Selected Poems
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We are eternal; and to us the past
Is, as the future, present. Art thou answer’d?
MANFRED: Ye mock me — but the power which brought ye here
Hath made you mine. Slaves, scoff not at my will!
The mind the spirit the Promethean spark
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The lightning of my being, is as bright,
Pervading, and far darting as your own,
And shall not yield to yours, though coop’d in clay!
Answer, or I will teach you what I am.
SPIRIT: We answer as we answer’d; our reply
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Is even in thine own words.
MANFRED:Why say ye so?
SPIRIT: If, as thou say’st, thine essence be as ours,
We have replied in telling thee, the thing
Mortals call death hath nought to do with us.
MANFRED: I then have call’d ye from your realms in vain;
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Ye cannot, or ye will not, aid me.
SPIRIT: Say;
What we possess we offer; it is thine:
Bethink ere thou dismiss us, ask again —
Kingdom, and sway, and strength, and length of days—
MANFRED: Accursed! what have I to do with days?
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They are too long already. – Hence – begone!
SPIRIT: Yet pause: being here, our will would do thee service;
Bethink thee, is there then no other gift
Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes?
MANFRED: No, none: yet stay — one moment, ere we part —
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I would behold ye face to face. I hear
Your voices, sweet and melancholy sounds,
As music on the waters; and I see
The steady aspect of a clear large star;
But nothing more. Approach me as ye are,
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Or one, or all, in your accustom’d forms.
SPIRIT: We have no forms, beyond the elements
Of which we are the mind and principle:
But choose a form – in that we will appear.
MANFRED: I have no choice; there is no form on earth
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Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him,
Who is most powerful of ye, take such aspect
As unto him may seem most fitting — Come!
SEVENTH SPIRIT [Appearing in the shape of a beautiful female figure]: Behold
MANFRED:Oh God! if it be thus, and thou
Art not a madness and a mockery,
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I yet might be most happy. I will clasp thee,
And we again will be —
[The figure vanishes.]
My heart is crush’d!
[MANFRED falls senseless.]
[A Voice is heard in the Incantation which follows.]
When the moon is on the wave,
And the glow-worm in the grass,
And the meteor on the grave,
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And the wisp on the morass;
When the falling stars are shooting,
And the answer’d owls are hooting,
And the silent leaves are still
In the shadow of the hill,
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Shall my soul be upon thine,
With a power and with a sign.
Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;
There are shades which will not vanish,
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There are thoughts thou canst not banish;
By a power to thee unknown,
Thou canst never be alone;
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,
Thou art gather’d in a cloud;
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And for ever shalt thou dwell
In the spirit of this spell.
Though thou seest me not pass by,
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye
As a thing that, though unseen,
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Must be near thee, and hath been;
And when in that secret dread
Thou hast turn’d around thy head,
Thou shalt marvel I am not
As thy shadow on the spot,
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And the power which thou dost feel
Shall be what thou must conceal.
And a magic voice and verse
Hath baptized thee with a curse;
And a spirit of the air
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Hath begirt thee with a snare;
In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice;
And to thee shall Night deny
All the quiet of her sky;
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And the day shall have a sun,
Which shall make thee wish it done.
From thy false tears I did distil
An essence which hath strength to kill;
From thy own heart I then did wring
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The black blood in its blackest spring;
From thy own smile I snatch’d the snake,
For there it coil’d as in a brake;
From thy own lip I drew the charm
Which gave all these their chiefest harm;
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In proving every poison known,
I found the strongest was thine own.
By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathom’d gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
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By thy shut soul’s hypocrisy;
By the perfection of thine art
Which pass’d for human thine own heart;
By thy delight in others’ pain,
And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
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I call upon thee! and compel
Thyself to be thy proper Hell!
And on th head I pour the vial
Which doth devote thee to this trial;
Nor to slumber, nor to die,
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Shall be in thy destiny;
Though thy death shall still seem near
To thy wish, but as a fear;
Lo! the spell now works around thee,
And the clankless chain hath bound thee;
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O’er thy heart and brain together
Hath the word been pass’d – now wither!
SCENE II
The Mountain of the Jungfrau. — Time, Morning. — MANFRED alone upon the Cliffs.
MANFRED: The spirits I have raised abandon me –
The spells which I have studied baffle me —
The remedy I reck’d of tortured me;
I lean no more on super-human aid,
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It hath no power upon the past, and for
The future, till the past be gulf’d in darkness,
It is not of my search. – My mother Earth!
And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains,
Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye.
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And thou, the bright eye of the universe,
That openest over all, and unto all
Art a delight – thou shin’st not on my heart.
And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge
I stand, and on the torrent’s brink beneath
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Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs
In dizziness of distance; when a leap,
A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring
My breast upon its rocky bosom’s bed
To rest for ever – wherefore do I pause?
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I feel the impulse – yet I do not plunge;
I see the peril — yet do not recede;
And my brain reels – and yet my foot is firm:
There is a power upon me which withholds,
And makes it my fatality to live;
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If it be life to wear within myself
This barr
enness of spirit, and to be
My own soul’s sepulchre, for I have ceased
To justify my deeds unto myself—
The last infirmity of evil. Ay,
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Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister,
[An eagle passes.)
Whose happy flight is highest into heaven,
Well may’st thou swoop so near me – I should be
Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone
Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine
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Yet pierces downward, onward, or above,
With a pervading vision. – Beautiful!
How beautiful is all this visible world!
How glorious in its action and itself!
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
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Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
To sink or soar, with our mix’d essence make
A conflict of its elements, and breathe
The breath of degradation and of pride,
Contending with low wants and lofty will,
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Till our mortality predominates,
And men are – what they name not to themselves,
And trust not to each other. Hark! the note,
[The Shepherd’s pipe in the distance is heard.]
The natural music of the mountain reed —
For here the patriarchal days are not
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A pastoral fable – pipes in the liberal air,
Mix’d with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd;
My soul would drink those echoes. – Oh, that I were
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,
A living voice, a breathing harmony,
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A bodiless enjoyment – born and dying
With the blest tone which made me!
[Enter from below a CHAMOIS HUNTER.]
CHAMOIS HUNTER:Even so
This way the chamois leapt: her nimble feet
Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce
Repay my break-neck travail. – What is here?
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Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reach’d
A height which none even of our mountaineers,
Save our best hunters, may attain: his garb
Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air
Proud as a freeborn peasant’s, at this distance –
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I will approach him nearer.
MANFRED [not perceiving the other]: To be thus –
Grey-hair’d with anguish, like these blasted pines,
Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,
A blighted trunk upon a cursed root,
Which but supplies a feeling to decay –
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And to be thus, eternally but thus,
Having been otherwise! Now furrow’d o’er
With wrinkles, plough’d by moments, not by years
And hours – all tortured into ages – hours
Which I outlive! – Ye toppling crags of ice!
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Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down
In mountainous o’erwhelming, come and crush me!
I hear ye momently above, beneath,
Crash with a frequent conflict; but ye pass,
And only fall on things that still would live;
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On the young flourishing forest, or the hut
And hamlet of the harmless villager.
CHAMOIS HUNTER: The mists begin to rise from up the valley;
I’ll warn him to descend, or he may chance
To lose at once his way and life together.
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MANFRED: The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds
Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury,
Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,
Whose every wave breaks on a living shore,
Heap’d with the damn’d like pebbles. – I am giddy.
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CHAMOIS HUNTER: I must approach him cautiously; if near,
A sudden step will startle him, and he
Seems tottering already.
MANFRED:Mountains have fallen,
Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock
Rocking their Alpine brethren; filling up
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The ripe green valleys with destruction’s splinters;
Damming the rivers with a sudden dash,
Which crush’d the waters into mist, and made
Their fountains find another channel – thus,
Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg –
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Why stood I not beneath it?
CHAMOIS HUNTER:Friend! have a care,
Your next step may be fatal! — for the love
Of him who made you, stand not on that brink!
MANFRED [not hearing him]: Such would have been for me a fitting tomb;
My bones had then been quiet in their depth;
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They had not then been strewn upon the rocks
For the wind’s pastime – as thus – thus they shall be –
In this one plunge. – Farewell, ye opening heavens!
Look not upon me thus reproachfully -
Ye were not meant for me – Earth! take these atoms!
[ As MANFRED is in act to spring from the cliff, the CHAMOIS HUNTER seizes and retains him with a sudden grasp.]
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CHAMOIS HUNTER: Hold, madman! — though aweary of thy life,
Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood –
Away with me — I will not quit my hold.
MANFRED: I am most sick at heart – nay, grasp me not –
I am all feebleness – the mountains whirl
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Spinning around me — I grow blind — What art thou?
CHAMOIS HUNTER: I’ll answer that anon. — Away with me —
The clouds grow thicker — there – now lean on me –
Place your foot here – here, take this staff, and cling
A moment to that shrub – now give me your hand,
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And hold fast by my girdle – softly – well –
The Chalet will be gain’d within an hour –
Come on, we’ll quickly find a surer footing,
And something like a pathway, which the torrent
Hath wash’d since winter. – Come, ’tis bravely done –
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You should have been a hunter. – Follow me.
[As they descend the rocks with difficulty, the scene closes.]
Act II
SCENE I
A Cottage amongst the Bernese Alps.
[MANFRED and the CHAMOIS HUNTER.]
CHAMOIS HUNTER: No, no – yet pause – thou must not yet go forth:
Thy mind and body are alike unfit
To trust each other; for some hours, at least;
When thou art better I will be thy guide –
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But whither?
MANFRED:It imports not: I do know
My route full well, and need no further guidance.
CHAMOIS HUNTER: Thy garb and gait bespeak thee of high lineage –
One of the many chiefs, whose castled crags
Look o’er the lower valleys — which of these
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May call thee lord? I only know their portals;
My way of life leads me but rarely down
To bask by the huge hearths of those old halls,
Carousing with the vassals; but the paths,
Which step from out our mountains to their doors,
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I know from childhood – which of these is thine?
MANFRED: No matter.
CHAMOIS HUNTER: Well, sir, pardon me the question,
And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine;
Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day
&nbs
p; ’T has thawed my veins among our glaciers, now
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Let it do thus for thine – Come, pledge me fairly.
MANFRED: Away, away! there’s blood upon the brim!
Will it then never — never sink in the earth?
CHAMOIS HUNTER: What dost thou mean? thy senses wander from thee.
MANFRED: I say ’tis blood – my blood! the pure warm stream
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Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours
When we were in our youth, and had one heart,
And loved each other as we should not love,
And this was shed: but still it rises up,
Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven,
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Where thou art not – and I shall never be.
CHAMOIS HUNTER: Man of strange words, and some half-maddening sin,
Which makes thee people vacancy, whate’er
Thy dread and sufferance be, there’s comfort yet —
The aid of holy men, and heavenly patience —
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MANFRED: Patience and patience! Hence – that word was made
For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey;
Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine, —
I am not of thine order.
CHAMOIS HUNTER:Thanks to heaven!
I would not be of thine for the free fame
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Of William Tell; but whatsoe’er thine ill,
It must be borne, and these wild starts are useless.
MANFRED: Do I not bear it? – Look on me – I live.
CHAMOIS HUNTER: This is convulsion, and no healthful life.
MANFRED: I tell thee, man! I have lived many years,
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Many long years, but they are nothing now
To those which I must number: ages – ages –
Space and eternity – and consciousness,
With the fierce thirst of death – and still unslaked!
CHAMOIS HUNTER: Why, on thy brow the seal of middle age
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Hath scarce been set; I am thine elder far.
MANFRED: Think’st thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine
Have made my days and nights imperishable,
Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore,
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Innumerable atoms; and one desert,
Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,
But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks,
Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness.
CHAMOIS HUNTER: Alas! he’s mad — but yet I must not leave him.
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MANFRED: I would I were – for then the things I see
Would be but a distemper’d dream.
CHAMOIS HUNTER:What is it
That thou dost see, or think thou look’st upon?
MANFRED: Myself, and thee – a peasant of the Alps –
Thy humble virtues, hospitable home,
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And spirit patient, pious, proud, and free;
Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts;