Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view: Like a rose embowered Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers Joyous, and clear and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine : I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields or waves or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be : Never come near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking or asleep Thou of death must deem Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not: With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the groun Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. If there be anywhere a companion poem to this, it is John Keats's "Ode to the Nightingale." Poor John Keats! he too was called in scorn a "Cockney Poet;" he too was a friend of Leigh Hunt's; he too died far from his native country, not indeed like Shelley, by sad mischance, off the coast of Italy, but by slow disease in the very heart of the Eternal City ;— died after having done enough to show the world all that it lost in him. No one since Spenser has possessed a more graphic pen. His processions not only live, they move. ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains "Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Oh for a draught of vintage, that hath been Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! That I might drink and leave the world unseen, Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few sad, last grey hairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull train perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of bees on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Now more than ever seems it rich to die, Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain,— Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Forlorn the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the Fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music :-do I wake or sleep? A most interesting Life of Keates, by Mr. Monckton Milnes, has been recently published. Few works are better worth reading, not only for the sake of the young poet, but for that of his generous benefactors, Sir James Clarke and Mr. Severn. It is well in an age, called perhaps more selfish than it deserves to be, to fall back upon such instances of patient and unostentatious kindness. XXV. AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. VISIT TO BATH. CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY. BATH is a very elegant and classical looking city. Standing upon a steep hill-side, its regular white buildings rising terrace above terrace, crescent above crescent, glittering in the sun, and charmingly varied by the green trees of its park and gardens; its pretty suburban villas mingling with the beautiful villages that surround it on every side; nothing can exceed the grace and amenity of the picture. Even the railway contributes, by a rare exception, to the effect of the landscape. Very pleasant is Bath to look at. But when contrasted with its old reputation as the favourite resort of the noble and the fair, the Baden-Baden of its day, to which the well came for amusement, and the sick as much for cheerfulness as for cure, it is impossible not to feel that the spirit has departed; that it is a city of memories-the very Pompeii of watering-places. It was a far smaller town in that joyous time, and perhaps the stately streets that rise from the old springs in every direction may have made it too spacious and too commodious; for Fashion is a capricious deity, who loves of all things to be crowded, provided the crowd be fashionable, and does not dislike so much gentle inconvenience as may serve to enhance the comfort and magnificence of her real home. |