Chapter II: Part II: 28

INSCRIPTION 37

THE TEUTONIC MINSTREL’S TOMB 38

INVOCATION 40

IONIA 41

THRENODY 46

CONCETTO 49

THE LAY OF THE CONDEMNED SPIRIT IN DANTE 50

LOVE’S LABOR LOST 51

THE PLAGUE IN SUMMER 55

EUTHANASIA 57

THE FORGOTTEN 58

TO W. P. R. 60

THE SONG OF ENEAS’ MEN 62

THE AUTHORESS OF THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO 64

MONODY OF THE COUNTESS OF NETTLESTEDE 65

CLOSE, CLOSE BY AIDENN 69

PAN AND LAÏS 71

ATHENS 76

ACHILLES’ SONG 77

ANASTASIUS 78

CYMINDIS 82

THE CEMETERY IN SUMMER 85

ALL HAIL, MY GENTLE, ETC. 88

THE SINGING MASONS AT CROCUSBURG 90

AGIMUR FATIS 92

A HERMITAGE 94

I SAW A SNAKE-GIRT, ETC. 95

LUCIFER REDUX 97

ANSALDO’S GARDEN 100

THE DYING MOSLEM 102

MDCCCXLVIII-IX 104

THE AUTUMNAL RIDE 110

TO —— 113

SUGGESTED BY A HEAD OF ACHILLES, IN SIR WM. GELL’S POMPEII 115

PSYCHE 117

THE SERAPH’S HOLIDAY 118

MORNING 121

AUTUMN 123

O POWER OF MUSIC 125

DREAMS 127

THE PENITENT 129

OCEAN, THOU ART DISENCHANTED 131

TWILIGHT IN EGYPT 133

ARIEL’S SONG 135

WHERE ABID’ST THOU, PROPHET MIGHTY 137

ON HER MONUMENTAL SCROLL 139

THE INDIAN SUMMER 141

HYMN TO PHOSPHOR 143

TO THE CRICKET 145

BOOTH’S RICHARD 147

L’ENVOI 149

POEMS.

PROËM.

A gleaner in the fields of song,
I follow where the great have gone,
The wise, the beautiful, the strong,
An humble garland weaving.
Their harmonies enchant mine ears,
Unseal the fontal depths of tears,
And lift my spirit to the spheres,
Each sense of pain bereaving.

Muse of the West! upon thy shrine
I lay this votive wreath of mine,
Though many an offering there may shine,
With brighter blossoms gleaming.
For, even now, though wild and young,
By cunning hands thy harp is strung,
And lips, with bees in clusters hung,
Thy fame are fast redeeming.

But late thy heart was pierced with pain,
Still o’er thee flows of raven grain
A vestment dun; thine eyelids rain
Their tears o’er one departed.
The harp of Israfel no more
Is heard below—some brighter shore
Receives him, and his lost Lenore
He clasps, the fiery hearted.

His were the wingéd words, that bear
Imaginations rich and rare,
As pinions’ seeds through all the air,
And sow them in each bosom.
Thoughts’ shadows lowered about his eye;
His forehead was a temple high,
Fit haunt for Dædal Poesy;
For flowers divine to blossom.

His spirit stalked in joyless gloom
Through autumn wolds, where never bloom
Was seen. Above, a sullen moon
Through flying rack was beaming;
The sighing winds their dirges blew,
The withered leaves in eddies flew,
Upon his brow the nightshade’s dew
In venomed drops was gleaming.

Sad heart, thy fiery throbs are o’er!
Thy soul has gained the eternal shore!
There mayst thou find the loved of yore,
Who went before thee thither!
Reknit to them by cords, which ne’er
The Parcæ dark again can shear,
Mayst thou enjoy ambrosial cheer
In regions of unclouded weather!

DISENCHANTMENT.

I.

Glides the shadow round the dial,
Youth and Hope have almost flown,
Vainly fade my days like water,
On the sandy desert thrown.
On the Tree of Life the verdure,
Leaf by leaf decaying, dies;
And a low prophetic murmur
In its waving branches sighs.
At its roots the Nornas sitting,
Chant, by turns, their solemn hymn;
In its shadow dreams are brooding,
As at old Dodona dim.

II.

Once like trodden vintage foaming,
Through my veins the life-blood rolled,
Fiery visions flashed around me,
Such as blinded prophets old.
Cold and dark the golden mountains,
Which of yore environed me;
From the star its sheen has faded,
From the blossom and the tree.
Gazing westward in the sunset,
I no longer can descry
Tents of Paladins, in clusters,
Pitched against the darkening sky.

III.

They have furled their gorgeous banners,
And their oriflammes uprolled,
They have struck their far pavilions,
Rich with purple and with gold.
In the galley of Ulysses
I no more at random sail,
On each tenth returning sunrise
Sure some stranger port to hail.
Now the regions of the Lotos
O’er the waters disappear;
Now the meadows of the Sirens
Starred with blossoms glitter near;

IV.

Now the golden ether leaving,
We to lampless glooms descend,
Where the Shadows of the Weary
Through the umbered spaces wend.
With “the blind old man” I wandered
On the soft Ionian shore,
Danced at harvest feasts in autumn,
While the oak tree arched me o’er;
Through the streets of Asian cities,
Lit with nuptial tapers trod,
Where in star-light flamed the altars
Of the yellow-buskined god.

V.

All the dark-eyed tribes of Hellas
I could visit, one by one,
In their _agorai_ I gossipped
With the idlers in the sun;
At the school of old Crotona
Heard the Samian recite,
How the eternal Monad flowers
Into blossoms infinite;
How from shape to shape forever
Silent, serpent-like it glides,
On a starred, unresting circle,
In its pilgrimages rides.

VI.

At the city of Glaucopis,
’Neath the olive trees I lay,
While the bird of Itys warbled
Through the livelong summer day,
And at moon-rise, decked with garlands,
Lay reclined in that alcove,
Where harangued the Man-Silenus
On the genesis of Love.
Fast the wine and wit were flowing,
Mid the banquet’s joyous din;
At the door, the son of Clinias,
Crowned and drunken, gazing in.

VII.

Or at morning, in some _stoa_,
Heard the Sage, as in his toils
He immeshed the wordy sophists
Come to dazzle from the Isles.
In the house of Thespis sitting,
On upæthric seats of stone,
Saw the tribes of birds collected
In a kingdom of their own;
In a quaint ethereal city,
Full of many-tinted plumes,
Which in mid-air intercepted
Jove’s refection, altar-fumes.

VIII.

But the portals of Athenæ
I no longer wander through,
To her Owl and to her _Bema_
I have bid a long adieu.
Cities thronged with breathing beings—
Not the pavements of the dead—
For the future I must frequent,
For the future I must tread.
Though their streets have not the glory,
Which the towns of Hellas wore,
In them I must toil and battle,
Till the fret and din are o’er.

IX.

Till the clamor of the Present
In the eternal silence dies,
And my frame, but dust and ruin,
In its final chamber lies,
With the vanished and forgotten,
With the lovely and the brave,
Who have sunken through the Ages,
To the quiet of the grave.
There the eye of love shall vainly
Through the red earth seek to pry,
There the grass and night winds only
True to sorrow ever sigh.

Elfin Land