ears.

I rousa

And with poor skill let pass into the

breeze The dull shell's echo, from a bowery

strand Just opposite, an island of the sea, There came enchantment with the shift

ing wind, That did both drown and keep alive my I threw my shell away upon the sand, Anda ware fill'd it, as my sense was fillid With that new blissful golden melody. A living death was in each gush of

sounds, Fach family of rapturous hurried notes, That fell, one after one, yet all at once, Like pearl beads dropping sudden from

their string : And then another, then another strain, Each like a dove leaving its olive perch, With music wing'd instead of silent

plumes, To hover round my head, and make me

sick Of joy and grief at once.

Grief overcame, And I was stopping up my frantic ears. When, past all hindrance of my trem

bling hands, A voice came sweeter, sweeter than all

tune, And still it cried, Apollo! young

Apollo ! The morning-bright Apollo! young

Apollo !! I fled, it follow'd me, and cried

Apollo!' O Father, and O Brethren, had ye felt Those pains of mine ; 0 Saturn, haust

thou felt, Ye would not call this too indulged

tongue Presumptuous, in thus venturing to be

heard."

* Or shall we listen to the over-wise,
Or to the over-foolish giant, Gods?
Not thunderbolt on thunderbolt, till all
That rebel Jove's whole armory were

spent, Not world on world upon these shoulders

piled. Could agonize me more than baby-words In midst of this dethronement horrible. Speak! roar! shout! yell! ye sleepy

Titans all. Do ye forget the blows, the buffets vile? Are ye not smitten by a youngling arm ? Dost thou forget, sham Monarch of the

Waves, Thy scalding in the seas? What, have Your spleens with so few simple words

as these? O joy! for now I see ye are not lost : O joy! for now I see a thousand eyes Wide glaring for revenge!"-As this he

said, He lifted up his stature vast, and stood, Still without intermission speaking thus: Now ye are flames, I'll tell you how

to burn, And purge the ether of our enemies ; How to feed fierce the crooked stings of

fire, And singe away the swollen clouds of

Jove, Stifling that puny essence in its tent. O let him feel the evil he hath done ; For though I scorn Oceanus's lore, Much pain have I for more than loss of

realms : The days of peace and slumberous calm

are fled ; Those days, all innocent of scathing war, When all the fair Existences of heaven Came open-eyed to guess what we would

speak :That was before our brows were taught

to frown, Before our lips knew else but solemn

sounds: That was before we knew the winged

thing, Victory, might be lost, or might be won. And be ye mindful that Hyperion, Our brightest brother, still is undis

gracedHyperion, lo! his radiance is here!”

6

So far her voice flow'd on, like timo

rous brook That, lingering along a pebbled coast, Doth fear to meet the sea : but sea it

met, And shudder'd; for the overwhelming

voice Of huge Enceladus swallow'd it in wrath: The ponderous syllables, like sullen

waves

In the half glutted hollows of reef-rocks, fame booming thus, while still upon his arm

[contempt. He lean'd; not rising, from supreme

All eyes were on Enceladus's face, And they beheld, while still Hyperion's Flew from his lips up to the vaulted rocks,

Saturn sat near the Mother of the Gren In whose face was no joy, though ali tsa

Gods Gave from their hollow throats the names

of " Saturn !"

BOOK III

cove.

A pallid gleam across his features stern :
Not savage, for he saw full many a God
Wroth as himself.

He look'd upon
them all,
And in each face he saw a gleam of

light, But splendider in Saturn’s, whose hoar

locks 1 Shone like the bubbling foam about a

keel
When the prow sweeps into a midnight
In pale and silver silence they remain'd,
Till suddenly a splendor, like the morn,
Pervaded all the beetling gloomy steeps,
All the sad spaces of oblivion,
And every gulf, and every chasm old,
And every height, and every sullen

depth,
Voiceless, or hoarse with loud tormented

streams : And all the everlasting cataracts, And all the headlong torrents far and

near,
Mantled before in darkness and huge

shade,
Now saw the light and made it terrible.
It was Hyperion—a granite peak
His bright feet touchd, and there he

stay'd to view
The misery his brilliance had betray'd
To the most hateful seeing of itself.
Golden his hair of short Numidian curl,
Regal his shape majestic, a vast shade
In midst of his own brightness, like the

bulk
Of Memnon's image at the set of sun
To one who travels from the dusking

East: Sighs, too, as mournful as that Memmon's harp

(tive He utter'd, while his hands contemplaHe press d together, and in silence

stood.
Despondence seiz'd again the fallen Gods
At sight of the dejected King of Day,
And many hid their faces from the

light:
But fierce Enceladus sent forth his eyes
Among the brotherhood ; and, at their

glare, Oprose läpetus, and Creüs too, And Phorcus, sea-Dorn), and together

strode
To where lie towered on his eminence.
There those four shouted forth old

Saturn's name ;
Hyperion from the peak loud answered,

"Saturn !”

Thus in alternate uproar and sad peace Amazed were those Titans utterls. o leave them, Muse! O leave them to

their woes; For thou art weak to sing such tumul:

dire : A solitary sorrow best befits Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief. Leave them, O Muse! for thou abon

find Many a fallen old Divinity Wandering in vain about bewilders

shores. Meantime touch piously the Delplan

harp, And not a wind of heaven but wil

breathe In aid soft warble from the Dorian flutt For lo ! 'tis for the Father of all very Flush every thing that hath a verea

hue, Let the rose glow intense and warm !

air, And let the clouds of even and of murs Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hice; Let the red wine within the goblet boli Cold as a bubbling well; let faint-lipp J

shells, On sands, or in great deeps, vermili."

turn Through all their labyrinths; and let th:

maid Blush keenly, as with some warm ki

surpris'd. Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades, Rejoice, 0 Delos, with thine olisna

green, And poplars, and lawn-shading palun

and beech, In which the zephyr breathes the low

est song: And hazels thick, dark-stemm'd beneath

the shade : Apollo is once more the golden theme! Where was he, when the Giant of the

Sun Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his

peers ? Together had he left his mother fair And his twin-sister sleeping in their

bower,

d in the morning twilight wandered

forth ide the osiers of a rivulet, II ankle-deep in lilies of the vale. e nightingale had ceas'd, and a few

stars ?re lingering in the heavens, while the

thrush gan calm-throated. Throughout all

the isle ere was no covert, no retired cave chaunted by the murmurous noise of

waves, ough scarcely heard in many a green

recess. : listen'd, and he wept, and his bright

tears ent trickling down the golden bow he

held. us with half-shut suffused eyes he

stood, bile from beneath some cumbrous

boughs hard by ith solemin step an awful Goddess

came, nd there was purport in her looks for

him, hich he with eager guess began to read erplex'd, the while melodiously he

said : How cam'st thou over the unfooted

sea ? r hath that antique mien and robed

form ord in these vales invisible till now? ure I have heard those vestments

sweeping o'er he fallen leaves, when I have sat alone i cool mid-forest. Surely I have traced he rustle of those ample skirts about hese grassy solitudes, and seen the

flowers .ift up their heads, as still the whisper pass d.

[fore, foddess! I have beheld those eyes beInd their eternal calm, anıl all that face, Jr I have dream'd."--"Yes," said the

supreme shape, * Thou hast dream'd of me; and awak

how ;

What sorrow thou canst feel; for I am

sad When thou dost shed a tear: explain

thy griefs To one who in this lonely isle hath been The watcher of thy sleep and hours of

life, From the young day when first thy in

fant hand Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till

thine arm Could bend that bow heroic to all times. Show thy heart's secret to an ancient

Power Who hath forsaken old and sacred

thrones For prophecies of thee, and for the sake Of loveliness new born."—Apollo then, With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes, Thus answer'd, while his white melodi

ous throat Throbb'd with the syllables.-“ Mne

mosyne! Thy name is on my tongue, I know not Why should I tell thee what thou so

well seest? Why should I strive to show what from

thy lips Would come no mystery ? For me, dark,

dark, And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes : I strive to search wherefore I am so sad, Until a melancholy numbs my limbs ; And then upon the grass I sit, and moan, Like one who once had wings.-0 why

should I Feel curs d and thwarted, when the

liegeless air Yields to my step aspirant? why

should I Spurn the green turf as hateful to my

feet ? Goddess benign, point forth some

known thing : Are there not other regions than this

isle ? What are the stars? There is the sun,

the sun ! And the most patient brilliance of the

moon ! And stars by thousands! Point me out

un

ing up,

the way

Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side, Whose strings touch'd by thy fingers,

all the vast Cnwearied ear of the whole universe Listend in pain and pleasure at the birth Of such new tuneful wonder. Is't not

strange That thou shouldst weep, so gifted ?

Tell me, youth,

To any one particular beauteous star,
And I will fit into it with my lyre,
And make its silvery splendor pant with

bliss. I have heard the cloudy thunder:

Where is power ?

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms !

So haggard and so woe-begone ? The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

Whose hand, whose essence,

what divinity Makes this alarum in the elements, While I here idle listen on the shore In fearless yet in aching ignorance? O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp, That waileth every morn and eventide, Tell me why thus I rave, about these

groves! Mute thou remainest-Mute! yet I can

read A wondrous lesson in thy silent face: Knowledge enormous makes a God of

I see a lily on thy brow

Withi anguish moist and fever dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful- a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

me.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love,

And made sweet nioan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long. For sidelong wonld she bend, and sing

A faery's song.

Sbe found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said

“I love thee true."

Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events,

rebellions, Majesties, sovran voices, agonies, Creations and destroyings, all at once Pour into the wide hollows of my brain, And deify me, as if some blithe wine Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk, And so become immortal.”—Thus the

God, While his enkindled eyes, with level

glance Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast

kept Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne. Soon wild commotions shook him, and

made flush All the immortal fairness of his limbs; Most like the struggle at the gate of

death ; Or liker still to one who should take

leave Of pale immortal death, and with a

pang As hot as death's is chill, with fierce

convulse Die into life: so young Apollo anguishd; His very hair, bis golden tresses famed Kept undulation round his eager neck. During the pain Mnemosyne upheld Her arms as one who prophesied.-At

length Apollo shriek'd ;-and lo! from all his

limbs Celestial

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sighd full

sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep.

And there I dream'd-Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd

On the cold hill's side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they

all ; They cried_“ La Belle Dame sans Merci

llath thee in thrall !”

*

*

*

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill's side.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

BALLAD

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering ! The sedge has wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither'd from the

lake And no birds sing.

1819. May 10, 1820.

I

Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be

coy To those who woo her with too slavish

knees, But makes surrender to some thought

less boy, And dotes the more upon a heart at ease; She is a Gipsy, - will not speak to those Who have not learnt to be content with

out her ; A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper'd

close, Who thinks they scandal her who talk

about her ; A very Gipsy is she, Nilus-born, Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar ; Ye love-sick Bards! repay her scorn for

Scorn : Ye Artists lovelorn! madmen that ye

are ! Make your best bow to her and bid adieu, Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight, Shutting with careful fingers and

benign, Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered

from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine : O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee,

close, In midst of this thine hymn, my willing

eyes, Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling charities : Then save me, or the passed day will

shine Upon my pillow, breeding many woes, – Save me from curious conscience, that

still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like

a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiléd wards, And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

1819. 1848.

BRIGHT STAR! WOULD I WERE

STEADFAST AS THOU ART

II

hood;

How feverd is the man, who cannot

look Upon his mortal days with temperate

blood, Who rexes all the leaves of his life's book, Ind robs his fair name of its maidenIt is as if the rose should pluck herself, Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom, As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf, Should darken her pure grot with muddy

gloom : But the rose leaves herself upon the briar, For winds to kiss and grateful bees to

feed, And the ripe plum still wears its dim

attire, The undisturbed lake has crystal space; Why then should man, teasing the world Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed ?

BRIGHT star! would I were steadfast as

thou artNot in lone splendor hung aloft the

night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike

task Of pure ablution round earth's human

shores, Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the No-yet still steadfast, still unchange

able, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening

breast. To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken

moors