The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems Part 7

_On the Group of the Three Angels before the Tent of Abraham, by RAFFAELLE, in the Vatican._

Oh, now I feel as though another sense From Heaven descending had informed my soul; I feel the pleasurable, full control Of Grace, harmonious, boundless, and intense.

In thee, celestial Group, embodied lives The subtle mystery; that speaking gives Itself resolv'd: the essences combin'd Of Motion ceaseless, Unity complete.

Borne like a leaf by some soft eddying wind, Mine eyes, impelled as by enchantment sweet, From part to part with circling motion rove, Yet seem unconscious of the power to move; From line to line through endless changes run, O'er countless shapes, yet seem to gaze on One.

Sonnet

_On seeing the Picture of aeolus by PELIGRINO TIBALDI, in the Inst.i.tute at Bologna._

Full well, Tibaldi, did thy kindred mind The mighty spell of Bonarroti own.

Like one who, reading magick words, receives The gift of intercourse with worlds uknnown, 'Twas thine, decyph'ring Nature's mystick leaves, To hold strange converse with the viewless wind; To see the Spirits, in embodied forms, Of gales and whirlwinds, hurricanes and storms.

For, lo! obedient to thy bidding, teems Fierce into shape their stern relentless Lord: His form of motion ever-restless seems; Or, if to rest inclin'd his turbid soul, On Hecla's top to stretch, and give the word To subject Winds that sweep the desert pole.

Sonnet

_On REMBRANT; occasioned by his Picture of Jacob's Dream._

As in that twilight, superst.i.tious age When all beyond the narrow grasp of mind Seem'd fraught with meanings of supernal kind, When e'en the learned philosophic sage, Wont with the stars thro' boundless s.p.a.ce to range.

Listen'd with rev'rence to the changeling's tale; E'en so, thou strangest of all beings strange!

E'en so thy visionary scenes I hail; That like the ramblings of an idiot's speech, No image giving of a thing on earth.

Nor thought significant in Reason's reach, Yet in their random shadowings give birth To thoughts and things from other worlds that come, And fill the soul, and strike the reason dumb.

Sonnet

_On the Luxembourg Gallery._

There is a Charm no vulgar mind can reach.

No critick thwart, no mighty master teach; A Charm how mingled of the good and ill!

Yet still so mingled that the mystick whole Shall captive hold the struggling Gazer's will, 'Till vanquish'd reason own its full control.

And such, oh Rubens, thy mysterious art, The charm that vexes, yet enslaves the heart!

Thy lawless style, from timid systems free, Impetuous rolling like a troubled sea, High o'er the rocks of reason's lofty verge Impending hangs; yet, ere the foaming surge Breaks o'er the bound, the refluent ebb of taste Back from the sh.o.r.e impels the wat'ry waste.

Sonnet

_To my venerable Friend, the President of the Royal Academy._

From one unus'd in pomp of words to raise A courtly monument of empty praise, Where self, transpiring through the flimsy pile, Betrays the builder's ostentatious guile, Accept, oh West, these unaffected lays, Which genius claims and grateful justice pays.

Still green in age, thy vig'rous powers impart The youthful freshness of a blameless heart; For thine, unaided by another's pain, The wiles of envy, or the sordid train Of selfishness, has been the manly race Of one who felt the purifying grace Of honest fame; nor found the effort vain E'en far itself to love thy soul-enn.o.bling art.

The Mad Lover

_At the Grave of his Mistress._

Stay, gentle Stranger, softly tread!

Oh, trouble not this hallow'd heap.

Vile Envy says my Julia's dead; But Envy thus Will never sleep.

Ye creeping Zephyrs, hist you, pray, Nor press so hard yon wither'd leaves; For Julia sleeps beneath this clay-- Nay, feel it, how her bosom heaves!

Oh, she was purer than the stream That saw the first created morn; Her words were like a sick man's dream That nerves with health a heart forlorn.

And who their lot would hapless deem Those lovely, speaking lips to view; That light between like rays that beam Through sister clouds of rosy hue?

Yet these were to her fairer soul But, as yon op'ning clouds on high To glorious worlds that o'er them roll, The portals to a brighter sky.

And shall the glutton worm defile This spotless tenement of love, That like a playful infant's smile Seem'd born of purest light above?

And yet I saw the sable pall Dark-trailing o'er the broken ground-- The earth did on her coffin fall-- I heard the heavy, hollow sound

Avaunt, thou Fiend! nor tempt my brain With thoughts of madness brought from h.e.l.l!

No wo like this of all her train Has Mem'ry in her blackest cell.

'Tis all a tale of fiendish art-- Thou com'st, my love, to prove it so!

I'll press thy hand upon my heart-- It chills me like a hand of snow!

Thine eyes are glaz'd, thy cheeks are pale, Thy lips are livid, and thy breath Too truly tells the dreadful tale--- Thou comest from the house of death!

Oh, speak, Beloved! lest I rave; The fatal truth I'll bravely meet, And I will follow to the grave, And wrap me in thy winding sheet.