1
How, my dear Mary, are you critic-bitten
(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,
That you condemn these verses I have written
Because they tell no story, false or true?
5What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten,
May it not leap and play as grown cats do,
Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time,
Content thee with a visionary rhyme.
2
What hand would crush the silken-winged fly,
10 The youngest of inconstant April’s minions,
Because it cannot climb the purest sky
Where the swan sings amid the sun’s dominions?
Not thine. Thou knowest ’tis its doom to die
When day shall hide within her twilight pinions,
15The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile,
Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.
3
To thy fair feet a winged Vision came
Whose date should have been longer than a day,
And o’er thy head did beat its wings for fame,
20 And in thy sight its fading plumes display;
The watery bow burned in the evening flame,
But the shower fell, the swift sun went his way—
And that is dead.—O, let me not believe
That any thing of mine is fit to live!
4
25Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years
Considering and retouching Peter Bell;
Watering his laurels with the killing tears
Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to hell
Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres
30 Of heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers; this well
May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil
The over-busy gardener’s blundering toil.
5
My Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature
As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise
35Clothes for our grandsons—but she matches Peter,
Though he took nineteen years, and she three days
In dressing. Light the vest of flowing metre
She wears; he, proud as dandy with his stays,
Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress
40Like King Lear’s ‘looped and windowed raggedness’.
6
If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow
Scorched by Hell’s hyperequatorial climate
Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow,
A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at;
45In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello.
If you unveil my Witch, no Priest or Primate
Can shrive you of that sin,—if sin there be
In love, when it becomes idolatry.
The Witch of Atlas
1
Before those cruel Twins, whom at one birth
50 Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,
Error and Truth, had hunted from the earth
All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
And left us nothing to believe in, worth
The pains of putting into learned rhyme,
55A lady-witch there lived on Atlas’ mountain
Within a cavern by a secret fountain.
2
Her mother was one of the Atlantides:
The all-beholding Sun had ne’er beholden
In his wide voyage o’er continents and seas
60 So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden
In the warm shadow of her loveliness;—
He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden
The chamber of grey rock in which she lay—
She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.
3
65’Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour,
And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,
Like splendour-winged moths about a taper,
Round the red west when the sun dies in it:
And then into a meteor, such as caper
70 On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit:
Then into one of those mysterious stars
Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.
4
Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent
Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden
The sea-deserted sand—like children chidden,
At her command they ever came and went—
Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden
Took shape and motion: with the living form
80Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm.
5
A lovely lady garmented in light
From her own beauty—deep her eyes, as are
Two openings of unfathomable night
Seen through a temple’s cloven roof—her hair
85Dark—the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight
Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,
And her low voice was heard like love, and drew
All living things towards this wonder new.
6
And first the spotted cameleopard came,
90 And then the wise and fearless elephant;
Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame
Of his own volumes intervolved;—all gaunt
And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame.
They drank before her at her sacred fount;
95And every beast of beating heart grew bold,
Such gentleness and power even to behold.
7
The brinded lioness led forth her young,
That she might teach them how they should forego
Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung
100 His sinews at her feet, and sought to know
With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue
How he might be as gentle as the doe.
The magic circle of her voice and eyes
All savage natures did imparadise.
8
105And old Silenus, shaking a green stick
Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew
Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick
Cicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew:
And Dryope and Faunus followed quick,
110 Teazing the God to sing them something new
Till in this cave they found the lady lone,
Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.
9
And Universal Pan, ’tis said, was there,
And though none saw him,—through the adamant
115Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air,
And through those living spirits, like a want
He past out of his everlasting lair
Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant,
And felt that wondrous lady all alone,—
120And she felt him upon her emerald throne.
10
And every nymph of stream and spreading tree
And every shepherdess of Ocean’s flocks
Who drives her white waves over the green sea;
And Ocean with the brine on his grey locks,
125And quaint Priapus with his company
All came, much wondering how the enwombed rocks
Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth;—
Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.
11
The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came
130 And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant—
Their spirits shook within them, as a flame
Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:
Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name,
Centaurs and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt
135Wet clefts,—and lumps neither alive nor dead,
Dog-headed, bosom-eyed and bi
rd-footed.
12
For she was beautiful—her beauty made
The bright world dim, and every thing beside
Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade:
140 No thought of living spirit could abide—
Which to her looks had ever been betrayed—
On any object in the world so wide,
On any hope within the circling skies,
But on her form, and in her inmost eyes.
13
145Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle
And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and three
Long lines of light such as the dawn may kindle
The clouds and waves and mountains with, and she
As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle
150 In the belated moon, wound skilfully;
And with these threads a subtle veil she wove—
A shadow for the splendour of her love.
14
The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling
Were stored with magic treasures—sounds of air,
155Which had the power all spirits of compelling,
Folded in cells of chrystal silence there;
Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling
Will never die—yet ere we are aware,
The feeling and the sound are fled and gone,
160And the regret they leave remains alone.
15
And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,
Each in its thin sheath like a chrysalis;
Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint
With the soft burthen of intensest bliss
165It was its work to bear to many a saint
Whose heart adores that shrine which holiest is,
Even Love’s—and others white, green, grey and black,
And of all shapes—and each was at her beck.
16
And odours in a kind of aviary
170 Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept,
Clipt in a floating net a love-sick Fairy
Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet slept—
As bats at the wired window of a dairy,
They beat their vans; and each was an adept,
175When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds,
To stir sweet thoughts or sad in destined minds.
17
And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might
Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep,
And change eternal death into a night
180 Of glorious dreams—or if eyes needs must weep,
Could make their tears all wonder and delight,
She in her chrystal vials did closely keep:
If men could drink of those clear vials, ’tis said
The living were not envied of the dead.
18
185Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,
The works of some Saturnian Archimage,
Which taught the expiations at whose price
Men from the Gods might win that happy age
Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;
190 And which might quench the earth-consuming rage
Of gold and blood—till men should live and move
Harmonious as the sacred stars above.
19
And how all things that seem untameable,
Not to be checked and not to be confined,
195Obey the spells of wisdom’s wizard skill;
Time, Earth and Fire—the Ocean and the Wind
And all their shapes—and man’s imperial will;
And other scrolls whose writings did unbind
The inmost lore of Love—let the prophane
200Tremble to ask what secrets they contain.
20
And wondrous works of substances unknown,
To which the enchantment of her father’s power
Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,
Were heaped in the recesses of her bower;
205Carved lamps and chalices and phials which shone
In their own golden beams—each like a flower
Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light
Under a cypress in a starless night.
21
At first she lived alone in this wild home,
210 And her own thoughts were each a minister,
Clothing themselves or with the ocean-foam,
Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,
To work whatever purposes might come
Into her mind; such power her mighty Sire
215Had girt them with, whether to fly or run,
Through all the regions which he shines upon.
22
The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades,
Oreads and Naiads with long weedy locks,
Offered to do her bidding through the seas,
220 Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks,
And far beneath the matted roots of trees
And in the gnarled heart of stubborn oaks,
So they might live forever in the light
Of her sweet presence—each a satellite.
23
225‘This may not be,’ the wizard maid replied;
‘The fountains where the Naiades bedew
Their shining hair at length are drained and dried;
The solid oaks forget their strength, and strew
Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide;
230 The boundless ocean, like a drop of dew
Will be consumed—the stubborn centre must
Be scattered, like a cloud of summer dust—
24
‘And ye with them will perish one by one:
If I must sigh to think that this shall be,
235If I must weep when the surviving Sun
Shall smile on your decay—Oh, ask not me
To love you till your little race is run;
I cannot die as ye must—over me
Your leaves shall glance—the streams in which ye dwell
240Shall be my paths henceforth, and so, farewell!’
25
She spoke and wept—the dark and azure well
Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,
And every little circlet where they fell
Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres
245And intertangled lines of light—a knell
Of sobbing voices came upon her ears
From those departing Forms, o’er the serene
Of the white streams and of the forest green.
26
All day the wizard lady sate aloof
250 Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity
Under the cavern’s fountain-lighted roof;
Or broidering the pictured poesy
Of some high tale upon her growing woof,
Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye
255In hues outshining heaven—and ever she
Added some grace to the wrought poesy.
27
While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece
Of sandal wood, rare gums and cinnamon;
Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is—
260 Each flame of it is as a precious stone
Dissolved in ever moving light, and this
Belongs to each and all who gaze upon.
The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand
She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.
28
265This lady never slept, but lay in trance
All night within the fountain—as in sleep.
Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty’s glance:
Through the green splendour of the water deep
She saw the constellations reel and dance
270 Like fire-flies—and withal did ever keep
The tenour of her contemplations calm,
With open eyes, close
d feet and folded palm.
29
And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended
From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,
275She passed at dewfall to a space extended,
Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel
Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended
There yawned an inextinguishable well
Of crimson fire, full even to the brim
280And overflowing all the margin trim.
30
Within the which she lay when the fierce war
Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor
In many a mimic moon and bearded star,
O’er woods and lawns—the serpent heard it flicker
285In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar—
And when the windless snow descended thicker
Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came
Melt on the surface of the level flame.
31
She had a Boat which some say Vulcan wrought
290 For Venus, as the chariot of her star;
But it was found too feeble to be fraught
With all the ardours in that sphere which are,
And so she sold it, and Apollo bought
And gave it to this daughter: from a car
295Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat
Which ever upon mortal stream did float.
32
And others say, that when but three hours old
The first-born Love out of his cradle leapt