Of the olive-sandalled1 Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;

And the Alps, whose snows are spread High between the clouds and sun; 310 And of living things each one;

And my spirit, which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,-
Interpenetrated lie

By the glory of the sky: 315 Be it love, light, harmony, Odor, or the soul of all

Which from heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.

320 Noon descends, and after noon Autumn's evening meets me soon, Leading the infantine moon, And that one star, which to her Almost seems to minister 325 Half the crimson light she brings From the sunset's radiant springs: And the soft dreams of the morn (Which like wingèd winds had borne To that silent isle, which lies

330 Mid remembered agonies,

The frail bark of this lone being)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.

335 Other flowering isles must be
In the sea of life and agony:
Other spirits float and flee

O'er that gulf: even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,

340 With folded wings they waiting sit For my bark, to pilot it

To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,

345 Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell mid lawny hills,

Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
350 And the light and smell divine

Of all flowers that breathe and shine:
We may live so happy there,
That the spirits of the air,

Envying us, may even entice

355 To our healing paradise The polluting multitude;

But their rage would be subdued By that clime divine and calm, And the winds whose wings rain balm 360 On the uplifted soul, and leaves Under which the bright sea heaves; 1 covered with olive trees at the base

30

35

40

Yet now despair itself is mild,

Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must
bear,

Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last
monotony.

Some might lament that I were cold,
As I, when this sweet day is gone,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown
old,

Insults with this untimely moan;

They might lament-for I am one Whom men love not,—and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set,

45 Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.

THE MASK OF ANARCHY

WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF THE MASSACRE AT MANCHESTER 1819

As I lay asleep in Italy,

1832

There came a voice from over the sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

5 I met Murder on the way-
He had a mask like Castlereagh;
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven bloodhounds followed him.
All were fat; and well they might
10 Be in admirable plight,

For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew,
Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Next came Fraud, and he had on,
15 Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell;
And the little children, who
Round, his feet played to and fro,
20 Thinking every tear a gem,

Had their brains knocked out by them.
Clothed with the Bible as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next Hypocrisy

25 On a crocodile rode by.

And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

30 Last came Anarchy; he rode

On a white horse splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.2
And he wore a kingly crown;

35 In his hand a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw-
"I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!"'

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
40 Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

1 A mass-meeting of citizens who were eager for parliamentary reforms was attacked by soldiers in St. Peter's Field, on Aug. 16, 1819. A few persons were killed and several hundred injured.

See Revelation, 6:8.

90 Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath Day's azure eyes
95 Ocean's nursling, Venice lies,
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls.
Which her hoary sire1 now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
100 Lo! the sun upsprings behind,

Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;
And before that chasm of light,
195 As within a furnace bright,

Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean
110 To the sapphire-tinted skies;
As the flames of sacrifice

From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.

115 Sun-girt City, thou hast been
Ocean's child, and then his queen ;2
Now is come a darker day,3
And thou soon must be his prey,
If the power that raised thee here
120 Hallow so thy watery bier.

A less drear ruin then than now,
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne among the waves,
125 Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew
Flies, as once before it flew,
O'er thine isles depopulate,
And all is in its ancient state,
Save where many a palace gate
130 With green sea-flowers overgrown
Like a rock of Ocean's own,
Topples o'er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way,
135 Wandering at the close of day,

Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,

Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
Bursting o'er the starlight deep,

140 Lead a rapid masque of death

1 Oceanus.

A reference to the old annual custom of throwing a ring into the ocean in representation of the marriage of Venice and the Sea. See Wordsworth's On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic (p. 286).

At this time, 1818, the greater part of northern Italy, including the old free cities, was under the oppressive domination of Austria, the "Celtic Anarch" of 1. 152.

Before the founding of the city.

O'er the waters of his path.
Those who alone thy towers behold
Quivering through aërial gold,
As I now behold them here,
145 Would imagine not they were
Sepulchres, where human forms,
Like pollution-nourished worms,
To the corpse of greatness cling,
Murdered, and now mouldering:
150 But if Freedom should awake

In her omnipotence, and shake
From the Celtic1 Anarch's hold
All the keys of dungeons cold,
Where a hundred cities lie
155 Chained like thee, ingloriously,
Thou and all thy sister band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
160 If not, perish thou and they!-
Clouds which stain truth's rising day
By her sun consumed away-

Earth can spare ye: while like flowers, In the waste of years and hours, 165 From your dust new nations spring With more kindly blossoming.

Perish! let there only be

Floating o'er thy hearthless sea,
As the garment of thy sky
170 Clothes the world immortally,
One remembrance, more sublime
Than the tattered pall of time,
Which scarce hides thy visage wan;-
That a tempest-cleaving swan2

175 Of the songs of Albion,

Driven from his ancestral streams

By the might of evil dreams,
Found a nest in thee; and Ocean
Welcomed him with such emotion
180 That its joy grew his, and sprung
From his lips like music flung
O'er a mighty thunder-fit,

Chastening terror. What though yet
Poesy's unfailing river,

185 Which through Albion winds forever
Lashing with melodious wave
Many a sacred poet's grave,
Mourn its latest nursling fled?
What though thou with all thy dead
190 Scarce can for this fame repay
Aught thine own? oh, rather say
Though thy sins and slaveries foul
Overcloud a sunlike soul?
As the ghost of Homer clings

195 Round Scamander's wasting springs;
As divinest Shakespeare's might

1 Celtic is here applied to northern barbarlans not natives of Italy.

2 A reference to Byron.

Fills Avon and the world with light ·
Like omniscient power which he
Imaged 'mid mortality;

200 As the love from Petrarch's urn,
Yet amid yon hills doth burn,

A quenchless lamp, by which the heart
Sees things unearthly;-so thou art,
Mighty spirit! so shall be

205 The city that did refuge thee.

Lo, the sun floats up the sky
Like thought-winged Liberty,
Till the universal light

Seems to level plain and height;
210 From the sea a mist has spread,
And the beams of morn lie dead
On the towers of Venice now,
Like its glory long ago.
By the skirts of that gray cloud
215 Many-domèd Padua proud
Stands, a peopled solitude,
'Mid the harvest-shining plain,
Where the peasant heaps his grain
In the garner of his foe,
220 And the milk-white oxen slow

With the purple vintage strain,
Heaped upon the creaking wain,1
That the brutal Celt may swill
Drunken sleep with savage will;
225 And the sickle to the sword

Lies unchanged, though many a lord,
Like a weed whose shade is poison,
Overgrows this region's foison,2
Sheaves of whom are ripe to come
230 To destruction's harvest-home:

Men must reap the things they sow,3
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but 'tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change
235 The despot's rage, the slave's revenge.
Padua, thou within whose walls
Those mute guests at festivals,
Son and mother, Death and Sin,
Played at dice for Ezzelin,

240 Till Death cried, "I win, I win!'' 4

And Sin cursed to lose the wager,
But Death promised, to assuage her,
That he would petition for
Her to be made vice-emperor,
245 When the destined years were o'er,
Over all between the Po

And the eastern Alpine snow,
Under the mighty Austrian.5
Sin smiled so as Sin only can,

250 And since that time, ay, long before,

Mariner, 197 (p. 338).

In thine halls the lamp of learning,
Padua, now no more is burning;
Like a meteor, whose wild way
Is lost over the grave of day,

260 It gleams betrayed and to betray:

.

Once remotest nations came

To adore that sacred flame,

When it lit not many a hearth
On this cold and gloomy earth:

265 Now new fires from antique light
Spring beneath the wide world's might;
But their spark lies dead in thee,
Trampled out by Tyranny.
As the Norway woodman quells,
270 In the depth of piny dells,

One light flame among the brakes,1
While the boundless forest shakes,
And its mighty trunks are torn
By the fire thus lowly born:
275 The spark beneath his feet is dead,
He starts to see the flames it fed
Howling through the darkened sky
With a myriad tongues victoriously,
And sinks down in fear: so thou,
280 O Tyranny, beholdest now

Light around thee, and thou hearest
The loud flames ascend, and fearest:
Grovel on the earth; ay, hide
In the dust thy purple pride!

285 Noon descends around me now: 'Tis the noon of autumn's glow, When a soft and purple mist Like a vaporous amethyst, Or an air-dissolvèd star 290 Mingling light and fragrance, far From the curved horizon's bound To the point of heaven's profound,2 Fills the overflowing sky; And the plains that silent lie 295 Underneath, the leaves unsodden Where the infant Frost has trodden With his morning-winged feet, Whose bright print is gleaming yet; And the red and golden vines, 300 Piercing with their trellised lines The rough, dark-skirted wilderness; The dun and bladed grass no less, Pointing from this hoary tower In the windless air; the flower 305 Glimmering at my feet; the line

1 thickets

2 That is, to the zenith.

Of the olive-sandalled1 Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;

And the Alps, whose snows are spread High between the clouds and sun; 310 And of living things each one;

And my spirit, which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,-
Interpenetrated lie

By the glory of the sky: 315 Be it love, light, harmony, Odor, or the soul of all

Which from heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.

320 Noon descends, and after noon

Autumn's evening meets me soon, Leading the infantine moon, And that one star, which to her Almost seems to minister 325 Half the crimson light she brings From the sunset's radiant springs: And the soft dreams of the morn (Which like winged winds had borne To that silent isle, which lies

330 Mid remembered agonies,

The frail bark of this lone being)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.

335 Other flowering isles must be In the sea of life and agony: Other spirits float and flee

O'er that gulf: even now, perhaps, On some rock the wild wave wraps, 340 With folded wings they waiting sit For my bark, to pilot it

To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,

345 Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell mid lawny hills,
Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,

350 And the light and smell divine

Of all flowers that breathe and shine:

We may live so happy there,

That the spirits of the air,

Envying us, may even entice

355 To our healing paradise The polluting multitude;

But their rage would be subdued By that clime divine and calm, And the winds whose wings rain balm 360 On the uplifted soul, and leaves Under which the bright sea heaves; 1 covered with olive trees at the base

While each breathless interval In their whisperings musical The inspired soul supplies 365 With its own deep melodies; And the love which heals all strife, Circling, like the breath of life, All things in that sweet abode With its own mild brotherhood, 370 They, not it, would change; and soon Every sprite beneath the moon Would repent its envy vain, And the earth grow young again.

10

15

20

25

STANZAS

WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES
1818
1824

The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves
are dancing fast and
bright;

Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent might; The breath of the moist earth is light Around its unexpanded buds;

Like many a voice of one delight, The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

I see the Deep's untrampled floor With green and purple seaweeds strown;

I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:

I sit upon the sands alone,The lightning of the noontide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

Alas! I have nor hope nor health,

Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found,1

And walked with inward glory crowned

Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.

Others I see whom these surroundSmiling they live, and call life pleas

ure;

To me that cup has been dealt in another measure,

1 Numerous poets and philosophers have found consolation in solitude. See Cowper's The Task, 2 (p. 147); Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 4, 177-8 (p. 548); Keats's Sonnet to Solitude (p. 754); also, De Quincey's The Affliction of Childhood (p. 1089).