Methought I stood upon the Chian strand;
I looked around and saw blind HOMER near,
Beside a rock in meditation stand.
I knew the godlike aspect of the Seer:
The waves dashed at his feet, he heard them not;
The lyre was in his hand, its chords forgot
In the high mood of his abstracted thought.
The breezes sighed amid his hoary hair,
That floated o'er his neck and shoulders bare:
The inward cheerfulness that emanates
From the great Soul which its own light creates,
Shone o'er his august countenance, as sheds
The sun its light o'er mountains' topmost heads.
His forehead bald rose like an altar-place
Lighted with fire from heaven: his reverent face
Turned toward the setting sun whose lustrous flood
Fell, robe-like, round the prophet where he stood,
Typing the everlasting crown that Fame
Haloing should cast around his deathless name!
The quickening Spirit of the Infinite
Shone o'er his visage from its inward light,
And moving lips where inspiration dwelt,
As if the presence of the god he felt,
Descending on him in his solitude.
In that large aspect and entranced mood
Was stamped the image of the immortal creature ; Even while I gazed, I felt how mighty Nature Entered his soul, while prophet-like he stood
'Mid her inspirers; from the rushing sound
Of waves his verse was drawn, and depth profound;
From the grey rocks his images of power;
From the staid movements of the solemn sky,
The strength, and motion, and sublimity
Embodied in the gods from yonder Sun,
The watching symbol of the Eternal ONE,
That shone upon him there in that still hour,
As if it lingered round the Man it blest
The calm, the grandeur, majesty, and rest!
OLD hoary Ocean! I have stood at night
And watched thee heaving like the shroud out
Oblivion darkly casts above the dead;
Or that abyss expanding infinite
On Satan, when the portals of hell-gate,
Touched by the key of Sin, flew open to fate,
And showed waste anarchy and chaos wars:
And ever and anon with thunder fit,
Thou, like the Angels from the bottomless pit,
Didst send thy voices to the unanswering Stars.
Strange antique fancies then did thought beguile :
Before my mind's eye rose Calypso's isle,
And calm Ulysses stood beneath the cliff,
His tearful eyes turned homeward, and his skiff,
Work cherished of his secret toil, prepared;
The Ocean-stream before him to be dared.
Low bowed the godlike man to the salt Sea,
And stretched his hands towards it, as if he
Resigned himself to its high will! his own
Fate-fixed. She stood as into marble grown,
Against that cave which now shall be retreat
Of love no more, the sea-foam touched her feet:
Winds waved her tresses, her voluptuous eyes,
Languid with weeping, on the hero dwelt!
A human grief then first within her felt,
Even earthly yearnings: passion's ecstasies
Remembered, pity waked from prescient sight,
Drew tears that dimmed those eyes' ethereal light,
Large drops that left their fringing lashes bright!
The flower-wreath she held in her faint hand
Unheeded dropped upon the golden sand:
The dewy roses, type of her full love,
Sunk there to die: pale pansies, and above,
The anemone unfolded her fine leaf,
Symbol and seal of an immortal grief!
He knelt and kissed her golden-sandalled feet
Unheeded she was passive, all was past,
She stood a woman there, forsook at last:
She saw, heard, felt not, hers the agony
Whose pulse absorbs an immortality.
Slowly the hero turned to her, and mute
Inclining, his eternal farewell gave!
Unanswered, she but saw him in his grave.
He stept from earth, and floated on the wave;
An atom on the watery world, impelled
To seek the human forms so long withheld
From his deep heart, that, sunk in apathy
Of passionless life, would mix with its own kind;
Yea, see his wife, his hearthstone left behind,
And share ennobling sorrows!
A King he sate, nor needed crown remote,
His passions subject to his high command.
He raised the sail, and floated from the land;
Nor marked that form 'mid fading shadows dim
Who in those waters heard his requiem.
His eye was on the Stars that seemed to keep
Watch o'er him, rolled along the wasteful deep:
Each like himself impelled by duty's sway,
To hold its incommunicable way;
There the sweet Pleiads shone, that rule the storm:
There through the mist-foam gleamed Orion's form; And the Bear watching from his silent throne
Along a track as lonely as his own.
Fixed to the helm, he watched the Polar Star That through the darkness shone on him from far, Companion, guide: an altar-place to him
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