The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore Collected by Himself. In Ten Volumes |
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 | The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore |  |
137
FRAGMENT OF A MYTHOLOGICAL HYMN TO LOVE.
Blest infant of eternity!
Before the day-star learn'd to move,
In pomp of fire, along his grand career,
Glancing the beamy shafts of light
From his rich quiver to the farthest sphere,
Thou wert alone, oh Love!
Nestling beneath the wings of ancient Night,
Whose horrors seem'd to smile in shadowing thee.
Before the day-star learn'd to move,
In pomp of fire, along his grand career,
Glancing the beamy shafts of light
From his rich quiver to the farthest sphere,
Thou wert alone, oh Love!
Nestling beneath the wings of ancient Night,
Whose horrors seem'd to smile in shadowing thee.
138
No form of beauty sooth'd thine eye,
As through the dim expanse it wander'd wide;
No kindred spirit caught thy sigh,
As o'er the watery waste it lingering died.
As through the dim expanse it wander'd wide;
No kindred spirit caught thy sigh,
As o'er the watery waste it lingering died.
Unfelt the pulse, unknown the power,
That latent in his heart was sleeping,—
Oh Sympathy! that lonely hour
Saw Love himself thy absence weeping.
That latent in his heart was sleeping,—
Oh Sympathy! that lonely hour
Saw Love himself thy absence weeping.
But look, what glory through the darkness beams!
Celestial airs along the water glide:—
What Spirit art thou, moving o'er the tide
So beautiful? oh, not of earth,
But, in that glowing hour, the birth
Of the young Godhead's own creative dreams.
'Tis she!
Psyche, the firstborn spirit of the air.
To thee, oh Love, she turns,
On thee her eyebeam burns:
Blest hour, before all worlds ordain'd to be!
They meet—
The blooming god—the spirit fair
Meet in communion sweet.
Now, Sympathy, the hour is thine;
All nature feels the thrill divine,
The veil of Chaos is withdrawn,
And their first kiss is great Creation's dawn!
Celestial airs along the water glide:—
What Spirit art thou, moving o'er the tide
So beautiful? oh, not of earth,
But, in that glowing hour, the birth
Of the young Godhead's own creative dreams.
'Tis she!
Psyche, the firstborn spirit of the air.
To thee, oh Love, she turns,
On thee her eyebeam burns:
Blest hour, before all worlds ordain'd to be!
They meet—
The blooming god—the spirit fair
Meet in communion sweet.
139
All nature feels the thrill divine,
The veil of Chaos is withdrawn,
And their first kiss is great Creation's dawn!
Love and Psyche are here considered as the active and passive principles of creation, and the universe is supposed to have received its first harmonizing impulse from the nuptial sympathy between these two powers. A marriage is generally the first step in cosmogony. Timæus held Form to be the father, and Matter the mother of the World; Elion and Berouth, I think, are Sanchoniatho's first spiritual lovers, and Manco-capac and his wife introduced creation amongst the Peruvians. In short, Harlequin seems to have studied cosmogonies, when he said “tutto il mondo è fatto come la nostra famiglia.”
| The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore | |