The Sylph Of Summer

God said, Let there be light, and there was light!
  At once the glorious sun, at his command,
  From space illimitable, void and dark,
  Sprang jubilant, and angel hierarchies,
  Whose long hosannahs pealed from orb to orb,
  Sang, Glory be to Thee, God of all worlds!
  Then beautiful the ball of this terrene
  Rolled in the beam of first-created day,
  And all its elements obeyed the voice
  Of Him, the great Creator; Air, and Fire, 
  And Earth, and Water, each its ministry
  Performed, whilst Chaos from his ebon throne
  Leaped up; and so magnificent, and decked,
  And mantled in its ambient atmosphere,
  The living world began its state!
  To thee,
  Spirit of Air, I lift the venturous song,
  Whose viewless presence fills the living scene,
  Whose element ten thousand thousand wings
  Fan joyous; o'er whose fields the morning clouds 
  Ride high; whose rule the lightning-shafts obey,
  And the deep thunder's long-careering march!
  The Winds too are thy subjects; from the breeze,
  That, like a child upon a holiday,
  On the high mountain's van pursues the down
  Of the gray thistle, ere the autumnal shower
  Steals soft, and mars his pastime; to the King
  Of Hurricanes, that sounds his mighty shell,
  And bids Tornado sweep the Western world.
  Sylph of the Summer Gale, on thee I call! 
  Oh, come, when now gay June is in her car,
  Wafting the breath of roses as she moves;
  Come to this garden bower, which I have hung
  With tendrils, and the fragrant eglantine,
  And mandrake, rich with many mantling stars!
  'Tis pleasant, when thy breath is on the leaves
  Without, to rest in this embowering shade,
  And mark the green fly, circling to and fro,
  O'er the still water, with his dragon wings,
  Shooting from bank to bank, now in quick turns, 
  Then swift athwart, as is the gazer's glance,
  Pursuing still his mate; they, with delight,
  As if they moved in morris, to the sound
  Harmonious of this ever-dripping rill,
  Now in advance, now in retreat, now round,
  Dart through their mazy rings, and seem to say:
  The Summer and the Sun are ours!
  But thou,
  Sylph of the Summer Gale, delay a while
  Thy airy flight, whilst here Francesca leans, 
  And, charmed by Ossian's harp, seems in the breeze
  To hear Malvina's plaint; thou to her ear
  Come unperceived, like music of the song
  From Cona's vale of streams; _then_ with the bee,
  That sounds his horn, busied from flower to flower,
  Speed o'er the yellow meadows, breathing ripe
  Their summer incense; or amid the furze,
  That paints with bloom intense the upland crofts,
  With momentary essence tinge thy wings;
  Or in the grassy lanes, one after one, 
  Lift light the nodding foxglove's purple bell.
  Thence, to the distant sea, and where the flag
  Hangs idly down, without a wavy curl,
  Thou hoverest o'er the topmast, or dost raise
  The full and flowing mainsail: Steadily,
  The helmsman cries, as now thy breath is heard
  Among the stirring cordage o'er his head;
  So, steadily, he cries, as right he steers,
  Speeds our proud ship along the world of waves.
  Sylph, may thy favouring breath more gently blow, 
  More gently round the temples and the cheek
  Of him, who, leaving home and friends behind,
  In silence musing o'er the ocean leans,
  And watches every passing shade that marks
  The southern Channel's fast-retiring line;
  Then, as the ship rolls on, keeps a long look
  Fixed on the lessening Lizard, the last point
  Of that delightful country, where he left
  All his fond hopes behind: it lessens still;
  Still, still it lessens, and now disappears! 
  He turns, and only sees the waves that rock
  Boundless. How many anxious morns shall rise,
  How many moons shall light the farthest seas,
  O'er what new scenes and regions shall he stray,
  A weary man, still thinking of his home,
  Ere he again that shore shall view, and greet
  With blissful thronging hopes and starting tears,
  Of heartfelt welcome, and of warmest love!
  Perhaps, ah! never! So didst thou go forth,
  My poor lost brother! 
  The airs of morning as enticing played,
  And gently, round thee, and their whisperings
  Might sooth (if aught could sooth) a boding heart;
  For thou wert bound to visit scenes of death,
  Where the sick gale (alas! unlike the breeze
  That bore the gently-swelling sail along)
  Was tainted with the breath of pestilence,
  That smote the silent camp, and night and day
  Sat mocking on the putrid carcases.
  Thou too didst perish! As the south-west blows, 
  Thy bones, perhaps, now whiten on the coast
  Of old Algarva. I, meantime, these shades
  Of village solitude, hoping erewhile
  To welcome thee from many a toil restored,
  Still deck, and now thy empty urn alone
  I meet, where, swaying in the summer gale,
  The willow whispers in my evening walk.
  Sylph, in thy airy robe, I see thee float,
  A rainbow o'er thy head, and in thy hand
  The magic instrument, that, as thy wing, 
  Lucid, and painted like the butterfly's,
  Waves to and from, most musically rings;
  Sometimes in joyance, as the flaunting leaf
  Of the white poplar, sometimes sad and slow,
  As bearing pensive airs from Pity's grave.
  Soft child of air, thou tendest on his sway,
  As gentle Ariel at the bidding hies
  Of mighty Prospero; yet other winds
  Throng to his wizard 'hest, inspiring some,
  Some melancholy, and yet soothing much 
  The drooping wanderer in the fading copse;
  Some terrible, with solitude and death
  Attendant on their march:--the wild Simoom,
  Riding on whirling spires of burning sand,
  That move along the Nubian wilderness,
  And bury deep the silent caravan;--
  Monsoon, up-starting from his half-year sleep,
  Upon the vernal shores of Hindostan,
  And tempesting with sounds of torrent rain,
  And hail, the darkening main;--and red Sameel, 
  Blasting and withering, like a rivelled leaf,
  The pilgrim as he roams;--Sirocco sad,
  That pants, all summer, on the cloudless shores
  Of faint Parthenope;--deep in the mine
  Oft lurks the lurid messenger of death,
  The ghastly fiend that blows, when the pale light
  Quivers, and leaves the gasping wretch to die;--
  The imp, that when the hollow curfew knolls,
  Wanders the misty marish, lighting it
  At night with errant and fantastic flame. 
  Spirit of air, these are thy ministers,
  That wait thy will; but thou art all in all,
  And dead without thee were the flower, the leaf,
  The waving forest rivelled, the great sea
  Still, the lithe birds of heaven extinct, and ceased
  The soul of melting music.
  This fair scene
  Lives in thy tender touch, for so it seems;
  Whilst universal nature owns thy sway;
  From the mute insect on the summer pool, 
  That with long cobweb legs, firm as on earth
  The ostrich skims, flits idly to and fro,
  Making no dimple on the watery mass;
  To the huge grampus, spouting, as he rolls,
  A cataract, amid the cold clear sky,
  And furrowing far and wide the northern deep.
  Thy presence permeates and fills the whole!
  As the poor butterfly, that, painted gay,
  With mealy wings, red, amber, white, or dropped
  With golden stains, floats o'er the yellow corn, 
  Idly, as bent on pastime, while the morn
  Smiles on his devious voyage; if inclosed
  In the exhausted prison, whence thy breath
  With suction slow is drawn, he feels the change
  How dire! in palsied inanition drops!
  Weak flags his weary wing, and weaker yet;
  His frame with tremulous convulsion moves
  A moment, and the next is still in death.
  So were the great and glorious world itself;
  The tenants of its continents, all ceased! 
  A wide, a motionless, a putrid waste,
  Its seas! How droops the languid mariner,
  When not a breath, along the sluggish main,
  Strays on the sultry surface as it sleeps;
  When far away the winds are flown, to dash
  The congregated ocean on the Cape
  Of Southern Africa, leaving the while
  The flood's vast surface noiseless, waveless, white,
  Beneath Mozambique's long-reflected woods,
  A gleaming mirror, spread from east to west, 
  Where the still ship, as on a bed of glass,
  Sits motionless. Awake, ye hurricanes!
  Ye winds that harrow up the wintry waste,
  Awake! for Thunder in his sounding car,
  Flashing thick lightning from the rolling wheels,
  And the red volley, charged with instant death,
  Were music to this lingering, sickening calm,
  The same eternal sunshine; still, all still,
  Without a vapour, or a sound.
  If thus, 
  Beneath the burning, breathless atmosphere,
  Faint Nature sickening droop; who shall ascend
  The height, where Silence, since the world began,
  Has sat on Cimborazzo's highest peak,
  A thousand toises o'er the cloud's career,
  Soaring in finest ether? Far below,
  He sees the mountains burning at his feet,
  Whose smoke ne'er reached his forehead; never there,
  Though the black whirlwind shake the distant shores,
  The passing gale has murmured; never there 
  The eagle's cry has echoed; never there
  The solitary condor's weary wing
  Hath yet ascended!
  Let the rising thought
  Beyond the confines of this vapoury vault
  Be lifted, to the boundless void of space,
  How dread, how infinite! where other worlds,
  Ten million and ten million leagues aloft,
  In other precincts with their shadows roll.
  There roams the sole erratic comet, borne 
  With lightning speed, yet twice three hundred years
  Its destined course accomplishing.
  Then whirled,
  Far from the attractive orb of central fire,
  Back through the dim and infinite abyss,
  Dread flaming visitant, ere thou return'st,
  Empires may rise and fail; the palaces,
  That shone on earth, may vanish like the dews
  Of morning, scarce illumined ere they fly.
  Dread flaming visitant, who that pursues 
  Thy long and lonely voyage, ev'n in thought,
  (Till thought itself seem in the effort lost,)
  But tremblingly exclaims, There is a God:
  There is a God who lights ten thousand suns,
  Round which revolve worlds wheeling amid worlds.
  He launched thy voyage through the vast abyss,
  He hears his universe, through all its orbs,
  As with one voice, proclaim,
  There is a God!
  Lifted above this dim diurnal sphere, 
  So fancy, rising with her theme, ascends,
  And voyaging the illimitable void,
  Where comets flame, sees other worlds and suns
  Emerge, and on this earth, like a dim speck,
  Looks down: nor in the wonderful and vast
  Of the dread scene magnificent, she views
  Alone the Almighty Ruler, but the web
  That shines in summer time, and only seen
  In the slant sunbeam, wakes a moral thought.
  In autumn, when the thin long spider gains 
  The leafy bush's top, he from his seat
  Shoots the soft filament, like threads of air,
  Scarce seen, into the sky; and thus sustained,
  Boldly ascends into the breezy void,
  Dependent on the trembling line he wove,
  Insidious, and intent on scenes of spoil
  And death:--So mounts Ambition, and aloft
  On his proud summit meditates new scenes
  Of plunder and dominion, till the breeze
  Of fortune change, that blows to empty air 
  His feeble, frail support, and once again
  Leaves him a reptile, struggling in the dust!
  But what the world itself, what in His view
  Whose dread Omnipotence is over all!
  A twinkling air-thread in the vast of space.
  And what the works of that proud insect, Man!
  His mausoleums, fanes, and pyramids,
  Frown in the dusk of long-revolving years,
  While generations, as they rise and drop,
  Each following each to silence and to dust, 
  Point as they pass, and say, It was a God
  That made them: but nor date, nor name
  Oblivion shows; cloud only, rolling on,
  And wrapping darker as it rolls, the works
  Of man!
  Now raised on Contemplation's wing,
  The blue vault, fervent with unnumbered stars,
  He ranges: speeds, as with an angel's flight,
  From orb to orb; sees distant suns illume
  The boundless space, then bends his head to earth, 
  So poor is all he knows!
  O'er sanguine fields
  Now rides he, armed and crested like the god
  Of fabled battles; where he points, pale Death
  Strides over weltering carcases; nor leaves,--
  But still a horrid shadow, step by step,
  Stalks mocking after him, till now the noise
  Of rolling acclamation, and the shout
  Of multitude on multitude, is past:
  The scene of all his triumphs, wormy earth, 
  Closes upon his perishable pride;
  For "dust he is, and shall to dust return"!
  But Conscience, a small voice from heaven replies,
  Conscience shall meet him in another world.
  Let man, then, walk meek, humble, pure, and just;
  Though meek, yet dignified; though humble, raised,
  The heir of life and immortality;
  Conscious that in this awful world he stands,
  He only of all living things, ordained
  To think, and know, and feel, there is a God! 
  Child of the air, though most I love to hear
  Thy gentle summons whisper, when the Spring,
  At the first carol of the village lark,
  Looks out and smiles, or June is in her car;
  Not undelightful is the purer air
  In winter, when the keen north-east is high,
  When frost fantastic his cold garland weaves
  Of brittle flowers, or soft-succeeding snows
  Gather without apace, and heavy load
  The berried sweetbrier, clinging to my pane. 
  The blackbird, then, that marks the ruddy pods
  Peep through the snow, though silent is his song,
  Yet, pressed by cold and hunger, ventures near.
  The robin group, familiar, muster round
  The garden-shed, where, at his dinner set,
  The laboured hind strews here and there a crumb
  From his brown bread; then heedless of the winds
  That blow without, and sweep the shivered snow,
  Sees from his broken tube the smoke ascend
  On an inverted barrow, as in state 
  He sits, though poor, the monarch of the scene,
  As pondering deep the garden's future state,
  His kingdom; the rude instruments of death
  Lie at his feet, fashioned with simple skill,
  With which he hopes to snare the prowling race,
  The mice, rapacious of his vernal hopes.
  So seated, on the spring he ruminates,
  And solemn as a sophi, moves nor hand,
  Nor eye, till haply some more venturous bird,
  (The crumbs exhausted that he lately strewed 
  Upon the groundsill,) with often dipping beak,
  And sidelong look, as asking larger dole,
  Comes hopping to his feet: and say, ye great,
  Ye mighty monarchs of this earthly scene,
  What nobler views can elevate the heart
  Of a proud patriot king, than thus to chase
  The bold rapacious spoilers from the field,
  And with an eye of merciful regard
  To look on humble worth, wet from the storm,
  And chilled by indigence! 
  But thoughts like these
  Ill suit the radiant summer's rosy prime,
  And the still temper of the calm blue sky.
  The sunny shower is past; at intervals
  The silent glittering drops descend; and mark,
  Upon the blue bank of yon western cloud,
  That looms direct against the emerging orb,
  How bright, how beautiful the rainbow's hues
  Steal out, how stately bends the graceful arch
  Above the hills, and tinging at his foot 
  The mead and trees! Fancy might think young Hope
  Pants for the vision, and with ardent eye
  Pursues the unreal shade, and spreads her hands,
  Weeping to see it fade, as all her dreams
  Have faded.
  These, O Air! are but the toys,
  That sometimes deck thy fairy element;
  So oft the eye observant loves to trace
  The colours, and the shadows, and the forms,
  That wander o'er the veering atmosphere. 
  See, in the east, the rare parhelia shine
  In mimic glory, and so seem to mock
  (Fixed parallel to the ascending or
  The majesty, the splendour, and the shape,
  Of the sole luminary that informs
  The world with light and heat! The halo-ring
  Bends over all!
  With desultory shafts,
  And long and arrowy glance, the night-lights shoot
  Pale coruscations o'er the northern sky; 
  Now lancing to the cope, in sheets of flame,
  Now wavering wild, as the reflected wave,
  On the arched roof of the umbrageous grot.
  Hence Superstition dreams of armaments,
  Of fiery conflicts, and of bleeding fields
  Of slaughter; so on great Jerusalem,
  Ere yet she fell, the flaming meteor glared;
  A waving sword ensanguined seemed to point
  To the devoted city, and a voice
  Was heard, Depart, depart! 
  The atmosphere,
  That with the ceaseless hurry of its clouds,
  Encircles the round globe, resembles oft
  The passing sunshine, or the glooms that stray
  O'er every human spirit.
  Thin light streaks
  Of thought pass vapoury o'er the vacant mind,
  And fade to nothing. Now fantastic gleams
  Play, flashing or expiring, of gay hope,
  Or deep despair; then clouds of sadness close 
  In one dark settled gloom, and all the man
  Droops, in despondence lost.
  Aerial tints
  Please most the pensive poet: and the views
  He forms, though evanescent, and as vain
  As the air's mockery, seem to his eye
  Ev'n as substantial images, and shapes,
  Till in a hurrying rack they all dissolve.
  So in the cloudless sky, amusive shines
  The soft and mimic scenery; distant hills 
  That, in refracted light, hang beautiful
  Beneath the golden car of eve, ere yet
  The daylight lingering fades.
  Hence, on the heights
  Of Apennine, far stretching to the south,
  The goat-herd, while the westering sun, far off,
  Hangs o'er the hazy ocean's brim, beholds
  In the horizon's faintly-glowing verge
  A landscape, like the rainbow, rise, with rocks
  That softened shine, and shores that trend away, 
  Beneath the winding woods of Sicily,
  And Etna, smouldering in the still pale sky;
  And dim Messina, with her spires, and bays
  That wind among the mountains, and the tower
  Of Faro, gleaming on the tranquil straits;
  Unreal all, yet on the air impressed,
  From light's refracted ray, the shadow seems
  The certain scene: the hind astonished views,
  Yet most delighted, till at once the light
  Changes, and all has vanished! 
  But to him,
  How different in still air the unreal view,
  Who wanders in Arabian solitudes,
  When, faint with thirst, he sees illusive streams
  Shine in the arid desert!
  All around,
  A silent waste of dark gray sand is spread,
  Like ashes; not a speck in heaven appears,
  But the red sun, high in his burning noon,
  Shoots down intolerable fire: no sound 
  Of beast, or blast, or moving insect, stirs
  The horrid stillness. Oh! what hand will guide
  The pilgrim, panting in the trackless dust,
  To where the pure and sparkling fountain cheers
  The green oasis. See, as now his lip
  Hangs parched and quivering, see before him spread
  The long and level lake!
  He gazes; still
  He gazes, till he drops upon the sands,
  And to the vision stretches, as he faints, 
  His feeble hand.
  Come, Sylph of Summer, come!
  Return to these green pastures, that, remote
  From fiery blasts, or deadly blistering frosts,
  Beneath the temperate atmosphere rejoice!
  A crown of flame, a javelin in his hand,
  Like the red arrow that the lightning shoots
  Through night, impetuous steeds, and burning wheels,
  That, as they whirl, flash to the cope of heaven,
  Proclaim the angel of the world of fire! 
  The ocean-king, lord of the waters, rides
  High on his hissing car, whose concave skirrs
  The azure deep beneath him, flashing wide,
  As to the sun the dark-green wave upturns,
  And foaming far behind: sea-horses breast
  The bickering surge, with nostrils sounding far,
  And eyes that flash above the wave, and necks,
  Whose mane, like breakers whitening in the wind,
  Toss through the broken foam: he kingly bears
  His trident sceptre high; around him play 
  Nereids, and sea-maids, singing as he rides
  Their choral song: huge Triton, weltering on,
  With scaly train, at times his wreathed shell
  Sounds, that the caverns of old ocean shake!
  But milder thou, soft daughter of the air,
  Sylph of the Summer, come! the silent shower
  Is past, and 'mid the dripping fern, the wren
  Peeps, till the sun looks through the clouds again.
  Oh, come, and breathe thy gentler influence,
  And send a home-felt quiet to my heart, 
  Soothed as I hear, by fits, thy whisper run,
  Stirring the tall acacia's pendent leaves,
  And through yon hazel alley rustling soft
  Upon the vacant ear!
  Yon eastern downs,
  That weather-fence the blossoms of the vale,
  Where winds from hill to hill the mighty Dike,
  Of Woden named, with many an antique mound,
  The warrior's grave, bids exercise awake,
  And health, the breeze of morning to inhale: 
  Meantime, remote from storms, the myrtle blooms
  Beneath my southern sash.
  The hurricane
  May rend the pines of snowy Labrador,
  The blasting whirlwinds of the desert sweep
  The Nubian wilderness--we fear them not;
  Nor yet, my country, do thy breezes bear,
  From citrons, or the blooming orange-grove,
  As in Rousillon's jasmine-bordered vales,
  Incense at eve. 
  But temperate airs are thine,
  England; and as thy climate, so thy sons
  Partake the temper of thine isle; not rude,
  Nor soft, voluptuous, nor effeminate;
  Sincere, indeed, and hardy, as becomes
  Those who can lift their look elate, and say,
  We strike for injured freedom; and yet mild,
  And gentle, when the voice of charity
  Pleads like a voice from heaven: and, thanks to GOD,
  The chain that fettered Afric's groaning race, 
  The murderous chain, that, link by link, dropped blood,
  Is severed; we have lost that foul reproach
  To all our virtuous boast!
  Humanity,
  England, is thine! not _that_ false substitute,
  That meretricious sadness, which, all sighs
  For lark or lambkin, yet can hear unmoved
  The bloodiest orgies of blood-boltered France;
  Thine is consistent, manly, rational,
  Nor needing the false glow of sentiment 
  To melt it into sympathy, but mild,
  And looking with a gentle eye on all;
  Thy manners open, social, yet refined,
  Are tempered with reflection; gaiety,
  In her long-lighted halls, may lead the dance,
  Or wake the sprightly chord; yet nature, truth,
  Still warm the ingenuous heart: there is a blush
  With those most gay, and lovely; and a tear
  With those most manly!
  Temperate Liberty 
  Hath yet the fairest altar on thy shores;
  Such, and so warm with patriot energy,
  As raised its arm when a false Stuart fled;
  Yet mingled with deep wisdom's cautious lore,
  That when it bade a Papal tyrant pause
  And tremble, held the undeviating reins
  On the fierce neck of headlong Anarchy.
  Thy Church, (nor here let zealot bigotry,
  Vaunting, condemn all altars but its own),
  Thy Church, majestic, but not sumptuous, 
  Sober, but not austere, with lenity
  Tempering her fair pre-eminence, sustains
  Her liberal charities, yet decent state.
  The tempest is abroad; the fearful sounds
  Of armament, and gathering tumult, fill
  The ear of anxious Europe. If, O GOD!
  It is thy will, that in the storm of death,
  When we have lifted the brave sword in vain,
  We too should sink, sustain us in that hour!
  Meantime be mine, in cheerful privacy, 
  To wait Thy will, not sanguine, nor depressed;
  In even course, nor splendid, nor obscure,
  To steal through life among my villagers!
  The hum of the discordant crowd, the buzz
  Of faction, the poor fly that threads the air
  Self-pleased, the wasp that points its tiny sting
  Unfelt, pass by me like the idle wind
  That I regard not; while the Summer Sylph,
  That whispers through the laurels, wakes the thought
  Of quietude, and home-felt happiness, 
  And independence, in a land I love!