Sidebilder
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Hath then the gloomy Power Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres Seized on her sinless soul?

Must then that peerless form
Which love and admiration cannot view
Without a beating heart, those azure veins
Which steal like streams along a field of snow,
That lovely outline, which is fair

As breathing marble, perish?
Must putrefaction's breath
Leave nothing of this heavenly sight
But loathsomeness and ruin?
Spare nothing but a gloomy theme,

On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Or is it only a sweet slumber
Stealing o'er sensation,

Which the breath of roseate morning
Chaseth into darkness?

Will Ianthe wake again,

And give that faithful bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life, and rapture, from her smile?

Yes! she will wake again,

Although her glowing limbs are motionless,
And silent those sweet lips,
Once breathing eloquence
That might have soothed a tiger's rage,
Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror.
Her dewy eyes are closed,

And on their lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath,
The baby Sleep is pillowed:
Her golden tresses shade
The bosom's stainless pride,
Curling like tendrils of the parasite
Around a marble column.

Hark! whence that rushing sound? "Tis like the wondrous strain That round a lonely ruin swells, Which, wandering on the echoing shore, The enthusiast hears at evening: "Tis softer than the west wind's sigh; "Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes Of that strange lyre whose strings

B

The genii of the breezes sweep:

Those lines of rainbow light

Are like the moonbeams when they fall
Through some cathedral window, but the teints
Are such as may not find
Comparison on earth.

Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen!
Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air;
Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,
And stop obedient to the reins of light:

These the Queen of Spells drew in,
She spread a charm around the spot,
And leaning graceful from the ethereal car,
Long did she gaze, and silently,

Upon the slumbering maid.

Oh! not the visioned poet in his dreams,
When silveryclouds float through the wildered brain,
When every sight of lovely, wild and grand,
Astonishes, enraptures, elevates-
When fancy at a glance combines
The wond'rous and the beautiful,—
So bright, so fair, so wild a shape
Hath ever yet beheld,

As that which reined the coursers of the air,
And poured the magic of her
Upon the sleeping maid.

gaze

The broad and yellow moon
Shone dimly through her form—
That form of faultless symmetry;
The pearly and pellucid car

Moved not the moonlight's line :
"Twas not an earthly pageant;
Those who had look'd upon the sight,
Passing all human glory,
Saw not the yellow moon,
Saw not the mortal scene,
Heard not the night-wind's rush,
Heard not an earthly sound,
Saw but the fairy pageant,
Heard but the heavenly strains
That filled the lonely dwelling.

The Fairy's frame was slight; yon fibrous cloud,
That catches but the palest tinge of even,

And which the straining eye can hardly seize When melting into eastern twilight's shadow, Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star That gems the glittering coronet of morn,

Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful,
As that which, bursting from the Fairy's form,
Spread a purpureal halo round the scene,

Yet with an undulating motion,
Swayed to her outline gracefully.

From her celestial car
The Fairy Queen descended,
And thrice she waved her wand
Circled with wreaths of amaranth :
Her thin and misty form
Moved with the moving air,
And the clear silver tones,
As thus she spoke, were such
As are unheard by all but gifted ear.

FAIRY.

Stars! your balmiest influence shed! Elements! your wrath suspend ! Sleep, Ocean, in the rocky bounds

That circle thy domain !

Let not a breath be seen to stir Around yon grass-grown ruin's height, Let even the restless gossamer

Sleep on the moveless air!

Soul of Ianthe! thou,

Judged alone worthy of the envied boon That waits the good and the sincere; that waits Those who have struggled, and with resolute will Vanquished earth's pride and meanness, burst the The icy chains of custom, and have shone [chains, The day-stars of their age ;-Soul of Ianthe! Awake! arise!

Sudden arose

Ianthe's Soul; it stood

All beautiful in naked purity,

The perfect semblance of its bodily frame.
Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace,
Each stain of earthliness

Had passed away, it reassumed
Its native dignity, and stood
Immortal amid ruin.

Upon the couch the body lay,
Wrapt in the depth of slumber :

Its features were fixed and meaningless,
Yet animal life was there,

And every organ yet performed
Its natural functions; 'twas a sight
Of wonder to behold the body and soul.
The self-same lineaments, the same
Marks of identity were there;

Yet, oh how different! One aspires to heaven,
Pants for its sempiternal heritage,
And ever-changing, ever-rising still,

Wantons in endless being.

The other, for a time the unwilling sport
Of circumstance and passion, struggles on ;
Fleets through its sad duration rapidly;
Then like a useless and worn-out machine,
Rots, perishes and passes.

FAIRY.

Spirit! who hast dived so deep; Spirit! who hast soar'd so high; Thou the fearless, thou the mild, Accept the boon thy worth hath earned, Ascend the car with me.

SPIRIT.

Do I dream? Is this new feeling
But a visioned ghost of slumber?
If indeed I am a soul,
A free, a disembodied soul,
Speak again to me.

FAIRY.

I am the Fairy MAB: to me 'tis given
The wonders of the human world to keep.
The secrets of the immeasurable past,
In the unfailing consciences of men,
Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find :
The future, from the causes which arise
In each event, I gather: not the sting
Which retributive memory implants
In the hard bosom of the selfish man;
Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb
Which virtue's votary feels when he sums up
The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day,

Are unforeseen, unregistered by me :
And it is yet permitted me, to rend
The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit,
Clothed in its changeless purity, may know
How soonest to accomplish the great end
For which it hath its being, and may taste
That peace, which in the end, all life will share.
This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul,
Ascend the car with me!

The chains of earth's immurement
Fell from Ianthe's spirit ;

They shrank and brake like bandages of straw
Beneath a wakened giant's strength.
She knew her glorious change,
And felt in apprehension uncontrolled
New raptures opening round:
Each day-dream of her mortal life,
Each frenzied vision of the slumbers
That closed each well-spent day,
Seemed now to meet reality.

The Fairy and the Soul proceeded;
The silver clouds disparted;
And as the car of magic they ascended,
Again the speechless music swelled,
Again the coursers of the air

Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen,
Shaking the beamy reins,
Bade them pursue their way.

The magic car moved on.

The night was fair, and countless stars
Studded heaven's dark blue vault,-

Just o'er the eastern wave
Peeped the first faint smile of morn :-
The magic car moved on-

From the celestial hoofs

The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew,
And where the burning wheels
Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak,
Was traced a line of lightning.
Now it flew far above a rock,

The utmost verge of earth,

The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow Lowered o'er the silver sea.

Far, far below the chariot's path,
Calm as a slumbering babe,
Tremendous Ocean lay.

The mirror of its stillness showed
The pale and waning stars,
The chariot's fiery track,
And the grey light of morn
Tinging those fleecy clouds
That canopied the dawn.
Seemed it, that the chariot's way

Lay through the midst of an immense concave,
Radiant with million constellations, tinged

With shades of infinite colour,
And semicircled with a belt
Flashing incessant meteors.

The magic car moved on.

As they approached their goal,
The coursers seemed to gather speed;
The sea no longer was distinguished; earth
Appear'd a vast and shadowy sphere;

The sun's unclouded orb
Rolled through the black concave;

Its rays of rapid light Parted around the chariot's swifter course, And fell, like ocean's feathery spray Dashed from the boiling surge Before a vessel's prow.

The magic car moved on.
Earth's distant orb appeared

The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven;
Whilst round the chariot's way
Innumerable systems rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever-varying glory.

It was a sight of wonder: some
Were horned like the crescent moon;
Some shed a mild and silver beam

Like Hesperus o'er the western sea;
Some dashed athwart with trains of flame,
Like worlds to death and ruin driven;
Some shone like suns, and as the chariot passed,
Eclipsed all other light.

Spirit of Nature! here!

In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers,
Here is thy fitting temple.

Yet not the lightest leaf
That quivers to the passing breeze
Is less instinct with thee:

Yet not the meanest worm

That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead
Less shares thy eternal breath.
Spirit of Nature! thou!
Imperishable as this scene,
Here is thy fitting temple!

II.

IF solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the wild ocean's echoing shore,
And thou hast lingered there,
Until the sun's broad orb

Seemed resting on the burnished wave,
Thou must have marked the lines

Of purple gold, that motionless

Hung o'er the sinking sphere:

Thou must have marked the billowy clouds
Edged with intolerable radiancy,
Towering like rocks of jet

Crowned with a diamond wreath.
And yet there is a moment,
When the sun's highest point

Peeps like a star o'er ocean's western edge,
When those far clouds of feathery gold,
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam
Like islands on a dark blue sea;
Then has thy fancy soared above the earth,
And furled its wearied wing

Within the Fairy's fane.

Yet not the golden islands

Gleaming in yon flood of light,

Nor the feathery curtains

Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch,
Nor the burnished ocean-waves,

Paving that gorgeous dome,

So fair, so wonderful a sight

As Mab's ethereal palace could afford.

Yet likest evening's vault, that fairy Hall!
As Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread
Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome,
Its fertile golden islands
Floating on a silver sea;

Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted
Through clouds of circumambient darkness,
And pearly battlements around
Looked o'er the immense of Heaven.

The magic car no longer moved.
The Fairy and the Spirit
Entered the Hall of Spells :

Those golden clouds

That rolled in glittering billows
Beneath the azure canopy,

With the ethereal footsteps trembled not:
The light and crimson mists,

Floating to strains of thrilling melody

Through that unearthly dwelling,
Yielded to every movement of the will.
Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned,
And, for the varied bliss that pressed around,
Used not the glorious privilege

Of virtue and of wisdom.

Spirit! the Fairy said,
And pointed to the gorgeous dome,
This is a wondrous sight
And mocks all human grandeur;
But, were it virtue's only meed, to dwell
In a celestial palace, all resigned
To pleasurable impulses, immured
Within the prison of itself, the will

Of changeless nature would be unfulfilled.
Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come!
This is thine high reward:-the past shall rise;
Thou shalt behold the present; I will teach
The secrets of the future.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Behold yon sterile spot;

Where now the wandering Arab's tent
Flaps in the desert-blast.

There once old Salem's haughty fane
Reared high to heaven its thousand golden domes,
And in the blushing face of day

Exposed its shameful glory.

Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed
The building of that fane; and many a father,
Worn out with toil and slavery, implored

The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth,
And spare his children the detested task
Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning
The choicest days of life,

To soothe a dotard's vanity.

There an inhuman and uncultured race
Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God;
They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb
The unborn child,-old age and infancy
Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms
Left not a soul to breathe. Oh they were

fiends:

But what was he who taught them that the God
Of nature and benevolence had given
A special sanction to the trade of blood?
His name and theirs are fading, and the tales
Of this barbarian nation, which imposture
Recites till terror credits, are pursuing
Itself into forgetfulness.

Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood,

There is a moral desert now:

The mean and miserable huts,

The yet more wretched palaces,
Contrasted with those ancient fanes,
Now crumbling to oblivion;
The long and lonely colonnades,
Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks,
Seem like a well-known tune,

Which, in some dear scene we have loved to hear,
Remembered now in sadness.

But, oh! how much more changed,
How gloomier is the contrast

Of human nature there!

Where Socrates expired, a tyrant's slave,

A coward and a fool, spreads death around-
Then, shuddering, meets his own.

Where Cicero and Antoninus lived,
A cowled and hypocritical monk
Prays, curses, and deceives.

Spirit! ten thousand years
Have scarcely passed away,

Since, in the waste where now the savage drinks
His enemy's blood, and aping Europe's sons,
Wakes the unholy song of war,
Arose a stately city,

Metropolis of the western continent :
There, now, the mossy column-stone,
Indented by time's unrelaxing grasp,
Which once appeared to brave
All, save its country's ruin;
There the wide forest scene,

Rude in the uncultivated loveliness

Of gardens long run wild,

Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps
Chance in that desert has delayed,

Thus to have stood since earth was what it is.
Yet once it was the busiest haunt,
Whither, as to a common centre, flocked
Strangers, and ships, and merchandize :
Once peace and freedom blest
The cultivated plain :

But wealth, that curse of man,
Blighted the bud of its prosperity:
Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty,
Fled, to return not, until man shall know
That they alone can give the bliss

Worthy a soul that claims
Its kindred with eternity.

There's not one atom of yon earth
But once was living man;
Nor the minutest drop of rain,
That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,
But flowed in human veins :
And from the burning plains
Where Lybian monsters yell,
From the most gloomy glens
Of Greenland's sunless clime,
To where the golden fields
Of fertile England spread
Their harvest to the day,
Thou canst not find one spot
Whereon no city stood.

How strange is human pride!
I tell thee that those living things,
To whom the fragile blade of grass,
That springeth in the morn

And perisheth ere noon,

Is an unbounded world;

I tell thee that those viewless beings, Whose mansion is the smallest particle Of the impassive atmosphere,

Think, feel and live like man; That their affections and antipathies, Like his, produce the laws Ruling their moral state; And the minutest throb That through their frame diffuses The slightest, faintest motion, Is fixed and indispensable As the majestic laws

That rule yon rolling orbs.

The Fairy paused. The Spirit,

In ecstacy of admiration, felt

All knowledge of the past revived; the events
Of old and wondrous times,

Which dim tradition interruptedly
Teaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded
In just perspective to the view;
Yet dim from their infinitude.
The Spirit seemed to stand

High on an isolated pinnacle;
The flood of ages combating below,
The depth of the unbounded universe
Above, and all around

Nature's unchanging harmony.

III.

FAIRY! the Spirit said,

And on the Queen of Spells
Fixed her ethereal eyes,

I thank thee. Thou hast given
A boon which I will not resign, and taught
A lesson not to be unlearned. I know
The past, and thence I will essay to glean
A warning for the future, so that man
May profit by his errors, and derive
Experience from his folly:
For, when the power of imparting joy
Is equal to the will, the human soul
Requires no other heaven.

MAB.

Turn thee, surpassing Spirit!
Much yet remains unscanned.
Thou knowest how great is man,
Thou knowest his imbecility:
Yet learn thou what he is;
Yet learn the lofty destiny
Which restless Time prepares
For every living soul."

Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amid
Yon populous city, rears its thousand towers
And seems itself a city. Gloomy troops
Of sentinels, in stern and silent ranks,
Encompass it around: the dweller there
Cannot be free and happy; hearest thou not
The curses of the fatherless, the groans
Of those who have no friend? He passes on:
The King, the wearer of a gilded chain
That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool
Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave
Even to the basest appetites-that man

« ForrigeFortsett »