"! , , , ! , , ! , , , , , - ! : - ! - : ! - ? , , , . , ; . . , - : . , !" (1924) . 9. TO - 1 Should my early life seem, (As well it might), a dream - Yet I build no faith upon The king Napoleon - I look not up afar For my destiny in a star: 2 In parting from you now Thus much I will avow - There are beings, and have been Whom my spirit had not seen Had I let them pass me by With a dreaming eye - If my peace hath fled away In a night - or in a day - In a vision - or in none - Is it therefore the less gone? - 3 I am standing 'mid the roar Of a weather-beaten shore, And I hold within my hand Some particles of sand - How few! and how they creep Thro' my fingers to the deep! My early hopes? no - they Went gloriously away, Like lightning from the sky At once - and so will I. 4 So young? ah! no - not now - Thou hast not seen my brow, But they tell thee I am proud - They lie - they lie aloud - My bosom beats with shame At the paltriness of name With which they dare combine A feeling such as mine - Nor Stoic? I am not: In the terror of my lot I laugh to think how poor That pleasure "to endure!" What! shade of Zeno! - I! Endure! - no - no - defy. (1829) 9. *** 1. , - , - ; , , , . 2. , , , , : , , . , - , - , - , - , - ; ! 3. , ; ; ! ! ? , ! , , ... , ! 4. ? - , ! - , . , - . , - ! , , , ! - ? ! : "" - ! - , - ! - . ! - - ! (1924) . 10. TO - The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see The wantonest singing birds, Are lips - and all thy melody Of lip-begotten words - Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined Then desolately fall, God! on my funereal mind Like starlight on a pall - Thy heart - thy heart! - I wake and sigh, And sleep to dream till day Of the truth that gold can never buy - Of the baubles that it may. (1829-1845) 10. *** , , , - , - : ! : , ! , - ! ! - ! , - , . , - ! ! , : , , , ! (1924) . 11. TO THE RIVER - Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow Of crystal, wandering water, Thou art an emblem of the glow Of beauty - the unhidden heart - The playful maziness of art In old Alberto's daughter; But when within thy wave she looks - Which glistens then, and trembles - Why, then the prettiest of brooks Her worshipper resembles; For in his heart, as in thy stream, Her image deeply lies - His heart which trembles at the beam Of her soul-searching eyes. (1829-1845) 11.  ! , , - , , , , . , , , , , , , ; , , , , , . (1924) . 12. TO - I heed not that my earthly lot Hath - little of Earth in it - That years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute: - I mourn not that the desolate Are happier, sweet, than I, But that you sorrow for my fate Who am a passer by. (1828-1849) 12. * * * , , . , , , , , . (1901) . 13. FAIRY-LAND Dim vales - and shadowy floods - And cloudy-looking woods, Whose forms we can't discover For the tears that drip all over. Huge moons there wax and wane - Again - again - again - Every moment of the night - Forever changing places - And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces. About twelve by the moon-dial One more filmy than the rest (A kind which, upon trial, They have found to be the best) Comes down - still down - and down With its centre on the crown Of a mountain's eminence, While its wide circumference In easy drapery falls Over hamlets, over halls, Wherever they may be - O'er the strange woods - o'er the sea - Over spirits on the wing - Over every drowsy thing - And buries them up ojuite In a labyrinth of light - And then, how deep! - O, deep! Is the passion of their sleep. In the morning they arise, And their moony covering Is soaring in the skies, With the tempests as they toss, Like - almost any thing - Or a yellow Albatross. They use that moon no more For the same end as before - Videlicet a tent - Which I think extravagant: Its atomies, however, Into a shower dissever, Of which those butterflies, Of Earth, who seek the skies, And so come down again (Never-contented things!) Have brought a specimen Upon their quivering wings. (1829, 1845) 13.  - - , , . , - , - , - , - , , - , - , - . , , - , ( , ), - - - , , , - , - , , , - ! ! , , , , , , - ! , : - , , - ( !) ; , , , , ! ( ), ! (1924) . 14. TO HELEN Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy-Land! (1831-1845) 14.  , , - , , , . , , , , , - , , - , - , , - . , , , , , , , , ! (1904) . 15. ISRAFEL And the angel Israfel whose heart- strings are a lute, who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures. - Koran In Heaven a spirit doth dwell "Whose heart-strings are a lute; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell) Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute. Tottering above In her highest noon, The enamoured moon Blushes with love, While, to listen, the red levin (With the rapid Pleiads, even, Which were seven,) Pauses in Heaven. And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings - The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings. But the skies that angel trod, Where deep thoughts are a duty - Where Love's a grown-up God - Where the Houri glances are Imbued with all the beauty Which we worship in a star. Therefore, thou art not wrong, Israfeli, who despisest An unimpassioned song; To thee the laurels belong, Best bard, because the wisest! Merrily live, and long! The ecstasies above With thy burning measures suit - Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, With the fervour of thy lute - Well may the stars be mute! Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely - flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours. If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky. (1831-1845) 15.  ... , - , - . , , . , , , , , , . , ; , . ; . . , , , . , , , . , ; , ; , . , , , , ! - . , , , , , , ! . , , . , . - , . . , , - . , , , , , , . (1901) . 16. THE SLEEPER At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapour, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; The lily lolls upon the wave: Wrapping the fog about its breast, The ruin moulders into rest; Looking like Lethe, see! the lake A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not, for the world, awake. All Beauty sleeps! - and lo! where lies Irene, with her Destinies! Oh, lady bright! can it be right - This window open to the night? The wanton airs, from the tree-top, Laughingly through the lattice drop - The bodiless airs, a wizard rout, Flit through thy chamber in and out, And wave the curtain canopy So fitfully - so fearfully - Above the closed and fringed lid 'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid, That, o'er the floor and down the wall, Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall! Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear? Why and what art thou dreaming here? Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas, A wonder to these garden trees! Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress! Strange, above all, thy length of tress, And this all solemn silentness! The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, Which is enduring, so be deep! Heaven have her in its sacred keep! This chamber changed for one more holy, This bed for one more melancholy, I pray to God that she may lie Forever with unopened eye, While the pale sheeted ghosts go by! My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, As it is lasting, so be deep! Soft may the worms about her creep! Far in the forest, dim and old, For her may some tall vault unfold - Some vault that oft hath flung its black And winged pannels fluttering back, Triumphant, o'er the crested palls, Of her grand family funerals - Some sepulchre, remote, alone, Against whose portal she hath thrown, In childhood, many an idle stone - Some tomb from out whose sounding door She ne'er shall force an echo more, Thrilling to think, poor child of sin! It was the dead who groaned within. (1831-1845) 16.  , , , . , , , , , , , , . , ; ! ! , , , . . ! - ( ) , __ . , ! ? ? , , - , , , - - - , , , , . ? ? , , , . . . . , , . . ! ! , , , , , , , . , . , ! ! , , , , - , , - , , - , , , , , , , . (1911) . 17. THE VALLEY OF UNREST _Once_ it smiled a silent dell Where the people did not dwell; They had gone unto the wars, Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, Nightly, from their azure towers, To keep watch above the flowers, In the midst of which all day The red sun-light lazily lay. _Now_ each visiter shall confess The sad valley's restlessness. Nothing there is motionless. Nothing save the airs that brood Over the magic solitude. Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees That palpitate like the chill seas Around the misty Hebrides! Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven That rustle through the unquiet Heaven Uneasily, from morn till even, Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye - Over the lilies there that wave And weep above a nameless grave! They wave: - from out their fragrant tops Eternal dews come down in drops. They weep: - from off their delicate stems Perennial tears descend in gems. (1831-1845) 17.  _-_ , . , , , , , , , . _ _ , , . , : . , , . , . , , , , , , , , , , , . , , - . (1901) . 18. THE CITY IN THE SEA Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by lifting winds forgot, Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently - Gleams up the pinnacles far and free Up domes - up spires - up kingly halls - Up fanes - up Babylon-like walls - Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers - Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine. Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie. So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air, While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down. There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves; But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eye - Not the gaily-jewelled dead Tempt the waters from their bed; For no ripples curl, alas! Along that wilderness of glass - No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier sea - No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene. But lo, a stir is in the air! The wave - there is a movement there! As if the towers had thrust aside, In slightly sinking, the dull tide - As if their tops had feebly given A void within the filmy Heaven. The waves have now a redder glow - The hours are breathing faint and low - And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence. (1831-1845) 18.  , , , , , , , , , - . , , , , . , , , . , , . , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . , . , , , , , . - ! - . , , , ; , , , . , . , , - , , . ! ! ! , , , - , , . , . , , , , , , , . (1901) . 19. TO ONE IN PARADISE Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine - A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice, from out the Future cries, "On! on!" - but o'er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast! For, alas! alas! with me The light of Life is o'er! No more - no more - no more - (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar! And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy grey eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams - In what ethereal dances, By what Italian streams. Alas! for that accursed time They bore thee o'er the billow From me - to titled age and crime And an unholy pillow - From Love and from our misty clime Where weeps the silver willow. (1833-1849) 19. ,