I heard a voice: it said-"Drink, pretty creature, drink!"
And, looking o'er the hedge, be-fore me I espied
A snow-white mountain lamb, with a-maiden at its side.
No other sheep was near,--the lamb was all alone,
And by a slender cord was-tether'd to a stone.'
"Now, we have no doubt this is all true: we will believe it, indeed we
will, Mr. W. Is it sympathy for the sheep you wish to excite? I love a
sheep from the bottom of my heart.
"But there are occasions, dear B-, there are occasions when even
Wordsworth is reasonable. Even Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end,
and the most unlucky blunders must come to a conclusion. Here is an
extract from his preface :-
"'Those who have been accustomed to the phraseology of modem writers, if
they persist in reading this book to a conclusion _(impossible!) will, _no
doubt, have to struggle with feelings of awkwardness; (ha! ha! ha!) they
will look round for poetry (ha! ha! ha! ha!), and will be induced to
inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts have been permitted to
assume that title.' Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
"Yet, let not Mr. W. despair; he has given immortality to a wagon, and the
bee Sophocles has transmitted to eternity a sore toe, and dignified a
tragedy with a chorus of turkeys.
"Of Coleridge, I can not speak but with reverence. His towering intellect!
his gigantic power! To use an author quoted by himself, _'Tai trouvé
souvent que la plupart des sectes ont raison dans une bonne partie de ce
qu'elles avancent, mais non pas en ce qu'elles nient , ' and _to employ
his own language, he has imprisoned his own conceptions by the barrier he
has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to think that such a
mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the Nyctanthes, waste its
perfume upon the night alone. In reading that man's poetry, I tremble like
one who stands upon a volcano, conscious from the very darkness bursting
from the crater, of the fire and the light that are weltering below.
"What is poetry?-Poetry! that Proteus-like idea, with as many appellations
as the nine-titled Corcyra! 'Give me,' I demanded of a scholar some time
ago, 'give me a definition of poetry.' _'Trèsvolontiers;' _and he
proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr. Johnson, and overwhelmed me
with a definition. Shade of the immortal Shakespeare! I imagine to myself
the scowl of your spiritual eye upon the profanity of that scurrilous Ursa
Major. Think of poetry, dear B-, think of poetry, and then think of Dr.
Samuel Johnson! Think of all that is airy and fairy-like, and then of all
that is hideous and unwieldy; think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! and
then-and then think of the 'Tempest' -the 'Midsummer-Night's Dream'-
Prospero Oberon-and Titania!
"A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for its
_immediate _object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having, for its
object, an _indefinite _instead of a _definite _pleasure, being a poem
only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible
images with definite, poetry with indefinite sensations, to which end
music is an _essential, since _the comprehension of sweet sound is our
most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea,
is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, wi thout
the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.
"What was meant by the invective against him who had no music in his soul?
"To sum up this long rigmarole, I have, dear B-, what you, no doubt,
perceive, for the metaphysical poets as poets, the most sovereign
contempt. That they have followers proves nothing-
"'No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.
* GJL*4@J"J@< 6"4 N48@F@M46@J"J@< (,<@.
~~~~~~ End of Introduction ~~~~~~
======
SONNET -- TO SCIENCE
SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thous not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
AL AARAAF*
PART I.
O ! NOTHING earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy -
O ! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill -
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell -
Oh, nothing of the dross of ours -
Yet all the beauty - all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers -
Adorn yon world afar, afar -
The wandering star.
'Twas a sweet time for Nesace - for there
Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
Near four bright suns - a temporary rest -
An oasis in desert of the blest.
* A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared suddenly in the
heavens - attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter
- then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since.
Away - away - 'mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soul -
The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
Can struggle to its destin'd eminence -
To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favour'd one of God -
But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm,
She throws aside the sceptre - leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.
Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,
Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth,
(Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star,
Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar,
It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt)
She look'd into Infinity - and knelt.
Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled -
Fit emblems of the model of her world -
Seen but in beauty - not impeding sight
Of other beauty glittering thro' the light -
A wreath that twined each starry form around,
And all the opal'd air in color bound.
All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
Of flowers : of lilies such as rear'd the head
*On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang
Upon the flying footsteps of -- deep pride -
†Of her who lov'd a mortal - and so died.
>
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees :
* On Santa Maura - olim Deucadia. † Sappho.
*And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd -
Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd
All other loveliness : its honied dew
(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven,
And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
In Trebizond - and on a sunny flower
So like its own above that, to this hour,
It still remaineth, torturing the bee
With madness, and unwonted reverie :
In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
Disconsolate linger - grief that hangs her head,
Repenting follies that full long have fled,
Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,
Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair :
Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light
She fears to perfume, perfuming the night :
†And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
While pettish tears adown her petals run :
‡And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth -
And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king :
* This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort. The bee,
feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated.
† Clytia - The Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a better-known
term, the turnsol - which continually turns towards the sun, covers
itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy clouds which
cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat of the day. -
_B. de St. Pierre_.
‡ There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a species of
serpentine aloes without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower
exhales a strong odour of the vanilla, during the time of its expansion,
which is very short. It does not blow till towards the month of July - you
then perceive it gradually open its petals - expand them - fade and die. -
_St. Pierre_.
*And Valisnerian lotus thither flown
From struggling with the waters of the Rhone :
†And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante !
Isola d'oro ! - Fior di Levante !
‡And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever
With Indian Cupid down the holy river -
Fair flowers, and fairy ! to whose care is given
§ To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to Heaven :
"Spirit ! that dwellest where,
In the deep sky,
The terrible and fair,
In beauty vie !
Beyond the line of blue -
The boundary of the star
Which turneth at the view
Of thy barrier and thy bar -
Of the barrier overgone
By the comets who were cast
From their pride, and from their throne
To be drudges till the last -
To be carriers of fire
(The red fire of their heart)
With speed that may not tire
And with pain that shall not part -
* There is found, in the Rhone, a beautiful lily of the Valisnerian
kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four feet - thus
preserving its head above water in the swellings of the river.
† The Hyacinth.
‡ It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first seen floating
in one of these down the river Ganges - and that he still loves the cradle
of his childhood.
§ And golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of the saints.
- _Rev. St. John_.
Who livest - _that_ we know -
In Eternity - we feel -
But the shadow of whose brow
What spirit shall reveal ?
Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,
Thy messenger hath known
Have dream'd for thy Infinity
*A model of their own -
Thy will is done, Oh, God !
The star hath ridden high
Thro' many a tempest, but she rode
Beneath thy burning eye ;
And here, in thought, to thee -
In thought that can alone
Ascend thy empire and so be
A partner of thy throne -
* The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as having a
really human form. - _Vide Clarke's Sermons_, vol. 1, page 26, fol. edit.
The drift of Milton's argument, leads him to employ language which
would appear, at first sight, to verge upon their doctrine ; but it will
be seen immediately, that he guards himself against the charge of having
adopted one of the most ignorant errors of the dark ages of the church. -
_Dr. Sumner's Notes on Milton's Christian Doctrine_.
This opinion, in spite of many testimonies to the contrary, could
never have been very general. Andeus, a Syrian of Mesopotamia, was
condemned for the opinion, as heretical. He lived in the beginning of the
fourth century. His disciples were called Anthropmorphites. - _Vide Du
Pin_.
Among Milton's poems are these lines: -
Dicite sacrorum præsides nemorum Deæ, &c.
Quis ille primus cujus ex imagine
Natura solers finxit humanum genus ?
Eternus, incorruptus, æquævus polo,
Unusque et universus exemplar Dei. - And afterwards,
Non cui profundum Cæcitas lumen dedit
Dircæus augur vidit hunc alto sinu, &c.
*By winged Fantasy,
My embassy is given,
Till secrecy shall knowledge be
In the environs of Heaven."
She ceas'd - and buried then her burning cheek
Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek
A shelter from the fervour of His eye ;
For the stars trembled at the Deity.
She stirr'd not - breath'd not - for a voice was there
How solemnly pervading the calm air !
A sound of silence on the startled ear
Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere."
Ours is a world of words : Quiet we call
"Silence" - which is the merest word of all.
All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings -
But ah ! not so when, thus, in realms on high
The eternal voice of God is passing by,
And the red winds are withering in the sky !
†"What tho' in worlds which sightless cycles run,
Link'd to a little system, and one sun -
Where all my love is folly and the crowd
Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud,
The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath -
(Ah ! will they cross me in my angrier path ?)
What tho' in worlds which own a single sun
The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run,
* Seltsamen Tochter Jovis
Seinem Schosskinde
Der Phantasie. - _Göethe_.
† Sightless - too small to be seen - _Legge_.
Yet thine is my resplendency, so given
To bear my secrets thro' the upper Heaven.
Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,
With all thy train, athwart the moony sky -
*Apart - like fire-flies in Sicilian night,
And wing to other worlds another ligh
t !
Divulge the secrets of thy embassy
To the proud orbs that twinkle - and so be
To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban
Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man !"
Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,
The single-mooned eve ! - on Earth we plight
Our faith to one love - and one moon adore -
The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.
As sprang that yellow star from downy hours
Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,
And bent o'er sheeny mountain and dim plain
†Her way - but left not yet her Therasæan reign.
* I have often noticed a peculiar movement of the fire-flies ; - they
will collect in a body and fly off, from a common centre, into innumerable
radii.
† Therasæa, or Therasea, the island mentioned by Seneca, which, in a
moment, arose from the sea to the eyes of astonished mariners.
Part II.
HIGH on a mountain of enamell'd head -
Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed
Of giant pasturage lying at his ease,
Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees
With many a mutter'd "hope to be forgiven"
What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven -
Of rosy head, that towering far away
Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray
Of sunken suns at eve - at noon of night,
While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger light -
Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile
Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthen'd air,
Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile
Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,
And nursled the young mountain in its lair.
*Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall
Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall
Of their own dissolution, while they die -
Adorning then the dwellings of the sky.
A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,
Sat gently on these columns as a crown -
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 171