THREE EARLY SONNETS
66 1. CHECK EVERY OUTFLASH."
CHECK every outflash, every ruder sally
Of thought and speech; speak low, and give up wholly Thy spirit to mild-minded Melancholy; This is the place. Through yonder poplar alley, Below, the blue-green river windeth slowly; But in the middle of the sombre valley, The crispèd waters whisper musically, And all the haunted place is dark and holy. The nightingale, with long and low preamble, Warbled from yonder knoll of solemn larches, And in and out the woodbine's flowery arches The summer midges wove their wanton gambol, And all the white-stemmed pinewood slept above-When in this valley first I told my love.
Englishman's Magazine, August, 1831.
II. ME MY OWN FATE TO LASTING SORROW DOOMETH."
ME my own Fate to lasting sorrow doometh: Thy woes are birds of passage, transitory: Thy spirit, circled with a living glory,
In summer still a summer joy resumeth. Alone my hopeless melancholy gloometh,
Like a lone cypress, through the twilight hoary, From an old garden where no flower bloometh, One cypress on an inland promontory.
But yet my lonely spirit follows thine,
As round the rolling earth night follows day: But yet thy lights on my horizon shine
Into my night, when thou art far away. I am so dark, alas! and thou so bright, When we two meet there's never perfect light. Friendship's Offering, 1832.
III. "THERE ARE THREE THINGS."
THERE are three things which fill my heart with sighs, And steep my soul in laughter (when I view Fair maiden-forms moving like melodies)
Dimples, roselips, and eyes of any hue.
There are three things beneath the blessed skies For which I live, black eyes and brown and blue:
I hold them all most dear, but oh! black eyes, I live and die, and only die for you.
Of late such eyes looked at me—while I mused, At sunset, underneath a shadowy plane In old Bayona nigh the southern sea— From an half-open lattice looked at me.
I saw no more-only those eyes-confused And dazzled to the heart with glorious pain. Yorkshire Literary Annual, 1832.
I STOOD upon the Mountain which o'erlooks
The narrow seas, whose rapid interval
Parts Afric from green Europe, when the Sun Had fall'n below th' Atlantick, and above
The silent Heavens were blench'd with faery light,
Uncertain whether faery light or cloud,
Flowing Southward, and the chasms of deep, deep blue
Slumber'd unfathomable, and the stars
Were flooded over with clear glory and pale.
I gaz'd upon the sheeny coast beyond,
There where the Giant of old Time infixed
The limits of his prowess, pillars high
Long time eras'd from Earth: even as the Sea When weary of wild inroad buildeth up
Huge mounds whereby to stay his yeasty waves. And much I mus'd on legends quaint and old Which whilome won the hearts of all on Earth Toward their brightness, ev'n as flame draws air; But had their being in the heart of Man
As air is th' life of flame: and thou wert then A center'd glory-circled Memory,
Divinest Atalantis, whom the waves
Have buried deep, and thou of later name Imperial Eldorado roof'd with gold:
Shadows to which, despite all shocks of Change, All on-set of capricious Accident,
Men clung with yearning Hope which would not die. As when in some great City where the walls Shake, and the streets with ghastly faces throng'd Do utter forth a subterranean voice, Among the inner columns far retir'd At midnight, in the lone Acropolis, Before the awful Genius of the place
Kneels the pale Priestess in deep faith, the while Above her head the weak lamp dips and winks Unto the fearful summoning without: Nathless she ever clasps the marble knees, Bathes the cold hand with tears, and gazeth on Those eyes which wear no light but that wherewith Her phantasy informs them.
Thrones of the Western wave, fair Islands green ? Where are your moonlight halls, your cedarn glooms, The blossoming abysses of your hills?
Your flowering Capes, and your gold-sanded bays Blown round with happy airs of odorous winds? Where are the infinite ways, which, Seraph-trod, Wound thro' your great Elysian solitudes, Whose lowest depths were, as with visible love, Fill'd with Divine effulgence, circumfus'd, Flowing between the clear and polish'd stems, And ever circling round their emerald cones In coronals and glories, such as gird
The unfading foreheads of the Saints in Heaven? For nothing visible, they say, had birth
In that blest ground but it was play'd about
With it's peculiar glory. Then I rais'd
My voice and cried, "Wide Afric, doth thy Sun Lighten, thy hills enfold a City as fair
As those which starr'd the night o' the elder World? Or is the rumour of thy Timbuctoo
A dream as frail as those of ancient Time?"
A curve of whitening, flashing, ebbing light! A rustling of white wings! The bright descent Of a young Seraph! and he stood beside me There on the ridge, and look'd into my face With his unutterable, shining orbs.
So that with hasty motion I did veil
My vision with both hands, and saw before me Such colour'd spots as dance athwart the eyes Of those, that gaze upon the noonday Sun. Girt with a Zone of flashing gold beneath His breast, and compass'd round about his brow With triple arch of everchanging bows, And circled with the glory of living light And alternation of all hues, he stood.
"O child of man, why muse you here alone Upon the Mountain, on the dreams of old Which fill'd the Earth with passing loveliness, Which flung strange music on the howling winds, And odours rapt from remote Paradise? Thy sense is clogg'd with dull mortality, Thy spirit fetter'd with the bond of clay : Open thine eye and see."
Upon his face, for it was wonderful
With it's exceeding brightness, and the light
Of the great Angel Mind which look'd from out The starry glowing of his restless eyes.
I felt my soul grow mighty, and my Spirit With supernatural excitation bound
Within me, and my mental eye grew large With such a vast circumference of thought, That in my vanity I seem'd to stand Upon the outward verge and bound alone Of full beatitude. Each failing sense As with a momentary flash of light Grew thrillingly distinct and keen. I saw
The smallest grain that dappled the dark Earth, The indistinctest atom in deep air,
The Moon's white cities, and the opal width Of her small glowing lakes, her silver heights Unvisited with dew of vagrant cloud, And the unsounded, undescended depth Of her black hollows. The clear Galaxy
Shorn of it's hoary lustre, wonderful, Distinct and vivid with sharp points of light, Blaze within blaze, an unimagin'd depth And harmony of planet-girded Suns
And moon-encircled planets, wheel in wheel, Arch'd the wan Sapphire. Nay-the hum of men, Or other things talking in unknown tongues, And notes of busy life in distant worlds Beat like a far wave on my anxious ear.
A maze of piercing, trackless, thrilling thoughts Involving and embracing each with each, Rapid as fire, inextricably link'd,
Expanding momently with every sight
And sound which struck the palpitating sense, The issue of strong impulse, hurried through The riv'n rapt brain; as when in some large lake From pressure of descendant crags, which lapse Disjointed, crumbling from their parent slope At slender interval, the level calm
Is ridg'd with restless and increasing spheres Which break upon each other, each th' effect Of separate impulse, but more fleet and strong Than it's precursor, till the eye in vain Amid the wild unrest of swimming shade Dappled with hollow and alternate rise Of interpenetrated arc, would scan Definite round.
I know not if I shape These things with accurate similitude From visible objects, for but dimly now, Less vivid than a half-forgotten dream, The memory of that mental excellence Comes o'er me, and it may be I entwine The indecision of my present mind With it's past clearness, yet it seems to me As even then the torrent of quick thought
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