University of Virginia Library

Of Mind, and its mysterious agencies,
And most of all, its high creative power,
In fashioning the elements of things
To loftier images than have on earth
Or in the sky their home,—that come to us
In the still visitation of a dream,
Or rise in light before us when we muse,
Or at the bidding of the mightier take
Fixed residence in fitly-sounding verse,
Or on the glowing canvas, or in shapes
Hewn from the living rock:—of these, and all
That wake in us our better thoughts, and lead
The spirit to the enduring and sublime,
It is my purpose now to hold awhile
Seemly discourse, and with befitting words
Clothe the conceptions I have sought to frame.

There are, diffused through nature, certain Forms,
That ever hold dominion o'er the Mind,
And with an awful or a pleasing power
Control it to their bidding. Life may change
In its perpetual round; Manners may take
All fashions and devices, putting on
Greater variety of antic shapes,
Than Puck or Proteus; but with an eternal
And ever-constant unity, they keep
Their stations and their aspects. Whether high,
Or simply fair, mighty, or only turned
To elegant minuteness, still they stand
On the wide forehead of the Universe,
As undecaying as its suns and stars,
As bright, and as divine. The willing soul
Bows to them with an adoration pure
And unalloyed by aught that can defile
Or darken. No mean interest hath a place
In the still worship offered up to them,
Whether we meet them in the vaulted sky
Or the invisible air, or see them round us,
Creatures of earth, as we are, but informed
With this unquestioned title to command
The heart's obedience. Hence in every age
Men have been devotees unto their shrine;
And they have stood erect, when all beside
Went to the ground in ruin; or if fallen
In some convulsion, when a starless night
Clouded the nations, they have risen again
With the first touch of dawn, and as they came
Into the light of day, man's orisons
Were first to them directed,—all his awe
And love and silent wonder planted there,
As if they were the centre of his soul,
The point to which his passions and desires
Bent as unto their lode-star. These are they
To which the generous spirit ever turns,
When he is kindled by the holy fire
From off the eternal altar, and has caught
Unwearied longing for the blest abode
Of all departed greatness. When he rises
To the conception of enduring fame,
And has revealed before the keener eye
Of his most inward sense the great and fair,
The beautiful and lofty,—then his vows
Are paid to these alone;—no other power
Can claim his high devotion, none can awe
His fearless will, nor steal upon his heart
With an inviting smile,—his eye is dim,
His ear untuned, his every feeling dull
To aught beside,—nothing can charm him then,
That breathes not this pure essence,—nothing draw
His love, nor kindle hope,—the nicest work
Of Art without the impress of these forms
Can fix no wandering glance,—no linked sounds
Of most elaborate music, if they flow not,
With ready lapse, from this perpetual fount
Of all blest harmony, can soothe his ear
Even to a moment's listening;—all to him
Is jarring and discordant, if it tell not
Of these enduring forms, that have no change.

They are but one with Truth;—only that Truth
Comes to us with a slow and doubtful step,
Measuring the ground she treads on, and for ever
Turning her curious eye to see that all
Is right behind, and with a keen survey
Choosing her onward path. But these, which are
Lords of the Heart, as she is of the Mind
In its pure reason,—these at once approach,
And with their outstretched pennons overshadow
The willing soul. We look abroad on earth
And heaven,—we see the glories of the day,
And night's more tranquil glories,—we look down
From some uplifted pinnacle, and gaze
On waving woods and ever-varying shapes
Of hill and level,—we behold the sea
Working in ceaseless undulation, while
Its never-wearied voice sends up to Heaven
Its one eternal hymn,—we stand and look,
Shuddering, down to the gulf, where leaps the river
With all its wealth of waves, and through the night
Of the profound catch only now and then
A flash of foam,—we listen to the sound
Of its unwasting din, and feel the earth
Shake where we tread,—and as we look, we tremble,
And know at once the mighty and the vast
That dwell around us. Like the revelation
Of centuries and ages yet to come,
That in the moment of a hallowed dream
Startle the prophet's eye, so the sublime
Strikes instant on the heart. 'T is but to look,
And all is felt and known,—and he who then
Is equal to the burden may be filled
With the conceptions of a loftier vision
Than poet ever sung, or painter drew,
And yet find all his efforts to portray
The thoughts that fill him, like the faint endeavor
To throw off from his laboring heart the weight
Of an oppressive dream. Much has been thrown
On living canvas,—much been cast abroad
In words of loftiest import,—much been framed
By plastic hands to shapes of awe and wonder;
But nothing ever bodied out the soul
In its most daring flight. The eagle soars not
Above the highest clouds; and when at sunset
The sky is full of fiery shapes, that lie
Filling the half of heaven, there are that catch
The sun's last smile, too high for any wing
To fly to,—but they are the loveliest
And brightest;—so the visions of the soul
Are often higher than the boldest leap
Of Execution, who with vain attempt
Lags far behind the rapid lightning-glance
Of quick Conception. Hence there may have been
Poets who never framed a show of words
From out the busy workings of their brain,
And who in solitude and loneliness
Communed with all sublimity, and played
With every shape of beauty, and yet never
Put forth one visible sign to tell the world
How much they felt and knew. And some there are
Whose minds are like a treasure-house of art,
Full of such pictures as an Agnolo
Would summon forth in vain,—faces that breathe
All passion and all pride, and attitudes
All might and force, all loveliness and love;
Shrinking from sight, and with beseeching art
Kneeling before their fond idolatry;
Or shrouded in inherent majesty,
And wrapped about with mystery as with clouds,
Looking a soul of high command, beneath
Portending brows, where terror sits, and scorn
Of every meaner thing. Yes, there are minds
Who know not even the names of these high arts,
And yet have all their elements and powers;
The imagination, wonder, love, and awe,
Awe silent, deep, and wonder proud and high,
And love tender and glowing, and a wealth
Of bright creations, richer than the west,
When, at the hour of setting, overcast
With every shape of air. Then who shall say,
That Poetry consists in ordered verse,
And Painting in the rules of light and shade,
And measured tint, and shapes exact and true?
Who would not rather own, these are but aids
To give a higher charm to what alone
Is all attractive? If the unchanging forms
Of greatness or of beauty fill the page
Or canvas, little care we, if all art
Is centred there. We see them, and we pay
Due homage, and in doing this, we own
There is one beautiful, and only one,
One great, one true. Hence there are bards, who lived
So early, that their very lives are fable,
Whose rhapsodies and songs have come to us
From ages of which history has no record,
And yet are read with the same eagerness
As when they first were sung. Eternal youth
Is round them. Like the never-fading bay,
They flourish in a green old age, and go
Forward, with step as firm, and brow as high,
To the last consummation, as at first
They charmed the listening crowd in chieftain's hall,
Or after battle in the tented field,
Or when at night they sat beneath the moon,
The round, full moon, and o'er the Ægean sailed,
Keeping due time, with balanced oars, to sounds
Of minstrel music. Though a chosen few
Alone can read the ancient words, that seem
Like magic letters to the common eye;
Yet in the humble garb of common prose,
Or in the guise of more ambitious verse;
Bereft of all their sounding harmony,
Or hidden by a load of modern art,
Unseemly ornament, and fitted ill
To the simplicity of heroic times;—
Yet even through all these shadowings, every eye,
That hath a natural sense, can see the brightness
And beauty Time can never dim or fade.

And yet these are, for minds that have a share
In that imaginative opulence
Which gives a life to all created things,
The coldest and the dumbest. Not the crowd,
Who keep the gift of nature unperverted,
Through all the busy clamorings of want,
And all the needful cares of animal life,
The toils that comfort and necessity
Impose so quickly on us. Therefore they
Look not with transport on the enduring forms
Of an eternal nature. Not the whole
In its unchanging rest commands their eye,
But ever shifting circumstance alone
Sways them, and therefore what is falsely styled
By the great name of Life, the sacred name
Of the pure vital Being, calls alone
Their hearts to joy. They praise the ready hand
That imitates the imitative tricks
One from another borrows in the round
Of senseless ceremony and idle form;
And with their noisy plaudits cheer the voice
That gives an echo to the vapid jest
Of poor mechanic life, and wakes a laugh
Only because it comes upon their blank
And stolid dulness, like a farthing candle
Lighting a stifled vault. These have their day,
And well are they rewarded. What they give,
That they receive. They deal in common things,—
They tell the vulgar, be they high or low,
Just what they are; and for this, they may live
As richly vulgar as their wishes claim.

Not so the few, who earnestly have sought
To seat themselves on the far eminence
Where the eternal Geniuses are holding
Their intellectual court. Not so with them.
Their aim was not to catch the popular air.
They did not seek to spread their open wings
To such a fickle gale. They took their way
Beneath the guidance of a better star,
And with the heralding of better sounds
Than the cheap clamors of the common voice.
They formed their own conceptions, and with toil,
Long, earnest toil, they brought their laboring minds
To the high level of the fame they loved,
And then went boldly on. They were alone
In their endeavor. None to cheer them nigh;
None to speak favorable words of praise.
They charmed their solitude with lofty verse,
And made their hours of exile bright with song.
They had no comforter, and asked for none;
No help, for none they needed. Loneliness
Was their best good; it left them to themselves,
Kept out all vain intrusion, and around them
Spread silently an atmosphere of thought,
A Sabbath of devotion, such as never
Hallowed the twilight vaults of ancient minster,
Or filled with many prayers the hermit's cave.
It was the deep devotion of the mind
In all its powers, sending itself abroad
In search of every fair and blessed thing,
And with a winning charm enticing home
All to itself. They came at its command,
Trooping like summer clouds, when the wide air
Is thick with them, and every one is touched
By the full noon to a transparent brightness,
Like heaps of orient pearl. The kindled eye
Ran over them, as lightning sends its flash
Instant through all the billows of the storm,
And took the fairest, and at once they stood
In meet array, as if a temple rose,
Graced with the purest lines of Grecian art,
At the sweet touch of an Apollo's lyre.

But they are gone, and now are of the few,
Whose fame goes brightening on from age to age,
Taking allowed precedency of all
Who in their day were lauded by the crowd,
For motley jests, and tales of low intrigue,
And such entangled stories as they love,
Like riddles, to untie. These lived at ease,
Courting and courted; shaping all to suit
The ear of such as had the strings of favor
At their control; speaking smooth flatteries,
And with obsequious readiness commending
Their suit of wealth, not fame. The present day
Bounded their narrow aim. They cared for naught,
So they were wafted swimmingly along
The even tide. Opinions, none they sought,
But golden; and they recked not if oblivion
Seized them and all their deeds, when they had danced
Their merry life away, and death had come
To close their masquerade, and send them where
No laugh could reach them, and no goblet flow.
And such has been their fate,—for novelty
Is the fantastic sovereign of the train
Of their once high admirers. 'T is with them,
As with the imps of fortune. When they shine
Gaudy and glittering, they are then surrounded
By a whole swarm of such as are, like them,
The insects of a day; but when they lose
The polish of their plumes, and dark adversity
Hovers above them, like a boding owl,
Scared by the omen, all their summer friends
Fly to the shelter of a newer shade.
But the true champions of the undying strain,
That ever-sounding melody of Heaven,
Whose essence is eternally the same,—
These, as they had no favor from the world
Whose love is change, so they are still above it,
And ever mounting to a purer sky,
And a less clouded air, a clearer sun
Lights them, and fuller emanations flow
From their inherent brightness, so that they
Kindle with years, and catch from every age
Some new reflection of their glory, till
Like Deities they ride in the mid-heaven,
Commanding worship and forbidding doubt,
And with a sure compulsion leading us
To look upon them with becoming awe.

It were not difficult to say of them,
Theirs was the better choice, if all we knew
Were this their end. The generous love of fame!
There is no higher passion that can fill
The laboring breast. It hath a touch of Heaven;
And he who owns it is awhile refined
From the poor dross of earth, and then he shines
In Nature's purest ore. His thoughts are bent
From the base aim of mercenary life,
And, centred in the goal of his desires,
Bear the man upward, till he wears about him
The livery of honor, and the weeds
Of Mind's nobility, whose seal is stamped
In the true mint of Glory. If we knew
Only the first warm breathings after fame,
The strife to gain the lofty seat they hold,
While yet the heart was young, the spirit full
Of crowding fancies, and the vigorous arm
Ready to do the bidding of the will,
And do it bravely,—could we then behold him
Wearing his clustering honors with a grace
That showed he well deserved them, neither bowed
Beneath their weight, nor yet elate with pride,
But keeping on his even way, well knowing
They were his due, and so were but a part
Of his own state,—not as a mumming pageant
Worn for a moment's bravery, then cast off,
Like borrowed robes,—not as a player's crown,
Who struts awhile the King, and then retires
To revel with his menial,—but as things
Of high concernment, which with gentle bearing
He should assume, and with a household thrift
Closely retain;—could we then follow him
To his recess, and mark his holy musing,
The quick and sudden motion of his eye,
The working of his eloquent lips, the lines
Deep furrowed in his brow, the dexter hand
Armed for its toil, the other firmly clasped,
As if the earnest purpose of his will
Had set its token there,—had we then seen
How when his upward glance had caught the light,
That falls from Heaven, and the prophetic power
Descended on him, how his flying fingers
Ran o'er the page, giving to fleeting thoughts
A soul and form, and coining words of might,
Such as shall ever hold mysterious power
Over the listening world;—could we then leap
Athwart the desolate gulf, wherein he sank,
When the loud burst of curious novelty
Had died away,—when all his noblest doings
Were as a twice-told tale,—when but to say,
This thing is Tasso's, were enough to damn it,
And call from some low scribbler high remarks,
How he had fallen away,—how he had then
Lost his first fire and finish,—lost the beauty
And all the sweetness of his earlier strains,—
How, when he scorned to be the drudge of princes,
And do their bidding for a scanty dole,
When he preferred to follow out the path
He had begun so nobly, to the toil
That breaks the spirit, and unmans the heart,
By which some great man sought to bind him down
To be his client and his slave, and when
He found for this, and all that he had shed
Of light around his country's name, neglect
And bitterer taunts, and false upbraidings, telling
How he had thrown aside that good the state
And people pressed upon him, and had chosen
To wander forth in povery, and beg
His way from door to door, casting dishonor
On the high art he practised, and despite
On those who patiently, with kind intent,
Sought to befriend him warmly, but in vain,—
How, with a spirit that disdained to tell
His sorrows, or repel the insolent falsehoods
A cold world loaded him withal, and choosing
Rather to keep the freedom of his thoughts,
Than live a gilded bondsman, he retired
Silently to an unobserved retreat,
And there with lean and chilling poverty
Wrestled his way to death;—could we o'erleap
That interval of woe, and see him now
In his confirmed regality, the monarch
Of a whole host of worthies, like the star
Of Jove, who shows his golden front in heaven
First of the midnight train,—O, we would proudly
Pronounce his choice the happiest, and our yearnings
Would be to live and die and rule like him.

But these are only men. The glowing mind
Rich in unborrowed light,—the feeling heart,
Whose strings are moved by every breath of hope
And joy and fear,—the spirit, whose aspirings
Are after loftiest fame,—the vast desires
For knowledge and for power,—these cannot save
The man, who bears them deep within himself,
From the assaults of fortune. He has need,
Like other men, of comfort and of friends,
And most of all,—of love. Such men are made
To be most happy, or most miserable,
According as their life is turned to hope
Or to despair. Open the path of Fame
Brightly before them,—let their motives, toils,
Rewards, and honors be proportioned to them,
Filling the very compass of their powers,
And moving onward with an even flow,—
None are so happy,—none so full of hope,
So earnest in their labors, and so bent
To measure life by deeds, and not by years.
But set them on a path that they abhor,
Where every day tells them more sullenly,
They only toil to live, and live to toil,—
Where not a ray of hope falls on the dull
And joyless round of labor, ever turning
In the same fruitless circle,—not a motive
To bear them onward,—all their best desires
Lavished in bitterest regrets, their powers
Buried in cold obstruction, and their strength
Wasted in most laborious idleness,—
Bind them to such a slavish lot as this,
And they will wear their life away in sighs;
And if they plunge not in their deep despair
In some forbidden gulf of appetite,
Seeking to drown the keener sense of wrong
In the mere animal and grosser pleasures,
They will go sorrowing to an early grave,
Or in their madness rush before their time,
Unsummoned and unbidden, to their doom.

O, would that History had not to tell
The wrongs of those that now are reverenced
With a religious awe! Who would not change
The best estate that wealth or present power
Can lavish on the man, whose path has been
Ever ascending, and that easily,
As if it were a pastime to be great
In the world's way,—who would not change it all,
To wear the crown of Milton or of Dante,
Spenser or Tasso? Who but must allow
The meanness of his spirit, and confess
He has no feeling of the stirring hope
That sends us after fame. And yet 't is painful
To think how these were left to pine away
A sad old age, and sink into a grave,
Unwept, unhonored;—how the Bard of Heaven,
Who could not plume his wing for lower flight
Than its empyreal towers,—how he decayed,
Blind, lonely, poor, the prey of slow disease,
And harsh neglect, that eat with keener tooth
Into his generous heart,—how he retired
Into a dark retreat, that he might shun
The sentence of outlawry from a king,
Who played the fool and vice upon his throne,
Making one half his people fools like him,
And on the rest slipping the dogs of war;—
How Dante, who with his capacious mind
Mastered his age, and held the golden key
Of all its wisdom,—he who equally
Sang of the bliss of Heaven, the woe of Hell,
Groping through the dim caves of Erebus,
And winding up the penitential mount,
Then soaring through the widening orbs of Heaven
Up to the Holiest,—how his native Florence,
His dear, ungrateful Florence, thrust him out,
And on him closed her ponderous iron doors,
Barring to the last moment all return,
And with a stern and savage cruelty
Chasing him in his exile, till they left
No pillow for his head, no dying pillow,
Where he might find an instant of repose,
Even for his last confession,—how he went
Sadly from court to court, seeking a shelter,
And, all too bold and free to please the ear
Of princes, or command the turbulent crowd,
How, after many wanderings, he found
'T was hard to climb another's stair, and bitter
To eat another's bread, and leaving this,
His only legacy, went to his grave
Willingly, as a laborer to his couch,
Seeking in death the kindness he had never
Found in his home,—thus telling to the world,
How desolate and cold the height of fame.
Nor can we think with less indignant sorrow,
How Tasso, full of tenderness and love,
The worshipper of beauty, with a heart
Framed to all gentleness and elegance,
Whose very words were music, and whose thoughts
Were all of hope and joy,—how he was doomed
To wear the maniac's chain, and keep account
Of the long, lingering hours, and days, and years,
Within the narrow compass of his cell,
Feeding at times his heart on dreams of love,
And visions of bright honor, then upbraiding
The dark barbarian who had bound him there,
Till reason went indeed, and his high soul
Raved in distempered conference with spirits,
For even his madness was sublime, and took
Its color from the mind that wrought the web
Of love and war;—how Spenser sued in vain,
At the deaf ears of courtiers, for a boon,
Only a pittance of the fair estate
Rent from him by the hand of violence,—
How, when through long entreaty, which had bowed
His better spirit, though it proudly scorned
To play the beggar's part, his queen had deigned
To give a scanty dole, the unfeeling Burleigh
Withheld it, even in his extremity,
Withheld it, though it might have given his heart
A warmer fire, and helped to smooth for him
The passage to the grave;—O, it is painful,
To think the very chiefest of the mighty,
Heroes in song, as there are those in war,—
How they were made the butt and sport of fools,
Trampled and crushed by such as would have perished
Utterly, had not they asserted thus
An impious fame! O, 't is enough to deaden
All the fond hopes, the generous desires,
The emulous strivings of a heart awake
To high ambition, and with early glow
Bearing itself up the proud eminence
Of intellectual fame! Go on, fond youth,
While yet the charm is on thee, and the power
Of virtue is unquestioned,—let no thought
Of what may come disturb thee,—there is in thee
A buoyancy that can awhile sustain
The world's cold burden;—let this time of respite
Be filled up well, for it may give to thee
Fit leisure for attaining such a height
As after violence cannot wrench thee from.
Know too the high-strung hopes of youth impart
An energy and passion to the song
That they inspire. There may be nicer art,
And a more fitting harmony of sounds,
And words of better choice in riper strains;
But youth, and, much too often, hope is gone,—
At least the hope of greatness, and for this
Nothing is left, but what the erring light
Of a far-distant glory, or the call
Of instant need, can waken. Therefore seize
The undoubting moment, and may Heaven befriend thee,
And lead thee in the shadow of thy faith,
Nor quite desert thee, till the point is gained
When thou canst say, a victory is won,
That none should scorn.

But let us turn aside,
From thoughts so little kindred to the scope
Of our endeavor,—let us rather choose
A path that winds through a fair wilderness,
Where all the visible things are leaves and flowers,
Green leaves and sunny flowers, and all the air
Is ravishing with perfume and with song.
So let us to a feast of nectared sweets,
The banquet of celestial poesy,—
And while the hours permit us to enjoy
The blessed light of heaven, let us abroad,
And 'mid the graceful garniture of fields
Take our delighted way. Nor shall we lack
Companions to our revelry in air,
Or the still waters. Sounds shall go with us,
The voice of the light winds, the liquid lapse
Of sunny streams, and haply from the wood
A choir of tuneful birds, taking their last,
And not ungrateful, farewell of the shades
Where they have nestled and have plumed their young
In the gay season. If our thoughts incline
To a more gentle mood, we shall have friends
In the now fading boughs, and withered flowers.
They will have meanings for us, such as quell
Heart-stirring discontent, and hopes too high
For the mind's peace. They tell us of decay,
And lead us to the evening of our days,
Making life's darker shades familiar to us,
In no ungraceful guise, but shedding round them
A pensive beauty. Let us then abroad,
And in the open theatre of fields
And forests let us read the magic lines,
Where Spirit stamps on all inferior Being
Its essence and its power.

There is a life
In all things, so a gifted mind hath told
In most oracular verse,—and we may well
Forgive a heart, that could not brook the sight
Of any suffering thing, that he indulged
Such fond imaginings as gave to him
Companions wheresoe'er he took his way
Through hill or valley. He beheld himself
Surrounded by a multitude of friends,
Who with familiar faces welcomed him
In the blank desert; for the changing sky,
Cloudless, or overshadowed by all shapes,
That grow from air, the sun who walks at noon
Untended, and the lesser light that binds
Her brow with stars, and all her retinue
Of living lamps, had each a voice for him
Distinctly audible, though to other ears
They had no sound. The mountain, whose bald forehead
Looked o'er a host of hills, each compassing
A grassy vale, and in each vale a lake
Of crystalline waters, and a busy brook
Winding in ever-shifting light along
The daisy-tufted meadows, now asleep
In a smooth-mirrored pool, then all awake
To leap the cascade, and go hurriedly
Over the sparkling pebbles and bright sands,—
The mountain, and its train, had all for him
A welcome, and they uttered it with smiles
All the long summer, and they told to him
In winter such high mysteries, he learned
To speak a holier language, and his heart
Was ever haunted by a silent power,
In whose immediate presence he became
Thoughtful and calm;—and so his lofty faith,
Which some of poorer spirit have pronounced
A madness, was to him the quickening spring
Of Poesy, such as we cannot read
Without a sense of awe. Then wherefore doubt,
At least the gracious tendency of belief
So rich in comfort to the lonely mind,
That oftentimes finds all access denied
To the society of living men,
Perchance, of books? The captive, who may catch
Glimpses of nature through his dungeon bars,
If so persuaded, may have friends with him,
The livelong day: and in his darker hours,
The silver planet, or the many lights,
That keep their watch above him, or the clouds,
That lie so tranquilly on the far hills,
Will speak a meaning, that hath power to calm
His passionate soul, and lead him unto rest
Through a fair train of sadly pleasing dreams.

With such a gifted spirit, one may read
The open leaves of a philosophy,
Not reared from cold deduction, but descending,
A living spirit, from the purer shrine
Of a celestial reason. One is found
By slow and lingering search, and then requires
Close questioning of minutest circumstance,
To know it has the genuine stamp. The other
Is in us, as an instinct, where it lives
A part of us, we can as ill throw off
As bid the vital pulses cease to play,
And yet expect to live,—the spirit of life,
And hope, and elevation, and eternity,—
The fountain of all honor, all desire
After a higher and a better state,—
An influence so quickening, it imbues
All things we see with its own qualities,
And therefore Poetry, another name
For this innate Philosophy, so often
Gives life and body to invisible things,
And animates the insensible, diffusing
The feelings, passions, tendencies of man,
Through the whole range of being. Though on earth,
And most of all in living things, as birds
And flowers, in things that beautify, and fill
The air with harmony, and in the waters,
So full of change, so apt to elegance
Or power,—so tranquil when they lie at rest,
So sportive when they trip it lightly on
Their prattling way, and with so terrible
And lion-like severity, when roused
To break their bonds, and hurry forth to war
With winds and storms,—though it find much on earth
Suited to its high purpose, yet the sky
Is its peculiar home, and most of all,
When it is shadowed by a shifting veil
Of clouds, like to the curtain of a stage,
Beautiful in itself, and yet concealing
A more exalted beauty. Shapes of air,
Born of the woods and waters, but sublimed
Unto a loftier Being! ye alone
Are in perpetual change. All other things
Seem to have times of rest, but ye are passing
With an unwearied flow to newer shapes
Grotesque and wild. Ye too have ever been
The Poet's treasure-house, where he has gathered
A store of metaphors, to deck withal
Gentle or mighty themes. I then may dare
To call ye from your dwellings, and compel ye
To stoop and listen. Who that ever looked
Delighted on the full magnificence
Of a stored Heaven, when all the painted lights
Of morning and of evening are abroad,
Or watched the moon dispensing to the wreaths,
That round her roll, tinctures of pearl and opal,—
Who would not pardon me this invocation
To things like clouds? I recollect one night,
A winter's night,—the air is clearer then,
And all the skyey creatures have a touch
Of majesty about them,—there were clouds,
So thick, they blotted out the maiden moon,
Then in her fulness, and the scanty light
That visited the earth came through the rifts
Where they had parted. I had gone abroad
Upon some fanciful intent, and long
Had dallied with the dancing radiance,
That now and then flitted from parting clouds
Over the snow-fields, when at once it seemed,
Just by me, as if Heaven itself were opened,
And from the Visible Presence there had come
A sudden flash, to herald the approach
Of some celestial messenger. I stood
As startled as if instantly a bolt
Fell smouldering at my feet; but on the moment
Turning me whence the emanation flowed,
I saw the moon unveiled,—pure, spotless orb
She stood in a deep sea of glorious light,
Too deep to sound. It seemed as if a wall
Were built around her, of the brightest silver,
Or rather like the changeful brilliancy
Of girasole or opal. It enclosed
The semblance of a well, and it meseemed
I occupied its depth, and from above
The sky looked in, sole tenanted and filled
By the round moon. Language were all in vain
To give a body to the spectacle
That met me then; and yet I will not shrink
From my endeavor. First there seemed below
A solid mass just touched by the full light,
And palely passing into utter darkness
On the low-lying clouds;—above it rose
Huge piles, like rounded rocks, that glowed intensely
With a rich golden blaze; and higher still
There lay ten thousand painted heaps of foam,
Pure white, and covered over with such rainbows
As gem the morning dew; and still above them
Shone a whole harvest of such seeded pearl
As the swart Genii pour from coral urns,
To win the favor of their love,—they seemed
All hues, and from them mounted waveringly,
Even to the centre, where they seemed to fan
Pale Dian's face, long shadowy streamers, floating
Like pennons on the newly risen gale,
That freshly steals ashore,—they seemed to grow
From that deep bed of pearls, like sea-fans waving
Over the white sands of the ocean's floor.
Glorious creation!—vision of a moment!
It vanished, leaving not a rack behind.
The clouds closed in, heavy and lowering clouds,
And the night thickened, and the flaky snow
Began to fall. I then betook myself
To my warm hearth, and musing, as I sat,
A vision stood before me. Then, methought,
A mountain rose above the highest clouds,
Far in the distance, like a shadowy thing
Floating in thinnest air. The driven snow,
Hardened by centuries of frost, beheld,
A winter's midnight, on the highest Alps,
When the moon holds unquestioned sway in heaven,
Were dim to such a brightness as encompassed
That shadowy cone. Methought, around it flew
A multitude of white-winged cherubim,
And well as I could read their looks, so far,
Each with a most severe serenity,
As if all thought;—and at the highest point
There seemed the likeness of a throne, whereon
Sat one, whose eye steadily gazed upon
The sky above him, reading all there therein,
Planet and star, as most familiar letters,
His pastime, not his toil;—and by him sat
One, who ran over with perpetual glance
All visible things, seeking to fashion them
To one fixed law; and at his other hand,
A spirit of a most sagacious eye,
With an internal vision questioning
Mind and its thoughts. Methought a voice proclaimed,
This is the seat of intellect, where pure
And freed from all investment, passion, pride
Fancy, and other shades, that might impair
The edge of sight,—it holds supremacy
Over imagination's highest flight,
And the most gifted spirits, who would throw
Their rainbow colors round the form of Truth
Masking the perfect brightness of the sun
With infinite variety of hues
Born of the pictured morning. As I gazed
With deep intensity, rapt and engulfed
In wonder and in awe, as when the martyr
Sees the world passing with its clouds away,
And from the sapphire walls and crystal gates
Of the highest Heaven a wave of light descending,
And round it myriads of golden wings,
Like the bright margin of the o'erflowing stream
At which he drinks and lives,—drinks and awakes
To immortality and joy;—or rather
Like the strong gaze of Dante, when he saw,
Then standing in the loftiest sphere of Heaven,
A radiant point, shedding such burning brightness,
None but the blessed could behold and live,
And therefore veiled by the nine circular choirs
Of saints and angels;—or when he beheld,
As to that empyrean he ascended,
His guide, his own Beatrice, there transformed
To a most spiritual shape of light, encircled
With such a dazzling glory as the sun
Holds at the fullest noon, when the clear air,
Dense in its clearness, heightens to the highest
The lustre of his beams;—then as I gazed,
A most majestic sea of rolling clouds
Seemed to surround that throne, and it advanced,
And gradually took form, and I beheld,
Each on his shadowy car, spirits, who told,
By their commanding attitudes, that they
Were wont to rule. They occupied three spheres;—
The highest, like the throne they now surrounded,
Bright, snowy, pure, only the waving folds
That circled it were tinted with the hues
That fall from diamond prisms, the deepest hues
That flow from light. The one below it seemed
Woven from silken curls of tenderest blue,
Edged with the ruby tints that fill the sky
Just as the twilight vanishes. The lowest
Was like an awful thunder-cloud, a ridge
Of gloomy towers, each with its summit bronzed
By an ill-omened flame, and all beneath
Purple and dun, down to its lowest depth,
Where all was dark,—unmingled darkness, deep
As bottomless abyss, or the profound
Of central caves. This sea of clouds rolled on,
Like the slow tide of lavas, or the storm
That hangs for hours on the far-distant hills,
Deepening its horrors, till the unclouded sun
Is saddened in its shade.

The highest sphere
Bore on its airy seats four of the train,
Who, by their calm serenity, betokened
How deep their thoughts,—and therefore they were seated
The nearest to the Mind's celestial throne:
But by the golden hues that flowed around them,
Visions of fancy, such as they had loved,
Were shadowed forth. Two were bereft of sight;
Their outward eyes were closed, yet not the less
They rolled their sightless orbs from earth to heaven
With hurried glance, and often fixed them long
On the bright sky, as if in holy trance
They saw unveiled the very throne of glory,
The habitation of the One Supreme,
Or the Olympian dwelling of the gods
Of the olden time, before the living Sun
Descended, and made visible to man
The secrets of the Mightiest. I could hear
Their voices, full, sonorous, rolling on,
Like the perpetual stream of ocean, borne
To earth's remotest shores. Yet not alike
Their tones,—for one was ever up at heaven,
Or, if it took a softer note, as pure
As the far echo of an angel's lyre
Behind a golden cloud. Less harmony
Was in the other song, for now the bolt
Seemed suddenly hurled in rattling peals, and then
The shrill blast of the trumpet told of war,
And then the merry din of flutes and viols
Rang, like a festive glee; and then, methought,
Loud laughter shook the dome, and last of all
Came a low-muttered sound, as if from caves
An oracle went forth, or bodiless ghost
Gibbered in Hades. Of the other two,
One by the broad expansion of his brow,
And his high-arching forehead, fair as heaven
When air is purged by storms, and by an eye,
Now calm, anon in a fine frenzy rolling,
Then all dissolved in smiles, and by the light
And delicate contour of his lips, revealed,
Not only all the majesty of thought,
But a quick change of fancy, ever shifting
Like clouds before the wind, and with it too
A nice observance of the smallest seemings,
By which the admiring world have judged him gifted
With a seer's eye. The summit where he sat
Was fair as bodiless thought; but all below
There hung such wealth of folds as round the couch
Of royal beauty wave;—and they were part
Too rich to gaze on fixedly, while others,
Sweeping in cumbrous trains, were dim and dark
With horror, and beside them not a few
Trailed to the ground like serpent coils, obscenely
Dallying with meanest things. The last who held
That upper station wore a thoughtful look
Of mild humanity, whereon was stamped
The seal of power. It seemed his happiness
To gaze on loftiest Being, and to read
The deep recesses of the human heart,
And with a chain of tenderest links to twine
Man and his feeblest nature to the height
Of all Divinity;—so, though his voice
At times might chide the thunder, it resounded
So full and loud, it stole at other times
Like the low breathings of a happy child
In its undreaming sleep, or like the whisper
Of summer winds through the still forest boughs,
Or like the scarce heard murmur of a brook
Kissing its turfy margin. These were they
Who rode the proudest; but so much of thought,
Busy and deep, and such a silent calmness
Of passion filled them, that they bore themselves
Meekly in all their honors.

In the sphere
Beneath them, there were many; but I marked
Two of so gentle aspect, they controlled
My thoughts to them alone. The one had bound
His front with olive, where few scattered leaves
Of laurel, and a twine of greenest myrtle,
Added their graces. He had sung of peace
Cheerfully and most sweetly, and of love
With an undying strain; but when he took
The warlike trumpet, broken were the sounds
That issued, though a few were nobly filled:
And soon he laid it by with a sad look,
As if he had done violence to himself
By so unwelcome effort. Then he sung:
“Lay me beneath the hospitable shade
Of ancient boughs, and let me dream away,
In quiet musing, such a blameless life
As marked the golden age; and let me hear
The sweet musician of the silent night
Pour out her tender heart, till sleep steal on,
Opening the ivory door of happy visions,
Though all unreal, that the cheated soul,
Awhile may wander through Elysium,
And quaff oblivion on a couch of flowers.”
Thus sang he, while the other listening lay,
Propped on his elbow, like a heart-sick girl
Reading a tale of visionary grief.
There was a dewy softness in his eye,
And this awhile threw over him a cloud,
That added sweeter beauty to his face,
Itself so beautiful, it seemed the shrine
Of all the fair and lovely. One would say
His being was essential elegance,
And nothing came within its charmed sphere
But took a brighter hue, and bore around it
Something to grace and please. Even majesty
Softened itself before him, and became
The minister of kindness. He could sing
Of war, but it was honorable war,
The pride of chivalry, that sunned itself
In ladies' eyes; but most of all he loved
To tell us of enchanted palaces,
Groves, gardens, lakes, and rivers, mingled all,
As if not art, but nature, had bestowed them,
And yet so tasteful that the hand of art
Was surely there, and then to fill their shades
With a voluptuous beauty, wantoning
In innocent dalliance, for he never dreamed
Of aught that was not pure,—his inmost soul
Shone as sincerely pure as mountain ice
Hewn from the glacier. So he played with beauty,
And with enamored fondness followed it
Through sorrow to his grave.

I turned me then
To the lower sphere, and on its fiery towers
Saw three, who there sat proudly eminent,
Erect and firm. Lines of unwearied thought
Were stamped, but an intensity of passion,
That burned like a red furnace, gave to them
A wild, mysterious glare. Passion had gained
The mastery, and meditation served
Only to give more fatal energy
To what it willed, and, willing, bore at once
To the irrevocable act. Such spirits
Have made the world turn pale. Passion thus guided
Has given us conquerors, who have swept the earth
With a consuming fire, and with the blaze
Of conflagration dazzled us, and then
Left after them a gloom, that sank like night
Over the frighted nations.

Of the three,
One sat with sternly gathered brows, and mused
Earnestly, while his swart eye shot beneath
A fire that had no rest. He found his pleasure
In planting daggers in the naked heart,
And one by one drawing them out again,
To count the beaded drops, and slowly tell
Each agonizing throb. Therefore he took
The horrors of the Atridæ for his theme,
Where every passion strove for mastery,
And every sense of duty went to war
With hatred and revenge;—fit theme for one
Who loved to put the spirit on the rack,
And wrench the instincts of our better nature
From all they clung to. He too willingly
Sent all his energy into the wrongs
Of that mysterious Titan, who bestowed
On man the gift of fire, or rather gave
A light from heaven,—Knowledge, the blessed light
That quickens us, and bids our clay-cold spirits
Awake and live,—and for this act of kindness
Was seized by the revengeful gods, and bound
In adamantine chains,—confined by power
Struggling with truth in a captivity
That has no end, till one shall stoop from Heaven
To bear for him his sufferings, and descend
Into the gloomy depths of Tartarus.
Strange and mysterious words, and spoken too
In a dark age, when nothing yet of light
From off a higher altar had descended
To fill the idol temple. Boldly, too,
This, and full many a startling truth were spoken,
That have been, and will yet be, carried on
To their fulfilment. Yes, the time will come
When all the fetters violence and pride,
Hypocrisy and fraud, have twined around
The soul of man, shall sever like the flax
Before the furnace, and the united voice
Of earth proclaim, that every chain is broken,
And every spirit free. The time draws nigh
When the glad shout shall ring. It will not come
At the loud summons of impatient pride,
But in the silent going on of things
All shall be finished. Let us then await
Calmly the close.

Another sat with eye
Scowling in sickly hate of human things,
And now with loftiest aspirations breathing
After sublimer worlds, then pouring out
Reproach and scorn, and with indignant wrath
Cursing the meanness of the baser crowd,
Whose touch he felt was bane,—then with a sneer
Laughing at folly like a gay buffoon,
Seemingly, but a bitterness withal
Curled on his lip, and gave a hollow sound
Even to his merriest gibes. A fallen spirit
Had better filled his place, for so he seemed,
Pandering the baser passions, with a voice
That might have borne itself among the highest,
And long been hailed, for its redeeming power,
By all the wise and good.

Between the two
Sat one, who seemed to rule. His deep sunk eye
Burnt with an ominous glare, and on his brow
Strong passion worked; and yet at times he raised
His look aloft, and then a moment's calmness
Stilled it, but soon prevailing nature took
Her wonted way. This man had suffered wrong,
Foully and cruelly had suffered wrong,
And this he had resented, till his mind
Lost the kind balance which had lifted him
To the calm regions of unruffled thought,
And holy musing. His resentment gained
Such mastery o'er him, he contrived a web
Of most unearthly dreams,—visions of hell
And all its horrors,—that he thus might vent
His hatred, and deal out a deep damnation
On all his foes. Methought he yet looked down
Into his gulfs, and saw them writhing there,
With a delighted scorn.

While thus I gazed,
Silent and wondering, from his cloudy seat
He moved to meet me, like a messenger
Deputed from the spirits there assembled
To hold communion with me. He advanced
Till he bent over me, and then, meseemed,
He stretched his ghostly hand, and with a sign
Of mute attention thus addressed me: “Hear
Carefully what I utter, and retain it
Deep in thy heart of hearts. We are a band
Who gave ourselves in life to the high art
Of song. For this we left the flowery walks
Of pleasure, and forewent the better aims
Of wealth and power,—and some of us were doomed
To bear the burden of consuming care,
And wrestle onward to a welcome grave
Through poverty and scorn,—and yet we bore
Manfully all our wrongs, and never broke
The allegiance we had vowed, but rather chose
To leave all the world covets most, and keep
The honorable service of the lyre,
Whose rich reward is fame. And we have gained it,
And thus far we are happy. If thy heart
Feel aught of longing to be one of us,
Be cautious and considerate, ere thou take
The last resolve. If thou canst bear alone
Penury and all its evils, and yet worse
Malevolence, and all its foul-mouthed brood
Of slanderers, and if thou canst brook the scorn
And insolence of wealth, the pride of power,
The falsehood of the envious, and the coldness
Of an ungrateful country,—then go on
And conquer. Long and arduous is the way
To climb the heights we hold, and thou must bide
Many a pitiless storm, and nerve thyself
To many a painful struggle. If thy purpose
Is fixed, then welcome. We will hover o'er thee,
Thy guardian spirits, and thy careful ear
May often listen to our friendly voice,
After thy earnest toils. We now are with thee;—
Thou hast the records we have left behind,
And thou canst read them, as we wrote them down,
Fresh from the heart,—and this it is to hold
Communion with us. Let it not depress thee,
That few will bid thee welcome on thy way,
For 't is the common lot of all who choose
The higher path, and with a generous pride
Scorn to consult the popular ear. This land
Is freedom's chosen seat, and all may here
Live in content and bodily comfort, yet
'T is not the nourishing soil of higher arts,
And loftier wisdom. Wherefore else should he,
Who, had he lived in Leo's brighter age,
Might have commanded princes, by the touch
Of a magician's wand, for such it is
That gives a living semblance to a sheet
Of pictured canvas,—wherefore should he waste
His precious time in painting valentines,
Or idle shepherds sitting on a bank
Beside a glassy pool, and, worst of all,
Bringing conceptions only not divine
To the scant compass of a parlor piece,—
And this to furnish out his daily store,
While he is toiling at the mighty task
To which he has devoted all his soul
And all his riper years,—which, when it comes
To the broad light, shall vindicate his fame
In front of every foe, and send to ages
His name and power,—else wherefore lives he not
Rich in the generous gifts of a glad people,
As he is rich in thought? There is no feeling
Above the common wants and common pleasures
Of calm, contented life. So be assured,
If thou hast chosen our companionship,
Thou shalt have solitude enough to please
A hermit, and thy cell may show like his.”