by Paul Keegan
Thy mountains, seas and vineyards and the towers
Of cities they encircle! – it was ours
To stand on thee, beholding it; and then
Just where we had dismounted, the Count’s men
Were waiting for us with the gondola. –
As those who pause on some delightful way
Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood
Looking upon the evening and the flood
Which lay between the city and the shore
Paved with the image of the sky… the hoar
And aery Alps towards the North appeared
Through mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared
Between the East and West; and half the sky
Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry
Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew
Down the steep West into a wondrous hue
Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent
Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent
Among the many folded hills: they were
Those famous Euganean hills, which bear
As seen from Lido through the harbour piles
The likeness of a clump of peaked isles –
And then – as if the Earth and Sea had been
Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen
Those mountains towering as from waves of flame
Around the vaporous sun, from which there came
The inmost purple spirit of light, and made
Their very peaks transparent. ‘Ere it fade,’
Said my Companion, ‘I will shew you soon
A better station’ – so, o’er the lagune
We glided, and from that funereal bark
I leaned, and saw the City, and could mark
How from their many isles, in evening’s gleam,
Its temples and its palaces did seem
Like fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven.
I was about to speak, when – ‘We are even
Now at the point I meant,’ said Maddalo,
And bade the gondolieri cease to row.
‘Look, Julian, on the West, and listen well
If you hear not a deep and heavy bell.’
I looked, and saw between us and the sun
A building on an island; such a one
As age to age might add, for uses vile,
A windowless, deformed and dreary pile;
And on the top an open tower, where hung
A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung;
We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue:
The broad sun sunk behind it, and it tolled
In strong and black relief. – ‘What we behold
Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,’
Said Maddalo, ‘and ever at this hour
Those who may cross the water, hear that bell
Which calls the maniacs each one from his cell
To vespers.’ – ‘As much skill as need to pray
In thanks or hope for their dark lot have they
To their stern maker,’ I replied. ‘O ho!
You talk as in years past,’ said Maddalo.
“Tis strange men change not. You were ever still
Among Christ’s flock a perilous infidel,
A wolf for the meek lambs – if you can’t swim
Beware of Providence.’ I looked on him,
But the gay smile had faded in his eye.
‘And such,’ – he cried, ‘is our mortality
And this must be the emblem and the sign
Of what should be eternal and divine! –
And like that black and dreary bell, the soul,
Hung in a heaven-illumined tower, must toll
Our thoughts and our desires to meet below
Round the rent heart and pray – as madmen do
For what? they know not, – till the night of death
As sunset that strange vision, severeth
Our memory from itself, and us from all
We sought and yet were baffled!’ I recall
The sense of what he said, although I mar
The force of his expressions. The broad star
Of day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill
And the black bell became invisible
And the red tower looked grey, and all between
The churches, ships and palaces were seen
Huddled in gloom; – into the purple sea
The orange hues of heaven sunk silently.
We hardly spoke, and soon the gondola
Conveyed me to my lodging by the way.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY from The Triumph of Life
As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay
This was the tenour of my waking dream.
Methought I sate beside a public way
Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream
Of people there was hurrying to and fro
Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,
All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know
Whither he went, or whence he came, or why
He made one of the multitude, yet so
Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky
One of the million leaves of summer’s bier. –
Old age and youth, manhood and infancy,
Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,
Some flying from the thing they feared and some
Seeking the object of another’s fear,
And others as with steps towards the tomb
Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,
And others mournfully within the gloom
Of their own shadow walked, and called it death…
And some fled from it as it were a ghost,
Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath.
But more with motions which each other crost
Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw
Or birds within the noonday ether lost,
Upon that path where flowers never grew;
And weary with vain toil and faint for thirst
Heard not the fountains whose melodious dew
Out of their mossy cells forever burst
Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told
Of grassy paths, and wood lawns interspersed
With overarching elms and caverns cold,
And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they
Pursued their serious folly as of old….
And as I gazed methought that in the way
The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June
When the South wind shakes the extinguished day. –
And a cold glare, intenser than the noon
But icy cold, obscured with light
The Sun as he the stars. Like the young Moon
When on the sunlit limits of the night
Her white shell trembles amid crimson air
And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might
Doth, as a herald of its coming, bear
The ghost of her dead Mother, whose dim form
Bends in dark ether from her infant’s chair,
So came a chariot on the silent storm
Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape
So sate within as one whom years deform
Beneath a dusky hood and double cape
Crouching within the shadow of a tomb,
And o’er what seemed the head a cloud like crape
Was bent, a dun and faint etherial gloom
Tempering the light; upon the chariot’s beam
A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume
The guidance of that wonder-winged team.
The Shapes which drew it in thick lightnings
Were lost: I heard alone on the air’s soft stream
The music of their ever moving wings.
All the four faces of that charioteer
Had their eyes banded… little profit brings
Speed in the van and blindness in the rear,
Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun
Or that these banded eyes could pierce the sphere
Of all that is, has been, or will be done. –
So ill was the car guided, but it past
With solemn speed majestically on…
The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast,
Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,
And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast
The million with fierce song and maniac dance
Raging around; such seemed the jubilee
As when to greet some conqueror’s advance
Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea
From senatehouse and prison and theatre
When Freedom left those who upon the free
Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear.
Nor wanted here the just similitude
Of a triumphal pageant, for where’er
The chariot rolled a captive multitude
Was driven; all those who had grown old in power
Or misery, – all who have their age subdued,
By action or by suffering, and whose hour
Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,
So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;
All those whose fame or infamy must grow
Till the great winter lay the form and name
Of their own earth with them forever low –
All but the sacred few who could not tame
Their spirits to the Conqueror, but as soon
As they had touched the world with living flame
Fled back like eagles to their native noon,
Or those who put aside the diadem
Of earthly thrones or gems, till the last one
Were there; for they of Athens and Jerusalem
Were neither mid the mighty captives seen
Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them
Or fled before…. Swift, fierce and obscene
The wild dance maddens in the van, and those
Who lead it, fleet as shadows on the green,
Outspeed the chariot and without repose
Mix with each other in tempestuous measure
To savage music…. Wilder as it grows,
They, tortured by the agonizing pleasure,
Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun
Of that fierce spirit, whose unholy leisure
Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,
Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair,
And in their dance round her who dims the Sun
Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air
As their feet twinkle; now recede and now
Bending within each other’s atmosphere
Kindle invisibly; and as they glow
Like moths by light attracted and repelled,
Oft to new bright destruction come and go,
Till like two clouds into one vale impelled
That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle
And die in rain, – the fiery band which held
Their natures, snaps… ere the shock cease to tingle
One falls and then another in the path
Senseless, nor is the desolation single,
Yet ere I can say where the chariot hath
Past over them; nor other trace I find
But as of foam after the Ocean’s wrath
Is spent upon the desert shore. – Behind,
Old men, and women foully disarrayed
Shake their grey hair in the insulting wind,
Limp in the dance and strain with limbs decayed
To reach the car of light which leaves them still
Farther behind and deeper in the shade.
But not the less with impotence of will
They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose
Round them and round each other, and fulfill
Their work and to the dust whence they arose
Sink and corruption veils them as they lie –
And frost in these performs what fire in those.
CAROLINE OLIPHANT, BARONESS NAIRNE The Laird o’ Cockpen
The laird o’Cockpen, he’s proud and he’s great
His mind is ta’en up wi’ the things o’ the State;
He wanted a wife, his braw house to keep,
But favour wi’ wooin’ was fashious to seek.
Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell,
At his table head he thought she’d look well,
McClish’s ae daughter o’ Clavers-ha’ Lee,
A penniless lass wi’ a lang pedigree.
His wig was weel pouther’d and as gude as new,
His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue;
He put on a ring, a sword, and cock’d hat,
And wha could refuse the laird wi’ a’ that?
He took his grey mare and he rade cannily,
An’ rapp’d at the yett o’ Clavers-ha’ Lee;
‘Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben, –
She’s wanted to speak to the Laird o’ Cockpen’.
Mistress Jean was makin’ the elderflower wine;
‘An’ what brings the laird at sic a like time?’
She put aff her apron, and on her silk gown,
Her mutch wi’ red ribbons, and gaed awa’ down.
An’ when she cam’ ben he bowed fu’ low,
An’ what was his errand he soon let her know;
Amazed was the laird when the lady said ‘Na’,
And wi’ a laigh curtsie she turned awa’.
Dumfounder’d was he, nae sigh did he gie,
He mounted his mare – he rade cannily;
An’ aften he thought, as he gaed through the glen,
She’s daft to refuse the laird o’ Cockpen.
CAROLINE OLIPHANT, BARONESS NAIRNE The Land o’ the Leal
I’m wearin’ awa’, John,
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,
I’m wearin’ awa’
To the land o’ the leal.
There’s nae sorrow there, John,
There’s neither cauld nor care, John,
The day’s aye fair