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In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ,
Than stagnate in our marsh,-or o'er the deep
Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, America, to thee!

1818.

160

Lord Byron.

HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL

BEAUTY

THE awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats tho' unseen amongst us,-visiting

This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,

Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,

It visits with inconstant glance

Each human heart and countenance;

Like hues and harmonies of evening,-
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,-
Like memory of music fled,-

Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate

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With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form,where art thou gone?

Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not for ever

Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,

Why fear and dream and death and birth
Cast on the daylight of this earth

Such gloom,-why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope?

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever To sage or poet these responses givenTherefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,

Remain the records of their vain endeavour,
Frail spells-whose uttered charm might not
avail to sever,

From all we hear and all we see,
Doubt, chance, and mutability.

Thy light alone-like mist o'er mountains
driven,

Or music by the night wind sent,
Thro' strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,

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Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. 36

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent, Man were immortal, and omnipotent,

Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,

Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.

Thou messenger of sympathies,

That wax and wane in lovers' eyes-
Thou-that to human thought art nourishment,

Like darkness to a dying flame!
Depart not as thy shadow came,

Depart not-lest the grave should be,

Like life and fear, a dark reality.

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Thro' many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,

And starlight wood, with fearful steps
pursuing

Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
I called on poisonous names with which our
youth is fed;

I was not heard-I saw them not-
When musing deeply on the lot

48

Of life, at the sweet time when winds are wooing
All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming,-

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;

I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! 60

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers

To thee and thine-have I not kept the vow?
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even

now

I call the phantoms of a thousand hours

Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers

Of studious zeal or love's delight

Outwatched with me the envious nightThey know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery,

That thou-O awful LOVELINESS,

Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot

express.

The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is past-there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which thro' the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
Thus let thy power, which like the truth
Of nature on my passive youth
Descended, to my onward life supply
Its calm-to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee,
Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind
To fear himself, and love all human kind.
Percy Bysshe Shelley.

1816.

72

1819.

TO A SKYLARK

HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit!

Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;

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,

10

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 15

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

With thy voice is loud,

As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is

overflow'd.

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