Selected Poems (83 page)

The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest.

LXXVII

725

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,

The apostle of affliction, he who threw

Enchantment over passion, and from woe

Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew

The breath which made him wretched; yet he knew

730

How to make madness beautiful, and cast

O’er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue

Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past

The eyes, which o’er them shed tears feelingly and fast.

LXXVIII

His love was passion’s essence – as a tree

735

On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame

Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be

Thus, and enamour’d, were in him the same.

But his was not the love of living dame,

Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,

740

But of ideal beauty, which became

In him existence, and o’erflowing teems

Along his burning page, distemper’d though it seems.

LXXIX

This
breathed itself to life in Julie,
this

Invested her with all that’s wild and sweet;

745

This hallow’d, too, the memorable kiss1

Which every morn his fever’d lip would greet,

From hers, who but with friendship his would meet;

But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast

Flash’d the thrill’d spirit’s love-devouring heat;

750

In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest

Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.

LXXX

His life was one long war with self-sought foes,

Or friends by him self-banish’d; for his mind

Had grown Suspicion’s sanctuary, and chose,

755

For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind

‘Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind.

But he was phrensied, – wherefore, who may know?

Since cause might be which skill could never find;

But he was phrensied by disease or woe,

760

To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show.

LXXXI

For then he was inspired, and from him came,

As from the Pythian’s mystic cave of yore,

Those oracles which set the world in flame,

Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more:

765

Did he not this for France? which lay before

Bow’d to the inborn tyranny of years?

Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore,

Till by the voice of him and his compeers

Roused up to too much wrath, which follows o’ergrown fears?

LXXXII

770

They made themselves a fearful monument!

The wreck of old opinions – things which grew,

Breathed from the birth of time: the veil they rent,

And what behind it lay all earth shall view.

But good with ill they also overthrew,

775

Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild

Upon the same foundation, and renew

Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refill’d,

As heretofore, because ambition was self-will’d.

LXXXIII

But this will not endure, nor be endured!

780

Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt.

They might have used it better, but, allured

By their new vigour, sternly have they dealt

On one another; pity ceased to melt

With her once natural charities. But they,

785

Who in oppression’s darkness caved had dwelt,

They were not eagles, nourish’d with the day;

What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey?

LXXXIV

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?

The heart’s bleed longest, and but heal to wear

790

That which disfigures it; and they who war

With their own hopes, and have been vanquished, bear

Silence, but not submission: in his lair

Fix’d Passion holds his breath, until the hour

Which shall atone for years; none need despair:

795

It came, it cometh, and will come, – the power

To punish or forgive - in
one
we shall be slower.

LXXXV

Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake

With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing

Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake

800

Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.

This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction; once I loved

Torn ocean’s roar, but thy soft murmuring

Sounds sweet as if a Sister’s voice reproved,

805

That I with stern delights should e’er have been so moved.

LXXXVI

It is the hush of night, and all between

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,

Mellow’d and mingling, yet distinctly seen,

Save darken’d Jura, whose capt heights appear

810

Precipitously steep; and drawing near,

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,

Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear

Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;

LXXXVII

815

He is an evening reveller, who makes

His life an infancy, and sings his fill;

At intervals, some bird from out the brakes

Starts into voice a moment, then is still.

There seems a floating whisper on the hill,

820

But that is fancy, for the starlight dews

All silently their tears of love instil,

Weeping themselves away, till they infuse

Deep into Nature’s breast the spirit of her hues.

LXXXVIII

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!

825

If in your bright leaves we would read the fate

Of men and empires, – ’tis to be forgiven,

That in our aspirations to be great,

Our destinies o’erleap their mortal state,

And claim a kindred with you; for ye are

830

A beauty and a mystery, and create

In us such love and reverence from afar,

That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

LXXXIX

All heaven and earth are still – though not in sleep,

But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;

835

And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep: –

All heaven and earth are still: From the high host

Of stars, to the lull’d lake and mountain-coast,

All is concenter’d in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,

840

But hath a part of being, and a sense

Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

XC

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt

In solitude, where we are
least
alone;

A truth, which through our being then doth melt

845

And purifies from self: it is a tone,

The soul and source of music, which makes known

Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,

Like to the fabled Cytherea’s zone,

Binding all things with beauty; – ’twould disarm

850

The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

XCI

Not vainly did the early Persian make

His altar the high places and the peak

Of earth-o’ergazing mountains,
¹
and thus take

A fit and unwall’d temple, there to seek

855

The Spirit in whose honour shrines are weak,

Uprear’d of human hands. Come, and compare

Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,

With Nature’s realms of worship, earth and air,

Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray’r!

XCII

860

Thy sky is changed! – and such a change! Oh night,

And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,

Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light

Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,

From peak to peak, the rattling crags among

865

Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,

But every mountain now hath found a tongue,

And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,

Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!