The Complete Poetical Works, vol 2 | Page 4

feel,
or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.
The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must
surely be, _20 Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No
longer will live to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange

In the boundless realm of unending change.
Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death? _25 Who lifteth the veil of
what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The
wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of
what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see? _30
***
A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD.
LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
[Composed September, 1815. Published with "Alastor", 1816.]
The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that
obscured the sunset's ray;
And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair

In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:
Silence and
Twilight, unbeloved of men, _5 Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest
glen.
They breathe their spells towards the departing day,
Encompassing
the earth, air, stars, and sea;
Light, sound, and motion own the potent
sway,
Responding to the charm with its own mystery. _10 The winds

are still, or the dry church-tower grass
Knows not their gentle
motions as they pass.
Thou too, aereal Pile! whose pinnacles
Point from one shrine like
pyramids of fire,
Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, _15
Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,
Around whose
lessening and invisible height
Gather among the stars the clouds of
night.
The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:
And, mouldering as they
sleep, a thrilling sound, _20 Half sense, half thought, among the
darkness stirs,
Breathed from their wormy beds all living things
around,
And mingling with the still night and mute sky
Its awful
hush is felt inaudibly.
Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild _25 And terrorless as this
serenest night:
Here could I hope, like some inquiring child

Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight
Sweet
secrets, or beside its breathless sleep
That loveliest dreams perpetual
watch did keep. _30
***
TO --.
[Published with "Alastor", 1816. See Editor's Note.]
DAKRTSI DIOISO POTMON 'APOTMON.
Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,

And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight
trees:--
Such lovely ministers to meet _5 Oft hast thou turned from
men thy lonely feet.
With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And moonlight seas, that
are the voice
Of these inexplicable things,
Thou didst hold

commune, and rejoice _10 When they did answer thee; but they
Cast,
like a worthless boon, thy love away.
And thou hast sought in starry eyes
Beams that were never meant for
thine,
Another's wealth:--tame sacrifice
To a fond faith! still dost
thou pine? _15 Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks,
or lips, may answer thy demands?
Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
On the false earth's
inconstancy? _20 Did thine own mind afford no scope
Of love, or
moving thoughts to thee?
That natural scenes or human smiles

Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?
Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled _25 Whose falsehood left thee
broken-hearted;
The glory of the moon is dead;
Night's ghosts and
dreams have now departed;
Thine own soul still is true to thee,
But
changed to a foul fiend through misery. _30
This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
Beside thee like thy shadow
hangs,
Dream not to chase;--the mad endeavour
Would scourge
thee to severer pangs.
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,
Dark as it is,
all change would aggravate. _35
NOTES:
_1 of 1816; in 1839.
_8 moonlight 1816; mountain 1839.
***
TO WORDSWORTH.
[Published with "Alastor", 1816.]
Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which
never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first
glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These
common woes I feel. One loss is mine _5 Which thou too feel'st, yet I
alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine
On

some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a
rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude: _10
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth
and liberty,--
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,
Thus
having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.
***
FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE FALL OF
BONAPARTE.
[Published with "Alastor", 1816.]
I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan
To think that a most
unambitious slave,
Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave

Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne
Where it had stood
even now: thou didst prefer _5 A frail and bloody pomp which Time
has swept
In fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre,
For this I
prayed, would on thy sleep have crept,
Treason and Slavery, Rapine,
Fear, and Lust,
And stifled thee, their minister. I know _10 Too late,
since thou and France are in the dust,
That Virtue owns a more
eternal foe
Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime,
And
bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.
***
LINES.