This glorious clime, this firmament, whose lights
Dart mitigated influence through the veil
Of pale-blue atmosphere; whose tears keep green
The pavement of this moist all-feeding earth;
This vaporous horizon, whose dim round
Is bastioned by the circumfluous sea,
Repelling invasion from the sacred towers;
Presses upon me like a dungeon's grate,
A low dark roof, a damp and narrow vault:
The mighty universe becomes a cell
Too narrow for the soul that owns no master.
While the loathliest spot

Of this wide prison, England, is a nest
Of cradled peace built on the mountain tops,
To which the eagle-spirits of the free,
Which range through heaven and earth, and scorn

the storm

Of time, and gaze upon the light of truth,
Return to brood over the [

] thoughts That cannot die, and may not be repelled.

*

SWIFT as a spirit hastening to his task
Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth
Rejoicing in his splendour, and the mask

Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth--
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
Flamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth

Of light, the Ocean's orison arose,

To which the birds tempered their matin lay. All flowers in field or forest which unclose

Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, Swinging their censers in the element, With orient incense lit by the new ray

Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air; And, in succession due, did continent,

Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear The form and character of mortal mould, Rise as the sun their father rose, to bear

Their portion of the toil, which he of old
Took as his own and then imposed on them:
But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold

Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem
The cone of night, now they were laid asleep
Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem

Which an old chesnut flung athwart the steep
Of a green Apennine: before me fled
The night; behind me rose the day; the deep

Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head,
When a strange trance over my fancy grew
Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread

Was so transparent, that the scene came through
As clear as when a veil of light is drawn
O'er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew
That I had felt the freshness of that dawn,
Bathed in the same cold dew my brow and hair,
And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn

Under the self-same bough, and heard as there
The birds, the fountains, and the ocean hold
Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air,
And then a vision on my brain was rolled.

As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay, This was the tenour of my waking dream :Methought I sate beside a public way

Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream Of people there was hurrying to and fro, Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,

All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know
Whither he went, or whence he came, or why
He made one of the multitude, and so

Was borne amid the crowd, as through the sky
One of the million leaves of summer's bier;
Old age and youth, manhood and infancy,

Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear:
Some flying from the thing they feared, and some
Seeking the object of another's fear;

And others as with steps towards the tomb,
Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,
And others mournfully within the gloom

Of their own shadow walked and called it death;
And some fled from it as it were a ghost,
Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath:

But more with motions, which each other crost,
Pursued or spurned the shadows the clouds threw,
Or birds within the noon-day ether lost,

Upon that path where flowers never grew,
And weary with vain toil and faint for thirst,
Heard not the fountains, whose melodious dew

Out of their mossy cells for ever burst;
Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told
Of grassy paths and wood, lawn-interspersed,

With over-arching elms and caverns cold,
And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they
Pursued their serious folly as of old.

And as I gazed, methought that in the way
The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June
When the south wind shakes the extinguished day,

And a cold glare intenser than the noon,
But icy cold, obscured with blinding light
The sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon

That what I thought was an old root which grew
To strange distortion out of the hill side,
Was indeed one of those deluded crew,

And that the grass, which methought hung so wide
And white, was but his thin discoloured hair,
And that the holes it vainly sought to hide,

Were or had been eyes:-" If thou canst, forbear
To join the dance, which I had well forborne !"
Said the grim Feature of my thought: "Aware,

"I will unfold that which to this deep scorn
Led me and my companions, and relate
The progress of the pageant since the morn;

"If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate, Follow it thou even to the night, but I Am weary." Then like one who with the weight

Of his own words is staggered, wearily He paused; and, ere he could resume, I cried, "First, who art thou?"-" Before thy memory,

"I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died, And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit Had been with purer sentiment supplied,

"Corruption would not now thus much inherit Of what was once Rousseau,-nor this disguise Stained that which ought to have disdained to wear it ;

"If I have been extinguished, yet there rise A thousand beacons from the spark I bore""And who are those chained to the car?"-" The wise,

"The great, the unforgotten,-they who wore Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light, Signs of thought's empire over thought-their lore "Taught them not this, to know themselves; their Could not repress the mystery within, [might And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night "Caught themere evening."-"Who is he with chin Upon his breast, and hands crost on his chain?"— "The Child of a fierce hour; he sought to win

"The world, and lost all that it did contain
Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; and more
Of fame and peace than virtue's self can gain

"Without the opportunity which bore
Him on its eagle pinions to the peak
From which a thousand climbers have before

"Fallen, as Napoleon fell."-I felt my cheek
Alter to see the shadow pass away,
Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak,

That every pigmy kicked it as it lay;
And much I grieved to think how power and will
In opposition rule our mortal day,

And why God made irreconcilable

Good and the means of good; and for despair I half disdained mine eyes' desire to fill

With the spent vision of the times that were
And scarce have ceased to be.-"Dost thou behold,"
Said my guide,“ those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire,

"Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold, And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage

names which the world thinks always old, "For in the battle life and they did wage, She remained conqueror. I was overcome By my own heart alone, which neither age,

"Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb Could temper to its object."-" Let them pass," I cried, "the world and its mysterious doom "Is not so much more glorious than it was, That I desire to worship those who drew New figures on its false and fragile glass

"As the old faded."-" Figures ever new Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may; We have but thrown, as those before us threw,

"Our shadows on it as it past away. But mark how chained to the triumphal chair The mighty phantoms of an elder day;

"All that is mortal of great Plato there Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not: The star that ruled his doom was far too fair,

"And life, where long that flower of Heaven

grew not,

Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain,
Or age, or sloth, or slavery, could subdue not.

"And near him walk the [
] twain,
The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion
Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.

"The world was darkened beneath either pinion
Of him whom from the flock of conquerors
Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion;
"The other long outlived both woes and wars,
Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept
The jealous key of truth's eternal doors,

"If Bacon's eagle spirit had not leapt
Like lightning out of darkness-he compelled
The Proteus shape of Nature as it slept

“To wake, and lead him to the caves that held The treasure of the secrets of its reign. See the great bards of elder time, who quelled

"The passions which they sung, as by their strain May well be known: their living melody Tempers its own contagion to the vein

"Of those who are infected with it-I Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain, And so my words have seeds of misery!".

[There is a chasm here in the MS. which it is impossible to fill up. It appears from the context, that other shapes pass, and that Rousseau still stood beside the dreamer, as]

he pointed to a company,

'Midst whom I quickly recognised the heirs
Of Cæsar's crime, from him to Constantine;
The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares

Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line,
And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad:
And Gregory and John, and men divine,

Who rose like shadows between man and God;
Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven,
Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode,

For the true sun it quenched-" Their power was
But to destroy," replied the leader:-"I [given
Am one of those who have created, even

If it be but a world of agony."-. "Whence comest thou? and whither goest thou? How did thy course begin?" I said, " and why?

66

"Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow Of people, and my heart sick of one sad thoughtSpeak!"" Whence am, I partly seem to know,

"And how and by what paths I have been brought To this dread pass, methinks even thou may'st

guess;

Why this should be, my mind can compass not;

"Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less ;But follow thou, and from spectator turn Actor or victim in this wretchedness,

"And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn From thee. Now listen:-In the April prime, When all the forest tips began to burn

"With kindling green, touched by the azure clime Of the young year's dawn, I was laid asleep Under a mountain, which from unknown time

"Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep; And from it came a gentle rivulet, Whose water, like clear air, in its calm sweep

"Bent the soft grass, and kept for ever wet The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove

With sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget

"All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love, Which they had known before that hour of rest; A sleeping mother then would dream not of

"Her only child who died upon her breast At eventide-a king would mourn no more The crown of which his brows were dispossest

"When the sun lingered o'er his ocean floor, To gild his rival's new prosperity. Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore

"Ills, which if ills can find no cure from thee, The thought of which no other sleep will quell, Nor other music blot from memory,

"So sweet and deep is the oblivious spell; And whether life had been before that sleep The heaven which I imagine, or a hell

"Like this harsh world in which I wake to weep,

I know not. I arose, and for a space

The scene of woods and waters seemed to keep,

"Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace Of light diviner than the common sun Sheds on the common earth, and all the place "Was filled with magic sounds woven into one Oblivious melody, confusing sense

Amid the gliding waves and shadows dun;

"And, as I looked, the bright omnipresence Of morning through the orient cavern flowed, And the sun's image radiantly intense

"Burned on the waters of the well that glowed Like gold, and threaded all the forest's maze With winding paths of emerald fire; there stood

"Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze Of his own glory, on the vibrating Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,

"A Shape all light, which with one hand did fring
Dew on the earth, as if she were the dawn,
And the invisible rain did ever sing

"A silver music on the mossy lawn;
And still before me on the dusky grass,
Iris her many-coloured scarf had drawn:

"In her right hand she bore a crystal glass, Mantling with bright Nepenthe; the fierce splendour

Fell from her as she moved under the mass

"Out of the deep cavern, with palms so tender, Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow; She glided along the river, and did bend her

"Head under the dark boughs, till, like a willow, Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream That whispered with delight to be its pillow.

"As one enamoured is upborne in dream
O'er lily-paven lakes 'mid silver mist,
To wondrous music, so this shape might seem

"Partly to tread the waves with feet which kissed
The dancing foam; partly to glide along
The air which roughened the moist amethyst,
"Or the faint morning beams that fell among
The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees;
And her feet, ever to the ceaseless song

"Of leaves, and winds, and waves, and birds, and bees,

And falling drops moved to a measure new,
Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze,

"Up from the lake a shape of golden dew Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon, Dances i' the wind, where never eagle flew;