Night and the soul A dramatic poem. By J. Stanyan Bigg |
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| I. |
Scene I.
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| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
| VII. |
| VIII. |
| IX. |
| X. |
| XI. |
| XII. |
 | Night and the soul |  |
Scene I.
A Wood. Night.Alexis and Ferdinand.
Alexis.
How deep the silence of these hoary woods
Unbroken by the flutter of a wing,
Ungloom'd by not a throb of life; but left
In primal peace, and purity, and bliss,—
The sad, wild bliss of silence, and the hush
Of prostrate awe, of deep expectancy.
Night has thrown wide her palace to her lord;
One might expect to see a great swart king,
Begirt in unwrought gold and blazing gems,
Stride to his ebon throne among the stars,
And use the clouds for cushions, while the earth
Trembled up towards him like a sinning child!
How solemnly this graceful brotherhood
Of giant trees stand in thick serried lines!
Like a vast army after victory,
Waiting the final orders of their king.
Lo! their huge arms hang listless at their sides,
As if the mighty host were slumbering,
Save when the wind glides through them, like a dream,
Letting in slips of moonlight, and a glimpse
Of the blue heavens and their starry orbs.
Ah! there is something holy in this hush—
This lake-like, still, submergency of sound,
On whose unbroken quietudes our voices
Are as a desecration; and our steps
Fall on the throbbing silence, as a wail
Amidst the harmonious choruses of heaven—
As a tooth-grinding jar among the harps
Of angels and of hierarchies.
[A pause.
Unbroken by the flutter of a wing,
Ungloom'd by not a throb of life; but left
In primal peace, and purity, and bliss,—
The sad, wild bliss of silence, and the hush
Of prostrate awe, of deep expectancy.
Night has thrown wide her palace to her lord;
One might expect to see a great swart king,
Begirt in unwrought gold and blazing gems,
Stride to his ebon throne among the stars,
And use the clouds for cushions, while the earth
Trembled up towards him like a sinning child!
How solemnly this graceful brotherhood
Of giant trees stand in thick serried lines!
Like a vast army after victory,
Waiting the final orders of their king.
Lo! their huge arms hang listless at their sides,
2
Save when the wind glides through them, like a dream,
Letting in slips of moonlight, and a glimpse
Of the blue heavens and their starry orbs.
Ah! there is something holy in this hush—
This lake-like, still, submergency of sound,
On whose unbroken quietudes our voices
Are as a desecration; and our steps
Fall on the throbbing silence, as a wail
Amidst the harmonious choruses of heaven—
As a tooth-grinding jar among the harps
Of angels and of hierarchies.
Away!
What do we here? Our very heart's pulsations,
Though they be low and muffled, like death-tolls,
Are out of tune with this most musical silence,
For they have something human in them—speak
Of petty purposes, and all the broils
That rack the bosom of mortality:
But Night is God and Nature's. 'Tis the house,
Black-pillared and sky-roofed, where They two hold
Their grand, unutterable intercourse!
It is the hour when Earth, our mother, claims
Companionship and sisterhood with stars;
When, throwing off the trammelage of day,
She leaps into the Infinite, and sings
With all the galaxies, the ancient songs
Of all the ages and of all the suns;
The hour when the Eternal One steps down
From His bright throne, and whispers in the ear
Of universal Nature the great truths
That have to shine upon the golden front
Of the To-morrow, to win back man's soul
Unto its purest self, and to its God.
Oh! Night is holy like her sister Death:
Both bring, with silent step, and shadowy, cold
Star-jewelled hands, the black funereal ladder
Up whose cloud-barrèd steps man has to climb
To reach the rainbow fruitage of immortals;
And in the centre of the dim, dark eyes
Of both these sable sisters is the gleam
Caught from the sunny side and upward slopes
Of the bright hills of immortality!
Is Night not conscious, thinkest thou, of us,
And all that slumber on her broad, black breast?
And may she not have personality
And power to recall a dim remembrance
Of the great deeds wrought in her ere the earth
Was fashioned into beauty, or the moon
Gave her first invitation to the soul
To go and banquet with the sons of light,
Or the first years, warm with all sunny hues,
Ran sparkling from the the upturned chalices
Of Time? Are not the suns her bright-eyed children;
And the glad stars her progeny: and all
The dancing glories which the day brings forth
In sweet and luminous association,
Shaking their golden locks in playful glee
And semi-mockery of all her glooms,
The very babes she bore and weaned, ages
On ages since? And is she not the parent
Of all the melodies that speed from out
Her deep embosomed silences, as springs
Leap from dumb chasms into utterance?
Archangels' rhapsodies, and songs of Heaven,
And all the million notes that fill the earth
And melodise the skies—she nursed them all;
And all the deep-rolled anthems of the sea,
And all the fitful carollings of the winds,
And all the flutterings of wings of birds
And glancing insects—every tone that twines
Its silver tendrils round the trunk and stem
Of the great Living Tree that swings and sways
Its infinite branches in the eternal airs,
And forms that ever-rushing tide of song
And praise to which God listens day and night,
Sprang forth from her.
What do we here? Our very heart's pulsations,
Though they be low and muffled, like death-tolls,
Are out of tune with this most musical silence,
For they have something human in them—speak
Of petty purposes, and all the broils
That rack the bosom of mortality:
But Night is God and Nature's. 'Tis the house,
Black-pillared and sky-roofed, where They two hold
Their grand, unutterable intercourse!
It is the hour when Earth, our mother, claims
Companionship and sisterhood with stars;
When, throwing off the trammelage of day,
She leaps into the Infinite, and sings
With all the galaxies, the ancient songs
Of all the ages and of all the suns;
3
From His bright throne, and whispers in the ear
Of universal Nature the great truths
That have to shine upon the golden front
Of the To-morrow, to win back man's soul
Unto its purest self, and to its God.
Oh! Night is holy like her sister Death:
Both bring, with silent step, and shadowy, cold
Star-jewelled hands, the black funereal ladder
Up whose cloud-barrèd steps man has to climb
To reach the rainbow fruitage of immortals;
And in the centre of the dim, dark eyes
Of both these sable sisters is the gleam
Caught from the sunny side and upward slopes
Of the bright hills of immortality!
Is Night not conscious, thinkest thou, of us,
And all that slumber on her broad, black breast?
And may she not have personality
And power to recall a dim remembrance
Of the great deeds wrought in her ere the earth
Was fashioned into beauty, or the moon
Gave her first invitation to the soul
To go and banquet with the sons of light,
Or the first years, warm with all sunny hues,
Ran sparkling from the the upturned chalices
Of Time? Are not the suns her bright-eyed children;
And the glad stars her progeny: and all
The dancing glories which the day brings forth
4
Shaking their golden locks in playful glee
And semi-mockery of all her glooms,
The very babes she bore and weaned, ages
On ages since? And is she not the parent
Of all the melodies that speed from out
Her deep embosomed silences, as springs
Leap from dumb chasms into utterance?
Archangels' rhapsodies, and songs of Heaven,
And all the million notes that fill the earth
And melodise the skies—she nursed them all;
And all the deep-rolled anthems of the sea,
And all the fitful carollings of the winds,
And all the flutterings of wings of birds
And glancing insects—every tone that twines
Its silver tendrils round the trunk and stem
Of the great Living Tree that swings and sways
Its infinite branches in the eternal airs,
And forms that ever-rushing tide of song
And praise to which God listens day and night,
Sprang forth from her.
And she is meek and bends
With all her velvet robes upon her breast,
Bends in deep adoration before God.
Dost see yon mass of floating vapour?—there— [Points upwards.
Like a vast cloudy hand up-raised on high
In lowly implorations of pure peace,
While every shadowy finger is alive,
And gleams, lustrous and tremulous, with stars.
With all her velvet robes upon her breast,
Bends in deep adoration before God.
Dost see yon mass of floating vapour?—there— [Points upwards.
Like a vast cloudy hand up-raised on high
In lowly implorations of pure peace,
5
And gleams, lustrous and tremulous, with stars.
Ferdinand.
Yes, Night is holy; but to me she seems
More beautiful than holy.
Alexis.
Yes, for thou
Wert still enamoured of the liquid grace
And loveliness that ever float and flow
Upon the surfaces of things.
Ferdinand.
And thou
Of the vast depths in which they are embosomed—
The indestructible and infinite;
The mighty march of the immeasurable;
The policies of Heaven; and the life,
And soul, and centre of all being; and
The yet stubborn Why? and Wherefore? that are still
Enscrolled in sunny-pictured hieroglyphs
Upon the brow of Heaven, and which are stamped
Upon the earth, and on the soul of man;
The everlasting interrogatories
Which all things frame unto the intellect;
And the unfathomed, and unfathomable,
And ever-during mysteries of God,—
Dark to our inner blindness evermore,
Save the swift-speeding interval in which
A phosphorescent glory lights them up,
Like the bright gleam which starts up out of midnight,
When a great cloud opens its heavy lids
To let through lightning glances. These are thine;
6
For they have wooed and won thee, heart and soul!
But as for me, I play not with the thunders,
And the grim lightnings are no friends of mine;
And the profound unmeasured amplitudes,
In which all times and changes hang like stars
On the great bosom of infinity;
And the deep questionings which rack thy heart,
Move me but little, though I know they are.
I never shook a paw with the dread Sphynx,
And all her riddles are to me as dreams.
I love the lowly and the beautiful;—
The peach, just rounding into ripeness, with
Its first young blush just spreading o'er its cheek;
The rain-drops hanging on the sturdy arms
Of wintry thorns, and bearing in their breasts,
A soulless purity, like little Undines;
The breath of flowers, and hum of honey-bees;
The wavy odour of beanfields, and songs
Of merry harvest-home; the music which
A tiny brooklet makes unto the trees
That stand in condescending stateliness
Along its mossy banks, like grim old greybeards,
Listening with all becoming gravity
To the sweet talk and fragmentary thought
Of prattling infancy; the amber blush
And hues of glory, which the evening spreads
Ere she has closed the flowery volume up,
7
Of night, with all its Cabalistic pomp,
Star-constellated, and bedropt in gloom:—
All forms of grace and groups of loveliness
Win my soul's worship, and I ask not—why? [A pause.
Now our friend Anthony would scorn us both;
Thee for thy musings, and myself for mine.
All things are made for use, he says: the sun
Shineth by day to light him to his mill;
And the sweet moon and clustered stars arise
To prevent accidents at night; the winds
Blow from all quarters but to waft his goods;
And the great sea rolls endlessly, and pants
For nothing but earth's ships and argosies;
And human souls are born into the world
With all the trappings of eternity
Still hanging loosely round them, for his use.
Alexis.
Heaven save me from
Such moralists as these, who would convert
Yon infinite expanse into a chart
Of “ways and means,” and turn the universe
Into a great “Poor Richard's Almanack!”
Ferdinand.
The greed of gold would turn out God from Nature,
And blot all beauty from the skies, and make
Of this fair world a very Niflheim, filled
Like the dread Scandinavian House of Doom,
With poisonous effluences, and the bones
8
Mankind into a host of greedy ghouls
With bloodshot eyes, and foul and clutching hands.
Alexis.
Yes, man as ever follows his own folly,
Heedless of all his mighty destinies;
And though a golden crown and robes like snow
Hang in Heaven's arch, suspended by a thread,
He will not, by a single act of his,
Dissever the thin cord, and suffer them
To fold him in the vesture of a king;
Nor will he notice that the great white hand
Is busy, tracing out new characters
Upon the vast walls of the universe,
Until some second deep-eyed Daniel come
To lip the lightning words in thunder-tones!
Ferdinand.
The host of men go streaming on through time,
Like rivers over mud; and then go out
Into eternity, and stain its shores
With all the foulness they have gathered up.
Like dusty pilgrims on the broad highway,
They heed not all the flower-paths close at hand,
But still plod on till night; and then go in,
With all the grime of travel on their garb,
To meet the monarch of the Universe!
Alexis.
Glide on, leaving a serpent-trail behind them—
A legacy of slime amid the sand.
The earth is fattened with their flesh and bones;
9
And hands them over to corruption, who
Dissolves them into elemental limbs,
And in the sleep of ages yawns them forth,
To toss about in ghastly merriment,—
Mere dust,—their history and their cenotaph;
For from the first they trod the crooked paths
Of worldly policy, with eyes down-bent,
And greedy souls crying unto the dust, Give! Give!
Although behind them stretched infinitudes,
Star-dropped and sprinkled, and before them lay
Eternal domes of bliss, ablaze with light,
In whose vast jasper halls suns hung as tapers,
While eager angels beckoned them that way;
And ever and anon Night pitched her tent,
And, holding up her ebon balance, cried
Lo! in the one scale I have placed these worlds,
And in the other is your priceless soul.
Behold how it outweighs them all! Yet still
They plodded onward with their dust-filled eyes,
Ever repeating their shrill whine for “More!”
Until they stepped into the infinite,
And went down headlong into—who knows what?
Ferdinand.
The dread abyss?
Alexis.
Words are earth's forgeries,
And pass not current either in Hell or Heaven.
It is as if, on mighty themes like this,
Language with puny, frantic arms, strove hard
10
We seek to paint the darkness, and our brush
Smears nothing but itself.
Ferdinand.
Is it not sad that Nature ever spreads
In lavish prodigality her sweets
To tempt man's sickly appetite—in vain;
And scatters from her rushing wings swift flakes
Of light, presages of the bliss of Heaven
On eyes that see not, and on souls as blind;
And, like a young bird poised in upper air,
And hovering evermore on rainbow plumes,
Between the Eternal and the Infinite,
Sings ever low, and tremulous songs of both
Unto deaf ears. Is it not sad, I say?
Alexis.
We stand within the darkness of the porch
Of being—the Great Temple is beyond;
And God hath hung up on the vaulted roof
These splendours, but to light us to our rest,
And to prepare us for the blaze to come!
Nature is still, as ever, the thin veil
Which half conceals, and half reveals the face
And lineaments supernal of our king,—
The modifying medium through which
His glories are exhibited to man,—
The grand repository where he hides
His mighty thoughts, to be dug out like diamonds;—
Still is the day irradiate with His glory,
Flowing in steady, sun-streaked, ocean-gush
11
O'er our horizon trail the sable robes
Of the Eternal One, with all their rich
Embroidery and blazonment of stars.
Ferdinand.
Alas! that mankind see Him not,—the Great
And Everlasting Framer of all worlds;
Who paints himself upon the leaves of flowers,
And flings his portrait on the breasted clouds,
And sheds his syllogisms in the shape
Of suns and moons and planetary systems.
How is it that our fellows see not beauty,
That great thoughts never visit them?
Alexis.
'Tis well
They do not; for the mighty ones would shake
Their rotten temples, clay-built, to the ground;
Would blow them into smoke, with the old Gods
Of Asgard, and Olympus, and of Ind:
Their modern Mammon would be overthrown,
And all their dear conventionalities,
And plundered gains and selfish policies,
Flung to their grim old father—there below;
And all the frantic immolations, which,
In honour of their idols of the heart,
And of the market and the drawing-room,
The petty insipidities and waste
Of heaven-born energies, and all the trash
And tinselled fripperies of the world, must go.
The giants will have room! Oh! how I love them;
12
Like silent-footed pilgrims from the shrines
Far off, of old eternities, and bear
Tapers within their hands, to light the altars
Of the great inner temple, and reveal
Unto itself its wealth of pictured splendour;
Or come upon me full of power, and fling
My cherished prejudices round and round
In chaff-like whirling eddies, with their stride;
Or shake the firm foundations of my creeds,
Like busy lightnings peeling off stone-flakes
Adown rock-precipices, laying bare
The flinty ribs of chasms and deep gulphs;
Or whether they advance spontaneously,
Prank'd in deep shadows, like the dark-brow'd Night,
When I have lulled my soul into a hush
For their reception, and they glimmer in,
One following the other, like the stars
Taking their place upon the deep blue blank
Until one greater than the rest slides in
With all his wheeling glories round his head,
Like a great sun with his attendant planets.
Ferdinand.
Great thoughts oppress me like an incubus.
They sit upon my soul like thunderbolts.
I am uneasy with them as my guests,
While all the tiny beauties that entwine
Their wreath-like graces round the universe,
And gleam like lights upon stalactites
13
Earth-grottoes, and go flashing up and down
Amid the summer sunshine of the world,
Like the bright wings of spangled butterflies—
All melt into my soul like lunar rainbows!
Alexis.
I love to grasp a great thought by the heel
And plunge it underneath another Styx,
And see it come forth bright, invincible—
Strong, and yet beautiful—Achilles-like.
Ferdinand.
But all great thoughts and mysteries make me sad.
Alexis.
Well, and why not? The soul that hath not sorrowed
Knows neither its own weakness nor its strength;
Sorrow reveals heaven to us; for our souls
Hang in the infinite like sun-dyed globes
On which the time-rays of the present play;
But ever and anon a shadow comes
Over and on them, cast forth from their thrones
In the great world-to-come, when a bright seraph
Glides like a glow behind them. And our woes
Are like the moon reversed, the broad bright disk
Turned heavenwards—the dark side towards us,
Till God in His great mercy turns them round,
And rolls them with a wise and gentle hand,
Into the dim horizon of the past,
To bless us with their smile of tearful lustre.
Ferdinand.
There is a step winding along the vale.
14
Alexis.
No! let us remain.
Antonio
(coming up).
Good even, friends. How are you both? 'Tis long
Since I have seen you. Dreaming still I see.
Been having a chit-chat with the stars, maybe
A little quiet gossip with them,—hey?
Well, well! there's no accounting now for tastes.
Anything new up yonder? Any news?
Alexis.
No, nothing much! 'Tis said the moon hath dropped
Another egg or two, for they were seen
With the new telescope, not long ago,
Flying adown the western slopes.
Antonio.
In-deed!
That's all then, is it? No new signs appear,
No portents, shadows of events to come,
Nothing like war or famine anywhere
Brewing, perhaps?
Alexis.
No! Not that we know of!
There's Ursa Major there. Dost hear him growl?
But people say his rotten fangs are gone,
And that he can do nought but hug himself!
Antonio.
Ah; well, I thought it was no harm to ask.
People like you, out always in the night,
I fancied might have learned a thing or two;
But it's no matter.
Alexis.
Nay, those times have passed
When the stars peached about events to come!
15
Or Campanella, Fludd, or Jacob Behmen.
Antonio.
Aye! and where are they?
Alexis.
Resting in their graves.
Antonio.
Why then do you refer me to dead men?
Alexis.
Because the dead teach better than the living.
Antonio.
And that is all you know,—there's nothing else
That would be worth a man like me to hear?
Alexis.
Why yes! 'Tis said, the other night, Aquarius
Scattered his water-bowl, and all his stars
Wept long and sadly, that men were such fools
As to outshame the worm in their pursuits,
And starve their souls to make their purses fat!
Antonio.
Ha! Ha! I see. A little pleasant—hey?
Well, well—good night.
Both.
Good night.
Ferdinand.
And he is gone,
With all his dreary soul unlightened by
A single ray to say it is divine.
Alexis.
Oh no, not so. Antonio is a man
Of weight and influence in the busy world;
A most respectable and weighty man,
With lands and houses, and a heart of steel
For all who tenant them; a prudent man,
Who keeps a keen shrewd eye on the “main chance,”
And never lets an opportunity
Slip eel-like by, unused or unimproved.
He would sack heaven and earth, and make his soul
16
He might say to the world—all this is mine,
And hear his pockets jingle when he walks!
Ferdinand.
Most noble truly! Ah, one feels with such
As if the world had lost its bright attractions;
As if the sun were blotted out, and all
The stars were folded in their funeral robes,
And carried once for all to their lone graves
In uttermost Cimmerian realms of night;
And all the glances of the eyes we love
Were turned into the heartless stare of death;
And all the words of fondness, bubbling up
Fresh from the founts of feeling, were struck dumb;
And Nature had grown beautiless, and left
A charred and shrivelled image of herself
On the drear blanks of space, where grim mines yawned,
In which we were to toil and sweat for gold
In ever-during darkness—lidded night!
With such as these the world seems but a waste,
On whose aridities our very hopes
Sink spent, flapping their white wings till they perish!
Alexis.
Ah, well! Such souls as these soon close on all
The indentations made by holy things,
Retaining nothing but the print of hoofs,
Telling how oft the owner goes that way,
And set upon them as a speaking witness
Of his dark sway and ownership.
The indentations made by holy things,
Retaining nothing but the print of hoofs,
Telling how oft the owner goes that way,
And set upon them as a speaking witness
Of his dark sway and ownership.
Before
This subject slipped like night into our talk,
I said, all grief is but a jagged shred
Of the dark robe that is agleam with gems;
That a dead sorrow is a living joy,
And, like a pale corpse, yields a deathless soul
To wing its way up to the seats of bliss.
17
I said, all grief is but a jagged shred
Of the dark robe that is agleam with gems;
That a dead sorrow is a living joy,
And, like a pale corpse, yields a deathless soul
To wing its way up to the seats of bliss.
Ferdinand.
Ah yes! pains past are pain no longer; true!
But what of those that loom up in the future?
Alexis.
Future and past are one; but diverse aspects
Of the same central ever-during sphere.
The Present falsely seems to sunder them
With its poor dwindling Now,—but it is nought,—
A sunbeam flickering dimly between two
Eternities as dim,—the merest flash
Of the bright sword with which God smites the blue
And bending infinite into life and light,
Disseminating gleams both ways. And all
The lambent glories which the future paints
Upon the soul's horizon, are but rays
Drawn from its lost experiences within
The dim primordial Past;—and night reveals them,
As yon great arch above us—God's black banner—
Lets the soft star-beams tremble through.
Of the same central ever-during sphere.
The Present falsely seems to sunder them
With its poor dwindling Now,—but it is nought,—
A sunbeam flickering dimly between two
Eternities as dim,—the merest flash
Of the bright sword with which God smites the blue
And bending infinite into life and light,
Disseminating gleams both ways. And all
The lambent glories which the future paints
Upon the soul's horizon, are but rays
Drawn from its lost experiences within
The dim primordial Past;—and night reveals them,
As yon great arch above us—God's black banner—
Lets the soft star-beams tremble through.
In the dim and dreamy night,
When no object of the sense
Blinds the spirit's inward light,
Or mars the holy influence,—
When no object of the sense
Blinds the spirit's inward light,
Or mars the holy influence,—
18
The barbèd arrows of the soul,
Wing'd with fiery exstacy,
Singing through the deeps of time,
Pierce into eternity:—
Opening up dark recollections
Of the distant starry spheres;
Images, and dim reflections,
Older than the ancient years.
Like the echo of some story
Through the mists of memory driven,
Come these glimpses of our glory
On the sunny banks of heaven;—
Spangles of our ancient vestments
By the hands of mercy torn,
To remind us of the grandeur
Which our spirits once have worn;
Kindlings of seraphic fire,
Beamings from the thrones on high,
Echoes of old melodies
Taught to us beyond the sky.
Dark and mystic are these visions
Of our former blest estate,
Strange and deep, and dim and shadowy
As the dusky wings of fate.
Yet, amidst the awe and darkness,
Is a light whose paly sheen
Tells us, hope-like, that we shall be
Once again what we have been.
Tells us that the radiations
Which our trancèd souls behold
Are the gleaming scintillations
From the gemmèd crowns of gold
Which we once wore when in glory,
Ere we knew the name of pain;
And—so sings the heavenly story—
Which we shall wear once again;
Are the bursting buds of blessings
Sent to cheer us in the night,—
Wreathèd flowers, and fruits, and blossoms
Scatter'd from the fields of light:
That the thrills of joy that reach us
Tokens are of old relations,
Are the pledges of affection
Sent us from seraphic nations;—
That our gem-soul is the setting
Of a brighter, happier sphere;
That our home is in the heavens,
Our probation only—here.
Wing'd with fiery exstacy,
Singing through the deeps of time,
Pierce into eternity:—
Opening up dark recollections
Of the distant starry spheres;
Images, and dim reflections,
Older than the ancient years.
Like the echo of some story
Through the mists of memory driven,
Come these glimpses of our glory
On the sunny banks of heaven;—
Spangles of our ancient vestments
By the hands of mercy torn,
To remind us of the grandeur
Which our spirits once have worn;
Kindlings of seraphic fire,
Beamings from the thrones on high,
Echoes of old melodies
Taught to us beyond the sky.
Dark and mystic are these visions
Of our former blest estate,
Strange and deep, and dim and shadowy
As the dusky wings of fate.
Yet, amidst the awe and darkness,
Is a light whose paly sheen
Tells us, hope-like, that we shall be
Once again what we have been.
19
Which our trancèd souls behold
Are the gleaming scintillations
From the gemmèd crowns of gold
Which we once wore when in glory,
Ere we knew the name of pain;
And—so sings the heavenly story—
Which we shall wear once again;
Are the bursting buds of blessings
Sent to cheer us in the night,—
Wreathèd flowers, and fruits, and blossoms
Scatter'd from the fields of light:
That the thrills of joy that reach us
Tokens are of old relations,
Are the pledges of affection
Sent us from seraphic nations;—
That our gem-soul is the setting
Of a brighter, happier sphere;
That our home is in the heavens,
Our probation only—here.
But lo! yon dull grey cloud, now spreading o'er
The eastern heavens, and coming like a pale-
Brow'd Prophet to announce the numbering
Of the night's hours; or like a herald, spent
And all begrimed by dirty roads and haste,
Rushing upon the grave proprieties
Of a great court, all deck'd in robes and jewels.
Dost thou not see it there—
Plucking already from the brow of Night
The stars that gem her coronal? See how
Transparent and attenuate it seems,
Like the thin hand of Death, waving a soul
To glory. We must part.
The eastern heavens, and coming like a pale-
Brow'd Prophet to announce the numbering
Of the night's hours; or like a herald, spent
And all begrimed by dirty roads and haste,
Rushing upon the grave proprieties
Of a great court, all deck'd in robes and jewels.
20
Plucking already from the brow of Night
The stars that gem her coronal? See how
Transparent and attenuate it seems,
Like the thin hand of Death, waving a soul
To glory. We must part.
Ferdinand.
Farewell, Alexis.
Alexis.
Farewell. But we will meet again, when Night
Throws her black pall athwart the corpse-like heavens,
And typifies the shadows and the glooms
That fold about the heart and sould of those
Who, in these times of ours, with daring wing
Dive down into the deeps of human life,
And come back reeking with dark doubts and dreads,
Or, with their plumage scorch'd and shrivell'd, dare
To utter profanations, and blaspheme.
But we will see, if from the darksome vault
Of human speculation, God will let
A bright but lowly faith glide to our souls
Like a young moon, to beautify the scene
With rays like reflexes of heaven, and show
The holiness of beauty, and of life.
| Night and the soul | |