Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear Which make thee terrible and dear,- Swift be thy flight!
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of day, Kiss her until she be wearied out: Then wander o'er city and sea and land, Touching all with thine opiate wand- Come, long-sought!
When I arose and saw the dawn, I sigh'd for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone, And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turn'd to his rest Lingering like an unloved guest, I sigh'd for thee.
Thy brother Death came, and cried Wouldst thou me?
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Murmur'd like a noon-tide bee Shall I nestle near thy side? Wouldst thou me?—And I replied No, not thee!
Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon—
Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, belovéd Night- Swift be thine approaching flight, Come soon, soon!
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingéd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and Preserver; Hear, O hear!.
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning; there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, ev'n from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height-
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might, Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!
Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than Thou, O uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision, I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS, NORTH ITALY
MANY a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on Day and night, and night and day, Drifting on his dreary way, With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel's track; Whilst above, the sunless sky Big with clouds, hangs heavily, And behind the tempest fleet Hurries on with lightning feet, Riving sail, and cord, and plank, Till the ship has almost drank Death from the o'er-brimming deep; And sinks down, down, like that sleep When the dreamer seems to be Weltering through eternity; And the dim low line before Of a dark and distant shore Still recedes, as ever still Longing with divided will, But no power to seek or shun, He is ever drifted on O'er the unreposing wave, To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet; What, if there no heart will meet His with love's impatient beat;
Wander whereso'er he may, Can he dream before that day To find refuge from distress
In friendship's smile, in love's caress? Then 'twill wreak him little woe Whether such there be or no: Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold; Bloodless are the veins and chill Which the pulse of pain did fill; Every little living nerve
That from bitter words did swerve Round the tortured lips and brow, Are like sapless leaflets now Frozen upon December's bough.
On the beach of a northern sea Which tempests shake eternally, As once the wretch there lay to sleep, Lies a solitary heap,
One white skull and seven dry bones, On the margin of the stones, Where a few gray rushes stand, Boundaries of the sea and land: Nor is heard one voice of wail But the sea-mews, as they sail O'er the billows of the gale; Or the whirlwind up and down Howling, like a slaughtered town, When a king in glory rides Through the pomp of fratricides: Those unburied bones around
There is many a mournful sound; There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour, dim,
Who once clothed with life and thought What now moves nor murmurs not.
Ay, many flowering islands lie In the waters of wide Agony: To such a one this morn was led My bark, by soft winds piloted. 'Mid the mountains Euganean I stood listening to the paean With which the legion'd rooks did hail The Sun's uprise majestical:
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