And the void weighs on us; and then we
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take Our own calm journey on for human sake.1
Written in the character of a bald man in answer to a clever sonnet against baldness.
[Copied from MS. in the Forster Library, South Kensington Museum.]
'VE got my wig :-and now, thou rash Hirsutus,
Crinitus, Whiskerandos, Ogre, Bear,
Or whatsoever title please thine hair,
Why vex the bald? Why loveless thus repute us?
Great Shakespeare, omni nectare imbutus,
Was bald; and he, whose age knew no despair,
Socrates, dancer 'midst the young and fair,
And Cæsar, victim of a natural Brutus !
Fresh is the bald man's head; for love so apt,
That England's Gallants, in her wittiest time,
In voluntary baldness, velvet capp'd,
Through reams of letters urged their amorous rhyme :
1 The eighth line of the above sonnet, as Mr. Saintsbury points out, is a rediscovery of a cadence which had been lost for centuries, and which has been constantly borrowed and imitated since.
Then issued forth, peruked, and o'er their shoulders
From every curl shook love at all the fair beholders.
["Indicator," No. XX., Feb. 23rd, 1820. "Works,"
LUCKY prison, blithe captivity,
Where neither out of rage nor out of spite,
But bound by love and charity's sweet
might,
She has me fast-my lovely enemy;
Others, at turning of their prison key,
Sadden; I triumph; since I have in sight
Not death but life, not suffering but delight,
Nor law severe, nor judge that hears no plea;
But gatherings to the heart, but wilful blisses,
But words that in such moments are no crimes,
But laughs and tricks and winning ways; but
kisses,
Delicious kisses put deliciously,
A thousand, thousand, thousand, thousand times And yet how few will all those thousands be.
1 Called "The Lover's Prison" in 1832 ed.-ED.
Fragment of an unpublished play. A husband is
conversing with his wife.
["Works," 1844, 1857, 1860. Kent, 1889.]
OR there are two heavens, sweet,
Both made of love,-one, inconceiv-
Ev'n by the other, so divine it is;
The other, far on this side of the stars,
By men called home, when some blest pair are met
As we are now; sometimes in happy talk,
Sometimes in silence (also a sort of talk,
Where friends are matched) each at its gentle task
Of book, or household need, or meditation,
By summer-moon, or curtained fire in frost ;
And by degrees there come,-not always come,
Yet mostly, other, smaller inmates there,
Cherubic-faced, yet growing like those two,
Their pride and playmates, not without meek fear,
Since God sometimes to his own cherubim
Takes those sweet cheeks of earth. And so 'twixt
And love, and tears, and whatsoever pain
Man fitly shares with man, these two grow old;
And if indeed blest thoroughly, they die
In the same spot, and nigh the same good hour,
And setting suns look heavenly on their grave.—
["London Journal," April 16th, 1834, from an unpublished poem by the editor. "Works," 1844, 1857, 1860. Kent, 1889.]
O played of late to every passing thought With finest change (might I but half as well
So write!) the pale magician of the
bow,
Who brought from Italy the tales, made true,
Of Grecian lyres; and on his sphery hand,
Loading the air with dumb expectancy,
Suspended, ere it fell, a nation's breath.
He smote-and clinging to the serious chords
With godlike ravishment, drew forth a breath,
So deep, so strong, so fervid thick with love,
Blissful, yet laden as with twenty prayers,
That Juno yearned with no diviner soul
To the first burthen of the lips of Jove.
The exceeding mystery of the loveliness
Saddened delight; and with his mournful look,
Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face
'Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seemed,
To feeble or to melancholy eyes,
One that had parted with his soul for pride,
And in the sable secret lived forlorn.
But true and earnest, all too happily
That skill dwelt in him, serious with its joy;
For noble now he smote the exulting strings,
And bade them march before his stately will;
And now he loved them like a cheek, and laid
Endearment on them, and took pity sweet;
And now he was all mirth, or all for sense
And reason, carving out his thoughts like prose
After his poetry; or else he laid
His own soul prostrate at the feet of love,
And with a full and trembling fervour deep,
In kneeling and close-creeping urgency,
Implored some mistress with hot tears; which past,
And after patience had brought right of peace,
He drew, as if from thoughts finer than hope,
Comfort around him in ear-soothing strains
And elegant composure; or he turned
To heaven instead of earth, and raised a pray'r
So earnest vehement, yet so lowly sad,
Mighty with want and all poor human tears,
That never saint, wrestling with earthly love
And in mid-age unable to get free,
Tore down from heav'n such pity. Or behold,
In his despair (for such, from what he spoke
Of grief before it, or of love, 'twould seem),
Jump would he into some strange wail uncouth
Of witches' dance, ghastly with whinings thin
And palsied nods-mirth wicked, sad, and weak,
And then with show of skill mechanical,
Marvellous as witchcraft, he would overthrow
That vision with a show'r of notes like hail,
Or sudden mixtures of all difficult things
Never yet heard; flashing the sharp tones now,
In downward leaps like swords; now rising fine
Into some utmost tip of minute sound,
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