Classic Poem

But once again, but once again
I'll bid the strings awake
Just one more strain, just one more strain
For ancient friendship's sake

We must part, we must part
But comrades drop no tear
There's a warm nook still in every heart
To keep each image dear

One talisman one magic spell
Is ours where 'ere we be
And what shall hold the prize so well
As deathless memory?

Not far we go! not far we go!
And time fleets fast away
And none can stop a torrent's flow
For none its course can stay

Now hollow wind a moment cease
And let thy priboch die
The voice that should speak hope & peace
Will sadden to thy sigh

Now flickering flame now dying fire
more warmly glow
As embers quench as sparks expire
So sinks my song to woe

There trim the lamp there rouse the light
Now high their red beams burn
But who can whisper to the night
O veiled one cease to mourn

From the lone moor descends that strain
From glen & heathery hill
And as I hear its voice again
I scarce can wish it still

The harp of heaven is tuned aright
Now free its music flows
With what a wild & wondrous might
That sudden swell arose

That is the touch that is the tone
The old the hallowed sound
O! sorrowing minstrel breathe alone
Thy requiem sweet, profound

When I'm away its memory
My heart of hearts will thrill
'Tis the rush of sound that fills the sky
Above my native hill

'Tis the wakener of a hundred dreams
With joy with glory fraught
'Tis the loosener of a thousand streams
Of poetry of thought

And oft when breathes the lonely night
No other voice but thine
My soul delivered to thy might
Shall fleet to realms divine

That stars their lustre veil
In clouds whose misty vapours swelling
Below the bright worlds sail

Then on thy wings whose waft is thunder
Then on thy wings I'll lean
And from the strange home torn asunder
Wrapt in thy cloudy screen
I'll travel away, far away
Where the dream in the darkness lies shrouded & grey
Time shall not chain me
Place not restrain me
Mind is not matter & soul is not clay

And there I'll meet you comrades
And we'll shake hands again
Though twenty miles between us lie
Of night & wind & rain

But alas! alas! I cannot hope
My anchor sinks away
And riven from its faithless prop
My ship drifts out to sea

'Tis bitterness to leave you all
My heart is bound to home
I cannot drink the cup of gall
I was not made to roam

I know I shall again return
But life meantime is failing
The lamp that may not always burn
Its transient light is paling

All the sweet time of spring will be
An hour of dreamless sleeping
A blank a vacancy to me
Dark with the mists of weeping

I will not hold those strangers dear
With whom I dwell unwilling
My thoughts all rest on those who hear
This farewell wild & thrilling

I have no outside, surface love
My hearts nor wide nor roomy
No stray affection forth may rove
Bound in exclusion gloomy

Just us & those we've formed in dreams
Our own divine creations
These are my soul's unmingled themes
I scorn the alien nations
Shake hands dark Percy! breathe & live
Shalt thou in nothing perish?
No flesh & life & soul Ill give
And faithfully in thee believe
And still thy memory cherish

Shake hands Zenobia glorious form
Art thou a vapour, lady?
A rainbow traced upon the storm
Where the clouds lie black & shady
Is thy pirate husband but a name
Is the bucaneer a vision
Is the red Rover's fearful fame
Are the deeps o'er which it went & came
Food for the world's derision?

Are the great Houses of the West
The high clans of the North
Nothing but thought in language dressed
And breathed in bright words forth

Must their stern woods & all the glory
Of their old & noble homes
Pass off in mystery dim & hoary
Like an old song or magic story
Like the voice of their own domes
When the echo to the sound replies
Then all in utter silence dies

And the star I saw intensely burning
Through the black but splendid night
Whose beams into its self returning
Decked the mi[l]d heaven's solemn mourning
With self concentered light

Blinding in radiance as the sun
But deepening only the blue gloom
In which a white clear orb it shone
A gem upon the brow of doom

I mean Zamorna! do not say
I speak in egotism now
This is our last our farewell day
So here's my open unmasked brow

I owe him something, he has held
A lofty, burning lamp to me
Whose rays surrounding darkness quelled
And shewed me wonders, shadow free

And he has been a mental King
That ruled my thoughts right regally
spring
To what I had of poetry

I've heard his accents sweet & stern
Speak words of kindled wrath to me
When dead as dust in funeral urn
Sank every note of melody
And I was forced to wake again
The silent song the slumbering strain
He's moved the principle of life
Through all I've written or sung or said
The war-song rousing to the strife
The life-wind wakening up the dead

He's not the temple but the god
The idol in his marble shrine
Our grand dream is his wide abode
And there for me he dwells divine

I can walk in the structure vast
A while and never think of him
Only at times there wander's past
A consciousness all strange & dim
That it was his shrined divinity
Which brought me there to bow the knee

Others as mighty rest around
The great Pantheon has many a god
But to his altar I am bound
For him the consecrated ground
My pilgrim steps have trod

At time's by Percy's pedestal
More deeply awed I worship low
But grovelling in the dust I fall
Where Adrian's shrine lamps dazzling glow

It is his light it is his star
That leads me on resistlessly
Ascending high or wandering far
Or diving deep in sullen sea

Now plunged amid the wild green waves
Where storms & storm-lashed waters war
breaker raves
In wrath against its rocky bar

Still the revolving beacon throws
Its glory o'er the brightning sea
Whose dark floor far off burns & glows
While reddened billows part & close
Upon its surface changefully
Gleaming & flickering liquidly
And art thou nothing sea-light high
And thou sublime divinity?
Shake hands Zamorna! God or man
And though thou be'est incarnadined
I vow by blessing swear by ban
Thy spirit is in bright flesh shrined

Somewhere — somewhere all the dream
Lives breathes in glory that I know
I feel its truth in sudden gleam
Flashing around me Lord! & thou
Thou & thy consort! living pearl
Are not a wreath of morning mist
Not sparks that dart from reason's whirl
When vexed by the minds unrest
Alnwick! & solemn Mornington!
And Grassmere Grange! & Percy hall!
Your lattices now feel that sun
Through their clear panes of crystal fall
Its pallid gold on many a wall
Under your roofs rests placidly
These airs & breezes whispering call
Answers from ancient grove & tree
Where in far years, in times gone by
In summer evenings past away
Your ancestors walked pensively
Watching the close of twilight grey
Where Duchess! thy fair mother strayed
Dying so long before the time
When, the last chord of music played
Wood-church tolled out the passing chime
Often the glory of the sun
Burned on that land whose beauty none
In words may say unspeakable
And round the heath-couched lady fell
And Alderwood the summer's heat
Is in thy woods, among the bowers
Languidly lingering soft & sweet
Scented by wild & hidden flowers
That silver moon shone long ago
On the old porch with roses veiled
Where listening to the Wansbecks flow
That through the twilight, falling slow
Mournfully wailed
Sat Victorine, the lily bright
Of Sunart's sheet of stormy light
Her lonely beauty pale & still
Pensive & saddening ever more
What thoughts, what dreams her bosom fill!
As she sits by the Norman door
With flowers & ivy shadowing o'er
And golden stars & deep blue skies
Above, & stre[t]ching on before
Tall, stirless trees in alleys rise
Deepening & deepening still
A wood in June at even-tide
The plumy foliage all in pride
While plants its green recesses fill
That scent each glade from side to side
And summer eve that breathes no chill
Is softly darkening far & wide
Victorine thou art not there
With thee the leaf of life is sere
Though in its early spring
She thinks of academic groves
Far off & waving solemnly
Over the blue & quiet sea
Where the young Southern roves
And watches haply now the gloom
Gathering in that vast marble tomb
On whose bright surface shining lies
The mirrored moon & starry skies
Lighting the high & stately bowers
That soar above their classic towers
And in that distant island-home
At midnight shed light o'er the ocean foam

Sadly the Highland Baroness
Looks on the scene of awful bliss
In kindling, vivid thought she sees
Lord Douro lean against the trees
As he looks down on the mighty deep
Through all its green realms hushed in sleep
She sees his hand patrician white
bends
Fain would she touch those fingers slight
Flashing with many a gem of light
A torch remembrance lends
To show her how in other times
In distant lands in sterner climes
By the tall youthful strangers side
She wandered oft at eventide
While that same hand would warmly press
His own fair northern Baroness
While poured his lips seductively
Their tones of foreign melody
And now the very agony

Her eyes are gazing piercingly
Where those high elms in vista part
O heaven could she, might she see
Through the leaf-checquered moonlight gliding
That form that in her memory
Is firmly even to pain abiding
The slender boy with soft dark eyes
And curls upon his neck descending
Shading a face where mingled lies
Sweetness & untold passions blending
And marble beauty finely wrought
Like Artist's dream or Sculptor's thought

To hear his clear voice speak her name
With that strange smile she knew so well
" Helen " e'ven the accent came
She started so distinct it fell
As she had heard it in the hall
When suddenly he stood beside her
And when she trembled at the call
How gently would he feign to chide her

She rose, the ivy gently waving
Stirred to the rustling of her dress
And Wansbeck moaned it[s] green banks laving
All else was utter voicelessness
Douro six hundred miles away
Was gazing on the moonlight main
And thinking as alone he lay
Of her he n'er should see again
Little he dreamt her lonely grave
Should greet him when he crossed the wave
That is enough, too much 'tis over
Helen is dead, still lies her lover
But no more of the wondrous dream
My time of pleasant holiday
Is faded like a sunny beam
And I must here no longer stay
May we all meet in joy again
And then I'll sing a lighter strain
This evening hear the solemn knell
Farewell! & yet again farewell!