Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 685 Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heav ing plain Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. But soon in me shall loneliness renew 650 Thoughts hid, but not less cherished than of old, Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in their fold. To fly from, need not be to hate, man kind; All are not fit with them to stir and toil, Nor is it discontent to keep the mind 655 Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil In the hot throng, where we become the spoil Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil, In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 660 'Midst contentious world, striving where none are strong. There, in a moment, we may plunge our years In fatal penitence, and in the blight Of our own soul turn all our blood to tears, And color things to come with hues of night: 665 The race of life becomes a hopeless flight To those that walk in darkness; on the And thus I am absorbed, and this is life: I look upon the peopled desert past, 690 As on a place of agony and strife, Where, for some sin, to sorrow I was cast, To act and suffer, but remount at last With a fresh pinion; which I feel to spring, Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the blast 695 Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling. a sea And when, at length, the mind shall be all free From what it hates in this degraded form, Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be 700 Existent happier in the fly and worm,When elements to elements conform, And dust is as it should be, shall I not Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm? The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot? 705 Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot? The boldest steer but where their ports invite, But there are wanderers o'er Eternity Whose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne'er shall be. 670 Rhone, make Is it not better thus our lives to wear, Than join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear? hum 675 Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them? Is not the love of these deep in my heart With a pure passion? should I not contemn 710 All objects, if compared with these? and stem A tide of suffering rather than forego Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm are 805 Of those whose eyes are only turned Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! below, If in your bright leaves we would read Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts the fate 825 which dare not glow? 715 Of men and empires,—'tis to be for given, That in our aspirations to be great, Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted Our destinies o'erleap their mortal lake, 797 state, With the wild world I dwelt in, is a And claim a kindred with you; for ye thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to A beauty and a mystery, and create 830 forsake In us such love and reverence from Earth's troubled waters for a purer afar, spring. 800 That fortune, fame, power, life, have This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing named themselves a star. To waft me from distraction; once I loved All heaven and earth are still—though Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft mur- not in sleep, muring But breathless, as we grow when feeling Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice re- most; proved And silent, as we stand in thoughts too That I with stern delights should e'er deep 835 have been so moved. All heaven and earth are still: from the high host It is the hush of night, and all between Of stars, to the lulled lake and mounThy margin and the mountains, dusk, tain-coast, yet clear, All is concentered in a life intense, Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is seen, lost, Save darkened Jura, whose capped But hath a part of being, and a sense 840 heights appear Of that which is of all Creator and DePrecipitously steep; and drawing near, fence. There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, 811 Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on In solitude, where we are least alone; A truth which through our being then Drops the light drip of the suspended doth melt, oar, And purifies from self: it is a tone, 845 Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night The soul and source of music, which carol more. makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, He is an evening reveller, who makes 815 Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, His life an infancy, and sings his fill; Binding all things with beauty; 'twould At intervals, some bird from out the disarm brakes The spectre Death, had he substantial Starts into voice a moment, then is still. power to harm. 850 There seems a floating whisper on the hill, Not vainly did the early Persian make But that is fancy, for the starlight dews His altas the high places and the peak All silently their tears of love instil, 821 Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and Weeping themselves away, till they thus take infuse A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are her hues. weak, 855 the ear THE COLISEUM The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. IIן The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride; She saw her glories star by star expire, And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, 715 Where the car climbed the Capitol; far and wide Temple and tower went down, nor left a site: Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void, O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And say, “Here was, or is,” where all is doubly night? 720 Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, 1146 Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored but still exhaustless mine 1150 Of contemplation; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume The double night of ages, and of her, Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapped and wrap All round us; we but feel our way to err: The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; 725 But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap Our hands, and cry "Eureka! it is clear!”When but some false mirage of ruin rises Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. There is given 1155 Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. бі near. Alas! the lofty city! and, alas, 730 The trebly hundred triumphs; and the day When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass The Conqueror's sword in bearing fame away! Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay, And Livy's pictured page;-but these shall be 735 Her resurrection; all beside-decay. Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see That brightness in her eye she bore when And here the buzz of eager nations ran, In murmured pity, or loud-roared ap plause, As man wasslaughtered by his fellow man. And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because 1246 Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, And the imperial pleasure.- Wherefore not? What matters where we fall to fill the maws Of worms-on battle-plainsor listed spot? Both are but theaters where the chief actors rot. 1251 I see before me the Gladiator lie: 1255 Rome was free! 1 chariot. now And through his side the last drops, ebb- But when the rising moon begins to ing slow climb From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Its topmost arch, and gently pauses Like the first of a thunder-shower; and there; When the stars twinkle through the The arena swims around him-he is gone, loops of time, 1290 Ere ceased the inhuman shout which And the low night breeze waves along hailed the wretch who won. 1260 the air The garland-forest which the gray walls He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes wear, Were with his heart, and that was far Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head; away; When the light shines serene but doth He recked not of the life he lost nor prize, not glare, But where his rude hut by the Danubelay, Then in this magic circle raise the dead: There were his young barbarians all at Heroes have trod this spot—'tis on their play, 1265 1296 There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday “While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; All this rushed with his blood-Shall he When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall, expire And when Rome falls—the World." And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and From our own land glut your ire! Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty But here, where Murder breathed her wall 1300 bloody steam; In Saxon times, which we are wont to 1270 And here, where buzzing nations choked call Ancient; and these three mortal things And roared or murmured like a moun are still tain stream On their foundations, and unaltered all; Dashing or winding as its torrent strays; Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's Here, where the Roman millions' blame skill, or praise The world, the same wide den-of thieves, Was death or life, the playthings of a or what ye 1305 crowd, 1275 My voice sounds much-and fall the NATURE stars' faint rays Oh that the desert were my dwelling On the arena void-seats crushed-walls place, bowed 1585 With one fair spirit for my minister, And galleries, where my steps seem echoes That I might all forget the human race, strangely loud. And, hating no one, love but only her! A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass Ye Elements, in whose ennobling stir Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been I feel myself exalted, can ye not 1590 reared; 1280 Accord me such a being? Do I err Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, In deeming such inhabit many a spot, And marvel where the spoil could have | Though with them to converse can rarely appeared. be our lot? Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared? There is a pleasure in the pathless Alas! developed, opens the decay, 1284 woods, 1594 When the colossal fabric's form is neared: There is a rapture on the lonely shore, It will not bear the brightness of the day, There is society where none intrudes, Which streams too much on all, years, By the deep sea, and music in its the ways, man have reft away. roar: |
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