swound,\nA pause of hope and awe the City bound,\nWhich, like the silence of a tempest’s birth,\nWhen in its awful shadow it has wound _3565\nThe sun, the wind, the ocean, and the earth,\nHung terrible, ere yet the lightnings have leaped forth.\n\n12.\n‘Like clouds inwoven in the silent sky,\nBy winds from distant regions meeting there,\nIn the high name of truth and liberty, _3570\nAround the City millions gathered were,\nBy hopes which sprang from many a hidden lair,—\nWords which the lore of truth in hues of flame\nArrayed, thine own wild songs which in the air\nLike homeless odours floated, and the name _3575\nOf thee, and many a tongue which thou hadst dipped in flame.\n\n13.\n‘The Tyrant knew his power was gone, but Fear,\nThe nurse of Vengeance, bade him wait the event—\nThat perfidy and custom, gold and prayer,\nAnd whatsoe’er, when force is impotent, _3580\nTo fraud the sceptre of the world has lent,\nMight, as he judged, confirm his failing sway.\nTherefore throughout the streets, the Priests he sent\nTo curse the rebels.—To their gods did they\nFor Earthquake, Plague, and Want, kneel in the public way. _3585\n\n14.\n‘And grave and hoary men were bribed to tell\nFrom seats where law is made the slave of wrong,\nHow glorious Athens in her splendour fell,\nBecause her sons were free,—and that among\nMankind, the many to the few belong, _3590\nBy Heaven, and Nature, and Necessity.\nThey said, that age was truth, and that the young\nMarred with wild hopes the peace of slavery,\nWith which old times and men had quelled the vain and free.\n\n15.\n‘And with the falsehood of their poisonous lips _3595\nThey breathed on the enduring memory\nOf sages and of bards a brief eclipse;\nThere was one teacher, who necessity\nHad armed with strength and wrong against mankind,\nHis slave and his avenger aye to be; _3600\nThat we were weak and sinful, frail and blind,\nAnd that the will of one was peace, and we\nShould seek for nought on earth but toil and misery—\n\n16.\n‘“For thus we might avoid the hell hereafter.”\nSo spake the hypocrites, who cursed and lied; _3605\nAlas, their sway was past, and tears and laughter\nClung to their hoary hair, withering the pride\nWhich in their hollow hearts dared still abide;\nAnd yet obscener slaves with smoother brow,\nAnd sneers on their strait lips, thin, blue and wide, _3610\nSaid that the rule of men was over now,\nAnd hence, the subject world to woman’s will must bow;\n\n17.\n‘And gold was scattered through the streets, and wine\nFlowed at a hundred feasts within the wall.\nIn vain! the steady towers in Heaven did shine _3615\nAs they were wont, nor at the priestly call\nLeft Plague her banquet in the Ethiop’s hall,\nNor Famine from the rich man’s portal came,\nWhere at her ease she ever preys on all\nWho throng to kneel for food: nor fear nor shame, _3620\nNor faith, nor discord, dimmed hope’s newly kindled flame.\n\n18.\n‘For gold was as a god whose faith began\nTo fade, so that its worshippers were few,\nAnd Faith itself, which in the heart of man\nGives shape, voice, name, to spectral Terror, knew _3625\nIts downfall, as the altars lonelier grew,\nTill the Priests stood alone within the fane;\nThe shafts of falsehood unpolluting flew,\nAnd the cold sneers of calumny were vain,\nThe union of the free with discord’s brand to stain. _3630\n\n19.\n‘The rest thou knowest.—Lo! we two are here—\nWe have survived a ruin wide and deep—\nStrange thoughts are mine.—I cannot grieve or fear,\nSitting with thee upon this lonely steep\nI smile, though human love should make me weep. _3635\nWe have survived a joy that knows no sorrow,\nAnd I do feel a mighty calmness creep\nOver my heart, which can no longer borrow\nIts hues from chance or change, dark children of to-morrow.\n\n20.\n‘We know not what will come—yet, Laon, dearest, _3640\nCythna shall be the prophetess of Love,\nHer lips shall rob thee of the grace thou wearest,\nTo hide thy heart, and clothe the shapes which rove\nWithin the homeless Future’s wintry grove;\nFor I now, sitting thus beside thee, seem _3645\nEven with thy breath and blood to live and move,\nAnd violence and wrong are as a dream\nWhich rolls from steadfast truth, an unreturning stream.\n\n21.\n‘The blasts of Autumn drive the winged seeds\nOver the earth,—next come the snows, and rain, _3650\nAnd frosts, and storms, which dreary Winter leads\nOut of his Scythian cave, a savage train;\nBehold! Spring sweeps over the world again,\nShedding soft dews from her ethereal wings;\nFlowers on the mountains, fruits over the plain, _3655\nAnd music on the waves and woods she flings,\nAnd love on all that lives, and calm on lifeless things.\n\n22.\n‘O Spring, of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness\nWind-winged emblem! brightest, best and fairest!\nWhence comest thou, when, with dark Winter’s sadness _3660\nThe tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?\nSister of joy, thou art the child who wearest\nThy mother’s dying smile, tender and sweet;\nThy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest\nFresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet, _3665\nDisturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet.\n\n23.\n‘Virtue, and Hope, and Love, like light and Heaven,\nSurround the world.—We are their chosen slaves.\nHas not the whirlwind of our spirit driven\nTruth’s deathless germs to thought’s remotest caves? _3670\nLo, Winter comes!—the grief of many graves,\nThe frost of death, the tempest of the sword,\nThe flood of tyranny, whose sanguine waves\nStagnate like ice at Faith the enchanter’s word,\nAnd bind all human hearts in its repose abhorred. _3675\n\n24.\n‘The seeds are sleeping in the soil: meanwhile\nThe Tyrant peoples dungeons with his prey,\nPale victims on the guarded scaffold smile\nBecause they cannot speak; and, day by day,\nThe moon of wasting Science wanes away _3680\nAmong her stars, and in that darkness vast\nThe sons of earth to their foul idols pray,\nAnd gray Priests triumph, and like blight or blast\nA shade of selfish care o’er human looks is cast.\n\n25.\n‘This is the winter of the world;—and here _3685\nWe die, even as the winds of Autumn fade,\nExpiring in the frore and foggy air.\nBehold! Spring comes, though we must pass, who made\nThe promise of its birth,—even as the shade\nWhich from our death, as from a mountain, flings _3690\nThe future, a broad sunrise; thus arrayed\nAs with the plumes of overshadowing wings,\nFrom its dark gulf of chains, Earth like an eagle springs.\n\n26.\n‘O dearest love! we shall be dead and cold\nBefore this morn may on the world arise; _3695\nWouldst thou the glory of its dawn behold?\nAlas! gaze not on me, but turn thine eyes\nOn thine own heart—it is a paradise\nWhich everlasting Spring has made its own,\nAnd while drear Winter fills the naked skies, _3700\nSweet streams of sunny thought, and flowers fresh-blown,\nAre there, and weave their sounds and odours into one.\n\n27.\n‘In their own hearts the earnest of the hope\nWhich made them great, the good will ever find;\nAnd though some envious shade may interlope _3705\nBetween the effect and it, One comes behind,\nWho aye the future to the past will bind—\nNecessity, whose sightless strength for ever\nEvil with evil, good with good must wind\nIn bands of union, which no power may sever: _3710\nThey must bring forth their kind, and be divided never!\n\n28.\n‘The good and mighty of departed ages\nAre in their graves, the innocent and free,\nHeroes, and Poets, and prevailing Sages,\nWho leave the vesture of their majesty _3715\nTo adorn and clothe this naked world;—and we\nAre like to them—such perish, but they leave\nAll hope, or love, or truth, or liberty,\nWhose forms their mighty spirits could conceive,\nTo be a rule and law to ages that survive. _3720\n\n29.\n‘So be the turf heaped over our remains\nEven in our happy youth, and that strange lot,\nWhate’er it be, when in these mingling veins\nThe blood is still, be ours; let sense and thought\nPass from our being, or be numbered not _3725\nAmong the things that are; let those who come\nBehind, for whom our steadfast will has bought\nA calm inheritance, a glorious doom,\nInsult with careless tread, our undivided tomb.\n\n30.\n‘Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love, _3730\nOur happiness, and all that we have been,\nImmortally must live, and burn and move,\nWhen we shall be no more;—the world has seen\nA type of peace; and—as some most serene\nAnd lovely spot to a poor maniac’s eye, _3735\nAfter long years, some sweet and moving scene\nOf youthful hope, returning suddenly,\nQuells his long madness—thus man shall remember thee.\n\n31.\n‘And Calumny meanwhile shall feed on us,\nAs worms devour the dead, and near the throne _3740\nAnd at the altar, most accepted thus\nShall sneers and curses be;—what we have done\nNone shall dare vouch, though it be truly known;\nThat record shall remain, when they must pass\nWho built their pride on its oblivion; _3745\nAnd fame, in human hope which sculptured was,\nSurvive the perished scrolls of unenduring brass.\n\n32.\n‘The while we two, beloved, must depart,\nAnd Sense and Reason, those enchanters fair,\nWhose wand of power is hope, would bid the heart _3750\nThat gazed beyond the wormy grave despair:\nThese eyes, these lips, this blood, seems darkly there\nTo fade in hideous ruin; no calm sleep\nPeopling with golden dreams the stagnant air,\nSeems our obscure and rotting eyes to steep _3755\nIn joy;—but senseless death—a ruin dark and deep!\n\n33.\n‘These are blind fancies—reason cannot know\nWhat sense can neither feel, nor thought conceive;\nThere is delusion in the world—and woe,\nAnd fear, and pain—we know not whence we live, _3760\nOr why, or how, or what mute Power may give\nTheir being to each plant, and star, and beast,\nOr even these thoughts.—Come near me! I do weave\nA chain I cannot break—I am possessed\nWith thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human breast. _3765\n\n34.\n‘Yes, yes—thy kiss is sweet, thy lips are warm—\nO! willingly, beloved, would these eyes,\nMight they no more drink being from thy form,\nEven as to sleep whence we again arise,\nClose their faint orbs in death: I fear nor prize _3770\nAught that can now betide, unshared by thee—\nYes, Love when Wisdom fails makes Cythna wise:\nDarkness and death, if death be true, must be\nDearer than life and hope, if unenjoyed with thee.\n\n35.\n‘Alas, our thoughts flow on with stream, whose waters _3775\nReturn not to their fountain—Earth and Heaven,\nThe Ocean and the Sun, the Clouds their daughters,\nWinter, and Spring, and Morn, and Noon, and Even,\nAll that we are or know, is darkly driven\nTowards one gulf.—Lo! what a change is come _3780\nSince I first spake—but time shall be forgiven,\nThough it change all but thee!’—She ceased—night’s gloom\nMeanwhile had fallen on earth from the sky’s sunless dome.\n\n36.\nThough she had ceased, her countenance uplifted\nTo Heaven, still spake, with solemn glory bright; _3785\nHer dark deep eyes, her lips, whose motions gifted\nThe air they breathed with love, her locks undight.\n‘Fair star of life and love,’ I cried, ‘my soul’s delight,\nWhy lookest thou on the crystalline skies?\nO, that my spirit were yon Heaven of night, _3790\nWhich gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!’\nShe turned to me and smiled—that smile was Paradise!\n\n\n_3573 hues of grace edition 1818.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 10.", + "body": "1.\nWas there a human spirit in the steed,\nThat thus with his proud voice, ere night was gone,\nHe broke our linked rest? or do indeed _3795\nAll living things a common nature own,\nAnd thought erect an universal throne,\nWhere many shapes one tribute ever bear?\nAnd Earth, their mutual mother, does she groan\nTo see her sons contend? and makes she bare _3800\nHer breast, that all in peace its drainless stores may share?\n\n2.\nI have heard friendly sounds from many a tongue\nWhich was not human—the lone nightingale\nHas answered me with her most soothing song,\nOut of her ivy bower, when I sate pale _3805\nWith grief, and sighed beneath; from many a dale\nThe antelopes who flocked for food have spoken\nWith happy sounds, and motions, that avail\nLike man’s own speech; and such was now the token\nOf waning night, whose calm by that proud neigh was broken. _3810\n\n3.\nEach night, that mighty steed bore me abroad,\nAnd I returned with food to our retreat,\nAnd dark intelligence; the blood which flowed\nOver the fields, had stained the courser’s feet;\nSoon the dust drinks that bitter dew,—then meet _3815\nThe vulture, and the wild dog, and the snake,\nThe wolf, and the hyaena gray, and eat\nThe dead in horrid truce: their throngs did make\nBehind the steed, a chasm like waves in a ship’s wake.\n\n4.\nFor, from the utmost realms of earth came pouring _3820\nThe banded slaves whom every despot sent\nAt that throned traitor’s summons; like the roaring\nOf fire, whose floods the wild deer circumvent\nIn the scorched pastures of the South; so bent\nThe armies of the leagued Kings around _3825\nTheir files of steel and flame;—the continent\nTrembled, as with a zone of ruin bound,\nBeneath their feet, the sea shook with their Navies’ sound.\n\n5.\nFrom every nation of the earth they came,\nThe multitude of moving heartless things, _3830\nWhom slaves call men: obediently they came,\nLike sheep whom from the fold the shepherd brings\nTo the stall, red with blood; their many kings\nLed them, thus erring, from their native land;\nTartar and Frank, and millions whom the wings _3835\nOf Indian breezes lull, and many a band\nThe Arctic Anarch sent, and Idumea’s sand,\n\n6.\nFertile in prodigies and lies;—so there\nStrange natures made a brotherhood of ill.\nThe desert savage ceased to grasp in fear _3840\nHis Asian shield and bow, when, at the will\nOf Europe’s subtler son, the bolt would kill\nSome shepherd sitting on a rock secure;\nBut smiles of wondering joy his face would fill,\nAnd savage sympathy: those slaves impure, _3845\nEach one the other thus from ill to ill did lure.\n\n7.\nFor traitorously did that foul Tyrant robe\nHis countenance in lies,—even at the hour\nWhen he was snatched from death, then o’er the globe,\nWith secret signs from many a mountain-tower, _3850\nWith smoke by day, and fire by night, the power\nOf Kings and Priests, those dark conspirators,\nHe called:—they knew his cause their own, and swore\nLike wolves and serpents to their mutual wars\nStrange truce, with many a rite which Earth and Heaven abhors. _3855\n\n8.\nMyriads had come—millions were on their way;\nThe Tyrant passed, surrounded by the steel\nOf hired assassins, through the public way,\nChoked with his country’s dead:—his footsteps reel\nOn the fresh blood—he smiles. ‘Ay, now I feel _3860\nI am a King in truth!’ he said, and took\nHis royal seat, and bade the torturing wheel\nBe brought, and fire, and pincers, and the hook,\nAnd scorpions, that his soul on its revenge might look.\n\n9.\n‘But first, go slay the rebels—why return _3865\nThe victor bands?’ he said, ‘millions yet live,\nOf whom the weakest with one word might turn\nThe scales of victory yet;—let none survive\nBut those within the walls—each fifth shall give\nThe expiation for his brethren here.— _3870\nGo forth, and waste and kill!’—‘O king, forgive\nMy speech,’ a soldier answered—‘but we fear\nThe spirits of the night, and morn is drawing near;\n\n10.\n‘For we were slaying still without remorse,\nAnd now that dreadful chief beneath my hand _3875\nDefenceless lay, when on a hell-black horse,\nAn Angel bright as day, waving a brand\nWhich flashed among the stars, passed.’—‘Dost thou stand\nParleying with me, thou wretch?’ the king replied;\n‘Slaves, bind him to the wheel; and of this band, _3880\nWhoso will drag that woman to his side\nThat scared him thus, may burn his dearest foe beside;\n\n11.\n‘And gold and glory shall be his.—Go forth!’\nThey rushed into the plain.—Loud was the roar\nOf their career: the horsemen shook the earth; _3885\nThe wheeled artillery’s speed the pavement tore;\nThe infantry, file after file, did pour\nTheir clouds on the utmost hills. Five days they slew\nAmong the wasted fields; the sixth saw gore\nStream through the city; on the seventh, the dew _3890\nOf slaughter became stiff, and there was peace anew:\n\n12.\nPeace in the desert fields and villages,\nBetween the glutted beasts and mangled dead!\nPeace in the silent streets! save when the cries\nOf victims to their fiery judgement led, _3895\nMade pale their voiceless lips who seemed to dread\nEven in their dearest kindred, lest some tongue\nBe faithless to the fear yet unbetrayed;\nPeace in the Tyrant’s palace, where the throng\nWaste the triumphal hours in festival and song! _3900\n\n13.\nDay after day the burning sun rolled on\nOver the death-polluted land—it came\nOut of the east like fire, and fiercely shone\nA lamp of Autumn, ripening with its flame\nThe few lone ears of corn;—the sky became _3905\nStagnate with heat, so that each cloud and blast\nLanguished and died,—the thirsting air did claim\nAll moisture, and a rotting vapour passed\nFrom the unburied dead, invisible and fast.\n\n14.\nFirst Want, then Plague came on the beasts; their food _3910\nFailed, and they drew the breath of its decay.\nMillions on millions, whom the scent of blood\nHad lured, or who, from regions far away,\nHad tracked the hosts in festival array,\nFrom their dark deserts; gaunt and wasting now, _3915\nStalked like fell shades among their perished prey;\nIn their green eyes a strange disease did glow,\nThey sank in hideous spasm, or pains severe and slow.\n\n15.\nThe fish were poisoned in the streams; the birds\nIn the green woods perished; the insect race _3920\nWas withered up; the scattered flocks and herds\nWho had survived the wild beasts’ hungry chase\nDied moaning, each upon the other’s face\nIn helpless agony gazing; round the City\nAll night, the lean hyaenas their sad case _3925\nLike starving infants wailed; a woeful ditty!\nAnd many a mother wept, pierced with unnatural pity.\n\n16.\nAmid the aereal minarets on high,\nThe Ethiopian vultures fluttering fell\nFrom their long line of brethren in the sky, _3930\nStartling the concourse of mankind.—Too well\nThese signs the coming mischief did foretell:—\nStrange panic first, a deep and sickening dread\nWithin each heart, like ice, did sink and dwell,\nA voiceless thought of evil, which did spread _3935\nWith the quick glance of eyes, like withering lightnings shed.\n\n17.\nDay after day, when the year wanes, the frosts\nStrip its green crown of leaves, till all is bare;\nSo on those strange and congregated hosts\nCame Famine, a swift shadow, and the air _3940\nGroaned with the burden of a new despair;\nFamine, than whom Misrule no deadlier daughter\nFeeds from her thousand breasts, though sleeping there\nWith lidless eyes, lie Faith, and Plague, and Slaughter,\nA ghastly brood; conceived of Lethe’s sullen water. _3945\n\n18.\nThere was no food, the corn was trampled down,\nThe flocks and herds had perished; on the shore\nThe dead and putrid fish were ever thrown;\nThe deeps were foodless, and the winds no more\nCreaked with the weight of birds, but, as before _3950\nThose winged things sprang forth, were void of shade;\nThe vines and orchards, Autumn’s golden store,\nWere burned;—so that the meanest food was weighed\nWith gold, and Avarice died before the god it made.\n\n19.\nThere was no corn—in the wide market-place _3955\nAll loathliest things, even human flesh, was sold;\nThey weighed it in small scales—and many a face\nWas fixed in eager horror then: his gold\nThe miser brought; the tender maid, grown bold\nThrough hunger, bared her scorned charms in vain; _3960\nThe mother brought her eldest born, controlled\nBy instinct blind as love, but turned again\nAnd bade her infant suck, and died in silent pain.\n\n20.\nThen fell blue Plague upon the race of man.\n‘O, for the sheathed steel, so late which gave _3965\nOblivion to the dead, when the streets ran\nWith brothers’ blood! O, that the earthquake’s grave\nWould gape, or Ocean lift its stifling wave!’\nVain cries—throughout the streets thousands pursued\nEach by his fiery torture howl and rave, _3970\nOr sit in frenzy’s unimagined mood,\nUpon fresh heaps of dead; a ghastly multitude.\n\n21.\nIt was not hunger now, but thirst. Each well\nWas choked with rotting corpses, and became\nA cauldron of green mist made visible _3975\nAt sunrise. Thither still the myriads came,\nSeeking to quench the agony of the flame,\nWhich raged like poison through their bursting veins;\nNaked they were from torture, without shame,\nSpotted with nameless scars and lurid blains, _3980\nChildhood, and youth, and age, writhing in savage pains.\n\n22.\nIt was not thirst, but madness! Many saw\nTheir own lean image everywhere, it went\nA ghastlier self beside them, till the awe\nOf that dread sight to self-destruction sent _3985\nThose shrieking victims; some, ere life was spent,\nSought, with a horrid sympathy, to shed\nContagion on the sound; and others rent\nTheir matted hair, and cried aloud, ‘We tread\nOn fire! the avenging Power his hell on earth has spread!’ _3990\n\n23.\nSometimes the living by the dead were hid.\nNear the great fountain in the public square,\nWhere corpses made a crumbling pyramid\nUnder the sun, was heard one stifled prayer\nFor life, in the hot silence of the air; _3995\nAnd strange ’twas, amid that hideous heap to see\nSome shrouded in their long and golden hair,\nAs if not dead, but slumbering quietly\nLike forms which sculptors carve, then love to agony.\n\n24.\nFamine had spared the palace of the king:— _4000\nHe rioted in festival the while,\nHe and his guards and priests; but Plague did fling\nOne shadow upon all. Famine can smile\nOn him who brings it food, and pass, with guile\nOf thankful falsehood, like a courtier gray, _4005\nThe house-dog of the throne; but many a mile\nComes Plague, a winged wolf, who loathes alway\nThe garbage and the scum that strangers make her prey.\n\n25.\nSo, near the throne, amid the gorgeous feast,\nSheathed in resplendent arms, or loosely dight _4010\nTo luxury, ere the mockery yet had ceased\nThat lingered on his lips, the warrior’s might\nWas loosened, and a new and ghastlier night\nIn dreams of frenzy lapped his eyes; he fell\nHeadlong, or with stiff eyeballs sate upright _4015\nAmong the guests, or raving mad did tell\nStrange truths; a dying seer of dark oppression’s hell.\n\n26.\nThe Princes and the Priests were pale with terror;\nThat monstrous faith wherewith they ruled mankind,\nFell, like a shaft loosed by the bowman’s error, _4020\nOn their own hearts: they sought and they could find\nNo refuge—’twas the blind who led the blind!\nSo, through the desolate streets to the high fane,\nThe many-tongued and endless armies wind\nIn sad procession: each among the train _4025\nTo his own Idol lifts his supplications vain.\n\n27.\n‘O God!’ they cried, ‘we know our secret pride\nHas scorned thee, and thy worship, and thy name;\nSecure in human power we have defied\nThy fearful might; we bend in fear and shame _4030\nBefore thy presence; with the dust we claim\nKindred; be merciful, O King of Heaven!\nMost justly have we suffered for thy fame\nMade dim, but be at length our sins forgiven,\nEre to despair and death thy worshippers be driven. _4035\n\n28.\n‘O King of Glory! thou alone hast power!\nWho can resist thy will? who can restrain\nThy wrath, when on the guilty thou dost shower\nThe shafts of thy revenge, a blistering rain?\nGreatest and best, be merciful again! _4040\nHave we not stabbed thine enemies, and made\nThe Earth an altar, and the Heavens a fane,\nWhere thou wert worshipped with their blood, and laid\nThose hearts in dust which would thy searchless works have weighed?\n\n29.\n‘Well didst thou loosen on this impious City _4045\nThine angels of revenge: recall them now;\nThy worshippers, abased, here kneel for pity,\nAnd bind their souls by an immortal vow:\nWe swear by thee! and to our oath do thou\nGive sanction, from thine hell of fiends and flame, _4050\nThat we will kill with fire and torments slow,\nThe last of those who mocked thy holy name,\nAnd scorned the sacred laws thy prophets did proclaim.’\n\n30.\nThus they with trembling limbs and pallid lips\nWorshipped their own hearts’ image, dim and vast, _4055\nScared by the shade wherewith they would eclipse\nThe light of other minds;—troubled they passed\nFrom the great Temple;—fiercely still and fast\nThe arrows of the plague among them fell,\nAnd they on one another gazed aghast, _4060\nAnd through the hosts contention wild befell,\nAs each of his own god the wondrous works did tell.\n\n31.\nAnd Oromaze, Joshua, and Mahomet,\nMoses, and Buddh, Zerdusht, and Brahm, and Foh,\nA tumult of strange names, which never met _4065\nBefore, as watchwords of a single woe,\nArose; each raging votary ‘gan to throw\nAloft his armed hands, and each did howl\n‘Our God alone is God!’—and slaughter now\nWould have gone forth, when from beneath a cowl _4070\nA voice came forth, which pierced like ice through every soul.\n\n32.\n’Twas an Iberian Priest from whom it came,\nA zealous man, who led the legioned West,\nWith words which faith and pride had steeped in flame,\nTo quell the unbelievers; a dire guest _4075\nEven to his friends was he, for in his breast\nDid hate and guile lie watchful, intertwined,\nTwin serpents in one deep and winding nest;\nHe loathed all faith beside his own, and pined\nTo wreak his fear of Heaven in vengeance on mankind. _4080\n\n33.\nBut more he loathed and hated the clear light\nOf wisdom and free thought, and more did fear,\nLest, kindled once, its beams might pierce the night,\nEven where his Idol stood; for, far and near\nDid many a heart in Europe leap to hear _4085\nThat faith and tyranny were trampled down;\nMany a pale victim, doomed for truth to share\nThe murderer’s cell, or see, with helpless groan,\nThe priests his children drag for slaves to serve their own.\n\n34.\nHe dared not kill the infidels with fire _4090\nOr steel, in Europe; the slow agonies\nOf legal torture mocked his keen desire:\nSo he made truce with those who did despise\nThe expiation, and the sacrifice,\nThat, though detested, Islam’s kindred creed _4095\nMight crush for him those deadlier enemies;\nFor fear of God did in his bosom breed\nA jealous hate of man, an unreposing need.\n\n35.\n‘Peace! Peace!’ he cried, ‘when we are dead, the Day\nOf Judgement comes, and all shall surely know _4100\nWhose God is God, each fearfully shall pay\nThe errors of his faith in endless woe!\nBut there is sent a mortal vengeance now\nOn earth, because an impious race had spurned\nHim whom we all adore,—a subtle foe, _4105\nBy whom for ye this dread reward was earned,\nAnd kingly thrones, which rest on faith, nigh overturned.\n\n36.\n‘Think ye, because ye weep, and kneel, and pray,\nThat God will lull the pestilence? It rose\nEven from beneath his throne, where, many a day, _4110\nHis mercy soothed it to a dark repose:\nIt walks upon the earth to judge his foes;\nAnd what are thou and I, that he should deign\nTo curb his ghastly minister, or close\nThe gates of death, ere they receive the twain _4115\nWho shook with mortal spells his undefended reign?\n\n37.\n‘Ay, there is famine in the gulf of hell,\nIts giant worms of fire for ever yawn.—\nTheir lurid eyes are on us! those who fell\nBy the swift shafts of pestilence ere dawn, _4120\nAre in their jaws! they hunger for the spawn\nOf Satan, their own brethren, who were sent\nTo make our souls their spoil. See! see! they fawn\nLike dogs, and they will sleep with luxury spent,\nWhen those detested hearts their iron fangs have rent! _4125\n\n38.\n‘Our God may then lull Pestilence to sleep:—\nPile high the pyre of expiation now,\nA forest’s spoil of boughs, and on the heap\nPour venomous gums, which sullenly and slow,\nWhen touched by flame, shall burn, and melt, and flow, _4130\nA stream of clinging fire,—and fix on high\nA net of iron, and spread forth below\nA couch of snakes, and scorpions, and the fry\nOf centipedes and worms, earth’s hellish progeny!\n\n39.\n‘Let Laon and Laone on that pyre, _4135\nLinked tight with burning brass, perish!—then pray\nThat, with this sacrifice, the withering ire\nOf Heaven may be appeased.’ He ceased, and they\nA space stood silent, as far, far away\nThe echoes of his voice among them died; _4140\nAnd he knelt down upon the dust, alway\nMuttering the curses of his speechless pride,\nWhilst shame, and fear, and awe, the armies did divide.\n\n40.\nHis voice was like a blast that burst the portal\nOf fabled hell; and as he spake, each one _4145\nSaw gape beneath the chasms of fire immortal,\nAnd Heaven above seemed cloven, where, on a throne\nGirt round with storms and shadows, sate alone\nTheir King and Judge—fear killed in every breast\nAll natural pity then, a fear unknown _4150\nBefore, and with an inward fire possessed,\nThey raged like homeless beasts whom burning woods invest.\n\n41.\n’Twas morn.—At noon the public crier went forth,\nProclaiming through the living and the dead,\n‘The Monarch saith, that his great Empire’s worth _4155\nIs set on Laon and Laone’s head:\nHe who but one yet living here can lead,\nOr who the life from both their hearts can wring,\nShall be the kingdom’s heir—a glorious meed!\nBut he who both alive can hither bring, _4160\nThe Princess shall espouse, and reign an equal King.’\n\n42.\nEre night the pyre was piled, the net of iron\nWas spread above, the fearful couch below;\nIt overtopped the towers that did environ\nThat spacious square; for Fear is never slow _4165\nTo build the thrones of Hate, her mate and foe;\nSo, she scourged forth the maniac multitude\nTo rear this pyramid—tottering and slow,\nPlague-stricken, foodless, like lean herds pursued\nBy gadflies, they have piled the heath, and gums, and wood. _4170\n\n43.\nNight came, a starless and a moonless gloom.\nUntil the dawn, those hosts of many a nation\nStood round that pile, as near one lover’s tomb\nTwo gentle sisters mourn their desolation;\nAnd in the silence of that expectation, _4175\nWas heard on high the reptiles’ hiss and crawl—\nIt was so deep—save when the devastation\nOf the swift pest, with fearful interval,\nMarking its path with shrieks, among the crowd would fall.\n\n44.\nMorn came,—among those sleepless multitudes, _4180\nMadness, and Fear, and Plague, and Famine still\nHeaped corpse on corpse, as in autumnal woods\nThe frosts of many a wind with dead leaves fill\nEarth’s cold and sullen brooks; in silence, still\nThe pale survivors stood; ere noon, the fear _4185\nOf Hell became a panic, which did kill\nLike hunger or disease, with whispers drear,\nAs ‘Hush! hark! Come they yet?—Just Heaven! thine hour is near!’\n\n45.\nAnd Priests rushed through their ranks, some counterfeiting\nThe rage they did inspire, some mad indeed _4190\nWith their own lies; they said their god was waiting\nTo see his enemies writhe, and burn, and bleed,—\nAnd that, till then, the snakes of Hell had need\nOf human souls:—three hundred furnaces\nSoon blazed through the wide City, where, with speed, _4195\nMen brought their infidel kindred to appease\nGod’s wrath, and, while they burned, knelt round on quivering knees.\n\n46.\nThe noontide sun was darkened with that smoke,\nThe winds of eve dispersed those ashes gray.\nThe madness which these rites had lulled, awoke _4200\nAgain at sunset.—Who shall dare to say\nThe deeds which night and fear brought forth, or weigh\nIn balance just the good and evil there?\nHe might man’s deep and searchless heart display,\nAnd cast a light on those dim labyrinths, where _4205\nHope, near imagined chasms, is struggling with despair.\n\n47.\n’Tis said, a mother dragged three children then,\nTo those fierce flames which roast the eyes in the head,\nAnd laughed, and died; and that unholy men,\nFeasting like fiends upon the infidel dead, _4210\nLooked from their meal, and saw an Angel tread\nThe visible floor of Heaven, and it was she!\nAnd, on that night, one without doubt or dread\nCame to the fire, and said, ‘Stop, I am he!\nKill me!’—They burned them both with hellish mockery. _4215\n\n48.\nAnd, one by one, that night, young maidens came,\nBeauteous and calm, like shapes of living stone\nClothed in the light of dreams, and by the flame\nWhich shrank as overgorged, they laid them down,\nAnd sung a low sweet song, of which alone _4220\nOne word was heard, and that was Liberty;\nAnd that some kissed their marble feet, with moan\nLike love, and died; and then that they did die\nWith happy smiles, which sunk in white tranquillity.\n\n\n_3834 native home edition 1818.\n_3967 earthquakes edition 1818.\n_4176 reptiles’]reptiles edition 1818.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 11.", + "body": "1.\nShe saw me not—she heard me not—alone _4225\nUpon the mountain’s dizzy brink she stood;\nShe spake not, breathed not, moved not—there was thrown\nOver her look, the shadow of a mood\nWhich only clothes the heart in solitude,\nA thought of voiceless depth;—she stood alone, _4230\nAbove, the Heavens were spread;—below, the flood\nWas murmuring in its caves;—the wind had blown\nHer hair apart, through which her eyes and forehead shone.\n\n2.\nA cloud was hanging o’er the western mountains;\nBefore its blue and moveless depth were flying _4235\nGray mists poured forth from the unresting fountains\nOf darkness in the North:—the day was dying:—\nSudden, the sun shone forth, its beams were lying\nLike boiling gold on Ocean, strange to see,\nAnd on the shattered vapours, which defying _4240\nThe power of light in vain, tossed restlessly\nIn the red Heaven, like wrecks in a tempestuous sea.\n\n3.\nIt was a stream of living beams, whose bank\nOn either side by the cloud’s cleft was made;\nAnd where its chasms that flood of glory drank, _4245\nIts waves gushed forth like fire, and as if swayed\nBy some mute tempest, rolled on HER; the shade\nOf her bright image floated on the river\nOf liquid light, which then did end and fade—\nHer radiant shape upon its verge did shiver; _4250\nAloft, her flowing hair like strings of flame did quiver.\n\n4.\nI stood beside her, but she saw me not—\nShe looked upon the sea, and skies, and earth;\nRapture, and love, and admiration wrought\nA passion deeper far than tears, or mirth, _4255\nOr speech, or gesture, or whate’er has birth\nFrom common joy; which with the speechless feeling\nThat led her there united, and shot forth\nFrom her far eyes a light of deep revealing,\nAll but her dearest self from my regard concealing. _4260\n\n5.\nHer lips were parted, and the measured breath\nWas now heard there;—her dark and intricate eyes\nOrb within orb, deeper than sleep or death,\nAbsorbed the glories of the burning skies,\nWhich, mingling with her heart’s deep ecstasies, _4265\nBurst from her looks and gestures;—and a light\nOf liquid tenderness, like love, did rise\nFrom her whole frame, an atmosphere which quite\nArrayed her in its beams, tremulous and soft and bright.\n\n6.\nShe would have clasped me to her glowing frame; _4270\nThose warm and odorous lips might soon have shed\nOn mine the fragrance and the invisible flame\nWhich now the cold winds stole;—she would have laid\nUpon my languid heart her dearest head;\nI might have heard her voice, tender and sweet; _4275\nHer eyes, mingling with mine, might soon have fed\nMy soul with their own joy.—One moment yet\nI gazed—we parted then, never again to meet!\n\n7.\nNever but once to meet on Earth again!\nShe heard me as I fled—her eager tone _4280\nSunk on my heart, and almost wove a chain\nAround my will to link it with her own,\nSo that my stern resolve was almost gone.\n‘I cannot reach thee! whither dost thou fly?\nMy steps are faint—Come back, thou dearest one— _4285\nReturn, ah me! return!’—The wind passed by\nOn which those accents died, faint, far, and lingeringly.\n\n8.\nWoe! Woe! that moonless midnight!—Want and Pest\nWere horrible, but one more fell doth rear,\nAs in a hydra’s swarming lair, its crest _4290\nEminent among those victims—even the Fear\nOf Hell: each girt by the hot atmosphere\nOf his blind agony, like a scorpion stung\nBy his own rage upon his burning bier\nOf circling coals of fire; but still there clung _4295\nOne hope, like a keen sword on starting threads uphung:\n\n9.\nNot death—death was no more refuge or rest;\nNot life—it was despair to be!—not sleep,\nFor fiends and chasms of fire had dispossessed\nAll natural dreams: to wake was not to weep, _4300\nBut to gaze mad and pallid, at the leap\nTo which the Future, like a snaky scourge,\nOr like some tyrant’s eye, which aye doth keep\nIts withering beam upon his slaves, did urge\nTheir steps; they heard the roar of Hell’s sulphureous surge. _4305\n\n10.\nEach of that multitude, alone, and lost\nTo sense of outward things, one hope yet knew;\nAs on a foam-girt crag some seaman tossed\nStares at the rising tide, or like the crew\nWhilst now the ship is splitting through and through; _4310\nEach, if the tramp of a far steed was heard,\nStarted from sick despair, or if there flew\nOne murmur on the wind, or if some word\nWhich none can gather yet, the distant crowd has stirred.\n\n11.\nWhy became cheeks, wan with the kiss of death, _4315\nPaler from hope? they had sustained despair.\nWhy watched those myriads with suspended breath\nSleepless a second night? they are not here,\nThe victims, and hour by hour, a vision drear,\nWarm corpses fall upon the clay-cold dead; _4320\nAnd even in death their lips are wreathed with fear.—\nThe crowd is mute and moveless—overhead\nSilent Arcturus shines—‘Ha! hear’st thou not the tread\n\n12.\n‘Of rushing feet? laughter? the shout, the scream,\nOf triumph not to be contained? See! hark! _4325\nThey come, they come! give way!’ Alas, ye deem\nFalsely—’tis but a crowd of maniacs stark\nDriven, like a troop of spectres, through the dark,\nFrom the choked well, whence a bright death-fire sprung,\nA lurid earth-star, which dropped many a spark _4330\nFrom its blue train, and spreading widely, clung\nTo their wild hair, like mist the topmost pines among.\n\n13.\nAnd many, from the crowd collected there,\nJoined that strange dance in fearful sympathies;\nThere was the silence of a long despair, _4335\nWhen the last echo of those terrible cries\nCame from a distant street, like agonies\nStifled afar.—Before the Tyrant’s throne\nAll night his aged Senate sate, their eyes\nIn stony expectation fixed; when one _4340\nSudden before them stood, a Stranger and alone.\n\n14.\nDark Priests and haughty Warriors gazed on him\nWith baffled wonder, for a hermit’s vest\nConcealed his face; but when he spake, his tone,\nEre yet the matter did their thoughts arrest,— _4345\nEarnest, benignant, calm, as from a breast\nVoid of all hate or terror—made them start;\nFor as with gentle accents he addressed\nHis speech to them, on each unwilling heart\nUnusual awe did fall—a spirit-quelling dart. _4350\n\n15.\n‘Ye Princes of the Earth, ye sit aghast\nAmid the ruin which yourselves have made,\nYes, Desolation heard your trumpet’s blast,\nAnd sprang from sleep!—dark Terror has obeyed\nYour bidding—O, that I whom ye have made _4355\nYour foe, could set my dearest enemy free\nFrom pain and fear! but evil casts a shade,\nWhich cannot pass so soon, and Hate must be\nThe nurse and parent still of an ill progeny.\n\n16.\n‘Ye turn to Heaven for aid in your distress; _4360\nAlas, that ye, the mighty and the wise,\nWho, if ye dared, might not aspire to less\nThan ye conceive of power, should fear the lies\nWhich thou, and thou, didst frame for mysteries\nTo blind your slaves:—consider your own thought, _4365\nAn empty and a cruel sacrifice\nYe now prepare, for a vain idol wrought\nOut of the fears and hate which vain desires have brought.\n\n17.\n‘Ye seek for happiness—alas, the day!\nYe find it not in luxury nor in gold, _4370\nNor in the fame, nor in the envied sway\nFor which, O willing slaves to Custom old,\nSevere taskmistress! ye your hearts have sold.\nYe seek for peace, and when ye die, to dream\nNo evil dreams: all mortal things are cold _4375\nAnd senseless then; if aught survive, I deem\nIt must be love and joy, for they immortal seem.\n\n18.\n‘Fear not the future, weep not for the past.\nOh, could I win your ears to dare be now\nGlorious, and great, and calm! that ye would cast _4380\nInto the dust those symbols of your woe,\nPurple, and gold, and steel! that ye would go\nProclaiming to the nations whence ye came,\nThat Want, and Plague, and Fear, from slavery flow;\nAnd that mankind is free, and that the shame _4385\nOf royalty and faith is lost in freedom’s fame!\n\n19.\n‘If thus, ’tis well—if not, I come to say\nThat Laon—’ while the Stranger spoke, among\nThe Council sudden tumult and affray\nArose, for many of those warriors young, _4390\nHad on his eloquent accents fed and hung\nLike bees on mountain-flowers; they knew the truth,\nAnd from their thrones in vindication sprung;\nThe men of faith and law then without ruth\nDrew forth their secret steel, and stabbed each ardent youth. _4395\n\n20.\nThey stabbed them in the back and sneered—a slave\nWho stood behind the throne, those corpses drew\nEach to its bloody, dark, and secret grave;\nAnd one more daring raised his steel anew\nTo pierce the Stranger. ‘What hast thou to do _4400\nWith me, poor wretch?’—Calm, solemn and severe,\nThat voice unstrung his sinews, and he threw\nHis dagger on the ground, and pale with fear,\nSate silently—his voice then did the Stranger rear.\n\n21.\n‘It doth avail not that I weep for ye— _4405\nYe cannot change, since ye are old and gray,\nAnd ye have chosen your lot—your fame must be\nA book of blood, whence in a milder day\nMen shall learn truth, when ye are wrapped in clay:\nNow ye shall triumph. I am Laon’s friend, _4410\nAnd him to your revenge will I betray,\nSo ye concede one easy boon. Attend!\nFor now I speak of things which ye can apprehend.\n\n22.\n‘There is a People mighty in its youth,\nA land beyond the Oceans of the West, _4415\nWhere, though with rudest rites, Freedom and Truth\nAre worshipped; from a glorious Mother’s breast,\nWho, since high Athens fell, among the rest\nSate like the Queen of Nations, but in woe,\nBy inbred monsters outraged and oppressed, _4420\nTurns to her chainless child for succour now,\nIt draws the milk of Power in Wisdom’s fullest flow.\n\n23.\n‘That land is like an Eagle, whose young gaze\nFeeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plume\nFloats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze _4425\nOf sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapped in gloom;\nAn epitaph of glory for the tomb\nOf murdered Europe may thy fame be made,\nGreat People! as the sands shalt thou become;\nThy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade; _4430\nThe multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.\n\n24.\n‘Yes, in the desert there is built a home\nFor Freedom. Genius is made strong to rear\nThe monuments of man beneath the dome\nOf a new Heaven; myriads assemble there, _4435\nWhom the proud lords of man, in rage or fear,\nDrive from their wasted homes: the boon I pray\nIs this—that Cythna shall be convoyed there—\nNay, start not at the name—America!\nAnd then to you this night Laon will I betray. _4440\n\n25.\n‘With me do what ye will. I am your foe!’\nThe light of such a joy as makes the stare\nOf hungry snakes like living emeralds glow,\nShone in a hundred human eyes—‘Where, where\nIs Laon? Haste! fly! drag him swiftly here! _4445\nWe grant thy boon.’—‘I put no trust in ye,\nSwear by the Power ye dread.’—‘We swear, we swear!’\nThe Stranger threw his vest back suddenly,\nAnd smiled in gentle pride, and said, ‘Lo! I am he!’\n\n\n_4321 wreathed]writhed. “Poetical Works” 1839. 1st edition.\n_4361 the mighty]tho’ mighty edition 1818.\n_4362 ye]he edition 1818.\n_4432 there]then edition 1818.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 12.", + "body": "1.\nThe transport of a fierce and monstrous gladness _4450\nSpread through the multitudinous streets, fast flying\nUpon the winds of fear; from his dull madness\nThe starveling waked, and died in joy; the dying,\nAmong the corpses in stark agony lying,\nJust heard the happy tidings, and in hope _4455\nClosed their faint eyes; from house to house replying\nWith loud acclaim, the living shook Heaven’s cope,\nAnd filled the startled Earth with echoes: morn did ope\n\n2.\nIts pale eyes then; and lo! the long array\nOf guards in golden arms, and Priests beside, _4460\nSinging their bloody hymns, whose garbs betray\nThe blackness of the faith it seems to hide;\nAnd see, the Tyrant’s gem-wrought chariot glide\nAmong the gloomy cowls and glittering spears—\nA Shape of light is sitting by his side, _4465\nA child most beautiful. I’ the midst appears\nLaon,—exempt alone from mortal hopes and fears.\n\n3.\nHis head and feet are bare, his hands are bound\nBehind with heavy chains, yet none do wreak\nTheir scoffs on him, though myriads throng around; _4470\nThere are no sneers upon his lip which speak\nThat scorn or hate has made him bold; his cheek\nResolve has not turned pale,—his eyes are mild\nAnd calm, and, like the morn about to break,\nSmile on mankind—his heart seems reconciled _4475\nTo all things and itself, like a reposing child.\n\n4.\nTumult was in the soul of all beside,\nIll joy, or doubt, or fear; but those who saw\nTheir tranquil victim pass, felt wonder glide\nInto their brain, and became calm with awe.— _4480\nSee, the slow pageant near the pile doth draw.\nA thousand torches in the spacious square,\nBorne by the ready slaves of ruthless law,\nAwait the signal round: the morning fair\nIs changed to a dim night by that unnatural glare. _4485\n\n5.\nAnd see! beneath a sun-bright canopy,\nUpon a platform level with the pile,\nThe anxious Tyrant sit, enthroned on high,\nGirt by the chieftains of the host; all smile\nIn expectation, but one child: the while _4490\nI, Laon, led by mutes, ascend my bier\nOf fire, and look around: each distant isle\nIs dark in the bright dawn; towers far and near,\nPierce like reposing flames the tremulous atmosphere.\n\n6.\nThere was such silence through the host, as when _4495\nAn earthquake trampling on some populous town,\nHas crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men\nExpect the second; all were mute but one,\nThat fairest child, who, bold with love, alone\nStood up before the King, without avail, _4500\nPleading for Laon’s life—her stifled groan\nWas heard—she trembled like one aspen pale\nAmong the gloomy pines of a Norwegian vale.\n\n7.\nWhat were his thoughts linked in the morning sun,\nAmong those reptiles, stingless with delay, _4505\nEven like a tyrant’s wrath?—The signal-gun\nRoared—hark, again! In that dread pause he lay\nAs in a quiet dream—the slaves obey—\nA thousand torches drop,—and hark, the last\nBursts on that awful silence; far away, _4510\nMillions, with hearts that beat both loud and fast,\nWatch for the springing flame expectant and aghast.\n\n8.\nThey fly—the torches fall—a cry of fear\nHas startled the triumphant!—they recede!\nFor, ere the cannon’s roar has died, they hear _4515\nThe tramp of hoofs like earthquake, and a steed\nDark and gigantic, with the tempest’s speed,\nBursts through their ranks: a woman sits thereon,\nFairer, it seems, than aught that earth can breed,\nCalm, radiant, like the phantom of the dawn, _4520\nA spirit from the caves of daylight wandering gone.\n\n9.\nAll thought it was God’s Angel come to sweep\nThe lingering guilty to their fiery grave;\nThe Tyrant from his throne in dread did leap,—\nHer innocence his child from fear did save; _4525\nScared by the faith they feigned, each priestly slave\nKnelt for his mercy whom they served with blood,\nAnd, like the refluence of a mighty wave\nSucked into the loud sea, the multitude\nWith crushing panic, fled in terror’s altered mood. _4530\n\n10.\nThey pause, they blush, they gaze,—a gathering shout\nBursts like one sound from the ten thousand streams\nOf a tempestuous sea:—that sudden rout\nOne checked, who, never in his mildest dreams\nFelt awe from grace or loveliness, the seams _4535\nOf his rent heart so hard and cold a creed\nHad seared with blistering ice—but he misdeems\nThat he is wise, whose wounds do only bleed\nInly for self,—thus thought the Iberian Priest indeed,\n\n11.\nAnd others, too, thought he was wise to see, _4540\nIn pain, and fear, and hate, something divine;\nIn love and beauty, no divinity.—\nNow with a bitter smile, whose light did shine\nLike a fiend’s hope upon his lips and eyne,\nHe said, and the persuasion of that sneer _4545\nRallied his trembling comrades—‘Is it mine\nTo stand alone, when kings and soldiers fear\nA woman? Heaven has sent its other victim here.’\n\n12.\n‘Were it not impious,’ said the King, ‘to break\nOur holy oath?’—‘Impious to keep it, say!’ _4550\nShrieked the exulting Priest:—‘Slaves, to the stake\nBind her, and on my head the burden lay\nOf her just torments:—at the Judgement Day\nWill I stand up before the golden throne\nOf Heaven, and cry, “To Thee did I betray _4555\nAn infidel; but for me she would have known\nAnother moment’s joy! the glory be thine own.”’\n\n13.\nThey trembled, but replied not, nor obeyed,\nPausing in breathless silence. Cythna sprung\nFrom her gigantic steed, who, like a shade _4560\nChased by the winds, those vacant streets among\nFled tameless, as the brazen rein she flung\nUpon his neck, and kissed his mooned brow.\nA piteous sight, that one so fair and young,\nThe clasp of such a fearful death should woo _4565\nWith smiles of tender joy as beamed from Cythna now.\n\n14.\nThe warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear\nFrom many a tremulous eye, but like soft dews\nWhich feed Spring’s earliest buds, hung gathered there,\nFrozen by doubt,—alas! they could not choose _4570\nBut weep; for when her faint limbs did refuse\nTo climb the pyre, upon the mutes she smiled;\nAnd with her eloquent gestures, and the hues\nOf her quick lips, even as a weary child\nWins sleep from some fond nurse with its caresses mild, _4575\n\n15.\nShe won them, though unwilling, her to bind\nNear me, among the snakes. When there had fled\nOne soft reproach that was most thrilling kind,\nShe smiled on me, and nothing then we said,\nBut each upon the other’s countenance fed _4580\nLooks of insatiate love; the mighty veil\nWhich doth divide the living and the dead\nWas almost rent, the world grew dim and pale,—\nAll light in Heaven or Earth beside our love did fail.—\n\n16.\nYet—yet—one brief relapse, like the last beam _4585\nOf dying flames, the stainless air around\nHung silent and serene—a blood-red gleam\nBurst upwards, hurling fiercely from the ground\nThe globed smoke,—I heard the mighty sound\nOf its uprise, like a tempestuous ocean; _4590\nAnd through its chasms I saw, as in a swound,\nThe tyrant’s child fall without life or motion\nBefore his throne, subdued by some unseen emotion.—\n\n17.\nAnd is this death?—The pyre has disappeared,\nThe Pestilence, the Tyrant, and the throng; _4595\nThe flames grow silent—slowly there is heard\nThe music of a breath-suspending song,\nWhich, like the kiss of love when life is young,\nSteeps the faint eyes in darkness sweet and deep;\nWith ever-changing notes it floats along, _4600\nTill on my passive soul there seemed to creep\nA melody, like waves on wrinkled sands that leap.\n\n18.\nThe warm touch of a soft and tremulous hand\nWakened me then; lo! Cythna sate reclined\nBeside me, on the waved and golden sand _4605\nOf a clear pool, upon a bank o’ertwined\nWith strange and star-bright flowers, which to the wind\nBreathed divine odour; high above, was spread\nThe emerald heaven of trees of unknown kind,\nWhose moonlike blooms and bright fruit overhead _4610\nA shadow, which was light, upon the waters shed.\n\n19.\nAnd round about sloped many a lawny mountain\nWith incense-bearing forests and vast caves\nOf marble radiance, to that mighty fountain;\nAnd where the flood its own bright margin laves, _4615\nTheir echoes talk with its eternal waves,\nWhich, from the depths whose jagged caverns breed\nTheir unreposing strife, it lifts and heaves,—\nTill through a chasm of hills they roll, and feed\nA river deep, which flies with smooth but arrowy speed. _4620\n\n20.\nAs we sate gazing in a trance of wonder,\nA boat approached, borne by the musical air\nAlong the waves which sung and sparkled under\nIts rapid keel—a winged shape sate there,\nA child with silver-shining wings, so fair, _4625\nThat as her bark did through the waters glide,\nThe shadow of the lingering waves did wear\nLight, as from starry beams; from side to side,\nWhile veering to the wind her plumes the bark did guide.\n\n21.\nThe boat was one curved shell of hollow pearl, _4630\nAlmost translucent with the light divine\nOf her within; the prow and stern did curl\nHorned on high, like the young moon supine,\nWhen o’er dim twilight mountains dark with pine,\nIt floats upon the sunset’s sea of beams, _4635\nWhose golden waves in many a purple line\nFade fast, till borne on sunlight’s ebbing streams,\nDilating, on earth’s verge the sunken meteor gleams.\n\n22.\nIts keel has struck the sands beside our feet;—\nThen Cythna turned to me, and from her eyes _4640\nWhich swam with unshed tears, a look more sweet\nThan happy love, a wild and glad surprise,\nGlanced as she spake: ‘Ay, this is Paradise\nAnd not a dream, and we are all united!\nLo, that is mine own child, who in the guise _4645\nOf madness came, like day to one benighted\nIn lonesome woods: my heart is now too well requited!’\n\n23.\nAnd then she wept aloud, and in her arms\nClasped that bright Shape, less marvellously fair\nThan her own human hues and living charms; _4650\nWhich, as she leaned in passion’s silence there,\nBreathed warmth on the cold bosom of the air,\nWhich seemed to blush and tremble with delight;\nThe glossy darkness of her streaming hair\nFell o’er that snowy child, and wrapped from sight _4655\nThe fond and long embrace which did their hearts unite.\n\n24.\nThen the bright child, the plumed Seraph came,\nAnd fixed its blue and beaming eyes on mine,\nAnd said, ‘I was disturbed by tremulous shame\nWhen once we met, yet knew that I was thine _4660\nFrom the same hour in which thy lips divine\nKindled a clinging dream within my brain,\nWhich ever waked when I might sleep, to twine\nThine image with HER memory dear—again\nWe meet; exempted now from mortal fear or pain. _4665\n\n25.\n‘When the consuming flames had wrapped ye round,\nThe hope which I had cherished went away;\nI fell in agony on the senseless ground,\nAnd hid mine eyes in dust, and far astray\nMy mind was gone, when bright, like dawning day, _4670\nThe Spectre of the Plague before me flew,\nAnd breathed upon my lips, and seemed to say,\n“They wait for thee, beloved!”—then I knew\nThe death-mark on my breast, and became calm anew.\n\n26.\n‘It was the calm of love—for I was dying. _4675\nI saw the black and half-extinguished pyre\nIn its own gray and shrunken ashes lying;\nThe pitchy smoke of the departed fire\nStill hung in many a hollow dome and spire\nAbove the towers, like night,—beneath whose shade _4680\nAwed by the ending of their own desire\nThe armies stood; a vacancy was made\nIn expectation’s depth, and so they stood dismayed.\n\n27.\n‘The frightful silence of that altered mood,\nThe tortures of the dying clove alone, _4685\nTill one uprose among the multitude,\nAnd said—“The flood of time is rolling on;\nWe stand upon its brink, whilst THEY are gone\nTo glide in peace down death’s mysterious stream.\nHave ye done well? They moulder, flesh and bone, _4690\nWho might have made this life’s envenomed dream\nA sweeter draught than ye will ever taste, I deem.\n\n28.\n‘“These perish as the good and great of yore\nHave perished, and their murderers will repent,—\nYes, vain and barren tears shall flow before _4695\nYon smoke has faded from the firmament\nEven for this cause, that ye who must lament\nThe death of those that made this world so fair,\nCannot recall them now; but there is lent\nTo man the wisdom of a high despair, _4700\nWhen such can die, and he live on and linger here.\n\n29.\n‘“Ay, ye may fear not now the Pestilence,\nFrom fabled hell as by a charm withdrawn;\nAll power and faith must pass, since calmly hence\nIn pain and fire have unbelievers gone; _4705\nAnd ye must sadly turn away, and moan\nIn secret, to his home each one returning;\nAnd to long ages shall this hour be known;\nAnd slowly shall its memory, ever burning,\nFill this dark night of things with an eternal morning. _4710\n\n30.\n‘“For me that world is grown too void and cold,\nSince Hope pursues immortal Destiny\nWith steps thus slow—therefore shall ye behold\nHow those who love, yet fear not, dare to die;\nTell to your children this!” Then suddenly _4715\nHe sheathed a dagger in his heart and fell;\nMy brain grew dark in death, and yet to me\nThere came a murmur from the crowd, to tell\nOf deep and mighty change which suddenly befell.\n\n31.\n‘Then suddenly I stood, a winged Thought, _4720\nBefore the immortal Senate, and the seat\nOf that star-shining spirit, whence is wrought\nThe strength of its dominion, good and great,\nThe better Genius of this world’s estate.\nHis realm around one mighty Fane is spread, _4725\nElysian islands bright and fortunate,\nCalm dwellings of the free and happy dead,\nWhere I am sent to lead!’ These winged words she said,\n\n32.\nAnd with the silence of her eloquent smile,\nBade us embark in her divine canoe; _4730\nThen at the helm we took our seat, the while\nAbove her head those plumes of dazzling hue\nInto the winds’ invisible stream she threw,\nSitting beside the prow: like gossamer\nOn the swift breath of morn, the vessel flew _4735\nO’er the bright whirlpools of that fountain fair,\nWhose shores receded fast, while we seemed lingering there;\n\n33.\nTill down that mighty stream, dark, calm, and fleet,\nBetween a chasm of cedarn mountains riven,\nChased by the thronging winds whose viewless feet _4740\nAs swift as twinkling beams, had, under Heaven,\nFrom woods and waves wild sounds and odours driven,\nThe boat fled visibly—three nights and days,\nBorne like a cloud through morn, and noon, and even,\nWe sailed along the winding watery ways _4745\nOf the vast stream, a long and labyrinthine maze.\n\n34.\nA scene of joy and wonder to behold\nThat river’s shapes and shadows changing ever,\nWhere the broad sunrise filled with deepening gold\nIts whirlpools, where all hues did spread and quiver; _4750\nAnd where melodious falls did burst and shiver\nAmong rocks clad with flowers, the foam and spray\nSparkled like stars upon the sunny river,\nOr when the moonlight poured a holier day,\nOne vast and glittering lake around green islands lay. _4755\n\n35.\nMorn, noon, and even, that boat of pearl outran\nThe streams which bore it, like the arrowy cloud\nOf tempest, or the speedier thought of man,\nWhich flieth forth and cannot make abode;\nSometimes through forests, deep like night, we glode, _4760\nBetween the walls of mighty mountains crowned\nWith Cyclopean piles, whose turrets proud,\nThe homes of the departed, dimly frowned\nO’er the bright waves which girt their dark foundations round.\n\n36.\nSometimes between the wide and flowering meadows, _4765\nMile after mile we sailed, and ’twas delight\nTo see far off the sunbeams chase the shadows\nOver the grass; sometimes beneath the night\nOf wide and vaulted caves, whose roofs were bright\nWith starry gems, we fled, whilst from their deep _4770\nAnd dark-green chasms, shades beautiful and white,\nAmid sweet sounds across our path would sweep,\nLike swift and lovely dreams that walk the waves of sleep.\n\n37.\nAnd ever as we sailed, our minds were full\nOf love and wisdom, which would overflow _4775\nIn converse wild, and sweet, and wonderful,\nAnd in quick smiles whose light would come and go\nLike music o’er wide waves, and in the flow\nOf sudden tears, and in the mute caress—\nFor a deep shade was cleft, and we did know, _4780\nThat virtue, though obscured on Earth, not less\nSurvives all mortal change in lasting loveliness.\n\n38.\nThree days and nights we sailed, as thought and feeling\nNumber delightful hours—for through the sky\nThe sphered lamps of day and night, revealing _4785\nNew changes and new glories, rolled on high,\nSun, Moon and moonlike lamps, the progeny\nOf a diviner Heaven, serene and fair:\nOn the fourth day, wild as a windwrought sea\nThe stream became, and fast and faster bare _4790\nThe spirit-winged boat, steadily speeding there.\n\n39.\nSteady and swift, where the waves rolled like mountains\nWithin the vast ravine, whose rifts did pour\nTumultuous floods from their ten thousand fountains,\nThe thunder of whose earth-uplifting roar _4795\nMade the air sweep in whirlwinds from the shore,\nCalm as a shade, the boat of that fair child\nSecurely fled, that rapid stress before,\nAmid the topmost spray, and sunbows wild,\nWreathed in the silver mist: in joy and pride we smiled. _4800\n\n40.\nThe torrent of that wide and raging river\nIs passed, and our aereal speed suspended.\nWe look behind; a golden mist did quiver\nWhen its wild surges with the lake were blended,—\nOur bark hung there, as on a line suspended _4805\nBetween two heavens,—that windless waveless lake\nWhich four great cataracts from four vales, attended\nBy mists, aye feed; from rocks and clouds they break,\nAnd of that azure sea a silent refuge make.\n\n41.\nMotionless resting on the lake awhile, _4810\nI saw its marge of snow-bright mountains rear\nTheir peaks aloft, I saw each radiant isle,\nAnd in the midst, afar, even like a sphere\nHung in one hollow sky, did there appear\nThe Temple of the Spirit; on the sound _4815\nWhich issued thence, drawn nearer and more near,\nLike the swift moon this glorious earth around,\nThe charmed boat approached, and there its haven found.\n\n\n_4577 there]then edition 1818.\n_4699 there]then edition 1818.\n_4749 When]Where edition 1818.\n_4804 Where]When edition 1818.\n_4805 on a line]one line edition 1818.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On The “Revolt Of Islam”, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "Shelley possessed two remarkable qualities of intellect—a brilliant\nimagination, and a logical exactness of reason. His inclinations led\nhim (he fancied) almost alike to poetry and metaphysical discussions.\nI say ‘he fancied,’ because I believe the former to have been\nparamount, and that it would have gained the mastery even had he\nstruggled against it. However, he said that he deliberated at one time\nwhether he should dedicate himself to poetry or metaphysics; and,\nresolving on the former, he educated himself for it, discarding in a\ngreat measure his philosophical pursuits, and engaging himself in the\nstudy of the poets of Greece, Italy, and England. To these may be\nadded a constant perusal of portions of the old Testament—the Psalms,\nthe Book of Job, the Prophet Isaiah, and others, the sublime poetry of\nwhich filled him with delight.\n\nAs a poet, his intellect and compositions were powerfully influenced\nby exterior circumstances, and especially by his place of abode. He\nwas very fond of travelling, and ill-health increased this\nrestlessness. The sufferings occasioned by a cold English winter made\nhim pine, especially when our colder spring arrived, for a more genial\nclimate. In 1816 he again visited Switzerland, and rented a house on\nthe banks of the Lake of Geneva; and many a day, in cloud or sunshine,\nwas passed alone in his boat—sailing as the wind listed, or weltering\non the calm waters. The majestic aspect of Nature ministered such\nthoughts as he afterwards enwove in verse. His lines on the Bridge of\nthe Arve, and his “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”, were written at this\ntime. Perhaps during this summer his genius was checked by association\nwith another poet whose nature was utterly dissimilar to his own, yet\nwho, in the poem he wrote at that time, gave tokens that he shared for\na period the more abstract and etherealised inspiration of Shelley.\nThe saddest events awaited his return to England; but such was his\nfear to wound the feelings of others that he never expressed the\nanguish he felt, and seldom gave vent to the indignation roused by the\npersecutions he underwent; while the course of deep unexpressed\npassion, and the sense of injury, engendered the desire to embody\nthemselves in forms defecated of all the weakness and evil which cling\nto real life.\n\nHe chose therefore for his hero a youth nourished in dreams of\nliberty, some of whose actions are in direct opposition to the\nopinions of the world; but who is animated throughout by an ardent\nlove of virtue, and a resolution to confer the boons of political and\nintellectual freedom on his fellow-creatures. He created for this\nyouth a woman such as he delighted to imagine—full of enthusiasm for\nthe same objects; and they both, with will unvanquished, and the\ndeepest sense of the justice of their cause, met adversity and death.\nThere exists in this poem a memorial of a friend of his youth. The\ncharacter of the old man who liberates Laon from his tower prison, and\ntends on him in sickness, is founded on that of Doctor Lind, who, when\nShelley was at Eton, had often stood by to befriend and support him,\nand whose name he never mentioned without love and veneration.\n\nDuring the year 1817 we were established at Marlow in Buckinghamshire.\nShelley’s choice of abode was fixed chiefly by this town being at no\ngreat distance from London, and its neighbourhood to the Thames. The\npoem was written in his boat, as it floated under the beech groves of\nBisham, or during wanderings in the neighbouring country, which is\ndistinguished for peculiar beauty. The chalk hills break into cliffs\nthat overhang the Thames, or form valleys clothed with beech; the\nwilder portion of the country is rendered beautiful by exuberant\nvegetation; and the cultivated part is peculiarly fertile. With all\nthis wealth of Nature which, either in the form of gentlemen’s parks\nor soil dedicated to agriculture, flourishes around, Marlow was\ninhabited (I hope it is altered now) by a very poor population. The\nwomen are lacemakers, and lose their health by sedentary labour, for\nwhich they were very ill paid. The Poor-laws ground to the dust not\nonly the paupers, but those who had risen just above that state, and\nwere obliged to pay poor-rates. The changes produced by peace\nfollowing a long war, and a bad harvest, brought with them the most\nheart-rending evils to the poor. Shelley afforded what alleviation he\ncould. In the winter, while bringing out his poem, he had a severe\nattack of ophthalmia, caught while visiting the poor cottages. I\nmention these things,—for this minute and active sympathy with his\nfellow-creatures gives a thousandfold interest to his speculations,\nand stamps with reality his pleadings for the human race.\n\nThe poem, bold in its opinions and uncompromising in their expression,\nmet with many censurers, not only among those who allow of no virtue\nbut such as supports the cause they espouse, but even among those\nwhose opinions were similar to his own. I extract a portion of a\nletter written in answer to one of these friends. It best details the\nimpulses of Shelley’s mind, and his motives: it was written with\nentire unreserve; and is therefore a precious monument of his own\nopinion of his powers, of the purity of his designs, and the ardour\nwith which he clung, in adversity and through the valley of the shadow\nof death, to views from which he believed the permanent happiness of\nmankind must eventually spring.\n\n‘Marlowe, December 11, 1817.\n\n‘I have read and considered all that you say about my general powers,\nand the particular instance of the poem in which I have attempted to\ndevelop them. Nothing can be more satisfactory to me than the interest\nwhich your admonitions express. But I think you are mistaken in some\npoints with regard to the peculiar nature of my powers, whatever be\ntheir amount. I listened with deference and self-suspicion to your\ncensures of “The Revolt of Islam”; but the productions of mine which\nyou commend hold a very low place in my own esteem; and this reassures\nme, in some degree at least. The poem was produced by a series of\nthoughts which filled my mind with unbounded and sustained enthusiasm.\nI felt the precariousness of my life, and I engaged in this task,\nresolved to leave some record of myself. Much of what the volume\ncontains was written with the same feeling—as real, though not so\nprophetic—as the communications of a dying man. I never presumed\nindeed to consider it anything approaching to faultless; but, when I\nconsider contemporary productions of the same apparent pretensions, I\nown I was filled with confidence. I felt that it was in many respects\na genuine picture of my own mind. I felt that the sentiments were\ntrue, not assumed. And in this have I long believed that my power\nconsists; in sympathy, and that part of the imagination which relates\nto sentiment and contemplation. I am formed, if for anything not in\ncommon with the herd of mankind, to apprehend minute and remote\ndistinctions of feeling, whether relative to external nature or the\nliving beings which surround us, and to communicate the conceptions\nwhich result from considering either the moral or the material\nuniverse as a whole. Of course, I believe these faculties, which\nperhaps comprehend all that is sublime in man, to exist very\nimperfectly in my own mind. But, when you advert to my Chancery-paper,\na cold, forced, unimpassioned, insignificant piece of cramped and\ncautious argument, and to the little scrap about “Mandeville”, which\nexpressed my feelings indeed, but cost scarcely two minutes’ thought\nto express, as specimens of my powers more favourable than that which\ngrew as it were from “the agony and bloody sweat” of intellectual\ntravail; surely I must feel that, in some manner, either I am mistaken\nin believing that I have any talent at all, or you in the selection of\nthe specimens of it. Yet, after all, I cannot but be conscious, in\nmuch of what I write, of an absence of that tranquillity which is the\nattribute and accompaniment of power. This feeling alone would make\nyour most kind and wise admonitions, on the subject of the economy of\nintellectual force, valuable to me. And, if I live, or if I see any\ntrust in coming years, doubt not but that I shall do something,\nwhatever it may be, which a serious and earnest estimate of my powers\nwill suggest to me, and which will be in every respect accommodated to\ntheir utmost limits.\n\n[Shelley to Godwin.]\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Fragment.", + "body": "(The idea Shelley had formed of Prince Athanase was a good deal\nmodelled on “Alastor”. In the first sketch of the poem, he named it\n“Pandemos and Urania”. Athanase seeks through the world the One whom\nhe may love. He meets, in the ship in which he is embarked, a lady who\nappears to him to embody his ideal of love and beauty. But she proves\nto be Pandemos, or the earthly and unworthy Venus; who, after\ndisappointing his cherished dreams and hopes, deserts him. Athanase,\ncrushed by sorrow, pines and dies. ‘On his deathbed, the lady who can\nreally reply to his soul comes and kisses his lips’ (“The Deathbed of\nAthanase”). The poet describes her [in the words of the final\nfragment, page 164]. This slender note is all we have to aid our\nimagination in shaping out the form of the poem, such as its author\nimagined. [Mrs. Shelley’s Note.])\n\n[Written at Marlow in 1817, towards the close of the year; first\npublished in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Part 1 is dated by Mrs.\nShelley, ‘December, 1817,’ the remainder, ‘Marlow, 1817.’ The verses\nwere probably rehandled in Italy during the following year. Sources of\nthe text are (1) “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; (2) “Poetical Works” 1839,\neditions 1st and 2nd; (3) a much-tortured draft amongst the Bodleian\nmanuscripts, collated by Mr. C.D. Locock. For (1) and (2) Mrs. Shelley\nis responsible. Our text (enlarged by about thirty lines from the\nBodleian manuscript) follows for the most part the “Poetical Works”,\n1839; verbal exceptions are pointed out in the footnotes. See also the\nEditor’s Notes at the end of this volume, and Mr. Locock’s\n“Examination of Shelley Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library”, Oxford:\nClarendon Press, 1903.]\n\nPART 1.\n\nThere was a youth, who, as with toil and travel,\nHad grown quite weak and gray before his time;\nNor any could the restless griefs unravel\n\nWhich burned within him, withering up his prime\nAnd goading him, like fiends, from land to land. _5\nNot his the load of any secret crime,\n\nFor nought of ill his heart could understand,\nBut pity and wild sorrow for the same;—\nNot his the thirst for glory or command,\n\nBaffled with blast of hope-consuming shame; _10\nNor evil joys which fire the vulgar breast,\nAnd quench in speedy smoke its feeble flame,\n\nHad left within his soul their dark unrest:\nNor what religion fables of the grave\nFeared he,—Philosophy’s accepted guest. _15\n\nFor none than he a purer heart could have,\nOr that loved good more for itself alone;\nOf nought in heaven or earth was he the slave.\n\nWhat sorrow, strange, and shadowy, and unknown,\nSent him, a hopeless wanderer, through mankind?— _20\nIf with a human sadness he did groan,\n\nHe had a gentle yet aspiring mind;\nJust, innocent, with varied learning fed;\nAnd such a glorious consolation find\n\nIn others’ joy, when all their own is dead: _25\nHe loved, and laboured for his kind in grief,\nAnd yet, unlike all others, it is said\n\nThat from such toil he never found relief.\nAlthough a child of fortune and of power,\nOf an ancestral name the orphan chief, _30\n\nHis soul had wedded Wisdom, and her dower\nIs love and justice, clothed in which he sate\nApart from men, as in a lonely tower,\n\nPitying the tumult of their dark estate.—\nYet even in youth did he not e’er abuse _35\nThe strength of wealth or thought, to consecrate\n\nThose false opinions which the harsh rich use\nTo blind the world they famish for their pride;\nNor did he hold from any man his dues,\n\nBut, like a steward in honest dealings tried, _40\nWith those who toiled and wept, the poor and wise,\nHis riches and his cares he did divide.\n\nFearless he was, and scorning all disguise,\nWhat he dared do or think, though men might start,\nHe spoke with mild yet unaverted eyes; _45\n\nLiberal he was of soul, and frank of heart,\nAnd to his many friends—all loved him well—\nWhate’er he knew or felt he would impart,\n\nIf words he found those inmost thoughts to tell;\nIf not, he smiled or wept; and his weak foes _50\nHe neither spurned nor hated—though with fell\n\nAnd mortal hate their thousand voices rose,\nThey passed like aimless arrows from his ear—\nNor did his heart or mind its portal close\n\nTo those, or them, or any, whom life’s sphere _55\nMay comprehend within its wide array.\nWhat sadness made that vernal spirit sere?—\n\nHe knew not. Though his life, day after day,\nWas failing like an unreplenished stream,\nThough in his eyes a cloud and burthen lay, _60\n\nThrough which his soul, like Vesper’s serene beam\nPiercing the chasms of ever rising clouds,\nShone, softly burning; though his lips did seem\n\nLike reeds which quiver in impetuous floods;\nAnd through his sleep, and o’er each waking hour, _65\nThoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes,\n\nWere driven within him by some secret power,\nWhich bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar,\nLike lights and sounds, from haunted tower to tower\n\nO’er castled mountains borne, when tempest’s war _70\nIs levied by the night-contending winds,\nAnd the pale dalesmen watch with eager ear;—\n\nThough such were in his spirit, as the fiends\nWhich wake and feed an everliving woe,—\nWhat was this grief, which ne’er in other minds _75\n\nA mirror found,—he knew not—none could know;\nBut on whoe’er might question him he turned\nThe light of his frank eyes, as if to show\n\nHe knew not of the grief within that burned,\nBut asked forbearance with a mournful look; _80\nOr spoke in words from which none ever learned\n\nThe cause of his disquietude; or shook\nWith spasms of silent passion; or turned pale:\nSo that his friends soon rarely undertook\n\nTo stir his secret pain without avail;— _85\nFor all who knew and loved him then perceived\nThat there was drawn an adamantine veil\n\nBetween his heart and mind,—both unrelieved\nWrought in his brain and bosom separate strife.\nSome said that he was mad, others believed _90\n\nThat memories of an antenatal life\nMade this, where now he dwelt, a penal hell;\nAnd others said that such mysterious grief\n\nFrom God’s displeasure, like a darkness, fell\nOn souls like his, which owned no higher law _95\nThan love; love calm, steadfast, invincible\n\nBy mortal fear or supernatural awe;\nAnd others,—‘’Tis the shadow of a dream\nWhich the veiled eye of Memory never saw,\n\n‘But through the soul’s abyss, like some dark stream _100\nThrough shattered mines and caverns underground,\nRolls, shaking its foundations; and no beam\n\n‘Of joy may rise, but it is quenched and drowned\nIn the dim whirlpools of this dream obscure;\nSoon its exhausted waters will have found _105\n\n‘A lair of rest beneath thy spirit pure,\nO Athanase!—in one so good and great,\nEvil or tumult cannot long endure.\n\nSo spake they: idly of another’s state\nBabbling vain words and fond philosophy; _110\nThis was their consolation; such debate\n\nMen held with one another; nor did he,\nLike one who labours with a human woe,\nDecline this talk: as if its theme might be\n\nAnother, not himself, he to and fro _115\nQuestioned and canvassed it with subtlest wit;\nAnd none but those who loved him best could know\n\nThat which he knew not, how it galled and bit\nHis weary mind, this converse vain and cold;\nFor like an eyeless nightmare grief did sit _120\n\nUpon his being; a snake which fold by fold\nPressed out the life of life, a clinging fiend\nWhich clenched him if he stirred with deadlier hold;—\nAnd so his grief remained—let it remain—untold. [1]\n\n\nPART 2.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment 1.", + "body": "Prince Athanase had one beloved friend, _125\nAn old, old man, with hair of silver white,\nAnd lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend\n\nWith his wise words; and eyes whose arrowy light\nShone like the reflex of a thousand minds.\nHe was the last whom superstition’s blight _130\n\nHad spared in Greece—the blight that cramps and blinds,—\nAnd in his olive bower at Oenoe\nHad sate from earliest youth. Like one who finds\n\nA fertile island in the barren sea,\nOne mariner who has survived his mates _135\nMany a drear month in a great ship—so he\n\nWith soul-sustaining songs, and sweet debates\nOf ancient lore, there fed his lonely being:—\n‘The mind becomes that which it contemplates,’—\n\nAnd thus Zonoras, by for ever seeing _140\nTheir bright creations, grew like wisest men;\nAnd when he heard the crash of nations fleeing\n\nA bloodier power than ruled thy ruins then,\nO sacred Hellas! many weary years\nHe wandered, till the path of Laian’s glen _145\n\nWas grass-grown—and the unremembered tears\nWere dry in Laian for their honoured chief,\nWho fell in Byzant, pierced by Moslem spears:—\n\nAnd as the lady looked with faithful grief\nFrom her high lattice o’er the rugged path, _150\nWhere she once saw that horseman toil, with brief\n\nAnd blighting hope, who with the news of death\nStruck body and soul as with a mortal blight,\nShe saw between the chestnuts, far beneath,\n\nAn old man toiling up, a weary wight; _155\nAnd soon within her hospitable hall\nShe saw his white hairs glittering in the light\n\nOf the wood fire, and round his shoulders fall;\nAnd his wan visage and his withered mien,\nYet calm and gentle and majestical. _160\n\nAnd Athanase, her child, who must have been\nThen three years old, sate opposite and gazed\nIn patient silence.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment 2.", + "body": "Such was Zonoras; and as daylight finds\nOne amaranth glittering on the path of frost, _165\nWhen autumn nights have nipped all weaker kinds,\n\nThus through his age, dark, cold, and tempest-tossed,\nShone truth upon Zonoras; and he filled\nFrom fountains pure, nigh overgrown and lost,\n\nThe spirit of Prince Athanase, a child, _170\nWith soul-sustaining songs of ancient lore\nAnd philosophic wisdom, clear and mild.\n\nAnd sweet and subtle talk they evermore,\nThe pupil and the master, shared; until,\nSharing that undiminishable store, _175\n\nThe youth, as shadows on a grassy hill\nOutrun the winds that chase them, soon outran\nHis teacher, and did teach with native skill\n\nStrange truths and new to that experienced man;\nStill they were friends, as few have ever been _180\nWho mark the extremes of life’s discordant span.\n\nSo in the caverns of the forest green,\nOr on the rocks of echoing ocean hoar,\nZonoras and Prince Athanase were seen\n\nBy summer woodmen; and when winter’s roar _185\nSounded o’er earth and sea its blast of war,\nThe Balearic fisher, driven from shore,\n\nHanging upon the peaked wave afar,\nThen saw their lamp from Laian’s turret gleam,\nPiercing the stormy darkness, like a star _190\n\nWhich pours beyond the sea one steadfast beam,\nWhilst all the constellations of the sky\nSeemed reeling through the storm...They did but seem—\n\nFor, lo! the wintry clouds are all gone by,\nAnd bright Arcturus through yon pines is glowing, _195\nAnd far o’er southern waves, immovably\n\nBelted Orion hangs—warm light is flowing\nFrom the young moon into the sunset’s chasm.—\n‘O, summer eve! with power divine, bestowing\n\n‘On thine own bird the sweet enthusiasm _200\nWhich overflows in notes of liquid gladness,\nFilling the sky like light! How many a spasm\n\n‘Of fevered brains, oppressed with grief and madness,\nWere lulled by thee, delightful nightingale,—\nAnd these soft waves, murmuring a gentle sadness,— _205\n\n‘And the far sighings of yon piny dale\nMade vocal by some wind we feel not here.—\nI bear alone what nothing may avail\n\n‘To lighten—a strange load!’—No human ear\nHeard this lament; but o’er the visage wan _210\nOf Athanase, a ruffling atmosphere\n\nOf dark emotion, a swift shadow, ran,\nLike wind upon some forest-bosomed lake,\nGlassy and dark.—And that divine old man\n\nBeheld his mystic friend’s whole being shake, _215\nEven where its inmost depths were gloomiest—\nAnd with a calm and measured voice he spake,\n\nAnd, with a soft and equal pressure, pressed\nThat cold lean hand:—‘Dost thou remember yet\nWhen the curved moon then lingering in the west _220\n\n‘Paused, in yon waves her mighty horns to wet,\nHow in those beams we walked, half resting on the sea?\n’Tis just one year—sure thou dost not forget—\n\n‘Then Plato’s words of light in thee and me\nLingered like moonlight in the moonless east, _225\nFor we had just then read—thy memory\n\n‘Is faithful now—the story of the feast;\nAnd Agathon and Diotima seemed\nFrom death and dark forgetfulness released...’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment 3.", + "body": "And when the old man saw that on the green\nLeaves of his opening ... a blight had lighted _230\nHe said: ‘My friend, one grief alone can wean\n\nA gentle mind from all that once delighted:—\nThou lovest, and thy secret heart is laden\nWith feelings which should not be unrequited.’ _235\n\nAnd Athanase ... then smiled, as one o’erladen\nWith iron chains might smile to talk (?) of bands\nTwined round her lover’s neck by some blithe maiden,\nAnd said...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment 4.", + "body": "’Twas at the season when the Earth upsprings _240\nFrom slumber, as a sphered angel’s child,\nShadowing its eyes with green and golden wings,\n\nStands up before its mother bright and mild,\nOf whose soft voice the air expectant seems—\nSo stood before the sun, which shone and smiled _245\n\nTo see it rise thus joyous from its dreams,\nThe fresh and radiant Earth. The hoary grove\nWaxed green—and flowers burst forth like starry beams;—\n\nThe grass in the warm sun did start and move,\nAnd sea-buds burst under the waves serene:— _250\nHow many a one, though none be near to love,\n\nLoves then the shade of his own soul, half seen\nIn any mirror—or the spring’s young minions,\nThe winged leaves amid the copses green;—\n\nHow many a spirit then puts on the pinions _255\nOf fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast,\nAnd his own steps—and over wide dominions\n\nSweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast,\nMore fleet than storms—the wide world shrinks below,\nWhen winter and despondency are past. _260", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment 5.", + "body": "’Twas at this season that Prince Athanase\nPassed the white Alps—those eagle-baffling mountains\nSlept in their shrouds of snow;—beside the ways\n\nThe waterfalls were voiceless—for their fountains\nWere changed to mines of sunless crystal now, _265\nOr by the curdling winds—like brazen wings\n\nWhich clanged along the mountain’s marble brow—\nWarped into adamantine fretwork, hung\nAnd filled with frozen light the chasms below.\n\nVexed by the blast, the great pines groaned and swung _270\nUnder their load of [snow]—\n...\n...\nSuch as the eagle sees, when he dives down\nFrom the gray deserts of wide air, [beheld] _275\n[Prince] Athanase; and o’er his mien (?) was thrown\n\nThe shadow of that scene, field after field,\nPurple and dim and wide...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment 6.", + "body": "Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all\nWe can desire, O Love! and happy souls, _280\nEre from thy vine the leaves of autumn fall,\n\nCatch thee, and feed from their o’erflowing bowls\nThousands who thirst for thine ambrosial dew;—\nThou art the radiance which where ocean rolls\n\nInvesteth it; and when the heavens are blue _285\nThou fillest them; and when the earth is fair\nThe shadow of thy moving wings imbue\n\nIts deserts and its mountains, till they wear\nBeauty like some light robe;—thou ever soarest\nAmong the towers of men, and as soft air _290\n\nIn spring, which moves the unawakened forest,\nClothing with leaves its branches bare and bleak,\nThou floatest among men; and aye implorest\n\nThat which from thee they should implore:—the weak\nAlone kneel to thee, offering up the hearts _295\nThe strong have broken—yet where shall any seek\n\nA garment whom thou clothest not? the darts\nOf the keen winter storm, barbed with frost,\nWhich, from the everlasting snow that parts\n\nThe Alps from Heaven, pierce some traveller lost _300\nIn the wide waved interminable snow\nUngarmented,...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Another Fragment (A)", + "body": "Yes, often when the eyes are cold and dry,\nAnd the lips calm, the Spirit weeps within\nTears bitterer than the blood of agony _305\n\nTrembling in drops on the discoloured skin\nOf those who love their kind and therefore perish\nIn ghastly torture—a sweet medicine\n\nOf peace and sleep are tears, and quietly\nThem soothe from whose uplifted eyes they fall _310\nBut...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Another Fragment (B)", + "body": "Her hair was brown, her sphered eyes were brown,\nAnd in their dark and liquid moisture swam,\nLike the dim orb of the eclipsed moon;\n\nYet when the spirit flashed beneath, there came _315\nThe light from them, as when tears of delight\nDouble the western planet’s serene flame.\n\n\n_19 strange edition 1839; deep edition 1824.\n_74 feed an Bodleian manuscript; feed on editions 1824, 1839.\n\n_124 [1. The Author was pursuing a fuller development of the ideal\ncharacter of Athanase, when it struck him that in an attempt at\nextreme refinement and analysis, his conceptions might be betrayed\ninto the assuming a morbid character. The reader will judge whether he\nis a loser or gainer by this diffidence. [Shelley’s Note.]\nFootnote diffidence cj. Rossetti (1878); difference editions 1824,\n1839.]\n\n_154 beneath editions 1824, 1839; between Bodleian manuscript.\n_165 One Bodleian manuscript edition 1839; An edition 1824.\n_167 Thus thro’ Bodleian manuscript (?) edition 1839; Thus had edition 1824.\n_173 talk they edition 1824, Bodleian manuscript; talk now edition 1839.\n_175 that edition 1839; the edition 1824.\n_182 So edition 1839; And edition 1824.\n_183 Or on Bodleian manuscript; Or by editions 1824, 1839.\n_199 eve Bodleian manuscript edition 1839; night edition 1824.\n_212 emotion, a swift editions 1824, 1839;\n emotion with swift Bodleian manuscript.\n_250 under edition 1824, Bodleian manuscript; beneath edition 1839.\n_256 outstrips editions 1824, 1839; outrides Bodleian manuscript.\n_259 Exulting, while the wide Bodleian manuscript.\n_262 mountains editions 1824, 1839; crags Bodleian manuscript.\n_264 fountains editions 1824, 1839; springs Bodleian manuscript.\n_269 chasms Bodleian manuscript; chasm editions 1824, 1839.\n_283 thine Bodleian manuscript; thy editions 1824, 1839.\n_285 Investeth Bodleian manuscript; Investest editions 1824, 1839.\n_289 light Bodleian manuscript; bright editions 1824, 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Modern Eclogue.", + "body": "[Begun at Marlow, 1817 (summer); already in the press, March, 1818;\nfinished at the Baths of Lucca, August, 1818; published with other\npoems, as the title-piece of a slender volume, by C. & J. Ollier,\nLondon, 1819 (spring). See “Biographical List”. Sources of the text\nare (1) editio princeps, 1819; (2) “Poetical Works”, edition Mrs.\nShelley, 1839, editions 1st and 2nd. A fragment of the text is amongst\nthe Boscombe manuscripts. The poem is reprinted here from the editio\nprinceps; verbal alterations are recorded in the footnotes, punctual\nin the Editor’s Notes at the end of Volume 3.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Advertisement.", + "body": "The story of “Rosalind and Helen” is, undoubtedly, not an attempt in\nthe highest style of poetry. It is in no degree calculated to excite\nprofound meditation; and if, by interesting the affections and amusing\nthe imagination, it awakens a certain ideal melancholy favourable to\nthe reception of more important impressions, it will produce in the\nreader all that the writer experienced in the composition. I resigned\nmyself, as I wrote, to the impulses of the feelings which moulded the\nconception of the story; and this impulse determined the pauses of a\nmeasure, which only pretends to be regular inasmuch as it corresponds\nwith, and expresses, the irregularity of the imaginations which\ninspired it.\n\nI do not know which of the few scattered poems I left in England will\nbe selected by my bookseller to add to this collection. One (“Lines\nwritten among the Euganean Hills”.—Editor.), which I sent from Italy,\nwas written after a day’s excursion among those lovely mountains which\nsurround what was once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, of\nPetrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the insertion of the\nintroductory lines, which image forth the sudden relief of a state of\ndeep despondency by the radiant visions disclosed by the sudden burst\nof an Italian sunrise in autumn on the highest peak of those\ndelightful mountains, I can only offer as my excuse, that they were\nnot erased at the request of a dear friend, with whom added years of\nintercourse only add to my apprehension of its value, and who would\nhave had more right than any one to complain, that she has not been\nable to extinguish in me the very power of delineating sadness.\n\nNaples, December 20, 1818.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Helen:", + "body": "Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.\n’Tis long since thou and I have met;\nAnd yet methinks it were unkind\nThose moments to forget.\nCome, sit by me. I see thee stand _5\nBy this lone lake, in this far land,\nThy loose hair in the light wind flying,\nThy sweet voice to each tone of even\nUnited, and thine eyes replying\nTo the hues of yon fair heaven. _10\nCome, gentle friend: wilt sit by me?\nAnd be as thou wert wont to be\nEre we were disunited?\nNone doth behold us now; the power\nThat led us forth at this lone hour _15\nWill be but ill requited\nIf thou depart in scorn: oh! come,\nAnd talk of our abandoned home.\nRemember, this is Italy,\nAnd we are exiles. Talk with me _20\nOf that our land, whose wilds and floods,\nBarren and dark although they be,\nWere dearer than these chestnut woods:\nThose heathy paths, that inland stream,\nAnd the blue mountains, shapes which seem _25\nLike wrecks of childhood’s sunny dream:\nWhich that we have abandoned now,\nWeighs on the heart like that remorse\nWhich altered friendship leaves. I seek\nNo more our youthful intercourse. _30\nThat cannot be! Rosalind, speak.\nSpeak to me. Leave me not.—When morn did come,\nWhen evening fell upon our common home,\nWhen for one hour we parted,—do not frown:\nI would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken: _35\nBut turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token,\nOf woven hair, which thou wilt not disown,\nTurn, as ’twere but the memory of me,\nAnd not my scorned self who prayed to thee.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Rosalind:", + "body": "Is it a dream, or do I see _40\nAnd hear frail Helen? I would flee\nThy tainting touch; but former years\nArise, and bring forbidden tears;\nAnd my o’erburthened memory\nSeeks yet its lost repose in thee. _45\nI share thy crime. I cannot choose\nBut weep for thee: mine own strange grief\nBut seldom stoops to such relief:\nNor ever did I love thee less,\nThough mourning o’er thy wickedness _50\nEven with a sister’s woe. I knew\nWhat to the evil world is due,\nAnd therefore sternly did refuse\nTo link me with the infamy\nOf one so lost as Helen. Now _55\nBewildered by my dire despair,\nWondering I blush, and weep that thou\nShould’st love me still,—thou only!—There,\nLet us sit on that gray stone\nTill our mournful talk be done. _60", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Helen:", + "body": "Alas! not there; I cannot bear\nThe murmur of this lake to hear.\nA sound from there, Rosalind dear,\nWhich never yet I heard elsewhere\nBut in our native land, recurs, _65\nEven here where now we meet. It stirs\nToo much of suffocating sorrow!\nIn the dell of yon dark chestnutwood\nIs a stone seat, a solitude\nLess like our own. The ghost of Peace _70\nWill not desert this spot. To-morrow,\nIf thy kind feelings should not cease,\nWe may sit here.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Helen:", + "body": "It is a gentle child, my friend. Go home,\nHenry, and play with Lilla till I come.\nWe only cried with joy to see each other;\nWe are quite merry now: Good-night.\n\nThe boy _85\nLifted a sudden look upon his mother,\nAnd in the gleam of forced and hollow joy\nWhich lightened o’er her face, laughed with the glee\nOf light and unsuspecting infancy,\nAnd whispered in her ear, ‘Bring home with you _90\nThat sweet strange lady-friend.’ Then off he flew,\nBut stopped, and beckoned with a meaning smile,\nWhere the road turned. Pale Rosalind the while,\nHiding her face, stood weeping silently.\n\nIn silence then they took the way _95\nBeneath the forest’s solitude.\nIt was a vast and antique wood,\nThro’ which they took their way;\nAnd the gray shades of evening\nO’er that green wilderness did fling _100\nStill deeper solitude.\nPursuing still the path that wound\nThe vast and knotted trees around\nThrough which slow shades were wandering,\nTo a deep lawny dell they came, _105\nTo a stone seat beside a spring,\nO’er which the columned wood did frame\nA roofless temple, like the fane\nWhere, ere new creeds could faith obtain,\nMan’s early race once knelt beneath _110\nThe overhanging deity.\nO’er this fair fountain hung the sky,\nNow spangled with rare stars. The snake,\nThe pale snake, that with eager breath\nCreeps here his noontide thirst to slake, _115\nIs beaming with many a mingled hue,\nShed from yon dome’s eternal blue,\nWhen he floats on that dark and lucid flood\nIn the light of his own loveliness;\nAnd the birds that in the fountain dip _120\nTheir plumes, with fearless fellowship\nAbove and round him wheel and hover.\nThe fitful wind is heard to stir\nOne solitary leaf on high;\nThe chirping of the grasshopper _125\nFills every pause. There is emotion\nIn all that dwells at noontide here;\nThen, through the intricate wild wood,\nA maze of life and light and motion\nIs woven. But there is stillness now: _130\nGloom, and the trance of Nature now:\nThe snake is in his cave asleep;\nThe birds are on the branches dreaming:\nOnly the shadows creep:\nOnly the glow-worm is gleaming: _135\nOnly the owls and the nightingales\nWake in this dell when daylight fails,\nAnd gray shades gather in the woods:\nAnd the owls have all fled far away\nIn a merrier glen to hoot and play, _140\nFor the moon is veiled and sleeping now.\nThe accustomed nightingale still broods\nOn her accustomed bough,\nBut she is mute; for her false mate\nHas fled and left her desolate. _145\n\nThis silent spot tradition old\nHad peopled with the spectral dead.\nFor the roots of the speaker’s hair felt cold\nAnd stiff, as with tremulous lips he told\nThat a hellish shape at midnight led _150\nThe ghost of a youth with hoary hair,\nAnd sate on the seat beside him there,\nTill a naked child came wandering by,\nWhen the fiend would change to a lady fair!\nA fearful tale! The truth was worse: _155\nFor here a sister and a brother\nHad solemnized a monstrous curse,\nMeeting in this fair solitude:\nFor beneath yon very sky,\nHad they resigned to one another _160\nBody and soul. The multitude:\nTracking them to the secret wood,\nTore limb from limb their innocent child,\nAnd stabbed and trampled on its mother;\nBut the youth, for God’s most holy grace, _165\nA priest saved to burn in the market-place.\n\nDuly at evening Helen came\nTo this lone silent spot,\nFrom the wrecks of a tale of wilder sorrow\nSo much of sympathy to borrow _170\nAs soothed her own dark lot.\nDuly each evening from her home,\nWith her fair child would Helen come\nTo sit upon that antique seat,\nWhile the hues of day were pale; _175\nAnd the bright boy beside her feet\nNow lay, lifting at intervals\nHis broad blue eyes on her;\nNow, where some sudden impulse calls\nFollowing. He was a gentle boy _180\nAnd in all gentle sorts took joy;\nOft in a dry leaf for a boat,\nWith a small feather for a sail,\nHis fancy on that spring would float,\nIf some invisible breeze might stir _185\nIts marble calm: and Helen smiled\nThrough tears of awe on the gay child,\nTo think that a boy as fair as he,\nIn years which never more may be,\nBy that same fount, in that same wood, _190\nThe like sweet fancies had pursued;\nAnd that a mother, lost like her,\nHad mournfully sate watching him.\nThen all the scene was wont to swim\nThrough the mist of a burning tear. _195\n\nFor many months had Helen known\nThis scene; and now she thither turned\nHer footsteps, not alone.\nThe friend whose falsehood she had mourned,\nSate with her on that seat of stone. _200\nSilent they sate; for evening,\nAnd the power its glimpses bring\nHad, with one awful shadow, quelled\nThe passion of their grief. They sate\nWith linked hands, for unrepelled _205\nHad Helen taken Rosalind’s.\nLike the autumn wind, when it unbinds\nThe tangled locks of the nightshade’s hair,\nWhich is twined in the sultry summer air\nRound the walls of an outworn sepulchre, _210\nDid the voice of Helen, sad and sweet,\nAnd the sound of her heart that ever beat,\nAs with sighs and words she breathed on her,\nUnbind the knots of her friend’s despair,\nTill her thoughts were free to float and flow; _215\nAnd from her labouring bosom now,\nLike the bursting of a prisoned flame,\nThe voice of a long pent sorrow came.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Rosalind:", + "body": "I saw the dark earth fall upon\nThe coffin; and I saw the stone _220\nLaid over him whom this cold breast\nHad pillowed to his nightly rest!\nThou knowest not, thou canst not know\nMy agony. Oh! I could not weep:\nThe sources whence such blessings flow _225\nWere not to be approached by me!\nBut I could smile, and I could sleep,\nThough with a self-accusing heart.\nIn morning’s light, in evening’s gloom,\nI watched,—and would not thence depart— _230\nMy husband’s unlamented tomb.\nMy children knew their sire was gone,\nBut when I told them,—‘He is dead,’—\nThey laughed aloud in frantic glee,\nThey clapped their hands and leaped about, _235\nAnswering each other’s ecstasy\nWith many a prank and merry shout.\nBut I sate silent and alone,\nWrapped in the mock of mourning weed.\n\nThey laughed, for he was dead: but I _240\nSate with a hard and tearless eye,\nAnd with a heart which would deny\nThe secret joy it could not quell,\nLow muttering o’er his loathed name;\nTill from that self-contention came _245\nRemorse where sin was none; a hell\nWhich in pure spirits should not dwell.\n\nI’ll tell thee truth. He was a man\nHard, selfish, loving only gold,\nYet full of guile; his pale eyes ran _250\nWith tears, which each some falsehood told,\nAnd oft his smooth and bridled tongue\nWould give the lie to his flushing cheek;\nHe was a coward to the strong:\nHe was a tyrant to the weak, _255\nOn whom his vengeance he would wreak:\nFor scorn, whose arrows search the heart,\nFrom many a stranger’s eye would dart,\nAnd on his memory cling, and follow\nHis soul to its home so cold and hollow. _260\nHe was a tyrant to the weak,\nAnd we were such, alas the day!\nOft, when my little ones at play,\nWere in youth’s natural lightness gay,\nOr if they listened to some tale _265\nOf travellers, or of fairy land,—\nWhen the light from the wood-fire’s dying brand\nFlashed on their faces,—if they heard\nOr thought they heard upon the stair\nHis footstep, the suspended word _270\nDied on my lips: we all grew pale:\nThe babe at my bosom was hushed with fear\nIf it thought it heard its father near;\nAnd my two wild boys would near my knee\nCling, cowed and cowering fearfully. _275\n\nI’ll tell thee truth: I loved another.\nHis name in my ear was ever ringing,\nHis form to my brain was ever clinging:\nYet if some stranger breathed that name,\nMy lips turned white, and my heart beat fast: _280\nMy nights were once haunted by dreams of flame,\nMy days were dim in the shadow cast\nBy the memory of the same!\nDay and night, day and night,\nHe was my breath and life and light, _285\nFor three short years, which soon were passed.\nOn the fourth, my gentle mother\nLed me to the shrine, to be\nHis sworn bride eternally.\nAnd now we stood on the altar stair, _290\nWhen my father came from a distant land,\nAnd with a loud and fearful cry\nRushed between us suddenly.\nI saw the stream of his thin gray hair,\nI saw his lean and lifted hand, _295\nAnd heard his words,—and live! Oh God!\nWherefore do I live?—‘Hold, hold!’\nHe cried, ‘I tell thee ’tis her brother!\nThy mother, boy, beneath the sod\nOf yon churchyard rests in her shroud so cold: _300\nI am now weak, and pale, and old:\nWe were once dear to one another,\nI and that corpse! Thou art our child!’\nThen with a laugh both long and wild\nThe youth upon the pavement fell: _305\nThey found him dead! All looked on me,\nThe spasms of my despair to see:\nBut I was calm. I went away:\nI was clammy-cold like clay!\nI did not weep: I did not speak: _310\nBut day by day, week after week,\nI walked about like a corpse alive!\nAlas! sweet friend, you must believe\nThis heart is stone: it did not break.\nMy father lived a little while, _315\nBut all might see that he was dying,\nHe smiled with such a woeful smile!\nWhen he was in the churchyard lying\nAmong the worms, we grew quite poor,\nSo that no one would give us bread: _320\nMy mother looked at me, and said\nFaint words of cheer, which only meant\nThat she could die and be content;\nSo I went forth from the same church door\nTo another husband’s bed. _325\nAnd this was he who died at last,\nWhen weeks and months and years had passed,\nThrough which I firmly did fulfil\nMy duties, a devoted wife,\nWith the stern step of vanquished will, _330\nWalking beneath the night of life,\nWhose hours extinguished, like slow rain\nFalling for ever, pain by pain,\nThe very hope of death’s dear rest;\nWhich, since the heart within my breast _335\nOf natural life was dispossessed,\nIts strange sustainer there had been.\n\nWhen flowers were dead, and grass was green\nUpon my mother’s grave,—that mother\nWhom to outlive, and cheer, and make _340\nMy wan eyes glitter for her sake,\nWas my vowed task, the single care\nWhich once gave life to my despair,—\nWhen she was a thing that did not stir\nAnd the crawling worms were cradling her _345\nTo a sleep more deep and so more sweet\nThan a baby’s rocked on its nurse’s knee,\nI lived: a living pulse then beat\nBeneath my heart that awakened me.\nWhat was this pulse so warm and free? _350\nAlas! I knew it could not be\nMy own dull blood: ’twas like a thought\nOf liquid love, that spread and wrought\nUnder my bosom and in my brain,\nAnd crept with the blood through every vein; _355\nAnd hour by hour, day after day,\nThe wonder could not charm away,\nBut laid in sleep, my wakeful pain,\nUntil I knew it was a child,\nAnd then I wept. For long, long years _360\nThese frozen eyes had shed no tears:\nBut now—’twas the season fair and mild\nWhen April has wept itself to May:\nI sate through the sweet sunny day\nBy my window bowered round with leaves, _365\nAnd down my cheeks the quick tears fell\nLike twinkling rain-drops from the eaves,\nWhen warm spring showers are passing o’er.\nO Helen, none can ever tell\nThe joy it was to weep once more! _370\n\nI wept to think how hard it were\nTo kill my babe, and take from it\nThe sense of light, and the warm air,\nAnd my own fond and tender care,\nAnd love and smiles; ere I knew yet _375\nThat these for it might, as for me,\nBe the masks of a grinning mockery.\nAnd haply, I would dream, ’twere sweet\nTo feed it from my faded breast,\nOr mark my own heart’s restless beat _380\nRock it to its untroubled rest,\nAnd watch the growing soul beneath\nDawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath,\nHalf interrupted by calm sighs,\nAnd search the depth of its fair eyes _385\nFor long departed memories!\nAnd so I lived till that sweet load\nWas lightened. Darkly forward flowed\nThe stream of years, and on it bore\nTwo shapes of gladness to my sight; _390\nTwo other babes, delightful more\nIn my lost soul’s abandoned night,\nThan their own country ships may be\nSailing towards wrecked mariners,\nWho cling to the rock of a wintry sea. _395\nFor each, as it came, brought soothing tears;\nAnd a loosening warmth, as each one lay\nSucking the sullen milk away\nAbout my frozen heart, did play,\nAnd weaned it, oh how painfully— _400\nAs they themselves were weaned each one\nFrom that sweet food,—even from the thirst\nOf death, and nothingness, and rest,\nStrange inmate of a living breast!\nWhich all that I had undergone _405\nOf grief and shame, since she, who first\nThe gates of that dark refuge closed,\nCame to my sight, and almost burst\nThe seal of that Lethean spring;\nBut these fair shadows interposed: _410\nFor all delights are shadows now!\nAnd from my brain to my dull brow\nThe heavy tears gather and flow:\nI cannot speak: Oh, let me weep!\n\nThe tears which fell from her wan eyes _415\nGlimmered among the moonlight dew:\nHer deep hard sobs and heavy sighs\nTheir echoes in the darkness threw.\nWhen she grew calm, she thus did keep\nThe tenor of her tale:\nHe died: _420\nI know not how: he was not old,\nIf age be numbered by its years:\nBut he was bowed and bent with fears,\nPale with the quenchless thirst of gold,\nWhich, like fierce fever, left him weak; _425\nAnd his strait lip and bloated cheek\nWere warped in spasms by hollow sneers;\nAnd selfish cares with barren plough,\nNot age, had lined his narrow brow,\nAnd foul and cruel thoughts, which feed _430\nUpon the withering life within,\nLike vipers on some poisonous weed.\nWhether his ill were death or sin\nNone knew, until he died indeed,\nAnd then men owned they were the same. _435\n\nSeven days within my chamber lay\nThat corse, and my babes made holiday:\nAt last, I told them what is death:\nThe eldest, with a kind of shame,\nCame to my knees with silent breath, _440\nAnd sate awe-stricken at my feet;\nAnd soon the others left their play,\nAnd sate there too. It is unmeet\nTo shed on the brief flower of youth\nThe withering knowledge of the grave; _445\nFrom me remorse then wrung that truth.\nI could not bear the joy which gave\nToo just a response to mine own.\nIn vain. I dared not feign a groan,\nAnd in their artless looks I saw, _450\nBetween the mists of fear and awe,\nThat my own thought was theirs, and they\nExpressed it not in words, but said,\nEach in its heart, how every day\nWill pass in happy work and play, _455\nNow he is dead and gone away.\n\nAfter the funeral all our kin\nAssembled, and the will was read.\nMy friend, I tell thee, even the dead\nHave strength, their putrid shrouds within, _460\nTo blast and torture. Those who live\nStill fear the living, but a corse\nIs merciless, and power doth give\nTo such pale tyrants half the spoil\nHe rends from those who groan and toil, _465\nBecause they blush not with remorse\nAmong their crawling worms. Behold,\nI have no child! my tale grows old\nWith grief, and staggers: let it reach\nThe limits of my feeble speech, _470\nAnd languidly at length recline\nOn the brink of its own grave and mine.\n\nThou knowest what a thing is Poverty\nAmong the fallen on evil days:\n’Tis Crime, and Fear, and Infamy, _475\nAnd houseless Want in frozen ways\nWandering ungarmented, and Pain,\nAnd, worse than all, that inward stain\nFoul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers\nYouth’s starlight smile, and makes its tears _480\nFirst like hot gall, then dry for ever!\nAnd well thou knowest a mother never\nCould doom her children to this ill,\nAnd well he knew the same. The will\nImported, that if e’er again _485\nI sought my children to behold,\nOr in my birthplace did remain\nBeyond three days, whose hours were told,\nThey should inherit nought: and he,\nTo whom next came their patrimony, _490\nA sallow lawyer, cruel and cold,\nAye watched me, as the will was read,\nWith eyes askance, which sought to see\nThe secrets of my agony;\nAnd with close lips and anxious brow _495\nStood canvassing still to and fro\nThe chance of my resolve, and all\nThe dead man’s caution just did call;\nFor in that killing lie ’twas said—\n‘She is adulterous, and doth hold _500\nIn secret that the Christian creed\nIs false, and therefore is much need\nThat I should have a care to save\nMy children from eternal fire.’\nFriend, he was sheltered by the grave, _505\nAnd therefore dared to be a liar!\nIn truth, the Indian on the pyre\nOf her dead husband, half consumed,\nAs well might there be false, as I\nTo those abhorred embraces doomed, _510\nFar worse than fire’s brief agony\nAs to the Christian creed, if true\nOr false, I never questioned it:\nI took it as the vulgar do:\nNor my vexed soul had leisure yet _515\nTo doubt the things men say, or deem\nThat they are other than they seem.\n\nAll present who those crimes did hear,\nIn feigned or actual scorn and fear,\nMen, women, children, slunk away, _520\nWhispering with self-contented pride,\nWhich half suspects its own base lie.\nI spoke to none, nor did abide,\nBut silently I went my way,\nNor noticed I where joyously _525\nSate my two younger babes at play,\nIn the court-yard through which I passed;\nBut went with footsteps firm and fast\nTill I came to the brink of the ocean green,\nAnd there, a woman with gray hairs, _530\nWho had my mother’s servant been,\nKneeling, with many tears and prayers,\nMade me accept a purse of gold,\nHalf of the earnings she had kept\nTo refuge her when weak and old. _535\n\nWith woe, which never sleeps or slept,\nI wander now. ’Tis a vain thought—\nBut on yon alp, whose snowy head\n‘Mid the azure air is islanded,\n(We see it o’er the flood of cloud, _540\nWhich sunrise from its eastern caves\nDrives, wrinkling into golden waves,\nHung with its precipices proud,\nFrom that gray stone where first we met)\nThere now—who knows the dead feel nought?— _545\nShould be my grave; for he who yet\nIs my soul’s soul, once said: ‘’Twere sweet\n‘Mid stars and lightnings to abide,\nAnd winds and lulling snows, that beat\nWith their soft flakes the mountain wide, _550\nWhere weary meteor lamps repose,\nAnd languid storms their pinions close:\nAnd all things strong and bright and pure,\nAnd ever during, aye endure:\nWho knows, if one were buried there, _555\nBut these things might our spirits make,\nAmid the all-surrounding air,\nTheir own eternity partake?’\nThen ’twas a wild and playful saying\nAt which I laughed, or seemed to laugh: _560\nThey were his words: now heed my praying,\nAnd let them be my epitaph.\nThy memory for a term may be\nMy monument. Wilt remember me?\nI know thou wilt, and canst forgive _565\nWhilst in this erring world to live\nMy soul disdained not, that I thought\nIts lying forms were worthy aught\nAnd much less thee.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Helen:", + "body": "O speak not so,\nBut come to me and pour thy woe _570\nInto this heart, full though it be,\nAy, overflowing with its own:\nI thought that grief had severed me\nFrom all beside who weep and groan;\nIts likeness upon earth to be, _575\nIts express image; but thou art\nMore wretched. Sweet! we will not part\nHenceforth, if death be not division;\nIf so, the dead feel no contrition.\nBut wilt thou hear since last we parted _580\nAll that has left me broken hearted?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Rosalind:", + "body": "Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shorn\nOf their thin beams by that delusive morn\nWhich sinks again in darkness, like the light\nOf early love, soon lost in total night. _585", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Helen:", + "body": "Alas! Italian winds are mild,\nBut my bosom is cold—wintry cold—\nWhen the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves,\nSoft music, my poor brain is wild,\nAnd I am weak like a nursling child, _590\nThough my soul with grief is gray and old.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Helen:", + "body": "I fear ‘twill shake\nThy gentle heart with tears. Thou well\nRememberest when we met no more, _595\nAnd, though I dwelt with Lionel,\nThat friendless caution pierced me sore\nWith grief; a wound my spirit bore\nIndignantly, but when he died,\nWith him lay dead both hope and pride. _600\nAlas! all hope is buried now.\nBut then men dreamed the aged earth\nWas labouring in that mighty birth,\nWhich many a poet and a sage\nHas aye foreseen—the happy age _605\nWhen truth and love shall dwell below\nAmong the works and ways of men;\nWhich on this world not power but will\nEven now is wanting to fulfil.\n\nAmong mankind what thence befell _610\nOf strife, how vain, is known too well;\nWhen Liberty’s dear paean fell\n‘Mid murderous howls. To Lionel,\nThough of great wealth and lineage high,\nYet through those dungeon walls there came _615\nThy thrilling light, O Liberty!\nAnd as the meteor’s midnight flame\nStartles the dreamer, sun-like truth\nFlashed on his visionary youth,\nAnd filled him, not with love, but faith, _620\nAnd hope, and courage mute in death;\nFor love and life in him were twins,\nBorn at one birth: in every other\nFirst life then love its course begins,\nThough they be children of one mother; _625\nAnd so through this dark world they fleet\nDivided, till in death they meet;\nBut he loved all things ever. Then\nHe passed amid the strife of men,\nAnd stood at the throne of armed power _630\nPleading for a world of woe:\nSecure as one on a rock-built tower\nO’er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro,\n‘Mid the passions wild of human kind\nHe stood, like a spirit calming them; _635\nFor, it was said, his words could bind\nLike music the lulled crowd, and stem\nThat torrent of unquiet dream\nWhich mortals truth and reason deem,\nBut is revenge and fear and pride. _640\nJoyous he was; and hope and peace\nOn all who heard him did abide,\nRaining like dew from his sweet talk,\nAs where the evening star may walk\nAlong the brink of the gloomy seas, _645\nLiquid mists of splendour quiver.\nHis very gestures touched to tears\nThe unpersuaded tyrant, never\nSo moved before: his presence stung\nThe torturers with their victim’s pain, _650\nAnd none knew how; and through their ears\nThe subtle witchcraft of his tongue\nUnlocked the hearts of those who keep\nGold, the world’s bond of slavery.\nMen wondered, and some sneered to see _655\nOne sow what he could never reap:\nFor he is rich, they said, and young,\nAnd might drink from the depths of luxury.\nIf he seeks Fame, Fame never crowned\nThe champion of a trampled creed: _660\nIf he seeks Power, Power is enthroned\n‘Mid ancient rights and wrongs, to feed\nWhich hungry wolves with praise and spoil,\nThose who would sit near Power must toil;\nAnd such, there sitting, all may see. _665\nWhat seeks he? All that others seek\nHe casts away, like a vile weed\nWhich the sea casts unreturningly.\nThat poor and hungry men should break\nThe laws which wreak them toil and scorn, _670\nWe understand; but Lionel\nWe know, is rich and nobly born.\nSo wondered they: yet all men loved\nYoung Lionel, though few approved;\nAll but the priests, whose hatred fell _675\nLike the unseen blight of a smiling day,\nThe withering honey dew, which clings\nUnder the bright green buds of May,\nWhilst they unfold their emerald wings:\nFor he made verses wild and queer _680\nOn the strange creeds priests hold so dear,\nBecause they bring them land and gold.\nOf devils and saints and all such gear,\nHe made tales which whoso heard or read\nWould laugh till he were almost dead. _685\nSo this grew a proverb: ‘Don’t get old\nTill Lionel’s “Banquet in Hell” you hear,\nAnd then you will laugh yourself young again.’\nSo the priests hated him, and he\nRepaid their hate with cheerful glee. _690\n\nAh, smiles and joyance quickly died,\nFor public hope grew pale and dim\nIn an altered time and tide,\nAnd in its wasting withered him,\nAs a summer flower that blows too soon _695\nDroops in the smile of the waning moon,\nWhen it scatters through an April night\nThe frozen dews of wrinkling blight.\nNone now hoped more. Gray Power was seated\nSafely on her ancestral throne; _700\nAnd Faith, the Python, undefeated,\nEven to its blood-stained steps dragged on\nHer foul and wounded train, and men\nWere trampled and deceived again,\nAnd words and shows again could bind _705\nThe wailing tribes of human kind\nIn scorn and famine. Fire and blood\nRaged round the raging multitude,\nTo fields remote by tyrants sent\nTo be the scorned instrument _710\nWith which they drag from mines of gore\nThe chains their slaves yet ever wore:\nAnd in the streets men met each other,\nAnd by old altars and in halls,\nAnd smiled again at festivals. _715\nBut each man found in his heart’s brother\nCold cheer; for all, though half deceived,\nThe outworn creeds again believed,\nAnd the same round anew began,\nWhich the weary world yet ever ran. _720\n\nMany then wept, not tears, but gall\nWithin their hearts, like drops which fall\nWasting the fountain-stone away.\nAnd in that dark and evil day\nDid all desires and thoughts, that claim _725\nMen’s care—ambition, friendship, fame,\nLove, hope, though hope was now despair—\nIndue the colours of this change,\nAs from the all-surrounding air\nThe earth takes hues obscure and strange, _730\nWhen storm and earthquake linger there.\n\nAnd so, my friend, it then befell\nTo many, most to Lionel,\nWhose hope was like the life of youth\nWithin him, and when dead, became _735\nA spirit of unresting flame,\nWhich goaded him in his distress\nOver the world’s vast wilderness.\nThree years he left his native land,\nAnd on the fourth, when he returned, _740\nNone knew him: he was stricken deep\nWith some disease of mind, and turned\nInto aught unlike Lionel.\nOn him, on whom, did he pause in sleep,\nSerenest smiles were wont to keep, _745\nAnd, did he wake, a winged band\nOf bright persuasions, which had fed\nOn his sweet lips and liquid eyes,\nKept their swift pinions half outspread\nTo do on men his least command; _750\nOn him, whom once ’twas paradise\nEven to behold, now misery lay:\nIn his own heart ’twas merciless,\nTo all things else none may express\nIts innocence and tenderness. _755\n\n’Twas said that he had refuge sought\nIn love from his unquiet thought\nIn distant lands, and been deceived\nBy some strange show; for there were found,\nBlotted with tears as those relieved _760\nBy their own words are wont to do,\nThese mournful verses on the ground,\nBy all who read them blotted too.\n\n‘How am I changed! my hopes were once like fire:\nI loved, and I believed that life was love. _765\nHow am I lost! on wings of swift desire\nAmong Heaven’s winds my spirit once did move.\nI slept, and silver dreams did aye inspire\nMy liquid sleep: I woke, and did approve\nAll nature to my heart, and thought to make _770\nA paradise of earth for one sweet sake.\n\n‘I love, but I believe in love no more.\nI feel desire, but hope not. O, from sleep\nMost vainly must my weary brain implore\nIts long lost flattery now: I wake to weep, _775\nAnd sit through the long day gnawing the core\nOf my bitter heart, and, like a miser, keep,\nSince none in what I feel take pain or pleasure,\nTo my own soul its self-consuming treasure.’\n\nHe dwelt beside me near the sea; _780\nAnd oft in evening did we meet,\nWhen the waves, beneath the starlight, flee\nO’er the yellow sands with silver feet,\nAnd talked: our talk was sad and sweet,\nTill slowly from his mien there passed _785\nThe desolation which it spoke;\nAnd smiles,—as when the lightning’s blast\nHas parched some heaven-delighting oak,\nThe next spring shows leaves pale and rare,\nBut like flowers delicate and fair, _790\nOn its rent boughs,—again arrayed\nHis countenance in tender light:\nHis words grew subtile fire, which made\nThe air his hearers breathed delight:\nHis motions, like the winds, were free, _795\nWhich bend the bright grass gracefully,\nThen fade away in circlets faint:\nAnd winged Hope, on which upborne\nHis soul seemed hovering in his eyes,\nLike some bright spirit newly born _800\nFloating amid the sunny skies,\nSprang forth from his rent heart anew.\nYet o’er his talk, and looks, and mien,\nTempering their loveliness too keen,\nPast woe its shadow backward threw, _805\nTill like an exhalation, spread\nFrom flowers half drunk with evening dew,\nThey did become infectious: sweet\nAnd subtle mists of sense and thought:\nWhich wrapped us soon, when we might meet, _810\nAlmost from our own looks and aught\nThe wild world holds. And so, his mind\nWas healed, while mine grew sick with fear:\nFor ever now his health declined,\nLike some frail bark which cannot bear _815\nThe impulse of an altered wind,\nThough prosperous: and my heart grew full\n‘Mid its new joy of a new care:\nFor his cheek became, not pale, but fair,\nAs rose-o’ershadowed lilies are; _820\nAnd soon his deep and sunny hair,\nIn this alone less beautiful,\nLike grass in tombs grew wild and rare.\nThe blood in his translucent veins\nBeat, not like animal life, but love _825\nSeemed now its sullen springs to move,\nWhen life had failed, and all its pains:\nAnd sudden sleep would seize him oft\nLike death, so calm, but that a tear,\nHis pointed eyelashes between, _830\nWould gather in the light serene\nOf smiles, whose lustre bright and soft\nBeneath lay undulating there.\nHis breath was like inconstant flame,\nAs eagerly it went and came; _835\nAnd I hung o’er him in his sleep,\nTill, like an image in the lake\nWhich rains disturb, my tears would break\nThe shadow of that slumber deep:\nThen he would bid me not to weep, _840\nAnd say, with flattery false, yet sweet,\nThat death and he could never meet,\nIf I would never part with him.\nAnd so we loved, and did unite\nAll that in us was yet divided: _845\nFor when he said, that many a rite,\nBy men to bind but once provided,\nCould not be shared by him and me,\nOr they would kill him in their glee,\nI shuddered, and then laughing said— _850\n‘We will have rites our faith to bind,\nBut our church shall be the starry night,\nOur altar the grassy earth outspread,\nAnd our priest the muttering wind.’\n\n’Twas sunset as I spoke: one star _855\nHad scarce burst forth, when from afar\nThe ministers of misrule sent,\nSeized upon Lionel, and bore\nHis chained limbs to a dreary tower,\nIn the midst of a city vast and wide. _860\nFor he, they said, from his mind had bent\nAgainst their gods keen blasphemy,\nFor which, though his soul must roasted be\nIn hell’s red lakes immortally,\nYet even on earth must he abide _865\nThe vengeance of their slaves: a trial,\nI think, men call it. What avail\nAre prayers and tears, which chase denial\nFrom the fierce savage, nursed in hate?\nWhat the knit soul that pleading and pale _870\nMakes wan the quivering cheek, which late\nIt painted with its own delight?\nWe were divided. As I could,\nI stilled the tingling of my blood,\nAnd followed him in their despite, _875\nAs a widow follows, pale and wild,\nThe murderers and corse of her only child;\nAnd when we came to the prison door\nAnd I prayed to share his dungeon floor\nWith prayers which rarely have been spurned, _880\nAnd when men drove me forth and I\nStared with blank frenzy on the sky,\nA farewell look of love he turned,\nHalf calming me; then gazed awhile,\nAs if thro’ that black and massy pile, _885\nAnd thro’ the crowd around him there,\nAnd thro’ the dense and murky air,\nAnd the thronged streets, he did espy\nWhat poets know and prophesy;\nAnd said, with voice that made them shiver _890\nAnd clung like music in my brain,\nAnd which the mute walls spoke again\nProlonging it with deepened strain:\n‘Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever,\nOr the priests of the bloody faith; _895\nThey stand on the brink of that mighty river,\nWhose waves they have tainted with death:\nIt is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,\nAround them it foams, and rages, and swells,\nAnd their swords and their sceptres I floating see, _900\nLike wrecks in the surge of eternity.’\n\nI dwelt beside the prison gate;\nAnd the strange crowd that out and in\nPassed, some, no doubt, with mine own fate,\nMight have fretted me with its ceaseless din, _905\nBut the fever of care was louder within.\nSoon, but too late, in penitence\nOr fear, his foes released him thence:\nI saw his thin and languid form,\nAs leaning on the jailor’s arm, _910\nWhose hardened eyes grew moist the while,\nTo meet his mute and faded smile,\nAnd hear his words of kind farewell,\nHe tottered forth from his damp cell.\nMany had never wept before, _915\nFrom whom fast tears then gushed and fell:\nMany will relent no more,\nWho sobbed like infants then; aye, all\nWho thronged the prison’s stony hall,\nThe rulers or the slaves of law, _920\nFelt with a new surprise and awe\nThat they were human, till strong shame\nMade them again become the same.\nThe prison blood-hounds, huge and grim,\nFrom human looks the infection caught, _925\nAnd fondly crouched and fawned on him;\nAnd men have heard the prisoners say,\nWho in their rotting dungeons lay,\nThat from that hour, throughout one day,\nThe fierce despair and hate which kept _930\nTheir trampled bosoms almost slept:\nWhere, like twin vultures, they hung feeding\nOn each heart’s wound, wide torn and bleeding,—\nBecause their jailors’ rule, they thought,\nGrew merciful, like a parent’s sway. _935\n\nI know not how, but we were free:\nAnd Lionel sate alone with me,\nAs the carriage drove thro’ the streets apace;\nAnd we looked upon each other’s face;\nAnd the blood in our fingers intertwined _940\nRan like the thoughts of a single mind,\nAs the swift emotions went and came\nThro’ the veins of each united frame.\nSo thro’ the long long streets we passed\nOf the million-peopled City vast; _945\nWhich is that desert, where each one\nSeeks his mate yet is alone,\nBeloved and sought and mourned of none;\nUntil the clear blue sky was seen,\nAnd the grassy meadows bright and green, _950\nAnd then I sunk in his embrace,\nEnclosing there a mighty space\nOf love: and so we travelled on\nBy woods, and fields of yellow flowers,\nAnd towns, and villages, and towers, _955\nDay after day of happy hours.\nIt was the azure time of June,\nWhen the skies are deep in the stainless noon,\nAnd the warm and fitful breezes shake\nThe fresh green leaves of the hedgerow briar, _960\nAnd there were odours then to make\nThe very breath we did respire\nA liquid element, whereon\nOur spirits, like delighted things\nThat walk the air on subtle wings, _965\nFloated and mingled far away,\n‘Mid the warm winds of the sunny day.\nAnd when the evening star came forth\nAbove the curve of the new bent moon,\nAnd light and sound ebbed from the earth, _970\nLike the tide of the full and the weary sea\nTo the depths of its own tranquillity,\nOur natures to its own repose\nDid the earth’s breathless sleep attune:\nLike flowers, which on each other close _975\nTheir languid leaves when daylight’s gone,\nWe lay, till new emotions came,\nWhich seemed to make each mortal frame\nOne soul of interwoven flame,\nA life in life, a second birth _980\nIn worlds diviner far than earth,\nWhich, like two strains of harmony\nThat mingle in the silent sky\nThen slowly disunite, passed by\nAnd left the tenderness of tears, _985\nA soft oblivion of all fears,\nA sweet sleep: so we travelled on\nTill we came to the home of Lionel,\nAmong the mountains wild and lone,\nBeside the hoary western sea, _990\nWhich near the verge of the echoing shore\nThe massy forest shadowed o’er.\n\nThe ancient steward, with hair all hoar,\nAs we alighted, wept to see\nHis master changed so fearfully; _995\nAnd the old man’s sobs did waken me\nFrom my dream of unremaining gladness;\nThe truth flashed o’er me like quick madness\nWhen I looked, and saw that there was death\nOn Lionel: yet day by day _1000\nHe lived, till fear grew hope and faith,\nAnd in my soul I dared to say,\nNothing so bright can pass away:\nDeath is dark, and foul, and dull,\nBut he is—O how beautiful! _1005\nYet day by day he grew more weak,\nAnd his sweet voice, when he might speak,\nWhich ne’er was loud, became more low;\nAnd the light which flashed through his waxen cheek\nGrew faint, as the rose-like hues which flow _1010\nFrom sunset o’er the Alpine snow:\nAnd death seemed not like death in him,\nFor the spirit of life o’er every limb\nLingered, a mist of sense and thought.\nWhen the summer wind faint odours brought _1015\nFrom mountain flowers, even as it passed\nHis cheek would change, as the noonday sea\nWhich the dying breeze sweeps fitfully.\nIf but a cloud the sky o’ercast,\nYou might see his colour come and go, _1020\nAnd the softest strain of music made\nSweet smiles, yet sad, arise and fade\nAmid the dew of his tender eyes;\nAnd the breath, with intermitting flow,\nMade his pale lips quiver and part. _1025\nYou might hear the beatings of his heart,\nQuick, but not strong; and with my tresses\nWhen oft he playfully would bind\nIn the bowers of mossy lonelinesses\nHis neck, and win me so to mingle _1030\nIn the sweet depth of woven caresses,\nAnd our faint limbs were intertwined,\nAlas! the unquiet life did tingle\nFrom mine own heart through every vein,\nLike a captive in dreams of liberty, _1035\nWho beats the walls of his stony cell.\nBut his, it seemed already free,\nLike the shadow of fire surrounding me!\nOn my faint eyes and limbs did dwell\nThat spirit as it passed, till soon, _1040\nAs a frail cloud wandering o’er the moon,\nBeneath its light invisible,\nIs seen when it folds its gray wings again\nTo alight on midnight’s dusky plain,\nI lived and saw, and the gathering soul _1045\nPassed from beneath that strong control,\nAnd I fell on a life which was sick with fear\nOf all the woe that now I bear.\n\nAmid a bloomless myrtle wood,\nOn a green and sea-girt promontory, _1050\nNot far from where we dwelt, there stood\nIn record of a sweet sad story,\nAn altar and a temple bright\nCircled by steps, and o’er the gate\nWas sculptured, ‘To Fidelity;’ _1055\nAnd in the shrine an image sate,\nAll veiled: but there was seen the light\nOf smiles which faintly could express\nA mingled pain and tenderness\nThrough that ethereal drapery. _1060\nThe left hand held the head, the right—\nBeyond the veil, beneath the skin,\nYou might see the nerves quivering within—\nWas forcing the point of a barbed dart\nInto its side-convulsing heart. _1065\nAn unskilled hand, yet one informed\nWith genius, had the marble warmed\nWith that pathetic life. This tale\nIt told: A dog had from the sea,\nWhen the tide was raging fearfully, _1070\nDragged Lionel’s mother, weak and pale,\nThen died beside her on the sand,\nAnd she that temple thence had planned;\nBut it was Lionel’s own hand\nHad wrought the image. Each new moon _1075\nThat lady did, in this lone fane,\nThe rites of a religion sweet,\nWhose god was in her heart and brain:\nThe seasons’ loveliest flowers were strewn\nOn the marble floor beneath her feet, _1080\nAnd she brought crowns of sea-buds white\nWhose odour is so sweet and faint,\nAnd weeds, like branching chrysolite,\nWoven in devices fine and quaint.\nAnd tears from her brown eyes did stain _1085\nThe altar: need but look upon\nThat dying statue fair and wan,\nIf tears should cease, to weep again:\nAnd rare Arabian odours came,\nThrough the myrtle copses steaming thence _1090\nFrom the hissing frankincense,\nWhose smoke, wool-white as ocean foam,\nHung in dense flocks beneath the dome—\nThat ivory dome, whose azure night\nWith golden stars, like heaven, was bright— _1095\nO’er the split cedar’s pointed flame;\nAnd the lady’s harp would kindle there\nThe melody of an old air,\nSofter than sleep; the villagers\nMixed their religion up with hers, _1100\nAnd, as they listened round, shed tears.\n\nOne eve he led me to this fane:\nDaylight on its last purple cloud\nWas lingering gray, and soon her strain\nThe nightingale began; now loud, _1105\nClimbing in circles the windless sky,\nNow dying music; suddenly\n’Tis scattered in a thousand notes,\nAnd now to the hushed ear it floats\nLike field smells known in infancy, _1110\nThen failing, soothes the air again.\nWe sate within that temple lone,\nPavilioned round with Parian stone:\nHis mother’s harp stood near, and oft\nI had awakened music soft _1115\nAmid its wires: the nightingale\nWas pausing in her heaven-taught tale:\n‘Now drain the cup,’ said Lionel,\n‘Which the poet-bird has crowned so well\nWith the wine of her bright and liquid song! _1120\nHeardst thou not sweet words among\nThat heaven-resounding minstrelsy?\nHeard’st thou not that those who die\nAwake in a world of ecstasy?\nThat love, when limbs are interwoven, _1125\nAnd sleep, when the night of life is cloven,\nAnd thought, to the world’s dim boundaries clinging,\nAnd music, when one beloved is singing,\nIs death? Let us drain right joyously\nThe cup which the sweet bird fills for me.’ _1130\nHe paused, and to my lips he bent\nHis own: like spirit his words went\nThrough all my limbs with the speed of fire;\nAnd his keen eyes, glittering through mine,\nFilled me with the flame divine, _1135\nWhich in their orbs was burning far,\nLike the light of an unmeasured star,\nIn the sky of midnight dark and deep:\nYes, ’twas his soul that did inspire\nSounds, which my skill could ne’er awaken; _1140\nAnd first, I felt my fingers sweep\nThe harp, and a long quivering cry\nBurst from my lips in symphony:\nThe dusk and solid air was shaken,\nAs swift and swifter the notes came _1145\nFrom my touch, that wandered like quick flame,\nAnd from my bosom, labouring\nWith some unutterable thing:\nThe awful sound of my own voice made\nMy faint lips tremble; in some mood _1150\nOf wordless thought Lionel stood\nSo pale, that even beside his cheek\nThe snowy column from its shade\nCaught whiteness: yet his countenance,\nRaised upward, burned with radiance _1155\nOf spirit-piercing joy, whose light,\nLike the moon struggling through the night\nOf whirlwind-rifted clouds, did break\nWith beams that might not be confined.\nI paused, but soon his gestures kindled _1160\nNew power, as by the moving wind\nThe waves are lifted, and my song\nTo low soft notes now changed and dwindled,\nAnd from the twinkling wires among,\nMy languid fingers drew and flung _1165\nCircles of life-dissolving sound,\nYet faint; in aery rings they bound\nMy Lionel, who, as every strain\nGrew fainter but more sweet, his mien\nSunk with the sound relaxedly; _1170\nAnd slowly now he turned to me,\nAs slowly faded from his face\nThat awful joy: with looks serene\nHe was soon drawn to my embrace,\nAnd my wild song then died away _1175\nIn murmurs: words I dare not say\nWe mixed, and on his lips mine fed\nTill they methought felt still and cold:\n‘What is it with thee, love?’ I said:\nNo word, no look, no motion! yes, _1180\nThere was a change, but spare to guess,\nNor let that moment’s hope be told.\nI looked, and knew that he was dead,\nAnd fell, as the eagle on the plain\nFalls when life deserts her brain, _1185\nAnd the mortal lightning is veiled again.\n\nO that I were now dead! but such\n(Did they not, love, demand too much,\nThose dying murmurs?) he forbade.\nO that I once again were mad! _1190\nAnd yet, dear Rosalind, not so,\nFor I would live to share thy woe.\nSweet boy! did I forget thee too?\nAlas, we know not what we do\nWhen we speak words.\nNo memory more _1195\nIs in my mind of that sea shore.\nMadness came on me, and a troop\nOf misty shapes did seem to sit\nBeside me, on a vessel’s poop,\nAnd the clear north wind was driving it. _1200\nThen I heard strange tongues, and saw strange flowers,\nAnd the stars methought grew unlike ours,\nAnd the azure sky and the stormless sea\nMade me believe that I had died,\nAnd waked in a world, which was to me _1205\nDrear hell, though heaven to all beside:\nThen a dead sleep fell on my mind,\nWhilst animal life many long years\nHad rescued from a chasm of tears;\nAnd when I woke, I wept to find _1210\nThat the same lady, bright and wise,\nWith silver locks and quick brown eyes,\nThe mother of my Lionel,\nHad tended me in my distress,\nAnd died some months before. Nor less _1215\nWonder, but far more peace and joy,\nBrought in that hour my lovely boy;\nFor through that trance my soul had well\nThe impress of thy being kept;\nAnd if I waked, or if I slept, _1220\nNo doubt, though memory faithless be,\nThy image ever dwelt on me;\nAnd thus, O Lionel, like thee\nIs our sweet child. ’Tis sure most strange\nI knew not of so great a change, _1225\nAs that which gave him birth, who now\nIs all the solace of my woe.\n\nThat Lionel great wealth had left\nBy will to me, and that of all\nThe ready lies of law bereft _1230\nMy child and me, might well befall.\nBut let me think not of the scorn,\nWhich from the meanest I have borne,\nWhen, for my child’s beloved sake,\nI mixed with slaves, to vindicate _1235\nThe very laws themselves do make:\nLet me not say scorn is my fate,\nLest I be proud, suffering the same\nWith those who live in deathless fame.\n\nShe ceased.—‘Lo, where red morning thro’ the woods _1240\nIs burning o’er the dew;’ said Rosalind.\nAnd with these words they rose, and towards the flood\nOf the blue lake, beneath the leaves now wind\nWith equal steps and fingers intertwined:\nThence to a lonely dwelling, where the shore _1245\nIs shadowed with steep rocks, and cypresses\nCleave with their dark green cones the silent skies,\nAnd with their shadows the clear depths below,\nAnd where a little terrace from its bowers,\nOf blooming myrtle and faint lemon-flowers, _1250\nScatters its sense-dissolving fragrance o’er\nThe liquid marble of the windless lake;\nAnd where the aged forest’s limbs look hoar,\nUnder the leaves which their green garments make,\nThey come: ’Tis Helen’s home, and clean and white, _1255\nLike one which tyrants spare on our own land\nIn some such solitude, its casements bright\nShone through their vine-leaves in the morning sun,\nAnd even within ’twas scarce like Italy.\nAnd when she saw how all things there were planned, _1260\nAs in an English home, dim memory\nDisturbed poor Rosalind: she stood as one\nWhose mind is where his body cannot be,\nTill Helen led her where her child yet slept,\nAnd said, ‘Observe, that brow was Lionel’s, _1265\nThose lips were his, and so he ever kept\nOne arm in sleep, pillowing his head with it.\nYou cannot see his eyes—they are two wells\nOf liquid love: let us not wake him yet.’\nBut Rosalind could bear no more, and wept _1270\nA shower of burning tears, which fell upon\nHis face, and so his opening lashes shone\nWith tears unlike his own, as he did leap\nIn sudden wonder from his innocent sleep.\n\nSo Rosalind and Helen lived together _1275\nThenceforth, changed in all else, yet friends again,\nSuch as they were, when o’er the mountain heather\nThey wandered in their youth, through sun and rain.\nAnd after many years, for human things\nChange even like the ocean and the wind, _1280\nHer daughter was restored to Rosalind,\nAnd in their circle thence some visitings\nOf joy ‘mid their new calm would intervene:\nA lovely child she was, of looks serene,\nAnd motions which o’er things indifferent shed _1285\nThe grace and gentleness from whence they came.\nAnd Helen’s boy grew with her, and they fed\nFrom the same flowers of thought, until each mind\nLike springs which mingle in one flood became,\nAnd in their union soon their parents saw _1290\nThe shadow of the peace denied to them.\nAnd Rosalind, for when the living stem\nIs cankered in its heart, the tree must fall,\nDied ere her time; and with deep grief and awe\nThe pale survivors followed her remains _1295\nBeyond the region of dissolving rains,\nUp the cold mountain she was wont to call\nHer tomb; and on Chiavenna’s precipice\nThey raised a pyramid of lasting ice,\nWhose polished sides, ere day had yet begun, _1300\nCaught the first glow of the unrisen sun,\nThe last, when it had sunk; and thro’ the night\nThe charioteers of Arctos wheeled round\nIts glittering point, as seen from Helen’s home,\nWhose sad inhabitants each year would come, _1305\nWith willing steps climbing that rugged height,\nAnd hang long locks of hair, and garlands bound\nWith amaranth flowers, which, in the clime’s despite,\nFilled the frore air with unaccustomed light:\nSuch flowers, as in the wintry memory bloom _1310\nOf one friend left, adorned that frozen tomb.\n\nHelen, whose spirit was of softer mould,\nWhose sufferings too were less, Death slowlier led\nInto the peace of his dominion cold:\nShe died among her kindred, being old. _1315\nAnd know, that if love die not in the dead\nAs in the living, none of mortal kind\nAre blest, as now Helen and Rosalind.\n\n\n_63 from there]from thee edition 1819.\n_366 fell]ran edition 1819.\n_405-_408 See Editor’s Note on this passage.\n_551 Where]When edition 1819.\n_572 Ay, overflowing]Aye overflowing edition 1819.\n_612 dear]clear cj. Bradley.\n_711 gore editions 1819, 1839. See Editor’s Note.\n_932 Where]When edition 1819.\n_1093-_1096 See Editor’s Note.\n_1168-_1171] See Editor’s Note.\n_1209 rescue]rescued edition 1819. See Editor’s Note.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Conversation.", + "body": "[Composed at Este after Shelley’s first visit to Venice, 1818\n(Autumn); first published in the “Posthumous Poems”, London, 1824\n(edition Mrs. Shelley). Shelley’s original intention had been to print\nthe poem in Leigh Hunt’s “Examiner”; but he changed his mind and, on\nAugust 15, 1819, sent the manuscript to Hunt to be published\nanonymously by Ollier. This manuscript, found by Mr. Townshend Mayer,\nand by him placed in the hands of Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B., is\ndescribed at length in Mr. Forman’s Library Edition of the poems\n(volume 3 page 107). The date, ‘May, 1819,’ affixed to “Julian and\nMaddalo” in the “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, indicates the time when the\ntext was finally revised by Shelley. Sources of the text are (1)\n“Posthumous Poems”, 1824; (2) the Hunt manuscript; (3) a fair draft of\nthe poem amongst the Boscombe manuscripts; (4) “Poetical Works”, 1839,\n1st and 2nd editions (Mrs. Shelley). Our text is that of the Hunt\nmanuscript, as printed in Forman’s Library Edition of the Poems, 1876,\nvolume 3, pages 103-30; variants of 1824 are indicated in the\nfootnotes; questions of punctuation are dealt with in the notes at the\nend of the volume.]\n\n\nThe meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme,\nThe goats with the green leaves of budding Spring,\nAre saturated not—nor Love with tears.—VIRGIL’S “Gallus”.\n\nCount Maddalo is a Venetian nobleman of ancient family and of great\nfortune, who, without mixing much in the society of his countrymen,\nresides chiefly at his magnificent palace in that city. He is a person\nof the most consummate genius, and capable, if he would direct his\nenergies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his degraded\ncountry. But it is his weakness to be proud: he derives, from a\ncomparison of his own extraordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects\nthat surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human\nlife. His passions and his powers are incomparably greater than those\nof other men; and, instead of the latter having been employed in\ncurbing the former, they have mutually lent each other strength. His\nambition preys upon itself, for want of objects which it can consider\nworthy of exertion. I say that Maddalo is proud, because I can find no\nother word to express the concentred and impatient feelings which\nconsume him; but it is on his own hopes and affections only that he\nseems to trample, for in social life no human being can be more\ngentle, patient and unassuming than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank and\nwitty. His more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication; men\nare held by it as by a spell. He has travelled much; and there is an\ninexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in different\ncountries.\n\nJulian is an Englishman of good family, passionately attached to those\nphilosophical notions which assert the power of man over his own mind,\nand the immense improvements of which, by the extinction of certain\nmoral superstitions, human society may be yet susceptible. Without\nconcealing the evil in the world he is for ever speculating how good\nmay be made superior. He is a complete infidel, and a scoffer at all\nthings reputed holy; and Maddalo takes a wicked pleasure in drawing\nout his taunts against religion. What Maddalo thinks on these matters\nis not exactly known. Julian, in spite of his heterodox opinions, is\nconjectured by his friends to possess some good qualities. How far\nthis is possible the pious reader will determine. Julian is rather\nserious.\n\nOf the Maniac I can give no information. He seems, by his own account,\nto have been disappointed in love. He was evidently a very cultivated\nand amiable person when in his right senses. His story, told at\nlength, might be like many other stories of the same kind: the\nunconnected exclamations of his agony will perhaps be found a\nsufficient comment for the text of every heart.\n\n\nI rode one evening with Count Maddalo\nUpon the bank of land which breaks the flow\nOf Adria towards Venice: a bare strand\nOf hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand,\nMatted with thistles and amphibious weeds, _5\nSuch as from earth’s embrace the salt ooze breeds,\nIs this; an uninhabited sea-side,\nWhich the lone fisher, when his nets are dried,\nAbandons; and no other object breaks\nThe waste, but one dwarf tree and some few stakes _10\nBroken and unrepaired, and the tide makes\nA narrow space of level sand thereon,\nWhere ’twas our wont to ride while day went down.\nThis ride was my delight. I love all waste\nAnd solitary places; where we taste _15\nThe pleasure of believing what we see\nIs boundless, as we wish our souls to be:\nAnd such was this wide ocean, and this shore\nMore barren than its billows; and yet more\nThan all, with a remembered friend I love _20\nTo ride as then I rode;—for the winds drove\nThe living spray along the sunny air\nInto our faces; the blue heavens were bare,\nStripped to their depths by the awakening north;\nAnd, from the waves, sound like delight broke forth _25\nHarmonising with solitude, and sent\nInto our hearts aereal merriment.\nSo, as we rode, we talked; and the swift thought,\nWinging itself with laughter, lingered not,\nBut flew from brain to brain,—such glee was ours, _30\nCharged with light memories of remembered hours,\nNone slow enough for sadness: till we came\nHomeward, which always makes the spirit tame.\nThis day had been cheerful but cold, and now\nThe sun was sinking, and the wind also. _35\nOur talk grew somewhat serious, as may be\nTalk interrupted with such raillery\nAs mocks itself, because it cannot scorn\nThe thoughts it would extinguish: —’twas forlorn,\nYet pleasing, such as once, so poets tell, _40\nThe devils held within the dales of Hell\nConcerning God, freewill and destiny:\nOf all that earth has been or yet may be,\nAll that vain men imagine or believe,\nOr hope can paint or suffering may achieve, _45\nWe descanted; and I (for ever still\nIs it not wise to make the best of ill?)\nArgued against despondency, but pride\nMade my companion take the darker side.\nThe sense that he was greater than his kind _50\nHad struck, methinks, his eagle spirit blind\nBy gazing on its own exceeding light.\nMeanwhile the sun paused ere it should alight,\nOver the horizon of the mountains;—Oh,\nHow beautiful is sunset, when the glow _55\nOf Heaven descends upon a land like thee,\nThou Paradise of exiles, Italy!\nThy mountains, seas and vineyards, and the towers\nOf cities they encircle!—it was ours\nTo stand on thee, beholding it: and then, _60\nJust where we had dismounted, the Count’s men\nWere waiting for us with the gondola.—\nAs those who pause on some delightful way\nThough bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood\nLooking upon the evening, and the flood _65\nWhich lay between the city and the shore,\nPaved with the image of the sky...the hoar\nAnd aery Alps towards the North appeared\nThrough mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared\nBetween the East and West; and half the sky _70\nWas roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry\nDark purple at the zenith, which still grew\nDown the steep West into a wondrous hue\nBrighter than burning gold, even to the rent\nWhere the swift sun yet paused in his descent _75\nAmong the many-folded hills: they were\nThose famous Euganean hills, which bear,\nAs seen from Lido thro’ the harbour piles,\nThe likeness of a clump of peaked isles—\nAnd then—as if the Earth and Sea had been _80\nDissolved into one lake of fire, were seen\nThose mountains towering as from waves of flame\nAround the vaporous sun, from which there came\nThe inmost purple spirit of light, and made\nTheir very peaks transparent. ‘Ere it fade,’ _85\nSaid my companion, ‘I will show you soon\nA better station’—so, o’er the lagune\nWe glided; and from that funereal bark\nI leaned, and saw the city, and could mark\nHow from their many isles, in evening’s gleam, _90\nIts temples and its palaces did seem\nLike fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven.\nI was about to speak, when—‘We are even\nNow at the point I meant,’ said Maddalo,\nAnd bade the gondolieri cease to row. _95\n‘Look, Julian, on the west, and listen well\nIf you hear not a deep and heavy bell.’\nI looked, and saw between us and the sun\nA building on an island; such a one\nAs age to age might add, for uses vile, _100\nA windowless, deformed and dreary pile;\nAnd on the top an open tower, where hung\nA bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung;\nWe could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue:\nThe broad sun sunk behind it, and it tolled _105\nIn strong and black relief.—‘What we behold\nShall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,’\nSaid Maddalo, ‘and ever at this hour\nThose who may cross the water, hear that bell\nWhich calls the maniacs, each one from his cell, _110\nTo vespers.’—‘As much skill as need to pray\nIn thanks or hope for their dark lot have they\nTo their stern maker,’ I replied. ‘O ho!\nYou talk as in years past,’ said Maddalo.\n‘’Tis strange men change not. You were ever still _115\nAmong Christ’s flock a perilous infidel,\nA wolf for the meek lambs—if you can’t swim\nBeware of Providence.’ I looked on him,\nBut the gay smile had faded in his eye.\n‘And such,’—he cried, ‘is our mortality, _120\nAnd this must be the emblem and the sign\nOf what should be eternal and divine!—\nAnd like that black and dreary bell, the soul,\nHung in a heaven-illumined tower, must toll\nOur thoughts and our desires to meet below _125\nRound the rent heart and pray—as madmen do\nFor what? they know not,—till the night of death\nAs sunset that strange vision, severeth\nOur memory from itself, and us from all\nWe sought and yet were baffled.’ I recall _130\nThe sense of what he said, although I mar\nThe force of his expressions. The broad star\nOf day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill,\nAnd the black bell became invisible,\nAnd the red tower looked gray, and all between _135\nThe churches, ships and palaces were seen\nHuddled in gloom;—into the purple sea\nThe orange hues of heaven sunk silently.\nWe hardly spoke, and soon the gondola\nConveyed me to my lodging by the way. _140\nThe following morn was rainy, cold, and dim:\nEre Maddalo arose, I called on him,\nAnd whilst I waited with his child I played;\nA lovelier toy sweet Nature never made;\nA serious, subtle, wild, yet gentle being, _145\nGraceful without design and unforeseeing,\nWith eyes—Oh speak not of her eyes!—which seem\nTwin mirrors of Italian Heaven, yet gleam\nWith such deep meaning, as we never see\nBut in the human countenance: with me _150\nShe was a special favourite: I had nursed\nHer fine and feeble limbs when she came first\nTo this bleak world; and she yet seemed to know\nOn second sight her ancient playfellow,\nLess changed than she was by six months or so; _155\nFor after her first shyness was worn out\nWe sate there, rolling billiard balls about,\nWhen the Count entered. Salutations past—\n‘The word you spoke last night might well have cast\nA darkness on my spirit—if man be _160\nThe passive thing you say, I should not see\nMuch harm in the religions and old saws\n(Tho’ I may never own such leaden laws)\nWhich break a teachless nature to the yoke:\nMine is another faith.’—thus much I spoke _165\nAnd noting he replied not, added: ‘See\nThis lovely child, blithe, innocent and free;\nShe spends a happy time with little care,\nWhile we to such sick thoughts subjected are\nAs came on you last night. It is our will _170\nThat thus enchains us to permitted ill—\nWe might be otherwise—we might be all\nWe dream of happy, high, majestical.\nWhere is the love, beauty, and truth we seek,\nBut in our mind? and if we were not weak _175\nShould we be less in deed than in desire?’\n‘Ay, if we were not weak—and we aspire\nHow vainly to be strong!’ said Maddalo:\n‘You talk Utopia.’ ‘It remains to know,’\nI then rejoined, ‘and those who try may find _180\nHow strong the chains are which our spirit bind;\nBrittle perchance as straw...We are assured\nMuch may be conquered, much may be endured,\nOf what degrades and crushes us. We know\nThat we have power over ourselves to do _185\nAnd suffer—what, we know not till we try;\nBut something nobler than to live and die—\nSo taught those kings of old philosophy\nWho reigned, before Religion made men blind;\nAnd those who suffer with their suffering kind _190\nYet feel their faith, religion.’ ‘My dear friend,’\nSaid Maddalo, ‘my judgement will not bend\nTo your opinion, though I think you might\nMake such a system refutation-tight\nAs far as words go. I knew one like you _195\nWho to this city came some months ago,\nWith whom I argued in this sort, and he\nIs now gone mad,—and so he answered me,—\nPoor fellow! but if you would like to go,\nWe’ll visit him, and his wild talk will show _200\nHow vain are such aspiring theories.’\n‘I hope to prove the induction otherwise,\nAnd that a want of that true theory, still,\nWhich seeks a “soul of goodness” in things ill\nOr in himself or others, has thus bowed _205\nHis being—there are some by nature proud,\nWho patient in all else demand but this—\nTo love and be beloved with gentleness;\nAnd being scorned, what wonder if they die\nSome living death? this is not destiny _210\nBut man’s own wilful ill.’\nAs thus I spoke\nServants announced the gondola, and we\nThrough the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea\nSailed to the island where the madhouse stands.\nWe disembarked. The clap of tortured hands, _215\nFierce yells and howlings and lamentings keen,\nAnd laughter where complaint had merrier been,\nMoans, shrieks, and curses, and blaspheming prayers\nAccosted us. We climbed the oozy stairs\nInto an old courtyard. I heard on high, _220\nThen, fragments of most touching melody,\nBut looking up saw not the singer there—\nThrough the black bars in the tempestuous air\nI saw, like weeds on a wrecked palace growing,\nLong tangled locks flung wildly forth, and flowing, _225\nOf those who on a sudden were beguiled\nInto strange silence, and looked forth and smiled\nHearing sweet sounds. Then I: ‘Methinks there were\nA cure of these with patience and kind care,\nIf music can thus move...but what is he _230\nWhom we seek here?’ ‘Of his sad history\nI know but this,’ said Maddalo: ‘he came\nTo Venice a dejected man, and fame\nSaid he was wealthy, or he had been so;\nSome thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe; _235\nBut he was ever talking in such sort\nAs you do—far more sadly—he seemed hurt,\nEven as a man with his peculiar wrong,\nTo hear but of the oppression of the strong,\nOr those absurd deceits (I think with you _240\nIn some respects, you know) which carry through\nThe excellent impostors of this earth\nWhen they outface detection—he had worth,\nPoor fellow! but a humorist in his way’—\n‘Alas, what drove him mad?’ ‘I cannot say: _245\nA lady came with him from France, and when\nShe left him and returned, he wandered then\nAbout yon lonely isles of desert sand\nTill he grew wild—he had no cash or land\nRemaining,—the police had brought him here— _250\nSome fancy took him and he would not bear\nRemoval; so I fitted up for him\nThose rooms beside the sea, to please his whim,\nAnd sent him busts and books and urns for flowers,\nWhich had adorned his life in happier hours, _255\nAnd instruments of music—you may guess\nA stranger could do little more or less\nFor one so gentle and unfortunate:\nAnd those are his sweet strains which charm the weight\nFrom madmen’s chains, and make this Hell appear _260\nA heaven of sacred silence, hushed to hear.’—\n‘Nay, this was kind of you—he had no claim,\nAs the world says’—‘None—but the very same\nWhich I on all mankind were I as he\nFallen to such deep reverse;—his melody _265\nIs interrupted—now we hear the din\nOf madmen, shriek on shriek, again begin;\nLet us now visit him; after this strain\nHe ever communes with himself again,\nAnd sees nor hears not any.’ Having said _270\nThese words, we called the keeper, and he led\nTo an apartment opening on the sea—\nThere the poor wretch was sitting mournfully\nNear a piano, his pale fingers twined\nOne with the other, and the ooze and wind _275\nRushed through an open casement, and did sway\nHis hair, and starred it with the brackish spray;\nHis head was leaning on a music book,\nAnd he was muttering, and his lean limbs shook;\nHis lips were pressed against a folded leaf _280\nIn hue too beautiful for health, and grief\nSmiled in their motions as they lay apart—\nAs one who wrought from his own fervid heart\nThe eloquence of passion, soon he raised\nHis sad meek face and eyes lustrous and glazed _285\nAnd spoke—sometimes as one who wrote, and thought\nHis words might move some heart that heeded not,\nIf sent to distant lands: and then as one\nReproaching deeds never to be undone\nWith wondering self-compassion; then his speech _290\nWas lost in grief, and then his words came each\nUnmodulated, cold, expressionless,—\nBut that from one jarred accent you might guess\nIt was despair made them so uniform:\nAnd all the while the loud and gusty storm _295\nHissed through the window, and we stood behind\nStealing his accents from the envious wind\nUnseen. I yet remember what he said\nDistinctly: such impression his words made.\n\n‘Month after month,’ he cried, ‘to bear this load _300\nAnd as a jade urged by the whip and goad\nTo drag life on, which like a heavy chain\nLengthens behind with many a link of pain!—\nAnd not to speak my grief—O, not to dare\nTo give a human voice to my despair, _305\nBut live, and move, and, wretched thing! smile on\nAs if I never went aside to groan,\nAnd wear this mask of falsehood even to those\nWho are most dear—not for my own repose—\nAlas! no scorn or pain or hate could be _310\nSo heavy as that falsehood is to me—\nBut that I cannot bear more altered faces\nThan needs must be, more changed and cold embraces,\nMore misery, disappointment, and mistrust\nTo own me for their father...Would the dust _315\nWere covered in upon my body now!\nThat the life ceased to toil within my brow!\nAnd then these thoughts would at the least be fled;\nLet us not fear such pain can vex the dead.\n\n‘What Power delights to torture us? I know _320\nThat to myself I do not wholly owe\nWhat now I suffer, though in part I may.\nAlas! none strewed sweet flowers upon the way\nWhere wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain\nMy shadow, which will leave me not again— _325\nIf I have erred, there was no joy in error,\nBut pain and insult and unrest and terror;\nI have not as some do, bought penitence\nWith pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence,\nFor then,—if love and tenderness and truth _330\nHad overlived hope’s momentary youth,\nMy creed should have redeemed me from repenting;\nBut loathed scorn and outrage unrelenting\nMet love excited by far other seeming\nUntil the end was gained...as one from dreaming _335\nOf sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state\nSuch as it is.—\n‘O Thou, my spirit’s mate\nWho, for thou art compassionate and wise,\nWouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyes\nIf this sad writing thou shouldst ever see— _340\nMy secret groans must be unheard by thee,\nThou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood to know\nThy lost friend’s incommunicable woe.\n\n‘Ye few by whom my nature has been weighed\nIn friendship, let me not that name degrade _345\nBy placing on your hearts the secret load\nWhich crushes mine to dust. There is one road\nTo peace and that is truth, which follow ye!\nLove sometimes leads astray to misery.\nYet think not though subdued—and I may well _350\nSay that I am subdued—that the full Hell\nWithin me would infect the untainted breast\nOf sacred nature with its own unrest;\nAs some perverted beings think to find\nIn scorn or hate a medicine for the mind _355\nWhich scorn or hate have wounded—O how vain!\nThe dagger heals not but may rend again...\nBelieve that I am ever still the same\nIn creed as in resolve, and what may tame\nMy heart, must leave the understanding free, _360\nOr all would sink in this keen agony—\nNor dream that I will join the vulgar cry;\nOr with my silence sanction tyranny;\nOr seek a moment’s shelter from my pain\nIn any madness which the world calls gain, _365\nAmbition or revenge or thoughts as stern\nAs those which make me what I am; or turn\nTo avarice or misanthropy or lust...\nHeap on me soon, O grave, thy welcome dust!\nTill then the dungeon may demand its prey, _370\nAnd Poverty and Shame may meet and say—\nHalting beside me on the public way—\n“That love-devoted youth is ours—let’s sit\nBeside him—he may live some six months yet.”\nOr the red scaffold, as our country bends, _375\nMay ask some willing victim; or ye friends\nMay fall under some sorrow which this heart\nOr hand may share or vanquish or avert;\nI am prepared—in truth, with no proud joy—\nTo do or suffer aught, as when a boy _380\nI did devote to justice and to love\nMy nature, worthless now!...\n‘I must remove\nA veil from my pent mind. ’Tis torn aside!\nO, pallid as Death’s dedicated bride,\nThou mockery which art sitting by my side, _385\nAm I not wan like thee? at the grave’s call\nI haste, invited to thy wedding-ball\nTo greet the ghastly paramour, for whom\nThou hast deserted me...and made the tomb\nThy bridal bed...But I beside your feet _390\nWill lie and watch ye from my winding-sheet—\nThus...wide awake tho’ dead...yet stay, O stay!\nGo not so soon—I know not what I say—\nHear but my reasons...I am mad, I fear,\nMy fancy is o’erwrought...thou art not here... _395\nPale art thou, ’tis most true...but thou art gone,\nThy work is finished...I am left alone!—\n...\n‘Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this breast\nWhich, like a serpent, thou envenomest\nAs in repayment of the warmth it lent? _400\nDidst thou not seek me for thine own content?\nDid not thy love awaken mine? I thought\nThat thou wert she who said, “You kiss me not\nEver, I fear you do not love me now”—\nIn truth I loved even to my overthrow _405\nHer, who would fain forget these words: but they\nCling to her mind, and cannot pass away.\n...\n‘You say that I am proud—that when I speak\nMy lip is tortured with the wrongs which break\nThe spirit it expresses...Never one _410\nHumbled himself before, as I have done!\nEven the instinctive worm on which we tread\nTurns, though it wound not—then with prostrate head\nSinks in the dusk and writhes like me—and dies?\nNo: wears a living death of agonies! _415\nAs the slow shadows of the pointed grass\nMark the eternal periods, his pangs pass,\nSlow, ever-moving,—making moments be\nAs mine seem—each an immortality!\n...\n‘That you had never seen me—never heard _420\nMy voice, and more than all had ne’er endured\nThe deep pollution of my loathed embrace—\nThat your eyes ne’er had lied love in my face—\nThat, like some maniac monk, I had torn out\nThe nerves of manhood by their bleeding root _425\nWith mine own quivering fingers, so that ne’er\nOur hearts had for a moment mingled there\nTo disunite in horror—these were not\nWith thee, like some suppressed and hideous thought\nWhich flits athwart our musings, but can find _430\nNo rest within a pure and gentle mind...\nThou sealedst them with many a bare broad word,\nAnd searedst my memory o’er them,—for I heard\nAnd can forget not...they were ministered\nOne after one, those curses. Mix them up _435\nLike self-destroying poisons in one cup,\nAnd they will make one blessing which thou ne’er\nDidst imprecate for, on me,—death.\n...\n‘It were\nA cruel punishment for one most cruel,\nIf such can love, to make that love the fuel _440\nOf the mind’s hell; hate, scorn, remorse, despair:\nBut ME—whose heart a stranger’s tear might wear\nAs water-drops the sandy fountain-stone,\nWho loved and pitied all things, and could moan\nFor woes which others hear not, and could see _445\nThe absent with the glance of phantasy,\nAnd with the poor and trampled sit and weep,\nFollowing the captive to his dungeon deep;\nME—who am as a nerve o’er which do creep\nThe else unfelt oppressions of this earth, _450\nAnd was to thee the flame upon thy hearth,\nWhen all beside was cold—that thou on me\nShouldst rain these plagues of blistering agony—\nSuch curses are from lips once eloquent\nWith love’s too partial praise—let none relent _455\nWho intend deeds too dreadful for a name\nHenceforth, if an example for the same\nThey seek...for thou on me lookedst so, and so—\nAnd didst speak thus...and thus...I live to show\nHow much men bear and die not!\n...\n‘Thou wilt tell _460\nWith the grimace of hate, how horrible\nIt was to meet my love when thine grew less;\nThou wilt admire how I could e’er address\nSuch features to love’s work...this taunt, though true,\n(For indeed Nature nor in form nor hue _465\nBestowed on me her choicest workmanship)\nShall not be thy defence...for since thy lip\nMet mine first, years long past, since thine eye kindled\nWith soft fire under mine, I have not dwindled\nNor changed in mind or body, or in aught _470\nBut as love changes what it loveth not\nAfter long years and many trials.\n\n‘How vain\nAre words! I thought never to speak again,\nNot even in secret,—not to mine own heart—\nBut from my lips the unwilling accents start, _475\nAnd from my pen the words flow as I write,\nDazzling my eyes with scalding tears...my sight\nIs dim to see that charactered in vain\nOn this unfeeling leaf which burns the brain\nAnd eats into it...blotting all things fair _480\nAnd wise and good which time had written there.\n\n‘Those who inflict must suffer, for they see\nThe work of their own hearts, and this must be\nOur chastisement or recompense—O child!\nI would that thine were like to be more mild _485\nFor both our wretched sakes...for thine the most\nWho feelest already all that thou hast lost\nWithout the power to wish it thine again;\nAnd as slow years pass, a funereal train\nEach with the ghost of some lost hope or friend _490\nFollowing it like its shadow, wilt thou bend\nNo thought on my dead memory?\n...\n‘Alas, love!\nFear me not...against thee I would not move\nA finger in despite. Do I not live\nThat thou mayst have less bitter cause to grieve? _495\nI give thee tears for scorn and love for hate;\nAnd that thy lot may be less desolate\nThan his on whom thou tramplest, I refrain\nFrom that sweet sleep which medicines all pain.\nThen, when thou speakest of me, never say _500\n“He could forgive not.” Here I cast away\nAll human passions, all revenge, all pride;\nI think, speak, act no ill; I do but hide\nUnder these words, like embers, every spark\nOf that which has consumed me—quick and dark _505\nThe grave is yawning...as its roof shall cover\nMy limbs with dust and worms under and over\nSo let Oblivion hide this grief...the air\nCloses upon my accents, as despair\nUpon my heart—let death upon despair!’ _510\n\nHe ceased, and overcome leant back awhile,\nThen rising, with a melancholy smile\nWent to a sofa, and lay down, and slept\nA heavy sleep, and in his dreams he wept\nAnd muttered some familiar name, and we _515\nWept without shame in his society.\nI think I never was impressed so much;\nThe man who were not, must have lacked a touch\nOf human nature...then we lingered not,\nAlthough our argument was quite forgot, _520\nBut calling the attendants, went to dine\nAt Maddalo’s; yet neither cheer nor wine\nCould give us spirits, for we talked of him\nAnd nothing else, till daylight made stars dim;\nAnd we agreed his was some dreadful ill _525\nWrought on him boldly, yet unspeakable,\nBy a dear friend; some deadly change in love\nOf one vowed deeply which he dreamed not of;\nFor whose sake he, it seemed, had fixed a blot\nOf falsehood on his mind which flourished not _530\nBut in the light of all-beholding truth;\nAnd having stamped this canker on his youth\nShe had abandoned him—and how much more\nMight be his woe, we guessed not—he had store\nOf friends and fortune once, as we could guess _535\nFrom his nice habits and his gentleness;\nThese were now lost...it were a grief indeed\nIf he had changed one unsustaining reed\nFor all that such a man might else adorn.\nThe colours of his mind seemed yet unworn; _540\nFor the wild language of his grief was high,\nSuch as in measure were called poetry;\nAnd I remember one remark which then\nMaddalo made. He said: ‘Most wretched men\nAre cradled into poetry by wrong, _545\nThey learn in suffering what they teach in song.’\n\nIf I had been an unconnected man,\nI, from this moment, should have formed some plan\nNever to leave sweet Venice,—for to me\nIt was delight to ride by the lone sea; _550\nAnd then, the town is silent—one may write\nOr read in gondolas by day or night,\nHaving the little brazen lamp alight,\nUnseen, uninterrupted; books are there,\nPictures, and casts from all those statues fair _555\nWhich were twin-born with poetry, and all\nWe seek in towns, with little to recall\nRegrets for the green country. I might sit\nIn Maddalo’s great palace, and his wit\nAnd subtle talk would cheer the winter night _560\nAnd make me know myself, and the firelight\nWould flash upon our faces, till the day\nMight dawn and make me wonder at my stay:\nBut I had friends in London too: the chief\nAttraction here, was that I sought relief _565\nFrom the deep tenderness that maniac wrought\nWithin me—’twas perhaps an idle thought—\nBut I imagined that if day by day\nI watched him, and but seldom went away,\nAnd studied all the beatings of his heart _570\nWith zeal, as men study some stubborn art\nFor their own good, and could by patience find\nAn entrance to the caverns of his mind,\nI might reclaim him from this dark estate:\nIn friendships I had been most fortunate— _575\nYet never saw I one whom I would call\nMore willingly my friend; and this was all\nAccomplished not; such dreams of baseless good\nOft come and go in crowds or solitude\nAnd leave no trace—but what I now designed _580\nMade for long years impression on my mind.\nThe following morning, urged by my affairs,\nI left bright Venice.\nAfter many years\nAnd many changes I returned; the name\nOf Venice, and its aspect, was the same; _585\nBut Maddalo was travelling far away\nAmong the mountains of Armenia.\nHis dog was dead. His child had now become\nA woman; such as it has been my doom\nTo meet with few,—a wonder of this earth, _590\nWhere there is little of transcendent worth,\nLike one of Shakespeare’s women: kindly she,\nAnd, with a manner beyond courtesy,\nReceived her father’s friend; and when I asked\nOf the lorn maniac, she her memory tasked, _595\nAnd told as she had heard the mournful tale:\n‘That the poor sufferer’s health began to fail\nTwo years from my departure, but that then\nThe lady who had left him, came again.\nHer mien had been imperious, but she now _600\nLooked meek—perhaps remorse had brought her low.\nHer coming made him better, and they stayed\nTogether at my father’s—for I played,\nAs I remember, with the lady’s shawl—\nI might be six years old—but after all _605\nShe left him.’...’Why, her heart must have been tough:\nHow did it end?’ ‘And was not this enough?\nThey met—they parted.’—‘Child, is there no more?’\n‘Something within that interval which bore\nThe stamp of WHY they parted, HOW they met: _610\nYet if thine aged eyes disdain to wet\nThose wrinkled cheeks with youth’s remembered tears,\nAsk me no more, but let the silent years\nBe closed and cered over their memory\nAs yon mute marble where their corpses lie.’ _615\nI urged and questioned still, she told me how\nAll happened—but the cold world shall not know.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cancelled Fragments Of Julian And Maddalo.", + "body": "‘What think you the dead are?’ ‘Why, dust and clay,\nWhat should they be?’ ‘’Tis the last hour of day.\nLook on the west, how beautiful it is _620\nVaulted with radiant vapours! The deep bliss\nOf that unutterable light has made\nThe edges of that cloud ... fade\nInto a hue, like some harmonious thought,\nWasting itself on that which it had wrought, _625\nTill it dies ... and ... between\nThe light hues of the tender, pure, serene,\nAnd infinite tranquillity of heaven.\nAy, beautiful! but when not...’\n...\n‘Perhaps the only comfort which remains _630\nIs the unheeded clanking of my chains,\nThe which I make, and call it melody.’\n\n\n_45 may Hunt manuscript; can 1824.\n_99 a one Hunt manuscript; an one 1824.\n_105 sunk Hunt manuscript; sank 1824.\n_108 ever Hunt manuscript; even 1824.\n_119 in Hunt manuscript; from 1824.\n_124 a Hunt manuscript; an 1824.\n_171 That Hunt manuscript; Which 1824.\n_175 mind Hunt manuscript; minds 1824.\n_179 know 1824; see Hunt manuscript.\n_188 those Hunt manuscript; the 1824.\n_191 their Hunt manuscript; this 1824.\n_218 Moons, etc., Hunt manuscript;\n The line is wanting in editions 1824 and 1839.\n_237 far Hunt manuscript; but 1824.\n_270 nor Hunt manuscript; and 1824.\n_292 cold Hunt manuscript; and 1824.\n_318 least Hunt manuscript; last 1824.\n_323 sweet Hunt manuscript; fresh 1824.\n_356 have Hunt manuscript; hath 1824.\n_361 in this keen Hunt manuscript; under this 1824.\n_362 cry Hunt manuscript; eye 1824.\n_372 on Hunt manuscript; in 1824.\n_388 greet Hunt manuscript; meet 1824.\n_390 your Hunt manuscript; thy 1824.\n_417 his Hunt manuscript; its 1824.\n_446 glance Hunt manuscript; glass 1824.\n_447 with Hunt manuscript; near 1824.\n_467 lip Hunt manuscript; life 1824.\n_483 this Hunt manuscript; that 1824.\n_493 I would Hunt manuscript; I’d 1824.\n_510 despair Hunt manuscript; my care 1839.\n_511 leant] See Editor’s Note.\n_518 were Hunt manuscript; was 1839.\n_525 his Hunt manuscript; it 1824.\n_530 on Hunt manuscript; in 1824.\n_537 were now Hunt manuscript; now were 1824.\n_588 regrets Hunt manuscript; regret 1824.\n_569 but Hunt manuscript;\n wanting in editions 1824 and 1839.\n_574 his 1824; this [?] Hunt manuscript.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Audisne Haec Amphiarae, Sub Terram Abdite?", + "body": "[Composed at Este, September, October, 1818 (Act 1); at Rome,\nMarch-April 6, 1819 (Acts 2, 3); at Florence, close of 1819 (Act 4).\nPublished by C. and J. Ollier, London, summer of 1820. Sources of the\ntext are (1) edition of 1820; (2) text in “Poetical Works”, 1839,\nprepared with the aid of a list of errata in (1) written out by\nShelley; (3) a fair draft in Shelley’s autograph, now in the Bodleian.\nThis has been carefully collated by Mr. C.D. Locock, who prints the\nresult in his “Examination of the Shelley Manuscripts in the Bodleian\nLibrary”, Oxford (Clarendon Press), 1903. Our text is that of 1820,\nmodified by edition 1839, and by the Bodleian fair copy. In the\nfollowing notes B = the Bodleian manuscript; 1820 = the editio\nprinceps, printed by Marchant for C. and J. Ollier, London; and 1839 =\nthe text as edited by Mrs. Shelley in the “Poetical Works”, 1st and\n2nd editions, 1839. The reader should consult the notes on the Play at\nthe end of the volume.]\n\n\n\nThe Greek tragic writers, in selecting as their subject any portion of\ntheir national history or mythology, employed in their treatment of it\na certain arbitrary discretion. They by no means conceived themselves\nbound to adhere to the common interpretation or to imitate in story as\nin title their rivals and predecessors. Such a system would have\namounted to a resignation of those claims to preference over their\ncompetitors which incited the composition. The Agamemnonian story was\nexhibited on the Athenian theatre with as many variations as dramas.\n\nI have presumed to employ a similar license. The “Prometheus Unbound”\nof Aeschylus supposed the reconciliation of Jupiter with his victim as\nthe price of the disclosure of the danger threatened to his empire by\nthe consummation of his marriage with Thetis. Thetis, according to\nthis view of the subject, was given in marriage to Peleus, and\nPrometheus, by the permission of Jupiter, delivered from his captivity\nby Hercules. Had I framed my story on this model, I should have done\nno more than have attempted to restore the lost drama of Aeschylus; an\nambition which, if my preference to this mode of treating the subject\nhad incited me to cherish, the recollection of the high comparison\nsuch an attempt would challenge might well abate. But, in truth, I was\naverse from a catastrophe so feeble as that of reconciling the\nChampion with the Oppressor of mankind. The moral interest of the\nfable, which is so powerfully sustained by the sufferings and\nendurance of Prometheus, would be annihilated if we could conceive of\nhim as unsaying his high language and quailing before his successful\nand perfidious adversary. The only imaginary being resembling in any\ndegree Prometheus, is Satan; and Prometheus is, in my judgement, a\nmore poetical character than Satan, because, in addition to courage,\nand majesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he\nis susceptible of being described as exempt from the taints of\nambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandisement,\nwhich, in the Hero of “Paradise Lost”, interfere with the interest.\nThe character of Satan engenders in the mind a pernicious casuistry\nwhich leads us to weigh his faults with his wrongs, and to excuse the\nformer because the latter exceed all measure. In the minds of those\nwho consider that magnificent fiction with a religious feeling it\nengenders something worse. But Prometheus is, as it were, the type of\nthe highest perfection of moral and intellectual nature, impelled by\nthe purest and the truest motives to the best and noblest ends.\n\nThis Poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths\nof Caracalla, among the flowery glades, and thickets of odoriferous\nblossoming trees, which are extended in ever winding labyrinths upon\nits immense platforms and dizzy arches suspended in the air. The\nbright blue sky of Rome, and the effect of the vigorous awakening\nspring in that divinest climate, and the new life with which it\ndrenches the spirits even to intoxication, were the inspiration of\nthis drama.\n\nThe imagery which I have employed will be found, in many instances, to\nhave been drawn from the operations of the human mind, or from those\nexternal actions by which they are expressed. This is unusual in\nmodern poetry, although Dante and Shakespeare are full of instances of\nthe same kind: Dante indeed more than any other poet, and with greater\nsuccess. But the Greek poets, as writers to whom no resource of\nawakening the sympathy of their contemporaries was unknown, were in\nthe habitual use of this power; and it is the study of their works\n(since a higher merit would probably be denied me) to which I am\nwilling that my readers should impute this singularity.\n\nOne word is due in candour to the degree in which the study of\ncontemporary writings may have tinged my composition, for such has\nbeen a topic of censure with regard to poems far more popular, and\nindeed more deservedly popular, than mine. It is impossible that any\none who inhabits the same age with such writers as those who stand in\nthe foremost ranks of our own, can conscientiously assure himself that\nhis language and tone of thought may not have been modified by the\nstudy of the productions of those extraordinary intellects. It is\ntrue, that, not the spirit of their genius, but the forms in which it\nhas manifested itself, are due less to the peculiarities of their own\nminds than to the peculiarity of the moral and intellectual condition\nof the minds among which they have been produced. Thus a number of\nwriters possess the form, whilst they want the spirit of those whom,\nit is alleged, they imitate; because the former is the endowment of\nthe age in which they live, and the latter must be the uncommunicated\nlightning of their own mind.\n\nThe peculiar style of intense and comprehensive imagery which\ndistinguishes the modern literature of England has not been, as a\ngeneral power, the product of the imitation of any particular writer.\nThe mass of capabilities remains at every period materially the same;\nthe circumstances which awaken it to action perpetually change. If\nEngland were divided into forty republics, each equal in population\nand extent to Athens, there is no reason to suppose but that, under\ninstitutions not more perfect than those of Athens, each would produce\nphilosophers and poets equal to those who (if we except Shakespeare)\nhave never been surpassed. We owe the great writers of the golden age\nof our literature to that fervid awakening of the public mind which\nshook to dust the oldest and most oppressive form of the Christian\nreligion. We owe Milton to the progress and development of the same\nspirit: the sacred Milton was, let it ever be remembered, a\nrepublican, and a bold inquirer into morals and religion. The great\nwriters of our own age are, we have reason to suppose, the companions\nand forerunners of some unimagined change in our social condition or\nthe opinions which cement it. The cloud of mind is discharging its\ncollected lightning, and the equilibrium between institutions and\nopinions is now restoring, or is about to be restored.\n\nAs to imitation, poetry is a mimetic art. It creates, but it creates\nby combination and representation. Poetical abstractions are beautiful\nand new, not because the portions of which they are composed had no\nprevious existence in the mind of man or in nature, but because the\nwhole produced by their combination has some intelligible and\nbeautiful analogy with those sources of emotion and thought, and with\nthe contemporary condition of them: one great poet is a masterpiece of\nnature which another not only ought to study but must study. He might\nas wisely and as easily determine that his mind should no longer be\nthe mirror of all that is lovely in the visible universe as exclude\nfrom his contemplation the beautiful which exists in the writings of a\ngreat contemporary. The pretence of doing it would be a presumption in\nany but the greatest; the effect, even in him, would be strained,\nunnatural and ineffectual. A poet is the combined product of such\ninternal powers as modify the nature of others; and of such external\ninfluences as excite and sustain these powers; he is not one, but\nboth. Every man’s mind is, in this respect, modified by all the\nobjects of nature and art; by every word and every suggestion which he\never admitted to act upon his consciousness; it is the mirror upon\nwhich all forms are reflected, and in which they compose one form.\nPoets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, sculptors and\nmusicians, are, in one sense, the creators, and, in another, the\ncreations, of their age. From this subjection the loftiest do not\nescape. There is a similarity between Homer and Hesiod, between\nAeschylus and Euripides, between Virgil and Horace, between Dante and\nPetrarch, between Shakespeare and Fletcher, between Dryden and Pope;\neach has a generic resemblance under which their specific distinctions\nare arranged. If this similarity be the result of imitation, I am\nwilling to confess that I have imitated.\n\nLet this opportunity be conceded to me of acknowledging that I have,\nwhat a Scotch philosopher characteristically terms, ‘a passion for\nreforming the world:’ what passion incited him to write and publish\nhis book, he omits to explain. For my part I had rather be damned with\nPlato and Lord Bacon, than go to Heaven with Paley and Malthus. But it\nis a mistake to suppose that I dedicate my poetical compositions\nsolely to the direct enforcement of reform, or that I consider them in\nany degree as containing a reasoned system on the theory of human\nlife. Didactic poetry is my abhorrence; nothing can be equally well\nexpressed in prose that is not tedious and supererogatory in verse. My\npurpose has hitherto been simply to familiarise the highly refined\nimagination of the more select classes of poetical readers with\nbeautiful idealisms of moral excellence; aware that until the mind can\nlove, and admire, and trust, and hope, and endure, reasoned principles\nof moral conduct are seeds cast upon the highway of life which the\nunconscious passenger tramples into dust, although they would bear the\nharvest of his happiness. Should I live to accomplish what I purpose,\nthat is, produce a systematical history of what appear to me to be the\ngenuine elements of human society, let not the advocates of injustice\nand superstition flatter themselves that I should take Aeschylus\nrather than Plato as my model.\n\nThe having spoken of myself with unaffected freedom will need little\napology with the candid; and let the uncandid consider that they\ninjure me less than their own hearts and minds by misrepresentation.\nWhatever talents a person may possess to amuse and instruct others, be\nthey ever so inconsiderable, he is yet bound to exert them: if his\nattempt be ineffectual, let the punishment of an unaccomplished\npurpose have been sufficient; let none trouble themselves to heap the\ndust of oblivion upon his efforts; the pile they raise will betray his\ngrave which might otherwise have been unknown.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus.", + "body": "DEMOGORGON.\nJUPITER.\nTHE EARTH.\nOCEAN.\nAPOLLO.\nMERCURY.\nOCEANIDES: ASIA, PANTHEA, IONE.\nHERCULES.\nTHE PHANTASM OF JUPITER.\nTHE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH.\nTHE SPIRIT OF THE MOON.\nSPIRITS OF THE HOURS.\nSPIRITS. ECHOES. FAUNS. FURIES.\n\n\nACT 1.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "Monarch of Gods and DAEmons, and all Spirits\nBut One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds\nWhich Thou and I alone of living things\nBehold with sleepless eyes! regard this Earth\nMade multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou _5\nRequitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise,\nAnd toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts,\nWith fear and self-contempt and barren hope.\nWhilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate,\nHast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn, _10\nO’er mine own misery and thy vain revenge.\nThree thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours,\nAnd moments aye divided by keen pangs\nTill they seemed years, torture and solitude,\nScorn and despair,—these are mine empire:— _15\nMore glorious far than that which thou surveyest\nFrom thine unenvied throne, O Mighty God!\nAlmighty, had I deigned to share the shame\nOf thine ill tyranny, and hung not here\nNailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, _20\nBlack, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb,\nInsect, or beast, or shape or sound of life.\nAh me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!\n\nNo change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.\nI ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt? _25\nI ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun,\nHas it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,\nHeaven’s ever-changing Shadow, spread below,\nHave its deaf waves not heard my agony?\nAh me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever! _30\n\nThe crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears\nOf their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains\nEat with their burning cold into my bones.\nHeaven’s winged hound, polluting from thy lips\nHis beak in poison not his own, tears up _35\nMy heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by,\nThe ghastly people of the realm of dream,\nMocking me: and the Earthquake-fiends are charged\nTo wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds\nWhen the rocks split and close again behind: _40\nWhile from their loud abysses howling throng\nThe genii of the storm, urging the rage\nOf whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail.\nAnd yet to me welcome is day and night,\nWhether one breaks the hoar-frost of the morn, _45\nOr starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs\nThe leaden-coloured east; for then they lead\nThe wingless, crawling hours, one among whom\n—As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim—\nShall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood _50\nFrom these pale feet, which then might trample thee\nIf they disdained not such a prostrate slave.\nDisdain! Ah, no! I pity thee. What ruin\nWill hunt thee undefended through wide Heaven!\nHow will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror, _55\nGape like a hell within! I speak in grief,\nNot exultation, for I hate no more,\nAs then ere misery made me wise. The curse\nOnce breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains,\nWhose many-voiced Echoes, through the mist _60\nOf cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell!\nYe icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost,\nWhich vibrated to hear me, and then crept\nShuddering through India! Thou serenest Air,\nThrough which the Sun walks burning without beams! _65\nAnd ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poised wings\nHung mute and moveless o’er yon hushed abyss,\nAs thunder, louder than your own, made rock\nThe orbed world! If then my words had power,\nThough I am changed so that aught evil wish _70\nIs dead within; although no memory be\nOf what is hate, let them not lose it now!\nWhat was that curse? for ye all heard me speak.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fourth Voice (From The Whirlwinds):", + "body": "We had soared beneath these mountains\nUnresting ages; nor had thunder,\nNor yon volcano’s flaming fountains,\nNor any power above or under\nEver made us mute with wonder. _90", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Voice:", + "body": "Never such a sound before\nTo the Indian waves we bore.\nA pilot asleep on the howling sea _95\nLeaped up from the deck in agony,\nAnd heard, and cried, ‘Ah, woe is me!’\nAnd died as mad as the wild waves be.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "The tongueless caverns of the craggy hills\nCried, ‘Misery!’ then; the hollow Heaven replied,\n‘Misery!’ And the Ocean’s purple waves,\nClimbing the land, howled to the lashing winds, _110\nAnd the pale nations heard it, ‘Misery!’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "I hear a sound of voices: not the voice\nWhich I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou\nScorn him, without whose all-enduring will\nBeneath the fierce omnipotence of Jove, _115\nBoth they and thou had vanished, like thin mist\nUnrolled on the morning wind. Know ye not me,\nThe Titan? He who made his agony\nThe barrier to your else all-conquering foe?\nOh, rock-embosomed lawns, and snow-fed streams, _120\nNow seen athwart frore vapours, deep below,\nThrough whose o’ershadowing woods I wandered once\nWith Asia, drinking life from her loved eyes;\nWhy scorns the spirit which informs ye, now\nTo commune with me? me alone, who checked, _125\nAs one who checks a fiend-drawn charioteer,\nThe falsehood and the force of him who reigns\nSupreme, and with the groans of pining slaves\nFills your dim glens and liquid wildernesses:\nWhy answer ye not, still? Brethren!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "Who dares? for I would hear that curse again.\nHa, what an awful whisper rises up!\n’Tis scarce like sound: it tingles through the frame\nAs lightning tingles, hovering ere it strike.\nSpeak, Spirit! from thine inorganic voice _135\nI only know that thou art moving near\nAnd love. How cursed I him?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven’s fell King _140\nShould hear, and link me to some wheel of pain\nMore torturing than the one whereon I roll.\nSubtle thou art and good; and though the Gods\nHear not this voice, yet thou art more than God,\nBeing wise and kind: earnestly hearken now. _145", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "I am the Earth,\nThy mother; she within whose stony veins,\nTo the last fibre of the loftiest tree\nWhose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air, _155\nJoy ran, as blood within a living frame,\nWhen thou didst from her bosom, like a cloud\nOf glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy!\nAnd at thy voice her pining sons uplifted\nTheir prostrate brows from the polluting dust, _160\nAnd our almighty Tyrant with fierce dread\nGrew pale, until his thunder chained thee here.\nThen, see those million worlds which burn and roll\nAround us: their inhabitants beheld\nMy sphered light wane in wide Heaven; the sea _165\nWas lifted by strange tempest, and new fire\nFrom earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow\nShook its portentous hair beneath Heaven’s frown;\nLightning and Inundation vexed the plains;\nBlue thistles bloomed in cities; foodless toads _170\nWithin voluptuous chambers panting crawled:\nWhen Plague had fallen on man, and beast, and worm,\nAnd Famine; and black blight on herb and tree;\nAnd in the corn, and vines, and meadow-grass,\nTeemed ineradicable poisonous weeds _175\nDraining their growth, for my wan breast was dry\nWith grief; and the thin air, my breath, was stained\nWith the contagion of a mother’s hate\nBreathed on her child’s destroyer; ay, I heard\nThy curse, the which, if thou rememberest not, _180\nYet my innumerable seas and streams,\nMountains, and caves, and winds, and yon wide air,\nAnd the inarticulate people of the dead,\nPreserve, a treasured spell. We meditate\nIn secret joy and hope those dreadful words, _185\nBut dare not speak them.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "Venerable mother!\nAll else who live and suffer take from thee\nSome comfort; flowers, and fruits, and happy sounds,\nAnd love, though fleeting; these may not be mine.\nBut mine own words, I pray, deny me not. _190", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "They shall be told. Ere Babylon was dust,\nThe Magus Zoroaster, my dead child,\nMet his own image walking in the garden.\nThat apparition, sole of men, he saw.\nFor know there are two worlds of life and death: _195\nOne that which thou beholdest; but the other\nIs underneath the grave, where do inhabit\nThe shadows of all forms that think and live\nTill death unite them and they part no more;\nDreams and the light imaginings of men, _200\nAnd all that faith creates or love desires,\nTerrible, strange, sublime and beauteous shapes.\nThere thou art, and dost hang, a writhing shade,\n‘Mid whirlwind-peopled mountains; all the gods\nAre there, and all the powers of nameless worlds, _205\nVast, sceptred phantoms; heroes, men, and beasts;\nAnd Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom;\nAnd he, the supreme Tyrant, on his throne\nOf burning gold. Son, one of these shall utter\nThe curse which all remember. Call at will _210\nThine own ghost, or the ghost of Jupiter,\nHades or Typhon, or what mightier Gods\nFrom all-prolific Evil, since thy ruin,\nHave sprung, and trampled on my prostrate sons.\nAsk, and they must reply: so the revenge _215\nOf the Supreme may sweep through vacant shades,\nAs rainy wind through the abandoned gate\nOf a fallen palace.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "My wings are folded o’er mine ears:\nMy wings are crossed o’er mine eyes:\nYet through their silver shade appears,\nAnd through their lulling plumes arise, _225\nA Shape, a throng of sounds;\nMay it be no ill to thee\nO thou of many wounds!\nNear whom, for our sweet sister’s sake,\nEver thus we watch and wake. _230", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "The sound is of whirlwind underground,\nEarthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven;\nThe shape is awful like the sound,\nClothed in dark purple, star-inwoven.\nA sceptre of pale gold _235\nTo stay steps proud, o’er the slow cloud\nHis veined hand doth hold.\nCruel he looks, but calm and strong,\nLike one who does, not suffers wrong.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Phantasm Of Jupiter:", + "body": "Why have the secret powers of this strange world _240\nDriven me, a frail and empty phantom, hither\nOn direst storms? What unaccustomed sounds\nAre hovering on my lips, unlike the voice\nWith which our pallid race hold ghastly talk\nIn darkness? And, proud sufferer, who art thou? _245", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "Listen! And though your echoes must be mute, _250\nGrey mountains, and old woods, and haunted springs,\nProphetic caves, and isle-surrounding streams,\nRejoice to hear what yet ye cannot speak.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "I see the curse on gestures proud and cold,\nAnd looks of firm defiance, and calm hate,\nAnd such despair as mocks itself with smiles, _260\nWritten as on a scroll: yet speak! Oh, speak!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Phantasm:", + "body": "Fiend, I defy thee! with a calm, fixed mind,\nAll that thou canst inflict I bid thee do;\nFoul Tyrant both of Gods and Humankind,\nOne only being shalt thou not subdue. _265\nRain then thy plagues upon me here,\nGhastly disease, and frenzying fear;\nAnd let alternate frost and fire\nEat into me, and be thine ire\nLightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms _270\nOf furies, driving by upon the wounding storms.\n\nAy, do thy worst. Thou art omnipotent.\nO’er all things but thyself I gave thee power,\nAnd my own will. Be thy swift mischiefs sent\nTo blast mankind, from yon ethereal tower. _275\nLet thy malignant spirit move\nIn darkness over those I love:\nOn me and mine I imprecate\nThe utmost torture of thy hate;\nAnd thus devote to sleepless agony, _280\nThis undeclining head while thou must reign on high.\n\nBut thou, who art the God and Lord: O, thou,\nWho fillest with thy soul this world of woe,\nTo whom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow\nIn fear and worship: all-prevailing foe! _285\nI curse thee! let a sufferer’s curse\nClasp thee, his torturer, like remorse;\nTill thine Infinity shall be\nA robe of envenomed agony;\nAnd thine Omnipotence a crown of pain, _290\nTo cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain.\n\nHeap on thy soul, by virtue of this Curse,\nIll deeds, then be thou damned, beholding good;\nBoth infinite as is the universe,\nAnd thou, and thy self-torturing solitude. _295\nAn awful image of calm power\nThough now thou sittest, let the hour\nCome, when thou must appear to be\nThat which thou art internally;\nAnd after many a false and fruitless crime _300\nScorn track thy lagging fall through boundless space and time.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "Misery, Oh misery to me,\nThat Jove at length should vanquish thee.\nWail, howl aloud, Land and Sea,\nThe Earth’s rent heart shall answer ye.\nHowl, Spirits of the living and the dead, _310\nYour refuge, your defence, lies fallen and vanquished.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "Fear not: ’tis but some passing spasm,\nThe Titan is unvanquished still. _315\nBut see, where through the azure chasm\nOf yon forked and snowy hill\nTrampling the slant winds on high\nWith golden-sandalled feet, that glow\nUnder plumes of purple dye, _320\nLike rose-ensanguined ivory,\nA Shape comes now,\nStretching on high from his right hand\nA serpent-cinctured wand.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "And who are those with hydra tresses\nAnd iron wings that climb the wind,\nWhom the frowning God represses\nLike vapours steaming up behind,\nClanging loud, an endless crowd— _330", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mercury:", + "body": "Back to your towers of iron,\nAnd gnash, beside the streams of fire and wail, _345\nYour foodless teeth. Geryon, arise! and Gorgon,\nChimaera, and thou Sphinx, subtlest of fiends\nWho ministered to Thebes Heaven’s poisoned wine,\nUnnatural love, and more unnatural hate:\nThese shall perform your task.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mercury:", + "body": "Crouch then in silence.\nAwful Sufferer!\nTo thee unwilling, most unwillingly\nI come, by the great Father’s will driven down,\nTo execute a doom of new revenge. _355\nAlas! I pity thee, and hate myself\nThat I can do no more: aye from thy sight\nReturning, for a season, Heaven seems Hell,\nSo thy worn form pursues me night and day,\nSmiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good, _360\nBut vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strife\nAgainst the Omnipotent; as yon clear lamps\nThat measure and divide the weary years\nFrom which there is no refuge, long have taught\nAnd long must teach. Even now thy Torturer arms _365\nWith the strange might of unimagined pains\nThe powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell,\nAnd my commission is to lead them here,\nOr what more subtle, foul, or savage fiends\nPeople the abyss, and leave them to their task. _370\nBe it not so! there is a secret known\nTo thee, and to none else of living things,\nWhich may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven,\nThe fear of which perplexes the Supreme:\nClothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne _375\nIn intercession; bend thy soul in prayer,\nAnd like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane,\nLet the will kneel within thy haughty heart:\nFor benefits and meek submission tame\nThe fiercest and the mightiest.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "Evil minds _380\nChange good to their own nature. I gave all\nHe has; and in return he chains me here\nYears, ages, night and day: whether the Sun\nSplit my parched skin, or in the moony night\nThe crystal-winged snow cling round my hair: _385\nWhilst my beloved race is trampled down\nBy his thought-executing ministers.\nSuch is the tyrant’s recompense: ’tis just:\nHe who is evil can receive no good;\nAnd for a world bestowed, or a friend lost, _390\nHe can feel hate, fear, shame; not gratitude:\nHe but requites me for his own misdeed.\nKindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks\nWith bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge.\nSubmission, thou dost know I cannot try: _395\nFor what submission but that fatal word,\nThe death-seal of mankind’s captivity,\nLike the Sicilian’s hair-suspended sword,\nWhich trembles o’er his crown, would he accept,\nOr could I yield? Which yet I will not yield. _400\nLet others flatter Crime, where it sits throned\nIn brief Omnipotence: secure are they:\nFor Justice, when triumphant, will weep down\nPity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,\nToo much avenged by those who err. I wait, _405\nEnduring thus, the retributive hour\nWhich since we spake is even nearer now.\nBut hark, the hell-hounds clamour: fear delay:\nBehold! Heaven lowers under thy Father’s frown.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mercury:", + "body": "Yet pause, and plunge\nInto Eternity, where recorded time,\nEven all that we imagine, age on age,\nSeems but a point, and the reluctant mind\nFlags wearily in its unending flight, _420\nTill it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless;\nPerchance it has not numbered the slow years\nWhich thou must spend in torture, unreprieved?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes\nLest thou behold and die: they come: they come _440\nBlackening the birth of day with countless wings,\nAnd hollow underneath, like death.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here,\nPrometheus, the chained Titan. Horrible forms, _445\nWhat and who are ye? Never yet there came\nPhantasms so foul through monster-teeming Hell\nFrom the all-miscreative brain of Jove;\nWhilst I behold such execrable shapes,\nMethinks I grow like what I contemplate, _450\nAnd laugh and stare in loathsome sympathy.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "First Fury:", + "body": "We are the ministers of pain, and fear,\nAnd disappointment, and mistrust, and hate,\nAnd clinging crime; and as lean dogs pursue\nThrough wood and lake some struck and sobbing fawn, _455\nWe track all things that weep, and bleed, and live,\nWhen the great King betrays them to our will.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "Oh! many fearful natures in one name,\nI know ye; and these lakes and echoes know\nThe darkness and the clangour of your wings. _460\nBut why more hideous than your loathed selves\nGather ye up in legions from the deep?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Fury:", + "body": "The beauty of delight makes lovers glad, _465\nGazing on one another: so are we.\nAs from the rose which the pale priestess kneels\nTo gather for her festal crown of flowers\nThe aereal crimson falls, flushing her cheek,\nSo from our victim’s destined agony _470\nThe shade which is our form invests us round,\nElse we are shapeless as our mother Night.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Third Fury:", + "body": "Thou think’st we will live through thee, one by one,\nLike animal life, and though we can obscure not\nThe soul which burns within, that we will dwell _485\nBeside it, like a vain loud multitude\nVexing the self-content of wisest men:\nThat we will be dread thought beneath thy brain,\nAnd foul desire round thine astonished heart,\nAnd blood within thy labyrinthine veins _490\nCrawling like agony?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Furies:", + "body": "From the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth, _495\nWhere the night has its grave and the morning its birth,\nCome, come, come!\nOh, ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth,\nWhen cities sink howling in ruin; and ye\nWho with wingless footsteps trample the sea, _500\nAnd close upon Shipwreck and Famine’s track,\nSit chattering with joy on the foodless wreck;\nCome, come, come!\nLeave the bed, low, cold, and red,\nStrewed beneath a nation dead; _505\nLeave the hatred, as in ashes\nFire is left for future burning:\nIt will burst in bloodier flashes\nWhen ye stir it, soon returning:\nLeave the self-contempt implanted _510\nIn young spirits, sense-enchanted,\nMisery’s yet unkindled fuel:\nLeave Hell’s secrets half unchanted\nTo the maniac dreamer; cruel\nMore than ye can be with hate _515\nIs he with fear.\nCome, come, come!\nWe are steaming up from Hell’s wide gate\nAnd we burthen the blast of the atmosphere,\nBut vainly we toil till ye come here. _520", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Fury:", + "body": "Speak not: whisper not:\nI know all that ye would tell,\nBut to speak might break the spell _535\nWhich must bend the Invincible,\nThe stern of thought;\nHe yet defies the deepest power of Hell.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "The pale stars of the morn\nShine on a misery, dire to be borne. _540\nDost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to scorn.\nDost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken’dst for man?\nThen was kindled within him a thirst which outran\nThose perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever,\nHope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever. _545\nOne came forth of gentle worth\nSmiling on the sanguine earth;\nHis words outlived him, like swift poison\nWithering up truth, peace, and pity.\nLook! where round the wide horizon _550\nMany a million-peopled city\nVomits smoke in the bright air.\nMark that outcry of despair!\n’Tis his mild and gentle ghost\nWailing for the faith he kindled: _555\nLook again, the flames almost\nTo a glow-worm’s lamp have dwindled:\nThe survivors round the embers\nGather in dread.\nJoy, joy, joy! _560\nPast ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers,\nAnd the future is dark, and the present is spread\nLike a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "Drops of bloody agony flow\nFrom his white and quivering brow. _565\nGrant a little respite now:\nSee a disenchanted nation\nSprings like day from desolation;\nTo Truth its state is dedicate,\nAnd Freedom leads it forth, her mate; _570\nA legioned band of linked brothers\nWhom Love calls children—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 2:", + "body": "’Tis another’s:\nSee how kindred murder kin:\n’Tis the vintage-time for death and sin:\nBlood, like new wine, bubbles within: _575\nTill Despair smothers\nThe struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win.\n\n[ALL THE FURIES VANISH, EXCEPT ONE.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "Hark, sister! what a low yet dreadful groan\nQuite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart\nOf the good Titan, as storms tear the deep, _580\nAnd beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves.\nDarest thou observe how the fiends torture him?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "The heaven around, the earth below\nWas peopled with thick shapes of human death,\nAll horrible, and wrought by human hands,\nAnd some appeared the work of human hearts,\nFor men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles: _590\nAnd other sights too foul to speak and live\nWere wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear\nBy looking forth: those groans are grief enough.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "Remit the anguish of that lighted stare;\nClose those wan lips; let that thorn-wounded brow\nStream not with blood; it mingles with thy tears!\nFix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death, _600\nSo thy sick throes shake not that crucifix,\nSo those pale fingers play not with thy gore.\nO, horrible! Thy name I will not speak,\nIt hath become a curse. I see, I see\nThe wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just, _605\nWhom thy slaves hate for being like to thee,\nSome hunted by foul lies from their heart’s home,\nAn early-chosen, late-lamented home;\nAs hooded ounces cling to the driven hind;\nSome linked to corpses in unwholesome cells: _610\nSome—Hear I not the multitude laugh loud?—\nImpaled in lingering fire: and mighty realms\nFloat by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles,\nWhose sons are kneaded down in common blood\nBy the red light of their own burning homes. _615", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fury:", + "body": "In each human heart terror survives\nThe ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear\nAll that they would disdain to think were true: _620\nHypocrisy and custom make their minds\nThe fanes of many a worship, now outworn.\nThey dare not devise good for man’s estate,\nAnd yet they know not that they do not dare.\nThe good want power, but to weep barren tears. _625\nThe powerful goodness want: worse need for them.\nThe wise want love; and those who love want wisdom;\nAnd all best things are thus confused to ill.\nMany are strong and rich, and would be just,\nBut live among their suffering fellow-men _630\nAs if none felt: they know not what they do.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "Ah woe!\nAh woe! Alas! pain, pain ever, for ever! _635\nI close my tearless eyes, but see more clear\nThy works within my woe-illumed mind,\nThou subtle tyrant! Peace is in the grave.\nThe grave hides all things beautiful and good:\nI am a God and cannot find it there, _640\nNor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge,\nThis is defeat, fierce king, not victory.\nThe sights with which thou torturest gird my soul\nWith new endurance, till the hour arrives\nWhen they shall be no types of things which are. _645", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "There are two woes:\nTo speak, and to behold; thou spare me one.\nNames are there, Nature’s sacred watchwords, they\nWere borne aloft in bright emblazonry;\nThe nations thronged around, and cried aloud, _650\nAs with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love!\nSuddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven\nAmong them: there was strife, deceit, and fear:\nTyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.\nThis was the shadow of the truth I saw. _655", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "I felt thy torture, son; with such mixed joy\nAs pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state\nI bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits,\nWhose homes are the dim caves of human thought,\nAnd who inhabit, as birds wing the wind, _660\nIts world-surrounding aether: they behold\nBeyond that twilight realm, as in a glass,\nThe future: may they speak comfort to thee!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "And see! more come,\nLike fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb,\nThat climb up the ravine in scattered lines.\nAnd, hark! is it the music of the pines?\nIs it the lake? Is it the waterfall? _670", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Spirits:", + "body": "From unremembered ages we\nGentle guides and guardians be\nOf heaven-oppressed mortality;\nAnd we breathe, and sicken not, _675\nThe atmosphere of human thought:\nBe it dim, and dank, and gray,\nLike a storm-extinguished day,\nTravelled o’er by dying gleams;\nBe it bright as all between _680\nCloudless skies and windless streams,\nSilent, liquid, and serene;\nAs the birds within the wind,\nAs the fish within the wave,\nAs the thoughts of man’s own mind _685\nFloat through all above the grave;\nWe make there our liquid lair,\nVoyaging cloudlike and unpent\nThrough the boundless element:\nThence we bear the prophecy _690\nWhich begins and ends in thee!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "First Spirit:", + "body": "On a battle-trumpet’s blast\nI fled hither, fast, fast, fast, _695\n‘Mid the darkness upward cast.\nFrom the dust of creeds outworn,\nFrom the tyrant’s banner torn,\nGathering ‘round me, onward borne,\nThere was mingled many a cry— _700\nFreedom! Hope! Death! Victory!\nTill they faded through the sky;\nAnd one sound, above, around,\nOne sound beneath, around, above,\nWas moving; ’twas the soul of Love; _705\n’Twas the hope, the prophecy,\nWhich begins and ends in thee.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Spirit:", + "body": "A rainbow’s arch stood on the sea,\nWhich rocked beneath, immovably;\nAnd the triumphant storm did flee, _710\nLike a conqueror, swift and proud,\nBetween, with many a captive cloud,\nA shapeless, dark and rapid crowd,\nEach by lightning riven in half:\nI heard the thunder hoarsely laugh: _715\nMighty fleets were strewn like chaff\nAnd spread beneath a hell of death\nO’er the white waters. I alit\nOn a great ship lightning-split,\nAnd speeded hither on the sigh _720\nOf one who gave an enemy\nHis plank, then plunged aside to die.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Third Spirit:", + "body": "I sate beside a sage’s bed,\nAnd the lamp was burning red\nNear the book where he had fed, _725\nWhen a Dream with plumes of flame,\nTo his pillow hovering came,\nAnd I knew it was the same\nWhich had kindled long ago\nPity, eloquence, and woe; _730\nAnd the world awhile below\nWore the shade, its lustre made.\nIt has borne me here as fleet\nAs Desire’s lightning feet:\nI must ride it back ere morrow, _735\nOr the sage will wake in sorrow.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fourth Spirit:", + "body": "On a poet’s lips I slept\nDreaming like a love-adept\nIn the sound his breathing kept;\nNor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, _740\nBut feeds on the aereal kisses\nOf shapes that haunt thought’s wildernesses.\nHe will watch from dawn to gloom\nThe lake-reflected sun illume\nThe yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, _745\nNor heed nor see, what things they be;\nBut from these create he can\nForms more real than living man,\nNurslings of immortality!\nOne of these awakened me, _750\nAnd I sped to succour thee.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "Behold’st thou not two shapes from the east and west\nCome, as two doves to one beloved nest,\nTwin nurslings of the all-sustaining air\nOn swift still wings glide down the atmosphere? _755\nAnd, hark! their sweet sad voices! ’tis despair\nMingled with love and then dissolved in sound.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float\nOn their sustaining wings of skiey grain, _760\nOrange and azure deepening into gold:\nTheir soft smiles light the air like a star’s fire.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fifth Spirit:", + "body": "As over wide dominions\nI sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air’s wildernesses,\nThat planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided pinions, _765\nScattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial tresses:\nHis footsteps paved the world with light; but as I passed ’twas fading,\nAnd hollow Ruin yawned behind: great sages bound in madness,\nAnd headless patriots, and pale youths who perished, unupbraiding,\nGleamed in the night. I wandered o’er, till thou, O King of sadness, _770\nTurned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected gladness.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Sixth Spirit:", + "body": "Ah, sister! Desolation is a delicate thing:\nIt walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air,\nBut treads with lulling footstep, and fans with silent wing\nThe tender hopes which in their hearts the best and gentlest bear; _775\nWho, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above\nAnd the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet,\nDream visions of aereal joy, and call the monster, Love,\nAnd wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now we greet.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "Though Ruin now Love’s shadow be, _780\nFollowing him, destroyingly,\nOn Death’s white and winged steed,\nWhich the fleetest cannot flee,\nTrampling down both flower and weed,\nMan and beast, and foul and fair, _785\nLike a tempest through the air;\nThou shalt quell this horseman grim,\nWoundless though in heart or limb.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "In the atmosphere we breathe, _790\nAs buds grow red when the snow-storms flee,\nFrom Spring gathering up beneath,\nWhose mild winds shake the elder-brake,\nAnd the wandering herdsmen know\nThat the white-thorn soon will blow: _795\nWisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace,\nWhen they struggle to increase,\nAre to us as soft winds be\nTo shepherd boys, the prophecy\nWhich begins and ends in thee. _800", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "Only a sense\nRemains of them, like the omnipotence\nOf music, when the inspired voice and lute\nLanguish, ere yet the responses are mute,\nWhich through the deep and labyrinthine soul, _805\nLike echoes through long caverns, wind and roll.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "How fair these airborn shapes! and yet I feel\nMost vain all hope but love; and thou art far,\nAsia! who, when my being overflowed,\nWert like a golden chalice to bright wine _810\nWhich else had sunk into the thirsty dust.\nAll things are still: alas! how heavily\nThis quiet morning weighs upon my heart;\nThough I should dream I could even sleep with grief\nIf slumber were denied not. I would fain _815\nBe what it is my destiny to be,\nThe saviour and the strength of suffering man,\nOr sink into the original gulf of things:\nThere is no agony, and no solace left;\nEarth can console, Heaven can torment no more. _820", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "Deeply in truth; but the eastern star looks white, _825\nAnd Asia waits in that far Indian vale,\nThe scene of her sad exile; rugged once\nAnd desolate and frozen, like this ravine;\nBut now invested with fair flowers and herbs,\nAnd haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow _830\nAmong the woods and waters, from the aether\nOf her transforming presence, which would fade\nIf it were mingled not with thine. Farewell!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended:\nYes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes\nUnwonted tears throng to the horny eyes,\nAnd beatings haunt the desolated heart,\nWhich should have learnt repose: thou hast descended _5\nCradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring!\nO child of many winds! As suddenly\nThou comest as the memory of a dream,\nWhich now is sad because it hath been sweet;\nLike genius, or like joy which riseth up _10\nAs from the earth, clothing with golden clouds\nThe desert of our life.\nThis is the season, this the day, the hour;\nAt sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine,\nToo long desired, too long delaying, come! _15\nHow like death-worms the wingless moments crawl!\nThe point of one white star is quivering still\nDeep in the orange light of widening morn\nBeyond the purple mountains: through a chasm\nOf wind-divided mist the darker lake _20\nReflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again\nAs the waves fade, and as the burning threads\nOf woven cloud unravel in pale air:\n’Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow\nThe roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not _25\nThe Aeolian music of her sea-green plumes\nWinnowing the crimson dawn?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea [Enters]:", + "body": "I feel, I see\nThose eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears,\nLike stars half quenched in mists of silver dew.\nBeloved and most beautiful, who wearest _30\nThe shadow of that soul by which I live,\nHow late thou art! the sphered sun had climbed\nThe sea; my heart was sick with hope, before\nThe printless air felt thy belated plumes.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "Pardon, great Sister! but my wings were faint _35\nWith the delight of a remembered dream,\nAs are the noontide plumes of summer winds\nSatiate with sweet flowers. I was wont to sleep\nPeacefully, and awake refreshed and calm\nBefore the sacred Titan’s fall, and thy _40\nUnhappy love, had made, through use and pity,\nBoth love and woe familiar to my heart\nAs they had grown to thine: erewhile I slept\nUnder the glaucous caverns of old Ocean\nWithin dim bowers of green and purple moss, _45\nOur young Ione’s soft and milky arms\nLocked then, as now, behind my dark, moist hair,\nWhile my shut eyes and cheek were pressed within\nThe folded depth of her life-breathing bosom:\nBut not as now, since I am made the wind _50\nWhich fails beneath the music that I bear\nOf thy most wordless converse; since dissolved\nInto the sense with which love talks, my rest\nWas troubled and yet sweet; my waking hours\nToo full of care and pain.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "As I have said\nWith our sea-sister at his feet I slept.\nThe mountain mists, condensing at our voice\nUnder the moon, had spread their snowy flakes,\nFrom the keen ice shielding our linked sleep. _60\nThen two dreams came. One, I remember not.\nBut in the other his pale wound-worn limbs\nFell from Prometheus, and the azure night\nGrew radiant with the glory of that form\nWhich lives unchanged within, and his voice fell _65\nLike music which makes giddy the dim brain,\nFaint with intoxication of keen joy:\n‘Sister of her whose footsteps pave the world\nWith loveliness—more fair than aught but her,\nWhose shadow thou art—lift thine eyes on me.’ _70\nI lifted them: the overpowering light\nOf that immortal shape was shadowed o’er\nBy love; which, from his soft and flowing limbs,\nAnd passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes,\nSteamed forth like vaporous fire; an atmosphere _75\nWhich wrapped me in its all-dissolving power,\nAs the warm ether of the morning sun\nWraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew.\nI saw not, heard not, moved not, only felt\nHis presence flow and mingle through my blood _80\nTill it became his life, and his grew mine,\nAnd I was thus absorbed, until it passed,\nAnd like the vapours when the sun sinks down,\nGathering again in drops upon the pines,\nAnd tremulous as they, in the deep night _85\nMy being was condensed; and as the rays\nOf thought were slowly gathered, I could hear\nHis voice, whose accents lingered ere they died\nLike footsteps of weak melody: thy name\nAmong the many sounds alone I heard _90\nOf what might be articulate; though still\nI listened through the night when sound was none.\nIone wakened then, and said to me:\n‘Canst thou divine what troubles me to-night?\nI always knew, what I desired before, _95\nNor ever found delight to wish in vain.\nBut now I cannot tell thee what I seek;\nI know not; something sweet, since it is sweet\nEven to desire; it is thy sport, false sister;\nThou hast discovered some enchantment old, _100\nWhose spells have stolen my spirit as I slept\nAnd mingled it with thine: for when just now\nWe kissed, I felt within thy parted lips\nThe sweet air that sustained me, and the warmth\nOf the life-blood, for loss of which I faint, _105\nQuivered between our intertwining arms.’\nI answered not, for the Eastern star grew pale,\nBut fled to thee.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven\nContracted to two circles underneath _115\nTheir long, fine lashes; dark, far, measureless,\nOrb within orb, and line through line inwoven.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "There is a change: beyond their inmost depth\nI see a shade, a shape: ’tis He, arrayed _120\nIn the soft light of his own smiles, which spread\nLike radiance from the cloud-surrounded moon.\nPrometheus, it is thine! depart not yet!\nSay not those smiles that we shall meet again\nWithin that bright pavilion which their beams _125\nShall build o’er the waste world? The dream is told.\nWhat shape is that between us? Its rude hair\nRoughens the wind that lifts it, its regard\nIs wild and quick, yet ’tis a thing of air,\nFor through its gray robe gleams the golden dew _130\nWhose stars the noon has quenched not.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "It passes now into my mind. Methought\nAs we sate here, the flower-infolding buds\nBurst on yon lightning-blasted almond tree, _135\nWhen swift from the white Scythian wilderness\nA wind swept forth wrinkling the Earth with frost:\nI looked, and all the blossoms were blown down;\nBut on each leaf was stamped, as the blue bells\nOf Hyacinth tell Apollo’s written grief, _140\nO, FOLLOW, FOLLOW!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "As you speak, your words\nFill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep\nWith shapes. Methought among these lawns together\nWe wandered, underneath the young gray dawn,\nAnd multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds _145\nWere wandering in thick flocks along the mountains\nShepherded by the slow, unwilling wind;\nAnd the white dew on the new-bladed grass,\nJust piercing the dark earth, hung silently;\nAnd there was more which I remember not: _150\nBut on the shadows of the morning clouds,\nAthwart the purple mountain slope, was written\nFOLLOW, O, FOLLOW! as they vanished by;\nAnd on each herb, from which Heaven’s dew had fallen,\nThe like was stamped, as with a withering fire; _155\nA wind arose among the pines; it shook\nThe clinging music from their boughs, and then\nLow, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts,\nWere heard: O, FOLLOW, FOLLOW, FOLLOW ME!\nAnd then I said, ‘Panthea, look on me.’ _160\nBut in the depth of those beloved eyes\nStill I saw, FOLLOW, FOLLOW!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Echoes:", + "body": "Oh, follow, follow,\nAs our voice recedeth\nThrough the caverns hollow, _175\nWhere the forest spreadeth;\n[MORE DISTANT.]\nOh, follow, follow!\nThrough the caverns hollow,\nAs the song floats thou pursue,\nWhere the wild bee never flew, _180\nThrough the noontide darkness deep,\nBy the odour-breathing sleep\nOf faint night-flowers, and the waves\nAt the fountain-lighted caves,\nWhile our music, wild and sweet, _185\nMocks thy gently falling feet,\nChild of Ocean!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Echoes:", + "body": "Oh, follow, follow!\nThrough the caverns hollow,\nAs the song floats thou pursue,\nBy the woodland noontide dew;\nBy the forests, lakes, and fountains, _200\nThrough the many-folded mountains;\nTo the rents, and gulfs, and chasms,\nWhere the Earth reposed from spasms,\nOn the day when He and thou\nParted, to commingle now; _205\nChild of Ocean!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine,\nAnd follow, ere the voices fade away.\n\nSCENE 2.2:\nA FOREST, INTERMINGLED WITH ROCKS AND CAVERNS.\nASIA AND PANTHEA PASS INTO IT.\nTWO YOUNG FAUNS ARE SITTING ON A ROCK LISTENING.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1 Of Spirits:", + "body": "The path through which that lovely twain\nHave passed, by cedar, pine, and yew,\nAnd each dark tree that ever grew,\nIs curtained out from Heaven’s wide blue;\nNor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain, _5\nCan pierce its interwoven bowers,\nNor aught, save where some cloud of dew,\nDrifted along the earth-creeping breeze,\nBetween the trunks of the hoar trees,\nHangs each a pearl in the pale flowers _10\nOf the green laurel, blown anew,\nAnd bends, and then fades silently,\nOne frail and fair anemone:\nOr when some star of many a one\nThat climbs and wanders through steep night, _15\nHas found the cleft through which alone\nBeams fall from high those depths upon\nEre it is borne away, away,\nBy the swift Heavens that cannot stay,\nIt scatters drops of golden light, _20\nLike lines of rain that ne’er unite:\nAnd the gloom divine is all around,\nAnd underneath is the mossy ground.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 2:", + "body": "There the voluptuous nightingales,\nAre awake through all the broad noonday. _25\nWhen one with bliss or sadness fails,\nAnd through the windless ivy-boughs,\nSick with sweet love, droops dying away\nOn its mate’s music-panting bosom;\nAnother from the swinging blossom, _30\nWatching to catch the languid close\nOf the last strain, then lifts on high\nThe wings of the weak melody,\nTill some new strain of feeling bear\nThe song, and all the woods are mute; _35\nWhen there is heard through the dim air\nThe rush of wings, and rising there\nLike many a lake-surrounded flute,\nSounds overflow the listener’s brain\nSo sweet, that joy is almost pain. _40", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "There those enchanted eddies play\nOf echoes, music-tongued, which draw,\nBy Demogorgon’s mighty law,\nWith melting rapture, or sweet awe,\nAll spirits on that secret way; _45\nAs inland boats are driven to Ocean\nDown streams made strong with mountain-thaw:\nAnd first there comes a gentle sound\nTo those in talk or slumber bound,\nAnd wakes the destined soft emotion,— _50\nAttracts, impels them; those who saw\nSay from the breathing earth behind\nThere steams a plume-uplifting wind\nWhich drives them on their path, while they\nBelieve their own swift wings and feet _55\nThe sweet desires within obey:\nAnd so they float upon their way,\nUntil, still sweet, but loud and strong,\nThe storm of sound is driven along,\nSucked up and hurrying: as they fleet _60\nBehind, its gathering billows meet\nAnd to the fatal mountain bear\nLike clouds amid the yielding air.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "First Faun:", + "body": "Canst thou imagine where those spirits live\nWhich make such delicate music in the woods? _65\nWe haunt within the least frequented caves\nAnd closest coverts, and we know these wilds,\nYet never meet them, though we hear them oft:\nWhere may they hide themselves?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Faun:", + "body": "’Tis hard to tell;\nI have heard those more skilled in spirits say, _70\nThe bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun\nSucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave\nThe oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools,\nAre the pavilions where such dwell and float\nUnder the green and golden atmosphere _75\nWhich noontide kindles through the woven leaves;\nAnd when these burst, and the thin fiery air,\nThe which they breathed within those lucent domes,\nAscends to flow like meteors through the night,\nThey ride on them, and rein their headlong speed, _80\nAnd bow their burning crests, and glide in fire\nUnder the waters of the earth again.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "First Faun:", + "body": "If such live thus, have others other lives,\nUnder pink blossoms or within the bells\nOf meadow flowers, or folded violets deep, _85\nOr on their dying odours, when they die,\nOr in the sunlight of the sphered dew?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Faun:", + "body": "Ay, many more which we may well divine.\nBut should we stay to speak, noontide would come,\nAnd thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn, _90\nAnd grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs\nOf Fate, and Chance, and God, and Chaos old,\nAnd Love, and the chained Titan’s woful doom,\nAnd how he shall be loosed, and make the earth\nOne brotherhood: delightful strains which cheer _95\nOur solitary twilights, and which charm\nTo silence the unenvying nightingales.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "Hither the sound has borne us—to the realm\nOf Demogorgon, and the mighty portal,\nLike a volcano’s meteor-breathing chasm,\nWhence the oracular vapour is hurled up\nWhich lonely men drink wandering in their youth, _5\nAnd call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy,\nThat maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain\nTo deep intoxication; and uplift,\nLike Maenads who cry loud, Evoe! Evoe!\nThe voice which is contagion to the world. _10", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "Fit throne for such a Power! Magnificent!\nHow glorious art thou, Earth! And if thou be\nThe shadow of some spirit lovelier still,\nThough evil stain its work, and it should be\nLike its creation, weak yet beautiful, _15\nI could fall down and worship that and thee.\nEven now my heart adoreth: Wonderful!\nLook, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain:\nBeneath is a wide plain of billowy mist,\nAs a lake, paving in the morning sky, _20\nWith azure waves which burst in silver light,\nSome Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on\nUnder the curdling winds, and islanding\nThe peak whereon we stand, midway, around,\nEncinctured by the dark and blooming forests, _25\nDim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves,\nAnd wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist;\nAnd far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains\nFrom icy spires of sun-like radiance fling\nThe dawn, as lifted Ocean’s dazzling spray, _30\nFrom some Atlantic islet scattered up,\nSpangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops.\nThe vale is girdled with their walls, a howl\nOf cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines,\nSatiates the listening wind, continuous, vast, _35\nAwful as silence. Hark! the rushing snow!\nThe sun-awakened avalanche! whose mass,\nThrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there\nFlake after flake, in heaven-defying minds\nAs thought by thought is piled, till some great truth _40\nIs loosened, and the nations echo round,\nShaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking\nIn crimson foam, even at our feet! it rises\nAs Ocean at the enchantment of the moon _45\nRound foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "The fragments of the cloud are scattered up;\nThe wind that lifts them disentwines my hair;\nIts billows now sweep o’er mine eyes; my brain\nGrows dizzy; see’st thou shapes within the mist? _50", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Song Of Spirits:", + "body": "To the deep, to the deep,\nDown, down! _55\nThrough the shade of sleep,\nThrough the cloudy strife\nOf Death and of Life;\nThrough the veil and the bar\nOf things which seem and are _60\nEven to the steps of the remotest throne,\nDown, down!\n\nWhile the sound whirls around,\nDown, down!\nAs the fawn draws the hound, _65\nAs the lightning the vapour,\nAs a weak moth the taper;\nDeath, despair; love, sorrow;\nTime both; to-day, to-morrow;\nAs steel obeys the spirit of the stone, _70\nDown, down!\n\nThrough the gray, void abysm,\nDown, down!\nWhere the air is no prism,\nAnd the moon and stars are not, _75\nAnd the cavern-crags wear not\nThe radiance of Heaven,\nNor the gloom to Earth given,\nWhere there is One pervading, One alone,\nDown, down! _80\n\nIn the depth of the deep,\nDown, down!\nLike veiled lightning asleep,\nLike the spark nursed in embers,\nThe last look Love remembers, _85\nLike a diamond, which shines\nOn the dark wealth of mines,\nA spell is treasured but for thee alone.\nDown, down!\n\nWe have bound thee, we guide thee; _90\nDown, down!\nWith the bright form beside thee;\nResist not the weakness,\nSuch strength is in meekness\nThat the Eternal, the Immortal, _95\nMust unloose through life’s portal\nThe snake-like Doom coiled underneath his throne\nBy that alone.\n\nSCENE 2.4:\nTHE CAVE OF DEMOGORGON.\nASIA AND PANTHEA.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "I see a mighty darkness\nFilling the seat of power, and rays of gloom\nDart round, as light from the meridian sun.\n—Ungazed upon and shapeless; neither limb, _5\nNor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is\nA living Spirit.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "Who made that sense which, when the winds of Spring\nIn rarest visitation, or the voice\nOf one beloved heard in youth alone,\nFills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim _15\nThe radiant looks of unbewailing flowers,\nAnd leaves this peopled earth a solitude\nWhen it returns no more?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse,\nWhich from the links of the great chain of things, _20\nTo every thought within the mind of man\nSway and drag heavily, and each one reels\nUnder the load towards the pit of death;\nAbandoned hope, and love that turns to hate;\nAnd self-contempt, bitterer to drink than blood; _25\nPain, whose unheeded and familiar speech\nIs howling, and keen shrieks, day after day;\nAnd Hell, or the sharp fear of Hell?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "Who reigns? There was the Heaven and Earth at first,\nAnd Light and Love; then Saturn, from whose throne\nTime fell, an envious shadow: such the state\nOf the earth’s primal spirits beneath his sway, _35\nAs the calm joy of flowers and living leaves\nBefore the wind or sun has withered them\nAnd semivital worms; but he refused\nThe birthright of their being, knowledge, power,\nThe skill which wields the elements, the thought _40\nWhich pierces this dim universe like light,\nSelf-empire, and the majesty of love;\nFor thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus\nGave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter,\nAnd with this law alone, ‘Let man be free,’ _45\nClothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven.\nTo know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to be\nOmnipotent but friendless is to reign;\nAnd Jove now reigned; for on the race of man\nFirst famine, and then toil, and then disease, _50\nStrife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before,\nFell; and the unseasonable seasons drove\nWith alternating shafts of frost and fire,\nTheir shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves:\nAnd in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent, _55\nAnd mad disquietudes, and shadows idle\nOf unreal good, which levied mutual war,\nSo ruining the lair wherein they raged.\nPrometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes\nWhich sleep within folded Elysian flowers, _60\nNepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms,\nThat they might hide with thin and rainbow wings\nThe shape of Death; and Love he sent to bind\nThe disunited tendrils of that vine\nWhich bears the wine of life, the human heart; _65\nAnd he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey,\nMost terrible, but lovely, played beneath\nThe frown of man; and tortured to his will\nIron and gold, the slaves and signs of power,\nAnd gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms _70\nHidden beneath the mountains and the waves.\nHe gave man speech, and speech created thought,\nWhich is the measure of the universe;\nAnd Science struck the thrones of earth and heaven,\nWhich shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind _75\nPoured itself forth in all-prophetic song;\nAnd music lifted up the listening spirit\nUntil it walked, exempt from mortal care,\nGodlike, o’er the clear billows of sweet sound;\nAnd human hands first mimicked and then mocked, _80\nWith moulded limbs more lovely than its own,\nThe human form, till marble grew divine;\nAnd mothers, gazing, drank the love men see\nReflected in their race, behold, and perish.\nHe told the hidden power of herbs and springs, _85\nAnd Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep.\nHe taught the implicated orbits woven\nOf the wide-wandering stars; and how the sun\nChanges his lair, and by what secret spell\nThe pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye _90\nGazes not on the interlunar sea:\nHe taught to rule, as life directs the limbs,\nThe tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean,\nAnd the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then\nWere built, and through their snow-like columns flowed _95\nThe warm winds, and the azure ether shone,\nAnd the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen.\nSuch, the alleviations of his state,\nPrometheus gave to man, for which he hangs\nWithering in destined pain: but who rains down _100\nEvil, the immedicable plague, which, while\nMan looks on his creation like a God\nAnd sees that it is glorious, drives him on,\nThe wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth,\nThe outcast, the abandoned, the alone? _105\nNot Jove: while yet his frown shook Heaven ay, when\nHis adversary from adamantine chains\nCursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare\nWho is his master? Is he too a slave?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Demogorgon:", + "body": "If the abysm\nCould vomit forth its secrets...But a voice _115\nIs wanting, the deep truth is imageless;\nFor what would it avail to bid thee gaze\nOn the revolving world? What to bid speak\nFate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change? To these\nAll things are subject but eternal Love. _120", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "So much I asked before, and my heart gave\nThe response thou hast given; and of such truths\nEach to itself must be the oracle.\nOne more demand; and do thou answer me\nAs my own soul would answer, did it know _125\nThat which I ask. Prometheus shall arise\nHenceforth the sun of this rejoicing world:\nWhen shall the destined hour arrive?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night\nI see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds _130\nWhich trample the dim winds: in each there stands\nA wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.\nSome look behind, as fiends pursued them there,\nAnd yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:\nOthers, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink _135\nWith eager lips the wind of their own speed,\nAs if the thing they loved fled on before,\nAnd now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks\nStream like a comet’s flashing hair; they all\nSweep onward.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "That terrible shadow floats _150\nUp from its throne, as may the lurid smoke\nOf earthquake-ruined cities o’er the sea.\nLo! it ascends the car; the coursers fly\nTerrified: watch its path among the stars\nBlackening the night!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "See, near the verge, another chariot stays;\nAn ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire,\nWhich comes and goes within its sculptured rim\nOf delicate strange tracery; the young spirit\nThat guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope; _160\nHow its soft smiles attract the soul! as light\nLures winged insects through the lampless air.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Spirit:", + "body": "My coursers are fed with the lightning,\nThey drink of the whirlwind’s stream,\nAnd when the red morning is bright’ning _165\nThey bathe in the fresh sunbeam;\nThey have strength for their swiftness I deem;\nThen ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.\nI desire: and their speed makes night kindle;\nI fear: they outstrip the Typhoon; _170\nEre the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle\nWe encircle the earth and the moon:\nWe shall rest from long labours at noon:\nThen ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.\n\nSCENE 2.5:\nTHE CAR PAUSES WITHIN A CLOUD ON THE TOP OF A SNOWY MOUNTAIN.\nASIA, PANTHEA, AND THE SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Spirit:", + "body": "On the brink of the night and the morning\nMy coursers are wont to respire;\nBut the Earth has just whispered a warning\nThat their flight must be swifter than fire:\nThey shall drink the hot speed of desire! _5", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Spirit:", + "body": "The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo _10\nIs held in heaven by wonder; and the light\nWhich fills this vapour, as the aereal hue\nOf fountain-gazing roses fills the water,\nFlows from thy mighty sister.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "How thou art changed! I dare not look on thee;\nI feel but see thee not. I scarce endure\nThe radiance of thy beauty. Some good change\nIs working in the elements, which suffer\nThy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell _20\nThat on the day when the clear hyaline\nWas cloven at thine uprise, and thou didst stand\nWithin a veined shell, which floated on\nOver the calm floor of the crystal sea,\nAmong the Aegean isles, and by the shores _25\nWhich bear thy name; love, like the atmosphere\nOf the sun’s fire filling the living world,\nBurst from thee, and illumined earth and heaven\nAnd the deep ocean and the sunless caves\nAnd all that dwells within them; till grief cast _30\nEclipse upon the soul from which it came:\nSuch art thou now; nor is it I alone,\nThy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one,\nBut the whole world which seeks thy sympathy.\nHearest thou not sounds i’ the air which speak the love _35\nOf all articulate beings? Feelest thou not\nThe inanimate winds enamoured of thee? List!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his\nWhose echoes they are; yet all love is sweet,\nGiven or returned. Common as light is love, _40\nAnd its familiar voice wearies not ever.\nLike the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air,\nIt makes the reptile equal to the God:\nThey who inspire it most are fortunate,\nAs I am now; but those who feel it most _45\nAre happier still, after long sufferings,\nAs I shall soon become.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Voice In The Air, Singing:", + "body": "Life of Life! thy lips enkindle\nWith their love the breath between them;\nAnd thy smiles before they dwindle _50\nMake the cold air fire; then screen them\nIn those looks, where whoso gazes\nFaints, entangled in their mazes.\n\nChild of Light! thy limbs are burning\nThrough the vest which seems to hide them; _55\nAs the radiant lines of morning\nThrough the clouds ere they divide them;\nAnd this atmosphere divinest\nShrouds thee wheresoe’er thou shinest.\n\nFair are others; none beholds thee, _60\nBut thy voice sounds low and tender\nLike the fairest, for it folds thee\nFrom the sight, that liquid splendour,\nAnd all feel, yet see thee never,\nAs I feel now, lost for ever! _65\n\nLamp of Earth! where’er thou movest\nIts dim shapes are clad with brightness,\nAnd the souls of whom thou lovest\nWalk upon the winds with lightness,\nTill they fail, as I am failing, _70\nDizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Asia:", + "body": "My soul is an enchanted boat,\nWhich, like a sleeping swan, doth float\nUpon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;\nAnd thine doth like an angel sit _75\nBeside a helm conducting it,\nWhilst all the winds with melody are ringing.\nIt seems to float ever, for ever,\nUpon that many-winding river,\nBetween mountains, woods, abysses, _80\nA paradise of wildernesses!\nTill, like one in slumber bound,\nBorne to the ocean, I float down, around,\nInto a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:\n\nMeanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions _85\nIn music’s most serene dominions;\nCatching the winds that fan that happy heaven.\nAnd we sail on, away, afar,\nWithout a course, without a star,\nBut, by the instinct of sweet music driven; _90\nTill through Elysian garden islets\nBy thee most beautiful of pilots,\nWhere never mortal pinnace glided,\nThe boat of my desire is guided:\nRealms where the air we breathe is love, _95\nWhich in the winds on the waves doth move,\nHarmonizing this earth with what we feel above.\n\nWe have passed Age’s icy caves,\nAnd Manhood’s dark and tossing waves,\nAnd Youth’s smooth ocean, smiling to betray: _100\nBeyond the glassy gulfs we flee\nOf shadow-peopled Infancy,\nThrough Death and Birth, to a diviner day;\nA paradise of vaulted bowers,\nLit by downward-gazing flowers, _105\nAnd watery paths that wind between\nWildernesses calm and green,\nPeopled by shapes too bright to see,\nAnd rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;\nWhich walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously! _110", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Jupiter:", + "body": "Ye congregated powers of heaven, who share\nThe glory and the strength of him ye serve,\nRejoice! henceforth I am omnipotent.\nAll else had been subdued to me; alone\nThe soul of man, like unextinguished fire, _5\nYet burns towards heaven with fierce reproach, and doubt,\nAnd lamentation, and reluctant prayer,\nHurling up insurrection, which might make\nOur antique empire insecure, though built\nOn eldest faith, and hell’s coeval, fear; _10\nAnd though my curses through the pendulous air,\nLike snow on herbless peaks, fall flake by flake,\nAnd cling to it; though under my wrath’s night\nIt climbs the crags of life, step after step,\nWhich wound it, as ice wounds unsandalled feet, _15\nIt yet remains supreme o’er misery,\nAspiring, unrepressed, yet soon to fall:\nEven now have I begotten a strange wonder,\nThat fatal child, the terror of the earth,\nWho waits but till the destined hour arrive, _20\nBearing from Demogorgon’s vacant throne\nThe dreadful might of ever-living limbs\nWhich clothed that awful spirit unbeheld,\nTo redescend, and trample out the spark.\nPour forth heaven’s wine, Idaean Ganymede, _25\nAnd let it fill the Daedal cups like fire,\nAnd from the flower-inwoven soil divine\nYe all-triumphant harmonies arise,\nAs dew from earth under the twilight stars:\nDrink! be the nectar circling through your veins _30\nThe soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods,\nTill exultation burst in one wide voice\nLike music from Elysian winds.\nAnd thou\nAscend beside me, veiled in the light\nOf the desire which makes thee one with me, _35\nThetis, bright image of eternity!\nWhen thou didst cry, ‘Insufferable might!\nGod! Spare me! I sustain not the quick flames,\nThe penetrating presence; all my being,\nLike him whom the Numidian seps did thaw _40\nInto a dew with poison, is dissolved,\nSinking through its foundations:’ even then\nTwo mighty spirits, mingling, made a third\nMightier than either, which, unbodied now,\nBetween us floats, felt, although unbeheld, _45\nWaiting the incarnation, which ascends,\n(Hear ye the thunder of the fiery wheels\nGriding the winds?) from Demogorgon’s throne.\nVictory! victory! Feel’st thou not, O world,\nThe earthquake of his chariot thundering up _50\nOlympus?\n[THE CAR OF THE HOUR ARRIVES.\nDEMOGORGON DESCENDS, AND MOVES TOWARDS THE THRONE OF JUPITER.]\nAwful shape, what art thou? Speak!\n\n_5 like unextinguished B, edition 1839; like an unextinguished 1820.\n_13 night B, edition 1839; might 1820.\n_20 destined B, edition 1839; distant 1820.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Demogorgon:", + "body": "Eternity. Demand no direr name.\nDescend, and follow me down the abyss.\nI am thy child, as thou wert Saturn’s child;\nMightier than thee: and we must dwell together _55\nHenceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not.\nThe tyranny of heaven none may retain,\nOr reassume, or hold, succeeding thee:\nYet if thou wilt, as ’tis the destiny\nOf trodden worms to writhe till they are dead, _60\nPut forth thy might.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Jupiter:", + "body": "Detested prodigy!\nEven thus beneath the deep Titanian prisons\nI trample thee! thou lingerest?\nMercy! mercy!\nNo pity, no release, no respite! Oh,\nThat thou wouldst make mine enemy my judge, _65\nEven where he hangs, seared by my long revenge,\nOn Caucasus! he would not doom me thus.\nGentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not\nThe monarch of the world? What then art thou?\nNo refuge! no appeal!\nSink with me then, _70\nWe two will sink on the wide waves of ruin,\nEven as a vulture and a snake outspent\nDrop, twisted in inextricable fight,\nInto a shoreless sea. Let hell unlock\nIts mounded oceans of tempestuous fire, _75\nAnd whelm on them into the bottomless void\nThis desolated world, and thee, and me,\nThe conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck\nOf that for which they combated.\nAi, Ai!\nThe elements obey me not. I sink _80\nDizzily down, ever, for ever, down.\nAnd, like a cloud, mine enemy above\nDarkens my fall with victory! Ai, Ai!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Apollo:", + "body": "Ay, when the strife was ended which made dim\nThe orb I rule, and shook the solid stars,\nThe terrors of his eye illumined heaven\nWith sanguine light, through the thick ragged skirts _5\nOf the victorious darkness, as he fell:\nLike the last glare of day’s red agony,\nWhich, from a rent among the fiery clouds,\nBurns far along the tempest-wrinkled deep.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Apollo:", + "body": "An eagle so caught in some bursting cloud\nOn Caucasus, his thunder-baffled wings\nEntangled in the whirlwind, and his eyes\nWhich gazed on the undazzling sun, now blinded\nBy the white lightning, while the ponderous hail _15\nBeats on his struggling form, which sinks at length\nProne, and the aereal ice clings over it.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ocean:", + "body": "Henceforth the fields of heaven-reflecting sea\nWhich are my realm, will heave, unstained with blood,\nBeneath the uplifting winds, like plains of corn _20\nSwayed by the summer air; my streams will flow\nRound many-peopled continents, and round\nFortunate isles; and from their glassy thrones\nBlue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark\nThe shadow of fair ships, as mortals see _25\nThe floating bark of the light-laden moon\nWith that white star, its sightless pilot’s crest,\nBorne down the rapid sunset’s ebbing sea;\nTracking their path no more by blood and groans,\nAnd desolation, and the mingled voice _30\nOf slavery and command; but by the light\nOf wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours,\nAnd music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices,\nAnd sweetest music, such as spirits love.\n\n_22 many-peopled B; many peopled 1820.\n_26 light-laden B; light laden 1820.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Apollo:", + "body": "And I shall gaze not on the deeds which make _35\nMy mind obscure with sorrow, as eclipse\nDarkens the sphere I guide; but list, I hear\nThe small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit\nThat sits i’ the morning star.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ocean:", + "body": "Thou must away;\nThy steeds will pause at even, till when farewell: _40\nThe loud deep calls me home even now to feed it\nWith azure calm out of the emerald urns\nWhich stand for ever full beside my throne.\nBehold the Nereids under the green sea,\nTheir wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream, _45\nTheir white arms lifted o’er their streaming hair\nWith garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns,\nHastening to grace their mighty sister’s joy.\n[A SOUND OF WAVES IS HEARD.]\nIt is the unpastured sea hungering for calm.\nPeace, monster; I come now. Farewell.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Apollo:", + "body": "Farewell. _50\n\nSCENE 3.3:\nCAUCASUS.\nPROMETHEUS, HERCULES, IONE, THE EARTH, SPIRITS, ASIA,\nAND PANTHEA, BORNE IN THE CAR WITH THE SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.\nHERCULES UNBINDS PROMETHEUS, WHO DESCENDS.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "Thy gentle words\nAre sweeter even than freedom long desired _5\nAnd long delayed.\nAsia, thou light of life,\nShadow of beauty unbeheld: and ye,\nFair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain\nSweet to remember, through your love and care:\nHenceforth we will not part. There is a cave, _10\nAll overgrown with trailing odorous plants,\nWhich curtain out the day with leaves and flowers,\nAnd paved with veined emerald, and a fountain\nLeaps in the midst with an awakening sound.\nFrom its curved roof the mountain’s frozen tears _15\nLike snow, or silver, or long diamond spires,\nHang downward, raining forth a doubtful light:\nAnd there is heard the ever-moving air,\nWhispering without from tree to tree, and birds,\nAnd bees; and all around are mossy seats, _20\nAnd the rough walls are clothed with long soft grass;\nA simple dwelling, which shall be our own;\nWhere we will sit and talk of time and change,\nAs the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged.\nWhat can hide man from mutability? _25\nAnd if ye sigh, then I will smile; and thou,\nIone, shalt chant fragments of sea-music,\nUntil I weep, when ye shall smile away\nThe tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed.\nWe will entangle buds and flowers and beams _30\nWhich twinkle on the fountain’s brim, and make\nStrange combinations out of common things,\nLike human babes in their brief innocence;\nAnd we will search, with looks and words of love,\nFor hidden thoughts, each lovelier than the last, _35\nOur unexhausted spirits; and like lutes\nTouched by the skill of the enamoured wind,\nWeave harmonies divine, yet ever new,\nFrom difference sweet where discord cannot be;\nAnd hither come, sped on the charmed winds, _40\nWhich meet from all the points of heaven, as bees\nFrom every flower aereal Enna feeds,\nAt their known island-homes in Himera,\nThe echoes of the human world, which tell\nOf the low voice of love, almost unheard, _45\nAnd dove-eyed pity’s murmured pain, and music,\nItself the echo of the heart, and all\nThat tempers or improves man’s life, now free;\nAnd lovely apparitions,—dim at first,\nThen radiant, as the mind, arising bright _50\nFrom the embrace of beauty (whence the forms\nOf which these are the phantoms) casts on them\nThe gathered rays which are reality—\nShall visit us, the progeny immortal\nOf Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy, _55\nAnd arts, though unimagined, yet to be.\nThe wandering voices and the shadows these\nOf all that man becomes, the mediators\nOf that best worship love, by him and us\nGiven and returned; swift shapes and sounds, which grow _60\nMore fair and soft as man grows wise and kind,\nAnd, veil by veil, evil and error fall:\nSuch virtue has the cave and place around.\n[TURNING TO THE SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.]\nFor thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains. Ione,\nGive her that curved shell, which Proteus old _65\nMade Asia’s nuptial boon, breathing within it\nA voice to be accomplished, and which thou\nDidst hide in grass under the hollow rock.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "Thou most desired Hour, more loved and lovely\nThan all thy sisters, this is the mystic shell; _70\nSee the pale azure fading into silver\nLining it with a soft yet glowing light:\nLooks it not like lulled music sleeping there?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus:", + "body": "Go, borne over the cities of mankind\nOn whirlwind-footed coursers: once again\nOutspeed the sun around the orbed world;\nAnd as thy chariot cleaves the kindling air,\nThou breathe into the many-folded shell, _80\nLoosening its mighty music; it shall be\nAs thunder mingled with clear echoes: then\nReturn; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave.\nAnd thou, O Mother Earth!—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "I hear, I feel;\nThy lips are on me, and thy touch runs down _85\nEven to the adamantine central gloom\nAlong these marble nerves; ’tis life, ’tis joy,\nAnd, through my withered, old, and icy frame\nThe warmth of an immortal youth shoots down\nCircling. Henceforth the many children fair _90\nFolded in my sustaining arms; all plants,\nAnd creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged,\nAnd birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes,\nWhich drew disease and pain from my wan bosom,\nDraining the poison of despair, shall take _95\nAnd interchange sweet nutriment; to me\nShall they become like sister-antelopes\nBy one fair dam, snow-white and swift as wind,\nNursed among lilies near a brimming stream.\nThe dew-mists of my sunless sleep shall float _100\nUnder the stars like balm: night-folded flowers\nShall suck unwithering hues in their repose:\nAnd men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather\nStrength for the coming day, and all its joy:\nAnd death shall be the last embrace of her _105\nWho takes the life she gave, even as a mother,\nFolding her child, says, ‘Leave me not again.’\n\n_85 their B; thy 1820.\n_102 unwithering B, edition 1839; unwitting 1820.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "It would avail not to reply: _110\nThou art immortal, and this tongue is known\nBut to the uncommunicating dead.\nDeath is the veil which those who live call life:\nThey sleep, and it is lifted: and meanwhile\nIn mild variety the seasons mild _115\nWith rainbow-skirted showers, and odorous winds,\nAnd long blue meteors cleansing the dull night,\nAnd the life-kindling shafts of the keen sun’s\nAll-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled rain\nOf the calm moonbeams, a soft influence mild, _120\nShall clothe the forests and the fields, ay, even\nThe crag-built deserts of the barren deep,\nWith ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers.\nAnd thou! There is a cavern where my spirit\nWas panted forth in anguish whilst thy pain _125\nMade my heart mad, and those who did inhale it\nBecame mad too, and built a temple there,\nAnd spoke, and were oracular, and lured\nThe erring nations round to mutual war,\nAnd faithless faith, such as Jove kept with thee; _130\nWhich breath now rises, as amongst tall weeds\nA violet’s exhalation, and it fills\nWith a serener light and crimson air\nIntense, yet soft, the rocks and woods around;\nIt feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine, _135\nAnd the dark linked ivy tangling wild,\nAnd budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms\nWhich star the winds with points of coloured light,\nAs they rain through them, and bright golden globes\nOf fruit, suspended in their own green heaven, _140\nAnd through their veined leaves and amber stems\nThe flowers whose purple and translucid bowls\nStand ever mantling with aereal dew,\nThe drink of spirits: and it circles round,\nLike the soft waving wings of noonday dreams, _145\nInspiring calm and happy thoughts, like mine,\nNow thou art thus restored. This cave is thine.\nArise! Appear!\n[A SPIRIT RISES IN THE LIKENESS OF A WINGED CHILD.]\nThis is my torch-bearer;\nWho let his lamp out in old time with gazing\nOn eyes from which he kindled it anew _150\nWith love, which is as fire, sweet daughter mine,\nFor such is that within thine own. Run, wayward,\nAnd guide this company beyond the peak\nOf Bacchic Nysa, Maenad-haunted mountain,\nAnd beyond Indus and its tribute rivers, _155\nTrampling the torrent streams and glassy lakes\nWith feet unwet, unwearied, undelaying,\nAnd up the green ravine, across the vale,\nBeside the windless and crystalline pool,\nWhere ever lies, on unerasing waves, _160\nThe image of a temple, built above,\nDistinct with column, arch, and architrave,\nAnd palm-like capital, and over-wrought,\nAnd populous with most living imagery,\nPraxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles _165\nFill the hushed air with everlasting love.\nIt is deserted now, but once it bore\nThy name, Prometheus; there the emulous youths\nBore to thy honour through the divine gloom\nThe lamp which was thine emblem; even as those _170\nWho bear the untransmitted torch of hope\nInto the grave, across the night of life,\nAs thou hast borne it most triumphantly\nTo this far goal of Time. Depart, farewell.\nBeside that temple is the destined cave. _175", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "Sister, it is not earthly: how it glides\nUnder the leaves! how on its head there burns\nA light, like a green star, whose emerald beams\nAre twined with its fair hair! how, as it moves,\nThe splendour drops in flakes upon the grass! _5\nKnowest thou it?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "It is the delicate spirit\nThat guides the earth through heaven. From afar\nThe populous constellations call that light\nThe loveliest of the planets; and sometimes\nIt floats along the spray of the salt sea, _10\nOr makes its chariot of a foggy cloud,\nOr walks through fields or cities while men sleep,\nOr o’er the mountain tops, or down the rivers,\nOr through the green waste wilderness, as now,\nWondering at all it sees. Before Jove reigned _15\nIt loved our sister Asia, and it came\nEach leisure hour to drink the liquid light\nOut of her eyes, for which it said it thirsted\nAs one bit by a dipsas, and with her\nIt made its childish confidence, and told her _20\nAll it had known or seen, for it saw much,\nYet idly reasoned what it saw; and called her—\nFor whence it sprung it knew not, nor do I—\nMother, dear mother.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Spirit Of The Earth [Running To Asia]:", + "body": "Mother, dearest mother;\nMay I then talk with thee as I was wont? _25\nMay I then hide my eyes in thy soft arms,\nAfter thy looks have made them tired of joy?\nMay I then play beside thee the long noons,\nWhen work is none in the bright silent air?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Spirit Of The Earth:", + "body": "Mother, I am grown wiser, though a child\nCannot be wise like thee, within this day;\nAnd happier too; happier and wiser both. _35\nThou knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathly worms,\nAnd venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs\nThat bore ill berries in the woods, were ever\nAn hindrance to my walks o’er the green world:\nAnd that, among the haunts of humankind, _40\nHard-featured men, or with proud, angry looks,\nOr cold, staid gait, or false and hollow smiles,\nOr the dull sneer of self-loved ignorance,\nOr other such foul masks, with which ill thoughts\nHide that fair being whom we spirits call man; _45\nAnd women too, ugliest of all things evil,\n(Though fair, even in a world where thou art fair,\nWhen good and kind, free and sincere like thee)\nWhen false or frowning made me sick at heart\nTo pass them, though they slept, and I unseen. _50\nWell, my path lately lay through a great city\nInto the woody hills surrounding it:\nA sentinel was sleeping at the gate:\nWhen there was heard a sound, so loud, it shook\nThe towers amid the moonlight, yet more sweet _55\nThan any voice but thine, sweetest of all;\nA long, long sound, as it would never end:\nAnd all the inhabitants leaped suddenly\nOut of their rest, and gathered in the streets,\nLooking in wonder up to Heaven, while yet _60\nThe music pealed along. I hid myself\nWithin a fountain in the public square,\nWhere I lay like the reflex of the moon\nSeen in a wave under green leaves; and soon\nThose ugly human shapes and visages _65\nOf which I spoke as having wrought me pain,\nPassed floating through the air, and fading still\nInto the winds that scattered them; and those\nFrom whom they passed seemed mild and lovely forms\nAfter some foul disguise had fallen, and all _70\nWere somewhat changed, and after brief surprise\nAnd greetings of delighted wonder, all\nWent to their sleep again: and when the dawn\nCame, wouldst thou think that toads, and snakes, and efts,\nCould e’er be beautiful? yet so they were, _75\nAnd that with little change of shape or hue:\nAll things had put their evil nature off:\nI cannot tell my joy, when o’er a lake,\nUpon a drooping bough with nightshade twined,\nI saw two azure halcyons clinging downward _80\nAnd thinning one bright bunch of amber berries,\nWith quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay\nThose lovely forms imaged as in a sky;\nSo, with my thoughts full of these happy changes,\nWe meet again, the happiest change of all. _85", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Spirit Of The Hour:", + "body": "Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled\nThe abysses of the sky and the wide earth,\nThere was a change: the impalpable thin air _100\nAnd the all-circling sunlight were transformed,\nAs if the sense of love dissolved in them\nHad folded itself round the sphered world.\nMy vision then grew clear, and I could see\nInto the mysteries of the universe: _105\nDizzy as with delight I floated down,\nWinnowing the lightsome air with languid plumes,\nMy coursers sought their birthplace in the sun,\nWhere they henceforth will live exempt from toil,\nPasturing flowers of vegetable fire; _110\nAnd where my moonlike car will stand within\nA temple, gazed upon by Phidian forms\nOf thee, and Asia, and the Earth, and me,\nAnd you fair nymphs looking the love we feel,—\nIn memory of the tidings it has borne,— _115\nBeneath a dome fretted with graven flowers,\nPoised on twelve columns of resplendent stone,\nAnd open to the bright and liquid sky.\nYoked to it by an amphisbaenic snake\nThe likeness of those winged steeds will mock _120\nThe flight from which they find repose. Alas,\nWhither has wandered now my partial tongue\nWhen all remains untold which ye would hear?\nAs I have said, I floated to the earth:\nIt was, as it is still, the pain of bliss _125\nTo move, to breathe, to be. I wandering went\nAmong the haunts and dwellings of mankind,\nAnd first was disappointed not to see\nSuch mighty change as I had felt within\nExpressed in outward things; but soon I looked, _130\nAnd behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked\nOne with the other even as spirits do,\nNone fawned, none trampled; hate, disdain, or fear,\nSelf-love or self-contempt, on human brows\nNo more inscribed, as o’er the gate of hell, _135\n‘All hope abandon ye who enter here;’\nNone frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear\nGazed on another’s eye of cold command,\nUntil the subject of a tyrant’s will\nBecame, worse fate, the abject of his own, _140\nWhich spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death.\nNone wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines\nWhich smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak;\nNone, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart\nThe sparks of love and hope till there remained _145\nThose bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed,\nAnd the wretch crept a vampire among men,\nInfecting all with his own hideous ill;\nNone talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk\nWhich makes the heart deny the “yes” it breathes, _150\nYet question that unmeant hypocrisy\nWith such a self-mistrust as has no name.\nAnd women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind\nAs the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew\nOn the wide earth, past; gentle radiant forms, _155\nFrom custom’s evil taint exempt and pure;\nSpeaking the wisdom once they could not think,\nLooking emotions once they feared to feel,\nAnd changed to all which once they dared not be,\nYet being now, made earth like heaven; nor pride, _160\nNor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame,\nThe bitterest of those drops of treasured gall,\nSpoiled the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love.\n\nThrones, altars, judgement-seats, and prisons; wherein,\nAnd beside which, by wretched men were borne _165\nSceptres, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes\nOf reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance,\nWere like those monstrous and barbaric shapes,\nThe ghosts of a no-more-remembered fame,\nWhich, from their unworn obelisks, look forth _170\nIn triumph o’er the palaces and tombs\nOf those who were their conquerors: mouldering round,\nThese imaged to the pride of kings and priests\nA dark yet mighty faith, a power as wide\nAs is the world it wasted, and are now _175\nBut an astonishment; even so the tools\nAnd emblems of its last captivity,\nAmid the dwellings of the peopled earth,\nStand, not o’erthrown, but unregarded now.\nAnd those foul shapes, abhorred by god and man,— _180\nWhich, under many a name and many a form\nStrange, savage, ghastly, dark and execrable,\nWere Jupiter, the tyrant of the world;\nAnd which the nations, panic-stricken, served\nWith blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and love _185\nDragged to his altars soiled and garlandless,\nAnd slain among men’s unreclaiming tears,\nFlattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate,—\nFrown, mouldering fast, o’er their abandoned shrines:\nThe painted veil, by those who were, called life, _190\nWhich mimicked, as with colours idly spread,\nAll men believed and hoped, is torn aside;\nThe loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains\nSceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man\nEqual, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, _195\nExempt from awe, worship, degree, the king\nOver himself; just, gentle, wise; but man\nPassionless?—no, yet free from guilt or pain,\nWhich were, for his will made or suffered them,\nNor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, _200\nFrom chance, and death, and mutability,\nThe clogs of that which else might oversoar\nThe loftiest star of unascended heaven,\nPinnacled dim in the intense inane.\n\n_121 flight B, edition 1839; light 1820.\n_173 These B; Those 1820.\n_187 amid B; among 1820.\n_192 or B; and 1820.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Voice Of Unseen Spirits:", + "body": "The pale stars are gone!\nFor the sun, their swift shepherd,\nTo their folds them compelling,\nIn the depths of the dawn,\nHastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee _5\nBeyond his blue dwelling,\nAs fawns flee the leopard.\nBut where are ye?\n\n[A TRAIN OF DARK FORMS AND SHADOWS PASSES BY CONFUSEDLY, SINGING.]\n\nHere, oh, here:\nWe bear the bier _10\nOf the father of many a cancelled year!\nSpectres we\nOf the dead Hours be,\nWe bear Time to his tomb in eternity.\n\nStrew, oh, strew _15\nHair, not yew!\nWet the dusty pall with tears, not dew!\nBe the faded flowers\nOf Death’s bare bowers\nSpread on the corpse of the King of Hours! _20\n\nHaste, oh, haste!\nAs shades are chased,\nTrembling, by day, from heaven’s blue waste.\nWe melt away,\nLike dissolving spray, _25\nFrom the children of a diviner day,\nWith the lullaby\nOf winds that die\nOn the bosom of their own harmony!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Voice Of Unseen Spirits:", + "body": "Bright clouds float in heaven, _40\nDew-stars gleam on earth,\nWaves assemble on ocean,\nThey are gathered and driven\nBy the storm of delight, by the panic of glee!\nThey shake with emotion, _45\nThey dance in their mirth.\nBut where are ye?\n\nThe pine boughs are singing\nOld songs with new gladness,\nThe billows and fountains _50\nFresh music are flinging,\nLike the notes of a spirit from land and from sea;\nThe storms mock the mountains\nWith the thunder of gladness.\nBut where are ye? _55", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze,\nPierce with song heaven’s silent light, _70\nEnchant the day that too swiftly flees,\nTo check its flight ere the cave of Night.\n\nOnce the hungry Hours were hounds\nWhich chased the day like a bleeding deer,\nAnd it limped and stumbled with many wounds _75\nThrough the nightly dells of the desert year.\n\nBut now, oh weave the mystic measure\nOf music, and dance, and shapes of light,\nLet the Hours, and the spirits of might and pleasure,\nLike the clouds and sunbeams, unite—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Spirits:", + "body": "We join the throng\nOf the dance and the song,\nBy the whirlwind of gladness borne along; _85\nAs the flying-fish leap\nFrom the Indian deep,\nAnd mix with the sea-birds, half-asleep.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Hours:", + "body": "Whence come ye, so wild and so fleet,\nFor sandals of lightning are on your feet, _90\nAnd your wings are soft and swift as thought,\nAnd your eyes are as love which is veiled not?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Spirits:", + "body": "We come from the mind\nOf human kind\nWhich was late so dusk, and obscene, and blind, _95\nNow ’tis an ocean\nOf clear emotion,\nA heaven of serene and mighty motion.\n\nFrom that deep abyss\nOf wonder and bliss, _100\nWhose caverns are crystal palaces;\nFrom those skiey towers\nWhere Thought’s crowned powers\nSit watching your dance, ye happy Hours!\n\nFrom the dim recesses _105\nOf woven caresses,\nWhere lovers catch ye by your loose tresses;\nFrom the azure isles,\nWhere sweet Wisdom smiles,\nDelaying your ships with her siren wiles. _110\n\nFrom the temples high\nOf Man’s ear and eye,\nRoofed over Sculpture and Poesy;\nFrom the murmurings\nOf the unsealed springs _115\nWhere Science bedews her Daedal wings.\n\nYears after years,\nThrough blood, and tears,\nAnd a thick hell of hatreds, and hopes, and fears;\nWe waded and flew, _120\nAnd the islets were few\nWhere the bud-blighted flowers of happiness grew.\n\nOur feet now, every palm,\nAre sandalled with calm,\nAnd the dew of our wings is a rain of balm; _125\nAnd, beyond our eyes,\nThe human love lies\nWhich makes all it gazes on Paradise.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Spirits And Hours:", + "body": "Then weave the web of the mystic measure;\nFrom the depths of the sky and the ends of the earth, _130\nCome, swift Spirits of might and of pleasure,\nFill the dance and the music of mirth,\nAs the waves of a thousand streams rush by\nTo an ocean of splendour and harmony!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Spirits:", + "body": "Our spoil is won, _135\nOur task is done,\nWe are free to dive, or soar, or run;\nBeyond and around,\nOr within the bound\nWhich clips the world with darkness round. _140\n\nWe’ll pass the eyes\nOf the starry skies\nInto the hoar deep to colonize;\nDeath, Chaos, and Night,\nFrom the sound of our flight, _145\nShall flee, like mist from a tempest’s might.\n\nAnd Earth, Air, and Light,\nAnd the Spirit of Might,\nWhich drives round the stars in their fiery flight;\nAnd Love, Thought, and Breath, _150\nThe powers that quell Death,\nWherever we soar shall assemble beneath.\n\nAnd our singing shall build\nIn the void’s loose field\nA world for the Spirit of Wisdom to wield; _155\nWe will take our plan\nFrom the new world of man,\nAnd our work shall be called the Promethean.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Hours And Spirits:", + "body": "Break the dance, and scatter the song; _175\nLet some depart, and some remain,\nWherever we fly we lead along\nIn leashes, like starbeams, soft yet strong,\nThe clouds that are heavy with love’s sweet rain.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "Listen too,\nHow every pause is filled with under-notes,\nClear, silver, icy, keen awakening tones, _190\nWhich pierce the sense, and live within the soul,\nAs the sharp stars pierce winter’s crystal air\nAnd gaze upon themselves within the sea.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "But see where through two openings in the forest\nWhich hanging branches overcanopy, _195\nAnd where two runnels of a rivulet,\nBetween the close moss violet-inwoven,\nHave made their path of melody, like sisters\nWho part with sighs that they may meet in smiles,\nTurning their dear disunion to an isle _200\nOf lovely grief, a wood of sweet sad thoughts;\nTwo visions of strange radiance float upon\nThe ocean-like enchantment of strong sound,\nWhich flows intenser, keener, deeper yet\nUnder the ground and through the windless air. _205", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "I see a chariot like that thinnest boat,\nIn which the Mother of the Months is borne\nBy ebbing light into her western cave,\nWhen she upsprings from interlunar dreams;\nO’er which is curved an orblike canopy _210\nOf gentle darkness, and the hills and woods,\nDistinctly seen through that dusk aery veil,\nRegard like shapes in an enchanter’s glass;\nIts wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold,\nSuch as the genii of the thunderstorm _215\nPile on the floor of the illumined sea\nWhen the sun rushes under it; they roll\nAnd move and grow as with an inward wind;\nWithin it sits a winged infant, white\nIts countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow, _220\nIts plumes are as feathers of sunny frost,\nIts limbs gleam white, through the wind-flowing folds\nOf its white robe, woof of ethereal pearl.\nIts hair is white, the brightness of white light\nScattered in strings; yet its two eyes are heavens _225\nOf liquid darkness, which the Deity\nWithin seems pouring, as a storm is poured\nFrom jagged clouds, out of their arrowy lashes,\nTempering the cold and radiant air around,\nWith fire that is not brightness; in its hand _230\nIt sways a quivering moonbeam, from whose point\nA guiding power directs the chariot’s prow\nOver its wheeled clouds, which as they roll\nOver the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds,\nSweet as a singing rain of silver dew. _235\n\n_208 light B; night 1820.\n_212 aery B; airy 1820.\n_225 strings B, edition 1839; string 1820.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "And from the other opening in the wood\nRushes, with loud and whirlwind harmony,\nA sphere, which is as many thousand spheres,\nSolid as crystal, yet through all its mass\nFlow, as through empty space, music and light: _240\nTen thousand orbs involving and involved,\nPurple and azure, white, and green, and golden,\nSphere within sphere; and every space between\nPeopled with unimaginable shapes,\nSuch as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep, _245\nYet each inter-transpicuous, and they whirl\nOver each other with a thousand motions,\nUpon a thousand sightless axles spinning,\nAnd with the force of self-destroying swiftness,\nIntensely, slowly, solemnly, roll on, _250\nKindling with mingled sounds, and many tones,\nIntelligible words and music wild.\nWith mighty whirl the multitudinous orb\nGrinds the bright brook into an azure mist\nOf elemental subtlety, like light; _255\nAnd the wild odour of the forest flowers,\nThe music of the living grass and air,\nThe emerald light of leaf-entangled beams\nRound its intense yet self-conflicting speed,\nSeem kneaded into one aereal mass _260\nWhich drowns the sense. Within the orb itself,\nPillowed upon its alabaster arms,\nLike to a child o’erwearied with sweet toil,\nOn its own folded wings, and wavy hair,\nThe Spirit of the Earth is laid asleep, _265\nAnd you can see its little lips are moving,\nAmid the changing light of their own smiles,\nLike one who talks of what he loves in dream.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "And from a star upon its forehead, shoot, _270\nLike swords of azure fire, or golden spears\nWith tyrant-quelling myrtle overtwined,\nEmbleming heaven and earth united now,\nVast beams like spokes of some invisible wheel\nWhich whirl as the orb whirls, swifter than thought, _275\nFilling the abyss with sun-like lightenings,\nAnd perpendicular now, and now transverse,\nPierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass,\nMake bare the secrets of the earth’s deep heart;\nInfinite mine of adamant and gold, _280\nValueless stones, and unimagined gems,\nAnd caverns on crystalline columns poised\nWith vegetable silver overspread;\nWells of unfathomed fire, and water springs\nWhence the great sea, even as a child is fed, _285\nWhose vapours clothe earth’s monarch mountain-tops\nWith kingly, ermine snow. The beams flash on\nAnd make appear the melancholy ruins\nOf cancelled cycles; anchors, beaks of ships;\nPlanks turned to marble; quivers, helms, and spears, _290\nAnd gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels\nOf scythed chariots, and the emblazonry\nOf trophies, standards, and armorial beasts,\nRound which death laughed, sepulchred emblems\nOf dead destruction, ruin within ruin! _295\nThe wrecks beside of many a city vast,\nWhose population which the earth grew over\nWas mortal, but not human; see, they lie,\nTheir monstrous works, and uncouth skeletons,\nTheir statues, homes and fanes; prodigious shapes _300\nHuddled in gray annihilation, split,\nJammed in the hard, black deep; and over these,\nThe anatomies of unknown winged things,\nAnd fishes which were isles of living scale,\nAnd serpents, bony chains, twisted around _305\nThe iron crags, or within heaps of dust\nTo which the tortuous strength of their last pangs\nHad crushed the iron crags; and over these\nThe jagged alligator, and the might\nOf earth-convulsing behemoth, which once _310\nWere monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores,\nAnd weed-overgrown continents of earth,\nIncreased and multiplied like summer worms\nOn an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe\nWrapped deluge round it like a cloak, and they _315\nYelled, gasped, and were abolished; or some God\nWhose throne was in a comet, passed, and cried,\n‘Be not!’ And like my words they were no more.\n\n_274 spokes B, edition 1839; spoke 1820.\n_276 lightenings B; lightnings 1820.\n_280 mines B; mine 1820.\n_282 poised B; poized edition 1839; poured 1820.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness!\nThe boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness, _320\nThe vaporous exultation not to be confined!\nHa! ha! the animation of delight\nWhich wraps me, like an atmosphere of light,\nAnd bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Moon:", + "body": "Brother mine, calm wanderer, _325\nHappy globe of land and air,\nSome Spirit is darted like a beam from thee,\nWhich penetrates my frozen frame,\nAnd passes with the warmth of flame,\nWith love, and odour, and deep melody _330\nThrough me, through me!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "Ha! ha! the caverns of my hollow mountains,\nMy cloven fire-crags, sound-exulting fountains\nLaugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter.\nThe oceans, and the deserts, and the abysses, _335\nAnd the deep air’s unmeasured wildernesses,\nAnswer from all their clouds and billows, echoing after.\n\nThey cry aloud as I do. Sceptred curse,\nWho all our green and azure universe\nThreatenedst to muffle round with black destruction, sending _340\nA solid cloud to rain hot thunderstones,\nAnd splinter and knead down my children’s bones,\nAll I bring forth, to one void mass battering and blending,—\n\nUntil each crag-like tower, and storied column,\nPalace, and obelisk, and temple solemn, _345\nMy imperial mountains crowned with cloud, and snow, and fire,\nMy sea-like forests, every blade and blossom\nWhich finds a grave or cradle in my bosom,\nWere stamped by thy strong hate into a lifeless mire:\n\nHow art thou sunk, withdrawn, covered, drunk up _350\nBy thirsty nothing, as the brackish cup\nDrained by a desert-troop, a little drop for all;\nAnd from beneath, around, within, above,\nFilling thy void annihilation, love\nBursts in like light on caves cloven by the thunder-ball. _355\n\n_335-_336 the abysses, And 1820, 1839; the abysses Of B.\n_355 the omitted 1820.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Moon:", + "body": "The snow upon my lifeless mountains\nIs loosened into living fountains,\nMy solid oceans flow, and sing and shine:\nA spirit from my heart bursts forth,\nIt clothes with unexpected birth _360\nMy cold bare bosom: Oh! it must be thine\nOn mine, on mine!\n\nGazing on thee I feel, I know\nGreen stalks burst forth, and bright flowers grow,\nAnd living shapes upon my bosom move: _365\nMusic is in the sea and air,\nWinged clouds soar here and there,\nDark with the rain new buds are dreaming of:\n’Tis love, all love!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "It interpenetrates my granite mass, _370\nThrough tangled roots and trodden clay doth pass\nInto the utmost leaves and delicatest flowers;\nUpon the winds, among the clouds ’tis spread,\nIt wakes a life in the forgotten dead,\nThey breathe a spirit up from their obscurest bowers. _375\n\nAnd like a storm bursting its cloudy prison\nWith thunder, and with whirlwind, has arisen\nOut of the lampless caves of unimagined being:\nWith earthquake shock and swiftness making shiver\nThought’s stagnant chaos, unremoved for ever, _380\nTill hate, and fear, and pain, light-vanquished shadows, fleeing,\n\nLeave Man, who was a many-sided mirror,\nWhich could distort to many a shape of error,\nThis true fair world of things, a sea reflecting love;\nWhich over all his kind, as the sun’s heaven _385\nGliding o’er ocean, smooth, serene, and even,\nDarting from starry depths radiance and life, doth move:\n\nLeave Man, even as a leprous child is left,\nWho follows a sick beast to some warm cleft\nOf rocks, through which the might of healing springs is poured; _390\nThen when it wanders home with rosy smile,\nUnconscious, and its mother fears awhile\nIt is a spirit, then, weeps on her child restored.\n\nMan, oh, not men! a chain of linked thought,\nOf love and might to be divided not, _395\nCompelling the elements with adamantine stress;\nAs the sun rules, even with a tyrant’s gaze,\nThe unquiet republic of the maze\nOf planets, struggling fierce towards heaven’s free wilderness.\n\nMan, one harmonious soul of many a soul, _400\nWhose nature is its own divine control,\nWhere all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea;\nFamiliar acts are beautiful through love;\nLabour, and pain, and grief, in life’s green grove\nSport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they could be! _405\n\nHis will, with all mean passions, bad delights,\nAnd selfish cares, its trembling satellites,\nA spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey,\nIs as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm\nLove rules, through waves which dare not overwhelm, _410\nForcing life’s wildest shores to own its sovereign sway.\n\nAll things confess his strength. Through the cold mass\nOf marble and of colour his dreams pass;\nBright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children wear;\nLanguage is a perpetual Orphic song, _415\nWhich rules with Daedal harmony a throng\nOf thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shapeless were.\n\nThe lightning is his slave; heaven’s utmost deep\nGives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep\nThey pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on! _420\nThe tempest is his steed, he strides the air;\nAnd the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare,\nHeaven, hast thou secrets? Man unveils me; I have none.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Moon:", + "body": "The shadow of white death has passed\nFrom my path in heaven at last, _425\nA clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep;\nAnd through my newly-woven bowers,\nWander happy paramours,\nLess mighty, but as mild as those who keep\nThy vales more deep. _430", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold\nA half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold,\nAnd crystalline, till it becomes a winged mist,\nAnd wanders up the vault of the blue day,\nOutlives the noon, and on the sun’s last ray _435\nHangs o’er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Moon:", + "body": "Thou art folded, thou art lying\nIn the light which is undying\nOf thine own joy, and heaven’s smile divine;\nAll suns and constellations shower _440\nOn thee a light, a life, a power\nWhich doth array thy sphere; thou pourest thine\nOn mine, on mine!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "I spin beneath my pyramid of night,\nWhich points into the heavens dreaming delight, _445\nMurmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep;\nAs a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing,\nUnder the shadow of his beauty lying,\nWhich round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth keep.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Moon:", + "body": "As in the soft and sweet eclipse, _450\nWhen soul meets soul on lovers’ lips,\nHigh hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull;\nSo when thy shadow falls on me,\nThen am I mute and still, by thee\nCovered; of thy love, Orb most beautiful, _455\nFull, oh, too full!\n\nThou art speeding round the sun\nBrightest world of many a one;\nGreen and azure sphere which shinest\nWith a light which is divinest _460\nAmong all the lamps of Heaven\nTo whom life and light is given;\nI, thy crystal paramour\nBorne beside thee by a power\nLike the polar Paradise, _465\nMagnet-like of lovers’ eyes;\nI, a most enamoured maiden\nWhose weak brain is overladen\nWith the pleasure of her love,\nManiac-like around thee move\nGazing, an insatiate bride, _470\nOn thy form from every side\nLike a Maenad, round the cup\nWhich Agave lifted up\nIn the weird Cadmaean forest. _475\nBrother, wheresoe’er thou soarest\nI must hurry, whirl and follow\nThrough the heavens wide and hollow,\nSheltered by the warm embrace\nOf thy soul from hungry space, _480\nDrinking from thy sense and sight\nBeauty, majesty, and might,\nAs a lover or a chameleon\nGrows like what it looks upon,\nAs a violet’s gentle eye _485\nGazes on the azure sky\nUntil its hue grows like what it beholds,\nAs a gray and watery mist\nGlows like solid amethyst\nAthwart the western mountain it enfolds, _490\nWhen the sunset sleeps\nUpon its snow—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Earth:", + "body": "And the weak day weeps\nThat it should be so.\nOh, gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight _495\nFalls on me like thy clear and tender light\nSoothing the seaman, borne the summer night,\nThrough isles for ever calm;\nOh, gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce\nThe caverns of my pride’s deep universe, _500\nCharming the tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce\nMade wounds which need thy balm.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ione:", + "body": "Ah me! sweet sister, _505\nThe stream of sound has ebbed away from us,\nAnd you pretend to rise out of its wave,\nBecause your words fall like the clear, soft dew\nShaken from a bathing wood-nymph’s limbs and hair.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "Peace! peace! a mighty Power, which is as darkness, _510\nIs rising out of Earth, and from the sky\nIs showered like night, and from within the air\nBursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up\nInto the pores of sunlight: the bright visions,\nWherein the singing spirits rode and shone, _515\nGleam like pale meteors through a watery night.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Demogorgon:", + "body": "Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul,\nSphere of divinest shapes and harmonies, _520\nBeautiful orb! gathering as thou dost roll\nThe love which paves thy path along the skies:", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Demogorgon:", + "body": "Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth\nWith wonder, as it gazes upon thee; _525\nWhilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth\nOf birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony:", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Demogorgon:", + "body": "Spirits, whose homes are flesh; ye beasts and birds,\nYe worms and fish; ye living leaves and buds; _545\nLightning and wind; and ye untameable herds,\nMeteors and mists, which throng air’s solitudes:—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Demogorgon:", + "body": "This is the day, which down the void abysm\nAt the Earth-born’s spell yawns for Heaven’s despotism, _555\nAnd Conquest is dragged captive through the deep:\nLove, from its awful throne of patient power\nIn the wise heart, from the last giddy hour\nOf dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,\nAnd narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs _560\nAnd folds over the world its healing wings.\n\nGentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,\nThese are the seals of that most firm assurance\nWhich bars the pit over Destruction’s strength;\nAnd if, with infirm hand, Eternity, _565\nMother of many acts and hours, should free\nThe serpent that would clasp her with his length;\nThese are the spells by which to reassume\nAn empire o’er the disentangled doom.\n\nTo suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; _570\nTo forgive wrongs darker than death or night;\nTo defy Power, which seems omnipotent;\nTo love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates\nFrom its own wreck the thing it contemplates;\nNeither to change, nor falter, nor repent; _575\nThis, like thy glory, Titan, is to be\nGood, great and joyous, beautiful and free;\nThis is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory!\n\n_559 dread B, edition 1839; dead 1820.\n_575 falter B, edition 1839; flatter 1820.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cancelled Fragments Of “Prometheus Unbound”.", + "body": "[First printed by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination of the Shelley\nManuscripts at the Bodleian Library”, 1903, pages 33-7.]\n\n(following 1._37.)\nWhen thou descendst each night with open eyes\nIn torture, for a tyrant seldom sleeps,\nThou never; ...\n...\n\n(following 1._195.)\nWhich thou henceforth art doomed to interweave\n...\n\n(following the first two words of 1._342.)\n[Of Hell:] I placed it in his choice to be\nThe crown, or trampled refuse of the world\nWith but one law itself a glorious boon—\nI gave—\n...\n\n(following 1._707.)\nSECOND SPIRIT:\nI leaped on the wings of the Earth-star damp\nAs it rose on the steam of a slaughtered camp—\nThe sleeping newt heard not our tramp\nAs swift as the wings of fire may pass—\nWe threaded the points of long thick grass\nWhich hide the green pools of the morass\nBut shook a water-serpent’s couch\nIn a cleft skull, of many such\nThe widest; at the meteor’s touch\nThe snake did seem to see in dream\nThrones and dungeons overthrown\nVisions how unlike his own...\n’Twas the hope the prophecy\nWhich begins and ends in thee\n...\n\n(following 2.1._110.)\nLift up thine eyes Panthea—they pierce they burn", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "Rest, rest!\nSleep death annihilation pain! aught else\n...\n\n(following 2.4._27.)\nOr looks which tell that while the lips are calm\nAnd the eyes cold, the spirit weeps within\nTears like the sanguine sweat of agony;\n...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Panthea:", + "body": "Alas it was Prometheus spoke\nWithin me, and I know it must be so\nI mixed my own weak nature with his love\n...And my thoughts\nAre like the many forests of a vale\nThrough which the might of whirlwind and of rain\nHad passed—they rest rest through the evening light\nAs mine do now in thy beloved smile.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cancelled Stage Directions.", + "body": "(following 1._221.)\n[THE SOUND BENEATH AS OF EARTHQUAKE AND THE DRIVING OF WHIRLWINDS—THE\nRAVINE IS SPLIT, AND THE PHANTASM OF JUPITER RISES, SURROUNDED BY\nHEAVY CLOUDS WHICH DART FORTH LIGHTNING.]\n\n(following 1._520.)\n[ENTER RUSHING BY GROUPS OF HORRIBLE FORMS; THEY SPEAK AS THEY PASS IN\nCHORUS.]\n\n(following 1._552.)\n[A SHADOW PASSES OVER THE SCENE, AND A PIERCING SHRIEK IS HEARD.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On “Prometheus Unbound”, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "On the 12th of March, 1818, Shelley quitted England, never to return.\nHis principal motive was the hope that his health would be improved by\na milder climate; he suffered very much during the winter previous to\nhis emigration, and this decided his vacillating purpose. In December,\n1817, he had written from Marlow to a friend, saying:\n\n‘My health has been materially worse. My feelings at intervals are of\na deadly and torpid kind, or awakened to such a state of unnatural and\nkeen excitement that, only to instance the organ of sight, I find the\nvery blades of grass and the boughs of distant trees present\nthemselves to me with microscopic distinctness. Towards evening I sink\ninto a state of lethargy and inanimation, and often remain for hours\non the sofa between sleep and waking, a prey to the most painful\nirritability of thought. Such, with little intermission, is my\ncondition. The hours devoted to study are selected with vigilant\ncaution from among these periods of endurance. It is not for this that\nI think of travelling to Italy, even if I knew that Italy would\nrelieve me. But I have experienced a decisive pulmonary attack; and\nalthough at present it has passed away without any considerable\nvestige of its existence, yet this symptom sufficiently shows the true\nnature of my disease to be consumptive. It is to my advantage that\nthis malady is in its nature slow, and, if one is sufficiently alive\nto its advances, is susceptible of cure from a warm climate. In the\nevent of its assuming any decided shape, IT WOULD BE MY DUTY to go to\nItaly without delay. It is not mere health, but life, that I should\nseek, and that not for my own sake—I feel I am capable of trampling\non all such weakness; but for the sake of those to whom my life may be\na source of happiness, utility, security, and honour, and to some of\nwhom my death might be all that is the reverse.’\n\nIn almost every respect his journey to Italy was advantageous. He left\nbehind friends to whom he was attached; but cares of a thousand kinds,\nmany springing from his lavish generosity, crowded round him in his\nnative country, and, except the society of one or two friends, he had\nno compensation. The climate caused him to consume half his existence\nin helpless suffering. His dearest pleasure, the free enjoyment of the\nscenes of Nature, was marred by the same circumstance.\n\nHe went direct to Italy, avoiding even Paris, and did not make any\npause till he arrived at Milan. The first aspect of Italy enchanted\nShelley; it seemed a garden of delight placed beneath a clearer and\nbrighter heaven than any he had lived under before. He wrote long\ndescriptive letters during the first year of his residence in Italy,\nwhich, as compositions, are the most beautiful in the world, and show\nhow truly he appreciated and studied the wonders of Nature and Art in\nthat divine land.\n\nThe poetical spirit within him speedily revived with all the power and\nwith more than all the beauty of his first attempts. He meditated\nthree subjects as the groundwork for lyrical dramas. One was the story\nof Tasso; of this a slight fragment of a song of Tasso remains. The\nother was one founded on the Book of Job, which he never abandoned in\nidea, but of which no trace remains among his papers. The third was\nthe “Prometheus Unbound”. The Greek tragedians were now his most\nfamiliar companions in his wanderings, and the sublime majesty of\nAeschylus filled him with wonder and delight. The father of Greek\ntragedy does not possess the pathos of Sophocles, nor the variety and\ntenderness of Euripides; the interest on which he founds his dramas is\noften elevated above human vicissitudes into the mighty passions and\nthroes of gods and demi-gods: such fascinated the abstract imagination\nof Shelley.\n\nWe spent a month at Milan, visiting the Lake of Como during that\ninterval. Thence we passed in succession to Pisa, Leghorn, the Baths\nof Lucca, Venice, Este, Rome, Naples, and back again to Rome, whither\nwe returned early in March, 1819. During all this time Shelley\nmeditated the subject of his drama, and wrote portions of it. Other\npoems were composed during this interval, and while at the Bagni di\nLucca he translated Plato’s “Symposium”. But, though he diversified\nhis studies, his thoughts centred in the Prometheus. At last, when at\nRome, during a bright and beautiful Spring, he gave up his whole time\nto the composition. The spot selected for his study was, as he\nmentions in his preface, the mountainous ruins of the Baths of\nCaracalla. These are little known to the ordinary visitor at Rome. He\ndescribes them in a letter, with that poetry and delicacy and truth of\ndescription which render his narrated impressions of scenery of\nunequalled beauty and interest.\n\nAt first he completed the drama in three acts. It was not till several\nmonths after, when at Florence, that he conceived that a fourth act, a\nsort of hymn of rejoicing in the fulfilment of the prophecies with\nregard to Prometheus, ought to be added to complete the composition.\n\nThe prominent feature of Shelley’s theory of the destiny of the human\nspecies was that evil is not inherent in the system of the creation,\nbut an accident that might be expelled. This also forms a portion of\nChristianity: God made earth and man perfect, till he, by his fall,\n\n‘Brought death into the world and all our woe.’\n\nShelley believed that mankind had only to will that there should be no\nevil, and there would be none. It is not my part in these Notes to\nnotice the arguments that have been urged against this opinion, but to\nmention the fact that he entertained it, and was indeed attached to it\nwith fervent enthusiasm. That man could be so perfectionized as to be\nable to expel evil from his own nature, and from the greater part of\nthe creation, was the cardinal point of his system. And the subject he\nloved best to dwell on was the image of One warring with the Evil\nPrinciple, oppressed not only by it, but by all—even the good, who\nwere deluded into considering evil a necessary portion of humanity; a\nvictim full of fortitude and hope and the spirit of triumph emanating\nfrom a reliance in the ultimate omnipotence of Good. Such he had\ndepicted in his last poem, when he made Laon the enemy and the victim\nof tyrants. He now took a more idealized image of the same subject. He\nfollowed certain classical authorities in figuring Saturn as the good\nprinciple, Jupiter the usurping evil one, and Prometheus as the\nregenerator, who, unable to bring mankind back to primitive innocence,\nused knowledge as a weapon to defeat evil, by leading mankind, beyond\nthe state wherein they are sinless through ignorance, to that in which\nthey are virtuous through wisdom. Jupiter punished the temerity of the\nTitan by chaining him to a rock of Caucasus, and causing a vulture to\ndevour his still-renewed heart. There was a prophecy afloat in heaven\nportending the fall of Jove, the secret of averting which was known\nonly to Prometheus; and the god offered freedom from torture on\ncondition of its being communicated to him. According to the\nmythological story, this referred to the offspring of Thetis, who was\ndestined to be greater than his father. Prometheus at last bought\npardon for his crime of enriching mankind with his gifts, by revealing\nthe prophecy. Hercules killed the vulture, and set him free; and\nThetis was married to Peleus, the father of Achilles.\n\nShelley adapted the catastrophe of this story to his peculiar views.\nThe son greater than his father, born of the nuptials of Jupiter and\nThetis, was to dethrone Evil, and bring back a happier reign than that\nof Saturn. Prometheus defies the power of his enemy, and endures\ncenturies of torture; till the hour arrives when Jove, blind to the\nreal event, but darkly guessing that some great good to himself will\nflow, espouses Thetis. At the moment, the Primal Power of the world\ndrives him from his usurped throne, and Strength, in the person of\nHercules, liberates Humanity, typified in Prometheus, from the\ntortures generated by evil done or suffered. Asia, one of the\nOceanides, is the wife of Prometheus—she was, according to other\nmythological interpretations, the same as Venus and Nature. When the\nbenefactor of mankind is liberated, Nature resumes the beauty of her\nprime, and is united to her husband, the emblem of the human race, in\nperfect and happy union. In the Fourth Act, the Poet gives further\nscope to his imagination, and idealizes the forms of creation—such as\nwe know them, instead of such as they appeared to the Greeks. Maternal\nEarth, the mighty parent, is superseded by the Spirit of the Earth,\nthe guide of our planet through the realms of sky; while his fair and\nweaker companion and attendant, the Spirit of the Moon, receives bliss\nfrom the annihilation of Evil in the superior sphere.\n\nShelley develops, more particularly in the lyrics of this drama, his\nabstruse and imaginative theories with regard to the Creation. It\nrequires a mind as subtle and penetrating as his own to understand the\nmystic meanings scattered throughout the poem. They elude the ordinary\nreader by their abstraction and delicacy of distinction, but they are\nfar from vague. It was his design to write prose metaphysical essays\non the nature of Man, which would have served to explain much of what\nis obscure in his poetry; a few scattered fragments of observations\nand remarks alone remain. He considered these philosophical views of\nMind and Nature to be instinct with the intensest spirit of poetry.\n\nMore popular poets clothe the ideal with familiar and sensible\nimagery. Shelley loved to idealize the real—to gift the mechanism of\nthe material universe with a soul and a voice, and to bestow such also\non the most delicate and abstract emotions and thoughts of the mind.\nSophocles was his great master in this species of imagery.\n\nI find in one of his manuscript books some remarks on a line in the\n“Oedipus Tyrannus”, which show at once the critical subtlety of\nShelley’s mind, and explain his apprehension of those ‘minute and\nremote distinctions of feeling, whether relative to external nature or\nthe living beings which surround us,’ which he pronounces, in the\nletter quoted in the note to the “Revolt of Islam”, to comprehend all\nthat is sublime in man.\n\n‘In the Greek Shakespeare, Sophocles, we find the image,\n\nPollas d’ odous elthonta phrontidos planois:\n\na line of almost unfathomable depth of poetry; yet how simple are the\nimages in which it is arrayed!\n\n“Coming to many ways in the wanderings of careful thought.”\n\nIf the words odous and planois had not been used, the line might have\nbeen explained in a metaphorical instead of an absolute sense, as we\nsay “WAYS and means,” and “wanderings” for error and confusion. But\nthey meant literally paths or roads, such as we tread with our feet;\nand wanderings, such as a man makes when he loses himself in a desert,\nor roams from city to city—as Oedipus, the speaker of this verse, was\ndestined to wander, blind and asking charity. What a picture does this\nline suggest of the mind as a wilderness of intricate paths, wide as\nthe universe, which is here made its symbol; a world within a world\nwhich he who seeks some knowledge with respect to what he ought to do\nsearches throughout, as he would search the external universe for some\nvalued thing which was hidden from him upon its surface.’\n\nIn reading Shelley’s poetry, we often find similar verses, resembling,\nbut not imitating the Greek in this species of imagery; for, though he\nadopted the style, he gifted it with that originality of form and\ncolouring which sprung from his own genius.\n\nIn the “Prometheus Unbound”, Shelley fulfils the promise quoted from a\nletter in the Note on the “Revolt of Islam”. (While correcting the\nproof-sheets of that poem, it struck me that the poet had indulged in\nan exaggerated view of the evils of restored despotism; which, however\ninjurious and degrading, were less openly sanguinary than the triumph\nof anarchy, such as it appeared in France at the close of the last\ncentury. But at this time a book, “Scenes of Spanish Life”, translated\nby Lieutenant Crawford from the German of Dr. Huber, of Rostock, fell\ninto my hands. The account of the triumph of the priests and the\nserviles, after the French invasion of Spain in 1823, bears a strong\nand frightful resemblance to some of the descriptions of the massacre\nof the patriots in the “Revolt of Islam”.) The tone of the composition\nis calmer and more majestic, the poetry more perfect as a whole, and\nthe imagination displayed at once more pleasingly beautiful and more\nvaried and daring. The description of the Hours, as they are seen in\nthe cave of Demogorgon, is an instance of this—it fills the mind as\nthe most charming picture—we long to see an artist at work to bring\nto our view the\n\n‘cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds\nWhich trample the dim winds: in each there stands\nA wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.\nSome look behind, as fiends pursued them there,\nAnd yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:\nOthers, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink\nWith eager lips the wind of their own speed,\nAs if the thing they loved fled on before,\nAnd now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks\nStream like a comet’s flashing hair: they all\nSweep onward.’\n\nThrough the whole poem there reigns a sort of calm and holy spirit of\nlove; it soothes the tortured, and is hope to the expectant, till the\nprophecy is fulfilled, and Love, untainted by any evil, becomes the\nlaw of the world.\n\nEngland had been rendered a painful residence to Shelley, as much by\nthe sort of persecution with which in those days all men of liberal\nopinions were visited, and by the injustice he had lately endured in\nthe Court of Chancery, as by the symptoms of disease which made him\nregard a visit to Italy as necessary to prolong his life. An exile,\nand strongly impressed with the feeling that the majority of his\ncountrymen regarded him with sentiments of aversion such as his own\nheart could experience towards none, he sheltered himself from such\ndisgusting and painful thoughts in the calm retreats of poetry, and\nbuilt up a world of his own—with the more pleasure, since he hoped to\ninduce some one or two to believe that the earth might become such,\ndid mankind themselves consent. The charm of the Roman climate helped\nto clothe his thoughts in greater beauty than they had ever worn\nbefore. And, as he wandered among the ruins made one with Nature in\ntheir decay, or gazed on the Praxitelean shapes that throng the\nVatican, the Capitol, and the palaces of Rome, his soul imbibed forms\nof loveliness which became a portion of itself. There are many\npassages in the “Prometheus” which show the intense delight he\nreceived from such studies, and give back the impression with a beauty\nof poetical description peculiarly his own. He felt this, as a poet\nmust feel when he satisfies himself by the result of his labours; and\nhe wrote from Rome, ‘My “Prometheus Unbound” is just finished, and in\na month or two I shall send it. It is a drama, with characters and\nmechanism of a kind yet unattempted; and I think the execution is\nbetter than any of my former attempts.’\n\nI may mention, for the information of the more critical reader, that\nthe verbal alterations in this edition of “Prometheus” are made from a\nlist of errata written by Shelley himself.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Tragedy In Five Acts.", + "body": "[Composed at Rome and near Leghorn (Villa Valsovano), May-August 5,\n1819; published 1820 (spring) by C. & J. Ollier, London. This edition\nof two hundred and fifty copies was printed in Italy ‘because,’ writes\nShelley to Peacock, September 21, 1819, ‘it costs, with all duties and\nfreightage, about half what it would cost in London.’ A Table of\nErrata in Mrs. Shelley’s handwriting is printed by Forman in “The\nShelley Library”, page 91. A second edition, published by Ollier in\n1821 (C.H. Reynell, printer), embodies the corrections indicated in\nthis Table. No manuscript of “The Cenci” is known to exist. Our text\nfollows that of the second edition (1821); variations of the first\n(Italian) edition, the title-page of which bears date 1819, are given\nin the footnotes. The text of the “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st and 2nd\neditions (Mrs. Shelley), follows for the most part that of the editio\nprinceps of 1819.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Dedication, To Leigh Hunt, Esq.", + "body": "Mv dear friend—\n\nI inscribe with your name, from a distant country, and after an\nabsence whose months have seemed years, this the latest of my literary\nefforts.\n\nThose writings which I have hitherto published, have been little else\nthan visions which impersonate my own apprehensions of the beautiful\nand the just. I can also perceive in them the literary defects\nincidental to youth and impatience; they are dreams of what ought to\nbe, or may be. The drama which I now present to you is a sad reality.\nI lay aside the presumptuous attitude of an instructor, and am content\nto paint, with such colours as my own heart furnishes, that which has\nbeen.\n\nHad I known a person more highly endowed than yourself with all that\nit becomes a man to possess, I had solicited for this work the\nornament of his name. One more gentle, honourable, innocent and brave;\none of more exalted toleration for all who do and think evil, and yet\nhimself more free from evil; one who knows better how to receive, and\nhow to confer a benefit, though he must ever confer far more than he\ncan receive; one of simpler, and, in the highest sense of the word, of\npurer life and manners I never knew: and I had already been fortunate\nin friendships when your name was added to the list.\n\nIn that patient and irreconcilable enmity with domestic and political\ntyranny and imposture which the tenor of your life has illustrated,\nand which, had I health and talents, should illustrate mine, let us,\ncomforting each other in our task, live and die.\n\nAll happiness attend you! Your affectionate friend,", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Cenci.", + "body": "A manuscript was communicated to me during my travels in Italy, which\nwas copied from the archives of the Cenci Palace at Rome, and contains\na detailed account of the horrors which ended in the extinction of one\nof the noblest and richest families of that city during the\nPontificate of Clement VIII, in the year 1599. The story is, that an\nold man having spent his life in debauchery and wickedness, conceived\nat length an implacable hatred towards his children; which showed\nitself towards one daughter under the form of an incestuous passion,\naggravated by every circumstance of cruelty and violence. This\ndaughter, after long and vain attempts to escape from what she\nconsidered a perpetual contamination both of body and mind, at length\nplotted with her mother-in-law and brother to murder their common\ntyrant. The young maiden, who was urged to this tremendous deed by an\nimpulse which overpowered its horror, was evidently a most gentle and\namiable being, a creature formed to adorn and be admired, and thus\nviolently thwarted from her nature by the necessity of circumstance\nand opinion. The deed was quickly discovered, and, in spite of the\nmost earnest prayers made to the Pope by the highest persons in Rome,\nthe criminals were put to death. The old man had during his life\nrepeatedly bought his pardon from the Pope for capital crimes of the\nmost enormous and unspeakable kind, at the price of a hundred thousand\ncrowns; the death therefore of his victims can scarcely be accounted\nfor by the love of justice. The Pope, among other motives for\nseverity, probably felt that whoever killed the Count Cenci deprived\nhis treasury of a certain and copious source of revenue. (The Papal\nGovernment formerly took the most extraordinary precautions against\nthe publicity of facts which offer so tragical a demonstration of its\nown wickedness and weakness; so that the communication of the\nmanuscript had become, until very lately, a matter of some\ndifficulty.) Such a story, if told so as to present to the reader all\nthe feelings of those who once acted it, their hopes and fears, their\nconfidences and misgivings, their various interests, passions, and\nopinions, acting upon and with each other, yet all conspiring to one\ntremendous end, would be as a light to make apparent some of the most\ndark and secret caverns of the human heart.\n\nOn my arrival at Rome I found that the story of the Cenci was a\nsubject not to be mentioned in Italian society without awakening a\ndeep and breathless interest; and that the feelings of the company\nnever failed to incline to a romantic pity for the wrongs, and a\npassionate exculpation of the horrible deed to which they urged her,\nwho has been mingled two centuries with the common dust. All ranks of\npeople knew the outlines of this history, and participated in the\noverwhelming interest which it seems to have the magic of exciting in\nthe human heart. I had a copy of Guido’s picture of Beatrice which is\npreserved in the Colonna Palace, and my servant instantly recognized\nit as the portrait of La Cenci.\n\nThis national and universal interest which the story produces and has\nproduced for two centuries and among all ranks of people in a great\nCity, where the imagination is kept for ever active and awake, first\nsuggested to me the conception of its fitness for a dramatic purpose.\nIn fact it is a tragedy which has already received, from its capacity\nof awakening and sustaining the sympathy of men, approbation and\nsuccess. Nothing remained as I imagined, but to clothe it to the\napprehensions of my countrymen in such language and action as would\nbring it home to their hearts. The deepest and the sublimest tragic\ncompositions, King Lear and the two plays in which the tale of Oedipus\nis told, were stories which already existed in tradition, as matters\nof popular belief and interest, before Shakspeare and Sophocles made\nthem familiar to the sympathy of all succeeding generations of\nmankind.\n\nThis story of the Cenci is indeed eminently fearful and monstrous:\nanything like a dry exhibition of it on the stage would be\ninsupportable. The person who would treat such a subject must increase\nthe ideal, and diminish the actual horror of the events, so that the\npleasure which arises from the poetry which exists in these\ntempestuous sufferings and crimes may mitigate the pain of the\ncontemplation of the moral deformity from which they spring. There\nmust also be nothing attempted to make the exhibition subservient to\nwhat is vulgarly termed a moral purpose. The highest moral purpose\naimed at in the highest species of the drama, is the teaching the\nhuman heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of\nitself; in proportion to the possession of which knowledge, every\nhuman being is wise, just, sincere, tolerant and kind. If dogmas can\ndo more, it is well: but a drama is no fit place for the enforcement\nof them. Undoubtedly, no person can be truly dishonoured by the act of\nanother; and the fit return to make to the most enormous injuries is\nkindness and forbearance, and a resolution to convert the injurer from\nhis dark passions by peace and love. Revenge, retaliation, atonement,\nare pernicious mistakes. If Beatrice had thought in this manner she\nwould have been wiser and better; but she would never have been a\ntragic character: the few whom such an exhibition would have\ninterested, could never have been sufficiently interested for a\ndramatic purpose, from the want of finding sympathy in their interest\namong the mass who surround them. It is in the restless and\nanatomizing casuistry with which men seek the justification of\nBeatrice, yet feel that she has done what needs justification; it is\nin the superstitious horror with which they contemplate alike her\nwrongs and their revenge, that the dramatic character of what she did\nand suffered, consists.\n\nI have endeavoured as nearly as possible to represent the characters\nas they probably were, and have sought to avoid the error of making\nthem actuated by my own conceptions of right or wrong, false or true:\nthus under a thin veil converting names and actions of the sixteenth\ncentury into cold impersonations of my own mind. They are represented\nas Catholics, and as Catholics deeply tinged with religion. To a\nProtestant apprehension there will appear something unnatural in the\nearnest and perpetual sentiment of the relations between God and men\nwhich pervade the tragedy of the Cenci. It will especially be startled\nat the combination of an undoubting persuasion of the truth of the\npopular religion with a cool and determined perseverance in enormous\nguilt. But religion in Italy is not, as in Protestant countries, a\ncloak to be worn on particular days; or a passport which those who do\nnot wish to be railed at carry with them to exhibit; or a gloomy\npassion for penetrating the impenetrable mysteries of our being, which\nterrifies its possessor at the darkness of the abyss to the brink of\nwhich it has conducted him. Religion coexists, as it were, in the mind\nof an Italian Catholic, with a faith in that of which all men have the\nmost certain knowledge. It is interwoven with the whole fabric of\nlife. It is adoration, faith, submission, penitence, blind admiration;\nnot a rule for moral conduct. It has no necessary connection with any\none virtue. The most atrocious villain may be rigidly devout, and\nwithout any shock to established faith, confess himself to be so.\nReligion pervades intensely the whole frame of society, and is\naccording to the temper of the mind which it inhabits, a passion, a\npersuasion, an excuse, a refuge; never a check. Cenci himself built a\nchapel in the court of his Palace, and dedicated it to St. Thomas the\nApostle, and established masses for the peace of his soul. Thus in the\nfirst scene of the fourth act Lucretia’s design in exposing herself to\nthe consequences of an expostulation with Cenci after having\nadministered the opiate, was to induce him by a feigned tale to\nconfess himself before death; this being esteemed by Catholics as\nessential to salvation; and she only relinquishes her purpose when she\nperceives that her perseverance would expose Beatrice to new outrages.\n\nI have avoided with great care in writing this play the introduction\nof what is commonly called mere poetry, and I imagine there will\nscarcely be found a detached simile or a single isolated description,\nunless Beatrice’s description of the chasm appointed for her father’s\nmurder should be judged to be of that nature. (An idea in this speech\nwas suggested by a most sublime passage in “El Purgaterio de San\nPatricio” of Calderon; the only plagiarism which I have intentionally\ncommitted in the whole piece.)\n\nIn a dramatic composition the imagery and the passion should\ninterpenetrate one another, the former being reserved simply for the\nfull development and illustration of the latter. Imagination is as the\nimmortal God which should assume flesh for the redemption of mortal\npassion. It is thus that the most remote and the most familiar imagery\nmay alike be fit for dramatic purposes when employed in the\nillustration of strong feeling, which raises what is low, and levels\nto the apprehension that which is lofty, casting over all the shadow\nof its own greatness. In other respects, I have written more\ncarelessly; that is, without an over-fastidious and learned choice of\nwords. In this respect I entirely agree with those modern critics who\nassert that in order to move men to true sympathy we must use the\nfamiliar language of men, and that our great ancestors the ancient\nEnglish poets are the writers, a study of whom might incite us to do\nthat for our own age which they have done for theirs. But it must be\nthe real language of men in general and not that of any particular\nclass to whose society the writer happens to belong. So much for what\nI have attempted; I need not be assured that success is a very\ndifferent matter; particularly for one whose attention has but newly\nbeen awakened to the study of dramatic literature.\n\nI endeavoured whilst at Rome to observe such monuments of this story\nas might be accessible to a stranger. The portrait of Beatrice at the\nColonna Palace is admirable as a work of art: it was taken by Guido\nduring her confinement in prison. But it is most interesting as a just\nrepresentation of one of the loveliest specimens of the workmanship of\nNature. There is a fixed and pale composure upon the features: she\nseems sad and stricken down in spirit, yet the despair thus expressed\nis lightened by the patience of gentleness. Her head is bound with\nfolds of white drapery from which the yellow strings of her golden\nhair escape, and fall about her neck. The moulding of her face is\nexquisitely delicate; the eyebrows are distinct and arched: the lips\nhave that permanent meaning of imagination and sensibility which\nsuffering has not repressed and which it seems as if death scarcely\ncould extinguish. Her forehead is large and clear; her eyes, which we\nare told were remarkable for their vivacity, are swollen with weeping\nand lustreless, but beautifully tender and serene. In the whole mien\nthere is a simplicity and dignity which, united with her exquisite\nloveliness and deep sorrow, are inexpressibly pathetic. Beatrice Cenci\nappears to have been one of those rare persons in whom energy and\ngentleness dwell together without destroying one another: her nature\nwas simple and profound. The crimes and miseries in which she was an\nactor and a sufferer are as the mask and the mantle in which\ncircumstances clothed her for her impersonation on the scene of the\nworld.\n\nThe Cenci Palace is of great extent; and though in part modernized,\nthere yet remains a vast and gloomy pile of feudal architecture in the\nsame state as during the dreadful scenes which are the subject of this\ntragedy. The Palace is situated in an obscure corner of Rome, near the\nquarter of the Jews, and from the upper windows you see the immense\nruins of Mount Palatine half hidden under their profuse overgrowth of\ntrees. There is a court in one part of the Palace (perhaps that in\nwhich Cenci built the Chapel to St. Thomas), supported by granite\ncolumns and adorned with antique friezes of fine workmanship, and\nbuilt up, according to the ancient Italian fashion, with balcony over\nbalcony of open-work. One of the gates of the Palace formed of immense\nstones and leading through a passage, dark and lofty and opening into\ngloomy subterranean chambers, struck me particularly.\n\nOf the Castle of Petrella, I could obtain no further information than\nthat which is to be found in the manuscript.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Count Francesco Cenci.", + "body": "GIACOMO, BERNARDO, HIS SONS.\nCARDINAL CAMILLO.\nPRINCE COLONNA.\nORSINO, A PRELATE.\nSAVELLA, THE POPE’S LEGATE.\nOLIMPIO, MARZIO, ASSASSINS.\nANDREA, SERVANT TO CENCI.\nNOBLES. JUDGES. GUARDS, SERVANTS.\nLUCRETIA, WIFE OF CENCI AND STEP-MOTHER OF HIS CHILDREN.\nBEATRICE, HIS DAUGHTER.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Camillo:", + "body": "That matter of the murder is hushed up\nIf you consent to yield his Holiness\nYour fief that lies beyond the Pincian gate.—\nIt needed all my interest in the conclave\nTo bend him to this point; he said that you _5\nBought perilous impunity with your gold;\nThat crimes like yours if once or twice compounded\nEnriched the Church, and respited from hell\nAn erring soul which might repent and live: —\nBut that the glory and the interest _10\nOf the high throne he fills, little consist\nWith making it a daily mart of guilt\nAs manifold and hideous as the deeds\nWhich you scarce hide from men’s revolted eyes.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "The third of my possessions—let it go! _15\nAy, I once heard the nephew of the Pope\nHad sent his architect to view the ground,\nMeaning to build a villa on my vines\nThe next time I compounded with his uncle:\nI little thought he should outwit me so! _20\nHenceforth no witness—not the lamp—shall see\nThat which the vassal threatened to divulge\nWhose throat is choked with dust for his reward.\nThe deed he saw could not have rated higher\nThan his most worthless life:—it angers me! _25\nRespited me from Hell! So may the Devil\nRespite their souls from Heaven! No doubt Pope Clement,\nAnd his most charitable nephews, pray\nThat the Apostle Peter and the Saints\nWill grant for their sake that I long enjoy _30\nStrength, wealth, and pride, and lust, and length of days\nWherein to act the deeds which are the stewards\nOf their revenue.—But much yet remains\nTo which they show no title.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Camillo:", + "body": "Oh, Count Cenci!\nSo much that thou mightst honourably live _35\nAnd reconcile thyself with thine own heart\nAnd with thy God, and with the offended world.\nHow hideously look deeds of lust and blood\nThrough those snow white and venerable hairs!—\nYour children should be sitting round you now, _40\nBut that you fear to read upon their looks\nThe shame and misery you have written there.\nWhere is your wife? Where is your gentle daughter?\nMethinks her sweet looks, which make all things else\nBeauteous and glad, might kill the fiend within you. _45\nWhy is she barred from all society\nBut her own strange and uncomplaining wrongs?\nTalk with me, Count,—you know I mean you well.\nI stood beside your dark and fiery youth\nWatching its bold and bad career, as men _50\nWatch meteors, but it vanished not—I marked\nYour desperate and remorseless manhood; now\nDo I behold you in dishonoured age\nCharged with a thousand unrepented crimes.\nYet I have ever hoped you would amend, _55\nAnd in that hope have saved your life three times.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "For which Aldobrandino owes you now\nMy fief beyond the Pincian.—Cardinal,\nOne thing, I pray you, recollect henceforth,\nAnd so we shall converse with less restraint. _60\nA man you knew spoke of my wife and daughter—\nHe was accustomed to frequent my house;\nSo the next day HIS wife and daughter came\nAnd asked if I had seen him; and I smiled:\nI think they never saw him any more. _65", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Of thee?\nNay, this is idle: —We should know each other.\nAs to my character for what men call crime\nSeeing I please my senses as I list,\nAnd vindicate that right with force or guile, _70\nIt is a public matter, and I care not\nIf I discuss it with you. I may speak\nAlike to you and my own conscious heart—\nFor you give out that you have half reformed me,\nTherefore strong vanity will keep you silent _75\nIf fear should not; both will, I do not doubt.\nAll men delight in sensual luxury,\nAll men enjoy revenge; and most exult\nOver the tortures they can never feel—\nFlattering their secret peace with others’ pain. _80\nBut I delight in nothing else. I love\nThe sight of agony, and the sense of joy,\nWhen this shall be another’s, and that mine.\nAnd I have no remorse and little fear,\nWhich are, I think, the checks of other men. _85\nThis mood has grown upon me, until now\nAny design my captious fancy makes\nThe picture of its wish, and it forms none\nBut such as men like you would start to know,\nIs as my natural food and rest debarred _90\nUntil it be accomplished.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Why miserable?—\nNo.—I am what your theologians call\nHardened;—which they must be in impudence,\nSo to revile a man’s peculiar taste. _95\nTrue, I was happier than I am, while yet\nManhood remained to act the thing I thought;\nWhile lust was sweeter than revenge; and now\nInvention palls:—Ay, we must all grow old—\nAnd but that there remains a deed to act _100\nWhose horror might make sharp an appetite\nDuller than mine—I’d do,—I know not what.\nWhen I was young I thought of nothing else\nBut pleasure; and I fed on honey sweets:\nMen, by St. Thomas! cannot live like bees, _105\nAnd I grew tired:—yet, till I killed a foe,\nAnd heard his groans, and heard his children’s groans,\nKnew I not what delight was else on earth,\nWhich now delights me little. I the rather\nLook on such pangs as terror ill conceals, _110\nThe dry fixed eyeball; the pale, quivering lip,\nWhich tell me that the spirit weeps within\nTears bitterer than the bloody sweat of Christ.\nI rarely kill the body, which preserves,\nLike a strong prison, the soul within my power, _115\nWherein I feed it with the breath of fear\nFor hourly pain.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Camillo:", + "body": "Hell’s most abandoned fiend\nDid never, in the drunkenness of guilt,\nSpeak to his heart as now you speak to me;\nI thank my God that I believe you not. _120\n\n[ENTER ANDREA.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "The third of my possessions! I must use\nClose husbandry, or gold, the old man’s sword,\nFalls from my withered hand. But yesterday\nThere came an order from the Pope to make\nFourfold provision for my cursed sons; _130\nWhom I had sent from Rome to Salamanca,\nHoping some accident might cut them off;\nAnd meaning if I could to starve them there.\nI pray thee, God, send some quick death upon them!\nBernardo and my wife could not be worse _135\nIf dead and damned:—then, as to Beatrice—\n[LOOKING AROUND HIM SUSPICIOUSLY.]\nI think they cannot hear me at that door;\nWhat if they should? And yet I need not speak\nThough the heart triumphs with itself in words.\nO, thou most silent air, that shalt not hear _140\nWhat now I think! Thou, pavement, which I tread\nTowards her chamber,—let your echoes talk\nOf my imperious step scorning surprise,\nBut not of my intent!—Andrea!\n\n_131 Whom I had edition 1821; Whom I have editions 1819, 1839.\n_140 that shalt edition 1821; that shall editions 1819, 1839.\n\n[ENTER ANDREA.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Bid Beatrice attend me in her chamber _145\nThis evening:—no, at midnight and alone.\n\n[EXEUNT.]\n\nSCENE 1.2:\nA GARDEN OF THE CENCI PALACE.\nENTER BEATRICE AND ORSINO, AS IN CONVERSATION.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Pervert not truth,\nOrsino. You remember where we held\nThat conversation;—nay, we see the spot\nEven from this cypress;—two long years are past\nSince, on an April midnight, underneath _5\nThe moonlight ruins of Mount Palatine,\nI did confess to you my secret mind.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "I may obtain\nThe dispensation of the Pope to marry. _10\nBecause I am a Priest do you believe\nYour image, as the hunter some struck deer,\nFollows me not whether I wake or sleep?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "As I have said, speak to me not of love;\nHad you a dispensation I have not; _15\nNor will I leave this home of misery\nWhilst my poor Bernard, and that gentle lady\nTo whom I owe life, and these virtuous thoughts,\nMust suffer what I still have strength to share.\nAlas, Orsino! All the love that once _20\nI felt for you, is turned to bitter pain.\nOurs was a youthful contract, which you first\nBroke, by assuming vows no Pope will loose.\nAnd thus I love you still, but holily,\nEven as a sister or a spirit might; _25\nAnd so I swear a cold fidelity.\nAnd it is well perhaps we shall not marry.\nYou have a sly, equivocating vein\nThat suits me not.—Ah, wretched that I am!\nWhere shall I turn? Even now you look on me _30\nAs you were not my friend, and as if you\nDiscovered that I thought so, with false smiles\nMaking my true suspicion seem your wrong.\nAh, no! forgive me; sorrow makes me seem\nSterner than else my nature might have been; _35\nI have a weight of melancholy thoughts,\nAnd they forebode,—but what can they forebode\nWorse than I now endure?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "All will be well.\nIs the petition yet prepared? You know\nMy zeal for all you wish, sweet Beatrice; _40\nDoubt not but I will use my utmost skill\nSo that the Pope attend to your complaint.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Your zeal for all I wish;—Ah me, you are cold!\nYour utmost skill...speak but one word...\n[ASIDE.]\nAlas!\nWeak and deserted creature that I am, _45\nHere I stand bickering with my only friend!\n[TO ORSINO.]\nThis night my father gives a sumptuous feast,\nOrsino; he has heard some happy news\nFrom Salamanca, from my brothers there,\nAnd with this outward show of love he mocks _50\nHis inward hate. ’Tis bold hypocrisy,\nFor he would gladlier celebrate their deaths,\nWhich I have heard him pray for on his knees:\nGreat God! that such a father should be mine!\nBut there is mighty preparation made, _55\nAnd all our kin, the Cenci, will be there,\nAnd all the chief nobility of Rome.\nAnd he has bidden me and my pale Mother\nAttire ourselves in festival array.\nPoor lady! She expects some happy change _60\nIn his dark spirit from this act; I none.\nAt supper I will give you the petition:\nTill when—farewell.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "Farewell.\n[EXIT BEATRICE.]\nI know the Pope\nWill ne’er absolve me from my priestly vow\nBut by absolving me from the revenue _65\nOf many a wealthy see; and, Beatrice,\nI think to win thee at an easier rate.\nNor shall he read her eloquent petition:\nHe might bestow her on some poor relation\nOf his sixth cousin, as he did her sister, _70\nAnd I should be debarred from all access.\nThen as to what she suffers from her father,\nIn all this there is much exaggeration:—\nOld men are testy and will have their way;\nA man may stab his enemy, or his vassal, _75\nAnd live a free life as to wine or women,\nAnd with a peevish temper may return\nTo a dull home, and rate his wife and children;\nDaughters and wives call this foul tyranny.\nI shall be well content if on my conscience _80\nThere rest no heavier sin than what they suffer\nFrom the devices of my love—a net\nFrom which he shall escape not. Yet I fear\nHer subtle mind, her awe-inspiring gaze,\nWhose beams anatomize me nerve by nerve _85\nAnd lay me bare, and make me blush to see\nMy hidden thoughts.—Ah, no! A friendless girl\nWho clings to me, as to her only hope:—\nI were a fool, not less than if a panther\nWere panic-stricken by the antelope’s eye, _90\nIf she escape me.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Welcome, my friends and kinsmen; welcome ye,\nPrinces and Cardinals, pillars of the church,\nWhose presence honours our festivity.\nI have too long lived like an anchorite,\nAnd in my absence from your merry meetings _5\nAn evil word is gone abroad of me;\nBut I do hope that you, my noble friends,\nWhen you have shared the entertainment here,\nAnd heard the pious cause for which ’tis given,\nAnd we have pledged a health or two together, _10\nWill think me flesh and blood as well as you;\nSinful indeed, for Adam made all so,\nBut tender-hearted, meek and pitiful.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "First Guest:", + "body": "In truth, my Lord, you seem too light of heart,\nToo sprightly and companionable a man, _15\nTo act the deeds that rumour pins on you.\n[TO HIS COMPANION.]\nI never saw such blithe and open cheer\nIn any eye!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "It is indeed a most desired event.\nIf when a parent from a parent’s heart\nLifts from this earth to the great Father of all\nA prayer, both when he lays him down to sleep,\nAnd when he rises up from dreaming it; _25\nOne supplication, one desire, one hope,\nThat he would grant a wish for his two sons,\nEven all that he demands in their regard—\nAnd suddenly beyond his dearest hope\nIt is accomplished, he should then rejoice, _30\nAnd call his friends and kinsmen to a feast,\nAnd task their love to grace his merriment,—\nThen honour me thus far—for I am he.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Here are the letters brought from Salamanca;\nBeatrice, read them to your mother. God! _40\nI thank thee! In one night didst thou perform,\nBy ways inscrutable, the thing I sought.\nMy disobedient and rebellious sons\nAre dead!—Why, dead!—What means this change of cheer?\nYou hear me not, I tell you they are dead; _45\nAnd they will need no food or raiment more:\nThe tapers that did light them the dark way\nAre their last cost. The Pope, I think, will not\nExpect I should maintain them in their coffins.\nRejoice with me—my heart is wondrous glad. _50\n\n[LUCRETIA SINKS, HALF FAINTING; BEATRICE SUPPORTS HER.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Ay, as the word of God; whom here I call _55\nTo witness that I speak the sober truth;—\nAnd whose most favouring Providence was shown\nEven in the manner of their deaths. For Rocco\nWas kneeling at the mass, with sixteen others,\nWhen the church fell and crushed him to a mummy, _60\nThe rest escaped unhurt. Cristofano\nWas stabbed in error by a jealous man,\nWhilst she he loved was sleeping with his rival;\nAll in the self-same hour of the same night;\nWhich shows that Heaven has special care of me. _65\nI beg those friends who love me, that they mark\nThe day a feast upon their calendars.\nIt was the twenty-seventh of December:\nAy, read the letters if you doubt my oath.\n\n[THE ASSEMBLY APPEARS CONFUSED; SEVERAL OF THE GUESTS RISE.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Third Guest:", + "body": "No, stay! _70\nI do believe it is some jest; though faith!\n’Tis mocking us somewhat too solemnly.\nI think his son has married the Infanta,\nOr found a mine of gold in El Dorado.\n’Tis but to season some such news; stay, stay! _75\nI see ’tis only raillery by his smile.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci [Filling A Bowl Of Wine, And Lifting It Up]:", + "body": "Oh, thou bright wine whose purple splendour leaps\nAnd bubbles gaily in this golden bowl\nUnder the lamplight, as my spirits do,\nTo hear the death of my accursed sons! _80\nCould I believe thou wert their mingled blood,\nThen would I taste thee like a sacrament,\nAnd pledge with thee the mighty Devil in Hell,\nWho, if a father’s curses, as men say,\nClimb with swift wings after their children’s souls, _85\nAnd drag them from the very throne of Heaven,\nNow triumphs in my triumph!—But thou art\nSuperfluous; I have drunken deep of joy,\nAnd I will taste no other wine to-night.\nHere, Andrea! Bear the bowl around.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci [Addressing Those Who Rise With A Threatening Gesture]:", + "body": "Who moves? Who speaks?\n[TURNING TO THE COMPANY.]\n’tis nothing, _95\nEnjoy yourselves.—Beware! For my revenge\nIs as the sealed commission of a king\nThat kills, and none dare name the murderer.\n\n[THE BANQUET IS BROKEN UP; SEVERAL OF THE GUESTS ARE DEPARTING.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "I do entreat you, go not, noble guests;\nWhat, although tyranny and impious hate _100\nStand sheltered by a father’s hoary hair?\nWhat if ’tis he who clothed us in these limbs\nWho tortures them, and triumphs? What, if we,\nThe desolate and the dead, were his own flesh,\nHis children and his wife, whom he is bound _105\nTo love and shelter? Shall we therefore find\nNo refuge in this merciless wide world?\nO think what deep wrongs must have blotted out\nFirst love, then reverence in a child’s prone mind,\nTill it thus vanquish shame and fear! O think! _110\nI have borne much, and kissed the sacred hand\nWhich crushed us to the earth, and thought its stroke\nWas perhaps some paternal chastisement!\nHave excused much, doubted; and when no doubt\nRemained, have sought by patience, love, and tears _115\nTo soften him, and when this could not be\nI have knelt down through the long sleepless nights\nAnd lifted up to God, the Father of all,\nPassionate prayers: and when these were not heard\nI have still borne,—until I meet you here, _120\nPrinces and kinsmen, at this hideous feast\nGiven at my brothers’ deaths. Two yet remain,\nHis wife remains and I, whom if ye save not,\nYe may soon share such merriment again\nAs fathers make over their children’s graves. _125\nO Prince Colonna, thou art our near kinsman,\nCardinal, thou art the Pope’s chamberlain,\nCamillo, thou art chief justiciary,\nTake us away!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci [He Has Been Conversing With Camillo During The First Part Of", + "body": "BEATRICE’S SPEECH; HE HEARS THE CONCLUSION, AND NOW ADVANCES]:\nI hope my good friends here\nWill think of their own daughters—or perhaps _130\nOf their own throats—before they lend an ear\nTo this wild girl.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice [Not Noticing The Words Of Cenci]:", + "body": "Dare no one look on me?\nNone answer? Can one tyrant overbear\nThe sense of many best and wisest men?\nOr is it that I sue not in some form _135\nOf scrupulous law, that ye deny my suit?\nO God! That I were buried with my brothers!\nAnd that the flowers of this departed spring\nWere fading on my grave! And that my father\nWere celebrating now one feast for all! _140", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Retire thou, impious man! Ay, hide thyself\nWhere never eye can look upon thee more!\nWouldst thou have honour and obedience\nWho art a torturer? Father, never dream,\nThough thou mayst overbear this company, _150\nBut ill must come of ill.—Frown not on me!\nHaste, hide thyself, lest with avenging looks\nMy brothers’ ghosts should hunt thee from thy seat!\nCover thy face from every living eye,\nAnd start if thou but hear a human step: _155\nSeek out some dark and silent corner, there,\nBow thy white head before offended God,\nAnd we will kneel around, and fervently\nPray that he pity both ourselves and thee.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "My friends, I do lament this insane girl _160\nHas spoilt the mirth of our festivity.\nGood night, farewell; I will not make you longer\nSpectators of our dull domestic quarrels.\nAnother time.—\n[EXEUNT ALL BUT CENCI AND BEATRICE.]\nMy brain is swimming round;\nGive me a bowl of wine!\n[TO BEATRICE.]\nThou painted viper! _165\nBeast that thou art! Fair and yet terrible!\nI know a charm shall make thee meek and tame,\nNow get thee from my sight!\n[EXIT BEATRICE.]\nHere, Andrea,\nFill up this goblet with Greek wine. I said\nI would not drink this evening; but I must; _170\nFor, strange to say, I feel my spirits fail\nWith thinking what I have decreed to do.—\n[DRINKING THE WINE.]\nBe thou the resolution of quick youth\nWithin my veins, and manhood’s purpose stern,\nAnd age’s firm, cold, subtle villainy; _175\nAs if thou wert indeed my children’s blood\nWhich I did thirst to drink! The charm works well;\nIt must be done; it shall be done, I swear!\n\n[EXIT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "Weep not, my gentle boy; he struck but me\nWho have borne deeper wrongs. In truth, if he\nHad killed me, he had done a kinder deed.\nO God Almighty, do Thou look upon us,\nWe have no other friend but only Thee! _5\nYet weep not; though I love you as my own,\nI am not your true mother.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice [In A Hurried Voice]:", + "body": "Did he pass this way? Have you seen him, brother?\nAh, no! that is his step upon the stairs;\n’Tis nearer now; his hand is on the door;\nMother, if I to thee have ever been _15\nA duteous child, now save me! Thou, great God,\nWhose image upon earth a father is,\nDost thou indeed abandon me? He comes;\nThe door is opening now; I see his face;\nHe frowns on others, but he smiles on me, _20\nEven as he did after the feast last night.\n[ENTER A SERVANT.]\nAlmighty God, how merciful Thou art!\n’Tis but Orsino’s servant.—Well, what news?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "At the Ave Mary.\n[EXIT SERVANT.]\nSo, daughter, our last hope has failed. Ah me!\nHow pale you look; you tremble, and you stand\nWrapped in some fixed and fearful meditation, _30\nAs if one thought were over strong for you:\nYour eyes have a chill glare; O, dearest child!\nAre you gone mad? If not, pray speak to me.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "You talked of something that your father did _35\nAfter that dreadful feast? Could it be worse\nThan when he smiled, and cried, ‘My sons are dead!’\nAnd every one looked in his neighbour’s face\nTo see if others were as white as he?\nAt the first word he spoke I felt the blood _40\nRush to my heart, and fell into a trance;\nAnd when it passed I sat all weak and wild;\nWhilst you alone stood up, and with strong words\nChecked his unnatural pride; and I could see\nThe devil was rebuked that lives in him. _45\nUntil this hour thus you have ever stood\nBetween us and your father’s moody wrath\nLike a protecting presence; your firm mind\nHas been our only refuge and defence:\nWhat can have thus subdued it? What can now _50\nHave given you that cold melancholy look,\nSucceeding to your unaccustomed fear?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "What is it that you say? I was just thinking\n’Twere better not to struggle any more.\nMen, like my father, have been dark and bloody, _55\nYet never—Oh! Before worse comes of it\n’Twere wise to die: it ends in that at last.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice [Speaking Very Slowly, With A Forced Calmness]:", + "body": "It was one word, Mother, one little word;\nOne look, one smile.\n[WILDLY.]\nOh! He has trampled me\nUnder his feet, and made the blood stream down _65\nMy pallid cheeks. And he has given us all\nDitch-water, and the fever-stricken flesh\nOf buffaloes, and bade us eat or starve,\nAnd we have eaten.—He has made me look\nOn my beloved Bernardo, when the rust _70\nOf heavy chains has gangrened his sweet limbs,\nAnd I have never yet despaired—but now!\nWhat could I say?\n[RECOVERING HERSELF.]\nAh, no! ’tis nothing new.\nThe sufferings we all share have made me wild:\nHe only struck and cursed me as he passed; _75\nHe said, he looked, he did;—nothing at all\nBeyond his wont, yet it disordered me.\nAlas! I am forgetful of my duty,\nI should preserve my senses for your sake.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "Nay, Beatrice; have courage, my sweet girl. _80\nIf any one despairs it should be I\nWho loved him once, and now must live with him\nTill God in pity call for him or me.\nFor you may, like your sister, find some husband,\nAnd smile, years hence, with children round your knees; _85\nWhilst I, then dead, and all this hideous coil\nShall be remembered only as a dream.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Talk not to me, dear lady, of a husband.\nDid you not nurse me when my mother died?\nDid you not shield me and that dearest boy? _90\nAnd had we any other friend but you\nIn infancy, with gentle words and looks,\nTo win our father not to murder us?\nAnd shall I now desert you? May the ghost\nOf my dead Mother plead against my soul _95\nIf I abandon her who filled the place\nShe left, with more, even, than a mother’s love!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Bernardo:", + "body": "And I am of my sister’s mind. Indeed\nI would not leave you in this wretchedness,\nEven though the Pope should make me free to live _100\nIn some blithe place, like others of my age,\nWith sports, and delicate food, and the fresh air.\nOh, never think that I will leave you, Mother!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "What! Beatrice here!\nCome hither!\n[SHE SHRINKS BACK, AND COVERS HER FACE.]\nNay, hide not your face, ’tis fair; _105\nLook up! Why, yesternight you dared to look\nWith disobedient insolence upon me,\nBending a stern and an inquiring brow\nOn what I meant; whilst I then sought to hide\nThat which I came to tell you—but in vain. _110", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Then it was I whose inarticulate words\nFell from my lips, and who with tottering steps\nFled from your presence, as you now from mine.\nStay, I command you—from this day and hour _115\nNever again, I think, with fearless eye,\nAnd brow superior, and unaltered cheek,\nAnd that lip made for tenderness or scorn,\nShalt thou strike dumb the meanest of mankind;\nMe least of all. Now get thee to thy chamber! _120\nThou too, loathed image of thy cursed mother,\n[TO BERNARDO.]\nThy milky, meek face makes me sick with hate!\n[EXEUNT BEATRICE AND BERNARDO.]\n[ASIDE.]\nSo much has passed between us as must make\nMe bold, her fearful.—’Tis an awful thing\nTo touch such mischief as I now conceive: _125\nSo men sit shivering on the dewy bank,\nAnd try the chill stream with their feet; once in...\nHow the delighted spirit pants for joy!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Nor you perhaps? _130\nNor that young imp, whom you have taught by rote\nParricide with his alphabet? Nor Giacomo?\nNor those two most unnatural sons, who stirred\nEnmity up against me with the Pope?\nWhom in one night merciful God cut off: _135\nInnocent lambs! They thought not any ill.\nYou were not here conspiring? You said nothing\nOf how I might be dungeoned as a madman;\nOr be condemned to death for some offence,\nAnd you would be the witnesses?—This failing, _140\nHow just it were to hire assassins, or\nPut sudden poison in my evening drink?\nOr smother me when overcome by wine?\nSeeing we had no other judge but God,\nAnd He had sentenced me, and there were none _145\nBut you to be the executioners\nOf His decree enregistered in heaven?\nOh, no! You said not this?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "If you dare to speak that wicked lie again _150\nI’ll kill you. What! It was not by your counsel\nThat Beatrice disturbed the feast last night?\nYou did not hope to stir some enemies\nAgainst me, and escape, and laugh to scorn\nWhat every nerve of you now trembles at? _155\nYou judged that men were bolder than they are;\nFew dare to stand between their grave and me.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "Look not so dreadfully! By my salvation\nI knew not aught that Beatrice designed;\nNor do I think she designed any thing _160\nUntil she heard you talk of her dead brothers.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Blaspheming liar! You are damned for this!\nBut I will take you where you may persuade\nThe stones you tread on to deliver you:\nFor men shall there be none but those who dare _165\nAll things—not question that which I command.\nOn Wednesday next I shall set out: you know\nThat savage rock, the Castle of Petrella:\n’Tis safely walled, and moated round about:\nIts dungeons underground, and its thick towers _170\nNever told tales; though they have heard and seen\nWhat might make dumb things speak.—Why do you linger?\nMake speediest preparation for the journey!\n[EXIT LUCRETIA.]\nThe all-beholding sun yet shines; I hear\nA busy stir of men about the streets; _175\nI see the bright sky through the window panes:\nIt is a garish, broad, and peering day;\nLoud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears,\nAnd every little corner, nook, and hole\nIs penetrated with the insolent light. _180\nCome darkness! Yet, what is the day to me?\nAnd wherefore should I wish for night, who do\nA deed which shall confound both night and day?\n’Tis she shall grope through a bewildering mist\nOf horror: if there be a sun in heaven _185\nShe shall not dare to look upon its beams;\nNor feel its warmth. Let her then wish for night;\nThe act I think shall soon extinguish all\nFor me: I bear a darker deadlier gloom\nThan the earth’s shade, or interlunar air, _190\nOr constellations quenched in murkiest cloud,\nIn which I walk secure and unbeheld\nTowards my purpose.—Would that it were done!\n\n[EXIT.]\n\nSCENE 2.2:\nA CHAMBER IN THE VATICAN.\nENTER CAMILLO AND GIACOMO, IN CONVERSATION.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Nothing more? Alas!\nBare must be the provision which strict law\nAwards, and aged, sullen avarice pays. _5\nWhy did my father not apprentice me\nTo some mechanic trade? I should have then\nBeen trained in no highborn necessities\nWhich I could meet not by my daily toil.\nThe eldest son of a rich nobleman _10\nIs heir to all his incapacities;\nHe has wide wants, and narrow powers. If you,\nCardinal Camillo, were reduced at once\nFrom thrice-driven beds of down, and delicate food,\nAn hundred servants, and six palaces, _15\nTo that which nature doth indeed require?—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "’Tis hard for a firm man to bear: but I\nHave a dear wife, a lady of high birth,\nWhose dowry in ill hour I lent my father _20\nWithout a bond or witness to the deed:\nAnd children, who inherit her fine senses,\nThe fairest creatures in this breathing world;\nAnd she and they reproach me not. Cardinal,\nDo you not think the Pope would interpose _25\nAnd stretch authority beyond the law?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Camillo:", + "body": "Though your peculiar case is hard, I know\nThe Pope will not divert the course of law.\nAfter that impious feast the other night\nI spoke with him, and urged him then to check _30\nYour father’s cruel hand; he frowned and said,\n‘Children are disobedient, and they sting\nTheir fathers’ hearts to madness and despair,\nRequiting years of care with contumely.\nI pity the Count Cenci from my heart; _35\nHis outraged love perhaps awakened hate,\nAnd thus he is exasperated to ill.\nIn the great war between the old and young\nI, who have white hairs and a tottering body,\nWill keep at least blameless neutrality.’ _40\n[ENTER ORSINO.]\nYou, my good Lord Orsino, heard those words.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Alas, repeat them not again!\nThere then is no redress for me, at least\nNone but that which I may achieve myself,\nSince I am driven to the brink.—But, say, _45\nMy innocent sister and my only brother\nAre dying underneath my father’s eye.\nThe memorable torturers of this land,\nGaleaz Visconti, Borgia, Ezzelin,\nNever inflicted on their meanest slave _50\nWhat these endure; shall they have no protection?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Camillo:", + "body": "Why, if they would petition to the Pope\nI see not how he could refuse it—yet\nHe holds it of most dangerous example\nIn aught to weaken the paternal power, _55\nBeing, as ’twere, the shadow of his own.\nI pray you now excuse me. I have business\nThat will not bear delay.\n\n[EXIT CAMILLO.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "I have presented it, and backed it with _60\nMy earnest prayers, and urgent interest;\nIt was returned unanswered. I doubt not\nBut that the strange and execrable deeds\nAlleged in it—in truth they might well baffle\nAny belief—have turned the Pope’s displeasure _65\nUpon the accusers from the criminal:\nSo I should guess from what Camillo said.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "My friend, that palace-walking devil Gold\nHas whispered silence to his Holiness:\nAnd we are left, as scorpions ringed with fire. _70\nWhat should we do but strike ourselves to death?\nFor he who is our murderous persecutor\nIs shielded by a father’s holy name,\nOr I would—\n\n[STOPS ABRUPTLY.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "What? Fear not to speak your thought.\nWords are but holy as the deeds they cover: _75\nA priest who has forsworn the God he serves;\nA judge who makes Truth weep at his decree;\nA friend who should weave counsel, as I now,\nBut as the mantle of some selfish guile;\nA father who is all a tyrant seems, _80\nWere the profaner for his sacred name.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Ask me not what I think; the unwilling brain\nFeigns often what it would not; and we trust\nImagination with such fantasies\nAs the tongue dares not fashion into words, _85\nWhich have no words, their horror makes them dim\nTo the mind’s eye.—My heart denies itself\nTo think what you demand.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Spare me now!\nI am as one lost in a midnight wood,\nWho dares not ask some harmless passenger\nThe path across the wilderness, lest he, _95\nAs my thoughts are, should be—a murderer.\nI know you are my friend, and all I dare\nSpeak to my soul that will I trust with thee.\nBut now my heart is heavy, and would take\nLone counsel from a night of sleepless care. _100\nPardon me, that I say farewell—farewell!\nI would that to my own suspected self\nI could address a word so full of peace.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "Farewell!—Be your thoughts better or more bold.\n[EXIT GIACOMO.]\nI had disposed the Cardinal Camillo _105\nTo feed his hope with cold encouragement:\nIt fortunately serves my close designs\nThat ’tis a trick of this same family\nTo analyse their own and other minds.\nSuch self-anatomy shall teach the will _110\nDangerous secrets: for it tempts our powers,\nKnowing what must be thought, and may be done.\nInto the depth of darkest purposes:\nSo Cenci fell into the pit; even I,\nSince Beatrice unveiled me to myself, _115\nAnd made me shrink from what I cannot shun,\nShow a poor figure to my own esteem,\nTo which I grow half reconciled. I’ll do\nAs little mischief as I can; that thought\nShall fee the accuser conscience.\n[AFTER A PAUSE.]\nNow what harm _120\nIf Cenci should be murdered?—Yet, if murdered,\nWherefore by me? And what if I could take\nThe profit, yet omit the sin and peril\nIn such an action? Of all earthly things\nI fear a man whose blows outspeed his words _125\nAnd such is Cenci: and while Cenci lives\nHis daughter’s dowry were a secret grave\nIf a priest wins her.—Oh, fair Beatrice!\nWould that I loved thee not, or loving thee,\nCould but despise danger and gold and all _130\nThat frowns between my wish and its effect.\nOr smiles beyond it! There is no escape...\nHer bright form kneels beside me at the altar,\nAnd follows me to the resort of men,\nAnd fills my slumber with tumultuous dreams, _135\nSo when I wake my blood seems liquid fire;\nAnd if I strike my damp and dizzy head\nMy hot palm scorches it: her very name,\nBut spoken by a stranger, makes my heart\nSicken and pant; and thus unprofitably _140\nI clasp the phantom of unfelt delights\nTill weak imagination half possesses\nThe self-created shadow. Yet much longer\nWill I not nurse this life of feverous hours:\nFrom the unravelled hopes of Giacomo _145\nI must work out my own dear purposes.\nI see, as from a tower, the end of all:\nHer father dead; her brother bound to me\nBy a dark secret, surer than the grave;\nHer mother scared and unexpostulating _150\nFrom the dread manner of her wish achieved;\nAnd she!—Once more take courage, my faint heart;\nWhat dares a friendless maiden matched with thee?\nI have such foresight as assures success:\nSome unbeheld divinity doth ever, _155\nWhen dread events are near, stir up men’s minds\nTo black suggestions; and he prospers best,\nNot who becomes the instrument of ill,\nBut who can flatter the dark spirit, that makes\nIts empire and its prey of other hearts _160\nTill it become his slave...as I will do.\n\n[EXIT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "How comes this hair undone?\nIts wandering strings must be what blind me so,\nAnd yet I tied it fast.—Oh, horrible!\nThe pavement sinks under my feet! The walls\nSpin round! I see a woman weeping there, _10\nAnd standing calm and motionless, whilst I\nSlide giddily as the world reels...My God!\nThe beautiful blue heaven is flecked with blood!\nThe sunshine on the floor is black! The air\nIs changed to vapours such as the dead breathe _15\nIn charnel pits! Pah! I am choked! There creeps\nA clinging, black, contaminating mist\nAbout me...’tis substantial, heavy, thick,\nI cannot pluck it from me, for it glues\nMy fingers and my limbs to one another, _20\nAnd eats into my sinews, and dissolves\nMy flesh to a pollution, poisoning\nThe subtle, pure, and inmost spirit of life!\nMy God! I never knew what the mad felt\nBefore; for I am mad beyond all doubt! _25\n[MORE WILDLY.]\nNo, I am dead! These putrefying limbs\nShut round and sepulchre the panting soul\nWhich would burst forth into the wandering air!\n[A PAUSE.]\nWhat hideous thought was that I had even now?\n’Tis gone; and yet its burthen remains here _30\nO’er these dull eyes...upon this weary heart!\nO, world! O, life! O, day! O, misery!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice [Doubtfully]:", + "body": "Who art thou, questioner? I have no father. _40\n[ASIDE.]\nShe is the madhouse nurse who tends on me,\nIt is a piteous office.\n[TO LUCRETIA, IN A SLOW, SUBDUED VOICE.]\nDo you know\nI thought I was that wretched Beatrice\nMen speak of, whom her father sometimes hales\nFrom hall to hall by the entangled hair; _45\nAt others, pens up naked in damp cells\nWhere scaly reptiles crawl, and starves her there,\nTill she will eat strange flesh. This woful story\nSo did I overact in my sick dreams,\nThat I imagined...no, it cannot be! _50\nHorrible things have been in this wide world,\nProdigious mixtures, and confusions strange\nOf good and ill; and worse have been conceived\nThan ever there was found a heart to do.\nBut never fancy imaged such a deed _55\nAs...\n[PAUSES, SUDDENLY RECOLLECTING HERSELF.]\nWho art thou? Swear to me, ere I die\nWith fearful expectation, that indeed\nThou art not what thou seemest...Mother!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Yet speak it not:\nFor then if this be truth, that other too _60\nMust be a truth, a firm enduring truth,\nLinked with each lasting circumstance of life,\nNever to change, never to pass away.\nWhy so it is. This is the Cenci Palace;\nThou art Lucretia; I am Beatrice. _65\nI have talked some wild words, but will no more.\nMother, come near me: from this point of time,\nI am...\n[HER VOICE DIES AWAY FAINTLY.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "What have I done?\nAm I not innocent? Is it my crime _70\nThat one with white hair, and imperious brow,\nWho tortured me from my forgotten years,\nAs parents only dare, should call himself\nMy father, yet should be!—Oh, what am I?\nWhat name, what place, what memory shall be mine? _75\nWhat retrospects, outliving even despair?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "He is a violent tyrant, surely, child:\nWe know that death alone can make us free;\nHis death or ours. But what can he have done\nOf deadlier outrage or worse injury? _80\nThou art unlike thyself; thine eyes shoot forth\nA wandering and strange spirit. Speak to me,\nUnlock those pallid hands whose fingers twine\nWith one another.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "’Tis the restless life\nTortured within them. If I try to speak, _85\nI shall go mad. Ay, something must be done;\nWhat, yet I know not...something which shall make\nThe thing that I have suffered but a shadow\nIn the dread lightning which avenges it;\nBrief, rapid, irreversible, destroying _90\nThe consequence of what it cannot cure.\nSome such thing is to be endured or done:\nWhen I know what, I shall be still and calm,\nAnd never anything will move me more.\nBut now!—O blood, which art my father’s blood, _95\nCircling through these contaminated veins,\nIf thou, poured forth on the polluted earth,\nCould wash away the crime, and punishment\nBy which I suffer...no, that cannot be!\nMany might doubt there were a God above _100\nWho sees and permits evil, and so die:\nThat faith no agony shall obscure in me.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "I hide them not.\nWhat are the words which you would have me speak?\nI, who can feign no image in my mind\nOf that which has transformed me: I, whose thought\nIs like a ghost shrouded and folded up _110\nIn its own formless horror: of all words,\nThat minister to mortal intercourse,\nWhich wouldst thou hear? For there is none to tell\nMy misery: if another ever knew\nAught like to it, she died as I will die, _115\nAnd left it, as I must, without a name.\nDeath, Death! Our law and our religion call thee\nA punishment and a reward...Oh, which\nHave I deserved?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "The peace of innocence;\nTill in your season you be called to heaven. _120\nWhate’er you may have suffered, you have done\nNo evil. Death must be the punishment\nOf crime, or the reward of trampling down\nThe thorns which God has strewed upon the path\nWhich leads to immortality.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Ay, death... _125\nThe punishment of crime. I pray thee, God,\nLet me not be bewildered while I judge.\nIf I must live day after day, and keep\nThese limbs, the unworthy temple of Thy spirit,\nAs a foul den from which what Thou abhorrest _130\nMay mock Thee, unavenged...it shall not be!\nSelf-murder...no, that might be no escape,\nFor Thy decree yawns like a Hell between\nOur will and it:—O! In this mortal world\nThere is no vindication and no law _135\nWhich can adjudge and execute the doom\nOf that through which I suffer.\n[ENTER ORSINO.]\n[SHE APPROACHES HIM SOLEMNLY.]\nWelcome, Friend!\nI have to tell you that, since last we met,\nI have endured a wrong so great and strange,\nThat neither life nor death can give me rest. _140\nAsk me not what it is, for there are deeds\nWhich have no form, sufferings which have no tongue.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "What it can be, or not, _145\nForbear to think. It is, and it has been;\nAdvise me how it shall not be again.\nI thought to die; but a religious awe\nRestrains me, and the dread lest death itself\nMight be no refuge from the consciousness _150\nOf what is yet unexpiated. Oh, speak!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Oh, ice-hearted counsellor!\nIf I could find a word that might make known\nThe crime of my destroyer; and that done, _155\nMy tongue should like a knife tear out the secret\nWhich cankers my heart’s core; ay, lay all bare,\nSo that my unpolluted fame should be\nWith vilest gossips a stale mouthed story;\nA mock, a byword, an astonishment:— _160\nIf this were done, which never shall be done,\nThink of the offender’s gold, his dreaded hate,\nAnd the strange horror of the accuser’s tale,\nBaffling belief, and overpowering speech;\nScarce whispered, unimaginable, wrapped _165\nIn hideous hints...Oh, most assured redress!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Endure!—Orsino,\nIt seems your counsel is small profit.\n[TURNS FROM HIM, AND SPEAKS HALF TO HERSELF.]\nAy,\nAll must be suddenly resolved and done.\nWhat is this undistinguishable mist _170\nOf thoughts, which rise, like shadow after shadow,\nDarkening each other?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "Should the offender live?\nTriumph in his misdeed? and make, by use,\nHis crime, whate’er it is, dreadful no doubt,\nThine element; until thou mayest become _175\nUtterly lost; subdued even to the hue\nOf that which thou permittest?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "But if one, like this wretch,\nShould mock, with gold, opinion, law, and power? _185\nIf there be no appeal to that which makes\nThe guiltiest tremble? If because our wrongs,\nFor that they are unnatural, strange and monstrous,\nExceed all measure of belief? O God!\nIf, for the very reasons which should make _190\nRedress most swift and sure, our injurer triumphs?\nAnd we, the victims, bear worse punishment\nThan that appointed for their torturer?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "Why, his late outrage to Beatrice;\nFor it is such, as I but faintly guess,\nAs makes remorse dishonour, and leaves her _200\nOnly one duty, how she may avenge:\nYou, but one refuge from ills ill endured;\nMe, but one counsel...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Peace, Orsino!\nAnd, honoured Lady, while I speak, I pray,\nThat you put off, as garments overworn,\nForbearance and respect, remorse and fear,\nAnd all the fit restraints of daily life, _210\nWhich have been borne from childhood, but which now\nWould be a mockery to my holier plea.\nAs I have said, I have endured a wrong,\nWhich, though it be expressionless, is such\nAs asks atonement; both for what is past, _215\nAnd lest I be reserved, day after day,\nTo load with crimes an overburthened soul,\nAnd be...what ye can dream not. I have prayed\nTo God, and I have talked with my own heart,\nAnd have unravelled my entangled will, _220\nAnd have at length determined what is right.\nArt thou my friend, Orsino? False or true?\nPledge thy salvation ere I speak.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "I know two dull, fierce outlaws,\nWho think man’s spirit as a worm’s, and they\nWould trample out, for any slight caprice, _235\nThe meanest or the noblest life. This mood\nIs marketable here in Rome. They sell\nWhat we now want.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "But I remember\nTwo miles on this side of the fort, the road\nCrosses a deep ravine; ’tis rough and narrow, _245\nAnd winds with short turns down the precipice;\nAnd in its depth there is a mighty rock,\nWhich has, from unimaginable years,\nSustained itself with terror and with toil\nOver a gulf, and with the agony _250\nWith which it clings seems slowly coming down;\nEven as a wretched soul hour after hour,\nClings to the mass of life; yet, clinging, leans;\nAnd leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss\nIn which it fears to fall: beneath this crag _255\nHuge as despair, as if in weariness,\nThe melancholy mountain yawns...below,\nYou hear but see not an impetuous torrent\nRaging among the caverns, and a bridge\nCrosses the chasm; and high above there grow, _260\nWith intersecting trunks, from crag to crag,\nCedars, and yews, and pines; whose tangled hair\nIs matted in one solid roof of shade\nBy the dark ivy’s twine. At noonday here\n’Tis twilight, and at sunset blackest night. _265", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "What shall I do?\nCenci must find me here, and I must bear\nThe imperious inquisition of his looks _275\nAs to what brought me hither: let me mask\nMine own in some inane and vacant smile.\n[ENTER GIACOMO, IN A HURRIED MANNER.]\nHow! Have you ventured hither? Know you then\nThat Cenci is from home?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Ay!\nDoes my destroyer know his danger? We\nAre now no more, as once, parent and child,\nBut man to man; the oppressor to the oppressed;\nThe slanderer to the slandered; foe to foe: _285\nHe has cast Nature off, which was his shield,\nAnd Nature casts him off, who is her shame;\nAnd I spurn both. Is it a father’s throat\nWhich I will shake, and say, I ask not gold;\nI ask not happy years; nor memories _290\nOf tranquil childhood; nor home-sheltered love;\nThough all these hast thou torn from me, and more;\nBut only my fair fame; only one hoard\nOf peace, which I thought hidden from thy hate,\nUnder the penury heaped on me by thee, _295\nOr I will...God can understand and pardon,\nWhy should I speak with man?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Well, I will calmly tell you what he did.\nThis old Francesco Cenci, as you know,\nBorrowed the dowry of my wife from me, _300\nAnd then denied the loan; and left me so\nIn poverty, the which I sought to mend\nBy holding a poor office in the state.\nIt had been promised to me, and already\nI bought new clothing for my ragged babes, _305\nAnd my wife smiled; and my heart knew repose.\nWhen Cenci’s intercession, as I found,\nConferred this office on a wretch, whom thus\nHe paid for vilest service. I returned\nWith this ill news, and we sate sad together _310\nSolacing our despondency with tears\nOf such affection and unbroken faith\nAs temper life’s worst bitterness; when he,\nAs he is wont, came to upbraid and curse,\nMocking our poverty, and telling us _315\nSuch was God’s scourge for disobedient sons.\nAnd then, that I might strike him dumb with shame,\nI spoke of my wife’s dowry; but he coined\nA brief yet specious tale, how I had wasted\nThe sum in secret riot; and he saw _320\nMy wife was touched, and he went smiling forth.\nAnd when I knew the impression he had made,\nAnd felt my wife insult with silent scorn\nMy ardent truth, and look averse and cold,\nI went forth too: but soon returned again; _325\nYet not so soon but that my wife had taught\nMy children her harsh thoughts, and they all cried,\n‘Give us clothes, father! Give us better food!\nWhat you in one night squander were enough\nFor months!’ I looked, and saw that home was hell. _330\nAnd to that hell will I return no more\nUntil mine enemy has rendered up\nAtonement, or, as he gave life to me\nI will, reversing Nature’s law...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Then...Are you not my friend?\nDid you not hint at the alternative,\nUpon the brink of which you see I stand,\nThe other day when we conversed together?\nMy wrongs were then less. That word parricide, _340\nAlthough I am resolved, haunts me like fear.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "It must be fear itself, for the bare word\nIs hollow mockery. Mark, how wisest God\nDraws to one point the threads of a just doom,\nSo sanctifying it: what you devise _345\nIs, as it were, accomplished.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "That she speaks not, but you may\nConceive such half conjectures as I do, _350\nFrom her fixed paleness, and the lofty grief\nOf her stern brow bent on the idle air,\nAnd her severe unmodulated voice,\nDrowning both tenderness and dread; and last\nFrom this; that whilst her step-mother and I, _355\nBewildered in our horror, talked together\nWith obscure hints; both self-misunderstood\nAnd darkly guessing, stumbling, in our talk,\nOver the truth, and yet to its revenge,\nShe interrupted us, and with a look _360\nWhich told, before she spoke it, he must die:...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "It is enough. My doubts are well appeased;\nThere is a higher reason for the act\nThan mine; there is a holier judge than me,\nA more unblamed avenger. Beatrice, _365\nWho in the gentleness of thy sweet youth\nHast never trodden on a worm, or bruised\nA living flower, but thou hast pitied it\nWith needless tears! Fair sister, thou in whom\nMen wondered how such loveliness and wisdom _370\nDid not destroy each other! Is there made\nRavage of thee? O, heart, I ask no more\nJustification! Shall I wait, Orsino,\nTill he return, and stab him at the door?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "Not so; some accident might interpose _375\nTo rescue him from what is now most sure;\nAnd you are unprovided where to fly,\nHow to excuse or to conceal. Nay, listen:\nAll is contrived; success is so assured\nThat...\n\n[ENTER BEATRICE.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Lost indeed!\nI see Orsino has talked with you, and\nThat you conjecture things too horrible\nTo speak, yet far less than the truth. Now, stay not,\nHe might return: yet kiss me; I shall know _385\nThat then thou hast consented to his death.\nFarewell, farewell! Let piety to God,\nBrotherly love, justice and clemency,\nAnd all things that make tender hardest hearts\nMake thine hard, brother. Answer not...farewell. _390\n\n[EXEUNT SEVERALLY.]\n\nSCENE 3.2:\nA MEAN APARTMENT IN GIACOMO’S HOUSE.\nGIACOMO ALONE.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "’Tis midnight, and Orsino comes not yet.\n[THUNDER, AND THE SOUND OF A STORM.]\nWhat! can the everlasting elements\nFeel with a worm like man? If so, the shaft\nOf mercy-winged lightning would not fall\nOn stones and trees. My wife and children sleep: _5\nThey are now living in unmeaning dreams:\nBut I must wake, still doubting if that deed\nBe just which is most necessary. O,\nThou unreplenished lamp! whose narrow fire\nIs shaken by the wind, and on whose edge _10\nDevouring darkness hovers! Thou small flame,\nWhich, as a dying pulse rises and falls,\nStill flickerest up and down, how very soon,\nDid I not feed thee, wouldst thou fail and be\nAs thou hadst never been! So wastes and sinks _15\nEven now, perhaps, the life that kindled mine:\nBut that no power can fill with vital oil\nThat broken lamp of flesh. Ha! ’tis the blood\nWhich fed these veins that ebbs till all is cold:\nIt is the form that moulded mine that sinks _20\nInto the white and yellow spasms of death:\nIt is the soul by which mine was arrayed\nIn God’s immortal likeness which now stands\nNaked before Heaven’s judgement seat!\n[A BELL STRIKES.]\nOne! Two!\nThe hours crawl on; and, when my hairs are white, _25\nMy son will then perhaps be waiting thus,\nTortured between just hate and vain remorse;\nChiding the tardy messenger of news\nLike those which I expect. I almost wish\nHe be not dead, although my wrongs are great; _30\nYet...’tis Orsino’s step...\n[ENTER ORSINO.]\nSpeak!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Are we the fools of such contingencies? _35\nAnd do we waste in blind misgivings thus\nThe hours when we should act? Then wind and thunder,\nWhich seemed to howl his knell, is the loud laughter\nWith which Heaven mocks our weakness! I henceforth\nWill ne’er repent of aught designed or done _40\nBut my repentance.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "If no remorse is ours when the dim air\nHas drank this innocent flame, why should we quail\nWhen Cenci’s life, that light by which ill spirits\nSee the worst deeds they prompt, shall sink for ever? _45\nNo, I am hardened.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "Why, what need of this?\nWho feared the pale intrusion of remorse\nIn a just deed? Although our first plan failed,\nDoubt not but he will soon be laid to rest.\nBut light the lamp; let us not talk i’ the dark. _50", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "Once gone\nYou cannot now recall your sister’s peace;\nYour own extinguished years of youth and hope; _55\nNor your wife’s bitter words; nor all the taunts\nWhich, from the prosperous, weak misfortune takes;\nNor your dead mother; nor...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "There is no need of that. Listen: you know\nOlimpio, the castellan of Petrella\nIn old Colonna’s time; him whom your father\nDegraded from his post? And Marzio,\nThat desperate wretch, whom he deprived last year _65\nOf a reward of blood, well earned and due?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "The moments which even now\nPass onward to to-morrow’s midnight hour _75\nMay memorize their flight with death: ere then\nThey must have talked, and may perhaps have done,\nAnd made an end...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "Whilst he\nWho truly took it from them, and who fills\nTheir hungry rest with bitterness, now sleeps _85\nLapped in bad pleasures, and triumphantly\nMocks thee in visions of successful hate\nToo like the truth of day.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "She comes not; yet I left her even now\nVanquished and faint. She knows the penalty\nOf her delay: yet what if threats are vain?\nAm I not now within Petrella’s moat?\nOr fear I still the eyes and ears of Rome? _5\nMight I not drag her by the golden hair?\nStamp on her? keep her sleepless till her brain\nBe overworn? Tame her with chains and famine?\nLess would suffice. Yet so to leave undone\nWhat I most seek! No, ’tis her stubborn will _10\nWhich by its own consent shall stoop as low\nAs that which drags it down.\n[ENTER LUCRETIA.]\nThou loathed wretch!\nHide thee from my abhorrence: fly, begone!\nYet stay! Bid Beatrice come hither.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "Oh,\nHusband! I pray, for thine own wretched sake _15\nHeed what thou dost. A man who walks like thee\nThrough crimes, and through the danger of his crimes,\nEach hour may stumble o’er a sudden grave.\nAnd thou art old; thy hairs are hoary gray;\nAs thou wouldst save thyself from death and hell, _20\nPity thy daughter; give her to some friend\nIn marriage: so that she may tempt thee not\nTo hatred, or worse thoughts, if worse there be.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "What! like her sister who has found a home\nTo mock my hate from with prosperity? _25\nStrange ruin shall destroy both her and thee\nAnd all that yet remain. My death may be\nRapid, her destiny outspeeds it. Go,\nBid her come hither, and before my mood\nBe changed, lest I should drag her by the hair. _30", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "She sent me to thee, husband. At thy presence\nShe fell, as thou dost know, into a trance;\nAnd in that trance she heard a voice which said,\n‘Cenci must die! Let him confess himself!\nEven now the accusing Angel waits to hear _35\nIf God, to punish his enormous crimes,\nHarden his dying heart!’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Why—such things are...\nNo doubt divine revealings may be made.\n’Tis plain I have been favoured from above,\nFor when I cursed my sons they died.—Ay...so... _40\nAs to the right or wrong, that’s talk...repentance...\nRepentance is an easy moment’s work\nAnd more depends on God than me. Well...well...\nI must give up the greater point, which was\nTo poison and corrupt her soul.\n[A PAUSE, LUCRETIA APPROACHES ANXIOUSLY,\nAND THEN SHRINKS BACK AS HE SPEAKS.]\nOne, two; _45\nAy...Rocco and Cristofano my curse\nStrangled: and Giacomo, I think, will find\nLife a worse Hell than that beyond the grave:\nBeatrice shall, if there be skill in hate,\nDie in despair, blaspheming: to Bernardo, _50\nHe is so innocent, I will bequeath\nThe memory of these deeds, and make his youth\nThe sepulchre of hope, where evil thoughts\nShall grow like weeds on a neglected tomb.\nWhen all is done, out in the wide Campagna, _55\nI will pile up my silver and my gold;\nMy costly robes, paintings, and tapestries;\nMy parchments and all records of my wealth,\nAnd make a bonfire in my joy, and leave\nOf my possessions nothing but my name; _60\nWhich shall be an inheritance to strip\nIts wearer bare as infamy. That done,\nMy soul, which is a scourge, will I resign\nInto the hands of him who wielded it;\nBe it for its own punishment or theirs, _65\nHe will not ask it of me till the lash\nBe broken in its last and deepest wound;\nUntil its hate be all inflicted. Yet,\nLest death outspeed my purpose, let me make\nShort work and sure...\n\n[GOING.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Andrea! Go call my daughter,\nAnd if she comes not tell her that I come.\nWhat sufferings? I will drag her, step by step, _80\nThrough infamies unheard of among men:\nShe shall stand shelterless in the broad noon\nOf public scorn, for acts blazoned abroad,\nOne among which shall be...What? Canst thou guess?\nShe shall become (for what she most abhors _85\nShall have a fascination to entrap\nHer loathing will) to her own conscious self\nAll she appears to others; and when dead,\nAs she shall die unshrived and unforgiven,\nA rebel to her father and her God, _90\nHer corpse shall be abandoned to the hounds;\nHer name shall be the terror of the earth;\nHer spirit shall approach the throne of God\nPlague-spotted with my curses. I will make\nBody and soul a monstrous lump of ruin. _95\n\n[ENTER ANDREA.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "Go thou quick, Lucretia, _100\nTell her to come; yet let her understand\nHer coming is consent: and say, moreover,\nThat if she come not I will curse her.\n[EXIT LUCRETIA.]\nHa!\nWith what but with a father’s curse doth God\nPanic-strike armed victory, and make pale _105\nCities in their prosperity? The world’s Father\nMust grant a parent’s prayer against his child,\nBe he who asks even what men call me.\nWill not the deaths of her rebellious brothers\nAwe her before I speak? For I on them _110\nDid imprecate quick ruin, and it came.\n[ENTER LUCRETIA.]\nWell; what? Speak, wretch!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci [Kneeling]:", + "body": "God,\nHear me! If this most specious mass of flesh, _115\nWhich Thou hast made my daughter; this my blood,\nThis particle of my divided being;\nOr rather, this my bane and my disease,\nWhose sight infects and poisons me; this devil\nWhich sprung from me as from a hell, was meant _120\nTo aught good use; if her bright loveliness\nWas kindled to illumine this dark world;\nIf nursed by Thy selectest dew of love\nSuch virtues blossom in her as should make\nThe peace of life, I pray Thee for my sake, _125\nAs Thou the common God and Father art\nOf her, and me, and all; reverse that doom!\nEarth, in the name of God, let her food be\nPoison, until she be encrusted round\nWith leprous stains! Heaven, rain upon her head _130\nThe blistering drops of the Maremma’s dew,\nTill she be speckled like a toad; parch up\nThose love-enkindled lips, warp those fine limbs\nTo loathed lameness! All-beholding sun,\nStrike in thine envy those life-darting eyes _135\nWith thine own blinding beams!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "That if she ever have a child; and thou,\nQuick Nature! I adjure thee by thy God,\nThat thou be fruitful in her, and increase\nAnd multiply, fulfilling his command,\nAnd my deep imprecation! May it be _145\nA hideous likeness of herself, that as\nFrom a distorting mirror, she may see\nHer image mixed with what she most abhors,\nSmiling upon her from her nursing breast.\nAnd that the child may from its infancy _150\nGrow, day by day, more wicked and deformed,\nTurning her mother’s love to misery:\nAnd that both she and it may live until\nIt shall repay her care and pain with hate,\nOr what may else be more unnatural. _155\nSo he may hunt her through the clamorous scoffs\nOf the loud world to a dishonoured grave.\nShall I revoke this curse? Go, bid her come,\nBefore my words are chronicled in Heaven.\n[EXIT LUCRETIA.]\nI do not feel as if I were a man, _160\nBut like a fiend appointed to chastise\nThe offences of some unremembered world.\nMy blood is running up and down my veins;\nA fearful pleasure makes it prick and tingle:\nI feel a giddy sickness of strange awe; _165\nMy heart is beating with an expectation\nOf horrid joy.\n[ENTER LUCRETIA.]\nWhat? Speak!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cenci:", + "body": "She would not come. ’Tis well,\nI can do both; first take what I demand, _170\nAnd then extort concession. To thy chamber!\nFly ere I spurn thee; and beware this night\nThat thou cross not my footsteps. It were safer\nTo come between the tiger and his prey.\n[EXIT LUCRETIA.]\nIt must be late; mine eyes grow weary dim _175\nWith unaccustomed heaviness of sleep.\nConscience! Oh, thou most insolent of lies!\nThey say that sleep, that healing dew of Heaven,\nSteeps not in balm the foldings of the brain\nWhich thinks thee an impostor. I will go _180\nFirst to belie thee with an hour of rest,\nWhich will be deep and calm, I feel: and then...\nO, multitudinous Hell, the fiends will shake\nThine arches with the laughter of their joy!\nThere shall be lamentation heard in Heaven _185\nAs o’er an angel fallen; and upon Earth\nAll good shall droop and sicken, and ill things\nShall with a spirit of unnatural life,\nStir and be quickened...even as I am now.\n\n[EXIT.]\n\nSCENE 4.2:\nBEFORE THE CASTLE OF PETRELLA.\nENTER BEATRICE AND LUCRETIA ABOVE ON THE RAMPARTS.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "’Tis true he spoke\nOf death and judgement with strange confidence\nFor one so wicked; as a man believing _10\nIn God, yet recking not of good or ill.\nAnd yet to die without confession!...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Olimpio:", + "body": "Ay, _25\nIf one should bribe me with a thousand crowns\nTo kill a serpent which had stung my child,\nI could not be more willing.\n[ENTER BEATRICE AND LUCRETIA BELOW.]\nNoble ladies!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "That his death will be\nBut as a change of sin-chastising dreams,\nA dark continuance of the Hell within him,\nWhich God extinguish! But ye are resolved?\nYe know it is a high and holy deed? _35", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Ye conscience-stricken cravens, rock to rest\nYour baby hearts. It is the iron gate, _40\nWhich ye left open, swinging to the wind,\nThat enters whistling as in scorn. Come, follow!\nAnd be your steps like mine, light, quick and bold.\n\n[EXEUNT.]\n\nSCENE 4.3:\nAN APARTMENT IN THE CASTLE.\nENTER BEATRICE AND LUCRETIA.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Olimpio:", + "body": "We dare not kill an old and sleeping man;\nHis thin gray hair, his stern and reverend brow, _10\nHis veined hands crossed on his heaving breast,\nAnd the calm innocent sleep in which he lay,\nQuelled me. Indeed, indeed, I cannot do it.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Marzio:", + "body": "But I was bolder; for I chid Olimpio,\nAnd bade him bear his wrongs to his own grave _15\nAnd leave me the reward. And now my knife\nTouched the loose wrinkled throat, when the old man\nStirred in his sleep, and said, ‘God! hear, O, hear,\nA father’s curse! What, art Thou not our Father?’\nAnd then he laughed. I knew it was the ghost _20\nOf my dead father speaking through his lips,\nAnd could not kill him.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Miserable slaves!\nWhere, if ye dare not kill a sleeping man,\nFound ye the boldness to return to me\nWith such a deed undone? Base palterers! _25\nCowards and traitors! Why, the very conscience\nWhich ye would sell for gold and for revenge\nIs an equivocation: it sleeps over\nA thousand daily acts disgracing men;\nAnd when a deed where mercy insults Heaven... _30\nWhy do I talk?\n[SNATCHING A DAGGER FROM ONE OF THEM, AND RAISING IT.]\nHadst thou a tongue to say,\n‘She murdered her own father!’—I must do it!\nBut never dream ye shall outlive him long!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Even whilst\nThat doubt is passing through your mind, the world\nIs conscious of a change. Darkness and Hell _40\nHave swallowed up the vapour they sent forth\nTo blacken the sweet light of life. My breath\nComes, methinks, lighter, and the jellied blood\nRuns freely through my veins. Hark!\n[ENTER OLIMPIO AND MARZIO.]\nHe is...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice [Giving Them A Bag Of Coin]:", + "body": "Here, take this gold, and hasten to your homes.\nAnd, Marzio, because thou wast only awed\nBy that which made me tremble, wear thou this! _50\n[CLOTHES HIM IN A RICH MANTLE.]\nIt was the mantle which my grandfather\nWore in his high prosperity, and men\nEnvied his state: so may they envy thine.\nThou wert a weapon in the hand of God\nTo a just use. Live long and thrive! And, mark, _55\nIf thou hast crimes, repent: this deed is none.\n\n[A HORN IS SOUNDED.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Let us retire to counterfeit deep rest;\nI scarcely need to counterfeit it now:\nThe spirit which doth reign within these limbs\nSeems strangely undisturbed. I could even sleep\nFearless and calm: all ill is surely past. _65\n\n[EXEUNT.]\n\nSCENE 4.4:\nANOTHER APARTMENT IN THE CASTLE.\nENTER ON ONE SIDE THE LEGATE SAVELLA,\nINTRODUCED BY A SERVANT,\nAND ON THE OTHER LUCRETIA AND BERNARDO.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia [In A Hurried And Confused Manner]:", + "body": "I think he sleeps;\nYet, wake him not, I pray, spare me awhile, _5\nHe is a wicked and a wrathful man;\nShould he be roused out of his sleep to-night,\nWhich is, I know, a hell of angry dreams,\nIt were not well; indeed it were not well.\nWait till day break...\n[ASIDE.]\nOh, I am deadly sick! _10", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "Oh, agony of fear! _25\nWould that he yet might live! Even now I heard\nThe Legate’s followers whisper as they passed\nThey had a warrant for his instant death.\nAll was prepared by unforbidden means\nWhich we must pay so dearly, having done. _30\nEven now they search the tower, and find the body;\nNow they suspect the truth; now they consult\nBefore they come to tax us with the fact;\nO, horrible, ’tis all discovered!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Mother,\nWhat is done wisely, is done well. Be bold _35\nAs thou art just. ’Tis like a truant child\nTo fear that others know what thou hast done,\nEven from thine own strong consciousness, and thus\nWrite on unsteady eyes and altered cheeks\nAll thou wouldst hide. Be faithful to thyself, _40\nAnd fear no other witness but thy fear.\nFor if, as cannot be, some circumstance\nShould rise in accusation, we can blind\nSuspicion with such cheap astonishment,\nOr overbear it with such guiltless pride, _45\nAs murderers cannot feign. The deed is done,\nAnd what may follow now regards not me.\nI am as universal as the light;\nFree as the earth-surrounding air; as firm\nAs the world’s centre. Consequence, to me, _50\nIs as the wind which strikes the solid rock,\nBut shakes it not.\n\n[A CRY WITHIN AND TUMULT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Savella:", + "body": "’Tis strange! There were clear marks of violence.\nI found the old man’s body in the moonlight\nHanging beneath the window of his chamber,\nAmong the branches of a pine: he could not\nHave fallen there, for all his limbs lay heaped _75\nAnd effortless; ’tis true there was no blood...\nFavour me, Sir; it much imports your house\nThat all should be made clear; to tell the ladies\nThat I request their presence.\n\n[EXIT BERNARDO.]\n\n[ENTER GUARDS, BRINGING IN MARZIO.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Officer:", + "body": "My Lord, we found this ruffian and another _80\nLurking among the rocks; there is no doubt\nBut that they are the murderers of Count Cenci:\nEach had a bag of coin; this fellow wore\nA gold-inwoven robe, which, shining bright\nUnder the dark rocks to the glimmering moon _85\nBetrayed them to our notice: the other fell\nDesperately fighting.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Savella:", + "body": "Their language is at least sincere.\n[READS.]\n‘To the Lady Beatrice. _90\nThat the atonement of what my nature sickens to conjecture may soon\narrive, I send thee, at thy brother’s desire, those who will speak and\ndo more than I dare write...\n‘Thy devoted servant, Orsino.’\n[ENTER LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, AND BERNARDO.]\nKnowest thou this writing, Lady?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Savella:", + "body": "Nor thou? _95\n\nLUCRETIA [HER CONDUCT THROUGHOUT THE SCENE IS MARKED BY EXTREME AGITATION]:\nWhere was it found? What is it? It should be\nOrsino’s hand! It speaks of that strange horror\nWhich never yet found utterance, but which made\nBetween that hapless child and her dead father\nA gulf of obscure hatred.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Guilty! Who dares talk of guilt? My Lord,\nI am more innocent of parricide\nThan is a child born fatherless...Dear mother,\nYour gentleness and patience are no shield\nFor this keen-judging world, this two-edged lie, _115\nWhich seems, but is not. What! will human laws,\nRather will ye who are their ministers,\nBar all access to retribution first,\nAnd then, when Heaven doth interpose to do\nWhat ye neglect, arming familiar things _120\nTo the redress of an unwonted crime,\nMake ye the victims who demanded it\nCulprits? ’Tis ye are culprits! That poor wretch\nWho stands so pale, and trembling, and amazed,\nIf it be true he murdered Cenci, was _125\nA sword in the right hand of justest God.\nWherefore should I have wielded it? Unless\nThe crimes which mortal tongue dare never name\nGod therefore scruples to avenge.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "It would have been _130\nA crime no less than his, if for one moment\nThat fierce desire had faded in my heart.\n’Tis true I did believe, and hope, and pray,\nAy, I even knew...for God is wise and just,\nThat some strange sudden death hung over him. _135\n’Tis true that this did happen, and most true\nThere was no other rest for me on earth,\nNo other hope in Heaven...now what of this?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "And yet, if you arrest me, _140\nYou are the judge and executioner\nOf that which is the life of life: the breath\nOf accusation kills an innocent name,\nAnd leaves for lame acquittal the poor life\nWhich is a mask without it. ’Tis most false _145\nThat I am guilty of foul parricide;\nAlthough I must rejoice, for justest cause,\nThat other hands have sent my father’s soul\nTo ask the mercy he denied to me.\nNow leave us free; stain not a noble house _150\nWith vague surmises of rejected crime;\nAdd to our sufferings and your own neglect\nNo heavier sum: let them have been enough:\nLeave us the wreck we have.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Why not to Rome, dear mother? There as here\nOur innocence is as an armed heel\nTo trample accusation. God is there _160\nAs here, and with His shadow ever clothes\nThe innocent, the injured and the weak;\nAnd such are we. Cheer up, dear Lady, lean\nOn me; collect your wandering thoughts. My Lord,\nAs soon as you have taken some refreshment, _165\nAnd had all such examinations made\nUpon the spot, as may be necessary\nTo the full understanding of this matter,\nWe shall be ready. Mother; will you come?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "Ha! they will bind us to the rack, and wrest _170\nSelf-accusation from our agony!\nWill Giacomo be there? Orsino? Marzio?\nAll present; all confronted; all demanding\nEach from the other’s countenance the thing\nWhich is in every heart! O, misery! _175\n\n[SHE FAINTS, AND IS BORNE OUT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "My Lord,\nShe knows not yet the uses of the world.\nShe fears that power is as a beast which grasps\nAnd loosens not: a snake whose look transmutes\nAll things to guilt which is its nutriment. _180\nShe cannot know how well the supine slaves\nOf blind authority read the truth of things\nWhen written on a brow of guilelessness:\nShe sees not yet triumphant Innocence\nStand at the judgement-seat of mortal man, _185\nA judge and an accuser of the wrong\nWhich drags it there. Prepare yourself, my Lord;\nOur suite will join yours in the court below.\n\n[EXEUNT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Do evil deeds thus quickly come to end?\nO, that the vain remorse which must chastise\nCrimes done, had but as loud a voice to warn\nAs its keen sting is mortal to avenge!\nO, that the hour when present had cast off _5\nThe mantle of its mystery, and shown\nThe ghastly form with which it now returns\nWhen its scared game is roused, cheering the hounds\nOf conscience to their prey! Alas! Alas!\nIt was a wicked thought, a piteous deed, _10\nTo kill an old and hoary-headed father.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "To violate the sacred doors of sleep;\nTo cheat kind Nature of the placid death\nWhich she prepares for overwearied age; _15\nTo drag from Heaven an unrepentant soul\nWhich might have quenched in reconciling prayers\nA life of burning crimes...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "O, had I never\nFound in thy smooth and ready countenance _20\nThe mirror of my darkest thoughts; hadst thou\nNever with hints and questions made me look\nUpon the monster of my thought, until\nIt grew familiar to desire...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "’Tis thus\nMen cast the blame of their unprosperous acts _25\nUpon the abettors of their own resolve;\nOr anything but their weak, guilty selves.\nAnd yet, confess the truth, it is the peril\nIn which you stand that gives you this pale sickness\nOf penitence; confess ’tis fear disguised _30\nFrom its own shame that takes the mantle now\nOf thin remorse. What if we yet were safe?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Rather expire in tortures, as I may.\nWhat! will you cast by self-accusing flight _40\nAssured conviction upon Beatrice?\nShe, who alone in this unnatural work,\nStands like God’s angel ministered upon\nBy fiends; avenging such a nameless wrong\nAs turns black parricide to piety; _45\nWhilst we for basest ends...I fear, Orsino,\nWhile I consider all your words and looks,\nComparing them with your proposal now,\nThat you must be a villain. For what end\nCould you engage in such a perilous crime, _50\nTraining me on with hints, and signs, and smiles,\nEven to this gulf? Thou art no liar? No,\nThou art a lie! Traitor and murderer!\nCoward and slave! But no, defend thyself;\n[DRAWING.]\nLet the sword speak what the indignant tongue _55\nDisdains to brand thee with.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "Put up your weapon.\nIs it the desperation of your fear\nMakes you thus rash and sudden with a friend,\nNow ruined for your sake? If honest anger\nHave moved you, know, that what I just proposed _60\nWas but to try you. As for me, I think,\nThankless affection led me to this point,\nFrom which, if my firm temper could repent,\nI cannot now recede. Even whilst we speak\nThe ministers of justice wait below: _65\nThey grant me these brief moments. Now if you\nHave any word of melancholy comfort\nTo speak to your pale wife, ’twere best to pass\nOut at the postern, and avoid them so.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orsino:", + "body": "That wish\nNow comes a day too late. Haste; fare thee well!\nHear’st thou not steps along the corridor?\n[EXIT GIACOMO.]\nI’m sorry for it; but the guards are waiting\nAt his own gate, and such was my contrivance _75\nThat I might rid me both of him and them.\nI thought to act a solemn comedy\nUpon the painted scene of this new world,\nAnd to attain my own peculiar ends\nBy some such plot of mingled good and ill _80\nAs others weave; but there arose a Power\nWhich grasped and snapped the threads of my device\nAnd turned it to a net of ruin...Ha!\n[A SHOUT IS HEARD.]\nIs that my name I hear proclaimed abroad?\nBut I will pass, wrapped in a vile disguise; _85\nRags on my back, and a false innocence\nUpon my face, through the misdeeming crowd\nWhich judges by what seems. ’Tis easy then\nFor a new name and for a country new,\nAnd a new life, fashioned on old desires, _90\nTo change the honours of abandoned Rome.\nAnd these must be the masks of that within,\nWhich must remain unaltered...Oh, I fear\nThat what is past will never let me rest!\nWhy, when none else is conscious, but myself, _95\nOf my misdeeds, should my own heart’s contempt\nTrouble me? Have I not the power to fly\nMy own reproaches? Shall I be the slave\nOf...what? A word? which those of this false world\nEmploy against each other, not themselves; _100\nAs men wear daggers not for self-offence.\nBut if I am mistaken, where shall I\nFind the disguise to hide me from myself,\nAs now I skulk from every other eye?\n\n[EXIT.]\n\nSCENE 5.2:\nA HALL OF JUSTICE.\nCAMILLO, JUDGES, ETC., ARE DISCOVERED SEATED;\nMARZIO IS LED IN.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "First Judge:", + "body": "Dare you, with lips yet white from the rack’s kiss\nSpeak false? Is it so soft a questioner,\nThat you would bandy lover’s talk with it _10\nTill it wind out your life and soul? Away!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Marzio:", + "body": "His own son Giacomo, and the young prelate\nOrsino sent me to Petrella; there _15\nThe ladies Beatrice and Lucretia\nTempted me with a thousand crowns, and I\nAnd my companion forthwith murdered him.\nNow let me die.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "First Judge:", + "body": "This sounds as bad as truth. Guards, there,\nLead forth the prisoner!\n[ENTER LUCRETIA, BEATRICE AND GIACOMO, GUARDED.]\nLook upon this man; _20\nWhen did you see him last?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Marzio:", + "body": "You know ’twas I\nWhom you did urge with menaces and bribes\nTo kill your father. When the thing was done _25\nYou clothed me in a robe of woven gold\nAnd bade me thrive: how I have thriven, you see.\nYou, my Lord Giacomo, Lady Lucretia,\nYou know that what I speak is true.\n[BEATRICE ADVANCES TOWARDS HIM;\nHE COVERS HIS FACE, AND SHRINKS BACK.]\nOh, dart\nThe terrible resentment of those eyes _30\nOn the dead earth! Turn them away from me!\nThey wound: ’twas torture forced the truth. My Lords,\nHaving said this let me be led to death.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Cardinal Camillo, _35\nYou have a good repute for gentleness\nAnd wisdom: can it be that you sit here\nTo countenance a wicked farce like this?\nWhen some obscure and trembling slave is dragged\nFrom sufferings which might shake the sternest heart _40\nAnd bade to answer, not as he believes,\nBut as those may suspect or do desire\nWhose questions thence suggest their own reply:\nAnd that in peril of such hideous torments\nAs merciful God spares even the damned. Speak now _45\nThe thing you surely know, which is that you,\nIf your fine frame were stretched upon that wheel,\nAnd you were told: ‘Confess that you did poison\nYour little nephew; that fair blue-eyed child\nWho was the lodestar of your life:’—and though _50\nAll see, since his most swift and piteous death,\nThat day and night, and heaven and earth, and time,\nAnd all the things hoped for or done therein\nAre changed to you, through your exceeding grief,\nYet you would say, ‘I confess anything:’ _55\nAnd beg from your tormentors, like that slave,\nThe refuge of dishonourable death.\nI pray thee, Cardinal, that thou assert\nMy innocence.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Camillo:", + "body": "I would as soon have tortured mine own nephew\n(If he now lived he would be just her age;\nHis hair, too, was her colour, and his eyes _65\nLike hers in shape, but blue and not so deep)\nAs that most perfect image of God’s love\nThat ever came sorrowing upon the earth.\nShe is as pure as speechless infancy!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Judge:", + "body": "Well, be her purity on your head, my Lord, _70\nIf you forbid the rack. His Holiness\nEnjoined us to pursue this monstrous crime\nBy the severest forms of law; nay even\nTo stretch a point against the criminals.\nThe prisoners stand accused of parricide _75\nUpon such evidence as justifies\nTorture.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Fix thine eyes on mine;\nAnswer to what I ask.\n[TURNING TO THE JUDGES.]\nI prithee mark\nHis countenance: unlike bold calumny\nWhich sometimes dares not speak the thing it looks,\nHe dares not look the thing he speaks, but bends _85\nHis gaze on the blind earth.\n[TO MARZIO.]\nWhat! wilt thou say\nThat I did murder my own father?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Marzio:", + "body": "Oh!\nSpare me! My brain swims round...I cannot speak...\nIt was that horrid torture forced the truth.\nTake me away! Let her not look on me! _90\nI am a guilty miserable wretch;\nI have said all I know; now, let me die!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "My Lords, if by my nature I had been\nSo stern, as to have planned the crime alleged,\nWhich your suspicions dictate to this slave, _95\nAnd the rack makes him utter, do you think\nI should have left this two-edged instrument\nOf my misdeed; this man, this bloody knife\nWith my own name engraven on the heft,\nLying unsheathed amid a world of foes, _100\nFor my own death? That with such horrible need\nFor deepest silence, I should have neglected\nSo trivial a precaution, as the making\nHis tomb the keeper of a secret written\nOn a thief’s memory? What is his poor life? _105\nWhat are a thousand lives? A parricide\nHad trampled them like dust; and, see, he lives!\n[TURNING TO MARZIO.]\nAnd thou...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Marzio:", + "body": "Oh, spare me! Speak to me no more!\nThat stern yet piteous look, those solemn tones,\nWound worse than torture.\n[TO THE JUDGES.]\nI have told it all; _110\nFor pity’s sake lead me away to death.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "O thou who tremblest on the giddy verge _115\nOf life and death, pause ere thou answerest me;\nSo mayst thou answer God with less dismay:\nWhat evil have we done thee? I, alas!\nHave lived but on this earth a few sad years,\nAnd so my lot was ordered, that a father _120\nFirst turned the moments of awakening life\nTo drops, each poisoning youth’s sweet hope; and then\nStabbed with one blow my everlasting soul;\nAnd my untainted fame; and even that peace\nWhich sleeps within the core of the heart’s heart; _125\nBut the wound was not mortal; so my hate\nBecame the only worship I could lift\nTo our great father, who in pity and love,\nArmed thee, as thou dost say, to cut him off;\nAnd thus his wrong becomes my accusation; _130\nAnd art thou the accuser? If thou hopest\nMercy in heaven, show justice upon earth:\nWorse than a bloody hand is a hard heart.\nIf thou hast done murders, made thy life’s path\nOver the trampled laws of God and man, _135\nRush not before thy Judge, and say: ‘My maker,\nI have done this and more; for there was one\nWho was most pure and innocent on earth;\nAnd because she endured what never any\nGuilty or innocent endured before: _140\nBecause her wrongs could not be told, not thought;\nBecause thy hand at length did rescue her;\nI with my words killed her and all her kin.’\nThink, I adjure you, what it is to slay\nThe reverence living in the minds of men _145\nTowards our ancient house, and stainless fame!\nThink what it is to strangle infant pity,\nCradled in the belief of guileless looks,\nTill it become a crime to suffer. Think\nWhat ’tis to blot with infamy and blood _150\nAll that which shows like innocence, and is,\nHear me, great God! I swear, most innocent,\nSo that the world lose all discrimination\nBetween the sly, fierce, wild regard of guilt,\nAnd that which now compels thee to reply _155\nTo what I ask: Am I, or am I not\nA parricide?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Marzio:", + "body": "Torture me as ye will:\nA keener pang has wrung a higher truth\nFrom my last breath. She is most innocent! _165\nBloodhounds, not men, glut yourselves well with me;\nI will not give you that fine piece of nature\nTo rend and ruin.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Entrap me not with questions. Who stands here\nAs my accuser? Ha! wilt thou be he,\nWho art my judge? Accuser, witness, judge,\nWhat, all in one? Here is Orsino’s name; _175\nWhere is Orsino? Let his eye meet mine.\nWhat means this scrawl? Alas! ye know not what,\nAnd therefore on the chance that it may be\nSome evil, will ye kill us?\n\n[ENTER AN OFFICER.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Judge:", + "body": "Let the Pope’s pleasure then be done. Meanwhile\nConduct these culprits each to separate cells; _190\nAnd be the engines ready; for this night\nIf the Pope’s resolution be as grave,\nPious, and just as once, I’ll wring the truth\nOut of those nerves and sinews, groan by groan.\n\n[EXEUNT.]\n\nSCENE 5.3:\nTHE CELL OF A PRISON.\nBEATRICE IS DISCOVERED ASLEEP ON A COUCH.\nENTER BERNARDO.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Bernardo:", + "body": "How gently slumber rests upon her face,\nLike the last thoughts of some day sweetly spent\nClosing in night and dreams, and so prolonged.\nAfter such torments as she bore last night,\nHow light and soft her breathing comes. Ay me! _5\nMethinks that I shall never sleep again.\nBut I must shake the heavenly dew of rest\nFrom this sweet folded flower, thus...wake, awake!\nWhat, sister, canst thou sleep?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Ha! What was there to confess?\nThey must have told some weak and wicked lie\nTo flatter their tormentors. Have they said\nThat they were guilty? O white innocence,\nThat thou shouldst wear the mask of guilt to hide _25\nThine awful and serenest countenance\nFrom those who know thee not!\n[ENTER JUDGE WITH LUCRETIA AND GIACOMO, GUARDED.]\nIgnoble hearts!\nFor some brief spasms of pain, which are at least\nAs mortal as the limbs through which they pass,\nAre centuries of high splendour laid in dust? _30\nAnd that eternal honour which should live\nSunlike, above the reek of mortal fame,\nChanged to a mockery and a byword? What!\nWill you give up these bodies to be dragged\nAt horses’ heels, so that our hair should sweep _35\nThe footsteps of the vain and senseless crowd,\nWho, that they may make our calamity\nTheir worship and their spectacle, will leave\nThe churches and the theatres as void\nAs their own hearts? Shall the light multitude _40\nFling, at their choice, curses or faded pity,\nSad funeral flowers to deck a living corpse,\nUpon us as we pass to pass away,\nAnd leave...what memory of our having been?\nInfamy, blood, terror, despair? O thou, _45\nWho wert a mother to the parentless,\nKill not thy child! Let not her wrongs kill thee!\nBrother, lie down with me upon the rack,\nAnd let us each be silent as a corpse;\nIt soon will be as soft as any grave. _50\n’Tis but the falsehood it can wring from fear\nMakes the rack cruel.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Tortures! Turn\nThe rack henceforth into a spinning-wheel!\nTorture your dog, that he may tell when last\nHe lapped the blood his master shed...not me!\nMy pangs are of the mind, and of the heart, _65\nAnd of the soul; ay, of the inmost soul,\nWhich weeps within tears as of burning gall\nTo see, in this ill world where none are true,\nMy kindred false to their deserted selves.\nAnd with considering all the wretched life _70\nWhich I have lived, and its now wretched end,\nAnd the small justice shown by Heaven and Earth\nTo me or mine; and what a tyrant thou art,\nAnd what slaves these; and what a world we make,\nThe oppressor and the oppressed...such pangs compel _75\nMy answer. What is it thou wouldst with me?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Or wilt thou rather tax high-judging God\nThat He permitted such an act as that\nWhich I have suffered, and which He beheld; _80\nMade it unutterable, and took from it\nAll refuge, all revenge, all consequence,\nBut that which thou hast called my father’s death?\nWhich is or is not what men call a crime,\nWhich either I have done, or have not done; _85\nSay what ye will. I shall deny no more.\nIf ye desire it thus, thus let it be,\nAnd so an end of all. Now do your will;\nNo other pains shall force another word.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Giacomo:", + "body": "Have I confessed? Is it all over now?\nNo hope! No refuge! O weak, wicked tongue\nWhich hast destroyed me, would that thou hadst been\nCut out and thrown to dogs first! To have killed\nMy father first, and then betrayed my sister; _100\nAy, thee! the one thing innocent and pure\nIn this black, guilty world, to that which I\nSo well deserve! My wife! my little ones!\nDestitute, helpless, and I...Father! God!\nCanst Thou forgive even the unforgiving, _105\nWhen their full hearts break thus, thus!...\n\n[COVERS HIS FACE AND WEEPS.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lucretia:", + "body": "O my child!\nTo what a dreadful end are we all come!\nWhy did I yield? Why did I not sustain\nThose torments? Oh, that I were all dissolved\nInto these fast and unavailing tears, _110\nWhich flow and feel not!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "What ’twas weak to do,\n’Tis weaker to lament, once being done;\nTake cheer! The God who knew my wrong, and made\nOur speedy act the angel of His wrath,\nSeems, and but seems, to have abandoned us. _115\nLet us not think that we shall die for this.\nBrother, sit near me; give me your firm hand,\nYou had a manly heart. Bear up! Bear up!\nO dearest Lady, put your gentle head\nUpon my lap, and try to sleep awhile: _120\nYour eyes look pale, hollow, and overworn,\nWith heaviness of watching and slow grief.\nCome, I will sing you some low, sleepy tune,\nNot cheerful, nor yet sad; some dull old thing,\nSome outworn and unused monotony, _125\nSuch as our country gossips sing and spin,\nTill they almost forget they live: lie down!\nSo, that will do. Have I forgot the words?\nFaith! They are sadder than I thought they were.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Song:", + "body": "False friend, wilt thou smile or weep _130\nWhen my life is laid asleep?\nLittle cares for a smile or a tear,\nThe clay-cold corpse upon the bier!\nFarewell! Heighho!\nWhat is this whispers low? _135\nThere is a snake in thy smile, my dear;\nAnd bitter poison within thy tear.\n\nSweet sleep, were death like to thee,\nOr if thou couldst mortal be,\nI would close these eyes of pain; _140\nWhen to wake? Never again.\nO World! Farewell!\nListen to the passing bell!\nIt says, thou and I must part,\nWith a light and a heavy heart. _145\n\n[THE SCENE CLOSES.]\n\nSCENE 5.4:\nA HALL OF THE PRISON.\nENTER CAMILLO AND BERNARDO.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Camillo:", + "body": "The Pope is stern; not to be moved or bent.\nHe looked as calm and keen as is the engine\nWhich tortures and which kills, exempt itself\nFrom aught that it inflicts; a marble form,\nA rite, a law, a custom: not a man. _5\nHe frowned, as if to frown had been the trick\nOf his machinery, on the advocates\nPresenting the defences, which he tore\nAnd threw behind, muttering with hoarse, harsh voice:\n‘Which among ye defended their old father _10\nKilled in his sleep?’ Then to another: ‘Thou\nDost this in virtue of thy place; ’tis well.’\nHe turned to me then, looking deprecation,\nAnd said these three words, coldly: ‘They must die.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Camillo:", + "body": "I urged him still; _15\nPleading, as I could guess, the devilish wrong\nWhich prompted your unnatural parent’s death.\nAnd he replied: ‘Paolo Santa Croce\nMurdered his mother yester evening,\nAnd he is fled. Parricide grows so rife _20\nThat soon, for some just cause no doubt, the young\nWill strangle us all, dozing in our chairs.\nAuthority, and power, and hoary hair\nAre grown crimes capital. You are my nephew,\nYou come to ask their pardon; stay a moment; _25\nHere is their sentence; never see me more\nTill, to the letter, it be all fulfilled.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Bernardo:", + "body": "O God, not so! I did believe indeed\nThat all you said was but sad preparation\nFor happy news. Oh, there are words and looks _30\nTo bend the sternest purpose! Once I knew them,\nNow I forget them at my dearest need.\nWhat think you if I seek him out, and bathe\nHis feet and robe with hot and bitter tears?\nImportune him with prayers, vexing his brain _35\nWith my perpetual cries, until in rage\nHe strike me with his pastoral cross, and trample\nUpon my prostrate head, so that my blood\nMay stain the senseless dust on which he treads,\nAnd remorse waken mercy? I will do it! _40\nOh, wait till I return!\n\n[RUSHES OUT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice [Wildly]:", + "body": "O\nMy God! Can it be possible I have\nTo die so suddenly? So young to go\nUnder the obscure, cold, rotting, wormy ground! _50\nTo be nailed down into a narrow place;\nTo see no more sweet sunshine; hear no more\nBlithe voice of living thing; muse not again\nUpon familiar thoughts, sad, yet thus lost—\nHow fearful! to be nothing! Or to be... _55\nWhat? Oh, where am I? Let me not go mad!\nSweet Heaven, forgive weak thoughts! If there should be\nNo God, no Heaven, no Earth in the void world;\nThe wide, gray, lampless, deep, unpeopled world!\nIf all things then should be...my father’s spirit, _60\nHis eye, his voice, his touch surrounding me;\nThe atmosphere and breath of my dead life!\nIf sometimes, as a shape more like himself,\nEven the form which tortured me on earth,\nMasked in gray hairs and wrinkles, he should come _65\nAnd wind me in his hellish arms, and fix\nHis eyes on mine, and drag me down, down, down!\nFor was he not alone omnipotent\nOn Earth, and ever present? Even though dead,\nDoes not his spirit live in all that breathe, _70\nAnd work for me and mine still the same ruin,\nScorn, pain, despair? Who ever yet returned\nTo teach the laws of Death’s untrodden realm?\nUnjust perhaps as those which drive us now,\nOh, whither, whither?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "’Tis past!\nWhatever comes, my heart shall sink no more.\nAnd yet, I know not why, your words strike chill:\nHow tedious, false, and cold seem all things. I _80\nHave met with much injustice in this world;\nNo difference has been made by God or man,\nOr any power moulding my wretched lot,\n’Twixt good or evil, as regarded me.\nI am cut off from the only world I know, _85\nFrom light, and life, and love, in youth’s sweet prime.\nYou do well telling me to trust in God;\nI hope I do trust in him. In whom else\nCan any trust? And yet my heart is cold.\n\n[DURING THE LATTER SPEECHES GIACOMO HAS RETIRED CONVERSING WITH\nCAMILLO, WHO NOW GOES OUT;\nGIACOMO ADVANCES.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Yet both will soon be cold.\nOh, trample out that thought! Worse than despair,\nWorse than the bitterness of death, is hope:\nIt is the only ill which can find place\nUpon the giddy, sharp, and narrow hour _100\nTottering beneath us. Plead with the swift frost\nThat it should spare the eldest flower of spring:\nPlead with awakening earthquake, o’er whose couch\nEven now a city stands, strong, fair, and free;\nNow stench and blackness yawn, like death. Oh, plead _105\nWith famine, or wind-walking Pestilence,\nBlind lightning, or the deaf sea, not with man!\nCruel, cold, formal man; righteous in words,\nIn deeds a Cain. No, Mother, we must die:\nSince such is the reward of innocent lives; _110\nSuch the alleviation of worst wrongs.\nAnd whilst our murderers live, and hard, cold men,\nSmiling and slow, walk through a world of tears\nTo death as to life’s sleep; ’twere just the grave\nWere some strange joy for us. Come, obscure Death, _115\nAnd wind me in thine all-embracing arms!\nLike a fond mother hide me in thy bosom,\nAnd rock me to the sleep from which none wake.\nLive ye, who live, subject to one another\nAs we were once, who now...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Bernardo:", + "body": "Oh, horrible! _120\nThat tears, that looks, that hope poured forth in prayer,\nEven till the heart is vacant and despairs,\nShould all be vain! The ministers of death\nAre waiting round the doors. I thought I saw\nBlood on the face of one...What if ’twere fancy? _125\nSoon the heart’s blood of all I love on earth\nWill sprinkle him, and he will wipe it off\nAs if ’twere only rain. O life! O world!\nCover me! let me be no more! To see\nThat perfect mirror of pure innocence _130\nWherein I gazed, and grew happy and good,\nShivered to dust! To see thee, Beatrice,\nWho made all lovely thou didst look upon...\nThee, light of life ... dead, dark! while I say, sister,\nTo hear I have no sister; and thou, Mother, _135\nWhose love was as a bond to all our loves...\nDead! The sweet bond broken!\n[ENTER CAMILLO AND GUARDS.]\nThey come! Let me\nKiss those warm lips before their crimson leaves\nAre blighted...white...cold. Say farewell, before\nDeath chokes that gentle voice! Oh, let me hear _140\nYou speak!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Farewell, my tender brother. Think\nOf our sad fate with gentleness, as now:\nAnd let mild, pitying thoughts lighten for thee\nThy sorrow’s load. Err not in harsh despair,\nBut tears and patience. One thing more, my child: _145\nFor thine own sake be constant to the love\nThou bearest us; and to the faith that I,\nThough wrapped in a strange cloud of crime and shame,\nLived ever holy and unstained. And though\nIll tongues shall wound me, and our common name _150\nBe as a mark stamped on thine innocent brow\nFor men to point at as they pass, do thou\nForbear, and never think a thought unkind\nOf those, who perhaps love thee in their graves.\nSo mayest thou die as I do; fear and pain _155\nBeing subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Beatrice:", + "body": "Give yourself no unnecessary pain,\nMy dear Lord Cardinal. Here, Mother, tie\nMy girdle for me, and bind up this hair _160\nIn any simple knot; ay, that does well.\nAnd yours I see is coming down. How often\nHave we done this for one another; now\nWe shall not do it any more. My Lord,\nWe are quite ready. Well, ’tis very well. _165", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On The Cenci, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "The sort of mistake that Shelley made as to the extent of his own\ngenius and powers, which led him deviously at first, but lastly into\nthe direct track that enabled him fully to develop them, is a curious\ninstance of his modesty of feeling, and of the methods which the human\nmind uses at once to deceive itself, and yet, in its very delusion, to\nmake its way out of error into the path which Nature has marked out as\nits right one. He often incited me to attempt the writing a tragedy:\nhe conceived that I possessed some dramatic talent, and he was always\nmost earnest and energetic in his exhortations that I should cultivate\nany talent I possessed, to the utmost. I entertained a truer estimate\nof my powers; and above all (though at that time not exactly aware of\nthe fact) I was far too young to have any chance of succeeding, even\nmoderately, in a species of composition that requires a greater scope\nof experience in, and sympathy with, human passion than could then\nhave fallen to my lot,—or than any perhaps, except Shelley, ever\npossessed, even at the age of twenty-six, at which he wrote The Cenci.\n\nOn the other hand, Shelley most erroneously conceived himself to be\ndestitute of this talent. He believed that one of the first requisites\nwas the capacity of forming and following-up a story or plot. He\nfancied himself to be defective in this portion of imagination: it was\nthat which gave him least pleasure in the writings of others, though\nhe laid great store by it as the proper framework to support the\nsublimest efforts of poetry. He asserted that he was too metaphysical\nand abstract, too fond of the theoretical and the ideal, to succeed as\na tragedian. It perhaps is not strange that I shared this opinion with\nhimself; for he had hitherto shown no inclination for, nor given any\nspecimen of his powers in framing and supporting the interest of a\nstory, either in prose or verse. Once or twice, when he attempted\nsuch, he had speedily thrown it aside, as being even disagreeable to\nhim as an occupation.\n\nThe subject he had suggested for a tragedy was Charles I: and he had\nwritten to me: ‘Remember, remember Charles I. I have been already\nimagining how you would conduct some scenes. The second volume of “St.\nLeon” begins with this proud and true sentiment: “There is nothing\nwhich the human mind can conceive which it may not execute.”\nShakespeare was only a human being.’ These words were written in 1818,\nwhile we were in Lombardy, when he little thought how soon a work of\nhis own would prove a proud comment on the passage he quoted. When in\nRome, in 1819, a friend put into our hands the old manuscript account\nof the story of the Cenci. We visited the Colonna and Doria palaces,\nwhere the portraits of Beatrice were to be found; and her beauty cast\nthe reflection of its own grace over her appalling story. Shelley’s\nimagination became strongly excited, and he urged the subject to me as\none fitted for a tragedy. More than ever I felt my incompetence; but I\nentreated him to write it instead; and he began, and proceeded\nswiftly, urged on by intense sympathy with the sufferings of the human\nbeings whose passions, so long cold in the tomb, he revived, and\ngifted with poetic language. This tragedy is the only one of his works\nthat he communicated to me during its progress. We talked over the\narrangement of the scenes together. I speedily saw the great mistake\nwe had made, and triumphed in the discovery of the new talent brought\nto light from that mine of wealth (never, alas, through his untimely\ndeath, worked to its depths)—his richly gifted mind.\n\nWe suffered a severe affliction in Rome by the loss of our eldest\nchild, who was of such beauty and promise as to cause him deservedly\nto be the idol of our hearts. We left the capital of the world,\nanxious for a time to escape a spot associated too intimately with his\npresence and loss. (Such feelings haunted him when, in “The Cenci”, he\nmakes Beatrice speak to Cardinal Camillo of\n\n‘that fair blue-eyed child\nWho was the lodestar of your life:’—and say—\nAll see, since his most swift and piteous death,\nThat day and night, and heaven and earth, and time,\nAnd all the things hoped for or done therein\nAre changed to you, through your exceeding grief.’)\n\nSome friends of ours were residing in the neighbourhood of Leghorn,\nand we took a small house, Villa Valsovano, about half-way between the\ntown and Monte Nero, where we remained during the summer. Our villa\nwas situated in the midst of a podere; the peasants sang as they\nworked beneath our windows, during the heats of a very hot season, and\nin the evening the water-wheel creaked as the process of irrigation\nwent on, and the fireflies flashed from among the myrtle hedges:\nNature was bright, sunshiny, and cheerful, or diversified by storms of\na majestic terror, such as we had never before witnessed.\n\nAt the top of the house there was a sort of terrace. There is often\nsuch in Italy, generally roofed: this one was very small, yet not only\nroofed but glazed. This Shelley made his study; it looked out on a\nwide prospect of fertile country, and commanded a view of the near\nsea. The storms that sometimes varied our day showed themselves most\npicturesquely as they were driven across the ocean; sometimes the dark\nlurid clouds dipped towards the waves, and became water-spouts that\nchurned up the waters beneath, as they were chased onward and\nscattered by the tempest. At other times the dazzling sunlight and\nheat made it almost intolerable to every other; but Shelley basked in\nboth, and his health and spirits revived under their influence. In\nthis airy cell he wrote the principal part of “The Cenci”. He was\nmaking a study of Calderon at the time, reading his best tragedies\nwith an accomplished lady living near us, to whom his letter from\nLeghorn was addressed during the following year. He admired Calderon,\nboth for his poetry and his dramatic genius; but it shows his\njudgement and originality that, though greatly struck by his first\nacquaintance with the Spanish poet, none of his peculiarities crept\ninto the composition of “The Cenci”; and there is no trace of his new\nstudies, except in that passage to which he himself alludes as\nsuggested by one in “El Purgatorio de San Patricio”.\n\nShelley wished “The Cenci” to be acted. He was not a playgoer, being\nof such fastidious taste that he was easily disgusted by the bad\nfilling-up of the inferior parts. While preparing for our departure\nfrom England, however, he saw Miss O’Neil several times. She was then\nin the zenith of her glory; and Shelley was deeply moved by her\nimpersonation of several parts, and by the graceful sweetness, the\nintense pathos, the sublime vehemence of passion she displayed. She\nwas often in his thoughts as he wrote: and, when he had finished, he\nbecame anxious that his tragedy should be acted, and receive the\nadvantage of having this accomplished actress to fill the part of the\nheroine. With this view he wrote the following letter to a friend in\nLondon:\n\n‘The object of the present letter us to ask a favour of you. I have\nwritten a tragedy on a story well known in Italy, and, in my\nconception, eminently dramatic. I have taken some pains to make my\nplay fit for representation, and those who have already seen it judge\nfavourably. It is written without any of the peculiar feelings and\nopinions which characterize my other compositions; I have attended\nsimply to the impartial development of such characters as it is\nprobable the persons represented really were, together with the\ngreatest degree of popular effect to be produced by such a\ndevelopment. I send you a translation of the Italian manuscript on\nwhich my play is founded; the chief circumstance of which I have\ntouched very delicately; for my principal doubt as to whether it would\nsucceed as an acting play hangs entirely on the question as to whether\nany such a thing as incest in this shape, however treated, would be\nadmitted on the stage. I think, however, it will form no objection;\nconsidering, first, that the facts are matter of history, and,\nsecondly, the peculiar delicacy with which I have treated it. (In\nspeaking of his mode of treating this main incident, Shelley said that\nit might be remarked that, in the course of the play, he had never\nmentioned expressly Cenci’s worst crime. Every one knew what it must\nbe, but it was never imaged in words—the nearest allusion to it being\nthat portion of Cenci’s curse beginning—\n\n“That, if she have a child,” etc.)\n\n‘I am exceedingly interested in the question of whether this attempt\nof mine will succeed or not. I am strongly inclined to the affirmative\nat present; founding my hopes on this—that, as a composition, it is\ncertainly not inferior to any of the modern plays that have been\nacted, with the exception of “Remorse”; that the interest of the plot\nis incredibly greater and more real; and that there is nothing beyond\nwhat the multitude are contented to believe that they can understand,\neither in imagery, opinion, or sentiment. I wish to preserve a\ncomplete incognito, and can trust to you that, whatever else you do,\nyou will at least favour me on this point. Indeed, this is essential,\ndeeply essential, to its success. After it had been acted, and\nsuccessfully (could I hope for such a thing), I would own it if I\npleased, and use the celebrity it might acquire to my own purposes.\n\n‘What I want you to do is to procure for me its presentation at Covent\nGarden. The principal character, Beatrice, is precisely fitted for\nMiss O’Neil, and it might even seem to have been written for her (God\nforbid that I should see her play it—it would tear my nerves to\npieces); and in all respects it is fitted only for Covent Garden. The\nchief male character I confess I should be very unwilling that any one\nbut Kean should play. That is impossible, and I must be contented with\nan inferior actor.’\n\nThe play was accordingly sent to Mr. Harris. He pronounced the subject\nto be so objectionable that he could not even submit the part to Miss\nO’Neil for perusal, but expressed his desire that the author would\nwrite a tragedy on some other subject, which he would gladly accept.\nShelley printed a small edition at Leghorn, to ensure its correctness;\nas he was much annoyed by the many mistakes that crept into his text\nwhen distance prevented him from correcting the press.\n\nUniversal approbation soon stamped “The Cenci” as the best tragedy of\nmodern times. Writing concerning it, Shelley said: ‘I have been\ncautious to avoid the introducing faults of youthful composition;\ndiffuseness, a profusion of inapplicable imagery, vagueness,\ngenerality, and, as Hamlet says, “words, words”.’ There is nothing\nthat is not purely dramatic throughout; and the character of Beatrice,\nproceeding, from vehement struggle, to horror, to deadly resolution,\nand lastly to the elevated dignity of calm suffering, joined to\npassionate tenderness and pathos, is touched with hues so vivid and so\nbeautiful that the poet seems to have read intimately the secrets of\nthe noble heart imaged in the lovely countenance of the unfortunate\ngirl. The Fifth Act is a masterpiece. It is the finest thing he ever\nwrote, and may claim proud comparison not only with any contemporary,\nbut preceding, poet. The varying feelings of Beatrice are expressed\nwith passionate, heart-reaching eloquence. Every character has a voice\nthat echoes truth in its tones. It is curious, to one acquainted with\nthe written story, to mark the success with which the poet has inwoven\nthe real incidents of the tragedy into his scenes, and yet, through\nthe power of poetry, has obliterated all that would otherwise have\nshown too harsh or too hideous in the picture. His success was a\ndouble triumph; and often after he was earnestly entreated to write\nagain in a style that commanded popular favour, while it was not less\ninstinct with truth and genius. But the bent of his mind went the\nother way; and, even when employed on subjects whose interest depended\non character and incident, he would start off in another direction,\nand leave the delineations of human passion, which he could depict in\nso able a manner, for fantastic creations of his fancy, or the\nexpression of those opinions and sentiments, with regard to human\nnature and its destiny, a desire to diffuse which was the master\npassion of his soul.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Written On The Occasion Of The Massacre At Manchester.", + "body": "[Composed at the Villa Valsovano near Leghorn—or possibly later,\nduring Shelley’s sojourn at Florence—in the autumn of 1819, shortly\nafter the Peterloo riot at Manchester, August 16; edited with Preface\nby Leigh Hunt, and published under the poet’s name by Edward Moxon,\n1832 (Bradbury & Evans, printers). Two manuscripts are extant: a\ntranscript by Mrs. Shelley with Shelley’s autograph corrections, known\nas the ‘Hunt manuscript’; and an earlier draft, not quite complete, in\nthe poet’s handwriting, presented by Mrs. Shelley to (Sir) John\nBowring in 1826, and now in the possession of Mr. Thomas J. Wise (the\n‘Wise manuscript’). Mrs. Shelley’s copy was sent to Leigh Hunt in 1819\nwith view to its publication in “The Examiner”; hence the name ‘Hunt\nmanuscript.’ A facsimile of the Wise manuscript was published by the\nShelley Society in 1887. Sources of the text are (1) the Hunt\nmanuscript; (2) the Wise manuscript; (3) the editio princeps, editor\nLeigh Hunt, 1832; (4) Mrs. Shelley’s two editions (“Poetical Works”)\nof 1839. Of the two manuscripts Mrs. Shelley’s transcript is the later\nand more authoritative.]\n\n1.\nAs I lay asleep in Italy\nThere came a voice from over the Sea,\nAnd with great power it forth led me\nTo walk in the visions of Poesy.\n\n2.\nI met Murder on the way— _5\nHe had a mask like Castlereagh—\nVery smooth he looked, yet grim;\nSeven blood-hounds followed him:\n\n3.\nAll were fat; and well they might\nBe in admirable plight, _10\nFor one by one, and two by two,\nHe tossed them human hearts to chew\nWhich from his wide cloak he drew.\n\n4.\nNext came Fraud, and he had on,\nLike Eldon, an ermined gown; _15\nHis big tears, for he wept well,\nTurned to mill-stones as they fell.\n\n5.\nAnd the little children, who\nRound his feet played to and fro,\nThinking every tear a gem, _20\nHad their brains knocked out by them.\n\n6.\nClothed with the Bible, as with light,\nAnd the shadows of the night,\nLike Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy\nOn a crocodile rode by. _25\n\n7.\nAnd many more Destructions played\nIn this ghastly masquerade,\nAll disguised, even to the eyes,\nLike Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.\n\n8.\nLast came Anarchy: he rode _30\nOn a white horse, splashed with blood;\nHe was pale even to the lips,\nLike Death in the Apocalypse.\n\n9.\nAnd he wore a kingly crown;\nAnd in his grasp a sceptre shone; _35\nOn his brow this mark I saw—\n‘I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!’\n\n10.\nWith a pace stately and fast,\nOver English land he passed,\nTrampling to a mire of blood _40\nThe adoring multitude.\n\n11.\nAnd a mighty troop around,\nWith their trampling shook the ground,\nWaving each a bloody sword,\nFor the service of their Lord. _45\n\n12.\nAnd with glorious triumph, they\nRode through England proud and gay,\nDrunk as with intoxication\nOf the wine of desolation.\n\n13.\nO’er fields and towns, from sea to sea, _50\nPassed the Pageant swift and free,\nTearing up, and trampling down;\nTill they came to London town.\n\n14.\nAnd each dweller, panic-stricken,\nFelt his heart with terror sicken _55\nHearing the tempestuous cry\nOf the triumph of Anarchy.\n\n15.\nFor with pomp to meet him came,\nClothed in arms like blood and flame,\nThe hired murderers, who did sing _60\n‘Thou art God, and Law, and King.\n\n16.\n‘We have waited, weak and lone\nFor thy coming, Mighty One!\nOur purses are empty, our swords are cold,\nGive us glory, and blood, and gold.’ _65\n\n17.\nLawyers and priests, a motley crowd,\nTo the earth their pale brows bowed;\nLike a bad prayer not over loud,\nWhispering—‘Thou art Law and God.’—\n\n18.\nThen all cried with one accord, _70\n‘Thou art King, and God, and Lord;\nAnarchy, to thee we bow,\nBe thy name made holy now!’\n\n19.\nAnd Anarchy, the Skeleton,\nBowed and grinned to every one, _75\nAs well as if his education\nHad cost ten millions to the nation.\n\n20.\nFor he knew the Palaces\nOf our Kings were rightly his;\nHis the sceptre, crown, and globe, _80\nAnd the gold-inwoven robe.\n\n21.\nSo he sent his slaves before\nTo seize upon the Bank and Tower,\nAnd was proceeding with intent\nTo meet his pensioned Parliament _85\n\n22.\nWhen one fled past, a maniac maid,\nAnd her name was Hope, she said:\nBut she looked more like Despair,\nAnd she cried out in the air:\n\n23.\n‘My father Time is weak and gray _90\nWith waiting for a better day;\nSee how idiot-like he stands,\nFumbling with his palsied hands!\n\n24.\n‘He has had child after child,\nAnd the dust of death is piled _95\nOver every one but me—\nMisery, oh, Misery!’\n\n25.\nThen she lay down in the street,\nRight before the horses’ feet,\nExpecting, with a patient eye, _100\nMurder, Fraud, and Anarchy.\n\n26.\nWhen between her and her foes\nA mist, a light, an image rose,\nSmall at first, and weak, and frail\nLike the vapour of a vale: _105\n\n27.\nTill as clouds grow on the blast,\nLike tower-crowned giants striding fast,\nAnd glare with lightnings as they fly,\nAnd speak in thunder to the sky,\n\n28.\nIt grew—a Shape arrayed in mail _110\nBrighter than the viper’s scale,\nAnd upborne on wings whose grain\nWas as the light of sunny rain.\n\n29.\nOn its helm, seen far away,\nA planet, like the Morning’s, lay; _115\nAnd those plumes its light rained through\nLike a shower of crimson dew.\n\n30.\nWith step as soft as wind it passed\nO’er the heads of men—so fast\nThat they knew the presence there, _120\nAnd looked,—but all was empty air.\n\n31.\nAs flowers beneath May’s footstep waken,\nAs stars from Night’s loose hair are shaken,\nAs waves arise when loud winds call,\nThoughts sprung where’er that step did fall. _125\n\n32.\nAnd the prostrate multitude\nLooked—and ankle-deep in blood,\nHope, that maiden most serene,\nWas walking with a quiet mien:\n\n33.\nAnd Anarchy, the ghastly birth, _130\nLay dead earth upon the earth;\nThe Horse of Death tameless as wind\nFled, and with his hoofs did grind\nTo dust the murderers thronged behind.\n\n34.\nA rushing light of clouds and splendour, _135\nA sense awakening and yet tender\nWas heard and felt—and at its close\nThese words of joy and fear arose\n\n35.\nAs if their own indignant Earth\nWhich gave the sons of England birth _140\nHad felt their blood upon her brow,\nAnd shuddering with a mother’s throe\n\n36.\nHad turned every drop of blood\nBy which her face had been bedewed\nTo an accent unwithstood,— _145\nAs if her heart had cried aloud:\n\n37.\n‘Men of England, heirs of Glory,\nHeroes of unwritten story,\nNurslings of one mighty Mother,\nHopes of her, and one another; _150\n\n38.\n‘Rise like Lions after slumber\nIn unvanquishable number,\nShake your chains to earth like dew\nWhich in sleep had fallen on you—\nYe are many—they are few. _155\n\n39.\n‘What is Freedom?—ye can tell\nThat which slavery is, too well—\nFor its very name has grown\nTo an echo of your own.\n\n40.\n‘’Tis to work and have such pay _160\nAs just keeps life from day to day\nIn your limbs, as in a cell\nFor the tyrants’ use to dwell,\n\n41.\n‘So that ye for them are made\nLoom, and plough, and sword, and spade, _165\nWith or without your own will bent\nTo their defence and nourishment.\n\n42.\n‘’Tis to see your children weak\nWith their mothers pine and peak,\nWhen the winter winds are bleak,— _170\nThey are dying whilst I speak.\n\n43.\n‘’Tis to hunger for such diet\nAs the rich man in his riot\nCasts to the fat dogs that lie\nSurfeiting beneath his eye; _175\n\n44.\n‘’Tis to let the Ghost of Gold\nTake from Toil a thousandfold\nMore than e’er its substance could\nIn the tyrannies of old.\n\n45.\n‘Paper coin—that forgery _180\nOf the title-deeds, which ye\nHold to something of the worth\nOf the inheritance of Earth.\n\n46.\n‘’Tis to be a slave in soul\nAnd to hold no strong control _185\nOver your own wills, but be\nAll that others make of ye.\n\n47.\n‘And at length when ye complain\nWith a murmur weak and vain\n’Tis to see the Tyrant’s crew _190\nRide over your wives and you\nBlood is on the grass like dew.\n\n48.\n‘Then it is to feel revenge\nFiercely thirsting to exchange\nBlood for blood—and wrong for wrong— _195\nDo not thus when ye are strong.\n\n49.\n‘Birds find rest, in narrow nest\nWhen weary of their winged quest;\nBeasts find fare, in woody lair\nWhen storm and snow are in the air. _200\n\n50.\n‘Asses, swine, have litter spread\nAnd with fitting food are fed;\nAll things have a home but one—\nThou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!\n\n51.\n‘This is Slavery—savage men, _205\nOr wild beasts within a den\nWould endure not as ye do—\nBut such ills they never knew.\n\n52.\n‘What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves\nAnswer from their living graves _210\nThis demand—tyrants would flee\nLike a dream’s dim imagery:\n\n53.\n‘Thou art not, as impostors say,\nA shadow soon to pass away,\nA superstition, and a name _215\nEchoing from the cave of Fame.\n\n54.\n‘For the labourer thou art bread,\nAnd a comely table spread\nFrom his daily labour come\nIn a neat and happy home. _220\n\n55.\nThou art clothes, and fire, and food\nFor the trampled multitude—\nNo—in countries that are free\nSuch starvation cannot be\nAs in England now we see. _225\n\n56.\n‘To the rich thou art a check,\nWhen his foot is on the neck\nOf his victim, thou dost make\nThat he treads upon a snake.\n\n57.\nThou art Justice—ne’er for gold _230\nMay thy righteous laws be sold\nAs laws are in England—thou\nShield’st alike the high and low.\n\n58.\n‘Thou art Wisdom—Freemen never\nDream that God will damn for ever _235\nAll who think those things untrue\nOf which Priests make such ado.\n\n59.\n‘Thou art Peace—never by thee\nWould blood and treasure wasted be\nAs tyrants wasted them, when all _240\nLeagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.\n\n60.\n‘What if English toil and blood\nWas poured forth, even as a flood?\nIt availed, Oh, Liberty,\nTo dim, but not extinguish thee. _245\n\n61.\n‘Thou art Love—the rich have kissed\nThy feet, and like him following Christ,\nGive their substance to the free\nAnd through the rough world follow thee,\n\n62.\n‘Or turn their wealth to arms, and make _250\nWar for thy beloved sake\nOn wealth, and war, and fraud—whence they\nDrew the power which is their prey.\n\n63.\n‘Science, Poetry, and Thought\nAre thy lamps; they make the lot _255\nOf the dwellers in a cot\nSo serene, they curse it not.\n\n64.\n‘Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,\nAll that can adorn and bless\nArt thou—let deeds, not words, express _260\nThine exceeding loveliness.\n\n65.\n‘Let a great Assembly be\nOf the fearless and the free\nOn some spot of English ground\nWhere the plains stretch wide around. _265\n\n66.\n‘Let the blue sky overhead,\nThe green earth on which ye tread,\nAll that must eternal be\nWitness the solemnity.\n\n67.\n‘From the corners uttermost _270\nOf the bounds of English coast;\nFrom every hut, village, and town\nWhere those who live and suffer moan\nFor others’ misery or their own,\n\n68.\n‘From the workhouse and the prison\nWhere pale as corpses newly risen,\nWomen, children, young and old _277\nGroan for pain, and weep for cold—\n\n69.\n‘From the haunts of daily life\nWhere is waged the daily strife _280\nWith common wants and common cares\nWhich sows the human heart with tares—\n\n70.\n‘Lastly from the palaces\nWhere the murmur of distress\nEchoes, like the distant sound _285\nOf a wind alive around\n\n71.\n‘Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,\nWhere some few feel such compassion\nFor those who groan, and toil, and wail\nAs must make their brethren pale—\n\n72.\n‘Ye who suffer woes untold, _291\nOr to feel, or to behold\nYour lost country bought and sold\nWith a price of blood and gold—\n\n73.\n‘Let a vast assembly be, _295\nAnd with great solemnity\nDeclare with measured words that ye\nAre, as God has made ye, free—\n\n74.\n‘Be your strong and simple words\nKeen to wound as sharpened swords, _300\nAnd wide as targes let them be,\nWith their shade to cover ye.\n\n75.\n‘Let the tyrants pour around\nWith a quick and startling sound,\nLike the loosening of a sea, _305\nTroops of armed emblazonry.\n\n76.\n‘Let the charged artillery drive\nTill the dead air seems alive\nWith the clash of clanging wheels,\nAnd the tramp of horses’ heels. _310\n\n77.\n‘Let the fixed bayonet\nGleam with sharp desire to wet\nIts bright point in English blood\nLooking keen as one for food.\n\n78.\nLet the horsemen’s scimitars _315\nWheel and flash, like sphereless stars\nThirsting to eclipse their burning\nIn a sea of death and mourning.\n\n79.\n‘Stand ye calm and resolute,\nLike a forest close and mute, _320\nWith folded arms and looks which are\nWeapons of unvanquished war,\n\n80.\n‘And let Panic, who outspeeds\nThe career of armed steeds\nPass, a disregarded shade _325\nThrough your phalanx undismayed.\n\n81.\n‘Let the laws of your own land,\nGood or ill, between ye stand\nHand to hand, and foot to foot,\nArbiters of the dispute, _330\n\n82.\n‘The old laws of England—they\nWhose reverend heads with age are gray,\nChildren of a wiser day;\nAnd whose solemn voice must be\nThine own echo—Liberty! _335\n\n83.\n‘On those who first should violate\nSuch sacred heralds in their state\nRest the blood that must ensue,\nAnd it will not rest on you.\n\n84.\n‘And if then the tyrants dare _340\nLet them ride among you there,\nSlash, and stab, and maim, and hew,—\nWhat they like, that let them do.\n\n85.\n‘With folded arms and steady eyes,\nAnd little fear, and less surprise, _345\nLook upon them as they slay\nTill their rage has died away.\n\n86.\nThen they will return with shame\nTo the place from which they came,\nAnd the blood thus shed will speak _350\nIn hot blushes on their cheek.\n\n87.\n‘Every woman in the land\nWill point at them as they stand—\nThey will hardly dare to greet\nTheir acquaintance in the street. _355\n\n88.\n‘And the bold, true warriors\nWho have hugged Danger in wars\nWill turn to those who would be free,\nAshamed of such base company.\n\n89.\n‘And that slaughter to the Nation _360\nShall steam up like inspiration,\nEloquent, oracular;\nA volcano heard afar.\n\n90.\n‘And these words shall then become\nLike Oppression’s thundered doom _365\nRinging through each heart and brain,\nHeard again—again—again—\n\n91.\n‘Rise like Lions after slumber\nIn unvanquishable number—\nShake your chains to earth like dew _370\nWhich in sleep had fallen on you—\nYe are many—they are few.’\n\n_15. Like Eldon Hunt manuscript; Like Lord Eldon Wise manuscript.\n_15. ermined Hunt manuscript, Wise manuscript edition 1832;\n ermine editions 1839.\n_23 shadows]shadow editions 1839 only.\n_29 or]and Wise manuscript only.\n_35 And in his grasp Hunt manuscript, edition 1882;\n In his hand Wise manuscript,\n Hunt manuscript cancelled, edition 1839.\n_36 On his]And on his edition 1832 only.\n_51 the Hunt manuscript, edition 1832; that Wise manuscript.\n_56 tempestuous]tremendous editions 1839 only.\n_58 For with pomp]For from... Hunt manuscript, Wise manuscript.\n_71 God]Law editions 1839 only.\n_79 rightly Wise manuscript; nightly Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839.\n_93 Fumbling] Trembling editions 1839 only.\n_105 a vale Hunt manuscript, Wise manuscript; the vale editions 1832, 1839.\n_113 as]like editions 1839 only.\n_116 its Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript; it editions 1832, 1839.\n_121 but Wise MS; and Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839.\n_122 May’s footstep Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript;\n the footstep edition 1832; May’s footsteps editions 1839.\n_132-4 omit Wise manuscript.\n_146 had cried Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839;\n cried out Wise manuscript.\n_155 omit edition 1832 only.\n_182 of]from Wise manuscript only.\n_186 wills Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839; will Wise manuscript.\n_198 their Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, editions 1839;\n the edition 1832.\n_216 cave Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, editions 1839;\n caves edition 1832, Hunt manuscript cancelled.\n_220 In Wise manuscript, editions 1832, 1839; To Hunt manuscript.\n\n(Note at stanza 49: The following stanza is found in the Wise\nmanuscript and in editions 1839, but is wanting in the Hunt manuscript\nand in edition 1832:—\n\n‘Horses, oxen, have a home,\nWhen from daily toil they come;\nHousehold dogs, when the wind roars,\nFind a home within warm doors.’)\n\n_233 the Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839; both Wise manuscript.\n_234 Freemen Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, editions 1839;\n Freedom edition 1832.\n_235 Dream Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, editions 1839;\n Dreams edition 1832. damn]doom editions 1839 only.\n_248 Give Hunt manuscript, edition 1832;\n Given Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript cancelled, editions 1839.\n_249 follow]followed editions 1839 only.\n_250 Or Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript; Oh editions 1832, 1839.\n_254 Science, Poetry, Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript;\n Science, and Poetry editions 1832, 1839.\n_257 So Hunt manuscript, edition 1832;\n Such they curse their Maker not Wise manuscript, editions 1839.\n_263 and]of edition 1832 only.\n_274 or]and edition 1832 only.\n\n(Note to end of stanza 67: The following stanza is found (cancelled)\nat this place in the Wise manuscript:—\n\n‘From the cities where from caves,\nLike the dead from putrid graves,\nTroops of starvelings gliding come,\nLiving Tenants of a tomb.’\n\n_282 sows Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript;\n sow editions 1832, 1839.\n_297 measured Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, edition 1832;\n ne’er-said editions 1839.\n_322 of unvanquished Wise manuscript;\n of an unvanquished Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839.\n_346 slay Wise manuscript; Hunt manuscript, editions 1839;\n stay edition 1832.\n_357 in wars Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, edition 1832;\n in the wars editions 1839.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On The Mask Of Anarchy, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "Though Shelley’s first eager desire to excite his countrymen to resist\nopenly the oppressions existent during ‘the good old times’ had faded\nwith early youth, still his warmest sympathies were for the people. He\nwas a republican, and loved a democracy. He looked on all human beings\nas inheriting an equal right to possess the dearest privileges of our\nnature; the necessaries of life when fairly earned by labour, and\nintellectual instruction. His hatred of any despotism that looked upon\nthe people as not to be consulted, or protected from want and\nignorance, was intense. He was residing near Leghorn, at Villa\nValsovano, writing “The Cenci”, when the news of the Manchester\nMassacre reached us; it roused in him violent emotions of indignation\nand compassion. The great truth that the many, if accordant and\nresolute, could control the few, as was shown some years after, made\nhim long to teach his injured countrymen how to resist. Inspired by\nthese feelings, he wrote the “Mask of Anarchy”, which he sent to his\nfriend Leigh Hunt, to be inserted in the Examiner, of which he was\nthen the Editor.\n\n‘I did not insert it,’ Leigh Hunt writes in his valuable and\ninteresting preface to this poem, when he printed it in 1832, ‘because\nI thought that the public at large had not become sufficiently\ndiscerning to do justice to the sincerity and kind-heartedness of the\nspirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse.’ Days of outrage\nhave passed away, and with them the exasperation that would cause such\nan appeal to the many to be injurious. Without being aware of them,\nthey at one time acted on his suggestions, and gained the day. But\nthey rose when human life was respected by the Minister in power; such\nwas not the case during the Administration which excited Shelley’s\nabhorrence.\n\nThe poem was written for the people, and is therefore in a more\npopular tone than usual: portions strike as abrupt and unpolished, but\nmany stanzas are all his own. I heard him repeat, and admired, those\nbeginning\n\n‘My Father Time is old and gray,’\n\nbefore I knew to what poem they were to belong. But the most touching\npassage is that which describes the blessed effects of liberty; it\nmight make a patriot of any man whose heart was not wholly closed\nagainst his humbler fellow-creatures.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "By Miching Mallecho, Esq.", + "body": "Is it a party in a parlour,\nCrammed just as they on earth were crammed,\nSome sipping punch—some sipping tea;\nBut, as you by their faces see,\nAll silent, and all—damned!\n“Peter Bell”, by W. WORDSWORTH.\n\nOPHELIA.—What means this, my lord?\nHAMLET.—Marry, this is Miching Mallecho; it means mischief.\nSHAKESPEARE.\n\n[Composed at Florence, October, 1819, and forwarded to Hunt (November\n2) to be published by C. & J. Ollier without the author’s name;\nultimately printed by Mrs. Shelley in the second edition of the\n“Poetical Works”, 1839. A skit by John Hamilton Reynolds, “Peter Bell,\na Lyrical Ballad”, had already appeared (April, 1819), a few days\nbefore the publication of Wordsworth’s “Peter Bell, a Tale”. These\nproductions were reviewed in Leigh Hunt’s “Examiner” (April 26, May 3,\n1819); and to the entertainment derived from his perusal of Hunt’s\ncriticisms the composition of Shelley’s “Peter Bell the Third” is\nchiefly owing.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prologue.", + "body": "Peter Bells, one, two and three,\nO’er the wide world wandering be.—\nFirst, the antenatal Peter,\nWrapped in weeds of the same metre,\nThe so-long-predestined raiment _5\nClothed in which to walk his way meant\nThe second Peter; whose ambition\nIs to link the proposition,\nAs the mean of two extremes—\n(This was learned from Aldric’s themes) _10\nShielding from the guilt of schism\nThe orthodoxal syllogism;\nThe First Peter—he who was\nLike the shadow in the glass\nOf the second, yet unripe, _15\nHis substantial antitype.—\n\nThen came Peter Bell the Second,\nWho henceforward must be reckoned\nThe body of a double soul,\nAnd that portion of the whole _20\nWithout which the rest would seem\nEnds of a disjointed dream.—\nAnd the Third is he who has\nO’er the grave been forced to pass\nTo the other side, which is,— _25\nGo and try else,—just like this.\n\nPeter Bell the First was Peter\nSmugger, milder, softer, neater,\nLike the soul before it is\nBorn from THAT world into THIS. _30\nThe next Peter Bell was he,\nPredevote, like you and me,\nTo good or evil as may come;\nHis was the severer doom,—\nFor he was an evil Cotter, _35\nAnd a polygamic Potter.\nAnd the last is Peter Bell,\nDamned since our first parents fell,\nDamned eternally to Hell—\nSurely he deserves it well! _40\n\n_10 Aldric’s] i.e. Aldrich’s—a spelling adopted here by Woodberry.\n\n(_36 The oldest scholiasts read—\nA dodecagamic Potter.\nThis is at once more descriptive and more megalophonous,—but the\nalliteration of the text had captivated the vulgar ear of the herd of\nlater commentators.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n\nPART 1.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Death.", + "body": "1.\nAnd Peter Bell, when he had been\nWith fresh-imported Hell-fire warmed,\nGrew serious—from his dress and mien\n’Twas very plainly to be seen\nPeter was quite reformed. _5\n\n2.\nHis eyes turned up, his mouth turned down;\nHis accent caught a nasal twang;\nHe oiled his hair; there might be heard\nThe grace of God in every word\nWhich Peter said or sang. _10\n\n3.\nBut Peter now grew old, and had\nAn ill no doctor could unravel:\nHis torments almost drove him mad;—\nSome said it was a fever bad—\nSome swore it was the gravel. _15\n\n4.\nHis holy friends then came about,\nAnd with long preaching and persuasion\nConvinced the patient that, without\nThe smallest shadow of a doubt,\nHe was predestined to damnation. _20\n\n5.\nThey said—‘Thy name is Peter Bell;\nThy skin is of a brimstone hue;\nAlive or dead—ay, sick or well—\nThe one God made to rhyme with hell;\nThe other, I think, rhymes with you. _25\n\n6.\nThen Peter set up such a yell!—\nThe nurse, who with some water gruel\nWas climbing up the stairs, as well\nAs her old legs could climb them—fell,\nAnd broke them both—the fall was cruel. _30\n\n7.\nThe Parson from the casement lept\nInto the lake of Windermere—\nAnd many an eel—though no adept\nIn God’s right reason for it—kept\nGnawing his kidneys half a year. _35\n\n8.\nAnd all the rest rushed through the door\nAnd tumbled over one another,\nAnd broke their skulls.—Upon the floor\nMeanwhile sat Peter Bell, and swore,\nAnd cursed his father and his mother; _40\n\n9.\nAnd raved of God, and sin, and death,\nBlaspheming like an infidel;\nAnd said, that with his clenched teeth\nHe’d seize the earth from underneath,\nAnd drag it with him down to hell. _45\n\n10.\nAs he was speaking came a spasm,\nAnd wrenched his gnashing teeth asunder;\nLike one who sees a strange phantasm\nHe lay,—there was a silent chasm\nBetween his upper jaw and under. _50\n\n11.\nAnd yellow death lay on his face;\nAnd a fixed smile that was not human\nTold, as I understand the case,\nThat he was gone to the wrong place:—\nI heard all this from the old woman. _55\n\n12.\nThen there came down from Langdale Pike\nA cloud, with lightning, wind and hail;\nIt swept over the mountains like\nAn ocean,—and I heard it strike\nThe woods and crags of Grasmere vale. _60\n\n13.\nAnd I saw the black storm come\nNearer, minute after minute;\nIts thunder made the cataracts dumb;\nWith hiss, and clash, and hollow hum,\nIt neared as if the Devil was in it. _65\n\n14.\nThe Devil WAS in it:—he had bought\nPeter for half-a-crown; and when\nThe storm which bore him vanished, nought\nThat in the house that storm had caught\nWas ever seen again. _70\n\n15.\nThe gaping neighbours came next day—\nThey found all vanished from the shore:\nThe Bible, whence he used to pray,\nHalf scorched under a hen-coop lay;\nSmashed glass—and nothing more! _75\n\n\nPART 2.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Devil.", + "body": "1.\nThe Devil, I safely can aver,\nHas neither hoof, nor tail, nor sting;\nNor is he, as some sages swear,\nA spirit, neither here nor there,\nIn nothing—yet in everything. _80\n\n2.\nHe is—what we are; for sometimes\nThe Devil is a gentleman;\nAt others a bard bartering rhymes\nFor sack; a statesman spinning crimes;\nA swindler, living as he can; _85\n\n3.\nA thief, who cometh in the night,\nWith whole boots and net pantaloons,\nLike some one whom it were not right\nTo mention;—or the luckless wight\nFrom whom he steals nine silver spoons. _90\n\n4.\nBut in this case he did appear\nLike a slop-merchant from Wapping,\nAnd with smug face, and eye severe,\nOn every side did perk and peer\nTill he saw Peter dead or napping. _95\n\n5.\nHe had on an upper Benjamin\n(For he was of the driving schism)\nIn the which he wrapped his skin\nFrom the storm he travelled in,\nFor fear of rheumatism. _100\n\n6.\nHe called the ghost out of the corse;—\nIt was exceedingly like Peter,—\nOnly its voice was hollow and hoarse—\nIt had a queerish look of course—\nIts dress too was a little neater. _105\n\n7.\nThe Devil knew not his name and lot;\nPeter knew not that he was Bell:\nEach had an upper stream of thought,\nWhich made all seem as it was not;\nFitting itself to all things well. _110\n\n8.\nPeter thought he had parents dear,\nBrothers, sisters, cousins, cronies,\nIn the fens of Lincolnshire;\nHe perhaps had found them there\nHad he gone and boldly shown his _115\n\n9.\nSolemn phiz in his own village;\nWhere he thought oft when a boy\nHe’d clomb the orchard walls to pillage\nThe produce of his neighbour’s tillage,\nWith marvellous pride and joy. _120\n\n10.\nAnd the Devil thought he had,\n‘Mid the misery and confusion\nOf an unjust war, just made\nA fortune by the gainful trade\nOf giving soldiers rations bad— _125\nThe world is full of strange delusion—\n\n11.\nThat he had a mansion planned\nIn a square like Grosvenor Square,\nThat he was aping fashion, and\nThat he now came to Westmoreland _130\nTo see what was romantic there.\n\n12.\nAnd all this, though quite ideal,—\nReady at a breath to vanish,—\nWas a state not more unreal\nThan the peace he could not feel, _135\nOr the care he could not banish.\n\n13.\nAfter a little conversation,\nThe Devil told Peter, if he chose,\nHe’d bring him to the world of fashion\nBy giving him a situation _140\nIn his own service—and new clothes.\n\n14.\nAnd Peter bowed, quite pleased and proud,\nAnd after waiting some few days\nFor a new livery—dirty yellow\nTurned up with black—the wretched fellow _145\nWas bowled to Hell in the Devil’s chaise.\n\n\nPART 3.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hell.", + "body": "1.\nHell is a city much like London—\nA populous and a smoky city;\nThere are all sorts of people undone,\nAnd there is little or no fun done; _150\nSmall justice shown, and still less pity.\n\n2.\nThere is a Castles, and a Canning,\nA Cobbett, and a Castlereagh;\nAll sorts of caitiff corpses planning\nAll sorts of cozening for trepanning _155\nCorpses less corrupt than they.\n\n3.\nThere is a ***, who has lost\nHis wits, or sold them, none knows which;\nHe walks about a double ghost,\nAnd though as thin as Fraud almost— _160\nEver grows more grim and rich.\n\n4.\nThere is a Chancery Court; a King;\nA manufacturing mob; a set\nOf thieves who by themselves are sent\nSimilar thieves to represent; _165\nAn army; and a public debt.\n\n5.\nWhich last is a scheme of paper money,\nAnd means—being interpreted—\n‘Bees, keep your wax—give us the honey,\nAnd we will plant, while skies are sunny, _170\nFlowers, which in winter serve instead.’\n\n6.\nThere is a great talk of revolution—\nAnd a great chance of despotism—\nGerman soldiers—camps—confusion—\nTumults—lotteries—rage—delusion— _175\nGin—suicide—and methodism;\n\n7.\nTaxes too, on wine and bread,\nAnd meat, and beer, and tea, and cheese,\nFrom which those patriots pure are fed,\nWho gorge before they reel to bed _180\nThe tenfold essence of all these.\n\n8.\nThere are mincing women, mewing,\n(Like cats, who amant misere,)\nOf their own virtue, and pursuing\nTheir gentler sisters to that ruin, _185\nWithout which—what were chastity?(2)\n\n9.\nLawyers—judges—old hobnobbers\nAre there—bailiffs—chancellors—\nBishops—great and little robbers—\nRhymesters—pamphleteers—stock-jobbers— _190\nMen of glory in the wars,—\n\n10.\nThings whose trade is, over ladies\nTo lean, and flirt, and stare, and simper,\nTill all that is divine in woman\nGrows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman, _195\nCrucified ’twixt a smile and whimper.\n\n11.\nThrusting, toiling, wailing, moiling,\nFrowning, preaching—such a riot!\nEach with never-ceasing labour,\nWhilst he thinks he cheats his neighbour, _200\nCheating his own heart of quiet.\n\n12.\nAnd all these meet at levees;—\nDinners convivial and political;—\nSuppers of epic poets;—teas,\nWhere small talk dies in agonies;— _205\nBreakfasts professional and critical;\n\n13.\nLunches and snacks so aldermanic\nThat one would furnish forth ten dinners,\nWhere reigns a Cretan-tongued panic,\nLest news Russ, Dutch, or Alemannic _210\nShould make some losers, and some winners—\n\n45.\nAt conversazioni—balls—\nConventicles—and drawing-rooms—\nCourts of law—committees—calls\nOf a morning—clubs—book-stalls— _215\nChurches—masquerades—and tombs.\n\n15.\nAnd this is Hell—and in this smother\nAll are damnable and damned;\nEach one damning, damns the other;\nThey are damned by one another, _220\nBy none other are they damned.\n\n16.\n’Tis a lie to say, ‘God damns’! (1)\nWhere was Heaven’s Attorney General\nWhen they first gave out such flams?\nLet there be an end of shams, _225\nThey are mines of poisonous mineral.\n\n17.\nStatesmen damn themselves to be\nCursed; and lawyers damn their souls\nTo the auction of a fee;\nChurchmen damn themselves to see _230\nGod’s sweet love in burning coals.\n\n18.\nThe rich are damned, beyond all cure,\nTo taunt, and starve, and trample on\nThe weak and wretched; and the poor\nDamn their broken hearts to endure _235\nStripe on stripe, with groan on groan.\n\n19.\nSometimes the poor are damned indeed\nTo take,—not means for being blessed,—\nBut Cobbett’s snuff, revenge; that weed\nFrom which the worms that it doth feed _240\nSqueeze less than they before possessed.\n\n20.\nAnd some few, like we know who,\nDamned—but God alone knows why—\nTo believe their minds are given\nTo make this ugly Hell a Heaven; _245\nIn which faith they live and die.\n\n21.\nThus, as in a town, plague-stricken,\nEach man be he sound or no\nMust indifferently sicken;\nAs when day begins to thicken, _250\nNone knows a pigeon from a crow,—\n\n22.\nSo good and bad, sane and mad,\nThe oppressor and the oppressed;\nThose who weep to see what others\nSmile to inflict upon their brothers; _255\nLovers, haters, worst and best;\n\n23.\nAll are damned—they breathe an air,\nThick, infected, joy-dispelling:\nEach pursues what seems most fair,\nMining like moles, through mind, and there _260\nScoop palace-caverns vast, where Care\nIn throned state is ever dwelling.\n\n\nPART 4.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Sin.", + "body": "1.\nLo. Peter in Hell’s Grosvenor Square,\nA footman in the Devil’s service!\nAnd the misjudging world would swear _265\nThat every man in service there\nTo virtue would prefer vice.\n\n2.\nBut Peter, though now damned, was not\nWhat Peter was before damnation.\nMen oftentimes prepare a lot _270\nWhich ere it finds them, is not what\nSuits with their genuine station.\n\n3.\nAll things that Peter saw and felt\nHad a peculiar aspect to him;\nAnd when they came within the belt _275\nOf his own nature, seemed to melt,\nLike cloud to cloud, into him.\n\n4.\nAnd so the outward world uniting\nTo that within him, he became\nConsiderably uninviting _280\nTo those who, meditation slighting,\nWere moulded in a different frame.\n\n5.\nAnd he scorned them, and they scorned him;\nAnd he scorned all they did; and they\nDid all that men of their own trim _285\nAre wont to do to please their whim,\nDrinking, lying, swearing, play.\n\n6.\nSuch were his fellow-servants; thus\nHis virtue, like our own, was built\nToo much on that indignant fuss _290\nHypocrite Pride stirs up in us\nTo bully one another’s guilt.\n\n7.\nHe had a mind which was somehow\nAt once circumference and centre\nOf all he might or feel or know; _295\nNothing went ever out, although\nSomething did ever enter.\n\n8.\nHe had as much imagination\nAs a pint-pot;—he never could\nFancy another situation, _300\nFrom which to dart his contemplation,\nThan that wherein he stood.\n\n9.\nYet his was individual mind,\nAnd new created all he saw\nIn a new manner, and refined _305\nThose new creations, and combined\nThem, by a master-spirit’s law.\n\n10.\nThus—though unimaginative—\nAn apprehension clear, intense,\nOf his mind’s work, had made alive _310\nThe things it wrought on; I believe\nWakening a sort of thought in sense.\n\n11.\nBut from the first ’twas Peter’s drift\nTo be a kind of moral eunuch,\nHe touched the hem of Nature’s shift, _315\nFelt faint—and never dared uplift\nThe closest, all-concealing tunic.\n\n12.\nShe laughed the while, with an arch smile,\nAnd kissed him with a sister’s kiss,\nAnd said—My best Diogenes, _320\nI love you well—but, if you please,\nTempt not again my deepest bliss.\n\n13.\n‘’Tis you are cold—for I, not coy,\nYield love for love, frank, warm, and true;\nAnd Burns, a Scottish peasant boy— _325\nHis errors prove it—knew my joy\nMore, learned friend, than you.\n\n14.\n‘Boeca bacciata non perde ventura,\nAnzi rinnuova come fa la luna:—\nSo thought Boccaccio, whose sweet words might cure a _330\nMale prude, like you, from what you now endure, a\nLow-tide in soul, like a stagnant laguna.\n\n15.\nThen Peter rubbed his eyes severe.\nAnd smoothed his spacious forehead down\nWith his broad palm;—’twixt love and fear, _335\nHe looked, as he no doubt felt, queer,\nAnd in his dream sate down.\n\n16.\nThe Devil was no uncommon creature;\nA leaden-witted thief—just huddled\nOut of the dross and scum of nature; _340\nA toad-like lump of limb and feature,\nWith mind, and heart, and fancy muddled.\n\n17.\nHe was that heavy, dull, cold thing,\nThe spirit of evil well may be:\nA drone too base to have a sting; _345\nWho gluts, and grimes his lazy wing,\nAnd calls lust, luxury.\n\n18.\nNow he was quite the kind of wight\nRound whom collect, at a fixed aera,\nVenison, turtle, hock, and claret,— _350\nGood cheer—and those who come to share it—\nAnd best East Indian madeira!\n\n19.\nIt was his fancy to invite\nMen of science, wit, and learning,\nWho came to lend each other light; _355\nHe proudly thought that his gold’s might\nHad set those spirits burning.\n\n20.\nAnd men of learning, science, wit,\nConsidered him as you and I\nThink of some rotten tree, and sit _360\nLounging and dining under it,\nExposed to the wide sky.\n\n21.\nAnd all the while with loose fat smile,\nThe willing wretch sat winking there,\nBelieving ’twas his power that made _365\nThat jovial scene—and that all paid\nHomage to his unnoticed chair.\n\n22.\nThough to be sure this place was Hell;\nHe was the Devil—and all they—\nWhat though the claret circled well, _370\nAnd wit, like ocean, rose and fell?—\nWere damned eternally.\n\n\nPART 5.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Grace.", + "body": "1.\nAmong the guests who often stayed\nTill the Devil’s petits-soupers,\nA man there came, fair as a maid, _375\nAnd Peter noted what he said,\nStanding behind his master’s chair.\n\n2.\nHe was a mighty poet—and\nA subtle-souled psychologist;\nAll things he seemed to understand, _380\nOf old or new—of sea or land—\nBut his own mind—which was a mist.\n\n3.\nThis was a man who might have turned\nHell into Heaven—and so in gladness\nA Heaven unto himself have earned; _385\nBut he in shadows undiscerned\nTrusted.—and damned himself to madness.\n\n4.\nHe spoke of poetry, and how\n‘Divine it was—a light—a love—\nA spirit which like wind doth blow _390\nAs it listeth, to and fro;\nA dew rained down from God above;\n\n5.\n‘A power which comes and goes like dream,\nAnd which none can ever trace—\nHeaven’s light on earth—Truth’s brightest beam.’ _395\nAnd when he ceased there lay the gleam\nOf those words upon his face.\n\n6.\nNow Peter, when he heard such talk,\nWould, heedless of a broken pate,\nStand like a man asleep, or balk _400\nSome wishing guest of knife or fork,\nOr drop and break his master’s plate.\n\n7.\nAt night he oft would start and wake\nLike a lover, and began\nIn a wild measure songs to make _405\nOn moor, and glen, and rocky lake,\nAnd on the heart of man—\n\n8.\nAnd on the universal sky—\nAnd the wide earth’s bosom green,—\nAnd the sweet, strange mystery _410\nOf what beyond these things may lie,\nAnd yet remain unseen.\n\n9.\nFor in his thought he visited\nThe spots in which, ere dead and damned,\nHe his wayward life had led; _415\nYet knew not whence the thoughts were fed\nWhich thus his fancy crammed.\n\n10.\nAnd these obscure remembrances\nStirred such harmony in Peter,\nThat, whensoever he should please, _420\nHe could speak of rocks and trees\nIn poetic metre.\n\n11.\nFor though it was without a sense\nOf memory, yet he remembered well\nMany a ditch and quick-set fence; _425\nOf lakes he had intelligence,\nHe knew something of heath and fell.\n\n12.\nHe had also dim recollections\nOf pedlars tramping on their rounds;\nMilk-pans and pails; and odd collections _430\nOf saws, and proverbs; and reflections\nOld parsons make in burying-grounds.\n\n13.\nBut Peter’s verse was clear, and came\nAnnouncing from the frozen hearth\nOf a cold age, that none might tame _435\nThe soul of that diviner flame\nIt augured to the Earth:\n\n14.\nLike gentle rains, on the dry plains,\nMaking that green which late was gray,\nOr like the sudden moon, that stains _440\nSome gloomy chamber’s window-panes\nWith a broad light like day.\n\n15.\nFor language was in Peter’s hand\nLike clay while he was yet a potter;\nAnd he made songs for all the land, _445\nSweet both to feel and understand,\nAs pipkins late to mountain Cotter.\n\n16.\nAnd Mr. —, the bookseller,\nGave twenty pounds for some;—then scorning\nA footman’s yellow coat to wear, _450\nPeter, too proud of heart, I fear,\nInstantly gave the Devil warning.\n\n17.\nWhereat the Devil took offence,\nAnd swore in his soul a great oath then,\n‘That for his damned impertinence _455\nHe’d bring him to a proper sense\nOf what was due to gentlemen!’\n\n\nPART 6.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Damnation.", + "body": "1.\n‘O that mine enemy had written\nA book!’—cried Job:—a fearful curse,\nIf to the Arab, as the Briton, _460\n’Twas galling to be critic-bitten:—\nThe Devil to Peter wished no worse.\n\n2.\nWhen Peter’s next new book found vent,\nThe Devil to all the first Reviews\nA copy of it slyly sent, _465\nWith five-pound note as compliment,\nAnd this short notice—‘Pray abuse.’\n\n3.\nThen seriatim, month and quarter,\nAppeared such mad tirades.—One said—\n‘Peter seduced Mrs. Foy’s daughter, _470\nThen drowned the mother in Ullswater,\nThe last thing as he went to bed.’\n\n4.\nAnother—‘Let him shave his head!\nWhere’s Dr. Willis?—Or is he joking?\nWhat does the rascal mean or hope, _475\nNo longer imitating Pope,\nIn that barbarian Shakespeare poking?’\n\n5.\nOne more, ‘Is incest not enough?\nAnd must there be adultery too?\nGrace after meat? Miscreant and Liar! _480\nThief! Blackguard! Scoundrel! Fool! hell-fire\nIs twenty times too good for you.\n\n6.\n‘By that last book of yours WE think\nYou’ve double damned yourself to scorn;\nWe warned you whilst yet on the brink _485\nYou stood. From your black name will shrink\nThe babe that is unborn.’\n\n7.\nAll these Reviews the Devil made\nUp in a parcel, which he had\nSafely to Peter’s house conveyed. _490\nFor carriage, tenpence Peter paid—\nUntied them—read them—went half mad.\n\n8.\n‘What!’ cried he, ‘this is my reward\nFor nights of thought, and days, of toil?\nDo poets, but to be abhorred _495\nBy men of whom they never heard,\nConsume their spirits’ oil?\n\n9.\n‘What have I done to them?—and who\nIS Mrs. Foy? ’Tis very cruel\nTo speak of me and Betty so! _500\nAdultery! God defend me! Oh!\nI’ve half a mind to fight a duel.\n\n10.\n‘Or,’ cried he, a grave look collecting,\n‘Is it my genius, like the moon,\nSets those who stand her face inspecting, _505\nThat face within their brain reflecting,\nLike a crazed bell-chime, out of tune?’\n\n11.\nFor Peter did not know the town,\nBut thought, as country readers do,\nFor half a guinea or a crown, _510\nHe bought oblivion or renown\nFrom God’s own voice (1) in a review.\n\n12.\nAll Peter did on this occasion\nWas, writing some sad stuff in prose.\nIt is a dangerous invasion _515\nWhen poets criticize; their station\nIs to delight, not pose.\n\n13.\nThe Devil then sent to Leipsic fair\nFor Born’s translation of Kant’s book;\nA world of words, tail foremost, where _520\nRight—wrong—false—true—and foul—and fair\nAs in a lottery-wheel are shook.\n\n14.\nFive thousand crammed octavo pages\nOf German psychologics,—he\nWho his furor verborum assuages _525\nThereon, deserves just seven months’ wages\nMore than will e’er be due to me.\n\n15.\nI looked on them nine several days,\nAnd then I saw that they were bad;\nA friend, too, spoke in their dispraise,— _530\nHe never read them;—with amaze\nI found Sir William Drummond had.\n\n16.\nWhen the book came, the Devil sent\nIt to P. Verbovale (2), Esquire,\nWith a brief note of compliment, _535\nBy that night’s Carlisle mail. It went,\nAnd set his soul on fire.\n\n17.\nFire, which ex luce praebens fumum,\nMade him beyond the bottom see\nOf truth’s clear well—when I and you, Ma’am, _540\nGo, as we shall do, subter humum,\nWe may know more than he.\n\n18.\nNow Peter ran to seed in soul\nInto a walking paradox;\nFor he was neither part nor whole, _545\nNor good, nor bad—nor knave nor fool;\n—Among the woods and rocks\n\n19.\nFurious he rode, where late he ran,\nLashing and spurring his tame hobby;\nTurned to a formal puritan, _550\nA solemn and unsexual man,—\nHe half believed “White Obi”.\n\n20.\nThis steed in vision he would ride,\nHigh trotting over nine-inch bridges,\nWith Flibbertigibbet, imp of pride, _555\nMocking and mowing by his side—\nA mad-brained goblin for a guide—\nOver corn-fields, gates, and hedges.\n\n21.\nAfter these ghastly rides, he came\nHome to his heart, and found from thence _560\nMuch stolen of its accustomed flame;\nHis thoughts grew weak, drowsy, and lame\nOf their intelligence.\n\n22.\nTo Peter’s view, all seemed one hue;\nHe was no Whig, he was no Tory; _565\nNo Deist and no Christian he;—\nHe got so subtle, that to be\nNothing, was all his glory.\n\n23.\nOne single point in his belief\nFrom his organization sprung, _570\nThe heart-enrooted faith, the chief\nEar in his doctrines’ blighted sheaf,\nThat ‘Happiness is wrong’;\n\n24.\nSo thought Calvin and Dominic;\nSo think their fierce successors, who _575\nEven now would neither stint nor stick\nOur flesh from off our bones to pick,\nIf they might ‘do their do.’\n\n25.\nHis morals thus were undermined:—\nThe old Peter—the hard, old Potter— _580\nWas born anew within his mind;\nHe grew dull, harsh, sly, unrefined,\nAs when he tramped beside the Otter. (1)\n\n26.\nIn the death hues of agony\nLambently flashing from a fish, _585\nNow Peter felt amused to see\nShades like a rainbow’s rise and flee,\nMixed with a certain hungry wish(2).\n\n27.\nSo in his Country’s dying face\nHe looked—and, lovely as she lay, _590\nSeeking in vain his last embrace,\nWailing her own abandoned case,\nWith hardened sneer he turned away:\n\n28.\nAnd coolly to his own soul said;—\n‘Do you not think that we might make _595\nA poem on her when she’s dead:—\nOr, no—a thought is in my head—\nHer shroud for a new sheet I’ll take:\n\n29.\n‘My wife wants one.—Let who will bury\nThis mangled corpse! And I and you, _600\nMy dearest Soul, will then make merry,\nAs the Prince Regent did with Sherry,—’\n‘Ay—and at last desert me too.’\n\n30.\nAnd so his Soul would not be gay,\nBut moaned within him; like a fawn _605\nMoaning within a cave, it lay\nWounded and wasting, day by day,\nTill all its life of life was gone.\n\n31.\nAs troubled skies stain waters clear,\nThe storm in Peter’s heart and mind _610\nNow made his verses dark and queer:\nThey were the ghosts of what they were,\nShaking dim grave-clothes in the wind.\n\n32.\nFor he now raved enormous folly,\nOf Baptisms, Sunday-schools, and Graves, _615\n’Twould make George Colman melancholy\nTo have heard him, like a male Molly,\nChanting those stupid staves.\n\n33.\nYet the Reviews, who heaped abuse\nOn Peter while he wrote for freedom, _620\nSo soon as in his song they spy\nThe folly which soothes tyranny,\nPraise him, for those who feed ’em.\n\n34.\n‘He was a man, too great to scan;—\nA planet lost in truth’s keen rays:— _625\nHis virtue, awful and prodigious;—\nHe was the most sublime, religious,\nPure-minded Poet of these days.’\n\n35.\nAs soon as he read that, cried Peter,\n‘Eureka! I have found the way _630\nTo make a better thing of metre\nThan e’er was made by living creature\nUp to this blessed day.’\n\n36.\nThen Peter wrote odes to the Devil;—\nIn one of which he meekly said: _635\n‘May Carnage and Slaughter,\nThy niece and thy daughter,\nMay Rapine and Famine,\nThy gorge ever cramming,\nGlut thee with living and dead! _640\n\n37.\n‘May Death and Damnation,\nAnd Consternation,\nFlit up from Hell with pure intent!\nSlash them at Manchester,\nGlasgow, Leeds, and Chester; _645\nDrench all with blood from Avon to Trent.\n\n38.\n‘Let thy body-guard yeomen\nHew down babes and women,\nAnd laugh with bold triumph till Heaven be rent!\nWhen Moloch in Jewry _650\nMunched children with fury,\nIt was thou, Devil, dining with pure intent. (1)\n\n\nPART 7.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Double Damnation.", + "body": "1.\nThe Devil now knew his proper cue.—\nSoon as he read the ode, he drove\nTo his friend Lord MacMurderchouse’s, _655\nA man of interest in both houses,\nAnd said:—‘For money or for love,\n\n2.\n‘Pray find some cure or sinecure;\nTo feed from the superfluous taxes\nA friend of ours—a poet—fewer _660\nHave fluttered tamer to the lure\nThan he.’ His lordship stands and racks his\n\n3.\nStupid brains, while one might count\nAs many beads as he had boroughs,—\nAt length replies; from his mean front, _665\nLike one who rubs out an account,\nSmoothing away the unmeaning furrows:\n\n4.\n‘It happens fortunately, dear Sir,\nI can. I hope I need require\nNo pledge from you, that he will stir _670\nIn our affairs;—like Oliver.\nThat he’ll be worthy of his hire.’\n\n5.\nThese words exchanged, the news sent off\nTo Peter, home the Devil hied,—\nTook to his bed; he had no cough, _675\nNo doctor,—meat and drink enough.—\nYet that same night he died.\n\n6.\nThe Devil’s corpse was leaded down;\nHis decent heirs enjoyed his pelf,\nMourning-coaches, many a one, _680\nFollowed his hearse along the town:—\nWhere was the Devil himself?\n\n7.\nWhen Peter heard of his promotion,\nHis eyes grew like two stars for bliss:\nThere was a bow of sleek devotion _685\nEngendering in his back; each motion\nSeemed a Lord’s shoe to kiss.\n\n8.\nHe hired a house, bought plate, and made\nA genteel drive up to his door,\nWith sifted gravel neatly laid,— _690\nAs if defying all who said,\nPeter was ever poor.\n\n9.\nBut a disease soon struck into\nThe very life and soul of Peter—\nHe walked about—slept—had the hue _695\nOf health upon his cheeks—and few\nDug better—none a heartier eater.\n\n10.\nAnd yet a strange and horrid curse\nClung upon Peter, night and day;\nMonth after month the thing grew worse, _700\nAnd deadlier than in this my verse\nI can find strength to say.\n\n11.\nPeter was dull—he was at first\nDull—oh, so dull—so very dull!\nWhether he talked, wrote, or rehearsed— _705\nStill with this dulness was he cursed—\nDull—beyond all conception—dull.\n\n12.\nNo one could read his books—no mortal,\nBut a few natural friends, would hear him;\nThe parson came not near his portal; _710\nHis state was like that of the immortal\nDescribed by Swift—no man could bear him.\n\n13.\nHis sister, wife, and children yawned,\nWith a long, slow, and drear ennui,\nAll human patience far beyond; _715\nTheir hopes of Heaven each would have pawned,\nAnywhere else to be.\n\n14.\nBut in his verse, and in his prose,\nThe essence of his dulness was\nConcentred and compressed so close, _720\n’Twould have made Guatimozin doze\nOn his red gridiron of brass.\n\n15.\nA printer’s boy, folding those pages,\nFell slumbrously upon one side;\nLike those famed Seven who slept three ages. _725\nTo wakeful frenzy’s vigil—rages,\nAs opiates, were the same applied.\n\n16.\nEven the Reviewers who were hired\nTo do the work of his reviewing,\nWith adamantine nerves, grew tired;— _730\nGaping and torpid they retired,\nTo dream of what they should be doing.\n\n17.\nAnd worse and worse, the drowsy curse\nYawned in him, till it grew a pest—\nA wide contagious atmosphere, _735\nCreeping like cold through all things near;\nA power to infect and to infest.\n\n18.\nHis servant-maids and dogs grew dull;\nHis kitten, late a sportive elf;\nThe woods and lakes, so beautiful, _740\nOf dim stupidity were full.\nAll grew dull as Peter’s self.\n\n19.\nThe earth under his feet—the springs,\nWhich lived within it a quick life,\nThe air, the winds of many wings, _745\nThat fan it with new murmurings,\nWere dead to their harmonious strife.\n\n20.\nThe birds and beasts within the wood,\nThe insects, and each creeping thing,\nWere now a silent multitude; _750\nLove’s work was left unwrought—no brood\nNear Peter’s house took wing.\n\n21.\nAnd every neighbouring cottager\nStupidly yawned upon the other:\nNo jackass brayed; no little cur _755\nCocked up his ears;—no man would stir\nTo save a dying mother.\n\n22.\nYet all from that charmed district went\nBut some half-idiot and half-knave,\nWho rather than pay any rent, _760\nWould live with marvellous content,\nOver his father’s grave.\n\n23.\nNo bailiff dared within that space,\nFor fear of the dull charm, to enter;\nA man would bear upon his face, _765\nFor fifteen months in any case,\nThe yawn of such a venture.\n\n24.\nSeven miles above—below—around—\nThis pest of dulness holds its sway;\nA ghastly life without a sound; _770\nTo Peter’s soul the spell is bound—\nHow should it ever pass away?\n\n(_8 To those who have not duly appreciated the distinction between\nWhale and Russia oil, this attribute might rather seem to belong to\nthe Dandy than the Evangelic. The effect, when to the windward, is\nindeed so similar, that it requires a subtle naturalist to\ndiscriminate the animals. They belong, however, to distinct\ngenera.—[SHELLEY’s NOTE.)\n\n(_183 One of the attributes in Linnaeus’s description of the Cat. To a\nsimilar cause the caterwauling of more than one species of this genus\nis to be referred;—except, indeed, that the poor quadruped is\ncompelled to quarrel with its own pleasures, whilst the biped is\nsupposed only to quarrel with those of others.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n(_186 What would this husk and excuse for a virtue be without its\nkernel prostitution, or the kernel prostitution without this husk of a\nvirtue? I wonder the women of the town do not form an association,\nlike the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for the support of what\nmay be called the ‘King, Church, and Constitution’ of their order. But\nthis subject is almost too horrible for a joke.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n(_222 This libel on our national oath, and this accusation of all our\ncountrymen of being in the daily practice of solemnly asseverating the\nmost enormous falsehood, I fear deserves the notice of a more active\nAttorney General than that here alluded to.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n_292 one Fleay cj., Rossetti, Forman, Dowden, Woodberry;\n out 1839, 2nd edition.\n_500 Betty]Emma 1839, 2nd edition. See letter from Shelley to Ollier,\n May 14, 1820 (Shelley Memorials, page 139).\n\n(_512 Vox populi, vox dei. As Mr. Godwin truly observes of a more\nfamous saying, of some merit as a popular maxim, but totally destitute\nof philosophical accuracy.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n(_534 Quasi, Qui valet verba:—i.e. all the words which have been,\nare, or may be expended by, for, against, with, or on him. A\nsufficient proof of the utility of this history. Peter’s progenitor\nwho selected this name seems to have possessed A PURE ANTICIPATED\nCOGNITION of the nature and modesty of this ornament of his\nposterity.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n_602-3 See Editor’s Note.\n\n(_583 A famous river in the new Atlantis of the Dynastophylic\nPantisocratists.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n(_588 See the description of the beautiful colours produced during the\nagonizing death of a number of trout, in the fourth part of a long\npoem in blank verse, published within a few years. [“The Excursion”, 8\n2 568-71.—Ed.] That poem contains curious evidence of the gradual\nhardening of a strong but circumscribed sensibility, of the perversion\nof a penetrating but panic-stricken understanding. The author might\nhave derived a lesson which he had probably forgotten from these sweet\nand sublime verses:—\n\n‘This lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,\nTaught both by what she (Nature) shows and what conceals,\nNever to blend our pleasure or our pride\nWith sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.’—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n(_652 It is curious to observe how often extremes meet. Cobbett and\nPeter use the same language for a different purpose: Peter is indeed a\nsort of metrical Cobbett. Cobbett is, however, more mischievous than\nPeter, because he pollutes a holy and how unconquerable cause with the\nprinciples of legitimate murder; whilst the other only makes a bad one\nridiculous and odious.\n\nIf either Peter or Cobbett should see this note, each will feel more\nindignation at being compared to the other than at any censure implied\nin the moral perversion laid to their charge.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Peter Bell The Third, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "In this new edition I have added “Peter Bell the Third”. A critique on\nWordsworth’s “Peter Bell” reached us at Leghorn, which amused Shelley\nexceedingly, and suggested this poem.\n\nI need scarcely observe that nothing personal to the author of “Peter\nBell” is intended in this poem. No man ever admired Wordsworth’s\npoetry more;—he read it perpetually, and taught others to appreciate\nits beauties. This poem is, like all others written by Shelley, ideal.\nHe conceived the idealism of a poet—a man of lofty and creative\ngenius—quitting the glorious calling of discovering and announcing\nthe beautiful and good, to support and propagate ignorant prejudices\nand pernicious errors; imparting to the unenlightened, not that ardour\nfor truth and spirit of toleration which Shelley looked on as the\nsources of the moral improvement and happiness of mankind, but false\nand injurious opinions, that evil was good, and that ignorance and\nforce were the best allies of purity and virtue. His idea was that a\nman gifted, even as transcendently as the author of “Peter Bell”, with\nthe highest qualities of genius, must, if he fostered such errors, be\ninfected with dulness. This poem was written as a warning—not as a\nnarration of the reality. He was unacquainted personally with\nWordsworth, or with Coleridge (to whom he alludes in the fifth part of\nthe poem), and therefore, I repeat, his poem is purely ideal;—it\ncontains something of criticism on the compositions of those great\npoets, but nothing injurious to the men themselves.\n\nNo poem contains more of Shelley’s peculiar views with regard to the\nerrors into which many of the wisest have fallen, and the pernicious\neffects of certain opinions on society. Much of it is beautifully\nwritten: and, though, like the burlesque drama of “Swellfoot”, it must\nbe looked on as a plaything, it has so much merit and poetry—so much\nof HIMSELF in it—that it cannot fail to interest greatly, and by\nright belongs to the world for whose instruction and benefit it was\nwritten.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Letter To Maria Gisborne.", + "body": "[Composed during Shelley’s occupation of the Gisbornes’ house at\nLeghorn, July, 1820; published in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Sources of\nthe text are (1) a draft in Shelley’s hand, ‘partly illegible’\n(Forman), amongst the Boscombe manuscripts; (2) a transcript by Mrs.\nShelley; (3) the editio princeps, 1824; the text in “Poetical Works”,\n1839, let and 2nd editions. Our text is that of Mrs. Shelley’s\ntranscript, modified by the Boscombe manuscript. Here, as elsewhere in\nthis edition, the readings of the editio princeps are preserved in the\nfootnotes.]\n\nLEGHORN, July 1, 1820.]\n\nThe spider spreads her webs, whether she be\nIn poet’s tower, cellar, or barn, or tree;\nThe silk-worm in the dark green mulberry leaves\nHis winding sheet and cradle ever weaves;\nSo I, a thing whom moralists call worm, _5\nSit spinning still round this decaying form,\nFrom the fine threads of rare and subtle thought—\nNo net of words in garish colours wrought\nTo catch the idle buzzers of the day—\nBut a soft cell, where when that fades away, _10\nMemory may clothe in wings my living name\nAnd feed it with the asphodels of fame,\nWhich in those hearts which must remember me\nGrow, making love an immortality.\n\nWhoever should behold me now, I wist, _15\nWould think I were a mighty mechanist,\nBent with sublime Archimedean art\nTo breathe a soul into the iron heart\nOf some machine portentous, or strange gin,\nWhich by the force of figured spells might win _20\nIts way over the sea, and sport therein;\nFor round the walls are hung dread engines, such\nAs Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch\nIxion or the Titan:—or the quick\nWit of that man of God, St. Dominic, _25\nTo convince Atheist, Turk, or Heretic,\nOr those in philanthropic council met,\nWho thought to pay some interest for the debt\nThey owed to Jesus Christ for their salvation,\nBy giving a faint foretaste of damnation _30\nTo Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, and the rest\nWho made our land an island of the blest,\nWhen lamp-like Spain, who now relumes her fire\nOn Freedom’s hearth, grew dim with Empire:—\nWith thumbscrews, wheels, with tooth and spike and jag, _35\nWhich fishers found under the utmost crag\nOf Cornwall and the storm-encompassed isles,\nWhere to the sky the rude sea rarely smiles\nUnless in treacherous wrath, as on the morn\nWhen the exulting elements in scorn, _40\nSatiated with destroyed destruction, lay\nSleeping in beauty on their mangled prey,\nAs panthers sleep;—and other strange and dread\nMagical forms the brick floor overspread,—\nProteus transformed to metal did not make _45\nMore figures, or more strange; nor did he take\nSuch shapes of unintelligible brass,\nOr heap himself in such a horrid mass\nOf tin and iron not to be understood;\nAnd forms of unimaginable wood, _50\nTo puzzle Tubal Cain and all his brood:\nGreat screws, and cones, and wheels, and grooved blocks,\nThe elements of what will stand the shocks\nOf wave and wind and time.—Upon the table\nMore knacks and quips there be than I am able _55\nTo catalogize in this verse of mine:—\nA pretty bowl of wood—not full of wine,\nBut quicksilver; that dew which the gnomes drink\nWhen at their subterranean toil they swink,\nPledging the demons of the earthquake, who _60\nReply to them in lava—cry halloo!\nAnd call out to the cities o’er their head,—\nRoofs, towers, and shrines, the dying and the dead,\nCrash through the chinks of earth—and then all quaff\nAnother rouse, and hold their sides and laugh. _65\nThis quicksilver no gnome has drunk—within\nThe walnut bowl it lies, veined and thin,\nIn colour like the wake of light that stains\nThe Tuscan deep, when from the moist moon rains\nThe inmost shower of its white fire—the breeze _70\nIs still—blue Heaven smiles over the pale seas.\nAnd in this bowl of quicksilver—for I\nYield to the impulse of an infancy\nOutlasting manhood—I have made to float\nA rude idealism of a paper boat:— _75\nA hollow screw with cogs—Henry will know\nThe thing I mean and laugh at me,—if so\nHe fears not I should do more mischief.—Next\nLie bills and calculations much perplexed,\nWith steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint _80\nTraced over them in blue and yellow paint.\nThen comes a range of mathematical\nInstruments, for plans nautical and statical,\nA heap of rosin, a queer broken glass\nWith ink in it;—a china cup that was _85\nWhat it will never be again, I think,—\nA thing from which sweet lips were wont to drink\nThe liquor doctors rail at—and which I\nWill quaff in spite of them—and when we die\nWe’ll toss up who died first of drinking tea, _90\nAnd cry out,—‘Heads or tails?’ where’er we be.\nNear that a dusty paint-box, some odd hooks,\nA half-burnt match, an ivory block, three books,\nWhere conic sections, spherics, logarithms,\nTo great Laplace, from Saunderson and Sims, _95\nLie heaped in their harmonious disarray\nOf figures,—disentangle them who may.\nBaron de Tott’s Memoirs beside them lie,\nAnd some odd volumes of old chemistry.\nNear those a most inexplicable thing, _100\nWith lead in the middle—I’m conjecturing\nHow to make Henry understand; but no—\nI’ll leave, as Spenser says, with many mo,\nThis secret in the pregnant womb of time,\nToo vast a matter for so weak a rhyme. _105\n\nAnd here like some weird Archimage sit I,\nPlotting dark spells, and devilish enginery,\nThe self-impelling steam-wheels of the mind\nWhich pump up oaths from clergymen, and grind\nThe gentle spirit of our meek reviews _110\nInto a powdery foam of salt abuse,\nRuffling the ocean of their self-content;—\nI sit—and smile or sigh as is my bent,\nBut not for them—Libeccio rushes round\nWith an inconstant and an idle sound, _115\nI heed him more than them—the thunder-smoke\nIs gathering on the mountains, like a cloak\nFolded athwart their shoulders broad and bare;\nThe ripe corn under the undulating air\nUndulates like an ocean;—and the vines _120\nAre trembling wide in all their trellised lines—\nThe murmur of the awakening sea doth fill\nThe empty pauses of the blast;—the hill\nLooks hoary through the white electric rain,\nAnd from the glens beyond, in sullen strain, _125\nThe interrupted thunder howls; above\nOne chasm of Heaven smiles, like the eye of Love\nOn the unquiet world;—while such things are,\nHow could one worth your friendship heed the war\nOf worms? the shriek of the world’s carrion jays, _130\nTheir censure, or their wonder, or their praise?\n\nYou are not here! the quaint witch Memory sees,\nIn vacant chairs, your absent images,\nAnd points where once you sat, and now should be\nBut are not.—I demand if ever we _135\nShall meet as then we met;—and she replies.\nVeiling in awe her second-sighted eyes;\n‘I know the past alone—but summon home\nMy sister Hope,—she speaks of all to come.’\nBut I, an old diviner, who knew well _140\nEvery false verse of that sweet oracle,\nTurned to the sad enchantress once again,\nAnd sought a respite from my gentle pain,\nIn citing every passage o’er and o’er\nOf our communion—how on the sea-shore _145\nWe watched the ocean and the sky together,\nUnder the roof of blue Italian weather;\nHow I ran home through last year’s thunder-storm,\nAnd felt the transverse lightning linger warm\nUpon my cheek—and how we often made _150\nFeasts for each other, where good will outweighed\nThe frugal luxury of our country cheer,\nAs well it might, were it less firm and clear\nThan ours must ever be;—and how we spun\nA shroud of talk to hide us from the sun _155\nOf this familiar life, which seems to be\nBut is not:—or is but quaint mockery\nOf all we would believe, and sadly blame\nThe jarring and inexplicable frame\nOf this wrong world:—and then anatomize _160\nThe purposes and thoughts of men whose eyes\nWere closed in distant years;—or widely guess\nThe issue of the earth’s great business,\nWhen we shall be as we no longer are—\nLike babbling gossips safe, who hear the war _165\nOf winds, and sigh, but tremble not;—or how\nYou listened to some interrupted flow\nOf visionary rhyme,—in joy and pain\nStruck from the inmost fountains of my brain,\nWith little skill perhaps;—or how we sought _170\nThose deepest wells of passion or of thought\nWrought by wise poets in the waste of years,\nStaining their sacred waters with our tears;\nQuenching a thirst ever to be renewed!\nOr how I, wisest lady! then endued _175\nThe language of a land which now is free,\nAnd, winged with thoughts of truth and majesty,\nFlits round the tyrant’s sceptre like a cloud,\nAnd bursts the peopled prisons, and cries aloud,\n‘My name is Legion!’—that majestic tongue _180\nWhich Calderon over the desert flung\nOf ages and of nations; and which found\nAn echo in our hearts, and with the sound\nStartled oblivion;—thou wert then to me\nAs is a nurse—when inarticulately _185\nA child would talk as its grown parents do.\nIf living winds the rapid clouds pursue,\nIf hawks chase doves through the aethereal way,\nHuntsmen the innocent deer, and beasts their prey,\nWhy should not we rouse with the spirit’s blast _190\nOut of the forest of the pathless past\nThese recollected pleasures?\nYou are now\nIn London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow\nAt once is deaf and loud, and on the shore\nVomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. _195\nYet in its depth what treasures! You will see\nThat which was Godwin,—greater none than he\nThough fallen—and fallen on evil times—to stand\nAmong the spirits of our age and land,\nBefore the dread tribunal of “to come” _200\nThe foremost,—while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb.\nYou will see Coleridge—he who sits obscure\nIn the exceeding lustre and the pure\nIntense irradiation of a mind,\nWhich, with its own internal lightning blind, _200\nFlags wearily through darkness and despair—\nA cloud-encircled meteor of the air,\nA hooded eagle among blinking owls.—\nYou will see Hunt—one of those happy souls\nWhich are the salt of the earth, and without whom _210\nThis world would smell like what it is—a tomb;\nWho is, what others seem; his room no doubt\nIs still adorned with many a cast from Shout,\nWith graceful flowers tastefully placed about;\nAnd coronals of bay from ribbons hung, _215\nAnd brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung;\nThe gifts of the most learned among some dozens\nOf female friends, sisters-in-law, and cousins.\nAnd there is he with his eternal puns,\nWhich beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns _220\nThundering for money at a poet’s door;\nAlas! it is no use to say, ‘I’m poor!’\nOr oft in graver mood, when he will look\nThings wiser than were ever read in book,\nExcept in Shakespeare’s wisest tenderness.— _225\nYou will see Hogg,—and I cannot express\nHis virtues,—though I know that they are great,\nBecause he locks, then barricades the gate\nWithin which they inhabit;—of his wit\nAnd wisdom, you’ll cry out when you are bit. _230\nHe is a pearl within an oyster shell.\nOne of the richest of the deep;—and there\nIs English Peacock, with his mountain Fair,\nTurned into a Flamingo;—that shy bird\nThat gleams i’ the Indian air—have you not heard _235\nWhen a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,\nHis best friends hear no more of him?—but you\nWill see him, and will like him too, I hope,\nWith the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope\nMatched with this cameleopard—his fine wit _240\nMakes such a wound, the knife is lost in it;\nA strain too learned for a shallow age,\nToo wise for selfish bigots; let his page,\nWhich charms the chosen spirits of the time,\nFold itself up for the serener clime _245\nOf years to come, and find its recompense\nIn that just expectation.—Wit and sense,\nVirtue and human knowledge; all that might\nMake this dull world a business of delight,\nAre all combined in Horace Smith.—And these. _250\nWith some exceptions, which I need not tease\nYour patience by descanting on,—are all\nYou and I know in London.\nI recall\nMy thoughts, and bid you look upon the night.\nAs water does a sponge, so the moonlight _255\nFills the void, hollow, universal air—\nWhat see you?—unpavilioned Heaven is fair,\nWhether the moon, into her chamber gone,\nLeaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan\nClimbs with diminished beams the azure steep; _260\nOr whether clouds sail o’er the inverse deep,\nPiloted by the many-wandering blast,\nAnd the rare stars rush through them dim and fast:—\nAll this is beautiful in every land.—\nBut what see you beside?—a shabby stand _265\nOf Hackney coaches—a brick house or wall\nFencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl\nOf our unhappy politics;—or worse—\nA wretched woman reeling by, whose curse\nMixed with the watchman’s, partner of her trade, _270\nYou must accept in place of serenade—\nOr yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring\nTo Henry, some unutterable thing.\nI see a chaos of green leaves and fruit\nBuilt round dark caverns, even to the root _275\nOf the living stems that feed them—in whose bowers\nThere sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers;\nBeyond, the surface of the unsickled corn\nTrembles not in the slumbering air, and borne\nIn circles quaint, and ever-changing dance, _280\nLike winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance,\nPale in the open moonshine, but each one\nUnder the dark trees seems a little sun,\nA meteor tamed; a fixed star gone astray\nFrom the silver regions of the milky way;— _285\nAfar the Contadino’s song is heard,\nRude, but made sweet by distance—and a bird\nWhich cannot be the Nightingale, and yet\nI know none else that sings so sweet as it\nAt this late hour;—and then all is still— _290\nNow—Italy or London, which you will!\n\nNext winter you must pass with me; I’ll have\nMy house by that time turned into a grave\nOf dead despondence and low-thoughted care,\nAnd all the dreams which our tormentors are; _295\nOh! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock, and Smith were there,\nWith everything belonging to them fair!—\nWe will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek;\nAnd ask one week to make another week\nAs like his father, as I’m unlike mine, _300\nWhich is not his fault, as you may divine.\nThough we eat little flesh and drink no wine,\nYet let’s be merry: we’ll have tea and toast;\nCustards for supper, and an endless host\nOf syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies, _305\nAnd other such lady-like luxuries,—\nFeasting on which we will philosophize!\nAnd we’ll have fires out of the Grand Duke’s wood,\nTo thaw the six weeks’ winter in our blood.\nAnd then we’ll talk;—what shall we talk about? _310\nOh! there are themes enough for many a bout\nOf thought-entangled descant;—as to nerves—\nWith cones and parallelograms and curves\nI’ve sworn to strangle them if once they dare\nTo bother me—when you are with me there. _315\nAnd they shall never more sip laudanum,\nFrom Helicon or Himeros (1);—well, come,\nAnd in despite of God and of the devil,\nWe’ll make our friendly philosophic revel\nOutlast the leafless time; till buds and flowers _320\nWarn the obscure inevitable hours,\nSweet meeting by sad parting to renew;—\n‘To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.’\n\n_13 must Bos. manuscript; most edition 1824.\n_27 philanthropic Bos. manuscript; philosophic edition 1824.\n_29 so 1839, 2nd edition; They owed... edition 1824.\n_36 Which fishers Bos. manuscript; Which fishes edition 1824;\n With fishes editions 1839.\n_38 rarely transcript; seldom editions 1824, 1839.\n_61 lava—cry]lava-cry editions 1824, 1839.\n_63 towers transcript; towns editions 1824, 1839.\n_84 queer Bos. manuscript; green transcript, editions 1824, 1839.\n_92 odd hooks transcript; old books editions 1839 (an evident misprint);\n old hooks edition 1824.\n_93 A]An edition 1824.\n_100 those transcript; them editions 1824, 1839.\n_101 lead Bos. manuscript; least transcript, editions 1824, 1839.\n_127 eye Bos. manuscript, transcript, editions 1839; age edition 1824.\n_140 knew Bos. manuscript; know transcript, editions 1824, 1839.\n_144 citing Bos. manuscript; acting transcript, editions 1824, 1839.\n_151 Feasts transcript; Treats editions 1824, 1839.\n_153 As well it]As it well editions 1824, 1839.\n_158 believe, and]believe; or editions 1824, 1839.\n_173 their transcript; the editions 1824, 1839.\n_188 aethereal transcript; aereal editions 1824, 1839.\n_197-201 See notes Volume 3.\n_202 Coleridge]C— edition 1824. So too H—t l. 209; H— l. 226;\n P— l. 233; H.S. l. 250; H— — and — l. 296.\n_205 lightning Bos. manuscript, transcript; lustre editions 1824, 1839.\n_224 read Bos. manuscript; said transcript, editions 1824, 1839.\n_244 time Bos. manuscript, transcript; age editions 1824, 1839.\n_245 the transcript: a editions 1824, 1839.\n_272, _273 found in the 2nd edition of P. W., 1839;\n wanting in transcript, edition 1824 and 1839, 1st. edition.\n_276 that transcript; who editions 1824, 1839.\n_288 the transcript; a editions 1824, 1839.\n_296 See notes Volume 3.\n_299, _300 So 1839, 2nd edition; wanting in editions 1824, 1839, 1st.\n_301 So transcript; wanting in editions 1824, 1839.\n_317 well, come 1839, 2nd edition; we’ll come editions 1824, 1839. 1st.\n_318 despite of God] transcript; despite of... edition 1824;\n spite of... editions 1839.\n\n(_317 Imeros, from which the river Himera was named, is, with some\nslight shade of difference, a synonym of Love.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Witch Of Atlas.", + "body": "[Composed at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 14-16, 1820;\npublished in Posthumous Poems, edition Mrs. Shelley, 1824. The\ndedication To Mas-y first appeared in the Poetical Works, 1839, 1st\nedition Sources of the text are (1) the editio princeps, 1824; (2)\neditions 1839 (which agree, and, save in two instances, follow edition\n1824); (3) an early and incomplete manuscript in Shelley’s handwriting\n(now at the Bodleian, here, as throughout, cited as B.), carefully\ncollated by Mr. C.D. Locock, who printed the results in his\nExamination of the Shelley manuscripts, etc., Oxford, Clarendon Press,\n1903; (4) a later, yet intermediate, transcript by Mrs. Shelley, the\nvariations of which are noted by Mr. H. Buxton Forman. The original\ntext is modified in many places by variants from the manuscripts, but\nthe readings of edition 1824 are, in every instance, given in the\nfootnotes.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Witch Of Atlas.", + "body": "1.\nBefore those cruel Twins, whom at one birth\nIncestuous Change bore to her father Time, _50\nError and Truth, had hunted from the Earth\nAll those bright natures which adorned its prime,\nAnd left us nothing to believe in, worth\nThe pains of putting into learned rhyme,\nA lady-witch there lived on Atlas’ mountain _55\nWithin a cavern, by a secret fountain.\n\n2.\nHer mother was one of the Atlantides:\nThe all-beholding Sun had ne’er beholden\nIn his wide voyage o’er continents and seas\nSo fair a creature, as she lay enfolden _60\nIn the warm shadow of her loveliness;—\nHe kissed her with his beams, and made all golden\nThe chamber of gray rock in which she lay—\nShe, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.\n\n3.\n’Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour, _65\nAnd then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,\nLike splendour-winged moths about a taper,\nRound the red west when the sun dies in it:\nAnd then into a meteor, such as caper\nOn hill-tops when the moon is in a fit: _70\nThen, into one of those mysterious stars\nWhich hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.\n\n4.\nTen times the Mother of the Months had bent\nHer bow beside the folding-star, and bidden\nWith that bright sign the billows to indent _75\nThe sea-deserted sand—like children chidden,\nAt her command they ever came and went—\nSince in that cave a dewy splendour hidden\nTook shape and motion: with the living form\nOf this embodied Power, the cave grew warm. _80\n\n5.\nA lovely lady garmented in light\nFrom her own beauty—deep her eyes, as are\nTwo openings of unfathomable night\nSeen through a Temple’s cloven roof—her hair\nDark—the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight. _85\nPicturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,\nAnd her low voice was heard like love, and drew\nAll living things towards this wonder new.\n\n6.\nAnd first the spotted cameleopard came,\nAnd then the wise and fearless elephant; _90\nThen the sly serpent, in the golden flame\nOf his own volumes intervolved;—all gaunt\nAnd sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame.\nThey drank before her at her sacred fount;\nAnd every beast of beating heart grew bold, _95\nSuch gentleness and power even to behold.\n\n7.\nThe brinded lioness led forth her young,\nThat she might teach them how they should forego\nTheir inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung\nHis sinews at her feet, and sought to know _100\nWith looks whose motions spoke without a tongue\nHow he might be as gentle as the doe.\nThe magic circle of her voice and eyes\nAll savage natures did imparadise.\n\n8.\nAnd old Silenus, shaking a green stick _105\nOf lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew\nCame, blithe, as in the olive copses thick\nCicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew:\nAnd Dryope and Faunus followed quick,\nTeasing the God to sing them something new; _110\nTill in this cave they found the lady lone,\nSitting upon a seat of emerald stone.\n\n9.\nAnd universal Pan, ’tis said, was there,\nAnd though none saw him,—through the adamant\nOf the deep mountains, through the trackless air, _115\nAnd through those living spirits, like a want,\nHe passed out of his everlasting lair\nWhere the quick heart of the great world doth pant,\nAnd felt that wondrous lady all alone,—\nAnd she felt him, upon her emerald throne. _120\n\n10.\nAnd every nymph of stream and spreading tree,\nAnd every shepherdess of Ocean’s flocks,\nWho drives her white waves over the green sea,\nAnd Ocean with the brine on his gray locks,\nAnd quaint Priapus with his company, _125\nAll came, much wondering how the enwombed rocks\nCould have brought forth so beautiful a birth;—\nHer love subdued their wonder and their mirth.\n\n11.\nThe herdsmen and the mountain maidens came,\nAnd the rude kings of pastoral Garamant— _130\nTheir spirits shook within them, as a flame\nStirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:\nPigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name,\nCentaurs, and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt\nWet clefts,—and lumps neither alive nor dead, _135\nDog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.\n\n12.\nFor she was beautiful—her beauty made\nThe bright world dim, and everything beside\nSeemed like the fleeting image of a shade:\nNo thought of living spirit could abide, _140\nWhich to her looks had ever been betrayed,\nOn any object in the world so wide,\nOn any hope within the circling skies,\nBut on her form, and in her inmost eyes.\n\n13.\nWhich when the lady knew, she took her spindle _145\nAnd twined three threads of fleecy mist, and three\nLong lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle\nThe clouds and waves and mountains with; and she\nAs many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle\nIn the belated moon, wound skilfully; _150\nAnd with these threads a subtle veil she wove—\nA shadow for the splendour of her love.\n\n14.\nThe deep recesses of her odorous dwelling\nWere stored with magic treasures—sounds of air,\nWhich had the power all spirits of compelling, _155\nFolded in cells of crystal silence there;\nSuch as we hear in youth, and think the feeling\nWill never die—yet ere we are aware,\nThe feeling and the sound are fled and gone,\nAnd the regret they leave remains alone. _160\n\n15.\nAnd there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,\nEach in its thin sheath, like a chrysalis,\nSome eager to burst forth, some weak and faint\nWith the soft burthen of intensest bliss.\nIt was its work to bear to many a saint _165\nWhose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,\nEven Love’s:—and others white, green, gray, and black,\nAnd of all shapes—and each was at her beck.\n\n16.\nAnd odours in a kind of aviary\nOf ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept, _170\nClipped in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy\nHad woven from dew-beams while the moon yet slept;\nAs bats at the wired window of a dairy,\nThey beat their vans; and each was an adept,\nWhen loosed and missioned, making wings of winds, _175\nTo stir sweet thoughts or sad, in destined minds.\n\n17.\nAnd liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might\nCould medicine the sick soul to happy sleep,\nAnd change eternal death into a night\nOf glorious dreams—or if eyes needs must weep, _180\nCould make their tears all wonder and delight,\nShe in her crystal vials did closely keep:\nIf men could drink of those clear vials, ’tis said\nThe living were not envied of the dead.\n\n18.\nHer cave was stored with scrolls of strange device, _185\nThe works of some Saturnian Archimage,\nWhich taught the expiations at whose price\nMen from the Gods might win that happy age\nToo lightly lost, redeeming native vice;\nAnd which might quench the Earth-consuming rage _190\nOf gold and blood—till men should live and move\nHarmonious as the sacred stars above;\n\n19.\nAnd how all things that seem untameable,\nNot to be checked and not to be confined,\nObey the spells of Wisdom’s wizard skill; _195\nTime, earth, and fire—the ocean and the wind,\nAnd all their shapes—and man’s imperial will;\nAnd other scrolls whose writings did unbind\nThe inmost lore of Love—let the profane\nTremble to ask what secrets they contain. _200\n\n20.\nAnd wondrous works of substances unknown,\nTo which the enchantment of her father’s power\nHad changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,\nWere heaped in the recesses of her bower;\nCarved lamps and chalices, and vials which shone _205\nIn their own golden beams—each like a flower,\nOut of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light\nUnder a cypress in a starless night.\n\n21.\nAt first she lived alone in this wild home,\nAnd her own thoughts were each a minister, _210\nClothing themselves, or with the ocean foam,\nOr with the wind, or with the speed of fire,\nTo work whatever purposes might come\nInto her mind; such power her mighty Sire\nHad girt them with, whether to fly or run, _215\nThrough all the regions which he shines upon.\n\n22.\nThe Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades,\nOreads and Naiads, with long weedy locks,\nOffered to do her bidding through the seas,\nUnder the earth, and in the hollow rocks, _220\nAnd far beneath the matted roots of trees,\nAnd in the gnarled heart of stubborn oaks,\nSo they might live for ever in the light\nOf her sweet presence—each a satellite.\n\n23.\n‘This may not be,’ the wizard maid replied; _225\n‘The fountains where the Naiades bedew\nTheir shining hair, at length are drained and dried;\nThe solid oaks forget their strength, and strew\nTheir latest leaf upon the mountains wide;\nThe boundless ocean like a drop of dew _230\nWill be consumed—the stubborn centre must\nBe scattered, like a cloud of summer dust.\n\n24.\n‘And ye with them will perish, one by one;—\nIf I must sigh to think that this shall be,\nIf I must weep when the surviving Sun _235\nShall smile on your decay—oh, ask not me\nTo love you till your little race is run;\nI cannot die as ye must—over me\nYour leaves shall glance—the streams in which ye dwell\nShall be my paths henceforth, and so—farewell!’— _240\n\n25.\nShe spoke and wept:—the dark and azure well\nSparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,\nAnd every little circlet where they fell\nFlung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres\nAnd intertangled lines of light:—a knell _245\nOf sobbing voices came upon her ears\nFrom those departing Forms, o’er the serene\nOf the white streams and of the forest green.\n\n26.\nAll day the wizard lady sate aloof,\nSpelling out scrolls of dread antiquity, _250\nUnder the cavern’s fountain-lighted roof;\nOr broidering the pictured poesy\nOf some high tale upon her growing woof,\nWhich the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye\nIn hues outshining heaven—and ever she _255\nAdded some grace to the wrought poesy.\n\n27.\nWhile on her hearth lay blazing many a piece\nOf sandal wood, rare gums, and cinnamon;\nMen scarcely know how beautiful fire is—\nEach flame of it is as a precious stone _260\nDissolved in ever-moving light, and this\nBelongs to each and all who gaze upon.\nThe Witch beheld it not, for in her hand\nShe held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.\n\n28.\nThis lady never slept, but lay in trance _265\nAll night within the fountain—as in sleep.\nIts emerald crags glowed in her beauty’s glance;\nThrough the green splendour of the water deep\nShe saw the constellations reel and dance\nLike fire-flies—and withal did ever keep _270\nThe tenour of her contemplations calm,\nWith open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.\n\n29.\nAnd when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended\nFrom the white pinnacles of that cold hill,\nShe passed at dewfall to a space extended, _275\nWhere in a lawn of flowering asphodel\nAmid a wood of pines and cedars blended,\nThere yawned an inextinguishable well\nOf crimson fire—full even to the brim,\nAnd overflowing all the margin trim. _280\n\n30.\nWithin the which she lay when the fierce war\nOf wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor\nIn many a mimic moon and bearded star\nO’er woods and lawns;—the serpent heard it flicker\nIn sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar— _285\nAnd when the windless snow descended thicker\nThan autumn leaves, she watched it as it came\nMelt on the surface of the level flame.\n\n31.\nShe had a boat, which some say Vulcan wrought\nFor Venus, as the chariot of her star; _290\nBut it was found too feeble to be fraught\nWith all the ardours in that sphere which are,\nAnd so she sold it, and Apollo bought\nAnd gave it to this daughter: from a car\nChanged to the fairest and the lightest boat _295\nWhich ever upon mortal stream did float.\n\n32.\nAnd others say, that, when but three hours old,\nThe first-born Love out of his cradle lept,\nAnd clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,\nAnd like a horticultural adept, _300\nStole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould,\nAnd sowed it in his mother’s star, and kept\nWatering it all the summer with sweet dew,\nAnd with his wings fanning it as it grew.\n\n33.\nThe plant grew strong and green, the snowy flower _305\nFell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began\nTo turn the light and dew by inward power\nTo its own substance; woven tracery ran\nOf light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o’er\nThe solid rind, like a leaf’s veined fan— _310\nOf which Love scooped this boat—and with soft motion\nPiloted it round the circumfluous ocean.\n\n34.\nThis boat she moored upon her fount, and lit\nA living spirit within all its frame,\nBreathing the soul of swiftness into it. _315\nCouched on the fountain like a panther tame,\nOne of the twain at Evan’s feet that sit—\nOr as on Vesta’s sceptre a swift flame—\nOr on blind Homer’s heart a winged thought,—\nIn joyous expectation lay the boat. _320\n\n35.\nThen by strange art she kneaded fire and snow\nTogether, tempering the repugnant mass\nWith liquid love—all things together grow\nThrough which the harmony of love can pass;\nAnd a fair Shape out of her hands did flow— _325\nA living Image, which did far surpass\nIn beauty that bright shape of vital stone\nWhich drew the heart out of Pygmalion.\n\n36.\nA sexless thing it was, and in its growth\nIt seemed to have developed no defect _330\nOf either sex, yet all the grace of both,—\nIn gentleness and strength its limbs were decked;\nThe bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,\nThe countenance was such as might select\nSome artist that his skill should never die, _335\nImaging forth such perfect purity.\n\n37.\nFrom its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,\nFit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,\nTipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,\nDyed in the ardours of the atmosphere: _340\nShe led her creature to the boiling springs\nWhere the light boat was moored, and said: ‘Sit here!’\nAnd pointed to the prow, and took her seat\nBeside the rudder, with opposing feet.\n\n38.\nAnd down the streams which clove those mountains vast, _345\nAround their inland islets, and amid\nThe panther-peopled forests whose shade cast\nDarkness and odours, and a pleasure hid\nIn melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed;\nBy many a star-surrounded pyramid _350\nOf icy crag cleaving the purple sky,\nAnd caverns yawning round unfathomably.\n\n39.\nThe silver noon into that winding dell,\nWith slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,\nTempered like golden evening, feebly fell; _355\nA green and glowing light, like that which drops\nFrom folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell,\nWhen Earth over her face Night’s mantle wraps;\nBetween the severed mountains lay on high,\nOver the stream, a narrow rift of sky. _360\n\n40.\nAnd ever as she went, the Image lay\nWith folded wings and unawakened eyes;\nAnd o’er its gentle countenance did play\nThe busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,\nChasing the rapid smiles that would not stay, _365\nAnd drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs\nInhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,\nThey had aroused from that full heart and brain.\n\n41.\nAnd ever down the prone vale, like a cloud\nUpon a stream of wind, the pinnace went: _370\nNow lingering on the pools, in which abode\nThe calm and darkness of the deep content\nIn which they paused; now o’er the shallow road\nOf white and dancing waters, all besprent\nWith sand and polished pebbles:—mortal boat _375\nIn such a shallow rapid could not float.\n\n42.\nAnd down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver\nTheir snow-like waters into golden air,\nOr under chasms unfathomable ever\nSepulchre them, till in their rage they tear _380\nA subterranean portal for the river,\nIt fled—the circling sunbows did upbear\nIts fall down the hoar precipice of spray,\nLighting it far upon its lampless way.\n\n43.\nAnd when the wizard lady would ascend _385\nThe labyrinths of some many-winding vale,\nWhich to the inmost mountain upward tend—\nShe called ‘Hermaphroditus!’—and the pale\nAnd heavy hue which slumber could extend\nOver its lips and eyes, as on the gale _390\nA rapid shadow from a slope of grass,\nInto the darkness of the stream did pass.\n\n44.\nAnd it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,\nWith stars of fire spotting the stream below;\nAnd from above into the Sun’s dominions _395\nFlinging a glory, like the golden glow\nIn which Spring clothes her emerald-winged minions,\nAll interwoven with fine feathery snow\nAnd moonlight splendour of intensest rime,\nWith which frost paints the pines in winter time. _400\n\n45.\nAnd then it winnowed the Elysian air\nWhich ever hung about that lady bright,\nWith its aethereal vans—and speeding there,\nLike a star up the torrent of the night,\nOr a swift eagle in the morning glare _405\nBreasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight,\nThe pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,\nClove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.\n\n46.\nThe water flashed, like sunlight by the prow\nOf a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven; _410\nThe still air seemed as if its waves did flow\nIn tempest down the mountains; loosely driven\nThe lady’s radiant hair streamed to and fro:\nBeneath, the billows having vainly striven\nIndignant and impetuous, roared to feel _415\nThe swift and steady motion of the keel.\n\n47.\nOr, when the weary moon was in the wane,\nOr in the noon of interlunar night,\nThe lady-witch in visions could not chain\nHer spirit; but sailed forth under the light _420\nOf shooting stars, and bade extend amain\nIts storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite;\nShe to the Austral waters took her way,\nBeyond the fabulous Thamondocana,—\n\n48.\nWhere, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, _425\nWhich rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,\nWith the Antarctic constellations paven,\nCanopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake—\nThere she would build herself a windless haven\nOut of the clouds whose moving turrets make _430\nThe bastions of the storm, when through the sky\nThe spirits of the tempest thundered by:\n\n49.\nA haven beneath whose translucent floor\nThe tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,\nAnd around which the solid vapours hoar, _435\nBased on the level waters, to the sky\nLifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore\nOf wintry mountains, inaccessibly\nHemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,\nAnd hanging crags, many a cove and bay. _440\n\n50.\nAnd whilst the outer lake beneath the lash\nOf the wind’s scourge, foamed like a wounded thing,\nAnd the incessant hail with stony clash\nPloughed up the waters, and the flagging wing\nOf the roused cormorant in the lightning flash _445\nLooked like the wreck of some wind-wandering\nFragment of inky thunder-smoke—this haven\nWas as a gem to copy Heaven engraven,—\n\n51.\nOn which that lady played her many pranks,\nCircling the image of a shooting star, _450\nEven as a tiger on Hydaspes’ banks\nOutspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,\nIn her light boat; and many quips and cranks\nShe played upon the water, till the car\nOf the late moon, like a sick matron wan, _455\nTo journey from the misty east began.\n\n52.\nAnd then she called out of the hollow turrets\nOf those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,\nThe armies of her ministering spirits—\nIn mighty legions, million after million, _460\nThey came, each troop emblazoning its merits\nOn meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion\nOf the intertexture of the atmosphere\nThey pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.\n\n53.\nThey framed the imperial tent of their great Queen _465\nOf woven exhalations, underlaid\nWith lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen\nA dome of thin and open ivory inlaid\nWith crimson silk—cressets from the serene\nHung there, and on the water for her tread _470\nA tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,\nDyed in the beams of the ascending moon.\n\n54.\nAnd on a throne o’erlaid with starlight, caught\nUpon those wandering isles of aery dew,\nWhich highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, _475\nShe sate, and heard all that had happened new\nBetween the earth and moon, since they had brought\nThe last intelligence—and now she grew\nPale as that moon, lost in the watery night—\nAnd now she wept, and now she laughed outright. _480\n\n55.\nThese were tame pleasures; she would often climb\nThe steepest ladder of the crudded rack\nUp to some beaked cape of cloud sublime,\nAnd like Arion on the dolphin’s back\nRide singing through the shoreless air;—oft-time _485\nFollowing the serpent lightning’s winding track,\nShe ran upon the platforms of the wind,\nAnd laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.\n\n56.\nAnd sometimes to those streams of upper air\nWhich whirl the earth in its diurnal round, _490\nShe would ascend, and win the spirits there\nTo let her join their chorus. Mortals found\nThat on those days the sky was calm and fair,\nAnd mystic snatches of harmonious sound\nWandered upon the earth where’er she passed, _495\nAnd happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.\n\n57.\nBut her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,\nTo glide adown old Nilus, where he threads\nEgypt and Aethiopia, from the steep\nOf utmost Axume, until he spreads, _500\nLike a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep,\nHis waters on the plain: and crested heads\nOf cities and proud temples gleam amid,\nAnd many a vapour-belted pyramid.\n\n58.\nBy Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, _505\nStrewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors,\nWhere naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,\nOr charioteering ghastly alligators,\nHad left on the sweet waters mighty wakes\nOf those huge forms—within the brazen doors _510\nOf the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,\nTired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.\n\n59.\nAnd where within the surface of the river\nThe shadows of the massy temples lie,\nAnd never are erased—but tremble ever _515\nLike things which every cloud can doom to die,\nThrough lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever\nThe works of man pierced that serenest sky\nWith tombs, and towers, and fanes, ’twas her delight\nTo wander in the shadow of the night. _520\n\n60.\nWith motion like the spirit of that wind\nWhose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet\nPassed through the peopled haunts of humankind.\nScattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,\nThrough fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined _525\nWith many a dark and subterranean street\nUnder the Nile, through chambers high and deep\nShe passed, observing mortals in their sleep.\n\n61.\nA pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see\nMortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep. _530\nHere lay two sister twins in infancy;\nThere, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;\nWithin, two lovers linked innocently\nIn their loose locks which over both did creep\nLike ivy from one stem;—and there lay calm _535\nOld age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.\n\n62.\nBut other troubled forms of sleep she saw,\nNot to be mirrored in a holy song—\nDistortions foul of supernatural awe,\nAnd pale imaginings of visioned wrong; _540\nAnd all the code of Custom’s lawless law\nWritten upon the brows of old and young:\n‘This,’ said the wizard maiden, ‘is the strife\nWhich stirs the liquid surface of man’s life.’\n\n63.\nAnd little did the sight disturb her soul.— _545\nWe, the weak mariners of that wide lake\nWhere’er its shores extend or billows roll,\nOur course unpiloted and starless make\nO’er its wild surface to an unknown goal:—\nBut she in the calm depths her way could take, _550\nWhere in bright bowers immortal forms abide\nBeneath the weltering of the restless tide.\n\n64.\nAnd she saw princes couched under the glow\nOf sunlike gems; and round each temple-court\nIn dormitories ranged, row after row, _555\nShe saw the priests asleep—all of one sort—\nFor all were educated to be so.—\nThe peasants in their huts, and in the port\nThe sailors she saw cradled on the waves,\nAnd the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. _560\n\n65.\nAnd all the forms in which those spirits lay\nWere to her sight like the diaphanous\nVeils, in which those sweet ladies oft array\nTheir delicate limbs, who would conceal from us\nOnly their scorn of all concealment: they _565\nMove in the light of their own beauty thus.\nBut these and all now lay with sleep upon them,\nAnd little thought a Witch was looking on them.\n\n66.\nShe, all those human figures breathing there,\nBeheld as living spirits—to her eyes _570\nThe naked beauty of the soul lay bare,\nAnd often through a rude and worn disguise\nShe saw the inner form most bright and fair—\nAnd then she had a charm of strange device,\nWhich, murmured on mute lips with tender tone, _575\nCould make that spirit mingle with her own.\n\n67.\nAlas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have given\nFor such a charm when Tithon became gray?\nOr how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven\nWouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina _580\nHad half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven\nWhich dear Adonis had been doomed to pay,\nTo any witch who would have taught you it?\nThe Heliad doth not know its value yet.\n\n68.\n’Tis said in after times her spirit free _585\nKnew what love was, and felt itself alone—\nBut holy Dian could not chaster be\nBefore she stooped to kiss Endymion,\nThan now this lady—like a sexless bee\nTasting all blossoms, and confined to none, _590\nAmong those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden\nPassed with an eye serene and heart unladen.\n\n69.\nTo those she saw most beautiful, she gave\nStrange panacea in a crystal bowl:—\nThey drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave, _595\nAnd lived thenceforward as if some control,\nMightier than life, were in them; and the grave\nOf such, when death oppressed the weary soul,\nWas as a green and overarching bower\nLit by the gems of many a starry flower. _600\n\n70.\nFor on the night when they were buried, she\nRestored the embalmers’ ruining, and shook\nThe light out of the funeral lamps, to be\nA mimic day within that deathy nook;\nAnd she unwound the woven imagery _605\nOf second childhood’s swaddling bands, and took\nThe coffin, its last cradle, from its niche,\nAnd threw it with contempt into a ditch.\n\n71.\nAnd there the body lay, age after age.\nMute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, _610\nLike one asleep in a green hermitage,\nWith gentle smiles about its eyelids playing,\nAnd living in its dreams beyond the rage\nOf death or life; while they were still arraying\nIn liveries ever new, the rapid, blind _615\nAnd fleeting generations of mankind.\n\n72.\nAnd she would write strange dreams upon the brain\nOf those who were less beautiful, and make\nAll harsh and crooked purposes more vain\nThan in the desert is the serpent’s wake _620\nWhich the sand covers—all his evil gain\nThe miser in such dreams would rise and shake\nInto a beggar’s lap;—the lying scribe\nWould his own lies betray without a bribe.\n\n73.\nThe priests would write an explanation full, _625\nTranslating hieroglyphics into Greek,\nHow the God Apis really was a bull,\nAnd nothing more; and bid the herald stick\nThe same against the temple doors, and pull\nThe old cant down; they licensed all to speak _630\nWhate’er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese,\nBy pastoral letters to each diocese.\n\n74.\nThe king would dress an ape up in his crown\nAnd robes, and seat him on his glorious seat,\nAnd on the right hand of the sunlike throne _635\nWould place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat\nThe chatterings of the monkey.—Every one\nOf the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet\nOf their great Emperor, when the morning came,\nAnd kissed—alas, how many kiss the same! _640\n\n75.\nThe soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and\nWalked out of quarters in somnambulism;\nRound the red anvils you might see them stand\nLike Cyclopses in Vulcan’s sooty abysm,\nBeating their swords to ploughshares;—in a band _645\nThe gaolers sent those of the liberal schism\nFree through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis,\nTo the annoyance of king Amasis.\n\n76.\nAnd timid lovers who had been so coy,\nThey hardly knew whether they loved or not, _650\nWould rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy,\nTo the fulfilment of their inmost thought;\nAnd when next day the maiden and the boy\nMet one another, both, like sinners caught,\nBlushed at the thing which each believed was done _655\nOnly in fancy—till the tenth moon shone;\n\n77.\nAnd then the Witch would let them take no ill:\nOf many thousand schemes which lovers find,\nThe Witch found one,—and so they took their fill\nOf happiness in marriage warm and kind. _660\nFriends who, by practice of some envious skill,\nWere torn apart—a wide wound, mind from mind!—\nShe did unite again with visions clear\nOf deep affection and of truth sincere.\n\n80.\nThese were the pranks she played among the cities _665\nOf mortal men, and what she did to Sprites\nAnd Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties\nTo do her will, and show their subtle sleights,\nI will declare another time; for it is\nA tale more fit for the weird winter nights _670\nThan for these garish summer days, when we\nScarcely believe much more than we can see.\n\n_2 dead]deaf cj. A.C. Bradley, who cps. “Adonais” 317.\n_65 first was transcript, B.; was first edition 1824.\n_84 Temple’s transcript, B.; tempest’s edition 1824.\n_165 was its transcript, B.; is its edition 1824.\n_184 envied so all manuscripts and editions;\n envious cj. James Thomson (‘B. V.’).\n_262 upon so all manuscripts and editions: thereon cj. Rossetti.\n_333 swelled lightly edition 1824, B.;\n lightly swelled editions 1839;\n swelling lightly with its full growth transcript.\n_339 lightenings B., editions 1839; lightnings edition 1824, transcript.\n_422 Its transcript; His edition 1824, B.\n_424 Thamondocana transcript, B.; Thamondocona edition 1824.\n_442 wind’s transcript, B.; winds’ edition 1834.\n_493 where transcript, B.; when edition 1824.\n_596 thenceforward B.;\n thence forth edition 1824; henceforward transcript.\n_599 Was as a B.; Was a edition 1824.\n_601 night when transcript; night that edition 1824, B.\n_612 smiles transcript, B.; sleep edition 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On The Witch Of Atlas, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "We spent the summer of 1820 at the Baths of San Giuliano, four miles\nfrom Pisa. These baths were of great use to Shelley in soothing his\nnervous irritability. We made several excursions in the neighbourhood.\nThe country around is fertile, and diversified and rendered\npicturesque by ranges of near hills and more distant mountains. The\npeasantry are a handsome intelligent race; and there was a gladsome\nsunny heaven spread over us, that rendered home and every scene we\nvisited cheerful and bright. During some of the hottest days of\nAugust, Shelley made a solitary journey on foot to the summit of Monte\nSan Pellegrino—a mountain of some height, on the top of which there\nis a chapel, the object, during certain days of the year, of many\npilgrimages. The excursion delighted him while it lasted; though he\nexerted himself too much, and the effect was considerable lassitude\nand weakness on his return. During the expedition he conceived the\nidea, and wrote, in the three days immediately succeeding to his\nreturn, the “Witch of Atlas”. This poem is peculiarly characteristic\nof his tastes—wildly fanciful, full of brilliant imagery, and\ndiscarding human interest and passion, to revel in the fantastic ideas\nthat his imagination suggested.\n\nThe surpassing excellence of “The Cenci” had made me greatly desire\nthat Shelley should increase his popularity by adopting subjects that\nwould more suit the popular taste than a poem conceived in the\nabstract and dreamy spirit of the “Witch of Atlas”. It was not only\nthat I wished him to acquire popularity as redounding to his fame; but\nI believed that he would obtain a greater mastery over his own powers,\nand greater happiness in his mind, if public applause crowned his\nendeavours. The few stanzas that precede the poem were addressed to me\non my representing these ideas to him. Even now I believe that I was\nin the right. Shelley did not expect sympathy and approbation from the\npublic; but the want of it took away a portion of the ardour that\nought to have sustained him while writing. He was thrown on his own\nresources, and on the inspiration of his own soul; and wrote because\nhis mind overflowed, without the hope of being appreciated. I had not\nthe most distant wish that he should truckle in opinion, or submit his\nlofty aspirations for the human race to the low ambition and pride of\nthe many; but I felt sure that, if his poems were more addressed to\nthe common feelings of men, his proper rank among the writers of the\nday would be acknowledged, and that popularity as a poet would enable\nhis countrymen to do justice to his character and virtues, which in\nthose days it was the mode to attack with the most flagitious\ncalumnies and insulting abuse. That he felt these things deeply cannot\nbe doubted, though he armed himself with the consciousness of acting\nfrom a lofty and heroic sense of right. The truth burst from his heart\nsometimes in solitude, and he would writes few unfinished verses that\nshowed that he felt the sting; among such I find the following:—\n\n‘Alas! this is not what I thought Life was.\nI knew that there were crimes and evil men,\nMisery and hate; nor did I hope to pass\nUntouched by suffering through the rugged glen.\nIn mine own heart I saw as in a glass\nThe hearts of others...And, when\nI went among my kind, with triple brass\nOf calm endurance my weak breast I armed,\nTo bear scorn, fear, and hate—a woful mass!’\n\nI believed that all this morbid feeling would vanish if the chord of\nsympathy between him and his countrymen were touched. But my\npersuasions were vain, the mind could not be bent from its natural\ninclination. Shelley shrunk instinctively from portraying human\npassion, with its mixture of good and evil, of disappointment and\ndisquiet. Such opened again the wounds of his own heart; and he loved\nto shelter himself rather in the airiest flights of fancy, forgetting\nlove and hate, and regret and lost hope, in such imaginations as\nborrowed their hues from sunrise or sunset, from the yellow moonshine\nor paly twilight, from the aspect of the far ocean or the shadows of\nthe woods,—which celebrated the singing of the winds among the pines,\nthe flow of a murmuring stream, and the thousand harmonious sounds\nwhich Nature creates in her solitudes. These are the materials which\nform the “Witch of Atlas”: it is a brilliant congregation of ideas\nsuch as his senses gathered, and his fancy coloured, during his\nrambles in the sunny land he so much loved.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Translated From The Original Doric.", + "body": "‘Choose Reform or Civil War,\nWhen through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs,\nA CONSORT-QUEEN shall hunt a king with hogs,\nRiding on the IONIAN MINOTAUR.’\n\n[Begun at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 24, 1819;\npublished anonymously by J. Johnston, Cheapside (imprint C.F.\nSeyfang), 1820. On a threat of prosecution the publisher surrendered\nthe whole impression, seven copies—the total number sold—excepted.\n“Oedipus” does not appear in the first edition of the “Poetical\nWorks”, 1839, but it was included by Mrs. Shelley in the second\nedition of that year. Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1820,\nsave in three places, where the reading of edition 1820 will be found\nin the notes.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Advertisement.", + "body": "This Tragedy is one of a triad, or system of three Plays (an\narrangement according to which the Greeks were accustomed to connect\ntheir dramatic representations), elucidating the wonderful and\nappalling fortunes of the SWELLFOOT dynasty. It was evidently written\nby some LEARNED THEBAN, and, from its characteristic dulness,\napparently before the duties on the importation of ATTIC SALT had been\nrepealed by the Boeotarchs. The tenderness with which he treats the\nPIGS proves him to have been a sus Boeotiae; possibly Epicuri de grege\nporcus; for, as the poet observes,\n\n‘A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.’\n\nNo liberty has been taken with the translation of this remarkable\npiece of antiquity, except the suppressing a seditious and blasphemous\nChorus of the Pigs and Bulls at the last Act. The work Hoydipouse (or\nmore properly Oedipus) has been rendered literally SWELLFOOT, without\nits having been conceived necessary to determine whether a swelling of\nthe hind or the fore feet of the Swinish Monarch is particularly\nindicated.\n\nShould the remaining portions of this Tragedy be found, entitled,\n“Swellfoot in Angaria”, and “Charite”, the Translator might be tempted\nto give them to the reading Public.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Tyrant Swellfoot, King Of Thebes.", + "body": "IONA TAURINA, HIS QUEEN.\nMAMMON, ARCH-PRIEST OF FAMINE.\nPURGANAX, DAKRY, LAOCTONOS—WIZARDS, MINISTERS OF SWELLFOOT.\nTHE GADFLY.\nTHE LEECH.\nTHE RAT.\nMOSES, THE SOW-GELDER.\nSOLOMON, THE PORKMAN.\nZEPHANIAH, PIG-BUTCHER.\nTHE MINOTAUR.\nCHORUS OF THE SWINISH MULTITUDE.\nGUARDS, ATTENDANTS, PRIESTS, ETC., ETC.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Scene.—Thebes.", + "body": "ACT 1.\n\nSCENE 1.1.—A MAGNIFICENT TEMPLE, BUILT OF THIGH-BONES AND\nDEATH’S-HEADS, AND TILED WITH SCALPS. OVER THE ALTAR THE STATUE OF\nFAMINE, VEILED; A NUMBER OF BOARS, SOWS, AND SUCKING-PIGS, CROWNED\nWITH THISTLE, SHAMROCK, AND OAK, SITTING ON THE STEPS, AND CLINGING\nROUND THE ALTAR OF THE TEMPLE.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Swellfoot:", + "body": "Thou supreme Goddess! by whose power divine\nThese graceful limbs are clothed in proud array\n[HE CONTEMPLATES HIMSELF WITH SATISFACTION.]\nOf gold and purple, and this kingly paunch\nSwells like a sail before a favouring breeze,\nAnd these most sacred nether promontories _5\nLie satisfied with layers of fat; and these\nBoeotian cheeks, like Egypt’s pyramid,\n(Nor with less toil were their foundations laid),\nSustain the cone of my untroubled brain,\nThat point, the emblem of a pointless nothing! _10\nThou to whom Kings and laurelled Emperors,\nRadical-butchers, Paper-money-millers,\nBishops and Deacons, and the entire army\nOf those fat martyrs to the persecution\nOf stifling turtle-soup, and brandy-devils, _15\nOffer their secret vows! Thou plenteous Ceres\nOf their Eleusis, hail!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note:", + "body": "(_8 See Universal History for an account of the number of people who\ndied, and the immense consumption of garlic by the wretched Egyptians,\nwho made a sepulchre for the name as well as the bodies of their\ntyrants.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Swellfoot:", + "body": "What! ye that are\nThe very beasts that, offered at her altar _20\nWith blood and groans, salt-cake, and fat, and inwards,\nEver propitiate her reluctant will\nWhen taxes are withheld?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Swellfoot:", + "body": "What! ye who grub\nWith filthy snouts my red potatoes up\nIn Allan’s rushy bog? Who eat the oats _25\nUp, from my cavalry in the Hebrides?\nWho swill the hog-wash soup my cooks digest\nFrom bones, and rags, and scraps of shoe-leather,\nWhich should be given to cleaner Pigs than you?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Swine:", + "body": "I have heard your Laureate sing,\nThat pity was a royal thing;\nUnder your mighty ancestors, we Pigs\nWere bless’d as nightingales on myrtle sprigs, _40\nOr grasshoppers that live on noonday dew,\nAnd sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too;\nBut now our sties are fallen in, we catch\nThe murrain and the mange, the scab and itch;\nSometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch, _45\nAnd then we seek the shelter of a ditch;\nHog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga, none\nHas yet been ours since your reign begun.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus:", + "body": "Happier Swine were they than we, _55\nDrowned in the Gadarean sea—\nI wish that pity would drive out the devils,\nWhich in your royal bosom hold their revels,\nAnd sink us in the waves of thy compassion!\nAlas! the Pigs are an unhappy nation! _60\nNow if your Majesty would have our bristles\nTo bind your mortar with, or fill our colons\nWith rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles,\nIn policy—ask else your royal Solons—\nYou ought to give us hog-wash and clean straw, _65\nAnd sties well thatched; besides it is the law!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Swellfoot:", + "body": "Out with your knife, old Moses, and spay those Sows\n[THE PIGS RUN ABOUT IN CONSTERNATION.]\nThat load the earth with Pigs; cut close and deep.\nMoral restraint I see has no effect,\nNor prostitution, nor our own example, _75\nStarvation, typhus-fever, war, nor prison—\nThis was the art which the arch-priest of Famine\nHinted at in his charge to the Theban clergy—\nCut close and deep, good Moses.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Swellfoot:", + "body": "’Tis all the same,\nHe’ll serve instead of riot money, when\nOur murmuring troops bivouac in Thebes’ streets\nAnd January winds, after a day\nOf butchering, will make them relish carrion. _90\nNow, Solomon, I’ll sell you in a lump\nThe whole kit of them.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Swellfoot:", + "body": "Kill them out of the way,\nThat shall be price enough, and let me hear\nTheir everlasting grunts and whines no more! _95\n\n[EXEUNT, DRIVING IN THE SWINE.\nENTER MAMM0N, THE ARCH-PRIEST,\nAND PURGANAX, CHIEF OF THE COUNCIL OF WIZARDS.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "The future looks as black as death, a cloud,\nDark as the frown of Hell, hangs over it—\nThe troops grow mutinous—the revenue fails—\nThere’s something rotten in us—for the level _100\nOf the State slopes, its very bases topple,\nThe boldest turn their backs upon themselves!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mammon:", + "body": "Why what’s the matter, my dear fellow, now?\nDo the troops mutiny?—decimate some regiments;\nDoes money fail?—come to my mint—coin paper,\nTill gold be at a discount, and ashamed _105\nTo show his bilious face, go purge himself,\nIn emulation of her vestal whiteness.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "The words went thus:—\n‘Boeotia, choose reform or civil war!\nWhen through the streets, instead of hare with dogs,\nA Consort Queen shall hunt a King with Hogs, _115\nRiding on the Ionian Minotaur.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mammon:", + "body": "Now if the oracle had ne’er foretold\nThis sad alternative, it must arrive,\nOr not, and so it must now that it has;\nAnd whether I was urged by grace divine _120\nOr Lesbian liquor to declare these words,\nWhich must, as all words must, be false or true,\nIt matters not: for the same Power made all,\nOracle, wine, and me and you—or none—\n’Tis the same thing. If you knew as much _125\nOf oracles as I do—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mammon:", + "body": "Yet our tickets\nAre seldom blanks. But what steps have you taken? _130\nFor prophecies, when once they get abroad,\nLike liars who tell the truth to serve their ends,\nOr hypocrites who, from assuming virtue,\nDo the same actions that the virtuous do,\nContrive their own fulfilment. This Iona— _135\nWell—you know what the chaste Pasiphae did,\nWife to that most religious King of Crete,\nAnd still how popular the tale is here;\nAnd these dull Swine of Thebes boast their descent\nFrom the free Minotaur. You know they still _140\nCall themselves Bulls, though thus degenerate,\nAnd everything relating to a Bull\nIs popular and respectable in Thebes.\nTheir arms are seven Bulls in a field gules;\nThey think their strength consists in eating beef,— _145\nNow there were danger in the precedent\nIf Queen Iona—\n\n_114 the edition 1820; thy cj. Forman;\n cf. Motto below Title, and II. i, 153-6. ticket? edition 1820;\n ticket! edition 1839.\n_135 their own Mrs. Shelley, later editions;\n their editions 1820 and 1839.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "I have taken good care\nThat shall not be. I struck the crust o’ the earth\nWith this enchanted rod, and Hell lay bare!\nAnd from a cavern full of ugly shapes _150\nI chose a LEECH, a GADFLY, and a RAT.\nThe Gadfly was the same which Juno sent\nTo agitate Io, and which Ezekiel mentions\nThat the Lord whistled for out of the mountains\nOf utmost Aethiopia, to torment _155\nMesopotamian Babylon. The beast\nHas a loud trumpet like the scarabee,\nHis crooked tail is barbed with many stings,\nEach able to make a thousand wounds, and each\nImmedicable; from his convex eyes _160\nHe sees fair things in many hideous shapes,\nAnd trumpets all his falsehood to the world.\nLike other beetles he is fed on dung—\nHe has eleven feet with which he crawls,\nTrailing a blistering slime, and this foul beast _165\nHas tracked Iona from the Theban limits,\nFrom isle to isle, from city unto city,\nUrging her flight from the far Chersonese\nTo fabulous Solyma, and the Aetnean Isle,\nOrtygia, Melite, and Calypso’s Rock, _170\nAnd the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez,\nAeolia and Elysium, and thy shores,\nParthenope, which now, alas! are free!\nAnd through the fortunate Saturnian land,\nInto the darkness of the West.\n\n(_153 (Io) The Promethetes Bound of Aeschylus.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n(_153 (Ezekiel) And the Lord whistled for the gadfly out of Aethiopia,\nand for the bee of Egypt, etc.—EZEKIEL.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "Gods! what an IF! but there is my gray RAT:\nSo thin with want, he can crawl in and out\nOf any narrow chink and filthy hole,\nAnd he shall creep into her dressing-room, _180\nAnd—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "But my LEECH—a leech\nFit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings, _185\nCapaciously expatiative, which make\nHis little body like a red balloon,\nAs full of blood as that of hydrogen,\nSucked from men’s hearts; insatiably he sucks\nAnd clings and pulls—a horse-leech, whose deep maw _190\nThe plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill,\nAnd who, till full, will cling for ever.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mammon:", + "body": "Disinherited _195\nMy eldest son Chrysaor, because he\nAttended public meetings, and would always\nStand prating there of commerce, public faith,\nEconomy, and unadulterate coin,\nAnd other topics, ultra-radical; _200\nAnd have entailed my estate, called the Fool’s Paradise,\nAnd funds in fairy-money, bonds, and bills,\nUpon my accomplished daughter Banknotina,\nAnd married her to the gallows. [1]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mammon:", + "body": "A high connexion, Purganax. The bridegroom _205\nIs of a very ancient family,\nOf Hounslow Heath, Tyburn, and the New Drop,\nAnd has great influence in both Houses;—oh!\nHe makes the fondest husband; nay, TOO fond,—\nNew-married people should not kiss in public; _210\nBut the poor souls love one another so!\nAnd then my little grandchildren, the gibbets,\nPromising children as you ever saw,—\nThe young playing at hanging, the elder learning\nHow to hold radicals. They are well taught too, _215\nFor every gibbet says its catechism\nAnd reads a select chapter in the Bible\nBefore it goes to play.\n\n[A MOST TREMENDOUS HUMMING IS HEARD.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Gadfly:", + "body": "Hum! hum! hum! _220\nFrom the lakes of the Alps, and the cold gray scalps\nOf the mountains, I come!\nHum! hum! hum!\nFrom Morocco and Fez, and the high palaces\nOf golden Byzantium; _225\nFrom the temples divine of old Palestine,\nFrom Athens and Rome,\nWith a ha! and a hum!\nI come! I come!\n\nAll inn-doors and windows _230\nWere open to me:\nI saw all that sin does,\nWhich lamps hardly see\nThat burn in the night by the curtained bed,—\nThe impudent lamps! for they blushed not red, _235\nDinging and singing,\nFrom slumber I rung her,\nLoud as the clank of an ironmonger;\nHum! hum! hum!\n\nFar, far, far! _240\nWith the trump of my lips, and the sting at my hips,\nI drove her—afar!\nFar, far, far!\nFrom city to city, abandoned of pity,\nA ship without needle or star;— _245\nHomeless she passed, like a cloud on the blast,\nSeeking peace, finding war;—\nShe is here in her car,\nFrom afar, and afar;—\nHum! hum! _250\n\nI have stung her and wrung her,\nThe venom is working;—\nAnd if you had hung her\nWith canting and quirking,\nShe could not be deader than she will be soon;— _255\nI have driven her close to you, under the moon,\nNight and day, hum! hum! ha!\nI have hummed her and drummed her\nFrom place to place, till at last I have dumbed her,\nHum! hum! hum! _260", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "Aroint ye! thou unprofitable worm!\n[TO THE LEECH.]\nAnd thou, dull beetle, get thee back to hell! _270\n[TO THE GADFLY.]\nTo sting the ghosts of Babylonian kings,\nAnd the ox-headed Io—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Swellfoot:", + "body": "She is returned! Taurina is in Thebes,\nWhen Swellfoot wishes that she were in hell!\nOh, Hymen, clothed in yellow jealousy,\nAnd waving o’er the couch of wedded kings\nThe torch of Discord with its fiery hair; _285\nThis is thy work, thou patron saint of queens!\nSwellfoot is wived! though parted by the sea,\nThe very name of wife had conjugal rights;\nHer cursed image ate, drank, slept with me,\nAnd in the arms of Adiposa oft 290\nHer memory has received a husband’s—\n[A LOUD TUMULT, AND CRIES OF ‘IONA FOR EVER —NO SWELLFOOT!‘]\nHark!\nHow the Swine cry Iona Taurina;\nI suffer the real presence; Purganax,\nOff with her head!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "Or fattening some few in two separate sties.\nAnd giving them clean straw, tying some bits\nOf ribbon round their legs—giving their Sows\nSome tawdry lace, and bits of lustre glass,\nAnd their young Boars white and red rags, and tails _300\nOf cows, and jay feathers, and sticking cauliflowers\nBetween the ears of the old ones; and when\nThey are persuaded, that by the inherent virtue\nOf these things, they are all imperial Pigs,\nGood Lord! they’d rip each other’s bellies up, _305\nNot to say, help us in destroying her.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Swellfoot:", + "body": "This plan might be tried too;—where’s General Laoctonos?\n[ENTER LAOCTONOS AND DAKRY.]\nIt is my royal pleasure\nThat you, Lord General, bring the head and body,\nIf separate it would please me better, hither _310\nOf Queen Iona.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Laoctonos:", + "body": "That pleasure I well knew,\nAnd made a charge with those battalions bold,\nCalled, from their dress and grin, the royal apes,\nUpon the Swine, who in a hollow square\nEnclosed her, and received the first attack _315\nLike so many rhinoceroses, and then\nRetreating in good order, with bare tusks\nAnd wrinkled snouts presented to the foe,\nBore her in triumph to the public sty.\nWhat is still worse, some Sows upon the ground _320\nHave given the ape-guards apples, nuts, and gin,\nAnd they all whisk their tails aloft, and cry,\n‘Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Dakry:", + "body": "I\nWent to the garret of the swineherd’s tower, _325\nWhich overlooks the sty, and made a long\nHarangue (all words) to the assembled Swine,\nOf delicacy mercy, judgement, law,\nMorals, and precedents, and purity,\nAdultery, destitution, and divorce, _330\nPiety, faith, and state necessity,\nAnd how I loved the Queen!—and then I wept\nWith the pathos of my own eloquence,\nAnd every tear turned to a mill-stone, which\nBrained many a gaping Pig, and there was made _335\nA slough of blood and brains upon the place,\nGreased with the pounded bacon; round and round\nThe mill-stones rolled, ploughing the pavement up,\nAnd hurling Sucking-Pigs into the air,\nWith dust and stones.—\n\n[ENTER MAMMON.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mammon:", + "body": "I wonder that gray wizards _340\nLike you should be so beardless in their schemes;\nIt had been but a point of policy\nTo keep Iona and the Swine apart.\nDivide and rule! but ye have made a junction\nBetween two parties who will govern you _345\nBut for my art.—Behold this BAG! it is\nThe poison BAG of that Green Spider huge,\nOn which our spies skulked in ovation through\nThe streets of Thebes, when they were paved with dead:\nA bane so much the deadlier fills it now _350\nAs calumny is worse than death,—for here\nThe Gadfly’s venom, fifty times distilled,\nIs mingled with the vomit of the Leech,\nIn due proportion, and black ratsbane, which\nThat very Rat, who, like the Pontic tyrant, _355\nNurtures himself on poison, dare not touch;—\nAll is sealed up with the broad seal of Fraud,\nWho is the Devil’s Lord High Chancellor,\nAnd over it the Primate of all Hell\nMurmured this pious baptism:—‘Be thou called _360\nThe GREEN BAG; and this power and grace be thine:\nThat thy contents, on whomsoever poured,\nTurn innocence to guilt, and gentlest looks\nTo savage, foul, and fierce deformity.\nLet all baptized by thy infernal dew _365\nBe called adulterer, drunkard, liar, wretch!\nNo name left out which orthodoxy loves,\nCourt Journal or legitimate Review!—\nBe they called tyrant, beast, fool, glutton, lover\nOf other wives and husbands than their own— _370\nThe heaviest sin on this side of the Alps!\nWither they to a ghastly caricature\nOf what was human!—let not man or beast\nBehold their face with unaverted eyes!\nOr hear their names with ears that tingle not _375\nWith blood of indignation, rage, and shame!’—\nThis is a perilous liquor;—good my Lords.—\n[SWELLFOOT APPROACHES TO TOUCH THE GREEN BAG.]\nBeware! for God’s sake, beware!-if you should break\nThe seal, and touch the fatal liquor—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mammon:", + "body": "Now, with a little common sense, my Lords,\nOnly undoing all that has been done\n(Yet so as it may seem we but confirm it), _385\nOur victory is assured. We must entice\nHer Majesty from the sty, and make the Pigs\nBelieve that the contents of the GREEN BAG\nAre the true test of guilt or innocence.\nAnd that, if she be guilty, ‘twill transform her _390\nTo manifest deformity like guilt.\nIf innocent, she will become transfigured\nInto an angel, such as they say she is;\nAnd they will see her flying through the air,\nSo bright that she will dim the noonday sun; _395\nShowering down blessings in the shape of comfits.\nThis, trust a priest, is just the sort of thing\nSwine will believe. I’ll wager you will see them\nClimbing upon the thatch of their low sties,\nWith pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail _400\nAmong the clouds, and some will hold the flaps\nOf one another’s ears between their teeth,\nTo catch the coming hail of comfits in.\nYou, Purganax, who have the gift o’ the gab,\nMake them a solemn speech to this effect: _405\nI go to put in readiness the feast\nKept to the honour of our goddess Famine,\nWhere, for more glory, let the ceremony\nTake place of the uglification of the Queen.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "Grant me your patience, Gentlemen and Boars,\nYe, by whose patience under public burthens\nThe glorious constitution of these sties\nSubsists, and shall subsist. The Lean-Pig rates\nGrow with the growing populace of Swine, _5\nThe taxes, that true source of Piggishness\n(How can I find a more appropriate term\nTo include religion, morals, peace, and plenty,\nAnd all that fit Boeotia as a nation\nTo teach the other nations how to live?), _10\nIncrease with Piggishness itself; and still\nDoes the revenue, that great spring of all\nThe patronage, and pensions, and by-payments,\nWhich free-born Pigs regard with jealous eyes,\nDiminish, till at length, by glorious steps, _15\nAll the land’s produce will be merged in taxes,\nAnd the revenue will amount to—nothing!\nThe failure of a foreign market for\nSausages, bristles, and blood-puddings,\nAnd such home manufactures, is but partial; _20\nAnd, that the population of the Pigs,\nInstead of hog-wash, has been fed on straw\nAnd water, is a fact which is—you know—\nThat is—it is a state-necessity—\nTemporary, of course. Those impious Pigs, _25\nWho, by frequent squeaks, have dared impugn\nThe settled Swellfoot system, or to make\nIrreverent mockery of the genuflexions\nInculcated by the arch-priest, have been whipped\nInto a loyal and an orthodox whine. _30\nThings being in this happy state, the Queen\nIona—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "That is the very thing that I was saying,\nGentlemen Swine; the Queen Iona being\nMost innocent, no doubt, returns to Thebes, _35\nAnd the lean Sows and Bears collect about her,\nWishing to make her think that WE believe\n(I mean those more substantial Pigs, who swill\nRich hog-wash, while the others mouth damp straw)\nThat she is guilty; thus, the Lean-Pig faction _40\nSeeks to obtain that hog-wash, which has been\nYour immemorial right, and which I will\nMaintain you in to the last drop of—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "Why, no one\nMakes ANY positive accusation;—but _45\nThere were hints dropped, and so the privy wizards\nConceived that it became them to advise\nHis Majesty to investigate their truth;—\nNot for his own sake; he could be content\nTo let his wife play any pranks she pleased, _50\nIf, by that sufferance, HE could please the Pigs;\nBut then he fears the morals of the Swine,\nThe Sows especially, and what effect\nIt might produce upon the purity and\nReligion of the rising generation _55\nOf Sucking-Pigs, if it could be suspected\nThat Queen Iona—\n\n[A PAUSE.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "Why, it is hinted, that a certain Bull—\nThus much is KNOWN:—the milk-white Bulls that feed _60\nBeside Clitumnus and the crystal lakes\nOf the Cisalpine mountains, in fresh dews\nOf lotus-grass and blossoming asphodel\nSleeking their silken hair, and with sweet breath\nLoading the morning winds until they faint _65\nWith living fragrance, are so beautiful!—\nWell, _I_ say nothing;—but Europa rode\nOn such a one from Asia into Crete,\nAnd the enamoured sea grew calm beneath\nHis gliding beauty. And Pasiphae, _70\nIona’s grandmother,—but SHE is innocent!\nAnd that both you and I, and all assert.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "Honourable Swine,\nIn Piggish souls can prepossessions reign?\nAllow me to remind you, grass is green—\nAll flesh is grass;—no bacon but is flesh—\nYe are but bacon. This divining BAG _80\n(Which is not green, but only bacon colour)\nIs filled with liquor, which if sprinkled o’er\nA woman guilty of—we all know what—\nMakes her so hideous, till she finds one blind\nShe never can commit the like again. _85\nIf innocent, she will turn into an angel,\nAnd rain down blessings in the shape of comfits\nAs she flies up to heaven. Now, my proposal\nIs to convert her sacred Majesty\nInto an angel (as I am sure we shall do), _90\nBy pouring on her head this mystic water.\n[SHOWING THE BAG.]\nI know that she is innocent; I wish\nOnly to prove her so to all the world.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "Oh no!\nBut like a standard of an admiral’s ship,\nOr like the banner of a conquering host,\nOr like a cloud dyed in the dying day, _100\nUnravelled on the blast from a white mountain;\nOr like a meteor, or a war-steed’s mane,\nOr waterfall from a dizzy precipice\nScattered upon the wind.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "Gentlemen Boars, I move a resolution,\nThat her most sacred Majesty should be\nInvited to attend the feast of Famine,\nAnd to receive upon her chaste white body\nDews of Apotheosis from this BAG. _110\n\n[A GREAT CONFUSION IS HEARD OF THE PIGS OUT OF DOORS, WHICH\nCOMMUNICATES ITSELF TO THOSE WITHIN. DURING THE FIRST STROPHE, THE\nDOORS OF THE STY ARE STAVED IN, AND A NUMBER OF EXCEEDINGLY LEAN PIGS\nAND SOWS AND BOARS RUSH IN.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "Hog-wash has been ta’en away:\nIf the Bull-Queen is divested,\nWe shall be in every way\nHunted, stripped, exposed, molested; _140\nLet us do whate’er we may,\nThat she shall not be arrested.\nQUEEN, we entrench you with walls of brawn,\nAnd palisades of tusks, sharp as a bayonet:\nPlace your most sacred person here. We pawn _145\nOur lives that none a finger dare to lay on it.\nThose who wrong you, wrong us;\nThose who hate you, hate us;\nThose who sting you, sting us;\nThose who bait you, bait us; _150\nThe ORACLE is now about to be\nFulfilled by circumvolving destiny;\nWhich says: ‘Thebes, choose REFORM or CIVIL WAR,\nWhen through your streets, instead of hare with dogs,\nA CONSORT QUEEN shall hunt a KING with Hogs, _155\nRiding upon the IONIAN MINOTAUR.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Iona Taurina (Coming Forward):", + "body": "Gentlemen Swine, and gentle Lady-Pigs,\nThe tender heart of every Boar acquits\nTheir QUEEN, of any act incongruous\nWith native Piggishness, and she, reposing _160\nWith confidence upon the grunting nation,\nHas thrown herself, her cause, her life, her all,\nHer innocence, into their Hoggish arms;\nNor has the expectation been deceived\nOf finding shelter there. Yet know, great Boars, _165\n(For such whoever lives among you finds you,\nAnd so do I), the innocent are proud!\nI have accepted your protection only\nIn compliment of your kind love and care,\nNot for necessity. The innocent _170\nAre safest there where trials and dangers wait;\nInnocent Queens o’er white-hot ploughshares tread\nUnsinged, and ladies, Erin’s laureate sings it,\nDecked with rare gems, and beauty rarer still,\nWalked from Killarney to the Giant’s Causeway, _175\nThrough rebels, smugglers, troops of yeomanry,\nWhite-boys and Orange-boys, and constables,\nTithe-proctors, and excise people, uninjured!\nThus I!—\nLord Purganax, I do commit myself _180\nInto your custody, and am prepared\nTo stand the test, whatever it may be!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "This magnanimity in your sacred Majesty\nMust please the Pigs. You cannot fail of being\nA heavenly angel. Smoke your bits of glass, _185\nYe loyal Swine, or her transfiguration\nWill blind your wondering eyes.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Iona Taurina [Aside]:", + "body": "I, most content of all, _190\nKnow that my foes even thus prepare their fall!\n\n[EXEUNT OMNES.]\n\nSCENE 2.2:\nTHE INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE OF FAMINE.\nTHE STATUE OF THE GODDESS, A SKELETON CLOTHED IN PARTI-COLOURED RAGS,\nSEATED UPON A HEAP OF SKULLS AND LOAVES INTERMINGLED.\nA NUMBER OF EXCEEDINGLY FAT PRIESTS IN BLACK GARMENTS ARRAYED ON EACH\nSIDE, WITH MARROW-BONES AND CLEAVERS IN THEIR HANDS.\n[SOLOMON, THE COURT PORKMAN.]\nA FLOURISH OF TRUMPETS.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Priests, Accompanied By The Court Porkman On Marrow-Bones", + "body": "AND CLEAVERS:\nGODDESS bare, and gaunt, and pale,\nEmpress of the world, all hail!\nWhat though Cretans old called thee\nCity-crested Cybele?\nWe call thee FAMINE! _5\nGoddess of fasts and feasts, starving and cramming!\nThrough thee, for emperors, kings, and priests and lords,\nWho rule by viziers, sceptres, bank-notes, words,\nThe earth pours forth its plenteous fruits,\nCorn, wool, linen, flesh, and roots— _10\nThose who consume these fruits through thee grow fat,\nThose who produce these fruits through thee grow lean,\nWhatever change takes place, oh, stick to that!\nAnd let things be as they have ever been;\nAt least while we remain thy priests, _15\nAnd proclaim thy fasts and feasts.\nThrough thee the sacred SWELLFOOT dynasty\nIs based upon a rock amid that sea\nWhose waves are Swine—so let it ever be!\n\n[SWELLFOOT, ETC., SEAT THEMSELVES AT A TABLE MAGNIFICENTLY COVERED AT\nTHE UPPER END OF THE TEMPLE.\nATTENDANTS PASS OVER THE STAGE WITH HOG-WASH IN PAILS.\nA NUMBER OF PIGS, EXCEEDINGLY LEAN, FOLLOW THEM LICKING UP THE WASH.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mammon:", + "body": "I fear your sacred Majesty has lost _20\nThe appetite which you were used to have.\nAllow me now to recommend this dish—\nA simple kickshaw by your Persian cook,\nSuch as is served at the great King’s second table.\nThe price and pains which its ingredients cost _25\nMight have maintained some dozen families\nA winter or two—not more—so plain a dish\nCould scarcely disagree.—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Swellfoot:", + "body": "After the trial,\nAnd these fastidious Pigs are gone, perhaps\nI may recover my lost appetite,— _30\nI feel the gout flying about my stomach—\nGive me a glass of Maraschino punch.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Swellfoot:", + "body": "Laoctonos is fishing for a compliment,\nBut ’tis his due. Yes, you have drunk more wine,\nAnd shed more blood, than any man in Thebes.\n[TO PURGANAX.]\nFor God’s sake stop the grunting of those Pigs! _40", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Swine:", + "body": "Hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!\nThy throne is on blood, and thy robe is of rags;\nThou devil which livest on damning;\nSaint of new churches, and cant, and GREEN BAGS, _45\nTill in pity and terror thou risest,\nConfounding the schemes of the wisest;\nWhen thou liftest thy skeleton form,\nWhen the loaves and the skulls roll about,\nWe will greet thee-the voice of a storm _50\nWould be lost in our terrible shout!\n\nThen hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!\nHail to thee, Empress of Earth!\nWhen thou risest, dividing possessions;\nWhen thou risest, uprooting oppressions, _55\nIn the pride of thy ghastly mirth;\nOver palaces, temples, and graves,\nWe will rush as thy minister-slaves,\nTrampling behind in thy train,\nTill all be made level again! _60", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mammon:", + "body": "I hear a crackling of the giant bones\nOf the dread image, and in the black pits\nWhich once were eyes, I see two livid flames.\nThese prodigies are oracular, and show\nThe presence of the unseen Deity. _65\nMighty events are hastening to their doom!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Purganax:", + "body": "I have rehearsed the entire scene\nWith an ox-bladder and some ditchwater,\nOn Lady P—; it cannot fail.\n[TAKING UP THE BAG.]\nYour Majesty\n[TO SWELLFOOT.]\nIn such a filthy business had better _75\nStand on one side, lest it should sprinkle you.\nA spot or two on me would do no harm,\nNay, it might hide the blood, which the sad Genius\nOf the Green Isle has fixed, as by a spell,\nUpon my brow—which would stain all its seas, _80\nBut which those seas could never wash away!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Iona Taurina:", + "body": "My Lord, I am ready—nay, I am impatient\nTo undergo the test.\n[A GRACEFUL FIGURE IN A SEMI-TRANSPARENT VEIL PASSES UNNOTICED THROUGH\nTHE TEMPLE; THE WORD “LIBERTY” IS SEEN THROUGH THE VEIL, AS IF IT WERE\nWRITTEN IN FIRE UPON ITS FOREHEAD. ITS WORDS ARE ALMOST DROWNED IN THE\nFURIOUS GRUNTING OF THE PIGS, AND THE BUSINESS OF THE TRIAL. SHE\nKNEELS ON THE STEPS OF THE ALTAR, AND SPEAKS IN TONES AT FIRST FAINT\nAND LOW, BUT WHICH EVER BECOME LOUDER AND LOUDER.]\nMighty Empress! Death’s white wife!\nGhastly mother-in-law of Life! _85\nBy the God who made thee such,\nBy the magic of thy touch,\nBy the starving and the cramming\nOf fasts and feasts! by thy dread self, O Famine!\nI charge thee! when thou wake the multitude, _90\nThou lead them not upon the paths of blood.\nThe earth did never mean her foison\nFor those who crown life’s cup with poison\nOf fanatic rage and meaningless revenge—\nBut for those radiant spirits, who are still _95\nThe standard-bearers in the van of Change.\nBe they th’ appointed stewards, to fill\nThe lap of Pain, and Toil, and Age!—\nRemit, O Queen! thy accustomed rage!\nBe what thou art not! In voice faint and low _100\nFREEDOM calls “Famine”,—her eternal foe,\nTo brief alliance, hollow truce.—Rise now!\n\n[WHILST THE VEILED FIGURE HAS BEEN CHANTING THIS STROPHE, MAMMON,\nDAKRY, LAOCTONOS, AND SWELLFOOT, HAVE SURROUNDED IONA TAURINA, WHO,\nWITH HER HANDS FOLDED ON HER BREAST, AND HER EYES LIFTED TO HEAVEN,\nSTANDS, AS WITH SAINT-LIKE RESIGNATION, TO WAIT THE ISSUE OF THE\nBUSINESS, IN PERFECT CONFIDENCE OF HER INNOCENCE.]\n\n[PURGANAX, AFTER UNSEALING THE GREEN BAG, IS GRAVELY ABOUT TO POUR THE\nLIQUOR UPON HER HEAD, WHEN SUDDENLY THE WHOLE EXPRESSION OF HER FIGURE\nAND COUNTENANCE CHANGES; SHE SNATCHES IT FROM HIS HAND WITH A LOUD\nLAUGH OF TRIUMPH, AND EMPTIES IT OVER SWELLFOOT AND HIS WHOLE COURT,\nWHO ARE INSTANTLY CHANGED INTO A NUMBER OF FILTHY AND UGLY ANIMALS,\nAND RUSH OUT OF THE TEMPLE. THE IMAGE OF FAMINE THEN ARISES WITH A\nTREMENDOUS SOUND, THE PIGS BEGIN SCRAMBLING FOR THE LOAVES, AND ARE\nTRIPPED UP BY THE SKULLS; ALL THOSE WHO EAT THE LOAVES ARE TURNED INTO\nBULLS, AND ARRANGE THEMSELVES QUIETLY BEHIND THE ALTAR. THE IMAGE OF\nFAMINE SINKS THROUGH A CHASM IN THE EARTH, AND A MINOTAUR RISES.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Minotaur:", + "body": "I am the Ionian Minotaur, the mightiest\nOf all Europa’s taurine progeny—\nI am the old traditional Man-Bull; _105\nAnd from my ancestors having been Ionian,\nI am called Ion, which, by interpretation,\nIs JOHN; in plain Theban, that is to say,\nMy name’s JOHN BULL; I am a famous hunter,\nAnd can leaf any gate in all Boeotia, _110\nEven the palings of the royal park,\nOr double ditch about the new enclosures;\nAnd if your Majesty will deign to mount me,\nAt least till you have hunted down your game,\nI will not throw you. _115", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Iona Taurina [During This Speech She Has Been Putting On Boots And", + "body": "SPURS, AND A HUNTING-CAP, BUCKISHLY COCKED ON ONE SIDE, AND TUCKING UP\nHER HAIR, SHE LEAPS NIMBLY ON HIS BACK]:\nHoa! hoa! tallyho! tallyho! ho! ho!\nCome, let us hunt these ugly badgers down,\nThese stinking foxes, these devouring otters,\nThese hares, these wolves, these anything but men.\nHey, for a whipper-in! my loyal Pigs\nNow let your noses be as keen as beagles’, _120\nYour steps as swift as greyhounds’, and your cries\nMore dulcet and symphonious than the bells\nOf village-towers, on sunshine holiday;\nWake all the dewy woods with jangling music.\nGive them no law (are they not beasts of blood?) _125\nBut such as they gave you. Tallyho! ho!\nThrough forest, furze, and bog, and den, and desert,\nPursue the ugly beasts! tallyho! ho!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Full Chorus Of Iona And The Swine:", + "body": "Tallyho! tallyho!\nThrough rain, hail, and snow, _130\nThrough brake, gorse, and briar,\nThrough fen, flood, and mire,\nWe go! we go!\n\nTallyho! tallyho!\nThrough pond, ditch, and slough, _135\nWind them, and find them,\nLike the Devil behind them,\nTallyho! tallyho!\n\n[EXEUNT, IN FULL CRY;\nIONA DRIVING ON THE SWINE, WITH THE EMPTY GEEEN BAG.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Oedipus Tyrannus, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "In the brief journal I kept in those days, I find recorded, in August,\n1820, Shelley ‘begins “Swellfoot the Tyrant”, suggested by the pigs at\nthe fair of San Giuliano.’ This was the period of Queen Caroline’s\nlanding in England, and the struggles made by George IV to get rid of\nher claims; which failing, Lord Castlereagh placed the “Green Bag” on\nthe table of the House of Commons, demanding in the King’s name that\nan enquiry should be instituted into his wife’s conduct. These\ncircumstances were the theme of all conversation among the English. We\nwere then at the Baths of San Giuliano. A friend came to visit us on\nthe day when a fair was held in the square, beneath our windows:\nShelley read to us his “Ode to Liberty”; and was riotously accompanied\nby the grunting of a quantity of pigs brought for sale to the fair. He\ncompared it to the ‘chorus of frogs’ in the satiric drama of\nAristophanes; and, it being an hour of merriment, and one ludicrous\nassociation suggesting another, he imagined a political-satirical\ndrama on the circumstances of the day, to which the pigs would serve\nas chorus—and “Swellfoot” was begun. When finished, it was\ntransmitted to England, printed, and published anonymously; but\nstifled at the very dawn of its existence by the Society for the\nSuppression of Vice, who threatened to prosecute it, if not\nimmediately withdrawn. The friend who had taken the trouble of\nbringing it out, of course did not think it worth the annoyance and\nexpense of a contest, and it was laid aside.\n\nHesitation of whether it would do honour to Shelley prevented my\npublishing it at first. But I cannot bring myself to keep back\nanything he ever wrote; for each word is fraught with the peculiar\nviews and sentiments which he believed to be beneficial to the human\nrace, and the bright light of poetry irradiates every thought. The\nworld has a right to the entire compositions of such a man; for it\ndoes not live and thrive by the outworn lesson of the dullard or the\nhypocrite, but by the original free thoughts of men of genius, who\naspire to pluck bright truth\n\n‘from the pale-faced moon;\nOr dive into the bottom of the deep\nWhere fathom-line would never touch the ground,\nAnd pluck up drowned’\n\ntruth. Even those who may dissent from his opinions will consider that\nhe was a man of genius, and that the world will take more interest in\nhis slightest word than in the waters of Lethe which are so eagerly\nprescribed as medicinal for all its wrongs and woe. This drama,\nhowever, must not be judged for more than was meant. It is a mere\nplaything of the imagination; which even may not excite smiles among\nmany, who will not see wit in those combinations of thought which were\nfull of the ridiculous to the author. But, like everything he wrote,\nit breathes that deep sympathy for the sorrows of humanity, and\nindignation against its oppressors, which make it worthy of his name.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Now Imprisoned In The Convent Of —.", + "body": "L’anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nell’ infinito un\nMondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro.\nHER OWN WORDS.\n\n[“Epipsychidion” was composed at Pisa, January, February, 1821, and\npublished without the author’s name, in the following summer, by C. &\nJ. Ollier, London. The poem was included by Mrs. Shelley in the\n“Poetical Works”, 1839, both editions. Amongst the Shelley manuscripts\nin the Bodleian is a first draft of “Epipsychidion”, ‘consisting of\nthree versions, more or less complete, of the “Preface\n[Advertisement]”, a version in ink and pencil, much cancelled, of the\nlast eighty lines of the poem, and some additional lines which did not\nappear in print’ (“Examination of the Shelley manuscripts in the\nBodleian Library, by C.D. Locock”. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903, page\n3). This draft, the writing of which is ‘extraordinarily confused and\nillegible,’ has been carefully deciphered and printed by Mr. Locock in\nthe volume named above. Our text follows that of the editio princeps,\n1821.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Advertisement.", + "body": "The Writer of the following lines died at Florence, as he was\npreparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he\nhad bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins of an old building,\nand where it was his hope to have realised a scheme of life, suited\nperhaps to that happier and better world of which he is now an\ninhabitant, but hardly practicable in this. His life was singular;\nless on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it,\nthan the ideal tinge which it received from his own character and\nfeelings. The present Poem, like the “Vita Nuova” of Dante, is\nsufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a\nmatter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it relates and to\na certain other class it must ever remain incomprehensible, from a\ndefect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which it\ntreats. Not but that gran vergogna sarebbe a colui, che rimasse cosa\nsotto veste di figura, o di colore rettorico: e domandato non sapesse\ndenudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace\nintendimento.\n\nThe present poem appears to have been intended by the Writer as the\ndedication to some longer one. The stanza on the opposite page [1] is\nalmost a literal translation from Dante’s famous Canzone\n\nVoi, ch’ intendendo, il terzo ciel movete, etc.\n\nThe presumptuous application of the concluding lines to his own\ncomposition will raise a smile at the expense of my unfortunate\nfriend: be it a smile not of contempt, but pity. S.\n\n[1] i.e. the nine lines which follow, beginning, ‘My Song, I fear,’\netc.—ED.\n\nMy Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few\nWho fitly shalt conceive thy reasoning,\nOf such hard matter dost thou entertain;\nWhence, if by misadventure, chance should bring\nThee to base company (as chance may do), _5\nQuite unaware of what thou dost contain,\nI prithee, comfort thy sweet self again,\nMy last delight! tell them that they are dull,\nAnd bid them own that thou art beautiful.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Epipsychidion.", + "body": "Sweet Spirit! Sister of that orphan one,\nWhose empire is the name thou weepest on,\nIn my heart’s temple I suspend to thee\nThese votive wreaths of withered memory.\n\nPoor captive bird! who, from thy narrow cage, _5\nPourest such music, that it might assuage\nThe rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee,\nWere they not deaf to all sweet melody;\nThis song shall be thy rose: its petals pale\nAre dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale! _10\nBut soft and fragrant is the faded blossom,\nAnd it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom.\n\nHigh, spirit-winged Heart! who dost for ever\nBeat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour,\nTill those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed _15\nIt over-soared this low and worldly shade,\nLie shattered; and thy panting, wounded breast\nStains with dear blood its unmaternal nest!\nI weep vain tears: blood would less bitter be,\nYet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee. _20\n\nSeraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human,\nVeiling beneath that radiant form of Woman\nAll that is insupportable in thee\nOf light, and love, and immortality!\nSweet Benediction in the eternal Curse! _25\nVeiled Glory of this lampless Universe!\nThou Moon beyond the clouds! Thou living Form\nAmong the Dead! Thou Star above the Storm!\nThou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror!\nThou Harmony of Nature’s art! Thou Mirror _30\nIn whom, as in the splendour of the Sun,\nAll shapes look glorious which thou gazest on!\nAy, even the dim words which obscure thee now\nFlash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow;\nI pray thee that thou blot from this sad song _35\nAll of its much mortality and wrong,\nWith those clear drops, which start like sacred dew\nFrom the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through,\nWeeping, till sorrow becomes ecstasy:\nThen smile on it, so that it may not die. _40\n\nI never thought before my death to see\nYouth’s vision thus made perfect. Emily,\nI love thee; though the world by no thin name\nWill hide that love from its unvalued shame.\nWould we two had been twins of the same mother! _45\nOr, that the name my heart lent to another\nCould be a sister’s bond for her and thee,\nBlending two beams of one eternity!\nYet were one lawful and the other true,\nThese names, though dear, could paint not, as is due. _50\nHow beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me!\nI am not thine: I am a part of THEE.\n\nSweet Lamp! my moth-like Muse has burned its wings\nOr, like a dying swan who soars and sings,\nYoung Love should teach Time, in his own gray style, _55\nAll that thou art. Art thou not void of guile,\nA lovely soul formed to be blessed and bless?\nA well of sealed and secret happiness,\nWhose waters like blithe light and music are,\nVanquishing dissonance and gloom? A Star _60\nWhich moves not in the moving heavens, alone?\nA Smile amid dark frowns? a gentle tone\nAmid rude voices? a beloved light?\nA Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight?\nA Lute, which those whom Love has taught to play _65\nMake music on, to soothe the roughest day\nAnd lull fond Grief asleep? a buried treasure?\nA cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure?\nA violet-shrouded grave of Woe?—I measure\nThe world of fancies, seeking one like thee, _70\nAnd find—alas! mine own infirmity.\n\nShe met me, Stranger, upon life’s rough way,\nAnd lured me towards sweet Death; as Night by Day,\nWinter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope,\nLed into light, life, peace. An antelope, _75\nIn the suspended impulse of its lightness,\nWere less aethereally light: the brightness\nOf her divinest presence trembles through\nHer limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew\nEmbodied in the windless heaven of June _80\nAmid the splendour-winged stars, the Moon\nBurns, inextinguishably beautiful:\nAnd from her lips, as from a hyacinth full\nOf honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops,\nKilling the sense with passion; sweet as stops _85\nOf planetary music heard in trance.\nIn her mild lights the starry spirits dance,\nThe sunbeams of those wells which ever leap\nUnder the lightnings of the soul—too deep\nFor the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. _90\nThe glory of her being, issuing thence,\nStains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade\nOf unentangled intermixture, made\nBy Love, of light and motion: one intense\nDiffusion, one serene Omnipresence, _95\nWhose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing,\nAround her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing\nWith the unintermitted blood, which there\nQuivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air\nThe crimson pulse of living morning quiver,) _100\nContinuously prolonged, and ending never,\nTill they are lost, and in that Beauty furled\nWhich penetrates and clasps and fills the world;\nScarce visible from extreme loveliness.\nWarm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress _105\nAnd her loose hair; and where some heavy tress\nThe air of her own speed has disentwined,\nThe sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind;\nAnd in the soul a wild odour is felt\nBeyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt _110\nInto the bosom of a frozen bud.—\nSee where she stands! a mortal shape indued\nWith love and life and light and deity,\nAnd motion which may change but cannot die;\nAn image of some bright Eternity; _115\nA shadow of some golden dream; a Splendour\nLeaving the third sphere pilotless; a tender\nReflection of the eternal Moon of Love\nUnder whose motions life’s dull billows move;\nA Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning; _120\nA Vision like incarnate April, warning,\nWith smiles and tears, Frost the Anatomy\nInto his summer grave.\nAh, woe is me!\nWhat have I dared? where am I lifted? how\nShall I descend, and perish not? I know _125\nThat Love makes all things equal: I have heard\nBy mine own heart this joyous truth averred:\nThe spirit of the worm beneath the sod\nIn love and worship, blends itself with God.\n\nSpouse! Sister! Angel! Pilot of the Fate _130\nWhose course has been so starless! O too late\nBeloved! O too soon adored, by me!\nFor in the fields of Immortality\nMy spirit should at first have worshipped thine,\nA divine presence in a place divine; _135\nOr should have moved beside it on this earth,\nA shadow of that substance, from its birth;\nBut not as now:—I love thee; yes, I feel\nThat on the fountain of my heart a seal\nIs set, to keep its waters pure and bright _140\nFor thee, since in those TEARS thou hast delight.\nWe—are we not formed, as notes of music are,\nFor one another, though dissimilar;\nSuch difference without discord, as can make\nThose sweetest sounds, in which all spirits shake _145\nAs trembling leaves in a continuous air?\n\nThy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dare\nBeacon the rocks on which high hearts are wrecked.\nI never was attached to that great sect,\nWhose doctrine is, that each one should select _150\nOut of the crowd a mistress or a friend,\nAnd all the rest, though fair and wise, commend\nTo cold oblivion, though it is in the code\nOf modern morals, and the beaten road\nWhich those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread, _155\nWho travel to their home among the dead\nBy the broad highway of the world, and so\nWith one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe,\nThe dreariest and the longest journey go.\n\nTrue Love in this differs from gold and clay, _160\nThat to divide is not to take away.\nLove is like understanding, that grows bright,\nGazing on many truths; ’tis like thy light,\nImagination! which from earth and sky,\nAnd from the depths of human fantasy, _165\nAs from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills\nThe Universe with glorious beams, and kills\nError, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow\nOf its reverberated lightning. Narrow\nThe heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, _170\nThe life that wears, the spirit that creates\nOne object, and one form, and builds thereby\nA sepulchre for its eternity.\n\nMind from its object differs most in this:\nEvil from good; misery from happiness; _175\nThe baser from the nobler; the impure\nAnd frail, from what is clear and must endure.\nIf you divide suffering and dross, you may\nDiminish till it is consumed away;\nIf you divide pleasure and love and thought, _180\nEach part exceeds the whole; and we know not\nHow much, while any yet remains unshared,\nOf pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared:\nThis truth is that deep well, whence sages draw\nThe unenvied light of hope; the eternal law _185\nBy which those live, to whom this world of life\nIs as a garden ravaged, and whose strife\nTills for the promise of a later birth\nThe wilderness of this Elysian earth.\n\nThere was a Being whom my spirit oft _190\nMet on its visioned wanderings, far aloft,\nIn the clear golden prime of my youth’s dawn,\nUpon the fairy isles of sunny lawn,\nAmid the enchanted mountains, and the caves\nOf divine sleep, and on the air-like waves _195\nOf wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor\nPaved her light steps;—on an imagined shore,\nUnder the gray beak of some promontory\nShe met me, robed in such exceeding glory,\nThat I beheld her not. In solitudes _200\nHer voice came to me through the whispering woods,\nAnd from the fountains, and the odours deep\nOf flowers, which, like lips murmuring in their sleep\nOf the sweet kisses which had lulled them there,\nBreathed but of HER to the enamoured air; _205\nAnd from the breezes whether low or loud,\nAnd from the rain of every passing cloud,\nAnd from the singing of the summer-birds,\nAnd from all sounds, all silence. In the words\nOf antique verse and high romance,—in form, _210\nSound, colour—in whatever checks that Storm\nWhich with the shattered present chokes the past;\nAnd in that best philosophy, whose taste\nMakes this cold common hell, our life, a doom\nAs glorious as a fiery martyrdom; _215\nHer Spirit was the harmony of truth.—\n\nThen, from the caverns of my dreamy youth\nI sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire,\nAnd towards the lodestar of my one desire,\nI flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight _220\nIs as a dead leaf’s in the owlet light,\nWhen it would seek in Hesper’s setting sphere\nA radiant death, a fiery sepulchre,\nAs if it were a lamp of earthly flame.—\nBut She, whom prayers or tears then could not tame, _225\nPassed, like a God throned on a winged planet,\nWhose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it,\nInto the dreary cone of our life’s shade;\nAnd as a man with mighty loss dismayed,\nI would have followed, though the grave between _230\nYawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen:\nWhen a voice said:—‘O thou of hearts the weakest,\nThe phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest.’\nThen I—‘Where?’—the world’s echo answered ‘where?’\nAnd in that silence, and in my despair, _235\nI questioned every tongueless wind that flew\nOver my tower of mourning, if it knew\nWhither ’twas fled, this soul out of my soul;\nAnd murmured names and spells which have control\nOver the sightless tyrants of our fate; _240\nBut neither prayer nor verse could dissipate\nThe night which closed on her; nor uncreate\nThat world within this Chaos, mine and me,\nOf which she was the veiled Divinity,\nThe world I say of thoughts that worshipped her: _245\nAnd therefore I went forth, with hope and fear\nAnd every gentle passion sick to death,\nFeeding my course with expectation’s breath,\nInto the wintry forest of our life;\nAnd struggling through its error with vain strife, _250\nAnd stumbling in my weakness and my haste,\nAnd half bewildered by new forms, I passed,\nSeeking among those untaught foresters\nIf I could find one form resembling hers,\nIn which she might have masked herself from me. _255\nThere,—One, whose voice was venomed melody\nSate by a well, under blue nightshade bowers:\nThe breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers,\nHer touch was as electric poison,—flame\nOut of her looks into my vitals came, _260\nAnd from her living cheeks and bosom flew\nA killing air, which pierced like honey-dew\nInto the core of my green heart, and lay\nUpon its leaves; until, as hair grown gray\nO’er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime _265\nWith ruins of unseasonable time.\n\nIn many mortal forms I rashly sought\nThe shadow of that idol of my thought.\nAnd some were fair—but beauty dies away:\nOthers were wise—but honeyed words betray: _270\nAnd One was true—oh! why not true to me?\nThen, as a hunted deer that could not flee,\nI turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay,\nWounded and weak and panting; the cold day\nTrembled, for pity of my strife and pain. _275\nWhen, like a noonday dawn, there shone again\nDeliverance. One stood on my path who seemed\nAs like the glorious shape which I had dreamed\nAs is the Moon, whose changes ever run\nInto themselves, to the eternal Sun; _280\nThe cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven’s bright isles,\nWho makes all beautiful on which she smiles,\nThat wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame\nWhich ever is transformed, yet still the same,\nAnd warms not but illumines. Young and fair _285\nAs the descended Spirit of that sphere,\nShe hid me, as the Moon may hide the night\nFrom its own darkness, until all was bright\nBetween the Heaven and Earth of my calm mind,\nAnd, as a cloud charioted by the wind, _290\nShe led me to a cave in that wild place,\nAnd sate beside me, with her downward face\nIllumining my slumbers, like the Moon\nWaxing and waning o’er Endymion.\nAnd I was laid asleep, spirit and limb, _295\nAnd all my being became bright or dim\nAs the Moon’s image in a summer sea,\nAccording as she smiled or frowned on me;\nAnd there I lay, within a chaste cold bed:\nAlas, I then was nor alive nor dead:— _300\nFor at her silver voice came Death and Life,\nUnmindful each of their accustomed strife,\nMasked like twin babes, a sister and a brother,\nThe wandering hopes of one abandoned mother,\nAnd through the cavern without wings they flew, _305\nAnd cried ‘Away, he is not of our crew.’\nI wept, and though it be a dream, I weep.\n\nWhat storms then shook the ocean of my sleep,\nBlotting that Moon, whose pale and waning lips\nThen shrank as in the sickness of eclipse;— _310\nAnd how my soul was as a lampless sea,\nAnd who was then its Tempest; and when She,\nThe Planet of that hour, was quenched, what frost\nCrept o’er those waters, till from coast to coast\nThe moving billows of my being fell _315\nInto a death of ice, immovable;—\nAnd then—what earthquakes made it gape and split,\nThe white Moon smiling all the while on it,\nThese words conceal:—If not, each word would be\nThe key of staunchless tears. Weep not for me! _320\n\nAt length, into the obscure Forest came\nThe Vision I had sought through grief and shame.\nAthwart that wintry wilderness of thorns\nFlashed from her motion splendour like the Morn’s,\nAnd from her presence life was radiated _325\nThrough the gray earth and branches bare and dead;\nSo that her way was paved, and roofed above\nWith flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love;\nAnd music from her respiration spread\nLike light,—all other sounds were penetrated _330\nBy the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound,\nSo that the savage winds hung mute around;\nAnd odours warm and fresh fell from her hair\nDissolving the dull cold in the frore air:\nSoft as an Incarnation of the Sun, _335\nWhen light is changed to love, this glorious One\nFloated into the cavern where I lay,\nAnd called my Spirit, and the dreaming clay\nWas lifted by the thing that dreamed below\nAs smoke by fire, and in her beauty’s glow _340\nI stood, and felt the dawn of my long night\nWas penetrating me with living light:\nI knew it was the Vision veiled from me\nSo many years—that it was Emily.\n\nTwin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth, _345\nThis world of loves, this ME; and into birth\nAwaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart\nMagnetic might into its central heart;\nAnd lift its billows and its mists, and guide\nBy everlasting laws, each wind and tide _350\nTo its fit cloud, and its appointed cave;\nAnd lull its storms, each in the craggy grave\nWhich was its cradle, luring to faint bowers\nThe armies of the rainbow-winged showers;\nAnd, as those married lights, which from the towers _355\nOf Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe\nIn liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe;\nAnd all their many-mingled influence blend,\nIf equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end;—\nSo ye, bright regents, with alternate sway _360\nGovern my sphere of being, night and day!\nThou, not disdaining even a borrowed might;\nThou, not eclipsing a remoter light;\nAnd, through the shadow of the seasons three,\nFrom Spring to Autumn’s sere maturity, _365\nLight it into the Winter of the tomb,\nWhere it may ripen to a brighter bloom.\nThou too, O Comet beautiful and fierce,\nWho drew the heart of this frail Universe\nTowards thine own; till, wrecked in that convulsion, _370\nAlternating attraction and repulsion,\nThine went astray and that was rent in twain;\nOh, float into our azure heaven again!\nBe there Love’s folding-star at thy return;\nThe living Sun will feed thee from its urn _375\nOf golden fire; the Moon will veil her horn\nIn thy last smiles; adoring Even and Morn\nWill worship thee with incense of calm breath\nAnd lights and shadows; as the star of Death\nAnd Birth is worshipped by those sisters wild _380\nCalled Hope and Fear—upon the heart are piled\nTheir offerings,—of this sacrifice divine\nA World shall be the altar.\nLady mine,\nScorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth\nWhich from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth _385\nWhose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes,\nWill be as of the trees of Paradise.\n\nThe day is come, and thou wilt fly with me.\nTo whatsoe’er of dull mortality\nIs mine, remain a vestal sister still; _390\nTo the intense, the deep, the imperishable,\nNot mine but me, henceforth be thou united\nEven as a bride, delighting and delighted.\nThe hour is come:—the destined Star has risen\nWhich shall descend upon a vacant prison. _395\nThe walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set\nThe sentinels—but true Love never yet\nWas thus constrained: it overleaps all fence:\nLike lightning, with invisible violence\nPiercing its continents; like Heaven’s free breath, _400\nWhich he who grasps can hold not; liker Death,\nWho rides upon a thought, and makes his way\nThrough temple, tower, and palace, and the array\nOf arms: more strength has Love than he or they;\nFor it can burst his charnel, and make free _405\nThe limbs in chains, the heart in agony,\nThe soul in dust and chaos.\nEmily,\nA ship is floating in the harbour now,\nA wind is hovering o’er the mountain’s brow;\nThere is a path on the sea’s azure floor, _410\nNo keel has ever ploughed that path before;\nThe halcyons brood around the foamless isles;\nThe treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;\nThe merry mariners are bold and free:\nSay, my heart’s sister, wilt thou sail with me? _415\nOur bark is as an albatross, whose nest\nIs a far Eden of the purple East;\nAnd we between her wings will sit, while Night,\nAnd Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight,\nOur ministers, along the boundless Sea, _420\nTreading each other’s heels, unheededly.\nIt is an isle under Ionian skies,\nBeautiful as a wreck of Paradise,\nAnd, for the harbours are not safe and good,\nThis land would have remained a solitude _425\nBut for some pastoral people native there,\nWho from the Elysian, clear, and golden air\nDraw the last spirit of the age of gold,\nSimple and spirited; innocent and bold.\nThe blue Aegean girds this chosen home, _430\nWith ever-changing sound and light and foam,\nKissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar;\nAnd all the winds wandering along the shore\nUndulate with the undulating tide:\nThere are thick woods where sylvan forms abide; _435\nAnd many a fountain, rivulet, and pond,\nAs clear as elemental diamond,\nOr serene morning air; and far beyond,\nThe mossy tracks made by the goats and deer\n(Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year) _440\nPierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls\nBuilt round with ivy, which the waterfalls\nIllumining, with sound that never fails\nAccompany the noonday nightingales;\nAnd all the place is peopled with sweet airs; _445\nThe light clear element which the isle wears\nIs heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers,\nWhich floats like mist laden with unseen showers.\nAnd falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep;\nAnd from the moss violets and jonquils peep, _450\nAnd dart their arrowy odour through the brain\nTill you might faint with that delicious pain.\nAnd every motion, odour, beam and tone,\nWith that deep music is in unison:\nWhich is a soul within the soul—they seem _455\nLike echoes of an antenatal dream.—\nIt is an isle ’twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea,\nCradled, and hung in clear tranquillity;\nBright as that wandering Eden Lucifer,\nWashed by the soft blue Oceans of young air. _460\nIt is a favoured place. Famine or Blight,\nPestilence, War and Earthquake, never light\nUpon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they\nSail onward far upon their fatal way:\nThe winged storms, chanting their thunder-psalm _465\nTo other lands, leave azure chasms of calm\nOver this isle, or weep themselves in dew,\nFrom which its fields and woods ever renew\nTheir green and golden immortality.\nAnd from the sea there rise, and from the sky _470\nThere fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright.\nVeil after veil, each hiding some delight,\nWhich Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside,\nTill the isle’s beauty, like a naked bride\nGlowing at once with love and loveliness, _475\nBlushes and trembles at its own excess:\nYet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less\nBurns in the heart of this delicious isle,\nAn atom of th’ Eternal, whose own smile\nUnfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen _480\nO’er the gray rocks, blue waves, and forests green,\nFilling their bare and void interstices.—\nBut the chief marvel of the wilderness\nIs a lone dwelling, built by whom or how\nNone of the rustic island-people know: _485\n’Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height\nIt overtops the woods; but, for delight,\nSome wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime\nHad been invented, in the world’s young prime,\nReared it, a wonder of that simple time, _490\nAn envy of the isles, a pleasure-house\nMade sacred to his sister and his spouse.\nIt scarce seems now a wreck of human art,\nBut, as it were Titanic; in the heart\nOf Earth having assumed its form, then grown _495\nOut of the mountains, from the living stone,\nLifting itself in caverns light and high:\nFor all the antique and learned imagery\nHas been erased, and in the place of it\nThe ivy and the wild-vine interknit _500\nThe volumes of their many-twining stems;\nParasite flowers illume with dewy gems\nThe lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky\nPeeps through their winter-woof of tracery\nWith moonlight patches, or star atoms keen, _505\nOr fragments of the day’s intense serene;—\nWorking mosaic on their Parian floors.\nAnd, day and night, aloof, from the high towers\nAnd terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem\nTo sleep in one another’s arms, and dream _510\nOf waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we\nRead in their smiles, and call reality.\n\nThis isle and house are mine, and I have vowed\nThee to be lady of the solitude.—\nAnd I have fitted up some chambers there _515\nLooking towards the golden Eastern air,\nAnd level with the living winds, which flow\nLike waves above the living waves below.—\nI have sent books and music there, and all\nThose instruments with which high Spirits call _520\nThe future from its cradle, and the past\nOut of its grave, and make the present last\nIn thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die,\nFolded within their own eternity.\nOur simple life wants little, and true taste _525\nHires not the pale drudge Luxury, to waste\nThe scene it would adorn, and therefore still,\nNature with all her children haunts the hill.\nThe ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet\nKeeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit _530\nRound the evening tower, and the young stars glance\nBetween the quick bats in their twilight dance;\nThe spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight\nBefore our gate, and the slow, silent night\nIs measured by the pants of their calm sleep. _535\nBe this our home in life, and when years heap\nTheir withered hours, like leaves, on our decay,\nLet us become the overhanging day,\nThe living soul of this Elysian isle,\nConscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile _540\nWe two will rise, and sit, and walk together,\nUnder the roof of blue Ionian weather,\nAnd wander in the meadows, or ascend\nThe mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend\nWith lightest winds, to touch their paramour; _545\nOr linger, where the pebble-paven shore,\nUnder the quick, faint kisses of the sea\nTrembles and sparkles as with ecstasy,—\nPossessing and possessed by all that is\nWithin that calm circumference of bliss, _550\nAnd by each other, till to love and live\nBe one:—or, at the noontide hour, arrive\nWhere some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep\nThe moonlight of the expired night asleep,\nThrough which the awakened day can never peep; _555\nA veil for our seclusion, close as night’s,\nWhere secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights:\nSleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain\nWhose drops quench kisses till they burn again.\nAnd we will talk, until thought’s melody _560\nBecome too sweet for utterance, and it die\nIn words, to live again in looks, which dart\nWith thrilling tone into the voiceless heart,\nHarmonizing silence without a sound.\nOur breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, _565\nAnd our veins beat together; and our lips\nWith other eloquence than words, eclipse\nThe soul that burns between them, and the wells\nWhich boil under our being’s inmost cells,\nThe fountains of our deepest life, shall be _570\nConfused in Passion’s golden purity,\nAs mountain-springs under the morning sun.\nWe shall become the same, we shall be one\nSpirit within two frames, oh! wherefore two?\nOne passion in twin-hearts, which grows and grew, _575\nTill like two meteors of expanding flame,\nThose spheres instinct with it become the same,\nTouch, mingle, are transfigured; ever still\nBurning, yet ever inconsumable:\nIn one another’s substance finding food, _580\nLike flames too pure and light and unimbued\nTo nourish their bright lives with baser prey,\nWhich point to Heaven and cannot pass away:\nOne hope within two wills, one will beneath\nTwo overshadowing minds, one life, one death, _585\nOne Heaven, one Hell, one immortality,\nAnd one annihilation. Woe is me!\nThe winged words on which my soul would pierce\nInto the height of Love’s rare Universe,\nAre chains of lead around its flight of fire— _590\nI pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!\n\n...\n\nWeak Verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign’s feet,\nAnd say:—‘We are the masters of thy slave;\nWhat wouldest thou with us and ours and thine?’\nThen call your sisters from Oblivion’s cave, _595\nAll singing loud: ‘Love’s very pain is sweet,\nBut its reward is in the world divine\nWhich, if not here, it builds beyond the grave.’\nSo shall ye live when I am there. Then haste\nOver the hearts of men, until ye meet _600\nMarina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest,\nAnd bid them love each other and be blessed:\nAnd leave the troop which errs, and which reproves,\nAnd come and be my guest,—for I am Love’s.\n\n_100 morning]morn may Rossetti cj.\n_118 of]on edition 1839.\n_405 it]he edition 1839.\n_501 many-twining]many twining editio prin. 1821.\n_504 winter-woof]inter-woof Rossetti cj.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragments Connected With Epipsychidion.", + "body": "[Of the fragments of verse that follow, lines 1-37, 62-92 were printed\nby Mrs. Shelley in “Posthumous Works”, 1839, 2nd edition; lines 1-174\nwere printed or reprinted by Dr. Garnett in “Relics of Shelley”, 1862;\nand lines 175-186 were printed by Mr. C.D. Locock from the first draft\nof “Epipsychidion” amongst the Shelley manuscripts in the Bodleian\nLibrary. See “Examination, etc.”, 1903, pages 12, 13. The three early\ndrafts of the “Preface (Advertisement)” were printed by Mr. Locock in\nthe same volume, pages 4, 5.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Preface 1.", + "body": "The following Poem was found amongst other papers in the Portfolio of\na young Englishman with whom the Editor had contracted an intimacy at\nFlorence, brief indeed, but sufficiently long to render the\nCatastrophe by which it terminated one of the most painful events of\nhis life.—\n\nThe literary merit of the Poem in question may not be considerable;\nbut worse verses are printed every day, &\n\nHe was an accomplished & amiable person but his error was, thuntos on\nun thunta phronein,—his fate is an additional proof that ‘The tree of\nKnowledge is not that of Life.’—He had framed to himself certain\nopinions, founded no doubt upon the truth of things, but built up to a\nBabel height; they fell by their own weight, & the thoughts that were\nhis architects, became unintelligible one to the other, as men upon\nwhom confusion of tongues has fallen.\n\n[These] verses seem to have been written as a sort of dedication of\nsome work to have been presented to the person whom they address: but\nhis papers afford no trace of such a work—The circumstances to which\n[they] the poem allude, may easily be understood by those to whom\n[the] spirit of the poem itself is [un]intelligible: a detail of\nfacts, sufficiently romantic in [themselves but] their combinations\n\nThe melancholy [task] charge of consigning the body of my poor friend\nto the grave, was committed to me by his desolated family. I caused\nhim to be buried in a spot selected by himself, & on the h", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Preface 2.", + "body": "[Epips] T. E. V. Epipsych\nLines addressed to\nthe Noble Lady\n[Emilia] [E. V.]\nEmilia\n\n[The following Poem was found in the PF. of a young Englishman, who\ndied on his passage from Leghorn to the Levant. He had bought one of\nthe Sporades] He was accompanied by a lady [who might have been]\nsupposed to be his wife, & an effeminate looking youth, to whom he\nshewed an [attachment] so [singular] excessive an attachment as to\ngive rise to the suspicion, that she was a woman—At his death this\nsuspicion was confirmed;...object speedily found a refuge both from\nthe taunts of the brute multitude, and from the...of her grief in the\nsame grave that contained her lover.—He had bought one of the\nSporades, & fitted up a Saracenic castle which accident had preserved\nin some repair with simple elegance, & it was his intention to\ndedicate the remainder of his life to undisturbed intercourse with his\ncompanions\n\nThese verses apparently were intended as a dedication of a longer poem\nor series of poems", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Preface 3.", + "body": "The writer of these lines died at Florence in [January 1820] while he\nwas preparing * * for one wildest of the of the Sporades, where he\nbought & fitted up the ruins of some old building—His life was\nsingular, less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which\ndiversified it, than the ideal tinge which they received from his own\ncharacter & feelings—\n\nThe verses were apparently intended by the writer to accompany some\nlonger poem or collection of poems, of which there* [are no remnants\nin his] * * * remains [in his] portfolio.—\n\nThe editor is induced to\n\nThe present poem, like the vita Nova of Dante, is sufficiently\nintelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter of fact\nhistory of the circumstances to which it relate, & to a certain other\nclass, it must & ought ever to remain incomprehensible—It was\nevidently intended to be prefixed to a longer poem or series of\npoems—but among his papers there are no traces of such a collection.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Passages Of The Poem, Or Connected Therewith.", + "body": "Here, my dear friend, is a new book for you;\nI have already dedicated two\nTo other friends, one female and one male,—\nWhat you are, is a thing that I must veil;\nWhat can this be to those who praise or rail? _5\nI never was attached to that great sect\nWhose doctrine is that each one should select\nOut of the world a mistress or a friend,\nAnd all the rest, though fair and wise, commend\nTo cold oblivion—though ’tis in the code _10\nOf modern morals, and the beaten road\nWhich those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread\nWho travel to their home among the dead\nBy the broad highway of the world—and so\nWith one sad friend, and many a jealous foe, _15\nThe dreariest and the longest journey go.\n\nFree love has this, different from gold and clay,\nThat to divide is not to take away.\nLike ocean, which the general north wind breaks\nInto ten thousand waves, and each one makes _20\nA mirror of the moon—like some great glass,\nWhich did distort whatever form might pass,\nDashed into fragments by a playful child,\nWhich then reflects its eyes and forehead mild;\nGiving for one, which it could ne’er express, _25\nA thousand images of loveliness.\n\nIf I were one whom the loud world held wise,\nI should disdain to quote authorities\nIn commendation of this kind of love:—\nWhy there is first the God in heaven above, _30\nWho wrote a book called Nature, ’tis to be\nReviewed, I hear, in the next Quarterly;\nAnd Socrates, the Jesus Christ of Greece,\nAnd Jesus Christ Himself, did never cease\nTo urge all living things to love each other, _35\nAnd to forgive their mutual faults, and smother\nThe Devil of disunion in their souls.\n\n...\n\nI love you!—Listen, O embodied Ray\nOf the great Brightness; I must pass away\nWhile you remain, and these light words must be _40\nTokens by which you may remember me.\nStart not—the thing you are is unbetrayed,\nIf you are human, and if but the shade\nOf some sublimer spirit...\n\n...\n\nAnd as to friend or mistress, ’tis a form; _45\nPerhaps I wish you were one. Some declare\nYou a familiar spirit, as you are;\nOthers with a ... more inhuman\nHint that, though not my wife, you are a woman;\nWhat is the colour of your eyes and hair? _50\nWhy, if you were a lady, it were fair\nThe world should know—but, as I am afraid,\nThe Quarterly would bait you if betrayed;\nAnd if, as it will be sport to see them stumble\nOver all sorts of scandals. hear them mumble _55\nTheir litany of curses—some guess right,\nAnd others swear you’re a Hermaphrodite;\nLike that sweet marble monster of both sexes,\nWhich looks so sweet and gentle that it vexes\nThe very soul that the soul is gone _60\nWhich lifted from her limbs the veil of stone.\n\n...\n\nIt is a sweet thing, friendship, a dear balm,\nA happy and auspicious bird of calm,\nWhich rides o’er life’s ever tumultuous Ocean;\nA God that broods o’er chaos in commotion; _65\nA flower which fresh as Lapland roses are,\nLifts its bold head into the world’s frore air,\nAnd blooms most radiantly when others die,\nHealth, hope, and youth, and brief prosperity;\nAnd with the light and odour of its bloom, _70\nShining within the dun eon and the tomb;\nWhose coming is as light and music are\n‘Mid dissonance and gloom—a star\nWhich moves not ‘mid the moving heavens alone—\nA smile among dark frowns—a gentle tone _75\nAmong rude voices, a beloved light,\nA solitude, a refuge, a delight.\nIf I had but a friend! Why, I have three\nEven by my own confession; there may be\nSome more, for what I know, for ’tis my mind _80\nTo call my friends all who are wise and kind,-\nAnd these, Heaven knows, at best are very few;\nBut none can ever be more dear than you.\nWhy should they be? My muse has lost her wings,\nOr like a dying swan who soars and sings, _85\nI should describe you in heroic style,\nBut as it is, are you not void of guile?\nA lovely soul, formed to be blessed and bless:\nA well of sealed and secret happiness;\nA lute which those whom Love has taught to play _90\nMake music on to cheer the roughest day,\nAnd enchant sadness till it sleeps?...\n\n...\n\nTo the oblivion whither I and thou,\nAll loving and all lovely, hasten now\nWith steps, ah, too unequal! may we meet _95\nIn one Elysium or one winding-sheet!\n\nIf any should be curious to discover\nWhether to you I am a friend or lover,\nLet them read Shakespeare’s sonnets, taking thence\nA whetstone for their dull intelligence _100\nThat tears and will not cut, or let them guess\nHow Diotima, the wise prophetess,\nInstructed the instructor, and why he\nRebuked the infant spirit of melody\nOn Agathon’s sweet lips, which as he spoke _105\nWas as the lovely star when morn has broke\nThe roof of darkness, in the golden dawn,\nHalf-hidden, and yet beautiful.\nI’ll pawn\nMy hopes of Heaven-you know what they are worth —\nThat the presumptuous pedagogues of Earth, _110\nIf they could tell the riddle offered here\nWould scorn to be, or being to appear\nWhat now they seem and are—but let them chide,\nThey have few pleasures in the world beside;\nPerhaps we should be dull were we not chidden, _115\nParadise fruits are sweetest when forbidden.\nFolly can season Wisdom, Hatred Love.\n\n...\n\nFarewell, if it can be to say farewell\nTo those who\n\n...\n\nI will not, as most dedicators do, _120\nAssure myself and all the world and you,\nThat you are faultless—would to God they were\nWho taunt me with your love! I then should wear\nThese heavy chains of life with a light spirit,\nAnd would to God I were, or even as near it _125\nAs you, dear heart. Alas! what are we? Clouds\nDriven by the wind in warring multitudes,\nWhich rain into the bosom of the earth,\nAnd rise again, and in our death and birth,\nAnd through our restless life, take as from heaven _130\nHues which are not our own, but which are given,\nAnd then withdrawn, and with inconstant glance\nFlash from the spirit to the countenance.\nThere is a Power, a Love, a Joy, a God\nWhich makes in mortal hearts its brief abode, _135\nA Pythian exhalation, which inspires\nLove, only love—a wind which o’er the wires\nOf the soul’s giant harp\nThere is a mood which language faints beneath;\nYou feel it striding, as Almighty Death _140\nHis bloodless steed...\n\n...\n\nAnd what is that most brief and bright delight\nWhich rushes through the touch and through the sight,\nAnd stands before the spirit’s inmost throne,\nA naked Seraph? None hath ever known. _145\nIts birth is darkness, and its growth desire;\nUntameable and fleet and fierce as fire,\nNot to be touched but to be felt alone,\nIt fills the world with glory-and is gone.\n\n...\n\nIt floats with rainbow pinions o’er the stream _150\nOf life, which flows, like a ... dream\nInto the light of morning, to the grave\nAs to an ocean...\n\n...\n\nWhat is that joy which serene infancy\nPerceives not, as the hours content them by, _155\nEach in a chain of blossoms, yet enjoys\nThe shapes of this new world, in giant toys\nWrought by the busy ... ever new?\nRemembrance borrows Fancy’s glass, to show\nThese forms more ... sincere _160\nThan now they are, than then, perhaps, they were.\nWhen everything familiar seemed to be\nWonderful, and the immortality\nOf this great world, which all things must inherit,\nWas felt as one with the awakening spirit, _165\nUnconscious of itself, and of the strange\nDistinctions which in its proceeding change\nIt feels and knows, and mourns as if each were\nA desolation...\n\n...\n\nWere it not a sweet refuge, Emily, _170\nFor all those exiles from the dull insane\nWho vex this pleasant world with pride and pain,\nFor all that band of sister-spirits known\nTo one another by a voiceless tone?\n\n...\n\nIf day should part us night will mend division _175\nAnd if sleep parts us—we will meet in vision\nAnd if life parts us—we will mix in death\nYielding our mite [?] of unreluctant breath\nDeath cannot part us—we must meet again\nIn all in nothing in delight in pain: _180\nHow, why or when or where—it matters not\nSo that we share an undivided lot...\n\n...\n\nAnd we will move possessing and possessed\nWherever beauty on the earth’s bare [?] breast\nLies like the shadow of thy soul—till we _185\nBecome one being with the world we see...\n\n_52-_53 afraid The cj. A.C. Bradley.\n_54 And as cj. Rossetti, A.C. Bradley.\n_61 stone... cj. A.C. Bradley.\n_155 them]trip or troop cj. A.C. Bradley.\n_157 in]as cj. A.C. Bradley.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "An Elegy On The Death Of John Keats,", + "body": "AUTHOR OF ENDYMION, HYPERION, ETC.\n\nAster prin men elampes eni zooisin Eoos\nnun de thanon lampeis Esperos en phthimenois.—PLATO.\n\n[“Adonais” was composed at Pisa during the early days of June, 1821,\nand printed, with the author’s name, at Pisa, ‘with the types of\nDidot,’ by July 13, 1821. Part of the impression was sent to the\nbrothers Ollier for sale in London. An exact reprint of this Pisa\nedition (a few typographical errors only being corrected) was issued\nin 1829 by Gee & Bridges, Cambridge, at the instance of Arthur Hallam\nand Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton). The poem was included in\nGalignani’s edition of “Coleridge, Shelley and Keats”, Paris, 1829,\nand by Mrs. Shelley in the “Poetical Works” of 1839. Mrs. Shelley’s\ntext presents three important variations from that of the editio\nprinceps. In 1876 an edition of the “Adonais”, with Introduction and\nNotes, was printed for private circulation by Mr. H. Buxton Forman,\nC.B. Ten years later a reprint ‘in exact facsimile’ of the Pisa\nedition was edited with a Bibliographical Introduction by Mr. T.J.\nWise (“Shelley Society Publications”, 2nd Series, No. 1, Reeves &\nTurner, London, 1886). Our text is that of the editio princeps, Pisa,\n1821, modified by Mrs. Shelley’s text of 1839. The readings of the\neditio princeps, wherever superseded, are recorded in the footnotes.\nThe Editor’s Notes at the end of the Volume 3 should be consulted.]\n\n\nPharmakon elthe, Bion, poti son stoma, pharmakon eides.\npos ten tois cheilessi potesrame, kouk eglukanthe;\ntis de Brotos tossouton anameros, e kerasai toi,\ne dounai laleonti to pharmakon; ekphugen odan.\n—MOSCHUS, EPITAPH. BION.\n\nIt is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem a\ncriticism upon the claims of its lamented object to be classed among\nthe writers of the highest genius who have adorned our age. My known\nrepugnance to the narrow principles of taste on which several of his\nearlier compositions were modelled prove at least that I am an\nimpartial judge. I consider the fragment of “Hyperion” as second to\nnothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years.\n\nJohn Keats died at Rome of a consumption, in his twenty-fourth year,\non the — of — 1821; and was buried in the romantic and lonely\ncemetery of the Protestants in that city, under the pyramid which is\nthe tomb of Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering\nand desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery\nis an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and\ndaisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one\nshould be buried in so sweet a place.\n\nThe genius of the lamented person to whose memory I have dedicated\nthese unworthy verses was not less delicate and fragile than it was\nbeautiful; and where cankerworms abound, what wonder if its young\nflower was blighted in the bud? The savage criticism on his\n“Endymion”, which appeared in the “Quarterly Review”, produced the\nmost violent effect on his susceptible mind; the agitation thus\noriginated ended in the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs; a\nrapid consumption ensued, and the succeeding acknowledgements from\nmore candid critics of the true greatness of his powers were\nineffectual to heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted.\n\nIt may be well said that these wretched men know not what they do.\nThey scatter their insults and their slanders without heed as to\nwhether the poisoned shaft lights on a heart made callous by many\nblows or one like Keats’s composed of more penetrable stuff. One of\ntheir associates is, to my knowledge, a most base and unprincipled\ncalumniator. As to “Endymion”, was it a poem, whatever might be its\ndefects, to be treated contemptuously by those who had celebrated,\nwith various degrees of complacency and panegyric, “Paris”, and\n“Woman”, and a “Syrian Tale”, and Mrs. Lefanu, and Mr. Barrett, and\nMr. Howard Payne, and a long list of the illustrious obscure? Are\nthese the men who in their venal good nature presumed to draw a\nparallel between the Reverend Mr. Milman and Lord Byron? What gnat did\nthey strain at here, after having swallowed all those camels? Against\nwhat woman taken in adultery dares the foremost of these literary\nprostitutes to cast his opprobrious stone? Miserable man! you, one of\nthe meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of the\nworkmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse, that, murderer as you\nare, you have spoken daggers, but used none.\n\nThe circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats’s life were not\nmade known to me until the “Elegy” was ready for the press. I am given\nto understand that the wound which his sensitive spirit had received\nfrom the criticism of “Endymion” was exasperated by the bitter sense\nof unrequited benefits; the poor fellow seems to have been hooted from\nthe stage of life, no less by those on whom he had wasted the promise\nof his genius, than those on whom he had lavished his fortune and his\ncare. He was accompanied to Rome, and attended in his last illness by\nMr. Severn, a young artist of the highest promise, who, I have been\ninformed, ‘almost risked his own life, and sacrificed every prospect\nto unwearied attendance upon his dying friend.’ Had I known these\ncircumstances before the completion of my poem, I should have been\ntempted to add my feeble tribute of applause to the more solid\nrecompense which the virtuous man finds in the recollection of his own\nmotives. Mr. Severn can dispense with a reward from ‘such stuff as\ndreams are made of.’ His conduct is a golden augury of the success of\nhis future career—may the unextinguished Spirit of his illustrious\nfriend animate the creations of his pencil, and plead against Oblivion\nfor his name!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Adonais.", + "body": "I weep for Adonais—he is dead!\nO, weep for Adonais! though our tears\nThaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!\nAnd thou, sad Hour, selected from all years\nTo mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, _5\nAnd teach them thine own sorrow, say: “With me\nDied Adonais; till the Future dares\nForget the Past, his fate and fame shall be\nAn echo and a light unto eternity!”\n\n2.\nWhere wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, _10\nWhen thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies\nIn darkness? where was lorn Urania\nWhen Adonais died? With veiled eyes,\n‘Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise\nShe sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, _15\nRekindled all the fading melodies,\nWith which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,\nHe had adorned and hid the coming bulk of Death.\n\n3.\nOh, weep for Adonais—he is dead!\nWake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep! _20\nYet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed\nThy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep\nLike his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;\nFor he is gone, where all things wise and fair\nDescend;—oh, dream not that the amorous Deep _25\nWill yet restore him to the vital air;\nDeath feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.\n\n4.\nMost musical of mourners, weep again!\nLament anew, Urania!—He died,\nWho was the Sire of an immortal strain, _30\nBlind, old and lonely, when his country’s pride,\nThe priest, the slave, and the liberticide,\nTrampled and mocked with many a loathed rite\nOf lust and blood; he went, unterrified,\nInto the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite _35\nYet reigns o’er earth; the third among the sons of light.\n\n5.\nMost musical of mourners, weep anew!\nNot all to that bright station dared to climb;\nAnd happier they their happiness who knew,\nWhose tapers yet burn through that night of time _40\nIn which suns perished; others more sublime,\nStruck by the envious wrath of man or god,\nHave sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;\nAnd some yet live, treading the thorny road,\nWhich leads, through toil and hate, to Fame’s serene abode. _45\n\n6.\nBut now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished—\nThe nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,\nLike a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,\nAnd fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;\nMost musical of mourners, weep anew! _50\nThy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,\nThe bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew\nDied on the promise of the fruit, is waste;\nThe broken lily lies—the storm is overpast.\n\n7.\nTo that high Capital, where kingly Death _55\nKeeps his pale court in beauty and decay,\nHe came; and bought, with price of purest breath,\nA grave among the eternal.—Come away!\nHaste, while the vault of blue Italian day\nIs yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still _60\nHe lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;\nAwake him not! surely he takes his fill\nOf deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.\n\n8.\nHe will awake no more, oh, never more!—\nWithin the twilight chamber spreads apace _65\nThe shadow of white Death, and at the door\nInvisible Corruption waits to trace\nHis extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;\nThe eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe\nSoothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface _70\nSo fair a prey, till darkness and the law\nOf change, shall o’er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.\n\n9.\nOh, weep for Adonais!—The quick Dreams,\nThe passion-winged Ministers of thought,\nWho were his flocks, whom near the living streams _75\nOf his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught\nThe love which was its music, wander not,—\nWander no more, from kindling brain to brain,\nBut droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot\nRound the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, _80\nThey ne’er will gather strength, or find a home again.\n\n10.\nAnd one with trembling hands clasps his cold head,\nAnd fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries;\n‘Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead;\nSee, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, _85\nLike dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies\nA tear some Dream has loosened from his brain.’\nLost Angel of a ruined Paradise!\nShe knew not ’twas her own; as with no stain\nShe faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. _90\n\n11.\nOne from a lucid urn of starry dew\nWashed his light limbs as if embalming them;\nAnother clipped her profuse locks, and threw\nThe wreath upon him, like an anadem,\nWhich frozen tears instead of pearls begem; _95\nAnother in her wilful grief would break\nHer bow and winged reeds, as if to stem\nA greater loss with one which was more weak;\nAnd dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek.\n\n12.\nAnother Splendour on his mouth alit, _100\nThat mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath\nWhich gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit,\nAnd pass into the panting heart beneath\nWith lightning and with music: the damp death\nQuenched its caress upon his icy lips; _105\nAnd, as a dying meteor stains a wreath\nOf moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips,\nIt flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.\n\n13.\nAnd others came...Desires and Adorations,\nWinged Persuasions and veiled Destinies, _110\nSplendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations\nOf hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies;\nAnd Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,\nAnd Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam\nOf her own dying smile instead of eyes, _115\nCame in slow pomp;—the moving pomp might seem\nLike pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.\n\n14.\nAll he had loved, and moulded into thought,\nFrom shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,\nLamented Adonais. Morning sought _120\nHer eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,\nWet with the tears which should adorn the ground,\nDimmed the aereal eyes that kindle day;\nAfar the melancholy thunder moaned,\nPale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, _125\nAnd the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.\n\n15.\nLost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,\nAnd feeds her grief with his remembered lay,\nAnd will no more reply to winds or fountains,\nOr amorous birds perched on the young green spray, _130\nOr herdsman’s horn, or bell at closing day;\nSince she can mimic not his lips, more dear\nThan those for whose disdain she pined away\nInto a shadow of all sounds:—a drear\nMurmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. _135\n\n16.\nGrief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down\nHer kindling buds, as if she Autumn were,\nOr they dead leaves; since her delight is flown,\nFor whom should she have waked the sullen year?\nTo Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear _140\nNor to himself Narcissus, as to both\nThou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere\nAmid the faint companions of their youth,\nWith dew all turned to tears; odour, to sighing ruth.\n\n17.\nThy spirit’s sister, the lorn nightingale _145\nMourns not her mate with such melodious pain;\nNot so the eagle, who like thee could scale\nHeaven, and could nourish in the sun’s domain\nHer mighty youth with morning, doth complain,\nSoaring and screaming round her empty nest, _150\nAs Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain\nLight on his head who pierced thy innocent breast,\nAnd scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest!\n\n18.\nAh, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,\nBut grief returns with the revolving year; _155\nThe airs and streams renew their joyous tone;\nThe ants, the bees, the swallows reappear;\nFresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons’ bier;\nThe amorous birds now pair in every brake,\nAnd build their mossy homes in field and brere; _160\nAnd the green lizard, and the golden snake,\nLike unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.\n\n19.\nThrough wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean\nA quickening life from the Earth’s heart has burst\nAs it has ever done, with change and motion, _165\nFrom the great morning of the world when first\nGod dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersed,\nThe lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light;\nAll baser things pant with life’s sacred thirst;\nDiffuse themselves; and spend in love’s delight, _170\nThe beauty and the joy of their renewed might.\n\n20.\nThe leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender,\nExhales itself in flowers of gentle breath;\nLike incarnations of the stars, when splendour\nIs changed to fragrance, they illumine death _175\nAnd mock the merry worm that wakes beneath;\nNought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows\nBe as a sword consumed before the sheath\nBy sightless lightning?—the intense atom glows\nA moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. _180\n\n21.\nAlas! that all we loved of him should be,\nBut for our grief, as if it had not been,\nAnd grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!\nWhence are we, and why are we? of what scene\nThe actors or spectators? Great and mean _185\nMeet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow.\nAs long as skies are blue, and fields are green,\nEvening must usher night, night urge the morrow,\nMonth follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.\n\n22.\nHE will awake no more, oh, never more! _190\n‘Wake thou,’ cried Misery, ‘childless Mother, rise\nOut of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart’s core,\nA wound more fierce than his, with tears and sighs.’\nAnd all the Dreams that watched Urania’s eyes,\nAnd all the Echoes whom their sister’s song _195\nHad held in holy silence, cried: ‘Arise!’\nSwift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung,\nFrom her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung.\n\n23.\nShe rose like an autumnal Night, that springs\nOut of the East, and follows wild and drear _200\nThe golden Day, which, on eternal wings,\nEven as a ghost abandoning a bier,\nHad left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear\nSo struck, so roused, so rapped Urania;\nSo saddened round her like an atmosphere _205\nOf stormy mist; so swept her on her way\nEven to the mournful place where Adonais lay.\n\n24.\nOut of her secret Paradise she sped,\nThrough camps and cities rough with stone, and steel,\nAnd human hearts, which to her aery tread _210\nYielding not, wounded the invisible\nPalms of her tender feet where’er they fell:\nAnd barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they,\nRent the soft Form they never could repel,\nWhose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, _215\nPaved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.\n\n25.\nIn the death-chamber for a moment Death,\nShamed by the presence of that living Might,\nBlushed to annihilation, and the breath\nRevisited those lips, and Life’s pale light _220\nFlashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight.\n‘Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,\nAs silent lightning leaves the starless night!\nLeave me not!’ cried Urania: her distress\nRoused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress. _225\n\n26.\n‘Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;\nKiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;\nAnd in my heartless breast and burning brain\nThat word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,\nWith food of saddest memory kept alive, _230\nNow thou art dead, as if it were a part\nOf thee, my Adonais! I would give\nAll that I am to be as thou now art!\nBut I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart!\n\n27.\n‘O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, _235\nWhy didst thou leave the trodden paths of men\nToo soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart\nDare the unpastured dragon in his den?\nDefenceless as thou wert, oh, where was then\nWisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear? _240\nOr hadst thou waited the full cycle, when\nThy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere,\nThe monsters of life’s waste had fled from thee like deer.\n\n28.\n‘The herded wolves, bold only to pursue;\nThe obscene ravens, clamorous o’er the dead; _245\nThe vultures to the conqueror’s banner true\nWho feed where Desolation first has fed,\nAnd whose wings rain contagion;—how they fled,\nWhen, like Apollo, from his golden bow\nThe Pythian of the age one arrow sped _250\nAnd smiled!—The spoilers tempt no second blow,\nThey fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.\n\n29.\n‘The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn;\nHe sets, and each ephemeral insect then\nIs gathered into death without a dawn, _255\nAnd the immortal stars awake again;\nSo is it in the world of living men:\nA godlike mind soars forth, in its delight\nMaking earth bare and veiling heaven, and when\nIt sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light _260\nLeave to its kindred lamps the spirit’s awful night.’\n\n30.\nThus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came,\nTheir garlands sere, their magic mantles rent;\nThe Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame\nOver his living head like Heaven is bent, _265\nAn early but enduring monument,\nCame, veiling all the lightnings of his song\nIn sorrow; from her wilds Ierne sent\nThe sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,\nAnd Love taught Grief to fall like music from his tongue. _270\n\n31.\nMidst others of less note, came one frail Form,\nA phantom among men; companionless\nAs the last cloud of an expiring storm\nWhose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,\nHad gazed on Nature’s naked loveliness, _275\nActaeon-like, and now he fled astray\nWith feeble steps o’er the world’s wilderness,\nAnd his own thoughts, along that rugged way,\nPursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.\n\n32.\nA pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift— _280\nA Love in desolation masked;—a Power\nGirt round with weakness;—it can scarce uplift\nThe weight of the superincumbent hour;\nIt is a dying lamp, a falling shower,\nA breaking billow;—even whilst we speak _285\nIs it not broken? On the withering flower\nThe killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek\nThe life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.\n\n33.\nHis head was bound with pansies overblown,\nAnd faded violets, white, and pied, and blue; _290\nAnd a light spear topped with a cypress cone,\nRound whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew\nYet dripping with the forest’s noonday dew,\nVibrated, as the ever-beating heart\nShook the weak hand that grasped it; of that crew _295\nHe came the last, neglected and apart;\nA herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter’s dart.\n\n34.\nAll stood aloof, and at his partial moan\nSmiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band\nWho in another’s fate now wept his own, _300\nAs in the accents of an unknown land\nHe sung new sorrow; sad Urania scanned\nThe Stranger’s mien, and murmured: ‘Who art thou?’\nHe answered not, but with a sudden hand\nMade bare his branded and ensanguined brow, _305\nWhich was like Cain’s or Christ’s—oh! that it should be so!\n\n35.\nWhat softer voice is hushed over the dead?\nAthwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?\nWhat form leans sadly o’er the white death-bed,\nIn mockery of monumental stone, _310\nThe heavy heart heaving without a moan?\nIf it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,\nTaught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one,\nLet me not vex, with inharmonious sighs,\nThe silence of that heart’s accepted sacrifice. _315\n\n36.\nOur Adonais has drunk poison—oh!\nWhat deaf and viperous murderer could crown\nLife’s early cup with such a draught of woe?\nThe nameless worm would now itself disown:\nIt felt, yet could escape, the magic tone _320\nWhose prelude held all envy, hate and wrong,\nBut what was howling in one breast alone,\nSilent with expectation of the song,\nWhose master’s hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung.\n\n37.\nLive thou, whose infamy is not thy fame! _325\nLive! fear no heavier chastisement from me,\nThou noteless blot on a remembered name!\nBut be thyself, and know thyself to be!\nAnd ever at thy season be thou free\nTo spill the venom when thy fangs o’erflow; _330\nRemorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee;\nHot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow,\nAnd like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt—as now.\n\n38.\nNor let us weep that our delight is fled\nFar from these carrion kites that scream below; _335\nHe wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;\nThou canst not soar where he is sitting now—\nDust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow\nBack to the burning fountain whence it came,\nA portion of the Eternal, which must glow _340\nThrough time and change, unquenchably the same,\nWhilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.\n\n39.\nPeace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep—\nHe hath awakened from the dream of life—\n’Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep _345\nWith phantoms an unprofitable strife,\nAnd in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife\nInvulnerable nothings.—WE decay\nLike corpses in a charnel; fear and grief\nConvulse us and consume us day by day, _350\nAnd cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.\n\n40.\nHe has outsoared the shadow of our night;\nEnvy and calumny and hate and pain,\nAnd that unrest which men miscall delight,\nCan touch him not and torture not again; _355\nFrom the contagion of the world’s slow stain\nHe is secure, and now can never mourn\nA heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;\nNor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,\nWith sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. _360\n\n41.\nHe lives, he wakes—’tis Death is dead, not he;\nMourn not for Adonais.—Thou young Dawn,\nTurn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee\nThe spirit thou lamentest is not gone;\nYe caverns and ye forests, cease to moan! _365\nCease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air,\nWhich like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown\nO’er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare\nEven to the joyous stars which smile on its despair!\n\n42.\nHe is made one with Nature: there is heard _370\nHis voice in all her music, from the moan\nOf thunder, to the song of night’s sweet bird;\nHe is a presence to be felt and known\nIn darkness and in light, from herb and stone,\nSpreading itself where’er that Power may move _375\nWhich has withdrawn his being to its own;\nWhich wields the world with never-wearied love,\nSustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.\n\n43.\nHe is a portion of the loveliness\nWhich once he made more lovely: he doth bear _380\nHis part, while the one Spirit’s plastic stress\nSweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there\nAll new successions to the forms they wear;\nTorturing th’ unwilling dross that checks its flight\nTo its own likeness, as each mass may bear; _385\nAnd bursting in its beauty and its might\nFrom trees and beasts and men into the Heaven’s light.\n\n44.\nThe splendours of the firmament of time\nMay be eclipsed, but are extinguished not;\nLike stars to their appointed height they climb, _390\nAnd death is a low mist which cannot blot\nThe brightness it may veil. When lofty thought\nLifts a young heart above its mortal lair,\nAnd love and life contend in it, for what\nShall be its earthly doom, the dead live there _395\nAnd move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.\n\n45.\nThe inheritors of unfulfilled renown\nRose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought,\nFar in the Unapparent. Chatterton\nRose pale,—his solemn agony had not _400\nYet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought\nAnd as he fell and as he lived and loved\nSublimely mild, a Spirit without spot,\nArose; and Lucan, by his death approved:\nOblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. _405\n\n46.\nAnd many more, whose names on Earth are dark,\nBut whose transmitted effluence cannot die\nSo long as fire outlives the parent spark,\nRose, robed in dazzling immortality.\n‘Thou art become as one of us,’ they cry, _410\n‘It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long\nSwung blind in unascended majesty,\nSilent alone amid a Heaven of Song.\nAssume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!’\n\n47.\nWho mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth, _415\nFond wretch! and know thyself and him aright.\nClasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth;\nAs from a centre, dart thy spirit’s light\nBeyond all worlds, until its spacious might\nSatiate the void circumference: then shrink _420\nEven to a point within our day and night;\nAnd keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink\nWhen hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink.\n\n48.\nOr go to Rome, which is the sepulchre,\nOh, not of him, but of our joy: ’tis nought _425\nThat ages, empires and religions there\nLie buried in the ravage they have wrought;\nFor such as he can lend,—they borrow not\nGlory from those who made the world their prey;\nAnd he is gathered to the kings of thought _430\nWho waged contention with their time’s decay,\nAnd of the past are all that cannot pass away.\n\n49.\nGo thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise,\nThe grave, the city, and the wilderness;\nAnd where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, _435\nAnd flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress\nThe bones of Desolation’s nakedness\nPass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead\nThy footsteps to a slope of green access\nWhere, like an infant’s smile, over the dead _440\nA light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread;\n\n50.\nAnd gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time\nFeeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;\nAnd one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,\nPavilioning the dust of him who planned _445\nThis refuge for his memory, doth stand\nLike flame transformed to marble; and beneath,\nA field is spread, on which a newer band\nHave pitched in Heaven’s smile their camp of death,\nWelcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath. _450\n\n51.\nHere pause: these graves are all too young as yet\nTo have outgrown the sorrow which consigned\nIts charge to each; and if the seal is set,\nHere, on one fountain of a mourning mind,\nBreak it not thou! too surely shalt thou find\nThine own well full, if thou returnest home,\nOf tears and gall. From the world’s bitter wind\nSeek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.\nWhat Adonais is, why fear we to become?\n\n52.\nThe One remains, the many change and pass;\nHeaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;\nLife, like a dome of many-coloured glass,\nStains the white radiance of Eternity,\nUntil Death tramples it to fragments.—Die,\nIf thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!\nFollow where all is fled!—Rome’s azure sky,\nFlowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak\nThe glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.\n\n53.\nWhy linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?\nThy hopes are gone before: from all things here\nThey have departed; thou shouldst now depart!\nA light is passed from the revolving year,\nAnd man, and woman; and what still is dear\nAttracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.\nThe soft sky smiles,—the low wind whispers near:\n’Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,\nNo more let Life divide what Death can join together.\n\n54.\nThat Light whose smile kindles the Universe,\nThat Beauty in which all things work and move,\nThat Benediction which the eclipsing Curse\nOf birth can quench not, that sustaining Love\nWhich through the web of being blindly wove\nBy man and beast and earth and air and sea,\nBurns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of\nThe fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,\nConsuming the last clouds of cold mortality.\n\n55.\nThe breath whose might I have invoked in song\nDescends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven,\nFar from the shore, far from the trembling throng\nWhose sails were never to the tempest given;\nThe massy earth and sphered skies are riven!\nI am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;\nWhilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,\nThe soul of Adonais, like a star,\nBeacons from the abode where the Eternal are. _495\n\n_49 true-love]true love editions 1821, 1839.\n_72 Of change, etc. so editions 1829 (Galignani), 1839;\n Of mortal change, shall fill the grave which is her maw edition 1821.\n_81 or edition 1821; nor edition 1839.\n_105 his edition 1821; its edition 1839.\n_126 round edition 1821; around edition 1839.\n_143 faint companions edition 1839; drooping comrades edition 1821.\n_204 See Editor’s Note.\n_252 lying low edition 1839; as they go edition 1821.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Passages Of The Preface.", + "body": "...the expression of my indignation and sympathy. I will allow myself\na first and last word on the subject of calumny as it relates to me.\nAs an author I have dared and invited censure. If I understand myself,\nI have written neither for profit nor for fame. I have employed my\npoetical compositions and publications simply as the instruments of\nthat sympathy between myself and others which the ardent and unbounded\nlove I cherished for my kind incited me to acquire. I expected all\nsorts of stupidity and insolent contempt from those...\n\n...These compositions (excepting the tragedy of “The Cenci”, which was\nwritten rather to try my powers than to unburthen my full heart) are\ninsufficiently...commendation than perhaps they deserve, even from\ntheir bitterest enemies; but they have not attained any corresponding\npopularity. As a man, I shrink from notice and regard; the ebb and\nflow of the world vexes me; I desire to be left in peace. Persecution,\ncontumely, and calumny have been heaped upon me in profuse measure;\nand domestic conspiracy and legal oppression have violated in my\nperson the most sacred rights of nature and humanity. The bigot will\nsay it was the recompense of my errors; the man of the world will call\nit the result of my imprudence; but never upon one head...\n\n...Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and\nmalignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thieftaker in despair, so an\nunsuccessful author turns critic. But a young spirit panting for fame,\ndoubtful of its powers, and certain only of its aspirations, is ill\nqualified to assign its true value to the sneer of this world. He\nknows not that such stuff as this is of the abortive and monstrous\nbirths which time consumes as fast as it produces. He sees the truth\nand falsehood, the merits and demerits, of his case inextricably\nentangled...No personal offence should have drawn from me this public\ncomment upon such stuff...\n\n...The offence of this poor victim seems to have consisted solely in\nhis intimacy with Leigh Hunt, Mr. Hazlitt, and some other enemies of\ndespotism and superstition. My friend Hunt has a very hard skull to\ncrack, and will take a deal of killing. I do not know much of Mr.\nHazlitt, but...\n\n...I knew personally but little of Keats; but on the news of his\nsituation I wrote to him, suggesting the propriety of trying the\nItalian climate, and inviting him to join me. Unfortunately he did not\nallow me...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Passages Of The Poem.", + "body": "And ever as he went he swept a lyre\nOf unaccustomed shape, and ... strings\nNow like the ... of impetuous fire,\nWhich shakes the forest with its murmurings,\nNow like the rush of the aereal wings _5\nOf the enamoured wind among the treen,\nWhispering unimaginable things,\nAnd dying on the streams of dew serene,\nWhich feed the unmown meads with ever-during green.\n\n...\n\nAnd the green Paradise which western waves _10\nEmbosom in their ever-wailing sweep,\nTalking of freedom to their tongueless caves,\nOr to the spirits which within them keep\nA record of the wrongs which, though they sleep,\nDie not, but dream of retribution, heard _15\nHis hymns, and echoing them from steep to steep,\nKept—\n\n...\n\nAnd then came one of sweet and earnest looks,\nWhose soft smiles to his dark and night-like eyes\nWere as the clear and ever-living brooks _20\nAre to the obscure fountains whence they rise,\nShowing how pure they are: a Paradise\nOf happy truth upon his forehead low\nLay, making wisdom lovely, in the guise\nOf earth-awakening morn upon the brow _25\nOf star-deserted heaven, while ocean gleams below.\n\nHis song, though very sweet, was low and faint,\nA simple strain—\n\n...\n\nA mighty Phantasm, half concealed\nIn darkness of his own exceeding light, _30\nWhich clothed his awful presence unrevealed,\nCharioted on the ... night\nOf thunder-smoke, whose skirts were chrysolite.\n\nAnd like a sudden meteor, which outstrips\nThe splendour-winged chariot of the sun, _35\n... eclipse\nThe armies of the golden stars, each one\nPavilioned in its tent of light—all strewn\nOver the chasms of blue night—\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mantis Eim Ezthlon Agonun.—Oedip. Colon.", + "body": "[“Hellas” was composed at Pisa in the autumn of 1821, and dispatched\nto London, November 11. It was published, with the author’s name, by\nC. & J. Ollier in the spring of 1822. A transcript of the poem by\nEdward Williams is in the Rowfant Library. Ollier availed himself of\nShelley’s permission to cancel certain passages in the notes; he also\nstruck out certain lines of the text. These omissions were, some of\nthem, restored in Galignani’s one-volume edition of “Coleridge,\nShelley and Keats”, Paris, 1829, and also by Mrs. Shelley in the\n“Poetical Works”, 1839. A passage in the “Preface”, suppressed by\nOllier, was restored by Mr. Buxton Forman (1892) from a proof copy of\n“Hellas” in his possession. The “Prologue to Hellas” was edited by Dr.\nGarnett in 1862 (“Relics of Shelley”) from the manuscripts at Boscombe\nManor.\n\nOur text is that of the editio princeps, 1822, corrected by a list of\n“Errata” sent by Shelley to Ollier, April 11, 1822. The Editor’s Notes\nat the end of Volume 3 should be consulted.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Author.", + "body": "Pisa, November 1, 1821.\n\n\n\nThe poem of “Hellas”, written at the suggestion of the events of the\nmoment, is a mere improvise, and derives its interest (should it be\nfound to possess any) solely from the intense sympathy which the\nAuthor feels with the cause he would celebrate.\n\nThe subject, in its present state, is insusceptible of being treated\notherwise than lyrically, and if I have called this poem a drama from\nthe circumstance of its being composed in dialogue, the licence is not\ngreater than that which has been assumed by other poets who have\ncalled their productions epics, only because they have been divided\ninto twelve or twenty-four books.\n\nThe “Persae” of Aeschylus afforded me the first model of my\nconception, although the decision of the glorious contest now waging\nin Greece being yet suspended forbids a catastrophe parallel to the\nreturn of Xerxes and the desolation of the Persians. I have,\ntherefore, contented myself with exhibiting a series of lyric\npictures, and with having wrought upon the curtain of futurity, which\nfalls upon the unfinished scene, such figures of indistinct and\nvisionary delineation as suggest the final triumph of the Greek cause\nas a portion of the cause of civilisation and social improvement.\n\nThe drama (if drama it must be called) is, however, so inartificial\nthat I doubt whether, if recited on the Thespian waggon to an Athenian\nvillage at the Dionysiaca, it would have obtained the prize of the\ngoat. I shall bear with equanimity any punishment, greater than the\nloss of such a reward, which the Aristarchi of the hour may think fit\nto inflict.\n\nThe only “goat-song” which I have yet attempted has, I confess, in\nspite of the unfavourable nature of the subject, received a greater\nand a more valuable portion of applause than I expected or than it\ndeserved.\n\nCommon fame is the only authority which I can allege for the details\nwhich form the basis of the poem, and I must trespass upon the\nforgiveness of my readers for the display of newspaper erudition to\nwhich I have been reduced. Undoubtedly, until the conclusion of the\nwar, it will be impossible to obtain an account of it sufficiently\nauthentic for historical materials; but poets have their privilege,\nand it is unquestionable that actions of the most exalted courage have\nbeen performed by the Greeks—that they have gained more than one\nnaval victory, and that their defeat in Wallachia was signalized by\ncircumstances of heroism more glorious even than victory.\n\nThe apathy of the rulers of the civilised world to the astonishing\ncircumstance of the descendants of that nation to which they owe their\ncivilisation, rising as it were from the ashes of their ruin, is\nsomething perfectly inexplicable to a mere spectator of the shows of\nthis mortal scene. We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our\nreligion, our arts have their root in Greece. But for Greece—Rome,\nthe instructor, the conqueror, or the metropolis of our ancestors,\nwould have spread no illumination with her arms, and we might still\nhave been savages and idolaters; or, what is worse, might have arrived\nat such a stagnant and miserable state of social institution as China\nand Japan possess.\n\nThe human form and the human mind attained to a perfection in Greece\nwhich has impressed its image on those faultless productions, whose\nvery fragments are the despair of modern art, and has propagated\nimpulses which cannot cease, through a thousand channels of manifest\nor imperceptible operation, to ennoble and delight mankind until the\nextinction of the race.\n\nThe modern Greek is the descendant of those glorious beings whom the\nimagination almost refuses to figure to itself as belonging to our\nkind, and he inherits much of their sensibility, their rapidity of\nconception, their enthusiasm, and their courage. If in many instances\nhe is degraded by moral and political slavery to the practice of the\nbasest vices it engenders—and that below the level of ordinary\ndegradation—let us reflect that the corruption of the best produces\nthe worst, and that habits which subsist only in relation to a\npeculiar state of social institution may be expected to cease as soon\nas that relation is dissolved. In fact, the Greeks, since the\nadmirable novel of Anastasius could have been a faithful picture of\ntheir manners, have undergone most important changes; the flower of\ntheir youth, returning to their country from the universities of\nItaly, Germany, and France, have communicated to their fellow-citizens\nthe latest results of that social perfection of which their ancestors\nwere the original source. The University of Chios contained before the\nbreaking out of the revolution eight hundred students, and among them\nseveral Germans and Americans. The munificence and energy of many of\nthe Greek princes and merchants, directed to the renovation of their\ncountry with a spirit and a wisdom which has few examples, is above\nall praise.\n\nThe English permit their own oppressors to act according to their\nnatural sympathy with the Turkish tyrant, and to brand upon their name\nthe indelible blot of an alliance with the enemies of domestic\nhappiness, of Christianity and civilisation.\n\nRussia desires to possess, not to liberate Greece; and is contented to\nsee the Turks, its natural enemies, and the Greeks, its intended\nslaves, enfeeble each other until one or both fall into its net. The\nwise and generous policy of England would have consisted in\nestablishing the independence of Greece, and in maintaining it both\nagainst Russia and the Turk;—but when was the oppressor generous or\njust?\n\n[Should the English people ever become free, they will reflect upon\nthe part which those who presume to represent their will have played\nin the great drama of the revival of liberty, with feelings which it\nwould become them to anticipate. This is the age of the war of the\noppressed against the oppressors, and every one of those ringleaders\nof the privileged gangs of murderers and swindlers, called Sovereigns,\nlook to each other for aid against the common enemy, and suspend their\nmutual jealousies in the presence of a mightier fear. Of this holy\nalliance all the despots of the earth are virtual members. But a new\nrace has arisen throughout Europe, nursed in the abhorrence of the\nopinions which are its chains, and she will continue to produce fresh\ngenerations to accomplish that destiny which tyrants foresee and\ndread. (This paragraph, suppressed in 1822 by Charles Ollier, was\nfirst restored in 1892 by Mr. Buxton Forman [“Poetical Works of P. B.\nS.”, volume 4 pages 40-41] from a proof copy of Hellas in his\npossession.]\n\nThe Spanish Peninsula is already free. France is tranquil in the\nenjoyment of a partial exemption from the abuses which its unnatural\nand feeble government are vainly attempting to revive. The seed of\nblood and misery has been sown in Italy, and a more vigorous race is\narising to go forth to the harvest. The world waits only the news of a\nrevolution of Germany to see the tyrants who have pinnacled themselves\non its supineness precipitated into the ruin from which they shall\nnever arise. Well do these destroyers of mankind know their enemy,\nwhen they impute the insurrection in Greece to the same spirit before\nwhich they tremble throughout the rest of Europe, and that enemy well\nknows the power and the cunning of its opponents, and watches the\nmoment of their approaching weakness and inevitable division to wrest\nthe bloody sceptres from their grasp.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Herald Of Eternity:", + "body": "It is the day when all the sons of God\nWait in the roofless senate-house, whose floor\nIs Chaos, and the immovable abyss\nFrozen by His steadfast word to hyaline\n\n...\n\nThe shadow of God, and delegate _5\nOf that before whose breath the universe\nIs as a print of dew.\nHierarchs and kings\nWho from your thrones pinnacled on the past\nSway the reluctant present, ye who sit\nPavilioned on the radiance or the gloom _10\nOf mortal thought, which like an exhalation\nSteaming from earth, conceals the ... of heaven\nWhich gave it birth. ... assemble here\nBefore your Father’s throne; the swift decree\nYet hovers, and the fiery incarnation _15\nIs yet withheld, clothed in which it shall\nannul\nThe fairest of those wandering isles that gem\nThe sapphire space of interstellar air,\nThat green and azure sphere, that earth enwrapped _20\nLess in the beauty of its tender light\nThan in an atmosphere of living spirit\nWhich interpenetrating all the ...\nit rolls from realm to realm\nAnd age to age, and in its ebb and flow _25\nImpels the generations\nTo their appointed place,\nWhilst the high Arbiter\nBeholds the strife, and at the appointed time\nSends His decrees veiled in eternal... _30\n\nWithin the circuit of this pendent orb\nThere lies an antique region, on which fell\nThe dews of thought in the world’s golden dawn\nEarliest and most benign, and from it sprung\nTemples and cities and immortal forms _35\nAnd harmonies of wisdom and of song,\nAnd thoughts, and deeds worthy of thoughts so fair.\nAnd when the sun of its dominion failed,\nAnd when the winter of its glory came,\nThe winds that stripped it bare blew on and swept _40\nThat dew into the utmost wildernesses\nIn wandering clouds of sunny rain that thawed\nThe unmaternal bosom of the North.\nHaste, sons of God, ... for ye beheld,\nReluctant, or consenting, or astonished, _45\nThe stern decrees go forth, which heaped on Greece\nRuin and degradation and despair.\nA fourth now waits: assemble, sons of God,\nTo speed or to prevent or to suspend,\nIf, as ye dream, such power be not withheld, _50\nThe unaccomplished destiny.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "The curtain of the Universe\nIs rent and shattered,\nThe splendour-winged worlds disperse\nLike wild doves scattered. _55\n\nSpace is roofless and bare,\nAnd in the midst a cloudy shrine,\nDark amid thrones of light.\nIn the blue glow of hyaline\nGolden worlds revolve and shine. _60\nIn ... flight\nFrom every point of the Infinite,\nLike a thousand dawns on a single night\nThe splendours rise and spread;\nAnd through thunder and darkness dread _65\nLight and music are radiated,\nAnd in their pavilioned chariots led\nBy living wings high overhead\nThe giant Powers move,\nGloomy or bright as the thrones they fill. _70\n\n...\n\nA chaos of light and motion\nUpon that glassy ocean.\n\n...\n\nThe senate of the Gods is met,\nEach in his rank and station set;\nThere is silence in the spaces— _75\nLo! Satan, Christ, and Mahomet\nStart from their places!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Christ:", + "body": "Almighty Father!\nLow-kneeling at the feet of Destiny\n\n...\n\nThere are two fountains in which spirits weep _80\nWhen mortals err, Discord and Slavery named,\nAnd with their bitter dew two Destinies\nFilled each their irrevocable urns; the third\nFiercest and mightiest, mingled both, and added\nChaos and Death, and slow Oblivion’s lymph, _85\nAnd hate and terror, and the poisoned rain\n\n...\n\nThe Aurora of the nations. By this brow\nWhose pores wept tears of blood, by these wide wounds,\nBy this imperial crown of agony,\nBy infamy and solitude and death, _90\nFor this I underwent, and by the pain\nOf pity for those who would ... for me\nThe unremembered joy of a revenge,\nFor this I felt—by Plato’s sacred light,\nOf which my spirit was a burning morrow— _95\nBy Greece and all she cannot cease to be.\nHer quenchless words, sparks of immortal truth,\nStars of all night—her harmonies and forms,\nEchoes and shadows of what Love adores\nIn thee, I do compel thee, send forth Fate, _100\nThy irrevocable child: let her descend,\nA seraph-winged Victory [arrayed]\nIn tempest of the omnipotence of God\nWhich sweeps through all things.\n\nFrom hollow leagues, from Tyranny which arms _105\nAdverse miscreeds and emulous anarchies\nTo stamp, as on a winged serpent’s seed,\nUpon the name of Freedom; from the storm\nOf faction, which like earthquake shakes and sickens\nThe solid heart of enterprise; from all _110\nBy which the holiest dreams of highest spirits\nAre stars beneath the dawn...\nShe shall arise\nVictorious as the world arose from Chaos!\nAnd as the Heavens and the Earth arrayed\nTheir presence in the beauty and the light _115\nOf Thy first smile, O Father,—as they gather\nThe spirit of Thy love which paves for them\nTheir path o’er the abyss, till every sphere\nShall be one living Spirit,—so shall Greece—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Satan:", + "body": "Be as all things beneath the empyrean, _120\nMine! Art thou eyeless like old Destiny,\nThou mockery-king, crowned with a wreath of thorns?\nWhose sceptre is a reed, the broken reed\nWhich pierces thee! whose throne a chair of scorn;\nFor seest thou not beneath this crystal floor _125\nThe innumerable worlds of golden light\nWhich are my empire, and the least of them\nwhich thou wouldst redeem from me?\nKnow’st thou not them my portion?\nOr wouldst rekindle the ... strife _130\nWhich our great Father then did arbitrate\nWhich he assigned to his competing sons\nEach his apportioned realm?\nThou Destiny,\nThou who art mailed in the omnipotence\nOf Him who tends thee forth, whate’er thy task, _135\nSpeed, spare not to accomplish, and be mine\nThy trophies, whether Greece again become\nThe fountain in the desert whence the earth\nShall drink of freedom, which shall give it strength\nTo suffer, or a gulf of hollow death _140\nTo swallow all delight, all life, all hope.\nGo, thou Vicegerent of my will, no less\nThan of the Father’s; but lest thou shouldst faint,\nThe winged hounds, Famine and Pestilence,\nShall wait on thee, the hundred-forked snake _145\nInsatiate Superstition still shall...\nThe earth behind thy steps, and War shall hover\nAbove, and Fraud shall gape below, and Change\nShall flit before thee on her dragon wings,\nConvulsing and consuming, and I add _150\nThree vials of the tears which daemons weep\nWhen virtuous spirits through the gate of Death\nPass triumphing over the thorns of life,\nSceptres and crowns, mitres and swords and snares,\nTrampling in scorn, like Him and Socrates. _155\nThe first is Anarchy; when Power and Pleasure,\nGlory and science and security,\nOn Freedom hang like fruit on the green tree,\nThen pour it forth, and men shall gather ashes.\nThe second Tyranny—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Christ:", + "body": "Obdurate spirit! _160\nThou seest but the Past in the To-come.\nPride is thy error and thy punishment.\nBoast not thine empire, dream not that thy worlds\nAre more than furnace-sparks or rainbow-drops\nBefore the Power that wields and kindles them. _165\nTrue greatness asks not space, true excellence\nLives in the Spirit of all things that live,\nWhich lends it to the worlds thou callest thine.\n\n...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahomet:", + "body": "...Haste thou and fill the waning crescent\nWith beams as keen as those which pierced the shadow _170\nOf Christian night rolled back upon the West,\nWhen the orient moon of Islam rode in triumph\nFrom Tmolus to the Acroceraunian snow.\n\n...\n\nWake, thou Word\nOf God, and from the throne of Destiny _175\nEven to the utmost limit of thy way\nMay Triumph\n\n...\n\nBe thou a curse on them whose creed\nDivides and multiplies the most high God.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Greek Captive Women:", + "body": "We strew these opiate flowers\nOn thy restless pillow,—\nThey were stripped from Orient bowers,\nBy the Indian billow.\nBe thy sleep _5\nCalm and deep,\nLike theirs who fell—not ours who weep!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Indian:", + "body": "Away, unlovely dreams!\nAway, false shapes of sleep\nBe his, as Heaven seems, _10\nClear, and bright, and deep!\nSoft as love, and calm as death,\nSweet as a summer night without a breath.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "Sleep, sleep! our song is laden\nWith the soul of slumber; _15\nIt was sung by a Samian maiden,\nWhose lover was of the number\nWho now keep\nThat calm sleep\nWhence none may wake, where none shall weep. _20", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Indian:", + "body": "I touch thy temples pale!\nI breathe my soul on thee!\nAnd could my prayers avail,\nAll my joy should be\nDead, and I would live to weep, _25\nSo thou mightst win one hour of quiet sleep.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "Breathe low, low\nThe spell of the mighty mistress now!\nWhen Conscience lulls her sated snake,\nAnd Tyrants sleep, let Freedom wake. _30\nBreathe low—low\nThe words which, like secret fire, shall flow\nThrough the veins of the frozen earth—low, low!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "In the great morning of the world,\nThe Spirit of God with might unfurled\nThe flag of Freedom over Chaos,\nAnd all its banded anarchs fled,\nLike vultures frighted from Imaus, _50\nBefore an earthquake’s tread.—\nSo from Time’s tempestuous dawn\nFreedom’s splendour burst and shone:—\nThermopylae and Marathon\nCaught like mountains beacon-lighted, _55\nThe springing Fire.—The winged glory\nOn Philippi half-alighted,\nLike an eagle on a promontory.\nIts unwearied wings could fan\nThe quenchless ashes of Milan. _60\nFrom age to age, from man to man,\nIt lived; and lit from land to land\nFlorence, Albion, Switzerland.\n\nThen night fell; and, as from night,\nReassuming fiery flight, _65\nFrom the West swift Freedom came,\nAgainst the course of Heaven and doom.\nA second sun arrayed in flame,\nTo burn, to kindle, to illume.\nFrom far Atlantis its young beams _70\nChased the shadows and the dreams.\nFrance, with all her sanguine steams,\nHid, but quenched it not; again\nThrough clouds its shafts of glory rain\nFrom utmost Germany to Spain. _75\nAs an eagle fed with morning\nScorns the embattled tempest’s warning,\nWhen she seeks her aerie hanging\nIn the mountain-cedar’s hair,\nAnd her brood expect the clanging _80\nOf her wings through the wild air,\nSick with famine:—Freedom, so\nTo what of Greece remaineth now\nReturns; her hoary ruins glow\nLike Orient mountains lost in day; _85\nBeneath the safety of her wings\nHer renovated nurslings prey,\nAnd in the naked lightenings\nOf truth they purge their dazzled eyes.\nLet Freedom leave—where’er she flies, _90\nA Desert, or a Paradise:\nLet the beautiful and the brave\nShare her glory, or a grave.\n\n_77 tempest’s]tempests edition 1822.\n_87 prey edition 1822; play editions 1839.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud [Starting From His Sleep]:", + "body": "Man the Seraglio-guard! make fast the gate!\nWhat! from a cannonade of three short hours? _115\n’Tis false! that breach towards the Bosphorus\nCannot be practicable yet—who stirs?\nStand to the match; that when the foe prevails\nOne spark may mix in reconciling ruin\nThe conqueror and the conquered! Heave the tower _120\nInto the gap—wrench off the roof!\n[ENTER HASSAN.]\nHa! what!\nThe truth of day lightens upon my dream\nAnd I am Mahmud still.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "The times do cast strange shadows\nOn those who watch and who must rule their course, _125\nLest they, being first in peril as in glory,\nBe whelmed in the fierce ebb:—and these are of them.\nThrice has a gloomy vision hunted me\nAs thus from sleep into the troubled day;\nIt shakes me as the tempest shakes the sea, _130\nLeaving no figure upon memory’s glass.\nWould that—no matter. Thou didst say thou knewest\nA Jew, whose spirit is a chronicle\nOf strange and secret and forgotten things.\nI bade thee summon him:—’tis said his tribe _135\nDream, and are wise interpreters of dreams.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hassan:", + "body": "The Jew of whom I spake is old,—so old\nHe seems to have outlived a world’s decay;\nThe hoary mountains and the wrinkled ocean\nSeem younger still than he;—his hair and beard _140\nAre whiter than the tempest-sifted snow;\nHis cold pale limbs and pulseless arteries\nAre like the fibres of a cloud instinct\nWith light, and to the soul that quickens them\nAre as the atoms of the mountain-drift _145\nTo the winter wind:—but from his eye looks forth\nA life of unconsumed thought which pierces\nThe Present, and the Past, and the To-come.\nSome say that this is he whom the great prophet\nJesus, the son of Joseph, for his mockery, _150\nMocked with the curse of immortality.\nSome feign that he is Enoch: others dream\nHe was pre-adamite and has survived\nCycles of generation and of ruin.\nThe sage, in truth, by dreadful abstinence _155\nAnd conquering penance of the mutinous flesh,\nDeep contemplation, and unwearied study,\nIn years outstretched beyond the date of man,\nMay have attained to sovereignty and science\nOver those strong and secret things and thoughts _160\nWhich others fear and know not.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hassan:", + "body": "Thy will is even now\nMade known to him, where he dwells in a sea-cavern\n‘Mid the Demonesi, less accessible\nThan thou or God! He who would question him _165\nMust sail alone at sunset, where the stream\nOf Ocean sleeps around those foamless isles,\nWhen the young moon is westering as now,\nAnd evening airs wander upon the wave;\nAnd when the pines of that bee-pasturing isle, _170\nGreen Erebinthus, quench the fiery shadow\nOf his gilt prow within the sapphire water,\nThen must the lonely helmsman cry aloud\n‘Ahasuerus!’ and the caverns round\nWill answer ‘Ahasuerus!’ If his prayer _175\nBe granted, a faint meteor will arise\nLighting him over Marmora, and a wind\nWill rush out of the sighing pine-forest,\nAnd with the wind a storm of harmony\nUnutterably sweet, and pilot him _180\nThrough the soft twilight to the Bosphorus:\nThence at the hour and place and circumstance\nFit for the matter of their conference\nThe Jew appears. Few dare, and few who dare\nWin the desired communion—but that shout _185\nBodes—\n\n[A SHOUT WITHIN.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "When the omnipotent hour to which are yoked\nHe, I, and all things shall compel—enough! _190\nSilence those mutineers—that drunken crew,\nThat crowd about the pilot in the storm.\nAy! strike the foremost shorter by a head!\nThey weary me, and I have need of rest.\nKinks are like stars—they rise and set, they have _195\nThe worship of the world, but no repose.\n\n[EXEUNT SEVERALLY.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "Worlds on worlds are rolling ever\nFrom creation to decay,\nLike the bubbles on a river\nSparkling, bursting, borne away. _200\nBut they are still immortal\nWho, through birth’s orient portal\nAnd death’s dark chasm hurrying to and fro,\nClothe their unceasing flight\nIn the brief dust and light _205\nGathered around their chariots as they go;\nNew shapes they still may weave,\nNew gods, new laws receive,\nBright or dim are they as the robes they last\nOn Death’s bare ribs had cast. _210\n\nA power from the unknown God,\nA Promethean conqueror, came;\nLike a triumphal path he trod\nThe thorns of death and shame.\nA mortal shape to him _215\nWas like the vapour dim\nWhich the orient planet animates with light;\nHell, Sin, and Slavery came,\nLike bloodhounds mild and tame,\nNor preyed, until their Lord had taken flight; _220\nThe moon of Mahomet\nArose, and it shall set:\nWhile blazoned as on Heaven’s immortal noon\nThe cross leads generations on.\n\nSwift as the radiant shapes of sleep _225\nFrom one whose dreams are Paradise\nFly, when the fond wretch wakes to weep,\nAnd Day peers forth with her blank eyes;\nSo fleet, so faint, so fair,\nThe Powers of earth and air _230\nFled from the folding-star of Bethlehem:\nApollo, Pan, and Love,\nAnd even Olympian Jove\nGrew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them;\nOur hills and seas and streams, _235\nDispeopled of their dreams,\nTheir waters turned to blood, their dew to tears,\nWailed for the golden years.\n\n[ENTER MAHMUD, HASSAN, DAOOD, AND OTHERS.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "Go! bid them pay themselves\nWith Christian blood! Are there no Grecian virgins\nWhose shrieks and spasms and tears they may enjoy?\nNo infidel children to impale on spears?\nNo hoary priests after that Patriarch _245\nWho bent the curse against his country’s heart,\nWhich clove his own at last? Go! bid them kill,\nBlood is the seed of gold.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "Then, take this signet, _250\nUnlock the seventh chamber in which lie\nThe treasures of victorious Solyman,—\nAn empire’s spoil stored for a day of ruin.\nO spirit of my sires! is it not come?\nThe prey-birds and the wolves are gorged and sleep; _255\nBut these, who spread their feast on the red earth,\nHunger for gold, which fills not.—See them fed;\nThen, lead them to the rivers of fresh death.\n[EXIT DAOOD.]\nO miserable dawn, after a night\nMore glorious than the day which it usurped! _260\nO faith in God! O power on earth! O word\nOf the great prophet, whose o’ershadowing wings\nDarkened the thrones and idols of the West,\nNow bright!—For thy sake cursed be the hour,\nEven as a father by an evil child, _265\nWhen the orient moon of Islam rolled in triumph\nFrom Caucasus to White Ceraunia!\nRuin above, and anarchy below;\nTerror without, and treachery within;\nThe Chalice of destruction full, and all _270\nThirsting to drink; and who among us dares\nTo dash it from his lips? and where is Hope?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hassan:", + "body": "The lamp of our dominion still rides high;\nOne God is God—Mahomet is His prophet.\nFour hundred thousand Moslems, from the limits _275\nOf utmost Asia, irresistibly\nThrong, like full clouds at the Sirocco’s cry;\nBut not like them to weep their strength in tears:\nThey bear destroying lightning, and their step\nWakes earthquake to consume and overwhelm, _280\nAnd reign in ruin. Phrygian Olympus,\nTmolus, and Latmos, and Mycale, roughen\nWith horrent arms; and lofty ships even now,\nLike vapours anchored to a mountain’s edge,\nFreighted with fire and whirlwind, wait at Scala _285\nThe convoy of the ever-veering wind.\nSamos is drunk with blood;—the Greek has paid\nBrief victory with swift loss and long despair.\nThe false Moldavian serfs fled fast and far\nWhen the fierce shout of ‘Allah-illa-Allah!’ _290\nRose like the war-cry of the northern wind\nWhich kills the sluggish clouds, and leaves a flock\nOf wild swans struggling with the naked storm.\nSo were the lost Greeks on the Danube’s day!\nIf night is mute, yet the returning sun _295\nKindles the voices of the morning birds;\nNor at thy bidding less exultingly\nThan birds rejoicing in the golden day,\nThe Anarchies of Africa unleash\nTheir tempest-winged cities of the sea, _300\nTo speak in thunder to the rebel world.\nLike sulphurous clouds, half-shattered by the storm,\nThey sweep the pale Aegean, while the Queen\nOf Ocean, bound upon her island-throne,\nFar in the West, sits mourning that her sons _305\nWho frown on Freedom spare a smile for thee:\nRussia still hovers, as an eagle might\nWithin a cloud, near which a kite and crane\nHang tangled in inextricable fight,\nTo stoop upon the victor;—for she fears _310\nThe name of Freedom, even as she hates thine.\nBut recreant Austria loves thee as the Grave\nLoves Pestilence, and her slow dogs of war\nFleshed with the chase, come up from Italy,\nAnd howl upon their limits; for they see _315\nThe panther, Freedom, fled to her old cover,\nAmid seas and mountains, and a mightier brood\nCrouch round. What Anarch wears a crown or mitre,\nOr bears the sword, or grasps the key of gold,\nWhose friends are not thy friends, whose foes thy foes? _320\nOur arsenals and our armouries are full;\nOur forts defy assault; ten thousand cannon\nLie ranged upon the beach, and hour by hour\nTheir earth-convulsing wheels affright the city;\nThe galloping of fiery steeds makes pale _325\nThe Christian merchant; and the yellow Jew\nHides his hoard deeper in the faithless earth.\nLike clouds, and like the shadows of the clouds,\nOver the hills of Anatolia,\nSwift in wide troops the Tartar chivalry _330\nSweep;—the far flashing of their starry lances\nReverberates the dying light of day.\nWe have one God, one King, one Hope, one Law;\nBut many-headed Insurrection stands\nDivided in itself, and soon must fall. _335\n\n_253 spoil edition 1822; spoils editions 1839.\n_279 bear edition 1822; have editions 1839.\n_322 assault edition 1822; assaults editions 1839.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "Proud words, when deeds come short, are seasonable:\nLook, Hassan, on yon crescent moon, emblazoned\nUpon that shattered flag of fiery cloud\nWhich leads the rear of the departing day;\nWan emblem of an empire fading now! _340\nSee how it trembles in the blood-red air,\nAnd like a mighty lamp whose oil is spent\nShrinks on the horizon’s edge, while, from above,\nOne star with insolent and victorious light\nHovers above its fall, and with keen beams, _345\nLike arrows through a fainting antelope,\nStrikes its weak form to death.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "Shall we be not renewed!\nFar other bark than ours were needed now\nTo stem the torrent of descending time: _350\nThe Spirit that lifts the slave before his lord\nStalks through the capitals of armed kings,\nAnd spreads his ensign in the wilderness:\nExults in chains; and, when the rebel falls,\nCries like the blood of Abel from the dust; _355\nAnd the inheritors of the earth, like beasts\nWhen earthquake is unleashed, with idiot fear\nCower in their kingly dens—as I do now.\nWhat were Defeat when Victory must appal?\nOr Danger, when Security looks pale?— _360\nHow said the messenger—who, from the fort\nIslanded in the Danube, saw the battle\nOf Bucharest?—that—\n\n_351 his edition 1822; its editions 1839.\n_356 of the earth edition 1822; of earth editions 1839.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hassan:", + "body": "The light Wallachians,\nThe Arnaut, Servian, and Albanian allies\nFled from the glance of our artillery\nAlmost before the thunderstone alit. _370\nOne half the Grecian army made a bridge\nOf safe and slow retreat, with Moslem dead;\nThe other—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hassan:", + "body": "Islanded\nBy victor myriads, formed in hollow square\nWith rough and steadfast front, and thrice flung back _375\nThe deluge of our foaming cavalry;\nThrice their keen wedge of battle pierced our lines.\nOur baffled army trembled like one man\nBefore a host, and gave them space; but soon,\nFrom the surrounding hills, the batteries blazed, _380\nKneading them down with fire and iron rain:\nYet none approached; till, like a field of corn\nUnder the hook of the swart sickleman,\nThe band, intrenched in mounds of Turkish dead,\nGrew weak and few.—Then said the Pacha, ‘Slaves, _385\nRender yourselves—they have abandoned you—\nWhat hope of refuge, or retreat, or aid?\nWe grant your lives.’ ‘Grant that which is thine own!’\nCried one, and fell upon his sword and died!\nAnother—‘God, and man, and hope abandon me; _390\nBut I to them, and to myself, remain\nConstant:’—he bowed his head, and his heart burst.\nA third exclaimed, ‘There is a refuge, tyrant,\nWhere thou darest not pursue, and canst not harm\nShouldst thou pursue; there we shall meet again.’ _395\nThen held his breath, and, after a brief spasm,\nThe indignant spirit cast its mortal garment\nAmong the slain—dead earth upon the earth!\nSo these survivors, each by different ways,\nSome strange, all sudden, none dishonourable, _400\nMet in triumphant death; and when our army\nClosed in, while yet wonder, and awe, and shame\nHeld back the base hyaenas of the battle\nThat feed upon the dead and fly the living,\nOne rose out of the chaos of the slain: _405\nAnd if it were a corpse which some dread spirit\nOf the old saviours of the land we rule\nHad lifted in its anger, wandering by;—\nOr if there burned within the dying man\nUnquenchable disdain of death, and faith _410\nCreating what it feigned;—I cannot tell—\nBut he cried, ‘Phantoms of the free, we come!\nArmies of the Eternal, ye who strike\nTo dust the citadels of sanguine kings,\nAnd shake the souls throned on their stony hearts, _415\nAnd thaw their frostwork diadems like dew;—\nO ye who float around this clime, and weave\nThe garment of the glory which it wears,\nWhose fame, though earth betray the dust it clasped,\nLies sepulchred in monumental thought;— _420\nProgenitors of all that yet is great,\nAscribe to your bright senate, O accept\nIn your high ministrations, us, your sons—\nUs first, and the more glorious yet to come!\nAnd ye, weak conquerors! giants who look pale _425\nWhen the crushed worm rebels beneath your tread,\nThe vultures and the dogs, your pensioners tame,\nAre overgorged; but, like oppressors, still\nThey crave the relic of Destruction’s feast.\nThe exhalations and the thirsty winds _430\nAre sick with blood; the dew is foul with death;\nHeaven’s light is quenched in slaughter: thus, where’er\nUpon your camps, cities, or towers, or fleets,\nThe obscene birds the reeking remnants cast\nOf these dead limbs,—upon your streams and mountains, _435\nUpon your fields, your gardens, and your housetops,\nWhere’er the winds shall creep, or the clouds fly,\nOr the dews fall, or the angry sun look down\nWith poisoned light—Famine, and Pestilence,\nAnd Panic, shall wage war upon our side! _440\nNature from all her boundaries is moved\nAgainst ye: Time has found ye light as foam.\nThe Earth rebels; and Good and Evil stake\nTheir empire o’er the unborn world of men\nOn this one cast;—but ere the die be thrown, _445\nThe renovated genius of our race,\nProud umpire of the impious game, descends,\nA seraph-winged Victory, bestriding\nThe tempest of the Omnipotence of God,\nWhich sweeps all things to their appointed doom, _450\nAnd you to oblivion!’—More he would have said,\nBut—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "The fleet which, like a flock of clouds _460\nChased by the wind, flies the insurgent banner!\nOur winged castles from their merchant ships!\nOur myriads before their weak pirate bands!\nOur arms before their chains! our years of empire\nBefore their centuries of servile fear! _465\nDeath is awake! Repulse is on the waters!\nThey own no more the thunder-bearing banner\nOf Mahmud; but, like hounds of a base breed,\nGorge from a stranger’s hand, and rend their master.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "The caves of the Icarian isles\nTold each to the other in loud mockery,\nAnd with the tongue as of a thousand echoes,\nFirst of the sea-convulsing fight—and, then,—\nThou darest to speak—senseless are the mountains: _475\nInterpret thou their voice!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hassan:", + "body": "My presence bore\nA part in that day’s shame. The Grecian fleet\nBore down at daybreak from the North, and hung\nAs multitudinous on the ocean line,\nAs cranes upon the cloudless Thracian wind. _480\nOur squadron, convoying ten thousand men,\nWas stretching towards Nauplia when the battle\nWas kindled.—\nFirst through the hail of our artillery\nThe agile Hydriote barks with press of sail _485\nDashed:—ship to ship, cannon to cannon, man\nTo man were grappled in the embrace of war,\nInextricable but by death or victory.\nThe tempest of the raging fight convulsed\nTo its crystalline depths that stainless sea, _490\nAnd shook Heaven’s roof of golden morning clouds,\nPoised on an hundred azure mountain-isles.\nIn the brief trances of the artillery\nOne cry from the destroyed and the destroyer\nRose, and a cloud of desolation wrapped _495\nThe unforeseen event, till the north wind\nSprung from the sea, lifting the heavy veil\nOf battle-smoke—then victory—victory!\nFor, as we thought, three frigates from Algiers\nBore down from Naxos to our aid, but soon _500\nThe abhorred cross glimmered behind, before,\nAmong, around us; and that fatal sign\nDried with its beams the strength in Moslem hearts,\nAs the sun drinks the dew.—What more? We fled!—\nOur noonday path over the sanguine foam _505\nWas beaconed,—and the glare struck the sun pale,—\nBy our consuming transports: the fierce light\nMade all the shadows of our sails blood-red,\nAnd every countenance blank. Some ships lay feeding\nThe ravening fire, even to the water’s level; _510\nSome were blown up; some, settling heavily,\nSunk; and the shrieks of our companions died\nUpon the wind, that bore us fast and far,\nEven after they were dead. Nine thousand perished!\nWe met the vultures legioned in the air _515\nStemming the torrent of the tainted wind;\nThey, screaming from their cloudy mountain-peaks,\nStooped through the sulphurous battle-smoke and perched\nEach on the weltering carcase that we loved,\nLike its ill angel or its damned soul, _520\nRiding upon the bosom of the sea.\nWe saw the dog-fish hastening to their feast.\nJoy waked the voiceless people of the sea,\nAnd ravening Famine left his ocean cave\nTo dwell with War, with us, and with Despair. _525\nWe met night three hours to the west of Patmos,\nAnd with night, tempest—\n\n_503 in edition 1822; of editions 1839.\n_527 And edition 1822; As editions 1839.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Messenger:", + "body": "Your Sublime Highness,\nThat Christian hound, the Muscovite Ambassador,\nHas left the city.—If the rebel fleet\nHad anchored in the port, had victory _530\nCrowned the Greek legions in the Hippodrome,\nPanic were tamer.—Obedience and Mutiny,\nLike giants in contention planet-struck,\nStand gazing on each other.—There is peace\nIn Stamboul.—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hassan:", + "body": "Fear not the Russian:\nThe tiger leagues not with the stag at bay\nAgainst the hunter.—Cunning, base, and cruel,\nHe crouches, watching till the spoil be won,\nAnd must be paid for his reserve in blood. _540\nAfter the war is fought, yield the sleek Russian\nThat which thou canst not keep, his deserved portion\nOf blood, which shall not flow through streets and fields,\nRivers and seas, like that which we may win,\nBut stagnate in the veins of Christian slaves! _545\n\n[ENTER SECOND MESSENGER.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Messenger:", + "body": "Nauplia, Tripolizza, Mothon, Athens,\nNavarin, Artas, Monembasia,\nCorinth, and Thebes are carried by assault,\nAnd every Islamite who made his dogs\nFat with the flesh of Galilean slaves _550\nPassed at the edge of the sword: the lust of blood,\nWhich made our warriors drunk, is quenched in death;\nBut like a fiery plague breaks out anew\nIn deeds which make the Christian cause look pale\nIn its own light. The garrison of Patras _555\nHas store but for ten days, nor is there hope\nBut from the Briton: at once slave and tyrant,\nHis wishes still are weaker than his fears,\nOr he would sell what faith may yet remain\nFrom the oaths broke in Genoa and in Norway; _560\nAnd if you buy him not, your treasury\nIs empty even of promises—his own coin.\nThe freedman of a western poet-chief\nHolds Attica with seven thousand rebels,\nAnd has beat back the Pacha of Negropont: _565\nThe aged Ali sits in Yanina\nA crownless metaphor of empire:\nHis name, that shadow of his withered might,\nHolds our besieging army like a spell\nIn prey to famine, pest, and mutiny; _570\nHe, bastioned in his citadel, looks forth\nJoyless upon the sapphire lake that mirrors\nThe ruins of the city where he reigned\nChildless and sceptreless. The Greek has reaped\nThe costly harvest his own blood matured, _575\nNot the sower, Ali—who has bought a truce\nFrom Ypsilanti with ten camel-loads\nOf Indian gold.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Third Messenger:", + "body": "The Christian tribes\nOf Lebanon and the Syrian wilderness\nAre in revolt;—Damascus, Hems, Aleppo _580\nTremble;—the Arab menaces Medina,\nThe Aethiop has intrenched himself in Sennaar,\nAnd keeps the Egyptian rebel well employed,\nWho denies homage, claims investiture\nAs price of tardy aid. Persia demands _585\nThe cities on the Tigris, and the Georgians\nRefuse their living tribute. Crete and Cyprus,\nLike mountain-twins that from each other’s veins\nCatch the volcano-fire and earthquake-spasm,\nShake in the general fever. Through the city, _590\nLike birds before a storm, the Santons shriek,\nAnd prophesyings horrible and new\nAre heard among the crowd: that sea of men\nSleeps on the wrecks it made, breathless and still.\nA Dervise, learned in the Koran, preaches _595\nThat it is written how the sins of Islam\nMust raise up a destroyer even now.\nThe Greeks expect a Saviour from the West,\nWho shall not come, men say, in clouds and glory,\nBut in the omnipresence of that Spirit _600\nIn which all live and are. Ominous signs\nAre blazoned broadly on the noonday sky:\nOne saw a red cross stamped upon the sun;\nIt has rained blood; and monstrous births declare\nThe secret wrath of Nature and her Lord. _605\nThe army encamped upon the Cydaris\nWas roused last night by the alarm of battle,\nAnd saw two hosts conflicting in the air,\nThe shadows doubtless of the unborn time\nCast on the mirror of the night. While yet _610\nThe fight hung balanced, there arose a storm\nWhich swept the phantoms from among the stars.\nAt the third watch the Spirit of the Plague\nWas heard abroad flapping among the tents;\nThose who relieved watch found the sentinels dead. _615\nThe last news from the camp is, that a thousand\nHave sickened, and—\n\n[ENTER A FOURTH MESSENGER.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fourth Messenger:", + "body": "One comes\nFainting with toil, covered with foam and blood:\nHe stood, he says, on Chelonites’ _620\nPromontory, which o’erlooks the isles that groan\nUnder the Briton’s frown, and all their waters\nThen trembling in the splendour of the moon,\nWhen as the wandering clouds unveiled or hid\nHer boundless light, he saw two adverse fleets _625\nStalk through the night in the horizon’s glimmer,\nMingling fierce thunders and sulphureous gleams,\nAnd smoke which strangled every infant wind\nThat soothed the silver clouds through the deep air.\nAt length the battle slept, but the Sirocco _630\nAwoke, and drove his flock of thunder-clouds\nOver the sea-horizon, blotting out\nAll objects—save that in the faint moon-glimpse\nHe saw, or dreamed he saw, the Turkish admiral\nAnd two the loftiest of our ships of war, _635\nWith the bright image of that Queen of Heaven,\nWho hid, perhaps, her face for grief, reversed;\nAnd the abhorred cross—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "Could not come more seasonably:\nBid him attend. I’ll hear no more! too long _640\nWe gaze on danger through the mist of fear,\nAnd multiply upon our shattered hopes\nThe images of ruin. Come what will!\nTo-morrow and to-morrow are as lamps\nSet in our path to light us to the edge _645\nThrough rough and smooth, nor can we suffer aught\nWhich He inflicts not in whose hand we are.\n\n[EXEUNT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "Would I were the winged cloud\nOf a tempest swift and loud!\nI would scorn _650\nThe smile of morn\nAnd the wave where the moonrise is born!\nI would leave\nThe spirits of eve\nA shroud for the corpse of the day to weave _655\nFrom other threads than mine!\nBask in the deep blue noon divine.\nWho would? Not I.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "Where the rocks that gird th’ Aegean _660\nEcho to the battle paean\nOf the free—\nI would flee\nA tempestuous herald of victory!\nMy golden rain\nFor the Grecian slain _665\nShould mingle in tears with the bloody main,\nAnd my solemn thunder-knell\nShould ring to the world the passing-bell\nOf Tyranny! _670", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "O Slavery! thou frost of the world’s prime,\nKilling its flowers and leaving its thorns bare!\nThy touch has stamped these limbs with crime,\nThese brows thy branding garland bear,\nBut the free heart, the impassive soul _680\nScorn thy control!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "Let there be light! said Liberty,\nAnd like sunrise from the sea,\nAthens arose!—Around her born,\nShone like mountains in the morn _685\nGlorious states;—and are they now\nAshes, wrecks, oblivion?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "Temples and towers,\nCitadels and marts, and they\nWho live and die there, have been ours,\nAnd may be thine, and must decay; _695\nBut Greece and her foundations are\nBuilt below the tide of war,\nBased on the crystalline sea\nOf thought and its eternity;\nHer citizens, imperial spirits, _700\nRule the present from the past,\nOn all this world of men inherits\nTheir seal is set.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 2:", + "body": "Hear ye the blast,\nWhose Orphic thunder thrilling calls\nFrom ruin her Titanian walls? _705\nWhose spirit shakes the sapless bones\nOf Slavery? Argos, Corinth, Crete\nHear, and from their mountain thrones\nThe daemons and the nymphs repeat\nThe harmony.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 2:", + "body": "The world’s eyeless charioteer,\nDestiny, is hurrying by!\nWhat faith is crushed, what empire bleeds\nBeneath her earthquake-footed steeds?\nWhat eagle-winged victory sits _715\nAt her right hand? what shadow flits\nBefore? what splendour rolls behind?\nRuin and renovation cry\n‘Who but We?’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "I hear! I hear!\nThe hiss as of a rushing wind, _720\nThe roar as of an ocean foaming,\nThe thunder as of earthquake coming.\nI hear! I hear!\nThe crash as of an empire falling,\nThe shrieks as of a people calling _725\n‘Mercy! mercy!’—How they thrill!\nThen a shout of ‘kill! kill! kill!’\nAnd then a small still voice, thus—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "In sacred Athens, near the fane\nOf Wisdom, Pity’s altar stood:\nServe not the unknown God in vain. _735\nBut pay that broken shrine again,\nLove for hate and tears for blood.\n\n[ENTER MAHMUD AND AHASUERUS.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "Thou art an adept in the difficult lore\nOf Greek and Frank philosophy; thou numberest\nThe flowers, and thou measurest the stars;\nThou severest element from element;\nThy spirit is present in the Past, and sees _745\nThe birth of this old world through all its cycles\nOf desolation and of loveliness,\nAnd when man was not, and how man became\nThe monarch and the slave of this low sphere,\nAnd all its narrow circles—it is much— _750\nI honour thee, and would be what thou art\nWere I not what I am; but the unborn hour,\nCradled in fear and hope, conflicting storms,\nWho shall unveil? Nor thou, nor I, nor any\nMighty or wise. I apprehended not _755\nWhat thou hast taught me, but I now perceive\nThat thou art no interpreter of dreams;\nThou dost not own that art, device, or God,\nCan make the Future present—let it come!\nMoreover thou disdainest us and ours; _760\nThou art as God, whom thou contemplatest.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ahasuerus:", + "body": "Disdain thee?—not the worm beneath thy feet!\nThe Fathomless has care for meaner things\nThan thou canst dream, and has made pride for those\nWho would be what they may not, or would seem _765\nThat which they are not. Sultan! talk no more\nOf thee and me, the Future and the Past;\nBut look on that which cannot change—the One,\nThe unborn and the undying. Earth and ocean,\nSpace, and the isles of life or light that gem _770\nThe sapphire floods of interstellar air,\nThis firmament pavilioned upon chaos,\nWith all its cressets of immortal fire,\nWhose outwall, bastioned impregnably\nAgainst the escape of boldest thoughts, repels them _775\nAs Calpe the Atlantic clouds—this Whole\nOf suns, and worlds, and men, and beasts, and flowers,\nWith all the silent or tempestuous workings\nBy which they have been, are, or cease to be,\nIs but a vision;—all that it inherits _780\nAre motes of a sick eye, bubbles and dreams;\nThought is its cradle and its grave, nor less\nThe Future and the Past are idle shadows\nOf thought’s eternal flight—they have no being:\nNought is but that which feels itself to be. _785", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "What meanest thou? Thy words stream like a tempest\nOf dazzling mist within my brain—they shake\nThe earth on which I stand, and hang like night\nOn Heaven above me. What can they avail?\nThey cast on all things surest, brightest, best, _790\nDoubt, insecurity, astonishment.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ahasuerus:", + "body": "Mistake me not! All is contained in each.\nDodona’s forest to an acorn’s cup\nIs that which has been, or will be, to that\nWhich is—the absent to the present. Thought _795\nAlone, and its quick elements, Will, Passion,\nReason, Imagination, cannot die;\nThey are, what that which they regard appears,\nThe stuff whence mutability can weave\nAll that it hath dominion o’er, worlds, worms, _800\nEmpires, and superstitions. What has thought\nTo do with time, or place, or circumstance?\nWouldst thou behold the Future?—ask and have!\nKnock and it shall be opened—look, and lo!\nThe coming age is shadowed on the Past _805\nAs on a glass.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "The sound\nAs of the assault of an imperial city, _815\nThe hiss of inextinguishable fire,\nThe roar of giant cannon; the earthquaking\nFall of vast bastions and precipitous towers,\nThe shock of crags shot from strange enginery,\nThe clash of wheels, and clang of armed hoofs, _820\nAnd crash of brazen mail as of the wreck\nOf adamantine mountains—the mad blast\nOf trumpets, and the neigh of raging steeds,\nThe shrieks of women whose thrill jars the blood,\nAnd one sweet laugh, most horrible to hear, _825\nAs of a joyous infant waked and playing\nWith its dead mother’s breast, and now more loud\nThe mingled battle-cry,—ha! hear I not\n‘En touto nike!’ ‘Allah-illa-Allah!‘?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "A chasm, _830\nAs of two mountains in the wall of Stamboul;\nAnd in that ghastly breach the Islamites,\nLike giants on the ruins of a world,\nStand in the light of sunrise. In the dust\nGlimmers a kingless diadem, and one _835\nOf regal port has cast himself beneath\nThe stream of war. Another proudly clad\nIn golden arms spurs a Tartarian barb\nInto the gap, and with his iron mace\nDirects the torrent of that tide of men, _840\nAnd seems—he is—Mahomet!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ahasuerus:", + "body": "What thou seest\nIs but the ghost of thy forgotten dream.\nA dream itself, yet less, perhaps, than that\nThou call’st reality. Thou mayst behold\nHow cities, on which Empire sleeps enthroned, _845\nBow their towered crests to mutability.\nPoised by the flood, e’en on the height thou holdest,\nThou mayst now learn how the full tide of power\nEbbs to its depths.—Inheritor of glory,\nConceived in darkness, born in blood, and nourished _850\nWith tears and toil, thou seest the mortal throes\nOf that whose birth was but the same. The Past\nNow stands before thee like an Incarnation\nOf the To-come; yet wouldst thou commune with\nThat portion of thyself which was ere thou _855\nDidst start for this brief race whose crown is death,\nDissolve with that strong faith and fervent passion\nWhich called it from the uncreated deep,\nYon cloud of war, with its tempestuous phantoms\nOf raging death; and draw with mighty will _860\nThe imperial shade hither.\n\n[EXIT AHASUERUS.]\n\n[THE PHANTOM OF MAHOMET THE SECOND APPEARS.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Phantom:", + "body": "I come\nThence whither thou must go! The grave is fitter\nTo take the living than give up the dead;\nYet has thy faith prevailed, and I am here.\nThe heavy fragments of the power which fell _865\nWhen I arose, like shapeless crags and clouds,\nHang round my throne on the abyss, and voices\nOf strange lament soothe my supreme repose,\nWailing for glory never to return.—\nA later Empire nods in its decay: _870\nThe autumn of a greener faith is come,\nAnd wolfish change, like winter, howls to strip\nThe foliage in which Fame, the eagle, built\nHer aerie, while Dominion whelped below.\nThe storm is in its branches, and the frost _875\nIs on its leaves, and the blank deep expects\nOblivion on oblivion, spoil on spoil,\nRuin on ruin:—Thou art slow, my son;\nThe Anarchs of the world of darkness keep\nA throne for thee, round which thine empire lies _880\nBoundless and mute; and for thy subjects thou,\nLike us, shalt rule the ghosts of murdered life,\nThe phantoms of the powers who rule thee now—\nMutinous passions, and conflicting fears,\nAnd hopes that sate themselves on dust, and die!— _885\nStripped of their mortal strength, as thou of thine.\nIslam must fall, but we will reign together\nOver its ruins in the world of death:—\nAnd if the trunk be dry, yet shall the seed\nUnfold itself even in the shape of that _890\nWhich gathers birth in its decay. Woe! woe!\nTo the weak people tangled in the grasp\nOf its last spasms.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "Spirit, woe to all!\nWoe to the wronged and the avenger! Woe\nTo the destroyer, woe to the destroyed! _895\nWoe to the dupe, and woe to the deceiver!\nWoe to the oppressed, and woe to the oppressor!\nWoe both to those that suffer and inflict;\nThose who are born and those who die! but say,\nImperial shadow of the thing I am, _900\nWhen, how, by whom, Destruction must accomplish\nHer consummation!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Phantom:", + "body": "Ask the cold pale Hour,\nRich in reversion of impending death,\nWhen HE shall fall upon whose ripe gray hairs\nSit Care, and Sorrow, and Infirmity— _905\nThe weight which Crime, whose wings are plumed with years,\nLeaves in his flight from ravaged heart to heart\nOver the heads of men, under which burthen\nThey bow themselves unto the grave: fond wretch!\nHe leans upon his crutch, and talks of years _910\nTo come, and how in hours of youth renewed\nHe will renew lost joys, and—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mahmud:", + "body": "Weak lightning before darkness! poor faint smile _915\nOf dying Islam! Voice which art the response\nOf hollow weakness! Do I wake and live?\nWere there such things, or may the unquiet brain,\nVexed by the wise mad talk of the old Jew,\nHave shaped itself these shadows of its fear? _920\nIt matters not!—for nought we see or dream,\nPossess, or lose, or grasp at, can be worth\nMore than it gives or teaches. Come what may,\nThe Future must become the Past, and I\nAs they were to whom once this present hour, _925\nThis gloomy crag of time to which I cling,\nSeemed an Elysian isle of peace and joy\nNever to be attained.—I must rebuke\nThis drunkenness of triumph ere it die,\nAnd dying, bring despair. Victory! poor slaves! _930\n\n[EXIT MAHMUD.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Voice Without:", + "body": "Shout in the jubilee of death! The Greeks\nAre as a brood of lions in the net\nRound which the kingly hunters of the earth\nStand smiling. Anarchs, ye whose daily food\nAre curses, groans, and gold, the fruit of death, _935\nFrom Thule to the girdle of the world,\nCome, feast! the board groans with the flesh of men;\nThe cup is foaming with a nation’s blood,\nFamine and Thirst await! eat, drink, and die!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "Victorious Wrong, with vulture scream, _940\nSalutes the rising sun, pursues the flying day!\nI saw her, ghastly as a tyrant’s dream,\nPerch on the trembling pyramid of night,\nBeneath which earth and all her realms pavilioned lay\nIn visions of the dawning undelight. _945\nWho shall impede her flight?\nWho rob her of her prey?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Voice Without:", + "body": "Victory! Victory! Russia’s famished eagles\nDare not to prey beneath the crescent’s light.\nImpale the remnant of the Greeks! despoil! _950\nViolate! make their flesh cheaper than dust!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 2:", + "body": "Thou voice which art\nThe herald of the ill in splendour hid!\nThou echo of the hollow heart\nOf monarchy, bear me to thine abode _955\nWhen desolation flashes o’er a world destroyed:\nOh, bear me to those isles of jagged cloud\nWhich float like mountains on the earthquake, mid\nThe momentary oceans of the lightning,\nOr to some toppling promontory proud _960\nOf solid tempest whose black pyramid,\nRiven, overhangs the founts intensely bright’ning\nOf those dawn-tinted deluges of fire\nBefore their waves expire,\nWhen heaven and earth are light, and only light _965\nIn the thunder-night!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Voice Without:", + "body": "Victory! Victory! Austria, Russia, England,\nAnd that tame serpent, that poor shadow, France,\nCry peace, and that means death when monarchs speak.\nHo, there! bring torches, sharpen those red stakes, _970\nThese chains are light, fitter for slaves and poisoners\nThan Greeks. Kill! plunder! burn! let none remain.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "Alas! for Liberty!\nIf numbers, wealth, or unfulfilling years,\nOr fate, can quell the free! _975\nAlas! for Virtue, when\nTorments, or contumely, or the sneers\nOf erring judging men\nCan break the heart where it abides.\nAlas! if Love, whose smile makes this obscure world splendid, _980\nCan change with its false times and tides,\nLike hope and terror,—\nAlas for Love!\nAnd Truth, who wanderest lone and unbefriended,\nIf thou canst veil thy lie-consuming mirror _985\nBefore the dazzled eyes of Error,\nAlas for thee! Image of the Above.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 2:", + "body": "Repulse, with plumes from conquest torn,\nLed the ten thousand from the limits of the morn\nThrough many an hostile Anarchy! _990\nAt length they wept aloud, and cried, ‘The Sea! the Sea!’\nThrough exile, persecution, and despair,\nRome was, and young Atlantis shall become\nThe wonder, or the terror, or the tomb\nOf all whose step wakes Power lulled in her savage lair: _995\nBut Greece was as a hermit-child,\nWhose fairest thoughts and limbs were built\nTo woman’s growth, by dreams so mild,\nShe knew not pain or guilt;\nAnd now, O Victory, blush! and Empire, tremble _1000\nWhen ye desert the free—\nIf Greece must be\nA wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble,\nAnd build themselves again impregnably\nIn a diviner clime, _1005\nTo Amphionic music on some Cape sublime,\nWhich frowns above the idle foam of Time.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "Let the tyrants rule the desert they have made;\nLet the free possess the Paradise they claim;\nBe the fortune of our fierce oppressors weighed _1010\nWith our ruin, our resistance, and our name!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Voice Without:", + "body": "Victory! Victory! The bought Briton sends\nThe keys of ocean to the Islamite.—\nNow shall the blazon of the cross be veiled,\nAnd British skill directing Othman might,\nThunder-strike rebel victory. Oh, keep holy _1020\nThis jubilee of unrevenged blood!\nKill! crush! despoil! Let not a Greek escape!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "Darkness has dawned in the East\nOn the noon of time:\nThe death-birds descend to their feast _1025\nFrom the hungry clime.\nLet Freedom and Peace flee far\nTo a sunnier strand,\nAnd follow Love’s folding-star\nTo the Evening land! _1030", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 2:", + "body": "The young moon has fed\nHer exhausted horn\nWith the sunset’s fire:\nThe weak day is dead,\nBut the night is not born; _1035\nAnd, like loveliness panting with wild desire\nWhile it trembles with fear and delight,\nHesperus flies from awakening night,\nAnd pants in its beauty and speed with light\nFast-flashing, soft, and bright. _1040\nThou beacon of love! thou lamp of the free!\nGuide us far, far away,\nTo climes where now veiled by the ardour of day\nThou art hidden\nFrom waves on which weary Noon _1045\nFaints in her summer swoon,\nBetween kingless continents sinless as Eden,\nAround mountains and islands inviolably\nPranked on the sapphire sea.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1:", + "body": "Through the sunset of hope, _1050\nLike the shapes of a dream.\nWhat Paradise islands of glory gleam!\nBeneath Heaven’s cope,\nTheir shadows more clear float by—\nThe sound of their oceans, the light of their sky, _1055\nThe music and fragrance their solitudes breathe\nBurst, like morning on dream, or like Heaven on death,\nThrough the walls of our prison;\nAnd Greece, which was dead, is arisen!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "The world’s great age begins anew, _1060\nThe golden years return,\nThe earth doth like a snake renew\nHer winter weeds outworn:\nHeaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,\nLike wrecks of a dissolving dream. _1065\n\nA brighter Hellas rears its mountains\nFrom waves serener far;\nA new Peneus rolls his fountains\nAgainst the morning star.\nWhere fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep _1070\nYoung Cyclads on a sunnier deep.\n\nA loftier Argo cleaves the main,\nFraught with a later prize;\nAnother Orpheus sings again,\nAnd loves, and weeps, and dies. _1075\nA new Ulysses leaves once more\nCalypso for his native shore.\n\nOh, write no more the tale of Troy,\nIf earth Death’s scroll must be!\nNor mix with Laian rage the joy _1080\nWhich dawns upon the free:\nAlthough a subtler Sphinx renew\nRiddles of death Thebes never knew.\n\nAnother Athens shall arise,\nAnd to remoter time _1085\nBequeath, like sunset to the skies,\nThe splendour of its prime;\nAnd leave, if nought so bright may live,\nAll earth can take or Heaven can give.\n\nSaturn and Love their long repose _1090\nShall burst, more bright and good\nThan all who fell, than One who rose,\nThan many unsubdued:\nNot gold, not blood, their altar dowers,\nBut votive tears and symbol flowers. _1095\n\nOh, cease! must hate and death return?\nCease! must men kill and die?\nCease! drain not to its dregs the urn\nOf bitter prophecy.\nThe world is weary of the past, _1100\nOh, might it die or rest at last!\n\n_1068 his edition 1822; its editions 1839.\n_1072 Argo]Argos edition 1822.\n_1091-_1093 See Editor’s note.\n_1091 bright editions 1839; wise edition 1829 (ed. Galignani).\n_1093 unsubdued editions 1839; unwithstood edition 1829 (ed. Galignani).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "(1) The Quenchless Ashes Of Milan [L. 60].", + "body": "Milan was the centre of the resistance of the Lombard league against\nthe Austrian tyrant. Frederic Barbarossa burnt the city to the ground,\nbut liberty lived in its ashes, and it rose like an exhalation from\nits ruin. See Sismondi’s “Histoire des Republiques Italiennes”, a book\nwhich has done much towards awakening the Italians to an imitation of\ntheir great ancestors.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "(2) The Chorus [L. 197].", + "body": "The popular notions of Christianity are represented in this chorus as\ntrue in their relation to the worship they superseded, and that which\nin all probability they will supersede, without considering their\nmerits in a relation more universal. The first stanza contrasts the\nimmortality of the living and thinking beings which inhabit the\nplanets, and to use a common and inadequate phrase, “clothe themselves\nin matter”, with the transience of the noblest manifestations of the\nexternal world.\n\nThe concluding verses indicate a progressive state of more or loss\nexalted existence, according to the degree of perfection which every\ndistinct intelligence may have attained. Let it not be supposed that I\nmean to dogmatise upon a subject, concerning which all men are equally\nignorant, or that I think the Gordian knot of the origin of evil can\nbe disentangled by that or any similar assertions. The received\nhypothesis of a Being resembling men in the moral attributes of His\nnature, having called us out of non-existence, and after inflicting on\nus the misery of the commission of error, should superadd that of the\npunishment and the privations consequent upon it, still would remain\ninexplicable and incredible. That there is a true solution of the\nriddle, and that in our present state that solution is unattainable by\nus, are propositions which may be regarded as equally certain:\nmeanwhile, as it is the province of the poet to attach himself to\nthose ideas which exalt and ennoble humanity, let him be permitted to\nhave conjectured the condition of that futurity towards which we are\nall impelled by an inextinguishable thirst for immortality. Until\nbetter arguments can be produced than sophisms which disgrace the\ncause, this desire itself must remain the strongest and the only\npresumption that eternity is the inheritance of every thinking being.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "(3) No Hoary Priests After That Patriarch [L. 245].", + "body": "The Greek Patriarch, after haying been compelled to fulminate an\nanathema against the insurgents, was put to death by the Turks.\n\nFortunately the Greeks have been taught that they cannot buy security\nby degradation, and the Turks, though equally cruel, are less cunning\nthan the smooth-faced tyrants of Europe. As to the anathema, his\nHoliness might as well have thrown his mitre at Mount Athos for any\neffect that it produced. The chiefs of the Greeks are almost all men\nof comprehension and enlightened views on religion and politics.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "(4) The Freedman Of A Western Poet-Chief [L. 563].", + "body": "A Greek who had been Lord Byron’s servant commands the insurgents in\nAttica. This Greek, Lord Byron informs me, though a poet and an\nenthusiastic patriot, gave him rather the idea of a timid and\nunenterprising person. It appears that circumstances make men what\nthey are, and that we all contain the germ of a degree of degradation\nor of greatness whose connection with our character is determined by\nevents.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "(5) The Greeks Expect A Saviour From The West [L. 598].", + "body": "It is reported that this Messiah had arrived at a seaport near\nLacedaemon in an American brig. The association of names and ideas is\nirresistibly ludicrous, but the prevalence of such a rumour strongly\nmarks the state of popular enthusiasm in Greece.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "(6) The Sound As Of The Assault Of An Imperial City [Ll. 814-15].", + "body": "For the vision of Mahmud of the taking of Constantinople in 1453, see\nGibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, volume 12 page 223.\n\nThe manner of the invocation of the spirit of Mahomet the Second will\nbe censured as over subtle. I could easily have made the Jew a regular\nconjuror, and the Phantom an ordinary ghost. I have preferred to\nrepresent the Jew as disclaiming all pretension, or even belief, in\nsupernatural agency, and as tempting Mahmud to that state of mind in\nwhich ideas may be supposed to assume the force of sensations through\nthe confusion of thought with the objects of thought, and the excess\nof passion animating the creations of imagination.\n\nIt is a sort of natural magic, susceptible of being exercised in a\ndegree by any one who should have made himself master of the secret\nassociations of another’s thoughts.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "(7) The Chorus [L. 1060].", + "body": "The final chorus is indistinct and obscure, as the event of the living\ndrama whose arrival it foretells. Prophecies of wars, and rumours of\nwars, etc., may safely be made by poet or prophet in any age, but to\nanticipate however darkly a period of regeneration and happiness is a\nmore hazardous exercise of the faculty which bards possess or feign.\nIt will remind the reader ‘magno NEC proximus intervallo’ of Isaiah\nand Virgil, whose ardent spirits overleaping the actual reign of evil\nwhich we endure and bewail, already saw the possible and perhaps\napproaching state of society in which the ‘lion shall lie down with\nthe lamb,’ and ‘omnis feret omnia tellus.’ Let these great names be my\nauthority and my excuse.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "(8) Saturn And Love Their Long Repose Shall Burst [L. 1090].", + "body": "Saturn and Love were among the deities of a real or imaginary state of\ninnocence and happiness. ALL those WHO FELL, or the Gods of Greece,\nAsia, and Egypt; the ONE WHO ROSE, or Jesus Christ, at whose\nappearance the idols of the Pagan World wore amerced of their worship;\nand the MANY UNSUBDUED, or the monstrous objects of the idolatry of\nChina, India, the Antarctic islands, and the native tribes of America,\ncertainly have reigned over the understandings of men in conjunction\nor in succession, during periods in which all we know of evil has been\nin a state of portentous, and, until the revival of learning and the\narts, perpetually increasing, activity. The Grecian gods seem indeed\nto have been personally more innocent, although it cannot be said,\nthat as far as temperance and chastity are concerned, they gave so\nedifying an example as their successor. The sublime human character of\nJesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a Power,\nwho tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were\ncalled into existence by His sole will; and for the period of a\nthousand years, the spirit of this most just, wise, and benevolent of\nmen has been propitiated with myriads of hecatombs of those who\napproached the nearest to His innocence and wisdom, sacrificed under\nevery aggravation of atrocity and variety of torture. The horrors of\nthe Mexican, the Peruvian, and the Indian superstitions are well\nknown.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Hellas, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "The South of Europe was in a state of great political excitement at\nthe beginning of the year 1821. The Spanish Revolution had been a\nsignal to Italy; secrete societies were formed; and, when Naples rose\nto declare the Constitution, the call was responded to from Brundusium\nto the foot of the Alps. To crush these attempts to obtain liberty,\nearly in 1821 the Austrians poured their armies into the Peninsula: at\nfirst their coming rather seemed to add energy and resolution to a\npeople long enslaved. The Piedmontese asserted their freedom; Genoa\nthrew off the yoke of the King of Sardinia; and, as if in playful\nimitation, the people of the little state of Massa and Carrara gave\nthe conge to their sovereign, and set up a republic.\n\nTuscany alone was perfectly tranquil. It was said that the Austrian\nminister presented a list of sixty Carbonari to the Grand Duke, urging\ntheir imprisonment; and the Grand Duke replied, ‘I do not know whether\nthese sixty men are Carbonari, but I know, if I imprison them, I shall\ndirectly have sixty thousand start up.’ But, though the Tuscans had no\ndesire to disturb the paternal government beneath whose shelter they\nslumbered, they regarded the progress of the various Italian\nrevolutions with intense interest, and hatred for the Austrian was\nwarm in every bosom. But they had slender hopes; they knew that the\nNeapolitans would offer no fit resistance to the regular German\ntroops, and that the overthrow of the constitution in Naples would act\nas a decisive blow against all struggles for liberty in Italy.\n\nWe have seen the rise and progress of reform. But the Holy Alliance\nwas alive and active in those days, and few could dream of the\npeaceful triumph of liberty. It seemed then that the armed assertion\nof freedom in the South of Europe was the only hope of the liberals,\nas, if it prevailed, the nations of the north would imitate the\nexample. Happily the reverse has proved the fact. The countries\naccustomed to the exercise of the privileges of freemen, to a limited\nextent, have extended, and are extending, these limits. Freedom and\nknowledge have now a chance of proceeding hand in hand; and, if it\ncontinue thus, we may hope for the durability of both. Then, as I have\nsaid—in 1821—Shelley, as well as every other lover of liberty,\nlooked upon the struggles in Spain and Italy as decisive of the\ndestinies of the world, probably for centuries to come. The interest\nhe took in the progress of affairs was intense. When Genoa declared\nitself free, his hopes were at their highest. Day after day he read\nthe bulletins of the Austrian army, and sought eagerly to gather\ntokens of its defeat. He heard of the revolt of Genoa with emotions of\ntransport. His whole heart and soul were in the triumph of the cause.\nWe were living at Pisa at that time; and several well-informed\nItalians, at the head of whom we may place the celebrated Vacca, were\naccustomed to seek for sympathy in their hopes from Shelley: they did\nnot find such for the despair they too generally experienced, founded\non contempt for their southern countrymen.\n\nWhile the fate of the progress of the Austrian armies then invading\nNaples was yet in suspense, the news of another revolution filled him\nwith exultation. We had formed the acquaintance at Pisa of several\nConstantinopolitan Greeks, of the family of Prince Caradja, formerly\nHospodar of Wallachia; who, hearing that the bowstring, the accustomed\nfinale of his viceroyalty, was on the road to him, escaped with his\ntreasures, and took up his abode in Tuscany. Among these was the\ngentleman to whom the drama of “Hellas” is dedicated. Prince\nMavrocordato was warmed by those aspirations for the independence of\nhis country which filled the hearts of many of his countrymen. He\noften intimated the possibility of an insurrection in Greece; but we\nhad no idea of its being so near at hand, when, on the 1st of April\n1821, he called on Shelley, bringing the proclamation of his cousin,\nPrince Ypsilanti, and, radiant with exultation and delight, declared\nthat henceforth Greece would be free.\n\nShelley had hymned the dawn of liberty in Spain and Naples, in two\nodes dictated by the warmest enthusiasm; he felt himself naturally\nimpelled to decorate with poetry the uprise of the descendants of that\npeople whose works he regarded with deep admiration, and to adopt the\nvaticinatory character in prophesying their success. “Hellas” was\nwritten in a moment of enthusiasm. It is curious to remark how well he\novercomes the difficulty of forming a drama out of such scant\nmaterials. His prophecies, indeed, came true in their general, not\ntheir particular, purport. He did not foresee the death of Lord\nLondonderry, which was to be the epoch of a change in English\npolitics, particularly as regarded foreign affairs; nor that the navy\nof his country would fight for instead of against the Greeks, and by\nthe battle of Navarino secure their enfranchisement from the Turks.\nAlmost against reason, as it appeared to him, he resolved to believe\nthat Greece would prove triumphant; and in this spirit, auguring\nultimate good, yet grieving over the vicissitudes to be endured in the\ninterval, he composed his drama.\n\n“Hellas” was among the last of his compositions, and is among the most\nbeautiful. The choruses are singularly imaginative, and melodious in\ntheir versification. There are some stanzas that beautifully exemplify\nShelley’s peculiar style; as, for instance, the assertion of the\nintellectual empire which must be for ever the inheritance of the\ncountry of Homer, Sophocles, and Plato:—\n\n‘But Greece and her foundations are\nBuilt below the tide of war,\nBased on the crystalline sea\nOf thought and its eternity.’\n\nAnd again, that philosophical truth felicitously imaged forth—\n\n‘Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind,\nThe foul cubs like their parents are,\nTheir den is in the guilty mind,\nAnd Conscience feeds them with despair.’\n\nThe conclusion of the last chorus is among the most beautiful of his\nlyrics. The imagery is distinct and majestic; the prophecy, such as\npoets love to dwell upon, the Regeneration of Mankind—and that\nregeneration reflecting back splendour on the foregone time, from\nwhich it inherits so much of intellectual wealth, and memory of past\nvirtuous deeds, as must render the possession of happiness and peace\nof tenfold value.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragments Of An Unfinished Drama.", + "body": "[Published in part (lines 1-69, 100-120) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous\nPoems”, 1824; and again, with the notes, in “Poetical Works”, 1839.\nLines 127-238 were printed by Dr. Garnett under the title of “The\nMagic Plant” in his “Relics of Shelley”, 1862. The whole was edited in\nits present form from the Boscombe manuscript by Mr. W.M. Rossetti in\n1870 (“Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, Moxon, 2 volumes.).\n‘Written at Pisa during the late winter or early spring of 1822’\n(Garnett).]\n\nThe following fragments are part of a Drama undertaken for the\namusement of the individuals who composed our intimate society, but\nleft unfinished. I have preserved a sketch of the story as far as it\nhad been shadowed in the poet’s mind.\n\nAn Enchantress, living in one of the islands of the Indian\nArchipelago, saves the life of a Pirate, a man of savage but noble\nnature. She becomes enamoured of him; and he, inconstant to his mortal\nlove, for a while returns her passion; but at length, recalling the\nmemory of her whom he left, and who laments his loss, he escapes from\nthe Enchanted Island, and returns to his lady. His mode of life makes\nhim again go to sea, and the Enchantress seizes the opportunity to\nbring him, by a spirit-brewed tempest, back to her Island. —[MRS.\nSHELLEY’S NOTE, 1839.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Enchantress:", + "body": "He came like a dream in the dawn of life,\nHe fled like a shadow before its noon;\nHe is gone, and my peace is turned to strife,\nAnd I wander and wane like the weary moon.\nO, sweet Echo, wake, _5\nAnd for my sake\nMake answer the while my heart shall break!\n\nBut my heart has a music which Echo’s lips,\nThough tender and true, yet can answer not,\nAnd the shadow that moves in the soul’s eclipse _10\nCan return not the kiss by his now forgot;\nSweet lips! he who hath\nOn my desolate path\nCast the darkness of absence, worse than death!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Spirit:", + "body": "Within the silent centre of the earth _15\nMy mansion is; where I have lived insphered\nFrom the beginning, and around my sleep\nHave woven all the wondrous imagery\nOf this dim spot, which mortals call the world;\nInfinite depths of unknown elements _20\nMassed into one impenetrable mask;\nSheets of immeasurable fire, and veins\nOf gold and stone, and adamantine iron.\nAnd as a veil in which I walk through Heaven\nI have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and clouds, _25\nAnd lastly light, whose interfusion dawns\nIn the dark space of interstellar air.\n\n_15-_27 Within...air. 1839; omitted 1824.\n See these lines in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, page 209: “Song of a Spirit”.\n_16 have 1839; omitted 1824, page 209.\n_25 seas, and waves 1824, page 209; seas, waves 1839.\n\n[A good Spirit, who watches over the Pirate’s fate, leads, in a\nmysterious manner, the lady of his love to the Enchanted Isle. She is\naccompanied by a Youth, who loves the lady, but whose passion she\nreturns only with a sisterly affection. The ensuing scene takes place\nbetween them on their arrival at the Isle. [MRS. SHELLEY’S NOTE,\n1839.]]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lady:", + "body": "Peace, perturbed heart! _35\nI am to thee only as thou to mine,\nThe passing wind which heals the brow at noon,\nAnd may strike cold into the breast at night,\nYet cannot linger where it soothes the most,\nOr long soothe could it linger.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lady:", + "body": "Oh! would that I could claim exemption\nFrom all the bitterness of that sweet name.\nI loved, I love, and when I love no more\nLet joys and grief perish, and leave despair _50\nTo ring the knell of youth. He stood beside me,\nThe embodied vision of the brightest dream,\nWhich like a dawn heralds the day of life;\nThe shadow of his presence made my world\nA Paradise. All familiar things he touched, _55\nAll common words he spoke, became to me\nLike forms and sounds of a diviner world.\nHe was as is the sun in his fierce youth,\nAs terrible and lovely as a tempest;\nHe came, and went, and left me what I am. _60\nAlas! Why must I think how oft we two\nHave sate together near the river springs,\nUnder the green pavilion which the willow\nSpreads on the floor of the unbroken fountain,\nStrewn, by the nurslings that linger there, _65\nOver that islet paved with flowers and moss,\nWhile the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson snow,\nShowered on us, and the dove mourned in the pine,\nSad prophetess of sorrows not her own?\nThe crane returned to her unfrozen haunt, _70\nAnd the false cuckoo bade the spray good morn;\nAnd on a wintry bough the widowed bird,\nHid in the deepest night of ivy-leaves,\nRenewed the vigils of a sleepless sorrow.\nI, left like her, and leaving one like her, _75\nAlike abandoned and abandoning\n(Oh! unlike her in this!) the gentlest youth,\nWhose love had made my sorrows dear to him,\nEven as my sorrow made his love to me!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Indian:", + "body": "One curse of Nature stamps in the same mould _80\nThe features of the wretched; and they are\nAs like as violet to violet,\nWhen memory, the ghost, their odours keeps\nMid the cold relics of abandoned joy.—\nProceed.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Indian [Aside]:", + "body": "God of Heaven!\nFrom such an islet, such a river-spring—!\nI dare not ask her if there stood upon it _90\nA pleasure-dome surmounted by a crescent,\nWith steps to the blue water.\n[ALOUD.]\nIt may be\nThat Nature masks in life several copies\nOf the same lot, so that the sufferers\nMay feel another’s sorrow as their own, _95\nAnd find in friendship what they lost in love.\nThat cannot be: yet it is strange that we,\nFrom the same scene, by the same path to this\nRealm of abandonment— But speak! your breath—\nYour breath is like soft music, your words are _100\nThe echoes of a voice which on my heart\nSleeps like a melody of early days.\nBut as you said—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lady:", + "body": "He was so awful, yet\nSo beautiful in mystery and terror,\nCalming me as the loveliness of heaven _105\nSoothes the unquiet sea:—and yet not so,\nFor he seemed stormy, and would often seem\nA quenchless sun masked in portentous clouds;\nFor such his thoughts, and even his actions were;\nBut he was not of them, nor they of him, _110\nBut as they hid his splendour from the earth.\nSome said he was a man of blood and peril,\nAnd steeped in bitter infamy to the lips.\nMore need was there I should be innocent,\nMore need that I should be most true and kind, _115\nAnd much more need that there should be found one\nTo share remorse and scorn and solitude,\nAnd all the ills that wait on those who do\nThe tasks of ruin in the world of life.\nHe fled, and I have followed him.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Indian:", + "body": "Such a one _120\nIs he who was the winter of my peace.\nBut, fairest stranger, when didst thou depart\nFrom the far hills where rise the springs of India?\nHow didst thou pass the intervening sea?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lady:", + "body": "If I be sure I am not dreaming now, _125\nI should not doubt to say it was a dream.\nMethought a star came down from heaven,\nAnd rested mid the plants of India,\nWhich I had given a shelter from the frost\nWithin my chamber. There the meteor lay, _130\nPanting forth light among the leaves and flowers,\nAs if it lived, and was outworn with speed;\nOr that it loved, and passion made the pulse\nOf its bright life throb like an anxious heart,\nTill it diffused itself; and all the chamber _135\nAnd walls seemed melted into emerald fire\nThat burned not; in the midst of which appeared\nA spirit like a child, and laughed aloud\nA thrilling peal of such sweet merriment\nAs made the blood tingle in my warm feet: _140\nThen bent over a vase, and murmuring\nLow, unintelligible melodies,\nPlaced something in the mould like melon-seeds,\nAnd slowly faded, and in place of it\nA soft hand issued from the veil of fire, _145\nHolding a cup like a magnolia flower,\nAnd poured upon the earth within the vase\nThe element with which it overflowed,\nBrighter than morning light, and purer than\nThe water of the springs of Himalah. _150", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lady:", + "body": "Not until my dream became\nLike a child’s legend on the tideless sand.\nWhich the first foam erases half, and half\nLeaves legible. At length I rose, and went,\nVisiting my flowers from pot to pot, and thought _155\nTo set new cuttings in the empty urns,\nAnd when I came to that beside the lattice,\nI saw two little dark-green leaves\nLifting the light mould at their birth, and then\nI half-remembered my forgotten dream. _160\nAnd day by day, green as a gourd in June,\nThe plant grew fresh and thick, yet no one knew\nWhat plant it was; its stem and tendrils seemed\nLike emerald snakes, mottled and diamonded\nWith azure mail and streaks of woven silver; _165\nAnd all the sheaths that folded the dark buds\nRose like the crest of cobra-di-capel,\nUntil the golden eye of the bright flower,\nThrough the dark lashes of those veined lids,\n...disencumbered of their silent sleep, _170\nGazed like a star into the morning light.\nIts leaves were delicate, you almost saw\nThe pulses\nWith which the purple velvet flower was fed\nTo overflow, and like a poet’s heart _175\nChanging bright fancy to sweet sentiment,\nChanged half the light to fragrance. It soon fell,\nAnd to a green and dewy embryo-fruit\nLeft all its treasured beauty. Day by day\nI nursed the plant, and on the double flute _180\nPlayed to it on the sunny winter days\nSoft melodies, as sweet as April rain\nOn silent leaves, and sang those words in which\nPassion makes Echo taunt the sleeping strings;\nAnd I would send tales of forgotten love _185\nLate into the lone night, and sing wild songs\nOf maids deserted in the olden time,\nAnd weep like a soft cloud in April’s bosom\nUpon the sleeping eyelids of the plant,\nSo that perhaps it dreamed that Spring was come, _190\nAnd crept abroad into the moonlight air,\nAnd loosened all its limbs, as, noon by noon,\nThe sun averted less his oblique beam.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lady:", + "body": "It grew;\nAnd went out of the lattice which I left _195\nHalf open for it, trailing its quaint spires\nAlong the garden and across the lawn,\nAnd down the slope of moss and through the tufts\nOf wild-flower roots, and stumps of trees o’ergrown\nWith simple lichens, and old hoary stones, _200\nOn to the margin of the glassy pool,\nEven to a nook of unblown violets\nAnd lilies-of-the-valley yet unborn,\nUnder a pine with ivy overgrown.\nAnd there its fruit lay like a sleeping lizard _205\nUnder the shadows; but when Spring indeed\nCame to unswathe her infants, and the lilies\nPeeped from their bright green masks to wonder at\nThis shape of autumn couched in their recess,\nThen it dilated, and it grew until _210\nOne half lay floating on the fountain wave,\nWhose pulse, elapsed in unlike sympathies,\nKept time\nAmong the snowy water-lily buds.\nIts shape was such as summer melody _215\nOf the south wind in spicy vales might give\nTo some light cloud bound from the golden dawn\nTo fairy isles of evening, and it seemed\nIn hue and form that it had been a mirror\nOf all the hues and forms around it and _220\nUpon it pictured by the sunny beams\nWhich, from the bright vibrations of the pool,\nWere thrown upon the rafters and the roof\nOf boughs and leaves, and on the pillared stems\nOf the dark sylvan temple, and reflections _225\nOf every infant flower and star of moss\nAnd veined leaf in the azure odorous air.\nAnd thus it lay in the Elysian calm\nOf its own beauty, floating on the line\nWhich, like a film in purest space, divided _230\nThe heaven beneath the water from the heaven\nAbove the clouds; and every day I went\nWatching its growth and wondering;\nAnd as the day grew hot, methought I saw\nA glassy vapour dancing on the pool, _235\nAnd on it little quaint and filmy shapes.\nWith dizzy motion, wheel and rise and fall,\nLike clouds of gnats with perfect lineaments.\n\n...\n\nO friend, sleep was a veil uplift from Heaven—\nAs if Heaven dawned upon the world of dream— _240\nWhen darkness rose on the extinguished day\nOut of the eastern wilderness.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Charles The First.", + "body": "[“Charles the First” was designed in 1818, begun towards the close of\n1819 [Medwin, “Life”, 2 page 62], resumed in January, and finally laid\naside by June, 1822. It was published in part in the “Posthumous\nPoems”, 1824, and printed, in its present form (with the addition of\nsome 530 lines), by Mr. W.M. Rossetti, 1870. Further particulars are\ngiven in the Editor’s Notes at the end of Volume 3.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King Charles I.", + "body": "QUEEN HENRIETTA.\nLAUD, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.\nWENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD.\nLORD COTTINGTON.\nLORD WESTON.\nLORD COVENTRY.\nWILLIAMS, BISHOP OF LINCOLN.\nSECRETARY LYTTELTON.\nJUXON.\nST. JOHN.\nARCHY, THE COURT FOOL.\nHAMPDEN.\nPYM.\nCROMWELL.\nCROMWELL’S DAUGHTER.\nSIR HARRY VANE THE YOUNGER.\nLEIGHTON.\nBASTWICK.\nPRYNNE.\nGENTLEMEN OF THE INNS OF COURT, CITIZENS, PURSUIVANTS,\nMARSHALSMEN, LAW STUDENTS, JUDGES, CLERK.\n\nSCENE 1:\nTHE MASQUE OF THE INNS OF COURT.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Citizen:", + "body": "And Hell to Heaven. _5\nEight years are gone,\nAnd they seem hours, since in this populous street\nI trod on grass made green by summer’s rain,\nFor the red plague kept state within that palace\nWhere now that vanity reigns. In nine years more _10\nThe roots will be refreshed with civil blood;\nAnd thank the mercy of insulted Heaven\nThat sin and wrongs wound, as an orphan’s cry,\nThe patience of the great Avenger’s ear.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Youth:", + "body": "Yet, father, ’tis a happy sight to see, _15\nBeautiful, innocent, and unforbidden\nBy God or man;—’tis like the bright procession\nOf skiey visions in a solemn dream\nFrom which men wake as from a Paradise,\nAnd draw new strength to tread the thorns of life. _20\nIf God be good, wherefore should this be evil?\nAnd if this be not evil, dost thou not draw\nUnseasonable poison from the flowers\nWhich bloom so rarely in this barren world?\nOh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present _25\nDark as the future!—\n\n...\n\nWhen Avarice and Tyranny, vigilant Fear,\nAnd open-eyed Conspiracy lie sleeping\nAs on Hell’s threshold; and all gentle thoughts\nWaken to worship Him who giveth joys _30\nWith His own gift.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Citizen:", + "body": "How young art thou in this old age of time!\nHow green in this gray world? Canst thou discern\nThe signs of seasons, yet perceive no hint\nOf change in that stage-scene in which thou art _35\nNot a spectator but an actor? or\nArt thou a puppet moved by [enginery]?\nThe day that dawns in fire will die in storms,\nEven though the noon be calm. My travel’s done,—\nBefore the whirlwind wakes I shall have found _40\nMy inn of lasting rest; but thou must still\nBe journeying on in this inclement air.\nWrap thy old cloak about thy back;\nNor leave the broad and plain and beaten road,\nAlthough no flowers smile on the trodden dust, _45\nFor the violet paths of pleasure. This Charles the First\nRose like the equinoctial sun,...\nBy vapours, through whose threatening ominous veil\nDarting his altered influence he has gained\nThis height of noon—from which he must decline _50\nAmid the darkness of conflicting storms,\nTo dank extinction and to latest night...\nThere goes\nThe apostate Strafford; he whose titles\nwhispered aphorisms _55\nFrom Machiavel and Bacon: and, if Judas\nHad been as brazen and as bold as he—\n\n_33-_37 Canst...enginery 1870;\n Canst thou not think\n Of change in that low scene, in which thou art\n Not a spectator but an actor?... 1824.\n_43-_57 Wrap...bold as he 1870; omitted 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Citizen:", + "body": "Rather say the Pope:\nLondon will be soon his Rome: he walks\nAs if he trod upon the heads of men: _60\nHe looks elate, drunken with blood and gold;—\nBeside him moves the Babylonian woman\nInvisibly, and with her as with his shadow,\nMitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,\nWhich turns Heaven’s milk of mercy to revenge. _65", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Third Citizen [Lifting Up His Eyes]:", + "body": "Good Lord! rain it down upon him!...\nAmid her ladies walks the papist queen,\nAs if her nice feet scorned our English earth.\nThe Canaanitish Jezebel! I would be\nA dog if I might tear her with my teeth! _70\nThere’s old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke,\nLord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry,\nAnd others who make base their English breed\nBy vile participation of their honours\nWith papists, atheists, tyrants, and apostates. _75\nWhen lawyers masque ’tis time for honest men\nTo strip the vizor from their purposes.\nA seasonable time for masquers this!\nWhen Englishmen and Protestants should sit\ndust on their dishonoured heads _80\nTo avert the wrath of Him whose scourge is felt\nFor the great sins which have drawn down from Heaven\nand foreign overthrow.\nThe remnant of the martyred saints in Rochefort\nHave been abandoned by their faithless allies _85\nTo that idolatrous and adulterous torturer\nLewis of France,—the Palatinate is lost—\n[ENTER LEIGHTON (WHO HAS BEEN BRANDED IN THE FACE) AND BASTWICK.]\nCanst thou be—art thou?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Leighton:", + "body": "I WAS Leighton: what\nI AM thou seest. And yet turn thine eyes,\nAnd with thy memory look on thy friend’s mind, _90\nWhich is unchanged, and where is written deep\nThe sentence of my judge.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Citizen:", + "body": "It is said besides _95\nThat lewd and papist drunkards may profane\nThe Sabbath with their\nAnd has permitted that most heathenish custom\nOf dancing round a pole dressed up with wreaths\nOn May-day. _100\nA man who thus twice crucifies his God\nMay well ... his brother.—In my mind, friend,\nThe root of all this ill is prelacy.\nI would cut up the root.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Citizen:", + "body": "I learnt it in\nEgyptian bondage, sir. Your worm of Nile\nBetrays not with its flattering tears like they;\nFor, when they cannot kill, they whine and weep. _110\nNor is it half so greedy of men’s bodies\nAs they of soul and all; nor does it wallow\nIn slime as they in simony and lies\nAnd close lusts of the flesh.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Law Student:", + "body": "What thinkest thou\nOf this quaint show of ours, my aged friend?\nEven now we see the redness of the torches\nInflame the night to the eastward, and the clarions _120\n[Gasp?] to us on the wind’s wave. It comes!\nAnd their sounds, floating hither round the pageant,\nRouse up the astonished air.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Citizen:", + "body": "As adders cast their skins\nAnd keep their venom, so kings often change;\nCouncils and counsellors hang on one another,\nHiding the loathsome _130\nLike the base patchwork of a leper’s rags.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Youth:", + "body": "How glorious! See those thronging chariots\nRolling, like painted clouds before the wind,\nBehind their solemn steeds: how some are shaped\nLike curved sea-shells dyed by the azure depths _140\nOf Indian seas; some like the new-born moon;\nAnd some like cars in which the Romans climbed\n(Canopied by Victory’s eagle-wings outspread)\nThe Capitolian—See how gloriously\nThe mettled horses in the torchlight stir _145\nTheir gallant riders, while they check their pride,\nLike shapes of some diviner element\nThan English air, and beings nobler than\nThe envious and admiring multitude.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Citizen:", + "body": "Ay, there they are— _150\nNobles, and sons of nobles, patentees,\nMonopolists, and stewards of this poor farm,\nOn whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows,\nHere is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan,\nHere is the pride that breaks the desolate heart. _155\nThese are the lilies glorious as Solomon,\nWho toil not, neither do they spin,—unless\nIt be the webs they catch poor rogues withal.\nHere is the surfeit which to them who earn\nThe niggard wages of the earth, scarce leaves _160\nThe tithe that will support them till they crawl\nBack to her cold hard bosom. Here is health\nFollowed by grim disease, glory by shame,\nWaste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want,\nAnd England’s sin by England’s punishment. _165\nAnd, as the effect pursues the cause foregone,\nLo, giving substance to my words, behold\nAt once the sign and the thing signified—\nA troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts,\nHorsed upon stumbling jades, carted with dung, _170\nDragged for a day from cellars and low cabins\nAnd rotten hiding-holes, to point the moral\nOf this presentment, and bring up the rear\nOf painted pomp with misery!\n\n_162 her 1870; its 1824.\n_170 jades 1870; shapes 1824.\n_173 presentment 1870; presentiment 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Youth:", + "body": "’Tis but\nThe anti-masque, and serves as discords do _175\nIn sweetest music. Who would love May flowers\nIf they succeeded not to Winter’s flaw;\nOr day unchanged by night; or joy itself\nWithout the touch of sorrow?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King:", + "body": "Thanks, gentlemen. I heartily accept\nThis token of your service: your gay masque\nWas performed gallantly. And it shows well\nWhen subjects twine such flowers of [observance?]\nWith the sharp thorns that deck the English crown. _5\nA gentle heart enjoys what it confers,\nEven as it suffers that which it inflicts,\nThough Justice guides the stroke.\nAccept my hearty thanks.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Queen:", + "body": "And gentlemen,\nCall your poor Queen your debtor. Your quaint pageant _10\nRose on me like the figures of past years,\nTreading their still path back to infancy,\nMore beautiful and mild as they draw nearer\nThe quiet cradle. I could have almost wept\nTo think I was in Paris, where these shows _15\nAre well devised—such as I was ere yet\nMy young heart shared a portion of the burthen,\nThe careful weight, of this great monarchy.\nThere, gentlemen, between the sovereign’s pleasure\nAnd that which it regards, no clamour lifts _20\nIts proud interposition.\nIn Paris ribald censurers dare not move\nTheir poisonous tongues against these sinless sports;\nAnd HIS smile\nWarms those who bask in it, as ours would do _25\nIf ... Take my heart’s thanks: add them, gentlemen,\nTo those good words which, were he King of France,\nMy royal lord would turn to golden deeds.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "St. John:", + "body": "Madam, the love of Englishmen can make\nThe lightest favour of their lawful king _30\nOutweigh a despot’s.—We humbly take our leaves,\nEnriched by smiles which France can never buy.\n\n[EXEUNT ST. JOHN AND THE GENTLEMEN OF THE INNS OF COURT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "Yes, pray your Grace look: for, like an unsophisticated [eye] sees\neverything upside down, you who are wise will discern the shadow of an\nidiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet setting springes to catch woodcocks\nin haymaking time. Poor Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the\nerror of his age, and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance\nof God forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that deep\neye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and weighing words out\nbetween king and subjects. One scale is full of promises, and the\nother full of protestations: and then another devil creeps behind the\nfirst out of the dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer’s brain, and\ntakes the bandage from the other’s eyes, and throws a sword into the\nleft-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord Essex’s there. _48", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "When all the fools are whipped, and all the Protestant writers, while\nthe knaves are whipping the fools ever since a thief was set to catch\na thief. If all turncoats were whipped out of palaces, poor Archy\nwould be disgraced in good company. Let the knaves whip the fools, and\nall the fools laugh at it. [Let the] wise and godly slit each other’s\nnoses and ears (having no need of any sense of discernment in their\ncraft); and the knaves, to marshal them, join in a procession to\nBedlam, to entreat the madmen to omit their sublime Platonic\ncontemplations, and manage the state of England. Let all the honest\nmen who lie [pinched?] up at the prisons or the pillories, in custody\nof the pursuivants of the High-Commission Court, marshal them. _65", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King [Looking Over The Papers]:", + "body": "These stiff Scots\nHis Grace of Canterbury must take order\nTo force under the Church’s yoke.—You, Wentworth,\nShall be myself in Ireland, and shall add\nYour wisdom, gentleness, and energy, _70\nTo what in me were wanting.—My Lord Weston,\nLook that those merchants draw not without loss\nTheir bullion from the Tower; and, on the payment\nOf shipmoney, take fullest compensation\nFor violation of our royal forests, _75\nWhose limits, from neglect, have been o’ergrown\nWith cottages and cornfields. The uttermost\nFarthing exact from those who claim exemption\nFrom knighthood: that which once was a reward\nShall thus be made a punishment, that subjects _80\nMay know how majesty can wear at will\nThe rugged mood.—My Lord of Coventry,\nLay my command upon the Courts below\nThat bail be not accepted for the prisoners\nUnder the warrant of the Star Chamber. _85\nThe people shall not find the stubbornness\nOf Parliament a cheap or easy method\nOf dealing with their rightful sovereign:\nAnd doubt not this, my Lord of Coventry,\nWe will find time and place for fit rebuke.— _90\nMy Lord of Canterbury.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King:", + "body": "What, my Archy? _95\nHe mocks and mimics all he sees and hears,\nYet with a quaint and graceful licence—Prithee\nFor this once do not as Prynne would, were he\nPrimate of England. With your Grace’s leave,\nHe lives in his own world; and, like a parrot _100\nHung in his gilded prison from the window\nOf a queen’s bower over the public way,\nBlasphemes with a bird’s mind:—his words, like arrows\nWhich know no aim beyond the archer’s wit,\nStrike sometimes what eludes philosophy.— _105\n[TO ARCHY.]\nGo, sirrah, and repent of your offence\nTen minutes in the rain; be it your penance\nTo bring news how the world goes there.\n[EXIT ARCHY.]\nPoor Archy!\nHe weaves about himself a world of mirth\nOut of the wreck of ours. _110\n\n_99 With your Grace’s leave 1870; omitted 1824.\n_106-_110 Go...ours spoken by THE QUEEN, 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Queen:", + "body": "And the lion\nThat wears them must be tamed. My dearest lord, _115\nI see the new-born courage in your eye\nArmed to strike dead the Spirit of the Time,\nWhich spurs to rage the many-headed beast.\nDo thou persist: for, faint but in resolve,\nAnd it were better thou hadst still remained _120\nThe slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs\nThe fugitive, and flee from the pursuer;\nAnd Opportunity, that empty wolf,\nFlies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions\nEven to the disposition of thy purpose, _125\nAnd be that tempered as the Ebro’s steel;\nAnd banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,\nWhence she will greet thee with a gift of peace\nAnd not betray thee with a traitor’s kiss,\nAs when she keeps the company of rebels, _130\nWho think that she is Fear. This do, lest we\nShould fall as from a glorious pinnacle\nIn a bright dream, and wake as from a dream\nOut of our worshipped state.\n\n_116 your 1824; thine 1870.\n_118 Which...beast 1870; omitted 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King:", + "body": "Beloved friend,\nGod is my witness that this weight of power, _135\nWhich He sets me my earthly task to wield\nUnder His law, is my delight and pride\nOnly because thou lovest that and me.\nFor a king bears the office of a God\nTo all the under world; and to his God _140\nAlone he must deliver up his trust,\nUnshorn of its permitted attributes.\n[It seems] now as the baser elements\nHad mutinied against the golden sun\nThat kindles them to harmony, and quells _145\nTheir self-destroying rapine. The wild million\nStrike at the eye that guides them; like as humours\nOf the distempered body that conspire\nAgainst the spirit of life throned in the heart,—\nAnd thus become the prey of one another, _150\nAnd last of death—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Strafford:", + "body": "That which would be ambition in a subject\nIs duty in a sovereign; for on him,\nAs on a keystone, hangs the arch of life,\nWhose safety is its strength. Degree and form, _155\nAnd all that makes the age of reasoning man\nMore memorable than a beast’s, depend on this—\nThat Right should fence itself inviolably\nWith Power; in which respect the state of England\nFrom usurpation by the insolent commons _160\nCries for reform.\nGet treason, and spare treasure. Fee with coin\nThe loudest murmurers; feed with jealousies\nOpposing factions,—be thyself of none;\nAnd borrow gold of many, for those who lend _165\nWill serve thee till thou payest them; and thus\nKeep the fierce spirit of the hour at bay,\nTill time, and its coming generations\nOf nights and days unborn, bring some one chance,\n\n...\n\nOr war or pestilence or Nature’s self,— _170\nBy some distemperature or terrible sign,\nBe as an arbiter betwixt themselves.\nNor let your Majesty\nDoubt here the peril of the unseen event.\nHow did your brother Kings, coheritors _175\nIn your high interest in the subject earth,\nRise past such troubles to that height of power\nWhere now they sit, and awfully serene\nSmile on the trembling world? Such popular storms\nPhilip the Second of Spain, this Lewis of France, _180\nAnd late the German head of many bodies,\nAnd every petty lord of Italy,\nQuelled or by arts or arms. Is England poorer\nOr feebler? or art thou who wield’st her power\nTamer than they? or shall this island be— _185\n[Girdled] by its inviolable waters—\nTo the world present and the world to come\nSole pattern of extinguished monarchy?\nNot if thou dost as I would have thee do.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King:", + "body": "Your words shall be my deeds: _190\nYou speak the image of my thought. My friend\n(If Kings can have a friend, I call thee so),\nBeyond the large commission which [belongs]\nUnder the great seal of the realm, take this:\nAnd, for some obvious reasons, let there be _195\nNo seal on it, except my kingly word\nAnd honour as I am a gentleman.\nBe—as thou art within my heart and mind—\nAnother self, here and in Ireland:\nDo what thou judgest well, take amplest licence, _200\nAnd stick not even at questionable means.\nHear me, Wentworth. My word is as a wall\nBetween thee and this world thine enemy—\nThat hates thee, for thou lovest me.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Laud:", + "body": "Your Majesty has ever interposed, _210\nIn lenity towards your native soil,\nBetween the heavy vengeance of the Church\nAnd Scotland. Mark the consequence of warming\nThis brood of northern vipers in your bosom.\nThe rabble, instructed no doubt _215\nBy London, Lindsay, Hume, and false Argyll\n(For the waves never menace heaven until\nScourged by the wind’s invisible tyranny),\nHave in the very temple of the Lord\nDone outrage to His chosen ministers. _220\nThey scorn the liturgy of the Holy Church,\nRefuse to obey her canons, and deny\nThe apostolic power with which the Spirit\nHas filled its elect vessels, even from him\nWho held the keys with power to loose and bind, _225\nTo him who now pleads in this royal presence.—\nLet ample powers and new instructions be\nSent to the High Commissioners in Scotland.\nTo death, imprisonment, and confiscation,\nAdd torture, add the ruin of the kindred _230\nOf the offender, add the brand of infamy,\nAdd mutilation: and if this suffice not,\nUnleash the sword and fire, that in their thirst\nThey may lick up that scum of schismatics.\nI laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring _235\nWhat we possess, still prate of Christian peace,\nAs if those dreadful arbitrating messengers\nWhich play the part of God ’twixt right and wrong,\nShould be let loose against the innocent sleep\nOf templed cities and the smiling fields, _240\nFor some poor argument of policy\nWhich touches our own profit or our pride\n(Where it indeed were Christian charity\nTo turn the cheek even to the smiter’s hand):\nAnd, when our great Redeemer, when our God, _245\nWhen He who gave, accepted, and retained\nHimself in propitiation of our sins,\nIs scorned in His immediate ministry,\nWith hazard of the inestimable loss\nOf all the truth and discipline which is _250\nSalvation to the extremest generation\nOf men innumerable, they talk of peace!\nSuch peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now:\nFor, by that Christ who came to bring a sword,\nNot peace, upon the earth, and gave command _255\nTo His disciples at the Passover\nThat each should sell his robe and buy a sword,-\nOnce strip that minister of naked wrath,\nAnd it shall never sleep in peace again\nTill Scotland bend or break.\n\n_134-_232 Beloved...mutilation 1870; omitted 1824.\n_237 arbitrating messengers 1870; messengers of wrath 1824.\n_239 the 1870; omitted 1524.\n_243-_244 Parentheses inserted 1870.\n_246, _247 When He...sins 1870; omitted 1824.\n_248 ministry 1870; ministers 1824.\n_249-52 With...innumerable 1870; omitted 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King:", + "body": "My Lord Archbishop, _260\nDo what thou wilt and what thou canst in this.\nThy earthly even as thy heavenly King\nGives thee large power in his unquiet realm.\nBut we want money, and my mind misgives me\nThat for so great an enterprise, as yet, _265\nWe are unfurnished.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cottington:", + "body": "The expenses\nOf gathering shipmoney, and of distraining\nFor every petty rate (for we encounter\nA desperate opposition inch by inch _270\nIn every warehouse and on every farm),\nHave swallowed up the gross sum of the imposts;\nSo that, though felt as a most grievous scourge\nUpon the land, they stand us in small stead\nAs touches the receipt.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Strafford:", + "body": "’Tis a conclusion _275\nMost arithmetical: and thence you infer\nPerhaps the assembling of a parliament.\nNow, if a man should call his dearest enemies\nTo sit in licensed judgement on his life,\nHis Majesty might wisely take that course. _280\n[ASIDE TO COTTINGTON.]\nIt is enough to expect from these lean imposts\nThat they perform the office of a scourge,\nWithout more profit.\n[ALOUD.]\nFines and confiscations,\nAnd a forced loan from the refractory city,\nWill fill our coffers: and the golden love _285\nOf loyal gentlemen and noble friends\nFor the worshipped father of our common country,\nWith contributions from the catholics,\nWill make Rebellion pale in our excess.\nBe these the expedients until time and wisdom _290\nShall frame a settled state of government.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Laud:", + "body": "Both now grow barren: and I speak it not\nAs loving parliaments, which, as they have been\nIn the right hand of bold bad mighty kings\nThe scourges of the bleeding Church, I hate.\nMethinks they scarcely can deserve our fear. _300", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Strafford:", + "body": "Oh! my dear liege, take back the wealth thou gavest:\nWith that, take all I held, but as in trust\nFor thee, of mine inheritance: leave me but\nThis unprovided body for thy service,\nAnd a mind dedicated to no care _305\nExcept thy safety:—but assemble not\nA parliament. Hundreds will bring, like me,\nTheir fortunes, as they would their blood, before—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King:", + "body": "No! thou who judgest them art but one. Alas!\nWe should be too much out of love with Heaven, _310\nDid this vile world show many such as thee,\nThou perfect, just, and honourable man!\nNever shall it be said that Charles of England\nStripped those he loved for fear of those he scorns;\nNor will he so much misbecome his throne _315\nAs to impoverish those who most adorn\nAnd best defend it. That you urge, dear Strafford,\nInclines me rather—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Queen:", + "body": "To a parliament?\nIs this thy firmness? and thou wilt preside\nOver a knot of ... censurers, _320\nTo the unswearing of thy best resolves,\nAnd choose the worst, when the worst comes too soon?\nPlight not the worst before the worst must come.\nOh, wilt thou smile whilst our ribald foes,\nDressed in their own usurped authority, _325\nSharpen their tongues on Henrietta’s fame?\nIt is enough! Thou lovest me no more!\n[WEEPS.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Laud:", + "body": "Without delay _330\nAn army must be sent into the north;\nFollowed by a Commission of the Church,\nWith amplest power to quench in fire and blood,\nAnd tears and terror, and the pity of hell,\nThe intenser wrath of Heresy. God will give _335\nVictory; and victory over Scotland give\nThe lion England tamed into our hands.\nThat will lend power, and power bring gold.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Laud:", + "body": "I am not averse _340\nFrom the assembling of a parliament.\nStrong actions and smooth words might teach them soon\nThe lesson to obey. And are they not\nA bubble fashioned by the monarch’s mouth,\nThe birth of one light breath? If they serve no purpose, _345\nA word dissolves them.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Strafford:", + "body": "The engine of parliaments\nMight be deferred until I can bring over\nThe Irish regiments: they will serve to assure\nThe issue of the war against the Scots.\nAnd, this game won—which if lost, all is lost— _350\nGather these chosen leaders of the rebels,\nAnd call them, if you will, a parliament.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King:", + "body": "Oh, be our feet still tardy to shed blood.\nGuilty though it may be! I would still spare\nThe stubborn country of my birth, and ward _355\nFrom countenances which I loved in youth\nThe wrathful Church’s lacerating hand.\n[TO LAUD.]\nHave you o’erlooked the other articles?\n\n[ENTER ARCHY.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "New devil’s politics. _365\nHell is the pattern of all commonwealths:\nLucifer was the first republican.\nWill you hear Merlin’s prophecy, how three [posts?]\n‘In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full,\nShall sail round the world, and come back again: _370\nShall sail round the world in a brainless skull,\nAnd come back again when the moon is at full:’—\nWhen, in spite of the Church,\nThey will hear homilies of whatever length\nOr form they please. _375\n\n[COTTINGTON?]:\nSo please your Majesty to sign this order\nFor their detention.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "If your Majesty were tormented night and day by fever, gout,\nrheumatism, and stone, and asthma, etc., and you found these diseases\nhad secretly entered into a conspiracy to abandon you, should you\nthink it necessary to lay an embargo on the port by which they meant\nto dispeople your unquiet kingdom of man? _383", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King:", + "body": "If fear were made for kings, the Fool mocks wisely;\nBut in this case—[WRITING]. Here, my lord, take the warrant,\nAnd see it duly executed forthwith.—\nThat imp of malice and mockery shall be punished. _387\n\n[EXEUNT ALL BUT KING, QUEEN, AND ARCHY.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused\nby the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty\nwithout waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of\nclergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and\nthe overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud—who\nwould reduce a verdict of ‘guilty, death,’ by famine, if it were\nimpregnable by composition—all impannelled against poor Archy for\npresenting them bitter physic the last day of the holidays. _397", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers. There’s a rainbow\nin the sky. Let your Majesty look at it, for\n\n‘A rainbow in the morning _407\nIs the shepherd’s warning;’\n\nand the flocks of which you are the pastor are scattered among the\nmountain-tops, where every drop of water is a flake of snow, and the\nbreath of May pierces like a January blast. _411", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "Ay, the salt-water one: but that of tears and blood must yet come\ndown, and that of fire follow, if there be any truth in lies.—The\nrainbow hung over the city with all its shops,...and churches, from\nnorth to south, like a bridge of congregated lightning pieced by the\nmasonry of heaven—like a balance in which the angel that distributes\nthe coming hour was weighing that heavy one whose poise is now felt in\nthe lightest hearts, before it bows the proudest heads under the\nmeanest feet. _424", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "A torn leaf out of an old book trampled in the dirt.—But for the\nrainbow. It moved as the sun moved, and...until the top of the\nTower...of a cloud through its left-hand tip, and Lambeth Palace look\nas dark as a rock before the other. Methought I saw a crown figured\nupon one tip, and a mitre on the other. So, as I had heard treasures\nwere found where the rainbow quenches its points upon the earth, I set\noff, and at the Tower— But I shall not tell your Majesty what I found\nclose to the closet-window on which the rainbow had glimmered.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "Like the season, _440\nSo blow the winds.—But at the other end of the rainbow, where the\ngray rain was tempered along the grass and leaves by a tender\ninterfusion of violet and gold in the meadows beyond Lambeth, what\nthink you that I found instead of a mitre?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "Something as vain. I saw a gross vapour hovering in a stinking ditch\nover the carcass of a dead ass, some rotten rags, and broken\ndishes—the wrecks of what once administered to the stuffing-out and\nthe ornament of a worm of worms. His Grace of Canterbury expects to\nenter the New Jerusalem some Palm Sunday in triumph on the ghost of\nthis ass. _451", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Queen:", + "body": "MY beloved lord, _455\nHave you not noted that the Fool of late\nHas lost his careless mirth, and that his words\nSound like the echoes of our saddest fears?\nWhat can it mean? I should be loth to think\nSome factious slave had tutored him.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King:", + "body": "Oh, no! _460\nHe is but Occasion’s pupil. Partly ’tis\nThat our minds piece the vacant intervals\nOf his wild words with their own fashioning,—\nAs in the imagery of summer clouds,\nOr coals of the winter fire, idlers find _465\nThe perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts:\nAnd partly, that the terrors of the time\nAre sown by wandering Rumour in all spirits;\nAnd in the lightest and the least, may best\nBe seen the current of the coming wind. _470\n\n_460, _461 Oh...pupil 1870; omitted 1824.\n_461 Partly ’tis 1870; It partly is 1824.\n_465 of 1870; in 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Queen:", + "body": "Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts.\nCome, I will sing to you; let us go try\nThese airs from Italy; and, as we pass\nThe gallery, we’ll decide where that Correggio\nShall hang—the Virgin Mother _475\nWith her child, born the King of heaven and earth,\nWhose reign is men’s salvation. And you shall see\nA cradled miniature of yourself asleep,\nStamped on the heart by never-erring love;\nLiker than any Vandyke ever made, _480\nA pattern to the unborn age of thee,\nOver whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy\nA thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow,\nDid I not think that after we were dead\nOur fortunes would spring high in him, and that _485\nThe cares we waste upon our heavy crown\nWould make it light and glorious as a wreath\nOf Heaven’s beams for his dear innocent brow.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Clerk:", + "body": "‘That he pay five thousand\nPounds to the king, lose both his ears, be branded\nWith red-hot iron on the cheek and forehead,\nAnd be imprisoned within Lancaster Castle _5\nDuring the pleasure of the Court.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Bastwick:", + "body": "Thus, my lords. If, like the prelates, I _10\nWere an invader of the royal power\nA public scorner of the word of God,\nProfane, idolatrous, popish, superstitious,\nImpious in heart and in tyrannic act,\nVoid of wit, honesty, and temperance; _15\nIf Satan were my lord, as theirs,—our God\nPattern of all I should avoid to do;\nWere I an enemy of my God and King\nAnd of good men, as ye are;—I should merit\nYour fearful state and gilt prosperity, _20\nWhich, when ye wake from the last sleep, shall turn\nTo cowls and robes of everlasting fire.\nBut, as I am, I bid ye grudge me not\nThe only earthly favour ye can yield,\nOr I think worth acceptance at your hands,— _25\nScorn, mutilation, and imprisonment.\neven as my Master did,\nUntil Heaven’s kingdom shall descend on earth,\nOr earth be like a shadow in the light\nOf Heaven absorbed—some few tumultuous years _30\nWill pass, and leave no wreck of what opposes\nHis will whose will is power.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Juxon:", + "body": "Stop! _35\nForbear, my lord! The tongue, which now can speak\nNo terror, would interpret, being dumb,\nHeaven’s thunder to our harm;...\nAnd hands, which now write only their own shame,\nWith bleeding stumps might sign our blood away. _40", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Laud:", + "body": "Much more such ‘mercy’ among men would be,\nDid all the ministers of Heaven’s revenge\nFlinch thus from earthly retribution. I\nCould suffer what I would inflict.\n[EXIT BASTWICK GUARDED.]\nBring up\nThe Lord Bishop of Lincoln.—\n[TO STRAFFORD.]\nKnow you not _45\nThat, in distraining for ten thousand pounds\nUpon his books and furniture at Lincoln,\nWere found these scandalous and seditious letters\nSent from one Osbaldistone, who is fled?\nI speak it not as touching this poor person; _50\nBut of the office which should make it holy,\nWere it as vile as it was ever spotless.\nMark too, my lord, that this expression strikes\nHis Majesty, if I misinterpret not.\n\n[ENTER BISHOP WILLIAMS GUARDED.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Strafford:", + "body": "’Twere politic and just that Williams taste _55\nThe bitter fruit of his connection with\nThe schismatics. But you, my Lord Archbishop,\nWho owed your first promotion to his favour,\nWho grew beneath his smile—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Laud:", + "body": "Would therefore beg\nThe office of his judge from this High Court,— _60\nThat it shall seem, even as it is, that I,\nIn my assumption of this sacred robe,\nHave put aside all worldly preference,\nAll sense of all distinction of all persons,\nAll thoughts but of the service of the Church.— _65\nBishop of Lincoln!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hampden:", + "body": "England, farewell! thou, who hast been my cradle,\nShalt never be my dungeon or my grave!\nI held what I inherited in thee\nAs pawn for that inheritance of freedom\nWhich thou hast sold for thy despoiler’s smile: _5\nHow can I call thee England, or my country?—\nDoes the wind hold?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Vane:", + "body": "The vanes sit steady\nUpon the Abbey towers. The silver lightnings\nOf the evening star, spite of the city’s smoke,\nTell that the north wind reigns in the upper air. _10\nMark too that flock of fleecy-winged clouds\nSailing athwart St. Margaret’s.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hampden:", + "body": "Hail, fleet herald\nOf tempest! that rude pilot who shall guide\nHearts free as his, to realms as pure as thee,\nBeyond the shot of tyranny, _15\nBeyond the webs of that swoln spider...\nBeyond the curses, calumnies, and [lies?]\nOf atheist priests! ... And thou\nFair star, whose beam lies on the wide Atlantic,\nAthwart its zones of tempest and of calm, _20\nBright as the path to a beloved home\nOh, light us to the isles of the evening land!\nLike floating Edens cradled in the glimmer\nOf sunset, through the distant mist of years\nTouched by departing hope, they gleam! lone regions, _25\nWhere Power’s poor dupes and victims yet have never\nPropitiated the savage fear of kings\nWith purest blood of noblest hearts; whose dew\nIs yet unstained with tears of those who wake\nTo weep each day the wrongs on which it dawns; _30\nWhose sacred silent air owns yet no echo\nOf formal blasphemies; nor impious rites\nWrest man’s free worship, from the God who loves,\nTo the poor worm who envies us His love!\nReceive, thou young ... of Paradise. _35\nThese exiles from the old and sinful world!\n\n...\n\nThis glorious clime, this firmament, whose lights\nDart mitigated influence through their veil\nOf pale blue atmosphere; whose tears keep green\nThe pavement of this moist all-feeding earth; _40\nThis vaporous horizon, whose dim round\nIs bastioned by the circumfluous sea,\nRepelling invasion from the sacred towers,\nPresses upon me like a dungeon’s grate,\nA low dark roof, a damp and narrow wall. _45\nThe boundless universe\nBecomes a cell too narrow for the soul\nThat owns no master; while the loathliest ward\nOf this wide prison, England, is a nest\nOf cradling peace built on the mountain tops,— _50\nTo which the eagle spirits of the free,\nWhich range through heaven and earth, and scorn the storm\nOf time, and gaze upon the light of truth,\nReturn to brood on thoughts that cannot die\nAnd cannot be repelled. _55\nLike eaglets floating in the heaven of time,\nThey soar above their quarry, and shall stoop\nThrough palaces and temples thunderproof.\n\n_13 rude 1870; wild 1824.\n_16-_18 Beyond...priests 1870; omitted 1824.\n_25 Touched 1870; Tinged 1824.\n_34 To the poor 1870; Towards the 1824.\n_38 their 1870; the 1824.\n_46 boundless 1870; mighty 1824.\n_48 owns no 1824; owns a 1870. ward 1870; spot 1824.\n_50 cradling 1870; cradled 1824.\n_54, _55 Return...repelled 1870;\n Return to brood over the [ ] thoughts\n That cannot die, and may not be repelled 1824.\n_56-_58 Like...thunderproof 1870; omitted 1824.\n\n\nSCENE 5:", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Archy:", + "body": "I’ll go live under the ivy that overgrows the terrace, and count the\ntears shed on its old [roots?] as the [wind?] plays the song of\n\n‘A widow bird sate mourning\nUpon a wintry bough.’ _5\n[SINGS]\nHeigho! the lark and the owl!\nOne flies the morning, and one lulls the night:—\nOnly the nightingale, poor fond soul,\nSings like the fool through darkness and light.\n\n‘A widow bird sate mourning for her love _10\nUpon a wintry bough;\nThe frozen wind crept on above,\nThe freezing stream below.\n\nThere was no leaf upon the forest bare.\nNo flower upon the ground, _15\nAnd little motion in the air\nExcept the mill-wheel’s sound.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Triumph Of Life.", + "body": "[Composed at Lerici on the Gulf of Spezzia in the spring and early\nsummer of 1822—the poem on which Shelley was engaged at the time of\nhis death. Published by Mrs. Shelley in the “Posthumous Poems” of\n1824, pages 73-95. Several emendations, the result of Dr. Garnett’s\nexamination of the Boscombe manuscript, were given to the world by\nMiss Mathilde Blind, “Westminster Review”, July, 1870. The poem was,\nof course, included in the “Poetical Works”, 1839, both editions. See\nEditor’s Notes.]\n\nSwift as a spirit hastening to his task\nOf glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth\nRejoicing in his splendour, and the mask\n\nOf darkness fell from the awakened Earth—\nThe smokeless altars of the mountain snows _5\nFlamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth\n\nOf light, the Ocean’s orison arose,\nTo which the birds tempered their matin lay.\nAll flowers in field or forest which unclose\n\nTheir trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, _10\nSwinging their censers in the element,\nWith orient incense lit by the new ray\n\nBurned slow and inconsumably, and sent\nTheir odorous sighs up to the smiling air;\nAnd, in succession due, did continent, _15\n\nIsle, ocean, and all things that in them wear\nThe form and character of mortal mould,\nRise as the Sun their father rose, to bear\n\nTheir portion of the toil, which he of old\nTook as his own, and then imposed on them: _20\nBut I, whom thoughts which must remain untold\n\nHad kept as wakeful as the stars that gem\nThe cone of night, now they were laid asleep\nStretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem\n\nWhich an old chestnut flung athwart the steep _25\nOf a green Apennine: before me fled\nThe night; behind me rose the day; the deep\n\nWas at my feet, and Heaven above my head,—\nWhen a strange trance over my fancy grew\nWhich was not slumber, for the shade it spread _30\n\nWas so transparent, that the scene came through\nAs clear as when a veil of light is drawn\nO’er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew\n\nThat I had felt the freshness of that dawn\nBathe in the same cold dew my brow and hair, _35\nAnd sate as thus upon that slope of lawn\n\nUnder the self-same bough, and heard as there\nThe birds, the fountains and the ocean hold\nSweet talk in music through the enamoured air,\nAnd then a vision on my train was rolled. _40\n\n...\n\nAs in that trance of wondrous thought I lay,\nThis was the tenour of my waking dream:—\nMethought I sate beside a public way\n\nThick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream\nOf people there was hurrying to and fro, _45\nNumerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,\n\nAll hastening onward, yet none seemed to know\nWhither he went, or whence he came, or why\nHe made one of the multitude, and so\n\nWas borne amid the crowd, as through the sky _50\nOne of the million leaves of summer’s bier;\nOld age and youth, manhood and infancy,\n\nMixed in one mighty torrent did appear,\nSome flying from the thing they feared, and some\nSeeking the object of another’s fear; _55\n\nAnd others, as with steps towards the tomb,\nPored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,\nAnd others mournfully within the gloom\n\nOf their own shadow walked, and called it death;\nAnd some fled from it as it were a ghost, _60\nHalf fainting in the affliction of vain breath:\n\nBut more, with motions which each other crossed,\nPursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw,\nOr birds within the noonday aether lost,\n\nUpon that path where flowers never grew,—\nAnd, weary with vain toil and faint for thirst,\nHeard not the fountains, whose melodious dew\n\nOut of their mossy cells forever burst;\nNor felt the breeze which from the forest told\nOf grassy paths and wood-lawns interspersed _70\n\nWith overarching elms and caverns cold,\nAnd violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they\nPursued their serious folly as of old.\n\nAnd as I gazed, methought that in the way\nThe throng grew wilder, as the woods of June _75\nWhen the south wind shakes the extinguished day,\n\nAnd a cold glare, intenser than the noon,\nBut icy cold, obscured with blinding light\nThe sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon—\n\nWhen on the sunlit limits of the night _80\nHer white shell trembles amid crimson air,\nAnd whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might—\n\nDoth, as the herald of its coming, bear\nThe ghost of its dead mother, whose dim form\nBends in dark aether from her infant’s chair,— _85\n\nSo came a chariot on the silent storm\nOf its own rushing splendour, and a Shape\nSo sate within, as one whom years deform,\n\nBeneath a dusky hood and double cape,\nCrouching within the shadow of a tomb; _90\nAnd o’er what seemed the head a cloud-like crape\n\nWas bent, a dun and faint aethereal gloom\nTempering the light. Upon the chariot-beam\nA Janus-visaged Shadow did assume\n\nThe guidance of that wonder-winged team; _95\nThe shapes which drew it in thick lightenings\nWere lost:—I heard alone on the air’s soft stream\n\nThe music of their ever-moving wings.\nAll the four faces of that Charioteer\nHad their eyes banded; little profit brings _100\n\nSpeed in the van and blindness in the rear,\nNor then avail the beams that quench the sun,—\nOr that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere\n\nOf all that is, has been or will be done;\nSo ill was the car guided—but it passed _105\nWith solemn speed majestically on.\n\nThe crowd gave way, and I arose aghast,\nOr seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,\nAnd saw, like clouds upon the thunder-blast,\n\nThe million with fierce song and maniac dance _110\nRaging around—such seemed the jubilee\nAs when to greet some conqueror’s advance\n\nImperial Rome poured forth her living sea\nFrom senate-house, and forum, and theatre,\nWhen ... upon the free _115\n\nHad bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear.\nNor wanted here the just similitude\nOf a triumphal pageant, for where’er\n\nThe chariot rolled, a captive multitude\nWas driven;—all those who had grown old in power _120\nOr misery,—all who had their age subdued\n\nBy action or by suffering, and whose hour\nWas drained to its last sand in weal or woe,\nSo that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;—\n\nAll those whose fame or infamy must grow _125\nTill the great winter lay the form and name\nOf this green earth with them for ever low;—\n\nAll but the sacred few who could not tame\nTheir spirits to the conquerors—but as soon\nAs they had touched the world with living flame, _130\n\nFled back like eagles to their native noon,\nOr those who put aside the diadem\nOf earthly thrones or gems...\n\nWere there, of Athens or Jerusalem.\nWere neither mid the mighty captives seen, _135\nNor mid the ribald crowd that followed them,\n\nNor those who went before fierce and obscene.\nThe wild dance maddens in the van, and those\nWho lead it—fleet as shadows on the green,\n\nOutspeed the chariot, and without repose _140\nMix with each other in tempestuous measure\nTo savage music, wilder as it grows,\n\nThey, tortured by their agonizing pleasure,\nConvulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun\nOf that fierce Spirit, whose unholy leisure _145\n\nWas soothed by mischief since the world begun,\nThrow back their heads and loose their streaming hair;\nAnd in their dance round her who dims the sun,\n\nMaidens and youths fling their wild arms in air\nAs their feet twinkle; they recede, and now _150\nBending within each other’s atmosphere,\n\nKindle invisibly—and as they glow,\nLike moths by light attracted and repelled,\nOft to their bright destruction come and go,\n\nTill like two clouds into one vale impelled, _155\nThat shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle\nAnd die in rain—the fiery band which held\n\nTheir natures, snaps—while the shock still may tingle\nOne falls and then another in the path\nSenseless—nor is the desolation single, _160\n\nYet ere I can say WHERE—the chariot hath\nPassed over them—nor other trace I find\nBut as of foam after the ocean’s wrath\n\nIs spent upon the desert shore;—behind,\nOld men and women foully disarrayed, _165\nShake their gray hairs in the insulting wind,\n\nAnd follow in the dance, with limbs decayed,\nSeeking to reach the light which leaves them still\nFarther behind and deeper in the shade.\n\nBut not the less with impotence of will _170\nThey wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose\nRound them and round each other, and fulfil\n\nTheir work, and in the dust from whence they rose\nSink, and corruption veils them as they lie,\nAnd past in these performs what ... in those. _175\n\nStruck to the heart by this sad pageantry,\nHalf to myself I said—‘And what is this?\nWhose shape is that within the car? And why—’\n\nI would have added—‘is all here amiss?—’\nBut a voice answered—‘Life!’—I turned, and knew _180\n(O Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness!)\n\nThat what I thought was an old root which grew\nTo strange distortion out of the hill side,\nWas indeed one of those deluded crew,\n\nAnd that the grass, which methought hung so wide _185\nAnd white, was but his thin discoloured hair,\nAnd that the holes he vainly sought to hide,\n\nWere or had been eyes:—‘If thou canst forbear\nTo join the dance, which I had well forborne,’\nSaid the grim Feature, of my thought aware, _190\n\n‘I will unfold that which to this deep scorn\nLed me and my companions, and relate\nThe progress of the pageant since the morn;\n\n‘If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate,\nFollow it thou even to the night, but I _195\nAm weary.’—Then like one who with the weight\n\nOf his own words is staggered, wearily\nHe paused; and ere he could resume, I cried:\n‘First, who art thou?’—‘Before thy memory,\n\n‘I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died, _200\nAnd if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit\nHad been with purer nutriment supplied,\n\n‘Corruption would not now thus much inherit\nOf what was once Rousseau,—nor this disguise\nStain that which ought to have disdained to wear it; _205\n\n‘If I have been extinguished, yet there rise\nA thousand beacons from the spark I bore’—\n‘And who are those chained to the car?’—‘The wise,\n\n‘The great, the unforgotten,—they who wore\nMitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light, _210\nSigns of thought’s empire over thought—their lore\n\n‘Taught them not this, to know themselves; their might\nCould not repress the mystery within,\nAnd for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night\n\n‘Caught them ere evening.’—‘Who is he with chin _215\nUpon his breast, and hands crossed on his chain?’—\n‘The child of a fierce hour; he sought to win\n\n‘The world, and lost all that it did contain\nOf greatness, in its hope destroyed; and more\nOf fame and peace than virtue’s self can gain _220\n\n‘Without the opportunity which bore\nHim on its eagle pinions to the peak\nFrom which a thousand climbers have before\n\n‘Fallen, as Napoleon fell.’—I felt my cheek\nAlter, to see the shadow pass away, _225\nWhose grasp had left the giant world so weak\n\nThat every pigmy kicked it as it lay;\nAnd much I grieved to think how power and will\nIn opposition rule our mortal day,\n\nAnd why God made irreconcilable _230\nGood and the means of good; and for despair\nI half disdained mine eyes’ desire to fill\n\nWith the spent vision of the times that were\nAnd scarce have ceased to be.—‘Dost thou behold,’\nSaid my guide, ‘those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire, _235\n\n‘Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold,\nAnd hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage—\nnames which the world thinks always old,\n\n‘For in the battle Life and they did wage,\nShe remained conqueror. I was overcome _240\nBy my own heart alone, which neither age,\n\n‘Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb\nCould temper to its object.’—‘Let them pass,’\nI cried, ‘the world and its mysterious doom\n\n‘Is not so much more glorious than it was, _245\nThat I desire to worship those who drew\nNew figures on its false and fragile glass\n\n‘As the old faded.’—‘Figures ever new\nRise on the bubble, paint them as you may;\nWe have but thrown, as those before us threw, _250\n\n‘Our shadows on it as it passed away.\nBut mark how chained to the triumphal chair\nThe mighty phantoms of an elder day;\n\n‘All that is mortal of great Plato there\nExpiates the joy and woe his master knew not; _255\nThe star that ruled his doom was far too fair.\n\n‘And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,\nConquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain,\nOr age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.\n\n‘And near him walk the ... twain, _260\nThe tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion\nFollowed as tame as vulture in a chain.\n\n‘The world was darkened beneath either pinion\nOf him whom from the flock of conquerors\nFame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion; _265\n\n‘The other long outlived both woes and wars,\nThroned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept\nThe jealous key of Truth’s eternal doors,\n\n‘If Bacon’s eagle spirit had not lept\nLike lightning out of darkness—he compelled _270\nThe Proteus shape of Nature, as it slept\n\n‘To wake, and lead him to the caves that held\nThe treasure of the secrets of its reign.\nSee the great bards of elder time, who quelled\n\n‘The passions which they sung, as by their strain _275\nMay well be known: their living melody\nTempers its own contagion to the vein\n\n‘Of those who are infected with it—I\nHave suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!\nAnd so my words have seeds of misery— _180\n\n‘Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs.’\nAnd then he pointed to a company,\n\n‘Midst whom I quickly recognized the heirs\nOf Caesar’s crime, from him to Constantine;\nThe anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares _285\n\nHad founded many a sceptre-bearing line,\nAnd spread the plague of gold and blood abroad:\nAnd Gregory and John, and men divine,\n\nWho rose like shadows between man and God;\nTill that eclipse, still hanging over heaven, _290\nWas worshipped by the world o’er which they strode,\n\nFor the true sun it quenched—‘Their power was given\nBut to destroy,’ replied the leader:—‘I\nAm one of those who have created, even\n\n‘If it be but a world of agony.’— _295\n‘Whence camest thou? and whither goest thou?\nHow did thy course begin?’ I said, ‘and why?\n\n‘Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow\nOf people, and my heart sick of one sad thought—\nSpeak!’—‘Whence I am, I partly seem to know, _300\n\n‘And how and by what paths I have been brought\nTo this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;—\nWhy this should be, my mind can compass not;\n\n‘Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less;—\nBut follow thou, and from spectator turn _305\nActor or victim in this wretchedness,\n\n‘And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn\nFrom thee. Now listen:—In the April prime,\nWhen all the forest-tips began to burn\n\n‘With kindling green, touched by the azure clime _310\nOf the young season, I was laid asleep\nUnder a mountain, which from unknown time\n\n‘Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep;\nAnd from it came a gentle rivulet,\nWhose water, like clear air, in its calm sweep _315\n\n‘Bent the soft grass, and kept for ever wet\nThe stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove\nWith sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget\n\n‘All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love,\nWhich they had known before that hour of rest; _320\nA sleeping mother then would dream not of\n\n‘Her only child who died upon the breast\nAt eventide—a king would mourn no more\nThe crown of which his brows were dispossessed\n\n‘When the sun lingered o’er his ocean floor _325\nTo gild his rival’s new prosperity.\n‘Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore\n\n‘Ills, which if ills can find no cure from thee,\nThe thought of which no other sleep will quell,\nNor other music blot from memory, _330\n\n‘So sweet and deep is the oblivious spell;\nAnd whether life had been before that sleep\nThe Heaven which I imagine, or a Hell\n\n‘Like this harsh world in which I woke to weep,\nI know not. I arose, and for a space _335\nThe scene of woods and waters seemed to keep,\n\nThough it was now broad day, a gentle trace\nOf light diviner than the common sun\nSheds on the common earth, and all the place\n\n‘Was filled with magic sounds woven into one _340\nOblivious melody, confusing sense\nAmid the gliding waves and shadows dun;\n\n‘And, as I looked, the bright omnipresence\nOf morning through the orient cavern flowed,\nAnd the sun’s image radiantly intense _345\n\n‘Burned on the waters of the well that glowed\nLike gold, and threaded all the forest’s maze\nWith winding paths of emerald fire; there stood\n\n‘Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze _350\nOf his own glory, on the vibrating\nFloor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,\n\n‘A Shape all light, which with one hand did fling\nDew on the earth, as if she were the dawn,\nAnd the invisible rain did ever sing\n\n‘A silver music on the mossy lawn; _355\nAnd still before me on the dusky grass,\nIris her many-coloured scarf had drawn:\n\n‘In her right hand she bore a crystal glass,\nMantling with bright Nepenthe; the fierce splendour\nFell from her as she moved under the mass _360\n\n‘Of the deep cavern, and with palms so tender,\nTheir tread broke not the mirror of its billow,\nGlided along the river, and did bend her\n\n‘Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow\nHer fair hair swept the bosom of the stream _365\nThat whispered with delight to be its pillow.\n\n‘As one enamoured is upborne in dream\nO’er lily-paven lakes, mid silver mist\nTo wondrous music, so this shape might seem\n\n‘Partly to tread the waves with feet which kissed _370\nThe dancing foam; partly to glide along\nThe air which roughened the moist amethyst,\n\n‘Or the faint morning beams that fell among\nThe trees, or the soft shadows of the trees;\nAnd her feet, ever to the ceaseless song _375\n\n‘Of leaves, and winds, and waves, and birds, and bees,\nAnd falling drops, moved in a measure new\nYet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze,\n\n‘Up from the lake a shape of golden dew\nBetween two rocks, athwart the rising moon, _380\nDances i’ the wind, where never eagle flew;\n\n‘And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune\nTo which they moved, seemed as they moved to blot\nThe thoughts of him who gazed on them; and soon\n\n‘All that was, seemed as if it had been not; _385\nAnd all the gazer’s mind was strewn beneath\nHer feet like embers; and she, thought by thought,\n\n‘Trampled its sparks into the dust of death\nAs day upon the threshold of the east\nTreads out the lamps of night, until the breath _390\n\n‘Of darkness re-illumine even the least\nOf heaven’s living eyes—like day she came,\nMaking the night a dream; and ere she ceased\n\n‘To move, as one between desire and shame\nSuspended, I said—If, as it doth seem, _395\nThou comest from the realm without a name\n\n‘Into this valley of perpetual dream,\nShow whence I came, and where I am, and why—\nPass not away upon the passing stream.\n\n‘Arise and quench thy thirst, was her reply. _400\nAnd as a shut lily stricken by the wand\nOf dewy morning’s vital alchemy,\n\n‘I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,\nTouched with faint lips the cup she raised,\nAnd suddenly my brain became as sand _405\n\n‘Where the first wave had more than half erased\nThe track of deer on desert Labrador;\nWhilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,\n\n‘Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore,\nUntil the second bursts;—so on my sight _410\nBurst a new vision, never seen before,\n\n‘And the fair shape waned in the coming light,\nAs veil by veil the silent splendour drops\nFrom Lucifer, amid the chrysolite\n\n‘Of sunrise, ere it tinge the mountain-tops; _415\nAnd as the presence of that fairest planet,\nAlthough unseen, is felt by one who hopes\n\n‘That his day’s path may end as he began it,\nIn that star’s smile, whose light is like the scent\nOf a jonquil when evening breezes fan it, _420\n\n‘Or the soft note in which his dear lament\nThe Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress\nThat turned his weary slumber to content;\n\n‘So knew I in that light’s severe excess\nThe presence of that Shape which on the stream _425\nMoved, as I moved along the wilderness,\n\n‘More dimly than a day-appearing dream,\nThe host of a forgotten form of sleep;\nA light of heaven, whose half-extinguished beam\n\n‘Through the sick day in which we wake to weep _430\nGlimmers, for ever sought, for ever lost;\nSo did that shape its obscure tenour keep\n\n‘Beside my path, as silent as a ghost;\nBut the new Vision, and the cold bright car,\nWith solemn speed and stunning music, crossed _435\n\n‘The forest, and as if from some dread war\nTriumphantly returning, the loud million\nFiercely extolled the fortune of her star.\n\n‘A moving arch of victory, the vermilion\nAnd green and azure plumes of Iris had _440\nBuilt high over her wind-winged pavilion,\n\n‘And underneath aethereal glory clad\nThe wilderness, and far before her flew\nThe tempest of the splendour, which forbade\n\n‘Shadow to fall from leaf and stone; the crew _445\nSeemed in that light, like atomies to dance\nWithin a sunbeam;—some upon the new\n\n‘Embroidery of flowers, that did enhance\nThe grassy vesture of the desert, played,\nForgetful of the chariot’s swift advance; _450\n\n‘Others stood gazing, till within the shade\nOf the great mountain its light left them dim;\nOthers outspeeded it; and others made\n\n‘Circles around it, like the clouds that swim\nRound the high moon in a bright sea of air; _455\nAnd more did follow, with exulting hymn,\n\n‘The chariot and the captives fettered there:—\nBut all like bubbles on an eddying flood\nFell into the same track at last, and were\n\n‘Borne onward.—I among the multitude _460\nWas swept—me, sweetest flowers delayed not long;\nMe, not the shadow nor the solitude;\n\n‘Me, not that falling stream’s Lethean song;\nMe, not the phantom of that early Form\nWhich moved upon its motion—but among _465\n\n‘The thickest billows of that living storm\nI plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime\nOf that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.\n\n‘Before the chariot had begun to climb\nThe opposing steep of that mysterious dell, _470\nBehold a wonder worthy of the rhyme\n\n‘Of him who from the lowest depths of hell,\nThrough every paradise and through all glory,\nLove led serene, and who returned to tell\n\n‘The words of hate and awe; the wondrous story _475\nHow all things are transfigured except Love;\nFor deaf as is a sea, which wrath makes hoary,\n\n‘The world can hear not the sweet notes that move\nThe sphere whose light is melody to lovers—\nA wonder worthy of his rhyme.—The grove _480\n\n‘Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers,\nThe earth was gray with phantoms, and the air\nWas peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers\n\n‘A flock of vampire-bats before the glare\nOf the tropic sun, bringing, ere evening, _485\nStrange night upon some Indian isle;—thus were\n\n‘Phantoms diffused around; and some did fling\nShadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,\nBehind them; some like eaglets on the wing\n\n‘Were lost in the white day; others like elves _490\nDanced in a thousand unimagined shapes\nUpon the sunny streams and grassy shelves;\n\n‘And others sate chattering like restless apes\nOn vulgar hands,...\nSome made a cradle of the ermined capes _495\n\n‘Of kingly mantles; some across the tiar\nOf pontiffs sate like vultures; others played\nUnder the crown which girt with empire\n\n‘A baby’s or an idiot’s brow, and made\nTheir nests in it. The old anatomies _500\nSate hatching their bare broods under the shade\n\n‘Of daemon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes\nTo reassume the delegated power,\nArrayed in which those worms did monarchize,\n\n‘Who made this earth their charnel. Others more _505\nHumble, like falcons, sate upon the fist\nOf common men, and round their heads did soar;\n\nOr like small gnats and flies, as thick as mist\nOn evening marshes, thronged about the brow\nOf lawyers, statesmen, priest and theorist;— _510\n\n‘And others, like discoloured flakes of snow\nOn fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair,\nFell, and were melted by the youthful glow\n\n‘Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they were\nA veil to those from whose faint lids they rained _515\nIn drops of sorrow. I became aware\n\n‘Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained\nThe track in which we moved. After brief space,\nFrom every form the beauty slowly waned;\n\n‘From every firmest limb and fairest face _520\nThe strength and freshness fell like dust, and left\nThe action and the shape without the grace\n\n‘Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft\nWith care; and in those eyes where once hope shone,\nDesire, like a lioness bereft _525\n\n‘Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each one\nOf that great crowd sent forth incessantly\nThese shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown\n\n‘In autumn evening from a poplar tree. _530\nEach like himself and like each other were\nAt first; but some distorted seemed to be\n\n‘Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air;\nAnd of this stuff the car’s creative ray\nWrought all the busy phantoms that were there,\n\n‘As the sun shapes the clouds; thus on the way _535\nMask after mask fell from the countenance\nAnd form of all; and long before the day\n\n‘Was old, the joy which waked like heaven’s glance\nThe sleepers in the oblivious valley, died;\nAnd some grew weary of the ghastly dance, _540\n\n‘And fell, as I have fallen, by the wayside;—\nThose soonest from whose forms most shadows passed,\nAnd least of strength and beauty did abide.\n\n‘Then, what is life? I cried.’—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cancelled Opening Of The Triumph Of Life.", + "body": "[Published by Miss M. Blind, “Westminster Review”, July, 1870.]\n\nOut of the eastern shadow of the Earth,\nAmid the clouds upon its margin gray\nScattered by Night to swathe in its bright birth\n\nIn gold and fleecy snow the infant Day,\nThe glorious Sun arose: beneath his light, _5\nThe earth and all...\n\n\n_10-_17 A widow...sound 1870; omitted here 1824;\n printed as ‘A Song,’ 1824, page 217.\n_34, _35 dawn Bathe Mrs. Shelley (later editions); dawn, Bathed 1824, 1839.\n_63 shunned Boscombe manuscript; spurned 1824, 1839.\n_70 Of...interspersed Boscombe manuscript;\n Of grassy paths and wood, lawn-interspersed 1824;\n wood-lawn-interspersed 1839.\n_84 form]frown 1824.\n_93 light...beam]light upon the chariot beam; 1824.\n_96 it omitted 1824.\n_109 thunder Boscombe manuscript; thunders 1824; thunder’s 1839.\n_112 greet Boscombe manuscript; meet 1824, 1839.\n_129 conqueror or conqueror’s cj. A.C. Bradley.\n_131-_134 See Editor’s Note.\n_158 while Boscombe manuscript; omitted 1824, 1839.\n_167 And...dance 1839 To seek, to [ ], to strain 1824.\n_168 Seeking 1839; Limping 1824.\n_188 canst, Mrs. Shelley 1824, 1839, 1847.\n_189 forborne!’ 1824, 1839, 1847.\n_190 Feature, (of my thought aware); Mrs. Shelley 1847.\n_188-_190 The punctuation is A.C. Bradley’s.\n_202 nutriment Boscombe manuscript; sentiment 1824, 1839.\n_205 Stain]Stained 1824, 1839.\n_235 Said my 1824, 1839; Said then my cj. Forman.\n_238 names which the 1839: name the 1824.\n_252 how]now cj. Forman.\n_260 him 1839; omitted 1824.\n_265 singled for cj. Forman.\n_280 See Editor’s Note.\n_281, _282 Even...then Boscombe manuscript; omitted 1824, 1839.\n_296 camest Boscombe manuscript; comest 1824, 1839.\n_311 season Boscombe manuscript; year’s dawn 1824, 1839.\n_322 the Boscombe manuscript; her 1824, 1839.\n_334 woke cj. A.C. Bradley; wake 1824, 1839. Cf. _296, footnote.\n_361 Of...and Boscombe manuscript; Out of the deep cavern with 1824, 1839.\n_363 Glided Boscombe manuscript; She glided 1824, 1839.\n_377 in Boscombe manuscript; to 1824.\n_422 The favourite song, Stanco di pascolar le pecorelle,\n is a Brescian national air.—[MRS. SHELLEY’S NOTE.]\n_464 early]aery cj. Forman.\n_475 awe Boscombe manuscript; care 1824.\n_486 isle Boscombe manuscript; vale 1824.\n_497 sate like vultures Boscombe manuscript; rode like demons 1824.\n_515 those]eyes cj. Rossetti.\n_534 Wrought Boscombe manuscript; Wrapt 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragments:", + "body": " LOVE THE UNIVERSE TO-DAY.\n ‘A GENTLE STORY OF TWO LOVERS YOUNG’.\n LOVE’S TENDER ATMOSPHERE.\n WEDDED SOULS.\n ‘IS IT THAT IN SOME BRIGHTER SPHERE’.\n SUFFICIENT UNTO THE DAY.\n ‘YE GENTLE VISITATIONS OF CALM THOUGHT’.\n MUSIC AND SWEET POETRY.\n THE SEPULCHRE OF MEMORY.\n ‘WHEN A LOVER CLASPS HIS FAIREST’.\n ‘WAKE THE SERPENT NOT’.\n RAIN.\n A TALE UNTOLD.\n TO ITALY.\n WINE OF THE FAIRIES.\n A ROMAN’S CHAMBER.\n ROME AND NATURE.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragments:", + "body": " THE DESERTS OF DIM SLEEP.\n ‘THE VIEWLESS AND INVISIBLE CONSEQUENCE’.\n A SERPENT-FACE.\n DEATH IN LIFE.\n ‘SUCH HOPE, AS IS THE SICK DESPAIR OF GOOD’.\n ‘ALAS THIS IS NOT WHAT I THOUGHT LIFE WAS’.\n MILTON’S SPIRIT.\n ‘UNRISEN SPLENDOUR OF THE BRIGHTEST SUN’.\n PATER OMNIPOTENS.\n TO THE MIND OF MAN.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragments:", + "body": " A WANDERER.\n LIFE ROUNDED WITH SLEEP.\n ‘I FAINT, I PERISH WITH MY LOVE’.\n THE LADY OF THE SOUTH.\n ZEPHYRUS THE AWAKENER.\n RAIN.\n ‘WHEN SOFT WINDS AND SUNNY SKIES’.\n ‘AND THAT I WALK THUS PROUDLY CROWNED’.\n ‘THE RUDE WIND IS SINGING’.\n ‘GREAT SPIRIT’.\n ‘O THOU IMMORTAL DEITY’.\n THE FALSE LAUREL AND THE TRUE.\n MAY THE LIMNER.\n BEAUTY’S HALO.\n ‘THE DEATH KNELL IS RINGING’.\n ‘I STOOD UPON A HEAVEN-CLEAVING TURRET’.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Early Poems [1814, 1815].", + "body": "[The poems which follow appeared, with a few exceptions, either in the\nvolumes published from time to time by Shelley himself, or in the\n“Posthumous Poems” of 1824, or in the “Poetical Works” of 1839, of\nwhich a second and enlarged edition was published by Mrs. Shelley in\nthe same year. A few made their first appearance in some fugitive\npublication—such as Leigh Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”—and were\nsubsequently incorporated in the collective editions. In every case the\neditio princeps and (where this is possible) the exact date of\ncomposition are indicated below the title.]\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Stanza, Written At Bracknell.", + "body": "[Composed March, 1814. Published in Hogg’s “Life of Shelley”, 1858.]\n\nThy dewy looks sink in my breast;\nThy gentle words stir poison there;\nThou hast disturbed the only rest\nThat was the portion of despair!\nSubdued to Duty’s hard control, _5\nI could have borne my wayward lot:\nThe chains that bind this ruined soul\nHad cankered then—but crushed it not.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Stanzas.—April, 1814.", + "body": "[Composed at Bracknell, April, 1814. Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]\n\nAway! the moor is dark beneath the moon,\nRapid clouds have drank the last pale beam of even:\nAway! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,\nAnd profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.\n\nPause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away! _5\nTempt not with one last tear thy friend’s ungentle mood:\nThy lover’s eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay:\nDuty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.\n\nAway, away! to thy sad and silent home;\nPour bitter tears on its desolated hearth; _10\nWatch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come,\nAnd complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.\n\nThe leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head:\nThe blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet:\nBut thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead, _15\nEre midnight’s frown and morning’s smile, ere thou and peace may meet.\n\nThe cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose,\nFor the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep:\nSome respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows;\nWhatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep. _20\n\nThou in the grave shalt rest—yet till the phantoms flee\nWhich that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile,\nThy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not free\nFrom the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mutability.", + "body": "[Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]\n\nWe are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;\nHow restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,\nStreaking the darkness radiantly!—yet soon\nNight closes round, and they are lost for ever:\n\nOr like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings _5\nGive various response to each varying blast,\nTo whose frail frame no second motion brings\nOne mood or modulation like the last.\n\nWe rest.—A dream has power to poison sleep;\nWe rise.—One wandering thought pollutes the day; _10\nWe feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;\nEmbrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:\n\nIt is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,\nThe path of its departure still is free:\nMan’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow; _15\nNought may endure but Mutability.\n\n_15 may 1816; can Lodore, chapter 49, 1835 (Mrs. Shelley).\n_16 Nought may endure but 1816;\n Nor aught endure save Lodore, chapter 49, 1835 (Mrs. Shelley).\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "There Is No Work, Nor Device, Nor Knowledge, Nor Wisdom,", + "body": "IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU GOEST.—Ecclesiastes.\n\nThe pale, the cold, and the moony smile\nWhich the meteor beam of a starless night\nSheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,\nEre the dawning of morn’s undoubted light,\nIs the flame of life so fickle and wan\nThat flits round our steps till their strength is gone. _5\n\nO man! hold thee on in courage of soul\nThrough the stormy shades of thy worldly way,\nAnd the billows of cloud that around thee roll\nShall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, _10\nWhere Hell and Heaven shall leave thee free\nTo the universe of destiny.\n\nThis world is the nurse of all we know,\nThis world is the mother of all we feel,\nAnd the coming of death is a fearful blow _15\nTo a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel;\nWhen all that we know, or feel, or see,\nShall pass like an unreal mystery.\n\nThe secret things of the grave are there,\nWhere all but this frame must surely be, _20\nThough the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear\nNo longer will live to hear or to see\nAll that is great and all that is strange\nIn the boundless realm of unending change.\n\nWho telleth a tale of unspeaking death? _25\nWho lifteth the veil of what is to come?\nWho painteth the shadows that are beneath\nThe wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?\nOr uniteth the hopes of what shall be\nWith the fears and the love for that which we see? _30\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lechlade, Gloucestershire.", + "body": "[Composed September, 1815. Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]\n\nThe wind has swept from the wide atmosphere\nEach vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray;\nAnd pallid Evening twines its beaming hair\nIn duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:\nSilence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, _5\nCreep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.\n\nThey breathe their spells towards the departing day,\nEncompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;\nLight, sound, and motion own the potent sway,\nResponding to the charm with its own mystery. _10\nThe winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass\nKnows not their gentle motions as they pass.\n\nThou too, aereal Pile! whose pinnacles\nPoint from one shrine like pyramids of fire,\nObeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, _15\nClothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,\nAround whose lessening and invisible height\nGather among the stars the clouds of night.\n\nThe dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:\nAnd, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, _20\nHalf sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,\nBreathed from their wormy beds all living things around,\nAnd mingling with the still night and mute sky\nIts awful hush is felt inaudibly.\n\nThus solemnized and softened, death is mild _25\nAnd terrorless as this serenest night:\nHere could I hope, like some inquiring child\nSporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight\nSweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep\nThat loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. _30\n\n***\n\n\nTO —.\n\n[Published with “Alastor”, 1816. See Editor’s Note.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Dakrtsi Dioiso Potmon ‘Apotmon.", + "body": "Oh! there are spirits of the air,\nAnd genii of the evening breeze,\nAnd gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair\nAs star-beams among twilight trees:—\nSuch lovely ministers to meet _5\nOft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.\n\nWith mountain winds, and babbling springs,\nAnd moonlight seas, that are the voice\nOf these inexplicable things,\nThou didst hold commune, and rejoice _10\nWhen they did answer thee; but they\nCast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.\n\nAnd thou hast sought in starry eyes\nBeams that were never meant for thine,\nAnother’s wealth:—tame sacrifice\nTo a fond faith! still dost thou pine? _15\nStill dost thou hope that greeting hands,\nVoice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?\n\nAh! wherefore didst thou build thine hope\nOn the false earth’s inconstancy? _20\nDid thine own mind afford no scope\nOf love, or moving thoughts to thee?\nThat natural scenes or human smiles\nCould steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?\n\nYes, all the faithless smiles are fled _25\nWhose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;\nThe glory of the moon is dead;\nNight’s ghosts and dreams have now departed;\nThine own soul still is true to thee,\nBut changed to a foul fiend through misery. _30\n\nThis fiend, whose ghastly presence ever\nBeside thee like thy shadow hangs,\nDream not to chase;—the mad endeavour\nWould scourge thee to severer pangs.\nBe as thou art. Thy settled fate,\nDark as it is, all change would aggravate. _35\n\n_1 of 1816; in 1839.\n_8 moonlight 1816; mountain 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Feelings Of A Republican On The Fall Of Bonaparte.", + "body": "[Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]\n\nI hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan\nTo think that a most unambitious slave,\nLike thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave\nOf Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne\nWhere it had stood even now: thou didst prefer _5\nA frail and bloody pomp which Time has swept\nIn fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre,\nFor this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept,\nTreason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust,\nAnd stifled thee, their minister. I know _10\nToo late, since thou and France are in the dust,\nThat Virtue owns a more eternal foe\nThan Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime,\nAnd bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines.", + "body": "[Published in Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823, where it is headed\n“November, 1815”. Reprinted in the “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. See\nEditor’s Note.]\n\n1.\nThe cold earth slept below,\nAbove the cold sky shone;\nAnd all around, with a chilling sound,\nFrom caves of ice and fields of snow,\nThe breath of night like death did flow _5\nBeneath the sinking moon.\n\n2.\nThe wintry hedge was black,\nThe green grass was not seen,\nThe birds did rest on the bare thorn’s breast,\nWhose roots, beside the pathway track, _10\nHad bound their folds o’er many a crack\nWhich the frost had made between.\n\n3.\nThine eyes glowed in the glare\nOf the moon’s dying light;\nAs a fen-fire’s beam on a sluggish stream _15\nGleams dimly, so the moon shone there,\nAnd it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair,\nThat shook in the wind of night.\n\n4.\nThe moon made thy lips pale, beloved—\nThe wind made thy bosom chill— _20\nThe night did shed on thy dear head\nIts frozen dew, and thou didst lie\nWhere the bitter breath of the naked sky\nMight visit thee at will.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On The Early Poems, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "The remainder of Shelley’s Poems will be arranged in the order in which\nthey were written. Of course, mistakes will occur in placing some of\nthe shorter ones; for, as I have said, many of these were thrown aside,\nand I never saw them till I had the misery of looking over his writings\nafter the hand that traced them was dust; and some were in the hands of\nothers, and I never saw them till now. The subjects of the poems are\noften to me an unerring guide; but on other occasions I can only guess,\nby finding them in the pages of the same manuscript book that contains\npoems with the date of whose composition I am fully conversant. In the\npresent arrangement all his poetical translations will be placed\ntogether at the end.\n\nThe loss of his early papers prevents my being able to give any of the\npoetry of his boyhood. Of the few I give as “Early Poems”, the greater\npart were published with “Alastor”; some of them were written\npreviously, some at the same period. The poem beginning ‘Oh, there are\nspirits in the air’ was addressed in idea to Coleridge, whom he never\nknew; and at whose character he could only guess imperfectly, through\nhis writings, and accounts he heard of him from some who knew him well.\nHe regarded his change of opinions as rather an act of will than\nconviction, and believed that in his inner heart he would be haunted by\nwhat Shelley considered the better and holier aspirations of his youth.\nThe summer evening that suggested to him the poem written in the\nchurchyard of Lechlade occurred during his voyage up the Thames in\n1815. He had been advised by a physician to live as much as possible in\nthe open air; and a fortnight of a bright warm July was spent in\ntracing the Thames to its source. He never spent a season more\ntranquilly than the summer of 1815. He had just recovered from a severe\npulmonary attack; the weather was warm and pleasant. He lived near\nWindsor Forest; and his life was spent under its shades or on the\nwater, meditating subjects for verse. Hitherto, he had chiefly aimed at\nextending his political doctrines, and attempted so to do by appeals in\nprose essays to the people, exhorting them to claim their rights; but\nhe had now begun to feel that the time for action was not ripe in\nEngland, and that the pen was the only instrument wherewith to prepare\nthe way for better things.\n\nIn the scanty journals kept during those years I find a record of the\nbooks that Shelley read during several years. During the years of 1814\nand 1815 the list is extensive. It includes, in Greek, Homer, Hesiod,\nTheocritus, the histories of Thucydides and Herodotus, and Diogenes\nLaertius. In Latin, Petronius, Suetonius, some of the works of Cicero,\na large proportion of those of Seneca and Livy. In English, Milton’s\npoems, Wordsworth’s “Excursion”, Southey’s “Madoc” and “Thalaba”, Locke\n“On the Human Understanding”, Bacon’s “Novum Organum”. In Italian,\nAriosto, Tasso, and Alfieri. In French, the “Reveries d’un Solitaire”\nof Rousseau. To these may be added several modern books of travel. He\nread few novels.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Sunset.", + "body": "[Written at Bishopsgate, 1816 (spring). Published in full in the\n“Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Lines 9-20, and 28-42, appeared in Hunt’s\n“Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823, under the titles, respectively, of\n“Sunset. From an Unpublished Poem”, And “Grief. A Fragment”.]\n\nThere late was One within whose subtle being,\nAs light and wind within some delicate cloud\nThat fades amid the blue noon’s burning sky,\nGenius and death contended. None may know\nThe sweetness of the joy which made his breath _5\nFail, like the trances of the summer air,\nWhen, with the Lady of his love, who then\nFirst knew the unreserve of mingled being,\nHe walked along the pathway of a field\nWhich to the east a hoar wood shadowed o’er, _10\nBut to the west was open to the sky.\nThere now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold\nHung on the ashen clouds, and on the points\nOf the far level grass and nodding flowers\nAnd the old dandelion’s hoary beard, _15\nAnd, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay\nOn the brown massy woods—and in the east\nThe broad and burning moon lingeringly rose\nBetween the black trunks of the crowded trees,\nWhile the faint stars were gathering overhead.— _20\n‘Is it not strange, Isabel,’ said the youth,\n‘I never saw the sun? We will walk here\nTo-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me.’\n\nThat night the youth and lady mingled lay\nIn love and sleep—but when the morning came _25\nThe lady found her lover dead and cold.\nLet none believe that God in mercy gave\nThat stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild,\nBut year by year lived on—in truth I think\nHer gentleness and patience and sad smiles, _30\nAnd that she did not die, but lived to tend\nHer aged father, were a kind of madness,\nIf madness ’tis to be unlike the world.\nFor but to see her were to read the tale\nWoven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts _35\nDissolve away in wisdom-working grief;—\nHer eyes were black and lustreless and wan:\nHer eyelashes were worn away with tears,\nHer lips and cheeks were like things dead—so pale;\nHer hands were thin, and through their wandering veins _40\nAnd weak articulations might be seen\nDay’s ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self\nWhich one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day,\nIs all, lost child, that now remains of thee!\n\n‘Inheritor of more than earth can give, _45\nPassionless calm and silence unreproved,\nWhether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest,\nAnd are the uncomplaining things they seem,\nOr live, or drop in the deep sea of Love;\nOh, that like thine, mine epitaph were—Peace!’ _50\nThis was the only moan she ever made.\n\n_4 death 1839; youth 1824.\n_22 sun? We will walk 1824; sunrise? We will wake cj. Forman.\n_37 Her eyes...wan Hunt, 1823; omitted 1824, 1839.\n_38 worn 1824; torn 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hymn To Intellectual Beauty.", + "body": "[Composed, probably, in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816. Published\nin Hunt’s “Examiner”, January 19, 1817, and with “Rosalind and Helen”,\n1819.]\n\n1.\nThe awful shadow of some unseen Power\nFloats though unseen among us,—visiting\nThis various world with as inconstant wing\nAs summer winds that creep from flower to flower,—\nLike moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, _5\nIt visits with inconstant glance\nEach human heart and countenance;\nLike hues and harmonies of evening,—\nLike clouds in starlight widely spread,—\nLike memory of music fled,— _10\nLike aught that for its grace may be\nDear, and yet dearer for its mystery.\n\n2.\nSpirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate\nWith thine own hues all thou dost shine upon\nOf human thought or form,—where art thou gone? _15\nWhy dost thou pass away and leave our state,\nThis dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?\nAsk why the sunlight not for ever\nWeaves rainbows o’er yon mountain-river,\nWhy aught should fail and fade that once is shown, _20\nWhy fear and dream and death and birth\nCast on the daylight of this earth\nSuch gloom,—why man has such a scope\nFor love and hate, despondency and hope?\n\n3.\nNo voice from some sublimer world hath ever _25\nTo sage or poet these responses given—\nTherefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven.\nRemain the records of their vain endeavour,\nFrail spells—whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,\nFrom all we hear and all we see, _30\nDoubt, chance, and mutability.\nThy light alone—like mist o’er mountains driven,\nOr music by the night-wind sent\nThrough strings of some still instrument,\nOr moonlight on a midnight stream, _35\nGives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream.\n\n4.\nLove, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart\nAnd come, for some uncertain moments lent.\nMan were immortal, and omnipotent,\nDidst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, _40\nKeep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.\nThou messenger of sympathies,\nThat wax and wane in lovers’ eyes—\nThou—that to human thought art nourishment,\nLike darkness to a dying flame! _45\nDepart not as thy shadow came\nDepart not—lest the grave should be,\nLike life and fear, a dark reality.\n\n5.\nWhile yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped\nThrough many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, _50\nAnd starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing\nHopes of high talk with the departed dead.\nI called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed;\nI was not heard—I saw them not—\nWhen musing deeply on the lot _55\nOf life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing\nAll vital things that wake to bring\nNews of birds and blossoming,—\nSudden, thy shadow fell on me;\nI shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! _60\n\n6.\nI vowed that I would dedicate my powers\nTo thee and thine—have I not kept the vow?\nWith beating heart and streaming eyes, even now\nI call the phantoms of a thousand hours\nEach from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers _65\nOf studious zeal or love’s delight\nOutwatched with me the envious night—\nThey know that never joy illumed my brow\nUnlinked with hope that thou wouldst free\nThis world from its dark slavery, _70\nThat thou—O awful LOVELINESS,\nWouldst give whate’er these words cannot express.\n\n7.\nThe day becomes more solemn and serene\nWhen noon is past—there is a harmony\nIn autumn, and a lustre in its sky, _75\nWhich through the summer is not heard or seen,\nAs if it could not be, as if it had not been!\nThus let thy power, which like the truth\nOf nature on my passive youth\nDescended, to my onward life supply _80\nIts calm—to one who worships thee,\nAnd every form containing thee,\nWhom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind\nTo fear himself, and love all human kind.\n\n_2 among 1819; amongst 1817.\n_14 dost 1819; doth 1817.\n_21 fear and dream 1819; care and pain Boscombe manuscript.\n_37-_48 omitted Boscombe manuscript.\n_44 art 1817; are 1819.\n_76 or 1819; nor 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Written In The Vale Of Chamouni.", + "body": "[Composed in Switzerland, July, 1816 (see date below). Printed at the\nend of the “History of a Six Weeks’ Tour” published by Shelley in 1817,\nand reprinted with “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Amongst the Boscombe\nmanuscripts is a draft of this Ode, mainly in pencil, which has been\ncollated by Dr. Garnett.]\n\n1.\nThe everlasting universe of things\nFlows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,\nNow dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom—\nNow lending splendour, where from secret springs\nThe source of human thought its tribute brings _5\nOf waters,—with a sound but half its own,\nSuch as a feeble brook will oft assume\nIn the wild woods, among the mountains lone,\nWhere waterfalls around it leap for ever,\nWhere woods and winds contend, and a vast river _10\nOver its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.\n\n2.\nThus thou, Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine—\nThou many-coloured, many-voiced vale,\nOver whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail\nFast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene, _15\nWhere Power in likeness of the Arve comes down\nFrom the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,\nBursting through these dark mountains like the flame\nOf lightning through the tempest;—thou dost lie,\nThy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, _20\nChildren of elder time, in whose devotion\nThe chainless winds still come and ever came\nTo drink their odours, and their mighty swinging\nTo hear—an old and solemn harmony;\nThine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep _25\nOf the ethereal waterfall, whose veil\nRobes some unsculptured image; the strange sleep\nWhich when the voices of the desert fail\nWraps all in its own deep eternity;—\nThy caverns echoing to the Arve’s commotion, _30\nA loud, lone sound no other sound can tame;\nThou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion,\nThou art the path of that unresting sound—\nDizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee\nI seem as in a trance sublime and strange _35\nTo muse on my own separate fantasy,\nMy own, my human mind, which passively\nNow renders and receives fast influencings,\nHolding an unremitting interchange\nWith the clear universe of things around; _40\nOne legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings\nNow float above thy darkness, and now rest\nWhere that or thou art no unbidden guest,\nIn the still cave of the witch Poesy,\nSeeking among the shadows that pass by _45\nGhosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,\nSome phantom, some faint image; till the breast\nFrom which they fled recalls them, thou art there!\n\n3.\nSome say that gleams of a remoter world\nVisit the soul in sleep,—that death is slumber, _50\nAnd that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber\nOf those who wake and live.—I look on high;\nHas some unknown omnipotence unfurled\nThe veil of life and death? or do I lie\nIn dream, and does the mightier world of sleep _55\nSpread far around and inaccessibly\nIts circles? For the very spirit fails,\nDriven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep\nThat vanishes among the viewless gales!\nFar, far above, piercing the infinite sky, _60\nMont Blanc appears,—still, snowy, and serene—\nIts subject mountains their unearthly forms\nPile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between\nOf frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,\nBlue as the overhanging heaven, that spread _65\nAnd wind among the accumulated steeps;\nA desert peopled by the storms alone,\nSave when the eagle brings some hunter’s bone,\nAnd the wolf tracts her there—how hideously\nIts shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high, _70\nGhastly, and scarred, and riven.—Is this the scene\nWhere the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young\nRuin? Were these their toys? or did a sea\nOf fire envelope once this silent snow?\nNone can reply—all seems eternal now. _75\nThe wilderness has a mysterious tongue\nWhich teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,\nSo solemn, so serene, that man may be,\nBut for such faith, with nature reconciled;\nThou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal _80\nLarge codes of fraud and woe; not understood\nBy all, but which the wise, and great, and good\nInterpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.\n\n4.\nThe fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,\nOcean, and all the living things that dwell _85\nWithin the daedal earth; lightning, and rain,\nEarthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,\nThe torpor of the year when feeble dreams\nVisit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep\nHolds every future leaf and flower;—the bound _90\nWith which from that detested trance they leap;\nThe works and ways of man, their death and birth,\nAnd that of him and all that his may be;\nAll things that move and breathe with toil and sound\nAre born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. _95\nPower dwells apart in its tranquillity,\nRemote, serene, and inaccessible:\nAnd THIS, the naked countenance of earth,\nOn which I gaze, even these primaeval mountains\nTeach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep _100\nLike snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,\nSlow rolling on; there, many a precipice,\nFrost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power\nHave piled: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,\nA city of death, distinct with many a tower _105\nAnd wall impregnable of beaming ice.\nYet not a city, but a flood of ruin\nIs there, that from the boundaries of the sky\nRolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing\nIts destined path, or in the mangled soil _110\nBranchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down\nFrom yon remotest waste, have overthrown\nThe limits of the dead and living world,\nNever to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place\nOf insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; _115\nTheir food and their retreat for ever gone,\nSo much of life and joy is lost. The race\nOf man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling\nVanish, like smoke before the tempest’s stream,\nAnd their place is not known. Below, vast caves _120\nShine in the rushing torrents’ restless gleam,\nWhich from those secret chasms in tumult welling\nMeet in the vale, and one majestic River,\nThe breath and blood of distant lands, for ever\nRolls its loud waters to the ocean waves, _125\nBreathes its swift vapours to the circling air.\n\n5.\nMont Blanc yet gleams on high—the power is there,\nThe still and solemn power of many sights,\nAnd many sounds, and much of life and death.\nIn the calm darkness of the moonless nights, _130\nIn the lone glare of day, the snows descend\nUpon that Mountain; none beholds them there,\nNor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,\nOr the star-beams dart through them:—Winds contend\nSilently there, and heap the snow with breath _135\nRapid and strong, but silently! Its home\nThe voiceless lightning in these solitudes\nKeeps innocently, and like vapour broods\nOver the snow. The secret strength of things\nWhich governs thought, and to the infinite dome _140\nOf heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!\nAnd what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,\nIf to the human mind’s imaginings\nSilence and solitude were vacancy?\n\nJuly 23, 1816.\n\n_15 cloud-shadows]cloud shadows 1817;\n cloud, shadows 1824; clouds, shadows 1839.\n_20 Thy 1824; The 1839.\n_53 unfurled]upfurled cj. James Thomson (‘B.V.’).\n_56 Spread 1824; Speed 1839.\n_69 tracks her there 1824; watches her Boscombe manuscript.\n_79 But for such 1824; In such a Boscombe manuscript.\n_108 boundaries of the sky]boundary of the skies cj. Rossetti\n (cf. lines 102, 106).\n_121 torrents’]torrent’s 1817, 1824, 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cancelled Passage Of Mont Blanc.", + "body": "[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nThere is a voice, not understood by all,\nSent from these desert-caves. It is the roar\nOf the rent ice-cliff which the sunbeams call,\nPlunging into the vale—it is the blast\nDescending on the pines—the torrents pour... _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment Of A Ghost Story.", + "body": "[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nA shovel of his ashes took\nFrom the hearth’s obscurest nook,\nMuttering mysteries as she went.\nHelen and Henry knew that Granny\nWas as much afraid of Ghosts as any, _5\nAnd so they followed hard—\nBut Helen clung to her brother’s arm,\nAnd her own spasm made her shake.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Poems Of 1816, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "Shelley wrote little during this year. The poem entitled “The Sunset”\nwas written in the spring of the year, while still residing at\nBishopsgate. He spent the summer on the shores of the Lake of Geneva.\nThe “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” was conceived during his voyage round\nthe lake with Lord Byron. He occupied himself during this voyage by\nreading the “Nouvelle Heloise” for the first time. The reading it on\nthe very spot where the scenes are laid added to the interest; and he\nwas at once surprised and charmed by the passionate eloquence and\nearnest enthralling interest that pervade this work. There was\nsomething in the character of Saint-Preux, in his abnegation of self,\nand in the worship he paid to Love, that coincided with Shelley’s own\ndisposition; and, though differing in many of the views and shocked by\nothers, yet the effect of the whole was fascinating and delightful.\n\n“Mont Blanc” was inspired by a view of that mountain and its\nsurrounding peaks and valleys, as he lingered on the Bridge of Arve on\nhis way through the Valley of Chamouni. Shelley makes the following\nmention of this poem in his publication of the “History of a Six Weeks’\nTour, and Letters from Switzerland”: ‘The poem entitled “Mont Blanc” is\nwritten by the author of the two letters from Chamouni and Vevai. It\nwas composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful\nfeelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as\nan undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to\napprobation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and\ninaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang.’\n\nThis was an eventful year, and less time was given to study than usual.\nIn the list of his reading I find, in Greek, Theocritus, the\n“Prometheus” of Aeschylus, several of Plutarch’s “Lives”, and the works\nof Lucian. In Latin, Lucretius, Pliny’s “Letters”, the “Annals” and\n“Germany” of Tacitus. In French, the “History of the French Revolution”\nby Lacretelle. He read for the first time, this year, Montaigne’s\n“Essays”, and regarded them ever after as one of the most delightful\nand instructive books in the world. The list is scanty in English\nworks: Locke’s “Essay”, “Political Justice”, and Coleridge’s “Lay\nSermon”, form nearly the whole. It was his frequent habit to read aloud\nto me in the evening; in this way we read, this year, the New\nTestament, “Paradise Lost”, Spenser’s “Faery Queen”, and “Don Quixote”.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Marianne’S Dream.", + "body": "[Composed at Marlow, 1817. Published in Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”,\n1819, and reprinted in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nA pale Dream came to a Lady fair,\nAnd said, A boon, a boon, I pray!\nI know the secrets of the air,\nAnd things are lost in the glare of day,\nWhich I can make the sleeping see, _5\nIf they will put their trust in me.\n\n2.\nAnd thou shalt know of things unknown,\nIf thou wilt let me rest between\nThe veiny lids, whose fringe is thrown\nOver thine eyes so dark and sheen: _10\nAnd half in hope, and half in fright,\nThe Lady closed her eyes so bright.\n\n3.\nAt first all deadly shapes were driven\nTumultuously across her sleep,\nAnd o’er the vast cope of bending heaven _15\nAll ghastly-visaged clouds did sweep;\nAnd the Lady ever looked to spy\nIf the golden sun shone forth on high.\n\n4.\nAnd as towards the east she turned,\nShe saw aloft in the morning air, _20\nWhich now with hues of sunrise burned,\nA great black Anchor rising there;\nAnd wherever the Lady turned her eyes,\nIt hung before her in the skies.\n\n5.\nThe sky was blue as the summer sea, _25\nThe depths were cloudless overhead,\nThe air was calm as it could be,\nThere was no sight or sound of dread,\nBut that black Anchor floating still\nOver the piny eastern hill. _30\n\n6.\nThe Lady grew sick with a weight of fear\nTo see that Anchor ever hanging,\nAnd veiled her eyes; she then did hear\nThe sound as of a dim low clanging,\nAnd looked abroad if she might know _35\nWas it aught else, or but the flow\nOf the blood in her own veins, to and fro.\n\n7.\nThere was a mist in the sunless air,\nWhich shook as it were with an earthquake’s shock,\nBut the very weeds that blossomed there _40\nWere moveless, and each mighty rock\nStood on its basis steadfastly;\nThe Anchor was seen no more on high.\n\n8.\nBut piled around, with summits hid\nIn lines of cloud at intervals, _45\nStood many a mountain pyramid\nAmong whose everlasting walls\nTwo mighty cities shone, and ever\nThrough the red mist their domes did quiver.\n\n9.\nOn two dread mountains, from whose crest, _50\nMight seem, the eagle, for her brood,\nWould ne’er have hung her dizzy nest,\nThose tower-encircled cities stood.\nA vision strange such towers to see,\nSculptured and wrought so gorgeously, _55\nWhere human art could never be.\n\n10.\nAnd columns framed of marble white,\nAnd giant fanes, dome over dome\nPiled, and triumphant gates, all bright\nWith workmanship, which could not come _60\nFrom touch of mortal instrument,\nShot o’er the vales, or lustre lent\nFrom its own shapes magnificent.\n\n11.\nBut still the Lady heard that clang\nFilling the wide air far away; _65\nAnd still the mist whose light did hang\nAmong the mountains shook alway,\nSo that the Lady’s heart beat fast,\nAs half in joy, and half aghast,\nOn those high domes her look she cast. _70\n\n12.\nSudden, from out that city sprung\nA light that made the earth grow red;\nTwo flames that each with quivering tongue\nLicked its high domes, and overhead\nAmong those mighty towers and fanes _75\nDropped fire, as a volcano rains\nIts sulphurous ruin on the plains.\n\n13.\nAnd hark! a rush as if the deep\nHad burst its bonds; she looked behind\nAnd saw over the western steep _80\nA raging flood descend, and wind\nThrough that wide vale; she felt no fear,\nBut said within herself, ’Tis clear\nThese towers are Nature’s own, and she\nTo save them has sent forth the sea. _85\n\n14.\nAnd now those raging billows came\nWhere that fair Lady sate, and she\nWas borne towards the showering flame\nBy the wild waves heaped tumultuously.\nAnd, on a little plank, the flow _90\nOf the whirlpool bore her to and fro.\n\n15.\nThe flames were fiercely vomited\nFrom every tower and every dome,\nAnd dreary light did widely shed\nO’er that vast flood’s suspended foam, _95\nBeneath the smoke which hung its night\nOn the stained cope of heaven’s light.\n\n16.\nThe plank whereon that Lady sate\nWas driven through the chasms, about and about,\nBetween the peaks so desolate _100\nOf the drowning mountains, in and out,\nAs the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sails—\nWhile the flood was filling those hollow vales.\n\n17.\nAt last her plank an eddy crossed,\nAnd bore her to the city’s wall, _105\nWhich now the flood had reached almost;\nIt might the stoutest heart appal\nTo hear the fire roar and hiss\nThrough the domes of those mighty palaces.\n\n18.\nThe eddy whirled her round and round _110\nBefore a gorgeous gate, which stood\nPiercing the clouds of smoke which bound\nIts aery arch with light like blood;\nShe looked on that gate of marble clear,\nWith wonder that extinguished fear. _115\n\n19.\nFor it was filled with sculptures rarest,\nOf forms most beautiful and strange,\nLike nothing human, but the fairest\nOf winged shapes, whose legions range\nThroughout the sleep of those that are, _120\nLike this same Lady, good and fair.\n\n20.\nAnd as she looked, still lovelier grew\nThose marble forms;—the sculptor sure\nWas a strong spirit, and the hue\nOf his own mind did there endure _125\nAfter the touch, whose power had braided\nSuch grace, was in some sad change faded.\n\n21.\nShe looked, the flames were dim, the flood\nGrew tranquil as a woodland river\nWinding through hills in solitude; _130\nThose marble shapes then seemed to quiver,\nAnd their fair limbs to float in motion,\nLike weeds unfolding in the ocean.\n\n22.\nAnd their lips moved; one seemed to speak,\nWhen suddenly the mountains cracked, _135\nAnd through the chasm the flood did break\nWith an earth-uplifting cataract:\nThe statues gave a joyous scream,\nAnd on its wings the pale thin Dream\nLifted the Lady from the stream. _140\n\n23.\nThe dizzy flight of that phantom pale\nWaked the fair Lady from her sleep,\nAnd she arose, while from the veil\nOf her dark eyes the Dream did creep,\nAnd she walked about as one who knew _145\nThat sleep has sights as clear and true\nAs any waking eyes can view.\n\n_18 golden 1819; gold 1824, 1839.\n_28 or 1824; nor 1839.\n_62 or]a cj. Rossetti.\n_63 its]their cj. Rossetti.\n_92 flames cj. Rossetti; waves 1819, 1824, 1839.\n_101 mountains 1819; mountain 1824, 1839.\n_106 flood]flames cj. James Thomson (‘B.V.’).\n_120 that 1819, 1824; who 1839.\n_135 mountains 1819; mountain 1824, 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Stanzas 1 And 2.", + "body": "As restored by Mr. C.D. Locock.\n\n1.\nCease, cease—for such wild lessons madmen learn\nThus to be lost, and thus to sink and die\nPerchance were death indeed!—Constantia turn\nIn thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie\nEven though the sounds its voice that were _5\nBetween [thy] lips are laid to sleep:\nWithin thy breath, and on thy hair\nLike odour, it is [lingering] yet\nAnd from thy touch like fire doth leap—\nEven while I write, my burning cheeks are wet— _10\nAlas, that the torn heart can bleed but not forget.\n\n2.\n[A deep and] breathless awe like the swift change\nOf dreams unseen but felt in youthful slumbers\nWild sweet yet incommunicably strange\nThou breathest now in fast ascending numbers... _15\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: To One Singing.", + "body": "[Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and published in the “Poetical Works”,\n1839, 1st edition. The manuscript original, by which Mr. Locock has\nrevised and (by one line) enlarged the text, is amongst the Shelley\nmanuscripts at the Bodleian. The metre, as Mr. Locock (“Examination”,\netc., 1903, page 63) points out, is terza rima.]\n\nMy spirit like a charmed bark doth swim\nUpon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing,\nFar far away into the regions dim\n\nOf rapture—as a boat, with swift sails winging\nIts way adown some many-winding river, _5\nSpeeds through dark forests o’er the waters swinging...\n\n_3 Far far away B.; Far away 1839.\n_6 Speeds...swinging B.; omitted 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Fragment: To Music.", + "body": "[Published in “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.\nDated 1817 (Mrs. Shelley).]\n\nSilver key of the fountain of tears,\nWhere the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;\nSoftest grave of a thousand fears,\nWhere their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,\nIs laid asleep in flowers. _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Another Fragment: To Music.", + "body": "[Published in “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.\nDated 1817 (Mrs. Shelley).]\n\nNo, Music, thou art not the ‘food of Love.’\nUnless Love feeds upon its own sweet self,\nTill it becomes all Music murmurs of.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Supposed To Be Addressed To William Godwin.", + "body": "[Published in 1882 (“Poetical Works of P. B. S.”) by Mr. H. Buxton\nForman, C.B., by whom it is dated 1817.]\n\nMighty eagle! thou that soarest\nO’er the misty mountain forest,\nAnd amid the light of morning\nLike a cloud of glory hiest,\nAnd when night descends defiest _5\nThe embattled tempests’ warning!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From The Original Draft Of The Poem To William Shelley.", + "body": "[Published in Dr. Garnett’s “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\n1.\nThe world is now our dwelling-place;\nWhere’er the earth one fading trace\nOf what was great and free does keep,\nThat is our home!...\nMild thoughts of man’s ungentle race _5\nShall our contented exile reap;\nFor who that in some happy place\nHis own free thoughts can freely chase\nBy woods and waves can clothe his face\nIn cynic smiles? Child! we shall weep. _10\n\n2.\nThis lament,\nThe memory of thy grievous wrong\nWill fade...\nBut genius is omnipotent\nTo hallow... _15\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "On Fanny Godwin.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, among the poems of 1817, in “Poetical\nWorks”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nHer voice did quiver as we parted,\nYet knew I not that heart was broken\nFrom which it came, and I departed\nHeeding not the words then spoken.\nMisery—O Misery, _5\nThis world is all too wide for thee.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley with the date ‘November 5th, 1817,’ in\n“Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nThat time is dead for ever, child!\nDrowned, frozen, dead for ever!\nWe look on the past\nAnd stare aghast\nAt the spectres wailing, pale and ghast, _5\nOf hopes which thou and I beguiled\nTo death on life’s dark river.\n\n2.\nThe stream we gazed on then rolled by;\nIts waves are unreturning;\nBut we yet stand _10\nIn a lone land,\nLike tombs to mark the memory\nOf hopes and fears, which fade and flee\nIn the light of life’s dim morning.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Death.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nThey die—the dead return not—Misery\nSits near an open grave and calls them over,\nA Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye—\nThey are the names of kindred, friend and lover,\nWhich he so feebly calls—they all are gone— _5\nFond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone,\nThis most familiar scene, my pain—\nThese tombs—alone remain.\n\n2.\nMisery, my sweetest friend—oh, weep no more!\nThou wilt not be consoled—I wonder not! _10\nFor I have seen thee from thy dwelling’s door\nWatch the calm sunset with them, and this spot\nWas even as bright and calm, but transitory,\nAnd now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary;\nThis most familiar scene, my pain— _15\nThese tombs—alone remain.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Otho.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\n1.\nThou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be,\nLast of the Romans, though thy memory claim\nFrom Brutus his own glory—and on thee\nRests the full splendour of his sacred fame:\nNor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail _5\nAmid his cowering senate with thy name,\nThough thou and he were great—it will avail\nTo thine own fame that Otho’s should not fail.\n\n2.\n‘Twill wrong thee not—thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel,\nAbjure such envious fame—great Otho died _10\nLike thee—he sanctified his country’s steel,\nAt once the tyrant and tyrannicide,\nIn his own blood—a deed it was to bring\nTears from all men—though full of gentle pride,\nSuch pride as from impetuous love may spring, _15\nThat will not be refused its offering.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragments Supposed To Be Parts Of Otho.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862,—where, however,\nonly the fragment numbered 2 is assigned to “Otho”. Forman (1876)\nconnects all three fragments with that projected poem.]\n\n1.\nThose whom nor power, nor lying faith, nor toil,\nNor custom, queen of many slaves, makes blind,\nHave ever grieved that man should be the spoil\nOf his own weakness, and with earnest mind\nFed hopes of its redemption; these recur _5\nChastened by deathful victory now, and find\nFoundations in this foulest age, and stir\nMe whom they cheer to be their minister.\n\n2.\nDark is the realm of grief: but human things\nThose may not know who cannot weep for them. _10\n\n...\n\n3.\nOnce more descend\nThe shadows of my soul upon mankind,\nFor to those hearts with which they never blend,\nThoughts are but shadows which the flashing mind\nFrom the swift clouds which track its flight of fire, _15\nCasts on the gloomy world it leaves behind.\n\n...\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "‘O That A Chariot Of Cloud Were Mine’.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nO that a chariot of cloud were mine!\nOf cloud which the wild tempest weaves in air,\nWhen the moon over the ocean’s line\nIs spreading the locks of her bright gray hair.\nO that a chariot of cloud were mine! _5\nI would sail on the waves of the billowy wind\nTo the mountain peak and the rocky lake,\nAnd the...\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: To A Friend Released From Prison.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nFor me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble\nIn my faint eyes, and that my heart beat fast\nWith feelings which make rapture pain resemble,\nYet, from thy voice that falsehood starts aghast,\nI thank thee—let the tyrant keep _5\nHis chains and tears, yea, let him weep\nWith rage to see thee freshly risen,\nLike strength from slumber, from the prison,\nIn which he vainly hoped the soul to bind\nWhich on the chains must prey that fetter humankind. _10", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Satan Broken Loose.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nA golden-winged Angel stood\nBefore the Eternal Judgement-seat:\nHis looks were wild, and Devils’ blood\nStained his dainty hands and feet.\nThe Father and the Son _5\nKnew that strife was now begun.\nThey knew that Satan had broken his chain,\nAnd with millions of daemons in his train,\nWas ranging over the world again.\nBefore the Angel had told his tale, _10\nA sweet and a creeping sound\nLike the rushing of wings was heard around;\nAnd suddenly the lamps grew pale—\nThe lamps, before the Archangels seven,\nThat burn continually in Heaven. _15\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: “Igniculus Desiderii”.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. This\nfragment is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr.\nC.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 63.]\n\nTo thirst and find no fill—to wail and wander\nWith short unsteady steps—to pause and ponder—\nTo feel the blood run through the veins and tingle\nWhere busy thought and blind sensation mingle;\nTo nurse the image of unfelt caresses _5\nTill dim imagination just possesses\nThe half-created shadow, then all the night\nSick...\n\n_2 unsteady B.; uneasy 1839, 1st edition.\n_7, _8 then...Sick B.; wanting, 1839, 1st edition.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: “Amor Aeternus”.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nWealth and dominion fade into the mass\nOf the great sea of human right and wrong,\nWhen once from our possession they must pass;\nBut love, though misdirected, is among\nThe things which are immortal, and surpass _5\nAll that frail stuff which will be—or which was.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Thoughts Come And Go In Solitude.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nMy thoughts arise and fade in solitude,\nThe verse that would invest them melts away\nLike moonlight in the heaven of spreading day:\nHow beautiful they were, how firm they stood,\nFlecking the starry sky like woven pearl! _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Hate-Song.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nA hater he came and sat by a ditch,\nAnd he took an old cracked lute;\nAnd he sang a song which was more of a screech\n’Gainst a woman that was a brute.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines To A Critic.", + "body": "[Published by Hunt in “The Liberal”, No. 3, 1823. Reprinted in\n“Posthumous Poems”, 1824, where it is dated December, 1817.]\n\n1.\nHoney from silkworms who can gather,\nOr silk from the yellow bee?\nThe grass may grow in winter weather\nAs soon as hate in me.\n\n2.\nHate men who cant, and men who pray, _5\nAnd men who rail like thee;\nAn equal passion to repay\nThey are not coy like me.\n\n3.\nOr seek some slave of power and gold\nTo be thy dear heart’s mate; _10\nThy love will move that bigot cold\nSooner than me, thy hate.\n\n4.\nA passion like the one I prove\nCannot divided be;\nI hate thy want of truth and love— _15\nHow should I then hate thee?\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ozymandias.", + "body": "[Published by Hunt in “The Examiner”, January, 1818. Reprinted with\n“Rosalind and Helen”, 1819. There is a copy amongst the Shelley\nmanuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s\n“Examination”, etc., 1903, page 46.]\n\nI met a traveller from an antique land\nWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone\nStand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,\nHalf sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,\nAnd wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, _5\nTell that its sculptor well those passions read\nWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,\nThe hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:\nAnd on the pedestal these words appear:\n‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: _10\nLook on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’\nNothing beside remains. Round the decay\nOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare\nThe lone and level sands stretch far away.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Poems Of 1817, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "The very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had\napproached so near Shelley, appear to have kindled to yet keener life\nthe Spirit of Poetry in his heart. The restless thoughts kept awake by\npain clothed themselves in verse. Much was composed during this year.\nThe “Revolt of Islam”, written and printed, was a great\neffort—“Rosalind and Helen” was begun—and the fragments and poems I\ncan trace to the same period show how full of passion and reflection\nwere his solitary hours.\n\nIn addition to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a\nstray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt\nexpression, and then again lost themselves in silence. As he never\nwandered without a book and without implements of writing, I find many\nsuch, in his manuscript books, that scarcely bear record; while some of\nthem, broken and vague as they are, will appear valuable to those who\nlove Shelley’s mind, and desire to trace its workings.\n\nHe projected also translating the “Hymns” of Homer; his version of\nseveral of the shorter ones remains, as well as that to Mercury already\npublished in the “Posthumous Poems”. His readings this year were\nchiefly Greek. Besides the “Hymns” of Homer and the “Iliad”, he read\nthe dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the “Symposium” of Plato, and\nArrian’s “Historia Indica”. In Latin, Apuleius alone is named. In\nEnglish, the Bible was his constant study; he read a great portion of\nit aloud in the evening. Among these evening readings I find also\nmentioned the “Faerie Queen”; and other modern works, the production of\nhis contemporaries, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Moore and Byron.\n\nHis life was now spent more in thought than action—he had lost the\neager spirit which believed it could achieve what it projected for the\nbenefit of mankind. And yet in the converse of daily life Shelley was\nfar from being a melancholy man. He was eloquent when philosophy or\npolitics or taste were the subjects of conversation. He was playful;\nand indulged in the wild spirit that mocked itself and others—not in\nbitterness, but in sport. The author of “Nightmare Abbey” seized on\nsome points of his character and some habits of his life when he\npainted Scythrop. He was not addicted to ‘port or madeira,’ but in\nyouth he had read of ‘Illuminati and Eleutherarchs,’ and believed that\nhe possessed the power of operating an immediate change in the minds of\nmen and the state of society. These wild dreams had faded; sorrow and\nadversity had struck home; but he struggled with despondency as he did\nwith physical pain. There are few who remember him sailing paper boats,\nand watching the navigation of his tiny craft with eagerness—or\nrepeating with wild energy “The Ancient Mariner”, and Southey’s “Old\nWoman of Berkeley”; but those who do will recollect that it was in\nsuch, and in the creations of his own fancy when that was most daring\nand ideal, that he sheltered himself from the storms and\ndisappointments, the pain and sorrow, that beset his life.\n\nNo words can express the anguish he felt when his elder children were\ntorn from him. In his first resentment against the Chancellor, on the\npassing of the decree, he had written a curse, in which there breathes,\nbesides haughty indignation, all the tenderness of a father’s love,\nwhich could imagine and fondly dwell upon its loss and the\nconsequences.\n\nAt one time, while the question was still pending, the Chancellor had\nsaid some words that seemed to intimate that Shelley should not be\npermitted the care of any of his children, and for a moment he feared\nthat our infant son would be torn from us. He did not hesitate to\nresolve, if such were menaced, to abandon country, fortune, everything,\nand to escape with his child; and I find some unfinished stanzas\naddressed to this son, whom afterwards we lost at Rome, written under\nthe idea that we might suddenly be forced to cross the sea, so to\npreserve him. This poem, as well as the one previously quoted, were not\nwritten to exhibit the pangs of distress to the public; they were the\nspontaneous outbursts of a man who brooded over his wrongs and woes,\nand was impelled to shed the grace of his genius over the\nuncontrollable emotions of his heart. I ought to observe that the\nfourth verse of this effusion is introduced in “Rosalind and Helen”.\nWhen afterwards this child died at Rome, he wrote, a propos of the\nEnglish burying-ground in that city: ‘This spot is the repository of a\nsacred loss, of which the yearnings of a parent’s heart are now\nprophetic; he is rendered immortal by love, as his memory is by death.\nMy beloved child lies buried here. I envy death the body far less than\nthe oppressors the minds of those whom they have torn from me. The one\ncan only kill the body, the other crushes the affections.’\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Passage Of The Apennines.", + "body": "[Composed May 4, 1818. Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”,\n1824. There is a copy amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian\nLibrary, which supplies the last word of the fragment.]\n\nListen, listen, Mary mine,\nTo the whisper of the Apennine,\nIt bursts on the roof like the thunder’s roar,\nOr like the sea on a northern shore,\nHeard in its raging ebb and flow _5\nBy the captives pent in the cave below.\nThe Apennine in the light of day\nIs a mighty mountain dim and gray,\nWhich between the earth and sky doth lay;\nBut when night comes, a chaos dread _10\nOn the dim starlight then is spread,\nAnd the Apennine walks abroad with the storm,\nShrouding...\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Past.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nWilt thou forget the happy hours\nWhich we buried in Love’s sweet bowers,\nHeaping over their corpses cold\nBlossoms and leaves, instead of mould?\nBlossoms which were the joys that fell, _5\nAnd leaves, the hopes that yet remain.\n\n2.\nForget the dead, the past? Oh, yet\nThere are ghosts that may take revenge for it,\nMemories that make the heart a tomb,\nRegrets which glide through the spirit’s gloom, _10\nAnd with ghastly whispers tell\nThat joy, once lost, is pain.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "On A Faded Violet.", + "body": "[Published by Hunt, “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1821. Reprinted by Mrs.\nShelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Again reprinted, with several\nvariants, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. Our text is that of the\neditio princeps, 1821. A transcript is extant in a letter from Shelley\nto Sophia Stacey, dated March 7, 1820.]\n\n1.\nThe odour from the flower is gone\nWhich like thy kisses breathed on me;\nThe colour from the flower is flown\nWhich glowed of thee and only thee!\n\n2.\nA shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form, _5\nIt lies on my abandoned breast,\nAnd mocks the heart which yet is warm,\nWith cold and silent rest.\n\n3.\nI weep,—my tears revive it not!\nI sigh,—it breathes no more on me; _10\nIts mute and uncomplaining lot\nIs such as mine should be.\n\n_1 odour]colour 1839.\n_2 kisses breathed]sweet eyes smiled 1839.\n_3 colour]odour 1839.\n_4 glowed]breathed 1839.\n_5 shrivelled]withered 1839.\n_8 cold and silent all editions; its cold, silent Stacey manuscript.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "October, 1818.", + "body": "[Composed at Este, October, 1818. Published with “Rosalind and Helen”,\n1819. Amongst the late Mr. Fredk. Locker-Lampson’s collections at\nRowfant there is a manuscript of the lines (167-205) on Byron,\ninterpolated after the completion of the poem.]\n\nMany a green isle needs must be\nIn the deep wide sea of Misery,\nOr the mariner, worn and wan,\nNever thus could voyage on—\nDay and night, and night and day, _5\nDrifting on his dreary way,\nWith the solid darkness black\nClosing round his vessel’s track:\nWhilst above the sunless sky,\nBig with clouds, hangs heavily, _10\nAnd behind the tempest fleet\nHurries on with lightning feet,\nRiving sail, and cord, and plank,\nTill the ship has almost drank\nDeath from the o’er-brimming deep; _15\nAnd sinks down, down, like that sleep\nWhen the dreamer seems to be\nWeltering through eternity;\nAnd the dim low line before\nOf a dark and distant shore _20\nStill recedes, as ever still\nLonging with divided will,\nBut no power to seek or shun,\nHe is ever drifted on\nO’er the unreposing wave _25\nTo the haven of the grave.\nWhat, if there no friends will greet;\nWhat, if there no heart will meet\nHis with love’s impatient beat;\nWander wheresoe’er he may, _30\nCan he dream before that day\nTo find refuge from distress\nIn friendship’s smile, in love’s caress?\nThen ‘twill wreak him little woe\nWhether such there be or no: _35\nSenseless is the breast, and cold,\nWhich relenting love would fold;\nBloodless are the veins and chill\nWhich the pulse of pain did fill;\nEvery little living nerve _40\nThat from bitter words did swerve\nRound the tortured lips and brow,\nAre like sapless leaflets now\nFrozen upon December’s bough.\n\nOn the beach of a northern sea _45\nWhich tempests shake eternally,\nAs once the wretch there lay to sleep,\nLies a solitary heap,\nOne white skull and seven dry bones,\nOn the margin of the stones, _50\nWhere a few gray rushes stand,\nBoundaries of the sea and land:\nNor is heard one voice of wail\nBut the sea-mews, as they sail\nO’er the billows of the gale; _55\nOr the whirlwind up and down\nHowling, like a slaughtered town,\nWhen a king in glory rides\nThrough the pomp of fratricides:\nThose unburied bones around _60\nThere is many a mournful sound;\nThere is no lament for him,\nLike a sunless vapour, dim,\nWho once clothed with life and thought\nWhat now moves nor murmurs not. _65\n\nAy, many flowering islands lie\nIn the waters of wide Agony:\nTo such a one this morn was led,\nMy bark by soft winds piloted:\n‘Mid the mountains Euganean _70\nI stood listening to the paean\nWith which the legioned rooks did hail\nThe sun’s uprise majestical;\nGathering round with wings all hoar,\nThrough the dewy mist they soar _75\nLike gray shades, till the eastern heaven\nBursts, and then, as clouds of even,\nFlecked with fire and azure, lie\nIn the unfathomable sky,\nSo their plumes of purple grain, _80\nStarred with drops of golden rain,\nGleam above the sunlight woods,\nAs in silent multitudes\nOn the morning’s fitful gale\nThrough the broken mist they sail, _85\nAnd the vapours cloven and gleaming\nFollow, down the dark steep streaming,\nTill all is bright, and clear, and still,\nRound the solitary hill.\n\nBeneath is spread like a green sea _90\nThe waveless plain of Lombardy,\nBounded by the vaporous air,\nIslanded by cities fair;\nUnderneath Day’s azure eyes\nOcean’s nursling, Venice lies, _95\nA peopled labyrinth of walls,\nAmphitrite’s destined halls,\nWhich her hoary sire now paves\nWith his blue and beaming waves.\nLo! the sun upsprings behind, _100\nBroad, red, radiant, half-reclined\nOn the level quivering line\nOf the waters crystalline;\nAnd before that chasm of light,\nAs within a furnace bright, _105\nColumn, tower, and dome, and spire,\nShine like obelisks of fire,\nPointing with inconstant motion\nFrom the altar of dark ocean\nTo the sapphire-tinted skies; _110\nAs the flames of sacrifice\nFrom the marble shrines did rise,\nAs to pierce the dome of gold\nWhere Apollo spoke of old.\n\nSun-girt City, thou hast been _115\nOcean’s child, and then his queen;\nNow is come a darker day,\nAnd thou soon must be his prey,\nIf the power that raised thee here\nHallow so thy watery bier. _120\nA less drear ruin then than now,\nWith thy conquest-branded brow\nStooping to the slave of slaves\nFrom thy throne, among the waves\nWilt thou be, when the sea-mew _125\nFlies, as once before it flew,\nO’er thine isles depopulate,\nAnd all is in its ancient state,\nSave where many a palace gate _130\nWith green sea-flowers overgrown\nLike a rock of Ocean’s own,\nTopples o’er the abandoned sea\nAs the tides change sullenly.\nThe fisher on his watery way,\nWandering at the close of day, _135\nWill spread his sail and seize his oar\nTill he pass the gloomy shore,\nLest thy dead should, from their sleep\nBursting o’er the starlight deep,\nLead a rapid masque of death _140\nO’er the waters of his path.\n\nThose who alone thy towers behold\nQuivering through aereal gold,\nAs I now behold them here,\nWould imagine not they were _145\nSepulchres, where human forms,\nLike pollution-nourished worms,\nTo the corpse of greatness cling,\nMurdered, and now mouldering:\nBut if Freedom should awake _150\nIn her omnipotence, and shake\nFrom the Celtic Anarch’s hold\nAll the keys of dungeons cold,\nWhere a hundred cities lie\nChained like thee, ingloriously, _155\nThou and all thy sister band\nMight adorn this sunny land,\nTwining memories of old time\nWith new virtues more sublime;\nIf not, perish thou and they!— _160\nClouds which stain truth’s rising day\nBy her sun consumed away—\nEarth can spare ye: while like flowers,\nIn the waste of years and hours,\nFrom your dust new nations spring _165\nWith more kindly blossoming.\n\nPerish—let there only be\nFloating o’er thy hearthless sea\nAs the garment of thy sky\nClothes the world immortally, _170\nOne remembrance, more sublime\nThan the tattered pall of time,\nWhich scarce hides thy visage wan;—\nThat a tempest-cleaving Swan\nOf the songs of Albion, _175\nDriven from his ancestral streams\nBy the might of evil dreams,\nFound a nest in thee; and Ocean\nWelcomed him with such emotion\nThat its joy grew his, and sprung _180\nFrom his lips like music flung\nO’er a mighty thunder-fit,\nChastening terror:—what though yet\nPoesy’s unfailing River,\nWhich through Albion winds forever _185\nLashing with melodious wave\nMany a sacred Poet’s grave,\nMourn its latest nursling fled?\nWhat though thou with all thy dead\nScarce can for this fame repay _190\nAught thine own? oh, rather say\nThough thy sins and slaveries foul\nOvercloud a sunlike soul?\nAs the ghost of Homer clings\nRound Scamander’s wasting springs; _195\nAs divinest Shakespeare’s might\nFills Avon and the world with light\nLike omniscient power which he\nImaged ‘mid mortality;\nAs the love from Petrarch’s urn, _200\nYet amid yon hills doth burn,\nA quenchless lamp by which the heart\nSees things unearthly;—so thou art,\nMighty spirit—so shall be\nThe City that did refuge thee. _205\n\nLo, the sun floats up the sky\nLike thought-winged Liberty,\nTill the universal light\nSeems to level plain and height;\nFrom the sea a mist has spread, _210\nAnd the beams of morn lie dead\nOn the towers of Venice now,\nLike its glory long ago.\nBy the skirts of that gray cloud\nMany-domed Padua proud _215\nStands, a peopled solitude,\n‘Mid the harvest-shining plain,\nWhere the peasant heaps his grain\nIn the garner of his foe,\nAnd the milk-white oxen slow _220\nWith the purple vintage strain,\nHeaped upon the creaking wain,\nThat the brutal Celt may swill\nDrunken sleep with savage will;\nAnd the sickle to the sword _225\nLies unchanged, though many a lord,\nLike a weed whose shade is poison,\nOvergrows this region’s foison,\nSheaves of whom are ripe to come\nTo destruction’s harvest-home: _230\nMen must reap the things they sow,\nForce from force must ever flow,\nOr worse; but ’tis a bitter woe\nThat love or reason cannot change\nThe despot’s rage, the slave’s revenge. _235\n\nPadua, thou within whose walls\nThose mute guests at festivals,\nSon and Mother, Death and Sin,\nPlayed at dice for Ezzelin,\nTill Death cried, “I win, I win!” _240\nAnd Sin cursed to lose the wager,\nBut Death promised, to assuage her,\nThat he would petition for\nHer to be made Vice-Emperor,\nWhen the destined years were o’er, _245\nOver all between the Po\nAnd the eastern Alpine snow,\nUnder the mighty Austrian.\nSin smiled so as Sin only can,\nAnd since that time, ay, long before, _250\nBoth have ruled from shore to shore,—\nThat incestuous pair, who follow\nTyrants as the sun the swallow,\nAs Repentance follows Crime,\nAnd as changes follow Time. _255\n\nIn thine halls the lamp of learning,\nPadua, now no more is burning;\nLike a meteor, whose wild way\nIs lost over the grave of day,\nIt gleams betrayed and to betray: _260\nOnce remotest nations came\nTo adore that sacred flame,\nWhen it lit not many a hearth\nOn this cold and gloomy earth:\nNow new fires from antique light _265\nSpring beneath the wide world’s might;\nBut their spark lies dead in thee,\nTrampled out by Tyranny.\nAs the Norway woodman quells,\nIn the depth of piny dells, _270\nOne light flame among the brakes,\nWhile the boundless forest shakes,\nAnd its mighty trunks are torn\nBy the fire thus lowly born:\nThe spark beneath his feet is dead, _275\nHe starts to see the flames it fed\nHowling through the darkened sky\nWith a myriad tongues victoriously,\nAnd sinks down in fear: so thou,\nO Tyranny, beholdest now _280\nLight around thee, and thou hearest\nThe loud flames ascend, and fearest:\nGrovel on the earth; ay, hide\nIn the dust thy purple pride!\n\nNoon descends around me now: _285\n’Tis the noon of autumn’s glow,\nWhen a soft and purple mist\nLike a vaporous amethyst,\nOr an air-dissolved star\nMingling light and fragrance, far _290\nFrom the curved horizon’s bound\nTo the point of Heaven’s profound,\nFills the overflowing sky;\nAnd the plains that silent lie\nUnderneath, the leaves unsodden _295\nWhere the infant Frost has trodden\nWith his morning-winged feet,\nWhose bright print is gleaming yet;\nAnd the red and golden vines,\nPiercing with their trellised lines _300\nThe rough, dark-skirted wilderness;\nThe dun and bladed grass no less,\nPointing from this hoary tower\nIn the windless air; the flower\nGlimmering at my feet; the line _305\nOf the olive-sandalled Apennine\nIn the south dimly islanded;\nAnd the Alps, whose snows are spread\nHigh between the clouds and sun;\nAnd of living things each one; _310\nAnd my spirit which so long\nDarkened this swift stream of song,—\nInterpenetrated lie\nBy the glory of the sky:\nBe it love, light, harmony, _315\nOdour, or the soul of all\nWhich from Heaven like dew doth fall,\nOr the mind which feeds this verse\nPeopling the lone universe.\n\nNoon descends, and after noon _320\nAutumn’s evening meets me soon,\nLeading the infantine moon,\nAnd that one star, which to her\nAlmost seems to minister\nHalf the crimson light she brings _325\nFrom the sunset’s radiant springs:\nAnd the soft dreams of the morn\n(Which like winged winds had borne\nTo that silent isle, which lies\nMid remembered agonies, _330\nThe frail bark of this lone being)\nPass, to other sufferers fleeing,\nAnd its ancient pilot, Pain,\nSits beside the helm again.\n\nOther flowering isles must be _335\nIn the sea of Life and Agony:\nOther spirits float and flee\nO’er that gulf: even now, perhaps,\nOn some rock the wild wave wraps,\nWith folded wings they waiting sit _340\nFor my bark, to pilot it\nTo some calm and blooming cove,\nWhere for me, and those I love,\nMay a windless bower be built,\nFar from passion, pain, and guilt, _345\nIn a dell mid lawny hills,\nWhich the wild sea-murmur fills,\nAnd soft sunshine, and the sound\nOf old forests echoing round,\nAnd the light and smell divine _350\nOf all flowers that breathe and shine:\nWe may live so happy there,\nThat the Spirits of the Air,\nEnvying us, may even entice\nTo our healing Paradise _355\nThe polluting multitude;\nBut their rage would be subdued\nBy that clime divine and calm,\nAnd the winds whose wings rain balm\nOn the uplifted soul, and leaves _360\nUnder which the bright sea heaves;\nWhile each breathless interval\nIn their whisperings musical\nThe inspired soul supplies\nWith its own deep melodies; _365\nAnd the love which heals all strife\nCircling, like the breath of life,\nAll things in that sweet abode\nWith its own mild brotherhood,\nThey, not it, would change; and soon _370\nEvery sprite beneath the moon\nWould repent its envy vain,\nAnd the earth grow young again.\n\n_54 seamews 1819; seamew’s Rossetti.\n_115 Sun-girt]Sea-girt cj. Palgrave.\n_165 From your dust new 1819;\n From thy dust shall Rowfant manuscript (heading of lines 167-205).\n_175 songs 1819; sons cj. Forman.\n_278 a 1819; wanting, 1839.\n\n***\n\n\nSCENE FROM ‘TASSO’.\n\n[Composed, 1818. Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Albano:", + "body": "In truth I told her, and she smiled and said,\n‘If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy, _10\nArt the Adonis whom I love, and he\nThe Erymanthian boar that wounded him.’\nO trust to me, Signor Malpiglio,\nThose nods and smiles were favours worth the zechin.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Albano:", + "body": "Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was leaning,\nHis finger on his brow, his lips unclosed.\nThe Princess sate within the window-seat, _20\nAnd so her face was hid; but on her knee\nHer hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow,\nAnd quivering—young Tasso, too, was there.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Song For ‘Tasso’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nI loved—alas! our life is love;\nBut when we cease to breathe and move\nI do suppose love ceases too.\nI thought, but not as now I do,\nKeen thoughts and bright of linked lore, _5\nOf all that men had thought before.\nAnd all that Nature shows, and more.\n\n2.\nAnd still I love and still I think,\nBut strangely, for my heart can drink\nThe dregs of such despair, and live, _10\nAnd love;...\nAnd if I think, my thoughts come fast,\nI mix the present with the past,\nAnd each seems uglier than the last.\n\n3.\nSometimes I see before me flee _15\nA silver spirit’s form, like thee,\nO Leonora, and I sit\n...still watching it,\nTill by the grated casement’s ledge\nIt fades, with such a sigh, as sedge _20\nBreathes o’er the breezy streamlet’s edge.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Invocation To Misery.", + "body": "[Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, September 8, 1832. Reprinted (as\n“Misery, a Fragment”) by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st\nedition. Our text is that of 1839. A pencil copy of this poem is\namongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D.\nLocock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 38. The readings of this copy\nare indicated by the letter B. in the footnotes.]\n\n1.\nCome, be happy!—sit near me,\nShadow-vested Misery:\nCoy, unwilling, silent bride,\nMourning in thy robe of pride,\nDesolation—deified! _5\n\n2.\nCome, be happy!—sit near me:\nSad as I may seem to thee,\nI am happier far than thou,\nLady, whose imperial brow\nIs endiademed with woe. _10\n\n3.\nMisery! we have known each other,\nLike a sister and a brother\nLiving in the same lone home,\nMany years—we must live some\nHours or ages yet to come. _15\n\n4.\n’Tis an evil lot, and yet\nLet us make the best of it;\nIf love can live when pleasure dies,\nWe two will love, till in our eyes\nThis heart’s Hell seem Paradise. _20\n\n5.\nCome, be happy!—lie thee down\nOn the fresh grass newly mown,\nWhere the Grasshopper doth sing\nMerrily—one joyous thing\nIn a world of sorrowing! _25\n\n6.\nThere our tent shall be the willow,\nAnd mine arm shall be thy pillow;\nSounds and odours, sorrowful\nBecause they once were sweet, shall lull\nUs to slumber, deep and dull. _30\n\n7.\nHa! thy frozen pulses flutter\nWith a love thou darest not utter.\nThou art murmuring—thou art weeping—\nIs thine icy bosom leaping\nWhile my burning heart lies sleeping? _35\n\n8.\nKiss me;—oh! thy lips are cold:\nRound my neck thine arms enfold—\nThey are soft, but chill and dead;\nAnd thy tears upon my head\nBurn like points of frozen lead. _40\n\n9.\nHasten to the bridal bed—\nUnderneath the grave ’tis spread:\nIn darkness may our love be hid,\nOblivion be our coverlid—\nWe may rest, and none forbid. _45\n\n10.\nClasp me till our hearts be grown\nLike two shadows into one;\nTill this dreadful transport may\nLike a vapour fade away,\nIn the sleep that lasts alway. _50\n\n11.\nWe may dream, in that long sleep,\nThat we are not those who weep;\nE’en as Pleasure dreams of thee,\nLife-deserting Misery,\nThou mayst dream of her with me. _55\n\n12.\nLet us laugh, and make our mirth,\nAt the shadows of the earth,\nAs dogs bay the moonlight clouds,\nWhich, like spectres wrapped in shrouds,\nPass o’er night in multitudes. _60\n\n13.\nAll the wide world, beside us,\nShow like multitudinous\nPuppets passing from a scene;\nWhat but mockery can they mean,\nWhere I am—where thou hast been? _65\n\n_1 near B., 1839; by 1832.\n_8 happier far]merrier yet B.\n_15 Hours or]Years and 1832.\n_17 best]most 1832.\n_19 We two will]We will 1832.\n_27 mine arm shall be thy B., 1839; thine arm shall be my 1832.\n_33 represented by asterisks, 1832.\n_34, _35 Thou art murmuring, thou art weeping,\n Whilst my burning bosom’s leaping 1832;\n Was thine icy bosom leaping\n While my burning heart was sleeping B.\n_40 frozen 1832, 1839, B.; molten cj. Forman.\n_44 be]is B.\n_47 shadows]lovers 1832, B.\n_59 which B., 1839; that 1832.\n_62 Show]Are 1832, B.\n_63 Puppets passing]Shadows shifting 1832; Shadows passing B.\n_64, _65 So B.: What but mockery may they mean?\n Where am I?—Where thou hast been 1832.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Stanzas Written In Dejection, Near Naples.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, where it is dated\n‘December, 1818.’ A draft of stanza 1 is amongst the Boscombe\nmanuscripts. (Garnett).]\n\n1.\nThe sun is warm, the sky is clear,\nThe waves are dancing fast and bright,\nBlue isles and snowy mountains wear\nThe purple noon’s transparent might,\nThe breath of the moist earth is light, _5\nAround its unexpanded buds;\nLike many a voice of one delight,\nThe winds, the birds, the ocean floods,\nThe City’s voice itself, is soft like Solitude’s.\n\n2.\nI see the Deep’s untrampled floor _10\nWith green and purple seaweeds strown;\nI see the waves upon the shore,\nLike light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:\nI sit upon the sands alone,—\nThe lightning of the noontide ocean _15\nIs flashing round me, and a tone\nArises from its measured motion,\nHow sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.\n\n3.\nAlas! I have nor hope nor health,\nNor peace within nor calm around, _20\nNor that content surpassing wealth\nThe sage in meditation found,\nAnd walked with inward glory crowned—\nNor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.\nOthers I see whom these surround— _25\nSmiling they live, and call life pleasure;—\nTo me that cup has been dealt in another measure.\n\n4.\nYet now despair itself is mild,\nEven as the winds and waters are;\nI could lie down like a tired child, _30\nAnd weep away the life of care\nWhich I have borne and yet must bear,\nTill death like sleep might steal on me,\nAnd I might feel in the warm air\nMy cheek grow cold, and hear the sea _35\nBreathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.\n\n5.\nSome might lament that I were cold,\nAs I, when this sweet day is gone,\nWhich my lost heart, too soon grown old,\nInsults with this untimely moan; _40\nThey might lament—for I am one\nWhom men love not,—and yet regret,\nUnlike this day, which, when the sun\nShall on its stainless glory set,\nWill linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. _45\n\n_4 might Boscombe manuscript, Medwin 1847; light 1824, 1839.\n_5 The...light Boscombe manuscript, 1839, Medwin 1847;\n omitted, 1824. moist earth Boscombe manuscript;\n moist air 1839; west wind Medwin 1847.\n_17 measured 1824; mingled 1847.\n_18 did any heart now 1824; if any heart could Medwin 1847.\n_31 the 1824; this Medwin 1847.\n_36 dying 1824; outworn Medwin 1847.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Woodman And The Nightingale.", + "body": "[Published in part (1-67) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824;\nthe remainder (68-70) by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nA woodman whose rough heart was out of tune\n(I think such hearts yet never came to good)\nHated to hear, under the stars or moon,\n\nOne nightingale in an interfluous wood\nSatiate the hungry dark with melody;— _5\nAnd as a vale is watered by a flood,\n\nOr as the moonlight fills the open sky\nStruggling with darkness—as a tuberose\nPeoples some Indian dell with scents which lie\n\nLike clouds above the flower from which they rose, _10\nThe singing of that happy nightingale\nIn this sweet forest, from the golden close\n\nOf evening till the star of dawn may fail,\nWas interfused upon the silentness;\nThe folded roses and the violets pale _15\n\nHeard her within their slumbers, the abyss\nOf heaven with all its planets; the dull ear\nOf the night-cradled earth; the loneliness\n\nOf the circumfluous waters,—every sphere\nAnd every flower and beam and cloud and wave, _20\nAnd every wind of the mute atmosphere,\n\nAnd every beast stretched in its rugged cave,\nAnd every bird lulled on its mossy bough,\nAnd every silver moth fresh from the grave\n\nWhich is its cradle—ever from below _25\nAspiring like one who loves too fair, too far,\nTo be consumed within the purest glow\n\nOf one serene and unapproached star,\nAs if it were a lamp of earthly light,\nUnconscious, as some human lovers are, _30\n\nItself how low, how high beyond all height\nThe heaven where it would perish!—and every form\nThat worshipped in the temple of the night\n\nWas awed into delight, and by the charm\nGirt as with an interminable zone, _35\nWhilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm\n\nOf sound, shook forth the dull oblivion\nOut of their dreams; harmony became love\nIn every soul but one.\n\n...\n\nAnd so this man returned with axe and saw _40\nAt evening close from killing the tall treen,\nThe soul of whom by Nature’s gentle law\n\nWas each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green\nThe pavement and the roof of the wild copse,\nChequering the sunlight of the blue serene _45\n\nWith jagged leaves,—and from the forest tops\nSinging the winds to sleep—or weeping oft\nFast showers of aereal water-drops\n\nInto their mother’s bosom, sweet and soft,\nNature’s pure tears which have no bitterness;— _50\nAround the cradles of the birds aloft\n\nThey spread themselves into the loveliness\nOf fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers\nHang like moist clouds:—or, where high branches kiss,\n\nMake a green space among the silent bowers, _55\nLike a vast fane in a metropolis,\nSurrounded by the columns and the towers\n\nAll overwrought with branch-like traceries\nIn which there is religion—and the mute\nPersuasion of unkindled melodies, _60\n\nOdours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute\nOf the blind pilot-spirit of the blast\nStirs as it sails, now grave and now acute,\n\nWakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed\nTo such brief unison as on the brain _65\nOne tone, which never can recur, has cast,\nOne accent never to return again.\n\n...\n\nThe world is full of Woodmen who expel\nLove’s gentle Dryads from the haunts of life,\nAnd vex the nightingales in every dell. _70", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.\nOur text is that of the “Poetical Works”, 1839.]\n\nLift not the painted veil which those who live\nCall Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,\nAnd it but mimic all we would believe\nWith colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear\nAnd Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave _5\nTheir shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.\nI knew one who had lifted it—he sought,\nFor his lost heart was tender, things to love\nBut found them not, alas! nor was there aught\nThe world contains, the which he could approve. _10\nThrough the unheeding many he did move,\nA splendour among shadows, a bright blot\nUpon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove\nFor truth, and like the Preacher found it not.\n\n_6 Their...drear 1839;\n The shadows, which the world calls substance, there 1824.\n_7 who had lifted 1839; who lifted 1824.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Apostrophe To Silence.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862. A transcript by\nMrs. Shelley, given to Charles Cowden Clarke, presents one or two\nvariants.]\n\nSilence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou\nThree brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged\nOf one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy\nAre swallowed up—yet spare me, Spirit, pity me,\nUntil the sounds I hear become my soul, _5\nAnd it has left these faint and weary limbs,\nTo track along the lapses of the air\nThis wandering melody until it rests\nAmong lone mountains in some...\n\n_4 Spirit 1862; O Spirit C.C.C. manuscript.\n_8 This wandering melody 1862;\n These wandering melodies... C.C.C. manuscript.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: The Lake’S Margin.", + "body": "[Published by W.M. Rossetti, 1870.]\n\nThe fierce beasts of the woods and wildernesses\nTrack not the steps of him who drinks of it;\nFor the light breezes, which for ever fleet\nAround its margin, heap the sand thereon.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘My Head Is Wild With Weeping’.", + "body": "[Published by W.M. Rossetti, 1870.]\n\nMy head is wild with weeping for a grief\nWhich is the shadow of a gentle mind.\nI walk into the air (but no relief\nTo seek,—or haply, if I sought, to find;\nIt came unsought);—to wonder that a chief _5\nAmong men’s spirits should be cold and blind.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: The Vine-Shroud.", + "body": "[Published by W.M. Rossetti, 1870.]\n\nFlourishing vine, whose kindling clusters glow\nBeneath the autumnal sun, none taste of thee;\nFor thou dost shroud a ruin, and below\nThe rotting bones of dead antiquity.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Poems Of 1818, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "We often hear of persons disappointed by a first visit to Italy. This\nwas not Shelley’s case. The aspect of its nature, its sunny sky, its\nmajestic storms, of the luxuriant vegetation of the country, and the\nnoble marble-built cities, enchanted him. The sight of the works of art\nwas full enjoyment and wonder. He had not studied pictures or statues\nbefore; he now did so with the eye of taste, that referred not to the\nrules of schools, but to those of Nature and truth. The first entrance\nto Rome opened to him a scene of remains of antique grandeur that far\nsurpassed his expectations; and the unspeakable beauty of Naples and\nits environs added to the impression he received of the transcendent\nand glorious beauty of Italy.\n\nOur winter was spent at Naples. Here he wrote the fragments of\n“Marenghi” and “The Woodman and the Nightingale”, which he afterwards\nthrew aside. At this time, Shelley suffered greatly in health. He put\nhimself under the care of a medical man, who promised great things, and\nmade him endure severe bodily pain, without any good results. Constant\nand poignant physical suffering exhausted him; and though he preserved\nthe appearance of cheerfulness, and often greatly enjoyed our\nwanderings in the environs of Naples, and our excursions on its sunny\nsea, yet many hours were passed when his thoughts, shadowed by illness,\nbecame gloomy,—and then he escaped to solitude, and in verses, which\nhe hid from fear of wounding me, poured forth morbid but too natural\nbursts of discontent and sadness. One looks back with unspeakable\nregret and gnawing remorse to such periods; fancying that, had one been\nmore alive to the nature of his feelings, and more attentive to soothe\nthem, such would not have existed. And yet, enjoying as he appeared to\ndo every sight or influence of earth or sky, it was difficult to\nimagine that any melancholy he showed was aught but the effect of the\nconstant pain to which he was a martyr.\n\nWe lived in utter solitude. And such is often not the nurse of\ncheerfulness; for then, at least with those who have been exposed to\nadversity, the mind broods over its sorrows too intently; while the\nsociety of the enlightened, the witty, and the wise, enables us to\nforget ourselves by making us the sharers of the thoughts of others,\nwhich is a portion of the philosophy of happiness. Shelley never liked\nsociety in numbers,—it harassed and wearied him; but neither did he\nlike loneliness, and usually, when alone, sheltered himself against\nmemory and reflection in a book. But, with one or two whom he loved, he\ngave way to wild and joyous spirits, or in more serious conversation\nexpounded his opinions with vivacity and eloquence. If an argument\narose, no man ever argued better. He was clear, logical, and earnest,\nin supporting his own views; attentive, patient, and impartial, while\nlistening to those on the adverse side. Had not a wall of prejudice\nbeen raised at this time between him and his countrymen, how many would\nhave sought the acquaintance of one whom to know was to love and to\nrevere! How many of the more enlightened of his contemporaries have\nsince regretted that they did not seek him! how very few knew his worth\nwhile he lived! and, of those few, several were withheld by timidity or\nenvy from declaring their sense of it. But no man was ever more\nenthusiastically loved—more looked up to, as one superior to his\nfellows in intellectual endowments and moral worth, by the few who knew\nhim well, and had sufficient nobleness of soul to appreciate his\nsuperiority. His excellence is now acknowledged; but, even while\nadmitted, not duly appreciated. For who, except those who were\nacquainted with him, can imagine his unwearied benevolence, his\ngenerosity, his systematic forbearance? And still less is his vast\nsuperiority in intellectual attainments sufficiently understood—his\nsagacity, his clear understanding, his learning, his prodigious memory.\nAll these as displayed in conversation, were known to few while he\nlived, and are now silent in the tomb:\n\n‘Ahi orbo mondo ingrato!\nGran cagion hai di dever pianger meco;\nChe quel ben ch’ era in te, perdut’ hai seco.’\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Written During The Castlereagh Administration.", + "body": "[Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, December 8, 1832; reprinted,\n“Poetical Works”, 1839. There is a transcript amongst the Harvard\nmanuscripts, and another in the possession of Mr. C.W. Frederickson of\nBrooklyn. Variants from these two sources are given by Professor\nWoodberry, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, Centenary Edition,\n1893, volume 3 pages 225, 226. The transcripts are referred to in our\nfootnotes as Harvard and Fred. respectively.]\n\n1.\nCorpses are cold in the tomb;\nStones on the pavement are dumb;\nAbortions are dead in the womb,\nAnd their mothers look pale—like the death-white shore\nOf Albion, free no more. _5\n\n2.\nHer sons are as stones in the way—\nThey are masses of senseless clay—\nThey are trodden, and move not away,—\nThe abortion with which SHE travaileth\nIs Liberty, smitten to death. _10\n\n3.\nThen trample and dance, thou Oppressor!\nFor thy victim is no redresser;\nThou art sole lord and possessor\nOf her corpses, and clods, and abortions—they pave\nThy path to the grave. _15\n\n4.\nHearest thou the festival din\nOf Death, and Destruction, and Sin,\nAnd Wealth crying “Havoc!” within?\n’Tis the bacchanal triumph that makes Truth dumb,\nThine Epithalamium. _20\n\n5.\nAy, marry thy ghastly wife!\nLet Fear and Disquiet and Strife\nSpread thy couch in the chamber of Life!\nMarry Ruin, thou Tyrant! and Hell be thy guide\nTo the bed of the bride! _25\n\n_4 death-white Harvard, Fred.; white 1832, 1839.\n_16 festival Harvard, Fred., 1839; festal 1832.\n_19 that Fred.; which Harvard 1832.\n_22 Disquiet Harvard, Fred., 1839; Disgust 1832.\n_24 Hell Fred.; God Harvard, 1832, 1839.\n_25 the bride Harvard, Fred., 1839; thy bride 1832.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Song To The Men Of England.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\n1.\nMen of England, wherefore plough\nFor the lords who lay ye low?\nWherefore weave with toil and care\nThe rich robes your tyrants wear?\n\n2.\nWherefore feed, and clothe, and save, _5\nFrom the cradle to the grave,\nThose ungrateful drones who would\nDrain your sweat—nay, drink your blood?\n\n3.\nWherefore, Bees of England, forge\nMany a weapon, chain, and scourge, _10\nThat these stingless drones may spoil\nThe forced produce of your toil?\n\n4.\nHave ye leisure, comfort, calm,\nShelter, food, love’s gentle balm?\nOr what is it ye buy so dear _15\nWith your pain and with your fear?\n\n5.\nThe seed ye sow, another reaps;\nThe wealth ye find, another keeps;\nThe robes ye weave, another wears;\nThe arms ye forge; another bears. _20\n\n6.\nSow seed,—but let no tyrant reap;\nFind wealth,—let no impostor heap;\nWeave robes,—let not the idle wear;\nForge arms,—in your defence to bear.\n\n7.\nShrink to your cellars, holes, and cells; _25\nIn halls ye deck another dwells.\nWhy shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see\nThe steel ye tempered glance on ye.\n\n8.\nWith plough and spade, and hoe and loom,\nTrace your grave, and build your tomb, _30\nAnd weave your winding-sheet, till fair\nEngland be your sepulchre.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Similes For Two Political Characters Of 1819.", + "body": "[Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, August 25, 1832; reprinted by\nMrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839. Our title is that of 1839, 2nd\nedition. The poem is found amongst the Harvard manuscripts, headed “To\nS—th and O—gh”.]\n\n1.\nAs from an ancestral oak\nTwo empty ravens sound their clarion,\nYell by yell, and croak by croak,\nWhen they scent the noonday smoke\nOf fresh human carrion:— _5\n\n2.\nAs two gibbering night-birds flit\nFrom their bowers of deadly yew\nThrough the night to frighten it,\nWhen the moon is in a fit,\nAnd the stars are none, or few:— _10\n\n3.\nAs a shark and dog-fish wait\nUnder an Atlantic isle,\nFor the negro-ship, whose freight\nIs the theme of their debate,\nWrinkling their red gills the while— _15\n\n4.\nAre ye, two vultures sick for battle,\nTwo scorpions under one wet stone,\nTwo bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle,\nTwo crows perched on the murrained cattle,\nTwo vipers tangled into one. _20", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: To The People Of England.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nPeople of England, ye who toil and groan,\nWho reap the harvests which are not your own,\nWho weave the clothes which your oppressors wear,\nAnd for your own take the inclement air;\nWho build warm houses... _5\nAnd are like gods who give them all they have,\nAnd nurse them from the cradle to the grave...\n\n...\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘What Men Gain Fairly’.", + "body": "(Perhaps connected with that immediately preceding (Forman).—ED.)\n\n[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\nWhat men gain fairly—that they should possess,\nAnd children may inherit idleness,\nFrom him who earns it—This is understood;\nPrivate injustice may be general good.\nBut he who gains by base and armed wrong, _5\nOr guilty fraud, or base compliances,\nMay be despoiled; even as a stolen dress\nIs stripped from a convicted thief; and he\nLeft in the nakedness of infamy.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A New National Anthem.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\n1.\nGod prosper, speed, and save,\nGod raise from England’s grave\nHer murdered Queen!\nPave with swift victory\nThe steps of Liberty, _5\nWhom Britons own to be\nImmortal Queen.\n\n2.\nSee, she comes throned on high,\nOn swift Eternity!\nGod save the Queen! _10\nMillions on millions wait,\nFirm, rapid, and elate,\nOn her majestic state!\nGod save the Queen!\n\n3.\nShe is Thine own pure soul _15\nMoulding the mighty whole,—\nGod save the Queen!\nShe is Thine own deep love\nRained down from Heaven above,—\nWherever she rest or move, _20\nGod save our Queen!\n\n4.\n‘Wilder her enemies\nIn their own dark disguise,—\nGod save our Queen!\nAll earthly things that dare _25\nHer sacred name to bear,\nStrip them, as kings are, bare;\nGod save the Queen!\n\n5.\nBe her eternal throne\nBuilt in our hearts alone— _30\nGod save the Queen!\nLet the oppressor hold\nCanopied seats of gold;\nShe sits enthroned of old\nO’er our hearts Queen. _35\n\n6.\nLips touched by seraphim\nBreathe out the choral hymn\n‘God save the Queen!’\nSweet as if angels sang,\nLoud as that trumpet’s clang _40\nWakening the world’s dead gang,—\nGod save the Queen!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet: England In 1819.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nAn old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,—\nPrinces, the dregs of their dull race, who flow\nThrough public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring,—\nRulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,\nBut leech-like to their fainting country cling, _5\nTill they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,—\nA people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,—\nAn army, which liberticide and prey\nMakes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,—\nGolden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; _10\nReligion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;\nA Senate,—Time’s worst statute, unrepealed,—\nAre graves from which a glorious Phantom may\nBurst, to illumine our tempestuous day.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "An Ode, Written October, 1819,", + "body": "BEFORE THE SPANIARDS HAD RECOVERED THEIR LIBERTY.\n\n[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.]\n\nArise, arise, arise!\nThere is blood on the earth that denies ye bread;\nBe your wounds like eyes\nTo weep for the dead, the dead, the dead.\nWhat other grief were it just to pay? _5\nYour sons, your wives, your brethren, were they;\nWho said they were slain on the battle day?\n\nAwaken, awaken, awaken!\nThe slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes;\nBe the cold chains shaken _10\nTo the dust where your kindred repose, repose:\nTheir bones in the grave will start and move,\nWhen they hear the voices of those they love,\nMost loud in the holy combat above.\n\nWave, wave high the banner! _15\nWhen Freedom is riding to conquest by:\nThough the slaves that fan her\nBe Famine and Toil, giving sigh for sigh.\nAnd ye who attend her imperial car,\nLift not your hands in the banded war, _20\nBut in her defence whose children ye are.\n\nGlory, glory, glory,\nTo those who have greatly suffered and done!\nNever name in story\nWas greater than that which ye shall have won. _25\nConquerors have conquered their foes alone,\nWhose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrown\nRide ye, more victorious, over your own.\n\nBind, bind every brow\nWith crownals of violet, ivy, and pine: _30\nHide the blood-stains now\nWith hues which sweet Nature has made divine:\nGreen strength, azure hope, and eternity:\nBut let not the pansy among them be;\nYe were injured, and that means memory. _35\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cancelled Stanza.", + "body": "[Published in “The Times” (Rossetti).]\n\nGather, O gather,\nFoeman and friend in love and peace!\nWaves sleep together\nWhen the blasts that called them to battle, cease.\nFor fangless Power grown tame and mild _5\nIs at play with Freedom’s fearless child—\nThe dove and the serpent reconciled!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ode To Heaven.", + "body": "[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820. Dated ‘Florence, December,\n1819’ in Harvard manuscript (Woodberry). A transcript exists amongst\nthe Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s\n“Examination”, etc., page 39.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "First Spirit:", + "body": "Palace-roof of cloudless nights!\nParadise of golden lights!\nDeep, immeasurable, vast,\nWhich art now, and which wert then\nOf the Present and the Past, _5\nOf the eternal Where and When,\nPresence-chamber, temple, home,\nEver-canopying dome,\nOf acts and ages yet to come!\n\nGlorious shapes have life in thee, _10\nEarth, and all earth’s company;\nLiving globes which ever throng\nThy deep chasms and wildernesses;\nAnd green worlds that glide along;\nAnd swift stars with flashing tresses; _15\nAnd icy moons most cold and bright,\nAnd mighty suns beyond the night,\nAtoms of intensest light.\n\nEven thy name is as a god,\nHeaven! for thou art the abode _20\nOf that Power which is the glass\nWherein man his nature sees.\nGenerations as they pass\nWorship thee with bended knees.\nTheir unremaining gods and they _25\nLike a river roll away:\nThou remainest such—alway!—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Spirit:", + "body": "Thou art but the mind’s first chamber,\nRound which its young fancies clamber,\nLike weak insects in a cave, _30\nLighted up by stalactites;\nBut the portal of the grave,\nWhere a world of new delights\nWill make thy best glories seem\nBut a dim and noonday gleam _35\nFrom the shadow of a dream!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Third Spirit:", + "body": "Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn\nAt your presumption, atom-born!\nWhat is Heaven? and what are ye\nWho its brief expanse inherit? _40\nWhat are suns and spheres which flee\nWith the instinct of that Spirit\nOf which ye are but a part?\nDrops which Nature’s mighty heart\nDrives through thinnest veins! Depart! _45\n\nWhat is Heaven? a globe of dew,\nFilling in the morning new\nSome eyed flower whose young leaves waken\nOn an unimagined world:\nConstellated suns unshaken, _50\nOrbits measureless, are furled\nIn that frail and fading sphere,\nWith ten millions gathered there,\nTo tremble, gleam, and disappear.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cancelled Fragments Of The Ode To Heaven.", + "body": "[Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.]\n\nThe [living frame which sustains my soul]\nIs [sinking beneath the fierce control]\nDown through the lampless deep of song\nI am drawn and driven along—\n\nWhen a Nation screams aloud _5\nLike an eagle from the cloud\nWhen a...\n\n...\n\nWhen the night...\n\n...\n\nWatch the look askance and old—\nSee neglect, and falsehood fold... _10\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ode To The West Wind.", + "body": "(This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the\nArno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose\ntemperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours\nwhich pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset\nwith a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent\nthunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.\n\nThe phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well\nknown to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of\nrivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change\nof seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce\nit.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.]\n\n1.\nO wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,\nThou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead\nAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,\n\nYellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,\nPestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, _5\nWho chariotest to their dark wintry bed\n\nThe winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,\nEach like a corpse within its grave, until\nThine azure sister of the Spring shall blow\n\nHer clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill _10\n(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)\nWith living hues and odours plain and hill:\n\nWild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;\nDestroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!\n\n2.\nThou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion, _15\nLoose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,\nShook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,\n\nAngels of rain and lightning: there are spread\nOn the blue surface of thine aery surge,\nLike the bright hair uplifted from the head _20\n\nOf some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge\nOf the horizon to the zenith’s height,\nThe locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge\n\nOf the dying year, to which this closing night\nWill be the dome of a vast sepulchre, _25\nVaulted with all thy congregated might\n\nOf vapours, from whose solid atmosphere\nBlack rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!\n\n3.\nThou who didst waken from his summer dreams\nThe blue Mediterranean, where he lay, _30\nLulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,\n\nBeside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,\nAnd saw in sleep old palaces and towers\nQuivering within the wave’s intenser day,\n\nAll overgrown with azure moss and flowers _35\nSo sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou\nFor whose path the Atlantic’s level powers\n\nCleave themselves into chasms, while far below\nThe sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear\nThe sapless foliage of the ocean, know _40\n\nThy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,\nAnd tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!\n\n4.\nIf I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;\nIf I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;\nA wave to pant beneath thy power, and share _45\n\nThe impulse of thy strength, only less free\nThan thou, O uncontrollable! If even\nI were as in my boyhood, and could be\n\nThe comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,\nAs then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed _50\nScarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven\n\nAs thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.\nOh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!\nI fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!\n\nA heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed _55\nOne too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.\n\n5.\nMake me thy lyre, even as the forest is:\nWhat if my leaves are falling like its own!\nThe tumult of thy mighty harmonies\n\nWill take from both a deep, autumnal tone, _60\nSweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,\nMy spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!\n\nDrive my dead thoughts over the universe\nLike withered leaves to quicken a new birth!\nAnd, by the incantation of this verse, _65\n\nScatter, as from an unextinguished hearth\nAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!\nBe through my lips to unawakened earth\n\nThe trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,\nIf Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? _70\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "An Exhortation.", + "body": "[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820. Dated ‘Pisa, April, 1820’\nin Harvard manuscript (Woodberry), but assigned by Mrs. Shelley to\n1819.]\n\nChameleons feed on light and air:\nPoets’ food is love and fame:\nIf in this wide world of care\nPoets could but find the same\nWith as little toil as they, _5\nWould they ever change their hue\nAs the light chameleons do,\nSuiting it to every ray\nTwenty times a day?\n\nPoets are on this cold earth, _10\nAs chameleons might be,\nHidden from their early birth\nin a cave beneath the sea;\nWhere light is, chameleons change:\nWhere love is not, poets do: _15\nFame is love disguised: if few\nFind either, never think it strange\nThat poets range.\n\nYet dare not stain with wealth or power\nA poet’s free and heavenly mind: _20\nIf bright chameleons should devour\nAny food but beams and wind,\nThey would grow as earthly soon\nAs their brother lizards are.\nChildren of a sunnier star, _25\nSpirits from beyond the moon,\nOh, refuse the boon!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Indian Serenade.", + "body": "[Published, with the title, “Song written for an Indian Air”, in “The\nLiberal”, 2, 1822. Reprinted (“Lines to an Indian Air”) by Mrs.\nShelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. The poem is included in the Harvard\nmanuscript book, and there is a description by Robert Browning of an\nautograph copy presenting some variations from the text of 1824. See\nLeigh Hunt’s “Correspondence”, 2, pages 264-8.]\n\n1.\nI arise from dreams of thee\nIn the first sweet sleep of night,\nWhen the winds are breathing low,\nAnd the stars are shining bright:\nI arise from dreams of thee, _5\nAnd a spirit in my feet\nHath led me—who knows how?\nTo thy chamber window, Sweet!\n\n2.\nThe wandering airs they faint\nOn the dark, the silent stream— _10\nThe Champak odours fail\nLike sweet thoughts in a dream;\nThe nightingale’s complaint,\nIt dies upon her heart;—\nAs I must on thine, _15\nOh, beloved as thou art!\n\n3.\nOh lift me from the grass!\nI die! I faint! I fail!\nLet thy love in kisses rain\nOn my lips and eyelids pale. _20\nMy cheek is cold and white, alas!\nMy heart beats loud and fast;—\nOh! press it to thine own again,\nWhere it will break at last.\n\n_3 Harvard manuscript omits When.\n_4 shining]burning Harvard manuscript, 1822.\n_7 Hath led Browning manuscript, 1822;\n Has borne Harvard manuscript; Has led 1824.\n_11 The Champak Harvard manuscript, 1822, 1824;\n And the Champak’s Browning manuscript.\n_15 As I must on 1822, 1824;\n As I must die on Harvard manuscript, 1839, 1st edition.\n_16 Oh, beloved Browning manuscript, Harvard manuscript, 1839, 1st edition;\n Beloved 1822, 1824.\n_23 press it to thine own Browning manuscript;\n press it close to thine Harvard manuscript, 1824, 1839, 1st edition;\n press me to thine own, 1822.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "On The Medusa Of Leonardo Da Vinci In The Florentine Gallery.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nIt lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,\nUpon the cloudy mountain-peak supine;\nBelow, far lands are seen tremblingly;\nIts horror and its beauty are divine.\nUpon its lips and eyelids seems to lie _5\nLoveliness like a shadow, from which shine,\nFiery and lurid, struggling underneath,\nThe agonies of anguish and of death.\n\n2.\nYet it is less the horror than the grace\nWhich turns the gazer’s spirit into stone, _10\nWhereon the lineaments of that dead face\nAre graven, till the characters be grown\nInto itself, and thought no more can trace;\n’Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown\nAthwart the darkness and the glare of pain,\nWhich humanize and harmonize the strain. _15\n\n3.\nAnd from its head as from one body grow,\nAs ... grass out of a watery rock,\nHairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow\nAnd their long tangles in each other lock, _20\nAnd with unending involutions show\nTheir mailed radiance, as it were to mock\nThe torture and the death within, and saw\nThe solid air with many a ragged jaw.\n\n4.\nAnd, from a stone beside, a poisonous eft _25\nPeeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes;\nWhilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft\nOf sense, has flitted with a mad surprise\nOut of the cave this hideous light had cleft,\nAnd he comes hastening like a moth that hies _30\nAfter a taper; and the midnight sky\nFlares, a light more dread than obscurity.\n\n5.\n’Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror;\nFor from the serpents gleams a brazen glare\nKindled by that inextricable error, _35\nWhich makes a thrilling vapour of the air\nBecome a ... and ever-shifting mirror\nOf all the beauty and the terror there—\nA woman’s countenance, with serpent-locks,\nGazing in death on Heaven from those wet rocks. _40\n\n_5 seems 1839; seem 1824.\n_6 shine]shrine 1824, 1839.\n_26 those 1824; these 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Love’S Philosophy.", + "body": "[Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Indicator”, December 22, 1819. Reprinted\nby Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Included in the Harvard\nmanuscript book, where it is headed “An Anacreontic”, and dated\n‘January, 1820.’ Written by Shelley in a copy of Hunt’s “Literary\nPocket-Book”, 1819, and presented to Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820.]\n\n1.\nThe fountains mingle with the river\nAnd the rivers with the Ocean,\nThe winds of Heaven mix for ever\nWith a sweet emotion;\nNothing in the world is single; _5\nAll things by a law divine\nIn one spirit meet and mingle.\nWhy not I with thine?—\n\n2.\nSee the mountains kiss high Heaven\nAnd the waves clasp one another; _10\nNo sister-flower would be forgiven\nIf it disdained its brother;\nAnd the sunlight clasps the earth\nAnd the moonbeams kiss the sea:\nWhat is all this sweet work worth _15\nIf thou kiss not me?\n\n_3 mix for ever 1819, Stacey manuscript;\n meet together, Harvard manuscript.\n_7 In one spirit meet and Stacey manuscript;\n In one another’s being 1819, Harvard manuscript.\n_11 No sister 1824, Harvard and Stacey manuscripts; No leaf or 1819.\n_12 disdained its 1824, Harvard and Stacey manuscripts;\n disdained to kiss its 1819.\n_15 is all this sweet work Stacey manuscript;\n were these examples Harvard manuscript;\n are all these kissings 1819, 1824.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘Follow To The Deep Wood’S Weeds’.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nFollow to the deep wood’s weeds,\nFollow to the wild-briar dingle,\nWhere we seek to intermingle,\nAnd the violet tells her tale\nTo the odour-scented gale, _5\nFor they two have enough to do\nOf such work as I and you.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Birth Of Pleasure.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nAt the creation of the Earth\nPleasure, that divinest birth,\nFrom the soil of Heaven did rise,\nWrapped in sweet wild melodies—\nLike an exhalation wreathing _5\nTo the sound of air low-breathing\nThrough Aeolian pines, which make\nA shade and shelter to the lake\nWhence it rises soft and slow;\nHer life-breathing [limbs] did flow _10\nIn the harmony divine\nOf an ever-lengthening line\nWhich enwrapped her perfect form\nWith a beauty clear and warm.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Love The Universe To-Day.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nAnd who feels discord now or sorrow?\nLove is the universe to-day—\nThese are the slaves of dim to-morrow,\nDarkening Life’s labyrinthine way.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘A Gentle Story Of Two Lovers Young’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\nA gentle story of two lovers young,\nWho met in innocence and died in sorrow,\nAnd of one selfish heart, whose rancour clung\nLike curses on them; are ye slow to borrow\nThe lore of truth from such a tale? _5\nOr in this world’s deserted vale,\nDo ye not see a star of gladness\nPierce the shadows of its sadness,—\nWhen ye are cold, that love is a light sent\nFrom Heaven, which none shall quench, to cheer the innocent? _10", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Love’S Tender Atmosphere.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\nThere is a warm and gentle atmosphere\nAbout the form of one we love, and thus\nAs in a tender mist our spirits are\nWrapped in the ... of that which is to us\nThe health of life’s own life— _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Wedded Souls.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nI am as a spirit who has dwelt\nWithin his heart of hearts, and I have felt\nHis feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known\nThe inmost converse of his soul, the tone\nUnheard but in the silence of his blood, _5\nWhen all the pulses in their multitude\nImage the trembling calm of summer seas.\nI have unlocked the golden melodies\nOf his deep soul, as with a master-key,\nAnd loosened them and bathed myself therein— _10\nEven as an eagle in a thunder-mist\nClothing his wings with lightning.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘Is It That In Some Brighter Sphere’.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nIs it that in some brighter sphere\nWe part from friends we meet with here?\nOr do we see the Future pass\nOver the Present’s dusky glass?\nOr what is that that makes us seem _5\nTo patch up fragments of a dream,\nPart of which comes true, and part\nBeats and trembles in the heart?\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Sufficient Unto The Day.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nIs not to-day enough? Why do I peer\nInto the darkness of the day to come?\nIs not to-morrow even as yesterday?\nAnd will the day that follows change thy doom?\nFew flowers grow upon thy wintry way; _5\nAnd who waits for thee in that cheerless home\nWhence thou hast fled, whither thou must return\nCharged with the load that makes thee faint and mourn?\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘Ye Gentle Visitations Of Calm Thought’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nYe gentle visitations of calm thought—\nMoods like the memories of happier earth,\nWhich come arrayed in thoughts of little worth,\nLike stars in clouds by the weak winds enwrought,—\nBut that the clouds depart and stars remain, _5\nWhile they remain, and ye, alas, depart!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Music And Sweet Poetry.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\nHow sweet it is to sit and read the tales\nOf mighty poets and to hear the while\nSweet music, which when the attention fails\nFills the dim pause—\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: The Sepulchre Of Memory.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nAnd where is truth? On tombs? for such to thee\nHas been my heart—and thy dead memory\nHas lain from childhood, many a changeful year,\nUnchangingly preserved and buried there.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘When A Lover Clasps His Fairest’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\n1.\nWhen a lover clasps his fairest,\nThen be our dread sport the rarest.\nTheir caresses were like the chaff\nIn the tempest, and be our laugh\nHis despair—her epitaph! _5\n\n2.\nWhen a mother clasps her child,\nWatch till dusty Death has piled\nHis cold ashes on the clay;\nShe has loved it many a day—\nShe remains,—it fades away. _10\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘Wake The Serpent Not’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\nWake the serpent not—lest he\nShould not know the way to go,—\nLet him crawl which yet lies sleeping\nThrough the deep grass of the meadow!\nNot a bee shall hear him creeping, _5\nNot a may-fly shall awaken\nFrom its cradling blue-bell shaken,\nNot the starlight as he’s sliding\nThrough the grass with silent gliding.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Rain.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\nThe fitful alternations of the rain,\nWhen the chill wind, languid as with pain\nOf its own heavy moisture, here and there\nDrives through the gray and beamless atmosphere.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: A Tale Untold.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\nOne sung of thee who left the tale untold,\nLike the false dawns which perish in the bursting;\nLike empty cups of wrought and daedal gold,\nWhich mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: To Italy.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nAs the sunrise to the night,\nAs the north wind to the clouds,\nAs the earthquake’s fiery flight,\nRuining mountain solitudes,\nEverlasting Italy, _5\nBe those hopes and fears on thee.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Wine Of The Fairies.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nI am drunk with the honey wine\nOf the moon-unfolded eglantine,\nWhich fairies catch in hyacinth bowls.\nThe bats, the dormice, and the moles\nSleep in the walls or under the sward _5\nOf the desolate castle yard;\nAnd when ’tis spilt on the summer earth\nOr its fumes arise among the dew,\nTheir jocund dreams are full of mirth,\nThey gibber their joy in sleep; for few _10\nOf the fairies bear those bowls so new!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: A Roman’S Chamber.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\n1.\nIn the cave which wild weeds cover\nWait for thine aethereal lover;\nFor the pallid moon is waning,\nO’er the spiral cypress hanging\nAnd the moon no cloud is staining. _5\n\n2.\nIt was once a Roman’s chamber,\nWhere he kept his darkest revels,\nAnd the wild weeds twine and clamber;\nIt was then a chasm for devils.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "(“Prometheus Unbound”, Act 4.)", + "body": "As a violet’s gentle eye\nGazes on the azure sky\nUntil its hue grows like what it beholds;\nAs a gray and empty mist\nLies like solid amethyst _5\nOver the western mountain it enfolds,\nWhen the sunset sleeps\nUpon its snow;\nAs a strain of sweetest sound\nWraps itself the wind around _10\nUntil the voiceless wind be music too;\nAs aught dark, vain, and dull,\nBasking in what is beautiful,\nIs full of light and love—\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Poems Of 1819, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "Shelley loved the People; and respected them as often more virtuous, as\nalways more suffering, and therefore more deserving of sympathy, than\nthe great. He believed that a clash between the two classes of society\nwas inevitable, and he eagerly ranged himself on the people’s side. He\nhad an idea of publishing a series of poems adapted expressly to\ncommemorate their circumstances and wrongs. He wrote a few; but, in\nthose days of prosecution for libel, they could not be printed. They\nare not among the best of his productions, a writer being always\nshackled when he endeavours to write down to the comprehension of those\nwho could not understand or feel a highly imaginative style; but they\nshow his earnestness, and with what heart-felt compassion he went home\nto the direct point of injury—that oppression is detestable as being\nthe parent of starvation, nakedness, and ignorance. Besides these\noutpourings of compassion and indignation, he had meant to adorn the\ncause he loved with loftier poetry of glory and triumph: such is the\nscope of the “Ode to the Assertors of Liberty”. He sketched also a new\nversion of our national anthem, as addressed to Liberty.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Sensitive Plant.", + "body": "[Composed at Pisa, early in 1820 (dated ‘March, 1820,’ in Harvard\nmanuscript), and published, with “Prometheus Unbound”, the same year:\nincluded in the Harvard College manuscript book. Reprinted in the\n“Poetical Works”, 1839, both editions.]\n\nPART 1.\n\nA Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,\nAnd the young winds fed it with silver dew,\nAnd it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.\nAnd closed them beneath the kisses of Night.\n\nAnd the Spring arose on the garden fair, _5\nLike the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;\nAnd each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast\nRose from the dreams of its wintry rest.\n\nBut none ever trembled and panted with bliss\nIn the garden, the field, or the wilderness, _10\nLike a doe in the noontide with love’s sweet want,\nAs the companionless Sensitive Plant.\n\nThe snowdrop, and then the violet,\nArose from the ground with warm rain wet,\nAnd their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent _15\nFrom the turf, like the voice and the instrument.\n\nThen the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,\nAnd narcissi, the fairest among them all,\nWho gaze on their eyes in the stream’s recess,\nTill they die of their own dear loveliness; _20\n\nAnd the Naiad-like lily of the vale,\nWhom youth makes so fair and passion so pale\nThat the light of its tremulous bells is seen\nThrough their pavilions of tender green;\n\nAnd the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, _25\nWhich flung from its bells a sweet peal anew\nOf music so delicate, soft, and intense,\nIt was felt like an odour within the sense;\n\nAnd the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed,\nWhich unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, _30\nTill, fold after fold, to the fainting air\nThe soul of her beauty and love lay bare:\n\nAnd the wand-like lily, which lifted up,\nAs a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup,\nTill the fiery star, which is its eye,\nGazed through clear dew on the tender sky; _35\n\nAnd the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,\nThe sweetest flower for scent that blows;\nAnd all rare blossoms from every clime\nGrew in that garden in perfect prime. _40\n\nAnd on the stream whose inconstant bosom\nWas pranked, under boughs of embowering blossom,\nWith golden and green light, slanting through\nTheir heaven of many a tangled hue,\n\nBroad water-lilies lay tremulously, _45\nAnd starry river-buds glimmered by,\nAnd around them the soft stream did glide and dance\nWith a motion of sweet sound and radiance.\n\nAnd the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss,\nWhich led through the garden along and across, _50\nSome open at once to the sun and the breeze,\nSome lost among bowers of blossoming trees,\n\nWere all paved with daisies and delicate bells\nAs fair as the fabulous asphodels,\nAnd flow’rets which, drooping as day drooped too, _55\nFell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue,\nTo roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.\n\nAnd from this undefiled Paradise\nThe flowers (as an infant’s awakening eyes\nSmile on its mother, whose singing sweet _60\nCan first lull, and at last must awaken it),\n\nWhen Heaven’s blithe winds had unfolded them,\nAs mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem,\nShone smiling to Heaven, and every one _65\nShared joy in the light of the gentle sun;\n\nFor each one was interpenetrated\nWith the light and the odour its neighbour shed,\nLike young lovers whom youth and love make dear\nWrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere.\n\nBut the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit _70\nOf the love which it felt from the leaf to the root,\nReceived more than all, it loved more than ever,\nWhere none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,—\n\nFor the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower;\nRadiance and odour are not its dower; _75\nIt loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full,\nIt desires what it has not, the Beautiful!\n\nThe light winds which from unsustaining wings\nShed the music of many murmurings;\nThe beams which dart from many a star _80\nOf the flowers whose hues they bear afar;\n\nThe plumed insects swift and free,\nLike golden boats on a sunny sea,\nLaden with light and odour, which pass\nOver the gleam of the living grass; _85\n\nThe unseen clouds of the dew, which lie\nLike fire in the flowers till the sun rides high,\nThen wander like spirits among the spheres,\nEach cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;\n\nThe quivering vapours of dim noontide, _90\nWhich like a sea o’er the warm earth glide,\nIn which every sound, and odour, and beam,\nMove, as reeds in a single stream;\n\nEach and all like ministering angels were\nFor the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, _95\nWhilst the lagging hours of the day went by\nLike windless clouds o’er a tender sky.\n\nAnd when evening descended from Heaven above,\nAnd the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love,\nAnd delight, though less bright, was far more deep, _100\nAnd the day’s veil fell from the world of sleep,\n\nAnd the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned\nIn an ocean of dreams without a sound;\nWhose waves never mark, though they ever impress\nThe light sand which paves it, consciousness; _105\n\n(Only overhead the sweet nightingale\nEver sang more sweet as the day might fail,\nAnd snatches of its Elysian chant\nWere mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant);—\n\nThe Sensitive Plant was the earliest _110\nUpgathered into the bosom of rest;\nA sweet child weary of its delight,\nThe feeblest and yet the favourite,\nCradled within the embrace of Night.\n\n_6 Like the Spirit of Love felt 1820;\n And the Spirit of Love felt 1839, 1st edition;\n And the Spirit of Love fell 1839, 2nd edition.\n_49 and of moss]and moss Harvard manuscript.\n_82 The]And the Harvard manuscript.\n\n\nPART 2.\n\nThere was a Power in this sweet place,\nAn Eve in this Eden; a ruling Grace\nWhich to the flowers, did they waken or dream,\nWas as God is to the starry scheme.\n\nA Lady, the wonder of her kind, _5\nWhose form was upborne by a lovely mind\nWhich, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion\nLike a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean,\n\nTended the garden from morn to even:\nAnd the meteors of that sublunar Heaven, _10\nLike the lamps of the air when Night walks forth,\nLaughed round her footsteps up from the Earth!\n\nShe had no companion of mortal race,\nBut her tremulous breath and her flushing face\nTold, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, _15\nThat her dreams were less slumber than Paradise:\n\nAs if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake\nHad deserted Heaven while the stars were awake,\nAs if yet around her he lingering were,\nThough the veil of daylight concealed him from her. _20\n\nHer step seemed to pity the grass it pressed;\nYou might hear by the heaving of her breast,\nThat the coming and going of the wind\nBrought pleasure there and left passion behind.\n\nAnd wherever her aery footstep trod, _25\nHer trailing hair from the grassy sod\nErased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep,\nLike a sunny storm o’er the dark green deep.\n\nI doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet\nRejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet; _30\nI doubt not they felt the spirit that came\nFrom her glowing fingers through all their frame.\n\nShe sprinkled bright water from the stream\nOn those that were faint with the sunny beam;\nAnd out of the cups of the heavy flowers _35\nShe emptied the rain of the thunder-showers.\n\nShe lifted their heads with her tender hands,\nAnd sustained them with rods and osier-bands;\nIf the flowers had been her own infants, she\nCould never have nursed them more tenderly. _40\n\nAnd all killing insects and gnawing worms,\nAnd things of obscene and unlovely forms,\nShe bore, in a basket of Indian woof,\nInto the rough woods far aloof,—\n\nIn a basket, of grasses and wild-flowers full, _45\nThe freshest her gentle hands could pull\nFor the poor banished insects, whose intent,\nAlthough they did ill, was innocent.\n\nBut the bee and the beamlike ephemeris\nWhose path is the lightning’s, and soft moths that kiss _50\nThe sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she\nMake her attendant angels be.\n\nAnd many an antenatal tomb,\nWhere butterflies dream of the life to come,\nShe left clinging round the smooth and dark _55\nEdge of the odorous cedar bark.\n\nThis fairest creature from earliest Spring\nThus moved through the garden ministering\nMid the sweet season of Summertide,\nAnd ere the first leaf looked brown—she died! _60\n\n_15 morn Harvard manuscript, 1839; moon 1820.\n_23 and going 1820; and the going Harvard manuscript, 1839.\n_59 All 1820, 1839; Through all Harvard manuscript.\n\nPART 3.\n\nThree days the flowers of the garden fair,\nLike stars when the moon is awakened, were,\nOr the waves of Baiae, ere luminous\nShe floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius.\n\nAnd on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant _5\nFelt the sound of the funeral chant,\nAnd the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow,\nAnd the sobs of the mourners, deep and low;\n\nThe weary sound and the heavy breath,\nAnd the silent motions of passing death, _10\nAnd the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank,\nSent through the pores of the coffin-plank;\n\nThe dark grass, and the flowers among the grass,\nWere bright with tears as the crowd did pass;\nFrom their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, _15\nAnd sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan.\n\nThe garden, once fair, became cold and foul,\nLike the corpse of her who had been its soul,\nWhich at first was lovely as if in sleep,\nThen slowly changed, till it grew a heap _20\nTo make men tremble who never weep.\n\nSwift Summer into the Autumn flowed,\nAnd frost in the mist of the morning rode,\nThough the noonday sun looked clear and bright,\nMocking the spoil of the secret night. _25\n\nThe rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow,\nPaved the turf and the moss below.\nThe lilies were drooping, and white, and wan,\nLike the head and the skin of a dying man.\n\nAnd Indian plants, of scent and hue _30\nThe sweetest that ever were fed on dew,\nLeaf by leaf, day after day,\nWere massed into the common clay.\n\nAnd the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray, and red,\nAnd white with the whiteness of what is dead, _35\nLike troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed;\nTheir whistling noise made the birds aghast.\n\nAnd the gusty winds waked the winged seeds,\nOut of their birthplace of ugly weeds,\nTill they clung round many a sweet flower’s stem, _40\nWhich rotted into the earth with them.\n\nThe water-blooms under the rivulet\nFell from the stalks on which they were set;\nAnd the eddies drove them here and there,\nAs the winds did those of the upper air. _45\n\nThen the rain came down, and the broken stalks\nWere bent and tangled across the walks;\nAnd the leafless network of parasite bowers\nMassed into ruin; and all sweet flowers.\n\nBetween the time of the wind and the snow _50\nAll loathliest weeds began to grow,\nWhose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck,\nLike the water-snake’s belly and the toad’s back.\n\nAnd thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank,\nAnd the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank, _55\nStretched out its long and hollow shank,\nAnd stifled the air till the dead wind stank.\n\nAnd plants, at whose names the verse feels loath,\nFilled the place with a monstrous undergrowth,\nPrickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue, _60\nLivid, and starred with a lurid dew.\n\nAnd agarics, and fungi, with mildew and mould\nStarted like mist from the wet ground cold;\nPale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead\nWith a spirit of growth had been animated! _65\n\nSpawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum,\nMade the running rivulet thick and dumb,\nAnd at its outlet flags huge as stakes\nDammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes.\n\nAnd hour by hour, when the air was still, _70\nThe vapours arose which have strength to kill;\nAt morn they were seen, at noon they were felt,\nAt night they were darkness no star could melt.\n\nAnd unctuous meteors from spray to spray\nCrept and flitted in broad noonday _75\nUnseen; every branch on which they alit\nBy a venomous blight was burned and bit.\n\nThe Sensitive Plant, like one forbid,\nWept, and the tears within each lid\nOf its folded leaves, which together grew, _80\nWere changed to a blight of frozen glue.\n\nFor the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon\nBy the heavy axe of the blast were hewn;\nThe sap shrank to the root through every pore\nAs blood to a heart that will beat no more. _85\n\nFor Winter came: the wind was his whip:\nOne choppy finger was on his lip:\nHe had torn the cataracts from the hills\nAnd they clanked at his girdle like manacles;\n\nHis breath was a chain which without a sound _90\nThe earth, and the air, and the water bound;\nHe came, fiercely driven, in his chariot-throne\nBy the tenfold blasts of the Arctic zone.\n\nThen the weeds which were forms of living death\nFled from the frost to the earth beneath. _95\nTheir decay and sudden flight from frost\nWas but like the vanishing of a ghost!\n\nAnd under the roots of the Sensitive Plant\nThe moles and the dormice died for want:\nThe birds dropped stiff from the frozen air _100\nAnd were caught in the branches naked and bare.\n\nFirst there came down a thawing rain\nAnd its dull drops froze on the boughs again;\nThen there steamed up a freezing dew\nWhich to the drops of the thaw-rain grew; _105\n\nAnd a northern whirlwind, wandering about\nLike a wolf that had smelt a dead child out,\nShook the boughs thus laden, and heavy, and stiff,\nAnd snapped them off with his rigid griff.\n\nWhen Winter had gone and Spring came back _110\nThe Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck;\nBut the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels,\nRose like the dead from their ruined charnels.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Conclusion.", + "body": "Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that\nWhich within its boughs like a Spirit sat, _115\nEre its outward form had known decay,\nNow felt this change, I cannot say.\n\nWhether that Lady’s gentle mind,\nNo longer with the form combined\nWhich scattered love, as stars do light, _120\nFound sadness, where it left delight,\n\nI dare not guess; but in this life\nOf error, ignorance, and strife,\nWhere nothing is, but all things seem,\nAnd we the shadows of the dream, _125\n\nIt is a modest creed, and yet\nPleasant if one considers it,\nTo own that death itself must be,\nLike all the rest, a mockery.\n\nThat garden sweet, that lady fair, _130\nAnd all sweet shapes and odours there,\nIn truth have never passed away:\n’Tis we, ’tis ours, are changed; not they.\n\nFor love, and beauty, and delight,\nThere is no death nor change: their might _135\nExceeds our organs, which endure\nNo light, being themselves obscure.\n\n_19 lovely Harvard manuscript, 1839; lively 1820.\n_23 of the morning 1820, 1839; of morning Harvard manuscript.\n_26 snow Harvard manuscript, 1839; now 1820.\n_28 And lilies were drooping, white and wan Harvard manuscript.\n_32 Leaf by leaf, day after day Harvard manuscript;\n Leaf after leaf, day after day 1820;\n Leaf after leaf, day by day 1839.\n_63 mist]mists Harvard manuscript.\n_96 and sudden flight]and their sudden flight the Harvard manuscript.\n_98 And under]Under Harvard manuscript.\n_114 Whether]And if Harvard manuscript.\n_118 Whether]Or if Harvard manuscript.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cancelled Passage.", + "body": "[This stanza followed 3, 62-65 in the editio princeps, 1820, but was\nomitted by Mrs. Shelley from all editions from 1839 onwards. It is\ncancelled in the Harvard manuscript.]\n\nTheir moss rotted off them, flake by flake,\nTill the thick stalk stuck like a murderer’s stake,\nWhere rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high,\nInfecting the winds that wander by.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Vision Of The Sea.", + "body": "[Composed at Pisa early in 1820, and published with “Prometheus\nUnbound” in the same year. A transcript in Mrs. Shelley’s handwriting\nis included in the Harvard manuscript book, where it is dated ‘April,\n1820.’]\n\n’Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail\nAre flickering in ribbons within the fierce gale:\nFrom the stark night of vapours the dim rain is driven,\nAnd when lightning is loosed, like a deluge from Heaven,\nShe sees the black trunks of the waterspouts spin _5\nAnd bend, as if Heaven was ruining in,\nWhich they seemed to sustain with their terrible mass\nAs if ocean had sunk from beneath them: they pass\nTo their graves in the deep with an earthquake of sound,\nAnd the waves and the thunders, made silent around, _10\nLeave the wind to its echo. The vessel, now tossed\nThrough the low-trailing rack of the tempest, is lost\nIn the skirts of the thunder-cloud: now down the sweep\nOf the wind-cloven wave to the chasm of the deep\nIt sinks, and the walls of the watery vale _15\nWhose depths of dread calm are unmoved by the gale,\nDim mirrors of ruin, hang gleaming about;\nWhile the surf, like a chaos of stars, like a rout\nOf death-flames, like whirlpools of fire-flowing iron,\nWith splendour and terror the black ship environ, _20\nOr like sulphur-flakes hurled from a mine of pale fire\nIn fountains spout o’er it. In many a spire\nThe pyramid-billows with white points of brine\nIn the cope of the lightning inconstantly shine,\nAs piercing the sky from the floor of the sea. _25\nThe great ship seems splitting! it cracks as a tree,\nWhile an earthquake is splintering its root, ere the blast\nOf the whirlwind that stripped it of branches has passed.\nThe intense thunder-balls which are raining from Heaven\nHave shattered its mast, and it stands black and riven. _30\nThe chinks suck destruction. The heavy dead hulk\nOn the living sea rolls an inanimate bulk,\nLike a corpse on the clay which is hungering to fold\nIts corruption around it. Meanwhile, from the hold,\nOne deck is burst up by the waters below, _35\nAnd it splits like the ice when the thaw-breezes blow\nO’er the lakes of the desert! Who sit on the other?\nIs that all the crew that lie burying each other,\nLike the dead in a breach, round the foremast? Are those\nTwin tigers, who burst, when the waters arose, _40\nIn the agony of terror, their chains in the hold;\n(What now makes them tame, is what then made them bold;)\nWho crouch, side by side, and have driven, like a crank,\nThe deep grip of their claws through the vibrating plank\nAre these all? Nine weeks the tall vessel had lain _45\nOn the windless expanse of the watery plain,\nWhere the death-darting sun cast no shadow at noon,\nAnd there seemed to be fire in the beams of the moon,\nTill a lead-coloured fog gathered up from the deep,\nWhose breath was quick pestilence; then, the cold sleep _50\nCrept, like blight through the ears of a thick field of corn,\nO’er the populous vessel. And even and morn,\nWith their hammocks for coffins the seamen aghast\nLike dead men the dead limbs of their comrades cast\nDown the deep, which closed on them above and around, _55\nAnd the sharks and the dogfish their grave-clothes unbound,\nAnd were glutted like Jews with this manna rained down\nFrom God on their wilderness. One after one\nThe mariners died; on the eve of this day,\nWhen the tempest was gathering in cloudy array, _60\nBut seven remained. Six the thunder has smitten,\nAnd they lie black as mummies on which Time has written\nHis scorn of the embalmer; the seventh, from the deck\nAn oak-splinter pierced through his breast and his back,\nAnd hung out to the tempest, a wreck on the wreck. _65\nNo more? At the helm sits a woman more fair\nThan Heaven, when, unbinding its star-braided hair,\nIt sinks with the sun on the earth and the sea.\nShe clasps a bright child on her upgathered knee;\nIt laughs at the lightning, it mocks the mixed thunder _70\nOf the air and the sea, with desire and with wonder\nIt is beckoning the tigers to rise and come near,\nIt would play with those eyes where the radiance of fear\nIs outshining the meteors; its bosom beats high,\nThe heart-fire of pleasure has kindled its eye, _75\nWhile its mother’s is lustreless. ‘Smile not, my child,\nBut sleep deeply and sweetly, and so be beguiled\nOf the pang that awaits us, whatever that be,\nSo dreadful since thou must divide it with me!\nDream, sleep! This pale bosom, thy cradle and bed, _80\nWill it rock thee not, infant? ’Tis beating with dread!\nAlas! what is life, what is death, what are we,\nThat when the ship sinks we no longer may be?\nWhat! to see thee no more, and to feel thee no more?\nTo be after life what we have been before? _85\nNot to touch those sweet hands? Not to look on those eyes,\nThose lips, and that hair,—all the smiling disguise\nThou yet wearest, sweet Spirit, which I, day by day,\nHave so long called my child, but which now fades away\nLike a rainbow, and I the fallen shower?’—Lo! the ship _90\nIs settling, it topples, the leeward ports dip;\nThe tigers leap up when they feel the slow brine\nCrawling inch by inch on them; hair, ears, limbs, and eyne,\nStand rigid with horror; a loud, long, hoarse cry\nBursts at once from their vitals tremendously, _95\nAnd ’tis borne down the mountainous vale of the wave,\nRebounding, like thunder, from crag to cave,\nMixed with the clash of the lashing rain,\nHurried on by the might of the hurricane:\nThe hurricane came from the west, and passed on _100\nBy the path of the gate of the eastern sun,\nTransversely dividing the stream of the storm;\nAs an arrowy serpent, pursuing the form\nOf an elephant, bursts through the brakes of the waste.\nBlack as a cormorant the screaming blast, _105\nBetween Ocean and Heaven, like an ocean, passed,\nTill it came to the clouds on the verge of the world\nWhich, based on the sea and to Heaven upcurled,\nLike columns and walls did surround and sustain\nThe dome of the tempest; it rent them in twain, _110\nAs a flood rends its barriers of mountainous crag:\nAnd the dense clouds in many a ruin and rag,\nLike the stones of a temple ere earthquake has passed,\nLike the dust of its fall, on the whirlwind are cast;\nThey are scattered like foam on the torrent; and where _115\nThe wind has burst out through the chasm, from the air\nOf clear morning the beams of the sunrise flow in,\nUnimpeded, keen, golden, and crystalline,\nBanded armies of light and of air; at one gate\nThey encounter, but interpenetrate. _120\nAnd that breach in the tempest is widening away,\nAnd the caverns of cloud are torn up by the day,\nAnd the fierce winds are sinking with weary wings,\nLulled by the motion and murmurings\nAnd the long glassy heave of the rocking sea, _125\nAnd overhead glorious, but dreadful to see,\nThe wrecks of the tempest, like vapours of gold,\nAre consuming in sunrise. The heaped waves behold\nThe deep calm of blue Heaven dilating above,\nAnd, like passions made still by the presence of Love, _130\nBeneath the clear surface reflecting it slide\nTremulous with soft influence; extending its tide\nFrom the Andes to Atlas, round mountain and isle,\nRound sea-birds and wrecks, paved with Heaven’s azure smile,\nThe wide world of waters is vibrating. Where _135\nIs the ship? On the verge of the wave where it lay\nOne tiger is mingled in ghastly affray\nWith a sea-snake. The foam and the smoke of the battle\nStain the clear air with sunbows; the jar, and the rattle\nOf solid bones crushed by the infinite stress _140\nOf the snake’s adamantine voluminousness;\nAnd the hum of the hot blood that spouts and rains\nWhere the gripe of the tiger has wounded the veins\nSwollen with rage, strength, and effort; the whirl and the splash\nAs of some hideous engine whose brazen teeth smash _145\nThe thin winds and soft waves into thunder; the screams\nAnd hissings crawl fast o’er the smooth ocean-streams,\nEach sound like a centipede. Near this commotion,\nA blue shark is hanging within the blue ocean,\nThe fin-winged tomb of the victor. The other _150\nIs winning his way from the fate of his brother\nTo his own with the speed of despair. Lo! a boat\nAdvances; twelve rowers with the impulse of thought\nUrge on the keen keel,—the brine foams. At the stern\nThree marksmen stand levelling. Hot bullets burn _155\nIn the breast of the tiger, which yet bears him on\nTo his refuge and ruin. One fragment alone,—\n’Tis dwindling and sinking, ’tis now almost gone,—\nOf the wreck of the vessel peers out of the sea.\nWith her left hand she grasps it impetuously. _160\nWith her right she sustains her fair infant. Death, Fear,\nLove, Beauty, are mixed in the atmosphere,\nWhich trembles and burns with the fervour of dread\nAround her wild eyes, her bright hand, and her head,\nLike a meteor of light o’er the waters! her child _165\nIs yet smiling, and playing, and murmuring; so smiled\nThe false deep ere the storm. Like a sister and brother\nThe child and the ocean still smile on each other,\nWhilst—\n\n_6 ruining Harvard manuscript, 1839; raining 1820.\n_8 sunk Harvard manuscript, 1839; sank 1820.\n_35 by Harvard manuscript; from 1820, 1839.\n_61 has 1820; had 1839.\n_87 all the Harvard manuscript; all that 1820, 1839.\n_116 through Harvard manuscript; from 1820, 1839.\n_121 away]alway cj. A.C. Bradley.\n_122 cloud Harvard manuscript, 1839; clouds 1820.\n_160 impetuously 1820, 1839; convulsively Harvard manuscript.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Cloud.", + "body": "[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.]\n\nI bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,\nFrom the seas and the streams;\nI bear light shade for the leaves when laid\nIn their noonday dreams.\nFrom my wings are shaken the dews that waken _5\nThe sweet buds every one,\nWhen rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,\nAs she dances about the sun.\nI wield the flail of the lashing hail,\nAnd whiten the green plains under, _10\nAnd then again I dissolve it in rain,\nAnd laugh as I pass in thunder.\n\nI sift the snow on the mountains below,\nAnd their great pines groan aghast;\nAnd all the night ’tis my pillow white, _15\nWhile I sleep in the arms of the blast.\nSublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,\nLightning my pilot sits;\nIn a cavern under is fettered the thunder,\nIt struggles and howls at fits; _20\nOver earth and ocean, with gentle motion,\nThis pilot is guiding me,\nLured by the love of the genii that move\nIn the depths of the purple sea;\nOver the rills, and the crags, and the hills. _25\nOver the lakes and the plains,\nWherever he dream, under mountain or stream,\nThe Spirit he loves remains;\nAnd I all the while bask in Heaven’s blue smile,\nWhilst he is dissolving in rains. _30\n\nThe sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,\nAnd his burning plumes outspread,\nLeaps on the back of my sailing rack,\nWhen the morning star shines dead;\nAs on the jag of a mountain crag, _35\nWhich an earthquake rocks and swings,\nAn eagle alit one moment may sit\nIn the light of its golden wings.\nAnd when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,\nIts ardours of rest and of love, _40\nAnd the crimson pall of eve may fall\nFrom the depth of Heaven above.\nWith wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,\nAs still as a brooding dove.\n\nThat orbed maiden with white fire laden, _45\nWhom mortals call the Moon,\nGlides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor,\nBy the midnight breezes strewn;\nAnd wherever the beat of her unseen feet,\nWhich only the angels hear, _50\nMay have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof.\nThe stars peep behind her and peer;\nAnd I laugh to see them whirl and flee,\nLike a swarm of golden bees.\nWhen I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, _55\nTill the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,\nLike strips of the sky fallen through me on high,\nAre each paved with the moon and these.\n\nI bind the Sun’s throne with a burning zone,\nAnd the Moon’s with a girdle of pearl; _60\nThe volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,\nWhen the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.\nFrom cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,\nOver a torrent sea,\nSunbeam-proof, I hand like a roof,— _65\nThe mountains its columns be.\nThe triumphal arch through which I march\nWith hurricane, fire, and snow,\nWhen the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,\nIs the million-coloured bow; _70\nThe sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,\nWhile the moist Earth was laughing below.\n\nI am the daughter of Earth and Water,\nAnd the nursling of the Sky;\nI pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; _75\nI change, but I cannot die.\nFor after the rain when with never a stain\nThe pavilion of Heaven is bare,\nAnd the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams\nBuild up the blue dome of air, _80\nI silently laugh at my own cenotaph,\nAnd out of the caverns of rain,\nLike a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,\nI arise and unbuild it again.\n\n_3 shade 1820; shades 1839.\n_6 buds 1839; birds 1820.\n_59 with a 1820; with the 1830.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ode To Liberty.", + "body": "[Composed early in 1820, and published, with “Prometheus Unbound”, in\nthe same year. A transcript in Shelley’s hand of lines 1-21 is included\nin the Harvard manuscript book, and amongst the Boscombe manuscripts\nthere is a fragment of a rough draft (Garnett). For further particulars\nconcerning the text see Editor’s Notes.]\n\nYet, Freedom, yet, thy banner, torn but flying,\nStreams like a thunder-storm against the wind.—BYRON.\n\n1.\nA glorious people vibrated again\nThe lightning of the nations: Liberty\nFrom heart to heart, from tower to tower, o’er Spain,\nScattering contagious fire into the sky,\nGleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, _5\nAnd in the rapid plumes of song\nClothed itself, sublime and strong;\nAs a young eagle soars the morning clouds among,\nHovering inverse o’er its accustomed prey;\nTill from its station in the Heaven of fame _10\nThe Spirit’s whirlwind rapped it, and the ray\nOf the remotest sphere of living flame\nWhich paves the void was from behind it flung,\nAs foam from a ship’s swiftness, when there came\nA voice out of the deep: I will record the same. _15\n\n2.\nThe Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth:\nThe burning stars of the abyss were hurled\nInto the depths of Heaven. The daedal earth,\nThat island in the ocean of the world,\nHung in its cloud of all-sustaining air: _20\nBut this divinest universe\nWas yet a chaos and a curse,\nFor thou wert not: but, power from worst producing worse,\nThe spirit of the beasts was kindled there,\nAnd of the birds, and of the watery forms, _25\nAnd there was war among them, and despair\nWithin them, raging without truce or terms:\nThe bosom of their violated nurse\nGroaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms,\nAnd men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms. _30\n\n3.\nMan, the imperial shape, then multiplied\nHis generations under the pavilion\nOf the Sun’s throne: palace and pyramid,\nTemple and prison, to many a swarming million\nWere, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. _35\nThis human living multitude\nWas savage, cunning, blind, and rude,\nFor thou wert not; but o’er the populous solitude,\nLike one fierce cloud over a waste of waves,\nHung Tyranny; beneath, sate deified _40\nThe sister-pest, congregator of slaves;\nInto the shadow of her pinions wide\nAnarchs and priests, who feed on gold and blood\nTill with the stain their inmost souls are dyed,\nDrove the astonished herds of men from every side. _45\n\n4.\nThe nodding promontories, and blue isles,\nAnd cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves\nOf Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles\nOf favouring Heaven: from their enchanted caves\nProphetic echoes flung dim melody. _50\nOn the unapprehensive wild\nThe vine, the corn, the olive mild,\nGrew savage yet, to human use unreconciled;\nAnd, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea,\nLike the man’s thought dark in the infant’s brain, _55\nLike aught that is which wraps what is to be,\nArt’s deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein\nOf Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child,\nVerse murmured, and Philosophy did strain\nHer lidless eyes for thee; when o’er the Aegean main _60\n\n5.\nAthens arose: a city such as vision\nBuilds from the purple crags and silver towers\nOf battlemented cloud, as in derision\nOf kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors\nPave it; the evening sky pavilions it; _65\nIts portals are inhabited\nBy thunder-zoned winds, each head\nWithin its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,—\nA divine work! Athens, diviner yet,\nGleamed with its crest of columns, on the will _70\nOf man, as on a mount of diamond, set;\nFor thou wert, and thine all-creative skill\nPeopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead\nIn marble immortality, that hill\nWhich was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. _75\n\n6.\nWithin the surface of Time’s fleeting river\nIts wrinkled image lies, as then it lay\nImmovably unquiet, and for ever\nIt trembles, but it cannot pass away!\nThe voices of thy bards and sages thunder _80\nWith an earth-awakening blast\nThrough the caverns of the past:\n(Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast:)\nA winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder,\nWhich soars where Expectation never flew, _85\nRending the veil of space and time asunder!\nOne ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew;\nOne Sun illumines Heaven; one Spirit vast\nWith life and love makes chaos ever new,\nAs Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. _90\n\n7.\nThen Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest,\nLike a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Maenad,\nShe drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest\nFrom that Elysian food was yet unweaned;\nAnd many a deed of terrible uprightness _95\nBy thy sweet love was sanctified;\nAnd in thy smile, and by thy side,\nSaintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died.\nBut when tears stained thy robe of vestal-whiteness,\nAnd gold profaned thy Capitolian throne, _100\nThou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness,\nThe senate of the tyrants: they sunk prone\nSlaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighed\nFaint echoes of Ionian song; that tone\nThou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown _105\n\n8.\nFrom what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill,\nOr piny promontory of the Arctic main,\nOr utmost islet inaccessible,\nDidst thou lament the ruin of thy reign,\nTeaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, _110\nAnd every Naiad’s ice-cold urn,\nTo talk in echoes sad and stern\nOf that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn?\nFor neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks\nOf the Scald’s dreams, nor haunt the Druid’s sleep. _115\nWhat if the tears rained through thy shattered locks\nWere quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep,\nWhen from its sea of death, to kill and burn,\nThe Galilean serpent forth did creep,\nAnd made thy world an undistinguishable heap. _120\n\n9.\nA thousand years the Earth cried, ‘Where art thou?’\nAnd then the shadow of thy coming fell\nOn Saxon Alfred’s olive-cinctured brow:\nAnd many a warrior-peopled citadel.\nLike rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep, _125\nArose in sacred Italy,\nFrowning o’er the tempestuous sea\nOf kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty;\nThat multitudinous anarchy did sweep\nAnd burst around their walls, like idle foam, _130\nWhilst from the human spirit’s deepest deep\nStrange melody with love and awe struck dumb\nDissonant arms; and Art, which cannot die,\nWith divine wand traced on our earthly home\nFit imagery to pave Heaven’s everlasting dome. _135\n\n10.\nThou huntress swifter than the Moon! thou terror\nOf the world’s wolves! thou bearer of the quiver,\nWhose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error,\nAs light may pierce the clouds when they dissever\nIn the calm regions of the orient day! _140\nLuther caught thy wakening glance;\nLike lightning, from his leaden lance\nReflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance\nIn which, as in a tomb, the nations lay;\nAnd England’s prophets hailed thee as their queen, _145\nIn songs whose music cannot pass away,\nThough it must flow forever: not unseen\nBefore the spirit-sighted countenance\nOf Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene\nBeyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. _150\n\n11.\nThe eager hours and unreluctant years\nAs on a dawn-illumined mountain stood.\nTrampling to silence their loud hopes and fears,\nDarkening each other with their multitude,\nAnd cried aloud, ‘Liberty!’ Indignation _155\nAnswered Pity from her cave;\nDeath grew pale within the grave,\nAnd Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save!\nWhen like Heaven’s Sun girt by the exhalation\nOf its own glorious light, thou didst arise. _160\nChasing thy foes from nation unto nation\nLike shadows: as if day had cloven the skies\nAt dreaming midnight o’er the western wave,\nMen started, staggering with a glad surprise,\nUnder the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. _165\n\n12.\nThou Heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then\nIn ominous eclipse? a thousand years\nBred from the slime of deep Oppression’s den.\nDyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears.\nTill thy sweet stars could weep the stain away; _170\nHow like Bacchanals of blood\nRound France, the ghastly vintage, stood\nDestruction’s sceptred slaves, and Folly’s mitred brood!\nWhen one, like them, but mightier far than they,\nThe Anarch of thine own bewildered powers, _175\nRose: armies mingled in obscure array,\nLike clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred bowers\nOf serene Heaven. He, by the past pursued,\nRests with those dead, but unforgotten hours,\nWhose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers. _180\n\n13.\nEngland yet sleeps: was she not called of old?\nSpain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder\nVesuvius wakens Aetna, and the cold\nSnow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder:\nO’er the lit waves every Aeolian isle _185\nFrom Pithecusa to Pelorus\nHowls, and leaps, and glares in chorus:\nThey cry, ‘Be dim; ye lamps of Heaven suspended o’er us!’\nHer chains are threads of gold, she need but smile\nAnd they dissolve; but Spain’s were links of steel, _190\nTill bit to dust by virtue’s keenest file.\nTwins of a single destiny! appeal\nTo the eternal years enthroned before us\nIn the dim West; impress us from a seal,\nAll ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal. _195\n\n14.\nTomb of Arminius! render up thy dead\nTill, like a standard from a watch-tower’s staff,\nHis soul may stream over the tyrant’s head;\nThy victory shall be his epitaph,\nWild Bacchanal of truth’s mysterious wine, _200\nKing-deluded Germany,\nHis dead spirit lives in thee.\nWhy do we fear or hope? thou art already free!\nAnd thou, lost Paradise of this divine\nAnd glorious world! thou flowery wilderness! _205\nThou island of eternity! thou shrine\nWhere Desolation, clothed with loveliness,\nWorships the thing thou wert! O Italy,\nGather thy blood into thy heart; repress\nThe beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. _210\n\n15.\nOh, that the free would stamp the impious name\nOf KING into the dust! or write it there,\nSo that this blot upon the page of fame\nWere as a serpent’s path, which the light air\nErases, and the flat sands close behind! _215\nYe the oracle have heard:\nLift the victory-flashing sword.\nAnd cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word,\nWhich, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind\nInto a mass, irrefragably firm, _220\nThe axes and the rods which awe mankind;\nThe sound has poison in it, ’tis the sperm\nOf what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred;\nDisdain not thou, at thine appointed term,\nTo set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. _225\n\n16.\nOh, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle\nSuch lamps within the dome of this dim world,\nThat the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle\nInto the hell from which it first was hurled,\nA scoff of impious pride from fiends impure; _230\nTill human thoughts might kneel alone,\nEach before the judgement-throne\nOf its own aweless soul, or of the Power unknown!\nOh, that the words which make the thoughts obscure\nFrom which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew _235\nFrom a white lake blot Heaven’s blue portraiture,\nWere stripped of their thin masks and various hue\nAnd frowns and smiles and splendours not their own,\nTill in the nakedness of false and true\nThey stand before their Lord, each to receive its due! _240\n\n17.\nHe who taught man to vanquish whatsoever\nCan be between the cradle and the grave\nCrowned him the King of Life. Oh, vain endeavour!\nIf on his own high will, a willing slave,\nHe has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor _245\nWhat if earth can clothe and feed\nAmplest millions at their need,\nAnd power in thought be as the tree within the seed?\nOr what if Art, an ardent intercessor,\nDriving on fiery wings to Nature’s throne, _250\nChecks the great mother stooping to caress her,\nAnd cries: ‘Give me, thy child, dominion\nOver all height and depth’? if Life can breed\nNew wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan,\nRend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one! _255\n\n18.\nCome thou, but lead out of the inmost cave\nOf man’s deep spirit, as the morning-star\nBeckons the Sun from the Eoan wave,\nWisdom. I hear the pennons of her car\nSelf-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; _260\nComes she not, and come ye not,\nRulers of eternal thought,\nTo judge, with solemn truth, life’s ill-apportioned lot?\nBlind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame\nOf what has been, the Hope of what will be? _265\nO Liberty! if such could be thy name\nWert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee:\nIf thine or theirs were treasures to be bought\nBy blood or tears, have not the wise and free\nWept tears, and blood like tears?—The solemn harmony _270\n\n19.\nPaused, and the Spirit of that mighty singing\nTo its abyss was suddenly withdrawn;\nThen, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging\nIts path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn,\nSinks headlong through the aereal golden light _275\nOn the heavy-sounding plain,\nWhen the bolt has pierced its brain;\nAs summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain;\nAs a far taper fades with fading night,\nAs a brief insect dies with dying day,— _280\nMy song, its pinions disarrayed of might,\nDrooped; o’er it closed the echoes far away\nOf the great voice which did its flight sustain,\nAs waves which lately paved his watery way\nHiss round a drowner’s head in their tempestuous play. _285\n\n_4 into]unto Harvard manuscript.\n_9 inverse cj. Rossetti; in verse 1820.\n_92 See the Bacchae of Euripides—[SHELLEY’S NOTE].\n_113 lore 1839; love 1820.\n_116 shattered]scattered cj. Rossetti.\n_134 wand 1820; want 1830.\n_194 us]as cj. Forman.\n_212 KING Boscombe manuscript; **** 1820, 1839; CHRIST cj. Swinburne.\n_249 Or 1839; O, 1820.\n_250 Driving 1820; Diving 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cancelled Passage Of The Ode To Liberty.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nWithin a cavern of man’s trackless spirit\nIs throned an Image, so intensely fair\nThat the adventurous thoughts that wander near it\nWorship, and as they kneel, tremble and wear\nThe splendour of its presence, and the light _5\nPenetrates their dreamlike frame\nTill they become charged with the strength of flame.\n\n***\n\n\nTO —.\n\n[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nI fear thy kisses, gentle maiden,\nThou needest not fear mine;\nMy spirit is too deeply laden\nEver to burthen thine.\n\n2.\nI fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, _5\nThou needest not fear mine;\nInnocent is the heart’s devotion\nWith which I worship thine.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Arethusa.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and dated by her\n‘Pisa, 1820.’ There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at\nthe Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903,\npage 24.]\n\n1.\nArethusa arose\nFrom her couch of snows\nIn the Acroceraunian mountains,—\nFrom cloud and from crag,\nWith many a jag, _5\nShepherding her bright fountains.\nShe leapt down the rocks,\nWith her rainbow locks\nStreaming among the streams;—\nHer steps paved with green _10\nThe downward ravine\nWhich slopes to the western gleams;\nAnd gliding and springing\nShe went, ever singing,\nIn murmurs as soft as sleep; _15\nThe Earth seemed to love her,\nAnd Heaven smiled above her,\nAs she lingered towards the deep.\n\n2.\nThen Alpheus bold,\nOn his glacier cold, _20\nWith his trident the mountains strook;\nAnd opened a chasm\nIn the rocks—with the spasm\nAll Erymanthus shook.\nAnd the black south wind _25\nIt unsealed behind\nThe urns of the silent snow,\nAnd earthquake and thunder\nDid rend in sunder\nThe bars of the springs below. _30\nAnd the beard and the hair\nOf the River-god were\nSeen through the torrent’s sweep,\nAs he followed the light\nOf the fleet nymph’s flight _35\nTo the brink of the Dorian deep.\n\n3.\n‘Oh, save me! Oh, guide me!\nAnd bid the deep hide me,\nFor he grasps me now by the hair!’\nThe loud Ocean heard, _40\nTo its blue depth stirred,\nAnd divided at her prayer;\nAnd under the water\nThe Earth’s white daughter\nFled like a sunny beam; _45\nBehind her descended\nHer billows, unblended\nWith the brackish Dorian stream:—\nLike a gloomy stain\nOn the emerald main _50\nAlpheus rushed behind,—\nAs an eagle pursuing\nA dove to its ruin\nDown the streams of the cloudy wind.\n\n4.\nUnder the bowers _55\nWhere the Ocean Powers\nSit on their pearled thrones;\nThrough the coral woods\nOf the weltering floods,\nOver heaps of unvalued stones; _60\nThrough the dim beams\nWhich amid the streams\nWeave a network of coloured light;\nAnd under the caves,\nWhere the shadowy waves _65\nAre as green as the forest’s night:—\nOutspeeding the shark,\nAnd the sword-fish dark,\nUnder the Ocean’s foam,\nAnd up through the rifts _70\nOf the mountain clifts\nThey passed to their Dorian home.\n\n5.\nAnd now from their fountains\nIn Enna’s mountains,\nDown one vale where the morning basks, _75\nLike friends once parted\nGrown single-hearted,\nThey ply their watery tasks.\nAt sunrise they leap\nFrom their cradles steep _80\nIn the cave of the shelving hill;\nAt noontide they flow\nThrough the woods below\nAnd the meadows of asphodel;\nAnd at night they sleep _85\nIn the rocking deep\nBeneath the Ortygian shore;—\nLike spirits that lie\nIn the azure sky\nWhen they love but live no more. _90\n\n_6 unsealed B.; concealed 1824.\n_31 And the B.; The 1824.\n_69 Ocean’s B.; ocean 1824.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Song Of Proserpine While Gathering Flowers On The Plain Of Enna.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. There\nis a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian\nLibrary. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination,” etc., 1903, page 24.]\n\n1.\nSacred Goddess, Mother Earth,\nThou from whose immortal bosom\nGods, and men, and beasts have birth,\nLeaf and blade, and bud and blossom,\nBreathe thine influence most divine _5\nOn thine own child, Proserpine.\n\n2.\nIf with mists of evening dew\nThou dost nourish these young flowers\nTill they grow, in scent and hue,\nFairest children of the Hours, _10\nBreathe thine influence most divine\nOn thine own child, Proserpine.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hymn Of Apollo.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a fair\ndraft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D.\nLocock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 25.]\n\n1.\nThe sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,\nCurtained with star-inwoven tapestries\nFrom the broad moonlight of the sky,\nFanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,—\nWaken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn, _5\nTells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.\n\n2.\nThen I arise, and climbing Heaven’s blue dome,\nI walk over the mountains and the waves,\nLeaving my robe upon the ocean foam;\nMy footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves _10\nAre filled with my bright presence, and the air\nLeaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.\n\n3.\nThe sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill\nDeceit, that loves the night and fears the day;\nAll men who do or even imagine ill _15\nFly me, and from the glory of my ray\nGood minds and open actions take new might,\nUntil diminished by the reign of Night.\n\n4.\nI feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers\nWith their aethereal colours; the moon’s globe _20\nAnd the pure stars in their eternal bowers\nAre cinctured with my power as with a robe;\nWhatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine\nAre portions of one power, which is mine.\n\n5.\nI stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, _25\nThen with unwilling steps I wander down\nInto the clouds of the Atlantic even;\nFor grief that I depart they weep and frown:\nWhat look is more delightful than the smile\nWith which I soothe them from the western isle? _30\n\n6.\nI am the eye with which the Universe\nBeholds itself and knows itself divine;\nAll harmony of instrument or verse,\nAll prophecy, all medicine is mine,\nAll light of art or nature;—to my song _35\nVictory and praise in its own right belong.\n\n_32 itself divine]it is divine B.\n_34 is B.; are 1824.\n_36 its cj. Rossetti, 1870, B.; their 1824.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hymn Of Pan.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a fair\ndraft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D.\nLocock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 25.]\n\n1.\nFrom the forests and highlands\nWe come, we come;\nFrom the river-girt islands,\nWhere loud waves are dumb\nListening to my sweet pipings. _5\nThe wind in the reeds and the rushes,\nThe bees on the bells of thyme,\nThe birds on the myrtle bushes,\nThe cicale above in the lime,\nAnd the lizards below in the grass, _10\nWere as silent as ever old Tmolus was,\nListening to my sweet pipings.\n\n2.\nLiquid Peneus was flowing,\nAnd all dark Tempe lay\nIn Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing _15\nThe light of the dying day,\nSpeeded by my sweet pipings.\nThe Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,\nAnd the Nymphs of the woods and the waves,\nTo the edge of the moist river-lawns, _20\nAnd the brink of the dewy caves,\nAnd all that did then attend and follow,\nWere silent with love, as you now, Apollo,\nWith envy of my sweet pipings.\n\n3.\nI sang of the dancing stars, _25\nI sang of the daedal Earth,\nAnd of Heaven—and the giant wars,\nAnd Love, and Death, and Birth,—\nAnd then I changed my pipings,—\nSinging how down the vale of Maenalus _30\nI pursued a maiden and clasped a reed.\nGods and men, we are all deluded thus!\nIt breaks in our bosom and then we bleed:\nAll wept, as I think both ye now would,\nIf envy or age had not frozen your blood, _35\nAt the sorrow of my sweet pipings.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Question.", + "body": "[Published by Leigh Hunt (with the signature Sigma) in “The Literary\nPocket-Book”, 1822. Reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”,\n1824. Copies exist in the Harvard manuscript book, amongst the Boscombe\nmanuscripts, and amongst Ollier manuscripts.]\n\n1.\nI dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,\nBare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,\nAnd gentle odours led my steps astray,\nMixed with a sound of waters murmuring\nAlong a shelving bank of turf, which lay _5\nUnder a copse, and hardly dared to fling\nIts green arms round the bosom of the stream,\nBut kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.\n\n2.\nThere grew pied wind-flowers and violets,\nDaisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, _10\nThe constellated flower that never sets;\nFaint oxslips; tender bluebells, at whose birth\nThe sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets—\nLike a child, half in tenderness and mirth—\nIts mother’s face with Heaven’s collected tears, _15\nWhen the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.\n\n3.\nAnd in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,\nGreen cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may,\nAnd cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine\nWas the bright dew, yet drained not by the day; _20\nAnd wild roses, and ivy serpentine,\nWith its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;\nAnd flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold,\nFairer than any wakened eyes behold.\n\n4.\nAnd nearer to the river’s trembling edge _25\nThere grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white.\nAnd starry river buds among the sedge,\nAnd floating water-lilies, broad and bright,\nWhich lit the oak that overhung the hedge\nWith moonlight beams of their own watery light; _30\nAnd bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green\nAs soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.\n\n5.\nMethought that of these visionary flowers\nI made a nosegay, bound in such a way\nThat the same hues, which in their natural bowers _35\nWere mingled or opposed, the like array\nKept these imprisoned children of the Hours\nWithin my hand,—and then, elate and gay,\nI hastened to the spot whence I had come,\nThat I might there present it!—Oh! to whom? _40\n\n_14 Like...mirth Harvard manuscript, Boscombe manuscript;\n wanting in Ollier manuscript, 1822, 1824, 1839.\n_15 Heaven’s collected Harvard manuscript, Ollier manuscript, 1822;\n Heaven-collected 1824, 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "First Spirit:", + "body": "O thou, who plumed with strong desire\nWouldst float above the earth, beware!\nA Shadow tracks thy flight of fire—\nNight is coming!\nBright are the regions of the air, _5\nAnd among the winds and beams\nIt were delight to wander there—\nNight is coming!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Spirit:", + "body": "The deathless stars are bright above;\nIf I would cross the shade of night, _10\nWithin my heart is the lamp of love,\nAnd that is day!\nAnd the moon will smile with gentle light\nOn my golden plumes where’er they move;\nThe meteors will linger round my flight, _15\nAnd make night day.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "First Spirit:", + "body": "But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken\nHail, and lightning, and stormy rain;\nSee, the bounds of the air are shaken—\nNight is coming! _20\nThe red swift clouds of the hurricane\nYon declining sun have overtaken,\nThe clash of the hail sweeps over the plain—\nNight is coming!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Second Spirit:", + "body": "I see the light, and I hear the sound; _25\nI’ll sail on the flood of the tempest dark\nWith the calm within and the light around\nWhich makes night day:\nAnd thou, when the gloom is deep and stark,\nLook from thy dull earth, slumber-bound, _30\nMy moon-like flight thou then mayst mark\nOn high, far away.\n\n...\n\nSome say there is a precipice\nWhere one vast pine is frozen to ruin\nO’er piles of snow and chasms of ice _35\nMid Alpine mountains;\nAnd that the languid storm pursuing\nThat winged shape, for ever flies\nRound those hoar branches, aye renewing\nIts aery fountains. _40\n\nSome say when nights are dry and clear,\nAnd the death-dews sleep on the morass,\nSweet whispers are heard by the traveller,\nWhich make night day:\nAnd a silver shape like his early love doth pass _45\nUpborne by her wild and glittering hair,\nAnd when he awakes on the fragrant grass,\nHe finds night day.\n\n_2 Wouldst 1839; Would 1824.\n_31 moon-like 1824; moonlight 1839.\n_44 make]makes 1824, 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ode To Naples.", + "body": "(The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii\nand Baiae with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the\nproclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a\ntinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes\nwhich depicture these scenes, and some of the majestic feelings\npermanently connected with the scene of this animating\nevent.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n[Composed at San Juliano di Pisa, August 17-25, 1820; published in\n“Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a copy, ‘for the most part neat and\nlegible,’ amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See\nMr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 14-18.]\n\nEPODE 1a.\n\nI stood within the City disinterred;\nAnd heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls\nOf spirits passing through the streets; and heard\nThe Mountain’s slumberous voice at intervals\nThrill through those roofless halls; _5\nThe oracular thunder penetrating shook\nThe listening soul in my suspended blood;\nI felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke—\nI felt, but heard not:—through white columns glowed\nThe isle-sustaining ocean-flood, _10\nA plane of light between two heavens of azure!\nAround me gleamed many a bright sepulchre\nOf whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure\nWere to spare Death, had never made erasure;\nBut every living lineament was clear _15\nAs in the sculptor’s thought; and there\nThe wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine,\nLike winter leaves o’ergrown by moulded snow,\nSeemed only not to move and grow\nBecause the crystal silence of the air _20\nWeighed on their life; even as the Power divine\nWhich then lulled all things, brooded upon mine.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Strophe 1.", + "body": "Naples! thou Heart of men which ever pantest\nNaked, beneath the lidless eye of Heaven!\nElysian City, which to calm enchantest\nThe mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even _55\nAs sleep round Love, are driven!\nMetropolis of a ruined Paradise\nLong lost, late won, and yet but half regained!\nBright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice\nWhich armed Victory offers up unstained _60\nTo Love, the flower-enchained!\nThou which wert once, and then didst cease to be,\nNow art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free,\nIf Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail,—\nHail, hail, all hail! _65", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Strophe 2.", + "body": "Thou youngest giant birth\nWhich from the groaning earth\nLeap’st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale!\nLast of the Intercessors!\nWho ’gainst the Crowned Transgressors _70\nPleadest before God’s love! Arrayed in Wisdom’s mail,\nWave thy lightning lance in mirth\nNor let thy high heart fail,\nThough from their hundred gates the leagued Oppressors\nWith hurried legions move! _75\nHail, hail, all hail!\n\nANTISTROPHE 1a.\n\nWhat though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme\nFreedom and thee? thy shield is as a mirror\nTo make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam\nTo turn his hungry sword upon the wearer; _80\nA new Actaeon’s error\nShall theirs have been—devoured by their own hounds!\nBe thou like the imperial Basilisk\nKilling thy foe with unapparent wounds!\nGaze on Oppression, till at that dread risk _85\nAghast she pass from the Earth’s disk:\nFear not, but gaze—for freemen mightier grow,\nAnd slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe:—\nIf Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail,\nThou shalt be great—All hail! _90\n\nANTISTROPHE 2a.\n\nFrom Freedom’s form divine,\nFrom Nature’s inmost shrine,\nStrip every impious gawd, rend\nError veil by veil;\nO’er Ruin desolate,\nO’er Falsehood’s fallen state, _95\nSit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroyer pale!\nAnd equal laws be thine,\nAnd winged words let sail,\nFreighted with truth even from the throne of God:\nThat wealth, surviving fate, _100\nBe thine.—All hail!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Autumn: A Dirge.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nThe warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,\nThe bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,\nAnd the Year\nOn the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,\nIs lying. _5\nCome, Months, come away,\nFrom November to May,\nIn your saddest array;\nFollow the bier\nOf the dead cold Year, _10\nAnd like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.\n\n2.\nThe chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,\nThe rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling\nFor the Year;\nThe blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone _15\nTo his dwelling;\nCome, Months, come away;\nPut on white, black, and gray;\nLet your light sisters play—\nYe, follow the bier _20\nOf the dead cold Year,\nAnd make her grave green with tear on tear.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Waning Moon.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\nAnd like a dying lady, lean and pale,\nWho totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil,\nOut of her chamber, led by the insane\nAnd feeble wanderings of her fading brain,\nThe moon arose up in the murky East, _5\nA white and shapeless mass—\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Death.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nDeath is here and death is there,\nDeath is busy everywhere,\nAll around, within, beneath,\nAbove is death—and we are death.\n\n2.\nDeath has set his mark and seal _5\nOn all we are and all we feel,\nOn all we know and all we fear,\n\n...\n\n3.\nFirst our pleasures die—and then\nOur hopes, and then our fears—and when\nThese are dead, the debt is due, _10\nDust claims dust—and we die too.\n\n4.\nAll things that we love and cherish,\nLike ourselves must fade and perish;\nSuch is our rude mortal lot—\nLove itself would, did they not. _15\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Liberty.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nThe fiery mountains answer each other;\nTheir thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;\nThe tempestuous oceans awake one another,\nAnd the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter’s throne,\nWhen the clarion of the Typhoon is blown. _5\n\n2.\nFrom a single cloud the lightening flashes,\nWhilst a thousand isles are illumined around,\nEarthquake is trampling one city to ashes,\nAn hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound\nIs bellowing underground. _10\n\n3.\nBut keener thy gaze than the lightening’s glare,\nAnd swifter thy step than the earthquake’s tramp;\nThou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare\nMakes blind the volcanoes; the sun’s bright lamp\nTo thine is a fen-fire damp. _15\n\n4.\nFrom billow and mountain and exhalation\nThe sunlight is darted through vapour and blast;\nFrom spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,\nFrom city to hamlet thy dawning is cast,—\nAnd tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night _20\nIn the van of the morning light.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Summer And Winter.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “The Keepsake”, 1829. Mr. C.W.\nFrederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in Mrs. Shelley’s\nhandwriting.]\n\nIt was a bright and cheerful afternoon,\nTowards the end of the sunny month of June,\nWhen the north wind congregates in crowds\nThe floating mountains of the silver clouds\nFrom the horizon—and the stainless sky _5\nOpens beyond them like eternity.\nAll things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds,\nThe river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds;\nThe willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,\nAnd the firm foliage of the larger trees. _10\n\nIt was a winter such as when birds die\nIn the deep forests; and the fishes lie\nStiffened in the translucent ice, which makes\nEven the mud and slime of the warm lakes\nA wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when, _15\nAmong their children, comfortable men\nGather about great fires, and yet feel cold:\nAlas, then, for the homeless beggar old!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Tower Of Famine.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “The Keepsake”, 1829. Mr. C.W.\nFrederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in Mrs. Shelley’s\nhandwriting.]\n\nAmid the desolation of a city,\nWhich was the cradle, and is now the grave\nOf an extinguished people,—so that Pity\n\nWeeps o’er the shipwrecks of Oblivion’s wave,\nThere stands the Tower of Famine. It is built _5\nUpon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave\n\nFor bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt,\nAgitates the light flame of their hours,\nUntil its vital oil is spent or spilt.\n\nThere stands the pile, a tower amid the towers _10\nAnd sacred domes; each marble-ribbed roof,\nThe brazen-gated temples, and the bowers\n\nOf solitary wealth,—the tempest-proof\nPavilions of the dark Italian air,—\nAre by its presence dimmed—they stand aloof, _15\n\nAnd are withdrawn—so that the world is bare;\nAs if a spectre wrapped in shapeless terror\nAmid a company of ladies fair\n\nShould glide and glow, till it became a mirror\nOf all their beauty, and their hair and hue, _20\nThe life of their sweet eyes, with all its error,\nShould be absorbed, till they to marble grew.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "An Allegory.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nA portal as of shadowy adamant\nStands yawning on the highway of the life\nWhich we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;\nAround it rages an unceasing strife\nOf shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt _5\nThe gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high\nInto the whirlwinds of the upper sky.\n\n2.\nAnd many pass it by with careless tread,\nNot knowing that a shadowy ...\nTracks every traveller even to where the dead _10\nWait peacefully for their companion new;\nBut others, by more curious humour led,\nPause to examine;—these are very few,\nAnd they learn little there, except to know\nThat shadows follow them where’er they go. _15", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The World’S Wanderers.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nTell me, thou Star, whose wings of light\nSpeed thee in thy fiery flight,\nIn what cavern of the night\nWill thy pinions close now?\n\n2.\nTell me, Moon, thou pale and gray _5\nPilgrim of Heaven’s homeless way,\nIn what depth of night or day\nSeekest thou repose now?\n\n3.\nWeary Wind, who wanderest\nLike the world’s rejected guest, _10\nHast thou still some secret nest\nOn the tree or billow?\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet.", + "body": "[Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823. There is a\ntranscript amongst the Ollier manuscripts, and another in the Harvard\nmanuscript book.]\n\nYe hasten to the grave! What seek ye there,\nYe restless thoughts and busy purposes\nOf the idle brain, which the world’s livery wear?\nO thou quick heart, which pantest to possess\nAll that pale Expectation feigneth fair! _5\nThou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess\nWhence thou didst come, and whither thou must go,\nAnd all that never yet was known would know—\nOh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press,\nWith such swift feet life’s green and pleasant path, _10\nSeeking, alike from happiness and woe,\nA refuge in the cavern of gray death?\nO heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you\nHope to inherit in the grave below?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines To A Reviewer.", + "body": "[Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823. These\nlines, and the “Sonnet” immediately preceding, are signed Sigma in the\n“Literary Pocket-Book”.]\n\nAlas, good friend, what profit can you see\nIn hating such a hateless thing as me?\nThere is no sport in hate where all the rage\nIs on one side: in vain would you assuage\nYour frowns upon an unresisting smile, _5\nIn which not even contempt lurks to beguile\nYour heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.\nOh, conquer what you cannot satiate!\nFor to your passion I am far more coy\nThan ever yet was coldest maid or boy _10\nIn winter noon. Of your antipathy\nIf I am the Narcissus, you are free\nTo pine into a sound with hating me.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment Of A Satire On Satire.", + "body": "[Published by Edward Dowden, “Correspondence of Robert Southey and\nCaroline Bowles”, 1880.]\n\nIf gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains,\nAnd racks of subtle torture, if the pains\nOf shame, of fiery Hell’s tempestuous wave,\nSeen through the caverns of the shadowy grave,\nHurling the damned into the murky air _5\nWhile the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair\nAnd Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror\nHunts through the world the homeless steps of Error,\nAre the true secrets of the commonweal\nTo make men wise and just;... _10\nAnd not the sophisms of revenge and fear,\nBloodier than is revenge...\nThen send the priests to every hearth and home\nTo preach the burning wrath which is to come,\nIn words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw _15\nThe frozen tears...\nIf Satire’s scourge could wake the slumbering hounds\nOf Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds,\nThe leprous scars of callous Infamy;\nIf it could make the present not to be, _20\nOr charm the dark past never to have been,\nOr turn regret to hope; who that has seen\nWhat Southey is and was, would not exclaim,\n‘Lash on!’ ... be the keen verse dipped in flame;\nFollow his flight with winged words, and urge _25\nThe strokes of the inexorable scourge\nUntil the heart be naked, till his soul\nSee the contagion’s spots ... foul;\nAnd from the mirror of Truth’s sunlike shield,\nFrom which his Parthian arrow... _30\nFlash on his sight the spectres of the past,\nUntil his mind’s eye paint thereon—\nLet scorn like ... yawn below,\nAnd rain on him like flakes of fiery snow.\nThis cannot be, it ought not, evil still— _35\nSuffering makes suffering, ill must follow ill.\nRough words beget sad thoughts, ... and, beside,\nMen take a sullen and a stupid pride\nIn being all they hate in others’ shame,\nBy a perverse antipathy of fame. _40\n’Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, how\nFrom the sweet fountains of our Nature flow\nThese bitter waters; I will only say,\nIf any friend would take Southey some day,\nAnd tell him, in a country walk alone, _45\nSoftening harsh words with friendship’s gentle tone,\nHow incorrect his public conduct is,\nAnd what men think of it, ’twere not amiss.\nFar better than to make innocent ink—\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Good-Night.", + "body": "[Published by Leigh Hunt over the signature Sigma, “The Literary\nPocket-Book”, 1822. It is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and\nthere is a transcript by Shelley in a copy of “The Literary\nPocket-Book”, 1819, presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December\n29, 1820. (See “Love’s Philosophy” and “Time Long Past”.) Our text is\nthat of the editio princeps, 1822, with which the Harvard manuscript\nand “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, agree. The variants of the Stacey\nmanuscript, 1820, are given in the footnotes.]\n\n1.\nGood-night? ah! no; the hour is ill\nWhich severs those it should unite;\nLet us remain together still,\nThen it will be GOOD night.\n\n2.\nHow can I call the lone night good, _5\nThough thy sweet wishes wing its flight?\nBe it not said, thought, understood—\nThen it will be—GOOD night.\n\n3.\nTo hearts which near each other move\nFrom evening close to morning light, _10\nThe night is good; because, my love,\nThey never SAY good-night.\n\n_1 Good-night? no, love! the night is ill Stacey manuscript.\n_5 How were the night without thee good Stacey manuscript.\n_9 The hearts that on each other beat Stacey manuscript.\n_11 Have nights as good as they are sweet Stacey manuscript.\n_12 But never SAY good night Stacey manuscript.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Buona Notte.", + "body": "[Published by Medwin, “The Angler in Wales, or Days and Nights of\nSportsmen”, 1834. The text is revised by Rossetti from the Boscombe\nmanuscript.]\n\n1.\n‘Buona notte, buona notte!’—Come mai\nLa notte sara buona senza te?\nNon dirmi buona notte,—che tu sai,\nLa notte sa star buona da per se.\n\n2.\nSolinga, scura, cupa, senza speme, _5\nLa notte quando Lilla m’abbandona;\nPei cuori chi si batton insieme\nOgni notte, senza dirla, sara buona.\n\n3.\nCome male buona notte ci suona\nCon sospiri e parole interrotte!— _10\nIl modo di aver la notte buona\nE mai non di dir la buona notte.\n\n_2 sara]sia 1834.\n_4 buona]bene 1834.\n_9 Come]Quanto 1834.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Orpheus.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862; revised and\nenlarged by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nA:\nNot far from hence. From yonder pointed hill,\nCrowned with a ring of oaks, you may behold\nA dark and barren field, through which there flows,\nSluggish and black, a deep but narrow stream,\nWhich the wind ripples not, and the fair moon _5\nGazes in vain, and finds no mirror there.\nFollow the herbless banks of that strange brook\nUntil you pause beside a darksome pond,\nThe fountain of this rivulet, whose gush\nCannot be seen, hid by a rayless night _10\nThat lives beneath the overhanging rock\nThat shades the pool—an endless spring of gloom,\nUpon whose edge hovers the tender light,\nTrembling to mingle with its paramour,—\nBut, as Syrinx fled Pan, so night flies day, _15\nOr, with most sullen and regardless hate,\nRefuses stern her heaven-born embrace.\nOn one side of this jagged and shapeless hill\nThere is a cave, from which there eddies up\nA pale mist, like aereal gossamer, _20\nWhose breath destroys all life—awhile it veils\nThe rock—then, scattered by the wind, it flies\nAlong the stream, or lingers on the clefts,\nKilling the sleepy worms, if aught bide there.\nUpon the beetling edge of that dark rock _25\nThere stands a group of cypresses; not such\nAs, with a graceful spire and stirring life,\nPierce the pure heaven of your native vale,\nWhose branches the air plays among, but not\nDisturbs, fearing to spoil their solemn grace; _30\nBut blasted and all wearily they stand,\nOne to another clinging; their weak boughs\nSigh as the wind buffets them, and they shake\nBeneath its blasts—a weatherbeaten crew!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "What wondrous sound is that, mournful and faint, _35\nBut more melodious than the murmuring wind\nWhich through the columns of a temple glides?\n\nA:\nIt is the wandering voice of Orpheus’ lyre,\nBorne by the winds, who sigh that their rude king\nHurries them fast from these air-feeding notes; _40\nBut in their speed they bear along with them\nThe waning sound, scattering it like dew\nUpon the startled sense.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "Does he still sing?\nMethought he rashly cast away his harp\nWhen he had lost Eurydice.\n\nA:\nAh, no! _45\nAwhile he paused. As a poor hunted stag\nA moment shudders on the fearful brink\nOf a swift stream—the cruel hounds press on\nWith deafening yell, the arrows glance and wound,—\nHe plunges in: so Orpheus, seized and torn _50\nBy the sharp fangs of an insatiate grief,\nMaenad-like waved his lyre in the bright air,\nAnd wildly shrieked ‘Where she is, it is dark!’\nAnd then he struck from forth the strings a sound\nOf deep and fearful melody. Alas! _55\nIn times long past, when fair Eurydice\nWith her bright eyes sat listening by his side,\nHe gently sang of high and heavenly themes.\nAs in a brook, fretted with little waves\nBy the light airs of spring—each riplet makes _60\nA many-sided mirror for the sun,\nWhile it flows musically through green banks,\nCeaseless and pauseless, ever clear and fresh,\nSo flowed his song, reflecting the deep joy\nAnd tender love that fed those sweetest notes, _65\nThe heavenly offspring of ambrosial food.\nBut that is past. Returning from drear Hell,\nHe chose a lonely seat of unhewn stone,\nBlackened with lichens, on a herbless plain.\nThen from the deep and overflowing spring _70\nOf his eternal ever-moving grief\nThere rose to Heaven a sound of angry song.\n’Tis as a mighty cataract that parts\nTwo sister rocks with waters swift and strong, _75\nAnd casts itself with horrid roar and din\nAdown a steep; from a perennial source\nIt ever flows and falls, and breaks the air\nWith loud and fierce, but most harmonious roar,\nAnd as it falls casts up a vaporous spray\nWhich the sun clothes in hues of Iris light. _80\nThus the tempestuous torrent of his grief\nIs clothed in sweetest sounds and varying words\nOf poesy. Unlike all human works,\nIt never slackens, and through every change\nWisdom and beauty and the power divine _85\nOf mighty poesy together dwell,\nMingling in sweet accord. As I have seen\nA fierce south blast tear through the darkened sky,\nDriving along a rack of winged clouds,\nWhich may not pause, but ever hurry on, _90\nAs their wild shepherd wills them, while the stars,\nTwinkling and dim, peep from between the plumes.\nAnon the sky is cleared, and the high dome\nOf serene Heaven, starred with fiery flowers,\nShuts in the shaken earth; or the still moon _95\nSwiftly, yet gracefully, begins her walk,\nRising all bright behind the eastern hills.\nI talk of moon, and wind, and stars, and not\nOf song; but, would I echo his high song,\nNature must lend me words ne’er used before, _100\nOr I must borrow from her perfect works,\nTo picture forth his perfect attributes.\nHe does no longer sit upon his throne\nOf rock upon a desert herbless plain,\nFor the evergreen and knotted ilexes, _105\nAnd cypresses that seldom wave their boughs,\nAnd sea-green olives with their grateful fruit,\nAnd elms dragging along the twisted vines,\nWhich drop their berries as they follow fast,\nAnd blackthorn bushes with their infant race _110\nOf blushing rose-blooms; beeches, to lovers dear,\nAnd weeping willow trees; all swift or slow,\nAs their huge boughs or lighter dress permit,\nHave circled in his throne, and Earth herself\nHas sent from her maternal breast a growth _115\nOf starlike flowers and herbs of odour sweet,\nTo pave the temple that his poesy\nHas framed, while near his feet grim lions couch,\nAnd kids, fearless from love, creep near his lair.\nEven the blind worms seem to feel the sound. _120\nThe birds are silent, hanging down their heads,\nPerched on the lowest branches of the trees;\nNot even the nightingale intrudes a note\nIn rivalry, but all entranced she listens.\n\n_16, _17, _24 1870 only.\n_45-_55 Ah, no!... melody 1870 only.\n_66 1870 only.\n_112 trees 1870; too 1862.\n_113 huge 1870; long 1862.\n_116 starlike 1870; starry 1862. odour 1862; odours 1870.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fiordispina.", + "body": "[Published in part (lines 11-30) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”,\n1824; in full (from the Boscombe manuscript) by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of\nShelley”, 1862.]\n\nThe season was the childhood of sweet June,\nWhose sunny hours from morning until noon\nWent creeping through the day with silent feet,\nEach with its load of pleasure; slow yet sweet;\nLike the long years of blest Eternity _5\nNever to be developed. Joy to thee,\nFiordispina and thy Cosimo,\nFor thou the wonders of the depth canst know\nOf this unfathomable flood of hours,\nSparkling beneath the heaven which embowers— _10\n\n...\n\nThey were two cousins, almost like to twins,\nExcept that from the catalogue of sins\nNature had rased their love—which could not be\nBut by dissevering their nativity.\nAnd so they grew together like two flowers _15\nUpon one stem, which the same beams and showers\nLull or awaken in their purple prime,\nWhich the same hand will gather—the same clime\nShake with decay. This fair day smiles to see\nAll those who love—and who e’er loved like thee, _20\nFiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,\nWithin whose bosom and whose brain now glow\nThe ardours of a vision which obscure\nThe very idol of its portraiture.\nHe faints, dissolved into a sea of love; _25\nBut thou art as a planet sphered above;\nBut thou art Love itself—ruling the motion\nOf his subjected spirit: such emotion\nMust end in sin and sorrow, if sweet May\nHad not brought forth this morn—your wedding-day. _30\n\n...\n\n‘Lie there; sleep awhile in your own dew,\nYe faint-eyed children of the ... Hours,’\nFiordispina said, and threw the flowers\nWhich she had from the breathing—\n\n...\n\nA table near of polished porphyry. _35\nThey seemed to wear a beauty from the eye\nThat looked on them—a fragrance from the touch\nWhose warmth ... checked their life; a light such\nAs sleepers wear, lulled by the voice they love, which did reprove _40\nThe childish pity that she felt for them,\nAnd a ... remorse that from their stem\nShe had divided such fair shapes ... made\nA feeling in the ... which was a shade\nOf gentle beauty on the flowers: there lay _45\nAll gems that make the earth’s dark bosom gay.\n... rods of myrtle-buds and lemon-blooms,\nAnd that leaf tinted lightly which assumes\nThe livery of unremembered snow—\nViolets whose eyes have drunk— _50\n\n...\n\nFiordispina and her nurse are now\nUpon the steps of the high portico,\nUnder the withered arm of Media\nShe flings her glowing arm\n\n...\n\n... step by step and stair by stair, _55\nThat withered woman, gray and white and brown—\nMore like a trunk by lichens overgrown\nThan anything which once could have been human.\nAnd ever as she goes the palsied woman\n\n...\n\n‘How slow and painfully you seem to walk, _60\nPoor Media! you tire yourself with talk.’\n‘And well it may,\nFiordispina, dearest—well-a-day!\nYou are hastening to a marriage-bed;\nI to the grave!’—‘And if my love were dead, _65\nUnless my heart deceives me, I would lie\nBeside him in my shroud as willingly\nAs now in the gay night-dress Lilla wrought.’\n‘Fie, child! Let that unseasonable thought\nNot be remembered till it snows in June; _70\nSuch fancies are a music out of tune\nWith the sweet dance your heart must keep to-night.\nWhat! would you take all beauty and delight\nBack to the Paradise from which you sprung,\nAnd leave to grosser mortals?— _75\nAnd say, sweet lamb, would you not learn the sweet\nAnd subtle mystery by which spirits meet?\nWho knows whether the loving game is played,\nWhen, once of mortal [vesture] disarrayed,\nThe naked soul goes wandering here and there _80\nThrough the wide deserts of Elysian air?\nThe violet dies not till it’—\n\n_11 to 1824; two editions 1839.\n_20 e’er 1862; ever editions 1824, 1839.\n_25 sea edition 1862; sense editions 1824, 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Time Long Past.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.\nThis is one of three poems (cf. “Love’s Philosophy” and “Good-Night”)\ntranscribed by Shelley in a copy of Leigh Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”\nfor 1819 presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820.]\n\n1.\nLike the ghost of a dear friend dead\nIs Time long past.\nA tone which is now forever fled,\nA hope which is now forever past,\nA love so sweet it could not last, _5\nWas Time long past.\n\n2.\nThere were sweet dreams in the night\nOf Time long past:\nAnd, was it sadness or delight,\nEach day a shadow onward cast _10\nWhich made us wish it yet might last—\nThat Time long past.\n\n3.\nThere is regret, almost remorse,\nFor Time long past.\n’Tis like a child’s beloved corse _15\nA father watches, till at last\nBeauty is like remembrance, cast\nFrom Time long past.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: The Deserts Of Dim Sleep.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nI went into the deserts of dim sleep—\nThat world which, like an unknown wilderness,\nBounds this with its recesses wide and deep—\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘The Viewless And Invisible Consequence’.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nThe viewless and invisible Consequence\nWatches thy goings-out, and comings-in,\nAnd...hovers o’er thy guilty sleep,\nUnveiling every new-born deed, and thoughts\nMore ghastly than those deeds— _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘Such Hope, As Is The Sick Despair Of Good’.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nSuch hope, as is the sick despair of good,\nSuch fear, as is the certainty of ill,\nSuch doubt, as is pale Expectation’s food\nTurned while she tastes to poison, when the will\nIs powerless, and the spirit... _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘Alas! This Is Not What I Thought Life Was’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. This\nfragment is joined by Forman with that immediately preceding.]\n\nAlas! this is not what I thought life was.\nI knew that there were crimes and evil men,\nMisery and hate; nor did I hope to pass\nUntouched by suffering, through the rugged glen.\nIn mine own heart I saw as in a glass _5\nThe hearts of others ... And when\nI went among my kind, with triple brass\nOf calm endurance my weak breast I armed,\nTo bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful mass!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Milton’S Spirit.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nI dreamed that Milton’s spirit rose, and took\nFrom life’s green tree his Uranian lute;\nAnd from his touch sweet thunder flowed, and shook\nAll human things built in contempt of man,—\nAnd sanguine thrones and impious altars quaked, _5\nPrisons and citadels...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘Unrisen Splendour Of The Brightest Sun’.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nUnrisen splendour of the brightest sun,\nTo rise upon our darkness, if the star\nNow beckoning thee out of thy misty throne\nCould thaw the clouds which wage an obscure war\nWith thy young brightness! _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Pater Omnipotens.", + "body": "[Edited from manuscript Shelley E 4 in the Bodleian Library, and\npublished by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination” etc., Oxford, Clarendon\nPress, 1903. Here placed conjecturally amongst the compositions of\n1820, but of uncertain date, and belonging possibly to 1819 or a still\nearlier year.]\n\nSerene in his unconquerable might\nEndued[,] the Almighty King, his steadfast throne\nEncompassed unapproachably with power\nAnd darkness and deep solitude an awe\nStood like a black cloud on some aery cliff _5\nEmbosoming its lightning—in his sight\nUnnumbered glorious spirits trembling stood\nLike slaves before their Lord—prostrate around\nHeaven’s multitudes hymned everlasting praise.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: To The Mind Of Man.", + "body": "[Edited, published and here placed as the preceding.]\n\nThou living light that in thy rainbow hues\nClothest this naked world; and over Sea\nAnd Earth and air, and all the shapes that be\nIn peopled darkness of this wondrous world\nThe Spirit of thy glory dost diffuse _5\n... truth ... thou Vital Flame\nMysterious thought that in this mortal frame\nOf things, with unextinguished lustre burnest\nNow pale and faint now high to Heaven upcurled\nThat eer as thou dost languish still returnest _10\nAnd ever\nBefore the ... before the Pyramids\n\nSo soon as from the Earth formless and rude\nOne living step had chased drear Solitude\nThou wert, Thought; thy brightness charmed the lids _15\nOf the vast snake Eternity, who kept\nThe tree of good and evil.—\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Poems Of 1820, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "We spent the latter part of the year 1819 in Florence, where Shelley\npassed several hours daily in the Gallery, and made various notes on\nits ancient works of art. His thoughts were a good deal taken up also\nby the project of a steamboat, undertaken by a friend, an engineer, to\nply between Leghorn and Marseilles, for which he supplied a sum of\nmoney. This was a sort of plan to delight Shelley, and he was greatly\ndisappointed when it was thrown aside.\n\nThere was something in Florence that disagreed excessively with his\nhealth, and he suffered far more pain than usual; so much so that we\nleft it sooner than we intended, and removed to Pisa, where we had some\nfriends, and, above all, where we could consult the celebrated Vacca as\nto the cause of Shelley’s sufferings. He, like every other medical man,\ncould only guess at that, and gave little hope of immediate relief; he\nenjoined him to abstain from all physicians and medicine, and to leave\nhis complaint to Nature. As he had vainly consulted medical men of the\nhighest repute in England, he was easily persuaded to adopt this\nadvice. Pain and ill-health followed him to the end; but the residence\nat Pisa agreed with him better than any other, and there in consequence\nwe remained.\n\nIn the Spring we spent a week or two near Leghorn, borrowing the house\nof some friends who were absent on a journey to England. It was on a\nbeautiful summer evening, while wandering among the lanes whose\nmyrtle-hedges were the bowers of the fire-flies, that we heard the\ncarolling of the skylark which inspired one of the most beautiful of\nhis poems. He addressed the letter to Mrs. Gisborne from this house,\nwhich was hers: he had made his study of the workshop of her son, who\nwas an engineer. Mrs. Gisborne had been a friend of my father in her\nyounger days. She was a lady of great accomplishments, and charming\nfrom her frank and affectionate nature. She had the most intense love\nof knowledge, a delicate and trembling sensibility, and preserved\nfreshness of mind after a life of considerable adversity. As a\nfavourite friend of my father, we had sought her with eagerness; and\nthe most open and cordial friendship was established between us.\n\nOur stay at the Baths of San Giuliano was shortened by an accident. At\nthe foot of our garden ran the canal that communicated between the\nSerchio and the Arno. The Serchio overflowed its banks, and, breaking\nits bounds, this canal also overflowed; all this part of the country is\nbelow the level of its rivers, and the consequence was that it was\nspeedily flooded. The rising waters filled the Square of the Baths, in\nthe lower part of which our house was situated. The canal overflowed in\nthe garden behind; the rising waters on either side at last burst open\nthe doors, and, meeting in the house, rose to the height of six feet.\nIt was a picturesque sight at night to see the peasants driving the\ncattle from the plains below to the hills above the Baths. A fire was\nkept up to guide them across the ford; and the forms of the men and the\nanimals showed in dark relief against the red glare of the flame, which\nwas reflected again in the waters that filled the Square.\n\nWe then removed to Pisa, and took up our abode there for the winter.\nThe extreme mildness of the climate suited Shelley, and his solitude\nwas enlivened by an intercourse with several intimate friends. Chance\ncast us strangely enough on this quiet half-unpeopled town; but its\nvery peace suited Shelley. Its river, the near mountains, and not\ndistant sea, added to its attractions, and were the objects of many\ndelightful excursions. We feared the south of Italy, and a hotter\nclimate, on account of our child; our former bereavement inspiring us\nwith terror. We seemed to take root here, and moved little afterwards;\noften, indeed, entertaining projects for visiting other parts of Italy,\nbut still delaying. But for our fears on account of our child, I\nbelieve we should have wandered over the world, both being passionately\nfond of travelling. But human life, besides its great unalterable\nnecessities, is ruled by a thousand lilliputian ties that shackle at\nthe time, although it is difficult to account afterwards for their\ninfluence over our destiny.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Dirge For The Year.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and dated\nJanuary 1, 1821.]\n\n1.\nOrphan Hours, the Year is dead,\nCome and sigh, come and weep!\nMerry Hours, smile instead,\nFor the Year is but asleep.\nSee, it smiles as it is sleeping, _5\nMocking your untimely weeping.\n\n2.\nAs an earthquake rocks a corse\nIn its coffin in the clay,\nSo White Winter, that rough nurse,\nRocks the death-cold Year to-day; _10\nSolemn Hours! wail aloud\nFor your mother in her shroud.\n\n3.\nAs the wild air stirs and sways\nThe tree-swung cradle of a child,\nSo the breath of these rude days _15\nRocks the Year:—be calm and mild,\nTrembling Hours, she will arise\nWith new love within her eyes.\n\n4.\nJanuary gray is here,\nLike a sexton by her grave; _20\nFebruary bears the bier,\nMarch with grief doth howl and rave,\nAnd April weeps—but, O ye Hours!\nFollow with May’s fairest flowers.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Time.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\nUnfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,\nOcean of Time, whose waters of deep woe\nAre brackish with the salt of human tears!\nThou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow\nClaspest the limits of mortality, _5\nAnd sick of prey, yet howling on for more,\nVomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;\nTreacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,\nWho shall put forth on thee,\nUnfathomable Sea? _10\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nFar, far away, O ye\nHalcyons of Memory,\nSeek some far calmer nest\nThan this abandoned breast!\nNo news of your false spring _5\nTo my heart’s winter bring,\nOnce having gone, in vain\nYe come again.\n\n2.\nVultures, who build your bowers\nHigh in the Future’s towers, _10\nWithered hopes on hopes are spread!\nDying joys, choked by the dead,\nWill serve your beaks for prey\nMany a day.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From The Arabic: An Imitation.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is an\nintermediate draft amongst the Bodleian manuscripts. See Locock,\n“Examination”, etc., 1903, page 13.]\n\n1.\nMy faint spirit was sitting in the light\nOf thy looks, my love;\nIt panted for thee like the hind at noon\nFor the brooks, my love.\nThy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest’s flight _5\nBore thee far from me;\nMy heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,\nDid companion thee.\n\n2.\nAh! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed\nOr the death they bear, _10\nThe heart which tender thought clothes like a dove\nWith the wings of care;\nIn the battle, in the darkness, in the need,\nShall mine cling to thee,\nNor claim one smile for all the comfort, love, _15\nIt may bring to thee.\n\n_3 hoofs]feet B.\n_7 were]grew B.\n_9 Ah!]O B.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Fugitives.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”. 1824.]\n\n1.\nThe waters are flashing,\nThe white hail is dashing,\nThe lightnings are glancing,\nThe hoar-spray is dancing—\nAway! _5\n\nThe whirlwind is rolling,\nThe thunder is tolling,\nThe forest is swinging,\nThe minster bells ringing—\nCome away! _10\n\nThe Earth is like Ocean,\nWreck-strewn and in motion:\nBird, beast, man and worm\nHave crept out of the storm—\nCome away! _15\n\n2.\n‘Our boat has one sail\nAnd the helmsman is pale;—\nA bold pilot I trow,\nWho should follow us now,’—\nShouted he— _20\n\nAnd she cried: ‘Ply the oar!\nPut off gaily from shore!’—\nAs she spoke, bolts of death\nMixed with hail, specked their path\nO’er the sea. _25\n\nAnd from isle, tower and rock,\nThe blue beacon-cloud broke,\nAnd though dumb in the blast,\nThe red cannon flashed fast\nFrom the lee. _30\n\n3.\nAnd ‘Fear’st thou?’ and ‘Fear’st thou?’\nAnd Seest thou?’ and ‘Hear’st thou?’\nAnd ‘Drive we not free\nO’er the terrible sea,\nI and thou?’ _35\n\nOne boat-cloak did cover\nThe loved and the lover—\nTheir blood beats one measure,\nThey murmur proud pleasure\nSoft and low;— _40\n\nWhile around the lashed Ocean,\nLike mountains in motion,\nIs withdrawn and uplifted,\nSunk, shattered and shifted\nTo and fro. _45\n\n4.\nIn the court of the fortress\nBeside the pale portress,\nLike a bloodhound well beaten\nThe bridegroom stands, eaten\nBy shame; _50\n\nOn the topmost watch-turret,\nAs a death-boding spirit\nStands the gray tyrant father,\nTo his voice the mad weather\nSeems tame; _55\n\nAnd with curses as wild\nAs e’er clung to child,\nHe devotes to the blast,\nThe best, loveliest and last\nOf his name! _60\n\n_28 And though]Though editions 1839.\n_57 clung]cling editions 1839.\n\n***\n\n\nTO —.\n\n[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\nMusic, when soft voices die,\nVibrates in the memory—\nOdours, when sweet violets sicken,\nLive within the sense they quicken.\n\nRose leaves, when the rose is dead, _5\nAre heaped for the beloved’s bed;\nAnd so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,\nLove itself shall slumber on.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Song.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.\nThere is a transcript in the Harvard manuscript book.]\n\n1.\nRarely, rarely, comest thou,\nSpirit of Delight!\nWherefore hast thou left me now\nMany a day and night?\nMany a weary night and day _5\n’Tis since thou art fled away.\n\n2.\nHow shall ever one like me\nWin thee back again?\nWith the joyous and the free\nThou wilt scoff at pain. _10\nSpirit false! thou hast forgot\nAll but those who need thee not.\n\n3.\nAs a lizard with the shade\nOf a trembling leaf,\nThou with sorrow art dismayed; _15\nEven the sighs of grief\nReproach thee, that thou art not near,\nAnd reproach thou wilt not hear.\n\n4.\nLet me set my mournful ditty\nTo a merry measure; _20\nThou wilt never come for pity,\nThou wilt come for pleasure;\nPity then will cut away\nThose cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.\n\n5.\nI love all that thou lovest, _25\nSpirit of Delight!\nThe fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,\nAnd the starry night;\nAutumn evening, and the morn\nWhen the golden mists are born. _30\n\n6.\nI love snow, and all the forms\nOf the radiant frost;\nI love waves, and winds, and storms,\nEverything almost\nWhich is Nature’s, and may be _35\nUntainted by man’s misery.\n\n7.\nI love tranquil solitude,\nAnd such society\nAs is quiet, wise, and good\nBetween thee and me _40\nWhat difference? but thou dost possess\nThe things I seek, not love them less.\n\n8.\nI love Love—though he has wings,\nAnd like light can flee,\nBut above all other things, _45\nSpirit, I love thee—\nThou art love and life! Oh, come,\nMake once more my heart thy home.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mutability.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.\nThere is a fair draft amongst the Boscombe manuscripts.]\n\n1.\nThe flower that smiles to-day\nTo-morrow dies;\nAll that we wish to stay\nTempts and then flies.\nWhat is this world’s delight? _5\nLightning that mocks the night,\nBrief even as bright.\n\n2.\nVirtue, how frail it is!\nFriendship how rare!\nLove, how it sells poor bliss _10\nFor proud despair!\nBut we, though soon they fall,\nSurvive their joy, and all\nWhich ours we call.\n\n3.\nWhilst skies are blue and bright, _15\nWhilst flowers are gay,\nWhilst eyes that change ere night\nMake glad the day;\nWhilst yet the calm hours creep,\nDream thou—and from thy sleep _20\nThen wake to weep.\n\n_9 how Boscombe manuscript; too editions 1824, 1839.\n_12 though soon they fall]though soon we or so soon they cj. Rossetti.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Written On Hearing The News Of The Death Of Napoleon.", + "body": "[Published with “Hellas”, 1821.]\n\nWhat! alive and so bold, O Earth?\nArt thou not overbold?\nWhat! leapest thou forth as of old\nIn the light of thy morning mirth,\nThe last of the flock of the starry fold? _5\nHa! leapest thou forth as of old?\nAre not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,\nAnd canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?\n\nHow! is not thy quick heart cold?\nWhat spark is alive on thy hearth? _10\nHow! is not HIS death-knell knolled?\nAnd livest THOU still, Mother Earth?\nThou wert warming thy fingers old\nO’er the embers covered and cold\nOf that most fiery spirit, when it fled— _15\nWhat, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?\n\n‘Who has known me of old,’ replied Earth,\n‘Or who has my story told?\nIt is thou who art overbold.’\nAnd the lightning of scorn laughed forth _20\nAs she sung, ‘To my bosom I fold\nAll my sons when their knell is knolled,\nAnd so with living motion all are fed,\nAnd the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.\n\n‘Still alive and still bold,’ shouted Earth, _25\n‘I grow bolder and still more bold.\nThe dead fill me ten thousandfold\nFuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth.\nI was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,\nLike a frozen chaos uprolled, _30\nTill by the spirit of the mighty dead\nMy heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed.\n\n‘Ay, alive and still bold.’ muttered Earth,\n‘Napoleon’s fierce spirit rolled,\nIn terror and blood and gold, _35\nA torrent of ruin to death from his birth.\nLeave the millions who follow to mould\nThe metal before it be cold;\nAnd weave into his shame, which like the dead\nShrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled.’ _40\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet: Political Greatness.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a\ntranscript, headed “Sonnet to the Republic of Benevento”, in the\nHarvard manuscript book.]\n\nNor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,\nNor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,\nShepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;\nVerse echoes not one beating of their hearts,\nHistory is but the shadow of their shame, _5\nArt veils her glass, or from the pageant starts\nAs to oblivion their blind millions fleet,\nStaining that Heaven with obscene imagery\nOf their own likeness. What are numbers knit\nBy force or custom? Man who man would be, _10\nMust rule the empire of himself; in it\nMust be supreme, establishing his throne\nOn vanquished will, quelling the anarchy\nOf hopes and fears, being himself alone.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Aziola.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “The Keepsake”, 1829.]\n\n1.\n‘Do you not hear the Aziola cry?\nMethinks she must be nigh,’\nSaid Mary, as we sate\nIn dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought;\nAnd I, who thought _5\nThis Aziola was some tedious woman,\nAsked, ‘Who is Aziola?’ How elate\nI felt to know that it was nothing human,\nNo mockery of myself to fear or hate:\nAnd Mary saw my soul, _10\nAnd laughed, and said, ‘Disquiet yourself not;\n’Tis nothing but a little downy owl.’\n\n2.\nSad Aziola! many an eventide\nThy music I had heard\nBy wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side, _15\nAnd fields and marshes wide,—\nSuch as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,\nThe soul ever stirred;\nUnlike and far sweeter than them all.\nSad Aziola! from that moment I _20\nLoved thee and thy sad cry.\n\n_4 ere stars]ere the stars editions 1839.\n_9 or]and editions 1839.\n_19 them]they editions 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Lament.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nO world! O life! O time!\nOn whose last steps I climb,\nTrembling at that where I had stood before;\nWhen will return the glory of your prime?\nNo more—Oh, never more! _5\n\n2.\nOut of the day and night\nA joy has taken flight;\nFresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar,\nMove my faint heart with grief, but with delight\nNo more—Oh, never more! _10\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Remembrance.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, where it is\nentitled “A Lament”. Three manuscript copies are extant: The Trelawny\nmanuscript (“Remembrance”), the Harvard manuscript (“Song”) and the\nHoughton manuscript—the last written by Shelley on a flyleaf of a copy\nof “Adonais”.]\n\n1.\nSwifter far than summer’s flight—\nSwifter far than youth’s delight—\nSwifter far than happy night,\nArt thou come and gone—\nAs the earth when leaves are dead, _5\nAs the night when sleep is sped,\nAs the heart when joy is fled,\nI am left lone, alone.\n\n2.\nThe swallow summer comes again—\nThe owlet night resumes her reign— _10\nBut the wild-swan youth is fain\nTo fly with thee, false as thou.—\nMy heart each day desires the morrow;\nSleep itself is turned to sorrow;\nVainly would my winter borrow _15\nSunny leaves from any bough.\n\n3.\nLilies for a bridal bed—\nRoses for a matron’s head—\nViolets for a maiden dead—\nPansies let MY flowers be: _20\nOn the living grave I bear\nScatter them without a tear—\nLet no friend, however dear,\nWaste one hope, one fear for me.\n\n_5-_7 So editions 1824, 1839, Trelawny manuscript, Harvard manuscript;\n As the wood when leaves are shed,\n As the night when sleep is fled,\n As the heart when joy is dead Houghton manuscript.\n_13 So editions 1824, 1839, Harvard manuscript, Houghton manuscript.\n My heart to-day desires to-morrow Trelawny manuscript.\n_20 So editions 1824, 1839, Harvard manuscript, Houghton manuscript.\n Sadder flowers find for me Trelawny manuscript.\n_24 one hope, one fear]a hope, a fear Trelawny manuscript.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Bridal Song.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nThe golden gates of Sleep unbar\nWhere Strength and Beauty, met together,\nKindle their image like a star\nIn a sea of glassy weather!\nNight, with all thy stars look down,— _5\nDarkness, weep thy holiest dew,—\nNever smiled the inconstant moon\nOn a pair so true.\nLet eyes not see their own delight;—\nHaste, swift Hour, and thy flight _10\nOft renew.\n\n2.\nFairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!\nHoly stars, permit no wrong!\nAnd return to wake the sleeper,\nDawn,—ere it be long! _15\nO joy! O fear! what will be done\nIn the absence of the sun!\nCome along!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Another Version Of The Preceding.", + "body": "[Published by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847.]\n\nNight, with all thine eyes look down!\nDarkness shed its holiest dew!\nWhen ever smiled the inconstant moon\nOn a pair so true?\nHence, coy hour! and quench thy light, _5\nLest eyes see their own delight!\nHence, swift hour! and thy loved flight\nOft renew.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Boys:", + "body": "O joy! O fear! what may be done\nIn the absence of the sun? _10\nCome along!\nThe golden gates of sleep unbar!\nWhen strength and beauty meet together,\nKindles their image like a star\nIn a sea of glassy weather. _15\nHence, coy hour! and quench thy light,\nLest eyes see their own delight!\nHence, swift hour! and thy loved flight\nOft renew.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Girls:", + "body": "O joy! O fear! what may be done _20\nIn the absence of the sun?\nCome along!\nFairies! sprites! and angels, keep her!\nHoliest powers, permit no wrong!\nAnd return, to wake the sleeper, _25\nDawn, ere it be long.\nHence, swift hour! and quench thy light,\nLest eyes see their own delight!\nHence, coy hour! and thy loved flight\nOft renew. _30", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Boys Sing:", + "body": "Night! with all thine eyes look down!\nDarkness! weep thy holiest dew!\nNever smiled the inconstant moon\nOn a pair so true.\nHaste, coy hour! and quench all light, _5\nLest eyes see their own delight!\nHaste, swift hour! and thy loved flight\nOft renew!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Girls Sing:", + "body": "Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!\nHoly stars! permit no wrong! _10\nAnd return, to wake the sleeper,\nDawn, ere it be long!\nO joy! O fear! there is not one\nOf us can guess what may be done\nIn the absence of the sun:— _15\nCome along!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "The golden gate of Sleep unbar,\nWhen Strength and Beauty, met together,\nKindle their image, like a star _25\nIn a sea of glassy weather.\nMay the purple mist of love\nRound them rise, and with them move,\nNourishing each tender gem\nWhich, like flowers, will burst from them. _30\nAs the fruit is to the tree\nMay their children ever be!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Love, Hope, Desire, And Fear.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862. ‘A very free\ntranslation of Brunetto Latini’s “Tesoretto”, lines 81-154.’—A.C.\nBradley.]\n\n...\n\nAnd many there were hurt by that strong boy,\nHis name, they said, was Pleasure,\nAnd near him stood, glorious beyond measure\nFour Ladies who possess all empery\nIn earth and air and sea, _5\nNothing that lives from their award is free.\nTheir names will I declare to thee,\nLove, Hope, Desire, and Fear,\nAnd they the regents are\nOf the four elements that frame the heart, _10\nAnd each diversely exercised her art\nBy force or circumstance or sleight\nTo prove her dreadful might\nUpon that poor domain.\nDesire presented her [false] glass, and then _15\nThe spirit dwelling there\nWas spellbound to embrace what seemed so fair\nWithin that magic mirror,\nAnd dazed by that bright error,\nIt would have scorned the [shafts] of the avenger _20\nAnd death, and penitence, and danger,\nHad not then silent Fear\nTouched with her palsying spear,\nSo that as if a frozen torrent\nThe blood was curdled in its current; _25\nIt dared not speak, even in look or motion,\nBut chained within itself its proud devotion.\nBetween Desire and Fear thou wert\nA wretched thing, poor heart!\nSad was his life who bore thee in his breast, _30\nWild bird for that weak nest.\nTill Love even from fierce Desire it bought,\nAnd from the very wound of tender thought\nDrew solace, and the pity of sweet eyes\nGave strength to bear those gentle agonies, _35\nSurmount the loss, the terror, and the sorrow.\nThen Hope approached, she who can borrow\nFor poor to-day, from rich tomorrow,\nAnd Fear withdrew, as night when day\nDescends upon the orient ray, _40\nAnd after long and vain endurance\nThe poor heart woke to her assurance.\n—At one birth these four were born\nWith the world’s forgotten morn,\nAnd from Pleasure still they hold _45\nAll it circles, as of old.\nWhen, as summer lures the swallow,\nPleasure lures the heart to follow—\nO weak heart of little wit!\nThe fair hand that wounded it, _50\nSeeking, like a panting hare,\nRefuge in the lynx’s lair,\nLove, Desire, Hope, and Fear,\nEver will be near.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragments Written For Hellas.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\n1.\nFairest of the Destinies,\nDisarray thy dazzling eyes:\nKeener far thy lightnings are\nThan the winged [bolts] thou bearest,\nAnd the smile thou wearest _5\nWraps thee as a star\nIs wrapped in light.\n\n2.\nCould Arethuse to her forsaken urn\nFrom Alpheus and the bitter Doris run,\nOr could the morning shafts of purest light _10\nAgain into the quivers of the Sun\nBe gathered—could one thought from its wild flight\nReturn into the temple of the brain\nWithout a change, without a stain,—\nCould aught that is, ever again _15\nBe what it once has ceased to be,\nGreece might again be free!\n\n3.\nA star has fallen upon the earth\nMid the benighted nations,\nA quenchless atom of immortal light, _20\nA living spark of Night,\nA cresset shaken from the constellations.\nSwifter than the thunder fell\nTo the heart of Earth, the well\nWhere its pulses flow and beat, _25\nAnd unextinct in that cold source\nBurns, and on ... course\nGuides the sphere which is its prison,\nLike an angelic spirit pent\nIn a form of mortal birth, _30\nTill, as a spirit half-arisen\nShatters its charnel, it has rent,\nIn the rapture of its mirth,\nThe thin and painted garment of the Earth,\nRuining its chaos—a fierce breath _35\nConsuming all its forms of living death.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘I Would Not Be A King’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\nI would not be a king—enough\nOf woe it is to love;\nThe path to power is steep and rough,\nAnd tempests reign above.\nI would not climb the imperial throne; _5\n’Tis built on ice which fortune’s sun\nThaws in the height of noon.\nThen farewell, king, yet were I one,\nCare would not come so soon.\nWould he and I were far away _10\nKeeping flocks on Himalay!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ginevra.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824,\nand dated ‘Pisa, 1821.’]\n\nWild, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one\nWho staggers forth into the air and sun\nFrom the dark chamber of a mortal fever,\nBewildered, and incapable, and ever\nFancying strange comments in her dizzy brain _5\nOf usual shapes, till the familiar train\nOf objects and of persons passed like things\nStrange as a dreamer’s mad imaginings,\nGinevra from the nuptial altar went;\nThe vows to which her lips had sworn assent _10\nRung in her brain still with a jarring din,\nDeafening the lost intelligence within.\n\nAnd so she moved under the bridal veil,\nWhich made the paleness of her cheek more pale,\nAnd deepened the faint crimson of her mouth, _15\nAnd darkened her dark locks, as moonlight doth,—\nAnd of the gold and jewels glittering there\nShe scarce felt conscious,—but the weary glare\nLay like a chaos of unwelcome light,\nVexing the sense with gorgeous undelight, _20\nA moonbeam in the shadow of a cloud\nWas less heavenly fair—her face was bowed,\nAnd as she passed, the diamonds in her hair\nWere mirrored in the polished marble stair\nWhich led from the cathedral to the street; _25\nAnd ever as she went her light fair feet\nErased these images.\n\nThe bride-maidens who round her thronging came,\nSome with a sense of self-rebuke and shame,\nEnvying the unenviable; and others\nMaking the joy which should have been another’s _30\nTheir own by gentle sympathy; and some\nSighing to think of an unhappy home:\nSome few admiring what can ever lure\nMaidens to leave the heaven serene and pure\nOf parents’ smiles for life’s great cheat; a thing _35\nBitter to taste, sweet in imagining.\n\nBut they are all dispersed—and, lo! she stands\nLooking in idle grief on her white hands,\nAlone within the garden now her own; _40\nAnd through the sunny air, with jangling tone,\nThe music of the merry marriage-bells,\nKilling the azure silence, sinks and swells;—\nAbsorbed like one within a dream who dreams\nThat he is dreaming, until slumber seems _45\nA mockery of itself—when suddenly\nAntonio stood before her, pale as she.\nWith agony, with sorrow, and with pride,\nHe lifted his wan eyes upon the bride,\nAnd said—‘Is this thy faith?’ and then as one _50\nWhose sleeping face is stricken by the sun\nWith light like a harsh voice, which bids him rise\nAnd look upon his day of life with eyes\nWhich weep in vain that they can dream no more,\nGinevra saw her lover, and forbore _55\nTo shriek or faint, and checked the stifling blood\nRushing upon her heart, and unsubdued\nSaid—‘Friend, if earthly violence or ill,\nSuspicion, doubt, or the tyrannic will\nOf parents, chance or custom, time or change, _60\nOr circumstance, or terror, or revenge,\nOr wildered looks, or words, or evil speech,\nWith all their stings and venom can impeach\nOur love,—we love not:—if the grave which hides\nThe victim from the tyrant, and divides _65\nThe cheek that whitens from the eyes that dart\nImperious inquisition to the heart\nThat is another’s, could dissever ours,\nWe love not.’—‘What! do not the silent hours\nBeckon thee to Gherardi’s bridal bed? _70\nIs not that ring’—a pledge, he would have said,\nOf broken vows, but she with patient look\nThe golden circle from her finger took,\nAnd said—‘Accept this token of my faith,\nThe pledge of vows to be absolved by death; _75\nAnd I am dead or shall be soon—my knell\nWill mix its music with that merry bell,\nDoes it not sound as if they sweetly said\n“We toll a corpse out of the marriage-bed”?\nThe flowers upon my bridal chamber strewn _80\nWill serve unfaded for my bier—so soon\nThat even the dying violet will not die\nBefore Ginevra.’ The strong fantasy\nHad made her accents weaker and more weak,\nAnd quenched the crimson life upon her cheek, _85\nAnd glazed her eyes, and spread an atmosphere\nRound her, which chilled the burning noon with fear,\nMaking her but an image of the thought\nWhich, like a prophet or a shadow, brought\nNews of the terrors of the coming time. _90\nLike an accuser branded with the crime\nHe would have cast on a beloved friend,\nWhose dying eyes reproach not to the end\nThe pale betrayer—he then with vain repentance\nWould share, he cannot now avert, the sentence— _95\nAntonio stood and would have spoken, when\nThe compound voice of women and of men\nWas heard approaching; he retired, while she\nWas led amid the admiring company\nBack to the palace,—and her maidens soon _100\nChanged her attire for the afternoon,\nAnd left her at her own request to keep\nAn hour of quiet rest:—like one asleep\nWith open eyes and folded hands she lay,\nPale in the light of the declining day. _105\n\nMeanwhile the day sinks fast, the sun is set,\nAnd in the lighted hall the guests are met;\nThe beautiful looked lovelier in the light\nOf love, and admiration, and delight\nReflected from a thousand hearts and eyes, _110\nKindling a momentary Paradise.\nThis crowd is safer than the silent wood,\nWhere love’s own doubts disturb the solitude;\nOn frozen hearts the fiery rain of wine\nFalls, and the dew of music more divine _115\nTempers the deep emotions of the time\nTo spirits cradled in a sunny clime:—\nHow many meet, who never yet have met,\nTo part too soon, but never to forget.\nHow many saw the beauty, power and wit _120\nOf looks and words which ne’er enchanted yet;\nBut life’s familiar veil was now withdrawn,\nAs the world leaps before an earthquake’s dawn,\nAnd unprophetic of the coming hours,\nThe matin winds from the expanded flowers _125\nScatter their hoarded incense, and awaken\nThe earth, until the dewy sleep is shaken\nFrom every living heart which it possesses,\nThrough seas and winds, cities and wildernesses,\nAs if the future and the past were all _130\nTreasured i’ the instant;—so Gherardi’s hall\nLaughed in the mirth of its lord’s festival,\nTill some one asked—‘Where is the Bride?’ And then\nA bridesmaid went,—and ere she came again\nA silence fell upon the guests—a pause _135\nOf expectation, as when beauty awes\nAll hearts with its approach, though unbeheld;\nThen wonder, and then fear that wonder quelled;—\nFor whispers passed from mouth to ear which drew\nThe colour from the hearer’s cheeks, and flew _140\nLouder and swifter round the company;\nAnd then Gherardi entered with an eye\nOf ostentatious trouble, and a crowd\nSurrounded him, and some were weeping loud.\n\nThey found Ginevra dead! if it be death _145\nTo lie without motion, or pulse, or breath,\nWith waxen cheeks, and limbs cold, stiff, and white,\nAnd open eyes, whose fixed and glassy light\nMocked at the speculation they had owned.\nIf it be death, when there is felt around _150\nA smell of clay, a pale and icy glare,\nAnd silence, and a sense that lifts the hair\nFrom the scalp to the ankles, as it were\nCorruption from the spirit passing forth,\nAnd giving all it shrouded to the earth, _155\nAnd leaving as swift lightning in its flight\nAshes, and smoke, and darkness: in our night\nOf thought we know thus much of death,—no more\nThan the unborn dream of our life before\nTheir barks are wrecked on its inhospitable shore. _160\nThe marriage feast and its solemnity\nWas turned to funeral pomp—the company,\nWith heavy hearts and looks, broke up; nor they\nWho loved the dead went weeping on their way\nAlone, but sorrow mixed with sad surprise _165\nLoosened the springs of pity in all eyes,\nOn which that form, whose fate they weep in vain,\nWill never, thought they, kindle smiles again.\nThe lamps which, half extinguished in their haste,\nGleamed few and faint o’er the abandoned feast, _170\nShowed as it were within the vaulted room\nA cloud of sorrow hanging, as if gloom\nHad passed out of men’s minds into the air.\nSome few yet stood around Gherardi there,\nFriends and relations of the dead,—and he, _175\nA loveless man, accepted torpidly\nThe consolation that he wanted not;\nAwe in the place of grief within him wrought.\nTheir whispers made the solemn silence seem\nMore still—some wept,... _180\nSome melted into tears without a sob,\nAnd some with hearts that might be heard to throb\nLeaned on the table and at intervals\nShuddered to hear through the deserted halls\nAnd corridors the thrilling shrieks which came _185\nUpon the breeze of night, that shook the flame\nOf every torch and taper as it swept\nFrom out the chamber where the women kept;—\nTheir tears fell on the dear companion cold\nOf pleasures now departed; then was knolled _190\nThe bell of death, and soon the priests arrived,\nAnd finding Death their penitent had shrived,\nReturned like ravens from a corpse whereon\nA vulture has just feasted to the bone.\nAnd then the mourning women came.— _195\n\n...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Dirge.", + "body": "Old winter was gone\nIn his weakness back to the mountains hoar,\nAnd the spring came down\nFrom the planet that hovers upon the shore\n\nWhere the sea of sunlight encroaches _200\nOn the limits of wintry night;—\nIf the land, and the air, and the sea,\nRejoice not when spring approaches,\nWe did not rejoice in thee,\nGinevra! _205\n\nShe is still, she is cold\nOn the bridal couch,\nOne step to the white deathbed,\nAnd one to the bier,\nAnd one to the charnel—and one, oh where? _210\nThe dark arrow fled\nIn the noon.\n\nEre the sun through heaven once more has rolled,\nThe rats in her heart\nWill have made their nest, _215\nAnd the worms be alive in her golden hair,\nWhile the Spirit that guides the sun,\nSits throned in his flaming chair,\nShe shall sleep.\n\n22 Was]Were cj. Rossetti.old\n26 ever 1824; even editions 1839.\n_37 Bitter editions 1839; Better 1824.\n_63 wanting in 1824.\n_103 quiet rest cj. A.C. Bradley; quiet and rest 1824.\n_129 winds]lands cj. Forman; waves, sands or strands cj. Rossetti.\n_167 On]In cj. Rossetti.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Evening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.\nThere is a draft amongst the Boscombe manuscripts.]\n\n1.\nThe sun is set; the swallows are asleep;\nThe bats are flitting fast in the gray air;\nThe slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,\nAnd evening’s breath, wandering here and there\nOver the quivering surface of the stream, _5\nWakes not one ripple from its summer dream.\n\n2.\nThere is no dew on the dry grass to-night,\nNor damp within the shadow of the trees;\nThe wind is intermitting, dry, and light;\nAnd in the inconstant motion of the breeze _10\nThe dust and straws are driven up and down,\nAnd whirled about the pavement of the town.\n\n3.\nWithin the surface of the fleeting river\nThe wrinkled image of the city lay,\nImmovably unquiet, and forever _15\nIt trembles, but it never fades away;\nGo to the...\nYou, being changed, will find it then as now.\n\n4.\nThe chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut\nBy darkest barriers of cinereous cloud, _20\nLike mountain over mountain huddled—but\nGrowing and moving upwards in a crowd,\nAnd over it a space of watery blue,\nWhich the keen evening star is shining through..\n\n_6 summer 1839, 2nd edition; silent 1824, 1839, 1st edition.\n_20 cinereous Boscombe manuscript; enormous editions 1824, 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Boat On The Serchio.", + "body": "[Published in part (lines 1-61, 88-118) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous\nPoems”, 1824; revised and enlarged by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical\nWorks of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nOur boat is asleep on Serchio’s stream,\nIts sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,\nThe helm sways idly, hither and thither;\nDominic, the boatman, has brought the mast,\nAnd the oars, and the sails; but ’tis sleeping fast, _5\nLike a beast, unconscious of its tether.\n\nThe stars burnt out in the pale blue air,\nAnd the thin white moon lay withering there;\nTo tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree,\nThe owl and the bat fled drowsily. _10\nDay had kindled the dewy woods,\nAnd the rocks above and the stream below,\nAnd the vapours in their multitudes,\nAnd the Apennine’s shroud of summer snow,\nAnd clothed with light of aery gold _15\nThe mists in their eastern caves uprolled.\n\nDay had awakened all things that be,\nThe lark and the thrush and the swallow free,\nAnd the milkmaid’s song and the mower’s scythe\nAnd the matin-bell and the mountain bee: _20\nFireflies were quenched on the dewy corn,\nGlow-worms went out on the river’s brim,\nLike lamps which a student forgets to trim:\nThe beetle forgot to wind his horn,\nThe crickets were still in the meadow and hill: _25\nLike a flock of rooks at a farmer’s gun\nNight’s dreams and terrors, every one,\nFled from the brains which are their prey\nFrom the lamp’s death to the morning ray.\n\nAll rose to do the task He set to each, _30\nWho shaped us to His ends and not our own;\nThe million rose to learn, and one to teach\nWhat none yet ever knew or can be known.\nAnd many rose\nWhose woe was such that fear became desire;— _35\nMelchior and Lionel were not among those;\nThey from the throng of men had stepped aside,\nAnd made their home under the green hill-side.\nIt was that hill, whose intervening brow\nScreens Lucca from the Pisan’s envious eye, _40\nWhich the circumfluous plain waving below,\nLike a wide lake of green fertility,\nWith streams and fields and marshes bare,\nDivides from the far Apennines—which lie\nIslanded in the immeasurable air. _45\n\n‘What think you, as she lies in her green cove,\nOur little sleeping boat is dreaming of?’\n‘If morning dreams are true, why I should guess\nThat she was dreaming of our idleness,\nAnd of the miles of watery way _50\nWe should have led her by this time of day.’-\n\n‘Never mind,’ said Lionel,\n‘Give care to the winds, they can bear it well\nAbout yon poplar-tops; and see\nThe white clouds are driving merrily, _55\nAnd the stars we miss this morn will light\nMore willingly our return to-night.—\nHow it whistles, Dominic’s long black hair!\nList, my dear fellow; the breeze blows fair:\nHear how it sings into the air—’ _60\n\n—‘Of us and of our lazy motions,’\nImpatiently said Melchior,\n‘If I can guess a boat’s emotions;\nAnd how we ought, two hours before,\nTo have been the devil knows where.’ _65\nAnd then, in such transalpine Tuscan\nAs would have killed a Della-Cruscan,\n\n...\n\nSo, Lionel according to his art\nWeaving his idle words, Melchior said:\n‘She dreams that we are not yet out of bed; _70\nWe’ll put a soul into her, and a heart\nWhich like a dove chased by a dove shall beat.’\n\n...\n\n‘Ay, heave the ballast overboard,\nAnd stow the eatables in the aft locker.’\n‘Would not this keg be best a little lowered?’ _75\n‘No, now all’s right.’ ‘Those bottles of warm tea—\n(Give me some straw)—must be stowed tenderly;\nSuch as we used, in summer after six,\nTo cram in greatcoat pockets, and to mix\nHard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton, _80\nAnd, couched on stolen hay in those green harbours\nFarmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbours,\nWould feast till eight.’\n\n...\n\nWith a bottle in one hand,\nAs if his very soul were at a stand _85\nLionel stood—when Melchior brought him steady:—\n‘Sit at the helm—fasten this sheet—all ready!’\n\nThe chain is loosed, the sails are spread,\nThe living breath is fresh behind,\nAs with dews and sunrise fed, _90\nComes the laughing morning wind;—\nThe sails are full, the boat makes head\nAgainst the Serchio’s torrent fierce,\nThen flags with intermitting course,\nAnd hangs upon the wave, and stems _95\nThe tempest of the...\nWhich fervid from its mountain source\nShallow, smooth and strong doth come,—\nSwift as fire, tempestuously\nIt sweeps into the affrighted sea; _100\nIn morning’s smile its eddies coil,\nIts billows sparkle, toss and boil,\nTorturing all its quiet light\nInto columns fierce and bright.\n\nThe Serchio, twisting forth _105\nBetween the marble barriers which it clove\nAt Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm\nThe wave that died the death which lovers love,\nLiving in what it sought; as if this spasm\nHad not yet passed, the toppling mountains cling, _110\nBut the clear stream in full enthusiasm\nPours itself on the plain, then wandering\nDown one clear path of effluence crystalline\nSends its superfluous waves, that they may fling\nAt Arno’s feet tribute of corn and wine;\nThen, through the pestilential deserts wild\nOf tangled marsh and woods of stunted pine,\nIt rushes to the Ocean.\n\n_58-_61 List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair;\nHow it scatters Dominic’s long black hair!\nSinging of us, and our lazy motions,\nIf I can guess a boat’s emotions.’—editions 1824, 1839.\n_61-_67 Rossetti places these lines conjecturally between lines 51 and 52.\n_61-_65 ‘are evidently an alternative version of 48-51’ (A.C. Bradley).\n_95, _96 and stems The tempest of the wanting in editions 1824, 1839.\n_112 then Boscombe manuscript; until editions 1824, 1839\n_114 superfluous Boscombe manuscript; clear editions 1824, 1839.\n_117 pine Boscombe manuscript; fir editions 1824, 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Music.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\n1.\nI pant for the music which is divine,\nMy heart in its thirst is a dying flower;\nPour forth the sound like enchanted wine,\nLoosen the notes in a silver shower;\nLike a herbless plain, for the gentle rain, _5\nI gasp, I faint, till they wake again.\n\n2.\nLet me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,\nMore, oh more,—I am thirsting yet;\nIt loosens the serpent which care has bound\nUpon my heart to stifle it; _10\nThe dissolving strain, through every vein,\nPasses into my heart and brain.\n\n3.\nAs the scent of a violet withered up,\nWhich grew by the brink of a silver lake,\nWhen the hot noon has drained its dewy cup, _15\nAnd mist there was none its thirst to slake—\nAnd the violet lay dead while the odour flew\nOn the wings of the wind o’er the waters blue—\n\n4.\nAs one who drinks from a charmed cup\nOf foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine, _20\nWhom, a mighty Enchantress filling up,\nInvites to love with her kiss divine...\n\n_16 mist 1824; tank 1839, 2nd edition.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet To Byron.", + "body": "[Published by Medwin, “The Shelley Papers”, 1832 (lines 1-7), and “Life\nof Shelley”, 1847 (lines 1-9, 12-14). Revised and completed from the\nBoscombe manuscript by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”,\n1870.]\n\n[I am afraid these verses will not please you, but]\nIf I esteemed you less, Envy would kill\nPleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair\nThe ministration of the thoughts that fill\nThe mind which, like a worm whose life may share\nA portion of the unapproachable, _5\nMarks your creations rise as fast and fair\nAs perfect worlds at the Creator’s will.\n\nBut such is my regard that nor your power\nTo soar above the heights where others [climb],\nNor fame, that shadow of the unborn hour _10\nCast from the envious future on the time,\nMove one regret for his unhonoured name\nWho dares these words:—the worm beneath the sod\nMay lift itself in homage of the God.\n\n_1 you edition 1870; him 1832; thee 1847.\n_4 So edition 1870; My soul which as a worm may haply share 1832;\n My soul which even as a worm may share 1847.\n_6 your edition 1870; his 1832; thy 1847.\n_8, _9 So edition 1870 wanting 1832 -\n But not the blessings of thy happier lot,\n Nor thy well-won prosperity, and fame 1847.\n_10, _11 So edition 1870; wanting 1832, 1847.\n_12-_14 So 1847, edition 1870; wanting 1832.\n\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "On Keats, Who Desired That On His Tomb Should Be Inscribed—", + "body": "‘Here lieth One whose name was writ on water.\nBut, ere the breath that could erase it blew,\nDeath, in remorse for that fell slaughter,\nDeath, the immortalizing winter, flew\nAthwart the stream,—and time’s printless torrent grew _5\nA scroll of crystal, blazoning the name\nOf Adonais!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘Methought I Was A Billow In The Crowd’.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nMethought I was a billow in the crowd\nOf common men, that stream without a shore,\nThat ocean which at once is deaf and loud;\nThat I, a man, stood amid many more\nBy a wayside..., which the aspect bore _5\nOf some imperial metropolis,\nWhere mighty shapes—pyramid, dome, and tower—\nGleamed like a pile of crags—\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "To-Morrow.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\nWhere art thou, beloved To-morrow?\nWhen young and old, and strong and weak,\nRich and poor, through joy and sorrow,\nThy sweet smiles we ever seek,—\nIn thy place—ah! well-a-day! _5\nWe find the thing we fled—To-day.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Stanza.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.\nConnected by Dowden with the preceding.]\n\nIf I walk in Autumn’s even\nWhile the dead leaves pass,\nIf I look on Spring’s soft heaven,—\nSomething is not there which was\nWinter’s wondrous frost and snow, _5\nSummer’s clouds, where are they now?\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: A Wanderer.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nHe wanders, like a day-appearing dream,\nThrough the dim wildernesses of the mind;\nThrough desert woods and tracts, which seem\nLike ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘I Faint, I Perish With My Love!‘.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nI faint, I perish with my love! I grow\nFrail as a cloud whose [splendours] pale\nUnder the evening’s ever-changing glow:\nI die like mist upon the gale,\nAnd like a wave under the calm I fail. _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: The Lady Of The South.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nFaint with love, the Lady of the South\nLay in the paradise of Lebanon\nUnder a heaven of cedar boughs: the drouth\nOf love was on her lips; the light was gone\nOut of her eyes— _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Zephyrus The Awakener.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nCome, thou awakener of the spirit’s ocean,\nZephyr, whom to thy cloud or cave\nNo thought can trace! speed with thy gentle motion!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘When Soft Winds And Sunny Skies’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nWhen soft winds and sunny skies\nWith the green earth harmonize,\nAnd the young and dewy dawn,\nBold as an unhunted fawn,\nUp the windless heaven is gone,— _5\nLaugh—for ambushed in the day,—\nClouds and whirlwinds watch their prey.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘And That I Walk Thus Proudly Crowned’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\nAnd that I walk thus proudly crowned withal\nIs that ’tis my distinction; if I fall,\nI shall not weep out of the vital day,\nTo-morrow dust, nor wear a dull decay.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘Great Spirit’.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]\n\nGreat Spirit whom the sea of boundless thought\nNurtures within its unimagined caves,\nIn which thou sittest sole, as in my mind,\nGiving a voice to its mysterious waves—\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘O Thou Immortal Deity’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]\n\nO thou immortal deity\nWhose throne is in the depth of human thought,\nI do adjure thy power and thee\nBy all that man may be, by all that he is not,\nBy all that he has been and yet must be! _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: The False Laurel And The True.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]\n\n‘What art thou, Presumptuous, who profanest\nThe wreath to mighty poets only due,\nEven whilst like a forgotten moon thou wanest?\nTouch not those leaves which for the eternal few\nWho wander o’er the Paradise of fame, _5\nIn sacred dedication ever grew:\nOne of the crowd thou art without a name.’\n‘Ah, friend, ’tis the false laurel that I wear;\nBright though it seem, it is not the same\nAs that which bound Milton’s immortal hair; _10\nIts dew is poison; and the hopes that quicken\nUnder its chilling shade, though seeming fair,\nAre flowers which die almost before they sicken.’\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: May The Limner.", + "body": "[This and the three following Fragments were edited from manuscript\nShelley D1 at the Bodleian Library and published by Mr. C.D. Locock,\n“Examination”, etc., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903. They are printed\nhere as belonging probably to the year 1821.]\n\nWhen May is painting with her colours gay\nThe landscape sketched by April her sweet twin...\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘The Death Knell Is Ringing’.", + "body": "(‘This reads like a study for “Autumn, A Dirge”’ (Locock). Might it not\nbe part of a projected Fit v. of “The Fugitives”?—ED.)\n\n[Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.]\n\nThe death knell is ringing\nThe raven is singing\nThe earth worm is creeping\nThe mourners are weeping\nDing dong, bell— _5\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: ‘I Stood Upon A Heaven-Cleaving Turret’.", + "body": "I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret\nWhich overlooked a wide Metropolis—\nAnd in the temple of my heart my Spirit\nLay prostrate, and with parted lips did kiss\nThe dust of Desolations [altar] hearth— _5\nAnd with a voice too faint to falter\nIt shook that trembling fane with its weak prayer\n’Twas noon,—the sleeping skies were blue\nThe city\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Poems Of 1821, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "My task becomes inexpressibly painful as the year draws near that which\nsealed our earthly fate, and each poem, and each event it records, has\na real or mysterious connection with the fatal catastrophe. I feel that\nI am incapable of putting on paper the history of those times. The\nheart of the man, abhorred of the poet, who could\n\n ‘peep and botanize\n Upon his mother’s grave,’\n\ndoes not appear to me more inexplicably framed than that of one who can\ndissect and probe past woes, and repeat to the public ear the groans\ndrawn from them in the throes of their agony.\n\nThe year 1821 was spent in Pisa, or at the Baths of San Giuliano. We\nwere not, as our wont had been, alone; friends had gathered round us.\nNearly all are dead, and, when Memory recurs to the past, she wanders\namong tombs. The genius, with all his blighting errors and mighty\npowers; the companion of Shelley’s ocean-wanderings, and the sharer of\nhis fate, than whom no man ever existed more gentle, generous, and\nfearless; and others, who found in Shelley’s society, and in his great\nknowledge and warm sympathy, delight, instruction, and solace; have\njoined him beyond the grave. A few survive who have felt life a desert\nsince he left it. What misfortune can equal death? Change can convert\nevery other into a blessing, or heal its sting—death alone has no\ncure. It shakes the foundations of the earth on which we tread; it\ndestroys its beauty; it casts down our shelter; it exposes us bare to\ndesolation. When those we love have passed into eternity, ‘life is the\ndesert and the solitude’ in which we are forced to linger—but never\nfind comfort more.\n\nThere is much in the “Adonais” which seems now more applicable to\nShelley himself than to the young and gifted poet whom he mourned. The\npoetic view he takes of death, and the lofty scorn he displays towards\nhis calumniators, are as a prophecy on his own destiny when received\namong immortal names, and the poisonous breath of critics has vanished\ninto emptiness before the fame he inherits.\n\nShelley’s favourite taste was boating; when living near the Thames or\nby the Lake of Geneva, much of his life was spent on the water. On the\nshore of every lake or stream or sea near which he dwelt, he had a boat\nmoored. He had latterly enjoyed this pleasure again. There are no\npleasure-boats on the Arno; and the shallowness of its waters (except\nin winter-time, when the stream is too turbid and impetuous for\nboating) rendered it difficult to get any skiff light enough to float.\nShelley, however, overcame the difficulty; he, together with a friend,\ncontrived a boat such as the huntsmen carry about with them in the\nMaremma, to cross the sluggish but deep streams that intersect the\nforests,—a boat of laths and pitched canvas. It held three persons;\nand he was often seen on the Arno in it, to the horror of the Italians,\nwho remonstrated on the danger, and could not understand how anyone\ncould take pleasure in an exercise that risked life. ‘Ma va per la\nvita!’ they exclaimed. I little thought how true their words would\nprove. He once ventured, with a friend, on the glassy sea of a calm\nday, down the Arno and round the coast to Leghorn, which, by keeping\nclose in shore, was very practicable. They returned to Pisa by the\ncanal, when, missing the direct cut, they got entangled among weeds,\nand the boat upset; a wetting was all the harm done, except that the\nintense cold of his drenched clothes made Shelley faint. Once I went\ndown with him to the mouth of the Arno, where the stream, then high and\nswift, met the tideless sea, and disturbed its sluggish waters. It was\na waste and dreary scene; the desert sand stretched into a point\nsurrounded by waves that broke idly though perpetually around; it was a\nscene very similar to Lido, of which he had said—\n\n ‘I love all waste\n And solitary places; where we taste\n The pleasure of believing what we see\n Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be:\n And such was this wide ocean, and this shore\n More barren than its billows.’\n\nOur little boat was of greater use, unaccompanied by any danger, when\nwe removed to the Baths. Some friends lived at the village of Pugnano,\nfour miles off, and we went to and fro to see them, in our boat, by the\ncanal; which, fed by the Serchio, was, though an artificial, a full and\npicturesque stream, making its way under verdant banks, sheltered by\ntrees that dipped their boughs into the murmuring waters. By day,\nmultitudes of Ephemera darted to and fro on the surface; at night, the\nfireflies came out among the shrubs on the banks; the cicale at\nnoon-day kept up their hum; the aziola cooed in the quiet evening. It\nwas a pleasant summer, bright in all but Shelley’s health and\ninconstant spirits; yet he enjoyed himself greatly, and became more and\nmore attached to the part of the country where chance appeared to cast\nus. Sometimes he projected taking a farm situated on the height of one\nof the near hills, surrounded by chestnut and pine woods, and\noverlooking a wide extent of country: or settling still farther in the\nmaritime Apennines, at Massa. Several of his slighter and unfinished\npoems were inspired by these scenes, and by the companions around us.\nIt is the nature of that poetry, however, which overflows from the soul\noftener to express sorrow and regret than joy; for it is when oppressed\nby the weight of life, and away from those he loves, that the poet has\nrecourse to the solace of expression in verse.\n\nStill, Shelley’s passion was the ocean; and he wished that our summers,\ninstead of being passed among the hills near Pisa, should be spent on\nthe shores of the sea. It was very difficult to find a spot. We shrank\nfrom Naples from a fear that the heats would disagree with Percy:\nLeghorn had lost its only attraction, since our friends who had resided\nthere were returned to England; and, Monte Nero being the resort of\nmany English, we did not wish to find ourselves in the midst of a\ncolony of chance travellers. No one then thought it possible to reside\nat Via Reggio, which latterly has become a summer resort. The low lands\nand bad air of Maremma stretch the whole length of the western shores\nof the Mediterranean, till broken by the rocks and hills of Spezia. It\nwas a vague idea, but Shelley suggested an excursion to Spezia, to see\nwhether it would be feasible to spend a summer there. The beauty of the\nbay enchanted him. We saw no house to suit us; but the notion took\nroot, and many circumstances, enchained as by fatality, occurred to\nurge him to execute it.\n\nHe looked forward this autumn with great pleasure to the prospect of a\nvisit from Leigh Hunt. When Shelley visited Lord Byron at Ravenna, the\nlatter had suggested his coming out, together with the plan of a\nperiodical work in which they should all join. Shelley saw a prospect\nof good for the fortunes of his friend, and pleasure in his society;\nand instantly exerted himself to have the plan executed. He did not\nintend himself joining in the work: partly from pride, not wishing to\nhave the air of acquiring readers for his poetry by associating it with\nthe compositions of more popular writers; and also because he might\nfeel shackled in the free expression of his opinions, if any friends\nwere to be compromised. By those opinions, carried even to their\noutermost extent, he wished to live and die, as being in his conviction\nnot only true, but such as alone would conduce to the moral improvement\nand happiness of mankind. The sale of the work might meanwhile, either\nreally or supposedly, be injured by the free expression of his\nthoughts; and this evil he resolved to avoid.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Zucca.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and dated\n‘January, 1822.’ There is a copy amongst the Boscombe manuscripts.]\n\n1.\nSummer was dead and Autumn was expiring,\nAnd infant Winter laughed upon the land\nAll cloudlessly and cold;—when I, desiring\nMore in this world than any understand,\nWept o’er the beauty, which, like sea retiring, _5\nHad left the earth bare as the wave-worn sand\nOf my lorn heart, and o’er the grass and flowers\nPale for the falsehood of the flattering Hours.\n\n2.\nSummer was dead, but I yet lived to weep\nThe instability of all but weeping; _10\nAnd on the Earth lulled in her winter sleep\nI woke, and envied her as she was sleeping.\nToo happy Earth! over thy face shall creep\nThe wakening vernal airs, until thou, leaping\nFrom unremembered dreams, shalt ... see _15\nNo death divide thy immortality.\n\n3.\nI loved—oh, no, I mean not one of ye,\nOr any earthly one, though ye are dear\nAs human heart to human heart may be;—\nI loved, I know not what—but this low sphere _20\nAnd all that it contains, contains not thee,\nThou, whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere.\nFrom Heaven and Earth, and all that in them are,\nVeiled art thou, like a ... star.\n\n4.\nBy Heaven and Earth, from all whose shapes thou flowest, _25\nNeither to be contained, delayed, nor hidden;\nMaking divine the loftiest and the lowest,\nWhen for a moment thou art not forbidden\nTo live within the life which thou bestowest;\nAnd leaving noblest things vacant and chidden, _30\nCold as a corpse after the spirit’s flight\nBlank as the sun after the birth of night.\n\n5.\nIn winds, and trees, and streams, and all things common,\nIn music and the sweet unconscious tone\nOf animals, and voices which are human, _35\nMeant to express some feelings of their own;\nIn the soft motions and rare smile of woman,\nIn flowers and leaves, and in the grass fresh-shown,\nOr dying in the autumn, I the most\nAdore thee present or lament thee lost. _40\n\n6.\nAnd thus I went lamenting, when I saw\nA plant upon the river’s margin lie\nLike one who loved beyond his nature’s law,\nAnd in despair had cast him down to die;\nIts leaves, which had outlived the frost, the thaw _45\nHad blighted; like a heart which hatred’s eye\nCan blast not, but which pity kills; the dew\nLay on its spotted leaves like tears too true.\n\n7.\nThe Heavens had wept upon it, but the Earth\nHad crushed it on her maternal breast _50\n\n...\n\n8.\nI bore it to my chamber, and I planted\nIt in a vase full of the lightest mould;\nThe winter beams which out of Heaven slanted\nFell through the window-panes, disrobed of cold,\nUpon its leaves and flowers; the stars which panted _55\nIn evening for the Day, whose car has rolled\nOver the horizon’s wave, with looks of light\nSmiled on it from the threshold of the night.\n\n9.\nThe mitigated influences of air\nAnd light revived the plant, and from it grew _60\nStrong leaves and tendrils, and its flowers fair,\nFull as a cup with the vine’s burning dew,\nO’erflowed with golden colours; an atmosphere\nOf vital warmth enfolded it anew,\nAnd every impulse sent to every part\nThe unbeheld pulsations of its heart. _65\n\n10.\nWell might the plant grow beautiful and strong,\nEven if the air and sun had smiled not on it;\nFor one wept o’er it all the winter long\nTears pure as Heaven’s rain, which fell upon it _70\nHour after hour; for sounds of softest song\nMixed with the stringed melodies that won it\nTo leave the gentle lips on which it slept,\nHad loosed the heart of him who sat and wept.\n\n11.\nHad loosed his heart, and shook the leaves and flowers _75\nOn which he wept, the while the savage storm\nWaked by the darkest of December’s hours\nWas raving round the chamber hushed and warm;\nThe birds were shivering in their leafless bowers,\nThe fish were frozen in the pools, the form _80\nOf every summer plant was dead\nWhilst this....\n\n...\n\n_7 lorn Boscombe manuscript; poor edition 1824.\n_23 So Boscombe manuscript; Dim object of soul’s idolatry edition 1824.\n_24 star Boscombe manuscript; wanting edition 1824.\n_38 grass fresh Boscombe manuscript; fresh grass edition 1824.\n_46 like Boscombe manuscript; as edition 1824.\n_68 air and sun Boscombe manuscript; sun and air edition 1824.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Magnetic Lady To Her Patient.", + "body": "[Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, August 11, 1832.\nThere is a copy amongst the Trelawny manuscripts.]\n\n1.\n‘Sleep, sleep on! forget thy pain;\nMy hand is on thy brow,\nMy spirit on thy brain;\nMy pity on thy heart, poor friend;\nAnd from my fingers flow _5\nThe powers of life, and like a sign,\nSeal thee from thine hour of woe;\nAnd brood on thee, but may not blend\nWith thine.\n\n2.\n‘Sleep, sleep on! I love thee not; _10\nBut when I think that he\nWho made and makes my lot\nAs full of flowers as thine of weeds,\nMight have been lost like thee;\nAnd that a hand which was not mine _15\nMight then have charmed his agony\nAs I another’s—my heart bleeds\nFor thine.\n\n3.\n‘Sleep, sleep, and with the slumber of\nThe dead and the unborn _20\nForget thy life and love;\nForget that thou must wake forever;\nForget the world’s dull scorn;\nForget lost health, and the divine\nFeelings which died in youth’s brief morn; _25\nAnd forget me, for I can never\nBe thine.\n\n4.\n‘Like a cloud big with a May shower,\nMy soul weeps healing rain\nOn thee, thou withered flower! _30\nIt breathes mute music on thy sleep\nIts odour calms thy brain!\nIts light within thy gloomy breast\nSpreads like a second youth again.\nBy mine thy being is to its deep _35\nPossessed.\n\n5.\n‘The spell is done. How feel you now?’\n‘Better—Quite well,’ replied\nThe sleeper.—‘What would do _39\nYou good when suffering and awake?\nWhat cure your head and side?—’\n‘What would cure, that would kill me, Jane:\nAnd as I must on earth abide\nAwhile, yet tempt me not to break\nMy chain.’ _45\n\n_1, _10 Sleep Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition;\n Sleep on 1832, 1839, 1st edition.\n_16 charmed Trelawny manuscript;\n chased 1832, editions 1839.\n_21 love]woe 1832.\n_42 so Trelawny manuscript\n ’Twould kill me what would cure my pain 1832, editions 1839.\n_44 Awhile yet, cj. A.C. Bradley.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines: ‘When The Lamp Is Shattered’.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.\nThere is a copy amongst the Trelawny manuscripts.]\n\n1.\nWhen the lamp is shattered\nThe light in the dust lies dead—\nWhen the cloud is scattered\nThe rainbow’s glory is shed.\nWhen the lute is broken, _5\nSweet tones are remembered not;\nWhen the lips have spoken,\nLoved accents are soon forgot.\n\n2.\nAs music and splendour\nSurvive not the lamp and the lute, _10\nThe heart’s echoes render\nNo song when the spirit is mute:—\nNo song but sad dirges,\nLike the wind through a ruined cell,\nOr the mournful surges _15\nThat ring the dead seaman’s knell.\n\n3.\nWhen hearts have once mingled\nLove first leaves the well-built nest;\nThe weak one is singled\nTo endure what it once possessed. _20\nO Love! who bewailest\nThe frailty of all things here,\nWhy choose you the frailest\nFor your cradle, your home, and your bier?\n\n4.\nIts passions will rock thee _25\nAs the storms rock the ravens on high;\nBright reason will mock thee,\nLike the sun from a wintry sky.\nFrom thy nest every rafter\nWill rot, and thine eagle home _30\nLeave thee naked to laughter,\nWhen leaves fall and cold winds come.\n\n_6 tones edition 1824; notes Trelawny manuscript.\n_14 through edition 1824; in Trelawny manuscript.\n_16 dead edition 1824; lost Trelawny manuscript.\n_23 choose edition 1824; chose Trelawny manuscript.\n_25-_32 wanting Trelawny manuscript.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Pine Forest Of The Cascine Near Pisa.", + "body": "[This, the first draft of “To Jane: The Invitation, The Recollection”,\nwas published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and reprinted,\n“Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. See Editor’s Prefatory Note to\n“The Invitation”, above.]\n\nDearest, best and brightest,\nCome away,\nTo the woods and to the fields!\nDearer than this fairest day\nWhich, like thee to those in sorrow, _5\nComes to bid a sweet good-morrow\nTo the rough Year just awake\nIn its cradle in the brake.\nThe eldest of the Hours of Spring,\nInto the Winter wandering, _10\nLooks upon the leafless wood,\nAnd the banks all bare and rude;\nFound, it seems, this halcyon Morn\nIn February’s bosom born,\nBending from Heaven, in azure mirth, _15\nKissed the cold forehead of the Earth,\nAnd smiled upon the silent sea,\nAnd bade the frozen streams be free;\nAnd waked to music all the fountains,\nAnd breathed upon the rigid mountains, _20\nAnd made the wintry world appear\nLike one on whom thou smilest, Dear.\n\nRadiant Sister of the Day,\nAwake! arise! and come away!\nTo the wild woods and the plains, _25\nTo the pools where winter rains\nImage all the roof of leaves,\nWhere the pine its garland weaves\nSapless, gray, and ivy dun\nRound stems that never kiss the sun— _30\nTo the sandhills of the sea,\nWhere the earliest violets be.\n\nNow the last day of many days,\nAll beautiful and bright as thou,\nThe loveliest and the last, is dead, _35\nRise, Memory, and write its praise!\nAnd do thy wonted work and trace\nThe epitaph of glory fled;\nFor now the Earth has changed its face,\nA frown is on the Heaven’s brow. _40\n\nWe wandered to the Pine Forest\nThat skirts the Ocean’s foam,\nThe lightest wind was in its nest,\nThe tempest in its home.\n\nThe whispering waves were half asleep, _45\nThe clouds were gone to play,\nAnd on the woods, and on the deep\nThe smile of Heaven lay.\n\nIt seemed as if the day were one\nSent from beyond the skies, _50\nWhich shed to earth above the sun\nA light of Paradise.\n\nWe paused amid the pines that stood,\nThe giants of the waste,\nTortured by storms to shapes as rude _55\nWith stems like serpents interlaced.\n\nHow calm it was—the silence there\nBy such a chain was bound,\nThat even the busy woodpecker\nMade stiller by her sound _60\n\nThe inviolable quietness;\nThe breath of peace we drew\nWith its soft motion made not less\nThe calm that round us grew.\n\nIt seemed that from the remotest seat _65\nOf the white mountain’s waste\nTo the bright flower beneath our feet,\nA magic circle traced;—\n\nA spirit interfused around,\nA thinking, silent life; _70\nTo momentary peace it bound\nOur mortal nature’s strife;—\n\nAnd still, it seemed, the centre of\nThe magic circle there,\nWas one whose being filled with love _75\nThe breathless atmosphere.\n\nWere not the crocuses that grew\nUnder that ilex-tree\nAs beautiful in scent and hue\nAs ever fed the bee? _80\n\nWe stood beneath the pools that lie\nUnder the forest bough,\nAnd each seemed like a sky\nGulfed in a world below;\n\nA purple firmament of light _85\nWhich in the dark earth lay,\nMore boundless than the depth of night,\nAnd clearer than the day—\n\nIn which the massy forests grew\nAs in the upper air, _90\nMore perfect both in shape and hue\nThan any waving there.\n\nLike one beloved the scene had lent\nTo the dark water’s breast\nIts every leaf and lineament _95\nWith that clear truth expressed;\n\nThere lay far glades and neighbouring lawn,\nAnd through the dark green crowd\nThe white sun twinkling like the dawn\nUnder a speckled cloud. _100\n\nSweet views, which in our world above\nCan never well be seen,\nWere imaged by the water’s love\nOf that fair forest green.\n\nAnd all was interfused beneath _105\nWith an Elysian air,\nAn atmosphere without a breath,\nA silence sleeping there.\n\nUntil a wandering wind crept by,\nLike an unwelcome thought, _110\nWhich from my mind’s too faithful eye\nBlots thy bright image out.\n\nFor thou art good and dear and kind,\nThe forest ever green,\nBut less of peace in S—‘s mind,\nThan calm in waters, seen. _116.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "With A Guitar, To Jane.", + "body": "[Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, October 20, 1832; “Frazer’s\nMagazine”, January 1833. There is a copy amongst the Trelawny\nmanuscripts.]\n\nAriel to Miranda:—Take\nThis slave of Music, for the sake\nOf him who is the slave of thee,\nAnd teach it all the harmony\nIn which thou canst, and only thou, _5\nMake the delighted spirit glow,\nTill joy denies itself again,\nAnd, too intense, is turned to pain;\nFor by permission and command\nOf thine own Prince Ferdinand, _10\nPoor Ariel sends this silent token\nOf more than ever can be spoken;\nYour guardian spirit, Ariel, who,\nFrom life to life, must still pursue\nYour happiness;—for thus alone _15\nCan Ariel ever find his own.\nFrom Prospero’s enchanted cell,\nAs the mighty verses tell,\nTo the throne of Naples, he\nLit you o’er the trackless sea, _20\nFlitting on, your prow before,\nLike a living meteor.\nWhen you die, the silent Moon,\nIn her interlunar swoon,\nIs not sadder in her cell\nThan deserted Ariel.\nWhen you live again on earth,\nLike an unseen star of birth,\nAriel guides you o’er the sea\nOf life from your nativity. _30\nMany changes have been run\nSince Ferdinand and you begun\nYour course of love, and Ariel still\nHas tracked your steps, and served your will;\nNow, in humbler, happier lot, _35\nThis is all remembered not;\nAnd now, alas! the poor sprite is\nImprisoned, for some fault of his,\nIn a body like a grave;—\nFrom you he only dares to crave, _40\nFor his service and his sorrow,\nA smile today, a song tomorrow.\n\nThe artist who this idol wrought,\nTo echo all harmonious thought,\nFelled a tree, while on the steep _45\nThe woods were in their winter sleep,\nRocked in that repose divine\nOn the wind-swept Apennine;\nAnd dreaming, some of Autumn past,\nAnd some of Spring approaching fast, _50\nAnd some of April buds and showers,\nAnd some of songs in July bowers,\nAnd all of love; and so this tree,—\nO that such our death may be!—\nDied in sleep, and felt no pain, _55\nTo live in happier form again:\nFrom which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,\nThe artist wrought this loved Guitar,\nAnd taught it justly to reply,\nTo all who question skilfully, _60\nIn language gentle as thine own;\nWhispering in enamoured tone\nSweet oracles of woods and dells,\nAnd summer winds in sylvan cells;\nFor it had learned all harmonies _65\nOf the plains and of the skies,\nOf the forests and the mountains,\nAnd the many-voiced fountains;\nThe clearest echoes of the hills,\nThe softest notes of falling rills, _70\nThe melodies of birds and bees,\nThe murmuring of summer seas,\nAnd pattering rain, and breathing dew,\nAnd airs of evening; and it knew\nThat seldom-heard mysterious sound, _75\nWhich, driven on its diurnal round,\nAs it floats through boundless day,\nOur world enkindles on its way.—\nAll this it knows, but will not tell\nTo those who cannot question well _80\nThe Spirit that inhabits it;\nIt talks according to the wit\nOf its companions; and no more\nIs heard than has been felt before,\nBy those who tempt it to betray _85\nThese secrets of an elder day:\nBut, sweetly as its answers will\nFlatter hands of perfect skill,\nIt keeps its highest, holiest tone\nFor our beloved Jane alone. _90\n\n_12 Of more than ever]Of love that never 1833.\n_46 woods Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition;\n winds 1832, 1833, 1839, 1st edition.\n_58 this Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition;\n that 1832, 1833, 1839, 1st edition.\n_61 thine own Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition;\n its own 1832, 1833, 1839, 1st edition.\n_76 on Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition;\n in 1832, 1833, 1839, 1st edition.\n_90 Jane Trelawny manuscript; friend 1832, 1833, editions 1839.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Dirge.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\nRough wind, that moanest loud\nGrief too sad for song;\nWild wind, when sullen cloud\nKnells all the night long;\nSad storm whose tears are vain, _5\nBare woods, whose branches strain,\nDeep caves and dreary main,—\nWail, for the world’s wrong!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Written In The Bay Of Lerici.", + "body": "[Published from the Boscombe manuscripts by Dr. Garnett, “Macmillan’s\nMagazine”, June, 1862; reprinted, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nShe left me at the silent time\nWhen the moon had ceased to climb\nThe azure path of Heaven’s steep,\nAnd like an albatross asleep,\nBalanced on her wings of light, _5\nHovered in the purple night,\nEre she sought her ocean nest\nIn the chambers of the West.\nShe left me, and I stayed alone\nThinking over every tone _10\nWhich, though silent to the ear,\nThe enchanted heart could hear,\nLike notes which die when born, but still\nHaunt the echoes of the hill;\nAnd feeling ever—oh, too much!— _15\nThe soft vibration of her touch,\nAs if her gentle hand, even now,\nLightly trembled on my brow;\nAnd thus, although she absent were,\nMemory gave me all of her _20\nThat even Fancy dares to claim:—\nHer presence had made weak and tame\nAll passions, and I lived alone\nIn the time which is our own;\nThe past and future were forgot, _25\nAs they had been, and would be, not.\nBut soon, the guardian angel gone,\nThe daemon reassumed his throne\nIn my faint heart. I dare not speak\nMy thoughts, but thus disturbed and weak _30\nI sat and saw the vessels glide\nOver the ocean bright and wide,\nLike spirit-winged chariots sent\nO’er some serenest element\nFor ministrations strange and far; _35\nAs if to some Elysian star\nSailed for drink to medicine\nSuch sweet and bitter pain as mine.\nAnd the wind that winged their flight\nFrom the land came fresh and light, _40\nAnd the scent of winged flowers,\nAnd the coolness of the hours\nOf dew, and sweet warmth left by day,\nWere scattered o’er the twinkling bay.\nAnd the fisher with his lamp _45\nAnd spear about the low rocks damp\nCrept, and struck the fish which came\nTo worship the delusive flame.\nToo happy they, whose pleasure sought\nExtinguishes all sense and thought _50\nOf the regret that pleasure leaves,\nDestroying life alone, not peace!\n\n_11 though silent Relics 1862; though now silent Mac. Mag. 1862.\n_31 saw Relics 1862; watched Mac. Mag. 1862.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lines: ‘We Meet Not As We Parted’.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\n1.\nWe meet not as we parted,\nWe feel more than all may see;\nMy bosom is heavy-hearted,\nAnd thine full of doubt for me:—\nOne moment has bound the free. _5\n\n2.\nThat moment is gone for ever,\nLike lightning that flashed and died—\nLike a snowflake upon the river—\nLike a sunbeam upon the tide,\nWhich the dark shadows hide. _10\n\n3.\nThat moment from time was singled\nAs the first of a life of pain;\nThe cup of its joy was mingled\n—Delusion too sweet though vain!\nToo sweet to be mine again. _15\n\n4.\nSweet lips, could my heart have hidden\nThat its life was crushed by you,\nYe would not have then forbidden\nThe death which a heart so true\nSought in your briny dew. _20\n\n5.\n...\n...\n...\nMethinks too little cost\nFor a moment so found, so lost! _25\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Isle.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\nThere was a little lawny islet\nBy anemone and violet,\nLike mosaic, paven:\nAnd its roof was flowers and leaves\nWhich the summer’s breath enweaves, _5\nWhere nor sun nor showers nor breeze\nPierce the pines and tallest trees,\nEach a gem engraven;—\nGirt by many an azure wave\nWith which the clouds and mountains pave _10\nA lake’s blue chasm.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: To The Moon.", + "body": "[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]\n\nBright wanderer, fair coquette of Heaven,\nTo whom alone it has been given\nTo change and be adored for ever,\nEnvy not this dim world, for never\nBut once within its shadow grew _5\nOne fair as—\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaph.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]\n\nThese are two friends whose lives were undivided;\nSo let their memory be, now they have glided\nUnder the grave; let not their bones be parted,\nFor their two hearts in life were single-hearted.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Poems Of 1822, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": " This morn thy gallant bark\n Sailed on a sunny sea:\n ’Tis noon, and tempests dark\n Have wrecked it on the lee.\n Ah woe! ah woe!\n By Spirits of the deep\n Thou’rt cradled on the billow\n To thy eternal sleep.\n\n Thou sleep’st upon the shore\n Beside the knelling surge,\n And Sea-nymphs evermore\n Shall sadly chant thy dirge.\n They come, they come,\n The Spirits of the deep,—\n While near thy seaweed pillow\n My lonely watch I keep.\n\n From far across the sea\n I hear a loud lament,\n By Echo’s voice for thee\n From Ocean’s caverns sent.\n O list! O list!\n The Spirits of the deep!\n They raise a wail of sorrow,\n While I forever weep.\n\nWith this last year of the life of Shelley these Notes end. They are\nnot what I intended them to be. I began with energy, and a burning\ndesire to impart to the world, in worthy language, the sense I have of\nthe virtues and genius of the beloved and the lost; my strength has\nfailed under the task. Recurrence to the past, full of its own deep and\nunforgotten joys and sorrows, contrasted with succeeding years of\npainful and solitary struggle, has shaken my health. Days of great\nsuffering have followed my attempts to write, and these again produced\na weakness and languor that spread their sinister influence over these\nnotes. I dislike speaking of myself, but cannot help apologizing to the\ndead, and to the public, for not having executed in the manner I\ndesired the history I engaged to give of Shelley’s writings. (I at one\ntime feared that the correction of the press might be less exact\nthrough my illness; but I believe that it is nearly free from error.\nSome asterisks occur in a few pages, as they did in the volume of\n“Posthumous Poems”, either because they refer to private concerns, or\nbecause the original manuscript was left imperfect. Did any one see the\npapers from which I drew that volume, the wonder would be how any eyes\nor patience were capable of extracting it from so confused a mass,\ninterlined and broken into fragments, so that the sense could only be\ndeciphered and joined by guesses which might seem rather intuitive than\nfounded on reasoning. Yet I believe no mistake was made.)\n\nThe winter of 1822 was passed in Pisa, if we might call that season\nwinter in which autumn merged into spring after the interval of but few\ndays of bleaker weather. Spring sprang up early, and with extreme\nbeauty. Shelley had conceived the idea of writing a tragedy on the\nsubject of Charles I. It was one that he believed adapted for a drama;\nfull of intense interest, contrasted character, and busy passion. He\nhad recommended it long before, when he encouraged me to attempt a\nplay. Whether the subject proved more difficult than he anticipated, or\nwhether in fact he could not bend his mind away from the broodings and\nwanderings of thought, divested from human interest, which he best\nloved, I cannot tell; but he proceeded slowly, and threw it aside for\none of the most mystical of his poems, the “Triumph of Life”, on which\nhe was employed at the last.\n\nHis passion for boating was fostered at this time by having among our\nfriends several sailors. His favourite companion, Edward Ellerker\nWilliams, of the 8th Light Dragoons, had begun his life in the navy,\nand had afterwards entered the army; he had spent several years in\nIndia, and his love for adventure and manly exercises accorded with\nShelley’s taste. It was their favourite plan to build a boat such as\nthey could manage themselves, and, living on the sea-coast, to enjoy at\nevery hour and season the pleasure they loved best. Captain Roberts,\nR.N., undertook to build the boat at Genoa, where he was also occupied\nin building the “Bolivar” for Lord Byron. Ours was to be an open boat,\non a model taken from one of the royal dockyards. I have since heard\nthat there was a defect in this model, and that it was never seaworthy.\nIn the month of February, Shelley and his friend went to Spezia to seek\nfor houses for us. Only one was to be found at all suitable; however, a\ntrifle such as not finding a house could not stop Shelley; the one\nfound was to serve for all. It was unfurnished; we sent our furniture\nby sea, and with a good deal of precipitation, arising from his\nimpatience, made our removal. We left Pisa on the 26th of April.\n\nThe Bay of Spezia is of considerable extent, and divided by a rocky\npromontory into a larger and smaller one. The town of Lerici is\nsituated on the eastern point, and in the depth of the smaller bay,\nwhich bears the name of this town, is the village of San Terenzo. Our\nhouse, Casa Magni, was close to this village; the sea came up to the\ndoor, a steep hill sheltered it behind. The proprietor of the estate on\nwhich it was situated was insane; he had begun to erect a large house\nat the summit of the hill behind, but his malady prevented its being\nfinished, and it was falling into ruin. He had (and this to the\nItalians had seemed a glaring symptom of very decided madness) rooted\nup the olives on the hillside, and planted forest trees. These were\nmostly young, but the plantation was more in English taste than I ever\nelsewhere saw in Italy; some fine walnut and ilex trees intermingled\ntheir dark massy foliage, and formed groups which still haunt my\nmemory, as then they satiated the eye with a sense of loveliness. The\nscene was indeed of unimaginable beauty. The blue extent of waters, the\nalmost landlocked bay, the near castle of Lerici shutting it in to the\neast, and distant Porto Venere to the west; the varied forms of the\nprecipitous rocks that bound in the beach, over which there was only a\nwinding rugged footpath towards Lerici, and none on the other side; the\ntideless sea leaving no sands nor shingle, formed a picture such as one\nsees in Salvator Rosa’s landscapes only. Sometimes the sunshine\nvanished when the sirocco raged—the ‘ponente’ the wind was called on\nthat shore. The gales and squalls that hailed our first arrival\nsurrounded the bay with foam; the howling wind swept round our exposed\nhouse, and the sea roared unremittingly, so that we almost fancied\nourselves on board ship. At other times sunshine and calm invested sea\nand sky, and the rich tints of Italian heaven bathed the scene in\nbright and ever-varying tints.\n\nThe natives were wilder than the place. Our near neighbours of San\nTerenzo were more like savages than any people I ever before lived\namong. Many a night they passed on the beach, singing, or rather\nhowling; the women dancing about among the waves that broke at their\nfeet, the men leaning against the rocks and joining in their loud wild\nchorus. We could get no provisions nearer than Sarzana, at a distance\nof three miles and a half off, with the torrent of the Magra between;\nand even there the supply was very deficient. Had we been wrecked on an\nisland of the South Seas, we could scarcely have felt ourselves farther\nfrom civilisation and comfort; but, where the sun shines, the latter\nbecomes an unnecessary luxury, and we had enough society among\nourselves. Yet I confess housekeeping became rather a toilsome task,\nespecially as I was suffering in my health, and could not exert myself\nactively.\n\nAt first the fatal boat had not arrived, and was expected with great\nimpatience. On Monday, 12th May, it came. Williams records the\nlong-wished-for fact in his journal: ‘Cloudy and threatening weather.\nM. Maglian called; and after dinner, and while walking with him on the\nterrace, we discovered a strange sail coming round the point of Porto\nVenere, which proved at length to be Shelley’s boat. She had left Genoa\non Thursday last, but had been driven back by the prevailing bad winds.\nA Mr. Heslop and two English seamen brought her round, and they speak\nmost highly of her performances. She does indeed excite my surprise and\nadmiration. Shelley and I walked to Lerici, and made a stretch off the\nland to try her: and I find she fetches whatever she looks at. In\nshort, we have now a perfect plaything for the summer.’—It was thus\nthat short-sighted mortals welcomed Death, he having disguised his grim\nform in a pleasing mask! The time of the friends was now spent on the\nsea; the weather became fine, and our whole party often passed the\nevenings on the water when the wind promised pleasant sailing. Shelley\nand Williams made longer excursions; they sailed several times to\nMassa. They had engaged one of the seamen who brought her round, a boy,\nby name Charles Vivian; and they had not the slightest apprehension of\ndanger. When the weather was unfavourable, they employed themselves\nwith alterations in the rigging, and by building a boat of canvas and\nreeds, as light as possible, to have on board the other for the\nconvenience of landing in waters too shallow for the larger vessel.\nWhen Shelley was on board, he had his papers with him; and much of the\n“Triumph of Life” was written as he sailed or weltered on that sea\nwhich was soon to engulf him.\n\nThe heats set in in the middle of June; the days became excessively\nhot. But the sea-breeze cooled the air at noon, and extreme heat always\nput Shelley in spirits. A long drought had preceded the heat; and\nprayers for rain were being put up in the churches, and processions of\nrelics for the same effect took place in every town. At this time we\nreceived letters announcing the arrival of Leigh Hunt at Genoa. Shelley\nwas very eager to see him. I was confined to my room by severe illness,\nand could not move; it was agreed that Shelley and Williams should go\nto Leghorn in the boat. Strange that no fear of danger crossed our\nminds! Living on the sea-shore, the ocean became as a plaything: as a\nchild may sport with a lighted stick, till a spark inflames a forest,\nand spreads destruction over all, so did we fearlessly and blindly\ntamper with danger, and make a game of the terrors of the ocean. Our\nItalian neighbours, even, trusted themselves as far as Massa in the\nskiff; and the running down the line of coast to Leghorn gave no more\nnotion of peril than a fair-weather inland navigation would have done\nto those who had never seen the sea. Once, some months before, Trelawny\nhad raised a warning voice as to the difference of our calm bay and the\nopen sea beyond; but Shelley and his friend, with their one sailor-boy,\nthought themselves a match for the storms of the Mediterranean, in a\nboat which they looked upon as equal to all it was put to do.\n\nOn the 1st of July they left us. If ever shadow of future ill darkened\nthe present hour, such was over my mind when they went. During the\nwhole of our stay at Lerici, an intense presentiment of coming evil\nbrooded over my mind, and covered this beautiful place and genial\nsummer with the shadow of coming misery. I had vainly struggled with\nthese emotions—they seemed accounted for by my illness; but at this\nhour of separation they recurred with renewed violence. I did not\nanticipate danger for them, but a vague expectation of evil shook me to\nagony, and I could scarcely bring myself to let them go. The day was\ncalm and clear; and, a fine breeze rising at twelve, they weighed for\nLeghorn. They made the run of about fifty miles in seven hours and a\nhalf. The “Bolivar” was in port; and, the regulations of the\nHealth-office not permitting them to go on shore after sunset, they\nborrowed cushions from the larger vessel, and slept on board their\nboat.\n\nThey spent a week at Pisa and Leghorn. The want of rain was severely\nfelt in the country. The weather continued sultry and fine. I have\nheard that Shelley all this time was in brilliant spirits. Not long\nbefore, talking of presentiment, he had said the only one that he ever\nfound infallible was the certain advent of some evil fortune when he\nfelt peculiarly joyous. Yet, if ever fate whispered of coming disaster,\nsuch inaudible but not unfelt prognostics hovered around us. The beauty\nof the place seemed unearthly in its excess: the distance we were at\nfrom all signs of civilization, the sea at our feet, its murmurs or its\nroaring for ever in our ears,—all these things led the mind to brood\nover strange thoughts, and, lifting it from everyday life, caused it to\nbe familiar with the unreal. A sort of spell surrounded us; and each\nday, as the voyagers did not return, we grew restless and disquieted,\nand yet, strange to say, we were not fearful of the most apparent\ndanger.\n\nThe spell snapped; it was all over; an interval of agonizing doubt—of\ndays passed in miserable journeys to gain tidings, of hopes that took\nfirmer root even as they were more baseless—was changed to the\ncertainty of the death that eclipsed all happiness for the survivors\nfor evermore.\n\nThere was something in our fate peculiarly harrowing. The remains of\nthose we lost were cast on shore; but, by the quarantine-laws of the\ncoast, we were not permitted to have possession of them—the law with\nrespect to everything cast on land by the sea being that such should be\nburned, to prevent the possibility of any remnant bringing the plague\ninto Italy; and no representation could alter the law. At length,\nthrough the kind and unwearied exertions of Mr. Dawkins, our Charge\nd’Affaires at Florence, we gained permission to receive the ashes after\nthe bodies were consumed. Nothing could equal the zeal of Trelawny in\ncarrying our wishes into effect. He was indefatigable in his exertions,\nand full of forethought and sagacity in his arrangements. It was a\nfearful task; he stood before us at last, his hands scorched and\nblistered by the flames of the funeral-pyre, and by touching the burnt\nrelics as he placed them in the receptacles prepared for the purpose.\nAnd there, in compass of that small case, was gathered all that\nremained on earth of him whose genius and virtue were a crown of glory\nto the world—whose love had been the source of happiness, peace, and\ngood,—to be buried with him!\n\nThe concluding stanzas of the “Adonais” pointed out where the remains\nought to be deposited; in addition to which our beloved child lay\nburied in the cemetery at Rome. Thither Shelley’s ashes were conveyed;\nand they rest beneath one of the antique weed-grown towers that recur\nat intervals in the circuit of the massy ancient wall of Rome. He\nselected the hallowed place himself; there is\n\n ‘the sepulchre,\n Oh, not of him, but of our joy!—\n ...\n And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time\n Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;\n And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,\n Pavilioning the dust of him who planned\n This refuge for his memory, doth stand\n Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath,\n A field is spread, on which a newer band\n Have pitched in Heaven’s smile their camp of death,\n Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.’\n\nCould sorrow for the lost, and shuddering anguish at the vacancy left\nbehind, be soothed by poetic imaginations, there was something in\nShelley’s fate to mitigate pangs which yet, alas! could not be so\nmitigated; for hard reality brings too miserably home to the mourner\nall that is lost of happiness, all of lonely unsolaced struggle that\nremains. Still, though dreams and hues of poetry cannot blunt grief, it\ninvests his fate with a sublime fitness, which those less nearly allied\nmay regard with complacency. A year before he had poured into verse all\nsuch ideas about death as give it a glory of its own. He had, as it now\nseems, almost anticipated his own destiny; and, when the mind figures\nhis skiff wrapped from sight by the thunder-storm, as it was last seen\nupon the purple sea, and then, as the cloud of the tempest passed away,\nno sign remained of where it had been (Captain Roberts watched the\nvessel with his glass from the top of the lighthouse of Leghorn, on its\nhomeward track. They were off Via Reggio, at some distance from shore,\nwhen a storm was driven over the sea. It enveloped them and several\nlarger vessels in darkness. When the cloud passed onwards, Roberts\nlooked again, and saw every other vessel sailing on the ocean except\ntheir little schooner, which had vanished. From that time he could\nscarcely doubt the fatal truth; yet we fancied that they might have\nbeen driven towards Elba or Corsica, and so be saved. The observation\nmade as to the spot where the boat disappeared caused it to be found,\nthrough the exertions of Trelawny for that effect. It had gone down in\nten fathom water; it had not capsized, and, except such things as had\nfloated from her, everything was found on board exactly as it had been\nplaced when they sailed. The boat itself was uninjured. Roberts\npossessed himself of her, and decked her; but she proved not seaworthy,\nand her shattered planks now lie rotting on the shore of one of the\nIonian islands, on which she was wrecked.)—who but will regard as a\nprophecy the last stanza of the “Adonais”?\n\n ‘The breath whose might I have invoked in song\n Descends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven,\n Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng\n Whose sails were never to the tempest given;\n The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!\n I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;\n Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,\n The soul of Adonais, like a star,\n Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.’\n\nPutney, May 1, 1839.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Original Poetry By Victor And Cazire.", + "body": "1. ‘HERE I SIT WITH MY PAPER, MY PEN AND MY INK’.\n\n2. TO MISS — — [HARRIET GROVE] FROM MISS — — [ELIZABETH SHELLEY].\n\n3. SONG: ‘COLD, COLD IS THE BLAST’.\n\n4. SONG: ‘COME [HARRIET]! SWEET IS THE HOUR’.\n\n5. SONG: DESPAIR.\n\n6. SONG: SORROW.\n\n7. SONG: HOPE.\n\n8. SONG: TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN.\n\n9. SONG: TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN.\n\n10. THE IRISHMAN’S SONG.\n\n11. SONG: ‘FIERCE ROARS THE MIDNIGHT STORM’.\n\n12. SONG: TO — [HARRIET].\n\n13. SONG: TO — [HARRIET].\n\n14. SAINT EDMOND’S EVE.\n\n15. REVENGE.\n\n16. GHASTA; OR, THE AVENGING DEMON.\n\n17. FRAGMENT; OR, THE TRIUMPH OF CONSCIENCE.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Translations.", + "body": "[Of the Translations that follow a few were published by Shelley\nhimself, others by Mrs. Shelley in the “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, or the\n“Poetical Works”, 1839, and the remainder by Medwin (1834, 1847),\nGarnett (1862), Rossetti (1870), Forman (1876) and Locock (1903) from\nthe manuscript originals. Shelley’s “Translations” fall between the\nyears 1818 and 1822.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Translated From The Greek Of Homer.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. This alone of the\n“Translations” is included in the Harvard manuscript book. ‘Fragments of\nthe drafts of this and the other Hymns of Homer exist among the Boscombe\nmanuscripts’ (Forman).]\n\n1.\nSing, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove,\nThe Herald-child, king of Arcadia\nAnd all its pastoral hills, whom in sweet love\nHaving been interwoven, modest May\nBore Heaven’s dread Supreme. An antique grove _5\nShadowed the cavern where the lovers lay\nIn the deep night, unseen by Gods or Men,\nAnd white-armed Juno slumbered sweetly then.\n\n2.\nNow, when the joy of Jove had its fulfilling,\nAnd Heaven’s tenth moon chronicled her relief, _10\nShe gave to light a babe all babes excelling,\nA schemer subtle beyond all belief;\nA shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing,\nA night-watching, and door-waylaying thief,\nWho ‘mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve, _15\nAnd other glorious actions to achieve.\n\n3.\nThe babe was born at the first peep of day;\nHe began playing on the lyre at noon,\nAnd the same evening did he steal away\nApollo’s herds;—the fourth day of the moon _20\nOn which him bore the venerable May,\nFrom her immortal limbs he leaped full soon,\nNor long could in the sacred cradle keep,\nBut out to seek Apollo’s herds would creep.\n\n4.\nOut of the lofty cavern wandering _25\nHe found a tortoise, and cried out—‘A treasure!’\n(For Mercury first made the tortoise sing)\nThe beast before the portal at his leisure\nThe flowery herbage was depasturing,\nMoving his feet in a deliberate measure _30\nOver the turf. Jove’s profitable son\nEying him laughed, and laughing thus begun:—\n\n5.\n‘A useful godsend are you to me now,\nKing of the dance, companion of the feast,\nLovely in all your nature! Welcome, you _35\nExcellent plaything! Where, sweet mountain-beast,\nGot you that speckled shell? Thus much I know,\nYou must come home with me and be my guest;\nYou will give joy to me, and I will do\nAll that is in my power to honour you. _40\n\n6.\n‘Better to be at home than out of door,\nSo come with me; and though it has been said\nThat you alive defend from magic power,\nI know you will sing sweetly when you’re dead.’\nThus having spoken, the quaint infant bore, _45\nLifting it from the grass on which it fed\nAnd grasping it in his delighted hold,\nHis treasured prize into the cavern old.\n\n7.\nThen scooping with a chisel of gray steel,\nHe bored the life and soul out of the beast.— _50\nNot swifter a swift thought of woe or weal\nDarts through the tumult of a human breast\nWhich thronging cares annoy—not swifter wheel\nThe flashes of its torture and unrest\nOut of the dizzy eyes—than Maia’s son _55\nAll that he did devise hath featly done.\n\n8.\n...\nAnd through the tortoise’s hard stony skin\nAt proper distances small holes he made,\nAnd fastened the cut stems of reeds within,\nAnd with a piece of leather overlaid _60\nThe open space and fixed the cubits in,\nFitting the bridge to both, and stretched o’er all\nSymphonious cords of sheep-gut rhythmical.\n\n9.\nWhen he had wrought the lovely instrument,\nHe tried the chords, and made division meet, _65\nPreluding with the plectrum, and there went\nUp from beneath his hand a tumult sweet\nOf mighty sounds, and from his lips he sent\nA strain of unpremeditated wit\nJoyous and wild and wanton—such you may _70\nHear among revellers on a holiday.\n\n10.\nHe sung how Jove and May of the bright sandal\nDallied in love not quite legitimate;\nAnd his own birth, still scoffing at the scandal,\nAnd naming his own name, did celebrate; _75\nHis mother’s cave and servant maids he planned all\nIn plastic verse, her household stuff and state,\nPerennial pot, trippet, and brazen pan,—\nBut singing, he conceived another plan.\n\n11.\n...\nSeized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat, _80\nHe in his sacred crib deposited\nThe hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet\nRushed with great leaps up to the mountain’s head,\nRevolving in his mind some subtle feat\nOf thievish craft, such as a swindler might _85\nDevise in the lone season of dun night.\n\n12.\nLo! the great Sun under the ocean’s bed has\nDriven steeds and chariot—the child meanwhile strode\nO’er the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows,\nWhere the immortal oxen of the God _90\nAre pastured in the flowering unmown meadows,\nAnd safely stalled in a remote abode.—\nThe archer Argicide, elate and proud,\nDrove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud.\n\n13.\nHe drove them wandering o’er the sandy way, _95\nBut, being ever mindful of his craft,\nBackward and forward drove he them astray,\nSo that the tracks which seemed before, were aft;\nHis sandals then he threw to the ocean spray,\nAnd for each foot he wrought a kind of raft _100\nOf tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs,\nAnd bound them in a lump with withy twigs.\n\n14.\nAnd on his feet he tied these sandals light,\nThe trail of whose wide leaves might not betray\nHis track; and then, a self-sufficing wight, _105\nLike a man hastening on some distant way,\nHe from Pieria’s mountain bent his flight;\nBut an old man perceived the infant pass\nDown green Onchestus heaped like beds with grass.\n\n15.\nThe old man stood dressing his sunny vine: _110\n‘Halloo! old fellow with the crooked shoulder!\nYou grub those stumps? before they will bear wine\nMethinks even you must grow a little older:\nAttend, I pray, to this advice of mine,\nAs you would ‘scape what might appal a bolder— _115\nSeeing, see not—and hearing, hear not—and—\nIf you have understanding—understand.’\n\n16.\nSo saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast;\nO’er shadowy mountain and resounding dell,\nAnd flower-paven plains, great Hermes passed; _120\nTill the black night divine, which favouring fell\nAround his steps, grew gray, and morning fast\nWakened the world to work, and from her cell\nSea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime\nInto her watch-tower just began to climb. _125\n\n17.\nNow to Alpheus he had driven all\nThe broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun;\nThey came unwearied to the lofty stall\nAnd to the water-troughs which ever run\nThrough the fresh fields—and when with rushgrass tall, _130\nLotus and all sweet herbage, every one\nHad pastured been, the great God made them move\nTowards the stall in a collected drove.\n\n18.\nA mighty pile of wood the God then heaped,\nAnd having soon conceived the mystery _135\nOf fire, from two smooth laurel branches stripped\nThe bark, and rubbed them in his palms;—on high\nSuddenly forth the burning vapour leaped\nAnd the divine child saw delightedly.—\nMercury first found out for human weal _140\nTinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint and steel.\n\n19.\nAnd fine dry logs and roots innumerous\nHe gathered in a delve upon the ground—\nAnd kindled them—and instantaneous\nThe strength of the fierce flame was breathed around: _145\nAnd whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus\nWrapped the great pile with glare and roaring sound,\nHermes dragged forth two heifers, lowing loud,\nClose to the fire—such might was in the God.\n\n20.\nAnd on the earth upon their backs he threw _150\nThe panting beasts, and rolled them o’er and o’er,\nAnd bored their lives out. Without more ado\nHe cut up fat and flesh, and down before\nThe fire, on spits of wood he placed the two,\nToasting their flesh and ribs, and all the gore _155\nPursed in the bowels; and while this was done\nHe stretched their hides over a craggy stone.\n\n21.\nWe mortals let an ox grow old, and then\nCut it up after long consideration,—\nBut joyous-minded Hermes from the glen _160\nDrew the fat spoils to the more open station\nOf a flat smooth space, and portioned them; and when\nHe had by lot assigned to each a ration\nOf the twelve Gods, his mind became aware\nOf all the joys which in religion are. _165\n\n22.\nFor the sweet savour of the roasted meat\nTempted him though immortal. Natheless\nHe checked his haughty will and did not eat,\nThough what it cost him words can scarce express,\nAnd every wish to put such morsels sweet _170\nDown his most sacred throat, he did repress;\nBut soon within the lofty portalled stall\nHe placed the fat and flesh and bones and all.\n\n23.\nAnd every trace of the fresh butchery\nAnd cooking, the God soon made disappear, _175\nAs if it all had vanished through the sky;\nHe burned the hoofs and horns and head and hair,—\nThe insatiate fire devoured them hungrily;—\nAnd when he saw that everything was clear,\nHe quenched the coal, and trampled the black dust, _180\nAnd in the stream his bloody sandals tossed.\n\n24.\nAll night he worked in the serene moonshine—\nBut when the light of day was spread abroad\nHe sought his natal mountain-peaks divine.\nOn his long wandering, neither Man nor God _185\nHad met him, since he killed Apollo’s kine,\nNor house-dog had barked at him on his road;\nNow he obliquely through the keyhole passed,\nLike a thin mist, or an autumnal blast.\n\n25.\nRight through the temple of the spacious cave _190\nHe went with soft light feet—as if his tread\nFell not on earth; no sound their falling gave;\nThen to his cradle he crept quick, and spread\nThe swaddling-clothes about him; and the knave\nLay playing with the covering of the bed _195\nWith his left hand about his knees—the right\nHeld his beloved tortoise-lyre tight.\n\n26.\nThere he lay innocent as a new-born child,\nAs gossips say; but though he was a God,\nThe Goddess, his fair mother, unbeguiled, _200\nKnew all that he had done being abroad:\n‘Whence come you, and from what adventure wild,\nYou cunning rogue, and where have you abode\nAll the long night, clothed in your impudence?\nWhat have you done since you departed hence? _205\n\n27.\n‘Apollo soon will pass within this gate\nAnd bind your tender body in a chain\nInextricably tight, and fast as fate,\nUnless you can delude the God again,\nEven when within his arms—ah, runagate! _210\nA pretty torment both for Gods and Men\nYour father made when he made you!’—‘Dear mother,’\nReplied sly Hermes, ‘wherefore scold and bother?\n\n28.\n‘As if I were like other babes as old,\nAnd understood nothing of what is what; _215\nAnd cared at all to hear my mother scold.\nI in my subtle brain a scheme have got,\nWhich whilst the sacred stars round Heaven are rolled\nWill profit you and me—nor shall our lot\nBe as you counsel, without gifts or food, _220\nTo spend our lives in this obscure abode.\n\n29\n‘But we will leave this shadow-peopled cave\nAnd live among the Gods, and pass each day\nIn high communion, sharing what they have\nOf profuse wealth and unexhausted prey; _225\nAnd from the portion which my father gave\nTo Phoebus, I will snatch my share away,\nWhich if my father will not—natheless I,\nWho am the king of robbers, can but try.\n\n30.\n‘And, if Latona’s son should find me out, _230\nI’ll countermine him by a deeper plan;\nI’ll pierce the Pythian temple-walls, though stout,\nAnd sack the fane of everything I can—\nCaldrons and tripods of great worth no doubt,\nEach golden cup and polished brazen pan, _235\nAll the wrought tapestries and garments gay.’—\nSo they together talked;—meanwhile the Day\n\n31.\nAethereal born arose out of the flood\nOf flowing Ocean, bearing light to men.\nApollo passed toward the sacred wood, _240\nWhich from the inmost depths of its green glen\nEchoes the voice of Neptune,—and there stood\nOn the same spot in green Onchestus then\nThat same old animal, the vine-dresser,\nWho was employed hedging his vineyard there. _245\n\n32.\nLatona’s glorious Son began:—‘I pray\nTell, ancient hedger of Onchestus green,\nWhether a drove of kine has passed this way,\nAll heifers with crooked horns? for they have been\nStolen from the herd in high Pieria, _250\nWhere a black bull was fed apart, between\nTwo woody mountains in a neighbouring glen,\nAnd four fierce dogs watched there, unanimous as men.\n\n33.\n‘And what is strange, the author of this theft\nHas stolen the fatted heifers every one, _255\nBut the four dogs and the black bull are left:—\nStolen they were last night at set of sun,\nOf their soft beds and their sweet food bereft.—\nNow tell me, man born ere the world begun,\nHave you seen any one pass with the cows?’— _260\nTo whom the man of overhanging brows:\n\n34.\n‘My friend, it would require no common skill\nJustly to speak of everything I see:\nOn various purposes of good or ill\nMany pass by my vineyard,—and to me _265\n’Tis difficult to know the invisible\nThoughts, which in all those many minds may be:—\nThus much alone I certainly can say,\nI tilled these vines till the decline of day,\n\n35.\n‘And then I thought I saw, but dare not speak _270\nWith certainty of such a wondrous thing,\nA child, who could not have been born a week,\nThose fair-horned cattle closely following,\nAnd in his hand he held a polished stick:\nAnd, as on purpose, he walked wavering _275\nFrom one side to the other of the road,\nAnd with his face opposed the steps he trod.’\n\n36.\nApollo hearing this, passed quickly on—\nNo winged omen could have shown more clear\nThat the deceiver was his father’s son. _280\nSo the God wraps a purple atmosphere\nAround his shoulders, and like fire is gone\nTo famous Pylos, seeking his kine there,\nAnd found their track and his, yet hardly cold,\nAnd cried—‘What wonder do mine eyes behold! _285\n\n37.\n‘Here are the footsteps of the horned herd\nTurned back towards their fields of asphodel;—\nBut THESE are not the tracks of beast or bird,\nGray wolf, or bear, or lion of the dell,\nOr maned Centaur—sand was never stirred _290\nBy man or woman thus! Inexplicable!\nWho with unwearied feet could e’er impress\nThe sand with such enormous vestiges?\n\n38.\n‘That was most strange—but this is stranger still!’\nThus having said, Phoebus impetuously _295\nSought high Cyllene’s forest-cinctured hill,\nAnd the deep cavern where dark shadows lie,\nAnd where the ambrosial nymph with happy will\nBore the Saturnian’s love-child, Mercury—\nAnd a delightful odour from the dew _300\nOf the hill pastures, at his coming, flew.\n\n39.\nAnd Phoebus stooped under the craggy roof\nArched over the dark cavern:—Maia’s child\nPerceived that he came angry, far aloof,\nAbout the cows of which he had been beguiled; _305\nAnd over him the fine and fragrant woof\nOf his ambrosial swaddling-clothes he piled—\nAs among fire-brands lies a burning spark\nCovered, beneath the ashes cold and dark.\n\n40.\nThere, like an infant who had sucked his fill _310\nAnd now was newly washed and put to bed,\nAwake, but courting sleep with weary will,\nAnd gathered in a lump, hands, feet, and head,\nHe lay, and his beloved tortoise still\nHe grasped and held under his shoulder-blade. _315\nPhoebus the lovely mountain-goddess knew,\nNot less her subtle, swindling baby, who\n\n41.\nLay swathed in his sly wiles. Round every crook\nOf the ample cavern, for his kine, Apollo\nLooked sharp; and when he saw them not, he took _320\nThe glittering key, and opened three great hollow\nRecesses in the rock—where many a nook\nWas filled with the sweet food immortals swallow,\nAnd mighty heaps of silver and of gold\nWere piled within—a wonder to behold! _325\n\n42.\nAnd white and silver robes, all overwrought\nWith cunning workmanship of tracery sweet—\nExcept among the Gods there can be nought\nIn the wide world to be compared with it.\nLatona’s offspring, after having sought _330\nHis herds in every corner, thus did greet\nGreat Hermes:—‘Little cradled rogue, declare\nOf my illustrious heifers, where they are!\n\n43.\n‘Speak quickly! or a quarrel between us\nMust rise, and the event will be, that I _335\nShall hurl you into dismal Tartarus,\nIn fiery gloom to dwell eternally;\nNor shall your father nor your mother loose\nThe bars of that black dungeon—utterly\nYou shall be cast out from the light of day, _340\nTo rule the ghosts of men, unblessed as they.\n\n44.\nTo whom thus Hermes slily answered:—‘Son\nOf great Latona, what a speech is this!\nWhy come you here to ask me what is done\nWith the wild oxen which it seems you miss? _345\nI have not seen them, nor from any one\nHave heard a word of the whole business;\nIf you should promise an immense reward,\nI could not tell more than you now have heard.\n\n45.\n‘An ox-stealer should be both tall and strong, _350\nAnd I am but a little new-born thing,\nWho, yet at least, can think of nothing wrong:—\nMy business is to suck, and sleep, and fling\nThe cradle-clothes about me all day long,—\nOr half asleep, hear my sweet mother sing, _355\nAnd to be washed in water clean and warm,\nAnd hushed and kissed and kept secure from harm.\n\n46.\n‘O, let not e’er this quarrel be averred!\nThe astounded Gods would laugh at you, if e’er\nYou should allege a story so absurd _360\nAs that a new-born infant forth could fare\nOut of his home after a savage herd.\nI was born yesterday—my small feet are\nToo tender for the roads so hard and rough:—\nAnd if you think that this is not enough, _365\n\n47.\nI swear a great oath, by my father’s head,\nThat I stole not your cows, and that I know\nOf no one else, who might, or could, or did.—\nWhatever things cows are, I do not know,\nFor I have only heard the name.’—This said _370\nHe winked as fast as could be, and his brow\nWas wrinkled, and a whistle loud gave he,\nLike one who hears some strange absurdity.\n\n48.\nApollo gently smiled and said:—‘Ay, ay,—\nYou cunning little rascal, you will bore _375\nMany a rich man’s house, and your array\nOf thieves will lay their siege before his door,\nSilent as night, in night; and many a day\nIn the wild glens rough shepherds will deplore\nThat you or yours, having an appetite, _380\nMet with their cattle, comrade of the night!\n\n49.\n‘And this among the Gods shall be your gift,\nTo be considered as the lord of those\nWho swindle, house-break, sheep-steal, and shop-lift;—\nBut now if you would not your last sleep doze; _385\nCrawl out!’—Thus saying, Phoebus did uplift\nThe subtle infant in his swaddling clothes,\nAnd in his arms, according to his wont,\nA scheme devised the illustrious Argiphont.\n\n50.\n...\n...\nAnd sneezed and shuddered—Phoebus on the grass _390\nHim threw, and whilst all that he had designed\nHe did perform—eager although to pass,\nApollo darted from his mighty mind\nTowards the subtle babe the following scoff:—\n‘Do not imagine this will get you off, _395\n\n51.\n‘You little swaddled child of Jove and May!\nAnd seized him:—‘By this omen I shall trace\nMy noble herds, and you shall lead the way.’—\nCyllenian Hermes from the grassy place,\nLike one in earnest haste to get away, _400\nRose, and with hands lifted towards his face\nRound both his ears up from his shoulders drew\nHis swaddling clothes, and—‘What mean you to do\n\n52.\n‘With me, you unkind God?’—said Mercury:\n‘Is it about these cows you tease me so? _405\nI wish the race of cows were perished!—I\nStole not your cows—I do not even know\nWhat things cows are. Alas! I well may sigh\nThat since I came into this world of woe,\nI should have ever heard the name of one— _410\nBut I appeal to the Saturnian’s throne.’\n\n53.\nThus Phoebus and the vagrant Mercury\nTalked without coming to an explanation,\nWith adverse purpose. As for Phoebus, he\nSought not revenge, but only information, _415\nAnd Hermes tried with lies and roguery\nTo cheat Apollo.—But when no evasion\nServed—for the cunning one his match had found—\nHe paced on first over the sandy ground.\n\n54.\n...\nHe of the Silver Bow the child of Jove _420\nFollowed behind, till to their heavenly Sire\nCame both his children, beautiful as Love,\nAnd from his equal balance did require\nA judgement in the cause wherein they strove.\nO’er odorous Olympus and its snows _425\nA murmuring tumult as they came arose,—\n\n55.\nAnd from the folded depths of the great Hill,\nWhile Hermes and Apollo reverent stood\nBefore Jove’s throne, the indestructible\nImmortals rushed in mighty multitude; _430\nAnd whilst their seats in order due they fill,\nThe lofty Thunderer in a careless mood\nTo Phoebus said:—‘Whence drive you this sweet prey,\nThis herald-baby, born but yesterday?—\n\n56.\n‘A most important subject, trifler, this _435\nTo lay before the Gods!’—‘Nay, Father, nay,\nWhen you have understood the business,\nSay not that I alone am fond of prey.\nI found this little boy in a recess\nUnder Cyllene’s mountains far away— _440\nA manifest and most apparent thief,\nA scandalmonger beyond all belief.\n\n57.\n‘I never saw his like either in Heaven\nOr upon earth for knavery or craft:—\nOut of the field my cattle yester-even, _445\nBy the low shore on which the loud sea laughed,\nHe right down to the river-ford had driven;\nAnd mere astonishment would make you daft\nTo see the double kind of footsteps strange\nHe has impressed wherever he did range. _450\n\n58.\n‘The cattle’s track on the black dust, full well\nIs evident, as if they went towards\nThe place from which they came—that asphodel\nMeadow, in which I feed my many herds,—\nHIS steps were most incomprehensible— _455\nI know not how I can describe in words\nThose tracks—he could have gone along the sands\nNeither upon his feet nor on his hands;—\n\n59.\n‘He must have had some other stranger mode\nOf moving on: those vestiges immense, _460\nFar as I traced them on the sandy road,\nSeemed like the trail of oak-toppings:—but thence\nNo mark nor track denoting where they trod\nThe hard ground gave:—but, working at his fence,\nA mortal hedger saw him as he passed _465\nTo Pylos, with the cows, in fiery haste.\n\n60.\n‘I found that in the dark he quietly\nHad sacrificed some cows, and before light\nHad thrown the ashes all dispersedly\nAbout the road—then, still as gloomy night, _470\nHad crept into his cradle, either eye\nRubbing, and cogitating some new sleight.\nNo eagle could have seen him as he lay\nHid in his cavern from the peering day.\n\n61.\n‘I taxed him with the fact, when he averred _475\nMost solemnly that he did neither see\nNor even had in any manner heard\nOf my lost cows, whatever things cows be;\nNor could he tell, though offered a reward,\nNot even who could tell of them to me.’ _480\nSo speaking, Phoebus sate; and Hermes then\nAddressed the Supreme Lord of Gods and Men:—\n\n62.\n‘Great Father, you know clearly beforehand\nThat all which I shall say to you is sooth;\nI am a most veracious person, and _485\nTotally unacquainted with untruth.\nAt sunrise Phoebus came, but with no band\nOf Gods to bear him witness, in great wrath,\nTo my abode, seeking his heifers there,\nAnd saying that I must show him where they are, _490\n\n63.\n‘Or he would hurl me down the dark abyss.\nI know that every Apollonian limb\nIs clothed with speed and might and manliness,\nAs a green bank with flowers—but unlike him\nI was born yesterday, and you may guess _495\nHe well knew this when he indulged the whim\nOf bullying a poor little new-born thing\nThat slept, and never thought of cow-driving.\n\n64.\n‘Am I like a strong fellow who steals kine?\nBelieve me, dearest Father—such you are— _500\nThis driving of the herds is none of mine;\nAcross my threshold did I wander ne’er,\nSo may I thrive! I reverence the divine\nSun and the Gods, and I love you, and care\nEven for this hard accuser—who must know _505\nI am as innocent as they or you.\n\n65.\n‘I swear by these most gloriously-wrought portals\n(It is, you will allow, an oath of might)\nThrough which the multitude of the Immortals\nPass and repass forever, day and night, _510\nDevising schemes for the affairs of mortals—\nI am guiltless; and I will requite,\nAlthough mine enemy be great and strong,\nHis cruel threat—do thou defend the young!’\n\n66.\nSo speaking, the Cyllenian Argiphont _515\nWinked, as if now his adversary was fitted:—\nAnd Jupiter, according to his wont,\nLaughed heartily to hear the subtle-witted\nInfant give such a plausible account,\nAnd every word a lie. But he remitted _520\nJudgement at present—and his exhortation\nWas, to compose the affair by arbitration.\n\n67.\nAnd they by mighty Jupiter were bidden\nTo go forth with a single purpose both,\nNeither the other chiding nor yet chidden: _525\nAnd Mercury with innocence and truth\nTo lead the way, and show where he had hidden\nThe mighty heifers.—Hermes, nothing loth,\nObeyed the Aegis-bearer’s will—for he\nIs able to persuade all easily. _530\n\n68.\nThese lovely children of Heaven’s highest Lord\nHastened to Pylos and the pastures wide\nAnd lofty stalls by the Alphean ford,\nWhere wealth in the mute night is multiplied\nWith silent growth. Whilst Hermes drove the herd _535\nOut of the stony cavern, Phoebus spied\nThe hides of those the little babe had slain,\nStretched on the precipice above the plain.\n\n69.\n‘How was it possible,’ then Phoebus said,\n‘That you, a little child, born yesterday, _540\nA thing on mother’s milk and kisses fed,\nCould two prodigious heifers ever flay?\nEven I myself may well hereafter dread\nYour prowess, offspring of Cyllenian May,\nWhen you grow strong and tall.’—He spoke, and bound _545\nStiff withy bands the infant’s wrists around.\n\n70.\nHe might as well have bound the oxen wild;\nThe withy bands, though starkly interknit,\nFell at the feet of the immortal child,\nLoosened by some device of his quick wit. _550\nPhoebus perceived himself again beguiled,\nAnd stared—while Hermes sought some hole or pit,\nLooking askance and winking fast as thought,\nWhere he might hide himself and not be caught.\n\n71.\nSudden he changed his plan, and with strange skill _555\nSubdued the strong Latonian, by the might\nOf winning music, to his mightier will;\nHis left hand held the lyre, and in his right\nThe plectrum struck the chords—unconquerable\nUp from beneath his hand in circling flight _560\nThe gathering music rose—and sweet as Love\nThe penetrating notes did live and move\n\n72.\nWithin the heart of great Apollo—he\nListened with all his soul, and laughed for pleasure.\nClose to his side stood harping fearlessly _565\nThe unabashed boy; and to the measure\nOf the sweet lyre, there followed loud and free\nHis joyous voice; for he unlocked the treasure\nOf his deep song, illustrating the birth\nOf the bright Gods, and the dark desert Earth: _570\n\n73.\nAnd how to the Immortals every one\nA portion was assigned of all that is;\nBut chief Mnemosyne did Maia’s son\nClothe in the light of his loud melodies;—\nAnd, as each God was born or had begun, _575\nHe in their order due and fit degrees\nSung of his birth and being—and did move\nApollo to unutterable love.\n\n74.\nThese words were winged with his swift delight:\n‘You heifer-stealing schemer, well do you _580\nDeserve that fifty oxen should requite\nSuch minstrelsies as I have heard even now.\nComrade of feasts, little contriving wight,\nOne of your secrets I would gladly know,\nWhether the glorious power you now show forth _585\nWas folded up within you at your birth,\n\n75.\n‘Or whether mortal taught or God inspired\nThe power of unpremeditated song?\nMany divinest sounds have I admired,\nThe Olympian Gods and mortal men among; _590\nBut such a strain of wondrous, strange, untired,\nAnd soul-awakening music, sweet and strong,\nYet did I never hear except from thee,\nOffspring of May, impostor Mercury!\n\n76.\n‘What Muse, what skill, what unimagined use, _595\nWhat exercise of subtlest art, has given\nThy songs such power?—for those who hear may choose\nFrom three, the choicest of the gifts of Heaven,\nDelight, and love, and sleep,—sweet sleep, whose dews\nAre sweeter than the balmy tears of even:— _600\nAnd I, who speak this praise, am that Apollo\nWhom the Olympian Muses ever follow:\n\n77.\n‘And their delight is dance, and the blithe noise\nOf song and overflowing poesy;\nAnd sweet, even as desire, the liquid voice _605\nOf pipes, that fills the clear air thrillingly;\nBut never did my inmost soul rejoice\nIn this dear work of youthful revelry\nAs now. I wonder at thee, son of Jove;\nThy harpings and thy song are soft as love. _610\n\n78.\n‘Now since thou hast, although so very small,\nScience of arts so glorious, thus I swear,—\nAnd let this cornel javelin, keen and tall,\nWitness between us what I promise here,—\nThat I will lead thee to the Olympian Hall, _615\nHonoured and mighty, with thy mother dear,\nAnd many glorious gifts in joy will give thee,\nAnd even at the end will ne’er deceive thee.’\n\n79.\nTo whom thus Mercury with prudent speech:—\n‘Wisely hast thou inquired of my skill: _620\nI envy thee no thing I know to teach\nEven this day:—for both in word and will\nI would be gentle with thee; thou canst reach\nAll things in thy wise spirit, and thy sill\nIs highest in Heaven among the sons of Jove, _625\nWho loves thee in the fulness of his love.\n\n80.\n‘The Counsellor Supreme has given to thee\nDivinest gifts, out of the amplitude\nOf his profuse exhaustless treasury;\nBy thee, ’tis said, the depths are understood _630\nOf his far voice; by thee the mystery\nOf all oracular fates,—and the dread mood\nOf the diviner is breathed up; even I—\nA child—perceive thy might and majesty.\n\n81.\n‘Thou canst seek out and compass all that wit _635\nCan find or teach;—yet since thou wilt, come take\nThe lyre—be mine the glory giving it—\nStrike the sweet chords, and sing aloud, and wake\nThy joyous pleasure out of many a fit\nOf tranced sound—and with fleet fingers make _640\nThy liquid-voiced comrade talk with thee,—\nIt can talk measured music eloquently.\n\n82.\n‘Then bear it boldly to the revel loud,\nLove-wakening dance, or feast of solemn state,\nA joy by night or day—for those endowed _645\nWith art and wisdom who interrogate\nIt teaches, babbling in delightful mood\nAll things which make the spirit most elate,\nSoothing the mind with sweet familiar play,\nChasing the heavy shadows of dismay. _650\n\n83.\n‘To those who are unskilled in its sweet tongue,\nThough they should question most impetuously\nIts hidden soul, it gossips something wrong—\nSome senseless and impertinent reply.\nBut thou who art as wise as thou art strong _655\nCanst compass all that thou desirest. I\nPresent thee with this music-flowing shell,\nKnowing thou canst interrogate it well.\n\n84.\n‘And let us two henceforth together feed,\nOn this green mountain-slope and pastoral plain, _660\nThe herds in litigation—they will breed\nQuickly enough to recompense our pain,\nIf to the bulls and cows we take good heed;—\nAnd thou, though somewhat over fond of gain,\nGrudge me not half the profit.’—Having spoke, _665\nThe shell he proffered, and Apollo took;\n\n85.\nAnd gave him in return the glittering lash,\nInstalling him as herdsman;—from the look\nOf Mercury then laughed a joyous flash.\nAnd then Apollo with the plectrum strook _670\nThe chords, and from beneath his hands a crash\nOf mighty sounds rushed up, whose music shook\nThe soul with sweetness, and like an adept\nHis sweeter voice a just accordance kept.\n\n86.\nThe herd went wandering o’er the divine mead, _675\nWhilst these most beautiful Sons of Jupiter\nWon their swift way up to the snowy head\nOf white Olympus, with the joyous lyre\nSoothing their journey; and their father dread\nGathered them both into familiar _680\nAffection sweet,—and then, and now, and ever,\nHermes must love Him of the Golden Quiver,\n\n87.\nTo whom he gave the lyre that sweetly sounded,\nWhich skilfully he held and played thereon.\nHe piped the while, and far and wide rebounded _685\nThe echo of his pipings; every one\nOf the Olympians sat with joy astounded;\nWhile he conceived another piece of fun,\nOne of his old tricks—which the God of Day\nPerceiving, said:—‘I fear thee, Son of May;— _690\n\n88.\n‘I fear thee and thy sly chameleon spirit,\nLest thou should steal my lyre and crooked bow;\nThis glory and power thou dost from Jove inherit,\nTo teach all craft upon the earth below;\nThieves love and worship thee—it is thy merit _695\nTo make all mortal business ebb and flow\nBy roguery:—now, Hermes, if you dare\nBy sacred Styx a mighty oath to swear\n\n89.\n‘That you will never rob me, you will do\nA thing extremely pleasing to my heart.’ _700\nThen Mercury swore by the Stygian dew,\nThat he would never steal his bow or dart,\nOr lay his hands on what to him was due,\nOr ever would employ his powerful art\nAgainst his Pythian fane. Then Phoebus swore _705\nThere was no God or Man whom he loved more.\n\n90.\n‘And I will give thee as a good-will token,\nThe beautiful wand of wealth and happiness;\nA perfect three-leaved rod of gold unbroken,\nWhose magic will thy footsteps ever bless; _710\nAnd whatsoever by Jove’s voice is spoken\nOf earthly or divine from its recess,\nIt, like a loving soul, to thee will speak,\nAnd more than this, do thou forbear to seek.\n\n91.\n‘For, dearest child, the divinations high _715\nWhich thou requirest, ’tis unlawful ever\nThat thou, or any other deity\nShould understand—and vain were the endeavour;\nFor they are hidden in Jove’s mind, and I,\nIn trust of them, have sworn that I would never _720\nBetray the counsels of Jove’s inmost will\nTo any God—the oath was terrible.\n\n92.\n‘Then, golden-wanded brother, ask me not\nTo speak the fates by Jupiter designed;\nBut be it mine to tell their various lot _725\nTo the unnumbered tribes of human-kind.\nLet good to these, and ill to those be wrought\nAs I dispense—but he who comes consigned\nBy voice and wings of perfect augury\nTo my great shrine, shall find avail in me. _730\n\n93.\n‘Him will I not deceive, but will assist;\nBut he who comes relying on such birds\nAs chatter vainly, who would strain and twist\nThe purpose of the Gods with idle words,\nAnd deems their knowledge light, he shall have missed _735\nHis road—whilst I among my other hoards\nHis gifts deposit. Yet, O son of May,\nI have another wondrous thing to say.\n\n96.\n‘There are three Fates, three virgin Sisters, who\nRejoicing in their wind-outspeeding wings, _740\nTheir heads with flour snowed over white and new,\nSit in a vale round which Parnassus flings\nIts circling skirts—from these I have learned true\nVaticinations of remotest things.\nMy father cared not. Whilst they search out dooms, _745\nThey sit apart and feed on honeycombs.\n\n95.\n‘They, having eaten the fresh honey, grow\nDrunk with divine enthusiasm, and utter\nWith earnest willingness the truth they know;\nBut if deprived of that sweet food, they mutter _750\nAll plausible delusions;—these to you\nI give;—if you inquire, they will not stutter;\nDelight your own soul with them:—any man\nYou would instruct may profit if he can.\n\n96.\n‘Take these and the fierce oxen, Maia’s child— _755\nO’er many a horse and toil-enduring mule,\nO’er jagged-jawed lions, and the wild\nWhite-tusked boars, o’er all, by field or pool,\nOf cattle which the mighty Mother mild\nNourishes in her bosom, thou shalt rule— _760\nThou dost alone the veil from death uplift—\nThou givest not—yet this is a great gift.’\n\n97.\nThus King Apollo loved the child of May\nIn truth, and Jove covered their love with joy.\nHermes with Gods and Men even from that day _765\nMingled, and wrought the latter much annoy,\nAnd little profit, going far astray\nThrough the dun night. Farewell, delightful Boy,\nOf Jove and Maia sprung,—never by me,\nNor thou, nor other songs, shall unremembered be. _770\n\n_13 cow-stealing]qy. cattle-stealing?\n_57 stony Boscombe manuscript. Harvard manuscript; strong edition 1824.\n_252 neighbouring]neighbour Harvard manuscript.\n_336 hurl Harvard manuscript, editions 1839; haul edition 1824.\n_402 Round]Roused edition 1824 only.\n_488 wrath]ruth Harvard manuscript.\n_580 heifer-stealing]heifer-killing Harvard manuscript.\n_673 and like 1839, 1st edition; as of edition 1824, Harvard manuscript.\n_713 loving]living cj. Rossetti.\n_761 from Harvard manuscript; of editions 1824, 1839.\n_764 their love with joy Harvard manuscript; them with love and joy,\n editions 1824, 1839.\n_767 going]wandering Harvard manuscript.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Homer’S Hymn To Castor And Pollux.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition; dated\n1818.]\n\nYe wild-eyed Muses, sing the Twins of Jove,\nWhom the fair-ankled Leda, mixed in love\nWith mighty Saturn’s Heaven-obscuring Child,\nOn Taygetus, that lofty mountain wild,\nBrought forth in joy: mild Pollux, void of blame, _5\nAnd steed-subduing Castor, heirs of fame.\nThese are the Powers who earth-born mortals save\nAnd ships, whose flight is swift along the wave.\nWhen wintry tempests o’er the savage sea\nAre raging, and the sailors tremblingly _10\nCall on the Twins of Jove with prayer and vow,\nGathered in fear upon the lofty prow,\nAnd sacrifice with snow-white lambs,—the wind\nAnd the huge billow bursting close behind,\nEven then beneath the weltering waters bear _15\nThe staggering ship—they suddenly appear,\nOn yellow wings rushing athwart the sky,\nAnd lull the blasts in mute tranquillity,\nAnd strew the waves on the white Ocean’s bed,\nFair omen of the voyage; from toil and dread _20\nThe sailors rest, rejoicing in the sight,\nAnd plough the quiet sea in safe delight.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Homer’S Hymn To The Moon.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition;\ndated 1818.]\n\nDaughters of Jove, whose voice is melody,\nMuses, who know and rule all minstrelsy\nSing the wide-winged Moon! Around the earth,\nFrom her immortal head in Heaven shot forth,\nFar light is scattered—boundless glory springs; _5\nWhere’er she spreads her many-beaming wings\nThe lampless air glows round her golden crown.\n\nBut when the Moon divine from Heaven is gone\nUnder the sea, her beams within abide,\nTill, bathing her bright limbs in Ocean’s tide, _10\nClothing her form in garments glittering far,\nAnd having yoked to her immortal car\nThe beam-invested steeds whose necks on high\nCurve back, she drives to a remoter sky\nA western Crescent, borne impetuously. _15\nThen is made full the circle of her light,\nAnd as she grows, her beams more bright and bright\nAre poured from Heaven, where she is hovering then,\nA wonder and a sign to mortal men.\n\nThe Son of Saturn with this glorious Power _20\nMingled in love and sleep—to whom she bore\nPandeia, a bright maid of beauty rare\nAmong the Gods, whose lives eternal are.\n\nHail Queen, great Moon, white-armed Divinity,\nFair-haired and favourable! thus with thee _25\nMy song beginning, by its music sweet\nShall make immortal many a glorious feat\nOf demigods, with lovely lips, so well\nWhich minstrels, servants of the Muses, tell.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Homer’S Hymn To The Sun.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition;\ndated 1818.]\n\nOffspring of Jove, Calliope, once more\nTo the bright Sun, thy hymn of music pour;\nWhom to the child of star-clad Heaven and Earth\nEuryphaessa, large-eyed nymph, brought forth;\nEuryphaessa, the famed sister fair _5\nOf great Hyperion, who to him did bear\nA race of loveliest children; the young Morn,\nWhose arms are like twin roses newly born,\nThe fair-haired Moon, and the immortal Sun,\nWho borne by heavenly steeds his race doth run _10\nUnconquerably, illuming the abodes\nOf mortal Men and the eternal Gods.\n\nFiercely look forth his awe-inspiring eyes,\nBeneath his golden helmet, whence arise\nAnd are shot forth afar, clear beams of light; _15\nHis countenance, with radiant glory bright,\nBeneath his graceful locks far shines around,\nAnd the light vest with which his limbs are bound,\nOf woof aethereal delicately twined,\nGlows in the stream of the uplifting wind. _20\nHis rapid steeds soon bear him to the West;\nWhere their steep flight his hands divine arrest,\nAnd the fleet car with yoke of gold, which he\nSends from bright Heaven beneath the shadowy sea.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Homer’S Hymn To The Earth: Mother Of All.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition;\ndated 1818.]\n\nO universal Mother, who dost keep\nFrom everlasting thy foundations deep,\nEldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee!\nAll shapes that have their dwelling in the sea,\nAll things that fly, or on the ground divine _5\nLive, move, and there are nourished—these are thine;\nThese from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from thee\nFair babes are born, and fruits on every tree\nHang ripe and large, revered Divinity!\n\nThe life of mortal men beneath thy sway _10\nIs held; thy power both gives and takes away!\nHappy are they whom thy mild favours nourish;\nAll things unstinted round them grow and flourish.\nFor them, endures the life-sustaining field\nIts load of harvest, and their cattle yield _15\nLarge increase, and their house with wealth is filled.\nSuch honoured dwell in cities fair and free,\nThe homes of lovely women, prosperously;\nTheir sons exult in youth’s new budding gladness,\nAnd their fresh daughters free from care or sadness, _20\nWith bloom-inwoven dance and happy song,\nOn the soft flowers the meadow-grass among,\nLeap round them sporting—such delights by thee\nAre given, rich Power, revered Divinity.\n\nMother of gods, thou Wife of starry Heaven, _25\nFarewell! be thou propitious, and be given\nA happy life for this brief melody,\nNor thou nor other songs shall unremembered be.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Homer’S Hymn To Minerva.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition;\ndated 1818.]\n\nI sing the glorious Power with azure eyes,\nAthenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise,\nTritogenia, town-preserving Maid,\nRevered and mighty; from his awful head\nWhom Jove brought forth, in warlike armour dressed, _5\nGolden, all radiant! wonder strange possessed\nThe everlasting Gods that Shape to see,\nShaking a javelin keen, impetuously\nRush from the crest of Aegis-bearing Jove;\nFearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move _10\nBeneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed;\nEarth dreadfully resounded, far and wide;\nAnd, lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high\nIn purple billows, the tide suddenly\nStood still, and great Hyperion’s son long time _15\nChecked his swift steeds, till, where she stood sublime,\nPallas from her immortal shoulders threw\nThe arms divine; wise Jove rejoiced to view.\nChild of the Aegis-bearer, hail to thee,\nNor thine nor others’ praise shall unremembered be. _20\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Homer’S Hymn To Venus.", + "body": "[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862; dated 1818.]\n\n[VERSES 1-55, WITH SOME OMISSIONS.]\n\nMuse, sing the deeds of golden Aphrodite,\nWho wakens with her smile the lulled delight\nOf sweet desire, taming the eternal kings\nOf Heaven, and men, and all the living things\nThat fleet along the air, or whom the sea, _5\nOr earth, with her maternal ministry,\nNourish innumerable, thy delight\nAll seek ... O crowned Aphrodite!\nThree spirits canst thou not deceive or quell:—\nMinerva, child of Jove, who loves too well _10\nFierce war and mingling combat, and the fame\nOf glorious deeds, to heed thy gentle flame.\nDiana ... golden-shafted queen,\nIs tamed not by thy smiles; the shadows green\nOf the wild woods, the bow, the... _15\nAnd piercing cries amid the swift pursuit\nOf beasts among waste mountains,—such delight\nIs hers, and men who know and do the right.\nNor Saturn’s first-born daughter, Vesta chaste,\nWhom Neptune and Apollo wooed the last, _20\nSuch was the will of aegis-bearing Jove;\nBut sternly she refused the ills of Love,\nAnd by her mighty Father’s head she swore\nAn oath not unperformed, that evermore\nA virgin she would live mid deities _25\nDivine: her father, for such gentle ties\nRenounced, gave glorious gifts—thus in his hall\nShe sits and feeds luxuriously. O’er all\nIn every fane, her honours first arise\nFrom men—the eldest of Divinities. _30\n\nThese spirits she persuades not, nor deceives,\nBut none beside escape, so well she weaves\nHer unseen toils; nor mortal men, nor gods\nWho live secure in their unseen abodes.\nShe won the soul of him whose fierce delight _35\nIs thunder—first in glory and in might.\nAnd, as she willed, his mighty mind deceiving,\nWith mortal limbs his deathless limbs inweaving,\nConcealed him from his spouse and sister fair,\nWhom to wise Saturn ancient Rhea bare. _40\nbut in return,\nIn Venus Jove did soft desire awaken,\nThat by her own enchantments overtaken,\nShe might, no more from human union free,\nBurn for a nursling of mortality. _45\nFor once amid the assembled Deities,\nThe laughter-loving Venus from her eyes\n\nShot forth the light of a soft starlight smile,\nAnd boasting said, that she, secure the while,\nCould bring at Will to the assembled Gods _50\nThe mortal tenants of earth’s dark abodes,\nAnd mortal offspring from a deathless stem\nShe could produce in scorn and spite of them.\nTherefore he poured desire into her breast\nOf young Anchises, _55\nFeeding his herds among the mossy fountains\nOf the wide Ida’s many-folded mountains,—\nWhom Venus saw, and loved, and the love clung\nLike wasting fire her senses wild among.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Satyric Drama Translated From The Greek Of Euripides.", + "body": "[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; dated 1819.\nAmongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian there is a copy,\n‘practically complete,’ which has been collated by Mr. C.D. Locock. See\n“Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 64-70. ‘Though legible throughout, and\ncomparatively free from corrections, it has the appearance of being a\nfirst draft’ (Locock).]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Silenus:", + "body": "O Bacchus, what a world of toil, both now\nAnd ere these limbs were overworn with age,\nHave I endured for thee! First, when thou fled’st\nThe mountain-nymphs who nursed thee, driven afar\nBy the strange madness Juno sent upon thee; _5\nThen in the battle of the Sons of Earth,\nWhen I stood foot by foot close to thy side,\nNo unpropitious fellow-combatant,\nAnd, driving through his shield my winged spear,\nSlew vast Enceladus. Consider now, _10\nIs it a dream of which I speak to thee?\nBy Jove it is not, for you have the trophies!\nAnd now I suffer more than all before.\nFor when I heard that Juno had devised\nA tedious voyage for you, I put to sea _15\nWith all my children quaint in search of you,\nAnd I myself stood on the beaked prow\nAnd fixed the naked mast; and all my boys\nLeaning upon their oars, with splash and strain\nMade white with foam the green and purple sea,— _20\nAnd so we sought you, king. We were sailing\nNear Malea, when an eastern wind arose,\nAnd drove us to this waste Aetnean rock;\nThe one-eyed children of the Ocean God,\nThe man-destroying Cyclopses, inhabit, _25\nOn this wild shore, their solitary caves,\nAnd one of these, named Polypheme, has caught us\nTo be his slaves; and so, for all delight\nOf Bacchic sports, sweet dance and melody,\nWe keep this lawless giant’s wandering flocks. _30\nMy sons indeed on far declivities,\nYoung things themselves, tend on the youngling sheep,\nBut I remain to fill the water-casks,\nOr sweeping the hard floor, or ministering\nSome impious and abominable meal _35\nTo the fell Cyclops. I am wearied of it!\nAnd now I must scrape up the littered floor\nWith this great iron rake, so to receive\nMy absent master and his evening sheep\nIn a cave neat and clean. Even now I see _40\nMy children tending the flocks hitherward.\nHa! what is this? are your Sicinnian measures\nEven now the same, as when with dance and song\nYou brought young Bacchus to Althaea’s halls?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Strophe:", + "body": "Where has he of race divine _45\nWandered in the winding rocks?\nHere the air is calm and fine\nFor the father of the flocks;—\nHere the grass is soft and sweet,\nAnd the river-eddies meet _50\nIn the trough beside the cave,\nBright as in their fountain wave.—\nNeither here, nor on the dew\nOf the lawny uplands feeding?\nOh, you come!—a stone at you _55\nWill I throw to mend your breeding;—\nGet along, you horned thing,\nWild, seditious, rambling!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Epode:", + "body": "An Iacchic melody\nTo the golden Aphrodite _60\nWill I lift, as erst did I\nSeeking her and her delight\nWith the Maenads, whose white feet\nTo the music glance and fleet.\nBacchus, O beloved, where, _65\nShaking wide thy yellow hair,\nWanderest thou alone, afar?\nTo the one-eyed Cyclops, we,\nWho by right thy servants are,\nMinister in misery, _70\nIn these wretched goat-skins clad,\nFar from thy delights and thee.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Silenus:", + "body": "I see a Grecian vessel on the coast,\nAnd thence the rowers with some general\nApproaching to this cave.—About their necks\nHang empty vessels, as they wanted food,\nAnd water-flasks.—Oh, miserable strangers! _80\nWhence come they, that they know not what and who\nMy master is, approaching in ill hour\nThe inhospitable roof of Polypheme,\nAnd the Cyclopian jaw-bone, man-destroying?\nBe silent, Satyrs, while I ask and hear _85\nWhence coming, they arrive the Aetnean hill.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "Friends, can you show me some clear water-spring,\nThe remedy of our thirst? Will any one\nFurnish with food seamen in want of it?\nHa! what is this? We seem to be arrived _90\nAt the blithe court of Bacchus. I observe\nThis sportive band of Satyrs near the caves.\nFirst let me greet the elder.—Hail!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Silenus:", + "body": "The wanton wretch! she was bewitched to see _160\nThe many-coloured anklets and the chain\nOf woven gold which girt the neck of Paris,\nAnd so she left that good man Menelaus.\nThere should be no more women in the world\nBut such as are reserved for me alone.— _165\nSee, here are sheep, and here are goats, Ulysses,\nHere are unsparing cheeses of pressed milk;\nTake them; depart with what good speed ye may;\nFirst leaving my reward, the Bacchic dew\nOf joy-inspiring grapes.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "That will I never do!\nThe mighty Troy would be indeed disgraced\nIf I should fly one man. How many times\nHave I withstood, with shield immovable.\nTen thousand Phrygians!—if I needs must die, _180\nYet will I die with glory;—if I live,\nThe praise which I have gained will yet remain.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyclops:", + "body": "What is this tumult? Bacchus is not here,\nNor tympanies nor brazen castanets. _185\nHow are my young lambs in the cavern? Milking\nTheir dams or playing by their sides? And is\nThe new cheese pressed into the bulrush baskets?\nSpeak! I’ll beat some of you till you rain tears—\nLook up, not downwards when I speak to you. _190", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyclops:", + "body": "By no means.—\n...\nWhat is this crowd I see beside the stalls? _200\nOutlaws or thieves? for near my cavern-home\nI see my young lambs coupled two by two\nWith willow bands; mixed with my cheeses lie\nTheir implements; and this old fellow here\nHas his bald head broken with stripes.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Silenus:", + "body": "I told them so, but they bore off your things,\nAnd ate the cheese in spite of all I said,\nAnd carried out the lambs—and said, moreover,\nThey’d pin you down with a three-cubit collar,\nAnd pull your vitals out through your one eye, _215\nFurrow your back with stripes, then, binding you,\nThrow you as ballast into the ship’s hold,\nAnd then deliver you, a slave, to move\nEnormous rocks, or found a vestibule.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyclops:", + "body": "In truth? Nay, haste, and place in order quickly\nThe cooking-knives, and heap upon the hearth, _221\nAnd kindle it, a great faggot of wood.—\nAs soon as they are slaughtered, they shall fill\nMy belly, broiling warm from the live coals,\nOr boiled and seethed within the bubbling caldron. _225\nI am quite sick of the wild mountain game;\nOf stags and lions I have gorged enough,\nAnd I grow hungry for the flesh of men.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "Hear, Cyclops, a plain tale on the other side.\nWe, wanting to buy food, came from our ship\nInto the neighbourhood of your cave, and here\nThis old Silenus gave us in exchange _235\nThese lambs for wine, the which he took and drank,\nAnd all by mutual compact, without force.\nThere is no word of truth in what he says,\nFor slyly he was selling all your store.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Silenus:", + "body": "Cyclops, I swear by Neptune who begot thee,\nBy mighty Triton and by Nereus old,\nCalypso and the glaucous Ocean Nymphs,\nThe sacred waves and all the race of fishes—\nBe these the witnesses, my dear sweet master, _245\nMy darling little Cyclops, that I never\nGave any of your stores to these false strangers;—\nIf I speak false may those whom most I love,\nMy children, perish wretchedly!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "’Twas the Gods’ work—no mortal was in fault. _265\nBut, O great Offspring of the Ocean-King,\nWe pray thee and admonish thee with freedom,\nThat thou dost spare thy friends who visit thee,\nAnd place no impious food within thy jaws.\nFor in the depths of Greece we have upreared _270\nTemples to thy great Father, which are all\nHis homes. The sacred bay of Taenarus\nRemains inviolate, and each dim recess\nScooped high on the Malean promontory,\nAnd aery Sunium’s silver-veined crag, _275\nWhich divine Pallas keeps unprofaned ever,\nThe Gerastian asylums, and whate’er\nWithin wide Greece our enterprise has kept\nFrom Phrygian contumely; and in which\nYou have a common care, for you inhabit _280\nThe skirts of Grecian land, under the roots\nOf Aetna and its crags, spotted with fire.\nTurn then to converse under human laws,\nReceive us shipwrecked suppliants, and provide\nFood, clothes, and fire, and hospitable gifts; _285\nNor fixing upon oxen-piercing spits\nOur limbs, so fill your belly and your jaws.\nPriam’s wide land has widowed Greece enough;\nAnd weapon-winged murder leaped together\nEnough of dead, and wives are husbandless, _290\nAnd ancient women and gray fathers wail\nTheir childless age;—if you should roast the rest—\nAnd ’tis a bitter feast that you prepare—\nWhere then would any turn? Yet be persuaded;\nForgo the lust of your jaw-bone; prefer _295\nPious humanity to wicked will:\nMany have bought too dear their evil joys.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyclops:", + "body": "Wealth, my good fellow, is the wise man’s God,\nAll other things are a pretence and boast.\nWhat are my father’s ocean promontories,\nThe sacred rocks whereon he dwells, to me?\nStranger, I laugh to scorn Jove’s thunderbolt, _305\nI know not that his strength is more than mine.\nAs to the rest I care not.—When he pours\nRain from above, I have a close pavilion\nUnder this rock, in which I lie supine,\nFeasting on a roast calf or some wild beast, _310\nAnd drinking pans of milk, and gloriously\nEmulating the thunder of high Heaven.\nAnd when the Thracian wind pours down the snow,\nI wrap my body in the skins of beasts,\nKindle a fire, and bid the snow whirl on. _315\nThe earth, by force, whether it will or no,\nBringing forth grass, fattens my flocks and herds,\nWhich, to what other God but to myself\nAnd this great belly, first of deities,\nShould I be bound to sacrifice? I well know _320\nThe wise man’s only Jupiter is this,\nTo eat and drink during his little day,\nAnd give himself no care. And as for those\nWho complicate with laws the life of man,\nI freely give them tears for their reward. _325\nI will not cheat my soul of its delight,\nOr hesitate in dining upon you:—\nAnd that I may be quit of all demands,\nThese are my hospitable gifts;—fierce fire\nAnd yon ancestral caldron, which o’er-bubbling _330\nShall finely cook your miserable flesh.\nCreep in!—\n\n...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "Ai! ai! I have escaped the Trojan toils,\nI have escaped the sea, and now I fall\nUnder the cruel grasp of one impious man. _335\nO Pallas, Mistress, Goddess, sprung from Jove,\nNow, now, assist me! Mightier toils than Troy\nAre these;—I totter on the chasms of peril;—\nAnd thou who inhabitest the thrones\nOf the bright stars, look, hospitable Jove, _340\nUpon this outrage of thy deity,\nOtherwise be considered as no God!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus (Alone):", + "body": "For your gaping gulf and your gullet wide,\nThe ravin is ready on every side,\nThe limbs of the strangers are cooked and done; _345\nThere is boiled meat, and roast meat, and meat from the coal,\nYou may chop it, and tear it, and gnash it for fun,\nAn hairy goat’s-skin contains the whole.\nLet me but escape, and ferry me o’er\nThe stream of your wrath to a safer shore. _350\nThe Cyclops Aetnean is cruel and bold,\nHe murders the strangers\nThat sit on his hearth,\nAnd dreads no avengers\nTo rise from the earth. _355\nHe roasts the men before they are cold,\nHe snatches them broiling from the coal,\nAnd from the caldron pulls them whole,\nAnd minces their flesh and gnaws their bone\nWith his cursed teeth, till all be gone. _360\nFarewell, foul pavilion:\nFarewell, rites of dread!\nThe Cyclops vermilion,\nWith slaughter uncloying,\nNow feasts on the dead, _365\nIn the flesh of strangers joying!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "Soon as we came into this craggy place,\nKindling a fire, he cast on the broad hearth _375\nThe knotty limbs of an enormous oak,\nThree waggon-loads at least, and then he strewed\nUpon the ground, beside the red firelight,\nHis couch of pine-leaves; and he milked the cows,\nAnd pouring forth the white milk, filled a bowl _380\nThree cubits wide and four in depth, as much\nAs would contain ten amphorae, and bound it\nWith ivy wreaths; then placed upon the fire\nA brazen pot to boil, and made red hot\nThe points of spits, not sharpened with the sickle _385\nBut with a fruit tree bough, and with the jaws\nOf axes for Aetnean slaughterings.\nAnd when this God-abandoned Cook of Hell\nHad made all ready, he seized two of us\nAnd killed them in a kind of measured manner; _390\nFor he flung one against the brazen rivets\nOf the huge caldron, and seized the other\nBy the foot’s tendon, and knocked out his brains\nUpon the sharp edge of the craggy stone:\nThen peeled his flesh with a great cooking-knife _395\nAnd put him down to roast. The other’s limbs\nHe chopped into the caldron to be boiled.\nAnd I, with the tears raining from my eyes,\nStood near the Cyclops, ministering to him;\nThe rest, in the recesses of the cave, _400\nClung to the rock like bats, bloodless with fear.\nWhen he was filled with my companions’ flesh,\nHe threw himself upon the ground and sent\nA loathsome exhalation from his maw.\nThen a divine thought came to me. I filled _405\nThe cup of Maron, and I offered him\nTo taste, and said:—‘Child of the Ocean God,\nBehold what drink the vines of Greece produce,\nThe exultation and the joy of Bacchus.’\nHe, satiated with his unnatural food, _410\nReceived it, and at one draught drank it off,\nAnd taking my hand, praised me:—‘Thou hast given\nA sweet draught after a sweet meal, dear guest.’\nAnd I, perceiving that it pleased him, filled\nAnother cup, well knowing that the wine _415\nWould wound him soon and take a sure revenge.\nAnd the charm fascinated him, and I\nPlied him cup after cup, until the drink\nHad warmed his entrails, and he sang aloud\nIn concert with my wailing fellow-seamen _420\nA hideous discord—and the cavern rung.\nI have stolen out, so that if you will\nYou may achieve my safety and your own.\nBut say, do you desire, or not, to fly\nThis uncompanionable man, and dwell _425\nAs was your wont among the Grecian Nymphs\nWithin the fanes of your beloved God?\nYour father there within agrees to it,\nBut he is weak and overcome with wine,\nAnd caught as if with bird-lime by the cup, _430\nHe claps his wings and crows in doting joy.\nYou who are young escape with me, and find\nBacchus your ancient friend; unsuited he\nTo this rude Cyclops.\n\n_382 ten cj. Swinburne; four 1824; four cancelled for ten (possibly) B.\n_387 I confess I do not understand this.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]\n_416 take]grant (as alternative) B.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "I will dissuade him from this plan, by saying _450\nIt were unwise to give the Cyclopses\nThis precious drink, which if enjoyed alone\nWould make life sweeter for a longer time.\nWhen, vanquished by the Bacchic power, he sleeps,\nThere is a trunk of olive wood within, _455\nWhose point having made sharp with this good sword\nI will conceal in fire, and when I see\nIt is alight, will fix it, burning yet,\nWithin the socket of the Cyclops’ eye\nAnd melt it out with fire—as when a man _460\nTurns by its handle a great auger round,\nFitting the framework of a ship with beams,\nSo will I, in the Cyclops’ fiery eye\nTurn round the brand and dry the pupil up.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "Silence now! _475\nYe know the close device—and when I call,\nLook ye obey the masters of the craft.\nI will not save myself and leave behind\nMy comrades in the cave: I might escape,\nHaving got clear from that obscure recess, _480\nBut ’twere unjust to leave in jeopardy\nThe dear companions who sailed here with me.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 1 [Song Within]:", + "body": "Listen! listen! he is coming,\nA most hideous discord humming.\nDrunken, museless, awkward, yelling,\nFar along his rocky dwelling; _490\nLet us with some comic spell\nTeach the yet unteachable.\nBy all means he must be blinded,\nIf my counsel be but minded.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Semichorus 2:", + "body": "Happy thou made odorous _495\nWith the dew which sweet grapes weep,\nTo the village hastening thus,\nSeek the vines that soothe to sleep;\nHaving first embraced thy friend,\nThou in luxury without end, _500\nWith the strings of yellow hair,\nOf thy voluptuous leman fair,\nShalt sit playing on a bed!—\nSpeak! what door is opened?\n\n_495 thou cj. Swinburne, Rossetti; those 1824;\n ‘the word is doubtful in B.’ (Locock).\n_500 Thou B.; There 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyclops:", + "body": "Ha! ha! ha! I’m full of wine, _505\nHeavy with the joy divine,\nWith the young feast oversated;\nLike a merchant’s vessel freighted\nTo the water’s edge, my crop\nIs laden to the gullet’s top. _510\nThe fresh meadow grass of spring\nTempts me forth thus wandering\nTo my brothers on the mountains,\nWho shall share the wine’s sweet fountains.\nBring the cask, O stranger, bring! _515", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "One with eyes the fairest\nCometh from his dwelling;\nSome one loves thee, rarest\nBright beyond my telling.\nIn thy grace thou shinest _520\nLike some nymph divinest\nIn her caverns dewy:—\nAll delights pursue thee,\nSoon pied flowers, sweet-breathing,\nShall thy head be wreathing. _525", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyclops:", + "body": "Ho! ho! I can scarce rise. What pure delight! _585\nThe heavens and earth appear to whirl about\nConfusedly. I see the throne of Jove\nAnd the clear congregation of the Gods.\nNow if the Graces tempted me to kiss\nI would not—for the loveliest of them all _590\nI would not leave this Ganymede.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "Come, boys of Bacchus, children of high race,\nThis man within is folded up in sleep, _595\nAnd soon will vomit flesh from his fell maw;\nThe brand under the shed thrusts out its smoke,\nNo preparation needs, but to burn out\nThe monster’s eye;—but bear yourselves like men.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "Vulcan, Aetnean king! burn out with fire\nThe shining eye of this thy neighbouring monster!\nAnd thou, O Sleep, nursling of gloomy Night, _605\nDescend unmixed on this God-hated beast,\nAnd suffer not Ulysses and his comrades,\nReturning from their famous Trojan toils,\nTo perish by this man, who cares not either\nFor God or mortal; or I needs must think _610\nThat Chance is a supreme divinity,\nAnd things divine are subject to her power.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "Soon a crab the throat will seize\nOf him who feeds upon his guest,\nFire will burn his lamp-like eyes _615\nIn revenge of such a feast!\nA great oak stump now is lying\nIn the ashes yet undying.\nCome, Maron, come!\nRaging let him fix the doom, _620\nLet him tear the eyelid up\nOf the Cyclops—that his cup\nMay be evil!\nOh! I long to dance and revel\nWith sweet Bromian, long desired, _625\nIn loved ivy wreaths attired;\nLeaving this abandoned home—\nWill the moment ever come?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "Be silent, ye wild things! Nay, hold your peace,\nAnd keep your lips quite close; dare not to breathe, _630\nOr spit, or e’en wink, lest ye wake the monster,\nUntil his eye be tortured out with fire.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "With pitying my own back and my back-bone,\nAnd with not wishing all my teeth knocked out,\nThis cowardice comes of itself—but stay,\nI know a famous Orphic incantation _650\nTo make the brand stick of its own accord\nInto the skull of this one-eyed son of Earth.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ulysses:", + "body": "Of old I knew ye thus by nature; now\nI know ye better.—I will use the aid\nOf my own comrades. Yet though weak of hand _655\nSpeak cheerfully, that so ye may awaken\nThe courage of my friends with your blithe words.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "This I will do with peril of my life,\nAnd blind you with my exhortations, Cyclops.\nHasten and thrust, _660\nAnd parch up to dust,\nThe eye of the beast\nWho feeds on his guest.\nBurn and blind\nThe Aetnean hind! _665\nScoop and draw,\nBut beware lest he claw\nYour limbs near his maw.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyclops:", + "body": "It was that stranger ruined me:—the wretch _685\nFirst gave me wine and then burned out my eye,\nFor wine is strong and hard to struggle with.\nHave they escaped, or are they yet within?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyclops:", + "body": "Ai! ai! the ancient oracle is accomplished; _705\nIt said that I should have my eyesight blinded\nBy your coming from Troy, yet it foretold\nThat you should pay the penalty for this\nBy wandering long over the homeless sea.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyclops:", + "body": "Not so, if, whelming you with this huge stone,\nI can crush you and all your men together;\nI will descend upon the shore, though blind, _715\nGroping my way adown the steep ravine.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From The Greek Of Plato.", + "body": "Kissing Helena, together\nWith my kiss, my soul beside it\nCame to my lips, and there I kept it,—\nFor the poor thing had wandered thither,\nTo follow where the kiss should guide it, _5\nOh, cruel I, to intercept it!\n\n\n3.—SPIRIT OF PLATO.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From The Greek.", + "body": "Eagle! why soarest thou above that tomb?\nTo what sublime and star-ypaven home\nFloatest thou?—\nI am the image of swift Plato’s spirit,\nAscending heaven; Athens doth inherit _5\nHis corpse below.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From The Greek.", + "body": "A man who was about to hang himself,\nFinding a purse, then threw away his rope;\nThe owner, coming to reclaim his pelf,\nThe halter found; and used it. So is Hope\nChanged for Despair—one laid upon the shelf, _5\nWe take the other. Under Heaven’s high cope\nFortune is God—all you endure and do\nDepends on circumstance as much as you.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prom The Greek Of Bion.", + "body": "[Published by Forman, “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876.]\n\nI mourn Adonis dead—loveliest Adonis—\nDead, dead Adonis—and the Loves lament.\nSleep no more, Venus, wrapped in purple woof—\nWake violet-stoled queen, and weave the crown\nOf Death,—’tis Misery calls,—for he is dead. _5\n\nThe lovely one lies wounded in the mountains,\nHis white thigh struck with the white tooth; he scarce\nYet breathes; and Venus hangs in agony there.\nThe dark blood wanders o’er his snowy limbs,\nHis eyes beneath their lids are lustreless, _10\nThe rose has fled from his wan lips, and there\nThat kiss is dead, which Venus gathers yet.\n\nA deep, deep wound Adonis...\nA deeper Venus bears upon her heart.\nSee, his beloved dogs are gathering round— _15\nThe Oread nymphs are weeping—Aphrodite\nWith hair unbound is wandering through the woods,\n‘Wildered, ungirt, unsandalled—the thorns pierce\nHer hastening feet and drink her sacred blood.\nBitterly screaming out, she is driven on _20\nThrough the long vales; and her Assyrian boy,\nHer love, her husband, calls—the purple blood\nFrom his struck thigh stains her white navel now,\nHer bosom, and her neck before like snow.\n\nAlas for Cytherea—the Loves mourn— _25\nThe lovely, the beloved is gone!—and now\nHer sacred beauty vanishes away.\nFor Venus whilst Adonis lived was fair—\nAlas! her loveliness is dead with him.\nThe oaks and mountains cry, Ai! ai! Adonis! _30\nThe springs their waters change to tears and weep—\nThe flowers are withered up with grief...\n\nAi! ai! ... Adonis is dead\nEcho resounds ... Adonis dead.\nWho will weep not thy dreadful woe. O Venus? _35\nSoon as she saw and knew the mortal wound\nOf her Adonis—saw the life-blood flow\nFrom his fair thigh, now wasting,—wailing loud\nShe clasped him, and cried ... ‘Stay, Adonis!\nStay, dearest one,... _40\nand mix my lips with thine—\nWake yet a while, Adonis—oh, but once,\nThat I may kiss thee now for the last time—\nBut for as long as one short kiss may live—\nOh, let thy breath flow from thy dying soul _45\nEven to my mouth and heart, that I may suck\nThat...’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From The Greek Of Moschus.", + "body": "[Published from the Hunt manuscripts by Forman, “Poetical Works of P. B.\nS.”, 1876.]\n\nYe Dorian woods and waves, lament aloud,—\nAugment your tide, O streams, with fruitless tears,\nFor the beloved Bion is no more.\nLet every tender herb and plant and flower,\nFrom each dejected bud and drooping bloom, _5\nShed dews of liquid sorrow, and with breath\nOf melancholy sweetness on the wind\nDiffuse its languid love; let roses blush,\nAnemones grow paler for the loss\nTheir dells have known; and thou, O hyacinth, _10\nUtter thy legend now—yet more, dumb flower,\nThan ‘Ah! alas!’—thine is no common grief—\nBion the [sweetest singer] is no more.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From The Greek Of Moschus.", + "body": "[Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]\n\nTan ala tan glaukan otan onemos atrema Balle—k.t.l.\n\nWhen winds that move not its calm surface sweep\nThe azure sea, I love the land no more;\nThe smiles of the serene and tranquil deep\nTempt my unquiet mind.—But when the roar\nOf Ocean’s gray abyss resounds, and foam _5\nGathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst,\nI turn from the drear aspect to the home\nOf Earth and its deep woods, where, interspersed,\nWhen winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody.\nWhose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea, _10\nWhose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot\nHas chosen.—But I my languid limbs will fling\nBeneath the plane, where the brook’s murmuring\nMoves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From The Greek Of Moschus.", + "body": "[Published (without title) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.\nThere is a draft amongst the Hunt manuscripts.]\n\nPan loved his neighbour Echo—but that child\nOf Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping;\nThe Satyr loved with wasting madness wild\nThe bright nymph Lyda,—and so three went weeping.\nAs Pan loved Echo, Echo loved the Satyr, _5\nThe Satyr, Lyda; and so love consumed them.—\nAnd thus to each—which was a woful matter—\nTo bear what they inflicted Justice doomed them;\nFor, inasmuch as each might hate the lover,\nEach, loving, so was hated.—Ye that love not _10\nBe warned—in thought turn this example over,\nThat when ye love, the like return ye prove not.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From Vergil’S Tenth Eclogue.", + "body": "[VERSES 1-26.]\n\n[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870,\nfrom the Boscombe manuscripts now in the Bodleian. Mr. Locock\n(“Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 47-50), as the result of his collation\nof the same manuscripts, gives a revised and expanded version which we\nprint below.]\n\nMelodious Arethusa, o’er my verse\nShed thou once more the spirit of thy stream:\nWho denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou\nGlidest beneath the green and purple gleam\nOf Syracusan waters, mayst thou flow _5\nUnmingled with the bitter Doric dew!\nBegin, and, whilst the goats are browsing now\nThe soft leaves, in our way let us pursue\nThe melancholy loves of Gallus. List!\nWe sing not to the dead: the wild woods knew _10\nHis sufferings, and their echoes...\nYoung Naiads,...in what far woodlands wild\nWandered ye when unworthy love possessed\nYour Gallus? Not where Pindus is up-piled,\nNor where Parnassus’ sacred mount, nor where _15\nAonian Aganippe expands...\nThe laurels and the myrtle-copses dim.\nThe pine-encircled mountain, Maenalus,\nThe cold crags of Lycaeus, weep for him;\nAnd Sylvan, crowned with rustic coronals, _20\nCame shaking in his speed the budding wands\nAnd heavy lilies which he bore: we knew\nPan the Arcadian.\n\n...\n\n‘What madness is this, Gallus? Thy heart’s care\nWith willing steps pursues another there.’ _25\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Same.", + "body": "(As revised by Mr. C.D. Locock.)\n\nMelodious Arethusa, o’er my verse\nShed thou once more the spirit of thy stream:\n\n(Two lines missing.)\n\nWho denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou\nGlidest beneath the green and purple gleam\nOf Syracusan waters, mayest thou flow _5\nUnmingled with the bitter Dorian dew!\nBegin, and whilst the goats are browsing now\nThe soft leaves, in our song let us pursue\nThe melancholy loves of Gallus. List!\nWe sing not to the deaf: the wild woods knew _10\nHis sufferings, and their echoes answer...\nYoung Naiades, in what far woodlands wild\nWandered ye, when unworthy love possessed\nOur Gallus? Nor where Pindus is up-piled,\nNor where Parnassus’ sacred mount, nor where _15\nAonian Aganippe spreads its...\n\n(Three lines missing.)\n\nThe laurels and the myrtle-copses dim,\nThe pine-encircled mountain, Maenalus,\nThe cold crags of Lycaeus weep for him.\n\n(Several lines missing.)\n\n‘What madness is this, Gallus? thy heart’s care, _20\nLycoris, mid rude camps and Alpine snow,\nWith willing step pursues another there.’\n\n(Some lines missing.)\n\nAnd Sylvan, crowned with rustic coronals,\nCame shaking in his speed the budding wands\nAnd heavy lilies which he bore: we knew _25\nPan the Arcadian with....\n...and said,\n‘Wilt thou not ever cease? Love cares not.\nThe meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme,\nThe goats with the green leaves of budding spring _30\nAre saturated not—nor Love with tears.’\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From Vergil’S Fourth Georgic.", + "body": "[VERSES 360 ET SEQ.]\n\n[Published by Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.]\n\nAnd the cloven waters like a chasm of mountains\nStood, and received him in its mighty portal\nAnd led him through the deep’s untrampled fountains\n\nHe went in wonder through the path immortal\nOf his great Mother and her humid reign _5\nAnd groves profaned not by the step of mortal\n\nWhich sounded as he passed, and lakes which rain\nReplenished not girt round by marble caves\n‘Wildered by the watery motion of the main\n\nHalf ‘wildered he beheld the bursting waves _10\nOf every stream beneath the mighty earth\nPhasis and Lycus which the ... sand paves,\n\n[And] The chasm where old Enipeus has its birth\nAnd father Tyber and Anienas[?] glow\nAnd whence Caicus, Mysian stream, comes forth _15\n\nAnd rock-resounding Hypanis, and thou\nEridanus who bearest like empire’s sign\nTwo golden horns upon thy taurine brow\n\nThou than whom none of the streams divine\nThrough garden-fields and meads with fiercer power, _20\nBurst in their tumult on the purple brine\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Dante Alighieri To Guido Cavalcanti:", + "body": "Guido, I would that Lapo, thou, and I,\nLed by some strong enchantment, might ascend\nA magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly\nWith winds at will where’er our thoughts might wend,\nSo that no change, nor any evil chance _5\nShould mar our joyous voyage; but it might be,\nThat even satiety should still enhance\nBetween our hearts their strict community:\nAnd that the bounteous wizard then would place\nVanna and Bice and my gentle love, _10\nCompanions of our wandering, and would grace\nWith passionate talk, wherever we might rove,\nOur time, and each were as content and free\nAs I believe that thou and I should be.\n\n_5 So 1824; And 1816.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From The Italian Of Dante.", + "body": "[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862; dated 1820.]\n\n1.\nYe who intelligent the Third Heaven move,\nHear the discourse which is within my heart,\nWhich cannot be declared, it seems so new.\nThe Heaven whose course follows your power and art,\nOh, gentle creatures that ye are! me drew, _5\nAnd therefore may I dare to speak to you,\nEven of the life which now I live—and yet\nI pray that ye will hear me when I cry,\nAnd tell of mine own heart this novelty;\nHow the lamenting Spirit moans in it, _10\nAnd how a voice there murmurs against her\nWho came on the refulgence of your sphere.\n\n2.\nA sweet Thought, which was once the life within\nThis heavy heart, man a time and oft\nWent up before our Father’s feet, and there _15\nIt saw a glorious Lady throned aloft;\nAnd its sweet talk of her my soul did win,\nSo that I said, ‘Thither I too will fare.’\nThat Thought is fled, and one doth now appear\nWhich tyrannizes me with such fierce stress, _20\nThat my heart trembles—ye may see it leap—\nAnd on another Lady bids me keep\nMine eyes, and says—Who would have blessedness\nLet him but look upon that Lady’s eyes,\nLet him not fear the agony of sighs. _25\n\n3.\nThis lowly Thought, which once would talk with me\nOf a bright seraph sitting crowned on high,\nFound such a cruel foe it died, and so\nMy Spirit wept, the grief is hot even now—\nAnd said, Alas for me! how swift could flee _30\nThat piteous Thought which did my life console!\nAnd the afflicted one ... questioning\nMine eyes, if such a Lady saw they never,\nAnd why they would...\nI said: ‘Beneath those eyes might stand for ever _35\nHe whom ... regards must kill with...\nTo have known their power stood me in little stead,\nThose eyes have looked on me, and I am dead.’\n\n4.\n‘Thou art not dead, but thou hast wandered,\nThou Soul of ours, who thyself dost fret,’ _40\nA Spirit of gentle Love beside me said;\nFor that fair Lady, whom thou dost regret,\nHath so transformed the life which thou hast led,\nThou scornest it, so worthless art thou made.\nAnd see how meek, how pitiful, how staid, _45\nYet courteous, in her majesty she is.\nAnd still call thou her Woman in thy thought;\nHer whom, if thou thyself deceivest not,\nThou wilt behold decked with such loveliness,\nThat thou wilt cry [Love] only Lord, lo! here _50\nThy handmaiden, do what thou wilt with her.\n\n5.\nMy song, I fear that thou wilt find but few\nWho fitly shall conceive thy reasoning\nOf such hard matter dost thou entertain.\nWhence, if by misadventure chance should bring _55\nThee to base company, as chance may do,\nQuite unaware of what thou dost contain,\nI prithee comfort thy sweet self again,\nMy last delight; tell them that they are dull,\nAnd bid them own that thou art beautiful. _60", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "From The Purgatorio Of Dante, Canto 28, Lines 1-51.", + "body": "[Published in part (lines 1-8, 22-51) by Medwin, “The Angler in Wales”,\n1834, “Life of Shelley”, 1847; reprinted in full by Garnett, “Relics of\nShelley”, 1862.]\n\nAnd earnest to explore within—around—\nThe divine wood, whose thick green living woof\nTempered the young day to the sight—I wound\n\nUp the green slope, beneath the forest’s roof,\nWith slow, soft steps leaving the mountain’s steep, _5\nAnd sought those inmost labyrinths, motion-proof\n\nAgainst the air, that in that stillness deep\nAnd solemn, struck upon my forehead bare,\nThe slow, soft stroke of a continuous...\n\nIn which the ... leaves tremblingly were _10\nAll bent towards that part where earliest\nThe sacred hill obscures the morning air.\n\nYet were they not so shaken from the rest,\nBut that the birds, perched on the utmost spray,\nIncessantly renewing their blithe quest, _15\n\nWith perfect joy received the early day,\nSinging within the glancing leaves, whose sound\nKept a low burden to their roundelay,\n\nSuch as from bough to bough gathers around\nThe pine forest on bleak Chiassi’s shore, _20\nWhen Aeolus Sirocco has unbound.\n\nMy slow steps had already borne me o’er\nSuch space within the antique wood, that I\nPerceived not where I entered any more,—\n\nWhen, lo! a stream whose little waves went by, _25\nBending towards the left through grass that grew\nUpon its bank, impeded suddenly\n\nMy going on. Water of purest hue\nOn earth, would appear turbid and impure\nCompared with this, whose unconcealing dew, _30\n\nDark, dark, yet clear, moved under the obscure\nEternal shades, whose interwoven looms\nThe rays of moon or sunlight ne’er endure.\n\nI moved not with my feet, but mid the glooms\nPierced with my charmed eye, contemplating _35\nThe mighty multitude of fresh May blooms\n\nWhich starred that night, when, even as a thing\nThat suddenly, for blank astonishment,\nCharms every sense, and makes all thought take wing,—\n\nA solitary woman! and she went _40\nSinging and gathering flower after flower,\nWith which her way was painted and besprent.\n\n‘Bright lady, who, if looks had ever power\nTo bear true witness of the heart within,\nDost bask under the beams of love, come lower _45\n\nTowards this bank. I prithee let me win\nThis much of thee, to come, that I may hear\nThy song: like Proserpine, in Enna’s glen,\n\nThou seemest to my fancy, singing here\nAnd gathering flowers, as that fair maiden when _50\nShe lost the Spring, and Ceres her, more dear.\n\n_2 The 1862; That 1834.\n_4, _5 So 1862;\nUp a green slope, beneath the starry roof,\nWith slow, slow steps— 1834.\n_6 inmost 1862; leafy 1834.\n_9 So 1862; The slow, soft stroke of a continuous sleep cj. Rossetti, 1870.\n_9-_28 So 1862;\n Like the sweet breathing of a child asleep:\n Already I had lost myself so far\n Amid that tangled wilderness that I\n Perceived not where I ventured, but no fear\n Of wandering from my way disturbed, when nigh\n A little stream appeared; the grass that grew\n Thick on its banks impeded suddenly\n My going on. 1834.\n_13 the 1862; their cj. Rossetti, 1870.\n_26 through]the cj. Rossetti.\n_28 hue 1862; dew 1834.\n_30 dew 1862; hue 1834.\n_32 Eternal shades 1862; Of the close boughs 1834.\n_33 So 1862; No ray of moon or sunshine would endure 1834.\n_34, _35 So 1862;\n My feet were motionless, but mid the glooms\n Darted my charmed eyes—1834.\n_37 Which 1834; That 1862.\n_39 So 1834; Dissolves all other thought...1862.\n_40 So 1862; Appeared a solitary maid—she went 1834.\n_46 Towards 1862; Unto 1834.\n_47 thee, to come 1862; thee O come 1834.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Inferno 33, 22-75.", + "body": "[Translated by Medwin and corrected by Shelley.]\n\nNow had the loophole of that dungeon, still\nWhich bears the name of Famine’s Tower from me,\nAnd where ’tis fit that many another will\n\nBe doomed to linger in captivity,\nShown through its narrow opening in my cell _5\n‘Moon after moon slow waning’, when a sleep,\n\n‘That of the future burst the veil, in dream\nVisited me. It was a slumber deep\nAnd evil; for I saw, or I did seem’\n\nTo see, ‘that’ tyrant Lord his revels keep _10\nThe leader of the cruel hunt to them,\nChasing the wolf and wolf-cubs up the steep\n\nAscent, that from ‘the Pisan is the screen’\nOf ‘Lucca’; with him Gualandi came,\nSismondi, and Lanfranchi, ‘bloodhounds lean, _15\n\nTrained to the sport and eager for the game\nWide ranging in his front;’ but soon were seen\nThough by so short a course, with ‘spirits tame,’\n\nThe father and ‘his whelps’ to flag at once,\nAnd then the sharp fangs gored their bosoms deep. _20\nEre morn I roused myself, and heard my sons,\n\nFor they were with me, moaning in their sleep,\nAnd begging bread. Ah, for those darling ones!\nRight cruel art thou, if thou dost not weep\n\nIn thinking of my soul’s sad augury; _25\nAnd if thou weepest not now, weep never more!\nThey were already waked, as wont drew nigh\n\nThe allotted hour for food, and in that hour\nEach drew a presage from his dream. When I\n‘Heard locked beneath me of that horrible tower _30\n\nThe outlet; then into their eyes alone\nI looked to read myself,’ without a sign\nOr word. I wept not—turned within to stone.\n\nThey wept aloud, and little Anselm mine,\nSaid—’twas my youngest, dearest little one,— _35\n“What ails thee, father? Why look so at thine?”\n\nIn all that day, and all the following night,\nI wept not, nor replied; but when to shine\nUpon the world, not us, came forth the light\n\nOf the new sun, and thwart my prison thrown _40\nGleamed through its narrow chink, a doleful sight,\n‘Three faces, each the reflex of my own,\n\nWere imaged by its faint and ghastly ray;’\nThen I, of either hand unto the bone,\nGnawed, in my agony; and thinking they _45\n\nTwas done from sudden pangs, in their excess,\nAll of a sudden raise themselves, and say,\n“Father! our woes, so great, were yet the less\n\nWould you but eat of us,—twas ‘you who clad\nOur bodies in these weeds of wretchedness; _50\nDespoil them’.” Not to make their hearts more sad,\n\nI ‘hushed’ myself. That day is at its close,—\nAnother—still we were all mute. Oh, had\nThe obdurate earth opened to end our woes!\n\nThe fourth day dawned, and when the new sun shone, _55\nOutstretched himself before me as it rose\nMy Gaddo, saying, “Help, father! hast thou none\n\nFor thine own child—is there no help from thee?”\nHe died—there at my feet—and one by one,\nI saw them fall, plainly as you see me. _60\n\nBetween the fifth and sixth day, ere twas dawn,\nI found ‘myself blind-groping o’er the three.’\nThree days I called them after they were gone.\n\nFamine of grief can get the mastery.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Guido Cavalcanti To Dante Alighieri:", + "body": "[Published by Forman (who assigns it to 1815), “Poetical Works of P. B.\nS.”, 1876.]\n\nReturning from its daily quest, my Spirit\nChanged thoughts and vile in thee doth weep to find:\nIt grieves me that thy mild and gentle mind\nThose ample virtues which it did inherit\nHas lost. Once thou didst loathe the multitude _5\nOf blind and madding men—I then loved thee—\nI loved thy lofty songs and that sweet mood\nWhen thou wert faithful to thyself and me\nI dare not now through thy degraded state\nOwn the delight thy strains inspire—in vain _10\nI seek what once thou wert—we cannot meet\nAnd we were wont. Again and yet again\nPonder my words: so the false Spirit shall fly\nAnd leave to thee thy true integrity.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "In the sweet solitude of this calm place,\nThis intricate wild wilderness of trees\nAnd flowers and undergrowth of odorous plants,\nLeave me; the books you brought out of the house\nTo me are ever best society. _5\nAnd while with glorious festival and song,\nAntioch now celebrates the consecration\nOf a proud temple to great Jupiter,\nAnd bears his image in loud jubilee\nTo its new shrine, I would consume what still _10\nLives of the dying day in studious thought,\nFar from the throng and turmoil. You, my friends,\nGo, and enjoy the festival; it will\nBe worth your pains. You may return for me\nWhen the sun seeks its grave among the billows _15\nWhich, among dim gray clouds on the horizon,\nDance like white plumes upon a hearse;— and here\nI shall expect you.\n\n_14 So transcr.; Be worth the labour, and return for me 1824.\n_16, _17 So 1824;\nHid among dim gray clouds on the horizon\nWhich dance like plumes—transcr., Forman.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Moscon:", + "body": "I cannot bring my mind,\nGreat as my haste to see the festival\nCertainly is, to leave you, Sir, without _20\nJust saying some three or four thousand words.\nHow is it possible that on a day\nOf such festivity, you can be content\nTo come forth to a solitary country\nWith three or four old books, and turn your back _25\nOn all this mirth?\n\n_21 thousand transcr.; hundred 1824.\n_23 be content transcr.; bring your mind 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "Enough, you foolish fellows! _35\nPuffed up with your own doting ignorance,\nYou always take the two sides of one question.\nNow go; and as I said, return for me\nWhen night falls, veiling in its shadows wide\nThis glorious fabric of the universe. _40", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "Now, since I am alone, let me examine _50\nThe question which has long disturbed my mind\nWith doubt, since first I read in Plinius\nThe words of mystic import and deep sense\nIn which he defines God. My intellect\nCan find no God with whom these marks and signs _55\nFitly agree. It is a hidden truth\nWhich I must fathom.\n\n[CYPRIAN READS;\nTHE DAEMON, DRESSED IN A COURT DRESS, ENTERS.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon:", + "body": "’Tis a foreign gentleman. _60\nEven from this morning I have lost my way\nIn this wild place; and my poor horse at last,\nQuite overcome, has stretched himself upon\nThe enamelled tapestry of this mossy mountain,\nAnd feeds and rests at the same time. I was _65\nUpon my way to Antioch upon business\nOf some importance, but wrapped up in cares\n(Who is exempt from this inheritance?)\nI parted from my company, and lost\nMy way, and lost my servants and my comrades. _70", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "’Tis singular that even within the sight\nOf the high towers of Antioch you could lose\nYour way. Of all the avenues and green paths\nOf this wild wood there is not one but leads,\nAs to its centre, to the walls of Antioch; _75\nTake which you will, you cannot miss your road.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon:", + "body": "And such is ignorance! Even in the sight\nOf knowledge, it can draw no profit from it.\nBut as it still is early, and as I\nHave no acquaintances in Antioch, _80\nBeing a stranger there, I will even wait\nThe few surviving hours of the day,\nUntil the night shall conquer it. I see\nBoth by your dress and by the books in which\nYou find delight and company, that you _85\nAre a great student;—for my part, I feel\nMuch sympathy in such pursuits.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "Alas! _90\nMuch pains must we expend on one alone,\nAnd even then attain it not;—but you\nHave the presumption to assert that you\nKnow many without study.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon:", + "body": "It is so true, that I\nHad so much arrogance as to oppose _100\nThe chair of the most high Professorship,\nAnd obtained many votes, and, though I lost,\nThe attempt was still more glorious, than the failure\nCould be dishonourable. If you believe not,\nLet us refer it to dispute respecting _105\nThat which you know the best, and although I\nKnow not the opinion you maintain, and though\nIt be the true one, I will take the contrary.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "The offer gives me pleasure. I am now\nDebating with myself upon a passage _110\nOf Plinius, and my mind is racked with doubt\nTo understand and know who is the God\nOf whom he speaks.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "I do not recognize among the Gods\nThe God defined by Plinius; if he must\nBe supreme goodness, even Jupiter _120\nIs not supremely good; because we see\nHis deeds are evil, and his attributes\nTainted with mortal weakness; in what manner\nCan supreme goodness be consistent with\nThe passions of humanity?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "This reply will not satisfy me, for\nSuch awe is due to the high name of God _130\nThat ill should never be imputed. Then,\nExamining the question with more care,\nIt follows, that the Gods would always will\nThat which is best, were they supremely good.\nHow then does one will one thing, one another? _135\nAnd that you may not say that I allege\nPoetical or philosophic learning:—\nConsider the ambiguous responses\nOf their oracular statues; from two shrines\nTwo armies shall obtain the assurance of _140\nOne victory. Is it not indisputable\nThat two contending wills can never lead\nTo the same end? And, being opposite,\nIf one be good, is not the other evil?\nEvil in God is inconceivable; _145\nBut supreme goodness fails among the Gods\nWithout their union.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon:", + "body": "I deny your major.\nThese responses are means towards some end\nUnfathomed by our intellectual beam.\nThey are the work of Providence, and more _150\nThe battle’s loss may profit those who lose,\nThan victory advantage those who win.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "That I admit; and yet that God should not\n(Falsehood is incompatible with deity)\nAssure the victory; it would be enough _155\nTo have permitted the defeat. If God\nBe all sight,—God, who had beheld the truth,\nWould not have given assurance of an end\nNever to be accomplished: thus, although\nThe Deity may according to his attributes _160\nBe well distinguished into persons, yet\nEven in the minutest circumstance\nHis essence must be one.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "But for a purpose thus subordinate\nHe might have employed Genii, good or evil,—\nA sort of spirits called so by the learned,\nWho roam about inspiring good or evil,\nAnd from whose influence and existence we _170\nMay well infer our immortality.\nThus God might easily, without descent\nTo a gross falsehood in his proper person,\nHave moved the affections by this mediation\nTo the just point.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon:", + "body": "These trifling contradictions _175\nDo not suffice to impugn the unity\nOf the high Gods; in things of great importance\nThey still appear unanimous; consider\nThat glorious fabric, man,—his workmanship\nIs stamped with one conception.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "Who made man _180\nMust have, methinks, the advantage of the others.\nIf they are equal, might they not have risen\nIn opposition to the work, and being\nAll hands, according to our author here,\nHave still destroyed even as the other made? _185\nIf equal in their power, unequal only\nIn opportunity, which of the two\nWill remain conqueror?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "That there must be a mighty God\nOf supreme goodness and of highest grace,\nAll sight, all hands, all truth, infallible,\nWithout an equal and without a rival,\nThe cause of all things and the effect of nothing, _195\nOne power, one will, one substance, and one essence.\nAnd, in whatever persons, one or two,\nHis attributes may be distinguished, one\nSovereign power, one solitary essence,\nOne cause of all cause.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon:", + "body": "Who but regrets a check\nIn rivalry of wit? I could reply\nAnd urge new difficulties, but will now\nDepart, for I hear steps of men approaching, _205\nAnd it is time that I should now pursue\nMy journey to the city.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon:", + "body": "Remain in peace!—Since thus it profits him\nTo study, I will wrap his senses up\nIn sweet oblivion of all thought but of _210\nA piece of excellent beauty; and, as I\nHave power given me to wage enmity\nAgainst Justina’s soul, I will extract\nFrom one effect two vengeances.\n\n[ASIDE AND EXIT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "Be silent, fellows! What! two friends who are\nIn blood and fame the eyes and hope of Antioch,\nOne of the noble race of the Colalti,\nThe other son o’ the Governor, adventure\nAnd cast away, on some slight cause no doubt, _235\nTwo lives, the honour of their country?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Lelio:", + "body": "Cyprian!\nAlthough my high respect towards your person\nHolds now my sword suspended, thou canst not\nRestore it to the slumber of the scabbard:\nThou knowest more of science than the duel; _240\nFor when two men of honour take the field,\nNo counsel nor respect can make them friends\nBut one must die in the dispute.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "Though you may imagine\nThat I know little of the laws of duel,\nWhich vanity and valour instituted,\nYou are in error. By my birth I am\nHeld no less than yourselves to know the limits _250\nOf honour and of infamy, nor has study\nQuenched the free spirit which first ordered them;\nAnd thus to me, as one well experienced\nIn the false quicksands of the sea of honour,\nYou may refer the merits of the case; _255\nAnd if I should perceive in your relation\nThat either has the right to satisfaction\nFrom the other, I give you my word of honour\nTo leave you.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "And if you both\nWould marry her, is it not weak and vain,\nCulpable and unworthy, thus beforehand\nTo slur her honour? What would the world say\nIf one should slay the other, and if she _280\nShould afterwards espouse the murderer?\n\n[THE RIVALS AGREE TO REFER THEIR QUARREL TO CYPRIAN; WHO IN CONSEQUENCE\nVISITS JUSTINA, AND BECOMES ENAMOURED OF HER; SHE DISDAINS HIM, AND HE\nRETIRES TO A SOLITARY SEA-SHORE.]\n\n\nSCENE 2.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "O memory! permit it not\nThat the tyrant of my thought\nBe another soul that still\nHolds dominion o’er the will,\nThat would refuse, but can no more, _5\nTo bend, to tremble, and adore.\nVain idolatry!—I saw,\nAnd gazing, became blind with error;\nWeak ambition, which the awe\nOf her presence bound to terror! _10\nSo beautiful she was—and I,\nBetween my love and jealousy,\nAm so convulsed with hope and fear,\nUnworthy as it may appear;—\nSo bitter is the life I live, _15\nThat, hear me, Hell! I now would give\nTo thy most detested spirit\nMy soul, for ever to inherit,\nTo suffer punishment and pine,\nSo this woman may be mine. _20\nHear’st thou, Hell! dost thou reject it?\nMy soul is offered!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "What is this? ye heavens for ever pure,\nAt once intensely radiant and obscure!\nAthwart the aethereal halls _25\nThe lightning’s arrow and the thunder-balls\nThe day affright,\nAs from the horizon round,\nBurst with earthquake sound,\nIn mighty torrents the electric fountains;— _30\nClouds quench the sun, and thunder-smoke\nStrangles the air, and fire eclipses Heaven.\nPhilosophy, thou canst not even\nCompel their causes underneath thy yoke:\nFrom yonder clouds even to the waves below _35\nThe fragments of a single ruin choke\nImagination’s flight;\nFor, on flakes of surge, like feathers light,\nThe ashes of the desolation, cast\nUpon the gloomy blast, _40\nTell of the footsteps of the storm;\nAnd nearer, see, the melancholy form\nOf a great ship, the outcast of the sea,\nDrives miserably!\nAnd it must fly the pity of the port, _45\nOr perish, and its last and sole resort\nIs its own raging enemy.\nThe terror of the thrilling cry\nWas a fatal prophecy\nOf coming death, who hovers now _50\nUpon that shattered prow,\nThat they who die not may be dying still.\nAnd not alone the insane elements\nAre populous with wild portents,\nBut that sad ship is as a miracle _55\nOf sudden ruin, for it drives so fast\nIt seems as if it had arrayed its form\nWith the headlong storm.\nIt strikes—I almost feel the shock,—\nIt stumbles on a jagged rock,— _60\nSparkles of blood on the white foam are cast.\n\n[A TEMPEST.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "As in contempt of the elemental rage\nA man comes forth in safety, while the ship’s _65\nGreat form is in a watery eclipse\nObliterated from the Oceans page,\nAnd round its wreck the huge sea-monsters sit,\nA horrid conclave, and the whistling wave\nIs heaped over its carcase, like a grave. _70\n\n[THE DAEMON ENTERS, AS ESCAPED FROM THE SEA.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon [Aside]:", + "body": "It was essential to my purposes\nTo wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean,\nThat in this unknown form I might at length\nWipe out the blot of the discomfiture\nSustained upon the mountain, and assail _75\nWith a new war the soul of Cyprian,\nForging the instruments of his destruction\nEven from his love and from his wisdom.—O\nBeloved earth, dear mother, in thy bosom\nI seek a refuge from the monster who _80\nPrecipitates itself upon me.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "Friend,\nCollect thyself; and be the memory\nOf thy late suffering, and thy greatest sorrow\nBut as a shadow of the past,—for nothing\nBeneath the circle of the moon, but flows _85\nAnd changes, and can never know repose.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Cyprian:", + "body": "Now, since the fury\nOf this earthquaking hurricane is still, _95\nAnd the crystalline Heaven has reassumed\nIts windless calm so quickly, that it seems\nAs if its heavy wrath had been awakened\nOnly to overwhelm that vessel,—speak,\nWho art thou, and whence comest thou?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon:", + "body": "Since thou desirest, I will then unveil\nMyself to thee;—for in myself I am _105\nA world of happiness and misery;\nThis I have lost, and that I must lament\nForever. In my attributes I stood\nSo high and so heroically great,\nIn lineage so supreme, and with a genius _110\nWhich penetrated with a glance the world\nBeneath my feet, that, won by my high merit,\nA king—whom I may call the King of kings,\nBecause all others tremble in their pride\nBefore the terrors of His countenance, _115\nIn His high palace roofed with brightest gems\nOf living light—call them the stars of Heaven—\nNamed me His counsellor. But the high praise\nStung me with pride and envy, and I rose\nIn mighty competition, to ascend _120\nHis seat and place my foot triumphantly\nUpon His subject thrones. Chastised, I know\nThe depth to which ambition falls; too mad\nWas the attempt, and yet more mad were now\nRepentance of the irrevocable deed:— _125\nTherefore I chose this ruin, with the glory\nOf not to be subdued, before the shame\nOf reconciling me with Him who reigns\nBy coward cession.—Nor was I alone,\nNor am I now, nor shall I be alone; _130\nAnd there was hope, and there may still be hope,\nFor many suffrages among His vassals\nHailed me their lord and king, and many still\nAre mine, and many more, perchance shall be.\nThus vanquished, though in fact victorious, _135\nI left His seat of empire, from mine eye\nShooting forth poisonous lightning, while my words\nWith inauspicious thunderings shook Heaven,\nProclaiming vengeance, public as my wrong,\nAnd imprecating on His prostrate slaves _140\nRapine, and death, and outrage. Then I sailed\nOver the mighty fabric of the world,—\nA pirate ambushed in its pathless sands,\nA lynx crouched watchfully among its caves\nAnd craggy shores; and I have wandered over _145\nThe expanse of these wide wildernesses\nIn this great ship, whose bulk is now dissolved\nIn the light breathings of the invisible wind,\nAnd which the sea has made a dustless ruin,\nSeeking ever a mountain, through whose forests _150\nI seek a man, whom I must now compel\nTo keep his word with me. I came arrayed\nIn tempest, and although my power could well\nBridle the forest winds in their career,\nFor other causes I forbore to soothe _155\nTheir fury to Favonian gentleness;\nI could and would not;\n[ASIDE.]\n(thus I wake in him\nA love of magic art). Let not this tempest,\nNor the succeeding calm excite thy wonder;\nFor by my art the sun would turn as pale _160\nAs his weak sister with unwonted fear;\nAnd in my wisdom are the orbs of Heaven\nWritten as in a record; I have pierced\nThe flaming circles of their wondrous spheres\nAnd know them as thou knowest every corner _165\nOf this dim spot. Let it not seem to thee\nThat I boast vainly; wouldst thou that I work\nA charm over this waste and savage wood,\nThis Babylon of crags and aged trees,\nFilling its leafy coverts with a horror _170\nThrilling and strange? I am the friendless guest\nOf these wild oaks and pines—and as from thee\nI have received the hospitality\nOf this rude place, I offer thee the fruit\nOf years of toil in recompense; whate’er _175\nThy wildest dream presented to thy thought\nAs object of desire, that shall be thine.\n\n...\n\nAnd thenceforth shall so firm an amity\n’Twixt thee and me be, that neither Fortune,\nThe monstrous phantom which pursues success, _180\nThat careful miser, that free prodigal,\nWho ever alternates, with changeful hand,\nEvil and good, reproach and fame; nor Time,\nThat lodestar of the ages, to whose beam\nThe winged years speed o’er the intervals _185\nOf their unequal revolutions; nor\nHeaven itself, whose beautiful bright stars\nRule and adorn the world, can ever make\nThe least division between thee and me,\nSince now I find a refuge in thy favour. _190\n\n_146 wide glassy wildernesses Rossetti.\n_150 Seeking forever cj. Forman.\n_154 forest]fiercest cj. Rossetti.\n\n\nSCENE 3.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon:", + "body": "Abyss of Hell! I call on thee,\nThou wild misrule of thine own anarchy!\nFrom thy prison-house set free\nThe spirits of voluptuous death,\nThat with their mighty breath _5\nThey may destroy a world of virgin thoughts;\nLet her chaste mind with fancies thick as motes\nBe peopled from thy shadowy deep,\nTill her guiltless fantasy\nFull to overflowing be! _10\nAnd with sweetest harmony,\nLet birds, and flowers, and leaves, and all things move\nTo love, only to love.\nLet nothing meet her eyes\nBut signs of Love’s soft victories; _15\nLet nothing meet her ear\nBut sounds of Love’s sweet sorrow,\nSo that from faith no succour she may borrow,\nBut, guided by my spirit blind\nAnd in a magic snare entwined, _20\nShe may now seek Cyprian.\nBegin, while I in silence bind\nMy voice, when thy sweet song thou hast began.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The First Voice:", + "body": "There is no form in which the fire\nOf love its traces has impressed not.\nMan lives far more in love’s desire\nThan by life’s breath, soon possessed not.\nIf all that lives must love or die, _30\nAll shapes on earth, or sea, or sky,\nWith one consent to Heaven cry\nThat the glory far above\nAll else in life is—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Justina:", + "body": "Thou melancholy Thought which art _35\nSo flattering and so sweet, to thee\nWhen did I give the liberty\nThus to afflict my heart?\nWhat is the cause of this new Power\nWhich doth my fevered being move, _40\nMomently raging more and more?\nWhat subtle Pain is kindled now\nWhich from my heart doth overflow\nInto my senses?—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Justina:", + "body": "’Tis that enamoured Nightingale _45\nWho gives me the reply;\nHe ever tells the same soft tale\nOf passion and of constancy\nTo his mate, who rapt and fond,\nListening sits, a bough beyond. _50\n\nBe silent, Nightingale—no more\nMake me think, in hearing thee\nThus tenderly thy love deplore,\nIf a bird can feel his so,\nWhat a man would feel for me. _55\nAnd, voluptuous Vine, O thou\nWho seekest most when least pursuing,—\nTo the trunk thou interlacest\nArt the verdure which embracest,\nAnd the weight which is its ruin,— _60\nNo more, with green embraces, Vine,\nMake me think on what thou lovest,—\nFor whilst thus thy boughs entwine\nI fear lest thou shouldst teach me, sophist,\nHow arms might be entangled too. _65\n\nLight-enchanted Sunflower, thou\nWho gazest ever true and tender\nOn the sun’s revolving splendour!\nFollow not his faithless glance\nWith thy faded countenance, _70\nNor teach my beating heart to fear,\nIf leaves can mourn without a tear,\nHow eyes must weep! O Nightingale,\nCease from thy enamoured tale,—\nLeafy Vine, unwreathe thy bower, _75\nRestless Sunflower, cease to move,—\nOr tell me all, what poisonous Power\nYe use against me—\n\n_58 To]Who to cj. Rossetti.\n_63 whilst thus Rossetti, Forman, Dowden; whilst thou thus 1824.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Justina:", + "body": "It cannot be!—Whom have I ever loved?\nTrophies of my oblivion and disdain, _80\nFloro and Lelio did I not reject?\nAnd Cyprian?—\n[SHE BECOMES TROUBLED AT THE NAME OF CYPRIAN.]\nDid I not requite him\nWith such severity, that he has fled\nWhere none has ever heard of him again?—\nAlas! I now begin to fear that this _85\nMay be the occasion whence desire grows bold,\nAs if there were no danger. From the moment\nThat I pronounced to my own listening heart,\n‘Cyprian is absent!’—O me miserable!\nI know not what I feel!\n[MORE CALMLY.]\nIt must be pity _90\nTo think that such a man, whom all the world\nAdmired, should be forgot by all the world,\nAnd I the cause.\n[SHE AGAIN BECOMES TROUBLED.]\nAnd yet if it were pity,\nFloro and Lelio might have equal share,\nFor they are both imprisoned for my sake. _95\n[CALMLY.]\nAlas! what reasonings are these? it is\nEnough I pity him, and that, in vain,\nWithout this ceremonious subtlety.\nAnd, woe is me! I know not where to find him now,\nEven should I seek him through this wide world. _100", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Justina:", + "body": "I will not be discouraged, nor despair,\nAlthough I thought it, and although ’tis true\nThat thought is but a prelude to the deed:—\nThought is not in my power, but action is:\nI will not move my foot to follow thee. _120", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Daemon:", + "body": "Woman, thou hast subdued me,\nOnly by not owning thyself subdued. _135\nBut since thou thus findest defence in God,\nI will assume a feigned form, and thus\nMake thee a victim of my baffled rage.\nFor I will mask a spirit in thy form\nWho will betray thy name to infamy, _140\nAnd doubly shall I triumph in thy loss,\nFirst by dishonouring thee, and then by turning\nFalse pleasure to true ignominy.\n\n[EXIT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Justina: I", + "body": "Appeal to Heaven against thee; so that Heaven\nMay scatter thy delusions, and the blot _145\nUpon my fame vanish in idle thought,\nEven as flame dies in the envious air,\nAnd as the floweret wanes at morning frost;\nAnd thou shouldst never—But, alas! to whom\nDo I still speak?—Did not a man but now _150\nStand here before me?—No, I am alone,\nAnd yet I saw him. Is he gone so quickly?\nOr can the heated mind engender shapes\nFrom its own fear? Some terrible and strange\nPeril is near. Lisander! father! lord! _155\nLivia!—\n\n[ENTER LISANDER AND LIVIA.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Justina:", + "body": "Oh, would it were\nDelusion; but I fear some greater ill.\nI feel as if out of my bleeding bosom _170\nMy heart was torn in fragments; ay,\nSome mortal spell is wrought against my frame;\nSo potent was the charm that, had not God\nShielded my humble innocence from wrong,\nI should have sought my sorrow and my shame _175\nWith willing steps.—Livia, quick, bring my cloak,\nFor I must seek refuge from these extremes\nEven in the temple of the highest God\nWhere secretly the faithful worship.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Translated By Medwin And Corrected By Shelley.", + "body": "[Published by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847,\nwith Shelley’s corrections in ‘‘.]\n\n1.\nHast thou not seen, officious with delight,\nMove through the illumined air about the flower\nThe Bee, that fears to drink its purple light,\nLest danger lurk within that Rose’s bower?\nHast thou not marked the moth’s enamoured flight _5\nAbout the Taper’s flame at evening hour;\n‘Till kindle in that monumental fire\nHis sunflower wings their own funereal pyre?\n\n2.\nMy heart, its wishes trembling to unfold.\nThus round the Rose and Taper hovering came, _10\n‘And Passion’s slave, Distrust, in ashes cold.\nSmothered awhile, but could not quench the flame,’—\nTill Love, that grows by disappointment bold,\nAnd Opportunity, had conquered Shame;\nAnd like the Bee and Moth, in act to close, _15\n‘I burned my wings, and settled on the Rose.’\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Raphael:", + "body": "The sun makes music as of old\nAmid the rival spheres of Heaven,\nOn its predestined circle rolled\nWith thunder speed: the Angels even\nDraw strength from gazing on its glance, _5\nThough none its meaning fathom may:—\nThe world’s unwithered countenance\nIs bright as at Creation’s day.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Gabriel:", + "body": "And swift and swift, with rapid lightness,\nThe adorned Earth spins silently, _10\nAlternating Elysian brightness\nWith deep and dreadful night; the sea\nFoams in broad billows from the deep\nUp to the rocks, and rocks and Ocean,\nOnward, with spheres which never sleep, _15\nAre hurried in eternal motion.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Michael:", + "body": "And tempests in contention roar\nFrom land to sea, from sea to land;\nAnd, raging, weave a chain of power,\nWhich girds the earth, as with a band.— _20\nA flashing desolation there,\nFlames before the thunder’s way;\nBut Thy servants, Lord, revere\nThe gentle changes of Thy day.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Gabriel:", + "body": "And swift, and inconceivably swift\nThe adornment of earth winds itself round,\nAnd exchanges Paradise-clearness\nWith deep dreadful night.\nThe sea foams in broad waves\nFrom its deep bottom, up to the rocks,\nAnd rocks and sea are torn on together\nIn the eternal swift course of the spheres.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Michael:", + "body": "And storms roar in emulation\nFrom sea to land, from land to sea,\nAnd make, raging, a chain\nOf deepest operation round about.\nThere flames a flashing destruction\nBefore the path of the thunderbolt.\nBut Thy servants, Lord, revere\nThe gentle alternations of Thy day.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "Thy countenance gives the Angels strength,\nThough none can comprehend Thee:\nAnd all Thy lofty works\nAre excellent as at the first day.\n\nSuch is a literal translation of this astonishing chorus; it is\nimpossible to represent in another language the melody of the\nversification; even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas\nescape in the crucible of translation, and the reader is surprised to\nfind a caput mortuum.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])\n\n[ENTER MEPHISTOPHELES.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "As thou, O Lord, once more art kind enough\nTo interest Thyself in our affairs, _30\nAnd ask, ‘How goes it with you there below?’\nAnd as indulgently at other times\nThou tookest not my visits in ill part,\nThou seest me here once more among Thy household.\nThough I should scandalize this company, _35\nYou will excuse me if I do not talk\nIn the high style which they think fashionable;\nMy pathos certainly would make You laugh too,\nHad You not long since given over laughing.\nNothing know I to say of suns and worlds; _40\nI observe only how men plague themselves;—\nThe little god o’ the world keeps the same stamp,\nAs wonderful as on creation’s day:—\nA little better would he live, hadst Thou\nNot given him a glimpse of Heaven’s light _45\nWhich he calls reason, and employs it only\nTo live more beastlily than any beast.\nWith reverence to Your Lordship be it spoken,\nHe’s like one of those long-legged grasshoppers,\nWho flits and jumps about, and sings for ever _50\nThe same old song i’ the grass. There let him lie,\nBurying his nose in every heap of dung.\n\n_38 certainly would editions 1839; would certainly 1824.\n_47 beastlily 1824; beastily editions 1839.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "In truth _60\nHe serves You in a fashion quite his own;\nAnd the fool’s meat and drink are not of earth.\nHis aspirations bear him on so far\nThat he is half aware of his own folly,\nFor he demands from Heaven its fairest star, _65\nAnd from the earth the highest joy it bears,\nYet all things far, and all things near, are vain\nTo calm the deep emotions of his breast.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Lord:", + "body": "Though he now serves Me in a cloud of error,\nI will soon lead him forth to the clear day. _70\nWhen trees look green, full well the gardener knows\nThat fruits and blooms will deck the coming year.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "Thanks.\nAnd that is all I ask; for willingly\nI never make acquaintance with the dead. _80\nThe full fresh cheeks of youth are food for me,\nAnd if a corpse knocks, I am not at home.\nFor I am like a cat—I like to play\nA little with the mouse before I eat it.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Lord:", + "body": "Well, well! it is permitted thee. Draw thou _85\nHis spirit from its springs; as thou find’st power\nSeize him and lead him on thy downward path;\nAnd stand ashamed when failure teaches thee\nThat a good man, even in his darkest longings,\nIs well aware of the right way.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "Well and good. _90\nI am not in much doubt about my bet,\nAnd if I lose, then ’tis Your turn to crow;\nEnjoy Your triumph then with a full breast.\nAy; dust shall he devour, and that with pleasure,\nLike my old paramour, the famous Snake. _95", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Lord:", + "body": "Pray come here when it suits you; for I never\nHad much dislike for people of your sort.\nAnd, among all the Spirits who rebelled,\nThe knave was ever the least tedious to Me.\nThe active spirit of man soon sleeps, and soon _100\nHe seeks unbroken quiet; therefore I\nHave given him the Devil for a companion,\nWho may provoke him to some sort of work,\nAnd must create forever.—But ye, pure\nChildren of God, enjoy eternal beauty;— _105\nLet that which ever operates and lives\nClasp you within the limits of its love;\nAnd seize with sweet and melancholy thoughts\nThe floating phantoms of its loveliness.\n\n[HEAVEN CLOSES; THE ARCHANGELS EXEUNT.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "From time to time I visit the old fellow, _110\nAnd I take care to keep on good terms with Him.\nCivil enough is the same God Almighty,\nTo talk so freely with the Devil himself.\n\n\nSCENE 2.—MAY-DAY NIGHT.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Faust:", + "body": "This knotted staff is help enough for me,\nWhilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good _5\nIs there in making short a pleasant way?\nTo creep along the labyrinths of the vales,\nAnd climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs,\nPrecipitate themselves in waterfalls,\nIs the true sport that seasons such a path. _10\nAlready Spring kindles the birchen spray,\nAnd the hoar pines already feel her breath:\nShall she not work also within our limbs?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "Nothing of such an influence do I feel.\nMy body is all wintry, and I wish _15\nThe flowers upon our path were frost and snow.\nBut see how melancholy rises now,\nDimly uplifting her belated beam,\nThe blank unwelcome round of the red moon,\nAnd gives so bad a light, that every step _20\nOne stumbles ’gainst some crag. With your permission,\nI’ll call on Ignis-fatuus to our aid:\nI see one yonder burning jollily.\nHalloo, my friend! may I request that you\nWould favour us with your bright company? _25\nWhy should you blaze away there to no purpose?\nPray be so good as light us up this way.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ignis-Fatuus:", + "body": "Well,\nI see you are the master of the house;\nI will accommodate myself to you. _35\nOnly consider that to-night this mountain\nIs all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lantern\nShows you his way, though you should miss your own,\nYou ought not to be too exact with him.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Faust, Mephistopheles, And Ignis-Fatuus, In Alternate Chorus:", + "body": "The limits of the sphere of dream, _40\nThe bounds of true and false, are past.\nLead us on, thou wandering Gleam,\nLead us onward, far and fast,\nTo the wide, the desert waste.\n\nBut see, how swift advance and shift _45\nTrees behind trees, row by row,—\nHow, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift\nTheir frowning foreheads as we go.\nThe giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!\nHow they snort, and how they blow! _50\n\nThrough the mossy sods and stones,\nStream and streamlet hurry down—\nA rushing throng! A sound of song\nBeneath the vault of Heaven is blown!\nSweet notes of love, the speaking tones _55\nOf this bright day, sent down to say\nThat Paradise on Earth is known,\nResound around, beneath, above.\nAll we hope and all we love\nFinds a voice in this blithe strain, _60\nWhich wakens hill and wood and rill,\nAnd vibrates far o’er field and vale,\nAnd which Echo, like the tale\nOf old times, repeats again.\n\nTo-whoo! to-whoo! near, nearer now _65\nThe sound of song, the rushing throng!\nAre the screech, the lapwing, and the jay,\nAll awake as if ’twere day?\nSee, with long legs and belly wide,\nA salamander in the brake! _70\nEvery root is like a snake,\nAnd along the loose hillside,\nWith strange contortions through the night,\nCurls, to seize or to affright;\nAnd, animated, strong, and many, _75\nThey dart forth polypus-antennae,\nTo blister with their poison spume\nThe wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom\nThe many-coloured mice, that thread\nThe dewy turf beneath our tread, _80\nIn troops each other’s motions cross,\nThrough the heath and through the moss;\nAnd, in legions intertangled,\nThe fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng,\nTill all the mountain depths are spangled. _85\n\nTell me, shall we go or stay?\nShall we onward? Come along!\nEverything around is swept\nForward, onward, far away!\nTrees and masses intercept _90\nThe sight, and wisps on every side\nAre puffed up and multiplied.\n\n_48 frowning]fawning 1822.\n_70 brake 1824; lake 1822.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Faust:", + "body": "Ay—\nAnd strangely through the solid depth below\nA melancholy light, like the red dawn,\nShoots from the lowest gorge of the abyss\nOf mountains, lightning hitherward: there rise _100\nPillars of smoke, here clouds float gently by;\nHere the light burns soft as the enkindled air,\nOr the illumined dust of golden flowers;\nAnd now it glides like tender colours spreading;\nAnd now bursts forth in fountains from the earth; _105\nAnd now it winds, one torrent of broad light,\nThrough the far valley with a hundred veins;\nAnd now once more within that narrow corner\nMasses itself into intensest splendour.\nAnd near us, see, sparks spring out of the ground, _110\nLike golden sand scattered upon the darkness;\nThe pinnacles of that black wall of mountains\nThat hems us in are kindled.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "Rare: in faith!\nDoes not Sir Mammon gloriously illuminate\nHis palace for this festival?—it is _115\nA pleasure which you had not known before.\nI spy the boisterous guests already.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag. _120\nBeware! for if with them thou warrest\nIn their fierce flight towards the wilderness,\nTheir breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag\nThy body to a grave in the abyss.\nA cloud thickens the night. _125\nHark! how the tempest crashes through the forest!\nThe owls fly out in strange affright;\nThe columns of the evergreen palaces\nAre split and shattered;\nThe roots creak, and stretch, and groan; _130\nAnd ruinously overthrown,\nThe trunks are crushed and shattered\nBy the fierce blast’s unconquerable stress.\nOver each other crack and crash they all\nIn terrible and intertangled fall; _135\nAnd through the ruins of the shaken mountain\nThe airs hiss and howl—\nIt is not the voice of the fountain,\nNor the wolf in his midnight prowl.\nDost thou not hear? _140\nStrange accents are ringing\nAloft, afar, anear?\nThe witches are singing!\nThe torrent of a raging wizard song\nStreams the whole mountain along. _145", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Witches:", + "body": "The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,\nNow to the Brocken the witches go;\nThe mighty multitude here may be seen\nGathering, wizard and witch, below.\nSir Urian is sitting aloft in the air; _150\nHey over stock! and hey over stone!\n’Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done?\nTell it who dare! tell it who dare!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus:", + "body": "Honour her, to whom honour is due,\nOld mother Baubo, honour to you!\nAn able sow, with old Baubo upon her,\nIs worthy of glory, and worthy of honour!\nThe legion of witches is coming behind, _160\nDarkening the night, and outspeeding the wind—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Witches:", + "body": "Come away! come along!\nThe way is wide, the way is long, _170\nBut what is that for a Bedlam throng?\nStick with the prong, and scratch with the broom.\nThe child in the cradle lies strangled at home,\nAnd the mother is clapping her hands.—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Voices Below:", + "body": "Oh, let me join your flocks!\nI, three hundred years have striven\nTo catch your skirt and mount to Heaven,—\nAnd still in vain. Oh, might I be\nWith company akin to me! _195", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Witches:", + "body": "Come onward, away! aroint thee, aroint!\nA witch to be strong must anoint—anoint—\nThen every trough will be boat enough; _205\nWith a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky,\nWho flies not to-night, when means he to fly?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling;\nWhat whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling;\nWhat glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning,\nAs Heaven and Earth were overturning.\nThere is a true witch element about us; _215\nTake hold on me, or we shall be divided:—\nWhere are you?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "What!\nI must exert my authority in the house.\nPlace for young Voland! pray make way, good people.\nTake hold on me, doctor, and with one step _220\nLet us escape from this unpleasant crowd:\nThey are too mad for people of my sort.\nJust there shines a peculiar kind of light—\nSomething attracts me in those bushes. Come\nThis way: we shall slip down there in a minute. _225", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Faust:", + "body": "Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on—\n’Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out\nInto the Brocken upon May-day night,\nAnd then to isolate oneself in scorn,\nDisgusted with the humours of the time. _230", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Faust:", + "body": "Would that I were\nUp yonder in the glow and whirling smoke, _235\nWhere the blind million rush impetuously\nTo meet the evil ones; there might I solve\nMany a riddle that torments me.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "Yet\nMany a riddle there is tied anew\nInextricably. Let the great world rage! _240\nWe will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.\n’Tis an old custom. Men have ever built\nTheir own small world in the great world of all.\nI see young witches naked there, and old ones\nWisely attired with greater decency. _245\nBe guided now by me, and you shall buy\nA pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.\nI hear them tune their instruments—one must\nGet used to this damned scraping. Come, I’ll lead you\nAmong them; and what there you do and see, _250\nAs a fresh compact ’twixt us two shall be.\nHow say you now? this space is wide enough—\nLook forth, you cannot see the end of it—\nAn hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they\nWho throng around them seem innumerable: _255\nDancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,\nAnd cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend,\nWhat is there better in the world than this?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "In truth, I generally go about\nIn strict incognito; and yet one likes\nTo wear one’s orders upon gala days.\nI have no ribbon at my knee; but here\nAt home, the cloven foot is honourable. _265\nSee you that snail there?—she comes creeping up,\nAnd with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something.\nI could not, if I would, mask myself here.\nCome now, we’ll go about from fire to fire:\nI’ll be the Pimp, and you shall be the Lover. _270\n[TO SOME OLD WOMEN, WHO ARE SITTING ROUND A HEAP OF GLIMMERING COALS.]\nOld gentlewomen, what do you do out here?\nYou ought to be with the young rioters\nRight in the thickest of the revelry—\nBut every one is best content at home.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Minister:", + "body": "Nowadays\nPeople assert their rights: they go too far; _280\nBut as for me, the good old times I praise;\nThen we were all in all—’twas something worth\nOne’s while to be in place and wear a star;\nThat was indeed the golden age on earth.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Parvenu:", + "body": "We too are active, and we did and do _285\nWhat we ought not, perhaps; and yet we now\nWill seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round,\nA spoke of Fortune’s wheel, and keep our ground.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Author:", + "body": "Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense\nAnd ponderous volume? ’tis impertinence _290\nTo write what none will read, therefore will I\nTo please the young and thoughtless people try.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Pedlar-Witch:", + "body": "Look here,\nGentlemen; do not hurry on so fast;\nAnd lose the chance of a good pennyworth.\nI have a pack full of the choicest wares\nOf every sort, and yet in all my bundle _300\nIs nothing like what may be found on earth;\nNothing that in a moment will make rich\nMen and the world with fine malicious mischief—\nThere is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowl\nFrom which consuming poison may be drained _305\nBy innocent and healthy lips; no jewel,\nThe price of an abandoned maiden’s shame;\nNo sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose,\nOr stabs the wearer’s enemy in the back;\nNo—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "Gossip, you know little of these times. _310\nWhat has been, has been; what is done, is past,\nThey shape themselves into the innovations\nThey breed, and innovation drags us with it.\nThe torrent of the crowd sweeps over us:\nYou think to impel, and are yourself impelled. _315", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "Lilith, the first wife of Adam.\nBeware of her fair hair, for she excels\nAll women in the magic of her locks;\nAnd when she winds them round a young man’s neck, _320\nShe will not ever set him free again.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "There is no rest to-night for any one:\nWhen one dance ends another is begun; _325\nCome, let us to it. We shall have rare fun.\n\n[FAUST DANCES AND SINGS WITH A GIRL, AND\nMEPHISTOPHELES WITH AN OLD WOMAN.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Faust:", + "body": "I had once a lovely dream\nIn which I saw an apple-tree,\nWhere two fair apples with their gleam\nTo climb and taste attracted me. _330\n\n_327-_334 So Boscombe manuscript (“Westminster Review”, July, 1870);\n wanting, 1822, 1824, 1839.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Procto-Phantasmist:", + "body": "What is this cursed multitude about? _335\nHave we not long since proved to demonstration\nThat ghosts move not on ordinary feet?\nBut these are dancing just like men and women.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Faust:", + "body": "Oh! he\nIs far above us all in his conceit: _340\nWhilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment;\nAnd any step which in our dance we tread,\nIf it be left out of his reckoning,\nIs not to be considered as a step.\nThere are few things that scandalize him not: _345\nAnd when you whirl round in the circle now,\nAs he went round the wheel in his old mill,\nHe says that you go wrong in all respects,\nEspecially if you congratulate him\nUpon the strength of the resemblance.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Procto-Phantasmist:", + "body": "Fly! _350\nVanish! Unheard-of impudence! What, still there!\nIn this enlightened age too, since you have been\nProved not to exist!—But this infernal brood\nWill hear no reason and endure no rule.\nAre we so wise, and is the POND still haunted? _355\nHow long have I been sweeping out this rubbish\nOf superstition, and the world will not\nCome clean with all my pains!—it is a case\nUnheard of!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Procto-Phantasmist:", + "body": "I tell you, spirits, to your faces now, _360\nThat I should not regret this despotism\nOf spirits, but that mine can wield it not.\nTo-night I shall make poor work of it,\nYet I will take a round with you, and hope\nBefore my last step in the living dance _365\nTo beat the poet and the devil together.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "At last he will sit down in some foul puddle;\nThat is his way of solacing himself;\nUntil some leech, diverted with his gravity,\nCures him of spirits and the spirit together. _370\n[TO FAUST, WHO HAS SECEDED FROM THE DANCE.]\nWhy do you let that fair girl pass from you,\nWho sung so sweetly to you in the dance?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Faust:", + "body": "Seest thou not a pale,\nFair girl, standing alone, far, far away?\nShe drags herself now forward with slow steps, _380\nAnd seems as if she moved with shackled feet:\nI cannot overcome the thought that she\nIs like poor Margaret.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "Let it be—pass on—\nNo good can come of it—it is not well\nTo meet it—it is an enchanted phantom, _385\nA lifeless idol; with its numbing look,\nIt freezes up the blood of man; and they\nWho meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone,\nLike those who saw Medusa.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Faust:", + "body": "Oh, too true!\nHer eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse _390\nWhich no beloved hand has closed, alas!\nThat is the breast which Margaret yielded to me—\nThose are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mephistopheles:", + "body": "Ay, she can carry _400\nHer head under her arm upon occasion;\nPerseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures\nEnd in delusion.—Gain this rising ground,\nIt is as airy here as in a...\nAnd if I am not mightily deceived, _405\nI see a theatre.—What may this mean?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Attendant:", + "body": "Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for ’tis\nThe custom now to represent that number.\n’Tis written by a Dilettante, and\nThe actors who perform are Dilettanti; _410\nExcuse me, gentlemen; but I must vanish.\nI am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Philosophical Poem, With Notes.", + "body": "[An edition (250 copies) of “Queen Mab” was printed at London in the\nsummer of 1813 by Shelley himself, whose name, as author and printer,\nappears on the title-page (see “Bibliographical List”). Of this edition\nabout seventy copies were privately distributed. Sections 1, 2, 8, and 9\nwere afterwards rehandled, and the intermediate sections here and there\nrevised and altered; and of this new text sections 1 and 2 were\npublished by Shelley in the “Alastor” volume of 1816, under the title,\n“The Daemon of the World”. The remainder lay unpublished till 1876, when\nsections 8 and 9 were printed by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B., from a\nprinted copy of “Queen Mab” with Shelley’s manuscript corrections. See\n“The Shelley Library”, pages 36-44, for a description of this copy,\nwhich is in Mr. Forman’s possession. Sources of the text are (1) the\neditio princeps of 1813; (2) text (with some omissions) in the “Poetical\nWorks” of 1839, edited by Mrs. Shelley; (3) text (one line only wanting)\nin the 2nd edition of the “Poetical Works”, 1839 (same editor).\n\n“Queen Mab” was probably written during the year 1812—it is first heard\nof at Lynmouth, August 18, 1812 (“Shelley Memorials”, page 39)—but the\ntext may be assumed to include earlier material.]\n\nECRASEZ L’INFAME!—Correspondance de Voltaire.\n\nAvia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante\nTrita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis;\nAtque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores.\n\n...\n\nUnde prius nulli velarint tempora musae.\nPrimum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctis\nReligionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.—Lucret. lib. 4.\n\nDos pon sto, kai kosmon kineso.—Archimedes.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Queen Mab.", + "body": "1.\n\nHow wonderful is Death,\nDeath and his brother Sleep!\nOne, pale as yonder waning moon\nWith lips of lurid blue;\nThe other, rosy as the morn _5\nWhen throned on ocean’s wave\nIt blushes o’er the world:\nYet both so passing wonderful!\n\nHath then the gloomy Power\nWhose reign is in the tainted sepulchres _10\nSeized on her sinless soul?\nMust then that peerless form\nWhich love and admiration cannot view\nWithout a beating heart, those azure veins\nWhich steal like streams along a field of snow, _15\nThat lovely outline, which is fair\nAs breathing marble, perish?\nMust putrefaction’s breath\nLeave nothing of this heavenly sight\nBut loathsomeness and ruin? _20\nSpare nothing but a gloomy theme,\nOn which the lightest heart might moralize?\nOr is it only a sweet slumber\nStealing o’er sensation,\nWhich the breath of roseate morning _25\nChaseth into darkness?\nWill Ianthe wake again,\nAnd give that faithful bosom joy\nWhose sleepless spirit waits to catch\nLight, life and rapture from her smile? _30\n\nYes! she will wake again,\nAlthough her glowing limbs are motionless,\nAnd silent those sweet lips,\nOnce breathing eloquence,\nThat might have soothed a tiger’s rage, _35\nOr thawed the cold heart of a conqueror.\nHer dewy eyes are closed,\nAnd on their lids, whose texture fine\nScarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath,\nThe baby Sleep is pillowed: _40\nHer golden tresses shade\nThe bosom’s stainless pride,\nCurling like tendrils of the parasite\nAround a marble column.\n\nHark! whence that rushing sound? _45\n’Tis like the wondrous strain\nThat round a lonely ruin swells,\nWhich, wandering on the echoing shore,\nThe enthusiast hears at evening:\n’Tis softer than the west wind’s sigh; _50\n’Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes\nOf that strange lyre whose strings\nThe genii of the breezes sweep:\nThose lines of rainbow light\nAre like the moonbeams when they fall _55\nThrough some cathedral window, but the tints\nAre such as may not find\nComparison on earth.\n\nBehold the chariot of the Fairy Queen!\nCelestial coursers paw the unyielding air; _60\nTheir filmy pennons at her word they furl,\nAnd stop obedient to the reins of light:\nThese the Queen of Spells drew in,\nShe spread a charm around the spot,\nAnd leaning graceful from the aethereal car, _65\nLong did she gaze, and silently,\nUpon the slumbering maid.\n\nOh! not the visioned poet in his dreams,\nWhen silvery clouds float through the ‘wildered brain,\nWhen every sight of lovely, wild and grand _70\nAstonishes, enraptures, elevates,\nWhen fancy at a glance combines\nThe wondrous and the beautiful,—\nSo bright, so fair, so wild a shape\nHath ever yet beheld, _75\nAs that which reined the coursers of the air,\nAnd poured the magic of her gaze\nUpon the maiden’s sleep.\n\nThe broad and yellow moon\nShone dimly through her form— _80\nThat form of faultless symmetry;\nThe pearly and pellucid car\nMoved not the moonlight’s line:\n’Twas not an earthly pageant:\nThose who had looked upon the sight, _85\nPassing all human glory,\nSaw not the yellow moon,\nSaw not the mortal scene,\nHeard not the night-wind’s rush,\nHeard not an earthly sound, _90\nSaw but the fairy pageant,\nHeard but the heavenly strains\nThat filled the lonely dwelling.\n\nThe Fairy’s frame was slight, yon fibrous cloud,\nThat catches but the palest tinge of even, _95\nAnd which the straining eye can hardly seize\nWhen melting into eastern twilight’s shadow,\nWere scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star\nThat gems the glittering coronet of morn,\nSheds not a light so mild, so powerful, _100\nAs that which, bursting from the Fairy’s form,\nSpread a purpureal halo round the scene,\nYet with an undulating motion,\nSwayed to her outline gracefully.\n\nFrom her celestial car _105\nThe Fairy Queen descended,\nAnd thrice she waved her wand\nCircled with wreaths of amaranth:\nHer thin and misty form\nMoved with the moving air, _110\nAnd the clear silver tones,\nAs thus she spoke, were such\nAs are unheard by all but gifted ear.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fairy:", + "body": "‘Stars! your balmiest influence shed!\nElements! your wrath suspend! _115\nSleep, Ocean, in the rocky bounds\nThat circle thy domain!\nLet not a breath be seen to stir\nAround yon grass-grown ruin’s height,\nLet even the restless gossamer _120\nSleep on the moveless air!\nSoul of Ianthe! thou,\nJudged alone worthy of the envied boon,\nThat waits the good and the sincere; that waits\nThose who have struggled, and with resolute will _125\nVanquished earth’s pride and meanness, burst the chains,\nThe icy chains of custom, and have shone\nThe day-stars of their age;—Soul of Ianthe!\nAwake! arise!’\n\nSudden arose _130\nIanthe’s Soul; it stood\nAll beautiful in naked purity,\nThe perfect semblance of its bodily frame.\nInstinct with inexpressible beauty and grace,\nEach stain of earthliness _135\nHad passed away, it reassumed\nIts native dignity, and stood\nImmortal amid ruin.\n\nUpon the couch the body lay\nWrapped in the depth of slumber: _140\nIts features were fixed and meaningless,\nYet animal life was there,\nAnd every organ yet performed\nIts natural functions: ’twas a sight\nOf wonder to behold the body and soul. _145\nThe self-same lineaments, the same\nMarks of identity were there:\nYet, oh, how different! One aspires to Heaven,\nPants for its sempiternal heritage,\nAnd ever-changing, ever-rising still, _150\nWantons in endless being.\nThe other, for a time the unwilling sport\nOf circumstance and passion, struggles on;\nFleets through its sad duration rapidly:\nThen, like an useless and worn-out machine, _155\nRots, perishes, and passes.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fairy:", + "body": "‘I am the Fairy MAB: to me ’tis given\nThe wonders of the human world to keep:\nThe secrets of the immeasurable past,\nIn the unfailing consciences of men, _170\nThose stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find:\nThe future, from the causes which arise\nIn each event, I gather: not the sting\nWhich retributive memory implants\nIn the hard bosom of the selfish man; _175\nNor that ecstatic and exulting throb\nWhich virtue’s votary feels when he sums up\nThe thoughts and actions of a well-spent day,\nAre unforeseen, unregistered by me:\nAnd it is yet permitted me, to rend _180\nThe veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit,\nClothed in its changeless purity, may know\nHow soonest to accomplish the great end\nFor which it hath its being, and may taste\nThat peace, which in the end all life will share. _185\nThis is the meed of virtue; happy Soul,\nAscend the car with me!’\n\nThe chains of earth’s immurement\nFell from Ianthe’s spirit;\nThey shrank and brake like bandages of straw _190\nBeneath a wakened giant’s strength.\nShe knew her glorious change,\nAnd felt in apprehension uncontrolled\nNew raptures opening round:\nEach day-dream of her mortal life, _195\nEach frenzied vision of the slumbers\nThat closed each well-spent day,\nSeemed now to meet reality.\n\nThe Fairy and the Soul proceeded;\nThe silver clouds disparted; _200\nAnd as the car of magic they ascended,\nAgain the speechless music swelled,\nAgain the coursers of the air\nUnfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen\nShaking the beamy reins _205\nBade them pursue their way.\n\nThe magic car moved on.\nThe night was fair, and countless stars\nStudded Heaven’s dark blue vault,—\nJust o’er the eastern wave _210\nPeeped the first faint smile of morn:—\nThe magic car moved on—\nFrom the celestial hoofs\nThe atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew,\nAnd where the burning wheels _215\nEddied above the mountain’s loftiest peak,\nWas traced a line of lightning.\nNow it flew far above a rock,\nThe utmost verge of earth,\nThe rival of the Andes, whose dark brow _220\nLowered o’er the silver sea.\n\nFar, far below the chariot’s path,\nCalm as a slumbering babe,\nTremendous Ocean lay.\nThe mirror of its stillness showed _225\nThe pale and waning stars,\nThe chariot’s fiery track,\nAnd the gray light of morn\nTinging those fleecy clouds\nThat canopied the dawn. _230\nSeemed it, that the chariot’s way\nLay through the midst of an immense concave,\nRadiant with million constellations, tinged\nWith shades of infinite colour,\nAnd semicircled with a belt _235\nFlashing incessant meteors.\n\nThe magic car moved on.\nAs they approached their goal\nThe coursers seemed to gather speed;\nThe sea no longer was distinguished; earth _240\nAppeared a vast and shadowy sphere;\nThe sun’s unclouded orb\nRolled through the black concave;\nIts rays of rapid light\nParted around the chariot’s swifter course, _245\nAnd fell, like ocean’s feathery spray\nDashed from the boiling surge\nBefore a vessel’s prow.\n\nThe magic car moved on.\nEarth’s distant orb appeared _250\nThe smallest light that twinkles in the heaven;\nWhilst round the chariot’s way\nInnumerable systems rolled,\nAnd countless spheres diffused\nAn ever-varying glory. _255\nIt was a sight of wonder: some\nWere horned like the crescent moon;\nSome shed a mild and silver beam\nLike Hesperus o’er the western sea;\nSome dashed athwart with trains of flame, _260\nLike worlds to death and ruin driven;\nSome shone like suns, and, as the chariot passed,\nEclipsed all other light.\n\nSpirit of Nature! here!\nIn this interminable wilderness _265\nOf worlds, at whose immensity\nEven soaring fancy staggers,\nHere is thy fitting temple.\nYet not the lightest leaf\nThat quivers to the passing breeze _270\nIs less instinct with thee:\nYet not the meanest worm\nThat lurks in graves and fattens on the dead\nLess shares thy eternal breath.\nSpirit of Nature! thou! _275\nImperishable as this scene,\nHere is thy fitting temple.\n\n2.\n\nIf solitude hath ever led thy steps\nTo the wild Ocean’s echoing shore,\nAnd thou hast lingered there,\nUntil the sun’s broad orb\nSeemed resting on the burnished wave, _5\nThou must have marked the lines\nOf purple gold, that motionless\nHung o’er the sinking sphere:\nThou must have marked the billowy clouds\nEdged with intolerable radiancy _10\nTowering like rocks of jet\nCrowned with a diamond wreath.\nAnd yet there is a moment,\nWhen the sun’s highest point\nPeeps like a star o’er Ocean’s western edge, _15\nWhen those far clouds of feathery gold,\nShaded with deepest purple, gleam\nLike islands on a dark blue sea;\nThen has thy fancy soared above the earth,\nAnd furled its wearied wing _20\nWithin the Fairy’s fane.\n\nYet not the golden islands\nGleaming in yon flood of light,\nNor the feathery curtains\nStretching o’er the sun’s bright couch, _25\nNor the burnished Ocean waves\nPaving that gorgeous dome,\nSo fair, so wonderful a sight\nAs Mab’s aethereal palace could afford.\nYet likest evening’s vault, that faery Hall! _30\nAs Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread\nIts floors of flashing light,\nIts vast and azure dome,\nIts fertile golden islands\nFloating on a silver sea; _35\nWhilst suns their mingling beamings darted\nThrough clouds of circumambient darkness,\nAnd pearly battlements around\nLooked o’er the immense of Heaven.\n\nThe magic car no longer moved. _40\nThe Fairy and the Spirit\nEntered the Hall of Spells:\nThose golden clouds\nThat rolled in glittering billows\nBeneath the azure canopy _45\nWith the aethereal footsteps trembled not:\nThe light and crimson mists,\nFloating to strains of thrilling melody\nThrough that unearthly dwelling,\nYielded to every movement of the will. _50\nUpon their passive swell the Spirit leaned,\nAnd, for the varied bliss that pressed around,\nUsed not the glorious privilege\nOf virtue and of wisdom.\n\n‘Spirit!’ the Fairy said, _55\nAnd pointed to the gorgeous dome,\n‘This is a wondrous sight\nAnd mocks all human grandeur;\nBut, were it virtue’s only meed, to dwell\nIn a celestial palace, all resigned _60\nTo pleasurable impulses, immured\nWithin the prison of itself, the will\nOf changeless Nature would be unfulfilled.\nLearn to make others happy. Spirit, come!\nThis is thine high reward:—the past shall rise; _65\nThou shalt behold the present; I will teach\nThe secrets of the future.’\n\nThe Fairy and the Spirit\nApproached the overhanging battlement.—\nBelow lay stretched the universe! _70\nThere, far as the remotest line\nThat bounds imagination’s flight,\nCountless and unending orbs\nIn mazy motion intermingled,\nYet still fulfilled immutably _75\nEternal Nature’s law.\nAbove, below, around,\nThe circling systems formed\nA wilderness of harmony;\nEach with undeviating aim, _80\nIn eloquent silence, through the depths of space\nPursued its wondrous way.\n\nThere was a little light\nThat twinkled in the misty distance:\nNone but a spirit’s eye _85\nMight ken that rolling orb;\nNone but a spirit’s eye,\nAnd in no other place\nBut that celestial dwelling, might behold\nEach action of this earth’s inhabitants. _90\nBut matter, space and time\nIn those aereal mansions cease to act;\nAnd all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps\nThe harvest of its excellence, o’er-bounds\nThose obstacles, of which an earthly soul _95\nFears to attempt the conquest.\n\nThe Fairy pointed to the earth.\nThe Spirit’s intellectual eye\nIts kindred beings recognized.\nThe thronging thousands, to a passing view, _100\nSeemed like an ant-hill’s citizens.\nHow wonderful! that even\nThe passions, prejudices, interests,\nThat sway the meanest being, the weak touch\nThat moves the finest nerve, _105\nAnd in one human brain\nCauses the faintest thought, becomes a link\nIn the great chain of Nature.\n\n‘Behold,’ the Fairy cried,\n‘Palmyra’s ruined palaces!— _110\nBehold! where grandeur frowned;\nBehold! where pleasure smiled;\nWhat now remains?—the memory\nOf senselessness and shame—\nWhat is immortal there? _115\nNothing—it stands to tell\nA melancholy tale, to give\nAn awful warning: soon\nOblivion will steal silently\nThe remnant of its fame. _120\nMonarchs and conquerors there\nProud o’er prostrate millions trod—\nThe earthquakes of the human race;\nLike them, forgotten when the ruin\nThat marks their shock is past. _125\n\n‘Beside the eternal Nile,\nThe Pyramids have risen.\nNile shall pursue his changeless way:\nThose Pyramids shall fall;\nYea! not a stone shall stand to tell _130\nThe spot whereon they stood!\nTheir very site shall be forgotten,\nAs is their builder’s name!\n\n‘Behold yon sterile spot;\nWhere now the wandering Arab’s tent _135\nFlaps in the desert-blast.\nThere once old Salem’s haughty fane\nReared high to Heaven its thousand golden domes,\nAnd in the blushing face of day\nExposed its shameful glory. _140\nOh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed\nThe building of that fane; and many a father;\nWorn out with toil and slavery, implored\nThe poor man’s God to sweep it from the earth,\nAnd spare his children the detested task _145\nOf piling stone on stone, and poisoning\nThe choicest days of life,\nTo soothe a dotard’s vanity.\nThere an inhuman and uncultured race\nHowled hideous praises to their Demon-God; _150\nThey rushed to war, tore from the mother’s womb\nThe unborn child,—old age and infancy\nPromiscuous perished; their victorious arms\nLeft not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends:\nBut what was he who taught them that the God _155\nOf nature and benevolence hath given\nA special sanction to the trade of blood?\nHis name and theirs are fading, and the tales\nOf this barbarian nation, which imposture\nRecites till terror credits, are pursuing _160\nItself into forgetfulness.\n\n‘Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood,\nThere is a moral desert now:\nThe mean and miserable huts,\nThe yet more wretched palaces, _165\nContrasted with those ancient fanes,\nNow crumbling to oblivion;\nThe long and lonely colonnades,\nThrough which the ghost of Freedom stalks,\nSeem like a well-known tune, _170\nWhich in some dear scene we have loved to hear,\nRemembered now in sadness.\nBut, oh! how much more changed,\nHow gloomier is the contrast\nOf human nature there! _175\nWhere Socrates expired, a tyrant’s slave,\nA coward and a fool, spreads death around—\nThen, shuddering, meets his own.\nWhere Cicero and Antoninus lived,\nA cowled and hypocritical monk _180\nPrays, curses and deceives.\n\n‘Spirit, ten thousand years\nHave scarcely passed away,\nSince, in the waste where now the savage drinks\nHis enemy’s blood, and aping Europe’s sons, _185\nWakes the unholy song of war, Arose a stately city,\nMetropolis of the western continent:\nThere, now, the mossy column-stone,\nIndented by Time’s unrelaxing grasp, _190\nWhich once appeared to brave\nAll, save its country’s ruin;\nThere the wide forest scene,\nRude in the uncultivated loveliness\nOf gardens long run wild, _195\nSeems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps\nChance in that desert has delayed,\nThus to have stood since earth was what it is.\nYet once it was the busiest haunt,\nWhither, as to a common centre, flocked _200\nStrangers, and ships, and merchandise:\nOnce peace and freedom blessed\nThe cultivated plain:\nBut wealth, that curse of man,\nBlighted the bud of its prosperity: _205\nVirtue and wisdom, truth and liberty,\nFled, to return not, until man shall know\nThat they alone can give the bliss\nWorthy a soul that claims\nIts kindred with eternity. _210\n\n‘There’s not one atom of yon earth\nBut once was living man;\nNor the minutest drop of rain,\nThat hangeth in its thinnest cloud,\nBut flowed in human veins: _215\nAnd from the burning plains\nWhere Libyan monsters yell,\nFrom the most gloomy glens\nOf Greenland’s sunless clime,\nTo where the golden fields _220\nOf fertile England spread\nTheir harvest to the day,\nThou canst not find one spot\nWhereon no city stood.\n\n‘How strange is human pride! _225\nI tell thee that those living things,\nTo whom the fragile blade of grass,\nThat springeth in the morn\nAnd perisheth ere noon,\nIs an unbounded world; _230\nI tell thee that those viewless beings,\nWhose mansion is the smallest particle\nOf the impassive atmosphere,\nThink, feel and live like man;\nThat their affections and antipathies, _235\nLike his, produce the laws\nRuling their moral state;\nAnd the minutest throb\nThat through their frame diffuses\nThe slightest, faintest motion, _240\nIs fixed and indispensable\nAs the majestic laws\nThat rule yon rolling orbs.’\n\nThe Fairy paused. The Spirit,\nIn ecstasy of admiration, felt _245\nAll knowledge of the past revived; the events\nOf old and wondrous times,\nWhich dim tradition interruptedly\nTeaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded\nIn just perspective to the view; _250\nYet dim from their infinitude.\nThe Spirit seemed to stand\nHigh on an isolated pinnacle;\nThe flood of ages combating below,\nThe depth of the unbounded universe _255\nAbove, and all around\nNature’s unchanging harmony.\n\n3.\n\n‘Fairy!’ the Spirit said,\nAnd on the Queen of Spells\nFixed her aethereal eyes,\n‘I thank thee. Thou hast given\nA boon which I will not resign, and taught _5\nA lesson not to be unlearned. I know\nThe past, and thence I will essay to glean\nA warning for the future, so that man\nMay profit by his errors, and derive\nExperience from his folly: _10\nFor, when the power of imparting joy\nIs equal to the will, the human soul\nRequires no other Heaven.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mab:", + "body": "‘Turn thee, surpassing Spirit!\nMuch yet remains unscanned. _15\nThou knowest how great is man,\nThou knowest his imbecility:\nYet learn thou what he is:\nYet learn the lofty destiny\nWhich restless time prepares _20\nFor every living soul.\n\n‘Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amid\nYon populous city rears its thousand towers\nAnd seems itself a city. Gloomy troops\nOf sentinels, in stern and silent ranks, _25\nEncompass it around: the dweller there\nCannot be free and happy; hearest thou not\nThe curses of the fatherless, the groans\nOf those who have no friend? He passes on:\nThe King, the wearer of a gilded chain _30\nThat binds his soul to abjectness, the fool\nWhom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave\nEven to the basest appetites—that man\nHeeds not the shriek of penury; he smiles\nAt the deep curses which the destitute _35\nMutter in secret, and a sullen joy\nPervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan\nBut for those morsels which his wantonness\nWastes in unjoyous revelry, to save\nAll that they love from famine: when he hears _40\nThe tale of horror, to some ready-made face\nOf hypocritical assent he turns,\nSmothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him,\nFlushes his bloated cheek.\nNow to the meal\nOf silence, grandeur, and excess, he drags _45\nHis palled unwilling appetite. If gold,\nGleaming around, and numerous viands culled\nFrom every clime, could force the loathing sense\nTo overcome satiety,—if wealth\nThe spring it draws from poisons not,—or vice, _50\nUnfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth not\nIts food to deadliest venom; then that king\nIs happy; and the peasant who fulfils\nHis unforced task, when he returns at even,\nAnd by the blazing faggot meets again _55\nHer welcome for whom all his toil is sped,\nTastes not a sweeter meal.\nBehold him now\nStretched on the gorgeous couch; his fevered brain\nReels dizzily awhile: but ah! too soon\nThe slumber of intemperance subsides, _60\nAnd conscience, that undying serpent, calls\nHer venomous brood to their nocturnal task.\nListen! he speaks! oh! mark that frenzied eye—\nOh! mark that deadly visage.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "King:", + "body": "‘No cessation!\nOh! must this last for ever? Awful Death, _65\nI wish, yet fear to clasp thee!—Not one moment\nOf dreamless sleep! O dear and blessed peace!\nWhy dost thou shroud thy vestal purity\nIn penury and dungeons? wherefore lurkest\nWith danger, death, and solitude; yet shunn’st _70\nThe palace I have built thee? Sacred peace!\nOh visit me but once, but pitying shed\nOne drop of balm upon my withered soul.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Fairy:", + "body": "‘Vain man! that palace is the virtuous heart,\nAnd Peace defileth not her snowy robes _75\nIn such a shed as thine. Hark! yet he mutters;\nHis slumbers are but varied agonies,\nThey prey like scorpions on the springs of life.\nThere needeth not the hell that bigots frame\nTo punish those who err: earth in itself _80\nContains at once the evil and the cure;\nAnd all-sufficing Nature can chastise\nThose who transgress her law,—she only knows\nHow justly to proportion to the fault\nThe punishment it merits.\nIs it strange _85\nThat this poor wretch should pride him in his woe?\nTake pleasure in his abjectness, and hug\nThe scorpion that consumes him? Is it strange\nThat, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns,\nGrasping an iron sceptre, and immured _90\nWithin a splendid prison, whose stern bounds\nShut him from all that’s good or dear on earth,\nHis soul asserts not its humanity?\nThat man’s mild nature rises not in war\nAgainst a king’s employ? No—’tis not strange. _95\nHe, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts and lives\nJust as his father did; the unconquered powers\nOf precedent and custom interpose\nBetween a KING and virtue. Stranger yet,\nTo those who know not Nature, nor deduce _100\nThe future from the present, it may seem,\nThat not one slave, who suffers from the crimes\nOf this unnatural being; not one wretch,\nWhose children famish, and whose nuptial bed\nIs earth’s unpitying bosom, rears an arm\nTo dash him from his throne! _105\nThose gilded flies\nThat, basking in the sunshine of a court,\nFatten on its corruption!—what are they?\n—The drones of the community; they feed\nOn the mechanic’s labour: the starved hind _110\nFor them compels the stubborn glebe to yield\nIts unshared harvests; and yon squalid form,\nLeaner than fleshless misery, that wastes\nA sunless life in the unwholesome mine,\nDrags out in labour a protracted death, _115\nTo glut their grandeur; many faint with toil,\nThat few may know the cares and woe of sloth.\n\n‘Whence, think’st thou, kings and parasites arose?\nWhence that unnatural line of drones, who heap\nToil and unvanquishable penury _120\nOn those who build their palaces, and bring\nTheir daily bread?—From vice, black loathsome vice;\nFrom rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong;\nFrom all that ‘genders misery, and makes\nOf earth this thorny wilderness; from lust, _125\nRevenge, and murder...And when Reason’s voice,\nLoud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked\nThe nations; and mankind perceive that vice\nIs discord, war, and misery; that virtue\nIs peace, and happiness and harmony; _130\nWhen man’s maturer nature shall disdain\nThe playthings of its childhood;—kingly glare\nWill lose its power to dazzle; its authority\nWill silently pass by; the gorgeous throne\nShall stand unnoticed in the regal hall, _135\nFast falling to decay; whilst falsehood’s trade\nShall be as hateful and unprofitable\nAs that of truth is now.\nWhere is the fame\nWhich the vainglorious mighty of the earth\nSeek to eternize? Oh! the faintest sound _140\nFrom Time’s light footfall, the minutest wave\nThat swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing\nThe unsubstantial bubble. Ay! today\nStern is the tyrant’s mandate, red the gaze\nThat flashes desolation, strong the arm _145\nThat scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes!\nThat mandate is a thunder-peal that died\nIn ages past; that gaze, a transient flash\nOn which the midnight closed, and on that arm\nThe worm has made his meal.\nThe virtuous man, _150\nWho, great in his humility, as kings\nAre little in their grandeur; he who leads\nInvincibly a life of resolute good,\nAnd stands amid the silent dungeon depths\nMore free and fearless than the trembling judge, _155\nWho, clothed in venal power, vainly strove\nTo bind the impassive spirit;—when he falls,\nHis mild eye beams benevolence no more:\nWithered the hand outstretched but to relieve;\nSunk Reason’s simple eloquence, that rolled _160\nBut to appal the guilty. Yes! the grave\nHath quenched that eye, and Death’s relentless frost\nWithered that arm: but the unfading fame\nWhich Virtue hangs upon its votary’s tomb;\nThe deathless memory of that man, whom kings _165\nCall to their mind and tremble; the remembrance\nWith which the happy spirit contemplates\nIts well-spent pilgrimage on earth,\nShall never pass away.\n\n‘Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; _170\nThe subject, not the citizen: for kings\nAnd subjects, mutual foes, forever play\nA losing game into each other’s hands,\nWhose stakes are vice and misery. The man\nOf virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys. _175\nPower, like a desolating pestilence,\nPollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience,\nBane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,\nMakes slaves of men, and, of the human frame,\nA mechanized automaton.\nWhen Nero, _180\nHigh over flaming Rome, with savage joy\nLowered like a fiend, drank with enraptured ear\nThe shrieks of agonizing death, beheld\nThe frightful desolation spread, and felt\nA new-created sense within his soul _185\nThrill to the sight, and vibrate to the sound;\nThink’st thou his grandeur had not overcome\nThe force of human kindness? and, when Rome,\nWith one stern blow, hurled not the tyrant down,\nCrushed not the arm red with her dearest blood _190\nHad not submissive abjectness destroyed\nNature’s suggestions?\nLook on yonder earth:\nThe golden harvests spring; the unfailing sun\nSheds light and life; the fruits, the flowers, the trees,\nArise in due succession; all things speak _195\nPeace, harmony, and love. The universe,\nIn Nature’s silent eloquence, declares\nThat all fulfil the works of love and joy,—\nAll but the outcast, Man. He fabricates\nThe sword which stabs his peace; he cherisheth _200\nThe snakes that gnaw his heart; he raiseth up\nThe tyrant, whose delight is in his woe,\nWhose sport is in his agony. Yon sun,\nLights it the great alone? Yon silver beams,\nSleep they less sweetly on the cottage thatch _205\nThan on the dome of kings? Is mother Earth\nA step-dame to her numerous sons, who earn\nHer unshared gifts with unremitting toil;\nA mother only to those puling babes\nWho, nursed in ease and luxury, make men _210\nThe playthings of their babyhood, and mar,\nIn self-important childishness, that peace\nWhich men alone appreciate?\n\n‘Spirit of Nature! no.\nThe pure diffusion of thy essence throbs _215\nAlike in every human heart.\nThou, aye, erectest there\nThy throne of power unappealable:\nThou art the judge beneath whose nod\nMan’s brief and frail authority _220\nIs powerless as the wind\nThat passeth idly by.\nThine the tribunal which surpasseth\nThe show of human justice,\nAs God surpasses man. _225\n\n‘Spirit of Nature! thou\nLife of interminable multitudes;\nSoul of those mighty spheres\nWhose changeless paths through\nHeaven’s deep silence lie;\nSoul of that smallest being, _230\nThe dwelling of whose life\nIs one faint April sun-gleam;—\nMan, like these passive things,\nThy will unconsciously fulfilleth:\nLike theirs, his age of endless peace, _235\nWhich time is fast maturing,\nWill swiftly, surely come;\nAnd the unbounded frame, which thou pervadest,\nWill be without a flaw\nMarring its perfect symmetry. _240\n\n4.\n\n‘How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh,\nWhich vernal zephyrs breathe in evening’s ear,\nWere discord to the speaking quietude\nThat wraps this moveless scene. Heaven’s ebon vault,\nStudded with stars unutterably bright, _5\nThrough which the moon’s unclouded grandeur rolls,\nSeems like a canopy which love had spread\nTo curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills,\nRobed in a garment of untrodden snow;\nYon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend, _10\nSo stainless, that their white and glittering spires\nTinge not the moon’s pure beam; yon castled steep,\nWhose banner hangeth o’er the time-worn tower\nSo idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it\nA metaphor of peace;—all form a scene _15\nWhere musing Solitude might love to lift\nHer soul above this sphere of earthliness;\nWhere Silence undisturbed might watch alone,\nSo cold, so bright, so still.\nThe orb of day,\nIn southern climes, o’er ocean’s waveless field _20\nSinks sweetly smiling: not the faintest breath\nSteals o’er the unruffled deep; the clouds of eve\nReflect unmoved the lingering beam of day;\nAnd vesper’s image on the western main\nIs beautifully still. To-morrow comes: _25\nCloud upon cloud, in dark and deepening mass,\nRoll o’er the blackened waters; the deep roar\nOf distant thunder mutters awfully;\nTempest unfolds its pinion o’er the gloom\nThat shrouds the boiling surge; the pitiless fiend, _30\nWith all his winds and lightnings, tracks his prey;\nThe torn deep yawns,—the vessel finds a grave\nBeneath its jagged gulf.\nAh! whence yon glare\nThat fires the arch of Heaven!—that dark red smoke\nBlotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched _35\nIn darkness, and the pure and spangling snow\nGleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round!\nHark to that roar, whose swift and deaf’ning peals\nIn countless echoes through the mountains ring,\nStartling pale Midnight on her starry throne! _40\nNow swells the intermingling din; the jar\nFrequent and frightful of the bursting bomb;\nThe falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout,\nThe ceaseless clangour, and the rush of men\nInebriate with rage:—loud, and more loud _45\nThe discord grows; till pale Death shuts the scene,\nAnd o’er the conqueror and the conquered draws\nHis cold and bloody shroud.—Of all the men\nWhom day’s departing beam saw blooming there,\nIn proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts _50\nThat beat with anxious life at sunset there;\nHow few survive, how few are beating now!\nAll is deep silence, like the fearful calm\nThat slumbers in the storm’s portentous pause;\nSave when the frantic wail of widowed love _55\nComes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan\nWith which some soul bursts from the frame of clay\nWrapped round its struggling powers.\nThe gray morn\nDawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke\nBefore the icy wind slow rolls away, _60\nAnd the bright beams of frosty morning dance\nAlong the spangling snow. There tracks of blood\nEven to the forest’s depth, and scattered arms,\nAnd lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments _65\nDeath’s self could change not, mark the dreadful path\nOf the outsallying victors: far behind,\nBlack ashes note where their proud city stood.\nWithin yon forest is a gloomy glen—\nEach tree which guards its darkness from the day,\nWaves o’er a warrior’s tomb.\nI see thee shrink, _70\nSurpassing Spirit!—wert thou human else?\nI see a shade of doubt and horror fleet\nAcross thy stainless features: yet fear not;\nThis is no unconnected misery,\nNor stands uncaused, and irretrievable. _75\nMan’s evil nature, that apology\nWhich kings who rule, and cowards who crouch, set up\nFor their unnumbered crimes, sheds not the blood\nWhich desolates the discord-wasted land.\nFrom kings, and priests, and statesmen, war arose, _80\nWhose safety is man’s deep unbettered woe,\nWhose grandeur his debasement. Let the axe\nStrike at the root, the poison-tree will fall;\nAnd where its venomed exhalations spread\nRuin, and death, and woe, where millions lay _85\nQuenching the serpent’s famine, and their bones\nBleaching unburied in the putrid blast,\nA garden shall arise, in loveliness\nSurpassing fabled Eden.\nHath Nature’s soul,\nThat formed this world so beautiful, that spread _90\nEarth’s lap with plenty, and life’s smallest chord\nStrung to unchanging unison, that gave\nThe happy birds their dwelling in the grove,\nThat yielded to the wanderers of the deep\nThe lovely silence of the unfathomed main, _95\nAnd filled the meanest worm that crawls in dust\nWith spirit, thought, and love; on Man alone,\nPartial in causeless malice, wantonly\nHeaped ruin, vice, and slavery; his soul\nBlasted with withering curses; placed afar _100\nThe meteor-happiness, that shuns his grasp,\nBut serving on the frightful gulf to glare,\nRent wide beneath his footsteps?\nNature!—no!\nKings, priests, and statesmen, blast the human flower\nEven in its tender bud; their influence darts _105\nLike subtle poison through the bloodless veins\nOf desolate society. The child,\nEre he can lisp his mother’s sacred name,\nSwells with the unnatural pride of crime, and lifts\nHis baby-sword even in a hero’s mood. _110\nThis infant-arm becomes the bloodiest scourge\nOf devastated earth; whilst specious names,\nLearned in soft childhood’s unsuspecting hour,\nServe as the sophisms with which manhood dims\nBright Reason’s ray, and sanctifies the sword _115\nUpraised to shed a brother’s innocent blood.\nLet priest-led slaves cease to proclaim that man\nInherits vice and misery, when Force\nAnd Falsehood hang even o’er the cradled babe\nStifling with rudest grasp all natural good. _120\n‘Ah! to the stranger-soul, when first it peeps\nFrom its new tenement, and looks abroad\nFor happiness and sympathy, how stern\nAnd desolate a tract is this wide world!\nHow withered all the buds of natural good! _125\nNo shade, no shelter from the sweeping storms\nOf pitiless power! On its wretched frame,\nPoisoned, perchance, by the disease and woe\nHeaped on the wretched parent whence it sprung\nBy morals, law, and custom, the pure winds _130\nOf Heaven, that renovate the insect tribes,\nMay breathe not. The untainting light of day\nMay visit not its longings. It is bound\nEre it has life: yea, all the chains are forged\nLong ere its being: all liberty and love _135\nAnd peace is torn from its defencelessness;\nCursed from its birth, even from its cradle doomed\nTo abjectness and bondage!\n\n‘Throughout this varied and eternal world\nSoul is the only element: the block _140\nThat for uncounted ages has remained\nThe moveless pillar of a mountain’s weight\nIs active, living spirit. Every grain\nIs sentient both in unity and part,\nAnd the minutest atom comprehends _145\nA world of loves and hatreds; these beget\nEvil and good: hence truth and falsehood spring;\nHence will and thought and action, all the germs\nOf pain or pleasure, sympathy or hate,\nThat variegate the eternal universe. _150\nSoul is not more polluted than the beams\nOf Heaven’s pure orb, ere round their rapid lines\nThe taint of earth-born atmospheres arise.\n\n‘Man is of soul and body, formed for deeds\nOf high resolve, on fancy’s boldest wing _155\nTo soar unwearied, fearlessly to turn\nThe keenest pangs to peacefulness, and taste\nThe joys which mingled sense and spirit yield.\nOr he is formed for abjectness and woe,\nTo grovel on the dunghill of his fears, _160\nTo shrink at every sound, to quench the flame\nOf natural love in sensualism, to know\nThat hour as blessed when on his worthless days\nThe frozen hand of Death shall set its seal,\nYet fear the cure, though hating the disease. _165\nThe one is man that shall hereafter be;\nThe other, man as vice has made him now.\n\n‘War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight,\nThe lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade,\nAnd, to those royal murderers, whose mean thrones _170\nAre bought by crimes of treachery and gore,\nThe bread they eat, the staff on which they lean.\nGuards, garbed in blood-red livery, surround\nTheir palaces, participate the crimes\nThat force defends, and from a nation’s rage _175\nSecure the crown, which all the curses reach\nThat famine, frenzy, woe and penury breathe.\nThese are the hired bravos who defend\nThe tyrant’s throne—the bullies of his fear:\nThese are the sinks and channels of worst vice, _180\nThe refuse of society, the dregs\nOf all that is most vile: their cold hearts blend\nDeceit with sternness, ignorance with pride,\nAll that is mean and villanous, with rage\nWhich hopelessness of good, and self-contempt, _185\nAlone might kindle; they are decked in wealth,\nHonour and power, then are sent abroad\nTo do their work. The pestilence that stalks\nIn gloomy triumph through some eastern land\nIs less destroying. They cajole with gold, _190\nAnd promises of fame, the thoughtless youth\nAlready crushed with servitude: he knows\nHis wretchedness too late, and cherishes\nRepentance for his ruin, when his doom\nIs sealed in gold and blood! _195\nThose too the tyrant serve, who, skilled to snare\nThe feet of Justice in the toils of law,\nStand, ready to oppress the weaker still;\nAnd right or wrong will vindicate for gold,\nSneering at public virtue, which beneath _200\nTheir pitiless tread lies torn and trampled, where\nHonour sits smiling at the sale of truth.\n\n‘Then grave and hoary-headed hypocrites,\nWithout a hope, a passion, or a love,\nWho, through a life of luxury and lies, _205\nHave crept by flattery to the seats of power,\nSupport the system whence their honours flow...\nThey have three words:—well tyrants know their use,\nWell pay them for the loan, with usury\nTorn from a bleeding world!—God, Hell, and Heaven. _210\nA vengeful, pitiless, and almighty fiend,\nWhose mercy is a nickname for the rage\nOf tameless tigers hungering for blood.\nHell, a red gulf of everlasting fire,\nWhere poisonous and undying worms prolong _215\nEternal misery to those hapless slaves\nWhose life has been a penance for its crimes.\nAnd Heaven, a meed for those who dare belie\nTheir human nature, quake, believe, and cringe\nBefore the mockeries of earthly power. _220\n\n‘These tools the tyrant tempers to his work,\nWields in his wrath, and as he wills destroys,\nOmnipotent in wickedness: the while\nYouth springs, age moulders, manhood tamely does\nHis bidding, bribed by short-lived joys to lend _225\nForce to the weakness of his trembling arm.\n\n‘They rise, they fall; one generation comes\nYielding its harvest to destruction’s scythe.\nIt fades, another blossoms: yet behold!\nRed glows the tyrant’s stamp-mark on its bloom, _230\nWithering and cankering deep its passive prime.\nHe has invented lying words and modes,\nEmpty and vain as his own coreless heart;\nEvasive meanings, nothings of much sound,\nTo lure the heedless victim to the toils _235\nSpread round the valley of its paradise.\n\n‘Look to thyself, priest, conqueror, or prince!\nWhether thy trade is falsehood, and thy lusts\nDeep wallow in the earnings of the poor,\nWith whom thy Master was:—or thou delight’st _240\nIn numbering o’er the myriads of thy slain,\nAll misery weighing nothing in the scale\nAgainst thy short-lived fame: or thou dost load\nWith cowardice and crime the groaning land,\nA pomp-fed king. Look to thy wretched self! _245\nAy, art thou not the veriest slave that e’er\nCrawled on the loathing earth? Are not thy days\nDays of unsatisfying listlessness?\nDost thou not cry, ere night’s long rack is o’er,\n“When will the morning come?” Is not thy youth _250\nA vain and feverish dream of sensualism?\nThy manhood blighted with unripe disease?\nAre not thy views of unregretted death\nDrear, comfortless, and horrible? Thy mind,\nIs it not morbid as thy nerveless frame, _255\nIncapable of judgement, hope, or love?\nAnd dost thou wish the errors to survive\nThat bar thee from all sympathies of good,\nAfter the miserable interest\nThou hold’st in their protraction? When the grave _260\nHas swallowed up thy memory and thyself,\nDost thou desire the bane that poisons earth\nTo twine its roots around thy coffined clay,\nSpring from thy bones, and blossom on thy tomb,\nThat of its fruit thy babes may eat and die? _265", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Spirit:", + "body": "‘I was an infant when my mother went\nTo see an atheist burned. She took me there:\nThe dark-robed priests were met around the pile;\nThe multitude was gazing silently;\nAnd as the culprit passed with dauntless mien, _5\nTempered disdain in his unaltering eye,\nMixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth:\nThe thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs;\nHis resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon;\nHis death-pang rent my heart! the insensate mob _10\nUttered a cry of triumph, and I wept.\n“Weep not, child!” cried my mother, “for that man\nHas said, There is no God.”’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fairy:", + "body": "‘There is no God!\nNature confirms the faith his death-groan sealed:\nLet heaven and earth, let man’s revolving race, _15\nHis ceaseless generations tell their tale;\nLet every part depending on the chain\nThat links it to the whole, point to the hand\nThat grasps its term! let every seed that falls\nIn silent eloquence unfold its store _20\nOf argument; infinity within,\nInfinity without, belie creation;\nThe exterminable spirit it contains\nIs nature’s only God; but human pride\nIs skilful to invent most serious names _25\nTo hide its ignorance.\nThe name of God\nHas fenced about all crime with holiness,\nHimself the creature of His worshippers,\nWhose names and attributes and passions change,\nSeeva, Buddh, Foh, Jehovah, God, or Lord, _30\nEven with the human dupes who build His shrines,\nStill serving o’er the war-polluted world\nFor desolation’s watchword; whether hosts\nStain His death-blushing chariot-wheels, as on\nTriumphantly they roll, whilst Brahmins raise _35\nA sacred hymn to mingle with the groans;\nOr countless partners of His power divide\nHis tyranny to weakness; or the smoke\nOf burning towns, the cries of female helplessness,\nUnarmed old age, and youth, and infancy, _40\nHorribly massacred, ascend to Heaven\nIn honour of His name; or, last and worst,\nEarth groans beneath religion’s iron age,\nAnd priests dare babble of a God of peace,\nEven whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, _45\nMurdering the while, uprooting every germ\nOf truth, exterminating, spoiling all,\nMaking the earth a slaughter-house!\n\n‘O Spirit! through the sense\nBy which thy inner nature was apprised _50\nOf outward shows, vague dreams have rolled,\nAnd varied reminiscences have waked\nTablets that never fade;\nAll things have been imprinted there,\nThe stars, the sea, the earth, the sky, _55\nEven the unshapeliest lineaments\nOf wild and fleeting visions\nHave left a record there\nTo testify of earth.\n\n‘These are my empire, for to me is given _60\nThe wonders of the human world to keep,\nAnd Fancy’s thin creations to endow\nWith manner, being, and reality;\nTherefore a wondrous phantom, from the dreams\nOf human error’s dense and purblind faith, _65\nI will evoke, to meet thy questioning.\nAhasuerus, rise!’\n\nA strange and woe-worn wight\nArose beside the battlement,\nAnd stood unmoving there. _70\nHis inessential figure cast no shade\nUpon the golden floor;\nHis port and mien bore mark of many years,\nAnd chronicles of untold ancientness\nWere legible within his beamless eye: _75\nYet his cheek bore the mark of youth;\nFreshness and vigour knit his manly frame;\nThe wisdom of old age was mingled there\nWith youth’s primaeval dauntlessness;\nAnd inexpressible woe, _80\nChastened by fearless resignation, gave\nAn awful grace to his all-speaking brow.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Ahasuerus:", + "body": "‘Is there a God!—ay, an almighty God,\nAnd vengeful as almighty! Once His voice _85\nWas heard on earth: earth shuddered at the sound;\nThe fiery-visaged firmament expressed\nAbhorrence, and the grave of Nature yawned\nTo swallow all the dauntless and the good\nThat dared to hurl defiance at His throne, _90\nGirt as it was with power. None but slaves\nSurvived,—cold-blooded slaves, who did the work\nOf tyrannous omnipotence; whose souls\nNo honest indignation ever urged\nTo elevated daring, to one deed _95\nWhich gross and sensual self did not pollute.\nThese slaves built temples for the omnipotent Fiend,\nGorgeous and vast: the costly altars smoked\nWith human blood, and hideous paeans rung\nThrough all the long-drawn aisles. A murderer heard _100\nHis voice in Egypt, one whose gifts and arts\nHad raised him to his eminence in power,\nAccomplice of omnipotence in crime,\nAnd confidant of the all-knowing one.\nThese were Jehovah’s words:— _105\n\n‘From an eternity of idleness\nI, God, awoke; in seven days’ toil made earth\nFrom nothing; rested, and created man:\nI placed him in a Paradise, and there\nPlanted the tree of evil, so that he _110\nMight eat and perish, and My soul procure\nWherewith to sate its malice, and to turn,\nEven like a heartless conqueror of the earth,\nAll misery to My fame. The race of men\nChosen to My honour, with impunity _115\nMay sate the lusts I planted in their heart.\nHere I command thee hence to lead them on,\nUntil, with hardened feet, their conquering troops\nWade on the promised soil through woman’s blood,\nAnd make My name be dreaded through the land. _120\nYet ever-burning flame and ceaseless woe\nShall be the doom of their eternal souls,\nWith every soul on this ungrateful earth,\nVirtuous or vicious, weak or strong,—even all\nShall perish, to fulfil the blind revenge _125\n(Which you, to men, call justice) of their God.’\n\nThe murderer’s brow\nQuivered with horror.\n‘God omnipotent,\nIs there no mercy? must our punishment\nBe endless? will long ages roll away, _130\nAnd see no term? Oh! wherefore hast Thou made\nIn mockery and wrath this evil earth?\nMercy becomes the powerful—be but just:\nO God! repent and save.’\n\n‘One way remains:\nI will beget a Son, and He shall bear _135\nThe sins of all the world; He shall arise\nIn an unnoticed corner of the earth,\nAnd there shall die upon a cross, and purge\nThe universal crime; so that the few\nOn whom My grace descends, those who are marked _140\nAs vessels to the honour of their God,\nMay credit this strange sacrifice, and save\nTheir souls alive: millions shall live and die,\nWho ne’er shall call upon their Saviour’s name,\nBut, unredeemed, go to the gaping grave. _145\nThousands shall deem it an old woman’s tale,\nSuch as the nurses frighten babes withal:\nThese in a gulf of anguish and of flame\nShall curse their reprobation endlessly,\nYet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, _150\nEven on their beds of torment, where they howl,\nMy honour, and the justice of their doom.\nWhat then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts\nOf purity, with radiant genius bright,\nOr lit with human reason’s earthly ray? _155\nMany are called, but few will I elect.\nDo thou My bidding, Moses!’\nEven the murderer’s cheek\nWas blanched with horror, and his quivering lips\nScarce faintly uttered—‘O almighty One,\nI tremble and obey!’ _160\n\n‘O Spirit! centuries have set their seal\nOn this heart of many wounds, and loaded brain,\nSince the Incarnate came: humbly He came,\nVeiling His horrible Godhead in the shape\nOf man, scorned by the world, His name unheard, _165\nSave by the rabble of His native town,\nEven as a parish demagogue. He led\nThe crowd; He taught them justice, truth, and peace,\nIn semblance; but He lit within their souls\nThe quenchless flames of zeal, and blessed the sword _170\nHe brought on earth to satiate with the blood\nOf truth and freedom His malignant soul.\nAt length His mortal frame was led to death.\nI stood beside Him: on the torturing cross\nNo pain assailed His unterrestrial sense; _175\nAnd yet He groaned. Indignantly I summed\nThe massacres and miseries which His name\nHad sanctioned in my country, and I cried,\n“Go! Go!” in mockery.\nA smile of godlike malice reillumed _180\nHis fading lineaments.—“I go,” He cried,\n“But thou shalt wander o’er the unquiet earth\nEternally.”—The dampness of the grave\nBathed my imperishable front. I fell,\nAnd long lay tranced upon the charmed soil. _185\nWhen I awoke Hell burned within my brain,\nWhich staggered on its seat; for all around\nThe mouldering relics of my kindred lay,\nEven as the Almighty’s ire arrested them,\nAnd in their various attitudes of death _190\nMy murdered children’s mute and eyeless skulls\nGlared ghastily upon me.\nBut my soul,\nFrom sight and sense of the polluting woe\nOf tyranny, had long learned to prefer\nHell’s freedom to the servitude of Heaven. _195\nTherefore I rose, and dauntlessly began\nMy lonely and unending pilgrimage,\nResolved to wage unweariable war\nWith my almighty Tyrant, and to hurl\nDefiance at His impotence to harm _200\nBeyond the curse I bore. The very hand\nThat barred my passage to the peaceful grave\nHas crushed the earth to misery, and given\nIts empire to the chosen of His slaves.\nThese have I seen, even from the earliest dawn _205\nOf weak, unstable and precarious power,\nThen preaching peace, as now they practise war;\nSo, when they turned but from the massacre\nOf unoffending infidels, to quench\nTheir thirst for ruin in the very blood _210\nThat flowed in their own veins, and pitiless zeal\nFroze every human feeling, as the wife\nSheathed in her husband’s heart the sacred steel,\nEven whilst its hopes were dreaming of her love;\nAnd friends to friends, brothers to brothers stood _215\nOpposed in bloodiest battle-field, and war,\nScarce satiable by fate’s last death-draught, waged,\nDrunk from the winepress of the Almighty’s wrath;\nWhilst the red cross, in mockery of peace,\nPointed to victory! When the fray was done, _220\nNo remnant of the exterminated faith\nSurvived to tell its ruin, but the flesh,\nWith putrid smoke poisoning the atmosphere,\nThat rotted on the half-extinguished pile.\n\n‘Yes! I have seen God’s worshippers unsheathe _225\nThe sword of His revenge, when grace descended,\nConfirming all unnatural impulses,\nTo sanctify their desolating deeds;\nAnd frantic priests waved the ill-omened cross\nO’er the unhappy earth: then shone the sun _230\nOn showers of gore from the upflashing steel\nOf safe assassination, and all crime\nMade stingless by the Spirits of the Lord,\nAnd blood-red rainbows canopied the land.\n‘Spirit, no year of my eventful being _235\nHas passed unstained by crime and misery,\nWhich flows from God’s own faith. I’ve marked His slaves\nWith tongues whose lies are venomous, beguile\nThe insensate mob, and, whilst one hand was red\nWith murder, feign to stretch the other out _240\nFor brotherhood and peace; and that they now\nBabble of love and mercy, whilst their deeds\nAre marked with all the narrowness and crime\nThat Freedom’s young arm dare not yet chastise,\nReason may claim our gratitude, who now _245\nEstablishing the imperishable throne\nOf truth, and stubborn virtue, maketh vain\nThe unprevailing malice of my Foe,\nWhose bootless rage heaps torments for the brave,\nAdds impotent eternities to pain, _250\nWhilst keenest disappointment racks His breast\nTo see the smiles of peace around them play,\nTo frustrate or to sanctify their doom.\n\n‘Thus have I stood,—through a wild waste of years\nStruggling with whirlwinds of mad agony, _255\nYet peaceful, and serene, and self-enshrined,\nMocking my powerless Tyrant’s horrible curse\nWith stubborn and unalterable will,\nEven as a giant oak, which Heaven’s fierce flame\nHad scathed in the wilderness, to stand _260\nA monument of fadeless ruin there;\nYet peacefully and movelessly it braves\nThe midnight conflict of the wintry storm,\nAs in the sunlight’s calm it spreads\nIts worn and withered arms on high _265\nTo meet the quiet of a summer’s noon.’\n\nThe Fairy waved her wand:\nAhasuerus fled\nFast as the shapes of mingled shade and mist,\nThat lurk in the glens of a twilight grove, _270\nFlee from the morning beam:\nThe matter of which dreams are made\nNot more endowed with actual life\nThan this phantasmal portraiture\nOf wandering human thought. _275", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Fairy:", + "body": "‘The Present and the Past thou hast beheld:\nIt was a desolate sight. Now, Spirit, learn\nThe secrets of the Future.—Time!\nUnfold the brooding pinion of thy gloom,\nRender thou up thy half-devoured babes, _5\nAnd from the cradles of eternity,\nWhere millions lie lulled to their portioned sleep\nBy the deep murmuring stream of passing things,\nTear thou that gloomy shroud.—Spirit, behold\nThy glorious destiny!’ _10\n\nJoy to the Spirit came.\nThrough the wide rent in Time’s eternal veil,\nHope was seen beaming through the mists of fear:\nEarth was no longer Hell;\nLove, freedom, health, had given _15\nTheir ripeness to the manhood of its prime,\nAnd all its pulses beat\nSymphonious to the planetary spheres:\nThen dulcet music swelled\nConcordant with the life-strings of the soul; _20\nIt throbbed in sweet and languid beatings there,\nCatching new life from transitory death,—\nLike the vague sighings of a wind at even,\nThat wakes the wavelets of the slumbering sea\nAnd dies on the creation of its breath, _25\nAnd sinks and rises, fails and swells by fits:\nWas the pure stream of feeling\nThat sprung from these sweet notes,\nAnd o’er the Spirit’s human sympathies\nWith mild and gentle motion calmly flowed. _30\n\nJoy to the Spirit came,—\nSuch joy as when a lover sees\nThe chosen of his soul in happiness,\nAnd witnesses her peace\nWhose woe to him were bitterer than death, _35\nSees her unfaded cheek\nGlow mantling in first luxury of health,\nThrills with her lovely eyes,\nWhich like two stars amid the heaving main\nSparkle through liquid bliss. _40\n\nThen in her triumph spoke the Fairy Queen:\n‘I will not call the ghost of ages gone\nTo unfold the frightful secrets of its lore;\nThe present now is past,\nAnd those events that desolate the earth _45\nHave faded from the memory of Time,\nWho dares not give reality to that\nWhose being I annul. To me is given\nThe wonders of the human world to keep,\nSpace, matter, time, and mind. Futurity _50\nExposes now its treasure; let the sight\nRenew and strengthen all thy failing hope.\nO human Spirit! spur thee to the goal\nWhere virtue fixes universal peace,\nAnd midst the ebb and flow of human things, _55\nShow somewhat stable, somewhat certain still,\nA lighthouse o’er the wild of dreary waves.\n\n‘The habitable earth is full of bliss;\nThose wastes of frozen billows that were hurled\nBy everlasting snowstorms round the poles, _60\nWhere matter dared not vegetate or live,\nBut ceaseless frost round the vast solitude\nBound its broad zone of stillness, are unloosed;\nAnd fragrant zephyrs there from spicy isles\nRuffle the placid ocean-deep, that rolls _65\nIts broad, bright surges to the sloping sand,\nWhose roar is wakened into echoings sweet\nTo murmur through the Heaven-breathing groves\nAnd melodize with man’s blest nature there.\n\n‘Those deserts of immeasurable sand, _70\nWhose age-collected fervours scarce allowed\nA bird to live, a blade of grass to spring,\nWhere the shrill chirp of the green lizard’s love\nBroke on the sultry silentness alone,\nNow teem with countless rills and shady woods, _75\nCornfields and pastures and white cottages;\nAnd where the startled wilderness beheld\nA savage conqueror stained in kindred blood,\nA tigress sating with the flesh of lambs\nThe unnatural famine of her toothless cubs, _80\nWhilst shouts and howlings through the desert rang,\nSloping and smooth the daisy-spangled lawn,\nOffering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles\nTo see a babe before his mother’s door,\nSharing his morning’s meal _85\nWith the green and golden basilisk\nThat comes to lick his feet.\n\n‘Those trackless deeps, where many a weary sail\nHas seen above the illimitable plain,\nMorning on night, and night on morning rise, _90\nWhilst still no land to greet the wanderer spread\nIts shadowy mountains on the sun-bright sea,\nWhere the loud roarings of the tempest-waves\nSo long have mingled with the gusty wind\nIn melancholy loneliness, and swept _95\nThe desert of those ocean solitudes,\nBut vocal to the sea-bird’s harrowing shriek,\nThe bellowing monster, and the rushing storm,\nNow to the sweet and many-mingling sounds\nOf kindliest human impulses respond. _100\nThose lonely realms bright garden-isles begem,\nWith lightsome clouds and shining seas between,\nAnd fertile valleys, resonant with bliss,\nWhilst green woods overcanopy the wave,\nWhich like a toil-worn labourer leaps to shore, _105\nTo meet the kisses of the flow’rets there.\n\n‘All things are recreated, and the flame\nOf consentaneous love inspires all life:\nThe fertile bosom of the earth gives suck\nTo myriads, who still grow beneath her care, _110\nRewarding her with their pure perfectness:\nThe balmy breathings of the wind inhale\nHer virtues, and diffuse them all abroad:\nHealth floats amid the gentle atmosphere,\nGlows in the fruits, and mantles on the stream: _115\nNo storms deform the beaming brow of Heaven,\nNor scatter in the freshness of its pride\nThe foliage of the ever-verdant trees;\nBut fruits are ever ripe, flowers ever fair,\nAnd Autumn proudly bears her matron grace, _120\nKindling a flush on the fair cheek of Spring,\nWhose virgin bloom beneath the ruddy fruit\nReflects its tint, and blushes into love.\n\n‘The lion now forgets to thirst for blood:\nThere might you see him sporting in the sun _125\nBeside the dreadless kid; his claws are sheathed,\nHis teeth are harmless, custom’s force has made\nHis nature as the nature of a lamb.\nLike passion’s fruit, the nightshade’s tempting bane\nPoisons no more the pleasure it bestows: _130\nAll bitterness is past; the cup of joy\nUnmingled mantles to the goblet’s brim,\nAnd courts the thirsty lips it fled before.\n\n‘But chief, ambiguous Man, he that can know\nMore misery, and dream more joy than all; _135\nWhose keen sensations thrill within his breast\nTo mingle with a loftier instinct there,\nLending their power to pleasure and to pain,\nYet raising, sharpening, and refining each;\nWho stands amid the ever-varying world, _140\nThe burthen or the glory of the earth;\nHe chief perceives the change, his being notes\nThe gradual renovation, and defines\nEach movement of its progress on his mind.\n\n‘Man, where the gloom of the long polar night _145\nLowers o’er the snow-clad rocks and frozen soil,\nWhere scarce the hardiest herb that braves the frost\nBasks in the moonlight’s ineffectual glow,\nShrank with the plants, and darkened with the night;\nHis chilled and narrow energies, his heart, _150\nInsensible to courage, truth, or love,\nHis stunted stature and imbecile frame,\nMarked him for some abortion of the earth,\nFit compeer of the bears that roamed around,\nWhose habits and enjoyments were his own: _155\nHis life a feverish dream of stagnant woe,\nWhose meagre wants, but scantily fulfilled,\nApprised him ever of the joyless length\nWhich his short being’s wretchedness had reached;\nHis death a pang which famine, cold and toil _160\nLong on the mind, whilst yet the vital spark\nClung to the body stubbornly, had brought:\nAll was inflicted here that Earth’s revenge\nCould wreak on the infringers of her law;\nOne curse alone was spared—the name of God. _165\n\n‘Nor where the tropics bound the realms of day\nWith a broad belt of mingling cloud and flame,\nWhere blue mists through the unmoving atmosphere\nScattered the seeds of pestilence, and fed\nUnnatural vegetation, where the land _170\nTeemed with all earthquake, tempest and disease,\nWas Man a nobler being; slavery\nHad crushed him to his country’s bloodstained dust;\nOr he was bartered for the fame of power,\nWhich all internal impulses destroying, _175\nMakes human will an article of trade;\nOr he was changed with Christians for their gold,\nAnd dragged to distant isles, where to the sound\nOf the flesh-mangling scourge, he does the work\nOf all-polluting luxury and wealth, _180\nWhich doubly visits on the tyrants’ heads\nThe long-protracted fulness of their woe;\nOr he was led to legal butchery,\nTo turn to worms beneath that burning sun,\nWhere kings first leagued against the rights of men, _185\nAnd priests first traded with the name of God.\n\n‘Even where the milder zone afforded Man\nA seeming shelter, yet contagion there,\nBlighting his being with unnumbered ills,\nSpread like a quenchless fire; nor truth till late _190\nAvailed to arrest its progress, or create\nThat peace which first in bloodless victory waved\nHer snowy standard o’er this favoured clime:\nThere man was long the train-bearer of slaves,\nThe mimic of surrounding misery, _195\nThe jackal of ambition’s lion-rage,\nThe bloodhound of religion’s hungry zeal.\n‘Here now the human being stands adorning\nThis loveliest earth with taintless body and mind;\nBlessed from his birth with all bland impulses, _200\nWhich gently in his noble bosom wake\nAll kindly passions and all pure desires.\nHim, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing\nWhich from the exhaustless lore of human weal\nDawns on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise _205\nIn time-destroying infiniteness, gift\nWith self-enshrined eternity, that mocks\nThe unprevailing hoariness of age,\nAnd man, once fleeting o’er the transient scene\nSwift as an unremembered vision, stands _210\nImmortal upon earth: no longer now\nHe slays the lamb that looks him in the face,\nAnd horribly devours his mangled flesh,\nWhich, still avenging Nature’s broken law,\nKindled all putrid humours in his frame, _215\nAll evil passions, and all vain belief,\nHatred, despair, and loathing in his mind,\nThe germs of misery, death, disease, and crime.\nNo longer now the winged habitants,\nThat in the woods their sweet lives sing away,— _220\nFlee from the form of man; but gather round,\nAnd prune their sunny feathers on the hands\nWhich little children stretch in friendly sport\nTowards these dreadless partners of their play.\nAll things are void of terror: Man has lost _225\nHis terrible prerogative, and stands\nAn equal amidst equals: happiness\nAnd science dawn though late upon the earth;\nPeace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;\nDisease and pleasure cease to mingle here, _230\nReason and passion cease to combat there;\nWhilst each unfettered o’er the earth extend\nTheir all-subduing energies, and wield\nThe sceptre of a vast dominion there;\nWhilst every shape and mode of matter lends _235\nIts force to the omnipotence of mind,\nWhich from its dark mine drags the gem of truth\nTo decorate its Paradise of peace.’\n\n_204 exhaustless store edition 1813.\n_205 Draws edition 1813. See Editor’s Note.\n\n9.\n\n‘O happy Earth! reality of Heaven!\nTo which those restless souls that ceaselessly\nThrong through the human universe, aspire;\nThou consummation of all mortal hope!\nThou glorious prize of blindly-working will! _5\nWhose rays, diffused throughout all space and time,\nVerge to one point and blend for ever there:\nOf purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place!\nWhere care and sorrow, impotence and crime,\nLanguor, disease, and ignorance dare not come: _10\nO happy Earth, reality of Heaven!\n\n‘Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams,\nAnd dim forebodings of thy loveliness\nHaunting the human heart, have there entwined\nThose rooted hopes of some sweet place of bliss _15\nWhere friends and lovers meet to part no more.\nThou art the end of all desire and will,\nThe product of all action; and the souls\nThat by the paths of an aspiring change\nHave reached thy haven of perpetual peace, _20\nThere rest from the eternity of toil\nThat framed the fabric of thy perfectness.\n\n‘Even Time, the conqueror, fled thee in his fear;\nThat hoary giant, who, in lonely pride,\nSo long had ruled the world, that nations fell _25\nBeneath his silent footstep. Pyramids,\nThat for millenniums had withstood the tide\nOf human things, his storm-breath drove in sand\nAcross that desert where their stones survived\nThe name of him whose pride had heaped them there. _30\nYon monarch, in his solitary pomp,\nWas but the mushroom of a summer day,\nThat his light-winged footstep pressed to dust:\nTime was the king of earth: all things gave way\nBefore him, but the fixed and virtuous will, _35\nThe sacred sympathies of soul and sense,\nThat mocked his fury and prepared his fall.\n\n‘Yet slow and gradual dawned the morn of love;\nLong lay the clouds of darkness o’er the scene,\nTill from its native Heaven they rolled away: _40\nFirst, Crime triumphant o’er all hope careered\nUnblushing, undisguising, bold and strong;\nWhilst Falsehood, tricked in Virtue’s attributes,\nLong sanctified all deeds of vice and woe,\nTill done by her own venomous sting to death, _45\nShe left the moral world without a law,\nNo longer fettering Passion’s fearless wing,—\nNor searing Reason with the brand of God.\nThen steadily the happy ferment worked;\nReason was free; and wild though Passion went _50\nThrough tangled glens and wood-embosomed meads,\nGathering a garland of the strangest flowers,\nYet like the bee returning to her queen,\nShe bound the sweetest on her sister’s brow,\nWho meek and sober kissed the sportive child, _55\nNo longer trembling at the broken rod.\n\n‘Mild was the slow necessity of death:\nThe tranquil spirit failed beneath its grasp,\nWithout a groan, almost without a fear,\nCalm as a voyager to some distant land, _60\nAnd full of wonder, full of hope as he.\nThe deadly germs of languor and disease\nDied in the human frame, and Purity\nBlessed with all gifts her earthly worshippers.\nHow vigorous then the athletic form of age! _65\nHow clear its open and unwrinkled brow!\nWhere neither avarice, cunning, pride, nor care,\nHad stamped the seal of gray deformity\nOn all the mingling lineaments of time.\nHow lovely the intrepid front of youth! _70\nWhich meek-eyed courage decked with freshest grace;—\nCourage of soul, that dreaded not a name,\nAnd elevated will, that journeyed on\nThrough life’s phantasmal scene in fearlessness,\nWith virtue, love, and pleasure, hand in hand. _75\n\n‘Then, that sweet bondage which is Freedom’s self,\nAnd rivets with sensation’s softest tie\nThe kindred sympathies of human souls,\nNeeded no fetters of tyrannic law:\nThose delicate and timid impulses _80\nIn Nature’s primal modesty arose,\nAnd with undoubted confidence disclosed\nThe growing longings of its dawning love,\nUnchecked by dull and selfish chastity,\nThat virtue of the cheaply virtuous, _85\nWho pride themselves in senselessness and frost.\nNo longer prostitution’s venomed bane\nPoisoned the springs of happiness and life;\nWoman and man, in confidence and love,\nEqual and free and pure together trod _90\nThe mountain-paths of virtue, which no more\nWere stained with blood from many a pilgrim’s feet.\n\n‘Then, where, through distant ages, long in pride\nThe palace of the monarch-slave had mocked\nFamine’s faint groan, and Penury’s silent tear, _95\nA heap of crumbling ruins stood, and threw\nYear after year their stones upon the field,\nWakening a lonely echo; and the leaves\nOf the old thorn, that on the topmost tower\nUsurped the royal ensign’s grandeur, shook _100\nIn the stern storm that swayed the topmost tower\nAnd whispered strange tales in the Whirlwind’s ear.\n‘Low through the lone cathedral’s roofless aisles\nThe melancholy winds a death-dirge sung:\nIt were a sight of awfulness to see _105\nThe works of faith and slavery, so vast,\nSo sumptuous, yet so perishing withal!\nEven as the corpse that rests beneath its wall.\nA thousand mourners deck the pomp of death\nTo-day, the breathing marble glows above _110\nTo decorate its memory, and tongues\nAre busy of its life: to-morrow, worms\nIn silence and in darkness seize their prey.\n\n‘Within the massy prison’s mouldering courts,\nFearless and free the ruddy children played, _115\nWeaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows\nWith the green ivy and the red wallflower,\nThat mock the dungeon’s unavailing gloom;\nThe ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron,\nThere rusted amid heaps of broken stone _120\nThat mingled slowly with their native earth:\nThere the broad beam of day, which feebly once\nLighted the cheek of lean Captivity\nWith a pale and sickly glare, then freely shone\nOn the pure smiles of infant playfulness: _125\nNo more the shuddering voice of hoarse Despair\nPealed through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes\nOf ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds\nAnd merriment were resonant around.\n\n‘These ruins soon left not a wreck behind: _130\nTheir elements, wide scattered o’er the globe,\nTo happier shapes were moulded, and became\nMinistrant to all blissful impulses:\nThus human things were perfected, and earth,\nEven as a child beneath its mother’s love, _135\nWas strengthened in all excellence, and grew\nFairer and nobler with each passing year.\n\n‘Now Time his dusky pennons o’er the scene\nCloses in steadfast darkness, and the past\nFades from our charmed sight. My task is done: _140\nThy lore is learned. Earth’s wonders are thine own,\nWith all the fear and all the hope they bring.\nMy spells are passed: the present now recurs.\nAh me! a pathless wilderness remains\nYet unsubdued by man’s reclaiming hand. _145\n\n‘Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course,\nLet virtue teach thee firmly to pursue\nThe gradual paths of an aspiring change:\nFor birth and life and death, and that strange state\nBefore the naked soul has found its home, _150\nAll tend to perfect happiness, and urge\nThe restless wheels of being on their way,\nWhose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life,\nBicker and burn to gain their destined goal:\nFor birth but wakes the spirit to the sense _155\nOf outward shows, whose unexperienced shape\nNew modes of passion to its frame may lend;\nLife is its state of action, and the store\nOf all events is aggregated there\nThat variegate the eternal universe; _160\nDeath is a gate of dreariness and gloom,\nThat leads to azure isles and beaming skies\nAnd happy regions of eternal hope.\nTherefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on:\nThough storms may break the primrose on its stalk, _165\nThough frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom,\nYet Spring’s awakening breath will woo the earth,\nTo feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower,\nThat blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens,\nLighting the greenwood with its sunny smile. _170\n\n‘Fear not then, Spirit, Death’s disrobing hand,\nSo welcome when the tyrant is awake,\nSo welcome when the bigot’s hell-torch burns;\n’Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour,\nThe transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep. _175\nDeath is no foe to Virtue: earth has seen\nLove’s brightest roses on the scaffold bloom,\nMingling with Freedom’s fadeless laurels there,\nAnd presaging the truth of visioned bliss.\nAre there not hopes within thee, which this scene _180\nOf linked and gradual being has confirmed?\nWhose stingings bade thy heart look further still,\nWhen, to the moonlight walk by Henry led,\nSweetly and sadly thou didst talk of death?\nAnd wilt thou rudely tear them from thy breast, _185\nListening supinely to a bigot’s creed,\nOr tamely crouching to the tyrant’s rod,\nWhose iron thongs are red with human gore?\nNever: but bravely bearing on, thy will\nIs destined an eternal war to wage _190\nWith tyranny and falsehood, and uproot\nThe germs of misery from the human heart.\nThine is the hand whose piety would soothe\nThe thorny pillow of unhappy crime,\nWhose impotence an easy pardon gains, _195\nWatching its wanderings as a friend’s disease:\nThine is the brow whose mildness would defy\nIts fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will,\nWhen fenced by power and master of the world.\nThou art sincere and good; of resolute mind, _200\nFree from heart-withering custom’s cold control,\nOf passion lofty, pure and unsubdued.\nEarth’s pride and meanness could not vanquish thee,\nAnd therefore art thou worthy of the boon\nWhich thou hast now received: Virtue shall keep _205\nThy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod,\nAnd many days of beaming hope shall bless\nThy spotless life of sweet and sacred love.\nGo, happy one, and give that bosom joy\nWhose sleepless spirit waits to catch _210\nLight, life and rapture from thy smile.’\n\nThe Fairy waves her wand of charm.\nSpeechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car,\nThat rolled beside the battlement,\nBending her beamy eyes in thankfulness. _215\nAgain the enchanted steeds were yoked,\nAgain the burning wheels inflame\nThe steep descent of Heaven’s untrodden way.\nFast and far the chariot flew:\nThe vast and fiery globes that rolled _220\nAround the Fairy’s palace-gate\nLessened by slow degrees and soon appeared\nSuch tiny twinklers as the planet orbs\nThat there attendant on the solar power\nWith borrowed light pursued their narrower way. _225\n\nEarth floated then below:\nThe chariot paused a moment there;\nThe Spirit then descended:\nThe restless coursers pawed the ungenial soil,\nSnuffed the gross air, and then, their errand done, _230\nUnfurled their pinions to the winds of Heaven.\n\nThe Body and the Soul united then,\nA gentle start convulsed Ianthe’s frame:\nHer veiny eyelids quietly unclosed;\nMoveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained: _235\nShe looked around in wonder and beheld\nHenry, who kneeled in silence by her couch,\nWatching her sleep with looks of speechless love,\nAnd the bright beaming stars\nThat through the casement shone. _240\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Shelley’S Notes.", + "body": "1. 242, 243:—\n\nThe sun’s unclouded orb\nRolled through the black concave.\n\nBeyond our atmosphere the sun would appear a rayless orb of fire in the\nmidst of a black concave. The equal diffusion of its light on earth is\nowing to the refraction of the rays by the atmosphere, and their\nreflection from other bodies. Light consists either of vibrations\npropagated through a subtle medium, or of numerous minute particles\nrepelled in all directions from the luminous body. Its velocity greatly\nexceeds that of any substance with which we are acquainted: observations\non the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites have demonstrated that light\ntakes up no more than 8 minutes 7 seconds in passing from the sun to the\nearth, a distance of 95,000,000 miles.—Some idea may be gained of the\nimmense distance of the fixed stars when it is computed that many years\nwould elapse before light could reach this earth from the nearest of\nthem; yet in one year light travels 5,422,400,000,000 miles, which is a\ndistance 5,707,600 times greater than that of the sun from the earth.\n\n1. 252, 253:—\n\nWhilst round the chariot’s way\nInnumerable systems rolled.\n\nThe plurality of worlds,—the indefinite immensity of the universe, is a\nmost awful subject of contemplation. He who rightly feels its mystery\nand grandeur is in no danger of seduction from the falsehoods of\nreligious systems, or of deifying the principle of the universe. It is\nimpossible to believe that the Spirit that pervades this infinite\nmachine begat a son upon the body of a Jewish woman; or is angered at\nthe consequences of that necessity, which is a synonym of itself. All\nthat miserable tale of the Devil, and Eve, and an Intercessor, with the\nchildish mummeries of the God of the Jews, is irreconcilable with the\nknowledge of the stars. The works of His fingers have borne witness\nagainst Him.\n\nThe nearest of the fixed stars is inconceivably distant from the earth,\nand they are probably proportionably distant from each other. By a\ncalculation of the velocity of light, Sirius is supposed to be at least\n54,224,000,000,000 miles from the earth. (See Nicholson’s\n“Encyclopedia”, article Light.) That which appears only like a thin and\nsilvery cloud streaking the heaven is in effect composed of innumerable\nclusters of suns, each shining with its own light, and illuminating\nnumbers of planets that revolve around them. Millions and millions of\nsuns are ranged around us, all attended by innumerable worlds, yet calm,\nregular, and harmonious, all keeping the paths of immutable necessity.\n\n4. 178, 179:—\n\nThese are the hired bravos who defend\nThe tyrant’s throne.\n\nTo employ murder as a means of justice is an idea which a man of an\nenlightened mind will not dwell upon with pleasure. To march forth in\nrank and file, and all the pomp of streamers and trumpets, for the\npurpose of shooting at our fellow-men as a mark; to inflict upon them\nall the variety of wound and anguish; to leave them weltering in their\nblood; to wander over the field of desolation, and count the number of\nthe dying and the dead,—are employments which in thesis we may maintain\nto be necessary, but which no good man will contemplate with gratulation\nand delight. A battle we suppose is won:—thus truth is established,\nthus the cause of justice is confirmed! It surely requires no common\nsagacity to discern the connexion between this immense heap of\ncalamities and the assertion of truth or the maintenance of justice.\n\n‘Kings, and ministers of state, the real authors of the calamity, sit\nunmolested in their cabinet, while those against whom the fury of the\nstorm is directed are, for the most part, persons who have been\ntrepanned into the service, or who are dragged unwillingly from their\npeaceful homes into the field of battle. A soldier is a man whose\nbusiness it is to kill those who never offended him, and who are the\ninnocent martyrs of other men’s iniquities. Whatever may become of the\nabstract question of the justifiableness of war, it seems impossible\nthat the soldier should not be a depraved and unnatural being.\n\nTo these more serious and momentous considerations it may be proper to\nadd a recollection of the ridiculousness of the military character. Its\nfirst constituent is obedience: a soldier is, of all descriptions of\nmen, the most completely a machine; yet his profession inevitably\nteaches him something of dogmatism, swaggering, and sell-consequence: he\nis like the puppet of a showman, who, at the very time he is made to\nstrut and swell and display the most farcical airs, we perfectly know\ncannot assume the most insignificant gesture, advance either to the\nright or the left, but as he is moved by his exhibitor.’—Godwin’s\n“Enquirer”, Essay 5.\n\nI will here subjoin a little poem, so strongly expressive of my\nabhorrence of despotism and falsehood, that I fear lest it never again\nmay be depictured so vividly. This opportunity is perhaps the only one\nthat ever will occur of rescuing it from oblivion.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Dialogue.", + "body": "Whilst monarchs laughed upon their thrones\nTo hear a famished nation’s groans,\nAnd hugged the wealth wrung from the woe\nThat makes its eyes and veins o’erflow,—\nThose thrones, high built upon the heaps\nOf bones where frenzied Famine sleeps,\nWhere Slavery wields her scourge of iron,\nRed with mankind’s unheeded gore,\nAnd War’s mad fiends the scene environ,\nMingling with shrieks a drunken roar,\nThere Vice and Falsehood took their stand,\nHigh raised above the unhappy land.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Falsehood:", + "body": "What have I done!—I have torn the robe\nFrom baby Truth’s unsheltered form,\nAnd round the desolated globe\nBorne safely the bewildering charm:\nMy tyrant-slaves to a dungeon-floor\nHave bound the fearless innocent,\nAnd streams of fertilizing gore\nFlow from her bosom’s hideous rent,\nWhich this unfailing dagger gave...\nI dread that blood!—no more—this day\nIs ours, though her eternal ray\nMust shine upon our grave.\nYet know, proud Vice, had I not given\nTo thee the robe I stole from Heaven,\nThy shape of ugliness and fear\nHad never gained admission here.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Vice:", + "body": "And know, that had I disdained to toil,\nBut sate in my loathsome cave the while,\nAnd ne’er to these hateful sons of Heaven,\nGOLD, MONARCHY, and MURDER, given;\nHadst thou with all thine art essayed\nOne of thy games then to have played,\nWith all thine overweening boast,\nFalsehood! I tell thee thou hadst lost!—\nYet wherefore this dispute?—we tend,\nFraternal, to one common end;\nIn this cold grave beneath my feet,\nWill our hopes, our fears, and our labours, meet.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Falsehood:", + "body": "I brought my daughter, RELIGION, on earth:\nShe smothered Reason’s babes in their birth;\nBut dreaded their mother’s eye severe,—\nSo the crocodile slunk off slily in fear,\nAnd loosed her bloodhounds from the den....\nThey started from dreams of slaughtered men,\nAnd, by the light of her poison eye,\nDid her work o’er the wide earth frightfully:\nThe dreadful stench of her torches’ flare,\nFed with human fat, polluted the air:\nThe curses, the shrieks, the ceaseless cries\nOf the many-mingling miseries,\nAs on she trod, ascended high\nAnd trumpeted my victory!—\nBrother, tell what thou hast done.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Vice:", + "body": "I have extinguished the noonday sun,\nIn the carnage-smoke of battles won:\nFamine, Murder, Hell and Power\nWere glutted in that glorious hour\nWhich searchless fate had stamped for me\nWith the seal of her security...\nFor the bloated wretch on yonder throne\nCommanded the bloody fray to rise.\nLike me he joyed at the stifled moan\nWrung from a nation’s miseries;\nWhile the snakes, whose slime even him DEFILED,\nIn ecstasies of malice smiled:\nThey thought ’twas theirs,—but mine the deed!\nTheirs is the toil, but mine the meed—\nTen thousand victims madly bleed.\nThey dream that tyrants goad them there\nWith poisonous war to taint the air:\nThese tyrants, on their beds of thorn,\nSwell with the thoughts of murderous fame,\nAnd with their gains to lift my name\nRestless they plan from night to morn:\nI—I do all; without my aid\nThy daughter, that relentless maid,\nCould never o’er a death-bed urge\nThe fury of her venomed scourge.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Falsehood:", + "body": "Brother, well:—the world is ours;\nAnd whether thou or I have won,\nThe pestilence expectant lowers\nOn all beneath yon blasted sun.\nOur joys, our toils, our honours meet\nIn the milk-white and wormy winding-sheet:\nA short-lived hope, unceasing care,\nSome heartless scraps of godly prayer,\nA moody curse, and a frenzied sleep\nEre gapes the grave’s unclosing deep,\nA tyrant’s dream, a coward’s start,\nThe ice that clings to a priestly heart,\nA judge’s frown, a courtier’s smile,\nMake the great whole for which we toil;\nAnd, brother, whether thou or I\nHave done the work of misery,\nIt little boots: thy toil and pain,\nWithout my aid, were more than vain;\nAnd but for thee I ne’er had sate\nThe guardian of Heaven’s palace gate.\n\n5. 1, 2:—\n\nThus do the generations of the earth\nGo to the grave, and issue from the womb.\n\n‘One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the\nearth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down,\nand hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the\nsouth, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually,\nand the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers\nrun into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence\nthe rivers come, thither they return again.’—Ecclesiastes, chapter 1\nverses 4-7.\n\n5. 4-6.\n\nEven as the leaves\nWhich the keen frost-wind of the waning year\nHas scattered on the forest soil.\n\nOin per phullon genee, toiede kai andron.\nPhulla ta men t’ anemos chamadis cheei, alla de th’ ule\nTelethoosa phuei, earos d’ epigignetai ore.\nOs andron genee, e men phuei, e d’ apolegei.\n\nIliad Z, line 146.\n\n5. 58:—\nThe mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings.\n\nSuave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis\nE terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;\nNon quia vexari quemquam est iucunda voluptas,\nSed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.\nSuave etiam belli certamina magna tueri\nPer campos instructa, tua sine parte pericli;\nSed nil dulcius est bene quam munita tenere\nEdita doctrina sapientum templa serena,\nDespicere undo queas alios, passimque videre\nErrare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae;\nCertare ingenio; contendere nobilitate;\nNoctes atque dies niti praestante labore\nAd summas emergere opes, rerumque potiri.\nO miseras hominum mentes! O pectora caeca!\n\nLucret. lib. 2.\n\n5. 93, 94.\n\nAnd statesmen boast\nOf wealth!\n\nThere is no real wealth but the labour of man. Were the mountains of\ngold and the valleys of silver, the world would not be one grain of corn\nthe richer; no one comfort would be added to the human race. In\nconsequence of our consideration for the precious metals, one man is\nenabled to heap to himself luxuries at the expense of the necessaries of\nhis neighbour; a system admirably fitted to produce all the varieties of\ndisease and crime, which never fail to characterize the two extremes of\nopulence and penury. A speculator takes pride to himself as the promoter\nof his country’s prosperity, who employs a number of hands in the\nmanufacture of articles avowedly destitute of use, or subservient only\nto the unhallowed cravings of luxury and ostentation. The nobleman, who\nemploys the peasants of his neighbourhood in building his palaces, until\n‘jam pauca aratro jugera regiae moles relinquunt,’ flatters himself that\nhe has gained the title of a patriot by yielding to the impulses of\nvanity. The show and pomp of courts adduce the same apology for its\ncontinuance; and many a fete has been given, many a woman has eclipsed\nher beauty by her dress, to benefit the labouring poor and to encourage\ntrade. Who does not see that this is a remedy which aggravates whilst it\npalliates the countless diseases of society? The poor are set to\nlabour,—for what? Not the food for which they famish: not the blankets\nfor want of which their babes are frozen by the cold of their miserable\nhovels: not those comforts of civilization without which civilized man\nis far more miserable than the meanest savage; oppressed as he is by all\nits insidious evils, within the daily and taunting prospect of its\ninnumerable benefits assiduously exhibited before him:—no; for the\npride of power, for the miserable isolation of pride, for the false\npleasures of the hundredth part of society. No greater evidence is\nafforded of the wide extended and radical mistakes of civilized man than\nthis fact: those arts which are essential to his very being are held in\nthe greatest contempt; employments are lucrative in an inverse ratio to\ntheir usefulness (See Rousseau, “De l’Inegalite parmi les Hommes”, note\n7.): the jeweller, the toyman, the actor gains fame and wealth by the\nexercise of his useless and ridiculous art; whilst the cultivator of the\nearth, he without whom society must cease to subsist, struggles through\ncontempt and penury, and perishes by that famine which but for his\nunceasing exertions would annihilate the rest of mankind.\n\nI will not insult common sense by insisting on the doctrine of the\nnatural equality of man. The question is not concerning its\ndesirableness, but its practicability: so far as it is practicable, it\nis desirable. That state of human society which approaches nearer to an\nequal partition of its benefits and evils should, caeteris paribus, be\npreferred: but so long as we conceive that a wanton expenditure of human\nlabour, not for the necessities, not even for the luxuries of the mass\nof society, but for the egotism and ostentation of a few of its members,\nis defensible on the ground of public justice, so long we neglect to\napproximate to the redemption of the human race.\n\nLabour is required for physical, and leisure for moral improvement: from\nthe former of these advantages the rich, and from the latter the poor,\nby the inevitable conditions of their respective situations, are\nprecluded. A state which should combine the advantages of both would be\nsubjected to the evils of neither. He that is deficient in firm health,\nor vigorous intellect, is but half a man: hence it follows that to\nsubject the labouring classes to unnecessary labour is wantonly\ndepriving them of any opportunities of intellectual improvement; and\nthat the rich are heaping up for their own mischief the disease,\nlassitude, and ennui by which their existence is rendered an intolerable\nburthen.\n\nEnglish reformers exclaim against sinecures,—but the true pension list\nis the rent-roll of the landed proprietors: wealth is a power usurped by\nthe few, to compel the many to labour for their benefit. The laws which\nsupport this system derive their force from the ignorance and credulity\nof its victims: they are the result of a conspiracy of the few against\nthe many, who are themselves obliged to purchase this pre-eminence by\nthe loss of all real comfort.\n\n‘The commodities that substantially contribute to the subsistence of the\nhuman species form a very short catalogue: they demand from us but a\nslender portion of industry. If these only were produced, and\nsufficiently produced, the species of man would be continued. If the\nlabour necessarily required to produce them were equitably divided among\nthe poor, and, still more, if it were equitably divided among all, each\nman’s share of labour would be light, and his portion of leisure would\nbe ample. There was a time when this leisure would have been of small\ncomparative value: it is to be hoped that the time will come when it\nwill be applied to the most important purposes. Those hours which are\nnot required for the production of the necessaries of life may be\ndevoted to the cultivation of the understanding, the enlarging our stock\nof knowledge, the refining our taste, and thus opening to us new and\nmore exquisite sources of enjoyment.\n\n...\n\n‘It was perhaps necessary that a period of monopoly and oppression\nshould subsist, before a period of cultivated equality could subsist.\nSavages perhaps would never have been excited to the discovery of truth\nand the invention of art but by the narrow motives which such a period\naffords. But surely, after the savage state has ceased, and men have set\nout in the glorious career of discovery and invention, monopoly and\noppression cannot be necessary to prevent them from returning to a state\nof barbarism.’—Godwin’s “Enquirer”, Essay 2. See also “Pol. Jus.”, book\n8, chapter 2.\n\nIt is a calculation of this admirable author, that all the conveniences\nof civilized life might be produced, if society would divide the labour\nequally among its members, by each individual being employed in labour\ntwo hours during the day.\n\n5. 112, 113:—\n\nor religion\nDrives his wife raving mad.\n\nI am acquainted with a lady of considerable accomplishments, and the\nmother of a numerous family, whom the Christian religion has goaded to\nincurable insanity. A parallel case is, I believe, within the experience\nof every physician.\n\nNam iam saepe homines patriam, carosquo parentes\nProdiderunt, vitare Acherusia templa petentes.—Lucretius.\n\n5. 189:—\n\nEven love is sold.\n\nNot even the intercourse of the sexes is exempt from the despotism of\npositive institution. Law pretends even to govern the indisciplinable\nwanderings of passion, to put fetters on the clearest deductions of\nreason, and, by appeals to the will, to subdue the involuntary\naffections of our nature. Love is inevitably consequent upon the\nperception of loveliness. Love withers under constraint: its very\nessence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy,\nnor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited, where its\nvotaries live in confidence, equality, and unreserve.\n\nHow long then ought the sexual connection to last? what law ought to\nspecify the extent of the grievances which should limit its duration? A\nhusband and wife ought to continue so long united as they love each\nother: any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment\nafter the decay of their affection would be a most intolerable tyranny,\nand the most unworthy of toleration. How odious an usurpation of the\nright of private judgement should that law be considered which should\nmake the ties of friendship indissoluble, in spite of the caprices, the\ninconstancy, the fallibility, and capacity for improvement of the human\nmind. And by so much would the fetters of love be heavier and more\nunendurable than those of friendship, as love is more vehement and\ncapricious, more dependent on those delicate peculiarities of\nimagination, and less capable of reduction to the ostensible merits of\nthe object.\n\nThe state of society in which we exist is a mixture of feudal savageness\nand imperfect civilization. The narrow and unenlightened morality of the\nChristian religion is an aggravation of these evils. It is not even\nuntil lately that mankind have admitted that happiness is the sole end\nof the science of ethics, as of all other sciences; and that the\nfanatical idea of mortifying the flesh for the love of God has been\ndiscarded. I have heard, indeed, an ignorant collegian adduce, in favour\nof Christianity, its hostility to every worldly feeling! (The first\nChristian emperor made a law by which seduction was punished with death;\nif the female pleaded her own consent, she also was punished with death;\nif the parents endeavoured to screen the criminals, they were banished\nand their estates were confiscated; the slaves who might be accessory\nwere burned alive, or forced to swallow melted lead. The very offspring\nof an illegal love were involved in the consequences of the\nsentence.—Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall”, etc., volume 2, page 210. See\nalso, for the hatred of the primitive Christians to love and even\nmarriage, page 269.)\n\nBut if happiness be the object of morality, of all human unions and\ndisunions; if the worthiness of every action is to be estimated by the\nquantity of pleasurable sensation it is calculated to produce, then the\nconnection of the sexes is so long sacred as it contributes to the\ncomfort of the parties, and is naturally dissolved when its evils are\ngreater than its benefits. There is nothing immoral in this separation.\nConstancy has nothing virtuous in itself, independently of the pleasure\nit confers, and partakes of the temporizing spirit of vice in proportion\nas it endures tamely moral defects of magnitude in the object of its\nindiscreet choice. Love is free: to promise for ever to love the same\nwoman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed: such\na vow, in both cases, excludes us from all inquiry. The language of the\nvotarist is this: The woman I now love may be infinitely inferior to\nmany others; the creed I now profess may be a mass of errors and\nabsurdities; but I exclude myself from all future information as to the\namiability of the one and the truth of the other, resolving blindly, and\nin spite of conviction, to adhere to them. Is this the language of\ndelicacy and reason? Is the love of such a frigid heart of more worth\nthan its belief?\n\nThe present system of constraint does no more, in the majority of\ninstances, than make hypocrites or open enemies. Persons of delicacy and\nvirtue, unhappily united to one whom they find it impossible to love,\nspend the loveliest season of their life in unproductive efforts to\nappear otherwise than they are, for the sake of the feelings of their\npartner or the welfare of their mutual offspring: those of less\ngenerosity and refinement openly avow their disappointment, and linger\nout the remnant of that union, which only death can dissolve, in a state\nof incurable bickering and hostility. The early education of their\nchildren takes its colour from the squabbles of the parents; they are\nnursed in a systematic school of ill-humour, violence, and falsehood.\nHad they been suffered to part at the moment when indifference rendered\ntheir union irksome, they would have been spared many years of misery:\nthey would have connected themselves more suitably, and would have found\nthat happiness in the society of more congenial partners which is for\never denied them by the despotism of marriage. They would have been\nseparately useful and happy members of society, who, whilst united, were\nmiserable and rendered misanthropical by misery. The conviction that\nwedlock is indissoluble holds out the strongest of all temptations to\nthe perverse: they indulge without restraint in acrimony, and all the\nlittle tyrannies of domestic life, when they know that their victim is\nwithout appeal. If this connection were put on a rational basis, each\nwould be assured that habitual ill-temper would terminate in separation,\nand would check this vicious and dangerous propensity.\n\nProstitution is the legitimate offspring of marriage and its\naccompanying errors. Women, for no other crime than having followed the\ndictates of a natural appetite, are driven with fury from the comforts\nand sympathies of society. It is less venial than murder; and the\npunishment which is inflicted on her who destroys her child to escape\nreproach is lighter than the life of agony and disease to which the\nprostitute is irrecoverably doomed. Has a woman obeyed the impulse of\nunerring nature;—society declares war against her, pitiless and eternal\nwar: she must be the tame slave, she must make no reprisals; theirs is\nthe right of persecution, hers the duty of endurance. She lives a life\nof infamy: the loud and bitter laugh of scorn scares her from all\nreturn. She dies of long and lingering disease: yet SHE is in fault, SHE\nis the criminal, SHE the froward and untamable child,—and society,\nforsooth, the pure and virtuous matron, who casts her as an abortion\nfrom her undefiled bosom! Society avenges herself on the criminals of\nher own creation; she is employed in anathematizing the vice to-day,\nwhich yesterday she was the most zealous to teach. Thus is formed\none-tenth of the population of London: meanwhile the evil is twofold.\nYoung men, excluded by the fanatical idea of chastity from the society\nof modest and accomplished women, associate with these vicious and\nmiserable beings, destroying thereby all those exquisite and delicate\nsensibilities whose existence cold-hearted worldlings have denied;\nannihilating all genuine passion, and debasing that to a selfish feeling\nwhich is the excess of generosity and devotedness. Their body and mind\nalike crumble into a hideous wreck of humanity; idiocy and disease\nbecome perpetuated in their miserable offspring, and distant generations\nsuffer for the bigoted morality of their forefathers. Chastity is a\nmonkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural\ntemperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root\nof all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half of the human race\nto misery, that some few may monopolize according to law. A system could\nnot well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness\nthan marriage.\n\nI conceive that from the abolition of marriage, the fit and natural\narrangement of sexual connection would result. I by no means assert that\nthe intercourse would be promiscuous: on the contrary, it appears, from\nthe relation of parent to child, that this union is generally of long\nduration, and marked above all others with generosity and self-devotion.\nBut this is a subject which it is perhaps premature to discuss. That\nwhich will result from the abolition of marriage will be natural and\nright; because choice and change will be exempted from restraint.\n\nIn fact, religion and morality, as they now stand, compose a practical\ncode of misery and servitude: the genius of human happiness must tear\nevery leaf from the accursed book of God ere man can read the\ninscription on his heart. How would morality, dressed up in stiff stays\nand finery, start from her own disgusting image should she look in the\nmirror of nature!—\n\n6. 45, 46:—\n\nTo the red and baleful sun\nThat faintly twinkles there.\n\nThe north polar star, to which the axis of the earth, in its present\nstate of obliquity, points. It is exceedingly probable, from many\nconsiderations, that this obliquity will gradually diminish, until the\nequator coincides with the ecliptic: the nights and days will then\nbecome equal on the earth throughout the year, and probably the seasons\nalso. There is no great extravagance in presuming that the progress of\nthe perpendicularity of the poles may be as rapid as the progress of\nintellect; or that there should be a perfect identity between the moral\nand physical improvement of the human species. It is certain that wisdom\nis not compatible with disease, and that, in the present state of the\nclimates of the earth, health, in the true and comprehensive sense of\nthe word, is out of the reach of civilized man. Astronomy teaches us\nthat the earth is now in its progress, and that the poles are every year\nbecoming more and more perpendicular to the ecliptic. The strong\nevidence afforded by the history of mythology, and geological\nresearches, that some event of this nature has taken place already,\naffords a strong presumption that this progress is not merely an\noscillation, as has been surmised by some late astronomers. (Laplace,\n“Systeme du Monde”.)\n\nBones of animals peculiar to the torrid zone have been found in the\nnorth of Siberia, and on the banks of the river Ohio. Plants have been\nfound in the fossil state in the interior of Germany, which demand the\npresent climate of Hindostan for their production. (Cabanis, “Rapports\ndu Physique et du Moral de l’Homme”, volume 2 page 406.) The researches\nof M. Bailly establish the existence of a people who inhabited a tract\nin Tartary 49 degrees north latitude, of greater antiquity than either\nthe Indians, the Chinese, or the Chaldeans, from whom these nations\nderived their sciences and theology. (Bailly, “Lettres sur les Sciences,\na Voltaire”.) We find, from the testimony of ancient writers, that\nBritain, Germany, and France were much colder than at present, and that\ntheir great rivers were annually frozen over. Astronomy teaches us also\nthat since this period the obliquity of the earth’s position has been\nconsiderably diminished.\n\n6. 171-173:—\n\nNo atom of this turbulence fulfils\nA vague and unnecessitated task,\nOr acts but as it must and ought to act.\n\n‘Deux examples serviront a nous rendre plus sensible le principe qui\nvient d’etre pose; nous emprunterons l’un du physique at l’autre du\nmoral. Dans un tourbillon de poussiere qu’eleve un vent impetueux,\nquelque confus qu’il paraisse a nos yeux; dans la plus affreuse tempete\nexcitee par des vents opposes qui soulevent les flots,—il n’y a pas une\nseule molecule de poussiere ou d’eau qui soit placee au HASARD, qui\nn’ait sa cause suffisante pour occuper le lieu ou elle se trouve, et qui\nn’agisse rigoureusement de la maniere dont ella doit agir. Un geometre\nqui connaitrait exactement les differentes forces qui agissent dans ces\ndeux cas, at las proprietes des molecules qui sent mues, demontrerait\nque d’apres des causes donnees, chaque molecule agit precisement comme\nella doit agir, et ne peut agir autrement qu’elle ne fait.\n\n‘Dans les convulsions terribles qui agitent quelquefois les societes\npolitiques, et qui produisent souvent le renversement d’un empire, il\nn’y a pas une seule action, une seule parole, une seule pensee, une\nseule volonte, une seule passion dans las agens qui concourent a la\nrevolution comme destructeurs ou comme victimes, qui ne soit necessaire,\nqui n’agissa comme ella doit agir, qui n’opere infailliblemont les\neffets qu’eile doit operer, suivant la place qu’occupent ces agens dana\nce tourbillon moral. Cela paraitrait evident pour une intelligence qui\nsera en etat de saisir et d’apprecier toutes las actions at reactions\ndes esprits at des corps de ceux qui contribuent a cette\nrevolution.’—“Systeme de la Nature”, volume 1, page 44.\n\n6. 198:—\n\nNecessity! thou mother of the world!\n\nHe who asserts the doctrine of Necessity means that, contemplating the\nevents which compose the moral and material universe, he beholds only an\nimmense and uninterrupted chain of causes and effects, no one of which\ncould occupy any other place than it does occupy, or act in any other\nplace than it does act. The idea of necessity is obtained by our\nexperience of the connection between objects, the uniformity of the\noperations of nature, the constant conjunction of similar events, and\nthe consequent inference of one from the other. Mankind are therefore\nagreed in the admission of necessity, if they admit that these two\ncircumstances take place in voluntary action. Motive is to voluntary\naction in the human mind what cause is to effect in the material\nuniverse. The word liberty, as applied to mind, is analogous to the word\nchance as applied to matter: they spring from an ignorance of the\ncertainty of the conjunction of antecedents and consequents.\n\nEvery human being is irresistibly impelled to act precisely as he does\nact: in the eternity which preceded his birth a chain of causes was\ngenerated, which, operating under the name of motives, make it\nimpossible that any thought of his mind, or any action of his life,\nshould be otherwise than it is. Were the doctrine of Necessity false,\nthe human mind would no longer be a legitimate object of science; from\nlike causes it would be in vain that we should expect like effects; the\nstrongest motive would no longer be paramount over the conduct; all\nknowledge would be vague and undeterminate; we could not predict with\nany certainty that we might not meet as an enemy to-morrow him with whom\nwe have parted in friendship to-night; the most probable inducements and\nthe clearest reasonings would lose the invariable influence they\npossess. The contrary of this is demonstrably the fact. Similar\ncircumstances produce the same unvariable effects. The precise character\nand motives of any man on any occasion being given, the moral\nphilosopher could predict his actions with as much certainty as the\nnatural philosopher could predict the effects of the mixture of any\nparticular chemical substances. Why is the aged husbandman more\nexperienced than the young beginner? Because there is a uniform,\nundeniable necessity in the operations of the material universe. Why is\nthe old statesman more skilful than the raw politician) Because, relying\non the necessary conjunction of motive and action, he proceeds to\nproduce moral effects, by the application of those moral causes which\nexperience has shown to be effectual. Some actions may be found to which\nwe can attach no motives, but these are the effects of causes with which\nwe are unacquainted. Hence the relation which motive bears to voluntary\naction is that of cause to effect; nor, placed in this point of view, is\nit, or ever has it been, the subject of popular or philosophical\ndispute. None but the few fanatics who are engaged in the herculean task\nof reconciling the justice of their God with the misery of man, will\nlonger outrage common sense by the supposition of an event without a\ncause, a voluntary action without a motive. History, politics, morals,\ncriticism, all grounds of reasonings, all principles of science, alike\nassume the truth of the doctrine of Necessity. No farmer carrying his\ncorn to market doubts the sale of it at the market price. The master of\na manufactory no more doubts that he can purchase the human labour\nnecessary for his purposes than that his machinery will act as they have\nbeen accustomed to act.\n\nBut, whilst none have scrupled to admit necessity as influencing matter,\nmany have disputed its dominion over mind. Independently of its\nmilitating with the received ideas of the justice of God, it is by no\nmeans obvious to a superficial inquiry. When the mind observes its own\noperations, it feels no connection of motive and action: but as we know\n‘nothing more of causation than the constant conjunction of objects and\nthe consequent inference of one from the other, as we find that these\ntwo circumstances are universally allowed to have place in voluntary\naction, we may be easily led to own that they are subjected to the\nnecessity common to all causes.’ The actions of the will have a regular\nconjunction with circumstances and characters; motive is to voluntary\naction what cause is to effect. But the only idea we can form of\ncausation is a constant conjunction of similar objects, and the\nconsequent inference of one from the other: wherever this is the case\nnecessity is clearly established.\n\nThe idea of liberty, applied metaphorically to the will, has sprung from\na misconception of the meaning of the word power. What is power?—id\nquod potest, that which can produce any given effect. To deny power is\nto say that nothing can or has the power to be or act. In the only true\nsense of the word power, it applies with equal force to the lodestone as\nto the human will. Do you think these motives, which I shall present,\nare powerful enough to rouse him? is a question just as common as, Do\nyou think this lever has the power of raising this weight? The advocates\nof free-will assert that the will has the power of refusing to be\ndetermined by the strongest motive; but the strongest motive is that\nwhich, overcoming all others, ultimately prevails; this assertion\ntherefore amounts to a denial of the will being ultimately determined by\nthat motive which does determine it, which is absurd. But it is equally\ncertain that a man cannot resist the strongest motive as that he cannot\novercome a physical impossibility.\n\nThe doctrine of Necessity tends to introduce a great change into the\nestablished notions of morality, and utterly to destroy religion. Reward\nand punishment must be considered, by the Necessarian, merely as motives\nwhich he would employ in order to procure the adoption or abandonment of\nany given line of conduct. Desert, in the present sense of the word,\nwould no longer have any meaning; and he who should inflict pain upon\nanother for no better reason than that he deserved it, would only\ngratify his revenge under pretence of satisfying justice? It is not\nenough, says the advocate of free-will, that a criminal should be\nprevented from a repetition of his crime: he should feel pain, and his\ntorments, when justly inflicted, ought precisely to be proportioned to\nhis fault. But utility is morality; that which is incapable of producing\nhappiness is useless; and though the crime of Damiens must be condemned,\nyet the frightful torments which revenge, under the name of justice,\ninflicted on this unhappy man cannot be supposed to have augmented, even\nat the long run, the stock of pleasurable sensation in the world. At the\nsame time, the doctrine of Necessity does not in the least diminish our\ndisapprobation of vice. The conviction which all feel that a viper is a\npoisonous animal, and that a tiger is constrained, by the inevitable\ncondition of his existence, to devour men, does not induce us to avoid\nthem less sedulously, or, even more, to hesitate in destroying them: but\nhe would surely be of a hard heart who, meeting with a serpent on a\ndesert island, or in a situation where it was incapable of injury,\nshould wantonly deprive it of existence. A Necessarian is inconsequent\nto his own principles if he indulges in hatred or contempt; the\ncompassion which he feels for the criminal is unmixed with a desire of\ninjuring him: he looks with an elevated and dreadless composure upon the\nlinks of the universal chain as they pass before his eyes; whilst\ncowardice, curiosity, and inconsistency only assail him in proportion to\nthe feebleness and indistinctness with which he has perceived and\nrejected the delusions of free-will.\n\nReligion is the perception of the relation in which we stand to the\nprinciple of the universe. But if the principle of the universe be not\nan organic being, the model and prototype of man, the relation between\nit and human beings is absolutely none. Without some insight into its\nwill respecting our actions religion is nugatory and vain. But will is\nonly a mode of animal mind; moral qualities also are such as only a\nhuman being can possess; to attribute them to the principle of the\nuniverse is to annex to it properties incompatible with any possible\ndefinition of its nature. It is probable that the word God was\noriginally only an expression denoting the unknown cause of the known\nevents which men perceived in the universe. By the vulgar mistake of a\nmetaphor for a real being, of a word for a thing, it became a man,\nendowed with human qualities and governing the universe as an earthly\nmonarch governs his kingdom. Their addresses to this imaginary being,\nindeed, are much in the same style as those of subjects to a king. They\nacknowledge his benevolence, deprecate his anger, and supplicate his\nfavour.\n\nBut the doctrine of Necessity teaches us that in no case could any event\nhave happened otherwise than it did happen, and that, if God is the\nauthor of good, He is also the author of evil; that, if He is entitled\nto our gratitude for the one, He is entitled to our hatred for the\nother; that, admitting the existence of this hypothetic being, He is\nalso subjected to the dominion of an immutable necessity. It is plain\nthat the same arguments which prove that God is the author of food,\nlight, and life, prove Him also to be the author of poison, darkness,\nand death. The wide-wasting earthquake, the storm, the battle, and the\ntyranny, are attributable to this hypothetic being in the same degree as\nthe fairest forms of nature, sunshine, liberty, and peace.\n\nBut we are taught, by the doctrine of Necessity, that there is neither\ngood nor evil in the universe, otherwise than as the events to which we\napply these epithets have relation to our own peculiar mode of being.\nStill less than with the hypothesis of a God will the doctrine of\nNecessity accord with the belief of a future state of punishment. God\nmade man such as he is, and than damned him for being so: for to say\nthat God was the author of all good, and man the author of all evil, is\nto say that one man made a straight line and a crooked one, and another\nman made the incongruity.\n\nA Mahometan story, much to the present purpose, is recorded, wherein\nAdam and Moses are introduced disputing before God in the following\nmanner. Thou, says Moses, art Adam, whom God created, and animated with\nthe breath of life, and caused to be worshipped by the angels, and\nplaced in Paradise, from whence mankind have been expelled for thy\nfault. Whereto Adam answered, Thou art Moses, whom God chose for His\napostle, and entrusted with His word, by giving thee the tables of the\nlaw, and whom He vouchsafed to admit to discourse with Himself. How many\nyears dost thou find the law was written before I was created? Says\nMoses, Forty. And dost thou not find, replied Adam, these words therein,\nAnd Adam rebelled against his Lord and transgressed? Which Moses\nconfessing, Dost thou therefore blame me, continued he, for doing that\nwhich God wrote of me that I should do, forty years before I was\ncreated, nay, for what was decreed concerning me fifty thousand years\nbefore the creation of heaven and earth?—Sale’s “Prelim. Disc. to the\nKoran”, page 164.\n\n7. 13:—\n\nThere is no God.\n\nThis negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The\nhypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains\nunshaken.\n\nA close examination of the validity of the proofs adduced to support any\nproposition is the only secure way of attaining truth, on the advantages\nof which it is unnecessary to descant: our knowledge of the existence of\na Deity is a subject of such importance that it cannot be too minutely\ninvestigated; in consequence of this conviction we proceed briefly and\nimpartially to examine the proofs which have been adduced. It is\nnecessary first to consider the nature of belief.\n\nWhen a proposition is offered to the mind, it perceives the agreement or\ndisagreement of the ideas of which it is composed. A perception of their\nagreement is termed BELIEF. Many obstacles frequently prevent this\nperception from being immediate; these the mind attempts to remove in\norder that the perception may be distinct. The mind is active in the\ninvestigation in order to perfect the state of perception of the\nrelation which the component ideas of the proposition bear to each,\nwhich is passive: the investigation being confused with the perception\nhas induced many falsely to imagine that the mind is active in\nbelief,—that belief is an act of volition,—in consequence of which it\nmay be regulated by the mind. Pursuing, continuing this mistake, they\nhave attached a degree of criminality to disbelief; of which, in its\nnature, it is incapable: it is equally incapable of merit.\n\nBelief, then, is a passion, the strength of which, like every other\npassion, is in precise proportion to the degrees of excitement.\n\nThe degrees of excitement are three.\n\nThe senses are the sources of all knowledge to the mind; consequently\ntheir evidence claims the strongest assent.\n\nThe decision of the mind, founded upon our own experience, derived from\nthese sources, claims the next degree.\n\nThe experience of others, which addresses itself to the former one,\noccupies the lowest degree.\n\n(A graduated scale, on which should be marked the capabilities of\npropositions to approach to the test of the senses, would be a just\nbarometer of the belief which ought to be attached to them.)\n\nConsequently no testimony can be admitted which is contrary to reason;\nreason is founded on the evidence of our senses.\n\nEvery proof may be referred to one of these three divisions: it is to be\nconsidered what arguments we receive from each of them, which should\nconvince us of the existence of a Deity.\n\n1st, The evidence of the senses. If the Deity should appear to us, if He\nshould convince our senses of His existence, this revelation would\nnecessarily command belief. Those to whom the Deity has thus appeared\nhave the strongest possible conviction of His existence. But the God of\nTheologians is incapable of local visibility.\n\n2d, Reason. It is urged that man knows that whatever is must either have\nhad a beginning, or have existed from all eternity: he also knows that\nwhatever is not eternal must have had a cause. When this reasoning is\napplied to the universe, it is necessary to prove that it was created:\nuntil that is clearly demonstrated we may reasonably suppose that it has\nendured from all eternity. We must prove design before we can infer a\ndesigner. The only idea which we can form of causation is derivable from\nthe constant conjunction of objects, and the consequent inference of one\nfrom the other. In a case where two propositions are diametrically\nopposite, the mind believes that which is least incomprehensible;—it is\neasier to suppose that the universe has existed from all eternity than\nto conceive a being beyond its limits capable of creating it: if the\nmind sinks beneath the weight of one, is it an alleviation to increase\nthe intolerability of the burthen?\n\nThe other argument, which is founded on a man’s knowledge of his own\nexistence, stands thus. A man knows not only that he now is, but that\nonce he was not; consequently there must have been a cause. But our idea\nof causation is alone derivable from the constant conjunction of objects\nand the consequent inference of one from the other; and, reasoning\nexperimentally, we can only infer from effects causes exactly adequate\nto those effects. But there certainly is a generative power which is\neffected by certain instruments: we cannot prove that it is inherent in\nthese instruments; nor is the contrary hypothesis capable of\ndemonstration: we admit that the generative power is incomprehensible;\nbut to suppose that the same effect is produced by an eternal,\nomniscient, omnipotent being leaves the cause in the same obscurity, but\nrenders it more incomprehensible.\n\n3d, Testimony. It is required that testimony should not be contrary to\nreason. The testimony that the Deity convinces the senses of men of His\nexistence can only be admitted by us if our mind considers it less\nprobable that these men should have been deceived than that the Deity\nshould have appeared to them. Our reason can never admit the testimony\nof men, who not only declare that they were eye-witnesses of miracles,\nbut that the Deity was irrational; for He commanded that He should be\nbelieved, He proposed the highest rewards for faith, eternal punishments\nfor disbelief. We can only command voluntary actions; belief is not an\nact of volition; the mind is even passive, or involuntarily active; from\nthis it is evident that we have no sufficient testimony, or rather that\ntestimony is insufficient to prove the being of a God. It has been\nbefore shown that it cannot be deduced from reason. They alone, then,\nwho have been convinced by the evidence of the senses can believe it.\n\nHence it is evident that, having no proofs from either of the three\nsources of conviction, the mind CANNOT believe the existence of a\ncreative God: it is also evident that, as belief is a passion of the\nmind, no degree of criminality is attachable to disbelief; and that they\nonly are reprehensible who neglect to remove the false medium through\nwhich their mind views any subject of discussion. Every reflecting mind\nmust acknowledge that there is no proof of the existence of a Deity.\n\nGod is an hypothesis, and, as such, stands in need of proof: the onus\nprobandi rests on the theist. Sir Isaac Newton says: Hypotheses non\nfingo, quicquid enim ex phaenomenis non deducitur hypothesis vocanda\nest, et hypothesis vel metaphysicae, vel physicae, vel qualitatum\noccultarum, seu mechanicae, in philosophia locum non habent. To all\nproofs of the existence of a creative God apply this valuable rule. We\nsee a variety of bodies possessing a variety of powers: we merely know\ntheir effects; we are in a state of ignorance with respect to their\nessences and causes. These Newton calls the phenomena of things; but the\npride of philosophy is unwilling to admit its ignorance of their causes.\nFrom the phenomena, which are the objects of our senses, we attempt to\ninfer a cause, which we call God, and gratuitously endow it with all\nnegative and contradictory qualities. From this hypothesis we invent\nthis general name, to conceal our ignorance of causes and essences. The\nbeing called God by no means answers with the conditions prescribed by\nNewton; it bears every mark of a veil woven by philosophical conceit, to\nhide the ignorance of philosophers even from themselves. They borrow the\nthreads of its texture from the anthropomorphism of the vulgar. Words\nhave been used by sophists for the same purposes, from the occult\nqualities of the peripatetics to the effluvium of Boyle and the\ncrinities or nebulae of Herschel. God is represented as infinite,\neternal, incomprehensible; He is contained under every predicate in non\nthat the logic of ignorance could fabricate. Even His worshippers allow\nthat it is impossible to form any idea of Him: they exclaim with the\nFrench poet,\n\nPour dire ce qu’il est, il faut etre lui-meme.\n\nLord Bacon says that atheism leaves to man reason, philosophy, natural\npiety, laws, reputation, and everything that can serve to conduct him to\nvirtue; but superstition destroys all these, and erects itself into a\ntyranny over the understandings of men: hence atheism never disturbs the\ngovernment, but renders man more clear-sighted, since he sees nothing\nbeyond the boundaries of the present life.—Bacon’s “Moral Essays”.\n\nLa premiere theologie de l’homme lui fit d’abord craindre at adorer les\nelements meme, des objets materiels at grossiers; il randit ensuite ses\nhommages a des agents presidant aux elements, a des genies inferieurs, a\ndes heros, ou a des hommes doues de grandes qualites. A force de\nreflechir il crut simplifier les choses en soumettant la nature entiere\na un seul agent, a un esprit, a una ame universelle, qui mettait cette\nnature et ses parties en mouvement. En remontant de causes en causes,\nles mortels ont fini par ne rien voir; at c’est dans cette obscurite\nqu’ils ont place leur Dieu; c’est dans cat abime tenebreux que leur\nimagination inquiete travaille toujours a se fabriquer des chimeres, qui\nles affligeront jusqu’a ce que la connaissance da la nature les detrompe\ndes fantomes qu’ils ont toujours si vainement adores.\n\nSi nous voulons nous rendre compte de nos idees sur la Divinite, nous\nserons obliges de convanir que, par le mot “Dieu”, les hommes n’ont\njamais pu designer que la cause la plus cachee, la plus eloignee, la\nplus inconnue des effets qu’ils voyaient: ils ne font usage de ce mot,\nque lorsque le jeu des causes naturelles at connues cesse d’etre visible\npour eux; des qu’ils perdent le fil de ces causes, on des que leur\nesprit ne peut plus en suivre la chaine, ils tranchent leur difficulte,\nat terminent leurs recherches en appellant Dieu la derniere des causes,\nc’est-a-dire celle qui est au-dela de toutes les causes qu’ils\nconnaissent; ainsi ils ne font qu’assigner une denomination vague a une\ncause ignoree, a laquelle leur paresse ou les bornes de leurs\nconnaissances les forcent de s’arreter. Toutes les fois qu’on nous dit\nque Dieu est l’auteur de quelque phenomene, cela signifie qu’on ignore\ncomment un tel phenomene a pu s’operer par le secours des forces ou des\ncauses que nous connaissons dans la nature. C’est ainsi que le commun\ndes hommes, dont l’ignorance est la partage, attribue a la Divinite non\nseulement les effets inusites qui las frappent, mais encore les\nevenemens les plus simples, dont les causes sont les plus faciles a\nconnaitre pour quiconque a pu les mediter. En un mot, l’homme a toujours\nrespecte les causes inconnues des effets surprenans, que son ignorance\nl’empechait de demeler. Ce fut sur les debris de la nature que les\nhommes eleverent le colosse imaginaire de la Divinite.\n\nSi l’ignorance de la nature donna la naissance aux dieux, la\nconnaissance de la nature est faite pour les detruire. A mesure que\nl’homme s’instruit, ses forces at ses ressources augmentent avec ses\nlumieres; les sciences, les arts conservateurs, l’industrie, lui\nfournissent des secours; l’experience le rassure ou lui procure des\nmoyens de resister aux efforts de bien des causes\nqui cessent de l’alarmer des qu’il les a connues. En un mot, ses\nterreurs se dissipent dans la meme proportion que son esprit s’eclaire.\nL’homnme instruit cesse d’etre superstitieux.\n\nCe n’est jamais que sur parole que des peuples entiers adorent le Dieu\nde leurs peres at de leurs pretres: l’autorite, la confiance, la\nsoumission, et l’habitude leur tiennent lieu de conviction et de\npreuves; ils se prosternent et prient, parce que leurs peres leur out\nappris a se prosterner at prier: mais pourquoi ceux-ci se sont-ils mis a\ngenoux? C’est que dans les temps eloignes leurs legislateurs et leurs\nguides leur en ont fait un devoir. ‘Adorez at croyez,’ ont-ils dit, ‘des\ndieux que vous ne pouvez comprendre; rapportez-vous-en a notre sagesse\nprofonde; nous en savons plus que vous sur la divinite.’ Mais pourquoi\nm’en rapporterais-je a vous? C’est que Dieu le veut ainsi, c’est que\nDieu vous punira si vous osez resister. Mais ce Dieu n’est-il donc pas\nla chose en question? Cependant las hommes se sont toujours payes de ce\ncercle vicieux; la paresse de leur esprit leur fit trouver plus court de\ns’en rapporter au jugament des autres. Toutes las notions religieuses\nsent fondees uniquement sur l’autorite; toutes les religions du monde\ndefendent l’examen et ne veulent pas que l’on raisonne; c’est l’autorite\nqui veut qu’on croie en Dieu; ce Dieu n’est lui-meme fonde que sur\nl’autorite de quelques hommes qui pretendent le connaitre, et venir de\nsa part pour l’annoncer a la terre. Un Dieu fait par les hommes a sans\ndoute bosom des hommes pour se faire connaitre aux hommes.\n\nNe serait-ce donc que pour des pretres, des inspires, des metaphysiciens\nque serait reservee la conviction de l’existence d’un Dieu, que l’on dit\nneanmoins si necessaire a tout le genre humain? Mais trouvons-nous de\nl’harmonie entre les opinions theologiques des differens inspires, ou\ndes penseurs repandus sur la terre? Ceux meme qui font profession\nd’adorer le meme Dieu, sent-ils d’accord sur son compte? Sont-ils\ncontents des preuves que leurs collegues apportent de son existence?\nSouscrivent-ils unanimement aux idees qu’ils presentent sur sa nature,\nsur sa conduite, sur la facon d’entendre ses pretandus oracles? Est-il\nune centree sur la terre ou la science de Dieu se soit reellement\nparfectionnee? A-t-elle pris quelqne part la consistance et l’uniformite\nque nous voyons prendre aux connaissances humaines, aux arts les plus\nfutiles, aux metiers les plus meprises? Ces mots d’esprit,\nd’immaterialite, de creation, de predestination, de grace; cette foule\nde distinctions subtiles dont la theologie s’est parteut remplie dans\nquelques pays, ces inventions si ingenieuses, imaginees par des penseurs\nqui se sont succedes depuis taut de siecles, n’ont fait, helas!\nqu’embrouiller les choses, et jamais la science la plus necassaire aux\nhommes n’a jusqu’ici pu acquerir la moindre fixite. Depuis des milliers\nd’annees ces reveurs oisifs se sont perpetuellement relayes pour mediter\nla Divinite, pour deviner ses voies cachees, pour inventer des\nhypotheses propres a developper cette enigme importante. Leur peu de\nsucces n’a point decourage la vanite theologique; toujours on a parle de\nDieu: on s’est egorge pour lui, et cet etre sublime demeure toujours le\nplus ignore et le plus discute.\n\nLes hommes auraient ete trop heureux, si, se bornant aux objets visibles\nqui les interessent, ils eussent employe a perfectionner leurs sciences\nreelles, leurs lois, leur morale, leur education, la moitie des efforts\nqu’ils ont mis dans leurs recherches sur la Divinite. Ils auraiant ete\nbien plus sages encore, et plus fortunes, s’ils eussent pu consentir a\nlaisser leurs guides desoeuvres se quereller entre eux, et sonder des\nprofondeurs capables de les etourdir, sans se meler de leurs disputes\ninsensees. Mais il est de l’essence de l’ignorance d’attacher de\nl’importance a ce qu’elle ne comprend pas. La vanite humaine fait que\nl’esprit se roidit contra des difficultes. Plus un objet se derobe a nos\nyeux, plus nous faisons d’efforts pour le saisir, parce que des-lors il\naiguillonne notre orgueil, il excite notre curiosite, il nous parait\ninteressant. En combattant pour son Dieu chacun ne combattit en effet\nque pour les interets de sa propra vanite, qui de toutes les passions\nproduites par la mal-organisation de la societe est la plus prompte a\ns’alarmer, et la plus propre a produire de tres grandes folies.\n\nSi ecartant pour un moment les idees facheuses que la theologie nous\ndonne d’un Dieu capriciaux, dont les decrets partiaux et despotiques\ndecident du sort des humains, nous ne voulons fixer nos yeux que sur la\nbonte pretendue, que tous les hommes, meme en tramblant devant ce Dieu,\ns’accordent a lui donner; si nous lui supposons le projet qu’on lui\nprete de n’avoir travaille que pour sa propre gloire, d’exiger les\nhommages des etres intelligens; de ne chercher dans ses oeuvres que le\nbien-etre du genre humain: comment concilier ces vues et ces\ndispositions avec l’ignorance vraiment invincible dans laquelle ce Dieu,\nsi glorieux et si bon, laisse la plupart des hommes sur son compte? Si\nDieu veut etre connu, cheri, remercie, que ne se montre-t-il sous des\ntraits favorables a tous ces etres intelligens dont il veut etre aime et\nadore? Pourquoi ne point se manifester a toute la terre dune facon non\nequivoque, bien plus capable de nous convaincre que ces revelations\nparticulieres qui semblent accuser la Divinite d’une partialite facheuse\npour quelques-unes de ses creatures? La tout-puissant n’auroit-il donc\npas des moyens plus convainquans de se montrer aux hommas que ces\nmetamorphoses ridicules, cas incarnations pretendues, qui nous sont\nattestees par des ecrivains si peu d’accord entre eux dans les recits\nqu’ils en font? Au lieu de tant de miracles, inventes pour prouver la\nmission divine de tant de legislateurs reveres par les differens peuples\ndu monde, le souverain des esprits ne pouvait-il pas convaincre tout\nd’un coup l’esprit humain des choses qu’il a voulu lui faire connaitre?\nAu lieu de suspendre un soleil dans la voute du firmament; au lieu de\nrepandre sans ordre les etoiles et les constellations qui remplissent\nl’espace, n’eut-il pas ete plus conforme aux vues d’un Dieu si jaloux de\nsa gloire et si bien-intentionne pour l’homme d’ecrire, d’une facon non\nsujette a dispute, son nom, ses attributs, ses volontes permanentes en\ncaracteres ineffacables, et lisibles egalement pour tous les habitants\nde la terre? Personne alors n’aurait pu douter de l’existence d’un Dieu,\nde ses volontes claires, de ses intentions visibles. Sous les yeux de ce\nDieu si terrible, personne n’aurait eu l’audace de violer ses\nordonnances; nul mortel n’eut ose se mettre dans le cas d’attirer sa\ncolere: enfin nul homme n’eut eu le front d’en imposer en son nom, ou\nd’interpreter ses volontes suivant ses propres fantaisies.\n\nEn effet, quand meme on admettrait l’existence du Dieu theologique et la\nrealite des attributs si discordans qu’on lui donne, l’on n’en peut rien\nconclure, pour autoriser la conduite ou les cultes qu’on prescrit de lui\nrendre. La theologie est vraiment “le tonneau des Danaides”. A force de\nqualites contradictoires et d’assartions hasardees, ella a, pour ainsi\ndire, tellement garrotte son Dieu qu’elle l’a mis dans l’impossibilite\nd’agir. S’il est infiniment bon, quelle raison aurions-nous de le\ncraindre? S’il est infiniment sage, de quoi nous inquieter sur notre\nsort? S’il sait tout, pourquoi l’avertir de nos besoins, et le fatiguer\nde nos prieres? S’il est partout, pourquoi lui elever des temples? S’il\nest maitre de tout, pourquoi lui faire des sacrifices et des offrandes?\nS’il est juste, comment croire qu’il punisse des creatures qu’il a\nrempli de faiblesses? Si la grace fait tout en elles, quelle raison\naurait-il de les recompenser? S’il est tout-puissant, comment\nl’offenser, comment lui resister? S’il est raisonnable, comment se\nmattrait-il en colere contre des aveugles, a qui il a laisse la liberte\nde deraisonner? S’il est immuable, de quel droit pretendrions-nous faire\nchanger ses decrets? S’il est inconcevable, pourquoi nous en occuper?\nS’IL A PARLE, POURQUOI L’UNIVERS N’EST-IL PAS CONVAINCU? Si la\nconnaissance d’un Dieu est la plus necessaire, pourquoi n’est-elle pas\nla plus evidente et a plus claire?—“Systeme de la Nature”, London,\n1781.\n\nThe enlightened and benevolent Pliny thus publicly professes himself an\natheist:—Quapropter effigiem Dei formamque quaerere imbecillitatis\nhumanae reor. Quisquis est Deus (si modo est alius) et quacunque in\nparte, totus est sensus, totus est visus, totus auditus, totus animae,\ntotus animi, totus sui...Imperfectae vero in homine naturae praecipua\nsolatia ne deum quidem posse omnia. Namque nec sibi potest mortem\nconsciscere, si velit, quad homini dedit optimum in tantis vitae poenis:\nnec mortales aeternitata donare, aut revocare defunctos; nec facere ut\nqui vixit non vixerit, qui honores gessit non gessarit, nullumque habere\nin praeteritum ius, praeterquam oblivionis, atque (ut facetis quoque\nargumentis societas haec cum deo copuletur) ut bis dena viginti non\nsint, et multa similiter efficere non posse.—Per quae declaratur haud\ndubie naturae potentiam id quoque esse quad Deum vocamus.—Plin. “Nat.\nHist.” cap. de Deo.\n\nThe consistent Newtonian is necessarily an atheist. See Sir W.\nDrummond’s “Academical Questions”, chapter 3.—Sir W. seems to consider\nthe atheism to which it leads as a sufficient presumption of the\nfalsehood of the system of gravitation; but surely it is more consistent\nwith the good faith of philosophy to admit a deduction from facts than\nan hypothesis incapable of proof, although it might militate with the\nobstinate preconceptions of the mob. Had this author, instead of\ninveighing against the guilt and absurdity of atheism, demonstrated its\nfalsehood, his conduct would have been more suited to the modesty of the\nsceptic and the toleration of the philosopher.\n\nOmnia enim per Dei potentiam facta sunt: imo quia naturae potentia nulla\nest nisi ipsa Dei potentia. Certum est nos eatenus Dei potentiam non\nintelligere, quatenus causas naturales ignoramus; adeoque stulte ad\neandem Dei potentiam recurritur, quando rei alicuius causam naturalem,\nsive est, ipsam Dei potantiam ignoramus.— Spinosa, “Tract.\nTheologico-Pol.” chapter 1, page 14.\n\n7. 67:—\n\nAhasuerus, rise!\n\n‘Ahasuerus the Jew crept forth from the dark cave of Mount Carmel. Near\ntwo thousand years have elapsed since he was first goaded by\nnever-ending restlessness to rove the globe from pole to pole. When our\nLord was wearied with the burthen of His ponderous cross, and wanted to\nrest before the door of Ahasuerus, the unfeeling wretch drove Him away\nwith brutality. The Saviour of mankind staggered, sinking under the\nheavy load, but uttered no complaint. An angel of death appeared before\nAhasuerus, and exclaimed indignantly, “Barbarian! thou hast denied rest\nto the Son of man: be it denied thee also, until He comes to judge the\nworld.”\n\n‘A black demon, let loose from hell upon Ahasuerus, goads him now from\ncountry to country; he is denied the consolation which death affords,\nand precluded from the rest of the peaceful grave.\n\n‘Ahasuerus crept forth from the dark cave of Mount Carmel—he shook the\ndust from his beard—and taking up one of the skulls heaped there,\nhurled it down the eminence: it rebounded from the earth in shivered\natoms. “This was my father!” roared Ahasuerus. Seven more skulls rolled\ndown from rock to rock; while the infuriate Jew, following them with\nghastly looks, exclaimed—“And these were my wives!” He still continued\nto hurl down skull after skull, roaring in dreadful accents—“And these,\nand these, and these were my children! They COULD DIE; but I! reprobate\nwretch! alas! I cannot die! Dreadful beyond conception is the judgement\nthat hangs over me. Jerusalem fell—I crushed the sucking babe, and\nprecipitated myself into the destructive flames. I cursed the\nRomans—but, alas! alas! the restless curse held me by the hair,—and I\ncould not die!\n\n‘“Rome the giantess fell—I placed myself before the falling statue—she\nfell and did not crush me. Nations sprang up and disappeared before\nme;—but I remained and did not die. From cloud-encircled cliffs did I\nprecipitate myself into the ocean; but the foaming billows cast me upon\nthe shore, and the burning arrow of existence pierced my cold heart\nagain. I leaped into Etna’s flaming abyss, and roared with the giants\nfor ten long months, polluting with my groans the Mount’s sulphureous\nmouth—ah! ten long months. The volcano fermented, and in a fiery stream\nof lava cast me up. I lay torn by the torture-snakes of hell amid the\nglowing cinders, and yet continued to exist.—A forest was on fire: I\ndarted on wings of fury and despair into the crackling wood. Fire\ndropped upon me from the trees, but the flames only singed my limbs;\nalas! it could not consume them.—I now mixed with the butchers of\nmankind, and plunged in the tempest of the raging battle. I roared\ndefiance to the infuriate Gaul, defiance to the victorious German; but\narrows and spears rebounded in shivers from my body. The Saracen’s\nflaming sword broke upon my skull: balls in vain hissed upon me: the\nlightnings of battle glared harmless around my loins: in vain did the\nelephant trample on me, in vain the iron hoof of the wrathful steed! The\nmine, big with destructive power, burst upon me, and hurled me high in\nthe air—I fell on heaps of smoking limbs, but was only singed. The\ngiant’s steel club rebounded from my body; the executioner’s hand could\nnot strangle me, the tiger’s tooth could not pierce me, nor would the\nhungry lion in the circus devour me. I cohabited with poisonous snakes,\nand pinched the red crest of the dragon.—The serpent stung, but could\nnot destroy me. The dragon tormented, but dared not to devour me.—I now\nprovoked the fury of tyrants: I said to Nero, ‘Thou art a bloodhound!’ I\nsaid to Christiern, ‘Thou art a bloodhound!, I said to Muley Ismail,\n‘Thou art a bloodhound!’—The tyrants invented cruel torments, but did\nnot kill me. Ha! not to be able to die—not to be able to die—not to be\npermitted to rest after the toils of life—to be doomed to be imprisoned\nfor ever in the clay-formed dungeon—to be for ever clogged with this\nworthless body, its lead of diseases and infirmities—to be condemned to\n[be]hold for millenniums that yawning monster Sameness, and Time, that\nhungry hyaena, ever bearing children, and ever devouring again her\noffspring!—Ha! not to be permitted to die! Awful Avenger in Heaven,\nhast Thou in Thine armoury of wrath a punishment more dreadful? then let\nit thunder upon me, command a hurricane to sweep me down to the foot of\nCarmel, that I there may lie extended; may pant, and writhe, and die.!”’\n\nThis fragment is the translation of part of some German work, whose\ntitle I have vainly endeavoured to discover. I picked it up, dirty and\ntorn, some years ago, in Lincoln’s-Inn Fields.\n\n7. 135, 136:—\n\nI will beget a Son, and He shall bear\nThe sins of all the world.\n\nA book is put into our hands when children, called the Bible, the\npurport of whose history is briefly this: That God made the earth in six\ndays, and there planted a delightful garden, in which He placed the\nfirst pair of human beings. In the midst of the garden He planted a\ntree, whose fruit, although within their reach, they were forbidden to\ntouch. That the Devil, in the shape of a snake, persuaded them to eat of\nthis fruit; in consequence of which God condemned both them and their\nposterity yet unborn to satisfy His justice by their eternal misery.\nThat, four thousand years after these events (the human race in the\nmeanwhile having gone unredeemed to perdition), God engendered with the\nbetrothed wife of a carpenter in Judea (whose virginity was nevertheless\nuninjured), and begat a son, whose name was Jesus Christ; and who was\ncrucified and died, in order that no more men might be devoted to\nhell-fire, He bearing the burthen of His Father’s displeasure by proxy.\nThe book states, in addition, that the soul of whoever disbelieves this\nsacrifice will be burned with everlasting fire.\n\nDuring many ages of misery and darkness this story gained implicit\nbelief; but at length men arose who suspected that it was a fable and\nimposture, and that Jesus Christ, so far from being a God, was only a\nman like themselves. But a numerous set of men, who derived and still\nderive immense emoluments from this opinion, in the shape of a popular\nbelief, told the vulgar that if they did not believe in the Bible they\nwould be damned to all eternity; and burned, imprisoned, and poisoned\nall the unbiassed and unconnected inquirers who occasionally arose. They\nstill oppress them, so far as the people, now become more enlightened,\nwill allow.\n\nThe belief in all that the Bible contains is called Christianity. A\nRoman governor of Judea, at the instance of a priest-led mob, crucified\na man called Jesus eighteen centuries ago. He was a man of pure life,\nwho desired to rescue his countrymen from the tyranny of their barbarous\nand degrading superstitions. The common fate of all who desire to\nbenefit mankind awaited him. The rabble, at the instigation of the\npriests, demanded his death, although his very judge made public\nacknowledgement of his innocence. Jesus was sacrificed to the honour of\nthat God with whom he was afterwards confounded. It is of importance,\ntherefore, to distinguish between the pretended character of this being\nas the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, and his real character\nas a man, who, for a vain attempt to reform the world, paid the forfeit\nof his life to that overbearing tyranny which has since so long\ndesolated the universe in his name. Whilst the one is a hypocritical\nDaemon, who announces Himself as the God of compassion and peace, even\nwhilst He stretches forth His blood-red hand with the sword of discord\nto waste the earth, having confessedly devised this scheme of desolation\nfrom eternity; the other stands in the foremost list of those true\nheroes who have died in the glorious martyrdom of liberty, and have\nbraved torture, contempt, and poverty in the cause of suffering\nhumanity. (Since writing this note I have some reason to suspect that\nJesus was an ambitious man, who aspired to the throne of Judea.\n\nThe vulgar, ever in extremes, became persuaded that the crucifixion of\nJesus was a supernatural event. Testimonies of miracles, so frequent in\nunenlightened ages, were not wanting to prove that he was something\ndivine. This belief, rolling through the lapse of ages, met with the\nreveries of Plato and the reasonings of Aristotle, and acquired force\nand extent, until the divinity of Jesus became a dogma, which to dispute\nwas death, which to doubt was infamy.\n\nCHRISTIANITY is now the established religion: he who attempts to impugn\nit must be contented to behold murderers and traitors take precedence of\nhim in public opinion; though, if his genius be equal to his courage,\nand assisted by a peculiar coalition of circumstances, future ages may\nexalt him to a divinity, and persecute others in his name, as he was\npersecuted in the name of his predecessor in the homage of the world.\n\nThe same means that have supported every other popular belief have\nsupported Christianity. War, imprisonment, assassination, and falsehood;\ndeeds of unexampled and incomparable atrocity have made it what it is.\nThe blood shed by the votaries of the God of mercy and peace, since the\nestablishment of His religion, would probably suffice to drown all other\nsectaries now on the habitable globe. We derive from our ancestors a\nfaith thus fostered and supported: we quarrel, persecute, and hate for\nits maintenance. Even under a government which, whilst it infringes the\nvery right of thought and speech, boasts of permitting the liberty of\nthe press, a man is pilloried and imprisoned because he is a deist, and\nno one raises his voice in the indignation of outraged humanity. But it\nis ever a proof that the falsehood of a proposition is felt by those who\nuse coercion, not reasoning, to procure its admission; and a\ndispassionate observer would feel himself more powerfully interested in\nfavour of a man who, depending on the truth of his opinions, simply\nstated his reasons for entertaining them, than in that of his aggressor\nwho, daringly avowing his unwillingness or incapacity to answer them by\nargument, proceeded to repress the energies and break the spirit of\ntheir promulgator by that torture and imprisonment whose infliction he\ncould command.\n\nAnalogy seems to favour the opinion that as, like other systems,\nChristianity has arisen and augmented, so like them it will decay and\nperish; that as violence, darkness, and deceit, not reasoning and\npersuasion, have procured its admission among mankind, so, when\nenthusiasm has subsided, and time, that infallible controverter of false\nopinions, has involved its pretended evidences in the darkness of\nantiquity, it will become obsolete; that Milton’s poem alone will give\npermanency to the remembrance of its absurdities; and that men will\nlaugh as heartily at grace, faith, redemption, and original sin, as they\nnow do at the metamorphoses of Jupiter, the miracles of Romish saints,\nthe efficacy of witchcraft, and the appearance of departed spirits.\n\nHad the Christian religion commenced and continued by the mere force of\nreasoning and persuasion, the preceding analogy would be inadmissible.\nWe should never speculate on the future obsoleteness of a system\nperfectly conformable to nature and reason: it would endure so long as\nthey endured; it would be a truth as indisputable as the light of the\nsun, the criminality of murder, and other facts, whose evidence,\ndepending on our organization and relative situations, must remain\nacknowledged as satisfactory so long as man is man. It is an\nincontrovertible fact, the consideration of which ought to repress the\nhasty conclusions of credulity, or moderate its obstinacy in maintaining\nthem, that, had the Jews not been a fanatical race of men, had even the\nresolution of Pontius Pilate been equal to his candour, the Christian\nreligion never could have prevailed, it could not even have existed: on\nso feeble a thread hangs the most cherished opinion of a sixth of the\nhuman race! When will the vulgar learn humility? When will the pride of\nignorance blush at having believed before it could comprehend?\n\nEither the Christian religion is true, or it is false: if true, it comes\nfrom God, and its authenticity can admit of doubt and dispute no further\nthan its omnipotent author is willing to allow. Either the power or the\ngoodness of God is called in question, if He leaves those doctrines most\nessential to the well-being of man in doubt and dispute; the only ones\nwhich, since their promulgation, have been the subject of unceasing\ncavil, the cause of irreconcilable hatred. IF GOD HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE\nUNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED?\n\nThere is this passage in the Christian Scriptures: ‘Those who obey not\nGod, and believe not the Gospel of his Son, shall be punished with\neverlasting destruction.’ This is the pivot upon which all religions\nturn:—they all assume that it is in our power to believe or not to\nbelieve; whereas the mind can only believe that which it thinks true. A\nhuman being can only be supposed accountable for those actions which are\ninfluenced by his will. But belief is utterly distinct from and\nunconnected with volition: it is the apprehension of the agreement or\ndisagreement of the ideas that compose any preposition. Belief is a\npassion, or involuntary operation of the mind, and, like other passions,\nits intensity is precisely proportionate to the degrees of excitement.\nVolition is essential to merit or demerit. But the Christian religion\nattaches the highest possible degrees of merit and demerit to that which\nis worthy of neither, and which is totally unconnected with the peculiar\nfaculty of the mind, whose presence is essential to their being.\n\nChristianity was intended to reform the world: had an all-wise Being\nplanned it, nothing is more improbable than that it should have failed:\nomniscience would infallibly have foreseen the inutility of a scheme\nwhich experience demonstrates, to this age, to have been utterly\nunsuccessful.\n\nChristianity inculcates the necessity of supplicating the Deity. Prayer\nmay be considered under two points of view;—as an endeavour to change\nthe intentions of God, or as a formal testimony of our obedience. But\nthe former case supposes that the caprices of a limited intelligence can\noccasionally instruct the Creator of the world how to regulate the\nuniverse; and the latter, a certain degree of servility analogous to the\nloyalty demanded by earthly tyrants. Obedience indeed is only the\npitiful and cowardly egotism of him who thinks that he can do something\nbetter than reason.\n\nChristianity, like all other religions, rests upon miracles, prophecies,\nand martyrdoms. No religion ever existed which had not its prophets, its\nattested miracles, and, above all, crowds of devotees who would bear\npatiently the most horrible tortures to prove its authenticity. It\nshould appear that in no case can a discriminating mind subscribe to the\ngenuineness of a miracle. A miracle is an infraction of nature’s law, by\na supernatural cause; by a cause acting beyond that eternal circle\nwithin which all things are included. God breaks through the law of\nnature, that He may convince mankind of the truth of that revelation\nwhich, in spite of His precautions, has been, since its introduction,\nthe subject of unceasing schism and cavil.\n\nMiracles resolve themselves into the following question (See Hume’s\nEssay, volume 2 page 121.):—Whether it is more probable the laws of\nnature, hitherto so immutably harmonious, should have undergone\nviolation, or that a man should have told a lie? Whether it is more\nprobable that we are ignorant of the natural cause of an event, or that\nwe know the supernatural one? That, in old times, when the powers of\nnature were less known than at present, a certain set of men were\nthemselves deceived, or had some hidden motive for deceiving others; or\nthat God begat a Son, who, in His legislation, measuring merit by\nbelief, evidenced Himself to be totally ignorant of the powers of the\nhuman mind—of what is voluntary, and what is the contrary?\n\nWe have many instances of men telling lies;—none of an infraction of\nnature’s laws, those laws of whose government alone we have any\nknowledge or experience. The records of all nations afford innumerable\ninstances of men deceiving others either from vanity or interest, or\nthemselves being deceived by the limitedness of their views and their\nignorance of natural causes: but where is the accredited case of God\nhaving come upon earth, to give the lie to His own creations? There\nwould be something truly wonderful in the appearance of a ghost; but the\nassertion of a child that he saw one as he passed through the churchyard\nis universally admitted to be less miraculous.\n\nBut even supposing that a man should raise a dead body to life before\nour eyes, and on this fact rest his claim to being considered the son of\nGod;—the Humane Society restores drowned persons, and because it makes\nno mystery of the method it employs, its members are not mistaken for\nthe sons of God. All that we have a right to infer from our ignorance of\nthe cause of any event is that we do not know it: had the Mexicans\nattended to this simple rule when they heard the cannon of the\nSpaniards, they would not have considered them as gods: the experiments\nof modern chemistry would have defied the wisest philosophers of ancient\nGreece and Rome to have accounted for them on natural principles. An\nauthor of strong common sense has observed that ‘a miracle is no miracle\nat second-hand’; he might have added that a miracle is no miracle in any\ncase; for until we are acquainted with all natural causes, we have no\nreason to imagine others.\n\nThere remains to be considered another proof of Christianity—Prophecy.\nA book is written before a certain event, in which this event is\nforetold; how could the prophet have foreknown it without inspiration?\nhow could he have been inspired without God? The greatest stress is laid\non the prophecies of Moses and Hosea on the dispersion of the Jews, and\nthat of Isaiah concerning the coming of the Messiah. The prophecy of\nMoses is a collection of every possible cursing and blessing; and it is\nso far from being marvellous that the one of dispersion should have been\nfulfilled, that it would have been more surprising if, out of all these,\nnone should have taken effect. In Deuteronomy, chapter 28, verse 64,\nwhere Moses explicitly foretells the dispersion, he states that they\nshall there serve gods of wood and stone: ‘And the Lord shall scatter\nthee among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other;\nAND THERE THOU SHALT SERVE OTHER GODS, WHICH NEITHER THOU NOR THY\nFATHERS HAVE KNOWN, EVEN GODS OF WOOD AND STONE.’ The Jews are at this\nday remarkably tenacious of their religion. Moses also declares that\nthey shall be subjected to these curses for disobedience to his ritual:\n‘And it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of\nthe Lord thy God, to observe to do all the commandments and statutes\nwhich I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon\nthee, and overtake thee.’ Is this the real reason? The third, fourth,\nand fifth chapters of Hosea are a piece of immodest confession. The\nindelicate type might apply in a hundred senses to a hundred things. The\nfifty-third chapter of Isaiah is more explicit, yet it does not exceed\nin clearness the oracles of Delphos. The historical proof that Moses,\nIsaiah, and Hosea did write when they are said to have written is far\nfrom being clear and circumstantial.\n\nBut prophecy requires proof in its character as a miracle; we have no\nright to suppose that a man foreknew future events from God, until it is\ndemonstrated that he neither could know them by his own exertions, nor\nthat the writings which contain the prediction could possibly have been\nfabricated after the event pretended to be foretold. It is more probable\nthat writings, pretending to divine inspiration, should have been\nfabricated after the fulfilment of their pretended prediction than that\nthey should have really been divinely inspired, when we consider that\nthe latter supposition makes God at once the creator of the human mind\nand ignorant of its primary powers, particularly as we have numberless\ninstances of false religions, and forged prophecies of things long past,\nand no accredited case of God having conversed with men directly or\nindirectly. It is also possible that the description of an event might\nhave foregone its occurrence; but this is far from being a legitimate\nproof of a divine revelation, as many men, not pretending to the\ncharacter of a prophet, have nevertheless, in this sense, prophesied.\n\nLord Chesterfield was never yet taken for a prophet, even by a bishop,\nyet he uttered this remarkable prediction: ‘The despotic government of\nFrance is screwed up to the highest pitch; a revolution is fast\napproaching; that revolution, I am convinced, will be radical and\nsanguinary.’ This appeared in the letters of the prophet long before the\naccomplishment of this wonderful prediction. Now, have these particulars\ncome to pass, or have they not? If they have, how could the Earl have\nforeknown them without inspiration? If we admit the truth of the\nChristian religion on testimony such as this, we must admit, on the same\nstrength of evidence, that God has affixed the highest rewards to\nbelief, and the eternal tortures of the never-dying worm to disbelief,\nboth of which have been demonstrated to be involuntary.\n\nThe last proof of the Christian religion depends on the influence of the\nHoly Ghost. Theologians divide the influence of the Holy Ghost into its\nordinary and extraordinary modes of operation. The latter is supposed to\nbe that which inspired the Prophets and Apostles; and the former to be\nthe grace of God, which summarily makes known the truth of His\nrevelation to those whose mind is fitted for its reception by a\nsubmissive perusal of His word. Persons convinced in this manner can do\nanything but account for their conviction, describe the time at which it\nhappened, or the manner in which it came upon them. It is supposed to\nenter the mind by other channels than those of the senses, and therefore\nprofesses to be superior to reason founded on their experience.\n\nAdmitting, however, the usefulness or possibility of a divine\nrevelation, unless we demolish the foundations of all human knowledge,\nit is requisite that our reason should previously demonstrate its\ngenuineness; for, before we extinguish the steady ray of reason and\ncommon sense, it is fit that we should discover whether we cannot do\nwithout their assistance, whether or no there be any other which may\nsuffice to guide us through the labyrinth of life (See Locke’s “Essay on\nthe Human Understanding”, book 4 chapter 19, on Enthusiasm.): for, if a\nman is to be inspired upon all occasions, if he is to be sure of a thing\nbecause he is sure, if the ordinary operations of the Spirit are not to\nbe considered very extraordinary modes of demonstration, if enthusiasm\nis to usurp the place of proof, and madness that of sanity, all\nreasoning is superfluous. The Mahometan dies fighting for his prophet,\nthe Indian immolates himself at the chariot-wheels of Brahma, the\nHottentot worships an insect, the Negro a bunch of feathers, the Mexican\nsacrifices human victims! Their degree of conviction must certainly be\nvery strong: it cannot arise from reasoning, it must from feelings, the\nreward of their prayers. If each of these should affirm, in opposition\nto the strongest possible arguments, that inspiration carried internal\nevidence, I fear their inspired brethren, the orthodox missionaries,\nwould be so uncharitable as to pronounce them obstinate.\n\nMiracles cannot be received as testimonies of a disputed fact, because\nall human testimony has ever been insufficient to establish the\npossibility of miracles. That which is incapable of proof itself is no\nproof of anything else. Prophecy has also been rejected by the test of\nreason. Those, then, who have been actually inspired are the only true\nbelievers in the Christian religion.\n\nMox numine viso\nVirgineei tumuere sinus, innuptaque mater\nArcano stupuit compleri viscera partu,\nAuctorem paritura suum. Mortalia corda\nArtificem texere poli, latuitque sub uno\nPectore, qui totum late complectitur orbem.—Claudian, “Carmen Paschale”.\n\nDoes not so monstrous and disgusting an absurdity carry its own infamy\nand refutation with itself?\n\n8. 203-207:—\n\nHim, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing\nWhich from the exhaustless lore of human weal\nDraws on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise\nIn time-destroying infiniteness, gift\nWith self-enshrined eternity, etc.\n\nTime is our consciousness of the succession of ideas in our mind. Vivid\nsensation, of either pain or pleasure, makes the time seem long, as the\ncommon phrase is, because it renders us more acutely conscious of our\nideas. If a mind be conscious of an hundred ideas during one minute, by\nthe clock, and of two hundred during another, the latter of these spaces\nwould actually occupy so much greater extent in the mind as two exceed\none in quantity. If, therefore, the human mind, by any future\nimprovement of its sensibility, should become conscious of an infinite\nnumber of ideas in a minute, that minute would be eternity. I do not\nhence infer that the actual space between the birth and death of a man\nwill ever be prolonged; but that his sensibility is perfectible, and\nthat the number of ideas which his mind is capable of receiving is\nindefinite. One man is stretched on the rack during twelve hours;\nanother sleeps soundly in his bed: the difference of time perceived by\nthese two persons is immense; one hardly will believe that half an hour\nhas elapsed, the other could credit that centuries had flown during his\nagony. Thus, the life of a man of virtue and talent, who should die in\nhis thirtieth year, is, with regard to his own feelings, longer than\nthat of a miserable priest-ridden slave, who dreams out a century of\ndulness. The one has perpetually cultivated his mental faculties, has\nrendered himself master of his thoughts, can abstract and generalize\namid the lethargy of every-day business;—the other can slumber over the\nbrightest moments of his being, and is unable to remember the happiest\nhour of his life. Perhaps the perishing ephemeron enjoys a longer life\nthan the tortoise.\n\nDark flood of time!\nRoll as it listeth thee—I measure not\nBy months or moments thy ambiguous course.\nAnother may stand by me on the brink\nAnd watch the bubble whirled beyond his ken\nThat pauses at my feet. The sense of love,\nThe thirst for action, and the impassioned thought\nProlong my being: if I wake no more,\nMy life more actual living will contain\nThan some gray veteran’s of the world’s cold school,\nWhose listless hours unprofitably roll,\nBy one enthusiast feeling unredeemed.—\n\nSee Godwin’s “Pol. Jus.” volume 1, page 411; and Condorcet, “Esquisse\nd’un Tableau Historique des Progres de l’Esprit Humain”, epoque 9.\n\n8. 211, 212:—\n\nNo longer now\nHe slays the lamb that looks him in the face.\n\nI hold that the depravity of the physical and moral nature of man\noriginated in his unnatural habits of life. The origin of man, like that\nof the universe of which he is a part, is enveloped in impenetrable\nmystery. His generations either had a beginning, or they had not. The\nweight of evidence in favour of each of these suppositions seems\ntolerably equal; and it is perfectly unimportant to the present argument\nwhich is assumed. The language spoken, however, by the mythology of\nnearly all religions seems to prove that at some distant period man\nforsook the path of nature, and sacrificed the purity and happiness of\nhis being to unnatural appetites. The date of this event seems to have\nalso been that of some great change in the climates of the earth, with\nwhich it has an obvious correspondence. The allegory of Adam and Eve\neating of the tree of evil, and entailing upon their posterity the wrath\nof God and the loss of everlasting life, admits of no other explanation\nthan the disease and crime that have flowed from unnatural diet. Milton\nwas so well aware of this that he makes Raphael thus exhibit to Adam the\nconsequence of his disobedience:—\n\nImmediately a place\nBefore his eyes appeared, sad, noisome, dark;\nA lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid\nNumbers of all diseased—all maladies\nOf ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms\nOf heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,\nConvulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,\nIntestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs,\nDemoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,\nAnd moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,\nMarasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,\nDropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.\n\nAnd how many thousands more might not be added to this frightful catalogue!\n\nThe story of Prometheus is one likewise which, although universally\nadmitted to be allegorical, has never been satisfactorily explained.\nPrometheus stole fire from heaven, and was chained for this crime to\nMount Caucasus, where a vulture continually devoured his liver, that\ngrew to meet its hunger. Hesiod says that, before the time of\nPrometheus, mankind were exempt from suffering; that they enjoyed a\nvigorous youth, and that death, when at length it came, approached like\nsleep, and gently closed their eyes. Again, so general was this opinion\nthat Horace, a poet of the Augustan age, writes:—\n\nAudax omnia perpeti,\nGens humana ruit per vetitum nefas;\nAudax Iapeti genus\nIgnem fraude mala gentibus intulit:\nPost ignem aetheria domo\nSubductum, macies et nova febrium\nTerris incubuit cohors,\nSemotique prius tarda necessitas\nLethi corripuit gradum.\n\nHow plain a language is spoken by all this! Prometheus (who represents\nthe human race) effected some great change in the condition of his\nnature, and applied fire to culinary purposes; thus inventing an\nexpedient for screening from his disgust the horrors of the shambles.\nFrom this moment his vitals were devoured by the vulture of disease. It\nconsumed his being in every shape of its loathsome and infinite variety,\ninducing the soul-quelling sinkings of premature and violent death. All\nvice rose from the ruin of healthful innocence. Tyranny, superstition,\ncommerce, and inequality were then first known, when reason vainly\nattempted to guide the wanderings of exacerbated passion. I conclude\nthis part of the subject with an extract from Mr. Newton’s “Defence of\nVegetable Regimen”, from whom I have borrowed this interpretation of the\nfable of Prometheus.\n\n‘Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory\nas time might produce after the important truths were forgotten, which\nthis portion of the ancient mythology was intended to transmit, the\ndrift of the fable seems to be this:—Man at his creation was endowed\nwith the gift of perpetual youth; that is, he was not formed to be a\nsickly suffering creature as we now see him, but to enjoy health, and to\nsink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth without disease\nor pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food (primus bovem\noccidit Prometheus (Plin. “Nat. Hist”. lib. 7 sect. 57.)) and of fire,\nwith which to render it more digestible and pleasing to the taste.\nJupiter, and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the consequences of these\ninventions, were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices of the\nnewly-formed creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of\nthem. Thirst, the necessary concomitant of a flesh diet’ (perhaps of all\ndiet vitiated by culinary preparation), ‘ensued; water was resorted to,\nand man forfeited the inestimable gift of health which he had received\nfrom heaven: he became diseased, the partaker of a precarious existence,\nand no longer descended slowly to his grave. (“Return to Nature”.\nCadell, 1811.)\n\nBut just disease to luxury succeeds,\nAnd every death its own avenger breeds;\nThe fury passions from that blood began,\nAnd turned on man a fiercer savage—man.\n\nMan, and the animals whom he has infected with his society, or depraved\nby his dominion, are alone diseased. The wild hog, the mouflon, the\nbison, and the wolf; are perfectly exempt from malady, and invariably\ndie either from external violence or natural old age. But the domestic\nhog, the sheep, the cow, and the dog, are subject to an incredible\nvariety of distempers; and, like the corruptors of their nature, have\nphysicians who thrive upon their miseries. The supereminence of man is\nlike Satan’s, a supereminence of pain; and the majority of his species,\ndoomed to penury, disease, and crime, have reason to curse the untoward\nevent that, by enabling him to communicate his sensations, raised him\nabove the level of his fellow-animals. But the steps that have been\ntaken are irrevocable. The whole of human science is comprised in one\nquestion:—How can the advantages of intellect and civilization be\nreconciled with the liberty and pure pleasures of natural life? How can\nwe take the benefits and reject the evils of the system, which is now\ninterwoven with all the fibres of our being?—I believe that abstinence\nfrom animal food and spirituous liquors would in a great measure\ncapacitate us for the solution of this important question.\n\nIt is true that mental and bodily derangement is attributable in part to\nother deviations from rectitude and nature than those which concern\ndiet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting the connection of the\nsexes, whence the misery and diseases of unsatisfied celibacy,\nunenjoying prostitution, and the premature arrival of puberty,\nnecessarily spring; the putrid atmosphere of crowded cities; the\nexhalations of chemical processes; the muffling of our bodies in\nsuperfluous apparel; the absurd treatment of infants:—all these and\ninnumerable other causes contribute their mite to the mass of human\nevil.\n\nComparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles frugivorous animals in\neverything, and carnivorous in nothing; he has neither claws wherewith\nto seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the living\nfibre. A Mandarin of the first class, with nails two inches long, would\nprobably find them alone inefficient to hold even a hare. After every\nsubterfuge of gluttony, the bull must be degraded into the ox, and the\nram into the wether, by an unnatural and inhuman operation, that the\nflaccid fibre may offer a fainter resistance to rebellious nature. It is\nonly by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that\nit is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion; and that the\nsight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable\nloathing and disgust. Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a\ndecisive experiment on its fitness, and, as Plutarch recommends, tear a\nliving lamb with his teeth, and plunging his head into its vitals slake\nhis thirst with the steaming blood; when fresh from the deed of horror,\nlet him revert to the irresistible instincts of nature that would rise\nin judgement against it, and say, ‘Nature formed me for such work as\nthis.’ Then, and then only, would he be consistent.\n\nMan resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless man\nbe one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated colons.\n\nThe orang-outang perfectly resembles man both in the order and number of\nhis teeth. The orang-outang is the most anthropomorphous of the ape\ntribe, all of which are strictly frugivorous. There is no other species\nof animals, which live on different food, in which this analogy exists.\n(Cuvier, “Lecons d’Anat. Comp”. tom. 3, pages 169, 373, 448, 465, 480.\nRees’s “Cyclopaedia”, article Man.) In many frugivorous animals, the\ncanine teeth are more pointed and distinct than those of man. The\nresemblance also of the human stomach to that of the orang-outang is\ngreater than to that of any other animal.\n\nThe intestines are also identical with those of herbivorous animals,\nwhich present a larger surface for absorption and have ample and\ncellulated colons. The caecum also, though short, is larger than that of\ncarnivorous animals; and even here the orang-outang retains its\naccustomed similarity.\n\nThe structure of the human frame, then, is that of one fitted to a pure\nvegetable diet, in every essential particular. It is true that the\nreluctance to abstain from animal food, in those who have been long\naccustomed to its stimulus, is so great in some persons of weak minds as\nto be scarcely overcome; but this is far from bringing any argument in\nits favour. A lamb, which was fed for some time on flesh by a ship’s\ncrew, refused its natural diet at the end of the voyage. There are\nnumerous instances of horses, sheep, oxen, and even wood-pigeons, having\nbeen taught to live upon flesh, until they have loathed their natural\naliment. Young children evidently prefer pastry, oranges, apples, and\nother fruit, to the flesh of animals; until, by the gradual depravation\nof the digestive organs, the free use of vegetables has for a time\nproduced serious inconveniences; FOR A TIME, I say, since there never\nwas an instance wherein a change from spirituous liquors and animal food\nto vegetables and pure water has failed ultimately to invigorate the\nbody, by rendering its juices bland and consentaneous, and to restore to\nthe mind that cheerfulness and elasticity which not one in fifty\npossesses on the present system. A love of strong liquors is also with\ndifficulty taught to infants. Almost every one remembers the wry faces\nwhich the first glass of port produced. Unsophisticated instinct is\ninvariably unerring; but to decide on the fitness of animal food from\nthe perverted appetites which its constrained adoption produces; is to\nmake the criminal a judge in his own cause: it is even worse, it is\nappealing to the infatuated drunkard in a question of the salubrity of\nbrandy.\n\nWhat is the cause of morbid action in the animal system? Not the air we\nbreathe, for our fellow-denizens of nature breathe the same uninjured;\nnot the water we drink (if remote from the pollutions of man and his\ninventions (The necessity of resorting to some means of purifying water,\nand the disease which arises from its adulteration in civilized\ncountries, is sufficiently apparent. See Dr. Lambe’s “Reports on\nCancer”. I do not assert that the use of water is in itself unnatural,\nbut that the unperverted palate would swallow no liquid capable of\noccasioning disease.)), for the animals drink it too; not the earth we\ntread upon; not the unobscured sight of glorious nature, in the wood,\nthe field, or the expanse of sky and ocean; nothing that we are or do in\ncommon with the undiseased inhabitants of the forest. Something, then,\nwherein we differ from them: our habit of altering our food by fire, so\nthat our appetite is no longer a just criterion for the fitness of its\ngratification. Except in children, there remain no traces of that\ninstinct which determines, in all other animals, what aliment is natural\nor otherwise; and so perfectly obliterated are they in the reasoning\nadults of our species, that it has become necessary to urge\nconsiderations drawn from comparative anatomy to prove that we are\nnaturally frugivorous.\n\nCrime is madness. Madness is disease. Whenever the cause of disease\nshall be discovered, the root, from which all vice and misery have so\nlong overshadowed the globe, will lie bare to the axe. All the exertions\nof man, from that moment, may be considered as tending to the clear\nprofit of his species. No sane mind in a sane body resolves upon a real\ncrime. It is a man of violent passions, bloodshot eyes, and swollen\nveins, that alone can grasp the knife of murder. The system of a simple\ndiet promises no Utopian advantages. It is no mere reform of\nlegislation, whilst the furious passions and evil propensities of the\nhuman heart, in which it had its origin, are still unassuaged. It\nstrikes at the root of all evil, and is an experiment which may be tried\nwith success, not alone by nations, but by small societies, families,\nand even individuals. In no cases has a return to vegetable diet\nproduced the slightest injury; in most it has been attended with changes\nundeniably beneficial. Should ever a physician be born with the genius\nof Locke, I am persuaded that he might trace all bodily and mental\nderangements to our unnatural habits, as clearly as that philosopher has\ntraced all knowledge to sensation. What prolific sources of disease are\nnot those mineral and vegetable poisons that have been introduced for\nits extirpation! How many thousands have become murderers and robbers,\nbigots and domestic tyrants, dissolute and abandoned adventurers, from\nthe use of fermented liquors; who, had they slaked their thirst only\nwith pure water, would have lived but to diffuse the happiness of their\nown unperverted feelings! How many groundless opinions and absurd\ninstitutions have not received a general sanction from the sottishness\nand intemperance of individuals! Who will assert that, had the populace\nof Paris satisfied their hunger at the ever-furnished table of vegetable\nnature, they would have lent their brutal suffrage to the\nproscription-list of Robespierre? Could a set of men, whose passions\nwere not perverted by unnatural stimuli, look with coolness on an auto\nda fe? Is it to be believed that a being of gentle feelings, rising from\nhis meal of roots, would take delight in sports of blood? Was Nero a man\nof temperate life? could you read calm health in his cheek, flushed with\nungovernable propensities of hatred for the human race? Did Muley\nIsmael’s pulse beat evenly, was his skin transparent, did his eyes beam\nwith healthfulness, and its invariable concomitants, cheerfulness and\nbenignity? Though history has decided none of these questions, a child\ncould not hesitate to answer in the negative. Surely the bile-suffused\ncheek of Buonaparte, his wrinkled brow, and yellow eye, the ceaseless\ninquietude of his nervous system, speak no less plainly the character of\nhis unresting ambition than his murders and his victories. It is\nimpossible, had Buonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders,\nthat he could have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the\nthrone of the Bourbons. The desire of tyranny could scarcely be excited\nin the individual, the power to tyrannize would certainly not be\ndelegated by a society neither frenzied by inebriation nor rendered\nimpotent and irrational by disease. Pregnant indeed with inexhaustible\ncalamity is the renunciation of instinct, as it concerns our physical\nnature; arithmetic cannot enumerate, nor reason perhaps suspect, the\nmultitudinous sources of disease in civilized life. Even common water,\nthat apparently innoxious pabulum, when corrupted by the filth of\npopulous cities, is a deadly and insidious destroyer. (Lambe’s “Reports\non Cancer”.) Who can wonder that all the inducements held out by God\nHimself in the Bible to virtue should have been vainer than a nurse’s\ntale; and that those dogmas, by which He has there excited and justified\nthe most ferocious propensities, should have alone been deemed\nessential; whilst Christians are in the daily practice of all those\nhabits which have infected with disease and crime, not only the\nreprobate sons, but those favoured children of the common Father’s love?\nOmnipotence itself could not save them from the consequences of this\noriginal and universal sin.\n\nThere is no disease, bodily or mental, which adoption of vegetable diet\nand pure water has not infallibly mitigated, wherever the experiment has\nbeen fairly tried. Debility is gradually converted into strength;\ndisease into healthfulness; madness, in all its hideous variety, from\nthe ravings of the fettered maniac to the unaccountable irrationalities\nof ill-temper, that make a hell of domestic life, into a calm and\nconsiderate evenness of temper, that alone might offer a certain pledge\nof the future moral reformation of society. On a natural system of diet,\nold age would be our last and our only malady; the term of our existence\nwould be protracted; we should enjoy life, and no longer preclude others\nfrom the enjoyment of it; all sensational delights would be infinitely\nmore exquisite and perfect; the very sense of being would then be a\ncontinued pleasure, such as we now feel it in some few and favoured\nmoments of our youth. By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human\nrace, I conjure those who love happiness and truth to give a fair trial\nto the vegetable system. Reasoning is surely superfluous on a subject\nwhose merits an experience of six months would set for ever at rest. But\nit is only among the enlightened and benevolent that so great a\nsacrifice of appetite and prejudice can be expected, even though its\nultimate excellence should not admit of dispute. It is found easier, by\nthe short-sighted victims of disease, to palliate their torments by\nmedicine than to prevent them by regimen. The vulgar of all ranks are\ninvariably sensual and indocile; yet I cannot but feel myself persuaded\nthat when the benefits of vegetable diet are mathematically proved, when\nit is as clear that those who live naturally are exempt from premature\ndeath as that nine is not one, the most sottish of mankind will feel a\npreference towards a long and tranquil, contrasted with a short and\npainful, life. On the average, out of sixty persons four die in three\nyears. Hopes are entertained that, in April, 1814, a statement will be\ngiven that sixty persons, all having lived more than three years on\nvegetables and pure water, are then IN PERFECT HEALTH. More than two\nyears have now elapsed; NOT ONE OF THEM HAS DIED; no such example will\nbe found in any sixty persons taken at random. Seventeen persons of all\nages (the families of Dr. Lambe and Mr. Newton) have lived for seven\nyears on this diet without a death, and almost without the slightest\nillness. Surely, when we consider that some of those were infants, and\none a martyr to asthma now nearly subdued, we may challenge any\nseventeen persons taken at random in this city to exhibit a parallel\ncase. Those who may have been excited to question the rectitude of\nestablished habits of diet by these loose remarks, should consult Mr.\nNewton’s luminous and eloquent essay. (“Return to Nature, or Defence of\nVegetable Regimen”. Cadell, 1811.)\n\nWhen these proofs come fairly before the world, and are clearly seen by\nall who understand arithmetic, it is scarcely possible that abstinence\nfrom aliments demonstrably pernicious should not become universal. In\nproportion to the number of proselytes, so will be the weight of\nevidence; and when a thousand persons can be produced, living on\nvegetables and distilled water, who have to dread no disease but old\nage, the world will be compelled to regard animal flesh and fermented\nliquors as slow but certain poisons. The change which would be produced\nby simpler habits on political economy is sufficiently remarkable. The\nmonopolizing eater of animal flesh would no longer destroy his\nconstitution by devouring an acre at a meal, and many loaves of bread\nwould cease to contribute to gout, madness and apoplexy, in the shape of\na pint of porter, or a dram of gin, when appeasing the long-protracted\nfamine of the hardworking peasant’s hungry babes. The quantity of\nnutritious vegetable matter, consumed in fattening the carcase of an ox,\nwould afford ten times the sustenance, undepraving indeed, and incapable\nof generating disease, if gathered immediately from the bosom of the\nearth. The most fertile districts of the habitable globe are now\nactually cultivated by men for animals, at a delay and waste of aliment\nabsolutely incapable of calculation. It is only the wealthy that can, to\nany great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead\nflesh, and they pay for the greater licence of the privilege by\nsubjection to supernumerary diseases. Again, the spirit of the nation\nthat should take the lead in this great reform would insensibly become\nagricultural; commerce, with all its vice, selfishness, and corruption,\nwould gradually decline; more natural habits would produce gentler\nmanners, and the excessive complication of political relations would be\nso far simplified that every individual might feel and understand why he\nloved his country, and took a personal interest in its welfare. How\nwould England, for example, depend on the caprices of foreign rulers if\nshe contained within herself all the necessaries, and despised whatever\nthey possessed of the luxuries, of life? How could they starve her into\ncompliance with their views? Of what consequence would it be that they\nrefused to take her woollen manufactures, when large and fertile tracts\nof the island ceased to be allotted to the waste of pasturage? On a\nnatural system of diet we should require no spices from India; no wines\nfrom Portugal, Spain, France, or Madeira; none of those multitudinous\narticles of luxury, for which every corner of the globe is rifled, and\nwhich are the causes of so much individual rivalship, such calamitous\nand sanguinary national disputes. In the history of modern times, the\navarice of commercial monopoly, no less than the ambition of weak and\nwicked chiefs, seems to have fomented the universal discord, to have\nadded stubbornness to the mistakes of cabinets, and indocility to the\ninfatuation of the people. Let it ever be remembered that it is the\ndirect influence of commerce to make the interval between the richest\nand the poorest man wider and more unconquerable. Let it be remembered\nthat it is a foe to everything of real worth and excellence in the human\ncharacter. The odious and disgusting aristocracy of wealth is built upon\nthe ruins of all that is good in chivalry or republicanism; and luxury\nis the forerunner of a barbarism scarce capable of cure. Is it\nimpossible to realize a state of society, where all the energies of man\nshall be directed to the production of his solid happiness? Certainly,\nif this advantage (the object of all political speculation) be in any\ndegree attainable, it is attainable only by a community which holds out\nno factitious incentives to the avarice and ambition of the few, and\nwhich is internally organized for the liberty, security, and comfort of\nthe many. None must be entrusted with power (and money is the completest\nspecies of power) who do not stand pledged to use it exclusively for the\ngeneral benefit. But the use of animal flesh and fermented liquors\ndirectly militates with this equality of the rights of man. The peasant\ncannot gratify these fashionable cravings without leaving his family to\nstarve. Without disease and war, those sweeping curtailers of\npopulation, pasturage would include a waste too great to be afforded.\nThe labour requisite to support a family is far lighter’ than is usually\nsupposed. (It has come under the author’s experience that some of the\nworkmen on an embankment in North Wales, who, in consequence of the\ninability of the proprietor to pay them, seldom received their wages,\nhave supported large families by cultivating small spots of sterile\nground by moonlight. In the notes to Pratt’s poem, “Bread, or the Poor”,\nis an account of an industrious labourer who, by working in a small\ngarden, before and after his day’s task, attained to an enviable state\nof independence.) The peasantry work, not only for themselves, but for\nthe aristocracy, the army, and the manufacturers.\n\nThe advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that of any\nother. It strikes at the root of the evil. To remedy the abuses of\nlegislation, before we annihilate the propensities by which they are\nproduced, is to suppose that by taking away the effect the cause will\ncease to operate. But the efficacy of this system depends entirely on\nthe proselytism of individuals, and grounds its merits, as a benefit to\nthe community, upon the total change of the dietetic habits in its\nmembers. It proceeds securely from a number of particular cases to one\nthat is universal, and has this advantage over the contrary mode, that\none error does not invalidate all that has gone before.\n\nLet not too much, however, be expected from this system. The healthiest\namong us is not exempt from hereditary disease. The most symmetrical,\nathletic, and longlived is a being inexpressibly inferior to what he\nwould have been, had not the unnatural habits of his ancestors\naccumulated for him a certain portion of malady and deformity. In the\nmost perfect specimen of civilized man, something is still found wanting\nby the physiological critic. Can a return to nature, then,\ninstantaneously eradicate predispositions that have been slowly taking\nroot in the silence of innumerable ages?—Indubitably not. All that I\ncontend for is, that from the moment of the relinquishing all unnatural\nhabits no new disease is generated; and that the predisposition to\nhereditary maladies gradually perishes, for want of its accustomed\nsupply. In cases of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula,\nsuch is the invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water.\n\nThose who may be induced by these remarks to give the vegetable system a\nfair trial, should, in the first place, date the commencement of their\npractice from the moment of their conviction. All depends upon breaking\nthrough a pernicious habit resolutely and at once. Dr. Trotter asserts\nthat no drunkard was ever reformed by gradually relinquishing his dram.\n(See Trotter on the Nervous Temperament.) Animal flesh, in its effects\non the human stomach, is analogous to a dram. It is similar in the kind,\nthough differing in the degree, of its operation. The proselyte to a\npure diet must be warned to expect a temporary diminution of muscular\nstrength. The subtraction of a powerful stimulus will suffice to account\nfor this event. But it is only temporary, and is succeeded by an equable\ncapability for exertion, far surpassing his former various and\nfluctuating strength. Above all, he will acquire an easiness of\nbreathing, by which such exertion is performed, with a remarkable\nexemption from that painful and difficult panting now felt by almost\nevery one after hastily climbing an ordinary mountain. He will be\nequally capable of bodily exertion, or mental application, after as\nbefore his simple meal. He will feel none of the narcotic effects of\nordinary diet. Irritability, the direct consequence of exhausting\nstimuli, would yield to the power of natural and tranquil impulses. He\nwill no longer pine under the lethargy of ennui, that unconquerable\nweariness of life, more to be dreaded than death itself. He will escape\nthe epidemic madness, which broods over its own injurious notions of the\nDeity, and ‘realizes the hell that priests and beldams feign.’ Every man\nforms, as it were, his god from his own character; to the divinity of\none of simple habits no offering would be more acceptable than the\nhappiness of his creatures. He would be incapable of hating or\npersecuting others for the love of God. He will find, moreover, a system\nof simple diet to be a system of perfect epicurism. He will no longer be\nincessantly occupied in blunting and destroying those organs from which\nhe expects his gratification. The pleasures of taste to be derived from\na dinner of potatoes, beans, peas, turnips, lettuces, with a dessert of\napples, gooseberries, strawberries, currants, raspberries, and in\nwinter, oranges, apples and pears, is far greater than is supposed.\nThese who wait until they can eat this plain fare with the sauce of\nappetite will scarcely join with the hypocritical sensualist at a\nlord-mayor’s feast, who declaims against the pleasures of the table.\nSolomon kept a thousand concubines, and owned in despair that all was\nvanity. The man whose happiness is constituted by the society of one\namiable woman would find some difficulty in sympathizing with the\ndisappointment of this venerable debauchee.\n\nI address myself not only to the young enthusiast, the ardent devotee of\ntruth and virtue, the pure and passionate moralist, yet unvitiated by\nthe contagion of the world. He will embrace a pure system, from its\nabstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity, and its promise of\nwide-extended benefit; unless custom has turned poison into food, he\nwill hate the brutal pleasures of the chase by instinct; it will be a\ncontemplation full of horror, and disappointment to his mind, that\nbeings capable of the gentlest and most admirable sympathies should take\ndelight in the death-pangs and last convulsions of dying animals. The\nelderly man, whose youth has been poisoned by intemperance, or who has\nlived with apparent moderation, and is afflicted with a wide variety of\npainful maladies, would find his account in a beneficial change produced\nwithout the risk of poisonous medicines. The mother, to whom the\nperpetual restlessness of disease and unaccountable deaths incident to\nher children are the causes of incurable unhappiness, would on this diet\nexperience the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual healths and\nnatural playfulness. (See Mr. Newton’s book. His children are the most\nbeautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to conceive; the girls\nare perfect models for a sculptor; their dispositions are also the most\ngentle and conciliating; the judicious treatment, which they experience\nin other points, may be a correlative cause of this. In the first five\nyears of their life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500 die of\nvarious diseases; and how many more of those that survive are not\nrendered miserable by maladies not immediately mortal? The quality and\nquantity of a woman’s milk are materially injured by the use of dead\nflesh. In an island near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got, the\nchildren invariably die of tetanus before they are three weeks old, and\nthe population is supplied from the mainland.—Sir G. Mackenzie’s\n“History of Iceland”. See also “Emile”, chapter 1, pages 53, 54, 56.)\nThe most valuable lives are daily destroyed by diseases that it is\ndangerous to palliate and impossible to cure by medicine. How much\nlonger will man continue to pimp for the gluttony of Death, his most\ninsidious, implacable, and eternal foe?\n\nAlla drakontas agrious kaleite kai pardaleis kai leontas, autoi de\nmiaiphoneite eis omoteta katalipontes ekeinois ouden ekeinois men gar o\nphonos trophe, umin de opson estin...“Oti gar ouk estin anthropo kata\nphusin to sarkophagein, proton men apo ton somaton deloutai tes\nkataskeues. Oudeni gar eoike to anthropou soma ton epi sarkophagia\ngegonoton, ou grupotes cheilous, ouk ozutes onuchos, ou traxutes odontos\nprosestin, ou koilias eutonia kai pneumatos thermotes, trepsai kai\nkatergasasthai dunate to baru kai kreodes all autothen e phusis te\nleioteti ton odonton kai te smikroteti tou stomatos kai te malakoteti\ntes glosses kai te pros pepsin ambluteti tou pneumatos, exomnutai ten\nsarkophagian. Ei de legeis pephukenai seauton epi toiauten edoden, o\nboulei phagein proton autos apokteinon, all autos dia seauton, me\nchesamenos kopidi mede tumpano tini mede pelekei alla, os lukoi kai\narktoi kai leontes autoi osa esthiousi phoneuousin, anele degmati boun e\nstomati sun, e apna e lagoon diarrexon kai phage prospeson eti zontos,\nos ekeina...Emeis d’ outos en to miaiphono truphomen, ost ochon to kreas\nprosagoreuomen, eit ochon pros auto to kreas deometha, anamignuntes\nelaion oinon meli garon oxos edusmasi Suriakois Arabikois, oster ontos\nnekron entaphiazontes. Kai gar outos auton dialuthenton kai\nmelachthenton kai tropon tina prosapenton ergon esti ten pechin\nkratesai, kai diakratepheises de deinas barutetas empoiei kai nosodeis\napechias...Outo to proton agprion ti zoon ebrothe kai kakourgon, eit\nornis tis e ichthus eilkusto kai geusamenon outo kai promeletesan en\nekeinois to thonikon epi boun ergaten elthe kai to kosmion probaton kai\nton oikouron alektruona kai kata mikron outo ten aplestian stomosantes\nepi sphagas anthropon kai polemous kai phonous proelthon.—Plout. peri\ntes Sarkophagias.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note On Queen Mab, By Mrs. Shelley.", + "body": "Shelley was eighteen when he wrote “Queen Mab”; he never published it.\nWhen it was written, he had come to the decision that he was too young\nto be a ‘judge of controversies’; and he was desirous of acquiring ‘that\nsobriety of spirit which is the characteristic of true heroism.’ But he\nnever doubted the truth or utility of his opinions; and, in printing and\nprivately distributing “Queen Mab”, he believed that he should further\ntheir dissemination, without occasioning the mischief either to others\nor himself that might arise from publication. It is doubtful whether he\nwould himself have admitted it into a collection of his works. His\nsevere classical taste, refined by the constant study of the Greek\npoets, might have discovered defects that escape the ordinary reader;\nand the change his opinions underwent in many points would have\nprevented him from putting forth the speculations of his boyish days.\nBut the poem is too beautiful in itself, and far too remarkable as the\nproduction of a boy of eighteen, to allow of its being passed over:\nbesides that, having been frequently reprinted, the omission would be\nvain. In the former edition certain portions were left out, as shocking\nthe general reader from the violence of their attack on religion. I\nmyself had a painful feeling that such erasures might be looked upon as\na mark of disrespect towards the author, and am glad to have the\nopportunity of restoring them. The notes also are reprinted entire—not\nbecause they are models of reasoning or lessons of truth, but because\nShelley wrote them, and that all that a man at once so distinguished and\nso excellent ever did deserves to be preserved. The alterations his\nopinions underwent ought to be recorded, for they form his history.\n\nA series of articles was published in the “New Monthly Magazine” during\nthe autumn of the year 1832, written by a man of great talent, a\nfellow-collegian and warm friend of Shelley: they describe admirably the\nstate of his mind during his collegiate life. Inspired with ardour for\nthe acquisition of knowledge, endowed with the keenest sensibility and\nwith the fortitude of a martyr, Shelley came among his fellow-creatures,\ncongregated for the purposes of education, like a spirit from another\nsphere; too delicately organized for the rough treatment man uses\ntowards man, especially in the season of youth, and too resolute in\ncarrying out his own sense of good and justice, not to become a victim.\nTo a devoted attachment to those he loved he added a determined\nresistance to oppression. Refusing to fag at Eton, he was treated with\nrevolting cruelty by masters and boys: this roused instead of taming his\nspirit, and he rejected the duty of obedience when it was enforced by\nmenaces and punishment. To aversion to the society of his\nfellow-creatures, such as he found them when collected together in\nsocieties, where one egged on the other to acts of tyranny, was joined\nthe deepest sympathy and compassion; while the attachment he felt for\nindividuals, and the admiration with which he regarded their powers and\ntheir virtues, led him to entertain a high opinion of the perfectibility\nof human nature; and he believed that all could reach the highest grade\nof moral improvement, did not the customs and prejudices of society\nfoster evil passions and excuse evil actions.\n\nThe oppression which, trembling at every nerve yet resolute to heroism,\nit was his ill-fortune to encounter at school and at college, led him to\ndissent in all things from those whose arguments were blows, whose faith\nappeared to engender blame and hatred. ‘During my existence,’ he wrote\nto a friend in 1812, ‘I have incessantly speculated, thought, and read.’\nHis readings were not always well chosen; among them were the works of\nthe French philosophers: as far as metaphysical argument went, he\ntemporarily became a convert. At the same time, it was the cardinal\narticle of his faith that, if men were but taught and induced to treat\ntheir fellows with love, charity, and equal rights, this earth would\nrealize paradise. He looked upon religion, as it is professed, and above\nall practised, as hostile instead of friendly to the cultivation of\nthose virtues which would make men brothers.\n\nCan this be wondered at? At the age of seventeen, fragile in health and\nframe, of the purest habits in morals, full of devoted generosity and\nuniversal kindness, glowing with ardour to attain wisdom, resolved at\nevery personal sacrifice to do right, burning with a desire for\naffection and sympathy,—he was treated as a reprobate, cast forth as a\ncriminal.\n\nThe cause was that he was sincere; that he believed the opinions which\nhe entertained to be true. And he loved truth with a martyr’s love; he\nwas ready to sacrifice station and fortune, and his dearest affections,\nat its shrine. The sacrifice was demanded from, and made by, a youth of\nseventeen. It is a singular fact in the history of society in the\ncivilized nations of modern times that no false step is so irretrievable\nas one made in early youth. Older men, it is true, when they oppose\ntheir fellows and transgress ordinary rules, carry a certain prudence or\nhypocrisy as a shield along with them. But youth is rash; nor can it\nimagine, while asserting what it believes to be true, and doing what it\nbelieves to be right, that it should be denounced as vicious, and\npursued as a criminal.\n\nShelley possessed a quality of mind which experience has shown me to be\nof the rarest occurrence among human beings: this was his UNWORLDLINESS.\nThe usual motives that rule men, prospects of present or future\nadvantage, the rank and fortune of those around, the taunts and\ncensures, or the praise, of those who were hostile to him, had no\ninfluence whatever over his actions, and apparently none over his\nthoughts. It is difficult even to express the simplicity and directness\nof purpose that adorned him. Some few might be found in the history of\nmankind, and some one at least among his own friends, equally\ndisinterested and scornful, even to severe personal sacrifices, of every\nbaser motive. But no one, I believe, ever joined this noble but passive\nvirtue to equal active endeavours for the benefit of his friends and\nmankind in general, and to equal power to produce the advantages he\ndesired. The world’s brightest gauds and its most solid advantages were\nof no worth in his eyes, when compared to the cause of what he\nconsidered truth, and the good of his fellow-creatures. Born in a\nposition which, to his inexperienced mind, afforded the greatest\nfacilities to practise the tenets he espoused, he boldly declared the\nuse he would make of fortune and station, and enjoyed the belief that he\nshould materially benefit his fellow-creatures by his actions; while,\nconscious of surpassing powers of reason and imagination, it is not\nstrange that he should, even while so young, have believed that his\nwritten thoughts would tend to disseminate opinions which he believed\nconducive to the happiness of the human race.\n\nIf man were a creature devoid of passion, he might have said and done\nall this with quietness. But he was too enthusiastic, and too full of\nhatred of all the ills he witnessed, not to scorn danger. Various\ndisappointments tortured, but could not tame, his soul. The more enmity\nhe met, the more earnestly he became attached to his peculiar views, and\nhostile to those of the men who persecuted him.\n\nHe was animated to greater zeal by compassion for his fellow-creatures.\nHis sympathy was excited by the misery with which the world is burning.\nHe witnessed the sufferings of the poor, and was aware of the evils of\nignorance. He desired to induce every rich man to despoil himself of\nsuperfluity, and to create a brotherhood of property and service, and\nwas ready to be the first to lay down the advantages of his birth. He\nwas of too uncompromising a disposition to join any party. He did not in\nhis youth look forward to gradual improvement: nay, in those days of\nintolerance, now almost forgotten, it seemed as easy to look forward to\nthe sort of millennium of freedom and brotherhood which he thought the\nproper state of mankind as to the present reign of moderation and\nimprovement. Ill-health made him believe that his race would soon be\nrun; that a year or two was all he had of life. He desired that these\nyears should be useful and illustrious. He saw, in a fervent call on his\nfellow-creatures to share alike the blessings of the creation, to love\nand serve each other, the noblest work that life and time permitted him.\nIn this spirit he composed “Queen Mab”.\n\nHe was a lover of the wonderful and wild in literature, but had not\nfostered these tastes at their genuine sources—the romances and\nchivalry of the middle ages—but in the perusal of such German works as\nwere current in those days. Under the influence of these he, at the age\nof fifteen, wrote two short prose romances of slender merit. The\nsentiments and language were exaggerated, the composition imitative and\npoor. He wrote also a poem on the subject of Ahasuerus—being led to it\nby a German fragment he picked up, dirty and torn, in Lincoln’s Inn\nFields. This fell afterwards into other hands, and was considerably\naltered before it was printed. Our earlier English poetry was almost\nunknown to him. The love and knowledge of Nature developed by\nWordsworth—the lofty melody and mysterious beauty of Coleridge’s\npoetry—and the wild fantastic machinery and gorgeous scenery adopted by\nSouthey—composed his favourite reading; the rhythm of “Queen Mab” was\nfounded on that of “Thalaba”, and the first few lines bear a striking\nresemblance in spirit, though not in idea, to the opening of that poem.\nHis fertile imagination, and ear tuned to the finest sense of harmony,\npreserved him from imitation. Another of his favourite books was the\npoem of “Gebir” by Walter Savage Landor. From his boyhood he had a\nwonderful facility of versification, which he carried into another\nlanguage; and his Latin school-verses were composed with an ease and\ncorrectness that procured for him prizes, and caused him to be resorted\nto by all his friends for help. He was, at the period of writing “Queen\nMab”, a great traveller within the limits of England, Scotland, and\nIreland. His time was spent among the loveliest scenes of these\ncountries. Mountain and lake and forest were his home; the phenomena of\nNature were his favourite study. He loved to inquire into their causes,\nand was addicted to pursuits of natural philosophy and chemistry, as far\nas they could be carried on as an amusement. These tastes gave truth and\nvivacity to his descriptions, and warmed his soul with that deep\nadmiration for the wonders of Nature which constant association with her\ninspired.\n\nHe never intended to publish “Queen Mab” as it stands; but a few years\nafter, when printing “Alastor”, he extracted a small portion which he\nentitled “The Daemon of the World”. In this he changed somewhat the\nversification, and made other alterations scarcely to be called\nimprovements.\n\nSome years after, when in Italy, a bookseller published an edition of\n“Queen Mab” as it originally stood. Shelley was hastily written to by\nhis friends, under the idea that, deeply injurious as the mere\ndistribution of the poem had proved, the publication might awaken fresh\npersecutions. At the suggestion of these friends he wrote a letter on\nthe subject, printed in the “Examiner” newspaper—with which I close\nthis history of his earliest work.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "‘Percy B. Shelley.", + "body": "‘Pisa, June 22, 1821.’\n\n***\n\n\n[Of the following pieces the “Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire”, the\nPoems from “St. Irvyne, or The Rosicrucian”, “The Posthumous Fragments\nof Margaret Nicholson” and “The Devil’s Walk”, were published by Shelley\nhimself; the others by Medwin, Rossetti, Forman and Dowden, as indicated\nin the several prefatory notes.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Verses On A Cat.", + "body": "[Published by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1800.]\n\n1.\nA cat in distress,\nNothing more, nor less;\nGood folks, I must faithfully tell ye,\nAs I am a sinner,\nIt waits for some dinner _5\nTo stuff out its own little belly.\n\n2.\nYou would not easily guess\nAll the modes of distress\nWhich torture the tenants of earth;\nAnd the various evils, _10\nWhich like so many devils,\nAttend the poor souls from their birth.\n\n3.\nSome a living require,\nAnd others desire\nAn old fellow out of the way; _15\nAnd which is the best\nI leave to be guessed,\nFor I cannot pretend to say.\n\n4.\nOne wants society,\nAnother variety, _20\nOthers a tranquil life;\nSome want food,\nOthers, as good,\nOnly want a wife.\n\n5.\nBut this poor little cat _25\nOnly wanted a rat,\nTo stuff out its own little maw;\nAnd it were as good\nSOME people had such food,\nTo make them HOLD THEIR JAW! _30\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Epitaphium.", + "body": "[LATIN VERSION OF THE EPITAPH IN GRAY’S ELEGY.]\n\n[Published by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847; dated 1808-9.]\n\n1.\nHic sinu fessum caput hospitali\nCespitis dormit juvenis, nec illi\nFata ridebant, popularis ille\nNescius aurae.\n\n2.\nMusa non vultu genus arroganti _5\nRustica natum grege despicata,\nEt suum tristis puerum notavit\nSollicitudo.\n\n3.\nIndoles illi bene larga, pectus\nVeritas sedem sibi vindicavit, _10\nEt pari tantis meritis beavit\nMunere coelum.\n\n4.\nOmne quad moestis habuit miserto\nCorde largivit lacrimam, recepit\nOmne quod coelo voluit, fidelis _15\nPectus amici.\n\n5.\nLongius sed tu fuge curiosus\nCaeteras laudes fuge suspicari,\nCaeteras culpas fuge velle tractas\nSede tremenda. _20\n\n6.\nSpe tremescentes recubant in illa\nSede virtutes pariterque culpae,\nIn sui Patris gremio, tremenda\nSede Deique.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "In Horologium.", + "body": "[Published by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847; dated 1809.]\n\nInter marmoreas Leonorae pendula colles\nFortunata nimis Machina dicit horas.\nQuas MANIBUS premit illa duas insensa papillas\nCur mihi sit DIGITO tangere, amata, nefas?\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Death:", + "body": "For my dagger is bathed in the blood of the brave,\nI come, care-worn tenant of life, from the grave,\nWhere Innocence sleeps ‘neath the peace-giving sod,\nAnd the good cease to tremble at Tyranny’s nod;\nI offer a calm habitation to thee,— _5\nSay, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?\nMy mansion is damp, cold silence is there,\nBut it lulls in oblivion the fiends of despair;\nNot a groan of regret, not a sigh, not a breath,\nDares dispute with grim Silence the empire of Death. _10\nI offer a calm habitation to thee,—\nSay, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mortal:", + "body": "Mine eyelids are heavy; my soul seeks repose,\nIt longs in thy cells to embosom its woes,\nIt longs in thy cells to deposit its load, _15\nWhere no longer the scorpions of Perfidy goad,—\nWhere the phantoms of Prejudice vanish away,\nAnd Bigotry’s bloodhounds lose scent of their prey.\nYet tell me, dark Death, when thine empire is o’er,\nWhat awaits on Futurity’s mist-covered shore? _20", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Death:", + "body": "Cease, cease, wayward Mortal! I dare not unveil\nThe shadows that float o’er Eternity’s vale;\nNought waits for the good but a spirit of Love,\nThat will hail their blest advent to regions above.\nFor Love, Mortal, gleams through the gloom of my sway, _25\nAnd the shades which surround me fly fast at its ray.\nHast thou loved?—Then depart from these regions of hate,\nAnd in slumber with me blunt the arrows of fate.\nI offer a calm habitation to thee.—\nSay, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me? _30", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Mortal:", + "body": "Oh! sweet is thy slumber! oh! sweet is the ray\nWhich after thy night introduces the day;\nHow concealed, how persuasive, self-interest’s breath,\nThough it floats to mine ear from the bosom of Death!\nI hoped that I quite was forgotten by all, _35\nYet a lingering friend might be grieved at my fall,\nAnd duty forbids, though I languish to die,\nWhen departure might heave Virtue’s breast with a sigh.\nO Death! O my friend! snatch this form to thy shrine,\nAnd I fear, dear destroyer, I shall not repine. _40", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Solitary.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870;\ndated 1810. Included in the Esdaile manuscript book.]\n\n1.\nDar’st thou amid the varied multitude\nTo live alone, an isolated thing?\nTo see the busy beings round thee spring,\nAnd care for none; in thy calm solitude,\nA flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude _5\nTo Zephyr’s passing wing?\n\n2.\nNot the swart Pariah in some Indian grove,\nLone, lean, and hunted by his brother’s hate,\nHath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate\nAs that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love: _10\nHe bears a load which nothing can remove,\nA killing, withering weight.\n\n3.\nHe smiles—’tis sorrow’s deadliest mockery;\nHe speaks—the cold words flow not from his soul;\nHe acts like others, drains the genial bowl,— _15\nYet, yet he longs—although he fears—to die;\nHe pants to reach what yet he seems to fly,\nDull life’s extremest goal.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Love’S Rose.", + "body": "[Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1810.\nIncluded in the Esdaile manuscript book.]\n\n1.\nHopes, that swell in youthful breasts,\nLive not through the waste of time!\nLove’s rose a host of thorns invests;\nCold, ungenial is the clime,\nWhere its honours blow. _5\nYouth says, ‘The purple flowers are mine,’\nWhich die the while they glow.\n\n2.\nDear the boon to Fancy given,\nRetracted whilst it’s granted:\nSweet the rose which lives in Heaven, _10\nAlthough on earth ’tis planted,\nWhere its honours blow,\nWhile by earth’s slaves the leaves are riven\nWhich die the while they glow.\n\n3.\nAge cannot Love destroy, _15\nBut perfidy can blast the flower,\nEven when in most unwary hour\nIt blooms in Fancy’s bower.\nAge cannot Love destroy,\nBut perfidy can rend the shrine _20\nIn which its vermeil splendours shine.\n\nLove’s Rose—The title is Rossetti’s, 1870.\n_2 not through Esdaile manuscript; they this, 1858.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Eyes: A Fragment.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870;\ndated 1810. Included (four unpublished eight-line stanzas) in the\nEsdaile manuscript book.)]\n\nHow eloquent are eyes!\nNot the rapt poet’s frenzied lay\nWhen the soul’s wildest feelings stray\nCan speak so well as they.\nHow eloquent are eyes! _5\nNot music’s most impassioned note\nOn which Love’s warmest fervours float\nLike them bids rapture rise.\n\nLove, look thus again,—\nThat your look may light a waste of years, _10\nDarting the beam that conquers cares\nThrough the cold shower of tears.\nLove, look thus again!\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Original Poetry By Victor And Cazire.", + "body": "[Published by Shelley, 1810. A Reprint, edited by Richard Garnett, C.B.,\nLL.D., was issued by John Lane, in 1898. The punctuation of the original\nedition is here retained.]\n\nA Person complained that whenever he began to write, he never could\narrange his ideas in grammatical order. Which occasion suggested the\nidea of the following lines:\n\n1.\nHere I sit with my paper, my pen and my ink,\nFirst of this thing, and that thing, and t’other thing think;\nThen my thoughts come so pell-mell all into my mind,\nThat the sense or the subject I never can find:\nThis word is wrong placed,—no regard to the sense,\nThe present and future, instead of past tense,\nThen my grammar I want; O dear! what a bore,\nI think I shall never attempt to write more,\nWith patience I then my thoughts must arraign,\nHave them all in due order like mutes in a train, _10\nLike them too must wait in due patience and thought,\nOr else my fine works will all come to nought.\nMy wit too’s so copious, it flows like a river,\nBut disperses its waters on black and white never;\nLike smoke it appears independent and free, _15\nBut ah luckless smoke! it all passes like thee—\nThen at length all my patience entirely lost,\nMy paper and pens in the fire are tossed;\nBut come, try again—you must never despair,\nOur Murray’s or Entick’s are not all so rare, _20\nImplore their assistance—they’ll come to your aid,\nPerform all your business without being paid,\nThey’ll tell you the present tense, future and past,\nWhich should come first, and which should come last,\nThis Murray will do—then to Entick repair, _25\nTo find out the meaning of any word rare.\nThis they friendly will tell, and ne’er make you blush,\nWith a jeering look, taunt, or an O fie! tush!\nThen straight all your thoughts in black and white put,\nNot minding the if’s, the be’s, and the but, _30\nThen read it all over, see how it will run,\nHow answers the wit, the retort, and the pun,\nYour writings may then with old Socrates vie,\nMay on the same shelf with Demosthenes lie,\nMay as Junius be sharp, or as Plato be sage. _35\nThe pattern or satire to all of the age;\nBut stop—a mad author I mean not to turn,\nNor with thirst of applause does my heated brain burn,\nSufficient that sense, wit, and grammar combined,\nMy letters may make some slight food for the mind; _40\nThat my thoughts to my friends I may freely impart,\nIn all the warm language that flows from the heart.\nHark! futurity calls! it loudly complains,\nIt bids me step forward and just hold the reins,\nMy excuse shall be humble, and faithful, and true, _45\nSuch as I fear can be made but by few—\nOf writers this age has abundance and plenty,\nThree score and a thousand, two millions and twenty,\nThree score of them wits who all sharply vie,\nTo try what odd creature they best can belie, _50\nA thousand are prudes who for CHARITY write,\nAnd fill up their sheets with spleen, envy, and spite[,]\nOne million are bards, who to Heaven aspire,\nAnd stuff their works full of bombast, rant, and fire,\nT’other million are wags who in Grubstreet attend, _55\nAnd just like a cobbler the old writings mend,\nThe twenty are those who for pulpits indite,\nAnd pore over sermons all Saturday night.\nAnd now my good friends—who come after I mean,\nAs I ne’er wore a cassock, or dined with a dean. _60\nOr like cobblers at mending I never did try,\nNor with poets in lyrics attempted to vie;\nAs for prudes these good souls I both hate and detest,\nSo here I believe the matter must rest.—\nI’ve heard your complaint—my answer I’ve made, _65\nAnd since to your calls all the tribute I’ve paid,\nAdieu my good friend; pray never despair,\nBut grammar and sense and everything dare,\nAttempt but to write dashing, easy, and free,\nThen take out your grammar and pay him his fee, _70\nBe not a coward, shrink not to a tense,\nBut read it all over and make it out sense.\nWhat a tiresome girl!—pray soon make an end,\nElse my limited patience you’ll quickly expend.\nWell adieu, I no longer your patience will try— _75\nSo swift to the post now the letter shall fly.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "July, 1810.", + "body": "4. SONG.\n\nCome [Harriet]! sweet is the hour,\nSoft Zephyrs breathe gently around,\nThe anemone’s night-boding flower,\nHas sunk its pale head on the ground.\n\n’Tis thus the world’s keenness hath torn, _5\nSome mild heart that expands to its blast,\n’Tis thus that the wretched forlorn,\nSinks poor and neglected at last.—\n\nThe world with its keenness and woe,\nHas no charms or attraction for me, _10\nIts unkindness with grief has laid low,\nThe heart which is faithful to thee.\nThe high trees that wave past the moon,\nAs I walk in their umbrage with you,\nAll declare I must part with you soon, _15\nAll bid you a tender adieu!—\n\nThen [Harriet]! dearest farewell,\nYou and I love, may ne’er meet again;\nThese woods and these meadows can tell\nHow soft and how sweet was the strain.— _20", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Despair.", + "body": "Ask not the pallid stranger’s woe,\nWith beating heart and throbbing breast,\nWhose step is faltering, weak, and slow,\nAs though the body needed rest.—\n\nWhose ‘wildered eye no object meets, _5\nNor cares to ken a friendly glance,\nWith silent grief his bosom beats,—\nNow fixed, as in a deathlike trance.\n\nWho looks around with fearful eye,\nAnd shuns all converse with man kind, _10\nAs though some one his griefs might spy,\nAnd soothe them with a kindred mind.\n\nA friend or foe to him the same,\nHe looks on each with equal eye;\nThe difference lies but in the name, _15\nTo none for comfort can he fly.—\n\n’Twas deep despair, and sorrow’s trace,\nTo him too keenly given,\nWhose memory, time could not efface—\nHis peace was lodged in Heaven.— _20\n\nHe looks on all this world bestows,\nThe pride and pomp of power,\nAs trifles best for pageant shows\nWhich vanish in an hour.\n\nWhen torn is dear affection’s tie, _25\nSinks the soft heart full low;\nIt leaves without a parting sigh,\nAll that these realms bestow.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Sorrow.", + "body": "To me this world’s a dreary blank,\nAll hopes in life are gone and fled,\nMy high strung energies are sank,\nAnd all my blissful hopes lie dead.—\n\nThe world once smiling to my view, _5\nShowed scenes of endless bliss and joy;\nThe world I then but little knew,\nAh! little knew how pleasures cloy;\n\nAll then was jocund, all was gay,\nNo thought beyond the present hour, _10\nI danced in pleasure’s fading ray,\nFading alas! as drooping flower.\n\nNor do the heedless in the throng,\nOne thought beyond the morrow give[,]\nThey court the feast, the dance, the song, _15\nNor think how short their time to live.\n\nThe heart that bears deep sorrow’s trace,\nWhat earthly comfort can console,\nIt drags a dull and lengthened pace,\n‘Till friendly death its woes enroll.— _20\n\nThe sunken cheek, the humid eyes,\nE’en better than the tongue can tell;\nIn whose sad breast deep sorrow lies,\nWhere memory’s rankling traces dwell.—\n\nThe rising tear, the stifled sigh, _25\nA mind but ill at ease display,\nLike blackening clouds in stormy sky,\nWhere fiercely vivid lightnings play.\n\nThus when souls’ energy is dead,\nWhen sorrow dims each earthly view, _30\nWhen every fairy hope is fled,\nWe bid ungrateful world adieu.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hope.", + "body": "And said I that all hope was fled,\nThat sorrow and despair were mine,\nThat each enthusiast wish was dead,\nHad sank beneath pale Misery’s shrine.—\n\nSeest thou the sunbeam’s yellow glow, _5\nThat robes with liquid streams of light;\nYon distant Mountain’s craggy brow.\nAnd shows the rocks so fair,—so bright—\n\nTis thus sweet expectation’s ray,\nIn softer view shows distant hours, _10\nAnd portrays each succeeding day,\nAs dressed in fairer, brighter flowers,—\n\nThe vermeil tinted flowers that blossom;\nAre frozen but to bud anew,\nThen sweet deceiver calm my bosom, _15\nAlthough thy visions be not true,—\n\nYet true they are,—and I’ll believe,\nThy whisperings soft of love and peace,\nGod never made thee to deceive,\n’Tis sin that bade thy empire cease. _20\n\nYet though despair my life should gloom,\nThough horror should around me close,\nWith those I love, beyond the tomb,\nHope shows a balm for all my woes.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Translated From The Italian.", + "body": "Oh! what is the gain of restless care,\nAnd what is ambitious treasure?\nAnd what are the joys that the modish share,\nIn their sickly haunts of pleasure?\n\nMy husband’s repast with delight I spread, _5\nWhat though ’tis but rustic fare,\nMay each guardian angel protect his shed,\nMay contentment and quiet be there.\n\nAnd may I support my husband’s years,\nMay I soothe his dying pain, _10\nAnd then may I dry my fast falling tears,\nAnd meet him in Heaven again.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Translated From The German.", + "body": "Ah! grasp the dire dagger and couch the fell spear,\nIf vengeance and death to thy bosom be dear,\nThe dastard shall perish, death’s torment shall prove,\nFor fate and revenge are decreed from above.\n\nAh! where is the hero, whose nerves strung by youth, _5\nWill defend the firm cause of justice and truth;\nWith insatiate desire whose bosom shall swell,\nTo give up the oppressor to judgement and Hell—\n\nFor him shall the fair one twine chaplets of bays,\nTo him shall each warrior give merited praise, _10\nAnd triumphant returned from the clangour of arms,\nHe shall find his reward in his loved maiden’s charms.\n\nIn ecstatic confusion the warrior shall sip,\nThe kisses that glow on his love’s dewy lip,\nAnd mutual, eternal, embraces shall prove, _15\nThe rewards of the brave are the transports of love.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "October, 1809.", + "body": "10. THE IRISHMAN’S SONG.\n\nThe stars may dissolve, and the fountain of light\nMay sink into ne’er ending chaos and night,\nOur mansions must fall, and earth vanish away,\nBut thy courage O Erin! may never decay.\n\nSee! the wide wasting ruin extends all around, _5\nOur ancestors’ dwellings lie sunk on the ground,\nOur foes ride in triumph throughout our domains,\nAnd our mightiest heroes lie stretched on the plains.\n\nAh! dead is the harp which was wont to give pleasure,\nAh! sunk is our sweet country’s rapturous measure, _10\nBut the war note is waked, and the clangour of spears,\nThe dread yell of Sloghan yet sounds in our ears.\n\nAh! where are the heroes! triumphant in death,\nConvulsed they recline on the blood sprinkled heath,\nOr the yelling ghosts ride on the blast that sweeps by, _15\nAnd ‘my countrymen! vengeance!’ incessantly cry.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "October, 1809.", + "body": "11. SONG.\n\nFierce roars the midnight storm\nO’er the wild mountain,\nDark clouds the night deform,\nSwift rolls the fountain—\n\nSee! o’er yon rocky height, _5\nDim mists are flying—\nSee by the moon’s pale light,\nPoor Laura’s dying!\n\nShame and remorse shall howl,\nBy her false pillow— _10\nFiercer than storms that roll,\nO’er the white billow;\n\nNo hand her eyes to close,\nWhen life is flying,\nBut she will find repose, _15\nFor Laura’s dying!\n\nThen will I seek my love,\nThen will I cheer her,\nThen my esteem will prove,\nWhen no friend is near her. _20\n\nOn her grave I will lie,\nWhen life is parted,\nOn her grave I will die,\nFor the false hearted.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "August, 1810.", + "body": "14. SAINT EDMOND’S EVE.\n\nOh! did you observe the Black Canon pass,\nAnd did you observe his frown?\nHe goeth to say the midnight mass,\nIn holy St. Edmond’s town.\n\nHe goeth to sing the burial chaunt, _5\nAnd to lay the wandering sprite,\nWhose shadowy, restless form doth haunt,\nThe Abbey’s drear aisle this night.\n\nIt saith it will not its wailing cease,\n‘Till that holy man come near, _10\n‘Till he pour o’er its grave the prayer of peace,\nAnd sprinkle the hallowed tear.\n\nThe Canon’s horse is stout and strong\nThe road is plain and fair,\nBut the Canon slowly wends along, _15\nAnd his brow is gloomed with care.\n\nWho is it thus late at the Abbey-gate?\nSullen echoes the portal bell,\nIt sounds like the whispering voice of fate,\nIt sounds like a funeral knell. _20\n\nThe Canon his faltering knee thrice bowed,\nAnd his frame was convulsed with fear,\nWhen a voice was heard distinct and loud,\n‘Prepare! for thy hour is near.’\n\nHe crosses his breast, he mutters a prayer, _25\nTo Heaven he lifts his eye,\nHe heeds not the Abbot’s gazing stare,\nNor the dark Monks who murmured by.\n\nBare-headed he worships the sculptured saints\nThat frown on the sacred walls, _30\nHis face it grows pale,—he trembles, he faints,\nAt the Abbot’s feet he falls.\n\nAnd straight the father’s robe he kissed,\nWho cried, ‘Grace dwells with thee,\nThe spirit will fade like the morning mist, _35\nAt your benedicite.\n\n‘Now haste within! the board is spread,\nKeen blows the air, and cold,\nThe spectre sleeps in its earthy bed,\n‘Till St. Edmond’s bell hath tolled,— _40\n\n‘Yet rest your wearied limbs to-night,\nYou’ve journeyed many a mile,\nTo-morrow lay the wailing sprite,\nThat shrieks in the moonlight aisle.\n\n‘Oh! faint are my limbs and my bosom is cold, _45\nYet to-night must the sprite be laid,\nYet to-night when the hour of horror’s told,\nMust I meet the wandering shade.\n\n‘Nor food, nor rest may now delay,—\nFor hark! the echoing pile, _50\nA bell loud shakes!—Oh haste away,\nO lead to the haunted aisle.’\n\nThe torches slowly move before,\nThe cross is raised on high,\nA smile of peace the Canon wore, _55\nBut horror dimmed his eye—\n\nAnd now they climb the footworn stair,\nThe chapel gates unclose,\nNow each breathed low a fervent prayer,\nAnd fear each bosom froze— _60\n\nNow paused awhile the doubtful band\nAnd viewed the solemn scene,—\nFull dark the clustered columns stand,\nThe moon gleams pale between—\n\n‘Say father, say, what cloisters’ gloom _65\nConceals the unquiet shade,\nWithin what dark unhallowed tomb,\nThe corse unblessed was laid.’\n\n‘Through yonder drear aisle alone it walks,\nAnd murmurs a mournful plaint, _70\nOf thee! Black Canon, it wildly talks,\nAnd call on thy patron saint—\n\nThe pilgrim this night with wondering eyes,\nAs he prayed at St. Edmond’s shrine,\nFrom a black marble tomb hath seen it rise, _75\nAnd under yon arch recline.’—\n\n‘Oh! say upon that black marble tomb,\nWhat memorial sad appears.’—\n‘Undistinguished it lies in the chancel’s gloom,\nNo memorial sad it bears’— _80\n\nThe Canon his paternoster reads,\nHis rosary hung by his side,\nNow swift to the chancel doors he leads,\nAnd untouched they open wide,\n\nResistless, strange sounds his steps impel, _85\nTo approach to the black marble tomb,\n‘Oh! enter, Black Canon,’ a whisper fell,\n‘Oh! enter, thy hour is come.’\n\nHe paused, told his beads, and the threshold passed.\nOh! horror, the chancel doors close, _90\nA loud yell was borne on the rising blast,\nAnd a deep, dying groan arose.\n\nThe Monks in amazement shuddering stand,\nThey burst through the chancel’s gloom,\nFrom St. Edmond’s shrine, lo! a skeleton’s hand, _95\nPoints to the black marble tomb.\n\nLo! deeply engraved, an inscription blood red,\nIn characters fresh and clear—\n‘The guilty Black Canon of Elmham’s dead,\nAnd his wife lies buried here!’ _100\n\nIn Elmham’s tower he wedded a Nun,\nTo St. Edmond’s his bride he bore,\nOn this eve her noviciate here was begun,\nAnd a Monk’s gray weeds she wore;—\n\nO! deep was her conscience dyed with guilt, _105\nRemorse she full oft revealed,\nHer blood by the ruthless Black Canon was spilt,\nAnd in death her lips he sealed;\n\nHer spirit to penance this night was doomed,\n‘Till the Canon atoned the deed, _110\nHere together they now shall rest entombed,\n‘Till their bodies from dust are freed—\n\nHark! a loud peal of thunder shakes the roof,\nRound the altar bright lightnings play,\nSpeechless with horror the Monks stand aloof, _115\nAnd the storm dies sudden away—\n\nThe inscription was gone! a cross on the ground,\nAnd a rosary shone through the gloom,\nBut never again was the Canon there found,\nOr the Ghost on the black marble tomb. _120\n\n\n15. REVENGE.\n\n‘Ah! quit me not yet, for the wind whistles shrill,\nIts blast wanders mournfully over the hill,\nThe thunder’s wild voice rattles madly above,\nYou will not then, cannot then, leave me my love.—’\n\nI must dearest Agnes, the night is far gone— _5\nI must wander this evening to Strasburg alone,\nI must seek the drear tomb of my ancestors’ bones,\nAnd must dig their remains from beneath the cold stones.\n\n‘For the spirit of Conrad there meets me this night,\nAnd we quit not the tomb ‘till dawn of the light, _10\nAnd Conrad’s been dead just a month and a day!\nSo farewell dearest Agnes for I must away,—\n\n‘He bid me bring with me what most I held dear,\nOr a month from that time should I lie on my bier,\nAnd I’d sooner resign this false fluttering breath, _15\nThan my Agnes should dread either danger or death,\n\n‘And I love you to madness my Agnes I love,\nMy constant affection this night will I prove,\nThis night will I go to the sepulchre’s jaw\nAlone will I glut its all conquering maw’— _20\n\n‘No! no loved Adolphus thy Agnes will share,\nIn the tomb all the dangers that wait for you there,\nI fear not the spirit,—I fear not the grave,\nMy dearest Adolphus I’d perish to save’—\n\n‘Nay seek not to say that thy love shall not go, _25\nBut spare me those ages of horror and woe,\nFor I swear to thee here that I’ll perish ere day,\nIf you go unattended by Agnes away’—\n\nThe night it was bleak the fierce storm raged around,\nThe lightning’s blue fire-light flashed on the ground, _30\nStrange forms seemed to flit,—and howl tidings of fate,\nAs Agnes advanced to the sepulchre gate.—\n\nThe youth struck the portal,—the echoing sound\nWas fearfully rolled midst the tombstones around,\nThe blue lightning gleamed o’er the dark chapel spire, _35\nAnd tinged were the storm clouds with sulphurous fire.\n\nStill they gazed on the tombstone where Conrad reclined,\nYet they shrank at the cold chilling blast of the wind,\nWhen a strange silver brilliance pervaded the scene,\nAnd a figure advanced—tall in form—fierce in mien. _40\n\nA mantle encircled his shadowy form,\nAs light as a gossamer borne on the storm,\nCelestial terror sat throned in his gaze,\nLike the midnight pestiferous meteor’s blaze.—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Spirit:", + "body": "Thy father, Adolphus! was false, false as hell, _45\nAnd Conrad has cause to remember it well,\nHe ruined my Mother, despised me his son,\nI quitted the world ere my vengeance was done.\n\nI was nearly expiring—’twas close of the day,—\nA demon advanced to the bed where I lay, _50\nHe gave me the power from whence I was hurled,\nTo return to revenge, to return to the world,—\n\nNow Adolphus I’ll seize thy best loved in my arms,\nI’ll drag her to Hades all blooming in charms,\nOn the black whirlwind’s thundering pinion I’ll ride, _55\nAnd fierce yelling fiends shall exult o’er thy bride—\n\nHe spoke, and extending his ghastly arms wide,\nMajestic advanced with a swift noiseless stride,\nHe clasped the fair Agnes—he raised her on high,\nAnd cleaving the roof sped his way to the sky— _60\n\nAll was now silent,—and over the tomb,\nThicker, deeper, was swiftly extended a gloom,\nAdolphus in horror sank down on the stone,\nAnd his fleeting soul fled with a harrowing groan.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "December, 1809.", + "body": "16. GHASTA OR, THE AVENGING DEMON!!!\n\nThe idea of the following tale was taken from a few unconnected German\nStanzas.—The principal Character is evidently the Wandering Jew, and\nalthough not mentioned by name, the burning Cross on his forehead\nundoubtedly alludes to that superstition, so prevalent in the part of\nGermany called the Black Forest, where this scene is supposed to lie.\n\nHark! the owlet flaps her wing,\nIn the pathless dell beneath,\nHark! night ravens loudly sing,\nTidings of despair and death.—\n\nHorror covers all the sky, _5\nClouds of darkness blot the moon,\nPrepare! for mortal thou must die,\nPrepare to yield thy soul up soon—\n\nFierce the tempest raves around,\nFierce the volleyed lightnings fly, _10\nCrashing thunder shakes the ground,\nFire and tumult fill the sky.—\n\nHark! the tolling village bell,\nTells the hour of midnight come,\nNow can blast the powers of Hell, _15\nFiend-like goblins now can roam—\n\nSee! his crest all stained with rain,\nA warrior hastening speeds his way,\nHe starts, looks round him, starts again,\nAnd sighs for the approach of day. _20\n\nSee! his frantic steed he reins,\nSee! he lifts his hands on high,\nImplores a respite to his pains,\nFrom the powers of the sky.—\n\nHe seeks an Inn, for faint from toil, _25\nFatigue had bent his lofty form,\nTo rest his wearied limbs awhile,\nFatigued with wandering and the storm.\n\n...\n...\n\nSlow the door is opened wide—\nWith trackless tread a stranger came, _30\nHis form Majestic, slow his stride,\nHe sate, nor spake,—nor told his name—\n\nTerror blanched the warrior’s cheek,\nCold sweat from his forehead ran,\nIn vain his tongue essayed to speak,— _35\nAt last the stranger thus began:\n\n‘Mortal! thou that saw’st the sprite,\nTell me what I wish to know,\nOr come with me before ’tis light,\nWhere cypress trees and mandrakes grow. _40\n\n‘Fierce the avenging Demon’s ire,\nFiercer than the wintry blast,\nFiercer than the lightning’s fire,\nWhen the hour of twilight’s past’—\n\nThe warrior raised his sunken eye. _45\nIt met the stranger’s sullen scowl,\n‘Mortal! Mortal! thou must die,’\nIn burning letters chilled his soul.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Warrior:", + "body": "Stranger! whoso’er you are,\nI feel impelled my tale to tell— _50\nHorrors stranger shalt thou hear,\nHorrors drear as those of Hell.\n\nO’er my Castle silence reigned,\nLate the night and drear the hour,\nWhen on the terrace I observed, _55\nA fleeting shadowy mist to lower.—\n\nLight the cloud as summer fog,\nWhich transient shuns the morning beam;\nFleeting as the cloud on bog,\nThat hangs or on the mountain stream.— _60\n\nHorror seized my shuddering brain,\nHorror dimmed my starting eye.\nIn vain I tried to speak,—In vain\nMy limbs essayed the spot to fly—\n\nAt last the thin and shadowy form, _65\nWith noiseless, trackless footsteps came,—\nIts light robe floated on the storm,\nIts head was bound with lambent flame.\n\nIn chilling voice drear as the breeze\nWhich sweeps along th’ autumnal ground, _70\nWhich wanders through the leafless trees,\nOr the mandrake’s groan which floats around.\n\n‘Thou art mine and I am thine,\n‘Till the sinking of the world,\nI am thine and thou art mine, _75\n‘Till in ruin death is hurled—\n\n‘Strong the power and dire the fate,\nWhich drags me from the depths of Hell,\nBreaks the tomb’s eternal gate,\nWhere fiendish shapes and dead men yell, _80\n\n‘Haply I might ne’er have shrank\nFrom flames that rack the guilty dead,\nHaply I might ne’er have sank\nOn pleasure’s flowery, thorny bed—\n\n—‘But stay! no more I dare disclose, _85\nOf the tale I wish to tell,\nOn Earth relentless were my woes,\nBut fiercer are my pangs in Hell—\n\n‘Now I claim thee as my love,\nLay aside all chilling fear, _90\nMy affection will I prove,\nWhere sheeted ghosts and spectres are!\n\n‘For thou art mine, and I am thine,\n‘Till the dreaded judgement day,\nI am thine, and thou art mine— _95\nNight is past—I must away.’\n\nStill I gazed, and still the form\nPressed upon my aching sight,\nStill I braved the howling storm,\nWhen the ghost dissolved in night.— _100\n\nRestless, sleepless fled the night,\nSleepless as a sick man’s bed,\nWhen he sighs for morning light,\nWhen he turns his aching head,—\n\nSlow and painful passed the day. _105\nMelancholy seized my brain,\nLingering fled the hours away,\nLingering to a wretch in pain.—\n\nAt last came night, ah! horrid hour,\nAh! chilling time that wakes the dead, _110\nWhen demons ride the clouds that lower,\n—The phantom sat upon my bed.\n\nIn hollow voice, low as the sound\nWhich in some charnel makes its moan,\nWhat floats along the burying ground, _115\nThe phantom claimed me as her own.\n\nHer chilling finger on my head,\nWith coldest touch congealed my soul—\nCold as the finger of the dead,\nOr damps which round a tombstone roll— _120\n\nMonths are passed in lingering round,\nEvery night the spectre comes,\nWith thrilling step it shakes the ground,\nWith thrilling step it round me roams—\n\nStranger! I have told to thee, _125\nAll the tale I have to tell—\nStranger! canst thou tell to me,\nHow to ‘scape the powers of Hell?—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Stranger:", + "body": "Warrior! I can ease thy woes,\nWilt thou, wilt thou, come with me— _130\nWarrior! I can all disclose,\nFollow, follow, follow me.\n\nYet the tempest’s duskiest wing,\nIts mantle stretches o’er the sky,\nYet the midnight ravens sing, _135\n‘Mortal! Mortal! thou must die.’\n\nAt last they saw a river clear,\nThat crossed the heathy path they trod,\nThe Stranger’s look was wild and drear,\nThe firm Earth shook beneath his nod— _140\n\nHe raised a wand above his head,\nHe traced a circle on the plain,\nIn a wild verse he called the dead,\nThe dead with silent footsteps came.\n\nA burning brilliance on his head, _145\nFlaming filled the stormy air,\nIn a wild verse he called the dead,\nThe dead in motley crowd were there.—\n\n‘Ghasta! Ghasta! come along,\nBring thy fiendish crowd with thee, _150\nQuickly raise th’ avenging Song,\nGhasta! Ghasta! come to me.’\n\nHorrid shapes in mantles gray,\nFlit athwart the stormy night,\n‘Ghasta! Ghasta! come away, _155\nCome away before ’tis light.’\n\nSee! the sheeted Ghost they bring,\nYelling dreadful o’er the heath,\nHark! the deadly verse they sing,\nTidings of despair and death! _160\n\nThe yelling Ghost before him stands,\nSee! she rolls her eyes around,\nNow she lifts her bony hands,\nNow her footsteps shake the ground.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Phantom:", + "body": "Mighty one I know thee now,\nMightiest power of the sky, _170\nKnow thee by thy flaming brow,\nKnow thee by thy sparkling eye.\n\nThat fire is scorching! Oh! I came,\nFrom the caverned depth of Hell,\nMy fleeting false Rodolph to claim, _175\nMighty one! I know thee well.—", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Stranger:", + "body": "Ghasta! seize yon wandering sprite,\nDrag her to the depth beneath,\nTake her swift, before ’tis light,\nTake her to the cells of death! _180\n\nThou that heardst the trackless dead,\nIn the mouldering tomb must lie,\nMortal! look upon my head,\nMortal! Mortal! thou must die.\n\nOf glowing flame a cross was there, _185\nWhich threw a light around his form,\nWhilst his lank and raven hair,\nFloated wild upon the storm.—\n\nThe warrior upwards turned his eyes,\nGazed upon the cross of fire, _190\nThere sat horror and surprise,\nThere sat God’s eternal ire.—\n\nA shivering through the Warrior flew,\nColder than the nightly blast,\nColder than the evening dew, _195\nWhen the hour of twilight’s past.—\n\nThunder shakes th’ expansive sky,\nShakes the bosom of the heath,\n‘Mortal! Mortal! thou must die’—\nThe warrior sank convulsed in death. _200", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Poems From St. Irvyne, Or, The Rosicrucian.", + "body": "[“St. Irvyne; or The Rosicrucian”, appeared early in 1811 (see\n“Bibliographical List”). Rossetti (1870) relying on a passage in\nMedwin’s “Life of Shelley” (1 page 74), assigns 1, 4, 5, and 6 to 1808,\nand 2 and 4 to 1809. The titles of 1, 3, 4, and 5 are Rossetti’s; those\nof 2 and 6 are Dowden’s.]\n\n***\n\n\n1.—VICTORIA.\n\n[Another version of “The Triumph of Conscience” immediately preceding.]\n\n1.\n’Twas dead of the night, when I sat in my dwelling;\nOne glimmering lamp was expiring and low;\nAround, the dark tide of the tempest was swelling,\nAlong the wild mountains night-ravens were yelling,—\nThey bodingly presaged destruction and woe. _5\n\n2.\n’Twas then that I started!—the wild storm was howling,\nNought was seen, save the lightning, which danced in the sky;\nAbove me, the crash of the thunder was rolling,\nAnd low, chilling murmurs, the blast wafted by.\n\n3.\nMy heart sank within me—unheeded the war _10\nOf the battling clouds, on the mountain-tops, broke;—\nUnheeded the thunder-peal crashed in mine ear—\nThis heart, hard as iron, is stranger to fear;\nBut conscience in low, noiseless whispering spoke.\n\n4.\n’Twas then that her form on the whirlwind upholding, _15\nThe ghost of the murdered Victoria strode;\nIn her right hand, a shadowy shroud she was holding,\nShe swiftly advanced to my lonesome abode.\n\n5.\nI wildly then called on the tempest to bear me—’\n\n...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note:", + "body": "1.—Victoria: without title, 1811.\n\n\n2.—ON THE DARK HEIGHT OF JURA.\n\n1.\nGhosts of the dead! have I not heard your yelling\nRise on the night-rolling breath of the blast,\nWhen o’er the dark aether the tempest is swelling,\nAnd on eddying whirlwind the thunder-peal passed?\n\n2.\nFor oft have I stood on the dark height of Jura, _5\nWhich frowns on the valley that opens beneath;\nOft have I braved the chill night-tempest’s fury,\nWhilst around me, I thought, echoed murmurs of death.\n\n3.\nAnd now, whilst the winds of the mountain are howling,\nO father! thy voice seems to strike on mine ear; _10\nIn air whilst the tide of the night-storm is rolling,\nIt breaks on the pause of the elements’ jar.\n\n4.\nOn the wing of the whirlwind which roars o’er the mountain\nPerhaps rides the ghost of my sire who is dead:\nOn the mist of the tempest which hangs o’er the fountain,\nWhilst a wreath of dark vapour encircles his head.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note:", + "body": "2.—On the Dark, etc.: without title, 1811;\n The Father’s Spectre, Rossetti, 1870.\n\n\n3.—SISTER ROSA: A BALLAD.\n\n1.\nThe death-bell beats!—\nThe mountain repeats\nThe echoing sound of the knell;\nAnd the dark Monk now\nWraps the cowl round his brow, _5\nAs he sits in his lonely cell.\n\n2.\nAnd the cold hand of death\nChills his shuddering breath,\nAs he lists to the fearful lay\nWhich the ghosts of the sky, _10\nAs they sweep wildly by,\nSing to departed day.\nAnd they sing of the hour\nWhen the stern fates had power\nTo resolve Rosa’s form to its clay. _15\n\n3.\nBut that hour is past;\nAnd that hour was the last\nOf peace to the dark Monk’s brain.\nBitter tears, from his eyes, gushed silent and fast;\nAnd he strove to suppress them in vain. _20\n\n4.\nThen his fair cross of gold he dashed on the floor,\nWhen the death-knell struck on his ear.—\n‘Delight is in store\nFor her evermore;\nBut for me is fate, horror, and fear.’ _25\n\n5.\nThen his eyes wildly rolled,\nWhen the death-bell tolled,\nAnd he raged in terrific woe.\nAnd he stamped on the ground,—\nBut when ceased the sound, _30\nTears again began to flow.\n\n6.\nAnd the ice of despair\nChilled the wild throb of care,\nAnd he sate in mute agony still;\nTill the night-stars shone through the cloudless air, _35\nAnd the pale moonbeam slept on the hill.\n\n7.\nThen he knelt in his cell:—\nAnd the horrors of hell\nWere delights to his agonized pain,\nAnd he prayed to God to dissolve the spell, _40\nWhich else must for ever remain.\n\n8.\nAnd in fervent pray’r he knelt on the ground,\nTill the abbey bell struck One:\nHis feverish blood ran chill at the sound:\nA voice hollow and horrible murmured around— _45\n‘The term of thy penance is done!’\n\n9.\nGrew dark the night;\nThe moonbeam bright\nWaxed faint on the mountain high;\nAnd, from the black hill, _50\nWent a voice cold and still,—\n‘Monk! thou art free to die.’\n\n10.\nThen he rose on his feet,\nAnd his heart loud did beat,\nAnd his limbs they were palsied with dread; _55\nWhilst the grave’s clammy dew\nO’er his pale forehead grew;\nAnd he shuddered to sleep with the dead.\n\n11.\nAnd the wild midnight storm\nRaved around his tall form, _60\nAs he sought the chapel’s gloom:\nAnd the sunk grass did sigh\nTo the wind, bleak and high,\nAs he searched for the new-made tomb.\n\n12.\nAnd forms, dark and high, _65\nSeemed around him to fly,\nAnd mingle their yells with the blast:\nAnd on the dark wall\nHalf-seen shadows did fall,\nAs enhorrored he onward passed. _70\n\n13.\nAnd the storm-fiends wild rave\nO’er the new-made grave,\nAnd dread shadows linger around.\nThe Monk called on God his soul to save,\nAnd, in horror, sank on the ground. _75\n\n14.\nThen despair nerved his arm\nTo dispel the charm,\nAnd he burst Rosa’s coffin asunder.\nAnd the fierce storm did swell\nMore terrific and fell, _80\nAnd louder pealed the thunder.\n\n15.\nAnd laughed, in joy, the fiendish throng,\nMixed with ghosts of the mouldering dead:\nAnd their grisly wings, as they floated along,\nWhistled in murmurs dread. _85\n\n16.\nAnd her skeleton form the dead Nun reared\nWhich dripped with the chill dew of hell.\nIn her half-eaten eyeballs two pale flames appeared,\nAnd triumphant their gleam on the dark Monk glared,\nAs he stood within the cell. _90\n\n17.\nAnd her lank hand lay on his shuddering brain;\nBut each power was nerved by fear.—\n‘I never, henceforth, may breathe again;\nDeath now ends mine anguished pain.—\nThe grave yawns,—we meet there.’ _95\n\n18.\nAnd her skeleton lungs did utter the sound,\nSo deadly, so lone, and so fell,\nThat in long vibrations shuddered the ground;\nAnd as the stern notes floated around,\nA deep groan was answered from hell.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note:", + "body": "3.—Sister Rosa: Ballad, 1811.\n\n\n4.—ST. IRVYNE’S TOWER.\n\n1.\nHow swiftly through Heaven’s wide expanse\nBright day’s resplendent colours fade!\nHow sweetly does the moonbeam’s glance\nWith silver tint St. Irvyne’s glade!\n\n2.\nNo cloud along the spangled air, _5\nIs borne upon the evening breeze;\nHow solemn is the scene! how fair\nThe moonbeams rest upon the trees!\n\n3.\nYon dark gray turret glimmers white,\nUpon it sits the mournful owl; _10\nAlong the stillness of the night,\nHer melancholy shriekings roll.\n\n4.\nBut not alone on Irvyne’s tower,\nThe silver moonbeam pours her ray;\nIt gleams upon the ivied bower, _15\nIt dances in the cascade’s spray.\n\n5.\n‘Ah! why do dark’ning shades conceal\nThe hour, when man must cease to be?\nWhy may not human minds unveil\nThe dim mists of futurity?— _20\n\n6.\n‘The keenness of the world hath torn\nThe heart which opens to its blast;\nDespised, neglected, and forlorn,\nSinks the wretch in death at last.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note:", + "body": "4.—St. Irvyne’s Tower: Song, 1810.\n\n\n5.—BEREAVEMENT.\n\n1.\nHow stern are the woes of the desolate mourner,\nAs he bends in still grief o’er the hallowed bier,\nAs enanguished he turns from the laugh of the scorner,\nAnd drops, to Perfection’s remembrance, a tear;\nWhen floods of despair down his pale cheek are streaming, _5\nWhen no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,\nOr, if lulled for awhile, soon he starts from his dreaming,\nAnd finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.\n\n2.\nAh! when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,\nOr summer succeed to the winter of death? _10\nRest awhile, hapless victim, and Heaven will save\nThe spirit, that faded away with the breath.\nEternity points in its amaranth bower,\nWhere no clouds of fate o’er the sweet prospect lower,\nUnspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower, _15\nWhen woe fades away like the mist of the heath.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Note:", + "body": "5.—Bereavement: Song, 1811.\n\n\n6.—THE DROWNED LOVER.\n\n1.\nAh! faint are her limbs, and her footstep is weary,\nYet far must the desolate wanderer roam;\nThough the tempest is stern, and the mountain is dreary,\nShe must quit at deep midnight her pitiless home.\nI see her swift foot dash the dew from the whortle, _5\nAs she rapidly hastes to the green grove of myrtle;\nAnd I hear, as she wraps round her figure the kirtle,\n‘Stay thy boat on the lake,—dearest Henry, I come.’\n\n2.\nHigh swelled in her bosom the throb of affection,\nAs lightly her form bounded over the lea, _10\nAnd arose in her mind every dear recollection;\n‘I come, dearest Henry, and wait but for thee.’\nHow sad, when dear hope every sorrow is soothing,\nWhen sympathy’s swell the soft bosom is moving,\nAnd the mind the mild joys of affection is proving, _15\nIs the stern voice of fate that bids happiness flee!\n\n3.\nOh! dark lowered the clouds on that horrible eve,\nAnd the moon dimly gleamed through the tempested air;\nOh! how could fond visions such softness deceive?\nOh! how could false hope rend, a bosom so fair? _20\nThy love’s pallid corse the wild surges are laving,\nO’er his form the fierce swell of the tempest is raving;\nBut, fear not, parting spirit; thy goodness is saving,\nIn eternity’s bowers, a seat for thee there.\n\n6.—The Drowned Lover: Song. 1811; The Lake-Storm, Rossetti, 1870.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Posthumous Fragments Of Margaret Mcholson.", + "body": "Being Poems found amongst the Papers of that noted Female who attempted\nthe life of the King in 1786. Edited by John Fitzvictor.\n\n[The “Posthumous Fragments”, published at Oxford by Shelley, appeared in\nNovember, 1810. See “Bibliographical List”.]", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Advertisement.", + "body": "The energy and native genius of these Fragments must be the only apology\nwhich the Editor can make for thus intruding them on the public notice.\nThe first I found with no title, and have left it so. It is intimately\nconnected with the dearest interests of universal happiness; and much as\nwe may deplore the fatal and enthusiastic tendency which the ideas of\nthis poor female had acquired, we cannot fail to pay the tribute of\nunequivocal regret to the departed memory of genius, which, had it been\nrightly organized, would have made that intellect, which has since\nbecome the victim of frenzy and despair, a most brilliant ornament to\nsociety.\n\nIn case the sale of these Fragments evinces that the public have any\ncuriosity to be presented with a more copious collection of my\nunfortunate Aunt’s poems, I have other papers in my possession which\nshall, in that case, be subjected to their notice. It may be supposed\nthey require much arrangement; but I send the following to the press in\nthe same state in which they came into my possession. J. F.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "War.", + "body": "Ambition, power, and avarice, now have hurled\nDeath, fate, and ruin, on a bleeding world.\nSee! on yon heath what countless victims lie,\nHark! what loud shrieks ascend through yonder sky;\nTell then the cause, ’tis sure the avenger’s rage _5\nHas swept these myriads from life’s crowded stage:\nHark to that groan, an anguished hero dies,\nHe shudders in death’s latest agonies;\nYet does a fleeting hectic flush his cheek,\nYet does his parting breath essay to speak— _10\n‘Oh God! my wife, my children—Monarch thou\nFor whose support this fainting frame lies low;\nFor whose support in distant lands I bleed,\nLet his friends’ welfare be the warrior’s meed.\nHe hears me not—ah! no—kings cannot hear, _15\nFor passion’s voice has dulled their listless ear.\nTo thee, then, mighty God, I lift my moan,\nThou wilt not scorn a suppliant’s anguished groan.\nOh! now I die—but still is death’s fierce pain—\nGod hears my prayer—we meet, we meet again.’ _20\nHe spake, reclined him on death’s bloody bed,\nAnd with a parting groan his spirit fled.\nOppressors of mankind to YOU we owe\nThe baleful streams from whence these miseries flow;\nFor you how many a mother weeps her son, _25\nSnatched from life’s course ere half his race was run!\nFor you how many a widow drops a tear,\nIn silent anguish, on her husband’s bier!\n‘Is it then Thine, Almighty Power,’ she cries,\n‘Whence tears of endless sorrow dim these eyes? _30\nIs this the system which Thy powerful sway,\nWhich else in shapeless chaos sleeping lay,\nFormed and approved?—it cannot be—but oh!\nForgive me, Heaven, my brain is warped by woe.’\n’Tis not—He never bade the war-note swell, _35\nHe never triumphed in the work of hell—\nMonarchs of earth! thine is the baleful deed,\nThine are the crimes for which thy subjects bleed.\nAh! when will come the sacred fated time,\nWhen man unsullied by his leaders’ crime, _40\nDespising wealth, ambition, pomp, and pride,\nWill stretch him fearless by his foe-men’s side?\nAh! when will come the time, when o’er the plain\nNo more shall death and desolation reign?\nWhen will the sun smile on the bloodless field, _45\nAnd the stern warrior’s arm the sickle wield?\nNot whilst some King, in cold ambition’s dreams,\nPlans for the field of death his plodding schemes;\nNot whilst for private pique the public fall,\nAnd one frail mortal’s mandate governs all. _50\nSwelled with command and mad with dizzying sway;\nWho sees unmoved his myriads fade away.\nCareless who lives or dies—so that he gains\nSome trivial point for which he took the pains.\nWhat then are Kings?—I see the trembling crowd, _55\nI hear their fulsome clamours echoed loud;\nTheir stern oppressor pleased appears awhile,\nBut April’s sunshine is a Monarch’s smile—\nKings are but dust—the last eventful day\nWill level all and make them lose their sway; _60\nWill dash the sceptre from the Monarch’s hand,\nAnd from the warrior’s grasp wrest the ensanguined brand.\nOh! Peace, soft Peace, art thou for ever gone,\nIs thy fair form indeed for ever flown?\nAnd love and concord hast thou swept away, _65\nAs if incongruous with thy parted sway?\nAlas, I fear thou hast, for none appear.\nNow o’er the palsied earth stalks giant Fear,\nWith War, and Woe, and Terror, in his train;—\nList’ning he pauses on the embattled plain, _70\nThen speeding swiftly o’er the ensanguined heath,\nHas left the frightful work to Hell and Death.\nSee! gory Ruin yokes his blood-stained car,\nHe scents the battle’s carnage from afar;\nHell and Destruction mark his mad career, _75\nHe tracks the rapid step of hurrying Fear;\nWhilst ruined towns and smoking cities tell,\nThat thy work, Monarch, is the work of Hell.\n‘It is thy work!’ I hear a voice repeat,\nShakes the broad basis of thy bloodstained seat; _80\nAnd at the orphan’s sigh, the widow’s moan,\nTotters the fabric of thy guilt-stained throne—\n‘It is thy work, O Monarch;’ now the sound\nFainter and fainter, yet is borne around,\nYet to enthusiast ears the murmurs tell _85\nThat Heaven, indignant at the work of Hell,\nWill soon the cause, the hated cause remove,\nWhich tears from earth peace, innocence, and love.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment: Supposed To Be An Epithalamium Of Francis Ravaillac", + "body": "AND CHARLOTTE CORDAY.\n\n’Tis midnight now—athwart the murky air,\nDank lurid meteors shoot a livid gleam;\nFrom the dark storm-clouds flashes a fearful glare,\nIt shows the bending oak, the roaring stream.\n\nI pondered on the woes of lost mankind, _5\nI pondered on the ceaseless rage of Kings;\nMy rapt soul dwelt upon the ties that bind\nThe mazy volume of commingling things,\nWhen fell and wild misrule to man stern sorrow brings.\n\nI heard a yell—it was not the knell, _10\nWhen the blasts on the wild lake sleep,\nThat floats on the pause of the summer gale’s swell,\nO’er the breast of the waveless deep.\n\nI thought it had been death’s accents cold\nThat bade me recline on the shore; _15\nI laid mine hot head on the surge-beaten mould,\nAnd thought to breathe no more.\n\nBut a heavenly sleep\nThat did suddenly steep\nIn balm my bosom’s pain, _20\nPervaded my soul,\nAnd free from control,\nDid mine intellect range again.\n\nMethought enthroned upon a silvery cloud,\nWhich floated mid a strange and brilliant light; _25\nMy form upborne by viewless aether rode,\nAnd spurned the lessening realms of earthly night.\nWhat heavenly notes burst on my ravished ears,\nWhat beauteous spirits met my dazzled eye!\nHark! louder swells the music of the spheres, _30\nMore clear the forms of speechless bliss float by,\nAnd heavenly gestures suit aethereal melody.\n\nBut fairer than the spirits of the air,\nMore graceful than the Sylph of symmetry,\nThan the enthusiast’s fancied love more fair, _35\nWere the bright forms that swept the azure sky.\nEnthroned in roseate light, a heavenly band\nStrewed flowers of bliss that never fade away;\nThey welcome virtue to its native land,\nAnd songs of triumph greet the joyous day _40\nWhen endless bliss the woes of fleeting life repay.\n\nCongenial minds will seek their kindred soul,\nE’en though the tide of time has rolled between;\nThey mock weak matter’s impotent control,\nAnd seek of endless life the eternal scene. _45\nAt death’s vain summons THIS will never die,\nIn Nature’s chaos THIS will not decay—\nThese are the bands which closely, warmly, tie\nThy soul, O Charlotte, ‘yond this chain of clay,\nTo him who thine must be till time shall fade away. _50\n\nYes, Francis! thine was the dear knife that tore\nA tyrant’s heart-strings from his guilty breast,\nThine was the daring at a tyrant’s gore,\nTo smile in triumph, to contemn the rest;\nAnd thine, loved glory of thy sex! to tear _55\nFrom its base shrine a despot’s haughty soul,\nTo laugh at sorrow in secure despair,\nTo mock, with smiles, life’s lingering control,\nAnd triumph mid the griefs that round thy fate did roll.\n\nYes! the fierce spirits of the avenging deep _60\nWith endless tortures goad their guilty shades.\nI see the lank and ghastly spectres sweep\nAlong the burning length of yon arcades;\nAnd I see Satan stalk athwart the plain;\nHe hastes along the burning soil of Hell. _65\n‘Welcome, ye despots, to my dark domain,\nWith maddening joy mine anguished senses swell\nTo welcome to their home the friends I love so well.’\n\n...\n\nHark! to those notes, how sweet, how thrilling sweet\nThey echo to the sound of angels’ feet. _70\n\n...\n\nOh haste to the bower where roses are spread,\nFor there is prepared thy nuptial bed.\nOh haste—hark! hark!—they’re gone.\n\n...", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Chorus Of Spirits:", + "body": "Stay, ye days of contentment and joy,\nWhilst love every care is erasing, _75\nStay ye pleasures that never can cloy,\nAnd ye spirits that can never cease pleasing.\n\nAnd if any soft passion be near,\nWhich mortals, frail mortals, can know,\nLet love shed on the bosom a tear, _80\nAnd dissolve the chill ice-drop of woe.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Francis:", + "body": "‘Soft, my dearest angel, stay,\nOh! you suck my soul away;\nSuck on, suck on, I glow, I glow!\nTides of maddening passion roll, _85\nAnd streams of rapture drown my soul.\nNow give me one more billing kiss,\nLet your lips now repeat the bliss,\nEndless kisses steal my breath,\nNo life can equal such a death.’ _90", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Charlotte:", + "body": "‘Oh! yes I will kiss thine eyes so fair,\nAnd I will clasp thy form;\nSerene is the breath of the balmy air,\nBut I think, love, thou feelest me warm\nAnd I will recline on thy marble neck _95\nTill I mingle into thee;\nAnd I will kiss the rose on thy cheek,\nAnd thou shalt give kisses to me.\nFor here is no morn to flout our delight,\nOh! dost thou not joy at this? _100\nAnd here we may lie an endless night,\nA long, long night of bliss.’\n\nSpirits! when raptures move,\nSay what it is to love,\nWhen passion’s tear stands on the cheek, _105\nWhen bursts the unconscious sigh;\nAnd the tremulous lips dare not speak\nWhat is told by the soul-felt eye.\nBut what is sweeter to revenge’s ear\nThan the fell tyrant’s last expiring yell? _110\nYes! than love’s sweetest blisses ’tis more dear\nTo drink the floatings of a despot’s knell.\nI wake—’tis done—’tis over.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Despair.", + "body": "And canst thou mock mine agony, thus calm\nIn cloudless radiance, Queen of silver night?\nCan you, ye flow’rets, spread your perfumed balm\nMid pearly gems of dew that shine so bright?\nAnd you wild winds, thus can you sleep so still _5\nWhilst throbs the tempest of my breast so high?\nCan the fierce night-fiends rest on yonder hill,\nAnd, in the eternal mansions of the sky,\nCan the directors of the storm in powerless silence lie?\n\nHark! I hear music on the zephyr’s wing, _10\nLouder it floats along the unruffled sky;\nSome fairy sure has touched the viewless string—\nNow faint in distant air the murmurs die.\nAwhile it stills the tide of agony.\nNow—now it loftier swells—again stern woe _15\nArises with the awakening melody.\nAgain fierce torments, such as demons know,\nIn bitterer, feller tide, on this torn bosom flow.\n\nArise ye sightless spirits of the storm,\nYe unseen minstrels of the aereal song, _20\nPour the fierce tide around this lonely form,\nAnd roll the tempest’s wildest swell along.\nDart the red lightning, wing the forked flash,\nPour from thy cloud-formed hills the thunder’s roar;\nArouse the whirlwind—and let ocean dash _25\nIn fiercest tumult on the rocking shore,—\nDestroy this life or let earth’s fabric be no more.\n\nYes! every tie that links me here is dead;\nMysterious Fate, thy mandate I obey,\nSince hope and peace, and joy, for aye are fled, _30\nI come, terrific power, I come away.\nThen o’er this ruined soul let spirits of Hell,\nIn triumph, laughing wildly, mock its pain;\nAnd though with direst pangs mine heart-strings swell,\nI’ll echo back their deadly yells again, _35\nCursing the power that ne’er made aught in vain.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment.", + "body": "Yes! all is past—swift time has fled away,\nYet its swell pauses on my sickening mind;\nHow long will horror nerve this frame of clay?\nI’m dead, and lingers yet my soul behind.\nOh! powerful Fate, revoke thy deadly spell, _5\nAnd yet that may not ever, ever be,\nHeaven will not smile upon the work of Hell;\nAh! no, for Heaven cannot smile on me;\nFate, envious Fate, has sealed my wayward destiny.\n\nI sought the cold brink of the midnight surge, _10\nI sighed beneath its wave to hide my woes,\nThe rising tempest sung a funeral dirge,\nAnd on the blast a frightful yell arose.\nWild flew the meteors o’er the maddened main,\nWilder did grief athwart my bosom glare; _15\nStilled was the unearthly howling, and a strain,\nSwelled mid the tumult of the battling air,\n’Twas like a spirit’s song, but yet more soft and fair.\n\nI met a maniac—like he was to me,\nI said—‘Poor victim, wherefore dost thou roam? _20\nAnd canst thou not contend with agony,\nThat thus at midnight thou dost quit thine home?’\n‘Ah there she sleeps: cold is her bloodless form,\nAnd I will go to slumber in her grave;\nAnd then our ghosts, whilst raves the maddened storm, _25\nWill sweep at midnight o’er the wildered wave;\nWilt thou our lowly beds with tears of pity lave?’\n\n‘Ah! no, I cannot shed the pitying tear,\nThis breast is cold, this heart can feel no more—\nBut I can rest me on thy chilling bier, _30\nCan shriek in horror to the tempest’s roar.’\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Spectral Horseman.", + "body": "What was the shriek that struck Fancy’s ear\nAs it sate on the ruins of time that is past?\nHark! it floats on the fitful blast of the wind,\nAnd breathes to the pale moon a funeral sigh.\nIt is the Benshie’s moan on the storm, _5\nOr a shivering fiend that thirsting for sin,\nSeeks murder and guilt when virtue sleeps,\nWinged with the power of some ruthless king,\nAnd sweeps o’er the breast of the prostrate plain.\nIt was not a fiend from the regions of Hell _10\nThat poured its low moan on the stillness of night:\nIt was not a ghost of the guilty dead,\nNor a yelling vampire reeking with gore;\nBut aye at the close of seven years’ end,\nThat voice is mixed with the swell of the storm, _15\nAnd aye at the close of seven years’ end,\nA shapeless shadow that sleeps on the hill\nAwakens and floats on the mist of the heath.\nIt is not the shade of a murdered man,\nWho has rushed uncalled to the throne of his God, _20\nAnd howls in the pause of the eddying storm.\nThis voice is low, cold, hollow, and chill,\n’Tis not heard by the ear, but is felt in the soul.\n’Tis more frightful far than the death-daemon’s scream,\nOr the laughter of fiends when they howl o’er the corpse _25\nOf a man who has sold his soul to Hell.\nIt tells the approach of a mystic form,\nA white courser bears the shadowy sprite;\nMore thin they are than the mists of the mountain,\nWhen the clear moonlight sleeps on the waveless lake. _30\nMore pale HIS cheek than the snows of Nithona,\nWhen winter rides on the northern blast,\nAnd howls in the midst of the leafless wood.\nYet when the fierce swell of the tempest is raving,\nAnd the whirlwinds howl in the caves of Inisfallen, _35\nStill secure mid the wildest war of the sky,\nThe phantom courser scours the waste,\nAnd his rider howls in the thunder’s roar.\nO’er him the fierce bolts of avenging Heaven\nPause, as in fear, to strike his head. _40\nThe meteors of midnight recoil from his figure,\nYet the ‘wildered peasant, that oft passes by,\nWith wonder beholds the blue flash through his form:\nAnd his voice, though faint as the sighs of the dead,\nThe startled passenger shudders to hear, _45\nMore distinct than the thunder’s wildest roar.\nThen does the dragon, who, chained in the caverns\nTo eternity, curses the champion of Erin,\nMoan and yell loud at the lone hour of midnight,\nAnd twine his vast wreaths round the forms of the daemons; _50\nThen in agony roll his death-swimming eyeballs,\nThough ‘wildered by death, yet never to die!\nThen he shakes from his skeleton folds the nightmares,\nWho, shrieking in agony, seek the couch\nOf some fevered wretch who courts sleep in vain; _55\nThen the tombless ghosts of the guilty dead\nIn horror pause on the fitful gale.\nThey float on the swell of the eddying tempest,\nAnd scared seek the caves of gigantic...\nWhere their thin forms pour unearthly sounds _60\nOn the blast that sweets the breast of the lake,\nAnd mingles its swell with the moonlight air.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Melody To A Scene Of Former Times.", + "body": "Art thou indeed forever gone,\nForever, ever, lost to me?\nMust this poor bosom beat alone,\nOr beat at all, if not for thee?\nAh! why was love to mortals given, _5\nTo lift them to the height of Heaven,\nOr dash them to the depths of Hell?\nYet I do not reproach thee, dear!\nAh, no! the agonies that swell\nThis panting breast, this frenzied brain, _10\nMight wake my —‘s slumb’ring tear.\nOh! Heaven is witness I did love,\nAnd Heaven does know I love thee still,\nDoes know the fruitless sick’ning thrill,\nWhen reason’s judgement vainly strove _15\nTo blot thee from my memory;\nBut which might never, never be.\nOh! I appeal to that blest day\nWhen passion’s wildest ecstasy\nWas coldness to the joys I knew, _20\nWhen every sorrow sunk away.\nOh! I had never lived before,\nBut now those blisses are no more.\nAnd now I cease to live again,\nI do not blame thee, love; ah, no! _25\nThe breast that feels this anguished woe.\nThrobs for thy happiness alone.\nTwo years of speechless bliss are gone,\nI thank thee, dearest, for the dream.\n’Tis night—what faint and distant scream _30\nComes on the wild and fitful blast?\nIt moans for pleasures that are past,\nIt moans for days that are gone by.\nOh! lagging hours, how slow you fly!\nI see a dark and lengthened vale, _35\nThe black view closes with the tomb;\nBut darker is the lowering gloom\nThat shades the intervening dale.\nIn visioned slumber for awhile\nI seem again to share thy smile, _40\nI seem to hang upon thy tone.\nAgain you say, ‘Confide in me,\nFor I am thine, and thine alone,\nAnd thine must ever, ever be.’\nBut oh! awak’ning still anew, _45\nAthwart my enanguished senses flew\nA fiercer, deadlier agony!\n\n[End of “Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson”.]\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Stanza From A Translation Of The Marseillaise Hymn.", + "body": "[Published by Forman, “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876; dated 1810.]\n\nTremble, Kings despised of man!\nYe traitors to your Country,\nTremble! Your parricidal plan\nAt length shall meet its destiny...\nWe all are soldiers fit to fight, _5\nBut if we sink in glory’s night\nOur mother Earth will give ye new\nThe brilliant pathway to pursue\nWhich leads to Death or Victory...\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Bigotry’S Victim.", + "body": "[Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated\n1809-10. The title is Rossetti’s (1870).]\n\n1.\nDares the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind,\nThe lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair?\nWhen the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hind\nRepose trust in his footsteps of air?\nNo! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair, _5\nThe monster transfixes his prey,\nOn the sand flows his life-blood away;\nWhilst India’s rocks to his death-yells reply,\nProtracting the horrible harmony.\n\n2.\nYet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches, _10\nDares fearless to perish defending her brood,\nThough the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches\nThirsting—ay, thirsting for blood;\nAnd demands, like mankind, his brother for food;\nYet more lenient, more gentle than they; _15\nFor hunger, not glory, the prey\nMust perish. Revenge does not howl in the dead.\nNor ambition with fame crown the murderer’s head.\n\n3.\nThough weak as the lama that bounds on the mountains,\nAnd endued not with fast-fleeting footsteps of air, _20\nYet, yet will I draw from the purest of fountains,\nThough a fiercer than tiger is there.\nThough, more dreadful than death, it scatters despair,\nThough its shadow eclipses the day,\nAnd the darkness of deepest dismay _25\nSpreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around,\nAnd lowers on the corpses, that rot on the ground.\n\n4.\nThey came to the fountain to draw from its stream\nWaves too pure, too celestial, for mortals to see;\nThey bathed for awhile in its silvery beam, _30\nThen perished, and perished like me.\nFor in vain from the grasp of the Bigot I flee;\nThe most tenderly loved of my soul\nAre slaves to his hated control.\nHe pursues me, he blasts me! ’Tis in vain that I fly: _35 -\nWhat remains, but to curse him,—to curse him and die?\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "On An Icicle That Clung To The Grass Of A Grave.", + "body": "[Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated\n1809-10. The poem, with title as above, is included in the Esdaile\nmanuscript book.]\n\n1.\nOh! take the pure gem to where southerly breezes,\nWaft repose to some bosom as faithful as fair,\nIn which the warm current of love never freezes,\nAs it rises unmingled with selfishness there,\nWhich, untainted by pride, unpolluted by care, _5\nMight dissolve the dim icedrop, might bid it arise,\nToo pure for these regions, to gleam in the skies.\n\n2.\nOr where the stern warrior, his country defending,\nDares fearless the dark-rolling battle to pour,\nOr o’er the fell corpse of a dread tyrant bending, _10\nWhere patriotism red with his guilt-reeking gore\nPlants Liberty’s flag on the slave-peopled shore,\nWith victory’s cry, with the shout of the free,\nLet it fly, taintless Spirit, to mingle with thee.\n\n3.\nFor I found the pure gem, when the daybeam returning, _15\nIneffectual gleams on the snow-covered plain,\nWhen to others the wished-for arrival of morning\nBrings relief to long visions of soul-racking pain;\nBut regret is an insult—to grieve is in vain:\nAnd why should we grieve that a spirit so fair _20\nSeeks Heaven to mix with its own kindred there?\n\n4.\nBut still ’twas some Spirit of kindness descending\nTo share in the load of mortality’s woe,\nWho over thy lowly-built sepulchre bending\nBade sympathy’s tenderest teardrop to flow. _25\nNot for THEE soft compassion celestials did know,\nBut if ANGELS can weep, sure MAN may repine,\nMay weep in mute grief o’er thy low-laid shrine.\n\n5.\nAnd did I then say, for the altar of glory,\nThat the earliest, the loveliest of flowers I’d entwine, _30\nThough with millions of blood-reeking victims ’twas gory,\nThough the tears of the widow polluted its shrine,\nThough around it the orphans, the fatherless pine?\nOh! Fame, all thy glories I’d yield for a tear\nTo shed on the grave of a heart so sincere. _35\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Love.", + "body": "[Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1811.\nThe title is Rossetti’s (1870).]\n\nWhy is it said thou canst not live\nIn a youthful breast and fair,\nSince thou eternal life canst give,\nCanst bloom for ever there?\nSince withering pain no power possessed, _5\nNor age, to blanch thy vermeil hue,\nNor time’s dread victor, death, confessed,\nThough bathed with his poison dew,\nStill thou retain’st unchanging bloom,\nFixed tranquil, even in the tomb. _10\nAnd oh! when on the blest, reviving,\nThe day-star dawns of love,\nEach energy of soul surviving\nMore vivid, soars above,\nHast thou ne’er felt a rapturous thrill, _15\nLike June’s warm breath, athwart thee fly,\nO’er each idea then to steal,\nWhen other passions die?\nFelt it in some wild noonday dream,\nWhen sitting by the lonely stream, _20\nWhere Silence says, ‘Mine is the dell’;\nAnd not a murmur from the plain,\nAnd not an echo from the fell,\nDisputes her silent reign.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "On A Fete At Carlton House: Fragment.", + "body": "[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870;\ndated 1811.]\n\nBy the mossy brink,\nWith me the Prince shall sit and think;\nShall muse in visioned Regency,\nRapt in bright dreams of dawning Royalty.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Tale Of Society As It Is: From Facts, 1811.", + "body": "[Published (from Esdaile manuscript with title as above) by Rossetti,\n“Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870. Rossetti’s title is “Mother\nand Son”.]\n\n1.\nShe was an aged woman; and the years\nWhich she had numbered on her toilsome way\nHad bowed her natural powers to decay.\nShe was an aged woman; yet the ray\nWhich faintly glimmered through her starting tears, _5\nPressed into light by silent misery,\nHath soul’s imperishable energy.\nShe was a cripple, and incapable\nTo add one mite to gold-fed luxury:\nAnd therefore did her spirit dimly feel _10\nThat poverty, the crime of tainting stain,\nWould merge her in its depths, never to rise again.\n\n2.\nOne only son’s love had supported her.\nShe long had struggled with infirmity,\nLingering to human life-scenes; for to die, _15\nWhen fate has spared to rend some mental tie,\nWould many wish, and surely fewer dare.\nBut, when the tyrant’s bloodhounds forced the child\nFor his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield—\nBend to another’s will—become a thing _20\nMore senseless than the sword of battlefield—\nThen did she feel keen sorrow’s keenest sting;\nAnd many years had passed ere comfort they would bring.\n\n3.\nFor seven years did this poor woman live\nIn unparticipated solitude. _25\nThou mightst have seen her in the forest rude\nPicking the scattered remnants of its wood.\nIf human, thou mightst then have learned to grieve.\nThe gleanings of precarious charity\nHer scantiness of food did scarce supply. _30\nThe proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt\nWithin her ghastly hollowness of eye:\nEach arrow of the season’s change she felt.\nYet still she groans, ere yet her race were run,\nOne only hope: it was—once more to see her son. _35\n\n4.\nIt was an eve of June, when every star\nSpoke peace from Heaven to those on earth that live.\nShe rested on the moor. ’Twas such an eve\nWhen first her soul began indeed to grieve:\nThen he was here; now he is very far. _40\nThe sweetness of the balmy evening\nA sorrow o’er her aged soul did fling,\nYet not devoid of rapture’s mingled tear:\nA balm was in the poison of the sting.\nThis aged sufferer for many a year _45\nHad never felt such comfort. She suppressed\nA sigh—and turning round, clasped William to her breast!\n\n5.\nAnd, though his form was wasted by the woe\nWhich tyrants on their victims love to wreak,\nThough his sunk eyeballs and his faded cheek _50\nOf slavery’s violence and scorn did speak,\nYet did the aged woman’s bosom glow.\nThe vital fire seemed re-illumed within\nBy this sweet unexpected welcoming.\nOh, consummation of the fondest hope _55\nThat ever soared on Fancy’s wildest wing!\nOh, tenderness that foundst so sweet a scope!\nPrince who dost pride thee on thy mighty sway,\nWhen THOU canst feel such love, thou shalt be great as they!\n\n6.\nHer son, compelled, the country’s foes had fought, _60\nHad bled in battle; and the stern control\nWhich ruled his sinews and coerced his soul\nUtterly poisoned life’s unmingled bowl,\nAnd unsubduable evils on him brought.\nHe was the shadow of the lusty child _65\nWho, when the time of summer season smiled,\nDid earn for her a meal of honesty,\nAnd with affectionate discourse beguiled\nThe keen attacks of pain and poverty;\nTill Power, as envying her this only joy, _70\nFrom her maternal bosom tore the unhappy boy.\n\n7.\nAnd now cold charity’s unwelcome dole\nWas insufficient to support the pair;\nAnd they would perish rather than would bear\nThe law’s stern slavery, and the insolent stare _75\nWith which law loves to rend the poor man’s soul—\nThe bitter scorn, the spirit-sinking noise\nOf heartless mirth which women, men, and boys\nWake in this scene of legal misery.\n\n...\n\n_28 grieve Esdaile manuscript; feel, 1870.\n_37 to those on earth that live Esdaile manuscripts; omitted, 1870.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "On Robert Emmet’S Grave.", + "body": "[Published from the Esdaile manuscript book by Dowden,\n“Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated 1812.]\n\n...\n\n6.\nNo trump tells thy virtues—the grave where they rest\nWith thy dust shall remain unpolluted by fame,\nTill thy foes, by the world and by fortune caressed,\nShall pass like a mist from the light of thy name.\n\n7.\nWhen the storm-cloud that lowers o’er the day-beam is gone, _5\nUnchanged, unextinguished its life-spring will shine;\nWhen Erin has ceased with their memory to groan,\nShe will smile through the tears of revival on thine.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Retrospect: Cwm Elan, 1812.", + "body": "[Published from the Esdaile manuscript book by Dowden,\n“Life of Shelley”, 1887.]\n\nA scene, which ‘wildered fancy viewed\nIn the soul’s coldest solitude,\nWith that same scene when peaceful love\nFlings rapture’s colour o’er the grove,\nWhen mountain, meadow, wood and stream _5\nWith unalloying glory gleam,\nAnd to the spirit’s ear and eye\nAre unison and harmony.\nThe moonlight was my dearer day;\nThen would I wander far away, _10\nAnd, lingering on the wild brook’s shore\nTo hear its unremitting roar,\nWould lose in the ideal flow\nAll sense of overwhelming woe;\nOr at the noiseless noon of night _15\nWould climb some heathy mountain’s height,\nAnd listen to the mystic sound\nThat stole in fitful gasps around.\nI joyed to see the streaks of day\nAbove the purple peaks decay, _20\nAnd watch the latest line of light\nJust mingling with the shades of night;\nFor day with me was time of woe\nWhen even tears refused to flow;\nThen would I stretch my languid frame _25\nBeneath the wild woods’ gloomiest shade,\nAnd try to quench the ceaseless flame\nThat on my withered vitals preyed;\nWould close mine eyes and dream I were\nOn some remote and friendless plain, _30\nAnd long to leave existence there,\nIf with it I might leave the pain\nThat with a finger cold and lean\nWrote madness on my withering mien.\n\nIt was not unrequited love _35\nThat bade my ‘wildered spirit rove;\n’Twas not the pride disdaining life,\nThat with this mortal world at strife\nWould yield to the soul’s inward sense,\nThen groan in human impotence, _40\nAnd weep because it is not given\nTo taste on Earth the peace of Heaven.\n’Twas not that in the narrow sphere\nWhere Nature fixed my wayward fate\nThere was no friend or kindred dear _45\nFormed to become that spirit’s mate,\nWhich, searching on tired pinion, found\nBarren and cold repulse around;\nOh, no! yet each one sorrow gave\nNew graces to the narrow grave. _50\nFor broken vows had early quelled\nThe stainless spirit’s vestal flame;\nYes! whilst the faithful bosom swelled,\nThen the envenomed arrow came,\nAnd Apathy’s unaltering eye _55\nBeamed coldness on the misery;\nAnd early I had learned to scorn\nThe chains of clay that bound a soul\nPanting to seize the wings of morn,\nAnd where its vital fires were born _60\nTo soar, and spur the cold control\nWhich the vile slaves of earthly night\nWould twine around its struggling flight.\n\nOh, many were the friends whom fame\nHad linked with the unmeaning name, _65\nWhose magic marked among mankind\nThe casket of my unknown mind,\nWhich hidden from the vulgar glare\nImbibed no fleeting radiance there.\nMy darksome spirit sought—it found _70\nA friendless solitude around.\nFor who that might undaunted stand,\nThe saviour of a sinking land,\nWould crawl, its ruthless tyrant’s slave,\nAnd fatten upon Freedom’s grave, _75\nThough doomed with her to perish, where\nThe captive clasps abhorred despair.\n\nThey could not share the bosom’s feeling,\nWhich, passion’s every throb revealing,\nDared force on the world’s notice cold _80\nThoughts of unprofitable mould,\nWho bask in Custom’s fickle ray,\nFit sunshine of such wintry day!\nThey could not in a twilight walk\nWeave an impassioned web of talk, _85\nTill mysteries the spirits press\nIn wild yet tender awfulness,\nThen feel within our narrow sphere\nHow little yet how great we are!\nBut they might shine in courtly glare, _90\nAttract the rabble’s cheapest stare,\nAnd might command where’er they move\nA thing that bears the name of love;\nThey might be learned, witty, gay,\nForemost in fashion’s gilt array, _95\nOn Fame’s emblazoned pages shine,\nBe princes’ friends, but never mine!\n\nYe jagged peaks that frown sublime,\nMocking the blunted scythe of Time,\nWhence I would watch its lustre pale _100\nSteal from the moon o’er yonder vale\nThou rock, whose bosom black and vast,\nBared to the stream’s unceasing flow,\nEver its giant shade doth cast\nOn the tumultuous surge below: _105\n\nWoods, to whose depths retires to die\nThe wounded Echo’s melody,\nAnd whither this lone spirit bent\nThe footstep of a wild intent:\n\nMeadows! whose green and spangled breast _110\nThese fevered limbs have often pressed,\nUntil the watchful fiend Despair\nSlept in the soothing coolness there!\nHave not your varied beauties seen\nThe sunken eye, the withering mien, _115\nSad traces of the unuttered pain\nThat froze my heart and burned my brain.\nHow changed since Nature’s summer form\nHad last the power my grief to charm,\nSince last ye soothed my spirit’s sadness, _120\nStrange chaos of a mingled madness!\nChanged!—not the loathsome worm that fed\nIn the dark mansions of the dead,\nNow soaring through the fields of air,\nAnd gathering purest nectar there, _125\nA butterfly, whose million hues\nThe dazzled eye of wonder views,\nLong lingering on a work so strange,\nHas undergone so bright a change.\nHow do I feel my happiness? _130\nI cannot tell, but they may guess\nWhose every gloomy feeling gone,\nFriendship and passion feel alone;\nWho see mortality’s dull clouds\nBefore affection’s murmur fly, _135\nWhilst the mild glances of her eye\nPierce the thin veil of flesh that shrouds\nThe spirit’s inmost sanctuary.\nO thou! whose virtues latest known,\nFirst in this heart yet claim’st a throne; _140\nWhose downy sceptre still shall share\nThe gentle sway with virtue there;\nThou fair in form, and pure in mind,\nWhose ardent friendship rivets fast\nThe flowery band our fates that bind, _145\nWhich incorruptible shall last\nWhen duty’s hard and cold control\nHas thawed around the burning soul,—\nThe gloomiest retrospects that bind\nWith crowns of thorn the bleeding mind, _150\nThe prospects of most doubtful hue\nThat rise on Fancy’s shuddering view,—\nAre gilt by the reviving ray\nWhich thou hast flung upon my day.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Sonnet.", + "body": "ON LAUNCHING SOME BOTTLES FILLED WITH KNOWLEDGE INTO THE BRISTOL CHANNEL.\n\n[Published from the Esdaile manuscript book by Dowden,\n“Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated August, 1812.]\n\nVessels of heavenly medicine! may the breeze\nAuspicious waft your dark green forms to shore;\nSafe may ye stem the wide surrounding roar\nOf the wild whirlwinds and the raging seas;\nAnd oh! if Liberty e’er deigned to stoop _5\nFrom yonder lowly throne her crownless brow,\nSure she will breathe around your emerald group\nThe fairest breezes of her West that blow.\nYes! she will waft ye to some freeborn soul\nWhose eye-beam, kindling as it meets your freight, _10\nHer heaven-born flame in suffering Earth will light,\nUntil its radiance gleams from pole to pole,\nAnd tyrant-hearts with powerless envy burst\nTo see their night of ignorance dispersed.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "A Ballad.", + "body": "[Published as a broadside by Shelley, 1812.]\n\n1.\nOnce, early in the morning, Beelzebub arose,\nWith care his sweet person adorning,\nHe put on his Sunday clothes.\n\n2.\nHe drew on a boot to hide his hoof, _5\nHe drew on a glove to hide his claw,\nHis horns were concealed by a Bras Chapeau,\nAnd the Devil went forth as natty a Beau\nAs Bond-street ever saw.\n\n3.\nHe sate him down, in London town, _10\nBefore earth’s morning ray;\nWith a favourite imp he began to chat,\nOn religion, and scandal, this and that,\nUntil the dawn of day.\n\n4.\nAnd then to St. James’s Court he went, _15\nAnd St. Paul’s Church he took on his way;\nHe was mighty thick with every Saint,\nThough they were formal and he was gay.\n\n5.\nThe Devil was an agriculturist,\nAnd as bad weeds quickly grow, _20\nIn looking over his farm, I wist,\nHe wouldn’t find cause for woe.\n\n6.\nHe peeped in each hole, to each chamber stole,\nHis promising live-stock to view;\nGrinning applause, he just showed them his claws, _25\nAnd they shrunk with affright from his ugly sight,\nWhose work they delighted to do.\n\n7.\nSatan poked his red nose into crannies so small\nOne would think that the innocents fair,\nPoor lambkins! were just doing nothing at all _30\nBut settling some dress or arranging some ball,\nBut the Devil saw deeper there.\n\n8.\nA Priest, at whose elbow the Devil during prayer\nSate familiarly, side by side,\nDeclared that, if the Tempter were there, _35\nHis presence he would not abide.\nAh! ah! thought Old Nick, that’s a very stale trick,\nFor without the Devil, O favourite of Evil,\nIn your carriage you would not ride.\n\n9.\nSatan next saw a brainless King, _40\nWhose house was as hot as his own;\nMany Imps in attendance were there on the wing,\nThey flapped the pennon and twisted the sting,\nClose by the very Throne.\n\n10.\nAh! ah! thought Satan, the pasture is good, _45\nMy Cattle will here thrive better than others;\nThey dine on news of human blood,\nThey sup on the groans of the dying and dead,\nAnd supperless never will go to bed;\nWhich will make them fat as their brothers. _50\n\n11.\nFat as the Fiends that feed on blood,\nFresh and warm from the fields of Spain,\nWhere Ruin ploughs her gory way,\nWhere the shoots of earth are nipped in the bud,\nWhere Hell is the Victor’s prey, _55\nIts glory the meed of the slain.\n\n12.\nFat—as the Death-birds on Erin’s shore,\nThat glutted themselves in her dearest gore,\nAnd flitted round Castlereagh,\nWhen they snatched the Patriot’s heart, that HIS grasp _60\nHad torn from its widow’s maniac clasp,\n—And fled at the dawn of day.\n\n13.\nFat—as the Reptiles of the tomb,\nThat riot in corruption’s spoil,\nThat fret their little hour in gloom, _65\nAnd creep, and live the while.\n\n14.\nFat as that Prince’s maudlin brain,\nWhich, addled by some gilded toy,\nTired, gives his sweetmeat, and again\nCries for it, like a humoured boy. _70\n\n15.\nFor he is fat,—his waistcoat gay,\nWhen strained upon a levee day,\nScarce meets across his princely paunch;\nAnd pantaloons are like half-moons\nUpon each brawny haunch. _75\n\n16.\nHow vast his stock of calf! when plenty\nHad filled his empty head and heart,\nEnough to satiate foplings twenty,\nCould make his pantaloon seams start.\n\n17.\nThe Devil (who sometimes is called Nature), _80\nFor men of power provides thus well,\nWhilst every change and every feature,\nTheir great original can tell.\n\n18.\nSatan saw a lawyer a viper slay,\nThat crawled up the leg of his table, _85\nIt reminded him most marvellously\nOf the story of Cain and Abel.\n\n19.\nThe wealthy yeoman, as he wanders\nHis fertile fields among,\nAnd on his thriving cattle ponders, _90\nCounts his sure gains, and hums a song;\nThus did the Devil, through earth walking,\nHum low a hellish song.\n\n20.\nFor they thrive well whose garb of gore\nIs Satan’s choicest livery, _95\nAnd they thrive well who from the poor\nHave snatched the bread of penury,\nAnd heap the houseless wanderer’s store\nOn the rank pile of luxury.\n\n21.\nThe Bishops thrive, though they are big; _100\nThe Lawyers thrive, though they are thin;\nFor every gown, and every wig,\nHides the safe thrift of Hell within.\n\n22.\nThus pigs were never counted clean,\nAlthough they dine on finest corn; _105\nAnd cormorants are sin-like lean,\nAlthough they eat from night to morn.\n\n23.\nOh! why is the Father of Hell in such glee,\nAs he grins from ear to ear?\nWhy does he doff his clothes joyfully, _110\nAs he skips, and prances, and flaps his wing,\nAs he sidles, leers, and twirls his sting,\nAnd dares, as he is, to appear?\n\n24.\nA statesman passed—alone to him,\nThe Devil dare his whole shape uncover, _115\nTo show each feature, every limb,\nSecure of an unchanging lover.\n\n25.\nAt this known sign, a welcome sight,\nThe watchful demons sought their King,\nAnd every Fiend of the Stygian night, _120\nWas in an instant on the wing.\n\n26.\nPale Loyalty, his guilt-steeled brow,\nWith wreaths of gory laurel crowned:\nThe hell-hounds, Murder, Want and Woe,\nForever hungering, flocked around; _125\nFrom Spain had Satan sought their food,\n’Twas human woe and human blood!\n\n27.\nHark! the earthquake’s crash I hear,—\nKings turn pale, and Conquerors start,\nRuffians tremble in their fear, _130\nFor their Satan doth depart.\n\n28.\nThis day Fiends give to revelry\nTo celebrate their King’s return,\nAnd with delight its Sire to see\nHell’s adamantine limits burn. _135\n\n29.\nBut were the Devil’s sight as keen\nAs Reason’s penetrating eye,\nHis sulphurous Majesty I ween,\nWould find but little cause for joy.\n\n30.\nFor the sons of Reason see _140\nThat, ere fate consume the Pole,\nThe false Tyrant’s cheek shall be\nBloodless as his coward soul.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Farewell To North Devon.", + "body": "[Published (from the Esdaile manuscript book) by Dowden,\n“Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated August, 1812.]\n\nWhere man’s profane and tainting hand\nNature’s primaeval loveliness has marred,\nAnd some few souls of the high bliss debarred\nWhich else obey her powerful command;\n...mountain piles _5\nThat load in grandeur Cambria’s emerald vales.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "On Leaving London For Wales.", + "body": "[Published (from the Esdaile manuscript book) by Dowden,\n“Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated November, 1812.]\n\nHail to thee, Cambria! for the unfettered wind\nWhich from thy wilds even now methinks I feel,\nChasing the clouds that roll in wrath behind,\nAnd tightening the soul’s laxest nerves to steel;\nTrue mountain Liberty alone may heal _5\nThe pain which Custom’s obduracies bring,\nAnd he who dares in fancy even to steal\nOne draught from Snowdon’s ever sacred spring\nBlots out the unholiest rede of worldly witnessing.\n\nAnd shall that soul, to selfish peace resigned, _10\nSo soon forget the woe its fellows share?\nCan Snowdon’s Lethe from the free-born mind\nSo soon the page of injured penury tear?\nDoes this fine mass of human passion dare\nTo sleep, unhonouring the patriot’s fall, _15\nOr life’s sweet load in quietude to bear\nWhile millions famish even in Luxury’s hall,\nAnd Tyranny, high raised, stern lowers on all?\n\nNo, Cambria! never may thy matchless vales\nA heart so false to hope and virtue shield; _20\nNor ever may thy spirit-breathing gales\nWaft freshness to the slaves who dare to yield.\nFor me!...the weapon that I burn to wield\nI seek amid thy rocks to ruin hurled,\nThat Reason’s flag may over Freedom’s field, _25\nSymbol of bloodless victory, wave unfurled,\nA meteor-sign of love effulgent o’er the world.\n\n...\n\nDo thou, wild Cambria, calm each struggling thought;\nCast thy sweet veil of rocks and woods between,\nThat by the soul to indignation wrought _30\nMountains and dells be mingled with the scene;\nLet me forever be what I have been,\nBut not forever at my needy door\nLet Misery linger speechless, pale and lean;\nI am the friend of the unfriended poor,— _35\nLet me not madly stain their righteous cause in gore.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Wandering Jew’S Soliloquy.", + "body": "[Published (from the Esdaile manuscript book) by Bertram Dobell, 1887.]\n\nIs it the Eternal Triune, is it He\nWho dares arrest the wheels of destiny\nAnd plunge me in the lowest Hell of Hells?\nWill not the lightning’s blast destroy my frame?\nWill not steel drink the blood-life where it swells? _5\nNo—let me hie where dark Destruction dwells,\nTo rouse her from her deeply caverned lair,\nAnd, taunting her cursed sluggishness to ire,\nLight long Oblivion’s death-torch at its flame\nAnd calmly mount Annihilation’s pyre. _10\nTyrant of Earth! pale Misery’s jackal Thou!\nAre there no stores of vengeful violent fate\nWithin the magazines of Thy fierce hate?\nNo poison in the clouds to bathe a brow\nThat lowers on Thee with desperate contempt? _15\nWhere is the noonday Pestilence that slew\nThe myriad sons of Israel’s favoured nation?\nWhere the destroying Minister that flew\nPouring the fiery tide of desolation\nUpon the leagued Assyrian’s attempt? _20\nWhere the dark Earthquake-daemon who engorged\nAt the dread word Korah’s unconscious crew?\nOr the Angel’s two-edged sword of fire that urged\nOur primal parents from their bower of bliss\n(Reared by Thine hand) for errors not their own _25\nBy Thine omniscient mind foredoomed, foreknown?\nYes! I would court a ruin such as this,\nAlmighty Tyrant! and give thanks to Thee—\nDrink deeply—drain the cup of hate; remit this—I may die.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Song From The Wandering Jew.", + "body": "[Published as Shelley’s by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847, 1 page 58.]\n\nSee yon opening flower\nSpreads its fragrance to the blast;\nIt fades within an hour,\nIts decay is pale—is fast.\nPaler is yon maiden; _5\nFaster is her heart’s decay;\nDeep with sorrow laden,\nShe sinks in death away.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Fragment From The Wandering Jew.", + "body": "[Published as Shelley’s by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847, 1 page 56.]\n\nThe Elements respect their Maker’s seal!\nStill Like the scathed pine tree’s height,\nBraving the tempests of the night\nHave I ‘scaped the flickering flame.\nLike the scathed pine, which a monument stands _5\nOf faded grandeur, which the brands\nOf the tempest-shaken air\nHave riven on the desolate heath;\nYet it stands majestic even in death,\nAnd rears its wild form there. _10,\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 1.", + "body": "9. scale (3), neck (7).\n11. What life what power (1).\n22. boat, (8), lay (9).\n23. embarked, (7), below A vast (8, 9).\n26. world (1), chaos: Lo! (2).\n28. life: (2), own. (9).\n29. mirth, (6).\n30. language (2), But, when (5).\n31. foundations—soon (2), war— thrones (6), multitude, (7).\n32. flame, (4).\n33. lightnings (3), truth, (5), brood, (5), hearts, (8).\n34. Fiend (6).\n35. keep (8).\n37. mountains— (8).\n38. unfold, (1), woe: (4), show, (5).\n39. gladness, (6) 40 fire, (1), cover, (5), far (6).\n42. kiss. (9).\n43. But (5).\n44. men. (4), fame; (7).\n45. loved (4).\n47. sky, (5), away (6).\n49. dream, (2), floods. (9).\n50. Universe. (4), language (6).\n54. blind. (4).\n57. mine—He (8).\n58. said— (5).\n60. tongue, (9).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 2.", + "body": "1. which (4).\n3. Yet flattering power had (7).\n4. lust, (6).\n6. kind, (2).\n11. Nor, (2).\n13. ruin. (3), trust. (9).\n18. friend (3).\n22. thought, (6), fancies (7).\n24. radiancy, (3).\n25. dells, (8).\n26. waste, (4)\n28. passion (7).\n31. yet (4).\n32. which (3).\n33. blight (8), who (8).\n37. seat; (7).\n39. not—‘wherefore (1).\n40. good, (5).\n41. tears (7).\n43. air (2).\n46. fire, (3).\n47. stroke, (2).\n49. But (6).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 4.", + "body": "2. fallen—We (6).\n3. ray, (7).\n4. sleep, (5).\n8. fed (6).\n10. wide; (1), sword (7).\n16. chance, (7).\n19. her (3), blending (8).\n23. tyranny, (4).\n24. unwillingly (1).\n26. blood; (2).\n27. around (2), as (4).\n31. or (4).\n33. was (5).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 5.", + "body": "1. flow, (5).\n2. profound—Oh, (4), veiled, (6).\n3. victory (1), face— (8).\n4. swim, (5)\n6. spread, (2), outsprung (5), far, (6), war, (8).\n8. avail (5).\n10. weep; (4), tents (8).\n11. lives, (8).\n13. beside (1).\n15. sky, (3).\n17. love (4).\n20. Which (9).\n22. gloom, (8).\n23. King (6).\n27. known, (4).\n33. ye? (1), Othman— (3).\n34. pure— (7).\n35. people (1).\n36. where (3).\n38. quail; (2).\n39. society, (8).\n40. see (1).\n43. light (8), throne. (9).\n50. skies, (6).\n51. Image (7), isles; all (9), amaze. When (9, 10), fair. (12).\n51. 1: will (15), train (15).\n51. 2: wert, (5).\n51. 4: brethren (1).\n51. 5: steaming, (6).\n55. creep. (9).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 6.", + "body": "1. snapped (9).\n2. gate, (2).\n5. rout (4), voice, (6), looks, (6).\n6. as (1).\n7. prey, (1), isle. (9).\n8. sight (2).\n12. glen (4).\n14. almost (1), dismounting (4).\n15. blood (2).\n21. reins:—We (3), word (3).\n22. crest (6).\n25. And, (1), and (9).\n28. but (3), there, (8).\n30. air. (9).\n32. voice:— (1).\n37. frames; (5).\n43. mane, (2), again, (7).\n48. Now (8).\n51. hut, (4).\n54. waste, (7).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 7.", + "body": "2. was, (5).\n6. dreams (3).\n7. gave Gestures and (2, 3), withstood, (4), save (4), sphere, (5).\n8. sent, (2).\n14. taught, (6), sought, (8).\n17. and (6).\n18. own (5), beloved:— (5).\n19. tears; (2), which, (3), appears, (5).\n25. me, (1), shapes (5).\n27. And (1).\n28. strength (1).\n30. Aye, (3), me, (5).\n33. pure (9).\n38. wracked; (4), cataract, (5).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 8.", + "body": "2. and (2).\n9. shadow (5).\n11. freedom (7), blood. (9).\n13. Woman, (8), bond-slave, (8).\n14. pursuing (8), wretch! (9).\n15. home, (3).\n21. Hate, (1).\n23. reply, (1).\n25. fairest, (1).\n26. And (6).\n28. thunder (2).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 9.", + "body": "4. hills, (1), brood, (6).\n5. port—alas! (1).\n8. grave (2).\n9. with friend (3), occupations (7), overnumber, (8).\n12. lair; (5), Words, (6).\n15. who, (4), armed, (5), misery. (9).\n17. call, (4).\n20. truth (9).\n22. sharest; (4).\n23. Faith, (8).\n28. conceive (8).\n30. and as (5), hope (8).\n33. thoughts:—Come (7).\n34. willingly (2).\n35. ceased, (8).\n36. undight; (4).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 10.", + "body": "2. tongue, (1).\n7. conspirators (6), wolves, (8).\n8. smiles, (5).\n9. bands, (2)\n11. file did (5).\n18. but (5).\n19. brought, (5).\n24. food (5).\n29. worshippers (3).\n32. west (2).\n36. foes, (5).\n38. now! (2).\n40. alone, (5).\n41. morn—at (1).\n42. below, (2).\n43. deep, (7), pest (8).\n44. drear (8).\n47. ‘Kill me!’ they (9).\n48. died, (8).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 11.", + "body": "4. which, (6), eyes, (8).\n5. tenderness (7).\n7. return—the (8).\n8. midnight— (1).\n10. multitude (1).\n11. cheeks (1), here (4).\n12. come, give (3).\n13. many (1).\n14. arrest, (4), terror, (6).\n19. thus (1).\n20. Stranger: ‘What (5).\n23. People: (7).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Canto 12.", + "body": "3. and like (7).\n7. away (7).\n8. Fairer it seems than (7).\n10. self, (9).\n11. divine (2), beauty— (3).\n12. own. (9).\n14. fear, (1), choose, (4).\n17. death? the (1).\n19. radiance (3).\n22. spake; (5).\n25. thee beloved;— (8).\n26. towers (6).\n28. repent, (2).\n29. withdrawn, (2).\n31. stood a winged Thought (1).\n32. gossamer, (6).\n33. stream (1).\n34. sunrise, (3), gold, (3), quiver, (4).\n35. abode, (4).\n37. wonderful; (3), go, (4).\n40. blended: (4), heavens, (6), lake; (6).\n\n1.\nPRINCE ATHANASE.\n\nLines 28-30. The punctuation here (“Poetical Works”, 1839) is supported\nby the Bodleian manuscript, which has a full stop at relief (line 28),\nand a comma at chief (line 30). The text of the “Posthumous Poems”,\n1824, has a semicolon at relief and a full stop at chief. The original\ndraft of lines 29, 30, in the Bodleian manuscript, runs:—\n He was the child of fortune and of power,\n And, though of a high race the orphan Chief, etc.\n—which is decisive in favour of our punctuation (1839). See Locock,\n“Examination”, etc., page 51.\n\n2.\nWhich wake and feed an ever-living woe,— (line 74.)\nAll the editions have on for an, the reading of the Bodleian manuscript,\nwhere it appears as a substitute for his, the word originally written.\nThe first draft of the line runs: Which nursed and fed his everliving\nwoe. Wake, accordingly, is to be construed as a transitive (Locock).\n\n3.\nLines 130-169. This entire passage is distinctly cancelled in the\nBodleian manuscript, where the following revised version of lines\n125-129 and 168-181 is found some way later on:—\n Prince Athanase had one beloved friend,\n An old, old man, with hair of silver white,\n And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend\n With his wise words; and eyes whose arrowy light\n Was the reflex of many minds; he filled\n From fountains pure, nigh overgrown and [lost],\n The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child;\n And soul-sustaining songs of ancient lore\n And philosophic wisdom, clear and mild.\n And sweet and subtle talk they evermore\n The pupil and the master [share], until\n Sharing that undiminishable store,\n The youth, as clouds athwart a grassy hill\n Outrun the winds that chase them, soon outran\n His teacher, and did teach with native skill\n Strange truths and new to that experienced man;\n So [?] they were friends, as few have ever been\n Who mark the extremes of life’s discordant span.\nThe words bracketed above, and in Fragment 5 of our text, are cancelled\nin the manuscript (Locock).\n\n4.\nAnd blighting hope, etc. (line 152.)\nThe word blighting here, noted as unsuitable by Rossetti, is cancelled\nin the Bodleian manuscript (Locock).\n\n5.\nShe saw between the chestnuts, far beneath, etc. (line 154.)\nThe reading of editions 1824, 1839 (beneath the chestnuts) is a palpable\nmisprint.\n\n6.\nAnd sweet and subtle talk they evermore,\nThe pupil and the master, shared; (lines 173, 174.)\nSo edition 1824, which is supported by the Bodleian manuscript,—both\nthe cancelled draft and the revised version: cf. note above. “Poetical\nWorks”, 1839, has now for they—a reading retained by Rossetti alone of\nmodern editors.\n\n7.\nLine 193. The ‘three-dots’ point at storm is in the Bodleian manuscript.\n\n8.\nLines 202-207. The Bodleian manuscript, which has a comma and dash after\nnightingale, bears out James Thomson’s (‘B. V.’s’) view, approved by\nRossetti, that these lines form one sentence. The manuscript has a dash\nafter here (line 207), which must be regarded as ‘equivalent to a full\nstop or note of exclamation’ (Locock). Editions 1824, 1839 have a note\nof exclamation after nightingale (line 204) and a comma after here (line\n207).\n\n9.\nFragment 3 (lines 230-239). First printed from the Bodleian manuscript\nby Mr. C.D. Locock. In the space here left blank, line 231, the\nmanuscript has manhood, which is cancelled for some monosyllable\nunknown—query, spring?\n\n10.\nAnd sea-buds burst under the waves serene:— (line 250.)\nFor under edition 1839 has beneath, which, however, is cancelled for\nunder in the Bodleian manuscript (Locock).\n\n11.\nLines 251-254. This, with many other places from line 222 onwards,\nevidently lacks Shelley’s final corrections.\n\n12.\nLine 259. According to Mr. Locock, the final text of this line in the\nBodleian manuscript runs:—\nExulting, while the wide world shrinks below, etc.\n\n13.\nFragment 5 (lines 261-278). The text here is much tortured in the\nBodleian manuscript. What the editions give us is clearly but a rough\nand tentative draft. ‘The language contains no third rhyme to mountains\n(line 262) and fountains (line 264).’ Locock. Lines 270-278 were first\nprinted by Mr. Locock.\n\n14.\nLine 289. For light (Bodleian manuscript) here the editions read bright.\nBut light is undoubtedly the right word: cf. line 287. Investeth (line\n285), Rossetti’s cj. for Investeth (1824, 1839) is found in the Bodleian\nmanuscript.\n\n15.\nLines 297-302 (the darts...ungarmented). First printed by Mr. Locock\nfrom the Bodleian manuscript.\n\n16.\nAnother Fragment (A). Lines 1-3 of this Fragment reappear in a modified\nshape in the Bodleian manuscript of “Prometheus Unbound”, 2 4 28-30:—\n Or looks which tell that while the lips are calm\n And the eyes cold, the spirit weeps within\n Tears like the sanguine sweat of agony;\nHere the lines are cancelled—only, however, to reappear in a heightened\nshape in “The Cenci”, 1 1 111-113:—\n The dry, fixed eyeball; the pale quivering lip,\n Which tells me that the spirit weeps within\n Tears bitterer than the bloody sweat of Christ.\n(Garnett, Locock.)\n\n17.\nPUNCTUAL VARIATIONS.\nThe punctuation of “Prince Athanase” is that of “Poetical Works”, 1839,\nsave in the places specified in the notes above, and in line 60—where\nthere is a full stop, instead of the comma demanded by the sense, at the\nclose of the line.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Rosalind And Helen.", + "body": "1.\nA sound from there, etc. (line 63.)\nRossetti’s cj., there for thee, is adopted by all modern editors.\n\n2.\nAnd down my cheeks the quick tears fell, etc. (line 366.)\nThe word fell is Rossetti’s cj. (to rhyme with tell, line 369) for ran\n1819, 1839).\n\n3.\nLines 405-409. The syntax here does not hang together, and Shelley may\nhave been thinking of this passage amongst others when, on September 6,\n1819, he wrote to Ollier:—‘In the “Rosalind and Helen” I see there are\nsome few errors, which are so much the worse because they are errors in\nthe sense.’ The obscurity, however, may have been, in part at least,\ndesigned: Rosalind grows incoherent before breaking off abruptly. No\nsatisfactory emendation has been proposed.\n\n4.\nWhere weary meteor lamps repose, etc. (line 551.)\nWith Woodberry I regard Where, his cj. for When (1819, 1839), as\nnecessary for the sense.\n\n5.\nWith which they drag from mines of gore, etc. (line 711.)\nRossetti proposes yore for gore here, or, as an alternative, rivers of\ngore, etc. If yore be right, Shelley’s meaning is: ‘With which from of\nold they drag,’ etc. But cf. Note (3) above.\n\n6.\nWhere, like twin vultures, etc. (line 932.)\nWhere is Woodberry’s reading for When (1819, 1839). Forman suggests\nWhere but does not print it.\n\n7.\nLines 1093-1096. The editio princeps (1819) punctuates:—\nHung in dense flocks beneath the dome,\nThat ivory dome, whose azure night\nWith golden stars, like heaven, was bright\nO’er the split cedar’s pointed flame;\n\n8.\nLines 1168-1170. Sunk (line 1170) must be taken as a transitive in this\npassage, the grammar of which is defended by Mr. Swinburne.\n\n9.\nWhilst animal life many long years\nHad rescue from a chasm of tears; (lines 1208-9.)\nForman substitutes rescue for rescued (1819, 1839)—a highly probable\ncj. adopted by Dowden, but rejected by Woodberry. The sense is: ‘Whilst\nmy life, surviving by the physical functions merely, thus escaped during\nmany years from hopeless weeping.’\n\n10.\nPUNCTUAL VARIATIONS.\nThe following is a list of punctual variations, giving in each case the\npointing of the editio princeps (1819):—heart 257; weak 425; Aye 492;\nThere—now 545; immortally 864; not, 894; bleeding, 933; Fidelity 1055;\ndome, 1093; bright 1095; tremble, 1150; life-dissolving 1166; words,\n1176; omit parentheses lines 1188-9; bereft, 1230.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Julian And Maddalo.", + "body": "1.\nLine 158. Salutations past; (1824); Salutations passed; (1839). Our text\nfollows Woodberry.\n\n2.\n—we might be all\nWe dream of happy, high, majestical. (lines 172-3.)\nSo the Hunt manuscript, edition 1824, has a comma after of (line 173),\nwhich is retained by Rossetti and Dowden.\n\n3.\n—his melody\nIs interrupted—now we hear the din, etc. (lines 265-6.)\nSo the Hunt manuscript; his melody Is interrupted now: we hear the din,\netc., 1824, 1829.\n\n4.\nLines 282-284. The editio princeps (1824) runs:—\nSmiled in their motions as they lay apart,\nAs one who wrought from his own fervid heart\nThe eloquence of passion: soon he raised, etc.\n\n5.\nLine 414. The editio princeps (1824) has a colon at the end of this\nline, and a semicolon at the close of line 415.\n\n6.\nThe ‘three-dots’ point, which appears several times in these pages, is\ntaken from the Hunt manuscript and serves to mark a pause longer than\nthat of a full stop.\n\n7.\nHe ceased, and overcome leant back awhile, etc. (line 511.)\nThe form leant is retained here, as the stem-vowel, though unaltered in\nspelling, is shortened in pronunciation. Thus leant (pronounced ‘lent’)\nfrom lean comes under the same category as crept from creep, lept from\nleap, cleft from cleave, etc.—perfectly normal forms, all of them. In\nthe case of weak preterites formed without any vowel-change, the more\nregular formation with ed is that which has been adopted in this volume.\nSee Editor’s “Preface”.\n\n8.\nCANCELLED FRAGMENTS OF JULIAN AND MADDALO. These were first printed by\nDr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.\n\n9.\nPUNCTUAL VARIATIONS.\nShelley’s final transcript of “Julian and Maddalo”, though written with\ngreat care and neatness, is yet very imperfectly punctuated. He would\nseem to have relied on the vigilance of Leigh Hunt—or, failing Hunt, of\nPeacock—to make good all omissions while seeing the poem through the\npress. Even Mr. Buxton Forman, careful as he is to uphold manuscript\nauthority in general, finds it necessary to supplement the pointing of\nthe Hunt manuscript in no fewer than ninety-four places. The following\ntable gives a list of the pointings adopted in our text, over and above\nthose found in the Hunt manuscript. In all but four or five instances,\nthe supplementary points are derived from Mrs. Shelley’s text of 1824.\n\n1. Comma added at end of line:\n40, 54, 60, 77, 78, 85, 90, 94, 107,\n110, 116, 120, 123, 134, 144, 145,\n154, 157, 168, 179, 183, 191, 196,\n202, 203, 215, 217, 221, 224, 225,\n238, 253, 254, 262, 287, 305, 307,\n331, 338, 360, 375, 384, 385, 396,\n432, 436, 447, 450, 451, 473, 475,\n476, 511, 520, 526, 541, 582, 590,\n591, 592, 593, 595, 603, 612.\n\n2. Comma added elsewhere:\nseas, 58; vineyards, 58;\ndismounted, 61;\nevening, 65;\ncompanion, 86;\nisles, 90;\nmeant, 94;\nLook, Julian, 96;\nmaniacs, 110;\nmaker, 113;\npast, 114;\nchurches, 136;\nrainy, 141;\nblithe, 167;\nbeauty, 174;\nMaddalo, 192;\nothers, 205;\nthis, 232;\nrespects, 241;\nshriek, 267;\nwrote, 286;\nmonth, 300;\ncried, 300;\nO, 304;\nand, 306;\nmisery, disappointment, 314;\nsoon, 369;\nstay, 392;\nmad, 394;\nNay, 398;\nserpent, 399;\nsaid, 403;\ncruel, 439;\nhate, 461;\nhearts, 483;\nhe, 529;\nseemed, 529;\nUnseen, 554;\nmorning, 582;\naspect, 585;\nAnd, 593;\nremember, 604;\nparted, 610.\n\n3. Semicolon added at end of line:\n101, 103, 167, 181, 279, 496.\n\n4. Colon added at end of line:\n164, 178, 606, 610.\n\n5. Full stop added at end of line:\n95, 201, 299, 319, 407, 481, 599, 601, 617.\n\n6. Full stop added elsewhere:\ntransparent. 85;\ntrials. 472;\nVenice, 583.\n\n7. Admiration—note added at end of line:\n392, 492;\nelsewhere: 310, 323,\n\n8. Dash added at end of line:\n158, 379.\n\n9. Full stop for comma (manuscript):\neye. 119.\n\n10. Full stop for dash (manuscript):\nentered. 158.\n\n11. Colon for full stop (manuscript):\ntale: 596.\n\n12. Dash for colon (manuscript):\nthis— 207;\nprepared— 379.\n\n13. Comma and dash for semicolon (manuscript):\nexpressionless,— 292.\n\n14. Comma and dash for comma (manuscript):\nnot,— 127.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Prometheus Unbound.", + "body": "The variants of B. (Shelley’s ‘intermediate draft’ of “Prometheus\nUnbound”, now in the Bodleian Library), here recorded, are taken from\nMr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., Clarendon Press, 1903. See\nEditor’s Prefatory Note, above.\n\n1.\nAct 1, line 204. B. has—shaken in pencil above—peopled.\n\n2.\nHark that outcry, etc. (1 553.)\nAll editions read Mark that outcry, etc. As Shelley nowhere else uses\nMark in the sense of List, I have adopted Hark, the reading of B.\n\n3.\nGleamed in the night. I wandered, etc. (1 770.)\nForman proposes to delete the period at night.\n\n4.\nBut treads with lulling footstep, etc. (1 774.)\nForman prints killing—a misreading of B. Editions 1820, 1839 read silent.\n\n5.\n...the eastern star looks white, etc. (1 825.)\nB. reads wan for white.\n\n6.\nLike footsteps of weak melody, etc. (2 1 89.)\nB. reads far (above a cancelled lost) for weak.\n\n7.\nAnd wakes the destined soft emotion,—\nAttracts, impels them; (2 2 50, 51.)\nThe editio princeps (1820) reads destined soft emotion, Attracts, etc.;\n“Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition reads destined: soft emotion\nAttracts, etc. “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition reads destined, soft\nemotion Attracts, etc. Forman and Dowden place a period, and Woodberry a\nsemicolon, at destined (line 50).\n\n8.\nThere steams a plume-uplifting wind, etc. (2 2 53.)\nHere steams is found in B., in the editio princeps (1820) and in the 1st\nedition of “Poetical Works”, 1839. In the 2nd edition, 1839, streams\nappears—no doubt a misprint overlooked by the editress.\n\n9.\nSucked up and hurrying: as they fleet, etc. (2 2 60.)\nSo “Poetical Works”, 1839, both editions. The editio princeps (1820)\nreads hurrying as, etc.\n\n10.\nSee’st thou shapes within the mist? (2 3 50.)\nSo B., where these words are substituted for the cancelled I see thin\nshapes within the mist of the editio princeps (1820). ‘The credit of\ndiscovering the true reading belongs to Zupitza’ (Locock).\n\n11.\n2 4 12-18. The construction is faulty here, but the sense, as Professor\nWoodberry observes, is clear.\n\n12.\n...but who rains down, etc. (2 4 100.)\nThe editio princeps (1820) has reigns—a reading which Forman bravely\nbut unsuccessfully attempts to defend.\n\n13.\nChild of Light! thy limbs are burning, etc. (2 5 54.)\nThe editio princeps (1820) has lips for limbs, but the word membre in\nShelley’s Italian prose version of these lines establishes limbs, the\nreading of B. (Locock).\n\n14.\nWhich in the winds and on the waves doth move, (2 5 96.)\nThe word and is Rossetti’s conjectural emendation, adopted by Forman and\nDowden. Woodberry unhappily observes that ‘the emendation corrects a\nfaultless line merely to make it agree with stanzaic structure, and...is\nopen to the gravest doubt.’ Rossetti’s conjecture is fully established\nby the authority of B.\n\n15.\n3 4 172-174. The editio princeps (1820) punctuates:\nmouldering round\nThese imaged to the pride of kings and priests,\nA dark yet mighty faith, a power, etc.\nThis punctuation is retained by Forman and Dowden; that of our text is\nWoodberry’s.\n\n16.\n3 4 180, 188. A dash has been introduced at the close of these two lines\nto indicate the construction more clearly. And for the sake of clearness\na note of interrogation has been substituted for the semicolon of 1820\nafter Passionless (line 198).\n\n17.\nWhere lovers catch ye by your loose tresses; (4 107.)\nB. has sliding for loose (cancelled).\n\n18.\nBy ebbing light into her western cave, (4 208.)\nHere light is the reading of B. for night (all editions). Mr. Locock\ntells us that the anticipated discovery of this reading was the origin\nof his examination of the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. In\nprinting night Marchant’s compositor blundered; yet ‘we cannot wish the\nfault undone, the issue of it being so proper.’\n\n19.\nPurple and azure, white, and green, and golden, (4 242.)\nThe editio princeps (1820) reads white, green and golden, etc.—white\nand green being Rossetti’s emendation, adopted by Forman and Dowden.\nHere again—cf. note on (17) above—Prof. Woodberry commits himself by\nstigmatizing the correction as one ‘for which there is no authority in\nShelley’s habitual versification.’ Rossetti’s conjecture is confirmed by\nthe reading of B., white and green, etc.\n\n20.\nFilling the abyss with sun-like lightenings, (4 276.)\nThe editio princeps (1820) reads lightnings, for which Rossetti\nsubstitutes lightenings—a conjecture described by Forman as ‘an example\nof how a very slight change may produce a very calamitous result.’ B.\nhowever supports Rossetti, and in point of fact Shelley usually wrote\nlightenings, even where the word counts as a dissyllable (Locock).\n\n21.\nMeteors and mists, which throng air’s solitudes:— (4 547.)\nFor throng (cancelled) B. reads feed, i.e., ‘feed on’ (cf. Pasturing\nflowers of vegetable fire, 3 4 110)—a reading which carries on the\nmetaphor of line 546 (ye untameable herds), and ought, perhaps, to be\nadopted into the text.\n\n22.\nPUNCTUAL VARIATIONS.\nThe punctuation of our text is that of the editio princeps (1820),\nexcept in the places indicated in the following list, which records in\neach instance the pointing of 1820:—\n\nAct 1.—empire. 15; O, 17; God 144; words 185; internally. 299; O, 302;\ngnash 345; wail 345; Sufferer 352; agony. 491; Between 712; cloud 712;\nvale 826.\n\nAct 2:\nScene 1.—air 129; by 153; fire, 155.\nScene 2.—noonday, 25; hurrying 60.\nScene 3.—mist. 50.\nScene 4.—sun, 4; Ungazed 5; on 103; ay 106; secrets. 115.\nScene 5.—brightness 67.\n\nAct 3:\nScene 3.—apparitions, 49; beauty, 51; phantoms, (omit parentheses) 52;\n reality, 53; wind 98.\nScene 4.—toil 109; fire. 110; feel; 114; borne; 115; said 124;\n priests, 173; man, 180; hate, 188; Passionless; 198.\n\nAct 4.—dreams, 66; be. 165; light. 168; air, 187; dreams, 209; woods 211;\n thunder-storm, 215; lie 298; bones 342; blending. 343; mire. 349;\n pass, 371; kind 385; move. 387.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Cenci.", + "body": "1.\nThe deed he saw could not have rated higher\nThan his most worthless life:— (1 1 24, 25.)\nThan is Mrs. Shelley’s emendation (1839) for That, the word in the\neditio princeps (1819) printed in Italy, and in the (standard) edition\nof 1821. The sense is: ‘The crime he witnessed could not have proved\ncostlier to redeem than his murder has proved to me.’\n\n2.\nAnd but that there yet remains a deed to act, etc. (1 1 100.)\nRead: And but : that there yet : remains : etc.\n\n3.\n1 1 111-113. The earliest draft of these lines appears as a tentative\nfragment in the Bodleian manuscript of “Prince Athanase” (vid. supr.).\nIn the Bodleian manuscript of “Prometheus Unbound” they reappear (after\n2 4 27) in a modified shape, as follows:—\nOr looks which tell that while the lips are calm\nAnd the eyes cold, the spirit weeps within\nTears like the sanguine sweat of agony;\nHere again, however, the passage is cancelled, once more to reappear in\nits final and most effective shape in “The Cenci” (Locock).\n\n4.\nAnd thus I love you still, but holily,\nEven as a sister or a spirit might; (1 2 24, 25.)\nFor this, the reading of the standard edition (1821), the editio\nprinceps has, And yet I love, etc., which Rossetti retains. If yet be\nright, the line should be punctuated:—\nAnd yet I love you still,—but holily,\nEven as a sister or a spirit might;\n\n5.\nWhat, if we,\nThe desolate and the dead, were his own flesh,\nHis children and his wife, etc. (1 3 103-105.)\nFor were (104) Rossetti cj. are or wear. Wear is a plausible emendation,\nbut the text as it stands is defensible.\n\n6.\nBut that no power can fill with vital oil\nThat broken lamp of flesh. (3 2 17, 18.)\nThe standard text (1821) has a Shelleyan comma after oil (17), which\nForman retains. Woodberry adds a dash to the comma, thus making that\n(17) a demonstrative pronoun indicating broken lamp of flesh. The\npointing of our text is that of editions 1819, 1839, But that (17) is to\nbe taken as a prepositional conjunction linking the dependent clause, no\npower...lamp of flesh, to the principal sentence, So wastes...kindled\nmine (15, 16).\n\n7.\nThe following list of punctual variations indicates the places where our\npointing departs from that of the standard text of 1821, and records in\neach instance the pointing of that edition:—\n\nAct 1, Scene 2:—Ah! No, 34; Scene 3:—hope, 29; Why 44;\n love 115; thou 146; Ay 146.\n\nAct 2, Scene 1:—Ah! No, 13; Ah! No, 73; courage 80; nook 179;\n Scene 2:—fire, 70; courage 152.\n\nAct 3, Scene 1:—Why 64; mock 185; opinion 185; law 185; strange 188;\n friend 222;\n Scene 2:—so 3; oil, 17.\n\nAct 4, Scene 1:—wrong 41; looked 97; child 107;\n Scene 3:—What 19; father, (omit quotes) 32.\n\nAct 5, Scene 2:—years 119;\n Scene 3:—Ay, 5; Guards 94;\n Scene 4:—child, 145.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Mask Of Anarchy.", + "body": "Our text follows in the main the transcript by Mrs. Shelley (with\nadditions and corrections in Shelley’s hand) known as the ‘Hunt\nmanuscript.’ For the readings of this manuscript we are indebted to Mr.\nBuxton Forman’s Library Edition of the Poems, 1876. The variants of the\n‘Wise manuscript’ (see Prefatory Note) are derived from the Facsimile\nedited in 1887 for the Shelley Society by Mr. Buxton Forman.\n\n1.\nLike Eldon, an ermined gown; (4 2.)\nThe editio princeps (1832) has Like Lord E— here. Lord is inserted in\nminute characters in the Wise manuscript, but is rejected from our text\nas having been cancelled by the poet himself in the (later) Hunt\nmanuscript.\n\n2.\nFor he knew the Palaces\nOf our Kings were rightly his; (20 1, 2.)\nFor rightly (Wise manuscript) the Hunt manuscript and editions 1832,\n1839 have nightly which is retained by Rossetti and in Forman’s text of\n1876. Dowden and Woodberry print rightly which also appears in Forman’s\nlatest text (“Aldine Shelley”, 1892).\n\n3.\nIn a neat and happy home. (54 4.)\nFor In (Wise manuscript, editions 1832, 1839) the Hunt manuscript reads\nTo a neat, etc., which is adopted by Rossetti and Dowden, and appeared\nin Forman’s text of 1876. Woodberry and Forman (1892) print In a neat,\netc.\n\n4.\nStanzas 70 3, 4; 71 1. These form one continuous clause in every text\nsave the editio princeps, 1832, where a semicolon appears after around\n(70 4).\n\n5.\nOur punctuation follows that of the Hunt manuscript, save in the\nfollowing places, where a comma, wanting in the manuscript, is supplied\nin the text:—gay 47; came 58; waken 122; shaken 123; call 124; number\n152; dwell 163; thou 209; thee 249; fashion 287; surprise 345; free 358.\nA semicolon is supplied after earth (line 131).", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Peter Bell The Third.", + "body": "Thomas Brown, Esq., the Younger, H. F., to whom the “Dedication” is\naddressed, is the Irish poet, Tom Moore. The letters H. F. may stand for\n‘Historian of the Fudges’ (Garnett), Hibernicae Filius (Rossetti), or,\nperhaps, Hibernicae Fidicen. Castles and Oliver (3 2 1; 7 4 4) were\ngovernment spies, as readers of Charles Lamb are aware. The allusion in\n6 36 is to Wordsworth’s “Thanksgiving Ode on The Battle of Waterloo”,\noriginal version, published in 1816:—\nBut Thy most dreaded instrument,\nIn working out a pure intent,\nIs Man—arrayed for mutual slaughter,\n—Yea, Carnage is Thy daughter!\n\n1.\nLines 547-549 (6 18 5; 19 1, 2). These lines evidently form a continuous\nclause. The full stop of the editio princeps at rocks, line 547, has\ntherefore been deleted, and a semicolon substituted for the original\ncomma at the close of line 546.\n\n2.\n‘Ay—and at last desert me too.’ (line 603.)\nRossetti, who however follows the editio princeps, saw that these words\nare spoken—not by Peter to his soul, but—by his soul to Peter, by way\nof rejoinder to the challenge of lines 600-602:—‘And I and you, My\ndearest Soul, will then make merry, As the Prince Regent did with\nSherry.’ In order to indicate this fact, inverted commas are inserted at\nthe close of line 602 and the beginning of line 603.\n\n3.\nThe punctuation of the editio princeps, 1839, has been throughout\nrevised, but—with the two exceptions specified in notes (1) and (2)\nabove—it seemed an unprofitable labour to record the particular\nalterations, which serve but to clarify—in no instance to modify—the\nsense as indicated by Mrs. Shelley’s punctuation.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Letter To Maria Gisborne.", + "body": "Our text mainly follows Mrs. Shelley’s transcript, for the readings of\nwhich we are indebted to Mr. Buxton Forman’s Library Edition of the\nPoems, 1876. The variants from Shelley’s draft are supplied by Dr.\nGarnett.\n\n1.\nLines 197-201. These lines, which are wanting in editions 1824 and 1839\n(1st edition), are supplied from Mrs. Shelley’s transcript and from\nShelley’s draft (Boscombe manuscript). In the 2nd edition of 1839 the\nfollowing lines appear in their place:—\nYour old friend Godwin, greater none than he;\nThough fallen on evil times, yet will he stand,\nAmong the spirits of our age and land,\nBefore the dread tribunal of To-come\nThe foremost, whilst rebuke stands pale and dumb.\n\n2.\nLine 296. The names in this line are supplied from the two manuscripts.\nIn the “Posthumous Poems” of 1824 the line appears:—Oh! that H— — and\n— were there, etc.\n\n3.\nThe following list gives the places where the pointing of the text\nvaries from that of Mrs. Shelley’s transcript as reported by Mr. Buxton\nForman, and records in each case the pointing of that original:—Turk\n26; scorn 40; understood, 49; boat— 75; think, 86; believe; 158; are;\n164; fair 233; cameleopard; 240; Now 291.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Witch Of Atlas.", + "body": "1.\nThe following list gives the places where our text departs from the\npointing of the editio princeps (“Dedication”, 1839; “Witch of Atlas”,\n1824), and records in each case the original pointing:—\nDEDIC.—pinions, 14; fellow, 41; Othello, 45.\nWITCH OF ATLAS.—bliss; 164; above. 192; gums 258; flashed 409;\nsunlight, 409; Thamondocana. 424; by. 432; engraven. 448; apart, 662;\nmind! 662.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Epipsychidion.", + "body": "1.\nThe following list gives the places where our text departs from the\npointing of the editio princeps, 1821, with the original point in each\ncase:—love, 44; pleasure; 68; flowing 96; where! 234; passed 252;\ndreamed, 278; Night 418; year), 440; children, 528.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Adonais.", + "body": "1.\nThe following list indicates the places in which the punctuation of this\nedition departs from that of the editio princeps, of 1821, and records\nin each instance the pointing of that text:—thou 10; Oh 19; apace, 65;\nOh 73; flown 138; Thou 142; Ah 154; immersed 167; corpse 172; tender\n172; his 193; they 213; Death 217; Might 218; bow, 249; sighs 314;\nescape 320; Cease 366; dark 406; forth 415; dead, 440; Whilst 493.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Hellas.", + "body": "A Reprint of the original edition (1822) of “Hellas” was edited for the\nShelley Society in 1887 by Mr. Thomas J. Wise. In Shelley’s list of\nDramatis Personae the Phantom of Mahomet the Second is wanting.\nShelley’s list of Errata in edition 1822 was first printed in Mr. Buxton\nForman’s Library Edition of the Poems, 1876 (4 page 572). These errata\nare silently corrected in the text.\n\n1.\nFor Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind, etc. (lines 728-729.)\n‘“For” has no rhyme (unless “are” and “despair” are to be considered\nsuch): it requires to rhyme with “hear.” From this defect of rhyme, and\nother considerations, I (following Mr. Fleay) used to consider it almost\ncertain that “Fear” ought to replace “For”; and I gave “Fear” in my\nedition of 1870...However, the word in the manuscript [“Williams\ntranscript”] is “For,” and Shelley’s list of errata leaves this\nunaltered—so we must needs abide by it.’—Rossetti, “Complete Poetical\nWorks of P. B. S.”, edition 1878 (3 volumes), 2 page 456.\n\n2.\nLines 729-732. This quatrain, as Dr. Garnett (“Letters of Shelley”,\n1884, pages 166, 249) points out, is an expansion of the following lines\nfrom the “Agamemmon” of Aeschylus (758-760), quoted by Shelley in a\nletter to his wife, dated ‘Friday, August 10, 1821’:—\nto dussebes—\nmeta men pleiona tiktei,\nsphetera d’ eikota genna.\n\n3.\nLines 1091-1093. This passage, from the words more bright to the close\nof line 1093, is wanting in the editio princeps, 1822, its place being\nsupplied by asterisks. The lacuna in the text is due, no doubt, to the\ntimidity of Ollier, the publisher, whom Shelley had authorised to make\nexcisions from the notes. In “Poetical Works”, 1839, the lines, as they\nappear in our text, are restored; in Galignani’s edition of “Coleridge,\nShelley, and Keats” (Paris, 1829), however, they had already appeared,\nthough with the substitution of wise for bright (line 1091), and of\nunwithstood for unsubdued (line 1093). Galignani’s reading—native for\nvotive—in line 1095 is an evident misprint. In Ascham’s edition of\nShelley (2 volumes, fcp. 8vo., 1834), the passage is reprinted from\nGalignani.\n\n4.\nThe following list shows the places in which our text departs from the\npunctuation of the editio princeps, 1822, and records in each instance\nthe pointing of that edition:—dreams 71; course. 125; mockery 150;\nconqueror 212; streams 235; Moslems 275; West 305; moon, 347; harm, 394;\nshame, 402; anger 408; descends 447; crime 454; banner. 461; Phanae,\n470; blood 551; tyrant 557; Cydaris, 606; Heaven 636; Highness 638; man\n738; sayest 738; One 768; mountains 831; dust 885; consummation? 902;\ndream 921; may 923; death 935; clime. 1005; feast, 1025; horn, 1032;\nNoon, 1045; death 1057; dowers 1094.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Charles The First.", + "body": "To Mr. Rossetti we owe the reconstruction of this fragmentary drama out\nof materials partly published by Mrs. Shelley in 1824, partly recovered\nfrom manuscript by himself. The bracketed words are, presumably,\nsupplied by Mr. Rossetti to fill actual lacunae in the manuscript; those\nqueried represent indistinct writing. Mr. Rossetti’s additions to the\ntext are indicated in the footnotes. In one or two instances Mr. Forman\nand Dr. Garnett have restored the true reading. The list of Dramatis\nPersonae is Mr. Forman’s.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "The Triumph Of Life.", + "body": "1.\nLines 131-135. This grammatically incoherent passage is thus\nconjecturally emended by Rossetti:—\nFled back like eagles to their native noon;\nFor those who put aside the diadem\nOf earthly thrones or gems...,\nWhether of Athens or Jerusalem,\nWere neither mid the mighty captives seen, etc.\nIn the case of an incomplete poem lacking the author’s final\ncorrections, however, restoration by conjecture is, to say the least of\nit, gratuitous.\n\n2.\nLine 282. The words, ‘Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs.’ And\nthen—are wanting in editions 1824, 1839, and were recovered by Dr.\nGarnett from the Boscombe manuscript. Mrs. Shelley’s note here\nruns:—‘There is a chasm here in the manuscript which it is impossible\nto fill. It appears from the context that other shapes pass and that\nRousseau still stood beside the dreamer.’ Mr. Forman thinks that the\n‘chasm’ is filled up by the words restored from the manuscript by Dr.\nGarnett. Mr. A.C. Bradley writes: ‘It seems likely that, after writing\n“I have suffered...pain”, Shelley meant to strike out the words between\n“known” [276] and “I” [278], and to fill up the gap in such a way that\n“I” would be the last word of the line beginning “May well be known”.’", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Miscellaneous Poems.", + "body": "1.\nTO —. Mrs. Shelley tentatively assigned this fragment to 1817. ‘It\nseems not improbable that it was addressed at this time [June, 1814] to\nMary Godwin.’ Dowden, “Life”, 1 422, Woodberry suggests that ‘Harriet\nanswers as well, or better, to the situation described.’\n\n2.\nON DEATH. These stanzas occur in the Esdaile manuscript along with\nothers which Shelley intended to print with “Queen Mab” in 1813; but the\ntext was revised before publication in 1816.\n\n3.\nTO —. ‘The poem beginning “Oh, there are spirits in the air,” was\naddressed in idea to Coleridge, whom he never knew’—writes Mrs.\nShelley. Mr. Bertram Dobell, Mr. Rossetti and Professor Dowden, however,\nincline to think that we have here an address by Shelley in a despondent\nmood to his own spirit.\n\n4.\nLINES. These appear to be antedated by a year, as they evidently allude\nto the death of Harriet Shelley in November, 1816.\n\n5.\nANOTHER FRAGMENT TO MUSIC. To Mr. Forman we owe the restoration of the\ntrue text here—‘food of Love.’ Mrs. Shelley printed ‘god of Love.’\n\n6.\nMARENGHI, lines 92, 93. The 1870 (Rossetti) version of these lines is:—\nWhite bones, and locks of dun and yellow hair,\nAnd ringed horns which buffaloes did wear—\nThe words locks of dun (line 92) are cancelled in the manuscript.\nShelley’s failure to cancel the whole line was due, Mr. Locock rightly\nargues, to inadvertence merely; instead of buffaloes the manuscript\ngives the buffalo, and it supplies the ‘wonderful line’ (Locock) which\ncloses the stanza in our text, and with which Mr. Locock aptly compares\n“Mont Blanc”, line 69:—\nSave when the eagle brings some hunter’s bone,\nAnd the wolf tracks her there.\n\n7.\nODE TO LIBERTY, lines 1, 2. On the suggestion of his brother, Mr. Alfred\nForman, the editor of the Library Edition of Shelley’s Poems (1876), Mr.\nBuxton Forman, printed these lines as follows:—\nA glorious people vibrated again:\nThe lightning of the nations, Liberty,\nFrom heart to heart, etc.\nThe testimony of Shelley’s autograph in the Harvard College manuscript,\nhowever, is final against such a punctuation.\n\n8.\nLines 41, 42. We follow Mrs. Shelley’s punctuation (1839). In Shelley’s\nedition (1820) there is no stop at the end of line 41, and a semicolon\ncloses line 42.\n\n9.\nODE TO NAPLES. In Mrs. Shelley’s editions the various sections of this\nOde are severally headed as follows:—‘Epode 1 alpha, Epode 2 alpha,\nStrophe alpha 1, Strophe beta 2, Antistrophe alpha gamma, Antistrophe\nbeta gamma, Antistrophe beta gamma, Antistrophe alpha gamma, Epode 1\ngamma, Epode 2 gamma. In the manuscript, Mr. Locock tells us, the\nheadings are ‘very doubtful, many of them being vaguely altered with pen\nand pencil.’ Shelley evidently hesitated between two or three\nalternative ways of indicating the structure and corresponding parts of\nhis elaborate song; hence the chaotic jumble of headings printed in\neditions 1824, 1839. So far as the “Epodes” are concerned, the headings\nin this edition are those of editions 1824, 1839, which may be taken as\nsupported by the manuscript (Locock). As to the remaining sections, Mr.\nLocock’s examination of the manuscript leads him to conclude that\nShelley’s final choice was:—‘Strophe 1, Strophe 2, Antistrophe 1,\nAntistrophe 2, Antistrophe 1 alpha, Antistrophe 2 alpha.’ This in itself\nwould be perfectly appropriate, but it would be inconsistent with the\nmethod employed in designating the “Epodes”. I have therefore adopted in\npreference a scheme which, if it lacks manuscript authority in some\nparticulars, has at least the merit of being absolutely logical and\nconsistent throughout.\n\nMr. Locock has some interesting remarks on the metrical features of this\ncomplex ode. On the 10th line of Antistrophe 1a (line 86 of the\node)—Aghast she pass from the Earth’s disk—which exceeds by one foot\nthe 10th lines of the two corresponding divisions, Strophe 1 and\nAntistrophe 1b, he observes happily enough that ‘Aghast may well have\nbeen intended to disappear.’ Mr. Locock does not seem to notice that the\nclosing lines of these three answering sections—(1) hail, hail, all\nhail!—(2) Thou shalt be great—All hail!—(3) Art Thou of all these\nhopes.—O hail! increase by regular lengths—two, three, four iambi. Nor\ndoes he seem quite to grasp Shelley’s intention with regard to the rhyme\nscheme of the other triple group, Strophe 2, Antistrophe 2a, Antistrophe\n2b. That of Strophe 2 may be thus expressed:—a-a-bc; d-d-bc; a-c-d;\nb-c. Between this and Antistrophe 2a (the second member of the group)\nthere is a general correspondence with, in one particular, a subtle\nmodification. The scheme now becomes a-a-bc; d-d-bc; a-c-b; d-c: i.e.\nthe rhymes of lines 9 and 10 are transposed—God (line 9) answering to\nthe halfway rhymes of lines 3 and 6, gawd and unawed, instead of (as in\nStrophe 2) to the rhyme-endings of lines 4 and 5; and, vice versa, fate\n(line 10) answering to desolate and state (lines 4 and 5), instead of to\nthe halfway rhymes aforesaid. As to Antistrophe 2b, that follows\nAntistrophe 2a, so far as it goes; but after line 9 it breaks off\nsuddenly, and closes with two lines corresponding in length and rhyme to\nthe closing couplet of Antistrophe 1b, the section immediately\npreceding, which, however, belongs not to this group, but to the other.\nMr. Locock speaks of line 124 as ‘a rhymeless line.’ Rhymeless it is\nnot, for shore, its rhyme-termination, answers to bower and power, the\nhalfway rhymes of lines 118 and 121 respectively. Why Mr. Locock should\ncall line 12 an ‘unmetrical line,’ I cannot see. It is a decasyllabic\nline, with a trochee substituted for an iambus in the third foot—Around\n: me gleamed : many a : bright se : pulchre.\n\n10.\nTHE TOWER OF FAMINE.—It is doubtful whether the following note is\nShelley’s or Mrs. Shelley’s: ‘At Pisa there still exists the prison of\nUgolino, which goes by the name of “La Torre della Fame”; in the\nadjoining building the galley-slaves are confined. It is situated on the\nPonte al Mare on the Arno.’\n\n11.\nGINEVRA, line 129: Through seas and winds, cities and wildernesses. The\nfootnote omits Professor Dowden’s conjectural emendation—woods—for\nwinds, the reading of edition 1824 here.\n\n12.\nTHE LADY OF THE SOUTH. Our text adopts Mr. Forman’s correction—drouth\nfor drought—in line 3. This should have been recorded in a footnote.\n\n13.\nHYMN TO MERCURY, line 609. The period at now is supported by the Harvard\nmanuscript.", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Queen Mab.", + "body": "1.\nThroughout this varied and eternal world\nSoul is the only element: the block\nThat for uncounted ages has remained\nThe moveless pillar of a mountain’s weight\nIs active, living spirit. (4, lines 139-143.)\nThis punctuation was proposed in 1888 by Mr. J. R. Tutin (see “Notebook\nof the Shelley Society”, Part 1, page 21), and adopted by Dowden,\n“Poetical Works of Shelley”, Macmillan, 1890. The editio princeps\n(1813), which is followed by Forman (1892) and Woodberry (1893), has a\ncomma after element and a full stop at remained.\n\n2.\nGuards...from a nation’s rage\nSecure the crown, etc. (4, lines 173-176.)\nSo Mrs. Shelley (“Poetical Works”, 1839, both editions), Rossetti,\nForman, Dowden. The editio princeps reads Secures, which Woodberry\ndefends and retains.\n\n3.\n4, lines 203-220: omitted by Mrs. Shelley from the text of “Poetical\nWorks”, 1839, 1st edition, but restored in the 2nd edition of 1839. See\nabove, “Note on Queen Mab, by Mrs. Shelley”.\n\n4.\nAll germs of promise, yet when the tall trees, etc. (5, line 9.)\nSo Rossetti, Dowden, Woodberry. In editions 1813 (editio princeps) and\n1839 (“Poetical Works”, both editions) there is a full stop at promise\nwhich Forman retains.\n\n5.\nWho ever hears his famished offspring’s scream, etc. (5, line 116.)\nThe editio princeps has offsprings—an evident misprint.\n\n6.\n6, lines 54-57, line 275: struck out of the text of “Poetical Works”, 1839\n(1st edition), but restored in the 2nd edition of that year. See Note 3 above.\n\n7.\nThe exterminable spirit it contains, etc. (7, line 23.)\nExterminable seems to be used here in the sense of ‘illimitable’ (N. E.\nD.). Rossetti proposes interminable, or inexterminable.\n\n8.\nA smile of godlike malice reillumed, etc. (7, line 180.)\nThe editio princeps and the first edition of “Poetical Works”, 1839,\nread reillumined here, which is retained by Forman, Dowden, Woodberry.\nWith Rossetti, I follow Mrs. Shelley’s reading in “Poetical Works”, 1839\n(2nd edition).\n\n9.\nOne curse alone was spared—the name of God. (8, line 165.)\nRemoved from the text, “Poetical Works”, 1839 (1st edition); restored,\n“Poetical Works”, 1839 (2nd edition). See Notes 3 and 6 above.\n\n10.\nWhich from the exhaustless lore of human weal\nDawns on the virtuous mind, etc. (8, lines 204-205.)\nWith some hesitation as to lore, I reprint these lines as they are given\nby Shelley himself in the note on this passage (supra). The text of 1813\nruns:—\nWhich from the exhaustless store of human weal\nDraws on the virtuous mind, etc.\nThis is retained by Woodberry, while Rossetti, Forman, and Dowden adopt\neclectic texts, Forman and Dowden reading lore and Draws, while\nRossetti, again, reads store and Dawns. Our text is supported by the\nauthority of Dr. Richard Garnett. The comma after infiniteness (line\n206) has a metrical, not a logical, value.\n\n11.\nNor searing Reason with the brand of God. (9, line 48.)\nRemoved from the text, “Poetical Works”, 1839 (1st edition), by Mrs.\nShelley, who failed, doubtless through an oversight, to restore it in\nthe second edition. See Notes 3, 6, and 9 above.\n\n12.\nWhere neither avarice, cunning, pride, nor care, etc. (9, line 67.)\nThe editio princeps reads pride, or care, which is retained by Forman\nand Woodberry. With Rossetti and Dowden, I follow Mrs. Shelley’s text,\n“Poetical Works”, 1839 (both editions).\n\n\n1.\nThe mine, big with destructive power, burst under me, etc. (Note on 7 67.)\nThis is the reading of the “Poetical Works” of 1839 (2nd edition). The\neditio princeps (1813) reads burst upon me. Doubtless under was intended\nby Shelley: the occurrence, thrice over, of upon in the ten lines\npreceding would account for the unconscious substitution of the word\nhere, either by the printer, or perhaps by Shelley himself in his\ntranscript for the press.\n\n2.\n...it cannot arise from reasoning, etc. (Note on 7 135.)\nThe editio princeps (1813) has conviction for reasoning here—an obvious\nerror of the press, overlooked by Mrs. Shelley in 1839, and perpetuated\nin his several editions of the poems by Mr. H. Buxton Forman. Reasoning,\nMr. W.M. Rossetti’s conjectural emendation, is manifestly the right word\nhere, and has been adopted by Dowden and Woodberry.\n\n3.\nHim, still from hope to hope, etc. (Note on 8 203-207.)\nSee editor’s note 10 on “Queen Mab” above.\n\n1.\nA DIALOGUE.—The titles of this poem, of the stanzas “On an Icicle”,\netc., and of the lines “To Death”, were first given by Professor Dowden\n(“Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1890) from the Esdaile manuscript book.\nThe textual corrections from the same quarter (see footnotes passim) are\nalso owing to Professor Dowden.\n\n2.\nORIGINAL POETRY BY VICTOR AND CAZIRE.—Dr. Garnett, who in 1898 edited\nfor Mr. John Lane a reprint of these long-lost verses, identifies\n“Victor’s” coadjutrix, “Cazire”, with Elizabeth Shelley, the poet’s\nsister. ‘The two initial pieces are the only two which can be attributed\nto Elizabeth Shelley with absolute certainty, though others in the\nvolume may possibly belong to her’ (Garnett).\n\n3.\nSAINT EDMOND’S EVE. This ballad-tale was “conveyed” in its entirety by\n“Cazire” from Matthew Gregory Lewis’s “Tales of Terror”, 1801, where it\nappears under the title of “The Black Canon of Elmham; or, Saint\nEdmond’s Eve”. Stockdale, the publisher of “Victor and Cazire”, detected\nthe imposition, and communicated his discovery to Shelley—when ‘with\nall the ardour natural to his character he [Shelley] expressed the\nwarmest resentment at the imposition practised upon him by his\ncoadjutor, and entreated me to destroy all the copies, of which about\none hundred had been put into circulation.’\n\n4.\nTO MARY WHO DIED IN THIS OPINION.—From a letter addressed by Shelley to\nMiss Hitchener, dated November 23, 1811.\n\n5.\nA TALE OF SOCIETY.—The titles of this and the following piece were\nfirst given by Professor Dowden from the Esdaile manuscript, from which\nalso one or two corrections in the text of both poems, made in\nMacmillan’s edition of 1890, were derived.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Showing The Various Printed Sources Of The Contents Of This Edition.", + "body": "1.\n(1) Original Poetry; : By : Victor and Cazire. : Call it not vain:—they\ndo not err, : Who say, that, when the poet dies, : Mute Nature mourns\nher worshipper. : “Lay of the Last Minstrel.” : Worthing : Printed by C.\nand W. Phillips, : for the Authors; : And sold by J. J. Stockdale, 41,\nPall-Mall, : And all other Booksellers. 1810.\n\n(2) Original : Poetry : By : Victor & Cazire : [Percy Bysshe Shelley : &\nElizabeth Shelley] : Edited by : Richard Garnett C.B., LL.D. : Published\nby : John Lane, at the Sign : of the Bodley Head in : London and New\nYork : MDCCCXCVIII.\n\n2.\nPosthumous Fragments : of : Margaret Nicholson; : Being Poems Found\nAmongst the Papers of that : Noted Female who attempted the Life : of\nthe King in 1786. : Edited by : John Fitz-Victor. : Oxford: : Printed\nand sold by J. Munday : 1810.\n\n3.\nSt. Irvyne; : or, : The Rosicrucian. : A Romance. : By : A Gentleman :\nof the University of Oxford. : London: : Printed for J. J. Stockdale, :\n41, Pall Mall. : 1811.\n\n4.\nThe Devil’s Walk; a Ballad. Printed as a broadside, 1812.\n\n5.\nQueen Mab; : a : Philosophical Poem: : with Notes. : By : Percy Bysshe\nShelley. : Ecrasez l’Infame! : “Correspondance de Voltaire.” : Avia\nPieridum peragro loca, nullius ante : Trita solo; iuvat integros\naccedere fonteis; : Atque haurire: iuratque (sic) novos decerpere\nflores. : Unde prius nulli velarint tempora nausae. : Primum quod magnis\ndoceo de rebus; et arctis : Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo. :\nLucret. lib. 4 : Dos pou sto, kai kosmon kineso. : Archimedes. : London:\n: Printed by P. B. Shelley, : 23, Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square. :\n1813.\n\n6.\nAlastor; : or, : The Spirit of Solitude: : and Other Poems. : By : Percy\nBysshe Shelley : London : Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy,\nPater-:noster Row; and Carpenter and Son, : Old Bond Street: : By S.\nHamilton, Weybridge, Surrey : 1816.\n\n7.\n(1) Laon and Cythna; : or, : The Revolution : of : the Golden City: : A\nVision of the Nineteenth Century. : In the Stanza of Spenser. : By :\nPercy B. Shelley. : Dos pou sto, kai kosmon kineso. : Archimedes. :\nLondon: : Printed for Sherwood, Neely, & Jones, Paternoster-:Row; and C.\nand J. Ollier, Welbeck-Street: : By B. M’Millan, Bow-Street,\nCovent-Garden. : 1818.\n\n(2) The : Revolt of Islam; : A Poem, : in Twelve Cantos. : By : Percy\nBysshe Shelley. : London: : Printed for C. and J. Ollier,\nWelbeck-Street; : By B. M’Millan, Bow-Street, Covent-Garden. : 1818.\n\n(3) A few copies of “The Revolt of Islam” bear date 1817 instead of\n1818.\n\n(4) ‘The same sheets were used again in 1829 with a third title-page\nsimilar to the foregoing [2], but with the imprint “London: : Printed\nfor John Brooks, : 421 Oxford-Street. : 1829.”’ (H. Buxton Forman, C.B.:\nThe Shelley Library, page 73.)\n\n(5) ‘Copies of the 1829 issue of “The Revolt of Islam” not infrequently\noccur with “Laon and Cythna” text.’ (Ibid., page 73.)\n\n8.\nRosalind and Helen, : A Modern Eclogue; : With Other Poems: : By : Percy\nBysshe Shelley. : London: : Printed for C. and J. Ollier, : Vere Street,\nBond Street. : 1819.\n\n9.\n(1) The Cenci. : A Tragedy, : In Five Acts. : By Percy B. Shelley. :\nItaly. : Printed for C. and J. Ollier, : Vere Street, Bond Street. :\nLondon. : 1819.\n\n(2) The Cenci : A Tragedy : In Five Acts : By : Percy Bysshe Shelley :\nSecond Edition : London : C. and J. Ollier Vere Street Bond Street :\n1821.\n\n10.\nPrometheus Unbound : A Lyrical Drama : In Four Acts : With Other Poems :\nBy : Percy Bysshe Shelley : Audisne haec, Amphiarae, sub terram abdite?\n: London : C. and J. Ollier Vere Street Bond Street : 1820.\n\n11.\nOedipus Tyrannus; : or, : Swellfoot The Tyrant. : A Tragedy. : In Two\nActs. : Translated from the Original Doric. : —Choose Reform or\ncivil-war, : When thro’ thy streets, instead of hare with dogs, A\nCONSORT-QUEEN shall hunt a KING with hogs, : Riding on the IONIAN\nMINOTAUR. : London: : Published for the Author, : By J. Johnston, 98,\nCheapside, and sold by all booksellers. : 1820.\n\n12.\nEpipsychidion : Verses Addressed to the Noble : And Unfortunate Lady :\nEmilia V— : Now Imprisoned in the Convent of — : L’ anima amante si\nslancia fuori del creato, e si crea nel infinito : un Mondo tutto per\nessa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso : baratro. Her Own Words.\n: London : C. and J. Ollier Vere Street Bond Street : MDCCCXXI.\n\n13.\n(1) Adonais : An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, : Author of Endymion,\nHyperion etc. : By : Percy B. Shelley : Aster prin men elampes eni\nzooisin eoos. : Nun de thanon, lampeis esmeros en phthimenois. : Plato.\n: Pisa : With the Types of Didot : MDCCCXXI.\n\n(2) Adonais. : An Elegy : on the : Death of John Keats, : Author of\nEndymion, Hyperion, etc. : By : Percy B. Shelley. : [Motto as in (1)]\nCambridge: : Printed by W. Metcalfe, : and sold by Messrs. Gee &\nBridges, Market-Hill. : MDCCCXXIX.\n\n14.\nHellas : A Lyrical Drama : By : Percy B. Shelley : MANTIS EIM’ ESTHAON\n‘AGONON : Oedip. Colon. : London : Charles and James Ollier Vere Street\n: Bond Street : MDCCCXXII. (The last work issued in Shelley’s lifetime.)\n\n15.\nPosthumous Poems : of : Percy Bysshe Shelley. : In nobil sangue vita\numile e queta, : Ed in alto intelletto on puro core; : Frutto senile in\nsul giovenil fiore, : E in aspetto pensoso anima lieta. : Petrarca. :\nLondon, 1824: : Printed for John and Henry L. Hunt, : Tavistock Street,\nCovent Garden. (Edited by Mrs. Shelley.)\n\n16.\nThe : Masque of Anarchy. : A Poem. : By Percy Bysshe Shelley. Now first\npublished, with a Preface : by Leigh Hunt. : Hope is Strong; : Justice\nand Truth their winged child have found. : “Revolt of Islam”. : London:\n: Edward Moxon, 64, New Bond Street. : 1832.\n\n17.\nThe Shelley Papers : Memoir : of : Percy Bysshe Shelley : By T. Medwin,\nEsq. : And : Original Poems and Papers : By Percy Bysshe Shelley. : Now\nfirst collected. : London: : Whittaker, Treacher, & Co. : 1833.\n(The Poems occupy pages 109-126.)\n\n18.\nThe : Poetical Works : of : Percy Bysshe Shelley. : Edited : by Mrs\nShelley. : Lui non trov’ io, ma suoi santi vestigi : Tutti rivolti alla\nsuperna strada : Veggio, lunge da’ laghi averni e stigi.—Petrarca. : In\nFour Volumes. : Vol. 1 [2 3 4] : London: : Edward Moxon, Dover Street. :\nMDCCCXXXIX.\n\n19.\n(1) The : Poetical Works : of : Percy Bysshe Shelley: [Vignette of\nShelley’s Tomb.] London. : Edward Moxon, Dover Street. : 1839.\n(This is the engraved title-page. The printed title-page runs:—)\n\n(2) The : Poetical Works : of Percy Bysshe Shelley. : Edited : By Mrs.\nShelley. : [Motto from Petrarch as in 18] London: : Edward Moxon, Dover\nStreet. : M.DCCC.XL.\n(Large octavo, printed in double columns. The Dedication is dated 11th\nNovember, 1839.)\n\n20.\nEssays, : Letters from Abroad, : Translations and Fragments, : By :\nPercy Bysshe Shelley. : Edited : By Mrs. Shelley. : [Long prose motto\ntranslated from Schiller] : In Two Volumes. : Volume 1 [2] : London: :\nEdward Moxon, Dover Street. : MDCCCXL.\n\n21.\nRelics of Shelley. : Edited by : Richard Garnett. : [Lines 20-24 of “To\nJane”: ‘The keen stars,’ etc.] : London: : Edward Moxon & Co., Dover\nStreet. : 1862.\n\n22.\nThe : Poetical Works : of : Percy Bysshe Shelley: : Including Various\nAdditional Pieces : From Manuscript and Other Sources. : The Text\ncarefully revised, with Notes and : A Memoir, : By William Michael\nRossetti. : Volume 1 [2] : [Moxon’s Device.] : London: : E. Moxon, Son,\n& Co., 44 Dover Street, W. : 1870.\n\n23.\nThe Daemon of the World : By : Percy Bysshe Shelley : The First Part :\nas published in 1816 with “Alastor” : The Second Part : Deciphered and\nnow First Printed from his own Manuscript : Revision and Interpolations\nin the Newly Discovered : Copy of “Queen Mab” : London : Privately\nprinted by H. Buxton Forman : 38 Marlborough Hill : 1876.\n\n24.\nThe Poetical Works : of : Percy Bysshe Shelley : Edited by : Harry\nBuxton Forman : In Four Volumes : Volume 1 [2 3 4] London : Reeves and\nTurner 196 Strand : 1876.\n\n25.\nThe Complete : Poetical Works : of : Percy Bysshe Shelley. : The Text\ncarefully revised with Notes and : A Memoir, : by : William Michael\nRossetti. : In Three Volumes. : Volume 1 [2 3] London: : E. Moxon, Son,\nAnd Co., : Dorset Buildings, Salisbury Square, E.C. : 1878.\n\n26.\nThe Poetical Works : of Percy Bysshe Shelley : Given from His Own\nEditions and Other Authentic Sources : Collated with many Manuscripts\nand with all Editions of Authority : Together with Prefaces and Notes :\nHis Poetical Translations and Fragments : and an Appendix of : Juvenilia\n: [Publisher’s Device.] Edited by Harry Buxton Forman : In Two Volumes.\n: Volume 1 [2] London : Reeves and Turner, 196, Strand : 1882.\n\n27.\nThe : Poetical Works : of : Percy Bysshe Shelley : Edited by : Edward\nDowden : London : Macmillan and Co, Limited : New York: The Macmillan\nCompany : 1900.\n\n28.\nThe Poetical Works of : Percy Bysshe Shelley : Edited with a Memoir by :\nH. Buxton Forman : In Five Volumes [Publisher’s Device.] Volume 1 [2 3 4\n5] London : George Bell and Sons : 1892.\n\n29.\nThe : Complete Poetical Works : of : Percy Bysshe Shelley : The Text\nnewly collated and revised : and Edited with a Memoir and Notes : By\nGeorge Edward Woodberry : Centenary Edition : In Four Volumes : Volume 1\n[2 3 4] [Publisher’s Device.] London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and\nCo. : Limited : 1893.\n\n30.\nAn Examination of the : Shelley Manuscripts : In the Bodleian Library :\nBeing a collation thereof with the printed : texts, resulting in the\npublication of : several long fragments hitherto unknown, : and the\nintroduction of many improved : readings into “Prometheus Unbound”, and\n: other poems, by : C.D. Locock, B.A. : Oxford : At the Clarendon Press\n: 1903.\n\nThe early poems from the Esdaile manuscript book, which are included in\nthis edition by the kind permission of the owner of the volume, Charles\nE.J. Esdaile, Esq., appeared for the first time in Professor Dowden’s\n“Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, published in the year 1887.\n\nOne poem from the same volume; entitled “The Wandering Jew’s Soliloquy”,\nwas printed in one of the Shelley Society Publications (Second Series,\nNo. 12), a reprint of “The Wandering Jew”, edited by Mr. Bertram Dobell\nin 1887.\n\n***", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + }, + { + "title": "Index Of First Lines.", + "body": "A cat in distress :\nA gentle story of two lovers young :\nA glorious people vibrated again :\nA golden-winged Angel stood :\nA Hater he came and sat by a ditch :\nA man who was about to hang himself :\nA pale Dream came to a Lady fair :\nA portal as of shadowy adamant :\nA rainbow’s arch stood on the sea :\nA scene, which ‘wildered fancy viewed :\nA Sensitive Plant in a garden grew :\nA shovel of his ashes took :\nA widow bird sate mourning :\nA woodman whose rough heart was out of tune :\nAh! faint are her limbs, and her footstep is weary :\nAh! grasp the dire dagger and couch the fell spear :\nAh! quit me not yet, for the wind whistles shrill :\nAh, sister! Desolation is a delicate thing :\nAh! sweet is the moonbeam that sleeps on yon fountain :\nAlas! for Liberty! :\nAlas, good friend, what profit can you see :\nAlas! this is not what I thought life was :\nAmbition, power, and avarice, now have hurled :\nAmid the desolation of a city :\nAmong the guests who often stayed :\nAn old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king :\nAnd can’st thou mock mine agony, thus calm :\nAnd earnest to explore within—around :\nAnd ever as he went he swept a lyre :\nAnd, if my grief should still be dearer to me :\nAnd like a dying lady, lean and pale :\nAnd many there were hurt by that strong boy :\nAnd Peter Bell, when he had been :\nAnd said I that all hope was fled :\nAnd that I walk thus proudly crowned withal :\nAnd the cloven waters like a chasm of mountains :\nAnd when the old man saw that on the green :\nAnd where is truth? On tombs? for such to thee :\nAnd who feels discord now or sorrow? :\nArethusa arose :\nAriel to Miranda:—Take :\nArise, arise, arise! :\nArt thou indeed forever gone :\nArt thou pale for weariness :\nAs a violet’s gentle eye :\nAs from an ancestral oak :\nAs I lay asleep in Italy :\nAs the sunrise to the night :\nAsk not the pallid stranger’s woe :\nAt the creation of the Earth :\nAway! the moor is dark beneath the moon :\n\nBear witness, Erin! when thine injured isle :\nBefore those cruel Twins, whom at one birth :\nBeside the dimness of the glimmering sea :\nBest and brightest, come away! :\nBreak the dance, and scatter the song :\nBright ball of flame that through the gloom of even :\nBright clouds float in heaven :\nBright wanderer, fair coquette of Heaven :\nBrothers! between you and me :\n‘Buona notte, buona notte!’—Come mai :\nBy the mossy brink :\n\nChameleons feed on light and air :\nCold, cold is the blast when December is howling :\nCome, be happy!—sit near me :\nCome [Harriet]! sweet is the hour :\nCome hither, my sweet Rosalind :\nCome, thou awakener of the spirit’s ocean :\nCorpses are cold in the tomb :\n\nDares the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind :\nDar’st thou amid the varied multitude :\nDarkness has dawned in the East :\nDaughters of Jove, whose voice is melody :\nDear home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys :\nDearest, best and brightest :\nDeath is here and death is there :\nDeath! where is thy victory? :\nDo evil deeds thus quickly come to end?\nDo you not hear the Aziola cry? :\n\nEagle! why soarest thou above that tomb? :\nEarth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood :\nEchoes we: listen!\nEver as now with Love and Virtue’s glow :\n\nFaint with love, the Lady of the South :\nFairest of the Destinies :\nFalse friend, wilt thou smile or weep :\nFar, far away, O ye :\nFiend, I defy thee! with a calm, fixed mind :\nFierce roars the midnight storm :\nFlourishing vine, whose kindling clusters glow :\nFollow to the deep wood’s weeds :\nFor me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble :\nFor my dagger is bathed in the blood of the brave :\nFor your letter, dear [Hattie], accept my best thanks :\nFrom all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended :\nFrom the cities where from caves :\nFrom the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth :\nFrom the forests and highlands :\nFrom unremembered ages we :\n\nGather, O gather :\nGhosts of the dead! have I not heard your yelling :\nGod prosper, speed, and save :\nGood-night? ah! no; the hour is ill :\nGreat Spirit whom the sea of boundless thought :\nGuido, I would that Lapo, thou, and I :\n\nHail to thee, blithe Spirit! :\nHail to thee, Cambria! for the unfettered wind :\nHark! the owlet flaps her wing :\nHark! the owlet flaps his wings :\nHast thou not seen, officious with delight :\nHe came like a dream in the dawn of life :\nHe wanders, like a day-appearing dream :\nHell is a city much like London :\nHer hair was brown, her sphered eyes were brown :\nHer voice did quiver as we parted :\nHere I sit with my paper, my pen and my ink :\n‘Here lieth One whose name was writ on water’ :\nHere, my dear friend, is a new book for you :\nHere, oh, here :\nHic sinu fessum caput hospitali :\nHis face was like a snake’s—wrinkled and loose :\nHoney from silkworms who can gather :\nHopes, that swell in youthful breasts :\nHow eloquent are eyes :\nHow, my dear Mary,—are you critic-bitten :\nHow stern are the woes of the desolate mourner :\nHow sweet it is to sit and read the tales :\nHow swiftly through Heaven’s wide expanse :\nHow wonderful is Death :\nHow wonderful is Death :\n\nI am afraid these verses will not please you, but :\nI am as a spirit who has dwelt :\nI am drunk with the honey wine :\nI arise from dreams of thee :\nI bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers :\nI dreamed that, as I wandered by the way :\nI dreamed that Milton’s spirit rose, and took :\nI faint, I perish with my love! I grow :\nI fear thy kisses, gentle maiden :\nI hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan :\nI love thee, Baby! for thine own sweet sake :\nI loved—alas! our life is love :\nI met a traveller from an antique land :\nI mourn Adonis dead—loveliest Adonis :\nI pant for the music which is divine :\nI rode one evening with Count Maddalo :\nI sate beside a sage’s bed :\nI sate beside the Steersman then, and gazing :\nI sing the glorious Power with azure eyes :\nI stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret :\nI stood within the City disinterred :\nI weep for Adonais—he is dead’ :\nI went into the deserts of dim sleep :\nI would not be a king—enough :\nIf gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains :\nIf I esteemed you less, Envy would kill :\nIf I walk in Autumn’s even :\nIn the cave which wild weeds cover :\nIn the sweet solitude of this calm place :\nInter marmoreas Leonorae pendula colles :\nIs it that in some brighter sphere :\nIs it the Eternal Triune, is it He :\nIs not to-day enough? Why do I peer :\nIt is not blasphemy to hope that Heaven :\nIt is the day when all the sons of God :\nIt lieth, gazing on the midnight sky :\nIt was a bright and cheerful afternoon :\n\nKissing Helena, together :\n\nLet there be light! said Liberty :\nLet those who pine in pride or in revenge :\nLife of Life! thy lips enkindle :\nLift not the painted veil which those who live :\nLike the ghost of a dear friend dead :\nListen, listen, Mary mine :\nLo, Peter in Hell’s Grosvenor Square :\n\nMadonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me :\nMaiden, quench the glare of sorrow :\nMany a green isle needs must be :\nMelodious Arethusa, o’er my verse :\nMen of England, wherefore plough :\nMethought I was a billow in the crowd :\nMighty eagle! thou that soarest :\nMine eyes were dim with tears unshed :\nMonarch of Gods and Daemons, and all Spirits :\nMonth after month the gathered rains descend :\nMoonbeam, leave the shadowy vale :\nMuse, sing the deeds of golden Aphrodite :\nMusic, when soft voices die :\nMy coursers are fed with the lightning :\nMy dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone :\nMy faint spirit was sitting in the light :\nMy head is heavy, my limbs are weary :\nMy head is wild with weeping for a grief :\nMy lost William, thou in whom :\nMy Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few :\nMy soul is an enchanted boat :\nMy spirit like a charmed bark doth swim :\nMy thoughts arise and fade in solitude :\nMy wings are folded o’er mine ears :\n\nNight, with all thine eyes look down! :\nNight! with all thine eyes look down! :\nNo access to the Duke! You have not said :\nNo, Music, thou art not the ‘food of Love’ :\nNo trump tells thy virtues :\nNor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame :\nNot far from hence. From yonder pointed hill :\nNow had the loophole of that dungeon, still :\nNow the last day of many days :\n\nO Bacchus, what a world of toil, both now :\nO happy Earth! reality of Heaven :\nO Mary dear, that you were here :\nO mighty mind, in whose deep stream this age :\nO pillow cold and wet with tears! :\nO Slavery! thou frost of the world’s prime :\nO that a chariot of cloud were mine! :\nO that mine enemy had written :\nO thou bright Sun! beneath the dark blue line :\nO thou immortal deity :\nO thou, who plumed with strong desire :\nO universal Mother, who dost keep :\nO wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being :\nO world! O life! O time! :\nOffspring of Jove, Calliope, once more :\nOh! did you observe the black Canon pass :\nOh! take the pure gem to where southerly breezes :\nOh! there are spirits of the air :\nOh! what is the gain of restless care :\nOn a battle-trumpet’s blast :\nOn a poet’s lips I slept :\nOn the brink of the night and the morning :\nOnce, early in the morning :\nOne sung of thee who left the tale untold :\nOne word is too often profaned :\nOrphan Hours, the Year is dead :\nOur boat is asleep on Serchio’s stream :\nOur spoil is won :\nOut of the eastern shadow of the Earth :\nOver the utmost hill at length I sped :\n\nPalace-roof of cloudless nights! :\nPan loved his neighbour Echo—but that child :\nPeople of England, ye who toil and groan :\nPeter Bells, one, two and three :\nPlace, for the Marshal of the Masque! :\nPoet of Nature, thou hast wept to know :\nPrince Athanase had one beloved friend :\n\nRarely, rarely, comest thou :\nReach me that handkerchief!—My brain is hurt :\nReturning from its daily quest, my Spirit :\nRome has fallen, ye see it lying :\nRough wind, that moanest loud :\n\nSacred Goddess, Mother Earth :\nSee yon opening flower :\nSerene in his unconquerable might :\nShall we roam, my love :\nShe comes not; yet I left her even now :\nShe left me at the silent time :\nShe saw me not—she heard me not—alone :\nShe was an aged woman; and the years :\nSilence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou :\nSilver key of the fountain of tears :\nSing, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove :\nSleep, sleep on! forget thy pain :\nSo now my summer task is ended, Mary :\nSo we sate joyous as the morning ray :\nStern, stern is the voice of fate’s fearful command :\nSuch hope, as is the sick despair of good :\nSuch was Zonoras; and as daylight finds :\nSummer was dead and Autumn was expiring :\nSweet Spirit! Sister of that orphan one :\nSweet star, which gleaming o’er the darksome scene :\nSwift as a spirit hastening to his task :\nSwifter far than summer’s flight :\nSwiftly walk o’er the western wave :\n\nTell me, thou Star, whose wings of light :\nThat matter of the murder is hushed up :\nThat night we anchored in a woody bay :\nThat time is dead for ever, child! :\nThe awful shadow of some unseen Power :\nThe babe is at peace within the womb :\nThe billows on the beach are leaping around it :\nThe cold earth slept below :\nThe curtain of the Universe :\nThe death-bell beats! :\nThe death knell is ringing :\nThe Devil, I safely can aver :\nThe Devil now knew his proper cue :\nThe Elements respect their Maker’s seal! :\nThe everlasting universe of things :\nThe fierce beasts of the woods and wildernesses :\nThe fiery mountains answer each other :\nThe fitful alternations of the rain :\nThe flower that smiles to-day :\nThe fountains mingle with the river :\nThe gentleness of rain was in the wind :\nThe golden gates of Sleep unbar :\nThe joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness :\nThe keen stars were twinkling :\nThe odour from the flower is gone :\nThe old man took the oars, and soon the bark :\nThe pale stars are gone :\nThe pale stars of the morn :\nThe pale, the cold, and the moony smile :\nThe path through which that lovely twain :\nThe rose that drinks the fountain dew :\nThe rude wind is singing :\nThe season was the childhood of sweet June :\nThe serpent is shut out from Paradise :\nThe sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie :\nThe spider spreads her webs, whether she be :\nThe starlight smile of children, the sweet looks :\nThe stars may dissolve, and the fountain of light :\nThe sun is set; the swallows are asleep :\nThe sun is warm, the sky is clear :\nThe sun makes music as of old :\nThe transport of a fierce and monstrous gladness :\nThe viewless and invisible Consequence :\nThe voice of the Spirits of Air and of Earth :\nThe warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing :\nThe waters are flashing :\nThe wind has swept from the wide atmosphere :\nThe world is dreary :\nThe world is now our dwelling-place :\nThe world’s great age begins anew :\nThen weave the web of the mystic measure :\nThere is a voice, not understood by all :\nThere is a warm and gentle atmosphere :\nThere late was One within whose subtle being :\nThere was a little lawny islet :\nThere was a youth, who, as with toil and travel :\nThese are two friends whose lives were undivided :\nThey die—the dead return not—Misery :\nThose whom nor power, nor lying faith, nor toil :\nThou art fair, and few are fairer :\nThou art the wine whose drunkenness is all :\nThou living light that in thy rainbow hues :\nThou supreme Goddess! by whose power divine :\nThou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be :\nThou wert the morning star among the living :\nThrice three hundred thousand years :\nThus to be lost and thus to sink and die :\nThy beauty hangs around thee like :\nThy country’s curse is on thee, darkest crest :\nThy dewy looks sink in my breast :\nThy little footsteps on the sands :\nThy look of love has power to calm :\n’Tis midnight now—athwart the murky air :\n’Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail :\nTo me this world’s a dreary blank :\nTo the deep, to the deep :\nTo thirst and find no fill—to wail and wander :\nTremble, Kings despised of man :\n’Twas at the season when the Earth upsprings :\n’Twas at this season that Prince Athanase :\n’Twas dead of the night, when I sat in my dwelling :\n’Twas dead of the night when I sate in my dwelling :\n\nUnfathomable Sea! whose waves are years :\nUnrisen splendour of the brightest sun :\n\nVessels of heavenly medicine! may the breeze :\nVictorious Wrong, with vulture scream :\n\nWake the serpent not—lest he :\nWas there a human spirit in the steed :\nWe are as clouds that veil the midnight moon :\nWe come from the mind :\nWe join the throng :\nWe meet not as we parted :\nWe strew these opiate flowers :\nWealth and dominion fade into the mass :\nWeave the dance on the floor of the breeze :\nWeep not, my gentle boy; he struck but me :\nWhat! alive and so bold, O Earth? :\nWhat art thou, Presumptuous, who profanest :\nWhat Mary is when she a little smiles :\nWhat men gain fairly—that they should possess :\n‘What think you the dead are?’ :\nWhat thoughts had sway o’er Cythna’s lonely slumber :\nWhat was the shriek that struck Fancy’s ear :\nWhen a lover clasps his fairest :\nWhen May is painting with her colours gay :\nWhen passion’s trance is overpast :\nWhen soft winds and sunny skies :\nWhen the lamp is shattered :\nWhen the last hope of trampled France had failed :\nWhen winds that move not its calm surface sweep :\nWhere art thou, beloved To-morrow? :\nWhere man’s profane and tainting hand :\nWhose is the love that gleaming through the world :\nWhy is it said thou canst not live :\nWild, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one :\nWilt thou forget the happy hours :\nWithin a cavern of man’s trackless spirit :\nWorlds on worlds are rolling ever :\nWould I were the winged cloud :\n\nYe congregated powers of heaven, who share :\nYe Dorian woods and waves, lament aloud :\nYe gentle visitations of calm thought :\nYe hasten to the grave! What seek ye there :\nYe who intelligent the Third Heaven move :\nYe wild-eyed Muses, sing the Twins of Jove :\nYes! all is past—swift time has fled away :\nYes, often when the eyes are cold and dry :\nYet look on me—take not thine eyes away :\nYou said that spirits spoke, but it was thee :\nYour call was as a winged car :", + "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", + "source": "Complete Poetical Works of Shelley", + "period": "1810–1822" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/whitman_leaves_of_grass.json b/poetry/whitman_leaves_of_grass.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bac950c --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/whitman_leaves_of_grass.json @@ -0,0 +1,2683 @@ +[ + { + "title": "By Walt Whitman", + "body": " Come, said my soul,\n Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)\n That should I after return,\n Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,\n There to some group of mates the chants resuming,\n (Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)\n Ever with pleas’d smile I may keep on,\n Ever and ever yet the verses owning--as, first, I here and now\n Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name,\n\n Walt Whitman", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "One’s-Self I Sing", + "body": " One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person,\n Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.\n\n Of physiology from top to toe I sing,\n Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say\n the Form complete is worthier far,\n The Female equally with the Male I sing.\n\n Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,\n Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,\n The Modern Man I sing.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As I Ponder’d in Silence", + "body": " As I ponder’d in silence,\n Returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long,\n A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect,\n Terrible in beauty, age, and power,\n The genius of poets of old lands,\n As to me directing like flame its eyes,\n With finger pointing to many immortal songs,\n And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said,\n Know’st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?\n And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles,\n The making of perfect soldiers.\n\n Be it so, then I answer’d,\n I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,\n Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance\n and retreat, victory deferr’d and wavering,\n (Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the\n field the world,\n For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,\n Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,\n I above all promote brave soldiers.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "In Cabin’d Ships at Sea", + "body": " In cabin’d ships at sea,\n The boundless blue on every side expanding,\n With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves,\n Or some lone bark buoy’d on the dense marine,\n Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails,\n She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under\n many a star at night,\n By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,\n In full rapport at last.\n\n Here are our thoughts, voyagers’ thoughts,\n Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,\n The sky o’erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,\n We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,\n The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the\n briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,\n The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,\n The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,\n And this is ocean’s poem.\n\n Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny,\n You not a reminiscence of the land alone,\n You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos’d I know not\n whither, yet ever full of faith,\n Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!\n Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it\n here in every leaf;)\n Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the\n imperious waves,\n Chant on, sail on, bear o’er the boundless blue from me to every sea,\n This song for mariners and all their ships.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To Foreign Lands", + "body": " I heard that you ask’d for something to prove this puzzle the New World,\n And to define America, her athletic Democracy,\n Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To a Historian", + "body": " You who celebrate bygones,\n Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life\n that has exhibited itself,\n Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates,\n rulers and priests,\n I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself\n in his own rights,\n Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself,\n (the great pride of man in himself,)\n Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,\n I project the history of the future.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To Thee Old Cause", + "body": " To thee old cause!\n Thou peerless, passionate, good cause,\n Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea,\n Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands,\n After a strange sad war, great war for thee,\n (I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be\n really fought, for thee,)\n These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee.\n\n (A war O soldiers not for itself alone,\n Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in this book.)\n\n Thou orb of many orbs!\n Thou seething principle! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou centre!\n Around the idea of thee the war revolving,\n With all its angry and vehement play of causes,\n (With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years,)\n These recitatives for thee,--my book and the war are one,\n Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee,\n As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself,\n Around the idea of thee.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Eidolons", + "body": " I met a seer,\n Passing the hues and objects of the world,\n The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,\n To glean eidolons.\n\n Put in thy chants said he,\n No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in,\n Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all,\n That of eidolons.\n\n Ever the dim beginning,\n Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle,\n Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start again,)\n Eidolons! eidolons!\n\n Ever the mutable,\n Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering,\n Ever the ateliers, the factories divine,\n Issuing eidolons.\n\n Lo, I or you,\n Or woman, man, or state, known or unknown,\n We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,\n But really build eidolons.\n\n The ostent evanescent,\n The substance of an artist’s mood or savan’s studies long,\n Or warrior’s, martyr’s, hero’s toils,\n To fashion his eidolon.\n\n Of every human life,\n (The units gather’d, posted, not a thought, emotion, deed, left out,)\n The whole or large or small summ’d, added up,\n In its eidolon.\n\n The old, old urge,\n Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles,\n From science and the modern still impell’d,\n The old, old urge, eidolons.\n\n The present now and here,\n America’s busy, teeming, intricate whirl,\n Of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing,\n To-day’s eidolons.\n\n These with the past,\n Of vanish’d lands, of all the reigns of kings across the sea,\n Old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors’ voyages,\n Joining eidolons.\n\n Densities, growth, facades,\n Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees,\n Far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave,\n Eidolons everlasting.\n\n Exalte, rapt, ecstatic,\n The visible but their womb of birth,\n Of orbic tendencies to shape and shape and shape,\n The mighty earth-eidolon.\n\n All space, all time,\n (The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns,\n Swelling, collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use,)\n Fill’d with eidolons only.\n\n The noiseless myriads,\n The infinite oceans where the rivers empty,\n The separate countless free identities, like eyesight,\n The true realities, eidolons.\n\n Not this the world,\n Nor these the universes, they the universes,\n Purport and end, ever the permanent life of life,\n Eidolons, eidolons.\n\n Beyond thy lectures learn’d professor,\n Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer keen, beyond all mathematics,\n Beyond the doctor’s surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with his chemistry,\n The entities of entities, eidolons.\n\n Unfix’d yet fix’d,\n Ever shall be, ever have been and are,\n Sweeping the present to the infinite future,\n Eidolons, eidolons, eidolons.\n\n The prophet and the bard,\n Shall yet maintain themselves, in higher stages yet,\n Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democracy, interpret yet to them,\n God and eidolons.\n\n And thee my soul,\n Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations,\n Thy yearning amply fed at last, prepared to meet,\n Thy mates, eidolons.\n\n Thy body permanent,\n The body lurking there within thy body,\n The only purport of the form thou art, the real I myself,\n An image, an eidolon.\n\n Thy very songs not in thy songs,\n No special strains to sing, none for itself,\n But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating,\n A round full-orb’d eidolon.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "For Him I Sing", + "body": " For him I sing,\n I raise the present on the past,\n (As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)\n With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws,\n To make himself by them the law unto himself.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "When I Read the Book", + "body": " When I read the book, the biography famous,\n And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man’s life?\n And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?\n (As if any man really knew aught of my life,\n Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,\n Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections\n I seek for my own use to trace out here.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Beginning My Studies", + "body": " Beginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much,\n The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,\n The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,\n The first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much,\n I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther,\n But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Beginners", + "body": " How they are provided for upon the earth, (appearing at intervals,)\n How dear and dreadful they are to the earth,\n How they inure to themselves as much as to any--what a paradox\n appears their age,\n How people respond to them, yet know them not,\n How there is something relentless in their fate all times,\n How all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward,\n And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same\n great purchase.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To the States", + "body": " To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist\n much, obey little,\n Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,\n Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever\n afterward resumes its liberty.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "On Journeys Through the States", + "body": " On journeys through the States we start,\n (Ay through the world, urged by these songs,\n Sailing henceforth to every land, to every sea,)\n We willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all.\n\n We have watch’d the seasons dispensing themselves and passing on,\n And have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the\n seasons, and effuse as much?\n\n We dwell a while in every city and town,\n We pass through Kanada, the North-east, the vast valley of the\n Mississippi, and the Southern States,\n We confer on equal terms with each of the States,\n We make trial of ourselves and invite men and women to hear,\n We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the\n body and the soul,\n Dwell a while and pass on, be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic,\n And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,\n And may be just as much as the seasons.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To a Certain Cantatrice", + "body": " Here, take this gift,\n I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,\n One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the\n progress and freedom of the race,\n Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel;\n But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Me Imperturbe", + "body": " Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,\n Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things,\n Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they,\n Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less\n important than I thought,\n Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta or the Tennessee,\n or far north or inland,\n A river man, or a man of the woods or of any farm-life of these\n States or of the coast, or the lakes or Kanada,\n Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies,\n To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as\n the trees and animals do.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Savantism", + "body": " Thither as I look I see each result and glory retracing itself and\n nestling close, always obligated,\n Thither hours, months, years--thither trades, compacts,\n establishments, even the most minute,\n Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates;\n Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant,\n As a father to his father going takes his children along with him.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Ship Starting", + "body": " Lo, the unbounded sea,\n On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even\n her moonsails.\n The pennant is flying aloft as she speeds she speeds so stately--\n below emulous waves press forward,\n They surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "I Hear America Singing", + "body": " I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,\n Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,\n The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,\n The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,\n The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand\n singing on the steamboat deck,\n The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as\n he stands,\n The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning,\n or at noon intermission or at sundown,\n The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work,\n or of the girl sewing or washing,\n Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,\n The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young\n fellows, robust, friendly,\n Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "What Place Is Besieged?", + "body": " What place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege?\n Lo, I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal,\n And with him horse and foot, and parks of artillery,\n And artillery-men, the deadliest that ever fired gun.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Still Though the One I Sing", + "body": " Still though the one I sing,\n (One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality,\n I leave in him revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O\n quenchless, indispensable fire!)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Shut Not Your Doors", + "body": " Shut not your doors to me proud libraries,\n For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yet\n needed most, I bring,\n Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made,\n The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing,\n A book separate, not link’d with the rest nor felt by the intellect,\n But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Poets to Come", + "body": " Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!\n Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,\n But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than\n before known,\n Arouse! for you must justify me.\n\n I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,\n I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.\n\n I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a\n casual look upon you and then averts his face,\n Leaving it to you to prove and define it,\n Expecting the main things from you.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To You", + "body": " Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why\n should you not speak to me?\n And why should I not speak to you?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thou Reader", + "body": " Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,\n Therefore for thee the following chants.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Starting from Paumanok", + "body": " 1\n Starting from fish-shape Paumanok where I was born,\n Well-begotten, and rais’d by a perfect mother,\n After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements,\n Dweller in Mannahatta my city, or on southern savannas,\n Or a soldier camp’d or carrying my knapsack and gun, or a miner\n in California,\n Or rude in my home in Dakota’s woods, my diet meat, my drink from\n the spring,\n Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,\n Far from the clank of crowds intervals passing rapt and happy,\n Aware of the fresh free giver the flowing Missouri, aware of\n mighty Niagara,\n Aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the hirsute and\n strong-breasted bull,\n Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers experienced, stars, rain, snow,\n my amaze,\n Having studied the mocking-bird’s tones and the flight of the\n mountain-hawk,\n And heard at dawn the unrivall’d one, the hermit thrush from the\n swamp-cedars,\n Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.\n\n 2\n Victory, union, faith, identity, time,\n The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,\n Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.\n This then is life,\n Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions.\n\n How curious! how real!\n Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun.\n\n See revolving the globe,\n The ancestor-continents away group’d together,\n The present and future continents north and south, with the isthmus\n between.\n\n See, vast trackless spaces,\n As in a dream they change, they swiftly fill,\n Countless masses debouch upon them,\n They are now cover’d with the foremost people, arts, institutions, known.\n\n See, projected through time,\n For me an audience interminable.\n\n With firm and regular step they wend, they never stop,\n Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions,\n One generation playing its part and passing on,\n Another generation playing its part and passing on in its turn,\n With faces turn’d sideways or backward towards me to listen,\n With eyes retrospective towards me.\n\n 3\n Americanos! conquerors! marches humanitarian!\n Foremost! century marches! Libertad! masses!\n For you a programme of chants.\n\n Chants of the prairies,\n Chants of the long-running Mississippi, and down to the Mexican sea,\n Chants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota,\n Chants going forth from the centre from Kansas, and thence equidistant,\n Shooting in pulses of fire ceaseless to vivify all.\n\n 4\n Take my leaves America, take them South and take them North,\n Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own off-spring,\n Surround them East and West, for they would surround you,\n And you precedents, connect lovingly with them, for they connect\n lovingly with you.\n\n I conn’d old times,\n I sat studying at the feet of the great masters,\n Now if eligible O that the great masters might return and study me.\n\n In the name of these States shall I scorn the antique?\n Why these are the children of the antique to justify it.\n\n 5\n Dead poets, philosophs, priests,\n Martyrs, artists, inventors, governments long since,\n Language-shapers on other shores,\n Nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn, or desolate,\n I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left\n wafted hither,\n I have perused it, own it is admirable, (moving awhile among it,)\n Think nothing can ever be greater, nothing can ever deserve more\n than it deserves,\n Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it,\n I stand in my place with my own day here.\n\n Here lands female and male,\n Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world, here the flame of\n materials,\n Here spirituality the translatress, the openly-avow’d,\n The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms,\n The satisfier, after due long-waiting now advancing,\n Yes here comes my mistress the soul.\n\n 6\n The soul,\n Forever and forever--longer than soil is brown and solid--longer\n than water ebbs and flows.\n I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the\n most spiritual poems,\n And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality,\n For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul and\n of immortality.\n\n I will make a song for these States that no one State may under any\n circumstances be subjected to another State,\n And I will make a song that there shall be comity by day and by\n night between all the States, and between any two of them,\n And I will make a song for the ears of the President, full of\n weapons with menacing points,\n And behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces;\n And a song make I of the One form’d out of all,\n The fang’d and glittering One whose head is over all,\n Resolute warlike One including and over all,\n (However high the head of any else that head is over all.)\n\n I will acknowledge contemporary lands,\n I will trail the whole geography of the globe and salute courteously\n every city large and small,\n And employments! I will put in my poems that with you is heroism\n upon land and sea,\n And I will report all heroism from an American point of view.\n\n I will sing the song of companionship,\n I will show what alone must finally compact these,\n I believe these are to found their own ideal of manly love,\n indicating it in me,\n I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were\n threatening to consume me,\n I will lift what has too long kept down those smouldering fires,\n I will give them complete abandonment,\n I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love,\n For who but I should understand love with all its sorrow and joy?\n And who but I should be the poet of comrades?\n\n 7\n I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races,\n I advance from the people in their own spirit,\n Here is what sings unrestricted faith.\n\n Omnes! omnes! let others ignore what they may,\n I make the poem of evil also, I commemorate that part also,\n I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is--and I say\n there is in fact no evil,\n (Or if there is I say it is just as important to you, to the land or\n to me, as any thing else.)\n\n I too, following many and follow’d by many, inaugurate a religion, I\n descend into the arena,\n (It may be I am destin’d to utter the loudest cries there, the\n winner’s pealing shouts,\n Who knows? they may rise from me yet, and soar above every thing.)\n\n Each is not for its own sake,\n I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion’s sake.\n\n I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough,\n None has ever yet adored or worship’d half enough,\n None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain\n the future is.\n\n I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be\n their religion,\n Otherwise there is just no real and permanent grandeur;\n (Nor character nor life worthy the name without religion,\n Nor land nor man or woman without religion.)\n\n 8\n What are you doing young man?\n Are you so earnest, so given up to literature, science, art, amours?\n These ostensible realities, politics, points?\n Your ambition or business whatever it may be?\n\n It is well--against such I say not a word, I am their poet also,\n But behold! such swiftly subside, burnt up for religion’s sake,\n For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essential\n life of the earth,\n Any more than such are to religion.\n\n 9\n What do you seek so pensive and silent?\n What do you need camerado?\n Dear son do you think it is love?\n\n Listen dear son--listen America, daughter or son,\n It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess, and yet it\n satisfies, it is great,\n But there is something else very great, it makes the whole coincide,\n It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands sweeps and\n provides for all.\n\n 10\n Know you, solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater religion,\n The following chants each for its kind I sing.\n\n My comrade!\n For you to share with me two greatnesses, and a third one rising\n inclusive and more resplendent,\n The greatness of Love and Democracy, and the greatness of Religion.\n\n Melange mine own, the unseen and the seen,\n Mysterious ocean where the streams empty,\n Prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me,\n Living beings, identities now doubtless near us in the air that we\n know not of,\n Contact daily and hourly that will not release me,\n These selecting, these in hints demanded of me.\n\n Not he with a daily kiss onward from childhood kissing me,\n Has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him,\n Any more than I am held to the heavens and all the spiritual world,\n After what they have done to me, suggesting themes.\n\n O such themes--equalities! O divine average!\n Warblings under the sun, usher’d as now, or at noon, or setting,\n Strains musical flowing through ages, now reaching hither,\n I take to your reckless and composite chords, add to them, and\n cheerfully pass them forward.\n\n 11\n As I have walk’d in Alabama my morning walk,\n I have seen where the she-bird the mocking-bird sat on her nest in\n the briers hatching her brood.\n\n I have seen the he-bird also,\n I have paus’d to hear him near at hand inflating his throat and\n joyfully singing.\n\n And while I paus’d it came to me that what he really sang for was\n not there only,\n Nor for his mate nor himself only, nor all sent back by the echoes,\n But subtle, clandestine, away beyond,\n A charge transmitted and gift occult for those being born.\n\n 12\n Democracy! near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and\n joyfully singing.\n\n Ma femme! for the brood beyond us and of us,\n For those who belong here and those to come,\n I exultant to be ready for them will now shake out carols stronger\n and haughtier than have ever yet been heard upon earth.\n\n I will make the songs of passion to give them their way,\n And your songs outlaw’d offenders, for I scan you with kindred eyes,\n and carry you with me the same as any.\n\n I will make the true poem of riches,\n To earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres and goes forward\n and is not dropt by death;\n I will effuse egotism and show it underlying all, and I will be the\n bard of personality,\n And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of\n the other,\n And sexual organs and acts! do you concentrate in me, for I am determin’d\n to tell you with courageous clear voice to prove you illustrious,\n And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and\n can be none in the future,\n And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn’d to\n beautiful results,\n And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death,\n And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are\n compact,\n And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each\n as profound as any.\n\n I will not make poems with reference to parts,\n But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to ensemble,\n And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to\n all days,\n And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem but has\n reference to the soul,\n Because having look’d at the objects of the universe, I find there\n is no one nor any particle of one but has reference to the soul.\n\n 13\n Was somebody asking to see the soul?\n See, your own shape and countenance, persons, substances, beasts,\n the trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands.\n\n All hold spiritual joys and afterwards loosen them;\n How can the real body ever die and be buried?\n\n Of your real body and any man’s or woman’s real body,\n Item for item it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners and\n pass to fitting spheres,\n Carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to the\n moment of death.\n\n Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the\n meaning, the main concern,\n Any more than a man’s substance and life or a woman’s substance and\n life return in the body and the soul,\n Indifferently before death and after death.\n\n Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern and\n includes and is the soul;\n Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your body, or any part\n of it!\n\n 14\n Whoever you are, to you endless announcements!\n\n Daughter of the lands did you wait for your poet?\n Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand?\n Toward the male of the States, and toward the female of the States,\n Exulting words, words to Democracy’s lands.\n\n Interlink’d, food-yielding lands!\n Land of coal and iron! land of gold! land of cotton, sugar, rice!\n Land of wheat, beef, pork! land of wool and hemp! land of the apple\n and the grape!\n Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-fields of the world! land of\n those sweet-air’d interminable plateaus!\n Land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobie!\n Lands where the north-west Columbia winds, and where the south-west\n Colorado winds!\n Land of the eastern Chesapeake! land of the Delaware!\n Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan!\n Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! land of Vermont and\n Connecticut!\n Land of the ocean shores! land of sierras and peaks!\n Land of boatmen and sailors! fishermen’s land!\n Inextricable lands! the clutch’d together! the passionate ones!\n The side by side! the elder and younger brothers! the bony-limb’d!\n The great women’s land! the feminine! the experienced sisters and\n the inexperienced sisters!\n Far breath’d land! Arctic braced! Mexican breez’d! the diverse! the\n compact!\n The Pennsylvanian! the Virginian! the double Carolinian!\n O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations! O I at any\n rate include you all with perfect love!\n I cannot be discharged from you! not from one any sooner than another!\n O death! O for all that, I am yet of you unseen this hour with\n irrepressible love,\n Walking New England, a friend, a traveler,\n Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples on\n Paumanok’s sands,\n Crossing the prairies, dwelling again in Chicago, dwelling in every town,\n Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts,\n Listening to orators and oratresses in public halls,\n Of and through the States as during life, each man and woman my neighbor,\n The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her,\n The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me, and I yet with any of them,\n Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river, yet in my house of adobie,\n Yet returning eastward, yet in the Seaside State or in Maryland,\n Yet Kanadian cheerily braving the winter, the snow and ice welcome to me,\n Yet a true son either of Maine or of the Granite State, or the\n Narragansett Bay State, or the Empire State,\n Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same, yet welcoming every\n new brother,\n Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones from the hour they\n unite with the old ones,\n Coming among the new ones myself to be their companion and equal,\n coming personally to you now,\n Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.\n\n 15\n With me with firm holding, yet haste, haste on.\n For your life adhere to me,\n (I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give\n myself really to you, but what of that?\n Must not Nature be persuaded many times?)\n\n No dainty dolce affettuoso I,\n Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck’d, forbidding, I have arrived,\n To be wrestled with as I pass for the solid prizes of the universe,\n For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them.\n\n 16\n On my way a moment I pause,\n Here for you! and here for America!\n Still the present I raise aloft, still the future of the States I\n harbinge glad and sublime,\n And for the past I pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines.\n\n The red aborigines,\n Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds\n and animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names,\n Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee,\n Kaqueta, Oronoco,\n Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla,\n Leaving such to the States they melt, they depart, charging the\n water and the land with names.\n\n 17\n Expanding and swift, henceforth,\n Elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick and audacious,\n A world primal again, vistas of glory incessant and branching,\n A new race dominating previous ones and grander far, with new contests,\n New politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts.\n\n These, my voice announcing--I will sleep no more but arise,\n You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you,\n fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.\n\n 18\n See, steamers steaming through my poems,\n See, in my poems immigrants continually coming and landing,\n See, in arriere, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter’s hut, the flat-boat,\n the maize-leaf, the claim, the rude fence, and the backwoods village,\n See, on the one side the Western Sea and on the other the Eastern Sea,\n how they advance and retreat upon my poems as upon their own shores,\n See, pastures and forests in my poems--see, animals wild and tame--see,\n beyond the Kaw, countless herds of buffalo feeding on short curly grass,\n See, in my poems, cities, solid, vast, inland, with paved streets,\n with iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles, and commerce,\n See, the many-cylinder’d steam printing-press--see, the electric\n telegraph stretching across the continent,\n See, through Atlantica’s depths pulses American Europe reaching,\n pulses of Europe duly return’d,\n See, the strong and quick locomotive as it departs, panting, blowing\n the steam-whistle,\n See, ploughmen ploughing farms--see, miners digging mines--see,\n the numberless factories,\n See, mechanics busy at their benches with tools--see from among them\n superior judges, philosophs, Presidents, emerge, drest in\n working dresses,\n See, lounging through the shops and fields of the States, me\n well-belov’d, close-held by day and night,\n Hear the loud echoes of my songs there--read the hints come at last.\n\n 19\n O camerado close! O you and me at last, and us two only.\n O a word to clear one’s path ahead endlessly!\n O something ecstatic and undemonstrable! O music wild!\n O now I triumph--and you shall also;\n O hand in hand--O wholesome pleasure--O one more desirer and lover!\n O to haste firm holding--to haste, haste on with me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song of Myself", + "body": " 1\n I celebrate myself, and sing myself,\n And what I assume you shall assume,\n For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.\n\n I loafe and invite my soul,\n I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.\n\n My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,\n Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their\n parents the same,\n I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,\n Hoping to cease not till death.\n\n Creeds and schools in abeyance,\n Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,\n I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,\n Nature without check with original energy.\n\n 2\n Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with\n perfumes,\n I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,\n The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.\n\n The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the\n distillation, it is odorless,\n It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,\n I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,\n I am mad for it to be in contact with me.\n\n The smoke of my own breath,\n Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,\n My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing\n of blood and air through my lungs,\n The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and\n dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,\n\n The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of\n the wind,\n A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,\n The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,\n The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields\n and hill-sides,\n The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising\n from bed and meeting the sun.\n\n Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?\n Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?\n Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?\n\n Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of\n all poems,\n You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions\n of suns left,)\n You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through\n the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,\n You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,\n You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.\n\n 3\n I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the\n beginning and the end,\n But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.\n\n There was never any more inception than there is now,\n Nor any more youth or age than there is now,\n And will never be any more perfection than there is now,\n Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.\n\n Urge and urge and urge,\n Always the procreant urge of the world.\n\n Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and\n increase, always sex,\n Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.\n To elaborate is no avail, learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so.\n\n Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well\n entretied, braced in the beams,\n Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,\n I and this mystery here we stand.\n\n Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.\n\n Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,\n Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.\n\n Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,\n Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they\n discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.\n\n Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,\n Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be\n less familiar than the rest.\n\n I am satisfied--I see, dance, laugh, sing;\n As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night,\n and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread,\n Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house with\n their plenty,\n Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,\n That they turn from gazing after and down the road,\n And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,\n Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?\n\n 4\n Trippers and askers surround me,\n People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and\n city I live in, or the nation,\n The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,\n My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,\n The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,\n The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss\n or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,\n Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,\n the fitful events;\n These come to me days and nights and go from me again,\n But they are not the Me myself.\n\n Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,\n Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,\n Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,\n Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,\n Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.\n\n Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with\n linguists and contenders,\n I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.\n\n 5\n I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,\n And you must not be abased to the other.\n\n Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,\n Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not\n even the best,\n Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.\n\n I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,\n How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me,\n And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue\n to my bare-stript heart,\n And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.\n\n Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass\n all the argument of the earth,\n And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,\n And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,\n And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women\n my sisters and lovers,\n And that a kelson of the creation is love,\n And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,\n And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,\n And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and\n poke-weed.\n\n 6\n A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;\n How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.\n\n I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green\n stuff woven.\n\n Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,\n A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,\n Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see\n and remark, and say Whose?\n\n Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.\n\n Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,\n And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,\n Growing among black folks as among white,\n Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I\n receive them the same.\n\n And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.\n\n Tenderly will I use you curling grass,\n It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,\n It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,\n It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out\n of their mothers’ laps,\n And here you are the mothers’ laps.\n\n This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,\n Darker than the colorless beards of old men,\n Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.\n\n O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,\n And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.\n\n I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,\n And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken\n soon out of their laps.\n\n What do you think has become of the young and old men?\n And what do you think has become of the women and children?\n\n They are alive and well somewhere,\n The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,\n And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the\n end to arrest it,\n And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.\n\n All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,\n And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.\n\n 7\n Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?\n I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.\n\n I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and\n am not contain’d between my hat and boots,\n And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,\n The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.\n\n I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,\n I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and\n fathomless as myself,\n (They do not know how immortal, but I know.)\n\n Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,\n For me those that have been boys and that love women,\n For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,\n For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the\n mothers of mothers,\n For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,\n For me children and the begetters of children.\n\n Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,\n I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,\n And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.\n\n 8\n The little one sleeps in its cradle,\n I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies\n with my hand.\n\n The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,\n I peeringly view them from the top.\n\n The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom,\n I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol\n has fallen.\n\n The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of\n the promenaders,\n The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the\n clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,\n The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls,\n The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs,\n The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside borne to the hospital,\n The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,\n The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his\n passage to the centre of the crowd,\n The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,\n What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sunstruck or in fits,\n What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and\n give birth to babes,\n What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls\n restrain’d by decorum,\n Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,\n rejections with convex lips,\n I mind them or the show or resonance of them--I come and I depart.\n\n 9\n The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,\n The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,\n The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,\n The armfuls are pack’d to the sagging mow.\n\n I am there, I help, I came stretch’d atop of the load,\n I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,\n I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,\n And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.\n\n 10\n Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,\n Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,\n In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,\n Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill’d game,\n Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves with my dog and gun by my side.\n\n The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle and scud,\n My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck.\n\n The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,\n I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;\n You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.\n\n I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,\n the bride was a red girl,\n Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking,\n they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets\n hanging from their shoulders,\n On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his luxuriant\n beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride by the hand,\n She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks\n descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet.\n\n The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,\n I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,\n Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,\n And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,\n And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d feet,\n And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some\n coarse clean clothes,\n And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,\n And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;\n He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north,\n I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.\n\n 11\n Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,\n Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;\n Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.\n\n She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,\n She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.\n\n Which of the young men does she like the best?\n Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.\n\n Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,\n You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.\n\n Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,\n The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.\n\n The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair,\n Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.\n\n An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies,\n It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.\n\n The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the\n sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,\n They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch,\n They do not think whom they souse with spray.\n\n 12\n The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife\n at the stall in the market,\n I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.\n\n Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,\n Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in\n the fire.\n\n From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements,\n The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,\n Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,\n They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.\n\n 13\n The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags\n underneath on its tied-over chain,\n The negro that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and\n tall he stands pois’d on one leg on the string-piece,\n His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over\n his hip-band,\n His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat\n away from his forehead,\n The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of\n his polish’d and perfect limbs.\n\n I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop there,\n I go with the team also.\n\n In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as\n forward sluing,\n To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,\n Absorbing all to myself and for this song.\n\n Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what\n is that you express in your eyes?\n It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.\n\n My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and\n day-long ramble,\n They rise together, they slowly circle around.\n\n I believe in those wing’d purposes,\n And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,\n And consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional,\n And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else,\n And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty well to me,\n And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.\n\n 14\n The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,\n Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation,\n The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listening close,\n Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.\n\n The sharp-hoof’d moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill, the\n chickadee, the prairie-dog,\n The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,\n The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread wings,\n I see in them and myself the same old law.\n\n The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,\n They scorn the best I can do to relate them.\n\n I am enamour’d of growing out-doors,\n Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,\n Of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes and\n mauls, and the drivers of horses,\n I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.\n\n What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,\n Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,\n Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,\n Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,\n Scattering it freely forever.\n\n 15\n The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,\n The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane\n whistles its wild ascending lisp,\n The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner,\n The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,\n The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready,\n The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,\n The deacons are ordain’d with cross’d hands at the altar,\n The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,\n The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and\n looks at the oats and rye,\n The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm’d case,\n (He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother’s\n bed-room;)\n The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,\n He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manuscript;\n The malform’d limbs are tied to the surgeon’s table,\n What is removed drops horribly in a pail;\n The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by\n the bar-room stove,\n The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat,\n the gate-keeper marks who pass,\n The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I do\n not know him;)\n The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,\n The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their\n rifles, some sit on logs,\n Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece;\n The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,\n As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them\n from his saddle,\n The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their\n partners, the dancers bow to each other,\n The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof’d garret and harks to the\n musical rain,\n The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,\n The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm’d cloth is offering moccasins and\n bead-bags for sale,\n The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut\n eyes bent sideways,\n As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for\n the shore-going passengers,\n The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it\n off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots,\n The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne\n her first child,\n The clean-hair’d Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the\n factory or mill,\n The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter’s lead\n flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering\n with blue and gold,\n The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his\n desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,\n The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him,\n The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions,\n The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the white\n sails sparkle!)\n The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray,\n The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser higgling\n about the odd cent;)\n The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock\n moves slowly,\n The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open’d lips,\n The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and\n pimpled neck,\n The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to\n each other,\n (Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)\n The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great\n Secretaries,\n On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms,\n The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold,\n The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle,\n As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the\n jingling of loose change,\n The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the\n roof, the masons are calling for mortar,\n In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers;\n Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gather’d, it\n is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!)\n Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower mows,\n and the winter-grain falls in the ground;\n Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in\n the frozen surface,\n The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep\n with his axe,\n Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or pecan-trees,\n Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through\n those drain’d by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,\n Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw,\n Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons\n around them,\n In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after\n their day’s sport,\n The city sleeps and the country sleeps,\n The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,\n The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;\n And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,\n And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,\n And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.\n\n 16\n I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,\n Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,\n Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,\n Stuff’d with the stuff that is coarse and stuff’d with the stuff\n that is fine,\n One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the\n largest the same,\n A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and\n hospitable down by the Oconee I live,\n A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest\n joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,\n A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin\n leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,\n A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;\n At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen\n off Newfoundland,\n At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking,\n At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the\n Texan ranch,\n Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (loving\n their big proportions,)\n Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands\n and welcome to drink and meat,\n A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,\n A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,\n Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,\n A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,\n Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.\n\n I resist any thing better than my own diversity,\n Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,\n And am not stuck up, and am in my place.\n\n (The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,\n The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,\n The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)\n\n 17\n These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they\n are not original with me,\n If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,\n If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,\n If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.\n\n This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,\n This the common air that bathes the globe.\n\n 18\n With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,\n I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for\n conquer’d and slain persons.\n\n Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?\n I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit\n in which they are won.\n\n I beat and pound for the dead,\n I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.\n\n Vivas to those who have fail’d!\n And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!\n And to those themselves who sank in the sea!\n And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!\n And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!\n\n 19\n This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,\n It is for the wicked just same as the righteous, I make appointments\n with all,\n I will not have a single person slighted or left away,\n The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,\n The heavy-lipp’d slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;\n There shall be no difference between them and the rest.\n\n This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair,\n This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,\n This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,\n This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.\n\n Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?\n Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the\n side of a rock has.\n\n Do you take it I would astonish?\n Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering\n through the woods?\n Do I astonish more than they?\n\n This hour I tell things in confidence,\n I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.\n\n 20\n Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;\n How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?\n\n What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?\n\n All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,\n Else it were time lost listening to me.\n\n I do not snivel that snivel the world over,\n That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.\n\n Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, conformity\n goes to the fourth-remov’d,\n I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.\n\n Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?\n\n Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel’d with\n doctors and calculated close,\n I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.\n\n In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less,\n And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.\n\n I know I am solid and sound,\n To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,\n All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.\n\n I know I am deathless,\n I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass,\n I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacue cut with a burnt\n stick at night.\n\n I know I am august,\n I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,\n I see that the elementary laws never apologize,\n (I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by,\n after all.)\n\n I exist as I am, that is enough,\n If no other in the world be aware I sit content,\n And if each and all be aware I sit content.\n\n One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,\n And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten\n million years,\n I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.\n\n My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite,\n I laugh at what you call dissolution,\n And I know the amplitude of time.\n\n 21\n I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,\n The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,\n The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate\n into new tongue.\n\n I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,\n And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,\n And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.\n\n I chant the chant of dilation or pride,\n We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,\n I show that size is only development.\n\n Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?\n It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and\n still pass on.\n\n I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,\n I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.\n\n Press close bare-bosom’d night--press close magnetic nourishing night!\n Night of south winds--night of the large few stars!\n Still nodding night--mad naked summer night.\n\n Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!\n Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!\n Earth of departed sunset--earth of the mountains misty-topt!\n Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!\n Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!\n Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!\n Far-swooping elbow’d earth--rich apple-blossom’d earth!\n Smile, for your lover comes.\n\n Prodigal, you have given me love--therefore I to you give love!\n O unspeakable passionate love.\n\n Thruster holding me tight and that I hold tight!\n We hurt each other as the bridegroom and the bride hurt each other.\n\n 22\n You sea! I resign myself to you also--I guess what you mean,\n I behold from the beach your crooked fingers,\n I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me,\n We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land,\n Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse,\n Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you.\n\n Sea of stretch’d ground-swells,\n Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths,\n Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell’d yet always-ready graves,\n Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,\n I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.\n\n Partaker of influx and efflux I, extoller of hate and conciliation,\n Extoller of amies and those that sleep in each others’ arms.\n\n I am he attesting sympathy,\n (Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that\n supports them?)\n\n I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet\n of wickedness also.\n\n What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?\n Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,\n My gait is no fault-finder’s or rejecter’s gait,\n I moisten the roots of all that has grown.\n\n Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?\n Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work’d over and rectified?\n\n I find one side a balance and the antipedal side a balance,\n Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine,\n Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start.\n\n This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,\n There is no better than it and now.\n\n What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not such wonder,\n The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel.\n\n 23\n Endless unfolding of words of ages!\n And mine a word of the modern, the word En-Masse.\n\n A word of the faith that never balks,\n Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.\n\n It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all,\n That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all.\n\n I accept Reality and dare not question it,\n Materialism first and last imbuing.\n\n Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!\n Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac,\n This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a grammar of\n the old cartouches,\n These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas.\n This is the geologist, this works with the scalper, and this is a\n mathematician.\n\n Gentlemen, to you the first honors always!\n Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling,\n I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.\n\n Less the reminders of properties told my words,\n And more the reminders they of life untold, and of freedom and extrication,\n And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men and\n women fully equipt,\n And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives and them that\n plot and conspire.\n\n 24\n Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,\n Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,\n No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them,\n No more modest than immodest.\n\n Unscrew the locks from the doors!\n Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!\n\n Whoever degrades another degrades me,\n And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.\n\n Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the current\n and index.\n\n I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,\n By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their\n counterpart of on the same terms.\n\n Through me many long dumb voices,\n Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves,\n Voices of the diseas’d and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,\n Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,\n And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the\n father-stuff,\n And of the rights of them the others are down upon,\n Of the deform’d, trivial, flat, foolish, despised,\n Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.\n\n Through me forbidden voices,\n Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil’d and I remove the veil,\n Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur’d.\n\n I do not press my fingers across my mouth,\n I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,\n Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.\n\n I believe in the flesh and the appetites,\n Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me\n is a miracle.\n\n Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am\n touch’d from,\n The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,\n This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.\n\n If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of\n my own body, or any part of it,\n Translucent mould of me it shall be you!\n Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!\n Firm masculine colter it shall be you!\n Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you!\n You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life!\n Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you!\n My brain it shall be your occult convolutions!\n Root of wash’d sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded\n duplicate eggs! it shall be you!\n Mix’d tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!\n Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!\n Sun so generous it shall be you!\n Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!\n You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!\n Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you!\n Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my\n winding paths, it shall be you!\n Hands I have taken, face I have kiss’d, mortal I have ever touch’d,\n it shall be you.\n\n I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious,\n Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy,\n I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish,\n Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the\n friendship I take again.\n\n That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be,\n A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics\n of books.\n\n To behold the day-break!\n The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows,\n The air tastes good to my palate.\n\n Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising\n freshly exuding,\n Scooting obliquely high and low.\n\n Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,\n Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.\n\n The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction,\n The heav’d challenge from the east that moment over my head,\n The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!\n\n 25\n Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,\n If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.\n\n We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,\n We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak.\n\n My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,\n With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.\n\n Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself,\n It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically,\n Walt you contain enough, why don’t you let it out then?\n\n Come now I will not be tantalized, you conceive too much of\n articulation,\n Do you not know O speech how the buds beneath you are folded?\n Waiting in gloom, protected by frost,\n The dirt receding before my prophetical screams,\n I underlying causes to balance them at last,\n My knowledge my live parts, it keeping tally with the meaning of all things,\n Happiness, (which whoever hears me let him or her set out in search\n of this day.)\n\n My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am,\n Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me,\n I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.\n\n Writing and talk do not prove me,\n I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,\n With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.\n\n 26\n Now I will do nothing but listen,\n To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.\n\n I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames,\n clack of sticks cooking my meals,\n I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,\n I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,\n Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night,\n Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of\n work-people at their meals,\n The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick,\n The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing\n a death-sentence,\n The heave’e’yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the\n refrain of the anchor-lifters,\n The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking\n engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color’d lights,\n The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars,\n The slow march play’d at the head of the association marching two and two,\n (They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)\n\n I hear the violoncello, (’tis the young man’s heart’s complaint,)\n I hear the key’d cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears,\n It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.\n\n I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera,\n Ah this indeed is music--this suits me.\n\n A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me,\n The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.\n\n I hear the train’d soprano (what work with hers is this?)\n The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,\n It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess’d them,\n It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick’d by the indolent waves,\n I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath,\n Steep’d amid honey’d morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death,\n At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,\n And that we call Being.\n\n 27\n To be in any form, what is that?\n (Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither,)\n If nothing lay more develop’d the quahaug in its callous shell were enough.\n\n Mine is no callous shell,\n I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,\n They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.\n\n I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy,\n To touch my person to some one else’s is about as much as I can stand.\n\n 28\n Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,\n Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,\n Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,\n My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly\n different from myself,\n On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs,\n Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,\n Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,\n Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,\n Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist,\n Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture-fields,\n Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,\n They bribed to swap off with touch and go and graze at the edges of me,\n No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger,\n Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while,\n Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me.\n\n The sentries desert every other part of me,\n They have left me helpless to a red marauder,\n They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me.\n\n I am given up by traitors,\n I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the\n greatest traitor,\n I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me there.\n\n You villain touch! what are you doing? my breath is tight in its throat,\n Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me.\n\n 29\n Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath’d hooded sharp-tooth’d touch!\n Did it make you ache so, leaving me?\n\n Parting track’d by arriving, perpetual payment of perpetual loan,\n Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.\n\n Sprouts take and accumulate, stand by the curb prolific and vital,\n Landscapes projected masculine, full-sized and golden.\n\n 30\n All truths wait in all things,\n They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,\n They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,\n The insignificant is as big to me as any,\n (What is less or more than a touch?)\n\n Logic and sermons never convince,\n The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.\n\n (Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so,\n Only what nobody denies is so.)\n\n A minute and a drop of me settle my brain,\n I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,\n And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman,\n And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other,\n And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it\n becomes omnific,\n And until one and all shall delight us, and we them.\n\n 31\n I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars,\n And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg\n of the wren,\n And the tree-toad is a chef-d’œuvre for the highest,\n And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,\n And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,\n And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,\n And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.\n\n I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits,\n grains, esculent roots,\n And am stucco’d with quadrupeds and birds all over,\n And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,\n But call any thing back again when I desire it.\n\n In vain the speeding or shyness,\n In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach,\n In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder’d bones,\n In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes,\n In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters lying low,\n In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky,\n In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs,\n In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods,\n In vain the razor-bill’d auk sails far north to Labrador,\n I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.\n\n 32\n I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and\n self-contain’d,\n I stand and look at them long and long.\n\n They do not sweat and whine about their condition,\n They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,\n They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,\n Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of\n owning things,\n Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of\n years ago,\n Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.\n\n So they show their relations to me and I accept them,\n They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their\n possession.\n\n I wonder where they get those tokens,\n Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?\n\n Myself moving forward then and now and forever,\n Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,\n Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them,\n Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,\n Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.\n\n A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,\n Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,\n Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,\n Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.\n\n His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him,\n His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.\n\n I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion,\n Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them?\n Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.\n\n 33\n Space and Time! now I see it is true, what I guess’d at,\n What I guess’d when I loaf’d on the grass,\n What I guess’d while I lay alone in my bed,\n And again as I walk’d the beach under the paling stars of the morning.\n\n My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps,\n I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents,\n I am afoot with my vision.\n\n By the city’s quadrangular houses--in log huts, camping with lumber-men,\n Along the ruts of the turnpike, along the dry gulch and rivulet bed,\n Weeding my onion-patch or hosing rows of carrots and parsnips,\n crossing savannas, trailing in forests,\n Prospecting, gold-digging, girdling the trees of a new purchase,\n Scorch’d ankle-deep by the hot sand, hauling my boat down the\n shallow river,\n Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where the\n buck turns furiously at the hunter,\n Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where the\n otter is feeding on fish,\n Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou,\n Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where the\n beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tall;\n Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower’d cotton plant, over\n the rice in its low moist field,\n Over the sharp-peak’d farm house, with its scallop’d scum and\n slender shoots from the gutters,\n Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav’d corn, over the\n delicate blue-flower flax,\n Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there with\n the rest,\n Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the breeze;\n Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on by low\n scragged limbs,\n Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of the brush,\n Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat-lot,\n Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve, where the great\n goldbug drops through the dark,\n Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to\n the meadow,\n Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous\n shuddering of their hides,\n Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons straddle\n the hearth-slab, where cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters;\n Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its cylinders,\n Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs,\n Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in it\n myself and looking composedly down,)\n Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose, where the heat\n hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand,\n Where the she-whale swims with her calf and never forsakes it,\n Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke,\n Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water,\n Where the half-burn’d brig is riding on unknown currents,\n Where shells grow to her slimy deck, where the dead are corrupting below;\n Where the dense-starr’d flag is borne at the head of the regiments,\n Approaching Manhattan up by the long-stretching island,\n Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance,\n Upon a door-step, upon the horse-block of hard wood outside,\n Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs or a good game of\n base-ball,\n At he-festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical license,\n bull-dances, drinking, laughter,\n At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking the\n juice through a straw,\n At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find,\n At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings;\n Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles,\n screams, weeps,\n Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard, where the dry-stalks are\n scatter’d, where the brood-cow waits in the hovel,\n Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the stud to\n the mare, where the cock is treading the hen,\n Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with short jerks,\n Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie,\n Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles\n far and near,\n Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the long-lived\n swan is curving and winding,\n Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs her\n near-human laugh,\n Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden half hid by the\n high weeds,\n Where band-neck’d partridges roost in a ring on the ground with\n their heads out,\n Where burial coaches enter the arch’d gates of a cemetery,\n Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees,\n Where the yellow-crown’d heron comes to the edge of the marsh at\n night and feeds upon small crabs,\n Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon,\n Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over\n the well,\n Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves,\n Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs,\n Through the gymnasium, through the curtain’d saloon, through the\n office or public hall;\n Pleas’d with the native and pleas’d with the foreign, pleas’d with\n the new and old,\n Pleas’d with the homely woman as well as the handsome,\n Pleas’d with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously,\n Pleas’d with the tune of the choir of the whitewash’d church,\n Pleas’d with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher,\n impress’d seriously at the camp-meeting;\n Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon,\n flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass,\n Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn’d up to the clouds,\n or down a lane or along the beach,\n My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the middle;\n Coming home with the silent and dark-cheek’d bush-boy, (behind me\n he rides at the drape of the day,)\n Far from the settlements studying the print of animals’ feet, or the\n moccasin print,\n By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient,\n Nigh the coffin’d corpse when all is still, examining with a candle;\n Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure,\n Hurrying with the modern crowd as eager and fickle as any,\n Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him,\n Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while,\n Walking the old hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle God by my side,\n Speeding through space, speeding through heaven and the stars,\n Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring, and the\n diameter of eighty thousand miles,\n Speeding with tail’d meteors, throwing fire-balls like the rest,\n Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly,\n Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,\n Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,\n I tread day and night such roads.\n\n I visit the orchards of spheres and look at the product,\n And look at quintillions ripen’d and look at quintillions green.\n\n I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul,\n My course runs below the soundings of plummets.\n\n I help myself to material and immaterial,\n No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me.\n\n I anchor my ship for a little while only,\n My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.\n\n I go hunting polar furs and the seal, leaping chasms with a\n pike-pointed staff, clinging to topples of brittle and blue.\n\n I ascend to the foretruck,\n I take my place late at night in the crow’s-nest,\n We sail the arctic sea, it is plenty light enough,\n Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful beauty,\n The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them, the scenery is\n plain in all directions,\n The white-topt mountains show in the distance, I fling out my\n fancies toward them,\n We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are soon to\n be engaged,\n We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment, we pass with still\n feet and caution,\n Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruin’d city,\n The blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities\n of the globe.\n\n I am a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires,\n I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself,\n I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.\n\n My voice is the wife’s voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,\n They fetch my man’s body up dripping and drown’d.\n\n I understand the large hearts of heroes,\n The courage of present times and all times,\n How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the\n steamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm,\n How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful of\n days and faithful of nights,\n And chalk’d in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will\n not desert you;\n How he follow’d with them and tack’d with them three days and\n would not give it up,\n How he saved the drifting company at last,\n How the lank loose-gown’d women look’d when boated from the\n side of their prepared graves,\n How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the\n sharp-lipp’d unshaved men;\n All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine,\n I am the man, I suffer’d, I was there.\n\n The disdain and calmness of martyrs,\n The mother of old, condemn’d for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her\n children gazing on,\n The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence,\n blowing, cover’d with sweat,\n The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the murderous\n buckshot and the bullets,\n All these I feel or am.\n\n I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,\n Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen,\n I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn’d with the\n ooze of my skin,\n I fall on the weeds and stones,\n The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,\n Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks.\n\n Agonies are one of my changes of garments,\n I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the\n wounded person,\n My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.\n\n I am the mash’d fireman with breast-bone broken,\n Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,\n Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,\n I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,\n They have clear’d the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.\n\n I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my sake,\n Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy,\n White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared\n of their fire-caps,\n The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.\n\n Distant and dead resuscitate,\n They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the clock myself.\n\n I am an old artillerist, I tell of my fort’s bombardment,\n I am there again.\n\n Again the long roll of the drummers,\n Again the attacking cannon, mortars,\n Again to my listening ears the cannon responsive.\n\n I take part, I see and hear the whole,\n The cries, curses, roar, the plaudits for well-aim’d shots,\n The ambulanza slowly passing trailing its red drip,\n Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable repairs,\n The fall of grenades through the rent roof, the fan-shaped explosion,\n The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air.\n\n Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general, he furiously waves\n with his hand,\n He gasps through the clot Mind not me--mind--the entrenchments.\n\n 34\n Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth,\n (I tell not the fall of Alamo,\n Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,\n The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo,)\n ’Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve\n young men.\n\n Retreating they had form’d in a hollow square with their baggage for\n breastworks,\n Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemies, nine times their\n number, was the price they took in advance,\n Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone,\n They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv’d writing and\n seal, gave up their arms and march’d back prisoners of war.\n\n They were the glory of the race of rangers,\n Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,\n Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,\n Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,\n Not a single one over thirty years of age.\n\n The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads and\n massacred, it was beautiful early summer,\n The work commenced about five o’clock and was over by eight.\n\n None obey’d the command to kneel,\n Some made a mad and helpless rush, some stood stark and straight,\n A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and dead\n lay together,\n The maim’d and mangled dug in the dirt, the new-comers saw them there,\n Some half-kill’d attempted to crawl away,\n These were despatch’d with bayonets or batter’d with the blunts of muskets,\n A youth not seventeen years old seiz’d his assassin till two more\n came to release him,\n The three were all torn and cover’d with the boy’s blood.\n\n At eleven o’clock began the burning of the bodies;\n That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men.\n\n 35\n Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?\n Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?\n List to the yarn, as my grandmother’s father the sailor told it to me.\n\n Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,)\n His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer,\n and never was, and never will be;\n Along the lower’d eve he came horribly raking us.\n\n We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch’d,\n My captain lash’d fast with his own hands.\n\n We had receiv’d some eighteen pound shots under the water,\n On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire,\n killing all around and blowing up overhead.\n\n Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark,\n Ten o’clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain,\n and five feet of water reported,\n The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold\n to give them a chance for themselves.\n\n The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,\n They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.\n\n Our frigate takes fire,\n The other asks if we demand quarter?\n If our colors are struck and the fighting done?\n\n Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,\n We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part\n of the fighting.\n\n Only three guns are in use,\n One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy’s main-mast,\n Two well serv’d with grape and canister silence his musketry and\n clear his decks.\n\n The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially\n the main-top,\n They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.\n\n Not a moment’s cease,\n The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.\n\n One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.\n\n Serene stands the little captain,\n He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,\n His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.\n\n Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.\n\n 36\n Stretch’d and still lies the midnight,\n Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness,\n Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the\n one we have conquer’d,\n The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a\n countenance white as a sheet,\n Near by the corpse of the child that serv’d in the cabin,\n The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully\n curl’d whiskers,\n The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below,\n The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty,\n Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh\n upon the masts and spars,\n Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves,\n Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent,\n A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining,\n Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by\n the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors,\n The hiss of the surgeon’s knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw,\n Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long,\n dull, tapering groan,\n These so, these irretrievable.\n\n 37\n You laggards there on guard! look to your arms!\n In at the conquer’d doors they crowd! I am possess’d!\n Embody all presences outlaw’d or suffering,\n See myself in prison shaped like another man,\n And feel the dull unintermitted pain.\n\n For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch,\n It is I let out in the morning and barr’d at night.\n\n Not a mutineer walks handcuff’d to jail but I am handcuff’d to him\n and walk by his side,\n (I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with sweat\n on my twitching lips.)\n\n Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am tried\n and sentenced.\n\n Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last gasp,\n My face is ash-color’d, my sinews gnarl, away from me people retreat.\n\n Askers embody themselves in me and I am embodied in them,\n I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg.\n\n 38\n Enough! enough! enough!\n Somehow I have been stunn’d. Stand back!\n Give me a little time beyond my cuff’d head, slumbers, dreams, gaping,\n I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.\n\n That I could forget the mockers and insults!\n That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the\n bludgeons and hammers!\n That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and\n bloody crowning.\n\n I remember now,\n I resume the overstaid fraction,\n The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or to any graves,\n Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me.\n\n I troop forth replenish’d with supreme power, one of an average\n unending procession,\n Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines,\n Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth,\n The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years.\n\n Eleves, I salute you! come forward!\n Continue your annotations, continue your questionings.\n\n 39\n The friendly and flowing savage, who is he?\n Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it?\n\n Is he some Southwesterner rais’d out-doors? is he Kanadian?\n Is he from the Mississippi country? Iowa, Oregon, California?\n The mountains? prairie-life, bush-life? or sailor from the sea?\n\n Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him,\n They desire he should like them, touch them, speak to them, stay with them.\n\n Behavior lawless as snow-flakes, words simple as grass, uncomb’d\n head, laughter, and naivete,\n Slow-stepping feet, common features, common modes and emanations,\n They descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers,\n They are wafted with the odor of his body or breath, they fly out of\n the glance of his eyes.\n\n 40\n Flaunt of the sunshine I need not your bask--lie over!\n You light surfaces only, I force surfaces and depths also.\n\n Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands,\n Say, old top-knot, what do you want?\n\n Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot,\n And might tell what it is in me and what it is in you, but cannot,\n And might tell that pining I have, that pulse of my nights and days.\n\n Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,\n When I give I give myself.\n\n You there, impotent, loose in the knees,\n Open your scarf’d chops till I blow grit within you,\n Spread your palms and lift the flaps of your pockets,\n I am not to be denied, I compel, I have stores plenty and to spare,\n And any thing I have I bestow.\n\n I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me,\n You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.\n\n To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean,\n On his right cheek I put the family kiss,\n And in my soul I swear I never will deny him.\n\n On women fit for conception I start bigger and nimbler babes.\n (This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant republics.)\n\n To any one dying, thither I speed and twist the knob of the door.\n Turn the bed-clothes toward the foot of the bed,\n Let the physician and the priest go home.\n\n I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will,\n O despairer, here is my neck,\n By God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight upon me.\n\n I dilate you with tremendous breath, I buoy you up,\n Every room of the house do I fill with an arm’d force,\n Lovers of me, bafflers of graves.\n\n Sleep--I and they keep guard all night,\n Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you,\n I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself,\n And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell you is so.\n\n 41\n I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs,\n And for strong upright men I bring yet more needed help.\n\n I heard what was said of the universe,\n Heard it and heard it of several thousand years;\n It is middling well as far as it goes--but is that all?\n\n Magnifying and applying come I,\n Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,\n Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,\n Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,\n Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,\n In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix\n engraved,\n With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image,\n Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,\n Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days,\n (They bore mites as for unfledg’d birds who have now to rise and fly\n and sing for themselves,)\n Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself,\n bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see,\n Discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house,\n Putting higher claims for him there with his roll’d-up sleeves\n driving the mallet and chisel,\n Not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of smoke or\n a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation,\n Lads ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes no less to me\n than the gods of the antique wars,\n Minding their voices peal through the crash of destruction,\n Their brawny limbs passing safe over charr’d laths, their white\n foreheads whole and unhurt out of the flames;\n By the mechanic’s wife with her babe at her nipple interceding for\n every person born,\n Three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty angels\n with shirts bagg’d out at their waists,\n The snag-tooth’d hostler with red hair redeeming sins past and to come,\n Selling all he possesses, traveling on foot to fee lawyers for his\n brother and sit by him while he is tried for forgery;\n What was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod about me, and\n not filling the square rod then,\n The bull and the bug never worshipp’d half enough,\n Dung and dirt more admirable than was dream’d,\n The supernatural of no account, myself waiting my time to be one of\n the supremes,\n The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the\n best, and be as prodigious;\n By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator,\n Putting myself here and now to the ambush’d womb of the shadows.\n\n\n 42\n A call in the midst of the crowd,\n My own voice, orotund sweeping and final.\n\n Come my children,\n Come my boys and girls, my women, household and intimates,\n Now the performer launches his nerve, he has pass’d his prelude on\n the reeds within.\n\n Easily written loose-finger’d chords--I feel the thrum of your\n climax and close.\n\n My head slues round on my neck,\n Music rolls, but not from the organ,\n Folks are around me, but they are no household of mine.\n\n Ever the hard unsunk ground,\n Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun, ever\n the air and the ceaseless tides,\n Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing, wicked, real,\n Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn’d thumb, that\n breath of itches and thirsts,\n Ever the vexer’s hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides\n and bring him forth,\n Ever love, ever the sobbing liquid of life,\n Ever the bandage under the chin, ever the trestles of death.\n\n Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking,\n To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning,\n Tickets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once going,\n Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and then the chaff for payment\n receiving,\n A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.\n\n This is the city and I am one of the citizens,\n Whatever interests the rest interests me, politics, wars, markets,\n newspapers, schools,\n The mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories,\n stocks, stores, real estate and personal estate.\n\n The little plentiful manikins skipping around in collars and tail’d coats\n I am aware who they are, (they are positively not worms or fleas,)\n I acknowledge the duplicates of myself, the weakest and shallowest\n is deathless with me,\n What I do and say the same waits for them,\n Every thought that flounders in me the same flounders in them.\n\n I know perfectly well my own egotism,\n Know my omnivorous lines and must not write any less,\n And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself.\n\n Not words of routine this song of mine,\n But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer bring;\n This printed and bound book--but the printer and the\n printing-office boy?\n The well-taken photographs--but your wife or friend close and solid\n in your arms?\n The black ship mail’d with iron, her mighty guns in her turrets--but\n the pluck of the captain and engineers?\n In the houses the dishes and fare and furniture--but the host and\n hostess, and the look out of their eyes?\n The sky up there--yet here or next door, or across the way?\n The saints and sages in history--but you yourself?\n Sermons, creeds, theology--but the fathomless human brain,\n And what is reason? and what is love? and what is life?\n\n 43\n I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over,\n My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths,\n Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern,\n Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years,\n Waiting responses from oracles, honoring the gods, saluting the sun,\n Making a fetich of the first rock or stump, powowing with sticks in\n the circle of obis,\n Helping the llama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols,\n Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession, rapt and\n austere in the woods a gymnosophist,\n Drinking mead from the skull-cap, to Shastas and Vedas admirant,\n minding the Koran,\n Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife,\n beating the serpent-skin drum,\n Accepting the Gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing\n assuredly that he is divine,\n To the mass kneeling or the puritan’s prayer rising, or sitting\n patiently in a pew,\n Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis, or waiting dead-like till\n my spirit arouses me,\n Looking forth on pavement and land, or outside of pavement and land,\n Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits.\n\n One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang I turn and talk like\n man leaving charges before a journey.\n\n Down-hearted doubters dull and excluded,\n Frivolous, sullen, moping, angry, affected, dishearten’d, atheistical,\n I know every one of you, I know the sea of torment, doubt, despair\n and unbelief.\n\n How the flukes splash!\n How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of blood!\n\n Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers,\n I take my place among you as much as among any,\n The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same,\n And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely\n the same.\n\n I do not know what is untried and afterward,\n But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail.\n\n Each who passes is consider’d, each who stops is consider’d, not\n single one can it fall.\n\n It cannot fall the young man who died and was buried,\n Nor the young woman who died and was put by his side,\n Nor the little child that peep’d in at the door, and then drew back\n and was never seen again,\n Nor the old man who has lived without purpose, and feels it with\n bitterness worse than gall,\n Nor him in the poor house tubercled by rum and the bad disorder,\n Nor the numberless slaughter’d and wreck’d, nor the brutish koboo\n call’d the ordure of humanity,\n Nor the sacs merely floating with open mouths for food to slip in,\n Nor any thing in the earth, or down in the oldest graves of the earth,\n Nor any thing in the myriads of spheres, nor the myriads of myriads\n that inhabit them,\n Nor the present, nor the least wisp that is known.\n\n 44\n It is time to explain myself--let us stand up.\n\n What is known I strip away,\n I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown.\n\n The clock indicates the moment--but what does eternity indicate?\n\n We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,\n There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.\n\n Births have brought us richness and variety,\n And other births will bring us richness and variety.\n\n I do not call one greater and one smaller,\n That which fills its period and place is equal to any.\n\n Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my sister?\n I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me,\n All has been gentle with me, I keep no account with lamentation,\n (What have I to do with lamentation?)\n\n I am an acme of things accomplish’d, and I an encloser of things to be.\n\n My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,\n On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps,\n All below duly travel’d, and still I mount and mount.\n\n Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me,\n Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there,\n I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,\n And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon.\n\n Long I was hugg’d close--long and long.\n\n Immense have been the preparations for me,\n Faithful and friendly the arms that have help’d me.\n\n Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen,\n For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,\n They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.\n\n Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,\n My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it.\n\n For it the nebula cohered to an orb,\n The long slow strata piled to rest it on,\n Vast vegetables gave it sustenance,\n Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it\n with care.\n\n All forces have been steadily employ’d to complete and delight me,\n Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.\n\n\n 45\n O span of youth! ever-push’d elasticity!\n O manhood, balanced, florid and full.\n\n My lovers suffocate me,\n Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin,\n Jostling me through streets and public halls, coming naked to me at night,\n Crying by day, Ahoy! from the rocks of the river, swinging and\n chirping over my head,\n Calling my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush,\n Lighting on every moment of my life,\n Bussing my body with soft balsamic busses,\n Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and giving them to be mine.\n\n Old age superbly rising! O welcome, ineffable grace of dying days!\n\n Every condition promulges not only itself, it promulges what grows\n after and out of itself,\n And the dark hush promulges as much as any.\n\n I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems,\n And all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but the rim of\n the farther systems.\n\n Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding,\n Outward and outward and forever outward.\n\n My sun has his sun and round him obediently wheels,\n He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit,\n And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them.\n\n There is no stoppage and never can be stoppage,\n If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces,\n were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would\n not avail the long run,\n We should surely bring up again where we now stand,\n And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther.\n\n A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do\n not hazard the span or make it impatient,\n They are but parts, any thing is but a part.\n\n See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that,\n Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that.\n\n My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain,\n The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect terms,\n The great Camerado, the lover true for whom I pine will be there.\n\n 46\n I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and\n never will be measured.\n\n I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)\n My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,\n No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,\n I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,\n I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,\n But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,\n My left hand hooking you round the waist,\n My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.\n\n Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,\n You must travel it for yourself.\n\n It is not far, it is within reach,\n Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,\n Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.\n\n Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth,\n Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.\n\n If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand\n on my hip,\n And in due time you shall repay the same service to me,\n For after we start we never lie by again.\n\n This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look’d at the crowded heaven,\n And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs,\n and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we\n be fill’d and satisfied then?\n And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.\n\n You are also asking me questions and I hear you,\n I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself.\n\n Sit a while dear son,\n Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink,\n But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you\n with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.\n\n Long enough have you dream’d contemptible dreams,\n Now I wash the gum from your eyes,\n You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every\n moment of your life.\n\n Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,\n Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,\n To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout,\n and laughingly dash with your hair.\n\n 47\n I am the teacher of athletes,\n He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,\n He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.\n\n The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived power,\n but in his own right,\n Wicked rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear,\n Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak,\n Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than sharp steel cuts,\n First-rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull’s eye, to sail a\n skiff, to sing a song or play on the banjo,\n Preferring scars and the beard and faces pitted with small-pox over\n all latherers,\n And those well-tann’d to those that keep out of the sun.\n\n I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me?\n I follow you whoever you are from the present hour,\n My words itch at your ears till you understand them.\n\n I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while\n I wait for a boat,\n (It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you,\n Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.)\n\n I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house,\n And I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him or her\n who privately stays with me in the open air.\n\n If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore,\n The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves key,\n The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words.\n\n No shutter’d room or school can commune with me,\n But roughs and little children better than they.\n\n The young mechanic is closest to me, he knows me well,\n The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me with\n him all day,\n The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice,\n In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with fishermen and seamen\n and love them.\n\n The soldier camp’d or upon the march is mine,\n On the night ere the pending battle many seek me, and I do not fail them,\n On that solemn night (it may be their last) those that know me seek me.\n My face rubs to the hunter’s face when he lies down alone in his blanket,\n The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon,\n The young mother and old mother comprehend me,\n The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where they are,\n They and all would resume what I have told them.\n\n 48\n I have said that the soul is not more than the body,\n And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,\n And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,\n And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own\n funeral drest in his shroud,\n And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,\n And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the\n learning of all times,\n And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it\n may become a hero,\n And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe,\n And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed\n before a million universes.\n\n And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,\n For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,\n (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and\n about death.)\n\n I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,\n Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.\n\n Why should I wish to see God better than this day?\n I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,\n In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,\n I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign’d\n by God’s name,\n And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,\n Others will punctually come for ever and ever.\n\n 49\n And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to\n try to alarm me.\n\n To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes,\n I see the elder-hand pressing receiving supporting,\n I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors,\n And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape.\n\n And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not\n offend me,\n I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,\n I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish’d breasts of melons.\n\n And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths,\n (No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)\n\n I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven,\n O suns--O grass of graves--O perpetual transfers and promotions,\n If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?\n\n Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,\n Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight,\n Toss, sparkles of day and dusk--toss on the black stems that decay\n in the muck,\n Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.\n\n I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night,\n I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams reflected,\n And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or small.\n\n 50\n There is that in me--I do not know what it is--but I know it is in me.\n\n Wrench’d and sweaty--calm and cool then my body becomes,\n I sleep--I sleep long.\n\n I do not know it--it is without name--it is a word unsaid,\n It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.\n\n Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,\n To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.\n\n Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters.\n\n Do you see O my brothers and sisters?\n It is not chaos or death--it is form, union, plan--it is eternal\n life--it is Happiness.\n\n 51\n The past and present wilt--I have fill’d them, emptied them.\n And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.\n\n Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?\n Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,\n (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)\n\n Do I contradict myself?\n Very well then I contradict myself,\n (I am large, I contain multitudes.)\n\n I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.\n\n Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?\n Who wishes to walk with me?\n\n Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?\n\n 52\n The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab\n and my loitering.\n\n I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,\n I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.\n\n The last scud of day holds back for me,\n It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,\n It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.\n\n I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,\n I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.\n\n I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,\n If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.\n\n You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,\n But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,\n And filter and fibre your blood.\n\n Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,\n Missing me one place search another,\n I stop somewhere waiting for you.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To the Garden the World", + "body": " To the garden the world anew ascending,\n Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,\n The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,\n Curious here behold my resurrection after slumber,\n The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again,\n Amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous,\n My limbs and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for\n reasons, most wondrous,\n Existing I peer and penetrate still,\n Content with the present, content with the past,\n By my side or back of me Eve following,\n Or in front, and I following her just the same.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "From Pent-Up Aching Rivers", + "body": " From pent-up aching rivers,\n From that of myself without which I were nothing,\n From what I am determin’d to make illustrious, even if I stand sole\n among men,\n From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus,\n Singing the song of procreation,\n Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown people,\n Singing the muscular urge and the blending,\n Singing the bedfellow’s song, (O resistless yearning!\n O for any and each the body correlative attracting!\n O for you whoever you are your correlative body! O it, more than all\n else, you delighting!)\n From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,\n From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them,\n Seeking something yet unfound though I have diligently sought it\n many a long year,\n Singing the true song of the soul fitful at random,\n Renascent with grossest Nature or among animals,\n Of that, of them and what goes with them my poems informing,\n Of the smell of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds,\n Of the wet of woods, of the lapping of waves,\n Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting,\n The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating,\n The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body,\n The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back\n lying and floating,\n The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous aching,\n The divine list for myself or you or for any one making,\n The face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it arouses,\n The mystic deliria, the madness amorous, the utter abandonment,\n (Hark close and still what I now whisper to you,\n I love you, O you entirely possess me,\n O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and lawless,\n Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more\n lawless than we;)\n The furious storm through me careering, I passionately trembling.\n The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman that\n loves me and whom I love more than my life, that oath swearing,\n (O I willingly stake all for you,\n O let me be lost if it must be so!\n O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?\n What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust\n each other if it must be so;)\n From the master, the pilot I yield the vessel to,\n The general commanding me, commanding all, from him permission taking,\n From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter’d too long as it is,)\n From sex, from the warp and from the woof,\n From privacy, from frequent repinings alone,\n From plenty of persons near and yet the right person not near,\n From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of fingers\n through my hair and beard,\n From the long sustain’d kiss upon the mouth or bosom,\n From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting\n with excess,\n From what the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood,\n From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow’s embrace in\n the night,\n From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms,\n From the cling of the trembling arm,\n From the bending curve and the clinch,\n From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing,\n From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as unwilling\n to leave,\n (Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return,)\n From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,\n From the night a moment I emerging flitting out,\n Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for,\n And you stalwart loins.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "I Sing the Body Electric", + "body": " 1\n I sing the body electric,\n The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,\n They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,\n And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.\n\n Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?\n And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?\n And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?\n And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?\n\n 2\n The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself\n balks account,\n That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.\n\n The expression of the face balks account,\n But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,\n It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of\n his hips and wrists,\n It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist\n and knees, dress does not hide him,\n The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,\n To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,\n You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.\n\n The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the\n folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the\n contour of their shape downwards,\n The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through\n the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls\n silently to and from the heave of the water,\n The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the\n horse-man in his saddle,\n Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,\n The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open\n dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,\n The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or\n cow-yard,\n The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six\n horses through the crowd,\n The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,\n good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,\n The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,\n The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;\n The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine\n muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,\n The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes\n suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,\n The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d\n neck and the counting;\n Such-like I love--I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s\n breast with the little child,\n Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with\n the firemen, and pause, listen, count.\n\n 3\n I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,\n And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.\n\n This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,\n The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and\n beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness\n and breadth of his manners,\n These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,\n He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were\n massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,\n They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,\n They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,\n He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the\n clear-brown skin of his face,\n He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he\n had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had\n fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,\n When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,\n you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,\n You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit\n by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.\n\n 4\n I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,\n To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,\n To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,\n To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly\n round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?\n I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.\n\n There is something in staying close to men and women and looking\n on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,\n All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.\n\n 5\n This is the female form,\n A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,\n It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,\n I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,\n all falls aside but myself and it,\n Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what\n was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,\n Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response\n likewise ungovernable,\n Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all\n diffused, mine too diffused,\n Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling\n and deliciously aching,\n Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of\n love, white-blow and delirious nice,\n Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,\n Undulating into the willing and yielding day,\n Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.\n\n This the nucleus--after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,\n This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the\n outlet again.\n\n Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the\n exit of the rest,\n You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.\n\n The female contains all qualities and tempers them,\n She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,\n She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,\n She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.\n\n As I see my soul reflected in Nature,\n As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,\n sanity, beauty,\n See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.\n\n 6\n The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,\n He too is all qualities, he is action and power,\n The flush of the known universe is in him,\n Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,\n The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is\n utmost become him well, pride is for him,\n The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,\n Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to\n the test of himself,\n Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes\n soundings at last only here,\n (Where else does he strike soundings except here?)\n\n The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,\n No matter who it is, it is sacred--is it the meanest one in the\n laborers’ gang?\n Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?\n Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as\n much as you,\n Each has his or her place in the procession.\n\n (All is a procession,\n The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)\n\n Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?\n Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has\n no right to a sight?\n Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and\n the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,\n For you only, and not for him and her?\n\n 7\n A man’s body at auction,\n (For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)\n I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.\n\n Gentlemen look on this wonder,\n Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,\n For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one\n animal or plant,\n For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.\n\n In this head the all-baffling brain,\n In it and below it the makings of heroes.\n\n Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in\n tendon and nerve,\n They shall be stript that you may see them.\n\n Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,\n Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,\n good-sized arms and legs,\n And wonders within there yet.\n\n Within there runs blood,\n The same old blood! the same red-running blood!\n There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires,\n reachings, aspirations,\n (Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in\n parlors and lecture-rooms?)\n\n This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be\n fathers in their turns,\n In him the start of populous states and rich republics,\n Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.\n\n How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring\n through the centuries?\n (Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace\n back through the centuries?)\n\n 8\n A woman’s body at auction,\n She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,\n She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.\n\n Have you ever loved the body of a woman?\n Have you ever loved the body of a man?\n Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations\n and times all over the earth?\n\n If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,\n And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,\n And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more\n beautiful than the most beautiful face.\n\n Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool\n that corrupted her own live body?\n For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.\n\n 9\n O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and\n women, nor the likes of the parts of you,\n I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of\n the soul, (and that they are the soul,)\n I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and\n that they are my poems,\n Man’s, woman’s, child, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s,\n father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,\n Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,\n Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or\n sleeping of the lids,\n Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,\n Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,\n Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,\n Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the\n ample side-round of the chest,\n Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,\n Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,\n finger-joints, finger-nails,\n Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,\n Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,\n Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round,\n man-balls, man-root,\n Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,\n Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,\n Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;\n All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your\n body or of any one’s body, male or female,\n The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,\n The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,\n Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,\n Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,\n The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,\n love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,\n The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,\n Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,\n Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,\n The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,\n The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,\n The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked\n meat of the body,\n The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,\n The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward\n toward the knees,\n The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the\n marrow in the bones,\n The exquisite realization of health;\n O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,\n O I say now these are the soul!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Woman Waits for Me", + "body": " A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking,\n Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the\n right man were lacking.\n\n Sex contains all, bodies, souls,\n Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,\n Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk,\n All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves,\n beauties, delights of the earth,\n All the governments, judges, gods, follow’d persons of the earth,\n These are contain’d in sex as parts of itself and justifications of itself.\n\n Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his sex,\n Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.\n\n Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,\n I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that\n are warm-blooded and sufficient for me,\n I see that they understand me and do not deny me,\n I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust husband of\n those women.\n\n They are not one jot less than I am,\n They are tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,\n Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,\n They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike,\n retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,\n They are ultimate in their own right--they are calm, clear,\n well-possess’d of themselves.\n\n I draw you close to me, you women,\n I cannot let you go, I would do you good,\n I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake, but for\n others’ sakes,\n Envelop’d in you sleep greater heroes and bards,\n They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.\n\n It is I, you women, I make my way,\n I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you,\n I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,\n I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these States, I\n press with slow rude muscle,\n I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties,\n I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated within me.\n\n Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,\n In you I wrap a thousand onward years,\n On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America,\n The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic girls,\n new artists, musicians, and singers,\n The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,\n I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings,\n I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you\n inter-penetrate now,\n I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I\n count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,\n I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death,\n immortality, I plant so lovingly now.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Spontaneous Me", + "body": " Spontaneous me, Nature,\n The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,\n The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,\n The hillside whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash,\n The same late in autumn, the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and\n light and dark green,\n The rich coverlet of the grass, animals and birds, the private\n untrimm’d bank, the primitive apples, the pebble-stones,\n Beautiful dripping fragments, the negligent list of one after\n another as I happen to call them to me or think of them,\n The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)\n The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,\n This poem drooping shy and unseen that I always carry, and that all\n men carry,\n (Know once for all, avow’d on purpose, wherever are men like me, are\n our lusty lurking masculine poems,)\n Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers,\n and the climbing sap,\n Arms and hands of love, lips of love, phallic thumb of love, breasts\n of love, bellies press’d and glued together with love,\n Earth of chaste love, life that is only life after love,\n The body of my love, the body of the woman I love, the body of the\n man, the body of the earth,\n Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,\n The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down, that gripes the\n full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes\n his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and tight till he is\n satisfied;\n The wet of woods through the early hours,\n Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with\n an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other,\n The smell of apples, aromas from crush’d sage-plant, mint, birch-bark,\n The boy’s longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what\n he was dreaming,\n The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl and falling still and\n content to the ground,\n The no-form’d stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with,\n The hubb’d sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can any\n one,\n The sensitive, orbic, underlapp’d brothers, that only privileged\n feelers may be intimate where they are,\n The curious roamer the hand roaming all over the body, the bashful\n withdrawing of flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and\n edge themselves,\n The limpid liquid within the young man,\n The vex’d corrosion so pensive and so painful,\n The torment, the irritable tide that will not be at rest,\n The like of the same I feel, the like of the same in others,\n The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young woman that\n flushes and flushes,\n The young man that wakes deep at night, the hot hand seeking to\n repress what would master him,\n The mystic amorous night, the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats,\n The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers,\n the young man all color’d, red, ashamed, angry;\n The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked,\n The merriment of the twin babes that crawl over the grass in the\n sun, the mother never turning her vigilant eyes from them,\n The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen’d\n long-round walnuts,\n The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,\n The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent,\n while birds and animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent,\n The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity,\n The oath of procreation I have sworn, my Adamic and fresh daughters,\n The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate\n what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am through,\n The wholesome relief, repose, content,\n And this bunch pluck’d at random from myself,\n It has done its work--I toss it carelessly to fall where it may.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "One Hour to Madness and Joy", + "body": " One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!\n (What is this that frees me so in storms?\n What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)\n O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!\n O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,\n I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)\n\n O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me\n in defiance of the world!\n O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!\n O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of\n a determin’d man.\n\n O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all\n untied and illumin’d!\n O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!\n To be absolv’d from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and\n you from yours!\n To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!\n To have the gag remov’d from one’s mouth!\n To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.\n\n O something unprov’d! something in a trance!\n To escape utterly from others’ anchors and holds!\n To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!\n To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!\n To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!\n To rise thither with my inebriate soul!\n To be lost if it must be so!\n To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!\n With one brief hour of madness and joy.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd", + "body": " Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,\n Whispering I love you, before long I die,\n I have travel’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,\n For I could not die till I once look’d on you,\n For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.\n\n Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe,\n Return in peace to the ocean my love,\n I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated,\n Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!\n But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,\n As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever;\n Be not impatient--a little space--know you I salute the air, the\n ocean and the land,\n Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals", + "body": " Ages and ages returning at intervals,\n Undestroy’d, wandering immortal,\n Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet,\n I, chanter of Adamic songs,\n Through the new garden the West, the great cities calling,\n Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself,\n Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex,\n Offspring of my loins.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "We Two, How Long We Were Fool’d", + "body": " We two, how long we were fool’d,\n Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,\n We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,\n We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,\n We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,\n We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,\n We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any,\n We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,\n We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings\n and evenings,\n We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,\n We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,\n We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic\n and stellar, we are as two comets,\n We prowl fang’d and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,\n We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,\n We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling\n over each other and interwetting each other,\n We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious,\n We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence\n of the globe,\n We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we two,\n We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "O Hymen! O Hymenee!", + "body": " O hymen! O hymenee! why do you tantalize me thus?\n O why sting me for a swift moment only?\n Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease?\n Is it because if you continued beyond the swift moment you would\n soon certainly kill me?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "I Am He That Aches with Love", + "body": " I am he that aches with amorous love;\n Does the earth gravitate? does not all matter, aching, attract all matter?\n So the body of me to all I meet or know.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Native Moments", + "body": " Native moments--when you come upon me--ah you are here now,\n Give me now libidinous joys only,\n Give me the drench of my passions, give me life coarse and rank,\n To-day I go consort with Nature’s darlings, to-night too,\n I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight\n orgies of young men,\n I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers,\n The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I pick out some low person\n for my dearest friend,\n He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate, he shall be one condemn’d by\n others for deeds done,\n I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions?\n O you shunn’d persons, I at least do not shun you,\n I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet,\n I will be more to you than to any of the rest.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Once I Pass’d Through a Populous City", + "body": " Once I pass’d through a populous city imprinting my brain for future\n use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions,\n Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met\n there who detain’d me for love of me,\n Day by day and night by night we were together--all else has long\n been forgotten by me,\n I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung to me,\n Again we wander, we love, we separate again,\n Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go,\n I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ", + "body": " I heard you solemn-sweet pipes of the organ as last Sunday morn I\n pass’d the church,\n Winds of autumn, as I walk’d the woods at dusk I heard your long-\n stretch’d sighs up above so mournful,\n I heard the perfect Italian tenor singing at the opera, I heard the\n soprano in the midst of the quartet singing;\n Heart of my love! you too I heard murmuring low through one of the\n wrists around my head,\n Heard the pulse of you when all was still ringing little bells last\n night under my ear.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Facing West from California’s Shores", + "body": " Facing west from California’s shores,\n Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,\n I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity,\n the land of migrations, look afar,\n Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled;\n For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,\n From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and the hero,\n From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice islands,\n Long having wander’d since, round the earth having wander’d,\n Now I face home again, very pleas’d and joyous,\n (But where is what I started for so long ago?\n And why is it yet unfound?)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As Adam Early in the Morning", + "body": " As Adam early in the morning,\n Walking forth from the bower refresh’d with sleep,\n Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,\n Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,\n Be not afraid of my body.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "In Paths Untrodden", + "body": " In paths untrodden,\n In the growth by margins of pond-waters,\n Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,\n From all the standards hitherto publish’d, from the pleasures,\n profits, conformities,\n Which too long I was offering to feed my soul,\n Clear to me now standards not yet publish’d, clear to me that my soul,\n That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades,\n Here by myself away from the clank of the world,\n Tallying and talk’d to here by tongues aromatic,\n No longer abash’d, (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I\n would not dare elsewhere,)\n Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains\n all the rest,\n Resolv’d to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,\n Projecting them along that substantial life,\n Bequeathing hence types of athletic love,\n Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year,\n I proceed for all who are or have been young men,\n To tell the secret my nights and days,\n To celebrate the need of comrades.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Scented Herbage of My Breast", + "body": " Scented herbage of my breast,\n Leaves from you I glean, I write, to be perused best afterwards,\n Tomb-leaves, body-leaves growing up above me above death,\n Perennial roots, tall leaves, O the winter shall not freeze you\n delicate leaves,\n Every year shall you bloom again, out from where you retired you\n shall emerge again;\n O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or inhale\n your faint odor, but I believe a few will;\n O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell in\n your own way of the heart that is under you,\n O I do not know what you mean there underneath yourselves, you are\n not happiness,\n You are often more bitter than I can bear, you burn and sting me,\n Yet you are beautiful to me you faint tinged roots, you make me\n think of death,\n Death is beautiful from you, (what indeed is finally beautiful\n except death and love?)\n O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers,\n I think it must be for death,\n For how calm, how solemn it grows to ascend to the atmosphere of lovers,\n Death or life I am then indifferent, my soul declines to prefer,\n (I am not sure but the high soul of lovers welcomes death most,)\n Indeed O death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as\n you mean,\n Grow up taller sweet leaves that I may see! grow up out of my breast!\n Spring away from the conceal’d heart there!\n Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots timid leaves!\n Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!\n Come I am determin’d to unbare this broad breast of mine, I have\n long enough stifled and choked;\n Emblematic and capricious blades I leave you, now you serve me not,\n I will say what I have to say by itself,\n I will sound myself and comrades only, I will never again utter a\n call only their call,\n I will raise with it immortal reverberations through the States,\n I will give an example to lovers to take permanent shape and will\n through the States,\n Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating,\n Give me your tone therefore O death, that I may accord with it,\n Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above all, and\n are folded inseparably together, you love and death are,\n Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life,\n For now it is convey’d to me that you are the purports essential,\n That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons, and that\n they are mainly for you,\n That you beyond them come forth to remain, the real reality,\n That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter how long,\n That you will one day perhaps take control of all,\n That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance,\n That may-be you are what it is all for, but it does not last so very long,\n But you will last very long.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand", + "body": " Whoever you are holding me now in hand,\n Without one thing all will be useless,\n I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,\n I am not what you supposed, but far different.\n\n Who is he that would become my follower?\n Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?\n\n The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive,\n You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to be your\n sole and exclusive standard,\n Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,\n The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives\n around you would have to be abandon’d,\n Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further, let\n go your hand from my shoulders,\n Put me down and depart on your way.\n\n Or else by stealth in some wood for trial,\n Or back of a rock in the open air,\n (For in any roof’d room of a house I emerge not, nor in company,\n And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)\n But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any\n person for miles around approach unawares,\n Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or\n some quiet island,\n Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,\n With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss or the new husband’s kiss,\n For I am the new husband and I am the comrade.\n\n Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,\n Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip,\n Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;\n For thus merely touching you is enough, is best,\n And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.\n\n But these leaves conning you con at peril,\n For these leaves and me you will not understand,\n They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I will\n certainly elude you.\n Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!\n Already you see I have escaped from you.\n\n For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book,\n Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,\n Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praise me,\n Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few)\n prove victorious,\n Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil,\n perhaps more,\n For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times\n and not hit, that which I hinted at;\n Therefore release me and depart on your way.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "For You, O Democracy", + "body": " Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,\n I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,\n I will make divine magnetic lands,\n With the love of comrades,\n With the life-long love of comrades.\n\n I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America,\n and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,\n I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other’s necks,\n By the love of comrades,\n By the manly love of comrades.\n\n For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!\n For you, for you I am trilling these songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "These I Singing in Spring", + "body": " These I singing in spring collect for lovers,\n (For who but I should understand lovers and all their sorrow and joy?\n And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)\n Collecting I traverse the garden the world, but soon I pass the gates,\n Now along the pond-side, now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,\n Now by the post-and-rail fences where the old stones thrown there,\n pick’d from the fields, have accumulated,\n (Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones and\n partly cover them, beyond these I pass,)\n Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in summer, before I\n think where I go,\n Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,\n Alone I had thought, yet soon a troop gathers around me,\n Some walk by my side and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,\n They the spirits of dear friends dead or alive, thicker they come, a\n great crowd, and I in the middle,\n Collecting, dispensing, singing, there I wander with them,\n Plucking something for tokens, tossing toward whoever is near me,\n Here, lilac, with a branch of pine,\n Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull’d off a live-oak in\n Florida as it hung trailing down,\n Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,\n And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,\n (O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me, and returns again\n never to separate from me,\n And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades, this\n calamus-root shall,\n Interchange it youths with each other! let none render it back!)\n And twigs of maple and a bunch of wild orange and chestnut,\n And stems of currants and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar,\n These I compass’d around by a thick cloud of spirits,\n Wandering, point to or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,\n Indicating to each one what he shall have, giving something to each;\n But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,\n I will give of it, but only to them that love as I myself am capable\n of loving.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Not Heaving from My Ribb’d Breast Only", + "body": " Not heaving from my ribb’d breast only,\n Not in sighs at night in rage dissatisfied with myself,\n Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs,\n Not in many an oath and promise broken,\n Not in my wilful and savage soul’s volition,\n Not in the subtle nourishment of the air,\n Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists,\n Not in the curious systole and diastole within which will one day cease,\n Not in many a hungry wish told to the skies only,\n Not in cries, laughter, defiancies, thrown from me when alone far in\n the wilds,\n Not in husky pantings through clinch’d teeth,\n Not in sounded and resounded words, chattering words, echoes, dead words,\n Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep,\n Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day,\n Nor in the limbs and senses of my body that take you and dismiss you\n continually--not there,\n Not in any or all of them O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!\n Need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in these songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances", + "body": " Of the terrible doubt of appearances,\n Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded,\n That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,\n That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,\n May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills,\n shining and flowing waters,\n The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these\n are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real\n something has yet to be known,\n (How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and mock me!\n How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them,)\n May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem)\n as from my present point of view, and might prove (as of course they\n would) nought of what they appear, or nought anyhow, from entirely\n changed points of view;\n To me these and the like of these are curiously answer’d by my\n lovers, my dear friends,\n When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me\n by the hand,\n When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason\n hold not, surround us and pervade us,\n Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I\n require nothing further,\n I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity\n beyond the grave,\n But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,\n He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Base of All Metaphysics", + "body": " And now gentlemen,\n A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,\n As base and finale too for all metaphysics.\n\n (So to the students the old professor,\n At the close of his crowded course.)\n\n Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,\n Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,\n Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato,\n And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine having\n studied long,\n I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,\n See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see,\n Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see,\n The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend,\n Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,\n Of city for city and land for land.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Recorders Ages Hence", + "body": " Recorders ages hence,\n Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior, I\n will tell you what to say of me,\n Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,\n The friend the lover’s portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest,\n Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love\n within him, and freely pour’d it forth,\n Who often walk’d lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,\n Who pensive away from one he lov’d often lay sleepless and\n dissatisfied at night,\n Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov’d might\n secretly be indifferent to him,\n Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on hills,\n he and another wandering hand in hand, they twain apart from other men,\n Who oft as he saunter’d the streets curv’d with his arm the shoulder\n of his friend, while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "When I Heard at the Close of the Day", + "body": " When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d\n with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for\n me that follow’d,\n And else when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still\n I was not happy,\n But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health,\n refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,\n When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the\n morning light,\n When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing bathed,\n laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,\n And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way\n coming, O then I was happy,\n O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food\n nourish’d me more, and the beautiful day pass’d well,\n And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came\n my friend,\n And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly\n continually up the shores,\n I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me\n whispering to congratulate me,\n For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in\n the cool night,\n In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,\n And his arm lay lightly around my breast--and that night I was happy.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?", + "body": " Are you the new person drawn toward me?\n To begin with take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose;\n Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?\n Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?\n Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction?\n Do you think I am trusty and faithful?\n Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant\n manner of me?\n Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?\n Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone", + "body": " Roots and leaves themselves alone are these,\n Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and pond-side,\n Breast-sorrel and pinks of love, fingers that wind around tighter\n than vines,\n Gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees as the\n sun is risen,\n Breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living\n sea, to you O sailors!\n Frost-mellow’d berries and Third-month twigs offer’d fresh to young\n persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up,\n Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are,\n Buds to be unfolded on the old terms,\n If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring\n form, color, perfume, to you,\n If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers,\n fruits, tall branches and trees.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes", + "body": " Not heat flames up and consumes,\n Not sea-waves hurry in and out,\n Not the air delicious and dry, the air of ripe summer, bears lightly\n along white down-balls of myriads of seeds,\n Waited, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;\n Not these, O none of these more than the flames of me, consuming,\n burning for his love whom I love,\n O none more than I hurrying in and out;\n Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the same,\n O nor down-balls nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds,\n are borne through the open air,\n Any more than my soul is borne through the open air,\n Wafted in all directions O love, for friendship, for you.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Trickle Drops", + "body": " Trickle drops! my blue veins leaving!\n O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,\n Candid from me falling, drip, bleeding drops,\n From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d,\n From my face, from my forehead and lips,\n From my breast, from within where I was conceal’d, press forth red\n drops, confession drops,\n Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops,\n Let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten,\n Saturate them with yourself all ashamed and wet,\n Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops,\n Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "City of Orgies", + "body": " City of orgies, walks and joys,\n City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make\n Not the pageants of you, not your shifting tableaus, your\n spectacles, repay me,\n Not the interminable rows of your houses, nor the ships at the wharves,\n Nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows with\n goods in them,\n Nor to converse with learn’d persons, or bear my share in the soiree\n or feast;\n Not those, but as I pass O Manhattan, your frequent and swift flash\n of eyes offering me love,\n Offering response to my own--these repay me,\n Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Behold This Swarthy Face", + "body": " Behold this swarthy face, these gray eyes,\n This beard, the white wool unclipt upon my neck,\n My brown hands and the silent manner of me without charm;\n Yet comes one a Manhattanese and ever at parting kisses me lightly\n on the lips with robust love,\n And I on the crossing of the street or on the ship’s deck give a\n kiss in return,\n We observe that salute of American comrades land and sea,\n We are those two natural and nonchalant persons.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing", + "body": " I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,\n All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,\n Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green,\n And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,\n But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there\n without its friend near, for I knew I could not,\n And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it and\n twined around it a little moss,\n And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,\n It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,\n (For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)\n Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;\n For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana\n solitary in a wide in a wide flat space,\n Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,\n I know very well I could not.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To a Stranger", + "body": " Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,\n You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me\n as of a dream,)\n I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,\n All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate,\n chaste, matured,\n You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,\n I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours\n only nor left my body mine only,\n You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you\n take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,\n I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or\n wake at night alone,\n I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,\n I am to see to it that I do not lose you.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful", + "body": " This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone,\n It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful,\n It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Germany, Italy,\n France, Spain,\n Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or talking other dialects,\n And it seems to me if I could know those men I should become\n attached to them as I do to men in my own lands,\n O I know we should be brethren and lovers,\n I know I should be happy with them.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "I Hear It Was Charged Against Me", + "body": " I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions,\n But really I am neither for nor against institutions,\n (What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the\n destruction of them?)\n Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these\n States inland and seaboard,\n And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large\n that dents the water,\n Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,\n The institution of the dear love of comrades.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Prairie-Grass Dividing", + "body": " The prairie-grass dividing, its special odor breathing,\n I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,\n Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,\n Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,\n Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,\n Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and\n command, leading not following,\n Those with a never-quell’d audacity, those with sweet and lusty\n flesh clear of taint,\n Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and governors,\n as to say Who are you?\n Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrain’d, never obedient,\n Those of inland America.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame", + "body": " When I peruse the conquer’d fame of heroes and the victories of\n mighty generals, I do not envy the generals,\n Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house,\n But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them,\n How together through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long\n and long,\n Through youth and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how\n affectionate and faithful they were,\n Then I am pensive--I hastily walk away fill’d with the bitterest envy.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "We Two Boys Together Clinging", + "body": " We two boys together clinging,\n One the other never leaving,\n Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,\n Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,\n Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.\n No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,\n threatening,\n Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on\n the turf or the sea-beach dancing,\n Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,\n Fulfilling our foray.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Promise to California", + "body": " A promise to California,\n Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget sound and Oregon;\n Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain,\n to teach robust American love,\n For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you,\n inland, and along the Western sea;\n For these States tend inland and toward the Western sea, and I will also.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Here the Frailest Leaves of Me", + "body": " Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting,\n Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them,\n And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "No Labor-Saving Machine", + "body": " No labor-saving machine,\n Nor discovery have I made,\n Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found\n hospital or library,\n Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage for America,\n Nor literary success nor intellect; nor book for the book-shelf,\n But a few carols vibrating through the air I leave,\n For comrades and lovers.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Glimpse", + "body": " A glimpse through an interstice caught,\n Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove\n late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,\n Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and\n seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,\n A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and\n oath and smutty jest,\n There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,\n perhaps not a word.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Leaf for Hand in Hand", + "body": " A leaf for hand in hand;\n You natural persons old and young!\n You on the Mississippi and on all the branches and bayous of\n the Mississippi!\n You friendly boatmen and mechanics! you roughs!\n You twain! and all processions moving along the streets!\n I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to\n walk hand in hand.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Earth, My Likeness", + "body": " Earth, my likeness,\n Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there,\n I now suspect that is not all;\n I now suspect there is something fierce in you eligible to burst forth,\n For an athlete is enamour’d of me, and I of him,\n But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me eligible\n to burst forth,\n I dare not tell it in words, not even in these songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "I Dream’d in a Dream", + "body": " I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the\n whole of the rest of the earth,\n I dream’d that was the new city of Friends,\n Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest,\n It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,\n And in all their looks and words.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?", + "body": " What think you I take my pen in hand to record?\n The battle-ship, perfect-model’d, majestic, that I saw pass the\n offing to-day under full sail?\n The splendors of the past day? or the splendor of the night that\n envelops me?\n Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me? --no;\n But merely of two simple men I saw to-day on the pier in the midst\n of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends,\n The one to remain hung on the other’s neck and passionately kiss’d him,\n While the one to depart tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To the East and to the West", + "body": " To the East and to the West,\n To the man of the Seaside State and of Pennsylvania,\n To the Kanadian of the north, to the Southerner I love,\n These with perfect trust to depict you as myself, the germs are in all men,\n I believe the main purport of these States is to found a superb\n friendship, exalte, previously unknown,\n Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Sometimes with One I Love", + "body": " Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse\n unreturn’d love,\n But now I think there is no unreturn’d love, the pay is certain one\n way or another,\n (I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d,\n Yet out of that I have written these songs.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To a Western Boy", + "body": " Many things to absorb I teach to help you become eleve of mine;\n Yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins,\n If you be not silently selected by lovers and do not silently select lovers,\n Of what use is it that you seek to become eleve of mine?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Fast Anchor’d Eternal O Love!", + "body": " Fast-anchor’d eternal O love! O woman I love!\n O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you!\n Then separate, as disembodied or another born,\n Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,\n I ascend, I float in the regions of your love O man,\n O sharer of my roving life.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Among the Multitude", + "body": " Among the men and women the multitude,\n I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,\n Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child,\n any nearer than I am,\n Some are baffled, but that one is not--that one knows me.\n\n Ah lover and perfect equal,\n I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,\n And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "O You Whom I Often and Silently Come", + "body": " O you whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you,\n As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,\n Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is\n playing within me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "That Shadow My Likeness", + "body": " That shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a livelihood,\n chattering, chaffering,\n How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits,\n How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;\n But among my lovers and caroling these songs,\n O I never doubt whether that is really me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Full of Life Now", + "body": " Full of life now, compact, visible,\n I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States,\n To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence,\n To you yet unborn these, seeking you.\n\n When you read these I that was visible am become invisible,\n Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me,\n Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade;\n Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Salut au Monde!", + "body": " 1\n O take my hand Walt Whitman!\n Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!\n Such join’d unended links, each hook’d to the next,\n Each answering all, each sharing the earth with all.\n\n What widens within you Walt Whitman?\n What waves and soils exuding?\n What climes? what persons and cities are here?\n Who are the infants, some playing, some slumbering?\n Who are the girls? who are the married women?\n Who are the groups of old men going slowly with their arms about\n each other’s necks?\n What rivers are these? what forests and fruits are these?\n What are the mountains call’d that rise so high in the mists?\n What myriads of dwellings are they fill’d with dwellers?\n\n 2\n Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens,\n Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east--America is provided for in the west,\n Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,\n Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends,\n Within me is the longest day, the sun wheels in slanting rings, it\n does not set for months,\n Stretch’d in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above\n the horizon and sinks again,\n Within me zones, seas, cataracts, forests, volcanoes, groups,\n Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.\n\n 3\n What do you hear Walt Whitman?\n\n I hear the workman singing and the farmer’s wife singing,\n I hear in the distance the sounds of children and of animals early\n in the day,\n I hear emulous shouts of Australians pursuing the wild horse,\n I hear the Spanish dance with castanets in the chestnut shade, to\n the rebeck and guitar,\n I hear continual echoes from the Thames,\n I hear fierce French liberty songs,\n I hear of the Italian boat-sculler the musical recitative of old poems,\n I hear the locusts in Syria as they strike the grain and grass with\n the showers of their terrible clouds,\n I hear the Coptic refrain toward sundown, pensively falling on the\n breast of the black venerable vast mother the Nile,\n I hear the chirp of the Mexican muleteer, and the bells of the mule,\n I hear the Arab muezzin calling from the top of the mosque,\n I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches, I hear\n the responsive base and soprano,\n I hear the cry of the Cossack, and the sailor’s voice putting to sea\n at Okotsk,\n I hear the wheeze of the slave-coffle as the slaves march on, as the\n husky gangs pass on by twos and threes, fasten’d together\n with wrist-chains and ankle-chains,\n I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms,\n I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends of\n the Romans,\n I hear the tale of the divine life and bloody death of the beautiful\n God the Christ,\n I hear the Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars,\n adages, transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote three\n thousand years ago.\n\n 4\n What do you see Walt Whitman?\n Who are they you salute, and that one after another salute you?\n I see a great round wonder rolling through space,\n I see diminute farms, hamlets, ruins, graveyards, jails, factories,\n palaces, hovels, huts of barbarians, tents of nomads upon the surface,\n I see the shaded part on one side where the sleepers are sleeping,\n and the sunlit part on the other side,\n I see the curious rapid change of the light and shade,\n I see distant lands, as real and near to the inhabitants of them as\n my land is to me.\n\n I see plenteous waters,\n I see mountain peaks, I see the sierras of Andes where they range,\n I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts,\n I see the giant pinnacles of Elbruz, Kazbek, Bazardjusi,\n I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps,\n I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians, and to the north the\n Dofrafields, and off at sea mount Hecla,\n I see Vesuvius and Etna, the mountains of the Moon, and the Red\n mountains of Madagascar,\n I see the Lybian, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts,\n I see huge dreadful Arctic and Antarctic icebergs,\n I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones, the Atlantic and\n Pacific, the sea of Mexico, the Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru,\n The waters of Hindustan, the China sea, and the gulf of Guinea,\n The Japan waters, the beautiful bay of Nagasaki land-lock’d in its\n mountains,\n The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and\n the bay of Biscay,\n The clear-sunn’d Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands,\n The White sea, and the sea around Greenland.\n\n I behold the mariners of the world,\n Some are in storms, some in the night with the watch on the lookout,\n Some drifting helplessly, some with contagious diseases.\n\n I behold the sail and steamships of the world, some in clusters in\n port, some on their voyages,\n Some double the cape of Storms, some cape Verde, others capes\n Guardafui, Bon, or Bajadore,\n Others Dondra head, others pass the straits of Sunda, others cape\n Lopatka, others Behring’s straits,\n Others cape Horn, others sail the gulf of Mexico or along Cuba or\n Hayti, others Hudson’s bay or Baffin’s bay,\n Others pass the straits of Dover, others enter the Wash, others the\n firth of Solway, others round cape Clear, others the Land’s End,\n Others traverse the Zuyder Zee or the Scheld,\n Others as comers and goers at Gibraltar or the Dardanelles,\n Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs,\n Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena,\n Others the Niger or the Congo, others the Indus, the Burampooter\n and Cambodia,\n Others wait steam’d up ready to start in the ports of Australia,\n Wait at Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples,\n Hamburg, Bremen, Bordeaux, the Hague, Copenhagen,\n Wait at Valparaiso, Rio Janeiro, Panama.\n\n 5\n I see the tracks of the railroads of the earth,\n I see them in Great Britain, I see them in Europe,\n I see them in Asia and in Africa.\n\n I see the electric telegraphs of the earth,\n I see the filaments of the news of the wars, deaths, losses, gains,\n passions, of my race.\n\n I see the long river-stripes of the earth,\n I see the Amazon and the Paraguay,\n I see the four great rivers of China, the Amour, the Yellow River,\n the Yiang-tse, and the Pearl,\n I see where the Seine flows, and where the Danube, the Loire, the\n Rhone, and the Guadalquiver flow,\n I see the windings of the Volga, the Dnieper, the Oder,\n I see the Tuscan going down the Arno, and the Venetian along the Po,\n I see the Greek seaman sailing out of Egina bay.\n\n 6\n I see the site of the old empire of Assyria, and that of Persia, and\n that of India,\n I see the falling of the Ganges over the high rim of Saukara.\n\n I see the place of the idea of the Deity incarnated by avatars in\n human forms,\n I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth, oracles,\n sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, llamas, monks, muftis, exhorters,\n I see where druids walk’d the groves of Mona, I see the mistletoe\n and vervain,\n I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods, I see the old\n signifiers.\n\n I see Christ eating the bread of his last supper in the midst of\n youths and old persons,\n I see where the strong divine young man the Hercules toil’d\n faithfully and long and then died,\n I see the place of the innocent rich life and hapless fate of the\n beautiful nocturnal son, the full-limb’d Bacchus,\n I see Kneph, blooming, drest in blue, with the crown of feathers on\n his head,\n I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-belov’d, saying to the people\n Do not weep for me,\n This is not my true country, I have lived banish’d from my true\n country, I now go back there,\n I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn.\n\n 7\n I see the battle-fields of the earth, grass grows upon them and\n blossoms and corn,\n I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions.\n\n I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown\n events, heroes, records of the earth.\n\n I see the places of the sagas,\n I see pine-trees and fir-trees torn by northern blasts,\n I see granite bowlders and cliffs, I see green meadows and lakes,\n I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors,\n I see them raised high with stones by the marge of restless oceans,\n that the dead men’s spirits when they wearied of their quiet\n graves might rise up through the mounds and gaze on the tossing\n billows, and be refresh’d by storms, immensity, liberty, action.\n\n I see the steppes of Asia,\n I see the tumuli of Mongolia, I see the tents of Kalmucks and Baskirs,\n I see the nomadic tribes with herds of oxen and cows,\n I see the table-lands notch’d with ravines, I see the jungles and deserts,\n I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tail’d sheep,\n the antelope, and the burrowing wolf\n\n I see the highlands of Abyssinia,\n I see flocks of goats feeding, and see the fig-tree, tamarind, date,\n And see fields of teff-wheat and places of verdure and gold.\n\n I see the Brazilian vaquero,\n I see the Bolivian ascending mount Sorata,\n I see the Wacho crossing the plains, I see the incomparable rider of\n horses with his lasso on his arm,\n I see over the pampas the pursuit of wild cattle for their hides.\n\n 8\n I see the regions of snow and ice,\n I see the sharp-eyed Samoiede and the Finn,\n I see the seal-seeker in his boat poising his lance,\n I see the Siberian on his slight-built sledge drawn by dogs,\n I see the porpoise-hunters, I see the whale-crews of the south\n Pacific and the north Atlantic,\n I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys, of Switzerland--I\n mark the long winters and the isolation.\n\n I see the cities of the earth and make myself at random a part of them,\n I am a real Parisian,\n I am a habitan of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople,\n I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne,\n I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick,\n I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne,\n Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence,\n I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw, or northward in Christiania or\n Stockholm, or in Siberian Irkutsk, or in some street in Iceland,\n I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.\n\n 10\n I see vapors exhaling from unexplored countries,\n I see the savage types, the bow and arrow, the poison’d splint, the\n fetich, and the obi.\n I see African and Asiatic towns,\n I see Algiers, Tripoli, Derne, Mogadore, Timbuctoo, Monrovia,\n I see the swarms of Pekin, Canton, Benares, Delhi, Calcutta, Tokio,\n I see the Kruman in his hut, and the Dahoman and Ashantee-man in their huts,\n I see the Turk smoking opium in Aleppo,\n I see the picturesque crowds at the fairs of Khiva and those of Herat,\n I see Teheran, I see Muscat and Medina and the intervening sands,\n see the caravans toiling onward,\n I see Egypt and the Egyptians, I see the pyramids and obelisks.\n I look on chisell’d histories, records of conquering kings,\n dynasties, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on granite-blocks,\n I see at Memphis mummy-pits containing mummies embalm’d,\n swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries,\n I look on the fall’n Theban, the large-ball’d eyes, the\n side-drooping neck, the hands folded across the breast.\n\n I see all the menials of the earth, laboring,\n I see all the prisoners in the prisons,\n I see the defective human bodies of the earth,\n The blind, the deaf and dumb, idiots, hunchbacks, lunatics,\n The pirates, thieves, betrayers, murderers, slave-makers of the earth,\n The helpless infants, and the helpless old men and women.\n\n I see male and female everywhere,\n I see the serene brotherhood of philosophs,\n I see the constructiveness of my race,\n I see the results of the perseverance and industry of my race,\n I see ranks, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, I go among them, I\n mix indiscriminately,\n And I salute all the inhabitants of the earth.\n\n 11\n You whoever you are!\n You daughter or son of England!\n You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! you Russ in Russia!\n You dim-descended, black, divine-soul’d African, large, fine-headed,\n nobly-form’d, superbly destin’d, on equal terms with me!\n You Norwegian! Swede! Dane! Icelander! you Prussian!\n You Spaniard of Spain! you Portuguese!\n You Frenchwoman and Frenchman of France!\n You Belge! you liberty-lover of the Netherlands! (you stock whence I\n myself have descended;)\n You sturdy Austrian! you Lombard! Hun! Bohemian! farmer of Styria!\n You neighbor of the Danube!\n You working-man of the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Weser! you working-woman too!\n You Sardinian! you Bavarian! Swabian! Saxon! Wallachian! Bulgarian!\n You Roman! Neapolitan! you Greek!\n You lithe matador in the arena at Seville!\n You mountaineer living lawlessly on the Taurus or Caucasus!\n You Bokh horse-herd watching your mares and stallions feeding!\n You beautiful-bodied Persian at full speed in the saddle shooting\n arrows to the mark!\n You Chinaman and Chinawoman of China! you Tartar of Tartary!\n You women of the earth subordinated at your tasks!\n You Jew journeying in your old age through every risk to stand once\n on Syrian ground!\n You other Jews waiting in all lands for your Messiah!\n You thoughtful Armenian pondering by some stream of the Euphrates!\n you peering amid the ruins of Nineveh! you ascending mount Ararat!\n You foot-worn pilgrim welcoming the far-away sparkle of the minarets\n of Mecca!\n You sheiks along the stretch from Suez to Bab-el-mandeb ruling your\n families and tribes!\n You olive-grower tending your fruit on fields of Nazareth, Damascus,\n or lake Tiberias!\n You Thibet trader on the wide inland or bargaining in the shops of Lassa!\n You Japanese man or woman! you liver in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo!\n All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent\n of place!\n All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!\n And you of centuries hence when you listen to me!\n And you each and everywhere whom I specify not, but include just the same!\n Health to you! good will to you all, from me and America sent!\n\n Each of us inevitable,\n Each of us limitless--each of us with his or her right upon the earth,\n Each of us allow’d the eternal purports of the earth,\n Each of us here as divinely as any is here.\n\n 12\n You Hottentot with clicking palate! you woolly-hair’d hordes!\n You own’d persons dropping sweat-drops or blood-drops!\n You human forms with the fathomless ever-impressive countenances of brutes!\n You poor koboo whom the meanest of the rest look down upon for all\n your glimmering language and spirituality!\n You dwarf’d Kamtschatkan, Greenlander, Lapp!\n You Austral negro, naked, red, sooty, with protrusive lip,\n groveling, seeking your food!\n You Caffre, Berber, Soudanese!\n You haggard, uncouth, untutor’d Bedowee!\n You plague-swarms in Madras, Nankin, Kaubul, Cairo!\n You benighted roamer of Amazonia! you Patagonian! you Feejeeman!\n I do not prefer others so very much before you either,\n I do not say one word against you, away back there where you stand,\n (You will come forward in due time to my side.)\n\n 13\n My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination around the whole earth,\n I have look’d for equals and lovers and found them ready for me in\n all lands,\n I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them.\n\n You vapors, I think I have risen with you, moved away to distant\n continents, and fallen down there, for reasons,\n I think I have blown with you you winds;\n You waters I have finger’d every shore with you,\n I have run through what any river or strait of the globe has run through,\n I have taken my stand on the bases of peninsulas and on the high\n embedded rocks, to cry thence:\n\n What cities the light or warmth penetrates I penetrate those cities myself,\n All islands to which birds wing their way I wing my way myself.\n\n Toward you all, in America’s name,\n I raise high the perpendicular hand, I make the signal,\n To remain after me in sight forever,\n For all the haunts and homes of men.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song of the Open Road", + "body": " 1\n Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,\n Healthy, free, the world before me,\n The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.\n\n Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,\n Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,\n Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,\n Strong and content I travel the open road.\n\n The earth, that is sufficient,\n I do not want the constellations any nearer,\n I know they are very well where they are,\n I know they suffice for those who belong to them.\n\n (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,\n I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,\n I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,\n I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)\n\n 2\n You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all\n that is here,\n I believe that much unseen is also here.\n\n Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial,\n The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the\n illiterate person, are not denied;\n The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the\n drunkard’s stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,\n The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,\n The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the\n town, the return back from the town,\n They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none can be interdicted,\n None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me.\n\n 3\n You air that serves me with breath to speak!\n You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!\n You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!\n You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!\n I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.\n\n You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!\n You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined\n side! you distant ships!\n You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d facades! you roofs!\n You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!\n You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!\n You doors and ascending steps! you arches!\n You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!\n From all that has touch’d you I believe you have imparted to\n yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,\n From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces,\n and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.\n\n 4\n The earth expanding right hand and left hand,\n The picture alive, every part in its best light,\n The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is\n not wanted,\n The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the road.\n\n O highway I travel, do you say to me Do not leave me?\n Do you say Venture not--if you leave me you are lost?\n Do you say I am already prepared, I am well-beaten and undenied,\n adhere to me?\n\n O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you,\n You express me better than I can express myself,\n You shall be more to me than my poem.\n\n I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all\n free poems also,\n I think I could stop here myself and do miracles,\n I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever\n beholds me shall like me,\n I think whoever I see must be happy.\n\n 5\n From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,\n Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,\n Listening to others, considering well what they say,\n Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,\n Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that\n would hold me.\n\n I inhale great draughts of space,\n The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.\n\n I am larger, better than I thought,\n I did not know I held so much goodness.\n\n All seems beautiful to me,\n can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me\n I would do the same to you,\n I will recruit for myself and you as I go,\n I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,\n I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,\n Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,\n Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.\n\n 6\n Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not amaze me,\n Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear’d it would not\n astonish me.\n\n Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,\n It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.\n\n Here a great personal deed has room,\n (Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men,\n Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all\n authority and all argument against it.)\n\n Here is the test of wisdom,\n Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,\n Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it,\n Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,\n Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,\n Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the\n excellence of things;\n Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes\n it out of the soul.\n\n Now I re-examine philosophies and religions,\n They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the\n spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.\n\n Here is realization,\n Here is a man tallied--he realizes here what he has in him,\n The past, the future, majesty, love--if they are vacant of you, you\n are vacant of them.\n\n Only the kernel of every object nourishes;\n Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me?\n Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?\n\n Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion’d, it is apropos;\n Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers?\n Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?\n\n 7\n Here is the efflux of the soul,\n The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower’d gates,\n ever provoking questions,\n These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are they?\n Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight\n expands my blood?\n Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?\n Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious\n thoughts descend upon me?\n (I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always\n drop fruit as I pass;)\n What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers?\n What with some driver as I ride on the seat by his side?\n What with some fisherman drawing his seine by the shore as I walk by\n and pause?\n What gives me to be free to a woman’s and man’s good-will? what\n gives them to be free to mine?\n\n 8\n The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness,\n I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times,\n Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged.\n\n Here rises the fluid and attaching character,\n The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of\n man and woman,\n (The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day\n out of the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet\n continually out of itself.)\n\n Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the\n love of young and old,\n From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and attainments,\n Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.\n\n 9\n Allons! whoever you are come travel with me!\n Traveling with me you find what never tires.\n\n The earth never tires,\n The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude\n and incomprehensible at first,\n Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop’d,\n I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.\n\n Allons! we must not stop here,\n However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling\n we cannot remain here,\n However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must\n not anchor here,\n However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted\n to receive it but a little while.\n\n 10\n Allons! the inducements shall be greater,\n We will sail pathless and wild seas,\n We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper\n speeds by under full sail.\n\n Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements,\n Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity;\n Allons! from all formules!\n From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests.\n\n The stale cadaver blocks up the passage--the burial waits no longer.\n\n Allons! yet take warning!\n He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance,\n None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health,\n Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself,\n Only those may come who come in sweet and determin’d bodies,\n No diseas’d person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.\n\n (I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes,\n We convince by our presence.)\n\n 11\n Listen! I will be honest with you,\n I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,\n These are the days that must happen to you:\n You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,\n You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,\n You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d, you hardly\n settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call’d by an\n irresistible call to depart,\n You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those\n who remain behind you,\n What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with\n passionate kisses of parting,\n You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands\n toward you.\n\n 12\n Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!\n They too are on the road--they are the swift and majestic men--they\n are the greatest women,\n Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas,\n Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land,\n Habitues of many distant countries, habitues of far-distant dwellings,\n Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers,\n Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore,\n Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of\n children, bearers of children,\n Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of coffins,\n Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious\n years each emerging from that which preceded it,\n Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases,\n Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days,\n Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded\n and well-grain’d manhood,\n Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass’d, content,\n Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood,\n Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe,\n Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.\n\n 13\n Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless,\n To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,\n To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights\n they tend to,\n Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys,\n To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,\n To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,\n To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you,\n however long but it stretches and waits for you,\n To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,\n To see no possession but you may possess it, enjoying all without\n labor or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one\n particle of it,\n To take the best of the farmer’s farm and the rich man’s elegant\n villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and\n the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,\n To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,\n To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you go,\n To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter\n them, to gather the love out of their hearts,\n To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave\n them behind you,\n To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for\n traveling souls.\n\n All parts away for the progress of souls,\n All religion, all solid things, arts, governments--all that was or is\n apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners\n before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe.\n\n Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of\n the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.\n\n Forever alive, forever forward,\n Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble,\n dissatisfied,\n Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,\n They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,\n But I know that they go toward the best--toward something great.\n\n Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth!\n You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though\n you built it, or though it has been built for you.\n\n Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen!\n It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it.\n\n Behold through you as bad as the rest,\n Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping, of people,\n Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash’d and trimm’d faces,\n Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.\n\n No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession,\n Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes,\n Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and\n bland in the parlors,\n In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly,\n Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bedroom,\n everywhere,\n Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the\n breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones,\n Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial flowers,\n Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself,\n Speaking of any thing else but never of itself.\n\n 14\n Allons! through struggles and wars!\n The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.\n\n Have the past struggles succeeded?\n What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature?\n Now understand me well--it is provided in the essence of things that\n from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth\n something to make a greater struggle necessary.\n\n My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion,\n He going with me must go well arm’d,\n He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies,\n desertions.\n\n 15\n Allons! the road is before us!\n It is safe--I have tried it--my own feet have tried it well--be not\n detain’d!\n Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the\n shelf unopen’d!\n Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!\n Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!\n Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the\n court, and the judge expound the law.\n\n Camerado, I give you my hand!\n I give you my love more precious than money,\n I give you myself before preaching or law;\n Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?\n Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", + "body": " 1\n Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!\n Clouds of the west--sun there half an hour high--I see you also face\n to face.\n\n Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious\n you are to me!\n On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning\n home, are more curious to me than you suppose,\n And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more\n to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.\n\n 2\n The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day,\n The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every\n one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,\n The similitudes of the past and those of the future,\n The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on\n the walk in the street and the passage over the river,\n The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,\n The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,\n The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.\n\n Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,\n Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,\n Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the\n heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,\n Others will see the islands large and small;\n Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half\n an hour high,\n A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others\n will see them,\n Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the\n falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.\n\n 3\n It avails not, time nor place--distance avails not,\n I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many\n generations hence,\n Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,\n Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,\n Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the\n bright flow, I was refresh’d,\n Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift\n current, I stood yet was hurried,\n Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the\n thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.\n\n I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old,\n Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air\n floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,\n Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left\n the rest in strong shadow,\n Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south,\n Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,\n Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,\n Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my\n head in the sunlit water,\n Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,\n Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,\n Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,\n Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,\n Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,\n The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,\n The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender\n serpentine pennants,\n The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilothouses,\n The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,\n The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,\n The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the\n frolic-some crests and glistening,\n The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the\n granite storehouses by the docks,\n On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on\n each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,\n On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning\n high and glaringly into the night,\n Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow\n light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.\n\n 4\n These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,\n I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,\n The men and women I saw were all near to me,\n Others the same--others who look back on me because I look’d forward\n to them,\n (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)\n\n 5\n What is it then between us?\n What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?\n\n Whatever it is, it avails not--distance avails not, and place avails not,\n I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,\n I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the\n waters around it,\n I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,\n In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,\n In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,\n I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,\n I too had receiv’d identity by my body,\n That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I\n should be of my body.\n\n 6\n It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,\n The dark threw its patches down upon me also,\n The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,\n My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?\n Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,\n I am he who knew what it was to be evil,\n I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,\n Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,\n Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,\n Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,\n The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me.\n The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,\n\n Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting,\n Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,\n Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as\n they saw me approaching or passing,\n Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of\n their flesh against me as I sat,\n Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet\n never told them a word,\n Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,\n Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,\n The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,\n Or as small as we like, or both great and small.\n\n 7\n Closer yet I approach you,\n What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you--I laid in my\n stores in advance,\n I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.\n\n Who was to know what should come home to me?\n Who knows but I am enjoying this?\n Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you\n now, for all you cannot see me?\n\n 8\n Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than\n mast-hemm’d Manhattan?\n River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide?\n The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the\n twilight, and the belated lighter?\n What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I\n love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as approach?\n What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that\n looks in my face?\n Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?\n\n We understand then do we not?\n What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?\n What the study could not teach--what the preaching could not\n accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not?\n\n 9\n Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!\n Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!\n Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the\n men and women generations after me!\n Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!\n Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!\n Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!\n Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!\n Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly!\n Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my\n nighest name!\n Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!\n Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one\n makes it!\n Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be\n looking upon you;\n Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet\n haste with the hasting current;\n Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;\n Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all\n downcast eyes have time to take it from you!\n Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any\n one’s head, in the sunlit water!\n Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d\n schooners, sloops, lighters!\n Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!\n Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at\n nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!\n Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,\n You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,\n About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas,\n Thrive, cities--bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and\n sufficient rivers,\n Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,\n Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.\n\n You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,\n We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward,\n Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,\n We use you, and do not cast you aside--we plant you permanently within us,\n We fathom you not--we love you--there is perfection in you also,\n You furnish your parts toward eternity,\n Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song of the Answerer", + "body": " 1\n Now list to my morning’s romanza, I tell the signs of the Answerer,\n To the cities and farms I sing as they spread in the sunshine before me.\n\n A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother,\n How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother?\n Tell him to send me the signs. And I stand before the young man\n face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand and his\n left hand in my right hand,\n And I answer for his brother and for men, and I answer for him that\n answers for all, and send these signs.\n\n Him all wait for, him all yield up to, his word is decisive and final,\n Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as amid light,\n Him they immerse and he immerses them.\n\n Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape,\n people, animals,\n The profound earth and its attributes and the unquiet ocean, (so\n tell I my morning’s romanza,)\n All enjoyments and properties and money, and whatever money will buy,\n The best farms, others toiling and planting and he unavoidably reaps,\n The noblest and costliest cities, others grading and building and he\n domiciles there,\n Nothing for any one but what is for him, near and far are for him,\n the ships in the offing,\n The perpetual shows and marches on land are for him if they are for anybody.\n\n He puts things in their attitudes,\n He puts to-day out of himself with plasticity and love,\n He places his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and\n sisters, associations, employment, politics, so that the rest\n never shame them afterward, nor assume to command them.\n\n He is the Answerer,\n What can be answer’d he answers, and what cannot be answer’d he\n shows how it cannot be answer’d.\n\n A man is a summons and challenge,\n (It is vain to skulk--do you hear that mocking and laughter? do you\n hear the ironical echoes?)\n\n Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride,\n beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction,\n He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and\n down also.\n\n Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly\n and gently and safely by day or by night,\n He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of\n hands on the knobs.\n\n His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or\n universal than he is,\n The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.\n\n Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and tongue,\n He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, and\n any man translates, and any man translates himself also,\n One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees\n how they join.\n\n He says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the President\n at his levee,\n And he says Good-day my brother, to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field,\n And both understand him and know that his speech is right.\n\n He walks with perfect ease in the capitol,\n He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another,\n Here is our equal appearing and new.\n\n Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,\n And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that\n he has follow’d the sea,\n And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist,\n And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them,\n No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it or has\n follow’d it,\n No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and\n sisters there.\n\n The English believe he comes of their English stock,\n A Jew to the Jew he seems, a Russ to the Russ, usual and near,\n removed from none.\n\n Whoever he looks at in the traveler’s coffee-house claims him,\n The Italian or Frenchman is sure, the German is sure, the Spaniard\n is sure, and the island Cuban is sure,\n The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi\n or St. Lawrence or Sacramento, or Hudson or Paumanok sound, claims him.\n\n The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood,\n The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see\n themselves in the ways of him, he strangely transmutes them,\n They are not vile any more, they hardly know themselves they are so grown.\n\n 2\n The indications and tally of time,\n Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs,\n Time, always without break, indicates itself in parts,\n What always indicates the poet is the crowd of the pleasant company\n of singers, and their words,\n The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark,\n but the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark,\n The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,\n His insight and power encircle things and the human race,\n He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of the human race.\n\n The singers do not beget, only the Poet begets,\n The singers are welcom’d, understood, appear often enough, but rare\n has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker\n of poems, the Answerer,\n (Not every century nor every five centuries has contain’d such a\n day, for all its names.)\n\n The singers of successive hours of centuries may have ostensible\n names, but the name of each of them is one of the singers,\n The name of each is, eye-singer, ear-singer, head-singer,\n sweet-singer, night-singer, parlor-singer, love-singer,\n weird-singer, or something else.\n\n All this time and at all times wait the words of true poems,\n The words of true poems do not merely please,\n The true poets are not followers of beauty but the august masters of beauty;\n The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers\n and fathers,\n The words of true poems are the tuft and final applause of science.\n\n Divine instinct, breadth of vision, the law of reason, health,\n rudeness of body, withdrawnness,\n Gayety, sun-tan, air-sweetness, such are some of the words of poems.\n\n The sailor and traveler underlie the maker of poems, the Answerer,\n The builder, geometer, chemist, anatomist, phrenologist, artist, all\n these underlie the maker of poems, the Answerer.\n\n The words of the true poems give you more than poems,\n They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war,\n peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and every thing else,\n They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,\n They do not seek beauty, they are sought,\n Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing,\n fain, love-sick.\n\n They prepare for death, yet are they not the finish, but rather the outset,\n They bring none to his or her terminus or to be content and full,\n Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of stars, to\n learn one of the meanings,\n To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless\n rings and never be quiet again.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Our Old Feuillage", + "body": " Always our old feuillage!\n Always Florida’s green peninsula--always the priceless delta of\n Louisiana--always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas,\n Always California’s golden hills and hollows, and the silver\n mountains of New Mexico--always soft-breath’d Cuba,\n Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern sea, inseparable with\n the slopes drain’d by the Eastern and Western seas,\n The area the eighty-third year of these States, the three and a half\n millions of square miles,\n The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main,\n the thirty thousand miles of river navigation,\n The seven millions of distinct families and the same number of dwellings--\n always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches,\n Always the free range and diversity--always the continent of Democracy;\n Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers,\n Kanada, the snows;\n Always these compact lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing\n the huge oval lakes;\n Always the West with strong native persons, the increasing density there,\n the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders;\n All sights, South, North, East--all deeds, promiscuously done at all times,\n All characters, movements, growths, a few noticed, myriads unnoticed,\n Through Mannahatta’s streets I walking, these things gathering,\n On interior rivers by night in the glare of pine knots, steamboats\n wooding up,\n Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys\n of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke\n and Delaware,\n In their northerly wilds beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks the\n hills, or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink,\n In a lonesome inlet a sheldrake lost from the flock, sitting on the\n water rocking silently,\n In farmers’ barns oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done, they\n rest standing, they are too tired,\n Afar on arctic ice the she-walrus lying drowsily while her cubs play around,\n The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail’d, the farthest polar\n sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes,\n White drift spooning ahead where the ship in the tempest dashes,\n On solid land what is done in cities as the bells strike midnight together,\n In primitive woods the sounds there also sounding, the howl of the\n wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the elk,\n In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead lake, in summer\n visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming,\n In lower latitudes in warmer air in the Carolinas the large black\n buzzard floating slowly high beyond the tree tops,\n Below, the red cedar festoon’d with tylandria, the pines and\n cypresses growing out of the white sand that spreads far and flat,\n Rude boats descending the big Pedee, climbing plants, parasites with\n color’d flowers and berries enveloping huge trees,\n The waving drapery on the live-oak trailing long and low,\n noiselessly waved by the wind,\n The camp of Georgia wagoners just after dark, the supper-fires and\n the cooking and eating by whites and negroes,\n Thirty or forty great wagons, the mules, cattle, horses, feeding\n from troughs,\n The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees,\n the flames with the black smoke from the pitch-pine curling and rising;\n Southern fishermen fishing, the sounds and inlets of North\n Carolina’s coast, the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery, the\n large sweep-seines, the windlasses on shore work’d by horses, the\n clearing, curing, and packing-houses;\n Deep in the forest in piney woods turpentine dropping from the\n incisions in the trees, there are the turpentine works,\n There are the negroes at work in good health, the ground in all\n directions is cover’d with pine straw;\n In Tennessee and Kentucky slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge,\n by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking,\n In Virginia, the planter’s son returning after a long absence,\n joyfully welcom’d and kiss’d by the aged mulatto nurse,\n On rivers boatmen safely moor’d at nightfall in their boats under\n shelter of high banks,\n Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle,\n others sit on the gunwale smoking and talking;\n Late in the afternoon the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing\n in the Great Dismal Swamp,\n There are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous\n moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree;\n Northward, young men of Mannahatta, the target company from an\n excursion returning home at evening, the musket-muzzles all\n bear bunches of flowers presented by women;\n Children at play, or on his father’s lap a young boy fallen asleep,\n (how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!)\n The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the\n Mississippi, he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eyes around;\n California life, the miner, bearded, dress’d in his rude costume,\n the stanch California friendship, the sweet air, the graves one\n in passing meets solitary just aside the horse-path;\n Down in Texas the cotton-field, the negro-cabins, drivers driving\n mules or oxen before rude carts, cotton bales piled on banks\n and wharves;\n Encircling all, vast-darting up and wide, the American Soul, with\n equal hemispheres, one Love, one Dilation or Pride;\n In arriere the peace-talk with the Iroquois the aborigines, the\n calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indorsement,\n The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then toward\n the earth,\n The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and guttural\n exclamations,\n The setting out of the war-party, the long and stealthy march,\n The single file, the swinging hatchets, the surprise and slaughter\n of enemies;\n All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of these States,\n reminiscences, institutions,\n All these States compact, every square mile of these States without\n excepting a particle;\n Me pleas’d, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok’s fields,\n Observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies\n shuffling between each other, ascending high in the air,\n The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects, the fall traveler\n southward but returning northward early in the spring,\n The country boy at the close of the day driving the herd of cows and\n shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the roadside,\n The city wharf, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New\n Orleans, San Francisco,\n The departing ships when the sailors heave at the capstan;\n Evening--me in my room--the setting sun,\n The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the\n swarm of flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre\n of the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting swift\n shadows in specks on the opposite wall where the shine is;\n The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners,\n Males, females, immigrants, combinations, the copiousness, the\n individuality of the States, each for itself--the moneymakers,\n Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces, the windlass, lever,\n pulley, all certainties,\n The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity,\n In space the sporades, the scatter’d islands, the stars--on the firm\n earth, the lands, my lands,\n O lands! all so dear to me--what you are, (whatever it is,) I putting it\n at random in these songs, become a part of that, whatever it is,\n Southward there, I screaming, with wings slow flapping, with the\n myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida,\n Otherways there atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande,\n the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the\n Saskatchawan or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing\n and skipping and running,\n Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I with\n parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and\n aquatic plants,\n Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing\n the crow with its bill, for amusement--and I triumphantly twittering,\n The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh\n themselves, the body of the flock feed, the sentinels outside\n move around with erect heads watching, and are from time to time\n reliev’d by other sentinels--and I feeding and taking turns\n with the rest,\n In Kanadian forests the moose, large as an ox, corner’d by hunters,\n rising desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his\n fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives--and I, plunging at the\n hunters, corner’d and desperate,\n In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the\n countless workmen working in the shops,\n And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof--and no less in myself\n than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself,\n Singing the song of These, my ever-united lands--my body no more\n inevitably united, part to part, and made out of a thousand\n diverse contributions one identity, any more than my lands\n are inevitably united and made ONE IDENTITY;\n Nativities, climates, the grass of the great pastoral Plains,\n Cities, labors, death, animals, products, war, good and evil--these me,\n These affording, in all their particulars, the old feuillage to me\n and to America, how can I do less than pass the clew of the union\n of them, to afford the like to you?\n Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you\n also be eligible as I am?\n How can I but as here chanting, invite you for yourself to collect\n bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of these States?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Song of Joys", + "body": " O to make the most jubilant song!\n Full of music--full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!\n Full of common employments--full of grain and trees.\n\n O for the voices of animals--O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!\n O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!\n O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!\n\n O the joy of my spirit--it is uncaged--it darts like lightning!\n It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,\n I will have thousands of globes and all time.\n\n O the engineer’s joys! to go with a locomotive!\n To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the\n laughing locomotive!\n To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance.\n\n O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides!\n The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist fresh\n stillness of the woods,\n The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through the forenoon.\n\n O the horseman’s and horsewoman’s joys!\n The saddle, the gallop, the pressure upon the seat, the cool\n gurgling by the ears and hair.\n\n O the fireman’s joys!\n I hear the alarm at dead of night,\n I hear bells, shouts! I pass the crowd, I run!\n The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.\n\n O the joy of the strong-brawn’d fighter, towering in the arena in\n perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.\n\n O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is\n capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods.\n\n O the mother’s joys!\n The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the\n patiently yielded life.\n\n O the of increase, growth, recuperation,\n The joy of soothing and pacifying, the joy of concord and harmony.\n\n O to go back to the place where I was born,\n To hear the birds sing once more,\n To ramble about the house and barn and over the fields once more,\n And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.\n\n O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast,\n To continue and be employ’d there all my life,\n The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low water,\n The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher;\n I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear,\n Is the tide out? I Join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,\n I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man;\n In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot\n on the ice--I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice,\n Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon,\n my brood of tough boys accompanying me,\n My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no\n one else so well as they love to be with me,\n By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me.\n\n Another time in warm weather out in a boat, to lift the lobster-pots\n where they are sunk with heavy stones, (I know the buoys,)\n O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water as I row\n just before sunrise toward the buoys,\n I pull the wicker pots up slantingly, the dark green lobsters are\n desperate with their claws as I take them out, I insert\n wooden pegs in the ’oints of their pincers,\n\n I go to all the places one after another, and then row back to the shore,\n There in a huge kettle of boiling water the lobsters shall be boil’d\n till their color becomes scarlet.\n\n Another time mackerel-taking,\n Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the\n water for miles;\n Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the\n brown-faced crew;\n Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced body,\n My left foot is on the gunwale, my right arm throws far out the\n coils of slender rope,\n In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my\n companions.\n\n O boating on the rivers,\n The voyage down the St. Lawrence, the superb scenery, the steamers,\n The ships sailing, the Thousand Islands, the occasional timber-raft\n and the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars,\n The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook\n supper at evening.\n\n (O something pernicious and dread!\n Something far away from a puny and pious life!\n Something unproved! something in a trance!\n Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.)\n\n O to work in mines, or forging iron,\n Foundry casting, the foundry itself, the rude high roof, the ample\n and shadow’d space,\n The furnace, the hot liquid pour’d out and running.\n\n O to resume the joys of the soldier!\n To feel the presence of a brave commanding officer--to feel his sympathy!\n To behold his calmness--to be warm’d in the rays of his smile!\n To go to battle--to hear the bugles play and the drums beat!\n To hear the crash of artillery--to see the glittering of the bayonets\n and musket-barrels in the sun!\n\n To see men fall and die and not complain!\n To taste the savage taste of blood--to be so devilish!\n To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy.\n\n O the whaleman’s joys! O I cruise my old cruise again!\n I feel the ship’s motion under me, I feel the Atlantic breezes fanning me,\n I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head, There--she blows!\n Again I spring up the rigging to look with the rest--we descend,\n wild with excitement,\n I leap in the lower’d boat, we row toward our prey where he lies,\n We approach stealthy and silent, I see the mountainous mass,\n lethargic, basking,\n I see the harpooneer standing up, I see the weapon dart from his\n vigorous arm;\n O swift again far out in the ocean the wounded whale, settling,\n running to windward, tows me,\n Again I see him rise to breathe, we row close again,\n I see a lance driven through his side, press’d deep, turn’d in the wound,\n Again we back off, I see him settle again, the life is leaving him fast,\n As he rises he spouts blood, I see him swim in circles narrower and\n narrower, swiftly cutting the water--I see him die,\n He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then\n falls flat and still in the bloody foam.\n\n O the old manhood of me, my noblest joy of all!\n My children and grand-children, my white hair and beard,\n My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.\n\n O ripen’d joy of womanhood! O happiness at last!\n I am more than eighty years of age, I am the most venerable mother,\n How clear is my mind--how all people draw nigh to me!\n What attractions are these beyond any before? what bloom more\n than the bloom of youth?\n What beauty is this that descends upon me and rises out of me?\n\n O the orator’s joys!\n To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the\n ribs and throat,\n To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,\n To lead America--to quell America with a great tongue.\n\n O the joy of my soul leaning pois’d on itself, receiving identity through\n materials and loving them, observing characters and absorbing them,\n My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch,\n reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like,\n The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh,\n My body done with materials, my sight done with my material eyes,\n Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes\n which finally see,\n Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts,\n embraces, procreates.\n\n O the farmer’s joys!\n Ohioan’s, Illinoisian’s, Wisconsinese’, Kanadian’s, Iowan’s,\n Kansian’s, Missourian’s, Oregonese’ joys!\n To rise at peep of day and pass forth nimbly to work,\n To plough land in the fall for winter-sown crops,\n To plough land in the spring for maize,\n To train orchards, to graft the trees, to gather apples in the fall.\n\n O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore,\n To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep, or race naked along the shore.\n\n O to realize space!\n The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds,\n To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying\n clouds, as one with them.\n\n O the joy a manly self-hood!\n To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,\n To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,\n To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,\n To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,\n To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.\n\n Knowist thou the excellent joys of youth?\n Joys of the dear companions and of the merry word and laughing face?\n Joy of the glad light-beaming day, joy of the wide-breath’d games?\n Joy of sweet music, joy of the lighted ball-room and the dancers?\n Joy of the plenteous dinner, strong carouse and drinking?\n\n Yet O my soul supreme!\n Knowist thou the joys of pensive thought?\n Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart?\n Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow’d yet proud, the suffering\n and the struggle?\n The agonistic throes, the ecstasies, joys of the solemn musings day\n or night?\n Joys of the thought of Death, the great spheres Time and Space?\n Prophetic joys of better, loftier love’s ideals, the divine wife,\n the sweet, eternal, perfect comrade?\n Joys all thine own undying one, joys worthy thee O soul.\n\n O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave,\n To meet life as a powerful conqueror,\n No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms,\n To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving\n my interior soul impregnable,\n And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.\n\n For not life’s joys alone I sing, repeating--the joy of death!\n The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments,\n for reasons,\n Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn’d, or render’d\n to powder, or buried,\n My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,\n My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications,\n further offices, eternal uses of the earth.\n\n O to attract by more than attraction!\n How it is I know not--yet behold! the something which obeys none\n of the rest,\n It is offensive, never defensive--yet how magnetic it draws.\n\n O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!\n To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!\n To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!\n To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with\n perfect nonchalance!\n To be indeed a God!\n\n O to sail to sea in a ship!\n To leave this steady unendurable land,\n To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the\n houses,\n To leave you O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,\n To sail and sail and sail!\n\n O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!\n To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!\n To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,\n A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)\n A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song of the Broad-Axe", + "body": " 1\n Weapon shapely, naked, wan,\n Head from the mother’s bowels drawn,\n Wooded flesh and metal bone, limb only one and lip only one,\n Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown, helve produced from a little seed sown,\n Resting the grass amid and upon,\n To be lean’d and to lean on.\n\n Strong shapes and attributes of strong shapes, masculine trades,\n sights and sounds.\n Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music,\n Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of the great organ.\n\n 2\n Welcome are all earth’s lands, each for its kind,\n Welcome are lands of pine and oak,\n Welcome are lands of the lemon and fig,\n Welcome are lands of gold,\n Welcome are lands of wheat and maize, welcome those of the grape,\n Welcome are lands of sugar and rice,\n Welcome the cotton-lands, welcome those of the white potato and\n sweet potato,\n Welcome are mountains, flats, sands, forests, prairies,\n Welcome the rich borders of rivers, table-lands, openings,\n Welcome the measureless grazing-lands, welcome the teeming soil of\n orchards, flax, honey, hemp;\n Welcome just as much the other more hard-faced lands,\n Lands rich as lands of gold or wheat and fruit lands,\n Lands of mines, lands of the manly and rugged ores,\n Lands of coal, copper, lead, tin, zinc,\n Lands of iron--lands of the make of the axe.\n\n 3\n The log at the wood-pile, the axe supported by it,\n The sylvan hut, the vine over the doorway, the space clear’d for garden,\n The irregular tapping of rain down on the leaves after the storm is lull’d,\n The walling and moaning at intervals, the thought of the sea,\n The thought of ships struck in the storm and put on their beam ends,\n and the cutting away of masts,\n The sentiment of the huge timbers of old-fashion’d houses and barns,\n The remember’d print or narrative, the voyage at a venture of men,\n families, goods,\n The disembarkation, the founding of a new city,\n The voyage of those who sought a New England and found it, the outset\n anywhere,\n The settlements of the Arkansas, Colorado, Ottawa, Willamette,\n The slow progress, the scant fare, the axe, rifle, saddle-bags;\n The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons,\n The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men with their clear untrimm’d faces,\n The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves,\n The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless\n impatience of restraint,\n The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the\n solidification;\n The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and\n sloops, the raftsman, the pioneer,\n Lumbermen in their winter camp, daybreak in the woods, stripes of\n snow on the limbs of trees, the occasional snapping,\n The glad clear sound of one’s own voice, the merry song, the natural\n life of the woods, the strong day’s work,\n The blazing fire at night, the sweet taste of supper, the talk, the\n bed of hemlock-boughs and the bear-skin;\n The house-builder at work in cities or anywhere,\n The preparatory jointing, squaring, sawing, mortising,\n The hoist-up of beams, the push of them in their places, laying them\n regular,\n Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises according as they\n were prepared,\n The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men, their\n curv’d limbs,\n Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on by\n posts and braces,\n The hook’d arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe,\n The floor-men forcing the planks close to be nail’d,\n Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers,\n The echoes resounding through the vacant building:\n The huge storehouse carried up in the city well under way,\n The six framing-men, two in the middle and two at each end, carefully\n bearing on their shoulders a heavy stick for a cross-beam,\n The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands rapidly\n laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from front to rear,\n The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the\n trowels striking the bricks,\n The bricks one after another each laid so workmanlike in its place,\n and set with a knock of the trowel-handle,\n The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the\n steady replenishing by the hod-men;\n Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of well-grown apprentices,\n The swing of their axes on the square-hew’d log shaping it toward\n the shape of a mast,\n The brisk short crackle of the steel driven slantingly into the pine,\n The butter-color’d chips flying off in great flakes and slivers,\n The limber motion of brawny young arms and hips in easy costumes,\n The constructor of wharves, bridges, piers, bulk-heads, floats,\n stays against the sea;\n The city fireman, the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the\n close-pack’d square,\n The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring,\n The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line,\n the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water,\n The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets, the bringing to bear of the\n hooks and ladders and their execution,\n The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors\n if the fire smoulders under them,\n The crowd with their lit faces watching, the glare and dense shadows;\n The forger at his forge-furnace and the user of iron after him,\n The maker of the axe large and small, and the welder and temperer,\n The chooser breathing his breath on the cold steel and trying the\n edge with his thumb,\n The one who clean-shapes the handle and sets it firmly in the socket;\n The shadowy processions of the portraits of the past users also,\n The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers,\n The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,\n The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,\n The antique European warrior with his axe in combat,\n The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head,\n The death-howl, the limpsy tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe\n thither,\n The siege of revolted lieges determin’d for liberty,\n The summons to surrender, the battering at castle gates, the truce\n and parley,\n The sack of an old city in its time,\n The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly,\n Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness,\n Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the\n gripe of brigands,\n Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons despairing,\n The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds,\n The list of all executive deeds and words just or unjust,\n The power of personality just or unjust.\n\n 4\n Muscle and pluck forever!\n What invigorates life invigorates death,\n And the dead advance as much as the living advance,\n And the future is no more uncertain than the present,\n For the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the\n delicatesse of the earth and of man,\n And nothing endures but personal qualities.\n\n What do you think endures?\n Do you think a great city endures?\n Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the\n best built steamships?\n Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d’œuvres of engineering,\n forts, armaments?\n\n Away! these are not to be cherish’d for themselves,\n They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them,\n The show passes, all does well enough of course,\n All does very well till one flash of defiance.\n\n A great city is that which has the greatest men and women,\n If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the\n whole world.\n\n 5\n The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch’d\n wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce merely,\n Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers or the\n anchor-lifters of the departing,\n Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops\n selling goods from the rest of the earth,\n Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the place where\n money is plentiest,\n Nor the place of the most numerous population.\n\n Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards,\n Where the city stands that is belov’d by these, and loves them in\n return and understands them,\n Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds,\n Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place,\n Where the men and women think lightly of the laws,\n Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases,\n Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of\n elected persons,\n Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the whistle of\n death pours its sweeping and unript waves,\n Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside\n authority,\n Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President,\n Mayor, Governor and what not, are agents for pay,\n Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on\n themselves,\n Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,\n Where speculations on the soul are encouraged,\n Where women walk in public processions in the streets the same as the men,\n Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the men;\n Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands,\n Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,\n Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,\n Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,\n There the great city stands.\n\n 6\n How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!\n How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a\n man’s or woman’s look!\n\n All waits or goes by default till a strong being appears;\n A strong being is the proof of the race and of the ability of the universe,\n When he or she appears materials are overaw’d,\n The dispute on the soul stops,\n The old customs and phrases are confronted, turn’d back, or laid away.\n\n What is your money-making now? what can it do now?\n What is your respectability now?\n What are your theology, tuition, society, traditions, statute-books, now?\n Where are your jibes of being now?\n Where are your cavils about the soul now?\n\n 7\n A sterile landscape covers the ore, there is as good as the best for\n all the forbidding appearance,\n There is the mine, there are the miners,\n The forge-furnace is there, the melt is accomplish’d, the hammersmen\n are at hand with their tongs and hammers,\n What always served and always serves is at hand.\n\n Than this nothing has better served, it has served all,\n Served the fluent-tongued and subtle-sensed Greek, and long ere the Greek,\n Served in building the buildings that last longer than any,\n Served the Hebrew, the Persian, the most ancient Hindustanee,\n Served the mound-raiser on the Mississippi, served those whose\n relics remain in Central America,\n Served Albic temples in woods or on plains, with unhewn pillars and\n the druids,\n Served the artificial clefts, vast, high, silent, on the\n snow-cover’d hills of Scandinavia,\n Served those who time out of mind made on the granite walls rough\n sketches of the sun, moon, stars, ships, ocean waves,\n Served the paths of the irruptions of the Goths, served the pastoral\n tribes and nomads,\n Served the long distant Kelt, served the hardy pirates of the Baltic,\n Served before any of those the venerable and harmless men of Ethiopia,\n Served the making of helms for the galleys of pleasure and the\n making of those for war,\n Served all great works on land and all great works on the sea,\n For the mediaeval ages and before the mediaeval ages,\n Served not the living only then as now, but served the dead.\n\n 8\n I see the European headsman,\n He stands mask’d, clothed in red, with huge legs and strong naked arms,\n And leans on a ponderous axe.\n\n (Whom have you slaughter’d lately European headsman?\n Whose is that blood upon you so wet and sticky?)\n\n I see the clear sunsets of the martyrs,\n I see from the scaffolds the descending ghosts,\n Ghosts of dead lords, uncrown’d ladies, impeach’d ministers, rejected kings,\n Rivals, traitors, poisoners, disgraced chieftains and the rest.\n\n I see those who in any land have died for the good cause,\n The seed is spare, nevertheless the crop shall never run out,\n (Mind you O foreign kings, O priests, the crop shall never run out.)\n\n I see the blood wash’d entirely away from the axe,\n Both blade and helve are clean,\n They spirt no more the blood of European nobles, they clasp no more\n the necks of queens.\n\n I see the headsman withdraw and become useless,\n I see the scaffold untrodden and mouldy, I see no longer any axe upon it,\n\n I see the mighty and friendly emblem of the power of my own race,\n the newest, largest race.\n\n 9\n (America! I do not vaunt my love for you,\n I have what I have.)\n\n The axe leaps!\n The solid forest gives fluid utterances,\n They tumble forth, they rise and form,\n Hut, tent, landing, survey,\n Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,\n Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, lamb, lath, panel, gable,\n Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, library,\n Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, turret, porch,\n Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet,\n wedge, rounce,\n Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,\n Work-box, chest, string’d instrument, boat, frame, and what not,\n Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,\n Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans or for the poor or sick,\n Manhattan steamboats and clippers taking the measure of all seas.\n\n The shapes arise!\n Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users and all that\n neighbors them,\n Cutters down of wood and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Kenebec,\n Dwellers in cabins among the Californian mountains or by the little\n lakes, or on the Columbia,\n Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande, friendly\n gatherings, the characters and fun,\n Dwellers along the St. Lawrence, or north in Kanada, or down by the\n Yellowstone, dwellers on coasts and off coasts,\n Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the ice.\n\n The shapes arise!\n Shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries, markets,\n Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads,\n Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast frameworks, girders, arches,\n Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake and canal craft, river craft,\n Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern and Western seas, and in\n many a bay and by-place,\n The live-oak kelsons, the pine planks, the spars, the\n hackmatack-roots for knees,\n The ships themselves on their ways, the tiers of scaffolds, the\n workmen busy outside and inside,\n The tools lying around, the great auger and little auger, the adze,\n bolt, line, square, gouge, and bead-plane.\n\n 10\n The shapes arise!\n The shape measur’d, saw’d, jack’d, join’d, stain’d,\n The coffin-shape for the dead to lie within in his shroud,\n The shape got out in posts, in the bedstead posts, in the posts of\n the bride’s bed,\n The shape of the little trough, the shape of the rockers beneath,\n the shape of the babe’s cradle,\n The shape of the floor-planks, the floor-planks for dancers’ feet,\n The shape of the planks of the family home, the home of the friendly\n parents and children,\n The shape of the roof of the home of the happy young man and\n woman, the roof over the well-married young man and woman,\n The roof over the supper joyously cook’d by the chaste wife, and joyously\n eaten by the chaste husband, content after his day’s work.\n\n The shapes arise!\n The shape of the prisoner’s place in the court-room, and of him or\n her seated in the place,\n The shape of the liquor-bar lean’d against by the young rum-drinker\n and the old rum-drinker,\n The shape of the shamed and angry stairs trod by sneaking foot- steps,\n The shape of the sly settee, and the adulterous unwholesome couple,\n The shape of the gambling-board with its devilish winnings and losings,\n The shape of the step-ladder for the convicted and sentenced\n murderer, the murderer with haggard face and pinion’d arms,\n The sheriff at hand with his deputies, the silent and white-lipp’d\n crowd, the dangling of the rope.\n\n The shapes arise!\n Shapes of doors giving many exits and entrances,\n The door passing the dissever’d friend flush’d and in haste,\n The door that admits good news and bad news,\n The door whence the son left home confident and puff’d up,\n The door he enter’d again from a long and scandalous absence,\n diseas’d, broken down, without innocence, without means.\n\n 11\n Her shape arises,\n She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever,\n The gross and soil’d she moves among do not make her gross and soil’d,\n She knows the thoughts as she passes, nothing is conceal’d from her,\n She is none the less considerate or friendly therefor,\n She is the best belov’d, it is without exception, she has no reason\n to fear and she does not fear,\n Oaths, quarrels, hiccupp’d songs, smutty expressions, are idle to\n her as she passes,\n She is silent, she is possess’d of herself, they do not offend her,\n She receives them as the laws of Nature receive them, she is strong,\n She too is a law of Nature--there is no law stronger than she is.\n\n 12\n The main shapes arise!\n Shapes of Democracy total, result of centuries,\n Shapes ever projecting other shapes,\n Shapes of turbulent manly cities,\n Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth,\n Shapes bracing the earth and braced with the whole earth.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song of the Exposition", + "body": " 1\n (Ah little recks the laborer,\n How near his work is holding him to God,\n The loving Laborer through space and time.)\n\n After all not to create only, or found only,\n But to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded,\n To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free,\n To fill the gross the torpid bulk with vital religious fire,\n Not to repel or destroy so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate,\n To obey as well as command, to follow more than to lead,\n These also are the lessons of our New World;\n While how little the New after all, how much the Old, Old World!\n\n Long and long has the grass been growing,\n Long and long has the rain been falling,\n Long has the globe been rolling round.\n\n 2\n Come Muse migrate from Greece and Ionia,\n Cross out please those immensely overpaid accounts,\n That matter of Troy and Achilles’ wrath, and AEneas’, Odysseus’ wanderings,\n Placard “Removed” and “To Let” on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus,\n Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on jaffa’s gate and on\n Mount Moriah,\n The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish castles,\n and Italian collections,\n For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried domain\n awaits, demands you.\n\n 3\n Responsive to our summons,\n Or rather to her long-nurs’d inclination,\n Join’d with an irresistible, natural gravitation,\n She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown,\n I scent the odor of her breath’s delicious fragrance,\n I mark her step divine, her curious eyes a-turning, rolling,\n Upon this very scene.\n\n The dame of dames! can I believe then,\n Those ancient temples, sculptures classic, could none of them retain her?\n Nor shades of Virgil and Dante, nor myriad memories, poems, old\n associations, magnetize and hold on to her?\n But that she’s left them all--and here?\n\n Yes, if you will allow me to say so,\n I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see her,\n The same undying soul of earth’s, activity’s, beauty’s, heroism’s\n expression,\n Out from her evolutions hither come, ended the strata of her former themes,\n Hidden and cover’d by to-day’s, foundation of to-day’s,\n Ended, deceas’d through time, her voice by Castaly’s fountain,\n Silent the broken-lipp’d Sphynx in Egypt, silent all those century-\n baffling tombs,\n Ended for aye the epics of Asia’s, Europe’s helmeted warriors, ended\n the primitive call of the muses,\n Calliope’s call forever closed, Clio, Melpomene, Thalia dead,\n Ended the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana, ended the quest of the\n holy Graal,\n Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind, extinct,\n The Crusaders’ streams of shadowy midnight troops sped with the sunrise,\n Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone, Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone,\n Palmerin, ogre, departed, vanish’d the turrets that Usk from its\n waters reflected,\n Arthur vanish’d with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and\n Galahad, all gone, dissolv’d utterly like an exhalation;\n Pass’d! pass’d! for us, forever pass’d, that once so mighty world,\n now void, inanimate, phantom world,\n Embroider’d, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous legends, myths,\n Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and\n courtly dames,\n Pass’d to its charnel vault, coffin’d with crown and armor on,\n Blazon’d with Shakspere’s purple page,\n And dirged by Tennyson’s sweet sad rhyme.\n\n I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the illustrious emigre, (having it\n is true in her day, although the same, changed, journey’d considerable,)\n Making directly for this rendezvous, vigorously clearing a path for\n herself, striding through the confusion,\n By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay’d,\n Bluff’d not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,\n Smiling and pleas’d with palpable intent to stay,\n She’s here, install’d amid the kitchen ware!\n\n 4\n But hold--don’t I forget my manners?\n To introduce the stranger, (what else indeed do I live to chant\n for?) to thee Columbia;\n In liberty’s name welcome immortal! clasp hands,\n And ever henceforth sisters dear be both.\n\n Fear not O Muse! truly new ways and days receive, surround you,\n I candidly confess a queer, queer race, of novel fashion,\n And yet the same old human race, the same within, without,\n Faces and hearts the same, feelings the same, yearnings the same,\n The same old love, beauty and use the same.\n\n 5\n We do not blame thee elder World, nor really separate ourselves from thee,\n (Would the son separate himself from the father?)\n Looking back on thee, seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, through\n past ages bending, building,\n We build to ours to-day.\n\n Mightier than Egypt’s tombs,\n Fairer than Grecia’s, Roma’s temples,\n Prouder than Milan’s statued, spired cathedral,\n More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,\n We plan even now to raise, beyond them all,\n Thy great cathedral sacred industry, no tomb,\n A keep for life for practical invention.\n\n As in a waking vision,\n E’en while I chant I see it rise, I scan and prophesy outside and in,\n Its manifold ensemble.\n\n Around a palace, loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,\n Earth’s modern wonder, history’s seven outstripping,\n High rising tier on tier with glass and iron facades,\n Gladdening the sun and sky, enhued in cheerfulest hues,\n Bronze, lilac, robin’s-egg, marine and crimson,\n Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner Freedom,\n The banners of the States and flags of every land,\n A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser palaces shall cluster.\n\n Somewhere within their walls shall all that forwards perfect human\n life be started,\n Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.\n\n Not only all the world of works, trade, products,\n But all the workmen of the world here to be represented.\n\n Here shall you trace in flowing operation,\n In every state of practical, busy movement, the rills of civilization,\n Materials here under your eye shall change their shape as if by magic,\n The cotton shall be pick’d almost in the very field,\n Shall be dried, clean’d, ginn’d, baled, spun into thread and cloth\n before you,\n You shall see hands at work at all the old processes and all the new ones,\n You shall see the various grains and how flour is made and then\n bread baked by the bakers,\n You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and\n on till they become bullion,\n You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what a\n composing-stick is,\n You shall mark in amazement the Hoe press whirling its cylinders,\n shedding the printed leaves steady and fast,\n The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created before you.\n\n In large calm halls, a stately museum shall teach you the infinite\n lessons of minerals,\n In another, woods, plants, vegetation shall be illustrated--in\n another animals, animal life and development.\n\n One stately house shall be the music house,\n Others for other arts--learning, the sciences, shall all be here,\n None shall be slighted, none but shall here be honor’d, help’d, exampled.\n\n 6\n (This, this and these, America, shall be your pyramids and obelisks,\n Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon,\n Your temple at Olympia.)\n\n The male and female many laboring not,\n Shall ever here confront the laboring many,\n With precious benefits to both, glory to all,\n To thee America, and thee eternal Muse.\n\n And here shall ye inhabit powerful Matrons!\n In your vast state vaster than all the old,\n Echoed through long, long centuries to come,\n To sound of different, prouder songs, with stronger themes,\n Practical, peaceful life, the people’s life, the People themselves,\n Lifted, illumin’d, bathed in peace--elate, secure in peace.\n\n 7\n Away with themes of war! away with war itself!\n Hence from my shuddering sight to never more return that show of\n blacken’d, mutilated corpses!\n That hell unpent and raid of blood, fit for wild tigers or for\n lop-tongued wolves, not reasoning men,\n And in its stead speed industry’s campaigns,\n With thy undaunted armies, engineering,\n Thy pennants labor, loosen’d to the breeze,\n Thy bugles sounding loud and clear.\n\n Away with old romance!\n Away with novels, plots and plays of foreign courts,\n Away with love-verses sugar’d in rhyme, the intrigues, amours of idlers,\n Fitted for only banquets of the night where dancers to late music slide,\n The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,\n With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.\n\n To you ye reverent sane sisters,\n I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for art,\n To exalt the present and the real,\n To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade,\n To sing in songs how exercise and chemical life are never to be baffled,\n To manual work for each and all, to plough, hoe, dig,\n To plant and tend the tree, the berry, vegetables, flowers,\n For every man to see to it that he really do something, for every woman too;\n To use the hammer and the saw, (rip, or cross-cut,)\n To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,\n To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,\n To invent a little, something ingenious, to aid the washing, cooking,\n cleaning,\n And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves.\n\n I say I bring thee Muse to-day and here,\n All occupations, duties broad and close,\n Toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless, without cessation,\n The old, old practical burdens, interests, joys,\n The family, parentage, childhood, husband and wife,\n The house-comforts, the house itself and all its belongings,\n Food and its preservation, chemistry applied to it,\n Whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded man or\n woman, the perfect longeve personality,\n And helps its present life to health and happiness, and shapes its soul,\n For the eternal real life to come.\n\n With latest connections, works, the inter-transportation of the world,\n Steam-power, the great express lines, gas, petroleum,\n These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic’s delicate cable,\n The Pacific railroad, the Suez canal, the Mont Cenis and Gothard and\n Hoosac tunnels, the Brooklyn bridge,\n This earth all spann’d with iron rails, with lines of steamships\n threading in every sea,\n Our own rondure, the current globe I bring.\n\n 8\n And thou America,\n Thy offspring towering e’er so high, yet higher Thee above all towering,\n With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law;\n Thou Union holding all, fusing, absorbing, tolerating all,\n Thee, ever thee, I sing.\n\n Thou, also thou, a World,\n With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant,\n Rounded by thee in one--one common orbic language,\n One common indivisible destiny for All.\n\n And by the spells which ye vouchsafe to those your ministers in earnest,\n I here personify and call my themes, to make them pass before ye.\n\n Behold, America! (and thou, ineffable guest and sister!)\n For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands;\n Behold! thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains,\n As in procession coming.\n\n Behold, the sea itself,\n And on its limitless, heaving breast, the ships;\n See, where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the\n green and blue,\n See, the steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port,\n See, dusky and undulating, the long pennants of smoke.\n\n Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west,\n Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen,\n Wielding all day their axes.\n\n Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels, thy oarsmen,\n How the ash writhes under those muscular arms!\n\n There by the furnace, and there by the anvil,\n Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths swinging their sledges,\n Overhand so steady, overhand they turn and fall with joyous clank,\n Like a tumult of laughter.\n\n Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patents,\n Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising,\n See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-fires stream.\n\n Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South,\n Thy wealthy daughter-states, Eastern and Western,\n The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Texas,\n and the rest,\n Thy limitless crops, grass, wheat, sugar, oil, corn, rice, hemp, hops,\n Thy barns all fill’d, the endless freight-train and the bulging store-house,\n The grapes that ripen on thy vines, the apples in thy orchards,\n Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes, thy coal, thy gold\n and silver,\n The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.\n\n All thine O sacred Union!\n Ships, farms, shops, barns, factories, mines,\n City and State, North, South, item and aggregate,\n We dedicate, dread Mother, all to thee!\n\n Protectress absolute, thou! bulwark of all!\n For well we know that while thou givest each and all, (generous as God,)\n Without thee neither all nor each, nor land, home,\n Nor ship, nor mine, nor any here this day secure,\n Nor aught, nor any day secure.\n\n 9\n And thou, the Emblem waving over all!\n Delicate beauty, a word to thee, (it may be salutary,)\n Remember thou hast not always been as here to-day so comfortably\n ensovereign’d,\n In other scenes than these have I observ’d thee flag,\n Not quite so trim and whole and freshly blooming in folds of\n stainless silk,\n But I have seen thee bunting, to tatters torn upon thy splinter’d staff,\n Or clutch’d to some young color-bearer’s breast with desperate hands,\n Savagely struggled for, for life or death, fought over long,\n ’Mid cannons’ thunder-crash and many a curse and groan and yell, and\n rifle-volleys cracking sharp,\n And moving masses as wild demons surging, and lives as nothing risk’d,\n For thy mere remnant grimed with dirt and smoke and sopp’d in blood,\n For sake of that, my beauty, and that thou might’st dally as now\n secure up there,\n Many a good man have I seen go under.\n\n Now here and these and hence in peace, all thine O Flag!\n And here and hence for thee, O universal Muse! and thou for them!\n And here and hence O Union, all the work and workmen thine!\n None separate from thee--henceforth One only, we and thou,\n (For the blood of the children, what is it, only the blood maternal?\n And lives and works, what are they all at last, except the roads to\n faith and death?)\n\n While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear Mother,\n We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in thee;\n Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or lucre--\n it is for thee, the soul in thee, electric, spiritual!\n Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in thee! cities and States in thee!\n Our freedom all in thee! our very lives in thee!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song of the Redwood-Tree", + "body": " 1\n A California song,\n A prophecy and indirection, a thought impalpable to breathe as air,\n A chorus of dryads, fading, departing, or hamadryads departing,\n A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,\n Voice of a mighty dying tree in the redwood forest dense.\n\n Farewell my brethren,\n Farewell O earth and sky, farewell ye neighboring waters,\n My time has ended, my term has come.\n\n Along the northern coast,\n Just back from the rock-bound shore and the caves,\n In the saline air from the sea in the Mendocino country,\n With the surge for base and accompaniment low and hoarse,\n With crackling blows of axes sounding musically driven by strong arms,\n Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes, there in the redwood\n forest dense,\n I heard the might tree its death-chant chanting.\n\n The choppers heard not, the camp shanties echoed not,\n The quick-ear’d teamsters and chain and jack-screw men heard not,\n As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years to\n join the refrain,\n But in my soul I plainly heard.\n\n Murmuring out of its myriad leaves,\n Down from its lofty top rising two hundred feet high,\n Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs, out of its foot-thick bark,\n That chant of the seasons and time, chant not of the past only but\n the future.\n\n You untold life of me,\n And all you venerable and innocent joys,\n Perennial hardy life of me with joys ’mid rain and many a summer sun,\n And the white snows and night and the wild winds;\n O the great patient rugged joys, my soul’s strong joys unreck’d by man,\n (For know I bear the soul befitting me, I too have consciousness, identity,\n And all the rocks and mountains have, and all the earth,)\n Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine,\n Our time, our term has come.\n\n Nor yield we mournfully majestic brothers,\n We who have grandly fill’d our time,\n With Nature’s calm content, with tacit huge delight,\n We welcome what we wrought for through the past,\n And leave the field for them.\n\n For them predicted long,\n For a superber race, they too to grandly fill their time,\n For them we abdicate, in them ourselves ye forest kings.’\n In them these skies and airs, these mountain peaks, Shasta, Nevadas,\n These huge precipitous cliffs, this amplitude, these valleys, far Yosemite,\n To be in them absorb’d, assimilated.\n\n Then to a loftier strain,\n Still prouder, more ecstatic rose the chant,\n As if the heirs, the deities of the West,\n Joining with master-tongue bore part.\n\n Not wan from Asia’s fetiches,\n Nor red from Europe’s old dynastic slaughter-house,\n (Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and\n scaffolds everywhere,\n But come from Nature’s long and harmless throes, peacefully builded thence,\n These virgin lands, lands of the Western shore,\n To the new culminating man, to you, the empire new,\n You promis’d long, we pledge, we dedicate.\n\n You occult deep volitions,\n You average spiritual manhood, purpose of all, pois’d on yourself,\n giving not taking law,\n You womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life and\n love and aught that comes from life and love,\n You unseen moral essence of all the vast materials of America, age\n upon age working in death the same as life,)\n You that, sometimes known, oftener unknown, really shape and mould\n the New World, adjusting it to Time and Space,\n You hidden national will lying in your abysms, conceal’d but ever alert,\n You past and present purposes tenaciously pursued, may-be\n unconscious of yourselves,\n Unswerv’d by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface;\n You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts,\n statutes, literatures,\n Here build your homes for good, establish here, these areas entire,\n lands of the Western shore,\n We pledge, we dedicate to you.\n\n For man of you, your characteristic race,\n Here may he hardy, sweet, gigantic grow, here tower proportionate to Nature,\n Here climb the vast pure spaces unconfined, uncheck’d by wall or roof,\n Here laugh with storm or sun, here joy, here patiently inure,\n Here heed himself, unfold himself, (not others’ formulas heed,)\n here fill his time,\n To duly fall, to aid, unreck’d at last,\n To disappear, to serve.\n\n Thus on the northern coast,\n In the echo of teamsters’ calls and the clinking chains, and the\n music of choppers’ axes,\n The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the groan,\n Such words combined from the redwood-tree, as of voices ecstatic,\n ancient and rustling,\n The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing,\n All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving,\n From the Cascade range to the Wahsatch, or Idaho far, or Utah,\n To the deities of the modern henceforth yielding,\n The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity, the\n settlements, features all,\n In the Mendocino woods I caught.\n\n 2\n The flashing and golden pageant of California,\n The sudden and gorgeous drama, the sunny and ample lands,\n The long and varied stretch from Puget sound to Colorado south,\n Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air, valleys and mountain cliffs,\n The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow, the silent, cyclic chemistry,\n The slow and steady ages plodding, the unoccupied surface ripening,\n the rich ores forming beneath;\n At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,\n A swarming and busy race settling and organizing everywhere,\n Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the\n whole world,\n To India and China and Australia and the thousand island paradises\n of the Pacific,\n Populous cities, the latest inventions, the steamers on the rivers,\n the railroads, with many a thrifty farm, with machinery,\n And wool and wheat and the grape, and diggings of yellow gold.\n\n 3\n But more in you than these, lands of the Western shore,\n (These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,)\n I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years,\n till now deferr’d,\n Promis’d to be fulfill’d, our common kind, the race.\n\n The new society at last, proportionate to Nature,\n In man of you, more than your mountain peaks or stalwart trees imperial,\n In woman more, far more, than all your gold or vines, or even vital air.\n\n Fresh come, to a new world indeed, yet long prepared,\n I see the genius of the modern, child of the real and ideal,\n Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of\n the past so grand,\n To build a grander future.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Song for Occupations", + "body": " 1\n A song for occupations!\n In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find\n the developments,\n And find the eternal meanings.\n\n Workmen and Workwomen!\n Were all educations practical and ornamental well display’d out of\n me, what would it amount to?\n Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman,\n what would it amount to?\n Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?\n\n The learn’d, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms,\n A man like me and never the usual terms.\n\n Neither a servant nor a master I,\n I take no sooner a large price than a small price, I will have my\n own whoever enjoys me,\n I will be even with you and you shall be even with me.\n\n If you stand at work in a shop I stand as nigh as the nighest in the\n same shop,\n If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend I demand as\n good as your brother or dearest friend,\n If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must be\n personally as welcome,\n If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake,\n If you remember your foolish and outlaw’d deeds, do you think I\n cannot remember my own foolish and outlaw’d deeds?\n If you carouse at the table I carouse at the opposite side of the table,\n If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, why\n I often meet strangers in the street and love them.\n\n Why what have you thought of yourself?\n Is it you then that thought yourself less?\n Is it you that thought the President greater than you?\n Or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you?\n\n (Because you are greasy or pimpled, or were once drunk, or a thief,\n Or that you are diseas’d, or rheumatic, or a prostitute,\n Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholar and never\n saw your name in print,\n Do you give in that you are any less immortal?)\n\n 2\n Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard,\n untouchable and untouching,\n It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether\n you are alive or no,\n I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.\n\n Grown, half-grown and babe, of this country and every country,\n in-doors and out-doors, one just as much as the other, I see,\n And all else behind or through them.\n\n The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband,\n The daughter, and she is just as good as the son,\n The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father.\n\n Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades,\n Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms,\n Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants,\n All these I see, but nigher and farther the same I see,\n None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me.\n\n I bring what you much need yet always have,\n Not money, amours, dress, eating, erudition, but as good,\n I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but\n offer the value itself.\n\n There is something that comes to one now and perpetually,\n It is not what is printed, preach’d, discussed, it eludes discussion\n and print,\n It is not to be put in a book, it is not in this book,\n It is for you whoever you are, it is no farther from you than your\n hearing and sight are from you,\n It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest, it is ever provoked by them.\n\n You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it,\n You may read the President’s message and read nothing about it there,\n Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury\n department, or in the daily papers or weekly papers,\n Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts\n of stock.\n\n 3\n The sun and stars that float in the open air,\n The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of them is\n something grand,\n I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness,\n And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation or\n bon-mot or reconnoissance,\n And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us,\n and without luck must be a failure for us,\n And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency.\n\n The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the\n greed that with perfect complaisance devours all things,\n The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows,\n The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the wonders\n that fill each minute of time forever,\n What have you reckon’d them for, camerado?\n Have you reckon’d them for your trade or farm-work? or for the\n profits of your store?\n Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman’s leisure,\n or a lady’s leisure?\n\n Have you reckon’d that the landscape took substance and form that it\n might be painted in a picture?\n Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung?\n Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmonious combinations\n and the fluids of the air, as subjects for the savans?\n Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts?\n Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names?\n Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or\n agriculture itself?\n\n Old institutions, these arts, libraries, legends, collections, and\n the practice handed along in manufactures, will we rate them so high?\n Will we rate our cash and business high? I have no objection,\n I rate them as high as the highest--then a child born of a woman and\n man I rate beyond all rate.\n\n We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution grand,\n I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are,\n I am this day just as much in love with them as you,\n Then I am in love with You, and with all my fellows upon the earth.\n\n We consider bibles and religions divine--I do not say they are not divine,\n I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still,\n It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life,\n Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth,\n than they are shed out of you.\n\n 4\n The sum of all known reverence I add up in you whoever you are,\n The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who\n are here for him,\n The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them,\n The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you,\n Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the\n going and coming of commerce and malls, are all for you.\n\n List close my scholars dear,\n Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you,\n Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you,\n The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records\n reach is in you this hour, and myths and tales the same,\n If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be?\n The most renown’d poems would be ashes, orations and plays would\n be vacuums.\n\n All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it,\n (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of\n the arches and cornices?)\n\n All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments,\n It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the\n beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his\n sweet romanza, nor that of the men’s chorus, nor that of the\n women’s chorus,\n It is nearer and farther than they.\n\n 5\n Will the whole come back then?\n Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? is\n there nothing greater or more?\n Does all sit there with you, with the mystic unseen soul?\n\n Strange and hard that paradox true I give,\n Objects gross and the unseen soul are one.\n\n House-building, measuring, sawing the boards,\n Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing,\n shingle-dressing,\n Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, flagging of sidewalks by flaggers,\n The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brickkiln,\n Coal-mines and all that is down there, the lamps in the darkness,\n echoes, songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughts\n looking through smutch’d faces,\n Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains or by river-banks, men\n around feeling the melt with huge crowbars, lumps of ore, the\n due combining of ore, limestone, coal,\n The blast-furnace and the puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the\n bottom of the melt at last, the rolling-mill, the stumpy bars\n of pig-iron, the strong clean-shaped Trail for railroads,\n Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead-works, the sugar-house,\n steam-saws, the great mills and factories,\n Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for facades or window or door-lintels,\n the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb,\n The calking-iron, the kettle of boiling vault-cement, and the fire\n under the kettle,\n The cotton-bale, the stevedore’s hook, the saw and buck of the\n sawyer, the mould of the moulder, the working-knife of the\n butcher, the ice-saw, and all the work with ice,\n The work and tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block-maker,\n Goods of gutta-percha, papier-mache, colors, brushes, brush-making,\n glazier’s implements,\n The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner’s ornaments, the decanter\n and glasses, the shears and flat-iron,\n The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the\n counter and stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal, the making\n of all sorts of edged tools,\n The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, every thing that is done\n by brewers, wine-makers, vinegar-makers,\n Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting,\n distilling, sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking,\n electroplating, electrotyping, stereotyping,\n Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines,\n ploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam wagons,\n The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray,\n Pyrotechny, letting off color’d fireworks at night, fancy figures and jets;\n Beef on the butcher’s stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the\n butcher in his killing-clothes,\n The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the\n scalder’s tub, gutting, the cutter’s cleaver, the packer’s maul,\n and the plenteous winterwork of pork-packing,\n Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice, the barrels and\n the half and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the high piles\n on wharves and levees,\n The men and the work of the men on ferries, railroads, coasters,\n fish-boats, canals;\n The hourly routine of your own or any man’s life, the shop, yard,\n store, or factory,\n These shows all near you by day and night--workman! whoever you\n are, your daily life!\n\n In that and them the heft of the heaviest--in that and them far more\n than you estimated, (and far less also,)\n In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and me,\n In them, not yourself-you and your soul enclose all things,\n regardless of estimation,\n In them the development good--in them all themes, hints, possibilities.\n\n I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile, I do not advise\n you to stop,\n I do not say leadings you thought great are not great,\n But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to.\n\n 6\n Will you seek afar off? you surely come back at last,\n In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best,\n In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest,\n Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place, not for\n another hour but this hour,\n Man in the first you see or touch, always in friend, brother,\n nighest neighbor--woman in mother, sister, wife,\n The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or anywhere,\n You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own divine\n and strong life,\n And all else giving place to men and women like you.\n When the psalm sings instead of the singer,\n\n When the script preaches instead of the preacher,\n When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved\n the supporting desk,\n When I can touch the body of books by night or by day, and when they\n touch my body back again,\n When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child\n convince,\n When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman’s daughter,\n When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendly\n companions,\n I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do\n of men and women like you.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Song of the Rolling Earth", + "body": " 1\n A song of the rolling earth, and of words according,\n Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines?\n those curves, angles, dots?\n No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground\n and sea,\n They are in the air, they are in you.\n\n Were you thinking that those were the words, those delicious sounds\n out of your friends’ mouths?\n No, the real words are more delicious than they.\n\n Human bodies are words, myriads of words,\n (In the best poems re-appears the body, man’s or woman’s,\n well-shaped, natural, gay,\n Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame.)\n\n Air, soil, water, fire--those are words,\n I myself am a word with them--my qualities interpenetrate with\n theirs--my name is nothing to them,\n Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would\n air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?\n\n A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words,\n sayings, meanings,\n The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women,\n are sayings and meanings also.\n\n The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the earth,\n The masters know the earth’s words and use them more than audible words.\n\n Amelioration is one of the earth’s words,\n The earth neither lags nor hastens,\n It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump,\n It is not half beautiful only, defects and excrescences show just as\n much as perfections show.\n\n The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough,\n The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so conceal’d either,\n They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print,\n They are imbued through all things conveying themselves willingly,\n Conveying a sentiment and invitation, I utter and utter,\n I speak not, yet if you hear me not of what avail am I to you?\n To bear, to better, lacking these of what avail am I?\n\n (Accouche! accouchez!\n Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there?\n Will you squat and stifle there?)\n\n The earth does not argue,\n Is not pathetic, has no arrangements,\n Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise,\n Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures,\n Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out,\n Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out.\n\n The earth does not exhibit itself nor refuse to exhibit itself,\n possesses still underneath,\n Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the\n wail of slaves,\n Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of young\n people, accents of bargainers,\n Underneath these possessing words that never fall.\n\n To her children the words of the eloquent dumb great mother never fail,\n The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail and reflection\n does not fall,\n Also the day and night do not fall, and the voyage we pursue does not fall.\n\n Of the interminable sisters,\n Of the ceaseless cotillons of sisters,\n Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters,\n The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest.\n\n With her ample back towards every beholder,\n With the fascinations of youth and the equal fascinations of age,\n Sits she whom I too love like the rest, sits undisturb’d,\n Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her\n eyes glance back from it,\n Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none,\n Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face.\n\n Seen at hand or seen at a distance,\n Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day,\n Duly approach and pass with their companions or a companion,\n Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the countenances\n of those who are with them,\n From the countenances of children or women or the manly countenance,\n From the open countenances of animals or from inanimate things,\n From the landscape or waters or from the exquisite apparition of the sky,\n From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning them,\n Every day in public appearing without fall, but never twice with the\n same companions.\n\n Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred and\n sixty-five resistlessly round the sun;\n Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred and\n sixty-five offsets of the first, sure and necessary as they.\n\n Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading,\n Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, forever withstanding, passing, carrying,\n The soul’s realization and determination still inheriting,\n The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing,\n No balk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking,\n Swift, glad, content, unbereav’d, nothing losing,\n Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account,\n The divine ship sails the divine sea.\n\n 2\n Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you,\n The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.\n\n Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid,\n You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky,\n For none more than you are the present and the past,\n For none more than you is immortality.\n\n Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the\n past and present, and the true word of immortality;\n No one can acquire for another--not one,\n Not one can grow for another--not one.\n\n The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,\n The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him,\n The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him,\n The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him,\n The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,\n The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him--it cannot fail,\n The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress\n not to the audience,\n And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or\n the indication of his own.\n\n 3\n I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall\n be complete,\n The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains\n jagged and broken.\n\n I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those\n of the earth,\n There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate the\n theory of the earth,\n No politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account,\n unless it compare with the amplitude of the earth,\n Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of\n the earth.\n\n I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which\n responds love,\n It is that which contains itself, which never invites and never refuses.\n\n I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words,\n All merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth,\n Toward him who sings the songs of the body and of the truths of the earth,\n Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch.\n\n I swear I see what is better than to tell the best,\n It is always to leave the best untold.\n\n When I undertake to tell the best I find I cannot,\n My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots,\n My breath will not be obedient to its organs,\n I become a dumb man.\n\n The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow, all or any is best,\n It is not what you anticipated, it is cheaper, easier, nearer,\n Things are not dismiss’d from the places they held before,\n The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before,\n Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before,\n But the soul is also real, it too is positive and direct,\n No reasoning, no proof has establish’d it,\n Undeniable growth has establish’d it.\n\n 4\n These to echo the tones of souls and the phrases of souls,\n (If they did not echo the phrases of souls what were they then?\n If they had not reference to you in especial what were they then?)\n\n I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells\n the best,\n I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold.\n\n Say on, sayers! sing on, singers!\n Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!\n Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost,\n It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use,\n When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.\n\n I swear to you the architects shall appear without fall,\n I swear to you they will understand you and justify you,\n The greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses\n all and is faithful to all,\n He and the rest shall not forget you, they shall perceive that you\n are not an iota less than they,\n You shall be fully glorified in them.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Youth, Day, Old Age and Night", + "body": " Youth, large, lusty, loving--youth full of grace, force, fascination,\n Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace,\n force, fascination?\n\n Day full-blown and splendid-day of the immense sun, action,\n ambition, laughter,\n The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and\n restoring darkness.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song of the Universal", + "body": " 1\n Come said the Muse,\n Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,\n Sing me the universal.\n\n In this broad earth of ours,\n Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,\n Enclosed and safe within its central heart,\n Nestles the seed perfection.\n\n By every life a share or more or less,\n None born but it is born, conceal’d or unconceal’d the seed is waiting.\n\n 2\n Lo! keen-eyed towering science,\n As from tall peaks the modern overlooking,\n Successive absolute fiats issuing.\n\n Yet again, lo! the soul, above all science,\n For it has history gather’d like husks around the globe,\n For it the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.\n\n In spiral routes by long detours,\n (As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,)\n For it the partial to the permanent flowing,\n For it the real to the ideal tends.\n\n For it the mystic evolution,\n Not the right only justified, what we call evil also justified.\n\n Forth from their masks, no matter what,\n From the huge festering trunk, from craft and guile and tears,\n Health to emerge and joy, joy universal.\n\n Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow,\n Out of the bad majority, the varied countless frauds of men and states,\n Electric, antiseptic yet, cleaving, suffusing all,\n Only the good is universal.\n\n 3\n Over the mountain-growths disease and sorrow,\n An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,\n High in the purer, happier air.\n\n From imperfection’s murkiest cloud,\n Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,\n One flash of heaven’s glory.\n\n To fashion’s, custom’s discord,\n To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,\n Soothing each lull a strain is heard, just heard,\n From some far shore the final chorus sounding.\n\n O the blest eyes, the happy hearts,\n That see, that know the guiding thread so fine,\n Along the mighty labyrinth.\n\n 4\n And thou America,\n For the scheme’s culmination, its thought and its reality,\n For these (not for thyself) thou hast arrived.\n\n Thou too surroundest all,\n Embracing carrying welcoming all, thou too by pathways broad and new,\n To the ideal tendest.\n\n The measure’d faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past,\n Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own,\n Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,\n All eligible to all.\n\n All, all for immortality,\n Love like the light silently wrapping all,\n Nature’s amelioration blessing all,\n The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,\n Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.\n\n Give me O God to sing that thought,\n Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,\n In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us,\n Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,\n Health, peace, salvation universal.\n\n Is it a dream?\n Nay but the lack of it the dream,\n And failing it life’s lore and wealth a dream,\n And all the world a dream.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Pioneers! O Pioneers!", + "body": " Come my tan-faced children,\n Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,\n Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n For we cannot tarry here,\n We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,\n We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n O you youths, Western youths,\n So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,\n Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n Have the elder races halted?\n Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?\n We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n All the past we leave behind,\n We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,\n Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n We detachments steady throwing,\n Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,\n Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n We primeval forests felling,\n We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,\n We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n Colorado men are we,\n From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,\n From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n From Nebraska, from Arkansas,\n Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental\n blood intervein’d,\n All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n O resistless restless race!\n O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!\n O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n Raise the mighty mother mistress,\n Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,\n (bend your heads all,)\n Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n See my children, resolute children,\n By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,\n Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n On and on the compact ranks,\n With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d,\n Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n O to die advancing on!\n Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?\n Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d.\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n All the pulses of the world,\n Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,\n Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,\n All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,\n All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n All the hapless silent lovers,\n All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,\n All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n I too with my soul and body,\n We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,\n Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n Lo, the darting bowling orb!\n Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,\n All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n These are of us, they are with us,\n All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,\n We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n O you daughters of the West!\n O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!\n Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n Minstrels latent on the prairies!\n (Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)\n Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n Not for delectations sweet,\n Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,\n Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n Do the feasters gluttonous feast?\n Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?\n Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n Has the night descended?\n Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding\n on our way?\n Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!\n\n Till with sound of trumpet,\n Far, far off the daybreak call--hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,\n Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places,\n Pioneers! O pioneers!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To You", + "body": " Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,\n I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands,\n Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,\n troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,\n Your true soul and body appear before me.\n They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work,\n farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking,\n suffering, dying.\n\n Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,\n I whisper with my lips close to your ear.\n I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.\n\n O I have been dilatory and dumb,\n I should have made my way straight to you long ago,\n I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing\n but you.\n\n I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,\n None has understood you, but I understand you,\n None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself,\n None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you,\n None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent\n to subordinate you,\n I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God,\n beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.\n\n Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-figure of all,\n From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light,\n But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus\n of gold-color’d light,\n From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it streams,\n effulgently flowing forever.\n\n O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!\n You have not known what you are, you have slumber’d upon yourself\n all your life,\n Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,\n What you have done returns already in mockeries,\n (Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in\n mockeries, what is their return?)\n\n The mockeries are not you,\n Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,\n I pursue you where none else has pursued you,\n Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the\n accustom’d routine, if these conceal you from others or from\n yourself, they do not conceal you from me,\n The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these\n balk others they do not balk me,\n The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed,\n premature death, all these I part aside.\n\n There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you,\n There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you,\n No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,\n No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.\n\n As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like carefully\n to you,\n I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing\n the songs of the glory of you.\n\n Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!\n These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,\n These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are immense\n and interminable as they,\n These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent\n dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,\n Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain,\n passion, dissolution.\n\n The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency,\n Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,\n whatever you are promulges itself,\n Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing\n is scanted,\n Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are\n picks its way.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "France [the 18th Year of these States", + "body": " A great year and place\n A harsh discordant natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother’s\n heart closer than any yet.\n\n I walk’d the shores of my Eastern sea,\n Heard over the waves the little voice,\n Saw the divine infant where she woke mournfully wailing, amid the\n roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings,\n Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running, nor from the single\n corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the tumbrils,\n Was not so desperate at the battues of death--was not so shock’d at\n the repeated fusillades of the guns.\n\n Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?\n Could I wish humanity different?\n Could I wish the people made of wood and stone?\n Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?\n\n O Liberty! O mate for me!\n Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, to fetch\n them out in case of need,\n Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy’d,\n Here too could rise at last murdering and ecstatic,\n Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.\n\n Hence I sign this salute over the sea,\n And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,\n But remember the little voice that I heard wailing, and wait with\n perfect trust, no matter how long,\n And from to-day sad and cogent I maintain the bequeath’d cause, as\n for all lands,\n And I send these words to Paris with my love,\n And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them,\n For I guess there is latent music yet in France, floods of it,\n O I hear already the bustle of instruments, they will soon be\n drowning all that would interrupt them,\n O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,\n It reaches hither, it swells me to Joyful madness,\n I will run transpose it in words, to justify\n I will yet sing a song for you ma femme.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Myself and Mine", + "body": " Myself and mine gymnastic ever,\n To stand the cold or heat, to take good aim with a gun, to sail a\n boat, to manage horses, to beget superb children,\n To speak readily and clearly, to feel at home among common people,\n And to hold our own in terrible positions on land and sea.\n\n Not for an embroiderer,\n (There will always be plenty of embroiderers, I welcome them also,)\n But for the fibre of things and for inherent men and women.\n\n Not to chisel ornaments,\n But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous\n supreme Gods, that the States may realize them walking and talking.\n\n Let me have my own way,\n Let others promulge the laws, I will make no account of the laws,\n Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace, I hold up agitation\n and conflict,\n I praise no eminent man, I rebuke to his face the one that was\n thought most worthy.\n\n (Who are you? and what are you secretly guilty of all your life?\n Will you turn aside all your life? will you grub and chatter all\n your life?\n And who are you, blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages, reminiscences,\n Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak properly a single word?)\n\n Let others finish specimens, I never finish specimens,\n I start them by exhaustless laws as Nature does, fresh and modern\n continually.\n\n I give nothing as duties,\n What others give as duties I give as living impulses,\n (Shall I give the heart’s action as a duty?)\n\n Let others dispose of questions, I dispose of nothing, I arouse\n unanswerable questions,\n Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?\n What about these likes of myself that draw me so close by tender\n directions and indirections?\n\n I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but\n listen to my enemies, as I myself do,\n I charge you forever reject those who would expound me, for I cannot\n expound myself,\n I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me,\n I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.\n\n After me, vista!\n O I see life is not short, but immeasurably long,\n I henceforth tread the world chaste, temperate, an early riser, a\n steady grower,\n Every hour the semen of centuries, and still of centuries.\n\n I must follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth,\n I perceive I have no time to lose.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Year of Meteors [1859-60", + "body": " Year of meteors! brooding year!\n I would bind in words retrospective some of your deeds and signs,\n I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad,\n I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the\n scaffold in Virginia,\n (I was at hand, silent I stood with teeth shut close, I watch’d,\n I stood very near you old man when cool and indifferent, but trembling\n with age and your unheal’d wounds you mounted the scaffold;)\n I would sing in my copious song your census returns of the States,\n The tables of population and products, I would sing of your ships\n and their cargoes,\n The proud black ships of Manhattan arriving, some fill’d with\n immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of gold,\n Songs thereof would I sing, to all that hitherward comes would welcome give,\n And you would I sing, fair stripling! welcome to you from me, young\n prince of England!\n (Remember you surging Manhattan’s crowds as you pass’d with your\n cortege of nobles?\n There in the crowds stood I, and singled you out with attachment;)\n Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she swam up my bay,\n Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my bay, she was\n 600 feet long,\n Her moving swiftly surrounded by myriads of small craft I forget not\n to sing;\n Nor the comet that came unannounced out of the north flaring in heaven,\n Nor the strange huge meteor-procession dazzling and clear shooting\n over our heads,\n (A moment, a moment long it sail’d its balls of unearthly light over\n our heads,\n Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)\n Of such, and fitful as they, I sing--with gleams from them would\n gleam and patch these chants,\n Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good--year of forebodings!\n Year of comets and meteors transient and strange--lo! even here one\n equally transient and strange!\n As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone, what is this chant,\n What am I myself but one of your meteors?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "With Antecedents", + "body": " 1\n With antecedents,\n With my fathers and mothers and the accumulations of past ages,\n With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am,\n With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome,\n With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb and the Saxon,\n With antique maritime ventures, laws, artisanship, wars and journeys,\n With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle,\n With the sale of slaves, with enthusiasts, with the troubadour, the\n crusader, and the monk,\n With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent,\n With the fading kingdoms and kings over there,\n With the fading religions and priests,\n With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present shores,\n With countless years drawing themselves onward and arrived at these years,\n You and me arrived--America arrived and making this year,\n This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.\n\n 2\n O but it is not the years--it is I, it is You,\n We touch all laws and tally all antecedents,\n We are the skald, the oracle, the monk and the knight, we easily\n include them and more,\n We stand amid time beginningless and endless, we stand amid evil and good,\n All swings around us, there is as much darkness as light,\n The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us,\n Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.\n\n As for me, (torn, stormy, amid these vehement days,)\n I have the idea of all, and am all and believe in all,\n I believe materialism is true and spiritualism is true, I reject no part.\n\n (Have I forgotten any part? any thing in the past?\n Come to me whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.)\n\n I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews,\n I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demigod,\n I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without\n exception,\n I assert that all past days were what they must have been,\n And that they could no-how have been better than they were,\n And that to-day is what it must be, and that America is,\n And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.\n\n 3\n In the name of these States and in your and my name, the Past,\n And in the name of these States and in your and my name, the Present time.\n\n I know that the past was great and the future will be great,\n And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time,\n (For the sake of him I typify, for the common average man’s sake,\n your sake if you are he,)\n And that where I am or you are this present day, there is the centre\n of all days, all races,\n And there is the meaning to us of all that has ever come of races\n and days, or ever will come.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Broadway Pageant", + "body": " 1\n Over the Western sea hither from Niphon come,\n Courteous, the swart-cheek’d two-sworded envoys,\n Leaning back in their open barouches, bare-headed, impassive,\n Ride to-day through Manhattan.\n\n Libertad! I do not know whether others behold what I behold,\n In the procession along with the nobles of Niphon, the errand-bearers,\n Bringing up the rear, hovering above, around, or in the ranks marching,\n But I will sing you a song of what I behold Libertad.\n\n When million-footed Manhattan unpent descends to her pavements,\n When the thunder-cracking guns arouse me with the proud roar love,\n When the round-mouth’d guns out of the smoke and smell I love\n spit their salutes,\n When the fire-flashing guns have fully alerted me, and\n heaven-clouds canopy my city with a delicate thin haze,\n When gorgeous the countless straight stems, the forests at the\n wharves, thicken with colors,\n When every ship richly drest carries her flag at the peak,\n When pennants trail and street-festoons hang from the windows,\n When Broadway is entirely given up to foot-passengers and\n foot-standers, when the mass is densest,\n When the facades of the houses are alive with people, when eyes\n gaze riveted tens of thousands at a time,\n When the guests from the islands advance, when the pageant moves\n forward visible,\n When the summons is made, when the answer that waited thousands\n of years answers,\n I too arising, answering, descend to the pavements, merge with the\n crowd, and gaze with them.\n\n 2\n Superb-faced Manhattan!\n Comrade Americanos! to us, then at last the Orient comes.\n To us, my city,\n Where our tall-topt marble and iron beauties range on opposite\n sides, to walk in the space between,\n To-day our Antipodes comes.\n\n The Originatress comes,\n The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of eld,\n Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,\n Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,\n With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,\n The race of Brahma comes.\n\n See my cantabile! these and more are flashing to us from the procession,\n As it moves changing, a kaleidoscope divine it moves changing before us.\n\n\n For not the envoys nor the tann’d Japanee from his island only,\n Lithe and silent the Hindoo appears, the Asiatic continent itself\n appears, the past, the dead,\n The murky night-morning of wonder and fable inscrutable,\n The envelop’d mysteries, the old and unknown hive-bees,\n The north, the sweltering south, eastern Assyria, the Hebrews, the\n ancient of ancients,\n Vast desolated cities, the gliding present, all of these and more\n are in the pageant-procession.\n\n Geography, the world, is in it,\n The Great Sea, the brood of islands, Polynesia, the coast beyond,\n The coast you henceforth are facing--you Libertad! from your Western\n golden shores,\n The countries there with their populations, the millions en-masse\n are curiously here,\n The swarming market-places, the temples with idols ranged along the\n sides or at the end, bonze, brahmin, and llama,\n Mandarin, farmer, merchant, mechanic, and fisherman,\n The singing-girl and the dancing-girl, the ecstatic persons, the\n secluded emperors,\n Confucius himself, the great poets and heroes, the warriors, the castes,\n all,\n Trooping up, crowding from all directions, from the Altay mountains,\n From Thibet, from the four winding and far-flowing rivers of China,\n From the southern peninsulas and the demi-continental islands, from\n Malaysia,\n These and whatever belongs to them palpable show forth to me, and\n are seiz’d by me,\n And I am seiz’d by them, and friendlily held by them,\n Till as here them all I chant, Libertad! for themselves and for you.\n\n For I too raising my voice join the ranks of this pageant,\n I am the chanter, I chant aloud over the pageant,\n I chant the world on my Western sea,\n I chant copious the islands beyond, thick as stars in the sky,\n I chant the new empire grander than any before, as in a vision it\n comes to me,\n I chant America the mistress, I chant a greater supremacy,\n I chant projected a thousand blooming cities yet in time on those\n groups of sea-islands,\n My sail-ships and steam-ships threading the archipelagoes,\n My stars and stripes fluttering in the wind,\n Commerce opening, the sleep of ages having done its work, races\n reborn, refresh’d,\n Lives, works resumed--the object I know not--but the old, the Asiatic\n renew’d as it must be,\n Commencing from this day surrounded by the world.\n\n 3\n And you Libertad of the world!\n You shall sit in the middle well-pois’d thousands and thousands of years,\n As to-day from one side the nobles of Asia come to you,\n As to-morrow from the other side the queen of England sends her\n eldest son to you.\n\n The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed,\n The ring is circled, the journey is done,\n The box-lid is but perceptibly open’d, nevertheless the perfume\n pours copiously out of the whole box.\n\n Young Libertad! with the venerable Asia, the all-mother,\n Be considerate with her now and ever hot Libertad, for you are all,\n Bend your proud neck to the long-off mother now sending messages\n over the archipelagoes to you,\n Bend your proud neck low for once, young Libertad.\n\n Here the children straying westward so long? so wide the tramping?\n Were the precedent dim ages debouching westward from Paradise so long?\n Were the centuries steadily footing it that way, all the while\n unknown, for you, for reasons?\n\n They are justified, they are accomplish’d, they shall now be turn’d\n the other way also, to travel toward you thence,\n They shall now also march obediently eastward for your sake Libertad.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking", + "body": " Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,\n Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,\n Out of the Ninth-month midnight,\n Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child\n leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,\n Down from the shower’d halo,\n Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they\n were alive,\n Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,\n From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,\n From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,\n From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,\n From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,\n From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,\n From the myriad thence-arous’d words,\n From the word stronger and more delicious than any,\n From such as now they start the scene revisiting,\n As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,\n Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,\n A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,\n Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,\n I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,\n Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,\n A reminiscence sing.\n\n Once Paumanok,\n When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing,\n Up this seashore in some briers,\n Two feather’d guests from Alabama, two together,\n And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,\n And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,\n And every day the she-bird crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,\n And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing\n them,\n Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.\n\n Shine! shine! shine!\n Pour down your warmth, great sun.’\n While we bask, we two together.\n\n Two together!\n Winds blow south, or winds blow north,\n Day come white, or night come black,\n Home, or rivers and mountains from home,\n Singing all time, minding no time,\n While we two keep together.\n\n Till of a sudden,\n May-be kill’d, unknown to her mate,\n One forenoon the she-bird crouch’d not on the nest,\n Nor return’d that afternoon, nor the next,\n Nor ever appear’d again.\n\n And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,\n And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather,\n Over the hoarse surging of the sea,\n Or flitting from brier to brier by day,\n I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,\n The solitary guest from Alabama.\n\n Blow! blow! blow!\n Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok’s shore;\n I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.\n\n Yes, when the stars glisten’d,\n All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop’d stake,\n Down almost amid the slapping waves,\n Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears.\n\n He call’d on his mate,\n He pour’d forth the meanings which I of all men know.\n\n Yes my brother I know,\n The rest might not, but I have treasur’d every note,\n For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,\n Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,\n Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights\n after their sorts,\n The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,\n I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,\n Listen’d long and long.\n\n Listen’d to keep, to sing, now translating the notes,\n Following you my brother.\n\n Soothe! soothe! soothe!\n Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,\n And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close,\n But my love soothes not me, not me.\n\n Low hangs the moon, it rose late,\n It is lagging--O I think it is heavy with love, with love.\n\n O madly the sea pushes upon the land,\n With love, with love.\n\n O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers?\n What is that little black thing I see there in the white?\n\n Loud! loud! loud!\n Loud I call to you, my love!\n High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves,\n Surely you must know who is here, is here,\n You must know who I am, my love.\n\n Low-hanging moon!\n What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?\n O it is the shape, the shape of my mate.’\n O moon do not keep her from me any longer.\n\n Land! land! O land!\n Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again\n if you only would,\n For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.\n\n O rising stars!\n Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.\n\n O throat! O trembling throat!\n Sound clearer through the atmosphere!\n Pierce the woods, the earth,\n Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want.\n\n Shake out carols!\n Solitary here, the night’s carols!\n Carols of lonesome love! death’s carols!\n Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!\n O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea!\n O reckless despairing carols.\n\n But soft! sink low!\n Soft! let me just murmur,\n And do you wait a moment you husky-nois’d sea,\n For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,\n So faint, I must be still, be still to listen,\n But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me.\n\n Hither my love!\n Here I am! here!\n With this just-sustain’d note I announce myself to you,\n This gentle call is for you my love, for you.\n\n Do not be decoy’d elsewhere,\n That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice,\n That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray,\n Those are the shadows of leaves.\n\n O darkness! O in vain!\n O I am very sick and sorrowful\n\n O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea!\n O troubled reflection in the sea!\n O throat! O throbbing heart!\n And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.\n\n O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!\n In the air, in the woods, over fields,\n Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!\n But my mate no more, no more with me!\n We two together no more.\n\n The aria sinking,\n All else continuing, the stars shining,\n The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,\n With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,\n On the sands of Paumanok’s shore gray and rustling,\n The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of\n the sea almost touching,\n The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the\n atmosphere dallying,\n The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously\n bursting,\n The aria’s meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,\n The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,\n The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering,\n The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,\n To the boy’s soul’s questions sullenly timing, some drown’d secret hissing,\n To the outsetting bard.\n\n Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul,)\n Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?\n For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, now I have heard you,\n Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,\n And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder\n and more sorrowful than yours,\n A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die.\n\n O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,\n O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you,\n Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,\n Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,\n Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what\n there in the night,\n By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,\n The messenger there arous’d, the fire, the sweet hell within,\n The unknown want, the destiny of me.\n\n O give me the clue! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,)\n O if I am to have so much, let me have more!\n\n A word then, (for I will conquer it,)\n The word final, superior to all,\n Subtle, sent up--what is it?--I listen;\n Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?\n Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?\n\n Whereto answering, the sea,\n Delaying not, hurrying not,\n Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,\n Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death,\n And again death, death, death, death\n Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous’d child’s heart,\n But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,\n Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,\n Death, death, death, death, death.\n\n Which I do not forget.\n But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,\n That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach,\n With the thousand responsive songs at random,\n My own songs awaked from that hour,\n And with them the key, the word up from the waves,\n The word of the sweetest song and all songs,\n That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,\n (Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet\n garments, bending aside,)\n The sea whisper’d me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life", + "body": " 1\n As I ebb’d with the ocean of life,\n As I wended the shores I know,\n As I walk’d where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,\n Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,\n Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,\n I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,\n Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems,\n Was seiz’d by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,\n The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land\n of the globe.\n\n Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those\n slender windrows,\n Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,\n Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide,\n Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me,\n Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses,\n These you presented to me you fish-shaped island,\n As I wended the shores I know,\n As I walk’d with that electric self seeking types.\n\n 2\n As I wend to the shores I know not,\n As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck’d,\n As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,\n As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,\n I too but signify at the utmost a little wash’d-up drift,\n A few sands and dead leaves to gather,\n Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.\n\n O baffled, balk’d, bent to the very earth,\n Oppress’d with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,\n Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have\n not once had the least idea who or what I am,\n But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet\n untouch’d, untold, altogether unreach’d,\n Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,\n With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,\n Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.\n\n I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single\n object, and that no man ever can,\n Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon\n me and sting me,\n Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.\n\n 3\n You oceans both, I close with you,\n We murmur alike reproachfully rolling sands and drift, knowing not why,\n These little shreds indeed standing for you and me and all.\n\n You friable shore with trails of debris,\n You fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot,\n What is yours is mine my father.\n\n I too Paumanok,\n I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been\n wash’d on your shores,\n I too am but a trail of drift and debris,\n I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island.\n\n I throw myself upon your breast my father,\n I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,\n I hold you so firm till you answer me something.\n\n Kiss me my father,\n Touch me with your lips as I touch those I love,\n Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the murmuring I envy.\n\n 4\n Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,)\n Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother,\n Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me,\n Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or\n gather from you.\n\n I mean tenderly by you and all,\n I gather for myself and for this phantom looking down where we lead,\n and following me and mine.\n\n Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses,\n Froth, snowy white, and bubbles,\n (See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last,\n See, the prismatic colors glistening and rolling,)\n Tufts of straw, sands, fragments,\n Buoy’d hither from many moods, one contradicting another,\n From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell,\n Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil,\n Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown,\n A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating,\n drifted at random,\n Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature,\n Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud-trumpets,\n We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread out before you,\n You up there walking or sitting,\n Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Tears", + "body": " Tears! tears! tears!\n In the night, in solitude, tears,\n On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck’d in by the sand,\n Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate,\n Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head;\n O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears?\n What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch’d there on the sand?\n Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries;\n O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the beach!\n O wild and dismal night storm, with wind--O belching and desperate!\n O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and\n regulated pace,\n But away at night as you fly, none looking--O then the unloosen’d ocean,\n Of tears! tears! tears!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To the Man-of-War-Bird", + "body": " Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,\n Waking renew’d on thy prodigious pinions,\n (Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended’st,\n And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)\n Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,\n As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,\n (Myself a speck, a point on the world’s floating vast.)\n\n Far, far at sea,\n After the night’s fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks,\n With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene,\n The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,\n The limpid spread of air cerulean,\n Thou also re-appearest.\n\n Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)\n To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,\n Thou ship of air that never furl’st thy sails,\n Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,\n At dusk that lookist on Senegal, at morn America,\n That sport’st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,\n In them, in thy experiences, had’st thou my soul,\n What joys! what joys were thine!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Aboard at a Ship’s Helm", + "body": " Aboard at a ship’s helm,\n A young steersman steering with care.\n\n Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing,\n An ocean-bell--O a warning bell, rock’d by the waves.\n\n O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing,\n Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place.\n\n For as on the alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition,\n The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her gray sails,\n The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds\n away gayly and safe.\n\n But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship!\n Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "On the Beach at Night", + "body": " On the beach at night,\n Stands a child with her father,\n Watching the east, the autumn sky.\n\n Up through the darkness,\n While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,\n Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,\n Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,\n Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,\n And nigh at hand, only a very little above,\n Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.\n\n From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,\n Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,\n Watching, silently weeps.\n\n Weep not, child,\n Weep not, my darling,\n With these kisses let me remove your tears,\n The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,\n They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in\n apparition,\n Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the\n Pleiades shall emerge,\n They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall\n shine out again,\n The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,\n The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall\n again shine.\n\n Then dearest child mournest thou only for jupiter?\n Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?\n\n Something there is,\n (With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,\n I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)\n Something there is more immortal even than the stars,\n (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)\n Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter\n Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,\n Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The World below the Brine", + "body": " The world below the brine,\n Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,\n Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick\n tangle openings, and pink turf,\n Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the\n play of light through the water,\n Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes,\n and the aliment of the swimmers,\n Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling\n close to the bottom,\n The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting\n with his flukes,\n The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy\n sea-leopard, and the sting-ray,\n Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths,\n breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,\n The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed\n by beings like us who walk this sphere,\n The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "On the Beach at Night Alone", + "body": " On the beach at night alone,\n As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,\n As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef\n of the universes and of the future.\n\n A vast similitude interlocks all,\n All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,\n All distances of place however wide,\n All distances of time, all inanimate forms,\n All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in\n different worlds,\n All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,\n All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,\n All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,\n All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,\n This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d,\n And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song for All Seas, All Ships", + "body": " 1\n To-day a rude brief recitative,\n Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal,\n Of unnamed heroes in the ships--of waves spreading and spreading\n far as the eye can reach,\n Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing,\n And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations,\n Fitful, like a surge.\n\n Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors,\n Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor\n death dismay.\n Pick’d sparingly without noise by thee old ocean, chosen by thee,\n Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest nations,\n Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee,\n Indomitable, untamed as thee.\n\n (Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,\n Ever the stock preserv’d and never lost, though rare, enough for\n seed preserv’d.)\n\n 2\n Flaunt out O sea your separate flags of nations!\n Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals!\n But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man\n one flag above all the rest,\n A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death,\n Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates,\n And all that went down doing their duty,\n Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old,\n A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o’er all brave sailors,\n All seas, all ships.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Patroling Barnegat", + "body": " Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running,\n Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,\n Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,\n Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,\n Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,\n On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,\n Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,\n Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing,\n (That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?)\n Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,\n Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting,\n Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering,\n A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,\n That savage trinity warily watching.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "After the Sea-Ship", + "body": " After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,\n After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,\n Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,\n Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,\n Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,\n Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,\n Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,\n Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,\n Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully flowing,\n The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome\n under the sun,\n A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,\n Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Boston Ballad [1854]", + "body": " To get betimes in Boston town I rose this morning early,\n Here’s a good place at the corner, I must stand and see the show.\n\n Clear the way there Jonathan!\n Way for the President’s marshal--way for the government cannon!\n Way for the Federal foot and dragoons, (and the apparitions\n copiously tumbling.)\n\n I love to look on the Stars and Stripes, I hope the fifes will play\n Yankee Doodle.\n How bright shine the cutlasses of the foremost troops!\n Every man holds his revolver, marching stiff through Boston town.\n\n A fog follows, antiques of the same come limping,\n Some appear wooden-legged, and some appear bandaged and bloodless.\n\n Why this is indeed a show--it has called the dead out of the earth!\n The old graveyards of the hills have hurried to see!\n Phantoms! phantoms countless by flank and rear!\n Cock’d hats of mothy mould--crutches made of mist!\n Arms in slings--old men leaning on young men’s shoulders.\n\n What troubles you Yankee phantoms? what is all this chattering of\n bare gums?\n Does the ague convulse your limbs? do you mistake your crutches for\n firelocks and level them?\n\n If you blind your eyes with tears you will not see the President’s marshal,\n If you groan such groans you might balk the government cannon.\n\n For shame old maniacs--bring down those toss’d arms, and let your\n white hair be,\n Here gape your great grandsons, their wives gaze at them from the windows,\n See how well dress’d, see how orderly they conduct themselves.\n\n Worse and worse--can’t you stand it? are you retreating?\n Is this hour with the living too dead for you?\n\n Retreat then--pell-mell!\n To your graves--back--back to the hills old limpers!\n I do not think you belong here anyhow.\n\n But there is one thing that belongs here--shall I tell you what it\n is, gentlemen of Boston?\n\n I will whisper it to the Mayor, he shall send a committee to England,\n They shall get a grant from the Parliament, go with a cart to the\n royal vault,\n Dig out King George’s coffin, unwrap him quick from the\n graveclothes, box up his bones for a journey,\n Find a swift Yankee clipper--here is freight for you, black-bellied clipper,\n Up with your anchor--shake out your sails--steer straight toward\n Boston bay.\n\n Now call for the President’s marshal again, bring out the government cannon,\n Fetch home the roarers from Congress, make another procession,\n guard it with foot and dragoons.\n\n This centre-piece for them;\n Look, all orderly citizens--look from the windows, women!\n\n The committee open the box, set up the regal ribs, glue those that\n will not stay,\n Clap the skull on top of the ribs, and clap a crown on top of the skull.\n You have got your revenge, old buster--the crown is come to its own,\n and more than its own.\n\n Stick your hands in your pockets, Jonathan--you are a made man from\n this day,\n You are mighty cute--and here is one of your bargains.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Europe [The 72d and 73d Years of These States]", + "body": " Suddenly out of its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves,\n Like lightning it le’pt forth half startled at itself,\n Its feet upon the ashes and the rags, its hands tight to the throats\n of kings.\n\n O hope and faith!\n O aching close of exiled patriots’ lives!\n O many a sicken’d heart!\n Turn back unto this day and make yourselves afresh.\n\n And you, paid to defile the People--you liars, mark!\n Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts,\n For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his\n simplicity the poor man’s wages,\n For many a promise sworn by royal lips and broken and laugh’d at in\n the breaking,\n\n Then in their power not for all these did the blows strike revenge,\n or the heads of the nobles fall;\n The People scorn’d the ferocity of kings.\n\n But the sweetness of mercy brew’d bitter destruction, and the\n frighten’d monarchs come back,\n Each comes in state with his train, hangman, priest, tax-gatherer,\n Soldier, lawyer, lord, jailer, and sycophant.\n\n Yet behind all lowering stealing, lo, a shape,\n Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front and form, in\n scarlet folds,\n Whose face and eyes none may see,\n Out of its robes only this, the red robes lifted by the arm,\n One finger crook’d pointed high over the top, like the head of a\n snake appears.\n\n Meanwhile corpses lie in new-made graves, bloody corpses of young men,\n The rope of the gibbet hangs heavily, the bullets of princes are\n flying, the creatures of power laugh aloud,\n And all these things bear fruits, and they are good.\n\n Those corpses of young men,\n Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets, those hearts pierc’d by\n the gray lead,\n Cold and motionless as they seem live elsewhere with unslaughter’d vitality.\n\n They live in other young men O kings!\n They live in brothers again ready to defy you,\n They were purified by death, they were taught and exalted.\n\n Not a grave of the murder’d for freedom but grows seed for freedom,\n in its turn to bear seed,\n Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish.\n\n Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,\n But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counseling, cautioning.\n Liberty, let others despair of you--I never despair of you.\n\n Is the house shut? is the master away?\n Nevertheless, be ready, be not weary of watching,\n He will soon return, his messengers come anon.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Hand-Mirror", + "body": " Hold it up sternly--see this it sends back, (who is it? is it you?)\n Outside fair costume, within ashes and filth,\n No more a flashing eye, no more a sonorous voice or springy step,\n Now some slave’s eye, voice, hands, step,\n A drunkard’s breath, unwholesome eater’s face, venerealee’s flesh,\n Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,\n Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,\n Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,\n Words babble, hearing and touch callous,\n No brain, no heart left, no magnetism of sex;\n Such from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence,\n Such a result so soon--and from such a beginning!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Gods", + "body": " Lover divine and perfect Comrade,\n Waiting content, invisible yet, but certain,\n Be thou my God.\n\n Thou, thou, the Ideal Man,\n Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,\n Complete in body and dilate in spirit,\n Be thou my God.\n\n O Death, (for Life has served its turn,)\n Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion,\n Be thou my God.\n\n Aught, aught of mightiest, best I see, conceive, or know,\n (To break the stagnant tie--thee, thee to free, O soul,)\n Be thou my God.\n\n All great ideas, the races’ aspirations,\n All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,\n Be ye my Gods.\n\n Or Time and Space,\n Or shape of Earth divine and wondrous,\n Or some fair shape I viewing, worship,\n Or lustrous orb of sun or star by night,\n Be ye my Gods.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Germs", + "body": " Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,\n The ones known, and the ones unknown, the ones on the stars,\n The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,\n Wonders as of those countries, the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants,\n whatever they may be,\n Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations and effects,\n Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand\n provided for a handful of space, which I extend my arm and\n half enclose with my hand,\n That containing the start of each and all, the virtue, the germs of all.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thoughts", + "body": " Of ownership--as if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter\n upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself;\n Of vista--suppose some sight in arriere through the formative chaos,\n presuming the growth, fulness, life, now attain’d on the journey,\n (But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)\n Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become\n supplied--and of what will yet be supplied,\n Because all I see and know I believe to have its main purport in\n what will yet be supplied.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer", + "body": " When I heard the learn’d astronomer,\n When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,\n When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,\n When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much\n applause in the lecture-room,\n How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,\n Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,\n In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,\n Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Perfections", + "body": " Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves,\n As souls only understand souls.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "O Me! O Life!", + "body": " O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,\n Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,\n Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,\n and who more faithless?)\n Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the\n struggle ever renew’d,\n Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see\n around me,\n Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,\n The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?\n\n Answer.\n That you are here--that life exists and identity,\n That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To a President", + "body": " All you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages,\n You have not learn’d of Nature--of the politics of Nature you have\n not learn’d the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality,\n You have not seen that only such as they are for these States,\n And that what is less than they must sooner or later lift off from\n these States.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "I Sit and Look Out", + "body": " I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all\n oppression and shame,\n I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with\n themselves, remorseful after deeds done,\n I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying,\n neglected, gaunt, desperate,\n I see the wife misused by her husband, I see the treacherous seducer\n of young women,\n I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be\n hid, I see these sights on the earth,\n I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and\n prisoners,\n I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who\n shall be kill’d to preserve the lives of the rest,\n I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon\n laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;\n All these--all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look out upon,\n See, hear, and am silent.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To Rich Givers", + "body": " What you give me I cheerfully accept,\n A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money, as I\n rendezvous with my poems,\n A traveler’s lodging and breakfast as journey through the States,--\n why should I be ashamed to own such gifts? why to advertise for them?\n For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and woman,\n For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts of\n the universe.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Dalliance of the Eagles", + "body": " Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)\n Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,\n The rushing amorous contact high in space together,\n The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,\n Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,\n In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,\n Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull,\n A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,\n Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,\n She hers, he his, pursuing.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Roaming in Thought [After reading Hegel]", + "body": " Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good\n steadily hastening towards immortality,\n And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw hastening to merge itself\n and become lost and dead.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Farm Picture", + "body": " Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn,\n A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding,\n And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Child’s Amaze", + "body": " Silent and amazed even when a little boy,\n I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his statements,\n As contending against some being or influence.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Runner", + "body": " On a flat road runs the well-train’d runner,\n He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs,\n He is thinly clothed, he leans forward as he runs,\n With lightly closed fists and arms partially rais’d.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Beautiful Women", + "body": " Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young,\n The young are beautiful--but the old are more beautiful than the young.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Mother and Babe", + "body": " I see the sleeping babe nestling the breast of its mother,\n The sleeping mother and babe--hush’d, I study them long and long.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thought", + "body": " Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness;\n As I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly\n affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those who\n do not believe in men.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Visor’d", + "body": " A mask, a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,\n Concealing her face, concealing her form,\n Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,\n Falling upon her even when she sleeps.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thought", + "body": " Of justice--as If could be any thing but the same ample law,\n expounded by natural judges and saviors,\n As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Gliding O’er all", + "body": " Gliding o’er all, through all,\n Through Nature, Time, and Space,\n As a ship on the waters advancing,\n The voyage of the soul--not life alone,\n Death, many deaths I’ll sing.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour", + "body": " Hast never come to thee an hour,\n A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles,\n fashions, wealth?\n These eager business aims--books, politics, art, amours,\n To utter nothingness?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thought", + "body": " Of Equality--as if it harm’d me, giving others the same chances and\n rights as myself--as if it were not indispensable to my own\n rights that others possess the same.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To Old Age", + "body": " I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as\n it pours in the great sea.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Locations and Times", + "body": " Locations and times--what is it in me that meets them all, whenever\n and wherever, and makes me at home?\n Forms, colors, densities, odors--what is it in me that corresponds\n with them?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Offerings", + "body": " A thousand perfect men and women appear,\n Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and\n youths, with offerings.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To The States [To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad]", + "body": " Why reclining, interrogating? why myself and all drowsing?\n What deepening twilight-scum floating atop of the waters,\n Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol?\n What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North,\n your arctic freezings!)\n Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that\n the President?\n Then I will sleep awhile yet, for I see that these States sleep, for\n reasons;\n (With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent shoots we\n all duly awake,\n South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "First O Songs for a Prelude", + "body": " First O songs for a prelude,\n Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum pride and joy in my city,\n How she led the rest to arms, how she gave the cue,\n How at once with lithe limbs unwaiting a moment she sprang,\n (O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!\n O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!)\n How you sprang--how you threw off the costumes of peace with\n indifferent hand,\n How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard\n in their stead,\n How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of\n soldiers,)\n How Manhattan drum-taps led.\n\n Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading,\n Forty years as a pageant, till unawares the lady of this teeming and\n turbulent city,\n Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,\n With her million children around her, suddenly,\n At dead of night, at news from the south,\n Incens’d struck with clinch’d hand the pavement.\n\n A shock electric, the night sustain’d it,\n Till with ominous hum our hive at daybreak pour’d out its myriads.\n\n From the houses then and the workshops, and through all the doorways,\n Leapt they tumultuous, and lo! Manhattan arming.\n\n To the drum-taps prompt,\n The young men falling in and arming,\n The mechanics arming, (the trowel, the jack-plane, the blacksmith’s\n hammer, tost aside with precipitation,)\n The lawyer leaving his office and arming, the judge leaving the court,\n The driver deserting his wagon in the street, jumping down, throwing\n the reins abruptly down on the horses’ backs,\n The salesman leaving the store, the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;\n Squads gather everywhere by common consent and arm,\n The new recruits, even boys, the old men show them how to wear their\n accoutrements, they buckle the straps carefully,\n Outdoors arming, indoors arming, the flash of the musket-barrels,\n The white tents cluster in camps, the arm’d sentries around, the\n sunrise cannon and again at sunset,\n Arm’d regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark\n from the wharves,\n (How good they look as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with\n their guns on their shoulders!\n How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces and\n their clothes and knapsacks cover’d with dust!)\n The blood of the city up-arm’d! arm’d! the cry everywhere,\n The flags flung out from the steeples of churches and from all the\n public buildings and stores,\n The tearful parting, the mother kisses her son, the son kisses his mother,\n (Loth is the mother to part, yet not a word does she speak to detain him,)\n The tumultuous escort, the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way,\n The unpent enthusiasm, the wild cheers of the crowd for their favorites,\n The artillery, the silent cannons bright as gold, drawn along,\n rumble lightly over the stones,\n (Silent cannons, soon to cease your silence,\n Soon unlimber’d to begin the red business;)\n All the mutter of preparation, all the determin’d arming,\n The hospital service, the lint, bandages and medicines,\n The women volunteering for nurses, the work begun for in earnest, no\n mere parade now;\n War! an arm’d race is advancing! the welcome for battle, no turning away!\n War! be it weeks, months, or years, an arm’d race is advancing to\n welcome it.\n\n Mannahatta a-march--and it’s O to sing it well!\n It’s O for a manly life in the camp.\n\n And the sturdy artillery,\n The guns bright as gold, the work for giants, to serve well the guns,\n Unlimber them! (no more as the past forty years for salutes for\n courtesies merely,\n Put in something now besides powder and wadding.)\n\n And you lady of ships, you Mannahatta,\n Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city,\n Often in peace and wealth you were pensive or covertly frown’d amid\n all your children,\n But now you smile with joy exulting old Mannahatta.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Eighteen Sixty-One", + "body": " Arm’d year--year of the struggle,\n No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you terrible year,\n Not you as some pale poetling seated at a desk lisping cadenzas piano,\n But as a strong man erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing,\n carrying rifle on your shoulder,\n With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands, with a knife in\n the belt at your side,\n As I heard you shouting loud, your sonorous voice ringing across the\n continent,\n Your masculine voice O year, as rising amid the great cities,\n Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you as one of the workmen, the\n dwellers in Manhattan,\n Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,\n Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait and descending the Allghanies,\n Or down from the great lakes or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along\n the Ohio river,\n Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at\n Chattanooga on the mountain top,\n Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs clothed in blue, bearing\n weapons, robust year,\n Heard your determin’d voice launch’d forth again and again,\n Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp’d cannon,\n I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Beat! Beat! Drums!", + "body": " Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow!\n Through the windows--through doors--burst like a ruthless force,\n Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,\n Into the school where the scholar is studying;\n Leave not the bridegroom quiet--no happiness must he have now with\n his bride,\n Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering\n his grain,\n So fierce you whirr and pound you drums--so shrill you bugles blow.\n\n Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow!\n Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets;\n Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers\n must sleep in those beds,\n No bargainers’ bargains by day--no brokers or speculators--would\n they continue?\n Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?\n Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?\n Then rattle quicker, heavier drums--you bugles wilder blow.\n\n Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow!\n Make no parley--stop for no expostulation,\n Mind not the timid--mind not the weeper or prayer,\n Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,\n Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,\n Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the\n hearses,\n So strong you thump O terrible drums--so loud you bugles blow.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird", + "body": " From Paumanok starting I fly like a bird,\n Around and around to soar to sing the idea of all,\n To the north betaking myself to sing there arctic songs,\n To Kanada till I absorb Kanada in myself, to Michigan then,\n To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing their songs, (they are inimitable;)\n Then to Ohio and Indiana to sing theirs, to Missouri and Kansas and\n Arkansas to sing theirs,\n To Tennessee and Kentucky, to the Carolinas and Georgia to sing theirs,\n To Texas and so along up toward California, to roam accepted everywhere;\n To sing first, (to the tap of the war-drum if need be,)\n The idea of all, of the Western world one and inseparable,\n And then the song of each member of these States.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song of the Banner at Daybreak", + "body": " Poet:\n O A new song, a free song,\n Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,\n By the wind’s voice and that of the drum,\n By the banner’s voice and child’s voice and sea’s voice and father’s voice,\n Low on the ground and high in the air,\n On the ground where father and child stand,\n In the upward air where their eyes turn,\n Where the banner at daybreak is flapping.\n\n Words! book-words! what are you?\n Words no more, for hearken and see,\n My song is there in the open air, and I must sing,\n With the banner and pennant a-flapping.\n\n I’ll weave the chord and twine in,\n Man’s desire and babe’s desire, I’ll twine them in, I’ll put in life,\n I’ll put the bayonet’s flashing point, I’ll let bullets and slugs whizz,\n (As one carrying a symbol and menace far into the future,\n Crying with trumpet voice, Arouse and beware! Beware and arouse!)\n I’ll pour the verse with streams of blood, full of volition, full of joy,\n Then loosen, launch forth, to go and compete,\n With the banner and pennant a-flapping.\n\n Pennant:\n Come up here, bard, bard,\n Come up here, soul, soul,\n Come up here, dear little child,\n To fly in the clouds and winds with me, and play with the measureless light.\n\n Child:\n Father what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?\n And what does it say to me all the while?\n\n Father:\n Nothing my babe you see in the sky,\n And nothing at all to you it says--but look you my babe,\n Look at these dazzling things in the houses, and see you the money-\n shops opening,\n And see you the vehicles preparing to crawl along the streets with goods;\n These, ah these, how valued and toil’d for these!\n How envied by all the earth.\n\n Poet:\n Fresh and rosy red the sun is mounting high,\n On floats the sea in distant blue careering through its channels,\n On floats the wind over the breast of the sea setting in toward land,\n The great steady wind from west or west-by-south,\n Floating so buoyant with milk-white foam on the waters.\n\n But I am not the sea nor the red sun,\n I am not the wind with girlish laughter,\n Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes,\n Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death,\n But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings,\n Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land,\n Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings,\n And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant,\n Aloft there flapping and flapping.\n\n Child:\n O father it is alive--it is full of people--it has children,\n O now it seems to me it is talking to its children,\n I hear it--it talks to me--O it is wonderful!\n O it stretches--it spreads and runs so fast--O my father,\n It is so broad it covers the whole sky.\n\n Father:\n Cease, cease, my foolish babe,\n What you are saying is sorrowful to me, much ’t displeases me;\n Behold with the rest again I say, behold not banners and pennants aloft,\n But the well-prepared pavements behold, and mark the solid-wall’d houses.\n\n Banner and Pennant:\n Speak to the child O bard out of Manhattan,\n To our children all, or north or south of Manhattan,\n Point this day, leaving all the rest, to us over all--and yet we know\n not why,\n For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing,\n Only flapping in the wind?\n\n\n Poet:\n I hear and see not strips of cloth alone,\n I hear the tramp of armies, I hear the challenging sentry,\n I hear the jubilant shouts of millions of men, I hear Liberty!\n I hear the drums beat and the trumpets blowing,\n I myself move abroad swift-rising flying then,\n I use the wings of the land-bird and use the wings of the sea-bird,\n and look down as from a height,\n I do not deny the precious results of peace, I see populous cities\n with wealth incalculable,\n I see numberless farms, I see the farmers working in their fields or barns,\n I see mechanics working, I see buildings everywhere founded, going\n up, or finish’d,\n I see trains of cars swiftly speeding along railroad tracks drawn by\n the locomotives,\n I see the stores, depots, of Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans,\n I see far in the West the immense area of grain, I dwell awhile hovering,\n I pass to the lumber forests of the North, and again to the Southern\n plantation, and again to California;\n Sweeping the whole I see the countless profit, the busy gatherings,\n earn’d wages,\n See the Identity formed out of thirty-eight spacious and haughty\n States, (and many more to come,)\n See forts on the shores of harbors, see ships sailing in and out;\n Then over all, (aye! aye!) my little and lengthen’d pennant shaped\n like a sword,\n Runs swiftly up indicating war and defiance--and now the halyards\n have rais’d it,\n Side of my banner broad and blue, side of my starry banner,\n Discarding peace over all the sea and land.\n\n Banner and Pennant:\n Yet louder, higher, stronger, bard! yet farther, wider cleave!\n No longer let our children deem us riches and peace alone,\n We may be terror and carnage, and are so now,\n Not now are we any one of these spacious and haughty States, (nor\n any five, nor ten,)\n Nor market nor depot we, nor money-bank in the city,\n But these and all, and the brown and spreading land, and the mines\n below, are ours,\n And the shores of the sea are ours, and the rivers great and small,\n And the fields they moisten, and the crops and the fruits are ours,\n Bays and channels and ships sailing in and out are ours--while we over all,\n Over the area spread below, the three or four millions of square\n miles, the capitals,\n The forty millions of people,--O bard! in life and death supreme,\n We, even we, henceforth flaunt out masterful, high up above,\n Not for the present alone, for a thousand years chanting through you,\n This song to the soul of one poor little child.\n\n Child:\n O my father I like not the houses,\n They will never to me be any thing, nor do I like money,\n But to mount up there I would like, O father dear, that banner I like,\n That pennant I would be and must be.\n\n Father:\n Child of mine you fill me with anguish,\n To be that pennant would be too fearful,\n Little you know what it is this day, and after this day, forever,\n It is to gain nothing, but risk and defy every thing,\n Forward to stand in front of wars--and O, such wars!--what have you\n to do with them?\n With passions of demons, slaughter, premature death?\n\n Banner:\n Demons and death then I sing,\n Put in all, aye all will I, sword-shaped pennant for war,\n And a pleasure new and ecstatic, and the prattled yearning of children,\n Blent with the sounds of the peaceful land and the liquid wash of the sea,\n And the black ships fighting on the sea envelop’d in smoke,\n And the icy cool of the far, far north, with rustling cedars and pines,\n And the whirr of drums and the sound of soldiers marching, and the\n hot sun shining south,\n And the beach-waves combing over the beach on my Eastern shore,\n and my Western shore the same,\n And all between those shores, and my ever running Mississippi with\n bends and chutes,\n And my Illinois fields, and my Kansas fields, and my fields of Missouri,\n The Continent, devoting the whole identity without reserving an atom,\n Pour in! whelm that which asks, which sings, with all and the yield of all,\n Fusing and holding, claiming, devouring the whole,\n No more with tender lip, nor musical labial sound,\n But out of the night emerging for good, our voice persuasive no more,\n Croaking like crows here in the wind.\n\n Poet:\n My limbs, my veins dilate, my theme is clear at last,\n Banner so broad advancing out of the night, I sing you haughty and resolute,\n I burst through where I waited long, too long, deafen’d and blinded,\n My hearing and tongue are come to me, (a little child taught me,)\n I hear from above O pennant of war your ironical call and demand,\n Insensate! insensate! (yet I at any rate chant you,) O banner!\n Not houses of peace indeed are you, nor any nor all their\n prosperity, (if need be, you shall again have every one of those\n houses to destroy them,\n You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast,\n full of comfort, built with money,\n May they stand fast, then? not an hour except you above them and all\n stand fast;)\n O banner, not money so precious are you, not farm produce you, nor\n the material good nutriment,\n Nor excellent stores, nor landed on wharves from the ships,\n Not the superb ships with sail-power or steam-power, fetching and\n carrying cargoes,\n Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues--but you as henceforth\n I see you,\n Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars,\n (ever-enlarging stars,)\n Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touch’d by the sun,\n measuring the sky,\n (Passionately seen and yearn’d for by one poor little child,\n While others remain busy or smartly talking, forever teaching\n thrift, thrift;)\n O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake hissing\n so curious,\n Out of reach, an idea only, yet furiously fought for, risking bloody\n death, loved by me,\n So loved--O you banner leading the day with stars brought from the night!\n Valueless, object of eyes, over all and demanding all--(absolute\n owner of all)--O banner and pennant!\n I too leave the rest--great as it is, it is nothing--houses, machines\n are nothing--I see them not,\n I see but you, O warlike pennant! O banner so broad, with stripes,\n sing you only,\n Flapping up there in the wind.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Rise O Days from Your Fathomless Deeps", + "body": " 1\n Rise O days from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep,\n Long for my soul hungering gymnastic I devour’d what the earth gave me,\n Long I roam’d amid the woods of the north, long I watch’d Niagara pouring,\n I travel’d the prairies over and slept on their breast, I cross’d\n the Nevadas, I cross’d the plateaus,\n I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail’d out to sea,\n I sail’d through the storm, I was refresh’d by the storm,\n I watch’d with joy the threatening maws of the waves,\n\n I mark’d the white combs where they career’d so high, curling over,\n I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds,\n Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my\n heart, and powerful!)\n Heard the continuous thunder as it bellow’d after the lightning,\n Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning as sudden and\n fast amid the din they chased each other across the sky;\n These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet pensive\n and masterful,\n All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me,\n Yet there with my soul I fed, I fed content, supercilious.\n\n 2\n ’Twas well, O soul--’twas a good preparation you gave me,\n Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill,\n Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us,\n Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities,\n Something for us is pouring now more than Niagara pouring,\n Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the Northwest are you indeed\n inexhaustible?)\n What, to pavements and homesteads here, what were those storms of\n the mountains and sea?\n What, to passions I witness around me to-day? was the sea risen?\n Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?\n Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage,\n Manhattan rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati, Chicago,\n unchain’d;\n What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here,\n How it climbs with daring feet and hands--how it dashes!\n How the true thunder bellows after the lightning--how bright the\n flashes of lightning!\n How Democracy with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown\n through the dark by those flashes of lightning!\n (Yet a mournful wall and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,\n In a lull of the deafening confusion.)\n\n 3\n Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!\n And do you rise higher than ever yet O days, O cities!\n Crash heavier, heavier yet O storms! you have done me good,\n My soul prepared in the mountains absorbs your immortal strong nutriment,\n Long had I walk’d my cities, my country roads through farms, only\n half satisfied,\n One doubt nauseous undulating like a snake, crawl’d on the ground before me,\n Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically hissing low;\n The cities I loved so well I abandon’d and left, I sped to the\n certainties suitable to me,\n Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies and Nature’s\n dauntlessness,\n I refresh’d myself with it only, I could relish it only,\n I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air\n waited long;\n But now I no longer wait, I am fully satisfied, I am glutted,\n I have witness’d the true lightning, I have witness’d my cities electric,\n I have lived to behold man burst forth and warlike America rise,\n Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,\n No more the mountains roam or sail the stormy sea.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Virginia--The West", + "body": " The noble sire fallen on evil days,\n I saw with hand uplifted, menacing, brandishing,\n (Memories of old in abeyance, love and faith in abeyance,)\n The insane knife toward the Mother of All.\n\n The noble son on sinewy feet advancing,\n I saw, out of the land of prairies, land of Ohio’s waters and of Indiana,\n To the rescue the stalwart giant hurry his plenteous offspring,\n Drest in blue, bearing their trusty rifles on their shoulders.\n\n Then the Mother of All with calm voice speaking,\n As to you Rebellious, (I seemed to hear her say,) why strive against\n me, and why seek my life?\n When you yourself forever provide to defend me?\n For you provided me Washington--and now these also.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "City of Ships", + "body": " City of ships!\n (O the black ships! O the fierce ships!\n O the beautiful sharp-bow’d steam-ships and sail-ships!)\n City of the world! (for all races are here,\n All the lands of the earth make contributions here;)\n City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!\n City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and\n out with eddies and foam!\n City of wharves and stores--city of tall facades of marble and iron!\n Proud and passionate city--mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!\n Spring up O city--not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike!\n Fear not--submit to no models but your own O city!\n Behold me--incarnate me as I have incarnated you!\n I have rejected nothing you offer’d me--whom you adopted I have adopted,\n Good or bad I never question you--I love all--I do not condemn any thing,\n I chant and celebrate all that is yours--yet peace no more,\n In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine,\n War, red war is my song through your streets, O city!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Centenarian’s Story", + "body": " [Volunteer of 1861-2, at Washington Park, Brooklyn, assisting\n the Centenarian.]\n Give me your hand old Revolutionary,\n The hill-top is nigh, but a few steps, (make room gentlemen,)\n Up the path you have follow’d me well, spite of your hundred and\n extra years,\n You can walk old man, though your eyes are almost done,\n Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.\n\n Rest, while I tell what the crowd around us means,\n On the plain below recruits are drilling and exercising,\n There is the camp, one regiment departs to-morrow,\n Do you hear the officers giving their orders?\n Do you hear the clank of the muskets?\n Why what comes over you now old man?\n Why do you tremble and clutch my hand so convulsively?\n The troops are but drilling, they are yet surrounded with smiles,\n Around them at hand the well-drest friends and the women,\n While splendid and warm the afternoon sun shines down,\n Green the midsummer verdure and fresh blows the dallying breeze,\n O’er proud and peaceful cities and arm of the sea between.\n\n But drill and parade are over, they march back to quarters,\n Only hear that approval of hands! hear what a clapping!\n\n As wending the crowds now part and disperse--but we old man,\n Not for nothing have I brought you hither--we must remain,\n You to speak in your turn, and I to listen and tell.\n\n [The Centenarian]\n When I clutch’d your hand it was not with terror,\n But suddenly pouring about me here on every side,\n And below there where the boys were drilling, and up the slopes they ran,\n And where tents are pitch’d, and wherever you see south and south-\n east and south-west,\n Over hills, across lowlands, and in the skirts of woods,\n And along the shores, in mire (now fill’d over) came again and\n suddenly raged,\n As eighty-five years agone no mere parade receiv’d with applause of friends,\n But a battle which I took part in myself--aye, long ago as it is, I\n took part in it,\n Walking then this hilltop, this same ground.\n\n Aye, this is the ground,\n My blind eyes even as I speak behold it re-peopled from graves,\n The years recede, pavements and stately houses disappear,\n Rude forts appear again, the old hoop’d guns are mounted,\n I see the lines of rais’d earth stretching from river to bay,\n I mark the vista of waters, I mark the uplands and slopes;\n Here we lay encamp’d, it was this time in summer also.\n\n As I talk I remember all, I remember the Declaration,\n It was read here, the whole army paraded, it was read to us here,\n By his staff surrounded the General stood in the middle, he held up\n his unsheath’d sword,\n It glitter’d in the sun in full sight of the army.\n\n ’Twas a bold act then--the English war-ships had just arrived,\n We could watch down the lower bay where they lay at anchor,\n And the transports swarming with soldiers.\n\n A few days more and they landed, and then the battle.\n\n Twenty thousand were brought against us,\n A veteran force furnish’d with good artillery.\n\n I tell not now the whole of the battle,\n But one brigade early in the forenoon order’d forward to engage the\n red-coats,\n Of that brigade I tell, and how steadily it march’d,\n And how long and well it stood confronting death.\n\n Who do you think that was marching steadily sternly confronting death?\n It was the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand strong,\n Rais’d in Virginia and Maryland, and most of them known personally\n to the General.\n\n Jauntily forward they went with quick step toward Gowanus’ waters,\n Till of a sudden unlook’d for by defiles through the woods, gain’d at night,\n The British advancing, rounding in from the east, fiercely playing\n their guns,\n That brigade of the youngest was cut off and at the enemy’s mercy.\n\n The General watch’d them from this hill,\n They made repeated desperate attempts to burst their environment,\n Then drew close together, very compact, their flag flying in the middle,\n But O from the hills how the cannon were thinning and thinning them!\n\n It sickens me yet, that slaughter!\n I saw the moisture gather in drops on the face of the General.\n I saw how he wrung his hands in anguish.\n\n Meanwhile the British manœuvr’d to draw us out for a pitch’d battle,\n But we dared not trust the chances of a pitch’d battle.\n\n We fought the fight in detachments,\n Sallying forth we fought at several points, but in each the luck was\n against us,\n Our foe advancing, steadily getting the best of it, push’d us back\n to the works on this hill,\n Till we turn’d menacing here, and then he left us.\n\n That was the going out of the brigade of the youngest men, two thousand\n strong,\n Few return’d, nearly all remain in Brooklyn.\n\n That and here my General’s first battle,\n No women looking on nor sunshine to bask in, it did not conclude\n with applause,\n Nobody clapp’d hands here then.\n\n But in darkness in mist on the ground under a chill rain,\n Wearied that night we lay foil’d and sullen,\n While scornfully laugh’d many an arrogant lord off against us encamp’d,\n Quite within hearing, feasting, clinking wineglasses together over\n their victory.\n\n So dull and damp and another day,\n But the night of that, mist lifting, rain ceasing,\n Silent as a ghost while they thought they were sure of him, my\n General retreated.\n\n I saw him at the river-side,\n Down by the ferry lit by torches, hastening the embarcation;\n My General waited till the soldiers and wounded were all pass’d over,\n And then, (it was just ere sunrise,) these eyes rested on him for\n the last time.\n\n Every one else seem’d fill’d with gloom,\n Many no doubt thought of capitulation.\n\n But when my General pass’d me,\n As he stood in his boat and look’d toward the coming sun,\n I saw something different from capitulation.\n\n [Terminus]\n Enough, the Centenarian’s story ends,\n The two, the past and present, have interchanged,\n I myself as connecter, as chansonnier of a great future, am now speaking.\n\n And is this the ground Washington trod?\n And these waters I listlessly daily cross, are these the waters he cross’d,\n As resolute in defeat as other generals in their proudest triumphs?\n\n I must copy the story, and send it eastward and westward,\n I must preserve that look as it beam’d on you rivers of Brooklyn.\n\n See--as the annual round returns the phantoms return,\n It is the 27th of August and the British have landed,\n The battle begins and goes against us, behold through the smoke\n Washington’s face,\n The brigade of Virginia and Maryland have march’d forth to intercept\n the enemy,\n They are cut off, murderous artillery from the hills plays upon them,\n Rank after rank falls, while over them silently droops the flag,\n Baptized that day in many a young man’s bloody wounds.\n In death, defeat, and sisters’, mothers’ tears.\n\n Ah, hills and slopes of Brooklyn! I perceive you are more valuable\n than your owners supposed;\n In the midst of you stands an encampment very old,\n Stands forever the camp of that dead brigade.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Cavalry Crossing a Ford", + "body": " A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,\n They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun--hark to\n the musical clank,\n Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop\n to drink,\n Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the\n negligent rest on the saddles,\n Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford--while,\n Scarlet and blue and snowy white,\n The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Bivouac on a Mountain Side", + "body": " I see before me now a traveling army halting,\n Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,\n Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high,\n Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily seen,\n The numerous camp-fires scatter’d near and far, some away up on the\n mountain,\n The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering,\n And over all the sky--the sky! far, far out of reach, studded,\n breaking out, the eternal stars.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "An Army Corps on the March", + "body": " With its cloud of skirmishers in advance,\n With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and now an\n irregular volley,\n The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on,\n Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun--the dust-cover’d men,\n In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground,\n With artillery interspers’d--the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,\n As the army corps advances.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame", + "body": " By the bivouac’s fitful flame,\n A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow--but\n first I note,\n The tents of the sleeping army, the fields’ and woods’ dim outline,\n The darkness lit by spots of kindled fire, the silence,\n Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving,\n The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily\n watching me,)\n While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,\n Of life and death, of home and the past and loved, and of those that\n are far away;\n A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,\n By the bivouac’s fitful flame.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Come Up from the Fields Father", + "body": " Come up from the fields father, here’s a letter from our Pete,\n And come to the front door mother, here’s a letter from thy dear son.\n\n Lo, ’tis autumn,\n Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,\n Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages with leaves fluttering in the\n moderate wind,\n Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the trellis’d vines,\n (Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?\n Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?)\n\n Above all, lo, the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and\n with wondrous clouds,\n Below too, all calm, all vital and beautiful, and the farm prospers well.\n\n Down in the fields all prospers well,\n But now from the fields come father, come at the daughter’s call.\n And come to the entry mother, to the front door come right away.\n\n Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps trembling,\n She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor adjust her cap.\n\n Open the envelope quickly,\n O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d,\n O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother’s soul!\n All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the main\n words only,\n Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish,\n taken to hospital,\n At present low, but will soon be better.\n\n Ah now the single figure to me,\n Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms,\n Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint,\n By the jamb of a door leans.\n\n Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through\n her sobs,\n The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismay’d,)\n See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.\n\n Alas poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be\n better, that brave and simple soul,)\n While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,\n The only son is dead.\n\n But the mother needs to be better,\n She with thin form presently drest in black,\n By day her meals untouch’d, then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,\n In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,\n O that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life escape and withdraw,\n To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night", + "body": " Vigil strange I kept on the field one night;\n When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,\n One look I but gave which your dear eyes return’d with a look I\n shall never forget,\n One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach’d up as you lay on the ground,\n Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,\n Till late in the night reliev’d to the place at last again I made my way,\n Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of\n responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)\n Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the\n moderate night-wind,\n Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the\n battlefield spreading,\n Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,\n But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,\n Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my\n chin in my hands,\n Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest\n comrade--not a tear, not a word,\n Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier,\n As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,\n Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,\n I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall\n surely meet again,)\n Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear’d,\n My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop’d well his form,\n Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and\n carefully under feet,\n And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his\n grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited,\n Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim,\n Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)\n Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day\n brighten’d,\n I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket,\n And buried him where he fell.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown", + "body": " A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,\n A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,\n Our army foil’d with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,\n Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,\n We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building,\n ’Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital,\n Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and\n poems ever made,\n Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,\n And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and\n clouds of smoke,\n By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some\n in the pews laid down,\n At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of\n bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen,)\n I stanch the blood temporarily, (the youngster’s face is white as a lily,)\n Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o’er the scene fain to absorb it all,\n Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity,\n some of them dead,\n Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether,\n odor of blood,\n The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill’d,\n Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the\n death-spasm sweating,\n An occasional scream or cry, the doctor’s shouted orders or calls,\n The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of\n the torches,\n These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor,\n Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in;\n But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he me,\n Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,\n Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,\n The unknown road still marching.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim", + "body": " A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,\n As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,\n As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent,\n Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying,\n Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket,\n Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.\n\n Curious I halt and silent stand,\n Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first\n just lift the blanket;\n Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray’d hair,\n and flesh all sunken about the eyes?\n Who are you my dear comrade?\n Then to the second I step--and who are you my child and darling?\n Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?\n Then to the third--a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of\n beautiful yellow-white ivory;\n Young man I think I know you--I think this face is the face of the\n Christ himself,\n Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods", + "body": " As toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods,\n To the music of rustling leaves kick’d by my feet, (for ’twas autumn,)\n I mark’d at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier;\n Mortally wounded he and buried on the retreat, (easily all could\n understand,)\n The halt of a mid-day hour, when up! no time to lose--yet this sign left,\n On a tablet scrawl’d and nail’d on the tree by the grave,\n Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.\n\n Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering,\n Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life,\n Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone, or\n in the crowded street,\n Comes before me the unknown soldier’s grave, comes the inscription\n rude in Virginia’s woods,\n Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Not the Pilot", + "body": " Not the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port,\n though beaten back and many times baffled;\n Not the pathfinder penetrating inland weary and long,\n By deserts parch’d, snows chill’d, rivers wet, perseveres till he\n reaches his destination,\n More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose\n march for these States,\n For a battle-call, rousing to arms if need be, years, centuries hence.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Year That Trembled and Reel’d Beneath Me", + "body": " Year that trembled and reel’d beneath me!\n Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me,\n A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken’d me,\n Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself,\n Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?\n And sullen hymns of defeat?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Wound-Dresser", + "body": " 1\n An old man bending I come among new faces,\n Years looking backward resuming in answer to children,\n Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me,\n (Arous’d and angry, I’d thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,\n But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face droop’d and I resign’d myself,\n To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;)\n Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,\n Of unsurpass’d heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;)\n Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth,\n Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?\n What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,\n Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?\n\n 2\n O maidens and young men I love and that love me,\n What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls,\n Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover’d with sweat and dust,\n In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the\n rush of successful charge,\n Enter the captur’d works--yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade,\n Pass and are gone they fade--I dwell not on soldiers’ perils or\n soldiers’ joys,\n (Both I remember well--many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content.)\n\n But in silence, in dreams’ projections,\n While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on,\n So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand,\n With hinged knees returning I enter the doors, (while for you up there,\n Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.)\n\n Bearing the bandages, water and sponge,\n Straight and swift to my wounded I go,\n Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in,\n Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground,\n Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof’d hospital,\n To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return,\n To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss,\n An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail,\n Soon to be fill’d with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill’d again.\n\n I onward go, I stop,\n With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,\n I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,\n One turns to me his appealing eyes--poor boy! I never knew you,\n Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that\n would save you.\n\n 3\n On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!)\n The crush’d head I dress, (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away,)\n The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through examine,\n Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life\n struggles hard,\n (Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!\n In mercy come quickly.)\n\n From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,\n I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood,\n Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv’d neck and side falling head,\n His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the\n bloody stump,\n And has not yet look’d on it.\n\n I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep,\n But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking,\n And the yellow-blue countenance see.\n\n I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound,\n Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening,\n so offensive,\n While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.\n\n I am faithful, I do not give out,\n The fractur’d thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,\n These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast\n a fire, a burning flame.)\n\n 4\n Thus in silence in dreams’ projections,\n Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,\n The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,\n I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,\n Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,\n (Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested,\n Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Long, Too Long America", + "body": " Long, too long America,\n Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn’d from joys and\n prosperity only,\n But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing,\n grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,\n And now to conceive and show to the world what your children\n en-masse really are,\n (For who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children en-masse\n really are?)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun", + "body": " 1\n Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling,\n Give me autumnal fruit ripe and red from the orchard,\n Give me a field where the unmow’d grass grows,\n Give me an arbor, give me the trellis’d grape,\n Give me fresh corn and wheat, give me serene-moving animals teaching\n content,\n Give me nights perfectly quiet as on high plateaus west of the\n Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars,\n Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can\n walk undisturb’d,\n Give me for marriage a sweet-breath’d woman of whom I should never tire,\n Give me a perfect child, give me away aside from the noise of the\n world a rural domestic life,\n Give me to warble spontaneous songs recluse by myself, for my own ears only,\n Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal\n sanities!\n\n These demanding to have them, (tired with ceaseless excitement, and\n rack’d by the war-strife,)\n These to procure incessantly asking, rising in cries from my heart,\n While yet incessantly asking still I adhere to my city,\n Day upon day and year upon year O city, walking your streets,\n Where you hold me enchain’d a certain time refusing to give me up,\n Yet giving to make me glutted, enrich’d of soul, you give me forever faces;\n (O I see what I sought to escape, confronting, reversing my cries,\n see my own soul trampling down what it ask’d for.)\n\n 2\n Keep your splendid silent sun,\n Keep your woods O Nature, and the quiet places by the woods,\n Keep your fields of clover and timothy, and your corn-fields and orchards,\n Keep the blossoming buckwheat fields where the Ninth-month bees hum;\n Give me faces and streets--give me these phantoms incessant and\n endless along the trottoirs!\n Give me interminable eyes--give me women--give me comrades and\n lovers by the thousand!\n Let me see new ones every day--let me hold new ones by the hand every day!\n Give me such shows--give me the streets of Manhattan!\n Give me Broadway, with the soldiers marching--give me the sound of\n the trumpets and drums!\n (The soldiers in companies or regiments--some starting away, flush’d\n and reckless,\n Some, their time up, returning with thinn’d ranks, young, yet very\n old, worn, marching, noticing nothing;)\n Give me the shores and wharves heavy-fringed with black ships!\n O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied!\n The life of the theatre, bar-room, huge hotel, for me!\n The saloon of the steamer! the crowded excursion for me! the\n torchlight procession!\n The dense brigade bound for the war, with high piled military wagons\n following;\n People, endless, streaming, with strong voices, passions, pageants,\n Manhattan streets with their powerful throbs, with beating drums as now,\n The endless and noisy chorus, the rustle and clank of muskets, (even\n the sight of the wounded,)\n Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus!\n Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Dirge for Two Veterans", + "body": " The last sunbeam\n Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath,\n On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking,\n Down a new-made double grave.\n\n Lo, the moon ascending,\n Up from the east the silvery round moon,\n Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,\n Immense and silent moon.\n\n I see a sad procession,\n And I hear the sound of coming full-key’d bugles,\n All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding,\n As with voices and with tears.\n\n I hear the great drums pounding,\n And the small drums steady whirring,\n And every blow of the great convulsive drums,\n Strikes me through and through.\n\n For the son is brought with the father,\n (In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,\n Two veterans son and father dropt together,\n And the double grave awaits them.)\n\n Now nearer blow the bugles,\n And the drums strike more convulsive,\n And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded,\n And the strong dead-march enwraps me.\n\n In the eastern sky up-buoying,\n The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin’d,\n (’Tis some mother’s large transparent face,\n In heaven brighter growing.)\n\n O strong dead-march you please me!\n O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!\n O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!\n What I have I also give you.\n\n The moon gives you light,\n And the bugles and the drums give you music,\n And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,\n My heart gives you love.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice", + "body": " Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,\n Be not dishearten’d, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,\n Those who love each other shall become invincible,\n They shall yet make Columbia victorious.\n\n Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious,\n You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.\n\n No danger shall balk Columbia’s lovers,\n If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.\n\n One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian’s comrade,\n From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese, shall\n be friends triune,\n More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.\n\n To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come,\n Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.\n\n It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection,\n The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,\n The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,\n The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.\n\n These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron,\n I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.\n\n (Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?\n Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?\n Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "I Saw Old General at Bay", + "body": " I saw old General at bay,\n (Old as he was, his gray eyes yet shone out in battle like stars,)\n His small force was now completely hemm’d in, in his works,\n He call’d for volunteers to run the enemy’s lines, a desperate emergency,\n I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks, but two or three\n were selected,\n I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen’d with care, the\n adjutant was very grave,\n I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Artilleryman’s Vision", + "body": " While my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long,\n And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight passes,\n And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the\n breath of my infant,\n There in the room as I wake from sleep this vision presses upon me;\n The engagement opens there and then in fantasy unreal,\n The skirmishers begin, they crawl cautiously ahead, I hear the\n irregular snap! snap!\n I hear the sounds of the different missiles, the short t-h-t! t-h-t!\n of the rifle-balls,\n I see the shells exploding leaving small white clouds, I hear the\n great shells shrieking as they pass,\n The grape like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees,\n (tumultuous now the contest rages,)\n All the scenes at the batteries rise in detail before me again,\n The crashing and smoking, the pride of the men in their pieces,\n The chief-gunner ranges and sights his piece and selects a fuse of\n the right time,\n After firing I see him lean aside and look eagerly off to note the effect;\n Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging, (the young colonel\n leads himself this time with brandish’d sword,)\n I see the gaps cut by the enemy’s volleys, (quickly fill’d up, no delay,)\n I breathe the suffocating smoke, then the flat clouds hover low\n concealing all;\n Now a strange lull for a few seconds, not a shot fired on either side,\n Then resumed the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls and\n orders of officers,\n While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears\n a shout of applause, (some special success,)\n And ever the sound of the cannon far or near, (rousing even in\n dreams a devilish exultation and all the old mad joy in the\n depths of my soul,)\n And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions, batteries,\n cavalry, moving hither and thither,\n (The falling, dying, I heed not, the wounded dripping and red\n heed not, some to the rear are hobbling,)\n Grime, heat, rush, aide-de-camps galloping by or on a full run,\n With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles,\n (these in my vision I hear or see,)\n And bombs bursting in air, and at night the vari-color’d rockets.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Ethiopia Saluting the Colors", + "body": " Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human,\n With your woolly-white and turban’d head, and bare bony feet?\n Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet?\n\n (’Tis while our army lines Carolina’s sands and pines,\n Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com’st to me,\n As under doughty Sherman I march toward the sea.)\n\n Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder’d,\n A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught,\n Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought.\n\n No further does she say, but lingering all the day,\n Her high-borne turban’d head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye,\n And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by.\n\n What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human?\n Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red and green?\n Are the things so strange and marvelous you see or have seen?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Not Youth Pertains to Me", + "body": " Not youth pertains to me,\n Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the time with talk,\n Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant,\n In the learn’d coterie sitting constrain’d and still, for learning\n inures not to me,\n Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me--yet there are two or three things\n inure to me,\n I have nourish’d the wounded and sooth’d many a dying soldier,\n And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp,\n Composed these songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Race of Veterans", + "body": " Race of veterans--race of victors!\n Race of the soil, ready for conflict--race of the conquering march!\n (No more credulity’s race, abiding-temper’d race,)\n Race henceforth owning no law but the law of itself,\n Race of passion and the storm.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "World Take Good Notice", + "body": " World take good notice, silver stars fading,\n Milky hue ript, wet of white detaching,\n Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning,\n Scarlet, significant, hands off warning,\n Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "O Tan-Faced Prairie-Boy", + "body": " O tan-faced prairie-boy,\n Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift,\n Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at last among\n the recruits,\n You came, taciturn, with nothing to give--we but look’d on each other,\n When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Look Down Fair Moon", + "body": " Look down fair moon and bathe this scene,\n Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods on faces ghastly, swollen, purple,\n On the dead on their backs with arms toss’d wide,\n Pour down your unstinted nimbus sacred moon.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Reconciliation", + "body": " Word over all, beautiful as the sky,\n Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be\n utterly lost,\n That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly\n wash again, and ever again, this solid world;\n For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,\n I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin--I draw near,\n Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "How Solemn As One by One [Washington City, 1865]", + "body": " How solemn as one by one,\n As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by where stand,\n As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces studying the masks,\n (As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend,\n whoever you are,)\n How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks,\n and to you,\n I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul,\n O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,\n Nor the bayonet stab what you really are;\n The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best,\n Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill,\n Nor the bayonet stab O friend.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado", + "body": " As I lay with my head in your lap camerado,\n The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air\n I resume,\n I know I am restless and make others so,\n I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death,\n For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to\n unsettle them,\n I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have\n been had all accepted me,\n I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions,\n majorities, nor ridicule,\n And the threat of what is call’d hell is little or nothing to me,\n And the lure of what is call’d heaven is little or nothing to me;\n Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still\n urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,\n Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell’d and defeated.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Delicate Cluster", + "body": " Delicate cluster! flag of teeming life!\n Covering all my lands--all my seashores lining!\n Flag of death! (how I watch’d you through the smoke of battle pressing!\n How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!)\n Flag cerulean--sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled!\n Ah my silvery beauty--ah my woolly white and crimson!\n Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty!\n My sacred one, my mother.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To a Certain Civilian", + "body": " Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me?\n Did you seek the civilian’s peaceful and languishing rhymes?\n Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?\n Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand--nor\n am I now;\n (I have been born of the same as the war was born,\n The drum-corps’ rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well the\n martial dirge,\n With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer’s funeral;)\n What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my works,\n And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano-tunes,\n For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Lo, Victress on the Peaks", + "body": " Lo, Victress on the peaks,\n Where thou with mighty brow regarding the world,\n (The world O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee,)\n Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all,\n Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee,\n Flauntest now unharm’d in immortal soundness and bloom--lo, in\n these hours supreme,\n No poem proud, I chanting bring to thee, nor mastery’s rapturous verse,\n But a cluster containing night’s darkness and blood-dripping wounds,\n And psalms of the dead.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Spirit Whose Work Is Done [Washington City, 1865]", + "body": " Spirit whose work is done--spirit of dreadful hours!\n Ere departing fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets;\n Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering\n pressing,)\n Spirit of many a solemn day and many a savage scene--electric spirit,\n That with muttering voice through the war now closed, like a\n tireless phantom flitted,\n Rousing the land with breath of flame, while you beat and beat the drum,\n Now as the sound of the drum, hollow and harsh to the last,\n reverberates round me,\n As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return, return from the battles,\n As the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders,\n As I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders,\n As those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them appearing in the\n distance, approach and pass on, returning homeward,\n Moving with steady motion, swaying to and fro to the right and left,\n Evenly lightly rising and falling while the steps keep time;\n Spirit of hours I knew, all hectic red one day, but pale as death next day,\n Touch my mouth ere you depart, press my lips close,\n Leave me your pulses of rage--bequeath them to me--fill me with\n currents convulsive,\n Let them scorch and blister out of my chants when you are gone,\n Let them identify you to the future in these songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Adieu to a Soldier", + "body": " Adieu O soldier,\n You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)\n The rapid march, the life of the camp,\n The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manœuvre,\n Red battles with their slaughter, the stimulus, the strong terrific game,\n Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through you\n and like of you all fill’d,\n With war and war’s expression.\n\n Adieu dear comrade,\n Your mission is fulfill’d--but I, more warlike,\n Myself and this contentious soul of mine,\n Still on our own campaigning bound,\n Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined,\n Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled,\n Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out--aye here,\n To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Turn O Libertad", + "body": " Turn O Libertad, for the war is over,\n From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute,\n sweeping the world,\n Turn from lands retrospective recording proofs of the past,\n From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past,\n From the chants of the feudal world, the triumphs of kings, slavery, caste,\n Turn to the world, the triumphs reserv’d and to come--give up that\n backward world,\n Leave to the singers of hitherto, give them the trailing past,\n But what remains remains for singers for you--wars to come are for you,\n (Lo, how the wars of the past have duly inured to you, and the wars\n of the present also inure;)\n Then turn, and be not alarm’d O Libertad--turn your undying face,\n To where the future, greater than all the past,\n Is swiftly, surely preparing for you.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To the Leaven’d Soil They Trod", + "body": " To the leaven’d soil they trod calling I sing for the last,\n (Forth from my tent emerging for good, loosing, untying the tent-ropes,)\n In the freshness the forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits\n and vistas again to peace restored,\n To the fiery fields emanative and the endless vistas beyond, to the\n South and the North,\n To the leaven’d soil of the general Western world to attest my songs,\n To the Alleghanian hills and the tireless Mississippi,\n To the rocks I calling sing, and all the trees in the woods,\n To the plains of the poems of heroes, to the prairies spreading wide,\n To the far-off sea and the unseen winds, and the sane impalpable air;\n And responding they answer all, (but not in words,)\n The average earth, the witness of war and peace, acknowledges mutely,\n The prairie draws me close, as the father to bosom broad the son,\n The Northern ice and rain that began me nourish me to the end,\n But the hot sun of the South is to fully ripen my songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d", + "body": " 1\n When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,\n And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,\n I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.\n\n Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,\n Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,\n And thought of him I love.\n\n 2\n O powerful western fallen star!\n O shades of night--O moody, tearful night!\n O great star disappear’d--O the black murk that hides the star!\n O cruel hands that hold me powerless--O helpless soul of me!\n O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.\n\n\n 3\n In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings,\n Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,\n With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,\n With every leaf a miracle--and from this bush in the dooryard,\n With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,\n A sprig with its flower I break.\n\n 4\n In the swamp in secluded recesses,\n A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.\n\n Solitary the thrush,\n The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,\n Sings by himself a song.\n\n Song of the bleeding throat,\n Death’s outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know,\n If thou wast not granted to sing thou wouldst surely die.)\n\n 5\n Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,\n Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d\n from the ground, spotting the gray debris,\n Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the\n endless grass,\n Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the\n dark-brown fields uprisen,\n Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards,\n Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,\n Night and day journeys a coffin.\n\n 6\n Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,\n Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land,\n With the pomp of the inloop’d flags with the cities draped in black,\n With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing,\n With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night,\n With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the\n unbared heads,\n With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,\n With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong\n and solemn,\n With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour’d around the coffin,\n The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs--where amid these\n you journey,\n With the tolling tolling bells’ perpetual clang,\n Here, coffin that slowly passes,\n I give you my sprig of lilac.\n\n 7\n (Nor for you, for one alone,\n Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,\n For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane\n and sacred death.\n\n All over bouquets of roses,\n O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies,\n But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first,\n Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes,\n With loaded arms I come, pouring for you,\n For you and the coffins all of you O death.)\n\n 8\n O western orb sailing the heaven,\n Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk’d,\n As I walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy night,\n As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night,\n As you droop’d from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the\n other stars all look’d on,)\n As we wander’d together the solemn night, (for something I know not\n what kept me from sleep,)\n As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you\n were of woe,\n As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night,\n As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black\n of the night,\n As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb,\n Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.\n\n 9\n Sing on there in the swamp,\n O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call,\n I hear, I come presently, I understand you,\n But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain’d me,\n The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.\n\n 10\n O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?\n And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?\n And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?\n\n Sea-winds blown from east and west,\n Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till\n there on the prairies meeting,\n These and with these and the breath of my chant,\n I’ll perfume the grave of him I love.\n\n 11\n O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?\n And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,\n To adorn the burial-house of him I love?\n Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,\n With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,\n With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking\n sun, burning, expanding the air,\n With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves\n of the trees prolific,\n In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a\n wind-dapple here and there,\n With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky,\n and shadows,\n And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,\n And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen\n homeward returning.\n\n 12\n Lo, body and soul--this land,\n My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides,\n and the ships,\n The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light,\n Ohio’s shores and flashing Missouri,\n And ever the far-spreading prairies cover’d with grass and corn.\n\n Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty,\n The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes,\n The gentle soft-born measureless light,\n The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill’d noon,\n The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars,\n Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.\n\n 13\n Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird,\n Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes,\n Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.\n\n Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song,\n Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.\n\n O liquid and free and tender!\n O wild and loose to my soul--O wondrous singer!\n You only I hear--yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,)\n Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.\n\n 14\n Now while I sat in the day and look’d forth,\n In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and\n the farmers preparing their crops,\n In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests,\n In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds and the storms,)\n Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the\n voices of children and women,\n The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail’d,\n And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy\n with labor,\n And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with\n its meals and minutia of daily usages,\n And the streets how their throbbings throbb’d, and the cities pent--\n lo, then and there,\n Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,\n Appear’d the cloud, appear’d the long black trail,\n And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.\n\n Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me,\n And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me,\n And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of\n companions,\n I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not,\n Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,\n To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.\n\n And the singer so shy to the rest receiv’d me,\n The gray-brown bird I know receiv’d us comrades three,\n And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.\n\n From deep secluded recesses,\n From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still,\n Came the carol of the bird.\n\n And the charm of the carol rapt me,\n As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night,\n And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.\n\n Come lovely and soothing death,\n Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,\n In the day, in the night, to all, to each,\n Sooner or later delicate death.\n\n Prais’d be the fathomless universe,\n For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,\n And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise!\n For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.\n\n Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,\n Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?\n Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,\n I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.\n\n Approach strong deliveress,\n When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,\n Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,\n Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.\n\n From me to thee glad serenades,\n Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,\n And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread shy are fitting,\n And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.\n\n The night in silence under many a star,\n The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,\n And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil’d death,\n And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.\n\n Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,\n Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the\n prairies wide,\n Over the dense-pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,\n I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.\n\n 15\n To the tally of my soul,\n Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird,\n With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.\n\n Loud in the pines and cedars dim,\n Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume,\n And I with my comrades there in the night.\n\n While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,\n As to long panoramas of visions.\n\n And I saw askant the armies,\n I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags,\n Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them,\n And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody,\n And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,)\n And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.\n\n I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,\n And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,\n I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,\n But I saw they were not as was thought,\n They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d not,\n The living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d,\n And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer’d,\n And the armies that remain’d suffer’d.\n\n 16\n Passing the visions, passing the night,\n Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands,\n Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul,\n Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song,\n As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling,\n flooding the night,\n Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again\n bursting with joy,\n Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven,\n As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,\n Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,\n I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring.\n\n I cease from my song for thee,\n From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,\n O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.\n\n Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,\n The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,\n And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,\n With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,\n With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,\n Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for\n the dead I loved so well,\n For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this for\n his dear sake,\n Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,\n There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "O Captain! My Captain!", + "body": " O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,\n The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,\n The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,\n While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;\n But O heart! heart! heart!\n O the bleeding drops of red,\n Where on the deck my Captain lies,\n Fallen cold and dead.\n\n O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;\n Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,\n For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding,\n For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;\n Here Captain! dear father!\n This arm beneath your head!\n It is some dream that on the deck,\n You’ve fallen cold and dead.\n\n My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,\n My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,\n The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,\n From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;\n Exult O shores, and ring O bells!\n But I with mournful tread,\n Walk the deck my Captain lies,\n Fallen cold and dead.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Hush’d Be the Camps To-Day [May 4, 1865", + "body": " Hush’d be the camps to-day,\n And soldiers let us drape our war-worn weapons,\n And each with musing soul retire to celebrate,\n Our dear commander’s death.\n\n No more for him life’s stormy conflicts,\n Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time’s dark events,\n Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.\n But sing poet in our name,\n\n Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it truly.\n\n As they invault the coffin there,\n Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse,\n For the heavy hearts of soldiers.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "This Dust Was Once the Man", + "body": " This dust was once the man,\n Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand,\n Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,\n Was saved the Union of these States.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "By Blue Ontario’s Shore", + "body": " By blue Ontario’s shore,\n As I mused of these warlike days and of peace return’d, and the\n dead that return no more,\n A Phantom gigantic superb, with stern visage accosted me,\n Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of America,\n chant me the carol of victory,\n And strike up the marches of Libertad, marches more powerful yet,\n And sing me before you go the song of the throes of Democracy.\n\n (Democracy, the destin’d conqueror, yet treacherous lip-smiles everywhere,\n And death and infidelity at every step.)\n\n 2\n A Nation announcing itself,\n I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated,\n I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms.\n\n A breed whose proof is in time and deeds,\n What we are we are, nativity is answer enough to objections,\n We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded,\n We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves,\n We are executive in ourselves, we are sufficient in the variety of\n ourselves,\n We are the most beautiful to ourselves and in ourselves,\n We stand self-pois’d in the middle, branching thence over the world,\n From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn.\n\n Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,\n Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or\n sinful in ourselves only.\n\n (O Mother--O Sisters dear!\n If we are lost, no victor else has destroy’d us,\n It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.)\n\n 3\n Have you thought there could be but a single supreme?\n There can be any number of supremes--one does not countervail\n another any more than one eyesight countervails another, or\n one life countervails another.\n\n All is eligible to all,\n All is for individuals, all is for you,\n No condition is prohibited, not God’s or any.\n\n All comes by the body, only health puts you rapport with the universe.\n\n Produce great Persons, the rest follows.\n\n 4\n Piety and conformity to them that like,\n Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like,\n I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations,\n Crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!\n\n I am he who walks the States with a barb’d tongue, questioning every\n one I meet,\n Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew before?\n Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense?\n\n (With pangs and cries as thine own O bearer of many children,\n These clamors wild to a race of pride I give.)\n\n O lands, would you be freer than all that has ever been before?\n If you would be freer than all that has been before, come listen to me.\n\n Fear grace, elegance, civilization, delicatesse,\n Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey--juice,\n Beware the advancing mortal ripening of Nature,\n Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men.\n\n 5\n Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials,\n America brings builders, and brings its own styles.\n\n The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work and\n pass’d to other spheres,\n A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.\n\n America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all\n hazards,\n Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound, initiates the true use\n of precedents,\n Does not repel them or the past or what they have produced under\n their forms,\n Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne\n from the house,\n Perceives that it waits a little while in the door, that it was\n fittest for its days,\n That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who\n approaches,\n And that he shall be fittest for his days.\n\n Any period one nation must lead,\n One land must be the promise and reliance of the future.\n\n These States are the amplest poem,\n Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations,\n Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings of the\n day and night,\n Here is what moves in magnificent masses careless of particulars,\n Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the soul loves,\n Here the flowing trains, here the crowds, equality, diversity, the\n soul loves.\n\n 6\n Land of lands and bards to corroborate!\n Of them standing among them, one lifts to the light a west-bred face,\n To him the hereditary countenance bequeath’d both mother’s and father’s,\n His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees,\n Built of the common stock, having room for far and near,\n Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land,\n Attracting it body and soul to himself, hanging on its neck with\n incomparable love,\n Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits,\n Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal in him,\n Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him,\n Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes, Columbia,\n Niagara, Hudson, spending themselves lovingly in him,\n If the Atlantic coast stretch or the Pacific coast stretch, he\n stretching with them North or South,\n Spanning between them East and West, and touching whatever is between them,\n Growths growing from him to offset the growths of pine, cedar, hemlock,\n live-oak, locust, chestnut, hickory, cottonwood, orange, magnolia,\n Tangles as tangled in him as any canebrake or swamp,\n He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forests coated with\n northern transparent ice,\n Off him pasturage sweet and natural as savanna, upland, prairie,\n Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those of the\n fish-hawk, mocking-bird, night-heron, and eagle,\n His spirit surrounding his country’s spirit, unclosed to good and evil,\n Surrounding the essences of real things, old times and present times,\n Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red aborigines,\n Weather-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, embryo stature and muscle,\n The haughty defiance of the Year One, war, peace, the formation of\n the Constitution,\n The separate States, the simple elastic scheme, the immigrants,\n The Union always swarming with blatherers and always sure and impregnable,\n The unsurvey’d interior, log-houses, clearings, wild animals,\n hunters, trappers,\n Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature, the\n gestation of new States,\n Congress convening every Twelfth-month, the members duly coming\n up from the uttermost parts,\n Surrounding the noble character of mechanics and farmers, especially\n the young men,\n Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships, the gait they\n have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the\n presence of superiors,\n The freshness and candor of their physiognomy, the copiousness and\n decision of their phrenology,\n The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their fierceness when wrong’d,\n The fluency of their speech, their delight in music, their curiosity,\n good temper and open-handedness, the whole composite make,\n The prevailing ardor and enterprise, the large amativeness,\n The perfect equality of the female with the male, the fluid movement\n of the population,\n The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries, whaling, gold-digging,\n Wharf-hemm’d cities, railroad and steamboat lines intersecting all points,\n Factories, mercantile life, labor-saving machinery, the Northeast,\n Northwest, Southwest,\n Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern plantation life,\n Slavery--the murderous, treacherous conspiracy to raise it upon the\n ruins of all the rest,\n On and on to the grapple with it--Assassin! then your life or ours\n be the stake, and respite no more.\n\n 7\n (Lo, high toward heaven, this day,\n Libertad, from the conqueress’ field return’d,\n I mark the new aureola around your head,\n No more of soft astral, but dazzling and fierce,\n With war’s flames and the lambent lightnings playing,\n And your port immovable where you stand,\n With still the inextinguishable glance and the clinch’d and lifted fist,\n And your foot on the neck of the menacing one, the scorner utterly\n crush’d beneath you,\n The menacing arrogant one that strode and advanced with his\n senseless scorn, bearing the murderous knife,\n The wide-swelling one, the braggart that would yesterday do so much,\n To-day a carrion dead and damn’d, the despised of all the earth,\n An offal rank, to the dunghill maggots spurn’d.)\n\n 8\n Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive and ever\n keeps vista,\n Others adorn the past, but you O days of the present, I adorn you,\n O days of the future I believe in you--I isolate myself for your sake,\n O America because you build for mankind I build for you,\n O well-beloved stone-cutters, I lead them who plan with decision\n and science,\n Lead the present with friendly hand toward the future.\n (Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age!\n But damn that which spends itself with no thought of the stain,\n pains, dismay, feebleness, it is bequeathing.)\n\n 9\n I listened to the Phantom by Ontario’s shore,\n I heard the voice arising demanding bards,\n By them all native and grand, by them alone can these States be\n fused into the compact organism of a Nation.\n\n To hold men together by paper and seal or by compulsion is no account,\n That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle,\n as the hold of the limbs of the body or the fibres of plants.\n\n Of all races and eras these States with veins full of poetical stuff most\n need poets, and are to have the greatest, and use them the greatest,\n Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their\n poets shall.\n\n (Soul of love and tongue of fire!\n Eye to pierce the deepest deeps and sweep the world!\n Ah Mother, prolific and full in all besides, yet how long barren, barren?)\n\n 10\n Of these States the poet is the equable man,\n Not in him but off from him things are grotesque, eccentric, fail of\n their full returns,\n Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad,\n He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither\n more nor less,\n He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key,\n He is the equalizer of his age and land,\n He supplies what wants supplying, he checks what wants checking,\n In peace out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich,\n thrifty, building populous towns, encouraging agriculture, arts,\n commerce, lighting the study of man, the soul, health,\n immortality, government,\n In war he is the best backer of the war, he fetches artillery as\n good as the engineer’s, he can make every word he speaks draw blood,\n The years straying toward infidelity he withholds by his steady faith,\n He is no arguer, he is judgment, (Nature accepts him absolutely,)\n He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun failing round\n helpless thing,\n As he sees the farthest he has the most faith,\n His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,\n In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent,\n He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement,\n He sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men and women\n as dreams or dots.\n\n For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals,\n For that, the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders,\n The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrifies foreign despots.\n\n Without extinction is Liberty, without retrograde is Equality,\n They live in the feelings of young men and the best women,\n (Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth been always\n ready to fall for Liberty.)\n\n 11\n For the great Idea,\n That, O my brethren, that is the mission of poets.\n\n Songs of stern defiance ever ready,\n Songs of the rapid arming and the march,\n The flag of peace quick-folded, and instead the flag we know,\n Warlike flag of the great Idea.\n\n (Angry cloth I saw there leaping!\n I stand again in leaden rain your flapping folds saluting,\n I sing you over all, flying beckoning through the fight--O the\n hard-contested fight!\n The cannons ope their rosy-flashing muzzles--the hurtled balls scream,\n The battle-front forms amid the smoke--the volleys pour incessant\n from the line,\n Hark, the ringing word Charge!--now the tussle and the furious\n maddening yells,\n Now the corpses tumble curl’d upon the ground,\n Cold, cold in death, for precious life of you,\n Angry cloth I saw there leaping.)\n\n 12\n Are you he who would assume a place to teach or be a poet here in\n the States?\n The place is august, the terms obdurate.\n\n Who would assume to teach here may well prepare himself body and mind,\n He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden, make lithe himself,\n He shall surely be question’d beforehand by me with many and stern questions.\n\n Who are you indeed who would talk or sing to America?\n Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men?\n Have you learn’d the physiology, phrenology, politics, geography,\n pride, freedom, friendship of the land? its substratums and objects?\n Have you consider’d the organic compact of the first day of the\n first year of Independence, sign’d by the Commissioners, ratified\n by the States, and read by Washington at the head of the army?\n Have you possess’d yourself of the Federal Constitution?\n Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems behind them,\n and assumed the poems and processes of Democracy?\n Are you faithful to things? do you teach what the land and sea, the\n bodies of men, womanhood, amativeness, heroic angers, teach?\n Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities?\n Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, whirls,\n fierce contentions? are you very strong? are you really of the\n whole People?\n Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion?\n Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating now to\n life itself?\n Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of these States?\n Have you too the old ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality?\n Do you hold the like love for those hardening to maturity? for the\n last-born? little and big? and for the errant?\n\n What is this you bring my America?\n Is it uniform with my country?\n Is it not something that has been better told or done before?\n Have you not imported this or the spirit of it in some ship?\n Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness?--Is the good old cause in it?\n Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians,\n literats, of enemies’ lands?\n Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?\n Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?\n Does it sound with trumpet-voice the proud victory of the Union in\n that secession war?\n Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?\n Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again in my\n strength, gait, face?\n Have real employments contributed to it? original makers, not mere\n amanuenses?\n Does it meet modern discoveries, calibres, facts, face to face?\n What does it mean to American persons, progresses, cities? Chicago,\n Kanada, Arkansas?\n Does it see behind the apparent custodians the real custodians\n standing, menacing, silent, the mechanics, Manhattanese, Western\n men, Southerners, significant alike in their apathy, and in the\n promptness of their love?\n Does it see what finally befalls, and has always finally befallen,\n each temporizer, patcher, outsider, partialist, alarmist,\n infidel, who has ever ask’d any thing of America?\n What mocking and scornful negligence?\n The track strew’d with the dust of skeletons,\n By the roadside others disdainfully toss’d.\n\n 13\n Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill’d from poems pass away,\n The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes,\n Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soil of literature,\n America justifies itself, give it time, no disguise can deceive it\n or conceal from it, it is impassive enough,\n Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet them,\n If its poets appear it will in due time advance to meet them, there\n is no fear of mistake,\n (The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr’d till his country\n absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorb’d it.)\n\n He masters whose spirit masters, he tastes sweetest who results\n sweetest in the long run,\n The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint;\n In the need of songs, philosophy, an appropriate native grand-opera,\n shipcraft, any craft,\n He or she is greatest who contributes the greatest original\n practical example.\n\n Already a nonchalant breed, silently emerging, appears on the streets,\n People’s lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers, positive knowers,\n There will shortly be no more priests, I say their work is done,\n Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpetual emergencies here,\n Are your body, days, manners, superb? after death you shall be superb,\n Justice, health, self-esteem, clear the way with irresistible power;\n How dare you place any thing before a man?\n\n 14\n Fall behind me States!\n A man before all--myself, typical, before all.\n\n Give me the pay I have served for,\n Give me to sing the songs of the great Idea, take all the rest,\n I have loved the earth, sun, animals, I have despised riches,\n I have given aims to every one that ask’d, stood up for the stupid\n and crazy, devoted my income and labor to others,\n Hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence\n toward the people, taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,\n Gone freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young,\n and with the mothers of families,\n Read these leaves to myself in the open air, tried them by trees,\n stars, rivers,\n Dismiss’d whatever insulted my own soul or defiled my body,\n Claim’d nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim’d for\n others on the same terms,\n Sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every State,\n (Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean’d to breathe his last,\n This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish’d, rais’d, restored,\n To life recalling many a prostrate form;)\n I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself,\n Rejecting none, permitting all.\n\n (Say O Mother, have I not to your thought been faithful?\n Have I not through life kept you and yours before me?)\n\n 15\n I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things,\n It is not the earth, it is not America who is so great,\n It is I who am great or to be great, it is You up there, or any one,\n It is to walk rapidly through civilizations, governments, theories,\n Through poems, pageants, shows, to form individuals.\n\n Underneath all, individuals,\n I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals,\n The American compact is altogether with individuals,\n The only government is that which makes minute of individuals,\n The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one\n single individual--namely to You.\n\n (Mother! with subtle sense severe, with the naked sword in your hand,\n I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with individuals.)\n\n 16\n Underneath all, Nativity,\n I swear I will stand by my own nativity, pious or impious so be it;\n I swear I am charm’d with nothing except nativity,\n Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from nativity.\n\n Underneath all is the Expression of love for men and women,\n (I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent modes of expressing\n love for men and women,\n After this day I take my own modes of expressing love for men and\n women.) in myself,\n\n I swear I will have each quality of my race in myself,\n (Talk as you like, he only suits these States whose manners favor\n the audacity and sublime turbulence of the States.)\n\n Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature, governments,\n ownerships, I swear I perceive other lessons,\n Underneath all to me is myself, to you yourself, (the same\n monotonous old song.)\n\n 17\n O I see flashing that this America is only you and me,\n Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,\n Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, are you and me,\n Its Congress is you and me, the officers, capitols, armies, ships,\n are you and me,\n Its endless gestations of new States are you and me,\n The war, (that war so bloody and grim, the war I will henceforth\n forget), was you and me,\n Natural and artificial are you and me,\n Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,\n Past, present, future, are you and me.\n\n I dare not shirk any part of myself,\n Not any part of America good or bad,\n Not to build for that which builds for mankind,\n Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes,\n Not to justify science nor the march of equality,\n Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn belov’d of time.\n\n I am for those that have never been master’d,\n For men and women whose tempers have never been master’d,\n For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master.\n\n I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth,\n Who inaugurate one to inaugurate all.\n\n I will not be outfaced by irrational things,\n I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me,\n I will make cities and civilizations defer to me,\n This is what I have learnt from America--it is the amount, and it I\n teach again.\n\n (Democracy, while weapons were everywhere aim’d at your breast,\n I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children, saw in dreams\n your dilating form,\n Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.)\n\n 18\n I will confront these shows of the day and night,\n I will know if I am to be less than they,\n I will see if I am not as majestic as they,\n I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they,\n I will see if I am to be less generous than they,\n I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and ships have meaning,\n I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for themselves,\n and I am not to be enough for myself.\n\n I match my spirit against yours you orbs, growths, mountains, brutes,\n Copious as you are I absorb you all in myself, and become the master myself,\n America isolated yet embodying all, what is it finally except myself?\n These States, what are they except myself?\n\n I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing, wicked, it is for my sake,\n I take you specially to be mine, you terrible, rude forms.\n\n\n (Mother, bend down, bend close to me your face,\n I know not what these plots and wars and deferments are for,\n I know not fruition’s success, but I know that through war and crime\n your work goes on, and must yet go on.)\n\n 19\n Thus by blue Ontario’s shore,\n While the winds fann’d me and the waves came trooping toward me,\n I thrill’d with the power’s pulsations, and the charm of my theme\n was upon me,\n Till the tissues that held me parted their ties upon me.\n\n And I saw the free souls of poets,\n The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me,\n Strange large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were disclosed to me.\n\n 20\n O my rapt verse, my call, mock me not!\n Not for the bards of the past, not to invoke them have I launch’d\n you forth,\n Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario’s shores,\n Have I sung so capricious and loud my savage song.\n\n Bards for my own land only I invoke,\n (For the war the war is over, the field is clear’d,)\n Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward,\n To cheer O Mother your boundless expectant soul.\n\n Bards of the great Idea! bards of the peaceful inventions! (for the\n war, the war is over!)\n Yet bards of latent armies, a million soldiers waiting ever-ready,\n Bards with songs as from burning coals or the lightning’s fork’d stripes!\n Ample Ohio’s, Kanada’s bards--bards of California! inland bards--\n bards of the war!\n You by my charm I invoke.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Reversals", + "body": " Let that which stood in front go behind,\n Let that which was behind advance to the front,\n Let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions,\n Let the old propositions be postponed,\n Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself,\n Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As Consequent, Etc.", + "body": " As consequent from store of summer rains,\n Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,\n Or many a herb-lined brook’s reticulations,\n Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,\n Songs of continued years I sing.\n\n Life’s ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend,\n With the old streams of death.)\n\n Some threading Ohio’s farm-fields or the woods,\n Some down Colorado’s canons from sources of perpetual snow,\n Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,\n Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa,\n Some to Atlantica’s bays, and so to the great salt brine.\n\n In you whoe’er you are my book perusing,\n In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing,\n All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.\n\n Currents for starting a continent new,\n Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,\n Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves,\n (Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous’d and ominous too,\n Out of the depths the storm’s abysmic waves, who knows whence?\n Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter’d sail.)\n\n Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring,\n A windrow-drift of weeds and shells.\n\n O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless,\n Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,\n Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity’s music faint and far,\n Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica’s rim, strains for the soul of\n the prairies,\n Whisper’d reverberations, chords for the ear of the West joyously sounding,\n Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable,\n Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,\n (For not my life and years alone I give--all, all I give,)\n These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry,\n Wash’d on America’s shores?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Return of the Heroes", + "body": " 1\n For the lands and for these passionate days and for myself,\n Now I awhile retire to thee O soil of autumn fields,\n Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,\n Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,\n Turning a verse for thee.\n\n O earth that hast no voice, confide to me a voice,\n O harvest of my lands--O boundless summer growths,\n O lavish brown parturient earth--O infinite teeming womb,\n A song to narrate thee.\n\n 2\n Ever upon this stage,\n Is acted God’s calm annual drama,\n Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,\n Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,\n The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves,\n The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,\n The liliput countless armies of the grass,\n The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,\n The scenery of the snows, the winds’ free orchestra,\n The stretching light-hung roof of clouds, the clear cerulean and the\n silvery fringes,\n The high-dilating stars, the placid beckoning stars,\n The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,\n The shows of all the varied lands and all the growths and products.\n\n 3\n Fecund America--today,\n Thou art all over set in births and joys!\n Thou groan’st with riches, thy wealth clothes thee as a swathing-garment,\n Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions,\n A myriad-twining life like interlacing vines binds all thy vast demesne,\n As some huge ship freighted to water’s edge thou ridest into port,\n As rain falls from the heaven and vapors rise from earth, so have\n the precious values fallen upon thee and risen out of thee;\n Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!\n Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty,\n Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns,\n Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle and lookest out upon\n thy world, and lookest East and lookest West,\n Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles, a million\n farms, and missest nothing,\n Thou all-acceptress--thou hospitable, (thou only art hospitable as\n God is hospitable.)\n\n 4\n When late I sang sad was my voice,\n Sad were the shows around me with deafening noises of hatred and\n smoke of war;\n In the midst of the conflict, the heroes, I stood,\n Or pass’d with slow step through the wounded and dying.\n\n But now I sing not war,\n Nor the measur’d march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps,\n Nor the regiments hastily coming up deploying in line of battle;\n No more the sad, unnatural shows of war.\n\n Ask’d room those flush’d immortal ranks, the first forth-stepping armies?\n Ask room alas the ghastly ranks, the armies dread that follow’d.\n\n (Pass, pass, ye proud brigades, with your tramping sinewy legs,\n With your shoulders young and strong, with your knapsacks and your muskets;\n How elate I stood and watch’d you, where starting off you march’d.\n\n Pass--then rattle drums again,\n For an army heaves in sight, O another gathering army,\n Swarming, trailing on the rear, O you dread accruing army,\n O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea, with your fever,\n O my land’s maim’d darlings, with the plenteous bloody bandage and\n the crutch,\n Lo, your pallid army follows.)\n\n 5\n But on these days of brightness,\n On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes the\n high-piled farm-wagons, and the fruits and barns,\n Should the dead intrude?\n\n Ah the dead to me mar not, they fit well in Nature,\n They fit very well in the landscape under the trees and grass,\n And along the edge of the sky in the horizon’s far margin.\n\n Nor do I forget you Departed,\n Nor in winter or summer my lost ones,\n But most in the open air as now when my soul is rapt and at peace,\n like pleasing phantoms,\n Your memories rising glide silently by me.\n\n 6\n I saw the day the return of the heroes,\n (Yet the heroes never surpass’d shall never return,\n Them that day I saw not.)\n\n I saw the interminable corps, I saw the processions of armies,\n I saw them approaching, defiling by with divisions,\n Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of\n mighty camps.\n\n No holiday soldiers--youthful, yet veterans,\n Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop,\n Harden’d of many a long campaign and sweaty march,\n Inured on many a hard-fought bloody field.\n\n A pause--the armies wait,\n A million flush’d embattled conquerors wait,\n The world too waits, then soft as breaking night and sure as dawn,\n They melt, they disappear.\n\n Exult O lands! victorious lands!\n Not there your victory on those red shuddering fields,\n But here and hence your victory.\n\n Melt, melt away ye armies--disperse ye blue-clad soldiers,\n Resolve ye back again, give up for good your deadly arms,\n Other the arms the fields henceforth for you, or South or North,\n With saner wars, sweet wars, life-giving wars.\n\n 7\n Loud O my throat, and clear O soul!\n The season of thanks and the voice of full-yielding,\n The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.\n\n All till’d and untill’d fields expand before me,\n I see the true arenas of my race, or first or last,\n Man’s innocent and strong arenas.\n\n I see the heroes at other toils,\n I see well-wielded in their hands the better weapons.\n\n I see where the Mother of All,\n With full-spanning eye gazes forth, dwells long,\n And counts the varied gathering of the products.\n\n Busy the far, the sunlit panorama,\n Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,\n Cotton and rice of the South and Louisianian cane,\n Open unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy,\n Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine,\n And many a stately river flowing and many a jocund brook,\n And healthy uplands with herby-perfumed breezes,\n And the good green grass, that delicate miracle the ever-recurring grass.\n\n 8\n Toil on heroes! harvest the products!\n Not alone on those warlike fields the Mother of All,\n With dilated form and lambent eyes watch’d you.\n\n Toil on heroes! toil well! handle the weapons well!\n The Mother of All, yet here as ever she watches you.\n\n Well-pleased America thou beholdest,\n Over the fields of the West those crawling monsters,\n The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving implements;\n Beholdest moving in every direction imbued as with life the\n revolving hay-rakes,\n The steam-power reaping-machines and the horse-power machines\n The engines, thrashers of grain and cleaners of grain, well\n separating the straw, the nimble work of the patent pitchfork,\n Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the\n rice-cleanser.\n\n Beneath thy look O Maternal,\n With these and else and with their own strong hands the heroes harvest.\n\n All gather and all harvest,\n Yet but for thee O Powerful, not a scythe might swing as now in security,\n Not a maize-stalk dangle as now its silken tassels in peace.\n\n Under thee only they harvest, even but a wisp of hay under thy great\n face only,\n Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, every barbed spear\n under thee,\n Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, each ear in its\n light-green sheath,\n Gather the hay to its myriad mows in the odorous tranquil barns,\n Oats to their bins, the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan, to theirs;\n Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama, dig and hoard the\n golden the sweet potato of Georgia and the Carolinas,\n Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,\n Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp or tobacco in the Borders,\n Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees or bunches\n of grapes from the vines,\n Or aught that ripens in all these States or North or South,\n Under the beaming sun and under thee.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "There Was a Child Went Forth", + "body": " There was a child went forth every day,\n And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,\n And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,\n Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.\n\n The early lilacs became part of this child,\n And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red\n clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,\n And the Third-month lambs and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the\n mare’s foal and the cow’s calf,\n And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side,\n And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the\n beautiful curious liquid,\n And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all became part of him.\n\n The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him,\n Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and the\n esculent roots of the garden,\n And the apple-trees cover’d with blossoms and the fruit afterward,\n and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road,\n And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the\n tavern whence he had lately risen,\n And the schoolmistress that pass’d on her way to the school,\n And the friendly boys that pass’d, and the quarrelsome boys,\n And the tidy and fresh-cheek’d girls, and the barefoot negro boy and girl,\n And all the changes of city and country wherever he went.\n\n His own parents, he that had father’d him and she that had conceiv’d\n him in her womb and birth’d him,\n They gave this child more of themselves than that,\n They gave him afterward every day, they became part of him.\n\n The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table,\n The mother with mild words, clean her cap and gown, a wholesome\n odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by,\n The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger’d, unjust,\n The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,\n The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture, the\n yearning and swelling heart,\n Affection that will not be gainsay’d, the sense of what is real, the\n thought if after all it should prove unreal,\n The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the curious\n whether and how,\n Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?\n Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not flashes\n and specks what are they?\n The streets themselves and the facades of houses, and goods in the windows,\n Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves, the huge crossing at\n the ferries,\n The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset, the river between,\n Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of\n white or brown two miles off,\n The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide, the little\n boat slack-tow’d astern,\n The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,\n The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away\n solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies motionless in,\n The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh\n and shore mud,\n These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who\n now goes, and will always go forth every day.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Old Ireland", + "body": " Far hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty,\n Crouching over a grave an ancient sorrowful mother,\n Once a queen, now lean and tatter’d seated on the ground,\n Her old white hair drooping dishevel’d round her shoulders,\n At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,\n Long silent, she too long silent, mourning her shrouded hope and heir,\n Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow because most full of love.\n\n Yet a word ancient mother,\n You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground with forehead\n between your knees,\n O you need not sit there veil’d in your old white hair so dishevel’d,\n For know you the one you mourn is not in that grave,\n It was an illusion, the son you love was not really dead,\n The Lord is not dead, he is risen again young and strong in another country,\n Even while you wept there by your fallen harp by the grave,\n What you wept for was translated, pass’d from the grave,\n The winds favor’d and the sea sail’d it,\n And now with rosy and new blood,\n Moves to-day in a new country.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The City Dead-House", + "body": " By the city dead-house by the gate,\n As idly sauntering wending my way from the clangor,\n I curious pause, for lo, an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought,\n Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d, it lies on the damp brick pavement,\n The divine woman, her body, I see the body, I look on it alone,\n That house once full of passion and beauty, all else I notice not,\n Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors\n morbific impress me,\n But the house alone--that wondrous house--that delicate fair house\n --that ruin!\n That immortal house more than all the rows of dwellings ever built!\n Or white-domed capitol with majestic figure surmounted, or all the\n old high-spired cathedrals,\n That little house alone more than them all--poor, desperate house!\n Fair, fearful wreck--tenement of a soul--itself a soul,\n Unclaim’d, avoided house--take one breath from my tremulous lips,\n Take one tear dropt aside as I go for thought of you,\n Dead house of love--house of madness and sin, crumbled, crush’d,\n House of life, erewhile talking and laughing--but ah, poor house,\n dead even then,\n Months, years, an echoing, garnish’d house--but dead, dead, dead.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "This Compost", + "body": " 1\n Something startles me where I thought I was safest,\n I withdraw from the still woods I loved,\n I will not go now on the pastures to walk,\n I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,\n I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me.\n\n O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?\n How can you be alive you growths of spring?\n How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?\n Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you?\n Is not every continent work’d over and over with sour dead?\n\n Where have you disposed of their carcasses?\n Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?\n Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?\n I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv’d,\n I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through\n the sod and turn it up underneath,\n I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.\n\n 2\n Behold this compost! behold it well!\n Perhaps every mite has once form’d part of a sick person--yet behold!\n The grass of spring covers the prairies,\n The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,\n The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,\n The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,\n The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,\n The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,\n The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on\n their nests,\n The young of poultry break through the hatch’d eggs,\n The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the\n colt from the mare,\n Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato’s dark green leaves,\n Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in\n the dooryards,\n The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata\n of sour dead.\n\n What chemistry!\n That the winds are really not infectious,\n That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which\n is so amorous after me,\n That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,\n That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited\n themselves in it,\n That all is clean forever and forever,\n That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,\n That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,\n That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that\n melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,\n That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,\n Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once\n catching disease.\n\n Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,\n It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,\n It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless\n successions of diseas’d corpses,\n It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,\n It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,\n It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings\n from them at last.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To a Foil’d European Revolutionaire", + "body": " Courage yet, my brother or my sister!\n Keep on--Liberty is to be subserv’d whatever occurs;\n That is nothing that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any\n number of failures,\n Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any\n unfaithfulness,\n Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes.\n\n What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents,\n Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is\n positive and composed, knows no discouragement,\n Waiting patiently, waiting its time.\n\n (Not songs of loyalty alone are these,\n But songs of insurrection also,\n For I am the sworn poet of every dauntless rebel the world over,\n And he going with me leaves peace and routine behind him,\n And stakes his life to be lost at any moment.)\n\n The battle rages with many a loud alarm and frequent advance and retreat,\n The infidel triumphs, or supposes he triumphs,\n The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace and\n leadballs do their work,\n The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,\n The great speakers and writers are exiled, they lie sick in distant lands,\n The cause is asleep, the strongest throats are choked with their own blood,\n The young men droop their eyelashes toward the ground when they meet;\n But for all this Liberty has not gone out of the place, nor the\n infidel enter’d into full possession.\n\n When liberty goes out of a place it is not the first to go, nor the\n second or third to go,\n It waits for all the rest to go, it is the last.\n\n When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs,\n And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged\n from any part of the earth,\n Then only shall liberty or the idea of liberty be discharged from\n that part of the earth,\n And the infidel come into full possession.\n\n Then courage European revolter, revoltress!\n For till all ceases neither must you cease.\n\n I do not know what you are for, (I do not know what I am for myself,\n nor what any thing is for,)\n But I will search carefully for it even in being foil’d,\n In defeat, poverty, misconception, imprisonment--for they too are great.\n\n Did we think victory great?\n So it is--but now it seems to me, when it cannot be help’d, that\n defeat is great,\n And that death and dismay are great.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Unnamed Land", + "body": " Nations ten thousand years before these States, and many times ten\n thousand years before these States,\n Garner’d clusters of ages that men and women like us grew up and\n travel’d their course and pass’d on,\n What vast-built cities, what orderly republics, what pastoral tribes\n and nomads,\n What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others,\n What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions,\n What sort of marriage, what costumes, what physiology and phrenology,\n What of liberty and slavery among them, what they thought of death\n and the soul,\n Who were witty and wise, who beautiful and poetic, who brutish and\n undevelop’d,\n Not a mark, not a record remains--and yet all remains.\n\n O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more\n than we are for nothing,\n I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much\n as we now belong to it.\n\n Afar they stand, yet near to me they stand,\n Some with oval countenances learn’d and calm,\n Some naked and savage, some like huge collections of insects,\n Some in tents, herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,\n Some prowling through woods, some living peaceably on farms,\n laboring, reaping, filling barns,\n Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories,\n libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.\n Are those billions of men really gone?\n Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?\n Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?\n Did they achieve nothing for good for themselves?\n\n I believe of all those men and women that fill’d the unnamed lands,\n every one exists this hour here or elsewhere, invisible to us.\n In exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life, and out of\n what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn’d, in life.\n\n I believe that was not the end of those nations or any person of\n them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of me;\n Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products,\n games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets,\n I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen world,\n counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world,\n I suspect I shall meet them there,\n I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song of Prudence", + "body": " Manhattan’s streets I saunter’d pondering,\n On Time, Space, Reality--on such as these, and abreast with them Prudence.\n\n The last explanation always remains to be made about prudence,\n Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that\n suits immortality.\n\n The soul is of itself,\n All verges to it, all has reference to what ensues,\n All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence,\n Not a move can a man or woman make, that affects him or her in a day,\n month, any part of the direct lifetime, or the hour of death,\n But the same affects him or her onward afterward through the\n indirect lifetime.\n\n The indirect is just as much as the direct,\n The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the\n body, if not more.\n\n Not one word or deed, not venereal sore, discoloration, privacy of\n the onanist,\n Putridity of gluttons or rum-drinkers, peculation, cunning,\n betrayal, murder, seduction, prostitution,\n But has results beyond death as really as before death.\n\n Charity and personal force are the only investments worth any thing.\n\n No specification is necessary, all that a male or female does, that\n is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to him or her,\n In the unshakable order of the universe and through the whole scope\n of it forever.\n\n Who has been wise receives interest,\n Savage, felon, President, judge, farmer, sailor, mechanic, literat,\n young, old, it is the same,\n The interest will come round--all will come round.\n\n Singly, wholly, to affect now, affected their time, will forever affect,\n all of the past and all of the present and all of the future,\n All the brave actions of war and peace,\n All help given to relatives, strangers, the poor, old, sorrowful,\n young children, widows, the sick, and to shunn’d persons,\n All self-denial that stood steady and aloof on wrecks, and saw\n others fill the seats of the boats,\n All offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a\n friend’s sake, or opinion’s sake,\n All pains of enthusiasts scoff’d at by their neighbors,\n All the limitless sweet love and precious suffering of mothers,\n All honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded,\n All the grandeur and good of ancient nations whose fragments we inherit,\n All the good of the dozens of ancient nations unknown to us by name,\n date, location,\n All that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no,\n All suggestions of the divine mind of man or the divinity of his\n mouth, or the shaping of his great hands,\n All that is well thought or said this day on any part of the globe,\n or on any of the wandering stars, or on any of the fix’d stars,\n by those there as we are here,\n All that is henceforth to be thought or done by you whoever you are,\n or by any one,\n These inure, have inured, shall inure, to the identities from which\n they sprang, or shall spring.\n\n Did you guess any thing lived only its moment?\n The world does not so exist, no parts palpable or impalpable so exist,\n No consummation exists without being from some long previous\n consummation, and that from some other,\n Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the\n beginning than any.\n\n Whatever satisfies souls is true;\n Prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of souls,\n Itself only finally satisfies the soul,\n The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson\n but its own.\n\n Now I breathe the word of the prudence that walks abreast with time,\n space, reality,\n That answers the pride which refuses every lesson but its own.\n\n What is prudence is indivisible,\n Declines to separate one part of life from every part,\n Divides not the righteous from the unrighteous or the living from the dead,\n Matches every thought or act by its correlative,\n Knows no possible forgiveness or deputed atonement,\n Knows that the young man who composedly peril’d his life and lost it\n has done exceedingly well for himself without doubt,\n That he who never peril’d his life, but retains it to old age in\n riches and ease, has probably achiev’d nothing for himself worth\n mentioning,\n Knows that only that person has really learn’d who has learn’d to\n prefer results,\n Who favors body and soul the same,\n Who perceives the indirect assuredly following the direct,\n Who in his spirit in any emergency whatever neither hurries nor\n avoids death.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Singer in the Prison", + "body": " O sight of pity, shame and dole!\n O fearful thought--a convict soul.\n\n 1\n Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison,\n Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,\n Pouring in floods of melody in tones so pensive sweet and strong the\n like whereof was never heard,\n Reaching the far-off sentry and the armed guards, who ceas’d their pacing,\n Making the hearer’s pulses stop for ecstasy and awe.\n\n 2\n The sun was low in the west one winter day,\n When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,\n (There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counterfeiters,\n Gather’d to Sunday church in prison walls, the keepers round,\n Plenteous, well-armed, watching with vigilant eyes,)\n Calmly a lady walk’d holding a little innocent child by either hand,\n Whom seating on their stools beside her on the platform,\n She, first preluding with the instrument a low and musical prelude,\n In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn.\n\n A soul confined by bars and bands,\n Cries, help! O help! and wrings her hands,\n Blinded her eyes, bleeding her breast,\n Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest.\n\n Ceaseless she paces to and fro,\n O heart-sick days! O nights of woe!\n Nor hand of friend, nor loving face,\n Nor favor comes, nor word of grace.\n\n It was not I that sinn’d the sin,\n The ruthless body dragg’d me in;\n Though long I strove courageously,\n The body was too much for me.\n\n Dear prison’d soul bear up a space,\n For soon or late the certain grace;\n To set thee free and bear thee home,\n The heavenly pardoner death shall come.\n\n Convict no more, nor shame, nor dole!\n Depart--a God-enfranchis’d soul!\n\n 3\n The singer ceas’d,\n One glance swept from her clear calm eyes o’er all those upturn’d faces,\n Strange sea of prison faces, a thousand varied, crafty, brutal,\n seam’d and beauteous faces,\n Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them,\n While her gown touch’d them rustling in the silence,\n She vanish’d with her children in the dusk.\n\n While upon all, convicts and armed keepers ere they stirr’d,\n (Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol,)\n A hush and pause fell down a wondrous minute,\n With deep half-stifled sobs and sound of bad men bow’d and moved to weeping,\n And youth’s convulsive breathings, memories of home,\n The mother’s voice in lullaby, the sister’s care, the happy childhood,\n The long-pent spirit rous’d to reminiscence;\n A wondrous minute then--but after in the solitary night, to many,\n many there,\n Years after, even in the hour of death, the sad refrain, the tune,\n the voice, the words,\n Resumed, the large calm lady walks the narrow aisle,\n The wailing melody again, the singer in the prison sings,\n\n O sight of pity, shame and dole!\n O fearful thought--a convict soul.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Warble for Lilac-Time", + "body": " Warble me now for joy of lilac-time, (returning in reminiscence,)\n Sort me O tongue and lips for Nature’s sake, souvenirs of earliest summer,\n Gather the welcome signs, (as children with pebbles or stringing shells,)\n Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air,\n Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,\n Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his\n golden wings,\n The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,\n Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above,\n All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,\n The maple woods, the crisp February days and the sugar-making,\n The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,\n With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,\n Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest\n of his mate,\n The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts,\n For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it\n and from it?\n Thou, soul, unloosen’d--the restlessness after I know not what;\n Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!\n O if one could but fly like a bird!\n O to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!\n To glide with thee O soul, o’er all, in all, as a ship o’er the waters;\n Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass, the\n morning drops of dew,\n The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark green heart-shaped leaves,\n Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,\n Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,\n To grace the bush I love--to sing with the birds,\n A warble for joy of returning in reminiscence.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Outlines for a Tomb [G. P., Buried 1870]", + "body": " 1\n What may we chant, O thou within this tomb?\n What tablets, outlines, hang for thee, O millionnaire?\n The life thou lived’st we know not,\n But that thou walk’dst thy years in barter, ’mid the haunts of\n brokers,\n Nor heroism thine, nor war, nor glory.\n\n 2\n Silent, my soul,\n With drooping lids, as waiting, ponder’d,\n Turning from all the samples, monuments of heroes.\n\n While through the interior vistas,\n Noiseless uprose, phantasmic, (as by night Auroras of the north,)\n Lambent tableaus, prophetic, bodiless scenes,\n Spiritual projections.\n\n In one, among the city streets a laborer’s home appear’d,\n After his day’s work done, cleanly, sweet-air’d, the gaslight burning,\n The carpet swept and a fire in the cheerful stove.\n\n In one, the sacred parturition scene,\n A happy painless mother birth’d a perfect child.\n\n In one, at a bounteous morning meal,\n Sat peaceful parents with contented sons.\n\n In one, by twos and threes, young people,\n Hundreds concentring, walk’d the paths and streets and roads,\n Toward a tall-domed school.\n\n In one a trio beautiful,\n Grandmother, loving daughter, loving daughter’s daughter, sat,\n Chatting and sewing.\n\n In one, along a suite of noble rooms,\n ’Mid plenteous books and journals, paintings on the walls, fine statuettes,\n Were groups of friendly journeymen, mechanics young and old,\n Reading, conversing.\n\n All, all the shows of laboring life,\n City and country, women’s, men’s and children’s,\n Their wants provided for, hued in the sun and tinged for once with joy,\n Marriage, the street, the factory, farm, the house-room, lodging-room,\n Labor and toll, the bath, gymnasium, playground, library, college,\n The student, boy or girl, led forward to be taught,\n The sick cared for, the shoeless shod, the orphan father’d and mother’d,\n The hungry fed, the houseless housed;\n (The intentions perfect and divine,\n The workings, details, haply human.)\n\n 3\n O thou within this tomb,\n From thee such scenes, thou stintless, lavish giver,\n Tallying the gifts of earth, large as the earth,\n Thy name an earth, with mountains, fields and tides.\n\n Nor by your streams alone, you rivers,\n By you, your banks Connecticut,\n By you and all your teeming life old Thames,\n By you Potomac laving the ground Washington trod, by you Patapsco,\n You Hudson, you endless Mississippi--nor you alone,\n But to the high seas launch, my thought, his memory.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Out from Behind This Mask [To Confront a Portrait]", + "body": " 1\n Out from behind this bending rough-cut mask,\n These lights and shades, this drama of the whole,\n This common curtain of the face contain’d in me for me, in you for\n you, in each for each,\n (Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears--0 heaven!\n The passionate teeming plays this curtain hid!)\n This glaze of God’s serenest purest sky,\n This film of Satan’s seething pit,\n This heart’s geography’s map, this limitless small continent, this\n soundless sea;\n Out from the convolutions of this globe,\n This subtler astronomic orb than sun or moon, than Jupiter, Venus, Mars,\n This condensation of the universe, (nay here the only universe,\n Here the idea, all in this mystic handful wrapt;)\n These burin’d eyes, flashing to you to pass to future time,\n To launch and spin through space revolving sideling, from these to emanate,\n To you whoe’er you are--a look.\n\n 2\n A traveler of thoughts and years, of peace and war,\n Of youth long sped and middle age declining,\n (As the first volume of a tale perused and laid away, and this the second,\n Songs, ventures, speculations, presently to close,)\n Lingering a moment here and now, to you I opposite turn,\n As on the road or at some crevice door by chance, or open’d window,\n Pausing, inclining, baring my head, you specially I greet,\n To draw and clinch your soul for once inseparably with mine,\n Then travel travel on.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Vocalism", + "body": " 1\n Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine\n power to speak words;\n Are you full-lung’d and limber-lipp’d from long trial? from vigorous\n practice? from physique?\n Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?\n Come duly to the divine power to speak words?\n For only at last after many years, after chastity, friendship,\n procreation, prudence, and nakedness,\n After treading ground and breasting river and lake,\n After a loosen’d throat, after absorbing eras, temperaments, races,\n after knowledge, freedom, crimes,\n After complete faith, after clarifyings, elevations, and removing\n obstructions,\n After these and more, it is just possible there comes to a man,\n woman, the divine power to speak words;\n Then toward that man or that woman swiftly hasten all--none\n refuse, all attend,\n Armies, ships, antiquities, libraries, paintings, machines, cities,\n hate, despair, amity, pain, theft, murder, aspiration, form in\n close ranks,\n They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently through the\n mouth of that man or that woman.\n\n 2\n O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?\n Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow,\n As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere\n around the globe.\n\n All waits for the right voices;\n Where is the practis’d and perfect organ? where is the develop’d soul?\n For I see every word utter’d thence has deeper, sweeter, new sounds,\n impossible on less terms.\n\n I see brains and lips closed, tympans and temples unstruck,\n Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose,\n Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies\n slumbering forever ready in all words.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To Him That Was Crucified", + "body": " My spirit to yours dear brother,\n Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you,\n I do not sound your name, but I understand you,\n I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute\n those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also,\n That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and succession,\n We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,\n We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies,\n Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,\n We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the\n disputers nor any thing that is asserted,\n We hear the bawling and din, we are reach’d at by divisions,\n jealousies, recriminations on every side,\n They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,\n Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and\n down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras,\n Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races,\n ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "You Felons on Trial in Courts", + "body": " You felons on trial in courts,\n You convicts in prison-cells, you sentenced assassins chain’d and\n handcuff’d with iron,\n Who am I too that I am not on trial or in prison?\n Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain’d with\n iron, or my ankles with iron?\n\n You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs or obscene in your rooms,\n Who am I that I should call you more obscene than myself?\n\n O culpable! I acknowledge--I expose!\n (O admirers, praise not me--compliment not me--you make me wince,\n I see what you do not--I know what you do not.)\n\n Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch’d and choked,\n Beneath this face that appears so impassive hell’s tides continually run,\n Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me,\n I walk with delinquents with passionate love,\n I feel I am of them--I belong to those convicts and prostitutes myself,\n And henceforth I will not deny them--for how can I deny myself?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Laws for Creations", + "body": " Laws for creations,\n For strong artists and leaders, for fresh broods of teachers and\n perfect literats for America,\n For noble savans and coming musicians.\n All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the\n compact truth of the world,\n There shall be no subject too pronounced--all works shall illustrate\n the divine law of indirections.\n\n What do you suppose creation is?\n What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and\n own no superior?\n What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but\n that man or woman is as good as God?\n And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?\n And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally mean?\n And that you or any one must approach creations through such laws?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To a Common Prostitute", + "body": " Be composed--be at ease with me--I am Walt Whitman, liberal and\n lusty as Nature,\n Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,\n Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to\n rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you.\n\n My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you that you\n make preparation to be worthy to meet me,\n And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.\n\n Till then I salute you with a significant look that you do not forget me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "I Was Looking a Long While", + "body": " I was looking a long while for Intentions,\n For a clew to the history of the past for myself, and for these\n chants--and now I have found it,\n It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither\n accept nor reject,)\n It is no more in the legends than in all else,\n It is in the present--it is this earth to-day,\n It is in Democracy--(the purport and aim of all the past,)\n It is the life of one man or one woman to-day--the average man of to-day,\n It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts,\n It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery,\n politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of nations,\n All for the modern--all for the average man of to-day.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thought", + "body": " Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth,\n scholarships, and the like;\n (To me all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from them,\n except as it results to their bodies and souls,\n So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked,\n And often to me each one mocks the others, and mocks himself or herself,\n And of each one the core of life, namely happiness, is full of the\n rotten excrement of maggots,\n And often to me those men and women pass unwittingly the true\n realities of life, and go toward false realities,\n And often to me they are alive after what custom has served them,\n but nothing more,\n And often to me they are sad, hasty, unwaked sonnambules walking the dusk.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Miracles", + "body": " Why, who makes much of a miracle?\n As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,\n Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,\n Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,\n Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,\n Or stand under trees in the woods,\n Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night\n with any one I love,\n Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,\n Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,\n Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,\n Or animals feeding in the fields,\n Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,\n Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet\n and bright,\n Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;\n These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,\n The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.\n\n To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,\n Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,\n Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,\n Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.\n To me the sea is a continual miracle,\n The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the\n ships with men in them,\n What stranger miracles are there?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Sparkles from the Wheel", + "body": " Where the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day,\n Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside with them.\n\n By the curb toward the edge of the flagging,\n A knife-grinder works at his wheel sharpening a great knife,\n Bending over he carefully holds it to the stone, by foot and knee,\n With measur’d tread he turns rapidly, as he presses with light but\n firm hand,\n Forth issue then in copious golden jets,\n Sparkles from the wheel.\n\n The scene and all its belongings, how they seize and affect me,\n The sad sharp-chinn’d old man with worn clothes and broad\n shoulder-band of leather,\n Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now here\n absorb’d and arrested,\n The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding,)\n The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of the streets,\n The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press’d blade,\n Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,\n Sparkles from the wheel.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To a Pupil", + "body": " Is reform needed? is it through you?\n The greater the reform needed, the greater the Personality you need\n to accomplish it.\n\n You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood,\n complexion, clean and sweet?\n Do you not see how it would serve to have such a body and soul that\n when you enter the crowd an atmosphere of desire and command\n enters with you, and every one is impress’d with your Personality?\n\n O the magnet! the flesh over and over!\n Go, dear friend, if need be give up all else, and commence to-day to\n inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness,\n elevatedness,\n Rest not till you rivet and publish yourself of your own Personality.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Unfolded out of the Folds", + "body": " Unfolded out of the folds of the woman man comes unfolded, and is\n always to come unfolded,\n Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth is to come the\n superbest man of the earth,\n Unfolded out of the friendliest woman is to come the friendliest man,\n Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman can a man be\n form’d of perfect body,\n Unfolded only out of the inimitable poems of woman can come the\n poems of man, (only thence have my poems come;)\n Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love, only thence\n can appear the strong and arrogant man I love,\n Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscled woman\n love, only thence come the brawny embraces of the man,\n Unfolded out of the folds of the woman’s brain come all the folds\n of the man’s brain, duly obedient,\n Unfolded out of the justice of the woman all justice is unfolded,\n Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy;\n A man is a great thing upon the earth and through eternity, but\n every of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman;\n First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "What Am I After All", + "body": " What am I after all but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own\n name? repeating it over and over;\n I stand apart to hear--it never tires me.\n\n To you your name also;\n Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in\n the sound of your name?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Kosmos", + "body": " Who includes diversity and is Nature,\n Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of\n the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also,\n Who has not look’d forth from the windows the eyes for nothing,\n or whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing,\n Who contains believers and disbelievers, who is the most majestic lover,\n Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism,\n spiritualism, and of the aesthetic or intellectual,\n Who having consider’d the body finds all its organs and parts good,\n Who, out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body\n understands by subtle analogies all other theories,\n The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of these States;\n Who believes not only in our globe with its sun and moon, but in\n other globes with their suns and moons,\n Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day\n but for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations,\n The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Others May Praise What They Like", + "body": " Others may praise what they like;\n But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing in art\n or aught else,\n Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river, also the\n western prairie-scent,\n And exudes it all again.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?", + "body": " Who learns my lesson complete?\n Boss, journeyman, apprentice, churchman and atheist,\n The stupid and the wise thinker, parents and offspring, merchant,\n clerk, porter and customer,\n Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy--draw nigh and commence;\n It is no lesson--it lets down the bars to a good lesson,\n And that to another, and every one to another still.\n\n The great laws take and effuse without argument,\n I am of the same style, for I am their friend,\n I love them quits and quits, I do not halt and make salaams.\n\n I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the reasons\n of things,\n They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.\n\n I cannot say to any person what I hear--I cannot say it to myself--\n it is very wonderful.\n\n It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe moving so\n exactly in its orbit for ever and ever, without one jolt or\n the untruth of a single second,\n I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years,\n nor ten billions of years,\n Nor plann’d and built one thing after another as an architect plans\n and builds a house.\n\n I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,\n Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,\n Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.\n\n Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is immortal;\n I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and\n how I was conceived in my mother’s womb is equally wonderful,\n And pass’d from a babe in the creeping trance of a couple of\n summers and winters to articulate and walk--all this is\n equally wonderful.\n\n And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other\n without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see\n each other, is every bit as wonderful.\n\n And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,\n And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to\n be true, is just as wonderful.\n\n And that the moon spins round the earth and on with the earth, is\n equally wonderful,\n And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally\n wonderful.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Tests", + "body": " All submit to them where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to\n analysis in the soul,\n Not traditions, not the outer authorities are the judges,\n They are the judges of outer authorities and of all traditions,\n They corroborate as they go only whatever corroborates themselves,\n and touches themselves;\n For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far\n and near without one exception.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Torch", + "body": " On my Northwest coast in the midst of the night a fishermen’s group\n stands watching,\n Out on the lake that expands before them, others are spearing salmon,\n The canoe, a dim shadowy thing, moves across the black water,\n Bearing a torch ablaze at the prow.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "O Star of France [1870-71]", + "body": " O star of France,\n The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,\n Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,\n Beseems to-day a wreck driven by the gale, a mastless hulk,\n And ’mid its teeming madden’d half-drown’d crowds,\n Nor helm nor helmsman.\n\n Dim smitten star,\n Orb not of France alone, pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes,\n The struggle and the daring, rage divine for liberty,\n Of aspirations toward the far ideal, enthusiast’s dreams of brotherhood,\n Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.\n\n Star crucified--by traitors sold,\n Star panting o’er a land of death, heroic land,\n Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.\n\n Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee,\n Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell’d them all,\n And left thee sacred.\n\n In that amid thy many faults thou ever aimedst highly,\n In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself however great the price,\n In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg’d sleep,\n In that alone among thy sisters thou, giantess, didst rend the ones\n that shamed thee,\n In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains,\n This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet,\n The spear thrust in thy side.\n\n O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!\n Bear up O smitten orb! O ship continue on!\n\n Sure as the ship of all, the Earth itself,\n Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos,\n Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons,\n Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty,\n Onward beneath the sun following its course,\n So thee O ship of France!\n\n Finish’d the days, the clouds dispel’d\n The travail o’er, the long-sought extrication,\n When lo! reborn, high o’er the European world,\n (In gladness answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting ours\n Columbia,)\n Again thy star O France, fair lustrous star,\n In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever,\n Shall beam immortal.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Ox-Tamer", + "body": " In a far-away northern county in the placid pastoral region,\n Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a famous tamer of oxen,\n There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds to\n break them,\n He will take the wildest steer in the world and break him and tame him,\n He will go fearless without any whip where the young bullock\n chafes up and down the yard,\n The bullock’s head tosses restless high in the air with raging eyes,\n Yet see you! how soon his rage subsides--how soon this tamer tames him;\n See you! on the farms hereabout a hundred oxen young and old,\n and he is the man who has tamed them,\n They all know him, all are affectionate to him;\n See you! some are such beautiful animals, so lofty looking;\n Some are buff-color’d, some mottled, one has a white line running\n along his back, some are brindled,\n Some have wide flaring horns (a good sign)--see you! the bright hides,\n See, the two with stars on their foreheads--see, the round bodies\n and broad backs,\n How straight and square they stand on their legs--what fine sagacious eyes!\n How straight they watch their tamer--they wish him near them--how\n they turn to look after him!\n What yearning expression! how uneasy they are when he moves away from them;\n Now I marvel what it can be he appears to them, (books, politics,\n poems, depart--all else departs,)\n I confess I envy only his fascination--my silent, illiterate friend,\n Whom a hundred oxen love there in his life on farms,\n In the northern county far, in the placid pastoral region.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "An Old Man’s Thought of School", + "body": " [For the Inauguration of a Public School, Camden, New Jersey, 1874]\n\n An old man’s thought of school,\n An old man gathering youthful memories and blooms that youth itself cannot.\n\n Now only do I know you,\n O fair auroral skies--O morning dew upon the grass!\n\n And these I see, these sparkling eyes,\n These stores of mystic meaning, these young lives,\n Building, equipping like a fleet of ships, immortal ships,\n Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,\n On the soul’s voyage.\n\n Only a lot of boys and girls?\n Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?\n Only a public school?\n\n Ah more, infinitely more;\n (As George Fox rais’d his warning cry, “Is it this pile of brick and\n mortar, these dead floors, windows, rails, you call the church?\n Why this is not the church at all--the church is living, ever living\n souls.”)\n\n And you America,\n Cast you the real reckoning for your present?\n The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil?\n To girlhood, boyhood look, the teacher and the school.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Wandering at Morn", + "body": " Wandering at morn,\n Emerging from the night from gloomy thoughts, thee in my thoughts,\n Yearning for thee harmonious Union! thee, singing bird divine!\n Thee coil’d in evil times my country, with craft and black dismay,\n with every meanness, treason thrust upon thee,\n This common marvel I beheld--the parent thrush I watch’d feeding its young,\n The singing thrush whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic,\n Fail not to certify and cheer my soul.\n\n There ponder’d, felt I,\n If worms, snakes, loathsome grubs, may to sweet spiritual songs be turn’d,\n If vermin so transposed, so used and bless’d may be,\n Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my country;\n Who knows but these may be the lessons fit for you?\n From these your future song may rise with joyous trills,\n Destin’d to fill the world.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Italian Music in Dakota", + "body": " [“The Seventeenth--the finest Regimental Band I ever heard.”]\n\n Through the soft evening air enwinding all,\n Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds,\n In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes,\n Electric, pensive, turbulent, artificial,\n (Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before,\n Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here,\n Not to the city’s fresco’d rooms, not to the audience of the opera house,\n Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really here at home,\n Sonnambula’s innocent love, trios with Norma’s anguish,\n And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;)\n Ray’d in the limpid yellow slanting sundown,\n Music, Italian music in Dakota.\n\n While Nature, sovereign of this gnarl’d realm,\n Lurking in hidden barbaric grim recesses,\n Acknowledging rapport however far remov’d,\n (As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,)\n Listens well pleas’d.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "With All Thy Gifts", + "body": " With all thy gifts America,\n Standing secure, rapidly tending, overlooking the world,\n Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee--with these and like of\n these vouchsafed to thee,\n What if one gift thou lackest? (the ultimate human problem never solving,)\n The gift of perfect women fit for thee--what if that gift of gifts\n thou lackest?\n The towering feminine of thee? the beauty, health, completion, fit for thee?\n The mothers fit for thee?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "My Picture-Gallery", + "body": " In a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house,\n It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;\n Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories!\n Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;\n Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,\n With finger rais’d he points to the prodigal pictures.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Prairie States", + "body": " A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude,\n Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,\n With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,\n By all the world contributed--freedom’s and law’s and thrift’s society,\n The crown and teeming paradise, so far, of time’s accumulations,\n To justify the past.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Proud Music of the Storm", + "body": " 1\n Proud music of the storm,\n Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies,\n Strong hum of forest tree-tops--wind of the mountains,\n Personified dim shapes--you hidden orchestras,\n You serenades of phantoms with instruments alert,\n Blending with Nature’s rhythmus all the tongues of nations;\n You chords left as by vast composers--you choruses,\n You formless, free, religious dances--you from the Orient,\n You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts,\n You sounds from distant guns with galloping cavalry,\n Echoes of camps with all the different bugle-calls,\n Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless,\n Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber, why have you seiz’d me?\n\n\n 2\n Come forward O my soul, and let the rest retire,\n Listen, lose not, it is toward thee they tend,\n Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber,\n For thee they sing and dance O soul.\n\n A festival song,\n The duet of the bridegroom and the bride, a marriage-march,\n With lips of love, and hearts of lovers fill’d to the brim with love,\n The red-flush’d cheeks and perfumes, the cortege swarming full of\n friendly faces young and old,\n To flutes’ clear notes and sounding harps’ cantabile.\n\n Now loud approaching drums,\n Victoria! seest thou in powder-smoke the banners torn but flying?\n the rout of the baffled?\n Hearest those shouts of a conquering army?\n\n (Ah soul, the sobs of women, the wounded groaning in agony,\n The hiss and crackle of flames, the blacken’d ruins, the embers of cities,\n The dirge and desolation of mankind.)\n\n Now airs antique and mediaeval fill me,\n I see and hear old harpers with their harps at Welsh festivals,\n I hear the minnesingers singing their lays of love,\n I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the middle ages.\n\n Now the great organ sounds,\n Tremulous, while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth,\n On which arising rest, and leaping forth depend,\n All shapes of beauty, grace and strength, all hues we know,\n Green blades of grass and warbling birds, children that gambol and\n play, the clouds of heaven above,)\n The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not,\n Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest, maternity of all the rest,\n And with it every instrument in multitudes,\n The players playing, all the world’s musicians,\n The solemn hymns and masses rousing adoration,\n All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals,\n The measureless sweet vocalists of ages,\n And for their solvent setting earth’s own diapason,\n Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves,\n A new composite orchestra, binder of years and climes, ten-fold renewer,\n As of the far-back days the poets tell, the Paradiso,\n The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done,\n The journey done, the journeyman come home,\n And man and art with Nature fused again.\n\n Tutti! for earth and heaven;\n (The Almighty leader now for once has signal’d with his wand.)\n\n The manly strophe of the husbands of the world,\n And all the wives responding.\n\n The tongues of violins,\n (I think O tongues ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself,\n This brooding yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.)\n\n 3\n Ah from a little child,\n Thou knowest soul how to me all sounds became music,\n My mother’s voice in lullaby or hymn,\n (The voice, O tender voices, memory’s loving voices,\n Last miracle of all, O dearest mother’s, sister’s, voices;)\n The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav’d corn,\n The measur’d sea-surf beating on the sand,\n The twittering bird, the hawk’s sharp scream,\n The wild-fowl’s notes at night as flying low migrating north or south,\n The psalm in the country church or mid the clustering trees, the\n open air camp-meeting,\n The fiddler in the tavern, the glee, the long-strung sailor-song,\n The lowing cattle, bleating sheep, the crowing cock at dawn.\n\n All songs of current lands come sounding round me,\n The German airs of friendship, wine and love,\n Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances, English warbles,\n Chansons of France, Scotch tunes, and o’er the rest,\n Italia’s peerless compositions.\n\n Across the stage with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion,\n Stalks Norma brandishing the dagger in her hand.\n\n I see poor crazed Lucia’s eyes’ unnatural gleam,\n Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevel’d.\n\n I see where Ernani walking the bridal garden,\n Amid the scent of night-roses, radiant, holding his bride by the hand,\n Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn.\n\n To crossing swords and gray hairs bared to heaven,\n The clear electric base and baritone of the world,\n The trombone duo, Libertad forever!\n From Spanish chestnut trees’ dense shade,\n By old and heavy convent walls a wailing song,\n Song of lost love, the torch of youth and life quench’d in despair,\n Song of the dying swan, Fernando’s heart is breaking.\n\n Awaking from her woes at last retriev’d Amina sings,\n Copious as stars and glad as morning light the torrents of her joy.\n\n (The teeming lady comes,\n The lustrious orb, Venus contralto, the blooming mother,\n Sister of loftiest gods, Alboni’s self I hear.)\n\n 4\n I hear those odes, symphonies, operas,\n I hear in the William Tell the music of an arous’d and angry people,\n I hear Meyerbeer’s Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert,\n Gounod’s Faust, or Mozart’s Don Juan.\n\n I hear the dance-music of all nations,\n The waltz, some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in bliss,\n The bolero to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets.\n\n I see religious dances old and new,\n I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre,\n I see the crusaders marching bearing the cross on high, to the\n martial clang of cymbals,\n I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers’d with frantic\n shouts, as they spin around turning always towards Mecca,\n I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs,\n Again, at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern Greeks dancing,\n I hear them clapping their hands as they bend their bodies,\n I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet.\n\n I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding\n each other,\n I see the Roman youth to the shrill sound of flageolets throwing and\n catching their weapons,\n As they fall on their knees and rise again.\n\n I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling,\n I see the worshippers within, nor form nor sermon, argument nor word,\n But silent, strange, devout, rais’d, glowing heads, ecstatic faces.\n\n I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings,\n The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen,\n The sacred imperial hymns of China,\n To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone,)\n Or to Hindu flutes and the fretting twang of the vina,\n A band of bayaderes.\n\n 5\n Now Asia, Africa leave me, Europe seizing inflates me,\n To organs huge and bands I hear as from vast concourses of voices,\n Luther’s strong hymn Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott,\n Rossini’s Stabat Mater dolorosa,\n Or floating in some high cathedral dim with gorgeous color’d windows,\n The passionate Agnus Dei or Gloria in Excelsis.\n\n Composers! mighty maestros!\n And you, sweet singers of old lands, soprani, tenori, bassi!\n To you a new bard caroling in the West,\n Obeisant sends his love.\n\n (Such led to thee O soul,\n All senses, shows and objects, lead to thee,\n But now it seems to me sound leads o’er all the rest.)\n\n I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul’s cathedral,\n Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies,\n oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn,\n The Creation in billows of godhood laves me.\n\n Give me to hold all sounds, (I madly struggling cry,)\n Fill me with all the voices of the universe,\n Endow me with their throbbings, Nature’s also,\n The tempests, waters, winds, operas and chants, marches and dances,\n Utter, pour in, for I would take them all!\n\n 6\n Then I woke softly,\n And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream,\n And questioning all those reminiscences, the tempest in its fury,\n And all the songs of sopranos and tenors,\n And those rapt oriental dances of religious fervor,\n And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs,\n And all the artless plaints of love and grief and death,\n I said to my silent curious soul out of the bed of the slumber-chamber,\n Come, for I have found the clew I sought so long,\n Let us go forth refresh’d amid the day,\n Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real,\n Nourish’d henceforth by our celestial dream.\n\n And I said, moreover,\n Haply what thou hast heard O soul was not the sound of winds,\n Nor dream of raging storm, nor sea-hawk’s flapping wings nor harsh scream,\n Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy,\n Nor German organ majestic, nor vast concourse of voices, nor layers\n of harmonies,\n Nor strophes of husbands and wives, nor sound of marching soldiers,\n Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the bugle-calls of camps,\n But to a new rhythmus fitted for thee,\n Poems bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted in night\n air, uncaught, unwritten,\n Which let us go forth in the bold day and write.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Passage to India", + "body": " 1\n Singing my days,\n Singing the great achievements of the present,\n Singing the strong light works of engineers,\n Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,)\n In the Old World the east the Suez canal,\n The New by its mighty railroad spann’d,\n The seas inlaid with eloquent gentle wires;\n Yet first to sound, and ever sound, the cry with thee O soul,\n The Past! the Past! the Past!\n\n The Past--the dark unfathom’d retrospect!\n The teeming gulf--the sleepers and the shadows!\n The past--the infinite greatness of the past!\n For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?\n (As a projectile form’d, impell’d, passing a certain line, still keeps on,\n So the present, utterly form’d, impell’d by the past.)\n\n 2\n Passage O soul to India!\n Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables.\n\n Not you alone proud truths of the world,\n Nor you alone ye facts of modern science,\n But myths and fables of eld, Asia’s, Africa’s fables,\n The far-darting beams of the spirit, the unloos’d dreams,\n The deep diving bibles and legends,\n The daring plots of the poets, the elder religions;\n O you temples fairer than lilies pour’d over by the rising sun!\n O you fables spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known,\n mounting to heaven!\n You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish’d\n with gold!\n Towers of fables immortal fashion’d from mortal dreams!\n You too I welcome and fully the same as the rest!\n You too with joy I sing.\n\n Passage to India!\n Lo, soul, seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?\n The earth to be spann’d, connected by network,\n The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,\n The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,\n The lands to be welded together.\n\n A worship new I sing,\n You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours,\n You engineers, you architects, machinists, yours,\n You, not for trade or transportation only,\n But in God’s name, and for thy sake O soul.\n\n 3\n Passage to India!\n Lo soul for thee of tableaus twain,\n I see in one the Suez canal initiated, open’d,\n I see the procession of steamships, the Empress Engenie’s leading the van,\n I mark from on deck the strange landscape, the pure sky, the level\n sand in the distance,\n I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen gather’d,\n The gigantic dredging machines.\n\n In one again, different, (yet thine, all thine, O soul, the same,)\n I see over my own continent the Pacific railroad surmounting every barrier,\n I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte carrying\n freight and passengers,\n I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill steam-whistle,\n I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the world,\n I cross the Laramie plains, I note the rocks in grotesque shapes,\n the buttes,\n I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions, the barren, colorless,\n sage-deserts,\n I see in glimpses afar or towering immediately above me the great\n mountains, I see the Wind river and the Wahsatch mountains,\n I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle’s Nest, I pass the\n Promontory, I ascend the Nevadas,\n I scan the noble Elk mountain and wind around its base,\n I see the Humboldt range, I thread the valley and cross the river,\n I see the clear waters of lake Tahoe, I see forests of majestic pines,\n Or crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold\n enchanting mirages of waters and meadows,\n Marking through these and after all, in duplicate slender lines,\n Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel,\n Tying the Eastern to the Western sea,\n The road between Europe and Asia.\n\n (Ah Genoese thy dream! thy dream!\n Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave,\n The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream.)\n\n 4\n Passage to India!\n Struggles of many a captain, tales of many a sailor dead,\n Over my mood stealing and spreading they come,\n Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach’d sky.\n\n Along all history, down the slopes,\n As a rivulet running, sinking now, and now again to the surface rising,\n A ceaseless thought, a varied train--lo, soul, to thee, thy sight,\n they rise,\n The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions;\n Again Vasco de Gama sails forth,\n Again the knowledge gain’d, the mariner’s compass,\n Lands found and nations born, thou born America,\n For purpose vast, man’s long probation fill’d,\n Thou rondure of the world at last accomplish’d.\n\n 5\n O vast Rondure, swimming in space,\n Cover’d all over with visible power and beauty,\n Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness,\n Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and countless stars above,\n Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees,\n With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention,\n Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee.\n\n Down from the gardens of Asia descending radiating,\n Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them,\n Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explorations,\n With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with never-happy hearts,\n With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and\n Whither O mocking life?\n\n Ah who shall soothe these feverish children?\n Who Justify these restless explorations?\n Who speak the secret of impassive earth?\n Who bind it to us? what is this separate Nature so unnatural?\n What is this earth to our affections? (unloving earth, without a\n throb to answer ours,\n Cold earth, the place of graves.)\n\n Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried out,\n Perhaps even now the time has arrived.\n\n After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,)\n After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work,\n After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemist, the\n geologist, ethnologist,\n Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,\n The true son of God shall come singing his songs.\n\n Then not your deeds only O voyagers, O scientists and inventors,\n shall be justified,\n All these hearts as of fretted children shall be sooth’d,\n All affection shall be fully responded to, the secret shall be told,\n All these separations and gaps shall be taken up and hook’d and\n link’d together,\n The whole earth, this cold, impassive, voiceless earth, shall be\n completely Justified,\n Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish’d and compacted by\n the true son of God, the poet,\n (He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains,\n He shall double the cape of Good Hope to some purpose,)\n Nature and Man shall be disjoin’d and diffused no more,\n The true son of God shall absolutely fuse them.\n\n 6\n Year at whose wide-flung door I sing!\n Year of the purpose accomplish’d!\n Year of the marriage of continents, climates and oceans!\n (No mere doge of Venice now wedding the Adriatic,)\n I see O year in you the vast terraqueous globe given and giving all,\n Europe to Asia, Africa join’d, and they to the New World,\n The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival garland,\n As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand.\n\n Passage to India!\n Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of man,\n The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again.\n\n Lo soul, the retrospect brought forward,\n The old, most populous, wealthiest of earth’s lands,\n The streams of the Indus and the Ganges and their many affluents,\n (I my shores of America walking to-day behold, resuming all,)\n The tale of Alexander on his warlike marches suddenly dying,\n On one side China and on the other side Persia and Arabia,\n To the south the great seas and the bay of Bengal,\n The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions, castes,\n Old occult Brahma interminably far back, the tender and junior Buddha,\n Central and southern empires and all their belongings, possessors,\n The wars of Tamerlane,the reign of Aurungzebe,\n The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium, the\n Arabs, Portuguese,\n The first travelers famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor,\n Doubts to be solv’d, the map incognita, blanks to be fill’d,\n The foot of man unstay’d, the hands never at rest,\n Thyself O soul that will not brook a challenge.\n\n The mediaeval navigators rise before me,\n The world of 1492, with its awaken’d enterprise,\n Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in spring,\n The sunset splendor of chivalry declining.\n\n And who art thou sad shade?\n Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary,\n With majestic limbs and pious beaming eyes,\n Spreading around with every look of thine a golden world,\n Enhuing it with gorgeous hues.\n\n As the chief histrion,\n Down to the footlights walks in some great scena,\n Dominating the rest I see the Admiral himself,\n (History’s type of courage, action, faith,)\n Behold him sail from Palos leading his little fleet,\n His voyage behold, his return, his great fame,\n His misfortunes, calumniators, behold him a prisoner, chain’d,\n Behold his dejection, poverty, death.\n\n (Curious in time I stand, noting the efforts of heroes,\n Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death?\n Lies the seed unreck’d for centuries in the ground? lo, to God’s due\n occasion,\n Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms,\n And fills the earth with use and beauty.)\n\n 7\n Passage indeed O soul to primal thought,\n Not lands and seas alone, thy own clear freshness,\n The young maturity of brood and bloom,\n To realms of budding bibles.\n\n O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me,\n Thy circumnavigation of the world begin,\n Of man, the voyage of his mind’s return,\n To reason’s early paradise,\n Back, back to wisdom’s birth, to innocent intuitions,\n Again with fair creation.\n\n 8\n O we can wait no longer,\n We too take ship O soul,\n Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,\n Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail,\n Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul,)\n Caroling free, singing our song of God,\n Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.\n\n With laugh and many a kiss,\n (Let others deprecate, let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation,)\n O soul thou pleasest me, I thee.\n\n Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God,\n But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.\n\n O soul thou pleasest me, I thee,\n Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night,\n Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing,\n Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,\n Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over,\n Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,\n I and my soul to range in range of thee.\n\n O Thou transcendent,\n Nameless, the fibre and the breath,\n Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,\n Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,\n Thou moral, spiritual fountain--affection’s source--thou reservoir,\n (O pensive soul of me--O thirst unsatisfied--waitest not there?\n Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?)\n Thou pulse--thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,\n That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,\n Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,\n How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if, out\n of myself,\n I could not launch, to those, superior universes?\n\n Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,\n At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,\n But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,\n And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,\n Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,\n And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.\n\n Greater than stars or suns,\n Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth;\n What love than thine and ours could wider amplify?\n What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours O soul?\n What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection, strength?\n What cheerful willingness for others’ sake to give up all?\n For others’ sake to suffer all?\n\n Reckoning ahead O soul, when thou, the time achiev’d,\n The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,\n Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain’d,\n As fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,\n The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.\n\n 9\n Passage to more than India!\n Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights?\n O soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those?\n Disportest thou on waters such as those?\n Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas?\n Then have thy bent unleash’d.\n\n Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas!\n Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems!\n You, strew’d with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never reach’d you.\n\n Passage to more than India!\n O secret of the earth and sky!\n Of you O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers!\n Of you O woods and fields! of you strong mountains of my land!\n Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks!\n O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows!\n O day and night, passage to you!\n\n\n O sun and moon and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!\n Passage to you!\n\n Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!\n Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!\n\n Cut the hawsers--haul out--shake out every sail!\n Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?\n Have we not grovel’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?\n Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?\n\n Sail forth--steer for the deep waters only,\n Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,\n For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,\n And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.\n\n O my brave soul!\n O farther farther sail!\n O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?\n O farther, farther, farther sail!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Prayer of Columbus", + "body": " A batter’d, wreck’d old man,\n Thrown on this savage shore, far, far from home,\n Pent by the sea and dark rebellious brows, twelve dreary months,\n Sore, stiff with many toils, sicken’d and nigh to death,\n I take my way along the island’s edge,\n Venting a heavy heart.\n\n I am too full of woe!\n Haply I may not live another day;\n I cannot rest O God, I cannot eat or drink or sleep,\n Till I put forth myself, my prayer, once more to Thee,\n Breathe, bathe myself once more in Thee, commune with Thee,\n Report myself once more to Thee.\n\n Thou knowest my years entire, my life,\n My long and crowded life of active work, not adoration merely;\n Thou knowest the prayers and vigils of my youth,\n Thou knowest my manhood’s solemn and visionary meditations,\n Thou knowest how before I commenced I devoted all to come to Thee,\n Thou knowest I have in age ratified all those vows and strictly kept them,\n Thou knowest I have not once lost nor faith nor ecstasy in Thee,\n In shackles, prison’d, in disgrace, repining not,\n Accepting all from Thee, as duly come from Thee.\n\n All my emprises have been fill’d with Thee,\n My speculations, plans, begun and carried on in thoughts of Thee,\n Sailing the deep or journeying the land for Thee;\n Intentions, purports, aspirations mine, leaving results to Thee.\n\n O I am sure they really came from Thee,\n The urge, the ardor, the unconquerable will,\n The potent, felt, interior command, stronger than words,\n A message from the Heavens whispering to me even in sleep,\n These sped me on.\n\n By me and these the work so far accomplish’d,\n By me earth’s elder cloy’d and stifled lands uncloy’d, unloos’d,\n By me the hemispheres rounded and tied, the unknown to the known.\n\n The end I know not, it is all in Thee,\n Or small or great I know not--haply what broad fields, what lands,\n Haply the brutish measureless human undergrowth I know,\n Transplanted there may rise to stature, knowledge worthy Thee,\n Haply the swords I know may there indeed be turn’d to reaping-tools,\n Haply the lifeless cross I know, Europe’s dead cross, may bud and\n blossom there.\n\n One effort more, my altar this bleak sand;\n That Thou O God my life hast lighted,\n With ray of light, steady, ineffable, vouchsafed of Thee,\n Light rare untellable, lighting the very light,\n Beyond all signs, descriptions, languages;\n For that O God, be it my latest word, here on my knees,\n Old, poor, and paralyzed, I thank Thee.\n\n My terminus near,\n The clouds already closing in upon me,\n The voyage balk’d, the course disputed, lost,\n I yield my ships to Thee.\n\n My hands, my limbs grow nerveless,\n My brain feels rack’d, bewilder’d,\n Let the old timbers part, I will not part,\n I will cling fast to Thee, O God, though the waves buffet me,\n Thee, Thee at least I know.\n\n Is it the prophet’s thought I speak, or am I raving?\n What do I know of life? what of myself?\n I know not even my own work past or present,\n Dim ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,\n Of newer better worlds, their mighty parturition,\n Mocking, perplexing me.\n\n And these things I see suddenly, what mean they?\n As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal’d my eyes,\n Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky,\n And on the distant waves sail countless ships,\n And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Sleepers", + "body": " 1\n I wander all night in my vision,\n Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping,\n Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,\n Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory,\n Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.\n\n How solemn they look there, stretch’d and still,\n How quiet they breathe, the little children in their cradles.\n\n The wretched features of ennuyes, the white features of corpses, the\n livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists,\n The gash’d bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their\n strong-door’d rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-born emerging\n from gates, and the dying emerging from gates,\n The night pervades them and infolds them.\n\n The married couple sleep calmly in their bed, he with his palm on\n the hip of the wife, and she with her palm on the hip of the husband,\n The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,\n The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,\n And the mother sleeps with her little child carefully wrapt.\n\n The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,\n The prisoner sleeps well in the prison, the runaway son sleeps,\n The murderer that is to be hung next day, how does he sleep?\n And the murder’d person, how does he sleep?\n\n The female that loves unrequited sleeps,\n And the male that loves unrequited sleeps,\n The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps,\n And the enraged and treacherous dispositions, all, all sleep.\n\n I stand in the dark with drooping eyes by the worst-suffering and\n the most restless,\n I pass my hands soothingly to and fro a few inches from them,\n The restless sink in their beds, they fitfully sleep.\n\n Now I pierce the darkness, new beings appear,\n The earth recedes from me into the night,\n I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is\n beautiful.\n\n I go from bedside to bedside, I sleep close with the other sleepers\n each in turn,\n I dream in my dream all the dreams of the other dreamers,\n And I become the other dreamers.\n\n I am a dance--play up there! the fit is whirling me fast!\n\n I am the ever-laughing--it is new moon and twilight,\n I see the hiding of douceurs, I see nimble ghosts whichever way look,\n Cache and cache again deep in the ground and sea, and where it is\n neither ground nor sea.\n\n Well do they do their jobs those journeymen divine,\n Only from me can they hide nothing, and would not if they could,\n I reckon I am their boss and they make me a pet besides,\n And surround me and lead me and run ahead when I walk,\n To lift their cunning covers to signify me with stretch’d arms, and\n resume the way;\n Onward we move, a gay gang of blackguards! with mirth-shouting\n music and wild-flapping pennants of joy!\n\n I am the actor, the actress, the voter, the politician,\n The emigrant and the exile, the criminal that stood in the box,\n He who has been famous and he who shall be famous after to-day,\n The stammerer, the well-form’d person, the wasted or feeble person.\n\n I am she who adorn’d herself and folded her hair expectantly,\n My truant lover has come, and it is dark.\n\n Double yourself and receive me darkness,\n Receive me and my lover too, he will not let me go without him.\n\n I roll myself upon you as upon a bed, I resign myself to the dusk.\n\n He whom I call answers me and takes the place of my lover,\n He rises with me silently from the bed.\n\n Darkness, you are gentler than my lover, his flesh was sweaty and panting,\n I feel the hot moisture yet that he left me.\n\n My hands are spread forth, I pass them in all directions,\n I would sound up the shadowy shore to which you are journeying.\n\n Be careful darkness! already what was it touch’d me?\n I thought my lover had gone, else darkness and he are one,\n I hear the heart-beat, I follow, I fade away.\n\n 2\n I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,\n Perfume and youth course through me and I am their wake.\n\n It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman’s,\n I sit low in a straw-bottom chair and carefully darn my grandson’s\n stockings.\n\n It is I too, the sleepless widow looking out on the winter midnight,\n I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth.\n\n A shroud I see and I am the shroud, I wrap a body and lie in the coffin,\n It is dark here under ground, it is not evil or pain here, it is\n blank here, for reasons.\n\n (It seems to me that every thing in the light and air ought to be happy,\n Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him know he has enough.)\n\n 3\n I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the eddies\n of the sea,\n His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he strikes out with\n courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs,\n I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes,\n I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on\n the rocks.\n\n What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves?\n Will you kill the courageous giant? will you kill him in the prime\n of his middle age?\n\n Steady and long he struggles,\n He is baffled, bang’d, bruis’d, he holds out while his strength\n holds out,\n The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they bear him away,\n they roll him, swing him, turn him,\n His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is\n continually bruis’d on rocks,\n Swiftly and ought of sight is borne the brave corpse.\n\n 4\n I turn but do not extricate myself,\n Confused, a past-reading, another, but with darkness yet.\n\n The beach is cut by the razory ice-wind, the wreck-guns sound,\n The tempest lulls, the moon comes floundering through the drifts.\n\n I look where the ship helplessly heads end on, I hear the burst as\n she strikes, I hear the howls of dismay, they grow fainter and fainter.\n\n I cannot aid with my wringing fingers,\n I can but rush to the surf and let it drench me and freeze upon me.\n\n I search with the crowd, not one of the company is wash’d to us alive,\n In the morning I help pick up the dead and lay them in rows in a barn.\n\n 5\n Now of the older war-days, the defeat at Brooklyn,\n Washington stands inside the lines, he stands on the intrench’d\n hills amid a crowd of officers.\n His face is cold and damp, he cannot repress the weeping drops,\n He lifts the glass perpetually to his eyes, the color is blanch’d\n from his cheeks,\n He sees the slaughter of the southern braves confided to him by\n their parents.\n\n The same at last and at last when peace is declared,\n He stands in the room of the old tavern, the well-belov’d soldiers\n all pass through,\n The officers speechless and slow draw near in their turns,\n The chief encircles their necks with his arm and kisses them on the cheek,\n He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another, he shakes hands\n and bids good-by to the army.\n\n 6\n Now what my mother told me one day as we sat at dinner together,\n Of when she was a nearly grown girl living home with her parents on\n the old homestead.\n\n A red squaw came one breakfast-time to the old homestead,\n On her back she carried a bundle of rushes for rush-bottoming chairs,\n Her hair, straight, shiny, coarse, black, profuse, half-envelop’d\n her face,\n Her step was free and elastic, and her voice sounded exquisitely as\n she spoke.\n\n My mother look’d in delight and amazement at the stranger,\n She look’d at the freshness of her tall-borne face and full and\n pliant limbs,\n The more she look’d upon her she loved her,\n Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity,\n She made her sit on a bench by the jamb of the fireplace, she cook’d\n food for her,\n She had no work to give her, but she gave her remembrance and fondness.\n\n The red squaw staid all the forenoon, and toward the middle of the\n afternoon she went away,\n O my mother was loth to have her go away,\n All the week she thought of her, she watch’d for her many a month,\n She remember’d her many a winter and many a summer,\n But the red squaw never came nor was heard of there again.\n\n 7\n A show of the summer softness--a contact of something unseen--an\n amour of the light and air,\n I am jealous and overwhelm’d with friendliness,\n And will go gallivant with the light and air myself.\n\n O love and summer, you are in the dreams and in me,\n Autumn and winter are in the dreams, the farmer goes with his thrift,\n The droves and crops increase, the barns are well-fill’d.\n\n Elements merge in the night, ships make tacks in the dreams,\n The sailor sails, the exile returns home,\n The fugitive returns unharm’d, the immigrant is back beyond months\n and years,\n The poor Irishman lives in the simple house of his childhood with\n the well known neighbors and faces,\n They warmly welcome him, he is barefoot again, he forgets he is well off,\n The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and Welshman voyage\n home, and the native of the Mediterranean voyages home,\n To every port of England, France, Spain, enter well-fill’d ships,\n The Swiss foots it toward his hills, the Prussian goes his way, the\n Hungarian his way, and the Pole his way,\n The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return.\n\n The homeward bound and the outward bound,\n The beautiful lost swimmer, the ennuye, the onanist, the female that\n loves unrequited, the money-maker,\n The actor and actress, those through with their parts and those\n waiting to commence,\n The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the nominee\n that is chosen and the nominee that has fail’d,\n The great already known and the great any time after to-day,\n The stammerer, the sick, the perfect-form’d, the homely,\n The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat and sentenced\n him, the fluent lawyers, the jury, the audience,\n The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow, the red squaw,\n The consumptive, the erysipalite, the idiot, he that is wrong’d,\n The antipodes, and every one between this and them in the dark,\n I swear they are averaged now--one is no better than the other,\n The night and sleep have liken’d them and restored them.\n\n I swear they are all beautiful,\n Every one that sleeps is beautiful, every thing in the dim light is\n beautiful,\n The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace.\n\n Peace is always beautiful,\n The myth of heaven indicates peace and night.\n\n The myth of heaven indicates the soul,\n The soul is always beautiful, it appears more or it appears less, it\n comes or it lags behind,\n It comes from its embower’d garden and looks pleasantly on itself\n and encloses the world,\n Perfect and clean the genitals previously jetting,and perfect and\n clean the womb cohering,\n The head well-grown proportion’d and plumb, and the bowels and\n joints proportion’d and plumb.\n\n The soul is always beautiful,\n The universe is duly in order, every thing is in its place,\n What has arrived is in its place and what waits shall be in its place,\n The twisted skull waits, the watery or rotten blood waits,\n The child of the glutton or venerealee waits long, and the child of\n the drunkard waits long, and the drunkard himself waits long,\n The sleepers that lived and died wait, the far advanced are to go on\n in their turns, and the far behind are to come on in their turns,\n The diverse shall be no less diverse, but they shall flow and unite--\n they unite now.\n\n 8\n The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed,\n They flow hand in hand over the whole earth from east to west as\n they lie unclothed,\n The Asiatic and African are hand in hand, the European and American\n are hand in hand,\n Learn’d and unlearn’d are hand in hand, and male and female are hand\n in hand,\n The bare arm of the girl crosses the bare breast of her lover, they\n press close without lust, his lips press her neck,\n The father holds his grown or ungrown son in his arms with\n measureless love, and the son holds the father in his arms with\n measureless love,\n The white hair of the mother shines on the white wrist of the daughter,\n The breath of the boy goes with the breath of the man, friend is\n inarm’d by friend,\n The scholar kisses the teacher and the teacher kisses the scholar,\n the wrong ’d made right,\n The call of the slave is one with the master’s call, and the master\n salutes the slave,\n The felon steps forth from the prison, the insane becomes sane, the\n suffering of sick persons is reliev’d,\n The sweatings and fevers stop, the throat that was unsound is sound,\n the lungs of the consumptive are resumed, the poor distress’d\n head is free,\n The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and smoother\n than ever,\n Stiflings and passages open, the paralyzed become supple,\n The swell’d and convuls’d and congested awake to themselves in condition,\n They pass the invigoration of the night and the chemistry of the\n night, and awake.\n\n I too pass from the night,\n I stay a while away O night, but I return to you again and love you.\n\n Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you?\n I am not afraid, I have been well brought forward by you,\n I love the rich running day, but I do not desert her in whom I lay so long,\n I know not how I came of you and I know not where I go with you, but\n I know I came well and shall go well.\n\n I will stop only a time with the night, and rise betimes,\n I will duly pass the day O my mother, and duly return to you.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Transpositions", + "body": " Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever\n bawling--let an idiot or insane person appear on each of the stands;\n Let judges and criminals be transposed--let the prison-keepers be\n put in prison--let those that were prisoners take the keys;\n Let them that distrust birth and death lead the rest.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To Think of Time", + "body": " 1\n To think of time--of all that retrospection,\n To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward.\n\n Have you guess’d you yourself would not continue?\n Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?\n Have you fear’d the future would be nothing to you?\n\n Is to-day nothing? is the beginningless past nothing?\n If the future is nothing they are just as surely nothing.\n\n To think that the sun rose in the east--that men and women were\n flexible, real, alive--that every thing was alive,\n To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part,\n To think that we are now here and bear our part.\n\n 2\n Not a day passes, not a minute or second without an accouchement,\n Not a day passes, not a minute or second without a corpse.\n\n The dull nights go over and the dull days also,\n The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,\n The physician after long putting off gives the silent and terrible\n look for an answer,\n The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters\n are sent for,\n Medicines stand unused on the shelf, (the camphor-smell has long\n pervaded the rooms,)\n The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying,\n The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,\n The breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases,\n The corpse stretches on the bed and the living look upon it,\n It is palpable as the living are palpable.\n\n The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight,\n But without eyesight lingers a different living and looks curiously\n on the corpse.\n\n 3\n To think the thought of death merged in the thought of materials,\n To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking\n great interest in them, and we taking no interest in them.\n\n To think how eager we are in building our houses,\n To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent.\n\n (I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or\n seventy or eighty years at most,\n I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.)\n\n Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth--they never\n cease--they are the burial lines,\n He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall\n surely be buried.\n\n\n 4\n A reminiscence of the vulgar fate,\n A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen,\n Each after his kind.\n\n Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river,\n half-frozen mud in the streets,\n A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short last daylight of December,\n A hearse and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver,\n the cortege mostly drivers.\n\n Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell,\n The gate is pass’d, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living\n alight, the hearse uncloses,\n The coffin is pass’d out, lower’d and settled, the whip is laid on\n the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel’d in,\n The mound above is flatted with the spades--silence,\n A minute--no one moves or speaks--it is done,\n He is decently put away--is there any thing more?\n\n He was a good fellow, free-mouth’d, quick-temper’d, not bad-looking,\n Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate\n hearty, drank hearty,\n Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the\n last, sicken’d, was help’d by a contribution,\n Died, aged forty-one years--and that was his funeral.\n\n Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap,\n wet-weather clothes, whip carefully chosen,\n Boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you\n loafing on somebody, headway, man before and man behind,\n Good day’s work, bad day’s work, pet stock, mean stock, first out,\n last out, turning-in at night,\n To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers, and he\n there takes no interest in them.\n\n 5\n The markets, the government, the working-man’s wages, to think what\n account they are through our nights and days,\n To think that other working-men will make just as great account of\n them, yet we make little or no account.\n\n The vulgar and the refined, what you call sin and what you call\n goodness, to think how wide a difference,\n To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie\n beyond the difference.\n\n To think how much pleasure there is,\n Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or\n planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and family?\n Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the\n beautiful maternal cares?\n These also flow onward to others, you and I flow onward,\n But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.\n\n Your farm, profits, crops--to think how engross’d you are,\n To think there will still be farms, profits, crops, yet for you of\n what avail?\n\n 6\n What will be will be well, for what is is well,\n To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.\n\n The domestic joys, the dally housework or business, the building of\n houses, are not phantasms, they have weight, form, location,\n Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them\n phantasms,\n The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion,\n The earth is not an echo, man and his life and all the things of his\n life are well-consider’d.\n\n You are not thrown to the winds, you gather certainly and safely\n around yourself,\n Yourself! yourself!. yourself, for ever and ever!\n\n 7\n It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and\n father, it is to identify you,\n It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided,\n Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form’d in you,\n You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.\n\n The threads that were spun are gather’d, the wet crosses the warp,\n the pattern is systematic.\n\n The preparations have every one been justified,\n The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments, the baton\n has given the signal.\n\n The guest that was coming, he waited long, he is now housed,\n He is one of those who are beautiful and happy, he is one of those\n that to look upon and be with is enough.\n\n The law of the past cannot be eluded,\n The law of the present and future cannot be eluded,\n The law of the living cannot be eluded, it is eternal,\n The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,\n The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded,\n The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons, not one iota thereof\n can be eluded.\n\n 8\n Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth,\n Northerner goes carried and Southerner goes carried, and they on the\n Atlantic side and they on the Pacific,\n And they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all\n over the earth.\n\n The great masters and kosmos are well as they go, the heroes and\n good-doers are well,\n The known leaders and inventors and the rich owners and pious and\n distinguish’d may be well,\n But there is more account than that, there is strict account of all.\n\n The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing,\n The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,\n The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go.\n\n Of and in all these things,\n I have dream’d that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of\n us changed,\n I have dream’d that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present\n and past law,\n And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and\n past law,\n For I have dream’d that the law they are under now is enough.\n\n And I have dream’d that the purpose and essence of the known life,\n the transient,\n Is to form and decide identity for the unknown life, the permanent.\n\n If all came but to ashes of dung,\n If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for we are betray’d,\n Then indeed suspicion of death.\n\n Do you suspect death? if I were to suspect death I should die now,\n Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?\n\n Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,\n Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good,\n The whole universe indicates that it is good,\n The past and the present indicate that it is good.\n\n How beautiful and perfect are the animals!\n How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!\n What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect,\n The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable\n fluids perfect;\n Slowly and surely they have pass’d on to this, and slowly and surely\n they yet pass on.\n\n 9\n I swear I think now that every thing without exception has an eternal soul!\n The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the\n animals!\n\n I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!\n That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for\n it, and the cohering is for it!\n And all preparation is for it--and identity is for it--and life and\n materials are altogether for it!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Darest Thou Now O Soul", + "body": " Darest thou now O soul,\n Walk out with me toward the unknown region,\n Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?\n\n No map there, nor guide,\n Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,\n Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.\n\n I know it not O soul,\n Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,\n All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.\n\n Till when the ties loosen,\n All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,\n Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.\n\n Then we burst forth, we float,\n In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,\n Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Whispers of Heavenly Death", + "body": " Whispers of heavenly death murmur’d I hear,\n Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals,\n Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low,\n Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever flowing,\n (Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)\n\n I see, just see skyward, great cloud-masses,\n Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing,\n With at times a half-dimm’d sadden’d far-off star,\n Appearing and disappearing.\n\n (Some parturition rather, some solemn immortal birth;\n On the frontiers to eyes impenetrable,\n Some soul is passing over.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Chanting the Square Deific", + "body": " 1\n Chanting the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the sides,\n Out of the old and new, out of the square entirely divine,\n Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed,) from this side Jehovah am I,\n Old Brahm I, and I Saturnius am;\n Not Time affects me--I am Time, old, modern as any,\n Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgments,\n As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kronos, with laws,\n Aged beyond computation, yet never new, ever with those mighty laws rolling,\n Relentless I forgive no man--whoever sins dies--I will have that man’s life;\n Therefore let none expect mercy--have the seasons, gravitation, the\n appointed days, mercy? no more have I,\n But as the seasons and gravitation, and as all the appointed days\n that forgive not,\n I dispense from this side judgments inexorable without the least remorse.\n\n 2\n Consolator most mild, the promis’d one advancing,\n With gentle hand extended, the mightier God am I,\n Foretold by prophets and poets in their most rapt prophecies and poems,\n From this side, lo! the Lord Christ gazes--lo! Hermes I--lo! mine is\n Hercules’ face,\n All sorrow, labor, suffering, I, tallying it, absorb in myself,\n Many times have I been rejected, taunted, put in prison, and\n crucified, and many times shall be again,\n All the world have I given up for my dear brothers’ and sisters’\n sake, for the soul’s sake,\n Wanding my way through the homes of men, rich or poor, with the kiss\n of affection,\n For I am affection, I am the cheer-bringing God, with hope and\n all-enclosing charity,\n With indulgent words as to children, with fresh and sane words, mine only,\n Young and strong I pass knowing well I am destin’d myself to an\n early death;\n But my charity has no death--my wisdom dies not, neither early nor late,\n And my sweet love bequeath’d here and elsewhere never dies.\n\n 3\n Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt,\n Comrade of criminals, brother of slaves,\n Crafty, despised, a drudge, ignorant,\n With sudra face and worn brow, black, but in the depths of my heart,\n proud as any,\n Lifted now and always against whoever scorning assumes to rule me,\n Morose, full of guile, full of reminiscences, brooding, with many wiles,\n (Though it was thought I was baffled, and dispel’d, and my wiles\n done, but that will never be,)\n Defiant, I, Satan, still live, still utter words, in new lands duly\n appearing, (and old ones also,)\n Permanent here from my side, warlike, equal with any, real as any,\n Nor time nor change shall ever change me or my words.\n\n 4\n Santa Spirita, breather, life,\n Beyond the light, lighter than light,\n Beyond the flames of hell, joyous, leaping easily above hell,\n Beyond Paradise, perfumed solely with mine own perfume,\n Including all life on earth, touching, including God, including\n Saviour and Satan,\n Ethereal, pervading all, (for without me what were all? what were God?)\n Essence of forms, life of the real identities, permanent, positive,\n (namely the unseen,)\n Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and of man, I, the\n general soul,\n Here the square finishing, the solid, I the most solid,\n Breathe my breath also through these songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Of Him I Love Day and Night", + "body": " Of him I love day and night I dream’d I heard he was dead,\n And I dream’d I went where they had buried him I love, but he was\n not in that place,\n And I dream’d I wander’d searching among burial-places to find him,\n And I found that every place was a burial-place;\n The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is now,)\n The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago,\n Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as\n of the living,\n And fuller, O vastly fuller of the dead than of the living;\n And what I dream’d I will henceforth tell to every person and age,\n And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream’d,\n And now I am willing to disregard burial-places and dispense with them,\n And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhere,\n even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be satisfied,\n And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly\n render’d to powder and pour’d in the sea, I shall be satisfied,\n Or if it be distributed to the winds I shall be satisfied.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours", + "body": " Yet, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also,\n Weights of lead, how ye clog and cling at my ankles,\n Earth to a chamber of mourning turns--I hear the o’erweening, mocking\n voice,\n Matter is conqueror--matter, triumphant only, continues onward.\n\n Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me,\n The call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarm’d, uncertain,\n The sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,\n Come tell me where I am speeding, tell me my destination.\n\n I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,\n I approach, hear, behold, the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes,\n your mute inquiry,\n Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me,--\n Old age, alarm’d, uncertain--a young woman’s voice, appealing to\n me for comfort;\n A young man’s voice, Shall I not escape?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As If a Phantom Caress’d Me", + "body": " As if a phantom caress’d me,\n I thought I was not alone walking here by the shore;\n But the one I thought was with me as now I walk by the shore, the\n one I loved that caress’d me,\n As I lean and look through the glimmering light, that one has\n utterly disappear’d.\n And those appear that are hateful to me and mock me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Assurances", + "body": " I need no assurances, I am a man who is preoccupied of his own soul;\n I do not doubt that from under the feet and beside the hands and\n face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant\n of, calm and actual faces,\n I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in\n any iota of the world,\n I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless,\n in vain I try to think how limitless,\n I do not doubt that the orbs and the systems of orbs play their\n swift sports through the air on purpose, and that I shall one day\n be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they,\n I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on millions of years,\n I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have\n their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and\n the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice,\n I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are\n provided for, and that the deaths of young women and the\n deaths of little children are provided for,\n (Did you think Life was so well provided for, and Death, the purport\n of all Life, is not well provided for?)\n I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of\n them, no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover, has\n gone down, are provided for, to the minutest points,\n I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at any\n time, is provided for in the inherences of things,\n I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I\n believe Heavenly Death provides for all.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Quicksand Years", + "body": " Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,\n Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and elude me,\n Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess’d soul, eludes not,\n One’s-self must never give way--that is the final substance--that\n out of all is sure,\n Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?\n When shows break up what but One’s-Self is sure?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "That Music Always Round Me", + "body": " That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long\n untaught I did not hear,\n But now the chorus I hear and am elated,\n A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of\n daybreak I hear,\n A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,\n A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,\n The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and\n violins, all these I fill myself with,\n I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite\n meanings,\n I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving,\n contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;\n I do not think the performers know themselves--but now I think\n begin to know them.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "What Ship Puzzled at Sea", + "body": " What ship puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning?\n Or coming in, to avoid the bars and follow the channel a perfect\n pilot needs?\n Here, sailor! here, ship! take aboard the most perfect pilot,\n Whom, in a little boat, putting off and rowing, I hailing you offer.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Noiseless Patient Spider", + "body": " A noiseless patient spider,\n I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,\n Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,\n It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,\n Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.\n\n And you O my soul where you stand,\n Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,\n Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to\n connect them,\n Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,\n Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "O Living Always, Always Dying", + "body": " O living always, always dying!\n O the burials of me past and present,\n O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever;\n O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am content;)\n O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and\n look at where I cast them,\n To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To One Shortly to Die", + "body": " From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you,\n You are to die--let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,\n I am exact and merciless, but I love you--there is no escape for you.\n\n Softly I lay my right hand upon you, you ’ust feel it,\n I do not argue, I bend my head close and half envelop it,\n I sit quietly by, I remain faithful,\n I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,\n I absolve you from all except yourself spiritual bodily, that is\n eternal, you yourself will surely escape,\n The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.\n\n The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions,\n Strong thoughts fill you and confidence, you smile,\n You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,\n You do not see the medicines, you do not mind the weeping friends,\n I am with you,\n I exclude others from you, there is nothing to be commiserated,\n I do not commiserate, I congratulate you.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Night on the Prairies", + "body": " Night on the prairies,\n The supper is over, the fire on the ground burns low,\n The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets;\n I walk by myself--I stand and look at the stars, which I think now\n never realized before.\n\n Now I absorb immortality and peace,\n I admire death and test propositions.\n\n How plenteous! how spiritual! how resume!\n The same old man and soul--the same old aspirations, and the same content.\n\n I was thinking the day most splendid till I saw what the not-day exhibited,\n I was thinking this globe enough till there sprang out so noiseless\n around me myriads of other globes.\n\n Now while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me I will\n measure myself by them,\n And now touch’d with the lives of other globes arrived as far along\n as those of the earth,\n Or waiting to arrive, or pass’d on farther than those of the earth,\n I henceforth no more ignore them than I ignore my own life,\n Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive.\n\n O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me, as the day cannot,\n I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thought", + "body": " As I sit with others at a great feast, suddenly while the music is playing,\n To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral in mist of a\n wreck at sea,\n Of certain ships, how they sail from port with flying streamers and\n wafted kisses, and that is the last of them,\n Of the solemn and murky mystery about the fate of the President,\n Of the flower of the marine science of fifty generations founder’d\n off the Northeast coast and going down--of the steamship Arctic\n going down,\n Of the veil’d tableau-women gather’d together on deck, pale, heroic,\n waiting the moment that draws so close--O the moment!\n\n A huge sob--a few bubbles--the white foam spirting up--and then the\n women gone,\n Sinking there while the passionless wet flows on--and I now\n pondering, Are those women indeed gone?\n Are souls drown’d and destroy’d so?\n Is only matter triumphant?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Last Invocation", + "body": " At the last, tenderly,\n From the walls of the powerful fortress’d house,\n From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors,\n Let me be wafted.\n\n Let me glide noiselessly forth;\n With the key of softness unlock the locks--with a whisper,\n Set ope the doors O soul.\n\n Tenderly--be not impatient,\n (Strong is your hold O mortal flesh,\n Strong is your hold O love.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As I Watch the Ploughman Ploughing", + "body": " As I watch’d the ploughman ploughing,\n Or the sower sowing in the fields, or the harvester harvesting,\n I saw there too, O life and death, your analogies;\n (Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Pensive and Faltering", + "body": " Pensive and faltering,\n The words the Dead I write,\n For living are the Dead,\n (Haply the only living, only real,\n And I the apparition, I the spectre.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thou Mother with Thy Equal Brood", + "body": " 1\n Thou Mother with thy equal brood,\n Thou varied chain of different States, yet one identity only,\n A special song before I go I’d sing o’er all the rest,\n For thee, the future.\n\n I’d sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality,\n I’d fashion thy ensemble including body and soul,\n I’d show away ahead thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish’d.\n\n The paths to the house I seek to make,\n But leave to those to come the house itself.\n\n Belief I sing, and preparation;\n As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the present only,\n But greater still from what is yet to come,\n Out of that formula for thee I sing.\n\n 2\n As a strong bird on pinions free,\n Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,\n Such be the thought I’d think of thee America,\n Such be the recitative I’d bring for thee.\n\n The conceits of the poets of other lands I’d bring thee not,\n Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long,\n Nor rhyme, nor the classics, nor perfume of foreign court or indoor\n library;\n But an odor I’d bring as from forests of pine in Maine, or breath of\n an Illinois prairie,\n With open airs of Virginia or Georgia or Tennessee, or from Texas\n uplands, or Florida’s glades,\n Or the Saguenay’s black stream, or the wide blue spread of Huron,\n With presentment of Yellowstone’s scenes, or Yosemite,\n And murmuring under, pervading all, I’d bring the rustling sea-sound,\n That endlessly sounds from the two Great Seas of the world.\n\n And for thy subtler sense subtler refrains dread Mother,\n Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee, mind-formulas fitted\n for thee, real and sane and large as these and thee,\n Thou! mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew, thou\n transcendental Union!\n By thee fact to be justified, blended with thought,\n Thought of man justified, blended with God,\n Through thy idea, lo, the immortal reality!\n Through thy reality, lo, the immortal idea!\n\n 3\n Brain of the New World, what a task is thine,\n To formulate the Modern--out of the peerless grandeur of the modern,\n Out of thyself, comprising science, to recast poems, churches, art,\n (Recast, may-be discard them, end them--maybe their work is done,\n who knows?)\n By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead,\n To limn with absolute faith the mighty living present.\n\n And yet thou living present brain, heir of the dead, the Old World brain,\n Thou that lay folded like an unborn babe within its folds so long,\n Thou carefully prepared by it so long--haply thou but unfoldest it,\n only maturest it,\n It to eventuate in thee--the essence of the by-gone time contain’d in thee,\n Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with\n reference to thee;\n Thou but the apples, long, long, long a-growing,\n The fruit of all the Old ripening to-day in thee.\n\n 4\n Sail, sail thy best, ship of Democracy,\n Of value is thy freight, ’tis not the Present only,\n The Past is also stored in thee,\n Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone, not of the Western\n continent alone,\n Earth’s resume entire floats on thy keel O ship, is steadied by thy spars,\n With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent nations sink or\n swim with thee,\n With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou\n bear’st the other continents,\n Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant;\n Steer then with good strong hand and wary eye O helmsman, thou\n carriest great companions,\n Venerable priestly Asia sails this day with thee,\n And royal feudal Europe sails with thee.\n\n 5\n Beautiful world of new superber birth that rises to my eyes,\n Like a limitless golden cloud filling the westernr sky,\n Emblem of general maternity lifted above all,\n Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons,\n Out of thy teeming womb thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing,\n Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength\n and life,\n World of the real--world of the twain in one,\n World of the soul, born by the world of the real alone, led to\n identity, body, by it alone,\n Yet in beginning only, incalculable masses of composite precious materials,\n By history’s cycles forwarded, by every nation, language, hither sent,\n Ready, collected here, a freer, vast, electric world, to be\n constructed here,\n (The true New World, the world of orbic science, morals, literatures\n to come,)\n Thou wonder world yet undefined, unform’d, neither do I define thee,\n How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future?\n I feel thy ominous greatness evil as well as good,\n I watch thee advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past,\n I see thy light lighting, and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe,\n But I do not undertake to define thee, hardly to comprehend thee,\n I but thee name, thee prophesy, as now,\n I merely thee ejaculate!\n\n Thee in thy future,\n Thee in thy only permanent life, career, thy own unloosen’d mind,\n thy soaring spirit,\n Thee as another equally needed sun, radiant, ablaze, swift-moving,\n fructifying all,\n Thee risen in potent cheerfulness and joy, in endless great hilarity,\n Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long, that weigh’d so\n long upon the mind of man,\n The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;\n Thee in thy larger, saner brood of female, male--thee in thy\n athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East,\n (To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son,\n endear’d alike, forever equal,)\n Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain,\n Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization, (until which thy proudest\n material civilization must remain in vain,)\n Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing worship--thee in no single\n bible, saviour, merely,\n Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself, thy bibles incessant\n within thyself, equal to any, divine as any,\n (Thy soaring course thee formulating, not in thy two great wars, nor\n in thy century’s visible growth,\n But far more in these leaves and chants, thy chants, great Mother!)\n Thee in an education grown of thee, in teachers, studies, students,\n born of thee,\n Thee in thy democratic fetes en-masse, thy high original festivals,\n operas, lecturers, preachers,\n Thee in thy ultimate, (the preparations only now completed, the\n edifice on sure foundations tied,)\n Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought, thy topmost rational\n joys, thy love and godlike aspiration,\n In thy resplendent coming literati, thy full-lung’d orators, thy\n sacerdotal bards, kosmic savans,\n These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophesy.\n\n 6\n Land tolerating all, accepting all, not for the good alone, all good\n for thee,\n Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself,\n Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself.\n\n (Lo, where arise three peerless stars,\n To be thy natal stars my country, Ensemble, Evolution, Freedom,\n Set in the sky of Law.)\n\n Land of unprecedented faith, God’s faith,\n Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav’d,\n The general inner earth so long so sedulously draped over, now hence\n for what it is boldly laid bare,\n Open’d by thee to heaven’s light for benefit or bale.\n\n Not for success alone,\n Not to fair-sail unintermitted always,\n The storm shall dash thy face, the murk of war and worse than war\n shall cover thee all over,\n (Wert capable of war, its tug and trials? be capable of peace, its trials,\n For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in prosperous\n peace, not war;)\n In many a smiling mask death shall approach beguiling thee, thou in\n disease shalt swelter,\n The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy\n breasts, seeking to strike thee deep within,\n Consumption of the worst, moral consumption, shall rouge thy face\n with hectic,\n But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all,\n Whatever they are to-day and whatever through time they may be,\n They each and all shall lift and pass away and cease from thee,\n While thou, Time’s spirals rounding, out of thyself, thyself still\n extricating, fusing,\n Equable, natural, mystical Union thou, (the mortal with immortal blent,)\n Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future, the spirit of the\n body and the mind,\n The soul, its destinies.\n\n The soul, its destinies, the real real,\n (Purport of all these apparitions of the real;)\n In thee America, the soul, its destinies,\n Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous!\n By many a throe of heat and cold convuls’d, (by these thyself solidifying,)\n Thou mental, moral orb--thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World!\n The Present holds thee not--for such vast growth as thine,\n For such unparallel’d flight as thine, such brood as thine,\n The FUTURE only holds thee and can hold thee.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Paumanok Picture", + "body": " Two boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still,\n Ten fishermen waiting--they discover a thick school of mossbonkers\n --they drop the join’d seine-ends in the water,\n The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the\n beach, enclosing the mossbonkers,\n The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,\n Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand\n ankle-deep in the water, pois’d on strong legs,\n The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them,\n Strew’d on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the water,\n the green-back’d spotted mossbonkers.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling", + "body": " Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon!\n Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand,\n The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam,\n And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue;\n O sun of noon refulgent! my special word to thee.\n\n Hear me illustrious!\n Thy lover me, for always I have loved thee,\n Even as basking babe, then happy boy alone by some wood edge, thy\n touching-distant beams enough,\n Or man matured, or young or old, as now to thee I launch my invocation.\n\n (Thou canst not with thy dumbness me deceive,\n I know before the fitting man all Nature yields,\n Though answering not in words, the skies, trees, hear his voice--and\n thou O sun,\n As for thy throes, thy perturbations, sudden breaks and shafts of\n flame gigantic,\n I understand them, I know those flames, those perturbations well.)\n\n Thou that with fructifying heat and light,\n O’er myriad farms, o’er lands and waters North and South,\n O’er Mississippi’s endless course, o’er Texas’ grassy plains,\n Kanada’s woods,\n O’er all the globe that turns its face to thee shining in space,\n Thou that impartially enfoldest all, not only continents, seas,\n Thou that to grapes and weeds and little wild flowers givest so liberally,\n Shed, shed thyself on mine and me, with but a fleeting ray out of\n thy million millions,\n Strike through these chants.\n\n Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for these,\n Prepare the later afternoon of me myself--prepare my lengthening shadows,\n Prepare my starry nights.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Faces", + "body": " 1\n Sauntering the pavement or riding the country by-road, faces!\n Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality,\n The spiritual-prescient face, the always welcome common benevolent face,\n The face of the singing of music, the grand faces of natural lawyers\n and judges broad at the back-top,\n The faces of hunters and fishers bulged at the brows, the shaved\n blanch’d faces of orthodox citizens,\n The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist’s face,\n The ugly face of some beautiful soul, the handsome detested or\n despised face,\n The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of\n many children,\n The face of an amour, the face of veneration,\n The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock,\n The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face,\n A wild hawk, his wings clipp’d by the clipper,\n A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder.\n\n Sauntering the pavement thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces\n and faces and faces,\n I see them and complain not, and am content with all.\n\n 2\n Do you suppose I could be content with all if I thought them their\n own finale?\n\n This now is too lamentable a face for a man,\n Some abject louse asking leave to be, cringing for it,\n Some milk-nosed maggot blessing what lets it wrig to its hole.\n\n This face is a dog’s snout sniffing for garbage,\n Snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.\n\n This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea,\n Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go.\n\n This is a face of bitter herbs, this an emetic, they need no label,\n And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog’s-lard.\n\n This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry,\n Its veins down the neck distend, its eyes roll till they show\n nothing but their whites,\n Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn’d-in nails,\n The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground, while he\n speculates well.\n\n This face is bitten by vermin and worms,\n And this is some murderer’s knife with a half-pull’d scabbard.\n\n This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee,\n An unceasing death-bell tolls there.\n\n 3\n Features of my equals would you trick me with your creas’d and\n cadaverous march?\n Well, you cannot trick me.\n\n I see your rounded never-erased flow,\n I see ’neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises.\n\n Splay and twist as you like, poke with the tangling fores of fishes or rats,\n You’ll be unmuzzled, you certainly will.\n\n I saw the face of the most smear’d and slobbering idiot they had at\n the asylum,\n And I knew for my consolation what they knew not,\n I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,\n The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement,\n And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,\n And I shall meet the real landlord perfect and unharm’d, every inch\n as good as myself.\n\n 4\n The Lord advances, and yet advances,\n Always the shadow in front, always the reach’d hand bringing up the\n laggards.\n\n Out of this face emerge banners and horses--O superb! I see what is coming,\n I see the high pioneer-caps, see staves of runners clearing the way,\n I hear victorious drums.\n\n This face is a life-boat,\n This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of the rest,\n This face is flavor’d fruit ready for eating,\n This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.\n\n These faces bear testimony slumbering or awake,\n They show their descent from the Master himself.\n\n Off the word I have spoken I except not one--red, white, black, are\n all deific,\n In each house is the ovum, it comes forth after a thousand years.\n\n Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me,\n Tall and sufficient stand behind and make signs to me,\n I read the promise and patiently wait.\n\n This is a full-grown lily’s face,\n She speaks to the limber-hipp’d man near the garden pickets,\n Come here she blushingly cries, Come nigh to me limber-hipp’d man,\n Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you,\n Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me,\n Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my breast and shoulders.\n\n 5\n The old face of the mother of many children,\n Whist! I am fully content.\n\n Lull’d and late is the smoke of the First-day morning,\n It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences,\n It hangs thin by the sassafras and wild-cherry and cat-brier under them.\n\n I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree,\n I heard what the singers were singing so long,\n Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the water-blue.\n\n Behold a woman!\n She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more\n beautiful than the sky.\n\n She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse,\n The sun just shines on her old white head.\n\n Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen,\n Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters spun it with\n the distaff and the wheel.\n\n The melodious character of the earth,\n The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go,\n The justified mother of men.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Mystic Trumpeter", + "body": " 1\n Hark, some wild trumpeter, some strange musician,\n Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.\n\n I hear thee trumpeter, listening alert I catch thy notes,\n Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,\n Now low, subdued, now in the distance lost.\n\n 2\n Come nearer bodiless one, haply in thee resounds\n Some dead composer, haply thy pensive life\n Was fill’d with aspirations high, unform’d ideals,\n Waves, oceans musical, chaotically surging,\n That now ecstatic ghost, close to me bending, thy cornet echoing, pealing,\n Gives out to no one’s ears but mine, but freely gives to mine,\n That I may thee translate.\n\n 3\n Blow trumpeter free and clear, I follow thee,\n While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene,\n The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day withdraw,\n A holy calm descends like dew upon me,\n I walk in cool refreshing night the walks of Paradise,\n I scent the grass, the moist air and the roses;\n Thy song expands my numb’d imbonded spirit, thou freest, launchest me,\n Floating and basking upon heaven’s lake.\n\n 4\n Blow again trumpeter! and for my sensuous eyes,\n Bring the old pageants, show the feudal world.\n\n What charm thy music works! thou makest pass before me,\n Ladies and cavaliers long dead, barons are in their castle halls,\n the troubadours are singing,\n Arm’d knights go forth to redress wrongs, some in quest of the holy Graal;\n I see the tournament, I see the contestants incased in heavy armor\n seated on stately champing horses,\n I hear the shouts, the sounds of blows and smiting steel;\n I see the Crusaders’ tumultuous armies--hark, how the cymbals clang,\n Lo, where the monks walk in advance, bearing the cross on high.\n\n 5\n Blow again trumpeter! and for thy theme,\n Take now the enclosing theme of all, the solvent and the setting,\n Love, that is pulse of all, the sustenance and the pang,\n The heart of man and woman all for love,\n No other theme but love--knitting, enclosing, all-diffusing love.\n\n O how the immortal phantoms crowd around me!\n I see the vast alembic ever working, I see and know the flames that\n heat the world,\n The glow, the blush, the beating hearts of lovers,\n So blissful happy some, and some so silent, dark, and nigh to death;\n Love, that is all the earth to lovers--love, that mocks time and space,\n Love, that is day and night--love, that is sun and moon and stars,\n Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume,\n No other words but words of love, no other thought but love.\n\n 6\n Blow again trumpeter--conjure war’s alarums.\n\n Swift to thy spell a shuddering hum like distant thunder rolls,\n Lo, where the arm’d men hasten--lo, mid the clouds of dust the glint\n of bayonets,\n I see the grime-faced cannoneers, I mark the rosy flash amid the\n smoke, I hear the cracking of the guns;\n Nor war alone--thy fearful music-song, wild player, brings every\n sight of fear,\n The deeds of ruthless brigands, rapine, murder--I hear the cries for help!\n I see ships foundering at sea, I behold on deck and below deck the\n terrible tableaus.\n\n 7\n O trumpeter, methinks I am myself the instrument thou playest,\n Thou melt’st my heart, my brain--thou movest, drawest, changest\n them at will;\n And now thy sullen notes send darkness through me,\n Thou takest away all cheering light, all hope,\n I see the enslaved, the overthrown, the hurt, the opprest of the\n whole earth,\n I feel the measureless shame and humiliation of my race, it becomes\n all mine,\n Mine too the revenges of humanity, the wrongs of ages, baffled feuds\n and hatreds,\n Utter defeat upon me weighs--all lost--the foe victorious,\n (Yet ’mid the ruins Pride colossal stands unshaken to the last,\n Endurance, resolution to the last.)\n\n\n 8\n Now trumpeter for thy close,\n Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet,\n Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope,\n Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future,\n Give me for once its prophecy and joy.\n\n O glad, exulting, culminating song!\n A vigor more than earth’s is in thy notes,\n Marches of victory--man disenthral’d--the conqueror at last,\n Hymns to the universal God from universal man--all joy!\n A reborn race appears--a perfect world, all joy!\n Women and men in wisdom innocence and health--all joy!\n Riotous laughing bacchanals fill’d with joy!\n War, sorrow, suffering gone--the rank earth purged--nothing but joy left!\n The ocean fill’d with joy--the atmosphere all joy!\n Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life!\n Enough to merely be! enough to breathe!\n Joy! joy! all over joy!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To a Locomotive in Winter", + "body": " Thee for my recitative,\n Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining,\n Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and thy beat convulsive,\n Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel,\n Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating,\n shuttling at thy sides,\n Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar, now tapering in the distance,\n Thy great protruding head-light fix’d in front,\n Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple,\n The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack,\n Thy knitted frame, thy springs and valves, the tremulous twinkle of\n thy wheels,\n Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily following,\n Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering;\n Type of the modern--emblem of motion and power--pulse of the continent,\n For once come serve the Muse and merge in verse, even as here I see thee,\n With storm and buffeting gusts of wind and falling snow,\n By day thy warning ringing bell to sound its notes,\n By night thy silent signal lamps to swing.\n\n Fierce-throated beauty!\n Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music, thy swinging lamps\n at night,\n Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earthquake,\n rousing all,\n Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding,\n (No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)\n Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return’d,\n Launch’d o’er the prairies wide, across the lakes,\n To the free skies unpent and glad and strong.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "O Magnet-South", + "body": " O magnet-south! O glistening perfumed South! my South!\n O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all\n dear to me!\n O dear to me my birth-things--all moving things and the trees where\n I was born--the grains, plants, rivers,\n Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant,\n over flats of slivery sands or through swamps,\n Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the\n Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa and the Sabine,\n O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my soul to haunt their\n banks again,\n Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes, I float on the\n Okeechobee, I cross the hummock-land or through pleasant openings\n or dense forests,\n I see the parrots in the woods, I see the papaw-tree and the\n blossoming titi;\n Again, sailing in my coaster on deck, I coast off Georgia, I coast\n up the Carolinas,\n I see where the live-oak is growing, I see where the yellow-pine,\n the scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress, the\n graceful palmetto,\n I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico sound through an inlet,\n and dart my vision inland;\n O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!\n The cactus guarded with thorns, the laurel-tree with large white flowers,\n The range afar, the richness and barrenness, the old woods charged\n with mistletoe and trailing moss,\n The piney odor and the gloom, the awful natural stillness, (here in\n these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the\n fugitive has his conceal’d hut;)\n O the strange fascination of these half-known half-impassable\n swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the\n alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and\n the whirr of the rattlesnake,\n The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon,\n singing through the moon-lit night,\n The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;\n A Kentucky corn-field, the tall, graceful, long-leav’d corn,\n slender, flapping, bright green, with tassels, with beautiful\n ears each well-sheath’d in its husk;\n O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs, I can stand them not, I will depart;\n O to be a Virginian where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!\n O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee and\n never wander more.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Mannahatta", + "body": " I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,\n Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.\n\n Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly,\n musical, self-sufficient,\n I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,\n Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb,\n Rich, hemm’d thick all around with sailships and steamships, an\n island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,\n Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender, strong,\n light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies,\n Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,\n The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining\n islands, the heights, the villas,\n The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the\n ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model’d,\n The down-town streets, the jobbers’ houses of business, the houses\n of business of the ship-merchants and money-brokers, the river-streets,\n Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week,\n The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses, the\n brown-faced sailors,\n The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft,\n The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the river,\n passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide,\n The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form’d,\n beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes,\n Trottoirs throng’d, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the shops and shows,\n A million people--manners free and superb--open voices--hospitality--\n the most courageous and friendly young men,\n City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts!\n City nested in bays! my city!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "All Is Truth", + "body": " O me, man of slack faith so long,\n Standing aloof, denying portions so long,\n Only aware to-day of compact all-diffused truth,\n Discovering to-day there is no lie or form of lie, and can be none,\n but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon itself,\n Or as any law of the earth or any natural production of the earth does.\n\n (This is curious and may not be realized immediately, but it must be\n realized,\n I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,\n And that the universe does.)\n\n Where has fail’d a perfect return indifferent of lies or the truth?\n Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man?\n or in the meat and blood?\n\n Meditating among liars and retreating sternly into myself, I see\n that there are really no liars or lies after all,\n And that nothing fails its perfect return, and that what are called\n lies are perfect returns,\n And that each thing exactly represents itself and what has preceded it,\n And that the truth includes all, and is compact just as much as\n space is compact,\n And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth--but\n that all is truth without exception;\n And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am,\n And sing and laugh and deny nothing.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Riddle Song", + "body": " That which eludes this verse and any verse,\n Unheard by sharpest ear, unform’d in clearest eye or cunningest mind,\n Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth,\n And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly,\n Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss,\n Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an illusion,\n Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner,\n Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians in prose,\n Which sculptor never chisel’d yet, nor painter painted,\n Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter’d,\n Invoking here and now I challenge for my song.\n\n Indifferently, ’mid public, private haunts, in solitude,\n Behind the mountain and the wood,\n Companion of the city’s busiest streets, through the assemblage,\n It and its radiations constantly glide.\n\n In looks of fair unconscious babes,\n Or strangely in the coffin’d dead,\n Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night,\n As some dissolving delicate film of dreams,\n Hiding yet lingering.\n\n Two little breaths of words comprising it,\n Two words, yet all from first to last comprised in it.\n\n How ardently for it!\n How many ships have sail’d and sunk for it!\n\n How many travelers started from their homes and neer return’d!\n How much of genius boldly staked and lost for it!\n What countless stores of beauty, love, ventur’d for it!\n How all superbest deeds since Time began are traceable to it--and\n shall be to the end!\n How all heroic martyrdoms to it!\n How, justified by it, the horrors, evils, battles of the earth!\n How the bright fascinating lambent flames of it, in every age and\n land, have drawn men’s eyes,\n Rich as a sunset on the Norway coast, the sky, the islands, and the cliffs,\n Or midnight’s silent glowing northern lights unreachable.\n\n Haply God’s riddle it, so vague and yet so certain,\n The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it,\n And heaven at last for it.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Excelsior", + "body": " Who has gone farthest? for I would go farther,\n And who has been just? for I would be the most just person of the earth,\n And who most cautious? for I would be more cautious,\n And who has been happiest? O I think it is I--I think no one was\n ever happier than I,\n And who has lavish’d all? for I lavish constantly the best I have,\n And who proudest? for I think I have reason to be the proudest son\n alive--for I am the son of the brawny and tall-topt city,\n And who has been bold and true? for I would be the boldest and\n truest being of the universe,\n And who benevolent? for I would show more benevolence than all the rest,\n And who has receiv’d the love of the most friends? for I know what\n it is to receive the passionate love of many friends,\n And who possesses a perfect and enamour’d body? for I do not believe\n any one possesses a more perfect or enamour’d body than mine,\n And who thinks the amplest thoughts? for I would surround those thoughts,\n And who has made hymns fit for the earth? for I am mad with\n devouring ecstasy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Ah Poverties, Wincings, and Sulky Retreats", + "body": " Ah poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats,\n Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me,\n (For what is my life or any man’s life but a conflict with foes, the\n old, the incessant war?)\n You degradations, you tussle with passions and appetites,\n You smarts from dissatisfied friendships, (ah wounds the sharpest of all!)\n You toil of painful and choked articulations, you meannesses,\n You shallow tongue-talks at tables, (my tongue the shallowest of any;)\n You broken resolutions, you racking angers, you smother’d ennuis!\n Ah think not you finally triumph, my real self has yet to come forth,\n It shall yet march forth o’ermastering, till all lies beneath me,\n It shall yet stand up the soldier of ultimate victory.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thoughts", + "body": " Of public opinion,\n Of a calm and cool fiat sooner or later, (how impassive! how certain\n and final!)\n Of the President with pale face asking secretly to himself, What\n will the people say at last?\n Of the frivolous Judge--of the corrupt Congressman, Governor,\n Mayor--of such as these standing helpless and exposed,\n Of the mumbling and screaming priest, (soon, soon deserted,)\n Of the lessening year by year of venerableness, and of the dicta of\n officers, statutes, pulpits, schools,\n Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader of the\n intuitions of men and women, and of Self-esteem and Personality;\n Of the true New World--of the Democracies resplendent en-masse,\n Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them,\n Of the shining sun by them--of the inherent light, greater than the rest,\n Of the envelopment of all by them, and the effusion of all from them.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Mediums", + "body": " They shall arise in the States,\n They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness,\n They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos,\n They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive,\n They shall be complete women and men, their pose brawny and supple,\n their drink water, their blood clean and clear,\n They shall fully enjoy materialism and the sight of products, they\n shall enjoy the sight of the beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of\n Chicago the great city.\n They shall train themselves to go in public to become orators and\n oratresses,\n Strong and sweet shall their tongues be, poems and materials of\n poems shall come from their lives, they shall be makers and finders,\n Of them and of their works shall emerge divine conveyers, to convey gospels,\n Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey’d in gospels,\n trees, animals, waters, shall be convey’d,\n Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey’d.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Weave in, My Hardy Life", + "body": " Weave in, weave in, my hardy life,\n Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to come,\n Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight weave in,\n Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the wet, the warp, incessant\n weave, tire not,\n (We know not what the use O life, nor know the aim, the end, nor\n really aught we know,\n But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on, the\n death-envelop’d march of peace as well as war goes on,)\n For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to weave,\n We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Spain, 1873-74", + "body": " Out of the murk of heaviest clouds,\n Out of the feudal wrecks and heap’d-up skeletons of kings,\n Out of that old entire European debris, the shatter’d mummeries,\n Ruin’d cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of priests,\n Lo, Freedom’s features fresh undimm’d look forth--the same immortal\n face looks forth;\n (A glimpse as of thy Mother’s face Columbia,\n A flash significant as of a sword,\n Beaming towards thee.)\n\n Nor think we forget thee maternal;\n Lag’d’st thou so long? shall the clouds close again upon thee?\n Ah, but thou hast thyself now appear’d to us--we know thee,\n Thou hast given us a sure proof, the glimpse of thyself,\n Thou waitest there as everywhere thy time.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "By Broad Potomac’s Shore", + "body": " By broad Potomac’s shore, again old tongue,\n (Still uttering, still ejaculating, canst never cease this babble?)\n Again old heart so gay, again to you, your sense, the full flush\n spring returning,\n Again the freshness and the odors, again Virginia’s summer sky,\n pellucid blue and silver,\n Again the forenoon purple of the hills,\n Again the deathless grass, so noiseless soft and green,\n Again the blood-red roses blooming.\n\n Perfume this book of mine O blood-red roses!\n Lave subtly with your waters every line Potomac!\n Give me of you O spring, before I close, to put between its pages!\n O forenoon purple of the hills, before I close, of you!\n O deathless grass, of you!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "From Far Dakota’s Canyons [June 25, 1876]", + "body": " From far Dakota’s canyons,\n Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch, the\n silence,\n Haply to-day a mournful wall, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.\n\n The battle-bulletin,\n The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment,\n The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism,\n In the midst of their little circle, with their slaughter’d horses\n for breastworks,\n The fall of Custer and all his officers and men.\n\n Continues yet the old, old legend of our race,\n The loftiest of life upheld by death,\n The ancient banner perfectly maintain’d,\n O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee!\n\n As sitting in dark days,\n Lone, sulky, through the time’s thick murk looking in vain for\n light, for hope,\n From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof,\n (The sun there at the centre though conceal’d,\n Electric life forever at the centre,)\n Breaks forth a lightning flash.\n\n Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle,\n I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in front, bearing a\n bright sword in thy hand,\n Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds,\n (I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet,)\n Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious,\n After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a color,\n Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers,\n Thou yieldest up thyself.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Old War-Dreams", + "body": " In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish,\n Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of that indescribable look,)\n Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,\n I dream, I dream, I dream.\n\n Of scenes of Nature, fields and mountains,\n Of skies so beauteous after a storm, and at night the moon so\n unearthly bright,\n Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and\n gather the heaps,\n I dream, I dream, I dream.\n\n Long have they pass’d, faces and trenches and fields,\n Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure, or away\n from the fallen,\n Onward I sped at the time--but now of their forms at night,\n I dream, I dream, I dream.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thick-Sprinkled Bunting", + "body": " Thick-sprinkled bunting! flag of stars!\n Long yet your road, fateful flag--long yet your road, and lined with\n bloody death,\n For the prize I see at issue at last is the world,\n All its ships and shores I see interwoven with your threads greedy banner;\n Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest borne to flaunt unrival’d?\n O hasten flag of man--O with sure and steady step, passing highest\n flags of kings,\n Walk supreme to the heavens mighty symbol--run up above them all,\n Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "What Best I See in Thee", + "body": " [To U. S. G. return’d from his World’s Tour]\n\n What best I see in thee,\n Is not that where thou mov’st down history’s great highways,\n Ever undimm’d by time shoots warlike victory’s dazzle,\n Or that thou sat’st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,\n Or thou the man whom feudal Europe feted, venerable Asia swarm’d upon,\n Who walk’d with kings with even pace the round world’s promenade;\n But that in foreign lands, in all thy walks with kings,\n Those prairie sovereigns of the West, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois,\n Ohio’s, Indiana’s millions, comrades, farmers, soldiers, all to the front,\n Invisibly with thee walking with kings with even pace the round\n world’s promenade,\n Were all so justified.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Spirit That Form’d This Scene", + "body": " [Written in Platte Canyon, Colorado]\n\n Spirit that form’d this scene,\n These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,\n These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,\n These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,\n These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,\n I know thee, savage spirit--we have communed together,\n Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;\n Wast charged against my chants they had forgotten art?\n To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?\n The lyrist’s measur’d beat, the wrought-out temple’s grace--column\n and polish’d arch forgot?\n But thou that revelest here--spirit that form’d this scene,\n They have remember’d thee.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days", + "body": " As I walk these broad majestic days of peace,\n (For the war, the struggle of blood finish’d, wherein, O terrific Ideal,\n Against vast odds erewhile having gloriously won,\n Now thou stridest on, yet perhaps in time toward denser wars,\n Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers,\n Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all others,)\n Around me I hear that eclat of the world, politics, produce,\n The announcements of recognized things, science,\n The approved growth of cities and the spread of inventions.\n\n I see the ships, (they will last a few years,)\n The vast factories with their foremen and workmen,\n And hear the indorsement of all, and do not object to it.\n\n But I too announce solid things,\n Science, ships, politics, cities, factories, are not nothing,\n Like a grand procession to music of distant bugles pouring,\n triumphantly moving, and grander heaving in sight,\n They stand for realities--all is as it should be.\n\n Then my realities;\n What else is so real as mine?\n Libertad and the divine average, freedom to every slave on the face\n of the earth,\n The rapt promises and lumine of seers, the spiritual world, these\n centuries-lasting songs,\n And our visions, the visions of poets, the most solid announcements\n of any.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Clear Midnight", + "body": " This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,\n Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,\n Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou\n lovest best,\n Night, sleep, death and the stars.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As the Time Draws Nigh", + "body": " As the time draws nigh glooming a cloud,\n A dread beyond of I know not what darkens me.\n\n I shall go forth,\n I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long,\n Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice will\n suddenly cease.\n\n O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?\n Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us? --and yet it is\n enough, O soul;\n O soul, we have positively appear’d--that is enough.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Years of the Modern", + "body": " Years of the modern! years of the unperform’d!\n Your horizon rises, I see it parting away for more august dramas,\n I see not America only, not only Liberty’s nation but other nations\n preparing,\n I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combinations, the solidarity\n of races,\n I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage,\n (Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts\n suitable to them closed?)\n I see Freedom, completely arm’d and victorious and very haughty,\n with Law on one side and Peace on the other,\n A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of caste;\n What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach?\n I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions,\n I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken,\n I see the landmarks of European kings removed,\n I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give way;)\n Never were such sharp questions ask’d as this day,\n Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God,\n Lo, how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest!\n His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere, he colonizes the\n Pacific, the archipelagoes,\n With the steamship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the\n wholesale engines of war,\n With these and the world-spreading factories he interlinks all\n geography, all lands;\n What whispers are these O lands, running ahead of you, passing under\n the seas?\n Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the globe?\n Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim,\n The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war,\n No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days and nights;\n Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to\n pierce it, is full of phantoms,\n Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me,\n This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of dreams\n O years!\n Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not\n whether I sleep or wake;)\n The perform’d America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me,\n The unperform’d, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon me.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Ashes of Soldiers", + "body": " Ashes of soldiers South or North,\n As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought,\n The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes,\n And again the advance of the armies.\n\n Noiseless as mists and vapors,\n From their graves in the trenches ascending,\n From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,\n From every point of the compass out of the countless graves,\n In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or\n single ones they come,\n And silently gather round me.\n\n Now sound no note O trumpeters,\n Not at the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses,\n With sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines by their thighs, (ah\n my brave horsemen!\n My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride,\n With all the perils were yours.)\n\n Nor you drummers, neither at reveille at dawn,\n Nor the long roll alarming the camp, nor even the muffled beat for burial,\n Nothing from you this time O drummers bearing my warlike drums.\n\n But aside from these and the marts of wealth and the crowded promenade,\n Admitting around me comrades close unseen by the rest and voiceless,\n The slain elate and alive again, the dust and debris alive,\n I chant this chant of my silent soul in the name of all dead soldiers.\n\n Faces so pale with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet,\n Draw close, but speak not.\n\n Phantoms of countless lost,\n Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions,\n Follow me ever--desert me not while I live.\n\n Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living--sweet are the musical\n voices sounding,\n But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes.\n\n Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone,\n But love is not over--and what love, O comrades!\n Perfume from battle-fields rising, up from the foetor arising.\n\n Perfume therefore my chant, O love, immortal love,\n Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,\n Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride.\n\n Perfume all--make all wholesome,\n Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,\n O love, solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.\n\n Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain,\n That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew,\n For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thoughts", + "body": " 1\n Of these years I sing,\n How they pass and have pass’d through convuls’d pains, as through\n parturitions,\n How America illustrates birth, muscular youth, the promise, the sure\n fulfilment, the absolute success, despite of people--illustrates\n evil as well as good,\n The vehement struggle so fierce for unity in one’s-self,\n How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed, caste, myths,\n obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity,\n How few see the arrived models, the athletes, the Western States, or\n see freedom or spirituality, or hold any faith in results,\n (But I see the athletes, and I see the results of the war glorious\n and inevitable, and they again leading to other results.)\n\n How the great cities appear--how the Democratic masses, turbulent,\n willful, as I love them,\n How the whirl, the contest, the wrestle of evil with good, the\n sounding and resounding, keep on and on,\n How society waits unform’d, and is for a while between things ended\n and things begun,\n How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph of\n freedom and of the Democracies, and of the fruits of society, and\n of all that is begun,\n And how the States are complete in themselves--and how all triumphs\n and glories are complete in themselves, to lead onward,\n And how these of mine and of the States will in their turn be\n convuls’d, and serve other parturitions and transitions,\n And how all people, sights, combinations, the democratic masses too,\n serve--and how every fact, and war itself, with all its horrors,\n serves,\n And how now or at any time each serves the exquisite transition of death.\n\n 2\n Of seeds dropping into the ground, of births,\n Of the steady concentration of America, inland, upward, to\n impregnable and swarming places,\n Of what Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and the rest, are to be,\n Of what a few years will show there in Nebraska, Colorado, Nevada,\n and the rest,\n (Or afar, mounting the Northern Pacific to Sitka or Aliaska,)\n Of what the feuillage of America is the preparation for--and of what\n all sights, North, South, East and West, are,\n Of this Union welded in blood, of the solemn price paid, of the\n unnamed lost ever present in my mind;\n Of the temporary use of materials for identity’s sake,\n Of the present, passing, departing--of the growth of completer men\n than any yet,\n Of all sloping down there where the fresh free giver the mother, the\n Mississippi flows,\n Of mighty inland cities yet unsurvey’d and unsuspected,\n Of the new and good names, of the modern developments, of\n inalienable homesteads,\n Of a free and original life there, of simple diet and clean and\n sweet blood,\n Of litheness, majestic faces, clear eyes, and perfect physique there,\n Of immense spiritual results future years far West, each side of the\n Anahuacs,\n Of these songs, well understood there, (being made for that area,)\n Of the native scorn of grossness and gain there,\n (O it lurks in me night and day--what is gain after all to savageness\n and freedom?)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Song at Sunset", + "body": " Splendor of ended day floating and filling me,\n Hour prophetic, hour resuming the past,\n Inflating my throat, you divine average,\n You earth and life till the last ray gleams I sing.\n\n Open mouth of my soul uttering gladness,\n Eyes of my soul seeing perfection,\n Natural life of me faithfully praising things,\n Corroborating forever the triumph of things.\n\n Illustrious every one!\n Illustrious what we name space, sphere of unnumber’d spirits,\n Illustrious the mystery of motion in all beings, even the tiniest insect,\n Illustrious the attribute of speech, the senses, the body,\n Illustrious the passing light--illustrious the pale reflection on\n the new moon in the western sky,\n Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, to the last.\n\n Good in all,\n In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,\n In the annual return of the seasons,\n In the hilarity of youth,\n In the strength and flush of manhood,\n In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age,\n In the superb vistas of death.\n\n Wonderful to depart!\n Wonderful to be here!\n The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood!\n To breathe the air, how delicious!\n To speak--to walk--to seize something by the hand!\n To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my rose-color’d flesh!\n To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large!\n To be this incredible God I am!\n To have gone forth among other Gods, these men and women I love.\n\n Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself\n How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!\n How the clouds pass silently overhead!\n How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on!\n How the water sports and sings! (surely it is alive!)\n How the trees rise and stand up, with strong trunks, with branches\n and leaves!\n (Surely there is something more in each of the trees, some living soul.)\n\n O amazement of things--even the least particle!\n O spirituality of things!\n O strain musical flowing through ages and continents, now reaching\n me and America!\n I take your strong chords, intersperse them, and cheerfully pass\n them forward.\n\n I too carol the sun, usher’d or at noon, or as now, setting,\n I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the\n growths of the earth,\n I too have felt the resistless call of myself.\n\n As I steam’d down the Mississippi,\n As I wander’d over the prairies,\n As I have lived, as I have look’d through my windows my eyes,\n As I went forth in the morning, as I beheld the light breaking in the east,\n As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach\n of the Western Sea,\n As I roam’d the streets of inland Chicago, whatever streets I have roam’d,\n Or cities or silent woods, or even amid the sights of war,\n Wherever I have been I have charged myself with contentment and triumph.\n\n I sing to the last the equalities modern or old,\n I sing the endless finales of things,\n I say Nature continues, glory continues,\n I praise with electric voice,\n For I do not see one imperfection in the universe,\n And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.\n\n O setting sun! though the time has come,\n I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As at Thy Portals Also Death", + "body": " As at thy portals also death,\n Entering thy sovereign, dim, illimitable grounds,\n To memories of my mother, to the divine blending, maternity,\n To her, buried and gone, yet buried not, gone not from me,\n (I see again the calm benignant face fresh and beautiful still,\n I sit by the form in the coffin,\n I kiss and kiss convulsively again the sweet old lips, the cheeks,\n the closed eyes in the coffin;)\n To her, the ideal woman, practical, spiritual, of all of earth,\n life, love, to me the best,\n I grave a monumental line, before I go, amid these songs,\n And set a tombstone here.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "My Legacy", + "body": " The business man the acquirer vast,\n After assiduous years surveying results, preparing for departure,\n Devises houses and lands to his children, bequeaths stocks, goods,\n funds for a school or hospital,\n Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems\n and gold.\n\n But I, my life surveying, closing,\n With nothing to show to devise from its idle years,\n Nor houses nor lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends,\n Yet certain remembrances of the war for you, and after you,\n And little souvenirs of camps and soldiers, with my love,\n I bind together and bequeath in this bundle of songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Pensive on Her Dead Gazing", + "body": " Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All,\n Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing,\n (As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d,)\n As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d,\n Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my\n sons, lose not an atom,\n And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood,\n And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly impalpable,\n And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my rivers’ depths,\n And you mountain sides, and the woods where my dear children’s\n blood trickling redden’d,\n And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees,\n My dead absorb or South or North--my young men’s bodies absorb,\n and their precious precious blood,\n Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many a\n year hence,\n In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence,\n In blowing airs from the fields back again give me my darlings, give\n my immortal heroes,\n Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not an\n atom be lost,\n O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!\n Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries hence.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Camps of Green", + "body": " Nor alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars,\n When as order’d forward, after a long march,\n Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens we halt for the night,\n Some of us so fatigued carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping\n asleep in our tracks,\n Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle,\n Outposts of pickets posted surrounding alert through the dark,\n And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety,\n Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums,\n We rise up refresh’d, the night and sleep pass’d over, and resume our\n journey,\n Or proceed to battle.\n\n Lo, the camps of the tents of green,\n Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling,\n With a mystic army, (is it too order’d forward? is it too only\n halting awhile,\n Till night and sleep pass over?)\n\n Now in those camps of green, in their tents dotting the world,\n In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them, in the old and young,\n Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight, content\n and silent there at last,\n Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of all,\n Of the corps and generals all, and the President over the corps and\n generals all,\n And of each of us O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we fought,\n (There without hatred we all, all meet.)\n\n For presently O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the\n bivouac-camps of green,\n But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the countersign,\n Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Sobbing of the Bells [Midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1881]", + "body": " The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,\n The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,\n (Full well they know that message in the darkness,\n Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the\n sad reverberations,)\n The passionate toll and clang--city to city, joining, sounding, passing,\n Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As They Draw to a Close", + "body": " As they draw to a close,\n Of what underlies the precedent songs--of my aims in them,\n Of the seed I have sought to plant in them,\n Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them,\n (For them, for them have I lived, in them my work is done,)\n Of many an aspiration fond, of many a dream and plan;\n Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing eternal identity,\n To Nature encompassing these, encompassing God--to the joyous,\n electric all,\n To the sense of Death, and accepting exulting in Death in its turn\n the same as life,\n The entrance of man to sing;\n To compact you, ye parted, diverse lives,\n To put rapport the mountains and rocks and streams,\n And the winds of the north, and the forests of oak and pine,\n With you O soul.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Joy, Shipmate, Joy!", + "body": " Joy, shipmate, Joy!\n (Pleas’d to my soul at death I cry,)\n Our life is closed, our life begins,\n The long, long anchorage we leave,\n The ship is clear at last, she leaps!\n She swiftly courses from the shore,\n Joy, shipmate, joy.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Untold Want", + "body": " The untold want by life and land ne’er granted,\n Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Portals", + "body": " What are those of the known but to ascend and enter the Unknown?\n And what are those of life but for Death?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "These Carols", + "body": " These carols sung to cheer my passage through the world I see,\n For completion I dedicate to the Invisible World.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Now Finale to the Shore", + "body": " Now finale to the shore,\n Now land and life finale and farewell,\n Now Voyager depart, (much, much for thee is yet in store,)\n Often enough hast thou adventur’d o’er the seas,\n Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,\n Duly again to port and hawser’s tie returning;\n But now obey thy cherish’d secret wish,\n Embrace thy friends, leave all in order,\n To port and hawser’s tie no more returning,\n Depart upon thy endless cruise old Sailor.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "So Long!", + "body": " To conclude, I announce what comes after me.\n\n I remember I said before my leaves sprang at all,\n I would raise my voice jocund and strong with reference to consummations.\n\n When America does what was promis’d,\n When through these States walk a hundred millions of superb persons,\n When the rest part away for superb persons and contribute to them,\n When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America,\n Then to me and mine our due fruition.\n\n I have press’d through in my own right,\n I have sung the body and the soul, war and peace have I sung, and\n the songs of life and death,\n And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births.\n\n I have offer’d my style to every one, I have journey’d with confident step;\n While my pleasure is yet at the full I whisper So long!\n And take the young woman’s hand and the young man’s hand for the last time.\n\n I announce natural persons to arise,\n I announce justice triumphant,\n I announce uncompromising liberty and equality,\n I announce the justification of candor and the justification of pride.\n\n I announce that the identity of these States is a single identity only,\n I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble,\n I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous politics\n of the earth insignificant.\n\n I announce adhesiveness, I say it shall be limitless, unloosen’d,\n I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.\n\n I announce a man or woman coming, perhaps you are the one, (So long!)\n I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste,\n affectionate, compassionate, fully arm’d.\n\n I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold,\n I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.\n\n I announce myriads of youths, beautiful, gigantic, sweet-blooded,\n I announce a race of splendid and savage old men.\n\n O thicker and faster--(So long!)\n O crowding too close upon me,\n I foresee too much, it means more than I thought,\n It appears to me I am dying.\n\n Hasten throat and sound your last,\n Salute me--salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more.\n\n Screaming electric, the atmosphere using,\n At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing,\n Swiftly on, but a little while alighting,\n Curious envelop’d messages delivering,\n Sparkles hot, seed ethereal down in the dirt dropping,\n Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring,\n To ages and ages yet the growth of the seed leaving,\n To troops out of the war arising, they the tasks I have set\n promulging,\n To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing, their affection\n me more clearly explaining,\n To young men my problems offering--no dallier I--I the muscle of\n their brains trying,\n So I pass, a little time vocal, visible, contrary,\n Afterward a melodious echo, passionately bent for, (death making\n me really undying,)\n The best of me then when no longer visible, for toward that I have\n been incessantly preparing.\n\n What is there more, that I lag and pause and crouch extended with\n unshut mouth?\n Is there a single final farewell?\n My songs cease, I abandon them,\n From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally solely to you.\n\n Camerado, this is no book,\n Who touches this touches a man,\n (Is it night? are we here together alone?)\n It is I you hold and who holds you,\n I spring from the pages into your arms--decease calls me forth.\n\n O how your fingers drowse me,\n Your breath falls around me like dew, your pulse lulls the tympans\n of my ears,\n I feel immerged from head to foot,\n Delicious, enough.\n\n Enough O deed impromptu and secret,\n Enough O gliding present--enough O summ’d-up past.\n\n Dear friend whoever you are take this kiss,\n I give it especially to you, do not forget me,\n I feel like one who has done work for the day to retire awhile,\n I receive now again of my many translations, from my avataras\n ascending, while others doubtless await me,\n An unknown sphere more real than I dream’d, more direct, darts\n awakening rays about me, So long!\n Remember my words, I may again return,\n I love you, I depart from materials,\n I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Mannahatta", + "body": " My city’s fit and noble name resumed,\n Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning,\n A rocky founded island--shores where ever gayly dash the coming,\n going, hurrying sea waves.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Paumanok", + "body": " Sea-beauty! stretch’d and basking!\n One side thy inland ocean laving, broad, with copious commerce,\n steamers, sails,\n And one the Atlantic’s wind caressing, fierce or gentle--mighty hulls\n dark-gliding in the distance.\n Isle of sweet brooks of drinking-water--healthy air and soil!\n Isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "From Montauk Point", + "body": " I stand as on some mighty eagle’s beak,\n Eastward the sea absorbing, viewing, (nothing but sea and sky,)\n The tossing waves, the foam, the ships in the distance,\n The wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps--that inbound urge and urge\n of waves,\n Seeking the shores forever.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To Those Who’ve Fail’d", + "body": " To those who’ve fail’d, in aspiration vast,\n To unnam’d soldiers fallen in front on the lead,\n To calm, devoted engineers--to over-ardent travelers--to pilots on\n their ships,\n To many a lofty song and picture without recognition--I’d rear\n laurel-cover’d monument,\n High, high above the rest--To all cut off before their time,\n Possess’d by some strange spirit of fire,\n Quench’d by an early death.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine", + "body": " A carol closing sixty-nine--a resume--a repetition,\n My lines in joy and hope continuing on the same,\n Of ye, O God, Life, Nature, Freedom, Poetry;\n Of you, my Land--your rivers, prairies, States--you, mottled Flag I love,\n Your aggregate retain’d entire--Of north, south, east and west, your\n items all;\n Of me myself--the jocund heart yet beating in my breast,\n The body wreck’d, old, poor and paralyzed--the strange inertia\n falling pall-like round me,\n The burning fires down in my sluggish blood not yet extinct,\n The undiminish’d faith--the groups of loving friends.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Bravest Soldiers", + "body": " Brave, brave were the soldiers (high named to-day) who lived through\n the fight;\n But the bravest press’d to the front and fell, unnamed, unknown.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Font of Type", + "body": " This latent mine--these unlaunch’d voices--passionate powers,\n Wrath, argument, or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout,\n (Not nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer merely,)\n These ocean waves arousable to fury and to death,\n Or sooth’d to ease and sheeny sun and sleep,\n Within the pallid slivers slumbering.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As I Sit Writing Here", + "body": " As I sit writing here, sick and grown old,\n Not my least burden is that dulness of the years, querilities,\n Ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy, constipation, whimpering ennui,\n May filter in my dally songs.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "My Canary Bird", + "body": " Did we count great, O soul, to penetrate the themes of mighty books,\n Absorbing deep and full from thoughts, plays, speculations?\n But now from thee to me, caged bird, to feel thy joyous warble,\n Filling the air, the lonesome room, the long forenoon,\n Is it not just as great, O soul?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Queries to My Seventieth Year", + "body": " Approaching, nearing, curious,\n Thou dim, uncertain spectre--bringest thou life or death?\n Strength, weakness, blindness, more paralysis and heavier?\n Or placid skies and sun? Wilt stir the waters yet?\n Or haply cut me short for good? Or leave me here as now,\n Dull, parrot-like and old, with crack’d voice harping, screeching?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Wallabout Martyrs", + "body": " Greater than memory of Achilles or Ulysses,\n More, more by far to thee than tomb of Alexander,\n Those cart loads of old charnel ashes, scales and splints of mouldy bones,\n Once living men--once resolute courage, aspiration, strength,\n The stepping stones to thee to-day and here, America.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The First Dandelion", + "body": " Simple and fresh and fair from winter’s close emerging,\n As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,\n Forth from its sunny nook of shelter’d grass--innocent, golden, calm\n as the dawn,\n The spring’s first dandelion shows its trustful face.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "America", + "body": " Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,\n All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,\n Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,\n Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,\n A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,\n Chair’d in the adamant of Time.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Memories", + "body": " How sweet the silent backward tracings!\n The wanderings as in dreams--the meditation of old times resumed\n --their loves, joys, persons, voyages.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To-Day and Thee", + "body": " The appointed winners in a long-stretch’d game;\n The course of Time and nations--Egypt, India, Greece and Rome;\n The past entire, with all its heroes, histories, arts, experiments,\n Its store of songs, inventions, voyages, teachers, books,\n Garner’d for now and thee--To think of it!\n The heirdom all converged in thee!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "After the Dazzle of Day", + "body": " After the dazzle of day is gone,\n Only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars;\n After the clangor of organ majestic, or chorus, or perfect band,\n Silent, athwart my soul, moves the symphony true.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809", + "body": " To-day, from each and all, a breath of prayer--a pulse of thought,\n To memory of Him--to birth of Him.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Out of May’s Shows Selected", + "body": " Apple orchards, the trees all cover’d with blossoms;\n Wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital emerald green;\n The eternal, exhaustless freshness of each early morning;\n The yellow, golden, transparent haze of the warm afternoon sun;\n The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white flowers.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Halcyon Days", + "body": " Not from successful love alone,\n Nor wealth, nor honor’d middle age, nor victories of politics or war;\n But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,\n As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,\n As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air,\n As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs\n really finish’d and indolent-ripe on the tree,\n Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!\n The brooding and blissful halcyon days!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "FANCIES AT NAVESINK", + "body": " [I] The Pilot in the Mist\n\n Steaming the northern rapids--(an old St. Lawrence reminiscence,\n A sudden memory-flash comes back, I know not why,\n Here waiting for the sunrise, gazing from this hill;)\n Again ’tis just at morning--a heavy haze contends with daybreak,\n Again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me--I press through\n foam-dash’d rocks that almost touch me,\n Again I mark where aft the small thin Indian helmsman\n Looms in the mist, with brow elate and governing hand.\n\n\n\n [II] Had I the Choice\n\n Had I the choice to tally greatest bards,\n To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate at will,\n Homer with all his wars and warriors--Hector, Achilles, Ajax,\n Or Shakspere’s woe-entangled Hamlet, Lear, Othello--Tennyson’s fair ladies,\n Metre or wit the best, or choice conceit to wield in perfect rhyme,\n delight of singers;\n These, these, O sea, all these I’d gladly barter,\n Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me transfer,\n Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse,\n And leave its odor there.\n\n\n\n [III] You Tides with Ceaseless Swell\n\n You tides with ceaseless swell! you power that does this work!\n You unseen force, centripetal, centrifugal, through space’s spread,\n Rapport of sun, moon, earth, and all the constellations,\n What are the messages by you from distant stars to us? what Sirius’?\n what Capella’s?\n What central heart--and you the pulse--vivifies all? what boundless\n aggregate of all?\n What subtle indirection and significance in you? what clue to all in\n you? what fluid, vast identity,\n Holding the universe with all its parts as one--as sailing in a ship?\n\n\n\n [IV] Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning\n\n Last of ebb, and daylight waning,\n Scented sea-cool landward making, smells of sedge and salt incoming,\n With many a half-caught voice sent up from the eddies,\n Many a muffled confession--many a sob and whisper’d word,\n As of speakers far or hid.\n\n How they sweep down and out! how they mutter!\n Poets unnamed--artists greatest of any, with cherish’d lost designs,\n Love’s unresponse--a chorus of age’s complaints--hope’s last words,\n Some suicide’s despairing cry, Away to the boundless waste, and\n never again return.\n\n On to oblivion then!\n On, on, and do your part, ye burying, ebbing tide!\n On for your time, ye furious debouche!\n\n\n\n [V] And Yet Not You Alone\n\n And yet not you alone, twilight and burying ebb,\n Nor you, ye lost designs alone--nor failures, aspirations;\n I know, divine deceitful ones, your glamour’s seeming;\n Duly by you, from you, the tide and light again--duly the hinges turning,\n Duly the needed discord-parts offsetting, blending,\n Weaving from you, from Sleep, Night, Death itself,\n The rhythmus of Birth eternal.\n\n\n\n [VI] Proudly the Flood Comes In\n\n Proudly the flood comes in, shouting, foaming, advancing,\n Long it holds at the high, with bosom broad outswelling,\n All throbs, dilates--the farms, woods, streets of cities--workmen at work,\n Mainsails, topsails, jibs, appear in the offing--steamers’ pennants\n of smoke--and under the forenoon sun,\n Freighted with human lives, gaily the outward bound, gaily the\n inward bound,\n Flaunting from many a spar the flag I love.\n\n\n\n [VII] By That Long Scan of Waves\n\n By that long scan of waves, myself call’d back, resumed upon myself,\n In every crest some undulating light or shade--some retrospect,\n Joys, travels, studies, silent panoramas--scenes ephemeral,\n The long past war, the battles, hospital sights, the wounded and the dead,\n Myself through every by-gone phase--my idle youth--old age at hand,\n My three-score years of life summ’d up, and more, and past,\n By any grand ideal tried, intentionless, the whole a nothing,\n And haply yet some drop within God’s scheme’s ensemble--some\n wave, or part of wave,\n Like one of yours, ye multitudinous ocean.\n\n\n\n [VIII] Then Last Of All\n\n Then last of all, caught from these shores, this hill,\n Of you O tides, the mystic human meaning:\n Only by law of you, your swell and ebb, enclosing me the same,\n The brain that shapes, the voice that chants this song.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Election Day, November, 1884", + "body": " If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,\n ’Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless prairies--nor\n your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,\n Nor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic\n geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,\n Nor Oregon’s white cones--nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes--nor\n Mississippi’s stream:\n --This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name--the still\n small voice vibrating--America’s choosing day,\n (The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the main, the\n quadriennial choosing,)\n The stretch of North and South arous’d--sea-board and inland--\n Texas to Maine--the Prairie States--Vermont, Virginia, California,\n The final ballot-shower from East to West--the paradox and conflict,\n The countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless conflict,\n Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s:) the\n peaceful choice of all,\n Or good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker odds, the dross:\n --Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify--while the heart\n pants, life glows:\n These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,\n Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "With Husky-Haughty Lips, O Sea!", + "body": " With husky-haughty lips, O sea!\n Where day and night I wend thy surf-beat shore,\n Imaging to my sense thy varied strange suggestions,\n (I see and plainly list thy talk and conference here,)\n Thy troops of white-maned racers racing to the goal,\n Thy ample, smiling face, dash’d with the sparkling dimples of the sun,\n Thy brooding scowl and murk--thy unloos’d hurricanes,\n Thy unsubduedness, caprices, wilfulness;\n Great as thou art above the rest, thy many tears--a lack from all\n eternity in thy content,\n (Naught but the greatest struggles, wrongs, defeats, could make thee\n greatest--no less could make thee,)\n Thy lonely state--something thou ever seek’st and seek’st, yet\n never gain’st,\n Surely some right withheld--some voice, in huge monotonous rage, of\n freedom-lover pent,\n Some vast heart, like a planet’s, chain’d and chafing in those breakers,\n By lengthen’d swell, and spasm, and panting breath,\n And rhythmic rasping of thy sands and waves,\n And serpent hiss, and savage peals of laughter,\n And undertones of distant lion roar,\n (Sounding, appealing to the sky’s deaf ear--but now, rapport for once,\n A phantom in the night thy confidant for once,)\n The first and last confession of the globe,\n Outsurging, muttering from thy soul’s abysms,\n The tale of cosmic elemental passion,\n Thou tellest to a kindred soul.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Death of General Grant", + "body": " As one by one withdraw the lofty actors,\n From that great play on history’s stage eterne,\n That lurid, partial act of war and peace--of old and new contending,\n Fought out through wrath, fears, dark dismays, and many a long suspense;\n All past--and since, in countless graves receding, mellowing,\n Victor’s and vanquish’d--Lincoln’s and Lee’s--now thou with them,\n Man of the mighty days--and equal to the days!\n Thou from the prairies!--tangled and many-vein’d and hard has been thy part,\n To admiration has it been enacted!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Red Jacket (From Aloft)", + "body": " Upon this scene, this show,\n Yielded to-day by fashion, learning, wealth,\n (Nor in caprice alone--some grains of deepest meaning,)\n Haply, aloft, (who knows?) from distant sky-clouds’ blended shapes,\n As some old tree, or rock or cliff, thrill’d with its soul,\n Product of Nature’s sun, stars, earth direct--a towering human form,\n In hunting-shirt of film, arm’d with the rifle, a half-ironical\n smile curving its phantom lips,\n Like one of Ossian’s ghosts looks down.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Washington’s Monument February, 1885", + "body": " Ah, not this marble, dead and cold:\n Far from its base and shaft expanding--the round zones circling,\n comprehending,\n Thou, Washington, art all the world’s, the continents’ entire--not\n yours alone, America,\n Europe’s as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer’s cot,\n Or frozen North, or sultry South--the African’s--the Arab’s in his tent,\n Old Asia’s there with venerable smile, seated amid her ruins;\n (Greets the antique the hero new? ’tis but the same--the heir\n legitimate, continued ever,\n The indomitable heart and arm--proofs of the never-broken line,\n Courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same--e’en in defeat\n defeated not, the same:)\n Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or day or night,\n Through teeming cities’ streets, indoors or out, factories or farms,\n Now, or to come, or past--where patriot wills existed or exist,\n Wherever Freedom, pois’d by Toleration, sway’d by Law,\n Stands or is rising thy true monument.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Of That Blithe Throat of Thine", + "body": " Of that blithe throat of thine from arctic bleak and blank,\n I’ll mind the lesson, solitary bird--let me too welcome chilling drifts,\n E’en the profoundest chill, as now--a torpid pulse, a brain unnerv’d,\n Old age land-lock’d within its winter bay--(cold, cold, O cold!)\n These snowy hairs, my feeble arm, my frozen feet,\n For them thy faith, thy rule I take, and grave it to the last;\n Not summer’s zones alone--not chants of youth, or south’s warm tides alone,\n But held by sluggish floes, pack’d in the northern ice, the cumulus\n of years,\n These with gay heart I also sing.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Broadway", + "body": " What hurrying human tides, or day or night!\n What passions, winnings, losses, ardors, swim thy waters!\n What whirls of evil, bliss and sorrow, stem thee!\n What curious questioning glances--glints of love!\n Leer, envy, scorn, contempt, hope, aspiration!\n Thou portal--thou arena--thou of the myriad long-drawn lines and groups!\n (Could but thy flagstones, curbs, facades, tell their inimitable tales;\n Thy windows rich, and huge hotels--thy side-walks wide;)\n Thou of the endless sliding, mincing, shuffling feet!\n Thou, like the parti-colored world itself--like infinite, teeming,\n mocking life!\n Thou visor’d, vast, unspeakable show and lesson!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To Get the Final Lilt of Songs", + "body": " To get the final lilt of songs,\n To penetrate the inmost lore of poets--to know the mighty ones,\n Job, Homer, Eschylus, Dante, Shakespere, Tennyson, Emerson;\n To diagnose the shifting-delicate tints of love and pride and doubt--\n to truly understand,\n To encompass these, the last keen faculty and entrance-price,\n Old age, and what it brings from all its past experiences.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Old Salt Kossabone", + "body": " Far back, related on my mother’s side,\n Old Salt Kossabone, I’ll tell you how he died:\n (Had been a sailor all his life--was nearly 90--lived with his\n married grandchild, Jenny;\n House on a hill, with view of bay at hand, and distant cape, and\n stretch to open sea;)\n The last of afternoons, the evening hours, for many a year his\n regular custom,\n In his great arm chair by the window seated,\n (Sometimes, indeed, through half the day,)\n Watching the coming, going of the vessels, he mutters to himself--\n And now the close of all:\n One struggling outbound brig, one day, baffled for long--cross-tides\n and much wrong going,\n At last at nightfall strikes the breeze aright, her whole luck veering,\n And swiftly bending round the cape, the darkness proudly entering,\n cleaving, as he watches,\n “She’s free--she’s on her destination”--these the last words--when\n Jenny came, he sat there dead,\n Dutch Kossabone, Old Salt, related on my mother’s side, far back.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Dead Tenor", + "body": " As down the stage again,\n With Spanish hat and plumes, and gait inimitable,\n Back from the fading lessons of the past, I’d call, I’d tell and own,\n How much from thee! the revelation of the singing voice from thee!\n (So firm--so liquid-soft--again that tremulous, manly timbre!\n The perfect singing voice--deepest of all to me the lesson--trial\n and test of all:)\n How through those strains distill’d--how the rapt ears, the soul of\n me, absorbing\n Fernando’s heart, Manrico’s passionate call, Ernani’s, sweet Gennaro’s,\n I fold thenceforth, or seek to fold, within my chants transmuting,\n Freedom’s and Love’s and Faith’s unloos’d cantabile,\n (As perfume’s, color’s, sunlight’s correlation:)\n From these, for these, with these, a hurried line, dead tenor,\n A wafted autumn leaf, dropt in the closing grave, the shovel’d earth,\n To memory of thee.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Continuities", + "body": " Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,\n No birth, identity, form--no object of the world.\n Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;\n Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.\n Ample are time and space--ample the fields of Nature.\n The body, sluggish, aged, cold--the embers left from earlier fires,\n The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;\n The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;\n To frozen clods ever the spring’s invisible law returns,\n With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Yonnondio", + "body": " A song, a poem of itself--the word itself a dirge,\n Amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintry night,\n To me such misty, strange tableaux the syllables calling up;\n Yonnondio--I see, far in the west or north, a limitless ravine, with\n plains and mountains dark,\n I see swarms of stalwart chieftains, medicine-men, and warriors,\n As flitting by like clouds of ghosts, they pass and are gone in the\n twilight,\n (Race of the woods, the landscapes free, and the falls!\n No picture, poem, statement, passing them to the future:)\n Yonnondio! Yonnondio!--unlimn’d they disappear;\n To-day gives place, and fades--the cities, farms, factories fade;\n A muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne through the air\n for a moment,\n Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Life", + "body": " Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man;\n (Have former armies fail’d? then we send fresh armies--and fresh again;)\n Ever the grappled mystery of all earth’s ages old or new;\n Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud\n applause;\n Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last;\n Struggling to-day the same--battling the same.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "“Going Somewhere”", + "body": " My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend,\n (Now buried in an English grave--and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,)\n Ended our talk--“The sum, concluding all we know of old or modern\n learning, intuitions deep,\n “Of all Geologies--Histories--of all Astronomy--of Evolution,\n Metaphysics all,\n “Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering,\n “Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no halt, but it is\n duly over,)\n “The world, the race, the soul--in space and time the universes,\n “All bound as is befitting each--all surely going somewhere.”", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Small the Theme of My Chant", + "body": " Small the theme of my Chant, yet the greatest--namely, One’s-Self--\n a simple, separate person. That, for the use of the New World, I sing.\n Man’s physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone,\n nor brain alone, is worthy for the Muse;--I say the Form complete\n is worthier far. The Female equally with the Male, I sing.\n Nor cease at the theme of One’s-Self. I speak the word of the\n modern, the word En-Masse.\n My Days I sing, and the Lands--with interstice I knew of hapless War.\n (O friend, whoe’er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I\n feel through every leaf the pressure of your hand, which I return.\n And thus upon our journey, footing the road, and more than once, and\n link’d together let us go.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "True Conquerors", + "body": " Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,)\n Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck,\n Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds, defeats and scars;\n Enough that they’ve survived at all--long life’s unflinching ones!\n Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all--\n in that alone,\n True conquerors o’er all the rest.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The United States to Old World Critics", + "body": " Here first the duties of to-day, the lessons of the concrete,\n Wealth, order, travel, shelter, products, plenty;\n As of the building of some varied, vast, perpetual edifice,\n Whence to arise inevitable in time, the towering roofs, the lamps,\n The solid-planted spires tall shooting to the stars.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Calming Thought of All", + "body": " That coursing on, whate’er men’s speculations,\n Amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies,\n Amid the bawling presentations new and old,\n The round earth’s silent vital laws, facts, modes continue.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Thanks in Old Age", + "body": " Thanks in old age--thanks ere I go,\n For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air--for life, mere life,\n For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my mother dear--you,\n father--you, brothers, sisters, friends,)\n For all my days--not those of peace alone--the days of war the same,\n For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands,\n For shelter, wine and meat--for sweet appreciation,\n (You distant, dim unknown--or young or old--countless, unspecified,\n readers belov’d,\n We never met, and neer shall meet--and yet our souls embrace, long,\n close and long;)\n For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books--for colors, forms,\n For all the brave strong men--devoted, hardy men--who’ve forward\n sprung in freedom’s help, all years, all lands\n For braver, stronger, more devoted men--(a special laurel ere I go,\n to life’s war’s chosen ones,\n The cannoneers of song and thought--the great artillerists--the\n foremost leaders, captains of the soul:)\n As soldier from an ended war return’d--As traveler out of myriads,\n to the long procession retrospective,\n Thanks--joyful thanks!--a soldier’s, traveler’s thanks.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Life and Death", + "body": " The two old, simple problems ever intertwined,\n Close home, elusive, present, baffled, grappled.\n By each successive age insoluble, pass’d on,\n To ours to-day--and we pass on the same.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Voice of the Rain", + "body": " And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower,\n Which, strange to tell, gave me an answer, as here translated:\n I am the Poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,\n Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea,\n Upward to heaven, whence, vaguely form’d, altogether changed, and\n yet the same,\n I descend to lave the drouths, atomies, dust-layers of the globe,\n And all that in them without me were seeds only, latent, unborn;\n And forever, by day and night, I give back life to my own origin,\n and make pure and beautify it;\n (For song, issuing from its birth-place, after fulfilment, wandering,\n Reck’d or unreck’d, duly with love returns.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Soon Shall the Winter’s Foil Be Here", + "body": " Soon shall the winter’s foil be here;\n Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt--A little while,\n And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in softness, bloom and\n growth--a thousand forms shall rise\n From these dead clods and chills as from low burial graves.\n\n Thine eyes, ears--all thy best attributes--all that takes cognizance\n of natural beauty,\n Shall wake and fill. Thou shalt perceive the simple shows, the\n delicate miracles of earth,\n Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers,\n The arbutus under foot, the willow’s yellow-green, the blossoming\n plum and cherry;\n With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs--the\n flitting bluebird;\n For such the scenes the annual play brings on.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "While Not the Past Forgetting", + "body": " While not the past forgetting,\n To-day, at least, contention sunk entire--peace, brotherhood uprisen;\n For sign reciprocal our Northern, Southern hands,\n Lay on the graves of all dead soldiers, North or South,\n (Nor for the past alone--for meanings to the future,)\n Wreaths of roses and branches of palm.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Dying Veteran", + "body": " Amid these days of order, ease, prosperity,\n Amid the current songs of beauty, peace, decorum,\n I cast a reminiscence--(likely ’twill offend you,\n I heard it in my boyhood;)--More than a generation since,\n A queer old savage man, a fighter under Washington himself,\n (Large, brave, cleanly, hot-blooded, no talker, rather spiritualistic,\n Had fought in the ranks--fought well--had been all through the\n Revolutionary war,)\n Lay dying--sons, daughters, church-deacons, lovingly tending him,\n Sharping their sense, their ears, towards his murmuring, half-caught words:\n “Let me return again to my war-days,\n To the sights and scenes--to forming the line of battle,\n To the scouts ahead reconnoitering,\n To the cannons, the grim artillery,\n To the galloping aides, carrying orders,\n To the wounded, the fallen, the heat, the suspense,\n The perfume strong, the smoke, the deafening noise;\n Away with your life of peace!--your joys of peace!\n Give me my old wild battle-life again!”", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Stronger Lessons", + "body": " Have you learn’d lessons only of those who admired you, and were\n tender with you, and stood aside for you?\n Have you not learn’d great lessons from those who reject you, and\n brace themselves against you? or who treat you with contempt,\n or dispute the passage with you?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Prairie Sunset", + "body": " Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn,\n The earth’s whole amplitude and Nature’s multiform power consign’d\n for once to colors;\n The light, the general air possess’d by them--colors till now unknown,\n No limit, confine--not the Western sky alone--the high meridian--\n North, South, all,\n Pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Twenty Years", + "body": " Down on the ancient wharf, the sand, I sit, with a new-comer chatting:\n He shipp’d as green-hand boy, and sail’d away, (took some sudden,\n vehement notion;)\n Since, twenty years and more have circled round and round,\n While he the globe was circling round and round, --and now returns:\n How changed the place--all the old land-marks gone--the parents dead;\n (Yes, he comes back to lay in port for good--to settle--has a\n well-fill’d purse--no spot will do but this;)\n The little boat that scull’d him from the sloop, now held in leash I see,\n I hear the slapping waves, the restless keel, the rocking in the sand,\n I see the sailor kit, the canvas bag, the great box bound with brass,\n I scan the face all berry-brown and bearded--the stout-strong frame,\n Dress’d in its russet suit of good Scotch cloth:\n (Then what the told-out story of those twenty years? What of the future?)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Orange Buds by Mail from Florida", + "body": " A lesser proof than old Voltaire’s, yet greater,\n Proof of this present time, and thee, thy broad expanse, America,\n To my plain Northern hut, in outside clouds and snow,\n Brought safely for a thousand miles o’er land and tide,\n Some three days since on their own soil live-sprouting,\n Now here their sweetness through my room unfolding,\n A bunch of orange buds by mall from Florida.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Twilight", + "body": " The soft voluptuous opiate shades,\n The sun just gone, the eager light dispell’d--(I too will soon be\n gone, dispell’d,)\n A haze--nirwana--rest and night--oblivion.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "You Lingering Sparse Leaves of Me", + "body": " You lingering sparse leaves of me on winter-nearing boughs,\n And I some well-shorn tree of field or orchard-row;\n You tokens diminute and lorn--(not now the flush of May, or July\n clover-bloom--no grain of August now;)\n You pallid banner-staves--you pennants valueless--you overstay’d of time,\n Yet my soul-dearest leaves confirming all the rest,\n The faithfulest--hardiest--last.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Not Meagre, Latent Boughs Alone", + "body": " Not meagre, latent boughs alone, O songs! (scaly and bare, like\n eagles’ talons,)\n But haply for some sunny day (who knows?) some future spring, some\n summer--bursting forth,\n To verdant leaves, or sheltering shade--to nourishing fruit,\n Apples and grapes--the stalwart limbs of trees emerging--the fresh,\n free, open air,\n And love and faith, like scented roses blooming.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Dead Emperor", + "body": " To-day, with bending head and eyes, thou, too, Columbia,\n Less for the mighty crown laid low in sorrow--less for the Emperor,\n Thy true condolence breathest, sendest out o’er many a salt sea mile,\n Mourning a good old man--a faithful shepherd, patriot.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "As the Greek’s Signal Flame", + "body": " As the Greek’s signal flame, by antique records told,\n Rose from the hill-top, like applause and glory,\n Welcoming in fame some special veteran, hero,\n With rosy tinge reddening the land he’d served,\n So I aloft from Mannahatta’s ship-fringed shore,\n Lift high a kindled brand for thee, Old Poet.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Dismantled Ship", + "body": " In some unused lagoon, some nameless bay,\n On sluggish, lonesome waters, anchor’d near the shore,\n An old, dismasted, gray and batter’d ship, disabled, done,\n After free voyages to all the seas of earth, haul’d up at last and\n hawser’d tight,\n Lies rusting, mouldering.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Now Precedent Songs, Farewell", + "body": " Now precedent songs, farewell--by every name farewell,\n (Trains of a staggering line in many a strange procession, waggons,\n From ups and downs--with intervals--from elder years, mid-age, or youth,)\n “In Cabin’d Ships, or Thee Old Cause or Poets to Come\n Or Paumanok, Song of Myself, Calamus, or Adam,\n Or Beat! Beat! Drums! or To the Leaven’d Soil they Trod,\n Or Captain! My Captain! Kosmos, Quicksand Years, or Thoughts,\n Thou Mother with thy Equal Brood,” and many, many more unspecified,\n From fibre heart of mine--from throat and tongue--(My life’s hot\n pulsing blood,\n The personal urge and form for me--not merely paper, automatic type\n and ink,)\n Each song of mine--each utterance in the past--having its long, long\n history,\n Of life or death, or soldier’s wound, of country’s loss or safety,\n (O heaven! what flash and started endless train of all! compared\n indeed to that!\n What wretched shred e’en at the best of all!)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "An Evening Lull", + "body": " After a week of physical anguish,\n Unrest and pain, and feverish heat,\n Toward the ending day a calm and lull comes on,\n Three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Old Age’s Lambent Peaks", + "body": " The touch of flame--the illuminating fire--the loftiest look at last,\n O’er city, passion, sea--o’er prairie, mountain, wood--the earth itself,\n The airy, different, changing hues of all, in failing twilight,\n Objects and groups, bearings, faces, reminiscences;\n The calmer sight--the golden setting, clear and broad:\n So much i’ the atmosphere, the points of view, the situations whence\n we scan,\n Bro’t out by them alone--so much (perhaps the best) unreck’d before;\n The lights indeed from them--old age’s lambent peaks.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "After the Supper and Talk", + "body": " After the supper and talk--after the day is done,\n As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,\n Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,\n (So hard for his hand to release those hands--no more will they meet,\n No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young,\n A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)\n Shunning, postponing severance--seeking to ward off the last word\n ever so little,\n E’en at the exit-door turning--charges superfluous calling back--\n e’en as he descends the steps,\n Something to eke out a minute additional--shadows of nightfall deepening,\n Farewells, messages lessening--dimmer the forthgoer’s visage and form,\n Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness--loth, O so loth to depart!\n Garrulous to the very last.\n\n\n\n\nBOOKXXXV. GOOD-BYE MY FANCY", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Sail out for Good, Eidolon Yacht!", + "body": " Heave the anchor short!\n Raise main-sail and jib--steer forth,\n O little white-hull’d sloop, now speed on really deep waters,\n (I will not call it our concluding voyage,\n But outset and sure entrance to the truest, best, maturest;)\n Depart, depart from solid earth--no more returning to these shores,\n Now on for aye our infinite free venture wending,\n Spurning all yet tried ports, seas, hawsers, densities, gravitation,\n Sail out for good, eidolon yacht of me!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Lingering Last Drops", + "body": " And whence and why come you?\n\n We know not whence, (was the answer,)\n We only know that we drift here with the rest,\n That we linger’d and lagg’d--but were wafted at last, and are now here,\n To make the passing shower’s concluding drops.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Good-Bye My Fancy", + "body": " Good-bye my fancy--(I had a word to say,\n But ’tis not quite the time--The best of any man’s word or say,\n Is when its proper place arrives--and for its meaning,\n I keep mine till the last.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "On, on the Same, Ye Jocund Twain!", + "body": " On, on the same, ye jocund twain!\n My life and recitative, containing birth, youth, mid-age years,\n Fitful as motley-tongues of flame, inseparably twined and merged in\n one--combining all,\n My single soul--aims, confirmations, failures, joys--Nor single soul alone,\n I chant my nation’s crucial stage, (America’s, haply humanity’s)--\n the trial great, the victory great,\n A strange eclaircissement of all the masses past, the eastern world,\n the ancient, medieval,\n Here, here from wanderings, strayings, lessons, wars, defeats--here\n at the west a voice triumphant--justifying all,\n A gladsome pealing cry--a song for once of utmost pride and satisfaction;\n I chant from it the common bulk, the general average horde, (the\n best sooner than the worst)--And now I chant old age,\n (My verses, written first for forenoon life, and for the summer’s,\n autumn’s spread,\n I pass to snow-white hairs the same, and give to pulses\n winter-cool’d the same;)\n As here in careless trill, I and my recitatives, with faith and love,\n wafting to other work, to unknown songs, conditions,\n On, on ye jocund twain! continue on the same!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "MY 71st Year", + "body": " After surmounting three-score and ten,\n With all their chances, changes, losses, sorrows,\n My parents’ deaths, the vagaries of my life, the many tearing\n passions of me, the war of ’63 and ’4,\n As some old broken soldier, after a long, hot, wearying march, or\n haply after battle,\n To-day at twilight, hobbling, answering company roll-call, Here,\n with vital voice,\n Reporting yet, saluting yet the Officer over all.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Apparitions", + "body": " A vague mist hanging ’round half the pages:\n (Sometimes how strange and clear to the soul,\n That all these solid things are indeed but apparitions, concepts,\n non-realities.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Pallid Wreath", + "body": " Somehow I cannot let it go yet, funeral though it is,\n Let it remain back there on its nail suspended,\n With pink, blue, yellow, all blanch’d, and the white now gray and ashy,\n One wither’d rose put years ago for thee, dear friend;\n But I do not forget thee. Hast thou then faded?\n Is the odor exhaled? Are the colors, vitalities, dead?\n No, while memories subtly play--the past vivid as ever;\n For but last night I woke, and in that spectral ring saw thee,\n Thy smile, eyes, face, calm, silent, loving as ever:\n So let the wreath hang still awhile within my eye-reach,\n It is not yet dead to me, nor even pallid.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "An Ended Day", + "body": " The soothing sanity and blitheness of completion,\n The pomp and hurried contest-glare and rush are done;\n Now triumph! transformation! jubilate!", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Old Age’s Ship & Crafty Death’s", + "body": " From east and west across the horizon’s edge,\n Two mighty masterful vessels sailers steal upon us:\n But we’ll make race a-time upon the seas--a battle-contest yet! bear\n lively there!\n (Our joys of strife and derring-do to the last!)\n Put on the old ship all her power to-day!\n Crowd top-sail, top-gallant and royal studding-sails,\n Out challenge and defiance--flags and flaunting pennants added,\n As we take to the open--take to the deepest, freest waters.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To the Pending Year", + "body": " Have I no weapon-word for thee--some message brief and fierce?\n (Have I fought out and done indeed the battle?) Is there no shot left,\n For all thy affectations, lisps, scorns, manifold silliness?\n Nor for myself--my own rebellious self in thee?\n\n Down, down, proud gorge!--though choking thee;\n Thy bearded throat and high-borne forehead to the gutter;\n Crouch low thy neck to eleemosynary gifts.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Shakspere-Bacon’s Cipher", + "body": " I doubt it not--then more, far more;\n In each old song bequeath’d--in every noble page or text,\n (Different--something unreck’d before--some unsuspected author,)\n In every object, mountain, tree, and star--in every birth and life,\n As part of each--evolv’d from each--meaning, behind the ostent,\n A mystic cipher waits infolded.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Long, Long Hence", + "body": " After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials,\n Accumulations, rous’d love and joy and thought,\n Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers,\n Coating, compassing, covering--after ages’ and ages’ encrustations,\n Then only may these songs reach fruition.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Bravo, Paris Exposition!", + "body": " Add to your show, before you close it, France,\n With all the rest, visible, concrete, temples, towers, goods,\n machines and ores,\n Our sentiment wafted from many million heart-throbs, ethereal but solid,\n (We grand-sons and great-grandsons do not forget your grandsires,)\n From fifty Nations and nebulous Nations, compacted, sent oversea to-day,\n America’s applause, love, memories and good-will.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Interpolation Sounds", + "body": " Over and through the burial chant,\n Organ and solemn service, sermon, bending priests,\n To me come interpolation sounds not in the show--plainly to me,\n crowding up the aisle and from the window,\n Of sudden battle’s hurry and harsh noises--war’s grim game to sight\n and ear in earnest;\n The scout call’d up and forward--the general mounted and his aides\n around him--the new-brought word--the instantaneous order issued;\n The rifle crack--the cannon thud--the rushing forth of men from their\n tents;\n The clank of cavalry--the strange celerity of forming ranks--the\n slender bugle note;\n The sound of horses’ hoofs departing--saddles, arms, accoutrements.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "To the Sun-Set Breeze", + "body": " Ah, whispering, something again, unseen,\n Where late this heated day thou enterest at my window, door,\n Thou, laving, tempering all, cool-freshing, gently vitalizing\n Me, old, alone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat;\n Thou, nestling, folding close and firm yet soft, companion better\n than talk, book, art,\n (Thou hast, O Nature! elements! utterance to my heart beyond the\n rest--and this is of them,)\n So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within--thy soothing fingers\n my face and hands,\n Thou, messenger--magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me,\n (Distances balk’d--occult medicines penetrating me from head to foot,)\n I feel the sky, the prairies vast--I feel the mighty northern lakes,\n I feel the ocean and the forest--somehow I feel the globe itself\n swift-swimming in space;\n Thou blown from lips so loved, now gone--haply from endless store,\n God-sent,\n (For thou art spiritual, Godly, most of all known to my sense,)\n Minister to speak to me, here and now, what word has never told, and\n cannot tell,\n Art thou not universal concrete’s distillation? Law’s, all\n Astronomy’s last refinement?\n Hast thou no soul? Can I not know, identify thee?", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Old Chants", + "body": " An ancient song, reciting, ending,\n Once gazing toward thee, Mother of All,\n Musing, seeking themes fitted for thee,\n Accept me, thou saidst, the elder ballads,\n And name for me before thou goest each ancient poet.\n\n (Of many debts incalculable,\n Haply our New World’s chieftest debt is to old poems.)\n\n Ever so far back, preluding thee, America,\n Old chants, Egyptian priests, and those of Ethiopia,\n The Hindu epics, the Grecian, Chinese, Persian,\n The Biblic books and prophets, and deep idyls of the Nazarene,\n The Iliad, Odyssey, plots, doings, wanderings of Eneas,\n Hesiod, Eschylus, Sophocles, Merlin, Arthur,\n The Cid, Roland at Roncesvalles, the Nibelungen,\n The troubadours, minstrels, minnesingers, skalds,\n Chaucer, Dante, flocks of singing birds,\n The Border Minstrelsy, the bye-gone ballads, feudal tales, essays, plays,\n Shakespere, Schiller, Walter Scott, Tennyson,\n As some vast wondrous weird dream-presences,\n The great shadowy groups gathering around,\n Darting their mighty masterful eyes forward at thee,\n Thou! with as now thy bending neck and head, with courteous hand\n and word, ascending,\n Thou! pausing a moment, drooping thine eyes upon them, blent\n with their music,\n Well pleased, accepting all, curiously prepared for by them,\n Thou enterest at thy entrance porch.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Christmas Greeting", + "body": " Welcome, Brazilian brother--thy ample place is ready;\n A loving hand--a smile from the north--a sunny instant hall!\n (Let the future care for itself, where it reveals its troubles,\n impedimentas,\n Ours, ours the present throe, the democratic aim, the acceptance and\n the faith;)\n To thee to-day our reaching arm, our turning neck--to thee from us\n the expectant eye,\n Thou cluster free! thou brilliant lustrous one! thou, learning well,\n The true lesson of a nation’s light in the sky,\n (More shining than the Cross, more than the Crown,)\n The height to be superb humanity.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Sounds of the Winter", + "body": " Sounds of the winter too,\n Sunshine upon the mountains--many a distant strain\n From cheery railroad train--from nearer field, barn, house,\n The whispering air--even the mute crops, garner’d apples, corn,\n Children’s and women’s tones--rhythm of many a farmer and of flail,\n An old man’s garrulous lips among the rest, Think not we give out yet,\n Forth from these snowy hairs we keep up yet the lilt.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Twilight Song", + "body": " As I sit in twilight late alone by the flickering oak-flame,\n Musing on long-pass’d war-scenes--of the countless buried unknown\n soldiers,\n Of the vacant names, as unindented air’s and sea’s--the unreturn’d,\n The brief truce after battle, with grim burial-squads, and the\n deep-fill’d trenches\n Of gather’d from dead all America, North, South, East, West, whence\n they came up,\n From wooded Maine, New-England’s farms, from fertile Pennsylvania,\n Illinois, Ohio,\n From the measureless West, Virginia, the South, the Carolinas, Texas,\n (Even here in my room-shadows and half-lights in the noiseless\n flickering flames,\n Again I see the stalwart ranks on-filing, rising--I hear the\n rhythmic tramp of the armies;)\n You million unwrit names all, all--you dark bequest from all the war,\n A special verse for you--a flash of duty long neglected--your mystic\n roll strangely gather’d here,\n Each name recall’d by me from out the darkness and death’s ashes,\n Henceforth to be, deep, deep within my heart recording, for many\n future year,\n Your mystic roll entire of unknown names, or North or South,\n Embalm’d with love in this twilight song.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "When the Full-Grown Poet Came", + "body": " When the full-grown poet came,\n Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all its\n shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine;\n But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled,\n Nay he is mine alone;\n --Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and took each\n by the hand;\n And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly holding hands,\n Which he will never release until he reconciles the two,\n And wholly and joyously blends them.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Osceola", + "body": " When his hour for death had come,\n He slowly rais’d himself from the bed on the floor,\n Drew on his war-dress, shirt, leggings, and girdled the belt around\n his waist,\n Call’d for vermilion paint (his looking-glass was held before him,)\n Painted half his face and neck, his wrists, and back-hands.\n Put the scalp-knife carefully in his belt--then lying down, resting\n moment,\n Rose again, half sitting, smiled, gave in silence his extended hand\n to each and all,\n Sank faintly low to the floor (tightly grasping the tomahawk handle,)\n Fix’d his look on wife and little children--the last:\n\n (And here a line in memory of his name and death.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Voice from Death", + "body": " A voice from Death, solemn and strange, in all his sweep and power,\n With sudden, indescribable blow--towns drown’d--humanity by\n thousands slain,\n The vaunted work of thrift, goods, dwellings, forge, street, iron bridge,\n Dash’d pell-mell by the blow--yet usher’d life continuing on,\n (Amid the rest, amid the rushing, whirling, wild debris,\n A suffering woman saved--a baby safely born!)\n\n Although I come and unannounc’d, in horror and in pang,\n In pouring flood and fire, and wholesale elemental crash, (this\n voice so solemn, strange,)\n I too a minister of Deity.\n\n Yea, Death, we bow our faces, veil our eyes to thee,\n We mourn the old, the young untimely drawn to thee,\n The fair, the strong, the good, the capable,\n The household wreck’d, the husband and the wife, the engulfed forger\n in his forge,\n The corpses in the whelming waters and the mud,\n The gather’d thousands to their funeral mounds, and thousands never\n found or gather’d.\n\n Then after burying, mourning the dead,\n (Faithful to them found or unfound, forgetting not, bearing the\n past, here new musing,)\n A day--a passing moment or an hour--America itself bends low,\n Silent, resign’d, submissive.\n\n War, death, cataclysm like this, America,\n Take deep to thy proud prosperous heart.\n\n E’en as I chant, lo! out of death, and out of ooze and slime,\n The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love,\n From West and East, from South and North and over sea,\n Its hot-spurr’d hearts and hands humanity to human aid moves on;\n And from within a thought and lesson yet.\n\n Thou ever-darting Globe! through Space and Air!\n Thou waters that encompass us!\n Thou that in all the life and death of us, in action or in sleep!\n Thou laws invisible that permeate them and all,\n Thou that in all, and over all, and through and under all, incessant!\n Thou! thou! the vital, universal, giant force resistless, sleepless, calm,\n Holding Humanity as in thy open hand, as some ephemeral toy,\n How ill to e’er forget thee!\n\n For I too have forgotten,\n (Wrapt in these little potencies of progress, politics, culture,\n wealth, inventions, civilization,)\n Have lost my recognition of your silent ever-swaying power, ye\n mighty, elemental throes,\n In which and upon which we float, and every one of us is buoy’d.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "A Persian Lesson", + "body": " For his o’erarching and last lesson the greybeard sufi,\n In the fresh scent of the morning in the open air,\n On the slope of a teeming Persian rose-garden,\n Under an ancient chestnut-tree wide spreading its branches,\n Spoke to the young priests and students.\n\n “Finally my children, to envelop each word, each part of the rest,\n Allah is all, all, all--immanent in every life and object,\n May-be at many and many-a-more removes--yet Allah, Allah, Allah is there.\n\n “Has the estray wander’d far? Is the reason-why strangely hidden?\n Would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world?\n Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life;\n The something never still’d--never entirely gone? the invisible need\n of every seed?\n\n “It is the central urge in every atom,\n (Often unconscious, often evil, downfallen,)\n To return to its divine source and origin, however distant,\n Latent the same in subject and in object, without one exception.”", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Commonplace", + "body": " The commonplace I sing;\n How cheap is health! how cheap nobility!\n Abstinence, no falsehood, no gluttony, lust;\n The open air I sing, freedom, toleration,\n (Take here the mainest lesson--less from books--less from the schools,)\n The common day and night--the common earth and waters,\n Your farm--your work, trade, occupation,\n The democratic wisdom underneath, like solid ground for all.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "“The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete”", + "body": " The devilish and the dark, the dying and diseas’d,\n The countless (nineteen-twentieths) low and evil, crude and savage,\n The crazed, prisoners in jail, the horrible, rank, malignant,\n Venom and filth, serpents, the ravenous sharks, liars, the dissolute;\n (What is the part the wicked and the loathesome bear within earth’s\n orbic scheme?)\n Newts, crawling things in slime and mud, poisons,\n The barren soil, the evil men, the slag and hideous rot.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Mirages", + "body": " More experiences and sights, stranger, than you’d think for;\n Times again, now mostly just after sunrise or before sunset,\n Sometimes in spring, oftener in autumn, perfectly clear weather, in\n plain sight,\n Camps far or near, the crowded streets of cities and the shopfronts,\n (Account for it or not--credit or not--it is all true,\n And my mate there could tell you the like--we have often confab’d\n about it,)\n People and scenes, animals, trees, colors and lines, plain as could be,\n Farms and dooryards of home, paths border’d with box, lilacs in corners,\n Weddings in churches, thanksgiving dinners, returns of long-absent sons,\n Glum funerals, the crape-veil’d mother and the daughters,\n Trials in courts, jury and judge, the accused in the box,\n Contestants, battles, crowds, bridges, wharves,\n Now and then mark’d faces of sorrow or joy,\n (I could pick them out this moment if I saw them again,)\n Show’d to me--just to the right in the sky-edge,\n Or plainly there to the left on the hill-tops.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "L. of G.’s Purport", + "body": " Not to exclude or demarcate, or pick out evils from their formidable\n masses (even to expose them,)\n But add, fuse, complete, extend--and celebrate the immortal and the good.\n Haughty this song, its words and scope,\n To span vast realms of space and time,\n Evolution--the cumulative--growths and generations.\n\n Begun in ripen’d youth and steadily pursued,\n Wandering, peering, dallying with all--war, peace, day and night\n absorbing,\n Never even for one brief hour abandoning my task,\n I end it here in sickness, poverty, and old age.\n\n I sing of life, yet mind me well of death:\n To-day shadowy Death dogs my steps, my seated shape, and has for years--\n Draws sometimes close to me, as face to face.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "The Unexpress’d", + "body": " How dare one say it?\n After the cycles, poems, singers, plays,\n Vaunted Ionia’s, India’s--Homer, Shakspere--the long, long times’\n thick dotted roads, areas,\n The shining clusters and the Milky Ways of stars--Nature’s pulses reap’d,\n All retrospective passions, heroes, war, love, adoration,\n All ages’ plummets dropt to their utmost depths,\n All human lives, throats, wishes, brains--all experiences’ utterance;\n After the countless songs, or long or short, all tongues, all lands,\n Still something not yet told in poesy’s voice or print--something lacking,\n (Who knows? the best yet unexpress’d and lacking.)", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Grand Is the Seen", + "body": " Grand is the seen, the light, to me--grand are the sky and stars,\n Grand is the earth, and grand are lasting time and space,\n And grand their laws, so multiform, puzzling, evolutionary;\n But grander far the unseen soul of me, comprehending, endowing all those,\n Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the earth, sailing\n the sea,\n (What were all those, indeed, without thee, unseen soul? of what\n amount without thee?)\n More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul!\n More multiform far--more lasting thou than they.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Unseen Buds", + "body": " Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well,\n Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every square or cubic inch,\n Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, microscopic, unborn,\n Like babes in wombs, latent, folded, compact, sleeping;\n Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions of them waiting,\n (On earth and in the sea--the universe--the stars there in the\n heavens,)\n Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless,\n And waiting ever more, forever more behind.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + }, + { + "title": "Good-Bye My Fancy!", + "body": " Good-bye my Fancy!\n Farewell dear mate, dear love!\n I’m going away, I know not where,\n Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,\n So Good-bye my Fancy.\n\n Now for my last--let me look back a moment;\n The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me,\n Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.\n\n Long have we lived, joy’d, caress’d together;\n Delightful!--now separation--Good-bye my Fancy.\n\n Yet let me not be too hasty,\n Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter’d, become really blended\n into one;\n Then if we die we die together, (yes, we’ll remain one,)\n If we go anywhere we’ll go together to meet what happens,\n May-be we’ll be better off and blither, and learn something,\n May-be it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs, (who\n knows?)\n May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing, turning--so now finally,\n Good-bye--and hail! my Fancy.", + "author": "Walt Whitman", + "source": "Leaves of Grass", + "period": "1891–1892" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/wordsworth_lyrical_ballads.json b/poetry/wordsworth_lyrical_ballads.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4dde879 --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/wordsworth_lyrical_ballads.json @@ -0,0 +1,359 @@ +[ + { + "title": "Lyrical Ballads,", + "body": "WITH A FEW OTHER POEMS.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Advertisement.", + "body": "It is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials are to\nbe found in every subject which can interest the human mind. The\nevidence of this fact is to be sought, not in the writings of Critics,\nbut in those of Poets themselves.\n\nThe majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments.\nThey were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language\nof conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to\nthe purposes of poetic pleasure. Readers accustomed to the gaudiness and\ninane phraseology of many modern writers, if they persist in reading\nthis book to its conclusion, will perhaps frequently have to struggle\nwith feelings of strangeness and aukwardness: they will look round for\npoetry, and will be induced to enquire by what species of courtesy these\nattempts can be permitted to assume that title. It is desirable that\nsuch readers, for their own sakes, should not suffer the solitary word\nPoetry, a word of very disputed meaning, to stand in the way of their\ngratification; but that, while they are perusing this book, they should\nask themselves if it contains a natural delineation of human passions,\nhuman characters, and human incidents; and if the answer be favourable\nto the author’s wishes, that they should consent to be pleased in spite\nof that most dreadful enemy to our pleasures, our own pre-established\ncodes of decision.\n\nReaders of superior judgment may disapprove of the style in which many\nof these pieces are executed it must be expected that many lines and\nphrases will not exactly suit their taste. It will perhaps appear to\nthem, that wishing to avoid the prevalent fault of the day, the author\nhas sometimes descended too low, and that many of his expressions are\ntoo familiar, and not of sufficient dignity. It is apprehended, that the\nmore conversant the reader is with our elder writers, and with those in\nmodern times who have been the most successful in painting manners and\npassions, the fewer complaints of this kind will he have to make.\n\nAn accurate taste in poetry, and in all the other arts, Sir Joshua\nReynolds has observed, is an acquired talent, which can only be produced\nby severe thought, and a long continued intercourse with the best models\nof composition. This is mentioned not with so ridiculous a purpose as to\nprevent the most inexperienced reader from judging for himself; but\nmerely to temper the rashness of decision, and to suggest that if poetry\nbe a subject on which much time has not been bestowed, the judgment may\nbe erroneous, and that in many cases it necessarily will be so.\n\nThe tale of Goody Blake and Harry Gill is founded on a\nwell-authenticated fact which happened in Warwickshire. Of the other\npoems in the collection, it may be proper to say that they are either\nabsolute inventions of the author, or facts which took place within his\npersonal observation or that of his friends. The poem of the Thorn, as\nthe reader will soon discover, is not supposed to be spoken in the\nauthor’s own person: the character of the loquacious narrator will\nsufficiently shew itself in the course of the story. The Rime of the\nAncyent Marinere was professedly written in imitation of the _style_, as\nwell as of the spirit of the elder poets; but with a few exceptions, the\nAuthor believes that the language adopted in it has been equally\nintelligible for these three last centuries. The lines entitled\nExpostulation and Reply, and those which follow, arose out of\nconversation with a friend who was somewhat unreasonably attached to\nmodern books of moral philosophy.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Contents.", + "body": " The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere\n\n The Foster-Mother’s Tale\n\n Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near the Lake\n of Esthwaite\n\n The Nightingale, a Conversational Poem\n\n The Female Vagrant\n\n Goody Blake and Harry Gill\n\n Lines written at a small distance from my House, and sent\n by my little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed\n\n Simon Lee, the old Huntsman\n\n Anecdote for Fathers\n\n We are seven\n\n Lines written in early spring\n\n The Thorn\n\n The last of the Flock\n\n The Dungeon\n\n The Mad Mother\n\n The Idiot Boy\n\n Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames, at Evening\n\n Expostulation and Reply\n\n The Tables turned; an Evening Scene, on the same subject\n\n Old Man travelling\n\n The Complaint of a forsaken Indian Woman\n\n The Convict\n\n Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Argument.", + "body": "How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by Storms to the cold\nCountry towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course\nto the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange\nthings that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to\nhis own Country.\n\n\nI.\n\n It is an ancyent Marinere,\n And he stoppeth one of three:\n “By thy long grey beard and thy glittering eye\n “Now wherefore stoppest me?\n\n “The Bridegroom’s doors are open’d wide\n “And I am next of kin;\n “The Guests are met, the Feast is set,--\n “May’st hear the merry din.--\n\n But still he holds the wedding-guest--\n There was a Ship, quoth he--\n “Nay, if thou’st got a laughsome tale,\n “Marinere! come with me.”\n\n He holds him with his skinny hand,\n Quoth he, there was a Ship--\n “Now get thee hence, thou grey-beard Loon!\n “Or my Staff shall make thee skip.”\n\n He holds him with his glittering eye--\n The wedding guest stood still\n And listens like a three year’s child;\n The Marinere hath his will.\n\n The wedding-guest sate on a stone,\n He cannot chuse but hear:\n And thus spake on that ancyent man,\n The bright-eyed Marinere.\n\n The Ship was cheer’d, the Harbour clear’d--\n Merrily did we drop\n Below the Kirk, below the Hill,\n Below the Light-house top.\n\n The Sun came up upon the left,\n Out of the Sea came he:\n And he shone bright, and on the right\n Went down into the Sea.\n\n Higher and higher every day,\n Till over the mast at noon--\n The wedding-guest here beat his breast,\n For he heard the loud bassoon.\n\n The Bride hath pac’d into the Hall,\n Red as a rose is she;\n Nodding their heads before her goes\n The merry Minstralsy.\n\n The wedding-guest he beat his breast,\n Yet he cannot chuse but hear:\n And thus spake on that ancyent Man,\n The bright-eyed Marinere.\n\n Listen, Stranger! Storm and Wind,\n A Wind and Tempest strong!\n For days and weeks it play’d us freaks--\n Like Chaff we drove along.\n\n Listen, Stranger! Mist and Snow,\n And it grew wond’rous cauld:\n And Ice mast-high came floating by\n As green as Emerauld.\n\n And thro’ the drifts the snowy clifts\n Did send a dismal sheen;\n Ne shapes of men ne beasts we ken--\n The Ice was all between.\n\n The Ice was here, the Ice was there,\n The Ice was all around:\n It crack’d and growl’d, and roar’d and howl’d--\n Like noises of a swound.\n\n At length did cross an Albatross,\n Thorough the Fog it came;\n And an it were a Christian Soul,\n We hail’d it in God’s name.\n\n The Marineres gave it biscuit-worms,\n And round and round it flew:\n The Ice did split with a Thunder-fit;\n The Helmsman steer’d us thro’.\n\n And a good south wind sprung up behind,\n The Albatross did follow;\n And every day for food or play\n Came to the Marinere’s hollo!\n\n In mist or cloud on mast or shroud\n It perch’d for vespers nine,\n Whiles all the night thro’ fog-smoke white\n Glimmer’d the white moon-shine.\n\n “God save thee, ancyent Marinere!\n “From the fiends that plague thee thus--\n “Why look’st thou so?”--with my cross bow\n I shot the Albatross.\n\n\nII.\n\n The Sun came up upon the right,\n Out of the Sea came he;\n And broad as a weft upon the left\n Went down into the Sea.\n\n And the good south wind still blew behind,\n But no sweet Bird did follow\n Ne any day for food or play\n Came to the Marinere’s hollo!\n\n And I had done an hellish thing\n And it would work ’em woe:\n For all averr’d, I had kill’d the Bird\n That made the Breeze to blow.\n\n Ne dim ne red, like God’s own head,\n The glorious Sun uprist:\n Then all averr’d, I had kill’d the Bird\n That brought the fog and mist.\n ’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay\n That bring the fog and mist.\n\n The breezes blew, the white foam flew,\n The furrow follow’d free:\n We were the first that ever burst\n Into that silent Sea.\n\n Down dropt the breeze, the Sails dropt down,\n ’Twas sad as sad could be\n And we did speak only to break\n The silence of the Sea.\n\n All in a hot and copper sky\n The bloody sun at noon,\n Right up above the mast did stand,\n No bigger than the moon.\n\n Day after day, day after day,\n We stuck, ne breath ne motion,\n As idle as a painted Ship\n Upon a painted Ocean.\n\n Water, water, every where\n And all the boards did shrink;\n Water, water, every where,\n Ne any drop to drink.\n\n The very deeps did rot: O Christ!\n That ever this should be!\n Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs\n Upon the slimy Sea.\n\n About, about, in reel and rout\n The Death-fires danc’d at night;\n The water, like a witch’s oils,\n Burnt green and blue and white.\n\n And some in dreams assured were\n Of the Spirit that plagued us so:\n Nine fathom deep he had follow’d us\n From the Land of Mist and Snow.\n\n And every tongue thro’ utter drouth\n Was wither’d at the root;\n We could not speak no more than if\n We had been choked with soot.\n\n Ah wel-a-day! what evil looks\n Had I from old and young;\n Instead of the Cross the Albatross\n About my neck was hung.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": " I saw a something in the Sky\n No bigger than my fist;\n At first it seem’d a little speck\n And then it seem’d a mist:\n It mov’d and mov’d, and took at last\n A certain shape, I wist.\n\n A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!\n And still it ner’d and ner’d;\n And, an it dodg’d a water-sprite,\n It plung’d and tack’d and veer’d.\n\n With throat unslack’d, with black lips bak’d\n Ne could we laugh, ne wail:\n Then while thro’ drouth all dumb they stood\n I bit my arm and suck’d the blood\n And cry’d, A sail! a sail!\n\n With throat unslack’d, with black lips bak’d\n Agape they hear’d me call:\n Gramercy! they for joy did grin\n And all at once their breath drew in\n As they were drinking all.\n\n She doth not tack from side to side--\n Hither to work us weal\n Withouten wind, withouten tide\n She steddies with upright keel.\n\n The western wave was all a flame,\n The day was well nigh done!\n Almost upon the western wave\n Rested the broad bright Sun;\n When that strange shape drove suddenly\n Betwixt us and the Sun.\n\n And strait the Sun was fleck’d with bars\n (Heaven’s mother send us grace)\n As if thro’ a dungeon grate he peer’d\n With broad and burning face.\n\n Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)\n How fast she neres and neres!\n Are those _her_ Sails that glance in the Sun\n Like restless gossameres?\n\n Are these _her_ naked ribs, which fleck’d\n The sun that did behind them peer?\n And are these two all, all the crew,\n That woman and her fleshless Pheere?\n\n _His_ bones were black with many a crack,\n All black and bare, I ween;\n Jet-black and bare, save where with rust\n Of mouldy damps and charnel crust\n They’re patch’d with purple and green.\n\n _Her_ lips are red, _her_ looks are free,\n _Her_ locks are yellow as gold:\n Her skin is as white as leprosy,\n And she is far liker Death than he;\n Her flesh makes the still air cold.\n\n The naked Hulk alongside came\n And the Twain were playing dice;\n “The Game is done! I’ve won, I’ve won!”\n Quoth she, and whistled thrice.\n\n A gust of wind sterte up behind\n And whistled thro’ his bones;\n Thro’ the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth\n Half-whistles and half-groans.\n\n With never a whisper in the Sea\n Off darts the Spectre-ship;\n While clombe above the Eastern bar\n The horned Moon, with one bright Star\n Almost atween the tips.\n\n One after one by the horned Moon\n (Listen, O Stranger! to me)\n Each turn’d his face with a ghastly pang\n And curs’d me with his ee.\n\n Four times fifty living men,\n With never a sigh or groan,\n With heavy thump, a lifeless lump\n They dropp’d down one by one.\n\n Their souls did from their bodies fly,--\n They fled to bliss or woe;\n And every soul it pass’d me by,\n Like the whiz of my Cross-bow.\n\n\nIV.\n\n “I fear thee, ancyent Marinere!\n “I fear thy skinny hand;\n “And thou art long and lank and brown\n “As is the ribb’d Sea-sand.\n\n “I fear thee and thy glittering eye\n “And thy skinny hand so brown”--\n Fear not, fear not, thou wedding guest!\n This body dropt not down.\n\n Alone, alone, all all alone\n Alone on the wide wide Sea;\n And Christ would take no pity on\n My soul in agony.\n\n The many men so beautiful,\n And they all dead did lie!\n And a million million slimy things\n Liv’d on--and so did I.\n\n I look’d upon the rotting Sea,\n And drew my eyes away;\n I look’d upon the eldritch deck,\n And there the dead men lay.\n\n I look’d to Heaven, and try’d to pray;\n But or ever a prayer had gusht,\n A wicked whisper came and made\n My heart as dry as dust.\n\n I clos’d my lids and kept them close,\n Till the balls like pulses beat;\n For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky\n Lay like a load on my weary eye,\n And the dead were at my feet.\n\n The cold sweat melted from their limbs,\n Ne rot, ne reek did they;\n The look with which they look’d on me,\n Had never pass’d away.\n\n An orphan’s curse would drag to Hell\n A spirit from on high:\n But O! more horrible than that\n Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!\n Seven days, seven nights I saw that curse\n And yet I could not die.\n\n The moving Moon went up the sky\n And no where did abide:\n Softly she was going up\n And a star or two beside--\n\n Her beams bemock’d the sultry main\n Like morning frosts yspread;\n But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,\n The charmed water burnt alway\n A still and awful red.\n\n Beyond the shadow of the ship\n I watch’d the water-snakes:\n They mov’d in tracks of shining white;\n And when they rear’d, the elfish light\n Fell off in hoary flakes.\n\n Within the shadow of the ship\n I watch’d their rich attire:\n Blue, glossy green, and velvet black\n They coil’d and swam; and every track\n Was a flash of golden fire.\n\n O happy living things! no tongue\n Their beauty might declare:\n A spring of love gusht from my heart,\n And I bless’d them unaware!\n Sure my kind saint took pity on me,\n And I bless’d them unaware.\n\n The self-same moment I could pray;\n And from my neck so free\n The Albatross fell off, and sank\n Like lead into the sea.\n\n\nV.\n\n O sleep, it is a gentle thing\n Belov’d from pole to pole!\n To Mary-queen the praise be yeven\n She sent the gentle sleep from heaven\n That slid into my soul.\n\n The silly buckets on the deck\n That had so long remain’d,\n I dreamt that they were fill’d with dew\n And when I awoke it rain’d.\n\n My lips were wet, my throat was cold,\n My garments all were dank;\n Sure I had drunken in my dreams\n And still my body drank.\n\n I mov’d and could not feel my limbs,\n I was so light, almost\n I thought that I had died in sleep,\n And was a blessed Ghost.\n\n The roaring wind! it roar’d far off,\n It did not come anear;\n But with its sound it shook the sails\n That were so thin and sere.\n\n The upper air bursts into life,\n And a hundred fire-flags sheen\n To and fro they are hurried about;\n And to and fro, and in and out\n The stars dance on between.\n\n The coming wind doth roar more loud;\n The sails do sigh, like sedge:\n The rain pours down from one black cloud\n And the Moon is at its edge.\n\n Hark! hark! the thick black cloud is cleft,\n And the Moon is at its side:\n Like waters shot from some high crag,\n The lightning falls with never a jag\n A river steep and wide.\n\n The strong wind reach’d the ship: it roar’d\n And dropp’d down, like a stone!\n Beneath the lightning and the moon\n The dead men gave a groan.\n\n They groan’d, they stirr’d, they all uprose,\n Ne spake, ne mov’d their eyes:\n It had been strange, even in a dream\n To have seen those dead men rise.\n\n The helmsman steerd, the ship mov’d on;\n Yet never a breeze up-blew;\n The Marineres all ’gan work the ropes,\n Where they were wont to do:\n They rais’d their limbs like lifeless tools--\n We were a ghastly crew.\n\n The body of my brother’s son\n Stood by me knee to knee:\n The body and I pull’d at one rope,\n But he said nought to me--\n And I quak’d to think of my own voice\n How frightful it would be!\n\n The day-light dawn’d--they dropp’d their arms,\n And cluster’d round the mast:\n Sweet sounds rose slowly thro’ their mouths\n And from their bodies pass’d.\n\n Around, around, flew each sweet sound,\n Then darted to the sun:\n Slowly the sounds came back again\n Now mix’d, now one by one.\n\n Sometimes a dropping from the sky\n I heard the Lavrock sing;\n Sometimes all little birds that are\n How they seem’d to fill the sea and air\n With their sweet jargoning,\n\n And now ’twas like all instruments,\n Now like a lonely flute;\n And now it is an angel’s song\n That makes the heavens be mute.\n\n It ceas’d: yet still the sails made on\n A pleasant noise till noon,\n A noise like of a hidden brook\n In the leafy month of June,\n That to the sleeping woods all night\n Singeth a quiet tune.\n\n Listen, O listen, thou Wedding-guest!\n “Marinere! thou hast thy will:\n “For that, which comes out of thine eye, doth make\n “My body and soul to be still.”\n\n Never sadder tale was told\n To a man of woman born:\n Sadder and wiser thou wedding-guest!\n Thou’lt rise to morrow morn.\n\n Never sadder tale was heard\n By a man of woman born:\n The Marineres all return’d to work\n As silent as beforne.\n\n The Marineres all ’gan pull the ropes,\n But look at me they n’old:\n Thought I, I am as thin as air--\n They cannot me behold.\n\n Till noon we silently sail’d on\n Yet never a breeze did breathe:\n Slowly and smoothly went the ship\n Mov’d onward from beneath.\n\n Under the keel nine fathom deep\n From the land of mist and snow\n The spirit slid: and it was He\n That made the Ship to go.\n The sails at noon left off their tune\n And the Ship stood still also.\n\n The sun right up above the mast\n Had fix’d her to the ocean:\n But in a minute she ’gan stir\n With a short uneasy motion--\n Backwards and forwards half her length\n With a short uneasy motion.\n\n Then, like a pawing horse let go,\n She made a sudden bound:\n It flung the blood into my head,\n And I fell into a swound.\n\n How long in that same fit I lay,\n I have not to declare;\n But ere my living life return’d,\n I heard and in my soul discern’d\n Two voices in the air,\n\n “Is it he?” quoth one, “Is this the man?\n “By him who died on cross,\n “With his cruel bow he lay’d full low\n “The harmless Albatross.\n\n “The spirit who ’bideth by himself\n “In the land of mist and snow,\n “He lov’d the bird that lov’d the man\n “Who shot him with his bow.”\n\n The other was a softer voice,\n As soft as honey-dew:\n Quoth he the man hath penance done,\n And penance more will do.\n\n\nVI.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "First Voice.", + "body": " “But tell me, tell me! speak again,\n “Thy soft response renewing--\n “What makes that ship drive on so fast?\n “What is the Ocean doing?”", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Second Voice.", + "body": " “Still as a Slave before his Lord,\n “The Ocean hath no blast:\n “His great bright eye most silently\n “Up to the moon is cast--\n\n “If he may know which way to go,\n “For she guides him smooth or grim.\n “See, brother, see! how graciously\n “She looketh down on him.”", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "First Voice.", + "body": " “But why drives on that ship so fast\n “Withouten wave or wind?”\n SECOND VOICE.\n “The air is cut away before,\n “And closes from behind.\n\n “Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high,\n “Or we shall be belated:\n “For slow and slow that ship will go,\n “When the Marinere’s trance is abated.”\n\n I woke, and we were sailing on\n As in a gentle weather:\n ’Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;\n The dead men stood together.\n\n All stood together on the deck,\n For a charnel-dungeon fitter:\n All fix’d on me their stony eyes\n That in the moon did glitter.\n\n The pang, the curse, with which they died,\n Had never pass’d away:\n I could not draw my een from theirs\n Ne turn them up to pray.\n\n And in its time the spell was snapt,\n And I could move my een:\n I look’d far-forth, but little saw\n Of what might else be seen.\n\n Like one, that on a lonely road\n Doth walk in fear and dread,\n And having once turn’d round, walks on\n And turns no more his head:\n Because he knows, a frightful fiend\n Doth close behind him tread.\n\n But soon there breath’d a wind on me,\n Ne sound ne motion made:\n Its path was not upon the sea\n In ripple or in shade.\n\n It rais’d my hair, it fann’d my cheek,\n Like a meadow-gale of spring--\n It mingled strangely with my fears,\n Yet it felt like a welcoming.\n\n Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,\n Yet she sail’d softly too:\n Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--\n On me alone it blew.\n\n O dream of joy! is this indeed\n The light-house top I see?\n Is this the Hill? Is this the Kirk?\n Is this mine own countrée?\n\n We drifted o’er the Harbour-bar,\n And I with sobs did pray--\n “O let me be awake, my God!\n “Or let me sleep alway!”\n\n The harbour-bay was clear as glass,\n So smoothly it was strewn!\n And on the bay the moon light lay,\n And the shadow of the moon.\n\n The moonlight bay was white all o’er,\n Till rising from the same,\n Full many shapes, that shadows were,\n Like as of torches came.\n\n A little distance from the prow\n Those dark-red shadows were;\n But soon I saw that my own flesh\n Was red as in a glare.\n\n I turn’d my head in fear and dread,\n And by the holy rood,\n The bodies had advanc’d, and now\n Before the mast they stood.\n\n They lifted up their stiff right arms,\n They held them strait and tight;\n And each right-arm burnt like a torch,\n A torch that’s borne upright.\n Their stony eye-balls glitter’d on\n In the red and smoky light.\n\n I pray’d and turn’d my head away\n Forth looking as before.\n There was no breeze upon the bay,\n No wave against the shore.\n\n The rock shone bright, the kirk no less\n That stands above the rock:\n The moonlight steep’d in silentness\n The steady weathercock.\n\n And the bay was white with silent light,\n Till rising from the same\n Full many shapes, that shadows were,\n In crimson colours came.\n\n A little distance from the prow\n Those crimson shadows were:\n I turn’d my eyes upon the deck--\n O Christ! what saw I there?\n\n Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat;\n And by the Holy rood\n A man all light, a seraph-man,\n On every corse there stood.\n\n This seraph-band, each wav’d his hand:\n It was a heavenly sight:\n They stood as signals to the land,\n Each one a lovely light:\n\n This seraph-band, each wav’d his hand,\n No voice did they impart--\n No voice; but O! the silence sank,\n Like music on my heart.\n\n Eftsones I heard the dash of oars,\n I heard the pilot’s cheer:\n My head was turn’d perforce away\n And I saw a boat appear.\n\n Then vanish’d all the lovely lights;\n The bodies rose anew:\n With silent pace, each to his place,\n Came back the ghastly crew.\n The wind, that shade nor motion made,\n On me alone it blew.\n\n The pilot, and the pilot’s boy\n I heard them coming fast:\n Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy,\n The dead men could not blast.\n\n I saw a third--I heard his voice:\n It is the Hermit good!\n He singeth loud his godly hymns\n That he makes in the wood.\n He’ll shrieve my soul, he’ll wash away\n The Albatross’s blood.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Vii.", + "body": " This Hermit good lives in that wood\n Which slopes down to the Sea.\n How loudly his sweet voice he rears!\n He loves to talk with Marineres\n That come from a far Contrée.\n\n He kneels at morn and noon and eve--\n He hath a cushion plump:\n It is the moss, that wholly hides\n The rotted old Oak-stump.\n\n The Skiff-boat ne’rd: I heard them talk,\n “Why, this is strange, I trow!\n “Where are those lights so many and fair\n “That signal made but now?\n\n “Strange, by my faith!” the Hermit said--\n “And they answer’d not our cheer.\n “The planks look warp’d, and see those sails\n “How thin they are and sere!\n “I never saw aught like to them\n “Unless perchance it were\n\n “The skeletons of leaves that lag\n “My forest brook along:\n “When the Ivy-tod is heavy with snow,\n “And the Owlet whoops to the wolf below\n “That eats the she-wolf’s young.\n\n “Dear Lord! it has a fiendish look”--\n (The Pilot made reply)\n “I am a-fear’d.--“Push on, push on!”\n Said the Hermit cheerily.\n\n The Boat came closer to the Ship,\n But I ne spake ne stirr’d!\n The Boat came close beneath the Ship,\n And strait a sound was heard!\n\n Under the water it rumbled on,\n Still louder and more dread:\n It reach’d the Ship, it split the bay;\n The Ship went down like lead.\n\n Stunn’d by that loud and dreadful sound,\n Which sky and ocean smote:\n Like one that hath been seven days drown’d\n My body lay afloat:\n But, swift as dreams, myself I found\n Within the Pilot’s boat.\n\n Upon the whirl, where sank the Ship,\n The boat spun round and round:\n And all was still, save that the hill\n Was telling of the sound.\n\n I mov’d my lips: the Pilot shriek’d\n And fell down in a fit.\n The Holy Hermit rais’d his eyes\n And pray’d where he did sit.\n\n I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy,\n Who now doth crazy go,\n Laugh’d loud and long, and all the while\n His eyes went to and fro,\n “Ha! ha!” quoth he--“full plain I see,\n “The devil knows how to row.”\n\n And now all in mine own Countrée\n I stood on the firm land!\n The Hermit stepp’d forth from the boat,\n And scarcely he could stand.\n\n “O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy Man!”\n The Hermit cross’d his brow--\n “Say quick,” quoth he, “I bid thee say\n “What manner man art thou?”\n\n Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench’d\n With a woeful agony,\n Which forc’d me to begin my tale\n And then it left me free.\n\n Since then at an uncertain hour,\n Now oftimes and now fewer,\n That anguish comes and makes me tell\n My ghastly aventure.\n\n I pass, like night, from land to land;\n I have strange power of speech;\n The moment that his face I see\n I know the man that must hear me;\n To him my tale I teach.\n\n What loud uproar bursts from that door!\n The Wedding-guests are there;\n But in the Garden-bower the Bride\n And Bride-maids singing are:\n And hark the little Vesper-bell\n Which biddeth me to prayer.\n\n O Wedding-guest! this soul hath been\n Alone on a wide wide sea:\n So lonely ’twas, that God himself\n Scarce seemed there to be.\n\n O sweeter than the Marriage-feast,\n ’Tis sweeter far to me\n To walk together to the Kirk\n With a goodly company.\n\n To walk together to the Kirk\n And all together pray,\n While each to his great father bends,\n Old men, and babes, and loving friends,\n And Youths, and Maidens gay.\n\n Farewell, farewell! but this I tell\n To thee, thou wedding-guest!\n He prayeth well who loveth well\n Both man and bird and beast.\n\n He prayeth best who loveth best,\n All things both great and small:\n For the dear God, who loveth us,\n He made and loveth all.\n\n The Marinere, whose eye is bright,\n Whose beard with age is hoar,\n Is gone; and now the wedding-guest\n Turn’d from the bridegroom’s door.\n\n He went, like one that hath been stunn’d\n And is of sense forlorn:\n A sadder and a wiser man\n He rose the morrow morn.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Foster-Mother.", + "body": " I never saw the man whom you describe.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Maria.", + "body": " ’Tis strange! he spake of you familiarly\n As mine and Albert’s common Foster-mother.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Foster-Mother.", + "body": " Now blessings on the man, whoe’er he be,\n That joined your names with mine! O my sweet lady,\n As often as I think of those dear times\n When you two little ones would stand at eve\n On each side of my chair, and make me learn\n All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk\n In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you--\n ’Tis more like heaven to come than what _has_ been.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Maria.", + "body": " O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me\n Troubled with wilder fancies, than the moon\n Breeds in the love-sick maid who gazes at it,\n Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye\n She gazes idly!--But that entrance, Mother!", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Foster-Mother.", + "body": " Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Foster-Mother", + "body": " My husband’s father told it me,\n Poor old Leoni!--Angels rest his soul!\n He was a woodman, and could fell and saw\n With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam\n Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel?\n Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree\n He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined\n With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool\n As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,\n And reared him at the then Lord Velez’ cost.\n And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,\n A pretty boy, but most unteachable--\n And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead,\n But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,\n And whistled, as he were a bird himself:\n And all the autumn ’twas his only play\n To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them\n With earth and water, on the stumps of trees.\n A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,\n A grey-haired man--he loved this little boy,\n The boy loved him--and, when the Friar taught him,\n He soon could write with the pen: and from that time,\n Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.\n So he became a very learned youth.\n But Oh! poor wretch!--he read, and read, and read,\n ’Till his brain turned--and ere his twentieth year,\n He had unlawful thoughts of many things:\n And though he prayed, he never loved to pray\n With holy men, nor in a holy place--\n But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,\n The late Lord Velez ne’er was wearied with him.\n And once, as by the north side of the Chapel\n They stood together, chained in deep discourse,\n The earth heaved under them with such a groan,\n That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen\n Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened;\n A fever seized him, and he made confession\n Of all the heretical and lawless talk\n Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized\n And cast into that hole. My husband’s father\n Sobbed like a child--it almost broke his heart:\n And once as he was working in the cellar,\n He heard a voice distinctly; ’twas the youth’s,\n Who sung a doleful song about green fields,\n How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah,\n To hunt for food, and be a naked man,\n And wander up and down at liberty.\n He always doted on the youth, and now\n His love grew desperate; and defying death,\n He made that cunning entrance I described:\n And the young man escaped.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Maria.", + "body": " ’Tis a sweet tale:\n Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,\n His rosy face besoiled with unwiped tears.--\n And what became of him?", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Foster-Mother.", + "body": " He went on ship-board\n With those bold voyagers, who made discovery\n Of golden lands. Leoni’s younger brother\n Went likewise, and when he returned to Spain,\n He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth,\n Soon after they arrived in that new world,\n In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat,\n And all alone, set sail by silent moonlight\n Up a great river, great as any sea,\n And ne’er was heard of more: but ’tis supposed,\n He lived and died among the savage men.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Left Upon A Seat In A Yew-Tree Which Stands Near The Lake Of", + "body": "ESTHWAITE, ON A DESOLATE PART OF THE SHORE, YET COMMANDING A\nBEAUTIFUL PROSPECT.\n\n\n --Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely yew-tree stands\n Far from all human dwelling: what if here\n No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb;\n What if these barren boughs the bee not loves;\n Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,\n That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind\n By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.\n\n --Who he was\n That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod\n First covered o’er, and taught this aged tree,\n Now wild, to bend its arms in circling shade,\n I well remember.--He was one who own’d\n No common soul. In youth, by genius nurs’d,\n And big with lofty views, he to the world\n Went forth, pure in his heart, against the taint\n Of dissolute tongues, ’gainst jealousy, and hate,\n And scorn, against all enemies prepared,\n All but neglect: and so, his spirit damped\n At once, with rash disdain he turned away,\n And with the food of pride sustained his soul\n In solitude.--Stranger! these gloomy boughs\n Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,\n His only visitants a straggling sheep,\n The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper;\n And on these barren rocks, with juniper,\n And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o’er,\n Fixing his downward eye, he many an hour\n A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here\n An emblem of his own unfruitful life:\n And lifting up his head, he then would gaze\n On the more distant scene; how lovely ’tis\n Thou seest, and he would gaze till it became\n Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain\n The beauty still more beauteous. Nor, that time,\n Would he forget those beings, to whose minds,\n Warm from the labours of benevolence,\n The world, and man himself, appeared a scene\n Of kindred loveliness: then he would sigh\n With mournful joy, to think that others felt\n What he must never feel: and so, lost man!\n On visionary views would fancy feed,\n Till his eye streamed with tears. In this deep vale\n He died, this seat his only monument.\n\n If thou be one whose heart the holy forms\n Of young imagination have kept pure,\n Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know, that pride,\n Howe’er disguised in its own majesty,\n Is littleness; that he, who feels contempt\n For any living thing, hath faculties\n Which he has never used; that thought with him\n Is in its infancy. The man, whose eye\n Is ever on himself, doth look on one,\n The least of nature’s works, one who might move\n The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds\n Unlawful, ever. O, be wiser thou!\n Instructed that true knowledge leads to love,\n True dignity abides with him alone\n Who, in the silent hour of inward thought,\n Can still suspect, and still revere himself,\n In lowliness of heart.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "A Conversational Poem, Written In April, 1798.", + "body": " No cloud, no relique of the sunken day\n Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip\n Of sullen Light, no obscure trembling hues.\n Come, we will rest on this old mossy Bridge!\n You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,\n But hear no murmuring: it flows silently\n O’er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,\n A balmy night! and tho’ the stars be dim,\n Yet let us think upon the vernal showers\n That gladden the green earth, and we shall find\n A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.\n And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,\n “Most musical, most melancholy”[1] Bird!\n A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!\n In nature there is nothing melancholy.\n --But some night-wandering Man, whose heart was pierc’d\n With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,\n Or slow distemper or neglected love,\n (And so, poor Wretch! fill’d all things with himself\n And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale\n Of his own sorrows) he and such as he\n First nam’d these notes a melancholy strain;\n And many a poet echoes the conceit,\n Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme\n When he had better far have stretch’d his limbs\n Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell\n By sun or moonlight, to the influxes\n Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements\n Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song\n And of his fame forgetful! so his fame\n Should share in nature’s immortality,\n A venerable thing! and so his song\n Should make all nature lovelier, and itself\n Be lov’d, like nature!--But ’twill not be so;\n And youths and maidens most poetical\n Who lose the deep’ning twilights of the spring\n In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still\n Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs\n O’er Philomela’s pity-pleading strains.\n My Friend, and my Friend’s Sister! we have learnt\n A different lore: we may not thus profane\n Nature’s sweet voices always full of love\n And joyance! ’Tis the merry Nightingale\n That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates\n With fast thick warble his delicious notes,\n As he were fearful, that an April night\n Would be too short for him to utter forth\n His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul\n Of all its music! And I know a grove\n Of large extent, hard by a castle huge\n Which the great lord inhabits not: and so\n This grove is wild with tangling underwood,\n And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,\n Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.\n But never elsewhere in one place I knew\n So many Nightingales: and far and near\n In wood and thicket over the wide grove\n They answer and provoke each other’s songs--\n With skirmish and capricious passagings,\n And murmurs musical and swift jug jug\n And one low piping sound more sweet than all--\n Stirring the air with such an harmony,\n That should you close your eyes, you might almost\n Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,\n Whose dewy leafits are but half disclos’d,\n You may perchance behold them on the twigs,\n Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,\n Glistning, while many a glow-worm in the shade\n Lights up her love-torch.\n\n A most gentle maid\n Who dwelleth in her hospitable home\n Hard by the Castle, and at latest eve,\n (Even like a Lady vow’d and dedicate\n To something more than nature in the grove)\n Glides thro’ the pathways; she knows all their notes,\n That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment’s space,\n What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,\n Hath heard a pause of silence: till the Moon\n Emerging, hath awaken’d earth and sky\n With one sensation, and those wakeful Birds\n Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,\n As if one quick and sudden Gale had swept\n An hundred airy harps! And she hath watch’d\n Many a Nightingale perch giddily\n On blosmy twig still swinging from the breeze,\n And to that motion tune his wanton song,\n Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.\n\n Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,\n And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!\n We have been loitering long and pleasantly,\n And now for our dear homes.--That strain again!\n Full fain it would delay me!--My dear Babe,\n Who, capable of no articulate sound,\n Mars all things with his imitative lisp,\n How he would place his hand beside his ear,\n His little hand, the small forefinger up,\n And bid us listen! And I deem it wise\n To make him Nature’s playmate. He knows well\n The evening star: and once when he awoke\n In most distressful mood (some inward pain\n Had made up that strange thing, an infant’s dream)\n I hurried with him to our orchard plot,\n And he beholds the moon, and hush’d at once\n Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,\n While his fair eyes that swam with undropt tears\n Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well--\n It is a father’s tale. But if that Heaven\n Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up\n Familiar with these songs, that with the night\n He may associate Joy! Once more farewell,\n Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell.\n\n\n [1] “_Most musical, most melancholy_.” This passage in Milton\n possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere\n description: it is spoken in the character of the melancholy\n Man, and has therefore a _dramatic_ propriety. The Author makes\n this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having\n alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than which\n none could be more painful to him, except perhaps that of\n having ridiculed his Bible.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "The Female Vagrant.", + "body": " By Derwent’s side my Father’s cottage stood,\n (The Woman thus her artless story told)\n One field, a flock, and what the neighbouring flood\n Supplied, to him were more than mines of gold.\n Light was my sleep; my days in transport roll’d:\n With thoughtless joy I stretch’d along the shore\n My father’s nets, or watched, when from the fold\n High o’er the cliffs I led my fleecy store,\n A dizzy depth below! his boat and twinkling oar.\n\n My father was a good and pious man,\n An honest man by honest parents bred,\n And I believe that, soon as I began\n To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,\n And in his hearing there my prayers I said:\n And afterwards, by my good father taught,\n I read, and loved the books in which I read;\n For books in every neighbouring house I sought,\n And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.\n\n Can I forget what charms did once adorn\n My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme,\n And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn?\n The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;\n The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;\n My hen’s rich nest through long grass scarce espied;\n The cowslip-gathering at May’s dewy prime;\n The swans, that, when I sought the water-side,\n From far to meet me came, spreading their snowy pride.\n\n The staff I yet remember which upbore\n The bending body of my active sire;\n His seat beneath the honeyed sycamore\n When the bees hummed, and chair by winter fire;\n When market-morning came, the neat attire\n With which, though bent on haste, myself I deck’d;\n My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire,\n When stranger passed, so often I have check’d;\n The red-breast known for years, which at my casement peck’d.\n\n The suns of twenty summers danced along,--\n Ah! little marked, how fast they rolled away:\n Then rose a mansion proud our woods among,\n And cottage after cottage owned its sway,\n No joy to see a neighbouring house, or stray\n Through pastures not his own, the master took;\n My Father dared his greedy wish gainsay;\n He loved his old hereditary nook,\n And ill could I the thought of such sad parting brook.\n\n But, when he had refused the proffered gold,\n To cruel injuries he became a prey,\n Sore traversed in whate’er he bought and sold:\n His troubles grew upon him day by day,\n Till all his substance fell into decay.\n His little range of water was denied;[2]\n All but the bed where his old body lay,\n All, all was seized, and weeping, side by side,\n We sought a home where we uninjured might abide.\n\n Can I forget that miserable hour,\n When from the last hill-top, my sire surveyed,\n Peering above the trees, the steeple tower,\n That on his marriage-day sweet music made?\n Till then he hoped his bones might there be laid,\n Close by my mother in their native bowers:\n Bidding me trust in God, he stood and prayed,--\n I could not pray:--through tears that fell in showers,\n Glimmer’d our dear-loved home, alas! no longer ours!\n\n There was a youth whom I had loved so long,\n That when I loved him not I cannot say.\n ’Mid the green mountains many and many a song\n We two had sung, like little birds in May.\n When we began to tire of childish play\n We seemed still more and more to prize each other:\n We talked of marriage and our marriage day;\n And I in truth did love him like a brother,\n For never could I hope to meet with such another.\n\n His father said, that to a distant town\n He must repair, to ply the artist’s trade.\n What tears of bitter grief till then unknown!\n What tender vows our last sad kiss delayed!\n To him we turned:--we had no other aid.\n Like one revived, upon his neck I wept,\n And her whom he had loved in joy, he said\n He well could love in grief: his faith he kept;\n And in a quiet home once more my father slept.\n\n Four years each day with daily bread was blest,\n By constant toil and constant prayer supplied.\n Three lovely infants lay upon my breast;\n And often, viewing their sweet smiles, I sighed,\n And knew not why. My happy father died\n When sad distress reduced the children’s meal:\n Thrice happy! that from him the grave did hide\n The empty loom, cold hearth, and silent wheel,\n And tears that flowed for ills which patience could not heal.\n\n ’Twas a hard change, an evil time was come;\n We had no hope, and no relief could gain.\n But soon, with proud parade, the noisy drum\n Beat round, to sweep the streets of want and pain.\n My husband’s arms now only served to strain\n Me and his children hungering in his view:\n In such dismay my prayers and tears were vain:\n To join those miserable men he flew;\n And now to the sea-coast, with numbers more, we drew.\n\n There foul neglect for months and months we bore,\n Nor yet the crowded fleet its anchor stirred.\n Green fields before us and our native shore,\n By fever, from polluted air incurred,\n Ravage was made, for which no knell was heard.\n Fondly we wished, and wished away, nor knew,\n ’Mid that long sickness, and those hopes deferr’d,\n That happier days we never more must view:\n The parting signal streamed, at last the land withdrew,\n\n But from delay the summer calms were past.\n On as we drove, the equinoctial deep\n Ran mountains--high before the howling blaft.\n We gazed with terror on the gloomy sleep\n Of them that perished in the whirlwind’s sweep,\n Untaught that soon such anguish must ensue,\n Our hopes such harvest of affliction reap,\n That we the mercy of the waves should rue.\n We reached the western world, a poor, devoted crew.\n\n Oh! dreadful price of being to resign\n All that is dear _in_ being! better far\n In Want’s most lonely cave till death to pine,\n Unseen, unheard, unwatched by any star;\n Or in the streets and walks where proud men are,\n Better our dying bodies to obtrude,\n Than dog-like, wading at the heels of war,\n Protract a curst existence, with the brood\n That lap (their very nourishment!) their brother’s blood.\n\n The pains and plagues that on our heads came down,\n Disease and famine, agony and fear,\n In wood or wilderness, in camp or town,\n It would thy brain unsettle even to hear.\n All perished--all, in one remorseless year,\n Husband and children! one by one, by sword\n And ravenous plague, all perished: every tear\n Dried up, despairing, desolate, on board\n A British ship I waked, as from a trance restored.\n\n Peaceful as some immeasurable plain\n By the first beams of dawning light impress’d,\n In the calm sunshine slept the glittering main.\n The very ocean has its hour of rest,\n That comes not to the human mourner’s breast.\n Remote from man, and storms of mortal care,\n A heavenly silence did the waves invest;\n I looked and looked along the silent air,\n Until it seemed to bring a joy to my despair.\n\n Ah! how unlike those late terrific sleeps!\n And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke,\n Where looks inhuman dwelt on festering heaps!\n The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke!\n The shriek that from the distant battle broke!\n The mine’s dire earthquake, and the pallid host\n Driven by the bomb’s incessant thunder-stroke\n To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick anguish toss’d,\n Hope died, and fear itself in agony was lost!\n\n Yet does that burst of woe congeal my frame,\n When the dark streets appeared to heave and gape,\n While like a sea the storming army came,\n And Fire from Hell reared his gigantic shape,\n And Murder, by the ghastly gleam, and Rape\n Seized their joint prey, the mother and the child!\n But from these crazing thoughts my brain, escape!\n --For weeks the balmy air breathed soft and mild,\n And on the gliding vessel Heaven and Ocean smiled.\n\n Some mighty gulph of separation past,\n I seemed transported to another world:--\n A thought resigned with pain, when from the mast\n The impatient mariner the sail unfurl’d,\n And whistling, called the wind that hardly curled\n The silent sea. From the sweet thoughts of home,\n And from all hope I was forever hurled.\n For me--farthest from earthly port to roam\n Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.\n\n And oft, robb’d of my perfect mind, I thought\n At last my feet a resting-place had found:\n Here will I weep in peace, (so fancy wrought,)\n Roaming the illimitable waters round;\n Here watch, of every human friend disowned,\n All day, my ready tomb the ocean-flood--\n To break my dream the vessel reached its bound:\n And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,\n And near a thousand tables pined, and wanted food.\n\n By grief enfeebled was I turned adrift,\n Helpless as sailor cast on desart rock;\n Nor morsel to my mouth that day did lift,\n Nor dared my hand at any door to knock.\n I lay, where with his drowsy mates, the cock\n From the cross timber of an out-house hung;\n How dismal tolled, that night, the city clock!\n At morn my sick heart hunger scarcely stung,\n Nor to the beggar’s language could I frame my tongue.\n\n So passed another day, and so the third:\n Then did I try, in vain, the crowd’s resort,\n In deep despair by frightful wishes stirr’d,\n Near the sea-side I reached a ruined fort:\n There, pains which nature could no more support,\n With blindness linked, did on my vitals fall;\n Dizzy my brain, with interruption short\n Of hideous sense; I sunk, nor step could crawl,\n And thence was borne away to neighbouring hospital.\n\n Recovery came with food: but still, my brain\n Was weak, nor of the past had memory.\n I heard my neighbours, in their beds, complain\n Of many things which never troubled me;\n Of feet still bustling round with busy glee,\n Of looks where common kindness had no part,\n Of service done with careless cruelty,\n Fretting the fever round the languid heart,\n And groans, which, as they said, would make a dead man start.\n\n These things just served to stir the torpid sense,\n Nor pain nor pity in my bosom raised.\n Memory, though slow, returned with strength; and thence\n Dismissed, again on open day I gazed,\n At houses, men, and common light, amazed.\n The lanes I sought, and as the sun retired,\n Came, where beneath the trees a faggot blazed;\n The wild brood saw me weep, my fate enquired,\n And gave me food, and rest, more welcome, more desired.\n\n My heart is touched to think that men like these,\n The rude earth’s tenants, were my first relief:\n How kindly did they paint their vagrant ease!\n And their long holiday that feared not grief,\n For all belonged to all, and each was chief.\n No plough their sinews strained; on grating road\n No wain they drove, and yet, the yellow sheaf\n In every vale for their delight was stowed:\n For them, in nature’s meads, the milky udder flowed.\n\n Semblance, with straw and pauniered ass, they made\n Of potters wandering on from door to door:\n But life of happier sort to me pourtrayed,\n And other joys my fancy to allure;\n The bag-pipe dinning on the midnight moor\n In barn uplighted, and companions boon\n Well met from far with revelry secure,\n In depth of forest glade, when jocund June\n Rolled fast along the sky his warm and genial moon.\n\n But ill it suited me, in journey dark\n O’er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch;\n To charm the surly house-dog’s faithful bark.\n Or hang on tiptoe at the lifted latch;\n The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match,\n The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill,\n And ear still busy on its nightly watch,\n Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill;\n Besides, on griefs so fresh my thoughts were brooding still.\n\n What could I do, unaided and unblest?\n Poor Father! gone was every friend of thine:\n And kindred of dead husband are at best\n Small help, and, after marriage such as mine,\n With little kindness would to me incline.\n Ill was I then for toil or service fit:\n With tears whose course no effort could confine,\n By high-way side forgetful would I sit\n Whole hours, my idle arms in moping sorrow knit.\n\n I lived upon the mercy of the fields,\n And oft of cruelty the sky accused;\n On hazard, or what general bounty yields,\n Now coldly given, now utterly refused,\n The fields I for my bed have often used:\n But, what afflicts my peace with keenest ruth\n Is, that I have my inner self abused,\n Foregone the home delight of constant truth,\n And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.\n\n Three years a wanderer, often have I view’d,\n In tears, the sun towards that country tend\n Where my poor heart lost all its fortitude:\n And now across this moor my steps I bend--\n Oh! tell me whither--for no earthly friend\n Have I.--She ceased, and weeping turned away,\n As if because her tale was at an end\n She wept;--because she had no more to say\n Of that perpetual weight which on her spirit lay.\n\n\n [2] Several of the Lakes in the north of England are let out to\n different Fishermen, in parcels marked out by imaginary lines\n drawn from rock to rock.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Goody Blake, And Harry Gill, A True Story.", + "body": " Oh! what’s the matter? what’s the matter?\n What is’t that ails young Harry Gill?\n That evermore his teeth they chatter,\n Chatter, chatter, chatter still.\n Of waistcoats Harry has no lack,\n Good duffle grey, and flannel fine;\n He has a blanket on his back,\n And coats enough to smother nine.\n\n In March, December, and in July,\n “Tis all the same with Harry Gill;\n The neighbours tell, and tell you truly,\n His teeth they chatter, chatter still.\n At night, at morning, and at noon,\n ’Tis all the same with Harry Gill;\n Beneath the sun, beneath the moon,\n His teeth they chatter, chatter still.\n\n Young Harry was a lusty drover,\n And who so stout of limb as he?\n His cheeks were red as ruddy clover,\n His voice was like the voice of three.\n Auld Goody Blake was old and poor,\n Ill fedd she was, and thinly clad;\n And any man who pass’d her door,\n Might see how poor a hut she had.\n\n All day she spun in her poor dwelling,\n And then her three hours’ work at night!\n Alas! ’twas hardly worth the telling,\n It would not pay for candle-light.\n --This woman dwelt in Dorsetshire,\n Her hut was on a cold hill-side,\n And in that country coals are dear,\n For they come far by wind and tide.\n\n By the same fire to boil their pottage,\n Two poor old dames, as I have known,\n Will often live in one small cottage,\n But she, poor woman, dwelt alone.\n ’Twas well enough when summer came,\n The long, warm, lightsome summer-day,\n Then at her door the _canty_ dame\n Would sit, as any linnet gay.\n\n But when the ice our streams did fetter,\n Oh! then how her old bones would shake!\n You would have said, if you had met her,\n ’Twas a hard time for Goody Blake.\n Her evenings then were dull and dead;\n Sad case it was, as you may think,\n For very cold to go to bed,\n And then for cold not sleep a wink.\n\n Oh joy for her! when e’er in winter\n The winds at night had made a rout,\n And scatter’d many a lusty splinter,\n And many a rotten bough about.\n Yet never had she, well or sick,\n As every man who knew her says,\n A pile before-hand, wood or stick,\n Enough to warm her for three days.\n\n Now, when the frost was past enduring,\n And made her poor old bones to ache,\n Could any thing be more alluring,\n Than an old hedge to Goody Blake?\n And now and then, it must be said,\n When her old bones were cold and chill,\n She left her fire, or left her bed,\n To seek the hedge of Harry Gill.\n\n Now Harry he had long suspected\n This trespass of old Goody Blake,\n And vow’d that she should be detected,\n And he on her would vengeance take.\n And oft from his warm fire he’d go,\n And to the fields his road would take,\n And there, at night, in frost and snow,\n He watch’d to seize old Goody Blake.\n\n And once, behind a rick of barley,\n Thus looking out did Harry stand;\n The moon was full and shining clearly,\n And crisp with frost the stubble-land.\n --He hears a noise--he’s all awake--\n Again?--on tip-toe down the hill\n He softly creeps--’Tis Goody Blake,\n She’s at the hedge of Harry Gill.\n\n Right glad was he when he beheld her:\n Stick after stick did Goody pull,\n He stood behind a bush of elder,\n Till she had filled her apron full.\n When with her load she turned about,\n The bye-road back again to take,\n He started forward with a shout,\n And sprang upon poor Goody Blake.\n\n And fiercely by the arm he took her,\n And by the arm he held her fast,\n And fiercely by the arm he shook her,\n And cried, “I’ve caught you then at last!”\n Then Goody, who had nothing said,\n Her bundle from her lap let fall;\n And kneeling on the sticks, she pray’d\n To God that is the judge of all.\n\n She pray’d, her wither’d hand uprearing,\n While Harry held her by the arm--\n “God! who art never out of hearing,\n “O may he never more be warm!”\n The cold, cold moon above her head,\n Thus on her knees did Goody pray,\n Young Harry heard what she had said,\n And icy-cold he turned away.\n\n He went complaining all the morrow\n That he was cold and very chill:\n His face was gloom, his heart was sorrow,\n Alas! that day for Harry Gill!\n That day he wore a riding-coat,\n But not a whit the warmer he:\n Another was on Thursday brought,\n And ere the Sabbath he had three.\n\n ’Twas all in vain, a useless matter,\n And blankets were about him pinn’d;\n Yet still his jaws and teeth they clatter,\n Like a loose casement in the wind.\n And Harry’s flesh it fell away;\n And all who see him say ’tis plain,\n That, live as long as live he may,\n He never will be warm again.\n\n No word to any man he utters,\n A-bed or up, to young or old;\n But ever to himself he mutters,\n “Poor Harry Gill is very cold.”\n A-bed or up, by night or day;\n His teeth they chatter, chatter still.\n Now think, ye farmers all, I pray,\n Of Goody Blake and Harry Gill.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Written At A Small Distance From My House, And Sent By My Little", + "body": "BOY TO THE PERSON TO WHOM THEY ARE ADDRESSED.\n\n\n It is the first mild day of March:\n Each minute sweeter than before,\n The red-breast sings from the tall larch\n That stands beside our door.\n\n There is a blessing in the air,\n Which seems a sense of joy to yield\n To the bare trees, and mountains bare,\n And grass in the green field.\n\n My Sister! (’tis a wish of mine)\n Now that our morning meal is done,\n Make haste, your morning task resign;\n Come forth and feel the sun.\n\n Edward will come with you, and pray,\n Put on with speed your woodland dress,\n And bring no book, for this one day\n We’ll give to idleness.\n\n No joyless forms shall regulate\n Our living Calendar:\n We from to-day, my friend, will date\n The opening of the year.\n\n Love, now an universal birth.\n From heart to heart is stealing,\n From earth to man, from man to earth,\n --It is the hour of feeling.\n\n One moment now may give us more\n Than fifty years of reason;\n Our minds shall drink at every pore\n The spirit of the season.\n\n Some silent laws our hearts may make,\n Which they shall long obey;\n We for the year to come may take\n Our temper from to-day.\n\n And from the blessed power that rolls\n About, below, above;\n We’ll frame the measure of our souls,\n They shall be tuned to love.\n\n Then come, my sister! come, I pray,\n With speed put on your woodland dress,\n And bring no book; for this one day\n We’ll give to idleness.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Simon Lee, The Old Huntsman, With An Incident In Which He Was Concerned.", + "body": " In the sweet shire of Cardigan,\n Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,\n An old man dwells, a little man,\n I’ve heard he once was tall.\n Of years he has upon his back,\n No doubt, a burthen weighty;\n He says he is three score and ten,\n But others say he’s eighty.\n\n A long blue livery-coat has he,\n That’s fair behind, and fair before;\n Yet, meet him where you will, you see\n At once that he is poor.\n Full five and twenty years he lived\n A running huntsman merry;\n And, though he has but one eye left,\n His cheek is like a cherry.\n\n No man like him the horn could sound.\n And no man was so full of glee;\n To say the least, four counties round\n Had heard of Simon Lee;\n His master’s dead, and no one now\n Dwells in the hall of Ivor;\n Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;\n He is the sole survivor.\n\n His hunting feats have him bereft\n Of his right eye, as you may see:\n And then, what limbs those feats have left\n To poor old Simon Lee!\n He has no son, he has no child,\n His wife, an aged woman,\n Lives with him, near the waterfall,\n Upon the village common.\n\n And he is lean and he is sick,\n His little body’s half awry\n His ancles they are swoln and thick\n His legs are thin and dry.\n When he was young he little knew\n Of husbandry or tillage;\n And now he’s forced to work, though weak,\n --The weakest in the village.\n\n He all the country could outrun,\n Could leave both man and horse behind;\n And often, ere the race was done,\n He reeled and was stone-blind.\n And still there’s something in the world\n At which his heart rejoices;\n For when the chiming hounds are out,\n He dearly loves their voices!\n\n Old Ruth works out of doors with him,\n And does what Simon cannot do;\n For she, not over stout of limb,\n Is stouter of the two.\n And though you with your utmost skill\n From labour could not wean them,\n Alas! ’tis very little, all\n Which they can do between them.\n\n Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,\n Not twenty paces from the door,\n A scrap of land they have, but they\n Are poorest of the poor.\n This scrap of land he from the heath\n Enclosed when he was stronger;\n But what avails the land to them,\n Which they can till no longer?\n\n Few months of life has he in store,\n As he to you will tell,\n For still, the more he works, the more\n His poor old ancles swell.\n My gentle reader, I perceive\n How patiently you’ve waited,\n And I’m afraid that you expect\n Some tale will be related.\n\n O reader! had you in your mind\n Such stores as silent thought can bring,\n O gentle reader! you would find\n A tale in every thing.\n What more I have to say is short,\n I hope you’ll kindly take it;\n It is no tale; but should you think,\n Perhaps a tale you’ll make it.\n\n One summer-day I chanced to see\n This old man doing all he could\n About the root of an old tree,\n A stump of rotten wood.\n The mattock totter’d in his hand;\n So vain was his endeavour\n That at the root of the old tree\n He might have worked for ever.\n\n “You’re overtasked, good Simon Lee,\n Give me your tool” to him I said;\n And at the word right gladly he\n Received my proffer’d aid.\n I struck, and with a single blow\n The tangled root I sever’d,\n At which the poor old man so long\n And vainly had endeavour’d.\n\n The tears into his eyes were brought,\n And thanks and praises seemed to run\n So fast out of his heart, I thought\n They never would have done.\n --I’ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds\n With coldness still returning.\n Alas! the gratitude of men\n Has oftner left me mourning.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Anecdote For Fathers Shewing How The Art Of Lying May Be Taught.", + "body": " I have a boy of five years old,\n His face is fair and fresh to see;\n His limbs are cast in beauty’s mould,\n And dearly he loves me.\n\n One morn we stroll’d on our dry walk,\n Our quiet house all full in view,\n And held such intermitted talk\n As we are wont to do.\n\n My thoughts on former pleasures ran;\n I thought of Kilve’s delightful shore,\n My pleasant home, when spring began,\n A long, long year before.\n\n A day it was when I could bear\n To think, and think, and think again;\n With so much happiness to spare,\n I could not feel a pain.\n\n My boy was by my side, so slim\n And graceful in his rustic dress!\n And oftentimes I talked to him,\n In very idleness.\n\n The young lambs ran a pretty race;\n The morning sun shone bright and warm;\n “Kilve,” said I, “was a pleasant place,\n “And so is Liswyn farm.\n\n “My little boy, which like you more,”\n I said and took him by the arm--\n “Our home by Kilve’s delightful shore,\n “Or here at Liswyn farm?”\n\n “And tell me, had you rather be,”\n I said and held him by the arm,\n “At Kilve’s smooth shore by the green sea,\n “Or here at Liswyn farm?”\n\n In careless mood he looked at me,\n While still I held him by the arm,\n And said, “At Kilve I’d rather be\n “Than here at Liswyn farm.”\n\n “Now, little Edward, say why so;\n My little Edward, tell me why;”\n “I cannot tell, I do not know,”\n “Why this is strange,” said I.\n\n “For, here are woods and green-hills warm;\n “There surely must some reason be\n “Why you would change sweet Liswyn farm\n “For Kilve by the green sea.”\n\n At this, my boy, so fair and slim,\n Hung down his head, nor made reply;\n And five times did I say to him,\n “Why? Edward, tell me why?”\n\n His head he raised--there was in sight,\n It caught his eye, he saw it plain--\n Upon the house-top, glittering bright,\n A broad and gilded vane.\n\n Then did the boy his tongue unlock,\n And thus to me he made reply;\n “At Kilve there was no weather-cock,\n “And that’s the reason why.”\n\n Oh dearest, dearest boy! my heart\n For better lore would seldom yearn,\n Could I but teach the hundredth part\n Of what from thee I learn.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "We Are Seven.", + "body": " A simple child, dear brother Jim,\n That lightly draws its breath,\n And feels its life in every limb,\n What should it know of death?\n\n I met a little cottage girl,\n She was eight years old, she said;\n Her hair was thick with many a curl\n That cluster’d round her head.\n\n She had a rustic, woodland air,\n And she was wildly clad;\n Her eyes were fair, and very fair,\n --Her beauty made me glad.\n\n “Sisters and brothers, little maid,\n “How many may you be?”\n “How many? seven in all,” she said,\n And wondering looked at me.\n\n “And where are they, I pray you tell?”\n She answered, “Seven are we,\n “And two of us at Conway dwell,\n “And two are gone to sea.\n\n “Two of us in the church-yard lie,\n “My sister and my brother,\n “And in the church-yard cottage, I\n “Dwell near them with my mother.”\n\n “You say that two at Conway dwell,\n “And two are gone to sea,\n “Yet you are seven; I pray you tell\n “Sweet Maid, how this may be?”\n\n Then did the little Maid reply,\n “Seven boys and girls are we;\n “Two of us in the church-yard lie,\n “Beneath the church-yard tree.”\n\n “You run about, my little maid,\n “Your limbs they are alive;\n “If two are in the church-yard laid,\n “Then ye are only five.”\n\n “Their graves are green, they may be seen,”\n The little Maid replied,\n “Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,\n “And they are side by side.\n\n “My stockings there I often knit,\n “My ’kerchief there I hem;\n “And there upon the ground I sit--\n “I sit and sing to them.\n\n “And often after sunset, Sir,\n “When it is light and fair,\n “I take my little porringer,\n “And eat my supper there.\n\n “The first that died was little Jane;\n “In bed she moaning lay,\n “Till God released her of her pain,\n “And then she went away.\n\n “So in the church-yard she was laid,\n “And all the summer dry,\n “Together round her grave we played,\n “My brother John and I.\n\n “And when the ground was white with snow,\n “And I could run and slide,\n “My brother John was forced to go,\n “And he lies by her side.”\n\n “How many are you then,” said I,\n “If they two are in Heaven?”\n The little Maiden did reply,\n “O Master! we are seven.”\n\n “But they are dead; those two are dead!\n “Their spirits are in heaven!”\n ’Twas throwing words away; for still\n The little Maid would have her will,\n And said, “Nay, we are seven!”", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Written In Early Spring.", + "body": " I heard a thousand blended notes,\n While in a grove I sate reclined,\n In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts\n Bring sad thoughts to the mind.\n\n To her fair works did nature link\n The human soul that through me ran;\n And much it griev’d my heart to think\n What man has made of man.\n\n Through primrose-tufts, in that sweet bower,\n The periwinkle trail’d its wreathes;\n And ’tis my faith that every flower\n Enjoys the air it breathes.\n\n The birds around me hopp’d and play’d:\n Their thoughts I cannot measure,\n But the least motion which they made,\n It seem’d a thrill of pleasure.\n\n The budding twigs spread out their fan,\n To catch the breezy air;\n And I must think, do all I can,\n That there was pleasure there.\n\n If I these thoughts may not prevent,\n If such be of my creed the plan,\n Have I not reason to lament\n What man has made of man?", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "The Thorn.", + "body": "I.\n\n There is a thorn; it looks so old,\n In truth you’d find it hard to say,\n How it could ever have been young,\n It looks so old and grey.\n Not higher than a two-years’ child,\n It stands erect this aged thorn;\n No leaves it has, no thorny points;\n It is a mass of knotted joints,\n A wretched thing forlorn.\n It stands erect, and like a stone\n With lichens it is overgrown.\n\n\nII.\n\n Like rock or stone, it is o’ergrown\n With lichens to the very top,\n And hung with heavy tufts of moss,\n A melancholy crop:\n Up from the earth these mosses creep,\n And this poor thorn they clasp it round\n So close, you’d say that they were bent\n With plain and manifest intent,\n To drag it to the ground;\n And all had joined in one endeavour\n To bury this poor thorn for ever.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Iii.", + "body": " High on a mountain’s highest ridge,\n Where oft the stormy winter gale\n Cuts like a scythe, while through the clouds\n It sweeps from vale to vale;\n Not five yards from the mountain-path,\n This thorn you on your left espy;\n And to the left, three yards beyond,\n You see a little muddy pond\n Of water, never dry;\n I’ve measured it from side to side:\n ’Tis three feet long, and two feet wide.\n\n\nIV.\n\n And close beside this aged thorn,\n There is a fresh and lovely sight,\n A beauteous heap, a hill of moss,\n Just half a foot in height.\n All lovely colours there you see,\n All colours that were ever seen,\n And mossy network too is there,\n As if by hand of lady fair\n The work had woven been,\n And cups, the darlings of the eye,\n So deep is their vermilion dye.\n\n\nV.\n\n Ah me! what lovely tints are there!\n Of olive-green and scarlet bright,\n In spikes, in branches, and in stars,\n Green, red, and pearly white.\n This heap of earth o’ergrown with moss\n Which close beside the thorn you see,\n So fresh in all its beauteous dyes,\n Is like an infant’s grave in size\n As like as like can be:\n But never, never any where,\n An infant’s grave was half so fair.\n\n\nVI.\n\n Now would you see this aged thorn,\n This pond and beauteous hill of moss,\n You must take care and chuse your time\n The mountain when to cross.\n For oft there sits, between the heap\n That’s like an infant’s grave in size,\n And that same pond of which I spoke,\n A woman in a scarlet cloak,\n And to herself she cries,\n “Oh misery! oh misery!\n “Oh woe is me! oh misery!”", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Vii.", + "body": " At all times of the day and night\n This wretched woman thither goes,\n And she is known to every star,\n And every wind that blows;\n And there beside the thorn she sits\n When the blue day-light’s in the skies,\n And when the whirlwind’s on the hill,\n Or frosty air is keen and still,\n And to herself she cries,\n “Oh misery! oh misery!\n “Oh woe is me! oh misery!”", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Viii.", + "body": " “Now wherefore thus, by day and night,\n “In rain, in tempest, and in snow,\n “Thus to the dreary mountain-top\n “Does this poor woman go?\n “And why sits she beside the thorn\n “When the blue day-light’s in the sky,\n “Or when the whirlwind’s on the hill,\n “Or frosty air is keen and still,\n “And wherefore does she cry?--\n “Oh wherefore? wherefore? tell me why\n “Does she repeat that doleful cry?”\n\n\nIX.\n\n I cannot tell; I wish I could;\n For the true reason no one knows,\n But if you’d gladly view the spot,\n The spot to which she goes;\n The heap that’s like an infant’s grave,\n The pond--and thorn, so old and grey,\n Pass by her door--’tis seldom shut--\n And if you see her in her hut,\n Then to the spot away!--\n I never heard of such as dare\n Approach the spot when she is there.\n\n\nX.\n\n “But wherefore to the mountain-top\n “Can this unhappy woman go,\n “Whatever star is in the skies,\n “Whatever wind may blow?”\n Nay rack your brain--’tis all in vain,\n I’ll tell you every thing I know;\n But to the thorn, and to the pond\n Which is a little step beyond,\n I wish that you would go:\n Perhaps when you are at the place\n You something of her tale may trace.\n\n\nXI.\n\n I’ll give you the best help I can:\n Before you up the mountain go,\n Up to the dreary mountain-top,\n I’ll tell you all I know.\n Tis now some two and twenty years,\n Since she (her name is Martha Ray)\n Gave with a maiden’s true good will\n Her company to Stephen Hill;\n And she was blithe and gay,\n And she was happy, happy still\n Whene’er she thought of Stephen Hill.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Xii.", + "body": " And they had fix’d the wedding-day,\n The morning that must wed them both;\n But Stephen to another maid\n Had sworn another oath;\n And with this other maid to church\n Unthinking Stephen went--\n Poor Martha! on that woful day\n A cruel, cruel fire, they say,\n Into her bones was sent:\n It dried her body like a cinder,\n And almost turn’d her brain to tinder.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Xiii.", + "body": " They say, full six months after this,\n While yet the summer-leaves were green,\n She to the mountain-top would go,\n And there was often seen.\n ’Tis said, a child was in her womb,\n As now to any eye was plain;\n She was with child, and she was mad,\n Yet often she was sober sad\n From her exceeding pain.\n Oh me! ten thousand times I’d rather\n That he had died, that cruel father!", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Xiv.", + "body": " Sad case for such a brain to hold\n Communion with a stirring child!\n Sad case, as you may think, for one\n Who had a brain so wild!\n Last Christmas when we talked of this,\n Old Farmer Simpson did maintain,\n That in her womb the infant wrought\n About its mother’s heart, and brought\n Her senses back again:\n And when at last her time drew near,\n Her looks were calm, her senses clear.\n\n\nXV.\n\n No more I know, I wish I did,\n And I would tell it all to you;\n For what became of this poor child\n There’s none that ever knew:\n And if a child was born or no,\n There’s no one that could ever tell;\n And if ’twas born alive or dead,\n There’s no one knows, as I have said,\n But some remember well,\n That Martha Ray about this time\n Would up the mountain often climb.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Xvi.", + "body": " And all that winter, when at night\n The wind blew from the mountain-peak,\n ’Twas worth your while, though in the dark,\n The church-yard path to seek:\n For many a time and oft were heard\n Cries coming from the mountain-head,\n Some plainly living voices were,\n And others, I’ve heard many swear,\n Were voices of the dead:\n I cannot think, whate’er they say,\n They had to do with Martha Ray.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Xvii.", + "body": " But that she goes to this old thorn,\n The thorn which I’ve described to you,\n And there sits in a scarlet cloak,\n I will be sworn is true.\n For one day with my telescope,\n To view the ocean wide and bright,\n When to this country first I came,\n Ere I had heard of Martha’s name,\n I climbed the mountain’s height:\n A storm came on, and I could see\n No object higher than my knee.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Xviii.", + "body": " ’Twas mist and rain, and storm and rain,\n No screen, no fence could I discover,\n And then the wind! in faith, it was\n A wind full ten times over.\n I looked around, I thought I saw\n A jutting crag, and oft’ I ran,\n Head-foremost, through the driving rain,\n The shelter of the crag to gain,\n And, as I am a man,\n Instead of jutting crag, I found\n A woman seated on the ground.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Xix.", + "body": " I did not speak--I saw her face,\n Her face it was enough for me;\n I turned about and heard her cry,\n “O misery! O misery!”\n And there she sits, until the moon\n Through half the clear blue sky will go,\n And when the little breezes make\n The waters of the pond to shake,\n As all the country know,\n She shudders and you hear her cry,\n “Oh misery! oh misery!\n\n\nXX.\n\n “But what’s the thorn? and what’s the pond?\n “And what’s the hill of moss to her?\n “And what’s the creeping breeze that comes\n “The little pond to stir?”\n I cannot tell; but some will say\n She hanged her baby on the tree,\n Some say she drowned it in the pond,\n Which is a little step beyond,\n But all and each agree,\n The little babe was buried there,\n Beneath that hill of moss so fair.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Xxi.", + "body": " I’ve heard the scarlet moss is red\n With drops of that poor infant’s blood;\n But kill a new-born infant thus!\n I do not think she could.\n Some say, if to the pond you go,\n And fix on it a steady view,\n The shadow of a babe you trace,\n A baby and a baby’s face,\n And that it looks at you;\n Whene’er you look on it, ’tis plain\n The baby looks at you again.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Xxii.", + "body": " And some had sworn an oath that she\n Should be to public justice brought;\n And for the little infant’s bones\n With spades they would have sought.\n But then the beauteous hill of moss\n Before their eyes began to stir;\n And for full fifty yards around,\n The grass it shook upon the ground;\n But all do still aver\n The little babe is buried there,\n Beneath that hill of moss so fair.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Xxiii.", + "body": " I cannot tell how this may be,\n But plain it is, the thorn is bound\n With heavy tufts of moss, that strive\n To drag it to the ground.\n And this I know, full many a time,\n When she was on the mountain high,\n By day, and in the silent night,\n When all the stars shone clear and bright,\n That I have heard her cry,\n “Oh misery! oh misery!\n “O woe is me! oh misery!”", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "The Last Of The Flock.", + "body": " In distant countries I have been,\n And yet I have not often seen\n A healthy man, a man full grown\n Weep in the public roads alone.\n But such a one, on English ground,\n And in the broad high-way, I met;\n Along the broad high-way he came,\n His cheeks with tears were wet.\n Sturdy he seemed, though he was sad;\n And in his arms a lamb he had.\n\n He saw me, and he turned aside,\n As if he wished himself to hide:\n Then with his coat he made essay\n To wipe those briny tears away.\n I follow’d him, and said, “My friend\n “What ails you? wherefore weep you so?”\n --“Shame on me, Sir! this lusty lamb,\n He makes my tears to flow.\n To-day I fetched him from the rock;\n He is the last of all my flock.\n\n When I was young, a single man,\n And after youthful follies ran,\n Though little given to care and thought,\n Yet, so it was, a ewe I bought;\n And other sheep from her I raised,\n As healthy sheep as you might see,\n And then I married, and was rich\n As I could wish to be;\n Of sheep I number’d a full score,\n And every year encreas’d my store.\n\n Year after year my stock it grew,\n And from this one, this single ewe,\n Full fifty comely sheep I raised,\n As sweet a flock as ever grazed!\n Upon the mountain did they feed;\n They throve, and we at home did thrive.\n --This lusty lamb of all my store\n Is all that is alive:\n And now I care not if we die,\n And perish all of poverty.\n\n Ten children, Sir! had I to feed,\n Hard labour in a time of need!\n My pride was tamed, and in our grief,\n I of the parish ask’d relief.\n They said I was a wealthy man;\n My sheep upon the mountain fed,\n And it was fit that thence I took\n Whereof to buy us bread:”\n “Do this; how can we give to you,”\n They cried, “what to the poor is due?”\n\n I sold a sheep as they had said,\n And bought my little children bread,\n And they were healthy with their food;\n For me it never did me good.\n A woeful time it was for me,\n To see the end of all my gains,\n The pretty flock which I had reared\n With all my care and pains,\n To see it melt like snow away!\n For me it was a woeful day.\n\n Another still! and still another!\n A little lamb, and then its mother!\n It was a vein that never stopp’d,\n Like blood-drops from my heart they dropp’d.\n Till thirty were not left alive\n They dwindled, dwindled, one by one,\n And I may say that many a time\n I wished they all were gone:\n They dwindled one by one away;\n For me it was a woeful day.\n\n To wicked deeds I was inclined,\n And wicked fancies cross’d my mind,\n And every man I chanc’d to see,\n I thought he knew some ill of me\n No peace, no comfort could I find,\n No ease, within doors or without,\n And crazily, and wearily,\n I went my work about.\n Oft-times I thought to run away;\n For me it was a woeful day.\n\n Sir! ’twas a precious flock to me,\n As dear as my own children be;\n For daily with my growing store\n I loved my children more and more.\n Alas! it was an evil time;\n God cursed me in my sore distress,\n I prayed, yet every day I thought\n I loved my children less;\n And every week, and every day,\n My flock, it seemed to melt away.\n\n They dwindled, Sir, sad sight to see!\n From ten to five, from five to three,\n A lamb, a weather, and a ewe;\n And then at last, from three to two;\n And of my fifty, yesterday\n I had but only one,\n And here it lies upon my arm,\n Alas! and I have none;\n To-day I fetched it from the rock;\n It is the last of all my flock.”", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "The Dungeon.", + "body": " And this place our forefathers made for man!\n This is the process of our love and wisdom,\n To each poor brother who offends against us--\n Most innocent, perhaps--and what if guilty?\n Is this the only cure? Merciful God?\n Each pore and natural outlet shrivell’d up\n By ignorance and parching poverty,\n His energies roll back upon his heart,\n And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison,\n They break out on him, like a loathsome plague-spot;\n Then we call in our pamper’d mountebanks--\n And this is their best cure! uncomforted\n And friendless solitude, groaning and tears,\n And savage faces, at the clanking hour,\n Seen through the steams and vapour of his dungeon,\n By the lamp’s dismal twilight! So he lies\n Circled with evil, till his very soul\n Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed\n By sights of ever more deformity!\n\n With other ministrations thou, O nature!\n Healest thy wandering and distempered child:\n Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,\n Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,\n Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,\n Till he relent, and can no more endure\n To be a jarring and a dissonant thing,\n Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;\n But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,\n His angry spirit healed and harmonized\n By the benignant touch of love and beauty.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "The Mad Mother.", + "body": " Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,\n The sun has burnt her coal-black hair,\n Her eye-brows have a rusty stain,\n And she came far from over the main.\n She has a baby on her arm,\n Or else she were alone;\n And underneath the hay-stack warm,\n And on the green-wood stone,\n She talked and sung the woods among;\n And it was in the English tongue.\n\n “Sweet babe! they say that I am mad,\n But nay, my heart is far too glad;\n And I am happy when I sing\n Full many a sad and doleful thing:\n Then, lovely baby, do not fear!\n I pray thee have no fear of me,\n But, safe as in a cradle, here\n My lovely baby! thou shalt be,\n To thee I know too much I owe;\n I cannot work thee any woe.\n\n A fire was once within my brain;\n And in my head a dull, dull pain;\n And fiendish faces one, two, three,\n Hung at my breasts, and pulled at me.\n But then there came a sight of joy;\n It came at once to do me good;\n I waked, and saw my little boy,\n My little boy of flesh and blood;\n Oh joy for me that sight to see!\n For he was here, and only he.\n\n Suck, little babe, oh suck again!\n It cools my blood; it cools my brain;\n Thy lips I feel them, baby! they\n Draw from my heart the pain away.\n Oh! press me with thy little hand;\n It loosens something at my chest;\n About that tight and deadly band\n I feel thy little fingers press’d.\n The breeze I see is in the tree;\n It comes to cool my babe and me.\n\n Oh! love me, love me, little boy!\n Thou art thy mother’s only joy;\n And do not dread the waves below,\n When o’er the sea-rock’s edge we go;\n The high crag cannot work me harm,\n Nor leaping torrents when they howl;\n The babe I carry on my arm,\n He saves for me my precious soul;\n Then happy lie, for blest am I;\n Without me my sweet babe would die.\n\n Then do not fear, my boy! for thee\n Bold as a lion I will be;\n And I will always be thy guide,\n Through hollow snows and rivers wide.\n I’ll build an Indian bower; I know\n The leaves that make the softest bed:\n And if from me thou wilt not go,\n But still be true ’till I am dead,\n My pretty thing! then thou shalt sing,\n As merry as the birds in spring.\n\n Thy father cares not for my breast,\n ’Tis thine, sweet baby, there to rest:\n ’Tis all thine own! and if its hue\n Be changed, that was so fair to view,\n ’Tis fair enough for thee, my dove!\n My beauty, little child, is flown;\n But thou wilt live with me in love,\n And what if my poor cheek be brown?\n ’Tis well for me; thou canst not see\n How pale and wan it else would be.\n\n Dread not their taunts, my little life!\n I am thy father’s wedded wife;\n And underneath the spreading tree\n We two will live in honesty.\n If his sweet boy he could forsake,\n With me he never would have stay’d:\n From him no harm my babe can take,\n But he, poor man! is wretched made,\n And every day we two will pray\n For him that’s gone and far away.\n\n I’ll teach my boy the sweetest things;\n I’ll teach him how the owlet sings.\n My little babe! thy lips are still,\n And thou hast almost suck’d thy fill.\n --Where art thou gone my own dear child?\n What wicked looks are those I see?\n Alas! alas! that look so wild,\n It never, never came from me:\n If thou art mad, my pretty lad,\n Then I must be for ever sad.\n\n Oh! smile on me, my little lamb!\n For I thy own dear mother am.\n My love for thee has well been tried:\n I’ve sought thy father far and wide.\n I know the poisons of the shade,\n I know the earth-nuts fit for food;\n Then, pretty dear, be not afraid;\n We’ll find thy father in the wood.\n Now laugh and be gay, to the woods away!\n And there, my babe; we’ll live for aye.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "The Idiot Boy.", + "body": " Tis eight o’clock,--a clear March night,\n The moon is up--the sky is blue,\n The owlet in the moonlight air,\n He shouts from nobody knows where;\n He lengthens out his lonely shout,\n Halloo! halloo! a long halloo!\n\n --Why bustle thus about your door,\n What means this bustle, Betty Foy?\n Why are you in this mighty fret?\n And why on horseback have you set\n Him whom you love, your idiot boy?\n\n Beneath the moon that shines so bright,\n Till she is tired, let Betty Foy\n With girt and stirrup fiddle-faddle;\n But wherefore set upon a saddle\n Him whom she loves, her idiot boy?\n\n There’s scarce a soul that’s out of bed;\n Good Betty! put him down again;\n His lips with joy they burr at you,\n But, Betty! what has he to do\n With stirrup, saddle, or with rein?\n\n The world will say ’tis very idle,\n Bethink you of the time of night;\n There’s not a mother, no not one,\n But when she hears what you have done,\n Oh! Betty she’ll be in a fright.\n\n But Betty’s bent on her intent,\n For her good neighbour, Susan Gale,\n Old Susan, she who dwells alone,\n Is sick, and makes a piteous moan,\n As if her very life would fail.\n\n There’s not a house within a mile.\n No hand to help them in distress:\n Old Susan lies a bed in pain,\n And sorely puzzled are the twain,\n For what she ails they cannot guess.\n\n And Betty’s husband’s at the wood,\n Where by the week he doth abide,\n A woodman in the distant vale;\n There’s none to help poor Susan Gale,\n What must be done? what will betide?\n\n And Betty from the lane has fetched\n Her pony, that is mild and good,\n Whether he be in joy or pain,\n Feeding at will along the lane,\n Or bringing faggots from the wood.\n\n And he is all in travelling trim,\n And by the moonlight, Betty Foy\n Has up upon the saddle set,\n The like was never heard of yet,\n Him whom she loves, her idiot boy.\n\n And he must post without delay\n Across the bridge that’s in the dale,\n And by the church, and o’er the down,\n To bring a doctor from the town,\n Or she will die, old Susan Gale.\n\n There is no need of boot or spur,\n There is no need of whip or wand,\n For Johnny has his holly-bough,\n And with a hurly-burly now\n He shakes the green bough in his hand.\n\n And Betty o’er and o’er has told\n The boy who is her best delight,\n Both what to follow, what to shun,\n What do, and what to leave undone,\n How turn to left, and how to right.\n\n And Betty’s most especial charge,\n Was, “Johnny! Johnny! mind that you\n “Come home again, nor stop at all,\n “Come home again, whate’er befal,\n “My Johnny do, I pray you do.”\n\n To this did Johnny answer make,\n Both with his head, and with his hand,\n And proudly shook the bridle too,\n And then! his words were not a few,\n Which Betty well could understand.\n\n And now that Johnny is just going,\n Though Betty’s in a mighty flurry,\n She gently pats the pony’s side,\n On which her idiot boy must ride,\n And seems no longer in a hurry.\n\n But when the pony moved his legs,\n Oh! then for the poor idiot boy!\n For joy he cannot hold the bridle,\n For joy his head and heels are idle,\n He’s idle all for very joy.\n\n And while the pony moves his legs,\n In Johnny’s left-hand you may see,\n The green bough’s motionless and dead;\n The moon that shines above his head\n Is not more still and mute than he.\n\n His heart it was so full of glee,\n That till full fifty yards were gone,\n He quite forgot his holly whip,\n And all his skill in horsemanship,\n Oh! happy, happy, happy John.\n\n And Betty’s standing at the door,\n And Betty’s face with joy o’erflows,\n Proud of herself, and proud of him,\n She sees him in his travelling trim;\n How quietly her Johnny goes.\n\n The silence of her idiot boy,\n What hopes it sends to Betty’s heart!\n He’s at the guide-post--he turns right,\n She watches till he’s out of sight,\n And Betty will not then depart.\n\n Burr, burr--now Johnny’s lips they burr,\n As loud as any mill, or near it,\n Meek as a lamb the pony moves,\n And Johnny makes the noise he loves,\n And Betty listens, glad to hear it.\n\n Away she hies to Susan Gale:\n And Johnny’s in a merry tune,\n The owlets hoot, the owlets curr,\n And Johnny’s lips they burr, burr, burr,\n And on he goes beneath the moon.\n\n His steed and he right well agree,\n For of this pony there’s a rumour,\n That should he lose his eyes and ears,\n And should he live a thousand years,\n He never will be out of humour.\n\n But then he is a horse that thinks!\n And when he thinks his pace is slack;\n Now, though he knows poor Johnny well,\n Yet for his life he cannot tell\n What he has got upon his back.\n\n So through the moonlight lanes they go,\n And far into the moonlight dale,\n And by the church, and o’er the down,\n To bring a doctor from the town,\n To comfort poor old Susan Gale.\n\n And Betty, now at Susan’s side,\n Is in the middle of her story,\n What comfort Johnny soon will bring,\n With many a most diverting thing,\n Of Johnny’s wit and Johnny’s glory.\n\n And Betty’s still at Susan’s side:\n By this time she’s not quite so flurried;\n Demure with porringer and plate\n She sits, as if in Susan’s fate\n Her life and soul were buried.\n\n But Betty, poor good woman! she,\n You plainly in her face may read it,\n Could lend out of that moment’s store\n Five years of happiness or more,\n To any that might need it.\n\n But yet I guess that now and then\n With Betty all was not so well,\n And to the road she turns her ears,\n And thence full many a sound she hears,\n Which she to Susan will not tell.\n\n Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans,\n “As sure as there’s a moon in heaven,”\n Cries Betty, “he’ll be back again;\n “They’ll both be here, ’tis almost ten,\n “They’ll both be here before eleven.”\n\n Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans,\n The clock gives warning for eleven;\n ’Tis on the stroke--“If Johnny’s near,”\n Quoth Betty “he will soon be here,\n “As sure as there’s a moon in heaven.”\n\n The clock is on the stroke of twelve,\n And Johnny is not yet in sight,\n The moon’s in heaven, as Betty sees,\n But Betty is not quite at ease;\n And Susan has a dreadful night.\n\n And Betty, half an hour ago,\n On Johnny vile reflections cast;\n “A little idle sauntering thing!”\n With other names, an endless string,\n But now that time is gone and past.\n\n And Betty’s drooping at the heart,\n That happy time all past and gone,\n “How can it be he is so late?\n “The doctor he has made him wait,\n “Susan! they’ll both be here anon.”\n\n And Susan’s growing worse and worse,\n And Betty’s in a sad quandary;\n And then there’s nobody to say\n If she must go or she must stay:\n --She’s in a sad quandary.\n\n The clock is on the stroke of one;\n But neither Doctor nor his guide\n Appear along the moonlight road,\n There’s neither horse nor man abroad,\n And Betty’s still at Susan’s side.\n\n And Susan she begins to fear\n Of sad mischances not a few,\n That Johnny may perhaps be drown’d,\n Or lost perhaps, and never found;\n Which they must both for ever rue.\n\n She prefaced half a hint of this\n With, “God forbid it should be true!”\n At the first word that Susan said\n Cried Betty, rising from the bed,\n “Susan, I’d gladly stay with you.\n\n “I must be gone, I must away,\n “Consider, Johnny’s but half-wise;\n “Susan, we must take care of him,\n “If he is hurt in life or limb”--\n “Oh God forbid!” poor Susan cries.\n\n “What can I do?” says Betty, going,\n “What can I do to ease your pain?\n “Good Susan tell me, and I’ll stay;\n “I fear you’re in a dreadful way,\n “But I shall soon be back again.”\n\n “Good Betty go, good Betty go,\n “There’s nothing that can ease my pain.”\n Then off she hies, but with a prayer\n That God poor Susan’s life would spare,\n Till she comes back again.\n\n So, through the moonlight lane she goes,\n And far into the moonlight dale;\n And how she ran, and how she walked,\n And all that to herself she talked,\n Would surely be a tedious tale.\n\n In high and low, above, below,\n In great and small, in round and square,\n In tree and tower was Johnny seen,\n In bush and brake, in black and green,\n ’Twas Johnny, Johnny, every where.\n\n She’s past the bridge that’s in the dale,\n And now the thought torments her sore,\n Johnny perhaps his horse forsook,\n To hunt the moon that’s in the brook,\n And never will be heard of more.\n\n And now she’s high upon the down,\n Alone amid a prospect wide;\n There’s neither Johnny nor his horse,\n Among the fern or in the gorse;\n There’s neither doctor nor his guide.\n\n “Oh saints! what is become of him?\n “Perhaps he’s climbed into an oak,\n “Where he will stay till he is dead;\n “Or sadly he has been misled,\n “And joined the wandering gypsey-folk.\n\n “Or him that wicked pony’s carried\n “To the dark cave, the goblins’ hall,\n “Or in the castle he’s pursuing,\n “Among the ghosts, his own undoing;\n “Or playing with the waterfall.”\n\n At poor old Susan then she railed,\n While to the town she posts away;\n “If Susan had not been so ill,\n “Alas! I should have had him still,\n “My Johnny, till my dying day.”\n\n Poor Betty! in this sad distemper,\n The doctor’s self would hardly spare,\n Unworthy things she talked and wild,\n Even he, of cattle the most mild,\n The pony had his share.\n\n And now she’s got into the town,\n And to the doctor’s door she hies;\n Tis silence all on every side;\n The town so long, the town so wide,\n Is silent as the skies.\n\n And now she’s at the doctor’s door,\n She lifts the knocker, rap, rap, rap,\n The doctor at the casement shews,\n His glimmering eyes that peep and doze;\n And one hand rubs his old night-cap.\n\n “Oh Doctor! Doctor! where’s my Johnny?”\n “I’m here, what is’t you want with me?”\n “Oh Sir! you know I’m Betty Foy,\n “And I have lost my poor dear boy,\n “You know him--him you often see;\n\n “He’s not so wise as some folks be,”\n “The devil take his wisdom!” said\n The Doctor, looking somewhat grim,\n “What, woman! should I know of him?”\n And, grumbling, he went back to bed.\n\n “O woe is me! O woe is me!\n “Here will I die; here will I die;\n “I thought to find my Johnny here,\n “But he is neither far nor near,\n “Oh! what a wretched mother I!”\n\n She stops, she stands, she looks about,\n Which way to turn she cannot tell.\n Poor Betty! it would ease her pain\n If she had heart to knock again;\n --The clock strikes three--a dismal knell!\n\n Then up along the town she hies,\n No wonder if her senses fail,\n This piteous news so much it shock’d her,\n She quite forgot to send the Doctor,\n To comfort poor old Susan Gale.\n\n And now she’s high upon the down,\n And she can see a mile of road,\n “Oh cruel! I’m almost three-score;\n “Such night as this was ne’er before,\n “There’s not a single soul abroad.”\n\n She listens, but she cannot hear\n The foot of horse, the voice of man;\n The streams with softest sound are flowing,\n The grass you almost hear it growing,\n You hear it now if e’er you can.\n\n The owlets through the long blue night\n Are shouting to each other still:\n Fond lovers, yet not quite hob nob,\n They lengthen out the tremulous sob,\n That echoes far from hill to hill.\n\n Poor Betty now has lost all hope,\n Her thoughts are bent on deadly sin;\n A green-grown pond she just has pass’d,\n And from the brink she hurries fast,\n Lest she should drown herself therein.\n\n And now she sits her down and weeps;\n Such tears she never shed before;\n “Oh dear, dear pony! my sweet joy!\n “Oh carry back my idiot boy!\n “And we will ne’er o’erload thee more.”\n\n A thought is come into her head;\n “The pony he is mild and good,\n “And we have always used him well;\n “Perhaps he’s gone along the dell,\n “And carried Johnny to the wood.”\n\n Then up she springs as if on wings;\n She thinks no more of deadly sin;\n If Betty fifty ponds should see,\n The last of all her thoughts would be,\n To drown herself therein.\n\n Oh reader! now that I might tell\n What Johnny and his horse are doing!\n What they’ve been doing all this time,\n Oh could I put it into rhyme,\n A most delightful tale pursuing!\n\n Perhaps, and no unlikely thought!\n He with his pony now doth roam\n The cliffs and peaks so high that are,\n To lay his hands upon a star,\n And in his pocket bring it home.\n\n Perhaps he’s turned himself about,\n His face unto his horse’s tail,\n And still and mute, in wonder lost,\n All like a silent horseman-ghost,\n He travels on along the vale.\n\n And now, perhaps, he’s hunting sheep,\n A fierce and dreadful hunter he!\n Yon valley, that’s so trim and green,\n In five months’ time, should he be seen,\n A desart wilderness will be.\n\n Perhaps, with head and heels on fire,\n And like the very soul of evil,\n He’s galloping away, away,\n And so he’ll gallop on for aye,\n The bane of all that dread the devil.\n\n I to the muses have been bound,\n These fourteen years, by strong indentures;\n Oh gentle muses! let me tell\n But half of what to him befel,\n For sure he met with strange adventures.\n\n Oh gentle muses! is this kind?\n Why will ye thus my suit repel?\n Why of your further aid bereave me?\n And can ye thus unfriended leave me?\n Ye muses! whom I love so well.\n\n Who’s yon, that, near the waterfall,\n Which thunders down with headlong force,\n Beneath the moon, yet shining fair,\n As careless as if nothing were,\n Sits upright on a feeding horse?\n\n Unto his horse, that’s feeding free,\n He seems, I think, the rein to give;\n Of moon or stars he takes no heed;\n Of such we in romances read,\n --’Tis Johnny! Johnny! as I live.\n\n And that’s the very pony too.\n Where is she, where is Betty Foy?\n She hardly can sustain her fears;\n The roaring water-fall she hears,\n And cannot find her idiot boy.\n\n Your pony’s worth his weight in gold,\n Then calm your terrors, Betty Foy!\n She’s coming from among the trees,\n And now, all full in view, she sees\n Him whom she loves, her idiot boy.\n\n And Betty sees the pony too:\n Why stand you thus Good Betty Foy?\n It is no goblin, ’tis no ghost,\n ’Tis he whom you so long have lost,\n He whom you love, your idiot boy.\n\n She looks again--her arms are up--\n She screams--she cannot move for joy;\n She darts as with a torrent’s force,\n She almost has o’erturned the horse,\n And fast she holds her idiot boy.\n\n And Johnny burrs and laughs aloud,\n Whether in cunning or in joy,\n I cannot tell; but while he laughs,\n Betty a drunken pleasure quaffs,\n To hear again her idiot boy.\n\n And now she’s at the pony’s tail,\n And now she’s at the pony’s head,\n On that side now, and now on this,\n And almost stifled with her bliss,\n A few sad tears does Betty shed.\n\n She kisses o’er and o’er again,\n Him whom she loves, her idiot boy,\n She’s happy here, she’s happy there,\n She is uneasy every where;\n Her limbs are all alive with joy.\n\n She pats the pony, where or when\n She knows not, happy Betty Foy!\n The little pony glad may be,\n But he is milder far than she,\n You hardly can perceive his joy.\n\n “Oh! Johnny, never mind the Doctor;\n “You’ve done your best, and that is all.”\n She took the reins, when this was said,\n And gently turned the pony’s head\n From the loud water-fall.\n\n By this the stars were almost gone,\n The moon was setting on the hill,\n So pale you scarcely looked at her:\n The little birds began to stir,\n Though yet their tongues were still.\n\n The pony, Betty, and her boy,\n Wind slowly through the woody dale:\n And who is she, be-times abroad,\n That hobbles up the steep rough road?\n Who is it, but old Susan Gale?\n\n Long Susan lay deep lost in thought,\n And many dreadful fears beset her,\n Both for her messenger and nurse;\n And as her mind grew worse and worse,\n Her body it grew better.\n\n She turned, she toss’d herself in bed,\n On all sides doubts and terrors met her;\n Point after point did she discuss;\n And while her mind was fighting thus,\n Her body still grew better.\n\n “Alas! what is become of them?\n “These fears can never be endured,\n “I’ll to the wood.”--The word scarce said,\n Did Susan rise up from her bed,\n As if by magic cured.\n\n Away she posts up hill and down,\n And to the wood at length is come,\n She spies her friends, she shouts a greeting;\n Oh me! it is a merry meeting,\n As ever was in Christendom.\n\n The owls have hardly sung their last,\n While our four travellers homeward wend;\n The owls have hooted all night long,\n And with the owls began my song,\n And with the owls must end.\n\n For while they all were travelling home,\n Cried Betty, “Tell us Johnny, do,\n “Where all this long night you have been,\n “What you have heard, what you have seen,\n “And Johnny, mind you tell us true.”\n\n Now Johnny all night long had heard\n The owls in tuneful concert strive;\n No doubt too he the moon had seen;\n For in the moonlight he had been\n From eight o’clock till five.\n\n And thus to Betty’s question, he\n Made answer, like a traveller bold,\n (His very words I give to you,)\n “The cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo,\n “And the sun did shine so cold.”\n --Thus answered Johnny in his glory,\n And that was all his travel’s story.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Written Near Richmond, Upon The Thames, At Evening.", + "body": " How rich the wave, in front, imprest\n With evening-twilight’s summer hues,\n While, facing thus the crimson west,\n The boat her silent path pursues!\n And see how dark the backward stream!\n A little moment past, so smiling!\n And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,\n Some other loiterer beguiling.\n\n Such views the youthful bard allure,\n But, heedless of the following gloom,\n He deems their colours shall endure\n ’Till peace go with him to the tomb.\n --And let him nurse his fond deceit,\n And what if he must die in sorrow!\n Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,\n Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?\n\n Glide gently, thus for ever glide,\n O Thames! that other bards may see,\n As lovely visions by thy side\n As now, fair river! come to me.\n Oh glide, fair stream! for ever so;\n Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,\n ’Till all our minds for ever flow,\n As thy deep waters now are flowing.\n\n Vain thought! yet be as now thou art,\n That in thy waters may be seen\n The image of a poet’s heart,\n How bright, how solemn, how serene!\n Such heart did once the poet bless,\n Who, pouring here a[3] _later_ ditty,\n Could find no refuge from distress,\n But in the milder grief of pity.\n\n Remembrance! as we glide along,\n For him suspend the dashing oar,\n And pray that never child of Song\n May know his freezing sorrows more.\n How calm! how still! the only sound,\n The dripping of the oar suspended!\n --The evening darkness gathers round\n By virtue’s holiest powers attended.\n\n\n [3] Collins’s Ode on the death of Thomson, the last written, I\n believe, of the poems which were published during his\n life-time. This Ode is also alluded to in the next stanza.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Expostulation And Reply.", + "body": " “Why William, on that old grey stone,\n “Thus for the length of half a day,\n “Why William, sit you thus alone,\n “And dream your time away?\n\n “Where are your books? that light bequeath’d\n “To beings else forlorn and blind!\n “Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath’d\n “From dead men to their kind.\n\n “You look round on your mother earth,\n “As if she for no purpose bore you;\n “As if you were her first-born birth,\n “And none had lived before you!”\n\n One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,\n When life was sweet I knew not why,\n To me my good friend Matthew spake,\n And thus I made reply.\n\n “The eye it cannot chuse but see,\n “We cannot bid the ear be still;\n “Our bodies feel, where’er they be,\n “Against, or with our will.\n\n “Nor less I deem that there are powers,\n “Which of themselves our minds impress,\n “That we can feed this mind of ours,\n “In a wise passiveness.\n\n “Think you, mid all this mighty sum\n “Of things for ever speaking,\n “That nothing of itself will come,\n “But we must still be seeking?\n\n “--Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,\n “Conversing as I may,\n “I sit upon this old grey stone,\n “And dream my time away.”", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "The Tables Turned; An Evening Scene, On The Same Subject.", + "body": " Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks,\n Why all this toil and trouble?\n Up! up! my friend, and quit your books,\n Or surely you’ll grow double.\n\n The sun above the mountain’s head,\n A freshening lustre mellow,\n Through all the long green fields has spread,\n His first sweet evening yellow.\n\n Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife,\n Come, hear the woodland linnet,\n How sweet his music; on my life\n There’s more of wisdom in it.\n\n And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!\n And he is no mean preacher;\n Come forth into the light of things,\n Let Nature be your teacher.\n\n She has a world of ready wealth,\n Our minds and hearts to bless--\n Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,\n Truth breathed by chearfulness.\n\n One impulse from a vernal wood\n May teach you more of man;\n Of moral evil and of good,\n Than all the sages can.\n\n Sweet is the lore which nature brings;\n Our meddling intellect\n Misshapes the beauteous forms of things;\n --We murder to dissect.\n\n Enough of science and of art;\n Close up these barren leaves;\n Come forth, and bring with you a heart\n That watches and receives.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Old Man Travelling; Animal Tranquillity And Decay, A Sketch.", + "body": " The little hedge-row birds,\n That peck along the road, regard him not.\n He travels on, and in his face, his step,\n His gait, is one expression; every limb,\n His look and bending figure, all bespeak\n A man who does not move with pain, but moves\n With thought--He is insensibly subdued\n To settled quiet: he is one by whom\n All effort seems forgotten, one to whom\n Long patience has such mild composure given,\n That patience now doth seem a thing, of which\n He hath no need. He is by nature led\n To peace so perfect, that the young behold\n With envy, what the old man hardly feels.\n --I asked him whither he was bound, and what\n The object of his journey; he replied\n “Sir! I am going many miles to take\n “A last leave of my son, a mariner,\n “Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,\n And there is dying in an hospital.”", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "The Complaint Of A Forsaken Indian Woman", + "body": "[_When a Northern Indian, from sickness, is unable to continue his\njourney with his companions; he is left behind, covered over with\nDeer-skins, and is supplied with water, food, and fuel if the situation\nof the place will afford it. He is informed of the track which his\ncompanions intend to pursue, and if he is unable to follow, or overtake\nthem, he perishes alone in the Desart; unless he should have the good\nfortune to fall in with some other Tribes of Indians. It is unnecessary\nto add that the females are equally, or still more, exposed to the same\nfate. See that very interesting work, _Hearne’s Journey from Hudson’s\nBay to the Northern Ocean_. When the Northern Lights, as the same writer\ninforms us, vary their position in the air, they make a rustling and a\ncrackling noise. This circumstance is alluded to in the first stanza of\nthe following poem._]\n\n\n Before I see another day,\n Oh let my body die away!\n In sleep I heard the northern gleams;\n The stars they were among my dreams;\n In sleep did I behold the skies,\n I saw the crackling flashes drive;\n And yet they are upon my eyes,\n And yet I am alive.\n Before I see another day,\n Oh let my body die away!\n\n My fire is dead: it knew no pain;\n Yet is it dead, and I remain.\n All stiff with ice the ashes lie;\n And they are dead, and I will die.\n When I was well, I wished to live,\n For clothes, for warmth, for food, and fire;\n But they to me no joy can give,\n No pleasure now, and no desire.\n Then here contented will I lie;\n Alone I cannot fear to die.\n\n Alas! you might have dragged me on\n Another day, a single one!\n Too soon despair o’er me prevailed;\n Too soon my heartless spirit failed;\n When you were gone my limbs were stronger,\n And Oh how grievously I rue,\n That, afterwards, a little longer,\n My friends, I did not follow you!\n For strong and without pain I lay,\n My friends, when you were gone away.\n\n My child! they gave thee to another,\n A woman who was not thy mother.\n When from my arms my babe they took,\n On me how strangely did he look!\n Through his whole body something ran,\n A most strange something did I see;\n --As if he strove to be a man,\n That he might pull the sledge for me.\n And then he stretched his arms, how wild!\n Oh mercy! like a little child.\n\n My little joy! my little pride!\n In two days more I must have died.\n Then do not weep and grieve for me;\n I feel I must have died with thee.\n Oh wind that o’er my head art flying,\n The way my friends their course did bend,\n I should not feel the pain of dying,\n Could I with thee a message send.\n Too soon, my friends, you went away;\n For I had many things to say.\n\n I’ll follow you across the snow,\n You travel heavily and slow:\n In spite of all my weary pain,\n I’ll look upon your tents again.\n My fire is dead, and snowy white\n The water which beside it stood;\n The wolf has come to me to-night,\n And he has stolen away my food.\n For ever left alone am I,\n Then wherefore should I fear to die?\n\n My journey will be shortly run,\n I shall not see another sun,\n I cannot lift my limbs to know\n If they have any life or no.\n My poor forsaken child! if I\n For once could have thee close to me,\n With happy heart I then would die,\n And my last thoughts would happy be,\n I feel my body die away,\n I shall not see another day.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "The Convict.", + "body": " The glory of evening was spread through the west;\n --On the slope of a mountain I stood;\n While the joy that precedes the calm season of rest\n Rang loud through the meadow and wood.\n\n “And must we then part from a dwelling so fair?”\n In the pain of my spirit I said,\n And with a deep sadness I turned, to repair\n To the cell where the convict is laid.\n\n The thick-ribbed walls that o’ershadow the gate\n Resound; and the dungeons unfold:\n I pause; and at length, through the glimmering grate,\n That outcast of pity behold.\n\n His black matted head on his shoulder is bent,\n And deep is the sigh of his breath,\n And with stedfast dejection his eyes are intent\n On the fetters that link him to death.\n\n ’Tis sorrow enough on that visage to gaze.\n That body dismiss’d from his care;\n Yet my fancy has pierced to his heart, and pourtrays\n More terrible images there.\n\n His bones are consumed, and his life-blood is dried,\n With wishes the past to undo;\n And his crime, through the pains that o’erwhelm him, descried,\n Still blackens and grows on his view.\n\n When from the dark synod, or blood-reeking field,\n To his chamber the monarch is led,\n All soothers of sense their soft virtue shall yield,\n And quietness pillow his head.\n\n But if grief, self-consumed, in oblivion would doze,\n And conscience her tortures appease,\n ’Mid tumult and uproar this man must repose;\n In the comfortless vault of disease.\n\n When his fetters at night have so press’d on his limbs,\n That the weight can no longer be borne,\n If, while a half-slumber his memory bedims,\n The wretch on his pallet should turn,\n\n While the jail-mastiff howls at the dull clanking chain,\n From the roots of his hair there shall start\n A thousand sharp punctures of cold-sweating pain,\n And terror shall leap at his heart.\n\n But now he half-raises his deep-sunken eye,\n And the motion unsettles a tear;\n The silence of sorrow it seems to supply,\n And asks of me why I am here.\n\n “Poor victim! no idle intruder has stood\n “With o’erweening complacence our state to compare,\n “But one, whose first wish is the wish to be good,\n “Is come as a brother thy sorrows to share.\n\n “At thy name though compassion her nature resign,\n “Though in virtue’s proud mouth thy report be a stain,\n “My care, if the arm of the mighty were mine,\n “Would plant thee where yet thou might’st blossom again.”", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + }, + { + "title": "Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting The Banks", + "body": "OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR, July 13, 1798.\n\n\n Five years have passed; five summers, with the length\n Of five long winters! and again I hear\n These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs\n With a sweet inland murmur.[4]--Once again\n Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,\n Which on a wild secluded scene impress\n Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect\n The landscape with the quiet of the sky.\n The day is come when I again repose\n Here, under this dark sycamore, and view\n These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,\n Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,\n Among the woods and copses lose themselves,\n Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb\n The wild green landscape. Once again I see\n These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines\n Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms\n Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke\n Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,\n With some uncertain notice, as might seem,\n Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,\n Or of some hermit’s cave, where by his fire\n The hermit sits alone.\n\n Though absent long,\n These forms of beauty have not been to me,\n As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:\n But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din\n Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,\n In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,\n Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,\n And passing even into my purer mind\n With tranquil restoration:--feelings too\n Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,\n As may have had no trivial influence\n On that best portion of a good man’s life;\n His little, nameless, unremembered acts\n Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,\n To them I may have owed another gift,\n Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,\n In which the burthen of the mystery,\n In which the heavy and the weary weight\n Of all this unintelligible world\n Is lighten’d:--that serene and blessed mood,\n In which the affections gently lead us on,\n Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,\n And even the motion of our human blood\n Almost suspended, we are laid asleep\n In body, and become a living soul:\n While with an eye made quiet by the power\n Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,\n We see into the life of things.\n\n If this\n Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,\n In darkness, and amid the many shapes\n Of joyless day-light; when the fretful stir\n Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,\n Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,\n How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee\n O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the woods,\n How often has my spirit turned to thee!\n\n And now, with gleams of half-extinguish’d thought,\n With many recognitions dim and faint,\n And somewhat of a sad perplexity,\n The picture of the mind revives again:\n While here I stand, not only with the sense\n Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts\n That in this moment there is life and food\n For future years. And so I dare to hope\n Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first\n I came among these hills; when like a roe\n I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides\n Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,\n Wherever nature led; more like a man\n Flying from something that he dreads, than one\n Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then\n (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,\n And their glad animal movements all gone by,)\n To me was all in all.--I cannot paint\n What then I was. The sounding cataract\n Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,\n The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,\n Their colours and their forms, were then to me\n An appetite: a feeling and a love,\n That had no need of a remoter charm,\n By thought supplied, or any interest\n Unborrowed from the eye.--That time is past,\n And all its aching joys are now no more,\n And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this\n Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts\n Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,\n Abundant recompence. For I have learned\n To look on nature, not as in the hour\n Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes\n The still, sad music of humanity,\n Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power\n To chasten and subdue. And I have felt\n A presence that disturbs me with the joy\n Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime\n Of something far more deeply interfused,\n Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,\n And the round ocean, and the living air,\n And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,\n A motion and a spirit, that impels\n All thinking things, all objects of all thought,\n And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still\n A lover of the meadows and the woods,\n And mountains; and of all that we behold\n From this green earth; of all the mighty world\n Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,[5]\n And what perceive; well pleased to recognize\n In nature and the language of the sense,\n The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,\n The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul\n Of all my moral being.\n\n Nor, perchance,\n If I were not thus taught, should I the more\n Suffer my genial spirits to decay:\n For thou art with me, here, upon the banks\n Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,\n My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch\n The language of my former heart, and read\n My former pleasures in the shooting lights\n Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while\n May I behold in thee what I was once,\n My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,\n Knowing that Nature never did betray\n The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege,\n Through all the years of this our life, to lead\n From joy to joy: for she can so inform\n The mind that is within us, so impress\n With quietness and beauty, and so feed\n With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,\n Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,\n Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all\n The dreary intercourse of daily life,\n Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb\n Our chearful faith that all which we behold\n Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon\n Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;\n And let the misty mountain winds be free\n To blow against thee: and in after years,\n When these wild ecstasies shall be matured\n Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind\n Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,\n Thy memory be as a dwelling-place\n For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then,\n If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,\n Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts\n Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,\n And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,\n If I should be, where I no more can hear\n Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams\n Of past existence, wilt thou then forget\n That on the banks of this delightful stream\n We stood together; and that I, so long\n A worshipper of Nature, hither came,\n Unwearied in that service: rather say\n With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal\n Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,\n That after many wanderings, many years\n Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,\n And this green pastoral landscape, were to me\n More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake.\n\n\n [4] The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above\n Tintern.\n\n [5] This line has a close resemblance to an admirable line of\n Young, the exact expression of which I cannot recollect.", + "author": "William Wordsworth", + "source": "Lyrical Ballads", + "period": "1798" + } +] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/poetry/yeats_wind_reeds.json b/poetry/yeats_wind_reeds.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bfc7d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/yeats_wind_reeds.json @@ -0,0 +1,338 @@ +[ + { + "title": "The Hosting Of The Sidhe", + "body": " The host is riding from Knocknarea\n And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare;\n Caolte tossing his burning hair\n And Niamh calling _Away, come away:\n Empty your heart of its mortal dream.\n The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,\n Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,\n Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam,\n Our arms are waving, our lips are apart;\n And if any gaze on our rushing band,\n We come between him and the deed of his hand,\n We come between him and the hope of his heart_.\n The host is rushing 'twixt night and day,\n And where is there hope or deed as fair?\n Caolte tossing his burning hair,\n And Niamh calling _Away, come away_.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Everlasting Voices", + "body": " O sweet everlasting Voices be still;\n Go to the guards of the heavenly fold\n And bid them wander obeying your will\n Flame under flame, till Time be no more;\n Have you not heard that our hearts are old,\n That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,\n In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?\n O sweet everlasting Voices be still.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Moods", + "body": " Time drops in decay,\n Like a candle burnt out,\n And the mountains and woods\n Have their day, have their day;\n What one in the rout\n Of the fire-born moods,\n Has fallen away?", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Tells Of The Rose In His Heart", + "body": " All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,\n The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,\n The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,\n Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.\n\n The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;\n I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,\n With the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a casket of gold\n For my dreams of your image that blossoms\n a rose in the deeps of my heart.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Host Of The Air", + "body": " O'Driscoll drove with a song,\n The wild duck and the drake,\n From the tall and the tufted reeds\n Of the drear Hart Lake.\n\n And he saw how the reeds grew dark\n At the coming of night tide,\n And dreamed of the long dim hair\n Of Bridget his bride.\n\n He heard while he sang and dreamed\n A piper piping away,\n And never was piping so sad,\n And never was piping so gay.\n\n And he saw young men and young girls\n Who danced on a level place\n And Bridget his bride among them,\n With a sad and a gay face.\n\n The dancers crowded about him,\n And many a sweet thing said,\n And a young man brought him red wine\n And a young girl white bread.\n\n But Bridget drew him by the sleeve,\n Away from the merry bands,\n To old men playing at cards\n With a twinkling of ancient hands.\n\n The bread and the wine had a doom,\n For these were the host of the air;\n He sat and played in a dream\n Of her long dim hair.\n\n He played with the merry old men\n And thought not of evil chance,\n Until one bore Bridget his bride\n Away from the merry dance.\n\n He bore her away in his arms,\n The handsomest young man there,\n And his neck and his breast and his arms\n Were drowned in her long dim hair.\n\n O'Driscoll scattered the cards\n And out of his dream awoke:\n Old men and young men and young girls\n Were gone like a drifting smoke;\n\n But he heard high up in the air\n A piper piping away,\n And never was piping so sad,\n And never was piping so gay.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Breasal The Fisherman", + "body": " Although you hide in the ebb and flow\n Of the pale tide when the moon has set,\n The people of coming days will know\n About the casting out of my net,\n And how you have leaped times out of mind\n Over the little silver cords,\n And think that you were hard and unkind,\n And blame you with many bitter words.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "A Cradle Song", + "body": " The Danann children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold,\n And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes,\n For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies,\n With heavy whitening wings, and a heart fallen cold:\n I kiss my wailing child and press it to my breast,\n And hear the narrow graves calling my child and me.\n Desolate winds that cry over the wandering sea;\n Desolate winds that hover in the flaming West;\n Desolate winds that beat the doors of Heaven, and beat\n The doors of Hell and blow there many a whimpering ghost;\n O heart the winds have shaken; the unappeasable host\n Is comelier than candles before Maurya's feet.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Into The Twilight", + "body": " Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn,\n Come clear of the nets of wrong and right;\n Laugh heart again in the gray twilight,\n Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.\n\n Your mother Eire is always young,\n Dew ever shining and twilight gray;\n Though hope fall from you and love decay,\n Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue.\n\n Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:\n For there the mystical brotherhood\n Of sun and moon and hollow and wood\n And river and stream work out their will;\n And God stands winding His lonely horn,\n And time and the world are ever in flight;\n And love is less kind than the gray twilight,\n And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Song Of Wandering Aengus", + "body": " I went out to the hazel wood,\n Because a fire was in my head,\n And cut and peeled a hazel wand,\n And hooked a berry to a thread;\n And when white moths were on the wing,\n And moth-like stars were flickering out,\n I dropped the berry in a stream\n And caught a little silver trout.\n\n When I had laid it on the floor\n I went to blow the fire a-flame,\n But something rustled on the floor,\n And someone called me by my name:\n It had become a glimmering girl\n With apple blossom in her hair\n Who called me by my name and ran\n And faded through the brightening air.\n\n Though I am old with wandering\n Through hollow lands and hilly lands,\n I will find out where she has gone,\n And kiss her lips and take her hands;\n And walk among long dappled grass,\n And pluck till time and times are done,\n The silver apples of the moon,\n The golden apples of the sun.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Song Of The Old Mother", + "body": " I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow\n Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;\n And then I must scrub and bake and sweep\n Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;\n And the young lie long and dream in their bed\n Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,\n And their day goes over in idleness,\n And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:\n While I must work because I am old,\n And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Fiddler Of Dooney", + "body": " When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,\n Folk dance like a wave of the sea;\n My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,\n My brother in Moharabuiee.\n\n I passed my brother and cousin:\n They read in their books of prayer;\n I read in my book of songs\n I bought at the Sligo fair.\n\n When we come at the end of time,\n To Peter sitting in state,\n He will smile on the three old spirits,\n But call me first through the gate;\n\n For the good are always the merry,\n Save by an evil chance,\n And the merry love the fiddle\n And the merry love to dance:\n\n And when the folk there spy me,\n They will all come up to me,\n With 'Here is the fiddler of Dooney!'\n And dance like a wave of the sea.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Heart Of The Woman", + "body": " O what to me the little room\n That was brimmed up with prayer and rest;\n He bade me out into the gloom,\n And my breast lies upon his breast.\n\n O what to me my mother's care,\n The house where I was safe and warm;\n The shadowy blossom of my hair\n Will hide us from the bitter storm.\n\n O hiding hair and dewy eyes,\n I am no more with life and death,\n My heart upon his warm heart lies,\n My breath is mixed into his breath.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Laments The Loss Of Love", + "body": " Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,\n I had a beautiful friend\n And dreamed that the old despair\n Would end in love in the end:\n She looked in my heart one day\n And saw your image was there;\n She has gone weeping away.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Mongan Laments The Change That Has Come Upon Him And His Beloved", + "body": " Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns!\n I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;\n I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns,\n For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear\n Under my feet that they follow you night and day.\n A man with a hazel wand came without sound;\n He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way;\n And now my calling is but the calling of a hound;\n And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by.\n I would that the boar without bristles had come from the West\n And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky\n And lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Michael Robartes Bids His Beloved Be At Peace", + "body": " I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,\n Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;\n The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,\n The East her hidden joy before the morning break,\n The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,\n The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:\n O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,\n The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:\n Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat\n Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,\n Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,\n And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Hanrahan Reproves The Curlew", + "body": " O, curlew, cry no more in the air,\n Or only to the waters in the West;\n Because your crying brings to my mind\n Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair\n That was shaken out over my breast:\n There is enough evil in the crying of wind.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Michael Robartes Remembers Forgotten Beauty", + "body": " When my arms wrap you round I press\n My heart upon the loveliness\n That has long faded from the world;\n The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled\n In shadowy pools, when armies fled;\n The love-tales wove with silken thread\n By dreaming ladies upon cloth\n That has made fat the murderous moth;\n The roses that of old time were\n Woven by ladies in their hair,\n The dew-cold lilies ladies bore\n Through many a sacred corridor\n Where such gray clouds of incense rose\n That only the gods' eyes did not close:\n For that pale breast and lingering hand\n Come from a more dream-heavy land,\n A more dream-heavy hour than this;\n And when you sigh from kiss to kiss\n I hear white Beauty sighing, too,\n For hours when all must fade like dew\n But flame on flame, deep under deep,\n Throne over throne, where in half sleep\n Their swords upon their iron knees\n Brood her high lonely mysteries.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "A Poet To His Beloved", + "body": " I bring you with reverent hands\n The books of my numberless dreams;\n White woman that passion has worn\n As the tide wears the dove-gray sands,\n And with heart more old than the horn\n That is brimmed from the pale fire of time:\n White woman with numberless dreams\n I bring you my passionate rhyme.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes", + "body": " Fasten your hair with a golden pin,\n And bind up every wandering tress;\n I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:\n It worked at them, day out, day in,\n Building a sorrowful loveliness\n Out of the battles of old times.\n\n You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,\n And bind up your long hair and sigh;\n And all men's hearts must burn and beat;\n And candle-like foam on the dim sand,\n And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,\n Live but to light your passing feet.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "To My Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear", + "body": " Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;\n Remember the wisdom out of the old days:\n _Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,\n And the winds that blow through the starry ways,\n Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood\n Cover over and hide, for he has no part\n With the proud, majestical multitude._", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Cap And Bells", + "body": " The jester walked in the garden:\n The garden had fallen still;\n He bade his soul rise upward\n And stand on her window-sill.\n\n It rose in a straight blue garment,\n When owls began to call:\n It had grown wise-tongued by thinking\n Of a quiet and light footfall;\n\n But the young queen would not listen;\n She rose in her pale night gown;\n She drew in the heavy casement\n And pushed the latches down.\n\n He bade his heart go to her,\n When the owls called out no more;\n In a red and quivering garment\n It sang to her through the door.\n\n It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming,\n Of a flutter of flower-like hair;\n But she took up her fan from the table\n And waved it off on the air.\n\n 'I have cap and bells,' he pondered,\n 'I will send them to her and die;'\n And when the morning whitened\n He left them where she went by.\n\n She laid them upon her bosom,\n Under a cloud of her hair,\n And her red lips sang them a love song:\n Till stars grew out of the air.\n\n She opened her door and her window,\n And the heart and the soul came through,\n To her right hand came the red one,\n To her left hand came the blue.\n\n They set up a noise like crickets,\n A chattering wise and sweet,\n And her hair was a folded flower\n And the quiet of love in her feet.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Valley Of The Black Pig", + "body": " The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears\n Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,\n And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries\n Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.\n We who still labour by the cromlec on the shore,\n The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,\n Being weary of the world's empires, bow down to you\n Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Michael Robartes Asks Forgiveness Because Of His Many Moods", + "body": " If this importunate heart trouble your peace\n With words lighter than air,\n Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease;\n Crumple the rose in your hair;\n And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say,\n 'O Hearts of wind-blown flame!\n 'O Winds, elder than changing of night and day,\n 'That murmuring and longing came,\n 'From marble cities loud with tabors of old\n 'In dove-gray faery lands;\n 'From battle banners fold upon purple fold,\n 'Queens wrought with glimmering hands;\n 'That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face\n 'Above the wandering tide;\n 'And lingered in the hidden desolate place,\n 'Where the last Phoenix died\n 'And wrapped the flames above his holy head;\n 'And still murmur and long:\n 'O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead\n 'In a tumultuous song:'\n And cover the pale blossoms of your breast\n With your dim heavy hair,\n And trouble with a sigh for all things longing for rest\n The odorous twilight there.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers", + "body": " I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,\n For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;\n And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood\n With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:\n I cried in my dream '_O women bid the young men lay\n 'Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair,\n 'Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair\n 'Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away._'", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Tells Of The Perfect Beauty", + "body": " O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes\n The poets labouring all their days\n To build a perfect beauty in rhyme\n Are overthrown by a woman's gaze\n And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:\n And therefore my heart will bow, when dew\n Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,\n Before the unlabouring stars and you.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Hears The Cry Of The Sedge", + "body": " I wander by the edge\n Of this desolate lake\n Where wind cries in the sedge\n _Until the axle break\n That keeps the stars in their round\n And hands hurl in the deep\n The banners of East and West\n And the girdle of light is unbound,\n Your breast will not lie by the breast\n Of your beloved in sleep_.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Thinks Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil Of His Beloved", + "body": " Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,\n And dream about the great and their pride;\n They have spoken against you everywhere,\n But weigh this song with the great and their pride;\n I made it out of a mouthful of air,\n Their children's children shall say they have lied.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Blessed", + "body": " Cumhal called out, bending his head,\n Till Dathi came and stood,\n With a blink in his eyes at the cave mouth,\n Between the wind and the wood.\n\n And Cumhal said, bending his knees,\n 'I have come by the windy way\n 'To gather the half of your blessedness\n 'And learn to pray when you pray.\n\n 'I can bring you salmon out of the streams\n 'And heron out of the skies.'\n But Dathi folded his hands and smiled\n With the secrets of God in his eyes.\n\n And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke\n All manner of blessed souls,\n Women and children, young men with books,\n And old men with croziers and stoles.\n\n 'Praise God and God's mother,' Dathi said,\n 'For God and God's mother have sent\n 'The blessedest souls that walk in the world\n 'To fill your heart with content.'\n\n 'And which is the blessedest,' Cumhal said,\n 'Where all are comely and good?\n 'Is it these that with golden thuribles\n 'Are singing about the wood?'\n\n 'My eyes are blinking,' Dathi said,\n 'With the secrets of God half blind,\n 'But I can see where the wind goes\n 'And follow the way of the wind;\n\n 'And blessedness goes where the wind goes,\n 'And when it is gone we are dead;\n 'I see the blessedest soul in the world\n 'And he nods a drunken head.\n\n 'O blessedness comes in the night and the day\n 'And whither the wise heart knows;\n 'And one has seen in the redness of wine\n 'The Incorruptible Rose,\n\n 'That drowsily drops faint leaves on him\n 'And the sweetness of desire,\n 'While time and the world are ebbing away\n 'In twilights of dew and of fire.'", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Secret Rose", + "body": " Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,\n Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those\n Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,\n Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir\n And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep\n Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep\n Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold\n The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold\n Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes\n Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise\n In druid vapour and make the torches dim;\n Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him\n Who met Fand walking among flaming dew\n By a gray shore where the wind never blew,\n And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;\n And him who drove the gods out of their liss,\n And till a hundred morns had flowered red,\n Feasted and wept the barrows of his dead;\n And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown\n And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown\n Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods;\n And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,\n And sought through lands and islands numberless years,\n Until he found with laughter and with tears,\n A woman, of so shining loveliness,\n That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,\n A little stolen tress. I, too, await\n The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.\n When shall the stars be blown about the sky,\n Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?\n Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,\n Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Hanrahan Laments Because Of His Wanderings", + "body": " O where is our Mother of Peace\n Nodding her purple hood?\n For the winds that awakened the stars\n Are blowing through my blood.\n I would that the death-pale deer\n Had come through the mountain side,\n And trampled the mountain away,\n And drunk up the murmuring tide;\n For the winds that awakened the stars\n Are blowing through my blood,\n And our Mother of Peace has forgot me\n Under her purple hood.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Travail Of Passion", + "body": " When the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide;\n When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay;\n Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way\n Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side,\n The hyssop-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kidron stream:\n We will bend down and loosen our hair over you,\n That it may drop faint perfume, and be heavy with dew,\n Lilies of death-pale hope, roses of passionate dream.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Poet Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends", + "body": " Though you are in your shining days,\n Voices among the crowd\n And new friends busy with your praise,\n Be not unkind or proud,\n But think about old friends the most:\n Time's bitter flood will rise,\n Your beauty perish and be lost\n For all eyes but these eyes.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Hanrahan Speaks To The Lovers Of His Songs In Coming Days", + "body": " O, colleens, kneeling by your altar rails long hence,\n When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer,\n And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air\n And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;\n Bend down and pray for the great sin I wove in song,\n Till Maurya of the wounded heart cry a sweet cry,\n And call to my beloved and me: 'No longer fly\n 'Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.'", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Pleads With The Elemental Powers", + "body": " The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows\n Have pulled the Immortal Rose;\n And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,\n The Polar Dragon slept,\n His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep:\n When will he wake from sleep?\n\n Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire,\n With your harmonious choir\n Encircle her I love and sing her into peace,\n That my old care may cease;\n Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight\n The nets of day and night.\n\n Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be\n Like the pale cup of the sea,\n When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim\n Above its cloudy rim;\n But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow\n Whither her footsteps go.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Wishes His Beloved Were Dead", + "body": " Were you but lying cold and dead,\n And lights were paling out of the West,\n You would come hither, and bend your head,\n And I would lay my head on your breast;\n And you would murmur tender words,\n Forgiving me, because you were dead:\n Nor would you rise and hasten away,\n Though you have the will of the wild birds,\n But know your hair was bound and wound\n About the stars and moon and sun:\n O would beloved that you lay\n Under the dock-leaves in the ground,\n While lights were paling one by one.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven", + "body": " Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,\n Enwrought with golden and silver light,\n The blue and the dim and the dark cloths\n Of night and light and the half light,\n I would spread the cloths under your feet:\n But I, being poor, have only my dreams;\n I have spread my dreams under your feet;\n Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Mongan Thinks Of His Past Greatness", + "body": " I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young\n And weep because I know all things now:\n I have been a hazel tree and they hung\n The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough\n Among my leaves in times out of mind:\n I became a rush that horses tread:\n I became a man, a hater of the wind,\n Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head\n Would not lie on the breast or his lips on the hair\n Of the woman that he loves, until he dies;\n Although the rushes and the fowl of the air\n Cry of his love with their pitiful cries.\n\n\n\n\nNOTES", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Hosting Of The Sidhe.", + "body": "The powerful and wealthy called the gods of ancient Ireland the Tuatha\nDe Danaan, or the Tribes of the goddess Danu, but the poor called them,\nand still sometimes call them, the Sidhe, from Aes Sidhe or Sluagh\nSidhe, the people of the Faery Hills, as these words are usually\nexplained. Sidhe is also Gaelic for wind, and certainly the Sidhe have\nmuch to do with the wind. They journey in whirling winds, the winds that\nwere called the dance of the daughters of Herodias in the Middle Ages,\nHerodias doubtless taking the place of some old goddess. When the\ncountry people see the leaves whirling on the road they bless\nthemselves, because they believe the Sidhe to be passing by. They are\nalmost always said to wear no covering upon their heads, and to let\ntheir hair stream out; and the great among them, for they have great and\nsimple, go much upon horseback. If any one becomes too much interested\nin them, and sees them over much, he loses all interest in ordinary\nthings. I shall write a great deal elsewhere about such enchanted\npersons, and can give but an example or two now.\n\nA woman near Gort, in Galway, says: 'There is a boy, now, of the\nCloran's; but I wouldn't for the world let them think I spoke of him;\nit's two years since he came from America, and since that time he never\nwent to Mass, or to church, or to fairs, or to market, or to stand on\nthe cross roads, or to hurling, or to nothing. And if any one comes into\nthe house, it's into the room he'll slip, not to see them; and as to\nwork, he has the garden dug to bits, and the whole place smeared with\ncow dung; and such a crop as was never seen; and the alders all plaited\ntill they look grand. One day he went as far as the chapel; but as soon\nas he got to the door he turned straight round again, as if he hadn't\npower to pass it. I wonder he wouldn't get the priest to read a Mass for\nhim, or something; but the crop he has is grand, and you may know well\nhe has some to help him.' One hears many stories of the kind; and a man\nwhose son is believed to go out riding among them at night tells me that\nhe is careless about everything, and lies in bed until it is late in the\nday. A doctor believes this boy to be mad. Those that are at times\n'away,' as it is called, know all things, but are afraid to speak. A\ncountryman at Kiltartan says, 'There was one of the Lydons--John--was\naway for seven years, lying in his bed, but brought away at nights, and\nhe knew everything; and one, Kearney, up in the mountains, a cousin of\nhis own, lost two hoggets, and came and told him, and he knew the very\nspot where they were, and told him, and he got them back again. But\n_they_ were vexed at that, and took away the power, so that he never\nknew anything again, no more than another.' This wisdom is the wisdom of\nthe fools of the Celtic stories, that was above all the wisdom of the\nwise. Lomna, the fool of Fiann, had so great wisdom that his head, cut\nfrom his body, was still able to sing and prophesy; and a writer in the\n'Encyclopaedia Britannica' writes that Tristram, in the oldest form of\nthe tale of Tristram and Iseult, drank wisdom, and madness the shadow of\nwisdom, and not love, out of the magic cup.\n\nThe great of the old times are among the Tribes of Danu, and are kings\nand queens among them. Caolte was a companion of Fiann; and years after\nhis death he appeared to a king in a forest, and was a flaming man, that\nhe might lead him in the darkness. When the king asked him who he was,\nhe said, 'I am your candlestick.' I do not remember where I have read\nthis story, and I have, maybe, half forgotten it. Niam was a beautiful\nwoman of the Tribes of Danu, that led Oisin to the Country of the Young,\nas their country is called; I have written about her in 'The Wandering\nof Usheen;' and he came back, at last, to bitterness and weariness.\n\nKnocknarea is in Sligo, and the country people say that Maeve, still a\ngreat queen of the western Sidhe, is buried in the cairn of stones upon\nit. I have written of Clooth-na-Bare in 'The Celtic Twilight.' She 'went\nall over the world, seeking a lake deep enough to drown her faery life,\nof which she had grown weary, leaping from hill to hill, and setting up\na cairn of stones wherever her feet lighted, until, at last, she found\nthe deepest water in the world in little Lough Ia, on the top of the\nbird mountain, in Sligo.' I forget, now, where I heard this story, but\nit may have been from a priest at Collooney. Clooth-na-Bare would mean\nthe old woman of Bare, but is evidently a corruption of Cailleac Bare,\nthe old woman Bare, who, under the names Bare, and Berah, and Beri, and\nVerah, and Dera, and Dhira, appears in the legends of many places. Mr.\nO'Grady found her haunting Lough Liath high up on the top of a mountain\nof the Fews, the Slieve Fuadh, or Slieve G-Cullain of old times, under\nthe name of the Cailleac Buillia. He describes Lough Liath as a desolate\nmoon-shaped lake, with made wells and sunken passages upon its borders,\nand beset by marsh and heather and gray boulders, and closes his\n'Flight of the Eagle' with a long rhapsody upon mountain and lake,\nbecause of the heroic tales and beautiful old myths that have hung about\nthem always. He identifies the Cailleac Buillia with that Meluchra who\npersuaded Fionn to go to her amid the waters of Lough Liath, and so\nchanged him with her enchantments, that, though she had to free him\nbecause of the threats of the Fiana, his hair was ever afterwards as\nwhite as snow. To this day the Tribes of the Goddess Danu that are in\nthe waters beckon to men, and drown them in the waters; and Bare, or\nDhira, or Meluchra, or whatever name one likes the best, is, doubtless,\nthe name of a mistress among them. Meluchra was daughter of Cullain; and\nCullain Mr. O'Grady calls, upon I know not what authority, a form of\nLir, the master of waters. The people of the waters have been in all\nages beautiful and changeable and lascivious, or beautiful and wise and\nlonely, for water is everywhere the signature of the fruitfulness of the\nbody and of the fruitfulness of dreams. The white hair of Fionn may be\nbut another of the troubles of those that come to unearthly wisdom and\nearthly trouble, and the threats and violence of the Fiana against her,\na different form of the threats and violence the country people use, to\nmake the Tribes of Danu give up those that are 'away.' Bare is now often\ncalled an ugly old woman; but Dr. Joyce says that one of her old names\nwas Aebhin, which means beautiful. Aebhen was the goddess of the tribes\nof northern Leinster; and the lover she had made immortal, and who loved\nher perfectly, left her, and put on mortality, to fight among them\nagainst the stranger, and died on the strand of Clontarf.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "'Aedh,' 'Hanrahan' And 'Michael Robartes' In These Poems.", + "body": "These are personages in 'The Secret Rose;' but, with the exception of\nsome of Hanrahan's and one of Aedh's poems, the poems are not out of\nthat book. I have used them in this book more as principles of the mind\nthan as actual personages. It is probable that only students of the\nmagical tradition will understand me when I say that 'Michael Robartes'\nis fire reflected in water, and that Hanrahan is fire blown by the wind,\nand that Aedh, whose name is not merely the Irish form of Hugh, but the\nIrish for fire, is fire burning by itself. To put it in a different way,\nHanrahan is the simplicity of an imagination too changeable to gather\npermanent possessions, or the adoration of the shepherds; and Michael\nRobartes is the pride of the imagination brooding upon the greatness of\nits possessions, or the adoration of the Magi; while Aedh is the myrrh\nand frankincense that the imagination offers continually before all that\nit loves.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Aedh Hears The Cry Of The Sedge.", + "body": "The Rose has been for many centuries a symbol of spiritual love and\nsupreme beauty. The Count Goblet D'Alviella thinks that it was once a\nsymbol of the sun,--itself a principal symbol of the divine nature, and\nthe symbolic heart of things. The lotus was in some Eastern countries\nimagined blossoming upon the Tree of Life, as the Flower of Life, and is\nthus represented in Assyrian bas-reliefs. Because the Rose, the flower\nsacred to the Virgin Mary, and the flower that Apuleius' adventurer ate,\nwhen he was changed out of the ass's shape and received into the\nfellowship of Isis, is the western Flower of Life, I have imagined it\ngrowing upon the Tree of Life. I once stood beside a man in Ireland when\nhe saw it growing there in a vision, that seemed to have rapt him out of\nhis body. He saw the garden of Eden walled about, and on the top of a\nhigh mountain, as in certain mediaeval diagrams, and after passing the\nTree of Knowledge, on which grew fruit full of troubled faces, and\nthrough whose branches flowed, he was told, sap that was human souls, he\ncame to a tall, dark tree, with little bitter fruits, and was shown a\nkind of stair or ladder going up through the tree, and told to go up;\nand near the top of the tree, a beautiful woman, like the Goddess of\nLife associated with the tree in Assyria, gave him a rose that seemed\nto have been growing upon the tree. One finds the Rose in the Irish\npoets, sometimes as a religious symbol, as in the phrase, 'the Rose of\nFriday,' meaning the Rose of austerity, in a Gaelic poem in Dr. Hyde's\n'Religious Songs of Connacht;' and, I think, as a symbol of woman's\nbeauty in the Gaelic song, 'Roseen Dubh;' and a symbol of Ireland in\nMangan's adaptation of 'Roseen Dubh,' 'My Dark Rosaleen,' and in Mr.\nAubrey de Vere's 'The Little Black Rose.' I do not know any evidence to\nprove whether this symbol came to Ireland with mediaeval Christianity, or\nwhether it has come down from Celtic times. I have read somewhere that a\nstone engraved with a Celtic god, who holds what looks like a rose in\none hand, has been found somewhere in England; but I cannot find the\nreference, though I certainly made a note of it. If the Rose was really\na symbol of Ireland among the Gaelic poets, and if 'Roseen Dubh' is\nreally a political poem, as some think, one may feel pretty certain that\nthe ancient Celts associated the Rose with Eire, or Fotla, or\nBanba--goddesses who gave their names to Ireland--or with some principal\ngod or goddess, for such symbols are not suddenly adopted or invented,\nbut come out of mythology.\n\nI have made the Seven Lights, the constellation of the Bear, lament for\nthe theft of the Rose, and I have made the Dragon, the constellation\nDraco, the guardian of the Rose, because these constellations move about\nthe pole of the heavens, the ancient Tree of Life in many countries, and\nare often associated with the Tree of Life in mythology. It is this Tree\nof Life that I have put into the 'Song of Mongan' under its common Irish\nform of a hazel; and, because it had sometimes the stars for fruit, I\nhave hung upon it 'the Crooked Plough' and the 'Pilot' star, as\nGaelic-speaking Irishmen sometimes call the Bear and the North star. I\nhave made it an axle-tree in 'Aedh hears the Cry of the Sedge,' for this\nwas another ancient way of representing it.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Host Of The Air.", + "body": "Some writers distinguish between the Sluagh Gaoith, the host of the air,\nand Sluagh Sidhe, the host of the Sidhe, and describe the host of the\nair as of a peculiar malignancy. Dr. Joyce says, 'of all the different\nkinds of goblins ... air demons were most dreaded by the people. They\nlived among clouds, and mists, and rocks, and hated the human race with\nthe utmost malignity.' A very old Arann charm, which contains the words\n'Send God, by his strength, between us and the host of the Sidhe,\nbetween us and the host of the air,' seems also to distinguish among\nthem. I am inclined, however, to think that the distinction came in with\nChristianity and its belief about the prince of the air, for the host of\nthe Sidhe, as I have already explained, are closely associated with the\nwind.\n\nThey are said to steal brides just after their marriage, and sometimes\nin a blast of wind. A man in Galway says, 'At Aughanish there were two\ncouples came to the shore to be married, and one of the newly married\nwomen was in the boat with the priest, and they going back to the\nisland; and a sudden blast of wind came, and the priest said some\nblessed words that were able to save himself, but the girl was swept.'\n\nThis woman was drowned; but more often the persons who are taken 'get\nthe touch,' as it is called, and fall into a half dream, and grow\nindifferent to all things, for their true life has gone out of the\nworld, and is among the hills and the forts of the Sidhe. A faery doctor\nhas told me that his wife 'got the touch' at her marriage because there\nwas one of them wanted her; and the way he knew for certain was, that\nwhen he took a pitchfork out of the rafters, and told her it was a\nbroom, she said, 'It is a broom.' She was, the truth is, in the magical\nsleep, to which people have given a new name lately, that makes the\nimagination so passive that it can be moulded by any voice in any world\ninto any shape. A mere likeness of some old woman, or even old animal,\nsome one or some thing the Sidhe have no longer a use for, is believed\nto be left instead of the person who is 'away;' this some one or some\nthing can, it is thought, be driven away by threats, or by violence\n(though I have heard country women say that violence is wrong), which\nperhaps awakes the soul out of the magical sleep. The story in the poem\nis founded on an old Gaelic ballad that was sung and translated for me\nby a woman at Ballisodare in County Sligo; but in the ballad the husband\nfound the keeners keening his wife when he got to his house. She was\n'swept' at once; but the Sidhe are said to value those the most whom\nthey but cast into a half dream, which may last for years, for they need\nthe help of a living person in most of the things they do. There are\nmany stories of people who seem to die and be buried--though the country\npeople will tell you it is but some one or some thing put in their place\nthat dies and is buried--and yet are brought back afterwards. These\ntales are perhaps memories of true awakenings out of the magical sleep,\nmoulded by the imagination, under the influence of a mystical doctrine\nwhich it understands too literally, into the shape of some well-known\ntraditional tale. One does not hear them as one hears the others, from\nthe persons who are 'away,' or from their wives or husbands; and one old\nman, who had often seen the Sidhe, began one of them with 'Maybe it is\nall vanity.'\n\nHere is a tale that a friend of mine heard in the Burren hills, and it\nis a type of all:--\n\n'There was a girl to be married, and she didn't like the man, and she\ncried when the day was coming, and said she wouldn't go along with him.\nAnd the mother said, \"Get into the bed, then, and I'll say that you're\nsick.\" And so she did. And when the man came the mother said to him,\n\"You can't get her, she's sick in the bed.\" And he looked in and said,\n\"That's not my wife that's in the bed, it's some old hag.\" And the\nmother began to cry and to roar. And he went out and got two hampers of\nturf, and made a fire, that they thought he was going to burn the house\ndown. And when the fire was kindled, \"Come out now,\" says he, \"and we'll\nsee who you are, when I'll put you on the fire.\" And when she heard\nthat, she gave one leap, and was out of the house, and they saw, then,\nit was an old hag she was. Well, the man asked the advice of an old\nwoman, and she bid him go to a faery-bush that was near, and he might\nget some word of her. So he went there at night, and saw all sorts of\ngrand people, and they in carriages or riding on horses, and among them\nhe could see the girl he came to look for. So he went again to the old\nwoman, and she said, \"If you can get the three bits of blackthorn out of\nher hair, you'll get her again.\" So that night he went again, and that\ntime he only got hold of a bit of her hair. But the old woman told him\nthat was no use, and that he was put back now, and it might be twelve\nnights before he'd get her. But on the fourth night he got the third bit\nof blackthorn, and he took her, and she came away with him. He never\ntold the mother he had got her; but one day she saw her at a fair, and,\nsays she, \"That's my daughter; I know her by the smile and by the laugh\nof her,\" and she with a shawl about her head. So the husband said,\n\"You're right there, and hard I worked to get her.\" She spoke often of\nthe grand things she saw underground, and how she used to have wine to\ndrink, and to drive out in a carriage with four horses every night. And\nshe used to be able to see her husband when he came to look for her, and\nshe was greatly afraid he'd get a drop of the wine, for then he would\nhave come underground and never left it again. And she was glad herself\nto come to earth again, and not to be left there.'\n\nThe old Gaelic literature is full of the appeals of the Tribes of the\ngoddess Danu to mortals whom they would bring into their country; but\nthe song of Midher to the beautiful Etain, the wife of the king who was\ncalled Echaid the ploughman, is the type of all.\n\n'O beautiful woman, come with me to the marvellous land where one\nlistens to a sweet music, where one has spring flowers in one's hair,\nwhere the body is like snow from head to foot, where no one is sad or\nsilent, where teeth are white and eyebrows are black ... cheeks red like\nfoxglove in flower.... Ireland is beautiful, but not so beautiful as the\nGreat Plain I call you to. The beer of Ireland is heady, but the beer of\nthe Great Plain is much more heady. How marvellous is the country I am\nspeaking of! Youth does not grow old there. Streams with warm flood flow\nthere; sometimes mead, sometimes wine. Men are charming and without a\nblot there, and love is not forbidden there. O woman, when you come into\nmy powerful country you will wear a crown of gold upon your head. I will\ngive you the flesh of swine, and you will have beer and milk to drink, O\nbeautiful woman. O beautiful woman, come with me!'", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Michael Robartes Asks Forgiveness Because Of His Many Moods.", + "body": "I use the wind as a symbol of vague desires and hopes, not merely\nbecause the Sidhe are in the wind, or because the wind bloweth as it\nlisteth, but because wind and spirit and vague desire have been\nassociated everywhere. A highland scholar tells me that his country\npeople use the wind in their talk and in their proverbs as I use it in\nmy poem.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Song Of Wandering Aengus.", + "body": "The Tribes of the goddess Danu can take all shapes, and those that are\nin the waters take often the shape of fish. A woman of Burren, in\nGalway, says, 'There are more of them in the sea than on the land, and\nthey sometimes try to come over the side of the boat in the form of\nfishes, for they can take their choice shape.' At other times they are\nbeautiful women; and another Galway woman says, 'Surely those things are\nin the sea as well as on land. My father was out fishing one night off\nTyrone. And something came beside the boat that had eyes shining like\ncandles. And then a wave came in, and a storm rose all in a minute, and\nwhatever was in the wave, the weight of it had like to sink the boat.\nAnd then they saw that it was a woman in the sea that had the shining\neyes. So my father went to the priest, and he bid him always to take a\ndrop of holy water and a pinch of salt out in the boat with him, and\nnothing could harm him.'\n\nThe poem was suggested to me by a Greek folk song; but the folk belief\nof Greece is very like that of Ireland, and I certainly thought, when I\nwrote it, of Ireland, and of the spirits that are in Ireland. An old man\nwho was cutting a quickset hedge near Gort, in Galway, said, only the\nother day, 'One time I was cutting timber over in Inchy, and about eight\no'clock one morning, when I got there, I saw a girl picking nuts, with\nher hair hanging down over her shoulders; brown hair; and she had a\ngood, clean face, and she was tall, and nothing on her head, and her\ndress no way gaudy, but simple. And when she felt me coming she gathered\nherself up, and was gone, as if the earth had swallowed her up. And I\nfollowed her, and looked for her, but I never could see her again from\nthat day to this, never again.'\n\nThe county Galway people use the word 'clean' in its old sense of fresh\nand comely.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Michael Robartes Bids His Beloved Be At Peace.", + "body": "November, the old beginning of winter, or of the victory of the Fomor,\nor powers of death, and dismay, and cold, and darkness, is associated by\nthe Irish people with the horse-shaped Pucas, who are now mischievous\nspirits, but were once Fomorian divinities. I think that they may have\nsome connection with the horses of Mannannan, who reigned over the\ncountry of the dead, where the Fomorian Tethra reigned also; and the\nhorses of Mannannan, though they could cross the land as easily as the\nsea, are constantly associated with the waves. Some neo-platonist, I\nforget who, describes the sea as a symbol of the drifting indefinite\nbitterness of life, and I believe there is like symbolism intended in\nthe many Irish voyages to the islands of enchantment, or that there was,\nat any rate, in the mythology out of which these stories have been\nshaped. I follow much Irish and other mythology, and the magical\ntradition, in associating the North with night and sleep, and the East,\nthe place of sunrise, with hope, and the South, the place of the sun\nwhen at its height, with passion and desire, and the West, the place of\nsunset, with fading and dreaming things.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "Hanrahan Laments Because Of His Wanderings.", + "body": "My deer and hound are properly related to the deer and hound that\nflicker in and out of the various tellings of the Arthurian legends,\nleading different knights upon adventures, and to the hounds and to the\nhornless deer at the beginning of, I think, all tellings of Oisin's\njourney to the country of the young. The hound is certainly related to\nthe Hounds of Annwvyn or of Hades, who are white, and have red ears, and\nwere heard, and are, perhaps, still heard by Welsh peasants following\nsome flying thing in the night winds; and is probably related to the\nhounds that Irish country people believe will awake and seize the souls\nof the dead if you lament them too loudly or too soon, and to the hound\nthe son of Setanta killed, on what was certainly, in the first form of\nthe tale, a visit to the Celtic Hades. An old woman told a friend and\nmyself that she saw what she thought were white birds, flying over an\nenchanted place, but found, when she got near, that they had dog's\nheads; and I do not doubt that my hound and these dog-headed birds are\nof the same family. I got my hound and deer out of a last century Gaelic\npoem about Oisin's journey to the country of the young. After the\nhunting of the hornless deer, that leads him to the seashore, and while\nhe is riding over the sea with Niam, he sees amid the waters--I have not\nthe Gaelic poem by me, and describe it from memory--a young man\nfollowing a girl who has a golden apple, and afterwards a hound with one\nred ear following a deer with no horns. This hound and this deer seem\nplain images of the desire of man 'which is for the woman,' and 'the\ndesire of the woman which is for the desire of the man,' and of all\ndesires that are as these. I have read them in this way in 'The\nWanderings of Usheen' or Oisin, and have made my lover sigh because he\nhas seen in their faces 'the immortal desire of immortals.' A solar\nmythologist would perhaps say that the girl with the golden apple was\nonce the winter, or night, carrying the sun away, and the deer without\nhorns, like the boar without bristles, darkness flying the light. He\nwould certainly, I think, say that when Cuchullain, whom Professor Rhys\ncalls a solar hero, hunted the enchanted deer of Slieve Fuadh, because\nthe battle fury was still on him, he was the sun pursuing clouds, or\ncold, or darkness. I have understood them in this sense in 'Hanrahan\nlaments because of his wandering,' and made Hanrahan long for the day\nwhen they, fragments of ancestral darkness, will overthrow the world.\nThe desire of the woman, the flying darkness, it is all one! The\nimage--a cross, a man preaching in the wilderness, a dancing Salome, a\nlily in a girl's hand, a flame leaping, a globe with wings, a pale\nsunset over still waters--is an eternal act; but our understandings are\ntemporal and understand but a little at a time.\n\nThe man in my poem who has a hazel wand may have been Aengus, Master of\nLove; and I have made the boar without bristles come out of the West,\nbecause the place of sunset was in Ireland, as in other countries, a\nplace of symbolic darkness and death.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Cap And Bells.", + "body": "I dreamed this story exactly as I have written it, and dreamed another\nlong dream after it, trying to make out its meaning, and whether I was\nto write it in prose or verse. The first dream was more a vision than a\ndream, for it was beautiful and coherent, and gave me the sense of\nillumination and exaltation that one gets from visions, while the second\ndream was confused and meaningless. The poem has always meant a great\ndeal to me, though, as is the way with symbolic poems, it has not always\nmeant quite the same thing. Blake would have said 'the authors are in\neternity,' and I am quite sure they can only be questioned in dreams.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Valley Of The Black Pig.", + "body": "All over Ireland there are prophecies of the coming rout of the enemies\nof Ireland, in a certain Valley of the Black Pig, and these prophecies\nare, no doubt, now, as they were in the Fenian days, a political force.\nI have heard of one man who would not give any money to the Land League,\nbecause the Battle could not be until the close of the century; but, as\na rule, periods of trouble bring prophecies of its near coming. A few\nyears before my time, an old man who lived at Lisadell, in Sligo, used\nto fall down in a fit and rave out descriptions of the Battle; and a man\nin Sligo has told me that it will be so great a battle that the horses\nshall go up to their fetlocks in blood, and that their girths, when it\nis over, will rot from their bellies for lack of a hand to unbuckle\nthem. The battle is a mythological battle, and the black pig is one with\nthe bristleless boar, that killed Dearmod, in November, upon the western\nend of Ben Bulben; Misroide MacDatha's sow, whose carving brought on so\ngreat a battle; 'the croppy black sow,' and 'the cutty black sow' of\nWelsh November rhymes ('Celtic Heathendom,' pages 509-516); the boar\nthat killed Adonis; the boar that killed Attis; and the pig embodiment\nof Typhon ('Golden Bough,' II. pages 26, 31). The pig seems to have been\noriginally a genius of the corn, and, seemingly because the too great\npower of their divinity makes divine things dangerous to mortals, its\nflesh was forbidden to many eastern nations; but as the meaning of the\nprohibition was forgotten, abhorrence took the place of reverence, pigs\nand boars grew into types of evil, and were described as the enemies of\nthe very gods they once typified ('Golden Bough,' II. 26-31, 56-57). The\nPig would, therefore, become the Black Pig, a type of cold and of winter\nthat awake in November, the old beginning of winter, to do battle with\nthe summer, and with the fruit and leaves, and finally, as I suggest;\nand as I believe, for the purposes of poetry; of the darkness that will\nat last destroy the gods and the world. The country people say there is\nno shape for a spirit to take so dangerous as the shape of a pig; and a\nGalway blacksmith--and blacksmiths are thought to be especially\nprotected--says he would be afraid to meet a pig on the road at night;\nand another Galway man tells this story: 'There was a man coming the\nroad from Gort to Garryland one night, and he had a drop taken; and\nbefore him, on the road, he saw a pig walking; and having a drop in, he\ngave a shout, and made a kick at it, and bid it get out of that. And by\nthe time he got home, his arm was swelled from the shoulder to be as big\nas a bag, and he couldn't use his hand with the pain of it. And his wife\nbrought him, after a few days, to a woman that used to do cures at\nRahasane. And on the road all she could do would hardly keep him from\nlying down to sleep on the grass. And when they got to the woman she\nknew all that happened; and, says she, it's well for you that your wife\ndidn't let you fall asleep on the grass, for if you had done that but\neven for one instant, you'd be a lost man.'\n\nIt is possible that bristles were associated with fertility, as the tail\ncertainly was, for a pig's tail is stuck into the ground in Courland,\nthat the corn may grow abundantly, and the tails of pigs, and other\nanimal embodiments of the corn genius, are dragged over the ground to\nmake it fertile in different countries. Professor Rhys, who considers\nthe bristleless boar a symbol of darkness and cold, rather than of\nwinter and cold, thinks it was without bristles because the darkness is\nshorn away by the sun. It may have had different meanings, just as the\nscourging of the man-god has had different though not contradictory\nmeanings in different epochs of the world.\n\nThe Battle should, I believe, be compared with three other battles; a\nbattle the Sidhe are said to fight when a person is being taken away by\nthem; a battle they are said to fight in November for the harvest; the\ngreat battle the Tribes of the goddess Danu fought, according to the\nGaelic chroniclers, with the Fomor at Moy Tura, or the Towery Plain.\n\nI have heard of the battle over the dying both in County Galway and in\nthe Isles of Arann, an old Arann fisherman having told me that it was\nfought over two of his children, and that he found blood in a box he had\nfor keeping fish, when it was over; and I have written about it, and\ngiven examples elsewhere. A faery doctor, on the borders of Galway and\nClare, explained it as a battle between the friends and enemies of the\ndying, the one party trying to take them, the other trying to save them\nfrom being taken. It may once, when the land of the Sidhe was the only\nother world, and when every man who died was carried thither, have\nalways accompanied death. I suggest that the battle between the Tribes\nof the goddess Danu, the powers of light, and warmth, and fruitfulness,\nand goodness, and the Fomor, the powers of darkness, and cold, and\nbarrenness, and badness upon the Towery Plain, was the establishment of\nthe habitable world, the rout of the ancestral darkness; that the battle\namong the Sidhe for the harvest is the annual battle of summer and\nwinter; that the battle among the Sidhe at a man's death is the battle\nof life and death; and that the battle of the Black Pig is the battle\nbetween the manifest world and the ancestral darkness at the end of all\nthings; and that all these battles are one, the battle of all things\nwith shadowy decay. Once a symbolism has possessed the imagination of\nlarge numbers of men, it becomes, as I believe, an embodiment of\ndisembodied powers, and repeats itself in dreams and visions, age after\nage.", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + }, + { + "title": "The Secret Rose.", + "body": "I find that I have unintentionally changed the old story of Conchobar's\ndeath. He did not see the crucifixion in a vision, but was told about\nit. He had been struck by a ball, made of the dried brain of a dead\nenemy, and hurled out of a sling; and this ball had been left in his\nhead, and his head had been mended, the Book of Leinster says, with\nthread of gold because his hair was like gold. Keating, a writer of the\ntime of Elizabeth, says, 'In that state did he remain seven years, until\nthe Friday on which Christ was crucified, according to some historians;\nand when he saw the unusual changes of the creation and the eclipse of\nthe sun and the moon at its full, he asked of Bucrach, a Leinster\nDruid, who was along with him, what was it that brought that unusual\nchange upon the planets of Heaven and Earth. \"Jesus Christ, the son of\nGod,\" said the Druid, \"who is now being crucified by the Jews.\" \"That is\na pity,\" said Conchobar; \"were I in his presence I would kill those who\nwere putting him to death.\" And with that he brought out his sword, and\nrushed at a woody grove which was convenient to him, and began to cut\nand fell it; and what he said was, that if he were among the Jews that\nwas the usage he would give them, and from the excessiveness of his fury\nwhich seized upon him, the ball started out of his head, and some of the\nbrain came after it, and in that way he died. The wood of Lanshraigh, in\nFeara Rois, is the name by which that shrubby wood is called.'\n\nI have imagined Cuchullain meeting Fand 'walking among flaming dew.' The\nstory of their love is one of the most beautiful of our old tales. Two\nbirds, bound one to another with a chain of gold, came to a lake side\nwhere Cuchullain and the host of Uladh was encamped, and sang so sweetly\nthat all the host fell into a magic sleep. Presently they took the shape\nof two beautiful women, and cast a magical weakness upon Cuchullain, in\nwhich he lay for a year. At the year's end an Aengus, who was probably\nAengus the master of love, one of the greatest of the children of the\ngoddess Danu, came and sat upon his bedside, and sang how Fand, the wife\nof Mannannan, the master of the sea, and of the islands of the dead,\nloved him; and that if he would come into the country of the gods, where\nthere was wine and gold and silver, Fand, and Laban her sister, would\nheal him of his magical weakness. Cuchullain went to the country of the\ngods, and, after being for a month the lover of Fand, made her a\npromise to meet her at a place called 'the Yew at the Strand's End,' and\ncame back to the earth. Emer, his mortal wife, won his love again, and\nMannannan came to 'the Yew at the Strand's End,' and carried Fand away.\nWhen Cuchullain saw her going, his love for her fell upon him again, and\nhe went mad, and wandered among the mountains without food or drink,\nuntil he was at last cured by a Druid drink of forgetfulness.\n\nI have founded the man 'who drove the gods out of their Liss,' or fort,\nupon something I have read about Caolte after the battle of Gabra, when\nalmost all his companions were killed, driving the gods out of their\nLiss, either at Osraighe, now Ossory, or at Eas Ruaidh, now Asseroe, a\nwaterfall at Ballyshannon, where Ilbreac, one of the children of the\ngoddess Danu, had a Liss. I am writing away from most of my books, and\nhave not been able to find the passage; but I certainly read it\nsomewhere.\n\nI have founded 'the proud dreaming king' upon Fergus, the son of Roigh,\nthe legendary poet of 'the quest of the bull of Cualge,' as he is in the\nancient story of Deirdre, and in modern poems by Ferguson. He married\nNessa, and Ferguson makes him tell how she took him 'captive in a single\nlook.'\n\n 'I am but an empty shade,\n Far from life and passion laid;\n Yet does sweet remembrance thrill\n All my shadowy being still.'\n\nPresently, because of his great love, he gave up his throne to\nConchobar, her son by another, and lived out his days feasting, and\nfighting, and hunting. His promise never to refuse a feast from a\ncertain comrade, and the mischief that came by his promise, and the\nvengeance he took afterwards, are a principal theme of the poets. I\nhave explained my imagination of him in 'Fergus and the Druid,' and in a\nlittle song in the second act of 'The Countess Kathleen.'\n\n * * * * *\n\nI have founded him 'who sold tillage, and house, and goods,' upon\nsomething in 'The Red Pony,' a folk tale in Mr. Larminie's 'West Irish\nFolk Tales.' A young man 'saw a light before him on the high road. When\nhe came as far, there was an open box on the road, and a light coming up\nout of it. He took up the box. There was a lock of hair in it. Presently\nhe had to go to become the servant of a king for his living. There were\neleven boys. When they were going out into the stable at ten o'clock,\neach of them took a light but he. He took no candle at all with him.\nEach of them went into his own stable. When he went into his stable he\nopened the box. He left it in a hole in the wall. The light was great.\nIt was twice as much as in the other stables.' The king hears of it, and\nmakes him show him the box. The king says, 'You must go and bring me the\nwoman to whom the hair belongs.' In the end, the young man, and not the\nking, marries the woman.\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of Project Gutenberg's The Wind Among the Reeds, by William Butler Yeats", + "author": "W.B. Yeats", + "source": "The Wind Among the Reeds", + "period": "1899" + } +] \ No newline at end of file