Charles G. D. Roberts (1860-1943)
Ave! (An Ode for the Shelley Centenary, 1892)
I
1O tranquil meadows, grassy Tantramar,
2 Wide marshes ever washed in clearest air,
3Whether beneath the sole and spectral star
4 The dear severity of dawn you wear,
5Or whether in the joy of ample day
6 And speechless ecstasy of growing June
7You lie and dream the long blue hours away
8 Till nightfall comes too soon,
9Or whether, naked to the unstarred night,
10You strike with wondering awe my inward sight, --
II
11You know how I have loved you, how my dreams
12 Go forth to you with longing, though the years
13That turn not back like your returning streams
14 And fain would mist the memory with tears,
15Though the inexorable years deny
16 My feet the fellowship of your deep grass,
17O'er which, as o'er another, tenderer sky,
18 Cloud phantoms drift and pass, --
19You know my confident love, since first, a child,
20Amid your wastes of green I wandered wild.
III
21Inconstant, eager, curious, I roamed;
22 And ever your long reaches lured me on;
23And ever o'er my feet your grasses foamed,
24 And in my eyes your far horizons shone.
25But sometimes would you (as a stillness fell
26 And on my pulse you laid a soothing palm)
27Instruct my ears in your most secret spell;
28 And sometimes in the calm
29Initiate my young and wondering eyes
30Until my spirit grew more still and wise.
IV
31Purged with high thoughts and infinite desire
32 I entered fearless the most holy place,
33Received between my lips the secret fire,
34 The breath of inspiration on my face.
35But not for long these rare illumined hours,
36 The deep surprise and rapture not for long.
37Again I saw the common, kindly flowers,
38 Again I heard the song
39Of the glad bobolink, whose lyric throat
40Peeled like a tangle of small bells afloat.
V
41The pounce of mottled marsh-hawk on his prey;
42 The flicker of sand-pipers in from sea
43In gusty flocks that puffed and fled; the play
44 Of field-mice in the vetches, -- these to me
45Were memorable events. But most availed
46 Your strange unquiet waters to engage
47My kindred heart's companionship; nor failed
48 To grant this heritage, --
49That in my veins forever must abide
50The urge and fluctuation of the tide.
VI
51The mystic river whence you take your name,
52 River of hubbub, raucous Tantramar,
53Untamable and changeable as flame,
54 It called me and compelled me from afar,
55Shaping my soul with its impetuous stress.
56 When in its gaping channel deeps withdrawn
57Its waves ran crying of the wilderness
58 And winds and stars and dawn,
59How I companioned them in speed sublime,
60Led out a vagrant on the hills of Time!
VII
61And when the orange flood came roaring in
62 From Fundy's tumbling troughs and tide-worn caves,
63While red Minudie's flats were drowned with din
64 And rough Chignecto's front oppugned the waves,
65How blithely with the refluent foam I raced
66 Inland along the radiant chasm, exploring
67The green solemnity with boisterous haste;
68 My pulse of joy outpouring
69To visit all the creeks that twist and shine
70From Beauséjour to utmost Tormentine.
VIII
71And after, when the tide was full, and stilled
72 A little while the seething and the hiss,
73And every tributary channel filled
74 To the brim with rosy streams that swelled to kiss
75The grass-roots all awash and goose-tongue wild
76 And salt-sap rosemary, -- then how well content
77I was to rest me like a breathless child
78 With play-time rapture spent, --
79To lapse and loiter till the change should come
80And the great floods turn seaward, roaring home.
IX
81And now, O tranquil marshes, in your vast
82 Serenity of vision and of dream,
83Wherethrough by every intricate vein have passed
84 With joy impetuous and pain supreme
85The sharp, fierce tides that chafe the shores of earth
86 In endless and controlless ebb and flow,
87Strangely akin you seem to him whose birth
88 One hundred years ago
89With fiery succour to the ranks of song
90Defied the ancient gates of wrath and wrong.
X
91Like yours, O marshes, his compassionate breast,
92 Wherein abode all dreams of love and peace,
93Was tortured with perpetual unrest.
94 Now loud with flood, now languid with release,
95Now poignant with the lonely ebb, the strife
96 Of tides from the salt sea of human pain
97That hiss along the perilous coasts of life
98 Beat in his eager brain;
99But all about the tumult of his heart
100Stretched the great calm of his celestial art.
XI
101Therefore with no far flight, from Tantramar
102 And my still world of ecstasy, to thee,
103Shelley, to thee I turn, the avatar
104 Of Song, Love, Dream, Desire, and Liberty;
105To thee I turn with reverent hands of prayer
106 And lips that fain would ease my heart of praise,
107Whom chief of all whose brows prophetic wear
108 The pure and sacred bays
109I worship, and have worshipped since the hour
110When first I felt thy bright and chainless power.
XII
111About thy sheltered cradle in the green
112 Untroubled groves of Sussex, brooded forms
113That to the mother's eye remained unseen, --
114 Terrors and ardours, passionate hopes, and storms
115Of fierce retributive fury, such as jarred
116 Ancient and sceptred creeds, and cast down kings,
117And oft the holy cause of Freedom marred,
118 With lust of meaner things,
119With guiltless blood, and many a frenzied crime
120Dared in the face of unforgetful Time.
XIII
121The star that burns on revolution smote
122 Wild heats and change on thine ascendant sphere,
123Whose influence thereafter seemed to float
124 Through many a strange eclipse of wrath and fear,
125Dimming awhile the radiance of thy love.
126 But still supreme in thy nativity,
127All dark, invidious aspects far above,
128 Beamed one clear orb for thee, --
129The star whose ministrations just and strong
130Controlled the tireless flight of Dante's song.
XIV
131With how august contrition, and what tears
132 Of penitential unavailing shame,
133Thy venerable foster-mother hears
134 The sons of song impeach her ancient name,
135Because in one rash hour of anger blind
136 She thrust thee forth in exile, and thy feet
137Too soon to earth's wild outer ways consigned, --
138 Far from her well-loved seat,
139Far from her studious halls and storied towers
140And weedy Isis winding through his flowers.
XV
141And thou, thenceforth the breathless child of change,
142 Thine own Alastor, on an endless quest
143Of unimagined loveliness didst range,
144 Urged ever by the soul's divine unrest.
145Of that high quest and that unrest divine
146 Thy first immortal music thou didst make,
147Inwrought with fairy Alp, and Reuss, and Rhine,
148 And phantom seas that break
149In soundless foam along the shores of Time,
150Prisoned in thine imperishable rhyme.
XVI
151Thyself the lark melodious in mid-heaven;
152 Thyself the Protean shape of chainless cloud,
153Pregnant with elemental fire, and driven
154 Through deeps of quivering light, and darkness loud
155With tempest, yet beneficent as prayer;
156 Thyself the wild west wind, relentless strewing
157The withered leaves of custom on the air,
158 And through the wreck pursuing
159O'er lovelier Arnos, more imperial Romes,
160Thy radiant visions to their viewless homes.
XVII
161And when thy mightiest creation thou
162 Wert fain to body forth, -- the dauntless form,
163The all-enduring, all-forgiving brow
164 Of the great Titan, flinchless in the storm
165Of pangs unspeakable and nameless hates,
166 Yet rent by all the wrongs and woes of men,
167And triumphing in his pain, that so their fates
168 Might be assuaged, -- oh then
169Out of that vast compassionate heart of thine
170Thou wert constrained to shape the dream benign.
XVIII
171-- O Baths of Caracalla, arches clad
172 In such transcendent rhapsodies of green
173That one might guess the sprites of spring were glad
174 For your majestic ruin, yours the scene,
175The illuminating air of sense and thought;
176 And yours the enchanted light, O skies of Rome,
177Where the giant vision into form was wrought;
178 Beneath your blazing dome
179The intensest song our language ever knew
180Beat up exhaustless to the blinding blue! --
XIX
181The domes of Pisa and her towers superb,
182 The myrtles and the ilexes that sigh
183 O'er San Giuliano, where no jars disturb
184The lonely aziola's evening cry,
185 The Serchio's sun-kissed waters, -- these conspired
186With Plato's theme occult, with Dante's calm
187 Rapture of mystic love, and so inspired
188Thy soul's espousal psalm,
189 A strain of such elect and pure intent
190It breathes of a diviner element.
XX
191Thou on whose lips the word of Love became
192 A rapt evangel to assuage all wrong,
193Not Love alone, but the austerer name
194 Of Death engaged the splendours of thy song.
195The luminous grief, the spacious consolation
196 Of thy supreme lament, that mourned for him
197Too early haled to that still habitation
198 Beneath the grass-roots dim, --
199Where his faint limbs and pain-o'erwearied heart
200Of all earth's loveliness became a part,
XXI
201But where, thou sayest, himself would not abide, --
202 Thy solemn incommunicable joy
203Announcing Adonais has not died,
204 Attesting death to free but not destroy,
205All this was as thy swan-song mystical.
206 Even while the note serene was on thy tongue
207Thin grew the veil of the Invisible,
208 The white sword nearer swung, --
209And in the sudden wisdom of thy rest
210Thou knewest all thou hadst but dimly guessed.
XXII
211Lament, Lerici, mourn for the world's loss!
212 Mourn that pure light of song extinct at noon!
213Ye waves of Spezzia that shine and toss
214 Repent that sacred flame you quenched too soon!
215Mourn, Mediterranean waters, mourn
216 In affluent purple down your golden shore!
217Such strains as his, whose voice you stilled in scorn,
218 Our ears may greet no more,
219Unless at last to that far sphere we climb
220Where he completes the wonder of his rhyme!
XXIII
221How like a cloud she fled, thy fateful bark,
222 From eyes that watched to hearts that waited, till
223Up from the ocean roared the tempest dark --
224 And the wild heart Love waited for was still!
225Hither and thither in the slow, soft tide,
226 Rolled seaward, shoreward, sands and wandering shells
227And shifting weeds thy fellows, thou didst hide
228 Remote from all farewells,
229Nor felt the sun, nor heard the fleeting rain,
230Nor heeded Casa Magni's quenchless pain.
XXIV
231Thou heedest not? Nay, for it was not thou,
232 That blind, mute clay relinquished by the waves
233Reluctantly at last, and slumbering now
234 In one of kind earth's most compassionate graves!
235Not thou, not thou, -- for thou wert in the light
236 Of the Unspeakable, where time is not.
237Thou sawest those tears; but in thy perfect sight
238 And thy eternal thought
239Were they not even now all wiped away
240In the reunion of the infinite day!
XXV
241There face to face thou sawest the living God
242 And worshippedst, beholding Him the same
243Adored on earth as Love, the same whose rod
244 Thou hadst endured as Life, whose secret name
245Thou now didst learn, the healing name of Death.
246 In that unroutable profound of peace,
247Beyond experience of pulse and breath,
248 Beyond the last release
249Of longing, rose to greet thee all the lords
250Of Thought, with consummation in their words:
XXVI
251He of the seven cities claimed, whose eyes,
252 Though blind, saw gods and heroes, and the fall
253Of Ilium, and many alien skies,
254 And Circe's Isle; and he whom mortals call
255The Thunderous, who sang the Titan bound
256 As thou the Titan victor; the benign
257Spirit of Plato; Job; and Judah's crowned
258 Singer and seer divine;
259Omar; the Tuscan; Milton, vast and strong;
260And Shakespeare, captain of the host of Song.
XXVII
261Back from the underworld of whelming change
262 To the wide-glittering beach thy body came;
263And thou didst contemplate with wonder strange
264 And curious regard thy kindred flame,
265Fed sweet with frankincense and wine and salt,
266 With fierce purgation search thee, soon resolving
267Thee to the elements of the airy vault
268 And the far spheres revolving,
269The common waters, the familiar woods,
270And the great hills' inviolate solitudes.
XXVIII
271Thy close companions there officiated
272 With solemn mourning and with mindful tears, --
273The pained, imperious wanderer unmated
274 Who voiced the wrath of those rebellious years;
275Trelawney, lion-limbed and high of heart;
276 And he, that gentlest sage and friend most true,
277Whom Adonais loved. With these bore part
278 One grieving ghost, that flew
279Hither and thither through the smoke unstirred
280In wailing semblance of a wild white bird.
XXIX
281O heart of fire, that fire might not consume,
282 Forever glad the world because of thee;
283Because of thee forever eyes illume
284 A more enchanted earth, a lovelier sea!
285O poignant voice of the desire of life,
286 Piercing our lethargy, because thy call
287Aroused our spirits to a nobler strife
288 Where base and sordid fall,
289Forever past the conflict and the pain
290More clearly beams the goal we shall attain!
XXX
291And now once more, O marshes, back to you
292 From whatsoever wanderings, near or far,
293To you I turn with joy forever new,
294 To you, O sovereign vests of Tantramar!
295Your tides are at the full. Your wizard flood,
296 With every tribute stream and brimming creek,
297Ponders, possessor of the utmost good,
298 With no more left to seek, --
299But the hour wanes and passes; and once more
300Resounds the ebb with destiny in its roar.
XXXI
301So might some lord of men, whom force and fate
302 And his great heart's unvanquishable power
303Have thrust with storm to his supreme estate,
304 Ascend by night his solitary tower
305High o'er the city's lights and cries uplift.
306 Silent he ponders the scrolled heaven to read
307And the keen stars' conflicting message sift,
308 Till the slow signs recede,
309And ominously scarlet dawns afar
310The day he leads his legions forth to war.
Notes
1] Tantramar: a river flowing by Sackville, and a saltwater tidal marsh on the isthmus connecting New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The name is from the French tintamarre, `din' (from the sound of the tide rushing in and out; see 52).
39] bobolink: American songbird.
41] marsh-hawk: native to the Tantramar marshes.
42] sand-pipers: shorebirds.
44] vetches: climber plants.
62] Fundy: the Bay of Fundy, south of New Brunswick, has extremely powerful tides.
63] Minudie: Nova Scotia village across the Bay of Fundy from New Brunswick.
64] Chignecto: Chignecto Bay is the northeastern arm of the Bay of Fundy.
65] refluent: flowing back.
70] Beauséjour: a fort near the border of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Tormentine: the cape on the eastern end of New Brunswick.
103] Shelley: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822).
130] Dante: Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet and author of the Divina Commedia.
136] in exile: Oxford University expelled Shelley in 1811 for writing a pamphlet on atheism.
140] Isis: the river running through Oxford that becomes the Thames below Oxford.
142] Alastor: Shelley published on poem with this title in 1816.
147] Reuss and Rhine: two rivers originating in Switzerland and running through Europe.
151-57] Cf. Shelley's poems "To a Skylark," "The Cloud," and "Ode to the West Wind."
152] Protean: as Proteus, the sea-god who tended Poseidon's flocks and took many forms.
159] Arnos: river in Italy.
164] the great Titan: Shelley wrote "Prometheus Unbound" about this Titan, whom Zeus chained and tortured for stealing fire from Olympus and giving it to man.
171] Baths of Caracalla: initiated by Septimius Severus, opened by his son Caracalla in 217, and still found in ruins in Rome on the Via Antonina.
181] Pisa: Italian city on the Arno river, famous for its leaning tower.
182] ilexes: south European evergreen oak.
183] San Giuliano: San Giuliano Terme, a spa about 8 km from Pisa.
184] aziola: little owl.
185] Serchio: river north of Pisa.
186] Plato: Greek philosopher, died 347 B.C..
188] psalm: an allusion to Shelley's poem "Epipsychidion".
203] Adonais: the title of Shelley's elegy on the death of John Keats (1795-1821), and his name for Keats.
211-13] Lerici: Shelley drowned in the gulf of Spezzia on his way to his villa (Casa Magni; line 229) near Lerici.
234] Shelley is buried in the Protestant cemetery in Rome, along with Keats.
253] Ilium: Troy, whose fall was told by Homer, the blind poet referred to at line 250.
254] Circe's Isle: Aeaea.
255] The Thunderous: Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.), Greek dramatist of Prometheus Bound.
257] Job: Biblical figure whom God permits Satan to test.
Judah's crowned: King David.
259] Omar: see Edward Fitzgerald's "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam."
the Tuscan: Dante Alighieri.
Milton: John Milton, the English epic poet of Paradise Lost.
275] Trelawney: one of Shelley's friends, E. J. Trelawney, managed the cremation of Shelley's body on the beach where he had been at first buried in quicklime, and the burial of his ashes in Rome.
278] ghost: perhaps Keats.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Selected Poems of Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (Toronto: Ryerson, 1936): 23-31. PS 8485 O22A17 Robarts Library.
Publication date note: Ave (Toronto: Williamson, 1892; PS 8485 .O22A9 Robarts Library)
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/3
Composition date:
1892
Rhyme: ababcdcdee
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