SON XXIV. TO THE NILE. ON of the old moon-mountains African! Stream of the Pyramid and Crocodile! We call thee fruitful, and that very while A desert fills our seeing's inward span: Nurse of swart nations since the world began, Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile Those men to honour thee, who, worn with toil, Rest them a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan? O may dark fancies err! They surely do; "Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste The pleasant sun-rise. Green isles hast thou too. And to the sea as happily dost haste. XXV. ON SITTING DOWN TO READ "KING LEAR ONCE AGAIN. GOLDEN-TONGUED Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen! if far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden volume, and be mute. Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute, Betwixt hell torment and impassioned clay, Must I burn through; once more assay The bitter sweet of this Shakspearian fruit. Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion, Begetters of our deep eternal theme, When I am through the old oak forest gone, Let me not wander in a barren dream, But when I am consumed with the Fire, Give me new Phoenix-wings to fly at my desire. R XXVI. EAD me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud I look into the chasms, and a shroud Vaporous doth hide them, just so much I wist Mankind do know of hell; I look o'erhead, And there is sullen mist, even so much Mankind can tell of heaven; mist is spread Before the earth, beneath me, even such, Even so vague is man's sight of himself! Here are the craggy stones beneath my feet, Thus much I know that, a poor witless elf, I tread on them, that all my eye doth meet Is mist and crag, not only on this height, But in the world of thought and mental might! : |