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The In-Gathering

Cimon and Pero: A Chain of Sonnets: Sebastopol etc. By John A. Heraud

Heraud, John A. (1799-1887)

ALCYONE.

THE MYTHOS OF THE PLANT.

SCRIPTURAL PARAPHRASES.

THE ONE AND THE MANY.

PSALM CXXVII.

THE BRIDES OF VENICE.

II.

III.

IV.

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ALCYONE.

SONNETS, ETC.

“He for God only; she for God in him.”—Milton.

By way of premonition to the intelligent reader, the Author has been advised to prefix to this volume the following Interpretation of the Allegory, supposed to be contained in the “Chain of Sonnets:”—

A KEY TO THE SONNETS.

I.—XVI. The Sonneteer apostrophises the Church which had tempted him to withdraw his allegiance from the State, her Husband, and to transfer it to her, because of her Lord's alleged infidelity in protecting other Sects. He refuses on the ground that the husband's infidelity is no valid justification of the wife's; and reminds her that nature and society have never extended the privilege to polyandry which they have occasionally granted to polygamy. The latter, indeed, is figuratively referred to by Hebrew bards and seers, as typifying the Common Headship of all churches. XVII.—XL. Reflections on God, Nature, and Man. The latest astronomical discoveries, and philosophical truths. Devout aspirations and acknowledgments of special providences. . . XLI.—XLIX. He proceeds to urge the

unreasonableness of the Church's jealousy, in respect to her Sister, whom she fears, after her decease, may wed her Lord. That question argued on all sides. At length he advises the Church to follow, like the ancient Iö, her Spouse on his voyages; and promises in her absence to take charge of her Son, and his education. . . L.—CII. Episode of transactions between the Sonneteer and the Son. The Youth's Album, and its contents. . . CIII.—CXIV. Reunion of the Church with her Spouse. . . CXV.—CXXVIII. The Sister counselled to remove the cause of suspicion by abandoning Celibacy, and choosing a husband of her own. That counsel adopted. . . CXXIX.—CXLVI. The Sonneteer gives utterance to his confessions, lamentations, and hopes. . . CXLVII.—CLXIII. The Sister's Bridal. Grief of the Sonneteer on finding the Son himself seeks a Bride. “The New Church.” Epïthalamium on their marriage. . . CLXIV.—CCIX. The Sonneteer withdraws from the contest, and seeks refuge in the philosophy which, in teaching the highest truths, finds itself at-one with pure religion.

NUDO AL VOLGO PROFAN MAI NON S'ESPOSE
DA SAGGI IL VERO: E SE TALOR FU SCRITTO,
IN FAVOLE LA GRECIA, E LO NASCOSE
IN CARATTERI ARCANI IL SACRO EGITTO.
Metastasio.

I

Lady; far lovelier than the lily flower,
The thought of thee comes to me hour by hour,
For I have loved thee with too deep a love,
And haunts me ever with a sense of power,
As of an Angel stooping from above.
Lofty thy rank, a princedom was thy dower;
And when I saw thee first, a fluttering Dove
Had in thy bosom found a sheltering cove.
Beautiful raiment made thee seem a shrine
For worship; and thy brow the diamonds shamed
That girt it. Lashes veiled those eyes of thine,
In pity to the gazer. Not unblamed
By conscience, watched I their uprise. Divine
What they had curtained, then, themselves proclaimed.

II

Soft, large, and brilliant, and in azure swimming,
Like twin stars in the clear and lofty ether,
Seen from the velvet level of the heather,
Those eyes looked into mine; but, overbrimming
Compassionate moisture, as in rainy weather,
Subdued their splendour. Else, the lacteal skimming,
Their darting rays were sheaved so well together,
They'd pierced the vision's centre they were dimming.
—Dazzled, not blinded, I my lids let down,
But instantly re-opened them, and saw
Love in thy gesture, free from smile or frown,
Converting tenderly precedent awe
Into confiding trust; relaxing law,
In favour of strong passion, sudden grown.

III

There is in life one supreme moment ever,
Which makes of woman and of man the fate.
Wholly their spirits then reciprocate;
And that beginneth then which endeth never.
Nor from that moment should they deem to sever.
The pain of parting, come it soon or late,
Though both sincere and strenuous our endeavour,
Not even time can all alleviäte.
O, who then yielded? Was it you, or I?
Can either tell? Ah! only this I know,
That I was conquered, thine the victory.
For thy exultant mien, with roseate glow,
Waxed prouder, and thy glances sought the sky;
Taller thy stature grew—or seemed to grow.

IV

When thou art absent, and I shut my eyes,
As oft I do at twilight, when the care
Of day yields passive sense to visions rare,
Between my eyelids, lo, thy Image lies,
Entrancing mortal gaze with ecstasies,
Breathed from thy Form, like music on the air;
While couched on purple pillows, proud and fair,
Like one but new descended from the skies.
I note the triumph on thy radiant brow,
Thy laughing eye, thy well-contented lip,
Thy features all with conscious pride aglow,
Rejoicing in the cunning workmanship,
Which nature on thy beauty did bestow,
That other beauty it must needs outstrip.

V

Not alway in half-dreamy consciousness
Such objects we behold; less pleasing some:
And even in hideous shape will others come,
To terrify, bewilder, or distress.
One such but lately did my soul oppress:
Methought a chamber opened in my room,
With couches furnished, overspread with gloom,
Where pallid lazars pined, with none to bless.
Then instantly another took its place—
A prospect fair, with sky, hill, vale, and wood,
And streamlet lapsing with a languid pace;
Like silent Time, when, in a quiet mood,
He meditates to do the world a grace,
And slowly thrids it with a vein of good.

VI

More often pleasing shadows lie between
The eyelids and the eyes, than graver ones,
And melt into each other, like the sun's
Bright atmospheres at summer's eves serene.
Thus groups of sculptured figures I have seen,
Or single statues; still in change, each shuns
Precedent shape, and into other runs,
While solvent forms the same space intravene;
Forms of such classic dignity and grace,
Of action and of attitude so grand,
As Taste might envy, Art would realise;
And long processions next would haunt the place,
Costumed and coloured, like a faery band;
Seen by the light within my curtained eyes.

VII

My eyes are then the windows of my heart,
Whene'er their fringes shut them snugly in,
And there, as free from sorrow as from sin,
Pageants of Beauty come, and so depart—
But, loveliest of all forms, conceived by Art,
Or borne by mother Nature, most akin
Is thine to that Ideä which we win
Of Wisdom, studying her celestial chart,
That, fairly written, shows the formal way
To that far country where the meanest things
Are golden, lustrous with eternal day,
And meanest creatures wear angelic wings,
Whiles in the air a Voice, for ever gay,
Of the First Fair in sweetest music sings.

VIII

O, but to warm these statues into life!
Idly Pygmalion fabled of his skill—
In vain I seek to woo the stubborn will,
To shape a way might close the painful strife.
Away at once with shadows, over-rife
With disappointment; apt to wound or kill—
The very ichor of the brain they spill,
And play upon the heart as on a fife.
O, still to fret, as haunted by the dead,
Whose vampire lips would suck the spirit dry—
They give me, when I hunger, stones for bread,
Or feasts in shows that fail to satisfy.
Why should with heavenly manna some be fed,
And others in the desert droop and die?

IX

Shall I remind thee of that after-time,
When with thy infant Son upon thy knee
I saw thee sitting calm, as if no crime,
Nor even lesser sin, had tempted thee;
Like Venus chastened by maternity,
Or Beauty, budding into the Sublime,
Yet smiling, as the Boy precociously
Snatched at his quiver—like young bards at rhyme.
And Wonder cried, Is that Boy thine? Who, then,
His Father? Question asked, and answer won.
Blest by both parents was thy princely son,
His noble Sire, a magnate among men,
As thou 'mong women peerless. Faithless One!
It were not fit that we should meet again.

X

Of all things fair, as fairest, worthiest,
In woman's heart, we prize Fidelity;
Where it resides, there dwells the richest, best;
Truth without pride, and wealth without unrest.
O, why should this thy proper name not be,
O Woman, in our nobler poesy,
Rather than that same “Frailty” unblest,
With which our Shakspere has invested thee?
Thereon depend high issues; nothing less
Than man's continuance in creation's roll,
Until the happy time, when righteousness
Shall reign on earth, and meet him at the goal,
And crown him heir of all the promises
In that glad kingdom which is of the Soul.

XI

I love thee not, if I regard not Love
Supreme o'er law, and all that law respects?
I know what Love permits, and what rejects,
And know he reigns all other gods above,
And what his liberty at will to rove.
But the same tongue has different dialects,
And different creeds are taught by different sects,
Who worship still in temple or in grove.
Alas! these words interpretation need,
For Love his freedom forfeits to his choice;
Then doth a dread necessity succeed,
Which, strong as fate, admits no other voice:
In vain may man, or even an angel plead;
Obey, or grieve; be faithful, and rejoice.

XII

Wasted are words the unwilling would persuade.
To live denied, yet ever in thy presence,
Were worst of despotism, its bitterest essence,
Not to be borne. The sun too much displayed,
We must resort for refuge to the shade.
The generous heat of summer's fervid crescence
A tender cloud with timely cover lessens.
That shade, that cloud, must be by absence made.
I would not court insufferable pain:
To see me suffer would not make thee glad:
'Tis easy teaching when men say, abstain;
But he who thirsts must drink, or else go mad:
And it were phrenzy of a kind too sad,
To love thee more, because I love in vain.

XIII

Sad the adieus, and bitter the farewells,
Our souls were charged with, at the hour of parting.
Convinced of error, yet the heart rebels;
Convinced of guilt, indignant tears were starting.
Thou hadst been wronged, thou saidst; and wizard spells
Tainted thy life. Thy jealous lord was smarting
With self-inflicted pangs, and made two hells,
That, both in each, with mutual fire were darting.
His son, who was as like him as might be,
He deemed another's, offspring of his foe,
And branded him for base; himself held free
To wander when he would, and far from thee,
Where'er he listed; ay, and linked him so,
With some whom 'twere pollution but to know.

XIV

O, Lady; thou art wise, as thou art rare
In beauty and in wealth. Draw, then, this line.
Man may be chartered to be libertine,
But woman never. Nature's mandate ne'er
Permits her equal license. 'Twould unsphere
The planet, and make earth a barren mine,
Which now so duly teems with forms like thine
And his—one so majestic, one so fair.
To him 'tis given, wheresoe'er he will,
To sow God's image; and, without restraint,
To cress, as by the water-run, until
Dry land and sea beneath the pressure faint,
And Earth the great demands of Heaven fulfil,
Yielding alike the Sinner, Sage and Saint.

XV

What, though he has voyaged forth, and in each port
He visits, sailor-like, maintains a bride;
What, though their offspring differ in such sort
As makes antipathy, in nothing short
Of that which disunites, by spaces wide,
Those who are yet of one blood certified,
And seek like refuge in the same strong fort,
But clime and colour variously divide:
What, though these things be so; hast thou to learn,
That these are symbols of such mysteries
As awed the old world, and dimly we discern,
Through haze of creeds, and noise of party-cries,
Even now; and for more knowledge pine and yearn,
That we may taste their inmost harmonies?

XVI

O, Lady; thou art lustrous as a star,
And men look up to gaze upon thy brightness,
As of a being lofty and afar,
That shines on them because of their uprightness;
But is as nought to souls that wicked are,
And bow the head, like those who may not dare
To walk erect, in the pure spirit's lightness,
And read heaven's book, writ in celestial whiteness.
Yet idle 'twere to wish to shine alone,
For stars are many in that lacteal way,
And many worshippers admits each one.
Each shines by virtue of a borrowed ray,
Their glory all deriving from the sun,
Regents of night, not monarch of the day.

XVII

God is all Light. With him, no darkness dwells.
For Man, are day and night. Nor eye alone,
But for his soul. On this when God has shone,
The dayspring in the awakened heart outwells,
Fresh from Life's fountain, near the Eternal throne.
As forth she gushes, darkness she dispels;
But not ignores, nor its star-oracles.
But day and night are images foregone,
That those in the Beginning well-betoken,
Which in the Deeps primeval lie concealed,
Ere the Original Darkness may be broken,
That, with the Light, is even itself revealed.
For what is it but stronger light, unspoken,
That blinds all creature sight, till by it healed?

XVIII

The Heavens, the Earth, eterne or temporal,
Reveal of God, but so much as he would,
And fall far short of His beatitude.
Yet passing glorious and majestical
The revelation He vouchsafes the good,
The soul regenerate, in its solemn mood,
When most it grows apocalyptical.
—But O, what mystery co-exists withal?
Which no created power can unveil,
Though Wisdom wake the Living Word in some,
Who long had in the wilderness been dumb,
To preach repentance, and to tell the tale,
How that the Kingdom of their God has come,
And all must be baptised who would not fail.

XIX

The mind of man has scaled yon heights of Heaven,
And urged his conquests in those starry fields
That teem with wonders, till amazement yields
Involuntary praise;—still has he striven,
While victory on victory has shriven
The secret-holding skies, whereon he builds
Houses of triumph, and their columns gilds
With pictured legends;—daring, yet forgiven.
First felt the changing Moon his charming gaze,
And by its fascination was subdued,
Whose patient vigils watched her every phase,
And where she travelled, eagerly pursued,
From east to west, her motions through the maze,
And groups of constellations still renewed.

XX

From the winter solstice the noon shadows decrease as the length of the day increases; until, finally, the day and night are remarked to be of equal length. If, on this day, the diurnal circle described by the sun could be marked in the heavens by a circle of light sweeping from east to west, so that the eye might rest upon and retain it; and if, at the same time, the sun's annual path among the fixed stars could be equally exhibited in the heavens by a circle of light, then two circles would be seen to cross each other, and at their point of crossing, the sun would be found. The diurnal circle is called the Equator; the sun's path, the Ecliptic; the point of intersection, the Equinox. As the sun crossed the Equator in the spring and autumn, these points received the names of the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes.

Art thou not stedfast in thy sphere, O Sun?
Yet is thy shadow changing day by day.
The gnomon's vertex registers thy way,
Or north or south, until thy journey's done,
And at thy solstice thou art made to stay.
Thou standest still. What voice, so strong to sway,
Arrests thee thus, yet to be heard by none,
But, speaking in thy heart, thy will has won?
Winter and summer, still that miracle.
And spring and autumn bring a wonder new;
For lo, prevent thy car those equal Two,
(Luminous circles, though invisible,)
Which wizard fancy, with her mighty spell,
Constructs in the heavens; twin-orbits, feigned yet true.

XXI

Art thou a god, what power has darkened thee,
That thou art seen no more, nor has the moon
A place in heaven? Forth stealing timidly,
Planets and stars peer out upon the noon,
Whereon thy glory shines not. Horror soon
Invades the nations, and they bow the knee
In wild dismay. O, thankful for the boon
Of science, man, relieved from fear, should be.
The Moon, more nigh the earth and earthly sorrows,
Has passed the regal orb whose light she borrows,
And Day returns, and beams on happy morrows.
Earth, in its turn, the seeming wrong repays,
And with its shadow veils the lunar rays,
That even at full her light in heaven decays.

XXII

This refers to the great discovery made by Maedler, the director of the observatory at Dorpat, namely, that Alcyone, the principal star in the group of the Pleiades, now occupies the centre of gravity, and is, at present, the sun about which the universe of stars composing our astral system are all revolving.

Alcyone! the Sun of all the suns,
Thou waitest, in thy central dwelling-place,
The Coming of the Constellatiöns.
The Pleiades surround thee, starry ones
Of most excelling brightness. Thither pace
The daystar and all planets of his race;
Not motionless; but each his errand runs,
And serves his Maker in the deeps of space.
And with that glorious astral company,
The angel Mind of our Humanity
Careers; and, with them reaching that far goal,
Hearkens the Bell of the Eternal toll,
Striking the hour. How often in the Past
Has it been sounded? When shall sound the last?

XXIII

Mind conquers in the Heavens. Why fails it, then,
On this low Earth, which, making frustrate, still
Opposes to all efforts of the will
Matter's intractability, again
And yet again, with such persistence, till
Martyrs exclaim in agony, that Men
Are slaves of circumstance; Truth, a shadow; Good, ill;
And Virtue but a name? 'Tis yet a den,
Though labourers numberless have even been slain
In cleansing it, that filthy doth remain,
Beyond all hope of cure. Old prejudice
Its place still fiercely struggles to retain.
Its very wealth is founded on its vice,
Its greatness built on an abyss of Ice.

XXIV

God! I confess that merit there is none
To plead in my behalf. Yet is it much
That Thy live coal has deigned my lips to touch,
And fruits of mine have blossomed in the sun.
Why have they ripened not? My faith was such
In boyhood, as in manhood might have won
The crown, it was my aim in youth to clutch.
That this has not been so, what have I done?
O, mystery! that they who trust in Thee
Should thus be frustrate! Israel thus in vain
Shed his warm zealot blood;—thus strive the free
Idly for those who wear a heavier chain;
This in the New and Old Worlds now we see.
Be dumb, O Garibaldi, with disdain.

XXV

I've watched the course of action, and perceive
The line of Tendency flows like a Dream.
Now, in well-ordered march, a quiet stream,
Surely we think to gain the bourn at eve:
But such forethinkings with new changes teem,
And so the line diverges, taking leave
To wander where it would, not where we deem—
However much the baffled hope may grieve.
The Spirit's hindered by the conscious Will,
And the fulfilment we expect's delayed—
'Twere well we slumbered on, and kept us still,
Awaiting, unreflectingly, such aid
As tends on time, if patiently obeyed,
Or comes with Waking—blest escape from Ill.

XXVI

Men have I known, the slaves of circumstance,
With some small gift; and therewith they have played,
And without further care, and unbetrayed,
Left all to fortune, till some sudden chance
Has raised them from the dust; where, deep in trance,
They long had sate; and in bright robes arrayed:
And they have mixed in the world's merry dance
Laughing at prudence, as a wrinkled maid.
Others of large endowment, grave, wise men,
Have cultivated it with zeal untired,
And reaped but trifling profit now and then,
Whether in fame or wealth;—who, though inspired
With noblest impulse, and with genius fired,
Yet lived and died, like sheep within a pen.

XXVII

Tell me, bland Sophist, smooth of brow and face,
Why Merit and Success are so divided?
Why Folly's worshipt, Wisdom so derided?
Why is the Swift not foremost in the race?
Why falls the Strong in battle, which decided,
The Weak and Slow are thrust into their place,
To wear unworthily, and without grace,
Unprizèd honour, heedlessly confided?
Might such iniquities of Fortune be,
If for the virtuous there were not prepared
A fitter region of activity,
Wherein they find their ultimate reward?
Sweet hope, indeed. Smile on, dull Sadducee;
From what an antepast thou art debarred.

XXVIII

The Shipman spreads his sail unto the wind,
And leaves his ship's course to its wild caprice;
So he who trusts to wealth, and takes his ease,
Should wonder not if it should prove unkind,
Using its wings to leave its dupe behind,
For such the wont that doth its nature please.
Moreover, Fortune's eyes were ever blind,
And where she scatters gifts she never sees.
Sudden she visits, suddenly departs,
Bright morn she ushers in, and clouds the day;
The year, that blossoms brings, takes them away;
The sea is calm, then rude, nor helms nor charts
Now needing, making useless now. Poor hearts,
Untaught of wisdom, seek in her their stay.

XXIX

Wisdom alone is wealth that none may lose—
Seek it within thee, not around thee, Man.
She lives undying as the soul; her use
Is thine, with knowledge of thyself began,
And shall continue long as reason can,
Eternal as the Spirit, or the Muse
Whose song is endless. Gold and gems refuse;
They glitter still while thou art pale and wan.
Their glory is their own, not his who deems
He hath both them and it; they are foreign still,
While Wisdom, and the servants she esteems,
Are one; together they ascend the hill,
That spurns the vale of transitory dreams,
And claim the unclouded heavens with stedfast will.

XXX

What seems but seems: what is, alone is true.
'Tis not the sun that rises, reigns and sets;
It is the earth revolves. Whate'er we view
Deceives us with illusions, ever new,
How oft soe'er repeated; vain regrets
Exciting in the wisest, lost the clue
That guides us through their mazes; loss which frets,
Enmeshed our erring feet with penal nets.
What we call Birth is Death. To Heaven we died,
When we to Earth were born, and when we die,
We are re-born to Heaven. 'Tis to lie,
To say we are awake. O, wound to pride!
We walk but in a sleep; and, having lied,
Judge of vain dreams as of reality.

XXXI

Men talk of Death as if he were their foe;
Miscalling him whose proper name is Life,
The fairest spirit ever came below,
Whose only mission is to close the strife
That in the Vale of Vision makes their woe:
The war that rages even to the knife,
Between what is, and what we seem to know,
With episodes of quarrel quick and rife.
O, loveliest Seraph of the loving host,
Angel of the New Birth from earth to Heaven,
Of Restoration unto Man, forth driven,
To that estate in Paradise he lost,
That Pre-existent Being which, forgiven,
He shall regain, whatever be the cost.

XXXII

We live in light that is the Life of God,
Who truly live. And in that light we drink
The living springs that flow where none hath trod,
But where the blessèd spirits interlink
Their volant plumage, as they touch the brink
Of that Life-river, which no bark may plod
That needeth oars; self-moved, or sure to sink
The voyagers, it covers, like the sod.
O, Light of Life, Intelligence Supreme,
Which every orb in its proportion shares,
Yet nought diminishes the native stream,
Latent or patent: hails thy dawning beam,
That inward Eye which upward-looking dares,
And for thy noon-day Glory well prepares.

XXXIII

The inward Ear shall listen to Thy Word,
That cometh in the Silence of the Night,
With music finer than the planets heard,
When first they danced to the enspherèd Light.
Those sweet soft whispers, in their gentle might,
Are stronger than the thunders of the Lord,
That spake the Law on Sinai's blazing height;
And better oracles are thence inferred.
The conscious Heart, by Wisdom kept awake,
Is touched so deeply with each syllable,
The impression never more may her forsake;
But, as on fleshly tablets graven well,
Retains the lovely scriptures that they make,
And still delights their signatures to spell.

XXXIV

God, my heart listens; God, my heart would look
To Thee who art, to that which truly is:
Permanent intuition, which no book
Can more than shadow, no, not even this
Whose teachings are Thy own—which none forsook,
Nor even in his practice was remiss,
But suffered what no mortal man may brook,
Loss of Thy presence, which alone is bliss.
Eternal Father! own me for Thy son,
And let me hear Thy voice, and see Thy face,
Within my conscience speaking, shining on—
That, thus instructed of Thy special grace,
I may discern, and give its proper place,
Amid the changing, to the Unchanging One.

XXXV

My Soul, that art immutable; find thou
In the Eternal Spirit firm support;
Upon the Rock of Ages' lofty brow
Recline in safety. Let the day-star, now,
Go down in shadow; or the tempest sport
With the wild waves that quenched his sinking glow.
Above the rain-clouds is thy spacious court,
And shining heralds to thy couch resort.
The Everlasting arms embrace thy form,
The Father's bosom under thee upheaves—
Thou dreadest not the darkness, nor the storm.
Thou heedest not what births the time conceives,
Monster or dwarf, or mastodon or worm,
Whose resting-place nought earthly e'er aggrieves.

XXXVI

The heavens were silent, yet in earnest prayed I.
Though night and morning supplications made I,
There came no answer from the clouded sky,
Expected aid far off, and danger nigh.
Am I neglected then? in terror, said I.
Wise words were thine to me, O, sovran Lady.
Trust on: who trust in Him shall live thereby,
Nor be confounded in extremity.
And turning, lo, I saw an Angel stand
Beside me, with a gift in either hand,
To help me on my travel, pay its cost,
And bring me to the bourn, the pasture-land
Where plenty waited him who had been lost,
And safety welcomed home the tempest-tost.

XXXVII

I know Thee now, that Thou, ELOHIM, art;
That Thou hast sworn a Covenant with me,
That in Thy Oath of Old I had a part;
Because my prayërs have been heard by Thee.
Not once or thrice, but often has my heart
Poured itself forth in its great agony;
And, lo, Thy providence hath mediately
Supplied both means of voyage, and the chart.
And now, when I despaired, and calmly sate
Hopeless and helpless, and resigned to fate,
One was still nigh, who, pitying my grief,
Bound up my wounds, and brought my pain relief,
And set me on my way; . . to vindicate
My mission and Thy love: Thy love the chief.

XXXVIII

Hence, Fear: but Faith, remain with me for ever.
The gifts I have received let me dispense:
His blessing still awaits sincere endeavour,
And those who use them He will banish never
From His protecting presence; hence, Fear, hence.
His guardian ægis still is their defence,
Nor from his powër shall their weakness sever,
But gather strength from His omnipotence.
Hail, Faith; for ever in my soul abide.
Hail, Hope; and let thy voice like duty's sound
To the worn soldier, whatsoe'er betide:
Hail, Love; and let me in His love confide,
Whom I would serve, whose mercies so abound,
That heaven and earth with them are girded round.

XXXIX

It is the fertile tree still beareth fruit,
And Wisdom's tree that bears the fruit of life;
Nor may the Everlasting Word be mute
In hearts that it informs, though man or brute
Now, as of old, maintain a blatant strife,
To drown the music that were else so rife
Where 'tis heard seldom, and shall yet confute
The noisy crew that scorn or lute or fife.
Thankful am I the rolling years in vain
Have sought to quench in me the voice of song,
The fiery baptism so hath bathed my brain.
'Tis this which makes the heart of age so strong,
Decay it feels not. Time can do no wrong
To him whose soul is of celestial strain.

XL

Alcyone! not in the world extern
But that within I seek thy central sphere;
Thy star is in my spirit orbèd clear,
My soul expands thy distant home to learn,
And still enlarges, while her wishes yearn
And grow in faith, that she may reach thee there,
Among the pleiads reigning without fear,
In finest ether, pouring from thy urn
Light to all planets. Having reached thy throne,
I rest not; for still upward I must soar,
By thee directed to a loftier one,
Or sink into a depth which evermore
Still deepens,—the true centre to explore,
The humble heart wherein God dwells alone.

XLI

Nay, Lady, answer me, who thus accusest
Thy lord of jealousy and incontinence.
Art thou not jealous? Answer thou refusest;
Knowing how nature has decreed intense
Absurdity to that irreticence
In woman; so that even thou, who usest
The passion for the nonce, wouldst, like the loosest
Of thy frail sex, deride the weak defence
In any other. And of whom art thou
Suspicious? Of that Sister, to whose care.
Thy Boy was trusted, who first taught him prayer,
Taught him to praise his Maker, and to bow
Within the sanctuary, gathering everywhere
That Culture which makes smooth the polished brow.

XLII

Thou dost not deem her guilty; but thou fearest,
Shouldst thou first die, thy lord will wed her after.
O, foolish fear, that merits nought but laughter.
But then, whilst thou dost live, thou wouldst be dearest;
And how, if, underneath thy mansion's rafter,
A rival be upreared, and each day waft her
More grace and favour, while thou daily bearest
Increasing coldness, and the bloom thou wearest
Away to paleness fade; how may this be?
Ah! this were bitter, doubtless;—but if she
Be guiltless as thou ownest, nothing true;
In her no weakness, weakness but in thee;
This wrong to thee by wrong to her first grew:
Cease to suspect, thy peace thou'lt then renew.

XLIII

Were it not well to make such union sin,
And thus to nip this sorrow in the bud?
Pause thou, and think, ere thou such work begin.
New laws and new transgressions taint man's blood
With added shame, and added evil win.
O, legislation badly understood,
That maketh, in its sanguinary mood,
More crimes than nature meant. Without—within—
Like a prophetic scroll, her will is writ.
Accept it freely, unreluctantly;
Obedience here is better than much wit.
Though it displease at first, in time 'twill be
Found wisest, kindliest, and of all most fit,
And with the will of God in harmony.

XLIV

The wife takes of her husband name and race;
Not he of her; with him to gain or lose
What privilege soever, wealth or grace;
All she renounces of familiar use,
Is of his kin, partakes his pride of place;
Made one with him; though nought may he refuse,
Nor of her kin become. Mysteriöus
Is sacred marriage when its types we trace.
The Church with Christ united thus is one,
Leaves all to be with him incorporate,
The world yet alien, sharing not her state,
No more kin with her. Far she lives alone,
Her people and her father's house foregone.—
Accept we then the law, not legislate.

XLV

O, Sister of the Lady whom I serve,
An apt rejoinder thou hast surely made;—
May we, then, from the olden time ne'er swerve,
But hinder progress, though it should persuade
To better living, with a kindlier verve,
A happier movement, and a stronger nerve
For truth and goodness, with a wider trade
In sympathy, alike to all conveyed?
Why should the Lord, who suffered to redeem,
Not own at length, the kindred of the spouse,
And gather to him all of every house?
May not this question, then, a symbol seem,
Of some transition state, which yields a gleam
Of future banquet whereat all carouse?

XLVI

All earthly things, and heavenly, that man sees
Are emblems of the Being none perceives,
Are accidents of sightless substances,
And of hid causes outward images;
And Fancy thus from these effects oft weaves
Strange notions of the Invisible, in seas,
On earth, and in the heavens; and Thought achieves
An abstract virtue, in which Faith believes.
To her the firmament and the wide air,
The ocean with its billows, the rich land
With mead and pasture, field and forest, and
Its living creatures, are but scrolls writ fair
With sacred symbols, which the wise compare
With truths pure spirits only understand.

XLVII

So, the fine Heavens that now so please the sight
Were once invisible, concealed behind
The veil of mystery, till the birth of mind,
Ere yet the Creant Powers had said, Be Light.
And what be they but veils, though shining bright,
Upon those deeper Heavens, whose glories blind
All creature eyes that, wrapt themselves in night,
Conceive all dark where day they fail to find?
Those dazzling glories, O, what less be they
Than the Eternal Spirits, who alway
Before the throne of the Almighty stand,
In worship and in praise, an angel-band;
Who still the Glory they receive display,
And spread the Father's Bounty by command?

XLVIII

O, Lady; far removed from mortal love
Art thou, as are the angels from thy own.
Alcyone we'll call thee, far above;
Yet charming, by the virtue of thy zone,
All nether systems to thy central throne.
No wonder, then, that humblest hearts improve
Occasion, and aspire, as some have done,
To worship, where they may not nigher move?
Nearer and dearer, others venture more,
Thy Lord being absent, and would fain espouse
What scarcely it contents them to adore.
But ill would it beseem thee to keep house,
Thou sad Penelope, for such carouse
As suitors to thy beauty would implore.

XLIX

I wonder not that thou shouldst seek escape
From tongue of scandal, and from glance of eye
That speaks two meanings, looking on thy shape
And thy majestic features furtively.
I counselled well, methinks; nor to comply
Wert thou reluctant; though from cape to cape
It might be thine to voyage, were the sky
Or clement, or the clouds the heavens should drape.
Seeking thy Lord, thou art a wanderer now,
O'er earth, o'er ocean; river, hill and plain;
Leaving with me thy Boy whose serene brow
Smiles on my fondling, till I melt and glow
With sacred warmth pervading every vein,
And own him scion of a lofty strain.

L

Wherefore shouldst thou be angry, heavenly Boy?
O, let this kiss atone for my offence.
Youth is the season when all play and toy;
Why, then, so grave as were the touch of joy,
Fit for thy years, not thy intelligence?
Modest, as ever, but no longer coy;
In will thou growest, stature, mind and sense,
And I must treat thee now with reverence.
'Tis time thou shouldst the muses woo, indeed.
Thou hast already wooed them? what is this?
An Album, full of Sonnets? Thou hast free'd
Thy soul of a sweet burthen. I will read
What has been in thy heart of hidden bliss;—
But, first receive this reconciling kiss.

LI

If in the days of Willie and old Ben,
Sweet Shakspere, learned Jonson, and the two
Wild Swans who sang together—oh, if then
An Album had been theirs, dear sage, to you
It were a galaxy. Each dulcet pen
Dumb music had distilled, wit ever new,
A starry eloquence with charms to woo
The curious reader and true critic's ken,
Like thine. And may these consecrated pages,
Ere long, become a lacteal way, wherein
The wise astrology of after ages
May calculate the genius that hath been,
And well report of ours, and then may they
Of thy young friend have something well to say.

LII

Thou, Mistress of my love, shalt be obeyed,
And in thy bosom all the love be centered
The Nine would share with thee, if there be entered
In that divine recess, and softly laid,
Pure sacrifice on the world's purest shrine,
These Sonnets to them, at thine instance paid,
And breathing, burning of thee, every line,
Thine own inspiring—most spiritual maid;
Thou whom my mind, and that which is my mind,—
Love,—set above them, and yet wrong them not.
If these be only what I have designed,
Rich as thy love, excelling as thy thought,
Bright as thine eyes—they'll thank thee, boy-god blind,
Who brought such rite, though from a rival brought.

LIII

Daughters of Jove and Nymph Mnemosyne!
Great Mind and Memory own your plastic sway,
Your kindred influence,—pestered though in clay,—
Bound toward you, assert immunity
From their vile prison here, and the first free
Wide privilege of the Spirit's realm of day,
With the Spirit's pristine impulse,—and convey
The principle of immortality
Thence like Prometheus. Then the universe
Partakes the gift, and so becomes like it,
Holy,—full of sublimities, and hears
Harmonies, not of earth, so heavenly; yet
Are not in heaven, but from it, and on earth,—
A new creation now, restored to her old birth.

LIV

Mother of Orpheus! advance and let me kneel
To thee. Stand thou upon thy pedestal,
Extend thy eloquent arm, and pour forth all
Thy voice's sweetness, and thy spirit's zeal,
Rousing the souls of freemen till they feel
New hearts within them, and what would enthral
Break with high indignation; while they call
On their land's memories, and the patriot's steel
Which slavery shall nor rust nor blunt. Or raise
Thine eye to heaven, and pronounce its laws,
Bid man commune with God, adore and praise,
Till he be as a Seraph. High applause
Is thine—Justice bows to thee, Mercy obeys—
Wrath rushes to the field, and Valour pleads the cause.

LV

Glory, great Clio; glory to thee divine,
Such as thou shedst on others. Come, ye brave,
Ye great, forth from the ocean and the grave,
Again exist in her illustrious scrine—
Beloved by her, as by Apollo loved
(And slain) young Hyacinthus was—Wo! wo!
The City weeps for him the beauteous. No
Worship admits the day-god, till removed
The period of the grief for that sweet flower,
That constellation—(star of earth and heaven)—
Which once was that dear boy. Thy sons, great Power,
Are many, and though jealousy have striven
Against, the Sun hath loved them to this hour;—
They shine above our course, and gem the path we live in.

LVI

Erato! Muse of Love and Dance and Song,
All attributes are thine, . . but Love the chief.
Hail to thee! thou art mine. The least rose-leaf,
Least myrtle-bud, which to thy wreath belong,
Were worth the worship of a moon, . . nay, more.
Thine hath departed—May now revelleth,
But I will make her thine, whate'er she saith,
This beautiful month of flowers. Come, and adore;
Sweet May—and O, than May more sweet, come thou,
And celebrate her, Dearest. Come, my love,
Thoughtful or gay, still Erato approve;
Crown her with rose and myrtle—vail and bow
To torch-armed Cupid at her side. Above
All other shrines is this. Hear, Erato, our vow.

LVII

Come, tripping gaily; here, Thalia, hie,
Thou Venus of the stage! Come, hither, hither;
Ne'er may the myrtle on thy forehead wither!
Ne'er may the smile forsake thy roguish eye!
Though Melancholy's gloomiest bard, yet I
Can relish thy wild laughter, laugh together
With thee, and at thee; and not coyly weather
Tempest of repartee, and scorn to fly
The flash of wit, though maybe I have none—
I will not woo, nor wed thee; yet will play
Thy mask and crook withal, and, day being done,
Sport with thee, and dance down thy buxom way,
Till the side aches, and vision has begun
To dim with merry tears, like April marring May.

LVIII

Thou, of the dagger and the crown—(arise!)—
And the magnific pall—Melpomene!
Ascend thy purple throne, and over me
Extend thy magic sceptre, Queen of sighs,
Tears, pangs and passions. Rend off your disguise,
Monarchs and princes of the earth, that she
May bare the heart, and from its secrecy
Tear forth the gnawing thought, and exorcise
From that deep sepulchre, the human breast,
The indwelling spirit, Hope, or Fear, or Rage,
Glory, Revenge, and Love; beheld, exprest,
Embodied, and made visible, to age,
And youth, and Beauty, and by them confest;
First voiced in their own minds, but echoed on the stage.

LIX

Come, trip it on the light fantastic toe,
Terpsichore! and twinkle thy fine feet,
And in harmonious measures thus complete
The symmetry of form. I love thee so,
That I could madden in thy praises. Go,
Go to Apollo, and thy sisters eight,
And bid them to the dance; and on the height
Of thy Parnassus weave it; till they glow
Over the bosom fervidly; and rushes
The blood above it, in a thousand blushes:—
Weave it even as the love of Raphael's scholar,
Julio Romano, wove it. Great Apollo,
Quivered and crowned with myrtle, looks and flushes
In thy full face, and they thy dulcet echoes follow.

LX

Euterpe! oh, Euterpe! to thy shrine
Fain would I guide a truant votary,
Fain make the daughter-queen of Beauty thine!
Part of thine inspiration dole to me,
That I may teach her most harmoniously
What music is, and why thou art divine—
Look into Helicon, sweet heaven of mine,
Belovèd! . . and in that calm mirror see
Thine own divinity's reflected state;
Thy radiant eye smile on it, and behold
The mind, that breathing music, modulate
Thy dulcet features like a thought untold;
Then utter it—Euterpe's voice!—and she
Is but herself, my love, as she resembles thee.

LXI

Let others boast the rhapsody of words!
Give me to stand before the maid I love
In an expressive silence, far above
All speech, all language copious, which debords
The heart and weighs it; then to its deep chords
Utters a feeling, heard not by the ear
But them; and which they answer by those lords,
Those brilliant lords of love, chief in the sphere
Of sweet poetic stars, affection's eyes,
Swimming in most cerulean dewiness:
Then, be she vocal, and in sweet replies,
Let her breathe cadenced syllables—harmonies
Prisoning auricular sense, and tune the stress
Of her white fingers on dear Music's ivory keys.

LXII

Hail, Muse of Milton, bright Uraniä!
Who dwelt with Wisdom ere the mountains were—
And since of Wordsworth, that enraptured seer,
Yet simple as a child—severe his lay
As age, yet meek as infancy. The day,
The glorious sun, O the whole hemisphere
Of night, moon and all stars, are thine. Away
All meaner descants! Those of thine we hear
Are sacred and divine, even as thou art;
The descants of angelic essences,
Of heavenly intelligence. My heart
Heaves toward thy voice. My spirit fain would part
From this gross world to be with thee, and guess
Of past and future, pain and happiness.

LXIII

The pleasant task is done, yet hard as pain,
So great the subject, and the judge so good,
Severe though gentle. Beautiful! thy swain
Hath tuned his artless reed to this high strain,
And at the altar of the Muses stood
Vocal and thoughtful . . might he say, inspired!
But his the pangs of the torn Pythoness,
Without the sacred oracle which fired
Her bosom in its rapture, . . to express
The very god. What! though she then expired?
It were enough, one moment, ay or less,
(O, how my soul such moment hath desired!)
To be prophetic thus—thence mute for ever.—
Words written then Time's wing may overshadow never.

LXIV

Truly, thy sire must have been wise and good:
These thoughts belong to thee from thy descent,
Inflowing with the current of thy blood,
And must at thy begetting have been meant.
I may not see him, but in thee; nor would,
Being so distant; nor on travel bent
My mind, by disposition or intent.
Hereafter I shall love thy minstrel mood.
Then, looking on thy face, content, dear child,
I'll see thy Poet, who composed its lines,
So musical, with feeling undefiled,
And sentiment expression that refines—
The Father, with thy Mother reconciled,
Whose revelation in thy features shines.

LXV

She wanders far away, like Iö, now;
Nor have we fixed us to one only spot,
But roamed our Isle, its rarest haunts to know,
Delighting us in valley, hill and grot,
Verdure, and flowers, and trees, and rivers' flow,
Fringed with the willow sometimes, sometimes not,
Or waterfall, rejoicing in the bow
That wreathes it, making summer's noon less hot.
And we have visited Cathedral aisles,
Listening to chaunted anthems, and to prayers
Intoned, with choral harmonies, and airs
Angelic, floating through majestic piles.
Such memories are spirits: otherwhiles,
They cheer the heart, and chase away despairs.

LXVI

A mill-stream hath its own peculiar grace,
And such, my love, hath this. 'Tis sweet to see
How from each bank the roots of either tree
Bend the lithe trunks along the water's face—
The boughs and leaves how sweetly they embrace,
And kiss the wavelet dimples. Jealously,
Phœbus has glimpses through them, shadowy.
Yon willow hath a melancholy trace
Of passion in its weeping—how the Rill
It loves, and drooped until they kissed each other!
And this weeps over earth, to embrace his Mother,
Like a sad Son, in vain—yet yearning still—
Or mourning she had borne—(O, vale! O, hill!)
So grateful few,—though Man, heaven-moulded, be his Brother.

LXVII

Hath Gratitude in human hearts no shrine?
Men have affection for their residence,
The city of their birth, or choice, or chance;
And, Simmons, leave memorials there like thine,
And it repays them with the inscriptive line.
Behold the Pillar and the Hill its stance,
The Field his generous skill hath made divine—
“Hold ye these public walks in reverence!”
Religion is but Gratitude; and she
Descends from God, and unto God returns.
Sublime Cathedral, hail! whose heart not burns,
Whenas the chaunted service solemnly
Toward the Universal Architect upyearns,
Is an unburied corse, and hath no soul for thee.

LXVIII

Let others boast the rhapsody of words!
Music, divine enchantress, has to me,
All language, . . when along the ivory key
The fine touch vibrates to the unseen chords
A supernatural dialect;—oh, then,
All passions answer her, and woman's hand
Hath magic in it, audible to men,
Holding o'er the heart's mysteries command.
Chief to the mind-worn husband, who at eve
Seeks solace, what a heavenly balm art thou!
How like an angel sitteth she, whose vow
Was pledged to soothe his sorrows, should he grieve!
Her fingers shame in purity and whiteness,
The scale o'er which they float in faery lightness.

LXIX

Lovelily brake the Dawn; but ere the Noon
Heaven darkened o'er—and all was calm—but Thunder
Rolled far away, and the clouds gloomed with wonder;
The Lightning flashed, and it pealed louder soon,
And nearer;—then, the Clouds let fall their boon
Of Showers upon the Earth, and straight asunder
Parted. The Blue, expectant of the Moon,
In the Orient smiles; and lo, she riseth yonder.—
The Eve is calm. Abroad ye, whom the day
Hath cooped in domicile. Intensely bright,
How sets the Sun with one concentred ray,
Far-dazzling from the sky of Chrysolite,
O'er-hovered, like a promontory's brow,
With a rain-cloud's edge, encaving all below.

LXX

From that broad cloud's deep edge the shower impends,
And in that heaven beyond the cavern-mouth
It makes, the Sun in rising clouds descends
And tinges them with gold. East, North, and South,
Gather large shadowy masses weighty and dense;
But high the cope of heaven—(as when the Youth
Immortal, at mid-day, saw all things thence,
And triumphed o'er the Oak's majestic growth)—
And though the smoky film soars azural,
Still they come on, and thicken round amain,
Dark, huge and heavy, fold in fold; and all
In motion; charged with thunder and with rain.—
Borne by the wind aloft, they roll away;
How fair the heavens; how bright the crescent's ray!

LXXI

The Sunbeams bathed in Ocean, the dense clouds
Gathered about them, and the wave inhaled,
Like gloomy spirits o'er aëreal shrouds,
A Jacob's ladder made of golden mist:
Now they the Angels of the Deep have kist,
Now far away in the wind's chariot sailed.
Round as a shield, upon the water's verge,
Sinks gradually the developed orb
In motion visible. Lo, from the surge
Another sun ascends, that doth absorb
The substance in the shadow. Where they sate
Sail, mast, shroud, like a spectre-ship, emerge,
And the smoke o'er their wake doth undulate.
Three elements at once own Science and her Mate.

LXXII

All Elements succumb, or shall succumb
To Science and to Art. We tread on Earth,
She is our habitation and our tomb.
Thou boundless ocean—(say who gave thee birth?—
Freedom is Neptune's Mother. From her womb
Leapt the waves forth, and danced in their young mirth,
And the wild winds, that ne'er had rein or girth,
Coursed in free joyance o'er the myriad foam.)—
Ocean and Air! ye of the mane and pinion,
The neck in thunder clothed, with lightnings summed;
Yet are ye curbed by Man, and your dominion
Doth tribute him, whose soul is eagle-plumed,
To sway the desert air, and girt with power
To cleave the sea with ships, and bid the flame to cower.

LXXIII

There is a Spirit in the midnight storms,
Which shrives the secrets of the souls of men,
Rousing them forth like spectres from their den,
Even the heart's haunted prison . . horrid forms,
Which flash in the blue lightnings, and again
Peal in the thunder, all which most alarms
Conviction, vengeance—echoingly; and charms,
To blast thy path, Guilt! in belated glen,
The wronged, the lost, the dead; each with a voice,
And a keen vision of discovery,
Either whereof were madness. Up! rejoice!
Laugh at waked Conscience now, and dare the sky!
What! crest-fallen, Guilt?—Why, Innocence has bared
Her bosom to the bolt! thine's mailed, yet sudden scared.

LXXIV

The rushing winds . . the storm's wild voice of fear . .
The thunder's last peal, and the lightning's flash,
Have sped . . and on the sea no surge may dash . .
But a dead Calm, with nightmare horror, here
Sits on the old motionless Oaks, so brooding where
Tumult did triumph, and the tempests clash.
Yet 'tis no halcyon silence, but a drear,
Cold, harsh, dark heaviness, smiting the heart
With an intenser terror; such as death
Leaves on the victim's brow, when all the pangs
Are past of the last agony of breath—
'Tis a mysterious moment, and it hangs,
World! a pall on thee, as 'twould ne'er depart,
But shroud thee in, for aye—all spectral as thou art.

LXXV

Yes, there be holy places; persons, too,
Whose names are sacred, though not sainted ones—
Sages and bards, the teachers of the true,
Whose minds to others are as central suns.
These be Truth's temples; . . each on service runs
Of the Great Spirit, though, alas, too few,
Heralds and representatives at once,
Exemplars of the godlike, men, to you.
Many of these, such privilege has been mine,
In early life, and days not yet bygone,
Have I communed with, each a living shrine,
Whose lips pronouncèd oracles divine.
Some still on earth remain, but more have won
The immortal crown that's worn in heaven alone.

LXXVI

Thy voice is an encouragement indeed,
To urge me up the steep hill of renown—
Me who have but begun, and that too soon,
Striving for the great bard's immortal meed,
To mount the precipice. I bleed, I bleed,
Inly with toil—and for the promised boon
Pine while neglect still keeps me from the crown.
But thy Voice is prophetical—thy rede
Not to be doubted, thou who ledst young White,
With whom I claim a fellowship in fate,
On in the noble path by the near light
Of high Apollo's smile irradiäte,
Till he did conquer from his brow the bright
Wreath of undying fame. I wait in hope, but wait.

LXXVII

They speak of pleasures in the unfolding powers,
Plenteous as dew drops on the dawning bud;
Of knowledge like sweet odour, air or blood,
Of influences like music, at all hours,
Stealing from quarters not well understood;
Of images, as exhalations would,
That come unsummoned; and of hopes, like flowers,
Plucked from old tombs to live afresh on ours.
I have but known the sorrow that foredooms,
And thought's self-eating flame, I would not quell;
Of hope delayed the sickness that consumes,
Of faith destroyed the passion and the hell;
But now my withered garland palely blooms,
For that hast justified my nature's spell.

LXXVIII

Thine are Æolian Sonnets, and thy shell
Lies on the bank of Helle's sacred streams,
Obvious to his own gales, Apollo's.—Well
His amorous kisses answers it, while beams
His most immediate brilliance on the string
Whence those etherealest echoes were,
In whose high tones seem, of that brightening,
Gleams flashing on the mind's eye, through the ear.
Such is its music, and the power thereof;
But wild the numbers and irregular,
That while we hope for the full close, the woof
Of sound is spent, and the short fragments jar,
And the vexed disappointed spirit pines.
Strains of such mood were marred in such unmeasured lines.

LXXIX

In Eloquence a Pericles;—in verse,
A Horace in his most poetic vein;
As Julius' self, accomplished and urbane;
An Arbiter in Taste—wisdom's best nurse—
By nature taught her precepts to rehearse;
Thy heart is Honour's most triumphant fane,
There Patriotism and Loyalty converse,
And equally the kindred rights maintain
Of Government and Freedom blended well.
Blest with a happy genius all thine own,
About thee and thy words there is a spell
That charms the people, and endears the throne:
In classic arts thee, Canning, none excel;
In statesmanship thou art thyself alone.

LXXX

O, what a voice is silent! There I stood
'Midst many hundred faces, as I spake—
But One alone I saw—in fancy's mood,
It rose from out my heart, too wide awake,
With memory, O Coleridge; and subdued
By sudden passion for thy dear fame's sake;
That brow and that grey head a light did make.
Silent I paused; I could not what I would;
For a strong feeling veiled my eyes with tears,
And swelled my throat with sobbing, ill-supprest,
And the dumb words were stifled in my breast—
O! what huge labour to restrain those sighs,
And conquer weeping, all too sore distrest—
Scarce I prevailed with untold agonies.

LXXXI

Angels of heaven! her eyes are such as yours,
Intellects glorious; and she walks the globe
A winged intelligence, shrined in a robe
Of light, a beautiful spirit that outpours
Her inward radiance o'er her path, and ours—
And mine? O, could I hope it! My soul's throb
Pulseth toward her, with a quicker sob
Than heart e'er loved with, and itself upsoars,
On the plumed flashes of her thoughts, to bliss;
How soon to fall when her rich lips are hushed.
Were our minds mated for all time, at this,
O, what a life of soul were in her kiss,
Of music in her voice. Such feeling flushed
Its fountain at her sight (earth's wonder) and so gushed.

LXXXII

Let me recall the Vision. Did I dream?
Flashed on the stern reality of life,
No such bright shape of Beauty, as I deem?
Came on mine ear no voice, with music rife,
And mind and immortality? . . no beam
Upon my soul, that took it in its strife;
Dark—lone—bathing it in its brilliänce,
Till it were dazzled into a deep trance?
O! I have waked, and she hath gone from me!
Ye faithless Muses! ye have duped my heart
With the fond mind's creation. Lovelily,
In your divinity ideal, ye
Garnished a vanished shadow. No! the smart
Of Truth is in its core. She came, and did depart.

LXXXIII

Love! Child of Beauty and of Mind art thou,
Whose cradle is the heart; and there thou liest
And dreamest of perfection, and repliest
To the exquisitest touch and gentlest glow
Of the least eye-glance, and preparest thy bow
In that invisible recess, and triest
Thine arrows numerous; and quivered, so
Wilt raise the humble and abase the highest,
When thou awakèst at the time appointed
To assert thy sway, and, with a sovran wave
Of thy mysterious hand, quellèst the free,
And throwèst monarchs on their knees.—Anointed
Art thou above all passions else, to save
Or to destroy—man's bliss, man's bane, eternally.

LXXXIV

Fame wooed me from her too-ethereal heights,
And I aspired even at her beckonings,
And sang as one of hope in durance sings,
Revelling in thought in liberty's delights,
The day's fond promise, vision of my nights:
Aspired perchance to fall. The meeds she brings
Are ofttimes evil; or, if better things,
Earth's stain is on them and on her—she slights
Wisdom and worth—and them the bad abuse.
But they no more shall vex me now too much,
For Love hath on my soul laid his warm touch,
And my heart's altar with his flame renews—
Sincere the sacrifice, and smiles on such
Beauty whose smile is heaven; and she shall be my Muse.

LXXXV

Daughter of Helle! or I err, and thou
Reportedst falsely to me of thy birth,
When first I wooed thee with my pupil vow,
And mockedst my embrace with perishing earth,
Instead of spiritual essence, as might bow
Spirits to thine appeal. Shall Time endow
Thy memory, and confess thy divine worth,
And worship thee with love, as I do now?
If diademed with amaranth, and embowered
Amid ambrosia whereon thy soul thrives,
Quenching thy thirst with nectar, and empowered
To gift thy votary with immortal fame,
And a prophetic voice whose music rives
Urns, and sways men therefrom—Up! and assert thy claim.

LXXXVI

Have I not risen? When didst thou lift thy voice,
And I not answer it? Have I not come,
From mine immortal, immaterial, home,
Above the mountains, to bid thee rejoice,
And fold thee to my bosom, my own choice,
And prophecy to thee thy better doom,
And streamed mine azure eyes, whose light destroys
All darkness, into thine, and chased the gloom
Which is too wont to hang upon thy hope,
And chill its wings;—till, with such dalliänce
Wearied, thou slepst, dissolved to a fond trance?
And then I blessed thy visions, and bade cope
Thy spirit with its fate, and the stern group
Who strengthen that gross god, tyrannous Circumstance.

LXXXVII

I have been blessed . . I have been blessed. But, oh!
The after-thought is bitter. The keen mind,
Retired from such communion too refined,
With too much of a soft ethereal glow,
To brook the world's stern winter-touch, and so,
Shrank from the cold reality . . deaf . . blind . .
To men and their taught ways; yet doomed to know
Their passions, (which it sought,) from their unkind
Effects, and made to feel, and bend to them,
Even while itself rebelled, and tined the lash
Of the inspirited eyes' electric flash.
What marvel I misdeemed the magic gem,
I'd thought might calm nature's most angry hour,
When thus awhile with man it lost its active power?

LXXXVIII

The gem, thou speakst of, is a Talisman
Nature obeys not only; but all they
Who are not from her blessing cast away—
Spirits in heaven are psalteriän,
And poesy with angels first began,
And dwelt, in their eternal primal day,
With Truth, and Beauty, and Uraniä;
Then, sweet survivor of the fall, she came
To men, and souled them with seraphic flame,
Which whosoe'er possess have thence the power
Both to create and live in what they frame,
In their own world, and on a simple flower
Will oft expend the soul, and dream on fame,
That wreath which still delays its promised dower.

LXXXIX

Dear Poesy exists not in the glare
And tainted breezes of the court or mart,
But dwells with nature, with an humble heart,
And from her waters, skies, and flowers, and air,
Derives her dulcet sustenance, and there
Attunes her harp unheard, and thinks alone
Thoughts that are dreamed of but at Helicon;
Till One of cognate mind and tuneful ear,
A wanderer, catches the prophetic tone,
Swelling in solitude, and lists thereto
Till his whole heart is raptured, and thrilled through,
With passionate love and admiration strong.
Thence he evokes her, for the world to woo,
And vows are paid to her, and homage late and long.

XC

Think not that praise inspireth poesy
To her most lofty works. 'Tis when alone,
In silence, and seclusion, and unknown,
The spirit broodeth o'er the mystery
Of its affections, yearning to be free
Of the far heights of Immortality,
Fame's indistinct and unembodied throne,
To which they all aspire;—she gains her own
Chief character, and wakens, from the chord
Of her sequestered harp, the restless flame,
Strengthened from long suppression, that is lord
Of man's deep feelings,—those without a name,
And lying all too deep for thought or word;—
And burns of that intense devotion whence it came.

XCI

Genius! tongue hath not told, nor e'er can tell
The thought within, unquenched, unquenchable,
Flashed down from heaven upon thy heart's true shrine,
That seeks again its source, no less divine!
And, oh, what triumph in thy lonely cell,
In inspiration's lofty hour is thine—
O, what deep tones are murmuring o'er thy shell,
The mind's immediate breathings, when the Nine,
In their first influence, o'er-inform thy spirit!
Alas! alas! how oft the breath of fame
The fire but weakens while it fans the flame.
And mighty poets, who did once inherit
All that most consecrates thy lofty name,
Shew, all too soon, dim embers of their merit.

XCII

Come to my bosom! let me clasp thee close!
Thou to my soul art dearer now than ever!
I deemed that praise and poesy were never
Divorced, but praise were nurse of it, O Muse!
And fame were the sure meed it ne'er might lose,
Nor would delay the laurel that prompt giver,
And thou wert counterfeit, and of the river
Of song hadst never quaffed, for where arose
Desert she alway instant crowned it, nor
Let it uncertain pine with hope deferred.
It is not so! my faithful monitor!
Authentic Muse! blest be the words I heard
Pronounced by thee: A flower a flower still is,
Though in the desert born and buried. Such is this.

XCIII

A flower's a flower though in the desert born,
And song is music and harmonious sense,
Whether 'tis uttered to the golden morn,
And the bright-haired Apollo listen thence,
Or, like the Bee with serenading horn,
The minstrel own all Flora, or dispense
His amorous murmurs to the intelligence
Of one meek violet only—or adorn
His homeward solitary way with his
Own song of mirth or sadness, heard by none;
Or, in his honied citadel alone,
Attune it for his own peculiar bliss—
Or he, like Orpheus, sing to savages,
Sans ear or soul, and find himself undone.

XCIV

And did I deem to bid my harp farewell?
To curb my spirit, and on the heart return
All its crushed energies, to burn and burn
Thereon, and wither it, like a deep spell,
Eating away the core, invisible?
What! to behold the Rainbow, and discern
The hues of love therein, and inly swell
With thoughts, and yet be voiceless?—What! to yearn
For knowledge, the soul's nectar, cup elysian,
Yet in stern waywardness refuse to drink
Of the clear lymph at Aganippe's brink,
And shun heaven's light, then weep the altern condition?
'Twere as a freeman should forbear to think
Or eaglet at the sun to kindle his keen vision.

XCV

Dear Boy; take back thy Book. Its golden leaves
Show the rich mind and bounteous, that would call
Mankind to share its wealth. Much it receives,
Of daily bread, and would dispense to all,
And when forbid, benevolently grieves:
Yet is the sorrow which thy soul conceives
The evil that to knowledge will befall,
And of its due rejoicing still bereaves.
Whatso of good we dream of has to wage
A battle irksome to the tender soul,
And wakens grief in every land and age;
Already of such strife thy written scroll
Bears record; well hast thou thrown down the gage.
Be brave, and conquer. Speed, and gain the goal.

XCVI

Let me rejoice, O God, that I have seen
The day when Truth shines like the sun in heaven.
Before it idols of the night are driven;
The shades of superstition, vague, unclean,
Writhing like spectres of the unforgiven,
Fade as Light grows; fears leave the spirit serene,
As darkness melts; and the old chains are riven
Which ignorance still imposes on the mean.
Yes, I rejoice in such deliverance,
And that I've eyes which may behold the same,
And a free soul that dares the cause advance
Of Man and Wisdom, whatsoe'er may chance,
Though Error's owls the sunshine may enflame,
And make them blinder grow, even to their shame.

XCVII

O, Lady; thy departing seemed to me
Like those unwingèd Angels', furtively
Who walked in elder times beneath the skies,
And held communion with the good and wise,
Making the common earth a paradise,
But were not other known than men to be,
Till they had vanished where no eye might see,
So sudden was their going. In such guise,
When thou wert gone, it seemed that thou hadst faded,
And no farewell been uttered; absence less
Revealed thy dearness than thy sacredness.
And by thy presence how we had been aided
In heavenward aspiring, taught to guess
At holiest truths, and hold discourse unjaded.

XCVIII

We teach the Young? Rather, they teach us more
In some brief simple phrase than e'er before
We'd read in learnèd books. Thy Boy to me
Has been a mentor, and abounds in lore
I know not of, to which I had no key,
And which had none but his simplicity.
Out of his heart he speaks, and I adore,
Heeding the Oracle of Infancy.
Who listens to such teaching, soon will trace
A mystery in childhood, how divine.
And whiles I thus regard this Boy of thine,
I think I see in him his angel shine,
With glory on him, softened into grace,
Reflected from his Heavenly Father's face.

XCIX

Yes; I have suffered something like a trance
In looking on an Infant's countenance,
And felt myself a Seër, waking-dreaming;
Translated without death, by one sweet glance
Into the worlds above us, where no scheming,
With its pernicious selfishness and seeming,
Corrupts the innocent; and, even while teeming,
Destroys the germ of virtue in advance.
O, lovely is the spring-time of our youth!
And will it ne'er return to cheer our path,
When summer-suns are on us, and the Truth
Shines at full noon, and, reckless of all ruth,
Strikes down on sullen earth, as if to scathe;
For even Truth is terrible in wrath?

C

O, Time, thou art eternal in thyself,
But sire of mortal children, the swift hours,
The swifter moments, and their subject-powers;
Ancestral honours, or self-earnèd pelf,
The vessel stranded on a rocky shelf,
The withered oak, the living, lovely flowers,
Service of china fine, or vulgar delf,
And all that we despondingly call ours.
Even as the sands from out thy glass they run,
Leaving a void in that same space they filled,
Into the nether prison; where they wone,
Till, in the revolutions of the sun,
The under becomes upper, and the skilled,
Observing law, become the less self-willed.

CI

The sickle in the clouds embossèd lies,
Within a halo's midst, as on a shield.
The Crescent, cradled in the summer skies
Serene, lies argent on an azure field,
Expectant of the stars that shall arise
From the blue depths, where now they rest concealed.
For only at night to philosophic eyes
The multitude of worlds may be revealed.
Each, happy in her solitariness,
Looks up, regardful of those many spheres,
But may not, till she count herself no less,
Conceive the All, that is the universe:
For she, as they, is needed to confess
The Glory of the Maker—theirs and hers.

CII

Needs to each planet self-reflective power,
Ere it be numbered in the mighty sum,
Which yet is numberless; the Eternal Sower
Of lustrous worlds, where'er his footsteps come,
Scatters, like seeds, creation's nuptial dower,
Wherewith the fields of space in season bloom,
Each planet like a plant in glorious flower,
Looking immortal, whatsoe'er its doom.
Therefore an Angel is enthroned in each,
A bright Intelligence, a self-conscious god;
And hence with one another they have speech,
A language understood by all, and teach,
Even to man who but this earth has trod,
Truths known alike by all the brotherhood.

CIII

O, Lady; fair Egeria, hast thou found
Thy Numa hidden in some outlaw's cave?
I should not marvel, strange as it may sound,
For such all-loving Joves such licence crave,
And in caprices such as these abound.
All their desires are with fruition crowned,
Such power they have, and such extremes they brave,
That all the world they conquer and enslave.
Haply, a palace in far orient land
Hived him and his fair houries, so to hide
From eyes profane their pleasures undescried;
Or he some idol temple might command,
Where, with some yielding vestal by his side,
Some new avatar might be safely planned.

CIV

What gift of Eloquence is his, that Faith,
Her fated ear once with his words possessed,
Entranced still listens to whate'er he saith,
And drinks the music in, and would, till death,
But that to speak he ceases? Over-blessed
The heart that's stirred by such celestial breath,
Thrilled and pervaded with a sweet unrest,
Till Truth, like Light, becomes self-manifest.
Again he speaks; and, with each uttered phrase,
Thy soul expands, and grows as large as heaven,
As stedfast as the earth, and bright with rays
Of sun and moon and stars, as in the days
When Silence first was broken, ere the Seven
Teemed with all Life, or Law to Love was given.

CV

Believing One, not credulous, but convinced,
Reposing on the bosom of thy lord,
And smiling as a vessel newly rinsed,
Cleansed of all doubt, by his prevailing word.
Slander has whispered since, and thou hast heard
The worst of calumnies, and hast not winced;
Each trial borne, and yet hast never erred,
But all suspicions into star-dust minced.
Thus, justified thy self, and satisfied
Of his abiding favour, happy now,
Renewed in youth, thyself again a bride,
First among women; thy unfading brow
Crowned with the imperial myrtle, by his side,
Like Cleopatra, thronèd sittest thou.

CVI

This Sonnet refers to the following Myths. 1. Alcyone, daughter of Æolus, married Ceyx, who was drowned as he was going to Claros to consult the oracle. The gods apprised Alcyone in a dream of her husband's fate; and when she found, on the morrow, his body washed on the sea-shore, she threw herself into the sea, and she and her husband were changed into birds of the same name, who keep the waters calm and serene, while they build and sit on their nests on the surface of the sea for the space of seven, eleven, or fourteen days. 2. One of the Pleiades, daughter of Atlas. She had Arethusa by Neptune, and Eleuthera by Apollo. She and her sisters were changed into a constellation. 3. The daughter of Evenus, carried away by Apollo, after her marriage. Her husband pursued the ravisher with bows and arrows; but was not able to recover her. Upon this, her parents called her Alcyone, and compared her fate to that of the wife of Ceyx.—Vide “Homer's Iliad,” B. ix.

And he, thy Numa, or thy Antony,
With confidence restored in thee and thine,
With calm untroubled mien sits careless by,
Like to a god in his serenity,
And fears no rival now, himself divine.
He looks upon the sea, and to the sky,
Nor feareth Neptune while he sails the brine,
Nor Phœbus, though so fiercely he may shine.
A better fate had he than his who wed
The Pleiad, and pursued the god of day,
But never her he lost recoverèd—
And better thine than hers whom, on her bed,
In dreams the gods advised, how Ceyx lay
Ensepulchred beneath the salt sea-spray.

CVII

Not every river that o'erflows its coast
Thinks, like the Nile, to fertilize the land;
But, as the Nigris or Euphrates, most
Leave no deposit on the happy strand
They inundate; but, as their power to boast,
Not act of bounty, in mere sport command
The violent action that converts the sand
Into a swamp. Not every giving hand
To the receiver blessing shall impart,
But barren make the boon, because the gift
Is wanting in the life-blood of the heart;
And, like the donor, has no generous drift;
The ostent of love, without the love, to lift
Giver and taker far above the mart.

CVIII

The hand I gave to you my heart conveyed,
Therein my mind, my soul, my spirit were,
And each alike was fain the humble Maid
To elevate into the nobler sphere
Of Wife and Mother; nothing loftiër
In womanhood than these. Be not afraid,
That aught henceforth thy station can degrade,
To whom have been vouchsafed these titles clear.
Lovely indeed thy beauty virginal,
A crow? unquestioned of thy modest brow,
But brighter yet the matrimoniäl,
And brightest the maternal. Happiest thou,
Who such tiara wearest, we rightly call,
Of all thy sex; of all most worshipt now.

CIX

What, if this breast has harboured foreign loves,
With vehement rebuke I chase them hence,
And banish them with all that most reproves,
With demonstration and strong evidence
Like the old Caunians, resolute to dispense
With alien worships from their native groves,
Who rose in their own deities' defence,
With fervour such as pious men behoves.—
Armed were they all of every age, and stood
Like warriors, with their spears; then rushed pell-mell,
Their weapons brandishing, and wild of mood,
As if invisible powërs they pursued,
Till reached Calynda's mountains, with loud yell
Exclaiming, “Foreign gods we thus expel!”

CX

Imagine Adam kneeling at Eve's feet,
With that “All hail, thou Mother of all Living!”
Teaching his lips her majesty to greet.
Well was the Sin condoned, of Love's conceiving,
Which caused his wreck, but made his ruin sweet,
Bearing such fruit; and, whatsoe'er bereaving,
Full recompensed by that most rich forgiving,
Which thronèd Beauty even in Wisdom's seat.—
Think, too, of Gabriel, Mary when he hailed,
Blessed among women, far above them all,
Whose worship, too, has since even more prevailed
Than her diviner Son's, and might recall
The idolatry of angels, who assailed
Men's daughters with such prayers as proved their fall.

CXI

Man sues the Woman with a frantic zeal
For that communion, which can quench alone
The fury that his heart is doomed to feel,
Till satisfied; but then resumes his throne,
While Woman pleads in that soft yearning tone
Which the Dove utters, . . . languishing appeal
To its fond mate, whose quick responses own
The natural desire that each would heal.—
The loves of old brought giants; these our days
Care not for prodigies; material might
Gladly exchanging for that mental light
Which the divine intelligence bewrays,
In happy natures, that shine ever bright,
And crowns our offspring's brows with solar rays.

CXII

What is a Son? Say, Love that crownest Home;
The product of two minutes' earnest joy,
A germ that grows in darkness, burthensome
To lovely Woman, till the living Boy
Leap from the prison where, in little room,
He lay nine moons recluse, and close, and coy,
Fearful of light; until the fruit become
Apt to endure what else might sure destroy.
A thought engendered in two beating hearts,
Cherished by one till cultured to a thing;
Offspring of wedded souls, who practise arts
But natural, which over life yet fling
Such rainbow hues, so full of promising,
Doubt of such bliss a sudden terror starts.

CXIII

Look on the breast how easily he lies,
Whereunder late he lay, and gratifies
The infant instincts of his appeties,
His thirst and hunger, waking sympathies
Parental, constant manifold delights,
In those whose loving, from the mysteries
Of cosmic forces, to our mortal sights,
Evolved their inward image. Days and nights
Of such felicity as man but knows,
And angels share not on their lonely beds,
Where still they rest in infinite repose—
The pleasure that with slumber overspreads
The mortal couch, that fountain wherefrom flows
The streams of being, ending none that dreads.

CXIV

I have not wept—my grief for tears too deep—
During long exile, that my Son was dead—
For Absence is as Death. And, as in sleep,
Spirits are wont appear, so in his stead
My slumbers were by shadows visited,
In which his image still was wont to keep
The foremost place; and these the words it said—
“When we shall meet, then both of us will weep.
Those tears of joy, when they my cheek baptize,
Will carry blessings in their cadent course,
And the proud sorrow that disdains the eyes,
The ice-sea of the heart, must yield, perforce;
The risen sun the needful warmth supplies,
That melts the winter of our stern divorce.”

CXV

O, Sun, the Ocean's bosom is to thee
A mirror that reflects thy glories back.
O, that her bosom were but such to me,
Whom I am doomed to love. The skill we lack
To look into the heart, and nought may see
Beneath the heaving surface, though it be
White as the foam, and lustrous as the wave,
That glints and dances o'er the seaman's grave.
The breast may throb, and yet within its shrine
Not bear my image, as I fondly deem,
Even whiles I madly gaze, and think it mine—
Even though, within her eye, it haply gleam;
Another in her heart, howe'er she seem,
May in my stead be worshipped as divine.

CXVI

Merrily on the billows, clad in light,
The ship floats onward; merrily by day,
And merrily beneath the stars by night,
While flashes round her keel the kindred spray,
And far into the air the smoke-wreathes play,
Like some proud victor's car with magian might
That treads the waters, in the wind's despite,
Making against the elements her way.
Tread thou her deck in pride, sciential Man;
Thine are her powers, and thine the soul that moves,
Both them and her, and whatsoe'er improves.
More wilt thou yet, that lies within thy plan,
And much that lies beyond it. Even so loves
The Infinite to crown what it began.

CXVII

O darling Boy, to whose unclouded sight
The hues of Heaven, from whence thou'rt newly come,
Gleam in the flowers that greet the morning light,
In the soft dewy grass, the forest-bloom,
The sheen upon the rivers ever bright,
Or rainbow in the clouds; a happy doom
May for thy future in such omens loom,
If thou retain these visions of delight.
They are no less than powers, if transit free
Be granted them into thy after years,
And of thy youth they glad survivors be.
Thus only in our manhood re-appears
The grace of Eden, and that blessèd glee
Which in old age breaks joyous through our tears.

CXVIII

The World is strong, but stronger far the Mind
That shapes it to a purpose of her own.
Hence, though our destiny may be unkind,
The feelings early cherished keep their tone
In genial souls, nor may earth's shadows blind
The vision heaven-derived. The Light that shone
In infancy may shine our age upon
And nature; and reveal the life behind.
'Tis thus the Poet conquers, and subdues
The aggregates of matter to his use,
In middle manhood and extremest eld.
Sylphs of the morning so in twilight hues
Of grey-eyed evening sport; and, so beheld,
Triumph o'er time, still by the eternal quelled.

CXIX

And these our victories we register
In song and sonnet, and in stanza high,
In ode, and elegy, and tragedy,
In solemn masque, or mystery severe,
In balled fytte, and epic rhapsody.
These suit the various moods our spirits wear,
Or light or heavy, kindly or austere,
Securing each an immortality.
Here may you read them, in this gilded book,
If aught of mine has any charm for thee,
And those glad eyes on such dull things may look.
Ah! dull to me, who now can scarcely brook
The sight of what I have survived, to be
Another and the same, nor bond, nor free.

CXX

Such symbols, Boy, thou canst interpret well
Of larger labours, and of deeper thought,
Whereof they are but indices. To tell
Of the great battle I have singly fought
Would less avail than some small parable
Wherein it might be shadowed;—of the spell
That's spoken to us in the cradle, sought
To be explained in youth, and by the bought,
The dearly bought experience of the man.
Were vain the analysis it would require,
And therefore I o'ermaster my desire—
Herein each soul must do whate'er it can;
Help serves not here:—hope none, however dire
The warfare, nigh the danger, dread the ban.

CXXI

I meant not, Boy, to make thee sad—not I.
Be not too grave—it sits not well on youth.
Come, laugh with me. I can laugh merrily,
As we have done together. Weightiest truth
Need not so crush the spirit. Still that sigh?
Is it for me?—or for thyself, in sooth?
For neither? That is well. Still no reply?
Another's sorrow renders thee uncouth?
Can it be hers, who trained thy infant mind,
The generous heart, that on her sister's child
Shed all a mother's love? What dream so wild
Has crossed her sleep, and left a sting behind?
A dream indeed!—nor to the dreamer kind,
Nor with life's duties to be reconciled.

CXXII

Fair Maiden, re-consider thy resolve—
A hopeless passion thou hast nurtured long,
But never wished to gratify by wrong,
Nor suffered it thy spirit to involve
In such conflicting feelings, and so strong,
As make a misery of conscious life,
And keep it ever with itself at strife,
And yet apart from the world's busy throng.
O, seek no refuge, then, in solitude;
But from the circles where thou'rt happiëst,
Select a partner, learnèd, wise, and good,
And shrine him in thy bosom as the best,
And win him to thee for thy proper rest;—
How, well thou knowest; thou with each charm endued.

CXXIII

Still in the bosom of the Celibate
There lurks an aching heart, a yearning void
Plagued with unsatisfied desires, a state
Most barren, perilous, and desolate,
A spirit unenjoying, unenjoyed,
A being unproductive, self-destroyed,
A purposeless existence, doomed by fate
In fruitless issues still to be employed.
And wilt thou, with such wisdom as thou hast,
With riches boundless, beauty so supreme,
Permit such gifts as these to run to waste,
And prey upon thyself, a cursèd theme
For passion's logic, with perverted taste
To prove the happiest life a maniac's dream.

CXXIV

Learn, only in the eyes of him who loves
Is woman lovely. All her loveliness
Is Beauty's reflex, when she mirror proves
To man's o'erruling mind, whose powër moves
Upon her aspect, that acknowledges
The mystic action, and thus images
The rapt contemplant, while, in silent groves
He gazes on the vestal he would bless.
Invite, then, loving eyes to gaze on thine,
And glance back loving œliads, as they look,
And all thy features will with beauty shine,
And yield expression like a sacred book,
For ages lost, found in some cloister's nook,
In symbols written—like this book of mine.

CXXV

In mutual contemplation we are human:
If we reciprocal regards neglect,
The time will come when even the face of woman
Will lose the power whereby the young reflect
The glory of that Love, which, with the true man,
Lights up a heaven in the calm aspect,
Revealing to his heart himself a new man,
Who ventures all where all may yet be wrecked.
Intensely passioned is that tranquil gaze,
Resolved for life to read his image there
In those fond eyes that, in their fixed amaze,
Veil with their fringèd lids the starting tear,
That to a tender brilliance melts the blaze
Of orbs too bright, and makes them still more dear.

CXXVI

The time will come, when even the fairest glass
Will suffer dimness, and refuse to show
The loveliness of Love. Alas! alas!
That thus defect on radiant things should grow,
And where, as soon we fatally shall know,
No reparation can be. So they pass;
Once touched, soon broken, hopeless left to go
Wherever chance may float the unnoted mass.
Let not such time steal on thee unaware,
Dear Maiden, for thy own and sister's sake.
Dear and more dear, still as those gifts so rare,
That in thy nature sleep, daily awake,
And revel freely in the sun and air,
As ripples do when breezes fan the lake.

CXXVII

With wind and tide now sail we bravely on.
Ply well thy charms, thou Circe; minded well
Not to make brutes of men (that men were none,
But shadows of their kind). Gifts with thee dwell,
Would raise them skyward, teach them to excel,
And claim the place of angels for their own.
Talk of the witcheries of Venus' zone,
The wreath thou wearest boasts a mightier spell.
No shy Adonis may thy Lover be;
Cold were the heart that kindled not with thine;
This is indeed a conquest worthy thee.
And whom thou hast subdued thrice happy be.
A very Cupid was this Boy of mine,
Between you sporting, mediate most divine.

CXXVIII

Sweet Childhood's innocence to all true lovers,
That oft between them carries embassies,
Of such deep import, under shallow covers
That would deceive the most experienced eyes;—
Shy now as pigeons, rapid now as plovers,
Saddened with questions, pleasèd with replies.
A magic air breathes round him where he hovers,
A mortal Eros, cunning at disguise.
Would Infancy were deathless as 'tis fair—
But O, while still on it we look it fades.
Fatal to it the errands it must bear,
Too early learnèd in the best of trades.
Precocious grown, that artlessness of air
Deludes no more or loving men or maids.

CXXIX

With wind and tide now sail we bravely on—
Lady august; now happy with thy Lord,
In that proud vessel, glad to be aboard.
Long though the voyage, still the sun has shone,
And ocean laughed. Yes, over bliss restored,
Joy is in heaven, and in the unexplored
And watery depths, where secret treasures wone;
But none so rich as thine—thy Spouse, thy Son.
Expectant of thy coming, Sleep has dared
To fill her courts with dreams, and we are all
Turned into prophets, and each morn recall,
Each to the other, what the Night has shared
With the fond soul, whom it would have prepared
To meet its hopes with mien imperiäl.

CXXX

Dreams are of Night; but, also, of the Day:
Those on the past, these to the future lean;
Those in the darkness still with fancy play,
As when the shut eye paints the pictured scene,
But these precede experience; and, serene,
Give law unto its surgings; so allay
The tempest, and with promise intervene;
Shedding on ocean's breast a sunny ray.
The Ideals these, that after-ages rule,
With infinite potentialities;
For Powers are they, creative; earth and skies
Renewing ever, making beautiful
The common, and illumining the dull:
And all their utterances are prophecies.

CXXXI

Such dreams inspire the Youth whose genial mind
Forecasts its destiny, and in the dawn
Sees noon's glad promise; they are intertwined
With its initiate feelings, nor withdrawn
From its consummate hopes; for still behind
Each conquest they a loftier have designed,
Full of the visions that disdain to fawn
On greatness, who far greater have foregone.
Saviours, Redeemers, they who dream such dreams,
Who labour, suffer, perish for mankind;
And, when their task is done, become the themes
Of speakers, singers, in their academes—
Ears are they to the deaf, eyes to the blind,
And the chained slave they willingly unbind.

CXXXII

And shall I grieve, that I have suffered loss
In such a conflict? Rather should I grieve,
That I am not yet slain; and bear the cross
That I am burthened with, from morn to eve
As patiently as He whom we conceive
Our great example; and purge off the dross,
That with our beings yet will interweave,
By means of sorrow making us less gross.—
A finer life then quickens—in the heart
A livelier throb, and in the brain a fire
Kindling the enthusiast eye. The lover's part
The actor plays; he sails by passion's chart.
But Conscience guides the helm; exempt from ire,
Bold through all terrors drives,—and they retire.

CXXXIII

Yet when the iron penetrates the soul,
We needs must writhe, and haply sigh or groan.
These pains by nature follow. Their control
Lies in the spiritual will alone,
Which even the Indian frequently hath shown,
Enduring torture with a courage whole
And unsubdued, to men less wild unknown;
The martyr's crown, though not the martyr's dole.
Weak have I been at times, and murmured oft
At petty evils, for my trial sent,
And pined at heart, with a low discontent—
Unworthy one whose hopes in youth aloft
Would soar, and wing the stirring element,
Safe for the stern, disastrous to the soft.

CXXXIV

Is Gentleness not greater far than Force,
And hath a mightier power in the end?
What, if to humble means I had recourse,
Since for subsistence life must have resource
Where'er its need is, and on change attend
For its provision, if chance prove its friend—
Fly—walk—or swim, or creep, and seize the worse
If to our want the better will not bend.
'Tis thus the man contracts into a part,
And limits his free scope, and sits in bond,
To some small duty leagued; or the tamed heart,
That once so highly swelled, at length desponds,
Or shuns the strife, or mingles in the mart,
Where Fraud frequents, Integrity absconds.

CXXXV

O, to be all the man, and not a part:
O, Plato, Socrates; O, Paul; and ye,
In every age, who spurn the sophist's art,
That fits us for the world's sad slavery,
And teach us the true way to liberty—
O, worthy were ye to be, and were, free.
Dear to my soul is freedom, to my heart
The truth which maketh free. Be still my chart
By astral observation ever framed,
So may I reach the goal at which I aimed;
Casting my care upon that loving Lord,
Upon whose bounty I may feed unblamed.
All things draw life from his Creative Word,
Which to my life due nurture shall afford.

CXXXVI

Then have we lived too long, when Age and Need
Close the hard worker's life; nor seems it just
Labour should have such issues. Wiser heed
Submissive Faith bestows on that which must,
Than that we'd have to be. Shall mortal dust
Prejudge the Eternal? Such events proceed,
Be sure, from human folly and mistrust.
By our own hands we're wounded, if we bleed.
Imperfect are the worthiest of mankind;
Reasoning, we err; and being born, we die;
And to the future we are wholly blind:
Strong links, though sightless, thoughts to motives tie,
And acts to thoughts: . . and if the motives lie,
Far from the truth will be the deed designed.

CXXXVII

We lie unto ourselves; there is no truth
In our degenerate nature. Aught of good
There is in man or woman, maid or youth,
Comes not of birth, nor runneth in the blood.
The strain it springs from is of higher mood,
Far above music; whispering, full of ruth,
Such gracious secrets as the fiercest would
Melt into tears, and the vexed spirit soothe.
No more among the tombs the maniac roams,
But, sane at once, re-visits human homes.
O, heavenly strain, that hath such magic spell,
Ne'er heard the like even in cathedral domes—
It lifts the soul above the visible,
Even to the circle where Archangels dwell.

CXXXVIII

Age, Grief, and Pain! My cries the Heavens upbraid.
O, God! when cares increase, should health decline,
And weakness come, that makes the soul afraid,
While the earth trembles, and we call for aid
That hastens not, and languish for a sign
That may not be vouchsafed? Why have I prayed,
Both night and day, despairing yet repine,
Till lost all faith in Providence Divine?
Now shipwreck threatens, darkness gathers round,
Creation fades, the world dissolves away;
But, in her solitude, the Soul self-found
Feels her immortal, since that every stay
She trusted in hath perished. She is crowned,
Shedding her brightness 'midst the gloom like day.

CXXXIX

These things I've proved; they're truths that I have felt.
When evil presses, then we cling to God
The closer, and draw nigh his dread abode,
Where comfort in his presence may be dealt
To all who seek him, when the tempests pelt
And drive the wanderer home. Each then, his load
Cast on the Saviour, feels his heart to melt
Into the Father's heart, that hath o'erflowed.
Absorbed in such communion, earthly cares
And human sorrows from the suffering mind
Depart, and leave it to unconscious prayers,
Whose silent aspirations undefined
Blend with his will, and share the peace He shares
With every soul to piety inclined.

CXL

Pain! O, Prometheus, chainèd to a rock;
Pain! pain!—the vulture gnawing at the heart.
Ai! ai! Why groan I, while the vulgar mock
At sorrows by the will of my own art
Drawn down upon myself? Who feels a shock,
And writhes not? Or the piercing of a dart,
And shrinks not from the wound? The tears will start;
In spite of pride, the waters leap the lock.—
Pain from without, and from within, assails
My quivering soul, that hurriedly exclaims
As it were quitting hold of life. Strength fails,
With the last effort. Where's the world?—its aims,
Its hopes, its wishes, and its mighty names?
Not vanished yet? How little life avails!

CXLI

Though pain, though grief endure for many days,
Sleep comes at last, and Sorrow rests awhile;
Then opes the Inward Vision, which surveys
A special world, where faery Fancy sways,
And Wonder walks in the perpetual smile
Of a benignant summer; threads the ways
Of an unfolding paradise, where guile
Hath entrance none, nor aught that may defile.
We dream we are delivered; that the chains
Have dropped from our galled limbs, and we are free
To breathe a purer air, and roam the plains
And pastures of a sunnier clime; where reigns
A gentle Shepherd, over flocks that be
Whiter than any yet on Land or Sea.

CXLII

And when that deepest sleep of all shall veil
The wearied eyelids, in the last repose,
Such dreams shall be no phantasies that fail
On our awaking, but abide, like those
Immortal truths that with our birth arose,
And have no setting, nor memoriäl,
But, ever present, for our bliss or bale,
Still haunt the spirit, wheresoe'er it goes.
Welcome such dreams, and ever so remain,
Our best companions on that happier strand,
Where shadows are not, neither grief nor pain,
But we shall dwell in light, and fear no stain;
Into a glorified, triumphant band,
Transformed at once, as by the Enchanter's wand.

CXLIII

Angels, of old 'twas said, appeared in dreams,
And witness bore to Innocence and Love.
And, though our science separate now what seems
From that which is, such errands from above
May yet be sent; and thus the heart have gleams
Of heaven in slumber, and the night approve
In silence what the garish day esteems,
In noise and ignorance, most falsely of.
O, Lady; happy now, whiles on the billow,
Thy Lord beside thee, by thee so adored,
That a blest vision, visiting his pillow,
Discoursing of thy Son, doth proof afford
Of thy true honour, to his faith restored.
Once more the Myrtle's thine:—farewell the Willow.

CXLIV

Shame comes to me to have heard myself complain
Of sorrow, suffering, and the thrill and throe
That stir the nerves with sympathy for wo,
And make the spirit sensible of pain.
For what of pleasure ever could we know,
If that which can such ecstacy sustain
Were but to lose one linklet of the chain
That binds us to the rack that shakes us so?
To live is even to feel, and it must be
That conscious being in its twin extremes
Shall bear the proof of its polarity,
And Life and Feeling dream out many dreams.
The dead feel no such various tendency;
Life with all contrasts, in its changes, teems.

CXLV

Pain comes to warn us when there's danger near,
But Pleasure hurries us to danger's brink.
That, like adversity, whate'er we think,
Is the best friend that mortals can have here.
This, like prosperity, leads, link by link,
To that which, though it fetters, we must wear,
Till bit by bit within the flesh it sink,
And perish of despondency or fear.
Then welcome Pain; since we are safe with thee,
And nurtured into that heroic mood
Which makes us master of our misery,
So that we change the evil into good,
And, on the well-tried ground of Fortitude,
Erect the temple of Felicity.

CXLVI

Some hearts there be that seek a home in heaven,
And some that make a home of heaven on earth.
Those gain a local language, that gives birth
To sensible expression, which, when given,
Permits discourse that else had vainly striven
For utterance, and lends types to shadow forth
The Ineffable;—whose high transcendent worth
Has evermore in silence better thriven.
These realise in deeds far more than words
The Beautiful, the Truthful, the Sublime,
In most familiar instance, and the prime
And spring of life domestic, free from crime,
Which—though the Muse but seldom such records—
Win the regard of angels, and their Lord's.

CXLVII

Old tales there be that tell of blessed meetings,
After long partings. Such the will of Fate.
Who can describe of such the enraptured greetings,
The strange conjectures and the wild entreatings,
Of loving hearts that, of their hoarded freight
Disburthened, grow elastic and elate:—
What untold wonders, and admired repeatings,
What tears, what smiles, now mirthful, now sedate.
The voyager returned resumes the chair
Vacated long, and earnest looks around,
On old familiar objects; himself there,
Between the past and present sudden found
The living nexus and the conscious bound,
With busy mind uniting to compare.

CXLVIIII

Dear Youth, thou human Eros, angel-child,
Thou virtuous pandar 'twixt two honest hearts;
Well has thy errand sped, and reconciled
Four souls in kindly bonds; thy guileless arts
Have from thy mother plucked those jealous darts
That have the heart they entered still defiled,
And to her sister's given unbeguiled
That peace a faithful love alone imparts.
A happy bride ere long shall she be seen
At Hymen's altar, while thy Sire serene
Regards the sacred rite with that calm eye
Which speaks assurance to his bosom's queen,
Who towers aloft in tranquil majesty,
Like Juno smiling from a summer sky.

CXLIX

But even so far as they are blest, are they
Clad in the garments that have left me bare;
And I must seek in thee a surer way
To earn the joy that I see others share.
Thy pupil mind in knowledge to array
Be henceforth all my pride and all my care,
And, while I cultivate thy virtues rare,
Behold the work that crowns my later day.
There have I hit the target in the eye,
My arrow aimed aright, the prize achieved,
Exulting so in my security;
And in thy faithful heart, dear Boy, believed
My image planted, free from rivalry,
And for my love an equal love received.

CL

No wonder I should love baptised of Love,
No wonder should believe surnamed of Faith,
No wonder Herald of new truths should prove,
For even such my compellation saith.
Thus am I agitated with the breath
That needs must utter impulses that move
Conscience and will, and hovers, like a Dove,
Over the waters both of life and death.
Yet all is darkness till the Voice Divine
Bids light appear, intelligence arise,
And cause the heavens visibly to shine
Both in the nether and the upper skies;
Thereafter, on the earth firm footing mine,
Dear mother Earth, still fain to realize.

100

CLI

There is a tempest ever in my heart,
Still loving, still believing, still deceived;
And thou, dear mother Earth, whose cunning art
Aye tempts us onward, till of hope bereaved,
And with thy manifold illusions grieved,
Yet promisest fit clothing to impart
To each rude urchin, armèd with a dart,
And leavest him naked still, and unrelieved.
All shivering into the cold world they come,
The grand Ideas that would form mankind
Into a better image; ay, and some
Have not even eyes to see, for they are blind,
Have not even tongues to speak, for they are dumb,
And vex us their incompetence to find.

CLII

Alas! that when we think the fruit is ours,
It withers in our hands. I might have known
That Youth would look on Beauty for his own,
And follow where she leads—to faery bowers,
For luxury and dalliance meant alone;
Leaving dull wisdom to those leisure hours
That seldom visit those whom passion-flowers
Have with pernicious sweetness overthrown.
Thine eyes have wandered from the printed page,
And found more learning in a damsel's eye,
Than all the volumes in the world supply;
And sent besides, I guess, an embassage
That no unfriendly warfare means to wage,
And conquers with a look right graciously.

101

CLIII

And thou, proud Lady, not too proud to sin,
Who shouldst have cared for me in my exile,
And, from thy bower of paradise within,
Luring him to thee with thy mother smile,
Taught the too-thoughtless Boy, how near akin
Ingratitude must alway be to guile;
Defeating expectation: so to win,
And re-assure his love for me meanwhile.
Thou wert against me, plotting with his youth,
Persuading him instead to love the maid;
And swear to her an everlasting truth;
And so was I unconsciously betrayed;
For, Lady, thou too blessèd wert, in sooth,
To think of one who never would upbraid.

CLIV

No Jay of Italy, or other land,
That to her artist for Madonna sate,
Supplants thee now in what thou shouldst command,
That he enfeoff his heart who gave his hand.
True were the scriptures of thy Leonate,
No fear thou shouldst misread thy loving mate,
While thus he looks on majesty, more grand
Than Cleopatra's, in her orient state.
O, with the clusters of his Jovian beard,
That to his chest flowed downward,—unafeared
Securely play, and fondly call him then,
“Thy demi-atlas, burgonet of men;”
And make his Son take note, while thus endeared,
His Father's glory fills the house again.

102

CLV

Nor, Lady, look beyond thy present joy,
In wandering thoughts, for other loves than his,
Because they'd make thee taste the heavenly bliss
Of adoration, worship sure to cloy,
And at the best idolatry amiss,
A superstition, pregnant of annoy,
That most betrays when most it loving kiss,
Both him who kneels and her who would enjoy.
But turn admiring and devoutest looks
Upward to him who is a Zeus to thee,
With such religion kindled in thy e'e
As never yet was found in leasing books,
That shew a broken moon in rippling brooks;
Such glances all the soul from hindrance free.

CLVI

O, passing false appeareth to me now
The superstition, the idolatry,
With its parade, its glitter and its glow,
That once enthralled us with such sophistry
It might be feared that truth we ne'er should know,
Had not ere long we found the treachery
Of the sad service that misled us so,
Then left us in our sorrow heedlessly.
O, well for thee, who findest in due time
Such restoration as redeems thy state;
O, ill for me, who thus am desolate,
Condemned to mourn alone my secret crime,
Sans that which renders solitude sublime,
When mind outsoars companionship in fate.

103

CLVII

I suffer with the many, fond of faith,
Who, proving false that which they wished most true,
Lapse once for aye into the moral death
Of such like infidelity as saith
The world's a labyrinth without a clue,
And, having loved unwisely, dread anew
To love where love may meet with loving breath,
So lose the chance of healing might ensue.
None other, or in earth or heavèn, may
Replace thee in the heart whose void I feel;
So doomed am I, lovelorn, to shape my way,
A hopeless wanderer without appeal,
No queen among the stars to whom to kneel,
No goddess 'mong the groves with whom to stray.

CLVIII

O, lonely pilgrim without shrine to seek;
Voyager, of compass and of chart deprived,
Who nighs the rock whereon his ship must break,
That else had harboured safe in sheltered creek:
O, way-worn traveller who has survived
The ties that bound him; at his home arrived,
Finds all is in the grave, nor deigns to speak,
Unfriended, and unchilded, and unwived;
Then wanders forth again to alien shores,
And would, in silence or forgetfulness,
Conceal the grief that stuns with its excess,
And all approach to sympathy abhors.
'Tis manlier to be mute than to express
Some sorrows; best to yield than fight some wars.

104

CLIX

Yet how intense soe'er my hidden grief,
I cannot chuse but hear the voice of song,
For music, when nought else, can give relief,
Such charms unto the art of verse belong;
And now, dear Boy, I hear, in numbers strong,
A hearty welcome meant for thee in chief,
But also for thy Bride, and nothing wrong,
To wish your mutual joy may not be brief.
Even I, though stricken with my sorrow dumb,
The wakening strain can feel, and listen pleased
The notes of your Epithalamiüm,
The cadences still past, and still to come,
And, as they rise and fall, my heart is eased,
Though with the tones my weeping be increased.

CLX

Sing Iö Hymen, soon as waked exclaimed
Aurora blushing; this Apollo heard,
And 'gan his shell to sound; for he preferred
Such mirth to silence, since he long had aimed
To lead the joyance, Tellus had averred
That destiny had ages back proclaimed
This morn should bring, ere the gay lark were stirred
To quit his nest in revelry untamed.
And so the air was all with music filled,
And inspirations on the breeze descended,
And through the panting bosom gladly thrilled
Of youth and maiden, as their steps they bended,
Singing while they in long procession wended,
To festal altar, as by Herè willed.

105

CLXI

So at this Hour and Season, morn and spring,
The Heavens and Earth were married in consent,
That two fair creatures of the element,
Most highly favoured of the Elfin king,
Sould test the virtue of the magic ring,
That for the finger of a Bride is meant,
When fitting mate, to cure her discontent,
Shall place it there, his purpose symboling.
So Truth and Beauty wed; and men rejoice,
That so much love with so much innocence
Lives still in faithful hearts; and, free of choice,
To their delight give utterance and voice.
And women join the mystic chorus, whence
Both Iö Hymen, with the dawn, commence.

CLXII

Fair boys and damsels, with your wreathèd brows,
Your mystic garlands peering at the sky,
Sing, shout and dance, as in the days gone by,
When nature might in carnival carouse,
And ask no licence and no liberty,
And none might be enforcèd to keep house
For dread of thief or other enemy,
But all disport them under shady boughs.
O, come with pipe and tabour, girls and boys,
And smite the timbrel, singing to their praise,
That one of twain are made; each best obeys,
Who the Creator's bounty best enjoys;
And makes the Hours of this chief of Days,
Though long, seem brief with your delirious noise.

106

CLXIII

O, speed the Hours that they bring-in the Night,
For under shadow of his wing must be
Performed the holiest, most religious rite,
That none but they, the happy pair, may see.
Leave them alone to their most sweet delight;
Retire with reverence, and with veilèd sight,
From love's most sacred bower and sanctuary,
From wanton gaze and loud intrusion free.
Be sure the deed that crowns all other deeds
Will not be left by them unsolemnized,
For all good powers are with them, whence proceeds
Each object for its beauty mainly prized.
With patience wait the fruit; no haste there needs,
For with their hearts hath nature sympathized.

CLXIV

Ah, who! for me such song can ne'er be sung,
No hymeneal on my love awaits,
That perished where it triumphed. Men among,
I am not of them. Sorrow consecrates
Whom it secludes, and that which dieth young
Is favoured by the Heavens. Hence, vain debates—
Hence, all remembrance that but desolates.
To one resolve my knitted nerves are strung.—
No more I cherish indolence, the cause
Of all my sin, my sorrow, and my shame;
Hence was I ignorant of my proper aim,
And stood in fear of undiscovered laws,
And of that wonder which still overawes
The spirit lost to truth, and dead to fame.

107

CLXV

Saidst thou that diligence were idler far
Than very idleness? Why should we sow
If we are ne'er to reap? Thy luckless star
Predicts no harvest on the earth below—
Thy guerdon's in the heavens—on earth is war,
Thy peace in other worlds can only grow.
O, fatal thought, that would all effort mar,
And false withal. Great things of growth are slow.
Though late, they yet bear fruit, and while thou speakest,
A second autumn, lo, thy work hath blest,
The first had seemed to shun. Before thou wreakest
Thy disappointment on thy proper breast,
Learn what it is thou by thy labour seekest,
Whether the earliest budding, or the best.

CLXVI

Then seek, my Soul, the highest; caring not
For what the meaner appetites require,
That we should eat, or drink, or what attire
We should put on; thine a sublimer lot,
To reason, to reflect, to learn, desire
Knowledge and Wisdom, and accomplish what
Of skill is needed to obtain the fire
Of inspiration, and prevent the rot
Of superstition, like a canker, eating
Into the life and substance of the mind;
As sure it will if lazily inclined
To slumber, and, with credulous entreating,
Seek vain support in witchcraft, error greeting
With that same faith for truth alone designed.

108

CLXVII

Sloth is unskilful ever, unexercised
In reason, careless of the proof of things,
Submissive to impressions, subsidised
By custom, nestling underneath the wings
Of blind authority, safe, unadvised,
And free from all those wholesome questionings
Which public creeds, even when recognised,
Permit to all save servile underlings.
This unenquiring Sloth, to worship prone,
And apt, intolerantly, to enthrone
Some prejudice, in place of principle,
And act the bigot's part, which is not well;
This must I, like the snake his slough, disown,
And shun henceforth—nay, dread far more than Hell.

CLXVIII

Well didst thou, Hermas, from the Tyber's river,
To draw the Roman maiden bathing there,
Lending a helping hand to Beauty fair;
What, though an arrowy flight from Cupid's quiver
Pierced the young heart that looked on to despair?
And wherefore? Lying visions, thin as air,
Rebuked the youth for sin where sin was never,
In faithful love that means to love for ever.
Ill didst thou, Hermas, to list heedfully
That agèd Crone who bore the accusing Book,
And shewed the building of the Tower to thee,
That stood upon the waters. Let it be.
Not alway shall it stand:—for, closer look,
It fades when that is done it undertook.

109

CLXIX

O, credulous and erring, to enounce
Mere subjects of the mind for objects true:
Rash as the pard, the panther, or the ounce
Misprising distance, on his preys to pounce.
Thus Thaumaturgus, whom the Church miscrowns,
In temple shelter sought, while tempest blew,
Trembling with terror of the demon crew,
Till cleared the air as morning nigher grew.
Then sighed the fiend in his believing ear,
A Christian had expelled him from his shrine—
O, misbelieving Saint, who thought, 'tis clear,
Those pagan gods were gods, though not divine;
His faith as strong in the old creed, as in
The gospel he would teach both far and near.

CLXX

O, Superstition; that such weed as thou,
Within devotion's garden lingers now,
That still Religion should be, now as then,
A pious mask put on by carnal men!
Hence is it that the progress is so slow
Of Truth, though aided both by sword and pen,
And many know not what they seem to know,
Though held in reverence as clerkly men.
That Saints should so deceive, or be deceived,
And bring disgrace upon the faith they love,
The limitsof our knowledge misconceived,
Despite the clearest teaching from above!
Sages in vain have written, . . still believed
The phantoms they had laboured to disprove.

110

CLXXI

From carnal Egypt; even from Greece escaped;
The mystic Isis wears no more her veil—
No fable now,—no allegoric tale,
The truth to me no longer trimly draped.
What, though the famous Argo ne'er did sail,
Nor e'er for the Thessalian ocean gaped,
The Phrygian Fleece be feigned, and lies prevail
Of wronged Medea, or Europa raped?
What, though by her be knowledge symbolized,
And dauntless valour Jason represent,
The Dragon, envy; and the fruit of gold
The meed obtained by merit recognised?
I have the lore, the courage that is meant,
Subdue the envy, and the guerdon hold.

CLXXII

Watch must I keep on my sad heart, and more
On my mind's growth, that it grow not awry,
So that my faith from its deficiency
Lose nothing, or presuming over-soar
All limits from excess; when peril nigh
Threatens from too much sensibility,
Or hardening of the nature; nor ignore
What health may prompt, or sickness may deplore.
For little, at the best, Religion sways
Such individual accidents as give
To characters the tricks by which they live;
Wherefore I caution use, lest what betrays
Defect in me may injure what obeys
Laws that are perfect, supersensitive.

111

CLXXIII

Grace is engrafted on the natural man,
But changes not the individual type,
Though it refine his motives, or make ripe
The fruit he bears which, since the world began,
Tastes sour till sweetened thus:—for nothing can
Convert identity into a pipe,
That sendeth out the breath which through it ran
Unaltered, in its transit from the lip,
Or by its structure gives not special tone
To that which passes through the instrument.
Hence Paul the Christian is but “clothed upon,”
And yet beneath the robe retains his own,
A Hebrew still though to the Gentile sent,
As learned, as zealous, but more eloquent.

CLXXIV

The Voice that came unto the Gentile soul,
That soul made music of to suit its will,
And, changed in name, retained its nature still.
The Genius of each people spurns control,
His tastes the same, his virtues, and his skill,
Albeit with added powër to fulfil
The destiny that is his proper dole,
And win the crown that waits him at the goal.
The Roman worshipt at each ancient shrine,
And bowed before the idols that he knew,
His gods repudiate as no more divine,
But owned as saints, and deemed as such more true.
The pagan spirit, though we thus refine,
Remains the same, whilst altered to the view.

112

CLXXV

Wherefore it me behoves, if I would shun
That infidelity which leaves the mind
A craving void with little food, or none,
To learn what at the first that Voice designed,
The teachings of that Word which, as the Son
Of the Eternal Father, taught mankind
In every age, that Deity was One,
And we his Offspring, whether deaf or blind.
That Word which spake God's will in divers ways,
By prophets and by sages, and still rules
The pregnant minds, whose living Wisdom sways
The erring race of Churches and of Schools,
And to the souls of all the truth conveys,
Though questioned still by bigots and by fools.

CLXXVI

Wo to the Angels of the fallen Shrines,
Seduced to sense from their ideal thrones,
For whom is no repentance; hopeless Ones,
For whom no promise comes, no mercy shines,
And no Redeemer lives, nor Death atones;
No Saviour of your seed, immortal Sons
Of everlasting Light, your guilt confines
And expiätes within permitted lines.
Example have ye none, through which to rise
Out of the ruin ye have sunk into;
No priest, who, like you tempted, feels for you;
No mother, back to win you, with her eyes,
To the great Father, whom her charms so woo,
He stoops to her on earth even from the skies.

113

CLXXVII

Blessèd is Man, ye Lost; with you compared,
Whate'er his sorrow, still a child of God:
Your highest joy to him had ministered,
Had ye but kept your first estate, nor dared
'Twixt him and his Creator, unallowed,
To mediate of mere will, by that ensnared
To usurpation; him elect avowed,
You reprobate, for He subdues the proud.
Therefore, restorèd Man shall still adore
In holiest temples whence exiled are ye,
Who once were worshipt with idolatry;
And God reigns monarch all his kingdoms o'er,
Whether the abyss of his infinity
The heavèns, or the earth, for evermore.

CLXXVIII

So will I on a pilgrimage, though late,
And left alone, go forth, companionless,
Without or scrip or purse, until the gate
I reach of that far City, whose high state,
Beyond the border of the wilderness,
Hath sure foundations, and doth open wait
For all who will to enter; who redress
And refuge need, or guerdon as I guess.
Therein no temple, but thou, God, alone.
No sun, no moon, but thou, O Light divine;
Nor night nor winter there, day still shall shine,
And summer be eternal; on His throne
Each equal sits, nor king nor priest shall own,
Save, Father, thee! All praise and power be thine.

114

CLXXIX

I have grown old with passion and with thought,
And in prophetic wrath I curse and bless,
Like Israel just escaped the wilderness.
My spirit on Gerizim blessing-fraught,
On Ebal teeming with a curse o'erwrought,
And those antiphonies resound no less
Within my heart, as fearing to transgress,
Or setting sacred Covenant at nought.
The stream of Jordan passed, on either height,
My thoughts assemble, o'er the deep ravine,
After due worship in the broad daylight,
And malison and benison recite—
That stern as Ebal, barren, poor and mean;
This, like Gerizim, fertile and serene.

CLXXX

Cursèd be they that Idols false revere,
Or worshipt of the tribe, or of the man,
Or formed in forum or in theatre;
On them and theirs fall an eternal ban,
Who for the things that are take what appear,
Or truth for errors quit, or words prefer
To the sublimer powers whence they began,
Or follow blindly the leviathan
Of old authority. Accursed be they
Who to the senses give empiric sway,
And the self-conscious reason would dethrone;
Oppressors and destroyers, who waylay
The living mind, that fain would walk alone,
With hidden terrors, while it toileth on.

115

CLXXXI

Blessèd be they that, pure in heart and mind,
Obey the laws that are in both enshrined;
Voices of Him in whom they live and move,
With whom the words of Law are words of Love;
And those which Nature, for due ends designed,
Observes—to the profane among mankind
Revealed not. Blessèd shall such wisdom prove,
And guide the soul in search of realms above.
Fertile of truth shall every spirit be,
To whom such Voices come—the Word within,
And its far echoes in infinity—
And, midst a shadow-world of death and sin,
True Substance find, and Causes that are kin
To us and Him, whose images are we.

CLXXXII

Amen! The war is over, with the din
Of creeds and systems, the idolatries
Of sense and license. Now, my Soul, begin
To seize the peace for which the spirit sighs,
In all its yearnings and strong agonies;
But not with fond impatience, that would win
Quiet, ere safe from sortie and surprise,
The snare that lies in wait, the secret gin.
Welcome to weary pilgrim is the close
Of the long journey he has trod on foot;
The wished-for end of hardships, toils and woes,
With all the guilt of which they are the root;
The promised Salem, where she may repose,
Secure from danger, guerdoned well to boot.

116

CLXXXIIII

Gold is not heavier than a Feather is,
Nor is the feather lighter than the gold,
If from the outward air we both withhold.
Nor will one man be wiser, as I wis,
Nor less wise than another, that than this,
If from the School excluded, young or old;
Self-knowing, though nought else to them unfold.
Makes Teaching, then, the seeming difference? Yes.
But boor or scholar, Conscience reigns in both,
That both precedes instruction and succeeds,
Making them equal, whether men or youth;
Hence comes to simple souls inspirèd Truth,
Whom no experience lightens or misleads;
Even the Idiot, who the world ne'er heeds.

CLXXXIV

But in the air the coin will reach the ground
Ere doth the feather. So the cloistered monk,
Delivered from the cell whereto he shrunk,
Will soon above his equals there be found.
Truly, with thanks I should the more abound,
That I, who might have been for ever sunk
In servitude, have broken from the pound,
Wherein they had imprisoned my poor trunk.
Never too grateful can our manhood be
For the rich freedom that it brings, when we
Launch on the world, like vsssels out to sea,
And breathe the air, and revel in the light,
And all seems boundless to the expanded sight,
The very image of the infinite.

117

CLXXXV

Who said my heart was withered, dead and cold,
That disappointed love had killed all feeling,
And never would these eyes again behold
The love-like, in the form of woman, stealing
Into the finer senses they enfold;
And, to the inner depths of sight, revealing
That truer beauty which, like faery gold,
The natural orbs are skilled not in unsealing?
Again the well-spring in my soul o'erflows;
The living water, where the desert is,
Requickens life, and murmurs to the close,
Where, sitting meekly by the low hedgerows,
That skirt the humble gardens of poor bliss,
A maiden muses on her lover's kiss.

CLXXXVI

I looked beyond me for a loftier love,
In those false days of my unhappiness,
When, lured by grandeur, still my gaze above
The common ranged, and fain would bear the stress
Of glory, circling that Celestial Dove,
Which o'er the mystic soul still hovered, less
To hallow than enable to express
The wordless thoughts wherewith it vainly strove.
The breath still wrestled, agitated, wild,
The fiat to pronounce that should dispel
The darkness on the heavenly deeps uppiled:
'Twas uttered, and the light made visible
The face of that fair region; reconciled
The yearning powers that sought to speak the spell.

118

CLXXXVII

O, now the modest flower beneath my feet
Wooes me to rapture, or within the brook
I mark the inverted heaven with as complete
A joy as when, with an aspiring look,
I scaled the sky with daring indiscreet.
O, meek-eyed maid, hear me without rebuke,
When I confess this heart erewhile ne'er beat
With such a passion as it lately shook.
I could not help our lips together met;
Mine left a fire in thine, and thine in mine,
Which is in either unextinguished yet;
And when we parted, that “good night” of thine,
Without the expected kiss, nigh overset
My heart, that swelled as with a thought divine.

CLXXXVIII

To thee when first I stooped to greet thy smile,
I seemed a god, who, wandering from the skies,
Would, with the human, soften and beguile
The sternness that protects most deities,
Who, dwelling far from aught that may defile,
Know not our passion's weakness; thy surprise
The greater, charms like thine had means to wile
Me to thy state, though lowly and unwise.—
But I will lift thee by this heart's exchange;
Thou shalt be more than equal, and command
A larger prospect, and a loftier range,
Than those less simple, with a mightier hand
To push their destiny beyond the grange,
Can win,—with all their power o'er sea or land.

119

CLXXXIX

I wander by the margin of the sea,
Duly at eve, or seek the crowded pier,
To watch the boat come in, that, then and there,
My well-belovèd may be brought to me,
Though unexpected not, yet suddenly,
Like one though distant yet for ever near.
O, how the thoughts that to the heart are dear
Make strange the speech, and words bewilder me.—
Alas, not by the water or the land
Comes the sweet hope that in the heart but lives.
Alas, in vain the breeze my brow has fanned,
It burns with shame, but still my heart forgives.
Alone, returning from the unfaithful strand—
What can be true, when Love itself deceives?

CXC

My breast has leaned against the thorn like thine,
And poured forth all the poetry of pain,
Grief bred of folly, not of thy disdain,
Nurtured of wilfulness, and by design,
Because I played with passion though divine,
And what I felt not had presumed to feign,
Whence I was justly punished, not in vain,
And what thy heart had felt was felt by mine.
I watched thy dwelling, fearing by the door
To enter, through my consciousness of guilt;
But when still closed the lattice where before
Thou satest, chanting to the stars a lilt,
Which I had tuned to verse,—then all was o'er;
The poniard pierced me to the very hilt.

120

CXCI

The spell, that I have worded, charms me more
Than her for whom 'twas craftily designed—
Its murmurs linger in my heart and mind,
Like Ocean's ever on the conscious shore;
And interlink themselves, until I find
A chain is moulded, powerful to bind
The magian's spirit, who misused his lore
To fetter one who no defences wore.
Fair innocence! the spell pronounced for thee
Has bound not thee alone, as it was meant,
But in thy heart repeated bindeth me,
And holds my heart against my own consent.
If thou art bound, I am no longer free;
If not, I've been indeed improvident.

CXCII

Alas! the fate of Semele was thine—
'Twas thy ambition to be clasped by Jove,
And revel wildly in celestial love.
So to thy earthly yielded the divine:
And when thy face most radiantly did shine,
In his fond smile, that sparkled from above,
And from thy countenance would not remove,
Terror had been more true than triumph fine.
For as the glory grew in that rapt gaze,
The heavenly fire within it kindled more,
And burst at length into a lustrous blaze,
Which, ere it could thy dazzled sense amaze,
Consumed thee with the flames, that upward bore
The aspiring soul by loving taught to soar.

121

CXCIII

Into what Star art thou translated now,
Thou conquering martyr of devoted love,
Who wert, and art not? On the earth below,
Thy frame is ashes; but in heaven above,
Thy spirit towers, where other spirits bow,
Kindling the ether; for all flame art thou,
Diffused as yet, ere long insphered to move,
A new-born sister 'midst the sacred grove.
Into this urn thy ashes we will gather,
Whereon thy radiant orb at night shall look,
And gild it with thy loving beams, the rather
For that they suffered undeserved rebuke,
While they composed the form thy soul forsook,
That challenged all so daringly the Father.

CXCIV

The song-bird widowed of his mate is mute,
And silent hovers near the silent urn;
A voice that once was mellow as a lute,
Is choked with grief, and may no longer suit,
Sweet song that needs sweet music, though it yearn
To shape the thoughts that breathe in words that burn.
Alas! the lonely life may nothing boot;
It wastes, consumes, and reapeth no return.
The moonlight glitters on the marble cold;
It warms not, cheers not; all that is within
Is ashes nought may kindle. Overbold,
Methought my heart was living, and might win
Heat by its motion, loving without sin,
But all is pulseless in its withered mould.

122

CXCV

Why linger I this side the Jordan flood
In body, seeing my spirit has long since
Found in the Canaan, the new and good,
A better paradise, where man renewed,
Of all the wide creation crownèd prince,
Of deathless glory shall the world convince,
And by unfallen woman fitly wooed,
Banquet on fruit immortal? Wherefore wince?
No longer shiver on the brink, but bathe
Within the River, whose clear waters give
Life to the swimmer, whose wish is to live,
And, free'd at length from trouble, pain and wrath,
Land him where serpent ne'er may soil his path,
Or tempt to Love and Death the sensitive.

CXCVI

A world unseen behind the Visible
Supports it and sustains, even as the Cause
Includes the effect;—a world of powers and laws,
Like that within us, be it heaven or hell;
And we from both can raise, as by a spell,
Phantoms, the which the living Spirit draws
From either sphere; and each with miracle
May haunt the other, making reason pause.—
But oft, alas, we err, and are misled
By semblance, following for the much-loved shape
Another something like. Wherefore we shed
The tears of disappointment, fain escape
By Faith's eclipse in future such mishap,
And mourn afresh the unreturning Dead.

123

CXCVII

And can we then not penetrate the Veil,
And see behind its foldings the loved Soul,
That had so late found there her proper goal?
And can so soon the dear remembrance fail
Of him whose thoughts were wont her thoughts control,
That nought survives the parting hour we wail,
No wish, for our reunion, till the whole
Of earthly life be spent, and told the tale?—
O, canst thou commune, in more subtle wise,
With the intelligent spirit of my heart,
That, diving deep into its mysteries,
I may behold with introspective eyes,
Not only the sweet image shrined apart,
But thy sweet self, bright spirit, as thou art?

CXCVIII

If thou be spirit, haply, like the wind,
Thou mayst be audible, albeit unseen;
If not so, simply because I am blind,
And therefore cannot pierce the gauze between,
Which were transparent else. Were it not kind,
Even now while my great sorrow's wounds are green,
Thy Voice should tell me of thy state serene,
Whispering like that of angels to my mind?
Of that I cannot see, may I not hear?
And so believe? . . by Hearing letting Faith
Wake in the soul, long doomed to sleep or death,
Until the Word has touched the listening ear?
O, let thy voice be, like thy presence, near!
O, let me feel the motion of thy breath!

124

CXCIX

Is He not ever nigh of whom are we,
And feel we not His Spirit breathing round,
At once our dwelling, centre, line and bound,
Creator, Father, God? O, answer me!
With Him art thou, and hence I am with thee.
With Him then dwell my thought, and thou art found
Where my heart's chiefest treasures hidden be,
And where my hopes most surely shall be crowned.—
O, Thou, the Eternal and the Infinite,
The Omnipresent, comprehending all;
If I am dazzled 'tis with thy pure light,
That overpowers my created sight,
Which turns away at once its tender ball.
Speak Thou to me; I'll hearken, if Thou call.

CC

Immortal and invisible, Thou, O King,
The Only Wise, embracest with Thy love
The trusting Soul, Thy presence shadowing
Beneath the asylum of Thy powerful wing,
Lest, if beheld, the light too strong should prove,
Quenching her own; or causing her to cling
To Thy attraction so that she remove
Her proper sphere, and blend with Thine above.—
One single glimpse, and that with caution shielded,
To the impassioned soul hath God e'er yielded;
All else is cloud, and mystery, and night,
And phantom powers by whom the world is wielded,
Not for her comfort, but in her despite—
While to herself she seems abandoned quite.

125

CCI

Courage, thou fluttering Rider of the storm,
And to its pressure still thy act conform,
While the winds blow, and the waves rise. When erst
His arms were round thee, as they were at first,
Even when his kisses on thy lips were warm,
Yet of thy Lord thou sawest not the form,
Unseen by thee, while thou by him wert nurst,
And cradled on his bosom. At the worst,
The matter read but so, dear friend of mine;
Grant me thy loving mate unseen as then,
Because for contemplation too divine—
Yet take to thee thy inward calm again;
Not absent he, because beyond thy ken,
Nay, though unfelt, yet present may be thine.

CCII

Look on the Earth, Mother of living creatures,
Once bosomed in the Infinite lay she,
An undefinèd possibility,
A force unfashioned yet, and lacking features.
Anon, distinction grows 'twixt nascent natures,
And then division; those ascending free
Above the finite space, perfected statures,
Of excellence archangelic in degree—
And these descending, showing like the stars
In the siderial heavens, each rolling there
A realm of light, and all cherubic cars,
Chariots of animal existence, where
Matter and thought in everlasting wars
Contend for kingship o'er the planet there.

126

CCIII

Psyche, while wandering through untrodden wilds,
Found once a quiet spot where she might rest,
And sleep. Her dreams were guileless as a child's,
And wist not what was hovering near her nest.
Young Love looked on. Selecting then the best,
From his full quiver, of his arrows fine,
He aimed it straight at her ungirdled breast,
Wandering himself by chance, though so divine.
—Thus Love was forced to love, where only he
Meant to enforce the nymph to feel his flame,
And suffered all the smart as much as she.
One glance she caught of his divinity,
Kindling desire, whileas he proved the same,
Thus each at once breathed forth the other's name.

CCIV

Love, and the Soul! O, fain for Love would she
Barter her dower of immortality,
Had highest Wisdom not eternally
Preserved it to her by a firm decree.
One glance, no more, vouchsafed her; then, though nigh,
Darkness still hid him from her tearful eye,
Till longer so resist the wish to see
She could not, and gazed on the Deity.
Sleeping he lay, while on his heavenly brow
Her lamp sheds light; sudden the enamoured Boy,
Alas, awakes and rises. Vanished, now;
Too curious Bride, and ah! too little coy.
The world is all a wilderness, and thou
A widowed pilgrim, seeking her lost joy.

Calliope.