Alastor: Or, The Spirit Of Solitude.

Earth, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood!     If our great Mother has imbued my soul     With aught of natural piety to feel     Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;     If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,     With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,     And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;     If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,     And winter robing with pure snow and crowns     Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs;     If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes     Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me;     If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast     I consciously have injured, but still loved     And cherished these my kindred; then forgive     This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw     No portion of your wonted favour now!     Mother of this unfathomable world!     Favour my solemn song, for I have loved     Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched     Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,     And my heart ever gazes on the depth     Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed     In charnels and on coffins, where black death     Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,     Hoping to still these obstinate questionings     Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,     Thy messenger, to render up the tale     Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,     When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,     Like an inspired and desperate alchymist     Staking his very life on some dark hope,     Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks     With my most innocent love, until strange tears,     Uniting with those breathless kisses, made     Such magic as compels the charmed night     To render up thy charge:...and, though ne'er yet     Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,     Enough from incommunicable dream,     And twilight phantasms, and deep noon-day thought,     Has shone within me, that serenely now     And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre     Suspended in the solitary dome     Of some mysterious and deserted fane,     I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain     May modulate with murmurs of the air,     And motions of the forests and the sea,     And voice of living beings, and woven hymns     Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.     There was a Poet whose untimely tomb     No human hands with pious reverence reared,     But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds     Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid     Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness: -     A lovely youth, - no mourning maiden decked     With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,     The lone couch of his everlasting sleep: -     Gentle, and brave, and generous, - no lorn bard     Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:     He lived, he died, he sung in solitude.     Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,     And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined     And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.     The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,     And Silence, too enamoured of that voice,     Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.     By solemn vision, and bright silver dream     His infancy was nurtured. Every sight     And sound from the vast earth and ambient air,     Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.     The fountains of divine philosophy     Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,     Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past     In truth or fable consecrates, he felt     And knew. When early youth had passed, he left     His cold fireside and alienated home     To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.     Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness     Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought     With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,     His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps     He like her shadow has pursued, where'er     The red volcano overcanopies     Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice     With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes     On black bare pointed islets ever beat     With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves,     Rugged and dark, winding among the springs     Of fire and poison, inaccessible     To avarice or pride, their starry domes     Of diamond and of gold expand above     Numberless and immeasurable halls,     Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines     Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.     Nor had that scene of ampler majesty     Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven     And the green earth lost in his heart its claims     To love and wonder; he would linger long     In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,     Until the doves and squirrels would partake     From his innocuous hand his bloodless food,     Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,     And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er     The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend     Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form     More graceful than her own.     His wandering step,     Obedient to high thoughts, has visited     The awful ruins of the days of old:     Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste     Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers     Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,     Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange,     Sculptured on alabaster obelisk,     Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx,     Dark Aethiopia in her desert hills     Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,     Stupendous columns, and wild images     Of more than man, where marble daemons watch     The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men     Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,     He lingered, poring on memorials     Of the world's youth: through the long burning day     Gazed on those speechless shapes; nor, when the moon     Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades     Suspended he that task, but ever gazed     And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind     Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw     The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.     Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,     Her daily portion, from her father's tent,     And spread her matting for his couch, and stole     From duties and repose to tend his steps,     Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe     To speak her love: - and watched his nightly sleep,     Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips     Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath     Of innocent dreams arose; then, when red morn     Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home     Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.     The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie,     And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,     And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down     Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,     In joy and exultation held his way;     Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within     Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine     Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,     Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched     His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep     There came, a dream of hopes that never yet     Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid     Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.     Her voice was like the voice of his own soul     Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,     Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held     His inmost sense suspended in its web     Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues.     Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,     And lofty hopes of divine liberty,     Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,     Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood     Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame     A permeating fire; wild numbers then     She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs     Subdued by its own pathos; her fair hands     Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp     Strange symphony, and in their branching veins     The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.     The beating of her heart was heard to fill     The pauses of her music, and her breath     Tumultuously accorded with those fits     Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose,     As if her heart impatiently endured     Its bursting burthen: at the sound he turned,     And saw by the warm light of their own life     Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil     Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,     Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,     Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips     Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.     His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess     Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled     His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet     Her panting bosom:...she drew back a while,     Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,     With frantic gesture and short breathless cry     Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.     Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night     Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,     Like a dark flood suspended in its course,     Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.     Roused by the shock he started from his trance -     The cold white light of morning, the blue moon     Low in the west, the clear and garish hills,     The distinct valley and the vacant woods,     Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled     The hues of heaven that canopied his bower     Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep,     The mystery and the majesty of Earth,     The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes     Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly     As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven.     The spirit of sweet human love has sent     A vision to the sleep of him who spurned     Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues     Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;     He overleaps the bounds. Alas! Alas!     Were limbs, and breath, and being intertwined     Thus treacherously? Lost, lost, for ever lost     In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep,     That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of death     Conduct to thy mysterious paradise,     O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds     And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake,     Lead only to a black and watery depth,     While death's blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung,     Where every shade which the foul grave exhales     Hides its dead eye from the detested day,     Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms?     This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart;     The insatiate hope which it awakened, stung     His brain even like despair.     While daylight held     The sky, the Poet kept mute conference     With his still soul. At night the passion came,     Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream,     And shook him from his rest, and led him forth     Into the darkness. - As an eagle, grasped     In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast     Burn with the poison, and precipitates     Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud,     Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight     O'er the wide aery wilderness: thus driven     By the bright shadow of that lovely dream,     Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,     Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells,     Startling with careless step the moonlight snake,     He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight,     Shedding the mockery of its vital hues     Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on     Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep     Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud;     Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs     Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind     Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,     Day after day a weary waste of hours,     Bearing within his life the brooding care     That ever fed on its decaying flame.     And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair,     Sered by the autumn of strange suffering     Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand     Hung like dead bone within its withered skin;     Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone     As in a furnace burning secretly     From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,     Who ministered with human charity     His human wants, beheld with wondering awe     Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,     Encountering on some dizzy precipice     That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind     With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet     Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused     In its career: the infant would conceal     His troubled visage in his mother's robe     In terror at the glare of those wild eyes,     To remember their strange light in many a dream     Of after-times; but youthful maidens, taught     By nature, would interpret half the woe     That wasted him, would call him with false names     Brother and friend, would press his pallid hand     At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path     Of his departure from their father's door.     At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore     He paused, a wide and melancholy waste     Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged     His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,     Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.     It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings     Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course     High over the immeasurable main.     His eyes pursued its flight: - 'Thou hast a home,     Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home,     Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck     With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes     Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy.     And what am I that I should linger here,     With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,     Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned     To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers     In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven     That echoes not my thoughts?' A gloomy smile     Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.     For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly     Its precious charge, and silent death exposed,     Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,     With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.     Startled by his own thoughts he looked around.     There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight     Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind.     A little shallop floating near the shore     Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze.     It had been long abandoned, for its sides     Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints     Swayed with the undulations of the tide.     A restless impulse urged him to embark     And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste;     For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves     The slimy caverns of the populous deep.     The day was fair and sunny; sea and sky     Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind     Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves.     Following his eager soul, the wanderer     Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloft     On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,     And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea     Like a torn cloud before the hurricane.     As one that in a silver vision floats     Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds     Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly     Along the dark and ruffled waters fled     The straining boat. - A whirlwind swept it on,     With fierce gusts and precipitating force,     Through the white ridges of the chafed sea.     The waves arose. Higher and higher still     Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge     Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.     Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war     Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast     Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven     With dark obliterating course, he sate:     As if their genii were the ministers     Appointed to conduct him to the light     Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate,     Holding the steady helm. Evening came on,     The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues     High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray     That canopied his path o'er the waste deep;     Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,     Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks     O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day;     Night followed, clad with stars. On every side     More horribly the multitudinous streams     Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war     Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock     The calm and spangled sky. The little boat     Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam     Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;     Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;     Now leaving far behind the bursting mass     That fell, convulsing ocean: safely fled -     As if that frail and wasted human form,     Had been an elemental god.     At midnight     The moon arose; and lo! the ethereal cliffs     Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone     Among the stars like sunlight, and around     Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves     Bursting and eddying irresistibly     Rage and resound forever. - Who shall save? -     The boat fled on, - the boiling torrent drove, -     The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,     The shattered mountain overhung the sea,     And faster still, beyond all human speed,     Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,     The little boat was driven. A cavern there     Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths     Ingulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on     With unrelaxing speed. - 'Vision and Love!'     The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheld     The path of thy departure. Sleep and death     Shall not divide us long.'     The boat pursued     The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone     At length upon that gloomy river's flow;     Now, where the fiercest war among the waves     Is calm, on the unfathomable stream     The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,     Exposed those black depths to the azure sky,     Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell     Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound     That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass     Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm:     Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,     Circling immeasurably fast, and laved     With alternating dash the gnarled roots     Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms     In darkness over it. I' the midst was left,     Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud,     A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.     Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,     With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round,     Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,     Till on the verge of the extremest curve,     Where, through an opening of the rocky bank,     The waters overflow, and a smooth spot     Of glassy quiet mid those battling tides     Is left, the boat paused shuddering. - Shall it sink     Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress     Of that resistless gulf embosom it?     Now shall it fall? - A wandering stream of wind,     Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,     And, lo! with gentle motion, between banks     Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream,     Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark!     The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar,     With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.     Where the embowering trees recede, and leave     A little space of green expanse, the cove     Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers     For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes,     Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave     Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,     Which naught but vagrant bird, or wanton wind,     Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay     Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed     To deck with their bright hues his withered hair,     But on his heart its solitude returned,     And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid     In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame     Had yet performed its ministry: it hung     Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud     Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods     Of night close over it.     The noonday sun     Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass     Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence     A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,     Scooped in the dark base of their aery rocks,     Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever.     The meeting boughs and implicated leaves     Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as led     By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,     He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank,     Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark     And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,     Expanding its immense and knotty arms,     Embraces the light beech. The pyramids     Of the tall cedar overarching frame     Most solemn domes within, and far below,     Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,     The ash and the acacia floating hang     Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed     In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,     Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around     The grey trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,     With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,     Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,     These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs     Uniting their close union; the woven leaves     Make net-work of the dark blue light of day,     And the night's noontide clearness, mutable     As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns     Beneath these canopies extend their swells,     Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms     Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen     Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine,     A soul-dissolving odour to invite     To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell,     Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep     Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,     Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,     Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,     Images all the woven boughs above,     And each depending leaf, and every speck     Of azure sky, darting between their chasms;     Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves     Its portraiture, but some inconstant star     Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,     Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,     Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,     Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings     Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.     Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld     Their own wan light through the reflected lines     Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth     Of that still fountain; as the human heart,     Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,     Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard     The motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung     Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel     An unaccustomed presence, and the sound     Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs     Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed     To stand beside him - clothed in no bright robes     Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,     Borrowed from aught the visible world affords     Of grace, or majesty, or mystery; -     But, undulating woods, and silent well,     And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom     Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,     Held commune with him, as if he and it     Were all that was, - only...when his regard     Was raised by intense pensiveness,...two eyes,     Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,     And seemed with their serene and azure smiles     To beckon him.     Obedient to the light     That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing     The windings of the dell. - The rivulet,     Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine     Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell     Among the moss with hollow harmony     Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones     It danced; like childhood laughing as it went:     Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,     Reflecting every herb and drooping bud     That overhung its quietness. - 'O stream!     Whose source is inaccessibly profound,     Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?     Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,     Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,     Thy searchless fountain, and invisible course     Have each their type in me; and the wide sky.     And measureless ocean may declare as soon     What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud     Contains thy waters, as the universe     Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched     Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste     I' the passing wind!'     Beside the grassy shore     Of the small stream he went; he did impress     On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught     Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one     Roused by some joyous madness from the couch     Of fever, he did move; yet, not like him,     Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame     Of his frail exultation shall be spent,     He must descend. With rapid steps he went     Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow     Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now     The forest's solemn canopies were changed     For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.     Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed     The struggling brook; tall spires of windlestrae     Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,     And nought but gnarled roots of ancient pines     Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots     The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,     Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,     The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin     And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes     Had shone, gleam stony orbs: - so from his steps     Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade     Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds     And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued     The stream, that with a larger volume now     Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there     Fretted a path through its descending curves     With its wintry speed. On every side now rose     Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,     Lifted their black and barren pinnacles     In the light of evening, and its precipice     Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,     Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,     Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues     To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands     Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,     And seems, with its accumulated crags,     To overhang the world: for wide expand     Beneath the wan stars and descending moon     Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,     Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom     Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills     Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge     Of the remote horizon. The near scene,     In naked and severe simplicity,     Made contrast with the universe. A pine,     Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy     Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast     Yielding one only response, at each pause     In most familiar cadence, with the howl     The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams     Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river     Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,     Fell into that immeasurable void     Scattering its waters to the passing winds.     Yet the grey precipice and solemn pine     And torrent were not all; - one silent nook     Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,     Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,     It overlooked in its serenity     The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars.     It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile     Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped     The fissured stones with its entwining arms,     And did embower with leaves for ever green,     And berries dark, the smooth and even space     Of its inviolated floor, and here     The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,     In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,     Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,     Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the haunt     Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach     The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,     One human step alone, has ever broken     The stillness of its solitude: - one voice     Alone inspired its echoes; - even that voice     Which hither came, floating among the winds,     And led the loveliest among human forms     To make their wild haunts the depository     Of all the grace and beauty that endued     Its motions, render up its majesty,     Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,     And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,     Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,     Commit the colours of that varying cheek,     That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.     The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured     A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge     That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist     Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank     Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a star     Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,     Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice     Slept, clasped in his embrace. - O, storm of death!     Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night: 610     And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still     Guiding its irresistible career     In thy devastating omnipotence,     Art king of this frail world, from the red field     Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital,     The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed     Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,     A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls     His brother Death. A rare and regal prey     He hath prepared, prowling around the world;     Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men     Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,     Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine     The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.     When on the threshold of the green recess     The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death     Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,     Did he resign his high and holy soul     To images of the majestic past,     That paused within his passive being now,     Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe     Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place     His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk     Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone     Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest,     Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink     Of that obscurest chasm; - and thus he lay,     Surrendering to their final impulses     The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair,     The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear     Marred his repose; the influxes of sense,     And his own being unalloyed by pain,     Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed     The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there     At peace, and faintly smiling: - his last sight     Was the great moon, which o'er the western line     Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,     With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed     To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills     It rests; and still as the divided frame     Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,     That ever beat in mystic sympathy     With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still:     And when two lessening points of light alone     Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp     Of his faint respiration scarce did stir     The stagnate night: - till the minutest ray     Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.     It paused - it fluttered. But when heaven remained     Utterly black, the murky shades involved     An image, silent, cold, and motionless,     As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.     Even as a vapour fed with golden beams     That ministered on sunlight, ere the west     Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame -     No sense, no motion, no divinity -     A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings     The breath of heaven did wander - a bright stream     Once fed with many-voiced waves - a dream     Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever,     Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.     Oh, for Medea's wondrous alchemy,     Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam     With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale     From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God,     Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice     Which but one living man has drained, who now,     Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels     No proud exemption in the blighting curse     He bears, over the world wanders for ever,     Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dream     Of dark magician in his visioned cave,     Raking the cinders of a crucible     For life and power, even when his feeble hand     Shakes in its last decay, were the true law     Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled,     Like some frail exhalation; which the dawn     Robes in its golden beams, - ah! thou hast fled!     The brave, the gentle and the beautiful,     The child of grace and genius. Heartless things     Are done and said i' the world, and many worms     And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth     From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,     In vesper low or joyous orison,     Lifts still its solemn voice: - but thou art fled -     Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes     Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee     Been purest ministers, who are, alas!     Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips     So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes     That image sleep in death, upon that form     Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear     Be shed - not even in thought. Nor, when those hues     Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,     Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone     In the frail pauses of this simple strain,     Let not high verse, mourning the memory     Of that which is no more, or painting's woe     Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery     Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence,     And all the shows o' the world are frail and vain     To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.     It is a woe "too deep for tears," when all     Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,     Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves     Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,     The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;     But pale despair and cold tranquillity,     Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,     Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.