Page images
PDF
EPUB

When two pure hearts are pour'd in one another, And love too much, and yet can not love less; But almost sanctify the sweet excess

By the immortal wish and power to bless. (1)

XXVII.

Mix'd in each other's arms, and heart in heart, Why did they not then die?—they had lived too long

Should an hour come to bid them breathe apart;

Years could but bring them cruel things or wrong; The world was not for them, nor the world's art For beings passionate as Sappho's song; Love was born with them, in them, so intense, It was their very spirit-not a sense.

XXVIII.

They should have lived together deep in woods, Unseen as sings the nightingale; (2) they were Unfit to mix in these thick solitudes

Call'd social, haunts of Hate, and Vice, and Care: (3)

(1) ["Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend

Towards a higher object. Love was given,
Encouraged, sanction'd, chiefly for that end;
For this the passion to excess was driven -
That self might be annull'd - her bondage prove
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love."-

WORDSWORTH's Laodamia]

("The shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
There can I sit alone, unseen of any,

And to the nightingale's complaining notes

Tune my distresses, and record my woes."- SHAKSPEARE.] (3) MS."Call'd social, where all vice and hatred are."]

How lonely every freeborn creature broods!
The sweetest song-birds nestle in a pair;
The eagle soars alone; the gull and crow
Flock o'er their carrion, just like men below.

XXIX.

Now pillow'd cheek to cheek, in loving sleep,
Haidée and Juan their siesta took,
A gentle slumber, but it was not deep,
For ever and anon a something shook
Juan, and shuddering o'er his frame would creep;
And Haidée's sweet lips murmur'd like a brook
A wordless music, and her face so fair

Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air ;(')

XXX.

Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream
Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind
Walks o'er it, was she shaken by the dream,
The mystical usurper of the mind- (2)

(1) [In one of Wilson's minor poems, "On the Death of a Child” (1812), occurs this beautiful image:

"All her innocent thoughts,

Like rose-leaves scatter'd."-E]

(2) ["We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. At my nativity my ascendant was the watery sign of Scorpius; I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams; and this time also would I choose for my devotions, but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted under. standings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awakened souls a confused and broken tale of that that has passed."- SIR THOMAS BROWNE.]

Were my

O'erpowering us to be whate'er may seem

Good to the soul which we no more can bind; Strange state of being! (for 't is still to be) Senseless to feel, and with seal'd eyes to see. (')

XXXI.

She dream'd of being alone on the sea-shore, (2) Chain'd to a rock; she knew not how, but stir She could not from the spot, and the loud roar Grew, and each wave rose roughly, threatening her;

(1) [MS.-"Strange state of being!- for 't is still to be

And who can know all false what then we see

see?"]

(2) ["One of the finest moral tales I ever read, is an account of a dream in the Tatler, which, though it has every appearance of a real dream, comprehends a moral so sublime and so interesting, that I question whether any man who attends to it can ever forget it; and, if he remembers, whether he can ever cease to be the better for it. Addison is the author of the paper; and I shall give the story in his own elegant words: - 'I was once in agonies of grief that are unutterable, and in so great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself even out of the possibility of receiving comfort. The occasion was as follows:- When I was a youth, in a part of the army which was then quartered at Dover, I fell in love with an agreeable young woman of a good family in those parts, and had the satisfaction of seeing my addresses kindly received, which occasioned the perplexity I am going to relate. We were, in a calm evening, diverting ourselves, on the top of a cliff, with the prospect of the sea; and trifling away the time in such little fondnesses, as are most ridiculous to people in business, and most agreeable to those in love. In the midst of these our innocent endearments, she snatched a paper of verses out of my hand, and ran away with them, I was following her; when on a sudden the ground, though at a considerable distance from the verge of the precipice, sunk under her, and threw her down from so prodigious a height, upon such a range of rocks, as would have dashed her into ten thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. It is much easier for my reader to imagine my state of mind upon such an occasion, than for me to express it. I said to myself, it is not in the power of Heaven to relieve me- when I awaked, equally transported and astonished, to see myself drawn out of an affliction, which, the very moment before, appeared to be altogether inextricable.' -What fable of Esop, nay of Homer, or of Virgil, conveys so fine a moral? Yet most people have, if I mistake not, met with such deliver

And o'er her upper lip they seem'd to pour,

Until she sobb'd for breath, and soon they were Foaming o'er her lone head, so fierce and highEach broke to drown her, yet she could not die.

XXXII.

Anon-she was released, and then she stray'd(')
O'er the sharp' shingles with her bleeding feet,
And stumbled almost every step she made;
And something roll'd before her in a sheet,
Which she must still pursue howe'er afraid:
'Twas white and indistinct, nor stopp'd to meet
Her glance nor grasp, for still she gazed and grasp'd,
And ran, but it escaped her as she clasp'd.

XXXIII.

The dream changed:-in a cave she stood, its walls
Were hung with marble icicles; the work
Of ages on its water-fretted halls,

[and lurk ; Where waves might wash, and seals might breed Her hair was dripping, and the very balls

Of her black eyes seem'd turn'd to tears, and mirk The sharp rocks look'd below each drop they caught, Which froze to marble as it fell,—she thought.

ances by means of a dream. Let us not despise instruction, how mean soever the vehicle may be that brings it. Even if it be a dream, let us learn to profit by it. For, whether asleep or awake, we are equally the care of Providence; and neither a dream, nor a waking thought, can occur to us without the permission of Him in whom we live, and move. and have our being."— DR. BEATTIE.]

(1) [MS." Anon-there were no waters—but she stray'd

O'er the sharp shingles," &c.]

XXXIV.

And wet, and cold, and lifeless at her feet,
Pale as the foam that froth'd on his dead brow,
Which she essay'd in vain to clear, (how sweet
Were once her cares, how idle seem'd they now!)
Lay Juan, nor could aught renew the beat

Of his quench'd heart; and the sea dirges low
Rang in her sad ears like a mermaid's song,
And that brief dream (1) appear'd a life too long. (2)

XXXV.

And gazing on the dead, she thought his face
Faded, or alter'd into something new

Like to her father's features, till each trace

More like and like to Lambro's aspect grewWith all his keen worn look and Grecian grace; And starting, she awoke, and what to view? Oh! Powers of Heaven! what dark eye meets she there?

'Tis 'tis her father's--fix'd upon the pair!

(1) [MS.- -" And that short dream contain'd a life too long."]

(2) ["I awoke from a dream — well! and have not others dreamed ? — Such a dream!-but she did not overtake me. I wish the dead would rest, however Ugh! how my blood chilled- and I could not wake--and

-and-heigho!

'Shadows to night

Have struck more terror in the soul of Richard,

Than could the substance of ten thousand,
Arm'd all in proof,' &c. &c.

I do not like this dream, I hate its' foregone conclusion.' And am I to be shaken by shadows? Ay, when they remind me of → no matter — but, if I dream thus again, I will try whether all sleep has the like visions. Since I rose, I've been in considerable bodily pain also; but it is gone and over, and now, like Lord Ogleby, I am wound up for the day."- 3. Journal, 1813.]

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »