Selected Poems (77 page)

That bird was perch’d, as fond and tame,

And tamer than upon the tree;

A lovely bird, with azure wings,

And song that said a thousand things,

270

And seem’d to say them all for me!

I never saw its like before,

I ne’er shall see its likeness more:

It seem’d like me to want a mate,

But was not half so desolate,

275

And it was come to love me when

None lived to love me so again,

And cheering from my dungeon’s brink,

Had brought me back to feel and think.

I know not if it late were free,

280

Or broke its cage to perch on mine,

But knowing well captivity,

Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine!

Or if it were, in winged guise,

A visitant from Paradise;

285

For — Heaven forgive that thought! the while

Which made me both to weep and smile;

I sometimes deem’d that it might be

My brother’s soul come down to me;

But then at last away it flew,

290

And then ’twas mortal — well I knew,

For he would never thus have flown,

And left me twice so doubly lone, —

Lone — as the corse within its shroud,

Lone — as a solitary cloud,

295

A single cloud on a sunny day,

While all the rest of heaven is clear,

A frown upon the atmosphere,

That hath no business to appear

When skies are blue, and earth is gay.

XI

300

A kind of change came in my fate,

My keepers grew compassionate;

I know not what had made them so,

They were inured to sights of woe,

But so it was: — my broken chain

305

With links unfasten’d did remain

And it was liberty to stride

Along my cell from side to side,

And up and down, and then athwart,

And tread it over every part;

310

And round the pillars one by one,

Returning where my walk begun,

Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers’ graves without a sod;

For if I thought with heedless tread

315

My step profaned their lowly bed,

My breath came gaspingly and thick,

And my crush’d heart fell blind and sick.

XII

I made a footing in the wall,

It was not therefrom to escape,

320

For I had buried one and all

Who loved me in a human shape;

And the whole earth would henceforth be

A wider prison unto me:

No child — no sire — no kin had I,

325

No partner in my misery;

I thought of this, and I was glad,

For thought of them had made me mad;

But I was curious to ascend

To my barr’d windows, and to bend

330

Once more, upon the mountains high,

The quiet of a loving eye.

XIII

I saw them — and they were the same,

They were not changed like me in frame;

I saw their thousand years of snow

335

On high — their wide long lake below,

And the blue Rhone in fullest flow

I heard the torrents leap and gush

O’er channell’d rock and broken bush;

I saw the white-wall’d distant town,

340

And whiter sails go skimming down;

And then there was a little isle,
¹

Which in my very face did smile,

The only one in view;

A small green isle, it seem’d no more,

345

Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,

But in it there were three tall trees,

And o’er it blew the mountain breeze,

And by it there were waters flowing

And on it there were young flowers growing,

350

Of gentle breath and hue.

The fish swam by the castle wall,

And they seem’d joyous each and all;

The eagle rode the rising blast,

Methought he never flew so fast

355

As then to me he seem’d to fly,

And then new tears came in my eye,

And I felt troubled — and would fain

I had not left my recent chain;

And when I did descend again,

360

The darkness of my dim abode

Fell on me as a heavy load;

It was as is a new-dug grave,

Closing o’er one we sought to save, —

And yet my glance, too much oppress’d,

365

Had almost need of such a rest.

XIV

It might be months, or years, or days,

I kept no count — I took no note,

I had no hope my eyes to raise,

And clear them of their dreary mote;

370

At last men came to set me free,

I ask’d not why, and reck’d not where,

It was at length the same to me,

Fetter’d or fetterless to be,

I learn’d to love despair.

375

And thus when they appear’d at last,

And all my bonds aside were cast,

These heavy walls to me had grown

A hermitage — and all my own!

And half I felt as they were come

380

To tear me from a second home:

With spiders I had friendship made,

And watch’d them in their sullen trade,

Had seen the mice by moonlight play,

And why should I feel less than they?

385

We were all inmates of one place,

And I, the monarch of each race,

Had power to kill — yet, strange to tell!

In quiet we had learn’d to dwell —
¹

My very chains and I grew friends,

390

So much a long communion tends

To make us what we are: — even I

Regain’d my freedom with a sigh.

Darkness

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

5

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went – and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light:

10

And they did live by watchfires – and the thrones,

The palaces of crowned kings – the huts,

The habitations of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,

And men were gather’d round their blazing homes

15

To look once more into each other’s face;

Happy were those who dwelt within the eye

Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:

A fearful hope was all the world contain’d;

Forests were set on fire – but hour by hour

20

They fell and faded – and the crackling trunks

Extinguish’d with a crash – and all was black.

The brows of men by the despairing light

Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down

25

And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest

Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral piles with fuel, and look’d up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

30

The pall of a past world; and then again

With curses cast them down upon the dust,

And gnash’d their teeth and howl’d: the wild birds shriek’d,

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,

And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes

35

Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl’d

And twined themselves among the multitude,

Hissing, but stingless – they were slain for food:

And War, which for a moment was no more,

Did glut himself again; – a meal was bought

40

With blood, and each sate sullenly apart

Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;

All earth was but one thought – and that was death,

Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails – men

45

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;

The meagre by the meagre were devour’d,

Even dogs assail’d their masters, all save one,

And he was faithful to a corse, and kept

The birds and beasts and famish’d men at bay,

50

Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead

Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,

But with a piteous and perpetual moan,

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand

Which answer’d not with a caress – he died.

55

The crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two

Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies: they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place

Where had been heap’d a mass of holy things

60

For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up

65

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other’s aspects – saw, and shriek’d, and died –

Even of their mutual hideousness they died,

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,

70

The populous and the powerful was a lump,

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless —

A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay.

The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirr’d within their silent depths;

75

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp’d

They slept on the abyss without a surge —

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;

80

The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them — She was the Universe.

Diodati, July, 1816.