Selected Poems (85 page)

’Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just.

CIX

But let me quit man’s works, again to read

His Maker’s, spread around me, and suspend

1015

This page, which from my reveries I feed,

Until it seems prolonging without end.

The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,

And I must pierce them, and survey whate’er

May be permitted, as my steps I bend

1020

To their most great and growing region, where

The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.

CX

Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee,

Full flashes on the soul the light of ages,

Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee,

1025

To the last halo of the chiefs and sages

Who glorify thy consecrated pages;

Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still,

The fount at which the panting mind assuages

Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,

1030

Flows from the eternal source of Rome’s imperial hill.

CXI

Thus far have I proceeded in a theme

Renew’d with no kind auspices: – to feel

We are not what we have been, and to deem

We are not what we should be, – and to steel

1035

The heart against itself; and to conceal,

With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught, –

Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal, –

Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought,

Is a stern task of soul: – No matter, — it is taught.

CXII

1040

And for these words, thus woven into song,

It may be that they are a harmless wile, —

The colouring of the scenes which fleet along,

Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile

My breast, or that of others, for a while.

1045

Fame is the thirst of youth, – but I am not

So young as to regard men’s frown or smile,

As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot;

I stood and stand alone, – remember’d or forgot.

CXIII

I have not loved the world, nor the world me;

1050

I have not flatter’d its rank breath, nor bow’d

To its idolatries a patient knee, –

Nor coin’d my cheek to smiles, — nor cried aloud

In worship of an echo; in the crowd

They could not deem me one of such; I stood

1055

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud

Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,

Had I not filed
¹
my mind, which thus itself subdued.

CXIV

I have not loved the world, nor the world me, —

But let us part fair foes; I do believe,

1060

Though I have found them not, that there may be

Words which are things, – hopes which will not deceive,

And virtues which are merciful, nor weave

Snares for the failing: I would also deem

O’er others’ griefs that some sincerely grieve;
²

1065

That two, or one, are almost what they seem,

That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.

CXV

My daughter! with thy name this song begun –

My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end –

I see thee not, – I hear thee not, – but none

1070

Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend

To whom the shadows of far years extend:

Albeit my brow thou never should’st behold,

My voice shall with thy future visions blend,

And reach into thy heart, – when mine is cold, —

1075

A token and a tone, even from thy father’s mould.

CXVI

To aid thy mind’s developement, – to watch

Thy dawn of little joys, – to sit and see

Almost thy very growth, – to view thee catch

Knowledge of objects, – wonders yet to thee!

1080

To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,

And print on thy soft cheek a parent’s kiss, —

This, it should seem, was not reserved for me;

Yet this was in my nature: — as it is,

I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

CXVII

1085

Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,

I know that thou wilt love me; though my name

Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught

With desolation, – and a broken claim:

Though the grave closed between us, – ’twere the same,

1090

I know that thou wilt love me; though to drain

My
blood from out thy being were an aim,

And an attainment, – all would be in vain, –

Still thou would’st love me, still that more than life retain.

CXVIII

The child of love, – though born in bitterness

1095

And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire

These were the elements, – and thine no less.

As yet such are around thee, – but thy fire

Shall be more temper’d, and thy hope far higher.

Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O’er the sea,

1100

And from the mountains where I now respire,

Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,

As, with a sigh, I deem thou might’st have been to me!

Epistle to Augusta (‘My sister! my sweet sister!’&c.)

I

My sister! my sweet sister! if a name

Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.

Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim

No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:

5

Go where I will, to me thou art the same –

A loved regret which I would not resign.

There yet are two things in my destiny, –

A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

II

The first were nothing – had I still the last,

10

It were the haven of my happiness;

But other claims and other ties thou hast,

And mine is not the wish to make them less.

A strange doom is thy father’s son’s, and past

Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;

15

Reversed for him our grandsire’s
¹
fate of yore, –

He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

III

If my inheritance of storms hath been

In other elements, and on the rocks

Of perils, overlook’d or unforeseen,

20

I have sustain’d my share of worldly shocks,

The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen

My errors with defensive paradox;

I have been cunning in mine overthrow,

The careful pilot of my proper woe.

IV

25

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.

My whole life was a contest, since the day

That gave me being, gave me that which marr’d

The gift, – a fate, or will, that walk’d astray;

And I at times have found the struggle hard,

30

And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:

But now I fain would for a time survive,

If but to see what next can well arrive.

V

Kingdoms and empires in my little day

I have outlived, and yet I am not old;

35

And when I look on this, the petty spray

Of my own years of trouble, which have roll’d

Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away:

Something – I know not what – does still uphold

A spirit of slight patience; – not in vain,

40

Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

VI

Perhaps the workings of defiance stir

Within me, – or perhaps a cold despair,

Brought on when ills habitually recur, –

Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,

45

(For even to this may change of soul refer,

And with light armour we may learn to bear,)

Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not

The chief companion of a calmer lot.

VII

I feel almost at times as I have felt

50

In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,

Which do remember me of where I dwelt

Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,

Come as of yore upon me, and can melt

My heart with recognition of their looks;

55

And even at moments I could think I see

Some living thing to love – but none like thee.

VIII

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create

A fund for contemplation; – to admire

Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

60

But something worthier do such scenes inspire:

Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire,

And, above all, a lake I can behold

Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

IX

65

Oh that thou wert but with me! – but I grow

The fool of my own wishes, and forget

The solitude which I have vaunted so

Has lost its praise in this but one regret;

There may be others which I less may show; -

70

I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet

I feel an ebb in my philosophy,

And the tide rising in my alter’d eye.

X

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,

By the old Hall which may be mine no more.

75

Leman’s is fair; but think not I forsake

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:

Sad havoc Time must with my memory make

Ere
that
or
thou
can fade these eyes before;

Though, like all things which I have loved, they are

80

Resign’d for ever, or divided far.

XI

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will comply –

It is but in her summer’s sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,

85

To see her gentle face without a mask,

And never gaze on it with apathy.

She was my early friend, and now shall be

My sister – till I look again on thee.

XII

I can reduce all feelings but this one;

90

And that I would not; – for at length I see

Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.

The earliest – even the only paths for me –

Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,

I had been better than I now can be;

95

The passions which have torn me would have slept;

I
had not suffer’d, and
thou
hadst not wept.

XIII

With false Ambition what had I to do?

Little with Love, and least of all with Fame;

And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,

100

And made me all which they can make – a name.

Yet this was not the end I did pursue;

Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.

But all is over – I am one the more

To baffled millions which have gone before.

XIV

105

And for the future, this world’s future may

From me demand but little of my care;

I have outlived myself by many a day;

Having survived so many things that were;

My years have been no slumber, but the prey

110

Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share

Of life which might have fill’d a century,

Before its fourth in time had pass’d me by.

XV

And for the remnant which may be to come

I am content; and for the past I feel

115

Not thankless, — for within the crowded sum

Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,

And for the present, I would not benumb

My feelings farther. — Nor shall I conceal

That with all this I still can look around

120

And worship Nature with a thought profound.

XVI

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart

I know myself secure, as thou in mine;

We were and are — I am, even as thou art —

Beings who ne’er each other can resign;

125

It is the same, together or apart,

From life’s commencement to its slow decline

We are entwined — let death come slow or fast,

The tie which bound the first endures the last!