The Penguin Book of English Verse

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