That old nurse stood beside her wondering,
until her heart felt pity to the core
at sight of such a dismal laboring,
and so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar,
and put her lean hands to the horrid thing:
three hours they labored at this travail sore;
at last they felt the kernel of the grave,
and Isabella did not stamp and rave.
Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance?
Why linger at the yawning tomb so long?
O for the gentleness of old Romance,
the simple plaining of a minstrel’s song!
Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance,
for here, in truth, it doth not well belong
to speak:—O turn thee to the very tale,
and taste the music of that vision pale.
With duller steel than the Persean sword
they cut away no formless monster’s head,
but one, whose gentleness did well accord
with death, as life. The ancient harps have said,
love never dies, but lives, immortal Lord:
if Love impersonate was ever dead,
pale Isabella kissed it, and low moaned.
‘Twas love; cold,—dead indeed, but not dethroned.
In anxious secrecy they took it home,
and then the prize was all for Isabel:
she calmed its wild hair with a golden comb,
and all around each eye’s sepulchral cell
pointed each fringed lash; the smeared loam
with tears, as chilly as a dripping well,
she drenched away:—and still she combed, and kept
sighing all day—and still she kissed, and wept.
Then in a silken scarf,—sweet with the dews
of precious flowers plucked in Araby,
and divine liquids come with odorous ooze
through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully,—
she wrapped it up; and for its tomb did choose
a garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,
and covered it with mould, and o’er it set
sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.
And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun,
and she forgot the blue above the trees,
and she forgot the dells where waters run,
and she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;
she had no knowledge when the day was done,
and the new morn she saw not: but in peace
hung over her sweet Basil evermore,
and moistened it with tears unto the core.
And so she ever fed it with thin tears,
whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,
so that it smelt more balmy than its peers
of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew
nurture besides, and life, from human fears,
from the fast mouldering head there shut from view:
so that the jewel, safely casketed,
came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.
O Melancholy, linger here awhile!
O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!
O Echo, Echo, from some somber isle,
unknown, Lethean, sigh to us—O sigh!
Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile;
lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily,
and make a pale light in your cypress glooms,
tinting with silver wan your marble tombs.
Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe,
from the deep throat of sad Melpomene!
Through bronzëd lyre in tragic order go,
and touch the strings into a mystery;
sound mournfully upon the winds and low;
for simple Isabel is soon to be
among the dead: She withers, like a palm
cut by an Indian for its juicy balm.
O leave the palm to wither by itself;
let not quick Winter chill its dying hour!—
It may not be—those Baalites of pelf,
her brethren, noted the continual shower
from her dead eyes; and many a curious elf,
among her kindred, wondered that such dower
of youth and beauty should be thrown aside
by one marked out to be a Noble’s bride.
And, furthermore, her brethren wondered much
why she sat drooping by the Basil green,
and why it flourished, as by magic touch;
greatly they wondered what the thing might mean:
they could not surely give belief, that such
a very nothing would have power to wean
her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay,
and even remembrance of her love’s delay.
Therefore they watched a time when they might sift
this hidden whim; and long they watched in vain;
for seldom did she go to chapel-shrift,
and seldom felt she any hunger-pain;
and when she left, she hurried back, as swift
as bird on wing to breast its eggs again;
and, patient as a hen-bird, sat her there
beside her Basil, weeping through her hair.
Yet they contrived to steal the Basil-pot,
and to examine it in secret place;
the thing was vile with green and livid spot,
and yet they knew it was Lorenzo’s face:
the guerdon of their murder they had got,
and so left Florence in a moment’s space,
never to turn again.—Away they went,
with blood upon their heads, to banishment.
O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away!
O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!
O Echo, Echo, on some other day,
from isles Lethean, sigh to us—O sigh!
Spirits of grief, sing not your “Well-a-way!”
For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die;
will die a death too lone and incomplete,
now they have ta’en away her Basil sweet.
Piteous she looked on dead and senseless things,
asking for her lost Basil amorously;
and with melodious chuckle in the strings
of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry
after the Pilgrim in his wanderings,
to ask him where her Basil was; and why
’Twas hid from her: “For cruel ’tis,” said she,
“to steal my Basil-pot away from me.”
And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,
imploring for her Basil to the last.
No heart was there in Florence but did mourn
in pity of her love, so overcast.
And a sad ditty of this story born
from mouth to mouth through all the country passed:
still is the burthen sung—“O cruelty,
to steal my Basil-pot away from me!”
La Belle Dame Sans Merci1
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
alone and palely loitering;
the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
and no birds sing.
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
so haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
and the harvest’s done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
with anguish moist and fever dew;
and on thy cheek a fading rose
fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads
full beautiful, a fairy’s child;
her hair was long, her foot was light,
and her eyes were wild.
I set her on my pacing steed,
and nothing else saw all day long;
for sideways would she lean, and sing
a fairy’s song.
I made a garland for her head,
and bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
> she look’d at me as she did love,
and made sweet moan.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
and honey wild, and manna dew;
and sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grot,
and there she gaz’d and sighed deep,
and there I shut her wild sad eyes—
so kiss’d to sleep.
And there we slumber’d on the moss,
and there I dream’d, ah woe betide,
the latest dream I ever dream’d
on the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
who cry’d—“La belle Dame sans merci
hath thee in thrall!”
I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam
with horrid warning gaped wide,
and I awoke, and found me here
on the cold hill side.
And this is why I sojourn here
alone and palely loitering,
though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
and no birds sing.
O Blush Not So1
O blush not so! O blush not so!
Or I shall think you knowing;
and if you smile the blushing while,
then maidenheads are going.
There’s a blush for want, and a blush for shan’t,
and a blush for having done it;
there’s a blush for thought, and a blush for nought,
and a blush for just begun it.
O sigh not so! O sigh not so!
for it sounds of Eve’s sweet pippin;
by these loosened lips you have tasted the pips
and fought in an amorous nipping.
Will you play once more at nice-cut-core,
for it only will last our youth out,
and we have the prime of the kissing time,
we have not one sweet tooth out.
There’s a sigh for aye, and a sigh for nay,
and a sigh for I can’t bear it!
O what can be done, shall we stay or run?
O cut the sweet apple and share it!
This living hand, now warm and capable1
This living hand, now warm and capable
of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
and in the icy silence of the tomb,
so haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
that thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
so in my veins red life might stream again,
and thou be conscience-calmed—see here it is—
I hold it towards you.
Ode on a Grecian Urn1
Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
thou foster child of silence and slow time,
sylvan historian, who canst thus express
a flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
what leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
of deities or mortals, or of both,
in Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
she cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss
forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
and, happy melodist, unwearied,
forever piping songs forever new;
more happy love! more happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,
forever panting, and forever young;
all breathing human passion far above,
that leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
a burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
and all her silken flanks with garlands dressed?
What little town by river or sea shore,
or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
will silent be; and not a soul to tell
why thou art desolate, can e’er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
of marble men and maidens overwrought,
with forest branches and the trodden weed;
thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
as doth eternity. Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”—that is all
ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Thomas Hood (1799 – 1845)
The Poet’s Fate1
What is a modern Poet’s fate?
To write his thoughts upon a slate;
the Critic spits on what is done,
gives it a wipe—and all is gone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)
Days2
Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
and marching single in an endless file,
bring diadems and faggots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
forgot my morning wishes, hastily
took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
turned and departed silent. I, too late,
under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
Hamatreya3
Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint,
possessed the land which rendered to their toil
hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood.
Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm,
saying, “‘Tis mine, my children’s and my name’s.
How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees!
How graceful climb those shadows on my hill!
I fancy these pure waters and the flags
know me, as does my dog: we sympathize;
and, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.”
Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:
and strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
clear of the grave.
They added ridge to valley, brook to pond,
and sighed for all that bounded their domain;
“This suits me for a pasture; that’s my park;
we must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge,
and misty lowland, where to go for peat.
The land is well,—lies fairly to the south.
‘Tis good, when you have crossed the sea and back,
to find the sitfast acres where you left them.”
Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds
him to his land, a lump of mould the more.
Hear what the Earth says:—
“Mine and yours;
mine, not yours, Earth endures;
stars abide—
shine down in the old sea;
old are the shores;
but where are old men?
I who have seen much,
such have I never seen.
The lawyer’s deed
ran sure,
in tail,
to them, and to their heirs
who shall succeed,
without fail,
forevermore.
Here is the land,
shaggy with wood,
with its old valley,
mound and flood.
But the heritors?—
fled like the flood’s foam.
The lawyer, and the laws,
and the kingdom,
clean swept herefrom.
They called me theirs,
who so controlled me;
yet every one
wished to stay, and is gone,
how am I theirs,
if they cannot hold me,
but I hold them?”
When I heard the Earth-song,
I was no longer brave;
my avarice cooled
like lust in the chill of the grave.
The Rhodora1
On being asked, Whence is the flower?
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
to please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
made the black water with their beauty gay;
here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
and court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
this charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
but, in my simple ignorance, suppose
the self-same Power that brought me there brought you.
The Snow-Storm1
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
seems nowhere to alight: the whitëd air
hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
and veils the farmhouse at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier’s feet
delated, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
The Giant Book of Poetry (2006) Page 11