The Germ: Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art
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Modern Giants
Yes! there are Giants on the earth in these days; but it is their great bulk, and the nearness of our view, which prevents us from perceiving their grandeur. This is how it is that the glory of the present is lost upon the contemporaries of the greatest men; and, perhaps this was Swift's meaning, when he said that Gulliver could not discover exactly what it was that strode among the corn-ridges in the Brobdignagian field: thus, we lose the brightness of things of our own time in consequence of their proximity.
It is of the development of our individual perceptions, and the application thereof to a good use, that the writer humbly endeavours to treat. We will for this purpose take as an example, that which may be held to indicate the civilization of a period more than any thing else; namely, the popular perception of the essentials of Poetry; and endeavour to show that while the beauties of old writers are acknowledged, (tho' not in proportion to the attention of each individual in his works to nature alone) the modern school is contemned and unconsidered; and also that much of the active poetry of modern life is neglected by the majority of the writers themselves.
There seems to be an opinion gaining ground fast, in spite of all the shaking of conventional heads, that the Poets of the present day are equal to all others, excepting one: however this may be, it is certain we are not fair judges, because of the natural reason stated before; and there is decidedly one great fault in the moderns, that not only do they study models with which they can never become intimately acquainted, but that they neglect, or rather reject as worthless, that which they alone can carry on with perfect success: I mean the knowledge of themselves, and the characteristics of their own actual living. Thus, if a modern Poet or Artist (the latter much more culpably errs) seeks a subject exemplifying charity, he rambles into ancient Greece or Rome, awakening not one half the sympathy in the spectator, as do such incidents as may be seen in the streets every day. For instance; walking with a friend the other day, we met an old woman, exceedingly dirty, restlessly pattering along the kerb of a crowded thoroughfare, trying to cross: her eyes were always wandering here and there, and her mouth was never still; her object was evident, but for my own part, I must needs be fastidious and prefer to allow her to take the risk of being run over, to overcoming my own disgust. Not so my friend; he marched up manfully, and putting his arm over the old woman's shoulder, led her across as carefully as though she were a princess. Of course, I was ashamed: ashamed! I was frightened; I expected to see the old woman change into a tall angel and take him off to heaven, leaving me her original shape to repent in. On recovering my thoughts, I was inclined to take up my friend and carry him home in triumph, I felt so strong. Why should not this thing be as poetical as any in the life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary or any one else? for, so we look at it with a pure thought, we shall see about it the same light the Areopagite saw at Jerusalem surround the Holy Virgin, and the same angels attending and guarding it.
And there is something else we miss; there is the poetry of the things about us; our railways, factories, mines, roaring cities, steam vessels, and the endless novelties and wonders produced every day; which if they were found only in the Thousand and One Nights, or in any poem classical or romantic, would be gloried over without end; for as the majority of us know not a bit more about them, but merely their names, we keep up the same mystery, the main thing required for the surprise of the imagination.
Next to Poetry, Painting and Music have most power over the mind; and how do you apply this influence? In what direction is it forced? Why, for the last, you sit in your drawing-rooms, and listen to a quantity of tinkling of brazen marches of going to war; but you never see before your very eyes, the palpable victory of leading nature by her own power, to a conquest of blessings; and when the music is over, you turn to each other, and enthusiastically whisper, “How fine!”—You point out to others, (as if they had no eyes) the sentiment of a flowing river with the moon on it, as an emblem of the after-peace, but you see not this in the long white cloud of steam, the locomotive pours forth under the same moon, rushing on; the perfect type of the same, with the presentment of the struggle beforehand. The strong engine is never before you, sighing all night, with the white cloud above the chimney-shaft, escaping like the spirits Solomon put his seal upon, in the Arabian Tales; these mightier spirits are bound in a faster vessel; and then let forth, as of little worth, when their work is done.
The Earth shakes under you, from the footfall of the Genii man has made, and you groan about the noise. Vast roads draw together the Earth, and you say how they spoil the prospect, which you never cared a farthing about before.
You revel in Geology: but in chemistry, the modern science, possessing thousands of powers as great as any used yet, you see no glory:—the only thought is so many Acids and Alkalies. You require a metaphor for treachery, and of course you think of our puny old friend the Viper; but the Alkaline, more searching and more unknown, that may destroy you and your race, you have never heard of,—and yet this possesses more of the very quality required, namely, mystery, than any other that is in your hands.
The only ancient character you have retained in its proper force is Love; but you seem never to see any light about the results of long labour of mind, the most intense Love. Devotedness, magnanimity, generosity, you seem to think have left the Earth since the Crusades. In fact, you never go out into Life: living only in the past world, you go on repeating in new combinations the same elements for the same effect. You have taught an enlightened Public, that the province of Poetry is to reproduce the Ancients; not as Keats did, with the living heart of our own Life; but so as to cause the impression that you are not aware that they had wives and families like yourselves, and laboured and rested like us all.
The greatest, perhaps, of modern poets seeming to take refuge from this, has looked into the heart of man, and shown you its pulsations, fears, self-doubts, hates, goodness, devotedness, and noble world-love; this is not done under pretty flowers of metaphor in the lispings of a pet parson, or in the strong but uncertain fashion of the American school; still less in the dry operose quackery of professed doctors of psychology, mere chaff not studied from nature, and therefore worthless, never felt, and therefore useless; but with the firm knowing hand of the anatomist, demonstrating and making clear to others, that the knowledge may be applied to purpose. All this difficult task is achieved so that you may read till your own soul is before you, and you know it; but the enervated public complains that the work is obscure forsooth: so we are always looking for green grass—verdant meads, tall pines, vineyards, etc., as the essentials of poetry; these are all very pretty and very delicate, the dust blows not in your eyes, but Chaucer has told us all this, and while it was new, far better than any one else; why are we not to have something besides? Let us see a little of the poetry of man's own works,—“Visibly in his garden walketh God.”
The great portion of the public take a morbid delight in such works as Frankenstein, that “Poor, impossible monster abhorred,” who would be disgusting if he were not so extremely ludicrous: and all this search after impossible mystery, such trumpery! growing into the popular taste, is fed with garbage; doing more harm than all the preachings and poundings of optimistic Reviews will be able to remedy in an hundred years.
The study of such matters as these does other harm than merely poisoning the mind in one direction; it renders us sceptical of virtue in others, and we lose the power of pure perception. So —reading the glorious tale of Griselda and looking about you, you say there never was such a woman; your wise men say she was a fool; are there no such fools round about you? pray look close:—so the result of this is, you see no lesson in such things, or at least cannot apply it, and therefore the powers of the author are thrown away. Do you think God made Boccaccio and Chaucer to amuse you in your idle hours, only that you might sit listening like crowned idiots, and then debate concerning their faithfulness to truth? You never can imagine but they knew more of nature than any of us, or that they had less reverence for her.
In reference to Painting, the Public are taught to look with delight upon murky old masters, with dismally demoniac trees, and dull waters of lead, colourless and like ice; upon rocks that make geologists wonder, their angles are so impossible, their fractures are so new. Thousands are given for uncomfortable Dutch sun-lights; but if you are shown a transcript of day itself, with the purple shadow upon the mountains, and across the still lake, you know nothing of it because your fathers never bought such: so you look for nothing in it; nay, let me set you in the actual place, let the water damp your feet, stand in the chill of the shadow itself, and you will never tell me the colour on the hill, or where the last of the crows caught the sinking sunlight. Letting observation sleep, what can you know of nature? and you are a judge of landscape indeed. So it is that the world is taught to think of nature, as seen through other men's eyes, without any reference to its own original powers of perception, and much natural beauty is lost.
To the Castle Ramparts
The Castle is erect on the hill's top,To moulder there all day and night: it standsWith the long shadow lying at its foot.That is a weary height which you must climbBefore you reach it; and a dizzinessTurns in your eyes when you look down from it,So standing clearly up into the sky.I rose one day, having a mind to see it.'Twas on a clear Spring morning, and a blackbirdAwoke me with his warbling near my window:My dream had fashioned this into a songThat some one with grey eyes was singing me,And which had drawn me so into myselfThat all the other shapes of sleep were gone:And then, at last, it woke me, as I said.The sun shone fully in on me; and briskCool airs, that had been cold but for his warmth,Blow thro' the open casement, and sweet smellsOf flowers with the dew yet fresh upon them,—Rose-buds, and showery lilacs, and what stayedOf April wallflowers.I set early forth,Wishing to reach the Castle when the heatShould weigh upon it, vertical at noon.My path lay thro' green open fields at first,With now and then trees rising statelilyOut of the grass; and afterwards came lanesClosed in by hedges smelling of the may,And overshadowed by the meeting trees.So I walked on with none but pleasant thoughts;The Spring was in me, not alone around me,And smiles came rippling o'er my lips for nothing.I reached at length,—issuing from a laneWhich wound so that it seemed about to endAlways, yet ended not for a long while,—A space of ground thick grassed and level toThe overhanging sky and the strong sun:Before me the brown sultry hill stood out,Peaked by its rooted Castle, like a partOf its own self. I laid me in the grass,Turning from it, and looking on the sky,And listening to the humming in the airThat hums when no sound is; because I choseTo gaze on that which I had left, not thatWhich I had yet to see. As one who strivesAfter some knowledge known not till he sought,Whose soul acquaints him that his step by stepHas led him to a few steps next the end,Which he foresees already, waits a littleBefore he passes onward, gatheringTogether in his thoughts what he has done.Rising after a while, the ascent began.Broken and bare the soil was; and thin grass,Dry and scarce green, was scattered here and thereIn tufts: and, toiling up, my knees almostReaching my chin, one hand upon my knee,Or grasping sometimes at the earth, I went,With eyes fixed on the next step to be taken,Not glancing right or left; till, at the end,I stood straight up, and the tower stood straight upBefore my face. One tower, and nothing more;For all the rest has gone this way and that,And is not anywhere, saving a fewFragments that lie about, some on the top,Some fallen half down on either side the hill,Uncared for, well nigh grown into the ground.The tower is grey, and brown, and black, with greenPatches of mildew and of ivy wovenOver the sightless loopholes and the sides:And from the ivy deaf-coiled spiders dangle,Or scurry to catch food; and their fine websTouch at your face wherever you may pass.The sun's light scorched upon it; and a fryOf insects in one spot quivered for ever,Out and in, in and out, with glancing wingsThat caught the light, and buzzings here and there;That little life which swarms about large death;No one too many or too few, but eachOrdained, and being each in its own place.The ancient door, cut deep into the wall,And cramped with iron rusty now and rotten,Was open half: and, when I strove to move itThat I might have free passage inwards, stoodUnmoved and creaking with old uselessness:So, pushing it, I entered, while the dustWas shaken down upon me from all sides.The narrow stairs, lighted by scanty streaksThat poured in thro' the loopholes pierced high up,Wound with the winding tower, until I gained,Delivered from the closeness and the dampAnd the dim air, the outer battlements.There opposite, the tower's black turret-girthSuppressed the multiplied steep chasm of fathoms,So that immediately the fields far downLay to their heaving distance for the eyes,Satisfied with one gaze unconsciously,To pass to glory of heaven, and to know light.Here was no need of thinking:—merely senseWas found sufficient: the wind made me free,Breathed, and returned by me in a hard breath:And what at first seemed silence, being rousedBy callings of the cuckoo from far off,Resolved itself into a sound of treesThat swayed, and into chirps reciprocalOn each side, and revolving drone of flies.Then, stepping to the brink, and looking sheerTo where the slope ceased in the level stretchOf country, I sat down to lay my headBackwards into a single ivy-bushComplex of leaf. I lay there till the windBlew to me, from a church seen miles away,Half the hour's chimes.Great clouds were arched abroadLike angels' wings; returning beneath which,I lingered homewards. All their forms had mergedAnd loosened when my walk was ended; and,While yet I saw the sun a perfect disc,There was the moon beginning in the sky.Pax Vobis
'Tis of the Father Hilary.He strove, but could not pray: so tookThe darkened stair, where his feet shookA sad blind echo. He kept upSlowly. 'Twas a chill sway of airThat autumn noon within the stair,Sick, dizzy, like a turning cup.His brain perplexed him, void and thin:He shut his eyes and felt it spin;The obscure deafness hemmed him in.He said: “the air is calm outside.”He leaned unto the galleryWhere the chime keeps the night and day:It hurt his brain,—he could not pray.He had his face upon the stone:Deep 'twixt the narrow shafts, his eyePassed all the roofs unto the skyWhose greyness the wind swept alone.Close by his feet he saw it shakeWith wind in pools that the rains make:The ripple set his eyes to ache.He said, “Calm hath its peace outside.”He stood within the mysteryGirding God's blessed Eucharist:The organ and the chaunt had ceased:A few words paused against his ear,Said from the altar: drawn round him,The silence was at rest and dim.He could not pray. The bell shook clearAnd ceased. All was great awe,—the breathOf God in man, that warrantethWholly the inner things of Faith.He said: “There is the world outside.”Ghent: Church of St. Bavon.A Modern Idyl
“Pride clings to age, for few and withered powers,Which fall on youth in pleasures manifold,Like some bright dancer with a crowd of flowersAnd scented presents more than she can hold:“Or as it were a child beneath a tree,Who in his healthy joy holds hand and capBeneath the shaken boughs, and eagerlyExpects the fruit to fall into his lap.”So thought I while my cousin sat alone,Moving with many leaves in under tone,And, sheened as snow lit by a pale moonlight,Her childish dress struck clearly on the sight:That, as the lilies growing by her sideCasting their silver radiance forth with pride,She seemed to dart an arrowy halo round,Brightening the spring time trees, brightening the ground;And beauty, like keen lustre from a star,Glorified all the garden near and far.The sunlight smote the grey and mossy wallWhere, 'mid the leaves, the peaches one and all,Most like twin cherubim entranced above,Leaned their soft cheeks together, pressed in love.As the child sat, the tendrils shook round her;And, blended tenderly in middle air,Gleamed the long orchard through the ivied gate:And slanting sunbeams made the heart elate,Startling it into gladness like the sound,—Which echo childlike mimicks faintly roundBlending it with the lull of some far flood,—Of one long shout heard in a quiet wood.A gurgling laugh far off the fountain sent,As if the mermaid shape that in it bentSpoke with subdued and faintest melody:And birds sang their whole hearts spontaneously.When from your books released, pass here your hours,Dear child, the sweet companion of these flowers,These poplars, scented shrubs, and blossomed boughsOf fruit-trees, where the noisy sparrows house,Shaking from off the leaves the beaded dew.Now while the air is warm, the heavens blue,Give full abandonment to all your gaySwift childlike impulses in rompish play;—The while your sisters in shrill laughter shout,Whirling above the leaves and round about,—Until at length it drops behind the wall,—With awkward jerks, the particoloured ball:Winning a smile even from the stooping ageOf that old matron leaning on her page,Who in the orchard takes a stroll or two,Watching you closely yet unseen by you.Then, tired of gambols, turn into the darkFir-skirted margins of your father's park;And watch the moving shadows, as you pass,Trace their dim network on the tufted grass,And how on birch-trunks smooth and branches old,The velvet moss bursts out in green and gold,Like the rich lustre full and manifoldOn breasts of birds that star the curtained gloomFrom their glass cases in the drawing room.Mark the spring leafage bend its tender sprayGracefully on the sky's aërial grey;And listen how the birds so volubleSing joyful pæans winding to a swell,And how the wind, fitful and mournful, grievesIn gusty whirls among the dry red leaves;And watch the minnows in the water cool,And floating insects wrinkling all the pool.So in your ramblings bend your earnest eyes.High thoughts and feelings will come unto you,—Gladness will fall upon your heart like dew,—Because you love the earth and love the skies.Fair pearl, the pride of all our family:Girt with the plenitude of joys so strong,Fashion and custom dull can do no wrong:Nestling your young face thus on Nature's knee.“Jesus Wept”
Mary rose up, as one in sleep might rise,And went to meet her brother's Friend: and theyWho tarried with her said: “she goes to prayAnd weep where her dead brother's body lies.”So, with their wringing of hands and with sighs,They stood before Him in the public way.“Had'st Thou been with him, Lord, upon that day,He had not died,” she said, drooping her eyes.Mary and Martha with bowed faces keptHolding His garments, one on each side.—“WhereHave ye laid him?” He asked. “Lord, come and see.”The sound of grieving voices heavilyAnd universally was round Him there,A sound that smote His spirit. Jesus wept.Sonnets for Pictures
1. For a Virgin and Child, by Hans Memmelinck; in the Academy of Bruges
Mystery: God, Man's Life, born into manOf woman. There abideth on her browThe ended pang of knowledge, the which nowIs calm assured. Since first her task began,She hath known all. What more of anguish thanEndurance oft hath lived through, the whole spaceThrough night till night, passed weak upon her faceWhile like a heavy flood the darkness ran?All hath been told her touching her dear Son,And all shall be accomplished. Where he sitsEven now, a babe, he holds the symbol fruitPerfect and chosen. Until God permits,His soul's elect still have the absoluteHarsh nether darkness, and make painful moan.2. A Marriage of St. Katharine, by the same; in the Hospital of St. John at Bruges
Mystery: Katharine, the bride of Christ.She kneels, and on her hand the holy ChildSetteth the ring. Her life is sad and mild,Laid in God's knowledge—ever unenticedFrom Him, and in the end thus fitly priced.Awe, and the music that is near her, wroughtOf Angels, hath possessed her eyes in thought:Her utter joy is her's, and hath sufficed.There is a pause while Mary Virgin turnsThe leaf, and reads. With eyes on the spread book,That damsel at her knees reads after her.John whom He loved and John His harbingerListen and watch. Whereon soe'er thou look,The light is starred in gems, and the gold burns.3. A Dance of Nymphs, by Andrea Mantegna; in the Louvre
(It is necessary to mention, that this picture would appear to have been in the artist's mind an allegory, which the modern spectator may seek vainly to interpret.)
Scarcely, I think; yet it indeed may beThe meaning reached him, when this music rangSharp through his brain, a distinct rapid pang,And he beheld these rocks and that ridg'd sea.But I believe he just leaned passively,And felt their hair carried across his faceAs each nymph passed him; nor gave ear to traceHow many feet; nor bent assuredlyHis eyes from the blind fixedness of thoughtTo see the dancers. It is bitter gladEven unto tears. Its meaning filleth it,A portion of most secret life: to wit:—Each human pulse shall keep the sense it hadWith all, though the mind's labour run to nought.4. A Venetian Pastoral, by Giorgione; in the Louvre
(In this picture, two cavaliers and an undraped woman are seated in the grass, with musical instruments, while another woman dips a vase into a well hard by, for water.)
Water, for anguish of the solstice,—yea,Over the vessel's mouth still wideningListlessly dipt to let the water inWith slow vague gurgle. Blue, and deep away,The heat lies silent at the brink of day.Now the hand trails upon the viol-stringThat sobs; and the brown faces cease to sing,Mournful with complete pleasure. Her eyes strayIn distance; through her lips the pipe doth creepAnd leaves them pouting; the green shadowed grassIs cool against her naked flesh. Let be:Do not now speak unto her lest she weep,—Nor name this ever. Be it as it was:—Silence of heat, and solemn poetry.5. “Angelica rescued from the Sea-monster,” by Ingres; in the Luxembourg
A remote sky, prolonged to the sea's brim:One rock-point standing buffetted alone,Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown,Hell-spurge of geomaunt and teraphim:A knight, and a winged creature bearing him,Reared at the rock: a woman fettered there,Leaning into the hollow with loose hairAnd throat let back and heartsick trail of limb.The sky is harsh, and the sea shrewd and salt.Under his lord, the griffin-horse ramps blindWith rigid wings and tail. The spear's lithe stemThrills in the roaring of those jaws: behind,The evil length of body chafes at fault.She doth not hear nor see—she knows of them.6. The same
Clench thine eyes now,—'tis the last instant, girl:Draw in thy senses, set thy knees, and takeOne breath for all: thy life is keen awake,—Thou may'st not swoon. Was that the scattered whirlOf its foam drenched thee?—or the waves that curlAnd split, bleak spray wherein thy temples ache?—Or was it his the champion's blood to flakeThy flesh?—Or thine own blood's anointing, girl?........Now, silence; for the sea's is such a soundAs irks not silence; and except the sea,All is now still. Now the dead thing doth ceaseTo writhe, and drifts. He turns to her: and sheCast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound,Again a woman in her nakedness.Papers of “The M. S. Society”
No. IV. Smoke
I'm the king of the Cadaverals,I'm Spectral President;And, all from east to occident,There's not a man whose dermal wallsContain so narrow intervals,So lank a resident.Look at me and you shall seeThe ghastliest of the ghastly;The eyes that have watched a thousand years,The forehead lined with a thousand cares,The seaweed-character of hairs!—You shall see and you shall see,Or you may hear, as I can feel,When the winds batter, how these parchments clatter,And the beautiful tenor that's ever ringingWhen thro' the Seaweed the breeze is singing:And you should know, I know a great deal,When the bacchi arcanum I clutch and gripe,I know a great deal of wind and weatherBy hearing my own cheeks slap togetherA-pulling up a pipe.I believe—and I conceiveI'm an authorityIn all things ghastly,First for tenuityFor stringiness secondly,And sallowness lastly—I say I believe a cadaverous manWho would live as long and as lean as he canShould live entirely on bacchi—On the bacchic ambrosia entirely feed him;When living thus, so little lack I,So easy am I, I'll never heed himWho anything seeketh beyond the Leaf:For, what with mumbling pipe-ends freely,And snuffing the ashes now and then,I give it as my firm beliefOne might go living on genteellyTo the age of an antediluvian.This from the king to each spectral Grim—Mind, we address no bibbing smoker!Tell not us 'tis as broad as it's long,We've no breadth more than a leathern thongTanned—or a tarnished poker:Ye are also lank and slim?—Your king he comes of an ancient lineWhich “length without breadth” the Gods define,And look ye follow him!Lanky lieges! the Gods one dayWill cut off this line, as geometers say,Equal to any given line:—PI,—PE—their hands divineDo more than we can see:They cut off every length of clayReally in a most extraordinary way—They fill your bowls up—Dutch C'naster,Shag, York River—fill 'em faster,Fill 'em faster up, I say.What Turkey, Oronoko, Cavendish!There's the fuel to make a chafing dish,A chafing dish to peel the pettyPaint that girls and boys call pretty—Peel it off from lip and cheek:We've none such here; yet, if ye seekAn infallible test for a raw beginner,Mundungus will always discover a sinner.Now ye are charged, we give the wordLight! and pour it thro' your noses,And let it hover and lodge in your hairBird-like, bird-like—You're awareAnacreon had a bird—A bird! and filled his bowl with roses.Ha ha! ye laugh in ghastlywise,And the smoke comes through your eyes,And you're looking very grim,And the air is very dim,And the casual paper flareTaketh still a redder glare.Now thou pretty little fellow,Now thine eyes are turning yellow,Thou shalt be our page to-night!Come and sit thee next to us,And as we may want a lightSee that thou be dexterous.Now bring forth your tractates musty,Dry, cadaverous, and dusty,One, on the sound of mammoths' bonesIn motion; one, on Druid-stones:Show designs for pipes most ghastly,And devils and ogres grinning nastily!Show, show the limnings ye brought back,Since round and round the zodiacYe galloped goblin horses whichWere light as smoke and black as pitch;And those ye made in the mouldy moon,And Uranus, Saturn, and Neptune,And in the planet Mercury,Where all things living and dead have an eyeWhich sometimes opening suddenlyStareth and startleth strangëlyBut now the night is growing better,And every jet of smoke grows jetter,While yet there blinks sufficient light,Bring in those skeletons that frightMost men into fits, but thatWe relish for their want of fat.Bring them in, the CimabuesWith all or each that horribly true is,Francias, Giottos, Masaccios,That tread on the tops of their bony toes,And every one with a long sharp arrowCleverly shot through his spinal marrow,With plenty of gridirons, spikes, and firesAnd fiddling angels in sheets and quires.Hold! 'tis dark! 'tis lack of light,Or something wrong in this royal sight,Or else our musty, dusty, and rightWell-beloved lieges allAre standing in rank against the wall,And ever thin and thinner, and tallAnd taller grow and cadaveral!Subjects, ye are sharp and spare,Every nose is blue and frosty,And your back-bone's growing bare,And your king can count your costæ,And your bones are clattering,And your teeth are chattering,And ye spit out bits of pipe,Which, shorter grown, ye faster gripeIn jaws; and weave a cloudy cloakThat wraps up all except your bonesWhose every joint is oozing smoke:And there's a creaky music dronesWhenas your lungs distend your ribs,A sound, that's like the grating nibsOf pens on paper late at night;Your shanks are yellow more than whiteAnd very like what Holbein drew!Avaunt! ye are a ghastly crewToo like the Campo Santo—down!We are your monarch, but we ownThat were we not, we very wellMight take ye to be imps of hell:But ye are glorious ghastly sprites,What ho! our page! Sir knave—lights, lights,The final pipes are to be lit:Sit, gentlemen, we charge ye sitUntil the cock affrays the nightAnd heralds in the limping morn,And makes the owl and raven flit;Until the jolly moon is white,And till the stars and moon are gone.