Life and Literary Remains of L. E. L. by Laman Blanchard. In Two Volumes |
I. |
II. |
I. |
II. |
III. |
IV. |
I. |
II. |
V. |
Life and Literary Remains of L. E. L. | ||
THE DREAM IN THE TEMPLE OF SERAPIS.
A dark and silent night,
And aloud the storm is calling
From the mountains' wooded height,
There is weeping in the pines.
But a voice of louder sorrow
Arises from the plain,
For the nations fear the morrow,
And ask for aid in vain,
From the old ancestral shrines
In the still and stately temple—
The temple of the god.
Who seek that ancient shrine,
To ask of night and heaven
An answer and a sign;
Pale as shadows pass they by.
They are warriors, yet they falter,
As with feet unshod
They approach thy mighty altar,
O Assyrian god!
Will the secret of the sky
Fill the stately temple—
The temple of the god?
In the conqueror's name;
The altar in the centre,
Burnt with undying flame—
Day and night that flame is fed.
Lamps from many a marble column
In the distance burn,
And the light is sad and solemn
As a funeral urn.
For the presence of the dead
Haunts the mystic temple—
The temple of the god.
Seven future kings;
Down they laid them to their slumber
Mid the silvery rings
Of the fragrant smoke that swept
From the golden vases streaming,
With their spice and oil,
And the rich frankincense steaming,
Half a summer's spoil.
Lull'd by such perfume they slept
In the silent temple—
The temple of the god.
On the marble floor;
Many things their slumber haunted,
Things that were no more.
'Twas the phantasm of life:
Fierce and rugged bands were crowding
Round their youthful king;
Shaggy hides their wild forms shrouding,
While the echoes ring
With the shouts that herald strife;
Such now wake the quiet temple—
The temple of the god.
On embattled lines;
There the purple robe is sweeping,
There the red gold shines.
That young chief his own has won—
He who, when his warriors tasked him,
With his heart's free scope,
What was left himself, they ask'd him,
And he answer'd, “Hope.”
What he said, that hath he done;
And his glory fills the temple—
The temple of the god.
Wealth is at his side,
Crowns are in the dust before him,
Earth hath bow'd her pride
At the whisper of his breath.
But that laurell'd one is dying
On a fever'd bed:
“Leave him where he now is lying,
There the king is best,” it said;
Such the oracle of death,
In that fated temple—
The temple of the god.
Such was heaven's reply;
Amid wealth, and power, and glory,
It is best to die!
Unto all that answer came.
From the highest to the lowest
Life draws deep a wasted breath:
Fate! thy best boon thou bestowest
When thou givest death.
Each that oracle may claim,
The words of that dark temple—
The temple of the god.
DEATH-BED OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
On his purple bed;
“Tell us not that he is dying;”
So his soldiers said,
“He is yet too young to die.
Have ye drugged the cup ye gave him,
From the fatal spring?
Is it yet too late to save him?
We will see our king!
Let his faithful ones draw nigh,
The silver-shielded warriors—
The warriors of the world!”
Of the royal tent;
Vainly to the stern immortals
Sacrifice and vow were sent.
Cold and pitiless are they!
Silent in their starry dwelling,
Nothing do they heed
Of the tale that earth is telling,
In her hour of need!
Ye silver shielded warriors,
Ye warriors of the world!
Women's tears will flow;
There the queens their watch are keeping
With a separate woe.
One still wears her diadem—
One her long fair hair is rending,
From its pearls unbound;
Tears from those soft eyes descending,
Eyes that seek the ground.
But Roxana looks on them,
The silver-shielded warriors,
The warriors of the world!
When the warriors pass'd;
In the west the night was deadening,
As they looked their last;
As they looked their last on him—
He, their comrade—their commander—
He, the earth's adored—
He, the godlike Alexander!
Who can wield his sword?
As they went their eyes were dim,
The silver-shielded warriors,
The warriors of the world!
By the purple bed;
Every soldier in succession
Thro' that tent was led.
Pale and beautiful—reclining,
There the conqueror lay,
From his radiant eyes the shining
Had not passed away.
There he watched them from his place—
His silver-shielded warriors,
His warriors of the world!
For he wore his crown;
And his sunny hair was streaming
His white forehead down.
Glorious was that failing head!
Still his golden baldric bound him,
Where his sword was hung:
Bright his arms were scattered round him,
And his glance still clung
To the warriors by his bed—
The silver-shielded warriors,
The warriors of the world!
Like a statue white and cold,
With his royal state invested;
For the purple and the gold
In his latest hour he wore.
But the eye and breath are failing,
And the mighty Soul has fled!
Lift ye up the loud bewailing,
For a wide world mourns the Dead;
And they have a Chief no more—
The silver-shielded warriors,
The warriors of the world!
“While Alexander was on his death-bed, the soldiers,” says Arrian, “became eager to see him; some to see him once more alive, others because it was reported that he was already dead, and a suspicion had arisen that his death was concealed by the chief officers of the guards, but the majority from sorrow and anxiety for their king; they, therefore, forced their way into his chamber, and the whole army passed in procession by the bed where he lay pale and speechless.”
Plutarch mentions that one of the popular reports was, that Alexander's death was occasioned by poison administered by Iollas, his cup-bearer. This poison, the water of a mountain-spring, was of so corrossive a nature as to destroy every substance but the mule's hoof in which it was brought.
Phylarchus gives a splendid account of Alexander's magnificence. His tent contained a hundred couches, and was supported by eight columns of solid gold. Overhead was stretched cloth of gold, wrought with various devices, and expanded so as to cover the whole ceiling. Within, in a semicircle, stood five hundred Persians, bearing lances adorned with pomegranates; their dress was purple and orange. Next to these were drawn up a thousand archers, partly clothed in flame-coloured, and partly in scarlet dresses. Many of these wore azure-coloured scarfs. In front of these were arranged five hundred Macedonian Argyraspides, soldiers, so called from their silver shields. In the middle was the golden throne, on which Alexander sat and gave audience. The tent on the outside was encircled by elephauts drawn up in order, and by a thousand Macedonians in their native dress. Beyond these were the Persian guard often thousand men, and the five hundred courtiers allowed to wear purple robes.
After the conqueror's death, Roxana allured her gentler rival into her power, and poisoned her. She was the beautiful daughter of a barbarian chief, made captive by Alexander, who was so struck with her charms, that he immediately married her. Statira was the child of Darius, and inherited the evil fortunes of her ill-fated race.
Pearls were favourite ornaments with the Persian ladies, who often wore them wreathed in their hair.
The death of Alexander plunged all his vast empire into anarchy and slaughter. He was the soul that animated the mighty force that afterwards wasted its energies in petty warfare. The popular saying attributed to him might well be true, “That the survivors would celebrate his obsequies with bloody funeral games.”
STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF MRS. HEMANS.
Bring flowers,—the bride is near;
Bring flowers to soothe the captive's cell,
Bring flowers to strew the bier!
Bring flowers! thus said the lovely song;
And shall they not be brought
To her who linked the offering
With feeling and with thought?
Those with the morning dew,
A sigh in every fragrant leaf,
A tear on every hue.
So pure, so sweet thy life has been,
So filling earth and air
With odours and with loveliness,
Till common scenes grew fair.
Flung beauty born of dreams,
And scattered o'er the actual world
The spirit's sunny gleams.
Mysterious influence, that to earth
Brings down the heaven above,
And fills the universal heart
With universal love.
The unformed and the cold,
The sculptor calls to breathing life
Some shape of perfect mould,
So thou from common thoughts and things
Didst call a charmed song,
Which on a sweet and swelling tide
Bore the full soul along.
Didst bring back many a tone,
And giving such new music still,
A music of thine own.
A lofty strain of generous thoughts,
And yet subdued and sweet,—
An angel's song, who sings of earth,
Whose cares are at his feet.
Its beauty is not bloom;
The hopes of which it breathes, are hopes
That look beyond the tomb.
Thy song is sorrowful as winds
That wander o'er the plain,
And ask for summer's vanish'd flowers,
And ask for them in vain.
The gift of song like thine;
A fated doom is her's who stands
The priestess of the shrine.
The crowd—they only see the crown,
They only hear the hymn;—
They mark not that the cheek is pale,
And that the eye is dim.
The soul's fine chords are wrung;
With misery and melody
They are too highly strung.
The heart is made too sensitive
Life's daily pain to bear;
It beats in music, but it beats
Beneath a deep despair.
The love for which it pines;
Too much of Heaven is in the faith
That such a heart enshrines.
Must make a lonely lot;
It dazzles, only to divide
From those who wear it not.
And loathe its bitter prize,
While what to others triumph seemed,
To thee was sacrifice?
Oh, Flower brought from Paradise
To this cold world of ours,
Shadows of beauty such as thine
Recall thy native bowers.
Thy soft leaves thou didst wreathe;
The red rose wastes itself in sighs
Whose sweetness others breathe!
And they have thanked thee—many a lip
Has asked of thine for words,
When thoughts, life's finer thoughts, have touched
The spirit's inmost chords.
Who only knew thy name;
Which o'er the weary working world
Like starry music came!
With what still hours of calm delight
Thy songs and image blend;
I cannot choose but think thou wert
An old familiar friend.
My inmost spirit moved;
And yet I feel as thou hadst been
Not half enough beloved.
They say that thou wert faint, and worn
With suffering and with care;
What music must have filled the soul
That had so much to spare!
Within thy mother's breast—
The green, the quiet mother-earth—
Thrice blessed be thy rest!
Thy heart is left within our hearts,
Although life's pang is o'er;
But the quick tears are in my eyes,
And I can write no more.
THREE EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF A WEEK.
Are thoughts—and feelings—fears, and hopes, and dreams.
There are some days that might outmeasure years—
Days that obliterate the past, and make
The future of the colour which they cast.
A day may be a destiny; for life
Lives in but little—but that little teems
With some one chance, the balance of all time:
A look—a word—and we are wholly changed.
We marvel at ourselves—we would deny
That which is working in the hidden soul;
But the heart knows and trembles at the truth:
On such these records linger.
We might have been!
And yet they make the sum of life's bewailing;
They are the echo of those finer chords,
Whose music life deplores when unavailing.
We might have been!
Pent in the weary school-room during summer,
When the green rushes 'mid the marshes wild,
And rosy fruits, attend the radiant comer.
We might have been!
When first experience—sad experience—teaches
What fallacies we have believed for truth,
And what few truths endeavour ever reaches.
We might have been!
Had we but known the bitter path before us;
But feelings, hopes, and fancies left afar,
What in the wide bleak world can e'er restore us?
We might have been!
The end of all that waits on mortal seeking;
The weary weight upon Hope's flagging wings,
It is the cry of the worn heart while breaking.
We might have been!
Dawns on our world-worn way Love's hour Elysian,
The last fair angel lingering on our earth,
The shadow of what thought obscures the vision?
We might have been!
Too soon or else too late the heart-beat quickens;
The star which is our fate springs up above,
And we but say—while round the vapour thickens—
We might have been!
Are single sorrows,—but in this are blended
All sweet emotions that disturb the breast;
The light that was our loveliest is ended.
We might have been!
A sealèd book at whose contents we tremble?
A still voice mutters 'mid our misery,
The worst to hear, because it must dissemble—
We might have been!
And all of which we craved a brief possessing,
For which we wasted wishes, hopes, and powers,
Comes with some fatal drawback on the blessing.
We might have been!
The young beliefs intrusted to its keeping;
Inscribe one sentence—life's first truth and last—
On the pale marble where our dust is sleeping—
We might have been.
Necessity.
Sits a lone power—a veil upon the head,
Stern with the terror of an unseen dread.
Girt with eternal consciousness of ill,
And strong and silent as its own dark will.
The warm and beating human heart its tool;
And man, immortal, godlike, but its fool.
Be on the gradual round of every hour,
Now flinging down an empire, now a flower.
Unwittingly the seed minute is sown,—
The tree of evil out of it is grown.
And dream that somewhat we are freed, in vain;
The mighty fetters close on us again.
And towers that look into the heavens are wrought,—
But after all our toil the task is nought.
Are scatter'd with the work of myriad hands,
High o'er whose pride the fragile wild-flower stands.
Far in the desert, where the palm-tree springs;
'Tis the same story in all meaner things.
To meet the sunset glories of the west,
But garnered in some still, sweet-singing nest.
The song is silent so sweet yesterday,
And not a green leaf lingers on the spray.
The while our feet glide down life's faithless slope;
One has no strength, the other has no scope.
Forced there to struggle, but denied to save,
Till the stern tide ebbs—and there is the grave.
Memory.
Thy memory,—I rather ask forgetting;
Withdraw, I pray, from me thy strong control,
Leave something in the wide world worth regretting.
I dare not let thine image fill them only;
The hurried happiness it wakes in me
Will leave the hours that are to come more lonely.
Mine is a world of feelings and of fancies,
Fancies whose rainbow-empire is the mind,
Feelings that realize their own romances.
Alone, apart from life's more busy scheming;
I fear to think that I may find too late
Vain was the toil, and idle was the dreaming.
Up to the heavens, but for my own entombing?
The fair and fragrant things that years have brought
Must they be gathered for my own consuming?
In the existence it was but surveying;
That knew not then of the awaken'd heart
Amid the life of other lives decaying.
More than content to live apart and lonely,
The feverish tumult of a loving lot,
Is what I wish'd, and thought to picture only.
What should o'ermaster mine to vain complying
With hopes that call down what they bring of ill,
With fears to their own questioning replying?
We struggle, but what matters our endeavour?
Our doom is gone beyond our own recall,
May we deny or mitigate it?—never!
The mind's still depths with trouble and repining?
Nothing;—though all things now thy likeness take;
Nothing,—and life has nothing worth resigning.
Watching the expiring beam of hope's last ember;
Life had one hour,—bright, beautiful, and brief,
And now its only task is to remember.
THE FUTURE.
While gazing on thee sudden tear-drops start,
When only smiles should brighten where thou art.
And joy is tremulous—for it inspheres
A vapoury star which melts away in tears.
Hence, thoughts the sweet, yet sorrowful, have birth:—
Who looks from heaven is half return'd to earth.
How deep, how true, how passionate soe'er,
It cannot keep one sorrow from thy share.
I feel I could lay down my life for thee;
Yet know how vain such sacrifice must be!
Not to humanity which vainly tries
To lift the curtain that may never rise!
Hurried and dim the unknown moments press;—
We question of the grief we cannot guess.
For one look back, a thousand on we cast;
And hope doth ever memory outlast.
Fearful and weak, and born 'mid suffering;—
At least, such hope as our sad earth can bring.
And while it carries an enchanter's wand,
Its spells are conscious of their earthly bond.
It doth tempt Fate, the stern one, to destroy,
Fate in whose hands this world is as a toy.
By some deep suffering; or they decay
Or change to pain, and curse us by their stay.
Cold ashes of each beautiful deceit,
Owned by long silent hearts, that beat as ours now beat.
We heap up hope and joy in one bright wreath;—
Our altar is the grave—our priest is death.
The cold, the calm, that haunts my soul with gloom:
I tremble at the passage to the tomb.
In the dark future?—I may meet thine eye,
Cold, careless, and estranged, before I die.
How can the loving heart e'er feel secure,
And e'er it breaks it may so much endure?
Ah! merciful the shadow round us thrown.—
Thank heaven, the future is at least unknown!
A LONG WHILE AGO.
Hiding the silver underneath each leaf,
So drops the long hair from some maiden pillow,
When midnight heareth the else silent grief;
There floats the water-lily, like a sovereign
Whose lovely empire is a fairy world,
The purple dragon-fly above it hovering,
As when its fragile ivory uncurl'd
A long while ago.
From the wild thyme when they have past the noon—
There is the blackbird in the hawthorn singing,
Stirring the white spray with the same sweet tune;
Fragrant the tansy breathing from the meadows,
As the west wind bends down the long green grass,
Now dark, now golden, as the fleeting shadows
Of the light clouds pass as they wont to pass
A long while ago.
To bind a young fair brow no longer fair;—
Ah! thou art mocking us, thou summer weather,
To be so sunny, with the loved one where?
'Tis not her voice—'tis not her step—that lingers
In lone familiar sweetness on the wind;
The bee, the bird, are now the only singers—
Where is the music once with their's combined
A long while ago?
Is she who only hath a memory here.
She was so much a part of us, so cherished,
So young, that even love forgot to fear.
Now is her image paramount, it reigneth
With a sad strength that time may not subdue;
And memory a mournful triumph gaineth,
As the slow looks we cast around renew
A long while ago.
The tree with green leaves, and the ground with flowers;
Darkly the past around thy beauty hovers—
The past—the grave of our once happy hours.
It is too sad to gaze upon the seeming
Of nature's changeless loveliness, and feel
That, with the sunshine round, the heart is dreaming
Darkly o'er wounds inflicted, not to heal,
A long while ago.
Pass'd years that deepen'd as those years went by;
Shadows will darken in the careless wildwood—
There will be tears upon the tranquil sky.
Memories, like phantoms, haunt me while I wander
Beneath the drooping boughs of each old tree:
I grow too sad as mournfully I ponder
Things that are not—and yet that used to be—
A long while ago.
Where are the friends, and where the faith of yore?
My eyes grow dim with tears—my footsteps falter—
Thinking of those whom I can love no more.
We change, and others change—while recollection
Would fain renew what it can but recall.
Dark are life's dreams, and weary its affection,
And cold its hopes—and yet I felt them all
A long while ago.
EXPERIENCE.
As I were struggling under some dark dream,
Which roughly bore me down life's troubled stream.
A tyrant mastering me with stern control;
The present has no rest—the future has no goal.
Soon the young leaf forgets its early green,
And shadows with our sunshine intervene.
We calculate where once we could aspire,
And the high hope sets in some low desire.
Like what we have been taught too late to know,
And yet we hate ourselves for being so.
The fond belief that actual friends there were,—
Not cold and false as all must find they are?
The love that withers of its earthly taint,
To what our first sweet visions used to paint!
Back on our trusting selves—the heart's core wrung
By some fond faith to which we weakly clung.
Of all experience's most bitter fruit;
They waste the life whose charm they constitute.
All that was felt so bitterly before,
But with the softness is the sweetness o'er.
Youth's flowers are flung behind us, and in vain
We would stoop down to gather them again.
Float down time's water to the viol's breath,
Wot not what those cold billows hide beneath.
Drops the glad rose, and the bright waters shrink:
While in the midst of mirth we pause to think;—
Are vowed companions; while we turn the leaf,
It darkens—for the brilliant is the brief.
Your own Elysium hither!—overwrought
The spirit wearies with the weight of thought.
Thou human soul—earth is no home for thee;
Thy starry rest is in eternity!
Life and Literary Remains of L. E. L. | ||