While this nocturnal series blows
I hide my head beneath the clothes,
And sue the power whose dew distils
The only balm for human ills.
All day the sun’s prevailing beam
Absorbs this dew from Lethe’s stream:
All night the falling moisture sheds
Oblivion over mortal heads.
Then sinking into sleep I fall,
And leave them piping at their ball.
When morning comes—no summer’s morn—
I wake and find the spectres gone;
But on the casement see emboss’d
A mimic world in crusted frost;
Ice-bergs, high shores, and wastes of snow,
Mountains above, and seas below;
Or, if Imagination bids,
Vast crystal domes, and pyramids.
Then starting from my couch I leap,
And shake away the dregs of sleep,
Just breathe upon the grand array,
And ice-bergs slide in seas away.
Now on the scout I sally forth,
The weather-cock due E. by N.
To meet some masquerading fog,
Which makes all nature dance incog.
And spreads blue devils, and blue looks,
Till exercised by tongues and books.
Books, do I say? full well I wist
A book’s a famous exorcist!
A book’s the tow that makes the tether
That binds the quick and dead together;
A speaking trumpet under ground,
That turns a silence to a sound;
A magic mirror form’d to show,
Worlds that were dust ten thousand years ago.
They’re aromatic cloths, that hold
The mind embalm’d in many a fold,
And look, arrang’d in dust-hung rooms,
Like mummies in Egyptian tombs;
—Enchanted echoes, that reply,
Not to the ear, but to the eye;
Or pow’rful drugs, that give the brain,
By strange contagion, joy or pain.
A book’s the phœnix of the earth,
Which bursts in splendour from its birth:
And like the moon without her wanes,
From every change new lustre gains;
Shining with undiminish’d light,
While ages wing their idle flight.
By such a glorious theme inspired
Still could I sing—but you are tired:
(Tho’ adamantine lungs would do,
Ears should be adamantine too,)
And thence we may deduce ’tis better
To answer (’faith ’tis time) your letter.
To answer first what first it says.
Why will you speak of partial praise?
I spoke with honesty and truth,
And now you seem to doubt them both.
The lynx’s eye may seem to him,
Who always has enjoy’d it, dim:
And brilliant thoughts to you may be
What common-place ones are to me.
You note them not—but cast them by,
As light is lavish’d by the sky;
Or streams from Indian mountains roll’d
Fling to the ocean grains of gold.
But still we know the gold is fine—
But still we know the light’s divine.
As to the Century and Pope,
The thought’s not so absurd, I hope.
I don’t despair to see a throne
Rear’d above his—and p’rhaps your own.
The course is clear, the goal’s in view,
’Tis free to all, why not to you?
But, ere you start, you should survey
The towering falcon strike her prey:
In gradual sweeps the sky she scales,
Nor all at once the bird assails,
But hems him in—cuts round the skies,
And gains upon him as he flies.
Wearied and faint he beats the air in vain,
Then shuts his flaggy wings, and pitches to the plain.
Now, falcon! now! One stoop—but one,
The quarry’s struck—the prize is won!
So he who hopes the palm to gain,
So often sought—and sought in vain,
Must year by year, as round by round,
In easy circles leave the ground:
’Tis time has taught him how to rise,
And naturalized him to the skies.
Full many a day Pope trod the vales,
Mid “silver streams and murmuring gales.”
Long fear’d the rising hills to tread,
Nor ever dared the mountain-head.
It needs not Milton to display,—
Who let a life-time slide away,
Before he swept the sounding string,
And soar’d on Pegasean wing,—
Nor Homer’s ancient form—to show
The Laurel takes an age to grow;
And he who gives his name to fate,
Must plant it early, reap it late;
Nor pluck the blossoms as they spring,
So beautiful, yet perishing.