This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting Of an enamour'd Goddess, and the cell Haunted by holy Love-the earliest oracle ! CXIX. And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, Share with immortal transports? could thine art The purity of heaven to earthly joys, Expel the venom and not blunt the dart The dull satiety which all destroys And root from out the soul, the deadly weed which cloys? CXX. Alas! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desart; whence arise But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, And to a thought such shape and image given, As haunts the unquench'd soul--parch'd--wearied wrung and riven. CXXII. Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, And fevers into false creation :-where, Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized? In him alone. Can Nature shew so fair? Where are the charms and virtues which we dare Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, The unreach'd Paradise of our despair, Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, And overpowers the page, where it would bloom again? CXXIII. Who loves, raves-'tis youth's frenzy-but the cure Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such, yet still it binds The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, ́ Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, Seems ever near the prize,-wealthiest when most undone. CXXIV. We wither from our youth, we gasp away- Love, fame, ambition, avarice-'tis the same, For all are meteors with a different name, And Death the sable smoke, where vanishes the flame. CXXV. Few-none-find what they love or could have loved, Though accident, blind contact, and the strong Necessity of loving, have removed Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, ་ Whose touch turns Hope to dust,—the dust we all have trod CXXVI. Our life is a false nature-'tis not in The harmony of things,-this hard decree, This un-eradicable taint of sin, This boundless UPAS, this all-blasting tree, Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew Disease, death, bondage-all the woes we see And worse, the woes we see not-which throb through 'The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. CXXVII. Yet let us ponder boldly-'tis a base 53 Abandonment of reason to resign Our right of thought-our last and only place Though from our birth the faculty divine Is chain'd and tortured-cabin'd cribb'd, confined And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind. Arches on arches ! as it were that Rome Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, As 'twere its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored but still exhaustless mind Of contemplation; and the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume CXXIX. Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, 7 And shadows forth its glory. There is given Unto the things of earth, which time hath bent,! His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. CXXX. Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead, And only healer when the heart hath bled— For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift, My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift: CXXXI. 'Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine And temple more divinely desolate, Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, Ruins of years-though few, yet full of fate : If thou hast ever seen me too elate, Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne Good, and reserved my pride against the hate Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn This iron in my soul in vain-shall they not mourn? |