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A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!
Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!
Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,
Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,
Lit by the wanlight
The swift and silent lizard of the stones!
But stay! these walls - these ivy-clad arcades -
These mouldering plinths - these sad and blackened shafts - These vague entablatures - this crumbling frieze -
These shattered cornices - this wreck - this ruin -
These stones - alas! these gray stones - are they all -
All of the famed, and the colossal left
By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?
"Not all" - the Echoes answer me - "not all!
"Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever
"From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
"As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
"We rule the hearts of mightiest men - we rule
"With a despotic sway all giant minds.
"We are not impotent - we pallid stones.
"Not all our power is gone - not all our fame -
"Not all the magic of our high renown -
"Not all the wonder that encircles us -
"Not all the mysteries that in us lie -
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"Not all the memories that hang upon
"And cling around about us as a garment,
"Clothing us in a robe of more than glory."
1833.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
THE HAUNTED PALACE.
IN the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace --
Radiant palace -- reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion --
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This -- all this -- was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
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Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! -- for never sorrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, lie a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh -- but smile no more.
1838.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
THE CONQUEROR WORM.
LO ! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
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A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly -
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo !
That motley drama - oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot !
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude !
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes ! - it writhes ! - with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out - out are the lights - out all !
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels,all pallid and wan,
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Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
1838.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
SILENCE
THERE are some qualities -- some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a two-fold _Silence_ -- sea and shore --
Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
Some human memories and tearful lore,
Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."
He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
No power hath he of evil in himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!
1840.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
DREAM-LAND
BY a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule -
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE - out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titian woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
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Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters - lone and dead, -
Their still waters - still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead, -
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily, -
By the mountains - near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever, -
By the grey woods, - by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp, -
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls, -
By each spot the most unholy -
In each nook most melancholy, -
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past -
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by -
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth - and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region -
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis - oh 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not - dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
1844.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
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HYMN
AT morn - at noon - at twilight dim -
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and wo - in good and ill -
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the Hours flew brightly by
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
1835.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
TO ZANTE
FAIR isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,
Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take
How many memories of what radiant hours
At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
How many scenes of what departed bliss!
How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!
How many visions of a maiden that is
No more - no more upon thy verdant slopes!
No _more!_ alas, that magical sad sound
Transfomring all! Thy charms shall please _no more_ -
Thy memory _no more! _Accursed ground
Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,
O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
"Isoa d'oro! Fior di Levante!"
1837. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]