 | The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems |  |
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THE STARS.
“Look, wretched one, upon the stream that rolleth by the dwelling of thine old age, and thou will behold the very stars that have shone on thee in thy boyhood.”
Let me look on the stars. They bring me back,
With strange persuasiveness, to the old time,
And pleasant hours of boyhood. All returns,
That I had long forgotten. Scarce a scene,
Of childish prank or merriment, but comes,
With all the freshness of the infant year,
As 'twere an atom of some yesterday.
The green, remember'd at the winter night,
For the encounter of the rapid ball—
The marble play, the hoop, the top and kite,
Each, in its regular season, has its time
In the revival of my boyhood, then!—
And, as the years flew by—as I became
Warmer, and more devoted—fix'd and strong—
Growing in the affections, when I ceased
To grow in stature or proportion—then,
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And voices grew into a spell, that hung,
Thro' the dim hours of night, about the heart,
Making it tremble strangely—and blue eyes,
Were stars, that had a power over us,
As fated, dimly at nativity—
And older men, were monitors, too dull
For passionate youth—and reason, and all excellence
(Bating the honied sentences of lips,
That may have vied with coral, and have won)
Were to be gather'd from one source alone,
Whose thought and word were inspiration, life—
That we had bartered life, itself, to lose!—
And that heart-madness that belongs to youth,
That spell upon affection—that deep light,
Which makes all other objects dark, or fills,
Absorbs, or crushes out each other light,
Is on us, as a dream, that binds us down,
And takes our reason from us: When all these,
Have been with us, and carried us away,
To strange conceits of future happiness,
But to be thought on, as delusions all,
Yet such delusions as we still must love—
When these have parted from us—when the sky,
Hath lost the charm of its etherial blue,
And the nights lose their freshness, and the trees,
No longer have a welcome sound for love—
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And all the poetry that shook the leaves,
And all the perfume that was on the flowers,
Sweetness upon the winds, light in the sky,
The green of the carpetted vale, the dew,
That morning hangs on the enamel'd moss—
The hill-side, the acclivity, the plain—
(Sweeter that Solitude was sleeping there)
Are gone, as the last hope of misery—
When the one dream of thy deluded life,
Hath left thee, to awaken—not to see
The pleasant morning, but the gloomy night,
When sight becomes a weariness, and Hope,
No longer gathers from its barren path,
One flow'r of promise—when disease is nigh,
And all thy bones are racking, and thy thought,
Is of foul, nauseous, ineffectual drugs,
Which thou will take, altho' thou know'st in vain—
And not a hand is nigh to quench thy thirst,
With one poor cup of water—and thy thought
Is of the fading sky, and the bright sun,
Which thou art losing—and the sable pall,
And melancholy carriage, and of those,
Who but acquire thee now, when thou art lost,
And only weep for that, which thou dost leave—
And thou hast bid adieu to earthly things,
Fought thro' the last, long struggle with thyself,
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And offer'd up thy pray'r of penitence,
Doubtful of its acceptance, yet prepar'd,
As well as thy condition will admit,
For the last change in thy unhappy life—
Look, if thou canst, from thy closed lattice forth,
And take thy farewell of the calm blue sky;
And if the melancholy stars be there,
Then will the current of thy thoughts, flow back,
To the fair practice of thy innocent childhood,
And, if thou hast been wretched, thou will weep
Over thy recollections—and thy tears,
Shall be, as a sweet pray'r, sent up to Heav'n.
| The vision of Cortes, Cain, and other poems | |