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TO FAUSTA
[First published 1849. Reprinted 1855.]
To die be given us, or attain! | |
| Fierce work it were, to do again. | |
| So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, pray’d | |
| At burning noon: so warriors said, | |
| Scarf’d with the cross, who watch’d the miles | 5 |
| Of dust that wreath’d their struggling files | |
| Down Lydian mountains: so, when snows | |
| Round Alpine summits eddying rose, | |
| The Goth, bound Rome-wards: so the Hun, | |
| Crouch’d on his saddle, when the sun | 10 |
| Went lurid down o’er flooded plains | |
| Through which the groaning Danube strains | |
| To the drear Euxine: so pray all, | |
| Whom labours, self-ordain’d, enthrall; | |
| Because they to themselves propose | 15 |
| On this side the all-common close | |
| A goal which, gain’d, may give repose. | |
| So pray they: and to stand again | |
| Where they stood once, to them were pain; | |
| Pain to thread back and to renew | 20 |
| Past straits, and currents long steer’d through. | |
| |
| But milder natures, and more free; | |
| Whom an unblam’d serenity | |
| Hath freed from passions, and the state | |
| Of struggle these necessitate; | 25 |
| Whom schooling of the stubborn mind | |
| Hath made, or birth hath found, resign’d; | |
| These mourn not, that their goings pay | |
| Obedience to the passing day: | |
| These claim not every laughing Hour | 30 |
| For handmaid to their striding power; | |
| Each in her turn, with torch uprear’d, | |
| To await their march; and when appear’d, | |
| Through the cold gloom, with measur’d race, | |
| To usher for a destin’d space, | 35 |
| (Her own sweet errands all foregone) | |
| The too imperious Traveller on. | |
| These, Fausta, ask not this: nor thou, | |
| Time’s chafing prisoner, ask it now. | |
| |
| We left, just ten years since, you say, | 40 |
| That wayside inn 1 we left to day: | |
| Our jovial host, as forth we fare, | |
| Shouts greeting from his easy chair; | |
| High on a bank our leader stands, | |
| Reviews and ranks his motley bands; | 45 |
| Makes clear our goal to every eye, | |
| The valley’s western boundary. | |
| A gate swings to: our tide hath flow’d | |
| Already from the silent road. | |
| The valley pastures, one by one, | 50 |
| Are threaded, quiet in the sun: | |
| And now beyond the rude stone bridge | |
| Slopes gracious up the western ridge. | |
| Its woody border, and the last | |
| Of its dark upland farms is past; | 55 |
| Cool 2 farms, with open-lying stores, | |
| Under their burnish’d sycamores: | |
| All past: and through the trees we glide | |
| Emerging on the green hill-side. | |
| There climbing hangs, a far-seen sign, | 60 |
| Our wavering, many-colour’d line; | |
| There winds, upstreaming slowly still | |
| Over the summit of the hill. | |
| And now, in front, behold outspread | |
| Those upper regions we must tread; | 65 |
| Mild hollows, and clear heathy swells, | |
| The cheerful silence of the fells. | |
| Some two hours’ march, with serious air, | |
| Through the deep noontide heats we fare: | |
| The red-grouse, springing at our sound, | 70 |
| Skims, now and then, the shining ground; | |
| No life, save his and ours, intrudes | |
| Upon these breathless solitudes. | |
| O joy! again the farms appear; | |
| Cool shade is there, and rustic cheer: | 75 |
| There springs the brook will guide us down, | |
| Bright comrade, to the noisy town. | |
| Lingering, we follow down: we gain | |
| The town, the highway, and the plain. | |
| And many a mile of dusty way, | 80 |
| Parch’d and road-worn, we made that day; | |
| But, Fausta, I remember well | |
| That, as the balmy darkness fell, | |
| We bath’d our hands, with speechless glee, | |
| That night, in the wide-glimmering Sea. | 85 |
| |
| Once more we tread this self-same road | |
| Fausta, which ten years since we trod: | |
| Alone we tread it, you and I; | |
| Ghosts of that boisterous company. | |
| Here, where the brook shines, near its head, | 90 |
| In its clear, shallow, turf-fring’d bed; | |
| Here, whence the eye first sees, far down, | |
| Capp’d with faint smoke, the noisy town; | |
| Here sit we, and again unroll, | |
| Though slowly, the familiar whole. | 95 |
| The solemn wastes of heathy hill | |
| Sleep in the July sunshine still: | |
| The self-same shadows now, as then, | |
| Play through this grassy upland glen: | |
| The loose dark stones on the green way | 100 |
| Lie strewn, it seems, where then they lay: | |
| On this mild bank above the stream, | |
| (You crush them) the blue gentians gleam. | |
| Still this wild brook, the rushes cool, | |
| The sailing foam, the shining pool.— | 105 |
| These are not chang’d: and we, you say, | |
| Are scarce more chang’d, in truth, than they. | |
| |
| The Gipsies, whom we met below, | |
| They too have long roam’d to and fro. | |
| They ramble, leaving, where they pass, | 110 |
| Their fragments on the cumber’d grass. | |
| And often to some kindly place, | |
| Chance guides the migratory race | |
| Where, though long wanderings intervene, | |
| They recognize a former scene. | 115 |
| The dingy tents are pitch’d: the fires | |
| Give to the wind their wavering spires; | |
| In dark knots crouch round the wild flame | |
| Their children, as when first they came; | |
| They see their shackled beasts again | 120 |
| Move, browsing, up the grey-wall’d lane. | |
| Signs are not wanting, which might raise | |
| The ghosts in them of former days: | |
| Signs are not wanting, if they would; | |
| Suggestions to disquietude. | 125 |
| For them, for all, Time’s busy touch, | |
| While it mends little, troubles much: | |
| Their joints grow stiffer; but the year | |
| Runs his old round of dubious cheer: | |
| Chilly they grow; yet winds in March, | 130 |
| Still, sharp as ever, freeze and parch: | |
| They must live still; and yet, God knows, | |
| Crowded and keen the country grows: | |
| It seems as if, in their decay, | |
| The Law grew stronger every day. | 135 |
| So might they reason; so compare, | |
| Fausta, times past with times that are. | |
| But no:—they rubb’d through yesterday | |
| In their hereditary way; | |
| And they will rub through, if they can, | 140 |
| To-morrow on the self-same plan; | |
| Till death arrives to supersede, | |
| For them, vicissitude and need. | |
| |
| The Poet, to whose mighty heart | |
| Heaven doth a quicker pulse impart, | 145 |
| Subdues that energy to scan | |
| Not his own course, but that of Man. | |
| Though he move mountains; though his day | |
| Be pass’d on the proud heights of sway; | |
| Though he hath loos’d a thousand chains; | 150 |
| Though he hath borne immortal pains; | |
| Action and suffering though he know; | |
| —He hath not liv’d, if he lives so. | |
| He sees, in some great-historied land, | |
| A ruler of the people stand; | 155 |
| Sees his strong thought in fiery flood | |
| Roll through the heaving multitude; | |
| Exults: yet for no moment’s space | |
| Envies the all-regarded place. | |
| Beautiful eyes meet his; and he | 160 |
| Bears to admire uncravingly: | |
| They pass; he, mingled with the crowd, | |
| Is in their far-off triumphs proud. | |
| From some high station he looks down, | |
| At sunset, on a populous town; | 165 |
| Surveys each happy group that fleets, | |
| Toil ended, through the shining streets, | |
| Each with some errand of its own;— | |
| And does not say, I am alone. | |
| He sees the gentle stir of birth | 170 |
| When Morning purifies the earth; | |
| He leans upon a gate, and sees | |
| The pastures, and the quiet trees. | |
| Low woody hill, with gracious bound, | |
| Folds the still valley almost round; | 175 |
| The cuckoo, loud on some high lawn, | |
| Is answer’d from the depth of dawn; | |
| In the hedge straggling to the stream, | |
| Pale, dew-drench’d, half-shut roses gleam: | |
| But where the further side slopes down | 180 |
| He sees the drowsy new-wak’d clown | |
| In his white quaint-embroider’d frock | |
| Make, whistling, towards his mist-wreath’d flock; | |
| Slowly, behind the heavy tread, | |
| The wet flower’d grass heaves up its head.— | 185 |
| Lean’d on his gate, he gazes: tears | |
| Are in his eyes, and in his ears | |
| The murmur of a thousand years: | |
| Before him he sees Life unroll, | |
| A placid and continuous whole; | 190 |
| That general Life, which does not cease, | |
| Whose secret is not joy, but peace; | |
| That Life, whose dumb wish is not miss’d | |
| If birth proceeds, if things subsist: | |
| The Life of plants, and stones, and rain: | 195 |
| The Life he craves; if not in vain | |
| Fate gave, what Chance shall not control, | |
| His sad lucidity of soul. | |
| |
| You listen:—but that wandering smile, | |
| Fausta, betrays you cold the while. | 200 |
| Your eyes pursue the bells of foam | |
| Wash’d, eddying, from this bank, their home. | |
| Those Gipsies, so your thoughts I scan, | |
| Are less, the Poet more, than man. | |
| They feel not, though they move and see: | 205 |
| Deeply the Poet feels; but he | |
| Breathes, when he will, immortal air, | |
| Where Orpheus and where Homer are. | |
| In the day’s life, whose iron round | |
| Hems us all in, he is not bound. | 210 |
| He escapes thence, but we abide. | |
| Not deep the Poet sees, but wide. | |
| |
| The World in which we live and move | |
| Outlasts aversion, outlasts love: | |
| Outlasts each effort, interest, hope, | 215 |
| Remorse, grief, joy:—and were the scope | |
| Of these affections wider made, | |
| Man still would see, and see dismay’d, | |
| Beyond his passion’s widest range | |
| Far regions of eternal change. | 220 |
| Nay, and since death, which wipes out man, | |
| Finds him with many an unsolv’d plan, | |
| With much unknown, and much untried, | |
| Wonder not dead, and thirst not dried, | |
| Still gazing on the ever full | 225 |
| Eternal mundane spectacle; | |
| This World in which we draw our breath, | |
| In some sense, Fausta, outlasts death. | |
| Blame thou not therefore him, who dares | |
| Judge vain beforehand human cares. | 230 |
| Whose natural insight can discern | |
| What through experience others learn. | |
| Who needs not love and power, to know | |
| Love transient, power an unreal show. | |
| Who treads at ease life’s uncheer’d ways:— | 235 |
| Him blame not, Fausta, rather praise. | |
| Rather thyself for some aim pray | |
| Nobler than this—to fill the day. | |
| Rather, that heart, which burns in thee, | |
| Ask, not to amuse, but to set free. | 240 |
| Be passionate hopes not ill resign’d | |
| For quiet, and a fearless mind. | |
| And though Fate grudge to thee and me | |
| The Poet’s rapt security, | |
| Yet they, believe me, who await | 245 |
| No gifts from Chance, have conquer’d Fate. | |
| They, winning room to see and hear, | |
| And to men’s business not too near, | |
| Through clouds of individual strife | |
| Draw homewards to the general Life. | 250 |
| Like leaves by suns not yet uncurl’d: | |
| To the wise, foolish; to the world, | |
| Weak: yet not weak, I might reply, | |
| Not foolish, Fausta, in His eye, | |
| To whom each moment in its race, 3 | 255 |
| Crowd as we will its neutral space, 4 | |
| Is but a quiet watershed | |
| Whence, equally, the Seas of Life and Death are fed. | |
| |
| Enough, we live:—and if a life, | |
| With large results so little rife, | 260 |
| Though bearable, seem hardly worth | |
| This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth; | |
| Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread, | |
| The solemn hills around us spread, | |
| This stream that falls incessantly, | 265 |
| The strange-scrawl’d rocks, the lonely sky, | |
| If I might lend their life a voice, | |
| Seem to bear rather than rejoice. | |
| And even could the intemperate prayer | |
| Man iterates, while these forbear, | 270 |
| For movement, for an ampler sphere, | |
| Pierce Fate’s impenetrable ear; | |
| Not milder is the general lot | |
| Because our spirits have forgot, | |
| In action’s dizzying eddy whirl’d, | 275 |
| The something that infects the world. | |
