What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,
Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?
But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts
To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
A maiden angel and her seraph-lover-
O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
Unguided Love hath fallen-'mid "tears of perfect moan.
He was a goodly spirit-he who fell:
A wanderer by moss-ymantled well-
A gazer on the lights that shine above-
A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:
What wonder? for each star is eye-like there,
And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair-
And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy
To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.
The night had found (to him a night of woe)
Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo-
Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,
And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.
Here sate he with his love-his dark eye bent
With eagle gaze along the firmament:
Now turned it upon her-but ever then
It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.
"Ianthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray!
How lovely 'tis to look so far away!
She seemed not thus upon that autumn eve
I left her gorgeous halls-nor mourned to leave.
That eve-that eve-I should remember well-
The sun-ray dropped, in Lemnos, with a spell
resembles the delirium of opium. The passionate excitement of love, and the buoyancy of spirit attendant upon intoxication, are its less holy pleasures the price of which, to those souls who make choice of "Al Aaraaf" as their residence after life, is final death and annihilation.
* There be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon.-Milton.
On th' Arabesque carving of a gilded hall
Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall-
And on my eye-lids-O, the heavy light!
How drowsily it weighed them into night!
On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan :
But O, that light!-I slumbered-Death, the while,
Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle
So softly that no single silken hair
Awoke that slept or knew that he was there.
The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon
Was a proud temple called the Parthenon ;*
More beauty clung around her columned wall
Than even thy glowing bosom beats withal, †
And when old Time my wing did disenthral
Thence sprang I-as the eagle from his tower,
And years I left behind me in an hour.
What time upon her airy bounds I hung
One half the garden of her globe was flung
Unrolling as a chart unto my view—
Tenantless cities of the desert too!
Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
And half I wished to be again of men."
"My Angelo! and why of them to be?
A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee-
And greener fields than in yon world above,
And woman's loveliness-and passionate love."
"But list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
Failed, as my pennoned spirit leapt aloft,‡
Perhaps my brain grew dizzy-but the world
I left so late was into chaos hurled,
*It was entire in 1687-the most elevated spot in Athens.
+ Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
Than have the white breasts of the queen of love.-Marlowe.
Pennon, for pinion. -Milton.
Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
And rolled a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar,
And fell-not swiftly as I rose before,
But with a downward, tremulous motion thro'
Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!
Nor long the measure of my falling hours,
For nearest of all stars was thine to ours—
Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
A red Dædalion on the timid Earth."
"We came and to thy Earth—but not to us
Be given our lady's bidding to discuss:
We came, my love; around, above, below,
Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go,
Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod
She grants to us as granted by her God-
But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurled
Never his fairy wing o'er fairer world!
Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes
Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea—
But when its glory swelled upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,
We paused before the heritage of men,
And thy star trembled- -as doth Beauty then!"
Thus in discourse, the lovers whiled away
The night that waned and waned and brought no day. They fell for Heaven to them no hope imparts
Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.
KIND solace in a dying hour!
Such, father, is not (now) my themeI will not madly deem that power
Of Earth may shrive me of the sin Unearthly pride hath revelled inI have no time to dote or dream: You call it hope that fire of fire! It is but agony of desire:
If I can hope-O God! I can
Its fount is holier-more divine-
I would not call thee fool, old man,
But such is not a gift of thine.
Know thou the secret of a spirit
Bowed from its wild pride into shame.
O yearning heart! I did inherit
Thy withering portion with the fame,
The searing glory which hath shone
Amid the Jewels of my throne,
Halo of Hell! and with a pain
Not Hell shall make me fear again-
O craving heart, for the lost flowers
And sunshine of my summer hours!
The undying voice of that dead time,
With its interminable chime,
Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
Upon thy emptiness-a knell.
I have not always been as now:
The fevered diadem on my brow
I claimed and won usurpingly-
Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
Rome to the Cæsar-this to me?
The heritage of a kingly mind, And a proud spirit which hath striven Triumphantly with human kind.
On mountain soil I first drew life:
The mists of the Taglay have shed
Nightly their dews upon my head,
And, I believe, the winged strife
And tumult of the headlong air
Have nestled in my very hair.
So late from Heaven-that dew-it fell ('Mid dreams of an unholy night) Upon me with the touch of Hell,
While the red flashing of the light From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er, Appeared to my half-closing eye The pageantry of monarchy; And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar Came hurriedly upon me, telling
Of human battle, where my voice,
My own voice, silly child!—was swelling
(O how my spirit would rejoice,
And leap within me at the cry)
The battle-cry of Victory!
The rain came down upon my head
Unsheltered-and the heavy wind
Rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
It was but man, I thought, who shed
Laurels upon me: and the rush—
The torrent of the chilly air
Gurgled within my ear the crush
Of empires-with the captive's prayer
The hum of suitors-and the tone
Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.
My passions, from that hapless hour,
Usurped a tyranny which men
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