By Michael Drayton (1563-1631).
To His Coy Love
I pray thee, leave, love me no more,
Call home the heart you gave me!
I but in vain that saint adore
That can, but will not save me.
These poor half-kisses kill me quite— 5
Was ever man thus servèd?
Amidst an ocean of delight
For pleasure to be starvèd.
Show me no more those snowy breasts,
With azure riverets° branchèd, 10
Where, whilst mine eye with plenty feasts,
Yet is my thirst not stanchèd;
O, Tantalus! thy pains ne’er tell
By me thou art prevented;
’Tis nothing to be plagued in Hell, 15
But thus in Heaven tormented!
Clip me no more in those dear arms,
Nor thy life’s comfort call me,
O these are but too powerful charms,
And do but more enthral me! 20
But see how patient I am grown
In all this coil about thee;
Come, nice thing, let my heart alone,
I cannot live without thee!
Notes
Line 10: riveret. Rivulet.
Friday, September 27, 2013
A Leave-taking
By Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909).
Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear.
Let us go hence together without fear;
Keep silence now, for singing-time is over,
And over all old things and all things dear.
She loves not you nor me as all we love her. 5
Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear,
She would not hear.
Let us rise up and part; she will not know.
Let us go seaward as the great winds go,
Full of blown sand and foam; what help is here? 10
There is no help, for all these things are so,
And all the world is bitter as a tear.
And how these things are, though ye strove to show,
She would not know.
Let us go home and hence; she will not weep. 15
We gave love many dreams and days to keep,
Flowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow,
Saying ‘If thou wilt, thrust in thy sickle and reap.’
All is reap’d now; no grass is left to mow;
And we that sow’d, though all we fell on sleep, 20
She would not weep.
Let us go hence and rest; she will not love.
She shall not hear us if we sing hereof,
Nor see love’s ways, how sore they are and steep.
Come hence, let be, lie still; it is enough. 25
Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep;
And though she saw all heaven in flower above,
She would not love.
Let us give up, go down; she will not care.
Though all the stars made gold of all the air, 30
And the sea moving saw before it move
One moon-flower° making all the foam-flowers° fair;
Though all those waves went over us, and drove
Deep down the stifling lips and drowning hair,
She would not care. 35
Let us go hence, go hence; she will not see.
Sing all once more together; surely she,
She too, remembering days and words that were,
Will turn a little toward us, sighing; but we,
We are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been there. 40
Nay, and though all men seeing had pity on me,
She would not see.
Notes
Line 32: moon-flower, foam-flower. White-colored flowers, the former of which blooms at night.
Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear.
Let us go hence together without fear;
Keep silence now, for singing-time is over,
And over all old things and all things dear.
She loves not you nor me as all we love her. 5
Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear,
She would not hear.
Let us rise up and part; she will not know.
Let us go seaward as the great winds go,
Full of blown sand and foam; what help is here? 10
There is no help, for all these things are so,
And all the world is bitter as a tear.
And how these things are, though ye strove to show,
She would not know.
Let us go home and hence; she will not weep. 15
We gave love many dreams and days to keep,
Flowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow,
Saying ‘If thou wilt, thrust in thy sickle and reap.’
All is reap’d now; no grass is left to mow;
And we that sow’d, though all we fell on sleep, 20
She would not weep.
Let us go hence and rest; she will not love.
She shall not hear us if we sing hereof,
Nor see love’s ways, how sore they are and steep.
Come hence, let be, lie still; it is enough. 25
Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep;
And though she saw all heaven in flower above,
She would not love.
Let us give up, go down; she will not care.
Though all the stars made gold of all the air, 30
And the sea moving saw before it move
One moon-flower° making all the foam-flowers° fair;
Though all those waves went over us, and drove
Deep down the stifling lips and drowning hair,
She would not care. 35
Let us go hence, go hence; she will not see.
Sing all once more together; surely she,
She too, remembering days and words that were,
Will turn a little toward us, sighing; but we,
We are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been there. 40
Nay, and though all men seeing had pity on me,
She would not see.
Notes
Line 32: moon-flower, foam-flower. White-colored flowers, the former of which blooms at night.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Lines Written Among The Euganian Hills
By Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). The Euganian Hills, which Shelley visited in 1818 during a trip to Italy to visit his friend Byron, lie just south-west of Padua. The images are from Panoramio.
Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on
Day and night, and night and day, 5
Drifting on his weary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel’s track;
Whilst above the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 10
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving° sail, and cord, and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o’er-brimming deep; 15
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity;
And the dim low line before
Of a dark and distant shore 20
Still recedes, as ever still
Longing with divided will,
But no power to seek or shun,
He is ever drifted on
O’er the unreposing wave 25
To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet;
What, if there no heart will meet
His with love’s impatient beat;
Wander wheresoe’er he may, 30
Can he dream before that day
To find refuge from distress
In friendship’s smile, in love’s caress?
Then ’twill wreak him little woe
Whether such there be or no: 35
Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins and chill
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
Every little living nerve 40
That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortured lips and brow,
Are like sapless leaflets now
Frozen upon December’s bough.
On the beach of a northern sea 45
Which tempests shake eternally,
As once the wretch there lay to sleep,
Lies a solitary heap,
One white skull and seven dry bones,
On the margin of the stones, 50
Where a few gray rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land:
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews°, as they sail
O’er the billows of the gale; 55
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a king in glory rides
Through the pomp of fratricides:
Those unburied bones around 60
There is many a mournful sound;
There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour, dim,
Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not. 65
Ay, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony:
To such a one this morn was led,
My bark by soft winds piloted:
’Mid the mountains Euganean 70
I stood listening to the paean°,
With which the legioned rooks° did hail
The sun’s uprise majestical;
Gathering round with wings all hoar,
Thro’ the dewy mist they soar 75
Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven
Bursts, and then, as clouds of even,
Flecked with fire and azure, lie
In the unfathomable sky,
So their plumes of purple grain°, 80
Starred with drops of golden rain,
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes
On the morning’s fitful gale
Thro’ the broken mist they sail, 85
And the vapours cloven and gleaming
Follow, down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright, and clear, and still,
Round the solitary hill.
Beneath is spread like a green sea 90
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath Day’s azure eyes
Ocean’s nursling, Venice lies, 95
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite’s° destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind, 100
Broad, red, radiant, half reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;
And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright, 105
Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean
To the sapphire-tinted skies; 110
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.
Sun-girt City, thou hast been 115
Ocean’s child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his grey,
If the power that raised thee here
Hallow so thy watery bier. 120
A less drear ruin then than now,
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne, among the waves
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew 125
Flies, as once before it flew,
O’er thine isles depopulate°,
And all is in its ancient state,
Save where many a palace gate
With green sea-flowers overgrown 130
Like a rock of ocean’s own,
Topples o’er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way,
Wandering at the close of day, 135
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
Bursting o’er the starlight deep,
Lead a rapid masque of death 140
O’er the waters of his path.
Those who alone thy towers behold
Quivering through aërial gold,
As I now behold them here,
Would imagine not they were 145
Sepulchres, where human forms,
Like pollution-nourished worms
To the corpse of greatness cling,
Murdered, and now mouldering:
But if Freedom should awake 150
In her omnipotence, and shake
From the Celtic Anarch’s° hold
All the keys of dungeons cold,
Where a hundred cities lie
Chained like thee, ingloriously, 155
Thou and all thy sister band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
If not, perish thou and they!— 160
Clouds which stain truth’s rising day
By her sun consumed away—
Earth can spare ye: while like flowers,
In the waste of years and hours,
From your dust new nations spring 165
With more kindly blossoming.
Perish—let there only be
Floating o’er thy hearthless sea
As the garment of thy sky
Clothes the world immortally, 170
One remembrance, more sublime
Than the tattered pall of time,
Which scarce hides thy visage wan;—
That a tempest-cleaving Swan
Of the songs of Albion, 175
Driven from his ancestral streams
By the might of evil dreams,
Found a nest in thee; and Ocean
Welcomed him with such emotion
That its joy grew his, and sprung 180
From his lips like music flung
O’er a mighty thunder-fit
Chastening terror:—what though yet
Poesy’s unfailing River,
Which thro’ Albion winds for ever 185
Lashing with melodious wave
Many a sacred Poet’s grave,
Mourn its latest nursling fled?
What though thou with all thy dead
Scarce can for this fame repay 190
Aught thine own? oh, rather say,
Though thy sins and slaveries foul
Overcloud a sunlike soul?—
As the ghost of Homer clings
Round Scamander’s° wasting springs; 195
As divinest Shakespeare’s might
Fill Avon and the world with light
Like omniscient power which he
Imaged ’mid mortality;
As the love from Petrarch’s urn, 200
Yet amid yon hills doth burn,
A quenchless lamp by which the heart
Sees things unearthly;—so thou art
Mighty spirit—so shall be
The City that did refuge thee. 205
Lo, the sun floats up the sky
Like thought-wingèd Liberty,
Till the universal light
Seems to level plain and height;
From the sea a mist has spread, 210
And the beams of morn lie dead
On the towers of Venice now,
Like its glory long ago.
By the skirts of that grey cloud
Many-domèd Padua proud 215
Stands, a peopled solitude,
’Mid the harvest-shining plain,
Where the peasant heaps his grain
In the garner of his foe,
And the milk-white oxen slow 220
With the purple vintage strain,
Heaped upon the creaking wain°,
That the brutal Celt may swill°
Drunken sleep with savage will;
And the sickle to the sword 225
Lies unchanged, though many a lord,
Like a weed whose shade is poison,
Overgrows this region’s foison°,
Sheaves of whom are ripe to come
To destruction’s harvest home: 230
Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but ’tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change
The despot’s rage, the slave’s revenge. 235
Padua, thou within whose walls
Those mute guests at festivals,
Son and Mother, Death and Sin,
Played at dice for Ezzelin°,
Till Death cried, ‘I win, I win!’ 240
And Sin cursed to lose the wager,
But Death promised, to assuage her,
That he would petition for
Her to be made Vice-Emperor,
When the destined years were o’er, 245
Over all between the Po
And the eastern Alpine snow
Under the mighty Austrian.
Sin smiled so as Sin only can,
And since that time, ay, long before, 250
Both have ruled from shore to shore,
That incestuous pair, who follow
Tyrants as the sun the swallow,
As Repentance follows Crime,
And as changes follow Time. 255
In thine halls the lamp of learning,
Padua, now no more is burning;
Like a meteor, whose wild way
Is lost over the grave of day,
It gleams betrayed and to betray: 260
Once remotest nations came
To adore that sacred flame,
When it lit not many a hearth
On this cold and gloomy earth:
Now new fires from antique light 265
Spring beneath the wide world’s might;
But their spark lies dead in thee,
Trampled out by tyranny.
As the Norway woodman quells,
In the depth of piny dells, 270
One light flame among the brakes,
While the boundless forest shakes,
And its mighty trunks are torn
By the fire thus lowly born:
The spark beneath his feet is dead, 275
He starts to see the flames it fed
Howling through the darkened sky
With a myriad tongues victoriously,
And sinks down in fear: so thou,
O Tyranny, beholdest now 280
Light around thee, and thou hearest
The loud flames ascend, and fearest:
Grovel on the earth; ay, hide
In the dust thy purple pride!
Noon descends around me now: 285
’Tis the noon of autumn’s glow,
When a soft and purple mist
Like a vaporous amethyst°,
Or an air-dissolvèd star
Mingling light and fragrance, far 290
From the curved horizon’s bound
To the point of Heaven’s profound,
Fills the overflowing sky;
And the plains that silent lie
Underneath, the leaves unsodden 295
Where the infant Frost has trodden
With his morning-wingèd feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines,
Piercing with their trellised lines 300
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet; the line 305
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one; 310
And my spirit which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,
Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky:
Be it love, light, harmony, 315
Odour, or the soul of all
Which from Heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.
Noon descends, and after noon 320
Autumn’s evening meets me soon,
Leading the infantine° moon,
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister°
Half the crimson light she brings 325
From the sunset’s radiant springs:
And the soft dreams of the morn
(Which like wingèd winds had borne
To that silent isle, which lies
’Mid remembered agonies, 330
The frail bark of this lone being)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be 335
In the sea of Life and Agony:
Other spirits float and flee
O’er that gulf: even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folded wings they waiting sit 340
For my bark, to pilot it
To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
Far from passion, pain, and guilt, 345
In a dell ’mid lawny hills
Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
And the light and smell divine 350
Of all flowers that breathe and shine:
We may live so happy there,
That the Spirits of the Air,
Envying us, may even entice
To our healing Paradise 355
The polluting multitude;
But their rage would be subdued
By that clime divine and calm,
And the winds whose wings rain balm
On the uplifted soul, and leaves 360
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
The inspired soul supplies
With its own deep melodies, 365
And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood:
They, not it, would change; and soon 370
Every sprite beneath the moon
Would repent its envy vain,
And the earth grow young again.
Notes
Line 13: riving. Rending, cleaving.
Line 54: mew. A small gull of the northern hemisphere.
Line 71: paean. Celebratory hymn.
Line 72: rook. Black European crow.
Line 80: grain. Color.
Line 97: Amphitrite. Consort of Poseidon, symbolizing the sea.
Line 127: depopulate. Depopulated.
Line 152: Celtic Anarch. The Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was a vassal state to the Austrian Habsburg Empire. Austria is traditionally a Celtic country, and anarch is an archaic word denoting an anarchist or representation of anarchy.
Line 195: Scamander. The river Karamanderes, by which the Trojan war was fought.
Line 222: wain. Farm wagon.
Line 223: swill. Drink greedily.
Line 228: foison. Abundant harvest.
Line 239: Ezzelin. Ezzelino III da Romano (1194-1259), a legendary tyrant of the region.
Line 288: amethyst. Purplish quartz, used as gem.
Line 322: infantine. Infantile.
Line 324: minister. Furnish, supply.
Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on
Day and night, and night and day, 5
Drifting on his weary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel’s track;
Whilst above the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 10
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving° sail, and cord, and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o’er-brimming deep; 15
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity;
And the dim low line before
Of a dark and distant shore 20
Still recedes, as ever still
Longing with divided will,
But no power to seek or shun,
He is ever drifted on
O’er the unreposing wave 25
To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet;
What, if there no heart will meet
His with love’s impatient beat;
Wander wheresoe’er he may, 30
Can he dream before that day
To find refuge from distress
In friendship’s smile, in love’s caress?
Then ’twill wreak him little woe
Whether such there be or no: 35
Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins and chill
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
Every little living nerve 40
That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortured lips and brow,
Are like sapless leaflets now
Frozen upon December’s bough.
On the beach of a northern sea 45
Which tempests shake eternally,
As once the wretch there lay to sleep,
Lies a solitary heap,
One white skull and seven dry bones,
On the margin of the stones, 50
Where a few gray rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land:
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews°, as they sail
O’er the billows of the gale; 55
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a king in glory rides
Through the pomp of fratricides:
Those unburied bones around 60
There is many a mournful sound;
There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour, dim,
Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not. 65
Ay, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony:
To such a one this morn was led,
My bark by soft winds piloted:
’Mid the mountains Euganean 70
I stood listening to the paean°,
With which the legioned rooks° did hail
The sun’s uprise majestical;
Gathering round with wings all hoar,
Thro’ the dewy mist they soar 75
Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven
Bursts, and then, as clouds of even,
Flecked with fire and azure, lie
In the unfathomable sky,
So their plumes of purple grain°, 80
Starred with drops of golden rain,
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes
On the morning’s fitful gale
Thro’ the broken mist they sail, 85
And the vapours cloven and gleaming
Follow, down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright, and clear, and still,
Round the solitary hill.
Beneath is spread like a green sea 90
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath Day’s azure eyes
Ocean’s nursling, Venice lies, 95
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite’s° destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind, 100
Broad, red, radiant, half reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;
And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright, 105
Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean
To the sapphire-tinted skies; 110
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.
Sun-girt City, thou hast been 115
Ocean’s child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his grey,
If the power that raised thee here
Hallow so thy watery bier. 120
A less drear ruin then than now,
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne, among the waves
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew 125
Flies, as once before it flew,
O’er thine isles depopulate°,
And all is in its ancient state,
Save where many a palace gate
With green sea-flowers overgrown 130
Like a rock of ocean’s own,
Topples o’er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way,
Wandering at the close of day, 135
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
Bursting o’er the starlight deep,
Lead a rapid masque of death 140
O’er the waters of his path.
Those who alone thy towers behold
Quivering through aërial gold,
As I now behold them here,
Would imagine not they were 145
Sepulchres, where human forms,
Like pollution-nourished worms
To the corpse of greatness cling,
Murdered, and now mouldering:
But if Freedom should awake 150
In her omnipotence, and shake
From the Celtic Anarch’s° hold
All the keys of dungeons cold,
Where a hundred cities lie
Chained like thee, ingloriously, 155
Thou and all thy sister band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
If not, perish thou and they!— 160
Clouds which stain truth’s rising day
By her sun consumed away—
Earth can spare ye: while like flowers,
In the waste of years and hours,
From your dust new nations spring 165
With more kindly blossoming.
Perish—let there only be
Floating o’er thy hearthless sea
As the garment of thy sky
Clothes the world immortally, 170
One remembrance, more sublime
Than the tattered pall of time,
Which scarce hides thy visage wan;—
That a tempest-cleaving Swan
Of the songs of Albion, 175
Driven from his ancestral streams
By the might of evil dreams,
Found a nest in thee; and Ocean
Welcomed him with such emotion
That its joy grew his, and sprung 180
From his lips like music flung
O’er a mighty thunder-fit
Chastening terror:—what though yet
Poesy’s unfailing River,
Which thro’ Albion winds for ever 185
Lashing with melodious wave
Many a sacred Poet’s grave,
Mourn its latest nursling fled?
What though thou with all thy dead
Scarce can for this fame repay 190
Aught thine own? oh, rather say,
Though thy sins and slaveries foul
Overcloud a sunlike soul?—
As the ghost of Homer clings
Round Scamander’s° wasting springs; 195
As divinest Shakespeare’s might
Fill Avon and the world with light
Like omniscient power which he
Imaged ’mid mortality;
As the love from Petrarch’s urn, 200
Yet amid yon hills doth burn,
A quenchless lamp by which the heart
Sees things unearthly;—so thou art
Mighty spirit—so shall be
The City that did refuge thee. 205
Lo, the sun floats up the sky
Like thought-wingèd Liberty,
Till the universal light
Seems to level plain and height;
From the sea a mist has spread, 210
And the beams of morn lie dead
On the towers of Venice now,
Like its glory long ago.
By the skirts of that grey cloud
Many-domèd Padua proud 215
Stands, a peopled solitude,
’Mid the harvest-shining plain,
Where the peasant heaps his grain
In the garner of his foe,
And the milk-white oxen slow 220
With the purple vintage strain,
Heaped upon the creaking wain°,
That the brutal Celt may swill°
Drunken sleep with savage will;
And the sickle to the sword 225
Lies unchanged, though many a lord,
Like a weed whose shade is poison,
Overgrows this region’s foison°,
Sheaves of whom are ripe to come
To destruction’s harvest home: 230
Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but ’tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change
The despot’s rage, the slave’s revenge. 235
Padua, thou within whose walls
Those mute guests at festivals,
Son and Mother, Death and Sin,
Played at dice for Ezzelin°,
Till Death cried, ‘I win, I win!’ 240
And Sin cursed to lose the wager,
But Death promised, to assuage her,
That he would petition for
Her to be made Vice-Emperor,
When the destined years were o’er, 245
Over all between the Po
And the eastern Alpine snow
Under the mighty Austrian.
Sin smiled so as Sin only can,
And since that time, ay, long before, 250
Both have ruled from shore to shore,
That incestuous pair, who follow
Tyrants as the sun the swallow,
As Repentance follows Crime,
And as changes follow Time. 255
In thine halls the lamp of learning,
Padua, now no more is burning;
Like a meteor, whose wild way
Is lost over the grave of day,
It gleams betrayed and to betray: 260
Once remotest nations came
To adore that sacred flame,
When it lit not many a hearth
On this cold and gloomy earth:
Now new fires from antique light 265
Spring beneath the wide world’s might;
But their spark lies dead in thee,
Trampled out by tyranny.
As the Norway woodman quells,
In the depth of piny dells, 270
One light flame among the brakes,
While the boundless forest shakes,
And its mighty trunks are torn
By the fire thus lowly born:
The spark beneath his feet is dead, 275
He starts to see the flames it fed
Howling through the darkened sky
With a myriad tongues victoriously,
And sinks down in fear: so thou,
O Tyranny, beholdest now 280
Light around thee, and thou hearest
The loud flames ascend, and fearest:
Grovel on the earth; ay, hide
In the dust thy purple pride!
Noon descends around me now: 285
’Tis the noon of autumn’s glow,
When a soft and purple mist
Like a vaporous amethyst°,
Or an air-dissolvèd star
Mingling light and fragrance, far 290
From the curved horizon’s bound
To the point of Heaven’s profound,
Fills the overflowing sky;
And the plains that silent lie
Underneath, the leaves unsodden 295
Where the infant Frost has trodden
With his morning-wingèd feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines,
Piercing with their trellised lines 300
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet; the line 305
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one; 310
And my spirit which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,
Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky:
Be it love, light, harmony, 315
Odour, or the soul of all
Which from Heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.
Noon descends, and after noon 320
Autumn’s evening meets me soon,
Leading the infantine° moon,
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister°
Half the crimson light she brings 325
From the sunset’s radiant springs:
And the soft dreams of the morn
(Which like wingèd winds had borne
To that silent isle, which lies
’Mid remembered agonies, 330
The frail bark of this lone being)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be 335
In the sea of Life and Agony:
Other spirits float and flee
O’er that gulf: even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folded wings they waiting sit 340
For my bark, to pilot it
To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
Far from passion, pain, and guilt, 345
In a dell ’mid lawny hills
Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
And the light and smell divine 350
Of all flowers that breathe and shine:
We may live so happy there,
That the Spirits of the Air,
Envying us, may even entice
To our healing Paradise 355
The polluting multitude;
But their rage would be subdued
By that clime divine and calm,
And the winds whose wings rain balm
On the uplifted soul, and leaves 360
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
The inspired soul supplies
With its own deep melodies, 365
And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood:
They, not it, would change; and soon 370
Every sprite beneath the moon
Would repent its envy vain,
And the earth grow young again.
Notes
Line 13: riving. Rending, cleaving.
Line 54: mew. A small gull of the northern hemisphere.
Line 71: paean. Celebratory hymn.
Line 72: rook. Black European crow.
Line 80: grain. Color.
Line 97: Amphitrite. Consort of Poseidon, symbolizing the sea.
Line 127: depopulate. Depopulated.
Line 152: Celtic Anarch. The Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was a vassal state to the Austrian Habsburg Empire. Austria is traditionally a Celtic country, and anarch is an archaic word denoting an anarchist or representation of anarchy.
Line 195: Scamander. The river Karamanderes, by which the Trojan war was fought.
Line 222: wain. Farm wagon.
Line 223: swill. Drink greedily.
Line 228: foison. Abundant harvest.
Line 239: Ezzelin. Ezzelino III da Romano (1194-1259), a legendary tyrant of the region.
Line 288: amethyst. Purplish quartz, used as gem.
Line 322: infantine. Infantile.
Line 324: minister. Furnish, supply.
Ah, Fading joy! How Quickly Art Thou Past!
By John Dryden (1631-1700).
Ah°, fading joy! how quickly art thou past!
Yet we thy ruin haste.
As if the cares of human life were few,
We seek out new:
And follow fate that does too fast pursue. 5
See how on every bough the birds express
In their sweet notes their happiness.
They all enjoy and nothing spare,
But on their mother nature lay their care:
Why then should man, the lord of all below, 10
Such troubles choose to know
As none of all his subjects undergo?
Hark, hark, the waters fall, fall, fall,
And with a murmuring sound
Dash, dash, upon the ground, 15
To gentle slumbers call.
Notes
Line 1: Ah. From The Indian Emperor, 1685. [Braithwaite]
Ah°, fading joy! how quickly art thou past!
Yet we thy ruin haste.
As if the cares of human life were few,
We seek out new:
And follow fate that does too fast pursue. 5
See how on every bough the birds express
In their sweet notes their happiness.
They all enjoy and nothing spare,
But on their mother nature lay their care:
Why then should man, the lord of all below, 10
Such troubles choose to know
As none of all his subjects undergo?
Hark, hark, the waters fall, fall, fall,
And with a murmuring sound
Dash, dash, upon the ground, 15
To gentle slumbers call.
Notes
Line 1: Ah. From The Indian Emperor, 1685. [Braithwaite]
A Renunciation
By Henry King (1592–1669).
We, that did nothing study but the way
To love each other, with which thoughts the day
Rose with delight to us and with them set,
Must learn the hateful art, how to forget….
We, that did nothing wish that Heaven could give 5
Beyond ourselves, nor did desire to live
Beyond that wish, all these now cancel must,
As if not writ in faith, but words and dust.
Yet witness those clear vows which lovers make,
Witness the chaste desires that never brake 10
Into unruly heats; witness that breast
Which into thy bosom anchor’d his whole rest—
’Tis no default in us: I dare acquite°
Thy maiden faith, thy purpose fair and white
As thy pure self. Cross planets did envỳ 15
Us to each other, and Heaven did untie
Faster than vows could bind. Oh, that the stars,
When lovers meet, should stand opposed in wars!
Since then, some higher Destinies command,
Let us not strive, nor labour to withstand 20
What is past help. The longest date of grief
Can never yield a hope of our relief:
Fold back our arms; take home our fruitless loves,
That must new fortunes try, like turtle-doves°
Dislodgèd from their haunts. We must in tears 25
Unwind a love knit up in many years.
In this last kiss I here surrender thee
Back to thyself.—So, thou again art free:
Thou in another, sad as that, resend
The truest heart that lover e’er did lend. 30
Now turn from each: so fare our severed hearts
As the divorced soul from her body parts.
Notes
Line 13: acquite. Acquit.
Line 24: turtle-doves. The turtle-dove is traditionally a symbol of devoted love.
We, that did nothing study but the way
To love each other, with which thoughts the day
Rose with delight to us and with them set,
Must learn the hateful art, how to forget….
We, that did nothing wish that Heaven could give 5
Beyond ourselves, nor did desire to live
Beyond that wish, all these now cancel must,
As if not writ in faith, but words and dust.
Yet witness those clear vows which lovers make,
Witness the chaste desires that never brake 10
Into unruly heats; witness that breast
Which into thy bosom anchor’d his whole rest—
’Tis no default in us: I dare acquite°
Thy maiden faith, thy purpose fair and white
As thy pure self. Cross planets did envỳ 15
Us to each other, and Heaven did untie
Faster than vows could bind. Oh, that the stars,
When lovers meet, should stand opposed in wars!
Since then, some higher Destinies command,
Let us not strive, nor labour to withstand 20
What is past help. The longest date of grief
Can never yield a hope of our relief:
Fold back our arms; take home our fruitless loves,
That must new fortunes try, like turtle-doves°
Dislodgèd from their haunts. We must in tears 25
Unwind a love knit up in many years.
In this last kiss I here surrender thee
Back to thyself.—So, thou again art free:
Thou in another, sad as that, resend
The truest heart that lover e’er did lend. 30
Now turn from each: so fare our severed hearts
As the divorced soul from her body parts.
Notes
Line 13: acquite. Acquit.
Line 24: turtle-doves. The turtle-dove is traditionally a symbol of devoted love.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
My Bonnie Mary
By Robert Burns (1759-1796).
Go, fetch to me a pint o’ wine,
And fill it in a silver tassie°;
That I may drink before I go,
A service to my bonnie lassie.
The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith°; 5
Fu’ loud the wind blaws° frae° the Ferry;
The ship rides by the Berwick-law°,
And I maun° leave my bonnie Mary.
The trumpets sound, the banners fly,
The glittering spears are rankèd ready: 10
The shouts o’ war are heard afar,
The battle closes deep and bloody;
It’s not the roar o’ sea or shore,
Wad mak me langer wish to tarry!
Nor shouts o’ war that’s heard afar— 15
It’s leaving thee, my bonnie Mary!
Notes
Line 2: tassie. Tass, cup.
Line 5: Leith. District north of Edinburgh.
Line 6: blaw. Blow.
Line 6: frae. From.
Line 7: Berwick-law. Also North Berwick Law, a law (i.e., a rounded hill) in East Lothian, Scotland.
Line 8: maun. Must.
Line 14: langer. Longer.
Go, fetch to me a pint o’ wine,
And fill it in a silver tassie°;
That I may drink before I go,
A service to my bonnie lassie.
The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith°; 5
Fu’ loud the wind blaws° frae° the Ferry;
The ship rides by the Berwick-law°,
And I maun° leave my bonnie Mary.
The trumpets sound, the banners fly,
The glittering spears are rankèd ready: 10
The shouts o’ war are heard afar,
The battle closes deep and bloody;
It’s not the roar o’ sea or shore,
Wad mak me langer wish to tarry!
Nor shouts o’ war that’s heard afar— 15
It’s leaving thee, my bonnie Mary!
Notes
Line 2: tassie. Tass, cup.
Line 5: Leith. District north of Edinburgh.
Line 6: blaw. Blow.
Line 6: frae. From.
Line 7: Berwick-law. Also North Berwick Law, a law (i.e., a rounded hill) in East Lothian, Scotland.
Line 8: maun. Must.
Line 14: langer. Longer.
An Epigram
By John Byrom (1692–1763)
God bless the King! I mean the Faith’s Defender;
God bless (no harm in blessing) the Pretender;
But who Pretender is, or who is King—
God bless us all!—that’s quite another thing.
God bless the King! I mean the Faith’s Defender;
God bless (no harm in blessing) the Pretender;
But who Pretender is, or who is King—
God bless us all!—that’s quite another thing.
Penthea's Dying Song
By John Ford (1586-1640?).
Oh° no more, no more, too late
Sighs are spent; the burning tapers
Of a life as chaste as fate,
Pure as are unwritten papers,
Are burnt out; no heat, no light 5
Now remains; ’tis ever night.
Love is dead; let lovers’ eyes
Locked in endless dreams,
Th’ extremes of all extremes,
Ope no more, for now Love dies, 10
Now Love dies—implying
Love’s martyrs must be ever, ever dying.
Oh° no more, no more, too late
Sighs are spent; the burning tapers
Of a life as chaste as fate,
Pure as are unwritten papers,
Are burnt out; no heat, no light 5
Now remains; ’tis ever night.
Love is dead; let lovers’ eyes
Locked in endless dreams,
Th’ extremes of all extremes,
Ope no more, for now Love dies, 10
Now Love dies—implying
Love’s martyrs must be ever, ever dying.
Notes
Line 1: Oh. From The Broken Heart, 1633. [Braithwaite]
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Ode To The Popular Superstitions Of The Highlands Of Scotland
By William Collins (1721-1759). According to Wikipedia, this ode is one of only two extant works by Collins written after his 1747 collection Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects, upon which his reputation mainly rests. The other is the Ode on the Death of Thomson, also from 1749.
Home°, thou return’st from Thames, whose Naiads long
Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay,
’Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day,
Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.
Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth 5
Whom, long endear’d, thou leav’st by Levant’s side;
Together let us wish him lasting truth,
And joy untainted with his destined bride.
Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast
My short-lived bliss, forget my social name; 10
But think, far off, how, on the southern coast,
I met thy friendship with an equal flame!
Fresh to that soil thou turn’st, where every vale
Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand:
To thee thy copious subjects ne’er shall fail; 15
Thou need’st but take thy pencil to thy hand,
And paint what all believe, who own thy genial land.
There must thou wake perforce thy Doric° quill;
’Tis Fancy’s land to which thou sett’st thy feet;
Where still, ’tis said, the fairy people meet, 20
Beneath each birken° shade, on mead or hill.
There, each trim lass, that skims the milky store,
To the swart tribes their creamy bowls allots;
By night they sip it round the cottage door,
While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. 25
There, every herd, by sad experience, knows
How, wing’d with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly,
When the sick ewe° her summer food foregoes,
Or, stretch’d on earth, the heart-smit heifers° lie.
Such airy beings awe the untutor’d swains°; 30
Nor thou, though learn’d, his homelier thoughts neglect;
Let thy sweet muse the rural faith sustain;
These are the themes of simple, sure effect,
That add new conquests to her boundless reign
And fill, with double force, her heart-commanding strain. 35
E’en yet preserved, how often mayst thou hear,
Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run,
Taught by the father, to his listening son,
Strange lays, whose power had charm’d a Spenser’s ear.
At every pause, before thy mind possest, 40
Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around,
With uncouth° lyres, in many-colour’d vest,
Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown’d:
Whether thou bid’st the well-taught hind repeat
The choral dirge, that mourns some chieftain brave, 45
When every shrieking maid her bosom beat,
And strew’d with choicest herbs his scented grave!
Or whether, sitting in the shepherd’s shiel°,
Thou hear’st some sounding tale of war’s alarms;
When at the bugle’s call, with fire and steel, 50
The sturdy clans pour’d forth their brawny swarms,
And hostile brothers met, to prove each other’s arms.
’Tis thine to sing, how, framing° hideous spells,
In Sky’s lone isle, the gifted wizard seer,
Lodged in the wintry cave with Fate’s fell spear, 55
Or in the depth of Uist’s° dark forest dwells:
How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross,
With their own visions oft astonish’d droop,
When, o’er the watery strath°, or quaggy° moss,
They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop°. 60
Or, if in sports, or on the festive green,
Their destined glance some fated youth descry,
Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen,
And rosy health, shall soon lamented die.
For them the viewless° forms of air obey; 65
Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair:
They know what spirit brews the stormful day,
And, heartless, oft like moody madness, stare
To see the phantom train their secret work prepare.
(To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray, 70
Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow!
The seer, in Sky, shriek’d as the blood did flow,
When headless Charles° warm on the scaffold lay!
As Boreas threw his young Aurora forth°,
In the first year of the first George’s reign, 75
And battles raged in welkin of the North,
They mourn’d in air, fell, fell Rebellion slain!
And, as, of late, they joy’d in Preston’s fight,
Saw, at sad Falkirk, all their hopes near crown’d!
They raved! divining, through their second sight°, 80
Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were drown’d!
Illustrious William°! Britain’s guardian name!
One William saved us from a tyrant’s stroke;
He, for a sceptre, gain’d heroic fame,
But thou, more glorious, Slavery’s chain hast broke, 85
To reign a private man, and bow to Freedom’s yoke!
These, too, thou’lt sing! for well thy magic muse
Can to the topmost heaven of grandeur soar;
Or stoop to wail the swain that is no more!
Ah, homely swains! your homeward steps ne’er lose; 90
Let not dank Will° mislead you to the heath;
Dancing in mirky° night, o’er fen and lake,
He glows to draw you downward to your death,
In his bewitch’d, low, marshy, willow brake°!)
What though far off, from some dark dell° espied, 95
His glimmering mazes cheer the excursive sight,
Yet turn, ye wanderers, turn your steps aside,
Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light;
For watchful, lurking, ’mid the unrustling reed,
At those mirk° hours the wily monster lies, 100
And listens oft to hear the passing steed,
And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes,
If chance his savage wrath may some weak wretch surprise.
Ah, luckless swain, o’er all unblest indeed!
Whom late bewilder’d in the dank, dark fen, 105
Far from his flocks, and smoking hamlet, then!
To that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed:
On him, enraged, the fiend in angry mood,
Shall never look with pity’s kind concern,
But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood 110
O’er its drown’d banks, forbidding all return!
Or, if he meditate his wish’d escape,
To some dim hill, that seems uprising near,
To his faint eye the grim and grisly shape,
In all its terrors clad, shall wild appear. 115
Meantime the watery surge shall round him rise,
Pour’d sudden forth from every swelling source!
What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs?
His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthly° force,
And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse! 120
For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait,
Or wander forth to meet him on his way;
For him in vain at to-fall° of the day,
His babes shall linger at the unclosing gate!
Ah, ne’er shall he return! Alone, if night 125
Her travel’d limbs in broken slumber steep,
With drooping willows drest, his mournful sprite
Shall visit sad, perchance, her silent sleep:
Then he, perhaps, with moist and watery hand,
Shall fondly seem to press her shuddering cheek, 130
And with his blue swoln face before her stand,
And, shivering cold, these piteous accents speak;
‘Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils pursue,
At dawn or dusk, industrious as before;
Nor e’er of me one helpless thought renew, 135
While I lie weltering on the osier’d° shore,
Drown’d by the Kelpie’s° wrath, nor e’er shall aid thee more!’
Unbounded is thy range; with varied skill
Thy muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring
From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing 140
Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle,
To that hoar pile° which still its ruins shows:
In those small vaults a pigmy folk is found,
Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows,
And culls them, wondering, from the hallow’d ground! 145
Or thither°, where, beneath the showery west,
The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid;
Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest,
No slaves revere them, and no wars invade:
Yet frequent now, at midnight’s solemn hour, 150
The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold,
And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power,
In pageant robes, and wreath’d with sheeny gold,
And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold.
But O, o’er all, forget not Kilda’s° race, 155
On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides,
Fair Nature’s daughter, Virtue, yet abides.
Go! just as they, their blameless manners trace!
Then to my ear transmit some gentle song,
Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain, 160
Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along,
And all their prospect but the wintry main.
With sparing temperance, at the needful time,
They drain the scented spring; or, hunger-prest,
Along the Atlantic rock, undreading climb, 165
And of its eggs despoil the solan’s° nest.
Thus, blest in primal innocence, they live
Sufficed, and happy with that frugal fare
Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give.
Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare; 170
Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there!
Nor need’st thou blush that such false themes engage
Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possest;
For not alone they touch the village breast,
But fill’d, in elder time, the historic page. 175
There, Shakespeare’s self, with every garland crown’d,
Flew to those fairy climes his fancy sheen°,
In musing hour, his wayward Sisters found,
And with their terrors drest the magic scene.
From them he sung, when, ’mid his bold design, 180
Before the Scot, afflicted, and aghast!
The shadowy kings of Banquo’s fated line
Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant pass’d.
Proceed! nor quit the tales which, simply told,
Could once so well my answering bosom pierce; 185
Proceed, in forceful sounds, and colours bold,
The native legends of thy land rehearse;
To such adapt thy lyre, and suit thy powerful verse.
In scenes like these, which, daring to depart
From sober truth, are still to nature true, 190
And call forth fresh delight to Fancy’s view,
The heroic muse employ’d her Tasso’s art!
How have I trembled, when, at Tancred’s° stroke,
Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour’d!
When each live plant with mortal accents spoke, 195
And the wild blast upheaved the vanish’d sword!
How have I sat, when piped the pensive wind,
To hear his harp by British Fairfax° strung!
Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung! 200
Hence, at each sound, imagination glows!
Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here!
Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows!
Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear,
And fills the impassion’d heart, and wins the harmonious ear! 205
All hail, ye scenes that o’er my soul prevail!
Ye splendid friths° and lakes, which, far away,
Are by smooth Annan° fill’d, or pastoral Tay,
Or Don’s romantic springs; at distance, hail!
The time shall come, when I, perhaps, may tread 210
Your lowly glens, o’erhung with spreading broom°;
Or, o’er your stretching heaths, by Fancy led;
Or o’er your mountains creep, in awful gloom!
Then will I dress once more the faded bower,
Where Jonson° sat in Drummond’s° classic shade; 215
Or crop, from Tiviot’s dale, each lyric flower,
And mourn, on Yarrow’s° banks, where Willy’s laid;
Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore
The cordial youth, on Lothian’s° plains, attend!—
Where’er Home dwells, on hill, or lowly moor, 220
To him I lose, your kind protection lend,
And, touch’d with love like mine, preserve my absent friend!
Line 1: Home. In the Essay prefixed to Mrs. Barbauld’s edition of Collins’ poems, published in 1802, she says of this Ode: “To the poems which have usually been published as the work of Collins is now first added An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, which was read by the Rev. Dr. Carlyle on the 19th of April, 1784, at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It was inscribed to Mr. John Home, and fell into the hands of Dr. Carlyle, among the papers of a deceased friend, where it lay unregarded, till a hint given by Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Collins, of the existence of such a poem, revived the remembrance of it, and after diligent search it was found in the handwriting of the author. It seems to have been the first rough draft of the poem: it was written in 1749, and probably the author, who died in 1756 (the true date of Collins’ death has been determined as 1759), never enjoyed spirits sufficient to finish it. Several hemistichs and words left blank have been supplied by Dr. Carlyle: and the fifth, and half of the sixth stanza, by Dr. Mackenzie.” Sir Egerton Brydges, in his Essay prefixed to the Aldine Edition of Collins, states his conviction that the interpolated stanzas mentioned above were by other hands, while Dyce appears to have accepted the entire poem as Collins. [Braithwaite]
Line 18: Doric. Lowland Scots as a literary and folk dialect.
Line 21: birken. Birchen, birch.
Line 28: ewe. Female sheep.
Line 29: heifer. Young cow.
Line 30: swain. Country lad.
Line 42: uncouth. Strange, unusual.
Line 48: shiel. Shieling, shepherd's hut.
Line 53: frame. Form, make; devise, compose, contrive.
Line 56: Uist. An island group, part of the Outer Hebrides off the northwest coast of Scotland.
Line 59: strath. Wide valley.
Line 59: quaggy. Marshy.
Line 60: troop. Flock together, throng.
Line 65: viewless. Invisible.
Line 73: headless Charles. Charles I, executed in 1649 during the English Civil War.
Line 74: young Aurora forth. Collins here refers to the first appearance of the Northern Lights which occurred about 1715. [Braithwaite]
Line 80: their second sight. A term used for the divination of the highlanders. [Braithwaite]
Line 82: illustrious William. The Duke of Cumberland who defeated the Pretender at the battle of Culloden. [Braithwaite]
Line 91: dank Will. Will-o’-the-Wisp, Jack-o’-Lantern, a fiery meteor that hovers in the air over marshy and fenny places. [Braithwaite]
Line 92: mirky. Murky.
Line 94: brake. Thicket.
Line 95: dell. Small vale, usu. wooded.
Line 100: mirk. Murk, dark(ness).
Line 119: youthly. Youthful.
Line 123: fall to. Begin eagerly.
Line 136: osier. Type of willow.
Line 137: Kelpie’s. A water fiend. [Braithwaite]
Line 142: To that hoar pile. Referring to the Isle of Pigmies in the Hebrides, where it is said that several miniature human bones have been dug up in the ruins of a chapel there. [Braithwaite]
Line 146: or thither. I.e., Icolmkill where many ancient Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian kings are buried. [Braithwaite]
Line 155: Kilda. St Kilda, an archipelago west-northwest of North Uist.
Line 166: solan. Gannet, large seabird.
Line 177: sheen. Shining; beautiful.
Line 193: Tancred. Prince Tancred of Galilee, fictionalized in Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata.
Line 198: Fairfax. Edward Fairfax (1580?-1635), who wrote a celebrated translation of Tasso's epic.
Line 207: frith. Firth, a long, narrow sea inlet.
Line 208: Annan. The Annan, Tay and Don are rivers in Scotland.
Line 211: broom. A yellow-flowered shrub.
Line 215: Jonson. Ben Jonson (1572-1637), London poet and playwright.
Line 215: Drummond. William Drummond of Hawthornden, a Scottish poet and friend of Jonson's, noted among other things for his Cypresse Grove.
Line 217: Yarrow. A river in the Scottish Borders.
Line 219: Lothian. A region in the Scottish Lowlands.
Home°, thou return’st from Thames, whose Naiads long
Have seen thee lingering with a fond delay,
’Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day,
Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song.
Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth 5
Whom, long endear’d, thou leav’st by Levant’s side;
Together let us wish him lasting truth,
And joy untainted with his destined bride.
Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast
My short-lived bliss, forget my social name; 10
But think, far off, how, on the southern coast,
I met thy friendship with an equal flame!
Fresh to that soil thou turn’st, where every vale
Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand:
To thee thy copious subjects ne’er shall fail; 15
Thou need’st but take thy pencil to thy hand,
And paint what all believe, who own thy genial land.
There must thou wake perforce thy Doric° quill;
’Tis Fancy’s land to which thou sett’st thy feet;
Where still, ’tis said, the fairy people meet, 20
Beneath each birken° shade, on mead or hill.
There, each trim lass, that skims the milky store,
To the swart tribes their creamy bowls allots;
By night they sip it round the cottage door,
While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. 25
There, every herd, by sad experience, knows
How, wing’d with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly,
When the sick ewe° her summer food foregoes,
Or, stretch’d on earth, the heart-smit heifers° lie.
Such airy beings awe the untutor’d swains°; 30
Nor thou, though learn’d, his homelier thoughts neglect;
Let thy sweet muse the rural faith sustain;
These are the themes of simple, sure effect,
That add new conquests to her boundless reign
And fill, with double force, her heart-commanding strain. 35
E’en yet preserved, how often mayst thou hear,
Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run,
Taught by the father, to his listening son,
Strange lays, whose power had charm’d a Spenser’s ear.
At every pause, before thy mind possest, 40
Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around,
With uncouth° lyres, in many-colour’d vest,
Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crown’d:
Whether thou bid’st the well-taught hind repeat
The choral dirge, that mourns some chieftain brave, 45
When every shrieking maid her bosom beat,
And strew’d with choicest herbs his scented grave!
Or whether, sitting in the shepherd’s shiel°,
Thou hear’st some sounding tale of war’s alarms;
When at the bugle’s call, with fire and steel, 50
The sturdy clans pour’d forth their brawny swarms,
And hostile brothers met, to prove each other’s arms.
’Tis thine to sing, how, framing° hideous spells,
In Sky’s lone isle, the gifted wizard seer,
Lodged in the wintry cave with Fate’s fell spear, 55
Or in the depth of Uist’s° dark forest dwells:
How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross,
With their own visions oft astonish’d droop,
When, o’er the watery strath°, or quaggy° moss,
They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop°. 60
Or, if in sports, or on the festive green,
Their destined glance some fated youth descry,
Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen,
And rosy health, shall soon lamented die.
For them the viewless° forms of air obey; 65
Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair:
They know what spirit brews the stormful day,
And, heartless, oft like moody madness, stare
To see the phantom train their secret work prepare.
(To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astray, 70
Oft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow!
The seer, in Sky, shriek’d as the blood did flow,
When headless Charles° warm on the scaffold lay!
As Boreas threw his young Aurora forth°,
In the first year of the first George’s reign, 75
And battles raged in welkin of the North,
They mourn’d in air, fell, fell Rebellion slain!
And, as, of late, they joy’d in Preston’s fight,
Saw, at sad Falkirk, all their hopes near crown’d!
They raved! divining, through their second sight°, 80
Pale, red Culloden, where these hopes were drown’d!
Illustrious William°! Britain’s guardian name!
One William saved us from a tyrant’s stroke;
He, for a sceptre, gain’d heroic fame,
But thou, more glorious, Slavery’s chain hast broke, 85
To reign a private man, and bow to Freedom’s yoke!
These, too, thou’lt sing! for well thy magic muse
Can to the topmost heaven of grandeur soar;
Or stoop to wail the swain that is no more!
Ah, homely swains! your homeward steps ne’er lose; 90
Let not dank Will° mislead you to the heath;
Dancing in mirky° night, o’er fen and lake,
He glows to draw you downward to your death,
In his bewitch’d, low, marshy, willow brake°!)
What though far off, from some dark dell° espied, 95
His glimmering mazes cheer the excursive sight,
Yet turn, ye wanderers, turn your steps aside,
Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light;
For watchful, lurking, ’mid the unrustling reed,
At those mirk° hours the wily monster lies, 100
And listens oft to hear the passing steed,
And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes,
If chance his savage wrath may some weak wretch surprise.
Ah, luckless swain, o’er all unblest indeed!
Whom late bewilder’d in the dank, dark fen, 105
Far from his flocks, and smoking hamlet, then!
To that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed:
On him, enraged, the fiend in angry mood,
Shall never look with pity’s kind concern,
But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood 110
O’er its drown’d banks, forbidding all return!
Or, if he meditate his wish’d escape,
To some dim hill, that seems uprising near,
To his faint eye the grim and grisly shape,
In all its terrors clad, shall wild appear. 115
Meantime the watery surge shall round him rise,
Pour’d sudden forth from every swelling source!
What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs?
His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthly° force,
And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse! 120
For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait,
Or wander forth to meet him on his way;
For him in vain at to-fall° of the day,
His babes shall linger at the unclosing gate!
Ah, ne’er shall he return! Alone, if night 125
Her travel’d limbs in broken slumber steep,
With drooping willows drest, his mournful sprite
Shall visit sad, perchance, her silent sleep:
Then he, perhaps, with moist and watery hand,
Shall fondly seem to press her shuddering cheek, 130
And with his blue swoln face before her stand,
And, shivering cold, these piteous accents speak;
‘Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils pursue,
At dawn or dusk, industrious as before;
Nor e’er of me one helpless thought renew, 135
While I lie weltering on the osier’d° shore,
Drown’d by the Kelpie’s° wrath, nor e’er shall aid thee more!’
Unbounded is thy range; with varied skill
Thy muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring
From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing 140
Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle,
To that hoar pile° which still its ruins shows:
In those small vaults a pigmy folk is found,
Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows,
And culls them, wondering, from the hallow’d ground! 145
Or thither°, where, beneath the showery west,
The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid;
Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest,
No slaves revere them, and no wars invade:
Yet frequent now, at midnight’s solemn hour, 150
The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold,
And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power,
In pageant robes, and wreath’d with sheeny gold,
And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold.
But O, o’er all, forget not Kilda’s° race, 155
On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides,
Fair Nature’s daughter, Virtue, yet abides.
Go! just as they, their blameless manners trace!
Then to my ear transmit some gentle song,
Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain, 160
Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along,
And all their prospect but the wintry main.
With sparing temperance, at the needful time,
They drain the scented spring; or, hunger-prest,
Along the Atlantic rock, undreading climb, 165
And of its eggs despoil the solan’s° nest.
Thus, blest in primal innocence, they live
Sufficed, and happy with that frugal fare
Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give.
Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare; 170
Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there!
Nor need’st thou blush that such false themes engage
Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possest;
For not alone they touch the village breast,
But fill’d, in elder time, the historic page. 175
There, Shakespeare’s self, with every garland crown’d,
Flew to those fairy climes his fancy sheen°,
In musing hour, his wayward Sisters found,
And with their terrors drest the magic scene.
From them he sung, when, ’mid his bold design, 180
Before the Scot, afflicted, and aghast!
The shadowy kings of Banquo’s fated line
Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant pass’d.
Proceed! nor quit the tales which, simply told,
Could once so well my answering bosom pierce; 185
Proceed, in forceful sounds, and colours bold,
The native legends of thy land rehearse;
To such adapt thy lyre, and suit thy powerful verse.
In scenes like these, which, daring to depart
From sober truth, are still to nature true, 190
And call forth fresh delight to Fancy’s view,
The heroic muse employ’d her Tasso’s art!
How have I trembled, when, at Tancred’s° stroke,
Its gushing blood the gaping cypress pour’d!
When each live plant with mortal accents spoke, 195
And the wild blast upheaved the vanish’d sword!
How have I sat, when piped the pensive wind,
To hear his harp by British Fairfax° strung!
Prevailing poet! whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung! 200
Hence, at each sound, imagination glows!
Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here!
Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows!
Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear,
And fills the impassion’d heart, and wins the harmonious ear! 205
All hail, ye scenes that o’er my soul prevail!
Ye splendid friths° and lakes, which, far away,
Are by smooth Annan° fill’d, or pastoral Tay,
Or Don’s romantic springs; at distance, hail!
The time shall come, when I, perhaps, may tread 210
Your lowly glens, o’erhung with spreading broom°;
Or, o’er your stretching heaths, by Fancy led;
Or o’er your mountains creep, in awful gloom!
Then will I dress once more the faded bower,
Where Jonson° sat in Drummond’s° classic shade; 215
Or crop, from Tiviot’s dale, each lyric flower,
And mourn, on Yarrow’s° banks, where Willy’s laid;
Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore
The cordial youth, on Lothian’s° plains, attend!—
Where’er Home dwells, on hill, or lowly moor, 220
To him I lose, your kind protection lend,
And, touch’d with love like mine, preserve my absent friend!
Line 1: Home. In the Essay prefixed to Mrs. Barbauld’s edition of Collins’ poems, published in 1802, she says of this Ode: “To the poems which have usually been published as the work of Collins is now first added An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, which was read by the Rev. Dr. Carlyle on the 19th of April, 1784, at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It was inscribed to Mr. John Home, and fell into the hands of Dr. Carlyle, among the papers of a deceased friend, where it lay unregarded, till a hint given by Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Collins, of the existence of such a poem, revived the remembrance of it, and after diligent search it was found in the handwriting of the author. It seems to have been the first rough draft of the poem: it was written in 1749, and probably the author, who died in 1756 (the true date of Collins’ death has been determined as 1759), never enjoyed spirits sufficient to finish it. Several hemistichs and words left blank have been supplied by Dr. Carlyle: and the fifth, and half of the sixth stanza, by Dr. Mackenzie.” Sir Egerton Brydges, in his Essay prefixed to the Aldine Edition of Collins, states his conviction that the interpolated stanzas mentioned above were by other hands, while Dyce appears to have accepted the entire poem as Collins. [Braithwaite]
Line 18: Doric. Lowland Scots as a literary and folk dialect.
Line 21: birken. Birchen, birch.
Line 28: ewe. Female sheep.
Line 29: heifer. Young cow.
Line 30: swain. Country lad.
Line 42: uncouth. Strange, unusual.
Line 48: shiel. Shieling, shepherd's hut.
Line 53: frame. Form, make; devise, compose, contrive.
Line 56: Uist. An island group, part of the Outer Hebrides off the northwest coast of Scotland.
Line 59: strath. Wide valley.
Line 59: quaggy. Marshy.
Line 60: troop. Flock together, throng.
Line 65: viewless. Invisible.
Line 73: headless Charles. Charles I, executed in 1649 during the English Civil War.
Line 74: young Aurora forth. Collins here refers to the first appearance of the Northern Lights which occurred about 1715. [Braithwaite]
Line 80: their second sight. A term used for the divination of the highlanders. [Braithwaite]
Line 82: illustrious William. The Duke of Cumberland who defeated the Pretender at the battle of Culloden. [Braithwaite]
Line 91: dank Will. Will-o’-the-Wisp, Jack-o’-Lantern, a fiery meteor that hovers in the air over marshy and fenny places. [Braithwaite]
Line 92: mirky. Murky.
Line 94: brake. Thicket.
Line 95: dell. Small vale, usu. wooded.
Line 100: mirk. Murk, dark(ness).
Line 119: youthly. Youthful.
Line 123: fall to. Begin eagerly.
Line 136: osier. Type of willow.
Line 137: Kelpie’s. A water fiend. [Braithwaite]
Line 142: To that hoar pile. Referring to the Isle of Pigmies in the Hebrides, where it is said that several miniature human bones have been dug up in the ruins of a chapel there. [Braithwaite]
Line 146: or thither. I.e., Icolmkill where many ancient Scottish, Irish, and Norwegian kings are buried. [Braithwaite]
Line 155: Kilda. St Kilda, an archipelago west-northwest of North Uist.
Line 166: solan. Gannet, large seabird.
Line 177: sheen. Shining; beautiful.
Line 193: Tancred. Prince Tancred of Galilee, fictionalized in Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata.
Line 198: Fairfax. Edward Fairfax (1580?-1635), who wrote a celebrated translation of Tasso's epic.
Line 207: frith. Firth, a long, narrow sea inlet.
Line 208: Annan. The Annan, Tay and Don are rivers in Scotland.
Line 211: broom. A yellow-flowered shrub.
Line 215: Jonson. Ben Jonson (1572-1637), London poet and playwright.
Line 215: Drummond. William Drummond of Hawthornden, a Scottish poet and friend of Jonson's, noted among other things for his Cypresse Grove.
Line 217: Yarrow. A river in the Scottish Borders.
Line 219: Lothian. A region in the Scottish Lowlands.
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