Thus it is that poetry, in its intense sympathy with creation, may be said to create anew, rendering its words more impressive than the objects they speak of, and individually more lasting; the spiritual perpetuity putting them on a level (not to speak it profanely) with the fugitive compound. (14) Lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon. Here is delicate modulation, and super-refined epicurean nicety! Lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon, make us read the line delicately, and at the tip-end, as it were, of one's tongue. (15) Beyond a mortal man. Madeline is half awake, and Porphyro reassures her with loving, kind looks, and an affectionate embrace. (16) Heart-shap'd and vermeil dyed. With what a pretty wilful conceit the costume of the poem is kept up in this line about the shield! The poet knew when to introduce apparent trifles forbidden to those who are void of real passion, and who, feeling nothing intensely, can intensify nothing. (17) Carpets rose. This is a slip of the memory, for there were hardly carpets in those days. But the truth of the painting makes amends, as in the unchronological pictures of old masters. LONELY SOUNDS. Undescribed sounds, That come a-swooning over hollow grounds, ORION. At this, with madden'd stare, And lifted hands, and trembling lips he stood Like old Deucalion mountain'd o'er the flood, Or blind Orion hungry for the morn. CIRCE AND HER VICTIMS. Fierce, wan, And tyrannizing was the lady's look, As over them a gnarlèd staff she shook. Clusters of grapes, the which they raven'd quick And emptied on 't a black dull gurgling phial : She whisk'd against their eyes the sooty oil; Shrieks, yells, and groans, of torture-pilgrimage. A BETTER ENCHANTRESS IMPRISONED IN THE SHAPE She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, She seem'd, at once, some penanc'd lady elf, Her head was serpent; but, ah bitter sweet! She had a woman's mouth, with all its pearls complete. SATURN DETHRONED. Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, Spreading a shade: the Naiad mid her reeds THE VOICE OF A MELANCHOLY GODDESS SPEAKING TO SATURN. As when upon a trancèd summer-night Those green-robed senators of mighty woods, Save from one gradual solitary gust, Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, So came these words, and went. A FALLEN GOD. –the bright Titan, frenzied with new woes, Upon the boundaries of day and night, He stretch'd himself, in grief and radiance faint. OTHER TITANS FALLEN. Scarce images of life, one here, one there, ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. (1o) My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains Of beeches green, and shadows numberless, Oh, for a draught of vintage, that hath been Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth ! That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit, and hear each other groan; |