 | Venice |  |
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III. PART III.
The unreasonableness of melancholy for a fallen state perhaps best shown by a glance at the probable duration and changes of the human race on the earth, and the grounds of hope in the future.
I
As Earth looks vast to those who never scanThe winking worlds that dance in depths of space,
As waves seem mountains round the narrow span
A drowner's eye can trace,
Sunk in the present, thus we swell
The ills more fancy might dispel;
Imagination is the chief
And sweetest antidote of grief!
Who that foresaw Time's myriad shows arrayed,
Would sigh that some must close ere all can be displayed!
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II
Dost mourn for Venice!—lay the Future bareTo fancy's glance—though like a light cascade,
Flung o'er a cliff and blown away in air,
Adown the abyss it fade!
Think what unopened mines of man
Must yet be worked—in spirit scan
The realms and races all benighted
Where power and glory ne'er alighted!
Mark through how small a spot of earth alone,
Those birds of passage yet in all the past have flown!
III
What eastern tracts yet rough with nature lie!Wide plains where sheep, like clouds, in masses move,
By lilied streams of tented Tartary
And banks grey ermines love!
The rocky ridges of Altay,
The hidden Lama's holy sway;
Where jasmined Himalehs aspire
Like cloven tongues of snowy fire;
From furry North to fiery South—the realm
That Temugin or Timour did of old o'erwhelm;
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IV
By scented seas whose laughing billows wooCoy aromatic isles, to linked lagoons
In that young world, where Nature, born anew,
Scatters unheard-of boons;
Where Emus roam in daisied downs,
Or virgin vales inviting towns;
Where vast oppressive Silence crushes
Far-flooded swamps, whose crowded rushes
Save when slow-moving to the rustling bill
Of paddling watermole, stand gloomy, fixed and still;—
V
There—there shall Learning lift her quiet eyes!There shall the gentle stir of Culture wake;
And far and near, while plastic Science plies
Her myriad arts to make
The tales of older magic tame,
Her giant Vassal fed with flame,
Fierce Genie of her wondrous lamp,
In iron bonds shall snort and ramp,
And, flashing past the lazy lightnings, fly
Through mountains—over scas—direct as destiny!
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VI
No pause—no bounds to Progress backed by Time!Lo! Afric pants for light she yet shall share
From brown Caffraria's lion-haunted clime
Up to the central glare
Where mid the broad exulting spears
The fierce Felatah gay careers!
Aye! light shall flush o'er Timbuctoo,
Ludamar, Mora, and Ibou!
Where'er with gaudier tints when Sunset blends
Soft cinnamon and green, and solemn Eve descends
VII
On palm—trees drooping black against the glare,Young girls among them for their lovers knead,
With rounded limbs in ebon beauty bare,
Sweet cakes of bamboo-seed
And golden-hued mimosa-meal,
While they for sweeter favours kneel!
And o'er dense brakes whose wild-birds lave
And tilt their breasts against the wave,
And sleek their glossy plumes in sluicy spray
While liquid leaping sparks on Tchad's full waters play!
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VIII
Ye polar wastes, where serpentining lowAround the horizon peers the sun's sad eye
O'er ice-floored seas, thick-carpeted with snow,
Beneath a leaden sky,
An empty dome—without a sound,
Utterly dumb—from whose dull round,
If haply reached, the lonely bear
Turns southward sullen to his lair;—
Ye endless streams, where Albion's glorious Child,
Fit scion of her might, is fighting through the wild!—
IX
Sun-smitten glades, where songsters ruby brightBlaze on the boughs of amber-dropping trees,
And tolling birds at stillest noon glance white
Through woods of ebonies
In Montezume's old rule—the stain
And glory once of withered Spain!—
Ye pampas wild—a thistly sea
Of rolling rank fertility;—
Two continents fermenting with new life,
And Freedom's first impatience, wrung with longings rife;
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X
What work for Time ye teem with! Nor disdainThe sisterhoods recluse of nun-like isles
Timidly huddling on the lowing Main,
Where only Nature smiles!
Shy nooks and solitary bays
And coves, wherein, when peering strays
The dwindled Ship, her sails drop dead
In sudden calm and darkness shed
From red cliffs—sulphur-stained with lichens hoar—
Whose many-cornered fronts above her frowning soar!
XI
Each isle that, poised in a blue orb of airUpon itself inverted sleeps—so well
Above, below, respond those mountains fair,
So like an opened shell
Bivalve, the doubled islet blooms;
Look down! large ribbon-leaves and plumes
With glossy spincs upturning white,
Hang upward through the crystal light!
Sweet nest!—there damsels oft delightedly
By moonlight dance on grassy spaces by the sea,
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XII
Amid the circling tribe, whose ruddy gearFor wood or wave hard by neglected lies;
And as the swift voluptuous mazes veer,
And melting brilliant eyes
Float multiplied as in a dream,
White-waving arms bewildering gleam,
And heaving bosoms swim around,
With knots of crimson feathers crowned—
The sea-scorched Mariner for joy could die,
Drunk with such sweet wild grace and softest savagery!
XIII
There lurks the raw material of Renown!There Genius yet shall dare the perilous verge
Of passionate Thought—some Bacon there hurl down
Old prejudice, and urge
The tide of mind to channels new,
And march all nature's strongholds through!
Some Newton daringly dissect
The skill of the great Architect,
And like that mightiest, meekest of the wise,
Explore new worlds of Space, Columbus of the Skies!
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XIV
Nay, further—Action is the Almighty's rest!The labour of Creation still proceeds!
God works his wonders quietly—no breast
The silent process heeds!
What homesteads of humanity
Undreamt of yet, are yet to be!
The laughing gold of cornfields gay,
Trim huts where blue-eyed infants play,
Sleek cattle glowing in green meads, shall shine
Where rocks of sandstone rise—where sandy deserts pine!
XV
Oh deem not yet Creation's labour done!What coral continents beneath the sea
Are growing up—whose loftiest peaks alone,
Rich scalpt with greenery,
Like emeralds hung on Ocean's brow,
Are brightening into Edens now!
What grim Volcanoes smouldering sleep,
That yet shall lift from out the deep
Their flaring mouths, gaping with huge surprise
At the soft light and silence into which they rise!
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XVI
All these must Time inform with life and mind!Realms shapeless yet in the Creator's hands;
Late-finished tracts that languish for mankind,
And savage-peopled lands,
Wait to be polished, powerful, free,
And crowd the far futurity!
More toil than mortal though may scan
Remains for Time—inspirits Man,
Gives room and range for Hope, and flouts the folly
Of creeping cold Despair and mole-eyed Melancholy!
XVII
A world that leaps with life, shall these beguile?—Change and Creation are in full career!
Still Progress beckons onwards—with bright smile,
And songs that charm and cheer!
This infant world has but begun
The glorious course it yet shall run!
For spite of checks and adverse chances,—
Men perish, but mankind advances!
The coral insect's myriad races die,
Yet still those snowy towers are climbing to the sky!
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XVIII
But fancy faints o'er Time's stupendous ocean,Its shore Eternity—its billows ages;—
Back—back to Venice then—with what emotion?
Delight—to mark the stages,
The ever-varying brilliant changes,
Through which mankind, the meteor, ranges!—
In hardy hope my Spirit pauses,
Their full effects, their final causes,
All for the good of Man at last agreeing,
Shall feed the joy of thought, in ampler spheres of Being!
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