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The Sylph Of Summer.[1]

by William Lisle Bowles

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,[2] 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![3]

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.[4] I, meantime, these shades

Of village solitude, hoping erewhile

To welcome thee from many a toil restored,

Still deck, and now thy empty urn[5] 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,[6] 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,[7]

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,[8] 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,[9]

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[10]

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,[11] 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 orb)

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[12] 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![13]

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.

A'rial 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,[14] 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,[15] 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[16]

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.[17] 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,[18]

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!