| |
| HENCE, vain deluding joys, | |
| The brood of Folly without father bred! | |
| How little you bestead, | |
| Or fill the fixèd mind with all your toys! | |
| Dwell in some idle brain, | 5 |
| And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, | |
| As thick and numberless | |
| As the gay motes that people the sunbeams,— | |
| Or likest hovering dreams, | |
| The tickle pensioners of Morpheus’ train. | 10 |
| |
| But hail, thou goddess, sage and holy! | |
| Hail, divinest Melancholy! | |
| Whose saintly visage is too bright | |
| To hit the sense of human sight, | |
| And therefore, to our weaker view, | 15 |
| O’erlaid with black, staid Wisdom’s hue,— | |
| Black, but such as in esteem | |
| Prince Memnon’s sister might beseem, | |
| Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove | |
| To set her beauty’s praise above | 20 |
| The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended. | |
| Yet thou art higher far descended; | |
| Thee bright-haired Vesta, long of yore, | |
| To solitary Saturn bore,— | |
| His daughter she (in Saturn’s reign | 25 |
| Such mixture was not held a stain). | |
| Oft in glimmering bowers and glades | |
| He met her, and in secret shades | |
| Of woody Ida’s inmost grove, | |
| While yet there was no fear of Jove. | 30 |
| |
| Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, | |
| Sober, steadfast, and demure, | |
| All in a robe of darkest grain | |
| Flowing with majestic train, | |
| And sable stole of cyprus-lawn | 35 |
| Over thy decent shoulders drawn. | |
| Come but keep thy wonted state, | |
| With even step, and musing gait, | |
| And looks commercing with the skies, | |
| Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes; | 40 |
| There held in holy passion still, | |
| Forget thyself to marble, till | |
| With a sad, leaden, downward cast | |
| Thou fix them on the earth as fast; | |
| And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,— | 45 |
| Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet, | |
| And hears the Muses in a ring | |
| Aye round about Jove’s altar sing; | |
| And add to these retired Leisure, | |
| That in trim gardens takes his pleasure: | 50 |
| But first and chiefest, with thee bring | |
| Him that yon soars on golden wing, | |
| Guiding the fiery-wheelèd throne,— | |
| The cherub Contemplation; | |
| And the mute Silence hist along, | 55 |
| ’Less Philomel will deign a song | |
| In her sweetest, saddest plight, | |
| Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, | |
| While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke | |
| Gently o’er the accustomed oak. | 60 |
| Sweet bird, that shun’st the noise of folly,— | |
| Most musical, most melancholy! | |
| Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among, | |
| I woo, to hear thy even-song. | |
| And, missing thee, I walk unseen | 65 |
| On the dry, smooth-shaven green, | |
| To behold the wandering moon | |
| Riding near her highest noon, | |
| Like one that had been led astray | |
| Through the heaven’s wide pathless way; | 70 |
| And oft, as if her head she bowed, | |
| Stooping through a fleecy cloud. | |
| Oft, on a plat of rising ground, | |
| I hear the far-off curfew sound | |
| Over some wide-watered shore, | 75 |
| Swinging slow with sullen roar; | |
| Or if the air will not permit, | |
| Some still removed place will fit, | |
| Where glowing embers through the room | |
| Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,— | 80 |
| Far from all resort of mirth, | |
| Save the cricket on the hearth, | |
| Or the bellman’s drowsy charm, | |
| To bless the doors from nightly harm; | |
| Or let my lamp at midnight hour | 85 |
| Be seen in some high lonely tower, | |
| Where I may oft out-watch the Bear | |
| With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere | |
| The spirit of Plato, to unfold | |
| What worlds or what vast regions hold | 90 |
| The immortal mind that hath forsook | |
| Her mansion in this fleshly nook; | |
| And of those demons that are found | |
| In fire, air, flood, or under ground, | |
| Whose power hath a true consent | 95 |
| With planet or with element. | |
| Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy | |
| In sceptred pall come sweeping by, | |
| Presenting Thebes, or Pelops’ line, | |
| Or the tale of Troy divine, | 100 |
| Or what (though rare) of later age | |
| Ennobled hath the buskined stage. | |
| |
| But, O sad Virgin, that thy power | |
| Might raise Musæus from his bower! | |
| Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing | 105 |
| Such notes as, warbled to the string, | |
| Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek, | |
| And made hell grant what love did seek! | |
| Or call up him that left half told | |
| The story of Cambuscan bold,— | 110 |
| Of Camball, and of Algarsife,— | |
| And who had Canacè to wife, | |
| That owned the virtuous ring and glass,— | |
| And of the wondrous horse of brass, | |
| On which the Tartar king did ride! | 115 |
| And, if aught else great bards beside | |
| In sage and solemn tunes have sung,— | |
| Of tourneys and of trophies hung, | |
| Of forests, and enchantments drear, | |
| Where more is meant than meets the ear. | 120 |
| |
| Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, | |
| Till civil-suited Morn appear,— | |
| Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont | |
| With the Attic boy to hunt, | |
| But kerchiefed in a comely cloud, | 125 |
| While rocking winds are piping loud, | |
| Or ushered with a shower still | |
| When the gust hath blown his fill, | |
| Ending on the rustling leaves, | |
| With minute drops from off the eaves. | 130 |
| And when the sun begins to fling | |
| His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring | |
| To archèd walks of twilight groves, | |
| And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, | |
| Of pine, or monumental oak, | 135 |
| Where the rude axe with heavèd stroke | |
| Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt, | |
| Or fright them from their hallowed haunt. | |
| There in close covert by some brook, | |
| Where no profaner eye may look, | 140 |
| Hide me from day’s garish eye, | |
| While the bee with honeyed thigh, | |
| That at her flowery work doth sing, | |
| And the waters murmuring | |
| With such consort as they keep, | 145 |
| Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep; | |
| And let some strange mysterious dream | |
| Wave at his wings, in airy stream | |
| Of lively portraiture displayed, | |
| Softly on my eyelids laid; | 150 |
| And, as I wake, sweet music breathe | |
| Above, about, or underneath, | |
| Sent by some spirit to mortals good, | |
| Or the unseen Genius of the wood. | |
| |
| But let my due feet never fail | 155 |
| To walk the studious cloister’s pale, | |
| And love the high embowèd roof, | |
| With antique pillars massy proof, | |
| And storied windows, richly dight, | |
| Casting a dim religious light. | 160 |
| There let the pealing organ blow | |
| To the full-voiced quire below, | |
| In service high and anthems clear, | |
| As may with sweetness, through mine ear, | |
| Dissolve me into ecstasies, | 165 |
| And bring all heaven before mine eyes. | |
| |
| And may at last my weary age | |
| Find out the peaceful hermitage, | |
| The hairy gown and mossy cell, | |
| Where I may sit and rightly spell | 170 |
| Of every star that heaven doth shew, | |
| And every herb that sips the dew; | |
| Till old experience do attain | |
| To something like prophetic strain. | |
| |
| These pleasures, Melancholy, give, | 175 |
| And I with thee will choose to live. | |
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