The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851

His reception encouraged him to proceed immediately with his plans of publication. It was a vast undertaking which it would take probably sixteen years to accomplish, and when his first drawings were delivered to the engraver he had not a single subscriber. His friends pointed out the rashness of the project and urged him to abandon it. "But my heart was nerved," he exclaims, "and my reliance on that Power on whom all must depend brought bright anticipations of success." Leaving his work in the care of his engravers and agents, in the summer of 1828 he visited Paris, and received the homage of the most distinguished men of science in that capital. Humboldt too, whose gigantic intelligence arose above all others in central Europe, became his warm friend, and remained until his death a sympathizing correspondent.

The ensuing winter was passed in London, and in April, 1829, he returned to America to explore anew the woods of the middle and southern states. Accompanied by his wife he left New Orleans on the eighth of January, 1830, for New-York, and on the twenty-fifth of April, just a year from the time of his departure, he was again in the Great Metropolis. Before the close of 1830, he had issued his first volume, containing one hundred plates, representing ninety-nine species of birds, every figure of the size and colors of life. The applause with which it was received was enthusiastic and universal. The kings of England and France had placed their names at the head of his subscription list; he was made a fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh; a member of the Natural History Society of Paris, and other celebrated institutions; and Cuvier, Swainson, and indeed the great ornithologists of every country, exhausted the words of panegyric in his praise.

On the first of August, 1831, Audubon arrived once more in New-York, and having passed a few days with his friends there and in Philadelphia, proceeded to Washington, where the President and other principal officers of the government gave him letters of assistance and protection to be used all along the coasts and inland frontiers where there were collectors of revenue or military or naval forces. He had previously received similar letters from the king's ministers to the authorities of the British colonies.

The next winter and spring were passed in the Floridas and in Charleston; and early in the summer, bending his course northward to keep pace with the birds in their migrations, he arrived in Philadelphia, where he was joined by his family. The cholera was then spreading death and terror through the country, and on reaching Boston he was himself arrested by sickness and detained until the middle of August. "Although I have been happy in forming many valuable friendships in various parts of the world, all dearly cherished by me," he says, "the outpouring of kindness which I experienced in Boston far exceeded all that I have ever met with;"11 and he tells us, with characteristic enthusiasm, of his gratitude to the Appletons, Everetts, Quincys, Pickerings, Parkmans, and other eminent gentlemen and scholars of that beautiful and hospitable city.

Proceeding at length upon his mission, he explored the forests of Maine and New Brunswick, and the shores of the Bay of Fundy, and chartering a vessel at Eastport, sailed for the gulf of St. Lawrence, the Magdalen Islands, and the coast of Labrador. Returning as the cold season approached, he visited Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and rejoining his family proceeded to Charleston, where he spent the winter, and in the spring, after nearly three years' travel and research, sailed a third time for England.

Among the warmest of his British friends, was always the congenial Wilson, great as a poet, greater as critic, and greatest of all as the author of the Noctes Ambrosianæ, which contain more wit and humor, more sound theology, philosophy, and politics, and better and more various literature, than any other man now living has furnished in a single work. This almost universal genius, whose relish for the rod and gun and wild wood was scarcely less than that he felt for the best suppers of Ambrose, or the sharpest onslaught on the Whigs in Parliament, thoroughly appreciated and heartily loved our illustrious countryman, and in Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1835, he gives us the following admirable sketch of the visit he now made to Edinburgh:

"We were sitting one night, lately, all alone by ourselves, almost unconsciously eyeing the members, fire without flame, in the many-visioned grate, but at times aware of the symbols and emblems there beautifully built up, of the ongoings of human life, when a knocking, not loud but resolute, came to the front door, followed by the rustling thrill of the bell-wire, and then by a tinkling far below, too gentle to waken the house that continued to enjoy the undisturbed dream of its repose. At first we supposed it might be but some late-home-going knight-errant from a feast of shells, in a mood, 'between malice and true-love,' seeking to disquiet the slumbers of Old Christopher, in expectation of seeing his night-cap (which he never wears) popped out of the window, and of hearing his voice (of which he is charry in the open air) simulating a scold upon the audacious sleep-breaker. So we benevolently laid back our head on our easy-chair, and pursued our speculations on the state of affairs in general—and more particularly on the floundering fall of that inexplicable people—the Whigs. We had been wondering, and of our wondering found no end, what could have been their chief reasons for committing suicide. It appeared a case of very singular felo-de-se—for they had so timed the 'rash act,' as to excite strong suspicions in the public mind that his Majesty had committed murder. Circumstances, however, had soon come to light, that proved to demonstration, that the wretched Ministry had laid violent hands on itself, and effected its purpose by strangulation. There—was the fatal black ring visible round the neck—through a mere thread; there—were the blood-shot eyes protruding from the sockets; there—the lip-biting teeth clenched in the last convulsions; and there—sorriest sight of all—was the ghastly suicidical smile, last relic of the laughter of despair. But the knocking would not leave the door—and listening to its character, we were assured that it came from the fist of a friend, who saw light through the chinks of the shutter, and knew, moreover, that we never put on the shroud of death's pleasant brother sleep, till 'ae wee short hour ayont the twal,' and often not till earliest cock-crow, which chanticleer utters somewhat drowsily, and then replaces his head beneath his wing, supported on one side by a partlet, on the other by a hen. So we gathered up our slippered feet from the rug, lamp in hand stalked along the lobbies, unchained and unlocked the oak which our faithful night porter Somnus had sported—and lo! a figure muffled up in a cloak, and furred like a Russ, who advanced familiarly into the hall, extended both hands and then embracing us, bade God bless us, and pronounced, with somewhat of a foreign accent, the name in which we and the world rejoice—Christopher North!' We were not slow in returning the hug fraternal—for who was it but the 'American Woodsman?'—even Audubon himself—fresh from the Floridas—and breathing of the pure air of far-off Labrador!

"Three years and upwards had fled since we had taken farewell of the illustrious Ornithologist—on the same spot—at the same hour; and there was something ghostlike in such return of a dear friend from a distant region—almost as if from the land of spirits. It seemed as if the same moon again looked at us—but then she was wan and somewhat sad—now clear as a diamond, and all the starry heavens wore a smile. "Our words they were na mony feck'—but in less time than we have taken to write it—we two were sitting cheek by jowl, and hand in hand, by that essential fire—while we showed by our looks that we both felt, now they were over, that three years were but as one day! The cane coal-scuttle, instinct with spirit, beeted the fire of its own accord, without word or beck of ours, as if placed there by the hands of one of our wakeful Lares; in globe of purest crystal the Glenlivet shone; unasked the bright brass kettle began to whisper its sweet 'under song;' and a centenary of the fairest oysters native to our isle turned towards us their languishing eyes, unseen the Nereid that had on the instant wafted them from the procreant cradle beds of Prestonpans. Grace said, we drew in to supper, and hobnobbing, from elegant long-shank, down each naturalist's gullet graciously descended, with a gurgle, the mildest, the meekest, the very Moses of Ales.

"Audubon, ere half an hour had elapsed, found an opportunity of telling us that he had never seen us in a higher state of preservation—and in a low voice whispered something about the eagle renewing his youth. We acknowledged the kindness by a remark on bold bright birds of passage that find the seasons obedient to their will, and wing their way through worlds still rejoicing in the perfect year. But too true friends were we not to be sincere in all we seriously said; and while Audubon confessed that he saw rather more plainly than when we parted the crowfeet in the corners of our eyes, we did not deny that we saw in him an image of the Falco Lencocephalus, for that, looking on his 'carum caput,' it answered his own description of that handsome and powerful bird, viz. 'the general color of the plumage above is dull hair-brown, the lower parts being deeply brown, broadly margined with greyish white.' But here he corrected us: for 'surely, my dear friend,' quoth he, 'you must admit I am a living specimen of the Adult Bird, and you remember my description of him in my First Volume.' And thus blending our gravities and our gayeties, we sat facing one another, each with his last oyster on the prong of his trident, which disappeared, like all mortal joys, between a smile and a sigh.

"How similar—in much—our dispositions—yet in almost all how dissimilar our lives! Since last we parted, 'we scarcely heard of half a mile from home'—he tanned by the suns and beaten by the storms of many latitudes—we like a ship laid up in ordinary, or anchored close in shore within the same sheltering bay—with sails unfurled and flags flying but for sake of show on some holyday—he like a ship that every morning had been dashing through a new world of waves—often close-reefed or under bare poles—but oftener affronting the heavens with a whiter and swifter cloud than any hoisted by the combined fleets in the sky. And now, with canvas unrent, and masts unsprung, returned to the very buoy she left. Somewhat faded, indeed, in her apparelling—but her hull sound as ever—not a speck of dry rot in her timbers—her keel unscathed by rock—her cut-water yet sharp as new-whetted scythe ere the mower renews his toil—her figure-head, that had so often looked out for squalls, now 'patient as the brooding dove'—and her bowsprit—but let us man the main-brace; nor is there purer spirit—my trusty frere—in the Old World or the New.

"It was quite a Noctes. Audubon told us—by snatches—all his travels, history, with many an anecdote interspersed of the dwellers among the woods—bird, beast, and man.

"All this and more he told us, with a cheerful voice and animated eyes, while the dusky hours were noiselessly wheeling the chariot of Night along the star-losing sky; and we too had something to tell him of our own home-loving obscurity, not ungladdened by studies sweet in the Forest—till Dawn yoked her dappled coursers for one single slow stage—and then jocund Morn leaping up on the box, took the ribbons in her rosy fingers, and, after a dram of dew, blew her bugle, and drove like blazes right on towards the gates of Day."

"His great work," says Wilson, elsewhere, "was indeed a perilous undertaking for a stranger in Britain, without the patronage of powerful friends, and with no very great means of his own—all of which he embarked in the enterprise dearest to is heart. Had it failed, Audubon would have been a ruined man—and that fear must have sometimes dismally disturbed him, for he is not alone in life, and is a man of strong family affections. But happily those nearest his breast are as enthusiastic in the love of natural science as himself—and were all willing to sink or swim with the beloved husband and venerated father. America may well be proud of him—and he gratefully records the kindness he has experienced from so many of her most distinguished sons. In his own fame he is just and generous to all who excel in the same studies; not a particle of jealousy is in his composition; a sin, that, alas! seems too easily to beset too many of the most gifted spirits in literature and in science; nor is the happiest genius—imaginative or intellectual—such is the frailty of poor human nature at the best—safe from the access of that dishonouring passion."

The second volume of The Birds of America was finished in 1834, and in December of that year he published in Edinburgh the second volume of the Ornithological Biography. Soon after, while he was in London, a nobleman called upon him, with his family, and on examining some of his original drawings, and being told that it would still require eight years to complete the work, subscribed for it, saying, "I may not see it finished, but my children will." The words made a deep impression on Audubon. "The solemnity of his manner I could not forget for several days," he writes in the introduction to his third volume; "I often thought that neither might I see the work completed, but at length exclaimed, 'My sons may;' and now that another volume, both of my illustrations and of my biographies, is finished, my trust in Providence is augmented, and I cannot but hope that myself and my family together may be permitted to see the completion of my labors." When this was written, ten years had elapsed since the publication of his first plate. In the next three years, among other excursions he made one to the western coast of the Floridas and to Texas, in a vessel placed at his disposal by our government; and at the end of this time appeared the fourth and concluding volume of his engravings, and the fifth of his descriptions. The whole comprised four hundred and thirty-five plates, containing one thousand and sixty-five figures, from the Bird of Washington to the Humming Bird, of the size of life, and a great variety of land and marine views, and coral and other productions, of different climates and seasons, all carefully drawn and colored after nature. Well might the great naturalist felicitate himself upon the completion of his gigantic task. He had spent nearly half a century "amid the tall grass of the far-extended prairies of the west, in the solemn forests of the north, on the heights of the midland mountains, by the shores of the boundless ocean, and on the bosoms of our vast bays, lakes and rivers, searching for things hidden since the creation of this wondrous world from all but the Indian who has roamed in the gorgeous but melancholy wilderness." And speaking from the depth of his heart he says, "Once more surrounded by all the members of my dear family, enjoying the countenance of numerous friends who have never deserted me, and possessing a competent share of all that can render life agreeable, I look up with gratitude to the Supreme Being, and feel that I am happy."

In 1839, having returned for the last time to his native country and established himself with his family near the city of New-York, Audubon commenced the publication of The Birds of America in imperial octavo volumes, of which the seventh and last was issued in the summer of 1844. The plates in this edition, reduced from his larger illustrations, were engraved and colored in the most admirable manner by Mr. Bowen of Philadelphia, under the direction of the author, and excepting The Birds of America in folio, there has never been published so magnificent a work on ornithology.

Audubon was too sincere a worshipper of nature to be content with inglorious repose, even after having accomplished in action more than was ever dreamed of by any other naturalist; and while the "edition for the people" of his Birds of America was in course of publication, he was busy amid the forests and prairies, the reedy swamps of our southern shores, the cliffs that protect our eastern coasts, by the currents of the Mexican gulf and the tide streams of the Bay of Fundy, with his sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, making the drawings and writing the biographies of the Quadrupeds of America, a work in no respect inferior to that on our birds, which he began to publish about five years ago. The plates, on double imperial folio paper, engraved and colored by Mr. Bowen after the original drawings made from nature by Audubon and his sons, are even more magnificent than those of the Birds of America, which twenty years ago delighted and astonished the naturalists of Europe.

The Biography of American Quadrupeds, accompanying these plates, and of which the first volume appeared in New-York in 1846, was written principally by the Rev. John Bachman, D.D., of Charleston, a long-tried and enthusiastic friend, of whose introduction to him Audubon thus speaks in the preface of the second volume of his Ornithological Biography:

"It was late in the afternoon when we took our lodgings in Charleston. Being fatigued, and having written the substance of my journey to my family, and delivered a letter to the Rev. Mr. Gilman, I retired to rest. At the first glimpse of day the following morning, my assistants and myself were already several miles from the city, commencing our search in the fields and woods, and having procured abundance of subjects both for the pencil and the scalpel, we returned home, covered with mud, and so accoutred as to draw towards us the attention of every person in the streets. As we approached the boarding-house, I observed a gentleman on horseback close to our door. He looked at me, came up, inquired if my name was Audubon, and on being answered in the affirmative, instantly leaped from his saddle, shook me most cordially by the hand—there is much to be expressed and understood by a shake of the hand—and questioned me in so kind a manner, that I for a while felt doubtful how to reply. At his urgent desire, I removed to his house, as did my assistants. Suitable apartments were assigned to us; and once introduced to the lovely and interesting group that composed his family, I seldom passed a day without enjoying their society. Servants, carriages, horses, and dogs were all at our command, and friends accompanied us to the woods and plantations, and formed parties for water excursions. Before I left Charleston, I was truly sensible of the noble and generous spirit of the hospitable Carolinians."

Audubon and Bachman (the same Bachman who recently refuted the heresies of Agassiz respecting the unity of the human race) were from this time devoted friends and co-workers. For several years the health of the hero naturalist had declined, and he was rarely if ever seen beyond the limits of his beautiful estate on the banks of the Hudson, near this city, where, on the twenty-seventh of January, 1851, he died, full of years, and illustrious with the most desirable glory.

Audubon's highest claim to admiration is founded upon his drawings in natural history, in which he has exhibited a perfection never before attempted. In all our climates—in the clear atmosphere, by the dashing waters, amid the grand old forests with their peculiar and many-tinted foliage, by him first made known to art—he has represented our feathered tribes, building their nests and fostering their young, poised on the tip of the spray and hovering over the sedgy margin of the lake, flying in the clouds in quest of prey or from pursuit, in love, enraged, indeed in all the varieties of their motion and repose and modes of life, so perfectly that all other works of the kind are to his as stuffed skins to the living birds.

But he has also indisputable claims to a high rank as a man of letters. Some of his written pictures of birds, so graceful, clearly defined, and brilliantly colored, are scarcely inferior to the productions of his pencil. His powers of general description are not less remarkable. The waters seem to dance to his words as to music, and the lights and shades of his landscapes show the practised hand of a master. The evanescent shades of manners, also, upon the extreme frontiers, where the footprints of civilization have hardly crushed the green leaves, have been sketched with graphic fidelity in his journals.

No author has more individuality. The enthusiastic, trustful and loving spirit which breathes through his works distinguished the man. From the beginning he surrendered himself entirely to his favorite pursuit, and was intent to learn every thing from the prime teacher, Nature. His style as well as his knowledge was a fruit of his experiences. He had never written for the press until after the age at which most authors have established their reputation; and when he did write, his page glowed like the rich wild landscape in the spring, when Nature, then most beautiful, "bathes herself in her own dewy waters." We seem to hear his expressions of wondering admiration, as unknown mountains, valleys and lakes burst upon his view, as the deer at his approach leaped from his ambush into the deeper solitudes, as the startled bird with rushing wings darted from his feet into the sky; or his pious thanksgiving, as at the end of a weary day the song of the sparrow or the robin relieved his mind from the heavy melancholy that bore it down.

When the celebrated Buffon had completed the ornithological portion of his great work on natural history, he announced with unhesitating assurance that he had "finished the history of the birds of the world." Twenty centuries had served for the discovery of only eight hundred species, but this number seemed immense, and the short-sighted naturalist declared that the list would admit of "no material augmentation" which embraced hardly a sixteenth of those now known to exist. To this astonishing advance of the science of ornithology, no one has contributed more than Audubon, by his magnificent painting and fascinating history.

Mr. Audubon left unpublished a voluminous autobiography, which we hope will be published with as little delay as possible.

Original Poetry

OLD AGE

By Alfred B. StreetAll day the chill bleak wind had shrieked and wailedThrough leafless forests, and o'er meadows sear;Through the fierce sky great sable clouds had sailed;Outlines were hard—all nature's looks were drear.Gone, Indian Summer's bland, delicious haze,Thickening soft nights and filming mellow days.Then rose gray clouds; thin fluttered first the snow,Then like loose shaken fleeces, then in dense streamsThat muffled gradually all belowIn pearly smoothness. Then outburst the gleamsAt sunset; nature shone in flashing white,And the last rays tinged all with rosy light.So Life's bland Autumn o'er, may old age comeIn muffling peace, and death display hope's radiant bloom.

THE CASTLE IN THE AIR. 12

By R. H. StoddardIWe have two lives about us,Within us, and without us;Two worlds in which we dwell,Alternate Heaven and Hell:Without, the sombre Real,Within our heart of hearts, the beautiful Ideal!I stand between the thresholds of the two,Fettered and bound with many a heavy chain;I strive to rend their links, but all in vain;The False is strong, and holds me from the True.Only in dreams my spirit wanders o'erThe starry portal of the world of bliss,And lives the life which Fate denies in this,Which may have once been mind, but will be, nevermore.IIMy Castle stands alone,Away from Earth and Time,In some diviner clime,In Fancy's tropic zone,Beneath its summer skies,Where all the live-long year the summer never dies!A stately marble pile whose pillars rise,From sculptured bases, fluted to the dome,With wreathéd friezes crowned, all carven niceWith pendant leaves, like ragged rims of foam;A thousand windows front the rising sun,Deep-set between the columns, many paned,Tri-arched, emblazoned, gorgeously stained,Crimson and purple, green and blue, and dun,And all their wedded colors fall below,Like rainbows shattered on a field of snow;A bordering gallery runs along the roof,Topt by a cupola, whose glittering spirePierces the brooding clouds, a glowing woof,With golden spindles wove in Morning's loom of fire!IIIWhat fine and rare domainsUntold for leagues around;Green parks, and meads, and plains,And bosky woods profound,—A realm of leafiness, and sweet enchanted ground!Before the palace lies a shaven lawn,Sloping and shining in the dews of dawn,With turfy terraces, and garden bowers,Where rows of slender urns are full of flowers;Broad oaks o'erarch the winding avenues,Edged round with evergreens of fadeless bloom,And pour a thousand intermingling hues,A many tinted flood of golden gloom;Far-seen through twinkling leaves,The fountains gush aloft like silver sheaves,Drooping with shining ears, and crests of spray,And foamy tassels blowing every way,Shaking in marble basins white and cold,A bright and drainless shower of beaded grain,Which winnows off, in sun-illumined rainThe dusty chaff, a cloud of misty gold;Around their volumes, down the plashy tide,The swans are sailing mixed in lilies white,Like virgin queens in soft disdain and pride,Sweeping amid their maids with trains of light;A little herd of deer with startled looks,In shady parks where all the year they browse,Head-down are drinking at the lucid brooks,Their antlers mirrored with the tangled boughs;My rivers flow beyond, with guardant ranksOf silver-liveried poplars, on their banks;Barges are fretting at the castle piers,Rocking with every ripple in the tide;And bridges span the stream with arches wide,Their stony 'butments mossed and gray with years;An undulating range of vales, and bowers,And columned palaces, and distant towers,And on the welkin mountains bar the view,Shooting their jagged peaks sublimely up the blue!IVI saunter up the walks;My sandals wetted throughWith dripping flowers and stalks,That line the avenue;My broidered mantle all bedabbled with the dew!I climb a flight of steps with regal pride,And stroll along an echoing colonnade,Sweeping against its pillared balustrade,Adown a porch, and through a portal wide,And I am in my Castle, Lord of all;My faithful groom is standing in the hallTo doff my shining robe, while servitors,And cringing chamberlains beside the doorsWaving their gilded wands, obsequious wait,And bow me on my way in royal pomp and state!VMy chamber lies apart,The Castle's very heart,And all things rich and rare,From land, and sea, and air,Are lavished with a wild and waste profusion there!The carpeting was woven in Turkish looms,From softest wool of fine Circassian sheep;Tufted like springy moss in forests deep,Illuminate with all its autumn blooms;The antique chairs are made of cedar trees,Veined with the rings of vanished cennturiesAnd touched with winter's frost, and summer's sun;Sofas and couches, stuffed with cygnet's fleece,Loll round inviting dreaminess and ease;The gorgeous window curtains, damask red,Suspended, silver-ringed, on bars of gold,Droop heavily, in many a fluted fold,And, rounding outward, intercept, and shedThe prisoned daylight o'er the slumbrous room,In streams of rosy dimness, purple gloom;Hard by are cabinets of curious shells,Twisted and jointed, hornéd, wreathed, and curled,And some like moons in rosy mist impearled,With coral boughs from ocean's deepest cells;Cases of rare medallions, coins antique,Found in the dust of cities, Roman, Greek;Etruscan urns, transparent, soft, and bright,With fawns and dancing shepherds on their sides;And costly marble vases dug from nightIn Pompeii, beneath its lava tides:Clusters of arms, the spoil of ancient wars;Old scimitars of true Damascus brand,Short swords with basket hilts to guard the hand,And iron casques with rusty visor bars;Lances, and spears, and battle axes keen,With crescent edges, shields with studded thorns,Yew bows, and shafts, and curvéd bugle horns,With tasseled baldricks of the Lincoln green:And on the walls with lifted curtains, see!The portraits of my noble ancestry;Thin featured, stately dames with powdered locks,And courtly shepherdesses tending flocks;Stiff lords in wigs, and ruffles white as snow,Haught peers, and princes centuries ago,And dark Sir Hugh, the bravest of the line,With all the knightly scars he won in Palestine!VIMy gallery sleeps aloof,Soft-lighted through the roof,Enshrining pictures old,And groups of statues cold,The gems of Art, when Art was in her Age of Gold!Not picked from any single age or clime,Nor one peculiar master, school, or tone;Select of all, the best of all alone,The spoil and largesse of the Earth and Time;Food for all thoughts and fancies, grave or gay;Suggestive of old lore, and poets' themes;These filled with shapes of waking life, and day,And those with spirits and the world of dreams;Let me draw back the curtains, one by one,And give their muffled brightness to the sun:THE PICTURESHelen and Paris on their bridal night,Under the swinging cressets' starry light,With Priam and his fifty sons around,Feasting in all their majesty and bloom,Filling their golden cups with eager hands,To drink a health, while pale Cassandra standsWith all her raven tresses unbound,Her soul o'ershadowed by the coming doom.Andromache, with all her tearful charms,Folded upon the mighty Hector's breast,And the babe shrinking in its Nurse's arms,Affrightened by the nodding of his crest.The giant Cyclops, sitting in his cave,Helped by the diving Ulysses, old and wise,Spilling the wine in rivers down his beard,Shaggy and grim,—his shoulder overleeredBy swart Silenus, sly and cunning knave,Who steals a puffy skin with twinkling eyes.Anacreon, lolling in the myrtle shades,Bibbing his Teian draughts with rich delight,Pledging the dancing girls and Cyprian maids,Pinching their little ears, and shoulders white.A cloudless sunrise on the glittering Nile,A bronzéd Sphinx, and temple on the shore,And robéd priests that toss their censers whileAbased in dust, the populace adore;A beakéd galley fretting at its curb,With reedy oars, and masts, and silken sails,And Cleopatra walks the deck superb,Slow-followed by her court in spangled veils.The Virgin Mother, and the Holy Child,Holding a globe and sceptre, sweet and mild;The Magi bring their gifts with reverent looks,And the rapt Shepherds lean upon their crooks.A summer fête, a party on a lawn;Bowing gallants, with pluméd caps in hand,And ladies with guitars, and, far withdrawn,The rustic people dancing in a band.A bleak defile, a pass in mountains deep,Whose whitened summits wear their morning glow,And dark banditti winding down the steepOf shelvy rocks, pointing their guns below.A harvest scene, a vineyard on the Rhine;Arbors, and wreathéd pales, and laughing swainsPouring their crowded baskets into wains,And vats, and trodden presses gushing wine.A Flemish Tavern: boors and burghers haleDrawn round a table, o'er a board of chess,Smoking their heavy pipes, and drinking ale,Blowing from tankard brims the frothiness.A picture of Cathay, a justice scene;Pagodas, statues, and a group around;And, in his sedan chair, the Mandarin,Reading the scroll of laws to prisoners bound,Bambooed with canes, and writhing on the ground;And many more whose veils I will undrawSome other day, exceeding fresh and fine;And statues of the Grecian gods divine,In all their various moods of love and awe:The Phidean Jove, with calm creative face,Like Heaven brooding o'er the deeps of Space;Imperial Juno, Mercury, wingéd-heeled,Lit with a message. Mars with helm and shield,Apollo with the discus, bent to throw,The piping Pan, and Dian with her bow,And Cytherca just risen from the swellOf crudded foam, half-stooping on her knee,Wringing her dripping tresses in the seaWhose loving billows climb the curvéd shellTumultuously, and o'er its edges flow,And kiss with pallid lips her nakedness of snow!VIIMy boots may lie and mould,However rare and old;I cannot read to-day,Away! with books, away!Full-fed with sweets of sense,I sink upon my couch in honied indolence!Here are rich salvers full of nectarines,Dead-ripe pomegranates, sweet Arabian dates,Peaches and plums, and clusters fresh from vines,And all imaginable sweets, and cakes,And here are drinking-cups, and long-necked flasksIn wicker mail, and bottles broached from casks,In cellars delvéd deep, and winter cold,Select, superlative, and centuries old.What more can I desire? what book can beAs rich as Idleness and Luxury?What lore can fill my heart with joy divine,Like luscious fruitage, and enchanted wine?Brimming with Helicon I dash the cup;Why should I waste my years in hoarding upThe thoughts of eld? Let dust to dust return:No more for me,—my heart is not an urn!I will no longer sip from little flasks,Covered with damp and mould, when Nature yields,And Earth is full of purple vintage fields;Nor peer at Beauty dimmed with mortal masks,When I at will may have them all withdrawn,And freely gaze in her transfigured face;Nor limp in fetters in a weary race,When I may fly unbound, like Mercury's fawn;No more contented with the sweets of old,Albeit embalmed in nectar, since the trees,The Eden bowers, the rich Hesperides,Droop all around my path, with living fruits of gold!VIIIOh what a life is mine,A life of joy and mirth,The sensuous life of Earth,Forever fresh and fine.A heavenly worldliness, mortality divine!When eastern skies, the sea, and misty plain,Illumined slowly, doff their nightly shrouds,And Heaven's bright archer Morn begins to rainHis golden arrows through the banded clouds,I rise and tramp away the jocund hours,Knee-deep in dewy grass, and beds of flowers;I race my eager greyhound on the hills,And climb with bounding feet the craggy steeps,Peak-lifted, gazing down the cloven deeps,Where mighty rivers shrink to threaded rills;The ramparts of the mountains loom around,Like splintery fragments of a ruined world;The cliff-bound dashing cataracts, downward hurledIn thunderous volumes, shake the chasms profound:The imperial eagle, with a dauntless eyeWheels round the sun, the monarch of the sky;I pluck his eyrie in the blasted woodOf ragged pines, and when the vulture screams,I track his flight along the solitude,Like some dark spirit in the world of dreams!When Noon in golden armor, travel spent,Climbing the azure plains of Heaven, alone,Pitches upon its topmost steep his tent,And looks o'er Nature from his burning throne,I loose my little shallop from its quay,And down the winding rivers slowly float,And steer in many a shady cove and bay,Where birds are warbling with melodious note;I listen to the humming of the bees,The water's flow, the winds, the wavy trees,And take my lute and touch its silver chords,And set the Summer's melody to words;Sometimes I rove beside the lonely shore,Margined and flanked by slanting shelvy ledges,And caverns echoing Ocean's sullen roar;Threading the bladdery weeds, and paven shells,Beyond the line of foam, the jewelled chain,The largesse of the ever giving main.Tossed at the feet of Earth with surgy swells,I plunge into the waves, and strike away,Breasting with vigorous strokes the snowy spray;Sometimes I lounge in arbors hung with vines,The which I sip, and sip, with pleasure mute,O'er mouthful bites of golden-rinded fruit;When evening comes, I lie in dreamy rest,Where lifted casements front the glowing west,And watch the clouds, like banners wide unfurled,Hung o'er the flaming threshold of the world:Its mission done, the holy Day recedes,Borne Heavenward in its car, with fiery steeds,Leaving behind a lingering flush of light,Its mantle fallen at the feet of Night;The flocks are penned, the earth is growing dim;The moon comes rounding up the welkin's rim,Glowing through thinnest mist, an argent shell,Washed up the sky from Night's profoundest cell;One after one the stars begin to shineIn drifted beds, like pearls through shallow brine;And lo! through clouds that part before the chaseOf silent winds—a belt of milky white,The Galaxy, a crested surge of light,A reef of worlds along the sea of Space:I hear my sweet musicians far withdrawn,Below my wreathéd lattice, on the lawn,With harp, and lute, and lyre,And passionate voices full of tears and fire;And envious nightingales with rich disdainFilling the pauses of the languid strain;My soul is tranced and bound,Drifting along the magic sea of sound,Driving in a barque of bliss from deep to deep,And piloted at last into the ports of Sleep!IXNor only this, though thisMight seal a life of bliss,But something more divine,For which I once did pine,The crown of worlds above,The heart of every heart, the Soul of Being—Love!I bow obedient to my Lady's sway,The sovereignty that won my soul of yore,And linger in her presence night and day,And feel a heaven around her evermore;I sit beside her couch in chambers lone,And soft unbraid, and lay her locks apart,And take her taper fingers in my own,And press them to my lips with leaps of heart;Sometimes I kneel to her with cups of wine,With pleading eyes, beseeching her to taste,With long-delaying lips, the draught divine;And when she sips thereof, I clasp her waist,And kiss her mouth, and shake her hanging curls,And in her coy despite unloose her zone of pearls!I live for Love, for Love alone, and whoDare chide me for it? who dare call it folly?It is a holy thing, if aught is holy,And true indeed, if Truth herself is true:Earth cleaves to earth, its sensuous life is dear,Mortals should love mortality while here,And seize the glowing hours before they fly:Bright eyes should answer eyes, warm lips should meet,And hearts enlocked to kindred hearts should beat,And every soul that lives, in love should live and die!XMy dear and gentle wife,The Angel of my life,Oppressed with sweetest things,Has folded up her wings,And lies in slumber deep,Like some divinest Dream upon the couch of Sleep!Nor sound, nor stir profanes the stilly room,Haunted by Sleep and Silence, linkéd pair;The very light itself muffled in gloom,Steals in, and melts the enamored airWhere Love doth brood and dream, while Passion dies,Breathing his soul out in a mist of sighs!Lo! where she lies behind the curtains white,Pillowed on clouds of down,—her golden hairBraided around her forehead smooth and fair,Like a celestial diadem of light:—Her soft voluptuous lips are drawn apart,Curving in fine repose, and maiden pride;Her creamy breast,—its mantle brushed asideSwells with the long pulsation of her heart:One languid arm rests on the coverlid,And one beneath the crumpled sheet is hid,(Ah happy sheets! to hide an arm so sweet!)Nor all concealed amid their folds of snow,The soft perfection of her shape below,Rounded and tapering to her little feet!Oh Love! if Beauty ever left her sphere,And sovereign sisters, Art and Poesy,Moulded in loveliness she slumbers here,Slumbers, dear love, in thee!It is thy smile that makes the chamber still;It is thy breath that fills the scented air;The light around is borrowed from thy hair,And all things else are subject to thy will,And I am so bewildered in this deepAmbrosial calm, and passionate atmosphere,I know not whether I am dreaming here,Or in the world of Sleep!XIMy eyes are full of tears,My heart is full of pain,To wake, as now, again,And walk, as in my youth, the wilderness of Years!No more! no more! the autumn winds are loudIn stormy passes, howling to the Night:Behind a cloud the moon doth veil her light,And the rain pours from out the hornéd cloud.And hark! the solemn and mysterious bell,Swinging its brazen echoes o'er the wave:Not mortal hands, but spirits ring the knell,And toll the parting ghost of Midnight to its grave.