 | Idyls and Songs |  |
54
EPILOGUE.
So take the song. And if a fond regret
For unreturning days of youth and freshness
And those instinctive motions of belief
That mark a nation's childhood, cast a tone
O'er words not idly chosen, blame not, Friend,
The conscious partial utterance.
For unreturning days of youth and freshness
And those instinctive motions of belief
That mark a nation's childhood, cast a tone
O'er words not idly chosen, blame not, Friend,
The conscious partial utterance.
All have known—
Save those, at either pole of truth congeal'd
In rigid lifelessness—self-charter'd slaves
To blind mechanical consistency—
The balanced pulses of the soul within:
Magnetic oscillations: thoughts that dip
To Past or Future:—most in those, perchance,
Who sum their strength up for the present day
In quiet hopefulness.
Save those, at either pole of truth congeal'd
In rigid lifelessness—self-charter'd slaves
To blind mechanical consistency—
The balanced pulses of the soul within:
Magnetic oscillations: thoughts that dip
To Past or Future:—most in those, perchance,
Who sum their strength up for the present day
In quiet hopefulness.
The master-souls—
He—and that other, who took up his robe,
And gave the annals of imperial Rome
A fame undying as the wars of Greece,
Athens, and Sparta—said ‘Man differs not
From man in essence: 'tis the lesson learnt
From History, best studied:’ and, again,
‘There is a circle in all things, and life
In seasonable order, with the year
Turns and returns.’—There is a chain in all
That links us to Futurity: the Past
Is born again among us.
He—and that other, who took up his robe,
And gave the annals of imperial Rome
A fame undying as the wars of Greece,
Athens, and Sparta—said ‘Man differs not
From man in essence: 'tis the lesson learnt
From History, best studied:’ and, again,
‘There is a circle in all things, and life
In seasonable order, with the year
Turns and returns.’—There is a chain in all
That links us to Futurity: the Past
Is born again among us.
55
And as those
Whose oft reverted gaze, while journeying on
Feeds on the thoughtful distance, till a hope
Springs unrepress'd, that in the goal they seek
Their starting-point is mirror'd: so unblamed
The wish may rise, that by no idle spells
Of servile imitation, life recall'd
Might reimbreathe the Past, and bring her down
With gifts to heal our failings, nor averse
From present aspirations, thence,—where now
Unmoved in graceful lifelessness, she sits,
Pedestal'd high in sculptured majesty.
Whose oft reverted gaze, while journeying on
Feeds on the thoughtful distance, till a hope
Springs unrepress'd, that in the goal they seek
Their starting-point is mirror'd: so unblamed
The wish may rise, that by no idle spells
Of servile imitation, life recall'd
Might reimbreathe the Past, and bring her down
With gifts to heal our failings, nor averse
From present aspirations, thence,—where now
Unmoved in graceful lifelessness, she sits,
Pedestal'd high in sculptured majesty.
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