On Seeing Engravings from His Designs

Mighty magician! who on Torneo's brow,When sullen tempests wrap the throne of night,Art wont to sit and catch the gleam of lightThat shoots athwart the gloom opaque below;And listen to the distant death-shriek longFrom lonely mariner foundering in the deep,Which rises slowly up the rocky steep,While the weird sisters weave the horrid song:Or, when along the liquid skySerenely chant the orbs on high,Dost love to sit in musing trance,And mark the northern meteor's dance(While far below the fitful oarFlings its faint pauses on the steepy shore),And list the music of the breeze,That sweeps by fits the bending seas;And often bears with sudden swellThe shipwreck'd sailor's funeral knell,By the spirits sung, who keepTheir night-watch on the treacherous deep,And guide the wakeful helmsman's eyeTo Helice in northern sky;And there upon the rock reclinedWith mighty visions fill'st the mind,Such as bound in magic spellHim who grasp'd the gates of Hell,And, bursting Pluto's dark domain,Held to the day the terrors of his reign.

Genius of Horror and romantic awe,Whose eye explores the secrets of the deep,Whose power can bid the rebel fluids creep,Can force the inmost soul to own its law;Who shall now, sublimest spirit,Who shall now thy wand inherit,From him thy darling child who bestThy shuddering images expressed?Sullen of soul, and stern, and proud,His gloomy spirit spurn'd the crowd,And now he lays his aching headIn the dark mansion of the silent dead.

Mighty magician! long thy wand has lainBuried beneath the unfathomable deep;And oh! for ever must its efforts sleep,May none the mystic sceptre e'er regain?Oh, yes, 'tis his! Thy other son!He throws thy dark-wrought tunic on,Fuesslin waves thy wand,--again they rise,Again thy wildering forms salute our ravish'd eyes.Him didst thou cradle on the dizzy steepWhere round his head the vollied lightnings flung,And the loud winds that round his pillow rungWoo'd the stern infant to the arms of sleep.

Or on the highest top of TeneriffeSeated the fearless boy, and bade him lookWhere far below the weather-beaten skiffOn the gulf bottom of the ocean strook.Thou mark'dst him drink with ruthless earThe death-sob, and, disdaining rest,Thou saw'st how danger fired his breast,And in his young hand couch'd the visionary spear.Then, Superstition, at thy call,She bore the boy to Odin's Hall,And set before his awe-struck sightThe savage feast and spectred fight;And summoned from his mountain tombThe ghastly warrior son of gloom,His fabled runic rhymes to sing,While fierce Hresvelger flapp'd his wing;Thou show'dst the trains the shepherd sees,Laid on the stormy Hebrides,Which on the mists of evening gleam,Or crowd the foaming desert stream;Lastly her storied hand she waves,And lays him in Florentian caves;There milder fables, lovelier themes,Enwrap his soul in heavenly dreams,There pity's lute arrests his ear,And draws the half reluctant tear;And now at noon of night he rovesAlong the embowering moonlight groves,And as from many a cavern'd dellThe hollow wind is heard to swell,He thinks some troubled spirit sighs,And as upon the turf he lies,Where sleeps the silent beam of night,He sees below the gliding sprite,And hears in Fancy's organs soundAërial music warbling round.

Taste lastly comes and smooths the whole,And breathes her polish o'er his soul;Glowing with wild, yet chasten'd heat,The wondrous work is now complete.

The Poet dreams:--The shadow flies,And fainting fast its image dies.But lo! the Painter's magic forceArrests the phantom's fleeting course;It lives--it lives--the canvas glows,And tenfold vigour o'er it flows.The Bard beholds the work achieved,And as he sees the shadow riseSublime before his wondering eyes,Starts at the image his own mind conceived.