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!
     Th’ 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
         Was giantlike—so thou, my mind!—
     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 suiters—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 ev’ry 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 chain’d 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 wo—

     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 ev’ry 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 trelliced rays from Heaven
     No mote may shun—no tiniest fly
     The light’ning 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?

I

This is the month, and this the happy morn,  
Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,  
Of wedded maid and Virgin Mother born,  
Our great redemption from above did bring;  
For so the holy sages once did sing,
  That he our deadly forfeit should release,  
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.  
  
II

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,  
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,  
Wherewith he wont at Heaven’s high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,  
He laid aside, and, here with us to be,  
  Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,  
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.  
  
III

Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?  
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,  
To welcome him to this his new abode,  
Now while the heaven, by the Sun’s team untrod,  
  Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?  
  
IV

See how from far upon the Eastern road  
The star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet!  
Oh! run; prevent them with thy humble ode,  
And lay it lowly at his blessèd feet; 
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,  
  And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,  
From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.  


The Hymn

I

    It was the winter wild,  
     While the heaven-born child 
   All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;  
      Nature, in awe to him,  
      Had doffed her gaudy trim,  
  With her great Master so to sympathize:  
It was no season then for her 
To wanton with the Sun, her lusty Paramour.  
  
II

    Only with speeches fair  
    She woos the gentle air  
  To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,  
    And on her naked shame, 
    Pollute with sinful blame,  
  The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;  
Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes  
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.  
  
III

    But he, her fears to cease, 
    Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:  
  She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding  
    Down through the turning sphere,  
    His ready Harbinger,  
  With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
And, waving wide her myrtle wand,  
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.  
  
IV

    No war, or battail’s sound,  
    Was heard the world around;  
  The idle spear and shield were high uphung;
    The hookèd chariot stood,  
    Unstained with hostile blood;  
  The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;  
And Kings sat still with awful eye,  
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
  
V

    But peaceful was the night  
    Wherein the Prince of Light  
  His reign of peace upon the earth began.  
    The winds, with wonder whist,  
    Smoothly the waters kissed, 
  Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,  
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,  
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.  
  
VI

    The stars, with deep amaze,  
    Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,
  Bending one way their precious influence,  
    And will not take their flight,  
    For all the morning light,  
  Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;  
But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.  
  
VII

    And, though the shady gloom  
    Had given day her room,  
  The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,  
    And hid his head of shame,  
    As his inferior flame  
  The new-enlightened world no more should need:  
He saw a greater Sun appear  
Than his bright Throne or burning axletree could bear.  
  
VIII

    The Shepherds on the lawn,
    Or ere the point of dawn,  
  Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;  
    Full little thought they than  
    That the mighty Pan  
  Was kindly come to live with them below:
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,  
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.  
  
IX

    When such music sweet  
    Their hearts and ears did greet  
  As never was by mortal finger strook,
    Divinely-warbled voice  
    Answering the stringèd noise,  
  As all their souls in blissful rapture took:  
The air, such pleasure loth to lose,  
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.
  
X

    Nature, that heard such sound  
    Beneath the hollow round  
  Of Cynthia’s seat the airy Region thrilling,  
    Now was almost won  
    To think her part was done,  
  And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:  
She knew such harmony alone  
Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.  
  
XI

    At last surrounds their sight  
    A globe of circular light,  
  That with long beams the shamefaced Night arrayed;  
    The helmèd Cherubim  
    And sworded Seraphim  
  Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,  
Harping in loud and solemn quire,     
With unexpressive notes, to Heaven’s newborn Heir.  
  
XII

    Such music (as ’tis said)  
    Before was never made,  
  But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,  
    While the Creator great  
    His constellations set,  
  And the well-balanced World on hinges hung,  
And cast the dark foundations deep,  
And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.  
  
XIII

    Ring out, ye crystal spheres! 
    Once bless our human ears,  
  If ye have power to touch our senses so;  
    And let your silver chime  
    Move in melodious time;  
  And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony  
Make up full consort of the angelic symphony.  
  
XIV

    For, if such holy song  
    Enwrap our fancy long,  
  Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold;
    And speckled Vanity  
    Will sicken soon and die,  
  And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;  
And Hell itself will pass away,  
And leave her dolorous mansions of the peering day.
  
XV

    Yes, Truth and Justice then  
    Will down return to men,  
  The enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing;  
    And Mercy set between,  
    Throned in celestial sheen,    
  With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;  
And Heaven, as at some festival,  
Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.  
  
XVI

    But wisest Fate says No,  
    This must not yet be so; 
  The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy  
    That on the bitter cross  
    Must redeem our loss,  
  So both himself and us to glorify:  
Yet first, to those chained in sleep,  
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,  
  
XVII

    With such a horrid clang  
    As on Mount Sinai rang,  
  While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:  
    The aged Earth, aghast     
    With terror of that blast,  
  Shall from the surface to the centre shake,  
When, at the world’s last sessiön,  
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.  
  
XVIII

    And then at last our bliss
    Full and perfect is,  
  But now begins; for from this happy day  
    The Old Dragon under ground,  
    In straiter limits bound,  
  Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway,
And, wroth to see his Kingdom fail,  
Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.  
  
XIX

    The Oracles are dumb;  
    No voice or hideous hum  
  Runs through the archèd roof in words deceiving. 
    Apollo from his shrine  
    Can no more divine,  
  Will hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.  
No nightly trance, or breathèd spell,  
Inspires the pale-eyed Priest from the prophetic cell.
  
XX

    The lonely mountains o’er,  
    And the resounding shore,  
  A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;  
    Edgèd with poplar pale,  
    From haunted spring, and dale     
  The parting Genius is with sighing sent;  
With flower-inwoven tresses torn  
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.  
  
XXI

    In consecrated earth,  
    And on the holy hearth,     
  The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;  
    In urns, and altars round,  
    A drear and dying sound  
  Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;  
And the chill marble seems to sweat,    
While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.  
  
XXII

    Peor and Baälim  
    Forsake their temples dim,  
  With that twice-battered god of Palestine;  
    And moonèd Ashtaroth,      
    Heaven’s Queen and Mother both,  
  Now sits not girt with tapers’ holy shine:  
The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;  
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.  
  
XXIII

    And sullen Moloch, fled,    
    Hath left in shadows dread  
  His burning idol all of blackest hue;  
    In vain with cymbals’ ring  
    They call the grisly king,  
  In dismal dance about the furnace blue;   
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,  
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.  
  
XXIV

    Nor is Osiris seen  
    In Memphian grove or green,  
  Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud;  
    Nor can he be at rest  
    Within his sacred chest;  
  Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;  
In vain, with timbreled anthems dark,  
The sable-stolèd Sorcerers bear his worshiped ark.     
  
XXV

    He feels from Juda’s land  
    The dreaded Infant’s hand;  
  The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;  
    Nor all the gods beside  
    Longer dare abide,     
  Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:  
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,  
Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd crew.  
  
XXVI

    So, when the Sun in bed,  
    Curtained with cloudy red, 
  Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,  
    The flocking shadows pale  
    Troop to the infernal jail,  
  Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave,  
And the yellow-skirted Fays
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.  
  
XXVII

    But see! the Virgin blest  
    Hath laid her Babe to rest,  
  Time is our tedious song should here have ending:  
    Heaven’s youngest-teemèd star
    Hath fixed her polished car,  
  Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;  
And all about the courtly stable  
Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable.