Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50)

by Homer

  In wantonness of heart, through rough and smooth

  We scampered homeward. O ye rocks and streams

  And that still spirit of the evening air,

  Even in this joyous time I sometimes felt

  Your presence, when with slackened step we breathed

  Along the sides of the steep hills, or when,

  Lightened by gleams of moonlight from the sea,

  We beat the thundering hoofs the level sand. 140

  There was a row of ancient trees, since fallen,

  That on the margin of a jutting land

  Stood near the lake of Coniston and made

  With its long boughs above the water stretched

  A gloom through which a boat might sail along

  As in a cloister. An old Hall was near,

  Grotesque and beautiful, its gavel end

  And huge round chimneys to the top o’ergrown

  With fields of ivy. Thither we repaired,

  ’Twas even a custom with us, to the shore 150

  And to that cool piazza. They who dwelt

  In the neglected mansion-house supplied

  Fresh butter, tea-kettle, and earthen-ware,

  And chafing-dish with smoking coals, and so

  Beneath the trees we sat in our small boat

  And in the covert eat our delicate meal

  Upon the calm smooth lake. It was a joy

  Worthy the heart of one who is full grown

  To rest beneath those horizontal boughs

  And mark the radiance of the setting sun, 160

  Himself unseen, reposing on the top

  Of the high eastern hills. And there I said,

  That beauteous sight before me, there I said

  (Then first beginning in my thoughts to mark

  That sense of dim similitude which links

  Our moral feelings with external forms)

  That in whatever region I should close

  My mortal life I would remember you,

  Fair scenes! that dying I would think on you,

  My soul would send a longing look to you: 170

  Even as that setting sun while all the vale

  Could nowhere catch one faint memorial gleam

  Yet with the last remains of his last light

  Still lingered, and a farewell luster threw

  On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose.

  ’Twas then my fourteenth summer, and these words

  Were uttered in casual access

  Of sentiment, a momentary trance

  That far outran the habit of my mind.

  Upon the east 180

  Above the crescent of a pleasant bay,

  There was an Inn, no homely-featured shed,

  Brother of the surrounding cottages,

  But ’twas a splendid place, the door beset

  With chaises, grooms, and liveries, and within

  Decanters, glasses, and the blood-red wine.

  In ancient times, or ere the Hall was built

  On the large island, had the dwelling been

  More worthy of a poet’s love, a hut

  Proud of its one bright fire and sycamore shade. 190

  But though the rhymes were gone which once inscribed

  The threshold, and large golden characters

  On the blue-frosted sign-board had usurped

  The place of the old Lion in contempt

  And mockery of the rustic painter’s hand,

  Yet to this hour the spot to me is dear

  With all its foolish pomp. The garden lay

  Upon a slope surmounted by the plain

  Of a small bowling-green; beneath us stood

  A grove, with gleams of water through the trees 200

  And over the tree-tops; nor did we want

  Refreshment, strawberries and mellow cream,

  And there through half an afternoon we played

  On the smooth platform, and the shouts we sent

  Made all the mountains ring. But ere the fall

  Of night, when in our pinnace we returned

  Over the dusky lake, and to the beach

  Of some small island steered our course with one,

  The minstrel of our troop, and left him there

  And rowed off gently while he blew his flute 210

  Alone upon the rock – oh then the calm

  And dead still water lay upon my mind

  Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky,

  Never before so beautiful, sank down

  Into my heart and held me like a dream.

  Thus day by day my sympathies increased

  And thus the common range of visible things

  Grew dear to me: already I began

  To love the sun, a Boy I loved the sun

  Not, as I since have loved him, as a pledge 220

  And surety of my earthly life, a light

  Which while I view I feel I am alive,

  But for this cause, that I had seen him lay

  His beauty on the morning hills, had seen

  The western mountain touch his setting orb

  In many a thoughtless hour, when from excess

  Of happiness my blood appeared to flow

  With its own pleasure and I breathed with joy.

  And from like feelings, humble though intense,

  To patriotic and domestic love 230

  Analogous, the moon to me was dear,

  For I would dream away my purposes

  Standing to look upon her while she hung

  Midway between the hills as if she knew

  No other region but belonged to thee,

  Yea, appertained by a peculiar right

  To thee and thy grey huts, my native vale.

  Those incidental which were first attached

  My heart to rural objects day by day

  Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell 240

  How nature, intervenient till this time

  And secondary, now at length was sought

  For her own sake. But who shall parcel out

  His intellect by geometric rules,

  Split like a province into round and square;

  Who knows the individual hour in which

  His habits were first sown, even as a seed;

  Who that shall point as with a wand and say,

  This portion of the river of my mind

  Came from yon fountain? Thou, my Friend, art one 250

  More deeply read in thy own thoughts, no slave

  Of that false secondary power by which

  In weakness we create distinctions, then

  Believe our puny boundaries are things

  Which we perceive and not which we have made.

  To thee, unblended by these outward shows,

  The unity of all has been revealed

  And thou wilt doubt with me, less aptly skilled

  Than many are to class the cabinet

  Of their sensations and in voluble phrase 260

  Run through the history and birth of each

  As of a single independent thing.

  Hard task to analyse a soul in which

  Not only general habits and desires

  But each most obvious and particular thoughts,

  Not in a mystical and idle sense

  But in the words of reason deeply weighed,

  Hath no beginning,

  Blessed be the infant Babe

  (For with my best conjectures I would trace 270

  The progress of our being) blest the Babe

  Nursed in his Mother’s arms, the Babe who sleeps

  Upon his Mother’s breast, who when his soul

  Claims manifest kindred with an earthly soul

  Doth gather passion from his Mother’s eye!

  Such feelings pass into his torpid life

  Like an awakening breeze, and hence his mind

  Even in the first trial of its powers

  Is prompt and watchful, eager to combine

  In one appearance al
l the elements 280

  And parts of the same object, else detached

  And loath to coalesce. Thus day by day

  Subjected to the discipline of love

  His organs and recipient faculties

  Are quickened, are more vigorous, his mind spreads

  Tenacious of the forms which it receives.

  In one beloved presence, nay and more,

  And those sensations which have been derived

  From this beloved presence, there exists

  A virtue which irradiates and exalts 290

  All objects through all intercourse of sense.

  No outcast he, bewildered and depressed:

  Along his infant veins are interfused

  The gravitation and the filial bond

  Of nature that connect him with the world.

  Emphatically such a being lives

  An inmate of this active universe;

  From nature largely he receives, nor so

  Is satisfied but largely gives again,

  For feeling has to him imparted strength, 300

  And powerful in all sentiments of grief,

  Of exultation, fear and joy, his mind,

  Even as an agent of the one great mind,

  Creates, creator and receiver both,

  Working but in alliance with the works

  Which it beholds. Such verily is the first

  Poetic spirit of our human life,

  By uniform control of after years

  In most abated and suppressed, in some

  Through every change of growth or of decay 310

  Preeminent till death.

  From early days,

  Beginning not long after that first time

  In which, a Babe, by intercourse of touch

  I held mute dialogues with my Mother’s heart,

  I have endeavoured to display the means

  Whereby this infant sensibility,

  Great birth-right of our being, was in me

  Augmented and sustained. Yet is a path 320

  More difficult before me, and I fear

  That in its broken windings we shall need

  The Chamois sinews and the Eagle’s wing:

  For now a trouble came into my mind

  From obscure causes. I was left alone

  Seeking this visible world, nor knowing why:

  The props of my affections were removed

  And yet the buildings stood as if sustained

  By its own spirit. All that I beheld

  Was dear to me, and from this cause it came 330

  That now to Nature’s finer influxes

  My mind lay open, to that more exact

  And intimate communion which our hearts

  Maintain with the minuter properties

  Of objects which already are beloved,

  And of those only. Many are the joys

  Of youth, but oh! What happiness to live

  When every hour brings palpable access

  Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight,

  And sorrow is not there. The seasons come 340

  And every season brought a countless store

  Of modes and temporary qualities

  Which but for this most watchful power of love

  Had been neglected, left a register

  Of permanent relations, else unknown:

  Hence life, and change, and beauty, solitude

  More active even than “best society,”

  Society made sweet as solitude

  By silent inobtrusive sympathies

  And gentle agitations of the mind 350

  From manifold distinctions, difference

  Perceived in things where to the common eye

  No difference is: and hence from the same source

  Sublimer joy; for I would walk alone

  In storm and tempest or in starlight nights

  Beneath the quiet heavens, and at that time

  Would feel whate’er there is of power in sound

  To breathe an elevated mood by form

  Or image unprofaned: and I would stand

  Beneath some rock listening to sounds that are 360

  The ghostly language of the ancient earth

  Or make their dim abode in distant winds.

  Thence did I drink the visionary power.

  I deem not profitless these fleeting moods

  Of shadowy exaltation, not for this,

  That they are kindred to our purer mind

  And intellectual life, but that the soul

  Remembering how she felt, but what she felt

  Remembering not, retains an obscure sense

  Of possible sublimity to which 370

  With growing faculties she doth aspire,

  With faculties still growing, feeling still

  That whatsoever point they gain, they still

  Have something to pursue

  And not alone

  In grandeur and in tumult, but no less

  In tranquil scenes, that universal power

  And fitness in the latent qualities

  And essences of things, by which the mind

  Is moved with feelings of delight, to me 380

  Came strengthened with the superadded soul,

  A virtue not its own. My morning walks

  Were early; oft before the hours of school

  I traveled round our little lake, five miles

  Of pleasant wandering, happy time more dear

  For this, that one was by my side, a Friend

  Then passionately loved; with heart how full

  Will he peruse these lines, this page, perhaps

  A blank to other men, for many years

  Have since flowed in between us, and, our minds 390

  Both silent to each other, at this time

  We live as if those hours had never been.

  Nor seldom did I lift our cottage latch

  Far earlier, and before the vernal thrust

  Was audible, among the hills I sat

  Alone upon some jutting eminence

  At the first hour of morning when the vale

  Lay quiet in an utter solitude.

  How shall I trace the history, where seek

  The origin of what I then have felt? 400

  Oft in those moments such a holy calm

  Did overspread my soul that I forgot

  The agency of sight, and what I saw

  Appeared like something in myself — a dream,

  A prospect in my mind. ‘Twere long to tell

  What spring and autumn, what the winter-snows

  And what the summer-shade, what day and night,

  The evening and the morning, what my dreams

  And what my waking thoughts supplied, to nurse

  That spirit of religious love in which 410

  I walked with nature. But let this at least

  Be not forgotten, that I still retained

  My first creative sensibility,

  That by the regular action of the world

  My soul was unsubdued. A plastic power

  Abode with me, a forming hand, at times

  Rebellious, acting in a devious mood,

  A local spirit of its own, at war

  With general tendency, but for the most

  Subservient strictly to the external things 420

  With which it communed. An auxiliary light

  Came from my mind which on the setting sun

  Bestowed new splendor, the melodious birds,

  The gentle breezes, fountains that ran on

  Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed

  A like dominion, and the midnight storm

  Grew darker in the presence of my eye.

  Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence,

  And hence my transport.

  Nor should this perchance 430

  Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved

  The exercise and produce of a toil

  Than analytic industry to me

 
More pleasing, and whose character, I deem,

  Is more poetic, as resembling more

  Creative agency: I mean to speak

  Of that interminable building reared

  By observation of affinities

  In objects where no brotherhood exists

  To common minds. My seventeenth year was come, 440

  And whether from this habit rooted now

  So deeply in my mind, or from excess

  Of the great social principle of life

  Coercing all things into sympathy,

  To unorganic natures I transferred

  My own enjoyments, or, the power of truth

  Coming in revelation, I conversed

  With things that really are. I at this time

  Saw Blessings Spread around me like a sea.

  Thus did my days pass on, and now at length 450

  From Nature and her overflowing soul

  I had received so much that all my thoughts

  Were steeped in feelings; I was only then

  Contented when with bliss ineffable

  I felt the sentiment of being spread

  O’er all that moves, and all that seemeth still,

  O’er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought

  And human knowledge, to the human eye

  Invisible, yet liveth to the heart, 460

  O’er all that leaps, and runs, and shouts and sings

  Or beats the gladsome air, o’er all that glides

  Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself

  And might depth of waters: wonder not

  If such my transports were, for in all things

  I saw one life and felt that it was joy.

  One song they sang, and it was audible,

  Most audible ten when the fleshy ear,

  O’ercome by grosser prelude of that strain,

  Forgot its functions, and slept undisturbed. 470

  If this be error, and another faith

  Find easier access to the pious mind,

  Yet were I grossly destitute of all

  Those human sentiments which make this earth

  So dear, if I should fail with grateful voice

  To speak of you, ye mountains! and ye lakes

  And sounding cataracts! ye mists and winds

  That dwell among the hills where I was born.

  If, in my youth, I have been pure in heart,

  If, mingling with the world, I am content 480

  With my own modest pleasures, and have lied

  With God and Nature communing, removed

  From little enmities and low desires,

  The gift is yours: if in these times of fear,

  This melancholy waste of hopes o’erthrown,

  If, ‘mid indifference and apathy

  And wicked exultation, when good men

  On every side fall off we know not how

  To selfishness disguised in gentle names

  Of peace, and quiet, and domestic love,

  Yet mingled, not unwillingly, with sneers 490