And yon, ye stars,Who slowly begin to marshal,As of old, in the fields of heaven,Your distant, melancholy lines!Have you, too, survived yourselves?Are you, too, what I fear to become?You too once lived;You too moved joyfully,Among august companions,In an older world, peopled by gods,In a mightier order,The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent sons of heaven.But now ye kindleYour lonely, cold-shining lights,Unwilling lingerersIn the heavenly wilderness,For a younger, ignoble world;And renew, by necessity,Night after night your courses,In echoing, unneared silence,Above a race you know not,Uncaring and undelighted,Without friend and without home;Weary like us, though notWeary with our weariness.No, no, ye stars! there is no death with you,No languor, no decay! languor and death,They are with me, not you! ye are alive,—Ye, and the pure dark ether where ye rideBrilliant above me! And thou, fiery world,That sapp’st the vitals of this terrible mountUpon whose charred and quaking crust I stand,—Thou, too, brimmest with life! the sea of cloud,That heaves its white and billowy vapors upTo moat this isle of ashes from the world,Lives; and that other fainter sea, far down,O’er whose lit floor a road of moonbeams leadsTo Etna’s Lipareän sister-firesAnd the long dusky line of Italy,—That mild and luminous floor of waters lives,With held-in joy swelling its heart: I only,Whose spring of hope is dried, whose spirit has failed,I, who have not, like these, in solitudeMaintained courage and force, and in myselfNursed an immortal vigor,—I aloneAm dead to life and joy, therefore I readIn all things my own deadness.
And yon, ye stars,Who slowly begin to marshal,As of old, in the fields of heaven,Your distant, melancholy lines!Have you, too, survived yourselves?Are you, too, what I fear to become?You too once lived;You too moved joyfully,Among august companions,In an older world, peopled by gods,In a mightier order,The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent sons of heaven.But now ye kindleYour lonely, cold-shining lights,Unwilling lingerersIn the heavenly wilderness,For a younger, ignoble world;And renew, by necessity,Night after night your courses,In echoing, unneared silence,Above a race you know not,Uncaring and undelighted,Without friend and without home;Weary like us, though notWeary with our weariness.No, no, ye stars! there is no death with you,No languor, no decay! languor and death,They are with me, not you! ye are alive,—Ye, and the pure dark ether where ye rideBrilliant above me! And thou, fiery world,That sapp’st the vitals of this terrible mountUpon whose charred and quaking crust I stand,—Thou, too, brimmest with life! the sea of cloud,That heaves its white and billowy vapors upTo moat this isle of ashes from the world,Lives; and that other fainter sea, far down,O’er whose lit floor a road of moonbeams leadsTo Etna’s Lipareän sister-firesAnd the long dusky line of Italy,—That mild and luminous floor of waters lives,With held-in joy swelling its heart: I only,Whose spring of hope is dried, whose spirit has failed,I, who have not, like these, in solitudeMaintained courage and force, and in myselfNursed an immortal vigor,—I aloneAm dead to life and joy, therefore I readIn all things my own deadness.
And yon, ye stars,Who slowly begin to marshal,As of old, in the fields of heaven,Your distant, melancholy lines!Have you, too, survived yourselves?Are you, too, what I fear to become?You too once lived;You too moved joyfully,Among august companions,In an older world, peopled by gods,In a mightier order,The radiant, rejoicing, intelligent sons of heaven.But now ye kindleYour lonely, cold-shining lights,Unwilling lingerersIn the heavenly wilderness,For a younger, ignoble world;And renew, by necessity,Night after night your courses,In echoing, unneared silence,Above a race you know not,Uncaring and undelighted,Without friend and without home;Weary like us, though notWeary with our weariness.
No, no, ye stars! there is no death with you,No languor, no decay! languor and death,They are with me, not you! ye are alive,—Ye, and the pure dark ether where ye rideBrilliant above me! And thou, fiery world,That sapp’st the vitals of this terrible mountUpon whose charred and quaking crust I stand,—Thou, too, brimmest with life! the sea of cloud,That heaves its white and billowy vapors upTo moat this isle of ashes from the world,Lives; and that other fainter sea, far down,O’er whose lit floor a road of moonbeams leadsTo Etna’s Lipareän sister-firesAnd the long dusky line of Italy,—That mild and luminous floor of waters lives,With held-in joy swelling its heart: I only,Whose spring of hope is dried, whose spirit has failed,I, who have not, like these, in solitudeMaintained courage and force, and in myselfNursed an immortal vigor,—I aloneAm dead to life and joy, therefore I readIn all things my own deadness.
A long silence. He continues:—
Ohthat I could glow like this mountain!Oh that my heart bounded with the swell of the sea!Oh that my soul were full of light as the stars!Oh that it brooded over the world like the air!But no, this heart will glow no more; thou artA living man no more, Empedocles!Nothing but a devouring flame of thought,—But a naked, eternally restless mind!
Ohthat I could glow like this mountain!Oh that my heart bounded with the swell of the sea!Oh that my soul were full of light as the stars!Oh that it brooded over the world like the air!But no, this heart will glow no more; thou artA living man no more, Empedocles!Nothing but a devouring flame of thought,—But a naked, eternally restless mind!
Ohthat I could glow like this mountain!Oh that my heart bounded with the swell of the sea!Oh that my soul were full of light as the stars!Oh that it brooded over the world like the air!
But no, this heart will glow no more; thou artA living man no more, Empedocles!Nothing but a devouring flame of thought,—But a naked, eternally restless mind!
After a pause:—
To the elements it came from,Every thing will return,—Our bodies to earth,Our blood to water,Heat to fire,Breath to air:They were well born, they will be well entombed.But mind?...And we might gladly share the fruitful stirDown in our mother earth’s miraculous womb;Well would it beWith what rolled of us in the stormy main;We might have joy, blent with the all-bathing air,Or with the nimble, radiant life of fire.But mind, but thought,If these have been the master part of us,—Where willtheyfind their parent element?What will receivethem, who will callthemhome?But we shall still be in them, and they in us;And we shall be the strangers of the world;And they will be our lords, as they are now,And keep us prisoners of our consciousness,And never let us clasp and feel the AllBut through their forms, and modes, and stifling veils.And we shall be unsatisfied as now;And we shall feel the agony of thirst,The ineffable longing for the life of lifeBaffled forever; and still thought and mindWill hurry us with them on their homeless marchOver the unallied unopening earth,Over the unrecognizing sea; while airWill blow us fiercely back to sea and earth,And fire repel us from its living waves.And then we shall unwillingly returnBack to this meadow of calamity,This uncongenial place, this human life:And in our individual human stateGo through the sad probation all again,To see if we will poise our life at last,To see if we will now at last be trueTo our own only true, deep-buried selves,Being one with which, we are one with the whole world;Or whether we will once more fall awayInto the bondage of the flesh or mind,Some slough of sense, or some fantastic mazeForged by the imperious lonely thinking-power.And each succeeding age in which we are bornWill have more peril for us than the last;Will goad our senses with a sharper spur,Will fret our minds to an intenser play,Will make ourselves harder to be discerned.And we shall struggle a while, gasp and rebel;And we shall fly for refuge to past times,Their soul of unworn youth, their breath of greatness;And the reality will pluck us back,Knead us in its hot hand, and change our nature.And we shall feel our powers of effort flag,And rally them for one last fight—and fail;And we shall sink in the impossible strife,And be astray forever.Slave of senseI have in no wise been; but slave of thought?And who can say: I have been always free,Lived ever in the light of my own soul?I cannot; I have lived in wrath and gloom,Fierce, disputatious, ever at war with man,Far from my own soul, far from warmth and light;But I have not grown easy in these bonds,But I have not denied what bonds these were.Yea, I take myself to witness,That I have loved no darkness,Sophisticated no truth,Nursed no dlusion,Allowed no fear!And therefore, O ye elements! I know know—Ye know it too—it hath been granted meNot to die wholly, not to be all enslaved.I feel it in this hour. The numbing cloudMounts off my soul; I feel it, I breathe free.Is it but for a moment?—Ah, boil up, ye vapors!Leap and roar, thou sea of fire!My soul glows to meet you.Ere it flag, ere the mistsOf despondency and gloomRush over it again,Receive me, save me!
To the elements it came from,Every thing will return,—Our bodies to earth,Our blood to water,Heat to fire,Breath to air:They were well born, they will be well entombed.But mind?...And we might gladly share the fruitful stirDown in our mother earth’s miraculous womb;Well would it beWith what rolled of us in the stormy main;We might have joy, blent with the all-bathing air,Or with the nimble, radiant life of fire.But mind, but thought,If these have been the master part of us,—Where willtheyfind their parent element?What will receivethem, who will callthemhome?But we shall still be in them, and they in us;And we shall be the strangers of the world;And they will be our lords, as they are now,And keep us prisoners of our consciousness,And never let us clasp and feel the AllBut through their forms, and modes, and stifling veils.And we shall be unsatisfied as now;And we shall feel the agony of thirst,The ineffable longing for the life of lifeBaffled forever; and still thought and mindWill hurry us with them on their homeless marchOver the unallied unopening earth,Over the unrecognizing sea; while airWill blow us fiercely back to sea and earth,And fire repel us from its living waves.And then we shall unwillingly returnBack to this meadow of calamity,This uncongenial place, this human life:And in our individual human stateGo through the sad probation all again,To see if we will poise our life at last,To see if we will now at last be trueTo our own only true, deep-buried selves,Being one with which, we are one with the whole world;Or whether we will once more fall awayInto the bondage of the flesh or mind,Some slough of sense, or some fantastic mazeForged by the imperious lonely thinking-power.And each succeeding age in which we are bornWill have more peril for us than the last;Will goad our senses with a sharper spur,Will fret our minds to an intenser play,Will make ourselves harder to be discerned.And we shall struggle a while, gasp and rebel;And we shall fly for refuge to past times,Their soul of unworn youth, their breath of greatness;And the reality will pluck us back,Knead us in its hot hand, and change our nature.And we shall feel our powers of effort flag,And rally them for one last fight—and fail;And we shall sink in the impossible strife,And be astray forever.Slave of senseI have in no wise been; but slave of thought?And who can say: I have been always free,Lived ever in the light of my own soul?I cannot; I have lived in wrath and gloom,Fierce, disputatious, ever at war with man,Far from my own soul, far from warmth and light;But I have not grown easy in these bonds,But I have not denied what bonds these were.Yea, I take myself to witness,That I have loved no darkness,Sophisticated no truth,Nursed no dlusion,Allowed no fear!And therefore, O ye elements! I know know—Ye know it too—it hath been granted meNot to die wholly, not to be all enslaved.I feel it in this hour. The numbing cloudMounts off my soul; I feel it, I breathe free.Is it but for a moment?—Ah, boil up, ye vapors!Leap and roar, thou sea of fire!My soul glows to meet you.Ere it flag, ere the mistsOf despondency and gloomRush over it again,Receive me, save me!
To the elements it came from,Every thing will return,—Our bodies to earth,Our blood to water,Heat to fire,Breath to air:They were well born, they will be well entombed.But mind?...
And we might gladly share the fruitful stirDown in our mother earth’s miraculous womb;Well would it beWith what rolled of us in the stormy main;We might have joy, blent with the all-bathing air,Or with the nimble, radiant life of fire.
But mind, but thought,If these have been the master part of us,—Where willtheyfind their parent element?What will receivethem, who will callthemhome?But we shall still be in them, and they in us;And we shall be the strangers of the world;And they will be our lords, as they are now,And keep us prisoners of our consciousness,And never let us clasp and feel the AllBut through their forms, and modes, and stifling veils.And we shall be unsatisfied as now;And we shall feel the agony of thirst,The ineffable longing for the life of lifeBaffled forever; and still thought and mindWill hurry us with them on their homeless marchOver the unallied unopening earth,Over the unrecognizing sea; while airWill blow us fiercely back to sea and earth,And fire repel us from its living waves.And then we shall unwillingly returnBack to this meadow of calamity,This uncongenial place, this human life:And in our individual human stateGo through the sad probation all again,To see if we will poise our life at last,To see if we will now at last be trueTo our own only true, deep-buried selves,Being one with which, we are one with the whole world;Or whether we will once more fall awayInto the bondage of the flesh or mind,Some slough of sense, or some fantastic mazeForged by the imperious lonely thinking-power.And each succeeding age in which we are bornWill have more peril for us than the last;Will goad our senses with a sharper spur,Will fret our minds to an intenser play,Will make ourselves harder to be discerned.And we shall struggle a while, gasp and rebel;And we shall fly for refuge to past times,Their soul of unworn youth, their breath of greatness;And the reality will pluck us back,Knead us in its hot hand, and change our nature.And we shall feel our powers of effort flag,And rally them for one last fight—and fail;And we shall sink in the impossible strife,And be astray forever.Slave of senseI have in no wise been; but slave of thought?And who can say: I have been always free,Lived ever in the light of my own soul?I cannot; I have lived in wrath and gloom,Fierce, disputatious, ever at war with man,Far from my own soul, far from warmth and light;But I have not grown easy in these bonds,But I have not denied what bonds these were.Yea, I take myself to witness,That I have loved no darkness,Sophisticated no truth,Nursed no dlusion,Allowed no fear!
And therefore, O ye elements! I know know—Ye know it too—it hath been granted meNot to die wholly, not to be all enslaved.I feel it in this hour. The numbing cloudMounts off my soul; I feel it, I breathe free.
Is it but for a moment?—Ah, boil up, ye vapors!Leap and roar, thou sea of fire!My soul glows to meet you.Ere it flag, ere the mistsOf despondency and gloomRush over it again,Receive me, save me!
[He plunges into the crater.
CALLICLES(from below).Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,Thick breaks the red flame;All Etna heaves fiercelyHer forest-clothed frame.Not here, O Apollo!Are haunts meet for thee;But where Helicon breaks downIn cliff to the sea,—Where the moon-silvered inletsSend far their light voiceUp the still vale of Thisbe,—Oh, speed, and rejoice!On the sward at the cliff-topLie strewn the white flocks:On the cliff-side the pigeonsRoost deep in the rocks.In the moonlight the shepherds,Soft lulled by the rills,Lie wrapped in their blanketsAsleep on the hills.—What forms are these comingSo white through the gloom?What garments out-glisteningThe gold-flowered broom?What sweet-breathing presenceOut-perfumes the thyme?What voices enraptureThe night’s balmy prime?’Tis Apollo comes leadingHis choir, the Nine.The leader is fairest,But all are divine.They are lost in the hollows!They stream up again!What seeks on this mountainThe glorified train?They bathe on this mountain,In the spring by their road;Then on to Olympus,Their endless abode.—Whose praise do they mention?Of what is it told?What will be forever,What was from of old.First hymn they the FatherOf all things; and then,The rest of immortals,The action of men.The day in his hotness,The strife with the palm;The night in her silence,The stars in their calm.
CALLICLES(from below).Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,Thick breaks the red flame;All Etna heaves fiercelyHer forest-clothed frame.Not here, O Apollo!Are haunts meet for thee;But where Helicon breaks downIn cliff to the sea,—Where the moon-silvered inletsSend far their light voiceUp the still vale of Thisbe,—Oh, speed, and rejoice!On the sward at the cliff-topLie strewn the white flocks:On the cliff-side the pigeonsRoost deep in the rocks.In the moonlight the shepherds,Soft lulled by the rills,Lie wrapped in their blanketsAsleep on the hills.—What forms are these comingSo white through the gloom?What garments out-glisteningThe gold-flowered broom?What sweet-breathing presenceOut-perfumes the thyme?What voices enraptureThe night’s balmy prime?’Tis Apollo comes leadingHis choir, the Nine.The leader is fairest,But all are divine.They are lost in the hollows!They stream up again!What seeks on this mountainThe glorified train?They bathe on this mountain,In the spring by their road;Then on to Olympus,Their endless abode.—Whose praise do they mention?Of what is it told?What will be forever,What was from of old.First hymn they the FatherOf all things; and then,The rest of immortals,The action of men.The day in his hotness,The strife with the palm;The night in her silence,The stars in their calm.
CALLICLES(from below).
Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,Thick breaks the red flame;All Etna heaves fiercelyHer forest-clothed frame.
Not here, O Apollo!Are haunts meet for thee;But where Helicon breaks downIn cliff to the sea,—
Where the moon-silvered inletsSend far their light voiceUp the still vale of Thisbe,—Oh, speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-topLie strewn the white flocks:On the cliff-side the pigeonsRoost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,Soft lulled by the rills,Lie wrapped in their blanketsAsleep on the hills.
—What forms are these comingSo white through the gloom?What garments out-glisteningThe gold-flowered broom?
What sweet-breathing presenceOut-perfumes the thyme?What voices enraptureThe night’s balmy prime?
’Tis Apollo comes leadingHis choir, the Nine.The leader is fairest,But all are divine.
They are lost in the hollows!They stream up again!What seeks on this mountainThe glorified train?
They bathe on this mountain,In the spring by their road;Then on to Olympus,Their endless abode.
—Whose praise do they mention?Of what is it told?What will be forever,What was from of old.
First hymn they the FatherOf all things; and then,The rest of immortals,The action of men.
The day in his hotness,The strife with the palm;The night in her silence,The stars in their calm.
Theevening comes, the fields are still.The tinkle of the thirsty rill,Unheard all day, ascends again;Deserted is the half-mown plain,Silent the swaths; the ringing wain,The mower’s cry, the dog’s alarms,All housed within the sleeping farms.The business of the day is done,The last-left haymaker is gone.And from the thyme upon the height,And from the elder-blossom whiteAnd pale dog-roses in the hedge,And from the mint-plant in the sedge,In puffs of balm the night-air blowsThe perfume which the day foregoes.And on the pure horizon far,See, pulsing with the first-born star,The liquid sky above the hill!The evening comes, the fields are still.Loitering and leaping,With saunter, with bounds,Flickering and circlingIn files and in rounds,Gayly their pine-staff greenTossing in air,Loose o’er their shoulders whiteShowering their hair,See! the wild MænadsBreak from the wood,Youth and IacchusMaddening their blood.See! through the quiet landRioting they pass,Fling the fresh heaps about,Trample the grass,Tear from the rifled hedgeGarlands, their prize;Fill with their sports the field,Fill with their cries.Shepherd, what ails thee, then?Shepherd, why mute?Forth with thy joyous song!Forth with thy flute!Tempts not the revel blithe?Lure not their cries?Glow not their shoulders smooth?Melt not their eyes?Is not, on cheeks like those,Lovely the flush?—Ah! so the quiet was!So was the hush!
Theevening comes, the fields are still.The tinkle of the thirsty rill,Unheard all day, ascends again;Deserted is the half-mown plain,Silent the swaths; the ringing wain,The mower’s cry, the dog’s alarms,All housed within the sleeping farms.The business of the day is done,The last-left haymaker is gone.And from the thyme upon the height,And from the elder-blossom whiteAnd pale dog-roses in the hedge,And from the mint-plant in the sedge,In puffs of balm the night-air blowsThe perfume which the day foregoes.And on the pure horizon far,See, pulsing with the first-born star,The liquid sky above the hill!The evening comes, the fields are still.Loitering and leaping,With saunter, with bounds,Flickering and circlingIn files and in rounds,Gayly their pine-staff greenTossing in air,Loose o’er their shoulders whiteShowering their hair,See! the wild MænadsBreak from the wood,Youth and IacchusMaddening their blood.See! through the quiet landRioting they pass,Fling the fresh heaps about,Trample the grass,Tear from the rifled hedgeGarlands, their prize;Fill with their sports the field,Fill with their cries.Shepherd, what ails thee, then?Shepherd, why mute?Forth with thy joyous song!Forth with thy flute!Tempts not the revel blithe?Lure not their cries?Glow not their shoulders smooth?Melt not their eyes?Is not, on cheeks like those,Lovely the flush?—Ah! so the quiet was!So was the hush!
Theevening comes, the fields are still.The tinkle of the thirsty rill,Unheard all day, ascends again;Deserted is the half-mown plain,Silent the swaths; the ringing wain,The mower’s cry, the dog’s alarms,All housed within the sleeping farms.The business of the day is done,The last-left haymaker is gone.And from the thyme upon the height,And from the elder-blossom whiteAnd pale dog-roses in the hedge,And from the mint-plant in the sedge,In puffs of balm the night-air blowsThe perfume which the day foregoes.And on the pure horizon far,See, pulsing with the first-born star,The liquid sky above the hill!The evening comes, the fields are still.
Loitering and leaping,With saunter, with bounds,Flickering and circlingIn files and in rounds,Gayly their pine-staff greenTossing in air,Loose o’er their shoulders whiteShowering their hair,See! the wild MænadsBreak from the wood,Youth and IacchusMaddening their blood.See! through the quiet landRioting they pass,Fling the fresh heaps about,Trample the grass,Tear from the rifled hedgeGarlands, their prize;Fill with their sports the field,Fill with their cries.
Shepherd, what ails thee, then?Shepherd, why mute?Forth with thy joyous song!Forth with thy flute!Tempts not the revel blithe?Lure not their cries?Glow not their shoulders smooth?Melt not their eyes?Is not, on cheeks like those,Lovely the flush?—Ah! so the quiet was!So was the hush!
The epoch ends, the world is still.The age has talked and worked its fill.The famous orators have shone,The famous poets sung and gone,The famous men of war have fought,The famous speculators thought,The famous players, sculptors, wrought,The famous painters filled their wall,The famous critics judged it all.The combatants are parted now;Uphung the spear, unbent the bow,The puissant crowned, the weak laid low.And in the after-silence sweet,Now strifes are hushed, our ears doth meet,Ascending pure, the bell-like fameOf this or that down-trodden name,Delicate spirits, pushed awayIn the hot press of the noonday.And o’er the plain, where the dead ageDid its now-silent warfare wage,—O’er that wide plain, now wrapped in gloom,Where many a splendor finds its tomb,Many spent fames and fallen nights nights—The one or two immortal lightsRise slowly up into the sky,To shine there everlastingly,Like stars over the bounding hill.The epoch ends, the world is still.Thundering and burstingIn torrents, in waves,Carolling and shoutingOver tombs, amid graves,See! on the cumbered plainClearing a stage,Scattering the past about,Comes the new age.Bards make new poems,Thinkers new schools,Statesmen new systems,Critics new rules.All things begin again;Life is their prize;Earth with their deeds they fill,Fill with their cries.Poet, what ails thee, then?Say, why so mute?Forth with thy praising voice!Forth with thy flute!Loiterer! why sittest thouSunk in thy dream?Tempts not the bright new age?Shines not its stream?Look, ah! what genius,Art, science, wit!Soldiers like Cæsar,Statesmen like Pitt!Sculptors like Phidias,Raphaels in shoals,Poets like Shakspeare,—Beautiful souls!See, on their glowing cheeksHeavenly the flush!—Ah! so the silence was!So was the hush!The world but feels the present’s spell:The poet feels the past as well;Whatever men have done, might do,Whatever thought, might think it too.
The epoch ends, the world is still.The age has talked and worked its fill.The famous orators have shone,The famous poets sung and gone,The famous men of war have fought,The famous speculators thought,The famous players, sculptors, wrought,The famous painters filled their wall,The famous critics judged it all.The combatants are parted now;Uphung the spear, unbent the bow,The puissant crowned, the weak laid low.And in the after-silence sweet,Now strifes are hushed, our ears doth meet,Ascending pure, the bell-like fameOf this or that down-trodden name,Delicate spirits, pushed awayIn the hot press of the noonday.And o’er the plain, where the dead ageDid its now-silent warfare wage,—O’er that wide plain, now wrapped in gloom,Where many a splendor finds its tomb,Many spent fames and fallen nights nights—The one or two immortal lightsRise slowly up into the sky,To shine there everlastingly,Like stars over the bounding hill.The epoch ends, the world is still.Thundering and burstingIn torrents, in waves,Carolling and shoutingOver tombs, amid graves,See! on the cumbered plainClearing a stage,Scattering the past about,Comes the new age.Bards make new poems,Thinkers new schools,Statesmen new systems,Critics new rules.All things begin again;Life is their prize;Earth with their deeds they fill,Fill with their cries.Poet, what ails thee, then?Say, why so mute?Forth with thy praising voice!Forth with thy flute!Loiterer! why sittest thouSunk in thy dream?Tempts not the bright new age?Shines not its stream?Look, ah! what genius,Art, science, wit!Soldiers like Cæsar,Statesmen like Pitt!Sculptors like Phidias,Raphaels in shoals,Poets like Shakspeare,—Beautiful souls!See, on their glowing cheeksHeavenly the flush!—Ah! so the silence was!So was the hush!The world but feels the present’s spell:The poet feels the past as well;Whatever men have done, might do,Whatever thought, might think it too.
The epoch ends, the world is still.The age has talked and worked its fill.The famous orators have shone,The famous poets sung and gone,The famous men of war have fought,The famous speculators thought,The famous players, sculptors, wrought,The famous painters filled their wall,The famous critics judged it all.The combatants are parted now;Uphung the spear, unbent the bow,The puissant crowned, the weak laid low.And in the after-silence sweet,Now strifes are hushed, our ears doth meet,Ascending pure, the bell-like fameOf this or that down-trodden name,Delicate spirits, pushed awayIn the hot press of the noonday.And o’er the plain, where the dead ageDid its now-silent warfare wage,—O’er that wide plain, now wrapped in gloom,Where many a splendor finds its tomb,Many spent fames and fallen nights nights—The one or two immortal lightsRise slowly up into the sky,To shine there everlastingly,Like stars over the bounding hill.The epoch ends, the world is still.
Thundering and burstingIn torrents, in waves,Carolling and shoutingOver tombs, amid graves,See! on the cumbered plainClearing a stage,Scattering the past about,Comes the new age.Bards make new poems,Thinkers new schools,Statesmen new systems,Critics new rules.All things begin again;Life is their prize;Earth with their deeds they fill,Fill with their cries.
Poet, what ails thee, then?Say, why so mute?Forth with thy praising voice!Forth with thy flute!Loiterer! why sittest thouSunk in thy dream?Tempts not the bright new age?Shines not its stream?Look, ah! what genius,Art, science, wit!Soldiers like Cæsar,Statesmen like Pitt!Sculptors like Phidias,Raphaels in shoals,Poets like Shakspeare,—Beautiful souls!See, on their glowing cheeksHeavenly the flush!—Ah! so the silence was!So was the hush!
The world but feels the present’s spell:The poet feels the past as well;Whatever men have done, might do,Whatever thought, might think it too.
Onemorn as through Hyde Park we walked,My friend and I, by chance we talkedOf Lessing’s famed Laocoön;And after we a while had goneIn Lessing’s track, and tried to seeWhat painting is, what poetry,—Diverging to another thought,“Ah!” cries my friend, “but who hath taughtWhy music and the other artsOftener perform aright their partsThan poetry? why she, than they,Fewer fine successes can display?“For ’tis so, surely! Even in Greece,Where best the poet framed his piece,Even in that Phœbus-guarded groundPausanias on his travels foundGood poems, if he looked, more rare(Though many) than good statues were—For these, in truth, were everywhere.Of bards full many a stroke divineIn Dante’s, Petrarch’s, Tasso’s line,The land of Ariosto showed;And yet, e’en there, the canvas glowedWith triumphs, a yet ampler brood,Of Raphael and his brotherhood.And nobly perfect, in our dayOf haste, half-work, and disarray,Profound yet touching, sweet yet strong,Hath risen Goethe’s, Wordsworth’s song;Yet even I (and none will bowDeeper to these) must needs allow,They yield us not, to soothe our pains,Such multitude of heavenly strainsAs from the kings of sound are blown,—Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn.”While thus my friend discoursed, we passOut of the path, and take the grass.The grass had still the green of May,And still the unblackened elms were gay;The kine were resting in the shade,The flies a summer murmur made.Bright was the morn, and south the air;The soft-couched cattle were as fairAs those which pastured by the sea,That old-world morn, in Sicily,When on the beach the Cyclops lay,And Galatea from the bayMocked her poor lovelorn giant’s lay.“Behold,” I said, “the painter’s sphere!The limits of his art appear.The passing group, the summer morn,The grass, the elms, that blossomed thorn,—Those cattle couched, or, as they rise,Their shining flanks, their liquid eyes,—These, or much greater things, but caughtLike these, and in one aspect brought!In outward semblance he must giveA moment’s life of things that live;Then let him choose his moment well,With power divine its story tell.”Still we walked on, in thoughtful mood,And now upon the bridge we stood.Full of sweet breathings was the air,Of sudden stirs and pauses fair.Down o’er the stately bridge the breezeCame rustling from the garden-trees,And on the sparkling waters played;Light-plashing waves an answer made,And mimic boats their haven neared.Beyond, the abbey-towers appeared,By mist and chimneys unconfined,Free to the sweep of light and wind;While through their earth-moored nave below,Another breath of wind doth blow,Sound as of wandering breeze—but soundIn laws by human artists bound.“The world of music!” I exclaimed,—“This breeze that rustles by, that famedAbbey, recall it! what a sphere,Large and profound, hath genius here!The inspired musician, what a range,What power of passion, wealth of change!Some source of feeling he must choose,And its locked fount of beauty use,And through the stream of music tellIts else unutterable spell;To choose it rightly is his part,And press into its inmost heart.“Miserere, Domine!The words are uttered, and they flee.Deep is their penitential moan,Mighty their pathos, but ’tis gone.They have declared the spirit’s sore,Sore load, and words can do no more.Beethoven takes them then,—those twoPoor, bounded words,—and makes them new;Infinite makes them, makes them young;Transplants them to another tongue,Where they can now, without constraint,Pour all the soul of their complaint,And roll adown a channel largeThe wealth divine they have in charge.Page after page of music turn,And still they live, and still they burn,Eternal, passion-fraught, and free,—Miserere, Domine!”Onward we moved, and reached the rideWhere gayly flows the human tide.Afar, in rest the cattle lay;We heard, afar, faint music play;But agitated, brisk, and near,Men, with their stream of life, were here.Some hang upon the rails, and someOn foot behind them go and come.This through the ride upon his steedGoes slowly by, and this at speed.The young, the happy, and the fair,The old, the sad, the worn, were there;Some vacant and some musing went,And some in talk and merriment.Nods, smiles, and greetings, and farewells!And now and then, perhaps, there swellsA sigh, a tear—but in the throngAll changes fast, and hies along.Hies, ah! from whence, what native ground?And to what goal, what ending, bound?“Behold at last the poet’s sphere!But who,” I said, “suffices here?“For, ah! so much he has to do,—Be painter and musician too!The aspect of the moment show,The feeling of the moment know!The aspect not, I grant, expressClear as the painter’s art can dress;The feeling not, I grant, exploreSo deep as the musician’s lore:But clear as words can make revealing,And deep as words can follow feeling.But, ah! then comes his sorest spellOf toil,—he must life’smovementtell!The thread which binds it all in one,And not its separate parts alone.Themovementhe must tell of life,Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife;His eye must travel down, at full,The long, unpausing spectacle;With faithful, unrelaxing forceAttend it from its primal source,From change to change and year to yearAttend it of its mid-career,Attend it to the last reposeAnd solemn silence of its close.“The cattle rising from the grass,His thought must follow where they pass;The penitent with anguish bowed,His thought must follow through the crowd.Yes! all this eddying, motley throngThat sparkles in the sun along,—Girl, statesman, merchant, soldier bold,Master and servant, young and old,Grave, gay, child, parent, husband, wife,—He follows home, and lives their life.“And many, many are the soulsLife’s movement fascinates, controls.It draws them on, they cannot saveTheir feet from its alluring wave;They cannot leave it, they must goWith its unconquerable flow.But ah! how few, of all that tryThis mighty march, do aught but die!For ill-endowed for such a way,Ill-stored in strength, in wits, are they.They faint, they stagger to and fro,And wandering from the stream they go;In pain, in terror, in distress,They see, all round, a wilderness.Sometimes a momentary gleamThey catch of the mysterious stream;Sometimes, a second’s space, their earThe murmur of its waves doth hear;That transient glimpse in song they say,But not as painter can portray;That transient sound in song they tell,But not as the musician well.And when at last their snatches cease,And they are silent and at peace,The stream of life’s majestic wholeHath ne’er been mirrored on their soul.“Only a few the life-stream’s shoreWith safe unwandering feet explore;Untired its movement bright attend,Follow its windings to the end.Then from its brimming waves their eyeDrinks up delighted ecstasy,And its deep-toned, melodious voiceForever makes their ear rejoice.They speak! the happiness divineThey feel runs o’er in every line;Its spell is round them like a shower;It gives them pathos, gives them power.No painter yet hath such a way,Nor no musician made, as they,And gathered on immortal knollsSuch lovely flowers for cheering souls.Beethoven, Raphael, cannot reachThe charm which Homer, Shakspeare, teach.To these, to these, their thankful raceGives, then, the first, the fairest place;And brightest is their glory’s sheen,For greatest hath their labor been.”
Onemorn as through Hyde Park we walked,My friend and I, by chance we talkedOf Lessing’s famed Laocoön;And after we a while had goneIn Lessing’s track, and tried to seeWhat painting is, what poetry,—Diverging to another thought,“Ah!” cries my friend, “but who hath taughtWhy music and the other artsOftener perform aright their partsThan poetry? why she, than they,Fewer fine successes can display?“For ’tis so, surely! Even in Greece,Where best the poet framed his piece,Even in that Phœbus-guarded groundPausanias on his travels foundGood poems, if he looked, more rare(Though many) than good statues were—For these, in truth, were everywhere.Of bards full many a stroke divineIn Dante’s, Petrarch’s, Tasso’s line,The land of Ariosto showed;And yet, e’en there, the canvas glowedWith triumphs, a yet ampler brood,Of Raphael and his brotherhood.And nobly perfect, in our dayOf haste, half-work, and disarray,Profound yet touching, sweet yet strong,Hath risen Goethe’s, Wordsworth’s song;Yet even I (and none will bowDeeper to these) must needs allow,They yield us not, to soothe our pains,Such multitude of heavenly strainsAs from the kings of sound are blown,—Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn.”While thus my friend discoursed, we passOut of the path, and take the grass.The grass had still the green of May,And still the unblackened elms were gay;The kine were resting in the shade,The flies a summer murmur made.Bright was the morn, and south the air;The soft-couched cattle were as fairAs those which pastured by the sea,That old-world morn, in Sicily,When on the beach the Cyclops lay,And Galatea from the bayMocked her poor lovelorn giant’s lay.“Behold,” I said, “the painter’s sphere!The limits of his art appear.The passing group, the summer morn,The grass, the elms, that blossomed thorn,—Those cattle couched, or, as they rise,Their shining flanks, their liquid eyes,—These, or much greater things, but caughtLike these, and in one aspect brought!In outward semblance he must giveA moment’s life of things that live;Then let him choose his moment well,With power divine its story tell.”Still we walked on, in thoughtful mood,And now upon the bridge we stood.Full of sweet breathings was the air,Of sudden stirs and pauses fair.Down o’er the stately bridge the breezeCame rustling from the garden-trees,And on the sparkling waters played;Light-plashing waves an answer made,And mimic boats their haven neared.Beyond, the abbey-towers appeared,By mist and chimneys unconfined,Free to the sweep of light and wind;While through their earth-moored nave below,Another breath of wind doth blow,Sound as of wandering breeze—but soundIn laws by human artists bound.“The world of music!” I exclaimed,—“This breeze that rustles by, that famedAbbey, recall it! what a sphere,Large and profound, hath genius here!The inspired musician, what a range,What power of passion, wealth of change!Some source of feeling he must choose,And its locked fount of beauty use,And through the stream of music tellIts else unutterable spell;To choose it rightly is his part,And press into its inmost heart.“Miserere, Domine!The words are uttered, and they flee.Deep is their penitential moan,Mighty their pathos, but ’tis gone.They have declared the spirit’s sore,Sore load, and words can do no more.Beethoven takes them then,—those twoPoor, bounded words,—and makes them new;Infinite makes them, makes them young;Transplants them to another tongue,Where they can now, without constraint,Pour all the soul of their complaint,And roll adown a channel largeThe wealth divine they have in charge.Page after page of music turn,And still they live, and still they burn,Eternal, passion-fraught, and free,—Miserere, Domine!”Onward we moved, and reached the rideWhere gayly flows the human tide.Afar, in rest the cattle lay;We heard, afar, faint music play;But agitated, brisk, and near,Men, with their stream of life, were here.Some hang upon the rails, and someOn foot behind them go and come.This through the ride upon his steedGoes slowly by, and this at speed.The young, the happy, and the fair,The old, the sad, the worn, were there;Some vacant and some musing went,And some in talk and merriment.Nods, smiles, and greetings, and farewells!And now and then, perhaps, there swellsA sigh, a tear—but in the throngAll changes fast, and hies along.Hies, ah! from whence, what native ground?And to what goal, what ending, bound?“Behold at last the poet’s sphere!But who,” I said, “suffices here?“For, ah! so much he has to do,—Be painter and musician too!The aspect of the moment show,The feeling of the moment know!The aspect not, I grant, expressClear as the painter’s art can dress;The feeling not, I grant, exploreSo deep as the musician’s lore:But clear as words can make revealing,And deep as words can follow feeling.But, ah! then comes his sorest spellOf toil,—he must life’smovementtell!The thread which binds it all in one,And not its separate parts alone.Themovementhe must tell of life,Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife;His eye must travel down, at full,The long, unpausing spectacle;With faithful, unrelaxing forceAttend it from its primal source,From change to change and year to yearAttend it of its mid-career,Attend it to the last reposeAnd solemn silence of its close.“The cattle rising from the grass,His thought must follow where they pass;The penitent with anguish bowed,His thought must follow through the crowd.Yes! all this eddying, motley throngThat sparkles in the sun along,—Girl, statesman, merchant, soldier bold,Master and servant, young and old,Grave, gay, child, parent, husband, wife,—He follows home, and lives their life.“And many, many are the soulsLife’s movement fascinates, controls.It draws them on, they cannot saveTheir feet from its alluring wave;They cannot leave it, they must goWith its unconquerable flow.But ah! how few, of all that tryThis mighty march, do aught but die!For ill-endowed for such a way,Ill-stored in strength, in wits, are they.They faint, they stagger to and fro,And wandering from the stream they go;In pain, in terror, in distress,They see, all round, a wilderness.Sometimes a momentary gleamThey catch of the mysterious stream;Sometimes, a second’s space, their earThe murmur of its waves doth hear;That transient glimpse in song they say,But not as painter can portray;That transient sound in song they tell,But not as the musician well.And when at last their snatches cease,And they are silent and at peace,The stream of life’s majestic wholeHath ne’er been mirrored on their soul.“Only a few the life-stream’s shoreWith safe unwandering feet explore;Untired its movement bright attend,Follow its windings to the end.Then from its brimming waves their eyeDrinks up delighted ecstasy,And its deep-toned, melodious voiceForever makes their ear rejoice.They speak! the happiness divineThey feel runs o’er in every line;Its spell is round them like a shower;It gives them pathos, gives them power.No painter yet hath such a way,Nor no musician made, as they,And gathered on immortal knollsSuch lovely flowers for cheering souls.Beethoven, Raphael, cannot reachThe charm which Homer, Shakspeare, teach.To these, to these, their thankful raceGives, then, the first, the fairest place;And brightest is their glory’s sheen,For greatest hath their labor been.”
Onemorn as through Hyde Park we walked,My friend and I, by chance we talkedOf Lessing’s famed Laocoön;And after we a while had goneIn Lessing’s track, and tried to seeWhat painting is, what poetry,—Diverging to another thought,“Ah!” cries my friend, “but who hath taughtWhy music and the other artsOftener perform aright their partsThan poetry? why she, than they,Fewer fine successes can display?
“For ’tis so, surely! Even in Greece,Where best the poet framed his piece,Even in that Phœbus-guarded groundPausanias on his travels foundGood poems, if he looked, more rare(Though many) than good statues were—For these, in truth, were everywhere.Of bards full many a stroke divineIn Dante’s, Petrarch’s, Tasso’s line,The land of Ariosto showed;And yet, e’en there, the canvas glowedWith triumphs, a yet ampler brood,Of Raphael and his brotherhood.And nobly perfect, in our dayOf haste, half-work, and disarray,Profound yet touching, sweet yet strong,Hath risen Goethe’s, Wordsworth’s song;Yet even I (and none will bowDeeper to these) must needs allow,They yield us not, to soothe our pains,Such multitude of heavenly strainsAs from the kings of sound are blown,—Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn.”
While thus my friend discoursed, we passOut of the path, and take the grass.The grass had still the green of May,And still the unblackened elms were gay;The kine were resting in the shade,The flies a summer murmur made.Bright was the morn, and south the air;The soft-couched cattle were as fairAs those which pastured by the sea,That old-world morn, in Sicily,When on the beach the Cyclops lay,And Galatea from the bayMocked her poor lovelorn giant’s lay.“Behold,” I said, “the painter’s sphere!The limits of his art appear.The passing group, the summer morn,The grass, the elms, that blossomed thorn,—Those cattle couched, or, as they rise,Their shining flanks, their liquid eyes,—These, or much greater things, but caughtLike these, and in one aspect brought!In outward semblance he must giveA moment’s life of things that live;Then let him choose his moment well,With power divine its story tell.”
Still we walked on, in thoughtful mood,And now upon the bridge we stood.Full of sweet breathings was the air,Of sudden stirs and pauses fair.Down o’er the stately bridge the breezeCame rustling from the garden-trees,And on the sparkling waters played;Light-plashing waves an answer made,And mimic boats their haven neared.Beyond, the abbey-towers appeared,By mist and chimneys unconfined,Free to the sweep of light and wind;While through their earth-moored nave below,Another breath of wind doth blow,Sound as of wandering breeze—but soundIn laws by human artists bound.“The world of music!” I exclaimed,—“This breeze that rustles by, that famedAbbey, recall it! what a sphere,Large and profound, hath genius here!The inspired musician, what a range,What power of passion, wealth of change!Some source of feeling he must choose,And its locked fount of beauty use,And through the stream of music tellIts else unutterable spell;To choose it rightly is his part,And press into its inmost heart.
“Miserere, Domine!The words are uttered, and they flee.Deep is their penitential moan,Mighty their pathos, but ’tis gone.They have declared the spirit’s sore,Sore load, and words can do no more.Beethoven takes them then,—those twoPoor, bounded words,—and makes them new;Infinite makes them, makes them young;Transplants them to another tongue,Where they can now, without constraint,Pour all the soul of their complaint,And roll adown a channel largeThe wealth divine they have in charge.Page after page of music turn,And still they live, and still they burn,Eternal, passion-fraught, and free,—Miserere, Domine!”
Onward we moved, and reached the rideWhere gayly flows the human tide.Afar, in rest the cattle lay;We heard, afar, faint music play;But agitated, brisk, and near,Men, with their stream of life, were here.Some hang upon the rails, and someOn foot behind them go and come.This through the ride upon his steedGoes slowly by, and this at speed.The young, the happy, and the fair,The old, the sad, the worn, were there;Some vacant and some musing went,And some in talk and merriment.Nods, smiles, and greetings, and farewells!And now and then, perhaps, there swellsA sigh, a tear—but in the throngAll changes fast, and hies along.Hies, ah! from whence, what native ground?And to what goal, what ending, bound?“Behold at last the poet’s sphere!But who,” I said, “suffices here?
“For, ah! so much he has to do,—Be painter and musician too!The aspect of the moment show,The feeling of the moment know!The aspect not, I grant, expressClear as the painter’s art can dress;The feeling not, I grant, exploreSo deep as the musician’s lore:But clear as words can make revealing,And deep as words can follow feeling.But, ah! then comes his sorest spellOf toil,—he must life’smovementtell!The thread which binds it all in one,And not its separate parts alone.Themovementhe must tell of life,Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife;His eye must travel down, at full,The long, unpausing spectacle;With faithful, unrelaxing forceAttend it from its primal source,From change to change and year to yearAttend it of its mid-career,Attend it to the last reposeAnd solemn silence of its close.
“The cattle rising from the grass,His thought must follow where they pass;The penitent with anguish bowed,His thought must follow through the crowd.Yes! all this eddying, motley throngThat sparkles in the sun along,—Girl, statesman, merchant, soldier bold,Master and servant, young and old,Grave, gay, child, parent, husband, wife,—He follows home, and lives their life.
“And many, many are the soulsLife’s movement fascinates, controls.It draws them on, they cannot saveTheir feet from its alluring wave;They cannot leave it, they must goWith its unconquerable flow.But ah! how few, of all that tryThis mighty march, do aught but die!For ill-endowed for such a way,Ill-stored in strength, in wits, are they.They faint, they stagger to and fro,And wandering from the stream they go;In pain, in terror, in distress,They see, all round, a wilderness.Sometimes a momentary gleamThey catch of the mysterious stream;Sometimes, a second’s space, their earThe murmur of its waves doth hear;That transient glimpse in song they say,But not as painter can portray;That transient sound in song they tell,But not as the musician well.And when at last their snatches cease,And they are silent and at peace,The stream of life’s majestic wholeHath ne’er been mirrored on their soul.
“Only a few the life-stream’s shoreWith safe unwandering feet explore;Untired its movement bright attend,Follow its windings to the end.Then from its brimming waves their eyeDrinks up delighted ecstasy,And its deep-toned, melodious voiceForever makes their ear rejoice.They speak! the happiness divineThey feel runs o’er in every line;Its spell is round them like a shower;It gives them pathos, gives them power.No painter yet hath such a way,Nor no musician made, as they,And gathered on immortal knollsSuch lovely flowers for cheering souls.Beethoven, Raphael, cannot reachThe charm which Homer, Shakspeare, teach.To these, to these, their thankful raceGives, then, the first, the fairest place;And brightest is their glory’s sheen,For greatest hath their labor been.”
Thoughthe Muse be gone away,Though she move not earth to-day,Souls, erewhile who caught her word,Ah! still harp on what they heard.
Thoughthe Muse be gone away,Though she move not earth to-day,Souls, erewhile who caught her word,Ah! still harp on what they heard.
Thoughthe Muse be gone away,Though she move not earth to-day,Souls, erewhile who caught her word,Ah! still harp on what they heard.
Whatpoets feel not, when they make,A pleasure in creating,The world, initsturn, will not takePleasure in contemplating.
Whatpoets feel not, when they make,A pleasure in creating,The world, initsturn, will not takePleasure in contemplating.
Whatpoets feel not, when they make,A pleasure in creating,The world, initsturn, will not takePleasure in contemplating.
Raisedare the dripping oars,Silent the boat! The lake,Lovely and soft as a dream,Swims in the sheen of the moon.The mountains stand at its headClear in the pure June-night,But the valleys are flooded with haze.Rydal and Fairfield are there;In the shadow Wordsworth lies dead.So it is, so it will be for aye.Nature is fresh as of old,Is lovely; a mortal is dead.The spots which recall him survive,For he lent a new life to these hills.The Pillar still broods o’er the fieldsWhich border Ennerdale Lake,And Egremont sleeps by the sea.The gleam of The Evening StarTwinkles on Grasmere no more,But ruined and solemn and grayThe sheepfold of Michael survives;And far to the south, the heathStill blows in the Quantock coombs,By the favorite waters of Ruth.These survive! Yet not without pain,Pain and dejection to-night,Can I feel that their poet is gone.He grew old in an age he condemned.He looked on the rushing decayOf the times which had sheltered his youth;Felt the dissolving throesOf a social order he loved;Outlived his brethren, his peers;And, like the Theban seer,Died in his enemies’ day.Cold bubbled the spring of Tilphusa,Copais lay bright in the moon,Helicon glassed in the lakeIts firs, and afar rose the peaksOf Parnassus, snowily clear;Thebes was behind him in flames,And the clang of arms in his ear,When his awe-struck captors ledThe Theban seer to the spring.Tiresias drank and died.Nor did reviving ThebesSee such a prophet again.Well may we mourn, when the headOf a sacred poet lies lowIn an age which can rear them no more!The complaining millions of menDarken in labor and pain;But he was a priest to us allOf the wonder and bloom of the world,Which we saw with his eyes, and were glad.He is dead, and the fruit-bearing dayOf his race is past on the earth;And darkness returns to our eyes.For, oh! is it you, is it you,Moonlight, and shadow, and lake,And mountains, that fill us with joy,Or the poet who sings you so well?Is it you, O beauty, O grace,O charm, O romance, that we feel,Or the voice which reveals what you are?Are ye, like daylight and sun,Shared and rejoiced in by all?Or are ye immersed in the massOf matter, and hard to extract,Or sunk at the core of the worldToo deep for the most to discern?Like stars in the deep of the sky,Which arise on the glass of the sage,But are lost when their watcher is gone.“They are here,”—I heard, as men heardIn Mysian Ida the voiceOf the mighty Mother, or Crete,The murmur of Nature, reply,—“Loveliness, magic, grace,They are here! they are set in the world,They abide; and the finest of soulsHath not been thrilled by them all,Nor the dullest been dead to them quite.The poet who sings them may die,But they are immortal and live,For they are the life of the world.Will ye not learn it, and know,When ye mourn that a poet is dead,That the singer was less than his themes,Life, and emotion, and I?“More than the singer are these.Weak is the tremor of painThat thrills in his mournfullest chordTo that which once ran through his soul.Cold the elation of joyIn his gladdest, airiest song,To that which of old in his youthFilled him and made him divine.Hardly his voice at its bestGives us a sense of the awe,The vastness, the grandeur, the gloom,Of the unlit gulf of himself.“Ye know not yourselves; and your bards—The clearest, the best, who have readMost in themselves—have beheldLess than they left unrevealed.Ye express not yourselves: can ye makeWith marble, with color, with word,What charmed you in others re-live?Can thy pencil, O artist! restoreThe figure, the bloom of thy love,As she was in her morning of spring?Canst thou paint the ineffable smileOf her eyes as they rested on thine?Can the image of life have the glow,The motion of life itself?“Yourselves and your fellows ye know not; and me,The mateless, the one, will ye know?Will ye scan me, and read me, and tellOf the thoughts that ferment in my breast,My longing, my sadness, my joy?Will ye claim for your great ones the giftTo have rendered the gleam of my skies,To have echoed the moan of my seas,Uttered the voice of my hills?When your great ones depart, will ye say,—All things have suffered a loss,Nature is hid in their grave?“Race after race, man after man,Have thought that my secret was theirs,Have dreamed that I lived but for them,That they were my glory and joy.—They are dust, they are changed, they are gone!I remain.”
Raisedare the dripping oars,Silent the boat! The lake,Lovely and soft as a dream,Swims in the sheen of the moon.The mountains stand at its headClear in the pure June-night,But the valleys are flooded with haze.Rydal and Fairfield are there;In the shadow Wordsworth lies dead.So it is, so it will be for aye.Nature is fresh as of old,Is lovely; a mortal is dead.The spots which recall him survive,For he lent a new life to these hills.The Pillar still broods o’er the fieldsWhich border Ennerdale Lake,And Egremont sleeps by the sea.The gleam of The Evening StarTwinkles on Grasmere no more,But ruined and solemn and grayThe sheepfold of Michael survives;And far to the south, the heathStill blows in the Quantock coombs,By the favorite waters of Ruth.These survive! Yet not without pain,Pain and dejection to-night,Can I feel that their poet is gone.He grew old in an age he condemned.He looked on the rushing decayOf the times which had sheltered his youth;Felt the dissolving throesOf a social order he loved;Outlived his brethren, his peers;And, like the Theban seer,Died in his enemies’ day.Cold bubbled the spring of Tilphusa,Copais lay bright in the moon,Helicon glassed in the lakeIts firs, and afar rose the peaksOf Parnassus, snowily clear;Thebes was behind him in flames,And the clang of arms in his ear,When his awe-struck captors ledThe Theban seer to the spring.Tiresias drank and died.Nor did reviving ThebesSee such a prophet again.Well may we mourn, when the headOf a sacred poet lies lowIn an age which can rear them no more!The complaining millions of menDarken in labor and pain;But he was a priest to us allOf the wonder and bloom of the world,Which we saw with his eyes, and were glad.He is dead, and the fruit-bearing dayOf his race is past on the earth;And darkness returns to our eyes.For, oh! is it you, is it you,Moonlight, and shadow, and lake,And mountains, that fill us with joy,Or the poet who sings you so well?Is it you, O beauty, O grace,O charm, O romance, that we feel,Or the voice which reveals what you are?Are ye, like daylight and sun,Shared and rejoiced in by all?Or are ye immersed in the massOf matter, and hard to extract,Or sunk at the core of the worldToo deep for the most to discern?Like stars in the deep of the sky,Which arise on the glass of the sage,But are lost when their watcher is gone.“They are here,”—I heard, as men heardIn Mysian Ida the voiceOf the mighty Mother, or Crete,The murmur of Nature, reply,—“Loveliness, magic, grace,They are here! they are set in the world,They abide; and the finest of soulsHath not been thrilled by them all,Nor the dullest been dead to them quite.The poet who sings them may die,But they are immortal and live,For they are the life of the world.Will ye not learn it, and know,When ye mourn that a poet is dead,That the singer was less than his themes,Life, and emotion, and I?“More than the singer are these.Weak is the tremor of painThat thrills in his mournfullest chordTo that which once ran through his soul.Cold the elation of joyIn his gladdest, airiest song,To that which of old in his youthFilled him and made him divine.Hardly his voice at its bestGives us a sense of the awe,The vastness, the grandeur, the gloom,Of the unlit gulf of himself.“Ye know not yourselves; and your bards—The clearest, the best, who have readMost in themselves—have beheldLess than they left unrevealed.Ye express not yourselves: can ye makeWith marble, with color, with word,What charmed you in others re-live?Can thy pencil, O artist! restoreThe figure, the bloom of thy love,As she was in her morning of spring?Canst thou paint the ineffable smileOf her eyes as they rested on thine?Can the image of life have the glow,The motion of life itself?“Yourselves and your fellows ye know not; and me,The mateless, the one, will ye know?Will ye scan me, and read me, and tellOf the thoughts that ferment in my breast,My longing, my sadness, my joy?Will ye claim for your great ones the giftTo have rendered the gleam of my skies,To have echoed the moan of my seas,Uttered the voice of my hills?When your great ones depart, will ye say,—All things have suffered a loss,Nature is hid in their grave?“Race after race, man after man,Have thought that my secret was theirs,Have dreamed that I lived but for them,That they were my glory and joy.—They are dust, they are changed, they are gone!I remain.”
Raisedare the dripping oars,Silent the boat! The lake,Lovely and soft as a dream,Swims in the sheen of the moon.The mountains stand at its headClear in the pure June-night,But the valleys are flooded with haze.Rydal and Fairfield are there;In the shadow Wordsworth lies dead.So it is, so it will be for aye.Nature is fresh as of old,Is lovely; a mortal is dead.
The spots which recall him survive,For he lent a new life to these hills.The Pillar still broods o’er the fieldsWhich border Ennerdale Lake,And Egremont sleeps by the sea.The gleam of The Evening StarTwinkles on Grasmere no more,But ruined and solemn and grayThe sheepfold of Michael survives;And far to the south, the heathStill blows in the Quantock coombs,By the favorite waters of Ruth.These survive! Yet not without pain,Pain and dejection to-night,Can I feel that their poet is gone.
He grew old in an age he condemned.He looked on the rushing decayOf the times which had sheltered his youth;Felt the dissolving throesOf a social order he loved;Outlived his brethren, his peers;And, like the Theban seer,Died in his enemies’ day.
Cold bubbled the spring of Tilphusa,Copais lay bright in the moon,Helicon glassed in the lakeIts firs, and afar rose the peaksOf Parnassus, snowily clear;Thebes was behind him in flames,And the clang of arms in his ear,When his awe-struck captors ledThe Theban seer to the spring.Tiresias drank and died.Nor did reviving ThebesSee such a prophet again.
Well may we mourn, when the headOf a sacred poet lies lowIn an age which can rear them no more!The complaining millions of menDarken in labor and pain;But he was a priest to us allOf the wonder and bloom of the world,Which we saw with his eyes, and were glad.He is dead, and the fruit-bearing dayOf his race is past on the earth;And darkness returns to our eyes.
For, oh! is it you, is it you,Moonlight, and shadow, and lake,And mountains, that fill us with joy,Or the poet who sings you so well?Is it you, O beauty, O grace,O charm, O romance, that we feel,Or the voice which reveals what you are?Are ye, like daylight and sun,Shared and rejoiced in by all?Or are ye immersed in the massOf matter, and hard to extract,Or sunk at the core of the worldToo deep for the most to discern?Like stars in the deep of the sky,Which arise on the glass of the sage,But are lost when their watcher is gone.
“They are here,”—I heard, as men heardIn Mysian Ida the voiceOf the mighty Mother, or Crete,The murmur of Nature, reply,—“Loveliness, magic, grace,They are here! they are set in the world,They abide; and the finest of soulsHath not been thrilled by them all,Nor the dullest been dead to them quite.The poet who sings them may die,But they are immortal and live,For they are the life of the world.Will ye not learn it, and know,When ye mourn that a poet is dead,That the singer was less than his themes,Life, and emotion, and I?
“More than the singer are these.Weak is the tremor of painThat thrills in his mournfullest chordTo that which once ran through his soul.Cold the elation of joyIn his gladdest, airiest song,To that which of old in his youthFilled him and made him divine.Hardly his voice at its bestGives us a sense of the awe,The vastness, the grandeur, the gloom,Of the unlit gulf of himself.
“Ye know not yourselves; and your bards—The clearest, the best, who have readMost in themselves—have beheldLess than they left unrevealed.Ye express not yourselves: can ye makeWith marble, with color, with word,What charmed you in others re-live?Can thy pencil, O artist! restoreThe figure, the bloom of thy love,As she was in her morning of spring?Canst thou paint the ineffable smileOf her eyes as they rested on thine?Can the image of life have the glow,The motion of life itself?
“Yourselves and your fellows ye know not; and me,The mateless, the one, will ye know?Will ye scan me, and read me, and tellOf the thoughts that ferment in my breast,My longing, my sadness, my joy?Will ye claim for your great ones the giftTo have rendered the gleam of my skies,To have echoed the moan of my seas,Uttered the voice of my hills?When your great ones depart, will ye say,—All things have suffered a loss,Nature is hid in their grave?
“Race after race, man after man,Have thought that my secret was theirs,Have dreamed that I lived but for them,That they were my glory and joy.—They are dust, they are changed, they are gone!I remain.”
We, O Nature, depart:Thou survivest us! This,This, I know, is the law.Yes! but, more than this,Thou who seest us dieSeest us change while we live;Seest our dreams, one by one,Seest our errors depart;Watchest us, Nature! throughoutMild and inscrutably calm.Well for us that we change!Well for us that the powerWhich in our morning primeSaw the mistakes of our youth,Sweet, and forgiving, and good,Sees the contrition of age!Behold, O Nature, this pair!See them to-night where they stand,Not with the halo of youthCrowning their brows with its light,Not with the sunshine of hope,Not with the rapture of spring,Which they had of old, when they stoodYears ago at my sideIn this self-same garden, and said,—“We are young, and the world is ours;Man, man is king of the world!Fools that these mystics areWho prate of Nature! but sheHath neither beauty, nor warmth,Nor life, nor emotion, nor power.But man has a thousand gifts,And the generous dreamer investsThe senseless world with them all.Nature is nothing; her charmLives in our eyes which can paint,Lives in our hearts which can feel.”Thou, O Nature, wast mute,Mute as of old! Days flew,Days and years; and TimeWith the ceaseless stroke of his wingsBrushed off the bloom from their soul.Clouded and dim grew their eye,Languid their heart—for youthQuickened its pulses no more.Slowly, within the wallsOf an ever-narrowing world,They drooped, they grew blind, they grew old.Thee, and their youth in thee,Nature! they saw no more.Murmur of living,Stir of existence,Soul of the world!Make, oh, make yourselves feltTo the dying spirit of youth!Come, like the breath of the spring!Leave not a human soulTo grow old in darkness and pain!Only the living can feel you,But leave us not while we live!Here they stand to-night,—Here, where this gray balustradeCrowns the still valley; behindIn the castled house with its woodsWhich sheltered their childhood; the sunOn its ivied windows; a scentFrom the gray-walled gardens, a breathOf the fragrant stock and the pink,Perfumes the evening air.Their children play on the lawns.They stand and listen; they hearThe children’s shouts, and at times,Faintly, the bark of a dogFrom a distant farm in the hills.Nothing besides! in frontThe wide, wide valley outspreadsTo the dim horizon, reposedIn the twilight, and bathed in dew,Cornfield and hamlet and copseDarkening fast; but a light,Far off, a glory of day,Still plays on the city-spires;And there in the dusk by the walls,With the gray mist marking its courseThrough the silent, flowery land,On, to the plains, to the sea,Floats the imperial stream.Well I know what they feel!They gaze, and the evening windPlays on their faces; they gaze,—Airs from the Eden of youthAwake and stir in their soul;The past returns: they feelWhat they are, alas! what they were.They, not Nature, are changed.Well I know what they feel!Hush, for tearsBegin to steal to their eyes!Hush, for fruitGrows from such sorrow as theirs!And they remember,With piercing, untold anguish,The proud boasting of their youth.And they feel how Nature was fair.And the mists of delusion,And the scales of habit,Fall away from their eyes;And they see, for a moment,Stretching out like the desertIn its weary, unprofitable length,Their faded, ignoble lives.While the locks are yet brown on thy head,While the soul still looks through thine eyes,While the heart still poursThe mantling blood to thy cheek,Sink, O youth, in thy soul!Yearn to the greatness of Nature;Rally the good in the depths of thyself!
We, O Nature, depart:Thou survivest us! This,This, I know, is the law.Yes! but, more than this,Thou who seest us dieSeest us change while we live;Seest our dreams, one by one,Seest our errors depart;Watchest us, Nature! throughoutMild and inscrutably calm.Well for us that we change!Well for us that the powerWhich in our morning primeSaw the mistakes of our youth,Sweet, and forgiving, and good,Sees the contrition of age!Behold, O Nature, this pair!See them to-night where they stand,Not with the halo of youthCrowning their brows with its light,Not with the sunshine of hope,Not with the rapture of spring,Which they had of old, when they stoodYears ago at my sideIn this self-same garden, and said,—“We are young, and the world is ours;Man, man is king of the world!Fools that these mystics areWho prate of Nature! but sheHath neither beauty, nor warmth,Nor life, nor emotion, nor power.But man has a thousand gifts,And the generous dreamer investsThe senseless world with them all.Nature is nothing; her charmLives in our eyes which can paint,Lives in our hearts which can feel.”Thou, O Nature, wast mute,Mute as of old! Days flew,Days and years; and TimeWith the ceaseless stroke of his wingsBrushed off the bloom from their soul.Clouded and dim grew their eye,Languid their heart—for youthQuickened its pulses no more.Slowly, within the wallsOf an ever-narrowing world,They drooped, they grew blind, they grew old.Thee, and their youth in thee,Nature! they saw no more.Murmur of living,Stir of existence,Soul of the world!Make, oh, make yourselves feltTo the dying spirit of youth!Come, like the breath of the spring!Leave not a human soulTo grow old in darkness and pain!Only the living can feel you,But leave us not while we live!Here they stand to-night,—Here, where this gray balustradeCrowns the still valley; behindIn the castled house with its woodsWhich sheltered their childhood; the sunOn its ivied windows; a scentFrom the gray-walled gardens, a breathOf the fragrant stock and the pink,Perfumes the evening air.Their children play on the lawns.They stand and listen; they hearThe children’s shouts, and at times,Faintly, the bark of a dogFrom a distant farm in the hills.Nothing besides! in frontThe wide, wide valley outspreadsTo the dim horizon, reposedIn the twilight, and bathed in dew,Cornfield and hamlet and copseDarkening fast; but a light,Far off, a glory of day,Still plays on the city-spires;And there in the dusk by the walls,With the gray mist marking its courseThrough the silent, flowery land,On, to the plains, to the sea,Floats the imperial stream.Well I know what they feel!They gaze, and the evening windPlays on their faces; they gaze,—Airs from the Eden of youthAwake and stir in their soul;The past returns: they feelWhat they are, alas! what they were.They, not Nature, are changed.Well I know what they feel!Hush, for tearsBegin to steal to their eyes!Hush, for fruitGrows from such sorrow as theirs!And they remember,With piercing, untold anguish,The proud boasting of their youth.And they feel how Nature was fair.And the mists of delusion,And the scales of habit,Fall away from their eyes;And they see, for a moment,Stretching out like the desertIn its weary, unprofitable length,Their faded, ignoble lives.While the locks are yet brown on thy head,While the soul still looks through thine eyes,While the heart still poursThe mantling blood to thy cheek,Sink, O youth, in thy soul!Yearn to the greatness of Nature;Rally the good in the depths of thyself!
We, O Nature, depart:Thou survivest us! This,This, I know, is the law.Yes! but, more than this,Thou who seest us dieSeest us change while we live;Seest our dreams, one by one,Seest our errors depart;Watchest us, Nature! throughoutMild and inscrutably calm.
Well for us that we change!Well for us that the powerWhich in our morning primeSaw the mistakes of our youth,Sweet, and forgiving, and good,Sees the contrition of age!
Behold, O Nature, this pair!See them to-night where they stand,Not with the halo of youthCrowning their brows with its light,Not with the sunshine of hope,Not with the rapture of spring,Which they had of old, when they stoodYears ago at my sideIn this self-same garden, and said,—“We are young, and the world is ours;Man, man is king of the world!Fools that these mystics areWho prate of Nature! but sheHath neither beauty, nor warmth,Nor life, nor emotion, nor power.But man has a thousand gifts,And the generous dreamer investsThe senseless world with them all.Nature is nothing; her charmLives in our eyes which can paint,Lives in our hearts which can feel.”
Thou, O Nature, wast mute,Mute as of old! Days flew,Days and years; and TimeWith the ceaseless stroke of his wingsBrushed off the bloom from their soul.Clouded and dim grew their eye,Languid their heart—for youthQuickened its pulses no more.Slowly, within the wallsOf an ever-narrowing world,They drooped, they grew blind, they grew old.Thee, and their youth in thee,Nature! they saw no more.
Murmur of living,Stir of existence,Soul of the world!Make, oh, make yourselves feltTo the dying spirit of youth!Come, like the breath of the spring!Leave not a human soulTo grow old in darkness and pain!Only the living can feel you,But leave us not while we live!
Here they stand to-night,—Here, where this gray balustradeCrowns the still valley; behindIn the castled house with its woodsWhich sheltered their childhood; the sunOn its ivied windows; a scentFrom the gray-walled gardens, a breathOf the fragrant stock and the pink,Perfumes the evening air.Their children play on the lawns.They stand and listen; they hearThe children’s shouts, and at times,Faintly, the bark of a dogFrom a distant farm in the hills.Nothing besides! in frontThe wide, wide valley outspreadsTo the dim horizon, reposedIn the twilight, and bathed in dew,Cornfield and hamlet and copseDarkening fast; but a light,Far off, a glory of day,Still plays on the city-spires;And there in the dusk by the walls,With the gray mist marking its courseThrough the silent, flowery land,On, to the plains, to the sea,Floats the imperial stream.
Well I know what they feel!They gaze, and the evening windPlays on their faces; they gaze,—Airs from the Eden of youthAwake and stir in their soul;The past returns: they feelWhat they are, alas! what they were.They, not Nature, are changed.Well I know what they feel!
Hush, for tearsBegin to steal to their eyes!Hush, for fruitGrows from such sorrow as theirs!
And they remember,With piercing, untold anguish,The proud boasting of their youth.And they feel how Nature was fair.And the mists of delusion,And the scales of habit,Fall away from their eyes;And they see, for a moment,Stretching out like the desertIn its weary, unprofitable length,Their faded, ignoble lives.
While the locks are yet brown on thy head,While the soul still looks through thine eyes,While the heart still poursThe mantling blood to thy cheek,Sink, O youth, in thy soul!Yearn to the greatness of Nature;Rally the good in the depths of thyself!