I, who in your train at morning
Stroll’d and sang with joyful mind,
Heard, at evening, sounds of warning;
Heard the hoarse boughs labour in the wind.
Who are they, O pensive Graces,
—For I dream’d they wore your forms—
Who on shores and sea-wash’d places
Scoop the shelves and fret the storms?
Who, when ships are that way tending,
Troop across the flushing sands,
To all reefs and narrows wending,
With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands?
Yet I see, the howling levels
Of the deep are not your lair;
And your tragic-vaunted revels
Are less lonely than they were.
In a Tyrian galley steering
From the golden springs of dawn,
Troops, like Eastern kings, appearing,
Stream all day through your enchanted lawn.
And we too, from upland valleys,
Where some Muse, with half-curv’d frown
Leans her ear to your mad sallies
Which the charm’d winds never drown;
By faint music guided, ranging
The scar’d glens, we wander’d on,
Left our awful laurels hanging,
And came heap’d with myrtles to your throne.
From the dragon-warder’d fountains
Where the springs of knowledge are:
From the watchers on the mountains,
And the bright and morning star:
We are exiles, we are falling,
We have lost them at your call.
O ye false ones, at your calling
Seeking ceilèd chambers and a palace hall.
Are the accents of your luring
More melodious than of yore?
Are those frail forms more enduring
Than the charms Ulysses bore?
That we sought you with rejoicings
Till at evening we descry
At a pause of Siren voicings
These vext branches and this howling sky?
Oh! your pardon. The uncouthness
Of that primal age is gone:
And the skin of dazzling smoothness
Screens not now a heart of stone.
Love has flush’d those cruel faces;
And your slacken’d arms forgo
The delight of fierce embraces:
And those whitening bone-mounds do not grow.
“Come,” you say; “the large appearance
Of man’s labour is but vain:
And we plead as firm adherence
Due to pleasure as to pain.”
Pointing to some world-worn creatures,
“Come,” you murmur with a sigh:
“Ah! we own diviner features,
Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye.
“Come,” you say, “the hours are dreary:
Life is long, and will not fade:
Time is lame, and we grow weary
In the slumbrous cedarn shade.
Round our hearts, with long caresses,
With low sighs hath Silence stole;
And her load of steaming tresses
Weighs, like Ossa, on the aery soul.
“Come,” you say, “the Soul is fainting
Till she search, and learn her own:
And the wisdom of man’s painting
Leaves her riddle half unknown.
Come,” you say, “the brain is seeking,
When the princely heart is dead:
Yet this glean’d, when Gods were speaking,
Rarer secrets than the toiling head.
“Come,” you say, “opinion trembles,
Judgement shifts, convictions go;
Life dries up, the heart dissembles:
Only, what we feel, we know.
Hath your wisdom known emotions?
Will it weep our burning tears?
Hath it drunk of our love-potions
Crowning moments with the weight of years?”
I am dumb. Alas! too soon, all
Man’s grave reasons disappear:
Yet, I think, at God’s tribunal
Some large answer you shall hear.
But for me, my thoughts are straying
Where at sunrise, through the vines,
On these lawns I saw you playing,
Hanging garlands on your odorous pines.
When your showering locks enwound you,
And your heavenly eyes shone through:
When the pine-boughs yielded round you,
And your brows were starr’d with dew:
And immortal forms to meet you
Down the statued alleys came:
And through golden horns, to greet you,
Blew such music as a God may frame.
Yes—I muse:—And, if the dawning
Into daylight never grew—
If the glistering wings of morning
On the dry noon shook their dew—
If the fits of joy were longer—
Or the day were sooner done—
Or, perhaps, if Hope were stronger—
No weak nursling of an earthly sun …
Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens,
Dusk the hall with yew!
For a bound was set to meetings
And the sombre day dragg’d on:
And the burst of joyful greetings,
And the joyful dawn, were gone:
For the eye was fill’d with gazing,
And on raptures follow calms:—
And those warm locks men were praising
Droop’d, unbraided, on your listless arms.
Storms unsmooth’d your folded valleys,
And made all your cedars frown;
Leaves were whirling in the alleys
Which your lovers wander’d down.
—Sitting cheerless in your bowers,
The hands propping the sunk head,
Do they gall you, the long hours?
And the hungry thought, that must be fed?
Is the pleasure that is tasted
Patient of a long review?
Will the fire joy hath wasted,
Mus’d on, warm the heart anew?
—Or, are those old thoughts returning,
Guests the dull sense never knew,
Stars, set deep, yet inly burning,
Germs, your untrimm’d Passion overgrew?
Once, like me, you took your station
Watchers for a purer fire:
But you droop’d in expectation,
And you wearied in desire.
When the first rose flush was steeping
All the frore peak’s awful crown,
Shepherds say, they found you sleeping
In some windless valley, further down.
Then you wept, and slowly raising
Your doz’d eyelids, sought again,
Half in doubt, they say, and gazing
Sadly back, the seats of men.
Snatch’d an earthly inspiration
From some transient human Sun,
And proclaim’d your vain ovation
For those mimic raptures you had won.
Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens,
Dusk the hall with yew!
With a sad, majestic motion—
With a stately, slow surprise—
From their earthward-bound devotion
Lifting up your languid eyes:
Would you freeze my louder boldness,
Dumbly smiling as you go?
One faint frown of distant coldness
Flitting fast across each marble brow?
Do I brighten at your sorrow,
O sweet Pleaders? doth my lot
Find assurance in to-morrow
Of one joy, which you have not?
O speak once! and let my sadness!
And this sobbing Phrygian strain,
Sham’d and baffled by your gladness,
Blame the music of your feasts in vain.
Scent, and song, and light, and flowers—
Gust on gust, the hoarse winds blow.
