Poems and Essays By the late William Caldwell Roscoe. (Edited with a Prefatory Memoir, by his Brother-in-law, Richard Holt Hutton) |
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AT NIGHT, AFTER MY SISTER'S DEATH. |
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 | Poems and Essays |  |
55
AT NIGHT, AFTER MY SISTER'S DEATH.
At night, low wrapped in sleep, thou visitest meVisibly and audibly, and those old times return
When I, reclined at thy preceptoral feet,
First learned to love divine Philosophy,
And saw the unveiled face of true Religion.
For if in this my life's distracted music
Be any tone that strives for harmony
With that sweet harping of the Nazarene,
Pleasant to God's ears, and heard in times gone by
On the Galilean shore, perfect and unjarred,—
Or if I, with a reverent searching spirit,
Should touch the vesture of unchangeable Truth,—
From thee the harmony came and the endeavour,
And live in the remembrance of thy voice.
Thou plantedst, and with penitential tears
Often, alas, I water. Give Thou the increase,
God, and thy Holy Spirit oft let stand
In the entrance of my heart, visiting
As of old the angels did the patriarchs,
And casting out things dissonant and unworth!
Or, sweet Imagination taking wing
Lower, but to themes delightful, smiling I hear
Thy laugh, and see thee gaily minister
Social delights;—or (O dear memory!)
Lead thy adventurous feet o'er those rough rocks
Where we were wont to sit, high-precipiced, and hear
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And far below our unsupported feet
Behold his foaming face;—or not unlike
Knight and fair lady in chivalrous times,
Rode side by side through the unfrequented land,
Visiting old castles, Carew and Manorbeer—
While the dear Muses, harsh now, and unvoiced,
Sprinkled our lips with Helicon, each with each
Sharing the rhymed meditation.
Ah, whither now shall I bear these sad notes,
Children of memory and not musical?
Where is thine eye, thy voice, O Solitude?
I dream, and yet I wake; am not alone,
And yet am the only lonely one of the world.
Ah, quit these mortal memories, dull sleep!
What radiant vision through the purple night
Comes to my pillow, clothed in a shining glory?
She stands and smiles, her voice breaks not the silence,
And yet the inaudible sound comes to my soul:
“Walk thou thy mortal path as if thou trod'st
On heavenly soil and fear'dst to desecrate.
Believe, and let thy Faith not be a thing
Of temporary use, but the universal light
Wherein thy soul doth live and move. Fear not,
Yet be most reverent; cast out sloth, and let not
Pause interpose between thy duty and deed.
So shalt thou, when the angelic messenger
Unchains thy spirit, ascend the golden stair
Into God's mansion; and those before thy time
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Before the face of the All-beneficent.”
I wake, and in the solemn hour of night
The airy winnowing of celestial wings
Strikes with sweet awe upon my trembling ears.
I turn, and pray that Death be not yet visitant:
Not that I love not Death, but fain would live
Till I dare hope to climb the heavenly courts;
And that when I behold that face again,
I stand not empty-handed of good deeds.
August 1846.
| Poems and Essays | |