EPIGRAPH.

VI.Yet whatsoever be our bondage here,All have two portals to the Phantom sphere,—Who hath not glided through those gates that ope,Beyond the Hour, toMemoryor toHope!Give Youth the Garden,—still it soars above—Seeks some far glory—some diviner love.Place Age amidst the Golgotha—its eyesStill quit the graves, to rest upon the skies;And while the dust, unheeded, moulders there,Track some lost angel through cerulean air.Lo! where the Austrian binds, with formal chain,The crownless son of earth's last Charlemain—Him, at whose birth laugh'd all the violet vales(While yet unfallen stood thy sovereign star,O Lucifer of Nations)—hark, the galesSwell with the victor-shout from hosts, whose warRended the Alps, and crimson'd Memphian Nile—"Way for the coming of the Conqueror's Son:Woe to the Merchant-Carthage of the Isle!Woe to the Scythian Ice-world of the Don!O Thunder Lord, thy Lemnian bolts prepare,The Eagle's eyrie hath its eagle heir!"Hark, at that shout from north to south, grey PowerQuails on its weak, hereditary thrones;And widow'd mothers prophesy the hourOf future carnage to their cradled sons.What! shall our race to blood be thus consign'd,And Até claim an heirloom in mankind?Are these red lots unshaken in the urn?Years pass—approach, pale Questioner—and learnChain'd to his rock, with brows that vainly frown,The fallen Titan sinks in darkness down!And sadly gazing through his gilded grate,Behold the child whose birth, was as a fate!Far from the land in which his life began;Wall'd from the healthful air of hardy man;Rear'd by cold hearts, and watch'd by jealous eyes,His guardians jailors, and his comrades spies.Each trite convention courtly fears inspireTo stint experience and to dwarf desire,Narrows the action to a puppet stage,And trains the eaglet to the starling's cage.On the dejected brow and smileless cheek,What weary thought the languid lines bespeak:Till drop by drop, from jaded day to day,The sickly life-streams ooze themselves away.Yet oft inHopea boundless realm was thine,That vaguest Infinite—the Dream of Fame;Son of the sword that first made kings divine,Heir to man's grandest royalty—a Name!Then didst thou burst upon the startled world,And keep the glorious promise of thy birth;Then were the wings that bear the bolt unfurl'd,A monarch's voice cried, "Place upon the Earth!"A new Philippi gain'd a second Rome,And the Son's sword avenged the greater Cæsar's doom.

VI.

Yet whatsoever be our bondage here,All have two portals to the Phantom sphere,—Who hath not glided through those gates that ope,Beyond the Hour, toMemoryor toHope!Give Youth the Garden,—still it soars above—Seeks some far glory—some diviner love.Place Age amidst the Golgotha—its eyesStill quit the graves, to rest upon the skies;And while the dust, unheeded, moulders there,Track some lost angel through cerulean air.

Lo! where the Austrian binds, with formal chain,The crownless son of earth's last Charlemain—Him, at whose birth laugh'd all the violet vales(While yet unfallen stood thy sovereign star,O Lucifer of Nations)—hark, the galesSwell with the victor-shout from hosts, whose warRended the Alps, and crimson'd Memphian Nile—"Way for the coming of the Conqueror's Son:Woe to the Merchant-Carthage of the Isle!Woe to the Scythian Ice-world of the Don!O Thunder Lord, thy Lemnian bolts prepare,The Eagle's eyrie hath its eagle heir!"Hark, at that shout from north to south, grey PowerQuails on its weak, hereditary thrones;And widow'd mothers prophesy the hourOf future carnage to their cradled sons.What! shall our race to blood be thus consign'd,And Até claim an heirloom in mankind?Are these red lots unshaken in the urn?Years pass—approach, pale Questioner—and learnChain'd to his rock, with brows that vainly frown,The fallen Titan sinks in darkness down!And sadly gazing through his gilded grate,Behold the child whose birth, was as a fate!Far from the land in which his life began;Wall'd from the healthful air of hardy man;Rear'd by cold hearts, and watch'd by jealous eyes,His guardians jailors, and his comrades spies.Each trite convention courtly fears inspireTo stint experience and to dwarf desire,Narrows the action to a puppet stage,And trains the eaglet to the starling's cage.On the dejected brow and smileless cheek,What weary thought the languid lines bespeak:Till drop by drop, from jaded day to day,The sickly life-streams ooze themselves away.

Yet oft inHopea boundless realm was thine,That vaguest Infinite—the Dream of Fame;Son of the sword that first made kings divine,Heir to man's grandest royalty—a Name!Then didst thou burst upon the startled world,And keep the glorious promise of thy birth;Then were the wings that bear the bolt unfurl'd,A monarch's voice cried, "Place upon the Earth!"A new Philippi gain'd a second Rome,And the Son's sword avenged the greater Cæsar's doom.

VII.But turn the eye to Life's sequester'd vale,And lowly roofs remote in hamlets green.Oft in my boyhood where the moss-grown paleFenced quiet graves, a female form was seen;Each eve she sought the melancholy ground,And lingering paused, and wistful look'd around;If yet some footstep rustled through the grass,Timorous she shrunk, and watch'd the shadow pass.Then, when the spot lay lone amidst the gloom,Crept to one grave too humble for a tomb,There silent bow'd her face above the dead,For, if in prayer, the prayer was inly said;Still as the moonbeam, paused her quiet shade,Still as the moonbeam, through the yews to fade.Whose dust thus hallow'd by so fond a care?What the grave saith not—let the heart declare.On yonder green two orphan children play'd;By yonder rill two plighted lovers stray'd.In yonder shrine two lives were blent in one,And joy-bells chimed beneath a summer sun.Poor was their lot—their bread in labour found;No parent bless'd them, and no kindred own'd;They smiled to hear the wise their choice condemn;They loved—they loved—and love was wealth to them!Hark—one short week—again the holy bell!Still shone the sun, but dirge-like boom'd the knell;And when for that sweet world she knew beforeLook'd forth the bride,—she saw a grave the more.Full fifty years since then have pass'd away,Her cheek is furrow'd, and her hair is grey.Yet when she peaks ofhim(the times are rare),Hear in her voice how youth still trembles there!The very name of that young life that died,Still heaves the bosom, and recalls the bride.Lone o'er the widow's hearth those years have fled,The daily toil still wins the daily bread;No books deck sorrow with fantastic dyes:Her fond romance her woman heart supplies;And, to the sabbath of still moments given,(Day's taskwork done)—to memory, death, and heaven,There may—(let poets answer me!) belongThoughts of such pathos as had beggar'd song.

VII.

But turn the eye to Life's sequester'd vale,And lowly roofs remote in hamlets green.Oft in my boyhood where the moss-grown paleFenced quiet graves, a female form was seen;Each eve she sought the melancholy ground,And lingering paused, and wistful look'd around;If yet some footstep rustled through the grass,Timorous she shrunk, and watch'd the shadow pass.Then, when the spot lay lone amidst the gloom,Crept to one grave too humble for a tomb,There silent bow'd her face above the dead,For, if in prayer, the prayer was inly said;Still as the moonbeam, paused her quiet shade,Still as the moonbeam, through the yews to fade.Whose dust thus hallow'd by so fond a care?What the grave saith not—let the heart declare.

On yonder green two orphan children play'd;By yonder rill two plighted lovers stray'd.In yonder shrine two lives were blent in one,And joy-bells chimed beneath a summer sun.Poor was their lot—their bread in labour found;No parent bless'd them, and no kindred own'd;They smiled to hear the wise their choice condemn;They loved—they loved—and love was wealth to them!Hark—one short week—again the holy bell!Still shone the sun, but dirge-like boom'd the knell;And when for that sweet world she knew beforeLook'd forth the bride,—she saw a grave the more.Full fifty years since then have pass'd away,Her cheek is furrow'd, and her hair is grey.Yet when she peaks ofhim(the times are rare),Hear in her voice how youth still trembles there!The very name of that young life that died,Still heaves the bosom, and recalls the bride.Lone o'er the widow's hearth those years have fled,The daily toil still wins the daily bread;No books deck sorrow with fantastic dyes:Her fond romance her woman heart supplies;And, to the sabbath of still moments given,(Day's taskwork done)—to memory, death, and heaven,There may—(let poets answer me!) belongThoughts of such pathos as had beggar'd song.

VIII.Yes, while thou hopest, music fills the air;While thou rememberest, life reclothes the clod;While thou canst feel the electric chain of prayer,Breathe but a thought, and be a soul with God!Let not these forms of matter bound thine eye,He who the vanishing point of Human thingsLifts from the landscape—lost amidst the sky,Has found the Ideal which the poet sings—Has pierced the pall around the senses thrown,And is himself a poet—though unknown.

VIII.

Yes, while thou hopest, music fills the air;While thou rememberest, life reclothes the clod;While thou canst feel the electric chain of prayer,Breathe but a thought, and be a soul with God!Let not these forms of matter bound thine eye,He who the vanishing point of Human thingsLifts from the landscape—lost amidst the sky,Has found the Ideal which the poet sings—Has pierced the pall around the senses thrown,And is himself a poet—though unknown.

Self of myself, unto the future agePass, murmuring low whate'er thine own has taught,"I think, and therefore am,"—exclaim'd the Sage:As now the Man, so henceforth be the page;A life, because a thought.Through various seas, exploring shores unknown,A soul went forth, and here bequeaths its chart—Here Doubt retains the question, Grief the groan,And here may Faith still shine, as when she shoneAnd saved a sinking heart.From the lost nectar-streams of golden youth,From rivers loud with Babel's madding throng,From wells whence Lore invokes reluctant Truth,And that blest pool the wings of angels smooth,Life fills mine urns of song.Calmly to time I leave these imagesOf things experienced, suffer'd, felt, and seen;Fruits shed or tempest-torn from changeful trees,Shells murmuring back the tides in distant seas—Signs where a Soul has been.As for the form Thought takes—the rudest hillEchoes denied to gardens back may give;Life speaks in all the forms which Thought can fill;If thought once born can perish not—here stillI think, and therefore live!

Through various seas, exploring shores unknown,A soul went forth, and here bequeaths its chart—Here Doubt retains the question, Grief the groan,And here may Faith still shine, as when she shoneAnd saved a sinking heart.

From the lost nectar-streams of golden youth,From rivers loud with Babel's madding throng,From wells whence Lore invokes reluctant Truth,And that blest pool the wings of angels smooth,Life fills mine urns of song.

Calmly to time I leave these imagesOf things experienced, suffer'd, felt, and seen;Fruits shed or tempest-torn from changeful trees,Shells murmuring back the tides in distant seas—Signs where a Soul has been.

As for the form Thought takes—the rudest hillEchoes denied to gardens back may give;Life speaks in all the forms which Thought can fill;If thought once born can perish not—here stillI think, and therefore live!

FOOTNOTES[A]These Poems, with one exception, have received but little alteration since they were first composed, and are taken from the little volume called "Eva, &c." The Poem called "The Ideal World," to which I refer as an exception, appeared in a much ruder form in the earlier editions of the "Pilgrims of the Rhine," to which it served as a Preface. I recast, and, indeed, re-wrote it for the last edition of that work, from which (with slight corrections, and the omission of the verses which connected the poem with the tale by which it was first accompanied) it is now reprinted.[B]"Comus."[C]"Gulliver's Travels."[D]Plut. in "Vit. Cim."[E]"The men respect you, and the women love you."—Such was the subtle compliment paid by Prior to one equally ambitious of either distinction; viz. Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke.[F]Epicurean.[G]The celebrated comparison between Sculpture and the Ancient Painting and the Modern Dramatic Poetry, is not applicable to Euripides, who has a warmth and colour of passion which few, indeed, of the moderns have surpassed, and from which most of the modern writers have mediately, if not directly, borrowed their most animated conceptions.[H]Among the taunting accusations which Aristophanes, in his Comedy of the Frogs, lavishes upon Euripides, through the medium of Æschylus, is that of having introduced female love upon the stage! Æschylus, indeed, is made, very inconsistently, considering his Clytemnestra (Ran. 1. 1042) to declare that he does not know thatheever represented a single woman in love. At a previous period of the comedy, Euripides is also ridiculed, through a boast ironically assigned to his own lips, for having debased Tragedy by the introduction of domestic interest—(household things, οικεΐα πράγματα). Upon these and similar charges have later critics, partly in England, especially in Germany, sought by duller diatribes to perpetuate a spirit of depreciation against the only ancient tragic poet who has vitally influenced the later stage. The true merit of Euripides is seen in the very ridicule of Aristophanes.[I]"Wise Sophocles, wiser Euripides, wisest of all, Socrates," was the well-known decision of the Delphian Oracle. Yet the wisdom of Euripides was not in the philosophical sentences with which he often mars the true philosophy of the drama. His wisdom is his pathos.[J]Gibbon, after a powerful sketch of the fraud, the corruption, and the vices of George the Cappadocian, thus concludes:—"The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and the garter."—Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. iv. c. xxiii.[K]"Italian Beauty! didst thou not inspireRaphael, who died in thy embrace?"—Byron.[L]Thucyd. lib. 1, c. 68-71 (The Speech of the Corinthians).[M]Herod. lib. 6, c. 120.[N]Midsummer's Night Dream.[O]According to a belief in the East, which is associated with one of the loveliest and most familiar of Oriental superstitions the bird of Paradise is never seen to rest upon the earth—and its nest is never to be found.[P]It is supposed by many of the commentators on Dante, that in the form of his lost Beatrice, who guides him in his Vision of Heaven, the poet allegorizes Religious Faith.[Q]The gloomy Typhon of Egypt assumes many of the mystic attributes of the Principle of Life which, in the Grecian Apotheosis of the Indian Bacchus, is represented in so genial a character of exuberant joy and everlasting youth.[R]"What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was."—Pope.

[A]These Poems, with one exception, have received but little alteration since they were first composed, and are taken from the little volume called "Eva, &c." The Poem called "The Ideal World," to which I refer as an exception, appeared in a much ruder form in the earlier editions of the "Pilgrims of the Rhine," to which it served as a Preface. I recast, and, indeed, re-wrote it for the last edition of that work, from which (with slight corrections, and the omission of the verses which connected the poem with the tale by which it was first accompanied) it is now reprinted.

[B]"Comus."

[C]"Gulliver's Travels."

[D]Plut. in "Vit. Cim."

[E]"The men respect you, and the women love you."—Such was the subtle compliment paid by Prior to one equally ambitious of either distinction; viz. Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke.

[F]Epicurean.

[G]The celebrated comparison between Sculpture and the Ancient Painting and the Modern Dramatic Poetry, is not applicable to Euripides, who has a warmth and colour of passion which few, indeed, of the moderns have surpassed, and from which most of the modern writers have mediately, if not directly, borrowed their most animated conceptions.

[H]Among the taunting accusations which Aristophanes, in his Comedy of the Frogs, lavishes upon Euripides, through the medium of Æschylus, is that of having introduced female love upon the stage! Æschylus, indeed, is made, very inconsistently, considering his Clytemnestra (Ran. 1. 1042) to declare that he does not know thatheever represented a single woman in love. At a previous period of the comedy, Euripides is also ridiculed, through a boast ironically assigned to his own lips, for having debased Tragedy by the introduction of domestic interest—(household things, οικεΐα πράγματα). Upon these and similar charges have later critics, partly in England, especially in Germany, sought by duller diatribes to perpetuate a spirit of depreciation against the only ancient tragic poet who has vitally influenced the later stage. The true merit of Euripides is seen in the very ridicule of Aristophanes.

[I]"Wise Sophocles, wiser Euripides, wisest of all, Socrates," was the well-known decision of the Delphian Oracle. Yet the wisdom of Euripides was not in the philosophical sentences with which he often mars the true philosophy of the drama. His wisdom is his pathos.

[J]Gibbon, after a powerful sketch of the fraud, the corruption, and the vices of George the Cappadocian, thus concludes:—"The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and the garter."—Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. iv. c. xxiii.

[K]"Italian Beauty! didst thou not inspireRaphael, who died in thy embrace?"—Byron.

[K]

"Italian Beauty! didst thou not inspireRaphael, who died in thy embrace?"—Byron.

[L]Thucyd. lib. 1, c. 68-71 (The Speech of the Corinthians).

[M]Herod. lib. 6, c. 120.

[N]Midsummer's Night Dream.

[O]According to a belief in the East, which is associated with one of the loveliest and most familiar of Oriental superstitions the bird of Paradise is never seen to rest upon the earth—and its nest is never to be found.

[P]It is supposed by many of the commentators on Dante, that in the form of his lost Beatrice, who guides him in his Vision of Heaven, the poet allegorizes Religious Faith.

[Q]The gloomy Typhon of Egypt assumes many of the mystic attributes of the Principle of Life which, in the Grecian Apotheosis of the Indian Bacchus, is represented in so genial a character of exuberant joy and everlasting youth.

[R]"What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was."—Pope.

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