Let not a breath be seen to stir
Around yon grass-grown ruin's height,
Let even the restless gossamer
Sleep on the moveless air!
Soul of Ianthe! thou,
Judged alone worthy of the envied boon,
That waits the good and the sincere; that waits
Those who have struggled, and with resolute will
Vanquish'd earth's pride and meanness, burst the chains,
The icy chains of Custom, and have shone
The day-stars of their age :-Soul of Ianthe!
Awake! Arise!
Sudden arose
Ianthe's soul: it stood
All beautiful in naked purity,
The perfect semblance of its bodily frame.
Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace:
Each stain of earthliness
Had pass'd away, it reassumed
Its native dignity, and stood
Immortal amid ruin.
THE PALACE OF QUEEN MAB.
IF solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the wild ocean's echoing shore,
And thou hast linger'd there,
Until the sun's broad orb
Seem'd resting on the burnish'd wave,
Thou must have mark'd the lines
Of purple gold, that motionless
Hung o'er the sinking sphere:
Thou must have mark'd the billowy clouds
Edged with intolerable radiancy,
Towering like rocks of jet
Crown'd with a diamond wreath.
And yet there is a moment,
When the sun's highest point
Peeps like a star o'er ocean's western edge,
When those far clouds of feathery gold,
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam
Like islands on a dark blue sea;
Then has thy fancy soar'd above the earth,
And furl'd its wearied wing
Within the Fairy's fane.
Yet not the golden islands
Gleaming in yon flood of light,
Nor the feathery curtains
Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch,
Nor the burnish'd ocean-waves,
Paving that gorgeous dome,
So fair, so wonderful a sight
As Mab's ethereal palace could afford.
Yet likest evening's vault, that fairy Hall!
As Heaven, low-resting on the wave, it spread
Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome,
Its fertile golden islands
Floating on a silver sea:
Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted
Through clouds of circumambient darkness,
And pearly battlements around
Look'd o'er the immense of Heaven.
'NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH WHEREIN DWELLETH RIGHTEOUSNESS.'
THEN in her triumph spoke the Faery Queen:
I will not call the ghost of ages gone
To unfold the frightful secrets of its lore;
The present now is past,
And those events that desolate the earth,
Have faded from the memory of Time,
Who dares not give reality to that
Whose being I annul. To me is given.
The wonders of the human world to keep,
Space, matter, time, and mind. Futurity
Exposes now its treasure: let the sight
Renew and strengthen all thy failing hope.
O, human Spirit! spur thee to the goal
Where virtue fixes universal peace,
And, midst the ebb and flow of human things,
Show somewhat stable, somewhat certain still,
A light-house o'er the wild of dreary waves.
The habitable earth is full of bliss;
Those wastes of frozen billows that were hurl'd
By everlasting snow-storms round the poles,
Where matter dared not vegetate nor live,
But ceaseless frost round the vast solitude
Bound its broad zone of stillness, are unloosed,
And fragrant zephyrs there from spicy isles,
Ruffle the placid ocean-deep that rolls
Its broad, bright surges, to the sloping sand,
Whose roar is waken'd into echoings sweet,
To murmur through the heaven-breathing groves,
And melodise with man's blest nature there.
Those deserts of immeasurable sand,
Whose age-collected fervours scarce allow'd
A bird to live, a blade of grass to spring,
Where the shrill chirp of the green lizard's love,
Broke on the sultry silentness alone,
Now teem with countless rills and shady woods,
Corn-fields, and pastures, and white cottages;
And where the startled wilderness beheld
A savage conqueror stain'd in kindred blood,
A tigress sating with the flesh of lambs
The unnatural famine of her toothless cubs,
While shouts and howlings through the desert rang;
Sloping and smooth the daisy-spangled lawn,
Offering sweet incense to the sun-rise, smiles
To see a babe before his mother's door,
Sharing his morning's meal
With the green and golden basilisk
That comes to lick his feet.
Those trackless deeps, where many a weary sail
Has seen above the illimitable plain
Morning on night, and night on morning rise,
Whilst still no land to greet the wanderer spread
Its shadowy mountains on the sun-bright sea,
Where the loud roarings of the tempest-waves
So long have mingled with the gusty wind
In melancholy loneliness, and swept
The desert of those ocean solitudes,
But vocal to the sea-bird's harrowing shriek,
The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm;
Now to the sweet and many mingling sounds
Of kindliest human impulses respond.
Those lonely realms bright garden-isles begem,
With lightsome clouds and shining seas between,
And fertile valleys, resonant with bliss,
Whilst green woods overcanopy the wave,
Which like a toil-worn labourer leaps to shore,
To meet the kisses of the flowerets there.
All things are recreated, and the flame
Of consentaneous love inspires all life :
The fertile bosom of the earth gives suck
To myriads, who still grow beneath her care,
Rewarding her with their pure perfectness:
The balmy breathings of the wind inhale
Her virtues, and diffuse them all abroad:
Health floats amid the gentle atmosphere,
Glows in the fruits, and mantles on the stream:
No storms deform the beaming brow of heaven,
Nor scatter in the freshness of its pride
The foliage of the ever-verdant trees;
But fruits are ever ripe, flowers ever fair,
And Autumn proudly bears her matron grace,
Kindling a flush on the fair cheek of Spring,
Whose virgin-bloom beneath the ruddy fruit.
Reflects its tint, and blushes into love.
The lion now forgets to thirst for blood:
There might you see him sporting in the sun
Beside the dreadless kid; his claws are sheathed,
His teeth are harmless, custom's force has made
His nature as the nature of a lamb.
Like passion's fruit, the nightshade's tempting bane
Poisons no more the pleasure it bestows:
All bitterness is past; the cup of joy
Unmingled mantles to the goblet's brim,
And courts the thirsty lips it fled before.
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