Лирика

The murmur that springs

From the growing of grass

Are the music of things

But are modell'd, alas!

Away, then my dearest,

O! hie thee away

To springs that lie clearest

Beneath the moon-ray

To lone lake that smiles,

In its dream of deep rest,

At the many star-isles

That enjewel its breast

Where wild flowers, creeping,

Have mingled their shade,

On its margin is sleeping

Full many a maid

Some have left the cool glade, and

Have slept with the bee

Arouse them my maiden,

On moorland and lea

Go! breathe on their slumber,

All softly in ear,

The musical number

They slumber'd to hear

For what can awaken

An angel so soon

Whose sleep hath been taken

Beneath the cold moon,

As the spell which no clumber

Of witchery may test,

The rhythmical number

Which lull'd him to rest?"

Spirits in wing, and angels to the view,

A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro',

Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight

Seraphs in all but "Knowledge", the keen light

That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds, afar

O Death! from eye of God upon that star:

Sweet was that error - sweeter still that death

Sweet was that error - ev'n with us the breath

Of Science dims the mirror of our joy

To them 'twere the Simoon, and would destroy

For what (to them) availeth it to know

That Truth is Falsehood - or that Bliss is Woe?

Sweet was their death - with them to die was rife

With the last ecstasy of satiate life

Beyond that death no immortality

But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be"

And there - oh! may my weary spirit dwell

Apart from Heaven's Eternity - and yet how far

from Hell!

What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,

Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?

But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts

To those who hear not for their beating hearts.

A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover

O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)

Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?

Unguided Love hath fallen - 'mid "tears of perfect

moan."

He was a goodly spirit - he who fell:

A wanderer by moss-y-mantled well

A gazer on the lights that shine above

A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:

What wonder? for each star is eye-like there,

And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair

And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy

To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.

The night had found (to him a night of wo)

Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo

Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,

And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.

Here sate he with his love - his dark eye bent

With eagle gaze along the firmament:

Now turn'd it upon her - but ever then

It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.

"lanthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray!

How lovely 'tis to look so far away!

She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve

I left her gorgeous halls - nor mourn'd to leave.

That ese - that eve - I should remember well

The sun-ray dropp'd, in Lemnos, with a spell

On th' Arabesque carving of a gilded hall

Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall

And on my eye-lids - О the heavy light!

How drowsily it weigh'd them into night!

On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran

With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:

But О that light! - I slumber'd - Death, the while,

Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle

So softly that no single silken hair

Awoke that slept - or knew that he was there.

The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon

Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon

More beauty clung around her column'd wall

Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats withal,

And when old Time my wing did disenthral

Thence sprang I - as the eagle from his tower,

And years I left behind me in an hour.

What time upon her airy bounds I hung

One half the garden of her globe was flung

Unrolling as a chart unto my view

Tenantless cities of the desert too!

lanthe, beauty crowded on me then,

And half I wish'd to be again of men."

"My Angelo! and why of them to be?

A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee

And greener fields than in yon world above,

And woman's loveliness - and passionate love."

"But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft

Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft,

Perhaps my brain grew dizzy - but the world

I left so late was into chaos huri'd

Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,

And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.

Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar

And fell - not swiftly as I rose before,

But with a downward, tremulous motion thro'

Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!

Nor long the measure of my falling hours,

For nearest of all stars was thine to ours

Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,

A red Daedalion on the timid Earth.

"We came - and to thy Earth - but not to us

Be given our lady's bidding to discuss:

We came, my love; around, above, below,

Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go,

Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod

_She_ grants to us, as granted by her God

But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl'd

Never his fairy wing o'er fairier world!

Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes

Alone could see the phantom in the skies,

When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be

Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea

But when its glory swell'd upon the sky,