Oh! that our youth had dreamt to what an urn Of dust our quick and high desires would shrink ! We stand upon the beach-and ask return, For barks ordained to sink ! There's not one plank on which we freight an aim Purer than aught by life's coarse natures sought, Which the harsh sea engulphs not :---can we blame Those who adventure nought? But in a calm and chill philosophy Suppress within them each more vague desire ; Mother of Fate-primæval Night--thine old Say thou,--for in thy weird and demon homes The treasure of his doctrine !---All that glow'd Without a dirge have wonne ! Say---boots our labour?---Were it not more wise To drink Life's tide unwitting where it flows, Renounce the high-soul'd toil, and only prize The Cnidian vine and rose? True, for some few on whom her lavish smile, The laurel lulls the aching brow it decks; But here, among the dense and struggling herd, Envy and Hate!--for what?--for boons so slight, That I could gnaw my heart that mine they are, Did I not know that proud heart's baffled flight Sought meeds how different far! O Night!---my woo'd and won, and earliest friend, Was it for this my soul I shaped and bowed, And from my dreams' Olympus did descend To the self-vassal'd crowd? Seeking---nor yet with vulgar wish—to wield Was it for this--sweet Night? Thou answerest not--but round thee, lo! the clouds Shine out---shine out, my true and stedfast soul- Foes--and Life's baffled ends-the hydra birth Thou with a smile look'st down! TO JULIET. THE VINDICATION OF SILENCE. WHEN heavens are bright, how stilly glide I feel THEE on my heart's deep tide- How can I break the silence there? ON FOREBODINGS. WHAT are ye, haggard and all ghastly warnings- Ye glide away like clouds beneath our scornings, What are ye?-Phantoms of the brain ?-The crude And half-begot chimæras that arise From our most earthly members, and intrude A loathly shadow on our mental eyes? Wan nightmares of drows'd thought?—the goblin banes That steam and flit from the o'erpamper'd veins? What! can these seerlike and unearthly shapes Of Thought be fathered thus? And can a crumb— An incoct atom, kindle that which apes A demon's horror-and can strike us dumb- And shake the Spirit on her Throne?-Away! What! to these wretched wants mst we fulfil Bearing a devil in ourselves-at will To mock the Angel Thought that would aspire Can we not hold ev'n this most lean and poor Of the worm's prey, which rots the very while? Nay!-have ye not been prophets in your strange The hardest and the coldest breasts have thrilled As ye have passed them on your ghostlike way; And in the hour ye whispered-have fulfilled Their doom:-Upon the dial of their clay Rested the shadowy hand,—and at the chime Foretold-they had no farther note of time! We boast our growing wisdom !—Know we more * Oracular is here used in the sense of dubious. + Socrates. |