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The feat—the champion—and the prize—
And arts of glorious enterprize—
The glittering steed—the golden car—
The victor's coming, like a star,
When one is in the ethereal tent,
Or one o'er all pre-eminent.
The hopes of years, and every sense
Bent on one moment of suspense,
And every year of after-life
Hung on the turn of one great strife;
Then circled by ten thousand eyes
One thrilling point of glad surprise:
'Mid every tribe of Grecian tongue
Assembled in one massive throng.
Then the triumphant festival,
And heard amid the echoing hall,
While heroes old seem'd listening nigh,
The solemn hymn of victory.

His City bids her bulwark-wall
Before his coming prostrate fall,
The City needs a wall no more
Which owns the Olympian conqueror.

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The Isles re-echoed to their mirth,
While on his own domestic hearth
The centre of his glory burn'd.
Thence he in all himself discern'd,
While every thing that met his eye
Mirror'd to him that victory.
Years by him crown'd with flowery feet
His course advancing came to meet,
That he forgat he had to die,
Wreathed with such immortality;
When all the world rung loud his worth
He seem'd a God upon the earth.

What was it in those Grecian games
Which like a fount of living flames
Kindled the Theban poet's breast,
And all his labouring soul impress'd,
Till every pulse of rapture high
Beat in full glow of minstrelsy?

Deeply within our nature lies
The source of awe and mysteries,—
The knowledge which, like thoughts in sleep,
Unconsciously our souls will steep;
That this our life and mortal stir
Itself is but a theatre;—
A little point in endless space,—
A strife—a battle—and a race;
And therefore such epitome
Of things beyond our sense which lie,

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Touches with power the secret soul,
Intensely wraps our being whole;
Which thus as darkly in a glass
Beholds itself in shadow pass.
Hence was it that the Olympic hill
With all its sympathetic thrill,
Through heart and head like lightning flew,
For causes deeper than he knew,
And bathed with fire so through and through.

For thus in our own later day
When Spenser caught the kindling ray,
Till all the minstrel buried lies
In feats of by-gone chivalries,
We see what Heaven-ward Instinct meant
In battle—prize—and tournament:
For he 'neath knightly feats in-wrought
Sublimities of moral thought;
With the romance that fill'd his sail,
The knights and ladies of his tale—
With images that please the eye,
Blended the great reality—
The battle-scene of mortal life,
Which is with unseen beings rife;
Each virtue in its tangled course
Winning its way by thought or force;—
Making the philosophic page
Descriptive of man's pilgrimage,

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Beneath the woof of chivalry
Weaving the wisdom from on high.

Yea, doubtless, though he knew not why,
Such was the secret mystery
That made the Theban's soul all fire,
With sparks that kindle from his lyre,
Upon the strife his soul and eye
Bent in deep-stirring sympathy.

His thoughts like bubbles children blow
Catch thousand colours as they go,
Though in themselves but mist and air,
As mere poetic fancies are,
In Christian suns they rise and shine,
And gain a radiance more Divine—
Lustres serene, aerial dews,
Fair floating robes of rainbow hues,
Moulded to Christian faith unrol
Thoughts worthy of the immortal soul.

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II. THE BIRTH OF HERCULES.

[_]

Nem. Od. i. lin. 57.

1

“The Babe now swathed in saffron sheen
Scaped not the golden-thronèd Queen;
In jealous wrath unquenchable
Instant she sent two serpents fell.
Then through the portals opening wide
To the broad chamber's haunt they hied,
Eager to slime their ravenous maw
Over the babe;—the infant saw,
Lifting his eager head upright,
And first essayed the coming fight.

2

“Then with both hands in iron grasp
Both their huge necks he firm did clasp,
And held them struggling fast, until
Their monstrous limbs in death were still.
Then what amazement did astound
The matrons that were gather'd round
Alcmena's bed! and them among,
Lo, she herself that instant sprung
Upon her feet, all disarray,
Those portentous beasts to fray.

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3

“Then in brazen panoply
Rush'd the Theban chiefs to see;
And, heart-pierced, the warrior Lord,
Brandishing his naked sword,
Came the sire Amphitryon.
Home-felt grief holds every one,
But the cheek is sooner dry
In another's sympathy.”

THE CONTRAST.

Such were the heathen auguries,
Portending feats of high emprize,
Which in his royal cradle gave
A hero-god who came to save;
Shadows that wait the infant born,
Beneath the eye-lids of the Morn,
And in his chamber come to dwell.
Such is the picture—mark it well—
When man would pourtray power of Heaven.
Now look on this which God hath given:—
No cradle in a kingly hall,
A star without, within a stall,
And where three strangers prostrate fall,
The little hands as if to bless
Uplifted in meek lowliness.

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Or look again,—beneath the night
A helpless pair in hurried flight—
Where nought but stars on either hand
Keep watch o'er the Arabian strand.

Look on each picture, note it well,
And more of wisdom shall it tell
Than kindled heathen poet's theme,
Or walk'd the groves of Academe.

192

III. TRIAL AND REWARD.

[_]

Olym., Od. ii. lin. 101.

“Wealth is like a radiant star,
He who hath it shines afar;
But well he knows what is to be,
That lawless spirits when they die
Must suffer penalty.
That sins in this the realm of Jove
One below doth judge and prove,
And o'er them sentence pass with stern necessity.
“But with sun whose wondrous light
Burns alike by day and night,
Freed from toil the good shall live,
Nor vex the watery wave nor land
With importuning hand,
In life which true peace cannot give;
But 'mid the honour'd of the Gods above,
By them who faithful oaths shall love,
A tearless age is won;
While bad men woes sustain no eye can look upon.
“But the threefold way along,
They who keep their heart from wrong,

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To old Saturn's tower of strength,
To where the Ocean gales abound
The blessed Isles around,
Their course assign'd fulfil at length.
Where on the ground, or on the glittering trees,
Or on the waters in the breeze
Bright golden flowers are borne,
Whose wreaths upon their brows and on their hands are worn.”

REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE.

So deep within our soul there lies
The shadow of lost Paradise,
Where darkness enters not, nor toil,
Nor tears, nor sorrow,—nought to soil
The mirror which reflects the eye
Of omnipresent deity:—
And in that undisturb'd repose
That none can enter but the good;
So yearns the heart that nothing knows
But her intensest solitude:
So deeply on the soul doth press
The sense of its own lowliness:
Philosophy's most noble thought,
Best image of the poet wrought.

In every heart beneath the skies
That glorious wreck of Eden lies;

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As 'neath the sea some palace seen
Looks beauteous through the blue serene,
Though now the haunt of things unclean.

And blessed they who labour still
To keep that mirror pure from ill.
We blend that vision with our sin,
And then the serpent enters in;
It is an Eden then no more,
But we again the loss deplore.

195

IV. BEGINNING WELL.

“Ναυσιφορητοις
Δ' ανδρασι πρωτα χαρις
Ες πλοον, αρχομενοις πομ-
παιον ελθειν ουρον: εοικοτα γαρ
Καν τελευτα φερτερου νο-
στου τυχειν.
Pyth. Od. i. 64.

'Tis said the pearl is form'd of dew
And sky's ethereal hue,
Conceiv'd within the opening shell,
When the bright lightning fell.
If in dim noon or fading even
'Neath the obscurer heaven;
That pearl a dusky shade retains,
Which in its hue remains.
But if beneath the lucid morn
The goodly pearl is born,
Clear with the sky's pure virgin white,
The centre of fair light,
Meet for a kingly diadem
Is that transcendent gem.
Such is the child whose early love
Is planted from above,

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Who stores the Heaven-descended ray
In life's first opening day.
Such of his treasures in the skies
The Merchant most doth prize.

197

V. THE FOUNDLING ON EARTH.

[_]

Olymp. Od. vi. 66.

“A silver pitcher laid aloof,
And a zone of purple woof,
'Neath a darkling hawthorn shade
The child of god-like soul was laid;—
inent=1Sent by the God of golden hair
Soft-counselling Eleutho there,
And the sister Fates stood near.

“Iamus thus saw light of birth,
Deserted left on lap of earth,
When by the counsels of the skies
Two dragons came with azure eyes,
And nurtur'd him beneath the trees
With the honey of the bees.
From rocky Pytho then with speed
Came the king on panting steed,
Of the household to enquire
For the child Evadne bore,
Destin'd amid those of yore
To rise a glorious bard, for Phœbus was his sire.

“Five days born he now had been,
Yet they ne'er had heard nor seen:
He within the pathless glade
'Mid the bulrushes was laid,

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O'er his body, pearly-wet,
Many a glistening violet,
Hanging with the morning dews
In multiplicity of hues.
Therefore his mother gave his name
From violets for endless fame.”

THE FOUNDLING IN HEAVEN.
[_]

On the above.

From man's cradle for his tomb
May we thus a garland borrow,
With its hues of vernal bloom
In these regions of our sorrow,
Lightening up the morning gloom
In that world of the great morrow?

In that morn of Paradise
When the infant soul reposes,
Shrouded 'neath the glittering eyes
Of the violets and roses,
Angel-tended in surprise
Which eternity discloses.

In the shadow of the tomb
When our Mother Earth is leaving,
Shall not angel wings illume
With new lights our fears relieving,
O'er our slumbers in that gloom
Flowery canopies o'er-weaving?

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In the silence of that morn
Hid from foes, of friends forsaken,
When the infant 'neath the thorn
To its destinies shall waken,
Terrors of the newly born
With divinest love o'ertaken.

When the soul all infant-wise
In that slumberous land rejoices,
And like birds in morning skies
Hears around angelic voices,
Brighter dreams in her arise
Conscious of celestial choices.

He Who watches infants sweet,
All their wants afar descrying,
Shall He not the soul then meet
In that sleep on Him relying,
While with honey at its feet
Serpents, harmless now, are lying?

Gently rest then, child of morning,
'Neath the mystic violets sleeping—
Crystal drops their heads adorning;
Or are these thy mother's weeping?
In that other wondrous dawning
Angels o'er thee watch are keeping.

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VI. ASPIRATIONS OF EARTH.

[_]

Olym. Od. vi. the same continued.

“Now when o'er him in its bloom
Golden-wreathèd Youth had come,
By 'mid Alpheus stream descending
He called on his great ancestor,
Neptune of far-spreading power;
And his sire, his bow for ever bending,
The watcher God,
Who makes divine-built Delos his abode;
'Neath the night in open skies.
When lo, responding at his side
The paternal Voice replied—
While he the speaker sought to find;
‘My son, arise,
Seek we where assembled Elis lies;—
Follow thou my Voice behind.’”

ASPIRATIONS OF HEAVEN.
[_]

On the above.

Such a Voice the poet hears
Haply in his own heart sounding,
While it seems to meet his ears
With ethereal speech surrounding,

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In the dark, where nought appears,
Witnesses unseen abounding.

Like the rainbow in the skies
Drinking with majestic potion;
Cradled in the immensities
Of the sun and of the ocean;
Such a spirit in them lies,
Light and life and space and motion.

'Neath the night's ambrosial halls,
'Neath the sky-encircled hollow,
Thus around the poet calls
Sea and Light—Neptune, Apollo:
And a Voice his heart appals,
‘Rise, my son, my guidance follow.’

Ere it with the many blend
Thus must man's immortal spirit
Through the universe ascend,
Nobler blessings to inherit,
Passing onward to its end,
Nobler destinies to merit.

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PINDAR.

I.