The reader; but ’t would not be hard to bring
Some fine examples of the Epopée,
To prove its grand ingredient is Ennui.333
XCVIII
We learn from Horace, “Homer sometimes sleeps;”334
We feel without him—Wordsworth sometimes wakes—
To show with what complacency he creeps,
With his dear “Waggoners,” around his lakes.335
He wishes for “a boat” to sail the deeps—
Of Ocean?—No, of air; and then he makes
Another outcry for “a little boat,”
And drivels seas to set it well afloat.336
XCIX
If he must fain sweep o’er the ethereal plain,
And Pegasus runs restive in his “Waggon,”
Could he not beg the loan of Charles’s Wain?
Or pray Medea for a single dragon?337
Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain,
He feared his neck to venture such a nag on,
And he must needs mount nearer to the moon,
Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?
C
“Pedlars,” and “Boats,” and “Waggons!” Oh! ye shades
Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?
That trash of such sort not alone evades
Contempt, but from the bathos’ vast abyss
Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades
Of sense and song above your graves may hiss—
The “little boatman” and his Peter Bell
Can sneer at him who drew “Achitophel!”338
CI
T’ our tale.—The feast was over, the slaves gone,
The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired;
The Arab lore and Poet’s song were done,
And every sound of revelry expired;
The lady and her lover, left alone,
The rosy flood of Twilight’s sky admired;—
Ave Maria! o’er the earth and sea,
That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee!
CII
Ave Maria! blessèd be the hour!
The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft
Have felt that moment in its fullest power
Sink o’er the earth—so beautiful and soft—
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,339
Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.
CIII
Ave Maria! ’tis the hour of prayer!
Ave Maria! ’tis the hour of Love!
Ave Maria! may our spirits dare
Look up to thine and to thy Son’s above!
Ave Maria! oh that face so fair!
Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty Dove—
What though ’tis but a pictured image?—strike—
That painting is no idol—’tis too like.
CIV
Some kinder casuists are pleased to say,
In nameless print340—that I have no devotion;
But set those persons down with me to pray,
And you shall see who has the properest notion
Of getting into Heaven the shortest way;
My altars are the mountains and the Ocean,
Earth—air—stars,341—all that springs from the great Whole,
Who hath produced, and will receive the Soul.
CV
Sweet Hour of Twilight!—in the solitude
Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna’s immemorial wood,
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o’er,
To where the last Caesarean fortress stood,342
Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio’s lore
And Dryden’s lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!343
CVI
The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,
Making their summer lives one ceaseless song,
Were the sole echoes, save my steed’s and mine,
And Vesper bell’s that rose the boughs along;
The spectre huntsman of Onesti’s line,
His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng
Which learned from this example not to fly
From a true lover—shadowed my mind’s eye.344
CVII
Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things—345
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,
To the young bird the parent’s brooding wings,
The welcome stall to the o’erlaboured steer;
Whate’er of peace about our hearthstone clings,
Whate’er our household gods protect of dear,
Are gathered round us by thy look of rest;
Thou bring’st the child, too, to the mother’s breast.
CVIII
Soft Hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way
As the far bell of Vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day’s decay;346
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah! surely Nothing dies but Something mourns!
CIX
When Nero perished by the justest doom
Which ever the Destroyer yet destroyed,
Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,
Of nations freed, and the world overjoyed,
Some hands unseen strewed flowers upon his tomb:347
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void
Of feeling for some kindness done, when Power
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.
CX
But I’m digressing; what on earth has Nero,
Or any such like sovereign buffoons,348
To do with the transactions of my hero,
More than such madmen’s fellow man—the moon’s?
Sure my invention must be down at zero,
And I grown one of many “Wooden Spoons”
Of verse, (the name with which we Cantabs please
To dub the last of honours in degrees).
CXI
I feel this tediousness will never do—
T’ is being too epic, and I must cut down
(In copying) this long canto into two;
They’ll never find it out, unless I own
The fact, excepting some experienced few;
And then as an improvement ’twill be shown:
I’ll prove that such the opinion of the critic is
From Aristotle passim.—See Ποιητικης.349
Canto IV
I
Nothing so difficult as a beginning
In poesy, unless perhaps the end;
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning
The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,
Like Lucifer when hurled from Heaven for sinning;
Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,
Being Pride,350 which leads the mind to soar too far,
Till our own weakness shows us what we are.
II
But Time, which brings all beings to their level,
And sharp Adversity, will teach
