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Poems, 1799 By: Robert Southey (1774-1843) |
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by Robert Southey. The better, please; the worse, displease; I ask no more. SPENSER. THE SECOND VOLUME. CONTENTS.
THE VISION of THE MAID of ORLEANS. Book 1
2
3
The Rose The Complaints of the Poor Metrical Letter
BALLADS. The Cross Roads. The Sailor who had served in the Slave Trade Jaspar Lord William A Ballad shewing how an old woman rode double
and who rode before her The Surgeon's Warning The Victory Henry the Hermit
ENGLISH ECLOGUES. The Old Mansion House The Grandmother's Tale The Funeral The Sailor's Mother The Witch The Ruined Cottage
The Vision of The Maid of Orleans.
Divinity hath oftentimes descended
Upon our slumbers, and the blessed troupes
Have, in the calme and quiet of the soule,
Conversed with us. SHIRLEY. 'The Grateful Servant'
[Sidenote: The following Vision was originally printed as the ninth book
of 'JOAN of ARC'. It is now adapted to the improved edition of that
Poem.]
THE VISION OF THE MAID OF ORLEANS.
THE FIRST BOOK. Orleans was hush'd in sleep. Stretch'd on her couch
The delegated Maiden lay: with toil
Exhausted and sore anguish, soon she closed
Her heavy eye lids; not reposing then,
For busy Phantasy, in other scenes
Awakened. Whether that superior powers,
By wise permission, prompt the midnight dream,
Instructing so the passive [1] faculty;
Or that the soul, escaped its fleshly clog,
Flies free, and soars amid the invisible world,
And all things 'are' that [2] 'seem'. Along a moor,
Barren, and wide, and drear, and desolate,
She roam'd a wanderer thro' the cheerless night.
Far thro' the silence of the unbroken plain
The bittern's boom was heard, hoarse, heavy, deep,
It made most fitting music to the scene.
Black clouds, driven fast before the stormy wind,
Swept shadowing; thro' their broken folds the moon
Struggled sometimes with transitory ray,
And made the moving darkness visible.
And now arrived beside a fenny lake
She stands: amid its stagnate waters, hoarse
The long sedge rustled to the gales of night.
An age worn bark receives the Maid, impell'd
By powers unseen; then did the moon display
Where thro' the crazy vessel's yawning side
The muddy wave oozed in: a female guides,
And spreads the sail before the wind, that moan'd
As melancholy mournful to her ear,
As ever by the dungeon'd wretch was heard
Howling at evening round the embattled towers
Of that hell house [3] of France, ere yet sublime
The almighty people from their tyrant's hand
Dash'd down the iron rod.
Intent the Maid
Gazed on the pilot's form, and as she gazed
Shiver'd, for wan her face was, and her eyes
Hollow, and her sunk cheeks were furrowed deep,
Channell'd by tears; a few grey locks hung down
Beneath her hood: then thro' the Maiden's veins
Chill crept the blood, for, as the night breeze pass'd,
Lifting her tattcr'd mantle, coil'd around
She saw a serpent gnawing at her heart. The plumeless bat with short shrill note flits by,
And the night raven's scream came fitfully,
Borne on the hollow blast. Eager the Maid
Look'd to the shore, and now upon the bank
Leaps, joyful to escape, yet trembling still
In recollection. There, a mouldering pile
Stretch'd its wide ruins, o'er the plain below
Casting a gloomy shade, save where the moon
Shone thro' its fretted windows: the dark Yew,
Withering with age, branched there its naked roots,
And there the melancholy Cypress rear'd
Its head; the earth was heav'd with many a mound,
And here and there a half demolish'd tomb. And now, amid the ruin's darkest shade,
The Virgin's eye beheld where pale blue flames
Rose wavering, now just gleaming from the earth,
And now in darkness drown'd. An aged man
Sat near, seated on what in long past days
Had been some sculptur'd monument, now fallen
And half obscured by moss, and gathered heaps
Of withered yew leaves and earth mouldering bones;
And shining in the ray was seen the track
Of slimy snail obscene... Continue reading book >>
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