1839
Footnote 1: 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.return to footnote markFootnote 2: On Santa Maura—olim Deucadia.returnFootnote 3: Sappho.returnFootnote 4: This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort. The bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated.returnFootnote 5: Clytia—the Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a better-known term, the turnsol—which turns continually 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.returnFootnote 6: There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a species of serpentine aloe without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower exhales a strong odor 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.returnFootnote 7: 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.returnFootnote 8: The Hyacinth.returnFootnote 9: 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.returnFootnote 10: And golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of the saints.—Rev. St. John.returnFootnote 11: The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as having really a human form.—Vide Clarke's Sermons, vol. I, 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 Anthropomorphites.—Vide du Pin.Among Milton's minor poems are these lines: Dicite sacrorum præesides nemorum Dese, etc.,Quis ille primus cujus ex imagineNatura solers finxit humanum genus?Eternus, incorruptus, æquævus polo,Unusque et universus exemplar Dei. —And afterwards, Non cui profundum Cæcitas lumen deditDircæus augur vidit hunc alto sinu, etc.returnFootnote 12: Seltsamen Tochter JovisSeinem SchosskindeDer Phantasie.Goethe.returnFootnote 13: Sightless—too small to be seen.—Legge.returnFootnote 14: 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.returnFootnote 15: Therasæa, or Therasea, the island mentioned by Seneca, which, in a moment, arose from the sea to the eyes of astonished mariners.return>Footnote 16: Some star which, from the ruin'd roofOf shak'd Olympus, by mischance did fall.Milton.returnFootnote 17: Voltaire, in speaking of Persepolis, says, "Je connais bien l'admiration qu'inspirent ces ruines—mais un palais érigé au pied d'une chaîne de rochers steriles—peut-il être un chef d'oeuvre des arts!"returnFootnote 18: "Oh, the wave"—Ula Deguisi is the Turkish appellation; but, on its own shores, it is called Baliar Loth, or Al-motanah. There were undoubtedly more than two cities engulphed in the "dead sea." In the valley of Siddim were five—Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah. Stephen of Byzantium mentions eight, and Strabo thirteen (engulphed) —but the last is out of all reason. It is said (Tacitus, Strabo, Josephus, Daniel of St. Saba, Nau, Maundrell, Troilo, D'Arvieux), that after an excessive drought, the vestiges of columns, walls, etc., are seen above the surface. Atanyseason, such remains may be discovered by looking down into the transparent lake, and at such distance as would argue the existence of many settlements in the space now usurped by the "Asphaltites."returnFootnote 19: Eyraco-Chaldea.returnFootnote 20: I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of the darkness as it stole over the horizon.returnFootnote 21: Fairies use flowers for their charactery.Merry Wives of Windsor.returnFootnote 22: In Scripture is this passage: "The sun shall not harm thee by day, nor the moon by night." It is, perhaps, not generally known that the moon, in Egypt, has the effect of producing blindness to those who sleep with the face exposed to its rays, to which circumstances the passage evidently alludes.returnFootnote 23: The Albatross is said to sleep on the wing.returnFootnote 24: I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am now unable to obtain and quote from memory: "The verie essence and, as it were, springe heade and origine of all musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde which the trees of the forest do make when they growe."returnFootnote 25: The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be moonlight. The rhyme in the verse, as in one about sixty lines before, has an appearance of affectation. It is, however, imitated from Sir W. Scott, or rather from Claud Halcro—in whose mouth I admired its effect: O! were there an island,Tho' ever so wild,Where woman might smile, andNo man be beguil'd, etc.returnFootnote 26: With the Arabians there is a medium between Heaven and Hell, where men suffer no punishment, but yet do not attain that tranquil and even happiness which they suppose to be characteristic of heavenly enjoyment. Un no rompido sueno—Un dia puro—allegre—libreQuiera—Libre de amor—de zelo—De odio—de esperanza—de rezelo.Luis Ponce de Leon.Sorrow is not excluded from "Al Aaraaf," but it is that sorrow which the living love to cherish for the dead, and which, in some minds, resembles the delirium of opium.The passionate excitement of Love and the buoyancy of spirit attendant upon intoxication are its less holy pleasures—the price of which, to those souls who make choice of "Al Aaraaf" as their residence after life, is final death and annihilation.returnFootnote 27: There be tears of perfect moanWept for thee in Helicon.Milton.returnFootnote 28: It was entire in 1687—the most elevated spot in Athens.returnFootnote 29: Shadowing more beauty in their airy browsThan have the white breasts of the queen of love.Marlowe.returnFootnote 30: Pennon, for pinion.—Milton.returnNote
Kind solace in a dying hour!Such, father, is not (now) my theme—I will not madly deem that powerOf Earth may shrive me of the sinUnearthly pride hath revelled in—I have no time to dote or dream:You call it hope—that fire of fire!It is but agony of desire:If Icanhope—O God! I can—Its fount is holier—more divine—I would not call thee fool, old man,But such is not a gift of thine.Know thou the secret of a spiritBowed from its wild pride into shameO yearning heart! I did inheritThy withering portion with the fame,The searing glory which hath shoneAmid the Jewels of my throne,Halo of Hell! and with a painNot Hell shall make me fear again—O craving heart, for the lost flowersAnd sunshine of my summer hours!The undying voice of that dead time,With its interminable chime,Rings, in the spirit of a spell,Upon thy emptiness—a knell.I have not always been as now:The fevered diadem on my browI claimed and won usurpingly—Hath not the same fierce heirdom givenRome to the Cæsar—this to me?The heritage of a kingly mind,And a proud spirit which hath strivenTriumphantly with human kind.On mountain soil I first drew life:The mists of the Taglay have shedNightly their dews upon my head,And, I believe, the winged strifeAnd tumult of the headlong airHave nestled in my very hair.So late from Heaven—that dew—it fell('Mid dreams of an unholy night)Upon me with the touch of Hell,While the red flashing of the lightFrom clouds that hung, like banners, o'er,Appeared to my half-closing eyeThe pageantry of monarchy;And the deep trumpet-thunder's roarCame hurriedly upon me, tellingOf human battle, where my voice,My own voice, silly child!—was swelling(O! how my spirit would rejoice,And leap within me at the cry)The battle-cry of Victory!The rain came down upon my headUnsheltered—and the heavy windRendered me mad and deaf and blind.It was but man, I thought, who shedLaurels upon me: and the rush—The torrent of the chilly airGurgled within my ear the crushOf empires—with the captive's prayer—The hum of suitors—and the toneOf flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.My passions, from that hapless hour,Usurped a tyranny which menHave deemed since I have reached to power,My innate nature—be it so:But, father, there lived one who, then,Then—in my boyhood—when their fireBurned with a still intenser glow(For passion must, with youth, expire)E'enthenwho knew this iron heartIn woman's weakness had a part.I have no words—alas!—to tellThe loveliness of loving well!Nor would I now attempt to traceThe more than beauty of a faceWhose lineaments, upon my mind,Are—shadows on th' unstable wind:Thus I remember having dweltSome page of early lore upon,With loitering eye, till I have feltThe letters—with their meaning—meltTo fantasies—with none.O, she was worthy of all love!Love as in infancy was mine—'Twas such as angel minds aboveMight envy; her young heart the shrineOn which my every hope and thoughtWere incense—then a goodly gift,For they were childish and upright—Pure—as her young example taught:Why did I leave it, and, adrift,Trust to the fire within, for light?We grew in age—and love—together—Roaming the forest, and the wild;My breast her shield in wintry weather—And, when the friendly sunshine smiled.And she would mark the opening skies,Isaw no Heaven—but in her eyes.Young Love's first lesson is——the heart:For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles,When, from our little cares apart,And laughing at her girlish wiles,I'd throw me on her throbbing breast,And pour my spirit out in tears—There was no need to speak the rest—No need to quiet any fearsOf her—who asked no reason why,But turned on me her quiet eye!Yetmorethan worthy of the loveMy spirit struggled with, and stroveWhen, on the mountain peak, alone,Ambition lent it a new tone—I had no being—but in thee:The world, and all it did containIn the earth—the air—the sea—Its joy—its little lot of painThat was new pleasure—the ideal,Dim, vanities of dreams by night—And dimmer nothings which were real—(Shadows—and a more shadowy light!)Parted upon their misty wings,And, so, confusedly, becameThine image and—a name—a name!Two separate—yet most intimate things.I was ambitious—have you knownThe passion, father? You have not:A cottager, I marked a throneOf half the world as all my own,And murmured at such lowly lot—But, just like any other dream,Upon the vapor of the dewMy own had past, did not the beamOf beauty which did while it thro'The minute—the hour—the day—oppressMy mind with double loveliness.We walked together on the crownOf a high mountain which looked downAfar from its proud natural towersOf rock and forest, on the hills—The dwindled hills! begirt with bowersAnd shouting with a thousand rills.I spoke to her of power and pride,But mystically—in such guiseThat she might deem it nought besideThe moment's converse; in her eyesI read, perhaps too carelessly—A mingled feeling with my own—The flush on her bright cheek, to meSeemed to become a queenly throneToo well that I should let it beLight in the wilderness alone.I wrapped myself in grandeur then,And donned a visionary crown—Yet it was not that FantasyHad thrown her mantle over me—But that, among the rabble—men,Lion ambition is chained down—And crouches to a keeper's hand—Not so in deserts where the grand—The wild—the terrible conspireWith their own breath to fan his fire.Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!—Is she not queen of Earth? her prideAbove all cities? in her handTheir destinies? in all besideOf glory which the world hath knownStands she not nobly and alone?Falling—her veriest stepping-stoneShall form the pedestal of a throne—And who her sovereign? Timour—heWhom the astonished people sawStriding o'er empires haughtilyA diademed outlaw!O, human love! thou spirit given,On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!Which fall'st into the soul like rainUpon the Siroc-withered plain,And, failing in thy power to bless,But leav'st the heart a wilderness!Idea! which bindest life aroundWith music of so strange a soundAnd beauty of so wild a birth—Farewell! for I have won the Earth.When Hope, the eagle that towered, could seeNo cliff beyond him in the sky,His pinions were bent droopingly—And homeward turned his softened eye.'Twas sunset: When the sun will partThere comes a sullenness of heartTo him who still would look uponThe glory of the summer sun.That soul will hate the ev'ning mistSo often lovely, and will listTo the sound of the coming darkness (knownTo those whose spirits hearken) as oneWho, in a dream of night,wouldfly,Butcannot, from a danger nigh.What tho' the moon—tho' the white moonShed all the splendor of her noon,Hersmile is chilly—andherbeam,In that time of dreariness, will seem(So like you gather in your breath)A portrait taken after death.And boyhood is a summer sunWhose waning is the dreariest one—For all we live to know is known,And all we seek to keep hath flown—Let life, then, as the day-flower, fallWith the noon-day beauty—which is all.I reached my home—my home no more—For all had flown who made it so.I passed from out its mossy door,And, tho' my tread was soft and low,A voice came from the threshold stoneOf one whom I had earlier known—O, I defy thee, Hell, to showOn beds of fire that burn below,An humbler heart—a deeper woe.Father, I firmly do believe—Iknow—for Death who comes for meFrom regions of the blest afar,Where there is nothing to deceive,Hath left his iron gate ajar.And rays of truth you cannot seeAre flashing thro' Eternity——I do believe that Eblis hathA snare in every human path—Else how, when in the holy groveI wandered of the idol, Love,—Who daily scents his snowy wingsWith incense of burnt-offeringsFrom the most unpolluted things,Whose pleasant bowers are yet so rivenAbove with trellised rays from HeavenNo mote may shun—no tiniest fly—The light'ning of his eagle eye—How was it that Ambition crept,Unseen, amid the revels there,Till growing bold, he laughed and leaptIn the tangles of Love's very hair!
1829.Note
Helen, thy beauty is to meLike those Nicean barks of yore,That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,The weary, wayworn wanderer boreTo his own native shore.On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the glory that was Greece,To the grandeur that was Rome.Lo! in yon brilliant window niche,How statue-like I see thee stand,The agate lamp within thy hand!Ah, Psyche, from the regions whichAre Holy Land!
1831Note
Onceit smiled a silent dellWhere the people did not dwell;They had gone unto the wars,Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,Nightly, from their azure towers,To keep watch above the flowers,In the midst of which all dayThe red sun-light lazily lay,Noweach visitor shall confessThe sad valley's restlessness.Nothing there is motionless—Nothing save the airs that broodOver the magic solitude.Ah, by no wind are stirred those treesThat palpitate like the chill seasAround the misty Hebrides!Ah, by no wind those clouds are drivenThat rustle through the unquiet HeavenUnceasingly, from morn till even,Over the violets there that lieIn myriad types of the human eye—Over the lilies that waveAnd weep above a nameless grave!They wave:—from out their fragrant topsEternal dews come down in drops.They weep:—from off their delicate stemsPerennial tears descend in gems.
1831Note
In Heaven a spirit doth dwell"Whose heart-strings are a lute;"None sing so wildly wellAs the angel Israfel,And the giddy Stars (so legends tell),Ceasing their hymns, attend the spellOf his voice, all mute.Tottering aboveIn her highest noon,The enamoured MoonBlushes with love,While, to listen, the red levin(With the rapid Pleiads, even,Which were seven),Pauses in Heaven.And they say (the starry choirAnd the other listening things)That Israfeli's fireIs owing to that lyreBy which he sits and sings—The trembling living wireOf those unusual strings.But the skies that angel trod,Where deep thoughts are a duty—Where Love's a grow-up God—Where the Houri glances areImbued with all the beautyWhich we worship in a star.Therefore, thou art not wrong,Israfeli, who despisestAn unimpassioned song;To thee the laurels belong,Best bard, because the wisest!Merrily live and long!The ecstasies aboveWith thy burning measures suit—Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,With the fervor of thy lute—Well may the stars be mute!Yes, Heaven is thine; but thisIs a world of sweets and sours;Our flowers are merely—flowers,And the shadow of thy perfect blissIs the sunshine of ours.If I could dwellWhere IsrafelHath dwelt, and he where I,He might not sing so wildly wellA mortal melody,While a bolder note than this might swellFrom my lyre within the sky.
1836
Footnote 1: And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.Koran.return to footnote markNote
I heed not that my earthly lotHath—little of Earth in it—That years of love have been forgotIn the hatred of a minute:—I mourn not that the desolateAre happier, sweet, than I,But thatyousorrow formyfateWho am a passer-by.
1829
The bowers whereat, in dreams, I seeThe wantonest singing birds,Are lips—and all thy melodyOf lip-begotten words—Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrinedThen desolately fall,O God! on my funereal mindLike starlight on a pall—Thy heart—thyheart!—I wake and sigh,And sleep to dream till dayOf the truth that gold can never buy—Of the baubles that it may.
1829
Fair river! in thy bright, clear flowOf crystal, wandering water,Thou art an emblem of the glowOf beauty—the unhidden heart—The playful maziness of artIn old Alberto's daughter;But when within thy wave she looks—Which glistens then, and trembles—Why, then, the prettiest of brooksHer worshipper resembles;For in his heart, as in thy stream,Her image deeply lies—His heart which trembles at the beamOf her soul-searching eyes.
1829
I saw thee on thy bridal day—When a burning blush came o'er thee,Though happiness around thee lay,The world all love before thee:And in thine eye a kindling light(Whatever it might be)Was all on Earth my aching sightOf Loveliness could see.That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame—As such it well may pass—Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flameIn the breast of him, alas!Who saw thee on that bridal day,When that deep blushwouldcome o'er thee,Though happiness around thee lay,The world all love before thee.
1827
Thy soul shall find itself alone'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstoneNot one, of all the crowd, to pryInto thine hour of secrecy.Be silent in that solitudeWhich is not loneliness—for thenThe spirits of the dead who stoodIn life before thee are againIn death around thee—and their willShall overshadow thee: be still.The night—tho' clear—shall frown—And the stars shall not look downFrom their high thrones in the Heaven,With light like Hope to mortals given—But their red orbs, without beam,To thy weariness shall seemAs a burning and a feverWhich would cling to thee forever.Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish—Now are visions ne'er to vanish—From thy spirit shall they passNo more—like dew-drops from the grass.The breeze—the breath of God—is still—And the mist upon the hillShadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,Is a symbol and a token—How it hangs upon the trees,A mystery of mysteries!
1837
In visions of the dark nightI have dreamed of joy departed—But a waking dream of life and lightHath left me broken-hearted.Ah! what is not a dream by dayTo him whose eyes are castOn things around him with a rayTurned back upon the past?That holy dream—that holy dream,While all the world were chiding,Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,A lonely spirit guiding.What though that light, thro' storm and night,So trembled from afar—What could there be more purely brightIn Truth's day star?
1837
Romance, who loves to nod and sing,With drowsy head and folded wing,Among the green leaves as they shakeFar down within some shadowy lake,To me a painted paroquetHath been—a most familiar bird—Taught me my alphabet to say—To lisp my very earliest wordWhile in the wild wood I did lie,A child—with a most knowing eye.Of late, eternal Condor yearsSo shake the very Heaven on highWith tumult as they thunder by,I have no time for idle caresThough gazing on the unquiet sky.And when an hour with calmer wingsIts down upon my spirit flings—That little time with lyre and rhymeTo while away—forbidden things!My heart would feel to be a crimeUnless it trembled with the strings.
1829Note
Dim vales—and shadowy floods—And cloudy-looking woods,Whose forms we can't discoverFor the tears that drip all overHuge moons there wax and wane—Again—again—again—Every moment of the night—Forever changing places—And they put out the star-lightWith the breath from their pale faces.About twelve by the moon-dialOne more filmy than the rest(A kind which, upon trial,They have found to be the best)Comes down—still down—and downWith its centre on the crownOf a mountain's eminence,While its wide circumferenceIn easy drapery fallsOver hamlets, over halls,Wherever they may be—O'er the strange woods—o'er the sea—Over spirits on the wing—Over every drowsy thing—And buries them up quiteIn a labyrinth of light—And then, how deep!—O, deep!Is the passion of their sleep.In the morning they arise,And their moony coveringIs soaring in the skies,With the tempests as they toss,Like—almost any thing—Or a yellow Albatross.They use that moon no moreFor the same end as before—Videlicet a tent—Which I think extravagant:Its atomies, however,Into a shower dissever,Of which those butterflies,Of Earth, who seek the skies,And so come down again(Never-contented thing!)Have brought a specimenUpon their quivering wings.
1831
In spring of youth it was my lotTo haunt of the wide world a spotThe which I could not love the less—So lovely was the lonelinessOf a wild lake, with black rock bound,And the tall pines that towered around.But when the Night had thrown her pallUpon the spot, as upon all,And the mystic wind went byMurmuring in melody—Then—ah, then, I would awakeTo the terror of the lone lake.Yet that terror was not fright,But a tremulous delight—A feeling not the jewelled mineCould teach or bribe me to define—Nor Love—although the Love were thine.Death was in that poisonous wave,And in its gulf a fitting graveFor him who thence could solace bringTo his lone imagining—Whose solitary soul could makeAn Eden of that dim lake.1827
'Twas noontide of summer,And midtime of night,And stars, in their orbits,Shone pale, through the lightOf the brighter, cold moon.'Mid planets her slaves,Herself in the Heavens,Her beam on the waves.I gazed awhileOn her cold smile;Too cold—too cold for me—There passed, as a shroud,A fleecy cloud,And I turned away to thee,Proud Evening Star,In thy glory afarAnd dearer thy beam shall be;For joy to my heartIs the proud partThou bearest in Heaven at night,And more I admireThy distant fire,Than that colder, lowly light.
1827
A dark unfathomed tideOf interminable pride—A mystery, and a dream,Should my early life seem;I say that dream was fraughtWith a wild and waking thoughtOf beings that have been,Which my spirit hath not seen,Had I let them pass me by,With a dreaming eye!Let none of earth inheritThat vision on my spirit;Those thoughts I would control,As a spell upon his soul:For that bright hope at lastAnd that light time have past,And my wordly rest hath goneWith a sigh as it passed on:I care not though it perishWith a thought I then did cherish.
1827
1827
1827
Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!My spirit not awakening, till the beamOf an Eternity should bring the morrow.Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,'Twere better than the cold realityOf waking life, to him whose heart must be,And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.But should it be—that dream eternallyContinuing—as dreams have been to meIn my young boyhood—should it thus be given,'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.For I have revelled when the sun was brightI' the summer sky, in dreams of living lightAnd loveliness,—have left my very heartInclinesof my imaginary apart1From mine own home, with beings that have beenOf mine own thought—what more could I have seen?'Twas once—and only once—and the wild hourFrom my remembrance shall not pass—some powerOr spell had bound me—'twas the chilly windCame o'er me in the night, and left behindIts image on my spirit—or the moonShone on my slumbers in her lofty noonToo coldly—or the stars—howe'er it wasThat dream was that that night-wind—let it pass.I have beenhappy, though in a dream.I have been happy—and I love the theme:Dreams! in their vivid coloring of lifeAs in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strifeOf semblance with reality which bringsTo the delirious eye, more lovely thingsOf Paradise and Love—and all my own!—Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
Footnote 1: In climes of mine imagining apart?—Ed.return
Footnote 1: Query "fervor"?—Ed.return
On the "Poems written in Youth" little comment is needed. This section includes the pieces printed for the first volume of 1827 (which was subsequently suppressed), such poems from the first and second published volumes of 1829 and 1831 as have not already been given in their revised versions, and a few others collected from various sources.
"Al Aaraaf" first appeared, with the sonnet "To Silence" prefixed to it, in 1829, and is, substantially, as originally issued. In the edition for 1831, however, this poem, its author's longest, was introduced by the following twenty-nine lines, which have been omitted in all subsequent collections: Mysterious star!Thou wert my dreamAll a long summer night—Be now my theme!By this clear stream,Of thee will I write;Meantime from afarBathe me in light!Thy world has not the dross of ours,Yet all the beauty—all the flowersThat list our love or deck our bowersIn dreamy gardens, where do lieDreamy maidens all the day;While the silver winds of CircassyOn violet couches faint away.Little—oh! little dwells in theeLike unto what on earth we see:Beauty's eye is here the bluestIn the falsest and untruest—On the sweetest air doth floatThe most sad and solemn note—If with thee be broken hearts,Joy so peacefully departs,That its echo still doth dwell,Like the murmur in the shell.Thou! thy truest type of griefIs the gently falling leaf—Thou! thy framing is so holySorrow is not melancholy.
The earliest version of "Tamerlane" was included in the suppressed volume of 1827, but differs very considerably from the poem as now published. The present draft, besides innumerable verbal alterations and improvements upon the original, is more carefully punctuated, and, the lines being indented, presents a more pleasing appearance, to the eye at least.
"To Helen" first appeared in the 1831 volume, as did also "The Valley of Unrest" (as "The Valley Nis"), "Israfel," and one or two others of the youthful pieces.
The poem styled "Romance" constituted the Preface of the 1829 volume, but with the addition of the following lines: Succeeding years, too wild for song,Then rolled like tropic storms along,Where, though the garish lights that flyDying along the troubled sky,Lay bare, through vistas thunder-riven,The blackness of the general Heaven,That very blackness yet doth flingLight on the lightning's silver wing.For being an idle boy lang syne,Who read Anacreon and drank wine,I early found Anacreon rhymesWere almost passionate sometimes—And by strange alchemy of brainHis pleasures always turned to pain—His naïveté to wild desire—His wit to love—his wine to fire—And so, being young and dipt in folly,I fell in love with melancholy.And used to throw my earthly restAnd quiet all away in jest—I could not love except where DeathWas mingling his with Beauty's breath—Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny,Were stalking between her and me....Butnowmy soul hath too much room—Gone are the glory and the gloom—The black hath mellow'd into gray,And all the fires are fading away.My draught of passion hath been deep—I revell'd, and I now would sleep—And after drunkenness of soulSucceeds the glories of the bowl—An idle longing night and dayTo dream my very life away.But dreams—of those who dream as I,Aspiringly, are damned, and die:Yet should I swear I mean alone,By notes so very shrilly blown,To break upon Time's monotone,While yet my vapid joy and griefAre tintless of the yellow leaf—Why not an imp the greybeard hath,Will shake his shadow in my path—And e'en the greybeard will o'erlookConnivingly my dreaming-book.
From childhood's hour I have not beenAs others were—I have not seenAs others saw—I could not bringMy passions from a common spring—From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow—I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone—And all I loved—Iloved alone—Thou—in my childhood—in the dawnOf a most stormy life—was drawnFrom every depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still—From the torrent, or the fountain—From the red cliff of the mountain—From the sun that round me roll'dIn its autumn tint of gold—From the lightning in the skyAs it passed me flying by—From the thunder and the storm—And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Heaven was blue)Of a demon in my view.
March 17, 1829Note
Note
In these rapid, restless shadows,Once I walked at eventide,When a gentle, silent maiden,Walked in beauty at my side.She alone there walked beside meAll in beauty, like a bride.Pallidly the moon was shiningOn the dewy meadows nigh;On the silvery, silent rivers,On the mountains far and high,—On the ocean's star-lit waters,Where the winds a-weary die.Slowly, silently we wanderedFrom the open cottage door,Underneath the elm's long branchesTo the pavement bending o'er;Underneath the mossy willowAnd the dying sycamore.With the myriad stars in beautyAll bedight, the heavens were seen,Radiant hopes were bright around me,Like the light of stars serene;Like the mellow midnight splendorOf the Night's irradiate queen.Audibly the elm-leaves whisperedPeaceful, pleasant melodies,Like the distant murmured musicOf unquiet, lovely seas;While the winds were hushed in slumberIn the fragrant flowers and trees.Wondrous and unwonted beautyStill adorning all did seem,While I told my love in fables'Neath the willows by the stream;Would the heart have kept unspokenLove that was its rarest dream!Instantly away we wanderedIn the shadowy twilight tide,She, the silent, scornful maiden,Walking calmly at my side,With a step serene and stately,All in beauty, all in pride.Vacantly I walked beside her.On the earth mine eyes were cast;Swift and keen there came unto meBitter memories of the past—On me, like the rain in AutumnOn the dead leaves, cold and fast.Underneath the elms we parted,By the lowly cottage door;One brief word alone was uttered—Never on our lips before;And away I walked forlornly,Broken-hearted evermore.Slowly, silently I loitered,Homeward, in the night, alone;Sudden anguish bound my spirit,That my youth had never known;Wild unrest, like that which comethWhen the Night's first dream hath flown.Now, to me the elm-leaves whisperMad, discordant melodies,And keen melodies like shadowsHaunt the moaning willow trees,And the sycamores with laughterMock me in the nightly breeze.Sad and pale the Autumn moonlightThrough the sighing foliage streams;And each morning, midnight shadow,Shadow of my sorrow seems;Strive, O heart, forget thine idol!And, O soul, forget thy dreams!Note
'Tis said that whenThe hands of menTamed this primeval wood,And hoary trees with groans of wo,Like warriors by an unknown foe,Were in their strength subdued,The virgin EarthGave instant birthTo springs that ne'er did flow—That in the sunDid rivulets run,And all around rare flowers did blow—The wild rose palePerfumed the gale,And the queenly lily adown the dale(Whom the sun and the dewAnd the winds did woo),With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.So when in tearsThe love of yearsIs wasted like the snow,And the fine fibrils of its lifeBy the rude wrong of instant strifeAre broken at a blow—Within the heartDo springs upstartOf which it doth now know,And strange, sweet dreams,Like silent streamsThat from new fountains overflow,With the earlier tideOf rivers glideDeep in the heart whose hope has died—Quenching the fires its ashes hide,—Its ashes, whence will spring and growSweet flowers, ere long,—The rare and radiant flowers of song!Note
Of the many verses from time to time ascribed to the pen of Edgar Poe, and not included among his known writings, the lines entitled "Alone" have the chief claim to our notice.Fac-similecopies of this piece had been in possession of the present editor some time previous to its publication inScribner's Magazinefor September 1875; but as proofs of the authorship claimed for it were not forthcoming, he refrained from publishing it as requested. The desired proofs have not yet been adduced, and there is, at present, nothing but internal evidence to guide us. "Alone" is stated to have been written by Poe in the album of a Baltimore lady (Mrs. Balderstone?), on March 17th, 1829, and thefac-similegiven inScribner'sis alleged to be of his handwriting. If the calligraphy be Poe's, it is different in all essential respects from all the many specimens known to us, and strongly resembles that of the writer of the heading and dating of the manuscript, both of which the contributor of the poem acknowledges to have been recently added. The lines, however, if not by Poe, are the most successful imitation of his early mannerisms yet made public, and, in the opinion of one well qualified to speak, "are not unworthy on the whole of the parentage claimed for them."
Whilst Edgar Poe was editor of theBroadway Journal, some lines "To Isadore" appeared therein, and, like several of his known pieces, bore no signature. They were at once ascribed to Poe, and in order to satisfy questioners, an editorial paragraph subsequently appeared, saying they were by "A. Ide, junior." Two previous poems had appeared in theBroadway Journalover the signature of "A. M. Ide," and whoever wrote them was also the author of the lines "To Isadore." In order, doubtless, to give a show of variety, Poe was then publishing some of his known works in his journal overnoms de plume, and as no other writings whatever can be traced to any person bearing the name of "A. M. Ide," it is not impossible that the poems now republished in this collection may be by the author of "The Raven." Having been published without his usual elaborate revision, Poe may have wished to hide his hasty work under an assumed name. The three pieces are included in the present collection, so the reader can judge for himself what pretensions they possess to be by the author of "The Raven."
"Nullus enim locus sine genio est."Servius. "La musique,"saysMarmontel, in those "Contes Moraux"1which in all our translations we have insisted upon calling "Moral Tales," as if in mockery of their spirit—"la musique est le seul des talens qui jouisse de lui-meme: tous les autres veulent des temoins." He here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more than any othertalent, is that for music susceptible of complete enjoyment where there is no second party to appreciate its exercise; and it is only in common with other talents that it produceseffectswhich may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea which theraconteurhas either failed to entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression to his national love ofpoint, is doubtless the very tenable one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition in this form will be admitted at once by those who love the lyre for its own sake and for its spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality, and perhaps only one, which owes even more than does music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold that glory. To me at least the presence, not of human life only, but of life, in any other form than that of the green things which grow upon the soil and are voiceless, is a stain upon the landscape, is at war with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains that look down upon all,—I love to regard these as themselves but the colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole—a whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate planets; whose meek handmaiden is the moon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose life is eternity; whose thought is that of a god; whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity; whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of theanimalculæwhich infest the brain, a being which we in consequence regard as purely inanimate and material, much in the same manner as theseanimalculæmust thus regard us.Our telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on every hand, notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthood, that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move are those best adapted for the evolution, without collision, of the greatest possible number of bodies. The forms of those bodies are accurately such as within a given surface to include the greatest possible amount of matter; while the surfaces themselves are so disposed as to accommodate a denser population than could be accommodated on the same surfaces otherwise arranged. Nor is it any argument against bulk being an object with God that space itself is infinite; for there may be an infinity of matter to fill it; and since we see clearly that the endowment of matter with vitality is a principle—indeed, as far as our judgments extend, theleadingprinciple in the operations of Deity, it is scarcely logical to imagine it confined to the regions of the minute, where we daily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As we find cycle within cycle without end, yet all revolving around one far-distant centre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? Inshort, we are madly erring through self-esteem in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast "clod of the valley" which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul, for no more profound reason than that he does not behold it in operation2.These fancies, and such as these, have always given to my meditations among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers and the ocean, a tinge of what the every-day world would not fail to term the fantastic. My wanderings amid such scenes have been many and far-searching, and often solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through many a dim deep valley, or gazed into the reflected heaven of many a bright lake, has been an interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have strayed and gazedalone.Whatflippant Frenchman3was it who said, in allusion to the well known work of Zimmermann, that"la solitude est une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu'un pour vous dire que la solitude est une belle chose"? The epigram cannot be gainsaid; but the necessity is a thing that does not exist.It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region of mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy tarns writhing or sleeping within all, that I chanced upon a certain rivulet and island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June, and threw myself upon the turf beneath the branches of an unknown odorous shrub, that I might doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only should I look upon it, such was the character of phantasm which it wore.On all sides, save to the west where the sun was about sinking, arose the verdant walls of the forest. The little river which turned sharply in its course, and was thus immediately lost to sight, seemed to have no exit from its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep green foliage of the trees to the east; while in the opposite quarter (so it appeared to me as I lay at length and glanced upward) there poured down noiselessly and continuously into the valley a rich golden and crimson waterfall from the sunset fountains of the sky.About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of the stream. So blended bank and shadow there,That each seemed pendulous in air— so mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely possible to say at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf its crystal dominion began. My position enabled me to include in a single view both the eastern and western extremities of the islet, and I observed a singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eye of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe, mirthful, erect, bright, slender, and graceful, of eastern figure and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. Thereseemeda deep sense of life and joy about all, and although no airs blew from out the heavens, yet everything had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumerable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tulips with wings4.The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest shade. A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom, here pervaded all things. The trees were dark in color and mournful in form and attitude—wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes, that conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass wore the deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung droopingly, and hither and thither among it were many small unsightly hillocks, low and narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of graves, but were not, although over and all about them the rue and the rosemary clambered. The shades of the trees fell heavily upon the water, and seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of the element with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it birth, and thus became absorbed by the stream, while other shadows issued momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus entombed.This idea having once seized upon my fancy greatly excited it, and I lost myself forthwith in reverie. "If ever island were enchanted," said I to myself, "this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?—or do they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying, do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God little by little their existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow, exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?"As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island, bearing upon their bosom large dazzling white flakes of the bark of the sycamore, flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the water, a quick imagination might have converted into anything it pleased; while I thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays about whom I had been pondering, made its way slowly into the darkness from out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams, her attitude seemed indicative of joy, but sorrow deformed it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at length rounded the islet and re-entered the region of light. "The revolution which has just been made by the Fay," continued I musingly, "is the cycle of the brief year of her life. She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a year nearer unto death: for I did not fail to see that as she came into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the dark water, making its blackness more black."And again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of the latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic joy. She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened momently), and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the circuit of the island (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length, when the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood, and that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over all things, and I beheld her magical figure no more.
Footnote 1: Moraux is here derived frommoeurs, and its meaning is "fashionable," or, more strictly, "of manners."return to footnote markFootnote 2: Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise,De Sitû Orbis,says, "Either the world is a great animal, or," etc.returnFootnote 3: Balzac, in substance; I do not remember the words.returnFootnote 4: "Florem putares nare per liquidum æthera."P. Commire.return