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The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems — Text and Context

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Authors: Allston, Washington, 1779-1843 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2004 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: American poetry Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 18,828

Reading time 82 min

Text sections 20

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Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “American poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #11059

Washington Allston's 1813 collection pairs a prefatory defense of season-specific imagery with poems that blend Romantic nature observation, satirical attacks on materialism and skepticism, and sonnets on Old Master paintings. The excerpts reveal a poet more concerned with moral and aesthetic argument than with sylphs or seasonal description.

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Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
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File: pg11059

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That had a World within his mind, Where every treasure he may find, And joys that never die!

One night, my task diurnal done, (For I had travell'd with the Sun O'er burning sands, o'er snows) Fatigued, I sought the couch of rest; My wonted pray'r to Heaven address'd; But scarce had I my pillow press'd When thus a vision rose.

Methought within a desert cave, Cold, dark, and solemn as the grave, I suddenly awoke. It seem'd of sable Night the cell, Where, save when from the ceiling fell An oozing drop, her silent spell No sound had ever broke.

There motionless I stood alone, Like some strange monument of stone Upon a barren wild; Or like, (so solid and profound The darkness seem'd that wall'd me round) A man that's buried under ground, Where pyramids are pil'd.

Thus fix'd, a dreadful hour I past, And now I heard, as from a blast, A voice pronounce my name: Nor long upon my ear it dwelt, When round me 'gan the air to melt. And motion once again I felt Quick circling o'er my frame.

Again it call'd; and then a ray, That seem'd a gushing fount of day, Across the cavern stream'd. Half struck with terror and delight, I hail'd the little blessed light, And follow'd 'till my aching sight An orb of darkness seem'd.

Nor long I felt the blinding pain; For soon upon a mountain plain I gaz'd with wonder new. There high a castle rear'd its head; And far below a region spread, Where every Season seem'd to shed Its own peculiar hue.

Now at the castle's massy gate, Like one that's blindly urged by fate, A bugle-horn I blew. The mountain-plain it shook around, The vales return'd a hollow sound, And, moving with a sigh profound. The portals open flew.

Then ent'ring, from a glittering hall I heard a voice seraphic call, That bade me "ever reign, All hail!" it said in accent wild, "For thou art Nature's chosen child, Whom wealth nor blood has e'er defil'd, Hail, Lord of this Domain!"

And now I paced a bright saloon, That seem'd illumin'd by the moon, So mellow was the light. The walls with jetty darkness teem'd, While down them chrystal columns streamed, And each a mountain torrent seem'd. High-flashing through the night.

Rear'd in the midst, a double throne. Like burnish'd cloud of evening shone; While, group'd the base around, Four Damsels stood of Faery race; Who, turning each with heavenly grace Upon me her immortal face, Transfix'd me to the ground.

And _thus_ the foremost of the tram: Be thine the throne, and thine to reign O'er all the varying year! But ere thou rulest the Fates command; That of our chosen rival band A Sylph shall win thy heart and hand, Thy sovereignty to share.

For we, the sisters of a birth, Do rule by turns the subject earth To serve ungrateful man; But since our varied toils impart No joy to his capricious heart, 'Tis now ordain'd that human art Shall rectify the plan.

Then spake the Sylph of Spring serene, 'Tis _I_ thy joyous heart I ween, With sympathy shall move: For I with living melody Of birds in choral symphony, First wak'd thy soul to poesy, To piety and love.

When thou, at call of vernal breeze, And beck'ning bough of budding trees, Hast left thy sullen fire; And stretch'd thee in some mossy dell. And heard the browsing wether's bell, Blythe echoes rousing from their cell To swell the tinkling quire:

Or heard from branch of flow'ring thorn The song of friendly cuckoo warn The tardy-moving swain; Hast bid the purple swallow hail; And seen him now through ether sail, Now sweeping downward o'er the vale. And skimming now the plain;

Then, catching with a sudden glance The bright and silver-clear expanse Of some broad river's stream. Beheld the boats adown it glide, And motion wind again the tide, Where, chain'd in ice by Winter's pride, Late roll'd the heavy team:

Or, lur'd by some fresh-scented gale, That woo'd the moored fisher's sail To tempt the mighty main, Hast watch'd the dim receding shore, Now faintly seen the ocean o'er, Like hanging cloud, and now no more To bound the sapphire plain;

Then, wrapt in night the scudding bark, (That seem'd, self-pois'd amid the dark, Through upper air to leap,) Beheld, from thy most fearful height, Beneath the dolphin's azure light Cleave, like a living meteor bright, The darkness of the deep:

'Twas mine the warm, awak'ning hand That made thy grateful heart expand, And feel the high control Of Him, the mighty Power, that moves Amid the waters and the groves, And through his vast creation proves His omnipresent soul.

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Washington Allston opens The Sylphs of the Seasons with a prefatory note that is less a poem than a prose defense of his method. He argues that certain images—a running brook for spring, a placid lake for summer, an evening cloud for autumn—are not exclusive to those seasons but are most affecting then, due to the mind's disposition. This insistence on psychological impression over literal accuracy sets the tone for a collection that often subordinates natural description to moral and aesthetic argument.

The catalog subject is “American poetry,” but the excerpts show a poet deeply engaged with European painting (sonnets on Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt) and with philosophical satire. The title poem itself is barely glimpsed; instead, the longest excerpt is a dense, Popean satire on materialism, skepticism, and intellectual vanity.

A Poet's Apology for His Method

Allston’s prefatory note is unusually defensive. He anticipates objections that his seasonal images are “not wholly peculiar” and justifies each choice by the “season of their greatest impression.” For spring, the running brook conveys “that spirit of renovation”; for summer, the placid lake offers “repose”; for autumn, the evening cloud mirrors the mind’s turn toward transience. This is not a claim of novelty but of affective accuracy. The note reveals a poet who thinks like a painter—concerned with how an image strikes the viewer—and who expects a critical audience. The defense is itself a small essay on the psychology of perception, and it frames the poems that follow as deliberate compositions rather than spontaneous effusions.

Satire as Moral Weapon

The longest excerpt is a satirical passage in heroic couplets, targeting “the slave of Mammon,” modern sophists, and “half sceptic” philosophers. Allston’s targets include those who “gather truth to manufacture lies” and who “a mighty something out of nothing build.” The verse is Popean in its compression and moral outrage: “Oh, reas'ning worm! who questions thus of Him / That lives in all, and moves in every limb.” The satire extends to physical caricature—a “dwarf, of visage pale and wan” with “shrivell'd skin”—and to the absurdity of those who “would rather live a lie than live unknown.” This is not the delicate sylph-poetry the title promises; it is a combative, intellectual poem that uses nature imagery only as a foil for human folly.

Painting and the Poetic Eye

Several sonnets in the collection address specific works of art: Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, Raphael’s Three Angels before Abraham, Tibaldi’s Æolus, and Rembrandt’s Jacob’s Dream. Allston was himself a painter, and these sonnets are ekphrastic exercises that treat the paintings as occasions for moral or spiritual reflection. The sonnet on Rembrandt, for instance, is “occasioned by his Picture of Jacob’s Dream,” linking the painter’s chiaroscuro to the biblical theme of divine encounter. This dual identity as poet-painter gives the collection a distinctive texture: the seasonal poem is framed by painterly concerns, and the satires are punctuated by meditations on visual art. Readers interested in the intersection of Romantic poetry and painting will find these sonnets particularly revealing.

The excerpts suggest that The Sylphs of the Seasons is less a unified cycle than a miscellany held together by a single authorial voice—moralistic, learned, and visually acute. Readers should approach the title poem with the prefatory note in hand, and expect the satires to dominate the collection’s intellectual energy. The sonnets on paintings offer a separate, quieter pleasure. The catalog subject “American poetry” is accurate but narrow; Allston’s influences and concerns are transatlantic, rooted in neoclassical satire and European art.

There's a particular drift in reading Allston—his seasons seem less about weather than about the weight of attention itself. I found myself thinking of that quiet hush while paging through Sleep-Book Some of the Poetry of Slumber — Reading Notes, where the same unhurried watchfulness settles over each line. It felt less like scholarship, more like remembering something I’d once known.