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Washington Allston >> The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems
[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been numbered and moved to the end.]
The Sylphs of the Seasons with Other Poems.
By
W. Allston.
Contents.
The Sylphs of the Seasons; a Poet's Dream
The Two Pointers; a Tale
Eccentricity
The Paint King
Myrtilla: addressed to a Lady, who lamented that she had never been in love
To a Lady who spoke slightingly of Poets
Sonnet on a Falling Group in the Last Judgment of Michael Angelo, in the
Cappella Sistina
Sonnet on the Group of the Three Angels before the Tent of Abraham, by
Raffaelle, in the Vatican
Sonnet, on seeing the Picture of AEolus, by Peligrino Tibaldi, in the
Institute at Bologna
Sonnet on Rembrant; occasioned by his Picture of Jacob's Dream
Sonnet on the Luxembourg Gallery
Sonnet to my venerable Friend, the President of the Royal Academy
The Mad Lover at the Grave of his Mistress
First Love: a Ballad
The Complaint
Will, the Maniac: a Ballad
The Sylphs of the Seasons;
_A Poet's Dream._
Prefatory Note to The Sylphs of the Seasons.
As it may be objected to the following Poem, that some of the images there
introduced are not wholly peculiar to the Season described, the Author
begs leave to state, that, both in their selection and disposition, he was
guided by that, which, in his limited experience, was found to be the
Season of their greatest impression: and, though he has not always felt
the necessity of pointing out the collateral causes by which the effect
was increased, he yet flatters himself that, in general, they are
sufficiently implied either by what follows or precedes them. Thus, for
instance, the _running brook_, though by no means peculiar, is
appropriated to Spring; as affording by its motion and _seeming_
exultation one of the most lively images of that spirit of renovation
which animates the earth after its temporary suspension during the Winter.
By the same rule, is assigned to Summer the _placid lake_, &c. not because
that image is never seen, or enjoyed, at any other season; but on account
of its affecting us more in Summer, than either in the Spring, or in
Autumn; the indolence and languor generally then experienced disposing us
to dwell with particular delight on such an object of repose, not to
mention the grateful idea of coolness derived from a knowledge of its
temperature. Thus also the _evening cloud_, exhibiting a fleeting
representation of successive objects, is, perhaps, justly appropriated to
Autumn, as in that Season the general decay of inanimate nature leads the
mind to turn upon itself, and without effort to apply almost every image
of sense or vision of the imagination,* to its own transitory state.
If the above be admitted, it is needless to add more; if it be not, it
would be useless.
The Sylphs of the Seasons.
Long has it been my fate to hear
The slave of Mammon, with a sneer,
My indolence reprove.
Ah, little knows he of the care,
The toil, the hardship that I bear,
While lolling in my elbow-chair,
And seeming scarce to move:
For, mounted on the Poet's steed,
I _there_ my ceaseless journey speed
O'er mountain, wood, and stream:
And oft within a little day
'Mid comets fierce 'tis mine to stray,
And wander o'er the Milky-way
To catch a Poet's dream.
But would the Man of Lucre know
What riches from my labours flow?--
A DREAM is my reply.
And who for wealth has ever pin'd,
That had a World within his mind,
Where every treasure he may find,
And joys that never die!
One night, my task diurnal done,
(For I had travell'd with the Sun
O'er burning sands, o'er snows)
Fatigued, I sought the couch of rest;
My wonted pray'r to Heaven address'd;
But scarce had I my pillow press'd
When thus a vision rose.
Methought within a desert cave,
Cold, dark, and solemn as the grave,
I suddenly awoke.
It seem'd of sable Night the cell,
Where, save when from the ceiling fell
An oozing drop, her silent spell
No sound had ever broke.
There motionless I stood alone,
Like some strange monument of stone
Upon a barren wild;
Or like, (so solid and profound
The darkness seem'd that wall'd me round)
A man that's buried under ground,
Where pyramids are pil'd.
Thus fix'd, a dreadful hour I past,
And now I heard, as from a blast,
A voice pronounce my name:
Nor long upon my ear it dwelt,
When round me 'gan the air to melt.
And motion once again I felt
Quick circling o'er my frame.
Again it call'd; and then a ray,
That seem'd a gushing fount of day,
Across the cavern stream'd.
Half struck with terror and delight,
I hail'd the little blessed light,
And follow'd 'till my aching sight
An orb of darkness seem'd.
Nor long I felt the blinding pain;
For soon upon a mountain plain
I gaz'd with wonder new.
There high a castle rear'd its head;
And far below a region spread,
Where every Season seem'd to shed
Its own peculiar hue.
Now at the castle's massy gate,
Like one that's blindly urged by fate,
A bugle-horn I blew.
The mountain-plain it shook around,
The vales return'd a hollow sound,
And, moving with a sigh profound.
The portals open flew.
Then ent'ring, from a glittering hall
I heard a voice seraphic call,
That bade me "ever reign,
All hail!" it said in accent wild,
"For thou art Nature's chosen child,
Whom wealth nor blood has e'er defil'd,
Hail, Lord of this Domain!"
And now I paced a bright saloon,
That seem'd illumin'd by the moon,
So mellow was the light.
The walls with jetty darkness teem'd,
While down them chrystal columns streamed,
And each a mountain torrent seem'd.
High-flashing through the night.
Rear'd in the midst, a double throne.
Like burnish'd cloud of evening shone;
While, group'd the base around,
Four Damsels stood of Faery race;
Who, turning each with heavenly grace
Upon me her immortal face,
Transfix'd me to the ground.
And _thus_ the foremost of the tram:
Be thine the throne, and thine to reign
O'er all the varying year!
But ere thou rulest the Fates command;
That of our chosen rival band
A Sylph shall win thy heart and hand,
Thy sovereignty to share.
For we, the sisters of a birth,
Do rule by turns the subject earth
To serve ungrateful man;
But since our varied toils impart
No joy to his capricious heart,
'Tis now ordain'd that human art
Shall rectify the plan.
Then spake the Sylph of Spring serene,
'Tis _I_ thy joyous heart I ween,
With sympathy shall move:
For I with living melody
Of birds in choral symphony,
First wak'd thy soul to poesy,
To piety and love.
When thou, at call of vernal breeze,
And beck'ning bough of budding trees,
Hast left thy sullen fire;
And stretch'd thee in some mossy dell.
And heard the browsing wether's bell,
Blythe echoes rousing from their cell
To swell the tinkling quire:
Or heard from branch of flow'ring thorn
The song of friendly cuckoo warn
The tardy-moving swain;
Hast bid the purple swallow hail;
And seen him now through ether sail,
Now sweeping downward o'er the vale.
And skimming now the plain;
Then, catching with a sudden glance
The bright and silver-clear expanse
Of some broad river's stream.
Beheld the boats adown it glide,
And motion wind again the tide,
Where, chain'd in ice by Winter's pride,
Late roll'd the heavy team:
Or, lur'd by some fresh-scented gale,
That woo'd the moored fisher's sail
To tempt the mighty main,
Hast watch'd the dim receding shore,
Now faintly seen the ocean o'er,
Like hanging cloud, and now no more
To bound the sapphire plain;
Then, wrapt in night the scudding bark,
(That seem'd, self-pois'd amid the dark,
Through upper air to leap,)
Beheld, from thy most fearful height,
Beneath the dolphin's azure light
Cleave, like a living meteor bright,
The darkness of the deep:
'Twas mine the warm, awak'ning hand
That made thy grateful heart expand,
And feel the high control
Of Him, the mighty Power, that moves
Amid the waters and the groves,
And through his vast creation proves
His omnipresent soul.
Or, brooding o'er some forest rill,
Fring'd with the early daffodil,
And quiv'ring maiden-hair,
When thou hast mark'd the dusky bed,
With leaves and water-rust o'erspread,
That seem'd an amber light to shed
On all was shadow'd there;
And thence, as by its murmur call'd,
The current traced to where it brawl'd
Beneath the noontide ray;
And there beheld the checquer'd shade
Of waves, in many a sinuous braid,
That o'er the sunny channel play'd,
With motion ever gay:
'Twas I to these the magick gave,
That made thy heart, a willing slave,
To gentle Nature bend;
And taught thee how with tree and flower,
And whispering gale, and dropping shower,
In converse sweet to pass the hour,
As with an early friend:
That mid the noontide sunny haze
Did in thy languid bosom raise
The raptures of the boy;
When, wak'd as if to second birth,
Thy soul through every pore look'd forth,
And gaz'd upon the beauteous Earth
With myriad eyes of joy:
That made thy heart, like HIS above,
To flow with universal love
For every living thing.
And, oh! if I, with ray divine,
Thus tempering, did thy soul refine,
Then let thy gentle heart be mine,
And bless the Sylph of Spring.
And next the Sylph of Summer fair;
The while her crisped, golden hair
Half veil'd her sunny eyes:
Nor less may _I_ thy homage claim,
At touch of whose exhaling flame
The fog of Spring that chill'd thy frame
In genial vapour flies.
Oft by the heat of noon opprest,
With flowing hair and open vest,
Thy footsteps have I won
To mossy couch of welling grot,
Where thou hast bless'd thy happy lot.
That thou in that delicious spot
May'st see, not feel, the sun:
Thence tracing from the body's change,
In curious philosophic range,
The motion of the mind;
And how from thought to thought it flew,
Still hoping in each vision new
The faery land of bliss to view,
But ne'er that land to find.
And then, as grew thy languid mood,
To some embow'ring silent wood
I led thy careless way;
Where high from tree to tree in air
Thou saw'st the spider swing her snare.
So bright!--as if, entangled there,
The sun had left a ray:
Or lur'd thee to some beetling steep
To mark the deep and quiet sleep
That wrapt the tarn below;
And mountain blue and forest green
Inverted on its plane serene,
Dim gleaming through the filmy sheen
That glaz'd the painted show;
Perchance, to mark the fisher's skiff
Swift from beneath some shadowy cliff
Dart, like a gust of wind;
And, as she skimm'd the sunny lake,
In many a playful wreath her wake
Far-trailing, like a silvery snake,
With sinuous length behind.
Nor less when hill and dale and heath
Still Evening wrapt in mimic death.
Thy spirit true I prov'd:
Around thee, as the darkness stole,
Before thy wild, creative soul
I bade each faery vision roll,
Thine infancy had lov'd.
Then o'er the silent sleeping land,
Thy fancy, like a magick wand,
Forth caird the Elfin race:
And now around the fountain's brim
In circling dance they gaily skim;
And now upon its surface swim,
And water-spiders chase;
Each circumstance of sight or sound
Peopling the vacant air around
With visionary life:
For if amid a thicket stirr'd,
Or flitting bat, or wakeful bird,
Then straight thy eager fancy heard
The din of Faery strife;
Now, in the passing beetle's hum
The Elfin army's goblin drum
To pigmy battle sound;
And now, where dripping dew-drops plash
On waving grass, their bucklers clash,
And now their quivering lances flash,
Wide-dealing death around:
Or if the moon's effulgent form
The passing clouds of sudden storm
In quick succession veil;
Vast serpents now, their shadows glide,
And, coursing now the mountain's side,
A band of giants huge, they stride
O'er hill, and wood, and dale.
And still on many a service rare
Could I descant, if need there were,
My firmer claim to bind.
But rest I most my high pretence
On that my genial influence,
Which made the body's indolence
The vigour of the mind.
And now, in accents deep and low,
Like voice of fondly-cherish'd woe,
The Sylph of Autumn sad:
Though I may not of raptures sing,
That grac'd the gentle song of Spring,
Like Summer, playful pleasures bring,
Thy youthful heart to glad;
Yet still may I in hope aspire
Thy heart to touch with chaster fire,
And purifying love:
For I with vision high and holy,
And spell of quick'ning melancholy,
Thy soul from sublunary folly
First rais'd to worlds above.
What though be mine the treasures fair
Of purple grape and yellow pear,
And fruits of various hue,
And harvests rich of golden grain,
That dance in waves along the plain
To merry song of reaping swain,
Beneath the welkin blue;
With these I may not urge my suit,
Of Summer's patient toil the fruit,
For mortal purpose given:
Nor may it fit my sober mood
To sing of sweetly murmuring flood,
Or dies of many-colour'd wood,
That mock the bow of heaven.
But, know, 'twas mine the secret power
That wak'd thee at the midnight hour,
In bleak November's reign:
'Twas I the spell around thee cast,
When thou didst hear the hollow blast
In murmurs tell of pleasures past,
That ne'er would come again:
And led thee, when the storm was o'er,
To hear the sullen ocean roar,
By dreadful calm opprest;
Which still, though not a breeze was there,
Its mountain-billows heav'd in air,
As if a living thing it were,
That strove in vain for rest.
'Twas I, when thou, subdued by woe,
Didst watch the leaves descending slow,
To each a moral gave;
And as they mov'd in mournful train,
With rustling sound, along the plain,
Taught them to sing a seraph's strain
Of peace within the grave.
And then uprais'd thy streaming eye,
I met thee in the western sky
In pomp of evening cloud;
That, while with varying form it roll'd;
Some wizard's castle seem'd of gold,
And now a crimson'd knight of old,
Or king in purple proud.
And last, as sunk the setting sun,
And Evening with her shadows dun,
The gorgeous pageant past,
'Twas then of life a mimic shew,
Of human grandeur here below,
Which thus beneath the fatal blow
Of Death must fall at last.
Oh, then with what aspiring gaze
Didst thou thy tranced vision raise
To yonder orbs on high,
And think how wondrous, how sublime
'Twere upwards to their spheres to climb,
And live, beyond the reach of Time,
Child of Eternity!
And last the Sylph of Winter spake;
The while her piercing voice did shake
The castle-vaults below.
Oh, youth, if thou, with soul refin'd,
Hast felt the triumph pure of mind,
And learnt a secret joy to find
In deepest scenes of woe;
If e'er with fearful ear at eve
Hast heard the wailing tempest grieve
Through chink of shatter'd wall;
The while it conjur'd o'er thy brain
Of wandering ghosts a mournful train,
That low in fitful sobs complain,
Of Death's untimely call:
Or feeling, as the storm increas'd,
The love of terror nerve thy breast,
Didst venture to the coast;
To see the mighty war-ship leap
From wave to wave upon the deep,
Like chamoise goat from steep to steep,
'Till low in valleys lost;
Then, glancing to the angry sky,
Behold the clouds with fury fly
The lurid moon athwart;
Like armies huge in battle, throng,
And pour in vollying ranks along,
While piping winds in martial song
To rushing war exhort:
Oh, then to me thy heart be given,
To me, ordain'd by Him in heaven
Thy nobler powers to wake.
And oh! if thou with poet's soul,
High brooding o'er the frozen pole,
Hast felt beneath my stern control
The desert region quake;
Or from old Hecla's cloudy height,
When o'er the dismal, half-year's night
He pours his sulph'rous breath,
Hast known my petrifying wind
Wild ocean's curling billows bind,
Like bending sheaves by harvest hind,
Erect in icy-*death;
Or heard adown the mountain's steep
The northern blast with furious sweep
Some cliff dissever'd dash;
And seen it spring with dreadful bound
From rock to rock, to gulph profound,
While echoes fierce from caves resound
The never-ending crash:
If thus, with terror's mighty spell
Thy soul inspir'd, was wont to swell,
Thy heaving frame expand;
Oh, then to me thy heart incline;
For know, the wondrous charm was mine
That fear and joy did thus combine
In magick union bland.
Nor think confin'd my native sphere
To horrors gaunt, or ghastly fear,
Or desolation wild:
For I of pleasures fair could sing,
That steal from life its sharpest sting,
And man have made around it cling,
Like mother to her child.
When thou, beneath the clear blue sky,
So calm no cloud was seen to fly,
Hast gaz'd on snowy plain,
Where Nature slept so pure and sweet,
She seem'd a corse in winding-sheet,
Whose happy soul had gone to meet
The blest Angelic train;
Or mark'd the sun's declining ray
In thousand varying colours play
O'er ice-incrusted heath,
In gleams of orange now, and green,
And now in red and azure sheen,
Like hues on dying dolphins seen,
Most lovely when in death;
Or seen at dawn of eastern light
The frosty toil of Fays by night
On pane of casement clear,
Where bright the mimic glaciers shine,
And Alps, with many a mountain pine,
And armed knights from Palestine
In winding march appear:
'Twas I on each enchanting scene
The charm bestow'd that banished spleen
Thy bosom pure and light.
But still a _nobler_ power I claim;
That power allied to poets' fame,
Which language vain has dar'd to name--
The soul's creative might.
Though Autumn grave, and Summer fair,
And joyous Spring demand a share
Of Fancy's hallow'd power,
Yet these I hold of humbler kind,
To grosser means of earth confin'd,
Through mortal _sense_ to reach the mind,
By mountain, stream, or flower.
But mine, of purer nature still,
Is _that_ which to thy secret will
Did minister unseen,
Unfelt, unheard; when every sense
Did sleep in drowsy indolence,
And Silence deep and Night intense
Enshrowded every scene;
That o'er thy teeming brain did raise
The spirits of departed days[1]
Through all the varying year;
And images of things remote,
And sounds that long had ceas'd to float,
With every hue, and every note,
As living now they were:
And taught thee from the motley mass
Each harmonizing part to class,
(Like Nature's self employ'd;)
And then, as work'd thy wayward will,
From these with rare combining skill,
With new-created worlds to fill
Of space the mighty void.
Oh then to me thy heart incline;
To me whose plastick powers combine
The harvest of the mind;
To me, whose magic coffers bear
The spoils of all the toiling year,
That still in mental vision wear
A lustre more refin'd.
She ceas'd--And now in doubtful mood,
All motionless and mute I stood,
Like one by charm opprest:
By turns from each to each I rov'd,
And each by turns again I lov'd;
For ages ne'er could one have prov'd
More lovely than the rest.
"Oh blessed band, of birth divine,
What mortal task is like to mine!"--
And further had I spoke,
When, lo! there pour'd a flood of light
So fiercely on my aching sight,
I fell beneath the vision bright,
And with the pain I woke.
The Two Painters: _A Tale._
Say why in every work of man
Some imperfection mars the plan?
Why join'd in every human art
A perfect and imperfect part?
Is it that life for art is short?
Or is it nature's cruel sport?
Or would she thus a moral teach;
That man should see, but never reach,
The height of excellence, and show
The vanity of works below?
Or consequence of Pride, or Sloth;
Or rather the effect of both?
Whoe'er on life his eye has cast,
I fear, alas, will say the last!
Once on a time in Charon's wherry
Two Painters met, on Styx's ferry.
Good sir, said one, with bow profound,
I joy to meet thee under ground,
And though with zealous spite we strove
To blast each other's fame above,
Yet here, as neither bay nor laurel
Can tempt us to prolong our quarrel,
I hope the hand which I extend
Will meet the welcome of a friend.
Sweet sir! replied the other Shade,
While scorn on either nostril play'd,
Thy proffer'd love were great and kind
Could I in thee a _rival_ find.--
rival, sir! returned the first,
Ready with rising wind to burst,
Thy meekness, sure, in this I see;
We are not rivals, I agree:
And therefore am I more inclin'd
To cherish one of humble mind,
Who apprehends that one above him
Can never condescend to love him.
Nor longer did their courteous guile,
Like serpent, twisting through a smile,
Each other sting in civil phrase,
And poison with envenom'd praise;
For now the fiend of anger rose,
Distending each death-withered nose,
And, rolling fierce each glassy eye,
Like owlets' at the noonday sky,
Such flaming vollies pour'd of ire
As set old Charon's phlegm on fire.
Peace! peace! the grizly boatman cried,
You drown the roar of Styx's tide;
Unmanner'd ghosts! if such your strife,
'Twere better you were still in life!
If passions such as these you show
You'll make another Earth below;
Which, sure, would be a viler birth,
Than if we made a Hell on Earth.
At which in loud defensive strain
'Gan speak the angry Shades again.
I'll hear no more, cried he; 'no more'
In echoes hoarse return'd the shore.
To Minos' court you soon shall hie,
(Chief Justice here) 'tis he will try
Your jealous cause, and prove at once
That only dunce can hate a dunce.
Thus check'd, in sullen mood they sped,
Nor more on either side was said;
Nor aught the dismal silence broke,
Save only when the boatman's stroke,
Deep-whizzing through the wave was heard,
And now and then a spectre-bird,
Low-cow'ring, with a hungry scream.
For spectre-fishes in the stream.
Now midway pass'd, the creaking oar
Is heard upon the fronting shore;
Where thronging round in many a band,
The curious ghosts beset the strand.
Now suddenly the boat they 'spy,
Like gull diminish'd in the sky;
And now, like cloud of dusky white,
Slow sailing o'er the deep of night,
The sheeted group within the bark
Is seen amid the billows dark.
Anon the keel with grating sound
They hear upon the pebbly ground.
And now with kind, officious hand,
They help the ghostly crew to land.
What news? they cried with one accord
I pray you, said a noble lord,
Tell me if in the world above
I still retain the people's love:
Or whether they, like us below,
The motives of a Patriot know?
And me inform, another said,
What think they of a Buck that's dead?
Have they discerned that, being dull,
I knock'd my wit from watchmen's skull?
And me, cried one, of knotty front,
With many a scar of pride upon't
Resolve me if the world opine
Philosophers are still divine;
That having hearts for friends too small,
Or rather having none at all,
Profess'd to love, with saving grace,
The _abstract_ of the human race?
And I, exclaim'd a fourth, would ask
What think they of the Critick's task?
Perceive they now our shallow arts;
That merely from the want of parts
To write ourselves, we gravely taught
How books by others should be wrought?
Whom interrupting, then inquir'd
A fifth, in squalid garb attir'd,
Do now the world with much regard
In mem'ry hold the dirty Bard,
Who credit gain'd for genius rare
By shabby coat and uncomb'd hair?
Or do they, said a Shade of prose,
With many a pimple's ghost on nose,
Th' eccentric author still admire,
Who wanting that same genius' fire,
Diving in cellars underground,
In pipe the spark ethereal found:
Which, fann'd by many a ribbald joke,
From brother tipplers puff'd in smoke,
Such blaze diffused with crackling loud,
As blinded all the staring croud?
And last, with jealous glancing eye,
That seem'd in all around to pry,
A Painter's ghost in voice suppres'd,
Thus questioning, the group address'd;
Sweet strangers, may I too demand,
How thrive the offspring of my hand?
Whether, as when in life I flourish'd,
They still by puffs of fame are nourish'd?
Or whether have the world discern'd
The tricks by which my fame was earn'd;
That, lacking in my pencil skill,
I made my tongue its office fill:
That, marking (as for love of truth)
In others' works a limb uncouth,
Or face too young, or face too old,
Or colour hot, or colour cold;
Or hinting, (if to praise betray'd)
'Though coloured well, it yet might _fade_;'
And 'though its grace I can't deny,
Yet pity 'tis so hard and dry.'--
I thus by implication show'd
That mine were wrought in better mode;
And talking thus superiors down,
Obliquely raise my own renown?
In short, I simply this would ask,--
If Truth has stript me of the mask;
And, chasing Fashion's mist away,
Expos'd me to the eye of day--[2]
A Painter false, without a heart,
Who lov'd himself, and not his art?
At which, with fix'd and fishy
The Strangers both express'd amaze.
Good Sir, said they, 'tis strange you dare
Such meanness of yourself declare.
Were I on earth, replied the Shade,
I never had the truth betray'd;
For there (and I suspect like you)
I ne'er had time myself to view.
Yet, knowing that 'bove all creation
I held myself in estimation,
I deem'd that what I _lov'd_ the _best_
Of every virtue was possess'd.
But _here_ in colours black and true,
Men see themselves, who never knew
Their motives in the worldly strife,
Or real characters through life.
And here, alas! I scarce had been
A little day, when every sin
That slumber'd in my living breast,
By Minos rous'd from torpid rest,
Like thousand adders, rushing out,
Entwin'd my shuddering limbs about.--
Oh, strangers, hear!--the truth I tell--
That fearful sight I saw was Hell.
And, oh I with what unmeasur'd wo
Did bitterness upon me flow,
When thund'ring through the hissing air,
I heard the sentence of Despair--
'Now never hope from Hell to flee;
Yourself is all the Hell you see!'--