From Sunset Ridge :: :: University of Virginia Library

Of all the workings of the Law Divine,
Privation is most wearily outworn;
Harder than wounds that bleed, or pangs that tear,
'T is Life's high treason—generous Hope forsworn.

In want is woe and sad vacuity,
'T is Aspiration doubting of its crown;
Yet who that ever panted in th' ascent
Would sit to rest, or turn to cast him down?

To him who presses on, at each degree
New visions rise, beyond the dim unseen;
Soon happier love, soon nearer hope shall come,
And only this slow suffering lies between.

Some men have wrung strange glory from the cloud
That was a prison to their loneliness;
And, feeding other hearts with rare delight,
Kept for themselves their hunger and distress.

The blind majestic bard, whose tearless eyes
Were patient in the weariness of night;

And one, his brother in a kindred art,
Bereft of melody, as he of light;

Fruition was not for them to the sense—
The world for one, for one the swelling tone;
“We work—” they said, and in high toil abode,
And “we have wrought!” they uttered, and passed on.

My Milton! thou whose holy heart forbore
The doubtful rite of uncongenial shrines,
But gave the perfect tribute of its faith,
Before thee now the true Shekinah shines.

Seeking a nearer moral for my song,
I find two poets of the latter days,
Branded by Nature with the fatal gift,
Pilgrims from birth, but in divergent ways.

This rode his blood's high mettle to the full,
Goading satiety with unblest wine;
This to a meeker measure moved along,
Palm-heralded, as Christ in Palestine.

This, like a meteor, streamed abroad in air,—
This, like a star, abode in distant light;
The one scared noonday with his crimson glare,
The other was the beacon-guide of night.

The one with lordly gesture trod the earth,
Gathering all pleasure, innocent or ill;
The other bared his reverend brow to heav'n,
And gleaned from Nature with a sober will.

The one awoke the echoes of the Past,
Those sacred voices of the marble halls,
And bade them bear a demon-strophe wild
To mock, afar, his gray ancestral walls.

The other was penurious of his days
In those fair hills, beneath that friendly heaven;
His were the deep, synthetic harmonies,
The joy of task and recompense God-given.

One in a wild convulsion ceased to be,
And if he went to bane or bliss, none knew;
The other stood, serenely crowned with age,
And steadfast passed to God, if God be true.

Oh! at the Muse-crowned temple of the one,
And at the other's lonely sepulchre,
Pause thou, my soul, and ponder deeply thence
The paths of Fate, and choosing, dare not err!

Hast thou the high, heroic heart to walk,
Or wait, receptive of the distant tone!
Or wouldst thou sit to revel, and crush out
Lifeblood of others, mingled with thine own?

Wilt thou rest guardian of these simpler loves,
Leading the dull, the passionless, the weak?
Or, desperate, rush to Lido's charmèd shore,
To fling wild kisses on a hireling's cheek?

Oh! treasured in the hand that cannot fail
Let thy poor life through want and waiting lie,
Radiant in anguish, comforted of tears,
If the deep voice but whisper: It is I.