And, for the harbours are not safe and good, This land would have remained a solitude But for some pastoral people native there, Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, Simple and spirited; innocent and bold. The blue Ægean girds this chosen home, With ever-changing sound and light and foam, Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar; And all the winds wandering along the shore Undulate with the undulating tide:
There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide ; And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond
As clear as elemental diamond,
Or serene morning air; and far beyond,
The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year,)
Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls Illumining, with sound that never fails, Accompany the noonday nightingales; And all the place is peopled with sweet airs; The light clear element which the isle wears Is heavy with the scent of lemon flowers,
Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers
And falls upon the eye-lids like faint sleep; And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, And dart their arrowy odour through the brain Till you might faint with that delicious pain. And every motion, odour, beam, and tone With that deep music is in unison: Which is a soul within the soul—they seem Like echoes of an antenatal dream.-
It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity; Bright as that wandering Eden Lucifer, Washed by the soft blue oceans of young air. It is a favoured place. Famine or Blight Pestilence, War, and Earthquake never light Upon its mountain peaks; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way :
The winged storms chanting their thunder-psalm To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality. And from the sea there rise, and from the sky There fall clear exhalations, soft and bright, Veil after veil, each hiding some delight. Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside, Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride
Glowing at once with love and loveliness, Blushes and trembles at its own excess: Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, An atom of the Eternal, whose own smile Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen, O'er the grey rocks, blue waves, and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices.—
But the chief marvel of the wilderness
Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how None of the rustic island-people know;
'Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height It overtops the woods; but, for delight,
Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime Had been invented, in the world's young prime, Reared it, a wonder of that simple time, An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. It scarce seems now a wreck of human art, But, as it were, Titanic; in the heart
Of Earth having assumed its form, then grown Out of the mountains, from the living stone, Lifting itself in caverns light and high; For all the antique and learned imagery Has been erased, and in the place of it The ivy and the wild vine interknit
THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.
The volumes of their many-twining stems; Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems
The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery With moonlight patches, or star atoms keen, Or fragments of the day's intense serene; Working mosaic on their Parian floors.
And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem
To sleep in one another's arms, and dream
Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all
SWEET Teviot! on thy silver tide The glaring bale-fires blaze no more; No longer steel-clad warriors ride Along thy wild and willowed shore ;
Where'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill, All, all is peaceful, all is still,
As if thy waves, since Time was born, Since first they rolled upon the Tweed, Had only heard the shepherd's reed, Nor started at the bugle-horn.
Unlike the tide of human time
Which, though it change in ceaseless flow, Retains each grief, retains each crime, Its earliest course was doomed to know; And, darker as it downward bears,
Is stained with past and present tears.
THE rain had fallen, the Poet arose, He pass'd by the town and out of the street, A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, And waves of shadow went over the wheat,
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