Built by a banish’d Santon of Chaldee;
The other part, two thousand years from him.
Was built by Cuthbert de Saint Aldebrim;
Then there’s a little wing, far from the sun,
Built by a Lapland witch tum’d maudlin nun:
And many other juts of aged stone
Founded with many a mason-devil’s groan.
The doors all look as if they op’d themselves,
The windows as if latch’d by fays and elves,
And from them comes a silver flash of light,
As from the westward of a summer’s night;
Or like a beauteous woman’s large blue eyes
Gone mad thro’ olden songs and poesies.
See! what is coming from the distance dim!
A golden galley all in silken trim!
Three rows of oars are lightening, moment whiles,
Into the verd’rous bosoms of those isles;
Towards the shade, under the castle wall.
It comes in silence, – now ’tis hidden all.
The clarion sounds, and from a postem-gate
An echo of sweet music doth create
A fear in the poor herdsman, who doth bring
His beast to trouble the enchanted spring. -
He tells of the sweet music, and the spot,
To all his friends, and they believe him not.
O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake,
Would all their colours from the sunset take:
From something of material sublime,
Rather than shadow our own soul’s daytime
In the dark void of night. For in the world
We jostle, – but my flag is not unfurl’d
On the Admiral-staff, – and so philosophise
I dare not yet! Oh, never will the prize,
High reason, and the love of good and ill,
Be my award! Things cannot to the will
Be settled, but they tease us out of thought;
Or is it that imagination brought
Beyond its proper bound, yet still conftn’d.
Lost in a sort of purgatory blind,
Cannot refer to any standard law
Of either earth or heaven? It is a flaw
In happiness, to see beyond our bourn, -
It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
It spoils the singing of the nightingale.
Dear Reynolds! I have a mysterious tale,
And cannot speak it: the first page I read
Upon a lampit rock of green seaweed
Among the breakers; ’twas a quiet eve,
The rocks were silent, the wide sea did weave
An untumultuous fringe of silver foam
Along the flat brown sand; I was at home
And should have been most happy, – but I saw
Too far into the sea, where every maw
The greater on the less feeds evermore. -
But I saw too distinct into the core
Of an eternal fierce destruction,
And so from happiness I far was gone.
Still am I sick of it, and tho’, today,
I’ve gather’d young spring-leaves, and flowers gay
Of periwinkle and wild strawberry,
Still do I that most fierce destruction see, -
The shark at savage prey, – the hawk at pounce, -
The gentle robin, like a pard or ounce,
Ravening a worm, – Away, ye horrid moods!
Moods of one’s mind! You know I hate them well.
You know I’d sooner be a clapping bell
To some Kamtschatcan missionary church,
Than with these horrid moods be left i’ the lurch.
Lines
Unfelt, unheard, unseen,
I’ve left my little queen,
Her languid arms in silver slumber lying:
Ah! through their nestling touch,
Who – who could tell how much
There is for madness – cruel, or complying?
Those faery lids how sleek!
Those lips how moist! – they speak,
In ripest quiet, shadows of sweet sounds:
Into my fancy’s ear
Melting a burden dear,
How ‘Love doth know no fullness nor no bounds.’
True! – tender monitors!
I bend unto your laws:
This sweetest day for dalliance was born!
So, without more ado,
I’ll feel my heaven anew,
For all the blushing of the hasty mom.
Sleep and Poetry
“As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete Was unto me, but why that I ne might Rest I ne wist, for there n’as erthly wight [As I suppose] had more of hertis ese Than I, for I n’ad sicknesse nor disese.”
What is more gentle than a wind in summer?
What is more soothing than the pretty hummer
That stays one moment in an open flower,
And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?
What is more tranquil than a muskrose blowing
In a green island, far from all men’s knowing?
More healthful than the leafiness of dales?
More secret than a nest of nightingales?
More serene than Cordelia’s countenance?
More full of visions than a high romance?
What, but thee Sleep? Soft closer of our eyes!
Low murmurer of tender lullabies!
Light hoverer around our happy pillows!
Wreather of poppy buds, and weeping willows!
Silent entangler of a beauty’s tresses!
Most happy listener! when the morning blesses
Thee for enlivening all the cheerful eyes
That glance so brightly at the new sunrise.
But what is higher beyond thought than thee?
Fresher than berries of a mountain tree?
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