POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH.*

SONNET-TO SCIENCE.

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jeweled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

*Private reasons-some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism, and others to the date of Tennyson's first poems-have induced me, after some hesitation, to republish these, the crude compositions of my earliest boyhood. They are printed verbatim-without alteration from the original edition-the date of which is too remote to be judiciously acknowledged.—E. A. P.

15 Poe's Poems.

225

AL AARAAF.*

PART I.

O! nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy;-
Oh! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill-
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed,
That, like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell-
O, nothing of the dross of ours—
Yet all the beauty-all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers-
Adorn yon world afar, afar—

The wandering star.

'Twas a sweet time for Nesace-for there Her world lay lolling on the golden air, Near four bright suns-a temporary rest— An oasis in desert of the blest.

Away-away-'mid seas of rays that roll Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soulThe soul that scarce (the billows are so dense) Can struggle to its destin'd eminence

To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,

*A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared suddenly in the heavens-attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter-then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since.

And late to ours, the favor'd one of God—
But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm,
She throws aside the scepter-leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Leaves in quadruple light her angel limbs.

Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth, Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth,

(Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star,
Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar,
It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt),
She look'd into Infinity-and knelt.

Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled-
Fit emblems of the model of her world-
Seen but in beauty-not impeding sight
Of other beauty glittering thro' the light-
A wreath that twined each starry form around,
And all the opal'd air in color bound.

All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
Of flowers: of lilies such as rear'd the head
On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang

Upon the flying footsteps of deep pride-
Of her who lov'd a mortal-and so died.
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees:
And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam d—
Inmate of the highest stars, where erst it
sham'd

All other loveliness: its honeyed dew

(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew) Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven, *Sappho.

And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
In Trebizond-and on a sunny flower
So like its own above, that, to this hour,
It still remaineth, torturing the bee
With madness, and unwonted reverie:
In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
Disconsolate linger-grief that hangs her head,
Repenting follies that full long have fled,
Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,
Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair:
Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light

She fears to perfume, perfuming the night:
And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
While pettish tears adown her petals run:
And that aspiring flower that sprang on
Earth-

And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king:
And Valisnerian lotus thither flown

From struggling with the waters of the Rhone:
And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante!
Isola d'oro!-Fior di Levante!

And the Nelumbo bud that floats forever
With Indian Cupid down the holy river-
Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given
To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to
Heaven:

"Spirit! that dwellest where,
In the deep sky,

The terrible and fair,

In beauty vie!

Beyond the line of blue

The boundary of the star
Which turneth at the view
Of thy barrier and thy bar-
Of the barrier overgone

By the comets who were cast

From their pride, and from their throne
To be drudges till the last-

To be carriers of fire

(The red fire of their heart)

With speed that may not tire
And with pain that shall not part-

Who livest-that we know

In Eternity-we feel

But the shadow of whose brow

What spirit shall reveal

Thro' the beings whom thy Nesace,
Thy messenger hath known

Have dream'd for thy Infinity

A model of their own

Thy will is done, O God!

The star hath ridden high

Thro' many a tempest, but she rode
Beneath thy burning eye;

And here, in thought, to thee-
In thought that can alone

Ascend thy empire and so be

A partner of thy throne-
By winged Fantasy,

My embassy is given,

Till secrecy shall knowledge be

In the environs of Heaven.

She ceas'd-and buried then her burning cheek Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek