My dwelling is the shadow of the night,
Why doth thy magic torture me with light?
SEVENTH SPIRIT.

The star which rules thy destiny
Was ruled, ere earth began, by me:
It was a world as fresh and fair
As e'er revolved round sun in air;
Its course was free and regular,
Space bosom'd not a lovelier star.
The hour arrived-and it became
A wandering mass of shapeless flame,
A pathless comet, and a curse,
The menace of the universe;
Still rolling on with innate force,
Without a sphere, without a course,
A bright deformity on high,
The monster of the upper sky!
And thou! beneath its influence born-
Thou worm! whom I obey and scorn-

throughout the perusal of the poem, owing either to some failure on the part of the poet, or to the inherent mystery of the subject. But though, on that account, it is difficult to comprehend distimotly the drift of the composition, it unquestionably exhibits

Forced by a power (which is not thine,
And lent thee but to make thee mine)
For this brief moment to descend,
Where these weak spirits round thee bend,

And parley with a thing like thee

What wouldst thou, child of clay! with me?
THE SEVEN SPIRITS.

Earth, ocean, air, night, mountains, winds, thy star,
Are at thy beck and bidding, child of clay!
Before thee at thy quest their spirits are—

What wouldst thou with us, son of mortals—say?
Man. Forgetfulness-

First Spirit. Of what-of whom-and why? Man. Of that which is within me ; read it thereYe know it, and I cannot utter it.

Spirit. We can but give thee that which we pos

sess:

Ask of us subjects, sovereignty, the power O'er earth, the whole, or portion; or a sign Which shall control the elements, whereof We are the dominators, each and all— These shall be thine.

Man.

Oblivion, self-oblivionCan ye not wring from out the hidden realms, Ye offer so profusely, what I ask ?

Spirit. It is not in our essence, in our skill; But-thou mayst die.

Man. Will death bestow iton me? Spirit. We are immortal, and do not forget; We are eternal, and to us the past

Is, as the future, present. Art thou answer'd ?

Man. Ye mock me-but the power which brought ye here

Hath made you mine. Slaves, scoff not at my will!
The mind, the spirit, the Promethean spark,
The lightning of my being, is as bright,
Pervading, and far-darting as your own,

And shall not yield to yours, though coop'd in clay!
Answer, or I will teach you what I am.

Spirit. We answer as we answer'd; our reply Is even in thine own words.

thee service;

Bethink thee, is there then no other gift

Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes? Man. No, none: yet stay-one moment, ere we part

I would behold ye face to face. I hear
Your voices, sweet and melancholy sounds,
As music on the waters; and I see
The steady aspect of a clear large star;

But nothing more. Approach me as ye are,
Or one, or all, in your accustom'd forms.

Spirit. We have no forms, beyond the elements
Of which we are the mind and principle:
But choose a form-in that we will appear.

Man. I have no choice; there is no form on earth Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him, Who is most powerful of ye, take such aspect As unto him may seem most fitting-Come! Seventh Spirit. (Appearing in the shape of a beautiful female figure.) Behold!

Man. Oh God! if it be thus, and thou
Art not a madness and a mockery,

I yet might be most happy. I will clasp thee,
And we again will be-

[The figure vanishes.
My heart is crush'd!
[MANFRED falls senseless.

A Voice is heard in the Incantation which

follows. (1)

When the moon is on the wave,

And the glow-worm in the grass,
And the meteor on the grave,

And the wisp on the morass; (2)
When the falling stars are shooting,
And the answer'd owls are hooting,
And the silent leaves are still
In the shadow of the hill,
Shall my soul be upon thine,

With a power and with a sign.

Though thy slumber may be deep,

Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;

There are shades which will not vanish,

There are thoughts thou canst not banish;
By a power to thee unknown,

Thou canst never be alone;
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,
Thou art gather'd in a cloud;

(1) These verses were written in Switzerland, in 1816, and transmitted to England for publication, with the third canto of Childe Harold. "As they were written," says Mr. Moore, "immediately after the last fruitless attempt at reconciliation, it is needless to say who was in the poet's thoughts while he penned seme of the opening stanzas."-E.

(2) "And the wisp on the morass."-Hearing, in February, 1818, of a menaced version of Manfred by some Italian, Lord Byron wrote to his friend Mr. Hoppner-" If you have any means of communicating w th the man, would you permit me to convey

And for ever shalt thou dwell
In the spirit of this spell.

Though thou seest me not pass by,
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye
As a thing that, though unseen,
Must be near thee, and hath been;
And when in that secret dread
Thou hast turn'd around thy head,
Thou shalt marvel I am not
As thy shadow on the spot,
And the power which thou dost feel
Shall be what thou must conceal.
And a magic voice and verse
Hath baptized thee with a curse;
And a spirit of the air

Hath begirt thee with a snare;
In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice;
And to thee shall Night deny
All the quiet of her sky;

And the day shall have a sun,
Which shall make thee wish it done.
From thy false tears I did distil
An essence which hath strength to kill;
From thy own heart I then did wring
The black blood in its blackest spring;
From thy own smile I snatch'd the snake,
For there it coil'd as in a brake;
From thy own lip I drew the charm
Which gave all these their chiefest harm;
In proving every poison known,

I found the strongest was thine own.
By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By thy shut soul's hypocrisy ;

By the perfection of thine art,

Which pass'd for human thine own heart; By thy delight in others' pain,

And by thy brotherhood of Cain,

I call upon thee! and compel
Thyself to be thy proper hell!

And on thy head I pour the vial
Which doth devote thee to this trial;
Nor to slumber, nor to die,

Shall be in thy destiny;

Though thy death shall still seem near
To thy wish, but as a fear;

to him the offer of any price he may obtain, or think to obtain, for his project, provided he will throw his translation into the fire, and promise not to undertake any other of that, or any other of my things? I will send him his money immediately, on this condition." A negotiation was accordingly set on foot, and the translator, on receiving two hundred francs, delivered up his manuscript, and engaged never to translate any other of the poet's works. Of his qualifications for the task some notion may be formed from the fact, that he had turned the word "wisp," in this line, into "a bundle of straw."—E.

322

Lo! the spell now works around thee,
And the clankless chain hath bound thee;
O'er thy heart and brain together
Hath the word been pass'd-Now wither!

SCENE II.

The Mountain of the Jungfrau.-Time, Morning. -MANFRED alone upon the Cliffs.

Man. The spirits I have raised abandon me-
The spells which I have studied baffle me-
The remedy I reck'd of tortured me;

I lean no more on super-human aid,
It hath no power upon the past, and for

The future, till the past be gulf'd in darkness,
It is not of my search.-My mother Earth!

And thou fresh-breaking Day, and you, ye moun

tains,

Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye,
And thou, the bright eye of the universe,
That openest over all, and unto all
Art a delight-thou shinest not on my heart.
And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge
I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath
Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs
In dizziness of distance; when a leap,
A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring
My breast upon its rocky bosom's bed
To rest for ever-wherefore do I pause?
I feel the impulse-yet I do not plunge ;
I see the peril-yet do not recede;

And my brain reels-and yet my foot is firm:
There is a power upon me which withholds,
And makes it my fatality to live;
If it be life to wear within myself
This barrenness of spirit, and to be

My own soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased
To justify my deeds unto myself-
The last infirmity of evil. Ay,
Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister,

[An eagle passes.

Whose happy flight is highest into heaven,
Well mayst thou swoop so near me I should be
Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets: thou art gone
Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine
Yet pierces downward, onward, or above,
With a pervading vision.-Beautiful!
How beautiful is all this visible world!

How glorious in its action and itself!
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit

To sink or soar, with our mix'd essence make
A conflict of its elements, and breathe
The breath of degradation and of pride,
Contending with low wants and lofty wiH,
Till our mortality predominates,

And men are what they name not to themselves,
And trust not to each other. Hark! the note,

[The shepherd's pipe in the distance is heard. The natural music of the mountain-reedFor here the patriarchal days are not

A pastoral fable-pipes in the liberal air,
Mix'd with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd ; (1)
My soul would drink those echoes.-Oh, that I were
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,

A living voice, a breathing harmony,
A bodiless enjoyment-born and dying
With the blest tone which made me!

Enter, from below, a CHAMOIS HUNTER.
Chamois Hunter.
Even so
This way the chamois leap'd: her nimble feet
Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce
Repay my break-neck travail.—What is here?
Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reach'd
A height which none even of our mountaineers,
Save our best hunters, may attain: his garb
Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air
Proud as a free-born peasant's, at this distance--
I will approach him nearer.

Man. (not perceiving the other.) To be thusGrey-hair'd with anguish,(2) like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless, (3)

gun in the other: but this was pure and unmixed-solitary, savage, and patriarchal. As we went, they played the 'Ranz des Vaches' and other airs, by way of farewell. I have lately re peopled my mind with nature."-E.

(2) See the opening lines to the Prisoner of Chillon. Speaking of Marie Antoinette, "I was struck," says Madame Campan, with the astonishing change misfortune had wrought upon her features: her whole head of hair had turned almost white, during her transit from Varennes to Paris." The same thing occurred to the unfortunate Queen Mary. "With calm but undaunted fortitude," says her historian," she laid her neck upon the block; and while one executioner held her hands, the other, at the second stroke, cut off her head, which, falling out of its attire, discovered her hair, already grown quite grey with cares and sorrows." The hair of Mary's grandson, Charles I., turned quite grey, in like manner, during his stay at Carisbrooke.

-E.

(3) Passed whole woods of withered pines, all withered,trunks stripped and barkless, branches lifeless; done by a single

A blighted trunk upon a cursed root,
Which but supplies a feeling to decay-
And to be thus, eternally but thus,
Having been otherwise! Now furrow'd o'er
With wrinkles, plough'd by moments, not by years
And hours-all tortured into ages-hours
Which I outlive!-Ye toppling crags of ice!
Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down

In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me!
I hear ye momently above, beneath,
Crash with a frequent conflict; (1) but ye pass,
And only fall on things that still would live;
On the young flourishing forest, or the hut
And hamlet of the harmless villager.

C. Hun. The mists begin to rise from up the valley;
I'll warn him to descend, or he may chance
To lose at once his way and life together.

Man. The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds

Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury,
Like foam from the roused ocean of deep hell, (2)
Whose every wave breaks on a living shore,
Heap'd with the damn'd like pebbles-1 am giddy. (3)
C. Hun. I must approach him cautiously; if near,
A sudden step will startle him, and he
Seems tottering already.

Man.

Mountains have fallen, Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock Rocking their Alpine brethren; filling up The ripe green valleys with destruction's splinters; Damming the rivers with a sudden dash, Which crush'd the waters into mist, and made Their fountains find another channel-thus, Thus, in its old age, did Mount RosenbergWhy stood I not beneath it?

C. Hun.
Friend! have a care,
Your next step may be fatal!-for the love
Of him who made you, stand not on that brink!
Man. (not hearing him.) Such would have been
for me a fitting tomb;

My bones had then been quiet in their depth;
They had not then been strewn upon the rocks
For the wind's pastime-as thus-thus they shall
be-

In this one plunge.-Farewell, ye opening heavens!
Look not upon me thus reproachfully-

[48 MANFRED is in act to spring from the cliff, the CHAMOIS HUNTER seizes and retains him with a sudden grasp.

C. Hun. Hold, madman!—though aweary of thy life,

Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood-
Away with me-I will not quit my hold.

Man. I am most sick at heart-nay, grasp me not

I am all feebleness-the mountains whirl
Spinning around me-I grow blind-What art thou?

C. Hun. I'll answer that anon.—-Away with me—
The clouds grow thicker-there-now lean on me-
Place your foot here-here, take this staff, and cling
A moment to that shrub-now give me your hand.
And hold fast by my girdle-softly-well-
The chalet will be gain'd within an hour-
Come on, we 'll quickly find a surer footing,
And something like a pathway, which the torrent
Hath wash'd since winter.-Come, 't is bravely

winter: their appearance reminded me of me and my family." Swiss Journal.-E.

(1) "Ascended the Wengen mountain; left the horses, took off my coat, and went to the summit. On one side, our view comprised the Jungfrau, with all her glaciers; then the Dent d'Argent, shining like truth; then the Little Giant, and the Great Giant; and last, not least, the Wetterhorn. The height of the Jungfrau is thirteen thousand feet above the sea, and eleven thousand above the valley. Heard the avalanches falling every five minutes nearly." Swiss Journal.-E.

(2) In the MS.

"Like foam from the roused ocean of old Hell."-E. (3) "The clouds rose from the opposite valley, curling up perpendicular precipices, like the foam of the ocean of hell during a spring-tide-it was white and sulphury, and immeasurably deep in appearance. The side we ascended was not of so precipitous a nature; but on arriving at the summit we looked down upon the other side upon a boiling sea of cloud, dashing against the crags on which we stood-these crags on one side quite perpendicular. In passing the masses of snow, I made a snowball and pelted Hobhouse with it." Swiss Journal.-E.