Selected Poems (106 page)

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form

1640

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving; – boundless, endless, and sublime –

The image of Eternity – the throne

1645

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone

Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

CLXXXIV

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

1650

Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy

I wanton’d with thy breakers – they to me

Were a delight; and if the freshening sea

Made them a terror – ’twas a pleasing fear,

For I was as it were a child of thee,

1655

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here.

CLXXXV

My task is done – my song hath ceased – my theme

Has died into an echo; it is fit

The spell should break of this protracted dream.

1660

The torch shall be extinguish’d which hath lit

My midnight lamp – and what is writ, is writ, –

Would it were worthier! but I am not now

That which I have been — and my visions flit

Less palpably before me – and the glow

1665

Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low.

CLXXXVI

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been –

A sound which makes us linger; – yet – farewell!

Ye! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene

Which is his last, if in your memories dwell

1670

A thought which once was his, if on ye swell

A single recollection, not in vain

He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell;

Farewell! with
him
alone may rest the pain,

If such there were – with
you
, the moral of his strain!

Epistle from Mr Murray to Dr Polidori

Dear Doctor, I have read your play,

Which is a good one in its way, —

Purges the eyes and moves the bowels,

And drenches handkerchiefs like towels

5

With tears, that, in a flux of grief,

Afford hysterical relief

To shatter’d nerves and quicken’d pulses,

Which your catastrophe convulses.

I like your moral and machinery;

10

Your plot, too, has such scope for scenery;

Your dialogue is apt and smart;

The play’s concoction full of art;

Your hero raves, your heroine cries,

All stab, and every body dies.

15

In short, your tragedy would be

The very thing to hear and see:

And for a piece of publication,

If I decline on this occasion,

It is not that I am not sensible

20

To merits in themselves ostensible,

But — and I grieve to speak it — plays

Are drugs — mere drugs, sir — now-a-days.

I had a heavy loss by ‘Manuel,’ —

Too lucky if it prove not annual, —

25

And Sotheby, with his ‘Orestes,’

(Which, by the by, the author’s best is,)

Has lain so very long on hand

That I despair of all demand.

I’ve advertised, but see my books,

30

Or only watch my shopman’s looks; —

Still Ivan, Ina, and such lumber,

My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber.

There’s Byron too, who once did better,

Has sent me, folded in a letter,

35

A sort of — it’s no more a drama

Than Darnley, Ivan, or Kehama;

So alter’d since last year his pen is,

I think he’s lost his wits at Venice,

Or drained his brains away as Stallion

40

To some dark-eyed and warm Italian;

In short, sir, what with one and t’other,

I dare not venture on another.

I write in haste; excuse each blunder;

The coaches through the street so thunder!

45

My room’s so full – we’ve Gifford here

Reading MS., with Hookham Frere,

Pronouncing on the nouns and particles

Of some of our forthcoming Articles.

The Quarterly — Ah, sir, if you

50

Had but the genius to review! —

A smart critique upon St Helena,

Or if you only would but tell in a

Short compass what — but, to resume:

As I was saying sir the room -

55

The room’s so full of wits and bards,

Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards

And others, neither bards nor wits: —

My humble tenement admits

All persons in the dress of gent.,

60

From Mr Hammond to Dog Dent.

A party dines with me to-day,

All clever men, who make their way;

Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey,

Are all partakers of my pantry.

65

They’re at this moment in discussion

On poor De Stael’s late dissolution.

Her book, they say, was in advance —

Pray Heaven, she tell the truth of France!

Thus run our time and tongues away. —

70

But, to return, sir, to your play:

Sorry, sir, but I can not deal,

Unless ’twere acted by O’Neill.

My hands so full, my head so busy,

I’m almost dead, and always dizzy;

75

And so, with endless truth and hurry,

Dear Doctor, I am yours,

I

’Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout

All countries of the Catholic persuasion,

Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about,

The people take their fill of recreation,

5

And buy repentance, ere they grow devout,

However high their rank, or low their station,

With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masquing,

And other things which may be had for asking.

II

The moment night with dusky mantle covers

10

The skies (and the more duskily the better),

The time less liked by husbands than by lovers

Begins, and prudery flings aside her fetter;

And gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers,

Giggling with all the gallants who beset her;

15

And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming,

Guitars, and every other sort of strumming.

III

And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical,

Masks of all times and nations, Turks and Jews,

And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical,

20

Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos;

All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical,

All people, as their fancies hit, may choose,

But no one in these parts may quiz the clergy, –

Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge ye.

IV

25

You’d better walk about begirt with briars,

Instead of coat and smallclothes, than put on

A single stitch reflecting upon friars,

Although you swore it only was in fun;

They’d haul you o’er the coals, and stir the fires

30

Of Phlegethon with every mother’s son,

Nor say one mass to cool the caldron’s bubble

That boil’d your bones, unless you paid them double.

V

But saving this, you may put on whate’er

You like by way of doublet, cape, or cloak,

35

Such as in Monmouth-street, or in Rag Fair,

Would rig you out in seriousness or joke;

And even in Italy such places are,

With prettier name in softer accents spoke,

For, bating Covent Garden, I can hit on

40

No place that’s call’d ‘Piazza’ in Great Britain.

VI

This feast is named the Carnival, which being

Interpreted, implies ‘farewell to flesh:’

So call’d, because the name and thing agreeing,

Through Lent they live on fish both salt and fresh.

45

But why they usher Lent with so much glee in,

Is more than I can tell, although I guess

’Tis as we take a glass with friends at parting,

In the stage-coach or packet, just at starting.

VII

And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes,

50

And solid meats, and highly spiced ragouts,

To live for forty days on ill-dress’d fishes,

Because they have no sauces to their stews,

A thing which causes many ‘poohs’ and ‘pishes,’

And several oaths (which would not suit the Muse),

55

From travellers accustom’d from a boy

To eat their salmon, at the least, with soy;

VIII

And therefore humbly I would recommend

‘The curious in fish-sauce,’ before they cross

The sea, to bid their cook, or wife, or friend,

60

Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in gross

(Or if set out beforehand, these may send

By any means least liable to loss),

Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Harvey,

Or, by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye;

IX

65

That is to say, if your religion’s Roman,

And you at Rome would do as Romans do,

According to the proverb, – although no man,

If foreign, is obliged to fast; and you,

If Protestant, or sickly, or a woman,

70

Would rather dine in sin on a ragout –

Dine and be d—d! I dont mean to be coarse,

But that’s the penalty, to say no worse.

X

Of all the places where the Carnival

Was most facetious in the days of yore,

75

For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball,

And masque, and mime, and mystery and more,

Than I have time to tell now, or at all,

Venice the bell from every city bore, —

And at the moment when I fix my story,

80

That sea-born city was in all her glory.

XI

They’ve pretty faces yet, those same Venetians,

Black eyes, arch’d brows, and sweet expressions still;

Such as of old were copied from the Grecians,

In ancient arts by moderns mimick’d ill;

85

And like so many Venuses of Titian’s

(The best’s at Florence – see it, if ye will,)

They look when leaning over the balcony,

Or stepp’d from out a picture by Giorgione,

XII

Whose tints are truth and beauty at their best;

90

And when you to Manfrini’s palace go,

That picture (howsoever fine the rest)

Is loveliest to my mind of all the show;

It may perhaps be also to
your
zest,

And that’s the cause I rhyme upon it so:

95

‘Tis but a portrait of his son, and wife,

And self; but
such
a woman! love in life!

XIII

Love in full life and length, not love ideal,

No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name.

But something better still, so very real,

100

That the sweet model must have been the same;

A thing that you would purchase, beg, or steal,

Wer’t not impossible, besides a shame:

The face recalls some face, as ’twere with pain,

You once have seen, but ne’er will see again;

XIV

105

One of those forms which flit by us, when we

Are young, and fix our eyes on every face;

And, oh! the loveliness at times we see

In momentary gliding, the soft grace,

The youth, the bloom, the beauty which agree,

110

In many a nameless being we retrace,

Whose course and home we knew not, nor shall know,

Like the lost Pleiad
¹
seen no more below.

XV

I said that like a picture by Giorgione

Venetian women were, and so they
are
,

115

Particularly seen from a balcony,

(For beauty’s sometimes best set off afar)

And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni,

They peep from out the blind, or o’er the bar;

And truth to say, they’re mostly very pretty,

120

And rather like to show it, more’s the pity!

XVI

For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs,

Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter,

Which flies on wings of light-heel’d Mercuries,

Who do such things because they know no better;

125

And then, God knows, what mischief may arise,

When love links two young people in one fetter,

Vile assignations, and adulterous beds,

Elopements, broken vows, and hearts, and heads.

XVII

Shakspeare described the sex in Desdemona

130

As very fair, but yet suspect in fame,

And to this day from Venice to Verona

Such matters may be probably the same,

Except that since those times was never known a

Husband whom mere suspicion could inflame

135

To suffocate a wife no more than twenty,

Because she had a ‘cavalier servente.’

XVIII

Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous)

Is of a fair complexion altogether,

Not like that sooty devil of Othello’s

140

Which smothers women in a bed of feather,

But worthier of these much more jolly fellows,

When weary of the matrimonial tether

His head for such a wife no mortal bothers,

But takes at once another, or another’s.

XIX

145

Didst ever see a Gondola? For fear

You should not, I’ll describe it you exactly:

’Tis a long cover’d boat that’s common here,