No smell of death. There shall be death. Moan, moan;

400

Moan, Cybele, moan; for thy pernicious babes
Have chang'd a god into an aching palsy.
Moan, brethren, moan, for I have no strength
left;

Weak as the reed, weak, feeble as my voice.
Oh! Oh! the pain, the pain of feebleness;
Moan, moan, for still I thaw; or give me help,
Throw down those imps, and give me victory.
Let me hear other groans, and trumpets blown
Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival,
From the gold peaks of heaven's high-piled
clouds;

Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir

410

'Mortal, that thou may'st understand aright, I humanize my sayings to thine ear, Making comparisons of earthly things; Or thou might'st better listen to the wind, Whose language is to thee a barren noise, Though it blows legend-laden thro' the trees. In melancholy realms big tears are shed, More sorrow like to this, and such like woe, Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe. The Titans fierce, self-hid or prison-bound, Groan for the old allegiance once more, Listening in their doom for Saturn's voice. But one of the whole eagle-brood still keeps His sovereignty, and rule, and majesty: Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire Still sits, still snuffs the incense teeming up From Man to the Sun's God - yet insecure. For as upon the earth dire prodigies

་

Fright and perplex, so also shudders he;

10

30

Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;
But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve,
Make great Hyperion ache. His palace bright,
Bastion'd with pyramids of shining gold,
And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,
Glares a blood-red thro' all the thousand courts,
Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;
And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
Flash angerly; when he would taste the wreaths
Of incense breath'd aloft from sacred hills,
Instead of sweets, his ample palate takes
Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick;
Wherefore when harbour'd in the sleepy West,
After the full completion of fair day,
For rest divine upon exalted couch,
And slumber in the arms of melody,
He paces through the pleasant hours of ease,
With strides colossal, on from hall to hall,
While far within each aisle and deep recess
His winged minions in close clusters stand
Amaz'd, and full of fear; like anxious men,
Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops,

40

WHERE's the Poet? Show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know him!
'Tis the man who with a man

Is an equal, be he King,
Or poorest of the beggar-clan,
Or any other wondrous thing
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato;
'Tis the man who with a bird,
Wren, or Eagle, finds his way to

All its instincts; he hath heard
The Lion's roaring, and can tell
What his horny throat expresseth,
And to him the Tiger's yell
Comes articulate and presseth
On his ear like mother-tongue.

II

MODERN LOVE

AND what is love? It is a doll dress'd up
For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;
A thing of soft misnomers, so divine
That silly youth doth think to make itself
Divine by loving, and so goes on
Yawning and doting a whole summer long,
Till Miss's comb is made a pearl tiara,

And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;
Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,
And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.
Fools! if some passions high have warm'd the
world,

If Queens and Soldiers have play'd deep for hearts,

It is no reason why such agonies

Should be more common than the growth of weeds.

Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl

The Queen of Egypt melted, and I'll say
That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

That I should rather love a Gothic waste
Of eyesight on cinque-coloured potter's clay,
Than on the marble fairness of old Greece.
My table-coverlits of Jason's fleece

And black Numidian sheep-wool should be wrought,

Gold, black, and heavy, from the Lama brought.
My ebon sofas should delicious be
With down from Leda's cygnet progeny.
My pictures all Salvator's, save a few
Of Titian's portraiture, and one, though new,
Of Haydon's in its fresh magnificence.
My wine-O good! 't is here at my desire,
And I must sit to supper with my friar.

III

FRAGMENT OF THE CASTLE BUILDER'

TO-NIGHT I'll have my friar - let me think
About my room - I'll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
Should look thro' four large windows and dis-
play

Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;
The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,
To see what else the moon alone can show;
While the night-breeze doth softly let us know
My terrace is well bower'd with oranges.
Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees
A guitar-ribband and a lady's glove
Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;

A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,
All finish'd but some ringlets of her hair;
A viol, bow-strings torn, cross-wise upon
A glorious folio of Anacreon;
A skull upon a mat of roses lying,
Ink'd purple with a song concerning dying;
An hour-glass on the turn, amid the trails
Of passion-flower; -- just in time there sails
A cloud across the moon, the lights bring

in! And see what more my phantasy can win. It is a gorgeous room, but somewhat sad; The draperies are so, as tho' they had Been made for Cleopatra's winding-sheet; And opposite the stedfast eye doth meet A spacious looking-glass, upon whose face, In letters raven-sombre, you may trace Old Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin.' Greek busts and statuary have ever been Held, by the finest spirits, fitter far, Than vase grotesque and Siamesian jar; Therefore 't is sure a want of Attic taste

determined, will he, nill he, to send you some lines, so you will excuse the unconnected subject and careless verse. You know, I am sure, Claude's Enchanted Castle, and I wish you may be pleased with my remembrance of it.'

DEAR Reynolds! As last night I lay in bed,
There came before my eyes that wonted thread
Of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances,
That every other minute vex and please:
Things all disjointed come from north and
south,

Two Witch's eyes above a Cherub's mouth,
Voltaire with casque and shield and habergeon,
And Alexander with his nightcap on;
Old Socrates a-tying his cravat,

And Hazlitt playing with Miss Edgeworth's cat;

And Junius Brutus, pretty well so so,
Making the best of 's way towards Soho.

10

Few are there who escape these visitings, Perhaps one or two whose lives have patent wings,

And thro' whose curtains peeps no hellish nose,
No wild-boar tushes, and no Mermaid's toes;
But flowers bursting out with lusty pride,
And young Æolian harps personify'd;
Some Titian colours touch'd into real life,
The sacrifice goes on; the pontiff knife
Gleams in the Sun, the milk-white heifer lows,
The pipes go shrilly, the libation flows:
A white sail shows above the green-head cliff,
Moves round the point, and throws her anchor

20

-it doth

Part of the building was a chosen See, Built by a banish'd Santon of Chaldee; The other part, two thousand years from him, Was built by Cuthbert de Saint Aldebrim; Then there's a little wing, far from the Sun, Built by a Lapland Witch turn'd maudlin Nun; And many other juts of aged stone Founded with many a mason-devil's groan.

The doors all look as if they op'd themselves: The windows as if latch'd by Fays and Elves,50 And from them comes a silver flash of light, As from the westward of a Summer's night; Or like a beauteous woman's large blue eyes Gone mad through olden songs and poesies.

See! what is coming from the distance dim!
A golden Galley all in silken trim !
Three rows of oars are lightening, moment
whiles

Into the verd'rous bosoms of those isles;
Towards the shade, under the Castle wall,
It comes in silence, -now 't is hidden all.
The Clarion sounds, and from a Postern-gate
An echo of sweet music doth create
A fear in the poor Herdsman who doth bring
His beasts to trouble the enchanted spring,
He tells of the sweet music, and the spot,
To all his friends, and they believe him not.

60

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake, Would all their colours from the sunset take: From something of material sublime, 69 Rather than shadow our own soul's day-time In the dark void of night. For in the world We jostle, but my flag is not unfurl'd On the Admiral-staff, - and so philosophise I dare not yet! O, never will the prize, High reason, and the love of good and ill, Be my award! Things cannot to the will Be settled, but they tease us out of thought; Or is it imagination brought Beyond its proper bound, yet still confin'd, Lost in a sort of Purgatory blind, Cannot refer to any standard law Of either earth or heaven? It is a flaw In happiness, to see beyond our bourn. It forces us in summer skies to mourn, It spoils the singing of the Nightingale.

Dear Reynolds! I have a mysterious tale, And cannot speak it: the first page I read Upon a Lampit rock of green sea-weed Among the breakers; 't was a quiet eve, The rocks were silent, the wide sea did weave An untumultuous fringe of silver foam Along the flat brown sand; I was at home

80