The Poetical Works of Thomas Cooper :: :: University of Virginia Library

THE PURGATORY OF SUICIDES.

A PRISON RHYME. IN TEN BOOKS

iii

DEDICATORY SONNET. .

TO THOMAS CARLYLE

Right noble age-fellow, whose speech and thought
Proclaim thee other than the supple throng
Who glide Life's custom-smoothëd path along,—
Prescription's easy slaves,—strangers to doubt,
Because they never think!—a lay untaught
I offer thee. Receive the humble song,—
A tribute of the feeble to the strong
Of inward ken,—for that the theme is fraught
With dreams of Reason's high enfranchisement.
Illustrious Schiller's limner, unto thee
Mind's freedom must be precious,—or what lent
His toil its light, and what fires thine? The free
Of soul with quenchless zeal must ever glow
To spread the freedom which their own minds know.

Stafford Gaol. May 3, 1845.

THE PURGATORY OF SUICIDES.

PROËME.

BOOK I.

Exordium.—Chartist address to the Potters and Colliers, on strike, at Hanley, 15th August, 1842—Author's imprisonment. Dream.—Voyage of Death and souls of Suicides—Landing on the Purgatorial shore—Tortuous journey—Cavern of wonders—Central dome—Hall of Suicide. Kings—Its hieroglyphic shapes. Array of Suicide Spirits: Sardanapalus, Chow-Sin, Cambes, Œdipus, Nauplius, Ægeus, Saul, Zimri, Ajax Telamon, Codrus, Lycurgus, Charondas, Appius Claudius, Antony, Nero, Otho, Maximian, Bonosus, Mithridates, Juba, Nicocles, his wife and daughters, Althæa, Dido, Sisygambis, Cleopatra, Boadicea. Debate of Sardanapalus, Chow-Sin, Antony, Nero, Maximian, Mithridates and Lycurgus, on the prospect of an annihilation of Evil, and the universal reign of Goodness and Happiness, on earth and in Hades.

BOOK II.

Exordium.—Invocation to the Shades of English Poets: Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspere, Byron, Shelley, Milton. Dream.—Milton's spirit guides the dreamer to limbo, in the Purgatorial land—Vision of the Mount of Vanity, and crowds of toiling spirits, the Suicides of Fanaticism. Dialogue of Empedocles and Cleombrotus: arrival of Calanus, the Indian Suicide, and his discourse on the coming triumph of Goodness.

BOOK III.

Exordium.—Invocation to the Sun—Memory of a mother— Ancient Sun-worship—Allusion to Christ. Dream.—Vision of a wild lake in Purgatorial land—Appearance of the spirit of Judas Iscariot—His words of horror—His cave of gigantic snakes—Pros- trate form of the Suicide of Cray—Fierce dialogue of Judas and Castlereagh, who relates his vision of ‘the Radiant Boy’—Judas mocks his suffering, and reminds him of his treason to Ireland, his Oppression of the Poor, and his courtier fawning on the wicked king—Castlereagh's defence of the memory of his royal master, and fierce retort on Judas, and His treason—Rage of Iscariot—Sub- sides into penitent sorrow—His eulogy of Christ—Judas renews his mad rage, until Castlereagh flees, horror-stricken.

BOOK IV.

Exordium.—Lines to the Robin Redbreast, a prison-visitor— Allusion to the degradation of the English poor, under the new. Poor Law of 1834. Dream.—Vision of a woodland scene in the Purgatorial land of Suicide Poets—The shade of Chatterton, and his harp-theme—Funebrial avenue of trees, and monumental form of Sappho—Awakes to life, and hymns her unrequited love of Phaon —Dialogue of Lucretius and Sappho—The Herald-ghost of Lucan summons the spirits of Suicidal Poets to an assembly in the Hall of Kings, and they depart.

BOOK V.

Exordium.—Invocation to Night—The festal season of sin— Allusion to the oppressed poor of England. Dream.—Vision, in Purgatorial land, of a barren plain, with its broken monuments— The stone cirque, and assembly of Suicides of the French Revolu- tion—Speeches of Buzot, Condorcet, Roland, Pétion, Valazé, and Le Bas—Interruption of their sceptical reasonings by the sudden appearance of Samson—His stern reproof of the blasphemers, and evanishment—Speeches of Babœuf and Condorcet.

BOOK VI.

Exordium.—Prisoner's thoughts, as he sees from the barred window of his sleeping cell, an insane murderer taken, in funeral procession, to be executed—Allusion to Christ—Struggle with scep- tical thoughts. Dream.—Vision of a larger assembly in the Hall of Kings—Allegoric thrones of the new Suicidal Spirits: Demosthenes, Isocrates, Themistocles, Diæus, Zeno, Cato, Marcus Curtius, Brutus and Cassius, Caius Gracchus, Carbo, Marius the younger, Photius, Hannibal, Achitophel, Eleazar the Maccabee, Razis, Arbogastes the Frank. Renewed debate of spirits—Speeches of Mithridates and Cleanthes—Jeering, disgrace, and evanishment of Appius Claudius—Speech of Hannibal—Evanishment of the spirits of Nero and Bonosus—Speeches of Caius Gracchus, Demosthenes, Themi- stocles, Saul, Achitophel, Eleazar, Nicocles, and Otho—Disgrace and evanishment of the spirit of Achitophel—Speech of Mithridates, and summary reply of Lycurgus, who announces that the end of Evil, and the reign of Goodness, on earth and in Hades, 'are near.

BOOK VII.

Exordium.—Invocation to London—Marriage of Queen Victoria —Whitehall—The Mall—Duke of York's column—St. Paul's, and its monuments of warriors, with Howard, Reynolds, Jones, and Johnson—Westminster Abbey. Dream.—Vision of a waste, in Purgatorial land, with spirits of the Suicides of Vice and Folly— Speeches of Mordaunt, Petronius Arbiter, Villeneuve, Apicius, Sophonius Tigellinus, Vatel, and Lumley, earl of Scarborough— Herald-ghost of Robert-le-Diable summons the Suicide Spirits to the final assembly at the Hall of Kings—refusal of Apicius and Tigellinus—The rest depart.

BOOK VIII.

Exordium.—Organ melodies heard by the prisoner, from the Gaol chapel—Aspirations for the future happiness of England— Memory of an aged fellow-prisoner. Dream.-Vision of a waste, in the Purgatorial land of the Suicides of Sorrow—Cavern of Dark- ness—Sculptured forms of sadness: Orpheus, Galatea and Acis, Hero and Leander, Artemisia, Æschylus, Socrates, the child of Pollio, Agelastus, Agamedes and Trophonius, Bion and Cleobis, Praxiteles, Phaëthon, voyagers by Scylla and Charybdis—Hymn of Sorrow—Crowds of the Suicides of Sorrow: Cimbri, Xanthians, Saguntines, and Jews of York. Dialogue of Pontalba and Atticus —Speeches of Menedemus and Vibius Varius—Herald-ghost of Quintilius Varus summons the Suicide Spirits to the final assembly in the Hall of Kings—Their glad departure.

BOOK IX.

Exordium.—Farewell of a convict to his wife and child, heard by the prisoner—Invocation to Woman—Allusions to the mothers of Homer, Moses, and Washington, to Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Hemans, and Madame de Stael. Dream.—Vision of a flowery plain, in Purgatorial land, and the spirits of Female Suicides hastening over it to the final assembly in the Hall of Kings—Speeches of Porcia, Arria, the wife of Asdrubal, Sophronia and Baruna the Jewess— Choral song of the spirits.

BOOK X.

Exordium.—Invocation to Liberty—Allusions to Anaxarchus, Galgacus, Wallace, Tell, Raleigh, Latimer, Algernon Sydney— Defective character of modern patriots: ‘Finality John,’ and Lord Brougham, the patron of the new Poor Law—Spread of know- ledge among the working-classes, and new prospects of freedom— Prison reflections. Dream.—Vision of the central dome filled with statues of the great and good, in Purgatorial land—Speeches of Demetrius, Phalereus, Berthier, Wolfe Tone, Montezuma—Assembly in the Hall of Kings—Speeches of Lycurgus, Mithridates, Cato, Lucretius, Gracchus, Demosthenes, Condorcet, and Romilly. Joy- chaunt of the spirits, celebrating the universal reign of Pity and Mercy, Goodness, Love, and Truth.

BOOK THE FIRST.

1

“Slaves, toil no more! Why delve, and moil, and pine,
To glut the tyrant-forgers of your chain?
Slaves, toil no more! Up, from the midnight mine,
Summon your swarthy thousands to the plain;
Beneath the bright sun marshalled, swell the strain
Of liberty; and, while the lordlings view
Your banded hosts, with stricken heart and brain,
Shout, as one man,—‘Toil we no more renew,
Until the Many cease their slavery to the Few!’

2

“‘We'll crouch, and toil, and weave, no more—to weep!’
Exclaim your brothers from the weary loom:
Yea, now, they swear, with one resolve, dread, deep,
“We'll toil no more—to win a pauper's doom!’
And, while the millions swear, fell Famine's gloom
Spreads from their haggard faces like a cloud
Big with the fear and darkness of the tomb.
How, 'neath its terrors, are the tyrants bowed!
Slaves, toil no more—to starve! Go forth and tame the Proud!

3

And why not tame them all? Of more than clay
Do your high lords proclaim themselves? Of blood
Illustrious boast they? or, that reason's ray
Beams from the brows of Rollo's robber-brood

“Rollo's robber- brood” was intended as a compliment to the English nobility, so many of whom claim to be descended, in common with William the Bastard, their brigand chief, from the soldiers of Rollo the Norman. Mr. Disraeli, however, seems to be of opinion that these pretensions to chivalrous descent deserve no credit; and, surely, he is an authority on such a subject.

“I have always understood,” said Coningsby, “that our peerage was the finest in Europe.”

“From themselves,” said Millbank, “and the heralds they pay to paint their carriages. But I go to facts. When Henry the Seventh called his first Parliament, there were only twenty-nine temporal peers to be found, and even some of them took their seats illegally, for they had been attainted. Of those twenty-nine not five remain, and they, as the Howards for instance, are not Norman nobility. We owe the English peerage to three sources: the spoliation of the Church; the open and flagitious sale of its honours by the elder Stuarts; and the boroughmongering of our own times.” —

Coningsby, vol ii., chap. 4.

More brightly than from yours? Let them make good
Their vaunt of nobleness—or now confess
The majesty of ALL! Raise ye the feud—
Not, like their sires, to murder and possess;
But for unbounded power to gladden and to bless.

4

What say ye,—that the priests proclaim content?
So taught their Master, who the hungry fed
As well as taught; who wept with men, and bent,
In gentleness and love, o'er bier and bed
Where wretchedness was found, until it fled!
Rebuked he not the false ones, till his zeal
Drew down their hellish rage upon his head?
And who, that yearns for world-spread human weal,
Doth not, ere long, the weight of priestly vengeance feel?

5

Away!—the howl of wolves in sheep's disguise
Why suffer ye to fill your ears?—their pride
Why suffer ye to stalk before your eyes?
Behold, in pomp, the purple prelate ride,
And, on the beggar by his chariot's side
Frown sullenly, although in rags and shame
His brother cries for food! Up, swell the tide
Of retribution, till ye end the game
Long practised by proud priests in meek Religion's name.

6

Slaves, toil no more! Despite their boast, ev'n kings
Must cease to sit in pride,—without your toil:
Spite of their potency,—the sceptred things
Who through all time, have thirsted to embroil
Man with his neighbour, and pollute the soil
Of holiest mother Earth with brothers' gore,—
Join but to fold your hands, and ye will foil
To utter helplessness,—yea, to the core
Strike both their power and craft with death! Slaves, toil no more!”—

7

For that these words of fire I boldly spake
To Labour's children in their agony
Of want and insult; and, like men awake
After drugged slumbers, they did wildly flee
To do they knew not what,—until, with glee,
A store of maddening alcohol they found,
And with its poison fired their misery
To fierce revenge,—swift hurling to the ground
And flames—dwellings, and lifeless things that stood around;—

8

For that I boldly spake these words of fire;
And the starved multitude,—their minds full fraught
With sense of injury, and wild with ire,—
Rushed forth to deeds of recklessness, but nought
Achieved of freedom, since, nor plan, nor thought
Their might directed;—for this treason foul
'Gainst evil tyrants, I was hither brought
A captive,—'mid the vain derisive howl
Of some who thought the iron now should pierce my soul.

9

Let them howl on! Their note, perchance, may change
The earthquake oft is presaged by dull rest:
Kings may, to-morrow, feel its heavings strange!
For my lorn dove, who droopeth in her nest,
I mourn, in tenderness; but, to this breast
Again to clasp my meek one I confide
With fervid trustfulness! Still self-possest,
Since Truth shall one day triumph,—let betide
What may, within these bars in patience I can 'bide.

10

I had a vision, on my prison-bed,
Which took its tinct from the mind's waking throes.
Of patriot blood on field and scaffold shed;
Of martyrs' ashes; of the demon foes
Ubiquitous, relentless, that oppose
And track, through life, the footsteps of the brave
Who champion Truth; of Evil that arose
Within the universe of Good, and gave
To sovereign Man the soul to live his brother's slave;

11

Of knowledge which, from sire to son bequeathed,
Hath ever on the Few with bounty smiled;
But, on the Many, wastingly hath breathed
A pestilence, from the scourged crowd that piled,
Of yore, the pyramids, to the dwarfed child
Whose fragile bloom steam and starvation blast;
Of specious arts, whereby the bees beguiled,
Yield to the sable drones their sweet repast,
And creep, themselves, the path to heaven by pious fast;

12

Of infamy for him who gives himself
A sacrifice to stem the tyrant's rage;
And, for the tyrant's pandar,—peerage, pelf,
And honours blazed with lies on history's page;
Of giant Wrong who, fed, from age to age,
With man's best blood and woman's purest tears,
Seems with our poor humanity to wage
Exterminating war; of hopes and fears
That mock the human worm from youth to grayest years;

13

I, waking, thought or dreamt,—for thoughts are dreams
At best,—until, in weariness of heart,
I cried—Is life worth having? Earth but teems
With floods of evil: 'tis one sordid mart
Where consciences for gold, without a smart,
Are sold; and holiest names are gravest cheats:
Men from their cradles, learn to play a part
At plundering each other: He who beats,
On his weak neighbour, swift, the plundering trick repeats.

14

Is life worth having? Or, is he most wise
Who, with death-potion its fierce fever slakes,
And ends, self-drugged, his mortal miseries?
Can he be guilty who, at once, forsakes
The agony which, sure as death, o'ertakes,
Early or late, all who with wrong contend?
Since Power this earth a clime of misery makes
For him who will not to its godhead bend—
Why to the enfranchised grave with sluggish footsteps wend?

15

Thus feebly pondering, with sore-troubled brain,
The right of suffering man to consummate,
Unsummoned, his high trust, my heart grew fain
To slay the incubus that on it sate,
Breeding disgust of life and jaundiced hate.
Forthwith, I strove the mind's turmoil to quell
By imaging that joy all-elevate
Which through earth's universal heart shall swell
When over land and sea hath rung Oppression's knell.

16

But sadness checked the strain. Enfevered Sleep,
With tardy foot, came last; and, while she bound
My limbs in outward death, within the deep
Recesses of the brain into life wound
These aching thoughts; yea, into shapes that frowned
Or smiled, by turns, with seeming passion rife,
And descant joined on human themes, though sound
Of human voice none uttered:'twas the strife
Of Mind, not audible by mode of mortal life.—

17

Methought I voyaged in the bark of Death,—
Himself the helmsman,—on a skyless sea,
Where none of all his passengers drew breath,
Yet each, instinct with strange vitality,
Glared from his ghastly eye-balls upon me,
And then upon that pilot, who upheld
One chill and fleshless hand so witheringly
That, while around his boat the hoarse waves swelled,
It seemed as if their rage that solemn signal quelled.

18

I know not how these mariners I saw:
No light made visible the grisly crew:
It seemed a vision of the soul, by law
Of corporal sense unfettered, and more true
Than living things revealed to mortal view.
Nor can earth's Babel-syllables unfold
Aught that can shadow forth the mystic hue
Of myriad creatures, or their monstrous mould,
Which thwart that dismal sea their hideous hugeness rolled.

19

Not stature terrible of mastodon
Or mammoth; longitude of lizards vast,
Lords of the slime when earth, from chaos won,
Grew big with primal life, until, aghast,
She quaked at her strange children; not all past
Or present, which from out the dædal earth,
The human reptile, latest born, hath classed
By guess, styling it ‘Knowledge,’ for the mirth
Of future worms, crawling, in pride to death—from birth;

20

Not old leviathan, of bulk uncouth;
Nor fabled kraken, with his sea-borne trail;
Not all that sages tell, in sober sooth,
Of the sun's progeny on Memphic vale,
Which from redundant Nile his beams exhale;
Not all that phrenzied poets exorcise
From memory's grave, then weave with fancies frail;
Can image, in their span, or shapes, or dyes,
Those ocean-dwellers huge beholding Death's emprize.

21

The voyage, voyagers, and ocean-forms,
Alike, were strange, and wild, and wonderful.
But marvels grew! When, of that sea of storms
We reached the shore, the waves at once were lull;
Death and his skiff evanished, and seemed null
And void as things that never were; while they,
Of late Death's passengers, so cold and dull,
Took, with an air of stern resolve, their way
Into a gloomy land where startling visions lay.

22

All that Death's ocean showed of hideousness
By living forms in lifeless shapes found here
Its paragon: it was a crude excess
Of all things dern and doleful, dark and drear:
No sun to fructify, no flowers to cheer
Its sullen barrenness: weeds, huge and dank,
And blossomless as stones, and ever sere,
Base sustenance from stagnant waters drank,—
Then spread throughout the plain their poisonous perfume rank.

23

Damp, dense, and deathly, yet the climate parched
Those silent travellers, sore, with raging thirst;
But sickening at the slimy pools, they marched
Onward, enfevered, fainting; 'till outburst
Their burning tongues, as doth a hound's when curst
With madness. Path across that dismal land
Was none; and though no life its waters nursed,
Yet were there fearful sights, on either hand,
That much affrayed the courage of that ghastly band.

24

Chasms yawned, like dragon's jaws, from what seemed rock,
Then closed, with sulphurous smell, and horrid jar,
And uprose giant cliffs, to gibe and mock,
As if with demon features,—while, afar,
Appeared colossal meteors for wild war
Gathering their troops terrific, which came on
With fury, but, like some portentous star
That fear-struck men gaze after—and—'tis gone!
Vanished those vaporous hosts in that unearthly zone.

25

Then felt the fainting footmen as if yoked
To viewless vehicles they could not move;
Yet, fastened by a galling chain, half-choked,
They still to drag their unseen burden strove,
Till the wild crags came toppling from above,
Threatening to crush the strugglers into nought;
When lo! some airy necromancy wove
Around their trembling limbs, with speed of thought,
A web of gossamer with wizard safety fraught:

26

And now, as if above the rocks upborne—
Suspended in mid-air—with vision dazed,
And swimming brain—past rescue, doomed, forlorn—
For some unspeakable perdition raised,
They seemed; but suddenly, let down, amazed
Their forms engulphed amid the swamps beheld,—
Where, while they clung unto the weeds, and gazed
Upward, in hope to climb, some weird hand felled
Their grasp, and o'er their heads the poisoned waters welled

27

Yet on dry land, as speedily they stood,—
Where they again their venturous march prepared,
While apparitions from the stagnant flood
And murky air, unto the travellers bared
Increasing horrors, as they onward fared.—
Ye may a jest this dreaming rhyme esteem:
But these strange terrors my rapt spirit shared;
And, though it was the journey of a dream,
Had ye thus dreamt, no jest ye would that journey deem.

28

A cavern's mouth, browed by a giant mound,
Gave welcome respite to their torturous toil:
For, entering there, the way-worn wanderers found
The semblance of a subterraneous aisle,
And walked admiringly, yet feared, the while,
Sudden renewal of their suffering plight,
Or deeper woe whelmed 'neath the rocky pile:
But, midst their fears, sense of unearthly light
Dawned, with a thrill of ease, upon their anxious sight.

29

Above them curved the likeness of a roof
Of woven rock,—strange supernatural glare
Diffusing from its tracery, that seemed woof
Of masonry more mystical and rare
Than devotees of proud cathedralled prayer
Witness while worshipping the Nazarene:
Pride lauding lowliness! And past compare
Of monkish mixtures were the shapes, I ween,
Of shaft and capital, that 'long that vault were seen.

30

Not, as with fashion of that gloomy age
When Phantasy, in convent bondage bred,
Drew graces from distraction,—mingling rage
Grotesque of apes with ire of angels dread,—
Aiming all contraries to blend and wed,
Until with hybrids she had filled the mind,
And with wild wonderment its powers misled,
So that, its grasp grown loose and undefined,
The shaven and shorn enchanters might its freedom bind;

31

Not, as with fashion of that twilight time
When sky-born Truth, by priestly hands arrayed
In vulgar vestments of the motley mime,
Played conjurer in “dim religious” shade,—
And peasant thrall, by bell and book dismayed,
Glanced tremblingly on corbel, niche, and pane,
Where imp, saint, angel, knight with battle-blade,
Griffin, bat, owlet, more befooled the swain,
Till, when the incense fumed, round swum his wildered brain;

32

Not, after pattern of old monkish mode;
Not, as by wand of mitred magic hung,
The rocky arch that mystic aisle bestrode,—
While clustered shaft and twisted pillar sprung
Forth from the floor,—and floral festoons flung
Their crystal witchery from base to quoin,—
And ever-changing shapes in antics clung
To shaft and capital, festoon and groin,—
Seeming all forms of life, all grace of flowers to join;

33

But unimagined, unconceived, unknown,
Unspeakable, by man, seemed all revealed
To those awed travellers, as they journeyed on
Through that vast aisle, that rather glowed a field
Of caverned wonders, where each shape did yield
For evermore new changes,—till the soul,
Enervate with o'erpiled amazement reeled
And sank, wishing an end unto her dole
Of wondering—pining, now, for prospect of her goal.

34

Anon, we entered where the travellers took
Their silent way, each to some several home.
Light fled; and dim funereal gloom rewoke
A solemn sadness through my essence. Dome,
Or cupola, scooped in mid rock, like tomb
Primeval, high above me stretched its span
Gigantic, vague,—appearing to enwomb
A space so vast that there old Death divan
Might hold, in mausoleum metropolitan.

35

Innumerable aisles their paths diverse
Forth from this sombrous centre led. And now,
I first perceived, from law which did coerce
The vagrant ghosts who reached these realms of woe
My spirit grew exempt. Sad, gloomy, slow,
The forms, of late my fellows, I descried
Journeying along those aisles,—deep, lasting throe
To inchoate, for sin of suicide,—
In clime apportioned to their gloom, or hate, or pride.

36

No words revealed to me the end or cause
For which those spirits hither came or went;
Nor know I if I knew that region's laws
By some strange influences incident
Unto its clime; or whether, now unblent
With earth's gross mould, deep intuition filled
The regal mind,—and thus, plenipotent,
She saw and knew. Suffice it, what she willed
To know, that knowledge swift throughout her essence thrilled.

37

Conscious of this her high prerogative,
The soul for mystic travel girt her thews,
Intent on viewing shapes she knew must live
In land where penance rebel-thought subdues
Of human worms who venture to refuse
The gift of life probational, and death
Procure by their own hand, daring accuse
The Giver, and defying threatened wrath,—
Or worn and wearied with the toil of drawing breath.

38

Methought I sped across the gloomy space
From whence diverged each subterranean aisle,
Thinking the dome vast porch unto some place
Of emblemed sovereignty or typic pile
Where sceptred suicides in kingly style
Might sit, as in some high imperial hall,
And there eternity itself beguile
With pregnant descant on their earthly fall,
On fate, and mortal change, and being spiritual.

39

When lo!—as if these new imaginings
Flowed from the soul with architectural power,
Or talisman of ancient Magian kings
Were there the unbound mind's mysterious dower—
Forthwith disclosed, in high investiture
Of purple, sceptres, thrones, and diadems,
A hall of kings assembled gleamed obscure,—
Fair,—and then bright,—until refulgent streams
Of splendour issued from their brows begirt with gems.

40

Mingled with these sat ancient forms unnamed
Monarchal, but by badge or cognisance
Vice-regal known, or whose sage look proclaimed
The god-like legislator, or proud glance
Betokened bold ambition's heritance
On earth of sway despotic. Deeply fraught
With wisdom's lessoning the soul her trance
Perceived to be,—'mid thrones with sculptures wrought
Mythic or parabolic, from earth's legends caught.

41

By beam or rafter architectonic
Undarkened,—with a roof of rainbows graced,
Smiled that wide palace-hall: yet, upward, quick
And timorous looks old shapes columnar cast,
That stretched their sinews, as with effort vast,
To prop the heavenly arch whose fall they feared.
Distorted things—abortions of the Past—
They were: Satyrs, with wild-goats' legs and beard,
And one-eyed Arimasp and Cyclops, there appeared;

42

Scythians, with heel in front, and toes behind,

The Abarimonides, and Blemmyæ, will be recognised by readers acquainted with Pliny's portraits of human monsters.

On old Imäus known; and Ethiops dark
And headless, wearing mouth and eyes enshrined
In their huge breasts; and countless monsters stark
And staring, hymned divine by hierarch
Of Ganges and old Nile,—with heads, tails, arms,
Tusks, horns, confused, of elephant, ape, shark,
Serpent, dog, crocodile, or ox: vile swarms
Of hideous phantasies, half-sharing human forms.

43

In triple colonnade around the immense
Ellipsis of that hall these creatures stood,—
Colossal images of ache intense
And apprehensive dread; while o'er them bowed
The arch that still in jewelled beauty glowed.
Such horror, blent with grace, Apollo's priest
'Mid strangling folds of Neptune's serpents showed,—
And still doth show—enmarbled, undeceased,—
That breathing stone the Past to gem the Future leased.

The author, it need scarcely be said, has never seen the Laocoön: but does not the imagination, on the mere receipt of testimony, often conceive as deep a worship of that which is believed to be surpassingly beautiful or perfect as an effort of human skill, as the judgment yields, when directed by actual observation?

44

Area within, enclosed, of amplitude
More spacious stretched than wide circumference
Of sculptured temple, by far traveller viewed
In Hindoo cave,

See Captain Seely's enthusiastic description of “Keylas the Proud,” among the caverned temples of Elora.

—or where wild audience
The Arab gives to hoar Magnificence

These and the remaining lines of the stanza form almost a literal embodiment of a picture that I remember to have met with in some volume of Eastern Travels, but I cannot tell where it is to be found.

Defying Ruin, and in some huge tomb,
Hewed for a monarch, nightly sleeps,—from whence,
I' the morn, he blesses Mecca's seer,—while gloom
Eterne veils Memnon's brow beholding Thebes' sad doom.

45

Throughout this column-girt enclosure rose
Thrones,—some with fashion of a fortalice
Or tower; some, like cathedralled shrine where vows
Are paid to saintly heritor of bliss,
Showed niche, and pinnacle, and quaint device
Of carven wonder-work; while some parade
Outvied of old renowned Acropolis
Or Parthenon, where graceful shaft o'erlaid
With bossed entablature Man's noblest skill displayed.

46

Significant depicurings of fraud
Conjunct with force,—chimeras blending grim
Fierce forms with fascinations,—shapes that awed
Pelasgic men in ages old and dim,—
For metope, along the frieze' broad rim,
'Tween gem-dropp'd triglyphs, wore each classic throne;
Rapine of harpy, smile of siren prim,
Lewd lure of lamia, wile of sphinx, and frown
Of minotaur and archer-centaur there were shown.

47

Or, where a shrine-shaped throne, o'ercanopied
With perforated carvery, rose,—a pile
Of frail aërial wonder,—typified
Were Fright and Mischief mixt with Stealth and Guile:
Hag rode her broomstaff, flankt with bugbear vile
And goggle-eyed hobgoblin, while a host
Led by Puck-Hairy mocked with infantile
And puny trick the snake that wreathed and tossed
His trail around the skull and cross-bones of grim ghost.

48

Mute, wonder-stricken, long, methought, I gazed,
And, pondering, did my vision's meaning read;
Until the tenants of the thrones sense raised
Within me of their presence there, flesh-freed.
No sage interpreter I seemed to need
From whom to learn their names; without a veil
Unto the soul, the pride, pain, dread, or deed
That rent them from earth's tabernacles frail,
Lay opened—by some fiat supernatural.—

49

Silver tiara, decked with amethysts
And sapphires, piling gorgeously above
His brow,—pearl-studded circlets round his wrists,—
Gold sceptre mounted by an emerald dove,—
And dazzling gems of myriad hues enwove
Throughout his robes wherein the peerless dye
Of rarest murex with the ruby strove
For richness,—showed that soft Assyrian nigh
Who closed his life of lust—a self-incendiary.

50

On either side Sardanapalus sat,
On thrones ornate of ivory and gold,—
Cloud-wrapt, that gray Cathaian autocrat,
With uneuphonic name

Chow-Sin, Emperor of China, B.C. 1122—His suicide is related to have resembled that of Sardanapalus.

in records old
Of Orient writ, who did his life enfold
With deathly flames; and that foul glutton, who,
As sages tell, his maw's capacious hold
To satisfy, worried his spouse, although
Full-suppered,—Cambes, lord of Lydia's pampered crew.

51

Next these, three mystic thrones: the Theban chief
Who solved the Sphinx's riddle,—son and spouse
Of Creon's daughter,—suicide of grief,
Horror, and madness, joined: sad Nauplius,
The sire of Palamedes, who his house
Brought low by guileful Ithacus deplored;
And that Athenian exarch, old Ægeus,
Who, of his death, fearing his son devoured,
Left, in the Hellene island-wave a dim record.

52

Illustrious less by sheen and garniture
Of gold and gems, than by his kingly height
Colossal, sat the Hebrew, who a cure
For fallen fortunes, in his grievous plight,
At Endor sought,—but, from the hoary sprite
Of Israel's seer no health or help derived.
On demi-throne, next, that disastrous wight
Who Baasha's son of sovereignty deprived,
In Tirzah, and himself a seven days' king survived.

Zimri.—His story is narrated in the 16th chapter of the Ist book of Kings.

53

Of Ilion's foes, when stern Pelides fell,
The boldest,—but of honour shorn, and driven
By pride to madness,—with enduring hell
Of hate upon his brow, from earth though riven,
Sat Ajax Telamon. A haloed heaven
Of splendour dawned where crownless Codrus, throned
By frowning Ajax, smiled: his soul's look leaven
Of low self-love disdained,—and, still, profound
Regard for fatherland seemed in its essence wound.

54

Fraternal spirits,—each with civic palm
Invested, sceptreless, o'er deepest thought
Brooding of things to come,—Lycurgus, calm
And dignified and peaceful, sat, and caught
With friendly grasp the hand unto him raught
Of brave Charondas: these, enthroned 'mid blaze
Of kindred light, looked as they would devote
Their souls once more to Hades, if the days
Returned when men would die their fellow-man to raise.

55

Traitor to Freedom when the Alban sires
Had smitten kings with rout, and made their name
A stench,—sat Appius,—he whose lewdling fires
The spotless maid had scathed with deathful shame,
But that a father's knife preserved her fame,—
Giving to deathless life his Virgin child.
On more than regal throne, with amorous flame
Still glowing in his eyes, next the defiled
Decemvir, sat another lust-slave, self-exiled

56

From his old riot-field,—for such he made
The earth, that, by strange turns, is cursed with feud
And sport of monsters. Neighbour to this shade
Of Antony, and chief of Rome's huge brood
Of tyrants, sat the matricide whom mood
Of insane merriment to minstrelsy
Impelled, when, wearied with his game of blood,
He loosed the fiends of havoc, that, with glee,
Lit up Rome's flames, and howled to swell his jubilee.

57

Th'imperial patriot, Otho, that to save
The blood of thousands shed his own, and quenched
The rage of war,—but vainly since he gave
Earth to a tyrant,—sat next one who drenched
The soil less than he willed with gore, nor blenched
At broken oaths in age,—Maximian—thrall
Of power, though throned. Divided sceptre clenched
Bonosus vile, the drunkard,—of whose fall
They said his carcase was ‘a jug hung by the wall!’

58

And other revellers in bloody mirth,
Italian, or Byzantine, arrogant
And pride-blown, sat, as when the slavish earth
They shared; save when on that great combatant
Whom Pontic Orient and the rich Levant
Owned lord,—proud Mithridates,—timid look
They cast: for, as they glanced at him, ascaunt,
His eye of fire told how he ill could brook
The dwarfs so near;—whereat their fear-smit spirits shook.

59

Neighbouring stood Juba's gold and ivory throne,—
The Mauritanian: next, with shorn display,
Sat Nicocles, the Paphian—who alone
Fled not dishonour when the conquering sway
Of Ptolemy fair Cyprus owned: the way
He took, his bosom's queen and daughters fair
Took also,—and now shared the chastened ray
That clad their chief: a group of Love they were,
Among fierce shapes of pride that haughtily sat there.

60

Nor was the suicide of softer sex
By these shown only. Near the ancient seat
Of Œdipus, the mystical reflex
Appeared of her who hasted to complete
The Fates' decree, when Meleager's feat
Was known,—burning the billet she had kept
To save the life, that thence, she loathed. A meet
Sisterhood, numerous, by Althæa slept
Or stonily gazed: eld forms by Mythic names yclept.

61

Radiant in widowed beauty, next to these
Sat she who loved her wandering Teucrian guest,
And raved to find the faithless one rude seas
Had borne away,—till, for her grief-worn breast
She sought by her own hand a deathful rest.
Near Dido sat that mournful mother-queen,
Meek Sisygambis, who fled life distrest
By death of Philip's son, still more than teen
That she the slaughter of her discrowned son had seen.

62

With ardent glance on her old paramour,
The soft Triumvir, bending,—amid waste
Of grandeur throned,—outvieing, as of yore,
Earth's queens in pride,—earth's harlots in unchaste
And wanton thought,—sat she from Greek dynast
Of Nile descended, asp-stung heritress
Of fame for lavish wealth with lavish haste
Consumed upon her beauty's slaves: excess
Transcended only by her false heart's fickleness.

63

Apart, in lonely loftiness of soul,
Sat Boadicea, simple, unadorned,
Yet seeming with stern virtue to control
The scoffing spirit which my thought discerned
Within a frivolous crowd that there sojourned
In visioned queenly state.—
But now my trance
Teemed with more wonder,—for, enrapt, I learned
These spirits' thoughts: no vocal resonance
There was: yet soul to soul made mystic utterance.—

64

“Thy prophecy, sage Spartan,”—proudly gibed,
Amid his pomp, the Chaldee's glistering shade,—
“Thy prophecy—grows old: still monarch-tribed
And rainbow-vaulted is this hall: they fade
Not yet—these regal splendours! Disarrayed
We are, by turns; to periodic pain,
On joyless wanderings sent, through bog and glade,
O'er crag and rock, or burnt or frore, our stain
To purge: yet, in due season, thus restored, we reign!

65

“Errest thou not here, presaging utter change
To kingly spirits, as thou erredst in land
Of Lacedæmon old, when system strange
By thy fantastic brain was hotly planned,
To train rude rabble Greeks in self-command,
And mould their minds to virtue? Foolish dream
Long dissipated! Spartan, thus divanned,
Crowned, sceptred, and enthroned, the changeful stream
Of ceaseless being shall find our Essences supreme.

66

“Such is my sentence,—from the pregnant past
Arguing the future: and in vain they prate
Of inborn greatness in all minds amassed
Who say,—of Hades this unequal state,
And Earth's, shall end by the decree of Fate.
Where are the virtues by thy statutes bred?
Our Asia's conqu'ring hosts—effeminate
Esteemed by the rude sires thy black broth fed—
Brandish the scymitar o'er their tame children's head.

67

“There must be conquering lords, and slaves that yield:
There have been,—and there will be. Thou may'st stroke
Thy beard, grave scorner,—slighting truth revealed
By eld experience! Wherefore bear their yoke
Earth's mortal millions? Why, in one age shook
From their sire's shoulders, do the sons upheave
And wear it, in the next? Hath a realm broke
Its golden sceptre? 'Twas but to receive
A stranger's iron rod,—beneath its bruise to grieve.

68

“Danaian,—Monarchs rule by Nature's law;
And all who seek Her statutes to disturb,
Teaching kings' solemn titles have foul flaw
In reason, and the general mind should curb
Their sovereign will, or sweep from earth's wide orb
Their honoured name,—know thou, he would uproot
All happiness from human hearts, perturb
All peace, and fill the world with dissolute
And lawless beings tending downwards to the brute.

69

“What mean, I ask thee, these thronged typic forms,
These images of allegoric shape?
Thou say'st, false-seeing prophet, that dire storms
Will burst on Thrones and leave us no escape
But yawn of fabled Chaos! Ha! a jape
It is—such as thou toldst, in olden time,
When Greeks from Delphi thy return, agape,
Expected. Spartan, know, a truth sublime
These portraitures set forth, in this mysterious clime:

70

“This sky of promise-woof, these shapes of strength,
These sceptred pomps and blazonries, combine
With this vast palace-hall's imperial length
And architectural splendour, by divine
Working of Nature, Her superb design
To manifest—that She hath firmly set
The frame of things—the frame of things benign!
Kings reign by Nature's law! I at thy threat
Of dissolution laugh! 'Tis like thyself—a cheat!

71

“By hybrid forms, like these, the sage or bard
Of old pictured deep thoughts: he, prescient
Of mortal things, not dimly Mind's award
In after-life foresaw: and thus hath lent
Wise Nature, here, familiar emblems, meant
To infix our spirits' reverence of Her high
Unchangeable decrees. Other intent
Wombed in the Soul o' the World, if thou descry,
Lacon, these Potencies, with me, thy proof defy!—”

72

He ceased, but the Laconian answered not,
Save with a smile; whereat, in subtle guise,
The spirit of pale Chow the theme upcaught,
Echoing the proud Assyrian's prophecies
Of endless royalty.—
“To mysterise
I scorn,”—he said: “the sage of great Cathay
By allegory taught,—the teacher wise
Before all mortals; but, now freed from clay,
Truth's visage all unveiled Mind may to Mind display.

73

“The sacred sage who aims with sanctions strong
Of faith and fear, fable and prodigy,
To fence the throne, humanely to prolong
Peace, order, seeks: for peace and order flee
That state disrupt by anarch Liberty—
The wild destructive demon! And when peace
And order fade, fades every good: while free
Confusion's votaries call a realm, decrease,
Therein, all polished forms and winning courtesies:

74

“These constitute the sweets of human life,
Rendering its gall less mortal, as renews
Our vigour this resplendent vision rife
With promise,—this bright pomp that, swift subdues
All sense of pain, doubt, fear, which us pursues
In mystic seasons when high Powers exact
Their penalties,—high Powers unseen that use
Their creature Man according to some pact
Beyond our scope—but held eternally infract.

75

“To mysterise I scorn—yet own the task
Of labouring sages guerdon doth deserve
Of thanks from kings: they clothe with prudent mask
The image from whose worship Man might swerve
If nuded: they contribute to conserve
Homage of monarchs, awe of gods, restraint
Of wholesome reverence for law; and nerve
The arm of Power, when it grows old and faint,
And impious men deride its ceremonies quaint.

76

“But I disdain to mysterise: let pass
The fables of old bards, and thy far view
Truthful experience guiding,—scorning glass
Of types and stale conjectures,—Spartan, due
Observance take that novelties congrue
But ill with social weal: while bloom and thrive,
Through endless ages, lands whose tribes eschew
Disloyalty,—where sons meek sires survive,
Preserving, piously, their customs primitive.

77

“There knowledge grows; hale labour fills the realm
With teeming plenty; life doth, vigorous, strike
Its roots into the soil; and swarms, that whelm
With ruin lands more changeful where dislike
To reverend custom lifts the rebel pike
Or traitor dagger,—drain deep bog and swamp,—
Delve the stiff marl,—yea, on the bald cliff, like
The eagle nestle,—strewing mould, with tramp
Industrious, on the rock; their zeal what toil can damp?

78

“There arts that rise in the far mist of ages
Are cherished and preserved with sacred care;
And, if aught nobler lore of later sages
Evolves, no sacrilegious hands uptear
The roots of ancient wisdom,—but, by rare
And tender husbandry, the late-found flower
Is with the old engraffed,—and, thenceforth, bear
Their wedded branches fruits that richer shower
Wide o'er the blest peace-nurtured land their bounteous dower.

79

“Proud Greek, I ask thee, where is now the boast
Of gay and changeful Hellas?—Where the pride
Of wisdom, valour, song,—your wave-washed coast,
Ye said, would wear for aye? Doth it abide
Where sage Minerva's owl still sits to chide
Old Echo, when some lingering column falls
On grey Athena's waste, at eventide?
Or glows it from the brows of Theban thralls
And Spartan cowards—a barbarian's frown appals?

80

“Graian, behold, from China's terraced mountains,
Meek, peaceful myriads to the valleys wend,
And with their brethren by the silver fountains
Reclining, to some hoary teacher lend
Enraptured audience,—while his lips commend
The lessons of the ever-honoured seer
Whose wisdom's lustre doth as far transcend
The glimmering lights your westerlings revere,
As doth the orient sun outvie each smaller sphere.

81

“Behold the greatness of the Flowery Nation
Attracting wondering eyes from all the earth,
While countless tongues rehearse loud commendation
Of vast Cathay: how science had her birth,
In peaceful secret, there; and glided forth
From her pure cradle, like a godlike thing,
Blessing unboastfully!—pouring her worth
Of wisdom on the world; but of her spring
Primeval to the infant isles ne'er whispering.

82

“Behold how earth's united sages crowd
To pay their homage at the shrine maternal
To which old Northmen wild the mute guide owed
That led them o'er the deeps where regions vernal
Breathed their rich balm, when light of stars supernal
Was hid—the mystic needle—to the pole
Leal ever, as, to Wisdom's truths eternal,
By sage Confucius opened, ages roll
And still find China's children cleaving with one soul.

83

“Or art, held magic once, that spreads the glory
Of thought with speed,—by which the peasant hind,
Familiar as the prince, talks with bard hoary
Whose bones are wind-spread atoms, but whose mind
Still lives, converses, fulmines, splendour-shrined
Upon the lettered page; while pyramid
And column, arch and dome, taunt human kind
With ruin, where the founders' names are hid,—
And dust becomes of Death a mirror pellucid.

84

“Or delicatest skill, by which the worm
Yields up the riches of her soft cocoon
Where bounteous nature teacheth her to form
For royalty and beauty,—lustrous boon!—
The fabric for their robes, or proud festoon
That decks their palaces: or various art
Pictorial, that—by tapestry, cartoon,
Canvass, or marble, where dead forms upstart
To life—sublime instruction doth to man impart.

85

“All the wide world inherits of the wealth
Of wisdom, genius, skill, attribute now,
The truly wise unto those steps of stealth
With which the Genius of the land of Foh
Clomb Himaleh's tall barriers of snow
To kindle light celestial on the strand
Of infant India,—whence, as sages show,
The Chaldee, Mitzraim, and thy later land,
Achaian, lit their lamps with an ungenerous hand.

86

“The borrowed lights are quenched: the parent flame
Glows with undimmed and steady lustre, still!
Babel and Thebes, and Athens, have a name
With things that were; or claim from infantile
Far-islet harps and voices strains that chill
With sense of desolation them that waken
Their deathful echoes: Life and vigour fill
Ancestral Cambalu, —whose strength unshaken
By China's thousand pristine cities is partaken.

87

“Spartan, I challenge thee upon this theme,
Disdaining mystery. Obedience meek
To the high wearer of the diadem
Sways the vast heart of China: fathers seek
Like reverence from their sons; and children speak
A filial language, through the land, unknown
To kingless libertines. The fruit unique
Of natural monarchy, through ages shown,—
Peace, shedding gladness, on my fatherland hath grown.

88

“And why we thus hold thrones doth thence result,
I judge, that great maternal Nature keeps
Her purposes: here, witness we the adult
Expressions of Her will: on earth She heaps
Kindly monitions that Man's welfare reaps
Its thrift from kings: now, after-life doth prove
Her unity of wisdom; —and, while sweeps
Duration on, in kingly souls enwove
Shall grow intenser consciousness of Nature's love.—”

89

Thus spake the old Cathaian shade, and ceased;
While sceptred spirits, in refulgent rays,
Each, from his essence, sent forth bright attest
Of grateful joy. Such quintessential praise
These render; but a gathering gloom betrays
Some scorner seated 'mid the effluence bright
Of gladdened mind. Surceased the mystic blaze,
And uprose Antony, with careless spite
Uttering these thoughts of barbëd truth and scornfu slight:—

90

“That regal souls shall regally possess
This heritage, nor presaged ruin hurl
These powers to nought, needs not thy wilderness
Of proof, dim Shade! When penal tempests curl
Round us their waves we sink not in their whirl;
But thus retrieve our thrones. Why seek we more?
Let those that prophesy the prince and churl,
New equals, shall on this mysterious shore
Exist, shew whence derived their visionary lore.

91

“Till then, I scorn their threats, as now I scorn,
Cathaian fabler, what thou dost miscount
Of undisturbed regalities age-worn.
I tell thee, cloud-clad king, souls paramount
Become by Fate: Nature in her great fount
Moulds monarchs, who earth's sceptres seize, and thrust
Old palsied cumber-thrones aside, to mount,
Themselves, the seat of sway; ay, with robust
Hand, pile crown upon crown on their own brows august.

92

“These are her darlings, though a coarse-fed serf
Bring forth their clay, and ignorantly hush
Within his mud-built shed the cradled dwarf
At whose full voice the bright-armed throng shall rush
To conquest, and whose hand, time-nerved, shall crush
Old pomps like rotten reeds. These Nature rears
In native loftiness; old monarchs blush
When they behold them, or wax wan with fears;
For on their ominous front, deep-graved, stern change appears.

93

“Stern change—but needful: for, thou dost indulge
Earth's partial love, Cathaian picturer,
Denying that great Nature's laws promulge
The healthfulness of change. Light task it were
To dash thy brittle images, and blurr
Their tricksy tints to gangrened, livid hues;
To show how Misery finds no comforter
Throughout thy fatherland; how Want subdues
All virtue in its monster cities' dark purlieus;

94

“To point thee to the life its millions drag,—
Its famine-stricken millions,—eager, glad,
To find a putrid dog for food, or rag
To hide their nakedness: gaunt man driven mad
By hunger and oppression, to these sad
And dreary shades fleeing for refuge from
His hell on earth: pale woman, loath to add
More wretched things to Life's slow martyrdom,
Strangling, remorselessly, the fruit of her own womb!

95

“Light task it were, gray fabler, to lift up
The silken curtain thou hast, sleekly, cast
O'er the huge tombs of city life where droop,
In squalor, human shapes become repast
For vermin ere they die: from whom, aghast,
Thy mandarins, of boasted courtesy,
Would turn and shriek, as if the black plague's blast
Had blown on them. I scorn to answer thee
At large,—threading thy labyrinthine eulogy,—

96

“Or, I would utter all the horrid tale
Of infant murder, starving toil, accurst
Desire for gold, devices of the pale
And cunning bonze, conceit of idiots nursed
In ignorance, crime and folly that will burst
Upon the world, and tell its own strange story,
Ere long. To regal spirits what rehearsed
Thou hast—let this suffice:—for, now, the glory
Of thy dim land, like other dreams, grows transitory.

97

“The restless pirates of the northern isles,—
Breaking your barriers of three thousand years,—
With their own eyes, your land of fabled smiles
Behold, and find it but a land of tears—
Like to their own. While woman's form appears
Bowed with her infant on her back, in mud
To the waist, to till the rice-plant toiling,—cheers,
Though savagely, this thought their frozen blood—
That equal degradation hath, but yet subdued

98

“One of their sea-girt homes—Hibernia:—there,
Gray dynast,—if with disembodied mind,
Throughout these shades, thou dost deep descant share,—
Like squalid want and suffering, intertwined
With life of crowds, that labour, thou wilt find—
And only there! Oh, that old Rome could wake,
Once more, her victor eagles, and unbind
These slaves from their vile fetters,—or earth shake
With change until they could, themselves, their bondage break!

99

“Thou fabling phantasm, what hath man become,
Sunk in the stagnancies of custom old?—
A creature who will whine to win the crumb
His tyrant's dog refuses! If the bold
Democraty of buried Rome, controlled,
Ev'n by earth's masters, but with dole of bread
Dealt to them daily, could such slaves behold—
Such breadless slaves—o'er earth's old region tread,
Their fleshless shades would frown among the doomed dead!

100

“Justly thou art rebuked: yet, controvert
I not thy sentence, that with regal state
Dynamic essences shall be begirt
Through ceaseless life: I only deprecate
Thy errors: claiming for the child of Fate—
The natural heir of greatness—that award
His deeds deserve. Monarchs, we create
Anew, your strength! Not fabling sage or bard,—
But we—Fate's darlings—merit grateful kings' regard!”—

101

Thus ended, like an actor for applause,
He who a haughty challenger began,—
Winning no meed of praise where all grew foes,
Stung by his scorn, or scorning, while, with scan
Intense, they saw his vanity outran
Truth's soberness. He sank with humbled crest—
Perceiving frowns sit on each ghostly van
Of those throned powers. Forthwith made manifest
His mental throes Nero's proud spirit of unrest.—

102

“That Thrones to thy stout valour owe huge debt,”—
He spake, casting around a withering smile;—
“Is true as that thou wert an anchoret.
Hero of Actium!—Vestal of the Nile!—
No time, on earth, your effigies shall spoil
Of lasting laurels,—wreath so fitly blending
With Daphne's virtue valour without soil!
In Hades, triumphs, coy loves never ending
Shall still be yours,—the future the bright past transcending!

103

“Darling of Fate!—to swell thy self-sung laud
Let spirits vie! let grateful kings bow down
And homage thee,—by loud trump overawed
Of thy great glory, which thyself hast blown!
Vauntful buffoon,—that thou dost fill a throne
In this mysterious clime, adds to the scourge
Of princely spirits: mockeries, I this crown
And sceptre must pronounce,—whate'er some urge
Of ceaseless pomp,—if shapes like thine these visions forge.

104

“What wert thou but an upstart and an ape
Of spirits truly regal who thy freak
Of kingship suffered, till maturer shape
Their own great plans of sovereignty could take?
Fawning on Julius, who beneath thy sleek
Exterior saw and mocked the thriftless flame
For empire,—or, on young Octavius meek
And crafty, hurling sneers,—thy petty game
Subserved the master-spirits of the Roman drame.

105

“And when thou hadst subserved their astute end
Thou wast laid by. Boaster,—'tis not the fool
Who blabs his aims, and thinks each man a friend,
Whom Nature marks for empire; but a tool
She shaped him; and, to spirits born for rule
He hath his use,—to Fate's true darlings, skilled
To hide their reach with feigned indifference cool,
Or virtuous humbleness, and ever filled,
With wary watch of all by whose lent thews they build.

106

“Our Roman greatness by such masonry
Of mind was raised, until the Julian boy
Laid on the top-stone with felicity
Of skill: for aye of power appearing coy,
Continuing antique symbols to employ,—
Titles and forms of the old commonwealth,—
Hallowing the shade securely to destroy
The substance of licentiousness: wise stealth,
By which the pulse of sovereignty gained vigorous health.

107

“With ‘bread and theatres’ the vulgar gasp
Was wisely fed, when Wisdom thus had won
The earth's rich rule: to our illustrious grasp
The reigns of empire were bequeathed,—our own
By right of power, craft, favour: handed down
Entire by us,—the pusillanimous brood
Of later days reared a divided throne
And lost the heritage whose amplitude
Comprised the general world's wealth, wisdom, hardihood.

108

“Not more I mock when cloud-wrapt shadows doat,
And fondly prate of barbarous unknown shores,
Than I despise ye,—sceptrelings distraught
With pride,—souls of empireless emperors,—
That round me sit! How rich a dower was yours!
By how much toil of sinew and of mind
Collected, conglobated, were Earth's stores
Treasured in Rome,—the Eternal!—throne assigned
By Nature and the Gods, for sway of human kind!

109

“Never shall men, again, view aught august
And glorious as Rome—that mighty heart
O' the world whose pulses fed with life robust
By million health-fraught veins, mingling athwart
Her giant trunk, did duly re-impart
Vigour and strength to every distant limb!
How gazeth, even now, the Afric swart,
Fierce frozen Kelt, Teuton, or Tartar grim,
Untombing some huge vertebra or relic dim

110

“Of Rome's vast skeleton,—a monstrous bulk
O'er isles and continents that lies, supine,—
Wondering what giant soul the mighty hulk
Served, in far unknown age, for earthen shrine!
Dwarfed, dastard heirs to Cæsar's lofty line,—
If courage to defend what they bequeathed,—
If soul to comprehend their grand design,—
They could on your weak essences have breathed,—
Rome's life with glory had been perdurably wreathed!

111

“Inferior natures,—your effeminate gripe
Of the world's sceptre was dissolved like dew
Upon the grass what time the sun doth wipe
Up night's few lingering tears: so feeble grew
Your grasp of power the Roman world scarce knew
Ye had a throne, at last,—for ye had ceased
To be its masters long before it threw
Your filmy fetters off to don the vest
Of vassalage unto the smooth, tiaraed priest.

112

“Ye despicable things, that sit and swell
Yourselves in empty pomp—ye that betrayed
Rome's glory to the Goth—”
“Vile spirit, quell
The tempest of thy madness!”—spake the shade
Of fierce Maximian:—“Whom dost thou upbraid,
Coward, with timorousness?—monster, with vice
And idle dissoluteness?—Of all who swayed
Earth's sceptres, thou unworthiest shar'st this bliss,
These shadowed thrones in spiritual necropolis!

113

“Slanderer,—remember that Maximian strove
To prop the falling state,—nor age his hands
Unsinewed for the sword; but round him wove
Their fatal net domestic traitor bands.
That one, stern Truth with foulest vices brands,
Doth play the chidester, here,—one, who should hide
His head in shame, uncensured reprimands
Thrones who excel in virtue,—doth betide,
I fear, our essence still to weakness misallied.

114

“Thrones of the West,—why sit ye tamely, thus,
Bearing reproach from a vile miscreant
Whose name doth blot Rome's annals?”—
Nebulous
With thought grew, now, the spirits arrogant
On neighbouring thrones, seeming with wrath to pant
And throb, as throbs the thunder cloud: their rage
Soon burst in tumult: Nero, scornful taunt
Renewed; and Rome's whole self-slain lineage
Seemed on each other clamorous, ireful war to wage.—

115

As, when upon a seat of gamesome hares,
Or brood of quarrellous birds, the soaring kite
Stoops suddenly, victor with vanquished shares
Silent and swift retreat,—so shrunk with fright
To ignominious dumbness each fierce sprite
Of haughty Rome—shrunk, like a coward thing—
When rose, with front of intellectual might
The regal Mithridates. Thus, to bring
Thought to Power's rescue, strove the strong-souled Pontic king:

116

“I marvel not,—illustrious Spartan ghost,—
That thou, with keen sagacity, dost leave
Rome's mimic gladiators to be tossed
With rage of earth's old pride, which still doth cleave
To these thin vehicles, and, perhaps, will grieve
And vex our fleshless essences for aye:
I marvel not, that, scorning to achieve
A worthless conquest, to commutual fray
Thou leavest thy foes:—let Folly kindred Folly slay!

117

“Let Rome's throned pigmies argue, answerless!
A brood on whom I grudgingly bestow
A frown, recalling Sylla's dreadlessness,
Gorgeous Lucullus, and the godlike brow
Of Pompey,—minds, that, each, to have for foe,
Ennobled strife more than the glittering stake
Of Asia's sceptres, and magnific show
Of twenty realms in arms—of whom none spake
A tongue their chief unknew, nor burned his yoke to break.

118

“But, while ignoble combat of the soul
Thou nobly scornst,—I marvel, Graian wise,
That, here, in Hades, thou dost seek control
O'er mightier essences, by worn-out guides
Of mystery. Not to antagonise
Thy spirit I seek,—but challenge pertinent
And weighty cause for startling prophecies
Of dissolution. How to thee hath lent
Unerring Nature Her divine premonishment?

119

“Since, in this after-life, no more by dull
Deceptive sense, from sound, sight, touch, doth earn
The labouring soul her knowledge; and though full
Of images our being, since all intern
They germ, and, from our working thought yborn,
Take spiritual embodiment; since live
These shapes by plastic throes with which we yearn
Essentially, and Essence can derive
No unknown truth from the mere representative

120

“Of its own ever-active energy;
Since all we view, or seem to view, in space
Irradiate, thus, with emblemed royalty,
Is reflex of ourselves, and we erase
These splendours when, by Nature's law, to trace
Again our steps o'er penal wilds we range,—
Or seem to range,—and with refulgent grace
Resume these thrones, in season due; since change
Of bliss, or woe,—by law inexplicably strange,—

121

“Results from our own intellectual force;—
What warrants thee predicting force shall whelm
Our regal state with ruin, in the course
Of spiritual duration, and disrealm
Hades of kings, humble the trophied helm
Of all her myriad heroes, and exalt
The serfs of her mysterious penal realm
To equal state, never to know default
Or end, beneath the glory of this gem-prankt vault?

122

“What canst thou know,—though intellection deep
Be thine,—that we know not? Thou sharest our pain,
When pain returns. If o'er thy essence sweep
Like woes with ours, how doth to thee pertain
Superior potency? Lacon, explain
Thy bold vaticinations,—or, henceforth,
Expect from kingly spirits haught disdain
And dumb contempt, or tempest of their mirth,
When to more dark-wombed wonders thou givest dreaming birth!”—

123

So spake the soul of Mithridates, while
Awe or approving silence held the Thrones
Who in that mystic clime of self-exile
Kept disembodied pomp of glistering crowns
And lustrous sceptres. Veiled with gloom of frowns,
Or lit with eagerness, each visage seemed,
Now, on the Spartan fixt. Soft spirit-tones
Of suasiveness, soon, from his essence streamed;
And thus, of past and future life, he calmly themed:

124

“Spirits of Men, with reverence whom I hail
And with fraternal love—albeit I deem
These sculptured blazonries a vision frail,—
Or, like their antitypes on earth, a dream,—
For that your high Humanity supreme,
I judge, o'er names and empty pomps;—forbear
To count me fabling fantast,—and beteem
Me, shunning mortal passion, to declare
My thought, by spiritual tongue auxiliar.

125

“Contest I court not,—nor to wrathful strife
Seek to impel ye by defiance brave:
Brothers, I wot, that earth's poor troublous life
Had storms enow: rude storms that hither drave
More than a moiety of ye that rave
Upon these thrones, contending as if wrath
Were reason. Sages say, on earth, the grave
Ends passion's turmoil, and the spirit hath,
At death, 'mid shapes all passionless, its gentle path.

126

“How little truth they knew!—how much affirmed
From love, hope, fear! How little know we still!
How oft, when pleasing shapes from thought have germed
Within us, have we strengthened them with will
That they should live; until they seemed to fill
Our utmost life!—Yet, were they things of nought:
Soul-mists from essence streaming, volatile,
In Hades,—as on earth, ethereal, float,
From perfume and putrescence, vapours picture-fraught.

127

“Perchance thou judgest well,—sage Pontic shade,—
Attributing this typic statue-crowd,
And this enthroned and diademmed parade,
To demiurgic power with which doth brood
The soul on space, verisimilitude
Of what it loves and wishes swift creating:—
Yet, if these shapes with substance unendowed
Thou deemst,—their life, like ours, from change still dating,
I argue, from past change, more change our state awaiting.

128

“I seek no vulnerable thought to pounce
Upon—thy metaphysic argument
To frustrate; nor will, rashly, aught pronounce
Of this strange after-life. 'Twere insolent
To dogmatize where being still is blent
With mystery. Therefore, when I say, I opine
Thou err'st, my spirit tells with diffident
Emotion that to other close than thine
Her slow deductions lead—pondering on this design:

129

“Pledge of their perpetuity, or proof
That kings derive from Nature,—in these shapes,
Monstrous and fear-fraught, that to prop this roof
Preposterously essay,—if any, escapes
My dull perception. Wondrous were collapse
Of heaven's own bow!—more wondrous if its fall
Could crush an insect! Falsely thus bedrapes
Nature's fair face, with fancies that appal,
He who mankind would for his selfish ends enthral.

130

“The Power that forms, supports, and governs Man,
Smiles on him evermore; benignly woke
His infancy with love: unfolds the plan
Of happiness in the fair-written book
Of Man's own nature, and the forms that look
Upon his essence from the outward world;
Implants no instinct in his breast to mock
His life; but hath his sentient clay impearled
With reason—sovereign gem in fragile folds enfurled.

131

‘A thing of beauty, though but frail, in joy
Perpetual might his mortal life be passed;
But fablers do his peace and bliss destroy
With falsest fears: each hour is overcast
With gloom: at death he shrinks; yea, grows aghast
At thought of the dread future, which, to shun,
He must propitiate mystic demons vast,
By rites that serve to load with pious boon
The smooth and crafty priest who consecrates the throne.

132

“Ye frown,—shadows of monarchs,—and deport
Yourselves full fiercely: yet, with mental eye
This vision scan,—and, that its forms conscrt
With truths I have proclaimed, and typify
Force joined with Fraud, ye, also, will descry.
Do not your spirits bear me witness strong
That they the real monsters are who try
To fill man with belief that they prolong
His respite from some monstrous vengeance o'er him hung?

133

“Whether I read these images aright
Or err, for high Humanity I claim
Precedence of all pomps. Spirits, if true might
Or wisdom are inherent in the name
Monarchal,—if the sceptre doth inflame
The soul of him who sways it with the thirst
For virtue,—if Time doth not count with shame
Its regal dolts and cowards, nor is curst
With vice of monster kings,—I have their names aspersed.

134

“Let your own argument,—your sage debate,—
Confute me, when, in sorrowing ire, I say—
Your race, in every clime, doth merit hate
And vengeance from mankind—the trembling prey
Ye ever tortured ere ye deigned to slay!
But I renew not strife: spirits, I glow
With nobler aim—aside to see ye lay
These vanities, scorning the gaudy show
That emblems freedom's, virtue's, wisdom's direst foe:

135

“For such is kingship propped by altar—craft:
But I renew not strife: spirits, I stand
Self-sentenced, self-condemned, since to engraft
Mystery with Truth, in my loved fatherland,
I sought,—judging mankind might be trepanned
To reverence Freedom when her virgin face,
Enmasked with sanctity, looked grave and grand:
Unskilled to know that her own native grace,
Alone, could charm men, lastingly, to her embrace.

136

“Ye style me Prophet! I accept the jest
For earnest; and, with mystic wreath thus crowned
By your united voice, Mystery attest
To be the tyrant Power from whose profound
Soul-bondage man is breaking: whispering sound
Of Truth's young breath greets Europe's grateful ear;
And Freedom, in some hearts, a throne hath found
On that new shore where still, alas! appear
Earth's olden stains: the helot's stripes, the helot's tear!

137

“Afric's dark tribes, and Asia's populous swarms,
The voice of Truth, and Freedom's holy call
Shall know, ere long—upstarting,—not to arms,
For blood and slaughter; but to disenthral
Their new-born spirits from funereal
And priest-forged fears; to shake their ancient slough
Of sottish ignorance off; no more to crawl
In abjectness 'fore hideous gods; nor throw
Their slavish frames 'fore kings, in vile prostration low.

138

“Spirits, to tell of wondrous sympathy
Subsisting still,—despite our severance
From earth,—between flesh-clothed Humanity
And unclothed Mind, were futile occupance
Of torture's lapse,—which now doth swift advance,
As ye perceive, once more, unto its bourne.
Albeit uncomprehended, consonance
Of Mind's progression in this strange sojourn
Subsists, ye know, with minds of men on earth that mourn.

139

“That essences shall glad deliverance reach,
In penal clime of suicide, our hope,
Unquenchable by torment, seems to teach;
And spirits who in Hades never droop
With Earth's old doubts, gathered in eloquent groupe,
Deep descant hold of glorious state to come
For men and spirits,—mystic horoscope
Interpreting—that, on both sides the tomb,
Men's weary souls, in unison, shall reach blest doom.

140

“And Minds presaging this deliverance blest
For fleshless Essences, joy for Earth's teen,
Truth for its error, from its slave-toil rest,—
Foreshew that love fraternal shall with sheen
Genial and mild dissolve the marble mien
Of selfishness to soft beneficence;
Until, as yearned the godlike Nazarene,
It yearns o'er pain and woe, with affluence
Of healing help and soul-restoring condolence.

141

“Nor less presage they that the trodden crowd,
Long left to grovel in degrading mire
Of bruted life, and sunk in desuetude
Of reason's energy, her living fire
Shall feel anew, and nobly thence aspire
To feed the mind with knowledge till its thews
Acquiring might, they reassert their higher
Gradation spiritual. Such hope diffuse
Far-reaching spirits,—hope that even despair subdues.

142

“Thrones,—ye perceive your splendours 'gin to pale;
And soon we must our penal throes renew.
I cease my theme; and may have erred,—for frail
Is still our wisdom: it may be, the Few
Shall still the Many trample and subdue:
That Truth and Liberty shall bloom—to die,
Like glorious winged things, that, swift, pursue
The sunbeam-atoms for a day, then hie
To death: blending, as 'twere, a breath—a smile—a sigh!

143

“It may be that the human soul is mixt
With nature of decadence and frail change,
Essentially: that never stably fixt,
But mutable, eternally to range
From ignorance to wisdom,—then, by strange
Return to ignorance,—may be its fate,
Inevitably: that when their brief revenge
Slaves take on tyrants, they emancipate
Themselves in vain, and Nature doth their strife frustrate:

144

“Spirits, it may be emptier than a dream
That fair Equality shall one day hold
Sole sceptre on the earth: that man shall deem
His brother man too sacred to be sold
Or slain,—to be by any power controlled,
Save the soft force of love and wisdom: field
It is for thought: thy dogma,—monarch old,—
‘There must be conqu'ring lords and slaves that yield’—
The Future may attest as the stained Past hath sealed.

145

“These splendours pale! Spirits, with me combine
Your sentence—that to this deep argument
Large aidant minds who tenant this confine
Be summoned, when our penance-term is spent,
And o'er us this gemmed roof, once more, is bent.
New lights on truth may issue from their rays
Of cogitation; and some joint consent
Accrue to spirits from the confluent blaze
Of Essences, when each his glowing thought displays.”—

146

Lycurgus ceased: the columned monster shapes
Wox dim to faintness; and a hue of dread
Fell on each spirit, knowing torture's lapse
Was ended. Ere their sceptred glory fled,
Methought, a dying beam of radiance shed
From each fast-fading visage did betoken
Mute acquiescence in their judgment bred
With fair proposal by the Spartan spoken—
And, as that dying beam was shed—my dream was broken.

BOOK THE SECOND.

1

Lyre of my fatherland! anew, to wake
Thy solemn shell, I come, with trembling hand,
Feeling my rudeness doth harsh discord make
With strings great minstrels all-divinely spanned.
How shall a thrall essay to join your band,
Ye free-born spirits whose bold music fired
My free-born sires to draw the glittering brand
For home and England, or, in arms attired,
To awe their lion kings who to sole power aspired?

2

How shall a thrall, from humble labour sprung,
Successful, strike the lyre in scornful age,
When full-voiced bards have each neglected sung,
When loftiest rhyme is deemed a worthless page,
And Taste doth browse on bestial pasturage?
Gray Prudence saith the world will disregard
My harping rude, or term it sacrilege
That captive leveller hath rashly dared
To touch the sacred function of the tuneful bard.

3

Ah! when hath joined the servile world to say
Truth's song was fitly-chosen, fitly-timed?
The bard fit songster for a lofty lay,
Or, that he worthily for bays had climbed?
Great spirits! who, from mortal clay sublimed,
Securely wear your immortality,—
By impulse incontrollable ye hymned
Soul-worship of the Beautiful,—the Free,
By freeborn strains, aroused to spurn at Tyranny!

4

Thou wert no beggar for permissive grace,
Illustrious sire, so blythely debonair,
Who didst from Monkery's mis-shapen face
The mask of purity, indignant, tear,
And its deep-grained licentiousness lay bare,
What time our simple fathers thou didst sing
On merry journey bent to patter prayer
At Martyr-shrine, where bowed the priest-scourged king—
That saint with tameless English heart low-homaging!

5

And if thou soughtst thou didst no favour gain
Worthy to be esteemed a guerdon meet
For one who did in such instructive strain
As thine, great chief of Allegory! greet
A queenly ear, with rhyme of knightly feat
And dark enchantment,—weaving moral pure
So deftly with harmonious numbers sweet
That, while thou didst the outward sense allure,
Thou feddst the mind and heart with Virtue's nouriture.

6

O matchless Archimage of nature, whom
I name with awe,—when thou aloft didst hold
Thy living ‘mirror’ to strike mortals dumb
With vision of its wonders manifold,—
To render uglier still the ugly mould
Of baneful vice, and gibbet to mankind
Their general villainy,—didst thou, for gold,
Or great ones' smiles, forbear to tell thy mind,
Or shape thy glass like one to their foul vices blind?

7

Or thou, immortal Childe, with him that saw
Islam's Revolt, in rapt prohpetic trance,—
Did fear of harsh reception overawe
Your fervid souls from fervid utterance
Of Freedom's fearless shout?—your scathing glance
On priestly rottenness, did ye tame down
Till priests could brook that lightning's mitigance?
Knowing your cold award would be the frown
Of Power and Priestcraft,—ye your sternest thoughts made known.

8

And what if all were helot-thoughted things
Old Hellene bards to meet by sacred fount
Would scorn, save thee, to whom my spirit clings
With worship true,—it were enough to count
Thy life of toil example paramount
To coward precept. ‘Evil days’ were thine,
And ‘evil tongues’ and ‘dangers,’

“Paradise Lost.”

—yet confront
The storm thou didst with courage all-divine,
And reared thy stately fabric 'spite of cloud malign!

9

Bard of the mighty harp, whose golden chords,
Strung by the Eternal, no befitting theme
Found among mortals and their low records,
But pealed high anthems to the throne supreme,
Or, thundering, echoed where the lurid gleam
Of Erebus, revealed the primal fall!—
Since thou 'mid ‘darkness’ lone couldst joy, I'll deem
This grated cell no dungeon of a thrall,
But banquet-chamber where the Mind holds festival!

10

Great minstrel, let the night entomb the day,
Let bolts and bars, in mockery, last till doom,
So that heaven-robed, thou walkst with me, thy lay
Shall dissipate all thought of prison-gloom.
Transcendant spirit,—in this narrow room
Oft tenanted by woe-worn, bruted child
Of man, crushed from his cradle to the tomb
By tyrants,—how hast thou my nights beguiled!
‘Smoothing the raven down of Darkness till it smiled’

“Comus.”

11

I joy that my young heart a covenant made—
To take thee for its guide in patriot deed,
If Life's eventful roll should shew arrayed
The brethren of my fatherland agreed
To claim their ancient birthright, and be freed.
Oh how the lesson of thy deathless toil,
While my soul homaged thee, in me did feed
The flame of freedom! Shall the sacred oil
Not keep it quenchless till the grave its foemen foil?

12

Be thou enthroned, bright patriot, tuneful seer,
Not on a regal seat that thou wouldst scorn
As loftily as e'er thou scornedst here
The thrones of kings, or baubles by them worn;
But, be thy name on England's bosom borne
In pride, while all her sons thy lineage boast!—
Thy awful brow is shaded! Dost thou mourn
And bode thy darling Commonweal is lost?—
Nay!—but we'll win her back, by Labour's gathered host!

13

She shall return, with face more heavenly fair,
And graced with limbs of fitlier symmetry!
Ay,—shall return!—for we thy kindred are:
We'll win thy ‘mountain nymph, sweet Liberty!’

“L'Allegro. ”

Thou, and the glorious phalanx of the free,—
Hampden, and Pym, and Eliot, Selden, Vane,
Marten, and martyred Sydney,—what were ye?
Our elder brethren!—and the kingly chain
Ye loosed—we'll break: our kingless birthright we'll regain!

14

Honour—all honour to thee, patriot bard!—
With whom I took sweet counsel in my youth:
I joy, that though my lowly lot was hard,
My spirit, raised by thine, forgot its ruth,
And, smiling, dared the dint of Want's fell tooth:
I joy, that all enamoured of thy song,
While simpletons esteemed my ways uncouth,
I wandered, by day's dawn, the woods among,
Or did, with midnight lamp, my grateful task prolong.

15

Poet of Paradise, whose glory illumed
My path of youthful penury, till grew
The desart to a garden, and Life bloomed
With hope and joy, 'midst suffering,—honour due
I cannot render thee; but reverence true
This heart shall give thee, till it reach the verge
Where human splendours lose their lustrous hue;
And when, in death, my mortal joys all merge—
Thy grand and gorgeous music, Milton, be my dirge!—

16

Long had the night o'erveiled the summer sky,
And, through the grated casement of my lair,—
Was it some guardian spirit's wakeful eye
The captive keeping?—one mild, silver star,
Benignant, beamed. Meanwhile, of angel war,
Fierce waged in heaven against the Eternal king,—
Of great Messiah, in his cherub car,
Routing the foe,—I heard the minstrel sing,—

In plain prose, I mean that my rehearsal of Milton, during the long hours of darkness in my sleeping cell, frequently converted the gloom into a season of ecstasy. I had committed three books of “Para- dise Lost” to memory, while at the last twenty years before my imprisonment; and I thus was enabled to realise the high value of such an inalienable possession.

And heaven's magnific vault with clash of conflict ring!

17

Then, in ecstatic whispers, of the love
And joy, and peace, and harmony, that reign
Unceasing, 'mid the radiant choir above,
Now war is o'er,—he sang: anon, in strain
Sonorous chaunted how, on burning plain
Rallied the fallen warriors' myriad host,
And hurled defiance, 'spite of fiery pain
And torment, at the Conqueror,—their vain boast
Of strength original maintaining—although lost!

18

The mighty stature, and still mightier pride
And energy of him who ‘seemed alone
‘Th' antagonist of heaven’

“Paradise Lost.”

—in gloom descried
Breasting the flaming waves, or, on the throne
Of stately Pandemonium regal grown,
And confident in ruin,—the high seer,
Filled with his theme, in deep unearthly tone
Rehearsed,—while I, entranced with pleasing fear,
Imagined I beheld the proud archangel near!—

19

Thus night sped on until the golden lyre
And song magnificent brought sense of rest,
As late they woke the spirit's sleepless fire:
So breathe, conjunctive, at Her high behest,
Nature's great servitors, to make Man blest—
Maugre his foes!—the Muse and Phantasy,
Hope, Music, Sleep: until into his nest—
Straw on an iron slab—he sinks with glee—
Even where the lordlings trow he pines in misery!

20

Nor did my minstrel guest upon me look
Farewell—until the soul her mystic flight,—
Leaving the flesh to slumber,—once more took:
When, o'er Death's sea, by supernatural might
Upborne, we seemed to speed, and then to alight
Together on that ‘boundless continent
‘Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of Night,
‘Starless exposed’

“Paradise Lost.”

—where wandered souls that rent
Themselves, unbidden, from their earthly tenement.

21

Familiar seemed that drear and gloomy land
Unto the stately Shade with whom I trod
The swamp and rock o'er which the ghastly band
Essayed their march. But, now, as if some god
Potential had transfixed them by his nod,
The chasms forgot to yawn, the rocks to roll
And threaten, warlike meteors to forebode,
And spectres ceased their gibings fierce and foul:
Horror was hushed, and, patient, owned the bard's control.

22

Swiftly we threaded through the caverned aisle
Of wondrous masonry; and, forthwith, passed
Thorough the vault that seemed sepulchral pile
Scooped from primeval rock. Then with light haste
Upborne again, as if on gentle blast
Pillowed, or winged away by flying steed
Invisible, we neared a mountain vast,
Where toiled a troop thinking its height would lead
Up to some happier clime from pains of penance freed.

23

Aloft we floated, passing crowd on crowd,
Their guises varied as the flowers a-field,
While with all nameless hues their features glowed,
Betokening them self-exiles, unannealed,
From every mortal clime. Still up we wheeled
Our flight, reaching no summit,—countless souls
Hard toiling upwards being still revealed,
As if the discontented in huge shoals
Had hither 'scaped from Earth's old hated prison-walls!

24

Our flying travel ended where a grove
Grew on the mount. 'Midst, sat a form which seemed
With raised right hand to mock the pomp of Jove
Hurling his lightnings. Asking, as I dreamed,
Who this might be—'twas ‘he who to be deemed
‘A god leapt fondly into Etna flames—
‘Empedocles’

“Paradise Lost.”

—the bard replied; while gleamed
From the throned figure looks of one who aims
Unto some high pretension to assert his claims.

25

Methought, on this aspiring form I gazed
Until a youth, who downcast looked, and coy,
Came near; when wondering that he never raised
His eyes, I asked what thoughts him might employ:
The minstrel said, 'twas ‘he who to enjoy
‘Plato's Elysium leapt into the sea—
‘Cleombrotus’

“Paradise Lost.”

—and, the fanatic boy
Thus briefly named, my minstrel guide from me
Departed. I, to follow felt I was not free.

26

Perplexed, I seemed awhile to look around,
And wistfully to think of mother Earth;
But soon all thought and consciousness were bound
Unto that mountain region: I felt dearth
Of earthly sense, as heretofore, but birth
Of intellection; for the spirits twain,
Of Hellas sprung, seemed now, in words of worth,
Though without mortal sound, of their soul's stain
And essences of things, to speak in fervid strain.—

27

“Sage Agrigentine, shall we never leave
Our earth-born weaknesses?”—the youth began:
“Ages of thought, since Hades did receive
Our spirits, have elapsed, by mortal span,—
Still, from the great disciplinarian
Stern Truth, we slowly learn! A juggler's dupe
Thou art, ev'n now—thyself the charlatan!
Nay!—like an intellectual eagle, stoop
Upon thy quarry, Self-Deceit, with conquering swoop!

28

“Vainly, thou knowst, thou wilt seek worshippers
Of thy proud foolery, here. Before thee fall
No votaries; and thy erring spirit stirs,
In vain, her sovereignty to re-enthral
By harbouring old thoughts terrestrial:
None will thy godship own! Thy rock descend,
Laying stale follies by, and let us call
Forth from the mind the vigorous powers that rend
Fate's curtain; and our ken beyond these shades extend!”—

29

The younger Hellene ceased; and, while he spake,
The elder changed, like one who having quaffed
The maddening cup, up, from his couch doth wake,
And—told by crowds that old Lyæan craft
Beguiled him, till he skipt, and mouthed, and laught,
As one moon-struck,—now, ebriate with rage,
Dashes to earth the foul venenose draught:
So changed, from pride to ire, the thought-smit sage:
As if the soul now spurned her self-wrought vassalage.

30

Descending his imaginary throne
With haste, upon the rugged granite peak
He seemed to have laid his fancied godhead down;
For, like to glow that crimsons mortal cheek,
A glow of shame came o'er the lofty Greek,
When, 'midst the grove, upon the mountain's sward
He stood, and, couched in phrase antique,
Poured forth his inmost thoughts. A rapt regard
Rendered the youth while thus discoursed the ancient bard:

The poetical performances of Empedocles (without mooting the question of his identity with Empedocles the tragedian) must have been considerable.—Diogenes Laertius (editio Amsteldami: Hen. Wetstenii: p. 529) records Aristotle's testimony that the character of the Agrigentine philosopher's poetry was “Homerical”, and takes especial notice of a poem on Xerxes' transit of the Hellespont, and an address or hymn to the Sun (in Apollinem proœmium). Fabricius (Bibliotheca Græca: editio Hamburgi: vol. i., p. 8II), in the list of the works of Empedocles, places three books of hexameter verse on Nature,—3,000 hexametres on Lustrations, and 600 on Medicine. In the same volume the “learned” reader may peruse a specimen of this philosopher's poetry,—being 168 lines of Greek, on the Spheres, —and may also acquaint himself with some stout reasons why Empe- docles should be considered as the real author of the celebrated “Golden Verses of Pythagoras.”

31

“Cleombrotus, thou humblest me; yet I
Thy debtor am; fraternal chastisement
Our spirits need, even here—O mystery
Inexplicable! Vainly, on earth outwent
The mind on high discovery, prescient
Herself esteeming of her after-state;
For Ease, Pain's issue, here, is incident,
As to Earth's clime; and all unlike our fate
To what we did in mortal life prognosticate.

32

“Thou findst not here deep ecstasy absorb
With ravishment perpetual the soul;
Although Elysian dreams yon dreaming orb
Enticed thee to forsake, and flee to goal
Eternal. Neither do fierce fires control
Our thought with mystic torture, as they feign
On earth, who now affright, and then cajole
Poor trampled earthworms—picturing joy or pain
Ghostly, until the mind subserves the body's chain.

33

“Here, as on earth, we feel our woe or joy
Is of and from ourselves: the yearning mind
Her own beatitude, and its alloy,
Creates, and suffering ever intertwined,
She proves, with error. Fool—I am, and blind—
Amidst my fancied wisdom! What impels
The soul to err? If in the right she find
Her happiness concentred, why rebels
The will against the judgment till it foams and swells,

34

“A tempest,—aided by the raging blast
Of passion,—and the yielding soul is whirled
Helplessly into guilt's black gulf, or cast
On death's sharp breakers? What hath hither hurled
Thy bark and mine? Our senses' sails upfurled
We did esteem, by sage Philosophy,
Yet was our vessel caught where fiercest curled
The furious billows, and poor shipwrecks we
Were left—even while we boasted our dexterity!

35

“Thou, whilst aspiring after fuller bliss
Than earth affords, wert maddened with desire
To realise some pure hypostasis
Platonic dreamers fable from their sire,
The Academian: I consuming fire
Felt daily in my veins to see my race
Emerge from out the foul defiling mire
Of animal enjoyments that debase
Their nature, and well-nigh its lineaments efface.

36

“I burned to see my species proudly count
Themselves for more than brutes; and toiled to draw
Them on to drink at Virtue's living fount,
Whence purest pleasures flow. Alas! I saw
Old vice had them besotted till some awe,
Some tinge of mystery, must be allied
With moral lessons; or, a futile law
My scholars would esteem them. Not in pride
To Etna's yawning gulph the Agrigentine hied:

37

“I loved my kind; and, eager to exalt
Them into gods, to be esteemed a god
I coveted: thinking none would revolt
From godlike virtue when the awful nod
Divine affirmed its precepts. Thus, to fraud
Strong zeal for virtue led me! Canst thou blame
My course? I tell thee, thirst for human laud
Impelled me not: 'twas my sole-thoughted aim
To render Man, my brother, worthy his high name!”

38

So spake Empedocles; and him the youth
Thus answered:—“Mystery, that for ever grows
More complex as we, ardent, seek for truth,
Doth still encompass us! Thy words disclose
A tide of thoughts; and o'er my spirit flows
Wave after wave, bearing me, nerveless, from
My fancied height: as when, by acheful throes,
Self-castaway, the shelving rock I clomb,
The sea asserted o'er my limbs its masterdom.

39

“My chiefest marvel is that Wisdom's son,
Thyself, should, after ages have gone o'er
Him, and his race unto the tomb is run,
Still feel anxieties which earth's old shore
Convert to hell. Empedocles, no more
Mix palliation with confession, guise
Of fraud with truth! If, in thy heart's deep core,
Thou hadst not erred, why, by the grand assize
Of the soul's Judge, dost thou in Hades agonise?

40

“No longer from thy judgment seek to hide
The truth indisputable—that thy heart
Was moved, like every human heart, by pride—
That subtle poison which with fatal smart,
Man's spirit penetrates, and doth impart
Its hateful tinct even to his pearliest deeds.
Whence rise the spectrous forms that flit athwart
Thy mental vision here? Thy thought—why breeds
It still Pride's haughty plant, unless from earth-sown seeds?

41

“I question not the truth of thy deep love
For virtue, for man's happiness thy zeal.

The highest testimonies to the philanthropy, humane exercise of his medical skill, liberality in the disposition of his wealth, and democratic spirit of Empedocles, are given by Laertius and others.— See Stanley's or Enfield's “History of Philosophy.”

Empedocles, thou knowst my soul hath clove
To thine for ages, in these shades: we feel
Our heart congenial while we thus reveal
Its throbbings to the core. Oh! not in hate
Or mockery do I once again appeal
Unto thy nobler thought. Though sad our state,
Let us from self-deceit the soul emancipate!”—

42

He ceased; and thus the Agrigentine sage
Replied:—“Cleombrotus, in me, again,
Thou call'st forth gratitude: self-cozenage,
How low, how mean, how imbecile and vain!
Yet, humbled, I discern its hateful stain
Within my essence, still: would thou hadst torn
My last disguise away, and bruised the reign
Of my deceits, eternally!—Upborne
From hence, then would the soul find some more blest sojourn.

43

“And why cannot the soul her strength exert
Even now? Age after age this irksome feud
With frailty we sustain, or, all inert,
Droop o'er our woe, and, passive mourn! Endued
With power our being is: this torpitude
Let us shake off! We loathe the stain we see
Still cleaving to us: let the will denude
The soul of frailty! Now for victory
Let essence dare, and scale this Mount of Vanity!”—

44

With wild fanatic light his visage glowed
And kindred fire began forthwith to gleam
In the youth's eyes:—“With mystic might endowed
I feel we are!”—he cried:“with might supreme!
The soul shall sun herself amid the beam
Ecstatic, where Elysian flowers bloom
In fields of ceaseless verdure, and where stream
The waters of rejuvenescence! Gloom
Shall cease! these shades are not the soul's perpetual doom!

45

“Now, let us mount! Haste, haste, Empedocles!
My brother, haste! Our spirits' law delay
Brooks not: let us the favouring current seize
That now the soul bears onward!”—
Swift away,
I saw them, as I dreamed, sanguine and gay
Of heart as children, join the toiling crew
Of motley shapes and guises, that for aye,
Clomb up to gain some peak, winning no view,
They sought, but seeming, still, their struggle to renew.

46

My spirit, with a vague, wild ardour rapt,
Seemed speedily to mingle with this host.
And, as I gazed, sleek, supple forms that aped
Deep sanctity, sighing, trudged on, and crossed
Themselves. Of sable hue, full many a ghost
Was there that called on Brahm, and Juggernaut,
Veeshnu, and Seeva, and Kalee: these tossed
Their frantic forms, and writhed, and wildly smote
Upon their breasts—seeming with ecstasy distraught.

47

And turbaned shapes were there that proudly frowned
On all around them, and ‘Allah akbar!’
Proclaimed: whereat ‘Christ shield us from Mahound!’
A band exclaimed that signs of antique war
Displayed, their zeal and guise alike bizarre,
Shirted in steel and visored; while loud rung
The air of Hades with unholy jar
Of chivalrous chartel they fiercely flung
At their grim Paynim foemen, with obstreperous tongue.

48

Anathemas and hells eternal waged
They next against each other,—losing sense
Of their strange afterstate,—so madly raged
Each bigot at his fellow's difference
Of madness. Memory of their woes intense
Returning, each made halt and turned to scorn
His neighbour's cowardice, with spite prepense,
For blighted self-destroyer that must mourn
In endless pain, with torturous hope of end still torn.—

49

And now gave o'er their lunatic pursuit
The Graian sage and youth I first perceived
Upon the mount. Amid the mad dispute
Of million zealots they seemed each bereaved
Of self-possession, till, anon they cleaved
A way from out the crowd, and sat them down,
Wearied and strife-worn, while their spirits grieved
With more than mortal agony: all flown
Their dreams, and their wild hopes brought back to Hades' zone!

50

Long space, and gloomy, of existence past,
In which, with silent grief, the spirits twain
Seemed overwhelmed, and each enthusiast
His face averted from his brother, fain
To hide his shame, and struggling to sustain
His own peculiar woe. At length outburst
Cleombrotus, unable to restrain
His swelling sorrow:—“Evermore accurst”—
He cried,—“be memory of him who kindled thirst

51

“Within me for some vaguely imagined good,
Unproven by the soul, and whether ill
Or good unknown; since oft false likelihood
Befools the mind, oft she impels the will
To grasp a hemlock where she thought to fill
Her embrace with the rose. My mortal state
Why did I scorn? Not seldom, sweetest thrill
Of pleasure follows pain: joys mitigate
Worst woe: Men share no irremediable fate:

52

“Sorrow, on earth, hath uses: nutritive
Of joys griefs often prove; and power to find
Pleasures unfound before pains, friendly, give.
O state beyond compare! and for the mind
And body framed benignly! Weak and blind
And thoughtless was my wish for unmixt joy
Perpetual, since alternate pain designed
Satiety of pleasure to destroy
I now discern. Could ceaseless pleasure fail to cloy?

53

“Alas! in vain I reason!—vainly charge
My tortured spirit with her last foul leap—
Her darkest, deepest stain! While on the marge
Of jeopardy this lessoning might keep
The soul from error; but when once the steep
She clears, sage counsels no deliverance bring.
Yet, why do I permit despair to sweep
Away all hope? Unto the weakest thing,
For help, the seaman 'midst the strife of death will cling:

54

“To weeds—to quicksands—to the cresting foam
Of the wild waves themselves! And shall she sink,
The deathless spirit,—in self-exiled home,—
Where yet remains her boundless power to think
O luxury ineffable, since link
To link the spiritual Cyclops swift
And stronger may forge,—till to the very brink
Of space her tether reach! This matchless gift
Is still her portion: shall she not of it make thrift?

55

“Empedocles, my brother, once more tell
To me thy spirit's woes or joys: once more
Let us together struggle to expel
Our sense of pain, and the wide realm explore
Of deepest cogitation: that vast shore
We can, unfettered, visit, and still glean
Its metaphysic splendours, as of yore:
Let us our travel to the fair demesne
Of Mind essay,—the land of truest evergreen!”—

56

“Cleombrotus, my spirit doth respond
To thine, with joy!”—replied Empedocles:
“The soul her wingëd steed, caparisoned
For venturous travel, mounts, and on the breeze
Discursive pants to ride: from far she sees
Her promised conquests; for thou well hast told,
And truly, intellectual pleasures please
When other joys are joyless. But, behold!
Where comes to share our converse the wise Indian old:

57

“He whom Emathian Philip's son beheld
Amazed,—while pealing trumpets cleaved the sky,
And warrior hosts the wondering tumult swelled—
Ride, on his goaded steed, undauntedly,
Into the funeral flame,—scorning to die
By nature's gradual law! Hail Calanus!”

The self-immolation of this Indian philosopher, in the presence of Alexander the Great, is described, with some variations of circum-stance, by Arrian, Plutarch, and others. King Sudraka, author of the Sanscrit drama “Mrichchacati, or the Toy Cart,” (recently translated by Professor Horace Hayman Wilson), also burnt himself to death, as a religious consummation of mortal life, about, it is supposed, 192 years before Christ.

—
The sage spake on—for, now, the Indian nigh
Appeared; “full timely comest thou, friend, with us
To share, as oft before, the descant emulous.

58

“The theme of mystery,—What Existence is,—
Begin! Whence Pain and Pleasure, Hope, Despair?
Why Truth in endless metamorphosis
Doth shroud herself. How Wisdom may declare
Her precept best; and how she best may snare
The vulgar crowd her lessons to observe,
Thereby to elevate and bless—”
“Forbear!”—
The Indian cried, with look of power and nerve:
“How blindly dost thou, still, from truth and wisdom swerve!

59

“Empedocles, in sooth I say thou errst,
As when on earth. Yet, thy clay trammels thou,
By long sojourn in Hades, shouldst have burst.
Falsehood and ignorance will ever bow
The human soul; and urge it, base and low,
To grovel in the dust. Falsehood and sooth
Breed no amalgam. Flame from flood shall flow,—
The summer's sun shed drops congealed,—and Youth
Be sire unto Old Age,—ere Lies shall nurture Truth!

60

“O Greek, called wise, think how old earth hath mourned
And bled, through ages, by the mixture foul
Of fraud with truth! Would that thy heart suborned
Had never been by pride, a false control
To forge for Virtue o'er the human soul!
How would the universal race of man
Have joined thy lofty labour to extol,—
Thy high emprise of goodness, if the ban
Of evil mystery had not obscured thy plan!

61

“I speak not here to wound thee; but I joy
That Vulcan's fabled forge cast out, in scorn,
Thy sandals' brazen soles, for base alloy,

Diogenes Laertius gives authorities for his relation that the mode of Empedocles' suicide was discovered by the casting up of his brazen sandals from the crater of Etna: other ancient authors discredit the entire narrative.

And thus the flimsy veil in twain was torn
That hid thy apish godhead. Hadst thou worn
The false divinity thou soughtst, thy shrine
Had only swelled the slavish burthen borne
By sottish man of priestly craft malign:—
The enwoven fraud had frustrated thy scheme benign!”—

62

Eager response unto the Indian gave
The Agrigentine bard:—“If not by aid
Of harmless fraud,”—he said,—“how couldst thou save
The sons of degradation that have strayed
In Folly's paths until the comely maid,
Fair Virtue, seems, from her uncomely dress,
Unfair?”
“Call not fraud—harmless!”—said the Shade
With sable visage:—“Shadow bodiless
Of Fraud would curse a world with its flagitiousness:

63

“Tinct, grain of falsehood, would a cureless plague
A leprosy o' the heart, in mankind breed!
Empedocles,—thy wisdom still is vague,
Miscalculating, blind; and still succeed
To thee, on earth, they who mankind mislead,
Without thy real philanthropy engraffed
Within their hearts, but mixing with their greed
For praise or gold, a larger share of craft:
How long and loud the fablers at the easy world have laughed!

64

“And still sleek fablers thrive; whilst thou to flame
Gavest thy frail life, and for thyself hast won—
What?—Folly's laurels and a madman's fame!
The time will come, O Hellene! when the sun
Shall look upon a world no more o'errun
With slaves to sensualism; when haggard Spite,
And frowning Pride, and Envy pale shall shun
Truth's glorious beams, and Love's celestial light—
They twain that shall be one, by hymeneals bright!

65

“Glad Earth shall wed them: to the nuptial-feast,
The banquet sempiternal, new-born Faith
Shall call the nations: fairest Peace, sweet Rest,
And holy Joy, shall minister with breath
Ambrosial at the bridal: demon wrath
Against their brethren, cruelty through lure
Of gold, strife for the conqueror's wreath of death,
The strong shall loathe: the weak shall wear, secure,
Their stronger brethren's love—that heaven-wrought armature!

66

“How blest that nuptial reign! The strong shall seek
Their strength to nurture, hourly, with the dews
Of Pity and Mercy; visiting, with meek
Yet fervid zeal, Pain's couch, and Want's purlieus;
Creating health for sickness, hopeful views
Of life for dark despondence; breaking bread
To weeping orphans; and the withered thews
Of age cheering with raiment; till, outspread
In smiles, Earth is one mother's hearth where brethren tread!

67

“The time will come! But, ere that bridal-day
Dawn on our ancient home, Knowledge must win,
By toilsome steps and slow, her widening way:
Knowledge—the new-born world's great heroine
That shall be—when, of knight and paladin,
Tartar and Mameluke, legion and cohort
And phalanx, fame hath fled; when War's huge sin
Hath ceased; and ‘Glory,’ ravening kings' fell sport,
Is chronicled with tales of murderous report.

68

“O Greek, hadst thou a lowly pioneer
Aspired to be of Knowledge, and disdained
To be esteemed, by Greeks, a fit compeer
Of myriad mongrel gods, mankind had gained
By thee, perchance, a gift worth thanks unfeigned;
And lasting honours to thy memory
Exultant lands had rendered, disenchained
From ignorance, and craft, and tyranny.—
Yet it will come—that trump of world-spread jubilee!

69

The time will come! Young Knowledge on her march
Already speeds! Her march of suffering toil,
And peaceful hardihood, of patient search
And tireless zeal. Forth from his snaky coil
Old Superstition springs, and Power his foil
Of sword and chain opposeth to her steps—
But all in vain! She counts them for a spoil!
And conquering and to conquer, forth she sweeps
O'er alp, and vale, and strand; and bounds across the deeps!

70

“Now beams on Thulè's shore her genial torch:
Yea, there her central temple proudly stands:
And lo! who greets her at the stately porch—
An awful-fronted sage, from whom her hands
Receive an ensign which on high expands
Amid the breeze: that peerless gonfalon
Monarchs and Priests behold, and think their sands
Are numbered; for aghast, they read upon
Its scroll ‘Knowledge is Power!’ They fear their craft undone!

71

“They quake—they bow—and soon shall disappear
Their twin theurgies—for the nations wake!
Knowledge, the great Enfranchiser, is near!
Yet, though their bonds the wide world's helots break,
They seek not in their tyrants' blood to slake
A thirst for vengeance. Knowledge desolates
No mother's hearth—no brother's home: they take
Revenge in mercy, whom she emancipates:
His carrion maw, tracking her steps, no vulture sates:

72

“The dogs of carnage prowl not where she treads:
Beneath her steps the sterile desart smiles;
And o'er the wintry waste its perfume sheds
The vernal rose: along the forest aisles
Earth's seraphim awake: her breath beguiles
Old Nature's self! I see their rays appear—
The beauteous bridal pair! Through islet piles
I hear the shout that Truth and Love are near:
For Knowledge wins her way—their radiant harbinger!”—

73

So spake the Indian sage, and stood enrapt
In ecstasy prophetic, as, of old,
The Pythoness afflate who, struggling shaped
To mortal sounds what the Immortal told.
Silence applausive, that with mystic mould
Of spirits consorts, the Twain long held. His trance
Of admiration first the youth controlled:
“I burn with wish,”—he said,—“that Fate or Chance
Had granted us of clay a later heritance:

74

“What raptures then had been our portion! Now
We wrestle with our lot in hope: for yet
Hope unto us remains; and on thy brow,
O Calanus, methinks, are brightly met
Rays of a hope for Hades. Shall thy debt
And ours to angered Providence be purged
By ages of endurance, here, beset
With strange alternate woes? For either urged
By hope we strive; or, in despair all strife is merged

75

“In wretchedness of dull, grave-cold despair.
Say, sable spirit, what thou knowst of rest
That shall be ours!”—
With look of anxious care,
He ceased, impatient for reply. Unblest,
Humbled, regretful, thought and speech confest
Empedocles; and he, ere deeper gauge
Of thought the Indian took, thus urged his quest:
“Some glimpse of joy,”he said, “my thoughts presage:—
This shall not be the soul's eternal heritage:

76

“The spirit shall escape her prison-house:
But thou, O Sage,—to whom mind more intense
Hath brought deep knowledge,—who with luminous
Perceptions art endowed, and opulence
Of reasoning power, like to the prescience
Of gods,—tell forth what hope of blissful end
To these our changeful woes, or what suspense
Of agony, thou dost foreknow. Could we amend
The past, my soul should truth no more with foul fraud blend:

77

“Bright truth with grovelling fraud. Too late I see
Wide wanderings with my fancied rectitude
Enmixt. But why this Mount of Vanity,—
So called by souls that have, for aye, renewed
Their strife to win its peak,—still unsubdued
Their sanguine zeal, though fruitless,—why assign
The gods our portion here? Torturous soul-feud
Of myriad forms hath Hades,—but divine,—
If that thou canst,—why hold we this abhorr'd confine?

78

“What Power appoints to us, with minds at large,
This mountain-prison? Why, in this duresse,
Deemed we, but now, our spirits on the marge
Of ecstasy's eternal boundlessness,
And then, again, surged, wrecked, and shelterless,
On agony's shore, ourselves imagined? Though
Mysterious agencies on us impress
Their purposes,—thou, Calanus, mayst know
What these, the wondering soul's perplexities, foreshow.”—

79

“Perplexed I am for answer,”—in my dream
The Indian seemed to say:—“Here banishment
From earth is self-inflicted; and I deem
Some mystic law consociates spirits pent
In this strange realm of penance. They who rent
Themselves from earth, impelled by painful force
Of ill-requited passion, live unblent
With spirits who through torturous remorse
Fled hither to embrace the self-destroyer's curse:

80

“And they whom slights and treacheries have pierced
With thousand arrows; or, whom children's hate
Hath heart-galled; or, whose actions misrehearsed,
The pitiless world hath phrensied; or, whom Fate
Or circumstance hath failed to elevate
Above their fellows, till with their own hand
They broke life's bonds, hold here a various state.
From these the Poet and the Patriot band,
Self-exiles, dwell apart, in this mysterious land.

81

“Nor seems it purposeless that we who reft
Ourselves of earth's mixt joys through thirst to drink
Of ecstasy unmixt, should thus be left
At large, as heretofore, to dream and think;
And, while imagining we reach the brink
Of purest joy, should feel ourselves still tossed
On hope's conflicting wave, then feebly sink
Desponding. If, upon this mystic coast,
Each wandering soul with dreams and visions be engrossed

82

“Analogous to dreams and visions which
In mortal life engrossed her, 'midst the crowd
Of stern realities,—if glozing speech
Mislead her, as on earth,—and mists enshroud
Her vision till all essence with a cloud
Is wrapt,—and doubt asks whether she exists
Or not,—why, let our struggling will be bowed!
It is our spirits' law,—and, as Fate lists
We live: in vain this law our rebel will resists.

83

“Shall we live thus for ever,—or hath hope
Foundation firm for joys—pure joys to come?
Perplexed I answer: We but guess and grope
For this the jewel of our search: unwomb
Herself Truth may: but, in the heart of gloom
She still hides this her gem of gems. The mind
Oft asks how gods their progeny can doom
To endless, hopeless woe: but what, if blind
Necessity grasps all! Who shall her grasp unbind?

84

“Oft speak we of deep sympathies enwove
In flesh-freed Essences with men on earth,
Foretelling that when Truth shall wed with Love
'Mong mortals, spirits in Hades shall, thenceforth,
Experience wondrous change,—the soul new birth
Shall have of wisdom,—false distinctions cease,—
Or they have highest honour who in worth
Of virtue most excel,—penance to peace
For ever shall be changed,—and ever know increase.

85

“With ye not seldom, Hellenes sage, I share
These sanguine thoughts; but souls of Kings ask whence
Derive we our bright hope. Summons I bear
Unto our mountain realm—that high souls hence
Betake them where, in pictured affluence
Of power, Monarchs hold thrones, when lapse of pain
To them, with us, Nature's behests dispense.
Since Kings yield parley, think ye that in vain
Truth's devotees 'fore thrones shall themes of Truth maintain?

86

“Spirits, ye beam with thoughts that antedate
Triumph of Truth and Right; and I partake
Your deep prophetic joy. What though dark hate
Bosoms of kings usurps?—Love shall awake
In gentleness omnipotent, and make
Her meekest throne within their souls,—for they
Are human,—and all human souls shall break
Their vassalage to Wrong. Alas!—dismay
Of doubt begins, anew, to seek me for its prey!

87

“Empedocles!—Cleombrotus!—our life
In Hades, as on earth, is mystery:
Our being is a contest and a strife
Of self with self: thus struggling to be free
We add unto our fetters: while we flee—
Or think we flee—from folly, we are more
Than ever fools! The soul, a refugee
In Hades from Earth's woes, her woes deplore
In deeper woe may, endlessly;—or with new power

88

“Endowed, may yet launch out her fragile bark
Adventurously, and find some sea of bliss,—
Some unknown flood of light,—and, far from dark
And dismal storms of doubt, emparadise
Herself—”
Anon, from vague hypothesis
The Indian fell again to doubtings void,
Till like his speech, his form itself, I wis,
Grew dim; and with its brother forms did glide
Into the womb of Nought:—the vision was destroyed!

BOOK THE THIRD.

1

Hail, glorious Sun! All hail the captive's friend!
Giver of purest joys, where Sorrow fain
Would enter and abide, and, traitorous, lend
Her power to aggravate the tyrant's chain:
Great Exorcist, that bringest up the train
Of childhood's joyaunce, and youth's dazzling dreams
From the heart's sepulchre, until, again,
I live in ecstasy, 'mid woods, and streams,
And golden flowers that laugh while kissed by thy bright beams.

2

Ay, once more, mirrored in the silver Trent,
Thy noon-tide majesty I think I view
With boyish wonder; or, till drowsed and spent
With eagerness, peer up the vaulted blue
With shaded eyes, watching the lark pursue
Her dizzy flight; then, on a fragrant bed
Of meadow sweets still sprent with morning dew,
Dream how the heavenly chambers overhead
With steps of grace and joy the holy angels tread.

3

Of voices sweet, and harps with golden wires
Touched by the fingers of the seraph throng;
Of radiant vision which the cherub choirs
Witness, with jubilee of rapturous song,
And without weariness their joy prolong,
I lie and dream, till, with a start, I wake,
Thinking my mother's home is still among
Earth's children, and her yearning heart will ache,
If, for those angel joys, her smile I should forsake.—

4

O heart, now cold in the devouring grave,
And torn, no more, by scorn and suffering,
How fondly didst thou to thy darling cleave!
Although thy tyrants but a worthless thing
Esteemed him. Rankled, deep, oppression's sting
In thy recesses: still, in hardihood
Of conscious right, stern challenge thou didst fling
Back at thy foemen and their hireling brood;
And beat unto old age with free and youthful blood!

5

Mother, thy wrongs, the common wrongs of all
To labour doomed by proud and selfish drones,
Enduringly have fixed the burning gall
Deep in my veins—ay, in my very bones.
I hate ye, things with surplices and crowns!
Serpents that poison, tigers that devour
Poor human kind, and fill the earth with groans,
Through every clime! God send ye were no more!
Ye'd have a merry requiem, from shore to shore!

6

Taxes for king and priest a knave was wont
To filch from my poor widowed mother's toil;
And while the prowling jackal held his hunt,
He battened on the offals of the spoil,
And mocked the sufferers! How my blood did boil
When lately I beheld a gilded stone
Raised to the memory of this vermin vile,
And pious charity ascribed thereon
To him who gray beneath the Poor's grim curse had grown!

7

I laid my aged mother near the dust
Of her oppressor; but no gilded verse
Tells how she toiled to win her child a crust,
And, fasting, still toiled on: no rhymes rehearse
How tenderly she strove to be the nurse
Of truth and nobleness in her loved boy,
'Spite of his rags—
O Sun! thou dost amerce
My mournful heart, for the poor fleeting joy
With which thy beams began my sadness to destroy.

8

Bright Gazer on the wilderness of woe
Called Earth, dost thou above in mockery smile
Like human crowds thou look'st upon below?
I fondly hoped thou wouldst, a little while,
The captive of his cankerous care beguile;
But, for one glimpse of childhood's cheerful bloom,
Thou hast brought back upon my heart a pile
Of achings kindred to the dreary tomb;
And mak'st me feel I hasten to that realm of gloom.

9

What—when my torturers have had their fill
Of vengeance—If I, once more, freely range,
Beneath thy radiance, over vale and hill,
Through tangled wood, by stream, and moated grange,
And festooned castle wall? Deep thoughts of change
And sadness will the flowers of childhood bring:
I shall be companied with voices strange
To childhood's rapture, and unskilled to sing
The merry song with which we made the welkin ring:

10

Sorrow will follow song of matin merle
And vesper throstle where young joys I took:
For, of the dead, where Lindsey's streamlets purl,
Remembrances are writ, in Nature's book;
The gentle violet may as sweetly look
And heavenly blue as it was wont to glow:
But, like that darling floret by the brook,
'Twill breathe—‘Forget-me-not!’—and I shall bow
In grief, remembering there that joyous hearts lie low.—

11

Thou gorgeous lamp to light man to the home
Appointed for all living!—though elate
With throb of liberty regained I roam
O'er paths to Life's glad morning consecrate,
Will not thy flame foreshew that for me wait
Death's prison-portals, and I do but stay
At large on sufferance? For, the writ of Fate
Will soon arrive, which not a breath's delay
Brooks, of their full surrender, from the forms of clay.

12

Oh! couldst thou bare that dark captivity
From whence, released, none ever yet returned
To tell its secrets, how our dreams would flee!
Was it to know Death's truths, in life, that yearned
The hoary Kelt who on the cromlech burned
His brother, hymning thee, the sky-throned god?
For ages, Man thy huge gray shrines hath spurned,
Mocking thy worship; but, like all who trod
Earth then, in dreams, still dream the children of the clod!

13

And thou, thyself, all glorious as thou art,
Supernal Sun!—what art thou but a dream?
A splendid vanity—a glittering part
Of the vast aggregate of things that seem?
How know I that with veritable beam
Thou dost illume this earth and sister spheres?
Or, whether they and thou, mere fictions, teem
From Mind, and thy great glory but appears—
Not is—and will, with thy beholders, fade with years?

14

Hath Mind, more truly, substance, then, than thou,
Great Sun?—
Oh! how poor human thought doth mock
Itself! I think I see: I think I know!
What further? Nought—to worms! Although ye knock
At Truth's dark barriers, they will bear the shock
Till doomsday—if it ever come! If sleep
Eternal comes, instead, then, at a stroke,
Away, it will hope, faith, and doubting sweep:
And, if we cease to be; why—we shall cease to weep.

15

Alas!—the soul doth seek to gather balm,
In vain, from barrenness: alternative
So frigid, blank, and bare, affords no calm
To him whose heart desires for aye to live;
And yet doth palpitate, despond, misgive,
More than it hopes.—
Resplendent light! now wanes
Thy beam; yet, who the morrow shall survive
To see, shall thee behold gilding the plains,
And hear thy gladdened birds rechant their joyous strains:

16

And thus, my brother-worms, in days of eld,
Looked on thy resurrection, and believed
That since thy disentombment they behold
Each morn, thou hadst a symbol for them weaved
Of glorious life to follow death: reprieved
From fear of what I fear, they danced, they sung,
And on the mountains where so late they grieved,
And wailed their dead, gay trophies to thee hung,
And shouted thy high praise till hill and valley rung!

17

Baal, whose mighty tabernacles rose,
Roofed by the sky,—from Babel to Stonehenge;
Whose Beltein fire her mountain child still shows
On Caledonia's hills, 'spite of all change:
Boodh, Veeshnu, Chrishna, of old shasters strange,
Through ages hymned by Hindoo devotee:
Osiris, whose dark murder to avenge
Pale Isis nightly glowed o'er Mitzraim's sea—
Old priestly Nile that glads the land of mystery:

18

Mithras, high deity of gorgeous Mede:
Thammuz, or Adad, of Chaldaic seer,
Or old Phœnician by the Hebrew's seed
Supplanted: Titan, or Hyperion, fear
Of new-fledged gods, assailed in cloudy sphere
Olympic: Phœbus or Apollo, bright
And young and fair, throughout the rolling year
Circled with song, or from the Delphic height,
Breathing dim oracles, 'mid priest-enriching rite:

19

God, claimed by regal Incas as their sire
Beyond the wave Columbian, where upcone
Earth's storehouses of silver: Sovereign fire!
The young soul's natural god! Visible throne
Of holy Nature's Sovereignty unknown
Invisible!—by whatsoever name
Adored and deified throughout our zone,
Thy worshippers all held thy risen flame
Did for the soul adumbrate some great after-drame!

20

On shadows leaning, these did vaguely urge
Their dreaming pilgrimage; and, lest I lean
On shadows too—though thousand lights converge
To deck with loveliness the Nazarene—
I hesitate, demur, surmise, and glean,
Daily, new grounds to doubt the Mythic dress—
Phœnician woof, once more!—through which is seen,
I fear, thy ancient face—bright Comeliness!—
Fabling with future life poor grave-doomed worms to bless!

21

He whom the Arimathean's tomb enclosed—
The Toiler blest, who on the vile cross died—
But, 'spite of guards, the bonds of death unloosed,
Scattering the men of iron in their pride
Convulsed to helplessness, and forth did ride
Leading captivity captive!—Is he not—
Magnific beam!—thy power personified—
Night-tombed—and, then, pouring dismay and rout
On Darkness, while Earth's million morning-voices shout?

22

I love the Galilean; Lord and Christ
Such goodness I could own; and, though enshrined
In flesh, could worship: If emparadised,
Beyond the grave, no Eden I could find
Restored, though all the good of humankind
Were there, and not that yearning One, the Poor
Who healed, and fed, and blest! Nay, to my mind,
Hell would be Heaven, with him! Horror no more
Could fright, if such benignant beauty trod its shore!

23

I love the sweet and simple narrative,
With all its childlike earnestness—the page
Of love-wrought wonders which in memory live:
I would the tale were true: that heritage
Of immortality it doth presage
Would make me glad indeed. But doubts becloud
Truth's fountains as their depths I seek to gauge,—
Till with this trustless reckoning I am bowed—
Man's heritage is but a cradle and a shroud!—

24

Hark!—'tis the turnkey!—and those bars and bolts
Jar their harsh summons to my nightly nook.
Farewell, grand Sun! How my weak heart revolts
At that appalling thought—that my last look
At thy great light must come! Oh! I could brook
The dungeon, though eterne!—the Priests' own hell,
Ay, or a thousand hells, in thought, unshook,
Rather than Nothingness! And yet the knell,
I fear, is near, that sounds—To consciousness
farewell!

25

After these day-dreams 'neath the summer's sun,
The Soul—I mean, the something that doth think
And dream: Name it aright, thou knowing one
Who kennst the Essence which doth ever shrink
From its own scrutiny!—began to link
Night's images to forms she waking saw
With the interior eye.—
Upon the brink
Of a wild lake I stood, and viewed with awe,
Again unveiled, the realm of suicidal woe!

26

The spacious wave, before me, tempest-gloomed
And bleak and storm-tost, howled; and I seemed frore
With cold; and shuddering, felt as if foredoomed
To sense of mortal hunger. On the shore
I wandered, while my thoughts, amid the roar
Of winds and waters, dwelt on One who stilled
The waves, and fed the hungry: and the more
I seemed to be with sense of hunger thrilled
And cold, the more that Form my inward vision filled.

27

And still I wandered by the howling lake,
Imagining what joy succeeded fear
In the poor fishers, when their Master spake
From the night-wave, and said,—‘Be of good cheer!
'Tis I!’—while one sprang out to meet Him there,
But would have sunk, had not the meek One's hand
Him rescued. ‘Who’—I cried—‘would not revere
‘Such power and love? Worship I, on this strand,
Would give the Nazarene—did He these waves command.’

28

The soul, in her impassioned workings, seemed
To have spoken audibly,—whereat, a sound,
Or what was likest sound—came, as I dreamed,
Forth from the caves that hemmed that lake around,
Appalling, as when one with mortal wound
Is struck, and utters his last agony
Of wild despair. A face that did astound
My spirit met me, as I turned to see
What form to wildly wail on that stern shore might be.

29

Tongue cannot syllable the blighting curse
To which that visage gave soul-utterance:
For mastery—guilt, despair, wrath, shame, remorse,
Contended, in each petrifying glance;
And still their contest burning sustenance
Drew evermore from the consuming blaze
Within:—‘My being's ceaseless heritance
‘Is agony!’—seemed written in that gaze,
In letters not a universe of joy could raze:

30

It was a look unique in wretchedness:
Such as, in land of penance, could be worn
By none but him who, in his heart's excess
Of ill, his gust for guilt, engrained, inborn,
Betrayed to shameful death, and vilest scorn
Of butchering priests, the Being who only sought
To bless mankind and die! The look of lorn
Remediless woe with which that face was fraught
Needed no speech to tell—it marked Iscariot.

31

The guilty spirit knew that he was known:
So livingly the soul made manifest
Her inmost workings, in that visioned zone.—
“And who art thou?”—the spirit of unrest
Exclaimed,—“that hither comest on prying quest
To view Perdition's Son? Let the dark sign
Of thy self-murder, which these shades unblest
Sternly reveal, restrain thy thought malign:
How knowst thou my soul's deed more criminal than thine?

32

“Worship to Him my treason brought to shame
Thou talkst of rendering, did he here display
His power and love,—feigning to shift the blame
Of thy foul unbelief—(thy words bewray
Thy atheist heart!)—on Him who bears high sway
Above, and, in the chequered roll of time,
Allots each paltry worm his little day.
Away—dissembler! Distant age and clime
Excuse not unbelief: 'tis the soul's self-spawned crime!

33

“Depart, proud unbeliever! Let suffice
That thou hast spied the Traitor: now thine eye
Fix on thine own earth-stains: plan new device
Elsewhere, thy heart with doubt to petrify
Tenfold,—but stay not here! No sceptic spy
Shall bide with me: my desolateness I'll share
With none: these blasting shores,—the howling cry
Of this wild lake, are my companions! Dare
Not thou to offer fellowship with my despair!”

34

He ceased, a while; but I no vigour felt
To utter speech, or flee. As if a spell
Flowed from the spirit's eyes, and, entering, dwelt
Within my being's fenceless citadel,
I stood transfixt, and terror-frore! Rebel
Against this silent helplessness, or break
The spell of dread, I could not; though, to tell
My heart unto the fallen one, with ache
Unutterable, I yearned! Again, Iscariot spake:—

35

“Doth still delay? Fearest thou to go alone?
Take with thee, then, from out my serpent cave,
For company, yon wretched, prostrate one.
Come,—hear him, in his guilt-struck madness, rave,
And cry he cannot the fierce scorn outbrave
Of all he meets in Hell!—though in Earth's life,
He outfaced cursings dread, until they clave
Unto his coward soul; and, now, the strife
Of condign woe within, his face doth hieroglyph.

36

“Come, see if thou canst read! Thy frozen isle
He lately fled. Belike of brotherhood,
The memory, may revive this thing of guile—
This viper fell, that drained his country's blood,
And then let out his own! From his low mood
Of infantile despair thy form may serve
This cast-off sleuth-hound of the craven brood
To rouse, once more. Follow!—if thou hast nerve
Of soul to look on horror, nor from courage swerve!”

37

I followed: for, albeit the spell of dread
Forbade my utterance still,—desire prevailed,
And power returned, to move. The spirit led
Where sterner horrors my rapt soul assailed:
Crowds of huge snakes their coils innumerous trailed,
Forming a labyrinthine cave, vast volve
On volve, with scales impenetrable mailed,
All seeming fierce the mandate to dissolve
That held them there their mighty folds to circumvolve.

38

How achingly their eyes, amidst their wrath,
Large pain expressed, and how my fear was blent
With sympathetic pain, as on that path,
Encompassed, thick, with torturous coils, I went,
Life's waking wave with Sleep's stream confluent
Can never from my beating brain efface:
Designed for deepest treason's chastisement
That cavern seemed: goal for sin's fiercest race:
The bourne for Guilt too foul its footsteps to retrace!

39

A livid, baleful light the serpents clothed,
Or seemed to issue forth each burning throat
The monsters ever showed. The frayed soul loathed
Her vision, with such shuddering horror fraught,
And prayed for gloom. At length, Iscariot raught
A space circled with snakes in deathly array
Upreared, pointing with forked tongues, where smote
His breast, as on the rocky floor he lay
In speechless agony—the suicide of Cray!—

40

“Arise, and see how curl thy brother snakes
Around thee!”—cried the tortured Hebrew ghost:—
“Look on the torment which at length o'ertakes
The perjured traitor on that cursed coast
He ploughed Life's sea to find! Vile viper! lost,
Abhorred! driven forth of all in Hell's own realm!
Arise, I say, nor lie thus torn and tossed,—
Tyrant, who swayed a triple nation's helm,
Erewhile, and mocked while suffering did the land o'er-whelm!”

41

By mortal images her dread describe
Cannot the waking mind, recalling, sad,
That dream, and memory of each horrid gibe
Iscariot uttered, as if wildly glad
To vent his rage, and pain to superadd
Unto his fellow's pain! Rackt, speechless, prone,
While his curved spine the huge snakes cupolaed,
And venomed anger from their eyes outshone,—
O'erwhelmed, soul-numbed with woe, remained the prostrate one.

42

“Will no taunt rouse Hibernia's fallen child,—
Her cut-throat and his own?” Judas resumed;
And swift, the snakes, the prone form leaving, coiled
Around the Jew their frightful folds, and fumed
More wildly as he raged:—“What hath be-rheumed
“Thy courage, mighty parasite? On earth
A prince! With worm-worn monarchs catacombed!
How, after all thy greatness, can this dearth
Of pride enshroud thee? Wilt thou wake old Hell to mirth!

43

“Vile pandar to the pomp-blown, lust-swoln Guelph;
Rise, I adjure thee, and betake thee hence!
I will be fellow to Hell's inmost self,
Rather than unto thee, trickster prepense,
And double-dealer in each mean pretence
For forging fetters to thy fatherland!
Her champion—first; and then—true subsequence
Of falsehood—tool, her slavery that planned,
And for his guilty wages stretched his guilty hand!

44

“Traitor, that sold his country for a price,
And then—”
“Traitor!”—the prostrate shape outburst;—
“A price! Did I my Master, with device
Of a false kiss betray, to foes athirst
For his most precious blood, my heart endorsed,
The while, with settlement of black receipt—
The thirty silver pieces?”—
“Snake accurst!”
Retorted Judas,—‘think not here to cheat
Thy soul: my deed was foretold by the Paraclete!

45

“The Comforter on earth I never knew—
But here I know Him! 'Tis my soul's support
That He, who did of old the seers endue
With mystic foresight, hath my being begirt
With deep assurance that, though long the sport
Of these strange tortures, yet, the hour will come
When my freed essence shall her strength exert,
And wing her way to that bright happy home
Where joys, for sinners purged of stain, perpetual, bloom!

46

“My crime, in verity, belongs not me;
And, therefore, penance, endless, cannot claim
Me hers. I am the child of Destiny!
But thou—thou self-stained thing of scorn and shame!
Thou torturer of millions! whose foul aim,
Self-moved, self-nurtured, was thyself to steep
In crime, thy kind in tears—enduring blame
Thyself must bear; and o'er thy soul shall sweep
The tempest of His wrath—relentless, ceaseless, deep!”—

47

“Speak'st thou of destiny, base Jewish churl!”
Fiercely the tortured, maddened minion cried,—
And sprang erect; for, now, the tempest-whirl
Of old, mad dreams the fallen liberticide
Revisited, and puffed with fumes of pride,
As erst in mortal life:—“Of destiny
“Talkst thou?”—he wildly said;—“Thinkst thou to hide
Thy old arch-treason, thus? How, then, may I,
Much more, by Fate's behests, my life-deeds justify?

48

“Was I not beckoned, in my climbing path,
By beaming visions supernatural?
Shall I the sentence of eternal wrath
Acknowledge just—since dreams, prophetical
Of what I should be,—did my will enthral,—
And bright angelic shapes, in gems and gold
Bediademmed, with voice celestial,
Nightly, me bade to grasp with seizure bold
The prize, in Fate's weird book, for Castlereagh en-rolled—”

49

“Hah! utter not thy name—that synonym
Of Villany!”—exclaimed the self-destroy'd
Betrayer of the Blest;—“it doth bedim
“Darkness itself to utter it! ‘Avoid
That sound accurst!’—the souls in air upbuoyed,
New come from Earth, in dismallest accents, yell:
‘Forbear that guilty name to tell!’—the void
Waste shore and caves re-echo. Serpent fell,
I charge thee, name no more thy hated self, in Hell!”—

50

Elate still reared Cray's suicide, enwrapt
In old life-dreams,—the soul's habiliment
Of morrice-pomp, for holidays adapt
At change and full of moon, on earth. He lent
No audience to this chiding; but, intent
On telling his pride's dreams, began to spume,
And struggle after phrase grandiloquent,—
The soul's old habitude,—wherewith to exhume
His moon-struck visions vain from memory's pictured tomb.—

51

“'Twas in my manhood's youth,”—he proudly said;

Mine is but a poetical version of the suicide statesman's vision: here follows the prose—from Winslow's “Anatomy of Suicide” (published 1840) pp. 242-4.—“It is now more than thirty-five years ago that the following singular circumstance occurred to the Mar- quis of Londonderry: he was on a visit to a gentleman in the north of Ireland. The mansion was such a one as spectres are fabled to inhabit. The apartment, also, which was appropriated to his lord- ship was calculated to foster such a tone of feeling from its antique character; from the dark and richly carved panels of its wainscot; from its yawning chimney, looking like the entrance to a tomb; from the portraits of grim men and women arrayed in orderly pro- cession along the walls, and scowling a contemptuous enmity against the degenerate invader of their gloomy bowers and venerable halls; and from the vast, dusky, ponderous and complicated draperies that concealed the windows, and hung with the gloomy grandeur of funeral trappings about the hearse-like piece of furniture that was destined for his bed. Lord Londonderry examined his chamber; he made him- self acquainted with the forms and faces of the ancient possessors of the mansion, as they sat upright in the ebony frames to receive his salutation; and then, after dismissing his valet, he retired to bed. His candle had not long been extinguished, when he perceived a light gleaming on the draperies of the lofty canopy over his head. Conscious that there was no fire in his grate; that the curtains were closed; that the chamber had been in perfect darkness but a few minutes previously, he supposed that some intruder must have entered into his apartment; and, turning round hastily to the side from whence the light proceeded, he, to his infinite astonishment, saw, not the form of any human visitor, but the figure of a fair boy surrounded by a halo of glory. The spirit stood at some distance from his bed. Certain that his own faculties were not deceiving him, but suspect- ing he might be imposed on by the ingenuity of some of the nume- rous guests who were then inmates of the castle, Lord Londonderry advanced towards the figure; it retreated before him; as he ad- vanced the apparition retired, until it entered the gloomy arch of the capacious chimney, and then sunk into the earth. Lord London- derry returned to his bed, but not to rest; his mind was harassed by the consideration of the extraordinary event which had occurred to him. Was it real, or the effect of an excited imagination? The mystery was not so easily solved.

“He resolved in the morning to make no allusion to what had occurred the previous night, until he had watched carefully the faces of all the family, to discover whether any deception had been prac- tised. When the guests assembled at breakfast, his lordship searched in vain for those latent smiles, those conscious looks, that silent communication between parties, by which the authors and abettors of such domestic conspiracies are generally betrayed. Everything apparently proceeded in its ordinary course; the conversation was animated and uninterrupted, and no indication was given that any one present had been engaged in the trick. At last, the hero of the tale found himself compelled to narrate the singular event of the preceding night. He related every particular connected with the appearance of the spectre. It excited much interest among the auditors, and various were the explanations offered. At last, the gentleman who owned the castle interrupted the various surmises by observing that ‘the circumstance which had just been recounted must naturally appear very extraordinary to those who had not been inmates long at the castle, and were not conversant with the legends of his family;’ then, turning to Lord Londonderry, he said, ‘You have seen the Radiant Boy. Be content; it is an omen of prospe- rous fortunes. I would rather that this subject should not again be mentioned.’

“This was no doubt an hallucination of the senses. On another occasion, when in the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh fancied he saw the same ‘Radiant Boy.’ Does not this fact establish that his lordship's senses were not always in a healthy condition? It is possible that when impelled to suicide he laboured under some mental delusion.”

“I tarried, for one night, fast by the wave
Atlantic, where, in lovely verdure spread,
Old Erin laughs to hear the north wind rave.
The hall that welcomed me was old, but brave
And stately stood, as stands the forest oak
After five hundred autumn tempests have
Against his stalwart arms their fury broke,
And, eke, five hundred times stripped of his kingly cloak.

52

“The sun was sinking in the gorgeous west,
As I drew near. The dark-hued ivy hung
Its graceful tendrils, like a bridal vest,
Around the aged walls,—while softly sung
The minstrel evening breeze, with wanton tongue,
That castle's marriage to King Time. Bedight
With rainbow tints the clouds resplendent flung
On me, on towers, and leaves,—for magic sprite
Fit bower that seemed; and I some wand'ring love-spelled knight.

53

“Around my steed the giddy flittermouse
Sported, in whimsical ellipse, and passed,
On leathern sails, with haste to tell his spouse,—
Hung, by her crooked thumbs, in chimney vast,—
While listed him the owl, that sage dynast
Of ruin,—that a stranger marked by Fate
For princely fortunes was approaching fast
The moat, and soon beneath the old arched gate
Wound bend, where, hoarsely croaking, the dark corven sate”—

54

“Forbear, poor palterer, thy crazy tale
Of bats and owls and ravens!”—cried the fierce
And fallen Jew;—“Think of the bitter bale
“Which doth in Hell thy doting soul amerce
For mortal sins! Let tortures real disperse
Thy lingering dreams of mock beatitude!
For pity sheer, I'll list thee misrehearse
Thy ditty; but in strain at least, subdued
To common-sense, this false apocalypse conclude!”—

55

“My host received his guest as well beseemed
The lordly tenant of this feudal tower;”—
In vein ornate the patricide rethemed
His air-built pride:—“His child, a peerless flower
“Of loveliness, her eyes a brighter dower
Than myriad pearls, drooped o'er her father's arm,
As droops a lily, after evening shower,
Upon its parent stem. Soft, chaste alarm
Her light-veiled bosom told with undulating charm.

56

“Full lowly bowed the reverend seneschal,
Girdled for state, with massive silver key,
As on we pass'd into the banquet-hall:
And, niched, among the antique carvery
The hinds were seen on meekly bended knee,
With perfumed cressets: evermore there met
The ravished ear, from unseen minstrelsy,
Hushed dulcet tones of harp and flageolette
Blent with rapt chaunt of madrigal and canzonette.

57

“With festal revelry the banquet rang,
Till tusk and antler, spear and hauberk shook,
Around the baron's hall. Anon, upsprang
The younger guests: his ladye-love each took:
The dovelets blushed, and yielded, with coy look:
Then thrilled the rebecks, while the merry dance
Sped on,—until, for mirth and wine, forsook
Their dizzy sport the youngsters,—still, askaunce,
Eyeing each other, in their love's exuberance.

58

“'Twas midnight: and, before they said ‘farewell!’
The revellers asked a boon of harper gray,—
Who dipped his beard in the gold Rhenish bell
With youthful zeal,—that he for them should say,
Unto his harp's loud chime, a roundelay
Of olden days, in Tara's hall once told,
When high O'Connor sat in proud array
Of crowned regality, and Erin old,
From sea to sea, with joy, bowed to the warrior bold.

Roderick O'Connor,King of Connaught,— who finally surrendered his title of “Lord of all Ireland,” to our Henry II.,—seems, from Leland's account, to have been the last monarch of the ancient Irish race who held a national assembly at Tara: it is described as ‘a numerous and magnificent convention of the states, in which his grandeur and authority were so strikingly displayed, that the ancient honours of his country seemed to revive, at the very moment when all such expectations were on the point of being utterly extinguished.”

59

“I cannot to thine ear the deeds recount
Of old Milesian chieftains, a stern line,
The Minstrel sang: in memory's transient fount
So many streams of weal and bale combine,
Through life,—and then the soul her anodyne
Inevitable of death must taste,—and now
We drink this bitter cup in Hell's confine,—
That the mind shrinks, as if from mortal throe,
Her total journey, like a drudge, to overgo.

60

“Suffice it that I say that aged man
Wound up his lay with patriotic tears;
While my heart raged, as if a hurricane
Of joys, its current, with alternate fears,
Had swoln. I felt distraught as one who hears
Himself pŒan'd for victory ungained
As yet, but certain to be won, though years
Of hate before he reach the laurel stained
With blood be his: that victory's fruit—his country chained!

61

“With taper dim, through vault and thick-ribbed arch,
Six aged hinds, to light me to my sleep
Stept gravely on, as if in funeral march:
But, when alone, how my cold skin did creep
To see grim eyes upon me scowl and peep
From out the oaken panels round my couch!
One painted warrior looked as he would leap
And crush me, for a foreign scaramouch,—
Such frowning hatred did his portraiture avouch!

62

“Plumed like a hearse, a lordly canopy
Adorned my bed, in old baronial mode,
Its cumbrous velvet folds on ebony
Supported, and their drooping festooned load
Burthened with gold and jet. Breathless, I glode
Into my downy nest, in darkness, while
My throbbing heart 'gan thickly to forbode
Some unknown ill; but struggling, I this pile
Of spectrous fears threw off, as fancies infantile.

63

“Sleep fled; and soon the gray-haired harper's song
Filled all my chamber, like a serenade
Which some benign enchantment did prolong
Until so heavenly melody it made
That Darkness hasted to her nether shade,
And Light held sceptre in that resting-place
Of ancient pomp. O'erjoyed, and yet afraid,
I gazed around—when lo! a form of grace,
Haloed with glorious light, revealed its radiant face!

64

“Resting my arm upon my silken pillow,
But helplessly recumbent as a child,
I lay, and gazed, while, like the heaving billow,
My bosom swelled; yet, though with wonder wild
My hair stood up, serene, that angel mild
Stood pointing to a seat nigh to a throne
Limned all in light, and, with high meaning, smiled—
A moment—and that visioned form had flown;
But woke my soul—like warrior's at the clarion!

65

“‘Fame—fame!’—shouted my burning, bounding heart,
Until my tongue made vocal its excess:
‘I will enact the splendid afterpart
‘Of life begun—this visioned beauteousness,—
‘This minstrelsy divine,—alike, confess
‘My destiny appoints! They shall not weave
‘For me, in vain, that fair viceregal dress—
‘The Fatal Sisters three! My soul shall cleave
‘Unto its toil—until it doth the palm achieve!’

66

“Next morn, unto my grave and lordly host
I did these visions of the night reveal.
With deeply troubled look his breast he crossed,
And spake these words: ‘Thy lips, I charge thee, seal
‘Upon this theme, if that thou wishest weal
‘To thine own soul: for signal woe or joy
‘Upon thy rest these midnight visions steal:
‘High destiny is thine, if thou destroy
‘It not—thyself! Know,—thou hast seen the Radiant Boy!’

67

“What followed on these visitations bright—”
“Enough!”—the Palestinian suicide
Exclaimed: “If longer ravings to indite
“Thou dost attempt, these serpents that deride
Thy tale already, sequel to such pride
Run mad will bring with heavy emphasis.
What followed?—why, thy guilty heart was dyed
With blood: thy hand, for very cowardice,
Thou didst not stain—except to shorten thy life's lease

68

“What followed?—Thou art here!—Thy race of guilt,
And pride and madness is, on earth, outrun;
By thine own hand thy life's vile current spilt,
And Hell's eternal agony begun;
Yet seekst thou, like a lunatic buffoon,
To mock thyself and others with the dreams
That haunt the brains of each mere child o' the moon,
Beneath his natal star's pale borrowed beams
Sleeping, 'mid ruins gray,—or lost, by haunted streams.

69

“The Radiant Boy—forsooth! Some doating fool,
Possessed with superstitious wonderment,
And barbarous pride of fancied elvish rule
Sway'd o'er his barbarous house,—a ready vent
Found in thy crazy ear for ravings pent
Too long within his heated mind. How long
Wilt mock thyself? For ever thou art rent
From peace; and on thy soul, with tortures strong,
The poor's Avenger recompenseth, now, their wrong!”

70

“I tell thee, fierce one!—that this radiant form”—
Cried the fallen lunatic,—“again I saw,
While sitting in the senate; there, no swarm
The moon could raise of vaporous fancies raw
To juggle and mislead my brain. What law
Of mind hast thou discovered, in this crypt
Of horrors, that can warrant thee to draw
Hope for thyself from old prophetic script—
And yet to slay my soul with Fate's strong shield equipt?

71

“Shall I,—of mental liberty bereft
In life;—my will, Mind's pilot, all enthralled;
The soul's frail bark herself to fury left
Of these tempestuous visions swift upcalled
Without her own intent;—shall I, appalled
With fear of justice, from His sentence shrink?
The weakest worm on earth that ever crawled
Would not, thus impulsed even to the brink
Of life, consent to its own curse, and, yielding, sink.”—

72

“Whether thy soul to its own curse consent,
Or ape the rebel,”—said Iscariot,—
“That curse waits not thy blind arbitrament:
'Tis fixt—with mine: in vain we seek to blot
The sentence from His book: our fatal lot
Is cast,—and must be borne. Thou hadst thy tide
Of sanity: if, then, her antidote
The sober soul, industrious, had applied
To thy disease, she would have purged this crazy pride.

73

“Thou knowst this true: then, cease thy heart to chafe
With these ill-masked deceits. My soul dislodge
From bulwark which Jehovah doth vouchsafe
Thou canst not. Good from Evil the Great Judge
Produceth: not delirious subterfuge
Is this. God did appoint my soul to sin:
Unto His high decree I bow: His drudge
I am: His purpose answered—I shall win
My seat in that bright realm where beam the sera-phin!”—

74

Evanished, now, his air of pomp superb,
And shook with woe, the fallen thing of state:
His frenzy fled.—
“Alas! how deep reverb
These shades my curse!” he cried:—“in vain I prate
“Of radiant dreams, with wish to palliate
My conscious guilt: I feel my sentence just!
And now, with trust devout, to mitigate
My woe, I'll seek: I bow to His august
Decree: I, also, in His Providence will trust!

75

“Son of Perdition;—if thou wert by Heaven
Designed, mysteriously, a guilty aid
Of holy purposes; if, thus, the leaven
Of evils which His universe pervade,
By God's permission, He decreed and made
A source of blessing; may not I look up
Beyond the scope of this dark, joyless shade,
For dawn of bliss? Unto the dregs, if hope
Be there, unmurmuring, will I drink my bitter cup.”—

76

“Know, humbled tyrant,—though my soul begins
Thy miseries to condole, and half forget
Her own,”—spake Judas;—“penalty for sins
“Thou canst not choose but feel: a deep, dark debt
Of woe thou hast to pay: for thee doth whet
Her torturous beak a vulture more malign
Than gnawed the fabled Titan: Conscience yet
Must prey upon thee, till thou wail and pine;
And, still, for ages, must thou feel her fangs condign!

77

“‘Unmurmuring’—wilt thou drink of Torture's dregs?
Why, thou hast not the courage of a worm
When trouble truly comes: thy spirit begs
For ease, ev'n now, while only in its germ
Of misery, and ere the ever-countless term
Of its desert of pain is, scarce, begun!
How wilt thou murmur, then, against the storm
Of penal wrath enhanced, and seek to shun
Thy cup,—'plaining the measure doth the brim o'errun!

78

“Yet, to the bitter dregs it must be drunk!
The Guelph loved fawning; but in Hell's domain,
Thy power of courtier-cozenage is shrunk
And withered: thou wouldst coax, and cant, and feign,
With torment's executioner, in vain:—
Conscience—I mean. Hah! even now the edge
Of her fell tooth is sinking in thee! Pain
Unintermittent,—pain without assuage,—
That thou must suffer still will be the direful pledge!

79

“Thou feels thy portion just; but like a lithe
And eager adder 'neath the planted hoof
Of forest steed or ox, dost twist and writhe,
With maddening agony. Hah! how aloof
Thou stoodst from mercy, while on earth! Disproof
That millions starved and suffered, thy false tongue
Forged, daily: not a tear-drop in behoof
Of suffering from thy stony eyes was wrung
For one of all the thousands that thy treachery stung!

80

“Wilt thou deny that there is suffering—now?
Now?—while the worm of conscience thou dost feel?
The undying worm? Why, what is the weak woe
Thy coward soul can bear,—though Hell unseal
Her quintessence of torture? 'Twill be weal,
Compared with aggregate of woe thy heart,
Remorseless, wrung from millions whose appeal
To right was vain!—millions of sires whose part
Of woe though first, was least: they left an after-smart!

81

“For whom? For millions of their starveling sons
And famished daughters, who still pine and moil
By law: mere skin-and-bone automatons!
Oh, serpent!—how my spirit's tide doth boil
Against such viperousness as thine! The coil
Of mortal life is mine no more:—I would
It were—but for one day! How would I toil
To lave my hands in some such viper's blood,—
And purge my mountain sin—by spilling the vile flood!

82

“What breathe ye for, on earth,—such slime-born things?
To suck your brethren's blood; and, while ye gorge,
Mock your poor victims! Thy dark revellings
In human blood and human tears their verge
Have reached;—but, how it swells—the ocean surge
Of tears and blood—thou and thy teacher drew—
A fresh-born stream—from anguished hearts! 'Twould purge
Cain's sin and mine,—with patriot brand to hew
Into one heart like thine a festive avenue!

83

“Hah! how they shouted while thy mangled clay
Was borne unto its burial!—the few men
Whom blood of their old fathers, for one day,
Stirred into more than slaves! Oh! it was then—
While terror quelled even the iron ken
Of thy stern fellow-lizard, who his claw
Held up, and breathed an idiot ‘hush’—'twas then
Thy waking victims should have filled Death's maw
With the whole vermin brood that human vitals gnaw!

84

“Thou—‘also, to His Providence wilt trust!’
A hypocrite thou wert, in life; in death
A coward: thou art both, in Hell! Thy gust
For meanest vice fled not with flight of breath:
Thy soul, escaped from out her pampered sheath,
Yet hugs her stain! What wonder,—though the Guelph
Oft spat upon thee,—that thou, still, the path
Didst keep of fawning? Meanest, vilest elf,
That ever played the tyrant,—loath thy abortive self!—”

85

“‘Shall I from thee receive this foul rebuke?”—
Re-spake the soul-stung, fallen sycophant;
“Tamely, fierce gibe and dark contumely brook
From one whom all men deem a miscreant,—
An outcast vile,—and not hurl back each taunt,
Each withering sneer, wherewith thou seekst to gall
My wound? Were my whole essence adamant
The soul would strive herself to disenthral
From force of gibes so fiercely, foully cynical.

86

“From thine own mouth I will thy heart convict
Of its inherent vileness. Thou hast striven
With unrelenting malice to afflict
My soul; and thy foul game hath foully thriven,
Chiefly by sarcasms 'gainst the prince now riven
From all lust linked him with above the grave.
Suppose thy censure forceful: grant him given
A living prey to his heart's vice—a slave
To filth so abject that the worms, which now their brave

87

“Carousal hold amidst his putrid clay,
Find him not more uncleanly than in life;
Grant that his kingly course affords no trait
Of nobleness: that selfishness was rife
As lust within him: that his soul a strife
Perpetual showed the trampled human crowd
To bruise more vilely still: that while the knife
Was at their very throats his scoffs were loud,
And he could see them bleed and die,—unmoved, unbowed:

88

“Grant that he thirsted but for power to wring
From out his subjects' hearts the last life-drop—
If it would minister to his revelling
One guilty hour: grant that a sot, a fop,
He was by turns: a blackleg, then—to groupe
Of swindlers fugleman!—becoming, soon,
The god of earthly gauds, and to the top
Of his vain bent fooled on, by each baboon,
Tinselled with titles, that beheld the holy spoon

89

“Bestow its unctuous virtue on his head,
And laughed to see the gew-gaw placed thereon,—
The grown child's gew-gaw!—while, in pomp outspread,
Peers, prostitutes, pimps, prelates, round his throne
Knelt blasphemously homaging the o'ergrown
Monster of vice,—their grandeur fed, the while,
With tears of starving thousands! Grant this known,—
And then,—poor, silly Jew!—I can but smile
To hear thee thus my fallen soul taunt and revile!

90

“For, if the royal Guelph my mirror were—
Iscariot! who was thine? Hah! how thine eye
Bespeaks thy heart's deep shame! Thy exemplar
How worshipful, how holy, and how high
In excellence! His beams to purify
Thy baseness did that sun of goodness pour
Upon thee; but thy sin was of a dye
Too deep-grained—and thy heart within its core,
Worshipped an earthen god, and there his image wore.

91

“And thus it was in vain that to thy eyes,
Within thy ears, His deeds and words of love
Were present day by day. Anatomize
Thy heart, and thou wilt find that stain enwove,
Entextured there, even now! Yea, did here move
The Blessed One before thee clad in light
And loveliness, the vision would not prove
Sufficient to o'erawe thee, if to sight
The silver bait were offered: that thou could'st not slight

100

92

“Thou art accurst, and justly. Vile and low
Were thy desires through life: a groveller base
Thou ever wert, and vainly from Hell's woe
Thou dreamst to be set free. Hell's thy own place,
Mean barterer! Unless thou canst erase
From out thy sordid nature the low vice
Of avarice, dream thou no more of grace!
Before thou sittst in Jesu's Paradise,
Satan shall, re-enthroned in highest heaven rejoice!

93

“How can it be, vile Traitor to the Blest!
That after-knowledge by thy sinful soul
Of God's foreknowledge can of guilt divest
Thy mind? His knowledge did not thee control
Before thy act: it was thy treachery foul,—
Thy itch for petty pelf,—base, sordid thing!—
That spiritual leprosy,—which daily stole
Through thy foul heart, until its very spring
Was tainted, and thou fledd'st to bloody bartering!

94

“Proclaimed He not thy treason while it germed
Within thy heart shut up? yea, ere a word
Forth budding from the hell-sown seed confirmed
Thy foul intent? Perditioned, curst, abhorred,
Thou wast, before thy mother's womb was stored
With embryon of thy being. And 'twas decreed
Of the Most High—witness His own record!—
That thou shouldst breathe solely to do that deed,
And on thy traitorous soul the undying worm should feed!”—

95

He spake no more; for speechless horror filled
His soul to witness how the tortured ghost
Of Judas writhed with rage,—and in what wild
Distorted folds the scaly monsters tossed
Their horrid hugeness,—with the Traitor lost
A mystic sympathy evincing! Hell
Seemed Hell indeed, while I upon that coast
Beheld those snakes round Judas coil and swell,
As if to wilder rage his soul they would impel!

101

96

I trembled as I gazed. But, as I dreamed,
A wondrous change swift o'er my vision came.
No more the serpents writhed: no more outgleamed
From the Jew's eyes a wild demoniac flame:
Calm and subdued, mingling with conscious shame
A look of dignity, awhile he stood;
And, when he speech resumed, how deep the blame
His deed deserved—his treason 'gainst the Good—
Acknowledged;—and, forthwith, a mystic theme pursued.

97

“More, far more than thou say'st, is mine, of guilt,”—
He said: —“Deeper, far deeper, is my stain!
“Not that I count it thus because they spilt
The blood of Him I sold: they would have ta'en
His precious life had no vile thought of gain
E'er prompted me, or others, to betray
The Blessed One. What can the wolf restrain
From the meek lamb?—the vulture from his prey?—
How shall the Good have peace, when Wickedness bears sway?

98

“Who that e'er dared to mock the tyrant's gaud,—
The hypocrite's deceit,—could hope escape
From Tyranny, and Avarice, and Fraud?—
The demon-trinity knaves still bedrape
With pomp and sanctity, till slaves, agape
And palsied, see them wolve and victimise
The best of human kind,—yea, tamely shape
Their coward tongues to praise, when they should rise
And hurl to dust the things of pride, and greed, and lies!

99

“My stain is deeper than thou knowst to tell.
Not that I count it thus because I sought
For glittering dust His precious life to sell:
My poverty begat in me that thought,
When I discerned the toils had nearly raught
Their aim who laid them for his life. False one!
My spirit's crime thou foully dost misquote:
The vision deep within no longer shun:
Behold thy soul with tide of pelfish love o'errun!

102

100

“A sordid thing—thou saidst I was! Is toy
More precious to a child, than gaudy sheen
Of baubles was to thee? Wert thou e'er coy
Of silver as the price of blood? With mien
Repentant didst thou restitute, and clean
Confession make—before thy weasand-stroke,
As I—before my rope? Wert thou not keen
Of gold and power until thy clutch was broke
With o'erstrained struggles to increase thy country's yoke?

101

“Oh! I might limn thy worthless effigy,—
And with a truthful power, until thy heart
Were rung to its vile core with agony!
But the strong tempest leaves me: and the smart
Wherewith thy soul would writhe would but impart
A kindred woe to mine. A sordid thing!—
Saidst thou, I was? Oh how old thoughts upstart
At that tyrannic taunt!—old thoughts that wring
My soul until they well-nigh back the tempest bring!

102

“Hah! tortured torturer!—while they moil unfed,
If poor men sink in vice; if, 'midst their toil,
So ill-requited, grovelling thoughts are bred
In Labour's children; if the uncultured soil
Of their neglected minds base weeds defile,—
Whose is the crime? The trampled toilers'? or
Their lordlings'?—who, while they, as thou, revile
And taunt the trampled ones, trample them more;
And hug, themselves, the vice they charge their slaves to abhor!

103

“A groveller if I was, charge thine own tribe—
The titled plunderers—with the guilt! or make
Them share the censure with the knavish Scribe
And canting Pharisee! Each did partake
The spoils of my hard toil upon the lake;
But, while they feasted, left me to misfare
With hunger, cold, and tempest, or the ache
Of oft-impending death: disdaining care
Whether I did the brute's or human nature wear!

103

104

“Unto their Judge I leave them! He will mete
Their sentence with the measure just, of woe,
As now He measures thine. Forbear deceit,
Henceforth: thy guilt, in making grovellers low,
Exceeds my guilt in grovelling. Lowly bow
In shame, till it be interpenetrant
Through all thy crimeful soul. My stain, I know,
Is deep; no more of guiltlessness I vaunt:
That boast were vain for Hell's self-exiled habitant.

105

“Ay, 'twas the sun of goodness on me shone:
Goodness unmeasured, undescribed, untold:
Goodness that strove its godlike benison
To pour, alike, upon the ingrate cold
As on the hearts its mercies manifold
Made dance with thankfulness: Goodness unfelt,
Unwitnessed, unconceived, in mortal mould,
Before: Goodness that from its treasure dealt
So bounteously, as if it would the wide world melt

106

“Into a sea of bliss, and deluge heart
Of man with joy! Goodness that wept with those
Whom grief constrained to weep: Goodness the smart
In human bosoms torn by earthly throes
That strove to medicate with love; to close
The spirit's wounds with tenderness; and heal
The mind bruised with the burthen of Life's woes
Goodness that glowed with inexhaustless zeal
To spread, enhance, perfect, eternize human weal!

107

“And I, amidst His radiance of love,
Was dark and frozen still! Curst be my doom
To all eternity! Never above
May I behold that slighted One! My gloom
The heavenly beam of mercy failed to illume
On earth; and I deserve not now to find
The love I slighted then. If, to consume
My soul, Hell's stores of torments were combined—
Too lightly, even then, had Heaven my curse assigned.

104

108

“Ten thousand hells hath merited—my sin
Against Ineffable Goodness!—How I rave
Amid my madness! Remedy akin
To the disease were tortures that deprave
Still more the spiritual health: in torment's wave
Were the soul steeped for ever, her guilt's grain
Would only be more fixed: who scourge the slave
On earth, but nurture, by his galling pain,
The rebel will they would by chastisement restrain.

109

“Great Judge of men and angels, 'tis not thus
Thou governest! though I, i' the Hell I sought,
Like fools on earth, such censure libellous
Have oft pronounced upon thy rule, and thought
My folly wisdom! Human crime is caught
In fatal net of its own consequence:
Afflict Thou dost not: though our minds, mistaught,
Oft represent Thy vast omnipotence
Bending to scourge poor worms for waywardness prepense!

110

“For waywardness that in the dust to crawl
Inclines, beyond the track Thy wisdom hath
Appointed! Spirit, though Hell's shades enthral
Our essence, we are not of vengeful wrath
The victims,—but have found, by self-made path,
The suffering we pursued—of choice: not force.
Evil, remedial of itself,—by death,
Pain, suffering, grief, repentance, shame, remorse,—
God hath appointed: Evil breathes not endless curse.

111

“Evil, for means of richest, greatest good
The uncontrolled Controller hath devised:
Such His peculiar scheme. O what a flood
Of beatific light hath now baptized
Me! All Life's discord shall be harmonised—
For Woe, throughout all Life, shall be destroyed.
Goodness Ineffable disnaturalised
Would be,—Jehovah's Deity be void, —
Unless from pain His universe were purified.

105

112

“Spirit,—rejoice, even though the gnawing worm
Enter thine inmost essence, and pain pierce
Thy being to the core! Maugre this storm
Of torture, we shall reach repose: this fierce
Consuming woe shall end; the Universe
Shall be, through endless ages, resonant
With voices tuned by joy: Love shall rehearse
The Maker's wisdom, and His creatures chaunt,
Blissful, the everlasting chorus jubilant!

113

“Why,—how I rave again”—with visage changed
The spirit called of old ‘Perdition's Son’
Exclaimed:—“Is not my tortured soul estranged
“From happiness? Do I not hate mine own
Existence?—for annihilation groan,—
And hate all that partake this life unblest?
Leave me, foul sprite, to my despair alone!
Dost thou not know that sceptred ghosts make quest
For fawning things that will their robbers' right attest?

114

“Such errand to my cavern, late, did bring
Old gray Achitophel—the cast-off tool
Of royalty, who, still, like thee, doth cling
To tyrants, though they spurn him. Kingly rule
Grows problematical: on earth, the dull
Tame slaves of toil sullenly fold their hands,
Dreaming to starve their lords: Hell's self is full
Of rebel thoughts 'gainst Thrones: brood of brigands
Quake 'mid their pictured pomps: their dread thy zeal demands.

115

“Haste, minion, to recruit the minished host
Of their defenders—thou who didst so well
Subserve their pride on earth! Never more boast
Of boundless loyalty, if thus rebel
Thy fears 'gainst duty, till resolve they quell.
Hah! pangs of shame thy spirit paralyse!
Thy dread is just—Outcast of earth and hell!
Hell's Thrones, to scout thee, would indignant rise,
Did they thy craven guilt-smit image recognise!

106

116

“Base spawn of fear and guilt,—get hence, and cage
Thy lunacy in some dark desert nook
Where none may hear thee curse, and spume, and rage—
For curse thou shalt!—Hence!—and again invoke
The Radiant Boy!”—
My soul such terror shook
While Judas raged, and from the snake-cave fled,
Shrieking, Cray's suicide,—that I awoke,
Gladly, from that soul-quelling dream of dread,
And, joyous, blessed the morn, upon my prison-bed.

109

BOOK THE FOURTH.

1

Welcome, sweet Robin! welcome, cheerful one!
Why dost thou slight the merry fields of corn,
The sounds of human joy, the plenty strown
From Autumn's teeming lap; and, by gray morn,
Ere the sun wakes, sing thus to things of scorn
And infamy and want and sadness whom
Their stronger fellow-criminals have torn
From freedom and the gladsome light of home,
To quench the nobler spark within, in dungeoned gloom?

2

Why dost thou choose, throughout the live-long day,
A prison-rampart for thy perch, and sing
As thou wouldst rend thy fragile throat? Away,
My little friend, away, upon light wing,
A while! Me it will cheer, imagining
Till thou revisit this my drear sojourn,
How, on the margent of some silver spring
Mantled with golden lilies, thou dost turn
Thy pretty head awry, so meaningly, and yearn,

3

From out that beaming look, to know what thoughts
Within the beauteous arrow-head may dwell—
The purple eye petalled with snow, that floats
So gracefully. Dost think the damosel,
Young Hope, kirtled with Chastity, there fell
Into the stream, and grew a flower so fair?
Ah! still thou lingerest, while I, dreaming, tell
Of pleasures I would reap, if free I were,
Like thee, loved bird, to breathe sweet Freedom's balmy air.

110

4

Away!—for this is not a clime for thee—
Sweet childhood's sacred one! The hawthorns bend
With ruddy fruitage: tiny troops, with glee
Plundering the mellow wealth, a shout will send
Aloft, if they behold their feathered friend,
Loved ‘Robin Redbreast,’ mingle with their joy!
Did they not watch thy tenderlings, and wend
With eager steps, when school was o'er, a coy
And wistful peep to take—lest some rude ruffian boy,

5

With sacrilegious heart and hand, should rob
Thy nest as heathenly as if ‘Heaven's bird’
Were not more sacred than the vulgar mob
Of pies and crows? Flee,—loved one!—thou hast heard
This dissonance of bolts and bars that gird
Old England's modern slaves, until thy sense
Of freedom's music will be sepulchred.
Hie where young hearts gush taintless joy intense,
And, 'mid their rapture, pour thy heart's mellifluence!

6

Still lingerest thou upon that dreary wall
Which bars, so enviously, my view of grove
And stream and hill, as if it were death's pall?
Oh leave this tyrant-hold, and, joyous, rove—
Loved bird of home—bird of our father's love—
Where the thatched cottage, clad with virgin rose
And sweet-briar and rosemary, thickly wove
Among vine-leaves, with nectar-garland woos
The amorous bees that, songful, do their love-sweets spouse.

7

Hasten, dear Robin!—for the aged dame
Calls thee to gather up the honeyed crumb
She scatters at her door; and, at thy name,
The youngsters crowd to see their favourite come.
Fear not Grimalkin!—she doth sing ‘three-thrum,’
With happy half-shut eyes, upon the warm
Soft cushion in the corner-chair: deaf, dumb,
And toothless lies old Growler:—fear no harm,
Loved Robin!—thou shalt banquet hold without alarm.

111

8

Ah! Chanticleer hath eyed the dainties spread
For thee, and summons his pert train the prize
To share. Lo! how the children ask with dread,
Of the old grandame with the glazëd eyes,
‘Why Robin does not come?’ The pet one cries,
Because he sees thee not,—unpacified,
Even with the apple tinct with vermeil dyes,
The first-born offers with a kiss! Abide
Not here, expected one, lest woe the cot betide!

9

If thou return not, Gammer o'er her pail
Will sing in sorrow, 'neath the brinded cow,
And Gaffer sigh over his nut-brown ale;
While evermore the petlings, with sad brow,
Will look for thee upon the holly bough,
Where thou didst chirp thy signal note, ere on
The lowly grunsel thou didst light, and show,
With such sweet confidence,—thou darling one!—
Thy blythesome face,—and, on thee, all cried ‘benison!’

10

Alas!—I mind me why thou lingerest here!
My country's happy cottages abound
No longer. Where they stood and smiled, uprear
The ‘Bastile’ and the gaol!—and thou hast found
Such refuge, Robin, as,—upon the ground
Where Alfred reigned, and Hampden fought and bled,
Where Milton sung, and Latimer was crowned
With glorious martyrdom,—is portionëd
Unto our fathers' sons, who win with tears their bread.

11

Bread!—nay devour with greed the grovelling root,
As recompense of labour for their lords;
Or, spurned, when begging to have, like the brute,
Fodder for toil, and coerced into hordes
Of midnight spoilers, swell the black records
Of cruelty and crime. ‘This dear, dear land’

Dying speech of Gaunt.—Shakspeare. Rich. II., Act 2.

Is dear no longer: its great name affords
Thoughts but for curses! Ay, where the brave band
Sang in the flames—lit by the brood of Hildebrand;

112

12

Where strode the iron men of Runnymede,
And quelled the tyrant; where burns memory
How lawless Falseness, sprung of royal seed
And sceptred, paid stern forfeit by decree
Of broad-day justice unto Liberty;
Where noblest deeds were done; upon this isle—
‘This precious stone set in the silver sea’

Dying speech of Gaunt.—Shakspeare, Rich. II., Act 2.

Men talk of England as of something vile;
And wish they could forget her, in some far exile!

13

The cottage babes were mourning, did I say,
For that the threshold their loved visitant
Presented not? Alas, poor bird! Thy lay
And all its sweetness is forgot: their want
Of bread hath banished thoughts of Robin's chaunt:
The children plenty know no more; and Love
And Gentleness have fled from Hunger's haunt:
Fled is all worship for fair things that rove
Among fair flowers—worship in young hearts sweetly wove.

14

Fair Nature charms not: fellowship with song
And beauty,—germs from which grow, for the good
Deep reverence, and for the frail, though wrong,
Pity and tenderness:—all these, the rude
Chill breath of Want hath stifled in the bud;
And beggar-quarrels for their scanty crust
Now fill the bosoms of the lean, dwarfed brood,
The peasant father—sprung from sires robust—
Beholds at home, and wishes he were laid in dust!

15

Ah! darling Robin, thou wilt soon behold
No homes for poor men on old England's shore:
No homes but the vile gaol, or viler fold
Reared by new rule to herd the ‘surplus poor’—
Wise rule which unto Pauperism's foul core—
The rich man's purse-plague's core—shall penetrate:
Paupers shall multiply their race no more
Except they live in palaces! Debate
Upon the rule they may: but,—the slaves bear their fate!

113

16

Slaves,—abject, bloodless, soulless, sneaking slaves!
Your fetters are perfected, now! Tug, strain,
Toil, sweat, and starve, and die! For, whoso raves
For larger pittance from his lords humane,—
Or, malcontent, dares from hard toil refrain,—
He shall be Bastiled! His wise lords say well—
Such grumbling slaves might nurture bold disdain
In their serf-offspring: better 'tis to quell,
At once, and, in the germ, creatures that might rebel!

17

Cowards,—why did ye suffer knaves to forge
These eunuch-fetters?—why so tamely don
These chains?—
Beshrew this rising in my gorge
To think that others 'neath their fetters groan,
And do not break them!—Wear I not my own?
Ay, and must wear them, while my tyrants choose.
Well: let me bide my time; and, then, atone
For that real crime—the failing to arouse
Slaves against tyrants. I may, yet, before life's close.—

18

The sun has faded. Robin, 'tis full time
Thou fleddst to covert: cease thy song, and hie
Away to rest!—but let me hear thy chime
Renewed to-morrow; for home's minstrelsy
Is precious 'mid these bars. Robin, good-bye!
'Twas Childhood's farewell; and I cannot yield
This heart to bitterness so utterly,
But that the sense of fondness, now upsealed
Therein, will struggle till its pulses be revealed.

19

Once more resounds the hateful clank of bars
And bolts: once more I gain my narrow lair.
Of bondage-life new-fangledness ne'er mars
The drear perfection: Morrow is the heir
Legitimate of dull To-day; and where
Yesterday gazed upon the chill damp wall
And yawned, To-day looks on with the same air
Of listlessness. Food, sight, sound, converse pall:
Only the fountains of the dead well spiritual

114

20

Waters that purify the stagnant mind
From morbid loathings that would madness breed,
Amid this sickening slough of unrefined
And vulgar circumstance.—
My spirit, freed
From matter, seemed on enterprise to speed,
Once more, across Death's gloomful ocean wave;
And raught the shore where penance is decreed
To souls forsaking, with presumption brave,
Their clay ere Nature's sentence lays it in the grave:

21

The sculptured aisle—the dome—were quickly gained,
And past. And now, a feeling and a sense,
Or, what were likest sense and feeling, reigned
Throughout my being of a power intense
To summon up the soul's experience,
And view, as in a mirror, her whole course
Of consciousness: filled with this opulence
Of intellective might, unto each source
Of mortal joy the mind recurred, with mystic force.

22

Her reminiscence seemed so full and clear
Of pleasures past, so consolably viewed
She Life's young worships pure, that Hades' sphere
Grew gladly bright, and the dread clime seemed hued
Like vernal earth. Childhood's sweet fields renewed,
With daisies and with king-cups gay begemmed,
I saw: then Lindsey's sweetest sanctitude
Of Druid woods arose, where, giant-stemmed,
Upreared old trees anew with verdure diademmed.

23

Cirqued with his offspring stood the central oak
Of myriad years, throwing each glorious bough
Abroad as bravely as when music broke
The solitudes while there his parent grew,
And ‘derry-down!’ was sung, and mistletoe
Was gathered by the bearded hierophant,
And troops of primal men their eagled foe
Fierce staggered, chased the bison to his haunt,
And slew, in his own den, the wolf so grim and gaunt.

115

24

Along mazed paths beloved of those old trees
I seemed to walk 'mong flowers all faëry-frail,
Azure-robed harebells, chaste anemones,
Primroses wan, and lilies of the vale,
Each bud so beauteous that all speech would fail
To say how lovely 'twas: for, gushing tears
Of ecstasy can only tell the tale,
Unto some kindred heart that Nature cheers
As rapturously, how fair are flowers of childhood's years!

25

And melody awoke of sweet wood-lark
And mellow-throated blackbird; whispering thrill
Of thousand tiny things, each like a spark
Of gold or emerald, o'er pool and rill,
Amid the noonbeam sporting; coo and bill,
And love's soft throbbings by the stockdove coy;
Mingled with minstrelsy of throstles shrill;—
Blent sylvan harmonies with flood of joy
Seeming the heart to deluge, and its sense o'ercloy!

26

And still the land was Hades, and the soul
Lived consciously discerpt from her clay shrine,
And viewed through plenitude of her control
Over the past, in mirror crystalline,
Life's joys; nay, seemed her essence to entwine
With them until again she lived them o'er.—
The harping of an unseen hand divine
Now carols woke of courtly troubadour,
Till the old forest echoed with proud songs of yore.

27

Lays that with fluttering bosom many a maid
Of southern clime oft listed from some high
And envious turret,—rapturous serenade
Of glowing love, mingled with bitter sigh
And passionate upbraiding, breathed to die
Upon the breeze. Anon a strain upsent
That unseen harp, shrill as when cleaves the sky
The battle-trumpet: gorgeous tournament
The harper sang, and shock of knights armipotent:

116

28

Of prancing steeds, and terrible mêlée,
And dancing plumes, he told: of high proclaim
By pageant herald; victor-garland gay
Bestowed with peerless blush of maiden shame,
Revealing peerless maiden's conscious flame;
Of honours by spectator kings conferred;
And royal mandate that the conqueror's fame
Be borne through Christendom,—yea, to the beard
Of the swart Soldan, 'mid his sweltering turbanned herd;

29

A stately burthen, couched in antique tongue
And magic rhyme, unto his mystic shell
With tuneful voice, the unseen minstrel sung.
But suddenly, his lofty harpings fell
To dirge-like melody; for smit by spell
Of memory dread, the bard his heartless foil
On earth, and breath of hope hushed by the knell
Of early death, sung sadly. Dull recoil
His harp seized, next, as if it shrunk from overtoil.

30

The sorrow-broken songster, soon, to wake
Its chords in wailful cavatina strove:
He sung of the proud, slighted bosom's ache,
Of soul-consuming fires more fierce than love
Or jealousy, of restless hopes that move
Their young possessor to aspirings wild,
Of disappointment's gall when frowns disprove
His smiling day-dreams, till the draught defiled—
The deathly chalice—tempts the scorn-stung Poet-child!

31

Sobbings, that heaved as they would rend the heart,
Succeeded, and the lyre was dumb! Then passed
The shade of fated Chatterton athwart
My path,—sad, mournful, slow, with eyes downcast,
And visage ye might emblem by a waste
Of over-prurience, or tropic field
Where luscious fruitage springing thick and fast
Expires of hasty ripeness, ere can yield
To the taste its sweets, or their rich value be revealed.—

117

32

The shade evanished from my eager gaze,—
Seeking, with haste of heart-galled misanthrope,
Some dark secluded nook of forest-maze.
And, now, came o'er my spirit a grim troop
Of self-accusing thoughts, swift summoned up
By Memory, who, again, with mystic might
Seemed high endowed. How oft, in youth, the dupe
I, also, was, of dreams,—and misused flight
Of years,—she sternly pictured to my humbled sight.

33

To manhood, reached before the dreams of youth
Were half relinquished, passed my bodiless
Essence, and seemed to sigh, where oft, in truth,
The waking heart had sighed, deep blamefulness
Of indolence beholding, pride's excess,—
And thousand errors although inly mourned
Still followed. Then a love-look of distress
Was pictured, telling how one bosom yearned
To bless me, as if still the soul on earth sojourned.—

34

Anon a change came o'er my dream. Disposed
In stately length, a twilight avenue
Of trees funebrous suddenly disclosed
I saw,—where the tall cypress, ancient yew,
Dark pine, and spreading cedar, as by due
Observance of nice art, like colonnade
Of desert Tadmor, were arranged, and grew
A solemn vista clothed with musing shade—
Such as the rapt soul's holiest retrospect might aid.

35

A monumental form, that meekly glowed
With softest radiance, sadly o'er an urn
Sepulchral, 'neath a lofty cypress, bowed,
Midway, along this sombrous pathway. Lorn
It drooped, and, voiceless, seemed to tell ‘I mourn
‘With more than mortal grief;’ yet, was such grace
Celestial by that drooping statue worn,
That one desired for ever in that place
To stay and gaze upon its spiritual face.

118

36

Enrapt to ecstasy, I gazed till life
Began to fill its breast, and passion shone
Through its unmarbled eyes! Death a vain strife
Essayed, with chilly grasp around her zone,
To hold in sculptured grief that ardent one.
Lo! high, immortal Love breathed vital power
On her fair limbs, and, with a gentle moan,
She raised her head—a monument no more
Of sorrow—but, for love, a peerless cynosure!

37

Her islet shell the burning Lesbian took
From sad repose upon the urn that feigned
To hold the image of her grief, and strook
The matchless chords as one who pain disdained:
Then, proudly, though with tears, she thus complained
Of slighted tenderness,—vowing to feed
Her fruitless flame till, spirit disenchained
From torture, her deep constancy its meed
Should find in some blest state for souls by gods decreed:—

38

“Phaon! beloved, unloving Phaon! thee
The maid enamoured hymns,—by pain unchanged
In Hades, as by scorn on earth: on me
Let angry Jove, the Torturer, be avenged
For slighted life, and order disarranged
Of his stern government: woe shall not wrest
Thy image from its throne: never estranged
Shall be her love from Sappho's faithful breast:
She can love on—unloved, despised, ache-doomed, unblest!

39

“Ingrate! I offered thee no vulgar toy,
No mindless, soulless prize: hadst thou my flame
Returned, the passion of a thoughtless boy,
Compared with mine, were like the lustre tame
Of night's pale worm shown to the sun-lit gem.
Cold, undiscerning clay,—thou wast not worth
My love! Alas! each winged reproach I aim
At thee back on my soul recoils with birth
Of fond remorse more torturous, far, than woes of earth.

119

40

“Phaon beloved! unloving though thou wert,
My love burns on, and shall all pain survive—
A deathless flame: my soul lives all-amort
By her own nature, since she doth derive
Her essence from intenseness, nor can live
An atom of her life in meek, cold, calm
Indifference. Mystic hopes that in me strive
For utterance!—do ye truly shape the palm
I claim, or doth sick Fancy feign the spirit's balm?

41

“Fidelity to Nature's impulses
Shall bring, at length, ineffable reward:
They who, all unsubdued, 'gainst miseries
Of scorn and death have waged the combat hard
Shall meet their guerdon; dreams of gifted bard
And visions of gray seer shall be fulfilled:
Torture, that long the universe hath marred,
Shall end: of Love and Hate the life-war wild
Shall cease: the discords of the soul for aye be stilled.

42

“It cannot be that with the Beautiful
Deformity shall ever, envious, blend:
Mercy divine shall demon Wrath annul,
Love conquer Hate, and glorious Goodness bend
Her iris over life till she transcend
The power of Evil, and annihilate
Its sting for ever!”—
“Ardent Lesbian, end
Thy dreams, nor dare Futurity and Fate
To fix, by thy fond wish, in fancied happy state!”—

43

Thus broke upon my spirit accents stern,
Haughty, abrupt; and, forthwith, stood beside
Sappho's soft form a spirit cold and dern
Of aspect, but whose stately, seemly pride
Outspoke the tuneful Roman suicide
Who wooed the Muse to leave her wonted hill,
And tread the plain with philosophic stride,—
And, slighting toys, with manly themes to fill
The soul—of its own Liberty, Fate, Good, and Ill.

In an age when all metaphysical poetry is deemed dull and stupid, it would not be easy to create a popular curiosity respecting the contents of the superb poem on “The Nature of Things,” by Lucretius. Readers of the Latin classics usually regard it as valuable, chiefly for its masterly embodiment of the principles of the Epicurean philosophy; but Dr. Mason Good opens the preface to his version with this glowing, and more universal, eulogy of the Roman philosopher-poet:— “There is no poem within the circle of the ancient classics, more entitled to attention than 'The Nature of Things, 'by Titus Lueretius Carus. It unfolds to us the rudiments of that philosophy, which, under the plastic hands of Gassendi and Newton, has, at length, obtained an eternal triumph over every other hypothesis of the Grecian schools; it is composed in language the most captivating and perspicuous that can result from an equal combination of simplicity and polish, is adorned with episodes the most elegant and impressive, and illustrated by all the treasures of natural history. It is the Pierian spring from which Virgil drew his happiest draughts of inspiration; and constitutes, in point of time, as of excellence, the first didactic poem of antiquity.”

120

44

“Dispel these sanguine dreams!”—the proud bard said:
“Passion,—warm maid,—hath seized the heritance
Of Reason in thee: proof hath Nature spread
That strong Necessity rules wide expanse
Of Universe: primeval atoms Chance
May have assorted; but, once joined, 'tis vain
To dream a separation. Partial glance
On Nature renders thy warm essence fain
To witness unmixed Good begin its ceaseless reign:

45

“But, know, the Universe is perfect, since
Eternal destiny forbade all germs
Diverse from what exist. Let it convince
Short-sighted murmurers at the mingled swarms
Of being, that all which is—is best, though storms
And darkness, death and havoc, mix with peace
And radiance, life and love; since each conforms
To high Necessity. Let passion cease,
Lesbian, to dazzle thee with fraudful garishness.”—

46

So spake Lucretius; but, with look undimmed
Of intellectual ardour, Sappho thus
Renewed her yearning thought:—
“Guesses sublimed
“By doubt, rather than argument abstruse
And wise, thou utterest, O incredulous
Epicurean! Failing to foreknow
The future, and with haste incurious
Glancing at past and present, thou art slow
To mark how Nature doth her bright intents foreshow.

47

“Weakly, not wisely, Mind doth refuge take
In greater mystery from the less: though faith
In government of kindly gods forsake
The soul full oft, beholding pain and death
Of fairest things endowed with lease of breath,—
Yet seems it blind procedure to conclude
Our puzzled survey with a word that saith
The gods are helpless as ourselves, and feud
Of Good with Evil hath by law of Fate ensued:

121

48

“Fate, or Necessity: Bard, what is this
But Ignorance veiled in simulance of words?
Nature's strange strife must be—because it is;
Or, is—because it must be: dull discords
Of reason! If its help, indeed, affords
No sager explications of the cause
Of things, sterile its rules my soul regards,
And cleaves to Phantasy, from which she draws
Faith more ennobling to interpret Nature's laws.

49

“The soul loathes Pain, Deformity, Decay:
Nature hath made them loathsome to her sense:
Therefore, they shall not always be. Bard, say,
What proves this truthless? Wordy eloquence
Of doubt compriseth all the proof from whence
Thou dost affirm Necessity; and why
Should spirits slight the cheering evidence
Of their own sympathies with Nature's high
Proclaim, to embrace clouds of dull dubiety?”—

50

The sanguine Lesbian ceased; and thus replied
The philosophic bard:—
“Couldst thou efface
“My doubts,—rapt, tuneful one,—to list thee chide
With this sweet earnestness and winning grace

I entreat the reader to understand these phrases as an ascription to Sappho's real power as a poetess,—not as characteristic of the manner in which I have made her apparition discourse. Ancient and modern critics without number—Longinus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Horace himself, Vossius, Hoffman, Addison, &c. &c., have paid the highest tribute to the poetical excellence of the fair suicide of Lesbos; but, perhaps, a more finished and eloquent eulogy on her lyric worth is not to be found in the compass of a few words, than in the following extract from the ninth volume of the Encyclopœdia Metropolitana:— “There are few intellectual treasures, the loss of which is more deeply to be regretted than that of the works of this poetess; for the remnants which have reached us certainly display genius of the highest order; they are rich even to exuberance, and yet directed by the most exquisite taste. In these most delicious of love-songs the tide of passion seems deep and exhaustless; it flows rapidly yet gently on, while the most sparkling fancy is ever playing over it; and the words themselves seem to participate in the sentiments which they develope. It is a mistake to imagine that the fragments of Sappho are nothing more than the eloquent expressions of amatory feeling; they are really verses of high imagination, which renders them as beautiful as they are intense, and, in the opinion of some writers, raises them even to the sublime.”

Long season would I yield. A resting-place
My spirit yearns to find within the veil
Of Truth—but yearns in vain. We still but chase
Shadows, and evermore the substance fail
To find, of Truth: our clearest light is mystical.

51

“Deformity and discord war with fair
And lovely shapes throughout the universe:
What wonder, then, if gifted spirits share
This wishful trust—that Good shall Ill disperse
Victorious, yet? I own, 'tis not through fierce
Impetuous longing, but by true, innate
Devotion to the Beautiful—to hearse
All pain in joy—woe, wrong, to annihilate—
Thy essence, Lesbian, builds this happy after-state:

122

52

“It is the native yearning of the Mind:
The soul attuned to harmony and love
Longs from the chains of discord to unbind
All being that wears them. Yet, I view, enwove
Through Nature, laws by which all things commove
Despite our choice, misnamed,—or joy or woe
Of sentient creatures: laws it doth behove
Gods to conserve, lest fickle men below,
Judging them null, should cease within their fanes to bow.

53

“Or, if uncaused the Universe exists—
Mystery beyond the plummet of our thought!—
Who, then, shall sperse the dark eternal mists
That veil all being?—who break the irksome knot
With which Necessity binds fast the lot
Of every sensuous thing—exposed to death,
And pain, and hate?—who cancel the huge blot
Of suffering from all life? The shadow fleeth
Of Truth! Spirits,—we wander in a mystic path!

54

“How know we whether it be fair and good
And godlike to desire plenipotence
Of love, whereby to pour a bounteous flood
Upon the universe, and fill all sense
And thought with joy, or, whether vehemence
Of folly be the fitter name whereby
To note our wish? Unknowing indigence—
With all our toil—beggars the soul: we try
In vain to grasp Truth's substance: all is phantasy!

55

“If it were fair and good to bless all thought
And life with joy, why was not Nature clad
In never-changing smiles from birth? why fraught
For ages thus, her life with suffering sad,
With pain and agony? Will Evil add,
By mystic providence, unto the sum
Of everlasting Good? What rapture glad
Would fill the soul, what blest delirium

Of joy, could she burst through the veil that hides her doom!

123

56

“But all is doubt, and dark: we struggle on
Like limëd birds: still captive, but the strife
Maintain, in trust that freedom shall be won.
How vain may prove our trust! Spirits, what if
Our ignorance have misnamed the hues of Life—
Evil and Good? From whence, then, shall we earn
Knowledge to unknow our strange errors? Rife
With mystery all—ay, all appears; and yearn
For ever, vainly, may the soul pure Truth to learn!”—

57

Lucretius ceased: and dark debate and doubt
Brooded on brows of many an habitant
Of that strange clime who now, in wondering rout,
Listed the theme.—
A spiritual pursuivant
Or herald ghost, meanwhile, with ministrant
Aspect approached; and him thus greet the crowd:—
“Hail, bard who didst the world-waged victory chaunt
Of Cæsar and Pharsalia! message-browed
Thy visage seems: we listen: thy full thoughts unshroud!”—

58

“High-gifted spirits of self-exiled land,”—
Replied the soul of Lucan;—“Minds, that erst
On earth caught inspiration from the grand
And beautiful in Nature, and conversed
With her Divinity until she nursed
Within ye thoughts and forms of glorious might
And loveliness,—which in their fulness burst
Upon the world suffusing Man with bright
Ecstatic visions of the reign of Truth and Right,—

59

“I come with embassage from high divan
Of spirits who on earth held sceptred sway
Or civic honour. Deep debate began
Their essences, of late, if throned-array
And pomps, in Hades, ceaseless state pourtray
Of monarchy on earth,—or phantoms build
Their regal seats, and mythic shapes display
Lessons of change, that dynasts unbeguiled
May be of pride which hath, perchance, their souls defiled:

124

60

“Exalted Hellene spirits challenge proof
Of natural kingship: while a haughty host
Of Thrones contend, beneath cerulean roof,
For ceaseless rule of princes. To their coast
The court of sceptred suicides each ghost
Inviteth of your king-souled lineage,
That ye the quest may aid which long hath tossed
Hades in doubt; and blissful heritage
Of Truth spirits may win. Ye have my embassage.”—

61

“We come,—we come!”—with rapturous minstrelsy
Of many a mystic harp the Poet-choir
Respond:—‘we come to join the jubilee
“Of thought! The true-born children of the lyre
High emprise of the soul can never tire.
To gauge the depths of doubt; the heights to scale
Of phantasy; the strength of passion's fire
To prove; to labour on, though footsteps fail
Of Mind in Mystery's path; our essence shall not quail!

62

“To dare to think—our rightful attribute
We claim. What though we vainly thread the maze
Of thought? Ours be the banquet of dispute—
The feast of argument. And if the ways
Of dark Necessity still shun our gaze—
Better in vain to search, than irk and pine
In low ignoble sloth!”—
Receding rays
Shed the rapt choir. From Phantasy's confine
Slowly crept back the soul unto her mortal shrine.

127

BOOK THE FIFTH.

1

Hail, eldest Night! Mother of human fear!
Vague solitude where infant Man first felt
His native helplessness! Beneath whose drear
And solemn coverture he, trembling, knelt
To what in thy vast womb of darkness dwelt
Unseen, unknown!—but, with the waking Sun,
Shouting, sprang up to see glad Nature melt
In smiles, triumphantly his Joy-God run
Up the blue sky, and Light's bright reign again begun!

2

Hail, starless darkness!—Sterile silence, hail!
Would that o'er Chaos thy wide rule had been
Perpetual, and reptile Man's birth-wail
Had ne'er been heard; or, over huge, obscene,
And monstrous births of ocean or terrene
For ever thou hadst brooded; so that Light
Had ne'er mocked mortals, nor the morning sheen
Broke thy stern sigil to give baleful sight
To Man—whose look upon his fellow is a blight!

3

Season of sepulchred and secret sin!
Beneath thy pall what vileness doth Man hide,
From age to age,—the moral Harlequin
Who dons the saint to play the fratricide.
Villany's jubilee!—Crime's revel-tide!—
Whose archives opened would yon judge proclaim
More criminal than the thief he lately tried,—
Yon priest an atheist,—and hold up to shame
Myriads of knaves writ ‘honest’ in the roll of Fame!

128

4

Mute witness of frail beauty's primal wreck!
Carnival hour of gray-haired Lechery!—
Foul harvest-time of her who sits to beck
O'er her cursed threshold yon boy-debauchee,—
The bawd, all palsy-twitched, whose feignful glee,
When he beholds her face upon the morrow,
With sobered brain, will freeze his jollity
To speechless horror, till he fain would borrow
Thy veil, once more, to hide his young remorseful sorrow!

5

High noon of the adulterer, who doth ask
Of yawning hell to triple thy black hour,
That he, unshooned, may safely, 'neath thy mask,
Reach the unfastened, guilt-frequented door,
And steep his soul in sin unto the core!
Mirth-bringer to the thief grown hunger-fell,—
Who laughs to clutch the miser's coffered store,
And, rendered shrewd by law, with smothered yell,
Sends the rich shrivelled fool where he no tales can tell!

6

Thou great conspirator with men of blood
To curtain murder till the guilty proof
In some lone cave or unfrequented wood,
From man's short-sighted vigilance aloof
Can be earthed up! Oh! if the ebon woof
Thou stretchest o'er the land could now be changed
Into a mirror,—how the poor dupe's scoff
Would burst upon his teachers seen estranged
From rules they taught! How he would burn to be avenged!

7

At base pretensions unto comely worth,
At foul Hypocrisy's true features shown,
How would the universal curse burst forth!—
Hah! how I doat! Am I an idiot grown
In the dank dungeon? Is not the World known
Unto Itself to be a stage of cheats,
Where, whoso plays with skill, if he depone,
Glibly, that each sworn brother-knave's deceits
Are fair, the skilful knave a world-voiced plaudit greets?

129

8

And, were thy pall, dim Night, asunder torn,
And ugliest portraits thou dost veil laid bare,
For worship men would soon exchange their scorn.
With flagrant front do not Day's vices glare,
And men that they are virtues sleekly swear?
Darkness! still hold thy provident control
O'er half man's life, that some thy cloak may wear
To sin with shame: more seemly 'tis than stole
Of sanctity that hides, by day, the filthy soul.

9

Darkness! thy sceptre still maintain,—for thou
Some scanty sleep to England's slaves dost bring:
Leicester's starved stockingers their misery now
Forget; and Manchester's pale tenderling-
The famished factory—child—its suffering
A while exchangeth for a pleasant dream!—
Dream on, poor infant wretch! Mammon may wring
From out thy tender heart, at the first gleam
Of light, the life-drop, and exhaust its feeble stream!

10

Darkness! still rule—that the Lancastrian hive
Of starveling slaves may bless thee: for even they,
With all their wretchedness, desire to live!—
Ay, men desire to live—to whom the day
Will bring again their woman's-task—to stay
At squalid home, and play the babe's meek nurse
Till sound of factory-bell, when they away
Must haste, and hold the suckling to life's source,
Within the rails! Upon their tyrants be my curse!

11

Nay, rather light that curse on ye, yourselves,
Ye timid, crouching crew! Is there no heart
Among ye stung to see the puny elves,
His children, daily die; his wife dispart
Her hair, and glare in madness? Doth the smart
Of slavery cease to rankle in your veins?
Faint, though ye be, and feeble, will none start
Unto his feet, and cry, while aught remains
In him of life—‘Death! or deliverance from our chains’?

130

12

Cowards! do ye believe all men are like
Yourselves?—that craven fear doth paralyse
Each English arm until it dares not strike
A tyrant?—that no voice could exorcise
Old Tyler's spirit, and impel to rise
Millions omnipotent in vengeful ire?—
Fool, that I am!—are there not hungry spies
On every hand, who watch, for dirty hire,
Each glance of every eye that glows with Freedom's fire?—

13

Whoso bethinks him that the eager grasp
Of foremost friendship's semblance may denote
The deeper venom of the darkling asp,
And that the multitude's applausive shout
May be the prelude to their hate;—if doubt
And hesitance arrest his fervid pulse,
And cool it to consistence with due thought
For his own offspring;—if their prattlings dulce
Seduce him from resolves that do the soul convulse

14

With troubles, contests, perils myriadfold,
And threatening prospect of a baleful end
By the vile halter,—in the dungeon cold,—
Or on the transport-shore without a friend
To sympathise, but hordes of slaves to rend,
Even in its death-pangs, the lorn exile's breast,
With brutal taunts:—Oh! let him reprehend
That knoweth none of these,—but here confest
Shall stand my sentence,—while I am a dungeon-guest:

15

I reprehend him not, that wisely looks
Before he leaps,—and looks again!—
Poor slaves,
Forgive that hasty curse—forgive! Rebukes
From me ye little need, while the rude waves
Of suffering overwhelm ye! Seek your graves
In peace! for ye are hasting thitherward
Apace. Why should ye a vain strife 'gainst knaves
And tyrants struggle to maintain? Discard
All torturous hope: Redemption's path for you is barred!

131

16

Drudge on in peace! Ay, though ye starve, still drudge,
Lest from your fondlings ye be torn, to herd
With eunuch-paupers! Tyrants wreck their grudge
Not as of old: high lords then massacred
The scurvy slaves who insolently dared
To murmur: now they wisely take revenge
On murmurers like men who have conferred
With meek Philosophy; and mildly change
Murder of breathing things for annihilation strange

17

Of things designed, as they believe, to breathe!
And if they do not thus believe, they lie—
The atheistic hypocrites! To sheathe
The sword in ye were barbarous: ye shall die
Humanely slow; and they will meekly try
In peace to end ye! 'Tis the radiant dawn
Of Christian Civilisation! Purify
The earth they must by sweeping off your spawn—
Even as the sun sweeps noxious vapours from the lawn!

18

Drudge on, in silent meekness! Tamely drag
Life's fardels as ye may: 'twill soon be spent—
This loan of breath; and they will find some rag
To wrap ye in at last! When ye are blent
With other churchyard things—from riches rent
And pride—ye will be even with them! Pine
A few more hours! Your goodly tenement,
The grave, is near: that fair, serene confine
Where ye will never hunger while your lordlings dine!—

19

Hark! 'tis Consumption's hollow cough that rings
From yon damp felon-cell! How dread these vaults
Of living Death seem 'mid such echoings
At midnight! What strange doubt the soul assaults,—
What frightful boding! till the heart's pulse halts,
As if it were afraid to beat so loud!—
Let me to rest! To-morrow, when the bolts
Are drawn, once more, this feeling of the shroud
May flee: the spirit be, again, with hope endowed:

132

20

With hope for Man's redemption: though a crime
It is for prison-thralls of such a hope
To breathe!—
I slept, and saw, again, the clime
Of suicidal souls. One of a troop
Of travellers newly come, beneath the cope
Sepulchral of the vague, vast, caverned span
I stood. Anon, adown an aisle whose slope
Invited, on new travel, I began
To wend, forth from that region subterranean.

21

Upon a bleak and barren plain, I dreamed
That I emerged, where one tall pillar reared
Its height until among the clouds it seemed
To end. Yet, 'twas but mockery when I neared
This lofty wonder—for its top appeared
Beneath man's stature. Low, around the base,
Lay broken sculptures of great names revered
In times of old; but ruin did deface
Them till they looked like Memory in her burial-place.

22

And then another, and another stone
Uprose, in the far distance,—each the aim
Vain-glorious of its founders making known
More by its wreck than record of the name
Or deed it had been stablished to proclaim.
Food for despondence, thus, the brooding mind
Gathered with semblant shapes that fleeting came
Athwart its vision: for, as flits the wind,
These imaged columns fled, or with new forms combined.

23

In allegoric lessons for the soul—
Of Liberty, each marble fragment strewed
Upon that plain, each pictured deed and scroll,
Told, as it lay, and I the ruin viewed:
‘She is a goddess Man hath oft pursued,—
‘Won seldom,—and hath never yet retained
‘Her living presence!’ Dreary solitude
O'er all I saw in saddened vision reigned,
Until a verdant mound my anxious spirit gained.

133

24

And, on the mound, methought, a mystic cirque
Of giant stones in simple grandeur rose,
Resembling Earth's first fathers' handy-work—
Their temples, or their tombs. Of Freedom's cause,
When Gallia's sons bound laurel on their brows
Blent with the oak, full many a devotee,—
Self-exiled from the wrath of friends grown foes,—
'Mid that cairn's shadow seated seemed to be,
Deep brooding on the Past: a stern confederacy.

25

Unapprehensible unto their thought
My being seemed, as I the cirque surveyed:
Albeit, so veritably that I mote
Not doubt, sat there each patriotic Shade
Revealed. Their spiritual brows arrayed
In light unearthly seemed; and, soon, to tell
His thoughts each form began, while Spirit made
Response to Spirit: waking not the swell
Of sounds, but voiceless, Mind to Mind seemed voluble.—

26

“How long shall poor Humanity lie waste
On earth!”—began this mystic utterance
Buzot,—of La Gironde's great sons not last
In toil to break the feudal bonds of France:
“How long will Liberty make tarriance,
Nor haste to bless our race! Brothers, I deem
Our agony in this strange heritance
Of after-life a far less rueful theme
Than thought that Tyranny on earth is still supreme.

27

“Of suffering here I reck not; since from earth
Come spirits hither still, that each declare
Our ancient home enslaved. Who would have mirth
In after-life while Earth's poor children wear
The fetters of the despot, and despair
To break them? This is woe,—this, this,—to feel
That all in vain we broke the priestly snare,
And, with our heart's blood, did to Freedom seal
Fealty! France, loved France, now feels the iron heel!

134

28

“Crushed, hated monarchy, again doth crush
Fair France; mirk superstition again weaves,
Successfully, her limëd web,—ay, flush
With life, more than her ancient realm retrieves.
Soul of Condorcet!—tell me that misgrieves
My spirit, if unto thy thought profound
Hope scintillates; if thy strong vision cleaves
The clouded future, and thou viewest unbound
Loved France, and Europe quake at her old trumpet-sound.

29

“Deep-searching Spirit, tell me, did we err—
Deeming the Palestinian story fraud
Or dreams, while we ourselves the dreamers were;
Deeming Earth's sceptres a pernicious gaud,
And dying to defend the banner broad
Of Universal Liberty, while meek
Obedience unto kings, and reverent laud
Our duty was, of Him the fablers sleek
Extolled—the Torturer stern of Man from vengeful pique

30

“Belike I err, even now, and more involve
My being in woe, thus lightly Powers august
And solemn naming. Yet,—the strong that wolve
The weak!—the powerful that grind to dust
The helpless! Can I err, yearning to thrust
Them from their thrones? My brother, if the doom
Of man be hopeful, tell!”—
With thought robust
And daring, thus the sombre spirit whom
Buzot addressed replied,—scorning exordium:—

31

“‘The spirit of Prometheus doth but sleep
Within the human heart,—lulled, drugged, and drowsed,
By Power's robed mediciners who keenly keep
Watch o'er its breathings,—and have ever choused
Their prey into more slumber, when aroused
For a brief breath by Freedom's vital touch,
It startled its sleek keepers, who caroused,
Gaily, beside their prostrate victim's couch—
Thinking it safe, for aye, within their privileged clutch!

135

32

“The spirit of Prometheus doth but sleep
Within man's heart: the dark, blood-feeding brood
Of serpents that so hush around it creep,—
Now they perceive, with apprehension shrewd,
Their terror-Trinity of Crown, Sword, Rood,
Is near evanishment,—may justly dread
The ruthless vengeance in its waking mood
Of the heart's Titan thought. Up from its bed
'Twill spring, and crush the asps that on its life misfed!

33

“The spirit of Prometheus doth but sleep:
The Mind's tornado wakes, through earth, even now!
And soon it will to nought the fabric sweep,
Of age-reared Priestcraft, and its shapes of woe,—
Its Hell, Wrath-God, and Fear—that foulest foe
Of human freedom! ‘I will freely think!”
'Twill boldly tell the surpliced cozeners—‘Lo!
I dare your monster God!—nor will I shrink
His tyrant tortures to defy—ev'n though I sink

34

“‘Amid the bottomless abyss of pain
‘Ye say He hath created for His slaves!
‘There let Him hurl me!—and, despite the chain
‘Irrevocable, that binds me under waves
‘Of liquid flame, He shall find one who braves
‘His wrath, and hurls back hatred for a God
‘Who forms without their will His creatures,—graves
‘Their natures on them,—rules by His own nod
‘Of Providence, their lives,—and, then, beneath His rod—

35

“‘His scourge eternal, tortures them, without
‘Surcease or intermission!’ Endless fire
For a breath's error,—for a moment's doubt!
Infinite Greatness exercising ire
Relentless on a worm! Why? That the quire
Celestial may His spotless glory sing—
His attributes harmonious made by dire
Infliction on his worms of suffering,—
And He Himself in joy ecstatic revelling!

136

36

“Oh! what a potent poison hath benumbed
The human mind, and robbed it of its might
Inherent! since—affrighted, cowed, begloomed,
And stultified,—this juggle of the Night
It kneels unto, and calls ‘divinest light!’—
But, it will soon the jugglers' toils outleap
Who long, behind the altar of their Sprite
Of blood, have played at terrible bo-peep
With Man! The spirit of Prometheus doth but sleep!”—

37

He ceased, and proudly from his visage flashed
Exultant hope's intensest radiance.
As, when around Jove's Titan victim crashed
The bounding thunder, and no mitigance
Of pain the vulture gave, his soul's expanse
Of hope for mortals filled with thought sublime
The offspring of Iäpetus, till glance
Of lightnings was forgot, and space, and time:
And Caucasus grew joyous as Elysian clime!

38

Silent and solemn musings held the band
Of patriot Shades, until, with suave aspect
And diffident, the spirit of Roland
Thus spake:—
“The universe her Architect
“All-wise proclaims; since without maim, defect,
Or vain expenditure of means are all
His works beheld: their Author they reflect:
Unseen the Central Light Himself'mid pall
Of His Own brightness shrouds,—the Godhead personal!

39

“Yet men deny Him not because their ken
Detects not his pure Essence,—neither fail
To hymn His all-pervading goodness, when
They view pain through His universe prevail:
But, rather, as becomes their fmite, frail,
And borrowed life, sum up their dwarfish praise
With meek confession that poor reason's pale
Includes not perfect judgment of His ways
Who of Infinity the boundless sceptre sways.

137

40

“Soul of Condorcet! if we now indulge
The sceptic's thought, provoke we not the scourge
We inly feel? Woes, ceaseless, here promulge
The vengeance of our Judge. Forbear to urge
His justice! Penal sojourn us may purge
From earthly stain. Let us, by duteousness
Of mind, assist the cure; devoutly merge
Our pride in awe; and reverently confess
Our wisdom blind—His wisdom's goodness question-less!”—

41

“I marvel at thy fear,”—in haste replied
The sombre spirit: “yet I 'sdeign to blame
“The weakness of a brother; but confide,
By power of ministering reason to reclaim
Thy mind from cowardice. Roland! the game
Of priests hath turned upon that master-trick
For ages—‘View thy finiteness with shame,
And bow before the Infinite!’—Their quick
Presentment of that cheat still serves the politic

42

“Successors of the Jewish fishers rude,
As it subserved the hierarchs of old
That, through the Orient, primal thought subdued,
And humbled to the dust man's vision bold,
Which would have scanned their secrets uncontrolled.
Roland! bethink thee what the cheat is worth!
Grant that Infimty cannot unfold
Itself to finiteness; that worms of earth
Their Maker's government behold but in its birth;

43

“Grant that man, seeing but a fleeting part
Of God's illimitable kingdom, knows
Too little to fill up the boundless chart
By guess; yet, needeth it no operose
Deduction of our reason to disclose
This truth unto the simplest, shallowest brain—
In the vast future God cannot oppose
Himself: new attributes if He sustain
Hereafter, Man now hymns his perfectness, in vain.

138

44

“Thou callst God's goodness perfect: yet, ‘It may
Consist with perfect goodness,’—say the priests,—
‘Atoms of helplessness to damn, for aye,—
‘Although Man's finite reason manifests
‘Rebelliousness against such dread behests
‘Of Infinite Sovereignty: it may appear
‘Lovely, hereafter,—though Man now detests
‘Such hideousness, nor doth, in heart, revere—
‘Whate'er his lips profess—this Monster stern, austere:

45

“‘It may appear throughout eternity,
‘Right and consistent,—though in time it seems
‘Monstrously wrong,—that His philanthropy
‘Which in creating man so brightly beams,—
‘A thing in whose vile nature never gleams
‘A spark of good desire,—a thing thus made
‘Ere it could choose,—which evil good still deems.
And thence can choose but evil—till arrayed
‘With power Divine it shuns its former nature's shade,

46

“‘And seeks the light of holiness,—it may
‘Consist with His philanthropy to curse
‘This thing because it never kneels to pray,
‘And He withholds to infuse the will!’ Rehearse
These subtleties the Priests until they sperse
Man's mental strength, and blind him with a dust
Of postulates: a dust that doth immerse
All things in doubt; confounds false, true, base, just;
And jeopards even their godliest saint's devoutest trust:—

47

“For, if—still perfect—God can violate
Some of His Own great declarations, who
Dares say it will His excellence abate
If He break others? May it not congrue
Also with His perfections to eschew
Fulfilment of His promises of bliss
Celestial to the worms that render due
Observance to His laws? Folly, than this
Quirk of old Austin, ne'er framed frailer artifice:—

139

48

“The cozener, seeking others to befool
Sottishly fools himself. For, hath the saint
A firm dependence for that rest of soul,
That endless cloyless joy his scriptures paint,
If God of His own moral Self so faint
A portraiture vouchsafes that what He saith
Must be interpreted without constraint
Of Reason, which Himself hath given, and Faith—
That is, the Future—must give meaning to His breath?

49

“If what He saith in Time, by what He doth
Throughout Eternity, must be explained,
How shall His worms repose upon His oath?
Seeing that He sweareth by Himself, unstained
Would be His word—by deeds; since what pertained
Unto Himself men had not known! And, thus,
The saint, though shorn of bliss, and in Hell chained
To burn, thrust down with sinners,—murderous
And false, no more than they,—could term the All Marvellous!”—

50

“Soul of Condorcet!”—harshly spake the ghost
Of Pétion,—“I thy thought deep-searching own;
“But wherefore is our after-life engrossed
With this tame wordy-war? Need we impugn
Stale, senile fables which the wrinkled crone,
Old Superstition, yet doth croak and crool
Unto Man's infancy? Her dying moan
Will soon, on earth, be heard: no human mole
Will long be left to grope beneath her nighted rule.

51

“Shall we our torture's scanty lapse misspend
By coward reasonings on this side the tomb?
The strife with scorn why not thus tersely end—
Saith some cowled fabler—‘Shall the clay presume
‘To prate unto the Potter, nor succumb
‘To his behests in silent awe?’—It shall—
Thou knavish priest,—if such behests bring doom
Of endless torment on the victim thrall
Compelled, without its choice, through mortal life to crawl.”—

140

52

“On dreaming dolts,”—the shade of Valazé
Exclaimed,—“fraternal suasion were misspent:
Dolts whom their craven fears will lead astray
From manly thought as soon as they have lent
Audience to reason. Slow and impotent
Of soul, Roland, on earth, thou always wert;
But, here, in after-life, new wonderment
We feel, beholding thy dull mind begirt
With fabling dreams thou soughtst, elsewhere, to controvert.

53

“Weak, fickle spirit, on old Earth, mis-sexed!
Conjugal tie revealed to human ken
The woman's soul unto thy clay annexed:
'Twas thy brave helpmate breathed 'mong souls of men
True manhood—the immortal Citoyenne!
Dim, wavering Shade! when wilt thou strive to break
This feminine bondage unto weakness? when
Demean thyself like to a man? Awake,
Dreamer!—thy spirit of these fraud-forged fetters shake;

54

“Or, if thou lovest the dreams that appertain
To fools, seek the self-exiled climbing throng
That share yon hill. Hence, Folly we in vain
Have striven to make wise! Spirits, with strong
Derision let us chase this slave of wrong
Forth of our fellowship!”—
“Thou viler slave,
Forbear! Expurge the errors that belong
To thine own spirit ere thou fume and rave
Against thy brother, thus intolerantly brave!”—

55

So spake, and fiercely frowned, the Jacobin,
Le Bas,—who with a look of stern delight
Beheld, thus far, each haughty Brissotine
Scourge his tame brother. Soon, to join the fight
Of words hastened full many a sturdy sprite
Badged of ‘the Mountain’—when the strife of blood.
Raged in distracted France: Girondist wight
Gave gall for gibe: fell combat seemed renewed
Of Freedom's doubly suicidal brotherhood.

141

56

Malevolence, and spite, and rancour burned
Through their thin vehicles, with lurid flame;
And madly, that he were, once more, disurned
From the dark tomb to play an aftergame
Of blood, each yearned, and did with zeal proclaim
His frantic wish! So horrible it seemed
To witness how they raged, that being became
A torture; and, unconscious that I dreamed,
Methought I mourned as one to baleful life condemned.

57

But, lo! a sudden, silent pallor seized
The hostile crew, beholding where upreared
A Shape threatening as spectre unappeased
By devilish wizard who beholds afeard
The power his sable mischief hath unsphered,
But lacks the deeper skill to lay. Atween
Two cirque-stones vast the huge, gray Shape appeared
So stone-like, and so blind, yet stern, of mien,
That nought proclaimed it human save its gaberdine.—

58

“Dark atheist blood!”—the mystic Shape began;
“Cease to malign Him Who the sceptre wields
Of Universe, all Being's Guardian!
Whose glory seraphs chaunt on heavenly fields;
Whose favour from their foes earth's chosen shields;
Whose vengeance ye, in Sheol,

the Hebrew word for Hades, or the region of the departed.

deeply prove!
Foul sons of Belial! even your hatred yields
Proof that Jehovah, from His throne above,
Governeth Men as much by judgment as by love.

59

“Did ye not tear each other like the wolf
And bear on earth? Did ye not rend and rive
Your fellow-clay until one crimson gulph
Your city seemed? Here, in the soul, survive
Its cherished evils: judgment punitive
Condemns ye thus to ravin in your minds,
And slaughter with your thoughts. Nor will ye strive
To burst your dimning veil, for that each finds
Foul pleasure in the darkness which his spirit blinds.

142

60

“Judicial blindness is your guilt-won lot:—
And, though ye mock, your hard impenitence
I here rebuke. Until,—foul pride ye blot
From your soul's core, and that Hell-born offence,
Your self-willed doubt,—and bow with reverence
Duteous to the Most High—returning peace
Ye ne'er shall know: but torturous turbulence
And rage of vengeful passions shall increase
Within ye; nor shall ye your wandering penance cease.

61

“Jehovah hath a quarrel with your pride.
Think ye that He will deign to justify
Himself to atoms unto Nought allied?
Not to the proud into His ways that pry—
But, to the meek who on His word rely,
He showeth favour.”—
“Slaughterous Shophet

the Hebrew word for Judge, or Ruler. Shophelim is the title of the Book of Judges, in the original.

hoary”—
Condorcet's spirit hurled back proud reply,—
“Repeat no more thy oft—told doting story!-
We bow not to thy Blood-God's homicidal glory!

62

“Meek champion of the lofty deity
Who clave the ass's jaw-bone to reprieve
Thy murderous life, rather than cleave for thee
A thunder-blasted tomb,—though Fraud misweave
Such shapes as His and thine, to disbelieve
That ye exist—we dare! Abortive dreams
Of lust and blood incarnate! fools receive
For high realities the priestly themes
Of your strange deeds: Wisdom such barbarous tale contemns!

63

“Unreal shape, begone! False mist thou art;
Engendered of our insane rage and broils;
Or, with a myriad other mists athwart
Our thoughts that flit, thou and thy god are foils
Of truth, which, when her strength she overtoils,
The purblind Mind creates—”
“Blasphemers bold!”—
Samson burst forth in ire, while the hoar piles
Of stone shook to their bases,—“leave untold
“Your daring sneers! Provoke not vengeance manifold!

143

64

“Vile slaves of self-deceit!—vaunt not your zeal
For truth. Whence is this horror ye profess
For violence? If ye to earth appeal
What saith she, shuddering, of your foul excess
Of fratricide? To whom could ye address
So fitly as to Murder Deified
Your vows of blood? Powers whose enormousness
Of massacre and ravine thought outstride
High o'er the rites of mutual butchers should preside.

65

“Affect no more this horror, so demure,
Of His strict rule Who portions penance just
Unto the filthy: favour to the pure.
Could ye be gods, to sate your ravening lust
For blood, whole human hecatombs slaves must
Pile on your Moloch-altars day by day!
Your lives disprove your claim to style august
Of high philanthropists: ere ye inveigh
'Gainst murder and revenge, mercy yourselves display!

66

“Brood of assassins—ere ye mock at deeds
Achieved by Israel's champion—with your own
Compare them. Faiths ye scoffed at—yet for creeds
Slaughtered each other! To destroy the throne
Ye banded, since a monster curse 'twas grown—
And then o'er crowds enfranchised raised the knife!—
I wonder Earth, with headless corses strown
And drenched with gore, from such horrific strife
Shrunk not upon her axle till she quelled all life!

67

“Ye slaughtered for the sake of blood: I slew
My foes in self-defence. Ye murdered whom
Yourselves made free!—I crushed the brutal crew
Of haughty tyrants who to slavish doom
Sentenced my fatherland,—ay, in one tomb
O'erwhelmed myself and them, rather than live
Myself a slave—my country slaved! To dumb
Confusion are ye stricken? Let shame revive!—
Her glow, though late, may prove of wisdom nutritive.

144

68

“Now, list my embassy from souls of kings
And Gentile Shophets who in throned conclave
Ye know, at lapse of penal wanderings,
Sit girt with pomps, and visioned splendours have.
Whether the Power that breathed all life Man gave
Unto his brother like the ox and horse
To minister, a sturdy, craft-trained slave
For food,—or did ‘Equality’ endorse
On human natures—they pursue abstruse discourse.

69

“Such is the essence of their strife—surround
It as they may with mist of words. Had ye
Less madly played your part millions unbound
Might now proclaim the coming jubilee
Of nations: Sheol's Thrones, through sympathy,
Forbode their fall—conscious of mystic tie
That binds them with Earth's crowns: their destiny
And Man's they seek: I bid ye to the high
Debate:—but, first, your souls' dark errors rectify!

70

“I leave ye to self-chastisement—that scourge
More poignant than all tortures from without.
May deep-wrought penitence your spirits purge
From the foul stain of atheistic doubt—
That ye, at length, may join the choral shout
Of ransomed millions, when to end all pain
God's great Messiah comes!—that vision fraught
With bliss the rapt seers saw on Jordan's plain
And Judah's sacred hills. Jehovah, haste Thy reign!”—

71

He spake and faded,—as some threatening cloud
Of fearful shape disperseth in thin air,
Leaving no trace to show where, ebon-browed,
But now, it frowned and darkened to despair
The eye of day. No more with rage to tear
And rend each other burned the jarring host
Of patriot Shades rebuked; but, to declare
His chastened thought began Babœuf's pale ghost—
Equality's last self-exile from Gallia's coast.—

145

72

“If brothers still we be,”—he said,—“and zeal
For contest has not cancelled loftier sense
Of right,—let us essay this strife to heal
With kindliness: not vengeful virulence
Will chase from Mind its raylessness intense,
Nor free it from fanatic mists obscure.
Boast we of Reason?—let us evidence
The gift by pointing, with persuasion pure,
Our weaker brother unto Truth's bright cynosure.

73

“I yield not to this terror-shape belief
In his old fables; neither fail to know
That earthly tyrannies derive their chief
Strength from the fear with which men quake and bow
To Powers Unknown. Yet, brothers, do we owe
Regard to these rebukes; let each, then, list;
And cease these poisonous gibes whereby our woe
Is deepened,—soul to soul antagonist
Becomes,—and Earth's old jars in after—life exist.

74

“Fled we not hither less by inward dread
Of ignominious death than sick at heart
With our abortive strife, in which was shed
Torrents of Frenchmen's blood? Oh! let the smart
Of anguish for self-errors here impart
Regretful tenderness for frailties shown
By brethren. Still, I fear, these storms athwart
Our after-life will come! My stain I own;
And would by present pain for errors past atone!”—

75

“Spirits!”—rejoined Condorcet,—‘Humbled thought
Doth not avail mind's errors to expel:
Self-chastisement for frailty nurtures not
The growth of wisdom: Reason doth rebel
Against the slavish gloom which priests so well,
For their vile ends, depicture as the true
Discipline for the soul. They most excel
In wisdom who the past can calmly view
With deep resolve error in future to eschew.

146

76

“Ay, they are wisest, best, who still maintain
The calm, firm, steady toil to emancipate
Mind from its frailties: Tears, on earth, are vain,
And low regrets, in this our afterstate:
Man's noblest part is still to battle Fate,
Or Circumstance; or whatsoe'er afflict
His essence;—joy, as grief, to moderate
By Reason's rule—not monkish rigour strict:
Rule that with ease the soul may gratefully addict

77

“Herself to serve; and by sure steps, though slow,
Thus climb Elysian height serene. How long
In circles shall we reason? Whence the woe
We here experience—save from passion strong
And changeful? Spirits! let us not prolong
Debate amid these ruins; but the theme
Renew where kings invite polemic throng
Of essences!”—
I woke: for, like a gleam
Electric, vanished the wild actors of my dream!

149

BOOK THE SIXTH.

1

Blood! blood! Ye human hell-hounds, when, oh when
Will ye have had your fill? The hazy morn
Hath scarcely dawned upon this grisly den
Of demon Power, ere yon poor wretch forlorn
Is led to slaughter:—led? nay, fainting, borne
Unto the ladder's foot! Murder by law—
In lieu of medicine till his wits return—
For one impelled to kill, by his brain-flaw;
And then to weep, when he his slaughtered infant saw!

2

It is the death-toll: there! they bear him on!
I climb to read the lesson through my bars.—
Hah! curse upon thee, priest!—is it well done
That thou, a peace-robed herald pattering prayers,
Dost head the death-march? Trowst thou not it jars
With that sky-message which proclaimed, thou sayst,
‘Peace and Goodwill to Man’?—ay, that it mars
The face of mercy to behold thee placed
There, in grim state, 'tween spears with crape, in mockery, graced?

3

'Tis passed—the chilling spectacle! Farewell,
Poor pale, weak, fellow-worm! 'twill soon be o'er—
Thy tearful pilgrimage. 'Tis done!—the knell
Ceases: and though I, happily, see no more
Of the fell tragedy, the sullen roar
Of groans and execrations, pierces through
My dungeon-grating; for the gazers pour
The heart's involuntary curse on you,
Ye hireling butchers who now ‘give the law its due’!

Six human beings underwent capital punishment in front of Stafford Gaol during the two years I remained in it. The entire procedure in any one instance, of course, I could not witness; on one occasion, only,—when, on account of the early hour and season of the year, I had not been removed from my night-cell,—I beheld the grim preface to the legal butchery. Without repeating testimonies of reflecting men who have attended executions, as to the hardening effect of those savage spectacles,—I will just observe that while the sound of the death -bell for the first execution filled me and my fellow-prisoners with paroxysms of distress,—on the second, third, and fourth occasions, we became comparatively unconcerned. And, when I was left a solitary prisoner, the sound of the death-bell for the last time; created a few bitter thoughts of the abhorrent and uncivilised nature of the impending tragedy; but a kind of careless disgust followed, from the instant reflection that all my dislike of the brutal transaction was vain. And, within ten minutes after the death-bell had ceased, I actually caught myself humming “The Banks and Braes o' bonny Doon!” Now, a more sensitive and excitable human creature than myself perhaps, does not exist: but there is the honest fact—such as startled me by its strangeness, at the time:—let the advocates for the usefulness of capital punishments, as “impressive moral lessons,” make what they can of it.

150

4

Oh! I would weep throughout the live-long day
With memory how my fellow-man hath wept
Through ages, and bewail him as the prey
Of foul Draconian beasts which he hath kept
In reverence high; but, that I feel, except
The melting mood be mastered, and fierce ire
As well, and Man becomes a calm adept
In tracing errors to their spring, the fire
Of that real Hell that burns on earth shall ne'er expire.

5

Why should I curse thee, priest? Art thou not bound
To obey thy patched creed's dogmas? ‘Blood for blood’
Thy rubric reads,—with logic most profound!
And, lest by disobedience, the world should
Halt on its axle, ye, meek brotherhood!
Must see the ‘Law Divine’ fulfilled. He meant
Not what he said—the Nazarene—the Good!
Or, still the rubric stands for murderers: blent
With mystery is God's law: Himself knows His intent!

6

Hah! how long will ye palter thus, to screen
Your conscious inconsistency, and hide
The Truth from Man? Either the Nazarene
Or Moses errs. And, if stern homicide
Man's homicidal will so well could chide
Of old,—the Law of Blood, maugre all change,
Must still be wholesome. But, ye should abide
By all the Law: ‘eye,’ ‘tooth,’ ‘hand,’ ‘foot’—avenge,
Avenge!—Ye may not from the whole a part estrange!

Compare Exodus, chap. xxi., verse 24, and Matthew, chap. v., verses 38, 39.

7

Doff, then, thine alb, and don the ephod, priest,—
If thou art Moses' minister; Ah, no!—
Thou too successfully and long hast fleeced
The sheep in that white garment to forego
The gain of doubleness. Neither art thou
And thy smooth tribe unskilful to discern
That while ye must stand by your yokefellow,
The hangman, and together deftly learn
To prop kings' sway,—fair uses hath your coat extern:

151

8

It symbols meekness well, and peace, ye preach
To slaves: Christ's precepts are for them! Your drame
Hath thus its parts, and ye are prompt for each!
Dark ambidexters in the guilty game
Of human subjugation! how to tame
Man's spirit ye, and only ye, have skill:
Kings need your help to hold their thrones; while claim
Of sanctity enables ye, at will,
To wield o'er prostrate Reason subtler empire still!

9

What tyrants leave unvanquished in the mind
By threat of chains, the gallows, flame, or sword,
Ye humble by your Hell!—
Was I not blind—
To judge ye inconsistent? True accord
Subsists between your new and elder ‘word,’
Ye throw away no part: it is because,
With cunning shrewder than the simple horde
O' the laity, ye ken the penal clause
Blends in one spirit fierce the old and late Jew's laws.

10

‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do!’—
O Christ! how worshipfully great thou art
Uttering such dying breath! A lowly Jew,
Born and brought up with bigots whose old heart
Was nurtured, from far time, to count the smart
Of suffering in a foe sweet to behold;
From rule of blood for blood ne'er to depart,—
Of eye for eye, and tooth for tooth; to fold
The law of vengeance, given while the thunder rolled,

11

And lightnings flashed, and the loud trumpet pealed
Forth from the shrouded hill, in the heart's core,
As dearer than all treasures earth can yield;
Law eulogised, confirmed by Prophets hoar,
By solemn awe-rapt bards, and all the lore
Thy country ever knew! If not Divine
Thou wert,—thy self-born light and love is more
Miraculous than aught by all the line
Of the heart's precept-makers writ in page benign.

152

12

Hunted to death,—nailed to ‘the tree of shame,’—
Fainting, expiring,—and thy last heart-prayer
Breathing for them who gibbeted thy name
Above that thorn-crowned head, nor did forbear,
When spirit-desolation or despair
Seized thee, to mock thy groans! Forgiveness,—love,—
For those who tortured thee! Oh! if such rare
Triumph o'er ill be human, it doth prove
A glorious nobility in Man enwove!

13

And 'tis enwove in man: else, wherefore pleads
High reason in that prayer?—‘they know not what
They do!’—Compassion for a being whose deeds
Resulting from his ignorance denote
His errors accidental: not inwrought
By natural vice, or willed, in Reason's spite,
When Knowledge shows the wrong. By Reason brought
Thus to regard our brother, inner might
Of love fraternal springs, and Pity's calm delight.

14

What sayest thou, priest? ‘It is not thus’? Do threats
Of Hell, then, fill the heart with this intense
And holy bliss of pitying love? Begets
Thy rhetoric of the flames which Providence
Almighty ever blows for bodily sense
(By miracle also made eternal); worm,
Deathless and sateless, preying without suspense
On conscience: do these horrors sow the germ
Of love in Man, and threats renewed its growth confirm?

15

And yet, thy Master preached this Hell: with all
His sovereign magnanimity, and free
Expanse of soul, the Nazarene a thrall
Remained to the old desart-Deity,—
The ‘jealous’ Vengeance-God!—
Shrewd Priest! of thee
I judged but shallowly: thy puzzle-book
Thou readst more skilfully than I; agree
Thy teachers twain: the Galilean shook
Not off from his large mind the mountain-thunderer's yoke.

153

16

Hell-fire,—coercion,—for the ingrate hard
Who will not love the God set forth as high,
Vast, indescribable, in His Love's regard
For Men! ‘Love Him; or He will magnify
‘His glory by consigning thee to die
‘In ceaseless flames an ever-living death’!—
O Christ! how can I love what doth outvie
All tyrannies in horribleness of wrath:
This monstrous Thing derived from an old monster Faith?

17

Thine, Galilean, is of all earth's creeds
The greatest marvel! Wonder at thy toil
Of tears, self-sacrifice, and love succeeds
Each step we tread with thee—till this dread foil
Unto thy moral beauty doth despoil
The yearning heart of its impassioned hope:
Death-stricken, blighted, doth the soul recoil
From its tempestuous wish to love thee: droop
It must in doubt; and to its bourne in darkness grope!

18

Oh! hadst thou not so lovely been on earth,
I would not care to share thy Paradise:
This wish to live beyond the grave hath birth
Without my will: yet, by the sovereign voice
Of Reason 'twould be hushed, but that the bliss
Of knowing such a heart as thine doth seem
A boundless joy,—a good beyond all price:
And still I wish thy heaven were not a dream;
And, to my latest hour shall doat upon that theme!

19

Alas! thy repetition of that most
Enslaving of all slavish thoughts—a Hell
Wherewith the Priest may threat to tame the ghost
Of him who dares in mortal life rebel
'Gainst Faith or Kings—restrains the heart's love-swell
Rushing to centre in thee, and reveals
To Reason that thou couldst not burst the spell
Of Circumstance—which even the mightiest seals
In impotence: we do but act as she impels.

154

20

Greatest of moral miracles thou art:
In godlikeness above all godlike men:
Pardoning thy murderers, even while thy heart
They pierced: born in a land where rock and glen,
On every hand that met thy love-lit ken,
Were during witnesses of brothers' blood
Shed by, or for Jehovah!—Denizen
Of such a clime—Child of so fierce a brood—
What wonder at one speck in thy vast sun of good?

21

One link—thy penal Hell,—with the old Past
Of Force, the homage-time so reverent—
Connects thee: but, thy themes of mercy vast,
Of love and brotherhood,—the aliment
Shall be for kindred souls on love intent
And mercy, every hour, until the might
Their spirits draw from thine all-prevalent
Shall render them; and they shall chase the sprite
Of Blood and Force that doth all human joyaunce blight.

22

Goodness, thou didst enthrone: our generous sires,
Drawn by thy generous themes, Woden and Thor
Abandoned, quenching all their idol-fires
To worship Whom they called ‘the Good.’ Before
Goodness personified thy Gospel's lore
Taught them, they thought, to bow; and ‘God’ became
Their Deity

The established etymology of the word “God,” is that which derives it from the Saxon adjective signifying good, as I have given it in the text. But there are scholars who doubt of the correctness of this derivation. “The chief who conducted the Goths into Scandinavia appears by his Gothic names Odin, Wodan, and Godan, to have been confounded with the Deity, because his name, like the Persian Udu, the Gothic Aud denoted power; . . . . The Bodh, Voda, or Vogd of the Indians, Tartars, and Russians, the But, Bud, Wud, of the Persians and idolatrous Arabs, the Qud or Khoda of all the tribes of Turkey throughout Tartary, the Godami (Gaudama) of the Malays and Ceylonese, appear to be merely different pronunciations of Wodan, especially as bodh or boodh in Sanscrit and the common dialects of Hindostan is used for our Wednesday or Odin's day.”—Thomson's “Observations introductory to a work on English Etymology: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1818.”—See also Godfrey Higgins's “Anacalypsis.”

—
What small shrill voice doth pour
Its wailing from that grated window-frame?
What note of Pain doth thus my feeble brain-steps maim?

23

Hah! murderous spider! when I watched thee spread
Thy cobweb yestermorn, it did relieve
A dreary prison-hour to mark each thread
From thee, thou magic artisan, receive
Its faery texture: while I saw thee weave
That dædal miracle, this poison-thought
Rose not that now impelleth me to grieve
Much more than to admire—to grieve and doubt,
As, in a torment-web, like thy poor victim, caught!—

155

24

Priest! dost thou smile, beholding how Thought's web
Baffles and binds me with its mystery,—
Yea, lays me, helpless as a limber babe,
At Mystery's feet? Oh! I will slander thee
No more: if Nature hath a Deity,
The Bible doth not slanderously limn
His portraiture: Author of agony
The living book doth, hourly, picture Him:
The written—thrones a Slaughterer 'tween the Cherubim!

25

'Tis clear: who tries the Faith by Nature's test—
O modern Stagyrite!—between thy creed
And Her must own ‘Analogy’ confest.

The ascription of the epithet “modern Stagyrite” to the mitred author of the celebrated “Analogy” may seem untasteful to the learned reader; but I could not resist the wish to register my conviction, in some form, that of all the reasoners for the truth of written Revelation, Butler is the most potent.

—
‘Submit thee, then, vain doubter!—since decreed
‘It is that Life consists of things of greed
‘And things to be their prey,—submit and bow
‘To Him who made them thus: back, that may lead
‘Thee to the Faith in which, thou dost allow,
‘The Deity drawn with Nature's girded brow!’

26

Priest! I will answer thee with that free soul
These bolts and bars have only served to thew.
Forty short summers towards my earthly goal
Have I now journeyed,—and, for me, but few
More summers can remain: Wrong to eschew,
And Right to treasure in the heart's recess,
How can I lack dispose,—while, to my view,
The grave is yawning in its cold duresse
To close what tyrants leave of my clay's feebleness?

27

Priest! I have felt by turns from earliest days,
As well as calms, the tempests of the brain:
Fervid devotion, and the wild rapt blaze
Of ecstasy in prayer; ascetic pain
And fasting; midnight book-toil to obtain
The key to facts—knowledge of tongues of old;
Weighing of evidence—grave—long—again;
With constant watchings how Man doth unfold
What is the impress true he bears from Nature's mould;—

156

28

And this, in humbleness I would declare,
And yet with courage, is my only Faith:—
Goodness alone, with its blest, yearning care,
Is worshipful—for Goodness only hath
Power to make good and happy things of breath
And thought. If Man can be transformed
Wholly to virtue,—punishment and wrath,—
Taught by all priests that on the earth have swarmed,—
Must be untaught; and Man by Love to Right be charmed.

29

Goodness alone is worshipful. Not what
Gives life, but what gives happiness is good.
I cannot worship what I own a blot
To be in my own nature—hasty flood
Of feeling that with ireful hardihood
Would rush to do what I would soon regret:
Nor can I worship, priest! thy Shapes of Blood,
Or Nature's cause of Pain. If to beget
Love in the soul these fail—shall worship there be met?

30

I cannot worship what I cannot love.—
If this be vicious, priest! show me the way
To virtue: I will own—if thou dost prove—
My error: but, till then, I humbly say,
I think the error thine. To resurvey,
For proofs of Deity, great Nature's face,
Drawn, yea impelled, unto Mind's latest day,
I shall be by Her wonders; but—the embrace
Of All-pervading Goodness—shall I find it's trace?

31

I say not that there is no God: but that
I know not. Dost thou know, or dost thou guess?
Why should I ask thee, priest? Darkness hath sat
With light on Nature—Woe with Happiness
Since human worms crawled from their languageless
Imperfect embryons, and by signs essayed
To picture their first thoughts. 'Tis but excess
Of folly to attempt the great charade
To solve: and yet the irking wish must be obeyed!—

157

32

Night hath returned on me,—even as it closed
Upon these dizzying thoughts in human things
Thousands of years ago:—Two Powers opposed
Eternally,—or Good with boundless wings
Brooding o'er Universe—the egg whence springs
Evil: the Mede's, Hindoo's, Egyptian's strife
To make himself believe some glimmerings
He saw of Truth, through Nature's garment rife
With Mystery: Hebrew fable of primeval life

33

In happy Eden—Eve, and glozing snake:
Or myth more artificial of the land
Of arts and song—Pandora's box, with ache
And boil and pestilence, by man's rash hand
Unlidded—punishment for theft of brand
From Heaven:—
Night hath returned, as she returned
To millions, who through life thus vainly scanned
The face of mystery. What, though they burned
In vain to know, yet never Nature's secret learned?

34

Desire to know must still within us burn—
Though its quick fire our fragile clay consume:
For who would crawl in brutal unconcern
Along his fated pathway to the tomb,
Nor ever ask if thought-flame shall relume
This clay, or it shall sleep a dull, dark, cold,
Eternal sleep?—
I slept, and dreamt the doom
Of suicidal souls—great souls of old—
I did, once more, in mystic spirit-land behold.

35

The thrones were set, in gorgeous show, beneath
The rainbow-roofed and column-girt expanse,
Filled with the votaries of self-wrought death
I saw before; and with like cognizance
Of crown and sceptre, shedding radiance
From gems and gold, they sat,—or, lesser state
Kept, as of civic power's participance
The fitter emblem. 'Sdeignfully elate
Some sat, while some sent forth deep glances of debate:

158

36

For, mingled with the thrones, rose seats of strange
Fantastic structure—seeming, medley-wise,
The courage, cunning, pride, despair, revenge,
The love of fatherland, or high emprise,
Wisdom, or eloquence, to symbolise
Of their famed occupants—a lustrous host
Begirt with rays, whose thoughts wore no disguise,—
So that my spirit scanned each musing ghost,
And read the characters in his mind's book engrossed.—

37

Transcending far, in grace, all regal thrones,
Twin seats neighbouring the godlike Spartan's stood,
O'ercanopied with bended necks of swans,
And wings of doves circling their callow brood,
Adorned beneath with blossom, bell, and bud,
The loveliest of every season's growth,
In garlands woven, upon drapery strewed
With bees that swarmed on infant Plato's mouth,
And lucent shells that gem the sea-shore of the south:

38

Whereon, sat he whose lightning-tippëd tongue
Had made Greece glorious unto farthest time,
Had Socrates ne'er lived, nor Homer sung,
Nor Marathon been found beneath her clime;
And, by his side, his brother Greek, the prime
In rhetoric art, Isocrates,—whose pen
Could fill the Attic mind with throes sublime,—
Ay, fire the brain of humblest citizen
With ecstasy unknown to gross-souled, late-born men.

39

An elder glory, near Demosthenes
And his fraternal sprite, on radiant seat
Upborne, like Neptune's chariot on the seas,
Appeared: prows of the Persian's prostrate fleet,
And eagles' wings, and tridents—hatchments meet
For victory—with oaken wreaths, adorned
His bright shell-chariot; while with prancing feet,
His fish-tailed steeds the waveless pavement spurned,
And,proudly,to the roof, their wide-spread nostrils turned:

159

40

And throned in glory sat the illustrious shade
Of him whose name with Salamis shall live
For aye,—'less Freemen fail and Freedom fade
On every shore, and some new Xerxes give
To earth his will for law, and ocean grieve,
Mirthful no longer at the tyrant's whip.—
That latest Greek who struggled to retrieve
His country's greatness, and the plumes to clip
Of Rome's fierce eagle, by Achæan captainship,

41

Sat next Themistocles,—the latest Greek
Worthy the name,—Diæus,—who, when fell
Corinth with Carthage, scorned to live a meek
Breath-unit in a world now Rome's, or swell
Her earth-spread train of slaves. Immoveable
Sat Zeno, stoic sire, on shapeless rock
Of ebon granite, with a look to quell
Kings' mindless pomps, so loftily it woke
The regal soul to spurn false grandeur's gaudy yoke.

42

His noblest Roman son the suicide,
Of Utica, with simple oaken crown
Adorned, sat on a kindred rock, and eyed
The enervate Antony upon his throne,
Until he seemed to shrink beneath that frown,
And shun its keen reproof. A mystic shape
On milk-white steed, girt with a starry zone,
Sat smiling as he saw the pavement gape:
Emblems of Rome's cleft forum, Curtius, and his leap.

43

Twin-seats, again, I saw, near Antony's,—
But, unlike his, of iron mould,—and blazed
With sword and spear, and manifold device
Of slaughter,—whereon sat the twain oft praised
For patriots: the aristocrats who raised
Their daggers 'gainst the despot—not to pave
Plebeian paths to Right; but, long bedazed
With freedom false, patrician power to save:
They who, near Philippi, sped, world-sick, to the grave.

160

44

And near them Caius sat—th' Agrarian,—
Cornelia's younger boast,—the truly great
And good, though stamped with History's hireling ban.
With simple oaken chaplet he kept state
Kings seemed to envy, as he smiling sate
On cornucopias shedding Ceres' fruit
From wreathëd gold,—while o'er him bended date,
And olive, orange, fig, and cocoa nut,
Festooned with vines, and draped with green gourds round the root.

45

On either hand the Gracchus, miniature
Array of honours gilded Carbo's brow,—
With his young head that once, by act impure
Of vengeful Sylla, his great father's foe,
Bedecked a pole i' the forum for a show—
Jugurtha's conqueror's son.

The younger Marius.—For affirmation of his suicide see Appian de Bellis Civilibus, lib. I. C. xciv.

With these appeared
Full many a Roman ghost that fled from blow
By bestial Cæsars threatened: souls that feared
Not death itself; but—to die tyrant-massacred.

46

Nor lacked there Roman spirits of the days
When Rome and her old gods of friendly faith
Were nullified by new Byzantium's blaze,
And its exclusive creed. Crowned with sere wreath,
On mouldering columns, Photius sat, who death—
A freeman's death—preferred, to humbling loss
Of self-respect,—giving away his breath
When false Justinian bade old Pagan gloss
Should cease, and all the world bow down before the Cross.

Photius. —“A secret remnant of Pagans, who still lurked in the most refined and most rustic condition of mankind, excited the indignation of the Christians, who were perhaps unwilling that any strangers should be witnesses of their intestine quarrels. A bishop was named as the inquisitor of the faith, and his diligence soon discovered in the court and city, the magistrates, lawyers, physicians, and sophists, who still cherished the superstition of the Greeks. They were sternly informed that they must choose, without delay, between the displeasure of Jupiter or Justinian, and that their aversion to the gospel could no longer be disguised under the scandalous mask of indifference or impiety. The patrician Photius, perhaps alone, was resolved to die like his ancestors: he enfranchised himself with the stroke of a dagger, and left his tyrant the poor consolation of exposing with ignominy the lifeless corpse of the fugitive.”—Gibbon, chap. 47.

47

Rome's elder terror, by the Pontic king
Appeared—the one-eyed Carthaginian:
Athwart, he sat, upon a living thing
Of monster form—a seat equestrian,
Blending an elephant whose forehead's span
Was vast as Hindoo Ganesa's; a pard
With hide besprent, like that gruff Scythian
By Ceres changed;

Lyncus.—Ovid. Metam., lib. 5, v. 660. To Ovid's simple expression, “Lynca Ceres fecit,”—it is added in the notes to Lemaire's edition, “Hyginus, fab. 259: Ceres eum convertit in lyncem varii coloris ut ipse variæ mentis exstiterat.”

and feet of beast that marred
The seer, but halted, by the ass, the corpse to guard.

See I Kings, chap. xiii., verses 24, 25.

161

48

Fast by the thrones of Saul and Zimri lay
A mass of hideousness, where crocodile,
And snake, and scorpion, and tarantula,
Were blent into one reptile, huge and vile—
The dorsual seat of that old peer of guile
Who hanged himself because the Archite's rede Was ta'en by rebel Absalom.

“And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. . . . . And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself.” 2 Sam. chap. xvii.—Suicides, it seems, had “method in their madness,” even in those days.

On pile
Of hybrid life—half-bull, half-desart-steed—
Sat Eleazar, of the Maccabees' bold breed.

Eleazar the Maccabee (I Mac. chap. vi.), who “put himself in jeopardy, to the end he might deliver his people,” by slaying Antiochus (though he only succeeded in slaying Antiochus' elephant), is usually classed as a suicide, by writers on that subject.

49

And Razis

See 2nd Maccabees, chap. xiv., vers. 37—46, for an account of his wild suicide.

near him sat, on monster beast
More fell, commingling tiger, wolf, and bear,
With claws and beak of bird that maketh quest
For dead men's flesh. Where the Byzantines were
Sat Arbogast the Frank

“Arbogastes, after the loss of a battle [won by Theodosius], in which he had discharged the duties of a soldier and a general, wandered several days among the mountains. But when he. was convinced that his cause was desperate, and his escape impracticable, the intrepid barbarian imitated the example of the ancient Romans, and turned his sword against his own breast.”—Gibbon, chap. xxvii.

with savage stare
Leaning upon a shape half-stag, half-hound.
And other suicides assembled there,
Of Gallic mien, gazed haughtily, and frowned,
As if they liked not well the regal pomps around:

50

These shapes, methought, were they whom, late, I saw,
When wandering over Freedom's desert plain,
I came unto a mound, and stood with awe
To see the hoary cirque— the ruined fane.—
And other spirits which had filled the train
Of my night-visions I, again, beheld:
The bards were there from Phantasy's domain—
The mystic grove; and with these sprites of eld
Came, now, a late-born host which in that region dwelled.

51

And, from the Mount of Vanity, methought
The Indian and the Agrigentine seemed
To be remet,—while they had with them brought
Of spirits I beheld when erst I dreamed,
A host whose essences defiance gleamed
For contest of the soul. Nor lacked they feud
For long: mind-syllables, terse, vigorous, beamed
Forth from the spiritual similitude
Of the great Pontic king,—who thus debate renewed:—

162

52

“Spirits! who waits preamble, or proclaim
Of thesis, since to all our argument
Is known? The Spartan saith this goodly frame
Of kingly pomps Nature hath sagely blent
With typic forms—on our instruction bent—
And foretells utter change—Equality,
Knowledge, and Joy, for ever confluent
Through Hades; and for Earth like destiny.
Say, Spirits, with the Spartan's do your thoughts agree?”—

53

Thus Mithridates spake; and, straight, the theme
Cleanthes seized. With meek and modest grace
At Zeno's feet he sat, and diadem
Or tiar of gold upon his brow to place
Had mockery seemed—so brightly beamed its trace
Of mental nobleness through the rare veil
That clad his essence. In that mystic space,
When he arose, kings' splendours seemed to pale
In glory, 'fore his soul's refulgence spiritual.

54

“Monarchs, and bards, and sages old,”—he said;
“I utter first, my humble sentence brief,
That spirits of deeper reach, and skilled to thread
The maze of symbol, type, and hieroglyph,
May follow, more at large. I yield belief
To Nature's sage interpreters of things
When Reason guides their theme; but, for my chief
In wisdom I acknowledge none who clings
Fondly to worship of his own imaginings.

55

“If Reason guide the Spartan, it is well:
If Phantasy, I heed him not: unskilled,
Myself, in riddles, I will simply tell
My judgment from within. On earth, I toiled
A menial slave by night,

Cleanthes is a noble Greek example of mind triumphing over difficulties. He was at first a “fisty-cuffer,”—as the old translators phrase it, in the edition of Diogenes Laertius “made English by several hands:” 1696;—“but coming to Athens, with no more than four drachmas in his pocket, and meeting with Zeno, he betook himself most sedulously to the study of Philosophy, &c.” “By night (says Enfield, who renders Laertius more elegantly) he drew water as a common labourer in the public gardens, that he might have leisure in the day-time to attend the schools of philosophy. The Athenian citizens observing that though he appeared strong and healthy, he had no visible means of subsistence, summoned him before the court of Areopagus, according to the custom of the city, to give an account of his manner of living. Upon this he produced the gardener for whom he drew water, and a woman for whom he ground meal, as witnesses to prove that he subsisted by the honest labour of his hands. The judges of the court were so struck with admiration of this singular example of industry and perseverance, that they ordered ten minæ to be paid him out of the public treasury, —which, however, Zeno would not suffer him to accept. . . . . . . Cleanthes was for many years so poor that he was obliged to write the heads of his master's lectures upon shells and bones, for want of money to buy paper.”—The suicide of this philosopher, at a very advanced age, was singularly quiet and yet heroic. His physicians recommended fasting for some disease with which he was afflicted; and having abstained from food for two days, although he had thus subdued his disorder, he refused to eat again, saying that since he had travelled so far towards the end of life he would not go back again,—and accordingly died by voluntary “total abstinence.”—The testimonies to the elevated morality of his life are abundant.

my toil beguiled
With sweet thoughts how the morning would renew
Wisdom's boon nurture, that by day distilled
From Zeno's spirit on my soul like dew,
Until my being to intellectual stature grew.

163

56

“And, if the Past I could live o'er again,
The joys of wisdom to the gauds of power
I would prefer: even now, while in my ken
Glow regal grandeurs, how they seem to cower
Before the spirit's nobler, loftier dower—
Wisdom and Virtue! Monarchs, to offend
I seek not: but that changes o'er ye lour
I also prophesy! Man will ascend
To truth, and soon unto false glory cease to bend.

57

“Mind is awake, in Hades; while, on earth,
Crowds ask aloud what truthful reverence
Mere show can ask; demand the proof of worth
From Privilege that lolls in indolence
While Poverty toils on with pang intense
Of bodily hunger; and proclaim, in ire,
Their stern resolve, that throned magnificence—
The dullard son derives from doltish sire—
With conquerors' pomps, late won by murder, shall expire!”

58

He ceased; and Appius, Rome's old lecher vile,
With base effrontery uprose to jeer.
But indignation burst from regal pile
O' the Pontic king, that whelmed with shame and fear
The rude one, and subdued his scoff and sneer;
And albeit Nero Mithridates blamed,
Yet, on the lewd decemvir fell severe
And ireful glances from a host ashamed
To call him Roman—till he fled forth spirit—maimed!—

59

When, lo! a filthy and obscene baboon
Upgrew in Appius' seat; while kings aghast,
Dumbfounded, gazed to see the creature soon
Take up the Roman's staff, he, in his haste,
Let fall, and mock the pomp of each dynast
That there held golden sceptre! All were mute
With wonderment—till darkness overcast
The throne where lately sat the dissolute
Old Roman,—and then vanished throne and savage brute;

164

60

While, in the rainbowed sky a giant hand
Appeared, and pointed to the throneless void,
Filling the wonder-stricken sceptred band
With deepest dread. Lycurgus, meanwhile, eyed
The change with smiles,—yet not as one that joyed
To view the Roman's sufferings, or his fall,—
But, seeming glad to know one shape destroyed
Among those images of human thrall—
As earnest that like change should pass upon them all.

61

He spake not: but the monarch-spirits gazed
With awe upon the Spartan's volumed look,
And read his thought.—
By splendours unbedazed,
By prophecies or fears of change unshook,
The aweless Carthaginian silence broke:—
“Will this strange visitation check the boast
Of haughty Rome,”—he said,—“this vengeance-stroke
Of the high Powers that rule this mystic coast,
Offended with the Roman monster's obscene ghost

62

“Such was Rome's progeny in her fresh youth—
Her age of public virtue—when, with vaunt
Of kingly vipers crushed in their young growth.
Her victor plebeians swelled their choral chaunt!
What wonder, then, that her exuberant
Maturity conceived gigantic forms
Of turpitude, so foully miscreant,
That Nature shuddered to reveal their germs,
And, while their mother bore them, darkened earth with storms!

The last lines of this stanza were composed under an impression that an earthquake or violent tempest signalised the birth of Nero, Caligula, Domitian, Elagabalus, or some one of the monsters who presided over the Roman world. Memory, it seems, betrayed me; and I had no means of correcting my inaccuracy, in prison.—The mistake, however, does not seem of such importance as to demand that I stike out the lines of the stanza, or substitute others for them.

63

“And shall their images sit here enthroned
With virtuous shapes, while thus the Powers Divine
On one take vengeance? Will they thus confound
Desert with baseness? Not from typic sign,
Abounding in this mystical confine,
I prophesy: but confidence in Right,
'Spite of reverses the Gods intertwine
With Virtue's warrior course, fills me with bright
Anticipations they will yet the Good requite.

165

64

“That ruin threatens Thrones of bloated vice,
I doubt not; but, that Good with Ill shall fade,
I credit not the Spartan aruspice.”—
Thus Hannibal the gathering fears allayed
Of some; but rendered guiltier Thrones afraid
Their fall was near,—so that with fiendish rage
These swelled: but judgment soon the tempest stayed!
Two of Rome's swoln embruted lineage
Evanished from the view of king, and bard, and sage;

65

And, for brief season, upon Nero's throne
A tiger sat upright, with robe bedecked,
And glared upon a swine Bonosus' crown
That wore, and held its brutal shape erect
Upon the drunkard's seat. Each did affect
Despotic airs, sceptred and diademmed,
Till, by the lesson did his pride detect
Full many a ghost that there sat crowned and gemmed;
And some within their essence royalty condemned.

66

Anon, fell darkness on the mimic brutes;
And then a void was left where each robed beast
Had sat with mock-monarchal attributes;
While, from the roof, huge pendant hands impressed
Deep dread—pointing to either space divest
Of throne and image—that the Spartan's word
Might soon be signally made manifest;
And silence chill, such as in sepulchred
Earth-regions dwells, did long that hall of Thrones begird.—

67

At length, uprose the Gracchus, and with calm
And graceful act, but look that inly glowed
With noblest fervour, laid aside his palm,
While thus, in generous tide his accents flowed:—
“Spirits, that sit mysteriously endowed
With sign of sovereignty, I now conjure
Your essences by these strange judgments bowed,
Say,—if it would Man's general bliss ensure,—
Could ye bemoan your empty splendour's forfeiture?

166

68

“What veritable good, in your proud joy
On earth, could ye possess? While hunger keen
Tortured the Poor, did not your banquets cloy?
Could ye, beholding ragged Misery's mien,
Feel really happy in your grandeur's sheen?
While thousands wandered homeless o'er the soil,—
Worn, suffering, fainting, wretched,—did ye lean
On your soft pillows won from Labour's spoil,
And never think with pity on the sufferer's toil?

69

“It could not be: for ye had human hearts:
Ye knew men were your brethren, and deep thought—
Such as men feel when wounded conscience smarts—
Must oft have stirred within ye, and have smote
Your bosoms with remorse, until it brought
Ye well-nigh to resolve ye would descend
From your afflictive thrones, and bring to nought
That human scourge—your power; all woe-toil end;
And, to life up mankind your life-long effort lend.

70

“Ye must have thought—to banish want and sorrow
Would bring the heart more truthful happiness
Than all the gaudy lustre ye could borrow
From the toil-worm, for robe and train and jess,—
From jewelled crown, and gold in its excess:—
But ye were held by Fate; her power restrained,
Controlled, benumbed your wills that yearned to bless
Your weeping brethren, and ye thus remained
Agents to work out evil,—and for evil reigned.

71

“But Evil brings forth Good, as Good, of old,
Evil produced,—so now, when all things shew
The mystery of Existence doth unfold
Some glimpses of its issue; and the True
From out the hollow False doth brightly glow,
And cannot, longer, be from Man concealed,—
So now, Good shall result from Evil: woe
And want shall cease; Man's heart-ache shall be healed;
And, in your fall, the true Elysium be revealed.

167

72

“Do ye not joy at this, even now, discerning
What potent sympathies unite old Earth
And Hades?—with what aspirations yearning,
Spirits in penal realm are giving birth
To large fraternal thoughts that wander forth
Diffusing faith that all shall gladness prove?
Kings,—brothers,—stifle not the germs of worth
That now within ye spring! With us commove
To usher in the jubilee of Truth and Love!”—

73

The Agrarian ceased; and with his passionate plea
Enkindled, rose the Attic orator:—
“O kings, can outward state ennoble ye,”—
He said,— “can visionary blazons more
“Exalt ye, than the healing balm to pour
Of gentle goodness on your brother's soul?
Oh, is not goodness truly regal? Frore
With gold and gems, and frowning cold control,—
Is he, indeed, a king,—whose heart's unpitiful?

74

“Is he not truly an ignoble churl
Who knows no heart-thirst for another's weal?
O kings, how small the sacrifice to hurl
Aside these vanities, if ye could feel
True brotherhood with Man! Earnest appeal
The generous Roman to your nobler thought
Hath made; but still your essences reveal
Returning sternness, and returning doubt
Whether these judgments ruin to your thrones denote.

75

“Ye cleave to your old state, and still believe
Abandonment of shining sovereignties
Would argue weakness while these emblems weave
Assurance that your destiny defies
Assault from Hades' dim confederacies,
Lapse of duration, or foreboding seer,—
And yet, how know ye, monarchs, that the guise
Of mystery which shrouds this penal sphere
Ye penetrate, and read with comprehension clear?

168

76

“Before the Spartan's augury ye spurn,
I challenge ye to answer,—while the hand
Of ever-fashioning Nature ye discern
Mingling, on earth and through this mystic land,
The frightful with the beautiful and grand—
The pleasant with the painful—woe with joy—
Perfection with decay: hath she thus planned
The universal frame for a huge toy,
That she may, endlessly, be building to destroy?

77

“Can ye at such sage judgment, kings, arrive—
That the vast Soul of all things works in sport
And mockery? Or, is all preparative
Of some great issue, merely? Inexpert
To make a universe that shall consort
Each part with each, so that no blot shall mar
Its pure, consummate beauty, Fraud malvert
Its boon design, or Force diffuse foul jar
Through its blest harmonies—judge ye the High Gods are?

78

“Or, rather, have they not in embryo left
The mighty macrocosm, for some great end
Of all-pervasive bliss to be vouchsafed
Hereafter? Powers paternal that extend
Their providence to all, we apprehend
The sovereign gods to be; and ye will seem
Most like them, kings, if ye in pity bend
O'er earth and Hades, yearning to redeem
All being from woe, and render Joy and Love supreme!”—

79

Thus spake Demosthenes, while kindred glow
Of earnest and fraternal love suffused
The visage of Themistocles, and threw
Such glory round, that some the cause espoused
He rose to plead, ere language had aroused
The intellective sense his theme to scan:—
As when, among earth's orators, hath choosed,
From some exterior grace, each partizan
His favourite, ere debate proclaims the nobler man.

169

80

“Monarchs, your brotherhood with man I plead,”—
He said:—“knowing no higher theme from whence
“To argue that your essences self-freed
Should be from this false supereminence:
And, if that plea prevail not, eloquence
I lack to charm with guileful words the mind
Which knows no worship for the excellence
Of goodness. Kings, I plead for humankind!
Aid us our race in earth and Hades to unbind!

81

“It is to noblest, loftiest sacrifice
I call ye: sacrifice of selfish loves
And preferences—to swell the overbliss
Of all Humanity. Think ye, who proves
His truthful greatness thus, where'er he moves,
Shall not reap grateful reverence of more worth
Than all your pomps? ‘Thee, brother, it behoves
‘Our souls to love!—blest bringer of our mirth!’—
Bliss-throngs beholding him, with smiles, shall utter forth.

82

“Thy glance significant, O Pontic chief!
Reminds me that on earth man's gratitude
Is slow of growth, and of existence brief,—
While patriot deeds, by jealousy misviewed,
Oft, for their guerdon, yield unkindly feud.
Great spirit! magnanimity exalts
Man more, far more, than power: who hath subdued
Revenge for injuries, and all the faults
Of brethren with compassion yearns, wins blest results.

83

“I dwell not on such thoughts: if I had wrong
From fatherland,—O name that wakest the thrill
Of tenderest love!—wrong's slender sense hath long
Evanished. But, I ask, what wrong, in will,
Or word, or act, kings bear from man? Deep ill
Monarchs have wrought each other; but the race
Of Man hath reverenced the most imbecile
Of regal shapes, nor ever sought to abase
A monarch till he made his realm a charnel-place.

170

84

“Nought have ye, then, to pardon; but, to ask
Forgiveness, rather. Yet, to see him lay
His gorgeous gauds aside, and cease to bask
In splendours wrung from woe, would throw a ray
Of glory round a king so bright that they
Who witnessed it would deem him all-divine,
And doubt he ever had borne evil sway.
All earth would honour him: his deed benign
Spirits would magnify, through Hades' dim confine.

85

“O kings, be truly noble! For the weal
Of All, your high volition exercise,
And burst, through Earth and Hades, the dark seal
Of sympathetic evil that now lies
On being. Come, aid us in the bright emprise,
Begun on earth, nor in these mystic realms
Deserted: for we will antagonize
With Wrong till victory crowns our spiritual helms,
And boundless love and joy the human spirit whelms!”—

86

The Athenian ended; and the Hebrew king
Raised his colossal form, with tremulous haste
To tell how freely he away would fling
All shows of grandeur, to repair the waste
Of human bliss and see mankind embraced
By boundless love.—
“Kings, Shophets, seers,”—he said,—
“By ordinance Divine in Sheol placed
On thrones and mystic seats, what can bestead
The human soul from garish gauds thus round us spread?

87

“If on our wills the general bliss depend,
What can withhold that now we abdicate
These royalties,—the reign of Evil end—
The revelry of Wrong? And, wherefore wait
Till some more signal judgment consternate
Our essences? Ye seem unmoved! and I
Doubt deeply whether zeal to emancipate
Tophet and Earth from penal torment's cry,
And suffering's groan, will meet the smile of the Most High.

171

88

“When Samuel, in my sight, to pieces hewed
The royal Agag, whom I longed to save,
I saw that when Jehovah had a feud
With his poor human worm, He would not wave
His claim to justice; but, upon the slave
Who dared to step between His holy wrath
And the doomed victim, He would vengeance have—
Slow,—signal,—sure! The Everlasting's path
Who can find out?—who comprehendeth what He saith?

89

“His prophet did my humble head anoint,
And said the Lord had chosen me to rule.
Exterminating war God did appoint
On Amalek, next:—His ways are wonderful!
When I besought, at His Divine footstool,
Pardon for weakness, Agag's holy slayer
Said God did not repent like man!—How dull
Are our perceptions! Did He not declare
Me monarch, and repent?—He who refused my prayer?

90

“All, all is mystery! I desired no throne:—
My father's asses, as I, following, roamed
O'er the wide wilderness,—if on me shone
The cheering sun, or sterile Nature gloomed,—
A kingdom seemed to me. But I was doomed
To know the mockery of earthly bliss!—
And is not Sheol mockery? We are wombed
In dread and doubt, fearing to do amiss;
And, to do well, lack power to burst our destinies!”—

91

Abruptly, in despair, thus ended Saul,
And on his throne sank down; while smoothly rose
Achitophel, and round the regal hall
Glanced,—then, obsequious, cringed, ere to disclose
His frauds he made essay, or to dispose
Them in the guise of truths:—
“Potential Shades,
And great Regalities,”—he said;—“why lose
“In arguings vain—since mystery being pervades—
The respite to deep pain Nature for ye here spreads?

172

92

“Why thus afflict your essences with fears?
Why droop, dispirited, and pale and shrink,
As if the soul were still a thing of tears,
As when it wore earth's clay? What, if some think,
Or dream, that these imperial pomps shall sink
To nought? where is the doting prophet's proof
Of his true inspiration? Not a link
Is broken that your thrones, with wonder-woof,
Blends with these columned shapes, and this supernal roof.

93

“Judgment hath fallen on the guilty seats
Of some: what then? On earth stern judgments fell
On the incorrigible: guilt still meets
Its bad desert: this is nought new. Dispel
Your gloom, great kings, that in high thought excel,
Soaring beyond the crowd! Like eagles, preen
Your splendours, and this boding prophet quell
With wingëd vengeance! Shall ye suffer teen,
Because this dreaming fantast thus doth overween?

94

“Monarchs are gods, in lustre and in strength:
Thrones were, and are, and shall be: they exist
By an eternal fitness: neither length
Of spiritual duration hath decreased
Their virtue, nor can captious casuist
Allege true reasons for their overthrow.
I challenge anarch revolutionist—
By thoughts of reach, not dreams—sound cause to show
Why Thrones, in Sheol and on earth, to Change shall bow.

95

“Thou, regal Saul, spakest of thy earthly course.
Know thou, that monarchs by good counsel stand,
And fall by evil rede. Changes, perforce,
Must come: young Comeliness will, aye, command
More love than Age: valour to wield the brand
More worship than sleek sloth: issue of joy
Awaiteth kingly acts in every land,
Unless the monarch doth his heart upbuoy
By fulsome counsel, and his own fair peace destroy.”—

173

96

Thus spake the Hebrew courtier-suicide,
And looked for plaudits; but, the Maccabee
Rose up in haste, his glozing strain to chide:—
“This from Rebellion's counsellor do ye
Endure?” —he said;— “the flames of anarchy
Who blew with viperous breath—shall kings advice
Receive from him—the tool of Treachery?
Shall not the part this hoary cockatrice
Played, while on earth, to prove his worthlessness suffice?

97

“Oh, monarchs, nobler, holier counsel take!
Not scornful war to wage on the calm ghost
Of the Laconian, vile revenge to slake;
Not of your gaudy pomps to swell and boast,
Regardless of the souls in Tophet tossed
In agony, and of Earth's myriads born
To pain, and in degrading cares engrossed:
Oh, treat not thus the Spartan's words with scorn;
If, by some deed of yours, mankind may cease to mourn!

98

“Oh, cleave no longer to these grandeurs vague,
If they the jars and wounds of earth prolong—
Slaughter and famine, pestilence and plague,
Bondage of weaker brethren to the strong,
Envy and hatred, robbery and wrong!
The bards on Judah's mountains, where we drew
The sword against our tyrants, in their song
Foretold Earth, one day, should be born anew,
And smile with brotherhood of all—Gentile and Jew.

99

“And if, in Sheol, the Danaian's mind
Survey the future with prophetic glance—
Discerning inmost sympathies that bind
Earth's thrones with yours—the deep significance
Perceiving of strange shapes that but enhance
The wildered wonder of inferior souls—
Monarchs, resist not His high puissance
Who universal destiny controls,
And, to His chosen ones, the fatal scroll unrols.”—

174

100

Thus Eleazar spake; and Nicocles,
The Paphian king, essayed, with gentle zeal,
To aid like counsel:—
“That the stronger seize
The weak,”—he said,—“and trampled nations feel
“The conqueror's burthen; that victorious steel
Bereaves the widow and the orphan child
Of earthly hope and joy; that human weal
Is sacrificed to Power, and Man is spoiled
Of every good, by Wrong; proofs Earth, for ages, piled.

101

“And, while on earth thrones stand, monarchs will vie
With monarchs, in excess of pomp and power;
Slavery and woe conquest will multiply;
And Death, in crescent shapes, mankind devour.
Not before dreaming oracles I cower,
Fearing more pain from ruin; but to purge
Hades from present pain, and speed Earth's hour
Of jubilee, brothers, like suit I urge,
That we in equal state these sceptred splendours merge!’-

102

“And I,” spake Otho, “join the fervid prayer,
“And plead for preference of the general good
To sordid selfishness, and empty glare
Of unsubstantial shows: our brotherhood
With man demands it: while our thrones have stood
Thus mystically radiant, clouds of gloom
Have enwrapt millions, men shed brother's blood,
And Toil's child found no refuge but the tomb!
Spirits, to quit these pomps, I give my instant doom!”

103

Lo! while the Cyprian and the Roman spoke,
Transcendant glories decked their glowing brows,
And joy-beams from the Spartan's countenance broke,
That seemed a peerless light to circumfuse
On thrones and statues. Inly to arouse
His vengefulness, Achitophel essayed;
But utterance failed; and, shuddering with strange throes
Of some new torture that upon him preyed—
A ghastly sight he stood; while kings looked on dismayed.

175

104

Distorted grew his visage, limbs, and trunk—
Though spiritual essence—till they joined
His reptile seat; and into it he shrunk
With grin horrific, and, with it combined,
Crawled, prostrate: hybrid monster undefined
In loathsome hideousness: a shape more strange
Than night-mared gourmand's glut-vexed brain e'er coined;
Or madman formed, at full of moon, or change;
Or bard, with frightfullest phrenzies smit, could misarrange!

105

Slow waned the uncouth horror-spawn from sight
Of spirits, who, with stark marmorean look—
Such as, at banquet, did the countenance blight
Of Pelops' sire—sat, with soul-palsy strook:
And with such goading sense of self-rebuke
Ached the Cathaian and Assyrian kings,
Nile's queen, and paramour,—they could not brook
To be beheld,—but hid, like guilty things,
Their faces: smitten with remorseful torturings.

106

Kings' faces, now, with apprehension deep
Were filled, and some, to wailing words gave vent:
When, like a veteran seaman who would keep
Undaunted heart, though sails and cordage rent,
And rudder broken, render impotent
The pilot's strength and skill,—and fear and grief
Burst from young sailors' tongues with eloquent
Expression of despair,—the Pontic chief,
Though shook, thus sought, with speech, to minister relief:

107

“Spirits, I rise not to renew debate
On human rights, nor arguings to gainsay
Of those who favour new and equal state
In Hades and on earth. Let him who may
Contend 'gainst Nature's impulses that sway
The soul to tender and fraternal thoughts—
If custom did not blight them in our clay,
And taint the spirit's essence. No cold doubts
Have I, that Men, as brothers, share like attributes.

176

108

“Nor do I cleave to kingship from regard
To Nature's great distinctions, though she gives
With choice, not blindly: genius of the bard
To one; deep reach unto the sage who dives
Into her mysteries; prerogatives
Of leadership, not less, to some who wield
A natural power o'er men—a strength that lives
And germs within, compelling men to yield
Unto its forceful energy where'er revealed:

109

“I dwell not to repeat what hath been told—
How Nature thus elects, yet doth impress,
Each human essence with so like a mould,
That all are brothers in their helplessness—
Children of Fate—driving to refugeless
Despair their kind, or being, themselves, forth driven.
Maugre these thoughts, if mankind may possess
General beatitude when thrones are riven
From their foundations—let the judgment now be given!

110

“Wherefore this pallor, brother Thrones? Why faint
And fear? When we threw off our mortal load
And gained these shores, unlike what earth-dreams paint
Of life beyond the grave, we were endowed,
At torture's lapse, with pomps, in kingly mode,
Ere we could choose. What guilt, then, have we nursed,
By wearing these regalities? what rod
Deserved? in what new penalties amerced
Shall spirits writhe? in what new regions be dispersed?

111

“And wherefore fear, if such, for Nature's sport,
Be destinies that wait us? Let us meet
Them calmly, since we cannot controvert
Our fate. I pause—to see upon his seat,
Neither unsceptred nor discrowned, as yet,
Imperial Otho, and the Cyprian prince.
Wait they the Spartan's sign? Why doth his threat
Tarry in its fulfilment? Monarchs, since
Thrones fade not, wherefore should mere bodements us convince?

177

112

“Wise men use omens for their ends, on earth,
While fools and weaklings see, or hear, and quake.
Star-gazers saw a comet, at my birth;
And, at my father's death, I saw it shake
Its fiery hair, as it the world would wake
To see a king. The double omen served
To fix expectant looks on me, and make
My name, itself, a host. That knowledge nerved
My soul to combat Rome: my courage, else, had swerved.

The comets which apprared at the birth of Mithridates,and at the period of his ascension to the throne of Pontus, together with their significance of the future greatness of this remarkable potentate (whom Cicero terms the greatest that ever reigned) are alike matter of the gravest history:—“Hujus futuram magnitudinem etiam cælestia ostenta prædixerant. Nam et quo genitus est anno, et eo quo regnare primum cæpit, stella cometes per utrumque tempus septuaginta diebus ita luxit, ut cælum omne conflagrare videretur,” &c.—Justin. Hist., ilb. 37, cap. ii.

113

“Not to the fiery star,—but, to kind rule
I trusted to infix my subjects' love;
And, while I left each astrologic fool
To prate of hosts he saw in heaven above,
Asia's vast swarms I sought, on earth, to move
Against all-grasping Rome. Knowledge and Will
Enable men and spirits oft to prove
Superior to all circumstance of ill;
Ay, render them, by Fate itself, invincible.

114

“Kings, if we quail, we draw destruction down:
Resolve preserves our state. Thrones, I aver,
The energy of will upholds each throne
In Hades, nor can prescient sorcerer
These dazzling seats from their foundations stir,
If we put forth resolve.”—
He ceased, disturbed;
And though his words of resolution were,
His strength was weakness. No applause reverbed
Through the wide hall; for, apprehension thought absorbed.

115

Deep silence reigned, until the Spartan rose,
With godlike dignity, and thus began:—
“Spirits, I triumph to foresee the close
Of Error's reign. Kings hold their last divan.
When next beneath this arch cerulean
We meet, All will be equal! But I cease
To prophesy; and calmly trace the plan
Of Sovereign Nature, since She seeks your peace,
Your joy, Spirits! that henceforth, endless, shall increase.

178

116

“Error from human ignorance darkly sprang.
As children misname things, and shout or shriek,
From pleasure or affright, so mankind sang,
In rhapsodies of joy, the golden streak
Of morn; and, when they heard the thunder speak,
Bowed down in awe, and wept. Infants in mind,
They marvelled, and made gods of visage meek
Or terrible; and, then, to them assigned
Rule o'er the sun and cloud, the sky, and sea, and wind.

117

“Thrones, likewise, sprang from human ignorance.
Nature's rude elements presented war
For Man: rocks, earth-flames, ocean's vast expanse,
Storms, forest, savage beasts, were found to mar
Man's ease or rest: on every side a bar
Opposed itself, alike to further good,
Or present peace. Then, he an exemplar
Was held who overcame by hardihood,
Lion or bear, horrors of cavern, flame, or flood.

118

“Such were old Earth's primeval monarchs: kings,
Leaders, by courage, holding simple sway—
If sway they held—by useful compassings
Of larger means for nourishing man's clay.
O Mithridates, when I heard thee say
Some were born natural leaders, unto these
I turned—the chiefs of patriarchal day—
Comparing them with lords that Earth now sees:
The puny hildings man approaches on his knees!

119

“Cities were built, and man subdued the soil.
But, now, Craft grew, and seized on mystery—
Life, death, sun, stars—all that the sons of toil
Saw without comprehending; and, with glee,
Secret but strong, made Man a devotee
Become, credent and humble—reverent laud
Rendering unto the Priest as lowlily
As to the gods this minister of fraud
Said he heard speak,—while men him listed, overawed.

179

120

“Then, between Priest and King grew contest rife
For mastership; and Ganges and old Nile,
Whose sacred servants foremost led the strife,
Beheld the proof, in many a mighty pile
That deckt their marges, how completely Guile
Could triumph over Strength. But, in the end,
Altar and Throne felt it unworth the while
To waste each other,—since they shrewdly kenned
The prey enough for both: so King called Priest—his friend!

121

“Long, dreary, miserable years have fled,
Since the foul compact first was ratified,
By Priestcraft placing on throned Kingship's head,
With hands in reeking blood of victim dyed,
The gaud of gold—the sign of kingly pride:
Long, dreary, suffering, weeping, wailing years.
Oft have the bruised and trampled sufferers tried
To rise; but the Priest's curse woke inward fears,
And they bowed down again unto their toil with tears!

122

“Yet, in some climes, the sufferers dared a deed
Of glorious boldness: breaking Kingship's chain,
And,—standing upright, from their fetters freed,—
Sang songs of joy that o'er the purple main
Floated in triumph, till the startling strain
Kings heard in other lands, and called their slaves
To arm, and quell the sacrilegious train.
And, often, when their menials crossed the waves,
They gained, in patriot-land, not conquest—but, their graves.

123

“But, Treason germed, even in Freedom's womb;
And Power and Craft were born again—the twin
Ubiquities of Evil that still gloom
The bleeding world, and widely o'er it win
Accursed sway. Thus, ever to begin
Anew was Freedom's struggle; and the proud
Dulity of Thraldom did but grin
And mock, at length, thinking the strugglers cowed
By loss, and sunk into a helpless, murmuring crowd.

180

124

“Hence, out of Evil, Good hath grown: for, now,
Good shall begin to overcome. The strong
Become remiss, the weak to overthrow
Their masters, and redeem themselves from wrong
Safely aspire. Thus, Right its sinews strung
Afresh while Might securely slept, or woke
For dalliance and debauch: thus Right, grown young
And strong, by hardship, will throw off the yoke
Of hoary Might too palsied to withstand the shock.

125

“Say ye, Right's triumph, like a dream, shall fade,
'Neath swift rewaking vigour of throned Power?
Monarchs, be not deceived! Right, now, hath aid
From Knowledge—hid by priests in secret bower,
And when thence 'scaped, caught, and to dungeon-tower
By them condemned—yea, to the fiery flame!
They knew not of her high immortal dower—
The veritable Phœnix—whom to tame,
Or to destroy, will ever mock old priestly aim!

126

“Lo! she hath ta'en young Freedom by the hand,
And, in the strength and comeliness of youth,
Supplanting Craft and Power in every land,
And heralding the reign of Love and Truth,
They go! Yet little reck they of the growth
Of Right and Knowledge, who the glorious pair
Regard not: the besotted shapes uncouth
That dream, like age-crampt spiders in their lair,
Their cobweb safe, though 'tis a sport unto the air.

127

“And ye, in Hades, monarchs, though beholding
Judgments on monstrous vice, are slow to yield.
Meanwhile, on earth, like judgments are unfolding:
For, thus, in mystic sympathy upsealed,
Of mortal men and spirits unannealed
The destinies remain; and, soon—though Might,
Counting her hirelings proudly horsed, and steeled,
The judgments mocks and scorns—a total blight
On Power, and Craft, and lordly Privilege, shall light.

181

128

“Kings, by your own great deed; ye can avert
The threatened ruin. Let the glowing themes
Of brotherhood, before ye urged, exhort
Ye to denude your spirits of their dreams
Of selfish good—to cast your diadems
And sceptres down—resolved the grand emprise
To aid of glorious Goodness! I see beams
Of high resolve from forth your essence rise:
Though, still, in some, old Prejudice doth agonize!

129

“How vain that agony! The strains of truth
And loving earnestness, full souls have poured
Forth to your thought, shall work within ye ruth
For human woe: and, soon, resolve matured
Shall be within ye to make firm accord
With Mercy's gentle champions: for, it hath
Been here proclaimed, that some have long explored
The way to end Man's misery, strife, and wrath,
And bring in Peace,—if, haply they might find the path.

130

“And, brothers, here we solemnly obtest
The Sovereignties of Nature that the toil
We will not end, till Men and spirits blest
Hold general jubilee!”—
He said;—and, while
He stretched aloft his hand,—from motley pile
And throne, great souls arose, and instant raised
A hand aloft—each with a godlike smile!—
And light empyreal from each Essence blazed,
Until I woke,—with the bright vision soul—bedazed!

187

BOOK THE SEVENTH.

1

London! how imageable seems the strife
Of thy huge crowds amid this solitude!
Instinct with hot, heart-feverous, throbbing life—
Racers for Mammon—day by day renewed—
Quick, motley actors in Mind's interlude—
They flit before me; or again, I walk
Wonder-lost less with splendours unendued
With power of thought than human shapes that stalk
Though thy vast wilderness of ways, and, smiling, talk

2

With their own wretchedness which hath estranged
Them from their kind, but cannot stifle dreams
That Beggary's rags shall, one day, be exchanged
For Grandeur's robes, and Fortune's favouring beams
Gild their last hours. These, these, amid thy streams
Of populousness, thy lavish shows of pride,
And pomp, and equipage, were living themes
For healthiest thought that did my folly chide
When I, along thy streets, a gazing 'venturer, hied.

3

Oh! if the heart doth crave for loneliness,
Deep in thy crowded desart it may find
Its drear wish realised. In Misery's dress—
Their blighted visages to humankind
A pregnant lesson, but their names enshrined,
Perchance, in secresy—how stealthily
Such hermits of the heart glide on behind
The bustling men of gain, or groups of glee
That swell thy blended throngs of thrift and gaiety!

188

4

Oft have I followed such a stealthy form,
To mark his whereabout of rest or home,
Until he plunged into some haunt where swarm,
In dingy dens, that shadow forth the gloom
Of hearts within, what the World calls its ‘scumrdquo;—
Victims of gilded fraud, and titled lust,
And pensioned knavery! Will it e'er come—
The hour when Man shall venture to be just,
And dare to give true names unto his fellow-dust?

5

Age after age hath gazed the eager throng,—
As, now, I seem, again, to see it gaze,
Heedless of moral worth, or right or wrong,
While haughty Pomp unclosed its newest blaze
Of tear-wrung splendour: and, perchance, to praise
Of garish show, blame for great gold misspent
Hath followed, as it follows now: yet, raise
The trump of pageantry,—and ears are lent
By thousands who lisp scorn for Time's old rabblement!

6

Will they, one day, the clown and artizan,
Strip off these swaddling-bands of gauze—these chains
Of gossamer? This baby-talisman—
Will it much longer charm the child of pains
And sweat, to leave his bread-toil? Oh! there reigns
Of strength in Labour's millions, a young breath
That gaunt Starvation quells not, but sustains!
Where, now, my memory wanders, may its wrath
Ne'er burst!—Monarch, adown thy stately palace-path!

7

I saw thee on the day thou wast a bride,
And shouted, 'mid my joy-tears, with the crowd:
Thou wert a woman, and thou sattst beside
Thy bosom's choice, while happiness o'erflowed
Thy heart, and in thy fair young countenance glowed.
Beholding thine, what could I less than feel
A sympathetic joy? Ay, though a proud
Worship of England's stern old Commonweal
Was mine,—for thee, that day, I breathed devotion leal.

189

8

And many a heart, yielding, that festive day,
To Nature's impulses of hope and joy,
Confiding, blessed thee! Queen! if thou delay
To help thy Poor—if thou, thyself, destroy
The promise of that time, and harsh alloy
Of blame with memory of our joy now blend—
What marvel? Hopes, that do the heart upbuoy,
Turned to despair by sufferings slighted, rend
All gentle feelings in their way to some dire end.

9

When next thou passest by Whitehall, look up,
I pray thee, and remember who felt there
The fatal axe! Ay,—look!—nor be the dupe
Of tinselled traitors who would thee ensnare
To ease and grandeur, till—thy People's prayer
For justice all too long delayed—they rise
With that old heart the Stuart to despair
Drove, first,—and, then, to vengeance! Hunger cries
Throughout thy realm—‘Queen! from the fearful Past—be wise!”

10

I know that tellers of plain truths are ‘Goths”
And ‘savages” in their esteem who haunt
The halls of royalty—the pageant moths
That flutter in thy beams—the sycophant,
The beau, the coronetted mendicant.
Yet, speak I not from brutal nature; nor
Is thirst for violence fell habitant
Of Labour's children's hearts. Queen! they who store
Thy mind with such belief wrong grievously thy Poor!

11

Believe one born amid their daily toils
And sighs,—and, since, observant of the words
And deeds of those who live on Labour's spoils:
Thy Poor, it is—and not their haughty lords—
In whose hearts vibrate gentle Nature's chords
Of tenderness for thee, even while they groan
With deepest wrongs. ‘We suffer by the hordes
‘Of selfish ones,”they say, 'that hide the throne:
‘If she could know our woes, we should not, vainly, moan!’

190

12

Lady! 'tis thus the hunger-bitten ones
Their simple, lingering trust in thee express:
Let thy heart answer—'mid superb saloons
And soldiered pomp—with truth and faithfulness,
If thou deservest this trust from comfortless
And bread-pinched millions! Wouldst thou read aright
Thy glory? Seek to be the heritress
Of love deserved—choosing, with noble slight
Of gauds, to make the Poor's heart-smile thy sole delight.

13

Alas! in vain thus breathes a rebel thrall
Fond wish that, now a thousand years have rolled,
To Alfred's land it might, once more, befall
That sun of human glories to behold—
A monarch scorning blood-stained gauds and gold,
To build the throne in a blest People's love!
It may not be! Custom, soul-numbing, cold,
Her web hath round thee, from thy cradle wove:
Can heart of a born-thrall with pulse of Freedom move?

14

Deadly, mind-blighting influences begird
Thee daily, hourly: 'tis thy lot. A gaol
Is mine. Thus far, our lot how like! The herd
Of titled, starred, and sworded things, that fail
Not to enclose thee in their watchful pale,
Are but thy chief and under-turnkeys. Thou
By birth, for life,—and I, by force,—this bale
Of bondage prove. Rebel, or Queen, we bow
Alike to circumstance: our mould to it we owe.

15

Oh! who shall mete due blame to things of earth?
When, passing from that palace, heart-felt ire
Doth rise, viewing a shame on royal birth
Becolumned on that spot of moral mire,—
When burneth momentary, rash desire
To see him and the elder-born there swing
On an eternal gibbet,—if the fire
O' the heart flasheth within, will it not fling
On conscience home reproof, and wholesome chastening?

191

16

Hadst thou who glancest on that pillared Shame
Been—like him—next of kin to Infamy
In royal robes, scant-minded, without aim
Cast on the gaudy world that sought with glee
To tempt or gratify his lusts—in thee
Would the poor soldier, or his orphan-child,
Or beggared widow, in their misery,
So oft have found a heart whose glow beguiled
Their tears with bounteous help until the mourners smiled?

17

Alas! from tears this balm of tears was wrung,
Millions on millions toiled and pined and wept
To clothe with Murder's panoply the young—
The thoughtless—who to swift destruction leapt,
Or back to home with maimed bodies crept—
Winners of ‘Glory!’—while, to toil and weep
Was still the millions' lot: if Death had swept
Off thousands,—blood-garbed thousands more must leap
Into the breach: War,—Madness,—must their harvest reap!

18

Dash down? Nay, rear more shameless columns! high
And higher still! Ye are but niggard carles
Who taste the fruit of ‘Glory!’ To the sky
Lift up ten thousand trophies till it whirls
Our blood to see them, and the foreigner gnarls
His fingers in hot shame! Why do ye spare
A corner 'neath yon mighty dome, for churls
Like Howard, Reynolds, Jones, and Johnson? Tear
The low quaternion down! Why stand their dull forms there?

19

'Tis Glory's temple! Glory—whose great brood
Escape the gallows by a broidered coat
And larger knife wherewith to shed the blood
Of brothers! What meek traitor hither brought
Philanthropy and Art, Genius and Thought,
To stain the mausoleum of the great
And grand in murder? Cast the cowards out!
Their effigies do only tribulate
His joy who here beholds what pomps on ‘heroes’ wait!

192

20

Briton! gaze deeply on the marbled crowd—
Forgetting the mean four! Oh! let it swell
Thy veins with ecstasy to view this proud
Array of warriors—some, as if they fell
But now, in Victory's arms, beneath the knell
Of Fate—some, girt with blazonry of brand,
Pike, cannon, war-ship, or brute shape that well
Shows slaughter was their trade! While peal those grand
Deep diapasons—bow, and reverence Glory's band!

21

What matter that yon vocal instruments
Join the loud organ's thunder? 'Tis for bread
They chaunt of ‘mercy,’—poor subservients!
Bread, that their pampered masters, in whose stead
They do this meaningless day-drudgery, spread
In measure scant for each poor breath-machine:
Shunning the task that irks both heart and head—
To hymn the pitying thorn-crowned Nazarene
Where laurelled Murder holds high pomp with marbled mien

22

Dost thou refuse to reverence Carnage vast,
And hie thee back where glooms yon elder fane,
Shrouding the mouldered great ones of the Past,
With all its solemn glories of dyed pane
And carven stone? Ah! Briton, who wouldst fain,
Where sleep thy country's truly glorious few,
In that dim ‘corner,’ joy in awe—restrain
Thy heart! Fraud must to Force, its twin, be true:
Mind must be banned, like Childe: they'll welcome Waterloo!

23

Perchance the Priest forebodes his end is near,
Unless he come less lazily with aid
To stem the torrent in whose strong career
Thrones, altars, may be whirled! Shall they be stayed—
Thought's whelming waves? Can Priestcraft's joint cru-sade
With Carnage against Mind, arrest its course?—
Oh, ‘let them grapple,’ as the great one bade,

“And, though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; whoever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”—Milton's Areopagitica.

‘Falsehood and Truth!’—awhile Fraud linkt with Force
May boast! but Truth shall one day, ‘put’ them ‘to the worse!’

193

24

Let priest with warrior, old comates in rule,
Join hands, and tear from vault and niche and shrine,
From pedestal in fane and vestibule,
The Heroes of the Mind! Let them assign
Sole honour to the puissant Butcher line
Throughout wide earth, beneath high heaven: the day
Will come when the triumphing sun shall shine
On earth renewed: not always shall his ray
Gild Murder's monuments: they surely shall decay!

25

Oh! what wilt thou be, then, my country, 'mong
The nations? Shakspere's home, and Alfred's realm—
Land where our Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, sung—
Where infant Truth decked Wickliffe's warrior-helm—
Where Bacon burst Man's age-worn spirit-film—
Footstool of Newton while he spanned the sky—
Cradle of glorious names that fill and whelm
A Briton's heart with love, and pride, and joy,—
Wilt thou be great and glorious, then—freed from alloy

26

Of all thy old, mistaken strife to be
Glorious and great? Wilt thou above the wave
Then bear thy generous breast—Nurse of the Free,
Alone—extinct the Tyrant and the Slave—
And filled with Brother-Men; not beings that crave
To see the murderer of one brother hang,
Yet vaunt the ‘glory’ of each carnage-grave,
From Agincourt to Waterloo, where sang
The trumpet over thousands in their hearts' death-pang?

27

Will truthful greatness crown thy hoary age,
Or desart-savagery its reign resume
Wide over thee, and to the bard or sage
Of far-off clime, new-born from mental gloom
Hereafter, even Shakspere's name become
A worn-out glory, or, like Orpheus' lyre,
Fade into fable? On thy future doom
Thy children, England, ponder with desire;
Though vainly buried millions burned with kindred fire!

194

28

Another day is gone!—yet must the sun
Bring other flowers than these cold things of Spring—
Poor, puny prisoners, that, to look upon
Raise tears—ere Time to me shall hither bring
The hour of Freedom. How we still do cling
Unto the world, as if we yet might find
Therein substantial joy!—
Fancy took wing,
Again in sleep; and, in the realms assigned
To suicidal souls, wandered the sleepless Mind.

29

Methought I passed adown the sculptured aisle,
With a new band of ghostly travellers
Whose visages were clad with smirk and smile,
Although they looked as if earth's sepulchres
Had newly cast them out: mirthsome compeers
In grave-clothes, on they tripped, with glee more grim
Than if a troop of monks or caloyers,
Smit with some sudden madness or wild whim,
Were seen to laugh and dance unto a funeral hymn.

30

And when they reached the dome-like space, methought
In circle the strange crew took hands, and round
They whirled, with laughter and delirious shout,
Until the vault—'neath which I heard no sound
Before—gave back such mirth as did astound
These revellers in shrouds; whereat they wailed
And wildly wept, and, each, the deathly wound
By his own hand inflicted, swift, unveiled,
And fiercely on himself for mad self-murderer railed!

31

A silent sorrow, then, their essence clothed,
And slowly from beneath the dome they passed,
With eyes that told how utterly they loathed
Prolonged existence, and how fain would cast
Its bondage off, with their old guilty haste,
In spite of self-upbraidings, if the soul
Were brittle as earth's clay. Upon a waste
The wanderers now emerged, and sought some goal
Where, with life-wantons like themselves, they might condole.

195

32

Laurels of conquerors, chaplets of vain bards,
Bracelets of beauties, diadems of kings,
Lay shivered on the waste with porcelain shards,
And fractured counterfeits of jewelled rings,
And robes in rags: of all Earth's gaudy things
Some image there lay mangled, marred, or rent;
And as they trod upon these symbolings
Of their past pride, on mortal life misspent
The travellers thought, and sighed, with grievous languishment.

33

A strand they reached, with waters sluggish, shallow,
And strown with weed-grown walls where human mopes
Reclined, while others idly 'gan to wallow
In the dull wave: a realm of misanthropes
It seemed, for none his neighbour told what hopes
Or fears he had, or doubts or wishes: all
Lugubrious silence kept, and drooped, as droops
The brooding thing who doth his soul enthral
With hates, till he thinks all men's veins, like his, hold gall.

34

Part of the dreary band with which I marched
Clomb these dank walls, fording the shallow stream,
And lay them vilely down; a remnant searched
Along the beach for spot that they might deem
More meet for resting-place: these, in my dream,
I companied, until a bay they neared,
From whence, discerned by an unearthly gleam
Of lurid light, huge, half-sunk towers appeared,—
And pinnacles their points from out the waters reared.

35

And here, methought, we halted, by a groupe
Of ghosts that sat upon a ledge of rock
Listlessly watching the gray ruins stoop
Unto their fall among the waves that broke
With leaden weight against their sides. None spoke
A welcome, or unto our stay gave heed,
But gazed still drowsily on. Within me woke
Desire to know them; but, the soul, though freed
From clay, on this dull shore seemed outward lore to need.

196

36

Here, spirit shared no powers intuitive:
So gross it grew, that for old mortal sense
The mind longed, painfully, when it would give
Unto its neighbour mind some evidence
That it still held its being: will, vehemence,
Fire, energy, the soul no longer felt:
Cold, carking consciousness of indigence
Of thought—from waste with which it had misdealt
Its goodly gifts on earth—within the spirit dwelt.

37

One of the listless groupe, at length, began
To murmur sounds—for spirit was too weak,
In this low realm, to beam forth thought, or scan
The thoughts of others if they did not speak.
And then another murmured, till apeak
Each raised himself to listen; I, to learn
Who spoke; when three, I saw by their antique
Eagle-beaked faces, were of Rome the Eterne—
Two of gay France—two of my fatherland more stern.

38

And by observance of a dull dispute
That rose from murmurs to less slumberous words,
I found out Nero's lewdly dissolute
Comate, Sophonius, who, when Galba's guards
Sought for his guilty life, forestalled their swords.

The portrait of Sophonius Tigellinus,—who was distinguished in Nero's court alike for dissoluteness and treachery, and who, at last, betrayed even the imperial libertine himself,—is well known to all readers of Juvenal; and Tacitus has left us a medallion picture (Hist. lib. i., cap. 72) truly characteristic of his portable and expressive mintage.

Here leant he, by the Tyrant's 'Arbiter
‘Of Elegancies’—whom the Muse records
For polished verse—Ill Fame for panderer
To Rome's imperial beast of lust and massacre.

The circumstances of Petronius Arbiter's singular suicide are described in the 19th chapter of the 16th book of Tacitus's Annals.

39

That proverb with them state—the epicure
Of epicures—he who through fear of want
Destroyed the carcase he could not manure
Sufficiently with garbage, from the scant
Tenth of a million, which this cormorant
From gormandizing spared.

“Millies sestertiûm,” or 807,290l., is stated to have been the worth of the estate of Apicius; and when he had hanged himself in the diseased belief that he had not enough left for a maintenance, “centies sestertiûm,” or 80,000l., was found to be the remnant of his fortune.—In the stanza I have used the rhymer's license to employ round numbers.

If these notes were intended for comment in lieu of necessary explication, I could not pass by the name Apicius without observing that the bearer of it fairly won his pre-eminence over all gormandisers ancient or modern, not merely by the vast sums spent on his appetite and by his self-martyrdom to the lunatic dread of want, —but by his composition of the treatise “de Arte Coquinaria,”— wherefrom, perhaps, even Eude himself might derive some hints for exciting dishes: though from Smollett's well-known satirical expose of the delicacies of Roman cookery, modern epicures may imagine there can be nothing very enticing in the treatise on Cookery by Apicius Cælius.

Buffoon confest,
Leant, by Apicius, the hair-brained Mordaunt,
England's fine fool, all Europe's courtly guest,

The general reader may find notices of the suicides of Mordaunt, cousin to the great earl of Peterborough, and of Lumley, earl of Scarborough, in various publications: the article “Suicide” con-tained in a translation of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, that I read when young, first made me acquainted with their whimsical cases.

Who paid his debts—then blew his brains out for a jest.

197

40

Lumley was there, a ‘noble lord,’in life,

The general reader may find notices of the suicides of Mordaunt, cousin to the great earl of Peterborough, and of Lumley, earl of Scarborough, in various publications:the article “Suicide” contained in a translation of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, that I read when young, first made me acquainted with their whimsical cases.

Who his kept mistress to distraction loved,
Yet, having pledged his troth to take for wife
A lady chaste his thoughtful choice approved,
Grew crazy with dilemma, till it moved
His hand to solve the puzzle which his mind,
Too delicately sensitive, behoved
To solve. He seemed a lord of extinct kind.
Certes, lords now no puzzle in such troth-pledge find!

41

Vatel, who cut his throat to shun the stain
Of not being able sumptuously to store
The supper-table for his guests;

See Mad. de Sévigné's Letters for an account of this suicide. The English reader will find it in Letter 52 of the translation, published in 7 duodecimo vols., London, 1801. The account is too long to copy into a note; but should be read.

with vain
Villeneuve, Napoleon's admiral, who bore
Disgrace so oddly that he flew to lore
Of stern anatomy with aim to know—
What he both learnt and practised—how the core
Of life a pin may pierce, with one quick throe;

Seeing that one account of his death is as mysterious as another (see “Biographie Universelle,” Vol. 49), it may be, after all, that O'Meara's account of it, as given by Napoleon, is as true as any other.— “The conversation then turned upon French naval officers. ‘Villeneuve’—said he, —‘when taken prisoner and brought to England, was so much grieved at his defeat, that he studied anatomy that he might destroy himself. For this purpose he bought some anatomical plates of the heart, and compared them with his own body, in order to ascertain the exact situation of that organ. On his arrival in France, I ordered that he should remain at Rennes, and not proceed to Paris. Villeneuve, afraid of being tried by a court martial for disobedience of orders and consequently losing the fleet, for I had ordered him not to sail, or to engage the English, determined to destroy himself, and accordingly took his plates of the heart and compared them with his breast. Exactly in the centre of the plate, he made a mark with a large pin, then fixed the pin as near as he could judge in the same spot in his own breast, shoved it in to the head, penetrated his heart, and expired. When the room was opened, he was found dead; the pin in his breast, and the mark in the plate corresponding with the wound in his breast. He need not have done it,’ —continued he,—‘as he was a brave man, though he possessed no talent.” —Barry O'Meara's “Voice from St. Helena,” vol. i., page 57.

Two spirits truly French made up the groupe I saw.

42

Nero's two courtiers soon their contest ended;
Apicius spoke not; and the mopes of France,
With Lumley, on the rocks their shadows bended,
As if o'ercome by that clime's heritance
Of dullness, or because all esperance,
They thought, was fled, for them, of happy change:
But soon, Mordaunt upwaking from his trance,
Gave utterance to his piebald musings strange:
And thus did he his motley images arrange:—

43

“Petronius, though our mystic lot be placed
In this dull realm where sight and sound combine
Our sensories, for aye, to overcast
With brooding phantasies, and saturnine
Despairs; or, else, as with an anodyne
Of thought, to lull us into listlessness;
Let us, again, essay to intertwine
Some shreds of brightness with the sombre dress
Our spirits wear in this drear land, so effortless.

198

44

“Tell us some jest of old careering Rome,
With its monstrosities of apish men,
Who ever seemed desirous to become
Something that was not human. What a den
Of horror must thy prince have made it, when
He lit it up to see a merry blaze!
And yet, 'twas but a change: from outward ken
Shut up, horrors as deep, in the foul ways
O' the heart, were witnessed daily by man's inner gaze.

45

“What Europe's modern folds of rogues and fools
Display, thy olden city must have shown;
Strife murderous as the sword—but waged with tools
Of deadlier kind: tongues venomed to impugn
All humble virtues, oiled to gloss o'ergrown
And hideous vice, and help it to pursue
Its course of lust and blood. Thy prince hath won
A name will never die: the lot of few
Who humbly toil for good, and selfish wrong eschew.

46

“Such weaklings win but scorn; and so 'twas shrewd
In thy magnifical incendiary
To use a masterstroke should teach the brood
Of puny things to come what 'twas to be
Acute in wit; for no dexterity
Of after-men can now the name destroy
Of fiddling, murdering Nero—”
“Cease thy glee!”
Returned the Roman,—“or thy tongue employ
“On themes that will thy hapless fellows less annoy.

47

“The prince thou slanderest had a noble soul,
Although eccentric: hireling scribes defamed
Him, or the world would his great deeds extol,
Not censure. Man's advance he always aimed
To hasten: wisdom, art, song, music claimed
Him ever as their blandest, truest friend;
And in the deed thou hast so lightly named,
His purposes were princely: a quick end
He put to ugliness that did with beauty blend:

199

48

“Filth-nests with palaces, that erst distilled
Their feculent odours on the air, and spread
Nausea and death. Thou shouldst have seen Rome filled
With homes of stateliness and grace, instead
Of mere mud-huts of squalor: 'twould have bred
In thee much admiration——”

My Ghost of Petronius Arbiter does not argue half so earnestly in defence of Nero, as Mr. Walter Savage Landor.—See his “Imaginary Conversations.”

“And the roast,”—
Resumed Mordaunt,—“was trifling: to the dead
“Those who were burnt Decay would soon have tossed,—
And Death, doubtless, preferred the speedier holocaust.

49

“Filth-nests! why, ay; and the mere wingless fowls—
I'd term them such, did the old Cynic sneer,
As in wise Plato's face,

The practical joke of Diogenes upon Plato's definition of a Man, will be remembered by almost every reader. [“Not so,” say several of my friends. Here, then, is the whimsical anecdote which was in my memory: “Plato defining Man a two-footed animal without wings, and this definition being approved; Diogenes took a cock, and plucking off all its feathers, turned it into Plato's school, saying, This is Plato's Man: whereupon, to the definition was added, having broad nails.”—Stanley's Hist. of Philosophy.]

—the dirty thralls
Were of no worth. Besides, how vain it were
Of the birds' filthy nests fair Rome to clear,
And yet to leave the filth-birds! Thus, brave War
Is the world's health's effectual pioneer,
As well as burning: Earth, it doth not mar,
But mend—to bruise it, now and then, with Slaughter's car.”—

50

“Spite of thy jeers,”—Villeneuve, inclined to wrath,
Took up the strife, and said,—“War hath its use
“As well as honours: harvest and aftermath
Are rendered plenteous by the tide diffuse
Of blood: the vulture's leavings do conduce,
As well, to fertilize the barren earth,
Which might, but for the timely stream let loose
On it, become one general mass of dearth,
Nor yield another grain for things of human birth.

51

“Thus doth the carnage of the field assist
Great Providence. Nay, more: the lord of fight
Is Nature's mightiest, best phlebotomist:
'Tis well that the fell falchion doth alight
On thousands, and more slaughterous nitre blight
Myriads of crawling things. What would the world
Grow, but a putrid swarm, in the vast flight
Of years, if oft the warrior's flag unfurled
The sun saw not, nor smiled on crowds to swift death hurled?

200

52

“And, if Earth's youth the sword did not thus sweep
Away by thousands, in what woe and want,
What scorn and rags, would many of them creep
To helpless age! But, next, the combatant
Regard with Glory fired—”
“Nay,”—said Mordaunt,—
“Mar not thy theme; for thou hast pictured well
The truest commendations War can vaunt:
Slide not to farce: thou never wilt excel
The argument, though tragic, we have heard thee tell.

53

“Such were the shameless reasonings of the Strong
For murdering the Weak, I heard in life:
And yet these very reasoners pale at wrong
Wrought by the lone assassin with the knife:
These very men whose arguments are rife
Of aiding mystic Providence, by huge
Assassination! That such hateful strife
Of inconsistency we fled, I grudge
Not, though it be for aye in this dull zone to lodge.”—

54

“And I judge otherwise,”—with lazy speech
The suicidal glutton 'gan to break
His moody silence: “could I old Earth reach
“Again, at will, I quickly would forsake
This clime that fits perception so opaque
As thine. Why wonder at aught strange or mad
They do or say on Earth? Do they not make
A thing for worship that they say doth add
To being but to slay what He with life hath clad?

55

“And justify they not His deathful laws
By the same logic we have heard but now?
‘All things hath framed this great uncaused Cause,’
They say, ‘to prey upon each other, through
‘His blest design to save them from the slow
‘And lingering death of helpless age: and thus,’
Say they, ‘when men the universe of woe
‘And murder view, and shudder,—vision gross
Leads them to term its kindly beauty—hideous.’

201

56

“If such their model of perfection be,
How canst thou wonder, if, with kindliness
Like His to whom in awe they bow the knee,
Their human slaughter-shapes they drape and dress?
Mordaunt,—I ever laughed at answerless
Priest-riddles, and unto the joys of sense
And appetite betook me; and possess
Them now I would, if this new residence
Of being, and its laws, compelled not abstinence.”

57

“And as thou think'st, Apicius, so think I,”—
Said dull Tigellinus;—“sense, and its joy,
“But nought beside on earth, are worth a sigh:
They rendered Life worth having, though alloy
Was mingled with it: he who was least coy
Of these true pleasures, was, in my esteem,
The wisest man: ay, he who from a boy
Led life of revel,-filling up his dream
With merriment—daring the rapids of Life's stream.

58

“So judged I that our prince lived by the rule
Of truest wisdom: could I once more share
His favour and his joys, I would not pule
At the world's contradictions, like this rare
Sample of folly, who with haste so yare
Fled hither from wealth's, pleasure's lavishment,
In quest of dark remediless despair.
Rome knew not such a lunatic: content
We were to live,—'less ill with good was overblent.”—

59

“Ye may bepraise yourselves,”—Mordaunt replied;
“But I regard ye as twin swine—to nought
More noble are ye kin: not things of pride
But filthiest greed ye be; and Earth o'erfraught
With such as ye becomes the irksome spot
It is, and hath been. Nature doth contain
No greater mystery than that she with thought
Such grovelling clay endows; the mystic chain
Of mire with mind ye link: your life else is but vain.”—

202

60

“Is not our life—all life—as vain as theirs?”
Asked Lumley,—while the Romans sank supine
And slumbrous, on the rock:— “we were the heirs
“Of Vanity on earth; and this confine
Of wretchedness affords no cheering sign
That we shall e'er attain a nobler state—
Although some fable it who still entwine
Earth's credulous dreams with doubt, and consolate
This miserable life with emulous debate.”——

61

“And what, if such debate high truths evolve
We wot not of?”—earnestly asked Vatel:
“My mind doth much misgive 'twas rash resolve,
When ghost-kings messaged us, that did impel
Our souls to scoff. If we have bid farewell
To esperance ourselves”—
“Nurse no regret
So infantile,”—said Lumley:—“wisely quell
“Its yearnings: ne'er can dreams in me beget
A ray of hope that we shall 'scape from Torture's net.

62

“It is a universe designed for sorrow—
Designed if it be; and if it rose by chance,
'Tis still as vile. I wish a vast death thorough
All life would penetrate, until expanse
Of space were filled with discontinuance
Of thought, sense, motion. Worthless are they all,
Serving no end but pain—the heritance
Of all things: pleasure doth but serve to pall:
'Tis but a sweet to render bitterer Life's gall.

63

“Tell us Annihilation shall imbibe
All life, and I thy prophecy will name
Worthy rehearsal and regard: but gibe
No dreams of some fantastic afterdrame
Of blessedness for men and spirits: maim
Their wits must be who doatingly desire
For boon what we ought rather to disclaim
And shun, judging from Past and Present: ire,
Not joy, I feel, when told I shall new bliss acquire.”—

203

64

“Would that on earth physician for the mind
Like to thyself I had discovered,”—said
Vatel:—“thy morbid discontent and blind
“Distortion even of joy, benignly spread
With grief through Nature, into woe as dread
As evil's self—creates so deep distaste
By its untruth, that thou in me hast bred
More reverence for the good in life amassed,
Than if thou wert Nature's devout encomiast.

65

“Spirits,—within me hath awoke new hope,
New faith! Even here we are not wholly lost:
It is because in sluggard thought we mope
And drivel, that we deem this mystic coast
Our perdurable prison. Swiftly trust
Shall rise to break our bondage, when no more
We palter with ourselves, but with robust
Resolve probe our life-errors to the core:
Until, not Fate, but our own folly we abhor.

66

“Soon shall we then discover why we made
Shipwreck of mortal life, and why we here,
By turns, sink in low sloth, fiercely upbraid
Nature herself, or agonise with Fear
And Pain; and soon deliverance will appear:
For Mind was formed all Evil to subdue
By its own might”—
“Old earth-dreams!”—with a sneer,
Villeneuve exclaimed; “and let Earth still pursue
“Her dreams: but, do not here the sickening theme renew.

67

“But who approacheth by the gloomy strand,
With step of haste bounding o'er rock and level?
Strange haste, in this supine, lethargic land!
'Tis he who did no earth so deeply revel
In his dark theme of ‘Suicide no Evil,’—
And, when the page was finished, finished life—
Robert of Normandy, yclept the Devil.—
Thy visage is a herald of new strife—
Wild spirit! Speak the thoughts with which thy soul is rife!”

204

68

Already by the group, Le Diable
Stood, with a look that seemed to reprehend
Those sojourners in gloom—all, save Vatel,—
Whose eyes of new-born hope a light I kenned,
Of mystic sympathy and joy to send
Forth as a greeting to the Norman's eyes.
And thus the Norman spake:—
“Spirits, attend
“The invitation from the Good and Wise,
That now I bring: attend, and from your sloth arise!

69

“Brothers, although their primal call ye slighted,
Sages and bards and princely spirits yearn
To kindle in your essences benighted.
The fire of faith with which they inly burn.
And, thus, by one who erst, ye know, with scorn
Beheld life's gift, message they have renewed,—
That ye may cease, when his soul's hope ye learn,
And ken the faith with which he is imbued,
To think they mock ye with a feigned solicitude.

70

“It is no dream: Hades and Earth are waking
To consciousness of Mind's omnipotence.
Not less unwise than guilty in forsaking
Old Earth we were; for we with affluence
Of might to subdue Evil's power prepense
Were gifted: even the weakest might have won
Some victory helpful to the prevalence
Of Mind o'er Evil. But, it is begun—
The lofty strife—and conquest shall be gained, full soon!

71

“I tell ye that on earth all natural ill
Begins to yield to Science: Pestilence flees
Her climes; and men shall soon begin to fill
The expansive measure of their days. The seas
Already own the power of Mind: with ease
Men vault above the wave, fearing no rage
Of giant storms. On land, the very breeze
That vital is, they hold in vassalage,
And yoke, by viewless chains, unto the thought-winged sledge.

205

72

“Mind glows and fulmines even in the clown;
And men from yoke conventional and old
Shake themselves free: the crosier and the crown,
The sword and gun, all men begin to hold
For useless and pernicious things, and bold
The very peasants grow to laugh aloud
At swollen names of gew-gaw shapes in gold.
Think ye that changes such as these uncloud
No change for Hades, and her kings and pomp-thrones proud?

73

“I tell ye Change hath come: judgment condign
Hath fallen on the essences of kings
Who raged to hear deep sage and bard divine
Tell, in prophetic strain, pomp-glisterings
Should pass away, and spirit homagings
Be paid to Mind and Goodness. Where the bow
Of promise skieth mystic symbolings
Of monarch-splendour, forfeiture I saw
Of thrones, which congregated ghost-kings shook with awe.

74

“Arise, arise, my brothers! we were wrong
To quit Earth's life in craven discontent
At Evil; and ignoble to prolong
Our murmuring here it is. Evil was blent
With Good through Nature; but the Blender meant
To ennoble human thought by healthful toil
That should have issue in magnificent
And universal triumph. Brothers, foil
The lethargy that doth your might-girt spirits spoil!

75

“Come, listen the inspiring theme of Good
And Right, and how doth dawn their jubilee!
Spirits, the universe one brotherhood
Of Knowledge, Truth, and Love, full soon shall be!
I say, arise!”—
“Hence, with thy ribaldry!”
Apicius fiercely answered: “of such fare
“I covet not the taste. Hence, devotee
Of dreams! To mock our abjectness forbear!
Hence! let us slumber on to deaden our despair!”—

206

76

Thus spake his swinish spirit; nor arose
His shade from its recumbency to greet
The earnest messenger. In deeper doze
Sophonius lay, as if he would maltreat
The Norman with contempt. The rest with meet
Attention heard; and, with a countless host
The descant drew around, in haste more fleet
Than they had used for ages on that coast,
Expressed, as with one voice, their new-born hope and trust.—

77

“Then, to our brother exiles let us speed!”—
The Norman said;—“But what shall be your fate—
Victims of sensual gust? Is it decreed
That Essences like yours in afterstate
Of absolute brutality prostrate
Shall lie for ever? Oh! that one bright ray
From Nature's central fire would ye create
Anew, with souls more human!”—
And, away
Faded my dream, as light renewed the prison-day.

211

BOOK THE EIGHTH.

1

Unbidden visitors,—yet welcome,—tears
Gush forth, while streams that dulcet melody—
The tremulous, soft “Sicilian Mariners.”—
Upon the evening air. How Love doth flee,—
Winged by the thrill of organ minstrelsy
So suddenly renewed within a gaol,

The opening of an organ, in the gaol-chapel (which adjoined the “day-room” apportioned to me and my fellow-offenders), gave occasion to this and some of the following stanzas. In the scanty catalogue of prison-events, it was one, to me, too exciting to be passed by, either unfelt or uncommemorated.

To visit the heart's home! Thoughts full of thee,
My bosom's own,—so blest they banish bale
For joy,—breathe from the tones of that heart-madrigal.

2

How wondrous is existence!—what strange ties
It hath: what individable soul-links
There be with formless sounds and harmonies
The Mind, dulled by Life's grosser turmoil, thinks
Extinct in power,—bereft of charm: how sinks
My spirit into Rapture's lap, even now:
Such ecstasy, in Thraldom's spite, Love drinks,
By help of those sweet notes, from gentle flow
Of Memory's streams, that Joy saith nought can bring back woe!

3

Hush! 'tis my infancy's quaint “Evening Hymn,”
My mother's favourite! Tears! ye best can tell
What thoughts the heart's deep fountains overbrim
With tenderness when that loved choral swell
Its potency o'er memory sways. A knell
It seems;—and yet, a carol sweeter far
Than mirth can troll. Lives in its strain a spell
Which shews the grave that dear brave face doth mar,
But ever shields that heart from the oppressor's war.

212

4

Hark! 'tis the grand “Old Hundredth” that now peals
Its solemn glory through the trancëd soul!
That matchless marshalry of chords reveals,
Luther! thy free-born majesty:

The evidence that the unequalled “Old Hundredth” is Martin Luther's composition may be questionable: I have yielded to the wish for having it regarded as his, in the stanza.

they roll
So boldly, gravely full,—that man's control,
We feel, befits not the thewed mind upgrown
Which germs such thought-sounds. Term ye me a thrall?
How, then, upwakes the Saxon with each tone,
Within me? Nay, I feel true freedom still my own!

5

Vain are your fetters, tyrants, for the mind!
Thy championship, brave stripling, proved them vain,
What time thou didst so fearlessly unbind
Old Europe from the triple tyrant's chain,—
Enthroning Reason the soul's suzerain:
Reason the judge o' the book. True warrior
For all men's right to think unawed by man,
What though mirk Superstition on the shore
Of Mind still lingers? She shall raise her throne no more.

6

Thy enterprise is speeding, and hath sped.
I care not that thou didst not comprehend
Its ultimate: it may be, wholesome dread
Of wild excess Nature doth sagely blend
With courage in great souls; and, that the end
Of noblest change must gradually be sought,
And Reason's heroes with Mind's foes contend
From step to step,—yea, victory for Thought
By years of struggling toil be stably, fully wrought.

7

I care not though some weaknesses were thine.
Who shares thy giant strength? None but the high
And mighty mental lineage who divine,
From age to age, the ground whereon to ply
At vantage their souls' sinews, and rely
On their own strength in truth for victory.
Thou art our own, great Saxon! we descry
Our brave old Wickliffe's soul restored in thee;
And claim thee for our honoured land of Lollardy!

213

8

Honour, all honour to ye, glorious band
Who broke the bondage of the Priest of Rome!
Sires of our common Saxon fatherland,
England and Germany, a glorious home
Ye left us,—if we will!—amid the gloom
‘Lighting a candle’ by your noble lives
And martyred deaths that, quenchless, shall illume
Our land for aye! Oh, that death—vaunt still gives
Us strength; and with it, brave one, thy great deed revives!

“Play the man, Master Ridley: we shall this day light up a candle that will never be extinguished in England!”—Latimer's words to his fellow-martyr at the stake.

9

What though those words, like oracles of old,
Were sealed, in their full meaning, to the seer
Who uttered them? The future shall behold
Their splendid verity, with vision clear!
Then—honour to each stalwart pioneer
Of mental Freedom,—Wickliffe, Jerome, Huss,
Luther, Melancthon, Cobham, Latimer!
Honour to all who dared the flame, scorn, loss,—
Who spurned to live mere spirit-thralls inglorious!

10

O thrice-blest children of that age of light
And love, which now from the far future beams!
To you it will pertain to place aright
In Truth's great temple whom herself esteems
Her true disciples. Ye, when Time's dim dreams
And weakling fears are fled, and Knowledge pure
Hath given the topstone to Truth's fane,—like gems
In gold, shall place each dazzling form secure
In its eternal niche. Our hands were premature!

11

But, when the toil of Mind hath wrought its aim;
When later Faiths, like older Phantasies,
Are reckoned with the Past; when Man's high name
His grandest title is; when things of lies
And bloodshed,—thrones and altars,—creeds, and toys
Of Priests and Kings,—Knowledge hath swept away;
When Wisdom hath outgrown the childish guise
Of mythic story, and put on the array
Of manhood; in that boon, free, happy, brother-day,—

214

12

It may be—that, in Truth's eternal fane
Enshrined, each in his kindred niche of glory,
He quaintly termed ‘rebellious needleman,’

I quote from Mr.Carlyle's magnificent unrhymed, unmetred Epic:—“Nor is our England without her missionaries. She has her Paine: rebellious staymaker; unkempt; who feels that he, a single Needleman, did by his ”Common Sense’ Pamphlet, free America;—that he can and will free all this world; perhaps even the other.”—“The French Revolution: a History:” vol. 2, chap. iii.

By thee, great age-fellow!—with martyr gory,
Or some old stout confessor of faith hoary,
May stand, as right co-workers, equal, true,
For Truth; although the world's old bigot-story
Of Man's mind-infancy did long misview
The scope of their twin-toil: scope that themselves scarce knew!

13

It may be that, around that temple's space,
Splendours may wreathe full many a doubter's brow
As brilliantly as they illume the face
Of philanthropic creed's-man. 'Mid the glow
Of sculptured excellence, in shining row,
Herbert of Cherbury, Hobbes, with Locke and Boyle—
Hume, Godwin, may, with Paley and Butler, show—
Statued with equal honour in Truth's aisle—
Lit with one ray—how truly kindred was their toil!

14

Spinoza and Rousseau, Bayle and Voltaire,
With Fenelon, Erasmus, Pascal, shrined—
May beam in brotherhood eternal there!—
But, for thy future children doth the mind
Most fondly yearn, loved fatherland! and find
Its sweetest dreams flow thence. O that some dream
Would visit me revealing humankind
As the far future shall discover them—
Living as they shall live on this loved ocean-gem!

15

What Howard, when the dungeon is forgot;
What Montague, when no man's blood is shed;
What Hale, when justice can be no more bought;
What Bernard Gilpin, when no poor lack bread;
What Cartwright, when no tyrants on them tread;
What Clarkson, when the world hath not a slave;
What Owen, when free thought awakes no dread;
What Mathew, when there is no sot to save;
What men shall grace our isles when Wrong hath found its grave?

215

16

O thrice blest children of that age of light
And love which now the trustful spirit sees,
Bright beaming from afar—Ye will not slight
Your noblest fathers, nor their memories!
But, tombing names of blood and pride that please
The human patient, whom to drug and craze
Guile, long, with Power, hath striven—Ye to sweet ease
Of health, in heart and mind, restored shall raise,
With filial hands, true trophies to your fathers' praise!

17

Bourse of the world wilt thou be, London, then?
For still I turn with fondness to thy face,
And doat upon thee—though I, mournful, ken
Too many a blemish there! Wilt thou a grace
Be, then, among Earth's cities? Or, shall race
Arrive from some far clime, new emigrants
To found a home, and find thy desart-space
Renewed, my country!—howling forest-haunts
And wilds “peopled with wolves thy old inhabitants?”

“Peopled with wolves thy old inhabitants.”—Pt. ii. of Hen. 4. The quotation was tempting—for a rhyme; but I almost feel as if I had committed a mortal sin in thus literalising, in its application, Shakspere's sublime and sinewy figure.

18

Shall Gain forsake thy marts, great queen of Thames?
Thy merchant-navies vanish?—and, where Pride
In famine-woven silks and blood-bought gems,
Now rolls her chariot, shall Decay divide
Empire with Silence,—there the lizard glide
'Mong crumbling walls,—and there the badger peep
Forth from sere weeds that half his gray head hide,
Save when uplifted by the winds that sweep
'Mong chambers where thy pampered lords no longer sleep?

19

Or, shall true grandeur deck thee: bounding joy
Of human hearts feeling their fathers' home—
That happy home—renewed, and thee the Eye
Become of the wide world? Gaol, ‘Bastile’-doom,
Treadmill, whip, gallows, demon War's costume,
And all his trophies and his engines gone:
No Vileness robed—no Worth in rags; Health's bloom
On cheek of sturdy sire and manly son,
Proving what secrets Science hath from Nature won:

216

20

Mind writ in every face; books million-fold
Increased; and galleries vast with breath-shapes hung
Raffaelle might worship, or Apelles old;
Groupes from great Shakspere's world, or Chaucer's song,
In bronzed or marbled life, seeming up-sprung
From some new Phidian realm of earth beneath
To gem the populous squares; Music's full tongue
Telling to millions what Mozart in death
Enraptured heard, but could not the boon-sounds bequeath;

Mozart's last words—“Now I begin to see what might be done in music!”

21

And all—for ALL! Rank, class, distinction-badge,
For ever gone! Labour by Science made
Brief recreation—not by Privilege
Avoided, nor its thrift in name of Trade
Or Commerce filched. To give a brother's aid
To brethren, and enlarge the general bliss
From knowledge, virtue, health—beyond parade
Of pomp or gold—affording joy. I wis,
When Truth doth reign, Earth shall be such a Paradise! —

22

Do I reharp like themes? Perchance, the gaol
Doth stagnate thought. And now the blythe old man
Is gone, who joked, and told his merry tale
Each morning when the prison-day began,—
Who spread instruction through the hours' long span,
Mingling the grave and gay with cheery tongue.
O how I miss the septuagenarian!

My venerable fellow-“conspirator” and fellow-prisoner (for the first year) John Richards, whose seventy-first birthday occurred on the first Christmas-day we passed in the gaol.

I wonder what hath kept his heart so young,
That still he dreams to live and see the end of Wrong!

23

Gone, are my younger fellow-rebels all,
To bustle, once more, with Life's elbowing crowd;
And I am left, a solitary thrall,
Where stillness like the silence of the shroud
Pervades both night and day, save when aloud
Clash bolts and bars, and the shrill curfew tells
The prisoner must to bed.—
The vision glowed
Again in sleep; and, where the spirit dwells
I seemed to dwell,—the spirit that its own Life quells.

217

24

A sense of loneliness, methought, I felt,
When from beneath the dome, again, I passed,
And wandered over mountains where none dwelt,
But doleful voices from the howling blast,
Cowed the lone spirit, while gloom-clouds o'ercast
The dull gray sky. Anon, the way descended
Into a darksome clough, where antre vast,
With jaggëd mouth, the dern, dark pathway ended,
And with its lowering brow some gloomier change portended.

25

I entered, but trod timidly the rock
That echoed hollowly my steps of fear;
And oft I halted, hearing voices mock
And chide my rashness for o'erventuring there;
Till, when I turned, thinking the cavern drear
And its unproven perils I would flee,
It seemed as if dank vapours rose to blear
My vision; and, forthwith, they fell on me
With noisome blight, till I was blinded utterly.

26

Chilled unto marble horror with the sense
That I was blind, I would have shrieked, but, lo!
The will had lost its wonted prevalence
O'er faculty or organ; and with throe
Unutterable I sank, feeling my woe
Too grievous to be borne. But, as I fell,
I ceased to grieve, feeling new might endow
My spirit—might to picture or to tell
I ken not, 'twas so wildly indescribable.

27

Onward I floated—for no joint or limb
I seemed to need—into a region dark
Beyond all thought: Earth's midnight is but dim.
Compared with the primeval blackness stark
And stript even of minutest atomed spark
Of light my new intelligence perceived
In this strange clime. I, its stern shapes to mark
Seemed thence empowered that I was now bereaved
Of grosser sight, and with new eyes that soul-realm cleaved:

218

28

Eyes most intensely vision-rich that cleft
The dread opaque gleefully as young eyes
On earth view brightest stars in the blue weft
Above; or lustrous gem-shells scrutinize
In fountains pellucid, then grasp the prize,
At jeopardy of life. Yet, I beheld
Emblems of mortal gloom and miseries,
Much more than joy: but in them was revealed
Grace so transcendent that the mind with rapture swelled

29

To feel its essence gifted with the power
Of viewing in thick darkness shapes of grace
And beauty so unspeakable. Meteor,
On marish seen, or victims' burial-place,—
Phantasmagoric slights, where figures chase
Each other in illusive vision wild,—
Spectrous deceits the human eye doth trace,
By brain-sick fancy or shrewd art beguiled,—
All fail to explicate how mystic mind was filled

30

With sculptured forms in darkness, and rich hues
Of pictures crowded on her rapid glance.—
First, statue-groupes arose that did suffuse
The soul with Love's woe-tears:—Orpheus' joy-trance
At his Eurydice's deliverance—
Quick changed to pain and horror, as he turned—
Alas, too soon! ill brooking tarriance
Of looks—lips—clasped embrace: the bliss-cup earned
In vain—to atoms dashed—by Love's own madness spurned!

31

Then, Galatea, with her shepherd love,
Was statued, breathing joy, quick chased by pain;
For o'er them bent the Cyclop, ire enwove
In his grim glance; and wildly o'er her swain
The sea-nymph writhed when she beheld him slain.
Soon, seemed Leander, struggling with the wave
In death, and Hero leaping in disdain
Of life, with haste into her watery grave.—
Then, images of grief and fate the darkness clave:

219

32

The Carian queen,—in that fair monument
She built for her loved spouse, and which the world
Proclaimed a wonder—o'er the dead was bent;
And he who sung how the great Titan hurled
Defiance back at Jove,—stricken, brain-whirled,
Fell, as the tortoise from the eagle's beak
Dropped on his head,—the oracle upfurled
In mystery accomplishing. The Greek
Sublime, pitying his slanderers, and with courage meek

33

Drinking the hemlock, while in aching grief
His friends stood round, then passed; and, next, rose two
Sad images depicturing man's poor, brief
Mirth-hour on earth: Pollio's fair child, that drew
Its earliest breath in laughter, but scarce knew
Life ere in death it faded; and the stern
And melancholy Agelastus, who
Ne'er laughed but once, and then, in Cynic scorn,
To see the thistles by the ass for lettuce torn.

Cicero, Pliny, and others commemorate the grandfather of Crassus, surnamed 'Αge/lastos, who never laughed but once,—namely, —when he saw an ass eat thistles, and then his exclamation was, “Similes habent labra lactucas,”—Like lips like lettuces.

34

Then rose twin corpses of the craftsmen sage
The Pythian's oracle that deftly reared,—
With Juno's priestess' duteous lineage
Who drew their mother to the fane: reward
Of death, as the best gift, on each conferred
By the high deities, for wondrous skill
And filial piety.

The stories of Agamedes and Trophonius, architects of the vestibule to the temple of Delphi,—and of Biton and Cleobis, sons of Cydippe, priestess of Juno at Argos,—are told by Plutarch, in his Morals.

Countless appeared
The sculptured shapes, thereafter, that did still
Pourtray grief, fate, life's swiftness, and all human ill.

35

Praxiteles, his mirror seemed to dash
To living fragments which a thousand-fold
Showed his deformed rude visage to the rash
Enraged destroyer: Hoar, in gloomy hold
Trophonius sat: young Phaëthon the bold
Fell from the chariot-sun: vortex and rock
By vexed Messina's shore, worn voyagers old
Seemed toiling to escape,—yet swiftly broke
The billows o'er them, and they bowed beneath Death's stroke.

220

36

And while these semblances I, wondering, saw,
With thousands more, mysterious music streamed
Upon my soul, refreshingly as blow
The evening gusts on toiling swains condemned
To reap all day, whilome the sun hath beamed
His fiercest fires: blythely their hook they ply
To win substantial good; yet, when redeemed
From overheats, breathe joyously:—so I,
With sense of ease, listed the soothing minstrelsy.

37

And soothing 'twas, though sad: a wildering strain
Unearthly,—or, if like to aught on earth
Most like that theme which breathes her spirit's pain—
The ‘Mater dolorosa’

Pergolesi's Stabat Mater (I never heard Rossini's) is the “theme” to which I allude. I never heard it performed but once; yet its pathetic power left an indelible impression on my memory.

—with such birth
Of sweetness, that, once heard, we deem thenceforth,
Grief-music thrills more deep deliciousness,—
Ay, more essential joy,—than strains of mirth!
Most like that voice of rapturous soul-distress
It was; and, wordless, seemed these woe-thoughts to express:

38

‘Oh! what shall quell Life's universal sorrow?
‘In Hades' realm of darkness, drear and deep
‘As Death's, or where gloom-prison Earth doth borrow
‘Light from the gaudy sun, all creatures weep,
‘All spirits ache! Duration on doth sweep,
‘Bringing no other change than newer woe!
‘Oh! that this waking to eternal sleep
‘Might change, and spirits cease to think and know:
‘For ever quenched Life's inward like its outer glow!

39

‘Oh! what is youthful Love?—a torturous dream:
‘What conjugal affection?—pain and tears:
‘What Life?—capricious gift of Powers supreme
‘That mock Man's hopes, and laugh at his weak fears:
‘Hath Virtue a reward?—the wicked's sneers:
‘Hath Bliss existence?—in the realm of Nought:
‘Can Fate be shunned?—when Essence disappears;
‘But all in Hades or on Earth who thought
‘And life inherit in her web of woe are wrought.

221

40

‘Spirits, look onward!—what do ye perceive?
‘Woe-thought to come—a future filled with gloom—
‘Ages in which your essence still shall grieve
‘That it exists, and long for instant doom
‘Of blank annihilation. Your old home
‘Look back upon! What is Man's journey thorough
‘Earth's life? Grief from the cradle to the tomb—
‘Toil-thought for bread to-day—a shroud to-morrow:
‘Oh, what shall quell, for aye, Life's universal sorrow?’

41

The enraptured anguish of my spirit ceased,
For now this minstrelsy I heard no more;
And every sculptured emblem, which a feast
Of visioned wonderment had set before
The soul's interior self, evanished. Roar
Of multitudinous voices came, and crowd
On crowd of Sorrow's suicides the shore
Of Darkness, in desponding phalanx, trode,
Wailing they could not 'scape Life's ever-during load.

42

By thousands, the stern, giant Cimbri trooped,—
And Xanthians and Saguntines,—they who fled,
In olden times, from life, by act abrupt,
Rather than wear the conqueror's yoke. That dread
And sullen band of Jews who undismayed,
In old cathedralled York, by their own hand
Met death, to shun the fiendish vengeance spread
For their rackt tribe,

The suicidal massacre of the Jews of York, to escape from the horrid persecution of the Christian citizens; on the IIth of March, 1189, is related at considerable length (from Roger Hoveden, Matthew Paris, and William Newburgh), by Drake, in his Hist. and Antiq. of York; Book I, chap. iv.

stalked by on Darkness' strand.—
'Twere long to tell the Sorrow-crowds my spirit scanned:—

43

Of every age, and every mortal clime
They were; and 'twas appalling their array
To view, and think of nations choosing crime
Of suicide,—hasting themselves to slay,
Rather than be their butcherous brethren's prey!—
The multitudes had passed, and a slow river
Methought I reached, upon whose banks a gray
And solemn man whose every nerve did quiver
With woe, walked, murmuring at existence and the Giver.

222

44

And him there met the noble Roman,—made
A rightful heritor of lasting fame
By matchless Tully's friendship,—though such aid
His own high sense and virtues might disclaim—
Were it not native to the sovereign flame
Of genius, like the sun, to render gleam
Of lesser lustres dull, and give a name,
Even to brightest things, less for their beam
Inherent, than the ray lent by its fire supreme.—

45

“Pomponius, hail!”—began the solemn sire;—
“Thee have I longed to meet in this demesne
Of mystic darkness,—for until I tire
To loathing, have I walked with ghosts obscene,
Listening their threadbare tales of vulgar teen.
Friend of Rome's noblest tongue and largest mind,—
Thee, calm Philosophy with thought serene
To bear unmoved the common woes assigned
To man, must have endowed: what subtle woe was joined

46

“Unto thy soul on earth, that thou its coil
Shook off? Could loftiest friendship, wealth, and ease,
With joys refined, thee fail to reconcile
To life? O Atticus, while I had these,—
While on my peace no feminine fiend did seize,
Dishonouring my children, and my own
Hoar age covering with shame,

The brief account of M. de Pontalba, and his suicide, in Winslow's “Anatomy of Suicide,” is so absorbingly, horrifically interesting that I transcribe it:— “M. de Pontalba was one of the great proprietors of France. His son had been a page of Napoleon's and afterwards a distinguished officer, aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney, and a protégé of the Duke of Elchingen. He married the daughter of Madame d' Almonaster, and for some time they lived happily; but on the death of her mother, Madame de Pontalba began to indulge in such extravagances that even the enormous fortune of the Pontalbas was unequal to it. This led to some remonstrance on the part of her husband, on the morning after which she disappeared from the hotel, and neither he nor his children had any clue to her retreat. At last, after an interval of some months, a letter arrived from her to her husband, dated New Orleans, in which she announced that she meant to apply for a divorce; but for eighteen months nothing more was heard of her, except by her drafts for money. At last she returned, but only to afflict her family. Her son was at the Military Academy of St. Cyr. She induced him to elope, and the boy was plunged in every species of debauchery and expense. This afflicted, in the deepest manner, his grandfather, who revoked a bequest he had made him of about 4,000l. a year, and seemed to apprehend from him nothing but future ruin and disgrace. The old man, eighty-two years of age, resided in his chateau of Mont Levéque, whither, in October, 1834. Madame de Pontalba went to attempt a reconciliation with the wealthy senior. The day after her arrival she found she could make no impression on her father-in-law, and was about to return to Paris, when old M. de Pontalba, observing a moment when she was alone in her apartment, entered it with a brace of double-barrelled pistols, locked the door, and, approaching his astonished daughter-in-law, desired her to recommend herself to God, for that she had but few minutes to live; but he did not even allow her one minute—he fired immediately, and two balls entered her left breast. She started up and fled to a closet, her blood streaming about, and exclaiming that she would submit to any terms, if he would spare her.— ‘No, no! You must die!’ he exclaimed, and fired his second pistol. She had instinctively covered her heart with her hand; the hand was miserably fractured by the balls, but it saved her heart. She then escaped to another closet, where a third shot was fired at her without effect; and at last she rushed in despair to the door, and while M. de Pontalba was discharging his last barrel at her, she succeeded in opening it. The family, alarmed by the firing, arrived, and she was saved. The old man, on seeing that she was beyond his reach, returned to his apartment, and blew out his brains. It seemed clear that he had resolved to make a sacrifice of the short remnant of his own life, in order to release his son and his grandson from their unfortunate connexion with Madame de Pontalba. But he failed—none of her wounds were mortal; and within a month after, Madame de Pontalba, perfectly recovered, in high health and spirits, radiant, and crowned with flowers, was to be seen at all the fêtes and concerts of the capital.” —Pp. 292—294

—a gift to please
I found Earth's life,—not that insipid boon
Which some proclaim it, ere the mortal scene they shun.

47

“But thou hadst no soul-harrowing shame to meet
In every neighbour's eye: men did not point
At thee the finger,—and, anon, repeat
The damning whisper, or the subtle hint,
Wherever thou wert seen. What mystic dint
Invisible of Sorrow's sting could pierce
Thy heart,—and make the world seem so disjoint
That thou must flee it, hither to immerse
Thy soul in gloom? Roman, where lay thy life's fell curse?

223

48

“Pontalba!—for thy sorrow-notes reveal
Too truly, reverend mourner, who thou art”—
The thoughtful Roman answered:—z“to unseal
“My secret I will haste. Within the heart
I ever wore this canker: that depart
I must, or late, or soon,—must yield my breath,
Unknowing of what joy or aftersmart
The soul inherits in the realm of Death,—
Or whether he the spirit's flame extinguisheth.

49

“Strong pain corporeal hurried me to take
My fatal step more early than, perchance,
I, otherwise, had sped from Life's heart-ache:
Yet, ease returned, long ere the severance
Was made 'tween clay and spirit: but, the advance
Begun towards Death, retreat more terrible
Appeared than forward march;

It is a well-known relation that when Pomponius Atticus (the friend of Cicero) had subdued a fever by fasting, or medicine, in his 77th year, he refused to take food, from an unwillingness to prolong life.

—the sustenance
Of Life's huge load, a second time!—the spell
Half-broken to repair!—farewell, and yet farewell!—

50

“I could not face such horror, for I knew
That I should hourly see my funeral urn,
And that more bitterly it would imbue
Life's joy with sorrow, if I should return
When I had well-nigh reached the portal stern.
Oh, tell me, mourning sire,—if Death with thee
Was not the great Smile-queller: the thought borne
For ever uppermost, that strangled Glee
Even in its birth,—or made its breath an agony!”

51

“I know not that it was,”—the sire replied:
“It is my nation's habit to avert
Despondency of thought in the gay tide
Of revelry; and when to share the sport
Men cease, by age enfeebled, they resort
Still to the scene of mirth, to dissipate
Dull thoughts by seeing sprightly youth exert
Its agile limbs or jocund wit: sires sate
Their minds beholding sons their spirits recreate.”—

224

52

“Thy answer seemeth strange,”—the Roman said:
“To me, beholding what I could not share
For ever multiplied the heart's dim dread
Of the approaching tomb: joys of the fair
And young ceased to be gladsome: for the glare
O' the funeral torch gleamed on my mental sight.
Death—Death—was present with me everywhere,
Smirching the face of Nature with his blight,
Bereaving the warm heart of solace or delight.”—

53

“But why didst thou not mingle in the strife
Of public act or counsel?”—asked the soul
Of the gray Gallic sire;—“for thee Earth's life
Had countless remedies for this strange dole.
Oh! had thy lot beneath the restless rule
Of him who swayed my fatherland been cast,
The fever of the times had warmed thy cool
O'er-meditative brain, until Death's vast
Reality had quelled the Shade whose slave thou wast.”—

54

“Thou speakest, Spirit, as if strifeful Rome
Were some Arcadian grove,”—replied the ghost
Of Atticus;—“albeit, within her womb
“Myriads with greed of fame or gold engrossed,
Resembled some insatiate wolvish host—
Ever in open cry for prey. In fear
Of its heart-tortures, public care I thrust
Far from me; nor discern I, in this drear
Gloom-region, that its slaves than I aught happier were.

55

“Pontalba! for man's soul no genuine good
There is: no state enfranchiseth the mind
From tyranny of Evil's monster brood.
If in society men strive to find
Relief from megrim dullness,—'mong their kind
They soon engender hate, even without
Design, and wish they never had repined
At solitude, although with dread or doubt
They wrestled till compelled to shun their own lone thought.

225

56

“And what sayst thou of thine own fitful race?
Life's pulse beats not less healthfully in the veins
Of the most feverous tenants of Earth's space
Than it doth beat in theirs. Pleasures to pains,
By very eagerness, they turn: each drains
The joy-cup of the hour as if the world
Had not another for his draught. Contains
Not this woe-clime,—whom Pleasure's zest braindirled,—
Legions, from thy own land by mad self-murder hurled?

57

“There is no human state exempt from woe.
If the lone thinker with a dread profound
Of death be haunted,—they who love the show
And strife of crowds carry within some wound
From rival or proud tyrant who hath frowned
Upon their peace; and if dull solitude
Be irksome,—Pleasure's gay and guilty round
As surely leads to madness. 'Tis a crude
Abortion of a world; and Mind must be at feud

58

“For ever with the Powers to whom it owes
Existence—if volition they possess;
And if Necessity all Essence bows
Beneath its sceptre, at our wretchedness
We cannot but repine.”—
“Whence this excess
Of perverse discontent?”—a voice began:—
And lo! a crowded audience bodiless
I saw,—while through the host this murmur ran—
‘Meek Menedemus hear—the sage Eretrian!’

Menedemus is another of the suicides of antiquity who are described as escaping from life by refusing food. False accusation of treason is stated to have been the desperate provocative with this Socratic philosopher of Eretria.

59

“Whence this excess of perverse discontent?”—
The sage repeated:—“dost thou, then, forget,
“Illustrious Roman! thy so late assent
To consolable thoughts, when thee I met
Nursing, as now, this vain, unwise regret?
Alas, we all are too much prone to cling
To sorrow in this clime, and think our debt
To justice never will be paid. Yet spring
High hopes within me—thoughts of rescue heralding!

226

60

“O Atticus, I grieve that we the call
Fraternal of imperial spirits slighted,
Nor joined their descant in the mystic hall:
Yet, in their souls on whom hope hath alighted,
For Sorrows' host in dreary realm benighted,
Compassion may be felt, till they renew
Their invitation. Not for ever blighted,
Brothers, is this our essence: hopes congrue
With deep discursive reason thus my mind to thew:

61

“It is not by unalterable law
That Evil's tyranny Man's spirit quelleth:
Brothers, in us, in all, a might to awe
The moral curse o' the universe indwelleth.
O when the sheen of Brotherhood unveileth
Its glory, how our happy race will ponder
And muse upon the Past, until it faileth
Their souls to tell—for ecstasy of wonder—
What first could rend Man's heart from brother-men asunder!

62

“When selfishness, by Love and Truth dispelled
From human spirits, ceaseth to mislead
With falsest sense of interest,—and 'tis held
A fiction foul that Nature hath decreed
Man only can be moved to generous deed
Of enterprise by personal reward;
When Brotherhood returns, and hearts do feed
On richest bliss, toiling in disregard
Of self, and viewing their toil's fruit by brethren shared:

63

“When Strength and Health their happiness derive
From knowledge that the produce of their toil
Is shared by Feebleness and Age; when live
The men of Mind to kindle a heart-smile
Where'er they move,—disdaining to defile
Their names with titles, or their hands with gold,
And yearning every moment to beguile
Mankind to deeds of love and goodness bold,
Until the sun a world of mercy doth behold;

227

64

“Think ye that then the curse of Evil's reign
Mankind shall know? Suffering will disappear;
For love and sympathy shall vanquish pain,
And gentlest pity shall the lorn heart cheer
Till sorrow's stream for joy's abounding tear
Is changed. 'Twill be a holy, gladsome scene—
Too holy for mad Pleasure to be there!
A world of Love and Truth and Peace serene—
A world of brother-hearts, whose joys are evergreen!

65

“A world in which thy Death-fear, noble one!
Can no more haunt the soul. Who will fear Death
When, with fraternal love Man's course begun,
Hath been continued? When to yield his breath
The hour is come, with this exalted faith
In gladness Man can die—‘A world I leave
‘Of happy brothers!—love fraternal hath
‘Increased my bliss; and after-hearts shall cleave
‘To me through time, and with their songs my memory weave!

66

“‘And if our thought surviveth mortal clay
‘My loving spirit for a world of love
‘Is fitted: if I think no more,—decay
‘Itself is welcome; since around, above,
‘Bliss, still progressing, is with Essence wove;
‘And men, succeeding men, shall still proclaim
‘The bliss is but begun!’—Thus men shall prove
Superior to death-dread, on earth: the flame
Of Brother-love, 'bove selfish fears exalting them!”—

67

With visages of hope the mystic crowd
Stood, in expressive silence, as the soul
Of Menedemus ceased. Then, one who glowed
With nobler thought than when the venomed bowl,
To 'scape from hated Rome's renewed control,
He, fearing vengeance, in fair Capua took,—
Rash Vibius Virius,

Livy (lib. 26, caps. 13, 14) tells how Vibius Virius advised the Capuans to revolt to Hannibal, and, when the city was retaken by the Romans, took poison to escape the vengeance of the victors.

thus began to extol
The good Eretrian's theme:—
“Forbear rebuke,
Meek sage!—but, henceforth, we this gloom shall hardly brook:

228

68

“For who can list thee tell of blooming bliss,
And brother-love for ever verdurous,
Nor long to quit a dreary clime like this?
'Tween Earth and Hades link mysterious
We inly feel; and bliss analogous
To Earth's shall surely be our heritage:—
Yet, till kings cease their feuds calamitous,
And nations wear no more the conqueror's badge,
Dost thou not dream—this reign of Mercy to presage?

69

“And, until monarch-spirits, in our clime,
Disown their lofty claims, what can make known,
By mystic sign, in penal land of crime,
That Hades' crowds shall soon behold begun
The reign of Brotherhood? O that the boon
Were near!—”
“Behold who cometh!” cried the host;
“The spirit of thy friend, illustrious one!—
The friend o' the bards most noble and robust
Of thy great land,—Varus,

Quintilius Varus: I have, for the sake of introducing another character, asserted what is merely probable,—from Horace de Arte Poetica (438) the 8th Ode of Book I, and also the 24th. It is more generally believed that Q. Varus the poet, and Q. Varus the commander of Roman armies in Gaul, who slew himself because overcome by the craft of Arminius, were different persons.

—the thoughtful herald-ghost!”—

70

“Hail, Atticus! r=italic—the herald cried,—“ and ye
“Grief-brothers, who still nurse, in gloomiest land,
Your sorrow! Once again, high destiny
Of human spirits to search out, the band
Of heroes, sages, bards, and kings, divanned
In emblematic grandeur, ye conjure
To lend your aid! Brothers, full soon the brand
Of slavery shall, on earth, be known no more!
Brothers, full soon bliss shall pervade this climature!

71

“Take hope—take heart! Monarchs, themselves, display
Zeal for equality and brotherhood!—
O haste to leave your gloom, and, swift, away
Pursue with me your spirit-course, the Good
And Great to join in converse!”—
Like a flood
Of rapture burst the choral song—‘We come!’
From myriads hope-inspired;—and ere I viewed
From darkness their departure, out of gloom
I passed—woke by that thrilling song's exordium.

233

BOOK THE NINTH.

1

'Tis Woman's voice!—woman in wailful grief,
Joined by her babe's scarce conscious sympathy.
Thy wife hath come to take her farewell brief,
Gaunt felon!—brief and bitter must it be
For thy babe's mother, since the wide salt sea
Must roll, for life, its deep, dark gulph between
Thee, convict, and that form of agony!
Poor wretched thing! well may she wail, I ween,
And wring her hands, and wish that she had never been.

2

‘Let me have one last kiss of my poor babe!’
He saith, and clingeth to the grate. Oh! how
The turnkey's answer will his bosom stab!
‘Away!—we open not the bars!’—and, lo!
They push him rudely back!—he may not know
What baleful bliss it gives to clasp a child
Or wife, ere one must yield them to life's woe.
Ah! little had that kiss his grief beguiled;
But, rather, filled his soul with after-throes more wild.

3

She fainteth!—yet awakes to moan and weep!
How little didst thou think that smiling morn
Thou didst, so early and so eager, peep
Into thy mirror, and thy breast adorn
With virgin-rose, so soon the sorrow-thorn
Would there have pierced!—that thou, in two short years,
Wouldst see thy husband in that dress of scorn:
And turn, a widowed bride—a thing of tears—
From that stern grate, forlorn, to meet the world's rude jeers!

234

4

Poor sufferer! how wilt thou the future brook!
To drudge from morn to eve, for beggar's bread;
To hear thy ragged child receive rebuke
For his sire's sins, that on the exile's head
Already fall full sore; to see him shed
Tears when he asks for food, and thou hast none
To stop his hunger; then, to make thy bed
With him upon the heath or moorland lone,—
Unless, for infamy, thou takest the rich man's boon!

5

What misery, hadst thou never been a bride,
Thy heart had shunned! Yet, thou wilt fondly cling
Unto the memory of thy love, nor chide,
Even by a thought, in deepest suffering,
His error, who did thy young joy-bloom bring
To desolation! Ill-requited love
Was thine, even from the bridal-revelling;
Yet, thou forgavest all, nor didst reprove
The wild excess which oft thee nigh to madness drove.—

6

O Woman! how thy truest worth is slighted;
Thy tenderness how often met with hate;
Thy fondest, purest hopes, how often blighted;
How Man, the tyrant, lords it o'er thy fate,
Yet feigns for thy benign behests to wait;
How jealously he guards thy faithfulness,
And frowns a censure on thy every state:
Thy chastity terms coldness; thy caress
Weak fooling, stratagem, or grosser love's excess!

7

O Woman! fairest, frailest, sweetest flower
Of Nature's garden, what rude storms thee bend!
Thy heart, thou priceless, peerless, matchless dower
Of Nature's treasury, what keen sufferings rend!
How meanly men, through selfishness, contend
To pamper thee!—how silkenly their lays
Of love they lisp to gain their guilty end;
How sensually Man lauds thy beauty's blaze;
How heartlessly deserts thee in its dimmer days!

235

8

O Woman! what anxieties destroy
The bliss thou dreamest none can take away
When hushing thy soft care—thy cradled joy!
How Time the blessings thy fond hopes pourtray
Oft turns to curses, and thy heart a prey
To keenest woe condemns: maternal woe,
That like maternal love, the human clay
Moves more intensely than severest throe
Or most ecstatic thrill that mortal bosoms know.

9

Mysterious bonds of Nature! can ye be
Without a wise Deviser? Hath a blind
Necessity, indeed, implanted ye?
Are ye not proofs of All-pervasive Mind?
Hath Goodness, then, these spirit-throes designed,
Still mingled with the mother's cup of bliss?
Wherefore, oh wherefore, still must mortals find
Mystery ne'er lessen, but, for aye, increase
Beneath their feeble search, or frail analysis?—

10

Ay, Woman!—for thy mother heart remain
The keenest agonies: to see revealed
Passions that do defy thee to restrain
Their baneful germs, and which, thou knowst must yield
A deadly fruit; to see thy young flower felled
In its sweet promise; or to be bereft
Of it by ruthless power that tyrants wield
O'er Poverty; and, though thy heart be cleft
With sorrowing, no sight of it to be vouchsafed!

11

‘Thou pampered tyrant who dost crush the Poor!
‘Alien of Nature from thy mother's womb!
‘Who never sucked the breast of her that bore
‘Thy most unnatural self! Thou humoursome
‘Wealth-wanton, who dost send thy child from home,
‘Or callst a hireling, Life's sweet stream to give
‘Unto thy babe! What wonder that ye doom
‘The Poor to pain?—since in ye doth not live
‘A natural heart, how can ye Nature's pain perceive?

236

12

‘Ye artificial things in blood and breath,
“What human creatures feel how can ye tell?’—
Tush! raving mother,—the rich wanton saith
Thy pangs are feigned, and whipping should dispel
Thy discontent! Oh! ye will wake the yell
Of reckless vengefulness around ye yet,
Tyrants! unless ye, timely, bid the knell
Be tolled of dæmon-legislation!—
Let
Me strive that theme of rending heart-ache to forget!—

13

O Woman! what illustrious children thine
Oft prove even when thy fate and theirs seems dark.
Slave-mother of old Smyrna, who didst pine
In grief, and in lorn hope thy babe embark
On Meles' stream, cradled in that frail ark,
How little didst thou dream thy infant's glory
Would beam through Time; and he, the patriarch
Of song become, all bards and sages hoary
Transcend in honour, through the world, to latest story!

14

Or, if thy Homer, and the child on Nile,
The ‘babe’ that ‘wept,’ but soon proud Pharaoh's might
Defied, and led those thousands on their toil
Through the drear wilderness, the Canaanite
To dispossess,—if these, to read aright,
Their story, Reason must as Myths regard—
Fertile in moral, albeit overdight
With marvel—Mothers in late times have reared
Their sons in want, yet seen them win Fame's high reward.

15

How thy best children, Woman, testify
A mother's worth,—attributing their zest
For enterprize, or love of good, to thy
Exalting nurture! O let him attest
A mother's worth—that Titan of the West—
Unequalled Washington! And if such men,
That dwarf all kings, vigour from thy meek breast
Now draw, Woman! what will thy sons be when
Man looks on thee no longer with the tyrant's ken?

237

16

When chivalry's false homage is forgot;
When eastern jealousy no more immures
And renders thee a vernal idiot;
When thy young purity no villain-lures
Are spread to blemish; when thy mind matures
In freedom, and thy soul can make its choice,
Untrammelled, unconstrained, where heart assures
The heart it is beloved; shall not thy voice
And look restore to Earth its long-lost Paradise?

17

That Mind is of no sex, when thou art freed,
Thy thought-deeds shall proclaim: our Edgeworth's sense;
Our Baillie's truthful skill; Felicia's meed
Of grace with perfectest mellifluence
Of music joined; or thy magnificence
Of heart and reason, Necker's glorious child!
Problems shall be no more: Woman's intense
Inherent claim to mind-rank, when befoiled
No more by Man, she will display with glow unsoiled.

18

And when her children see her move in joy,
And yet in truest dignity; no more
A slave, no more a drudge, no more a toy!
When from her lips of love her spirit's store
Of high ennobling wisdom she doth pour
Into her offspring's ears—into their eyes,
Ere speech be learnt, looks Nature's purest lore
Of truth and virtue,—shall not Man arise
From error, nurtured thus, and loftiest good devise?—

19

These day-dreams past of Woman's destiny,
To Man's auxiliar in beatitude,
The brain in sleep, instinct with phantasy,
But credent of its day-dreams, still pursued
The theme. A verdant pasture-plain, I viewed,
Unbounded, in that mystic spirit-land
Where mortals who have ventured to denude
The soul of clay without His high command—
The great Life-Giver—feel His stern corrective hand.

238

20

But now, the end of punishment seemed near,
And spirits talked of blest participance
In life set free from pain and woe, and fear,—
While I beheld them in thronged groupes advance,
On journey bent to hear the utterance
Of their high manumission. Prankt the plain
Appeared with flowers of wild luxuriance
Of growth and deep intensity of stain;
But unto them no gloss nor perfume did pertain.

21

Their dyes seemed of such depth as dyes of flowers
At summer's even, when the garish sun
Hath set, and either human eyes new powers
Receive, bedazed no longer,—the air hath won
Strength to assist the optic nerve, or on
The flowers themselves sheds chemic particles
That deepen colours: thus they glowed, not shone:
A rich array of blossoms, buds, and bells,
So fragrant to the eye, Fancy supplied their smells.

22

And ever and anon some feminine form,—
For souls of men appeared not in my dream,—
Stooped to select some favourite from the swarm
Of floral beauties, and then wound the stem
Within her hair: others an anadem
Of varied blossoms wove, and, garlanded,
Discoursing rapturously of their high theme,
Smiling, across the pleasant pasture sped:—
Blythe sight it was to see, in soul-land of the Dead.

23

Nor unfamiliar seemed their faces fair,
Their names and deeds, unto the dream-rapt soul:
Though many a suicide of Eld was there:
Full many a virgin whom old bards extol
For spotless chastity, and of whose dole
They make sweet plaint: full many a loving wife
Of high heroic virtue that with cool
Resolve chose death by poison-cup or knife,
Or in the wave,—disdaining a dishonoured life.

239

24

And groupes passed by who fled from widowhood
Through love excessive for their bosoms' lords;
And throngs appeared that nobly shed their blood
In patriotic struggle, when the swords
Of tyrants slew their sons and sires, or hordes
Of foreign foes sought to pollute their homes;
And forms were there whom History records
For questionable deeds, or whom Truth dooms
To infamy,—though Fraud writ praises on their tombs.

25

From out a Roman groupe, methought, there passed
Into a daisied bye-path, matrons twain
Whose sable locks with hyacinths were graced.
To their dark eyes a fervour did pertain
That found its reflex in that sapphire stain:
Intensely truthful was their spirits' glow;
And, as mine joined them, on the green champaign,
I pondered deeply on their mortal throe,
And cause for which they did that death-pang undergo.

26

The twain were—Cato's daughter, Brutus' spouse—
Illustrious suicidal lineage!—
Whose death, so horridly courageous,
Old legends tell; and she who to assuage
Fear in her husband—by the tyrant's rage
Death-doomed—plunged to her heart the steel, and cried
‘It is not painful!’—smiling, while the pledge
So dread she gave of love. These, side by side,—
Porcia and Arria,

The suicides of Porcia,—by swallowing hot coals, when other means of self-destruction were placed beyond her reach; and of Arria, the wife of Pœtus, who was condemned to death, are familiar to almost every reader: the first is the subject of eloquent eulogy by Cicero, and the last is termed “the sublime” by Voltaire.

—o'er the plain, conversing hied.

27

“Say, sister spirit!”Cato's daughter spake,—
“Seems it not, now, to thee, but yesterday
We did great Rome, our glorious home, forsake,
To rush on death? Now they are passed away,
The ages of our pain, in mind's survey,
Seem nought; and yet, how drear in passing! Earth
Produceth self-same thought and feeling: they
Who sorrow reckon ages from the birth
Of woe; but say 'twas short, when tears are changed for mirth.”—

240

28

Arria replied: “Such are my thoughts of weal
“And woe on earth, my sister, and of joy
That doth the sorrows of our essence heal
In this strange afterstate, and mind upbuoy
With cheering faith that, henceforth, no alloy
Shall mingle with our bliss. Yet oft, our thought
Shall wander back, and memory shall employ
Her power to call up many an image fraught
With tenderness—earth-forms on which the soul will doat.

29

“Oh! never can the hours of youthful love
Cease to be precious, nor from memory fade,
Amid the highest rapture we may prove
Of that beatitude which shall pervade
Hades for ever!”—
“Nor shall aught upbraid
The heart,”—Porcia rejoined,—“for this its truth
“To what it chastely loved; but, rather, aid,
From sweet revisitings of joys of youth,
The spirit shall derive for its eternal growth.

30

“Ay, to the purest thoughts of Life's young spring
Oft shall the ever-growing soul return,
Drawn by the good each visit thence shall bring
To the advancing spirit—which shall yearn
For loftier good the further it is borne
From evil: thus our minds, boon sustenance
Deriving from the Past, and what we learn
Of noblest kindred's high inheritance
Of virtue, shall enlarge into a blest expanse.”—

31

“And dost thou think it shall be thus, indeed?”
Said Arria: “shall our essence still expand
“In bliss the more on virtue it doth feed,
On soft beneficence, and breathings bland
To bless,—much more than to be blest? How grand,
How glorious, then, is human nature!—frail
And puny though they termed it who had scanned,
Or thought they scanned, its strength. Oh, that Mind's veil
Some Power had rent while in its house terrestrial!”

241

32

“Not wholly secret, sister, was the true
Sublimity of Man,”—said Porcia;—“some
There were in every age and clime, though few,
Who taught that goodness, and not awe and gloom,
Must nurture the soul's bud until its bloom
Should be unfolded into noblest bliss:
The distant East, fair Greece, and our own Rome,
Possessed such sages,—though the Priest's device
Thwarted them evermore—with force, or artifice.

33

“Even in Earth's infancy a sage arose
In Orient far, who taught how purely blest
The spirit grew that could forgive its foes;
How happiness was won by scorn of rest
And ease, and choice of toil—to the distrest,
In body or in mind, to bring relief:
And after-sages did these truths attest:
Alas! too oft by violent death their brief
Love-toil was stayed: for Falsehood still held Man's belief!

34

“But who is this the wider way that leaves
To cross our path, as if she sought to speak
Of some glad birth her joyous soul conceives?—
Hail, Carthaginian sister!”—to the meek,
But fervid form,—Porcia spake on,—“thy cheek
“Intensely glows, the gentle fire o' th' heart
Revealing: say, what blissfulness dost seek
To tell, that thrills thee, now our penal smart
Is past? Haste, blythesome one, thy joy-thought to impart!”

35

“By sympathy, I knew that your discourse
Was of the power of Goodness, and I yearned
To hear ye its blest eulogy rehearse,”—
Answer the wife of Asdrubal returned:—
For she it was:—the same who nobly scorned
To join her craven lord in traitorous flight
To Scipio, and with her two children burned
Within the sacred pyre herself did light,
'Mid the beleaguered city, in the Roman's sight.

The story of the wife of Asdrubal, who cursed the treason of her husband, and then threw herself, with her children, into the flames of the temple of Æsculapius, which she had set on fire, is well known to all readers of Roman history.

—

242

36

“Oh! well mayst thou the theme of gentleness
Desire to list, ”—said Arria,—“for thy clime
“Bruised by our sires' ambition 'neath excess
Of humbled suffering sank; and though sublime
Was thy death-deed, it was fell War's great crime
That drove thee to that act.”—
“But, now 'tis past,”
Rejoined the Carthaginian,—“to o'erbrim
“Joy's cup it seems that, though your sires laid waste
My own loved fatherland, my heart hath ye embraced.”—

37

“And, sister, in our hearts we thee embrace,”
Said Porcia,—“and partake thy bosom's thrill:
“So blest is goodness that it can efface
All baneful hatreds,—yea doth sweetly fill
The soul with rapture, that no more the will
Is anger's slave,—and spite can tribulate
The mind no more—that self-tormenting ill!
For we of misery, in our earthly state,
Knew no more vulturous torture than relentless hate.”—

38

“Sad and blythe truths thy soul hath mingled,” said
The virtuous African; “and 'tis most strange
“In man's strange chronicle, that, though he bled,
He coaxed this vulture of the heart:—‘Revenge
Is sweet’—he madly cried! O blissful change,
That, now, he feels 'tis sweeter to forgive!
Still happier—that no ill shall disarrange
The harmony in which all life shall live
Henceforth—but bliss of higher bliss be nutritive.

39

“How oft the soul revolted, while on earth,
Against the ill that did her powers enslave!
How oft she fled-from gloom to think on mirth,
Feeling it was her birthright, though some knave,
In sanctimonious guise, upon the grave
Would teach her still to ponder, and abjure
All joy! How oft, in spite of wrongs, she clave
Unto the nobleness of love—the pure
Delight of showing that though wronged we can endure

243

40

“The wrong, and still forgive, and still endure!
How oft, in spite of all misteachings, Mind,
Irked by revenge, turned to the cynosure
Of Gentleness, and for its pleasure pined!
'Twas Nature's truthful impulse!—so thy blind
But cheerful face she teacheth fealty
Unto the sun, on earth!”—
She stooped, and twined
A glowing marigold, full tastefully,
Within her hair; then onward went, with modest glee.—

41

And still the descant was pursued, till two
More sister-spirits crossed the pasture-plain,
And sought with these the descant to pursue:
The chaste Sophronia, who dishonour's stain
To escape, fled, by her husband's will, self-slain,
The lust-blight of Maxentius;

“The virtuous matron, who stabbed herself to escape the violence of Maxentius, was a Christian, wife to the preæfect of the city, and her name was Sophronia. It still remains a question among the Casuists, whether on such occasions suicide is justifiable.”—Gibbon:note to chap. xiv.

and with her
That famous Jewess whom old Rabbins vain
For wisdom praise,—Baruna, wife of Meir,—
Of deep Talmudic lore the fair interpreter.

Basnage, “Histoire des Juifs,” or the Appendix to Jahn's “Hebrew Commonwealth,” (collected from the voluminous work of Basnage), may be referred to for a brief narrafive of this suicide.

42

“Our Teacher taught us to forgive,”—the chaste
Sophronia said;—“but, sister fair, the Law
“Of old thy fathers reverenced nurtured haste
For vengeance: our new joys for thee must flow
With tenfold sweetness,”—
“Christian, though I know
“Thou speakest sooth,” Baruna said,— “too well
“I also know, that few forgave a foe
Who owned thy Teacher, and were loud to tell
How far he did in wisdom all the Wise excel.

43

“I own that much was noble in thy faith;
But, like all other faiths,—alas! 'twas made
Subservient unto tyrant Power and Wrath,
And grew, with lapse of time, a cunning trade
Whereby the priest could pompously parade
In gold and grandeur, while his lessons told
Of meekest lowliness; and he could wade
In human blood, ungainsayed, uncontrolled,
Preaching of mercy and of goodness manifold!

244

44

“What horrors have my race endured throughout
All lands called Christian, from the men called meek
And merciful! Who did the Jew belowt
And scorn and spit upon, and on the cheek
Smite fierceliest, was deemed, by all, to seek
Salvation zealously, and was upheld
Worthiest of imitation. So to the sneak
Into dim dens my race were driven: filth-celled
They lived: vile things from human fellowship expelled.

45

“Nor in their squalidness was refuge found
From Christian mercy: ‘Witchcraft!—Gold!’ outcried
The plundering knave whose spotless robe around
Him did proclaim his office was to chide
And not to cheer Man's thirst for homicide:
Then was the shrunk Jew rackt, and to the flame
Condemned, or, like thy Teacher, crucified,
If he refused the secret hoard to name
He never had possessed! Such was their Christian game!

46

“I need not tell of Spain's black ‘Brotherhood’
Of murder, yclept ‘Holy,’—nor recal
To mind the wolvish bands whose thirst for blood
Jew-slaughter could not slake,—who fed on all
That bore the name of Man, if one their thrall
Resisted, or but murmured at their sway:—
'Tis past! No more their horrors shall appal
The feeble, nor afflict the strong: away
Their shapes are faded: who would wake them from decay?

47

“Be ours the theme more welcome, sisters mine,
To picture the blest future and prepare
Our spirits for the rest—the rest divine
The persecuted, hence, shall ever share
Even with their persecutors: for the slayer
Shall with his victims join—to slay no more!
The lion with the lamb shall make his lair!
Rude, they were termed—yet, my sires' faith, of yore,
The curtain of man's future bliss asunder tore:

245

48

“Amid their sterile mountains, Judah's bards
Saw holier visions of Earth's coming glory
Than all the minstrels who the world's awards
Of honour won, chaunting of warriors gory
And lauding as sublime Fame's transitory
Triumphs. List, sisters, to that choral strain!
How like the raptures of prophetic story
It swells!”
Heart's-ease she plucked, and did retain;
But, to the Christian gave a lily without stain.

49

And then the happy sister sprites joined hands,
And sped, a silent yet ecstatic throng,
Their flower-bespangled way; while distant bands
Of cheery travellers did this strain prolong
Till gladsome thousands swelled the choral song:—
‘Farewell for ever to the reign of gloom,
‘Of human suffering, agony, and wrong!
‘Welcome, for Earth, her new and happy doom!
‘Welcome, for franchised spirits, Hades' blissful home!

50

‘Farewell for ever to the darksome reign
‘Of Fear and Hate, Revenge and Tyranny!
‘How blest, that Hades shall be free from pain!
‘How blest that children upon earth shall be
‘No more taught malice on their mother's knee;
‘But love for foes—till foes are no more found!
‘Farewell to Earth's old evil revelry
‘Of war and bloodshed! Every brother's wound
‘Shall now be healed; and peace, and love and joy abound!’

51

Beneath the mound, into the sculptured aisle,
Trooping, with glee, I saw the thousands wend,
Still pealing hymns of joy that their exile
Was changed from woe to bliss, and that the end
Of all Life's evils blest signs did portend
On earth, and thorough Hades' ghostly clime!—
But I surceased the theme to apprehend:
The prison-bell, with its harsh grating chime,
Rewoke me in the dreary den of crime-made crime.

247

BOOK THE TENTH.

1

Hail, holiest Liberty! who hast thy shrine
Deep in the faithful patriot's soul recessed,—
Diffusing from thy visage light divine
That glads the dungeon's gloom and drear unrest,
Until it beams with visions overblest
Of Right triumphant over hoary Wrong,
And Truth victorious over Fraud confest,
And new-born nations joining choral song
O'er earth—become one temple for thy brother-throng!

2

Hail, sun-bright Liberty! Life-source of Truth,
Without whom Knowledge waxeth sere, and falls
Into her dotage; while with lusty youth
Thou sinewest Reason till she disenthrals
Her essence of Time's dreams, nor basely crawls
At eld Authority's decrepid feet;
But calmly to the toil of search upcalls
Her vigour, and full soon each plausive cheat
Detects, and winnoweth Folly's chaff from Wisdom's wheat.

3

Thou great palladium of the moral man,
If thee by sloth self-treasonous Man doth lose,—
Or foiled by force, or duped by charlatan,—
How soon the serfish spirit doth diffuse
Its influence through blood, and bones, and thews,
Until his very form, his brow, his look,
Forfeit their grandeur, and each gesture shows,
Ere the low whine follows his lord's rebuke,
What depth of insult, now, his slavish soul can brook!

248

4

But, garbed in humblest gear, if his birthright
Be yet unbartered, unpurloined, unstained;
If still his forehead bear thy sigil bright;
How noble is Man's mien, how unconstrained
He stands a witness for the truth, unfeigned,
Or champion for the right, o'erawing kings
And lordly powers, who feel as if arraigned
Before their culprit; and with homagings
Are fain to bow, and own themselves but meaner things.

5

With dignity so godlike, stood the sage
Of Abdera, at Nicocreon's throne,
Foiling the Cyprian tyrant in his rage:

Anaxarchus. the follower of Democritus, who, when the tyrant of Cyprus threatened to cut out his tongue, bit it off, and spat it at the despot.—See Diogenes Laertius, or Stanley's or Enfield's Hist. of Philosophy. Galgacus and Wallace are, of course, alluded to in the following lines of the stanza.

So stood the Caledonian captive one,
Grand in his chains,—and from the Roman throne,
Constrained regard: so gazed, with brow unblent,
On vengeful Edward, Scotia's later son:
So, while base Gesler shook, magnificent,
Stood Tell the peerless peasant, in his hardiment.

6

Or what if Death, with grisliest terrors, scowl
On thy brave offspring?—They can gaze and smile!
So, in our age of grandest men, with soul
Unpierced, that spirit universatile,
Untiring Raleigh, at the axe could smile,
Passing his finger calmly o'er the edge,
And cleping it a medicine sharp, the while,
But most remedial sickness to assuage,—
Conscious Death could not mar his fame's high heritage.

7

So smiled our bravest, truest, martyred sire,
Fell Superstition's victim, who could cheer,
With heart that veritably quelled the fire,
His brother sufferer, and more frail compeer,—
Breathing those death-words that will fill the ear,
And thew the heart of England, through all time,
Until her children a mind-rampart rear
Shall foil the Jesuit's craft, and save our clime
From witnessing, again, the Priest's bold deeds of crime.

249

8

So smiled thy own, thy darling champion,
A true-born Briton names not without pride
That thrills the soul—our noble Algernon,
Who gloried at the scaffold that he died
For thine—the Good Old Cause,—nor falsified
The promise of his youth. When, from thy womb,
My country! shall such men be multiplied?
O Liberty! o'er England's germs resume
Thy quickening power,—or wake our fathers from the tomb!

9

We are become a servile sordid crew:
The grandeur of our lineage is forgot:
We crawl as if nor peer nor franklin knew
His fathers walked erect, and parleyed not
With Patience ere their swords the tyrant smote,
Or humbled him to meekness: we ne'er turn
Unto the page where their great deeds are wrote,
And read, and ponder, till our bosoms burn
To think the yoke they spurned, so long our necks have worn!

10

Our men of promise are a recreant horde:
Even he who bears that glorious patriot name
For which the friend of Sydney a record,
Gold-writ, hath won on England's roll of fame,
Starts, like an actor who hath oped the drame,
Back from his part, afeard to play it through!
And he, the golden-tongued,—a thing of shame
Made by his whims,—to self—respect untrue,—
What will he next?—the spaniel of old Waterloo?

11

Oh! haste to hide thee in the charnel grave,
Thou Harlequin-Demosthenes!—ere change
Shall leave thee not a semblant speck to save
Of that rich monument which thou, with strange
Fatuity, hast toiled to disarrange
As hotly as to carve! Give up thy strife
To mar it more; and list the White's revenge,
Friend of the Black! 'Twill cleave to thee through life—
The ‘Bastile’-curse—from Man severed from child and wife!

250

12

Arch-Traitor to thy kind! Scourge of the Poor!
A word from thee had dashed their poison-cup
To atoms; but thou, wantonly, didst more
Prefer to their lean lips to hold it up!
Ay, wast to thine own vanity the dupe
So fully, as to claim that thou shouldst bear
The dread weight of the crime! Would thou mightst sup
For ages of that chalice! ‘Bastile’-fare,
Perchance, a medicine were thy reason to repair.

13

Beshrew thy heart! but it was bold, as well
As villanous,—responsibility
To court—so foully, darkly damnable!
Head-robber of the savage band to be
Should perpetrate on human misery
A theft so daring as would make recoil
The sternest heart of ancient Tyranny!—
Of Nature's rights the hapless wretch to spoil—
Who hath no bread, because his lords refuse him toil.

14

And dost thou, scouted changeling! madly dream
This lawless law will save ‘their lordships land’?
Or, that to gaol and eunuch men the stream
Of discontent can stop; and Misery's band
Convert to sneaking slaves lords may command
At will? As surely as thy head grows gray
In this thy monstrous sin,—if not by brand,
By mightier means, the Poor will win their way
To right,—and shout when worms hold riot in thy clay!

15

Oh! not by changeling, tyrant, tool, or knave,
Thy march, blest Liberty! can now be stayed:
The wand of Guttemberg—behold it wave!
The spell is burst!—the dark enchantments fade
Of wrinkled Ignorance! 'Twas she betrayed
Thy first-born children; and so oft threw down
The mounds of freedom. Lo! the Book its aid
Hath brought! The feudal serf—though still a clown,
Doth read; and, where his sires gave homage, pays—a frown!

251

16

The sinewy artizan, the weaver lean,
The shrunken stockinger, the miner swarth,
Read, think, and feel; and in their eyes the sheen
Of burning thought betokens thy young birth
Within their souls, blythe Liberty! That earth
Would thus be kindled from the humble spark
Ye caught from him of Mentz, and scattered forth,
Faust,—Koster,—Caxton!—not ‘the clerk,’
Himself could prophesy in your own mid-age dark!

17

And yet, O Liberty! these humble toilers
The true foundation for thy reign begun.
Ay, and while throne-craft decks man's murderous spoilers
While feverous Power mocks the weary sun
With steed-throned effigies of Wellington,
And columned piles to Nelson,—Labour's child
Turns from their haughty forms, to muse upon
The page by their blood-chronicle defiled;
Then, bending o'er his toil, weighs well the record wild.

18

Ay, they are thinking, at the frame and loom;
At bench, and forge, and in the bowelled mine;
And when the scanty hour of rest is come,
Again they read—to think, and to divine
How it hath come to pass that Toil must pine
While Sloth doth revel: how the game of blood
Hath served their tyrants; how the scheme malign
Of priests hath crushed them; and resolve doth bud
To band, and to bring back the primal Brotherhood.

19

What though, a while, the braggart-tongued poltroon,
False demagogue, or hirling base, impede
The union they affect to aid? Right soon
Deep thought to such ‘conspiracy’ shall lead
As will result in a successful deed—
Not forceful, but fraternal: for the Past
Hath warned the Million that they must succeed
By will—and not by war. Yet, to hold fast
Men's rage when they are starving—'tis a struggle vast!

252

20

A struggle that were vain, unless the Book
Had kindled light within the Toiler's soul,
And taught him though 'tis difficult to brook
Contempt with hunger,—yet he must control
Revenge, or it will leave him more a thrall:
The pike, the brand, the blaze—his lesson saith,
Would leave Old England as they have left Gaul—
Bondaged to sceptred Cunning. Thus their wrath
The million quell—but look for right with firmest faith.

21

Oh! might I see that triumph ere I die—
The poor, oppressed, contemned, and hungered throng
Hold festival for Labour's victory
O'er Mammon, Pride, and Sloth; for Right o'er Wrong;
Oh! might I hear them swell the choral song—
‘The Toiler's Rights are won! our Fatherland
‘Is fully free!’—with joy to rest among
The solemn dead, at Nature's high command,
I'd haste, not ask to stay the speed of one life-sand!

22

Nor selfish is the wish,—however vain;
From boyhood, Greece, and our old Commonweal
I worshipped; but 'twas gnawing hunger's pain
I saw your lank and fainting forms reveal—
Poor trampled stockingers!—that made me feel
'Twas time to be in earnest, nor regard
Man's freedom merely as a theme for zeal
In hours of emulous converse, or for bard
Weaving rapt fancies in pursuit of Fame's reward.

23

I threw me in the gap—defying scorn,
Threats, hatred, poisonous tongues—to front your foes;
And this hath come of it,—that I have worn
The fetters for your sake. Yet, now the close
Of this captivity is near, no throes
Of anger, sorrow, or regret, are mine
For aught that I have suffered; but your woes—
Poor victims! who by grinding tricksters pine,—
Breed thoughts that with my hopes their tortures intertwine.

253

24

I would review my course,—that so I may
Shun, for the future, aught unwise, unjust,
Untrue to Freedom, if my rugged way
I sometimes trod—like other things of dust—
In error. Inly can I look, and trust
My heart's clear witness, that I never swerved
To wilful wrong. Yet thy demands august,
Great Truth! I here obey, with spirit nerved
By deep reflection—healthful aid but ill preserved

25

To him who mixeth with the whirl and rage
Of popular commotion. Here I hold
Thy mirror to my soul, and deeply pledge
My heart it shall by clamour be controlled
No more to thread the mazes manifold
Of crookt Expediency,—nor through ill haste
To end the Toiler's woe, to leave the bold
And simple path be led: union unchaste
With Faction will I shun—taught by the erring Past.

26

Here, then, O holiest Liberty! my heart
I lay upon thine altar,—undismayed,
Unswerving, unsubdued: the afterpart
Of life it aims to play with healthier aid
Of wisdom,—but no guilty thoughts upbraid:
It asks but to be kept from sordid stain
As free as now: let consciousness pervade
Each pulse through life that still by gold or gain
Unbought it beats; and it shall shun no toil, no pain.

27

O welcome, even if its blood be shed
For thee, blest Freedom!—only keep it pure!
Welcome the living death more deeply dread
Of calumny, by evil shapes obscure
That haunt the patriot darkling, and secure
From Truth's Ithuriel spear, their poisons vend:
Welcome, that keenest heart-ache—forfeiture
Of friendship true: welcome, all pangs that rend
The heart—if pure unto the grave it may descend!

254

28

Night's shadows gather once more in the sky,
Tombing another day of thraldom's term,
And leaving few more days to fortify
The heart so that it freedom meet with firm
And peaceful throb. What mingled feelings germ
Within me,—what quick hosts of battling thought!
Will, then, the world assume some new-born charm?
And shall I feel, in it with change deep-fraught,
As if I had been dead, and were to life new-brought?

29

Ah! soon it will appear the same poor vale
Of tears; and soon my journey through its gloom
Or radiance will be o'er. Let me not fail
To keep my soul's resolve; and then unwomb
What will, ere I attain my final doom,
Right blythely will I on!—yea, meet grim Death
Himself in peace: for what viaticum
Need we, if Death be unto Life the path,
But truthfulness of heart?—is it not more than faith?

30

And, if the grave indeed hath nought beyond
Its cold confine, of thought, or joy, or love;
If there we bid farewell unto the fond
Cleavings o' the heart, for ever, and shall prove
No more what rapture 'tis when hearts commove
With mutual tenderness—
I will pursue
That theme no more. This love of life enwove
Within me, Death itself may yet subdue;
But, while I live 'twill burn its being to renew!

31

I dreamt again,—but 'twas a gladsome dream;
A dream of portents beatifical:
A dream where the prophetic brain did teem
With glorious visions of high festival
In sculptured aisle, and dome, and rainbowed hall:
A festival of Brotherhood and Mind
By suicidal spirits held, from thrall
Of Evil freed; and mystically designed
To adumbrate future bliss for Earth and humankind.

255

32

As where the way to some hoar fane of Nile—
Carnac, or Luxor, or far Ibsamboul—
Lay through an imaged path for many a mile,
Of sphinxes huge or lions, so that lull
With abject awe and fitted for the rule
Of priests the worshipper approached,—thus seemed
The aisle fit path to fill with beautiful
Expectancies the ghostly throng that streamed
Along its wilderness of sculptures, as I dreamed.

33

And when the dome we raught, felicity
Of hope ripened to rapturous overbliss
With what the spiritual sense did hear and see
Beneath that span colossal: Music's voice
A sweetness gushed fit to emparadise
The plastic forms of wisdom and of worth
That there in mystic apotheosis
Of statued life reposed: forms of old Earth
They were—the best, the noblest children of her birth.

34

Range above range rose many-fashioned niche,
A caverned space as wonderful and vast
As that weird city which few travellers reach—
Idumæan Petra, in the dangerous waste;

For a description of Petra,—the city in the rock,—the capital of Idumea, or the kingdom of Edom,—see the travels of Stephens the American. The description of this mysterious relic of the Past, can never be forgotten when once read.

And in such order were the worthies placed
That they, though mute, the world's progressive story
Of spirit-toil revealed, from first to last;
And how the spark, first caught by sages hoary
From Nature's fire, Mind nurtured to a flame of glory.

35

From ancient Orient to the late-born West
Bard, thinker, devotee of enterprise,
Philanthropist and patriot, soul of quest
For Nature's secrets, child in whose rapt eyes
She glows so lovely that his spirit plies
Its powers to imitate her forms—the gems
From Earth's clay gathered—in immortal guise
Seemed there enshrined: toilers whose very names
Shed splendour more ineffable than diadems.

256

36

A bright Pantheon of the Meek, the Good,
The Free, the Tireless, and the truly Great,
It was: a mansion of soul-sanctitude
That held the visitant spirit in a state
Of ecstasied entrancement—all-elate
With love and wonder, and yet hushed with awe:
And Mind seemed sounds symphonious to create
That heightened bliss, pondering on what it saw,—
So that our thoughts germed music, by some unknown law.

37

Anon, this minstrelsy so wondrous ceased;
And, with a groupe of spirits who stood nigh,
Gazing as if they would for ever feast
On what they saw, yet never satisfy
Their yearning souls, forthwith, methought, that I
Became consociate,—hearing how they spoke
Their glowing thoughts, by numbers that swept by
Still undistract, and still with sateless look
Scanning the sculptures as they were a priceless book.

38

Of widely scattered nations were these ghosts,
And widely spoken names:—for nought was sealed,
In this most vivid dream, of all the hosts
That Phantasy surveyed. First, was revealed
He who in Athens to himself beheld
Three hundred statues raised,—Demetrius
Phalereus,—whom the sieging king expelled,
And unto vessels for the vilest use
The statues turned,—deeming their loved shapes dangerous.

The suicide of Demetrius Phalereus. driven from Athens by Demetrius Πολιορκητης (or the City-sieger), is related by Diogenes Laertius and others.

39

Exalted forms of ever-glorious Greece
Were magnets to his eyes: her Poet-choir
Divine,—where Homer, with the love increase
Of time had fostered for the peerless sire
Of song in the world's heart, sat crowned,—the fire
Of soul, wanting its natural mirror, gleaming
Throughout his sightless face: sons of the lyre
Around, beneath him, sculptured stood, each seeming
With awe to mark the splendour from his bald brow beaming.

257

40

On these the Athenian gazed, and on the throng
Of god-like labourers for all human weal.
There lowly Socrates—the loftiest 'mong
The band fraternal—less by fervid zeal
Than by his lowliness seemed to excel
The excelling throng. Neither on patriot shapes
With less love did he gaze: names that to tell
Make monarchs quake, in spite of Time's long lapse:
For still some slave, who hears, from their hard yoke escapes.

41

Fast by Demetrius stood a ghostly form
Of later times, and of less peaceful deed:—
Berthier,—the favourite of that Bird of Storm,
The ravening Gallic eagle,—whose fierce greed
Ceasing to aid, praise for defection bred
Remorse so torturous in his soul, he spurned
The thought of life, and from its torment fled.

Marshal Berthier's suicide occurred under the following circum stances:—One of the German sovereigns, at whose court he was,if I recollect aright, was blaming the defection of Ney and others from the cause of the Bourbons, at Napoleon's return from Elba, and took occasion to compliment Berthier on his firmness in resisting a temptation natural to one who had been the bosom friend of Buonaparte. Berthier took the compliment so self-reproachfully to heart, that he withdrew to his chamber, threw himself from a window, and was taken up dead.

With throes remorseful he no longer burned,
But, with the Athenian, o'er those shapes of virtue yearned.

42

For though full many a sage philanthropist,
High orator, and bard of comely France
Were statued there, with emblems due deviced
Their excellence proclaiming, yet the glance
Of the war-wearied Frenchman, whose romance
For his gay, glory-stricken land was gone,
On Hellene forms made sweeter tarriance.—
Like preference shared the spirit of Wolf Tone,
That by him I saw stand,—Hibernia's patriot son.

43

Yet, in his country's Grattan, in the face
Of brave Fitzgerald, and the generous brow
Of fated Emmett, did the Hibernian trace
Features that stirred the warm fraternal flow
Within his essence and dispread the glow
Of rapture o'er his visage. Paramount
In virtue, still, he deemed that glorious show
Of Greeks, and did the patriot deeds recount
Of Hellas,—vaunting her true Glory's primal fount.

258

44

One stately form there was who on late men
Stood in absorbed gaze,—strange thoughts of home,
And change, and Wrong that made the world a den
Of lawless beasts, revolving, till a gloom
Curtained his brow. Yet, joy 'gan, soon, relume,
With radiance visible, his new-born soul.—
The spirit of imperial Montezume
It was: that victim of ambition foul,
Whose regal heart disdained the Spaniard's base control.

“The unhappy monarch now perceived how low he was sunk, and the haughty spirit, which seemed to have been so long extinct, returning, he scorned to survive this last humiliation, and to protract an ignominious life, not only as the prisoner and tool of his enemies, but as the object of contempt or detestation among his subjects. In a transport of rage he tore the bandages from his wounds, and refused, with such obstinacy, to take any nourishment, that he soon ended his wretched days, rejecting, with disdain, all the solicitations of the Spaniards to embrace the Christian faith.”—Robertson's Hist. of America,—Book V.

45

Most wistfully he scann'd the intrepid calm
That in the eye of great Columbus dwelt,
Till sighs broke forth; and though a healing balm
Las Casas' love-look o'er his essence dealt,
'Twas but a pause unto the grief he felt
For his lost race; and he had wailed aloud,
But that his wild eye alighted where he knelt
In soul, and owned the majesty that glowed
In Washington's benignly grand similitude.

46

Last of the groupe the patriot Shades I saw
Of Romilly and Whitbread,—whose rapt gaze
America's great son seemed oft to draw
Aside from Alfred—for like glorious rays
That did even disembodied vision daze,
Streamed from the sculptures of the civic chief
And diademed philanthropist: their praise
They told, and would have mourned the sojourn brief
Of such blest forms on earth; but rapture banished grief!—

47

“The glorious toil is o'er, my brother!”—spake
The soul of Romilly,—while with the intense
Joy of beneficence he seemed to quake;—
“The glorious toil is o'er!—blest prevalence
Mercy hath won: the evil effluence
Of blood by brethren shed glad Earth shall see
No more! Against the grim armipotence
Of Anger, Hate, Revenge, and Cruelty,
The toil was hard; but from their blight all Life is free!

259

48

“Who would have said, but they who felt her power,
Before the still small voice of Gentleness
The great ones of the Earth should one day cower,
And kings her true divinity confess;
The battle-field be green and thunderless;
The scaffold and the gibbet disappear;
The dungeon vanish: and, no more, distress,
Hunger, and discontent raise troublous fear
Of violence fell, and knit the ruler's brow austere?”——

49

“Yet, this is her triumphant marvel-work!”—
Said Whitbread's spirit:—““'twas her genial breath
“Nourished most healthfully the deathless spark
Of Freedom, when the streams of blood which wrath
Had shed half-quenched it, and men's hope and faith
In Liberty was changed to dread, and they
With tears of hushed despair sighed that the path
Of Thraldom must be trod—thinking the sway
Of Sceptres better than the howl of wolves of prey.”—

50

“Brother, thy thoughts are of my fatherland,”—
Said Berthier;—“and if this our new-born joy
“Did not the phantasms of Earth's wrong disband,
Great grief were mine. But this doth still destroy
The spectrous visitings which would annoy
My spirit—that although the strife for Right
Was urged by advocates who did employ
Wrong's weapons in their overzeal,—the might
Of Truth, at length, hath made her victress in the fight.

51

“'Twas long and toilful; and, in every clime,
Too oft in error did her champions ease
Seek by the sword. The register of Time
Is a dark volume; and what soul that sees
His autograph in characters that please
His conscience throughly, on the record writ?
That all is well at last, may well appease
The self-accusing shapes which still would flit
Through memory, and loathe their long-known haunts to quit.

260

52

“Our penal throes are ended here: Earth's sorrow,
From war and violence, hatred and revenge,
Is past. For ever, therefore, let us borrow
Help from such thoughts our spirits to estrange
Still more and more from woe!”—
“This joyous change
May well absorb our thought,”—the Shade began
Of noble Montezuma,—“yet to range
“Her youthful haunts the soul can scarce refrain:
Bliss hath not changed us into things marmorean.

53

“Love for dear Mexico and my crushed race,
Trampled by haughty Cortez and his crew,
Eternity itself cannot efface
Within my essence; nor regret subdue
That Fate should thus relentlessly pursue
One hapless people, and their glory sweep
Into oblivion. While I with ye view
These glorious forms, how can I fail to weep
That my sires' deeds of worth are lost in darkness deep?

54

“What am I but the shadow of a name?
My people's virtues, glory, arts, unknown:
Hurled by their conquerors to barbarian shame.
Though they deserved it not—but might have shone
Among the nations, had not Spain's dark frown
Of pride and cruelty spread woe and waste
Where'er it fell, blighting the happy zone
Our fathers' sons long held, their daughters graced:
Oh no! I cannot tear from memory all the Past!

55

“Natheless, my brothers, I with ye rejoice
That after Earth's long ages of dispute,
Conquest and blood, the gentle, healing voice
Of Goodness doth prevail. Murders pollute
My ancient clime no more; and, though the foot
Of strangers treads upon our fathers' dust,
Since they have learned to live like brothers, mute
The Mexican shall be of wrongs that thrust
His people from the soil: deeds bloody and unjust.

261

56

“No image of my fathers I behold
Among these forms of worth, on which to doat
With fond affection; but the heart is cold
Whose joys are all with selfish yearning fraught:
My heart doth swell with love towards all who wrought
Out liberty and peace and brotherhood
For poor Humanity, by toilful thought,
Through suffering and through scorn. As with a flood
Of grateful love it swells for all the Great and Good!”—

57

“Nobly thou hast discharged thy generous soul,”—
The Hibernian spirit said:—“Mind cannot lose
“All impress of the Past,—cannot control
Her frequent wish to roam where early vows
Were made to Truth and Freedom—shapes that rouse
The antagonistic phantasies of Fraud
And Tyranny. Nor should the soul accuse
Herself for ire at wrong: 'twere vile to laud
That which is evil: it demands our censure broad.

58

“Less were an error; but to pass beyond
An upright indignation were to bring
Back on our souls self-torment, and surround
Our essences again with suffering.
The memory of wrong, now that the sting
Of base revenge is drawn, shall minister
To higher bliss—to sweeter revelling
In joy; for it shall be the harbinger
Unto the heart's sweet sense—Forgiveness triumphs there!

59

“If on the fateful Past thou lookst to grieve,
How much more might I utter mournful plaint
For Erin's woe? Spirit! it should relieve
Thy soul that sword and torture did attaint
The lives of thy sires' race. Better than faint,
And pine, and howl, and curse their tyrant lords
For ages, and still feel a strange constraint
To live and multiply mean serfish hordes!
Such woes my memory of her fatherland records.

262

60

“Thy race by death were happily set free
From their tormentors: mine remained to gnash
Their teeth, in rags and hunger,—yet to see
Their conquerors revel; to behold each flash
Of freedom fail, and by its failure dash
Their hopes to deep despair; to glow and burn
Again with patriot ire,—and yet by rash
Outbreak to plunge in hopeless horror. Turn
And look on thy lost race, spirit, to triumph; not to mourn!”

61

“My brother spirits!”—said the Athenian ghost,—
“This theme to me were fruitful of regret,
If, 'mid these glories, I could be engrossed
With tristful thoughts. Did not the tyrant fret
The limbs of Hellas with the chain? Forget
Ye that the mother-land of Freedom wore
The gyves of Slavery vile, for ages? Let
That mournful thought lead ye to mourn no more
For aught your brethren suffered in the days of yore.

62

“Save her few mountain-fastnesses, old earth
Has not a spot where men the tyrant-yoke
Of brother-men have never borne. Let mirth—
High, holy, blissful mirth in us be woke
That world-wide bondage is for ever broke,
And free souls fill the universe. Not sadness
Should rise while back upon the Past we look;
But grateful joy that Man's career of madness
Hath wise fruition—age-long woe doth end in gladness.

63

“Still let us drink with ecstasy and wonder,
As at a living fountain, lessons sweet
While on the lofty lineaments we ponder
Of all Earth's Great and Good; and still repeat
This precious thought—that we our brethren greet
In these bright shapes. What their meek souls attained
Of lofty purpose, patient power to treat
Their foes with gentleness; what height they gained
Of mental grandeur; how by charm of meekness reigned

263

64

“O'er fiercest natures, and their rage subdued;
How persevering love won even the foes
Who thirsted for their blood to doff their rude
And murderous frowns, and smilingly disclose
The heart's regenerate kindness; how the throes
Of pain they conquered, and, triumphing, hurled
Thraldom, revenge, hate, envy, all Man's woes,
For ever, from the groaning, bleeding world;
And over sea and strand the gonfalon unfurled

65

“Of Truth and Love, Knowledge and Gentleness:
All their eternal triumphs we may share
In this exultant thought—the fair impress
Of our humanity they meekly wear,
And of their glory we are, each, the heir—
For our own brethren's heritage to us
Belongs. Brothers, be blythe, be debonair!
And let our happiest thoughts the reins give loose
While on these brother-forms we gaze, so luminous!”—

66

Such hortatives sad broddings to dispel,
And revel to the full in their new joys,
The Athenian uttered; and a blythe farewell,
Methought, they, forthwith, bade to all alloys
Of happiness; and yet no overpoise
Their spirits felt: their joy was fraught with high
And eloquent descant that became the Wise,
The Noble, and the Good: nor did they vie
In speech; but held discourse shorn of earth's vanity.—

67

Anon, woke thrilling sounds omnipotent,
On earth, to null all thoughts but such as sprung
Up armëd in the brain while forth was sent
The trumpet's peal,—but such as sought a tongue,
Yet found it not, while horn and harp notes clung
Unto each other's sweetness,—or the heart
Melted to faintness, with rapt wailings wrung
Of hautboy and bassoon. Such prelude, thwart
The dome resounding, seemed known signal to depart.

264

68

Soon, blent these brothers were with throngs that now
Flocked onward where, beyond the vault's vast span,
I saw revealed a dazzling heaven-dight bow,
Grand beyond likeness, and by wondrous plan
Unto the hall with roof cerulean
Serving for gate-way arch. Thither to speed,
With uplift gaze, the spirit-crowd began,—
While to the prelude movements did succeed
Of all superbest sounds the mind devours with greed.

69

Now, full-pulsed tympanum and deep-toned string
Proclaimed dense myriads marching with the step
Of stately joy to some vast gathering;
While, ever and anon, the trill and sweep
Of flutes and viols caused the heart to leap
With foretaste of its banquet. Mind hath known.
Ne'er in its house of clay, rapture so deep
From Handel's giant pomps on organ blown,
While 'long cathedral aisles some pageant proud was strown.

70

Beneath the wondrous arch of heavenly sheen,
I passed into the hall, when—lo! no more
Monarchal thrones and monster shapes were seen
Within; but, from the middle of its floor
Immense, shelved gently upward countless store
Of sculptured seats extending to the bound
Of that ellipsis vast; and wisest lore
By plastic art into each seat seemed wound—
So that the mind read deepest lessons all around.

71

And, on the rim of the ellipse, where, erst,
Wild shapes reared irkingly, as if
To prop the rainbowed roof, in dread 'twould burst
Upon their heads, stood images of life,
Bright as the sun, their countenances rife
With blended beauty, intellect, and love:
Fair plumëd wings they had; but 'twas a strife
For mind to judge what it did best behove
To say they were—such grace seemed in their forms enwove.

265

72

And, as the myriad multitude swarmed in,
Filling the spacious amphitheatre,
In spirit-whispers some of seraphin
And some of genii talked, and guessed these were
Such mystic essences. Interpreter
None needed long; the soul 'gan soon perceive
They were her own creations, which the stir
Of glorious brother-thoughts had power to enweave
To sensuous shapes—as if they did to sight upheave.

73

With visages as bright, with looks as blest
As kindly and intelligent, all beamed
And smiled upon each other, while their rest
They took upon the graven seats. None deemed
Himself nobler than others: none esteemed
His brother meanly: pride, and rank, and state
Had vanished; and, all equal, as beseemed
A brother-throng, together Essence sate,
In love, of humblest citizen and potentate.

74

Aloft, o'er all, the roof with splendour hued
Of bows celestial still was self-suspended,
The regal forms whose blazoned pomp I viewed
In earlier dreams, now sat with sages blended—
Uncrowned, unsceptered, all their haught looks ended—
With bards, and workers-out of human weal,
And patriots who in lofty deed transcended
Their earthly fellows. Ghosts of erring zeal
For faiths fantastic, creeds incomprehensible,

75

And cruel idol-worships, whom I saw
Climbing the Mount of Vanity; the wild
Lone dweller in the cave, whose rage with awe
I witnessed 'mong his snakes; the Poet-child
With his lamenting harp, who wept, exiled
To forest-solitude; the tuneful choir
Of bards who walked the grove; the band who toiled,
For aye, to kindle the fierce fatal fire
Of soul wherewith France lit the devastating pyre

266

76

Of Liberty; a moiety of the ghosts
Who idly lay along the beach i' the land
Of Sloth and Desolation; Sorrow's hosts;
And crowds of those fair forms who, hand-in-hand,
Sped o'er the pasture plain, with greetings bland,
And garlanded with flowers; all sat arrayed
In simple yet attractive guise: a band
Of souls whose glorious joy-light had no shade:
Wrath, pride, guilt, woe, for ever from each essence fled!

77

Soft consentaneous murmurs soon were heard
'Mid which distinguishable grew the name
Of sage Lycurgus,—whereat claricord
And viol, clarion, pipe and drum became
Mute as expectant listeners; and the claim
Fraternal to receive his speech, with meek
Yet manly front he rose to answer. Maim
No longer were the powers of voice: the Greek
Did seem, and they that followed, with Earth's tongues to speak.

78

“Brother and sister spirits, to rehearse
Our joy,”—he said,—“what volumed tongue hath skill?
“Our happiness, like the Eternal Source
From which it springs, doth ever over-fill
And over-run; so that our bliss we still
Augment, commingling bliss. I triumph not
To think me a true seer: too deep the thrill
Of ecstasy doth move me that all doubt
And guess are past, and this beatitude is raught.

79

“Brothers, this blest reality hath swept
The films of mystery from the general mind;
And he who doubted most now an adept
Becomes in tracing Nature's progress: blind
Were many, once: but how it was designed
From earliest eld, that pain corporeal,—
That hate, and torture with it intertwined,
Should pass away, and brotherhood prevail
And joy,—all now perceive with vision spiritual.

267

80

“Ye who, with opulence of speech endowed,
Excel, begin the never-tiring theme—
What mighty influences did long enshroud
Themselves from vulgar gaze, and yet did seem
To Nature's true disciples with the beam
Of splendour's self revealed,—and sure to drown
And overwhelm all error, as a stream
Resistless sweeps all human barriers down—
Or as Light's genial smile o'ercometh Night's drear frown.

81

“How we now wonder, while our ken afar
Travels from these joy-seats,—surveys the dome
Resplendent with full many an exemplar
Of human virtues,—and enrapt doth roam
Along the dazzling aisle where graces bloom
Ineffable,—how we now wonder Truth
So long was hid! Be thine the exordium
O Mithridates! to portray the growth
Of Good, and how she vanquished all her foes uncouth!”—

82

So spake the great Laconian, and his seat
Meekly resumed, while gentle murmurings rose
From myriads who would fain the sage entreat
His descant to prolong: but no applause
He sought, and signified he lacked dispose,
By silent smiles. Disrobed of pomp and pride,
With truer glory clad than regal shows,
The spirit of the Pontic king complied
With the wise Spartan's call—by thousands ratified.—

83

“Lycurgus, though thy modesty would wave
Our soul's full tribute,”—he arose and said,—
“Yet here I laud thy wisdom deep, and suave
Forbearance 'mid the scorn that on thy head
We in our rashness—by old pomps misfed
And overblown—poured, when we should have praised.
Wisely thou sayst the lessons here outspread,
Through hall and dome and aisle, have in us raised
Wonder that we so long in ignorance on them gazed.

268

84

“How glorious is the vision now 'tis filled
With meaning to our spirits!—all unlike
The vanities our pomp-slaved thought did build
To lull our sense of pain, and that made quick
Evanishment when reason shook her sick
Lethargic bondage off. The beauteous aisle
Designed by graces architectonic
To pourtray outward Nature's varied pile—
Now knows each spirit-denizen of self-exile:—

85

“Nor this alone, but man's own outward form
And potency. And even as on earth
Love for the outer world did widely germ
In man, and love for self,—while of no worth
Seemed intellectual wealth, but Mind a dearth
Of noblest images did long unfold—
So yon vast dome, designed to shadow forth
Man's inner nature, till of late no mould
Of virtue held, though it doth now rich treasure hold.

86

“For ages did the lesson us invite
To contemplation: but the soul was held
In earth's old bonds of prejudice, nor right
From wrong discerned. In thraldom thus we dwelled
Of self-deceit: vile thraldom, though we swelled
With arrogant conceit how free we were!
Darkness and vagueness from the soul expelled,—
Her chambers filled with Virtue's symbols fair,—
Reason disdaineth pride and all its fraudful glare.

87

“And now our nature's stately portraiture
We view. The aisle is fitting vestibule
Unto the dome stored with memorials pure—
Like cultured intellect with beautiful
Exterior;—and then Reason's lofty rule,
Where prejudice was paramount, appears;
From proud and tyrant phantasies the soul
Is freed; and since free-thought her essence cheers,
Free-thought in every human spirit she reveres.

269

88

“Sage Spartan, thus I read our visioned state.
Rehearsal, how our sufferings passed away,
And how old Earth became regenerate,
I yield unto my brethren, though I may,
For opening of the theme, thus much essay:
'Twas conquest over Evil physical
That ushered in Earth's glorious brother-day:—
Whence came, by law of sympathy whose veil
Is still unrent, our blest soul-state perpetual.

89

“I judge that Earth had still in bondage been
To Error, had the sons of enterprise
And science, unobservant, failed to glean
The truths Great Nature spread before the eyes
Of heedless Man, whose passion for life's toys
Robbed him of its true treasures, and so doomed
Him all his days with pain to agonize,
With want and woe: a creature spirit-gloomed
Though tenanting a world where jocund beauty bloomed:

90

“A world whose elements were his wide field
For culture. Now,—behold the storm-tossed sea
His pathway!—see, his chariots o'er it wheeled
More swiftly than o'er land, by energy
Electric—which men deemed a mystery,
Or sign of wrath divine, till from the cloud
A sage, with children's kite and string, and key,
Drew the winged essence, and the truth foreshowed,
Unwittingly, how, one day, men would tame the proud

91

“All-scathing power, and dangle its huge strength
With child-like effort! Mountain, stream, and mine
Their wealth afford him: Earth, through all the length
And breadth and depth of her rotund confine,—
Th' impalpable and vital crystalline
Itself—are, each, his servitor! Of want
Men talk as of some ancient fable: pine
They cannot, for the soil, exuberant
Rendered by art, of food is over-ministrant.

270

92

“The senses know no craving: neither strife
Nor guile to win indulgence, or obtain
What all enjoy, embitters human life:
Disease is banished—until mortal pain
Approaches: Even the bounds of life's domain
Are trebly larger. Brothers, do I deem
Aright that mortal men and spirits gain
Their high beatitude, because supreme
Men grew o'er natural Evil? But, I yield the theme.”—

93

He ceased, abruptly, feeling modest fear
His speech assumptive occupance of thought
Might seem where all were equal: to revere
The humblest, thus, the highest Power was brought,
His soul with loving due allegiance fraught
To Nature and Equality. The ghost
Of Cato rose,—with look which did denote
That sternest spirit of all haughty boast
Was stript;—and thus he argued 'mid the spiritual host:—

94

“O Mithridates, none will raise dispute
Against thy judgment: yet I deem the end
Thou hast not raught,—but left for our pursuit
Thy argument begun. That earth doth lend
Her general wealth to men, and the now bend
Our old dread masters—fire, and wind, and flood—
Unto their will,—and that these conquests tend
To bring our happy state,—were hardihood
For any to deny what long for truth hath stood.

95

“While with the elements, for foes, Man warred,
Want, pain, disease, were his sure heritage
Afflictive: hostile life bred in him hard,
Vindictive thoughts: and thus, from age to age,
Men lived—the fool in mind diseased: the sage
In body: helpless, both. Thou sayst full well,
Great Nature's truths were open; and the page
Had mortals scanned, each pregnant syllable
Divining, Evil they had earlier learned to quell.

271

96

“The fault lay not in Nature, but in Man—
The slothful pupil in her school, or wild
And perverse truant after vice. Her plan
Was stern but wise: to train her favourite child
To cope with obstacles, lest he, beguiled
By over-ease, should an ignoble thrall
Become to pleasure. The great Mother smiled
Even while she seemed to frown: her child in all
Her discipline found toil did some worse ill forestall:

97

“Nay more:—that labour brought its unalloyed
And precious sweet, while sloth 'mid plenty took
All appetite away, or luxury cloyed
The sense until the Man beneath its yoke
Bowed down, and bestial grew in thought and look.
One obstacle o'ercome, the mind was fired
To nobler strife. Thus Nature ne'er forsook
Her offspring: all her matron cares conspired
To raise him: he, perverse, the bestial state desired.

98

“'Tis, then, unto the Few, the tireless Few
Who through all ages and in every clime,
Pursued the Good, our gratitude is due.
Thus moral, mental conquest was the prime
Of human victories: triumph so sublime
O'er outward elements sprang from the wreath
Of moral victory; and throughout all time
They glorious shall be held who did bequeath
Lessons of moral struggle in their lives or death.”

99

So spake the high-souled Roman Stoic, whom
Followed his Grecian exemplars with zeal,
Zeno, and meek Cleanthes; and their doom
That, first, Man's conquest o'er himself the weal
Prepared of future men, and did reveal
To him his latent power to nullify
Earth's outward ills,—strengthened, with kindred zeal,
Clitomachus,—for here had ceased to vie
The sect of Plato with the Porch, for mastery.

272

100

Like judgment rose and uttered, Metrocles,
Who honoured age and royal favour fled
To shun men's jealousy. But now to seize
The argument, though not by passion led
Or unfraternal thought, Lucretius sped;
And while he left ungainsayed what in praise
Of human conquests these, through zeal, had said,
In calm reflective strain and gentle phrase
He shewed the victors oft had won no truthful bays.—

101

“Spirits, ye well have shewed that to the ken
Of universal man wide open lay
The book of Nature,”—said the bard: “the men
Ye also wisely laud who o'er their clay
Superior rose, and, for their kind, the way
Opened to nobler life and high command
O'er outward ill: but know ye not that they
Were fitted for their work by Nature's hand,
From embryons in the primal purposes she planned?

102

“That Nature's volume lay unspelled so long—
Attribute to her wisdom which doth shun
Rash haste: she forms her favourite lithe, but strong
To bear and to endure, as well as run
Their race and slack not till the goal is won.
Neither forget how many sought to find
Out Nature's ways, but failed. Sought they the boon,
Then, vainly, through sheer impotence of mind,
Or was successful quest for later men designed?

103

“Brothers, have noblest intellects, late-born,
In grasp excelled the mighty Stagyrite?
Did any cast o'er Nature's face extern
Larger discourse, or with more piercing sight
Scan her deep secrets, or pour fuller light
Intense of Reason on her footsteps broad
That men might not her bounteous purpose slight?
Who,—while late Western sages they applaud,
The earlier toiler of his guerdon will defraud?

273

104

“Yet, often, where he thought he knew—'twas guess.
And what he would have known, even at the cost
Of life itself, his eagle-sightedness
Of soul failed to perceive. Then, twas the boast
Of some mere modern dwarf to shew where lost
His search—the ancient giant; though the vaunt
Belonged not him who said, he found: a host
Of names have won from men extravagant
Applause, while of their worth Truth was uncognisant.

105

“Not their more skilful thought plombed the great deep
Of Nature's mystery, which so many failed
To fathom: 'twas Herself away did sweep
The incumbent waves of darkness, and unsealed
Truth's gems,—for then the channels were revealed
Where they had lain for ages. Accident,—
Contingency,—some called it,—when to yield
Her fruit mature, Nature, prepared: content
With any name to hide their gross-souled wonderment!

106

“Some said the wondrous optic tube had been
For ever undiscovered,—vast expanse
Of space with all her suns and systems, seen
By its weird aid,—and all their utterance
Of dateless Nature's old continuance
And might and grandeur been for ever hid,—
If the mechanic had not marked, by chance,
His children's wonder, while, at play they slid
Together and peeped through the crystals pellucid.

107

“Others the thread-bare story oft rehearsed—
Whenas the godlike sage of Albion's isle
Beheld the apple fall, at once dispersed
Were Nature's mists, and, without further toil
Of mind, he rose, and with complacent smile,
Serious but glad, proclaimed the force sublime
That binds Earth's surface to her centre while
She wheels around the sun, pervades his clime,
And keeps all planets in their bounds from birth of Time

274

108

“'Twas accident, they said,—that from the bough
The apple fell, the sage in musing vein
Beheld it, and, like other truths that flow
By chance into men's minds, within the brain
Of Newton this upsprung,—else, it had lain,
Belike, still unperceived, still unproclaimed.—
Thus some the noblest toils of thought were fain
To reck for nought,—enthroning Chance; while maimed
Inferior wits with awe by other tongues were named.

109

“Few were thy words, Lycurgus, but profound
In truth: from earliest eld all was designed
Or ordered that hath been: Nature's great round
Must needs be travelled: Circumstance and Mind,
Alike, must be brought forth, and be combined,
Ere mightiest Truths evolved: Necessity
O'er all prevailed: the flame, the flood, the wind,
Were masters till the march of Thought set free
The world of struggling men from that old tyranny:

110

“The march of Thought was onward from of old,—
Onward, for age, to Nature's eye,—though dense
Film-sighted men no progress could behold:
Thought sprung from thought by chain of consequence,
In old or newer clime, till violence,
Fraud, ignorance, want, and woe, and pain, and thrall
Evanished at the new omnipotence
Of Mind Nature brought forth: Mind that thro' all
The universe now reigns by might perpetual.”

111

Lucretius ceased; and sounds applausive rose
From myriads, though in gentlest mode exprest.—
And, next, high reasonings on effect and cause,
And strong necessity, full suavely addrest
The soul of Atticus unto the blest
Assemblage of untroubled minds—who heard
Discourse on mysteries deep without unrest
In their new state, since mysteries now ensnared
To doubt no more: doubt, fear, with pain had disappeared.

275

112

Thereafter rose the Gracchus, and with mild
Yet firm aspect, what seemed forgot, thus urged:—
“Brothers, with metaphysic thought beguiled,
And descant on discovery that enlarged
Man's rule o'er outward things,—not undischarged
Leave we commemoration due of their
Desert whose tireless energies converged
To throne the thought of Brotherhood where'er
They went:—but for their zeal our lot were still despair:

113

“But for their holy strife,—smit with the type,
Great Spartan, thou in mortal life didst frame,—
Earth had been yet for franchisement unripe;
And thence unblest. Brothers, to mar no claim
Of Wisdom's children to their during fame
I seek: honour, all honour to each shade
Of Enterprize,—to every hallowed name
Of Genius,—and to all who first displayed
To man the power o'er ill that for his seizure stayed!—

114

“But who can fail remember that this power
Was long usurped by Selfishness?—that Wonder
Herself was mazed through every passing hour
At man's achievements,—as he bound the thunder,
The storm-wave smoothed, the live rock clave asunder,
Or rendered distance but a name; yet Love
Wept to behold Earth's sable children under
The chain, while their fair-visaged brother drove
Them onward with the lash! Let Time the stain disprov

115

“The foul aspersive stain on Freedom cast
By men whose boast of freedom was most loud!
Bethink ye also that if men now fast
And pine no more, it is because the Proud
Have ceased to be: Earth ever was endowed
With tenfold more of plenty than her sum
Of life required for food: the hills were browed
With luscious vines that smiled as round they clomb
The olives, or festooned them with their purple bloom

276

116

“The valleys spread their waving treasures forth;
But, when the vintage came and harvest-tide,
Although the toiler gave his heart to mirth—
To Nature's impulse true—the wealth for Pride
Was garnered up, and Toil was pittanced. Wide
O'er ocean islets fair were scattered, filled
With overwealth of fruits, but desert-void
Of human life: the dainty fig there spilled
Her seeds; the golden orange her perfume distilled

117

“Upon the vacant air; the grateful palm
And wholesome guava and banana stored
In vain the sea-girt garden; sweetest balm
Of gums or delicatest juice of mangoes poured
Their riches on the tasteless earth; down showered
Their flavoured kernels shelly fruits in vain,
Unless for brutes. Men,—starving men,—looked toward
The sea, and sighed for ships to pass the main
And end their famine; but they could no help obtain!

118

Avarice still held them where their numbers served
To render them dog-cheap as things of hire
For labour: Avarice, that never swerved
From sordid grasping, though it might acquire
Unreckoned wealth. Vapour, electric fire,
All mineral virtues, air, and flame, and flood,
Science subdued; but Pride did still conspire
With Avarice the lean toilers to exclude
From all that Science willed to spread for general good.

119

“O Mithridates, thou didst this forget,
Or leave untold. Doth not thy soul perceive
It was when signs of Brotherhood were met
With open heart by Pride, and Power to leave
Its lawlessness the toiler to retrieve
From suffering, yielded,—that the glorious dawn
Of Bliss appeared, and moral light did cleave
Earth's age-woofed darkness? But I joy 'tis gone—
The reign of Wrong; and toiling men no more shall groan.”—

277

120

The Agrarian ceased, at once: such gentle dread
The blest assemblage swayed to raise a thought
Averse in brethren. With mild zeal to tread
The same thought-track Curtius arose: Thence caught
The theme Charondas, and, then, Codrus brought
His aid: and, then, Themistocles: but suave
Their accents were, with tempered reason fraught,—
Although they told how patriot deeds raised brave
Resolve in toiling men—till Slavery found its grave.—

121

Next, rose Athena's soul-compelling tongue,
And joined his sentence for the patriot's praise;
Yet told, therewith, that poets had not sung
In vain,—nor sculptor vainly fixed the gaze
Of nations,—architect with deep amaze
Entranced them vainly,—nor had Music's joy
Earth visited and failed the mind to raise
And heart to bless; but Nature did employ
Innumerous powers the thrall of Evil to destroy.—

122

And, next Demosthenes, Condorcet's soul
Uttered its fervour:—'Twas when Man disdained,—
He said,—to kneel beneath the priest's control,
An altar-serf, that human freedom gained
Its first true vantage-ground, and Evil waned
In all its monstrous forms and torturous might;
And only when free-thought all men maintained
To be their indefeasible birthright,—
It was,—that Error multiform was put to flight.—

123

Then Romilly renewed his eulogy
Of Gentleness; and spirits thrilled to hear
His laud of Mercy, till with jubilee
Of love they rose,—monarch, and bard, and seer,
Fanatic wild, and misanthrope austere,
That were on earth,—now all in equal state
Of happy brotherhood,—and, thus, with clear
Euphonic chaunt, I heard them celebrate,
In concord blest, Earth's, Hades' gladness consummate:—

278

124

‘All hail the glorious power of Gentleness,
‘Of Pity and Mercy, Goodness, Love, and Truth!
‘Knowledge all hail, and Reason fetterless!
‘Philanthropy, that yearned with god-like ruth
‘O'er suffering! Patriotism, whose eloquent mouth,
‘Bold heart, and sinewed hand dissolved the thrall
‘Of Tyrants! Genius, Song, and Wisdom sooth,
‘All hail! Great sources of old Evil's fall—
‘Men, spirits, hymn your power, in jocund festival!

125

‘Earth's children raise their universal song
‘Of love and joy: mountain, and strand, and sea
‘Are vocal with your praise! Spirits prolong
‘The strain: through endless life they anthem ye—
‘Their endless afterlife of jubilee:
‘And hymning ye our essences enhance
‘Still more the bliss-gauge of their destiny,—
‘Assured more deeply of their heritance,
‘The more their joyous thought hath joyous utterance!

126

‘Spirits, still more rejoice!—for pain and woe
‘Are gone, and universal life doth bloom
‘With joy!’—
The dream o'erwrought me to a throe
Of bliss; and I awoke to find my home
A dungeon,—thence, to ponder when would come
The day that Goodness shall the earth renew,
And Truth's young light disperse old Error's gloom,—
When Love shall Hate, and Meekness Pride subdue,—
And when the Many cease their slavery to the Few!

281

SMALLER PRISON RHYMES.

283

CHARTIST CHAUNT.

Truth is growing—hearts are glowing
With the flame of Liberty:
Light is breaking—Thrones are quaking—
Hark!—the trumpet of the Free!
Long, in lowly whispers breathing,
Freedom wandered drearily—
Still, in faith, her laurel wreathing
For the day when there should be
Freemen shouting—‘Victory!’

Now, she seeketh him that speaketh
Fearlessly of lawless might;
And she speedeth him that leadeth
Brethren on to win the Right.
Soon, the slave shall cease to sorrow—
Cease to toil in agony;
Yea, the cry may swell to-morrow
Over land and over sea—
‘Brethren, shout—ye all are free!’

Freedom bringeth joy that singeth
All day long and never tires:
No more sadness—all is gladness
In the hearts that she inspires:
For, she breathes a soft compassion
Where the tyrant kindled rage;
And she saith to every nation—
‘Brethren, cease wild war to wage:
Earth is your blest heritage.’

284

Though kings render their defender
Titles, gold, and splendours gay—
Lo, thy glory—warrior gory—
Like a dream shall fade away!
Gentle Peace her balm of healing
On the bleeding world shall pour;
Brethren, love for brethren feeling,
Shall proclaim, from shore to shore—
‘Shout—the sword shall slay no more!’

285

CHARTIST SONG.

[_]

Air—The Brave Old Oak.

A song for the Free—the brave and the free—
Who feareth no tyrant's frown:
Who scorneth to bow, in obeisance low,
To mitre or to crown:
Who owneth no lord with crosier or sword,
And bendeth to Right alone;
Where'er he may dwell, his worth men shall tell,
When a thousand years are gone!

For Tyler of old, a heart-chorus bold
Let Labour's children sing!
For the smith with the soul that disdain'd base control,
Nor trembled before a king;
For the heart that was brave, though pierced by a knave
Ere victory for Right was won—
They'll tell his fair fame, and cheer his blythe name,
When a thousand years are gone!

For the high foe of Wrong, great Hampden, a song—
The fearless and the sage!
Who, at king-craft's frown, the gauntlet threw down,
And dared the tyrant's rage;
Who away the scabbard threw, when the battle blade he drew,
And with gallant heart led on!
How he bravely fell, our children shall tell,
When a thousand years are gone!

286

For the mountain child of Scotia wild—
For noble Wallace a strain!
O'er the Border ground let the chaunt resound:
It will not be heard in vain.
For the Scot will awake, and the theme uptake
Of deeds by the patriot done:—
They'll hold his name dear, nor refuse it a tear,
When a thousand years are gone!

An anthem we'll swell for bold William Tell,
The peasant of soul so grand!
Who fearlessly broke haughty Gesler's yoke,
And set free his fatherland:
His deeds shall be sung, with blythesome tongue,
By maiden, sire, and son,
Where the eagles climb o'er the Alps sublime,
When a thousand years are gone.

For our Charter a song! It tarrieth long—
But we will not despair;
For, though Death's dark doom upon us all may come,
Ere we the blessing share,—
Our happy children they shall see the happy day
When Freedom's boon is won;
And our Charter shall be the boast of the Free,
When a thousand years are gone!

287

CHARTIST SONG.

[_]

Air—Canadian Boat Song.

The time shall come when Wrong shall end,
When peasant to peer no more shall bend—
When the lordly Few shall lose their sway,
And the Many no more their frown obey.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the work is done—
Till the struggle is o'er, and the Charter's won!

The time shall come when the artisan
Shall homage no more the titled man—
When the moiling men who delve the mine
By Mammon's decree no more shall pine.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the work is done—
Till the struggle is o'er and the Charter's won!

The time shall come when the weavers' band
Shall hunger no more, in their fatherland—
When the factory child can sleep till day,
And smile while it dreams of sport and play.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the work is done—
Till the struggle is o'er, and the Charter's won!

The time shall come when Man shall hold
His brother more dear than sordid gold—
When the Negro's stain his freeborn mind
Shall sever no more from human—kind.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the world is free—
Till Justice and Love hold jubilee!

The time shall come when kingly crown
And mitre for toys of the Past are shown—

288

When the Fierce and False alike shall fall,
And Mercy and Truth encircle all.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the world is free—
Till Mercy and Truth hold jubilee!

The time shall come when earth shall be
A garden of joy, from sea to sea—
When the slaughterous sword is drawn no more,
And goodness exults from shore to shore.
Toil, brothers, toil, till the world is free—
Till goodness shall hold high jubilee!

289

THE WOODMAN'S SONG.

I would not be a crownëd king,
For all his gaudy gear;
I would not be that pampered thing,
His gew-gaw gold to wear:
But I would be where I can sing
Right merrily, all the year;
Where forest treen,
All gay and green,
Full blythely do me cheer.

I would not be a gentleman,
For all his hawks and hounds,—
For fear the hungry poor should ban
My halls and wide-parked grounds:
But I would be a merry man,
Among the wild wood sounds,—
Where free birds sing,
And echoes ring
While my axe from the oak rebounds.

I would not be a shaven priest,
For all his sloth-won tythe:
But while to me this breath is leased,
And these old limbs are lithe,—
Ere Death hath marked me for his feast,
And felled me with his scythe,—
I'll troll my song,
The leaves among,
All in the forest blythe.

290

THE OLD MAN'S SONG.

O choose thou the maid with the gentle blue eye,
That speaketh so softly, and looketh so shy;
Who weepeth for pity,
To hear a love ditty,
And marketh the end with a sigh.

If thou weddest a maid with a bold, staring look,
Who babbleth as loud as the rain-swollen brook,
Each day for the morrow
Will nurture more sorrow,—
Each sun paint thy shadow a-crook.

The maid that is gentle will make a kind wife;
The magpie that prateth will stir thee to strife:
'Twere better to tarry,
Unless thou canst marry
To sweeten the bitters of life!

291

THE PARADISE OF MARTYRS.

A FAITH RHYME. In Five Books

293

DEDICATION.

TO WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER.

I dedicate this book to you who sought
Me out, when you had read my Prison-Rhyme—
Disdainful of what cowards and serviles thought
Of one who had worn the fetters for no crime—
But only had lived and striven before his time,
And let his heart impel him to the deed
Of championship defiant for the Poor,
Their right to live by labour, and be freed
Indeed—not mocked with freedom—on the shore
Where Freedom hath her boast.
Kindness doth breed
Grateful remembrance in the inmost core
Of true men's hearts, when done to them in need.
Let me be named with those who ne'er forget
A kindness: reckoning it a great life-debt.

My friend, our lot in stormful time is cast;
And who to God and Conscience, reverent, own
Inviolable fealty should hold fast
Each other's hands, in spite of peasants' frown
Or nobles'. Your great path of Duty strown
With difficulty may be for many a day;
And, sometimes, you may have to strive alone;
But shoulder to shoulder with you, in the fray,
Shall stand the good and true, when heat is gone,
And party spleen,—and all perceive dismay
At serried foes doth never cast you down,
Nor difficulty your patient courage allay;
But your consistent course to all men shews
What you are now you will be to Life's close.

294

I shall not live to see your toil complete;
But know your steady aim to the end will be
Still to preserve Old England the firm seat
Of grandest freedom, and to give the key
Of knowledge unto all. Felicity
The highest that our fatherland can share
You wish to see her win: that every child
Be trained so wisely and well, it may with care
The laws which freemen love keep undefiled,
Nor heedless be of holier laws that bear
The Maker's fiat. Toiling, unbeguiled
By smiles, unquelled by frowns, the pearl still wear
Of an unsullied conscience, and your joy
Throughout Life's path, no censure shall destroy!

295

THE PARADISE OF MARTYRS.

PROËME.

BOOK I.

Exordium.—The changes of years—Growth and evils of Ritualism—The working-classes—The eternal future. Dream—A floral region in Paradise—Strain of music—Chorus of infant voice —Vision of English Martyrs: Latimer, Ridley, Lord Cobham, Bishop Hooper, Bilney, ‘praying Bradford,’ Philpot, Anne Askew, John Rogers, Lawrence Saunders, Bainham, Tomkins the weaver, Thomas Hawkes, the boy Hunter, Farrar, Lambert, Rowland Taylor, and Cranmer; and of the Scottish Martyrs: Patrick Hamilton, George Wishart, and Renwick; and their converse, on their errands to earth, as consolers of the suffering and sorrowful— Chorus of Martyrs as they ascend the terraced mountains—En- trancing view of the New Jerusalem—Angels open the pearly gates of the city of gold, and the Martyr-hosts march in—Vision of Heaven—Choral worship of Martyrs, angels, infant spirits, and men—Departure again of Martyr souls to earth, as ‘ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation.’

BOOK II.

Exordium.—Rapture of gathering the flowers and hearing the sounds of Spring: the wood-sorrel, primrose, blue-bell, violet, geum rivale, golden saxifrage: the cuckoo, stockdove, yellow-hammer, linnet, lark, blackbird, and woodpecker at work mocked by the jay and magpie: the herb Paris, orchids, fern, crowfoots, and lilies of the valley—Memory of a Mother—The starworts, ground-ivy, speedwell, pilewort, daisy, and moschatel: Throstle's nest—Even- ing task. Dream.—Vision, in Paradise, of the martyred Apostles, Fathers, and Prophets; Paul, Peter, James the brother of John, James the Just, Stephen, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Simeon, Ignatius, Isaiah, Abel, Zacharias, and John the Baptist; and their converse—Stephen leads the choral song, as they climb the terraced mountains to enter heaven.

BOOK III.

Exordium.—The Sea, seen from the shore of Cumberland— Thoughts of eternity—Dread of death—Confidence in our immor- tality—Evening task, of teaching peasants, contrasted with the treat of addressing artisans and mechanics—Cruel treatment and

296

neglect of English peasant children. Dream.—Sleep on Croyland Fen, and dream within a dream—Vision, in Paradise, of the meeting of Mediæval with Quaker Martyrs: Winfred of Crediton, Eoban, and Adalhere, with James Parnell, Edward Burrough, John Trowell, Richard Hubberthorn, Francis Howgill, Mary Dyar, William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, and William Leddra; and their converse—Choral song, as they climb the terraced mountains.

BOOK IV.

Exordium.—Invocation to the Moon—Old superstitions— The Fairies: Newton, and his simple faith, contrasted with the Atheism of modern science: the stars—Love of existence—Reminiscences of the Past—Robert Owen and Louis Blanc—Communism and its fatal excesses in Paris—Fear for England. Dream. —Vision of flowers, in Paradise: giant bell-flower, grass of Parnassus, Trientalis, fairy orchis, pyrola, gymnadenia, and lady's tress—The French Martyrs: Claude Brousson, Dumas, Fulcran Rey, Guion, Bonnemere, Olivier Souverain, the brothers Du Plans, David Quet, Pierre de Bruis, Henri ‘the false hermit’—The Martyrs of Lyons, Toulouse, Gascony, Dauphiny, Lorraine and Picardy— The Albigenses and Vaudois of Provence—Prayer of the united Martyrs of France—Approach of the Martyrs of Madagascar, under the reign of the usurping Queen Ranavalona: the maiden Rasalama, the youth Rafaralahy, and others of the Malagasy— They are greeted by the French Martyrs—Approach of the Martyrs of ancient Gaul: Irenæus, Pothinus, Sanctus, Maturis, Vettius, and Blandina—The combined host of Martyrs ascend the terraced mountains.

BOOK V.

Exordium.—Winter on Morecambe sands—The lonely sea and the Cumberland mountains—Memory of a friend, in youth— His dying wish—Longings to know the Eternal Future—Littleness and ignorance of Man, and wisdom and equity of the government of God—Farewell to the sea—and entrance on the busy scenes of manufacturing Lancashire—Memory of Sir Robert Peel and the abolition of the Corn Laws—No more ragged crowds of poor men debating on ‘the Rights of Man’—Fulness of work and more building of mills— Forfeiture of independence by working men, and their disregard of political freedom—Evening task—News of the death of Mazzini—Lines to his great memory. Dream.—Vision of the spirits, in Paradise, of Italian Martyrs: Savonarola, Arnold of Brescia, Arnulph, and the martyrs of Piedmont, Naples, Apulia, and Calabria; the martyrs of Venice. Giulio Ghirlanda, Antonio Ricetto, Francis Spinula, and Fra Baldo Lupetino, the martyrs of Rome: Bartolomeo Bartoccio: their converse, and prayer for Italy—Approach of the Martyrs of Italy under the power of Paganism: Early Popes, Agnes the virgin, and Laurence: martyrs of the persecutions under Diocletian, Valerian, Com— modus, Decius, Maximian and Severus—Story of young Giulio related by Apollonius—Arrival of the Martyrs of the Valleys— Memory of Cromwell—Martyrs by the fell Inquisition—The Hand of Light and ascent of the Martyrs to their worship before the Throne.

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BOOK THE FIRST.

1

Full fleetly, thirty years of strife have flown
Since I—the dreamer—in yon prison-hold,
Struck my lone harp of rude and cheerless tone,
With hand unskilful, and perchance, too bold
For dainty ears that love the chords of gold,
Touched by sleek charmers, known by accent bland
And silken smile; and deem your rhyming scold
Of Power and Privilege; a fiery brand
That lordly men should quench, in this old queenly land.

2

Full fleetly fly the years! Gray Age hath come,
And Mind is slow,—for blood and brain are chilled,
And Memory maunders, or her tongue is dumb
As death, when she should tell what forms have filled
The soul with awe—what joys or throes have thrilled
The heart—throughout Life's changeful day:
A task that, once, young Memory deftly trilled,
And lightly, as a laughing child at play,
Till dull Age came, and chid the happy power away.

3

Old Age hath come, and my long-chosen task
Is unfulfilled—for, I have loitered long
As well as chosen. Yet a man may ask,
And wisely, if the loitering hath been wrong:
Fools gather wisdom, and the weak grow strong,
Not seldom, by delay: good thoughts have grown
Where evil flourished. When the fitful throng
And tempest of our noon of life are gone,
The calm oft comes, in glory, with the setting sun.—

298

4

Almighty and all-glorious Lord of all!
Eternal Source of life, and Fount of light!
A poor, dark wanderer, at Thy feet I fall—
Forgiving Father, at Thy feet! Thy bright
Pervading Presence in the darksome night
Of wandering watched me: Thou wert ever near,
Although I owned Thee not, and from Thy sight
Afar I fled, soul-palsied with the fear
That there was nought beyond the tomb: that dread so drear!

5

O God! I thank Thee that I never lost
Heart-worship for Thy Son—the Christ—the Blest!
That, while my reason wandered, driven and tost
From doubt to deeper doubt, until the quest
For Truth oft ended in Despair's unrest—
The torturous, wild unrest of fell Despair!—
Yet, in my gloom, that sorrowing Visage drest
In rays of moral beauty seemed to share
My sorrow, and to say—“Come hither! learn to bear

6

“My yoke, poor wanderer, and thou shalt find rest:
Rest from vain labour: from thy spirit's pain—
Swift ease: come hither, to thy Saviour's breast!”
Sweet Lord, I come! my labour hath been vain:
My search for rest. Unbind my heavy chain
Of sin: release me, Saviour, with Thy good
And powerful hand: wash out my guilty stain
Of rebel pride in Thy atoning blood!
In brokenness of heart, I come—my Lord—my God!

7

Thou givest peace not as the world doth give!
To me Thy peace be given—that, while this thread
Of mortal life is spun, my soul may live
For Thee alone; and I may humbly tread
My fatherland, from side to side, and spread
Thy truth. Help me to preach it to the Poor
Who strive to think out, while they toil for bread,
The mystery of existence, and explore
That sea's vast bounds where mightiest thinkers ne'er found shore!

299

8

Thou seest them, pitying Father, in their doubt
And darkness! And Thy just and sovereign gaze
Is fixt upon the mimesters who beclout
Themselves anew with rags of Rome, and raise,
Once more, for idol, with old pomps, and blaze
Of gold, and bannered splendours, and the sheen
Of lamps and candles, and the fragrant praise
Of incensed-chaunt, their starry-vestured Queen—
The lowly mother of the lowly Nazarene!

9

The toiling thousands grope for saving truth,
And yearn to find;—but ye seek not to save
Your untaught brethren with the words of ruth
And tenderness. It is for altars brave,
And gay bedizenments, ye hotly crave:
Dalmatica, and chasuble, and cope,
Biretta, rubied cross, and ivoried stave
Episcopal:—to have these toys ye hope—
But, for Christ's truth, still let the toiling thousands grope!

10

Out on your childish greed for gew-gaws: toys
On which your martyred sires could scarcely look
Without a frown! Are there no nobler joys
Within your grasp? Have ye for these forsook
The simple truths your fathers loved? They shook
The Romish slavery off; and freedom, then,
Truly became your birthright: if ye brook
Meekly the Papal yoke to wear again,
Will your sons look ye in the face, and call ye—Men?

11

The toiling thousands think upon the Past,
And its fierce martyr-fires; and, while they yearn
To fathom Mind's deep mysteries, feel no haste
To look for light from darkness, or to learn
Lessons from hildings who deserve their scorn.
In homely tongue, they ask—“No better tools
For digging out the Truth do doctors earn
Than these, within their costly halls and schools?
Do they build colleges to breed and foster fools?”

300

12

And then they settle down in doubt, or try
A resting-place in restless doubt to find
In vain: for, still, the agonising cry,
Aloud, is heard of Doubt half-maddening mind;
And, still, they grope for Truth—the inly blind!
Or, in disgust, they give up thinking;—game
And bet, like lords! on horses; and behind
Cast care and conscience; or the viler drame
Play out of sottishness and sensualism and shame!

13

O for the gift to earth of some great souls!
O for the birth of men to found a new
And nobler chivalry than decks the rolls
Of real or mimic war! O that a few
Among the Schooled and Privileged would thew
Their wills with high resolve, and grandly rise
To throw their hearts among the crowd,—the True
To champion, and cast down the forms of Lies—
Warriors for Good, old Evil's power to antagonize!

14

Not dead to noble sympathies, and words
Fraternal, are the crowd that doubt, and dare
The depths of sin. In every heart are chords
That vibrate to the touch of humblest player
Or lordliest, if responding chords declare
Their touch is truly human. Patrons smart
And scented,—teachers with the lofty air
Of condescension, seem to the stalwart, swart,
And sturdy sons of Labour—Things without a heart.

15

How long will this new dotage last—your strife
To re-enthrone old Priestcraft? Do ye dream
That ye can veritably restore to life
The dead putrescence? 'Midst the whirl of steam,
The speed of telegraphs, and lightning-gleam
Of knowledge which proclaims the Reign of Law,
Will toiling men a truth your bold tale deem
That ye can make your Maker; and with awe
Bow down, in trembling fear of your anathema?

301

16

They neither fear ye, nor your curse: your creed
Is monstrous to their common sense: they pine
For rest in Truth, not mockery. Strive to lead
The toiling crowd to reverence and enshrine
The Real Presence of the Lord Divine
Within their hearts, and let your acts reveal
That, while ye say ye love the Lord benign,
Ye truly serve Him; and, with grateful zeal,
Devout, responsive crowds will welcome your appeal.—

17

The night falls fast, and finds me brooding thus
O'er evils that afflict my fatherland:—
The night falls fast, yet brightly luminous
Beam out the cotton mills that round me stand,
Where garish gas turns night to day; and hand,
And eye, and mind of myriad toilers win
The wealth of England, but cannot command
A certainty of bread,—though, for her sin,
Woman, like man, doth weave, and watch, and toil, and spin.

18

Their toil now ceases, and my toil comes next.
I gather them around me, and essay
To teach them how to solve the “questions vext”
That puzzle and perplex them through the day,
Amid the din of wheels, and sweat and fray
Of factory life. Some yawn with weariness;
Some frown; some sneer; some seem but clods of clay:
But some look all aglow with bright excess
Of rapt conviction which their minds doth overbless.

19

My task ends all too soon. I wish the hours
Could stand; or these till morn could sit, and hear,
And think. But drowsiness their frames o'erpowers;
And, ere day dawns, they must the call austere
O' the factory-bell obey—Toil's chanticleer!
But, let it cheer my heart that, through each week
I can my task pursue,—although the sere
And yellow leaf be mine;—and freely speak—
Fearing no frowns, nor listening for applauses sleek.

302

20

What hand—what stranger hand—shall close these eyes,
I cannot know,—or who stretch out my feet;
What hushed voice say—“A breathless corpse he lies,
His wanderings o'er: prepare the winding-sheet!”
Anxious to make my pilgrimage complete,
I will work on, rejoicing, let betide
What may, on earth. I covet the bright seat
He promised them that love Him, close beside
His throne of love—my glorious Lord, the Crucified!

21

I fear, no longer, that my being destroyed
Shall be, when men shall lay this body low;
That Mind shall perish in the mindless void,
And I shall cease to think, and feel, and know,
Although for ever there shall be the glow
Of thought and feeling in God's Universe.
The risen Christ with life shall re-endow
My soul; and ne'er shall sin again amerce
My Christ-enfranchised being with Death's benumbing curse.

22

For ever with my Lord, who said, “I am
The Resurrection and the Life,”I trust
To be; and to that trust I cleave. Still maim
And blind is Mind, and blind and maim it must
Remain, how Mind shall live when dust to dust
Returns. But, since we cannot know the state
Beyond the grave, all-unperturbed robust
And patient souls should wait—unfaltering wait,
And calmly,—for the spirit-life emancipate.—

23

Midnight hath come. I would that gentle sleep
Would visit me; but seldom comes repose,
Now age is raught. Thought the long watch doth keep,
To wander o'er the Past, with operose
And feeble steps, or vainly seeks to unclose
The barriers of the Future, till the brain
Is worn and wildered. Then, the startled doze
Of nervousness succeeds, or, hours of pain;
And, seldom, o'er the sense, Sleep spreads her blissful reign.

303

24

I sought for slumber, and, unwontedly,
Sweet Slumber, swiftly, on my eyelids laid
Her hand, full gently—as, on mother's knee,
A gentle mother's hand is softly stayed
Upon her helpless child.
Again, I strayed—
Or seemed to stray—in spirit, beyond the bound
Of earthly life: no longer, now, affrayed
With visioned forms that agonised and frowned
With rage, or sat in emblemed pomp, enthroned and crowned.

An allusion to the Hall of Suicide Kings, in Book I of “The Purgatory of Suicides.”

25

I dreamed I walked the “land of pure delight,
Where everlasting spring abides, and never
Wither the flowers;”where neither worm nor blight
Attaints their bloom, for ever and for ever:
Where neither sin nor death again can sever
The noble Army of Martyrs from their Lord,
Or unto pain again their souls deliver.
To Jesu's heaven of bliss, it seemed, I soared,
Where myriads of His saints God and the Lamb adored.

26

But I knew not 'twas heaven, as first I woke—
Or seemed to wake—when I escaped from earth.
Upon my spiritual sight a vision broke
So like the “dear, dear land”

Dying speech of Gaunt, in Shakspere's Richard II.

that gave me birth,—
So like the woods, and vales, and hills where mirth
And glee were rife in childhood,—that it seemed
I had but lately left my Mother's hearth
To wander forth, and gather flowers that gleamed
With strange, unearthly splendour. Thus I dimly dreamed:

27

I wandered in the pathway of a wood
Where delicatest wind-flowers round me lay,
Like snow new fall'n; and spring-born bluebells stood,
In slender tallness, peering o'er the array
Of humble violets and pied pansies gay,
With mimic pride; while, waving overhead,
Young silken beech-leaves and slim birchen-spray
Fleckt the pure light that from above was shed;
And still I seemed some well-known woodland path to thread.

304

28

Yet, evermore, methought, no earthly hue
The trees and flowers displayed; while neither cloud
Nor shade there seemed to be. And, soon, a new
And dazzling light revealed a smiling crowd
Of childlike forms—but, dimness, like a shroud,
Swiftly enwrapped the vision; and terrene,
Again, seemed all things. Then, arose a proud
And terraced pile of mountains ever green;
And I sped on to reach them, through a lowlier scene.

29

Soft hills sloped gently towards a verdant vale:
Like the loved hills that bound thy vale, O Trent!—
And, midway, in the valley wound the trail
Of a bright river, like a filament
Of sparkling silver. On its banks were blent
Trent's floral riches—as I did misdeem—
The vernal crocus prankt with transient
And blushing beauty; cranesbill's sky-born gleam
Intense—looking like eyes of angels, in my dream;

30

The huge-leaved butter-bur, with flowers so quaint;
Clustered marsh-marigolds that did bedaze
My eyes, till I withdrew them by constraint;
And still more dazzling was the golden blaze
Of water-lilies.
Now, again, with rays
Of light encircled, childlike creatures smiled
Upon me. Unaffrayed, but in a maze
I stood; for none looked like an earth-born child:
They seemed too pure for souls derived from men defiled.

31

“What are ye, beauteous things?” methought I spake.
Silent, they beckoned me with smiles of grace;
And dimness soon again seemed to o'ertake
My vision—for, they faded till no trace
Remained of their bright forms. I trod, apace,
The vale, yearning to win the height sublime
O' the terraced mountains; but the winning face
Of some fair flower, so dear to childhood's time,
Brought back my thoughts, in wonder still, to childhood's clime.

305

32

What virgin purity the flowers that grew
Nigh the bright winding river seemed to wear—
Sweet cicely, and meadow-sweet, and rue!
And cuckoo-flowers and chervils bloomed so fair,
They were as magnets to my eyes; and there
I lingered, when I fain would have begone
To climb the mountains, and behold what rare
Large prospect from their summits might be won
Of that rich floral realm so sweetly halcyon.

33

I stooped to pluck a lily from the marge
Of the fair river, since it grew so near,
And bloomed so dazzling white and grandly large;
But, ere I touched it, suddenly in my ear
Streamed music, soft as whispers, and yet clear
And sweet as that sweet “Pastoral Symphony”
Oft heard on earth—the dulcet harbinger
Of lofty praise, and holy and heavenly glee:
Charmed prelude to the burst of angel minstrelsy.

34

Still sweeter grew the sounds, and fairer bloomed
The flowers, till rapt thoughts strengthened that I trode
No earthly soil, but precincts to bliss-doomed
Celestial realms, where vigour is bestowed
On franchised souls to fit them for their load
Of bliss—the “weight of glory” which they bear—
“Far more exceeding and eternal,”—who see God:
They who eternal joys beyond compare
Esteem, with “light affliction”saints on earth may share.

35

The thought that I was heir of bliss so great,
And that earth's life of sin and sorrow and pain
Was past, began, well-nigh, to tribulate
The soul with ecstasy: an overgain
Of bliss, it seemed, for one who knew the stain
Of sin—though all forgiven—henceforth to dwell
With endless joy. But soon, in tuneful strain,
Some unseen choral band, with jubilant swell,
Above, around me, pealed these words delectable:—

306

36

“Spirit, rejoice! thy mortal life is past:
This land of living light no cloud can gloom:
Sin cannot reach it, with her fatal blast:
Here flowers can never fade, but ever bloom:
Here pain, or sin-bred anguish cannot come:
Death vanquisheth Man's dust, but not the soul:
Man's spirit is no tenant of the tomb—
No prisoner to the grave. Rejoice, thy dole
Is ended; and thy soul hath reached her happy goal!

37

“Welcome, new heritor of bliss! begin
To enter on thy rest. Let no alloy,
Or thought that thou hast known the stain of sin,
Lessen thy rapture, or thy bliss destroy.
Onward, and prove the fulness of that joy
Thy Saviour promised. He thy debt hath paid,
And thou art free! Prepare for blest employ
Through countless ages! Joys that never fade
Are thine: increasing joys thy essence shall pervade!

38

“Onward, and join the dear companions blest
Thou soon shalt meet: they who thy Saviour loved
And served, and openly His Name confessed;
Nor to deny their Lord were weakly moved
When bad men threatened, but were faithful proved
Through lives of suffering, and in deaths of shame:
They who proclaimed that holy truth behoved
Their bodies should be given unto the flame
With joyous haste, so they might homage Jesu's Name!”

39

The glittering band of childlike creatures beamed
Above me, as the jubilant strain surceased,
That, now I knew, was theirs. Then, as I dreamed,
They vanished; and I entered on glad quest
For some I yearned to see among the Blest—
Some who the martyr's crown obtained by faith,
In fiery flames, and nobly did attest
The power of faith to draw the sting of death:
Who died exulting in their Lord with their last breath!

307

40

My fatherland's intrepid martyrs were
The souls I longed to meet; and wish devout
I felt to gaze on reverend Latimer,—
The memory of whose nobleness oft wrought
Deep love within me, in my days of doubt
And wandering. Forthwith, as in dungeoned plight,

Another allusion to “The Purgatory of Suicides,” Book I Stanza 36

The soul with intellective power seemed fraught
To realize her wish; and, clothed with light,
The grand old martyr was revealed unto my sight!

41

And with him Ridley walked, in radiant dress
Of pure white robes; and garland-crowns they wore
Of flowers that did transcend in beauteousness
And splendour the fair flowers upon the shore
Of the bright river, though I deemed, before,
These were all-peerless. Hand in hand appeared
The shining martyrs. As, for Christ, of yore,
To burn together they nor shrunk, nor feared,
So were they to each other, now, in bliss endeared.

42

That his brave death-words rose within my mind,
Seemed quickly known unto the martyred sire;
And, that I feared their failure, he divined:
Whereat—unknowing that blest souls in higher
Ascents of purity the power acquire
To read their brethren's thought—I, speechless, stood
In wonder. Bravely, as if he marched the fire
Again to welcome with old hardihood,
He upward glanced, and thus his faith unshaken shewed:—

43

“Fear not, young heir of heaven! harbour no doubt
That Truth shall triumph. Falsehood's fellest power
The candle never shall again put out
We lighted up for England, in that hour
We dared the flame,—while, 'mong the crowds from tower
And hall and cloister, some that saw the deed
With fear at first, felt soon they would not cower
'Fore tenfold tortures; and, in flames, did read
This truth: the ‘Martyrs' blood shall be the Church's seed!’

308

44

“Fear not for Truth—for Christ's own glorious Truth!
Falsehood may, yet, put forth spasmodic force,
Again and oft, and vaunt her purity and youth,
Though every step of her foul crooked course
Speaks her decrepit. Despots may endorse
Her lies for truth, to prop their crumbling thrones;
And fools the gay-trickt harridan may nurse
And fondle; but rotten are her very bones:
Her scrannel songs scarce serve to drown her dying groans.

45

“Onward, young heir of Jesu's happy heaven!
We go on messages of mercy sweet,
Once more, to earth: such blest employ hath given
The Lamb to His glad saints. Thee soon shall greet
Dear souls familiar by their names: thy meet
And loving teachers: till a convoy bright
Of angels, swift, shall bring thee to the feet
Of Jesus throned, amid His saints in white;
And thou shalt worship with them in supernal light!”

46

Away, they sped!—the shining Martyr pair—
On their blest errand, with most eager love,
To do their loving Master's will. To share
Their work, methought, I coveted, and strove
To follow them. But, sweetest strains above,
Around me swelled, until I sank o'erpowered
With ecstasy of sweetness—though I longed to prove
The service of that heaven where saints adored,
In myriad throngs of love, their glorious risen Lord.

47

“Onward, still onward!”—did the sweet chaunt swell,
From unseen choristers—“Thou wilt not find
Thy rest in rapture. They on earth who dwell
Miss their chief happiness because, with blind
Perception of true bliss, they stay behind
To reap the lesser joys that virtue gives,
And toil not for the greater. God designed
The soul for duty; and he who, tireless, strives
To render duteous service unto God derives

309

48

“Still higher bliss from every duteous deed.
God did engraft in moral natures sense
Of praise and blame; and holiest natures feed
On consciousness of duty done, and thence
Derive, for God's sweet service, more intense
And holy and earnest zeal: blest avarice
It is, to covet largest opulence
Of zeal for duty: who rest in rapture miss
True good: eternal service is eternal bliss!”

49

And, now, grew visible a glorious band
Of spirits I seemed intuitively to know:
The gallant Martyrs of my fatherland:
Our noble Cobham; Hooper, the firm foe
Of slavish pomps; young Bilney, with faith's glow
Exultant; praying Bradford—devotee
So true and holy; Philpot, with the brow
Of high intelligence; Anne Askew, she
Who cheered her fellow-sufferers with such holy glee;

50

And melancholy Mary's victims: Rogers, first
On whom her priests, watching like wolves for prey,
Contrived to slake their sanguinary thirst;
Saunders, who burnt at Coventry; and they—
A hero-crowd besides—who, in the day
Of vengeful Gardiner, and power of Rome
Retrieved, and Bonner's savage zeal to slay,—
In Smithfield left their ashes, without gloom
Clasping the flames, triumphing in their fiery doom.

51

With these came Bainham, who, when fire had raged
And burned his nether limbs, aloud proclaimed
“This is a bed of roses!”—so assuaged
His faith fierce pain! The weaver humble-named,
Too,—Tomkins,—'neath whose wrist a taper flamed,
Held by brute Bonner, who thus vainly thought
To fright his victim; Hawkes, who threw his maimed
And burning arms aloft, to quell the doubt
Of trembling lovers who this sign of him had sought;

310

52

Hunter, the gentle boy whose mother and sire
Rejoiced that God to them so brave a child
Had given, to bear Him witness in the fire;
Farrar, who, at Caermarthen, his foes foiled
So stoutly in the flames; Tindal, who toiled
For future ages, and received the crown
Of martyrdom,—by treachery foul beguiled;
With steadfast Lambert, who the tiger frown
Undaunted bore of Henry seated on his throne.

53

Brave Rowland Taylor with this martyred host
Came nobly on. But there was one aside
Who walked, as if for him there were no boast
Among his brethren—no exultant pride:
'Twas Cranmer, seeming with himself to chide,
Even in heaven! With these came many more
Who burned in England; while, great souls allied
In faith and fervour, whom in her heart's core
Of reverence faithful Scotland long hath proudly bore,

54

Came with them: noble Hamilton, whom proud
And sensual Beatoun dragged to death, but fell,
Himself a victim to his country's loud
Demand for vengeance; holy Wishart, well
And worthily ranked with martyrs vincible
By neither man nor demon; Renwick bold;
With crowds whom Power and Priestcraft could not quell:
The men who did the Solemn Covenant hold
As sacred:—men of high, heroic, martyr mould.

55

I saw this shining host, and knew the chaunt
Was theirs; and one upraised me with a smile;
And on I journeyed with them, while descant
They joined, how holy joys the spirit thrill
That thirsts some higher duty to fulfil,
Nor counts on rapture for reward, or ease,
Or rest, but evermore to service still
Aspires; and how the soul new service sees
Before it, ever; and thus eternal pleasures please.

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56

And then, conversing of the work they loved,
They told each other of the sights just seen
On earth,—for, soon, my wistful spirit proved
That these glad souls to mother Earth had been,
To cheer God's children in their earthly teen,—
And how they loved the loving sweet employ:
And then, by turns, they drew some picture sheen
Of holy suffering and of holy joy,
And patient faith and trust no suffering could destroy.

57

Some told of mother's love, and watchings pale,
Beside a dying child; and some pourtrayed
The dread heartbrokenness that bowed a frail
Old man whom Death had robbed of all the aid—
The earthly aid—he had, and lowly laid
His loving life-companion in the grave;
While some rehearsed how pining sorrow preyed
Upon the hearts of children who, to save
Their dying parents, watched them with devotion brave.

58

And some depictured how a virgin flower
Of loveliness no words could tell declined
Upon its fragile stem, from hour to hour—
A loving maid beloved: two intertwined
And beauteous natures: in the youth the mind,
And in the maid the form, being fair as heaven;
And how she slept in death, and the youth pined
Away in grief, for that all bliss seemed given
With her on earth: with her all bliss away was riven!

59

The shipwrecked sailor, in the ocean wide—
Others described—and how his last lorn prayer
Was for his bosom's love, the tender bride
He left on land, far off—the home so fair
He decked so daintily, with shells so rare
And foreign beauteous things; and how the dread
Mysterious boding in her heart despair
Succeeds, and daily her tears for him are shed,
Long ere some lone survivor tells her he is dead.

312

60

And others told of negro slaves, and pain
And torture meekly borne by many a thrall
Who never breathed offence to those for gain
Who bought and sold him, but obeyed their call
To wait and toil when he could scarcely crawl
To do their fiendish bidding. Others shewed
How some bore ignominy that would not fall
Before men's idols, though it seemed the load
Would crush them: still the knee to Baal they never bowed.

61

The noble courage, in the Battle of Life,
Of peaceful warriors—others eulogised;
The men who with vindictiveness and strife
And hate and malice, daily agonised;
And strove to show mankind howe'er they prized
Red Victory's brow with laurel chaplet green,
Her real features were the Fiend's disguised.
And then they shewed how all who tried to wean
Men from War's madness suffered persecution keen.

62

With loving grief—such grief as saints can feel
In heaven—some told of hard oppression borne
By a poor widow, toiling at the wheel
Or loom, with hungered frame, sore weary and worn,
To keep her fatherless ones from sin and scorn,—
Yet meeting sympathy from none—but sneers
From bestial tempters she doth meekly spurn.
And how the meek one leans on Him Who hears
His saints' low cry, and bottles up His tried ones' tears.

63

And then they spoke of heavenly condolence
They bore to sorrowers: strength to fortify
The suffering with belief in Providence
That fills the cup of grief and trial nigh
Unto the brim in wisdom, and doth try
His saints in love, but never lets the cup
Run o'er; that counts each tear, that hears each sigh,
Of all His contrite ones; and, when they droop,
Sends heavenly help to bear their fainting spirits up.

313

64

Of resignation, and of steadfast faith
When bad men persecute the good, and rage
And threaten them with chains and torturous death,
They told;—and how, on holy embassage
They went to bear such help, their lineage
Of suffering rendering them the bearers meet.
And gratefully, they said—Mind could not gauge
The Love Divine that sent them forth to greet
And strengthen struggling saints by earthly foes beset;

65

And that themselves, thus, with the Paraclete
Divine should share the work of comforting
God's saints was a reward ineffably sweet;
And had they known what the Eternal King
Designed them for, it would have drawn the sting
Of torture in their martyrdom till praise
Had filled their souls; and, like a bird on wing,
Each would have soared, exultant, with glad lays,
Above all thought of pain, in the devouring blaze!

66

Thus while they held sweet descant, glode
Around us, oft, bands of the bright young quire
I saw when first I seemed the blest abode
Of saints to enter; and I felt desire
Grow strong to know them. Ne'er seemed they to tire
But ever floated on, with rapturous eyne
Betokening how they did the speech admire
Of God's glad martyrs, who the scheme benign
Extolled that did to them sweet ministering work assign.

67

Ere I could ask, one answered my thought's quest.
“These are,” said he, “but scanty companies
Of that great myriad army of the Blest
Of which they all are numbered. Hither, when hies
A soul from earth, these meet it, and surprise
The welcome soul with sounds and looks of love,
And thus prepare it for the exercise
Of all the powers within its essence wove
By the Great Maker, that it may for ever prove

314

68

“The blessedness of being, which God hath given.
These are the souls of infants: they of whom
The Saviour said of such the kingdom of heaven
Is. Deem thou not He meant they hither come
As if heaven were all infants' bright heirloom
By native right of innocency. Each soul
From Adam born is born in sin; and doom
Of sin these 'scape, because Christ suffered dole
For them, and makes, by grace, their sin-grained spirits whole.

69

“Of such the kingdom of heaven is; and young
They are for ever! Thus, by Divine decree,
They who by actual sin of thought or tongue
Were never stained do first salute the free
And happy souls who join our jubilee
In heaven. Old sin-stained earth they visit never,
Since sin or guilt they never knew: while we
Revisit sin's abode: the Great Life-giver
Thus serving, thus His service blest enjoying ever!”

70

Soon seemed we to have raught the mountains green,
And up their terraced sides, untoiling, climbed,
Beholding myriad forms so bright, the sheen
Of all earth's gold and gems would have been dimmed
Beside their beauty. Countenances sublimed
From mortal care and fear and doubt they wore;
And, as they clomb the mountains, sweetly hymned
Their grateful joy, their earthly fight being o'er,
Of sin the stain and torture they should know no more.

71

They sang not praise because from fiery flame,
Or fiercer bodily pain, they were set free,—
Although they out of great tribulation came;—
But joyous hymns they sang set to the key
Of purest love, because their leprosy
Of guilt was cleansed, and o'er them sin's dread reign,—
By Him Who captive led captivity,—
Was broken, never to be resumed again:
Thus, as they climbed, they sang their ever grateful strain:—

315

72

“We come, O God, from holy work on earth,
To adore in heaven Thy glorious majesty!—
Father of all, and Son who once had birth
'Mong sinful men, and Holy Spirit, Three
In One, the Triune God!—to bow the knee
With all for whom Christ's precious blood hath streamed,
And angels fair!—to join heaven's jubilee,
With all the fallen whom Thou hast redeemed,
And all on whom for aye Thy unbroken smile hath beamed!

73

“For ever blessed be Thy Holy Name!
Great Giver of existence and of thought!
Let all Thy saints return Thee sweet acclaim
For all the wonders which Thy hand hath wrought—
For all the bliss with which our life is fraught—
For all Thy long-forbearance when the sway
Of rebel Sin we owned, and foully fought
Against Thy sovereign love, from day to day.
We bless Thee that Thou didst not cast our souls away!

74

“For ever blessed be Thy Holy Name!
Thou didst in mercy seek Thy wandering sheep,
When, lost in sin, and lost to sense of shame,
We wandered still, and had no will to creep
Back to Thy feet in penitence, and weep
To have such love as Thine so vilely spurned.
Great God, what wondrous mercy dost Thou keep
For men! We never had to Thee returned,
Hadst Thou not sought us: never should for sin have mourned.

75

“But Thou didst love us, and dost love men still—
E'en sinful men on earth; Thou dost not leave
Them in their sins, and helplessness of ill:
Them Thou dost seek, and grant a long reprieve
To their rebellion—drawing them to grieve
For sin, and win Thy sweet forgiving love!
Thy sweet forgiving love we feel, and cleave
To Thee, as all Thy saints in heaven have clove
For ages; and for aye Thy loving smile shall prove!

316

76

“We bless Thy Holy Name we never here
Shall grieve Thy holiness, indulge desire
Or thought of sin, or ever feel a fear
Of falling! Evermore in us the fire
Divine shall burn to love Thee, and acquire
Still holier zeal; for Thou wilt guide our aim
To serve Thee, while to Thee our souls aspire,
And still wilt feed in us the holy flame!
For ever and ever blessed be Thy Holy Name!”

77

So sang the myriad shining forms that climbed
The mountains ever green. And, as I glanced
Along their ranks, I saw their steps were timed:
So that in triumph-march the hosts, entranced
With joy, up by the terraces advanced,—
While newer hosts of shining ones, from earth,
Still more their numbers and their joys enhanced,—
For upward still they clomb, all sending forth
The pæans of their grateful joy and holy mirth.

78

Lo! when the hosts the mountain heights had won,
How shall I tell the glory of my dream?—
The golden crystal walls before us shone—
Those lofty walls adorned with sparkling gem
Of every name; and those twelve gates with beam
Resplendent of one matchless pearl:—the blest
Apocalyptic vision God did deem
Him worthy of who on the loving breast
Of Christ, on earth, so often found a loving rest!

79

The new Jerusalem—the home, I saw,
Of God's dear saints for whom the Lamb's own blood
Was shed; and on the angels gazed with awe,
Who, at the pearly gates o' the City of God,
In panoply of light, as keepers, stood.
I thought their eyes pierced through me—but, behold!
They oped the mighty gates; and, like a flood,
The Martyr-hosts—who in their Lord were bold—
Streamed in, with songs of triumph, on the floor of gold!

317

80

I went not with them; for methought the band
With which I marched, to whom heaven's realm was new,
Were marshalled by an angel with a wand
Of silver, till he other bands outdrew
From the great host; and soon he loudly blew
The golden trumpet which hung by his side—
And forth from out the gates a convoy flew
Of wingëd seraphim, who smiling cried:
“The Lamb unto the marriage-supper calls the Bride!

81

“Come in, ye blessed of the Lord, come in!
Receive the mansions by your Lord prepared:
The glorious Crown of Life ye now shall win!
His truth and love ye have on earth declared:
With Him the hate of wicked men ye shared:
And though ye were not called to prove your faith
In the fierce flames which His confessors dared,
Ye have been faithful in your lives, till death.
Come in! receive from His own hands the blooming wreath

82

“Of immortality. Come in, come in,
Ye blessed of the Lord! receive the bright
Reward!—the crown of glory ye shall win!”—
And now we seemed upborne on bands of light
By the winged seraphim, with gentle flight,
Into the City of God, even to the throne
Of God and of the Lamb: into the sight,
All-glorified, of Him who wore the crown
Of thorns, but now gives crowns of life unto His own!

83

Vision of holiest love, how shall I tell
Thy sweetness!—or the splendour of that brow
Of awfullest majesty, for earthlings spell
In characters that men may read! O may I know
That smile ineffable when hence I go
To meet my Judge!—but all earth's languaged lore
Could not my soul with potency endow
To tell my dream: all earth-made speech were poor
To unveil the glory that the King in His beauty were!

318

84

The plenitude of pardon for all sin:
Eternal freedom from all sin and stain:
Welcome to mansions that should now begin,
And never fail—eternal welcome!—Pain
For ever ended, under His sweet reign
Of health, and light, and love, and bliss!—Largess
Of knowledge bounteous: things obscure made plain:
The soul become, in heaven, close auditress
Of the Eternal Word, whose accents overbless

85

The high archangels, as the saints in light:
Rapt consciousness no ceasing there should be
Of His all-gladdening smile: no darkening night
Of error—but bright perpetuity
Of rectitude: the soul from wrong set free,
That growth in wisdom of His works and ways
Might fill her enlarging powers with ecstasy,—
So that all souls, for aye, should grateful raise
To the All-Blest, All-Blessing One, their gladsome praise!

86

All mortal words are mean! More, far, of love—
Love bliss-endowing, bliss-entrancing, dwelt
In that one look that, from the throne above,
Glanced on my soul, than all the soul hath felt
On earth of joys in tenderness that melt
Our nature. And 'twas bliss ALL felt; and ALL
In speechless awe of overbliss, now knelt,
And loved, and worshipped, while it seemed to appal
The soul to experience bliss so beatifical!

87

Ten thousand times ten thousand harps of gold,
Tuned by the fingers of the angelic throng,
Forthwith began sweet prelude to unfold—
Harmonious prelude trumpets did prolong
Of cherub and seraph—to the choral song
Of all the host, unfallen and redeemed,
Of highest heaven. What voices, clear and strong,
Led the vast choir? They on whose foreheads beamed
The mark the Lamb had set: His Martyrs diademmed!

319

88

“Worthy the Lamb, that once for men was slain—
For sinful men!”—the holy martyrs cry.
“Worthy, redeeming Lord, Thou art to reign”—
Responded myriad angels holy and high—
“Who didst Thyself the souls of sinners buy
From endless pain; and didst Thy Father's rule
Of righteousness for ever justify!”
“We bow,” the archangels cried, “at Thy footstool,
O co-eternal Son, divinely pitiful!”

89

“O Father!” sang all heaven, “we laud Thy Name
For Thy eternal purpose made so clear
In giving Him to suffering and to shame—
Thy only begotten Son, so loved and dear
Unto Thy heart divine—who hath no peer
In all created life—Thy Son, who hath
In Thine own bosom ever dwelt, that here,
In this Thy heaven of love, men, saved by faith
In Him, might live: for ever saved from Thy just wrath!”

90

“O Spirit Divine!” sang on the general host
Of men and angels, “we adore Thy pure
Long-suffering love for man! O Holy Ghost,
Who didst so long the sight of sin endure—
Whose purity hath striven the foul to cure,
And conquered!—by whose sovereign breath
Sinners were born again,—their forfeiture
Of heaven was cancelled,—and they found the path
Up hither, by Thy light: made heirs of heaven, through faith!”

91

“Eternal Triune God!” sang ransomed men
And sinless babes, and principalities
And powers, and holy creatures with the ken
All-spiritual—the creatures full of eyes!—
And angel and archangel companies,
And cherubim and seraphim; and, from
The macrocosm of God, myriads of guise
And form man cannot name, devoutly come
To welcome God's loved saints to their eternal home:

320

92

“Eternal Triune God! Who wert, and art,
And art to come! Thrice holy, sovereign One!
Thyself sole Life, who dost their life impart
To all that live—Thyself sole Mind, the boon
To know who giv'st to all that think—sole Sun
The light who giv'st to all that live and feel—
Sole Strength, their strength who giv'st to all that on
The solid worlds or ether move—reveal
Thyself who dost, in glory and love unspeakable!

93

“We hymn Thy everlasting love, O Lord!
Thy love which gives us happy life, in thought
And act, Thy will in doing, and the reward
For ever finding in our work. Full fraught
Are all Thy works with love; and, by Thee taught,
For ever, thus, we work in love, and find
Our bliss enlarging ever; nor shall aught
Restrain or bound the bliss Thou hast designed
For all that do Thy will: the bliss with service joined.

94

“O God, our greatest bliss is that we love
Thee, and Thou lovest us. And Thou hast made
Us capable of loving more, and wove
In all our natures powers that, well essayed
In Thy blest service, Thou wilt ever aid
And strengthen, till for higher service still
Our being is fitted, and our thoughts all stayed
On Thy perfections. Father, let Thy will
Be done! With that desire alone our spirits fill!

95

“Thy will is happiness to all that live.
It was Thy everlasting love that moved
Thee to create, and happy life to give.
No other life Thou ever gav'st. They roved
From blessedness to bale, and swiftly proved
Their folly, who misused the freedom fair
Thou didst endow them with: for, it behoved
All spiritual natures should be free,—to share
Thy blest approval, or Thy righteous blame to bear.

321

96

“Thy wisdom, as Thy power and love, adored
For ever be, by all that think and know!
We see not all Thy purposes, O Lord!
Not yet—although throughout the ages grow
Our essences in knowledge—do they glow
With full perception of Thy works and ways.
All-perfect One, Thou hast no yoke-fellow!
Afar, full oft, in awe we stand and gaze,
Or sink beneath the effulgence of Thy glory's rays!

97

“We see not all Thy purposes, or aim.
If through the ages Ill survive, though Good
For ever with it war, and no reclaim
For evil-doers be found; if still the proud
Submit not to Thy rule, repentant bowed,
At length, 'fore Thy high will so holy and bright—
Thy all-wise will be done! For us, no cloud
Can hide the truth that Thou art true; and right
Are all Thy ways, O Holy Dweller in the Light!

98

“We know Thy will is that, like Thee, we war
Unceasingly with Evil, and condole
With those that suffer: that, to still the jar
Of disobedience in each human soul,
In Thy blest sight is blessed. No control
We have o'er loftier essences that fell
From holiness and bliss. If in the roll
Of ages, spiritual powers who now rebel
Shall to Thy love return—O Lord, it shall be well—

99

“For, such return unto Thy arms of love—
Unto Thy heart, that yearns all being to bless—
Shall to Thy saints and angels grateful prove
Thy wisdom, in its depths, how fathomless!—
How perfectly the spotless, bright impress
Of love is stamped on Thy great government,
Through all Thy realms of life and boundlessness!—
O Thou who art alone all-prescient,
Thy holy will be done—O Lord, all-excellent!

322

100

“Now round Thy throne again we grateful crowd,
And join our praise for all Thy goodness past,
Present, to come;—for all, with which endowed
Of intellect and strength, we feel Thou hast
Blest our existence! Giver of goodness vast,
Interminable, as of life, we hymn
The wondrous love with which Thou hast embraced
Alike, the wanderers who Thy gifts bedim,
But seek forgiveness,—and Thy steadfast seraphim!

101

“All praise be Thine—not ours—for constancy
Of service. Left, unguided, uninspired,
Unaided, unimpelled, O Lord, by Thee,
The brightness even of those Thou hast attired
With crowns of splendour, near Thee, had expired
In darkest wanderings of the will: the speed
With which we haste to go, with fervour fired,
Afresh, perpetually, on holy deed,
Had sunk to slowness, didst Thou not our fervour feed.

102

“Thy gladdening smile we feel to be our life:
And life it gives us now; happy, renewed
Existence, with the will and powers all rife
With zeal for high employ and amplitude
Of service: neither with less zest imbued
For lowliest work—so that we shelter fling
Round Thine own saints who suffer in the feud
With Evil,—or bold rebels, humbled, bring
Low at Thy feet in tearful penitence to cling.

103

“We see the sign of love beneath Thy feet,
That now, with energy renewed, we do
Again on earth our errands. When we meet
Once more around Thy throne in bliss to bow—
Another round of duty done—not slow,
We trust, we shall have proved in zeal for Thine
All-righteous rule. Go with us, Father, go!—
Or vigour of saint and angel shall decline,
And we shall fail to execute Thy will benign.

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104

“The presence of Thy visible glory, Lord,
We leave; but let us feel Thee ever near,
Where'er we go, and that Thou dost afford
Us loving aid while, serving in Thy fear,
We do our works of love. O Father! drear
The spaces of Thy universe would be
Without Thyself. Blest Father! ever cheer
Thy sons with consciousness that, while they flee
To do Thy will, Thou still art with them: they with Thee!’

105

Their choral praise was ended; but my rhyme
Is all unworthy of the theme. Inane
Were all attempts the choir of that pure clime
Of highest heaven, and their ecstatic strain
Of holiest worship, with the grand refrain,
So oft repeated, of their grateful joy,
To celebrate. To leave God's high domain
They now prepared, in lower realms employ
To share: to help the Good, or Evil to destroy.

106

Bright order still they kept. Who led the van?
God's holy Martyrs—with no banner spread,
Or ensign—but they, first, with zeal began
The crystal walls to pass—to join the dread
Encounter, still, with Evil: firm their tread
Upon the golden floor! And, marshalled forth
By resident seraphim of heaven, were led
To the gates the myriad host, beside—on earth,
Or other realms of God where first their souls had birth,

107

To re-enjoy their work for Him—their high
And rapturous toil of love and service blest.
The resident seraphs, and the beasts that cry—
Saying, “Holy, holy, holy!”—and never rest—
The spiritual creatures full of eyes—and drest
In white, the Elders crowned, who, by the sea
All-hyaline, before the Throne, attest
Likewise, perpetually, the sanctity
Of God Almighty—by His loving, high decree,

324

108

Remained in heaven—to me, to know 'twas given—
Ever with rapt and holy worship, there:
Within the Lamb's own light, in highest heaven
Remained to praise.
I heard a voice declare:
“Thou shalt return!” as I the precincts fair
Of bliss prepared to leave. A thrill of bliss
Awoke me; and I, trembling, breathed a prayer:
“Lord! let me not by sin, or cowardice
In the discharge of duty, the blest guerdon miss

109

“Of joys ineffable, in Thy glad realm
Of heaven! Henceforth, through every waking hour
Let me be breathing prayer! If trouble whelm
My spirit, and dark shapes of evil lour
Upon me—even in the hour and power
Of darkness, Saviour, let me feel Thee near!
Through Thee, let me be more than conqueror
O'er sin, and sloth, and pride, and doubt, and fear;
And then, Thy voice saying, ‘Come up hither!’ let me hear!”

327

BOOK THE SECOND.

1

Come forth, my Love! Old Winter, harsh and frore,
Flees the young vernal Sun! Come forth, my Love!
Let us renew sweet childhood's joys once more:
Once more return with merriment to rove
Adown the dear old lanes, through the loved grove,
O'er mead, and marsh, and pasture! Though with lithe
And limber steps we can no longer move,
The flowers will laugh around us! Ere Death's scythe
Shall reach us, let us share again Spring-pleasures blythe!

2

What say'st thou, Love—“Will there be flowers in heaven?”
They should grow there, Love, for thine own sweet sake.
But, while on earth we stay, and flowers are given
To us on earth so lovely that they make
Our hearts rejoice within us, and oft wake
A wonder whether saints in bliss behold
Aught that doth seem more truly to partake
Of rapturous loveliness than flowers unfold
Of loveliness on earth, though only of earth's mould,

3

Let us go forth, and look into their eyes
Of love, once more!
Old faces, ever new,
Men would look fondlier on ye, were they wise:
Ye harbour no ingratitude: the view
Of your bright beauty breeds no spite: your hue
And splendour raise no jealousies: content
Is your inheritance, and ye subdue
Aspiring thoughts in man: most eloquent
Is your frail life how briefly mortal life is spent!

328

4

How oft your mute but holy chaplainship
Hath led the heart of man to holiest prayer:
Heart prayer: more true than orisons o' the lip!
Still let me seek ye in the freshening air
Of morn; and as ye ope your eyes so fair
And look towards heaven,—upward I'll look
With grateful love, and humbly cast my care
On Him who careth for ye, in your nook
Wherein so lowlily ye nestle. In His Book

5

I learn He loved ye, when He walked on earth
With lowly men, and taught them that the king
So wealthy and wise was not, with all his girth
Of glorious robes and jewels glistering,
Arrayed like one of ye!—
Welcome, sweet Spring—
My natal time!—How I could love to live
For ever here, if thou wert garlanding
The earth, alway. Thanks, rather, let me give
For joys thou giv'st: this life of joy is fugitive!

6

Come forth, my Love! the sorrel of the wood—
Thy darling tenderling—in mossy shade
Now blossoms fair, the bluebell is in bud;
And the frail windflower and the primrose fade.
O violet sweet! hath thy rich hue dismayed
Thy pale companions?—Let's to the brooklet's edge!
See how the turbaned geum hath displayed
Its pride!—Step hither, darling, through the sedge:
'Twill glad thine eyes: I've found the golden saxifrage!

7

Hark! 'tis the cuckoo: Spring's true harbinger!
We all feel sure 'tis Spring—'tis life renewed—
When that quaint note—quaint, yet beloved—we hear!
How wondrous 'twas in childhood! All unviewed,
The curious voice with ardour we pursued,
Imagining the wood, the vale, the hill
Contained it,—nor desire to run subdued
Easily, though out of breath! How like our will
To follow fancies that can ne'er the wide soul fill!

329

8

List, list again! the stock-dove coos her coy
But fervent love; that lowly minor song
The yellow-hammer sings brings back the joy
Of early years; the linnet perched among
The golden gorse doth tenderly prolong
Old, sweet remembrances; while, overhead,
The soaring lark, in anthems clear and strong,
Leads back desire to joys that will bestead
The yearning soul most truly while on earth we tread.

9

But, list again! How tear the heart away
From earth, while listening to yon flute of gold
The blackbird sweetly plays? What powerful sway
Hath such rapt music for the soul! Oh cold,
Relentless Death! how I thy power controlled
Could wish, that I might ever stay on earth
And listen to her music manifold!
What wonder that her music and her mirth
Have such enchantment for a thing of earthly birth?

10

What tiny woodman's axe rings lightly down
Our path? Lo, yonder to the rotten tree
Clings the green-feathered worker, with his crown
Of burning crimson! With what saucy glee
The bar-winged jay and magpie laugh to see
Their neighbour's toil! Let idlers all deride—
He works in earnest, having found the key
To unlock the insect treasures that there hide:
Well done, fair bird! work on, whether they laugh or chide!

11

Shall we press inward, to the thicket dern,
Where rare Herb Paris springs, and orchids flout
The mystic stranger, 'mid young snake-curled fern?
Hark! in the swamp, how merrily the rout
Of snow-white crowfoots seem to sing and shout:
“We are as fair as lilies!” Many a year,
Loved lilies of the vale! with hope devout,
In vain, I've sought ye, and begin to fear
The music of your fairy bells I shall not hear

330

12

As in Lea Wood I heard it, when-a child,
Love-guided by my brave dear mother's hand,
I went to pluck ye, and my mother smiled,
Forgetting her oppressors 'midst the bland
And gladdening smile of Spring. 'Midst yon bright band
I soon shall meet her—for, in Christ she died!
Sweet Lord, I thank Thee, that in Thy glad land
No woe or weeping shall the Poor betide:
No more their souls shall ache beneath the scourge of Pride!

13

Away, old sorrows of the heart, away!
How surely do your memories live, though years,
We think, have buried them! But now sweet May
Hath come, this is no time for sorrow's tears.
Let tears flow, rather, from the fount that nears
The fount of sorrow, in the soul: so twin
Is all our nature! on the face that wears
The clouds of sorrow radiant joys soon shine;
And smiles to tears, soft, whisper—“Lo, we are akin!”

14

“It is the merry, merry month of May!”—
So sang we in our childhood; and the song
Let us sing cheerily 'mong the flowers so gay!
They are not fallen to sin, or stained with wrong.
O give us of your pureness, happy throng
Of virgin starworts!—your untainted show
Of beauty seems more truly to belong
To bliss, because so near the ground ye blow:
Even fairest flowers seem happiest when they humbly grow.

15

And humble as thy name doth thee betoken,
Lowly ground-ivy, not a cultured flower
Of which we hear words superfine fairspoken,—
Whether in trim parterre or lady's bower,
Or grand conservatory,—holds a dower
Of richer splendour than thy purple dye!
Nor seems the dahlia, in its robes of power,
More beautiful than thy meek fairy eye,
And tinct serene, as of the noon-day summer sky,

331

16

Dear speedwell, that so modestly dost cower
Under the hedgerow! Pilewort, with its sheen
Of gold, and daisy silver-rayed,—the flower
So dear to every child!—with lovelier mien,
Seem to gaze on us from their couch of green
Upon the ground, than if they did look down
From lofty boughs of lordly forest treen.
From lofty things we rather fear a frown,
Than look that smiles by them upon the earth be strown.

17

What hast thou found?—the fairy moschatel?
How fitly did the wise and reverent Swede
“Unglorying” name it! He named all things well—
The lowly interpreter of Nature: freed
From base self-worship, all things did him lead
To enthrone the All-Worshipful, and trace His hand
Of tireless care and wisdom in each weed,
Each winged and creeping thing, proud man hath banned,
As much as in the beautiful, the gay, the grand.

18

There goes the startled throstle from her nest!
Come, let us seek for it, but not destroy
Or rudely touch its precious treasure, lest
The bird should grieve when she comes back to pry
If all be safe. Eureka!—when a boy,
If I had found five eggs so beauteous blue
And speckled, I should have gone wild with joy!
I wish I had found out the value true
Of other pretty things I did so long pursue

19

Only to find them valueless and void
Of aught to make man happier. How the eyes,
The ears, the taste, and every sense beside,
Deceive us!—and, when undeceived, what sighs
We heave to be deceived again! Disguise
It as we may, the winsome world we deem
So false is chiefly our own making. Lies
Will sparkle as if writ with Truth's own beam
To minds content to rest on hopes that only seem.

332

20

Our steps grow weary, Love! Let us wend home—
Though home we share no longer, as in days
Gone by. Worn pilgrims, through the world we roam,
Calling no cot “our own,” kindling no blaze
On our own hearth, bidding a friend who pays
His evening visit “welcome!” now, no more.
What then? We know no want: so let us raise
Our thankful hearts unto the Great Bestower:
Life shall be Duty while it lasts; 'twill soon be o'er!

21

My evening task wrought out, once more, when sleep
Imperfectly again had shut out sense
Of outward things—which, evermore, we threap,
Are real and true, while but a fraudulence
Of brain o'er-busy 'tis, or indigence
Of gastric power, that fills the mind with dreams,—
I dreamt again that I had audience
Of martyred souls in converse on high themes:
A company brightly clad with heaven's own glorious beams.

22

The Martyrs' names ybore of reverence—names
A false religion teaches men should hold
As mediatorial. But, I wis, no claims
On earth they made so arrogant and bold;
And their descant in heaven left all untold
Such fictions of old Priestcraft. Holy Paul
The persecutor saved—I did behold;
And with him Peter and James; apostles all
Of Him who died to save their sinful souls from thrall.

23

They spake not of the kind of death they died:
Not Paul of his beheading; nor if on
The self-same day Peter was crucified

Peter's crucifixion, with the head downwards, on the same day as Paul's martyrdom.—Eusebius, Jerome, Hegesippus, Chrysostom, Prudentius, etc., etc.

Head downwards, in the spiritual Babylon;
Nor of the sword wherewith the brother of John
Was slain, by murderous Herod, heard I word
Of boasting made by James. And when, anon,
There met them James, the brother of the Lord,
Surnamed “the Just,” he spake not of the old record,

333

24

How lawlessly the Pharisaic mob
Hurled him sheer down from off the temple's wing
And beat his brains out with a fuller's club,

Death of James “the Just.”— Eusebius, Book II., c. I, and c. 23

Because full often they had felt the sting
Of his reproofs amid their trafficking
With vice in virtue's name. No thought of pride
Did to the souls of the Apostles cling,
While speaking of the Past. It seemed beside
A stream of Paradise, in lowliness, they hied.

25

Most gratefully they spake of what they owed
To their most loving Lord; and of the grace
He gave them, while upon the earth they trode,
His saving truth to welcome and embrace;
And power to war with old affections base,
Within; and strength and boldness to proclaim,
Alike to Greek and Jew, in every place,
The Gospel of God's Christ; and His high Name
To enthrone where'er they bore the cross, despising shame.

26

And then they spake, in wonder, how such weak
And faulty creatures as on earth they felt
They were, God should have used His truth to speak
And spread so widely through the realms where knelt
Fallen men to brutish idols:—from the belt
Of Libyan sand, and by the pillars named,
Falsely, of Hercules, where the Iberian Kelt
Worshipped the sun; and all around the famed
Great Mediterranean Sea, 'mong nations haughtily claimed

27

For vassals by the imperial men of Rome,—
To question-loving Athens, Corinth lewd—
Of merchandise and wealth and sin become
The heart of Greece, in her decrepitude;—
And through the isles o'er the Ægean strewed;
And in the stately cities of Levant,
And Lesser Asia; till again were viewed
The prostrate peoples who, with fire and chaunt,
Knelt to the sun, in degradation jubilant!

334

28

And then they blessed the holy name of Christ,
That now His truth across the seas was borne
To men in late-found regions; and rejoiced
That Gentile nations whom their sires with scorn
Had looked upon, and treated as forlorn,
Forsaken things of God, were filled with zeal
For Christian truth. And then they 'gan to mourn,
As happy spirits mourn in heaven, and feel
For brethren who reject blindly their highest weal.

29

“Oh that our brethren who on earth still boast
Of father Abraham's seed”—were the earnest cries
Of holy Paul—“from grovelling in the dust
Would cease, and strive to win the blessed prize
Of life we share in Jesu's Paradise!
When from their sight will they let fall the scales
Of stubborn prejudice, and exercise
The gift of patient thought, that never fails
To find out truth, when earnestness in men prevails,

30

“And preference for the truth, whate'er betide
Him that embraceth it? For God doth aid,
Unknowing to the seeking soul, and guide
Its search for truth. 'Twas thus displayed
Was His large pity, although fierceness swayed
My spirit, and I burned to shed the blood
Of Jesu's saints. His holy eyes pervade
Men's thoughts, marking their yearnings for the good,
And leading them by ways they have not understood.”

31

“Yet, 'twas not patient thought, my brother Paul,
I trow, that saved thee,” with fraternal smile
Spake Peter; “rather say 'tis goodness all—
Free, sovereign goodness—that doth choose the vile:
The persecutor, thou—on murder bent, the while:
The faithless, I, who did deny my Lord:
'Tis sovereign goodness that doth reconcile
Fallen men to God.”
“For ever be adored
That goodness! Thou hast spoken the wiser and better word”—

335

32

The great apostle of the Gentiles said,
With noble haste of meekness. “We must wait
The Lord's good time. 'Twill surely come. The dead
Shall rise to holy life. God will create
Israel anew. His people's afterstate
Of bliss on earth shall come. Men shall behold
The day when every Jew shall hail God's great
Messiah—Jesus the Nazarene—their old
Rapt seers with joy beheld, and rapturously foretold.”

33

“Yet God,” said James, the martyr of that lewd
And cruel king who gave the dancer vain
John Baptist's head for fee, “still lets the feud
Prevail 'tween Jew and Gentile. And the reign
Of Christ on earth seems distant far. The strain
Of triumph for the lowly Jesus swells
Not yet, o'er land and sea. Old Error's chain
Still binds half earth. The dark-skinned heathen sells
His children to the white for gold. Earth's lands are hells

34

“Of evil yet, in spite of all God's strife
With men, and Christ's dear suffering, and the zeal
Of His dear saints. And yet may many a life
Of Christian men be taken by the steel
Of murderers vile who bear the outward seal
And name of Christ. Or, men may have to burn,
In scores, for Christ's own truth, till nations feel
How bitter is the bondage they have worn
Beneath the Man of Sin: that priest of pride and scorn!”

35

Thus, while they spake, came other spirits I knew,
By mystic intellection, to belong
To apostolic times: the holy Jew,
Stephen, they stoned to death—that raving throng
Whose clothes Paul held, believing right was wrong,
And truth was falsehood! Now to him Paul cleaved;
And Stephen grasped Paul's hand with fervour strong—
Seeming to feel the highest triumph achieved
For Christ, since even the persecutor fierce believed.

336

36

With Stephen came the martyr in old age,
Brave Polycarp;

Polycarp. For his martyrdom see the Circular Epistle of the Church of Smyrna, in Archbishop Wake's Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers. Also Eusebius,Book IV., c. 15.

and he

Justin Martyr, the Philosopher. See Eusebius, Book IV., c. 16.

to Antonine
Who wrote apologetic words, the sage
Imperial moralist from fell design
And murderous deed seeking by sooth to incline
Towards tolerant regard for Christian men,
But failed; and Simeon of the Saviour's line;

Simeon, the relative of our Lord. For his martyrdom see also Eusebius, Book III., c. 32.

And bold Ignatius,

Ignatius. For the authorities respecting his martyrdom see Archbishop Wake's Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers.

—of so lively ken,
He looked as he would gladly face the lions agen!

37

“We spake, but now, of earth, and our own race,”
Said James, the brother of the Lord, with look
Of love fixed on the martyr Stephen's face;
“Regard for Abraham's seed must be unshook
Within us, even in heaven. Thou, in the book
Divine, in mortal life, wert deeply skilled,
Nor hath thy yearning soul desire forsook
To know the fulness of the words that filled
Thy heart with hope, yea, oft with joy thy bosom thrilled.

38

“Ages have rolled away since we of earth
Ceased to be habitants; and Abraham's seed
Still count God's great Messiah of no worth.
They deem He earned the malefactor's meed—
The scourge, the thorns, the cross, the spear; and feed
Their mean imaginations with a king
That shall be clothed with pomp and power, and lead
The conquered heathen of their wealth to bring
To his footstool a world-collected offering.

39

“Or, wise in grovelling doubt, but fools become
Perforce of their own wisdom, they avow
Their bold belief that wild delirium
Impelled God's seers to utter words of woe
Or rapture, and the kingdom to foreshew
Of His Anointed One. No Christ—they say—
There hath been, or there shall be. Of the Foe—
The Antichrist—they swell the battle-array,
Eager as their idolatrous sires for Falsehood's fray!

337

40

“Oh say, loved brother, who the holy seers,
And their deep meaning, ponderest still, change not
Thy cherished hopes for Israel into fears!
Shall our own race to faith in Christ be brought
By holy influences unknown, unsought,
In their long stubbornness?”—
“They shall return
To heart-obedience; and then fully fraught
With willingness to know, their souls shall learn
The truth of Christ, and all their hearts with love shall burn

41

“To Him their erring fathers crucified!”—
With holy haste, cried Paul; “blindness in part
Hath happened unto Israel, till the tide
Of Christian truth fill every Gentile heart;
And then the Jew shall worship; and, athwart
And thorough universal earth shall rise,
Alike from polished Frank and Ethiop swart,
The hymn of gladness that shall pierce the skies,
And draw even angels down to list men's harmonies!”

42

The face of Paul glowed with a holy light;
But Stephen's countenance with a brightness shone
Transc endent as the sun above the night
When earth is roofed with stars, as he made known
How strong his confidence in God had grown,
And God's great purpose to His prophets told,
In ancient times, and o'er the record strown
Of Holy Writ, in syllables of gold,
That did to faithful minds their meaning bright unfold.

43

“To Zion shall the Redeemer come,” he sung;
“And Jacob's late-born sons their sin shall leave;
And God with fire of praise shall touch their tongue,
When they at length His holy truth perceive.
And they no more His Holy Spirit shall grieve,
Nor shall their children, to the latest hour
Men shall exist on earth. Israel shall cleave
Unto the covenant-keeping God, their tower
Of strength; and hallow His high Name for evermore!

338

44

“Zion shall rise and shine, and know her light
Is come, and that the glory of the Lord
Hath risen upon her darkness; and the sight
Shall draw the grateful Gentiles toward
God's house of glory that shall be restored
On David's hill; and kings shall haste to own
The King of kings, in David's city adored;
And Midian, Ephah, and Sheba shall cast down
The golden burthens of their camels before His throne.

45

“All Israel's sons shall gather from afar,
And flow together first with fear—with joy,
Full soon—for men from under every star
The abundance of the sea shall bring, and cloy
Jerusalem with good. It shall upbuoy
The Gentile heart with gladness to join hand
In hand with Abraham's sons, while all employ
Their tongues to swell Christ's triumph, in one band
Of holy brotherhood gathered from every land.

46

“I see, with eyes of faith, the flying cloud
That, like a flock of doves, in joy return
Unto their windows! I behold the crowd
Of nations who our race beheld with scorn,—
And long did contumeliously spurn
And bruise,—now haste to bring the exiles home!
Lo! Judah's children from their long sojourn
Among the isles, in ships of Tarshish come!—
How shall the ruined narrow city find them room?

47

“The sons of strangers shall her walls extend
O'er neighbouring hills, and kings the work shall aid
For now the days of God's just wrath shall end,
And His sweet favour and mercy be displayed:
Jerusalem in joy shall be arrayed;
And through her gates, that shall continually
Be open, day and night, the new Crusade—
The host of love and peace—in holy glee
Shall crowd, from every shore washed by the surging sea!

339

48

“Her, all the haughty kingdoms of the earth
Shall serve, or perish. Even the fierce and high
Who brought her sorrow, now shall bring her mirth:
Yea, bending lowly, they shall come and lie
Repentant at her feet. And all shall vie
In zeal to pile with votive wealth the floor
Of God's new sanctuary; for beautify
His place on Zion He will again; no more
To be cast down by proudest king or conqueror!

49

“Though once forsaken, and her name with hate
Rehearsed, the Zion of the Holy One
With plenty and with joy shall be elate.
The Mighty One of Jacob shall make known
That He, the Lord, Her Saviour, for His own
Hath taken her; and men no more shall raise
The cry of violence in her streets, or groan
Of sorrow in her homes, through countless days:
For they shall call her walls Salvation—her gates Praise.

50

“Her sun shall never more go down, or moon
Withdraw its light. Her everlasting light
The Lord Himself shall be: no clouded noon
Of mourning she shall know, no cheerless night
Of sorrow: Righteousness shall rule with bright
And smiling sovereignty o'er all God's realm:
The branch of His own planting, in His sight
Shall flourish; and the weak the strong o'erwhelm;
And glory sit on Israel's spiritual warrior helm!

51

“The Lord will hasten it, in His own time!”—
He sang, with lips touched with a coal of fire
From the same altar, the prophetic rhyme
Of Him who struck with noblest hand the lyre
Of all that God-inspired and matchless quire
Who woke the echoes of each rocky dell
Through Judah's land, what time the armies dire
Of proud Assyria threatening came, but fell
By the destroying angel's hand,—without a knell,—

340

52

Dead corpses all,—found in the early morn;
And Sénnachérib fierce to Nineveh fled,
And died by slaughterous hands of children born
From his own loins:—while, as one from the dead
New risen, meek Hezekiah raised his head,
And he, and all Jerusalem, wondering, knew
How soon from threats that fill the heart with dread
God can deliver men—how soon subdue
His people's foes, that murderously their souls pursue.

53

Isaiah's lofty song the martyr sang;
And all sang with him, as they caught the strain;
While as they sang, loud heavenly echoes rang
Of elder songsters making sweet refrain.
And, forthwith, these appeared—a stately train
Of reverend forms—the minstrel leading them—
Isaiah's self: he who was sawn in twain

Isaiah. The account of his martyrdom is derived from a Rabbinical legend; but many commentators accept it, believing that it is referred to in Hebrews xi. 37.

In his old age, by one the diadem
Who stained, of Judah: impious fruit of pious stem:

54

Idolatrous Manasseh, who became
A penitent in trouble, and made prayer
To God, Who raised him from his prisoned shame,
And set him on his throne again—the rare
And precious fact in history to make fair
For all men's gaze, through time—that kings may keep
A promise made in trouble and despair,—
Though, trouble past, they usually hold cheap
Even oaths, and lightly law, most lawlessly, o'erleap.

55

The primal martyr, Abel, next I knew:
The son whom our first mother wept to see
Of life bereft; and whom his brother slew—
Her first-born son. A martyr sure, was he—
The first of men that died! By enmity
Of sin to holiness the victim fell;
And, through all years, bad men have raged to be
Convicted of their ill by men who well
Have lived; and sought, in blood, the hated good to quell.

341

56

The son of Barachiah, slain between
The temple and the altar,

“Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.”—Matt. xxiii. 35.

eke, I saw,—
With unnamed prophets whom the kings obscene
Of Judah and Israel slew, to gorge the maw
Of wickedness with righteous blood: God's law
Despising, and His vengeance drawing down—
At length—when that great prophecy with awe
The twelve disciples heard their Lord make known
Was full; and temple and altar were alike o'erthrown.

57

Last of the train came he who was the last
Of God's high messengers that went before
His Christ: he who proclaimed, as with the blast
Of a shrill trumpet, on old Jordan's shore—
“‘I am the voice of one foretold of yore—
The herald crying in the wilderness—
Prepare the way of the Lord!” Aspect he wore,
Elijah-like, of courage questionless,
That seemed his brethren with a sense of awe to impress.

58

And thus he spake: “With rapture, still on earth,
Blest prophet, by believing men thy song
Is sung; while unbelievers turn to mirth
Thy bright foretellings, saying—Declare how long
Shall Israel dwell in banishment, and wrong
Receive from nations who Isaiah's God
Adore—Isaiah's Christ with fervour strong
Profess to love? When shall the heavens be bowed,
And Christ descend on Olivet,—upon the cloud—

59

“They said they saw receive Him—the eleven
Who gazed so steadfastly upon the bright
Shekinah which upbore Him into heaven,
His native seat,—while, by them, two in white,—
The attendant angels,—pointed to the sight,
Saying—This same Jesus shall again descend,
Clothed in like manner with the cloud of light,
As ye have seen Him go? When shall the end
Of this world's kingdom be? Show us what signs portend

342

60

“The second coming of the Christ foretold
By fablers, and by doting men believed?
Where doth the wolf lie down within the fold
With the young lamb, in peace? Who hath perceived
The cow, no longer of her calf bereaved
By the grim bear, feed with him, while their young
Lie down together? What child hath achieved
The fearless feat to dare the forky tongue
O' the cockatrice, and play upon its den unstung?

61

“We see no signs that your famed Prince of Peace
Shall come, and o'er the happy nations reign.
The wolf—the Christian shepherd—yet doth fleece
The sheep; the royal lion and leopard drain
The life's blood of the labouring ox: in vain
We look for serpents that with children play,
And harm them not: knaves still the simple swain
Entrap and rob. Thus, ages pass away—
Christ will come, why doth He thus delay?

62

“So, in old time, the Pharisee and scribe,
Who listened to the Saviour's warning word,
Denied His truth, with scoff, and jeer, and gibe,
And, voluntarily blind, His claims ignored.
But, on their children was the vengeance poured
That Christ foretold. And yet will God, blest seer!
Thy prophecies fulfil. Again the Lord
Will come in judgment; but will first appear
In mercy. They who wait for Him discern Him near!”

63

Although in Paradise, the son of Eve,
With looks and words of mingled sorrow and love,
Began: “The first of martyred men must grieve
For memory of that brother who first strove
Against his brother. For the curse hath clove—
The curse of murder—to our sinful race,
Since first the spirit of evil did Cain move
To shed his brother's blood: no resting-place
The wanderer found: he ever saw the fancied face

343

64

“Of the avenger. And the murderer still
Doth tremble at the sound o' the fallen leaf—
And yet men murder! —yet, with rebel will,
Men wander from all good, and spend their brief
Sojourn on earth in filling it with grief!
I would the day were come, O Prophet sweet,
When how to bless each other shall be chief
Of men's desires and thoughts—when men shall greet
Each other with true loving hearts where'er they meet!

65

“I would thy glorious vision of the joy
And love and peace that men on earth shall feel, —
The works of love and peace that shall employ
Their hearts and hands, —the Present would reveal.
The Past hath wounds that no regrets can heal;
And, in the Future, until earth become
A world of loving men who for the weal
Of others toil unselfishly, —its gloom
Brings sorrow to my soul, even in this blissful home!

66

“Bear with me lovingly, dear saints of God!
Ye scarce can feel as I feel. When I came
A stranger here, where none but angels trod
This Paradise of blessedness; —where name
Of Man itself was new; —not without shame
And awe I witnessed how, with piercing eyes,
The angels wondered, when from fiery flame
And axe, and other deaths of hideous guise,
Truth's victims crowded hither, slain by Men of Lies!

67

“And, through the long, long ages, still arrives
The host of martyred men from earth. The hate—
The deadly hate—of evil men survives
For good men—oh, how long! I watch and wait,
But see not that their rage for murder doth abate.
O Lord, how long—”
“O gentle son of Eve!”
Isaiah gently spake: “doth not the Great,
The High and Lofty One wait also? Grieve
His essential Love it must—doth not thy soul believe—

344

68

“That still His saints fall victims to the rage
Of murderous brothers who are mad with sin? —
Could He not end them? —or, their wrath assuage?
But why, or wherefore, did their being begin?
God is all-wise: His work is not akin
To man's: abortive oft. And, if away
God took man's freedom, none reward could win
Who served God; and man's worship would convey
No praise unto God's ear, though it should last for aye.

69

“Thy gentle soul, O Abel, doth with love—
With pitying love—for suffering man, run o'er.
But, doth not God's forbearance larger prove
His love and pity—since He wields His power,
Not to crush sinners; but, His grace to shower
Upon their hearts, to soften them, and bring
Their wills towards good: although the noble dower
Of freedom that He gave, He will not wring
From man or angel: His own work disparaging.

70

“We may not wish that the All-wise had laid
The vast foundations of His universe
According to our wisdom; or had made
Intelligent creatures whom He did coerce
To keep His law, whom sin could not amerce
With suffering. What our Holy God hath done
Is done in goodness, as in wisdom. 'Sperse
Thy sorrow with the thought, O gentle one!
O' the joys of men and angels since their being begun.”

71

“I do adore His wisdom, and confess
His goodness infinite,” meekly replied
The son of Eve; ”my thought is languageless
When I would sum the good that is allied
Even with suffering. Yet again the tide
Of grief will swell, amid the joys of heaven,
When I bethink me how the earth is dyed
With blood of God's dear saints. From it long riven,
To lingering love of its old home the soul is given.”

345

72

“Sweet patriarchal spirit, and brethren dear!
I speak with diffidence, where elders tell
Their thoughts”—said Justin, the philosopher—
“Thoughts of deep mysteries that often dwell
In human hearts untold, until they swell
To bursting: for, men bind each other down
With chains that cause the spirit to rebel—
Forbidding men to think—until men moan,
And wish they never had the gift of thinking known.

73

“We ever deemed it past man's finding out
Why God had made a universe where death
And sin and suffering could be found—a doubt
To render possible, or peril faith
That God is what the holy volume saith
He is—the High and Lofty One, the True
And Holy and Good and Loving One, that hath
Been ever, and that ever shall be. But the clue
Of subtler, simpler thought we reach in this the new

74

“And sinless habitation of the soul—
Wherein her powers are strengthened, and her gaze
Is purged from fleshly films. God hath made all—
We now discern, surrounded with the blaze
Of His perfections—purposely to raise
Within His creatures perfect loving trust
In His unselfishness. In all their ways
Of lauding Him, the children of the dust
Fall short—unnaming that great attribute august!

75

“It had been selfishness had He but made
A lifeless universe—however wise
Its mechanism and motions had displayed
His mind to be—or beauty of the guise
Of things, Him beautiful that did devise
Their forms and hues, had proven. But one Mind—
His own—the Awful One's—to know or prize
The wisdom and the beauty! How unkind
Were such Creator in His awfulness enshrined!

346

76

“To store His glorious universe with life
God's blest unselfishness His essence moved;
And thus all worlds with living things are rife.
But, gift of life alone had not Him proved
Unselfish. Living things it Him behoved
To bless—to make them worthy of His hand.
For, if no creature could have known or loved,
Have thought or felt—as well a barren strand,
Or lifeless ocean, God eternally had planned!

77

“God were not blest could He not love and feel
As well as know. Vain sages of the East
Affirm their Brahm, the highest, hath perfect weal
Because he is emotionless—divest
Of feeling—joy or grief; and in such rest—
Such blank quiescence—centres perfect bliss!
But God's word leaves us to no barren quest
About Himself—no cold hypothesis:
It tells us that He hates the sinner's ways amiss,

78

“But loves the righteous; that He hath great joy
When sinners turn and leave their sinful way,
And seek their Father's house; but that the alloy
Of grief is His when His own people stray
From His sweet service. If unwise men say—
Can, then, the Unchangeable rejoice or grieve,
And still be perfect? Yea, we answer, yea:
Unchangeable holiness, His saints believe,
Is His; and higher perfectness none can conceive.

79

“God's happiness is perfect, not because
He is almighty, or all-wise, or fills
Infinity, or gives all life by laws
Himself supports. But perfect happiness thrills
His holy essence, since He ever wills
And does that which is holy, perfectly.
Just ire, grief, love—emotions—are not ills
To perfect holiness. No change shall be
In God's all-perfect bliss throughout eternity.

347

80

“And from eternity hath been no change
In His all-perfect bliss, though He hath seen
Men's wickedness, and grieved. Grief was not strange
To God's omniscience. His creation teen,
He knew, must bring to Him, amid the sheen
Of His all-glorious perfectness—for free
If His creation were, though strong, or keen
In intellect, yet they must ever be
Subject to imperfection, as He did foresee, —

81

“And though foreseeing, chose to make them free,
And chose to grieve and suffer, that He might
Have creatures in His universe to be
Recipients of His bounty, and delight
Might take in blessing them, and oft requite
With tenderness their base ingratitude,
And follow them in their wanderings from the right—
Leaving it hard for sinful ears to exclude
His call of love with which He hath their souls pursued.”

82

He ceased; not as if all his thoughtful theme
Were uttered, but himself with measurement
Meting of lowliness: nor with esteem
And reverence for God's elder saints unblent
Seemed his demeanour. Praise, awhile, upsent
The Martyr-host, in silence, with devout
Rapt feeling: silence deep: more eloquent
Than words—for through each visage beamed the thought
Of grateful love with which their wondering souls were fraught.

83

“Thy words are sooth, my brother,” holy Paul
Thus earnestly the silence broke:“for Love
Alone is pure Unselfishness; and all
Our best conceptions, when on earth we strove
To express God's nature, did but feeble prove
Compared with that one sentence of His word—
That God is Love. The proof is brightly wove
In every sentence of that vast record
The archangels keep of all they know the Sovran Lord

348

84

“Hath done, since they primeval light first saw;
And, unto man, the proof is best revealed
In God's best gift of His dear Son, from woe
To save our sinful race. How oft this field
Of thought we visit! —and it still doth yield
Fresh riches, and will ever; for, again
And oft, this theme will charm us, till unsealed
Is every prophecy, and Christ's great reign
Makes unto men and angels God's great meaning plain!”

85

A hand of golden light appeared aloft!
The signal seemed to all familiar, for
Upward all glanced, and then around with soft
Benignant smile upon each other: store
Of love congratulant within the core
Of every heart fraternal beaming bright
Upon their faces, while they left the shore
Of that sweet stream with flowers so richly dight
I dreamt I saw, at first, with new-born spiritual sight.

86

Obedient to the sign, with lively pace
They trod the plain, till they the hills could climb,
And spoke with rapture of the errands of grace
From which they had returned, in lands of crime
And error that they once, in olden time,
Had known and loved. The martyred prophets said
Old Jordan's banks were fair as in their prime,
But o'er the land the stones of ruin spread
Scarce shewed what glories had belonged unto the dead.

87

And when sweet Olivet, and their loved lake,
Gennesaret, the Apostles saw, they told
How burnt within their hearts the words He spake
To them—the Lowly One—in days of old,
As if they heard His voice, and did behold
His meek form still. And then Jerusalem
They named with words that shewed above all gold
They priced her dust, and thought her still the gem
Of all the earth, though shorn of her old diadem.

349

88

But Polycarp spake sadly:“Light hath waned
In Smyrna and our Asian churches, where
It once burned purely. Long hath Falsehood reigned,
Boasting her crescent, in those regions fair.
And, though a few are found not loath to share
Christ's shame, or own His cross, —dark errors blind
Them till their good and ill seem but to bear
A semblance to the grace and beauty shrined
In marbled ruin, which upon that shore men find.”

89

“And Antioch—the beautiful—the great!”
Said bold Ignatius, “where our faith first found
A name—what marks her now? How desolate
And silent are the spaces where the ground
Oft shook with feet of crowds—the air with sound
Of festive shouts was filled”—
“Yet, within cell
Monastic, in those lands,” said Simeon, “bound
With fetters of the soul, although men dwell,
Sometimes they burst their bondage, we can gladly tell.

90

“Bethink ye both, my brethren, of the poor
Weak trembler with old age we lately hied
To comfort, at behest Divine, and found the lore
Of Christ his soul had sweetly learned, and tried
To enlighten others. And he joyous died,
For some had listened to his words with joy,
And learnt to love, in truth, the Crucified. —
O let the bliss we reap from such employ,
Revisiting old earth, all sad regrets destroy!”

91

But now to climb the mountains ever green
Began the Martyrs. All, with one consent,
Well-ordered step and timely march were seen
To keep, with bands that up before them went,
Or followed after; and right soon were blent
The myriad voices of the Martyr-throng
In choral triumph. Voice mellifluent
One raised, at call of them who did belong
Unto the Martyr-host: thus Stephen led the song:

350

92

“Glory to Thee, the covenant-keeping God!
Who didst our fathers in Thy goodness lead
Back to Thy way, when oft they wandering trod
The path of error, yea, pursued with greed
The rebel road, although for holy seed
Thou hadst them chosen; and didst from ruin save
Them oft, and them with heavenly manna feed, —
Yea, didst for their deliverance cleave the wave
In which their foes, o'erwhelmed, soon found a watery grave!

93

“O Holy One of Israel! hear the cry
Our longing hearts now send up to Thine ear!
Our race—the race of Abraham—soon bring nigh
To own Thy great Messiah, from their drear
And cheerless unbelief! O Lord, bring near
Our brethren, whom to love we cannot cease—
Feeling Thy love, and knowing they are dear
Unto Thine heart, and that it will increase
The bliss of saints to see the wanderers seek Thy peace

94

“Lord! bring the wanderers back! Remove the veil
From off the heart of Israel! Lord, make bare
Thy holy arm of might! They cannot fail—
Thy holy promises: Thou didst declare
The race of Abraham should for ever share
Thy smile; and Thou wilt yet their hearts dispose
To love Thee. Hasten, Lord, the time! The prayer
Of all Thy grateful saints regard: disclose
The morn when rays of love shall subdue all Thy foes!”

95

The song went on—the song of love and praise,
And prayer, and zeal for others' bliss. But now
The inward beckoning came that their glad lays,
For me, must end: unto the mountains' brow
I mote not climb; but on the earth below
Must longer toil.
I woke, with thankful mind
That God had given me pleasant life to know
On earth: a life He stores with bounties kind,
And heartfelt joy that dreary doubt is left behind.

353

BOOK THE THIRD.

1

I look, once more, upon the awful sea!
I may not sing of it as lordly Childe—
Albeit with heart-throes—sang exultantly,
As of a steed that under its exiled
And haughty rider bounded with a wild
Feeling of kindred scorn and pride. His fame
Was glorious in my boyhood; but 'tis soiled,
They tell me, now. Oh, can it be that shame
Shall his bright memory hide who bears that laurelled name!

2

I gaze, once more, upon the awful sea—
Not with exultant, but with wondering thought,
And humbled feeling. 'Midst eternity
And boundlessness yon tiny white-sailed yacht,
In the far-off horizon, seems to float!
The wide-spread, silent moor, the tallest hills,
Breed no such thinking in me, awe, and doubt,
As this strange sense, all-undefined, that thrills
My bosom while the measureless sea my vision fills.

3

What is Existence?—what Eternity?
What lies beyond our outer life? Thy waves,
For ever restless, change—O Living Sea! —
And our own breathing forms, —the dead, in graves, —
Change, ever! Thy vast waters, —whether raves
The tempest, or the weary winds find sleep,
As poets sing, within thy neighbouring caves, —
The pulse of language with their motion keep,
And seem, like us, to shout and whisper, laugh and weep!

354

4

Thy waters are not dead. They truly live:
More truly than the forms that in thee dwell.
These die; but thou dost still live on, and give
Thy outspread hands, when thy proud billows swell,
Unto the toiling sun, that ye may quell
Death's triumphs ever, and all Life renew.
Your progeny, the clouds and showers, dispel
Earth's barrenness. And thus, all Life seems due,
On earth—O glorious ministers of God! —to you.

5

Many-voiced Sea—as the melodious One,
Wondering, did name thee, in the days of old—
It is a luxury, 'neath the summer's sun,
To loiter on this Cumbrian shore, and hold
Communion with thy voices manifold.
Scarce louder than the murmuring bee the sound
Seems, now I sit upon this beech sweet-knolled
With thyme, and where the rock-rose doth abound,
And crimson cranesbills clothe with beauty the rough ground.

6

And now the air doth tremble 'neath high noon,
And Languor reigns, how, with thy simple lay, —
Which hath to me from boyhood, been a boon,
And purest joys brings back to mind, alway, —
Thou, darling yellow-hammer, seem'st to play
A witching treble to the waters' bass, —
While other birds are silent: even the gay
And tireless lark seeks now a resting-place,
And hides, beside his mate, among the tall ripe grass.

7

Sweet thoughts of pleasures past, thy soothing lull,
O Sea, calls up to memory; but thy shore,
To-morrow, may be strown with mast and hull
Of many a goodly ship, and mind me more
Of my own wrecks of purpose, and the poor
Fruition of endeavour to achieve
Great aims. 'Tis vain such failures to deplore,
Now I am near life's close; but still will grieve
The soul, though 'tis too late life's failures to retrieve.

355

8

Shall I behold thy waves when I have sailed
O'er this life's sea? I shall live on, when Death
Hath claimed my clay—his portion. But all-veiled
Is still the Future—the Eternal. Breath
And pulse I cannot have when its frail sheath
The spirit quits; but yet the soul may gaze
Upon thy restless waves, as oft she fleeth
To do God's high behests, —and, without daze,
May, look, O glorious Sun, upon thy gladdening blaze.

9

Shall after-life be indolence? Each thing
Living on earth, whether it will or nill,
The eternal purpose of the Eternal King
Doth most industriously and well fulfil,
Through every change—as thou dost, changing still,
Vast Sea, and still subserving in thy change
The ends of Him who holds thee by His will.
Surely, if franchised souls to some dull range
Were doomed, to God's known ways it were unlikeness strange!

10

Boundless as thy path seems to be, shall mine
Be, in the Future? Yet, how shrinks the soul
At thoughts of boundlessness! What! no confine—
No shore—but on, for ever;—and no goal—
No end! Space still beginning, and the roll
Of days grown dateless, numberless! And shall
This Self, that—like a prisoner on parole,
When It adventures forth to think, a thrall
Soon feels Itself, and hastens back to its poor cloisteral,

11

Dim-lighted home of flesh, affrighted at
The shapes of mystery It meets—soon quit the gloom
And glimmer of this earth, and try a state
Of veritable existence, in the womb
Of vastness all-illimitable, become
An unclothed spirit, and yet clothed upon
With immortality, fearless to roam
Through realms of life and realms of thought unknown, —
And still, for ever, feel Its journey scarce begun?

356

12

The soul within her prison-house of clay
Shrinks back at thought of such strange life unknown,
As if too perilous it were too stray
Through the wide universe of God alone—
Or, unconsorted, in some planet-zone
That girdles round some far-off solar fire,
With essences that large of ken have grown,
By myriad years of thought, yet never tire
To think and search; but ever pant for wisdom higher.

13

Alone, upon the pathless sea, rides yet
The tiny white-sailed yacht. Since height
Of noon no bark, no shallop, or corvette,
No humble fisher's boat, hath come in sight:
Still lonelily she floats, with sails so white—
Far off—so that no help could landsmen lend,
Were skies to change, and storms to come, with night.
But, God is there! No storm the ship can rend,
Unless, —His mandate given! —His ministers descend.

14

So God will be with my frail bark, and thine,
Frail brother, when the unknown seas we sail
Of unknown after-life. The Eye Divine
Is on us here, in earthly calm or gale;
And on each soul that lives beyond the veil
Unrent—each dweller in eternity;
The Hand Divine supports alike all frail
Existences in heaven and earth that be—
For frail were even the archangels, Sovran, without Thee!

15

Why should I shrink and fear, while I can lean
On the Eternal One? Yet, how I dread
The “inevitable hour”! Some, with serene
Indifference, of the grave as of a bed
Of rest, tell us, they dream—nay, they would wed
Annihilation gladly; while the best
And holiest I have known on earth have said
They had no fear, but longed to reach the rest
That for the people of God remaineth, with the Blest.

357

16

With a glad heart I tell—the phantom foul
That threatened Nothingness, to terrify
And fill with agony my doubting soul
Hath ceased. But still—What can it be to die?
That thought appals me. Though with strengthened eye
I look triumphantly beyond the grave,
And feel my trustful spirit can rely
On Him who strong, for ever, is to save—
Yet, on Death's self I cannot look with challenge brave.—

17

The filmy cloud I saw arise, but now,
Hath spread along the sky—a dark portent
That storm is near. So some slight signal, slow
Or swift, may warn me when my soul now blent
With flesh must leave it. May Death's storm be spent
Quickly, O Blessed Father! if Thy will
It be, —or, rather, let the veil be rent
All in a moment, while I seek to fill
My daily task, —that so I, with ecstatic thrill,

18

May pass from mortal to immortal life.
Nay! —let me breathe no prayer so full of fear
And selfishness! Up, to the battle's strife,
Once more! until the Master's voice shall cheer
Me, when—the mortal victory won—I hear
Him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful one,
Enter into my joy, my servant dear!” —
Lord, let me fight until the battle's done—
Nor ever wish for rest until the battle's won!

19

My nightly task—the task of Duty—claims,
Again, my heart and mind; a task now hard—
Nay, harder than he knows, who 'mid fierce flames
Moulds melted metal; or, with body marred
And crampt-up limbs, from sun and daylight barred,
Hews at the coal-seam; or, whose mighty blows
Ring loud upon the anvil. Small regard
The peasant lends me! “Why for him unclose
The bar to knowledge? want of it he hardly knows;

358

20

“And why disturb him?” —do ye ask, in scorn,
Or kindly? —“Leave him to his vulgar toil
And vulgar pleasures. Teach him not to spurn
The lot of ignorance, and seek the broil
Of thought, lest he encounter the dread foil
To deeper thought all thinkers surely find.”
I dare not join a project that would spoil
My brother-man, whom God hath given a mind
That may be nobly taught, and cultured, and refined.

21

It cannot be God's purpose that the soul
He meant to live for ever should be left
Untaught, and Man become a larger mole
To burrow in the earth, of light bereft,
Or crawl upon it like the reptile eft,
Unknowing of his heavenly destiny.
They practised on Man's freedom a fell theft
Who praised blind Ignorance, and said that she
Was Mother of Devotion. Set Man fully free—

22

Free from the bonds of ignorance and control
Of priests—free from the shackles of his pride
And low self-worship. Let him know the whole
Of Truth that hath been found, and do not hide
The fact that more Man knows not. He will chide
Himself, most healthfully, and gladly flee
From error, when himself thus dignified
He fully feels with his own sovereignty
Of soul, as freeborn Man. O set Man fully free!

23

And yet, though Knowledge be a precious boon
For Man, he who the task doth undertake
To teach men how to think, no mean poltroon
Must be in courage; nor, in weakness quake
At proud men's anger; nor, his task forsake
For others' coldness or dull sloth. To say
And do as others, nor with boldness break
From tyrant custom, or the gilded way
Of fashion, marks the million: only units stray

359

24

In paths of independence, and assert
Their native dignity of Man. And sloth
Seems rest so needful to poor men upgirt
For out-door labour through the day, it doth
Give pain to one, more than their ways uncouth,
To rouse them with hard messages of right
And wrong. How, if they sleep, can one be wroth?
In sooth, he ventures on a work of might
Who strives to keep a weary ploughman wake at night. —

25

My task is done once more: the hour hath passed
More pleasantly than I foreboded. Yet,
What drudgery 'tis to talk to looks aghast
With helpless wonder; or that seem to fret
With haste to leave you; or to figures set
As stark asleep as if nought but the loud
Last trump could consciousness in them beget;
While others glance around with spirit cowed,
As if they felt like leprous men among the proud!

26

How different were my labour amid shrewd
Auld Scotland; or th' West Riding, where our keen
Critics-in-fustian sit and inly brood;
Or, where Northumbrian miners with brave mien
Of kindly frankness earnestly upglean
Your thoughts; or, with the quick discerning throng
In noble Nottingham; or, my native scene
Of ancient Leicester; or, much more, among
Bold Birmingham's array of thinkers stern and strong;

27

Or, sceptical Northampton, where the knights
Of Crispin ply the awl, and challenge high
Hurl at old teachers—following all new lights!
Or, grand old Norwich; or, in Bristol, eye
Of England's west, where good men truly vie
One with another in truly Christian deed;
Or even 'mid London's shallow foppish fry,—
One might with Truth the mind more easily feed
Than get dull peasants to such teaching to take heed.

360

28

Poor English ploughmen! my very heart doth bleed
For you. Your little children I have passed,
Driven forth in “gangs,” to gather stones, or weed,
When scarcely it was daylight, o'er the vast
Wide fen of Lincolnshire, —their eyes upcast
For pity at their driver—the brute tool
Who pushed them on with curses; and “move fast,”
They must, or suffer his hard blows. No school
For the poor ploughman's child! He would be called a fool

29

By his own class, and proud by masters, who
Let his child learn to read God's word instead
Of toiling early and late, —and learning, too,
To swear like the big driver, —and lose dread
For foulest vice, where all restraints are fled,
And sex is rudely mixt. The boy or girl
Brings home a few poor pence each day for bread:
What's all the learning that his head might whirl
With pride, compared with bread, to the poor peasant churl?

30

Oh, gentlemen of England! in your House
Of power and wisdom, can ye find no heart
To end this wrong so horribly infamous?
Ye could set free the Factory child, and thwart
The chimney-sweeper, who made infants smart
And weep for years; and ye could boldly vote
Twenty gold millions to break up the mart
Of demons who the souls and bodies bought
Of negroes: —Why not seize this evil by the throat?

31

Landlords! upon your land this deed is done.
Doth not the tenant know your word is law?
Forbid the deed, then: tell him he must shun
The sin, and ye will cease the gain to claw,
And lower his rent. —“Idiot! expect to draw
Our teeth, as soon; or, ask to flay the skin
From off our backs! We do not yield one straw!” —
Why, then, right honourables! your sordid sin
I would not share, if your whole rent—roll I could win.

361

32

The hour of sleep returns, and still I weigh
The sins of other men. Upon my own
Black catalogue, with the like keen survey,
I fear, I do not dwell. Lord, from Thy throne
Look down in mercy still on those who groan
O'er others' sins, and oft forget to judge
Their own!
When waking consciousness had flown,
My dreaming consciousness returned. A drudge,
I seemed, at first, among old earthly scenes to trudge.

33

O'er Croyland Fen, methought, in evening gray,
I toiled, from rural Helpstone, —where poor Clare
Was born, —along the narrow winding way
The monks upraised, in dark old times, with care
And patient labour. 'Twas the desolate and rare
Vision renewed, of forty years gone by,
When—myriad ages past—no rude ploughshare
Had yet disturbed the marsh. Far as the eye
Could reach there was no tree that grew beneath the sky.

34

A clump of reeds rose, here and there, around
A pool; and, ghostlike, up the bittern reared
Its head out of the clump, and then to the ground
Sank down, and hid itself, and boomed its weird
And shivering note. But, what most strange appeared
Was that vast moving host of feathered things—
The countless flocks of geese, that homeward steered,
With deafening cackle, and with bleeding wings
Drooped to the ground, while,—heedless of their sufferings,—

35

The gooselike gosherd urged them with his staff.
The geese had just been plucked alive,—their quill
To exchange for gold. The gosherds, with a laugh,
Told me they helped the deed. But I felt ill,
And hastened on, while overhead the shrill
Curlew, the lapwing, and the heron, flew;
And, far up in the sky, the soaring, still,
And lordly glede seemed taking surer view
Ere pouncing, dartlike, down, his screaming prey he slew.

362

36

I went—the pilgrim of romance—to gaze
On Guthlac's ruined shrine—the hoary pile
Of Croyland; and the image that pourtrays
King Ethelbald the Mercian, broken and vile,
On that triangular bridge that joined the isle
So sacred to profaner ground, in years
When monks held marish and mere for many a mile.
Darkness was falling as I gazed; and jeers
From ploughboys that beheld me pained my ticklish ears.

37

So on I passed, to shun the boyish crowd;
But soon, from weariness, lay down to rest
Upon a grassy hillock, o'er which bowed
A bush in which some late bird kept her nest.
And, as she crooled, I slept.
Among the Blest—
From sleep within my sleep—again, I seemed
To wake surrounded with the host all drest
In light. But they whom now I saw—I dreamed—
Were souls I had in mortal life but lightly esteemed.

38

Stern devotees of mediæval time
They were: brave venturers among savage tribes;
Daring reprovers, eke, of kingly crime
And priestly sloth; —who heeded not the gibes
Of their own order; —nor concealed, for bribes,
The sins of monarchs whose haught pomp affrayed
Their trembling subjects; —or whom timid scribes
Writ “holy,” for they stalked in masquerade
Of cowl and hood, begirt with rope, in cloistered shade.

39

He whom men call the Apostle of Germany,
I saw—Winfred of Crediton

Winfred of Crediton in Devonshire (in the kingdom of Wessex), born in 680 A.D.—He was consecrated Bishop, and named Boniface by Pope Gregory II., in 723 A.D. His life was written by Willibald, one of his disciples.—See “Life of St. Boniface, Archbishop of Mayence and Apostle of Germany.” By the Rev. Geo. W. Cox, S.C.L. London, Joseph Masters: 1853.

—our Saxon saint,
Named Boniface, when episcopal degree
Was given him by the pope. In him no taint
Of Romish crime was found, natheless. Restraint
Or fear he felt not for tiara or crown;
But, like a Christian true, set forth his plaint
'Gainst papal simony; and dared to frown
Upon the heathenish sins 'mong prelates shown.

363

40

While he hewed down the sacred oak of Thor,
And preached to Hessian and to Frisian throngs
Of barbarous men, and taught them to abhor
Idols and wizards and blood, and sing the songs
Of Christ, the Prince of Peace,—sin that belongs
So often to magnanimous kings he dared
To scan: to Mercian Ethelbald the wrongs
Done to his people wisely he declared,
Until that regal heart to goodness he ensnared.

41

With Winfred walked his brethren who, of yore,
Were massacred, or slain, by heathen bands—
Eoban, and Adalhere,

—There were others martyred in Friesland besides Boniface and these two.—For their names, see Cox's “Life of St. Boniface,” p. 129.

and many more—
Meek, self—denying men—men of clean hands,
And minds devout—obeying Christ's commands
From love to Him who first loved them, and spread
O'er Frisic, Hessian, and Bavarian lands
The gospel of their Lord: giving the bread
Of life to perishing men: by no false zeal misled.

42

Remembering how, on earth, I lightly esteemed
The work of these stern toilers, whom I now
Rightly, by mystic gift of insight, deemed
True martyrs—I beheld, with sudden glow
Of pleasure, drawing near, in goodly row,
A band whom others lightly esteemed, on earth—
Lightly esteemed, and scorned, and trampled low;
But whose meek names I valued at right worth,
And oft felt pround I had with them one tie of birth.

43

Many of these meek ones died through men whose boast—
Oh, of such grievous sin, I blush to tell! —
Was rather than that liberty be lost
Of conscience for themselves they would rebel
Till doomsday: yet, like fiercest dogs of hell,
They worried men whose consciences felt fear
Of sin most tenderly; and tortures fell
Of whipping, hunger, and imprisonment drear,
And filthy, and foul, inflicted on God's servants dear.

364

44

Some of Old England were, and some of New.
Some were the victims of our boasted time
When kingly men in England overthrew
Crowned lawlessness and sanctimonious crime;
And some died when returned the kingly Mime
To reign and sin right royally. The rest
Were martyred men and women from that clime
Across the sea where, in the distant West,
Their persecutors found a refuge they deemed blest.

45

Parnell,

James Parnell.—For the cruel martyrdom of this dear young Quaker lad, at Colchester Castle, in 1655—during the Protectorate of Cromwell—see Sewell's “History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called Quakers.”

I saw, the godly boy that death
Of heartless cruelty who died, i' the wall
Of Colchester's strong castle—with last breath
Entreating they would let the happy thrall
Go home to Christ! Young Burrough,

Edward Burrough.—Stifled to death in Newgate. For an account of his happy death, and for the eulogium pronounced on him after death, by his friend Howgill, see also Sewell's History.

loved of all
His suffering mates,—with pious Hubberthorn,

Richard Hubberthorn.—Nearly on the same page Sewell relates the death of this devoted servant of Christ, also in Newgate prison.

And others, who in Newgate drank the gall
Of wrong so meekly; and Trowell,

John Trowell.—He was so beaten and brusied and crushed by the Trained Bands of King Charles II., who were sent to break up Quaker's meetings by force, that he died.—See the beginning of the 7th Book of Sewell's History.

who was torn
And bruised and beaten, till he ceased on earth to mourn.

46

Howgill

Francis Howgill. —He died in Appleby gaol, after five years imprisonment. His death was peacefully triumphant.—See the 9th Book of Sewell's History.

came on with these—a valiant soul,
A noble warrior for his Lord, —no name
His brethren held more worthy: in the goal
At Appleby he died, with sweet acclaim
Of praise to God that worthy to bear shame
He had been counted, for the Christ he loved! —
With these came hundreds, little known to fame,
Who died in dreary prisons, still unmoved,
By suffering, to desert the faith their souls approved.

47

New England's victims followed those of Old:
Victims whom barbarous Endicot pursued
With hatred—helped by shepherds of Christ's fold!
Good Mary Dyar,

—Of all the New England Martyrs, this heroic and holy woman seems to have been the flower. Her death—after prolonged ill-treatment and suffering—was joyous and exultant.—See the 5th Book of Sewell's History.

who climbed with fortitude
The gallows' ladder twice. In mockery lewd
Called down the first time: soon with joy she clomb
Again, to die—saying, sweetly, that she viewed
The Paradise of Christ, beyond the tomb,
Where she had been, in spirit, for days: her heavenly home!

365

48

Next, with unlyric names,

—William Robinson a merchant of London, and Marmaduke Stevenson of Yorkshire, were condemned to be hanged along with Mary Dyar. The three went hand in hand, exultantly, to the gallows. Robinson and Stevenson being dead, Mary Dyar was ordered to ascend the ladder, which she did readily; but when they had tied her hands and bandaged her eyes, they told her she was reprieved. Yet she was executed some months after. The bodies of Robinson and Stevenson having hung till they were dead. they were cut down, and thrust naked into a hole dug for them at the foot of the gallows. —See Sewell's 5th Book.

joined hand in hand,
Fraternally, came on the faithful sufferers twain
Whose naked flesh, as if they bore the brand
Of felony, or shared the crime of Cain,
Was thrust into the ground, with foul disdain,
Even at the gallows' foot. Then, Leddra,

William Leddra. —He was chained to a log, both day and night, during a long winter, and in an open prison. He died with the calmest resignation. —See Sewell's 6th Book.

bright
Hilarious soul, followed—who met death's pain
Crying, “Lord, receive my spirit!” —seeming God's light
To see, with dying eyes: blest Stephen's martyr-sight!

49

The souls of women, young and old, whom fiends
That dared to claim the name of Christian men
Whipped through New England towns

—The barbarous whipping of Elizabeth Hooton, a woman of threescore years of age, of Anne Colman, of Mary Tomkins, of Alice Ambrose, and others, is recited also by Sewell in his 6th Book.

—for they were “Friends,” —
A deadly crime! —arrived with these. And when
These unadorned new-comers met the ken
O' the Martyrs to the blinded Pagan rage
Of mediæval times, in a green glen
Of Paradise, amazed, I saw them wage
A race of love to join—as if their lineage

50

They knew was one; and though so far apart,
In time and place, they lived on earth, they felt
Their zeal for Christ proclaimed them of one heart.
“Brothers,” spake Winfred, “when on earth we dwelt,
And preached to savage Teuton and fierce Kelt,
It scarce was strange that, blind with idol-zeal
And gust for sin, —even while to Christ we knelt, —
They slew us, thinking then to rob and peel
Our tents of gold and silver we could not reveal

51

“As in our keeping, since no needless load
We carried, cumbered and bowed too much with sin.
But who your deaths and sufferings could forebode—
Your torturous martyrdoms—from your own kin,
Your own dear flesh and blood? Nay, that within
The bounds of likelihood might be; but they
Who took your lives professed high discipline
Of self-denial, and could not seek to slay
Ye that your gold and silver might become their prey

366

52

“What was the gain they sought? what earthly good
Could they acquire in slaying ye? No hoard
Of wealth ye had, that they should shed your blood
To seize it and possess.”
“Be Christ adored,”
Spake noble Howgill, “though their deed abhorred
We may not, by the nature of the mind,
Forget, we still feel loving pity toward
The men whom bigotry had rendered blind—
Nay, mad—as still it maddens thousands of mankind.

53

“Dost thou not think, my brother, that as brave
Martyrs for wrong are sometimes found, as for
The right? I doubt not but that some who drave,
Fiercely, our feeble ones with whipping sore,
From town to town, believed they did no more
Than bounden duty; and if called to bear
Smiting, the rod to death they would have bore
Sooner than name of foul apostate wear,
Or gold and silver as the apostate's guerdon share.

54

“It was not earthly gain our foes obtained,
Or sought. Our deaths could not enrich our foes
In any sordid sense. But still remained
In them the carnal mind that doth oppose
Itself to goodness. Though by outward shows
And loud profession, men do oft persuade
Themselves and others that within them glows
True Christian zeal, the proof is soon betrayed
That not one moment its pure fires their hearts pervade.

55

“How eagerly men praise great earnestness,
Though earnest men are caught by falsehood's bait
So easily! Surely men should laud much less
Quick zeal than slower wisdom. They who wait,
Patient, at Wisdom's feet, regenerate
Become in spirit, and feel no tyrant will
To fetter the free mind—to emasculate
The soul. Their victories they win meekly, still
Not seeking to compel, but to persuade the ill:

367

56

“To win men over by conviction, clear
And calm, that so the settled mind in ease
May rest, and satisfaction. Kings no fear
Have of their subjects if their reigning please.
But though meek men may bear kings' wrong decrees,
Their hearts will aye the sceptred wrong disown.
Force never truly reigns: its falseness frees
All men from heart-obedience to the throne:
For force is falseness, even to the simplest clown.”

57

“Ay, force is falseness,” said our Saxon saint;
“And neither force nor falseness masterdom
Can win for Truth. With us failed false constraint,
When, backed with fancied power from Papal Rome,
We forced the Teuton nations to succumb
To Christ. In vain we triumphed, as the oak
Of Thor I hewed in pieces. Awe held dumb
Thor's worshippers to witness the bold stroke;
But soon their awe was gone—revenge within them woke,

58

“And back to their old homage at the shrine
Of their old Thunder God they went with zeal,
While on ourselves they fell with leonine
And bloody rage. God did, at length, His seal
Set to His truth, when wiser men the appeal
Made to their moral sense-the meek yet broad
Attack on conscience-which will straight reveal
Its living power in man, though long by fraud
It hath been lulled to slumber, or by force o'erawed.

59

“I would more wisdom had our earnest toil
Directed. Savage men, like children, might,
We thought, be held by fear or kindly guile,
And taught to fall in reverence at the sight
Of saintly bones or gaudy incensed rite,
As they had fallen before the Sun and Moon,
And Thor and Woden. Oh, that holy light
Upon our eager minds had clearer shone,
That their dark souls for Christ we might in love have won!”

368

60

“Ye worked according to your light. And they
By their light—twilight, rather,”meekly said
Young Parnell, “now are judged, by Him whose sway
Knows neither weakness nor injustice. Dread
In holiness are His commands: to tread
His courts in heaven, unfit they were: the praise
Of God and of the Lamb who for them bled
They could not sing: but just are all His ways:
Only transgressors of His law its sentence slays.

61

“None can transgress the law they never knew;
Therefore, the millions of the heathen live
Their after-life of trial, where the view
Of truth and right and wrong God doth them give
In clearness, and His Spirit doth with them strive,
That they may yield their wills to Him, and share
Salvation by His Christ. Alternative
Of choice they still to exercise may dare.
He saveth none by force: all freely His yoke bear.

62

“It is our highest bliss to feel we serve
Him freely, who to save us freely came—
To feel that we have no desire to swerve
From holiest service—that we know no aim
Or will but ever, with the holy flame
Of love, to burn towards Him who loving gave
Himself for us. How worthily His name
Could we extol, if each were but a slave
In ace! It would the worship of high heaven deprave.”

63

“How clumsily men frame their theories
Of right!” Winfred resumed; “in our dark time,
We strove poor heathen men to christianize,
Believing unbelief a damning crime,
Even when of every Christian truth sublime
They were as ignorant as a child unborn!
Nay, this strange misbelief became the prime
Incentive to our warfare with their scorn
And spite, that we might save them from their fate forlorn.

369

64

“No gentler motives had our hearts impelled
To venture 'mid their swamps and forests wild,
And dare their savage rage. Had we not held
Them lost—lost irremediably—exiled
From bliss for ever—we could not have toiled
To martyrdom that we might save their souls.
Thank God! that now the darkness that defiled
Our vision is removed. No wrong controls
His government: we now discern, wherever rolls

65

“A world that holds His creatures rational,
There all are judged by perfect equity;
Not equity by wits fantastical
Apparelled with the seeming drapery
Of fairness, though, in truth, 'tis tyranny
Abhorrent to the sense of right in man
Implanted by his Maker.”
“We with thee
Adore,” spake Leddra, “Him whose marvellous plan
Gives all within the moral and intelligent span

66

“Of His high rule probation fair and free
And noble. How we could have feared that ire
Consuming from His holy hand must be
The lot, inevitably, of son and sire
In utter darkness born—that endless fire
Should be their portion who ne'er knew His will,
And therefore could not guiltily conspire
Against His holy government, is still
Our wonder, and must aye our minds with wonder fill.”

67

“And yet,”after some silence, Adalhere
Spake thoughtfully, “when we beheld how base,
How vile, how shudderingly soul-stained they were
We saw bow down to idols;—how no trace
Of purity remained in them;—no place
Within their hearts for aught but lowest lust,
And dark desire, and passionate embrace
Of foul indulgence;—how could we have trust
That any of their fallen souls would live among the just?”

370

68

“And in God's holy word,” spake Hubberthorn,
With slow and gentle speech, “we were not told
That when men's souls had passed their mortal bourne,
There might be to the gaze of some unrolled
A second scene of trial. If so bold
Our minds had been as to affirm what none
Could truly say, in covenant new or old,
God clearly had revealed,—nor His own Son,—
Had we not trespassed, and beyond our duty run?”

69

“To be not wise above the written word,”
Meekly said Mary Dyar, “even when the power
Of God's own Holy Spirit within us stirred,
I always thought was safest. Yet the hour
Hath been, on earth, when a rich spiritual shower
Of knowledge fell on us, from heaven, that shewed
Us meanings in the word which, heretofore,
We saw not. May not deeper meanings crowd
The written page not yet revealed unto the proud,

70

“Who trust in their own reason?”
“If the heart
Of truth,” young Burrough said, “seek truth from Him
Whose word is truth, will not He truth impart
Unto it in the reading, though with dim
Unlearned gaze the page be read? They trim
The outward lamp in vain, to read and learn,
Whose minds with self-conceit unto the brim
Are filled; and do not for God's own light yearn:
The natural man doth not the things of God discern.

71

“The Gentiles having not the law, a law
Were to themselves, the apostle briefly wrote:
Briefly, yet fully. Men may safely draw
Safe inference that the law of conscience ought
To be, and will be, only against them brought
When they are judged.”
“But, since even conscience fails
To give a truthful light to men untaught
Christ's truth,” said elder Howgill; “it curtails
Even good men's hope for men where heathenism prevails.

371

72

“Yet, if good men were wise as well, some aid
For reaching deeper truth they might have gained
By patient thought. In God's own image made—
His moral image—man is not disdained
By his great Maker, though so foully stained
By sin. He doth not cast men off—their being spill—
As some men blunder God hath blundering reigned
In His own universe: not able ill
Or good to make of some, for lack of forming skill!

73

“God never moral agents made to end
Their being eternally, though they would break
His laws persistently, nor would amend
Their lives at His entreaty;—nor doth He slake
His vengeance by inflicting on them ache
And torture endless, though they did not know
His law. He doth poor heathen souls awake
To after-life, and therein doth bestrow
Their path with motives that may lead them from all low

74

“And base preferments into choice of good.
All glory to His holy name! in vain
Christ hath not for the heathen shed His blood;
Millions, in that great spiritual domain
Of Christ—the after-life of men whom chain
Of earthly circumstances bound, enslaved,
And crushed with weight of evil, —now the strain
Of gratitude swell high, that their depraved
And fallen souls Christ hath from endless ruin saved!”

75

“‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’
I answered oft,” spake humble Trowell, “when
Lewd London wits, falsely named erudite,
Mocked at all Christian teaching, in that den
Of beasts London became when citizen
Aped harlot king, in revelry and sneers
At purity and truth. I answered men,
When any heathen soul 'fore God appears,
That he will find hard measure I can have no fears.”

372

76

“And that the simplest faith is oft more wise
Than logic subtleties, I make no doubt,”
Again said Winfred; “ yet the tears and cries
Of million sufferers in the lands without
Christ's gladdening gospel; and the maddened shout
Of thousands, when beneath the ponderous wheel
Of some huge idol's chariot falls, devout,
The Hindoo suicide; the hideous zeal
O' the heart for sin, which Asian city-crowds reveal;

77

“The brutal cannibalism and murderous strife
That stain so foully yon sweet South Sea isles;
The dark infanticide; the waste of life
In every vile indulgence that defiles
Both body and soul; the thrift of priestly wiles;
The fattening of the priest, and suffering lean
Of yon poor pilgrim, whom the thought beguiles
That he shall win heaven's bliss by tortures keen,
And crawling vilely on the earth, like things unclean;—

78

“Oh, who can think of Man where yet the sound
Of Christ's dear name was never heard, or where
Men's erring souls reject Him with profound
And stolid ignorance that His yoke to bear
Would make them free, —and not desire to share,
Again, the cheering toil, the suffering sweet
Of Christ's blest heralds who His truth declare
To heathen men; and teach them to repeat
His name; and lead them for salvation to His feet!”

79

His look was lit with light of pitying love
For souls of men still living in the gall
Of bitterness and bond of sin. Above,
Around, there seemed to glow, and soon to fall,
A crowning radiance, on the heads of all:—
A token bright that all the Martyr band
That loving spirit sweetly did enthral,
And that with joy, at God's supreme command,
They would return to earth to toil in heathen land!

373

80

“Let us rejoice,” spake Winfred yet again,
“That now the ministry of love is ours,
As spirit-messengers from God to men;
That, sometimes, He our essences empowers
To aid with strength the poor weak soul that cowers
At shapes of superstition, and doth pant
For spiritual light where heathen darkness lours
On every side, and nought is ministrant
By tongue, or eye, or ear, unto the heart's deep want.

81

“But lately, Eoban and Adalhere
And I, most gladly hastened to obey
Our gracious Lord's behest, a poor fakeer
To help with spiritual whisperings of the way
Of life. In old renowned Benares lay
His skeleton form upon an iron bed,
For five long years. We heard him mourn and pray
To many demon gods with names of dread,
That he to purer light and safety might be led:

82

“He vowed to arise, and creep on hands and knees
To any idol's shrine, however long
The journey were, in order to appease
The wrath of Seeva, or the vengeance strong
Of Doorga or Kalee! or, with the thong
Of knotted whip to lash his fleshless frame;
Or scorch his limbs with fire; or any wrong
From men receive in silence, even to shame
Of spitting, or contempt outpoured upon his name.

83

“The light of conscience had grown feeble and dim;
But, as that light is quenchless in the breast
Even of the savage, it still lived in him—
Nay, had become a spectre of unrest
Unto him. Bodily pain did not molest
His thought; beneath no suffering did he faint:
With burden of sin alone he was opprest:—
Oh, that he could be cleansed from sin's dark taint!—
He cried, all day, and oft all night, without restraint!

374

84

“At last, a sleek-fed Bramin saw him lie,
And proudly bade him rise, since now the coin
Was spent that he had saved by toil,—whereby
His meagre food was bought,—and said,‘Go, join
The crowd of labouring men, and cease to whine
About the burthen of thy sin, and strive
To bring fanams to Veeshnu's sacred shrine—
For that will better please the gods—to give—
Than thus, in sloth and pain, a loathsome life to live!’

85

“A crowd of gazers raised him; but the use
Of joints and thews was hard to be retrieved.
He lived, but paid the forfeit of the abuse
Of life for those five years: unto him cleaved
Palsy and pain, and inwardly he grieved,
Alway, with burthen of his sin weighed down.
The fakeer's iron bed, he still believed,
Nearer true light had brought him; and a groan
Oft told he wished for leaving it he could atone.

86

“His misery had grown sore, and all could tell
Around him that Insanity would claim
Him for her victim, if he could not quell
His fiery torture. So with noisy blame
They urged him to remember the great name
Of Juggernauth, whose worshippers oft found
Relief o' the soul when, sunk in sin and shame,
They had of life been weary. And, soon bound
To Orissa, toiling on, he reached the festal ground.

87

“But—not to worship at the shrine obscene!
'Twas God's own gracious Providence, we felt,
That led him thither. One with humble mien,
A Christian teacher, stood, and meekly dealt
Out truth to the crowd. Full soon the heart did melt
Of the poor listener! 'Twas the real relief
His soul so long had sought. In tears he knelt
At Jesu's feet; and, like the dying thief,
At once was pardoned, and escaped from all earth's grief!

375

88

“His joy destroyed his earthly life, but brought
Him joy in heaven! Oh, many will yet believe
In Jesu's saving truth, they long have taught
The dark Hindoo so patiently. It doth them grieve
That they so little of success achieve—
The lowly teachers who cross ocean-tide
To win men's souls for Christ; but we perceive
Sure signs of coming harvest which shall wide
Wave o'er the world. In grateful patience let us bide!”

89

“Ever in grateful patience, and in faith,”
Said meek young Parnell; “God hath also sent
Us to that land where men to shapes of death
And murder bow, while still to them is lent
Such light of conscience that, in discontent
With their own fallen nature, they still crave
To lose sin's burthen, or that life were spent.
And they who yield to Christian teaching brave
Endurance need, while their own sires around them rave

90

“With horrid cursing, and their mothers curse
More horridly the children they have borne;
And children curse their parents who rehearse
The name of Jesus, as their Saviour. Scorn
And hatred, and a menaced life forlorn,
Or loss of limbs, or death, await on them
Who dare decide for Christ. If some return
To their old vileness, bravely some contemn
All threats of danger, holding precious Truth's bright gem.

91

“They who, in England, mock the enterprise
Of Christian men that preach to the Hindoo,
And, scoffing, ask why he so long defies
Converting power, and is so hard to woo
Unto conviction, and change old for new,
Might cease their gibes if they would mark the tale
Of truthful witnesses. How long the True
Shall thus be martyr to the False, we fail
To know: yet know the True most surely shall prevail.

376

92

“It shall prevail as surely as God lives
And giveth life to all that live throughout
His universe. Himself the assurance gives;
And He Himself is Truth. His foes so stout
Shall yield; the falsely wise shall cease to doubt;
Barbarian darkness shall behold His light;
And universal nations join the shout
That God hath come to reign in truth and might:
God and His Christ have come to bring the reign of Right!’

93

New radiance fell upon that company
Of loving Martyrs while young Parnell spake,
And lit their faces with such heavenly glee
Of holy love, it seemed in me to awake
Deep longing that I could such love partake.
But, now, soft strains of music that I seemed
To recognize began, forthwith, to break
Upon my spiritual ear: the strains I dreamed
I heard before: above, around, they sweetly streamed!

94

And lo! above the Martyr band appeared
The hand of golden light all quickly saw,
And, seeing, seemed with expectation cheered
Of higher joys. It did their footsteps draw
Unto the terraced mountains, which, by law
Of their blest spiritual existence, all
Must at appointed seasons, with rapt awe
Ascend, to enter at the trumpet's call
High heaven, and share its worship in high festival.

95

The mountains ever green, my mind discerned,
Did picture endless life, and endless bliss,
Attained by all who climbed them—all who yearned
To be for ever good: from wrong and vice
Set free—from hate and rage and prejudice
For ever: and their essences imbued
With love and purity: no thought amiss:
No wrong affection: no solicitude—
Except to be in holiness for aye renewed.

377

96

The mountains all were terraced, as I knew
Intuitively, that in Christ's rest so bright
No thought of labour might bedim the view
Of His dear saints at home. So light
Was the ascent, it seemed to some a flight
In ether. Yet the sense of order stilled
Each mind, as if the want of it would blight
Their bliss. So up they stepped, as troops well drilled
Step lightly, without toil: each heart with joyaunce filled!

97

And as they 'gan the terraces to climb,
I saw their steps were timed, as in my dream
I saw before: a triumph-march sublime
It was; and as they marched they turned the theme
Of their late converse to a tuneful stream
Of choral song; and thus the Martyrs sung:—
“We come, O Lord, to share the quickening beam
Of Thy bright glory with a grateful tongue,
For that Thou hast our hearts with chords of gladness strung.

98

“We laud Thy wondrous love, eternal, vast,
And infinite as Thine own Self, that found
The ransom for our souls: the love Thou hast
Displayed for fallen man—that doth abound
Even for the deeply fallen! O that around
Thy throne may soon be gathered millions more
Who grope in heathen darkness, where the sound
Of Christ's blest name none bear, and none adore
Thy glorious majesty, Thy wisdom, love, and power.

99

“Reclaim the nations, Lord! Bring back the lost—
The wanderers through long ages! From the chain
Of guilt and misery let the captive host
Of heathen men be freed! O let the reign
Of Thy dear Son begin! To swell the train
Of His long-promised triumph, let men come,
Who long in degradation dark have lain,
Blinded and maimed, in Superstition's gloom,—
By Christ redeemed,—to share the brightness of our home!

378

100

“It would Thy heart rejoice that they were saved:
It would Thy saints rejoice to see them blest:
O Father, save our race by sin enslaved!
Thy Son hath died Thy grace to manifest:
Send forth Thy healing Spirit to quell the pest
And plague of sin: Thy saving health dispense
O'er all the earth, till every human breast
Be consecrate to Thee with love intense:
All rebel wills be bowed in sweet obedience!”

101

Their song was longer; but a sudden sense
Grew in me that I must not share the sight
O' the City of God, or join the confluence
Into its gates of God's own Martyrs bright,
As heretofore, or scale the mountain's height;
But must return to earth.
I woke, to wait
My final call. Lord, while I strive to fight
The fight of faith, help me to vindicate
Thy truth, and win the fallen from their low estate!

381

BOOK THE FOURTH.

1

O fair young Moon, if there were nought but thy
Bright crescent to attract men's gaze from earth,
It were enough to make them bless God's sky!
The children love to see thee, and with mirth
Welcome thy coming; and to Age thy birth,
Anew, is ever gladdening, as a sign
That Nature is not old, but still brings forth
Her undimmed glories, and her gifts benign—
Sustained in during energy by the Hand Divine!

2

What countless, million-million, mortal eyes
Have watched the swelling of thy silver bow,
Until it grew a shield—then shrank in size,
And vanished, to appear again a show
Of beauty above all stars that sparkling strow
The vault of Night. With what joy-ravishment
The first young human pair the primal glow
Of thy return first saw! How oft hath blent
Fears with the hopes of later mortals when was bent,

3

Once more, thy shining form above their heads,
And corn-fields cried for the reaper, but the rain
Fell, pitiless: the rain that surely sheds
Its torrents by thy fickle leave: the swain
So held it. And, now men, of science vain,
Disdainfully regard the Past, they hold
It still the same. Although in thy domain,
They swear, there is no moisture: But a cold,
Dry, lifeless cinder is thy seeming face of gold!

382

4

When sweet young eyes so often by thy light—
Blest boon for lovers!—wandered to breathe sighs
Of tenderness and constancy, a slight
On thy bright form, they would have deemed surmise
That thou wert aught so mean. With their own eyes,
Did they not see that Sabbath-breaking Jew
Who gathered sticks i' the wilderness, his prize
Upon his shoulder, ever exposed to view,
A prisoner in thy orb, rolling amid the blue?

5

Argal, in thee there must be living things!—
What, if in thy mild region still dwelt fair,
Though fallen, angels, who with feeble wings
Ventured, sometimes, down through the lower air,
To whisper mortals, and to sin ensnare—
For that they were themselves ensnared, not prime
In sin, and therefore were not doomed to share
Great torment: yet the wish grew, with their crime,
To spread for other souls of sin the deadly slime.

6

But thou the lamp for fairy revels wert,
My grannam said—for her own grannam saw
The little people gaily dance and flirt,
I' the mystic grassy ring, with shivering awe,
And spake aloud!—not knowing the mystic law
That would subject her to their mighty power—
To tickle her nose and ears with an oaten straw,
And pinch her sides in sleep; turn the milk sour
She had left in dirty bowls, and play pranks, hour by hour—

7

All in the night: they had no sunshine game:
'Twas all by moonshine! And when they were seen
By mortals who were silent, good luck came
To the man or woman. Gold was found, I ween,
I' their shoon, i' the morning; if the poor to glean
Went forth in harvest, they would gather sheaves!
The bullfinch would not rob their cherry treen;
The swallows would build, and twitter, 'neath the eaves;
And luck come naturally as fall the autumn leaves!

383

8

Thou wert the patroness of so much good
I' the time of Fancy, that one shrinks to tell,
Fair Moon! how thy account of evil stood;
How thy eclipse foreshadowed griefs to quell
The stoutest heart: shipwreck and storm, and yell
Of drowning sailors; and conspiracy,
Secret and dark, and murderously fell,
'Gainst kings; and overthrow of cities free;
And famine and plague, and every dread calamity!

9

And was it all a dream, fair shining Moon?
Does thy eclipse forebode nor good nor ill?
Will fairies leave no gold in idlers' shoon?
Are all the fairies gone, and must we till
Our ground with sweat o' the brow, and must we still
Ring out our toil on the anvil, and work on,
Or starve? And, in thy realm, doth no sweet rill
Murmur, or river flow? Is the dream, too, gone,
That angels lived upon thee? Is there never-a-one?

10

And art thou, seeming splendour of the night,
Only a cinder, lifeless, dark, and cold?
Then we will bless thee for thy borrowed light;
And still more bless the goodness that doth hold
Thee in thy orbit, by the rule untold
Till Newton scanned it, and, thence, safely scanned
The vast mechanic system manifold
Of central wheel and wheels dependent, planned
By God's own wisdom: formed and held by His own hand!

11

“God, acting in His own great universe”—
So, when one asked what Gravitation was,
The immortal sage defined it, in his terse,
Significant way. He did not care two straws
What critics, foolish and fine, prated of “laws.”
He knew that law could not itself maintain:
There must be the Unseen Sustaining Cause,
To ensure the sequence men call “law.” In vain
Even Halley doubt pled often: Newton, with hands twain

384

12

Held fast his faith; and, with a lowly mind
And truthful heart, kept on his wondrous way
To the end. 'Tis not in lowliness mankind
O' the scientific class, in this our day,
Shew greatness. They their searching wit display
In spying “evolution,” everywhere—
“Selection natural,”—and the sovereign sway
Of what they call “development.” O rare
Development of wit! what fools our fathers were!

13

They thought God could create, if that He chose;
And had created. Sages of science, now,
Shake their small heads, and mutter they suppose
'Twas a mistake! But, if you ask them how
The universe came to be, they say they trow
'Tis better to say nought: 'tis not for frail,
Imperfect mortals, such as they, to allow
Themselves in airs pretentious the dark veil
From Nature's face to lift—the veil all-mystical!

14

And this sounds modest; but men need a rest
Both for the heart and mind. No Godless creed—
If one may call it so—can ease the breast
In trouble; or the heart's affections feed
With satisfaction; or within us breed
Resolve to battle with temptation strong
To moral evil. Surely, no great greed
A man will feel to conquer sin, so long
As he believes not in the Judge of right and wrong.

15

I would not hastily condemn. God knows
I have great cause, remembering errors past,
To shun hot speech. But why this prate of “laws,”
And “reverence” for them? Each encomiast
Of our grandees of science utters fast
And loud his praises for their championship
Of Truth. But what is their Truth worth? A vast
Dim waste of words it seems to me to skip
From sequence unto sequence, and yet never grip

385

16

The deeper Truth—that there must be a Cause
For all this sequence, though it ever be
As fixed as they assert it is. No “laws”
Are known by stones or trees, by sky or sea;
Nor can they, senseless, pay a penalty
For disobedience. Men discern full well
They break a law when pain or misery
Succeeds an act. Rocks, trees, or waters tell
No sinners' tale of suffering, for they ne'er rebel.

17

God makes a law for free-willed essences—
Angels or men. Man in the plenitude
Of regal power; or, where true freedom is,
Men representative make laws, and rude
Rebellion 'gainst them brings on humble and proud—
Or should bring—penalty most sure. We all
Admire right law, and sensibly conclude
Them wise that made such law; but never call
A law its own enactor. Why should mortals fall

18

In “reverence” before sequence which they deem
The “law of Nature”? Surely we should rise
Above such heathenism, and God supreme
Over His realm of Nature recognize,
Nor dare to say His power to the All-wise,
Almighty One is fixed.
The summer air
Invites. I have performed my exercise
Of duty, and should sleep; but they so fair
And bright appear—the beauteous stars!—that I must share

19

The glorious sight, once more. How full of life
Must be the world-stored universe of God!
Yon glittering splendours cannot be unrife
With conscious being. Each sphere is surely trod
By moral agents: not the mean abode
Of animal natures only. 'Twere to deem
God's work unworthy of Himself to load
Immensity with suns, if every beam
They shed, however bright, shewed only Death supreme;

386

20

Or, merely forms that simply live and feel,
But neither know, nor thought reflective share.
Creatures, God made to inherit bounteous weal,
According to their natures; and His care
Of all shews that His wisdom deems them fair;
Yet, higher joy must fill God's holy mind
Looking on Man, than on the forms most rare
In outward beauty to the earth assigned,
That are to all earth's truly beautiful so blind.

21

And, if the all-bounteous Father doth feel joy
In giving life, and higher joy the more
He gives of higher life, nought should destroy
Our love of life. To deem the gift but poor—
The highest gift that God, the Great Bestower,
Can give, is surely base; and baser still
It is to wish Death should our being devour.
Thank God! I never felt such wish: no ill
With hatred of Existence could my bosom fill.

22

I love existence. And I would not die,
Although I'm old, except to live again,
And think, and feel, and know, and satisfy
My being with comprehending what all men
On earth can only apprehend. The ken
All-spiritual I long to have—the gaze
Angelic, gleaning, at once, what in this den
Of clay-bound mind we cannot reach, though days
And years be spent in trying to pierce the Stygian haze.

23

And yet, how know we that the essences
Of things are better known to angels than
To men? Man knows most surely that he is;
But knows not what he is. Can angels scan
Their own existence, through and through, with span
And compass of familiarity,
And say, “We know ourselves”? No more than man,
I trow, can aught created boast, with glee—
“We have the key that unlocks Being's mystery!”

387

24

“As gods ye shall be!” said the snake to Eve;
And still man whispers it to his own ear.
And while he doubts so much he should believe
With childlike simpleness, he feels no fear
To grasp his Maker's attributes, or near
Approach to make, at least, to what God's hand
Alone can do. I would not tarry here
To learn such “science,” though they call it “grand;”
But, for right aims, I still would live in Fatherland.

25

Not many have seen more of it than I:
Its hills and vales and woods; its streams, its strand;
Its quaint old cities, and its hamlets shy;
Its crowded, gay, new towns bizarrely planned;
Its moated castles, and its abbeys grand
In ruin, with its proud cathedralled piles.
Through shire and hundred, over Fatherland,
On foot, by wain, on steed, what merry miles
I've sped! The thought with pleasure still my heart beguiles.

26

I love existence. Never can return
The hours of youth or manhood; but I feel
'Tis pleasant, oft to let the mind disurn
The Dead beloved, and bring them back to seal
Old friendships o'er again; to think o' the zeal
We felt in our debates—the merriment—
The fire—the fun—the wish the hour to steal
Past midnight: then the grave rebuke swift sent
From brows of senior “take care!” men—so eloquent!

27

I thank the Almighty' Maker that I've lived,
And feel life hath been blessed. What, though pain
Hath mingled with my ease? I have not grieved
At pain so much as at my inward stain
Of sin and guilt. My life hath been, i' the main,
A pleasant pilgrimage. I cannot hold
With him who scorns this life, as but a vain
And worthless dream, soon over and soon told:
A dream that doth mere changes of a dream unfold.

388

28

Life hath been real to me; real in its joy,
And in its sorrow. And the reality
Of life I would not lose. No pleasures cloy
In life that men name rightly. If their free
Heritage of choice men will abuse, yet see
The issue must be punishment, the blame
Is justly theirs. Men know the high decree
That links their sin with punishment and shame,
And know their arguments against it halt and lame.

29

The men I knew who said, “There is no sin:
Creatures of circumstance men are; and praise
And blame are follies”—I ever heard begin
To praise and blame, if to forget their craze
You could beguile them. In the startling days
Of forty-eight, old Robert Owen said
His solemn say, very oft—“He but betrays
His folly who blames and praises.” Ere his head
Was turned, he praised and blamed the living and the dead!

30

I well remember how his new-found friend,
Young Louis Blanc—an exile—sat by his side,
At Ashburner's, the opening and the end
Comparing, of his speech. Puzzled, he tried
To unravel it, but failed. I had to hide
My face for laughter. But, the old man's look
Was quite triumphant; and he glanced with pride
Around,—as who should say, “No sovereign duke
Or king can match my greatness: I no equal brook!”

31

Self-worship was his foible—nay his sin!
And all his followers to the top of his bent
Befooled and flattered him; and did but grin
At others for born fools who shewed they lent
No ear to Robert's teaching. No dissent
Was borne with. His was the name o' the Age!
“The Age of Owen” 'twould be called when blent
With dust he was! They told him so! The sage
Nodded,—as he would say,“That's true, a crown I'll wage.”

389

32

So proud at heart—and yet how meek and kind
He was, even when the storm of anger swelled
Around him! Imperturbable his mind
In contest seemed, when younger; but he held
His head up loftily, in age, and quelled
Dissent with words that shewed he deemed men low
In intellect who could not see he excelled
All teachers of his time. So surely grow
Proud thoughts in man whose fellows weakly to him bow!

33

Yet, one feels glad to have known a man that drew
Thousands around him who became so sure
That what he taught was truth. Alas! how few
Are able to resist a panic! Be the lure
Substance or shadow, when the calenture
Sets in, the human sheep begin to run;
And, soon, all run who see the race! Impure,
Unholy license seemed a precious boon
To fools. Some saw their folly ere life's task was done;

34

But Owen never changed, or faltered. From
The outset of his course he seemed possessed
Of rocklike strength of will. The masterdom
Of all men's ills should yield to his behest,
He told the crowds. They could suspect no jest:
He gave his wealth, his time, to spread the scheme
Of Socialism. He never seemed distrest
At failure; and when others ceased to dream
Of winning Eden back to Earth, and said no gleam

35

They saw o' the promised light, he widely stared,
And said he wondered, for the light was full—
Nay, fuller than the sun's own light it glared:
The triumph was at hand: their eyes were dull
Who could not see the signs of it. No lull
Of earnestness he shewed for fourscore years;
And, in old age, he said nought could annul
His triumph: it was come! They gave him cheers:
He was stone-deaf: I do not think they reached his ears.

390

36

Owen has gone; and, with him, too, his sect.
And Communism hath, once more, had its day
Of murderous rule, in Paris! All bedeckt
With beauty was their city, when a stay
But brief I made in it—although the fray
O' the Reds with Cavaignac was barely o'er,
And their new President did not display
His purpose to be Emperor yet. She wore
Her splendour still—the famous city—as of yore.

37

Frenchmen were proud of Paris—even the poor,
As were the rich: they hurled no monument down,
Although they soaked the stones with human gore.
The column in the Place Vendôme no frown
Provoked—the Louvre's array of art no groan
Evoked of hatred from the workmen-bands
That struck for broader freedom. Now the tone
Of Labour's sons is changed. They say the sands
I' the glass of Privilege are spent: all with their hand.

38

Or heads shall labour, for the future. “Pride
And idleness should have no rest,” they said;
And so they burned their city, and defied
All retribution! though their land had bled
Beneath the Prussian's proud revengeful tread,
They turned to shed each other's blood! The old
Mad zest for civil strife is still misbred
Within them. God forbid we should their mould
So fraticidal take—'midst changes manifold!

39

For change hath come in England that I deemed
Unlikely yet to come, for many a year;
And other changes threaten. It had seemed
Great cause, indeed, for joy to me to hear
Some changes had been wrought; but now a fear
Checks my new joy that License soon may come—
Wild License, rather than the triumph dear
Of Liberty, in this dear isle, her home
So long—where all her exiled sons find welcome room!

391

40

After such midnight musing, slumber came.
And, soon, the wakeful mind—as a player would say—
Caught up her cue from these last thoughts, to frame
Her converse in my sleep.
I dreamt my way
I took again, in Paradise, where lay
Familiar flowers: the bell-flower tall and fair,
That blooms by rocky Tees, even near the spray
Of the High Force: grass of Parnassus rare
In beauty—nay, most beautiful beyond compare—

41

That decks the banks of forked Tyne,
Where he turns south, by old quaint Alston, high
Above all towns in perch,—and where, with fine
Sense of the beautiful—(sure, bending nigh,
The angels whisper them!)—one child doth vie
With another in reverence for the fresh “God-flower”—
For so they name it! And that living eye,
Or star of the earth—the Trientalis—dower
Of loveliness—that one would gaze at, hour by hour!

42

It grows in the park of Alnwick—but we found
It first in Scotland—I and my Love—near chill
But cheerful Grantown, where frail flowers abound:
The fairy orchis, with its infantile
And chaste white florets: pyrolas that thrill
The soul with wonder at their gracefulness;
While gymnadenias rich perfume distil
Around your heathery path; and lady's tress
Renders your power to name its beauty languageless.

43

I dreamt such flowers I found, but each enhanced
In delicate grace of form, richness of scent,
And bloom, till, as before, I seemed entranced
To ecstasy, amid such lavishment
Of loveliness and sweetness. But soon lent
I hearing to the voice I dreamt I heard
Of one discoursing in a strain that sent
Strange vigour through me, as when one doth gird
Himself for fight—for fiery words his blood have stirred.

392

44

I knew it was the voice of Claude Brousson,

“the Evangelist of the Desert”—See a good, compact life of him, published by Hamilton, Adams and Co. 1853. The Preface is signed by “Henry S. Baynes.”

“The Evangelist of the Desert”—martyr brave,
Who, strangled on the wheel, with soul so strong
Met death, at Montpellier, when Louis drave
From France its holiest sons—himself the slave
Of Rome, although “Magnificent” proclaimed—
Louis “le grand Monarque”—to whose blood clave
The vengeance of the Lord, when men's hearts flamed
With hate of kings, and Pride and Privilege were tamed.

45

With Claude walked other martyrs by the wheel:
Dumas, and Fulcran Rey, Guion, Bonnemere,
And Olivier Souverain,

... and other martyrs of Montpelier. —Their deaths are all described in the volume I have just mentioned.

—who all with leal
Fidelity and readiness did bear
Their torture, and escaped to Christ. Their share
Of bliss these now were reaping; and with them
A crowd beside of brothers, each now heir
Of Jesu's heaven. And all seemed, in my dream,
Intently listening to the Desert Preacher's theme.

46

“Brothers,” spake Claude, “regird the loins o' the mind;
And still take heart that we the combat keep
With Rome's dark falsehood—though we find
Her power so strong, her hold so wide and deep
O'er human hearts, when we descend the steep
To earth, on God's great errands. Let us hold
His promise fast—that He will call His sheep,
In every land, into Truth's holy fold:
Let us hold firmly by His word proclaimed of old!”

47

He paused, as if reluctant to speak on,
From large emotion, —while his brethren held
His form in silent deep observance. Soon,
The fact to me was mystically revealed
That Claude, but now, had from his ancient field
Of warfare and of suffering journeyed home,
Again, to heaven; and had not yet unsealed
His later knowledge, whether the day of doom
They waited for so long had come for slaughterous Rome.

393

48

“Tell us, loved brother, if our own loved France”—
With meek impetuousness, spake Fulcran Rey—
“Have left the spectacle—the song—the dance—
Her boast of victories—and begun to pray.
We learned that there the priest had lost his sway
O'er men, though women seek his benison.
We wait to know that Frenchmen change their gay
And volant life, for earnestness. Soon gone
Will be Rome's power, if Frenchmen grave and pious have grown.”

49

“Ye marked my hesitance,” Brousson replied;
“I cannot tell ye that our France grows wise
Or pious. Still she keeps her boastful pride
And vanity—although the Prussian dyes
Her soil with blood, and still for vengeance cries,
Remembering the dread wrong he suffered while
The wasteful Corsican won victories
Like sports, and fed his eager hosts on spoil,
And humbled kings, as if they were but peasants vile.

50

“I deem, my brother, that thou judgest right:
Rome's day is gone when France casts off her yoke
In earnest, and no longer, in loose plight
Affects to wear it, as a masterstroke
Of policy. When neither jest, nor joke,
France makes of Christian truth, but with the force
Of all the reason that she boasts, the Book
Reads for herself, and reads with the remorse
Of conscience, she will soon break down the Papal curse.

51

“But, even now, Rome seeks on her to lean:
Fallen Rome on conquered France! The old man shorn
Of territory and civil rule, with keen
And smarting sense of the Italians' scorn—
For oft they jest around his nest forlorn, —
His petty realm—the City Leonine,
Across the Tiber—still uplifts his horn
Of pride, and dares to mutter curse malign
On all his foes; and frets till France doth give the sign

394

52

“That she will yet befriend him—for no friend
He hath 'mong reigning potentates: none heed
His blessing or his curse. Some think their end—
The end of kings—is near, and feel they need
To care most for themselves, since treasons breed
So fast around them; while the stronger strive
To strengthen more their thrones—ignoring creed
And faith—by following plans preventative,
They think, of revolution: for they now perceive

53

“The earthquake threatens, throughout Europe broad,
From Labour's children, who so small a share
Of good gain for themselves, although they load
Others with plenty, by their skill, and toil, and care.
The earthquake threatens; and strong kings for war
Myriads now train, and the dire drame pursue
With deadlier weapons; and auxiliar
Artillery, more deadly still, now through
The air whirls weights of metal such as men ne'er knew,

54

“Or heard of, since the warring world began;
And ships are clad with iron plates, immense
In thickness, —and impelled with hurricane
Velocity, by force of steam, intense.
Thus, horrible destruction, at expense
Enormous, emperor, and king, and czar
Make ready, confident, when Turbulence
Sounds trumpet, with the giant game of war
To wield off revolution, or subdue its jar!

55

“Our own loved France—now bruised and bleeding France—
Raves, too, of warlike preparation, quick,
Like conquering kings—nay, with an arrogance
The nations round deem nought but lunatic,
Boasts her revenge shall come, and she will strike
Her foes with such paralysis of fear,
They at her feet shall crawl, and, trembling, lick
The dust! To pray, didst ask, my brother dear,
If France had now begun? Such tidings we shall hear

395

56

“From earth, in God's own time, I trust. But prayer
Is farthest from her thought—of all the thought
That enters human minds, when filled with care,
And torn with sorrow, for the suffering brought
To their own doors, upon their hearths, about
Their beds—sorrow o'erwhelming to the mass
Of men—but sorrow Frenchmen learn to flout
With merriment, and mockery, and grimace!
Oh, when, great God, shall reason truly mark our race!”

57

Silent, the Martyrs walked, when Brousson ceased,
In holy sorrow, till Bonnemere thus spake:
“And who hath ruined France? who, but the priest—
What, but the subtle power of the fell Snake
Of Rome—did first the strength of Frenchmen break
Under the yoke? How long and bravely strove
Our grand forerunners, who the chain, and stake,
And fiery flame, with spirit of the dove
Endured—blessing their foes who them with fury drove

58

“From life, although their lives to France had been
Unmeasured good! How long we strove—our aim
How pure—God truly knows! The haughty, unclean,
Yet worshipt king—the pride, and yet the shame,
Of France! —yielded, at last, to play Rome's game
To the full; and, in expelling from his land
Its Christian people, struck the blow to maim
Its industry and wealth: his court, so grand,
Robbed Poverty of its bread with unrelenting hand;

59

“And vice and waste became the heritage
Of his doomed house, till Misery rose with fell
And fierce revenge to crush out Privilege!
And still they hear the voice of vengeance swell
Above the roar of war; and who shall spell
When it shall cease?”—
“And when from France the true
Disciples of the Lord were driven”—to tell
His thought, Dumas began—“the Atheist crew
Soon gave the tone to court, and crowd, and science, too.

396

60

“When nought was left to represent the faith
Of Christ, but mass idolatrous—the bread
Turned into Deity by the noisome breath,
Perchance, of some foul priest, and overhead
Held up for worship; while the incense spread
Its odour round; and eunuch songsters strained
Their hireling throats, by opera music led;
And cloth of gold unto the priest pertained,
While rags scarce clad the peasant whom the Church had drained

61

“Of his last mite—what wonder that the minds
Of men revolted with disgust from show
And showman too? Few, now, the forgery blinds,
'Mong Frenchmen; but men much more easily throw
Their idols down than learn to humbly bow
'Fore sovran Truth. Oh that the Lord would raise
Up for Himself, in France, some teacher low
In men's esteem, but who with Truth's pure blaze
Should fire French souls, till they proclaim the Saviour's praise!”

62

“God hath His witnesses, though few”—in haste,
Spake Claude:“a remnant of our race give ear
And heart unto the truth. They have embraced
Its teachings from the stranger, and hold dear
The word of life. Brethren, we will not fear!
Their number shall increase, till France shall be
Among the foremost nations that revere
The Crucified; and, over land and sea,
Her sons shall champion the new Christian Chivalry!”

63

“Lord, let Thy servant's faith be realized
Right early!”—prayed the Martyr company,
Aloud;—and sounds that shewed some sympathised
With them, in Paradise, were heard. The three
Brothers Du Plans

co-workers also with Claude Brousson.

approached, with holy glee
“Amen” responding: with them, David Quet,

—Broken on the wheel at Montpellier.—For a record of his martyrdom see also the “Life of Claude Brousson.”

And elder martyrs twain—Pierre de Bruis,

see note 6

And Henri, “the false hermit,”

Pierre de Bruis and Henri, “the False Hermit”—See some account of their labours and martyrdom in a translation of Antoine Monastier's “History of the Vaudois Church,” published by the Religious Tract Society.

as the men of prey
Misnamed their victim, in the famed St. Bernard's day.

397

64

And, after these, drew near a Martyr crowd—
A crowd innumerous—that on earth were named
With many names—some given by wicked, proud,
And persecuting men; and some that epigrammed
Their virtues. They who, when the faggots flamed
Around their limbs, at Lyons, aloud exclaimed
They saw the heavens opened; and, at Toulouse,
Where met, i' the Middle Age, the Council famed
For persecution, they whom its foul abuse
Meekly received, and dared its sentence murderous.

65

And they who bled or burnt, for stubborn faith,
In Gascogne, and Provence, and Dauphine;
And, in Lorraine and Picardy, met death
Exultantly: some called “The men that pray,”
And some “The men that sing:” some termed the stray
Dwellers with wolves, or Turlupins. The poor
That loved them called them “pure”—Cathari: they—
The proud—who hated them, never forbore
To give them names of guilt, without a metaphor.

66

Poor Men, Poor Weavers, Publicans,
Beghards, Beguines, and Manichees, some chose
To call them, as they wandered o'er the plains
Of sunny France, or climbed the Alpine snows,
Or hid in Pyrenæan vales from foes;
And Albigenses were they called, who fell
In thousands by De Montfort's sword

Simon de Montfort. —One hundred thousand crusaders (and some say more) in 1209 ravaged Languedoc, and slaughtered countless “heretics,” under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, and Amalric, the Abbot of Citeaux, and legate of Pope Innocent III.

—the blows
Approved by Rome, who said the work was well
And nobly done: work worthy of the fiends of hell!

67

Anon, joined these, another Martyr host:
The Vaudois of Provence, whom fierce Oppéde

The Baron Oppede. —The merciless butcheries, devastations, and nameless horrors executed upon the poor Vaudois of Provence, under the fierce leadership of this man, are vigorously related in a crowded volume entitled “History of the Protestants of France,” etc., by G.de Felice. Translated by P. E. Barnes. Routledge and Co. 1853.

Slew with the sword, or burnt—a holocaust
To glut his bad revenge—the slaughter made
By order of the king, won by the aid
Of Cardinal de Tournon: penitent
In death, the royal Francis strongly bade
Henri, his son, to follow with punishment
The guilty deed: a charge to which dull heed was lent.

398

68

The gathered Martyr companies of France
That lived, on earth, some centuries apart,
Yet gave each other the fraternal glance,
And seemed a mighty army of one heart.
Forthwith, in serried ranks they formed athwart
The flowery plain, as if their wont to meet
Thither, it were—not to record the smart
Of their past martyrdom, but one to greet
Another, and rehearse old earthly memories sweet.

69

Their greetings all renewed, the waving Hand
Of Light again appeared above. All saw
The signal, and the universal band
Struck up the song of praise and love and awe,
With mingled prayer for France—the holy law
Obeying which, in Paradise, doth bind
All souls from earth, and did them thither draw,
To pray their Lord for those still left behind,
In Fatherland, that they may all His mercy find.

70

“Great God of might, who dost all worlds possess—
Creator of our being—Redeemer strong
From sin—and Sanctifier who dost men bless
With heart-renewal, and grace to leave the wrong
And cleave unto the right! Again, our song
We raise—our brother-song of grateful joy—
That, though we grieved Thy holiness so long,
In mortal life, Thou didst not us destroy;
But didst preserve our souls to share Thy blest employ!

71

“O Holy Lord, make bare Thy sovran arm,
And from our Fatherland old Error chase!
No longer let the priest, with baneful charm,
Delude men's souls! No longer let our race
Give up their souls to folly and foul embrace
Of deadliest sin! Thy power to humble pride,
O Lord, Thou hast displayed before their face,
With awful force, and still Thou dost them chide—
But, by their blinded eyes Thy hand is undescried.

399

72

“O God, let men, throughout the humbled realm
Of France, begin to think—until from off
Their eyes the scales shall fall, and shame o'erwhelm
Their souls that they so long have lived to scoff
At things Divine, and to deride all proof
Of Thine Existence, who so long hast borne
With their foul sin. Let Frenchmen keep aloof
No longer from Thy Christ! Oh, let their scorn
Of meekness end! Lord, beam upon their souls forlorn!”

73

The prayerful song went on—the fervid plea
For France, that God would cleanse her mental sight
From folly's films, her veil of vanity
Remove, restore her spirit from the blight
Of scepticism, and fill it with the bright
Perception that in Christ is true repose—
Repose her restless spirit needs to upknit
Her ravelled strength, —to still her strifeful throes, —
And a transcendent future for her sons disclose.

74

Their prayer harmonious ended; when began
The brethren towards the terraced hills to wend,
In serried ranks. The Martyr caravan,
Triumphant marching, did its wings extend
Across the plain till the low hills ascend
I, erst, saw in my dream: the river's marge
It also touched; and often seemed to bend
Its lines by the winding river: space so large
It filled. —But, now, I heard one Mind new thoughts discharge.

75

'Twas one whose flesh by pincers was torn off—
Bold John le Clerc,

The woolcomber of Meaux is an observable figure among the martyrs of France. “In his zeal against the deceiving errors which he saw abounding on every hand, he involved himself and the good cause he had at heart in common ruin, by rashly offending the most cherished prejudices of the prevailing creed. The inhabitants of Metz, whither he had withdrawn, were accustomed annually to repair in crowds on an appointed festival to a neighbouring chapel, where a statue of the Virgin, with others of favourite saints, were the objects of special devotion to the credulous and ignorant populace. “Like Paul of old, the spirit of Le Clerc was stirred within him to see the city thus wholly given to idolatry; and, forgetful of the example of the apostle in like circumstances, he repaired at an early hour to the church, and breaking the images in pieces, he scattered them before the altar. Though no one witnessed the daring sacrilege, Le Clerc had no desire to flee. The act was designed as a testimony against the sin in which the people were preparing to unite; and when he was dragged before the judges by an enraged multitude, who could hardly be restrained from tearing him in pieces, he fearlessly proclaimed to them Jesus Christ as the sole object of rightful worship. “The courageous confessor was sentenced to be burned alive; but even a death so horrible could not satisfy his enraged executioners. He was mutilated and torn with red— hot pincers, and his sufferings were prolonged with the most savage ingenuity; after which the sentence of his judges was carried into execution by burning him in a slow fire. . . . While his executioners tore his flesh, and mutilated his face, in a manner too horrible for description, he solemnly ejaculated the words—‘Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They that make them are like unto them: so is every one that trusteth in them. O Israel, trust thou in the Lord: He is thy help and thy shield.’”

they martyred in Lorraine,
For that, with fiery zeal, beneath the roof
Papists called holy he broke their idols vain
To pieces. To the few I saw remain—
Brousson, Bonnemere, and Dombres

—He and Boisson, both colleagues of Claude de Brousson, went to martyrdom, at Nismes, singing the praises of God, and “finished their course with joy.”

—I heard him say,
“My brothers, we can never here complain
Of what doth seem the All-wise One's delay
In saving France; but, how mysterious seems His way!

400

76

“He leaves the land which so much martyrs' blood
Hath consecrated, and where Mind hath won
Its proudest triumphs, —in its hardihood
Of unbelief and pride to wander on; —
And seeks the barbarous races 'neath the sun:
The dwellers on the islands of the sea,
And far-off continents, but dimly known
When we were sharers of mortality—
Lo! while I speak, the new-born spirits hither flee! —

77

“For Sin with Holiness the war on earth
Will wage till comes the end, and ever slake
Its thirst with blood of Saints—yea, count it mirth
To see their bodies writhe with torturous ache,
Or burning. So, some hither from the stake
Now come, and some slain by the piercing spear;
And from the rock let fall to earth, where brake
Their bones, others have come. Welcome, ye dear
Disciples of our Lord! —We give ye heavenly cheer!”

78

“Welcome, dear brethren, from the island far,
To Jesu's Paradise!” aloud Brousson
And his companions cried; “ye welcome are
To all God's Saints!”
I knew this Martyr throng
From Madagascar came—the island, long
And broad, the channel named the Mozambique
Divides from Afric land. Victims of wrong
They felt they were, and did no pardon seek,
But met their death with joy, and Christian courage meek.

79

Victims of Ranavalona

Queen of Madagascar.—How this woman, who had no rightful claim to the throne, seized it, on the death of King Radama, has been related in English periodicals many times. The reader will find a compact account of the Malagasy martyrs in the “Narrative of the Persecution of the Christians in Madagascar,” etc., by the Missionaries Freeman and Johns. London: Snow, 35, Paternoster Row; as also in “Madagascar: its Mission and its Martyrs,” published by the same house.

—savage queen—
A demon-legion seemed to fill and rule,
As when Christ dwelt on earth, the spirits unclean
Possessed the man: the evil spirits so foul,
That, driven out of man, they begged control
O'er filthy swine, and gained their strange request—
Christ—as the Judge of men—letting the shoal
Of swine be drowned, His mind to manifest—
The Jews, by keeping them, Jehovah's law trangressed.

401

80

Sisters there were, as well as brethren, in
The island Martyr band. The queen so vile
Spared neither her own sex, nor her own kin.
The maiden Rasalama,

—The calm, but glorious death of this proto-martyr of Madagascar is beautifully told in the last-mentioned little volume.

with a smile—
As proto-martyr of her native isle—
Led on the Christian company. Her hand
She gave Rafaralahy,

“My sister, I will not leave you to the end.” said this young man, separating himself from the crowd to walk by the side of Rasalama, as she was led to death. A few days after-wards he, also, was martyred.

the youth who while
They led her forth to death, with bravery grand
Walked with her as she sang—spite of the queen's command.

81

Full soon it was his turn to die. They slew
Him as he knelt where her unburied bones
Were strewed. And more they killed. I fear, all new
Ye would their names proclaim, and strange the tones,
If I pronounced them! Few to their death groans
Gave heed, in‘Christian’ England—where the boast
Is rife— “There are no Martyrs now.” “The moans”—
Say ye? —“were faint on that far southern coast”?
Truly, full oft their moans in hymns of joy were lost!

82

“Sing us, sweet sister,” spake Brousson, “the hymn
We heard that thou didst sing when thou wert led
To martyrdom.”

The Malagasy martyrs all went, singing hymns of praise, to the place of death. This so enraged their persecutors, that at last they stuffed straw into the mouths of the sufferers.

To me her words were dim:
The melody with windings seemed to thread
The spiritual air, till—as the great one said—
With “linkèd sweetness long drawn out,” the mind
O'erpowered seemed tears of tenderness to shed,
With rapturous thrill. Thus sounds are intertwined
With feeling, whether in earth or heaven, for human-kind!

83

Then sang the Malagasy, in their tongue,
And with like tenderness, in joyous strain,
And in full chorus, other hymns they sung
In their late days of martyrdom and pain.
Their music rose above the flowery plain,
Until I saw the infant company
Of Welcomers gather in troops, amain,
And float o'erhead, and list with ecstasy
And wonder, what the music, new to heaven, might be.

402

84

And then, in spiritual tongue, the men of France
Spake with the Malagasy of the time
Of persecution—when no sustenance
They gat, for days, i' the woods, and had to climb
Rude rocks, and hide in caves, or in the slime
Of swamps, to escape their hunters; and the hate
O' the wicked queen to flee: their only crime
They worshipped Christ, and would not fall prostrate
'Fore blocks of wood by ignorant heathen consecrate.

85

With grateful joy the Malagasy told
How first the missionary-men to preach
Began, and how some felt that truth gat hold
Of all their heart; and when by signs to teach—
By printed signs as well as spoken speech—
The men began, what wonder, and what zeal
Some felt to learn until their minds could reach
The meaning of God's word, and sweetly feel
What great salvation for their souls it did reveal.

86

And how they hid its precious leaves, when raged
Fierce Ranavalona, and nightly drew them forth
From their concealment, and by stealth assuaged
Their thirst for the living water: how i' the earth
They hid Christ's printed truth, and with what mirth
They dug it up when none of all their foes
Were nigh. And then, how great they deemed the worth
Of Bunyan's Pilgrim-story

“Bunyan's Pilgrim-story.”—It was translated into Malagasy by Mr. Johns, the Missionary; and soon the natives prized it next the Bible.

to disclose
Their hearts began—yea, told of it with rapt applause!

87

“O brethren, these are wondrous ways of God!”
Said Claude; “how know we but this savage isle—
For such was Madagascar, when we trod
The soil of earth—may, in the Future, smile
Triumphantly o'er Hellas, and the land of Nile—
Yea, over Europe's proudest boast of art
And science? Oft doth God select the vile,
In men's esteem, to enact a lofty part:—
What, if this isle be set down in some future chart

403

88

“O' the world, as the pre-eminent Christian seat
Of knowledge and refinement? God may bring
Judgment upon the nations that maltreat
His truth, and deem it false; that madly wring
From intellect and sensual revelling,
Alike, the dregs of pleasure; and ignore
Their Maker's name; yea, proudly backward fling
His benefits, and call them curses. O'er
Our ancient home awful judicial change may lour!’

89

“Cast not away blest hope!” with cheery shout,
Cried one who led another band in view,
While thus the Preacher spoke of fear and doubt,
And to the terraced mountains nearer drew
The Malagasy and the friendly few
That journeyed with Brousson. The Martyr band
That now approached, thus cheerily led, I knew,
By mystic insight, were of Gallic land,
Likewise: its ancient Martyrs: they who bore the brand

90

Of infamy, when pagan Rome held rule,
And savagely shed Christian blood for game,
By scourge and torture so unpitiful,
'Twere hard to tell: worse than the fiery flame!
And dread exposure, 'mid the loud acclaim
Of thousands, to the claws and teeth of beasts
Wild from their scorching Afric clime: no shame
They felt to boast refinement, yet such feasts
They held i' th' amphitheatres, with brutal jests

91

Mocking frail woman's sufferings, as of men
The groans. 'Twas Polycarp's disciple

“Polycarp's disciple,” Irenæus. —He was martyred at Vienne, in Gaul, A.D. 202, in the persecution under Severus.

led
Gaul's ancient martyrs. He who in Vienne
Was slain. And, with him, they whose blood was shed
So recklessly in Lyons, by the dread
Decree of Antoninus Verus, blythely trod
The floral way: Pothinus,

—See Eusebius, Book V.C.I.

whom from bed
They dragged—the man of ninety—to give God
His dying testimony, and seal it with his blood;

404

92

Sanctus, the deacon, stout, defiant, brave,
Amidst all threats and tortures; Attalus,
Maturus, Vettius, and the female slave,
Blandina

... and others.—See Eusebius, Book V. C. I.

—noblest martyr for the cross
Of all her sex, in times iniquitous;
And many more.
“Cast not away blest hope!”
Cried Irenæus; “still remain for us
God's patience and His love. Let us look up,
My brethren, yet, for fallen France! Let not faith droop

93

“While the great Intercessor pleads in heaven,
And saints on earth. Asunder, God the veil
Of scepticism will rive, as He hath riven
The veil of heathenism! France shall the trail
O' the serpent see, ere long, and humbly wail
In penitence, that she so long hath held
The false for true, for pure the bestial:
Shall mourn she hath the power of Evil swelled;
And grieve 'gainst God and Christ she hath so long rebelled!

94

“Cast not away blest hope!” again he cried,
“Blest hope we may not, will not cast away!”
Cried all the Martyr company; “Christ died
For sceptic, as for heathen, Gaul: her day
Of grace is not yet past: full soon the ray
Of holiest Truth, with soul-awakening might,
May beam upon her. Send it, Lord, we pray!
Let France no longer be a realm of night;
But shine among the nations, by Thy Gospel light!”

95

The prayer and song went on, as now to climb
The terraced mountains they began; the song
Went on—and other songs, with chaunt sublime,
The joyous myriads sang—the happy throng
That, marching, climbed the height with step so strong
And limber: age and weakness felt no more!
They climbed—but sense that I might not prolong
My visit to that realm grew, as before,
Within me; and I woke to find myself on shore

405

96

Of earth, a pilgrim still: Death's mystic sea
Uncrossed! Yet, I must cross it soon: the years
Must now be scanty that remain for me
On th' hither side o'the tomb. Life onward wears
Happily, thank God! Scarcely a “vale of tears”
This life hath been for me. Still let me prove
My happiness in Duty: then, no fears
Cold Death can bring: 'twill be but a remove
From happy life below, to happier life above!

409

BOOK THE FIFTH.

1

The winter's sun beams bright, as if'twere spring,
Gladdening the waters of the lonely sea:
Lonely as death: not even a bird on wing:
No glimpse of man, or boat: a jubilee
Of silence and of death, it seems. With glee
The unburied giants of old Cumbria wear
On their huge shoulders their death drapery—
The pall of snow. Wide Morecambe sands are bare,
But sparkle, as if strewed with dust of diamonds rare.

2

All things are bright, though silent. Overhead
There is no cloud: 'tis one deep vault of blue
That mocks the eye to gauge it. If, instead,
I look upon the waters, without clew
Or rod, for measurement, I am: I view
The boundless still; and still within me rise
The old, old baffled thoughts I yet pursue,
But can achieve no end. Oh, for new eyes
Of Mind, to pierce the deep, the eternal mysteries!

3

I had a friend, in youth, I loved full well.
He was no mannikin—no dapper thing
That smirks, and reckons Life a bagatelle;
But girt the bow of his mind with steely string,
And shot far after Truth—within the ring
Oft planting his arrow where her jewels glow,
All-priceless. Humble in birth, he was a king
In thought. I see his broad Baconian brow
Brighten, as mind-fire flashes in the eyes below;

410

4

I hear his manly tones announce the clear
Decision he had raught, when we the fray
Dialectic,—stern, unbending, and austere,—
Had waged for hours. And now I hear him say—
They were his dying words—for soon the clay
That glorious spirit left: “Oh, how I long
To be all intelligence!” Thus did he pray
In death: prayed from the passions' blinding throng
To escape for ever, that on Truth, with vision strong,

5

For ever he might gaze: with spiritual eye—
The eye unlensed, unorganed, unbeshrined
In flesh, undimmed by vulgar slovenry
Of earthly use. He prayed that as pure Mind
He might exist: not only unconfined
By shroud o' the flesh, but unannoyed, unstained
By the foul cleavings of all humankind
To the earth, which do convince the soul, sore-pained,
That, while on earth, unto the grovelling clay 'tis chained.

6

Hath he his dying wish obtained in death—
That is, in the real life beyond the grave?
For, since 'tis not the kernel perisheth,
But only the shell, one cannot choose but crave
To know what kind of life our spirits have
Unclothed upon with flesh. Doth he still see—
Hear—feel? Or, did the senses but enslave
And dull the soul's perceptions—while, now, free
From sense, she is Perception's self—the destiny

7

My dying friend aspired to—and now he
Is “all intelligence”? Yet, often he said,
In our tense arguings, that it could not be
For any mere creature to have being unwed
To vehicle, or clothing: only the Dread,
All-infinite One could be pure Mind. And then,
If asked—How such thought-regions can we tread?
He quoted Cudworth—whose intellectual ken
He deemed the strongest of all late Platonic men.

411

8

And thus men quote, and reason still—or guess;
But get no farther!
Yon big cumulus cloud
Hath suddenly risen from some lake's recess,
To hide the lordliest mountain in its shroud;
And Coniston Old Man, that looked so proud
Above his fellows, is invisible—
While more clouds pile upon the obscurer crowd
Of peaks, and make them seem to bulge and swell
Till they in stature Alps or Andes would excel.

9

Let me leave clouds and mountains, for the sea!
Our reasoning is but rasher guessing, full
Of fancied peaks from which immensity,
We think, at last, we fathom. We are dull
Scholars in learning how to pick and cull
True treasure from the trash of our own thought.
All reasoning on the eternal future null
And void must be. What God hath left untaught
About it must be best unknown, or left in doubt.

10

Let me breathe freely thy fresh air, glad main!
And, thankful, gaze upon thy boundlessness—
What, though I try to measure thee, in vain?
He measureth thy waters—measureless
To man—in the hollow of His hand! Transgress
Thy bounds thou canst not; neither can I mine.
It will be wisest for me to repress
Guesses about the Future, and resign
My soul with confidence into the Hand Divine!

11

I thank Thee, Lord, the days of arrogance
Are past, when I presumed Thy government
Divine to arraign: with rash precipitance,
Forbidding Thee to punish sin unblent
With blame of Thine own creatures, on earth sent
To do Thy will, but given to have a will
Themselves. I thank Thee that the veil is rent
Of pride; and, since Thou only know'st how ill
It is in man to sin—his span of life to fill

412

12

With base ingratitude for all Thy care
Perpetual, all Thy love unwearied,—new
Ever, each night and noon and morn,—I dare
Not judge what sin deserves. Thou only true
And righteous judgment canst pronounce, whose view
Is blinded by no error, and whose right
It is to judge. That punishment is due
To baseness here, men doubt not: to requite
The lawless, would on law and justice be a blight.

13

Man's teachers now are saying, on every hand,
What I once rashly said and sung—that pain
And punishment cannot be ever: bland
And bountiful and tender, doth Thy reign
In Nature Thee proclaim; and every grain
Of Gospel truth is sweetened with Thy love:
Thou canst not punish ever, and the stain
Of evil from Thy holy throne above
For ever see—men say: it would Thy being disprove!

14

Vast Sea! how little of thy compass can
I judge from this scant spot on which I look
Upon thy waves? And can it be that Man
The slave of sin—from his dim finite nook—
Doth claim to read, off-hand, the eternal Book—
The Book o' the infinite government of God?
Surely, Unerring One, Thou dost not brook
That men, unblamed, should thus assume the nod
Divine—should thus forget their kindred with the clod!

15

Farewell, grand Sea! I may not soon upon
Thy waters look again, and try to read
Thy healthful lessons. Hence, I must begone,
Away from silence, to the crowds who lead
Their lives in noise and haste, and greatly need
Patient and thoughtful guidance from the way
Of Error to the paths of Truth. Lord, speed
Me in my aim to spread Thy Truth, I pray—
For soon I shall have lived, to the end, my little day!—

413

16

I left the realm of silence by the Rail.
There was no Rail whereon the steam-steed sped
With snort, and puff, and haste to turn men pale
With fear, and fill their hearts with instant dread
Of death, when I was young. But steady tread
Of waggon-horses, stout and strong;—the dash
Down hill and up, o' the mail, without a shred
Of fear, to coachee's chirrup—not the lash
O' the whip; the cheery horn; no dread of deathful crash!

17

“Oh, for the dear old coach again!” I cry—
But soon remind myself o' the pelting rain,
And that umbrella which the old man would try
To hold up still for shelter with insane
Resolve, although it drenched our necks; the pain
Of sitting, crampt, for lack of room; the wind
That kept us in one posture, like a chain—
It was so keen! And then I am inclined
To own 'twas well men did the steam-steed find, and bind!

18

I left the realm of silence, and arrived,
Once more, i' the realm of noise, and haste, and toil:
The realm of cotton mills, in which seemed hived
Man, woman, child: all join the gainful moil,
'Midst heat, and rattle of machines, and broil
Of steam. And still they build new mills, and vaunt
That nought their manufactures spread aslant
Until their enterprise shall henceforth foil
The world—where'er is found the human habitant!

19

But thirty years ago, Lancastrian land
Was filled with discontent; and ghastly fear
Prevailed the Poor would seize the pike and brand,
Through hunger-bitten madness, and ungear
The chariot of the State, and Order sheer
Overboard cast into the abysmal flood
Of universal ruin. Many a seer
Proclaimed that revolution, battle, and blood
Must come, if men and women and children had not food.

414

20

How the sage holder of the reins displayed his skill,
And starving crowds gat food, there is no need
That I should tell. When hungry men could fill
Their stomachs, they soon ceased to list the rede
Of Agitators. “Let us work, and feed
And clothe ourselves and children,” soon became
The all-prevalent resolve. They worked with speed;
And when broke out, across the sea, the flame
Of war, and they could get no cotton, they did not blame

21

The “Cotton Lords,” of whom, in bygone time,
They spoke so angrily. Their common sense
Kept them from insurrectionary crime;
And, famine-stricken though they were, suspense
Of work and wage with patience most intense
Was borne. And, now the wheels go round
Again most merrily, thoughts of turbulence
Return not—for men's eyes upon the ground,
Are fixed: to thoughts of food and clothes their minds are bound,

22

Except where curse of gambling hath possest
The souls of men and women—for to share
This madness of their husbands, with wild zest,
Women are found! No more, i' the open air,
I see, at eve, pale, eager groups, with rare,
Though homely eloquence, holding debate—
Their heads unhatted, and their lank limbs bare
Of clothing, save with rags—far on, till late
Dusk hour: and still they lingered to deliberate

23

How freedom should be won, and man be ruled
As man, by his own free choice, not as a slave!—
And hath the fervent thirst for freedom cooled?
“You see the ragged crowds no more!”—with brave
Display of triumph, they proclaim, and wave
Their new-bought hats! Most gladly I discern
The rags are gone; but sorrowfully crave
Whither had fled the intelligence, and stern
Passion for freedom with which once they seemed to yearn—

415

24

The starving “Mill-hands!” Was thy word then true—
Sage Age-fellow illustrious, that—spite all
The cry and rage and threat against the Few
That rose from the Many—'twas not to disenthrall
Themselves from serfdom, but to make their call
And shriek of hunger heard till they were fed?
'Twas all that Chartism meant; and now the tall,
Grim scaring spectre flees—for men have bread
To the full; and all their say for Freedom they have said?—

25

Then, from my inmost soul, I sorely grieve
That I and others bore for such as ye—
The grovelling sons of sires who could upheave
The world with fear—whose rags, so vile to see,
Were robes of honour, for they were the fee
Of independence!—sorely grieves my soul
We bore the chain for such as bow the knee
To Pelf and Privilege, so that the dole
To work for wages they may have. Is this the goal

26

Of Freedom? Have ye reached it, then, so soon?
And now, with hands in pockets, ye can prate
Of shares in stores and building clubs; and—boon
'Bove all!—can bet on horses—like the great!
Or, on the flight of pigeons; or, elate
With idiot pride, lead greyhounds in a string,
And bet upon the swiftness of their gait!—
For, now, all's well! With scorn, aside ye fling
Fantastic Freedom, and vote the way sure bread to bring

27

Into your cupboards! Ye are men of sense:
Your ragged sires were fools, and dreamers wild.
Freedom to feed ye prize: with abstinence
And Liberty ye cannot be beguiled;
For ye have tasted bread, and said, and smiled,
“'Tis sweet, and we will keep it. Take our vote
And welcome! Rule with hands clean or defiled,
So long as we can feed to the full. A groat
We care not how ye rule; on that we spend no thought!”

416

28

And did we brave the dungeon, but to know
That toiling men have sold their birthright like
Esau of old, for a mess of pottage? Low,
Indeed, your starving sires, who talked o' the pike,
Would say their well-fed sons had sunk! Heart-sick
To see such degradation, they would be,
And cry—“Ye strike for wage—but why not strike
For Freedom? Ye who have the vote, like free
Men use it: your own hands now hold your destiny!”

29

My hour of teaching came; but there came few
To listen of the hands-in-pockets crowd:
They flocked to gaze upon some gew-gaws“new
From Lunnon!”I to my lodging with a cloud
Of moody thinkings paced—
Hush! hush! the shroud
They are preparing for the breathless clay
That held the noblest soul on earth! No proud
Large-acred duke, or gartered marquess they
Adorn with heraldry, and clothe with Death's array.

30

“The great Triumvir,”saith the printed sheet
Of evening news,“hath died at Pisa.”Fame
Shall now reverse her trumpet, and, with meet
Proclaim, speak of an actor in the drame
O' the Nineteenth Century, whose high-souled aim
None equalled. And Italia's passionate heart
Shall sob with penitence, and throne the name
Of her Mazzini far above the smart
And courtly names of men that played their part

31

Of seeming patriotism, for kings to win
Continuance of their sceptres. Ay, 'tis night
With the poor lifeless clay: shrunken and thin
It lies, no doubt! Quenched are those lamps of light—
Those “windows of the soul”—so dazzling bright
When it looked through them, while he thought and spoke
Of home! —so full of splendour and of might,
When from his eloquent lips the syllables broke
Of fair Italia fully freed from foreign yoke,

417

32

And then united: Tuscan, Piedmontese,
Roman, Venetian, and Sicilian land,
All one freed home for patriot hearts at ease!
Old feuds now mourned; and thrown away the brand
So often drawn to shed with brother's hand
A brother's blood! The worn, thin clay is cold
And lifeless—but, I dare be sworn, 'tis grand
In death! No soul e'er left a nobler mould;
And still, I doubt not, it is beauteous to behold!

33

How glossy were his raven locks when first
I saw that classic head! But when I saw
Him after his return from Rome—the worst
Having befallen his rule, from the fell paw
Of France—and while I gazed, with sorrowing awe,
Upon his face, I marked his head was gray!
I spake on't—but it only served to draw
A smile from him:“We watched, by night and day,
While Garibaldi and our Romans kept the fray”—

34

He calmly said—“with the French and Oudinot.
I never slept on a bed, and only ate
Dry bread and raisins, while they met the foe;
And Saffi, and I, and Armellini, sate
To mete out justice—or deliberate
What next to essay. The Corsican's false heir
Hath blasted our fair hopes. But better fate
Awaits us. Never, my friend, can I despair:
Our cause shall yet, in Rome, victorious laurels wear!”

35

Where shall his tomb be? In Santa Croce's fane,
Where sleep the grandest of Italian dead?
Mazzini's bones were worthy to be lain
By the bones of Angelo, the sculptor dread,
Or Galileo's—but his final bed
Should be in Rome. She was the darling dream
He cherished: Popeless Rome become the head
Of Italy: her beauty, again, the theme
Of all; and crowned with her freed People's diadem!

418

36

Oh, honour the dead clay, Italians, for
The sake o' the soul that wore it! Honour well
The clay, for the soul's sake; but homage more
The lofty memory of the man! Oft tell
Your children how he toiled, amid the swell
Of tyrant rage, and failure of his plan,
So oft renewed, the Austrian's pride to quell,
Freedom restore, and Italy in the van
To place, of nations: the Great Realm Republican!

37

Say how he toiled and never fainted; nor
His toil gave up till death! So deep, so true
Was that great love to Freedom which he bore,
And to his darling Italy! Ever grew
The affection with his years. He never knew
An ebb and flow of that great love. 'Twas one
With his own being: a love that did imbue
And colour all his thoughts, and give them tone:
He lived and breathed in that great love, supreme, alone!

38

Champion of“God and Duty”—for they were
Thy watchwords—who shall now the counsels guide
Of Freedom? Only one true arbiter
She needs: the Man of Equity. Low Pride
That pulls down higher Pride—setting aside
One wrong to plant another—doth but breed
New troubles, and impede the gladdening stride
Of Freedom. Had poor France but taken heed
To thy sage chiding, she had now been free indeed.

39

Farewell, grand Soul! Rienzi meets thee there,
In Christ's bright heaven—the heaven of truthful souls—
With Brescian Arnold, and the man of prayer,
The martyred Savonarola: men, i' the rolls
Of Papal Rome, set down to share the howls
Of the accurst. Thank God, nor Pope, nor Priest,
Shall be our judge! 'Tis He alone controls
Our destiny. —Grand spirit, take thy rest
With Him and Christ, in the sweet regions of the Blest! —

419

40

Midnight hath found me pondering, once again,
The change of earthly things. One cannot hear
That great ones die, and pass it by, as men
Pass by the deaths of every day—no tear
Shedding, or heed vouchsafing to the drear
Dull tale. —
I slept again—the sleepless Mind
Still of her waking thoughts keeping a clear
And vivid hold—and seemed to tread the assigned
Realm of the Lord's beloved, whom evil men maligned

41

And martyred. By the winding river I seemed
Again to walk; but ere I stooped to take
One growth of that sweet floral land, I dreamed
The forms I kenned of two that, while awake,
I thought of sorrowfully. One of them spake
With the bold martyr who to fiercest flame, —
By cunning of the Pope he caused to quake, —
Was doomed at last: the Pope whose English name
Was Breakspear: none more skilfully played the Papal game.

42

Girolamo Savonarola told his heart,
In Paradise, with forceful yet with meek And gentle speech. Arnold of Brescia's

His triumphant patriotism and mortification of Pope Adrian (Breakspear), with his fall and martyrdom by burning, at the command of the Pope he had humbled, are among the most romantic incidents of Italy's romantic history.

part
Was sterner. As, in life, he never sleek
Or servile features wore, or uttered weak
And wavering words, so now he seemed to look
And speak as one who lived in days antique,
And lineage claimed with men who could not brook
The thought of slavery, much less bear its hateful yoke.

43

Truly Italian souls they were. Their inward fire
Of patriotism was equal. One had learned
To mitigate his speech, so that no ire
Was e'er suspected. In the other yearned
O'er Italy a soul that often burned—
Some hastily said—with flame that made them fear
It was unchastened. But the pure discerned
No sin in all his warmth. Thus, oft, sincere
And fervid souls are judged with judgment too austere.

420

44

“They flung thy ashes to the Tiber,” said
The Florentine,

—Savonarola.

“and to the Arno mine;
And soon the sea commingled and outspread
Them o'er the globe. And so each foul design
To frustrate Freedom fails! Though to confine
And stifle her life-giving breath they strive,
Men's strife but serves to spread her breath divine
Till slaves inhale it, and restorative
Proclaim her power to every enslaved soul alive!

45

“Kingship—that we ne'er loved—still lives, 'tis true;
But our loved Italy owns no despot sway.
And, were it not for Loyola's cunning crew,
The Papacy would soon see its last day.
Oh, surely, on the march of Freedom, may
We now congratulate each other, while
We laud the Almighty Ruler. Though His way
Be in the clouds for ages, they shall smile
With joy, who watch with patience how He works His will!”

46

“My joy is feebler, brother, than thine own,”
The elder martyr spake: “I long to see
Our countrymen unto full manhood grown,
In thought and act. Scarcely from childhood, we
Can say they have passed, while many a devotee
Climbs on his knees the Santa Scala,

“Nearly opposite the steps of the church of St. John Lateran, we saw the devout, or penance-performing worshippers, ascending the Santa Scala on their knees. This is a flight of stone steps, said to have been taken from the palace of Pontius Pilate at Jerusalem, twenty-eight in number. The strange spectacle of young and old, rich and poor, fat and lean, cheerful and sorrowful, slow and rapid, clumsy and agile, moving on their knees up those steps, must be seen to be understood. The contortions, the jostling, the groaning, the praying, the kissing the steps, the serious gravity of some, the anxious faces of others, the irresistible tumbling, and, consequently, ludicrous collisions occasioned by the sudden stoppages of others, render the scene mournful, or ridiculous, according to the state of mind of the observer.”

day
By day; and, when the baby effigy
Of Christ—the doll Bambino

“We visited the church of Santa Maria d'Aracœli. Here a monk shewed us the far-famed Bambino, a swathed and dressed olive-wood image of the infant Saviour, encrusted with jewels, —which they take, if requested, to the titled and opulent sick. A carriage, two hours after, was seen to receive it and return it. The women in the streets kneel as it is borne past them.”—Page 97 of the same work.

—on its way
To the sick is seen, Italian women kneel and pray,

47

“I' the open street. How can men call our land—
Our Italy beloved—except in whim—
A land of Christ, who died that we might stand
Acquitted in the Father's sight? The hymn
They raise to Mary, Queen of Seraphim,
And Mother of God—not to the Crucified!
‘Ora pro nobis!’—how their voices swim,
Yet, in our spiritual ear! When last we hied
On our Lord's errand, and again beheld the pride

421

48

“And pomp of their false worship, and the throng's
Profanity, beneath that stately dome,
How burned our minds with sense o' the Saviour's wrongs
Inflicted in our loved Italian home!
If Christian martyrs of old pagan Rome
Could rise, and see what priests call worship, in
You proud basilica, that still the gloom
Of heathenism prevailed—the gloom and sin—
They would declare: so near to heathenism akin

49

“Is popish worship! Oh, that God would bring
To nought the guilty system, and restore
His Son's pure truth!”—
“To the Eternal King
Be fullest praise that on the Italian shore
Men scatter Gospel seed! The Christian sower
Is free to come, and bring the Bible, too!
Doubt not, Italians, now they are free to explore
Its truths, will soon, intelligently, the true
Discern, and faith in their old priestly frauds eschew.”

50

Thus Savonarola strove the overhaste
To check that Arnold felt. But now drew near
A band of Italy's martyrs of the Past: Arnulph,

“At this time (A.D. 1128) under Pope Honorius II., a certain priest, named Arnulph, came to Rome, a man of great devotion and a distinguished preacher. While he proclaimed the word of God, he rebuked the dissoluteness, the libertinism, the avarice, and the extreme haughtiness of the clergy. He exhibited, for universal imitation, the poverty and life of spotless integrity of Jesus Christ and His apostles. In truth, his preaching was approved by the Roman nobility, as that of a true disciple of Christ. But, on the other hand, it exposed him to the intense hatred of the cardinals and the clergy, who seized him by night, and put him to death secretly.”—Trithemius: quoted by Monastier.

the holy preacher, bold, austere,
In time of Pope Honorius, who with fear
Filled hearts of cardinals and priestly knaves:
With fear—not penitence: they shed no tear;
But seized him, nightly, by the hands of slaves,
And silenced his bold preaching in the Tiber's waves.

51

With him came Martin Gonin, and Varaille, And Nicolas Sartoire, and Pierre Masson,

Martin Gonin was but thirty-six years of age. He was sentenced to be drowned in the Isèré, in Dauphine. The sentence was executed in the night. —Geofroi Varaille, aged fifty, was burnt at Turin, 1558. —Nicolas Sartoire, a young student of Berne, was burnt at Aosta, in Piedmont, 1557. —Pierre Masson, a Vaudois barbe, or pastor, was waylaid on a journey, and arrested. He was put to death at Dijon, in 1530.— Monastier.

And hundred martyrs more, from many a vale
Of Piedmont: poor Vaudois barbes, so long
Exposed, with their devoted flocks, to wrong
From popes, and priests, and Dominic's black band. Next came Mathurin,

burnt at Carignan, in Savoy, in 1560, His wife found entrance to his prison, exhorted him to constancy in the presence of his judges, and offered to go with him to die, if they would give her leave: They granted her request.—Monastier.

and his wife so strong
In faith, who cried“Don't yield! give me your hand!”
And walked with him to burn, with fortitude so grand!

422

52

Of northern Italy these: the southern clime—
The sunny Naples—had its victims, too:
Apulians, and Calabrians, who no crime
'Gainst man committed; and to God with true,
Humble, and faithful hearts they lived. But who
Could 'scape the Inquisition's deadly gaze? —
They butchered eighty men with the knife: they slew
Them as his sheep or swine a butcher slays,
Cutting their throats, in turn. And ere they gave to the blaze

53

Their female victims, sixty were tortured till
Some died o' their wounds. Nor did Venetia proud
Escape the Inquisition's yoke. Its various skill
In killing men and burying them was shewed
In Venice: the victim no expense of shroud
Needed: tied on a plank, a stone at his feet,
Between two little gondolas they rowed
Him to the outer harbour: then, with fleet
Motion, the boats withdrew. Without a winding-sheet,

54

Their victim found a grave in the lagoon. Giulio Ghirlanda,

see note 11

calling on the Lord,
Thus sank to death; Ricetto

see note 11

, next; and soon
Spinula

see note 11

, and Fra Baldo

Giulio Ghirlanda was the first who suffered martyrdom in the city of Venice. He sank into the deep, calling upon the Lord Jesus.—The next was Antonio Ricetto, a most honourable man. In the gondola he was firm, prayed for those who put him to death, and commended his soul to his Saviour.—Francis Spinula was drowned ten days after Ricetto.—The most distinguished of all the martyrs of Venice was Fra Baldo Lupetino. He was of a noble and ancient family, became a monk, and rose to high rank in his Order. He was imprisoned twenty years by the Pope and the Inquisition, and then put to death. He met his martyrdom with great firmness, and in peace.—“Sketches of Protestantism in Italy,” by Robt. Baird, D.D., of New York.

: the record
Of all the names were long to tell. Reward
In Paradise these found, and to embrace
Their brother martyrs came. O'er the green sward
And flowery vale, in crowds, they trode apace,
While high and holy gladness shone in every face!

55

What famed Italian city had not there
A martyr for Christ's unadulterate faith
'Twere hard, indeed, to tell. Florence the fair
Had many besides Girolamo to death
Who bravely went. And many the martyr's wreath
In Parma, Mantua, and Bologna gained;
Or in Ferrara took the fiery path
To heaven; or, while fierce Spanish Philip reigned,
In Milan, boldly in the flames Christ's truth maintained.

423

56

Whence came the chiefest hundreds of that host?
Even from the spiritual Babylon. 'Twas Rome,
Herself, that fierceliest kept the demon boast
Of zeal in bringing heretics to doom,
By fire, or sword, or rack, or cord, or gloom
And hunger and silence of the prison cell.
Who thirsted most for blood in Christendom? —
For blood of Christ's own saints? The tyrants fell
Who boasted that they kept the keys of heaven right well!

57

Their greetings o'er, I saw the martyrs group
Together, for discourse of what they saw,
Of late, on earth; and of their faith, or hope,
That popish frauds would cease to overawe
Their countrymen, and Christ's pure truth be law,
Alone, unto their consciences. Of brave Aspect, Bartoccio

Bartolomeo Bartoccio, son of a wealthy citizen of Castello, in the duchy of Spoleto. He was imprisoned, but escaped to Venice and thence to Geneva. In 1567, he was seized in Genoa, by the Inquisition, and sent to Rome, on the requisition of the Pope.“After an imprisonment of nearly two years, he was condemned to be burnt alive. With a firm step he went to the place of execution; and, whilst the flames were enveloping his body, the words Vittoria! vittoria!—victory! victory! were distinctly heard from his dying lips.”—Dr. Baird, in the volume just mentioned.

soon began to draw
A crowd around: he who was seen to wave
His hand, and heard to shout “Vittoria!” when they gave

58

His comely body to the flames at Rome.
“Italian brothers, who love Christ!”—so spake
The noble martyr; “in our ancient home
We see the dawn, at length, begin to break
Of that thrice happy day, when old, opaque,
Benumbing errors of the soul shall fade
Like mists before the sun—when men shall wake
And cast off Superstition's dreams, dismayed
No longer by the hideous forms such dreams pourtrayed.

59

“What, though Italians linger somewhat, yet,
To dash in pieces the false shapes that long
Enthralled their father's souls;—to break the net
Of Loyola fully from off their limbs with strong
And manly effort? We shall hear the song
Of triumph soon, o'er Jesuit falsities:
The Book of Christ's own truth is now among
Them: it lies open to enquiring eyes:
The Evangel shall, itself, our land evangelise!

424

60

“There is no preacher like the Bible's self.
The living teacher is but human, like
His kind: he may be swayed by love of pelf,
Or pride; or may be led astray by sick
Fancies that oft mislead even politic
And sober men. The Book will ne'er mislead.
'Twill win its own grand way. Full soon the trick
Of frightening men from reading it shall breed
A proud resolve from frown of priestcraft to be freed.

61

“All hail the happy day, when earnest men
And women too, on all the Italian soil,
Each day by day, and hour by hour, with ken
Of humbleness, and prayer, and spiritual toil,
Shall ‘search the scriptures,’ and thus find the foil
To baffle, effectually, the guileful game
Which priests so long have played, and end the spoil
They have made of human souls i' the holy name
Of Christ!—Oh, holy Lord, cut short their reign of shame!”

62

“Amen, amen!” responded the rapt crowd—
“O Lord, subvert the soul-benumbing power
Of priestcraft, in our noble land!”—aloud
They prayed—“Thine own apostles trod its shore;
Thy martyrs bled upon the sanded floor
O' the Colosseum; the cities' streets engrained
Have been with many a Christian martyr's gore;
Our mountains and our vales their blood hath stained!
O Lord! to our loved land restore their faith unfeigned!”

63

“And my soul saith ‘Amen,’” the Brescian said;
“But what, if God to answer prayer delay—
Prayer scarce accordant with His purpose dread,
Or not yet ripened, so that they who pray
Can say they know it? He, in sovereign sway,
May humble Italy still more;—confound
Her national councils;—bring to low decay
Her wealth and strength. So long the craven hound
Of Austria, unto Prussia next she may be bound.

425

64

“Oh, who can think upon her worldly glory—
Her old, great names of conquest and renown—
Her names of patriotism, so bright in story!
Her names of eloquence—the names thick strown
O'er history's pages—they that wear the crown
In Art, and Song, and Music—and not sigh
To see Italia sit with face half-prone
To the dust, and with half-folded hands—while sky,
And earth, and sea, resound with the awakening cry

65

“Of new-born nations who aspire to be
A something in the scale, when worth is weighed,
And rank assigned 'mong men? Her ancientry
Would blush to see of what poor stuff are made
Her modern men—mere men of masquerade:—
Except the few now leaving earth—the few
So far above the rest, each seems a shade
Of some old worthy which her soil upthrew
When naturally, it seemed, there glory and greatness grew!”

66

“My brother Arnold”—Savonarola spake,
With haste, and yet with tenderness, “we are all
Italians, and thy words, as a trumpet, wake
Our passionate love for Italy! Yet fall
Thine accents on our incorporeal
And auditory sense, as if they told
Thy heart were more upon yon earthly ball
Than here, in Jesu's heaven”—
“My brother, hold!”
Cried Arnold; “think me not, I pray thee, overbold

67

“When I avow my spirit's love intense
For earthly themes, though far below the worth
Of heavenly. Yet, I hear with reverence
Thy meek reproof. For here, if not on earth,
The holier soul should have what elder birth
Claims there: brethren's obedient love.”—
“I join
With thee, Bartoccio,” Arnulph said;—“'Tis dearth
Of knowledge stops the way. The Book divine,
If once Italians search with earnestness, no shrine

426

68

“Of the Madonna shall find worshippers.
Before the gaudy rags with which priests dress
Her images, our women shall rehearse
Their prayers no more; but hasten to confess
Christ Intercessor, who, alone, access
Unto the Father opens. And the crime
Of years shall end: the crime of heinousness,
That set up Mary as a means to climb
To heaven, shall never more be heard of through all time!”

69

At once, Italia's myriad martyr host
I saw, lift up their hands, and cry, in prayer—
“Lord God Almighty, if one holocaust
Of martyrdom the vengeful Papal slayer
Could make of all our bodies, did we wear
Them once again, on earth, we would with joy
Crowd to the flames—yea, clap our hands, and bear
Them with a shout,—would it the vile alloy
Of Mariolatry with Christian truth destroy!

70

“Lord, let Thy servant's prophecy be soon
Fulfilled! Let sickly sentiment no more
Be misnamed piety; nor homage done
To Mary be miscalled devotion. Pour
Thy light upon our loved Italian shore—
Thy holy light into Italian mind—
Until their mid-age darkness men abhor;
And seeing how Superstition did them blind,
Regard it as the foulest foe of human-kind!”—

71

Forthwith, a venerable sight I saw
Of ancient martyrs from Italian land,
That seemed their brother martyrs' gaze to draw
As they approached. No sons of Hildebrand,
Or Innocent, or Urban proud. The band
Lowly and meek, they were, that Pagan hate
Drove to the catacombs; and thence trepanned,
Full oft, to murder them. A throng more late
I' the world's record came with them: sharers of like fate,

427

72

And sharers of their lowly meekness too;
But hugely varnished in the midnight time
That followed, as saints and miracle-workers true—
Some of them Roman bishops, ere a crime
Had stained the name of Pope; and some in prime
Slaughtered of maidenhood—young virgins fair;
And others of their sex, in age. Sublime
In bravery, they did the fiercest tortures bear,
Until their torturers f?ltered 'fore their courage rare!

73

Popes Clement, Sixtus, Fabian, Felix, all— With Lucius and Cornelius

I would not deny to these primitive Bishops of Rome the rank of true martyrs.

—though none dreamed
Of it—all canonised! The pretence tall,
“I am infallible,” none made. Each seemed
A child in lowliness. A face that beamed
With beauty followed: Agnes,

the Virgin: martyred at Rome, in 305. Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose, join in praise of her virtues.—See Alban Butler's “Lives of the Saints.”

the virgin whom
Shrewd Diocletian, when he falsely deemed
He could destroy Christ's truth, sentenced to doom,
With many more, filling his realm with fear and gloom.

74

Laurence,

The circumstances of the martyrdom of Laurence, in A.D. 258, are often doubted. But if he really were roasted to death, over a slow fire, on a gridiron, I see no reason to doubt that the intrepid martyr, after suffering some time, should have defiantly bid his torturers to turn him on the other side.

the victim of Valerian, slain
With tortures most ingenious and prepense;
And Roman martyrs in a crowd, i' th' reign
Of reckless Commodus, for Truth's offence,
Driven to fierce deaths; and more, pre-eminence
Of martyrdom beneath the bloody sway
Of Decius who obtained; a throng intense
Suffering Maxentius caused, ere yet the fray
O'the Milvian bridge brought Constantine the victor's bay.

75

And many slaughtered in Maximian's rage;
And others by Severus' seeming word
Of fairness. Boasting Italian lineage,
These, all the gladsome martyrs of their Lord,
Now joined in heaven upon the flowery sward,
A grateful army, to commemorate
The sweetness of their bliss. On earth abhorred
Of wicked men, they felt their afterstate
The sweeter: it was bliss full-blossomed, consummate.

428

76

And now, in happy groups—withouten note
O' the times in which they lived on earth—for here
'Twas true fraternity—though ages mote
Have rolled between their births—in groups of dear
And holiest friendship gathered, they gave ear
Unto each other how the errand sped
On earth, from which they had returned. Austere
And brave, as when the forfeit of his head
He paid to Commodus, sage Apollonius

a Roman senator, was beheaded in the reign of Commodus, after defending himself before the Senate. —Eusebius, Book v., c. 21; Jerome, in his Catalogue of Illustrious Men; Tertullian; etc.

said—

77

“On errand of our loving Lord, I stood,
Of late, near to the soul of one sore pained
And worn by buffeting the surging flood
Of his heart's doubts and fears. Renown he gained
In college studies, when a youth, and none
More welcome would have found if he the pale
Of Rome's apostate Church had entered. Groan,
And ave, and tears, his sister did not fail
To offer to Madonna, ere she took the veil;

78

“And then the simple nun spent half her life
In praying Mary from the heretic's snare
To save her brother. Home brought daily strife,
With father's ire, to Giulio,—mother's prayer
And passionate entreaty. If to share
The fellowship of young or old he tried,
He gat no help, no solace: to beware
Of mortal sin, of dark presumptuous pride
They warned him: not one strove to cheer him: all to chide.

79

“Young Giulio durst not fully tell his soul
To any mortal. Unto God he made
His moan: to God alone! The priestly scowl
Was on him in the street. 'Neath sun or shade,
The wistful maids who saw him inly prayed
Madonna to be saved from deadly stain
Young Giulio bore—their own confessors said.
He struggled with his doubts and fears in vain:
He dared not bow to Mary, nor false worship feign;

429

80

“And, with conviction of heart-sin, he shrank
From supplicating God with cheerful mind.
Could he have brought his burthen with a frank
And filial trust before the Lord—the blind
Had fully gaine his sight. But fears had twined
Themselves so thickly with his doubts, his gaze,
In love, upon the Saviour of mankind
He dare not fix—in grateful love; or raise
To Him, in cheerful confidence, one note of praise.

81

“He pondered o'er the old Waldensian book,
So long in secret kept—the page of light
That first his faith in Romish errors shook—
Until he shrank with horror at the sight
Of Rome's idolatries, and murderous spite
Shewn to God's people, and His Truth; and thought,
Not seldom, he would tell the truth outright—
Would own himself the foe of the Devout,
Misnamed; and cry Rome's creed was but a Tale of Naught!

82

“But soon, again, remembrance of his sin
Bereaved his soul of strength. He dared not speak
Of others' sin, while yet he could not win
A sense of pardon for his own. To seek
So great a boon aright, he feared—with meek
Distrust of his own power—he knew not how;
And hourly prayed that God, who aids the weak,
Would strengthen him the way of life to know
And enter on it boldly, spite of every foe.

83

“Our ministry—in answer to his cry—
The Lord vouchsafed unto him; and, in deep
Dependence on our Guide Divine, the eye
Within we strove of blinding films to sweep,
And fix it on perception that to reap
In joy is promised unto them that sow
In tears. Some strength he gained, but soon o'er-cheap
He deemed salvation was, by faith: with low
Prostration he must still, with tears, in secret, bow.

430

84

“We dreaded, now, lest penance, and the scourge,
And all the false humility and vice—
Not virtue—wherewith monks affect to purge
Men's sins, should fill his fancy, and entice
Him to attempt himself to pay the price
Wherewith his Saviour had already bought
His soul and ransomed it for Paradise.
Our dread grew gloomier, for his mind, o'erwrought,
Seemed sinking—when the Hand Divine deliverance brought.

85

“An English Christian—whom young Giulio met
Amid some ruins, where, to nurse his grief,
In solitariness, and 'scape the fret
And torment of being watched, i' the fall o' the leaf,
He wandered—courteously besought a brief
Historic reason, if young Giulio's lore
Were rich enough to give it,—like a reef
Of rocks the sea hath left far on the shore—
Why there lay ruins which such marks of beauty bore.

86

The question pleased him, for he knew each stone
And vestige well of Rome's rich treasure-heap
Of ruins. And he pleased the stranger. Flown
Was twilight, ere their walk was done. No peep
O' the moon was yet: and, 'mid the dark to creep
From stone to stone, they tarried—for the theme
The stranger touched made Giulio's spirit leap
With eagerness. Denouncing Rome's dark scheme,
The English Christian shewed how freely did redeem

87

“Men's souls, He whom the Father's pitying love
From His own bosom gave. Young Giulio's eyes
The darkness hid, and much his spirit strove
To hide its tempest—so long used to spies
And listeners—but, o'ercome with sweet surprise,
He told his secret. Now, the stranger blessed
The hour the Guide Divine—who doth advise
His servants true—had led him to the quest,
Unknown, of one who panted for the Saviour's rest.

431

88

“Experienced in the windings of the heart
And intellect—the wards o' the locks of thought
And feeling—the good stranger drew apart
The fastenings of young Giulio's mind; upcaught
The meaning of his failure to be taught
The truth of Christ by th' old Waldensian book;
And gave him—such the words—‘a treasure fraught
With priceless wealth.’In his young hands he took
It, while his frame throughout with grateful tremor shook!

89

“It was the Bible in his native speech.
God shone upon it as he read. In Rome,
Now Giulio doth, each day, Christ's gospel preach,
Where'er a poor man opens his mean home
To let the word of life be heard. They come
And listen, stealthily or boldly, while
The preacher onward speeds; and, readily, some
Ask for the Book, and buy it. With the smile
Of scepticism some hear; and pass on to revile.

90

“For Doubt abounds: its name is legion. Where
Hath Rome's old tyrant power 'mong men been felt,
And human souls a strong deliverer
Not sought in sternest doubt—scorning to melt
In tears, where men so long have bowed and knelt
In childish fears? Doubt still abounds; but death
To doubt the Book in many hearts hath dealt.
'Tis seed-time yet. The harvest comes, God saith.
We rest upon His word whose name is Truth, in faith!”

91

To Apollonius, while he told his tale
Of sorrow and joy, some hundred audience lent;
And when he raught the end, they did not fail
To thank the Guide Divine. Meanwhile upsent
Were songs of praise. 'Mid other groups were blent
Like laud and joy, others told how fared
They, in their visits to old Earth. Intent
All seemed on learning what they chiefly cared
To know: that faith increasingly by men was shared.

432

92

Just as the Hand of Light again was seen,
And the glad myriads in due order filed
Across the vale, their march unto the green
And terraced mountains to begin,—it thrilled
My soul to see how that large army smiled
To see another Martyr band advance—
A glorious band—confessors undefiled!
To join their brethren. Who were these? One glance
Sufficed to show they fell by Rome's intolerance

93

In Piedmont, when rose the solemn hymn,
“Venge, Lord, Thy slaughtered saints!” from Milton's soul;
And Cromwell threatened English vengeance grim
That made the Pope turn pale, and stop the foul
And bloody massacre. Mother with infant roll
They did adown the rocks: atrocity
The Savoy Duke endeavoured to control,
But could not. The Pontifical decree
Was given in haste: Rome feared the fiat of the Free!

94

One noble heart came up with these, although
He died before them. He who sang the song
Of Simeon, in the fire—“Now lettest Thou
“Thy servant, Lord, depart in peace!”—So strong
The heart of man God makes to bear vile wrong!
Thus brave Bazana of Luzerna

a nobleman burnt to death at Turin, on the 23rd Nov., 1623. They bandaged his mouth, as he left the prison. “But, as the executioner was tying him to the stake, the bandage fell off, and the martyr thus proclaimed the cause of his death:—‘People,’ he said, ‘it is for no crime I die, but for seeking to act in conformity with the word of God; to sustain truth against error; to—’Here the Inquisitors stayed him, by putting light to the pile. Bazana set up the song of Simeon, as versified by Theodore Beza, that touching canticle sung by the faithful of his Church after the sacrament—

‘Laisse-moi désormais,
Seigneur, aller en paix’—

But his voice was soon silenced by the flames.”—See “The Israel of the Alps:” translated from the French of the Rev. Dr. Alexis Muston. London: Ingram, Cooke, and Co. 1863.

died.
He doth to the black calendar belong,
Likewise, o' the Inquisition's murders wide
And deep. Could blackest Hell itself their vileness hide?

95

The Martyrs of the Valleys, newly come,
Filed off in order for the march. No peal
Of trumpet summoned them, no pipe, nor drum,
That rouseth men, on earth, to slaughterous zeal.
The beckoning Hand of Light to advance, or wheel
Guides them. And on they move—Italia's host
Of Martyrs, on whom Rome set her strong heel,
To crush out life: a dreadful holocaust
To Evil! Nor is her zest for murder changed, or lost—

433

96

Though great Mazzini's life of labour served
To kindle fire of freedom in the breast
Of his “Young Italy”—and strongly nerved
Some manly arms and hands to win a blest
Victory for freedom; and the age-long pest
Of Popery now hangs its head. Oh, no!
Rome hath not changed. Nor ever will men rest
Peacefully in Truth while she can work them woe.
Of Freedom and of Truth she is the deadliest foe!—

97

I heard begin the tuneful swell of praise—
Soon changed to prayer for Italy—as on
The Martyr Army marched. But soon my gaze
On their bright ranks grew dim; and faint the tone—
And fainter—of their chaunt. Before the throne
The martyrs soon will bow, in rapture high,
I thought, as I awoke. But, not yet done
Is my earth-labour. I must better try
To live—“as ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.”

“Journal of a Tour in Italy, in 1850; with an account of an interview with the Pope at the Vatican.” By the Rev. Geo. Townsend, D.D., Canon of Durham: page 91. Rivingtons, 1850. [Dr. Townsend was the antagonist of Sir Wm. Drummond, the author of “Œdipus Judaicus.”]

437

EARLY PIECES.

439

TO LINCOLN CATHEDRAL.

Hail, awful pile! Child of Time's midnight age,
Now Mother in its youth renewed! The tomb
Of regal priests who banqueted on joys
Wrung from the peasants' woes: disciples strange
Of Him whose coat was woven without a seam
Throughout, who had not where to lay His head!
Great sepulchre of haughty gloom and grandeur—
Bestriding earth, like as thy shrinëd dead,
While living, did bestride the human mind—
Thy veritable being, which thy frown
Stamps on our consciousness so solemnly,
Would seem, like shapes in fables of thy times,
A phantom too unreal for our belief,
Were we not witnesses that oft the mind,
Disordered and oppressed by strong disease,
Creates, in throes of thought, its images
Of gorgeous dress and stature giantlike—
Dwarfing the voluntary portraitures
Sketched by Thought's pencil in the hours of health.

Roman Ermine Street, 1829.

440

WHAT ARE DREAMS?

Are dreams a portion of our active life?
Are they the living movements of the soul,
Which grows more wakeful while the body sleeps;
And, unrepressed by drear reality,
Its playful vigil keeps, or weaves its web
Of self-entangling sorrow—picturing,
In deeper shades or wilder ecstasies,
The joys or troubles of our waking hours?

Or, are we merely passive in our sleep?
Do ‘spiritual creatures’ visit us,
And hold more ready converse with the mind—
Unshackled, whiles, by life corporeal—
Forewarning it, by emblematic signs,
Of coming grief or pleasure?—
We but know,
As yet, in part; but, when eternity
Shall dawn—when the strange noose is loosed
Which ties the soul to matter—we shall know
As we are known. The freed inhabitant
Of this our mortal tenement, shall then
Its own mysterious secrets learn; and, skilled
Its past experience to trace, 'twill live,
In thought, its life terrestrial o'er again.
Yea, then, shall spiritual essences
Be our companions in celestial bliss,
Or, sharers, with us, of sin's penalties.

441

And, if to speak of past acquaintanceship
Be ours, with spirits perverse, how terrible
That converse! But, if angels blest shall pour
Their sweet communications in our ear,
And tell of pleasing whispers to the soul
In far departed hours of earthly sleep—
How rapturous, to hail eternally
In heaven, that brotherhood of spirits pure,
Our secret visitants of love on earth!

Gainsborough, 1830.

442

LOVE'S CHALLENGE.

What meant that glancing of thine eye,
That softly hushed, yet struggling sigh?
Hast thou a thought of woe or weal,
Which breathed, my bosom would not feel?
Why shouldst thou, then that thought conceal,
Or hide it from my mind, Love?

Didst thou e'er breathe a sigh to me,
And I not breathe as deep to thee?
Or hast thou whispered in mine ear
A word of sorrow or of fear,—
Or have I seen thee shed a tear,—
And looked a thought unkind, Love?

Did e'er a gleam of Love's sweet ray
Across thy beaming countenance play,—
Or joy its seriousness beguile,
And o'er it cast a radiant smile,—
And mine with kindred joy, the while,
Not glow as bright as thine, Love?

Why wouldst thou, then, that something seek
To hide within thy breast,—nor speak,
Its load of doubt, of grief, or fear,
Of joy, or sorrow, to mine ear,—
Assured this heart would gladly bear
A burthen borne by thine, Love?

Gainsborough, 1830.

443

TO—

Oh, cleave more closely to my breast,
And I will closer cleave to thine:
Thy bosom is my sweetest rest—
Oh, rest thy weary head on mine!

Let storms around us rudely beat,
And on us pour the withering blast:
If we the storm together meet,
'Twill sweeter be, when overpast.

Let pleasures fade, and want assail—
Yet nought of murmuring or of care,
Within our bosom shall prevail—
For Love shall whisper quiet there.

Then cleave more closely to my breast,
And I will closer cleave to thine:
Thy bosom is my sweetest rest—
Oh, rest thy weary head on mine!

Gainsborough, 1830.

444

SIR RAYMOND AND THE FALSE PALMER.

Sir Raymond de Clifford, a gallant band
Hath gathered to fight in the Holy Land;
And his lady's heart is sinking in sorrow,—
For the knight and his lances depart on the morrow!

“Oh, wherefore, noble Raymond, tell,”—
His lovely ladye weeping said,—
“With lonely sorrow must I dwell,
“When but three bridal moons have fled?”

Sir Raymond kissed her pale, pale cheek,
And strove, with a warrior's pride,
While an answer of love he essayed to speak,
His flooding tears to hide.

But an image rose in his heated brain,
That shook his heart with vengeful pain,
And anger flashed in his rolling eye.
While his ladye looked on him tremblingly.

Yet he answered not in wrathful haste,—
But clasped his bride to his manly breast;
And with words of tender yet stately dress,
Thus strove to banish her heart's distress:—

“De Burgh hath enrolled him with Philip of France,—
“Baron Hubert,—who challenged De Clifford's lance,
“And made him the scoff of the burgher swine,
“When he paid his vows at the Virgin's shrine.

445

“Oh, ask me not, love, to tarry in shame,—
“Lest ‘craven’ be added to Raymond's name!
“To Palestine hastens my mortal foe,—
“And I with our Lion's Heart will go!

“Nay, Gertrude, repeat not thy sorrowing tale!
“Behold in my casque the scallop-shell,—
“And see on my shoulder the Holy Rood—
“The pledge of my emprize—bedyed in blood!

“Thou wouldst not, love, I should be forsworn,
“Nor the stain on my honour be tamely borne:
“Do thou to the saints, each passing day,
“For Raymond and royal Richard pray,—

“While they rush to the rescue, for God's dear Son;
And soon, for thy Raymond, the conqueror's meed,—
By the skill of this arm, and the strength of my steed,—
“From the Paynim swart shall be nobly won.

“Thou shalt not long for De Clifford mourn,
“Ere he to thy bosom of love return;
“When blind to the lure of the red-cross bright,
“He will bask, for life, in thy beauty's light!”

The morn in the radiant east arose:—
The Red-cross Knight hath spurred his steed
That courseth as swift as a falcon's speed:—
To the salt-sea shore Sir Raymond goes.

Soon, the sea he hath crossed, to Palestine;
And there his heart doth chafe and pine,—
For Hubert de Burgh is not in that land:
He loitereth in France, with Philip's band.

But De Clifford will never a recreant turn,
While the knightly badge on his arm is borne;
And long, beneath the Syrian sun,
He fasted and fought, and glory won.

446

His Gertrude, alas! like a widow pines;
And though on her castle the bright sun shines,
She sees not its beams,—but in loneliness prays,
Through the live-long hours of her weeping days.

Twelve moons have waned, and the morn is come
When, a year before, from his meed-won home
Sir Raymond went:—At the castle gate
A reverend Palmer now doth wait.

He saith he hath words for the ladye's ear;
And he telleth, in accents dread and drear,
Of De Clifford's death in the Holy Land,
At Richard's side, by a Saracen's hand.

And he gave to the ladye, when thus he had spoken,—
Of Sir Raymond's fall a deathly token:
'Twas a lock of his hair all stained with blood,
Entwined on a splinter of Holy Rood.—

Then the Palmer in haste from the castle sped;
And from gloomy morn to weary night,
Lorn Gertrude, in her widowed plight,
Weepeth and waileth the knightly dead.—

Three moons have waned, and the Palmer, again,
By Gertrude stands, and smileth fain;
Nor of haste, nor of death, speaks the Palmer, now;
Nor doth sadness or sorrow bedim his brow.

He softly sits by the ladye's side,
And vaunteth his deeds of chivalrous pride;
Then lisps, in her secret ear, of things
Which deeply endanger the thrones of kings:

From Philip of France, he saith, he came,
To treat with Prince John, whom she must not name;
And he in fair France hath goodly lands,—
Where his sturdy vassals await his commands.—

447

The ladye liked her gallant guest,—
For he kenned the themes that pleased her best;
And his tongue in silken measures skilled,
With goodly ditties her memory filled.

Thus the Palmer the ladye's ear beguiles,—
Till Gertrude her sorrow exchangeth for smiles;
And when from the castle the Palmer went,
She watched his return from the battlement.—

Another moon doth swell and wane;
But how slowly it waneth!
How her heart now paineth
For sight of the Palmer again!

But the Palmer comes, and her lightsome heart
Derideth pain and sorrow:
She pledgeth the Palmer, and smirketh smart,
And saith, “Wllss wed to-morrow!”—

The morrow is come, and at break of day,
'Fore the altar, the abbot, in holy array,
Is joining the Palmer's and Gertrude's hands,—
But, in sudden amazement the holy man stands!

For, before the castle, a trumpet's blast
Rings so loud that the Palmer starts aghast;
And, at Gertrude's side, he sinks dismayed,—
Is't with dread of the living, or fear of the dead?

The doors of the chapel were open thrown,
And the beams through the pictured windown shone
On the face of De Clifford, with fury flushed,—
And forth on the Palmer he wildly rushed!—

“False Hubert!” he cried; and his knightly sword
Was sheathed in the heart of the fiend-sold lord!—
With a scream of terror Gertrude fell—
For she knew the pride of Sir Raymond well!

448

He flew to raise her—but 'twas in vain:
Her spirit its flight in fear had ta'en!—
And Sir Raymond kneels that his soul be shriven,
And the stain of this deed be by grace forgiven:—

But ere the Abbot his grace can dole,
De Clifford's truthful heart is breaking,—
And his soul, also, its flight is taking!—
Christ, speed it to a heavenly goal!—
Oh, pray for the peace of Sir Raymond's soul!

Gainsborough, 1832.

449

THE GOSHERD OF CROYLAND.

Tis a tale of merry Lincolnshire
I've heard my grannam tell;
And I'll tell it to you, my masters, here,
An it likes you all, full well.

A Gosherd on Croyland fen one day
Awoke, in haste, from slumber;
And on counting his geese, to his sad dismay,
He found there lacked one of the number.

O the Gosherd looked west, and he looked east,
And he looked before and behind him;
And his eye from north to south he cast
For the gander—but couldn't find him!

So the Gosherd he drave his geese to the cote,
And began, forthwith, to wander
Over the marish so wild and remote,
In search for the old stray gander.

O the Gosherd he wandered till twilight gray
Was throwing its mists around him;
But the gander seemed farther and farther astray—
For the Gosherd had not yet found him.

So the Gosherd, foredeeming his search in vain,
Resolved no farther to wander;
But to Croyland he turned him, in dudgeon, again
Sore fretting at heart for the gander.

450

Thus he footed the fens so dreary and dern,
While his brain, like the sky, was darkening;
And, with dread, to the scream of the startled hern
And the bittern's boom, he was hearkening.

But when the Gosherd the churchyard reached,—
Forefearing the dead would be waking,—
Like a craven upon the sward he stretched,
And could travel no farther for quaking!

And there the Gosherd lay through the night,
Not daring to rise and go further:
For, in sooth, the Gosherd beheld a sight

That frighted him more than murther!

From the old church clock the midnight hour
In hollow tones was pealing,
When a slim white ghost to the church porch door
Seemed up the footpath stealing!

Stark staring upon the sward lay the clown,
And his heart went “pitter-patter,”—
Till the ghost in the clay-cold grave sunk down,—
When he felt in a twitter—twatter!

Soon—stretching aloft its long white arms—
From the grave the ghost was peeping!—
Cried the Gosherd, “Our Lady defend me from harms,
“And Saint Guthlacke have me in his keeping!”

The white ghost hissed!—the Gosherd swooned!
In the morn,—on the truth 'tis no slander,—
Near the church porch door a new grave he found,
And, therein, the white ghost—his stray gander!

Lincoln, 1835.

451

THE SWINEHERD OF STOW.

I sing of a swineherd, in Lindsey, so bold,
Who tendeth his flock in the wide forest-fold:
He sheareth no wool from his snouted sheep:
He soweth no corn, and none he doth reap;
Yet the swineherd no lack of good living doth know
Come jollily trowl
The brown round bowl,
Like the jovial swineherd of Stow!

He hedgeth no meadows to fatten his swine:
He renteth no joist for his snorting kine:
They rove through the forest, and browse on the mast,—
Yet, he lifteth his horn, and bloweth a blast,
And they come at his call, blow he high, blow he low!—
Come, jollily trowl
The brown round bowl,
And drink to the swineherd of Stow!

He shunneth the heat 'mong the fern-stalks green,—
Or dreameth of elves 'neath the forest treen:
He wrappeth him up when the oak leaves sere
And the acorns fall, at the wane of the year;
And he tippleth at Yule, by the log's cheery glow.—
Come, jollily trowl
The brown round bowl,
And pledge the bold swineherd of Stow!

452

The bishop he passeth the swineherd in scorn, —
Yet, to mass wends the swineherd at Candlemas morn:
And he offereth his horn, at our Lady's hymn,
With bright silver pennies filled up to the brim: —
Saith the bishop, “A very good fellow, I trow!”—
Come, jollily trowl
The brown round bowl,
And honour the swineherd of Stow!

And now the brave swineherd, in stone, ye may spy,
Holding his horn, on the Minster so high! —
But the swineherd he laugheth, and cracketh his joke,
With his pig-boys that vittle beneath the old oak, —
Saying, “Had I no pennies, they'd make me no show!” —
Come, jollily trowl
The brown round bowl,
And laugh with the swineherd of Stow!

Lincoln, 1835.

453

THE DAUGHTER OF PLANTAGENET.

FYTTE THE FYRSTE.

'Tis midnight, and the broad full moon
Pours on the earth her silver noon;
Sheeted in white, like spectres of fear,
Their ghostly forms the towers uprear;
And their long dark shadows behind them are cast,
Like the frown of the cloud when the lightning hath past.

The warder sleeps on the battlement,
And there is not a breeze to curl the Trent;
The leaf is at rest, and the owl is mute—
But list! awaked is the woodland lute:
The nightingale warbles her omen sweet
Onthe hour when the ladye her lover shall meet.

She waves her hand from the loophole high,
And watcheth, with many a struggling sigh,
And hearkeneth in doubt, and paleth with fear, —
Yet tremblingly trusts her true knight is near; —
And there skims o'er the river—or doth her heart doat? —
As with wing of the night-hawk—her lover's brave boat.

His noble form hath attained the strand,
And she waves again her small white hand;
And breathing to heaven, in haste, a prayer,
Softly glides down the lonely stair;
And there stands by the portal, all watchful and still,
Her own faithful damsel awaiting her will.

454

The midnight lamp gleams dull and pale, —
The maidens twain are weak and frail, —
But Love doth aid his votaries true,
While they the massive bolts undo, —
And a moment hath flown, and the warrior knight
Embraceth his love in the meek moonlight.

The knight his love-prayer, tenderly,
Thus breathed in his fair one's ear
“Oh! wilt thou not, my Agnes, flee? —
“And, quelling thy maiden fear,
“Away in the fleeting skiff with me,
“And, for aye, this lone heart cheer?”

“O let not bold Romara seek”—
Soft answered his ladye-love, —
“A father's doating heart to break,
“For should I disdainful prove
“Of his high behests, his darling child
“Will thenceforth be counted a thing defiled;
“And the kindling eye of my martial sire
“Be robbed of its pride, and be quenched its fire:
“Nor long would true Romara deem
“The heart of his Agnes beat for him,
“And for him alone—if that heart, he knew,
“To its holiest law could be thus untrue.”

His plume-crowned helm the warrior bows
Low o'er her shoulder fair,
And bursting sighs the grief disclose
His lips can not declare;
And swiftly glide the tears of love
Adown the ladye's cheek; —
Their deep commingling sorrows prove
The love they cannot speak!

The moon shines on them, as on things
She loves to robe with gladness, —
But all her light no radiance brings
Unto their hearts' dark sadness:

455

Forlornly, 'neath her cheerless ray, —
Bosom to bosom beating, —
In speechless agony they stay,
With burning kisses greeting; —
Nor reck they with what speed doth haste
The present hour to join the past.

“Ho! lady Agnes, lady dear!”
Her fearful damsel cries;
“You reckon not, I deeply fear,
“How swift the moontide flies!
“The surly warder will awake,
“The morning dawn, anon,—
“My heart beginneth sore to quake,—
“I fear we are undone!”

But Love is mightier far, than Fear:
The ladye hasteth not:
The magnet of her heart is near,
And peril is forgot!

She clingeth to her knight's brave breast
Like a lorn turtle-dove,
And 'mid the peril feeleth rest, —
The full, rapt rest of Love!

“I charge thee, hie thee hence, sir knight!”
The damsel shrilly cries;
“If this should meet her father's sight,
“By Heaven! my lady dies.”

The warrior rouseth all his pride,
And looseth his love's caress, —
Yet slowness of heart doth his strength betide
As he looks on her loveliness: —
But again the damsel their love-dream breaks, —
And self-reproachingly,
The knight his resolve of its fetters shakes,
And his spirit now standeth free.

456

Then, came the last, absorbing kiss,
True Love can ne'er forego, —
That dreamy plenitude of bliss
Or antepast of woe, —
That seeming child of Heaven, which at its birth
Briefly expires, and proves itself of earth.

The ladye hieth to her couch; —
And when the morn appears,
The changes of her cheek avouch,
Full virginly her fears; —
But her doating father can nought discern
In the hues of the rose and the lily that chase
Each other across her lovely face, —
Save a sweetness that softens his visage stern.

FYTTE THE SECONDE.

Romara's skiff is on the Trent,
And the stream is in its strength, —
For a surge, from its ocean-fountain sent,
Pervades its giant length:
Roars the hoarse heygre in its course,
Lashing the banks with its wrathful force;
And dolefully echoes the wild-fowl's scream,
As the sallows are swept by the whelming stream
And her callow young are hurled for a meal,
To the gorge of the barbel, the pike, and the eel:
The porpoise heaves 'mid the rolling tide,
And, snorting in mirth, doth merrily ride, —
For he hath forsaken his bed in the sea,
To sup on the salmon, right daintily!

In Romara's breast a tempest raves:
He heeds not the rage of the furrowy waves:
Supremely his hopes and fears are set
On the image of Agnes Plantagenet:
And though from his vision fade Gainsburgh's towers,
And the moon is beclouded, and darkness lours

457

Yet the eye of his passion oft pierceth the gloom,
And beholds his Beloved in her virgin bloom—
Kneeling before the holy Rood, —
All clasped her hands, —
Beseeching the saints and angels good
That their watchful bands
Her knight may preserve from a watery tomb!

What deathful scream rends Romara's heart? —
Is it the bittern that, flapping the air,
Doth shriek in madness, and downward dart,
As if from the bosom of Death she would tear
Her perished brood, —or a shroud would have
By their side, in the depths of their river-grave?

Hark! hark! again! —'tis a human cry,
Like the shriek of a man about to die!
And its desolateness doth fearfully pierce
The billowy boom of the torrent fierce;
And, swift as a thought
Glides the warrior's boat
Through the foaming surge to the river's bank,
Where, lo! —by a branch of the osiers dank,
Clingeth one in agony
Uttering that doleful cry;

His silvery head of age upborne
Appeared above the wave;
So nearly was his strength outworn,
That all too late to save
Had been the knight, if another billow
Its force on his fainting frame had bent, —
Nay, his feeble grasp by the drooping willow
The beat of a pulse might have fatally spent.

With eager pounce did Romara take
From the yawning wave its prey,—
But nought to his deliverer spake
The man with the head of gray:

458

And the warrior stripped, with needful haste,
The helpless one of his drenchëd vest,
And wrapt his own warm mantle round
The chill one in his deathly swound.

The sea-born strength of the stream is spent,
And Romara's boat outstrips its speed, —
For his stalwart arm to the oar is bent,
And swiftly the ebbing waves recede.

Divinely streaketh the morning-star
With a wavy light the rippling waters;
And the moon looks on from the west, afar,
And palely smiles, with her waning daughters,
The thin-strown stars, which their vigil keep
Till the orient sun shall awake from sleep.

The sun hath awoke: and in garments of gold
The turrets of Torksey are livingly rolled;
Afar, on Trent's margin, the flowery lea
Exhales her dewy fragrancy;
And gaily carols the matin lark,
As the warrior hastes to moor his bark.

Two menials hasten to the beach,
For signal none need they;
On the towers they kept a heedful watch
As the skiff glode on its way:

With silent step and breathless care
The rescued one they softly bear,
And bring him, at their lord's behest,
To a couch of silken pillowed rest.

The serfs could scarce avert their eye
From his manly form and mien,
As, with closed lids, all reverendly,
He lay in peace, serene.

And Romara thought, as he gazing leant
O'er the slumberer's form, that so pure a trace
Of the spirit of Heaven with the earthly blent
Dwelt only there, and in Agnes' face.

459

The leech comes forth at the hour of noon,
And saith, that the sick from his deathly swoon
Will awake anon; and Romara's eye,
Uplift, betokens his heartfelt joy;
And again o'er the slumberer's couch he bows
Till, slowly, those peaceful lids unclose,—
When, long, with heavenward-fixëd gaze,
With lowly prayer and grateful praise,
The aged man, from death reprieved,
His bosom of its joy relieved. —

Then did Romara thus address
His gray guest in his reverendness:

“Now, man of prayer, come tell to me
“Some spell of thy holy mystery!
“Some vision hast had of the Virgin bright, —
“Or message, conveyed from the world of light,
“By the angels of love who in purity stand
“'Fore the throne of our Lord in the heavenly land?

“I hope, when I die, to see them there;
“For I love the angels so holy and fair:
“And often, I trust, my prayer they greet
“With smiles, when I kneel and kiss their feet
“In the missal, my mother her weeping child gave,
“But a day or two ere she was laid in the grave.

“Sage man of prayer, come tell to me
“What holy shapes in sleep they see
“Who love the blest saints and serve them well!
“I pray thee, sage man, to Romara tell,
“For a guerdon, thy dreams,—sith, to me thou hast said
“No thanks that I rescued thy soul from the dead.”

But, when the aged man arose
And met Romara's wistful eye, —
What accents shall the change disclose
That marked his visage, fearfully? —

460

From joy to grief and deepest dole,
From radiant hope to dark presage
Of future ills beyond control —
Hath passed the visage of the sage.

“Son of an honoured line, I grieve,”
Outspake the reverend seer,
“That I no guerdon thee can give
“But words of woe and fear!—
“Thy sun is setting! —and thy race,
“In thee, their goodly heir,
“Shall perish, nor a feeble trace
“Their fated name declare! —
“Thy love is fatal: fatal, too,
“This act of rescue brave—
“For, him who from destruction drew
“My life, no arm can save!”

He said, —and took his lonely way
Far from Romara's towers. —
His fateful end from that sad day
O'er Torksey's chieftain lowers:
Yet, vainly, in his heart a shrine
Hope builds for love —with faith; —
Alas! for him with frown malign
Waiteth the grim king Death!

FYTTE THE THYRDE.

Plantagenet hath dungeons deep
Beneath his castled halls; —
Plantagenet awakes from sleep
To count his dungeoned thralls.

Alone, with the torch of blood-red flame,
The man of blood descends;
And the fettered captives curse his name,
As through the vaults he wends. —

461

His caverns are visited all save one,
The deepest, and direst in gloom, —
Where his father, doomed by a demon son,
Abode in a living tomb. —

“I bring thee bread and water, sire!
“Brave usury for thy gold!
“I fear my filial zeal will tire
“To visit, soon, thy hold!”

Thus spake the fiendish-hearted lord,
And wildly laughed, in scorn:
Like thunder round the cell each word
By echoing fiends is borne, —
But not a human heart is there
The baron's scorn or hate to fear!

And the captives tell, as he passeth again, —
That tyrant, in his rage, —
How an angel hath led the aged man
To his heavenly heritage!

The wrathful baron little recked
That angel was his darling child;
Or knew his dark ambition checked
By her who oft his rage beguiled, —
By her on whom he ever smiled: —
This had he known, from that dread hour,
His darling's smile had lost its power, —
And his own hand, without remorse,
Had laid her at his feet a corse! —

Plantagenet's banners in pride are borne
To the sound of pipe and drum!
And his mailëd bands, with the dawn of morn,
To Romara's walls are come.
“We come not as foes,” the herald saith, —
“But we bring Plantagenet's shriven faith

462

“That thou, Romara, in thine arms
“Shalt soon enfold thy true love's charms:
“Let no delay thy joy betide! —
“Thy Agnes soon shall be thy bride!”

The raven croaks as Torksey's lord
Attends that bannered host;
But the lover is deaf to the omen-bird —
The fatal moat is crossed!

“Ride, ride!” saith the baron, — thy ladye fain
“And the priest —by the altar wait!”
And the spearmen seize his bridle-rein,
And hurry him to his fate.

“A marriage by torchlight!” the baron said;
“This stair to the altar leads!
“We patter our prayers, 'mong the mouldering dead, —
“And there we tell our beads!”

Along the caverned dungeon's gloom
The tyrant strides in haste;
And, powerless, to his dreadful doom
The victim followeth fast.
The dazeëd captives quake and stare
At the sullen torch's blood-red glare,
And the lover starts aghast
At the deathlike forms they wear!

Too late, the truth upon him breaks! —
Romara's heart is faint! —
“Behold thy bride!”the baron shrieks—
“Wilt hear the wedding chaunt?
“This chain once bound my father here,
“Who would have found his grave—
“The cursëd dotard! —'neath the wave, —
“Had not thy hateful hand been near. —
“Be this the bride thou now shalt wed!
“This dungeon dank thy bridal bed! —
“And when thy youthful blood shall freeze
“In death, —may fiends thy spirit seize!”

463

Plantagenet hath minions fell
Who do their master's bidding well: —
Few days Romara pines in dread: —
His soul is with the sainted dead! —

Plantagenet hath reached his bourne!
What terrors meet his soul forlorn
And full of stain, —I may not say: —
Reveal them shall the Judgment Day! —

Her orisons at matin hour,
At noon, and eve, and midnight toll,
For him, doth tearful Agnes pour! —
Jesu, Maria! sain his soul!

Lincoln, 1836.