Letter To Maria Gisborne.

LEGHORN, July 1, 1820.]     The spider spreads her webs, whether she be     In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree;     The silk-worm in the dark green mulberry leaves     His winding sheet and cradle ever weaves;     So I, a thing whom moralists call worm,     Sit spinning still round this decaying form,     From the fine threads of rare and subtle thought -     No net of words in garish colours wrought     To catch the idle buzzers of the day -     But a soft cell, where when that fades away,     Memory may clothe in wings my living name     And feed it with the asphodels of fame,     Which in those hearts which must remember me     Grow, making love an immortality.     Whoever should behold me now, I wist,     Would think I were a mighty mechanist,     Bent with sublime Archimedean art     To breathe a soul into the iron heart     Of some machine portentous, or strange gin,     Which by the force of figured spells might win     Its way over the sea, and sport therein;     For round the walls are hung dread engines, such     As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch     Ixion or the Titan: - or the quick     Wit of that man of God, St. Dominic,     To convince Atheist, Turk, or Heretic,     Or those in philanthropic council met,     Who thought to pay some interest for the debt     They owed to Jesus Christ for their salvation,     By giving a faint foretaste of damnation     To Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, and the rest     Who made our land an island of the blest,     When lamp-like Spain, who now relumes her fire     On Freedom's hearth, grew dim with Empire: -     With thumbscrews, wheels, with tooth and spike and jag,     Which fishers found under the utmost crag     Of Cornwall and the storm-encompassed isles,     Where to the sky the rude sea rarely smiles     Unless in treacherous wrath, as on the morn     When the exulting elements in scorn,     Satiated with destroyed destruction, lay     Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey,     As panthers sleep; - and other strange and dread     Magical forms the brick floor overspread, -     Proteus transformed to metal did not make     More figures, or more strange; nor did he take     Such shapes of unintelligible brass,     Or heap himself in such a horrid mass     Of tin and iron not to be understood;     And forms of unimaginable wood,     To puzzle Tubal Cain and all his brood:     Great screws, and cones, and wheels, and grooved blocks,     The elements of what will stand the shocks     Of wave and wind and time. - Upon the table     More knacks and quips there be than I am able     To catalogize in this verse of mine: -     A pretty bowl of wood - not full of wine,     But quicksilver; that dew which the gnomes drink     When at their subterranean toil they swink,     Pledging the demons of the earthquake, who     Reply to them in lava - cry halloo!     And call out to the cities o'er their head, -     Roofs, towers, and shrines, the dying and the dead,     Crash through the chinks of earth - and then all quaff     Another rouse, and hold their sides and laugh.     This quicksilver no gnome has drunk - within     The walnut bowl it lies, veined and thin,     In colour like the wake of light that stains     The Tuscan deep, when from the moist moon rains     The inmost shower of its white fire - the breeze     Is still - blue Heaven smiles over the pale seas.     And in this bowl of quicksilver - for I     Yield to the impulse of an infancy     Outlasting manhood - I have made to float     A rude idealism of a paper boat: -     A hollow screw with cogs - Henry will know     The thing I mean and laugh at me, - if so     He fears not I should do more mischief. - Next     Lie bills and calculations much perplexed,     With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint     Traced over them in blue and yellow paint.     Then comes a range of mathematical     Instruments, for plans nautical and statical,     A heap of rosin, a queer broken glass     With ink in it; - a china cup that was     What it will never be again, I think, -     A thing from which sweet lips were wont to drink     The liquor doctors rail at - and which I     Will quaff in spite of them - and when we die     We'll toss up who died first of drinking tea,     And cry out, - 'Heads or tails?' where'er we be.     Near that a dusty paint-box, some odd hooks,     A half-burnt match, an ivory block, three books,     Where conic sections, spherics, logarithms,     To great Laplace, from Saunderson and Sims,     Lie heaped in their harmonious disarray     Of figures, - disentangle them who may.     Baron de Tott's Memoirs beside them lie,     And some odd volumes of old chemistry.     Near those a most inexplicable thing,     With lead in the middle - I'm conjecturing     How to make Henry understand; but no -     I'll leave, as Spenser says, with many mo,     This secret in the pregnant womb of time,     Too vast a matter for so weak a rhyme.     And here like some weird Archimage sit I,     Plotting dark spells, and devilish enginery,     The self-impelling steam-wheels of the mind     Which pump up oaths from clergymen, and grind     The gentle spirit of our meek reviews     Into a powdery foam of salt abuse,     Ruffling the ocean of their self-content; -     I sit - and smile or sigh as is my bent,     But not for them - Libeccio rushes round     With an inconstant and an idle sound,     I heed him more than them - the thunder-smoke     Is gathering on the mountains, like a cloak     Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bare;     The ripe corn under the undulating air     Undulates like an ocean; - and the vines     Are trembling wide in all their trellised lines -     The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill     The empty pauses of the blast; - the hill     Looks hoary through the white electric rain,     And from the glens beyond, in sullen strain,     The interrupted thunder howls; above     One chasm of Heaven smiles, like the eye of Love     On the unquiet world; - while such things are,     How could one worth your friendship heed the war     Of worms? the shriek of the world's carrion jays,     Their censure, or their wonder, or their praise?     You are not here! the quaint witch Memory sees,     In vacant chairs, your absent images,     And points where once you sat, and now should be     But are not. - I demand if ever we     Shall meet as then we met; - and she replies.     Veiling in awe her second-sighted eyes;     'I know the past alone - but summon home     My sister Hope, - she speaks of all to come.'     But I, an old diviner, who knew well     Every false verse of that sweet oracle,     Turned to the sad enchantress once again,     And sought a respite from my gentle pain,     In citing every passage o'er and o'er     Of our communion - how on the sea-shore     We watched the ocean and the sky together,     Under the roof of blue Italian weather;     How I ran home through last year's thunder-storm,     And felt the transverse lightning linger warm     Upon my cheek - and how we often made     Feasts for each other, where good will outweighed     The frugal luxury of our country cheer,     As well it might, were it less firm and clear     Than ours must ever be; - and how we spun     A shroud of talk to hide us from the sun     Of this familiar life, which seems to be     But is not: - or is but quaint mockery     Of all we would believe, and sadly blame     The jarring and inexplicable frame     Of this wrong world: - and then anatomize     The purposes and thoughts of men whose eyes     Were closed in distant years; - or widely guess     The issue of the earth's great business,     When we shall be as we no longer are -     Like babbling gossips safe, who hear the war     Of winds, and sigh, but tremble not; - or how     You listened to some interrupted flow     Of visionary rhyme, - in joy and pain     Struck from the inmost fountains of my brain,     With little skill perhaps; - or how we sought     Those deepest wells of passion or of thought     Wrought by wise poets in the waste of years,     Staining their sacred waters with our tears;     Quenching a thirst ever to be renewed!     Or how I, wisest lady! then endued     The language of a land which now is free,     And, winged with thoughts of truth and majesty,     Flits round the tyrant's sceptre like a cloud,     And bursts the peopled prisons, and cries aloud,     'My name is Legion!' - that majestic tongue     Which Calderon over the desert flung     Of ages and of nations; and which found     An echo in our hearts, and with the sound     Startled oblivion; - thou wert then to me     As is a nurse - when inarticulately     A child would talk as its grown parents do.     If living winds the rapid clouds pursue,     If hawks chase doves through the aethereal way,     Huntsmen the innocent deer, and beasts their prey,     Why should not we rouse with the spirit's blast     Out of the forest of the pathless past     These recollected pleasures?     You are now     In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow     At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore     Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more.     Yet in its depth what treasures! You will see     That which was Godwin, - greater none than he     Though fallen - and fallen on evil times - to stand     Among the spirits of our age and land,     Before the dread tribunal of "to come"     The foremost, - while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb.     You will see Coleridge - he who sits obscure     In the exceeding lustre and the pure     Intense irradiation of a mind,     Which, with its own internal lightning blind,     Flags wearily through darkness and despair -     A cloud-encircled meteor of the air,     A hooded eagle among blinking owls. -     You will see Hunt - one of those happy souls     Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom     This world would smell like what it is - a tomb;     Who is, what others seem; his room no doubt     Is still adorned with many a cast from Shout,     With graceful flowers tastefully placed about;     And coronals of bay from ribbons hung,     And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung;     The gifts of the most learned among some dozens     Of female friends, sisters-in-law, and cousins.     And there is he with his eternal puns,     Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns     Thundering for money at a poet's door;     Alas! it is no use to say, 'I'm poor!'     Or oft in graver mood, when he will look     Things wiser than were ever read in book,     Except in Shakespeare's wisest tenderness. -     You will see Hogg, - and I cannot express     His virtues, - though I know that they are great,     Because he locks, then barricades the gate     Within which they inhabit; - of his wit     And wisdom, you'll cry out when you are bit.     He is a pearl within an oyster shell.     One of the richest of the deep; - and there     Is English Peacock, with his mountain Fair,     Turned into a Flamingo; - that shy bird     That gleams i' the Indian air - have you not heard     When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,     His best friends hear no more of him? - but you     Will see him, and will like him too, I hope,     With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope     Matched with this cameleopard - his fine wit     Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it;     A strain too learned for a shallow age,     Too wise for selfish bigots; let his page,     Which charms the chosen spirits of the time,     Fold itself up for the serener clime     Of years to come, and find its recompense     In that just expectation. - Wit and sense,     Virtue and human knowledge; all that might     Make this dull world a business of delight,     Are all combined in Horace Smith. - And these.     With some exceptions, which I need not tease     Your patience by descanting on, - are all     You and I know in London.     I recall     My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night.     As water does a sponge, so the moonlight     Fills the void, hollow, universal air -     What see you? - unpavilioned Heaven is fair,     Whether the moon, into her chamber gone,     Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan     Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep;     Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep,     Piloted by the many-wandering blast,     And the rare stars rush through them dim and fast: -     All this is beautiful in every land. -     But what see you beside? - a shabby stand     Of Hackney coaches - a brick house or wall     Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl     Of our unhappy politics; - or worse -     A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse     Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade,     You must accept in place of serenade -     Or yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring     To Henry, some unutterable thing.     I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit     Built round dark caverns, even to the root     Of the living stems that feed them - in whose bowers     There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers;     Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn     Trembles not in the slumbering air, and borne     In circles quaint, and ever-changing dance,     Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance,     Pale in the open moonshine, but each one     Under the dark trees seems a little sun,     A meteor tamed; a fixed star gone astray     From the silver regions of the milky way; -     Afar the Contadino's song is heard,     Rude, but made sweet by distance - and a bird     Which cannot be the Nightingale, and yet     I know none else that sings so sweet as it     At this late hour; - and then all is still -     Now - Italy or London, which you will!     Next winter you must pass with me; I'll have     My house by that time turned into a grave     Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care,     And all the dreams which our tormentors are;     Oh! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock, and Smith were there,     With everything belonging to them fair! -     We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek;     And ask one week to make another week     As like his father, as I'm unlike mine,     Which is not his fault, as you may divine.     Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine,     Yet let's be merry: we'll have tea and toast;     Custards for supper, and an endless host     Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies,     And other such lady-like luxuries, -     Feasting on which we will philosophize!     And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood,     To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood.     And then we'll talk; - what shall we talk about?     Oh! there are themes enough for many a bout     Of thought-entangled descant; - as to nerves -     With cones and parallelograms and curves     I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare     To bother me - when you are with me there.     And they shall never more sip laudanum,     From Helicon or Himeros (1); - well, come,     And in despite of God and of the devil,     We'll make our friendly philosophic revel     Outlast the leafless time; till buds and flowers     Warn the obscure inevitable hours,     Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew; -     'To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'