Dramatic Scenes :: :: University of Virginia Library

Prone on my bed, I send these lines to thee,
O Hieros! Strange dreams of days gone by
Haunt 'round my brain: Delights, and Pains, and Scenes
Peopled with pleasant shapes (now lost!) like ghosts
Across some crystal mirror, come and go;
I helpless! These give leisure to my days,
And nights, (which are not all involved and dark);
And so I purpose to redeem my pledge,
And tell thee, briefly, my poor history.

Friend,—for thou art my friend, altho' we two
Have trod our different roads, from life to death;
Thou thro' the holy pastures, where the sheep,
Guided by croziered shepherds, feed at ease,
And drink the heavenly waters, and sleep safe;
I through the tangled wastes and briery depths,
Struggling, heart-sore, have found my way—by night!

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Well,—Thou hast often called me, I confess,
And told me of thy pleasant paths on high,
Beckoning me upwards. I would go my way;
For I believed my road led upwards too,
And had its verdant nooks, and daisied spots
Pearling the meadows, somewhere,—afar off!
So I wore onwards. I was near the goal,
Felt the fresh air, and saw the sunny steeps,
When suddenly came—Death! Then, Hope being fled,
I sank and strove no more.

Yet have I had
Delight in labour, as thou hadst in ease.
'Twas pleasant to endure, and know that I
Must conquer in the end. 'Twas pleasant, too,
To free my thoughts from parsimonious tasks,
And bid them seek the liberal air, and fly
(The larks!) up to the sun. They brought me down
Wealth that you care not for, perhaps despise;
Siderean music from the Pleiades;
Vast truths which soaring Science never reached;
Dim intimations from majestic Souls
Who died long since, and fled, we know not where,
And messages from all the Orbs of Heaven.

Had I but studied all my father taught,
I should have mastered every science; plunged
Deep in geometry and numbers; piled

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Million on million; bale on bale; until
My iron rooms and bags had burst with gold.
He had a lust for gold, such as we see
For travel, where men leave their friends and homes,
And seek for unknown seas and desert sands.
But from my mother's lessons roses sprang;
Poured out their fragrance: lilies opened wide
Their breasts all dropt with gold: the winds, unsought,
Gave out fine meanings in each murmuring sound;
And those star-eyes, that fill the face of Night,
Shed on me all their mystic influence.

Thus dowered, I left the world to dig for gold,
Waste its worn youth, and write, with wrinkled brow,
Its sordid history; whilst I, emerging
Into the unpeopled air, where freedom was,
From my pure height saw all that Nature hoards
In silence for her faithful worshippers.
And what I sought I sought with all my soul;
For to do less is to ensure a loss;
As he who lazily seeks, by some rope's length,
The dizzy height, and half-way loses hold,
Falls down destroyed, because his heart is weak.
I suffered?—I rejoiced! as few have done,
In all the great extremes of happiness;
Nay, all those notes and shades of difference
That lie between the two points of excess,
Have each an individual self distinct

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Pregnant with pleasure. Do you think I stood
Half-struck to marble, by those faultless forms
Dug out of Roman earth, without a pang
Of wonderful delight? I entered, wrapt,
Into the circle of Art; beheld (dismayed
By power) each one of Titian's master-works;
And rare Giorgione's sunset pastoral scenes,
Gleaming with gold; the peerless perfect grace
That streams suffused thro' heavenly Raffaelle's forms,—
Child, virgin, matron, man, all near divine,
Half-earth, half-heaven; and last, those massive shapes
Which sprang from Michael's brain, and took their stand
Predominant, triumphant through all time;
Whereat still youthful painters gaze with pride,
To think that Art hath done so much for men.

Leaving awhile these rainbow-coloured paths,
I wandered through the flowery vales of sound,
Where Mozart wove, by night, his musk-rose airs;
And thro' harmonious turns and labyrinths,
Where Handel once (with Galatea) strayed,
And Purcell, when he linked his soul to song.
From every grace I caught new light, new strength:
From radiant Art I rose to Poesy,
Which spread its wings across the warring heavens,
When he who sang the strife was old and blind;
With Poesy, who upheld the Florentine,
When on his downward path he moved amazed;

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And who—when Nature bared her breast, and fed
Her wondrous Avon child, and in his ear
Poured all her secrets—bore him upwards, till
He touched the eternal stars, and seemed to die!

At last, to Nature's self I turned, and read
Infinite marvels in her daily page.
I and all things on whom sweet life descends
Had intercourse. The insect that doth hold
His court upon a leaf, and dying yields
His generations to the sheltering grass,
Was my companion. In those April days,
Ere the rose opens, and when meadows burn
With flowers all coloured like the morning beams,
And every point, thro' winter months left bare,
Pours out its buds, I made me friends, and grew
Familiar with the worm, and with the bird
That breeds its young within the guardian thorn.
—I tell these things, that thou mayst know there live,
Beyond the pulpit's velvet, and beyond
Thy lordly abbey, filled with meats and wines,
Things that belong to God; who sends their hearts
Upwards in fine melodious gratitude,
Leaving sweet lessons for poor men like me,
And some that even thou mightst deign to teach.
Something thou know'st, past knowledge, past all forms,
Dwells in the living breast: For with the gift
Of life is given the priceless dream of love,

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And gratitude, which pays to God who gives
Thanks beyond prayer. We, poor petitioners,
Too often content to ask, forget to pay
The debt we owe for good. Pardon us, Thou!
Infinite, Grand, Supreme Intelligence!
Teach us the lessons man was born to learn;
Lead us to loftier thoughts, to sunnier creeds;
For in the misty years of happiness,
Our hearts exhale with tenderest thoughts, which soar
Like dew from off the ground, and hallow us.

In the low hedge, hard by the open wilds,
The linnet builds her home; and in the roofs
Of populous towns the poor house-sparrow breeds:
Far from each other born, yet both alike
Become, by gentle usage, friends to those
Who seek and give them food and cherish them.
See where, aloft, upon the towering pine,
Broods the sea-eagle, and from year to year
Comes back unto her home of sedge and reeds,
And branches, interlaced with artist skill;
And hunts the seas by night, defends her young,
And, in all perils and all needs of life,
Shows strength beyond the strength of peasant minds.
In watchfulness, fidelity (beyond
Bribe or alarm), the household dog stands firm
In danger, when the faithless servant flies.
Wonderful knowledge, never learned from books!

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Wonderful knowledge, from which man may learn
That he transcends not yet the bird or brute
In all things,—goodness, wisdom, gratitude.
Divinest Instinct, like the sun in air,
Thou reign'st unknown!—Unknown? Yet, as we talk,
The indefatigable Future comes,
Minute by minute, years by countless years;
These as they come, these legions, range about
The silent form of the Eternal Past,
Each with its scroll, from which all men may read.

My soul was calm; proud, haply, as I marked
Some finer lines, and truths half-hid that 'scape
The idler on the greensward; and when Time
Led me to grander truths, and I beheld
What seemed the confluence of the stars, take shapes,
Grow into worlds, saw world encircling world,
Borne through their orbits by diviner powers,
And laws, that far out-run the thoughts of men,
Leaving the ground, my thoughts advanced, and took
Their station near the sky, where angels dwell:
Thence—from this azure summit, built of air,
Descended suddenly an airier shape,
Swift as a sunbeam, tinged by hues of love.
Eyes that outshone the stars, and seemed to pierce
Beyond the secrets of remotest Time,
Looked down upon me,—me! Their luminous depths,—
Their grand sweet Silence, that surpassed all sound,

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Held me like iron. I looked up, and wept,—
Wept, till soft words, bubbling through roses, rose
From inner fountains where the Soul abides,
And showered celestial balm. She stood disclosed,
A perfect soul within a perfect form;
Unparalleled, intelligent, divine.
Dreams of some inner Heaven then took my soul
Captive, and flushed the thrilling nerves with joy,
Commingling with my sleep and blessing it;
And, when she warmed with love, my eyes amazed
Met thrice the wonders I before had seen:
I drank in fragrance thousand times more sweet
Than ever lay upon the hyacinth's lip:
Music I heard, sphere-tuned, harmonious,
Ravishing earth and sky: Swarms of delight
Encompassed me, until my soul o'erwhelmed
Sank in the conflict; and I then poured forth
My heart in numbers, such as lovers use:—

O perfect Love, soft Joy, untinged with pain!
O Sky, kept cloudless by the sighs of Spring!
O Bird, that bear'st sweet sounds thro' sun and rain,
Give thy heart way, and sing!

Look down, dear Love, as Heaven looks down on earth!
Be near me, round me, like the enfolding air!
Impart some beauty from thy beauteous worth;
Or be thyself less fair.

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As the hart panteth for the water brooks;
As the dove mourneth in the lone pine-tree;
So, left unsunned by thy care-charming looks,
I pant, I mourn for thee!

—She came unto my home; and with her came
Infinite love; content; divine repose.
Life rose above its height; and we beheld
Beauty in all things, everywhere delight!
The Sun that dwelt in our own hearts shed forth
Its beams upon the world, and brightened it;
And from that brightness, as the ground takes back
The dews it gently lends, we gathered light
That led us thro' the dim sweet paths of life,
Until our hearts bloomed forth in happiness.
—A home we had, not distant, yet removed
Somewhat aside from the laborious town,
Where friends (a few) would come when Spring had touched
The sward with daisies. In our garden rose
Imperial cedars, underneath whose shade
We shunned the summer heat, and heard content
The little brook which ran and talked below.
Here 'twas at eve, we lingered, and saw rise
Those golden-crownèd daughters of the Night,
Who, when the sun is slumbering, take their place
And watch the world till morn, with sleepless eyes.
Behind us, in the distance, hills aspired
To mountains, on whose brows the early snow

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Came and dwelt long; too far for cold; so near
We counted all the purple streaks that hung
O'er every misty valley. Oh how bright,
How filled with joy was all we looked upon!
Why should it end? ...

... It ended. I am here,
Stripped of my wealth; alone. I am not shut
Out from the world like one that has no place,
But wander uncompanioned on my way.
Smit by a terrible doom, I yet look back
On things that charmed me once; that soothe me now.
The Day has faded: Evening still remains,
Wherein some deeds of good may yet be done.
I am not what I was:—that cannot be.
I could have lived without so fair a thing
To breathe beside me: But she came, and brought
That air which now is life: Without that air
I cannot live! I am a denizen
And dweller on an orb unknown before;
But now my natural soil; my only earth.
Ah! whilst I stood and gazed, out of the grass,
Out of the very flowers the serpent rose,
And in his labyrinthine sinewy coil
Strangled my earthly bliss!—

But I forget.
A cloud came o'er me; It has passed away.
There is a Morning somewhere: Somewhere still
The Sun ascends his pathway as of old,

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And light, and warmth, and beauty breathe again.
There will I go, should pain once leave me free:
If not, and I must close my journey here,
Content at last I rest. No cruel creed
Has bade me fire the martyr's blazing pile:
I have not trampled on the poor; nor made
My friend a footstool for myself to rise:
No outrage of another's tender thoughts,
No bland deceit that leads weak souls astray,
Was mine. My hours passed onwards without harm.
A few have bent the knee and deemed me kind:
I followed but my nature; nothing more.
Perhaps 'twas this which forced my bosom heave
With gratitude to God for all he gave;
That thrust my hand out tow'rds my fellow men,
And proffer comfort.

What is done is done!
And what is left? The Past,—the grave wise Past!
Of that I write—these few last words—to thee.