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31
STANZAS
ON THE DIFFICULTY WITH WHICH, IN YOUTH, WE BRING HOME TO OUR HABITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS, THE IDEA OF DEATH.
We were, fair Queen,
Two lads, that thought there was no more behind,
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
And to be boy eternal.
The Winter's Tale, act 1. scene 2.
Two lads, that thought there was no more behind,
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
And to be boy eternal.
The Winter's Tale, act 1. scene 2.
“Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels
practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and if need were, he could
preach a homily on the fragility of life; but he brings it not home to
himself, any more than in a hot June, we can appropriate to our
imagination the freezing days of December.”—
Elia, Essays which have
appeared under that signature in the London Magazine—New Year's Eve,
p. 65.
1
I've heard it said, and true is the remark,That till thrice ten years o'er our beings steal,
We think we are immortal: that the spark
Within us, not like flash from smitten steel
Which instantaneous darkness doth conceal,
Is inextinguishable: yes, 'tis true,
Till we experimentally do feel,
By some home thrust, how easy to subdue
Life, it eternal seems to our fallacious view.
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2
I say not, should you ask a man though heHave not attained the age of thrice ten years,
Whether he deem that he immortal be,
That, with a rash “yes,” he should shock your ears,
Nay, I deny not, that, a man who bears
The stamp of intellect, though he have lived
But lustres two twice told, may e'en draw tears
By edifying homily, achieved
To prove the human frame was ne'er from death reprieved.
3
There is an outline in our life's first stage,Certain familiar forms, familiar friends,
And certain land-marks of our pilgrimage,
To each of these our earliest instinct tends:
And I aver till death rapacious rends
These pillars of our being, till we learn
To feel that sense of fluctuation blends
With all towards which in childhood we did yearn,
To recognize our mutability we spurn.
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4
So long as these “familiar faces” last,So long as in our childhood's home we dwell,
So long as of two generations past,
Grandsire, and sire, the honoured beacons, tell,
Of outposts to our being's citadel,
That should, according to the likeliest chance,
Lapsing themselves, our latest lapse foretel,
So long at death we cast incredulous glance,
Or dream of it as of an insubstantial trance.
5
Besides there is a time, in early youth,When in ourselves we wholly live, when we
Ascribe pre-eminence of actual truth,
Pre-eminently give reality
To our own sphere of life—until we see
Things change around us, till our friends fall down
Plucked by the hand of death, as from a tree
The leaves of autumn, till we make our own
The experience of the past from losses we have known;
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6
We think that all, save that which we behold,Unreal is:—our ancestors, when they
To us are mentioned, as a tale that's told,
Pass through our memories.—With a proud survey,
We think the point in which we live alway
Will be the actual present.—Time doth tell
A different lesson; mouldering into clay
Friend after friend we see, and every knell
Some past illusion scares, some future hope doth quell.
7
We say not, that herein there may not beMany exceptions. 'Tis the general rule
Which here we do record. Mortality
So early may have trained us in his school,
So soon, or ere life's salient spark did cool,
Our parents, from our grasp, may have been torn,
So soon we have been “ pushed” as “from the stool”
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Life, ere our life matured, may of its hope be shorn.
8
Religion too, by providential voice,May have, so early, trained us in her lore:—
Truth may, so soon, have shewn the wiser choice
Which the devoted Mary made of yore;—
Have drawn us, spite of all earth had in store,
“To th' better cause,” that we, quite exorcised,
May, from our earliest years, have given o'er
All mortal strife, and nothing else have prized
Save that “pearl” for which all is cheaply sacrificed.
9
But, in the common way, we seldom thinkOf death, till death not only hath mowed down
Our dearest friends; but till our hopes too shrink,
Torn from us, as hereditary crown
From abdicated King; till fortune frown,
And snap life's tenderest thread, we cast a glance,
Of change unapprehensive, up and down,
And quite absorbed in insubstantial trance,
Think to behold, in life, an unchanged countenance.
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10
We seldom think of death till thirty yearsHave somewhat cooled our blood, and quenched our thirst,
And hunger, for that bliss, which no one fears
To miss, and which when life's gay prospects first
Open upon us, on our gaze doth burst
In shapes so Proteus like. But from that time
This thought with every form is interspersed,
Like note of discord, or imperfect rhyme,
Spoiling harmonious sounds, or poesy's sweet chime.
11
'Till life's first scenes have undergone a change,'Till of old objects it have once been cleared,
And others have arisen in that range
Of observation, 'specially endeared
To earliest sympathies; till the all-feared,
And silent despot, Death, have taken aim
Against some bulwarks of our hearts which reared,
Like Babel's tower, their venerated frame,
Beneath whose shade we thought that danger never came;
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12
'Till old things vanish, and till new ones rise,'Till in our childhood's home we look in vain
For the kind greeting of those well-known eyes
Which did of our's the firstling glances chain;
'Till we have quitted childhood's sheltered plain,
And gained the summit of maturity,
'Till that horizon fate did first ordain
To bound our sight, doth sink away, and die,
And new ones, at each stage, rise to our mental eye;
13
'Till these things be, the sense of permanenceDwells with our being, and though we, if asked
If we immortal were, with eloquence
Might prove our own mortality; yet masked—
So long as in the morn-beam we have basked
Of earlier life,—so much is death's grim face,
That, o'erinformed with happiness, o'ertasked
With taste of bliss, it yields a pungent grace,
A savour of sweet fear his antic feats to trace.
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14
We see him then but as in masquerade,He comes but as the wizard of life's tale,
But different far the case is when displayed,
Before our vision are his banners pale;
When near the dwelling of our youth, the gale
Which passes by, is tainted with his breath;
Then his imaginary trophies fail,
And we no longer list with indrawn breath,
Or hear with pleasing awe the chronicles of death.
15
That which before excited, now appals;That which before did stimulate, doth quell;
That which before did thrill, not dully falls
On us, with leaden weight, like palsying spell!—
Life, thou hast lost, that, without which, the cell
Of fancy, no more teems with magic charms,
Sense of security! and those know well
Who this experience gain of death's alarms,
All is then lost except Religion ope her arms.
16
Yes, there's a tide in life, in hope's fresh huesWhen all is bathed; a time when we not yet
39
And bold aspiring promises (the debt
Not being yet drawn out, which, soon or late,
Will stare us in the face we have to pay
To pain, to sin, and man's degraded state)
The splendid future; and while on our way
Illusion still doth chaunt her necromantic lay.
17
That time soon closes! And, ah! woe to him,When it has closed, who's not so wisely sown,
That he may sing no spiritual harvest hymn;
Nor with such foresight planted as to own
Interest in heaven's own garner; never known
Blighted to be or barren, from the store
Filled of celestial seed. East winds have blown
In vain, and mildew sought its bane to pour
On that celestial hoard, sound even to the core.
18
We do not say, when on the term we fixOf thirty years, for death's dire revelation,
When we contend that it doth never mix
With all our thoughts till on the middle station
Of life we gain prospective elevation
40
Familiar ones, which moulded young sensation,
That many chances may not interpose,
That mood to antedate which from death's knowledge flows.
19
A parent, brother, sister, or a friend,Tenderly loved, snatched from us in the bloom
Of life, perchance sooner the veil may rend,
Which hides from youthful eyes the yawning tomb.
But yet though this should chance, it is our doom
So full of joy, so full of hope to be,
Mainly in life's first stages, that though gloom
Be in the outline of our destiny
It leaves our untouched spirits unimpaired and free,
20
Like water lapsing o'er a glossy woofWith unctuous juice impregnate. Whensoe'er
This sense brought home of death, this heartfelt proof
Of our mortality becomes our share,
If we have not religion, deep despair
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Possess that blessed gift, joy shall they wear,
As fades all life's substantiality,
Th' unreal earth is lost in heaven's reality.
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