The Christian Scholar By the Author of "The Cathedral" [i.e. Isaac Williams] |
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The Christian Scholar | ||
CLASSICAL COMPLAINTS AND SCRIPTURAL REMEDIES.
I.
προσθεις κατοπτρον, ωστε παρθενος νεα,
χρονος .”
Eurip. Hip. 429.
Wherein myself I view,
As there from sin to sin I pass,
An image sad and true.
I bear no goodly sign,
Hath God's displeasure o'er me gone,
I hasten to decline.
Hiding His heavenly rays,
The image of the Son of Man,
And kindle as I gaze.
Thus daily let me die,
If so I may but touch the skirt
Of His great charity!
II.
Tam cari capitis ?”
Hor. Od I. xxiv. 1.
Then, like some mournful strain,
Thine image seems to chide my smile
And o'er me comes again.
With thoughts of childish years,
Reflected, like a heavenly star,
In the deep fount of tears.
Within my Saviour's breast,
And I will leave thee in the skies
And that deep fount to rest.
And every inmost grief,
In Thee I leave that long-lov'd name,
And find in Thee relief.
III.
To set her citadel,
Where visitants may come from high,
And Contemplation dwell.
The sun seems to alight
Ever before, but distant still
It sinks, and leaves to night.
Upon a parent's breast
Which lays, o'ercome with wanderings wild,
Its head, and is at rest:
Of all on earth we find,
Which angels may with joy behold,
Faith's meek reposing mind.
IV.
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans .”
Lucret. i. 65.
Unveil'd her awful mien,
And in dread lightnings oped the door
Of the eternal scene.
In dismal vision clear,
While conscious Guilt the pencil held,
And dark-portending Fear.
Like stars in heaven at night,
Those stars they heard the angelic song,
And from their orbs of light
Since then they nearer roam,
And seem to walk, like sentinels,
Around our earthly home.
V.
Quæ rapit hora diem .”
Hor., lib. iv. Od. vii. 7.
Through this our mortal span,
With changes on each outward thing,
And in the heart of man,
No more, so frail and vain,
To build upon a sandy beach,
Where nothing can remain.
And wake the heart's deep sigh,
But that within a spark we bear
Of immortality?
For some more sure abode,
To labour everlastingly,
That we may dwell with God.
VI.
Cum fæce siccatis amici,
Ferre jugum pariter dolosi .”
Hor., lib. i Od. xxxv. 26.
Misfortune's alter'd scene,
Is in affection's changing brow,
And cold averted mien.
All one by one are gone,
Like swallows from a wintry sky,
And we are left alone.
As other friends depart,
And enters with a warmer cheer
Into a broken heart.
And leave alone to die,
He opes His bosom unto thee,
In endless bliss to lie.
VII.
Where multitudinous rise
Rome's stately temples, which belong
To evil deities.
Beyond the Esquiline;
No Rest but is beyond the state
Wherein the dead recline.
By meek obedience trod,
But Rest is as the inmost shrine
In city of our God.
By energy of woes,
By prayers, and alms, and bearing ill
We find in Christ repose.
VIII.
And decks the warrior's brow,
When Nature's self doth plead the wrong,
And Justice deals the blow.
Which human judgment arms,
E'en own'd by stern philosophy,
And clothed with awful charms.
That cometh from above,
Which the reviler turns to bless,
And overcomes with love.
Seizes that chain from Heaven,
And climbs unto her place of rest,
Forgiving as forgiven.
IX.
Και δομεν ος κεν δω, και μη δομεν ος κεν μη δω .”
Hesiod. Works and Days. b. i. 1. 350.
Such love and bounty flows,—
Self whose horizon there doth bound
This universe of woes.
With man's own self must fail,
All that to human sense is known,
And fills our vision frail.
More stable charities,
Founded on that eternal love
Whose orbit is the skies.
The everlasting light,
Which swallows up both self and sin
In goodness infinite.
X.
Cuncta festinat manus, huc et illuc
Cursitant .”
Hor., lib. iv. Od. xi. 6. 9.
Would open wide their gate,
They bring around and manifest
Their riches, power, and state.
As in a mirror bright,
See all things fair at every turn,
And costly to their sight.
Should enter at their door,
Must throw away what most they prize,
And empty all their store.
Expressive of good will,
That He may so our poverty
With His own fulness fill.
XI.
Τον δε μαλιστα καλειν οστις σεθεν εγγυθι ναιει .”
Hesiod, Works and Days, b. i. 1. 339.
Their fellow-men above,
Which brings around home-charities,
Delighting in their love.
Of earth in its reward,
Though purest of the joys of sight,
And best it can afford.
And fearing recompense,
Turns to the Giver of all good
From things of sight and sense!
To whom e'en now 'tis given
Christ to receive in His own poor,
And make thy house a heaven!
XII.
Is like the sun to shine;
For it is human to receive,
But to bestow divine:—
Howe'er can bounty live,
And grow in living progress, when
It nothing hath to give?
“The liberal man is apt to exceed greatly in giving so as to leave but little for himself. For not to look to himself is part of his character.”
The actions of the just,
When all things shall be open laid,
And riches turn to dust.
By giving larger grows,
Possessing less they have still more,
The poorest most bestows.
XIII.
Mentis, et incoctum generoso pectus honesto:
Hæc cedo, ut admoveam templis, et farre litabo .”
Pers. ii. 73.
That, in the all-seeing eyes,
The heart itself the altar is
The gift which sanctifies.
Is the best sacrifice,
No treasur'd work of labour'd art
Is of such cherish'd price.
By saintly Magdalene;
And on the gift the Judge hath praised
The eternal seal is seen.
The princely-hearted king;
Who loveth much he giveth much,
And hastes the best to bring.
XIV.
Res angusta domi .”
Juv. iii. 165.
Made this our world the stage
Of Virtue, there to walk and shine
In glitt'ring pilgrimage.
Doth still this judgment hold,
And puts aside as nothing worth
What is not set in gold.
Would cleanse our path from sin,
For habitation of His grace
A kingdom builds within.
The first is poverty,
The Satirist's words hath He revers'd,
And changed the world's decree.
XV.
Quam quod ridiculos homines facit .”
Juv. iii. 152
Is poverty and want;—
The bitterest drop that cup that fills
Is the world's jeer and taunt.
Is scorn and ridicule,
Although to be of one the jest,
Whom God hath deem'd a fool .
Did round Him closely bind;
And they by whom His way is trod
Therein no sting shall find.
Such near His Throne shall be;
Lord, of beatitudes the crown
Is to be like to Thee.
XVI.
Nor bear their remedies:”
Alas, that we such things should hear
Beneath the pitying skies!
To walk in Christian light,
And yet to be in love with death,—
O wondrous, awful sight!
Destroying and destroy'd;
With God—the soul which He hath left,
Where Satan fills the void.
With his own self at strife;
Lord, teach us in Thy love to live,
And love in Thee our life.
XVII.
κα λογον: το δ', επει φανη,
βηναι κειθεν οθεν περ ηκει
πολυ δευτερον ως ταχιστ .”
Soph. Œd. Col. 1225.
Were all our destiny,
Indeed 'twere better not to live,
Or being born to die.
Woke to this world of strife,
Could like a Thracian mother weep
O'er this poor gift of life.
There is a drop of dew,
Which from the everlasting Sun
Hath caught a living hue.
Till both in hope may shine,
To wake in Heaven, and find thee there
To share the life Divine.
XVIII.
Prima fugit; subeunt morbi tristisque senectus .”
Virg. Geor. iii. 66.
A light which was on things;—
The thousand brilliant hues she cast
As Childhood waved her wings.
The bloom—the undefiled—
To be—oh, never, never more,
The happy—happy child!
A childhood which is love,
A nobler vision to fulfil,
Whose manhood is above.
On faith and hope they feed,
And learn upon a Parent's breast
To lay the feebler head.
XIX.
Det vitam, det opes; æquam mi animam ipse parabo .”
Hor. Ep. i. 18.
And soul-debasing wealth;
But hath the best no power to give—
The immortal spirit's health!
Wrapt in thy Stoic's fur,
And independent of His rod
Thine Heaven within prefer!
In Him we live and move;
We lose ourselves in Him below,
Our very life is love.
Our wealth our want to feel,
Our peace of soul that He at length
This inward want reveal.
XX.
Mosch. Epit. in Bion. v. 106.
Parsley, and blooming dill,
Yet waken'd by the vernal sky
Again their course fulfil.
Have no fresh spring in store;
But silent in the hollow grave
Sleep on for evermore.”
Is this thy wisdom's reach,
To read thus wrong each character
Which Nature's self doth teach!
Writ on the sky and earth,
Creation's lord alone to fail,
And have no second birth!
XXI.
Hom. Il. vi. 146.
Beneath the parent shade,
Others again succeed, but they
Are in oblivion laid.
Through each succeeding age
The words are caught and borne along
By poet, saint, and sage.
Before us open lies,
We feel, alas, how fast we fail;—
Yet dim our hope to rise—
To read aright the spring;—
That faith with nature might rejoice
When brush'd by Winter's wing.
XXII.
Crescam laude recens.”
Hor, lib iii. Od. xxx.
Where Sophocles doth sleep,
Soft Ivy, let thy green leaves wave,
Around it gently creep.
And branching Vine find place,
For honey-sweet, fair-worded, wise,
He blends both Muse and Grace.”
Except one early ray,
Which lit a Cross upon a tomb,
And far Its shadow lay.
Not unmix'd with a tear,
A solemn awe my bosom still'd,—
It was a grave most dear.
XXIII.
Archias. Gr. Epig.
For an Olympic prize,
A little branch of wintry green
Exalted to the skies.
When all mankind shall strive,
That naught can fill the immortal mind
Of all the world can give.
That long-enduring leaf
Speaks of an amaranthyne prize
Untouch'd by winter's grief.
With victory crown'd, that stands
Beside the glass-illumin'd sea
With palm-branch in their hands.
XXIV.
In tenebris metuunt, sic nos in luce timemus.”
Lucret. iii. 87.
All dreadful things therein;
Through life thus empty terrors vain
Still haunt the man within.
Can chase those fears away,
But in the soul the clear Serene
Of intellectual Day.”
As children now no more,
Nor fear the ills of life again
As heathen men of yore.
Let Heaven-taught childhood tell,
To be shut out from Him who bears
The keys of Death and Hell!
XXV.
Naturam mundi, quæ tantâ est prædita culpâ .”
Lucret ii. 180.
Unless ye see the whole;—
Or circumscribe the Infinite
Within the human soul?
Such imperfection reigns,
Who gave to man a soul to know
The faults which he disdains?
And, lo, 'twas very good,
But all is now by sin decay'd,
Of guilt and death the food.
Wrecks of immortal mind,
Which in this varied beauteous ball
Can naught responsive find.
XXVI.
Η πασιν νεκυεσσι καταφθιμενοισιν ανασσειν .”
Hom. Od. xi. 488, 490.
With ill-foreboding gloom,
And strays as in a fearful dream
In realms beyond the tomb.
Seem nothing in that hour,
When Death's huge pinions o'er us brood,
We feel his chilling power.
Eternity draws nigh,
The firm-set anchor of the soul
Quivers all tremblingly.
To touch the absolving key,
Far better than the day of birth
That light beyond the sea.
XXVII.
Ειδωλον: αυτος δε μετ' αθανατοισι θεοισι . . .”
Hom. Od xi. 600
A better hope was given,
A brighter vision broke again
Of Hercules in Heaven.
As moon-beams in the storm;
While from Heaven's face the shadows break
Which clouds again deform.
And Light makes manifest,
Then, Rock of Ages, in Thy shade
Thy chosen ones find rest.
The robe of light hath wove;
And Thy redeem'd releas'd from blame
Shall mirror all Thy love.
HEATHEN ORACLES CONFESSING CHRIST.
RECONDITA EST ÆRARIO;
ET GEMMA, DETERSO LUTO,
NITORE VINCIT SIDERA.”
Rom. Brev. Mar. Mag.
SEOUNDUS, VERA REOOGNOSOERE.”
Lactantius, De fals. Rel., lib. i. cap. xxiii.
I.
Soph. Antig. 1256.
Some dreadful weight of woe to speak,
The poet drops his oar and sail,
And Silence bids to tell the tale.
Entangled in a mortal strife,
In silence hide the desperate will,
And in a thunder-cloud are still.
Ps. xxxix. 3.
More dread than is this stillness long,
Which seems to wrap all nature round,
Awaiting the last Trumpet's sound.
Which seem to mark the ways of God,
Sound deeper than the outward sense,
With a strange awful eloquence.
II.
και γαρ ο μηδαμα δη φιλον, ην φιλον:
οποτε γε και τον εν χεροιν κατειχον .”
Œd. Col. 1693.
By her blind father's aged side,
Guiding his feeble steps aright,
Like morning star with sable night.
Her Presence lights, serene and mild;
In duteous love she found repose,
And thus spoke sweetly at its close.
Shall with the “Man of Sorrows” climb,
Affection's light the cloud shall line,
And paint its edge with hues divine.
With Christ, nor duty's hand let go,
Safe on their Father's breast erewhile
Shall on the past look back, and smile.
III.
Are shadows of the Eternal's wing,
Fostering in her obedient ways,
Where Piety gives length of days.
In varied forms of discipline,
God teaches thus His hand to see,
Whose service is true liberty.
I ever thought of little worth;
The Angels with their King above
Know of no liberty but love.
God's own vicegerence manifest;
Which all around a people brings
The anointing of the King of kings.
IV.
Did Empire make her wondrous home,
So deep her strong foundations cast,
With power that lingers to the last?
A mystic word there did belong,
Which changeful Greece could ne'er supply,
That word of power is “Piety.”
Now seems to issue from afar,
And o'er the ages yet to be
To rise in tranquil majesty.
Upon Mount Sinai's fifth command,
Which casts its shadow long before,
And hath the length of days in store.
V.
νος αναλκιν ου φω-
τα λαμβανει. ”
Pind. Ol. i. 129
A mailèd form of heathen mood,
Hath power mad multitudes to stay,
And hold the upheaving world at bay?
That takes its post and will not swerve,
Shadows that Faith whose fearless form
Walks on the waves and treads the storm.
The stormy kingdom's helm to hold,
The praise of man behind him cast
Who looks right onward to the last.
Is by the world esteem'd a fool:
Set at the helm this statesman true,
And I the storm would brave with you.
VI.
Ος χ' ετερον μεν κευθη ενι φρεσιν, αλλο δε ειπη .”
Hom. Il. ix. 312.
The brightest in his diadem,
To whom the Poet had assign'd
Noble divinity of mind.
Who is the father of all lies,
Though oft its craven wing may brood
Beneath a warlike attitude.
Is seen in the transparent face,
Ere sin hath touch'd the open breast,
And hid therein its viper nest.
More than that ancient Poet knew,
When thus he made the liar dwell
Beside the very gates of hell.
VII.
Intra quæ puer est .”
Juv. Sat. xiv. 44.
For nothing earthly can be found
To keep and shelter undefil'd
'Mid toils of youth a guileless child.
From every vision dark and foul;—
Thou only canst, all-saving Name,
Walk with Thy children in the flame.
Swallowed in the unfathom'd sea
Rather than harbour thoughts unclean,
As they who walk this worldly scene.
He might to Christ be brought more near,
Then would he die to keep him pure,
If father's love might that secure.
VIII.
Φερσεφονας ιθι, Αχοι.”
Pind. Ol. xiv. 28.
“To black-wall'd house of Proserpine,
Sweet nymph that dwell'st in airy cell,
Echo, go forth, the tidings tell.
And bid him know, in Pisa's seat
His son is crown'd, and stands on high,
Clad with the wings of victory.”
That passes to the eternal shore,
But in the ever-living Word
The Truth itself is stilly heard.
Combines the living with the dead;
They know and feel the better choice,
And o'er the quick the dead rejoice.
IX.
ον δει μ' αρεσκειν τοις κατω, των ενθαδε.
εκει γαρ αει κεισομαι.”
Soph. Antig. 74
Than those 'mong whom this life is led;
'Tis better far to keep a friend
Where there is life that hath no end.”
Past good and ill we trembling feel,
They come forth and before us stand
As written by an Angel's hand.
We shall be with our fellow-men,
Which now conceal'd behind the veil
Watch this our life and being frail.
Than their unfailing love to earn,
And look on all things with the eyes
Of those unearthly companies.
X.
The Epitaph of Biton and Cleobis.
To this her shrine in all men's view;
The people bless'd her thus convey'd,
And she for them her Goddess prayed,—
Some gift the highest and the best;
She prayed—they died;—the God thus shews
Death is the best which Heaven bestows.”
Rev. xiv. 13
Itself is highest blessedness,
If it be register'd on high
In deeds of duteous piety.
In self-denying deeds who die;
Of earthly pleasures dispossess'd
When mortified they are at rest.
XI.
Το ζην δε θνησκειν εστι .”
Eurip. apud Stob
On their serene majestic march,
Then gazing on Night's face severe
The heathen heard this voice of fear,—
Are brought to view by silent Night,
The light of life may from our eyes
Hide greater things that fill the skies.
With wonder and with awe we gaze,
So small the horizon which around
Doth all thy little knowledge bound.
Compar'd with what the wisest know,
Of what this scene of night and day
Shall be to those that leave this clay.
XII.
Ζευς, ατυζονται βοαν
Πιεριδων αιοντα.”
Pind. Pyth. 1. 24,
Which Pindar paints the heavens among;
Which held the gods in ecstasy,
And clos'd in sleep the eagle's eye.
Fills every guilty soul with fear,
Whom the great Father doth not love,
Through earth, sea, hell, or skies above.”
That soul of music, might indwell,
Which sets all strife and sin afar,
And in its orbit holds each star!
Express'd in wondrous eloquence,
That peace no heart can tell below,
And which the wicked ne'er shall know.
XIII.
Μαζον, τον λιμου ρυτορα και θανατου.”
Epigr. Leon. Alex.
No sound a mother's heart reveals;
He on the verge that looks from high
Creeps in unconscious infancy.
She utters not one warning word,
But drawing near, and watching there,
She leans, and lays her bosom bare.
Thy very Silence doth reprove,
And to Thy breast Thy child recall
Trembling o'er an eternal fall.
More than maternal, love divine,
Whose gifts Thy very heart disclose,
And there invite him to repose!
XIV.
And in Christ's kingdom find their rest;
Such wisdom speaks in Gentile lands,
And to Christ's truth a witness stands;—
While mid the darkness and the gloom
Beneath the Cross his watch he trod,—
“This is indeed the Son of God.”
“Those things which are commonly called goods, such as beauty, riches, strength of body, powerful state-connections, and the like, deprave the soul.”
Where the Sun rises and declines,
Is like the bower of Paradise,
Wherein a painted serpent lies.
The sweat of Blood upon His brow
With good men's suffering blends, to bless
Their sweat in this the wilderness.
XV.
For ever sought, ne'er understood,
For which man's nature ever pines,
Of which within his heart divines;—
That it must be our perfect rest,
True and intrinsic, which alone
Can ne'er be lost, our very own.
“The soul within us divines that the Chief Good must be something quite our own, and which cannot be taken from us.”
Where it doth not we know full well:
We know not, for we know not God,
Who is Himself the soul's abode.
It is from that heart-gladdening light
Which in all virtue on the soul
Breaks from the everlasting goal.
XVI.
Was cleans'd beyond all heathen men;
Who laid his hand upon the key
Which opes divine philosophy.
Coils and embroils this nether life,
A golden net upon each hand
Was drawing to a heavenly strand.
“I say that those who commit wrong are of all men the most miserable: but less so if they suffer for it.”
Which suffering clothes with strength divine;—
That Sign which through all nature reigns,
In all things great and small remains.
While 'neath its shade all nature grieves,
Till by its hallow'd touch restor'd
United to a suffering Lord.
XVII.
To paint the places of the dead,
They make the rich and great to be
Chief sufferers in eternity.
From that old democratic leaven,
To which unquict Greece gave birth
Against the princes of the earth.
Freedom and envy are unknown,
On mighty men of earth there lie
Dark shadows of futurity.
Tempt all too much our fallen race;
But amid want and shame and pains
The healing Cross its power sustains.
XVIII.
As the primeval curse we share:
And haply God through evil kings
His judgments on a people brings.
Mysteriously we are thus bound;
And there descends throughout all time
A chain of penalty and crime.
Of endless sympathetic ties,
All are in Adam dead on earth,
All are in Christ of heavenly birth.
To make us one in mutual care;
Christ's righteousness we share above
To make us one in mutual love.
XIX.
Above the things of earth and time,
Forgetting human hopes and fears
Amid the music of the spheres:—
Of goodness, truth, and piety,
And of a place to spirits given
In Plato's tranquil seats of heaven.
“If earth, the abode of mankind, now appears to thee so small, as indeed it is, ever look thou to these heavenly things.”
Men of renown and high estate,
Turn from the soul-ennobling theme
Of which e'en heathens loved to dream?
Where Christ the only door is seen?
Or that we to the dregs descend
As the world verges to its end?
XX.
Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad æthera virtus .”
Virg. Æn. vi. 129
Extinguish'd are in smoke and gone:
In stedfast course a few arise
Borne upward to congenial skies.
With strong presentiment serene,
Heavenward to hold a tranquil light,
Till they had pass'd from human sight.
And covers o'er the Gentile's stains,
The world His fourfold Robes divides,
And 'neath their shelt'ring skirt abides.
The inner Raiment is in store,
When by the lot of heaven's decree
The heart is clothed with charity.
XXI.
Thebarum portæ, vel divitis ostia Nili .”
Juv. xiii. 27.
We find the world at heart is strong,
With heavy sickness at the soul
We doubt if aught attains the goal.
Are they who walk with heaven in view;
In the dark vale few gleams appear,
Thus hope is purified by fear.
Look from their houses with surprise,
While rippling of unnumber'd waves
Bears us all onward to our graves.
One point of safety from afar;
Who to that haven would prevail
Must use untir'd both oar and sail.
XXII.
ων, τεαισι μηδεται,
Εχων τουτο κηδος, Ιερων
Μεριμναισιν.”
Pind Ol. i 173
And makes thy cares to be His own,
As kindred watch o'er kindred dear;”—
Thus Pindar spake in kingly ear.
Upon Rome's later poet gleam,
That “dearer to the gods is he
Than man unto himself can be.”
In things without and inward thought,
Through this dark world of sin and pain
Some shiver'd fragments still remain—
Present that vision of true light,
Which in the Christian's sky above
Shines like the Sun, that—“God is Love.”
XXIII.
Opes wide his hand unto the poor,
He mercy shews to his own soul,
He loves true life—his being whole.
His higher life doth mostly prize;
And no one to himself is kind
Who harbours an unfeeling mind.
“The good man is properly a lover of self; for to himself he affords what is truly good, and gratifles the highest part of his nature.
Who mostly loveth God above;
At home begins that charity
Which reaches to the boundless sky.
Above the clouds must build his nest;
True love is only understood
Which rests in everlasting good.
XXIV.
Who laid out Wisdom's chart by rule,
Said, by its deeds Love forms and grows;
Thus Love back to its fountain flows.
Survey'd the dregs of that dark day,
And reason'd well—that deeds of ill
Their parent breast with hatred fill.
O death of deaths most desolate,—
That in ourselves by evil deeds
We quench the source whence Love proceeds!
Make evil deeds to be undone?
Obedience is Love's mystery,
Which lives by learning first to die.
XXV.
Of one 'neath death's bereaving stroke
Whose eyes in love's last longings stray
To seek those dearer far away.
For something unbeheld to yearn,
Familiar objects all explore,
Then seem to ask for something more.
And eyes death's shadow overlays,
Seem looking into vacancy,
As seeking those man cannot see.
Search all they can embrace, and thence
Turns to its God the aching breast,
In Whom Alone the soul can rest.
XXVI.
One ever fix'd unvaried law,
'Mid change and chance to man allow'd,
That God doth overthrow the proud.
For God from sight His hand withdraws,
Assigning love's unfathom'd plan
To envy as of sinful man.
That God, Who loves both great and small,
Yet nearer brings unto His throne
In Christ each favour'd little one.
Christ's Image He doth not behold,
In Christ no more He hears their call,
He turns His countenance, and they fall.
XXVII.
He shall an empire overthrow.”
He pass'd the Halys, lost his throne,
And found that empire was his own.
So spake the guileful oracle;—
Thus fiends will truth with falschood blend
To lead men to some evil end.
“Crœsus,” now a prisoner, “sent Lydians to Delphi, and commanded them to lay his chains on the threshold of the shrine.”
They thus deceive 'mid ways of men,
With harmful truth they prophesy,
The promise keep, but hope belie.
To those who sacrifice and strive,
But giving blend the curse of sin,
Blooming without but death within.
XXVIII.
Hom Od xi, 152.
Flock'd round the hero, but in vain,
Weak, senseless shadows, dead in soul,
Without all power, or life's controul:—
The taste of sacrifice and blood,
The wandering shade was then made strong,
Restor'd to thought, and sight, and tongue.
That I might meet Him face to face,
He strength would give me in that need,
That I with Him my cause might plead.”
Augurs of that life-giving Blood,
That it may drink, and not in vain,
But in that hour may life sustain.
XXIX.
κειμενον εν δαπεδω. ο δ' επ' εννεα κειτο πελεθρα .”
Hom. Od. xi. 575.
Speaks of a dread Tartarean gloom,
And bodies of the suffering dead
Together bound, hands, feet and head.
Tantalian and Sisyphian pains;
And Tityus on nine acres laid,
While vultures on his liver prey'd.
“Αδυνατον γαρ τους μη προτερον παρα των ειδοτων μεμαθηκοτας τα ουτω μεγαλα και θεια πρηγματα γινωσκειν.” Just. Mar Ad. Græc 3.
Was it from some primeval creed
In their Egyptian pilgrimage
Glean'd by the poet and the sage?
The yearnings of the heart within
Somehow, as from a living shrine,
Unconsciously of truth divine?
XXX.
Simonides
Wherein thy tender heart found ease;
A heart which most feels human woes,
Mostly beneath them finds repose:—
Healing of all ills is with God;—
And haply by some power to save,
A remedy beyond the grave.
For all the woes the spirit break,
For all the lesser ills of life,—
The loss—the sorrow—and the strife,—
When to itself the Conscience wakes,
Man's sole self-refuge still must prove
His rest upon mysterious love.
XXXI.
Π(αδια παντα θεω τελεσαι, και ανηνυτον ουδεν.”
Linus.
“Nothing beyond hope's boundless scope,
“For all the God can do full well,
“Nothing to Him impossible.”
Well might they feign thee born of Heaven;
Son of Urania, Goddess bright,
Or of Apollo, God of light.
God to Himself through faith draws near,
And even 'mid the things of sense
Gives something of omnipotence.
The first perceiv'd—last understood;
Taught by His grace and by His rod,
Till we ourselves are lost in God.
XXXII.
That range the sea—the air—the earth;
But mightier powers for ill or good
Work by an insect multitude.
As marvels fill all time and space;
But deeds and thoughts of hourly range
Work transformation's endless change.
Which on each little action lie,
Enlarge all trifles as they pass,
As mirror'd in a watery glass.
Is heard like voice of God profound,
Thus countless waves that rise and shine
Make up the destiny divine.
XXXIII.
And nigh o'erwhelm'd the good appear,
Beyond all human aid they stand,
And see and own a heavenly hand.
Though better hopes have made us bold,
Yet even now as then of yore
We are at sea and not on shore.
“Be assured that in whatever respect a man may be saved, and become what he ought, in such a condition of public affairs, it is the Divine aid that saves him
And strive Christ's witness to o'erwhelm,
Corrupting her and bent on ill,
Yet onward is she labouring still.
The tempest raise, well nigh prevail;
Yet Christ, though in the hold He sleeps,
On edge of death His people keeps.
XXXIV.
For differences of earth and heaven
Are found alone in man's estate,
So little yet withal so great.
Ne'er in themselves such contrasts know;
For nought doth in their natures dwell
Incongruous, unsuitable.
The name of the accepted seed,
So beyond thought the mighty change,
In that salvation new and strange.
Shall laugh ,on wak'ning from their sleep,
When they in glad surprise have found
The everlasting arms around.
XXXV. COINCIDENCES.
Are imag'd in the ground,
Where waters lie beneath our feet,
Or gather in the street ,
That truths of Heaven their shadows find
In man's reflective mind?
Is in the multitude,
In stillness like a casual word
'Mid broken ruins heard,
That Faith that walks the heavenly span
Her echo hears in man?
Stands everlastingly,
Some drops in secret reach the cells
Of subterranean wells,
And bear to every clime of earth
The traces of their birth?
From ancient Eden flow,
And as they gather stains abroad,
Diverging on their road,
Yet still retain beneath all skies
Something of Paradise?
Through nature seems to go,
When birds appear divinely wise
Beyond their destinies,
And all untaught in every clime
Respond to varied time?
With friends that are apart,
Associate feelings will awake,
Or thoughts responsive break:
As if some spirit of the skies
Convey'd their sympathies?
Like bee from flower to flower?
With intermingling of their kinds
From each to each it winds,
The seed, or dust, or honey brings
On loaded thigh or wings.
Truth's embryo forms may sleep,
As trees which high-embow'ring shoot
In fibres of the root;
Their miniatures there seem to lie,
Which ne'er saw sun or sky?
Ruin'd and buried lies
Some ancient City, not in vain
The relics yet remain,
And mystic pillars long may stand
Upon Oblivion's strand?
The pedestal which lies
Beneath the feet of Christian Truth,
Which there in endless youth
Reflected sees her form divine
In pavement of her shrine?
Slumber in Memnon's tomb,
Till on them morning sunbeams fall,
And thence their echoes call,
In golden radiance forth are shed
Harmonies of the dead?
On some deep glassy stream;
Kingdoms of nature and of grace
Thus answer face to face;
Though right and left revers'd we find,
No substance true behind?
They wander'd forth in gloom,
Still darkly with His children walk'd,
And with their spirit talk'd,
The footmarks of His grace?
Had baffled their weak sight;
And when their back on Him was turn'd
Who is in Christ discern'd;
They in the creatures manifold
His Image still behold?
Through air, and sea, and land,
In herb, and beast, and bird is seen,
And poisonous snakes unclean;
So 'mid the nations in each place
His Wisdom leaves a trace?
Who makes the sun His seat,
As day to day with tongue of flames
His kingdom wide proclaims,
So night to night where shadows dwell
May of His knowledge tell?
Once cradled Christ awhile,
And infant Moses safe could sleep
On that Egyptian deep,
Beneath a pagan shade?
Was seen in Moses' rod,
The shadow of the power of Heaven
Was to magicians given,
Till they, surpass'd in their own strife,
Should own the Prince of Life?
Searching the starry sphere,
Tho' other his design and thought,
And more than all he sought,
Appear'd the glorious Bethlehem's star
To lead him from afar?
Who of things sacred told,
Before us Saul, and Caiaphas,
And wicked Balaam pass;
Who while the good they set aside
Christ's kingdom prophesied?
Which guided Pilate's hand,
All nations on that hallow'd spot,
Although they knew it not,
In Greek and Latin own'd?
Hath by His Presence blest,
Although His hour be “not yet come,”
To make the world His home,
Nature hath caught a ray Divine,
And water turns to wine?
The devils saw and fear'd?
'Neath some mysterious power unknown
The Lord of life they own,
Although to them no leave was given
To own the God of Heaven.
Christ's going ever shrouds,
Where He hath pass'd upon the night
There is a track of light,
And 'mid the dark-blue vault serene
A lucid gleam is seen?
When broke forth wondrous light,
Frail sons of men in nearness brought,
The glorious radiance caught,
E'en heathen sages shine?
Forgetting her distress,
Can bloom like garden of the Lord,
Like Eden fruits afford:
The fountain in the desert flows,
The thistle bears the rose?
With goodly pearls abound,
Wherein the merchant spent his toil
Through that long night's turmoil,
The pearl of endless price to gain
Still seeking though in vain?
On the lost Prodigal,
On his disfigur'd face appear
His homeward course to cheer,
The Father hastening from His place
With His preventing grace?
The solitary cry
Of the lost sheep, when heard aright
In stillness of the night,
Heard in the distant fold?
Was symbol of His grace,
When the torch went from hand to hand
Through Greece's festal band;
Thus age to age pass'd on the fire,
Nor let it all expire?
By fruitful seasons given,
Ne'er of His light mankind bereft,
Nor without witness left;
But as in nature's course around
His voices did abound,
So was His witness heard within,
Pleading with man and sin,
And ever blending precepts high,
Which never more shall die.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
PLATO.
I. THE DEMON OF SOCRATES.
From age to age descends the honied store
Of that old man who dwelt Hymettus nigh ,
Himself the rock of sweet philosophy,
Though nothing he hath left of letter'd lore.
I ask not what that unseen monitor
Which check'd him when of evil aught was by,
Yet left him free to suffer and to die;—
Whether some phrase mysterious, and no more
Than Heaven's protection and its peace serene,
Or allegoric parable,—or nought
But conscience thus embodied in his thought,—
Or haply some good angel-friend unseen,
Or more:—but I would ask not, for to thee
It speaks, my soul, a dread reality.
II. SOCRATES ON JUDGMENT AFTER DEATH.
O worthy e'en a martyr's death to die
Who thus could live and look beyond the tomb,
A heathen world by dying to illume,
And after death to leave along the sky
Of Grecian sages such a galaxy,
That they continue to the day of doom,
Lighting the horrors of that pagan gloom!
What words thine adoration would express
Couldst thou but on the Man of Sorrows gaze!
How would that sight have lit and cheer'd thy ways!
For all-divinely didst thou speak e'en then
Of Truth, that had “no form nor comeliness,”
In tortures and in death from hands of men
III. SOCRATES REFUSING TO ESCAPE FROM PRISON.
“If thou injurest us,” I think I hear the Laws saying to me, “if thou injurest us, we shall be angry with thee during life, and after death our sisters, the Laws which are in the unseen world, will not receive thee kindly, knowing that thou hast done what in thee lay to destroy us. Therefore be not persuaded by Crito, but by us.”
“Now such, my dear friend Crito, are the things which I seem to hear, as they who act the Corybantes imagine that they hear musical pipes; and as for myself the din of these things is so loud in mine ears, as to render me incapable of hearing any thing else beside.”
Crito.Sleeping and waking didst thou seem to hear
The melodies of that angelic chime,
Which ever sound beyond the sea of time,
So pure Philosophy had charm'd thine ear,
And deaden'd to the noise of this low sphere;
Nothing to hear but the sweet sound sublime
Of heavenly Laws, which from the ethereal clime
Go forth in Laws that upon earth appear!
For in the breast of God they have their birth,
And though so soil'd in contact with our earth,
Yet are they His own ministers below,
And have celestial voices: which to know
Were better, youthful spirits to o'er-rule,
Than all the harmonies of Plato's school.
IV. THE LAST WORDS OF SOCRATES.
Thus Death spake out as from a sacred shrine,
Or from an haven where all sorrows cease.
With life he bore as with a long disease,
Resign'd to meet its ills with look benign,
And arguing, with presentiment divine,
That there may be in death a sure release,
To those who strive the Great Unseen to please
In ways of truth and godly discipline.
When now the poisonous draught 'gan to prevail
Upon his vitals, and to seize his breath
Mysteriously, as from an oracle,
Yet confidently he spake of Health in Death,
That hope's long cherish'd promise doth not fail,
But with the great Physician All is Well.
V. EGYPT.
First from the Orient came the golden light
Of the world's early morn, but from our eyes
Lost in the Egyptian shrines Tradition lies,
In priestly hieroglyphic hid from sight,
'Mid the dark pyramids: thence like thick night
Emerging, throng'd with ghastly deities,
Foul Superstition fill'd the Grecian skies.
Yet like the sun on some cloud-mantled height
Tinging the shadows, still Tradition's lore
On priest or sage a stream of light might pour
With fable not unblended, like a glass
Reflecting man's deep self; and thence to pass
To shrine or porch or grove,—Socratic lore,
Or mystic school of good Pythagoras.
VI. MYTHOLOGY.
For since the knowledge of the One Supreme
Was the sole fountain which refresh'd mankind,
And purified and fill'd the inner mind,
To foul the source of that soul-cleansing stream
Did evil spirits labour,—made the theme
Of God and heaven amid the multitude
(Which ever blends with ill essential good)
A worship soul-corrupting; poet's dream,
Or language veil'd in priestly mysteries,
They turn'd to fond idolatry and lies;
On sacrificial victims laid the rod
Of their enchantments, made them deities,
Isis or Apis. Trembling at their nod,
Men worshipp'd some old emblem for a God.
VII. THE GRECIAN JUPITER.
In the vast world, around, beneath, above,
Reflected as in a mysterious glass
They dimly saw a mighty spirit pass,—
Amid the clouds of sin and woe which move
O'er man's fast-waning race—and called it Jove:
Therein embodying both good and ill
In a fond image of the Invisible;
A shade and soul of Power, but not of Love.
And this they mirror'd as the God of Heaven,
To whom a new and iron reign was given,
After the realm of Saturn once all gold,
The God of man in Paradise of old.
But Jove spoke man as fallen, not restor'd,
The soul of a disorder'd universe,
On whom as frail Creation's feeble lord
The shadow rests of a primeval curse.
VIII. PLATONISM.
That God Himself is the essential Light,
Which is not subject to corporeal change,
The Fountain of all life, beyond the range
Of these our senses, and material sight;
That One Chief Good, supreme and infinite,
Wherein the soul, from bonds terrestrial free,
May drink of bliss and immortality,
And disembodied find serene delight;—
That he who seeks that pure Intelligence
Must walls of this our universe transcend,
Made like to God;—and ever heavenward tend
Beyond the reach of outward elements;
That true philosophy thus wean'd from sense
Is but the love of God, our being's end.
IX. THE PLATONISTS.
Divine philosophy, that could afford
Such light to wandering men, and with its lore
Lead upward! yet in all their wisdom's store
Eye saw not, heart conceiv'd not, nor ear heard
Humiliations of the Incarnate Word,
Hid from the wise, reveal'd unto the poor;
Therefore they nothing knew of Christ the Door,
The Way, the Truth, the Life; a dying Lord
They knew not, Who descending from above
Emptied Himself in His eternal love,
That He might to Him gather those that mourn,
The “Man of Sorrows.” Like the moon, heavenborn
Their light, but dim and powerless; on them springs
No Sun of Righteousness with healing wings.
X. THE STOICS.
If Plato too ethereal and refin'd,
So Zeno and the Porch were too severe,
Rooting out all affections, hope and fear,
Love, pity, hate; the body and the mind
Asunder rend, which God had once combin'd,
And sanctified in Him Who draws us near.
He came in our own flesh, and this our sphere
Of feelings and affections hath assign'd
To have a place in Christian righteousness;
Pity hath turn'd to love, anger to zeal,
On hopes and fears, which human souls possess,
By recompence eternal sets the seal,
The perfect man restoring from the dust
In the last Resurrection of the Just.
XI. THE PYTHAGOREANS.
The Samian sage of ancient Italy
On contemplation dwelt and life divine,
And such his wisdom veil'd in mystic sign;
Yet till the God illumin'd and set free
Obedience was his door, and Faith the key,
While Silence kept the path of discipline,
Taught disputatious questions to decline,
Bright speculation, baseless theory;
Till strengthen'd by long duty, Self-control
Had purified the mirror of the soul.
But who hath such authority of rule
Save He Who is the Truth, the Word of God;
And he to whom He giveth Aaron's rod?
Such is the type of His diviner school .
XII.
Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna.
Quale per incertam Lunam sub luce malignâ
Est iter in sylvis; ubi cœlum condidit umbrâ
Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem.”
Æn. vi.
They seem to walk 'mid the surrounding mass
In light of goodness, virtue's benison,
Gazing upon all nature as a glass
Of things in Heaven; but unto us, alas!
In nightly groves obscure they wander on;
Good Socrates, sweet Plato, Xenophon,
And Plato's other sire, Pythagoras ,
With virtue-loving sage, Stagira's son.
In their imagin'd realms beyond the tomb
They see but shadows mingling with the gloom,
Which meteor lights may fitfully illume,
Serene yet all uncertain, fair but cold,
Nothing distinct, all vague and manifold;
Yet still they strove the better part to hold.
“Plato dicitur post mortem Socratis magistri sui, quem singulariter dilexerat, a Pythagoreis etiam multa didicisse.” Aug. Con Acad., lib. iii. 37.
XIII. THE CHANGE.
Purpureo; solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.”
Æn. vi.
'Tis no more wandering in a gloom profound ,
For our own Sun, our stars to us are known,
The suffering Saints who their bright goal have won.
To us an ampler far horizon's bound,
And our own purple light hath o'er us shone,
Investing all things; while our own true Sun,
And constellations which our path surround
Lead on the way with light and glory crown'd.
With Socrates and Plato have we been,
But issue in a temple full within
With light, poetic strains, and melody.
Where aged rustics understand, and see,
Yea, they in His own beauty see their King,
And little children of His glories sing.
“The great doctrines of a future state, the danger of a course of wickedness, and the efficacy of repentance, are not only confirmed in the Gospel, but are taught, especially the last is, with a degree of light, to which that of nature is but darkness.” Butler, Anal. pt. ii. ch 1.
XIV. POETS ADMITTED TO THE CITY OF GOD.
Omnibus his niveâ cinguntur tempora vittâ.”
Æn vi.
But He—Who all things which to us belong
Hath ta'en unto Himself, and with the coal
From off His altar touch'd the human soul—
Hath sanctified and bless'd the Poet's song,
To set forth wisdom and make virtue strong;
By all that is upon the Prophet's roll,
And David, mightier with the poet's scroll
Than with the kingly sceptre, to prolong
A kingdom in men's hearts. But the true Seer
At the sole well of life must drink most deep,
By prayer and deeds of alms and life severe;
Or nature's inbred taint those streams will steep,
Conveying their own love, and hate, and fear;
And over his own issues he shall weep.
XV. PLATO'S MUSIC OF THE SOUL.
Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma.”
Georg. ii.
Such may instil, as Plato's self design'd,
Love of eternal beauty, which is Truth,
And harmonies that speak of endless youth;
With that celestial music which may wind
Like amarynthine gales into the mind,
Like airs from odorous places breathing health ;—
Insensibly conveying, and by stealth,
E'en from their tender years, the love resign'd
Of Justice, Courage, Temperance; till these,
As beauteous statues in a temple stand,
Shall all the heart possess. Those melodies,
Which Plato dream'd of, like a purple band
Of clouds, part off and shew a stable strand,
The love of God and Christian charities .
“Οποθεν αν αυτοις απο των καλων εργων η προς οψιν η προς ακοην τι προσβαλη, ωσπερ, αυρα φερουσα απο χρηστων τοπων υγιειαν, και ευθυς εκ παιδων λανθανη εις ομοιοτητα τε και φιλιαν και ξυμφωνιαν τω καλω λογω αγουσα.” Plato, De Rep. lib. iii.
See Augustin De Civ. Dei, lib. xvii. cap. 41. “Harmonia musica .. bene ordinatæ civitatis insinuat unitatem.”
XVI. PLATO EXPELLING POETS.
Did poetry that charm'd us, only move
To virtue and build up immortal Truth,
Hymning the heroic dead and Gods above!—
No, we must pluck her love from the fond heart,
And grieving bid her beauteous form depart.
With charm of numbers and melodious song,
She is too fair for the untutor'd mind,
Strength'ning the Passions in themselves too strong;
A pleasing poison, soul-enfeebling joy;—
Destroy we that which else will us destroy.
Into men's souls true Wisdom's light austere,
But by their imitations to pourtray
Shadows of good, to please the eye and ear,
Bidding men weep, joy, sorrow; and enroll
Unworthy gods and heroes in the soul.
The struggle and the hazard to be good,
That not for honours, wealth, or high estate,
Nor poetry, if she hath hind'ring stood,
'Twere well to lose the meed of righteousness,
Or virtue which the inner soul doth bless.”
XVII. ON A FUTURE STATE.
And prizes laid before it have I told;
Yet nothing can be great on this short stage,
So brief the period ere the young are old;
But what if souls of men can never die,
And this be part of immortality?
Though she corrupts it till the body dies,
And death can be to it but change of state,
('Twere well if death could end its miseries!)
But if its own corruption doth not slay
The substance which it preys on, nothing may.
Canker on corn and rust on iron fed,
In flesh putridity, decay in trees,
Destroys the life of that where 'tis inbred,
So not wounds, death, or aught of outward ill,
Nothing but Vice itself the soul can kill.
That righteousness were to the human soul
Its own exceeding guerdon, though alone;
And it were well to live in her control
Though Gyges'ring could shelter us from harm,
Or helm of Hades were our saving charm.
The incrustations, sea-weed, shell, and slime,
That now her form deface, her lustre hide;
And from the Ocean of our nether time
Shall free herself, shake her fresh wing, and shine
Cognate to the immortal and divine.
Here Virtue be unknown, scorn'd, and belied;
Yea, 'neath a cloud of obloquy and blame
May seem awhile of men and gods denied;
Yet in the end e'en men themselves shall own,
And to the God throughout 'tis surely known.
For bad men are like they that in the race
Haste for awhile, then fail and disappear,
Uncrown'd and hang the head; while in their place
The better persevere and gain the crown;
Shadows must flee away, truth stand alone.
Herself her own reward in human eyes,
Yet this is nought comparèd with the strength
And greatness of the things beyond the skies.
But in a tale of Hades let me tell
Of thoughts which are themselves unspeakable.
Upon a battle-field unburied lay;
After ten suns when men now sought the place,
Corruption there had made the slain her prey,
Yet touch'd him not; his body still entire
Borne home was laid upon the funeral pyre.
And spoke of places where his soul had been;—
That when forth from the body first it broke
With many others, to a place serene
It came, where spirits met, a dread retreat,
Where two from earth, from Heaven two openings meet.
Judging the souls; and to the Just was given,
Bearing their deeds adjudg'd before their face,
On the right-hand thence to ascend to Heaven;
The wicked on the left were sent below,
And bore upon their backs their deeds of woe.
They bad him to this earth again repair,
To mortal men a solemn messenger,
Warning them of the things he witness'd there;
For awful sights he saw where spirits dwell,
Too vast and manifold for tongue to tell;—
Ten or a hundred or a thousand-fold,
For rapine, treason, murders of past time;
'Mongst which impieties, late or of old,
Against the gods or parents foremost stood,
And Self-destruction, stain'd with its own blood.
Where the great Ardiæus might be seen,
He who his brother slew and aged sire;
A tyrant in Pamphylia he had been,
For crimes and mighty deeds renown'd of yore,
Who reign'd on earth a thousand years before.
Was answer'd;—then appear'd a fearful sight,
They on a sudden in the gulf of doom,
'Mid tyrants and great criminals of might,
Saw Ardiæus; as they sought to rise
With a terrific moan of miseries
Incurably they sunk; and forth there came
Burning with lurid fire what seem'd like men,
Who seizing him with partners of his shame
Bound them together, hands, and feet, and head,
And dragg'd them down to Tartarus most dread.
Rewards in multiform varieties,
Majestic calm delights and endless gains.
And first a middle place of rest and ease,
A meadow lit up with a radiant gloom
Whereto innumerable spirits come;—
Their trials over and awhile repose;
Meetings and greetings sweet of friends were there,
And much recountings of past joys and woes,
And questionings for those they left behind,
And sad and sweet memorials brought to mind.
In that fair meadow for a Seven-day's space;
On the Eighth day the good arose toward Heaven;
Thence after one day's journey reach'd a place
Empyreal, whence from earth extending bright
They saw a pillar of ethereal light,
It was the vast world's circumambient bond;
Thence chains from high descending they discern'd
Amid that light, within, above, beyond;
O'er which sat Destiny, in whose vast woof
Their circuits are, of adamantine proof.
With notes whose Octave forms Heaven's harmony,
And thron'd at equal intervals above
Of Destiny there sat the daughters three,
Lachesis, Clotho, Atropos,—all crown'd
With golden crowns, with white robes flowing round.
The Past, the Present, and the Future sing,—
The evolutions of eternal time,—
Of birth, life, death; while one doth loudly ring,
‘Go forth, ye Souls, choose your immortal state,
For you Fate chooses not, but ye your Fate.’
From lap of Lachesis, 'tis sung in Heaven,
That virtue her own mistress is and free,
Whatever mortal lot the God hath given:
As more or less of holiness men choose,
More of eternal good they gain or lose.
All of man's danger; let us care to know
No other science but of living well,
Our whole, sole being upon this bestow,—
How we to life's true knowledge may arrive,
And living better, better know to live.
Or ask them what they bring for the soul's health,
Look on and eye them well with this in view,—
Glory, disgrace, strength, weakness, want or wealth,
Empire or private state, high or low birth,
To question and in this scale weigh their worth.
Immortal, and for ever capable
Through all its being and beyond control
Of unknown joy and sorrow, good or ill;
So may we to the gods live friends below,
Hereafter gain such crowns as they bestow.”
Bp. Butler, Anal., pt. i. ch. ii. “Gentile writers, both moralists and poets, speak of the future punishment of the wicked, both as to the duration and the degree of it, in a like manner of expression and of description, as the Scripture does.” &c.—See the whole passage.
XVIII. ON CONSCIENCE.
When man by nature must expect to die,
There comes into his soul an anxious fear
Unknown before, which will not be put by;
And tales of Hades which were once a jest
With terrible forebodings haunt his breast.
Must there encounter after-recompence;
And haply to that state as he draws near,
Or old age deadens the external sense,
He sees more clearly somewhat of the dead;—
His soul, howe'er it be, is full of dread.
Should many guilty deeds his past life fill,
Like children, oft from sleep he starts alarm'd,
In expectation lives of coming ill:
But if from evil free his course hath been,
Hope to him comes, Eld's pleasing nurse serene,
With justice and with holiness hath past,
Hope, cheerful friend, Hope, that as steersman sways
Man's wave-toss'd heart, Hope, solace sweet, at last
Comes, best of help-mates, with old age to dwell :
O Socrates, 'tis said how wondrous well!”
The picture is reversed by a modern infidel: “I must reluctantly observe, that two causes, the abbreviation of time and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.”—Last words of Gibbon, in “Memoirs” of his own life.
ARISTOTLE.
THE HYMN TO VIRTUE.
By those of mortal race,
Virtue, thou noblest prize of life,
Whose love in us finds such deep place;
Thy beauteous form, O Maid, to gain,
'Twere deem'd in Greece an envied lot to die;
And fiery toils unwearied to sustain;
For fruit which thou dost bear is Immortality.
Or sleep's soft-vision'd eye;
For whom the Jove-born Hercules,
And Leda's sons in labours vie;
Pursuing while it seem'd to flee
The power that is with thee, of suffering bred;
Achilles too in longings after thee,
And Ajax sought for thee the chambers of the dead.
For thy dear beauty's sake,
Hath turn'd our sun to widowhood,
Such mourning doth his dying make:
The Muses, daughters of Mnemosyne,
For honour paid to hospitable Jove,
And Friendship's guerdon built on stedfast constancy.”
ON THE FOREGOING, AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE ETHICS.
So spake the Stagyrite,—mysterious Hymn,Breathing deep pregnant thought! yet oh, how dim
And powerless, to embody the full soul
Of one that yearn'd for that supernal goal,
Where man may find a resting-place with God!
Clear as with pointing hand or guiding rod
Did Virtue thither shew that middle road;
Yet well he knew of that serene abode,
That neither Jove-born Hercules, nor those
The sons of Leda, who endur'd such woes,—
Nor Peleus' son nor Ajax, who in quest
Of thee to Hades went in his unrest,—
Nor that Atarnæ's offspring, whom he mourn'd,—
Full well he knew those chiefs by fame adorn'd,
Knew not that glorious essence which he sought.
The substance empyrèal of his thought
Was too transcendent, of too heavenly mould
To have been grasp'd by them whose prowess bold
Oft multiplying ills and nothing worth.
But yet such names, by suffering glorified,
As emblems serv'd and shadowy types, allied
To that pure archetype which fill'd his thought,
Amid the things of men that come to nought:—
Which after mortal labour gives repose,
Whose shadow haunts our being till its close,
A crown invisible that mocks our toil,
Yet beckons us to follow: in the coil
Of labours difficult still seems to flee,
And beckons on to immortality ,
Still promises yet gives not, flies from view,
And turns in death that promise to renew.
Εφ' οσον ενδεχεται απαθανατιζειν, και απαντα ποιειν προς το ζην κατα το κρατιστον των εν αυτω. Ethics, lib. x cap. 7.
PYTHAGORAS.
THE GOLDEN VERSES.
Respect thine oath; next Heroes hold in awe;
And pay due reverence to the Dead below;
Honour to Parents, love to kindred shew;
Of others for thy friend the best man choose;
Yield to mild words, nor kindly deeds refuse;
For a slight fault hold not thy friend at bay,
Long as thou canst,—and can dwells next to may.
These things observ'd in constant mastery keep
Thy belly, and thy lust, thy wrath, thy sleep.
Nought base do with another, nor alone,
To thyself most of all be reverence shewn.
In deed and word keep justice still in view;
Nor without Reason any end pursue.
Remember we are destin'd all to die,
That riches come to one, another fly.
Resist not, but with meekness take thy share;
Much may be remedied, and of such woes
On good men seldom much the God bestows.
Many are the reports which range abroad,
Be not by these o'er-awed to quit the road
Of self-restraint; if Falsehood should assail,
Bear it with meekness; hold this without fail,
That none by word or deed thy purpose wrest
To do or say but what appeareth best.
Think before action, lest it come to nought;
Fools only act and speak without a thought.
Do nothing which may leave a grief behind;
Know what thou doest, and, if ignorant, find
Instruction; so thy life shall please thy soul.
Keep to the mean, in food, drink, exercise,—
That mean from which no after-pains arise:
Let not thy food be delicate, but plain.
Avoid what may to envy cause a pain.
Thrift marks a weak, expense a vulgar mind;
In all things it is best the mean to find.
Nor with sweet slumber let thine eyelids blend
Ere each of thy day's works thou thrice review,—
Where have I err'd? what done? what fail'd to do?
As each successive action comes to sight
Mourn o'er the ill, and in the good delight.
To Virtue they as steps divine will prove,
Through him who in man's soul hath made thus rife
A fount quaternion of immortal life.
In every action first ask aid of Heaven,
Then do thy work. Thus to the soul is given
To know of gods and men the eternal laws,
The course they hold and the restraining cause.
To know the nature which doth each contain,
That nought should 'scape thee, nor thy hopes be vain.
Mark what self-chosen evils mortals bear,
Nor see nor hear the good that lies so near.
Few from these ills the refuge know to find,
Such destiny o'er-clouds the human mind.
As on a wheel, from care to care, through life
Men pass, and heap up woes, and seek for strife;—
Strife, their own birth-companion, ever nigh;—
They have no need to seek it but to fly!
Or shew to each what demon with him goes.
But be thou hopeful, man's race is Divine,
His nature all things sacred would design,
Divinely-born. Let self these Rules control,
They shall from evil save and heal thy soul.
And for deliverance of thy soul, refrain.
As charioteer ; so thou, as she shall guide,
To the free skies mayst from the body soar,
As an immortal God, and man no more.”
“The Passions, which arise in the soul from the influence of the body, must be kept under by Reason as by a scourge; lest by relaxing the reins to pleasure we neglect the mind, which thus is dragged and borne away like a charioteer by headstrong horses that obey not the rein. Rather should we remember the saying of Pythagoras, who, when he observed one of his acquaintance too much strengthening the flesh by exercise and food; ‘will you not,’ said he, ‘cease from thus rendering your prison-house more severe to yourself?’”—S. Basil, De leg. lib. Gen.
GREEK POETS.
HOMER.
I. THE ILIAD.
Nor persons in thy living page inwrought,
Which come forth as beneath the sculptor's hand,
Nor for thy sacred loyalty, nor aught
Of comprehensive reach, whereby thy thought
As like a secret providence lies deep
'Neath incident and character, which taught
The wisdom of philosophers, and steep
Affections in the truths which they are slow to keep.—
And in one lighted word some mirror bear;
His soul igniting as it speeds along
Kindles with light the glowing hemisphere;
Pours itself forth, and like a fiery levin
Melts and moulds all in scene and character,
For ever to retain their impress given,
And scattering golden thoughts which emanate from Heaven.
Or some old tale in pictur'd tapestry,
So vividly pourtray'd life's rapid stage,
While fabling verse in colours of the sky
Clothes the pervading God that walks so nigh
As with a garment! Not alone for these,—
Nor like the stars that live and speak on high,
The luminous and beauteous images,
As Nature's wild spring flowers pour'd forth with varied ease.
As mountain forest blazing in the night ;
Now countless as about Cayster play
The clanging cranes in multitudinous flight,
On wing rejoicing, or on feet alight ;
Or flies on milk-pan's brim in vernal hours ;
Or like the bees' wing'd tribes in morning bright,
Now one by one the rocky hive outpours,
Now clustering here and there they fill the blooming flowers.
When all the stars in the ethereal space,
And moon breaks forth; heights, cliffs, and woods appear,
The shepherd sees rejoicing . Pleased we trace
Upon thy antique scroll the very face
Of nature—earth, sea, sky; as in the stream
That makes sweet pebbled music every place
Stilly around, and living mirrors teem;
Wondering we gaze, so true to nature every theme.
But strive to catch thy solemn undersong,
Thou who of poets art esteemed well
First, best, and wisest; while the after-throng
Is sentimental colouring, weak of tongue.
There is e'en something of a holier fear
To move within a world to which belong
Such unseen visitants, and ever near
Hear the unspoken word, and oft to sight appear.
Care for mankind in Angels of the skies,
And love in Heaven for creatures of a day;
That prayer is answer'd; but a costly price
Must yet be found of offer'd Sacrifice,
Presence ethereal lurks beyond our eyes;
The Hero speaks beside the ocean wave,
A Goddess hears afar beneath her watery cave .
We to a higher wisdom might attune—
To muse beside the solitary sea
Of the cerulean Thetis, like the moon,
Rising from the blue waves with silver shoon:
Or when by funeral pyre in open skies
Achilles prays the Winds, and lo, full soon
To palace of those Winds wing'd Iris hies ;
They speed o'er earth and seas; trees rock, and waves arise.
Lay nearer solemn truths than now may seem
To sensual thoughts; when man gets wing, and sails
On self-roll'd chariots drawn by clouds of steam;
The shores, rocks, valleys speak his power supreme,—
Drown thoughts of things invisible that fill
Shores, rocks, and valleys. Therefore more I deem
Which speak of powers unseen that aid the human will.
Since serpents enter'd Eden, and have striven
By heathen shrines and oracles to move
In men such thoughts as place themselves in Heaven,—
Yet good with ill is mingled, and 'tis given
To trace some wrecks of Eden lingering still,
Whether from lore traditional, or leaven
Of mystic truth beyond the poet's skill,
Which speaks as from a shrine and moulds him to its will.
Can blend, we know not how, and help afford;
Achilles, as a lion, frenzy-wrought
Arises, from its sheath just gleams the sword,
Athene, lo, stands by the warrior-lord ,
To him reveal'd;—thus Wisdom at our need
Comes in and stops rash hand or angry word,
'Tis not our own, of One in Heaven we read
Who shapes the saving thoughts which from the heart proceed.
And oft to mortal eyes made manifest;
As Diomed amid the thickest fight
With a Divine-sent light o'er helm and crest,
Like some clear star when seen o'er Ocean's breast
In Autumn : or with its portentous blaze
The Ægis, and the golden gloom doth rest,
Covering unarm'd Achilles with its rays,
As when red beacon fires a siege-press'd isle displays
Fierce Rumour stirs the crowds to rapturous fight,
It is Jove's Voice that walks the camps among:
Yea, like a phantom half-reveal'd to sight,
The Jove-sent Dream glides through the ambrosial night.
Alone beside the many-roaring deep
Pelides mourns, soft as the pale moon-light
The spirit of Patroclus with his sleep
In awful sweetness blends, and human tears they weep.
Each form, and e'en each voice is mark'd to sense:
Ulysses as the snow-flakes from the sky
With gradual-falling power of eloquence;
Thoughts of great Hector darker shades illume
Touch'd with a human gentleness, and thence
Infuse the love of country and of home;
Achilles towers from sight in a Diviner gloom.
Thus human characters and Powers Divine
Blend the unseen with life's realities.
Yet strong is mark'd the interposing line
Men's actions and affections to define;
Changes and chance in super-human scale
Are measured, yet mysterious intertwine
With man's deservings; though it seem to fail,
Leaving a hope that Right shall in the end prevail.
II. ATE EXPELLED FROM HEAVEN.
Jove seiz'd, such sorrows his deep heart appal,
And this strong oath indignant did he swear;
That to Olympus and the starry hall
Ate should ne'er return, that injureth all;
He spake, and then with whirling hand he caught
And hurl'd her from Olympus' starry wall:
Quickly she came 'mong men. He mourn'd in thought
O'er the unseemly ills on his dear son she wrought ”
ATE AND LITÆ, OR PRAYERS.
For thee to be relentless; Gods above,
Greater in honour, virtue, and in might,
E'en they too will relent and pitying prove;
Them offerings, vows, and sacrifices move,
When man prays for the sin that on him lies.
Litæ are daughters of the mighty Jove;
Wrinkled, and lame, with side-distorted eyes,
They follow, full of care, wherever Ate flies.
Strong, swift of foot, hastes onward,—in her rear
Her wounds to heal the Litæ move behind;
Should man these daughters of great Jove revere
As they approach, his friends they will appear
With Jove above, and all lost good renew;
If he unreconcil'd refuse to hear,
Against him they their sire Almighty sue,
And Ate on him comes exacting vengeance due.”
ON THE FOREGOING.
'Tis sweet amid the scenes of war and crime,Which are the pictures of the world abroad,
Meet for a Christian on his heaven-ward road,—
Thoughts such as mitigate the heavy load
Of sin and sorrow,—and not all unmeet
To be admitted to the calm abode
Of prayer, and pardoning peace, and commune sweet
With Heaven, and those who sit in Heaven at saintly feet.
Mentioned by Justin Martyr as a relie of primitive tradition, and closely corresponding with an expression in the Prophet Isaiah, probably Is. xiv. 12, “How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning.”Cohor. ad Græc., 29.
III. ULYSSES AND CALYPSO.
Cal.“Ulysses wise, Laertes' son divine,
So thou to thy dear home and native shore
Wilt go,—to bid thee well shall yet be mine!
But didst thou know what many ills in store
Await thee, ere thy wanderings shall be o'er,
This home with me and immortality
Here wouldst thou stay and share, though evermore
Desiring all thy days thy wife to see;—
Nor sure hath she to boast superior charms to me,
That mortal with immortal can compare.
Be not displeased, I know that not so fair
Penelope as thou in form and air,
Immortal thou, unfading is thy bloom,
She but a mortal; yet with ceaseless care
I long through all my days, where'er I roam,
That glad return to see, and reach my long-lost home.’”
ON THE FOREGOING.
Approving hangs; a stern forewarning rings
Within man's heart against the flattering voice
Of promises too high for human things,
Though in immortal bowers Calypso sings,
That we “shall be as gods:” as one in quest
The soul seeks home in all its wanderings,
And yearns for its own tranquil place of rest,
And Heaven looks on and aids the long-enduring breast.
Of this our life, while through the tale we trace
Homeless Ulysses on the land and sea!
From childhood to old age it is the face
Of heaven-lost—yearning Man:—from place to place,
Whether he wander forth abroad, or knows
No change but of home—nature and of grace,
Still is he as one seeking for repose,
A man of many thoughts, a man of many woes.
Hides in bleak rocks but waits the wintry blast,
Yet God's own presence seems upon the past,
His shadow rests where He our lot hath cast.
The sacred loyalty of a deep heart
Dreads chang'd affections, stedfast to the last,
From old associations fears to start,
Sending its roots below which upward strength impart.
Yet on the stem of early discipline
Links childhood, youth, and age, still dreading change.
Great tale of wisdom, may thy choice be mine!
The lesson in thee stored is half-divine;
Sweetly yet sternly, softly yet severe,
Like solemn music in some ancient shrine,
Insinuating high and holy fear,
And teaching greater things than reach the eye or ear.
IV. ULYSSES SHIPWRECKED AND NAUSICAA.
Stranger,’ Nausicaa the white-arm'd replied,
‘To all alike, as pleasing in his eyes,
Olympian Jove doth good or ill divide;
Bear then as sent from him whate'er betide:
Here thou of us shalt nothing ask in vain,
Till all a sufferer's wants shall be supplied;
This is Phæacia's city and domain,
O'er which my honour'd sire Alcinous doth reign.’
‘Why fly, ye maidens, with no cause for fear?
There lives not one who on Phæacia's strand
With hostile ill intentions would appear;
For this our isle to all the Gods is dear;
No mortals e'er to this our country rove,
Save some poor ship-wreck'd stranger; him revere;
The stranger and the poor are sent by Jove;
However small the gift, the giver he will love.’”
THE FAREWELL OF NAUSICAA.
He went, Nausicaa, fair in beauty's bloom,
In beauty which the immortal Gods afford,
Stood by a pillar of the vaulted dome;
She saw with wondering eyes Ulysses come,
Address'd these wingèd words, and thus begun,
‘Stranger, farewell;—and should'st thou reach thy home
There in thy native land think thou of one
Who saved thee from the sea, and first thy safety won.’”
ON THE FOREGOING.
While still the mirror is before him brought
Of some calm place where he might cease to roam,
Some rest'mid Ocean-storms; all turns to nought,
It is not home, his home is ever sought,
Now in his hands, and yet now far away;—
E'en as around us and beyond our thought
The resting-place of Everlasting Day
Lies close, and touches on this falling house of clay,—
Embowering deep its sylvan solitude,
The toilsome world excluded and forgot;
Where owls and wild sea-birds skim the dark wood
On sea and foam delighting;—Nature's shrine
Of grots and lawns and fountains; all imbued
With Godhead—half-terrestrial, half-divine;
Yet toward the “wine-faced sea” the wanderer's heart doth pine.
Safe from the roar of hostile elements,
Another Fair;—of human presence more,
And less divine in all that charms the sense,
But inly dress'd with nobler innocence;
With goodly nature and sweet modesty,
In kingly roofs parental rear'd, and thence
With youthful maids disporting on the lea,
By fountain, grove, or field,—domestic, regal, free.
In palace-halls scarce-seen, and yet the while
Her form, though absent, seems each scene to grace;
Say, cannot aught in that sweet tranquil isle
A wearied spirit into rest beguile,
With kind Alcinous in kingly hall
Of royal gentleness and friendly smile?
No—these delights the home-bent spirit pall,
And on the exile's heart the saddening shadows fall.
Himself a naked wreck, more than restor'd
Now in the grace of Pallas walks a God.
Not ships Phæacian, honour'd as their lord,
Nor sports Phæacian, and chaste regal board,
Nor in Phæacian gardens to recline,
Nor all the scenes Phæacian arts afford,
Can soothe; but still the wanderer's heart doth pine,
Bent toward the “wine-faced sea.” That wanderer's heart be mine !
“In nothing has Homer more shewn his virtuous design than in his representation of the Cephallenian leader when saved from shipwreck. For in the first place he has described the Princess as full of reverence for him at his first appearance, so far from being ashamed at beholding him in nakedness and alone; since Virtue had in the place of raiment clothed and adorned him with herself. And afterwards he is represented as so highly esteemed by the rest of the Phæacians, that, leaving the luxury in which they were living, all turned their eyes to him in admiration; and none among the Phæacians at that time would have prayed for any thing else than to become like unto Ulysses: and all this on his being saved from shipwreck. In such things one who interpreted to me the poet's intention, said, that Homer seemed to cry aloud, and say, Let virtue, O men, be the object of all your care, which even together with one that is shipwrecked swims safe to shore, and when he is cast forth naked on the dry land, renders him more an object of respect than the happy Phæacians.” Basil. De leg, lib. Gent.
V. THE LOTOPHAGI.
And seen destruction our companions greet,
But the charm'd Lotus, which the soul disarms;
Whereby they ate a strange oblivion sweet
Of home-returning with the honied meat;—
Bent of that Lotus from the enchanted ground
With those Lotophagi to stay and eat;
These with constraint we dragg'd, and weeping bound
Within the hollow ships, then cleave the deep profound.”
ON THE FOREGOING.
Of rural haunts and pastoral quietude,
Yet was no place of innocence or home;
With human face divine earthward to brood,
The Lotus-eaters, with oblivious food
Of home and country,—yea of God and Heaven!
Pleasures of sense that drown the hope of good.
These must by force be seized, compulsion-driven,
Lost is the light within to Heaven-bound spirits given.
The brutalizing ease of savage land,
Whose pestilential breath clogs the sea-gale!
Away the Lotus-eaters, and the band
Half-brute, half-man; nor parley with the strand!
Such Pleasure's vile allurements come not o'er
The man of counsels nor the mastering hand,
For him far other dangers are in store;
Lift the sail to the winds! away the hateful shore!
Those fauns and old poetic fantasies,
Which haunt the classic woods and rural shrine;
Something celestial still within them lies.
Therefore a sadness in their melodies
Still seems to speak of home and rest afar,
Griefs which to hear linger'd the evening skies,
And listen'd long the solitary star;—
These Lotus-eaters—they—man's very being mar.
IV. THE ABODE OF CIRCE.
And Circe heard, who sitting at the loom
Sung with melodious voice that fill'd the wood;
A woof she wrought of bright ambrosial bloom,
Divine the work, and graceful hues illume;
Then first Polites spoke, of men the king,
‘O friends, what sweetness charms the sylvan gloom,
That all around the very pavements ring,
Is it a mortal voice, or doth a Goddess sing?’
Bright portals opening, and with greeting kind,
Inviting all, advanced the enchantress Queen.
They enter'd in, heedless, secure, and blind,
Eurylochus alone remain'd behind,
Suspecting guile: she leads within, and there
Before them sets, on downy seats reclin'd,
Press'd milk, and honey fresh, and wheaten fare,
And blends the Pramnian wine;—all drugg'd with fatal care.
They drank oblivion of their native land,
Transform'd anon they put on forms of swine,
Head, voice, and bristling limbs, by her dread wand
Stricken, and pent in sties at her command.
While all within, their sorrows to confound,
The minds of men remain'd; she with her hand
Strews acorns, mast, and cornel fruits around,
While swine with swine they fed, low grovelling on the ground.”
ON THE FOREGOING.
A home wherein the soul shall find repose,
'Tis in this sea-girt dell, where calmly curl'd
The smoke amid the trees , and welcome shews
Of peaceful hearths within,—or roofs disclose
Sweetly embosom'd haunts 'mid woodland swells,
And sounds of song come forth, and Music's close
Of ease and grateful rest and pleasure tells;
'Tis there the enchantress Queen, deluding Circe, dwells.
And loathing turn, charm'd with her voice so sweet
Will of her proffer'd viands sit and eat,
And eating find it death with no retreat;
Such magic hath transforming Pleasure's guise,
They once were men which throng her haunted seat,
Now lions, wolves, or inmates of the sties ,
As Pleasure feeds in each the sin that in him lies.
The wise who blend in faith that sovereign flower
May of those pleasures taste, and yet may live;
Such power hath grace Divine: but if her bower
Thou enter'st, long delays and shadows lower
Upon thine after-course and Hades' gloom:
And well for him who so hath bound her power
That she may wisdom speak of things to come ,
Of dangers, shades, and shoals that hence must be his doom.
On husks in foreign lands and far from home,
For him there is a rising from the Dead ,
When his Deliverer and his Lord shall come
No longer, taught by suffering; and again
Lead him a weeping wanderer from the tomb,
Make him anew, and give to sit with men,
In City of our God an honour'd denizen.
VII. WARNING AGAINST THE SIRENS.
Another coming peril shalt thou find;
Hear thou my words, the warnings given before
The God shall in their season bring to mind;—
The Sirens next waft death upon the wind;
Whoe'er unconscious shall approach their shore,
And hear their voice, for him those left behind,
His wife and children hastening to the door,
Shall gathering stand around and welcome home no more.
The Sirens sit within a flowery mead,
With bones heap'd round of the unburied slain:
That thine own comrades may not hear nor heed,
Stop thou each ear with wax, and swift proceed;
They to the mast must bind thee foot and hand;
And if from these thou strugglest to be freed,
Bind more and more and double every band,
Till thou hast ceased to hear the fatal-pleasing strand.’”
SONG OF THE SIRENS.
The full-wing'd bark, and harmless breezes play'd,
When suddenly they sank, and scarce a smile
Ruffled the main, a God the billow stay'd;
The sea-men then arose, and furling, laid
The sails aside, themselves they sat along,
The seas all whitening with the oary blade;
Then near we drew as sounds a human tongue,
They knew of the approach, and thus began the song.
Much-prais'd Ulysses! stay thy ship, draw near,
For never yet hath mortal pass'd our coast
But first he stops our honied voice to hear.
Hence he departs with song-delighted ear,
And heart with knowledge fraught to make him wise.
All things we know of Ilium, all that there
The brave endured by will of deities,
We know whate'er may be beneath the circling skies.’”
ON THE FOREGOING.
The man of many counsels, school'd in woes?
Can all his better soul at length disarm,
Who rose superior o'er so many foes,
With Circe and Calypso scorns repose?
What is that strain so subtle to the soul
That he who listens, till himself he lose
Will listen, though he 'scap'd th' enchanted bowl—
Sounds that from wisdom win her hard-earn'd selfcontrol?
Which our first parents heard in Paradise,
Whereby the wisest fell, Creation's lord,
The pride that flatters man with honied lies;
And with the fatal promise to be wise;—
“Glorious thou art and prais'd,” the Siren saith,
Then comes that curiosity that dies
In knowing good and evil, which is death:
The Faith which stops her ears alone draws vital breath.
VIII. SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.
Smoke and a billow huge with distant roar!
Their hands let fall the oars—a bellowing roll'd
Along the deep, the ship moved on no more;—
Then I each comrade labour'd to restore,
‘O friends, in dangers we are not untried,
And may remember this like those of yore;
Be we obedient all, and I will guide,
Ply ye the stedfast oars,—and Jove may help provide.
Bear out from yonder wave and smoking spray,
Steer toward the rock, lest unawares we find
The ship within the whirl-pool borne away!’
I spake, they instantly my words obey;
Scylla I mention'd not, lest at the sound
Trembling they should be chill'd by dire dismay;
Then Circe's warning I forgot, and bound
My shining arms about and anxious look'd around;—
Expecting rocky Scylla to appear
And gazing watch the gloomy rocks draw near,
But her I saw not:—then we trembling steer
The desperate strait between, and onward toil,
Scylla on this side, and Charybdis there;
Dreadful they roar and rush, and then recoil,
Till all the raving floods as in a cauldron boil.
With the engulphing tide and the rebound
Within appear'd a dreadful revelry,
With thundering roar the rock rebellow'd round,
And deep beneath was seen blue sandy ground.
Aghast were all, with terror petrified;
But while on this we gaze, with awe profound,
Six bravest champions from our vessel's side
The ravenous Scylla seiz'd, and buried in the tide.”
ON THE FOREGOING.
Would point her course, this is the tale she tells
To steer aright upon life's dangerous sea,
Where upon either side destruction dwells,
And with the tides of Passion ebbs and swells;
Shunning Charybdis most with foaming cells.
And there is wisdom too in his remorse
Who vainly seized his arms and met such foes with force.
In rude impatience oft stirr'd to alarms
Too roughly and too rashly we forego
The gentler wisdom, and rush forth to arms,
O'erleaping caution to fraternal harms;
Then on a sudden find companions gone;
Such violence, vain braving all, hath charms
'Mid rising of rude passions; but alone
The better part of peace too late in tears we own.
Thou Chief of many counsels, many foes,
Weaving the web of thy long pilgrimage,
Ever begun anew, still 'mid thy woes
Mock'd by the unreal phantom of repose,
Which like a cloud-built vision seems before
Upon the horizon's verge just to disclose
Ithaca's home, lost Ithaca's loved shore,
Ithaca fair at eve—all cloud and nothing more.
Of danger round thy homeward course are strown,
And the disquietude of coming storms;
Faith in that distant home remains alone,
E'en as a shield around thee; all are gone;—
Bear on, brave heart, still bear on to the end!
Thy comrades lost, thy ships wreck'd and o'erthrown,
Tempest-wrought ills thy soul and body rend,
Thou art by Wisdom loved, thou art of Gods the friend.
IX. THE RECOGNITION OF ULYSSES.
In his own kingly hall, a beggar poor,
With tatter'd garb and leathern wallet rude,
I would unravel the “good ” Poet's store,
And all the golden argument explore:
Caught in the maze of his melodious wiles
I linger, and suspend the passing oar,
E'en as that hero by those syren isles,
At whose surpassing sounds the sullen Ocean smiles.
He lifted up the dull earth to the skies,
Then wander'd forth in healthful virtue strong,
Seeing all earth as with an angel's eyes,
Thick-peopled with immortal Deities;
It is no more the haunt where wrongs prevail,
But in each act of life the Godhead lies,
From sight withdrawn awhile; while ne'er to fail
Stern Retribution holds, but half conceals, the scale.
In viands of slain beeves, in cheering wine,
In wafting gales, that o'er the Ocean sweep,
In birds of heaven, or in the surging brine,
In every thought which human conduct guides,
In morn, in eve, earth, sea, and air divine,
The ever-varying God his presence hides,
And sways of mortal things the deeply rolling tides;—
And oft the good to see him are allow'd,
While 'mid the revellers all bent on ill
Good Theoclymenus beholds the cloud
Peopled with Stygian shapes, a blackening shroud,
And heads all ghastly with portentous sign,
Going before destruction; from the crowd
He springs aloof, discerning wrath Divine,
While they heed not nor hear, in surfeit lost and wine.
Telemachus, beside that beggar old,
Beholds the playing of th' unharming blaze
O'er all the inner house, rays which enfold
Pillar and tier and arch in flaming gold,
And far within celestial Power confest;
His Sire discerns the God, and bids him hold
On his high errand, and th' unearthly guest
Honour with speechless awe around made manifest.
Th' insatiate spoilers, ruthless, gay, and proud,
Sure indications of their worth afford;
Antinous in wassails fierce and loud,
Taunter of holy eld; and haughty-brow'd
Eurymachus; the son of Nisus, brave,
Lover of Gods and men, whom from the crowd
Of revellers the Hero fain would save,
But he who shares the feast, must share th' untimely grave.
Like the rude stakes that fence thy woodland nest ,
All heart of oak. By his own royal door
The Beggar notes each menial and each guest,
The hospitable word, th' unkindly jest,
The temper good and loyal, him that heeds
Father and King, and age with woes opprest,
And poverty, in whose uncomely weeds
Oft Gods go forth on earth to watch men's words and deeds .
As erst at Ilium in the famèd field,
Godlike Ulysses springs, not with the shield
And helmet, but o'erwhelming death reveal'd;
The arrow wing'd with their impending doom
Hangs eager on the string, yet still they wield
The thoughtless flagons through the festive room,
While Justice hath e'en now delved deep their righteous tomb.
And as I ponder with delightèd eyes
Upon the holier lore of earlier age,
Something I read of higher mysteries,
Of One who hath descended from the skies,
And wanders here in His own kingly hall,
A stranger,—and in prison often lies ,
And on His brethren's charities doth call,
Yet weighs and watches each, the God and Judge of all.
It may be observed, that Homer generally speaks of him, the Διος υφορβος, and of him only, in the vocative case.
HESIOD.
I. WORKS AND DAYS .
O sage Ascræan, sire of song,To what great wealth hath turn'd thy wrong?
Of patrimonial lands bereft,
Thy transient sense of wrong is left
Enshrin'd in precepts grave and high,
Which Wisdom's self shall not let die.
Thus passing evils did enhance
A glorious great inheritance,—
A shadow of the eternal name
Of those who suffer without blame;
Enduring good for short-lived ill,
Which shall a better hope fulfil.
“A lawsuit with his brother, in consequence of which he remained deprived of part of his patrimony, has given occasion to much of his Poem entitled Of Works and Days.” Mitford's Greece. vol i. ch 11. s. 11.
II. THE IRON AGE.
“Would I were dead before, or later born!
“An iron race with toil and care oppress'd,
“Who pause not night or day from their unrest,
“Corrupting; on them woes the Gods shall send,
“Yet even now with good the evil blend.
“For Jove upon them brings a speedy doom,
“And hoary-headed soon they reach the tomb.
“Sons are not like their fathers as of yore;
“The host and guest, the friend and friend no more,
“The brother is no more to brother dear;
“Nor parents soon grown old will sons revere;
“With bitter words they taunt them and complain.
“Wretches, whom not e'en fears of God restrain!
“E'en those who nurtured them they without awe
“Cast off—their own right-hand their only law.
“Each other's cities will they overthrow,
“For one who keeps his oath no reverence know,
“Nor for the just and holy: rather hold
“In honour the ill-doer and the bold .
“But the bad make the better man their prey,
“And add to guileful words dread perjuries.
“Envy, with lurid visage and foul eyes,
“With miserable mortals will resort,
“In ill rejoicing, scattering ill report.
“Soon o'er the spacious earth, from mortal sight,
“Covering their beauteous forms with robes of white,
“Reverence and Right shall quit mankind, and rise
“To the immortal mansions of the skies;—
“Nothing but woes remaining with mankind,
“No remedy of evil left behind.”
And companied in Greece the elder birth
Of glorious Liberty,
Sprung from its parent's head, all-arm'd and free;
Itself baptizing in unhallowed blood
Of kings, of parents, and of brotherhood.
Paternal, priestly, and the kingly rod,
And in and over all the reign of God,
And all of God's vicegerence set at nought;
And Self enthroned;—on wings of eager thought
Casting all self-restraint unto the wind,
And worshipping each God which Self may find.
In the great “Lawless one,” and mark the skies;
Evil is found no more, for it is good,
Canonized by the full-voiced multitude.
On tiptoe loud Anticipation stands
Waiting th' opening door, and through all lands
The putting forth the head, and far and wide
Golden opinions, glorious hopes, astride
On Expectation: thence on every side
Partition-walls broke down, scatter'd all bands,
Christian and Jew together shaking hands.
Each his own priest and king and his own God
Which none shall interfere with; for their nod
Is as the many waters: wars must cease,
For mammon is enthron'd as king of peace
Throughout all lands: in the new world all-gold
The casting off of dusty trammels old;
And the great Bishop of all Christendom
Hastens to come down from imperial Rome,
Blessing and shaking hands with anarchy.
We see what is, we see not what shall be.
III. THE WATCHERS.
“Consider, O ye kings, of judgment well;—“For ever near among mankind there dwell
“Immortals, looking on with keenest eyes;
“Beholding when, regardless of the skies,
“With crooked judgments men each other rend.
“For thrice ten-thousand watchers ever tend,
“Guardians of Jove, on those of mortal birth;—
“With darkness clad they walk the peopled earth,
“Immortal spirits, through all place and time
“Noting the judgments and the deeds of crime.
“For Justice is the virgin-child of Jove,
“Glorious and reverenced by the Gods above.
“When one against her by ill ways hath striven,
“Anon she sits a suppliant in Heaven
“To her Saturnian sire; of deeds of ill
“And unjust men complaining loud, until
“A people for their Prince's crime atone,
“Perverting justice on the judgment-throne.”
IV. THE PATH OF VIRTUE.
“In cumulative fulness and with ease;
“For short the way, she dwelleth ever nigh;
“But before Virtue have the Gods on high
“Sweat of the brow ordain'd, much toil precedes,
“And long and steep the path that to her leads;
“Arduous at first—until it reach the height,
“Easy thenceforth the way, and fair the sight.”
ST. BASIL ON THE ABOVE PASSAGE.
Basil. De leg. lib. Gen.
V. THE RIGHTEOUS KING.
“Calliope, the noblest of the Nine,“For she on kings revered attendant goes,—
“Whoe'er he be of kings divinely-rear'd,
“On whom as soon as born they deign to look,
“Daughters of mighty Jove:—upon his tongue
“They shed mellifluous sounds, and his sweet words
“Drop eloquence; his people with one face
“All gaze on him deciding righteous laws.
“While with safe-counsel, and in wisdom skill'd,
“Quickly a great contention hath he staunch'd.
“For thus wise-counselling kings, with subjects bent
“On deeds injurious, work mutation strange,
“With ease persuasive and soft-soothing words.
“Him going through the city as a God
“They tend with kind obeisance; while around
“They gather, he o'er all stands Chief Supreme.
“Such is to men the Muses' sacred gift;
“From Muses and Apollo darting-far
“Poets and minstrels go forth on the earth,
“But kings from Jove himself.”
ÆSCHYLUS.
I. THE PROMETHEUS.
Thou solemn bard, or seer, or sage divine,
Or priest of Heathen Wisdom? In what vale
Of shadowy death or subterranean mine
Chaldee or Ind, or in Egyptian shrine
'Neath some dark pyramid,—or on the shore
Of dim Oblivion left in its decline,
Some fragment old of Babylonian lore;—
Where didst thou gain that tale of days that went before?
Or many-colour'd pebble on the beach,
Christ crucified we trace in mystic signs,
Whom stones within their secret bosom preach;—
Or when the skies of blue majestic reach
In starry characters the Cross disclose,
The same beneath our feet may waters teach
In dark reflection,—thus, whence'er it rose,
Beneath this legend strange shadows of truth repose.
In adamantine fetters on the rock,
Whose very name itself of wisdom speaks?
Two monsters, Strength and Force, huge rivets lock,
Alien to pity, and his sorrows mock,
But Nature through her realms doth sympathize,
And Earth unto its centre feels the shock.
See Ocean on his griffin car arise,
And all his daughter-nymphs too fair for human eyes,—
Ascending from their azure palaces
And coral caves, upborne on airy car
'Tween earth and Heaven, and sitting on the breeze
With wisdom hold their virgin colloquies;
Poising the scales of virtue; while hard by
Laughing with dimples numberless the Seas,
Ether Divine, swift-wing'd Airs, Earth and Sky
Around him mingling breathe intensest sympathy.
Deep-counselling son of Themis , wise of mind,
Or Son of Earth and Heaven , as some would say;
Thus suffering for thy love of lost mankind,
Like shadows in a dream to ruin given,
Despair before and wrath itself behind,
When thou didst give them Hope and Fire from Heaven,
For which thou art thyself to bonds and exile driven.
Throned majesty of evil, given to reign
A dynasty of ill one destin'd hour,
Yet trembling at a captive he would chain?
Men “seeing saw not, hearing heard in vain .”
But who is this with melancholy moan,
That like a death-doom'd victim doth complain,
And comes to thee with supplicating groan,
Whom that dread evil power hath touch'd and made his own?
Of conscience, expiating Jove-wrought sin,
Like some strange symbol of guilt-laden man,
Whom the live stings without and pangs within
From Argus hundred-eyed no respite win,
Like phantom of the crime that hems her in,
Brings her this way to thee on mountain reef,
For one that's born of her shall bring the world relief.
'Mid mountain fastnesses the Thunders bound,
And Echo from her rocky caves awakes,
And Lightnings shake their forked hair around,
Wild dusty Whirlwinds ride the storm. 'Mid sound
Of bursting thunders with a mightier chime,
From him upon the adamantine rock fast-bound
Is heard the righteous voice lifted sublime,
Making his loud appeal to furthest shores of time.
To square with truths divine, nor bring from high
Transcendent Love, to blend with tales of yore
Found in the dreams of heathen vanity;—
As when in fiery embers as they lie
We trace out fancied shapes, or in the cloud
Give shape and mould to falsehood—nor have bowed
To look for beauty's face within a funeral shroud.
(Like shadow of the Heavens in some dark well)
Such wisdom hath been found; or whether part
Of some primeval lore unsearchable,
Much changed, much fraught with error, which thus fell
Like some stray scatter'd fragments on the strand;—
Methinks if we could all the meaning tell
It bears the mark of some unearthly hand,
On which with awe we gaze, yet cannot understand.
Earth, sea, or sky, live form, or human face,
Yet lose it soon in other lineaments,
Alien and intricate; enough to trace
Though rude and shapeless;—or in realms of grace
With complications manifold may blend
The Cross of Christ, yet find therein no place
In full distinctness, though through all it tend;
Enough if 'mid dark clouds we. Heavenward still ascend.
II. KNOWLEDGE OF GOD BY SUFFERING.
1
“O Thou surpassing mortal sight,Wonderful is Thy Name!
How shall I think of Thee aright,
And speak Thee without blame?
Of Thee I fain would sing,
But every thought I to the balance bring
To speak Thy praise is impotent and vain,
And feeble is the strain.
2
“I see below some mighty oneArises, mantling o'er
With proud defiance; he anon
Is past, and heard no more:
Another for a space,
And lo, a third is towering in his place;
But he who sings of Thine all-conquering Power,
Hath Wisdom for his dower.
3
“Thou pointest out the toilsome stairWhich leads to Wisdom's palace fair,
And hast to man Thy law made plain,
That Pain is Gain .
Gentle as dew such knowledge of Thy laws,
And e'en from sleep the soul instruction draws;
But little thanks the lesson own,
For in unwilling hearts such grace is sown,
By them who sit on Heaven's dread throne.”
ON THE FOREGOING.
Thus well he deem'd that God who hides from sightMust Ever-lasting be and Infinite,
To knowledge of Himself that lies so deep
Still training us by suffering, e'en in sleep
Conversing with our spirit; night and day,
So wonderfully near, so far away.
III. SACRILEGE.
Their own madness they deem wise!
O footsteps and mute auguries
Of Him whose will is destiny!
“Tush,” said one, “doth God perceive,
Or for trampled altars grieve?”
Thus they whet themselves to rage
Of abhorrèd Sacrilege.
Sprung are such from them of old
Breathing forth rebellion bold,
Nurs'd to impious hardihood
From full houses flowing o'er
With an over-plenteous store,
Beyond the golden mean of good.
Far aloof from such be mine,
With content in humble cell,
Unharming and unharm'd to dwell,
Hard by holy Wisdom's shrine!
For what shall towers of wealth avail
To them who kick at Judgment's shrine,
Th' inextricable net of Penalty divine?
Th' infatuating Judgment's course
Urges them on, and gathers force,
Dread Counsellor for children's woe.
Therefore lowers the heavenly roof,
And all Healing stands aloof.
Now no more the guilt conceal'd,
Horribly it stands reveal'd—
Awfully resplendent light:
It has pass'd for current long,
Through the hands of thousands strong,
And their handling made it bright.
Black forgery is in these lines,
See the adulterous metal shines,
With a curse upon its brow!
Look at it, and sound it now!
It seem'd but sport at morning mild,
And they pursuing, like a child
With feather'd prey his grasp inviting,
Ever before his steps alighting;
But in sad Destruction pale
The City shall such sport bewail!
God turns from the abhorred land,
And draws around Him the dark cloud
From sacrilegious heart and gold-defilèd hand.”
ON THE FOREGOING.
Which in our Christian land bears rule,
The only lore it with it brings
Hate of God's Church and hate of kings,
Contempt of Christ in His own poor.
Grow in possessions more and more;
But o'er them hangs from age to age
Blindness of eyes their heritage,
A heavier judgment to endure .
Those proud bad men, whose unrelenting sway
Has shatter'd holiest things, and led astray
Christ's little ones.”
Lyr. Apost.
IV. THE BESETTING SIN.
Who rear'd a Lion from the breast,
And took him for his household guest.
Harmless he play'd in mimic strife
In feats that presaged after-life,
The children's sport—and well I ween
Old age could smile upon the scene,
When one would take him, like a child,
Into his arms; or crouching wild
The hand caressing he put by,
With suppliant tail and glistening eye.
He shews the hidden dam within,
And all the house is blood and din.
His foster friends he now repays,
Stays an unbidden guest, and preys
On flock and fold; a torment sore,
The cherish'd inmate now no more.
Rapine and Slaughter on him wait
Where'er he goes; found not too late,
A slaughtering Priest at Ate's shrine.”
ON THE FOREGOING.
Wild beasts which nature fill with aweBut typify the inward law
Of Passion, whether love or hate,
Fawning at first, but waxing great
It preys upon the soul within,
And stands reveal'd “the man of sin.”
V. ATE.
She never childless dies,
But in her fulness doth disclose
A multiplying brood of woes.
But Truth, if I may hold thy hand,
Apart from all with thee I stand;
Some sacrilegious Deed of fear
Hath offspring, which their parent's impress bear,
But houses built with Right have children bright and fair.
2
“The Crime of old, which seem'd long dead,Lifts up again its head,
Again its destin'd moon it fills,
And giveth birth to mortal ills,
As aye advancing it grows worse
In the black chambers of the Curse,
It bears a nameless progeny,
Hating the light—not yet their form we see,
But doubtless all too like their godless ancestry.
3
“In smoky huts Justice shines bright,Revering holy Right,
But her averted eyes doth hold
From hands defiled with sacred gold;
And towering walks unto the side
Where deeds of Holiness abide,
Nor honours Power which wealth may raise,
Though falsely it be stamp'd with passing Praise,
But unto the Great End she ordereth all her ways.”
ON THE FOREGOING.
Deep Wisdom speaks as from a shrine,
Of long-descending Curse and Crime
Which marks the steps of Wrath divine.
Enters a house and there remains;
On age to age its shadows rest,
Unless Repentance cleanse the stains .
VI. THE FURIES OVERTAKING ORESTES.
“Justice must overtake thee, thy red bloodDrink we, and thou alive shalt be our food,
To waste thee and drag down below
With the vengeance and the woe
Of the matricide;—
Meet warning-sign for him who sets aside
The God, the stranger, or his parents dear,
That retribution each shall bear.
Hades, great Judge, all mortal things shall right,
Who sitteth out of sight,
With watchful mind as with an iron pen
Noting down the deeds of men.”
ORESTES AT THE SHRINE.
“Neither Apollo nor Minerva's shrineShall save thee that thou perish not and pine;—
Nor know a place of joy within thy mind;
The bloodless prey of spirits, shadow blind.
Fed and devoted all for me, my prey,
My living victim, not on altars slain;
Then hear the charm which shall thy soul enchain.—
SONG OF THE FURIES.
Which his spirit shall entrance.
Men's destinies are in our hand,
The disposal of our band;
Stern exactors we of right;
Vengeance is our stern delight.
He his hands who keepeth clean—
Him our anger toucheth not,—
He shall have an unharm'd lot.
But where deed of crime hath been,
And the guilty sinner hides
Blood that on his hands abides,
Witnesses true to the dead
Close upon his heels we tread,
Blood-avengers we draw near,
With him to the end appear.
For the punishment and dread
Of the living and the dead,
Whether on or 'neath the earth;
Takes from me the trembling one;—
Though his hands be fresh-imbrued
With a mother's blood.
O'er our victim not in vain
Sing we this our strain,
Soul-destroying, working-sadness,
And self-despairing madness,
The Furies' ban,
The spirit's chain,
Lyre-less, joy-less, withering man.
Fate hath given us firm to hold;—
When deeds of crime on mortal lie
To attend him till he die;
Nor I ken
Shall he be more free e'en then.
O'er our victim not in vain
Sing we this our strain,
Soul-destroying, working sadness,
And self-despairing madness,
The Furies' ban,
The spirit's chain,
Lyre-less, joy-less, withering man.
Were assign'd us at our birth;—
Nor approach within their portals;
None of them with us carouses;
For no part, no lot have we
With the white-robed company.
Ours the ruin is of houses;
Should a home-rear'd Mars appear,
Slaying one that should be dear;
Him pursue we;—be he strong
We shall waste him down ere long.
Is One set free,
And Gods enjoy immunity
From the criminal appeal.
But Jove with converse ne'er will grace
Our hate-doom'd and blood-reeking race
Therefore wandering far I go,
And down my heavy foot-fall bring
With a spring
And intolerable woe,
When upon him we prevail
As his slippery footsteps fail.
All faded and dishonour'd dwindle down
But he that falls this knoweth not, for guilt hath made him blind,
With such a cloud it falls upon the crime-polluted mind.
But others deeply groan, and speak of what a gloom
There hangs upon the house with a heavy weight of doom.
For all ways are in our hand,
All we perfect in its time,
Stern remembrancers of crime.
Prayers with us no access find;
Unaveng'd, unhonour'd crew;
Far from Gods our lot assign'd
While we pursue
With a sunless lamp behind,—
Preciptous dark ways shall flee,
Both the blind and those that see.
Heareth these things without fear,
Of our ordinance severe?
To the end it shall endure.
While I bear this rite from of old
None shall me dishonour'd hold,
Though 'neath the earth invisible
In the sunless cloud I dwell.”
SONG OF THE FURIES EXPLAINED.
Bp. Butler's Analogy, b. l. ch. ll.
VII. DIVINE POWER.
“The will of Jove no one can trace,All things to him are bright
E'en in dark night,
What seems black chance to mortal race.
Safe it falls out and sure will stand
Whate'er his will shall once command.
His counsels are a secret maze,
Like intricate dark woodland ways,
And difficult to know.
From lofty towers on high he looks, and thence
He hurls men in destruction low,
Yet arms him with no violence;—
All without effort is with Gods.
Seated on high, I know not how, His thought
Hath instantaneously fulfilment wrought
E'en from His pure abodes .”
“Yea, what things Thou didst determine were ready at hand, and said, Lo, we are here.”Judith. ix. 6.
SIMONIDES.
Some Theban fragment, or unrol
One precious, tender-hearted scroll
Of pure Simonides!
Wordsworth.
I.
With a healthful cheerful sadness,
Better than light-hearted gladness,
With a sorrow that doth please
Cleanse the heart, Simonides!
And the lightly-flowing measure,
Or deceitfulness of pleasure,
There must be an undersound,
And a sadness more profound.
Than the worldly heart that sigheth;
In a soul that inly crieth,
Hopeful from a deep despair,
Is the life that is a prayer.
II. ELEGIAC FRAGMENT.
“Nought hath on earth abiding stay,For mortal men like leaves decay;
So said the Chian bard of yore,
All hear, but few in heart will store.
For e'en from youth at each man's side,
Hope will with pleasing tale abide.
While lovely flowers of youth remain
Many designs man hath in vain;
Ne'er thinks he shall grow old and die;
Nor when in health he sick shall lie.
O fools, thus minded still are ye,
Nor know how short man's time must be?
Take this to heart, and to life's end
Of thine own soul be thou the friend.”
III. ON THE LIFE OF MAN.
“Deep-thundering Jove each end fulfils,Disposing all things as he wills;
'Tis not man's wisdom ought to sway,
He lives the being of a day,
God brings fulfilment as He may.
On beauties still feeds Hope divine,
And stirs the impossible design.
While some await a coming day,
Others a year that's far away.
No one but thinks to live a year,
Enjoying wealth and blessings dear.
Old-age unenvied thus on some
Steals, ere the final close is come.
On some Diseases bring their ends,
While others war to Hades sends.
Some on the Ocean tempest-tost
'Mid angry floods their lives have lost.
While others by self-slaughter fall,
And die a death most sad of all.
Thus ills unnumber'd men surround,
And woes on every side abound.
Thyself then fret not, nor complain,
Nor grieve as one in love with pain.”
IV. MUTABILITY.
Nor what may be another's mortal span:
For rapid is the change which on us lies,
E'en as the insect spreads its wing and dies.”
ANOTHER TRANSLATION OF THE SAME.
“Say not, mortal, what shall be,Nor of one whom thou may'st see
When his lot to die:
For the change of human things
Is more swift than glancing wings
Of the summer fly.”
V. DANAE AND HER CHILD.
The waves around tempestuous pour'd,
A mother's heart then quail'd with fear,
And on her cheek there was a tear;
O'er little Perseus, as he slept,
She laid her loving arm, and wept;—
‘What do I suffer, O my child,
While thou upon a night so wild,
With baby heart thus breathing deep,
Art in thy joyless house asleep,—
This brass-bound chest, 'mid Ocean gloom
Which nothing but the stars illume.
Above thy deep and flowing locks,
Nor wind's harsh voice; so calm doth glow,
In purple wrapt, thy beauteous brow.
If thou with me couldst feel and fear,
Then wouldst thou lend thy little ear.
Sleep on, my infant, smiling fair,
Sleep Ocean, and sleep thou, my care!
From thee some change for mine and me,
But if a word too bold I speak,
Forgive, I pray, for my child's sake.’”
ANACREON.
TO THE GRASSHOPPER.
On the high tree-tops,
Like a king thou singest,
Drinking dewy drops.
Thine are all the fields,
All thou thence art seeing,
All the woodland yields.
Harmless round his feet;
Welcome guest appearest,
Summer's prophet sweet.
And Apollo's choice,
Who in thee infuses
A melodious voice.
Full of song and mirth,
Careless of the morrow,
Like the Gods on earth.”
ON THE SAME.
Bard of love and wine,
Could it but inherit
Such a life divine.
Singing on the tree,
True to its own nature
Carols joyously.
Let us eat and drink,
Cast away all sorrow
Even to the brink!
In thine heart to dwell,
Something form'd for Heaven,
Something fit for Hell.
Aught that is within,
Which uplifts the finger,
And reproves of sin.
So might sing and shine,
Did we only cherish
Innocence like thine.
PINDAR.
I.
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.
Before his coming prostrate fall,
The City needs a wall no more
Which owns the Olympian conqueror.
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.
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?
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,
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.
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,
Weaving the wisdom from on high.
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.
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.
II. THE BIRTH OF HERCULES.
1
“The Babe now swathed in saffron sheenScaped 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 graspBoth 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.
3
“Then in brazen panoplyRush'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.
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.
A helpless pair in hurried flight—
Where nought but stars on either hand
Keep watch o'er the Arabian strand.
And more of wisdom shall it tell
Than kindled heathen poet's theme,
Or walk'd the groves of Academe.
III. TRIAL AND REWARD.
“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,
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.
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.
That glorious wreck of Eden lies;
Looks beauteous through the blue serene,
Though now the haunt of things unclean.
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.
IV. BEGINNING WELL.
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,
In life's first opening day.
Such of his treasures in the skies
The Merchant most doth prize.
V. THE FOUNDLING ON EARTH.
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.
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.
Yet they ne'er had heard nor seen:
He within the pathless glade
'Mid the bulrushes was laid,
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.
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?
When the infant soul reposes,
Shrouded 'neath the glittering eyes
Of the violets and roses,
Angel-tended in surprise
Which eternity discloses.
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?
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.
In that slumberous land rejoices,
And like birds in morning skies
Hears around angelic voices,
Brighter dreams in her arise
Conscious of celestial choices.
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?
'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.
VI. ASPIRATIONS OF EARTH.
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.
Haply in his own heart sounding,
While it seems to meet his ears
With ethereal speech surrounding,
Witnesses unseen abounding.
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 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.’
Thus must man's immortal spirit
Through the universe ascend,
Nobler blessings to inherit,
Passing onward to its end,
Nobler destinies to merit.
SOPHOCLES.
I. GRECIAN TRAGEDY.
At varied interval and clime
His utterance shapes in varied mode,
Nor quits with man His sure abode.
By Patriarchs and by Prophets old,
And shepherds of His own true fold,
In full distinctness is He heard,
Before—around the Living Word.
So 'mid the nations, though less clear
Yet unto those that lend an ear,
His voice mysterious deigns to dwell,
And moulds the awful parable.
Solemn, sublime, and musical,
Orpheus, and Linus, Ascra's sage,
And Homer on blind pilgrimage;—
They pass along from age to age,
The dried and sultry wilderness,
Where all things else would droop and die
Beneath the anger of the sky.
Then, sweeter than Apollo's lute,
Unto Philosophy was given
To speak deep things of God and Heaven.
With graceful and majestic mien
Attended by the virgin choir,
On the Athenian theatre.
Her chasten'd and melodious note
She gave upon the gale to float,
In Attic phrase and Classic line
Veiling the moral thought divine,
Such as the Grecian ear might win
And cleanse the avenues of sin.
The better wisdom of the skies
To point in life's realities.
From looser thought and words that stain
Would rise the Christian stage to sweep—
At which the blessed Angels weep!
II. THE TRAGIC CHORUS AND THE MORAL LAW.
Sustaining reverend purity
Of words and actions all,
For which are stedfast Laws that walk the sky,
Laws born and rear'd in the ethereal heaven,
Of which Olympus is alone the sire;
To which no race of mortal man gave birth,
Nor ever shall oblivion lay asleep;
Mighty in these things is the God,
Nor ever groweth old.
Pride puff'd and pamper'd with vain things,
Untimely and unmeet:
And bearing up to height precipitous,
Then hurls all headlong down into the strait
Where extricating foot can nought avail.
A noble struggle for the city's cause
I pray the God may never-more forego:
To God as my defender true
Ne'er will I cease to cling.
Who goeth haughtily,
Not fearing Justice, nor
Revering seats divine,
May evil fate him seize
For the requital of his ill-starr'd pride;
If what he gains, he gain not righteously,
Nor holdeth back the sacrilegious hand
From things that are not meet for mortal touch.
What man in courses such as these
Shall ward the shafts of conscience from his soul?
If things like these are honour'd among men
What need for me the sacred choir to lead?
III. SIGHT OF ATHENS.
Stroph.—
“Stranger of this equestrian land,On noblest seats of earth dost thou stand,
Colonus, marble-white;
Where most oft the nightingale
Warbles most musical
In verdant glade
Out of sight;—
In the wine-faced Ivy shade,
And hallowed grove with fruits of thousand kind,
Where no foot hath descended,
Where sun and wind no entrance find,
Haunts ever trod by Bacchanalian god,
By train of nymphs divine his way attended.
Antist.—
“'Neath heavenly dews is blooming thereNarcissus day by day with clusters fair,
The chaplet worn of old
By the mighty goddesses;
And in silken tresses
Crocus shining bright
With its gold.
Sleepless-flowing day and night
Cease not the founts that in Cephisus pour,
With fertile shower the meadows o'er;
Nor tuneful Nine this favour'd land decline;
Nor Venus to her golden harness bending.
Stroph.—
“Here too is a plant which neverGroweth such on Asia's land, I hear,
Nor on Pelops' Dorian Isle doth appear
Blooming ever;—
Self-sown plant no hand may touch,
Terror of the hostile spear,
The child-sustaining Olive, ever green,
Here of all place most fertile seen;
And no one, be he old or young, on such
The mark of a destroying hand hath laid.
On it the Eye that never sleeps
Of Morian Jove its vigil keeps,
And Athena, blue-eyed maid.
Antist.—
“Other theme I have of praises,Mighty gift of mighty Deity,
Which this maternal city of the free
Ever raises,
For her ships as for her steeds
Famed by land and famed by sea.
O Son of Saturn, thou, Neptunian King,
Dost unto her this glory bring:
The bridle first beheld in this our street;
And from thy port the bark with wings
Companion of the Nereids springs,
With her countless, oary feet.”
SIGHT OF OXFORD.
Of Athens' sacred seat,
And all the poet's soul renew
His own loved haunts to greet!
The hallow'd shade most dread,
The awful presence of the Unseen
Stills thought and voice and tread.
On her green olive bower,
The Eye of God which cannot sleep,
The nation's secret power.
With thoughts more holy still,
Of Oxford seen from neighb'ring grove,
And woodland verdant hill.
Sings in her covert glades,
While calm religion's gloom severe
Watches the holy shades.
Are in those haunts combined,
All looser fancies to reprove,
And still the vagrant mind.
Fill up our after life,
The prayers and quiet ways of grace,
And yet more holy strife.
And thoughts in stillness found,
Like walks with Angel-guests from Heaven,
Which haunt that sacred ground.
Be still'd in that repose,
And the more solemn shade of truth
Subdue its keener woes!
From bells and sacred calls,
And ancient Faith hath cast around
Its shadow on her walls.
Here dwells in bowers and shrines,—
Severity with awful love
Which better hope divines.
Nor the luxurious board,
Nor cares of filthy avarice,
And secret-gathering hoard.
For this world's liberty,
But fear of God be All in All,
Which only maketh free.
Her very heart that beats,
The pulse is felt throughout the earth
Which stirs in her retreats.
For our own children keep,
When we ourselves behold His face,
And 'neath His shadow sleep.
EURIPIDES.
I. ALCESTIS RETURNING FROM THE GRAVE.
The Gods have means beyond our thought;
Expected ills they turn aside,
Beyond all hope a way provide.”
Termination of the Alcestis.
Semblances blend of life's realities,
And images of truth therein are found,
Confus'd and intertwin'd with dreamy thoughts
And empty shadows; and oft-times therein
Spirits of good and ill contending seem
More vividly than in our waking life;
That meditative wisdom oft may find
Broken reflections and stray shapes of truth
Set forth at random beneath fancy's garb.
As one who some sweet music would recall,
If it might give forth aught of prophecy;
For while it blended with the things of sense
It seem'd to hold a commerce with the Unseen,
And Nature spake therein more than she knew,
While Faith is her divine interpreter.
All strangely intermingling may be seen
Dreamlike similitudes of truth divine;
Wherein man, waken'd in the Christian morn,
May 'neath the tangled web of true and false
Unravelling find broken celestial forms,
Though interrupted oft and lost in clouds,
Yet phantoms and resemblances indeed,
Vision-like and unreal, and yet true,
As shadows in a mirror, though themselves
But airy nothing and an empty shade.
Hath Christ set forth on earth the scatter'd signs
Of Resurrection, when His Voice and Hand
Brought from the silent regions of the dead
Those who this life had left,—the youthful child
Of Jairus, coldly laid on bed of death,—
Or from his bier before the Nain gate
The widow's son, who heard His voice and lived;—
Or Lazarus from the darkness of the grave.
Such preludes of the Resurrection's power
Till the last Resurrection of the Just.
Compared with these realities divine
Those mythic fables old and Paynim tales
Are but as mirrors seen upon the clouds,
Aerial phantoms of a coming form;
Or shadowy dreams compared with things of life.
In that fair story of Admetus' bride,
Brought by Alcides in the veil of death
From the dark regions of the place of souls;—
Alcides—that mysterious hero-god,
Himself encountering and o'ercoming death;
And who that dreaded serpent slew of old.
When after her lustrations she may speak;
Fair as the veilèd form of coming Spring,
At whose approach Nature breaks forth in song
And gratulation, with instinctive joy
Unconsciously divining deep within
Of something better than a fading spring,—
A new Creation which shall not see death.
In dying resurrection to attain,
Who for another dared herself to die;—
Admetus too, that good Thessalian king,
Albeit not unmeet for such a boon;
Had cover'd with a show of courtesy
To entertain a stranger, and thereby
Had unawares receiv'd a saving God.
In this unlook'd-for blessing from the grave,
Beyond all thought to life and light restor'd.—
“Our lives, far better than they yet have been,
“For great I own is this my happiness .”
II. THE GARLAND OF HIPPOLYTUS.
Unto thee Hippolytus this flowery chaplet bears;—
“From meadows where no shepherd his flock a-field e'er drove,
From where no woodman's hatchet hath woke the echoing grove,
Where o'er the unshorn meadow the wild bee passes free,
Where by her river-haunts dwells virgin Modesty;
Where he who knoweth nothing the wisdom of the schools
Beareth in a virgin heart the fairest of all rules;
To him 'tis given all freely to cull those self-sown flowers,
But evil men must touch not pure Nature's sacred bowers.
This to his virgin mistress a virgin hand doth bear,
A wreath of unsoil'd flowers to deck her golden hair;
For such alone of mortals can unto her draw nigh,
And with that guardian Goddess hold solemn converse high.
He hears what others hear not, and sees her though unseen;
He holds his virgin purpose in freedom unbeguiled,
To age and death advancing in innocence a child.”
And worthy were the story of Christian pilgrimage,
Though hated by the many the tale is half divine,
And his death not all unmeet 'mong martyrdoms to shine.
'Mid Nature's hid recesses, 'mid unshorn meads and woods,
Where broods an unseen Presence o'er sacred solitudes;
Where stars are wildly silent in watches of the night,
And the virgin moon comes forth all like a vestal white;
When awful hangs the stillness upon the earth and sky,
Man's spirit longs to mingle with purer things on high.
Who in that solemn evening in Eden's garden trod.
It is an awful converse, it is a holy time,
When the soul awakes to wisdom majestic and sublime,
Like an effluence divine that rests on virgin youth,
Ere tainted breath hath passed on the mirror of its truth.
With the Venus and her loves and Phædra waxing pale,
Incestuous passion mad upon her like a spell,
The scorpion that awakens with foretaste of its hell;
Things noblest thus shine forth by contrast base and vile,
The star for clouds seems fairer in its cærulean Isle.
Is this that gentle love-god of which the poets speak,
Which sheds light upon the eyes and bloom upon the cheek?
Is this that love of woman that like the evening star
Fills up the skies around us with tender thoughts from far?
But form'd of painted splendours which earth-born mists enfold?
What seems so fair to glisten is but a thundercloud,
And leaves a tale of vengeance that speaketh clear and loud.
But to walk before his God a virgin undefiled?
While others train their children to graceful arts and dress,
And all the worldly ways that wait on loveliness;
That they in nuptial brightness might walk like ladies fair,
And in their hands bear garlands, and garlands in their hair,
To wed with wealth and station, and walk in high degree,
With Christ's own virgin poor lest they should number'd be;
Their first thoughts thus to marry or be in marriage given,
Their second for God's Church and for the things of Heaven.
Rear'd in that low simplicity which nurtures faith divine;
A virgin through thy life, angel-like spirit blest,
The more to love thy Saviour and on His love to rest.
Conversing with the Goddess in woodland, grove, or shore:
But with those saintly spirits that wean'd their hopes from earth
That they might have in Heaven a yet more glorious birth:
With Daniel, man of loves, who saw beyond the tomb;
And John in trance beholding the Judgment yet to come;
And with good Ken, the Witness of this our later day,
From whom his Church hath learned her morn and evening lay.
There's found in life no sweetness like the awakening soul
Which to God's love in childhood devotes the being whole.
Though with the thorns encompass'd which shelter heavenly truth.
The spring it hath no fragrance which doth such freshness bear,
No sight or sound hath nature which can with it compare.
When Satan and the world our course aside have driven,
To that bright spot turns Memory as to a gleam of Heaven.
BION.
THE EVENING STAR.
The sacred gem of dark-blue night,
Fairest of all the stars that shine,
And only than the moon less bright,
Hail, friendly star of Love divine!
She new to-day hath set too soon;—
For no ill deed I speed along,
Thou art thyself love's benison,
And sing'st with me love's vesper song.”
MOSCHUS.
[“When the calm wind upon the dark-blue sea]
“Softly reclines, kissing it tremblingly,
“It lures my timid mind to quit the shore,
“And all the varied landscapes please no more.
“But when the deeps white-foaming heave profound,
“Crest the curved billow, and the waves resound;
“Then from the sea I fly to haunts I love;
“The land is welcome and the shady grove;
“Where gently comes the ruffle on the trees,
“And the tall pine is singing to the breeze.
“Toils on the seas for an uncertain prey,
“His home with winds and waves upon the deep,
“While'neath the broad-leaved plane I sweetly sleep,
“Or listen to the rill that murmurs near,
“Which soothes without alarm the vacant ear.”
THE CONTRAST.
Not so the Christian—he must fear and fleeThe pleasant scene and calm tranquillity
With sorrow, and look hardship in the face.
Such halcyon days, and calms Elysian
Before the time, the Heaven-ward soul unman.
She dreads false pleasures and alike hath striven
With shine or storm as they to her are given.
His is the patient Fisherman's hard life
With wind and wave and seasons all at strife.
And when his bark is on the nightly sea
Cover'd with waves and all in jeopardy,
The Tempest will disclose his Saviour's Form,
Walking upon the waves amid the storm;
Then He will enter and appease the roar,
And bring them near unto the stable shore.
CALLIMACHUS.
I. FROM THE HYMN TO APOLLO.
“Lo, how the laurel of Apollo shakes!How the whole temple to its centre quakes!
Far, far aloof, thou sinner! 'tis the God,
With beauteous foot who on his threshold trod.
See how the Delian palm nods suddenly,
And sweet the swan is singing in the sky.
Open yourselves, ye portals! wide expand,
Ye glittering bars, it is the God at hand!
Ye youths, attune your songs, the dance enfold,
None, but the good, Apollo can behold.
On him that sees thee not a curse doth rest,
Great he that sees thee; O be manifest
To us, far-darting God, and we are blest.”
ON THE SAME.
Or Grecian Scriptures in Egyptian cell,
That, bard of Alexandria, thou hast caught
The fragmentary records of high thought—
More in the heart than on the ear is heard;
And tones of Inspiration there enshrined
Speak higher things than were within thy mind?
The Sun of life and light, the eternal Word,
Shall be invisibly, where'er it stands,
The shaking of His Temple through all lands.
His coming on Mount Sinai shook the earth,
In premonition of that second birth,
Which by its coming shakes the earth and Heaven,
With all the universe asunder riven.
Then shall there be your lifting up on high,
Ye everlasting portals of the sky;
And all spontaneous from its burning shores
The rolling back of the eternal doors.
For which Creation waits the destined hour,
Gentile and Jew some shadowy gleams discern'd,
Faces of all were to its coming turn'd;
To good and ill shall it be manifest,—
Seen of all eyes, by every tongue confess'd.
Wherein none but the holy see their God;
Who lowly stooping down to meet our needs
The threshold of His shrine in meekness treads.
In His humiliations thus brought near
To none but to His own doth He appear.
II. EPITAPH.
“Here slumbering; say not that the good man dies.”
ON THE SAME.
Which may an evening sky illume;
Like moon-beams on a stormy sea;
Or lamp that burns within a tomb;—
Which shed its light upon a grave;
Yet 'twas enough if rightly known
To cheer in life, in death to save.
LATIN WRITERS.
“NAM QUID ALIUD FECERUNT MULTI BONI FIDELES NOSTRI? NONNE ASPICIMUS QUANTO AURO ET ARGENTO ET VESTE SUFFARCINATUS EXIERIT DE ÆGYPTO CYPRIANUS, DOCTOR SUAVISSIMUS ET MARTYR BEATISSIMUS? QUANTO LACTANTIUS? QUANTO VICTORINUS, OPTATUS, HILARIUS, UT DE VIVIS TACEAM? QUANTO INNUMERABILES GRÆCI? QUOD PRIOR IPSE FIDELISSIMUS DEI FAMULUS MOYSES FECERAT, DE QUO SCRIPTUM EST QUOD ERUDITUS FUERIT OMNI SAPIENTIA ÆGYPTIORUM.” S. Aug. De doc. Chr., 1. ii. 61.
LUCRETIUS.
I.
Intensest visions were before him brought,
Unreal shadows; yet his spirit stern
Did still unconscious for that Presence yearn,
Which clothes Itself with circum-ambient day,
Swifter than solar beams or lightning ray.
Grasping infinity, he nothing found,
Then shrunk from vacuum that yawn'd around;
Spread like the blind his hands, therein to clasp
Annihilation in his feeble grasp;
As if some fiend that mock'd him in its place
Left but a shadow in his void embrace.
And thus he fail'd that mystery to scan
The greatness and the littleness of man.
Sublime, unmeasured, strange, and manifold,
Expatiating there with eager view;
The Ocean, and the vast resplendent Blue,
The Elements, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars
Were but the breathing mighty characters
Presenting visions of th' unbounded Whole.
With awful horror blends delight divine,
Where bodies traverse depth and height, and shine
Wandering like sheep amid the infinite,
And feed on fields of the ethereal light .
Were but the songs of the vast Universe,
We hear—and listen to the impassion'd theme,
And catch strange truths in his bewilder'd dream.
II. VANITY OF HUMAN LIFE.
“Nor wife, nor children sweet as heretofore
“Snatch the fond kiss, and to thy bosom press'd
“With an unutter'd sweetness fill thy breast.
“To aid thyself and thine no more thy power!
“‘Poor man!’ they say, ‘poor man! one evil hour
“Hath all life's blessings swept from thee away.’
“But thus bewailing they omit to say
“That no desires of these with thee remain;
“Which could their hearts perceive, their words attain,
“From anguish and despair would set them free.
“Thou in thy death for all eternity
“From human griefs and sickness art relieved.
“We by thy dismal tomb, of thee bereaved,
“Weep on insatiably, and left forlorn
“For ever think on thee, for ever mourn. . .
“Lifting their cups, with flowery chaplets crown'd,
“To feeble man; 'tis soon among the past,
“And then for ever and for ever gone!’
“As if the dead hereafter would bemoan
“Such loss, when all such longings have an end,
“Or thirst for wine would after death attend.”
“Whose life is but a death with wakeful eye?
“The greater part of life in sleep to lie,
“And through the day no less, as one asleep,
“In an unreal dream to laugh and weep:
“Thy mind oppress'd with apprehensions vain,
“Unable oft to find what gives thee pain:
“On all sides, like a drunken man , distress'd,
“In vague uncertainty of thine unrest.
“A weight of which they seem thus sensible;
“But could they once of this the sources find,
“From whence so great a burden weighs the mind,
“And knew the cause of their own misery,
“They could not spend their lives as now we see,
“Each knowing not, yet seeking still to know
“What he would wish,—fast hurrying to and fro,
“To change each place, yet no where to remain
“And sated with his home,—then back to home
“As suddenly returns; for he can find
“Abroad nought better than he left behind.
“With headlong haste one to his villa drives,
“As if his walls were burning; there arrives,
“And stands upon the threshold, in disdain
“And hesitation;—should he there remain,
“He sleeps and in oblivion settles down,
“Or starts again and hurries to the town.
“But bears within him that same enemy
“From which he would escape, that frets the more,
“Nor doth of his disease the cause explore;
“Which did he well discern he soon would cast
“All other things aside, and to the last
“The nature of man's being strive to know:
“For 'tis not one short hour for weal or woe
“That is at stake,—but all eternity,
“All after death—the life that is to be.”
See Dr. Pusey's Advent Sermons, S. VIII. p. 110.—“Where well-nigh all countenances or motions are full of eagerness, anxiety; all bent on something, seeking, but finding not, because they are seeking all things out of God, all but Himself, except when, here and there, they at last become very emptiness, because they know no more what to seek or find, but have lost themselves.”
III. EFFECTS OF SIN IRREMEDIABLE.
“These are but states we see in life around.
“No wretched Tantalus fears o'er his head
“The o'erhanging stone, trembling with empty dread ;
“But fears of wrath Divine hold man in thrall,
“Lest some impending ill should on him fall.
“On Tityus' breast, nor could they find whereon
“For everlasting ages there to prey,
“Though not on acres nine his huge trunk lay
“But on the whole vast world; nor could he so
“Afford them food for his own endless woe.
“But Tityus is seen among mankind,
“When anxious cares, like vultures of the mind,
“Eat out the vitals, and the heart consume,
“That prostrate lies in love or passion's gloom.
“When the ambitious man for Honour plies
“His heavy wearying task, in deep turmoil,
“Seeking State-power with long-enduring toil,
“This it is up the mountain's adverse breast
“To heave the stone, which from the height again
“Rolls down all hurriedly, and seeks the plain.
“With good, yet ne'er to satisfy; while still
“The beauteous Seasons, in their annual round,
“Return, with varied fruits and graces crown'd;
“While we throughout unsatisfied remain.
“'Tis this, methinks, the legend will explain
“Of youthful-blooming Maidens, which in vain
“Into the leaky urn the waters pour,
“Yet can in no way fill it evermore.
“Vomiting horrid steams and void of light,—
“Such things as these there are not, nor can be;—
“But fear in life of some dread penalty
“Atoning dreadful crimes;—the Dungeon-hold,
“Tarpeian rock, Stocks, Tortures manifold,
“Stripes, Executioners, Pitch, Torch, and Lead;
“And e'en if these were wanting, yet the dread
“Of Conscience, with remorseful bodings stern,
“Applies the secret goad and stripes that burn.
“For she in apprehension sees no end
“Of punishments like these, but doth portend
“That they in death grow deeper, and thereon
“Builds the fond tales of fabled Acheron.”
The poet heard it not, nor understood;
For man's divining soul foreboded well
Of an Hereafter and of Heaven and Hell:
Though unreveal'd without, yet from within,
In after-fruits of unatoned sin,
Links and beginnings of a chain they saw,
Iron developments and things of awe,
And thence inferred the adamantine law;—
That guilty sufferings, (should no Power forefend,)
Which here begin, pass on, and without end
Or intermission after death attend.
This they perceived, perceiving represent
In subterranean forms of punishment.
The mighty Truth which lay itself behind
Threw forth those legends for the vulgar mind,
Like giant shapes the Magic Lamp pourtrays
On the white wall, where wondering children gaze;
Those lineaments without but manifest
Reasonings that lay within, though unexpress'd;—
Truths which in secret self the spirit learns,
Where Instinct in the soul celestial burns
“Cassa formidine”. .“metus inanis.” “There were they brought in great fear, even where no fear was.” Ps. xiv. 9; liii. 6.
IV. BIRTH AND REARING OF MAN.
“Then, like a mariner by cruel waves“Cast forth, the new-born babe for pity craves,
“Naked and speechless on the cold ground laid,
“Utterly helpless, needing vital aid.
“Upon the shore of being amidst woes,
“Thrust from its mother's womb with struggling throes,
“He fills the place with melancholy cries,
“As one that's born for so great miseries.
“Then cattle, herds, and beasts that range the wild
“No plaything need, nor nurse, whose accents mild
“And broken prattle moulds the lisping tongue;
“But of themselves grow up the woods among.
“Nor need they varied vests for changeful clime,
“Nor arms of moulded form, nor walls sublime
“Their goods to guard; Nature doth all provide,
“Her varied stores have all their wants supplied.”
Into a world of sorrow “born in sin,”
Lifting his cries for a new better birth,
To be “clothed on from Heaven;” for thus forlorn
Better not born at all unless twice born.
Helpless himself, on others he relies
For saving aid, for without aid he dies.
And if on earth the infant's cry of pain
For food and shelter is not rais'd in vain,
Doubtless in Heaven, beyond our mortal sense,
Those speechless cries have their own eloquence;
Telling alike the greatness of his need,
And such sure aids as shall from God proceed.
Not weakness, but a nobler kind express,—
Powers incomplete, sublimer destinies,—
Symbols without, within him mysteries:
Not rear'd as “beasts that perish,” but he still
Needs the formation of a higher Will,
Needs daily new ablutions, growing powers,
Raiment to clothe, and arms, and sheltering towers,
A tongue train'd to new language, ere 'tis given
To have a place amid the ranks of Heaven.
V. DREAD OF ANNIHILATION.
“Which beyond bounds of Right urge on mankind,
“Associates and ministers of crime,
“To labour nights and days upward to climb.—
“These rankling wounds that tend on mortal breath
“Are but occasion'd by the dread of Death:
“For Shame, Contempt, and Poverty severe
“Apart from sweet and stable life appear,
“Dwelling beside Death's portals. Hence men fear,
“And far, far off to flee them with false dread
“They strive, as from the dwellings of the dead;—
“Inflame sedition, civil wars, and heap
“Wealth upon wealth, slaughter on slaughter, steep
“Their hands in citizens' and kinsmen's blood,
“And find no safety but in solitude.
“That Envy pines away and hangs the head,—
“To see another rise before their sight,
“Be gaz'd upon and walk in honour's light,
“Others for statues and a name would die:
“Yea, oft so far proceeds this strange dismay,
“To mortal loathing of the light of day,
“Some rather than that misery abide
“From dread of Death by their own hands have died.”
This fear of non-existence, like a sea
Which secretly beneath our nature dwells,
And by some unseen influence heaves and swells;
Oft-times with this tempestuous fury wakes,
And all our being to its centre shakes?
'Tis that God's Breath within us gives to be
Partakers of His own eternity—
For this the unconscious soul toils day and night,
Turns in and out all things of sense and sight,—
For reconciled reunion with its God,—
For this in paths so alien hath it trod,
And through all phases of tumultuous strife
Annihilation flees, and clings to life.
Therefore we thus recoil, and strive to soar
From those sad shapes which sit beside death's door.
Yet but unreal phantoms are they found,
Mists which the vestibule alone surround.
With Christ Himself in death's dark shades appear,
And reconciled with them in Him to die
Is to be clothed with His eternity.
VI. OCULAR DECEPTIONS.
“Another seems to pass tho' fix'd to land;
“And hills and plains seem toward the stern to fly,
“While with wing'd sails ourselves are hurrying by.
“Seem motionless, yet doubtless ever move,
“Since they to distant settings, when they rise,
“Haste, with bright bodies measuring out the skies.
“Thus too the Sun and Moon seem fix'd in Heaven,
“While they are on their courses onward driven.
“With space for mighty fleets to pass between,
“Appear all one,—one island of firm land
“Together join'd, though far apart they stand.
“With boys, when they themselves have ceased to wheel ;
“Totters with all its roofs about to fall.
“When Nature o'er the hills begins to raise,
“The Sun upon those hills appears to stand,
“With fervid fires touching them close at hand,
“Scarce twice ten thousand arrow-shots apart
“From us, or scarce five hundred of the dart:—
“Yet 'tween them and the sun huge spaces lie
“Of Ocean, and vast regions of the sky;
“And many thousand climes may intervene
“With varied tribes and forest kinds between.
“Stops 'tween the stones within the pavèd street,
“Gives under ground a prospect, vast and deep
“As 'tween the earth and sky the ethereal sweep;
“Clouds down in earth are seen, Heavens as on high,
“And bodies hidden in a wondrous sky.
“We look down on the rapid waters, till
“Borne down athwart on the still horse we seem,
“Labouring confusedly against the stream,
“And, wheresoe'er we look, all we survey,
“Seems flowing down alike, and borne away.
“On pillars of like size, like space between,
“The lengthening vistas seem from end to end
“Contracting, as in distance they extend,
“And darkly in a point at length appear.
“From out the waves, and in the waves retires;
“For nought but sea and sky are seen from thence;
“Nor think this shakes the evidence of sense.
“With rigging broke, and struggling 'gainst the sea;
“Straight seem the oars which o'er the spray appear,
“And straight the helm which rises in the rear;
“While parts that 'neath the fluid glass decline
“Seem chang'd, refracted, upward turn'd supine,
“And floating on the surface of the brine.
“The splendid Constellations seem in flight
“To glide against the clouds, and fleet on high
“To other regions of the untravell'd sky.
“It so may be that objects we descry,
“Themselves unchang'd, are double to behold;
“Fire-flowering candles seem anon twofold;
“All household sights a doubled form retain,
“Men's faces seem twofold, their bodies twain.
“And all the body lies in rest profound,
“Our limbs to move, in darkness of the night
“The sun itself to view and light of day;—
“Pent in one place abroad we seem to stray,
“Skies, seas, streams, mountains passing on to change,
“And over mighty plains on foot to range;
“In night's stern stillness sounds we hear around,
“And give reply in slumber's silence bound.”
And knowledge on them built is found thus frail,
Although the unconscious mind is present still,
To guide, correct, or frustrate at her will:
Thus God must still be present at our side,
And with His own mysterious language guide,
E'en in this world wherein we walk by sight.
Then how shall feeble man be thought aright
To judge of things which, vast and manifold,
Surround us, and wherein the human mind,
By use distorted and by nature blind,
Puts forth with sightless orbs her hands to reach,—
Till God Himself shall through our spirits teach?
While the celestial mansion it conceals;
Thus Sense may things disclose our path around,
But hides the secret Godhead more profound;—
Converse we with the hid Magnificence,
And God gives hearing ear and seeing eye.
Then from “the temple” of Philosophy
Are men beheld all wandering forth abroad,
As those that in the dark have lost their road.
That glorious temple in the height serene
Is Christ our Light, in Whom all things are seen,
E'en as they are, and shall be, and have been;
While with our very eyes He doth converse,
And reads to us the speaking universe.
VII. TRUE PHILOSOPHY.
“Of so great knowledge, sure a God was he,
“Renown'd Memmius, 'twas a God indeed,
“Whence this life's law call'd Wisdom did proceed.
“From waves and darkness Who this mortal scene
“Hath placed in light so cloudless and serene.”...
“So we on all thy golden words would feed,—
“Thy golden words with life immortal crown'd;
“Since thence hath issued forth their glorious sound,
“The terrors of the mind away have fled,
“The Universe's walls cleave o'er our head,
“Through the whole mighty void in vision clear
“The place of Gods and quiet seats appear.
“Which the winds cannot shake, nor clouds assail,
“Nor snow white-falling, nor the beating hail
“Can violate; but cloudless skies around,
“And light itself diffus'd smiles without bound.
“Where Nature all supplies, nor aught draws near
“To lessen endless peace or cause a fear.
“Nor Earth to bound their view doth intervene,—
“Depth 'neath their feet extends from boundless height,
“Which the soul views with a divine delight
“And horror, lost at the o'erwhelming sight .”
“They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.” Jer. xxxiii. 9.
VIII. ATHEISM CORRECTED.
And Heaven's deep-thundering temples covering all,
On pillars of blue ether, sown with stars,
Where walks the Sun imprison'd in strange bars,—
And Earth, with trees and streams and mountains crown'd,
And girdle of blue waters girding round,—
This scene, o'er which there hangs the clear profound,
Is but a cavern where the soul is pent;
And the blue roofs of this our firmament
Shall tumble in, by ruin dash'd, or fly
Like a white cloud vanish'd from Summer sky.
Then Death is to the soul the dungeon door,
As Eve lets out the sun on twilight's shore.
It follows—this our poor and fretful talk
Of men, and states, and kingdoms, is to walk
With shadows, with the substance at the gate,
And it may be to waken all too late.
To be with us the golden Sun is sent,
To touch with life-giving ethereal touch
The springs of life, it matters surely much
Or turn'd to darkness work our own decay.
In all but man; the Elements let loose
Range o'er the earth, yet bear a hidden rein;
Each doth his given work in given chain,—
Traceable by eye of reason though unseen.
Two roses nurtured 'neath one canopy,
Together rise and bloom, together die;
Two elms coeval in harmonious strife
Throw round their green arms, and drink equal life;
Two streams together haste to Ocean's hall;
Two upward flames together mount or fall .
Not so in man, himself creates the cause
Of his own acts; he moves by self-framed laws,
Self-framed each hour, while on the verge that lies
'Tween good and evil stern Probation tries;
And all he does is seed to something still
Beyond, more strong in grace or prone to ill.
Two mortals by the water side of life
Spring from one root, yet gradual prove they rife
With different natures, this with healing dight
And gladness, that with deadly aconite;
E'en as the Will within her secret shrines
Gathers the heavenly influence or declines;
And therefore 'tis that Virtue cannot die,
Since not of birth terrestrial, born of light
That comes beyond the ebon house of night.
To choose or shun the path to good or ill,
Severing each moment, this doth form the Will;
Thus they who 'mid the varied things of sense
Trace out the maze of cause and consequence;—
Nor own 'mid mighty waters calm and deep
His footsteps;—on they dream—till in their sleep
Hearing His Voice they hear not, nor detect
In His own house the glorious Architect.
Listening to Hymns of Evening's harmony,
So sweet,—Silence herself is audible
With the Creator's praise,—from hill or dell
Sound birds and lowing herds, till o'er the close
Darkness lets fall her mantle of repose,
And Night adoring climbs with silent urn,
To light the lamps that round His temple burn.
Or when the Morn sends forth her harbinger,
Which with her coming doth all nature stir,
And noisy crow on wing, and thrush on bough,
Give signals of the twilight on Night's brow
Appearing, strains prelusive of the choir,
Which soon shall burst from Nature's morning lyre,
Woke by the Sun unto Creation's King;
All to new life arise and stir and sing.
Sees the small atom from his unseen clime,
Posting before the Sunbeam—as most fit
Marshal his troops, or in sage council sit,
Life to create and order, into light
Come from beyond the regions of the sight,
And hurry on his mantle, red, blue, green ,
T' invest creation, paint and deck the scene.
He had pursued, unfolding its wild seats,
Till he, 'mid rocks grotesque, and tangled wood,
Forgot the Voice itself from which it flow'd.
As if the glorious thought and golden strain,
So wondrous bound in the melodious chain
Of some great Pindar, were but sounds that broke
Responsive, by some gale Eolian woke,
Dying upon it; or as if the rays
Of some lov'd countenance on which we gaze,
Were lit up by no unseen light behind;
So dark a cloud the faithless eye doth blind!
Cause after cause,—in wondrous union
Concentrating, combining to a whole,—
And owning not the Maker. For the Soul
Sees yet adores not the Adorable,
More faint and faint the gleams, which with Him dwell,
Break out on her, more feebly His dear voice,
That which alone bids nature to rejoice,
More faint and faint she hears; till all alone
From scene to scene of doubt she wanders on
Along a dreary waste, starless and long,
Starless and sad a dreary waste along,
Uncheer'd—unsatisfied—for evermore,
Companionless, and fatherless, and poor.
Might find their Maker; ever more and more
Himself disclosing to the pure in heart,
He leads them in Himself to have a part.
Else it were sad indeed through things of sense,
Or sweet scenes form'd by sportive elements,
To range on sick at heart; for sad and lone
Was Youth in all its freshness, though when gone
So seeming fair; beneath a vernal sky,
'Mid flowers and singing birds it heaved the sigh;
But as it flew, it turn'd, and cast behind
Longing, regretful looks, and seem'd most kind
When lost for ever,—from the things of sight
A bird of golden wing hath ta'en his flight,
And left us desolate: o'er gathering years
Silent and cold Winter her head uprears.
Fill all with sacred breath,—rays from above
Light up the cloud—then toilsome nights and days,
To rise, to sleep , to live o'er weary ways
In loneliness, to wed with solitude,
To go out, and return, and find no good ,
These all are by a Holy Presence warm.
In each dark shade there stands a living Form,
By the wayside, by lonely shore, in feast
Else wearisome,—beside the well , nor least
In holy Temples doth that Form abide,
Who ne'er from them that sought Him turn'd aside.
His sheltering mantle rests upon the Earth,
'Neath whose bright folds we have our second birth;
Be we content awhile therein to lie,
Until the storm and whirlwind have past by.
His steps, disclos'd as meet for sinful man;
For but suppose that Heaven's familiar door
O'erarching, and the star-indented floor
Flew open, and disclos'd the towers afar ;
As fishes ranging 'neath their watery bar
Know nought of tower or city, grove or glen,
Green mantled earth, and singing bird, and men,
So rove we in this vapoury prison pent,—
Emerging in ethereal element
With wonder, more than all this varied ball,
Yea, more than blind men dream of untried light.
But in th' amazement of th' o'erwhelming sight
How should we love Him? rather for awhile
Let us with prayer this winding cave beguile,
And lowlier thoughts more meet for earthly bond,
For fearfully the Glory shines beyond
This twilight—rapidly 'tis onward borne,
And we have much to do, and much to mourn.
And meditate, and choose the learned theme,
For these we have no leisure—bound for far
We loiter, while we talk the leading star
Is setting, yonder breaks on distant lawn
The skirt of Day—the trees are in the dawn.
See Lucretius, b. ii. that the motion of these atoms is more rapid than that of light, that they are of themselves colourless, but assume colour in their combinations.
CATULLUS.
I. THE PINNACE.
“Swiftest of the swift was he,
“There was not a swimming raft,
“None, says he, of all the craft,
“But alike, although he try
“Oars or sail, I pass him by.
“Not unknown to me, I trow,
“Is old Adria's threatening brow;
“Nor the flowing of the seas
“Round the island Cyclades;
“Noble Rhodes, nor horrid Thrace,
“Nor Propontis; or thy base,
“Pontus, with its savage shore.
“Pontus, where in times of yore
“He that's now a sea-worn skiff
“Waved his branches on thy cliff.
“Once his whispering boughs would sigh.
“Amastris, thou Pontic town,
“Box-bearing Cytorus, known
“Unto thee from first to last
“Is, he says, his story past.
“How at first a leafy wood
“On thine highest top he stood;
“In thy bay then dipped his oar;
“Thence on seas from shore to shore
“Bore his master, if the gale
“Right or left hath woo'd his sail;
“Or with full-sail'd power to move
“Favouring came the breathing Jove.
“Ne'er had he for dangers o'er
“Vows to pay to Gods on shore,
“Till, his wanderings o'er, at last
“To this limpid lake he pass'd.
“Castor, with thy brother twin,
“Here he in tranquillity
“Dedicates his age to thee.”
Tutelary Gods of rest,—
Stars, whose gentler light is shed,
When the storm is gone and fled,—
After life of suffering!
Blessed calm of peaceful age
After toilsome pilgrimage,
Harbour'd in the lake at even
Which reflects the eye of Heaven,
And the star above the hill
In its mirror clear and still.
II. HOME.
“Or peninsulas most rare,
“Which in watery friths around,
“Or in either sea are found;—
“Sirmio, with what delight
“Do I see thee safe again,
“And can scarce believe me quite
“'Scaped from the Bithynian plain!
“From all cares, and find release,
“When the mind throws off her load
“After wanderings long abroad,
“Wearied out with toils to come
“And to be again at home,—
“There resign ourselves oppress'd
“On the accustom'd bed at rest;—
“Moment long'd for;—this at last—
“This repays all labours past.
“Greet thy master! gently smile,
“Lydian lake! About me come,
“All ye laughs that haunt my home.”
The last wish to a human breast:
Yes, sweetest spot to them that roam,
It is a little quiet home:
Yet 'twas a Christian's wish to die
With none, or none but strangers, nigh,
At a lone inn: that thought express'd
A fear on earth to find its rest:
'Twas this of old the pilgrim led
To have no place to lay his head,—
No spot on earth to call his own,
Except a grave in lands unknown.
Foxes have holes, the bird a nest,
Man hath on earth no place of rest.
III. THE FADED FLOWER.
“Known to no cattle, by no plough-share torn,
“Rear'd by soft airs, warm suns, and genial shower,
“And many youths and maidens love that flower.
“Should some rude hand but nip the bloom in twain,
“No youths nor maidens love that flower again:
“E'en thus the spotless virgin doth appear,
“Cherish'd by kindred, to companions dear;
“But if once stain'd, that loveliness is o'er,
“By youths and maidens is she prized no more.”
Of restoration for a wither'd flower,
Therefore 'tis cast away; but angels know
No joy in all the things that bloom below,
Till they are taken from that parent stem,
And grafted in the new Jerusalem.
So when a flower on earth may seem half-dead,
And sever'd and despised to hang its head,
Yet in the “inclosed garden ” God may give,
It may be yet transferr'd new life to live.
Hearing from out the dust a suppliant voice,
And thence convey it where it yet may bloom,
Water'd with blood;—and in the tearful gloom
Foster'd awhile, till it can bear bright skies,
Sun, air, and shower in that new Paradise;—
Unharm'd by herd or plough or spoiler rude,
Safe in that Gardener's keeping, Who once stood
In dawn of Resurrection; and is seen
There lifting up the drooping Magdalene.
“Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it.”—Cant. viii. 13.
IV. A BROTHER'S DEATH.
TO HORTALUS.
From the Aonian maids withdraws my mind,
For how can it the Muses' theme express,
Which toss'd by its own woes no rest can find?
Where Lethe's wave flows by his pallid feet;
He on the Rhetian shore in Trojan land
Lies buried, and mine eyes no more shall meet.
No more to see thee! from my bosom torn
My brother! unto me than life more dear!
Still will I ever love thee, ever mourn;—
Sings sad, of her lost Itys to complain.
Yet 'mid these woes, my friend, I do not fail
To send Battiades,—the promised strain;
By sad distress; the pledge I now recall;
As when an apple by her lover given
Should from the virgin's bosom chance to fall;—
Till at her mother's entrance with a start
It falls down on the ground, and rolls away;
The conscious blush betrays her grieving heart.”
TO MANLIUS.
Seek not such happy gifts again.
Since first I took my manhood's gown,—
A flowery spring my life was then,—
Who blends with love sweet misery;
A brother's death now all o'erthrows,
O brother snatch'd from wretched me!
With thee our house doth buried lie;
And all the joys thy sweet love cherish'd,
Liv'd in thy life and with thee die.”
OFFERINGS AT A BROTHER'S GRAVE.
“Through many nations and through many seas,“Brother, I come to thy sad obsequies,
“To bear thee these last gifts, by sorrow led,
“And to address in vain the silent dead.
“Since my sad lot hath me bereft of thee,
“Alas, dear brother, gone from wretched me!
“This one sad consolation now remains,
“Receive these gifts as ancient rite ordains,
“Gifts with a brother's tears all dripping o'er,
“And now, farewell, my brother, evermore.”
ON THE FOREGOING PASSAGES.
Sweetest of poets, one spot good and pure'Mid all thy bosom stains could still endure,—
'Neath thy deep breast wherein far ruder things
Folded too oft their pestilential wings,—
The love of a lost brother;—as hope died
To nobler duties rais'd and sanctified.
As if thy tender spirit in its woes
Could in that pure affection find repose,
Like evening gleams which light surrounding gloom,—
The love of thy lost brother and thy home.
Yet could that grief most sad, most sweet, most calm,
Have met our Christian Gilead, breathing balm,
Finding upon the ground a tranquil nest,
Might thence have soar'd unto diviner things,
And shed a holier music from thy wings.
V. TO HIMSELF.
In pious memories if aught is sweet,
Ne'er to have broken faith, forsworn the right,
Or call'd on God with purpose of deceit—
'Neath this ungrateful love are yet in store;
For of things kind that men can say or do,
All have been said and done by thee of yore.
Yet why thyself torment, to sorrow given?
Strengthen thy mind, draw thence in self-control;
Cease by thy griefs to struggle thus with Heaven.
'Tis hard, yet safety lies in this alone;
Thou must, by mastering self, subdue the wrong;
Canst thou, or canst thou not, it must be done.
On verge of death ye e'er have brought relief,
Look on my woe; if pure my life hath been,
Remove this plague, this pestilential grief;—
And every sense of joy drives from my breast;
I ask not that her love I may regain,
And with restor'd fidelity be blest.
For power to cast aside this foul disease.
O Gods, in my life past if pious care
Hath aught of you deserv'd, grant me release.”
ON THE FOREGOING.
Ambition, covetousness, or love of praise;
Though men awhile, by vain success caress'd,
Know not the weight which on the heart it lays.
Upon itself, it feels the deadly chain,
Nor seeks whereby that flame may stronger burn,
But knows no freedom while it doth remain.
Could he but 'scape the thirst within his breast;
Love, scared by disappointment, in dismay
Yearns from itself to flee, and so to rest.
Enslaved the more the more that it hath won!
It is the kindling of a deathless fire
In souls that find their rest in God alone.
VIRGIL.
I. FIRST ECLOGUE.
That charm'd our boyhood once, our manhood greet
With untired freshness,—scenes of pastoral love,
Fill'd with the poet's breath that live and move;
While exile o'er them casts a shade of fear,
And makes their image rise more sadly dear;
With shifting landscapes such as Poussin drew,
Or Claude Lorraine; while evening's radiant hue
Comes forth and with it blends her sabler suit?
For with the Arcadian scene and pastoral lute
Mingles the sense of our lost Paradise;
Which deep beneath our ruin'd nature lies,
And wakes 'mid vernal earth or summer sky,—
That image which within us ne'er can die.
Like gales of youth our senses they beguile,
Yet only as in sleep and for awhile,
For evil and the curse are hidden there.
Some secret spring within it seems to press,
Which overflows with a deep tenderness,
As sense of that sad time awakes anew
When erst we unto Eden bid adieu.
To exile 'neath the mantle of thy woe,
Yet let not thy sweet sadness soothe my mind
To cast thy loving, lingering look behind;—
But rather as old Patriarchs in the skies
May we behold a better Paradise.
'Mid pastoral homes and herds and gifts divine,
Mounts, springs, and shades of their own Palestine,
Still upward with departing eyes they turn'd,
To hopes more fair than evening skies that burn'd,
Where they might hide and lose themselves in God;
And here their way as exile pilgrims trod.
II. THE GEORGICS.
For Nature's children, thence to prove
A power within thee to make wise
In all their ways and sympathies;—
With inmates of stream, vale, and wood,
E'en like a sacred brotherhood;
Looking on their things with their sense,
Nay rather with intelligence
Investing them, and thought and eye
Of reflective humanity.
Till lifeless things begin to breathe,
Things animate their ways inwreathe
With intellect and human thought;
So Passion is with all inwrought;
For parts of her own self she makes,
For sympathizing spirits takes:—
With playfulness , as one that smiled
Still inwardly, and so beguiled
The thoughts that on his bosom press
From burden of some home-distress,
Or sense of mortal nothingness.
Of what lies in the feeling mind.
Seem reconcil'd in that repose
Of spirit, which divinely still
Breath'd of high virtue, thought, and will,
Judgment, and souls to good allied,
Thus exercised and purified.
On Nature's face with him of yore—
Features the same that grow not old
With their expression manifold;—
See the same moon and stars and sky
Woods, streams, and Nature's progeny,
So multiform, yet still they rise
The same in their varieties.
But unto us to free from harm
There rests a new and holy charm,
All things are to the Cross allied,
And by Its shadow sanctified.
To him replete with deity,
All living things with power indued,
Like children of his solitude.
Hence with instinctive Godhead wise,
And eloquent with auguries,—
Interpreters that are from high,
And messengers of destiny.
They are like living mysteries;
And unto us they are made known
As children of the Holy One,
That teach a Father's care and love;
But how far of the things above
The varied semblance they may bear,
To things eternal minister,
No lights their airy paths illume,
'Tis hid in shadows of the tomb.
They share our woes, and speak the wrath
That is upon our mortal path,
Defy our knowledge, leave behind
Our vain enquiries on the wind.
III. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE.
“He back retraced his steps, and now
“He near'd the realms of light, and she,
“The lost and loved Eurydice,
“Follow'd his upward steps behind,
“So Proserpine's stern law assign'd.
“Day's threshold now was scarcely won,
“When, ah, unmindful and undone,
“He stood, and with love-trancèd eye
“Look'd back on his Eurydice!
“Then all was lost, the word was spoken—
“His treaty with the dead was broken,
“For ever! thrice with crash profound
“The Avernian lakes gave back the sound.
“‘Orpheus,’ she cried, ‘O misery!
“Who hath destroyed both me and thee?
“What madness! cruel fates advance
“O'er me again, and death's dark trance.
“Fare thee—farewell—borne from thy sight,
“Surrounded by the mighty night,
“I stretch to thee from death's dark shore
“These powerless hands—but thine no more.’”
The music of Heaven's harmony,—
Which soothes dark passions into peace,
And from their kingdoms gives release;—
He with him draws to realms above
The objects of his earthly love,
And leads them onward, while his face
Is upward turn'd:—with faltering pace
Should he on them turn back and gaze,
He then lets go the harmonious maze;
The music of that love divine,
That bears all heavenward, must decline.
The backward tide no power can stem:
He loses both himself and them.
IV. THE ÆNEID.
And see the embryo stirrings of his thought,
Before itself it glasses forth in words,
Or is embodied in some moving tale,
We should there read more deep philosophy
Than in the starry countenance of Heaven.
For in the soul of man there seems to sleep
An image of the boundless Universe,
Ebbing and flowing with its restless tides,
Breathed forth unconscious oft in feigning tales;
As in the shell the echo of the seas
Indwells, and giveth forth its soul in sounds,
So strangely heaving from its winding folds.
O Mantuan Swain, thou hast a halo set,
And crown'd him with a name and character—
But not from prowess, nor stern fortitude,
Nor kingly dignity, nor wisdom known
In council, nor endurance,—but the name
Of Piety; thine own mysterious soul
Betraying, which could find no genial rest
Of burning Troy seen in the glaring blaze,
'Tween mountains and the sea in hurried flight,
His aged Sire upon his shoulders borne,
His household Gods, and with unequal steps
The boy Iulus holding firm his hand.
Of messages from Heaven, with trails of light
Dropp'd down to earth—and calling—at whose voice
Conjugal tenderness and home-repose
Are to be cast behind; and yet thy hand
Could not pourtray therein thy better thought,
But falter'd, when the victim's funeral pile
Sheds on the parting ships its lurid glare.
And thou thyself, O sacred bard, must sure
Have turn'd away with heavy cold disdain
From this thine own creation, poor and frail,—
Like thine own Dido who in shades below
With cold averted brow in silence turn'd.
A hero, yet no hero; half a God,
Yet less than man!
To that mysterious truth they fain would grasp,
Or to pourtray the veiled lineaments
Of that immortal Face, which should arise
And hence on this imagin'd type of good
A dreamy indistinctness seems to rest;
No strong ideal of a breathing soul,
No featured countenance of speaking mould
That clings to thought and memory, but this
Like some unreal phantom of a man,
The shadow of a shade in realms beneath,
Or dream that issues from the ivory gate.
Achilles' wrath was stamp'd like fallen man,
Noble in falling and in ruin great;
Great is Ulysses roving seas and lands.
But when the Latian would his pencil dip
In hues of Heaven, beneath his hand came forth
This image, as in water, weak and wan.
It was not found in man to deem aright
Or by his words pourtray lost Eden's Lord,
A form of piety and meet for Heaven,
Unequal by his deeds such form to frame.
When more than that Ideal man would raise,
The Truth and Archetype was given from Heaven,
His Countenance was marr'd beyond all men,
Known for no form or comeliness, but One
Who had no beauty as desired of men,
And clothed with shame and suffering. For to err
Is human, but to suffer is Divine.
A conquer'd side lay near the poet's soul;
And secret love will its own impress find,
And gleam through the disguise of outward veils.
As from the head of one, whose bold proud heart
Was smitten with successful wickedness,
Satan all-arm'd came forth, defying Heaven
With nobleness and grandeur, as might suit
A rebel chieftain;—of far other form
Than evil spirits found in hallowed lore.
Daphnis, who Pollio sung, the Mincian Swan,
Who sung the birth of Christ in Latian plains;
As if he had o'er-heard the angelic song;
So near hath he approach'd the eternal doors,
Daphnis , in shining white he walks on high,
Wondering at thresholds of the unwonted Heaven,
And 'neath his feet beholds the clouds and stars.
V. THE SHADES BELOW.
Of things that after death shall be,
Was shadow'd in that vision deep,
Which pass'd the ivory gate of sleep.
Lo, where the golden branch displayed
Shone 'mid the green embowering shade;
The wingèd pair that led them on
From step to step, alight thereon,
His Mother's doves, there sitting by
In beautiful sweet augury.
Thence in the darkling solitude,
As through the obscure of some deep wood,
When the pale moon half hides her light,
Through realms of subterranean night;—
Hush'd, lest they do the silence wrong
Which doth to things of death belong;—
With multitudinous ghosts around,
As birds that throng the Autumnal ground.
Then gloomily they pass the bound
Of houses for eternity,
With adamant wall'd to the sky:
To every crime wrought 'mong mankind,
Their penal sufferings manifold
By eye unseen, by tongue untold.
And there to pious souls is given
Elysian realms of nether Heaven:
Another sun and firmament,
And other stars, and o'er them bent
Purple serene, ethereal light,
With gifts beyond our mortal sight.
The ancient Keeper of Christ's truth
Hath hail'd and own'd thee most of all
On whom the heathen shadows fall.
For pure thy page and undefiled,
Not unmeet for a Christian child .
Till poets down all Christendom
Thy gentle genius did illume.
Tasso hath lit his lamp by thine;
No other guide the Florentine
Sought in the penal shades below,
And regions of eternal woe.
VI. ÆNEAS AND DIDO.
Æneas would my thoughts employ;
To me his wanderings were all known,
While I in his forgot mine own!
O'er dying Dido too I grieved,
Who slew herself by love bereaved.
Yet I in all these things was dead,
But o'er myself no tear I shed.
Apart from God myself could die
Yet tearless was my heart and eye.
Than not to know one's misery;—
To others feel compassionate,
Yet pity not one's own estate.—
That Dido's death my tears could move
Self-slain for lost Æneas' love;
Yet I for want of love could die,
And bear that death with tearless eye?
Spouse of my being, my life's Whole,
From Thee, the adulterous world approv'd,
And sounded in my ears, Well done!
Well done, re-echoed on and on,
And I was sham'd to stand alone.
For Dido's sorrows and her death,
Mine own was worse than parting breath;
And when forbid that tale of woe
I griev'd that sorrow to forego.”
HORACE.
I. LUCRETIUS AND HORACE COMPARED.
Flores amœnæ ferre jube rosæ.”
Hor
Or voices from the Dead, almost divine,
Two bards of Epicurus seem to preach,
Speaking as from their tombs with wondrous speech.
And cannot satisfy while they remain;
The other with what fleetness they are fled,
When Death amidst them lifts his pallid head.
She loath'd the roses withering on her brow,
Which as they wither'd left a thorny crown
With blood upon the temples trickling down.
II. THE WORLD RENOUNCED.
The World so seeming fair,
Where in some cave with roses strew'd
She binds her golden hair,
The fatal change shall weep,
And see aghast the coming on
Of black and stormy deep.
And thinks that ne'er will fail
The heart at ease and lovely brow;
Nor knows the treacherous gale.
Sav'd from a watery grave,
I vow me in His house of prayer
To Him that walk'd the wave.
III. ECCLESIA LABORANS.
Again to sea? oh, why delay?
Thine harbour seize;—for see how torn
Thy side, of tackle shorn!
Thy sail-yards groan, thy cables fail,
Thy tottering keel can scarcely brave
The too imperious wave.
How can thy prayers again avail?
Though noblest daughter of the grove,
The Wood of God's dear love .
Can sailors trust a painted prow?
Take heed lest sport of every wind
Thou leav'st a wreck behind.
Now object of my hope and prayer,
Mayst thou escape the sea that smiles
'Mid fair and shining Isles.
“This Wood in which our weakness is carried is the Cross of the Lord, by which we are delivered from the dangerous tempests of this world.”Aug. Ser. xxv.
IV. ECCLESIA MIGRATURA.
Fleet by th' ill-fated shores, ye that are found
Still faithful, us vast Ocean calls away,
Flowing blest isles and happy fields around!
There the true Vine needs not the Pruner's care!
Nor His own Olive can deceive Him more ;
Nor fig-tree ever found unfruitful there .
From th' everlasting hills the living well
Springs forth afresh; and flocks, without annoy,
By waters still with their own Shepherd dwell.
With watchful circuitings,—nor faithless prove
With hidden vipers the o'er-teeming ground:
More shall we there admire, admiring love,—
Can come our better hopes and us between;
Nor sun to grain it foster'd prove unkind;
But all is temper'd to a glad serene.
Hath e'er come near to vex that quiet shore,
Nor aught polluted ever touch'd the strand:
No toil of restless man could e'er explore
There ne'er been heard poor Nature's suffering cry
From flocks contagion-struck, or 'neath hot gale
And starry influence breathing piteously.
What time the golden bloom, which had its part
In blissful Eden, turn'd to hardihood
Of brazen front, and thence to iron heart,
Spurning a better love! Oh, strange to see,
And yet foretold of yore ! my warning call
Hear ye, and to the Ark of Refuge flee!
V. PROTECTING PROVIDENCE.
“Hark, lovely phrensy charms my ear,“Or sounds unearthly do I hear?
“I seem to walk the hallow'd grove,
“Where pleasant winds and waters rove.
“On Vultur, the Apulian steep,
“Once when a child I lay asleep,
“Wearied with play, and there was found
“Far from my home Apulia's bound,
“Where fabled wood-doves, strange to tell,
“With the fresh leaf had veil'd me well.
“And long there liv'd the wondrous tale
“'Mid Bantia's groves, the hilly crest
“Of Acherontia's mountain nest,
“And rich Ferentum's lowly vale.
“That safe from bears and snakes that creep
“My infant limbs unharm'd should sleep,
“With bay and myrtle o'er me pil'd,
“Not without guardian Gods a fearless child.”
Because he felt his Gods were near,
Instinctive felt and own'd their care;
That child amid the fields of air
Who are by angel-guardians blest.
Monsters of Nile around him play;
For there is One that cannot sleep
Who rocks his cradle on the deep;
And to th' Egyptian maid his cry
Is full of highest destiny.
Like Angels tending on a child,
Sustaining ravens o'er him borne
Descending wheel each eve and morn;
Wing'd pursuivants, they hear God's voice
And wait on children of His choice.
Be bow'd to earth, to sorrow given?
VI. THE SICILIAN FEAST.
Cervice pendet, non Siculæ dapes
Dulcem elaborabunt saporem;
Non avium citharæve cantus
Somnum reducent.”
Lib. iii. Od. i. l. 17.
The sword of dread eternity
Had we but faith to see,—
Hung o'er our heads by one weak thread
Between us and the dead,—
We ne'er could dare with curious eye
At the World's feast to lie.
No viands which her skill bestows
To work desired repose;
No birds that sing in rural grove,
When all the earth is love;
Nor harps that sound in princely hall
To poet's madrigal,
Could lull us in the spirit's sleep,
When bid our watch to keep.
Yet by a thread o'er old and young
The endless change is hung;
And truth itself is not less true
Though hid from human view.
VII. MEN DEIFIED.
Ales in terris imitaris, almæ
Filius Maiæ.”
Lib. i. Od. ii. 41.
Namque erit ille mihi semper Deus; illius aram
Sæpe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.”
Virgil's Ecl i.
When God in Canaan spake with men,
By tree or mount or glen,
Then erst in Homer's early song
Gods walk'd mankind among;
And worship mix'd with Gods on high
The heroes as they die.
But what time on this world of woes
The Sun of glory rose,
Then kings on earth in their own pride
Themselves were deified;
And the prerogatives of Heaven
To earth and ashes given.
A sense was stilly breath'd
Of God Himself invisible
Come down in flesh to dwell;
Or evil spirits at the time
O'er-heard th' angelic chime
Of truth emerging,—at the birth
Of God Himself on earth.
Thence in men's souls the unconscious news
With poison they infuse,
And blend with their idolatries
The secrets of the skies.
TIBULLUS.
Ere through long roads the earth was open laid,
Ere yet the pine-tree mock'd the dark blue main,
And its full bosom to the winds display'd.
With foreign freight loaded th' adventurous keel;
Beneath the yoke there groan'd no sturdy steer;
No steed champ'd in his mouth the mast'ring steel.
Or stony witness did its bounds divide;
Oaks of their own accord sweet honey yield;
And sheep to men at ease their milk supplied.
No cruel smith the unpitying sword to mould;
Now 'neath Jove's reign slaughters and wounds abound,
The sea, and ways of death a thousand fold.
For perjured oaths or words of blasphemy;
But if I have fulfill'd my destin'd years,
Let these words mark the grave wherein I lie,
Following Messala over sea and land.
Into Elysian bowers shall Venus bring,
Where choirs and dances bloom, and as they rove
Melodious birds for ever sweetly sing.
With fragrant roses teems the genial ground,
Boys intermix'd with maidens sport at ease,
And no contentions but of love are found.
The myrtle wreaths his honour'd locks adorn;
But guilty seats, in night profound, from day
Lie hid, black sounding streams around them borne.”
ON THE FOREGOING.
Looks back and longs again to be a boy,
Thence pictures the world's childhood and first day,
Where it might drink delights without annoy.
Something within acknowledges the theme,
It catches at the shadow of high truth,
Itself delighting in the golden dream.
Found the great witness of that ancient tale,
Of happy days ere yet the world knew sin,
Which yet shall be restor'd and never fail,—
Must be unravell'd first, the light and shade
Be parted, which together travail, till
That final separation shall be made.
Can lay its hand upon the golden key,
Which shall admit her to those realms above,
And lead her to those bowers which Sorrows flee.
Which fain would bribe e'en Conscience on its throne,
But Love whose light burns pure with innocence,
And binds to God in endless union.
So Orpheus spake of old, who all things drew
By his sweet music;—these words ponder well,
And think which Love thine own thoughts now pursue.
OVID.
I. THE METAMORPHOSIS.
1.
When in our world, where all was strange and new,The morn of life first kindling burn'd,
All things it touch'd with golden alchemy.
Then sights and sounds at length familiar grew;
We felt the cold bounds of reality,
And gathering wings o'er-leap'd them all, and turn'd
To other worlds than those we see,
Delighting in wild fancy's realms to range,
While shapes and sights of transformation strange
The bosom fill;
For Childhood with her talisman had arm'd,
'Mid Pleasure's tainted scenes to rove unharm'd,
Yet innocent and ignorant of ill.
2.
What purple-vision'd memories seem to restUpon those wild Arabian tales of old,
Of Caliphs, and of Viziers, dress'd in gold,
Haron Alraschid's court and Bagdad's magic sound.—
Thence issuing forth with wand of ease
Into Aladdin's palaces,
Enchantments o'er and under ground,
Or marble cities 'neath blue Ocean halls,
Pearl-glittering corridors and jewell'd walls;
Or Wonder sail'd with Sinbad on the seas;
Or heard of souls that pined in speechless animals.
3.
Then, older grown, the Classic tale prolong'dThose fabling sweet delusions of the child,
With things all new and wild,
Which on the wonder-page of Ovid throng'd.
The cradle of Creation as it sprung
From Chaos, when the stars around it sung;
And forms in “golden age” of Paradise
Walking the threshold of the opening skies.
Then burning-bright the Palace of the Sun ,
Harmonious with its silent orison,
Burning yet unconsumed, empyreal proof;
Pillars of carbuncle and ivory roof
And silver doors; there duly-ranged aloof
And Seasons, each of varied character.
Where first Aurora, with her veil half-drawn,
Opens the purple portals of the dawn,
And rose-besprinkled halls;
Stars, and horn'd Moon before her flee; the Hours
Harness the steeds from their ambrosial stalls;
Then the full flood of Day-light pours.
4.
Then Souls imprison'd in the living cageOf Creatures multiform that fill the earth,
Or seas or stream or skies,—run, swim, or fly,
Or branch from rooted trees of leafy birth,
There shrined for periods of long pilgrimage.
Sweet Echo, vocal Maid, that melts to air
In rock-embowering cave or wood unseen;
Or mirror'd in the stream Narcissus flowering fair.
All new, grotesque, and uncouth images,
Beauteous withal as sights in summer seas.
5.
Of such that Seer of Seers in Samian cellWould speak in transmigration strange to tell;
Thence for the harmless creatures did he plead,
That men no more on blood of life should feed,
But on the stores and fruitage manifold
Which nature's teeming bosom freely yields,
In forest, shore, or fields,
E'en as mankind amid that age of gold.
6.
He saw and mourn'd o'er nature's laws,Which for the slaughtering knife had sanction won,
But knew not the primeval cause;
Nor those remedial ways, in silence seal'd,
How the true Lamb of God, the Holy One,
Upon Whose Blood alone souls feed and live,
Doth hallowed and mysterious sanction give,
Yet Sacramental silence hangs thereon.
O wondrous type, yet unreveal'd,
Whereby the creatures of the field and flood,
That we may live, yield up their innocent blood!
We who the family of Pain let in
Behold them share our woes, but not our sin.
7.
That Sage would bind us in strange brotherhoodWith beasts beneath us, as with forms endued
With spirits, upon one alternate road.
Such spells we need not; better Love shall make
All things anew, for His sake render dear
The objects of Creation which appear,
Created by our Father for our sake,
And for our sake suffering beneath His wrath.
8.
And haply something too of wisdom liesIn fabling tales of those strange deities,
Assuming every creature's guise around,
Thus multiplying near unearthly eyes.
Or some inverted truth may there be found;
As Satan thus transform'd hath trail'd the ground:
For great the secrets are which our frail knowledge bound.
9.
Beautiful visions, gilt with Childhood's rays,I watch you, one by one, thus fade and die,
Like sparks as an extinguish'd fire decays;
Or, one by one, passes each lingering star
From the nocturnal sky,
When the Sun lifts his purple beams afar;
Or Morning's roses in the orient halls,
As to the ground each fades and falls,
Then fail and vanish as the sun mounts high.
Be it so.—In that Childhood from above
Realities are fairer than your dreams;—
And strange and new creations shall unrol
Around her upward path, like clouded gleams,
And there disclose unveil'd a Father's love.
On other worlds, greater than now beseems,
Imagination pours forth golden youth,
Lighting her torch at the eternal truth.
II. OVID'S EPISTLES.
I loved the Ovidian turn and skill-wrought line,Well suited to the boyish mind and ear;—
In such good Herman Hugo could insphere
His Angels, and with wisdom most divine
In guise of wingèd Childhood intertwine
Thoughts worthy for Angelic ears to hear
Yet growing sense in Boyhood, while yet clear
From sins that darken spirit, would repine
O'er those impassion'd lays of Heathen love,
In sorrow and surprise, as fain to ask
The wisdom of Instructors, Why this task
So redolent of evil? lights they wake
Are more like gleams upon a Stygian lake,
Than of that innocence which dwells above.
His “Pia Desideria,” a collection of Latin Poems, in very elegant Ovidian lines; the illustrations of which introduce guardian Angels as little children, in a manner well suited to the character of the verse.
III. OVID'S TRISTIA, OR LAMENTATIONS.
Yet moving was that exile and distressWhich sought in such sweet strains to find relief,
Fair as the hues on the decaying leaf;
Such pitiful, such touching tenderness,
Yet so unmann'd, so hopeless, spiritless;
These are the fruits of Passion, which so brief
In its enjoyments leaves an after-grief,
A loneliness of spirit, on which press
Life's accidents, with such a piercing gale
Of sorrow; that though blending thoughts of good,
And soothed awhile with its own plaintive tale,
Yet lies an undersound in that deep wail,
As of a soul which, by herself subdued,
Hath lost the inner Friend of solitude.
JUVENAL.
I. GUILT THE SELF-AVENGER.
“So say the unwise, whose bosoms fraught with strife
“On every trivial cause with anger burn;
“Whate'er the occasion, it will serve the turn.
“Chrysippus and mild Thales say not so,
“Nor the old man of sweet Hymettus, who
“With his accuser in his chains denied
“The poison'd cup to share of which he died.
“Wisdom first teaches right, and gathering strength
“All errors and much vice weeds out at length.
“For aught of pleasure in revenge to find
“Indicates an infirm and little mind:
“Which hence thou mayst infer—for note aright,
“That women in revenge most take delight.
“But think not he escapes thee, though he flies,
“Whom conscious guilt still holds and terrifies
“The mind itself its executioner.
“Worse pain than can Cæditius here bestow,
“Or Rhadamanthus in the shades below;—
“By night and day, with ceaseless watch oppress'd,
“To bear his own accuser in his breast.
“That he should suffer for his ill design;—
“For he enquired should he a pledge retain,
“And by a perjured oath the fraud sustain;
“If such the Pythian deity would speed,
“And if Apollo would persuade the deed.—
“And so from fear, not conscience, he restor'd,
“A terrible example to afford,
“Well worthy of the shrine and prophet's word,
“Himself cut off, his kindred, and his home,
“Extinguish'd utterly in fearful doom.
“For he who meditates a crime within
“Is guilty of the deed; but if the crime
“Itself he perpetrate, for after time
“Endless anxiety will on him lie,
“Nor at the table cease, his throat is dry,
“He cannot the chew'd morsel swallow down,
“From choicest wines he turns with sickly frown . . .
“At night should care allow him brief repose,
“His limbs at length find rest, his eye-lids close,
“The temple, and the altar, and the God,
“And thee thyself. With sacred terrors fraught,
“Greater than human, is thine image brought
“Before him, and in slumber's empty dread
“Constrains him to confess the guilty deed.
“Half-dead at the first murmuring thunder-gale,
“As if not clouds by chance together driven,
“But vengeance had brought down the fire from Heaven.
“When pass'd, then of the next they are afraid,
“Lest Judgment by this calm be but delayed.
“Should side-felt pains and fever hold awake,
“They feel the offended God; and all things take
“As weapons hurl'd by angry deities.
“They cannot sacrifice; what can appease?
“What hope when guilty men in sickness lie?
“What victim not less worthy far to die?
“Yet once admitted, stedfastness in ill
“Remains: when crime is finish'd, men begin
“To ope their eyes to goodness and to sin;
“Yet nature, once perverted, will recur
“To self-condemning ways, nor from them stir,
“Fix'd and unchangeable: when once let in,
“Who to himself can set the bounds of sin?
“What ever hath restor'd its virgin glow?
“Whom hast thou seen contented with one crime,
“And then to cease from ill? Wait but the time,
“And this our, now successful, criminal
“Will in the nets of sin his steps enthrall.”
THE SAME ILLUSTRATED BY REVELATION.
And of revenge the soul of man disarms,
'Till neath the angry storms of Passion wild,
By honeyed sweet Hymettus, Wisdom's child
Is gentle as a sleeping infant's breast,
Or the calm sea that heaves and is at rest.—
Is guilty, though withinthe heart it dies;—
That there is something in the sinful soul
Which points in fear to some more fearful goal;
And sees in all around the shafts of God,
While that within bids to expect His rod.—
At the first sin that scales fall from the eyes,
Knowledge of good and evil open lies;—
That thence the power of the perverted Will,
Half-lost, is onward borne, till it fulfil
The cup of evil, which itself must drain,
In some intolerable weight of pain—
All full of mourning, like the Prophet's roll.
Which sheds its light on immortality?
But God's own Word the living scene reveals;
Things into fearful form and being strive,
And characters come forth, and burn, and live.
In man's own soul doth the Great Witness dwell.
Before us our Example living stands,
God—Man, our Life, and scattering live commands.
Where is revenge, and thoughts to it allied?
They are all buried with the Crucified.
All things there point to Judgment at the last,
Each thunder-storm a warning of that blast,—
All speak the Accuser who our ways doth scan,
And of a Judge which is the Son of Man.
But the live Tempter who hath power within;
And if to the first sin he can surprise
Then open to that knowledge leaves the eyes.
With Adam's children who accept his chain
The scene of Paradise he acts again;
Leads to false shades to hide their misery—
To hide from God, and loving life to die.
The fix'd immutability of sin?
'Tis that the evil one in ambush waits
Till he return, and watching at the gates
Enters with seven worse spirits to remain;
Such is the moulding of the sinner's chain.
May aid with His omnipotence the will.
Shall we then circumscribe the power of Heaven,
And cannot e'en at last such chains be riven?
Fearful the struggle, hazardous the strife,
For immortality of death or life.
And awfully the contest is pourtrayed,
Where Heathen wisdom darkens every shade;
Unless the light from Christian Heavens may blend,
Its strength e'en adamantine fetters rend.
Of soul-struck sinners on the dying bed?
No slaughter'd victims can the Conscience ease,
Nor aught those angry deities appease:
No beasts which more unworthy are to die
The sinful soul itself can satisfy.
But yet That Living Sacrifice of Love
May to the sin-sick heart atoning prove:
Yea, though neglected long, and greater grace
Be griev'd, yet not quite hidden is His Face;
Our living Intercessor never dies.
Innumerable eyes upon us wait:
Dead bones of Heathen Sages at That Breath
Clothe them with flesh and sinew; they from death
Wake and arise, in stillness most profound;
And stand like living Witnesses around.
II. RURAL IMAGES IN THE SATIRIST.
That Goddess with her haunted cave,
Did Nature's stone no marbles mar,
But grassy banks enclose the wave.”
The well-known Play again appears,
Scared by the mask the rustic child
Hides in its mother's breast its fears.”
Sole guidance doth the moon bestow;
Or some frail lamp, whose fitful light
I tend and temper as I go.”
And to the moon its shadow stir;
Before the robber, free and brave,
Will sing the empty traveller.”
Of mother now so long unseen,
Of little cot dear in his eyes,
And goats which so well known have been.”
Are moor'd—the sailors safe on shore;
There with their shaven crown they love
To tell their dangers o'er and o'er.”
ON THE FOREGOING PASSAGES.
The poet turns, as to illume
With Nature's soothing images
A page with horrors fill'd and gloom.
The murky haunts of sinking Rome,
Of which in Paul's inspired word
Is writ the character and doom.
The heart o'ercharg'd thus turns to greet
Some way-side flower with modest head,
Or playful child about the feet.
Are given to temper shades of woe,
By Him Who on our path at night
Hath bid the insect's lamp to glow.
PERSIUS.
I. SUFFERINGS OF CONSCIENCE.
“Great Sire of Gods, when thou wouldst vengeance take“On cruel tyrants, which with murders slake
“Their lust of blood,—there is no punishment
“More dire than this which justice can invent,
“The virtue they have lost, that Good Divine,
“Let them behold, and in beholding pine.
“In bronze Sicilian bulls the dying moan
“Of torture, or the terror-stricken groan
“Of him who, clad in purple, o'er his head
“Saw the suspended sword, are not so dread
“As is his fear who to himself doth own,
“‘We go, are headlong going, hurried down;’
“And inwardly turns pale at miseries
“Hid from the wife which on his bosom lies.”
II. THE FAITHFUL INSTRUCTOR.
“A pompous page, to smoke imparting weight.
“Secret we speak. With thee my muse makes bold,
“To thee my inmost bosom would unfold.
“To thee, Cornutus, would I fain impart
“How much, sweet friend, thou art of mine own heart.
“Sound me, an unflaw'd vessel thou canst tell,
“Varnish of tongue and paint none know so well.
“For this the hundred voices I would seek,
“Could I, with tongue sincere, but fitly speak
“How thou art would within me, and unseal
“What hidden in the reins no words reveal.
“When ceas'd my guardian purple, and still young
“Childhood's gilt dress I to the Lares hung,
“Flattering companions throng'd, manhood's white gown
“Suffer'd mine eyes to wander through the town;—
“Doubtful the course, when unskill'd in life's way
“Error in branching by-paths leads astray;—
“'Neath thee I placed me then, thou with pure truth
“Hast on Socratic bosom rear'd my youth;
“Reason my temper master'd; in her school
“Thine was the Artist's thumb deftly to mould
“The character to form which it must hold.
“Together early nights did we beguile,
“One work, one rest we had in sweet accord,
“And cheer'd our studies at one frugal board.”.....
“Each hath his bent, his pleasure each pursues.”....
“Then days in mud and darkness spent deplore,
“And groan when all too late that life is o'er.
“But pale at nightly studies grows thy brow
“The young to train, in cleansèd ears to sow
“Wisdom's pure fruits, such as Cleanthes own'd.
“Come, young and old, here shall your wants be crown'd
“By their true end, provision for old age,
“For sad grey hairs and life's last pilgrimage.
“‘To-morrow;—yea, to-morrow it shall be!
“What, is it much one day to ask?’ But see
“When this another day hath now arriv'd,
“We yesterday's to-morrow have out-liv'd.
“And soon another morrow will fulfil
“These years, yet be a little distant still.
“For though so near, bound by one carriage pole,
“In vain wilt thou pursue it, though it roll
“Thou roll'st, the second wheel, on axle-tree behind.”.....
“E'en while I speak is part of it—and past.
“What dost thou? hooks in twain thy bosom rend,
“Still doubtful to which master thou wilt bend:
“Then unto each according to thy mood
“Alternate yield'st a doubtful servitude.
“Think not when once a stand is made by thee
“Thou hast thy fetters broken and art free;
“A dog may struggling rend its knot in twain,
“Yet on its neck still drag a length of chain.”
LIVY.
I. THE ROMAN CHARACTER.
A Brutus steel'd against his own heart's blood,—Mucius with his right-hand in shrivelling fire,—
Curtius engulph'd in a live sepulchre,—
Regulus dying for his country's good,—
Camillus firm in her ingratitude,—
Poor Cincinnatus Rome's imperial sire;—
These all were types on the world's theatre,
Sons by whose love and suffering hardihood
Rome as the Queen of nations took her stand;
Thus e'en the semblance of true piety
Had length of days from the Almighty's hand.
If for a shadow such their self-command,
How should immortal spirits live and die
For an eternal City in the sky?
II. NUMA POMPILIUS.
That Power comes down from Heaven;—
The shadow of the Kingly might
To the Anointed given.
That Power is from below;
And haply they in this their dream
Are wiser than we know.
As erst was Charles, the Good;
But always, Lord, we know from Thee,
That evil is the multitude.
And with the Many side,
They for their God must evil take,
And Satan for their guide.
III. THE FAITHLESS GUARDIAN.
“It was the custom of the Falisci to have the same person as master and companion of their children: and as it is at this day the custom in Greece, they had many boys committed to the care of one master. The children of the princes were instructed, as is usually the case, by a person pre-eminent for his learning. This man had during peace adopted the custom of leading out the boys before the city for the sake of play and exercise; this practice being not interrupted by the war, he was used to draw them out from the gate at shorter or longer distances; and by varying their sports and conversation he advanced when an opportunity occurred further than usual, and thus led them on within the stations, and from thence into the Roman camp, and the tent of Camillus the general. There to this act of wickedness he added a still more iniquitous speech; saying, that ‘he delivered Falerii into the hands of the Romans; since he gave into their own power those boys whose parents were the heads of the State.’ On hearing which Camillus replied, ‘Thou hast not come, wicked man, with thy wicked gift to a people and a commander like thyself.’....He then had him stripped of his clothing, and with his hands tied behind his back, delivered him up to the boys, furnishing them with rods, to drive the traitor back into the city.”
To rear and mould the sons of Heaven;
(All children they of Royal Blood,
A more than princely brotherhood)
To vitiate the youthful mind;—
And leaves them with the foe to be
For ever in captivity.
Lets vainly loose the visions foul
Of evil spirits, which abide
In classic beauties, there to hide,
Like spiders when on watch they lie
In their sun-gilded tapestry;
Yea, there have been who gather'd lies
Of all those heathen deities,—
Such fabled legends have inwrought
Through limbec of their own bad thought;
And thence in minds yet free from ill
With all impurities instil.
Haply the ends which such await
Are mirror'd in this traitor's fate.
Ye make not this high ministry
The snare of youth, the woe of age;
For 'tis an Angel's privilege.
The Christian Scholar | ||