Tamerlane

Kind solace in a dying hour!
        Such, father, is not (now) my theme-
      I will not madly deem that power
          Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
          Unearthly pride hath revell'd in-
        I have no time to dote or dream:
      You call it hope- that fire of fire!
      It is but agony of desire:
      If I can hope- Oh God! I can-
        Its fount is holier- more divine-
      I would not call thee fool, old man,
        But such is not a gift of thine.

      Know thou the secret of a spirit
        Bow'd from its wild pride into shame.
      O yearning heart! I did inherit
        Thy withering portion with the fame,
      The searing glory which hath shone
      Amid the jewels of my throne,
      Halo of Hell! and with a pain
      Not Hell shall make me fear again-
      O craving heart, for the lost flowers
      And sunshine of my summer hours!
      The undying voice of that dead time,
      With its interminable chime,
      Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
      Upon thy emptiness- a knell.

      I have not always been as now:
      The fever'd diadem on my brow
        I claim'd and won usurpingly-
      Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
        Rome to the Caesar- this to me?
          The heritage of a kingly mind,
      And a proud spirit which hath striven
          Triumphantly with human kind.

      On mountain soil I first drew life:
        The mists of the Taglay have shed
        Nightly their dews upon my head,
      And, I believe, the winged strife
      And tumult of the headlong air
      Have nestled in my very hair.

      So late from Heaven- that dew- it fell
        (Mid dreams of an unholy night)
      Upon me with the touch of Hell,
        While the red flashing of the light
      From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er,
        Appeared to my half-closing eye
        The pageantry of monarchy,
      And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar
        Came hurriedly upon me, telling
          Of human battle, where my voice,
      My own voice, silly child!- was swelling
          (O! how my spirit would rejoice,
      And leap within me at the cry)
      The battle-cry of Victory!

      The rain came down upon my head
        Unshelter'd- and the heavy wind
        Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
      It was but man, I thought, who shed
        Laurels upon me: and the rush-
      The torrent of the chilly air
        Gurgled within my ear the crush
      Of empires- with the captive's prayer-
      The hum of suitors- and the tone
      Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.

      My passions, from that hapless hour,
        Usurp'd a tyranny which men
      Have deem'd, since I have reach'd to power,
          My innate nature- be it so:
        But father, there liv'd one who, then,
      Then- in my boyhood- when their fire
          Burn'd with a still intenser glow,
      (For passion must, with youth, expire)
        E'en then who knew this iron heart
        In woman's weakness had a part.

      I have no words- alas!- to tell
      The loveliness of loving well!
      Nor would I now attempt to trace
      The more than beauty of a face
      Whose lineaments, upon my mind,
      Are- shadows on th' unstable wind:
      Thus I remember having dwelt
        Some page of early lore upon,
      With loitering eye, till I have felt
      The letters- with their meaning- melt
        To fantasies- with none.

      O, she was worthy of all love!
        Love- as in infancy was mine-
      'Twas such as angel minds above
        Might envy; her young heart the shrine
      On which my every hope and thought
        Were incense- then a goodly gift,
          For they were childish and upright-
      Pure- as her young example taught:
        Why did I leave it, and, adrift,
          Trust to the fire within, for light?

      We grew in age- and love- together,
        Roaming the forest, and the wild;
      My breast her shield in wintry weather-
        And when the friendly sunshine smil'd,
      And she would mark the opening skies,
      I saw no Heaven- but in her eyes.

      Young Love's first lesson is- the heart:
        For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles,
      When, from our little cares apart,
        And laughing at her girlish wiles,
      I'd throw me on her throbbing breast,
        And pour my spirit out in tears-
      There was no need to speak the rest-
        No need to quiet any fears
      Of her- who ask'd no reason why,
      But turn'd on me her quiet eye!

      Yet more than worthy of the love
      My spirit struggled with, and strove,
      When, on the mountain peak, alone,
      Ambition lent it a new tone-
      I had no being- but in thee:
        The world, and all it did contain
      In the earth- the air- the sea-
        Its joy- its little lot of pain
      That was new pleasure- the ideal,
        Dim vanities of dreams by night-

      And dimmer nothings which were real-
        (Shadows- and a more shadowy light!)
      Parted upon their misty wings,
        And, so, confusedly, became
        Thine image, and- a name- a name!
      Two separate- yet most intimate things.

      I was ambitious- have you known
        The passion, father? You have not:
      A cottager, I mark'd a throne
      Of half the world as all my own,
        And murmur'd at such lowly lot-
      But, just like any other dream,
        Upon the vapour of the dew
      My own had past, did not the beam
        Of beauty which did while it thro'
      The minute- the hour- the day- oppress
      My mind with double loveliness.

      We walk'd together on the crown
      Of a high mountain which look'd down
      Afar from its proud natural towers
        Of rock and forest, on the hills-
      The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers,
        And shouting with a thousand rills.

      I spoke to her of power and pride,
        But mystically- in such guise
      That she might deem it nought beside
        The moment's converse; in her eyes
      I read, perhaps too carelessly-
        A mingled feeling with my own-
      The flush on her bright cheek, to me
        Seem'd to become a queenly throne
      Too well that I should let it be
        Light in the wilderness alone.

      I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then,
        And donn'd a visionary crown-
          Yet it was not that Fantasy
          Had thrown her mantle over me-
      But that, among the rabble- men,
        Lion ambition is chained down-
      And crouches to a keeper's hand-
      Not so in deserts where the grand-
      The wild- the terrible conspire
      With their own breath to fan his fire.

      Look 'round thee now on Samarcand!
        Is not she queen of Earth? her pride
      Above all cities? in her hand
        Their destinies? in all beside
      Of glory which the world hath known
      Stands she not nobly and alone?
      Falling- her veriest stepping-stone
      Shall form the pedestal of a throne-
      And who her sovereign? Timour- he
        Whom the astonished people saw
      Striding o'er empires haughtily
        A diadem'd outlaw!

      O, human love! thou spirit given
      On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
      Which fall'st into the soul like rain
      Upon the Siroc-wither'd plain,
      And, failing in thy power to bless,
      But leav'st the heart a wilderness!
      Idea! which bindest life around
      With music of so strange a sound,
      And beauty of so wild a birth-
      Farewell! for I have won the Earth.

      When Hope, the eagle that tower'd, could see
        No cliff beyond him in the sky,
      His pinions were bent droopingly-
        And homeward turn'd his soften'd eye.
      'Twas sunset: when the sun will part
      There comes a sullenness of heart
      To him who still would look upon
      The glory of the summer sun.
      That soul will hate the ev'ning mist,
      So often lovely, and will list
      To the sound of the coming darkness (known
      To those whose spirits hearken) as one
      Who, in a dream of night, would fly
      But cannot from a danger nigh.

      What tho' the moon- the white moon
      Shed all the splendour of her noon,
      Her smile is chilly, and her beam,
      In that time of dreariness, will seem
      (So like you gather in your breath)
      A portrait taken after death.
      And boyhood is a summer sun
      Whose waning is the dreariest one-
      For all we live to know is known,
      And all we seek to keep hath flown-
      Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall
      With the noon-day beauty- which is all.

      I reach'd my home- my home no more
        For all had flown who made it so.
      I pass'd from out its mossy door,
        And, tho' my tread was soft and low,
      A voice came from the threshold stone
      Of one whom I had earlier known-
        O, I defy thee, Hell, to show
        On beds of fire that burn below,
        A humbler heart- a deeper woe.

      Father, I firmly do believe-
        I know- for Death, who comes for me
          From regions of the blest afar,
      Where there is nothing to deceive,
          Hath left his iron gate ajar,
        And rays of truth you cannot see
        Are flashing thro' Eternity-
      I do believe that Eblis hath
      A snare in every human path-
      Else how, when in the holy grove
      I wandered of the idol, Love,
      Who daily scents his snowy wings
      With incense of burnt offerings
      From the most unpolluted things,
      Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven
      Above with trellis'd rays from Heaven,
      No mote may shun- no tiniest fly-
      The lightning of his eagle eye-
      How was it that Ambition crept,
        Unseen, amid the revels there,
      Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt
        In the tangles of Love's very hair?

To...

The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
        The wantonest singing birds,
      Are lips- and all thy melody
        Of lip-begotten words-

      Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined,
        Then desolately fall,
      O God! on my funereal mind
        Like starlight on a pall-

     Thy heart- thy heart!- I wake and sigh,
        And sleep to dream till day
      Of the truth that gold can never buy-
        Of the baubles that it may.

To...

Not long ago, the writer of these lines,
      In the mad pride of intellectuality,
      Maintained "the power of words"- denied that ever
      A thought arose within the human brain
      Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:
      And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
      Two words- two foreign soft dissyllables-
      Italian tones, made only to be murmured
      By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew
      That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,"
      Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,
      Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,
      Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions
      Than even seraph harper, Israfel,
      (Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures,")
      Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.
      The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.
      With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,
      I cannot write- I cannot speak or think-
      Alas, I cannot feel; for 'tis not feeling,
      This standing motionless upon the golden
      Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams.
      Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,
      And thrilling as I see, upon the right,
      Upon the left, and all the way along,
      Amid empurpled vapors, far away
      To where the prospect terminates- thee only.

To F...

Beloved! amid the earnest woes
         That crowd around my earthly path-
       (Drear path, alas! where grows
       Not even one lonely rose)-
         My soul at least a solace hath
       In dreams of thee, and therein knows
       An Eden of bland repose.

       And thus thy memory is to me
         Like some enchanted far-off isle
       In some tumultuous sea-
       Some ocean throbbing far and free
         With storms- but where meanwhile
       Serenest skies continually
       Just o'er that one bright island smile.

To F--s S. O--d

Thou wouldst be loved?- then let thy heart
              From its present pathway part not!
            Being everything which now thou art,
              Be nothing which thou art not.
            So with the world thy gentle ways,
              Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
            Shall be an endless theme of praise,
              And love- a simple duty.

To M...

O! I care not that my earthly lot
       Hath little of Earth in it,
     That years of love have been forgot
       In the fever of a minute:

     I heed not that the desolate
       Are happier, sweet, than I,
     But that you meddle with my fate
       Who am a passer by.

     It is not that my founts of bliss
       Are gushing- strange! with tears-
     Or that the thrill of a single kiss
       Hath palsied many years-

     'Tis not that the flowers of twenty springs
       Which have wither'd as they rose
     Lie dead on my heart-strings
       With the weight of an age of snows.

     Not that the grass- O! may it thrive!
       On my grave is growing or grown-
     But that, while I am dead yet alive
       I cannot be, lady, alone.

To Marie Louise (Shew)

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning -
Of all to whom thine absence is the night -
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun - of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope - for life - ah, above all,
For the resurrection of deep buried faith
In truth, in virtue, in humanity -
Of all who, on despair's unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"
At thy soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes -
Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship, - oh, remember
The truest, the most fervently devoted,
And think that these weak lines are written by him -
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
His spirit is communing with an angel's.

To M. L. S.

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning-
    Of all to whom thine absence is the night-
    The blotting utterly from out high heaven
    The sacred sun- of all who, weeping, bless thee
    Hourly for hope- for life- ah! above all,
    For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
    In Truth- in Virtue- in Humanity-
    Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed
    Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
    At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"
    At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
    In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes-
    Of all who owe thee most- whose gratitude
    Nearest resembles worship- oh, remember
    The truest- the most fervently devoted,
    And think that these weak lines are written by him-
    By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
    His spirit is communing with an angel's.

To My Mother

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
      The angels, whispering to one another,
    Can find, among their burning terms of love,
      None so devotional as that of "Mother,"
    Therefore by that dear name I long have called you-
      You who are more than mother unto me,
    And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
      In setting my Virginia's spirit free.
    My mother- my own mother, who died early,
      Was but the mother of myself; but you
    Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
      And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
    By that infinity with which my wife
      Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

To Helen

I saw thee once- once only- years ago:
   I must not say how many- but not many.
   It was a July midnight; and from out
   A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
   Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
   There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
   With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
   Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
   Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
   Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe-
   Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
   That gave out, in return for the love-light,
   Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death-
   Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
   That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
   By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

   Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
   I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
   Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,
   And on thine own, upturn'd- alas, in sorrow!

   Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight-
   Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
   That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
   To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
   No footstep stirred: the hated world an slept,
   Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!- oh, God!
   How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
   Save only thee and me. I paused- I looked-
   And in an instant all things disappeared.
   (Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)

   The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
   The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
   The happy flowers and the repining trees,
   Were seen no more: the very roses' odors
   Died in the arms of the adoring airs.
   All- all expired save thee- save less than thou:
   Save only the divine light in thine eyes-
   Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
   I saw but them- they were the world to me!
   I saw but them- saw only them for hours,
   Saw only them until the moon went down.
   What wild heart-histories seemed to he enwritten
   Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
   How dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope!
   How silently serene a sea of pride!
   How daring an ambition; yet how deep-
   How fathomless a capacity for love!

   But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
   Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
   And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
   Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained;
   They would not go- they never yet have gone;
   Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
   They have not left me (as my hopes have) since;
   They follow me- they lead me through the years.
   They are my ministers- yet I their slave.
   Their office is to illumine and enkindle-
   My duty, to be saved by their bright light,
   And purified in their electric fire,
   And sanctified in their elysian fire.
   They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
   And are far up in Heaven- the stars I kneel to
   In the sad, silent watches of my night;
   While even in the meridian glare of day
   I see them still- two sweetly scintillant
   Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

To One Departed

Seraph! thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea -
Some ocean vexed as it may be
With storms; but where, meanwhile,
Serenest skies continually
Just o'er that one bright island smile.

For 'mid the earnest cares and woes
That crowd around my earthly path,
(Sad path, alas, where grows
Not even one lonely rose!)
My soul at least a solace hath
In dreams of thee; and therein knows
An Eden of bland repose.

To One in Paradise

Thou wast all that to me, love,
         For which my soul did pine-
       A green isle in the sea, love,
         A fountain and a shrine,
       All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
         And all the flowers were mine.

       Ah, dream too bright to last!
         Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
       But to be overcast!
         A voice from out the Future cries,
       "On! on!"- but o'er the Past
         (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
       Mute, motionless, aghast!

       For, alas! alas! me
         The light of Life is o'er!
         "No more- no more- no more-"
       (Such language holds the solemn sea
         To the sands upon the shore)
       Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree
         Or the stricken eagle soar!

       And all my days are trances,
         And all my nightly dreams
       Are where thy grey eye glances,
         And where thy footstep gleams-
       In what ethereal dances,
         By what eternal streams.

To the River

Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
       Of crystal, wandering water,
     Thou art an emblem of the glow
         Of beauty- the unhidden heart-
         The playful maziness of art
     In old Alberto's daughter;

     But when within thy wave she looks-
       Which glistens then, and trembles-
     Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
       Her worshipper resembles;
     For in his heart, as in thy stream,
       Her image deeply lies-
     His heart which trembles at the beam
       Of her soul-searching eyes.

To Zante

Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,
       Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!
     How many memories of what radiant hours
       At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
     How many scenes of what departed bliss!
       How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!
     How many visions of a maiden that is
       No more- no more upon thy verdant slopes!
     No more! alas, that magical sad sound
       Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no more-
     Thy memory no more! Accursed ground
       Henceforth I hold thy flower-enameled shore,
     O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
       "Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"

Ulalume

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere-
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir-
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul-
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
There were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll-
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole-
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere-
Our memories were treacherous and sere-
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year-
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber-
(Though once we had journeyed down here),
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent,
And star-dials pointed to morn-
As the star-dials hinted of morn-
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn-
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said- "She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs-
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion,
To point us the path to the skies-
To the Lethean peace of the skies-
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes-
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said- "Sadly this star I mistrust-
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:-
Oh, hasten!- oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly!- let us fly!- for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust-
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust-
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied- "This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night:-
See!- it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright-
We safely may trust to a gleaming
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom-
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb-
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said- "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied- "Ulalume- Ulalume-
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere-
As the leaves that were withering and sere-
And I cried- "It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed- I journeyed down here-
That I brought a dread burden down here-
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber-
This misty mid region of Weir-
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

A Valentine

Once it smiled a silent dell
      Where the people did not dwell;
      They had gone unto the wars,
      Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
      Nightly, from their azure towers,
      To keep watch above the flowers,
      In the midst of which all day
      The red sunlight lazily lay.
      Now each visitor shall confess
      The sad valley's restlessness.
      Nothing there is motionless-
      Nothing save the airs that brood
      Over the magic solitude.
      Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
      That palpitate like the chill seas
      Around the misty Hebrides!
      Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
      That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
      Uneasily, from morn till even,
      Over the violets there that lie
      In myriad types of the human eye-
      Over the lilies there that wave
      And weep above a nameless grave!
      They wave:- from out their fragrant tops
      Eternal dews come down in drops.
      They weep:- from off their delicate stems
      Perennial tears descend in gems

.

.

The Valley of Unrest

Once it smiled a silent dell
       Where the people did not dwell;
       They had gone unto the wars,
       Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
       Nightly, from their azure towers,
       To keep watch above the flowers,
       In the midst of which all day
       The red sunlight lazily lay.
       Now each visitor shall confess
       The sad valley's restlessness.
       Nothing there is motionless-
       Nothing save the airs that brood
       Over the magic solitude.
       Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
       That palpitate like the chill seas
       Around the misty Hebrides!
       Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
       That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
       Uneasily, from morn till even,
       Over the violets there that lie
       In myriad types of the human eye-
       Over the lilies there that wave
       And weep above a nameless grave!
       They wave:- from out their fragrant tops
       Eternal dews come down in drops.
       They weep:- from off their delicate stems
       Perennial tears descend in gems.