Robert Southey

“ The Second Book She spake, and lo! celestial radiance beam’d
Amid the air, such odors wafting now
As erst came blended with the evening gale,
From Eden’s bowers of bliss. An angel form
Stood by the Maid; his wings, etherial white,
Flash’d like the diamond in the noon-tide sun,
Dazzling her mortal eye: all else appear’d
Her Theodore.
Amazed she saw: the Fiend
Was fled, and on her ear the well-known voice
Sounded, tho’ now more musically sweet
Than ever yet had thrill’d her charmed soul,
When eloquent Affection fondly told
The day-dreams of delight. ”

“ And Happiness behold Affection eye
Gleam with the Mother’s smile. Thrice happy he
Who feels thy holy power! he shall not drag,
Forlorn and friendless, along Life’s long path
To Age’s drear abode; he shall not waste
The bitter evening of his days unsooth’d;
But Hope shall cheer his hours of Solitude,
And Vice shall vainly strive to wound his breast,
That bears that talisman; and when he meets
The eloquent eye of Tenderness, and hears
The bosom-thrilling music of her voice;
The joy he feels shall purify his Soul,
And imp it for anticipated Heaven. ”

“ Curate.
Poor old woman!
What can you fear from her?
Father.
What can we fear?
Who lamed the Miller’s boy? who rais’d the wind
That blew my old barn’s roof down? who d’ye think
Rides my poor horse a’nights? who mocks the hounds?
But let me catch her at that trick again,
And I’ve a silver bullet ready for her,
One that shall lame her, double how she will.
Nathaniel.
What makes her sit there moping by herself,
With no soul near her but that great black cat?
And do but look at her!
Curate.
Poor wretch! ”

“ And now in darkness drown’d. An aged man
Sat near, seated on what in long-past days
Had been some sculptur’d monument, now fallen
And half-obscured by moss, and gathered heaps
Of withered yew-leaves and earth-mouldering bones;
And shining in the ray was seen the track
Of slimy snail obscene. Composed his look,
His eye was large and rayless, and fix’d full
Upon the Maid; the blue flames on his face
Stream’d a pale light; his face was of the hue
Of death; his limbs were mantled in a shroud. ”

“ Could never equal: wandered thro’ its halls
A numerous train; some with the red-swoln eye
Of riot, and intemperance-bloated cheek;
Some pale and nerveless, and with feeble step,
And eyes lack-lustre.
Maiden? said her guide,
These are the wretched slaves of Appetite,
Curst with their wish enjoyed. The epicure
Here pampers his foul frame, till the pall’d sense
Loaths at the banquet; the voluptuous here
Plunge in the tempting torrent of delight,
And sink in misery. All they wish’d on earth,
Possessing here, whom have they to accuse,
But their own folly, for the lot they chose? ”

“ The spectacle abhorr’d by living man.
“Look here!” Despair pursued, “this loathsome mass
Was once as lovely, and as full of life
As, Damsel! thou art now. Those deep-sunk eyes
Once beam’d the mild light of intelligence,
And where thou seest the pamper’d flesh-worm trail,
Once the white bosom heaved. She fondly thought
That at the hallowed altar, soon the Priest
Should bless her coming union, and the torch
Its joyful lustre o’er the hall of joy,
Cast on her nuptial evening: earth to earth
That Priest consign’d her, and the funeral lamp
Glares on her cold face ”

“ Dwelt on the Maiden’s cheek, and read her soul
Struggling within. In trembling doubt she stood,
Even as the wretch, whose famish’d entrails crave
Supply, before him sees the poison’d food
In greedy horror.
Yet not long the Maid
Debated, “Cease thy dangerous sophistry,
Eloquent tempter!” cried she. “Gloomy one!
What tho’ affliction be my portion here,
Think’st thou I do not feel high thoughts of joy. ”

“ At the dread thought, that here its life’s-blood soon
Now warm in life and feeling, mingle soon
With the cold clod? a thought most horrible!
So only dreadful, for reality
Is none of suffering here; here all is peace;
No nerve will throb to anguish in the grave.
Dreadful it is to think of losing life;
But having lost, knowledge of loss is not,
Therefore no ill. Haste, Maiden, to repose;
Probe deep the seat of life. ”

“ Pour out the impious prayer, that fain would change
The unchangeable’s decree, surrounding friends
Sob round the sufferer, wet his cheek with tears,
And all he loved in life embitters death!
Such, Maiden, are the pangs that wait the hour
Of calmest dissolution! yet weak man
Dares, in his timid piety, to live;
And veiling Fear in Superstition’s garb,
He calls her Resignation!
Coward wretch! ”

“ Of heart-ennobling joy, when I look back
Upon a life of duty well perform’d,
Then lift mine eyes to Heaven, and there in faith
Know my reward? I grant, were this life all,
Was there no morning to the tomb’s long night,
If man did mingle with the senseless clod,
Himself as senseless, then wert thou indeed
A wise and friendly comforter! But, Fiend!
There is a morning to the tomb’s long night,
A dawn of glory, a reward in Heaven,
He shall not gain who never merited.
If thou didst know the worth of one good deed
In life’s last hour, thou would’st not bid me lose
The power to benefit ”

“ Save when some sinful wretch on a sick bed
Implored his blessing and his aid in death.
That summons he delayed not to obey,
Tho’ the night tempest or autumnal wind.
Maddened the waves, and tho’ the mariner,
Albeit relying on his saintly load,
Grew pale to see the peril. So he lived
A most austere and self-denying man,
Till abstinence, and age, and watchfulness
Exhausted him, and it was pain at last
To rise at midnight from his bed of leaves
And bend his knees in prayer. ”

“ That thro’ the creeping weeds and nettles tall
Peers taller, and uplifts its column’d stem
Bright with the broad rose-blossoms. I have seen
Many a fallen convent reverend in decay,
And many a time have trod the castle courts
And grass-green halls, yet never did they strike
Home to the heart such melancholy thoughts
As this poor cottage. Look, its little hatch
Fleeced with that grey and wintry moss; the roof
Part mouldered in, the rest o’ergrown with weeds,
House-leek and long thin grass and greener moss;
So Nature wars with all the works of man. ”

“ Far thro’ the silence of the unbroken plain
The bittern’s boom was heard, hoarse, heavy, deep,
It made most fitting music to the scene.
Black clouds, driven fast before the stormy wind,
Swept shadowing; thro’ their broken folds the moon
Struggled sometimes with transitory ray,
And made the moving darkness visible.
And now arrived beside a fenny lake
She stands: amid its stagnate waters, hoarse
The long sedge rustled to the gales of night.
An age-worn bark receives the Maid, impell’d
By powers unseen ”

“ She ever did herself, tho’ now
She lies where four roads meet.
I have past by about that hour
When men are not most brave,
It did not make my heart to fail,
And I have heard the nightingale
Sing sweetly on her grave.
I have past by about that hour
When Ghosts their freedom have,
But there was nothing here to fright,
And I have seen the glow-worm’s light
Shine on the poor girl’s grave.
There’s one who like a Christian lies
Beneath the church-tree’s shade;
I’d rather go a long mile round
Than pass at evening thro’ the ground
Wherein that man is laid. ”

“ For Fiend he was, tho’ wisely serving here
Mock’d at his patients, and did often pour
Ashes upon them, and then bid them say
Their prayers aloud, and then he louder laughed:
For these were Hypocrites, on earth revered
As holy ones, who did in public tell
Their beads, and make long prayers, and cross themselves,
And call themselves most miserable sinners,
That so they might be deem’d most pious saints;
And go all filth, and never let a smile
Bend their stern muscles, gloomy, sullen men,
Barren of all affection, and all this
To please their God, forsooth! ”

“ The Third Book The Maiden, musing on the Warrior’s words,
Turn’d from the Hall of Glory. Now they reach’d
A cavern, at whose mouth a Genius stood,
In front a beardless youth, whose smiling eye
Beam’d promise, but behind, withered and old,
And all unlovely. Underneath his feet
Lay records trampled, and the laurel wreath
Now rent and faded: in his hand he held
An hour-glass, and as fall the restless sands,
So pass the lives of men. ”

“ As when thro’ yonder lattice the next sun
Shall bid thee to thy morning orisons!
Thy voice is heard, the Angel guide rejoin’d,
He sees thee in his dreams, he hears thee breathe
Blessings, and pleasant is the good man’s rest.
Thy fame has reached him, for who has not heard
Thy wonderous exploits? and his aged heart
Hath felt the deepest joy that ever yet
Made his glad blood flow fast. Sleep on old Claude! ”

“ Shot from the sapphire, and the emerald’s hue,
And bright pyropus.
There on golden seats,
A numerous, sullen, melancholy train
Sat silent. “Maiden, these,” said Theodore,
Are they who let the love of wealth absorb
All other passions; in their souls that vice
Struck deeply-rooted, like the poison-tree
That with its shade spreads barrenness around. ”

“ Such creatures live!
Father.
And when there’s such plain proof!
I did but threaten her because she robb’d
Our hedge, and the next night there came a wind
That made me shake to hear it in my bed!
How came it that that storm unroofed my barn,
And only mine in the parish? look at her
And that’s enough; she has it in her face—
A pair of large dead eyes, rank in her head,
Just like a corpse, and purs’d with wrinkles round,
A nose and chin that scarce leave room between
For her lean fingers to squeeze in the snuff,
And when she speaks! ”

“ Bearing the wind and rain and winter frosts,
And if she did not reach her home at night
She laid her down in the stable with her asses
And slept as sound as they did.
Harry.
With her asses!
Grandmother.
Yes, and she loved her beasts. For tho’ poor wretch
She was a terrible reprobate and swore
Like any trooper, she was always good
To the dumb creatures, never loaded them
Beyond their strength, and rather I believe
Would stint herself than let the poor beasts want,
Because, she said, they could not ask for food. ”

“ Waving in the wind. And when the autumn comes
The bright red berries of the mountain ash,
With firs enough in winter to look green,
And show that something lives. Sure this is better
Than a great hedge of yew that makes it look
All the year round like winter, and for ever
Dropping its poisonous leaves from the under boughs
So dry and bare!
Old Man.
Ah! so the new Squire thinks
And pretty work he makes of it! what ’tis
To have a stranger come to an old house! ”

“ These lines strongly resemble a passage in the Pharonnida of William Chamberlayne, a Poet who has told an interesting story in uncouth rhymes, and mingled sublimity of thought and beauty of expression, with the quaintest conceits, and most awkward inversions.
On a rock more high
Than Nature’s common surface, she beholds
The Mansion house of Fate, which thus unfolds
Its sacred mysteries. ”

“ Eclogue IV ­ The Sailor’s Mother Woman.
Sir for the love of God some small relief
To a poor woman!
Traveller.
Whither are you bound?
’Tis a late hour to travel o’er these downs,
No house for miles around us, and the way
Dreary and wild. The evening wind already
Makes one’s teeth chatter, and the very Sun,
Setting so pale behind those thin white clouds,
Looks cold. ’Twill be a bitter night!
Woman. ”

“ Where never morning darts the enlivening ray,
Where never shines the sun, but all is dark,
Dark as the bosom of their gloomy King.”
So saying he arose, and by the hand
The Virgin seized with such a death-cold touch
As froze her very heart; and drawing on,
Her, to the abbey’s inner ruin, led
Resistless. Thro’ the broken roof the moon
Glimmer’d a scatter’d ray; the ivy twined
Round the dismantled column; imaged forms
Of Saints and warlike Chiefs, moss-canker’d now
And mutilate, lay strewn upon the ground,
With crumbled fragments, crucifixes fallen,
And rusted trophies ”

“ It is the Heaven of those who nurst on earth
Their nature’s gentlest feelings. Yet not here
Centering their joys, but with a patient hope,
Waiting the allotted hour when capable
Of loftier callings, to a better state
They pass; and hither from that better state
Frequent they come, preserving so those ties
That thro’ the infinite progressiveness
Complete our perfect bliss.
“Even such, so blest,
Save that the memory of no sorrows past
Heightened the present joy, our world was once,
In the first æra of its innocence
Ere man had learnt to bow the knee to man. ”

“ The delegated Maiden lay: with toil
Exhausted and sore anguish, soon she closed
Her heavy eye-lids; not reposing then,
For busy Phantasy, in other scenes
Awakened. Whether that superior powers,
By wise permission, prompt the midnight dream,
Instructing so the passive faculty; [1]
Or that the soul, escaped its fleshly clog,
Flies free, and soars amid the invisible world,
And all things are that seem. [2]
Along a moor,
Barren, and wide, and drear, and desolate,
She roam’d a wanderer thro’ the cheerless night. ”

“ Nor had the Maiden’s footsteps ever reach’d
The insulated coast, eternally
Rapt round the endless course; but Theodore
Drove with an angel’s will the obedient bark.
They land, a mighty fabric meets their eyes,
Seen by its gem-born light. ”