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Far into Wartburg, through all Italy,In every town the Pope sent messengers,Riding in furious haste; among them, oneWho bore a branch of dry wood burst in bloom;The pastoral rod had borne green shoots of spring,And leaf and blossom. God is merciful.
Note.—In spite of my unwillingness to imply any possiblebelief of mine that the preceding unrhymed narratives canenter into competition with the elaborate poems of the authorof "The Earthly Paradise," yet the similarity of subjects,and the imputation of plagiarism already made in privatecircles, induce me to remark that "Admetus" was completedbefore the publication of the "Love of Alcestis," and"Tannhauser" before the "Hill of Venus."
Emma Lazarus.
LINKS.
The little and the great are joined in oneBy God's great force. The wondrous golden sunIs linked unto the glow-worm's tiny spark;The eagle soars to heaven in his flight;And in those realms of space, all bathed in light,Soar none except the eagle and the lark.
Gray earth, gray mist, gray sky:Through vapors hurrying by,Larger than wont, on highFloats the horned, yellow moon.Chill airs are faintly stirred,And far away is heard,Of some fresh-awakened bird,The querulous, shrill tune.
The dark mist hides the faceOf the dim land: no traceOf rock or river's placeIn the thick air is drawn;But dripping grass smells sweet,And rustling branches meet,And sounding water greetThe slow, sure, sacred dawn.
Past is the long black night,With its keen lightnings white,Thunder and floods: new lightThe glimmering low east streaks.The dense clouds part: betweenTheir jagged rents are seenPale reaches blue and green,As the mirk curtain breaks.
Above the shadowy world,Still more and more unfurled,The gathered mists upcurledLike phantoms melt and pass.In clear-obscure revealed,Brown wood, gray stream, dark field:Fresh, healthy odors yieldWet furrows, flowers, and grass.
The sudden, splendid gleamOf one thin, golden beamShoots from the feathered rimOf yon hill crowned with woods.Down its embowered side,As living waters slide,So the great morning tideFollows in sunny floods.
From bush and hedge and treeJoy, unrestrained and free,Breaks forth in melody,Twitter and chirp and song:Alive the festal airWith gauze-winged creatures fair,That flicker everywhere,Dart, poise, and flash along.
The shining mists are gone,Slight films of gold swift-blownBefore the strong, bright sunOr the deep-colored sky:A world of life and glowSparkles and basks below,Where the soft meads a-row,Hoary with dew-fall, lie.
Does not the morn break thus,Swift, bright, victorious,With new skies cleared for us,Over the soul storm-tost?Her night was long and deep,Strange visions vexed her sleep,Strange sorrows bade her weep:Her faith in dawn was lost.
No halt, no rest for her,The immortal wandererFrom sphere to higher sphere,Toward the pure source of day.The new light shames her fears,Her faithlessness, her tears,As the new sun appearsTo light her godlike way.
I give God thanks that I, a lean old man,Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen painsBy austere penance and continuous toil,Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peaceWhich passeth understanding." Th' end draws nigh,Though the beginning is yesterday,And a broad lifetime spreads 'twixt this and that—A favored life, though outwardly the buttOf ignominy, malice, and affront,Yet lighted from within by the clear starOf a high aim, and graciously prolongedTo see at last its utmost goal attained.I speak not of mine Order and my House,Here founded by my hands and filled with saints—A white society of snowy souls,Swayed by my voice, by mine example led;For this is but the natural harvest reapedFrom labors such as mine when blessed by God.Though I rejoice to think my spirit stillWill work my purposes, through worthy hands,After my bones are shriveled into dust,Yet have I gleaned a finer, sweeter fruitOf holy satisfaction, sure and real,Though subtler than the tissue of the air—The power completely to detach the soulFrom her companion through this life, the flesh;So that in blessed privacy of peace,Communing with high angels, she can hold,Serenely rapt, her solitary course.
Ye know, O saints of heaven, what I have borneOf discipline and scourge; the twisted lashOf knotted rope that striped my shrinking limbs;Vigils and fasts protracted, till my fleshWasted and crumbled from mine aching bones,And the last skin, one woof of pain and sores,Thereto like yellow parchment loosely clung;Exposure to the fever and the frost,When 'mongst the hollows of the hills I lurkedFrom persecution of misguided folk,Accustoming my spirit to ignoreThe burden of the cross, while picturingThe bliss of disembodied souls, the graceOf holiness, the lives of sainted men,And entertaining all exalted thoughts,That nowise touched the trouble of the hour,Until the grief and pain seemed far less realThan the creations of my brain inspired.The vision, the beatitude, were true:The agony was but an evil dream.I speak not now as one who hath not learnedThe purport of those lightly-bandied words,Evil and Fate, but rather one who knowsThe thunders of the terrors of the world.No mortal chance or change, no earthly shock,Can move or reach my soul, securely thronedOn heights of contemplation and calm prayer,Happy, serene, no less actual joyOf present peace than faith in joys to come.
This soft, sweet, yellow evening, how the treesStand crisp against the clear, bright-colored sky!How the white mountain-tops distinctly shine,Taking and giving radiance, and the slopesAre purpled with rich floods of peach-hued light!Thank God, my filmy, old dislustred eyesFind the same sense of exquisite delight,My heart vibrates to the same touch of joyIn scenes like this, as when my pulse danced high,And youth coursed through my veins! This the one linkThat binds the wan old man that now I amTo the wild lad who followed up the houndsAmong Ravenna's pine-woods by the sea.For there how oft would I lose all delightIn the pursuit, the triumph, or the game,To stray alone among the shadowy glades,And gaze, as one who is not satisfiedWith gazing, at the large, bright, breathing sea,The forest glooms, and shifting gleams betweenThe fine dark fringes of the fadeless trees,On gold-green turf, sweet-brier, and wild pink rose!How rich that buoyant air with changing scentOf pungent pine, fresh flowers, and salt cool seas!And when all echoes of the chase had died,Of horn and halloo, bells and baying hounds,How mine ears drank the ripple of the tideOn the fair shore, the chirp of unseen birds,The rustling of the tangled undergrowth,And the deep lyric murmur of the pines,When through their high tops swept the sudden breeze!There was my world, there would my heart dilate,And my aspiring soul dissolve in prayerUnto that Spirit of Love whose energiesWere active round me, yet whose presence, spheredIn the unsearchable, unbodied air,Made itself felt, but reigned invisible.This ere the day that made me what I am.Still can I see the hot, bright sky, the seaIllimitably sparkling, as they showedThat morning. Though I deemed I took no noteOf heaven or earth or waters, yet my mindRetains to-day the vivid portraitureOf every line and feature of the scene.Light-hearted 'midst the dewy lanes I faredUnto the sea, whose jocund gleam I caughtBetween the slim boles, when I heard the clinkOf naked weapons, then a sudden thrustSickening to hear, and then a stifled groan;And pressing forward I beheld the sightThat seared itself for ever on my brain—My kinsman, Ser Ranieri, on the turf,Fallen upon his side, his bright young headAmong the pine-spurs, and his cheek pressed closeUnto the moist, chill sod: his fingers clutchedA handful of loose weeds and grass and earth,Uprooted in his anguish as he fell,And slowly from his heart the thick stream flowed,Fouling the green, leaving the fair, sweet faceGhastly, transparent, with blue, stony eyesStaring in blankness on that other oneWho triumphed over him. With hot desireOf instant vengeance I unsheathed my swordTo rush upon the slayer, when he turnedIn his first terror of blood-guiltiness.. . . . . . .Within my heart a something snapped and brake.What was it but the chord of rapturous joyFor ever stilled? I tottered and would fall,Had I not leaned against the friendly pine;For all realities of life, unmooredFrom their firm anchorage, appeared to floatLike hollow phantoms past my dizzy brain.The strange delusion wrought upon my soulThat this had been enacted ages since.This very horror curdled at my heart,This net of trees spread round, these iron heavens,Were closing over me when I had stood,Unnumbered cycles back, and fronted HIM,My father; and he felt mine eyes as now,Yet saw me not; and then, as now, that form,The one thing real, lay stretched between us both.The fancy passed, and I stood sane and strongTo grasp the truth. Then I remembered all—A few fierce words between them yester eveConcerning some poor plot of pasturage,Soon silenced into courteous, frigid calm:This was the end. I could not meet him now,To curse him, to accuse him, or to save,And draw him from the red entanglementCoiled by his own hands round his ruined life.God pardon me! My heart that moment heldNo drop of pity toward this wretched soul;And cowering down, as though his guilt were mine,I fled amidst the savage silencesOf that grim wood, resolved to nurse aloneMy boundless desolation, shame, and grief.
There, in that thick-leaved twilight of high noon,The quiet of the still, suspended air,Once more my wandering thoughts were calmly ranged,Shepherded by my will. I wept, I prayedA solemn prayer, conceived in agony,Blessed with response instant, miraculous;For in that hour my spirit was at oneWith Him who knows and satisfies her needs.The supplication and the blessing sprangFrom the same source, inspired divinely both.I prayed for light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth,And these like heavenly manna were rained downTo feed my hungered soul. His guilt was mine.What angel had been sent to stay mine armUntil the fateful moment passed awayThat would have ushered an eternityOf withering remorse? I found the germsIn mine own heart of every human sin,That waited but occasion's tempting breathTo overgrow with poisoned bloom my life.What God thus far had saved me from myself?Here was the lofty truth revealed, that eachMust feel himself in all, must know where'erThe great soul acts or suffers or enjoys,His proper soul in kinship there is bound.Then my life-purpose dawned upon my mind,Encouraging as morning. As I lay,Crushed by the weight of universal love,Which mine own thoughts had heaped upon myself,I heard the clear chime of a slow, sweet bell.I knew it—whence it came and what it sang.From the gray convent nigh the wood it pealed,And called the monks to prayer. Vigil and prayer,Clean lives, white days of strict austerity:Such were the offerings of these holy saints.How far might such not tend to expiateA riotous world's indulgence? Here my life,Doubly austere and doubly sanctified,Might even for that other one atone,So bound to mine, till both should be forgiven.
They sheltered me, not questioning the needThat led me to their cloistered solitude.How rich, how freighted with pure influence,With dear security of perfect peace,Was the first day I passed within those walls!The holy habit of perpetual prayer,The gentle greetings, the rare temperate speech,The chastening discipline, the atmosphereOf settled and profound tranquillity,Were even as living waters unto oneWho perisheth of thirst. Was this the worldThat yesterday seemed one huge battlefieldFor brutish passions? Could the soul of manWithdraw so easily, and erect apartHer own fair temple for her own high ends?But this serene contentment slowly wanedAs I discerned the broad disparityBetwixt the form and spirit of the lawsThat bound the order in strait brotherhood.Yet when I sought to gain a larger love,More rigid discipline, severer truth,And more complete surrender of the soulUnto her God, this was to my reproach,And scoffs and gibes beset me on all sides.In mine own cell I mortified my flesh,I held aloof from all my brethren's feastsTo wrestle with my viewless enemies,Till they should leave their blessing on my head;For nightly was I haunted by that face,White, bloodless, as I saw it 'midst the ferns,Now staring out of darkness, and it heldMine eyes from slumber and my brain from restAnd drove me from my straw to weep and pray.Rebellious thoughts such subtle torture wroughtUpon my spirit that I lay day-longIn dumb despair, until the blessed hopeOf mercy dawned again upon my soul,As gradual as the slow gold moon that mountsThe airy steps of heaven. My faith aroseWith sure perception that disaster, wrong,And every shadow of man's destinyAre merely circumstance, and cannot touchThe soul's fine essence: they exist or dieOnly as she affirms them or denies.
This faith sustain me even to the end:It floods my heart with peace as surely nowAs on that day the friars drove me forth,Urging that my asceticism, too harsh,Endured through pride, would bring into reproachTheir customs and their order. Then beganMy exile in the mountains, where I bodeA hunted man. The elements conspiredAgainst me, and I was the seasons' sport,Drenched, parched, and scorched and frozen alternately,Burned with shrewd frosts, prostrated by fierce heats,Shivering 'neath chilling dews and gusty rains,And buffeted by all the winds of heaven.Yet was this period my time of joy:My daily thoughts perpetual converse heldWith angels ministrant; mine ears were charmedWith sweet accordance of celestial sounds,Song, harp and choir, clear ringing through the air.And visions were revealed unto mine eyesBy night and day of Heaven's very courts,In shadowless, undimmed magnificence.I gave God thanks, not that He sheltered me,And fed me as He feeds the fowls of air—For had I perished, this too had been well—But for the revelation of His truth,The glory, the beatitude vouchsafedTo exalt, to heal, to quicken, to inspire;So that the pinched, lean excommunicateWas crowned with joy more solid, more secure,Than all the comfort of the vales could bring.Then the good Lord touched certain fervid hearts,Aspiring toward His love, to come to me,Timid and few at first; but as they heardFrom mine own lips the precious oracles,That soothed the trouble of their souls, appeasedTheir spiritual hunger, and disclosedAll of the God within them to themselves,They flocked about me, and they hailed me saint,And sware to follow and to serve the goodWhich my word published and my life declared.Thus the lone hermit of the mountain-topDescended leader of a band of saints,And midway 'twixt the summit and the valeI perched my convent. Yet I bated notOne whit of strict restraint and abstinence.And they who love me and who serve the truthHave learned to suffer with me, and have wonThe supreme joy that is not of the flesh,Foretasting the delights of Paradise.This faith, to them imparted, will endureAfter my tongue hath ceased to utter it,And the great peace hath settled on my soul.
Small, shapeless drifts of cloudSail slowly northward in the soft-hued sky,With blur half-tints and rolling summits bright,By the late sun caressed; slight hazes shroudAll things afar; shineth each leaf anighWith its own warmth and light.
O'erblown by Southland airs,The summer landscape basks in utter peace:In lazy streams the lazy clouds are seen;Low hills, broad meadows, and large, clear-cut squaresOf ripening corn-fields, rippled by the breeze,With shifting shade and sheen.
Hark! and you may not hearA sound less soothing than the rustle coolOf swaying leaves, the steady wiry droneOf unseen crickets, sudden chirpings clearOf happy birds, the tinkle of the pool,Chafed by a single stone.
What vague, delicious dreams,Born of this golden hour of afternoon,And air balm-freighted, fill the soul with bliss,Transpierced like yonder clouds with lustrous gleams,Fantastic, brief as they, and, like them, spunOf gilded nothingness!
All things are well with her.'T is good to be alive, to see the lightThat plays upon the grass, to feel (and sighWith perfect pleasure) the mild breezes stirAmong the garden roses, red and white,With whiffs of fragrancy.
There is no troublous thought,No painful memory, no grave regret,To mar the sweet suggestions of the hour:The soul, at peace, reflects the peace without,Forgetting grief as sunset skies forgetThe morning's transient shower.
(After Robert Schumann).
I. Evening.
Rest, beauty, stillness: not a waif of a cloudFrom gray-blue east sheer to the yellow west—No film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud.
The earth lies grace, by quiet airs caressed,And shepherdeth her shadows, but each stream,Free to the sky, is by that glow possessed,And traileth with the splendors of a dreamAthwart the dusky land. Uplift thine eyes!Unbroken by a vapor or a gleam,
The vast clear reach of mild, wan twilight skies.But look again, and lo, the evening star!Against the pale tints black the slim elms rise,
The earth exhales sweet odors nigh and far,And from the heavens fine influences fall.Familiar things stand not for what they are:
What they suggest, foreshadow, or recallThe spirit is alert to apprehend,Imparting somewhat of herself to all.
Labor and thought and care are at an end:The soul is filled with gracious reveries,And with her mood soft sounds and colors blend;
For simplest sounds ring forth like melodiesIn this weird-lighted air—the monotoneOf some far bell, the distant farmyard cries,
A barking dog, the thin, persistent droneOf crickets, and the lessening call of birds.The apparition of yon star alone
Breaks on the sense like music. Beyond wordThe peace that floods the soul, for night is here,And Beauty still is guide and harbinger.
II. Aspiration.
Dark lies the earth, and bright with worlds the sky:That soft, large, lustrous star, that first outshone,Still holds us spelled with potent sorcery.
Dilating, shrinking, lightening, it hath wonOur spirit with its strange strong influence,And sways it as the tides beneath the moon.
What impulse this, o'ermastering heart and sense?Exalted, thrilled, the freed soul fain would soarUnto that point of shining prominence,
Craving new fields and some unheard-of shore,Yea, all the heavens, for her activity,To mount with daring flight, to hover o'er
Low hills of earth, flat meadows, level sea,And earthly joy and trouble. In this hourOf waning light and sound, of mystery,
Of shadowed love and beauty-veiled power,She feels her wings: she yearns to grasp her own,Knowing the utmost good to be her dower.
A dream! a dream! for at a touch 't is gone.O mocking spirit! thy mere fools are we,Unto the depths from heights celestial thrown.
From these blind gropings toward reality,This thirst for truth, this most pathetic needOf something to uplift, to justify,
To help and comfort while we faint and bleed,May we not draw, wrung from the last despair,Some argument of hope, some blessed creed,
That we can trust the faith which whispers prayer,The vanishings, the ecstasy, the gleam,The nameless aspiration, and the dream?
III. Wherefore?
Deep languor overcometh mind and frame:A listless, drowsy, utter weariness,A trance wherein no thought finds speech or name,
The overstrained spirit doth possess.She sinks with drooping wing—poor unfledged bird,That fain had flown!—in fluttering breathlessness.
To what end those high hopes that wildly stirredThe beating heart with aspirations vain?Why proffer prayers unanswered and unheard
To blank, deaf heavens that will not heed her pain?Where lead these lofty, soaring tendencies,That leap and fly and poise, to fall again,
Yet seem to link her with the utmost skies?What mean these clinging loves that bind to earth,And claim her with beseeching, wistful eyes?
This little resting-place 'twixt death and birth,Why is it fretted with the ceaseless flowOf flood and ebb, with overgrowth and dearth,
And vext with dreams, and clouded with strange woe?Ah! she is tired of thought, she yearns for peace,Seeing all things one equal end must know.
Wherefore this tangle of perplexities,The trouble or the joy? the weary mazeOf narrow fears and hopes that may not cease?
A chill falls on her from the skyey ways,Black with the night-tide, where is none to hearThe ancient cry, the Wherefore of our days.
IV. Fancies.
The ceaseless whirr of crickets fills the earFrom underneath each hedge and bush and tree,Deep in the dew-drenched grasses everywhere.
The simple sound dispels the fantasyOf gloom and terror gathering round the mind.It seems a pleasant thing to breathe, to be,
To hear the many-voiced, soft summer windLisp through the dark thick leafage overhead—To see the rosy half-moon soar behind
The black slim-branching elms. Sad thoughts have fled,Trouble and doubt, and now strange reveriesAnd odd caprices fill us in their stead.
From yonder broken disk the redness dies,Like gold fruit through the leaves the half-sphere gleams,Then over the hoar tree-tops climbs the skies,
Blanched ever more and more, until it beamsWhiter than crystal. Like a scroll unfurled,And shadowy as a landscape seen in dreams,
Reveals itself the sleeping, quiet world,Painted in tender grays and whites subdued—The speckled stream with flakes of light impearled,
The wide, soft meadow and the massive wood.Naught is too wild for our credulityIn this weird hour: our finest dreams hold good.
Quaint elves and frolic flower-sprites we see,And fairies weaving rings of gossamer,And angels floating through the filmy air.
V. In the Night.
Let us go in: the air is dank and chillWith dewy midnight, and the moon rides highO'er ghostly fields, pale stream, and spectral hill.
This hour the dawn seems farthest from the skySo weary long the space that lies betweenThat sacred joy and this dark mystery
Of earth and heaven: no glimmering is seen,In the star-sprinkled east, of coming day,Nor, westward, of the splendor that hath been.
Strange fears beset us, nameless terrors swayThe brooding soul, that hungers for her rest,Out worn with changing moods, vain hopes' delay,
With conscious thought o'erburdened and oppressed.The mystery and the shadow wax too deep;She longs to merge both sense and thought in sleep.
VI. Faerie.
From the oped lattice glance once more abroadWhile the ethereal moontide bathes with lightHill, stream, and garden, and white-winding road.
All gracious myths born of the shadowy nightRecur, and hover in fantastic guise,Airy and vague, before the drowsy sight.
On yonder soft gray hill Endymion liesIn rosy slumber, and the moonlit airBreathes kisses on his cheeks and lips and eyes.
'Twixt bush and bush gleam flower-white limbs, left bare,Of huntress-nymphs, and flying raiment thin,Vanishing faces, and bright floating hair.
The quaint midsummer fairies and their kin,Gnomes, elves, and trolls, on blossom, branch, and grassGambol and dance, and winding out and in
Leave circles of spun dew where'er they pass.Through the blue ether the freed Ariel flies;Enchantment holds the air; a swarming mass
Of myriad dusky, gold-winged dreams arise,Throng toward the gates of sense, and so possessThe soul, and lull it to forgetfulness.
VII. Confused Dreams.
O strange, dim other-world revealed to us,Beginning there where ends reality,Lying 'twixt life and death, and populous
With souls from either sphere! now enter weThy twisted paths. Barred is the silver gate,But the wild-carven doors of ivory
Spring noiselessly apart: between them straightFlies forth a cloud of nameless shadowy things,With harpies, imps, and monsters, small and great,
Blurring the thick air with darkening wings.All humors of the blood and brain take shape,And fright us with our own imaginings.
A trouble weighs upon us: no escapeFrom this unnatural region can there be.Fixed eyes stare on us, wide mouths grin and gape,
Familiar faces out of reach we see.Fain would we scream, to shatter with a cryThe tangled woof of hideous fantasy,
When, lo! the air grows clear, a soft fair skyShines over head: sharp pain dissolves in peace;Beneath the silver archway quietly
We float away: all troublous visions cease.By a strange sense of joy we are possessed,Body and spirit soothed in perfect rest.
VIII. The End of the Song.
What dainty note of long-drawn melodyAthwart our dreamless sleep rings sweet and clear,Till all the fumes of slumber are brushed by,
And with awakened consciousness we hearThe pipe of birds? Look forth! The sane, white dayBlesses the hilltops, and the sun is near.
All misty phantoms slowly roll awayWith the night's vapors toward the western sky.The Real enchants us, the fresh breath of hay
Blows toward us; soft the meadow-grasses lie,Bearded with dew; the air is a caress;The sudden sun o'ertops the boundary
Of eastern hills, the morning joyousnessThrills tingling through the frame; life's pulse beats strong;Night's fancies melt like dew. So ends the song!
The grass of fifty Aprils hath waved greenAbove the spent heart, the Olympian head,The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen,Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled;Yet mystic-lived, like some rich, tropic flower,His fame puts forth fresh blossoms hour by hour;Wide spread the laden branches dropping dewOn the low, laureled brow misunderstood,That bent not, neither bowed, until subduedBy the last foe who crowned while he o'erthrew.
Fair was the Easter Sabbath morn when firstMen heard he had not wakened to its light:The end had come, and time had done its worst,For the black cloud had fallen of endless night.Then in the town, as Greek accosted Greek,'T was not the wonted festal words to speak,"Christ is arisen," but "Our chief is gone,"With such wan aspect and grief-smitten headAs when the awful cry of "Pan is dead!"Filled echoing hill and valley with its moan.
"I am more fit for death than the world deems,"So spake he as life's light was growing dim,And turned to sleep as unto soothing dreams.What terrors could its darkness hold for him,Familiar with all anguish, but with fearStill unacquainted? On his martial bierThey laid a sword, a helmet, and a crown—Meed of the warrior, but not these amongHis voiceless lyre, whose silent chords unstrungShall wait—how long?—for touches like his own.
An alien country mourned him as her son,And hailed him hero: his sole, fitting tombWere Theseus' temple or the Parthenon,Fondly she deemed. His brethren bare him home,Their exiled glory, past the guarded gateWhere England's Abbey shelters England's great.Afar he rests whose very name hath shedNew lustre on her with the song he sings.So Shakespeare rests who scorned to lie with kings,Sleeping at peace midst the unhonored dead.
And fifty years suffice to overgrowWith gentle memories the foul weeds of hateThat shamed his grave. The world begins to knowHer loss, and view with other eyes his fate.Even as the cunning workman brings to passThe sculptor's thought from out the unwieldy massOf shapeless marble, so Time lops awayThe stony crust of falsehood that concealedHis just proportions, and, at last revealed,The statue issues to the light of day,
Most beautiful, most human. Let them flingThe first stone who are tempted even as he,And have not swerved. When did that rare soul singThe victim's shame, the tyrant's eulogy,The great belittle, or exalt the small,Or grudge his gift, his blood, to disenthrallThe slaves of tyranny or ignorance?Stung by fierce tongues himself, whose rightful fameHath he reviled? Upon what noble nameDid the winged arrows of the barbed wit glance?
The years' thick, clinging curtains backward pull,And show him as he is, crowned with bright beams,"Beauteous, and yet not all as beautifulAs he hath been or might be; Sorrow seemsHalf of his immortality."* He needsNo monument whose name and song and deedsAre graven in all foreign hearts; but sheHis mother, England, slow and last to wake,Needs raise the votive shaft for her fame's sake:Hers is the shame if such forgotten be!May, 1875.*"Cain," Act I. Scene 1.
On a background of pale goldI would trace with quaint design,Penciled fine,Brilliant-colored, Moorish scenes,Mosques and crescents, pages, queens,Line on line,That the prose-world of to-dayMight the gorgeous Past's arrayOnce behold.
On the magic painted shieldRich Granada's Vega greenShould be seen;Crystal fountains, coolness flinging,Hanging gardens' skyward springingEmerald sheen;Ruddy when the daylight falls,Crowned Alhambra's beetling wallsStand revealed;
Balconies that overbrowField and city, vale and stream.In a dreamLulled the drowsy landscape basks;Mark the gleamSilvery of each white-swathed peak!Mountain-airs caress the cheek,Fresh from the snow.
Here in Lindaraxa's bowerThe immortal roses bloom;In the roomLion-guarded, marble-paven,Still the fountain leaps to heaven.But the doomOf the banned and stricken raceOvershadows every place,Every hour.
Where fair Lindaraxa dweltFlits the bat on velvet wings;Mute the stringsOf the broken mandoline;The Pavilion of the QueenWidely flingsVacant windows to the night;Moonbeams kiss the floor with lightWhere she knelt.
Through these halls that people steppedWho through darkling centuriesHeld the keysOf all wisdom, truth, and art,In a Paradise apart,Lapped in ease,Sagely pondering deathless themes,While, befooled with monkish dreams,Europe slept.
Where shall they be found today?Yonder hill that frets the sky"The last SighOf the Moor" is named still.There the ill-starred BoabdilBade good-byTo Granada and to Spain,Where the Crescent ne'er againHoldeth sway.