MEPHISTOPHELES:What will You bet?—now am sure of winning—Only, observe You give me full permissionTo lead him softly on my path.
THE LORD:As long _75As he shall live upon the earth, so longIs nothing unto thee forbidden—ManMust err till he has ceased to struggle.
MEPHISTOPHELES:Thanks.And that is all I ask; for willinglyI never make acquaintance with the dead. _80The full fresh cheeks of youth are food for me,And if a corpse knocks, I am not at home.For I am like a cat—I like to playA little with the mouse before I eat it.
THE LORD:Well, well! it is permitted thee. Draw thou _85His spirit from its springs; as thou find’st powerSeize him and lead him on thy downward path;And stand ashamed when failure teaches theeThat a good man, even in his darkest longings,Is well aware of the right way.
MEPHISTOPHELES:Well and good. _90I am not in much doubt about my bet,And if I lose, then ’tis Your turn to crow;Enjoy Your triumph then with a full breast.Ay; dust shall he devour, and that with pleasure,Like my old paramour, the famous Snake. _95
THE LORD:Pray come here when it suits you; for I neverHad much dislike for people of your sort.And, among all the Spirits who rebelled,The knave was ever the least tedious to Me.The active spirit of man soon sleeps, and soon _100He seeks unbroken quiet; therefore IHave given him the Devil for a companion,Who may provoke him to some sort of work,And must create forever.—But ye, pureChildren of God, enjoy eternal beauty;— _105Let that which ever operates and livesClasp you within the limits of its love;And seize with sweet and melancholy thoughtsThe floating phantoms of its loveliness.
MEPHISTOPHELES:From time to time I visit the old fellow, _110And I take care to keep on good terms with Him.Civil enough is the same God Almighty,To talk so freely with the Devil himself.
MEPHISTOPHELES:Would you not like a broomstick? As for meI wish I had a good stout ram to ride;For we are still far from the appointed place.
FAUST:This knotted staff is help enough for me,Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good _5Is there in making short a pleasant way?To creep along the labyrinths of the vales,And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs,Precipitate themselves in waterfalls,Is the true sport that seasons such a path. _10Already Spring kindles the birchen spray,And the hoar pines already feel her breath:Shall she not work also within our limbs?
MEPHISTOPHELES:Nothing of such an influence do I feel.My body is all wintry, and I wish _15The flowers upon our path were frost and snow.But see how melancholy rises now,Dimly uplifting her belated beam,The blank unwelcome round of the red moon,And gives so bad a light, that every step _20One stumbles ’gainst some crag. With your permission,I’ll call on Ignis-fatuus to our aid:I see one yonder burning jollily.Halloo, my friend! may I request that youWould favour us with your bright company? _25Why should you blaze away there to no purpose?Pray be so good as light us up this way.
IGNIS-FATUUS:With reverence be it spoken, I will tryTo overcome the lightness of my nature;Our course, you know, is generally zigzag. _30
MEPHISTOPHELES:Ha, ha! your worship thinks you have to dealWith men. Go straight on, in the Devil’s name,Or I shall puff your flickering life out.
NOTE: _33 shall puff 1824; will blow 1822.
IGNIS-FATUUS:Well,I see you are the master of the house;I will accommodate myself to you. _35Only consider that to-night this mountainIs all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lanternShows you his way, though you should miss your own,You ought not to be too exact with him.
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, AND IGNIS-FATUUS, IN ALTERNATE CHORUS:The limits of the sphere of dream, _40The bounds of true and false, are past.Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam,Lead us onward, far and fast,To the wide, the desert waste.
But see, how swift advance and shift _45Trees behind trees, row by row,—How, clift by clift, rocks bend and liftTheir frowning foreheads as we go.The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!How they snort, and how they blow! _50
Through the mossy sods and stones,Stream and streamlet hurry down—A rushing throng! A sound of songBeneath the vault of Heaven is blown!Sweet notes of love, the speaking tones _55Of this bright day, sent down to sayThat Paradise on Earth is known,Resound around, beneath, above.All we hope and all we loveFinds a voice in this blithe strain, _60Which wakens hill and wood and rill,And vibrates far o’er field and vale,And which Echo, like the taleOf old times, repeats again.
To-whoo! to-whoo! near, nearer now _65The sound of song, the rushing throng!Are the screech, the lapwing, and the jay,All awake as if ’twere day?See, with long legs and belly wide,A salamander in the brake! _70Every root is like a snake,And along the loose hillside,With strange contortions through the night,Curls, to seize or to affright;And, animated, strong, and many, _75They dart forth polypus-antennae,To blister with their poison spumeThe wanderer. Through the dazzling gloomThe many-coloured mice, that threadThe dewy turf beneath our tread, _80In troops each other’s motions cross,Through the heath and through the moss;And, in legions intertangled,The fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng,Till all the mountain depths are spangled. _85
Tell me, shall we go or stay?Shall we onward? Come along!Everything around is sweptForward, onward, far away!Trees and masses intercept _90The sight, and wisps on every sideAre puffed up and multiplied.
NOTES: _48 frowning]fawning 1822. _70 brake 1824; lake 1822.
MEPHISTOPHELES:Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gainThis pinnacle of isolated crag.One may observe with wonder from this point, _95How Mammon glows among the mountains.
FAUST:Ay—And strangely through the solid depth belowA melancholy light, like the red dawn,Shoots from the lowest gorge of the abyssOf mountains, lightning hitherward: there rise _100Pillars of smoke, here clouds float gently by;Here the light burns soft as the enkindled air,Or the illumined dust of golden flowers;And now it glides like tender colours spreading;And now bursts forth in fountains from the earth; _105And now it winds, one torrent of broad light,Through the far valley with a hundred veins;And now once more within that narrow cornerMasses itself into intensest splendour.And near us, see, sparks spring out of the ground, _110Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness;The pinnacles of that black wall of mountainsThat hems us in are kindled.
MEPHISTOPHELES:Rare: in faith!Does not Sir Mammon gloriously illuminateHis palace for this festival?—it is _115A pleasure which you had not known before.I spy the boisterous guests already.
FAUST:HowThe children of the wind rage in the air!With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!
NOTE: _117 How 1824; Now 1822.
MEPHISTOPHELES:Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag. _120Beware! for if with them thou warrestIn their fierce flight towards the wilderness,Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and dragThy body to a grave in the abyss.A cloud thickens the night. _125Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest!The owls fly out in strange affright;The columns of the evergreen palacesAre split and shattered;The roots creak, and stretch, and groan; _130And ruinously overthrown,The trunks are crushed and shatteredBy the fierce blast’s unconquerable stress.Over each other crack and crash they allIn terrible and intertangled fall; _135And through the ruins of the shaken mountainThe airs hiss and howl—It is not the voice of the fountain,Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.Dost thou not hear? _140Strange accents are ringingAloft, afar, anear?The witches are singing!The torrent of a raging wizard songStreams the whole mountain along. _145
NOTE: _132 shattered]scattered Rossetti.
CHORUS OF WITCHES:The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,Now to the Brocken the witches go;The mighty multitude here may be seenGathering, wizard and witch, below.Sir Urian is sitting aloft in the air; _150Hey over stock! and hey over stone!’Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done?Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!
NOTE: _150 Urian]Urean editions 1824, 1839.
A VOICE:Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine,Old Baubo rideth alone. _155
CHORUS:Honour her, to whom honour is due,Old mother Baubo, honour to you!An able sow, with old Baubo upon her,Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour!The legion of witches is coming behind, _160Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind—
A VOICE:Which way comest thou?
A VOICE:Over Ilsenstein;The owl was awake in the white moonshine;I saw her at rest in her downy nest,And she stared at me with her broad, bright eyne. _165
NOTE: _165 eyne 1839, 2nd edition; eye 1822, 1824, 1839, 1st edition.
VOICES:And you may now as well take your course on to Hell,Since you ride by so fast on the headlong blast.
A VOICE:She dropped poison upon me as I passed.Here are the wounds—
CHORUS OF WITCHES:Come away! come along!The way is wide, the way is long, _170But what is that for a Bedlam throng?Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom.The child in the cradle lies strangled at home,And the mother is clapping her hands.—
SEMICHORUS OF WIZARDS 1:We glide inLike snails when the women are all away; _175And from a house once given over to sinWoman has a thousand steps to stray.
SEMICHORUS 2:A thousand steps must a woman take,Where a man but a single spring will make.
VOICES ABOVE:Come with us, come with us, from Felsensee. _180
NOTE: _180 Felsensee 1862 (“Relics of Shelley”, page 96); Felumee 1822; Felunsee editions 1824, 1839.
VOICES BELOW:With what joy would we fly through the upper sky!We are washed, we are ‘nointed, stark naked are we;But our toil and our pain are forever in vain.
NOTE: _183 are editions 1839; is 1822, 1824.
BOTH CHORUSES:The wind is still, the stars are fled, _185The melancholy moon is dead;The magic notes, like spark on spark,Drizzle, whistling through the dark. Come away!
VOICES BELOW:Stay, Oh, stay!
VOICES ABOVE:Out of the crannies of the rocks _190Who calls?
VOICES BELOW:Oh, let me join your flocks!I, three hundred years have strivenTo catch your skirt and mount to Heaven,—And still in vain. Oh, might I beWith company akin to me! _195
BOTH CHORUSES:Some on a ram and some on a prong,On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along;Forlorn is the wight who can rise not to-night.
A HALF-WITCH BELOW:I have been tripping this many an hour:Are the others already so far before? _200No quiet at home, and no peace abroad!And less methinks is found by the road.
CHORUS OF WITCHES:Come onward, away! aroint thee, aroint!A witch to be strong must anoint—anoint—Then every trough will be boat enough; _205With a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky,Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?
BOTH CHORUSES:We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground;Witch-legions thicken around and around;Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over. _210
MEPHISTOPHELES:What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling;What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling;What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning,As Heaven and Earth were overturning.There is a true witch element about us; _215Take hold on me, or we shall be divided:—Where are you?
NOTE: _217 What! wanting, 1822.
FAUST [FROM A DISTANCE]:Here!
MEPHISTOPHELES:What!I must exert my authority in the house.Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people.Take hold on me, doctor, and with one step _220Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd:They are too mad for people of my sort.Just there shines a peculiar kind of light—Something attracts me in those bushes. ComeThis way: we shall slip down there in a minute. _225
FAUST:Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on—’Twere a wise feat indeed to wander outInto the Brocken upon May-day night,And then to isolate oneself in scorn,Disgusted with the humours of the time. _230
MEPHISTOPHELES:See yonder, round a many-coloured flameA merry club is huddled altogether:Even with such little people as sit thereOne would not be alone.
FAUST:Would that I wereUp yonder in the glow and whirling smoke, _235Where the blind million rush impetuouslyTo meet the evil ones; there might I solveMany a riddle that torments me.
MEPHISTOPHELES:YetMany a riddle there is tied anewInextricably. Let the great world rage! _240We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.’Tis an old custom. Men have ever builtTheir own small world in the great world of all.I see young witches naked there, and old onesWisely attired with greater decency. _245Be guided now by me, and you shall buyA pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.I hear them tune their instruments—one mustGet used to this damned scraping. Come, I’ll lead youAmong them; and what there you do and see, _250As a fresh compact ’twixt us two shall be.How say you now? this space is wide enough—Look forth, you cannot see the end of it—An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and theyWho throng around them seem innumerable: _255Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend,What is there better in the world than this?
NOTE: _254 An 1824; A editions 1839.
FAUST:In introducing us, do you assumeThe character of Wizard or of Devil? _260
MEPHISTOPHELES:In truth, I generally go aboutIn strict incognito; and yet one likesTo wear one’s orders upon gala days.I have no ribbon at my knee; but hereAt home, the cloven foot is honourable. _265See you that snail there?—she comes creeping up,And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something.I could not, if I would, mask myself here.Come now, we’ll go about from fire to fire:I’ll be the Pimp, and you shall be the Lover. _270[TO SOME OLD WOMEN, WHO ARE SITTING ROUND A HEAP OF GLIMMERING COALS.]Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here?You ought to be with the young riotersRight in the thickest of the revelry—But every one is best content at home.
NOTE: _264 my wanting, 1822.
General.Who dare confide in right or a just claim? _275So much as I had done for them! and now—With women and the people ’tis the same,Youth will stand foremost ever,—age may goTo the dark grave unhonoured.
NOTE: _275 right editions 1824, 1839; night 1822.
MINISTER:NowadaysPeople assert their rights: they go too far; _280But as for me, the good old times I praise;Then we were all in all—’twas something worthOne’s while to be in place and wear a star;That was indeed the golden age on earth.
PARVENU:We too are active, and we did and do _285What we ought not, perhaps; and yet we nowWill seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round,A spoke of Fortune’s wheel, and keep our ground.
NOTE: _285 Parvenu: (Note) A sort of fundholder 1822, editions 1824, 1839.
AUTHOR:Who now can taste a treatise of deep senseAnd ponderous volume? ’tis impertinence _290To write what none will read, therefore will ITo please the young and thoughtless people try.
NOTE: _290 ponderous 1824; wonderous 1822.
MEPHISTOPHELES [WHO AT ONCE APPEARS TO HAVE GROWN VERY OLD]:Ifind the people ripe for the last day,Since I last came up to the wizard mountain;And as my little cask runs turbid now, _295So is the world drained to the dregs.
PEDLAR-WITCH:Look here,Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast;And lose the chance of a good pennyworth.I have a pack full of the choicest waresOf every sort, and yet in all my bundle _300Is nothing like what may be found on earth;Nothing that in a moment will make richMen and the world with fine malicious mischief—There is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowlFrom which consuming poison may be drained _305By innocent and healthy lips; no jewel,The price of an abandoned maiden’s shame;No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose,Or stabs the wearer’s enemy in the back;No—
MEPHISTOPHELES:Gossip, you know little of these times. _310What has been, has been; what is done, is past,They shape themselves into the innovationsThey breed, and innovation drags us with it.The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us:You think to impel, and are yourself impelled. _315
FAUST:What is that yonder?
MEPHISTOPHELES:Mark her well. It isLilith.
FAUST:Who?
MEPHISTOPHELES:Lilith, the first wife of Adam.Beware of her fair hair, for she excelsAll women in the magic of her locks;And when she winds them round a young man’s neck, _320She will not ever set him free again.
FAUST:There sit a girl and an old woman—theySeem to be tired with pleasure and with play.
MEPHISTOPHELES:There is no rest to-night for any one:When one dance ends another is begun; _325Come, let us to it. We shall have rare fun.
FAUST:I had once a lovely dreamIn which I saw an apple-tree,Where two fair apples with their gleamTo climb and taste attracted me. _330
NOTES: _327-_334 So Boscombe manuscript (“Westminster Review”, July, 1870); wanting, 1822, 1824, 1839.
THE GIRL:She with apples you desiredFrom Paradise came long ago:With you I feel that if required,Such still within my garden grow.
…
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:What is this cursed multitude about? _335Have we not long since proved to demonstrationThat ghosts move not on ordinary feet?But these are dancing just like men and women.
NOTE: _335 Procto-Phantasmist]Brocto-Phantasmist editions 1824, 1839.
THE GIRL:What does he want then at our ball?
FAUST:Oh! heIs far above us all in his conceit: _340Whilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment;And any step which in our dance we tread,If it be left out of his reckoning,Is not to be considered as a step.There are few things that scandalize him not: _345And when you whirl round in the circle now,As he went round the wheel in his old mill,He says that you go wrong in all respects,Especially if you congratulate himUpon the strength of the resemblance.
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:Fly! _350Vanish! Unheard-of impudence! What, still there!In this enlightened age too, since you have beenProved not to exist!—But this infernal broodWill hear no reason and endure no rule.Are we so wise, and is the POND still haunted? _355How long have I been sweeping out this rubbishOf superstition, and the world will notCome clean with all my pains!—it is a caseUnheard of!
NOTE: _355 pond wanting in Boscombe manuscript.
THE GIRL:Then leave off teasing us so.
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:I tell you, spirits, to your faces now, _360That I should not regret this despotismOf spirits, but that mine can wield it not.To-night I shall make poor work of it,Yet I will take a round with you, and hopeBefore my last step in the living dance _365To beat the poet and the devil together.
MEPHISTOPHELES:At last he will sit down in some foul puddle;That is his way of solacing himself;Until some leech, diverted with his gravity,Cures him of spirits and the spirit together. _370[TO FAUST, WHO HAS SECEDED FROM THE DANCE.]Why do you let that fair girl pass from you,Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance?
FAUST:A red mouse in the middle of her singingSprung from her mouth.
MEPHISTOPHELES:That was all right, my friend:Be it enough that the mouse was not gray. _375Do not disturb your hour of happinessWith close consideration of such trifles.
FAUST:Then saw I—
MEPHISTOPHELES:What?
FAUST:Seest thou not a pale,Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away?She drags herself now forward with slow steps, _380And seems as if she moved with shackled feet:I cannot overcome the thought that sheIs like poor Margaret.
MEPHISTOPHELES:Let it be—pass on—No good can come of it—it is not wellTo meet it—it is an enchanted phantom, _385A lifeless idol; with its numbing look,It freezes up the blood of man; and theyWho meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone,Like those who saw Medusa.
FAUST:Oh, too true!Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse _390Which no beloved hand has closed, alas!That is the breast which Margaret yielded to me—Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!
NOTE: _392 breast editions 1839; heart 1822, 1824.
MEPHISTOPHELES:It is all magic, poor deluded fool!She looks to every one like his first love. _395
FAUST:Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turnMy looks from her sweet piteous countenance.How strangely does a single blood-red line,Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,Adorn her lovely neck!
MEPHISTOPHELES:Ay, she can carry _400Her head under her arm upon occasion;Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasuresEnd in delusion.—Gain this rising ground,It is as airy here as in a…And if I am not mightily deceived, _405I see a theatre.—What may this mean?
ATTENDANT:Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for ’tisThe custom now to represent that number.’Tis written by a Dilettante, andThe actors who perform are Dilettanti; _410Excuse me, gentlemen; but I must vanish.I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.
***
[An edition (250 copies) of “Queen Mab” was printed at London in the summer of 1813 by Shelley himself, whose name, as author and printer, appears on the title-page (see “Bibliographical List”). Of this edition about seventy copies were privately distributed. Sections 1, 2, 8, and 9 were afterwards rehandled, and the intermediate sections here and there revised and altered; and of this new text sections 1 and 2 were published by Shelley in the “Alastor” volume of 1816, under the title, “The Daemon of the World”. The remainder lay unpublished till 1876, when sections 8 and 9 were printed by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B., from a printed copy of “Queen Mab” with Shelley’s manuscript corrections. See “The Shelley Library”, pages 36-44, for a description of this copy, which is in Mr. Forman’s possession. Sources of the text are (1) the editio princeps of 1813; (2) text (with some omissions) in the “Poetical Works” of 1839, edited by Mrs. Shelley; (3) text (one line only wanting) in the 2nd edition of the “Poetical Works”, 1839 (same editor).
“Queen Mab” was probably written during the year 1812—it is first heard of at Lynmouth, August 18, 1812 (“Shelley Memorials”, page 39)—but the text may be assumed to include earlier material.]
ECRASEZ L’INFAME!—Correspondance de Voltaire.
Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius anteTrita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis;Atque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores.
…
Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae.Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctisReligionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.—Lucret. lib. 4.
Dos pon sto, kai kosmon kineso.—Archimedes.
Whose is the love that gleaming through the world,Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?Whose is the warm and partial praise,Virtue’s most sweet reward?
Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul _5Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,And loved mankind the more?
HARRIET! on thine:—thou wert my purer mind;Thou wert the inspiration of my song; _10Thine are these early wilding flowers,Though garlanded by me.
Then press into thy breast this pledge of love;And know, though time may change and years may roll,Each floweret gathered in my heart _15It consecrates to thine.
1.
How wonderful is Death,Death and his brother Sleep!One, pale as yonder waning moonWith lips of lurid blue;The other, rosy as the morn _5When throned on ocean’s waveIt blushes o’er the world:Yet both so passing wonderful!
Hath then the gloomy PowerWhose reign is in the tainted sepulchres _10Seized on her sinless soul?Must then that peerless formWhich love and admiration cannot viewWithout a beating heart, those azure veinsWhich steal like streams along a field of snow, _15That lovely outline, which is fairAs breathing marble, perish?Must putrefaction’s breathLeave nothing of this heavenly sightBut loathsomeness and ruin? _20Spare nothing but a gloomy theme,On which the lightest heart might moralize?Or is it only a sweet slumberStealing o’er sensation,Which the breath of roseate morning _25Chaseth into darkness?Will Ianthe wake again,And give that faithful bosom joyWhose sleepless spirit waits to catchLight, life and rapture from her smile? _30
Yes! she will wake again,Although her glowing limbs are motionless,And silent those sweet lips,Once breathing eloquence,That might have soothed a tiger’s rage, _35Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror.Her dewy eyes are closed,And on their lids, whose texture fineScarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath,The baby Sleep is pillowed: _40Her golden tresses shadeThe bosom’s stainless pride,Curling like tendrils of the parasiteAround a marble column.
Hark! whence that rushing sound? _45’Tis like the wondrous strainThat round a lonely ruin swells,Which, wandering on the echoing shore,The enthusiast hears at evening:’Tis softer than the west wind’s sigh; _50’Tis wilder than the unmeasured notesOf that strange lyre whose stringsThe genii of the breezes sweep:Those lines of rainbow lightAre like the moonbeams when they fall _55Through some cathedral window, but the tintsAre such as may not findComparison on earth.
Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen!Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air; _60Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,And stop obedient to the reins of light:These the Queen of Spells drew in,She spread a charm around the spot,And leaning graceful from the aethereal car, _65Long did she gaze, and silently,Upon the slumbering maid.
Oh! not the visioned poet in his dreams,When silvery clouds float through the ‘wildered brain,When every sight of lovely, wild and grand _70Astonishes, enraptures, elevates,When fancy at a glance combinesThe wondrous and the beautiful,—So bright, so fair, so wild a shapeHath ever yet beheld, _75As that which reined the coursers of the air,And poured the magic of her gazeUpon the maiden’s sleep.
The broad and yellow moonShone dimly through her form— _80That form of faultless symmetry;The pearly and pellucid carMoved not the moonlight’s line:’Twas not an earthly pageant:Those who had looked upon the sight, _85Passing all human glory,Saw not the yellow moon,Saw not the mortal scene,Heard not the night-wind’s rush,Heard not an earthly sound, _90Saw but the fairy pageant,Heard but the heavenly strainsThat filled the lonely dwelling.
The Fairy’s frame was slight, yon fibrous cloud,That catches but the palest tinge of even, _95And which the straining eye can hardly seizeWhen melting into eastern twilight’s shadow,Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair starThat gems the glittering coronet of morn,Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful, _100As that which, bursting from the Fairy’s form,Spread a purpureal halo round the scene,Yet with an undulating motion,Swayed to her outline gracefully.
From her celestial car _105The Fairy Queen descended,And thrice she waved her wandCircled with wreaths of amaranth:Her thin and misty formMoved with the moving air, _110And the clear silver tones,As thus she spoke, were suchAs are unheard by all but gifted ear.
FAIRY:‘Stars! your balmiest influence shed!Elements! your wrath suspend! _115Sleep, Ocean, in the rocky boundsThat circle thy domain!Let not a breath be seen to stirAround yon grass-grown ruin’s height,Let even the restless gossamer _120Sleep on the moveless air!Soul of Ianthe! thou,Judged alone worthy of the envied boon,That waits the good and the sincere; that waitsThose who have struggled, and with resolute will _125Vanquished earth’s pride and meanness, burst the chains,The icy chains of custom, and have shoneThe day-stars of their age;—Soul of Ianthe!Awake! arise!’
Sudden arose _130Ianthe’s Soul; it stoodAll beautiful in naked purity,The perfect semblance of its bodily frame.Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace,Each stain of earthliness _135Had passed away, it reassumedIts native dignity, and stoodImmortal amid ruin.
Upon the couch the body layWrapped in the depth of slumber: _140Its features were fixed and meaningless,Yet animal life was there,And every organ yet performedIts natural functions: ’twas a sightOf wonder to behold the body and soul. _145The self-same lineaments, the sameMarks of identity were there:Yet, oh, how different! One aspires to Heaven,Pants for its sempiternal heritage,And ever-changing, ever-rising still, _150Wantons in endless being.The other, for a time the unwilling sportOf circumstance and passion, struggles on;Fleets through its sad duration rapidly:Then, like an useless and worn-out machine, _155Rots, perishes, and passes.
FAIRY:‘Spirit! who hast dived so deep;Spirit! who hast soared so high;Thou the fearless, thou the mild,Accept the boon thy worth hath earned, _160Ascend the car with me.’
SPIRIT:‘Do I dream? Is this new feelingBut a visioned ghost of slumber?If indeed I am a soul,A free, a disembodied soul, _165Speak again to me.’
FAIRY:‘I am the Fairy MAB: to me ’tis givenThe wonders of the human world to keep:The secrets of the immeasurable past,In the unfailing consciences of men, _170Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find:The future, from the causes which ariseIn each event, I gather: not the stingWhich retributive memory implantsIn the hard bosom of the selfish man; _175Nor that ecstatic and exulting throbWhich virtue’s votary feels when he sums upThe thoughts and actions of a well-spent day,Are unforeseen, unregistered by me:And it is yet permitted me, to rend _180The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit,Clothed in its changeless purity, may knowHow soonest to accomplish the great endFor which it hath its being, and may tasteThat peace, which in the end all life will share. _185This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul,Ascend the car with me!’
The chains of earth’s immurementFell from Ianthe’s spirit;They shrank and brake like bandages of straw _190Beneath a wakened giant’s strength.She knew her glorious change,And felt in apprehension uncontrolledNew raptures opening round:Each day-dream of her mortal life, _195Each frenzied vision of the slumbersThat closed each well-spent day,Seemed now to meet reality.
The Fairy and the Soul proceeded;The silver clouds disparted; _200And as the car of magic they ascended,Again the speechless music swelled,Again the coursers of the airUnfurled their azure pennons, and the QueenShaking the beamy reins _205Bade them pursue their way.
The magic car moved on.The night was fair, and countless starsStudded Heaven’s dark blue vault,—Just o’er the eastern wave _210Peeped the first faint smile of morn:—The magic car moved on—From the celestial hoofsThe atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew,And where the burning wheels _215Eddied above the mountain’s loftiest peak,Was traced a line of lightning.Now it flew far above a rock,The utmost verge of earth,The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow _220Lowered o’er the silver sea.
Far, far below the chariot’s path,Calm as a slumbering babe,Tremendous Ocean lay.The mirror of its stillness showed _225The pale and waning stars,The chariot’s fiery track,And the gray light of mornTinging those fleecy cloudsThat canopied the dawn. _230Seemed it, that the chariot’s wayLay through the midst of an immense concave,Radiant with million constellations, tingedWith shades of infinite colour,And semicircled with a belt _235Flashing incessant meteors.
The magic car moved on.As they approached their goalThe coursers seemed to gather speed;The sea no longer was distinguished; earth _240Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere;The sun’s unclouded orbRolled through the black concave;Its rays of rapid lightParted around the chariot’s swifter course, _245And fell, like ocean’s feathery sprayDashed from the boiling surgeBefore a vessel’s prow.
The magic car moved on.Earth’s distant orb appeared _250The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven;Whilst round the chariot’s wayInnumerable systems rolled,And countless spheres diffusedAn ever-varying glory. _255It was a sight of wonder: someWere horned like the crescent moon;Some shed a mild and silver beamLike Hesperus o’er the western sea;Some dashed athwart with trains of flame, _260Like worlds to death and ruin driven;Some shone like suns, and, as the chariot passed,Eclipsed all other light.
Spirit of Nature! here!In this interminable wilderness _265Of worlds, at whose immensityEven soaring fancy staggers,Here is thy fitting temple.Yet not the lightest leafThat quivers to the passing breeze _270Is less instinct with thee:Yet not the meanest wormThat lurks in graves and fattens on the deadLess shares thy eternal breath.Spirit of Nature! thou! _275Imperishable as this scene,Here is thy fitting temple.
2.
If solitude hath ever led thy stepsTo the wild Ocean’s echoing shore,And thou hast lingered there,Until the sun’s broad orbSeemed resting on the burnished wave, _5Thou must have marked the linesOf purple gold, that motionlessHung o’er the sinking sphere:Thou must have marked the billowy cloudsEdged with intolerable radiancy _10Towering like rocks of jetCrowned with a diamond wreath.And yet there is a moment,When the sun’s highest pointPeeps like a star o’er Ocean’s western edge, _15When those far clouds of feathery gold,Shaded with deepest purple, gleamLike islands on a dark blue sea;Then has thy fancy soared above the earth,And furled its wearied wing _20Within the Fairy’s fane.
Yet not the golden islandsGleaming in yon flood of light,Nor the feathery curtainsStretching o’er the sun’s bright couch, _25Nor the burnished Ocean wavesPaving that gorgeous dome,So fair, so wonderful a sightAs Mab’s aethereal palace could afford.Yet likest evening’s vault, that faery Hall! _30As Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spreadIts floors of flashing light,Its vast and azure dome,Its fertile golden islandsFloating on a silver sea; _35Whilst suns their mingling beamings dartedThrough clouds of circumambient darkness,And pearly battlements aroundLooked o’er the immense of Heaven.
The magic car no longer moved. _40The Fairy and the SpiritEntered the Hall of Spells:Those golden cloudsThat rolled in glittering billowsBeneath the azure canopy _45With the aethereal footsteps trembled not:The light and crimson mists,Floating to strains of thrilling melodyThrough that unearthly dwelling,Yielded to every movement of the will. _50Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned,And, for the varied bliss that pressed around,Used not the glorious privilegeOf virtue and of wisdom.
‘Spirit!’ the Fairy said, _55And pointed to the gorgeous dome,‘This is a wondrous sightAnd mocks all human grandeur;But, were it virtue’s only meed, to dwellIn a celestial palace, all resigned _60To pleasurable impulses, immuredWithin the prison of itself, the willOf changeless Nature would be unfulfilled.Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come!This is thine high reward:—the past shall rise; _65Thou shalt behold the present; I will teachThe secrets of the future.’
The Fairy and the SpiritApproached the overhanging battlement.—Below lay stretched the universe! _70There, far as the remotest lineThat bounds imagination’s flight,Countless and unending orbsIn mazy motion intermingled,Yet still fulfilled immutably _75Eternal Nature’s law.Above, below, around,The circling systems formedA wilderness of harmony;Each with undeviating aim, _80In eloquent silence, through the depths of spacePursued its wondrous way.
There was a little lightThat twinkled in the misty distance:None but a spirit’s eye _85Might ken that rolling orb;None but a spirit’s eye,And in no other placeBut that celestial dwelling, might beholdEach action of this earth’s inhabitants. _90But matter, space and timeIn those aereal mansions cease to act;And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reapsThe harvest of its excellence, o’er-boundsThose obstacles, of which an earthly soul _95Fears to attempt the conquest.
The Fairy pointed to the earth.The Spirit’s intellectual eyeIts kindred beings recognized.The thronging thousands, to a passing view, _100Seemed like an ant-hill’s citizens.How wonderful! that evenThe passions, prejudices, interests,That sway the meanest being, the weak touchThat moves the finest nerve, _105And in one human brainCauses the faintest thought, becomes a linkIn the great chain of Nature.
‘Behold,’ the Fairy cried,‘Palmyra’s ruined palaces!— _110Behold! where grandeur frowned;Behold! where pleasure smiled;What now remains?—the memoryOf senselessness and shame—What is immortal there? _115Nothing—it stands to tellA melancholy tale, to giveAn awful warning: soonOblivion will steal silentlyThe remnant of its fame. _120Monarchs and conquerors thereProud o’er prostrate millions trod—The earthquakes of the human race;Like them, forgotten when the ruinThat marks their shock is past. _125
‘Beside the eternal Nile,The Pyramids have risen.Nile shall pursue his changeless way:Those Pyramids shall fall;Yea! not a stone shall stand to tell _130The spot whereon they stood!Their very site shall be forgotten,As is their builder’s name!
‘Behold yon sterile spot;Where now the wandering Arab’s tent _135Flaps in the desert-blast.There once old Salem’s haughty faneReared high to Heaven its thousand golden domes,And in the blushing face of dayExposed its shameful glory. _140Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursedThe building of that fane; and many a father;Worn out with toil and slavery, imploredThe poor man’s God to sweep it from the earth,And spare his children the detested task _145Of piling stone on stone, and poisoningThe choicest days of life,To soothe a dotard’s vanity.There an inhuman and uncultured raceHowled hideous praises to their Demon-God; _150They rushed to war, tore from the mother’s wombThe unborn child,—old age and infancyPromiscuous perished; their victorious armsLeft not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends:But what was he who taught them that the God _155Of nature and benevolence hath givenA special sanction to the trade of blood?His name and theirs are fading, and the talesOf this barbarian nation, which impostureRecites till terror credits, are pursuing _160Itself into forgetfulness.
‘Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood,There is a moral desert now:The mean and miserable huts,The yet more wretched palaces, _165Contrasted with those ancient fanes,Now crumbling to oblivion;The long and lonely colonnades,Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks,Seem like a well-known tune, _170Which in some dear scene we have loved to hear,Remembered now in sadness.But, oh! how much more changed,How gloomier is the contrastOf human nature there! _175Where Socrates expired, a tyrant’s slave,A coward and a fool, spreads death around—Then, shuddering, meets his own.Where Cicero and Antoninus lived,A cowled and hypocritical monk _180Prays, curses and deceives.
‘Spirit, ten thousand yearsHave scarcely passed away,Since, in the waste where now the savage drinksHis enemy’s blood, and aping Europe’s sons, _185Wakes the unholy song of war, Arose a stately city,Metropolis of the western continent:There, now, the mossy column-stone,Indented by Time’s unrelaxing grasp, _190Which once appeared to braveAll, save its country’s ruin;There the wide forest scene,Rude in the uncultivated lovelinessOf gardens long run wild, _195Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose stepsChance in that desert has delayed,Thus to have stood since earth was what it is.Yet once it was the busiest haunt,Whither, as to a common centre, flocked _200Strangers, and ships, and merchandise:Once peace and freedom blessedThe cultivated plain:But wealth, that curse of man,Blighted the bud of its prosperity: _205Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty,Fled, to return not, until man shall knowThat they alone can give the blissWorthy a soul that claimsIts kindred with eternity. _210
‘There’s not one atom of yon earthBut once was living man;Nor the minutest drop of rain,That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,But flowed in human veins: _215And from the burning plainsWhere Libyan monsters yell,From the most gloomy glensOf Greenland’s sunless clime,To where the golden fields _220Of fertile England spreadTheir harvest to the day,Thou canst not find one spotWhereon no city stood.
‘How strange is human pride! _225I tell thee that those living things,To whom the fragile blade of grass,That springeth in the mornAnd perisheth ere noon,Is an unbounded world; _230I tell thee that those viewless beings,Whose mansion is the smallest particleOf the impassive atmosphere,Think, feel and live like man;That their affections and antipathies, _235Like his, produce the lawsRuling their moral state;And the minutest throbThat through their frame diffusesThe slightest, faintest motion, _240Is fixed and indispensableAs the majestic lawsThat rule yon rolling orbs.’
The Fairy paused. The Spirit,In ecstasy of admiration, felt _245All knowledge of the past revived; the eventsOf old and wondrous times,Which dim tradition interruptedlyTeaches the credulous vulgar, were unfoldedIn just perspective to the view; _250Yet dim from their infinitude.The Spirit seemed to standHigh on an isolated pinnacle;The flood of ages combating below,The depth of the unbounded universe _255Above, and all aroundNature’s unchanging harmony.
3.
‘Fairy!’ the Spirit said,And on the Queen of SpellsFixed her aethereal eyes,‘I thank thee. Thou hast givenA boon which I will not resign, and taught _5A lesson not to be unlearned. I knowThe past, and thence I will essay to gleanA warning for the future, so that manMay profit by his errors, and deriveExperience from his folly: _10For, when the power of imparting joyIs equal to the will, the human soulRequires no other Heaven.’
MAB:‘Turn thee, surpassing Spirit!Much yet remains unscanned. _15Thou knowest how great is man,Thou knowest his imbecility:Yet learn thou what he is:Yet learn the lofty destinyWhich restless time prepares _20For every living soul.
‘Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amidYon populous city rears its thousand towersAnd seems itself a city. Gloomy troopsOf sentinels, in stern and silent ranks, _25Encompass it around: the dweller thereCannot be free and happy; hearest thou notThe curses of the fatherless, the groansOf those who have no friend? He passes on:The King, the wearer of a gilded chain _30That binds his soul to abjectness, the foolWhom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slaveEven to the basest appetites—that manHeeds not the shriek of penury; he smilesAt the deep curses which the destitute _35Mutter in secret, and a sullen joyPervades his bloodless heart when thousands groanBut for those morsels which his wantonnessWastes in unjoyous revelry, to saveAll that they love from famine: when he hears _40The tale of horror, to some ready-made faceOf hypocritical assent he turns,Smothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him,Flushes his bloated cheek.Now to the mealOf silence, grandeur, and excess, he drags _45His palled unwilling appetite. If gold,Gleaming around, and numerous viands culledFrom every clime, could force the loathing senseTo overcome satiety,—if wealthThe spring it draws from poisons not,—or vice, _50Unfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth notIts food to deadliest venom; then that kingIs happy; and the peasant who fulfilsHis unforced task, when he returns at even,And by the blazing faggot meets again _55Her welcome for whom all his toil is sped,Tastes not a sweeter meal.Behold him nowStretched on the gorgeous couch; his fevered brainReels dizzily awhile: but ah! too soonThe slumber of intemperance subsides, _60And conscience, that undying serpent, callsHer venomous brood to their nocturnal task.Listen! he speaks! oh! mark that frenzied eye—Oh! mark that deadly visage.’
KING:‘No cessation!Oh! must this last for ever? Awful Death, _65I wish, yet fear to clasp thee!—Not one momentOf dreamless sleep! O dear and blessed peace!Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purityIn penury and dungeons? wherefore lurkestWith danger, death, and solitude; yet shunn’st _70The palace I have built thee? Sacred peace!Oh visit me but once, but pitying shedOne drop of balm upon my withered soul.’
THE FAIRY:‘Vain man! that palace is the virtuous heart,And Peace defileth not her snowy robes _75In such a shed as thine. Hark! yet he mutters;His slumbers are but varied agonies,They prey like scorpions on the springs of life.There needeth not the hell that bigots frameTo punish those who err: earth in itself _80Contains at once the evil and the cure;And all-sufficing Nature can chastiseThose who transgress her law,—she only knowsHow justly to proportion to the faultThe punishment it merits.Is it strange _85That this poor wretch should pride him in his woe?Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hugThe scorpion that consumes him? Is it strangeThat, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns,Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured _90Within a splendid prison, whose stern boundsShut him from all that’s good or dear on earth,His soul asserts not its humanity?That man’s mild nature rises not in warAgainst a king’s employ? No—’tis not strange. _95He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts and livesJust as his father did; the unconquered powersOf precedent and custom interposeBetween a KING and virtue. Stranger yet,To those who know not Nature, nor deduce _100The future from the present, it may seem,That not one slave, who suffers from the crimesOf this unnatural being; not one wretch,Whose children famish, and whose nuptial bedIs earth’s unpitying bosom, rears an armTo dash him from his throne! _105Those gilded fliesThat, basking in the sunshine of a court,Fatten on its corruption!—what are they?—The drones of the community; they feedOn the mechanic’s labour: the starved hind _110For them compels the stubborn glebe to yieldIts unshared harvests; and yon squalid form,Leaner than fleshless misery, that wastesA sunless life in the unwholesome mine,Drags out in labour a protracted death, _115To glut their grandeur; many faint with toil,That few may know the cares and woe of sloth.
‘Whence, think’st thou, kings and parasites arose?Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heapToil and unvanquishable penury _120On those who build their palaces, and bringTheir daily bread?—From vice, black loathsome vice;From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong;From all that ‘genders misery, and makesOf earth this thorny wilderness; from lust, _125Revenge, and murder…And when Reason’s voice,Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have wakedThe nations; and mankind perceive that viceIs discord, war, and misery; that virtueIs peace, and happiness and harmony; _130When man’s maturer nature shall disdainThe playthings of its childhood;—kingly glareWill lose its power to dazzle; its authorityWill silently pass by; the gorgeous throneShall stand unnoticed in the regal hall, _135Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood’s tradeShall be as hateful and unprofitableAs that of truth is now.Where is the fameWhich the vainglorious mighty of the earthSeek to eternize? Oh! the faintest sound _140From Time’s light footfall, the minutest waveThat swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothingThe unsubstantial bubble. Ay! todayStern is the tyrant’s mandate, red the gazeThat flashes desolation, strong the arm _145That scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes!That mandate is a thunder-peal that diedIn ages past; that gaze, a transient flashOn which the midnight closed, and on that armThe worm has made his meal.The virtuous man, _150Who, great in his humility, as kingsAre little in their grandeur; he who leadsInvincibly a life of resolute good,And stands amid the silent dungeon depthsMore free and fearless than the trembling judge, _155Who, clothed in venal power, vainly stroveTo bind the impassive spirit;—when he falls,His mild eye beams benevolence no more:Withered the hand outstretched but to relieve;Sunk Reason’s simple eloquence, that rolled _160But to appal the guilty. Yes! the graveHath quenched that eye, and Death’s relentless frostWithered that arm: but the unfading fameWhich Virtue hangs upon its votary’s tomb;The deathless memory of that man, whom kings _165Call to their mind and tremble; the remembranceWith which the happy spirit contemplatesIts well-spent pilgrimage on earth,Shall never pass away.
‘Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; _170The subject, not the citizen: for kingsAnd subjects, mutual foes, forever playA losing game into each other’s hands,Whose stakes are vice and misery. The manOf virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys. _175Power, like a desolating pestilence,Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience,Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame,A mechanized automaton.When Nero, _180High over flaming Rome, with savage joyLowered like a fiend, drank with enraptured earThe shrieks of agonizing death, beheldThe frightful desolation spread, and feltA new-created sense within his soul _185Thrill to the sight, and vibrate to the sound;Think’st thou his grandeur had not overcomeThe force of human kindness? and, when Rome,With one stern blow, hurled not the tyrant down,Crushed not the arm red with her dearest blood _190Had not submissive abjectness destroyedNature’s suggestions?Look on yonder earth:The golden harvests spring; the unfailing sunSheds light and life; the fruits, the flowers, the trees,Arise in due succession; all things speak _195Peace, harmony, and love. The universe,In Nature’s silent eloquence, declaresThat all fulfil the works of love and joy,—All but the outcast, Man. He fabricatesThe sword which stabs his peace; he cherisheth _200The snakes that gnaw his heart; he raiseth upThe tyrant, whose delight is in his woe,Whose sport is in his agony. Yon sun,Lights it the great alone? Yon silver beams,Sleep they less sweetly on the cottage thatch _205Than on the dome of kings? Is mother EarthA step-dame to her numerous sons, who earnHer unshared gifts with unremitting toil;A mother only to those puling babesWho, nursed in ease and luxury, make men _210The playthings of their babyhood, and mar,In self-important childishness, that peaceWhich men alone appreciate?
‘Spirit of Nature! no.The pure diffusion of thy essence throbs _215Alike in every human heart.Thou, aye, erectest thereThy throne of power unappealable:Thou art the judge beneath whose nodMan’s brief and frail authority _220Is powerless as the windThat passeth idly by.Thine the tribunal which surpassethThe show of human justice,As God surpasses man. _225
‘Spirit of Nature! thouLife of interminable multitudes;Soul of those mighty spheresWhose changeless paths throughHeaven’s deep silence lie;Soul of that smallest being, _230The dwelling of whose lifeIs one faint April sun-gleam;—Man, like these passive things,Thy will unconsciously fulfilleth:Like theirs, his age of endless peace, _235Which time is fast maturing,Will swiftly, surely come;And the unbounded frame, which thou pervadest,Will be without a flawMarring its perfect symmetry. _240
4.
‘How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh,Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening’s ear,Were discord to the speaking quietudeThat wraps this moveless scene. Heaven’s ebon vault,Studded with stars unutterably bright, _5Through which the moon’s unclouded grandeur rolls,Seems like a canopy which love had spreadTo curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills,Robed in a garment of untrodden snow;Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend, _10So stainless, that their white and glittering spiresTinge not the moon’s pure beam; yon castled steep,Whose banner hangeth o’er the time-worn towerSo idly, that rapt fancy deemeth itA metaphor of peace;—all form a scene _15Where musing Solitude might love to liftHer soul above this sphere of earthliness;Where Silence undisturbed might watch alone,So cold, so bright, so still.The orb of day,In southern climes, o’er ocean’s waveless field _20Sinks sweetly smiling: not the faintest breathSteals o’er the unruffled deep; the clouds of eveReflect unmoved the lingering beam of day;And vesper’s image on the western mainIs beautifully still. To-morrow comes: _25Cloud upon cloud, in dark and deepening mass,Roll o’er the blackened waters; the deep roarOf distant thunder mutters awfully;Tempest unfolds its pinion o’er the gloomThat shrouds the boiling surge; the pitiless fiend, _30With all his winds and lightnings, tracks his prey;The torn deep yawns,—the vessel finds a graveBeneath its jagged gulf.Ah! whence yon glareThat fires the arch of Heaven!—that dark red smokeBlotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched _35In darkness, and the pure and spangling snowGleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round!Hark to that roar, whose swift and deaf’ning pealsIn countless echoes through the mountains ring,Startling pale Midnight on her starry throne! _40Now swells the intermingling din; the jarFrequent and frightful of the bursting bomb;The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout,The ceaseless clangour, and the rush of menInebriate with rage:—loud, and more loud _45The discord grows; till pale Death shuts the scene,And o’er the conqueror and the conquered drawsHis cold and bloody shroud.—Of all the menWhom day’s departing beam saw blooming there,In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts _50That beat with anxious life at sunset there;How few survive, how few are beating now!All is deep silence, like the fearful calmThat slumbers in the storm’s portentous pause;Save when the frantic wail of widowed love _55Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moanWith which some soul bursts from the frame of clayWrapped round its struggling powers.The gray mornDawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smokeBefore the icy wind slow rolls away, _60And the bright beams of frosty morning danceAlong the spangling snow. There tracks of bloodEven to the forest’s depth, and scattered arms,And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments _65Death’s self could change not, mark the dreadful pathOf the outsallying victors: far behind,Black ashes note where their proud city stood.Within yon forest is a gloomy glen—Each tree which guards its darkness from the day,Waves o’er a warrior’s tomb.I see thee shrink, _70Surpassing Spirit!—wert thou human else?I see a shade of doubt and horror fleetAcross thy stainless features: yet fear not;This is no unconnected misery,Nor stands uncaused, and irretrievable. _75Man’s evil nature, that apologyWhich kings who rule, and cowards who crouch, set upFor their unnumbered crimes, sheds not the bloodWhich desolates the discord-wasted land.From kings, and priests, and statesmen, war arose, _80Whose safety is man’s deep unbettered woe,Whose grandeur his debasement. Let the axeStrike at the root, the poison-tree will fall;And where its venomed exhalations spreadRuin, and death, and woe, where millions lay _85Quenching the serpent’s famine, and their bonesBleaching unburied in the putrid blast,A garden shall arise, in lovelinessSurpassing fabled Eden.Hath Nature’s soul,That formed this world so beautiful, that spread _90Earth’s lap with plenty, and life’s smallest chordStrung to unchanging unison, that gaveThe happy birds their dwelling in the grove,That yielded to the wanderers of the deepThe lovely silence of the unfathomed main, _95And filled the meanest worm that crawls in dustWith spirit, thought, and love; on Man alone,Partial in causeless malice, wantonlyHeaped ruin, vice, and slavery; his soulBlasted with withering curses; placed afar _100The meteor-happiness, that shuns his grasp,But serving on the frightful gulf to glare,Rent wide beneath his footsteps?Nature!—no!Kings, priests, and statesmen, blast the human flowerEven in its tender bud; their influence darts _105Like subtle poison through the bloodless veinsOf desolate society. The child,Ere he can lisp his mother’s sacred name,Swells with the unnatural pride of crime, and liftsHis baby-sword even in a hero’s mood. _110This infant-arm becomes the bloodiest scourgeOf devastated earth; whilst specious names,Learned in soft childhood’s unsuspecting hour,Serve as the sophisms with which manhood dimsBright Reason’s ray, and sanctifies the sword _115Upraised to shed a brother’s innocent blood.Let priest-led slaves cease to proclaim that manInherits vice and misery, when ForceAnd Falsehood hang even o’er the cradled babeStifling with rudest grasp all natural good. _120‘Ah! to the stranger-soul, when first it peepsFrom its new tenement, and looks abroadFor happiness and sympathy, how sternAnd desolate a tract is this wide world!How withered all the buds of natural good! _125No shade, no shelter from the sweeping stormsOf pitiless power! On its wretched frame,Poisoned, perchance, by the disease and woeHeaped on the wretched parent whence it sprungBy morals, law, and custom, the pure winds _130Of Heaven, that renovate the insect tribes,May breathe not. The untainting light of dayMay visit not its longings. It is boundEre it has life: yea, all the chains are forgedLong ere its being: all liberty and love _135And peace is torn from its defencelessness;Cursed from its birth, even from its cradle doomedTo abjectness and bondage!