to banquet on the dead;
nor how, when strangers found his bones,
they dressed the hasty bier,
and marked his grave with nameless stones,
unmoistened by a tear.
But long they looked, and feared, and wept,
within his distant home;
and dreamed, and started as they slept,
for joy that he was come.
So long they looked—but never spied
his welcome step again,
nor knew the fearful death he died
far down that narrow glen.
The Poet1
Thou, who wouldst wear the name
of poet mid thy brethren of mankind,
and clothe in words of flame
thoughts that shall live within the general mind!
Deem not the framing of a deathless lay
the pastime of a drowsy summer day.
But gather all thy powers,
and wreak them on the verse that thou dost weave,
and in thy lonely hours,
at silent morning or at wakeful eve,
while the warm current tingles through thy veins
set forth the burning words in fluent strains.
No smooth array of phrase
artfully sought and ordered though it be,
which the cold rhymer lays
upon his page with languid industry
can wake the listless pulse to livelier speed,
or fill with sudden tears the eyes that read.
The secret wouldst thou know
to touch the heart or fire the blood at will?
Let thine own eyes o’erflow;
let thy lips quiver with the passionate thrill;
seize the great thought, ere yet its power be past,
and bind, in words, the fleet emotion fast.
Then, should thy verse appear
halting and harsh, and all unaptly wrought,
touch the crude line with fear,
save in the moment of impassioned thought;
then summon back the original glow and mend
the strain with rapture that with fire was penned.
Yet let no empty gust
of passion find an utterance in thy lay,
a blast that whirls the dust
along the howling street and dies away;
but feelings of calm power and mighty sweep,
like currents journeying through the windless deep.
Seek’st thou, in living lays,
to limn the beauty of the earth and sky?
Before thine inner gaze
let all that beauty in clear vision lie,
look on it with exceeding love, and write
the words inspired by wonder and delight.
Of tempest wouldst thou sing,
or tell of battles—make thyself a part
of the great tumult; cling
to the tossed wreck with terror in thy heart;
scale, with the assault host, the rampart’s height
and strike and struggle in the thickest fight.
So shalt thou frame a lay
that haply may endure from age to age,
and they who read shall say;
what witchery hangs upon this poet’s page!
What art is this the written spells to find
that sway from mood to mood the willing mind!
The Strange Lady1
The summer morn is bright and fresh,
the birds are darting by,
as if they loved to breast the breeze
that sweeps the cool clear sky;
Young Albert, in the forest’s edge,
has heard a rustling sound
an arrow slightly strikes his hand
and falls upon the ground.
A lovely woman from the wood
comes suddenly in sight;
her merry eye is full and black,
her cheek is brown and bright;
she wears a tunic of the blue,
her belt with beads is strung,
and yet she speaks in gentle tones,
and in the English tongue.
“It was an idle bolt I sent,
against the villain crow;
fair sir, I fear it harmed thy hand;
beshrew my erring bow!”
“Ah! would that bolt had not been spent,
then, lady, might I wear
a lasting token on my hand
of one so passing fair!”
“Thou art a flatterer like the rest,
but wouldst thou take with me
a day of hunting in the wilds,
beneath the greenwood tree,
I know where most the pheasants feed,
and where the red-deer herd,
and thou shouldst chase the nobler game,
and I bring down the bird.”
Now Albert in her quiver lays
the arrow in its place,
and wonders as he gazes on
the beauty of her face:
‘Those hunting-grounds are far away,
and, lady, ’twere not meet
that night, amid the wilderness,
should overtake thy feet.”
“Heed not the night, a summer lodge
amid the wild is mine,
‘tis shadowed by the tulip-tree,
‘tis mantled by the vine;
the wild plum sheds its yellow fruit
from fragrant thickets nigh,
and flowery prairies from the door
stretch till they meet the sky.
“There in the boughs that hide the roof
the mock-bird sits and sings,
and there the hang-bird’s brood within
its little hammock swings;
a pebbly brook, where rustling winds
among the hopples sweep,
shall lull thee till the morning sun
looks in upon thy sleep.”
Away, into the forest depths
by pleasant paths they go,
he with his rifle on his arm,
the lady with her bow,
where cornels arch their cool dark boughs
o’er beds of wintergreen,
and never at his father’s door again was Albert seen.
That night upon the woods came down a furious hurricane,
with howl of winds and roar of streams
and beating of the rain;
the mighty thunder broke and drowned
the noises in its crash;
the old trees seemed to fight like fiends
beneath the lightning-flash.
Next day, within a mossy glen,
mid moldering trunks were found
the fragments of a human form,
upon the bloody ground;
white bones from which the flesh was torn,
and locks of glossy hair;
they laid them in the place of graves,
yet wist not whose they were.
And whether famished evening wolves
had mangled Albert so,
or that strange dame so gay and fair
were some mysterious foe,
or whether to that forest lodge,
beyond the mountains blue,
he went to dwell with her, the friends
who mourned him never knew.
To a Waterfowl1
Whither, ’midst falling dew,
while glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
as, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
thy figure floats along.
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
or where the rocking billows rise and sink
on the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—
the desert and illimitable air,—
lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fann’d
at that far height, the cold thin atmosphere:
yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end,
soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
and scream among thy fellows; reed shall bend
soon o’er thy sheltered nest.
Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
and shall not soon depart.
He, who, from zone to zone,
guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
in the long way that I must tread alone,
will lead my steps aright.
John Keats (1795 – 1821)
Isabella1
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love’s eye!
They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
without some stir of heart, some malady;
they could not sit at meals but feel how well
it soothed each to be the other by;
they could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep
but to each other dream, and nightly weep.
With every morn their love grew tenderer,
with every eve deeper and tenderer still;
he might not in house, field, or garden stir,
but her full shape would all his seeing fill;
and his continual voice was pleasanter
to her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;
her lute-string gave an echo of his name,
she spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.
He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch
before the door had given her to his eyes;
and from her chamber-window he would catch
her beauty farther than the falcon spies;
and constant as her vespers would he watch,
because her face was turned to the same skies;
and with sick longing all the night outwear,
to hear her morning-step upon the stair.
A whole long month of May in this sad plight
made their cheeks paler by the break of June:
“Tomorrow will I bow to my delight,
tomorrow will I ask my lady’s boon.”—
“O may I never see another night,
Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love’s tune.”—
so spake they to their pillows; but, alas,
honeyless days and days did he let pass;
until sweet Isabella’s untouched cheek
fell sick within the rose’s just domain,
fell thin as a young mother’s, who doth seek
by every lull to cool her infant’s pain:
“How ill she is,” said he, “I may not speak,
and yet I will, and tell my love all plain:
if looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,
and at the least ’twill startle off her cares.”
So said he one fair morning, and all day
his heart beat awfully against his side;
and to his heart he inwardly did pray
for power to speak; but still the ruddy tide
stifled his voice, and pulsed resolve away—
fevered his high conceit of such a bride,
yet brought him to the meekness of a child:
Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!
So once more he had waked and anguishëd
a dreary night of love and misery,
if Isabel’s quick eye had not been wed
to every symbol on his forehead high;
she saw it waxing very pale and dead,
and straight all flushed; so, lispëd tenderly,
“Lorenzo!”—here she ceased her timid quest,
but in her tone and look he read the rest.
“O Isabella, I can half perceive
that I may speak my grief into thine ear;
if thou didst ever anything believe,
believe how I love thee, believe how near
my soul is to its doom: I would not grieve
thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear
thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live
another night, and not my passion shrive.”
“Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,
lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,
and I must taste the blossoms that unfold
in its ripe warmth this gracious morning time.”
So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,
and poised with hers in dewy rhyme:
great bliss was with them, and great happiness
grew, like a lusty flower in June’s caress.
Parting they seemed to tread upon the air,
twin roses by the zephyr blown apart
only to meet again more close, and share
the inward fragrance of each other’s heart.
She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair
sang, of delicious love and honeyed dart;
he with light steps went up a western hill,
and bade the sun farewell, and joyed his fill.
All close they met again, before the dusk
had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
all close they met, all eves, before the dusk
had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,
unknown of any, free from whispering tale.
Ah! better had it been for ever so,
than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.
Were they unhappy then?—It cannot be—
too many tears for lovers have been shed,
too many sighs give we to them in fee,
too much of pity after they are dead,
too many doleful stories do we see,
whose matter in bright gold were best be read;
except in such a page where Theseus’ spouse
over the pathless waves towards him bows.
But, for the general award of love,
the little sweet doth kill much bitterness;
though Dido silent is in under-grove,
and Isabella’s was a great distress,
though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove
was not embalmed, this truth is not the less—
even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.
With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,
enrichëd from ancestral merchandize,
and for them many a weary hand did swelt
in torched mines and noisy factories,
and many once proud-quivered loins did melt
in blood from stinging whip;—with hollow eyes
many all day in dazzling river stood,
to take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.
For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,
and went all naked to the hungry shark;
for them his ears gushed blood; for them in death
the seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
a thousand men in troubles wide and dark:
half-ignorant, they turned an easy wheel,
that set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.
Why were they proud? Because their marble founts
gushed with more pride than do a wretch’s tears?—
Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts
were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?—
Why were they proud? Because red-lined accounts
were richer than the songs of Grecian years?—
Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,
why in the name of Glory were they proud?
Yet were these Florentines as self-retired
in hungry pride and gainful cowardice,
as two close Hebrews in that land inspired,
paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies;
the hawks of ship-mast forests—the untired
and panniered mules for ducats and old lies—
quick cat’s-paws on the generous stray-away,—
great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.
How was it these same ledger-men could spy
fair Isabella in her downy nest?
How could they find out in Lorenzo’s eye
a straying from his toil? Hot Egypt’s pest
into their vision covetous and sly!
How could these money-bags see east and west?—
Yet so they did—and every dealer fair
must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.
O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!
Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,
and of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,
and of thy roses amorous of the moon,
and of thy lilies, that do paler grow
now they can no more hear thy gittern’s tune,
for venturing syllables that ill beseem
the Quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.
Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale
shall move on soberly, as it is meet;
there is no other crime, no mad assail
to make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:
but it is done—succeed the verse or fail—
to honor thee, and thy gone spirit greet;
to stead thee as a verse in English tongue,
an echo of thee in the north-wind sung.
These brethren having found by many signs
what love Lorenzo for their sister had,
and how she loved him too, each unconfines
his bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad
that he, the servant of their trade designs,
should in their sister’s love be blithe and glad,
when ’twas their plan to coax her by degrees
to some high noble and his olive-trees.
And many a jealous conference had they,
and many times they bit their lips alone,
before they fixed upon a surest way
to make the youngster for his crime atone;
and at the last, these men of cruel clay
cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone;
The Giant Book of Poetry Page 9