Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards :
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Thro' verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets covered up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vainTo thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Thro' the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears among the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casement, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:-Do I wake or sleep?
A leaf on yonder aspen tree;
In every fickle breeze to play,
Wildly, weakly, idly gay,
So feebly framed, so lightly hung,
By the wing of an insect stirred and swung; Thrilling even to a readbreast's note,
Drooping if only a light mist float,
Brightened and dimmed like a varying glass
As shadow or sunbeam chance to pass ;-
I would not be
A leaf on yonder aspen tree.
It is not because the autumn sere
Would change my merry guise and cheer,-
That soon, full soon, nor leaf nor stem,
Sunlight would gladden, or dewdrop gem,
That I, with my fellows, must fall to earth,
Forgotten our beauty and breezy mirth,
Or else on the bough where all had grown,
Must linger on, and linger alone ;-
Might life be an endless summer's day,
And I be for ever green and gay,
I would not be, I would not be
A leaf on yonder aspen tree!
Proudly spoken, heart of mine,
Yet weakness and change perchance are thine,
More, and darker and sadder to see,
Than befall the leaves of yonder tree!
What if they flutter-their life is a dance;
Or toy with the sunbeam-they live in his glance;
To bird, breeze, and insect rustle and thrill,
Never the same, never mute, never still,-
Emblems of all that is fickle and gay,
But leaves in their birth, but leaves in decay-
Chide them not-heed them not-spirit away!
In to thyself, to thine own hidden shrine,
What there dost thou worship? What deem'st thou divine?
Thy hopes, are they steadfast, and holy and high?
Are they built on a rock? Are they raised to the sky?
Thy deep secret yearnings,-oh! whither point they,
To the triumphs of earth, to the toys of a day?-
Thy friendships and feelings,—doth impulse prevail,
To make them, and mar them, as wind swells the sail?
Thy life's ruling passion-thy being's first aim-
What are they? and yield they contentment or shame?
Spirit, proud spirit, ponder thy state;
If thine the leaf's lightness, not thine the leaf's fate:
It may flutter, and glisten, and wither, and die,
And heed not our pity, and ask not our sigh;
But for thee, the immortal, no winter may throw
Eternal repose on thy joy, or thy woe;
Thou must live, and live ever, in glory or gloom,
Beyond the world's precincts, beyond the dark tomb.
Look on thyself then, ere past is Hope's reign,
And looking and longing alike are in vain;
Lest thou deem it a bliss to have been or to be
But a fluttering leaf on yon aspen tree!
OH! how could fancy crown with thee
In ancient days, the god of wine,
And bid thee at the banquet be
Companion of the vine?
Thy home, wild plant, is where each sound Of revelry hath long been o'er,
Where song's full notes once pealed around, But now are heard no more.
The Roman, on his battle-plains,
Where kings before his Eagles bent,
Entwined thee, with exulting strains,
Around the victor's tent;
Yet there, though fresh in glossy green,
Triumphantly thy boughs might wave,
Better thou lov'st the silent scene,
Around the victor's grave.
Where sleep the sons of ages flown,
The bards and heroes of the pastWhere, through the halls of glory gone, Murmurs the wintry blast;
Where years are hast'ning to efface
Each record of the grand and fair,
Thou in thy solitary grace,
Wreath of the tomb! art there.
|