University of Virginia Library

Ages agone, when life was swift and bright;
Before the originating Power had ceased
His cycles of creation; when men found
Oft in the morn, new beasts upon the hills,
New trees amidst the woods, new flowers,—create
Then first; when on this planet's vaulting shell,
Man laid not down supine, but up, erect,
Waited and watched; in youthfulness so keen,
That days effected in his thoughts and forms
Those revolutions, which, in these dull times,
Long years alone can instigate, while centuries
Toil with their consummation;—then, the sage,
Who reverence won for sciences; the hero,
Who made a nation free; the Saviour,
Who human viciousness to goodness changed;—
Did so within their lifetimes, with completeness;
And gained a glory, and sustained a joy,
The best of us may dream not.

In this proud morn of time lived Egremond;
His life a star 'midst wildly clouded evil,—
Evil that speedily could be changed to good
By competent energies. And Egremond
His life did dedicate to effect this change.
The world slept on; the creating Power toiled:
Egremond, through the midnight, in his cell,
Leaps with his passionate reason down the depths
Tempestuously tossed, of human nature,
Seeking the masked demons, that invoke
Suffering and wrong: he pauses for a while;
In thought he overbounds the travailing hour;—
Past man's redeeming, he beholds redemption;—
He sees beyond the hurtling cloudinesses,
A fair bright time; he hears the vast rejoicings
Of myriads changed by him to virtuous gods:—
They shout his name:—divinely burns his eye,
As though a lonely spirit of the night
Were staring in it, and a flash leaps through
His toil-worn face, and quivering, up he springs,—
“Pour no libation, drop no useless tear
Above my sepulchre, the dead feel not:—
But now, oh! now; now, while this frame can quiver,
And the hot blood leaps swiftly to my brain,—
Now when the wildest hurricane of passion
Were but a power to whirl my fearless spirit
In dizzy transport,—while I would be driven
Straight through the universe, swift as a leaf,
So that my soul might widen to her fate,
And throb exultingly against the storm,—
Now give me fame; let nations fill the cup,
And to the music of their myriad shoutings,
I'll drain it to the dregs: it will be, is,
Mine, great God!—mine.” Swift from his face all passion
Fled, thereupon a magnificent smile:
He leaned against the window, a full hour
Considering his own majesty; Adonis,
Gazing within the stream, endured delight
As incomparable to Egremond's,
As is the soulless splendour of the sun,
To the enveloping smile of a new bride.
The moon slants light on his sky-lifted face,
Haggard with eager intellectual toil,
Beautifully haggard as the face of a corpse,
That, peering from its riven sepulchre,
Lists to the resurrection trumpetings;
He hails her wandering thro' the tranquil heaven:—
“Beautiful moon! I would that thou wert God,
Or that he looked on me where thou art now,
In that blue chasm; so that I might tell him,
And watch the love grow softer o'er his brow,
The while I told him, all my mighty joy,—
Creating love where hate was, peace where war:
Thou art so beautiful, moon! that there must be
Some present commune between thee and God!
Speak to him for me, tell to him my love,
His greatness daunts me not, for I am good:—
Yea, I am good, for I do procreate goodness;
Rapture unspeakable! though yonder skies,
Bending down round to me, should fiercely frown
One frown of condemnation, I should stand
Unangrily; yea, glad—yea, calm—yea, proud.
Power of infinite love! I thee not offer
The parasitical and insulting worship
Of terror wrenched thanks; nor basely seek I,
By false disparagement of my goodly nature,
To render thee contrastedly exalted;
Thy greatness needs it not:—to thee, oh God!
My soul extends herself in fearless love,
And reverence that is ecstasy; if I,
In moulding this small isle to harmony,
Feel blessed—yea, so blessed, that this hour
Is worthier than years of common life,—
How vast must be thy blessedness, aye sphering
Happy bright planets from the galaxy,
Thereon inhoming us intelligents!
Lover that knows no weariness! when all stars
Turn up to thee their beautiful bright eyes,
And pause for joy,—methinks thy very godhead,
On its caressing firmament must lean,
O'ercome with love! My soul ascends to thee;—
Thou, infinite in knowledge, must be happy;
Time sounds of life, which scare us listening here,
Shaking our faith with their unanswered plainings,
Play sweetly unto thine eternal mind,
The discords of one deepening harmony!”
The expectation of some answering, shaded
Egremond's face; again he hailed the moon;—
“How hast thou made the sky like one fair flower!
Laying aside thy vestments, so that heaven,
And the valleys, and the hills, and the floods of earth
Gaze on thine unveiled loveliness, expressing
Their ravishment in one soft smile.
Like thee, do I arise in life's dark night,
But not like thee, fair moon! would I descend
Down in my heaven, but when I shall reach
The zenith of my glory, from the top
I would outspread a pair of angel wings,
And soar to God. Yea, presently, must I die!
When ended my creation, wherefore life;
A life of conservation metes not me,
I know creation rapture; what, creation,
Save harmonizing elements!” “Yes, God!”
He cried, and sprang into unsheltered space;
“I claim, by virtue of the peace I make,
Some dim, disorganized, sullen star,
That I may be to it in place of thee,
Teaching its heart all musics; through thy worlds
Dismiss me glorying!”
His eyes wild rioted; his brow upturned
Pallidly grand against the vast empyrean,
As though he heard, echoing from star to star,
The voice of deity cry, “Come up hither.”