-Material forms-had not in truth the coloursNor essences thou wouldst have cloath'd them with;— But ne'ertheless they would not have been fram'd By fiction false; but did in truth exist
To thy creative eye and flowing heart.
The sun shone o'er the waves with brighter beams
Than on the mingled mass of land : and more
Of freshness as they beat and spray'd and sparkled,
And worked themselves to purity by collision,
Won on the senses, and evok'd the tribes
Of Fairy habitants within the cells
Of brain and bosom. O who had sagacity
In this thy childhood, looking on thy face
And delicate features, and thy slender frame,
To presage ought above the common gifts
Of vulgar children? On the rocky stone,
The fickle billows dash'd, thy limbs were laid :
And then with ear intent thou didst drink in
The sounds, that on the wave came whispering down,
Or sometimes shrieking. Airy spirits danc'd,
Or slid along the surface of the blue,
And green and white all mingled, of the waves;
Or rose amid the glittering spray, and laugh'd
And mock'd, and breath'd out magic syllables,
And half display'd their limbs of exquisite
And most etherial beauty, when thy boyhood,
O'erdazzled, veil'd thine eyes, and in thyself
Absorb'd and lost, sunk utterly regardless
Of all without. Sometimes in search of thee,
They, from whose care thine errant feet escap'd,
Found thee still sleeping as th'advancing flood
Gain'd on thy stony bed; and thou wouldst cry
And fret and storm to be thus rudely wak'd
Midst of thy golden slumbers! And thy nurse
Would rate thee as a moody, cross-grain'd child,
Of whom no good would come! and in disdain
Thy little eye would fire, and thou wouldst stamp,
And deal about thy puny blows, and rave
With thy impetuous and half-stifled voice!
And even then thou felt'dst the day would come
When thou, the infant treated with despite
And scorn for thy defaults, wouldst craze the world
With beams of splendor, that the sober sense
Of all, deem'd happier-gifted, would in vain
Strive to repell or to endure!-'Tis thus
That Genius ever feels: and thus it swells
Against the vain and blind oppressor: thus
It knows how folly, dulness, ignorance,
Ever miscalculate; and dim presumption
Thinks in the infant of stale common-place
A prize to be well-hugg'd, and prais'd and flatter'd.
How much hadst thou, Enchanter, in thy days
Of boyhood, to oppress, disturb, and cross
The opening of thy mind, to interrupt
The laying-in of wisdom, and to mix
Foulness and poison in the issuing streams
Of tender, pure, and magic-mellow'd sentiment!
But there was in its essence a bright spell,
That threw off all th'impurities with scorn
And might, and indignation, and untouch'd
Stood in surrounding pools of dirt and vapour!
A seer perchance might clearly have discern'd
The rays that play'd around thee; but the veil
Hung thick before the vulgar earthly sight:
A trade mechanic could not dark the lamp
That blaz'd within thee, and thy hands consign'd
To labour for thy head; and fear of want,
And despot brutal orders of a despot
Master, unjust, capricious, ignorant,
And unillum'd by casual gleams of mind.
When the tir'd body has its organs press'd
By the deranged current of the blood,
How ill the mental faculties can work,
Unless some blest supremacy of power
O'ercomes the direful load! But the all-mounting Fire of true genius will pierce through, and rise, Spite of clouds, storms, and vapours, up to Heaven! It was not in society that thou
Caught'dst the refinement of thy bosom's motions;
For much of coarse was there: nor in the ranks
Where wealth and education smoothe the manners,
And elevate the thoughts, and purify
The views, wert thou accustomed to have
Thine infant ear delighted, or thy bosom
Touch'd with the sweetness of habitual rule
Of intellectual dominion!
The eye of female beauty, elevated
By birth, and in the school of Riches, form'd
By wisdom's lessons, and the softening stores
Of delicate and high imagination,
Ne'er beam'd on thee the melting magic of
Its irresistible irradiation:
But all the glory, and the golden tints,
Sky-borrow'd, came from thee, and on the object
Of its deep idol-worship threw the blaze,
Kneeling to deities of its own creation.
But such is ever bright Imagination's
Delusion dangerous! Shall we attribute
Aught to thy clime, thy mountains, the expanse
Of this thine azure mirror, by whose loveliness
The splendor, and the beauty, and the rays
Of beamy lustre, breaking but by fits
Thro mountainous vapours, and sometimes a chill
Of snow-clad summits, bosom'd in thick clouds
Of Heaven, may have been on that breast of sun
And tempests, then again in massy darkness
Impress'd! O no! 'tis not to earthly causes
That we must look : but 'tis the gift of heaven,—
This high creative splendor, that within
Works, and its forms and colours outward throws:
But yet, though lakes and mountains and the sway
Of nature's scenery
in its most sublime
And awe-engendering shapes and tints, cannot
Originate th'internal faculty,
Still it may nurse and fan and bring it forth;
For in the heavy vapour of dull skies,
And flat and fen-like countries, much I doubt,
If genius ever can mount high, or duly
Along th'oerhanging skies
Comes sweeping o'er the Lake the loud career
Of tempests, bred the gorges deep among
Of those enormous Alpine masses, clad
In snow eternal, down whose craggy sides
The roaring torrents fall, and intermix
Their spray, that into ice-bound atoms turn'd,
Add arrows to the loud careering stream,
And sweep the gather'd pestilences bred
I' th'air, and thro those clouds which o'er thy walls,
Geneva, as o'er all th'abodes of man
In congregated heaps, brood harmfully
Passing-an healthful, airy, free, and sharp
Atmosphere give it! O, how in the roar
Of winter nights 'tis terrible;-but grand ;-
And braces up the spirits to delight.
O then the' inhabitants of the vex'd sky
In battle seem; and what a shrill loud shriek
Does ever and anon the blast bring on
To the astonish'd ear! Not three fleet months
Have pass'd away, since thro the long black night
I listen'd to this music of the spheres !
For right against the torrent was th'abode
Where on my bed of sickness I, awake,
Told the long hours, and watching by the blaze
Of cheerful lamp, my magic leaves unfolded,
And wove my tales, and urg'd my weary pen!
How oft I gan imagine that I could
The language of the Winds interpret well :
And tell the gusts of Anger from the shrieks
Of sorrow;-and the murmur soft, between,
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