Queen Mab
I- ffjKSTBMl - 1 ^ J^'^ :t |-s:2^ 0 %<^' ^Ld^^^pvU!^ fTgn^ I r<Oi^lUt^j^arr}ir>tja(JC University of California • Berkeley * 0% m Q-1J££CT Ma^ f^m.€^ M^'wsc's:!!. j)mmiL2,m^T A cc, 77 oc i:fTCC. Hcc/ r/jy Yf/i^' /ciy/yO'i/ /^ ArchtTnedc T,0"TTDON. J O 1 1 X WW ( ) () I\ S V2 1 OX F O R I> S"*" ME  world Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn ? Whose is the warm and partial praise, Virtue's most sweet reward ? Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow ? Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on. And loved mankind the more ? Harriet ! on thine : — thou wert my purer mind ; Thou wert the inspiration of my song ; Thine are these early wilding flowers. Though garlanded by me. Then press into thy breast this pledge of love, And know, though time may change and years may roll. Each flow'ret gathered in my heart It consecrates to thine. n QUEEN MAB. I. How wonderful is Deatli, Death and his brother Sleep ! One, pale as yonder waning moon With lips of lurid blue ; The other, rosy as the morn When throned on ocean's wave It blushes o'er the world : Yet both so passing wonderful ! Hath then the gloomy Power Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres Seized on her sinless soul ? Must then that peerless form Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, those azure veins 2 QUEEN MAB. I. Which steal like streams along a field of snow, That lovely outline, which is fair As breathing marble, perish? Must putrefaction's breath Leave nothing of this heavenly sight But loathsomeness and ruin ? Spare nothing but a gloomy theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize ? Or is it only a sweet slumber Stealing o'er sensation, Which the breath of roseate morning Chaseth into darkness ? Will lanthe wake again, And give that faithful bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life and rapture from her smile? Yes! she will wake again. Although her glowing limbs are motionless And silent those sweet lips. Once breathing eloquence. That might have soothed a tyger's rage, Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror. I. QUEEN MAB. Her dewy eyes are closed. And on their lids, whose texture fine Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath, The baby Sleep is pillowed : Her golden tresses shade The bosom's stainless pride, Curling like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column. Hark ! whence that rushing sound ? 'Tis like the wondrous strain That round a lonely ruin swells, Which, wandering on the echoing shore. The enthusiast hears at evening : 'Tis softer than the west wind's sigh ; 'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes Of that strange lyre whose strings The genii of the breezes sweep : Those lines of rainbow light Are like the moonbeams when they fall Through some cathedral window, but the teints Are such as may not find Comparison on earth. QUEEN MAB. I. Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen ! Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air ; Their filmy pennons at her word they furl. And stop obedient to the reins of light : These the Queen of spells drew in, She spread a charm around the spot, And leaning graceful from the etherial car. Long did she gaze, and silently, Upon the slumbering maid. Oh ! not the visioned poet in his dreams. When silvery clouds float through the wildered brain. When every sight of lovely, wild and grand Astonishes, enraptures, elevates. When fancy at a glance combines The wondrous and the beautiful,- — So bright, so fair, so wild a shape Hath ever yet beheld, As that which reined the coursers of the air. And poured the magic of her gaze Upon the maiden's sleep. The broad and yellow moon I. QUEEN MAB. Shone dimly through her form — That form of faultless symmetry ; The pearly and pellucid car Moved not the moonlight's line : 'Twas not an earthly pageant : Those who had looked upon the sights Passing all human glory, Saw not the yellow moon, Saw not the mortal scene, Heard not the night-wind's rush, Heard not an earthly sound, Saw but the fairy pageant, Heard but the heavenly strains That filled the lonely dwelling. The Fairy's frame was slight, yon fibrous cloud. That catches but the palest tinge of even, And which the straining eye can hardly seize When melting into eastern twilight's shadow. Were scarce so thin, so slight ; but the fair star That gems the glittering coronet of morn, Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful. As that which, bursting from the Fairy's form, 6 QUEEN MAB. Spread a perpetual halo round the scene. Yet with an undulating motion, Swayed to her outline gracefully. From her celestial car The Fairy Queen descended, And thrice she waved her wand Circled with wreaths of amaranth : Her thin and misty form Moved with the moving air, And the clear silver tones, As thus she spoke, were such As are unheard by all but gifted ear. FAIRY. Stars ! your balmiest influence shed ! Elements ! your wrath suspend ! Sleep, Ocean, in the rocky bounds That circle thy domain ! Let not a breath be seen to stir Around yon grass-grown ruin's height. Let even the restless gossamer Sleep on the moveless air! I. QUEEN MAB. 7 Soul of lanthe ! thou, Judged alone worthy of the envied boon, That waits the good and the sincere ; that waits Those who have struggled, and with resolute will Vanquished earth's pride and meanness, burst the chains, The icy chains of custom, and have shone The day-stars of their age ; — Soul of lanthe ! Awake! arise! Sudden arose Ianthe*s Soul; it stood All beautiful in naked purity. The perfect semblance of its bodily frame. Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace. Each stain of earthliness Had passed away, it reassumed Its native dignity, and stood Immortal amid ruin. Upon the couch the body lay Wrapt in the depth of slumber : Its features were fixed and meaningless, Yet animal life was there, QUEEN MAB. And every organ yet performed Its natural functions : 'twas a sight Of wonder to beliold the body and soul. The self-some lineaments, the same Marks of identity were there : Yet, oh, how different ! One aspires to Heaven, Pants for its sempiternal heritage. And ever changing, ever rising still. Wantons in endless being. The other, for a time the unwilling sport Of circumstance and passion, struggles on ; Fleets through its sad duration rapidly ; Then like an useless and worn-out machine, Rots, perishes, and passes. FAIRY. Spirit ! who hast dived so deep ; Spirit ! who hast soared so high ; Thou the fearless, thou the mild, Accept the boon thy worth hath earned, Ascend the car with me. SPIRIT. Do I dream ? is this new feeling But a visioned ghost of slumber ? [. QUEEN MAB. If indeed I am a soul, a A free, a disembodied soul, Speak again to me. FAIRY. I am the Fairy Mab : to me 'tis given The wonders of the human world to keep : The secrets of the immeasurable past. In the unfailing consciences of men. Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find : The future, from the causes which arise In each event, I gather : not the sting Which retributive memory implants In the hard bosom of the selfish man ; Nor that extatic and exulting throb Which virtue's votary feels when he sums up The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day. Are unforeseen, unregistered by me : And it is yet permitted me, to rend The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit Clothed in its changeless purity, may know How soonest to accomplish the great end For which it hath its being, and may taste That peace, which in the end all life will share. 10 QUEEN MAB. This is the meed of virtue ; happy Soul, Ascend the car with me ! The chains of earth's immurement Fell from lanthe's spirit ; They shrank and brake like bandages of straw Beneath a wakened giant's strength. She knew her glorious change, And felt in apprehension -uncontrolled New raptures opening round : Each day-dream of her mortal life. Each frenzied vision of the slumbers That closed each well-spent day, Seemed now to meet reality. The Fairy and the Soul proceeded ; The silver clouds disparted ; And as the car of magic they ascended. Again the speechless music swelled. Again the coursers of the air Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen Shaking the beamy reins Bade them pursue their way. I. QUEEN MAB. 11 The magic car moved on. The night was fair, and countless stars Studded heaven's dark blue vault, — Just o'er the eastern wave Peeped the first faint smile of morn : — The magic car moved on — From the celestial hoofs The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew, And where the burning wheels Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak, Was traced a line of lightning. Now it flew far above a rock, The utmost verge of earth. The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow Lowered o'er the silver sea. Far, far below the chariot's path, Calm as a slumbering babe, Tremendous Ocean lay. The mirror of its stillness shewed The pale and waning stars. The chariot's fiery track. And the grey light of morn 12 QUEEN MAB. Tinging those fleecy clouds That canopied the dawn. Seemed it, that the chariot's way Lay through the midst of an immense concave, Radiant with million constellations, tinged. With shades of infinite colour, And semicircled with a belt Flashing incessant meteors. ' , 'i ' The magic car moved on. As they approached their goal The coursers seemed to gather speed ; The sea no longer was distinguished ; earth Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere ; The sun's unclouded orb Rolled through the black concave ; Its rays of rapid light Parted around the chariot's swifter course. And fell, like ocean's feathery spray Dashed from the boiling surge Before a vessel's prow. The magic car moved on. QUEEN MAB. 13 Earth's distant orb appeared The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven ; Whilst round the chariot's way- Innumerable systems rolled, And countless spheres diffused An ever-varying glory. It was a sight of wonder : some Were horned like the crescent moon ; Some shed a mild and silver beam Like Hesperus o'er the western sea ; Some dash'd athwart with trains of flame, Like worlds to death and ruin driven ; Some shone like suns, and as the chariot passed, Eclipsed all other light. Spirit of Nature ! here ! In this interminable wilderness Of worlds, at whose immensity Even soaring fancy staggers, Here is thy fitting temple. Yet not the lightest leaf That quivers to the passing breeze Is less instinct with thee : 14 QUEEN MAB. Yet not the meanest worm That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead Less shares thy eternal breath. Spirit of Nature ! thou ! Imperishable as this scene, Here is thy fitting temple. II. QUEEN MAB. 15 IL If solitude hath ever led thy steps To the wild ocean's echoing shore, And thou hast lingered there, Until the sun's broad orb Seemed resting on the burnished wave, Thou must have marked the lines Of purple gold, that motionless Hung o'er the sinking sphere : Thou must have marked the billowy clouds Edged with intolerable radiancy. Towering like rocks of jet Crowned with a diamond wreath. And yet there is a moment, When the sun's highest point Peeps like a star o'er ocean's western edge. When those far clouds of feathery gold. Shaded with deepest purple, gleam Like islands on a dark blue sea ; Then has- thy fancy soared above the earth. 16 QUEEN MAB. II, And furled its wearied wing Within the Fairy's fane. Yet not the golden islands Gleaming in yon flood of light, Nor the feathery curtains Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch^ Nor the burnished ocean waves Paving that gorgeous dome, So fair, so wonderful a sight As Mab's etherial palace could afford. Yet likest evening's vault, that faery Hall ! As Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread Its floors of flashing light. Its vast and azure dome. Its fertile golden islands Floating on a silver sea ; Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted Through clouds of circumambient darkness. And pearly battlements around Looked o'er the immense of Heaven. The magic car no longer moved. m IE. QUEEN MAB, 17 The Fairy and the Spirit • Entered the Hall of Spells : Those golden clouds That rolled in glittering billows 'FOffl' Beneath the azure canopy With the ethereal footsteps, trembled not : The light and crimson mists, I oif i" Floating to strains of thrilling melody Through that unearthly dwelling. Yielded to every movement of the will. ' Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned. And, for the varied bliss that pressed around. Used not the glorious privilege Of virtue and of wisdom. Spirit ! the Fairy said. And pointed to the gorgeous dome. This is a wondrous sight And mocks all human grandeur ; But, were it virtue's only meed, to dwell ,)> i\\ In a celestial palace, all resigned To pleasurable impulses, immured Within the prison of itself, the will, c « 18 QUEEN MAB. II Of changeless nature would be unfulfilled. Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come ! This is thine high reward : — the past shall rise ; Thou shalt behold the present ; I will teach The secrets of the future. The Fairy and the Spirit Approached the overhanging battlement. — Below lay stretched the universe ! There, far as the remotest line That bounds imagination's flight. Countless and unending orbs In mazy motion intermingled, Yet still fulfilled immutably Eternal nature's law. Above, below, around The circling systems formed A wilderness of harmony ; Each with undeviating aim. In eloquent silence, through the depths of space Pursued its wondrous way. There was a little light IT. QUEEN MAB. 19 That twinkled in the misty distance : None but a spirit's eye Might ken that rolling orb ; None but a spirit's eye, And in no other place But that celestial dwelling, might behold Each action of this earth's inhabitants. But matter, space, and time In those aerial mansions cease to act : And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps The harvest of its excellence, o'erbounds Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul Fears to attempt the conquest. The Fairy pointed to the earth. The Spirit's intellectual eye Its kindred beings recognized. The thronging thousands, to a passing view, Seemed like an anthill's citizens. How wonderful ! that even The passions, prejudices, interests. That sway the meanest being, the weak touch That moves the finest nerve, 20 QUEEN MAB. ^^ And in one human brain Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link In the great chain of nature. Behold, the Fairy cried, Palmyra's ruined palaces ! — Behold ! where grandeur fro^vned; Behold ! where pleasure smiled ; What now remains?— the memory Of senselessness and shame — What is immortal there ? Nothing — it stands to tell A melancholy tale, to give An awful warning : soon Oblivion will steal silently The remnant of its fame. Monarchs and conquerors there Proud o'er prostrate millions trod— The earthquakes of the human race ; Like them, forgotten when the ruin That marks their shock is past. Beside the eternal Nile, II. ' QUEEN MAB. 21 The Pyramids have risen. Nile shall pursue his changeless way ; Those pyramids shall fall : Yea, not a stone shall stand to tell The spot whereon they stood ; Their very site shall be forgotten, As is their builder's name ! Behold yon sterile spot, Where now the wandering Arab's tent Flaps in the desert-blast. There once old Salem's haughty fane Reared high to heaven its thousand golden domes, And in the blushing face of day Exposed its shameful glory. / Oh ! many a widow, many an orphan cursed The building of that fane ; and many a father, Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, And spare his children the detested task Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning The choicest days of life. To soothe a dotard's vanity. 23 QUEEN MAB, 11 There an inhuman and uncultured race Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God ; They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb The unborn child, — old age and infancy- Promiscuous perished ; their victorious arms Left not a soul to breathe. Oh ! they were fiends : But what was he who taught them that the God Of nature and benevolence had given A special sanction to the trade of blood? His name and theirs are fading, and the tales Of this barbarian nation, which imposture Recites till terror credits, are pursuing Itself into forgetfulness. Where Athens, Jlome, and Sparta stood. There is a moral desart now : The mean and miserable huts. The yet more wretched palaces. Contrasted with those ancient fanes. Now crumbling to oblivion ; The long and lonely colonnades. Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks. Seem like a well-known time. '*^*^.^.. II, QUEEN MAB. & Which, in some dear scene we have loved to hear, Remembered now in sadness. But, oh ! how much more changed. How gloomier is the contrast Of human nature there ! Where Socrates expired, a tyrant's slave, i A coward and a fool, spreads death around — Then, shuddering, meets his own. Where Cicero and Antoninus lived, A cowled and hypocritical monk Prays, curses, and deceives. Spirit ! ten thousand years Have scarcely past away. Since, in the waste where now the savage drinks His enemy's blood, and aping Europe's sons, i Wakes the unholy song of war. Arose a stately city. Metropolis of the western continent : There, now, the mossy column-stone, Indented by time's unrelaxing grasp, Which once appeared to brave All, save its country's ruin ; 24 QUEEN MAB. II There the wide forest scene, Rude in the uncultivated loveliness Of gardens long run wild, Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps Chance in that desert has delayed. Thus to have stood since earth was what it is. Yet once it was the busiest haunt, Whither, as to a common centre, flocked Strangers, and ships, and merchandize : Once peace and freedom blest The cultivated plain : But wealth, that curse of man. Blighted the bud of its prosperity : Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty. Fled, to return not, until man shall know That they alone can give the bliss Worthy a soul that claims Its kindred with eternity. There's not one atom of yon earth But once was living man ; Nor the minutest drop of rain, That hangeth in its. thinnest cloud, II. aUEEN MAB. ' 2$ But flowed in human veins : ■ ^^ And from the burning plains Where Lybian monsters yell, From the most gloomy glens Of Greenland's sunless clime, To where the golden fields Of fertile England spread Their harvest to the day. Thou canst not find one spot Whereon no city stood. How strange is human pride ! I tell thee that those living things, To whom the fragile blade of grass, That springeth in the morn And perisheth ere noon, ^ Is an unbounded world ; I tell thee that those viewless beings. Whose mansion is the smallest particle Of the impassive atmosphere. Think, feel and live like man; That their afi'ections and antipathies, Like his, produce the laws 26 QUEEN MA 13. II, Ruling their moral state ; And the minutest throb That through their frame diffuses The slightest, faintest motion, Is fixed and indispensable As the majestic laws That rule yon rolling orbs. The Fairy paused. The Spirit, In extacy of admiration, felt All knowledge of the past revived ; the events Of old and wondrous times. Which dim tradition interruptedly Teaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded In just perspective to the view ; Yet dim from their infinitude. The Spirit seemed to stand High on an isolated pinnacle ; The flood of ages combating below, The depth of the unbounded universe Above, and all around Nature's unchanging harmony. ill. QUEEN MAB. 2f III. Fairy ! the Spirit said, And on the Queen of spells Fixed her ethereal eyes, I thank thee. Thou hast given A boon which I will not resign, and taught A lesson not to be unlearned. I know The past, and thence I will essay to glean ^ A warning for the future, so that man May profit by his errors, and derive Experience from his folly : For, when the power of imparting joy Is equal to the will, the human soul Requires no other heaven. MAB. Turn thee, surpassing Spirit ! Much yet remains unscanned. Thou knowest how great is man. Thou knowest his imbecility : 28 QUEEN MAB. Yet learn thou what he is ; Yet learn the lofty destiny Which restless time prepares For every living soul. Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amid Yon populous city, rears its thousand towers And seems itself a city. Gloomy troops Of centinels, in stern and silent ranks, Encompass it around : the dweller there Cannot be free and happy ; hearest thou not The curses of the fatherless, the groans Of those who have no friend ? He passes on : The King, the wearer of a gilded chain That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave Even to the basest appetites — that man Heeds not the shriek of penury ; he smiles At the deep curses which the destitute Mutter in secret, and a sullen joy Pervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan But for those morsels which his wantonness Wastes in unjoyous revelry, to save III III. QUEEN MAB. 29 All that they love from famine : when he hears The tale of horror, to some ready-made face Of hypocritical assent he turns. Smothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him, Flushes his bloated cheek. Now to the meal Of silence, grandeur, and excess, he drags His palled unwilling appetite. If gold, Gleaming around, and numerous viands culled From every clime, could force the loathing sense To overcome satiety, — if wealth The spring it draws from poisons not, — or vice, Unfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth not Its food to deadliest venom ; then that king Is happy; and the peasant who fulfils His unforced task, when he returns at even. And by the blazing faggot meets again Her welcome for whom all his toil is sped. Tastes not a sweeter meal. Behold him now Stretched on the gorgeous couch ; his fevered brain 30 QUEEN MAB. HI Reels dizzily awhile : but ah ! too soon The slumber of intemperance subsides, And conscience, that undying serpent, calls Her venomous brood to their nocturnal task. Listen ! he speaks ! oh ! mark that frenzied eye — Oh ! mark that deadly visage. KING. No cessation ! Oh ! must this last for ever ! Awful death, I wish, yet fear to clasp thee ! — Not one moment Of dreamless sleep ! O dear and blessed peace ! Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purity In penury and dungeons ? wherefore lurkest With danger, death, and solitude ; yet shunn'st The palace I have built thee ? Sacred peace ! Oh visit me but once, but pitying shed One drop of balm upon my withered soul. Vain man ! that palace is the virtuous heart, And peace defileth not her snowy robes In such a shed as thine. Hark ! yet he mutters ; His slumbers are but varied agonies, Iir. QUEEN MAB. 31 They prey like scorpions on the springs of life. There needeth not the hell that bigots frame To punish those who err : earth in itself Contains at once the evil and the cure ; And all-sufficing nature can chastise Those who transgress her law, — she only knows How justly to proportion to the fault The punishment it merits. Is it strange That this poor wretch should pride him in his woe ? Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hug l The scorpion that consumes him ? Is it strange That, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns, Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured Within a splendid prison, whose stern bounds Shut him from all that's good or dear on earth. His soul asserts not its humanity ? That man's mild nature rises not in war Against a king's employ? No — 'tis not strange. He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts and lives Just as his father did ; the unconquered powers Of precedent and custom interpose 32 QUEEN MAB. Between a Mng and virtue. Stranger yet, To those who know not nature, nor deduce The future from the present, it may seem. That not one slave, who suffers from the crimes Of this unnatural being ; not one wretch, Whose children famish, and whose nuptial bed Is earth's unpitying bosom, rears an arm To dash him from his throne ! Those gilded flies That, basking in the sunshine of a court, Fatten on its corruption ! — what are they? — The drones of the community ; they feed On the mechanic's labour : the starved hind For them compels the stubborn glebe to yield Its unshared harvests ; and yon squalid form, Leaner than fleshless misery, that wastes A sunless life in the unwholesome mine. Drags out in labour a protracted death. To glut their grandeur ; many faint with toil. That few may know the cares and woe of sloth. Whence, thinkest thou, kings and parasites arose ? III. III. QUEEN MAB. 33 Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap Toil and unvanquishable penury On those who build their palaces, and bring Their daily bread ? — From vice, black loathsome vice ; From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong ; From all that genders misery, and makes Of earth this thorny wilderness ; from lust, Revenge, and murder And when reason^s voice, Loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked The nations ; and mankind perceive that vice Is discord, war, and misery ; that virtue Is peace, and happiness and harmony ; When man's maturer nature shall disdain The playthings of its childliood; — kingly glare Will lose its power to dazzle ; its authority Will silently pass by ; the gorgeous throne Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall. Fast falling to decay ; whilst falsehood's trade Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth is now. Where is the fame Which the vain-glorious mighty of the earth 34 QUEEN MAB. Ill Seek to eternize ? Oh ! the faintest sound From time's light footfall, the minutest wave That swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing The unsubstantial bubble. Ay ! to-day Stern is the tyrant's mandate, red the gaze That flashes desolation, strong the arm That scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes ! That mandate is a thunder-peal that died In ages past ; that gaze, a transient flash On which the midnight closed, and on that arm The worm has made his meal. The virtuous man. Who, great in his humility, as kings Are little in their grandeur ; he who leads Invincibly a life of resolute good. And stands amid the silent dungeon-depths More free and fearless than the trembling judge, Who, clothed in venal power, vainly strove To bind the impassive spirit ; — when he falls. His mild eye beams benevolence no more : Withered the hand outstretched but to relieve ; Sunk reason's simple eloquence, that rolled III. QUEEN MAB. 35 But to appal the guilty. Yes ! the grave Hath quenched that eye, and death's relentless frost Withered that arm ; but the unfading fame Which virtue hangs upon its votary's tomb ; The deathless memory of that man, whom kings Call to their mind and tremble ; the remembrance With which the happy spirit contemplates Its well-spent pilgrimage on earth. Shall never pass away. Nature rejects the monarch, not the man ; The subject, not the citizen : for kings And subjects, mutual foes, for ever play A losing game into each other's hands. Whose stakes are vice and misery. The man Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys. Power, like a desolating pestilence. Pollutes whate'er it touches ; and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth. Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame, A mechanized automaton. When Nero, High over flaming Rome, with savage joy 36 QUEEN MAB. III. Lowered like a fiend, drank with enraptured ear The shrieks of agonizing death, beheld The frightful desolation spread, and felt A new created sense within his soul Thrill to the sight, and vibrate to the sound ; Thinkest thou his grandeur had not overcome The force of human kindness ? and, when Rome, With one stern blow, hurled not the tyrant down, Crushed not the arm red with her dearest blood, Had not submissive abjectness destroyed Nature's suggestions ? Look on yonder earth : The golden harvests spring ; the unfailing sun Sheds light and life ; the fruits, the flowers, the trees. Arise in due succession ; all things speak Peace, harmony, and love. The universe, In nature's silent eloquence, declares That all fulfil the works of love and joy, — All but the outcast man. He fabricates The sword which stabs his peace ; he cherisheth The snakes that gnaw his heart ; he raiseth up The tyrant, whose delight is in his woe, Those sport is in his agony. Yon sun. III. QUEEN MAB. 37 Lights it the great alone ? Yon silver beams, Sleep they less sweetly on the cottage thatch. Than on the dome of kings ? Is mother earth A step-dame to her numerous sons, who earn Her unshared gifts with unremitting toil ; A mother only to those puling babes Who, nursed in ease and luxury, make men The playthings of their babyhood, and mar, In self-important childishness, that peace Which men alone appreciate ? Spirit of Nature ! no. The pure diffusion of thy essence throbs Alike in every human heart. Thou, aye, erectest there Thy throne of power unappealable : Thou art the judge beneath whose no(\ Man's brief and frail authority ^ Is powerless as the wind That passeth idly by. Thine the tribunal which surpasseth The shew of human justice. As God surpasses man. 38 QUEEN MAB. III. Spirit of Nature ! thou Life of interminable multitudes ; Soul of those mighty spheres Whose changeless paths thro' Heaven's deep silence lie ; Soul of that smallest being, The dwelling of whose life Is one faint April sun-gleam ; — Man, like these passive things, Thy will unconsciously fuLfiUeth : Like theirs, his age of endless peace, Which time is fast maturing. Will swiftly, surely come ; And the unbounded frame, which thou pervadest, Will be without a flaw Marring its perfect symmetry. IV. QUEEK MAB. 30 IV. How beautiful this night ! the balmiest sigh. Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear, Were discord to the speaking quietude That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls. Seems like a canopy which love had spread To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills. Robed in a garment of untrodden snow ; Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend, So stainless, that their white and glittering spires Tinge not the moon's pure beam ; yon castled steep, Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it A metaphor of peace ; — all form a scene Where musing solitude might love to lift Her soul above this sphere of earthliness ; Where silence undisturbed might watch alone, So cold, so bright, so still. 40 QUEEN MAB. IV, The orb of day, In southern climes, o'er ocean's waveless field Sinks sweetly smiling : not the faintest breath Steals o'er the unruffled deep ; the clouds of eve Reflect unmoved the lingering beam of day ; And vesper's image on the western main Is beautifully still. To-morrow comes : Cloud upon cloud, in dark and deepening mass, Roll o'er the blackened waters ; the deep roar Of distant thunder mutters awfully ; Tempest unfolds its pinion o'er the gloom That shrouds the boiling surge ; the pityless fiend. With all his winds and lightnings, tracks his prey ; The torn deep yawns, — the vessel finds a grave Beneath its jagged gulf. Ah ! whence yon glare That fires the arch of heaven ? — that dark red smoke Blotting the silver moon ? The stars are quenched In darkness, and the pure and splangling snow Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round! Hark to that roar, whose swift and deaf 'ning peals In countless echoes through the mountains ring. IV. QUEEN MAB. 41 Startling pale midnight on her starry throne ! Now swells the intermingling din ; the jar Frequent and frightful of the bursting bomb ; The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout. The ceaseless clangor, and the rush of men Inebriate with rage: — loud, and more loud The discord grows ; till pale death shuts the scene, And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws His cold and bloody shroud. — Of all the men Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there. In proud and vigorous health ; of all the hearts That beat with anxious life at sun-set there ; How few survive, how few are beating now ! All is deep silence, like the fearful calm That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause ; Save when the frantic wail of widowed love Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay Wrapt round its struggKng powers. The grey morn Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke Before the icy wind slow rolls away, 42 QUEEN MAB. IV, And the bright beams of frosty morning dance Along the spangling snow. There tracks of blood Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms, And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments Death's self could change not, mark the dreadful path Of the outsallying victors : far behind, Black ashes note where their proud city stood. Within yon forest is a gloomy glen — Each tree which guards its darkness from the day, Waves o'er a warrior's tomb. I see thee shrink, Surpassing Spirit ! — wert thou human else ? I see a shade of doubt and horror fleet Across thy stainless features : yet fear not ; This is no unconnected misery. Nor stands uncaused, and irretrievable. Man's evil nature, that apology Which kings who rule, and cowards who crouch, set up For their unnumbered crimes, sheds not the blood Which desolates the discord-wasted land. From kings, and priests, and statesmen, war arose, Whose safety is man's deep unbettered woe, IV, QUEEN MAB. 43 Whose grandeur his debasement. Let the axe Strike at the root, the poison-tree will fall ; And where its venomed exhalations spread Ruin, and death, and woe, where millions lay Quenching the serpent's famine, and their bones Bleaching unburied in the putrid blast, A garden shall arise, in loveliness Surpassing fabled Eden. Hath Nature's soul, That formed this world so beautiful, that spread Earth's lap with plenty, and life's smallest chord Strung to unchanging unison, that gave The happy birds their dwelling in the grove, That yielded to the wanderers of the deep The lovely silence of the unfathomed main, And filled the meanest worm that crawls in dust With spirit, thought, and love ; on Man alone, Partial in causeless malice, wantonly Heaped ruin, vice, and slavery; his soul ^ til A Blasted with withering curses ; placed afar The meteor-happiness, that shuns his grasp, But serving on the frightful gulph to glare. Rent wide beneath his footsteps ? 44 QUEEN MAB. TV, Nature ! — no ! Kings, priests, and statesmen, blast the human flower Even in its tender bud ; their influence darts Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins Of desolate society. The child, Ere he can lisp his mother's sacred name. Swells with the unnatural pride of crime, and lifts His baby-sword even in a hero's mood. This infant arm becomes the bloodiest scourge Of devastated earth ; whilst specious names. Learnt in soft childhood's unsuspecting hour, Serve as the sophisms with which manhood dims Bright reason's ray, and sanctifies the sword Upraised to shed a brother's innocent blood. Let priest-led slaves cease to proclaim that man Inherits vice and misery, when force And falsehood hang even o'er the cradled babe. Stifling with rudest grasp all natural good. Ah ! to the stranger-soul, when first it peeps From its new tenement, and looks abroad For happiness and sympathy, how stern And desolate a tract is this wide world ! How withered all the buds of natural good ! IV. QUEEN MAB. 45 No shade, no shelter from the sweeping storms Of pityless power ! On its wretched frame, Poisoned, perchance, by the disease and woe Heaped on the wretched parent whence it sprung By morals, law, and custom, the pure winds Of heaven, that renovate the insect tribes, May breathe not. The untainting light of day May visit not its longings. It is bound Ere it has life : yea, all the chains are forged Long ere its being : all liberty and love And peace is torn from its defencelessness ; Cursed from its birth, even from its cradle doomed To abjectness and bondage ! Throughout this varied and eternal world Soul is the only element, the block That for uncounted ages has remained. The moveless pillar of a mountain's weight Is active, living spirit. Every grain Is sentient both in unity and part. And the minutest atom comprehends A world of loves and hatreds ; these beget Evil and good: hence truth and falsehood spring ; 46 QUEEN MAB. Hence will and thought and action, all the germs Of pain or pleasure, sympathy or hate. That variegate the eternal universe. Soul is not more polluted than the beams Of heaven's pure orb, ere round their rapid lines The taint of earth-born atmospheres arise. Man is of soul and body, formed for deeds Of high resolve, on fancy's boldest wing To soar unwearied, fearlessly to turn The keenest pangs to peacefulness, and taste The joys which mingled sense and spirit yield. Or he is formed for abjectness and woe. To grovel on the dunghill of his fears. To shrink at every sound, to quench the flame Of natural love in sensualism, to know That hour as blest when on his worthless days The frozen hand of death shall set its seal. Yet fear the cure, though hating the disease. The one is man that shall hereafter be ; The other, man as vice has made him now. War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight. The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade. IV. IV. QUEEN MAB. 47 And, to those royal murderers, whose mean thrones Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore. The bread they eat, the staff on which they lean. Guards, garbed in blood-red livery, surround Their palaces, participate the crimes That force defends, and from a nation's rage Secure the crown, which all the curses reach That famine, frenzy, woe and penury breathe. These are the hired bravos who defend The tyrant's throne — ^the bullies of his fear : These are the sinks and channels of worst vice, The refuse of society, the dregs Of all that is most vile : their cold hearts blend Deceit with sternness, ignorance with pride, All that is mean and villanous, with rage Which hopelessness of good, and self-contempt, Alone might kindle; they are decked in wealth. Honour and power, then are sent abroad To do their work. The pestilence that stalks In gloomy triumph through some eastern land Is less destroying. They cajole with gold. And promises of fame, the thoughtless youth Already crushed with servitude : he knows 48 QUEEN MAB. IV. His wretchedness too late, and cherishes Repentance for his ruin, when his doom Is sealed in gold and blood ! Those too the tyrant serve, who, skilled to snare The feet of justice in the toils of law. Stand, ready to oppress the weaker still ; And, right or wrong, will vindicate for gold. Sneering at public virtue, which beneath Their pityless tread lies torn and trampled, where Honour sits smiling at the sale of truth. Then grave and hoary-headed hypocrites. Without a hope, a passion, or a love. Who, through a life of luxury and lies. Have crept by flattery to the seats of power, Support the system whence their honours flow . .. They have three words : — ^well tyrants know their use. Well pay them for the loan, with usury Torn from a bleeding world ! — God, Hell, and Heaven. A vengeful, pityless, and almighty fiend, Whose mercy is a nick-name for the rage Of tameless tygers hungering for blood. Hell, a red gulf of everlasting fire, IV. QUEEN MAB. 49 Where poisonous and undying worms prolong .^.J r'i Eternal misery to those hapless slaves Whose life has been a penance for its crimes. And Heaven, a meed for those who dare belie t ]\mJ Their human nature, quake, believe, and cringe f Before the mockeries of earthly power. These tools the tyrant tempers to his work. Wields in his wrath, and as he wills destroys, Omnipotent in wickedness : the while Youth springs, age moulders, manhood tamely does His bidding, bribed by short-lived joys to lend ^ j: Force to the weakness of his trembling arm. .'i' J- They rise, they fall ; one generation comes Yielding its harvest to destruction's scythe. It fades, another blossoms : yet behold ! v Red glows the tyrant's stamp-mark on its bloom. Withering and cankering deep its passive prime. .. ^.. He has invented lying words and modes, ki r/rA Empty and vain as his own coreless heart ; Evasive meanings, nothings of much sound. 50 QUEEN MAB. IV, To lure the heedless victim to the toils Spread round the valley of its paradise. Look to thyself, priest, conqueror, or prince ! Whether thy trade is falsehood, and thy lusts Deep wallow in the earnings of the poor. With whom thy master was : — or thou delight'st In numbering o*er the myriads of thy slain, All misery weighing nothing in the scale Against thy short-lived fame : or thou dost load With cowardice and crime the groaning land, A pomp-fed king. Look to thy wretched self ! Ay, art thou not the veriest slave that e'er Crawled on the loathing earth ? Are not thy days Days of unsatisfying listlessness ? Dost thou not cry, ere night's long rack is o'er, When will the morning come ? Is not thy youth A vain and feverish dream of sensualism ? Thy manhood blighted with unripe disease ? Are not thy views of unregretted death Drear, comfortless, and horrible ? Thy mind, Is it not morbid as thy nerveless frame, IV. QUEEN MAB. 51 Incapable of judgment, hope, or love ? And dost thou wish the errors to survive That bar thee from all sympathies of good, After the miserable interest Thou boldest in their protraction ? When the grave Has swallowed up thy memory and thyself, Dost thou desire the bane that poisons earth To twine its roots around thy coffined clay, < Spring from thy bones, and blossom on thy tomb, r That of its fruit thy babes may eat and die ? 52 QUEEN MAB. V. Thus do the generations of the earth Go to the grave, and issue from the womb, Surviving still the imperishable change That renovates the world ; even as the leaves Which the keen frost-wind of the waning year Has scattered on the forest soil, and heaped For many seasons there, though long they choke, Loading with loathsome rottenness the land. All germs of promise. Yet when the tall trees From which they fell, shorn of their lovely shapes. Lie level with the earth to moulder there, They fertilize the land they long deformed. Till from the breathing lawn a forest springs Of youth, integrity, and loveliness. Like that which gave it life, to spring and die. Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights The fairest feelings of the opening heart, Is destined to decay, whilst from the soil V. QUEEN MAB. 5<^ Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love, And judgment cease to wage unnatural war With passion's unsubduable array. Twin-sister of religion, selfishness ! Rival in crime and falsehood, aping all The wanton horrors of her bloody play ; Yet frozen, unimpassioned, spiritless. Shunning the light, and owning not its name ; Compelled, by its deformity, to screen With flimsy veil of justice and of right. Its unattractive lineaments, that scare All, save the brood of ignorance : at once ^ The cause and the effect of tyranny ; Unblushing, hardened, sensual, and vile ; Dead to all love but of its abjectness, With heart impassive by more noble powers Than unshared pleasure, sordid gain, or fame ; Despising its own miserable being, Which still it longs, yet fears to disenthral. Hence commerce springs, the venal interchange Of all that human art or nature yields ; 54 QUEEN MAB. V. Which wealth should purchase not, but want demand, And natural kindness hasten to supply From the full fountain of its boundless love, For ever stifled, drained, and tainted now. Commerce ! beneath whose poison-breathing shade No solitary virtue dares to spring". But poverty and wealth with equal hand Scatter their withering curses, and unfold The doors of premature and violent death, To pining famine and full-fed disease. To all that shares the lot of human life. Which poisoned body and soul, scarce drags the chain, That lengthens as it goes and clanks behind. Commerce has set the mark of selfishness. The signet of its all-enslaving power Upon a shining ore, and called it gold : Before whose image bow the vulgar great, The vainly rich, the miserable proud. The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings. And with blind feelings reverence the power That grinds them to the dust of misery. But in the temple of their hireling hearts V. QUEEN MAB. 66 Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn All earthly things but virtue. Since tyrants, by the sale of human life, Heap luxuries to their sensualism, and fame To their wide-wasting and insatiate pride, Success has sanctioned to a credulous world The ruin, the disgrace, the woe of war. His hosts of blind and unresisting dupes The despot numbers ; from his cabinet These puppets of his schemes he moves at will, Even as the slaves by force or famine driven, Beneath a vulgar master, to perform A task of cold and brutal drudgery ; — Hardened to hope, insensible to fear. Scarce living pullies of a dead machine, Mere wheels of work and articles of trade, That grace the proud and noisy pomp of wealth ! The harmony and happiness of man Yield to the wealth of nations ; that which lifts His nature to the heaven of its pride. Is bartered for the poison of his soul; .r*.* m iujiu :. 56 QUEEN MAB. 