Epistle to John Hamilton Reynolds

Dear Reynolds! As last night I lay in bed,There came before my eyes that wonted threadOf shapes, and shadows, and remembrances,That every other minute vex and please:Things all disjointed come from north and south,—Two Witch's eyes above a Cherub's mouth,Voltaire with casque and shield and habergeon,And Alexander with his nightcap on;Old Socrates a-tying his cravat,And Hazlitt playing with Miss Edgeworth's cat;10And Junius Brutus, pretty well so so,Making the best of 's way towards Soho.

Few are there who escape these visitings,—Perhaps one or two whose lives have patent wings,And thro' whose curtains peeps no hellish nose,No wild-boar tushes, and no Mermaid's toes;But flowers bursting out with lusty pride,And young Æolian harps personify'd;Some Titian colours touch'd into real life,—The sacrifice goes on; the pontiff knife20Gleams in the Sun, the milk-white heifer lows,The pipes go shrilly, the libation flows:A white sail shows above the green-head cliff,Moves round the point, and throws her anchor stiff;The mariners join hymn with those on land.

You know the Enchanted Castle,—it doth standUpon a rock, on the border of a Lake,Nested in trees, which all do seem to shakeFrom some old magic-like Urganda's sword.O Phœbus! that I had thy sacred word30To show this Castle, in fair dreaming wise,Unto my friend, while sick and ill he lies!

You know it well enough, where it doth seemA mossy place, a Merlin's Hall, a dream;You know the clear Lake, and the little Isles,The mountains blue, and cold near neighbour rills,All which elsewhere are but half animate;There do they look alive to love and hate,To smiles and frowns; they seem a lifted moundAbove some giant, pulsing underground.40

Part of the building was a chosen See,Built by a banish'd Santon of Chaldee;The other part, two thousand years from him,Was built by Cuthbert de Saint Aldebrim;Then there 's a little wing, far from the Sun,Built by a Lapland Witch turn'd maudlin Nun;And many other juts of aged stoneFounded with many a mason-devil's groan.

The doors all look as if they op'd themselves:The windows as if latch'd by Fays and Elves,50And from them comes a silver flash of light,As from the westward of a Summer's night;Or like a beauteous woman's large blue eyesGone mad through olden songs and poesies.

See! what is coming from the distance dim!A golden Galley all in silken trim!Three rows of oars are lightening, moment whilesInto the verd'rous bosoms of those isles;Towards the shade, under the Castle wall.It comes in silence,—now 't is hidden all.60The Clarion sounds, and from a Postern-gateAn echo of sweet music doth createA fear in the poor Herdsman who doth bringHis beasts to trouble the enchanted spring,—He tells of the sweet music, and the spot,To all his friends, and they believe him not.

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake,Would all their colours from the sunset take:From something of material sublime,69Rather than shadow our own soul's day-timeIn the dark void of night. For in the worldWe jostle,—but my flag is not unfurl'dOn the Admiral-staff,—and so philosophiseI dare not yet! O, never will the prize,High reason, and the love of good and ill,Be my award! Things cannot to the willBe settled, but they tease us out of thought;Or is it that imagination broughtBeyond its proper bound, yet still confin'd,Lost in a sort of Purgatory blind,80Cannot refer to any standard lawOf either earth or heaven? It is a flawIn happiness, to see beyond our bourn.—It forces us in summer skies to mourn,It spoils the singing of the Nightingale.

Dear Reynolds! I have a mysterious tale,And cannot speak it: the first page I readUpon a Lampit rock of green sea-weedAmong the breakers; 't was a quiet eve,The rocks were silent, the wide sea did weaveAn untumultuous fringe of silver foam91Along the flat brown sand; I was at homeAnd should have been most happy,—but I sawToo far into the sea, where every mawThe greater on the less feeds evermore.—But I saw too distinct into the coreOf an eternal fierce destruction,And so from happiness I far was gone.Still am I sick of it, and tho' to-day,I 've gather'd young spring-leaves, and flowers gay100Of periwinkle and wild strawberry,Still do I that most fierce destruction see,—The Shark at savage prey,—the Hawk at pounce,—The gentle Robin, like a Pard or Ounce,Ravening a worm,—Away, ye horrid moods!Moods of one's mind! You know I hate them well.You know I 'd sooner be a clapping BellTo some Kamschatkan Missionary Church,Than with these horrid moods be left i' the lurch.