Madmoments: or First Verseattempts :: :: University of Virginia Library

How few Life's Elements have learnt to blend
In their real Harmony; how few possess
The true Accord, the Keynote, without which
The Music still must sleep, as if't were not.
Coarseminded, skillless Players we rush o'er
The mystic keys, wherein the deep Spell lies
So simple yet so deep, and by a Stress

Of meaningless, accumulated Notes
Crowded for Eareffect and vain Display
Of brute, mechanic knowledge, we call forth
A Crash of illdistinguished Notes, which take
The Sense by Storm, yet reach not to the Heart.
For Power lies not in Force or Number, but
In Fitness and Simplicity, and he,
The one true Artist, he whose outward Ear
Takes Rule and Measure from within, knows that
The calm, deep Music of Humanity,
Of Heart and Soul, its Power te exalt,
Refine, and soothe, lies far below this Crash
Of earoffending, surfacelying Noise,
In a few simple but soulthrilling Notes,
A few selfblent Accords, which but just touched
Start into Harmony—but these the Hand,
The soulimpellëd Touch alone can wake;
And this sweet Music of the Soul, which dwells
Within it, as within the seaborn Shell
Echos and mighty Murmurings, which speak
Of the allchangeless Ocean, tho' that Shell
Be long sourcesevered, dwelling haply where
The Name of Ocean is an idle Word,
Calling up no high Thoughts of Beauty, Might,
And everduring Majesty, so in
The Soul, tho' to the inward Ear alone,
Like Music dwells, when in a blessed Mood
Our Faculties grow ample and serene;
Mysterious Echos from another World,
Sounds as of mighty Waters heard afar,
Of that same Springheadocean whence all Powers
And Faculties of Spirit flow, return
And tend; but this sweet Music to the World's
Dull, drowsy Ear is all too pure and deep;
As little felt as the Sphereharmony
Of yon bright Stars, when in their mystic Rounds

Their multifarious orbs are rolled along
As noiselessly as Thoughts thro' God's own Mind,
Whose Thoughts are Worlds and Suns—

—With the Ellwand
Of weekday Forms and Customs would the World
Measure celestial Things, and thus the Mind
Not modelled to its Fashion, must submit
To be a Scorn and Jest to those who toil
Along the dusty Highway which the Feet
Of servile Generations have marked out;
Or if it dare to leave this beaten Track,
The Smoke and Stir of Mammon, for the calm
And lovely Paths of Nature, the green Fields,
The musicflowing Streams, and sunny Hills
That spread on either Hand, and mould itself
By the sweet Access of all natural Forms,
And Shapes and Sounds, unto a truer Life,
It is a crying Sin, and not forgot
When, in its Pharasaic Mood, the World
Preaches its loud Damnation against those
Who dare to think and act as natural Beings!
Yea! a Man's Conduct may be allcondemned
When by the narrow and Halfwisdom of
The World 'tis measured: his best Actions too
Will seem alldisproportioned and distort
When laid upon the Procrustean Bed
Of Prejudice, and lopp'd of their most fair
And grand Proportions, until thus reduced
To Custom's wretched Compass, or stretched out
In uncouth Monstershapes to suit his false
Distorted Standard, but there is an hight-
Er, fuller Wisdom than that of the World,
An ampler Scope: a System of more full,
More catholic and sublime Sympathies,
Higher Relations, which complete the Links
Of Being from the smallest Worm that crawls,

Yea! up to God's own Throne: and judged by these
His Actions will be haply found in true
And godlike Keeping with the wider Scope
And ampler Movement of this higher Sphere,
This nobler System: with the mighty Whole
Of that same Nature which we comprehend
Only by Breaks and Snatches 'till we are
Alive in Soul: 'till we be truly grown
Parts of that mighty Whole, and sympathize
Like healthy Members with the Universe!
Here, in this World, its narrow Wisdom's Reach
We oft o'erstep when we but venture o'er
The Boundmark of its Forms and Prejudices:
And yet it is precisely then we step
Abroad into the glorious Realm of Truth,
Of God, of Nature, and of Liberty:
'Tis then first we possess that which we have
Of Valuablest, Inalienablest,
Ourselves! for then we are all that we have,
For what we are not cannot be called ours;

In our ownselves possessing our own Souls,
And living in our God, a Part of him,
An Emanation from him, e'en as Light
Is of the Sun! quickened, and in our Turn
Quickening these fleeting Forms of mortal Life:
'Tis then that we commence the Life of Soul,
Alive in the true Sense, to all of Grand,
Of Beautiful in Nature, Man and Art;
Rays which tho' falling in a thousand Modes
On an Infinitude of diverse Forms
With Rainbowlight, yet flow from one sole Source,
Th' enduring True and Good! nor do we feel
These Beauties with a Heart, that watchlike, beats
Sixty Pulsations in a Moment's Space,
Under the dead, mechanic Forms and Modes
Of an Existence modelled upon Rule

Like a Machine, but with a holy Gush
Of allpervading Love, which clasps all Forms
Of mortal Being, and which makes our Heart
A Pulse harmonious in Nature's vast
And allembracing Bosom, yea! in God's!