Listeth, will sail;

Nor does he know how there prevail,
Despotic on life's sea,

Trade-winds that cross it from eternity. Awhile he holds some false sway, undebarr'd

By thwarting signs, and braves

The freshening wind and blackening waves. And then the tempest strikes him, and between

The lightning bursts is seen
Only a driving wreck,

And the pale Master on his spar-strewn deck

With anguish'd face and flying hair

Grasping the rudder hard,

Still bent to make some port he knows not where,

Still standing for some false impossible shore.

And sterner comes the roar

Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom

Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom,

And he too disappears, and comes no more.

Is there no life, but these alone?
Madman or slave, must man be one?

Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain,

Clearness divine!

Ye Heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign

Of languor, though so calm, and though so great

Are yet untroubled and unpassionate: Who, though so noble, share in the world's toil,

And though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil:

I will not say that your mild deeps retain A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain Who have long'd deeply once, and long'd in vain;

But I will rather say that you remain

A world above man's head, to let him see How boundless might his soul's horizons be,

How vast, yet of what clear transparency. How it were good to sink there, and breathe free.

How high a lot to fill

Is left to each man still.

We know, we know that we can smile;
But there's a something in this breast
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
And let me read there, love, thy inmost
soul.

Alas, is even Love too weak

To unlock the heart and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met

With blank indifference, or with blame reprov'd:

I knew they liv'd and mov'd

Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest

Of men, and alien to themselves — and yet The same heart beats in every human breast.

But we, my love - - does a like spell benumb Our hearts our voices? must we too be dumb?

Ah, well for us, if even we,

Even for a moment, can get free
Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd:
For that which seals them hath been deep
ordain'd.

Fate, which foresaw

How frivolous a baby man would be,
By what distractions he would be possess'd,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity;
That it might keep from his capricious play
. His genuine self, and force him to obey
Even in his own despite, his being's law,
Bade, through the deep recesses of our
breast

The unregarded river of our life
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see.

The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying about in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.

But often in the world's most crowded streets,

But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life,
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to enquire

Into the mystery of this heart that beats
So wild, so deep in us, to know
Whence our thoughts come and where they

But deep enough, alas, none ever mines: And we have been on many thousand lines, And we have shown on each talent and

power,

But hardly have we, for one little hour, Been on our own line, have we been ourselves;

Hardly had skill to utter one of all

The nameless feelings that course through our breast,

But they course on for ever unexpress'd.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well-but 'tis not true:
And then we will no more be rack'd
With inward striving, and demand

Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
Their stupefying power;

Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call: Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,

From the soul's subterranean depth upborne

As from an infinitely distant land,

Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey A melancholy into all our day.

Only - but this is rare-

When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,

Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen'd ear

Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd, A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast

And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again: The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,

And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

A man becomes aware of his life's flow And hears its winding murmur, and he sees The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.

And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, Rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The Hills where his life rose,
And the Sea where it goes.

STANZAS IN MEMORY OF THE
AUTHOR OF ‘OBERMANN'
[1852.]

IN front the awful Alpine track
Crawls up its rocky stair;

The autumn storm-winds drive the rack
Close o'er it, in the air.

For he pursued a lonely road,
His eye on nature's plan;
Neither made man too much a God,
Nor God too much a man.

Strong was he, with a spirit free
From mists, and sane, and clear;
Clearer, how much! than ours: yet we
Have a worse course to steer.

For though his manhood bore the blast
Of a tremendous time,

Yet in a tranquil world was pass'd
His tenderer youthful prime.

But we, brought forth and rear'd in hours
Of change, alarm, surprise
What shelter to grow ripe is ours?
What leisure to grow wise?

Like children bathing on the shore,
Buried a wave beneath,

The second wave succeeds, before
We have had time to breathe.

Too fast we live, too much are tried,

Too harass'd, to attain

Wordsworth sweet calm, or Goethe's wide And luminous view to gain.

And then we turn, thou sadder sage!

To thee we feel thy spell.
The hopeless tangle of our age
Thou too hast scann'd it well.

Immovable thou sittest; still
As death; compos'd to bear.

Thy head is clear, thy feeling chill-
And icy thy despair.

Yes, as the Son of Thetis said,
One hears thee saying now
'Greater by far than thou are dead:
Strive not die also thou.' -

Ah! Two desires toss about
The poet's feverish blood.

One drives him to the world without,
And one to solitude.

'The glow,' he cries, 'the thrill of life-
Where, where do these abound?'
Not in the world, not in the strife
Of men, shall they be found.

He who hath watch'd, not shar'd, the strife,

Knows how the day hath gone;
He only lives with the world's life
Who hath renounc'd his own.

To thee we come, then. Clouds are roll'd Where thou, O Seer, art set;

Thy realm of thought is drear and coldThe world is colder yet!

And thou hast pleasures too to share
With those who come to thee:
Balms floating on thy mountain air,
And healing sights to see.

How often, where the slopes are green
On Jaman, hast thou sate

By some high chalet door, and seen
The summer day grow late,

And darkness steal o'er the wet grass
With the pale crocus starr'd,

And reach that glimmering sheet of glass
Beneath the piny sward,

Lake Leman's waters, far below:
And watch'd the rosy light

Fade from the distant peaks of snow:
And on the air of night

Heard accents of the eternal tongue

Through the pine branches play:

Listen'd, and felt thyself grow young; Listen'd, and wept Away!

Away the dreams that but deceive!
And thou, sad Guide, adieu!

I go; Fate drives me: but I leave
Half of my life with you.

We, in some unknown Power's employ,
Move on a rigorous line:

Can neither, when we will, enjoy;
Nor, when we will, resign.

I in the world must live: - but thou, Thou melancholy Shade!

Wilt not, if thou can'st see me now, Condemn me, nor upbraid.

For thou art gone away from earth, And place with those dost claim, The Children of the Second Birth Whom the world could not tame;

And with that small transfigur'd Band,
Whom many a different way
Conducted to their common land,
Thou learn'st to think as they.

Christian and pagan, king and slave,
Soldier and anchorite,

Distinctions we esteem so grave,
Are nothing in their sight.

They do not ask, who pin'd unseen,
Who was on action hurl'd,
Whose one bond is that all have been
Unspotted by the world.

There without anger thou wilt see Him who obeys thy spell

No more, so he but rest, like thee, Unsoil'd and so, Farewell!

Farewell! Whether thou now liest near
That much-lov'd inland sea,
The ripples of whose blue waves cheer
Vevey and Meillerie,

And in that gracious region bland,
Where with clear-rustling wave
The scented pines of Switzerland
Stand dark round thy green grave,
Between the dusty vineyard walls
Issuing on that green place
The early peasant still recalls
The pensive stranger's face,

And stoops to clear thy moss-grown date
Ere he plods on again;

Or whether, by maligner Fate,
Among the swarms of men,
Where between granite terraces
The blue Seine rolls her wave,
The Capital of Pleasure sees
Thy hardly-heard-of grave -
Farewell! Under the sky we part,
In this stern Alpine dell.

O unstrung will! O broken heart!
A last, a last farewell!

THE YOUTH OF NATURE

[1852.]

RAIS'D are the dripping oars -
Silent the boat: the lake,

Lovely and soft as a dream,

Swims in the sheen of the moon.
The mountains stand at its head
Clear in the pure June night,

But the valleys are flooded with haze.
Rydal and Fairfield are there;

In the shadow Wordsworth lies dead.
So it is, so it will be for ay.
Nature is fresh as of old,
Is lovely: a mortal is dead.

The spots which recall him survive,
For he lent a new life to these hills.
The Pillar still broods o'er the fields
That border Ennerdale Lake,
And Egremont sleeps by the sea.
The gleam of The Evening Star
Twinkles on Grasmere no more,
But ruin'd and solemn and grey
The sheepfold of Michael survives,
And far to the south, the heath
Still blows in the Quantock coombs,
By the favourite waters of Ruth.
These survive: yet not without pain,
Pain and dejection to-night,

Can I feel that their Poet is gone.

He grew old in an age he condemn'd.

He look'd on the rushing decay

Of the times which had shelter'd his youth. Felt the dissolving throes

Of a social order he lov'd.

Outliv'd his brethren, his peers.
And, like the Theban seer,

Died in his enemies' day.

Cold bubbled the spring of Tilphusa.
Copais lay bright in the moon;
Helicon glass'd in the lake

Its firs, and afar, rose the peaks
Of Parnassus, snowily clear:
Thebes was behind him in flames,
And the clang of arms in his ear,
When his awe-struck captors led
The Theban seer to the spring.
Tiresias drank and died.

Nor did reviving Thebes
See such a prophet again.

Well may we mourn, when the head
Of a sacred poet lies low

In an age which can rear them no more. The complaining millions of men Darken in labour and pain;

But he was a priest to us all

Of the wonder and bloom of the world, Which we saw with his eyes, and were

glad.

He is dead, and the fruit-bearing day
Of his race is past on the earth;
And darkness returns to our eyes.

For oh, is it you, is it you,
Moonlight, and shadow, and lake,
And mountains, that fill us with joy,
Or the Poet who sings you so well?
Is it you, O Beauty, O Grace,

O Charm, O Romance, that we feel,
Or the voice which reveals what you are?
Are ye, like daylight and sun,
Shar'd and rejoic'd in by all?
Or are ye immers'd in the mass
Of matter, and hard to extract,
Or sunk at the core of the world
Too deep for the most to discern?
Like stars in the deep of the sky,
Which arise on the glass of the sage,

But are lost when their watcher is gone.

'They are here' I heard, as men heard In Mysian Ida the voice

Of the Mighty Mother, or Crete,
The murmur of Nature reply -
'Loveliness, Magic, and Grace,

They are here they are set in the world-
They abide and the finest of souls
Has not been thrill'd by them all,

Nor the dullest been dead to them quite.
The poet who sings them may die,

But they are immortal, and live,
For they are the life of the world.
Will ye not learn it, and know,
When ye mourn that a poet is dead,
That the singer was less than his themes,
Life, and Emotion, and I?

'More than the singer are these.

Weak is the tremor of pain

The clearest, the best, who have read
Most in themselves, have beheld
Less than they left unreveal'd.

Ye express not yourselves—can ye make
With marble, which colour, with word,
What charm'd you in others re-live?
Can thy pencil, O Artist, restore
The figure, the bloom of thy love.

As she was in her morning of spring?
Canst thou paint the ineffable smile
Of her eyes as they rested on thine?
Can the image of life have the glow,
The motion of life itself?

'Yourselves and your fellows ye know not - and me

The mateless, the one, will ye know?
Will ye scan me, and read me, and tell
Of the thoughts that ferment in my breast,
My longing, my sadness, my joy?
Will ye claim for your great ones the gift
To have render'd the gleam of my skies,
To have echoed the moan of my seas,
Utter'd the voice of my hills?
When your great ones depart, will ye say
"All things have suffer'd a loss
Nature is hid in their grave?"

"Race after race, man after man,

Have dream'd that my secret was theirs, Have thought that I liv'd but for them, That they were my glory and joy. They are dust, they are chang'd, they are

gone.

I remain.'

MORALITY [1852.]

We cannot kindle when we will
The fire that in the heart resides,
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides:

But tasks in hours of insight will'd
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.

With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.
Not till the hours of light return
All we have built do we discern.

Then, when the clouds are off the soul,
When thou dost bask in Nature's eye,
Ask, how she view'd thy self-control,
Thy struggling task'd morality.

Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air,
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair.

And she, whose censure thou dost dread,
Whose eyes thou wert afraid to seek,
See, on her face a glow is spread,
A strong emotion on her cheek.

'Ah child,' she cries, 'that strife divine-
Whence was it, for it is not mine?
'There is no effort on my brow-
I do not strive, I do not weep.
I rush with the swift spheres, and glow
In joy, and, when I will, I sleep.-
Yet that severe, that earnest air,
I saw, I felt it once - but where?

for

'I knew not yet the gauge of Time, Nor wore the manacles of Space. I felt it in some other clime

I saw it in some other place.

dutyp rake

'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, And lay upon the breast of God.'

THE FUTURE [1852.]

A WANDERER is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship

On the breast of the River of Time.
Brimming with wonder and joy

He spreads out his arms to the light,
Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.
As what he sees is, so have his thoughts
been.

Whether he wakes

Where the snowy mountainous pass
Echoing the screams of the eagles
Hems in its gorges the bed

Of the new-born clear-flowing stream:

Whether he first sees light

Where the river in gleaming rings
Sluggishly winds through the plain:

Whether in sound of the swallowing sea:

As is the world on the banks

So is the mind of the man.

Vainly does each as he glides
Fable and dream

Of the lands which the River of Time
Had left ere he woke on its breast,

Or shall reach when his eyes have been clos'd.

Only the tract where he sails
He wots of: only the thoughts,
Rais'd by the objects he passes, are his.

Who can see the green Earth any more
As she was by the sources of Time?