The Spirit Of Solitude

    Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay
   Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed
   To deck with their bright hues his withered hair,
   But on his heart its solitude returned,
   And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid
   In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame,
   Had yet performed its ministry; it hung
   Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud
   Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods
   Of night close over it.                             The noonday sun                          420
   Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
   Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
   A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,
   Scooped in the dark base of their aëry rocks,
   Mocking its moans, respond and roar forever.
   The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
   Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as, led
   By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,
   He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank,
   Her cradle and his sepulchre. More dark                           430
   And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,
   Expanding its immense and knotty arms,
   Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
   Of the tall cedar overarching frame
   Most solemn domes within, and far below,
   Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
   The ash and the acacia floating hang
   Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed
   In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,
   Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around                   440
   The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,
   With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,
   Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
   These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs,
   Uniting their close union; the woven leaves
   Make network of the dark blue light of day
   And the night's noontide clearness, mutable
   As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
   Beneath these canopies extend their swells,
   Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms                450
   Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen
   Sends from its woods of musk-rose twined with jasmine
   A soul-dissolving odor to invite
   To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell
   Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep
   Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,
   Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,
   Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,
   Images all the woven boughs above,
   And each depending leaf, and every speck                          460
    

 Of azure sky darting between their chasms;
   Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves
   Its portraiture, but some inconstant star,
   Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,
   Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,
   Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,
   Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
   Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.    Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld
   Their own wan light through the reflected lines                   470
   Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
   Of that still fountain; as the human heart,
   Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,
   Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard
   The motion of the leaves--the grass that sprung
   Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel
   An unaccustomed presence--and the sound
   Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs
   Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed
   To stand beside him--clothed in no bright robes                   480
   Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,
   Borrowed from aught the visible world affords
   Of grace, or majesty, or mystery;
   But undulating woods, and silent well,
   And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom
   Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
   Held commune with him, as if he and it
   Were all that was; only--when his regard
   Was raised by intense pensiveness--two eyes,
   Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,                    490
   And seemed with their serene and azure smiles
   To beckon him.
                   Obedient to the light
   That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing
   The windings of the dell. The rivulet,
   Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine
   Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell
   Among the moss with hollow harmony
   Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones
   It danced, like childhood laughing as it went;
   Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,             500
   Reflecting every herb and drooping bud
   That overhung its quietness.--'O stream!
   Whose source is inaccessibly profound,
   Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?
   Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,
   Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,
   Thy searchless fountain and invisible course,
   Have each their type in me; and the wide sky
   And measureless ocean may declare as soon
   What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud                          510

    Contains thy waters, as the universe
   Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched
   Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste
   I' the passing wind!'                           Beside the grassy shore
   Of the small stream he went; he did impress
   On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught
   Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one
   Roused by some joyous madness from the couch
   Of fever, he did move; yet not like him
   Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame                     520
   Of his frail exultation shall be spent,
   He must descend. With rapid steps he went
   Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow
   Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now
   The forest's solemn canopies were changed
   For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.
   Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed
   The struggling brook; tall spires of windlestrae
   Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,
   And nought but gnarlèd roots of ancient pines                     530
   Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots
   The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here
   Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,
   The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin
   And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes
   Had shone, gleam stony orbs:--so from his steps
   Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade
   Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds
   And musical motions. Calm he still pursued
   The stream, that with a larger volume now                         540
   Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there
   Fretted a path through its descending curves
   With its wintry speed. On every side now rose
   Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,
   Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
   In the light of evening, and its precipice
   Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,
   'Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,
   Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues
   To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands                    550
   Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,
   And seems with its accumulated crags
   To overhang the world; for wide expand
   Beneath the wan stars and descending moon
   Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,
   Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom
   Of leaden-colored even, and fiery hills
   Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge
   Of the remote horizon. The near scene,
   In naked and severe simplicity,                                   560
   Made contrast with the universe. A pine,
   Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy
   Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast
   Yielding one only response at each pause
   In most familiar cadence, with the howl,
   The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams
   Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river
   Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,
   Fell into that immeasurable void,
   Scattering its waters to the passing winds.                       570
    

 Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine
   And torrent were not all;--one silent nook
   Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,
   Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,
   It overlooked in its serenity
   The dark earth and the bending vault of stars.
   It was a tranquil spot that seemed to smile
   Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped
   The fissured stones with its entwining arms,
   And did embower with leaves forever green                         580
   And berries dark the smooth and even space
   Of its inviolated floor; and here
   The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore
   In wanton sport those bright leaves whose decay,
   Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,
   Rivals the pride of summer. 'T is the haunt
   Of every gentle wind whose breath can teach
   The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,
   One human step alone, has ever broken
   The stillness of its solitude; one voice                          590
   Alone inspired its echoes;--even that voice
   Which hither came, floating among the winds,
   And led the loveliest among human forms
   To make their wild haunts the depository
   Of all the grace and beauty that endued
   Its motions, render up its majesty,
   Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,
   And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,
   Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,
   Commit the colors of that varying cheek,                          600
   That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.      The dim and hornèd moon hung low, and poured
   A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge
   That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist
   Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank
   Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a star
   Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,
   Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice
   Slept, clasped in his embrace.--O storm of death,
   Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night!                  610
   And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still
   Guiding its irresistible career
   In thy devastating omnipotence,
   Art king of this frail world! from the red field
   Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital,
   The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed
   Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,
   A mighty voice invokes thee! Ruin calls
   His brother Death! A rare and regal prey
   He hath prepared, prowling around the world;                      620

   Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men
   Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,
   Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine
   The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.      When on the threshold of the green recess
   The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death
   Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,
   Did he resign his high and holy soul
   To images of the majestic past,
   That paused within his passive being now,                         630
   Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe
   Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place
   His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
   Of the old pine; upon an ivied stone
   Reclined his languid head; his limbs did rest,
   Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink
   Of that obscurest chasm;--and thus he lay,
   Surrendering to their final impulses
   The hovering powers of life. Hope and Despair,
   The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear                      640
   Marred his repose; the influxes of sense
   And his own being, unalloyed by pain,
   Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed
   The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there
   At peace, and faintly smiling. His last sight
   Was the great moon, which o'er the western line
   Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,
   With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed
   To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills
   It rests; and still as the divided frame                          650
   Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,
   That ever beat in mystic sympathy
   With Nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still;
   And when two lessening points of light alone
   Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp
   Of his faint respiration scarce did stir
   The stagnate night:--till the minutest ray
   Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.
   It paused--it fluttered. But when heaven remained
   Utterly black, the murky shades involved                          660
   An image silent, cold, and motionless,
   As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.
   Even as a vapor fed with golden beams
   That ministered on sunlight, ere the west
   Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame--
   No sense, no motion, no divinity--
   A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
   The breath of heaven did wander--a bright stream
   Once fed with many-voicèd waves--a dream
   Of youth, which night and time have quenched forever--  
   670
  

  Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.      Oh, for Medea's wondrous alchemy,
   Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam
   With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale
   From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! Oh, that God,
   Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice
   Which but one living man has drained, who now,
   Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels
   No proud exemption in the blighting curse
   He bears, over the world wanders forever,                         680
   Lone as incarnate death! Oh, that the dream
   Of dark magician in his visioned cave,
   Raking the cinders of a crucible
   For life and power, even when his feeble hand
   Shakes in its last decay, were the true law
   Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled,
   Like some frail exhalation, which the dawn
   Robes in its golden beams,--ah! thou hast fled!
   The brave, the gentle and the beautiful,
   The child of grace and genius. Heartless things                   690
   Are done and said i' the world, and many worms
   And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth
   From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,
   In vesper low or joyous orison,
   Lifts still its solemn voice:--but thou art fled--
   Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes
   Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee
   Been purest ministers, who are, alas!
   Now thou art not! Upon those pallid lips
   So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes                     700
   That image sleep in death, upon that form
   Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear
   Be shed--not even in thought. Nor, when those hues
   Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,
   Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone
   In the frail pauses of this simple strain,
   Let not high verse, mourning the memory
   Of that which is no more, or painting's woe
   Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery
   Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence,                         710
   And all the shows o' the world, are frail and vain
   To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.
   It is a woe "too deep for tears," when all
   Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
   Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
   Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
   The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;
   But pale despair and cold tranquillity,
   Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,
   Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.