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POEMS WRITTEN IN 1816
Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins40
And weak articulations might be seen
Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self
Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day,
Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee!
And weak articulations might be seen
Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self
Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day,
Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee!
'Inheritor of more than earth can give,45
Passionless calm and silence unreproved,
Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest,
And are the uncomplaining things they seem,
Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love;
Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were—Peace!'50
This was the only moan she ever made.
Passionless calm and silence unreproved,
Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest,
And are the uncomplaining things they seem,
Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love;
Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were—Peace!'50
This was the only moan she ever made.
HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY
[Composed, probably, in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816. Published in Hunt's Examiner, January 19, 1817, and with Rosalind and Helen, 1819.]
I
The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats though unseen among[1] us,—visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,—
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,5
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening,—
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,—
Like memory of music fled,—10
Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats though unseen among[1] us,—visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,—
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,5
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening,—
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,—
Like memory of music fled,—10
Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
II
Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost[2] shine upon
Of human thought or form,—where art thou gone?15
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
Ask why the sunlight not for ever
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,20
Why fear and dream[3] and death and birth
Cast on the daylight of this earth
Such gloom,—why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope?
Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost[2] shine upon
Of human thought or form,—where art thou gone?15
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
Ask why the sunlight not for ever
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,20
Why fear and dream[3] and death and birth
Cast on the daylight of this earth
Such gloom,—why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope?
III
No voice from some sublimer world hath ever25
To sage or poet these responses given—
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,
No voice from some sublimer world hath ever25
To sage or poet these responses given—
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,
