Alastor: Or, the Spirit of Solitude
Lines:730Movement:Romanticism
'The good die first,And those whose hearts are dry as summer dust,Burn to the socket!' Earth, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood!If our great Mother has imbued my soulWith aught of natural piety to feelYour love, and recompense the boon with mine;If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,And winter robing with pure snow and crownsOf starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs;If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathesHer first sweet kisses, have been dear to me;If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beastI consciously have injured, but still lovedAnd cherished these my kindred; then forgiveThis boast, beloved brethren, and withdrawNo portion of your wonted favour now! Mother of this unfathomable world!Favour my solemn song, for I have lovedThee ever, and thee only; I have watchedThy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,And my heart ever gazes on the depthOf thy deep mysteries. I have made my bedIn charnels and on coffins, where black deathKeeps record of the trophies won from thee,Hoping to still these obstinate questioningsOf thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,Thy messenger, to render up the taleOf what we are. In lone and silent hours,When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,Like an inspired and desperate alchymistStaking his very life on some dark hope,Have I mixed awful talk and asking looksWith my most innocent love, until strange tears,Uniting with those breathless kisses, madeSuch magic as compels the charmed nightTo render up thy charge:...and, though ne'er yetThou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,Enough from incommunicable dream,And twilight phantasms, and deep noon-day thought,Has shone within me, that serenely nowAnd moveless, as a long-forgotten lyreSuspended in the solitary domeOf some mysterious and deserted fane,I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strainMay modulate with murmurs of the air,And motions of the forests and the sea,And voice of living beings, and woven hymnsOf night and day, and the deep heart of man. There was a Poet whose untimely tombNo human hands with pious reverence reared,But the charmed eddies of autumnal windsBuilt o'er his mouldering bones a pyramidOf mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness:--A lovely youth,--no mourning maiden deckedWith weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:--Gentle, and brave, and generous,--no lorn bardBreathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:He lived, he died, he sung in solitude.Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pinedAnd wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,And Silence, too enamoured of that voice,Locks its mute music in her rugged cell. By solemn vision, and bright silver dreamHis infancy was nurtured. Every sightAnd sound from the vast earth and ambient air,Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.The fountains of divine philosophyFled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,Or good, or lovely, which the sacred pastIn truth or fable consecrates, he feltAnd knew. When early youth had passed, he leftHis cold fireside and alienated homeTo seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.Many a wide waste and tangled wildernessHas lured his fearless steps; and he has boughtWith his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,His rest and food. Nature's most secret stepsHe like her shadow has pursued, where'erThe red volcano overcanopiesIts fields of snow and pinnacles of iceWith burning smoke, or where bitumen lakesOn black bare pointed islets ever beatWith sluggish surge, or where the secret caves,Rugged and dark, winding among the springsOf fire and poison, inaccessibleTo avarice or pride, their starry domesOf diamond and of gold expand aboveNumberless and immeasurable halls,Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrinesOf pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.Nor had that scene of ampler majestyThan gems or gold, the varying roof of heavenAnd the green earth lost in his heart its claimsTo love and wonder; he would linger longIn lonesome vales, making the wild his home,Until the doves and squirrels would partakeFrom his innocuous hand his bloodless food,Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,And the wild antelope, that starts whene'erThe dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspendHer timid steps, to gaze upon a formMore graceful than her own.His wandering step,Obedient to high thoughts, has visitedThe awful ruins of the days of old:Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the wasteWhere stood Jerusalem, the fallen towersOf Babylon, the eternal pyramids,Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange,Sculptured on alabaster obelisk,Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx,Dark Aethiopia in her desert hillsConceals. Among the ruined temples there,Stupendous columns, and wild imagesOf more than man, where marble daemons watchThe Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead menHang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,He lingered, poring on memorialsOf the world's youth: through the long burning dayGazed on those speechless shapes; nor, when the moonFilled the mysterious halls with floating shadesSuspended he that task, but ever gazedAnd gazed, till meaning on his vacant mindFlashed like strong inspiration, and he sawThe thrilling secrets of the birth of time. Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,Her daily portion, from her father's tent,And spread her matting for his couch, and stoleFrom duties and repose to tend his steps,Enamoured, yet not daring for deep aweTo speak her love:--and watched his nightly sleep,Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lipsParted in slumber, whence the regular breathOf innocent dreams arose; then, when red mornMade paler the pale moon, to her cold homeWildered, and wan, and panting, she returned. The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie,And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,And o'er the aerial mountains which pour downIndus and Oxus from their icy caves,In joy and exultation held his way;Till in the vale of Cashmire, far withinIts loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwineBeneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretchedHis languid limbs. A vision on his sleepThere came, a dream of hopes that never yetHad flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maidSate near him, talking in low solemn tones.Her voice was like the voice of his own soulHeard in the calm of thought; its music long,Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, heldHis inmost sense suspended in its webOf many-coloured woof and shifting hues.Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,And lofty hopes of divine liberty,Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,Herself a poet. Soon the solemn moodOf her pure mind kindled through all her frameA permeating fire; wild numbers thenShe raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobsSubdued by its own pathos; her fair handsWere bare alone, sweeping from some strange harpStrange symphony, and in their branching veinsThe eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.The beating of her heart was heard to fillThe pauses of her music, and her breathTumultuously accorded with those fitsOf intermitted song. Sudden she rose,As if her heart impatiently enduredIts bursting burthen: at the sound he turned,And saw by the warm light of their own lifeHer glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veilOf woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lipsOutstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.His strong heart sunk and sickened with excessOf love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelledHis gasping breath, and spread his arms to meetHer panting bosom:...she drew back a while,Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,With frantic gesture and short breathless cryFolded his frame in her dissolving arms.Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and nightInvolved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,Like a dark flood suspended in its course,Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain. Roused by the shock he started from his trance--The cold white light of morning, the blue moonLow in the west, the clear and garish hills,The distinct valley and the vacant woods,Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fledThe hues of heaven that canopied his bowerOf yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep,The mystery and the majesty of Earth,The joy, the exultation? His wan eyesGaze on the empty scene as vacantlyAs ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven.The spirit of sweet human love has sentA vision to the sleep of him who spurnedHer choicest gifts. He eagerly pursuesBeyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;He overleaps the bounds. Alas! Alas!Were limbs, and breath, and being intertwinedThus treacherously? Lost, lost, for ever lostIn the wide pathless desert of dim sleep,That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of deathConduct to thy mysterious paradise,O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow cloudsAnd pendent mountains seen in the calm lake,Lead only to a black and watery depth,While death's blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung,Where every shade which the foul grave exhalesHides its dead eye from the detested day,Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms?This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart;The insatiate hope which it awakened, stungHis brain even like despair.While daylight heldThe sky, the Poet kept mute conferenceWith his still soul. At night the passion came,Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream,And shook him from his rest, and led him forthInto the darkness.--As an eagle, graspedIn folds of the green serpent, feels her breastBurn with the poison, and precipitatesThrough night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud,Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flightO'er the wide aery wilderness: thus drivenBy the bright shadow of that lovely dream,Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells,Startling with careless step the moonlight snake,He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight,Shedding the mockery of its vital huesUpon his cheek of death. He wandered onTill vast Aornos seen from Petra's steepHung o'er the low horizon like a cloud;Through Balk, and where the desolated tombsOf Parthian kings scatter to every windTheir wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,Day after day a weary waste of hours,Bearing within his life the brooding careThat ever fed on its decaying flame.And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair,Sered by the autumn of strange sufferingSung dirges in the wind; his listless handHung like dead bone within its withered skin;Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shoneAs in a furnace burning secretlyFrom his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,Who ministered with human charityHis human wants, beheld with wondering aweTheir fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,Encountering on some dizzy precipiceThat spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of windWith lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feetDisturbing not the drifted snow, had pausedIn its career: the infant would concealHis troubled visage in his mother's robeIn terror at the glare of those wild eyes,To remember their strange light in many a dreamOf after-times; but youthful maidens, taughtBy nature, would interpret half the woeThat wasted him, would call him with false namesBrother and friend, would press his pallid handAt parting, and watch, dim through tears, the pathOf his departure from their father's door. At length upon the lone Chorasmian shoreHe paused, a wide and melancholy wasteOf putrid marshes. A strong impulse urgedHis steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.It rose as he approached, and, with strong wingsScaling the upward sky, bent its bright courseHigh over the immeasurable main.His eyes pursued its flight:--'Thou hast a home,Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home,Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neckWith thine, and welcome thy return with eyesBright in the lustre of their own fond joy.And what am I that I should linger here,With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attunedTo beauty, wasting these surpassing powersIn the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heavenThat echoes not my thoughts?' A gloomy smileOf desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlesslyIts precious charge, and silent death exposed,Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. Startled by his own thoughts he looked around.There was no fair fiend near him, not a sightOr sound of awe but in his own deep mind.A little shallop floating near the shoreCaught the impatient wandering of his gaze.It had been long abandoned, for its sidesGaped wide with many a rift, and its frail jointsSwayed with the undulations of the tide.A restless impulse urged him to embarkAnd meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste;For well he knew that mighty Shadow lovesThe slimy caverns of the populous deep. The day was fair and sunny; sea and skyDrank its inspiring radiance, and the windSwept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves.Following his eager soul, the wandererLeaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloftOn the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil seaLike a torn cloud before the hurricane. As one that in a silver vision floatsObedient to the sweep of odorous windsUpon resplendent clouds, so rapidlyAlong the dark and ruffled waters fledThe straining boat.--A whirlwind swept it on,With fierce gusts and precipitating force,Through the white ridges of the chafed sea.The waves arose. Higher and higher stillTheir fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourgeLike serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.Calm and rejoicing in the fearful warOf wave ruining on wave, and blast on blastDescending, and black flood on whirlpool drivenWith dark obliterating course, he sate:As if their genii were the ministersAppointed to conduct him to the lightOf those beloved eyes, the Poet sate,Holding the steady helm. Evening came on,The beams of sunset hung their rainbow huesHigh 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted sprayThat canopied his path o'er the waste deep;Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locksO'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day;Night followed, clad with stars. On every sideMore horribly the multitudinous streamsOf ocean's mountainous waste to mutual warRushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mockThe calm and spangled sky. The little boatStill fled before the storm; still fled, like foamDown the steep cataract of a wintry river;Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;Now leaving far behind the bursting massThat fell, convulsing ocean: safely fled--As if that frail and wasted human form,Had been an elemental god. At midnightThe moon arose; and lo! the ethereal cliffsOf Caucasus, whose icy summits shoneAmong the stars like sunlight, and aroundWhose caverned base the whirlpools and the wavesBursting and eddying irresistiblyRage and resound forever.--Who shall save?--The boat fled on,--the boiling torrent drove,--The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,The shattered mountain overhung the sea,And faster still, beyond all human speed,Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,The little boat was driven. A cavern thereYawned, and amid its slant and winding depthsIngulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled onWith unrelaxing speed.--'Vision and Love!'The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheldThe path of thy departure. Sleep and deathShall not divide us long.' The boat pursuedThe windings of the cavern. Daylight shoneAt length upon that gloomy river's flow;Now, where the fiercest war among the wavesIs calm, on the unfathomable streamThe boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,Exposed those black depths to the azure sky,Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fellEven to the base of Caucasus, with soundThat shook the everlasting rocks, the massFilled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm:Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,Circling immeasurably fast, and lavedWith alternating dash the gnarled rootsOf mighty trees, that stretched their giant armsIn darkness over it. I' the midst was left,Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud,A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round,Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,Till on the verge of the extremest curve,Where, through an opening of the rocky bank,The waters overflow, and a smooth spotOf glassy quiet mid those battling tidesIs left, the boat paused shuddering.--Shall it sinkDown the abyss? Shall the reverting stressOf that resistless gulf embosom it?Now shall it fall?--A wandering stream of wind,Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,And, lo! with gentle motion, between banksOf mossy slope, and on a placid stream,Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark!The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar,With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.Where the embowering trees recede, and leaveA little space of green expanse, the coveIs closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowersFor ever gaze on their own drooping eyes,Reflected in the crystal calm. The waveOf the boat's motion marred their pensive task,Which naught but vagrant bird, or wanton wind,Or falling spear-grass, or their own decayHad e'er disturbed before. The Poet longedTo deck with their bright hues his withered hair,But on his heart its solitude returned,And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hidIn those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frameHad yet performed its ministry: it hungUpon his life, as lightning in a cloudGleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floodsOf night close over it.The noonday sunNow shone upon the forest, one vast massOf mingling shade, whose brown magnificenceA narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,Scooped in the dark base of their aery rocks,Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever.The meeting boughs and implicated leavesWove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as ledBy love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank,Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More darkAnd dark the shades accumulate. The oak,Expanding its immense and knotty arms,Embraces the light beech. The pyramidsOf the tall cedar overarching frameMost solemn domes within, and far below,Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,The ash and the acacia floating hangTremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothedIn rainbow and in fire, the parasites,Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow aroundThe grey trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughsUniting their close union; the woven leavesMake net-work of the dark blue light of day,And the night's noontide clearness, mutableAs shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawnsBeneath these canopies extend their swells,Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with bloomsMinute yet beautiful. One darkest glenSends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine,A soul-dissolving odour to inviteTo some more lovely mystery. Through the dell,Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keepTheir noonday watch, and sail among the shades,Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,Images all the woven boughs above,And each depending leaf, and every speckOf azure sky, darting between their chasms;Nor aught else in the liquid mirror lavesIts portraiture, but some inconstant starBetween one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wingsHave spread their glories to the gaze of noon. Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheldTheir own wan light through the reflected linesOf his thin hair, distinct in the dark depthOf that still fountain; as the human heart,Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heardThe motion of the leaves, the grass that sprungStartled and glanced and trembled even to feelAn unaccustomed presence, and the soundOf the sweet brook that from the secret springsOf that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemedTo stand beside him--clothed in no bright robesOf shadowy silver or enshrining light,Borrowed from aught the visible world affordsOf grace, or majesty, or mystery;--But, undulating woods, and silent well,And leaping rivulet, and evening gloomNow deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,Held commune with him, as if he and itWere all that was,--only...when his regardWas raised by intense pensiveness,...two eyes,Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,And seemed with their serene and azure smilesTo beckon him. Obedient to the lightThat shone within his soul, he went, pursuingThe windings of the dell.--The rivulet,Wanton and wild, through many a green ravineBeneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fellAmong the moss with hollow harmonyDark and profound. Now on the polished stonesIt danced; like childhood laughing as it went:Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,Reflecting every herb and drooping budThat overhung its quietness.--'O stream!Whose source is inaccessibly profound,Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,Thy searchless fountain, and invisible courseHave each their type in me; and the wide sky.And measureless ocean may declare as soonWhat oozy cavern or what wandering cloudContains thy waters, as the universeTell where these living thoughts reside, when stretchedUpon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall wasteI' the passing wind!' Beside the grassy shoreOf the small stream he went; he did impressOn the green moss his tremulous step, that caughtStrong shuddering from his burning limbs. As oneRoused by some joyous madness from the couchOf fever, he did move; yet, not like him,Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flameOf his frail exultation shall be spent,He must descend. With rapid steps he wentBeneath the shade of trees, beside the flowOf the wild babbling rivulet; and nowThe forest's solemn canopies were changedFor the uniform and lightsome evening sky.Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmedThe struggling brook; tall spires of windlestraeThrew their thin shadows down the rugged slope,And nought but gnarled roots of ancient pinesBranchless and blasted, clenched with grasping rootsThe unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thinAnd white, and where irradiate dewy eyesHad shone, gleam stony orbs:--so from his stepsBright flowers departed, and the beautiful shadeOf the green groves, with all their odorous windsAnd musical motions. Calm, he still pursuedThe stream, that with a larger volume nowRolled through the labyrinthine dell; and thereFretted a path through its descending curvesWith its wintry speed. On every side now roseRocks, which, in unimaginable forms,Lifted their black and barren pinnaclesIn the light of evening, and its precipiceObscuring the ravine, disclosed above,Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,Whose windings gave ten thousand various tonguesTo the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expandsIts stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,And seems, with its accumulated crags,To overhang the world: for wide expandBeneath the wan stars and descending moonIslanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloomOf leaden-coloured even, and fiery hillsMingling their flames with twilight, on the vergeOf the remote horizon. The near scene,In naked and severe simplicity,Made contrast with the universe. A pine,Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancyIts swinging boughs, to each inconstant blastYielding one only response, at each pauseIn most familiar cadence, with the howlThe thunder and the hiss of homeless streamsMingling its solemn song, whilst the broad riverFoaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,Fell into that immeasurable voidScattering its waters to the passing winds. Yet the grey precipice and solemn pineAnd torrent were not all;--one silent nookWas there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,It overlooked in its serenityThe dark earth, and the bending vault of stars.It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smileEven in the lap of horror. Ivy claspedThe fissured stones with its entwining arms,And did embower with leaves for ever green,And berries dark, the smooth and even spaceOf its inviolated floor, and hereThe children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the hauntOf every gentle wind, whose breath can teachThe wilds to love tranquillity. One step,One human step alone, has ever brokenThe stillness of its solitude:--one voiceAlone inspired its echoes;--even that voiceWhich hither came, floating among the winds,And led the loveliest among human formsTo make their wild haunts the depositoryOf all the grace and beauty that enduedIts motions, render up its majesty,Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,Commit the colours of that varying cheek,That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes. The dim and horned moon hung low, and pouredA sea of lustre on the horizon's vergeThat overflowed its mountains. Yellow mistFilled the unbounded atmosphere, and drankWan moonlight even to fulness; not a starShone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,Danger's grim playmates, on that precipiceSlept, clasped in his embrace.--O, storm of death!Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night: 610And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, stillGuiding its irresistible careerIn thy devastating omnipotence,Art king of this frail world, from the red fieldOf slaughter, from the reeking hospital,The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bedOf innocence, the scaffold and the throne,A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin callsHis brother Death. A rare and regal preyHe hath prepared, prowling around the world;Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and menGo to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrineThe unheeded tribute of a broken heart. When on the threshold of the green recessThe wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that deathWas on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,Did he resign his high and holy soulTo images of the majestic past,That paused within his passive being now,Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breatheThrough some dim latticed chamber. He did placeHis pale lean hand upon the rugged trunkOf the old pine. Upon an ivied stoneReclined his languid head, his limbs did rest,Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brinkOf that obscurest chasm;--and thus he lay,Surrendering to their final impulsesThe hovering powers of life. Hope and despair,The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fearMarred his repose; the influxes of sense,And his own being unalloyed by pain,Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fedThe stream of thought, till he lay breathing thereAt peace, and faintly smiling:--his last sightWas the great moon, which o'er the western lineOf the wide world her mighty horn suspended,With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemedTo mingle. Now upon the jagged hillsIt rests; and still as the divided frameOf the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,That ever beat in mystic sympathyWith nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still:And when two lessening points of light aloneGleamed through the darkness, the alternate gaspOf his faint respiration scarce did stirThe stagnate night:--till the minutest rayWas quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.It paused--it fluttered. But when heaven remainedUtterly black, the murky shades involvedAn image, silent, cold, and motionless,As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.Even as a vapour fed with golden beamsThat ministered on sunlight, ere the westEclipses it, was now that wondrous frame--No sense, no motion, no divinity--A fragile lute, on whose harmonious stringsThe breath of heaven did wander--a bright streamOnce fed with many-voiced waves--a dreamOf youth, which night and time have quenched for ever,Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now. Oh, for Medea's wondrous alchemy,Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleamWith bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhaleFrom vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God,Profuse of poisons, would concede the chaliceWhich but one living man has drained, who now,Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feelsNo proud exemption in the blighting curseHe bears, over the world wanders for ever,Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dreamOf dark magician in his visioned cave,Raking the cinders of a crucibleFor life and power, even when his feeble handShakes in its last decay, were the true lawOf this so lovely world! But thou art fled,Like some frail exhalation; which the dawnRobes in its golden beams,--ah! thou hast fled!The brave, the gentle and the beautiful,The child of grace and genius. Heartless thingsAre done and said i' the world, and many wormsAnd beasts and men live on, and mighty EarthFrom sea and mountain, city and wilderness,In vesper low or joyous orison,Lifts still its solemn voice:--but thou art fled--Thou canst no longer know or love the shapesOf this phantasmal scene, who have to theeBeen purest ministers, who are, alas!Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lipsSo sweet even in their silence, on those eyesThat image sleep in death, upon that formYet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tearBe shed--not even in thought. Nor, when those huesAre gone, and those divinest lineaments,Worn by the senseless wind, shall live aloneIn the frail pauses of this simple strain,Let not high verse, mourning the memoryOf that which is no more, or painting's woeOr sculpture, speak in feeble imageryTheir own cold powers. Art and eloquence,And all the shows o' the world are frail and vainTo weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.It is a woe "too deep for tears," when allIs reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,Whose light adorned the world around it, leavesThose who remain behind, not sobs or groans,The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;But pale despair and cold tranquillity,Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.