Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50)

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Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) Page 110

by Homer


  Where the downs westward trend, but dimly seen”

  Here never roll’d its surge. Does Nature then

  Mimic, in wanton mood, fantastic shapes

  Of bivalves, and inwreathed volutes, that cling

  To the dark sea-rock of the wat’ry world?

  Or did this range of chalky mountains, once

  Form a vast bason, where the Ocean waves

  Swell’d fathomless? What time these fossil shells,

  Buoy’d on their native element, were thrown

  Among the imbedding calx: when the huge hill

  Its giant bulk heaved, and in strange ferment

  Grew up a guardian barrier, ‘twixt the sea

  And the green level of the sylvan weald.

  Ah! very vain is Science’ proudest boast,

  And but a little light its flame yet lends

  To its most ardent votaries; since from whence

  These fossil forms are seen, is but conjecture,

  Food for vague theories, or vain dispute,

  While to his daily task the peasant goes,

  Unheeding such inquiry; with no care

  But that the kindly change of sun and shower,

  Fit for his toil the earth he cultivates.

  As little recks the herdsman of the hill,

  Who on some turfy knoll, idly reclined,

  Watches his wether flock; that deep beneath

  Rest the remains of men, of whom is left

  No traces in the records of mankind,

  Save what these half obliterated mounds

  And half fill’d trenches doubtfully impart

  To some lone antiquary; who on times remote,

  Since which two thousand years have roll’d away,

  Loves to contemplate. He perhaps may trace,

  Or fancy he can trace, the oblong square

  Where the mail’d legions, under Claudius, rear’d,

  The rampire, or excavated fossé delved;

  What time the huge unwieldy Elephant

  Auxiliary reluctant, hither led,

  From Afric’s forest glooms and tawny sands,

  First felt the Northern blast, and his vast frame

  Sunk useless; whence in after ages found,

  The wondering hinds, on those enormous bones

  Gaz’d; and in giants dwelling on the hills

  Believed and marvell’d —

  Hither, Ambition, come!

  Come and behold the nothingness of all

  For which you carry thro’ the oppressed Earth,

  War, and its train of horrors — see where tread

  The innumerous hoofs of flocks above the works

  By which the warrior sought to register

  His glory, and immortalize his name —

  The pirate Dane, who from his circular camp

  Bore in destructive robbery, fire and sword

  Down thro’ the vale, sleeps unremember’d here;

  And here, beneath the green sward, rests alike

  The savage native, who his acorn meal

  Shar’d with the herds, that ranged the pathless woods;

  And the centurion, who on these wide hills

  Encamping, planted the Imperial Eagle.

  All, with the lapse of Time, have passed away,

  Even as the clouds, with dark and dragon shapes,

  Or like vast promontories crown’d with towers,

  Cast their broad shadows on the downs: then sail

  Far to the northward, and their transient gloom

  Is soon forgotten.

  But from thoughts like these,

  By human crimes suggested, let us turn

  To where a more attractive study courts

  The wanderer of the hills; while shepherd girls

  Will from among the fescue bring him flowers,

  Of wonderous mockery; some resembling bees

  In velvet vest, intent on their sweet toil,

  While others mimic flies, that lightly sport

  In the green shade, or float along the pool,

  But here seem perch’d upon the slender stalk,

  And gathering honey dew. While in the breeze

  That wafts the thistle’s plumed seed along,

  Blue bells wave tremulous. The mountain thyme

  Purples the hassock of the heaving mole,

  And the short turf is gay with tormentil,

  And bird’s foot trefoil, and the lesser tribes

  Of hawkweed; spangling it with fringed stars. —

  Near where a richer tract of cultur’d land

  Slopes to the south; and burnished by the sun,

  Bend in the gale of August, floods of corn;

  The guardian of the flock, with watchful care,

  Repels by voice and dog the encroaching sheep —

  While his boy visits every wired trap

  That scars the turf; and from the pit-falls takes

  The timid migrants, who from distant wilds,

  Warrens, and stone quarries, are destined thus

  To lose their short existence. But unsought

  By Luxury yet, the Shepherd still protects

  The social bird, who from his native haunts

  Of willowy current, or the rushy pool,

  Follows the fleecy croud, and flirts and skims,

  In fellowship among them.

  Where the knoll

  More elevated takes the changeful winds,

  The windmill rears its vanes; and thitherward

  With his white load, the master travelling,

  Scares the rooks rising slow on whispering wings,

  While o’er his head, before the summer sun

  Lights up the blue expanse, heard more than seen,

  The lark sings matins; and above the clouds

  Floating, embathes his spotted breast in dew.

  Beneath the shadow of a gnarled thorn,

  Bent by the sea blast, from a seat of turf

  With fairy nosegays strewn, how wide the view!

  Till in the distant north it melts away,

  And mingles indiscriminate with clouds:

  But if the eye could reach so far, the mart

  Of England’s capital, its domes and spires

  Might be perceived — Yet hence the distant range

  Of Kentish hills, appear in purple haze;

  And nearer, undulate the wooded heights,

  And airy summits, that above the mole

  Rise in green beauty; and the beacon’d ridge

  Of Black-down shagg’d with heath, and swelling rude

  Like a dark island from the vale; its brow

  Catching the last rays of the evening sun

  That gleam between the nearer park’s old oaks,

  Then lighten up the river, and make prominent

  The portal, and the ruin’d battlements

  Of that dismantled fortress; rais’d what time

  The Conqueror’s successors fiercely fought,

  Tearing with civil feuds the desolate land.

  But now a tiller of the soil dwells there,

  And of the turret’s loop’d and rafter’d halls

  Has made an humbler homestead — Where he sees,

  Instead of armed foemen, herds that graze

  Along his yellow meadows; or his flocks

  At evening from the upland driv’n to fold —

  In such a castellated mansion once

  A stranger chose his home; and where hard by

  In rude disorder fallen, and hid with brushwood

  Lay fragments gray of towers and buttresses,

  Among the ruins, often he would muse —

  His rustic meal soon ended, he was wont

  To wander forth, listening the evening sounds

  Of rushing milldam, or the distant team,

  Or night-jar, chasing fern-flies: the tir’d hind

  Pass’d him at nightfall, wondering he should sit

  On the hill top so late: they from the coast

 
Who sought bye paths with their clandestine load,

  Saw with suspicious doubt, the lonely man

  Cross on their way: but village maidens thought

  His senses injur’d; and with pity say

  That he, poor youth! must have been cross’d in love —

  For often, stretch’d upon the mountain turf

  With folded arms, and eyes intently fix’d

  Where ancient elms and firs obscured a grange,

  Some little space within the vale below,

  They heard him, as complaining of his fate,

  And to the murmuring wind, of cold neglect

  And baffled hope he told. — The peasant girls

  These plaintive sounds remember, and even now

  Among them may be heard the stranger’s songs.

  Were I a Shepherd on the hill

  And ever as the mists withdrew

  Could see the willows of the rill

  Shading the footway to the mill

  Where once I walk’d with you —

  And as away Night’s shadows sail,

  And sounds of birds and brooks arise,

  Believe, that from the woody vale

  I hear your voice upon the gale

  In soothing melodies;

  And viewing from the Alpine height,

  The prospect dress’d in hues of air,

  Could say, while transient colours bright

  Touch’d the fair scene with dewy light,

  ’Tis, that her eyes are there!

  I think, I could endure my lot

  And linger on a few short years,

  And then, by all but you forgot,

  Sleep, where the turf that clothes the spot

  May claim some pitying tears.

  For ’tis not easy to forget

  One, who thro’ life has lov’d you still,

  And you, however late, might yet

  With sighs to Memory giv’n, regret

  The Shepherd of the Hill.

  Yet otherwhile it seem’d as if young Hope

  Her flattering pencil gave to Fancy’s hand,

  And in his wanderings, rear’d to sooth his soul

  Ideal bowers of pleasure — Then, of Solitude

  And of his hermit life, still more enamour’d,

  His home was in the forest; and wild fruits

  And bread sustain’d him. There in early spring

  The Barkmen found him, e’er the sun arose;

  There at their daily toil, the Wedgecutters

  Beheld him thro’ the distant thicket move.

  The shaggy dog following the truffle hunter,

  Bark’d at the loiterer; and perchance at night

  Belated villagers from fair or wake,

  While the fresh night-wind let the moonbeams in

  Between the swaying boughs, just saw him pass,

  And then in silence, gliding like a ghost

  He vanish’d! Lost among the deepening gloom. —

  But near one ancient tree, whose wreathed roots

  Form’d a rude couch, love-songs and scatter’d rhymes,

  Unfinish’d sentences, or half erased,

  And rhapsodies like this, were sometimes found —

  Let us to woodland wilds repair

  While yet the glittering night-dews seem

  To wait the freshly-breathing air,

  Precursive of the morning beam,

  That rising with advancing day,

  Scatters the silver drops away.

  An elm, uprooted by the storm,

  The trunk with mosses gray and green,

  Shall make for us a rustic form,

  Where lighter grows the forest scene;

  And far among the bowery shades,

  Are ferny lawns and grassy glades.

  Retiring May to lovely June

  Her latest garland now resigns;

  The banks with cuckoo-flowers are strewn,

  The woodwalks blue with columbines,

  And with its reeds, the wandering stream

  Reflects the flag-flower’s golden gleam.

  There, feathering down the turf to meet,

  Their shadowy arms the beeches spread,

  While high above our sylvan seat,

  Lifts the light ash its airy head;

  And later leaved, the oaks between

  Extend their bows of vernal green.

  The slender birch its paper rind

  Seems offering to divided love,

  And shuddering even without a wind

  Aspins, their paler foliage move,

  As if some spirit of the air

  Breath’d a low sigh in passing there.

  The Squirrel in his frolic mood,

  Will fearless bound among the boughs;

  Yaffils laugh loudly thro’ the wood,

  And murmuring ring-doves tell their vows;

  While we, as sweetest woodscents rise,

  Listen to woodland melodies.

  And I’ll contrive a sylvan room

  Against the time of summer heat,

  Where leaves, inwoven in Nature’s loom,

  Shall canopy our green retreat;

  And gales that “close the eye of day”

  Shall linger, e’er they die away.

  And when a sear and sallow hue

  From early frost the bower receives,

  I’ll dress the sand rock cave for you,

  And strew the floor with heath and leaves,

  That you, against the autumnal air

  May find securer shelter there.

  The Nightingale will then have ceas’d

  To sing her moonlight serenade;

  But the gay bird with blushing breast,

  And Woodlarks still will haunt the shade,

  And by the borders of the spring

  Reed-wrens will yet be carolling.

  The forest hermit’s lonely cave

  None but such soothing sounds shall reach,

  Or hardly heard, the distant wave

  Slow breaking on the stony beach;

  Or winds, that now sigh soft and low,

  Now make wild music as they blow.

  And then, before the chilling North

  The tawny foliage falling light,

  Seems, as it flits along the earth,

  The footfall of the busy Sprite,

  Who wrapt in pale autumnal gloom,

  Calls up the mist-born Mushroom.

  Oh! could I hear your soft voice there,

  And see you in the forest green

  All beauteous as you are, more fair

  You’ld look, amid the sylvan scene,

  And in a wood-girl’s simple guise,

  Be still more lovely in mine eyes.

  Ye phantoms of unreal delight,

  Visions of fond delirium born!

  Rise not on my deluded sight,

  Then leave me drooping and forlorn

  To know, such bliss can never be,

  Unless loved like me.

  The visionary, nursing dreams like these,

  Is not indeed unhappy. Summer woods

  Wave over him, and whisper as they wave,

  Some future blessings he may yet enjoy.

  And as above him sail the silver clouds,

  He follows them in thought to distant climes,

  Where, far from the cold policy of this,

  Dividing him from her he fondly loves,

  He, in some island of the southern sea,

  May haply build his cane-constructed bower

  Beneath the bread-fruit, or aspiring palm,

  With long green foliage rippling in the gale.

  Oh! let him cherish his ideal bliss —

  For what is life, when Hope has ceas’d to strew

  Her fragile flowers along its thorny way?

  And sad and gloomy are his days, who lives

  Of Hope abandon’d!

  Just beneath the rock

  Where Beachy overpeers the channel wave,

  Within a cavern mined
by wintry tides

  Dwelt one, who long disgusted with the world

  And all its ways, appear’d to suffer life

  Rather than live; the soul-reviving gale,

  Fanning the bean-field, or the thymy heath,

  Had not for many summers breathed on him;

  And nothing mark’d to him the season’s change,

  Save that more gently rose the placid sea,

  And that the birds which winter on the coast

  Gave place to other migrants; save that the fog,

  Hovering no more above the beetling cliffs

  Betray’d not then the little careless sheep

  On the brink grazing, while their headlong fall

  Near the lone Hermit’s flint-surrounded home,

  Claim’d unavailing pity; for his heart

  Was feelingly alive to all that breath’d;

  And outraged as he was, in sanguine youth,

  By human crimes, he still acutely felt

  For human misery.

  Wandering on the beach,

  He learn’d to augur from the clouds of heaven,

  And from the changing colours of the sea,

  And sullen murmurs of the hollow cliffs,

  Or the dark porpoises, that near the shore

  Gambol’d and sported on the level brine

  When tempests were approaching: then at night

  He listen’d to the wind; and as it drove

  The billows with o’erwhelming vehemence

  He, starting from his rugged couch, went forth

  And hazarding a life, too valueless,

  He waded thro’ the waves, with plank or pole

  Towards where the mariner in conflict dread

  Was buffeting for life the roaring surge;

  And now just seen, now lost in foaming gulphs,

  The dismal gleaming of the clouded moon

  Shew’d the dire peril. Often he had snatch’d

  From the wild billows, some unhappy man

  Who liv’d to bless the hermit of the rocks.

  But if his generous cares were all in vain,

  And with slow swell the tide of morning bore

  Some blue swol’n cor’se to land; the pale recluse

  Dug in the chalk a sepulchre — above

  Where the dank sea-wrack mark’d the utmost tide,

  And with his prayers perform’d the obsequies

  For the poor helpless stranger.

  One dark night

  The equinoctial wind blew south by west,

  Fierce on the shore; — the bellowing cliffs were shook

 

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