University of Virginia Library

YOUNG POETS.

I could believe that unto such the world
Is like an antique scroll, newly unfurled,
And all o'erwrit with charactery strange,
Whose very letters wax and wane and change;
And as by painful toil 'tis understood,
Much evil is decyphered, little good,
Strange dooms and destinies; and for what is told
In symbol mute and hieroglyphic old,
They look abroad, and seek the counterpart
Vainly in nature, man, and their own heart,
And are as lutes untuned; yet meanwhile wake,
As might a lute, though string by string should break,
Tones of strange potency o'er all who know
Or understand a shadow of their woe.
But this must end; and they their resting have
In the secure sleep of the quiet grave,
Or time interprets what was strange before,
And Nature teaches them her holiest lore,
And shows them in their art a golden key
Unto the temple of her mystery;
Till, like magicians potent to compel
The ministers that hate them to their spell,
They reinvoke and subject to their strain
Even their own past disquietude and pain,
Wresting from these the secret of their power,
Till their own woe and weakness is a dower
Of strength to others, and themselves have made
Even of the loads which on their spirits weighed
And bowed to earth, and would have crushed them there,
Steps to ascend, and a majestic stair,
Leading to platforms of intenser seeing,
More ample prospect, and serener being.