Passages of the Poem, or Connected Therewith

Here, my dear friend, is a new book for you;I have already dedicated twoTo other friends, one female and one male,--What you are, is a thing that I must veil;What can this be to those who praise or rail?I never was attached to that great sectWhose doctrine is that each one should selectOut of the world a mistress or a friend,And all the rest, though fair and wise, commendTo cold oblivion--though 'tis in the codeOf modern morals, and the beaten roadWhich those poor slaves with weary footsteps treadWho travel to their home among the deadBy the broad highway of the world--and soWith one sad friend, and many a jealous foe,The dreariest and the longest journey go.

Free love has this, different from gold and clay,That to divide is not to take away.Like ocean, which the general north wind breaksInto ten thousand waves, and each one makesA mirror of the moon--like some great glass,Which did distort whatever form might pass,Dashed into fragments by a playful child,Which then reflects its eyes and forehead mild;Giving for one, which it could ne'er express,A thousand images of loveliness.

If I were one whom the loud world held wise,I should disdain to quote authoritiesIn commendation of this kind of love:--Why there is first the God in heaven above,Who wrote a book called Nature, 'tis to beReviewed, I hear, in the next Quarterly;And Socrates, the Jesus Christ of Greece,And Jesus Christ Himself, did never ceaseTo urge all living things to love each other,And to forgive their mutual faults, and smotherThe Devil of disunion in their souls.

I love you!--Listen, O embodied RayOf the great Brightness; I must pass awayWhile you remain, and these light words must beTokens by which you may remember me.Start not--the thing you are is unbetrayed,If you are human, and if but the shadeOf some sublimer spirit...

And as to friend or mistress, 'tis a form;Perhaps I wish you were one. Some declareYou a familiar spirit, as you are;Others with a ... more inhumanHint that, though not my wife, you are a woman;What is the colour of your eyes and hair?Why, if you were a lady, it were fairThe world should know--but, as I am afraid,The Quarterly would bait you if betrayed;And if, as it will be sport to see them stumbleOver all sorts of scandals. hear them mumbleTheir litany of curses--some guess right,And others swear you're a Hermaphrodite;Like that sweet marble monster of both sexes,Which looks so sweet and gentle that it vexesThe very soul that the soul is goneWhich lifted from her limbs the veil of stone.

It is a sweet thing, friendship, a dear balm,A happy and auspicious bird of calm,Which rides o'er life's ever tumultuous Ocean;A God that broods o'er chaos in commotion;A flower which fresh as Lapland roses are,Lifts its bold head into the world's frore air,And blooms most radiantly when others die,Health, hope, and youth, and brief prosperity;And with the light and odour of its bloom,Shining within the dun eon and the tomb;Whose coming is as light and music are'Mid dissonance and gloom--a starWhich moves not 'mid the moving heavens alone--A smile among dark frowns--a gentle toneAmong rude voices, a beloved light,A solitude, a refuge, a delight.If I had but a friend! Why, I have threeEven by my own confession; there may beSome more, for what I know, for 'tis my mindTo call my friends all who are wise and kind,-And these, Heaven knows, at best are very few;But none can ever be more dear than you.Why should they be? My muse has lost her wings,Or like a dying swan who soars and sings,I should describe you in heroic style,But as it is, are you not void of guile?A lovely soul, formed to be blessed and bless:A well of sealed and secret happiness;A lute which those whom Love has taught to playMake music on to cheer the roughest day,And enchant sadness till it sleeps?...

To the oblivion whither I and thou,All loving and all lovely, hasten nowWith steps, ah, too unequal! may we meetIn one Elysium or one winding-sheet!

If any should be curious to discoverWhether to you I am a friend or lover,Let them read Shakespeare's sonnets, taking thenceA whetstone for their dull intelligenceThat tears and will not cut, or let them guessHow Diotima, the wise prophetess,Instructed the instructor, and why heRebuked the infant spirit of melodyOn Agathon's sweet lips, which as he spokeWas as the lovely star when morn has brokeThe roof of darkness, in the golden dawn,Half-hidden, and yet beautiful.I'll pawnMy hopes of Heaven-you know what they are worth --That the presumptuous pedagogues of Earth,If they could tell the riddle offered hereWould scorn to be, or being to appearWhat now they seem and are--but let them chide,They have few pleasures in the world beside;Perhaps we should be dull were we not chidden,Paradise fruits are sweetest when forbidden.Folly can season Wisdom, Hatred Love.

Farewell, if it can be to say farewellTo those who

I will not, as most dedicators do,Assure myself and all the world and you,That you are faultless--would to God they wereWho taunt me with your love! I then should wearThese heavy chains of life with a light spirit,And would to God I were, or even as near itAs you, dear heart. Alas! what are we? CloudsDriven by the wind in warring multitudes,Which rain into the bosom of the earth,And rise again, and in our death and birth,And through our restless life, take as from heavenHues which are not our own, but which are given,And then withdrawn, and with inconstant glanceFlash from the spirit to the countenance.There is a Power, a Love, a Joy, a GodWhich makes in mortal hearts its brief abode,A Pythian exhalation, which inspiresLove, only love--a wind which o'er the wiresOf the soul's giant harpThere is a mood which language faints beneath;You feel it striding, as Almighty DeathHis bloodless steed...

And what is that most brief and bright delightWhich rushes through the touch and through the sight,And stands before the spirit's inmost throne,A naked Seraph? None hath ever known.Its birth is darkness, and its growth desire;Untameable and fleet and fierce as fire,Not to be touched but to be felt alone,It fills the world with glory-and is gone.

It floats with rainbow pinions o'er the streamOf life, which flows, like a ... dreamInto the light of morning, to the graveAs to an ocean...

What is that joy which serene infancyPerceives not, as the hours content them by,Each in a chain of blossoms, yet enjoysThe shapes of this new world, in giant toysWrought by the busy ... ever new?Remembrance borrows Fancy's glass, to showThese forms more ... sincereThan now they are, than then, perhaps, they were.When everything familiar seemed to beWonderful, and the immortalityOf this great world, which all things must inherit,Was felt as one with the awakening spirit,Unconscious of itself, and of the strangeDistinctions which in its proceeding changeIt feels and knows, and mourns as if each wereA desolation...

Were it not a sweet refuge, Emily,For all those exiles from the dull insaneWho vex this pleasant world with pride and pain,For all that band of sister-spirits knownTo one another by a voiceless tone?

If day should part us night will mend divisionAnd if sleep parts us--we will meet in visionAnd if life parts us--we will mix in deathYielding our mite [?] of unreluctant breathDeath cannot part us--we must meet againIn all in nothing in delight in pain:How, why or when or where--it matters notSo that we share an undivided lot...

And we will move possessing and possessedWherever beauty on the earth's bare [?] breastLies like the shadow of thy soul--till weBecome one being with the world we see...