Little Anthology of PoemsLetteratura Inglese II a.a. 2010-2011 Second Semester

CD di Lingue e Culture Straniere Curriculum LCMC

(Prof. Nancy Isenberg)

Wordsworth: Alice Fell .........................................................................................2Tinturn Abbey ................................................................................4Female Vagrant ...............................................................................9Goody Blake and Harry Gill .........................................................18

Coleridge: The Dungeon .................................................................................23Kubla Kahn ...................................................................................24

Anna Laetitia Barbauld: Rights of Woman ..........................................................................27To Mr Coleridge ............................................................................29Inscription for an Ice-House .........................................................30

Keats: Ode to Psyche.................................................................................32Ode to a Nighingale.......................................................................34Ode on a Grecian Urn,...................................................................37Ode on Melancholy........................................................................39Ode to Autumn...............................................................................40La Belle Dame Sans Merci ...........................................................41

Shelley: Adonais .........................................................................................43

Byron: Beppo. A Venetian Story .............................................................59

1

William Wordsworth

Alice Fell, Or Poverty

The post-boy drove with fierce career,

For threatening clouds the moon had drowned;

When, as we hurried on, my ear

Was smitten with a startling sound.

As if the wind blew many ways, 5

I heard the sound,-and more and more;

It seemed to follow with the chaise,

And still I heard it as before.

At length I to the boy called out;

He stopped his horses at the word, 10

But neither cry, nor voice, nor shout,

Nor aught else like it, could be heard.

The boy then smacked his whip, and fast

The horses scampered through the rain;

But, hearing soon upon the blast 15

The cry, I bade him halt again.

Forthwith alighting on the ground,

'Whence comes,' said I, 'this piteous moan?'

And there a little Girl I found,

Sitting behind the chaise, alone. 20

'My cloak!' no other word she spake,

But loud and bitterly she wept,

As if her innocent heart would break;

And down from off her seat she leapt.

2

'What ails you, child?'-she sobbed 'Look here!' 25

I saw it in the wheel entangled,

A weather-beaten rag as e'er

From any garden scare-crow dangled.

There, twisted between nave and spoke,

It hung, nor could at once be freed; 30

But our joint pains unloosed the cloak,

A miserable rag indeed!

'And whither are you going, child,

To-night alone these lonesome ways?'

'To Durham,' answered she, half wild- 35

'Then come with me into the chaise.'

Insensible to all relief

Sat the poor girl, and forth did send

Sob after sob, as if her grief

Could never, never have an end. 40

'My child, in Durham do you dwell?'

She checked herself in her distress,

And said, 'My name is Alice Fell;

I'm fatherless and motherless.

'And I to Durham, Sir, belong.' 45

Again, as if the thought would choke

Her very heart, her grief grew strong;

And all was for her tattered cloak!

The chaise drove on; our journey's end

Was nigh; and, sitting by my side, 50

As if she had lost her only friend

She wept, nor would be pacified.

3

Up to the tavern-door we post;

Of Alice and her grief I told;

And I gave money to the host, 55

To buy a new cloak for the old.

'And let it be of duffil grey,

As warm a cloak as man can sell!'

Proud creature was she the next day,

The little orphan, Alice Fell!

William Wordsworth

LINES

WRITTEN A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY,

ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR,

July 13, 1798.

=====

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a sweet inland murmur. —Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, 5

Which on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 10

4

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Among the woods and copses lose themselves,

Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb

The wild green landscape. Once again I see 15

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,

With some uncertain notice, as might seem, 20

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire

The hermit sits alone.

                                     Though absent long,

These forms of beauty have not been to me,

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: 25

But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,

And passing even into my purer mind 30

With tranquil restoration:—feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,

As may have had no trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man's life;

His little, nameless, unremembered acts 35

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight 40

Of all this unintelligible world

Is lighten'd:—that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on,

5

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,

And even the motion of our human blood 45

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things. 50

                                                If this

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,

In darkness, and amid the many shapes

Of joyless day-light; when the fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, 55

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee

O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the wood

How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd though[t,]

With many recognitions dim and faint, 60

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again:

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food 65

For future years. And so I dare to hope

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, 70

Wherever nature led; more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,

And their glad animal movements all gone by,) 75

To me was all in all.—I cannot paint

6

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me 80

An appetite: a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, or any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more, 85

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts

Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompence. For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour 90

Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy 95

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean, and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man, 100

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods,

And mountains; and of all that we behold 105

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognize

In nature and the language of the sense,

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 110

7

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.

                                     Nor, perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more

Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

For thou art with me, here, upon the banks 115

Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,

My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart, and read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while 120

May I behold in thee what I was once,

My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead 125

From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 130

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb

Our chearful faith that all which we behold

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon 135

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain winds be free

To blow against thee: and in after years,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind 140

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then,

8

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 145

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,

If I should be, where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence, wilt thou then forget 150

That on the banks of this delightful stream

We stood together; and that I, so long

A worshipper of Nature, hither came,

Unwearied in that service: rather say

With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal 155

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

That after many wanderings, many years

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake. 160

William Wordworth,

The Female Vagrant

By Derwent's side my Father's cottage stood,

(The Woman thus her artless story told)

One field, a flock, and what the neighbouring flood

Supplied, to him were more than mines of gold.

Light was my sleep; my days in transport roll'd: 5

With thoughtless joy I stretch'd along the shore

My father's nets, or from the mountain fold

Saw on the distant lake his twinkling oar

Or watch'd his lazy boat still less'ning more and more

9

My father was a good and pious man, 10

An honest man by honest parents bred,

And I believe that, soon as I began

To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,

And in his hearing there my prayers I said:

And afterwards, by my good father taught, 15

I read, and loved the books in which I read;

For books in every neighbouring house I sought,

And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.

Can I forget what charms did once adorn

My garden, stored with pease, and mint, and thyme, 20

And rose and lilly for the sabbath morn?

The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;

The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;

My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied;

The cowslip-gathering at May's dewy prime; 25

The swans, that, when I sought the water-side,

From far to meet me came, spreading their snowy pride.

The staff I yet remember which upbore

The bending body of my active sire;

His seat beneath the honeyed sycamore 30

When the bees hummed, and chair by winter fire;

When market-morning came, the neat attire

With which, though bent on haste, myself I deck'd;

My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire,

When stranger passed, so often I have check'd; 35

The red-breast known for years, which at my casement peck'd.

The suns of twenty summers danced along,--

Ah! little marked, how fast they rolled away:

Then rose a stately hall our woods among,

And cottage after cottage owned its sway. 40

No joy to see a neighbouring house, or stray

10

Through pastures not his own, the master took;

My Father dared his greedy wish gainsay;

He loved his old hereditary nook,

And ill could I the thought of such sad parting brook. 45

But when he had refused the proffered gold,

To cruel injuries he became a prey,

Sore traversed in whate'er he bought and sold:

His troubles grew upon him day by day,

Till all his substance fell into decay. 50

His little range of water was denied; [1]

All but the bed where his old body lay.

All, all was seized, and weeping, side by side,

We sought a home where we uninjured might abide.

[Footnote 1: Several of the Lakes in the north of England are let 55

out to different Fishermen, in parcels marked out by imaginary lines

drawn from rock to rock.]

Can I forget that miserable hour,

When from the last hill-top, my sire surveyed,

Peering above the trees, the steeple tower 60

That on his marriage-day sweet music made?

Till then he hoped his bones might there be laid,

Close by my mother in their native bowers:

Bidding me trust in God, he stood and prayed,--

I could not pray:--through tears that fell in showers, 65

Glimmer'd our dear-loved home, alas! no longer ours!

There was a youth whom I had loved so long.

That when I loved him not I cannot say.

'Mid the green mountains many and many a song

We two had sung, like gladsome birds in May. 70

When we began to tire of childish play

We seemed still more and more to prize each other;

We talked of marriage and our marriage day;

11

And I in truth did love him like a brother,

For never could I hope to meet with such another. 75

His father said, that to a distant town

He must repair, to ply the artist's trade.

What tears of bitter grief till then unknown?

What tender vows our last sad kiss delayed!

To him we turned:--we had no other aid. 80

Like one revived, upon his neck I wept,

And her whom he had loved in joy, he said

He well could love in grief: his faith he kept;

And in a quiet home once more my father slept.

Four years each day with daily bread was blest, 85

By constant toil and constant prayer supplied.

Three lovely infants lay upon my breast;

And often, viewing their sweet smiles, I sighed,

And knew not why. My happy father died

When sad distress reduced the childrens' meal: 90

Thrice happy! that from him the grave did hide

The empty loom, cold hearth, and silent wheel,

And tears that flowed for ills which patience could not heal.

'Twas a hard change, an evil time was come;

We had no hope, and no relief could gain. 95

But soon, with proud parade, the noisy drum

Beat round, to sweep the streets of want and pain.

My husband's arms now only served to strain

Me and his children hungering in his view:

In such dismay my prayers and tears were vain: 100

To join those miserable men he flew;

And now to the sea-coast, with numbers more, we drew.

There foul neglect for months and months we bore,

Nor yet the crowded fleet its anchor stirred.

Green fields before us and our native shore, 105

12

By fever, from polluted air incurred,

Ravage was made, for which no knell was heard.

Fondly we wished, and wished away, nor knew,

'Mid that long sickness, and those hopes deferr'd,

That happier days we never more must view: 110

The parting signal streamed, at last the land withdrew.

But from delay the summer calms were past.

On as we drove, the equinoctial deep

Ran mountains-high before the howling blast.

We gazed with terror on the gloomy sleep 115

Of them that perished in the whirlwind's sweep,

Untaught that soon such anguish must ensue,

Our hopes such harvest of affliction reap,

That we the mercy of the waves should rue.

We readied the western world, a poor, devoted crew. 120

Oh I dreadful price of being to resign

All that is dear _in_ being! better far

In Want's most lonely cave till death to pine,

Unseen, unheard, unwatched by any star;

Or in the streets and walks where proud men are, 125

Better our dying bodies to obtrude,

Than dog-like, wading at the heels of war,

Protract a curst existence, with the brood

That lap (their very nourishment!) their brother's blood.

The pains and plagues that on our heads came down; 130

Disease and famine, agony and fear,

In wood or wilderness, in camp or town,

It would thy brain unsettle even to hear.

All perished--all, in one remorseless year,

Husband and children! one by one, by sword 135

And ravenous plague, all perished: every tear

13

Dried up, despairing, desolate, on board

A British ship I waked, as from a trance restored.

Peaceful as some immeasurable plain

By the first beams of dawning light impress'd; 140

In the calm sunshine slept the glittering main,

The very ocean has its hour of rest,

That comes not to the human mourner's breast.

Remote from man, and storms of mortal care,

A heavenly silence did the waves invest: 145

I looked and looked along the silent air,

Until it seemed to bring a joy to my despair.

Ah! how unlike those late terrific sleeps!

And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke:

The unburied dead that lay in festering heaps! 150

The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke!

The shriek that from the distant battle broke!

The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid host

Driven by the bomb's incessant thunder-stroke

To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick anguish toss'd, 155

Hope died, and fear itself in agony was lost!

Yet does that burst of woe congeal my frame,

When the dark streets appeared to heave and gape,

While like a sea the storming army came,

And Fire from hell reared his gigantic shape, 160

And Murder, by the ghastly gleam, and Rape

Seized their joint prey, the mother and the child!

But from these crazing thoughts my brain, escape!

--For weeks the balmy air breathed soft and mild,

And on the gliding vessel Heaven and Ocean smiled. 165

Some mighty gulph of separation past,

I seemed transported to another world:--

A thought resigned with pain, when from the mast

14

The impatient mariner the sail unfurl'd,

And whistling, called the wind that hardly curled 170

The silent sea. From the sweet thoughts of home,

And from all hope I was forever hurled.

For me--farthest from earthly port to roam

Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might

come. 175

And oft, robb'd of my perfect mind, I thought

At last my feet a resting-place had found:

Here will I weep in peace, (so fancy wrought,)

Roaming the illimitable waters round;

Here watch, of every human friend disowned, 180

All day, my ready tomb the ocean-flood--

To break my dream the vessel reached its bound:

And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,

And near a thousand tables pined, and wanted food.

By grief enfeebled was I turned adrift, 185

Helpless as sailor cast on desert rock;

Nor morsel to my mouth that day did lift,

Nor dared my hand at any door to knock.

I lay, where with his drowsy mates, the cock

From the cross timber of an out-house hung; 190

How dismal tolled, that night, the city clock!

At morn my sick heart hunger scarcely stung,

Nor to the beggar's language could I frame my tongue.

So passed another day, and so the third:

Then did I try, in vain, the crowd's resort, 195

In deep despair by frightful wishes stirr'd,

Near the sea-side I reached a ruined fort:

There, pains which nature could no more support,

With blindness linked, did on my vitals fall;

Dizzy my brain, with interruption short 200

15

Of hideous sense; I sunk, nor step could crawl,

And thence was borne away to neighbouring hospital.

Recovery came with food: but still, my brain

Was weak, nor of the past had memory. 210

I heard my neighbours, in their beds, complain

Of many things which never troubled me;

Of feet still bustling round with busy glee,

Of looks where common kindness had no part.

Of service done with careless cruelty, 215

Fretting the fever round the languid heart,

And groans, which, as they said, would make a dead man start.

These things just served to stir the torpid sense,

Nor pain nor pity in my bosom raised.

Memory, though slow, returned with strength: and thence 220

Dismissed, again on open day I gazed,

At houses, men, and common light, amazed.

The lanes I sought, and as the sun retired,

Came, where beneath the trees a faggot blazed;

The wild brood saw me weep, my fate enquired, 225

And gave me food, and rest, more welcome, more desired.

My heart is touched to think that men like these,

The rude earth's tenants, were my first relief:

How kindly did they paint their vagrant ease!

And their long holiday that feared not grief, 230

For all belonged to all, and each was chief.

No plough their sinews strained; on grating road

No wain they drove, and yet, the yellow sheaf

In every vale for their delight was stowed:

For them, in nature's meads, the milky udder flowed, 235

Semblance, with straw and panniered ass, they made

Of potters wandering on from door to door:

But life of happier sort to me pourtrayed,

16

And other joys my fancy to allure;

The bag-pipe dinning on the midnight moor 240

In barn uplighted, and companions boon

Well met from far with revelry secure,

In depth of forest glade, when jocund June

Rolled fast along the sky his warm and genial moon.

But ill it suited me, in journey dark 245

O'er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch;

To charm the surly house-dog's faithful bark,

Or hang on tiptoe at the lifted latch;

The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match,

The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill, 250

And ear still busy on its nightly watch,

Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill;

Besides, on griefs so fresh my thoughts were brooding still.

What could I do, unaided and unblest?

Poor Father! gone was every friend of thine: 255

And kindred of dead husband are at best

Small help, and, after marriage such as mine,

With little kindness would to me incline.

Ill was I then for toil or service fit:

With tears whose course no effort could confine, 260

By high-way side forgetful would I sit

Whole hours, my idle arms in moping sorrow knit.

I lived upon the mercy of the fields

And oft of cruelty the sky accused;

On hazard, or what general bounty yields. 265

Now coldly given, now utterly refused,

The fields I for my bed have often used:

But, what afflicts my peace with keenest ruth

Is, that I have my inner self abused,

17

Foregone the home delight of constant truth, 270

And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.

Three years a wanderer, often have I view'd,

In tears, the sun towards that country tend

Where my poor heart lost all its fortitude:

And now across this moor my steps I bend-- 275

Oh! tell me whither--for no earthly friend

Have I.--She ceased, and weeping turned away,

As if because her tale was at an end

She wept;--because she had no more to say

Of that perpetual weight which on her spirit lay. 280

William Wordsworth

Goody Blake and Harry Gill

Oh! what's the matter? what's the matter?

What is't that ails young Harry Gill?

That evermore his teeth they chatter,

Chatter, chatter, chatter still!

Of waistcoats Harry has no lack, 5

Good duffle grey, and flannel fine;

He has a blanket on his back,

And coats enough to smother nine.

In March, December, and in July,

'Tis all the same with Harry Gill; 10

The neighbours tell, and tell you truly,

His teeth they chatter, chatter still.

At night, at morning, and at noon,

'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;

Beneath the sun, beneath the moon, 15

18

His teeth they chatter, chatter still!

Young Harry was a lusty drover,

And who so stout of limb as he?

His cheeks were red as ruddy clover;

His voice was like the voice of three. 20

Old Goody Blake was old and poor;

Ill fed she was, and thinly clad;

And any man who passed her door

Might see how poor a hut she had.

All day she spun in her poor dwelling: 25

And then her three hours' work at night,

Alas! 'twas hardly worth the telling,

It would not pay for candle-light.

Remote from sheltered village-green,

On a hill's northern side she dwelt, 30

Where from sea-blasts the hawthorns lean,

And hoary dews are slow to melt.

By the same fire to boil their pottage,

Two poor old Dames, as I have known,

Will often live in one small cottage; 35

But she, poor Woman! housed alone.

'Twas well enough when summer came,

The long, warm, lightsome summer-day,

Then at her door the 'canty' Dame

Would sit, as any linnet, gay. 40

But when the ice our streams did fetter,

Oh then how her old bones would shake!

You would have said, if you had met her,

'Twas a hard time for Goody Blake.

Her evenings then were dull and dead: 45

19

Sad case it was, as you may think,

For very cold to go to bed;

And then for cold not sleep a wink.

O joy for her! whene'er in winter

The winds at night had made a rout; 50

And scattered many a lusty splinter

And many a rotten bough about.

Yet never had she, well or sick,

As every man who knew her says,

A pile beforehand, turf or stick, 55

Enough to warm her for three days.

Now, when the frost was past enduring,

And made her poor old bones to ache,

Could any thing be more alluring

Than an old hedge to Goody Blake? 60

And, now and then, it must be said,

When her old bones were cold and chill,

She left her fire, or left her bed,

To seek the hedge of Harry Gill.

Now Harry he had long suspected 65

This trespass of old Goody Blake;

And vowed that she should be detected--

That he on her would vengeance take.

And oft from his warm fire he'd go,

And to the fields his road would take; 70

And there, at night, in frost and snow,

He watched to seize old Goody Blake.

And once, behind a rick of barley,

Thus looking out did Harry stand:

The moon was full and shining clearly, 75

20

And crisp with frost the stubble land.

--He hears a noise--he's all awake--

Again?--on tip-toe down the hill

He softly creeps--'tis Goody Blake;

She's at the hedge of Harry Gill! 80

Right glad was he when he beheld her:

Stick after stick did Goody pull:

He stood behind a bush of elder,

Till she had filled her apron full.

When with her load she turned about, 85

The by-way back again to take;

He started forward, with a shout,

And sprang upon poor Goody Blake.

And fiercely by the arm he took her,

And by the arm he held her fast, 90

And fiercely by the arm he shook her,

And cried, "I've caught you then at last!"--

Then Goody, who had nothing said,

Her bundle from her lap let fall;

And, kneeling on the sticks, she prayed 95

To God that is the judge of all.

She prayed, her withered hand uprearing,

While Harry held her by the arm--

"God! who art never out of hearing,

O may he never more be warm!" 0 100

The cold, cold moon above her head,

Thus on her knees did Goody pray;

Young Harry heard what she had said:

And icy cold he turned away.

He went complaining all the morrow 110

21

That he was cold and very chill:

His face was gloom, his heart was sorrow,

Alas! that day for Harry Gill!

That day he wore a riding-coat,

But not a whit the warmer he: 115

Another was on Thursday brought,

And ere the Sabbath he had three.

'Twas all in vain, a useless matter,

And blankets were about him pinned;

Yet still his jaws and teeth they clatter; 120

Like a loose casement in the wind.

And Harry's flesh it fell away;

And all who see him say, 'tis plain,

That, live as long as live he may,

He never will be warm again. 125

No word to any man he utters,

A-bed or up, to young or old;

But ever to himself he mutters,

"Poor Harry Gill is very cold."

A-bed or up, by night or day; 130

His teeth they chatter, chatter still.

Now think, ye farmers all, I pray,

Of Goody Blake and Harry Gill!

22

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Dungeon

 

And this place our forefathers made for man!

20This is the process of our love and wisdom,

To each poor brother who offends against us -

Most innocent, perhaps -and what if guilty?

Is this the only cure? Merciful God! 5

Each pore and natural outlet shrivelled up

By Ignorance and parching Poverty,

His energies roll back upon his heart,

And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison,

They break out on him, like a loathsome plague-spot; 10

Then we call in our pampered mountebanks -

And this is their best cure! uncomforted

And friendless solitude, groaning and tears,

And savage faces, at the clanking hour,

Seen through the steam and vapours of his dungeon, 15

By the lamp's dismal twilgiht! So he lies

Circled with evil, till his very soul

Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed

By sights of ever more deformity!

With other ministrations thou, O Nature! 20

Healest thy wandering and distempered child:

Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,

Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,

23

Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,

Till he relent, and can no more endure 25

To be a jarring and a dissonant thing

Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;

But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,

His angry spirit healed and harmonized

By the benignant touch of Love and Beauty.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Kubla Khan

OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.

A FRAGMENT.

[Autumn of 1797 or (more likely) spring of 1798, published 1816, 1828, 1829, 1834]

Coleridge's note, published with the poem

The following fragment is here published at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity

[Lord Byron], and, as far as the Author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological

curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed poetic merits.

In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house

between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence

of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in

his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance,

in Purchas's Pilgrimage: ``Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately

garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.'' The Author

continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which

time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three

24

hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him

as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or

consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the

whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here

preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock,

and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise

and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general

purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the

rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast,

but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!

Then all the charm

Is broken--all that phantom-world so fair

Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,

And each mis-shape the other. Stay awile,

Poor youth! who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes--

The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon

The visions will return! And lo, he stays,

And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms

Come trembling back, unite, and now once more

The pool becomes a mirror.

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Author has frequently purposed to finish

for himself what had been originally, as it were, given to him: but the to-morrow is yet to come.

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing with

equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease.

STC's note on a manuscript copy

This fragment with a good deal more, not recoverable, composed, in a sort of Reverie brought on by

two grains of Opium taken to check a dysentery, at a Farm House between Porlock & Linton, a

quarter of a mile from Culbone Church, in the fall of the year, 1797.

25

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree :

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea. 5

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round :

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;

And here were forests ancient as the hills, 10

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !

A savage place ! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 15

By woman wailing for her demon-lover !

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced :

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 20

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 25

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war ! 30

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves ;

26

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device, 35

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw :

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played, 40

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long, 45

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !

His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 50

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Anna Laetitia Aikin Barbauld

(1743-1825)

The Rights of Women

Yes, injured Woman! rise, assert thy right!

Woman! too long degraded, scorned, opprest;

O born to rule in partial Law's despite,

Resume thy native empire o'er the breast!

27

Go forth arrayed in panoply divine; 5

That angel pureness which admits no stain;

Go, bid proud Man his boasted rule resign,

And kiss the golden sceptre of thy reign.

Go, gird thyself with grace; collect thy store

Of bright artillery glancing from afar; 10

Soft melting tones thy thundering cannon's roar,

Blushes and fears thy magazine of war.

Thy rights are empire: urge no meaner claim,--

Felt, not defined, and if debated, lost;

Like sacred mysteries, which withheld from fame, 15

Shunning discussion, are revered the most.

Try all that wit and art suggest to bend

Of thy imperial foe the stubborn knee;

Make treacherous Man thy subject, not thy friend;

Thou mayst command, but never canst be free. 20

Awe the licentious, and restrain the rude;

Soften the sullen, clear the cloudy brow:

Be, more than princes' gifts, thy favours sued;--

She hazards all, who will the least allow.

But hope not, courted idol of mankind, 25

On this proud eminence secure to stay;

Subduing and subdued, thou soon shalt find

Thy coldness soften, and thy pride give way.

Then, then, abandon each ambitious thought,

Conquest or rule thy heart shall feebly move, 30

In Nature's school, by her soft maxims taught,

That separate rights are lost in mutual love.

28

Anna Laetitia Aikin Barbauld

(1743-1825)

To Mr Coleridge

Midway the hill of science, after steep

And rugged paths that tire the unpractised feet,

A grove extends; in tangled mazes wrought,

And filled with strange enchantment: - dubious shapes

Flit through dim glades, and lure the eager foot 5

Of youthful ardour to eternal chase.

Dreams hang on every leaf: unearthly forms

Glide through the gloom; and mystic visions swim

Before the cheated sense. Athwart the mists,

Far into vacant space, huge shadows stretch 10

And seem realities; While things of life,

Obvious to sight and touch, all glowing round,

Fade to the hue of shadows. – Scruples here,

With filmy net, most like the autumnal webs

Of floating gossamer, arrest the foot 15

Of generous enterprise; and palsy hope

And fair ambition with the chilling touch

Of sickly hesitation and blank fear.

Nor seldom indolence these lawns among

Fixes herturf-built seat; and wears the garb 20

Of deep philosophy, and museful sits

In dreamy twilight or the vacant mind

Soothed by the whispering shade; for soothing soft

The shades; and vistas lengthening into air

With moonbeam rainbows tinted .-Here each mind 25

Of finer mould, acute and delicate,

In its high progress to eternal truth

Rests for a space, in fairy bowers entranced;

29

And loves the softened light and tender gloom;

Looks down indignant on the grosser world, 30

And matter's cumbrous shapings.

Youth beloved

Of Science – of the Muse beloved, - not here,

Not in the maze of ****physic lore,

Build thou thy place of resting! Lightly tread 35

The dangerous ground, on noble aims intent;

And be this Circe of the studious cell

Enjoyed, but still subservient. Active scenes

Shall soon with healthful spirit brace thy mind;

And fair exertion, for bright fame sustained; 40

For friends, for country, chase each spleen-fed fog

That blots the wide creation. –

Now heaven conduct thee with a parent's love!

Anna Laetitia Aikin Barbauld

(1743-1825)

Inscription for an Ice-House

Stranger, approach! within this iron door

Thrice locked and bolted, this rude arch beneath

That vaults with ponderous stone the cell; confined

By man, the great magician, who controuls

Fire, earth and air, and genii of the storm, 5

And bends the most remote and opposite things

To do him service and perform his will,–

A giant sits; stern Winter; here he piles,

While summer glows around, and southern gales

Dissolve the fainting world, his treasured snows 10

Within the rugged cave.–Stranger, approach!

30

He will not cramp thy limbs with sudden age,

Nor wither with his touch the coyest flower

That decks thy scented hair. Indignant here,

Like fettered Sampson when his might was spent 15

In puny feats to glad the festive halls

Of Gaza's wealthy sons; or he who sat

Midst laughing girls submiss, and patient twirled

The slender spindle in his sinewy grasp;

The rugged power, fair Pleasure's minister, 20

Exerts his art to deck the genial board;

Congeals the melting peach, the nectarine smooth,

Burnished and glowing from the sunny wall:

Darts sudden frost into the crimson veins

Of the moist berry; moulds the sugared hail: 25

Cools with his icy breath our flowing cups;

Or gives to the fresh dairy's nectared bowls

A quicker zest. Sullen he plies his task,

And on his shaking fingers counts the weeks

Of lingering Summer, mindful of his hour 30

To rush in whirlwinds forth, and rule the year.

31

John Keats

Ode to Psyche

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung

    By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,

And pardon that thy secrets should be sung

    Even unto thine own soft-conched ear:

Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see 5

    The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes?

I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,

    And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,

Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side

    In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof 10

    Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran

            A brooklet, scarce espied:

'Mid hush'd cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,

    Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,

They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass; 15

    Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;

    Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,

As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,

And ready still past kisses to outnumber

    At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love: 20

            The winged boy I knew;

    But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?

            His Psyche true!

O latest born and loveliest vision far

    Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy! 25

Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,

    Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;

Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,

        Nor altar heap'd with flowers;

32

Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan 30

        Upon the midnight hours;

No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet

    From chain-swung censer teeming;

No shrine, no globe, no oracle, no heat

    Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming. 35

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,

    Too, too late for the fond believing lyte,

When holy were the haunted forest boughs,

    Holy the air, the water, and the fire;

Yet even in these days so far retir'd 40

    From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,

    Fluttering among the faint Olympians,

I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan

        Upon the midnight hours; 45

Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet

    From swinged censer teeming;

Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat

    Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane 50

    In some untrodden region of my mind,

Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,

    Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:

Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees

    Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; 55

And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,

    The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;

And in the midst of this wide quietness

A rosy sanctuary will I dress

With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain, 60

    With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,

With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,

33

    Who breeding glowers, will never breed the same:

And there shall be for thee all soft delight

    That shadowy thought can win, 65

A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,

    To let the warm Love in!

 

John Keats

Ode to a Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

    My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

    One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 5

    But being too happy in thine happiness, -

        That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,

                In some melodious plot

    Of beechen green and shadows numberless,

        Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

    Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

    Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South, 15

    Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

        With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

                And purple-stained mouth;

    That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

        And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 20

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

    What thou among the leaves hast never known,

34

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

    Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, 25

    Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

        Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

                And leaden-eyed despairs,

    Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

        Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 30

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

    Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

    Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night, 35

    And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

        Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

                But here there is no light,

    Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

        Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

    Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

    Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45

    White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

        Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

                And mid-May's eldest child,

    The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

        The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

    I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

    To take into the air my quiet breath;

35

Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55

    To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

        While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

                In such an ecstasy!

    Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -

        To thy high requiem become a sod. 60

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

    No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

    In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 65

    Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

        She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

                The same that oft-times hath

    Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

        Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

    To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

    As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 75

    Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

        Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

                In the next valley-glades:

    Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

        Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep? 80

36

John Keats

Ode on a Grecian Urn 

 

THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,

  Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

  A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape 5

  Of deities or mortals, or of both,

    In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

  What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

  What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

    What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 10 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

  Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

  Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15

  Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

    Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

  She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20

 

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

  Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

  For ever piping songs for ever new;

37

More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25

  For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

    For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

  That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,

    A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 30       

 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

  To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

  And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore, 35

  Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

    Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

  Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

    Why thou art desolate, can e’er return. 40    

 

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

  Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

  Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 45

  When old age shall this generation waste,

    Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

  “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all

    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 50        

38

John Keats

Ode on Melancholy

NO, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

Make not your rosary of yew-berries, 5

Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;

For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. 10

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, 15

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. 20

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;

And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

Ay, in the very temple of Delight 25

Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;

39

His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,

And be among her cloudy trophies hung. 30

John Keats

Ode to Autumn 

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,  

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;  

Conspiring with him how to load and bless  

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;  

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,          5

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;  

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells  

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,  

And still more, later flowers for the bees,  

Until they think warm days will never cease;   10

For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.  

  

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?  

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find  

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,  

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;   15

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,  

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook  

Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:  

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep  

Steady thy laden head across a brook;   20

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,  

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.  

  

40

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—  

While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day   25

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;  

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn  

Among the river-sallows, borne aloft  

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;  

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;   30

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft  

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;  

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.  

John Keats

La Belle Dame Sans MerciI.

O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,   

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has wither’d from the lake,   

And no birds sing.  

II.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!        5   

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,   

And the harvest’s done.  

III.

I see a lily on thy brow   

With anguish moist and fever dew,        10

And on thy cheeks a fading rose   

Fast withereth too.  

41

IV.

I met a lady in the meads,   

Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,        15   

And her eyes were wild.  

V.

I made a garland for her head,   

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She look’d at me as she did love,  

And made sweet moan.        20  

VI.

I set her on my pacing steed,   

And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing   

A faery’s song.  

VII.

She found me roots of relish sweet,        25   

And honey wild, and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said—   

“I love thee true.”  

VIII

She took me to her elfin grot,   

And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore,        30

And there I shut her wild wild eyes   

With kisses four.  

IX.

And there she lulled me asleep,   

And there I dream’d— Ah! woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dream’d        35   

On the cold hill’s side.  

42

X.

I saw pale kings and princes too,   

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci   

Hath thee in thrall!”        40  

XI.

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,   

With horrid warning gaped wide, A

nd I awoke and found me here,   

On the cold hill’s side.  

XII.

And this is why I sojourn here,        45   

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake,   

And no birds sing.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Adonais

I weep for Adonais-he is dead!

O, weep for Adonais! though our tears

Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!

And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years

To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 5

And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me

Died Adonais; till the Future dares

Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be

An echo and a light unto eternity!"

43

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 10

When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies

In darkness? where was lorn Urania

When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,

Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise

She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 15

Rekindled all the fading melodies

With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,

He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

O, weep for Adonais-he is dead!

Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep! 20

Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed

Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep

Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;

For he is gone, where all things wise and fair

Descend;-oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 25

Will yet restore him to the vital air;

Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

Most musical of mourners, weep again!

Lament anew, Urania!-He died,

Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 30

Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride,

The priest, the slave, and the liberticide

Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite

Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,

Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite 35

Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!

Not all to that bright station dared to climb;

And happier they their happiness who knew,

Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 40

In which suns perished; others more sublime,

44

Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,

Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;

And some yet live, treading the thorny road

Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode. 45

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished-

The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,

Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,

And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;

Most musical of mourners, weep anew! 50

Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,

The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew

Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;

The broken lily lies-the storm is overpast.

To that high Capital, where kingly Death 55

Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,

He came; and bought, with price of purest breath,

A grave among the eternal.-Come away!

Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day

Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still 60

He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;

Awake him not! surely he takes his fill

Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.

He will awake no more, oh, never more!-

Within the twilight chamber spreads apace 65

The shadow of white Death, and at the door

Invisible Corruption waits to trace

His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;

The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe

Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 70

So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law

Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.

45

O, weep for Adonais!-The quick Dreams,

The passion-winged Ministers of thought,

Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 75

Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught

The love which was its music, wander not,-

Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,

But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot

Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, 80

They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again.

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head,

And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries,

"Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead;

See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, 85

Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies

A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain."

Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!

She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain

She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 90

One from a lucid urn of starry dew

Washed his light limbs as if embalming them;

Another clipped her profuse locks, and threw

The wreath upon him, like an anadem,

Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem; 95

Another in her wilful grief would break

Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem

A greater loss with one which was more weak;

And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek.

Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 100

That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath

Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit,

And pass into the panting heart beneath

With lightning and with music: the damp death

46

Quenched its caress upon his icy lips; 105

And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath

Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips,

It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.

And others came... Desires and Adorations,

Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies, 110

Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations

Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies;

And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,

And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam

Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,\ 115

Came in slow pomp;-the moving pomp might seem

Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.

All he had loved, and moulded into thought,

From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,

Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 120

Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,

Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground,

Dimmed the aereal eyes that kindle day;

Afar the melancholy thunder moaned,

Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, 125

And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,

And feeds her grief with his remembered lay,

And will no more reply to winds or fountains,

Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, 130

Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day;

Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear

Than those for whose disdain she pined away

Into a shadow of all sounds:-a drear

Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. 135

47

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down

Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were,

Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown,

For whom should she have waked the sullen year?

To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear 140

Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both

Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere

Amid the faint companions of their youth,

With dew all turned to tears; odour, to sighing ruth.

Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale 145

Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain;

Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale

Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain

Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain,

Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 150

As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain

Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast,

And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest!

Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,

But grief returns with the revolving year; 155

The airs and streams renew their joyous tone;

The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear;

Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Season's bier;

The amorous birds now pair in every brake,

And build their mossy homes in field and brere; 160

And the green lizard, and the golden snake,

Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.

Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean

A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst

As it has ever done, with change and motion, 165

From the great morning of the world when first

God dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersed,

48

The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light;

All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst;

Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight 170

The beauty and the joy of their renewed might.

The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender,

Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath;

Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour

Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death 175

And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath;

Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows

Be as a sword consumed before the sheath

By sightless lightning?-the intense atom glows

A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. 180

Alas! that all we loved of him should be,

But for our grief, as if it had not been,

And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!

Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene

The actors or spectators? Great and mean 185

Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow.

As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,

Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,

Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.

He will awake no more, oh, never more! 190

"Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother, rise

Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core,

A wound more fierce than his with tears and sighs."

And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes,

And all the Echoes whom their sister's song 195

Had held in holy silence, cried: "Arise!"

Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung,

From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung.

49

She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs

Our of the East, and follows wild and drear 200

The golden Day, which, on eternal wings,

Even as a ghost abandoning a bier,

Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear

So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania;

So saddened round her like an atmosphere 205

Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way

Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay.

Our of her secret Paradise she sped,

Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel,

And human hearts, which to her aery tread 210

Yielding not, wounded the invisible

Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell:

And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they,

Rent the soft Form they never could repel,

Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 215

Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.

In the death-chamber for a moment Death,

Shamed by the presence of that living Might,

Blushed to annihilation, and the breath

Revisited those lips, and Life's pale light 220

Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight.

"Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,

As silent lightning leaves the starless night!

Leave me not!" cried Urania: her distress

Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress. 225

"'Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;

Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;

And in my heartless breast and burning brain

That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,

With food of saddest memory kept alive, 230

50

Now thou art dead, as if it were a part

Of thee, my Adonais! I would give

All that I am to be as thou now art!

But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart!

"O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, 235

Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men

Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart

Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?

Defenceless as thou wert, oh, where was then

Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear? 240

Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when

Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere,

The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like deer.

"The herded wolves, bold only to pursue;

The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead; 245

The vultures to the conqueror's banner true

Who feed where Desolation first has fed,

And whose wings rain contagion;-how they fled,

When, like Apollo, from his golden bow

The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 250

And smiled!-The spoilers tempt no second blow,

They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.

"The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn;

He sets, and each ephemeral insect then

Is gathered into death without a dawn, 255

And the immortal stars awake again;

So is it in the world of living men:

A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight

Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when

It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 260

Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night."

51

Thus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came,

Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent;

The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame

Over his living head like Heaven is bent, 265

An early but enduring monument,

Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song

In sorrow; from her wilds Irene sent

The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,

And Love taught Grief to fall like music from his tongue. 270

Midst others of less note, came one frail Form,

A phantom among men; companionless

As the last cloud of an expiring storm

Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess, 275

Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness,

Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray

With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness,

And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,

Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey. 280

A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift-

A Love in desolation masked;-a Power

Girt round with weakness;-it can scarce uplift

The weight of the superincumbent hour;

It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 285

A breaking billow;-even whilst we speak

Is it not broken? On the withering flower

The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek

The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.

His head was bound with pansies overblown, 290

And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue;

And a light spear topped with a cypress cone,

Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew

Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew,

52

Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart 295

Shook the weak hand that grasped it; of that crew

He came the last, neglected and apart;

A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart.

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan

Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band 300

Who in another's fate now wept his own,

As in the accents of an unknown land

He sung new sorrow; sad Urania scanned

The Stranger's mien, and murmured: "Who art thou?"

He answered not, but with a sudden hand 305

Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow,

Which was like Cain's or Christ's-oh! that it should be so!

What softer voice is hushed over the dead?

Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?

What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, 310

In mockery of monumental stone,

The heavy heart heaving without a moan?

If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,

Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one,

Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs, 315

The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice.

Our Adonais has drunk poison-oh!

What deaf and viperous murderer could crown

Life's early cup with such a draught of woe?

The nameless worm would now itself disown: 320

It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone

Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong,

But what was howling in one breast alone,

Silent with expectation of the song,

Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. 325

53

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame!

Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me,

Thou noteless blot on a remembered name!

But be thyself, and know thyself to be!

And ever at thy season be thou free 330

To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow:

Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee;

Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow,

And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt-as now.

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 335

Far from these carrion kites that scream below;

He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;

Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now-

Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow

Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 340

A portion of the Eternal, which must glow

Through time and change, unquenchably the same,

Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep-

He hath awakened from the dream of life- 345

'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep

With phantoms an unprofitable strife,

And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife

Invulnerable nothings.-We decay

Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief 350

Convulse us and consume us day by day,

And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

He has outsoared the shadow of our night;

Envy and calumny and hate and pain,

And that unrest which men miscall delight, 355

Can touch him not and torture not again;

From the contagion of the world's slow stain

54

He is secure, and now can never mourn

A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain;

Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, 360

With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

He lives, he wakes-'tis Death is dead, not he;

Mourn not for Adonais.-Thou young Dawn,

Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee

The spirit thou lamentest is not gone; 365

Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan!

Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air

Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown

O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare

Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair! 370

He is made one with Nature: there is heard

His voice in all her music, from the moan

Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird;

He is a presence to be felt and known

In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 375

Spreading itself where'er that Power may move

Which has withdrawn his being to its own;

Which wields the world with never-wearied love,

Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.

He is a portion of the loveliness 400

Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear

His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress

Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there

All new successions to the forms they wear;

Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight 405

To its own likeness, as each mass may bear;

And bursting in its beauty and its might

From trees and beasts and men into the Heavens' light.

55

The splendours of the firmament of time

May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not; 410

Like stars to their appointed height they climb,

And death is a low mist which cannot blot

The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought

Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,

And love and life contend in it, for what 415

Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there

And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.

The inheritors of unfulfilled renown

Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought,

Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton 420

Rose pale,-his solemn agony had not

Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought

And as he fell and as he lived and loved

Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot,

Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved: 425

Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved.

And many more, whose names on Earth are dark,

But whose transmitted effluence cannot die

So long as fire outlives the parent spark,

Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 430

"Thou art become as one of us," they cry,

"It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long

Swung blind in unascended majesty,

Silent alone amid an Heaven of Song.

Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!" 435

Who mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth,

Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright.

Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth;

As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light

Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 440

56

Satiate the void circumference: then shrink

Even to a point within our day and night;

And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink

When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink.

Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, 445

Oh, not of him, but of our joy: 'tis nought

That ages, empires, and religions there

Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought;

For such as he can lend,-they borrow not

Glory from those who made the world their prey; 450

And he is gathered to the kings of thought

Who waged contention with their time's decay,

And of the past are all that cannot pass away.

Go thou to Rome,-at once the Paradise,

The grave, the city, and the wilderness; 455

And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,

And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress

The bones of Desolation's nakedness

Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead

Thy footsteps to a slope of green access 460

Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead

A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread;

And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time

Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;

And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 465

Pavilioning the dust of him who planned

This refuge for his memory, doth stand

Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath,

A field is spread, on which a newer band

Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, 470

Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.

57

Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet

To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned

Its charge to each; and if the seal is set,

Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind, 475

Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find

Thine own well full, if thou returnest home,

Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind

Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.

What Adonais is, why fear we to become? 480

The One remains, the many change and pass;

Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,

Stains the white radiance of Eternity,

Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Die, 485

If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!

Follow where all is fled!-Rome's azure sky,

Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak

The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.

Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart? 490

Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here

They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!

A light is passed from the revolving year,

And man, and woman; and what still is dear

Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 495

The soft sky smiles,-the low wind whispers near:

'Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,

No more let Life divide what Death can join together.

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,

That Beauty in which all things work and move, 500

That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse

Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love

Which through the web of being blindly wove

58

By man and beast and earth and air and sea,

Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 505

The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,

Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

The breath whose might I have invoked in song

Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven

Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 510

Whose sails were never to the tempest given;

The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!

I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;

Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,

The soul of Adonais, like a star, 515

Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

George Gordon Lord Byron

B E P P O

A VENETIAN STORY

1818

Rosalind:  Farewell, Monsieur Traveller:  Look you lisp, and wear strange suits; disable all the

benefits of your own country; be out of love with your Nativity, and almost chide God for making

you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think that you have swam in a Gondola. --- As You

Like It, Act IV., Scene i.

Annotation of the Commentators.

That is, been at Venice, which was much visited by the young English gentlemen of those times,

and was then what Paris is now --- the seat of all dissoluteness. --- S.A.

I

'T is known, at least it should be, that throughout

59

All countries of the Catholic persuasion,

Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about,

The people take their fill of recreation,

And buy repentance, ere they grow devout,

However high their rank, or low their station,

With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masking,

And other things which may be had for asking.

 

II.

The moment night with dusky mantle covers

The skies (and the more duskily the better),

The time less liked by husbands than by lovers

Begins, and prudery flings aside her fetter;

And gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers,

Giggling with all the gallants who beset her;

And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming,

Guitars, and every other sort of strumming.

 

III.

And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical,

Masks of all times and nations, Turks and Jews,

And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical,

Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos;

All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical,

All people, as their fancies hit, may choose,

But no one in these parts may quiz the clergy, ---

Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge ye.

 

IV.

You'd better walk about begirt with briars,

Instead of coat and smallclothes, than put on

A single stitch reflecting upon friars,

Although you swore it only was in fun;

They'd haul you o'er the coals, and stir the fires

60

Of Phlegethon with every mother's son,

Nor say one mass to cool the caldron's bubble

That boil'd your bones, unless you paid them double.

 

V.

But saving this, you may put on whate'er

You like by way of doublet, cape, or cloak.

Such as in Monmouth-street, or in Rag Fair,

Would rig you out in seriousness or joke;

And even in Italy such places are,

With prettier name in softer accents spoke,

For, bating Covent Garden, I can hit on

No place that's called "Piazza" in Great Britain.

 

VI.

This feast is named the Carnival, which being

Interpreted, implies "farewell to flesh:"

So call'd, because the name and thing agreeing,

Through Lent they live on fish, both salt and fresh.

But why they usher Lent with so much glee in,

Is more than I can tell, although I guess

'Tis as we take a glass with friends at parting,

In the stage-coach or packet, just at starting,

 

VII.

And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes,

And solid meats, and highly spiced ragouts,

To live for forty days on ill-dress'd fishes,

Because they have no sauces to their stews;

A thing which causes many "poohs" and "pishes,"

And several oaths (which would not suit the Muse),

From travellers accustom'd from a boy

To eat their salmon, at the least, with soy;

 

61

VIII.

And therefore humbly I would recommend

"The curious in fish-sauce," before they cross

The sea, to bid their cook, or wife, or friend,

Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in gross

(Or if set out beforehand, these may send

By any means least liable to loss)

Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Harvey,

Or by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye;

 

IX.

That is to say, if your religion's Roman,

And you at Rome would do as Romans do,

According to the proverb, --- although no man

If foreign, is obliged to fast; and you

If Protestant, or sickly, or a woman,

Would rather dine in sin on a ragout ---

Dine and be d----d! I don't mean to be coarse,

But that's the penalty, to say no worse.

 

X.

Of all the places where the Carnival

Was most facetious in the days of yore,

For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball,

And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more

Than I have time to tell now, or at all,

Venice the bell from every city bore, ---

And at the moment when I fix my story,

That sea-born city was in all her glory.

 

XI.

They've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians,

Black-eyes, arch'd brows, and sweet expressions still;

Such as of old were copied from the Grecians,

62

In ancient arts by moderns mimick'd ill;

And like so many Venuses of Titian's

(The best's at Florence --- see it, if ye will),

They look when leaning over the balcony,

Or stepp'd from out a picture by Giorgione,

 

XII.

Whose tints are truth and beauty at their best;

And when you to Manfrini's palace go,

That picture (howsoever fine the rest)

Is loveliest to my mind of all the show;

It may perhaps be also to your zest,

And that's the cause I rhyme upon it so:

'Tis but a portrait of his son, and wife,

And self; but such a woman! love in life!

 

XIII.

Love in full life and length, not love ideal,

No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name,

But something better still, so very real,

That the sweet model must have been the same;

A thing that you would purchase, beg, or steal,

Were 't not impossible, besides a shame:

The face recalls some face, as't were with pain,

You once have seen, but ne'er will see again.

 

XIV.

One of those forms which flit by us, when we

Are young, and fix our eyes on every face;

And, oh! the loveliness at times we see

In momentary gliding, the soft grace,

The youth, the bloom, the beauty which agree,

In many a nameless being we retrace,

whose course, and home we knew not, nor shall know,

63

Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below.

 

XV.

I said that like a picture by Giorgione

Venetian women were, and so they are,

Particularly seen from a balcony

(For beauty's sometimes best set off afar),

And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni,

They peep from out the blind, or o'er the bar;

And truth to say, they're mostly very pretty,

And rather like to show it, more's the pity!

 

XVI.

For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs,

Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter,

Which flies on wings of light-heel'd Mercuries,

Who do such things because they know no better;

And then, God knows what mischief may arise,

When love links two young people in one fetter,

Vile assignations, and adulterous beds,

Elopements, broken vows, and hearts, and heads.

 

XVII.

Shakespeare described the sex in Desdemona

As very fair, but yet suspect in fame,

And to this day from Venice to Verona

Such matters may be probably the same,

Except that since those times was never known a

Husband whom mere suspicion could inflame

To suffocate a wife no more than twenty,

Because she had a "cavalier servente."

 

XVIII.

Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous)

64

Is of a fair complexion altogether,

Not like that sooty devil of Othello's,

Which smothers women in a bed of feather,

But worthier of these much more jolly fellows,

When weary of the matrimonial tether

His head for such a wife no mortal bothers,

But takes at once another, or another's.

 

XIX.

Didst ever see a Gondola? For fear

You should not, I'll describe it you exactly:

"Tis a long cover'd boat that's common here,

Carved at the prow, build lightly, but compactly,

Row'd by two rowers, each call'd "Gondolier,"

It glides along the water looking blackly,

Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe,

Where none can make out what you say or do.

 

XX.

And up and down the long canals they go,

And under the Rialto shoot along,

By night and day, all paces, swift or slow,

And round the theatres, a sable throng,

They wait in their dusk livery of woe, ---

But not to them do woeful things belong,

For sometimes they contain a deal of fun,

Like mourning coaches when the funeral's done.

 

XXI.

But to my story. --- 'Twas some years ago,

It may be thirty, forty, more or less,

The Carnival was at its height, and so

Were all kinds of buffoonery and dress;

A certain lady went to see the show,

65

Her real name I know not, nor can guess,

And so we'll call her Laura, if you please,

Because it slips into my verse with ease.

 

XXII.

She was not old, nor young, nor at the years

Which certain people call a "certain age,"

Which yet the most uncertain age appears,

Because I never heard, nor could engage

A person yet by prayers, or bribes, or tears,

To name, define by speech, or write on page,

The period meant precisely by that word, ---

Which surely is exceedingly absurd.

 

 

XXIII.

Laura was blooming still, had made the best

Of time, and time return'd the compliment,

She look'd extremely well where'er she went;

A pretty woman is a welcome guest,

And Laura's brow a frown had rarely bent;

Indeed, she shone all smiles, and seem'd to flatter

Mankind with her black eyes for looking at her.

 

XXIV.

She was a married woman; 'tis convenient,

Because in Christian countries 'tis a rule

To view their little slips with eyes more lenient;

Whereas if single ladies play the fool

(Unless within the period intervenient

A well-times wedding makes the scandal cool),

I don't know how they ever can get over it,

Except they manage never to discover it.

 

66

XXV.

Her husband sail'd upon the Adriatic,

And made some voyages, too, in other seas,

And when he lay in quarantine for pratique

(A forty days' precaution 'gainst disease),

His wife would mount, at times, her highest attic,

For thence she could discern the ship with ease;

He was a merchant trading to Aleppo,

His name Giuseppe, call'd more briefly, Beppo.

 

XXVI.

He was a man as dusky as a Spaniard,

Sunburnt with travel, yet a portly figure;

Though colour'd, as it were, within a tan-yard,

He was a person both of sense and vigour ---

A better seaman never yet did man yard;

And she, although her manners show'd no rigour,

Was deem'd a woman of the strictest principle,

So much as to be thought almost invincible.

 

XXVII.

But several years elapsed since they had met;

Some people thought the ship was lost, and some

That he had somehow blunder'd into debt,

And did not like the thought of steering home;

And there were several offer'd any bet,

Or that he would, or that he would not come;

For most men (till by losing render'd sager)

Will back their own opinions with a wager.

 

XXVIII.

'Tis said that their last parting was pathetic,

As partings often are, or ought to be,

And their presentiment was quite prophetic,

67

That they should never more each other see,

(A sort of morbid feeling, half poetic,

Which I have known occur in two or three,)

When kneeling on the shore upon her sad knee

He left this Adriatic Ariadne.

 

XXIX.

And Laura waited long, and wept a little,

And thought of wearing weeds, as well she might;

She almost lost all appetite for victual,

And could not sleep with ease along at night;

She deem'd the window-frames and shutters brittle

Against a daring housebreaker or sprite,

And so she thought it prudent to connect her.

With a vice-husband, chiefly to protect her.

 

XXX.

She chose, (and what is there they will not choose,

If only you will but oppose their choice?)

Till Beppo should return from his long cruise,

And bid once more her faithful heart rejoice,

A man some women like, and yet abuse ---

A coxcomb was he by the public voice;

A Count of wealth, they said, as well as quality,

And in his pleasures of great liberality.

 

XXXI.

And then he was A Count, and then he knew

Music, and dancing, fiddling, French and Tuscan;

The last not easy, be it known to you.

For few Italians speak the right Etruscan.

He was a critic upon operas, too,

And knew all niceties of the sock and buskin;

And no Venetian audience could endure a

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Song, scene, or air, when he cried "seccatura!"

 

XXXII.

His "bravo" was decisive, for that sound

Hush'd "Academie" sigh'd in silent awe;

The fiddlers trembled as he look'd around,

For fear of some false note's detected flaw;

The "prima donna's" tuneful heart would bound,

Dreading the deep damnation of his "bah!"

Soprano, basso, even the contra-alto,

Wish'd him five fathom under the Rialto.

 

XXXIII.

He patronised the Improvisatori,

Nay, could himself extemporise some stanzas,

Wrote rhymes, sang songs, could also tell a story,

Sold pictures, and was skilful in the dance as

Italians can be, though in this their glory

Must surely yield the palm to that which France has;

In short, he was a perfect cavaliero,

And to his very valet seem'd a hero.

 

XXIV.

Then he was faithful too, as well as amorous;

So that no sort of female could complain,

Although they're now and then a little clamourous,

He never put the pretty souls in pain;

His heart was one of those which most enamour us,

Wax to receive, and marble to retain:

He was a lover of the good old school,

Who still become more constant as they cool.

 

XXXV.

No wonder such accomplishments should turn

69

A female head, however sage and steady ---

With scarce a hope that Beppo could return,

In law he was almost as good as dead, he

Nor sent, nor wrote, nor show'd the least concern,

And she had waited several years already;

And really if a man won't let us know

That he's alive, he's dead, or should be so.

 

XXXVI.

Besides, within the Alps, to every woman,

(Although, God knows, it is a grievous sin,)

'Tis, I may say, permitted to have two men;

I can't tell who first brought the custom in,

But "Cavalier Serventes" are quite common,

And no one notices nor cares a pin;

And we may call this (not to say the worst)

A second marriage which corrupts the first.

 

XXXVII.

The word was formerly a "Cicisbeo,"

But that is now grown vulgar and indecent;

The Spaniards call the person a "Cortejo,"

For the same mode subsists in Spain, though recent;

In short, it reaches from the Po to Teio,

And may perhaps at last be o'er the sea sent:

But Heaven preserve Old England from such courses!

Or what becomes of damage and divorces?

 

XXXVIII.

However, I still think, with all due deference

To the fair single part of the creation,

That married ladies should preserve the preference

In tête-à-tête or general conversation ---

And this I say without peculiar reference

70

To England, France, or any other nation ---

Because they know the world, and are at ease,

And being natural, naturally please.

 

XXXIX.

"Tis true, your budding Miss is very charming,

But shy and awkward at first coming out,

So much alarm'd, that she is quite alarming,

All Giggle, Blush; half Pertness, and half-Pout;

And glancing at Mamma, for fear there's harm in

What you, she, it, or they, may be about,

The nursery still lisps out in all they utter ---

Besides, they always smell of bread and butter.

 

XL.

But "Cavalier Servente" is the phrase

Used in politest circles to express

This supernumerary slave, who stays

Close to the lady as a part of dress,

Her word the only law which he obeys.

His is no sinecure, as you may guess;

Coach, servants, gondola, he goes to call,

And carries fan and tippet, gloves and shawl.

 

XLI.

With all its sinful doings, I must say,

That Italy's a pleasant place to me,

Who love to see the Sun shine every day,

And vines (not nail'd to walls) from tree to tree

Festoon'd, much like the back scene of a play,

Or melodrame, which people flock to see,

When the first act is ended by a dance

In vineyards copied from the south of France.

 

71

XLII.

I like on Autumn evenings to ride out,

Without being forced to bid my groom be sure

My cloak is round his middle strapp'd about,

Because the skies are not the most secure;

I know too that, if stopp'd upon my route,

Where the green alleys windingly allure,

Reeling with grapes red waggons choke the way, ---

In England 't would be dung, dust, or a dray.

 

XLIII.

I also like to dine on becaficas,

To see the Sun set, sure he'll rise tomorrow,

Not through a misty morning twinkling weak as

A drunken man's dead eye in maudlin sorrow,

But with all Heaven t'himself; the day will break as

Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced to borrow

That sort of farthing candlelight which glimmers

Where reeking London's smoky caldron simmers.

 

XLIV.

I love the language, that soft bastard Latin,

Which melts like kisses from a female mouth,

And sounds as if it should be writ on satin,

With syllables which breathe of the sweet South,

And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in,

That not a single accent seems uncouth,

Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural,

Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all.

 

XLV.

I like the women too (forgive my folly),

From the rich peasant cheek of ruddy bronze,

And large black eyes that flash on you a volley

72

Of rays that say a thousand things at once,

To the high dama's brow, more melancholy,

But clear, and with a wild and liquid glance,

Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,

Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.

 

XLVI.

Eve of the land which still is Paradise!

Italian beauty! didst thou not inspire

Raphael, who died in thy embrace, and vies

With all we know of Heaven, or can desire,

In what he hath bequeath'd us? --- in what guise,

Though flashing from the fervour of the lyre,

Would words describe thy past and present glow,

While yet Canova can create below?

 

XLVII.

"England! with all thy faults I love thee still,"

I said at Calais, and have not forgot it;

I like to speak and lucubrate my fill;

I like the government (but that is not it);

I like the freedom of the press and quill;

I like the Hapeas Corpus (when we've got it);

I like a parliamentary debate,

Particularly when 'tis not too late;

 

XLVIII.

I like the taxes, when they're not too many;

I like a seacoal fire, when not too dear;

I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any;

Have no objection to a pot of beer;

I like the weather, when it is not rainy,

That is, I like two months of every year,

And so God save the Regent, Church, and King!

73

Which means that I like all and everything.

 

XLIX.

Our standing army, and disbanded seamen,

Poor's rate, Reform, my own, the nation's debt,

Our little riots just to show we are free men,

Our trifling bankruptcies in the Gazette,

Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women,

All these I can forgive, and those forget,

And greatly venerate our recent glories,

And wish they were not owing to the Tories.

 

L.

But to my tale of Laura, --- for I find

Digression is a sin, that by degrees

Becomes exceeding tedious to my mind,

And, therefore, may the reader too displease ---

The gentle reader, who may wax unkind,

And caring little for the author's ease,

Insist on knowing what he means, a hard

And hapless situation for a bard.

 

LI.

Oh that I had the art of easy writing

What should be easy reading! could I scale

Parnassus, where the Muses sit inditing

Those pretty poems never known to fail,

How quickly would I print (the world delighting)

A Grecian, Syrian, or Assyrian tale;

And sell you, mix'd with western sentimentalism,

Some samples of the finest Orientalism!

 

LII.

But I am but a nameless sort of person,

74

(A broken Dandy lately on my travels)

And take for rhyme, to hook my rambling verse on,

The first that Walker's Lexicon unravels,

And when I can't find that, I put a worse on,

Not caring as I ought for critics' cavils;

I've half a mind to tumble down to prose,

But verse is more in fashion --- so here goes.

 

LIII.

The Count and Laura made their new arrangement,

Which lasted, as arrangements sometimes do,

For half a dozen years without estrangement;

They had their little differences, too;

Those jealous whiffs, which never any change meant;

In such affairs there probably are few

Who have not had this pouting sort of squabble,

From sinners of high station to the rabble.

 

LIV.

But on the whole, they were a happy pair,

As happy as unlawful love could make them;

The gentleman was fond, the lady fair,

Their chains so slight, 'twas not worth while to break them;

The world beheld them with indulgent air;

The pious only wish'd "the devil take them!"

He took them not; he very often waits,

And leaves old sinners to be young ones' baits.

 

LV.

But they were young: Oh! what without our youth

Would love be! What would youth be without love!

Youth lends it joy, and sweetness, vigour, truth,

Heart, soul, and all that seems as from above;

But, languishing with years, it grows uncouth ---

75

One of few things experience don't improve,

Which is, perhaps, the reason why old fellows

Are always so preposterously jealous.

 

LVI.

It was the Carnival, as I have said

Some six and thirty stanzas back, and so

Laura the usual preparations made,

Which you do when your mind's made up to go

To-night to Mrs. Boehm's masquerade,

Spectator, or partaker in the show;

The only difference known between the cases

Is -- here, we have six weeks of "varnish'd faces."

 

LVII.

Laura, when dress'd, was (as I sang before)

A pretty woman as was ever seen,

Fresh as the Angel o'er a new inn door,

Or frontispiece of a new Magazine,

With all the fashions which the last month wore,

Colour'd, and silver paper leaved between

That and the title-page, for fear the press

Should soil with parts of speech the parts of dress.

 

LVIII.

They went to the Ridotto; --- 'tis a hall

Where people dance, and sup, and dance again;

Its proper name, perhaps, were a masqued ball,

But that's of no importance to my strain;

'Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall,

Excepting that it can't be spoilt by rain;

The company is "mix'd" (the phrase I quote is

As much as saying they're below your notice);

 

76

LIX.

For a "mix'd company" implies that, save

Yourself and friends, and half a hundred more,

Whom you may bow to without looking grave,

The rest are but a vulgar set, the bore

Of public places, where they basely brave

The fashionable stare of twenty score

Of well-bred persons, call'd "The World;" but I,

Although I know them, really don't know why.

 

LX.

This is the case in England; at least was

During the dynasty of Dandies, now

Perchance succeeded by some other class

Of imitated imitators: --- how

Irreparably soon decline, alas!

The demagogues of fashion: all below

Is frail; how easily the world is lost

By love, or war, and now and then by frost!

 

LXI.

Crush'd was Napoleon by the northern Thor,

Who knock'd his army down with icy hammer,

Stopp'd by the elements, like a whaler, or

A blundering novice in his new French grammar;

Good cause had he to doubt the chance of war,

And as for Fortune --- but I dare not d--n her,

Because, were I to ponder to infinity,

The more I should believe in her divinity.

 

LXII.

She rules the present, past, and all to be yet,

She gives us luck in lotteries, love, and marriage;

I cannot say that she's done much for me yet;

77

Not that I mean her bounties to disparage,

We've not yet closed accounts, and we shall see yet;

How much she'll make amends for past miscarriage.

Meantime the Goddess I'll no more importune,

Unless to thank her when she's made my fortune.

 

LXIII.

To turn, --- and return; --- the devil take it!

This story slips for ever through my fingers,

Because, just as the stanza likes to make it,

It needs must be, and so it rather lingers:

This form of verse began, I can't well break it,

But must keep time and tune like public singers;

But if I once get through my present measure,

I'll take another when I'm at leisure.

 

LXIV.

They went to the Ridotto ('tis a place

To which I mean to go myself to-morrow,

Just to divert my thoughts a little space,

Because I'm rather hippish, and may borrow,

Some spirits, guessing at what kind of face

May lurk beneath each mask; and as my sorrow

Slackens its pace sometimes, I'll make, or find,

Something shall leave it half an hour behind).

 

LXV.

Now Laura moves along the joyous crowd,

Smiles in her eyes, and simpers on her lips;

To some she whispers, others speaks aloud;

To some she curtsies, and to some she dips,

Complains of warmth, and this complaint avow'd,

Her lover brings the lemonade, she sips;

She then surveys, condemns, but pities still

78

Her dearest friends for being dress'd so ill.

 

LXVI.

One has false curls, another too much paint,

A third --- where did she buy that frightful turban?

A fourth's so pale she fears she's going to faint,

A fifth's look's vulgar, dowdyish, and suburban,

A sixth's white silk has got a yellow taint,

A seventh's thin muslin surely will be her bane,

And lo! an eighth appears, --- "I'll see no more!"

For fear, like Banquo's kings, they reach a score.

 

LXVII.

Meantime, while she was thus at others gazing,

Others were leveling their looks at her;

She heard the men's half-whisper'd mode of praising,

And, till 'twas done, determined not to stir;

The women only thought it quite amazing

That, at her time of life, so many were

Admirers still, --- but men are so debased,

Those brazen creatures always suit their taste.

 

LXVIII.

For my part, now, I ne'er could understand

Why naughty women --- but I won't discuss

A thing which is a scandal to the land,

I only don't see why it should be thus;

And if I were but in a gown and band,

Just to entitle me to make a fuss,

I'd preach on this till Wilberforce and Romilly

Should quote in their next speeches from my homily.

 

LXIX.

While Laura thus was seen, and seeing, smiling,

79

Talking, she knew not why, and cared not what,

So that her female friends, with envy broiling,

Beheld her airs and triumph, and all that;

And well-dress'd males still kept before her filing,

And passing bow'd and mingled with her chat;

More than the rest one person seem'd to stare

With pertinacity that's rather rare.

 

LXX.

He was a Turk, the colour of mahogany;

And Laura saw him, and at first was glad,

Because the Turks so much admire phylogyny,

Although their usage of their wives is sad;

'Tis said they use no better than a dog any

Poor woman, whom they purchase like a pad;

They have a number, though the ne'er exhibit 'em,

Four wives by law, and concubines: ad libitum."

 

LXXI.

They lock them up, and veil, and guard them daily,

They scarcely can behold their male relations,

So that their moments do not pass so gaily

As is supposed the case with northern nations;

Confinement, too, must make them look quite palely;

And as the Turks abhor long conversations,

Their days are either pass'd in doing nothing,

Or bathing, nursing, making love, and clothing.

 

LXXII.

They cannot read, and so don't lisp in criticism;

Nor write, and so they don't affect the muse;

Were never caught in epigram or witticism,

Have no romances, sermons, plays, reviews, ---

In harams learning soon would make a pretty schism,

80

But luckily these beauties are no "Blues;"

No bustling Botherbys have they to show 'em

"That charming passage in the last new poem;"

 

LXXIII.

No solemn, antique gentleman of rhyme,

Who having angled all his life for fame,

And getting but a nibble at a time,

Still fussily keeps fishing on, the same

Small "Triton of the minnows," the sublime

Of mediocrity, the furious tame,

The echo's echo, usher of the school

Of female wits, boy bards --- in short, a fool!

 

LXXIV.

A stalking oracle of awful phrase

The approving "Good!" (By no means good in law,)

Humming like flies around the newest blaze,

The bluest of bluebottles you e'er saw,

Teasing with blame, excruciating with praise,

Gorging the little fame he gets all raw,

Translating tongues he knows not even by letter,

And sweating plays so middling, bad were better.

 

LXXV.

One hates an author that's all author, fellows

In foolscap uniforms turn'd up with ink,

So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous,

One do'nt know what to say to them, or think,

Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows;

Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs e'en the pink

Are preferable to these shreds of paper,

These unquench'd snufflings of the midnight taper.

 

81

LXXVI.

Of these same we see several, and of others,

Men of the world, who know the world like men,

Scott, Rogers, Moore, and all the better brothers,

Who think of something else besides the pen;

But for the children of the "mighty mother's,"

The would-be wits, and can't-be gentlemen,

I leave them to their daily "tea is ready,"

Smug coterie, and literary lady.

 

LXXVII

The poor dear Mussulwomen whom I mention

Have none of these instructive pleasant people,

And one would seem to them a new invention,

Unknown as bells within a Turkish steeple;

I think 't would almost be worth while to pension

(though best-sown projects ver often reap ill)

A missionary author, just to preach

Our Christian usage of the parts of speech.

 

LXXVIII.

No chemistry for them unfolds her gases,

No metaphysics are let loose in lectures,

No circulating library amasses

Religious novels, moral tales, and strictures

Upon the living manners, as they pass us;

No exhibition glares with annual pictures;

They stare not on the stars from out their attics,

Nor deal (thank God for that!) in mathematics.

 

LXXIX.

Why I thank God for that is no great matter,

I have my reasons, you no doubt suppose,

And as, perhaps, they would not highly flatter,

82

I'll keep them for my life (to come) in prose;

I fear I have a little turn for satire,

And yet methinks the older that one grows

Inclines us more to laugh than scold, though laughter

Leaves us no doubly serious shortly after.

 

LXXX.

Oh, mirth and innocence! Oh, milk and water!

Ye happy mixtures of more happy days!

In these sad centuries of sin and slaughter,

Abominable Man no more allays

His thirst with such pure beverage.  No matter,

I love you both, and both shall have my praise;

Oh, for old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy! ---

Meantime I drink to your return in brandy.

 

LXXXI.

Our Laura's Turk still kept his eyes upon her,

Less in the Mussulman than Christian way,

Which seems to say, "Madam, I do you honour,

And while I please to stare, you'll please to stay!"

Could staring win a woman, this had won her,

But Laura could not thus be led astray;

She had stood fire too long and well, is boggle

Even at this stranger's most outlandish ogle.

 

LXXXII

The morning now was on the point of breaking

A turn of time at which I would advise

Ladies who have been dancing, or partaking

In any other kind of exercise,

To make their preparations for forsaking

The ball-room ere the sun begins to rise,

Because when once the lamps and candles fail,

83

His blushes make them look a little pale.

 

LXXXIII.

I've seen some balls and revels in my time,

And stay'd them over for some silly reason,

And then I look'd (I hope it was no crime)

To see what lady best stood out the season,

And though I've seen some thousands in their prime,

Lovely and pleasing, and who still may please on,

I never saw but one (the stars withdrawn)

Whose bloom could after dancing dare the dawn.

 

LXXXIV.

The name of this Aurora I'll not mention,

Although I might, for she was nought to me

More than that patent work of God's invention,

A charming woman, whom we like to see;

But writing names would merit reprehension,

Yet if you like to find out this fair she,

At the next London or Parisian ball

You still may mark her cheek out-blooming all.

 

LXXXV.

Laura, who knew it would not do at all

To meet the daylight after seven hours' sitting

Among three thousand people at a ball,

To make her curtsy thought it right and fitting;

The Count was at her elbow with her shawl,

And they the room were on the point of quitting,

When lo! those cursed gondoliers had got

Just in the very place where they should not.

 

LXXXVI.

In this they're like our coachmen, and the cause

84

Is much the same --- the crowd, and pulling, hauling,

With blasphemies enough to break their jaws,

They make a never intermitted bawling.

At home, our Bow-street gemmen keep the laws,

And here a sentry stands within your calling;

But for all that, there is a deal of swearing,

And nauseous words past mentioning or bearing.

 

LXXXVII.

The Count and Laura found their boat at last,

And homeward floated o'er the silent tied,

Discussing all the dances gone and past;

The dancers and their dresses, too, beside;

Some little scandals eke; but all aghast

(As to their palace-stairs the rowers glide)

Sate Laura by the side of her Adorer,

When lo! the Mussulman was there before her.

 

LXXXVIII.

"Sir," said the Count, with brow exceeding grave,

"Your unexpected presence here will make

It necessary for myself to crave

Its import? But perhaps 'tis a mistake;

I hope it is so; and, at once to waive

All compliment, I hope so for your sake;

You understand my meaning, or you shall,"

"Sir" (quoth the Turk), "'tis no mistake at all:

 

LXXXIX.

"That lady is my wife!" Much wonder paints

The lady's changing cheek, as well it might;

But where an Englishwoman sometimes faints,

Italian females don't do so outright;

They only call a little on their saints,

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And then come to themselves, almost or quite;

Which saves much hartshorn, salts, and sprinkling faces,

And cutting stays, as usual in such cases.

 

XC.

She said, --- what could she say? Why, not a word:

But the Count courteously invited in

The stranger, much appeased by what he heard:

"Such things, perhaps, we'd best discuss within,"

Said he; "don't let us make ourselves absurd

In public, by a scene, nor raise a din,

For then the chief and only satisfaction

Will be much quizzing on the whole transaction."

 

XCI.

They enter'd, and for coffee call'd --- it came,

A beverage for Turks and Christians both,

Although the way they make it's not the same.

Now Laura, much recover'd, or less loth

To speak, cries "Beppo! what's your pagan name?

Bless me! your beard is of amazing growth!

And how came you to keep away so long?

Are you not sensible 't was very wrong?

 

XCII.

"And are you really, truly, now a Turk?

With any other women did you wive?

Is 't true they use their fingers for a fork?

Well, that's the prettiest shawl --- as I'm alive!

You'll give it me? They say you eat no pork.

And how so many years did you contrive

To --- Bless me! did I ever? No, I never

Saw a man grown so yellow! How's your liver?

 

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XCIII.

"Beppo! that beard of yours becomes you not;

It shall be shaved before you're a day older:

Why do you wear it? Oh! I had forgot ---

Pray do'nt you think the weather here is colder?

How do I look? You shan't stir from this spot

In that queer dress, for fear that some beholder

Should find you out, and make the story known.

How short your hair is! Lord! how grey it's grown!"

 

XCIV.

What answer Beppo made to these demands

Is more than I know.  He was cast away

About where Troy stood once, and nothing stands;

Became a slave of course, and for his pay

Had bread and bastinadoes, till some bands

Of pirates landing in a neighbouring bay,

He join'd the rogues and prosper'd, and became

A renegado of indifferent fame.

 

XCV.

But he grew rich, and with his riches grew so

Keen the desire to see his home again,

He thought himself in duty bound to do so,

And not be always thieving on the main;

Lonely he felt, at times, as Robin Crusoe,

And so he hired a vessel come from Spain,

Bound for Corfu: she was a fine polacca,

Mann'd with twelve hands, and laden with tobacco.

 

XCVI.

Himself, and much (Heaven knows how gotten!) cash,

He then embark'd, with risk of life and limb

And got clear off, although the attempt was rash;

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He said that Providence protected him ---

For my part, I say nothing --- lest we clash

In our opinions: --- well, the ship was trim,

Set sail, and kept her reckoning fairly on,

Except three days of calm when off Cape Bonn.

 

XCVII.

They reach'd the island, he transferr'd his lading

And self and live stock to another bottom,

And pass'd for a true Turkey-merchant, trading

With goods of various names, but I've forgot'em.

However, he got off by this evading,

Or else the people would perhaps have shot him;

And thus at Venice landed to reclaim

His wife, religion, house, and Christian name.

 

XCVIII.

His wife received, the patriarch re-baptised him

(He made the church a present, by the way);

He then threw off the garments which disguised him,

And borrow'd the Count's small clothes for a day:

His friends the more for his long absence prized him,

Finding he'd wherewithal to make them gay,

With dinners, where he oft became the laugh of them,

For stories --- but I don't believe the half of them.

 

XCIX.

Whate'er his youth had suffer'd, his old age

With wealth and talking made him some amends;

Though Laura sometimes put him in a rage,

I've heard the Count and he were always friends.

My pen is at the bottom of a page,

Which being finish'd, here the story ends;

'Tis to be wish'd it had been sooner done,

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But stories somehow lengthen when begun.

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