Into the darkness and the deeps
    My thoughts have strayed, where silence dwells,
Where the old world encrypted sleeps,--
    Myriads of forms, in myriad cells,
Of dead and inorganic things,
    That neither live, nor move, nor grow,
    Nor any change of atoms know;
That have neither legs, nor arms, nor wings,
That have neither heads, nor mouths, nor stings,
That have neither roots, nor leaves, nor stems,
To hold up flowers like diadems,
    Growing out of the ground below:
    But which hold instead
    The cycles dead,
And out of their stony and gloomy folds
Shape out new moulds
    For a new race begun;
Shutting within dark pages, furled
    As in a vast herbarium,
    The flowers and balms,
    The pines and palms,
    The ferns...

The frightened herds of clouds across the sky
Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day
Into the dusky forest-lands of gray
And sombre twilight. Far and faint, and high,
The wild goose trails his harrow, with a cry
Sad as the wail of some poor castaway
Who sees a vessel drifting far astray
Of his last hope, and lays him down to die.
The children, riotous from school, grow bold
And quarrel with the wind whose angry gust
Plucks off the summer-hat, and flaps the fold
Of many a crimson cloak, and twirls the dust
In spiral shapes grotesque, and dims the gold
Of gleaming tresses with the blur of rust.

Jerusalem! Jerusalem!
Thou art low! thou mighty one,
How is the brilliance of thy diadem,
How is the lustre of thy throne
Rent from thee, and thy sun of fame
Darken’d by the shadowy pinion
Of the Roman bird, whose sway
All the tribes of earth obey,
Crouching ’neath his dread dominion,
And the terrors of his name!

How is thy royal seat–whereon
Sate in days of yore
Lowly Jesse’s godlike son,
And the strength of Solomon,
In those rich and happy times
When the ships from Tarshish bore
Incense, and from Ophir’s land,
With silken sail and cedar oar,
Wafting to Judea’s strand
All the wealth of foreign climes–
How is thy royal seat o’erthrown!
Gone is all thy majesty:
Salem! Salem! city of kings,
Thou sittest desolate and lone,...

Remembrance of the past will joy impart
If in that past the conscience was supreme;
But if the soul be made an auction mart,
And thoughts and deeds be sold for what you deem
The price of virtue, then the called-up past
Will be like hooks of steel to hold thee fast.

Or like the stings those nettles left behind
Which I so fondly handled in my play;
I deemed the friend who warned me true and kind,
And in great haste I threw the weeds away,
But soon the burning flesh reminded me
'Twere safer far from all such weeds to flee.

The cloud that flitted o'er the saintly brow
Which now a crown of life so well adorns,
When you by ways and means you know not now,
Did what your soul with holy horror scorns,
Will stay with you long as you live on earth,
And b...

When fires have burnt your forest bare and black,
And you are parched and dizzy, and search in vain
For pools in dust unvisited of rain,
And shamble, lost, along a shimmering track,
This is the comfort of the world: “Alack!
So youth’s illusions die, that we may gain
Wisdom and strength to face our lifelong pain,
The truth, from which no man shall turn him back.”
Falter for no such melancholy lies,
For by one holy touch the spirit is healed
To know its treasure of sight and sound and scent;
Veil after veil the earthborn fogs arise,
Star beyond star the heavens are then revealed,
And truth is fair in love’s enlightenment.

[From the 'Dunciad', Book IV]


In vain, in vain--the all-composing Hour
Resistless falls: the Muse obeys the Pow'r.
She comes! she comes! the sable Throne behold
Of Night primæval and of Chaos old!
Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay,
And all its varying Rain-bows die away.
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires,
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.
As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,
The sick'ning stars fade off th' ethereal plain;
As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand opprest,
Clos'd one by one to everlasting rest;
Thus at her felt approach, and secret might,
Art after Art goes out, and all is Night.
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of Casuistry heap'd o'er her head!
<...

So many stones have been thrown at me,
That I'm not frightened of them anymore,
And the pit has become a solid tower,
Tall among tall towers.
I thank the builders,
May care and sadness pass them by.
From here I'll see the sunrise earlier,
Here the sun's last ray rejoices.
And into the windows of my room
The northern breezes often fly.
And from my hand a dove eats grains of wheat...
As for my unfinished page,
The Muse's tawny hand, divinely calm
And delicate, will finish it.

The air is dark, the sky is gray,
The misty shadows come and go,
And here within my dusky room
Each chair looks ghostly in the gloom.
Outside the rain falls cold and slow--
Half-stinging drops, half-blinding spray.

Each slightest sound is magnified,
For drowsy quiet holds her reign;
The burnt stick in the fireplace breaks,
The nodding cat with start awakes,
And then to sleep drops off again,
Unheeding Towser at her side.

I look far out across the lawn,
Where huddled stand the silly sheep;
My work lies idle at my hands,
My thoughts fly out like scattered strands
Of thread, and on the verge of sleep--
Still half awake--I dream and yawn.

What spirits rise before my eyes!
How various of kind and form!
Sweet memories of days lo...

    Quieter than any twilight
    Shed over earth's last deserts,
    Quiet and vast and shadowless
    Is that unfounded keep,
    Higher than the roof of the night's high chamber
    Deep as the shaft of sleep.

    And solitude will not cry there,
    Melancholy will not brood there,
    Hatred, with its sharp corroding pain,
    And fear will not come there at all:
    Never will a tear or a heart-ache enter
    Over that enchanted wall.

        But, O, if you find that castle,
        Draw back your foot from the gateway,
        Let not its peace invite you,
        Let not its offerings tempt you.
    For faded and decayed like a garment,
    Love to a dust will have fallen,
    And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow,

We were apart; yet, day by day,
I bade my heart more constant be.
I bade it keep the world away,
And grow a home for only thee;
Nor fear'd but thy love likewise grew,
Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.

The fault was grave! I might have known,
What far too soon, alas! I learn'd
The heart can bind itself alone,
And faith may oft be unreturn'd.
Self-sway'd our feelings ebb and swell
Thou lov'st no more; Farewell! Farewell!

Farewell! and thou, thou lonely heart,
Which never yet without remorse
Even for a moment didst depart
From thy remote and spherèd course
To haunt the place where passions reign
Back to thy solitude again!

Back! with the conscious thrill of shame
Which Luna felt, that summer-night,
Flash through her...

All day long there has haunted me
    A spectre out of my lost youth-land.
Because I happened last night to see
    A woman's beautiful snow-white hand.

Like part of a statue broken away,
    And carefully kept in a velvet case,
On the crimson rim of her box it lay;
    The folds of the curtain hid her face.

Years had drifted between us two,
    In another clime, in another land,
We had lived and parted, and yet I knew
    That cruelly beautiful perfect hand.

The ringless beauty of fingers fine,
    The sea-shell tint of their taper tips,
The sight of them stirred my blood like wine,
    Oh, to hold them again to my lips!

To feel their tender touch on my hair,
    Their mute caress, and their clinging hold;
Oh for the past tha...

I wish I were as in the years of old
While yet the blessed daylight made itself
Ruddy thro’ both the roofs of sight, and woke
These eyes, now dull, but then so keen to seek
The meanings ambush’d under all they saw,
The flight of birds, the flame of sacrifice,
What omens may foreshadow fate to man
And woman, and the secret of the Gods.
My son, the Gods, despite of human prayer,
Are slower to forgive than human kings.
The great God, Arês, burns in anger still
Against the guiltless heirs of him from Tyre
Our Cadmus, out of whom thou art, who found
Beside the springs of Dircê, smote, and still’d
Thro’ all its folds the multitudinous beast
The dragon, which our trembling fathers call’d
The God’s own son.
A tale, that told to me,
When but thine age, by age...

What shall I do with all the days and hours
    That must be counted ere I see thy face?
How shall I charm the interval that lowers
    Between this time and that sweet time of grace?

Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense,
    Weary with longing? - shall I flee away
Into past days, and with some fond pretence
    Cheat myself to forget the present day?

Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin
    Of casting from me God's great gift of time;
Shall I these mists of memory locked within,
    Leave, and forget, life's purposes sublime?

Oh! how, or by what means, may I contrive
    To bring the hour that brings thee back more near?
How may I teach my drooping hope to live
    Until that blessed time, and thou art here?

I'll tell thee: ...

1.
So now my summer-task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart's home;
As to his Queen some victor Knight of Faery,
Earning bright spoils for her enchanted dome;
Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become
A star among the stars of mortal night,
If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,
Its doubtful promise thus I would unite
With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light.

2.
The toil which stole from thee so many an hour,
Is ended, - and the fruit is at thy feet!
No longer where the woods to frame a bower
With interlaced branches mix and meet,
Or where with sound like many voices sweet,
Waterfalls leap among wild islands green,
Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat
Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen;
Bu...

        After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
    Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
    In the intensity of its own fires,
        There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days,
        Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
    So after Love has led us, till he tires
    Of his own throes and torments and desires,
        Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze
        He beckons us to follow, and across
    Cool, verdant vales we wander free from care.
    Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?
        Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?
    We do not wish the pain back, or the heat;
    And yet, and yet, these days are incomplete.

The bells ring over the Anno,
Midnight, the long, long chime;
Here in the quivering darkness
I am afraid of time.

Oh, gray bells cease your tolling,
Time takes too much from me,
And yet to rock and river
He gives eternity.

My head is aching, and I wish
    That I could feel tonight
One well-remembered, tender touch
That used to comfort me so much,
    And put distress to flight.

There's not a soothing anodyne
    Or sedative I know,
Such potency can ever hold
As that which lovingly controlled
    My spirit long ago.

How oft my burning cheek as if
    By Zephyrus was fanned,
And nothing interdicted pain
Or seemed to make me well again
    So quick as mother's hand.

'Tis years and years since it was laid,
    In her own gentle way,
On tangled curls of brown and jet
Above the downy coverlet
    'Neath which the children lay.

As bright as blessed sunlight ray
    The past comes back to me;
Her fingers turn the sacred page
Fo...

Yes, thou art gone! and never more
Thy sunny smile shall gladden me;
But I may pass the old church door,
And pace the floor that covers thee,

May stand upon the cold, damp stone,
And think that, frozen, lies below
The lightest heart that I have known,
The kindest I shall ever know.

Yet, though I cannot see thee more,
'Tis still a comfort to have seen;
And though thy transient life is o'er,
'Tis sweet to think that thou hast been;

To think a soul so near divine,
Within a form, so angel fair,
United to a heart like thine,
Has gladdened once our humble sphere.