IV.The Hours steal on. Like spectres, to and froHurry hush'd footsteps through the house of woe.That nameless chill, which tells of life that dies,Broods o'er the chamber where Calantha lies.The Hours steal on—and o'er the unquiet mightOf the great Babel—reigns, dishallow'd, Night.Not, as o'er Nature's world, She comes, to keepBeneath the stars her solemn tryst with Sleep,When move the twin-born Genii side by side,And steal from earth its demons where they glide;Lull'd the spent Toil—seal'd Sorrow's heavy eyes,And dreams restore the dews of Paradise;But Night, discrown'd and sever'd from her twin,No pause for Travail, no repose for Sin,Vex'd by one chafed rebellion to her sway,Flits o'er the lamp-lit streets—a phantom day!Alone sat Morvale in the House of Gloom,Alone—no! Death was in the darken'd room;All hush'd save where, at distance faintly heard,Lucy's low sob the depth of silence stirr'd;Or where, without, the swift wheels hurrying by,Bear those who live—as if life could not die.Alone he sat! and in his breast beganEarth's deadliest strife—the Angel with the Man!Not his the light war with its feeble rageWhich prudent scruples with faint passions wage,(The small heart-conflicts which disturb the wise,Whom reason succours when the anger tries,Such as to this meek social ring belong,In conscience weak, but in discretion strong;)But that known only to man's franker state,In love a demigod—a fiend in hate,Him, not the reason but the instincts lead,Prompt in the impulse, ruthless in the deed.And if the wrong might seem too weak a causeFor the fell hate—not his were Europe's laws.—Some think dishonour, if it halt at crime,A stingless asp,—what injury in the slime?As if but this poor clay—this crumbling coilOf dust for graves—were all the foul can soil!As if the form were not the type (nor moreThan the mere type) of what chaste souls adore!That Woman-Royalty, a spotless name,For sires to boast—for sons unborn to claim,That heavenly purity of thought—as freeFrom shame as sin, the soul's virginity,If these be lost—why what remains?—the form?Hasthatsuch worth?—Go, envy then the worm!And well to him may such belief belong,And India's memories blacken more the wrong;In Eastern lands, by tritest tales convey'd,How Honour guards from sight itself the maid;Home's solemn mystery, jealous of a breath,Screen'd by religion, and begirt with death:—Again he cower'd beneath the hissing tongue,Again the gibe of scurril laughter rung,Again the Plague-breath air itself defiled,And Mockery grinn'd upon his mother's child!All the heart's chaste religion overthrown,And slander scrawl'd upon the altar-stone!And if that memory pause, what shapes succeed?The martyr leaning on the broken reed!The life slow-poison'd in the thoughts that shedShame o'er the joyless earth;—and there, the dead!Marvel not ye, the soft, the fair, the young,Whose thoughts are chords to Love's sweet music strung,Whose life the sterner genius—Hate, has spared,If on his soul no torch but Atè's glared!If in the foe was lost to sight the bride,The foe's meek child!—that memory was denied!The face, the tale, the sorrow, and the love,}All fled—all blotted from the breast: Above}The Deluge not one refuge for the Dove!}There is no Lethé like one guilty dream,It drowns all life that nears the leaden stream;And if the guilt seem sacred to the creed,Between the stars and earth, but stands the Deed!So in his breast the Titan feud began:Which shall prevail—the Angel or the Man?The Injurer comes! the lone light breaking o'er}The gloom, waves flickering to the open door,}And Arden's step is on the fatal floor!}Around he gazed, and hush'd his breath,—for FearCast its own shadow on the wall,—a drearAnd ominous prescience of the Death-king thereBreathed its chill horror to the heavy air;O'er yon recess—which bars with draperied pallThe baffled gaze—the unbroken shadows fall.The lurid embers on the hearth burn low;The clicking time-piece sounds distinct and slow;And the roused instinct hate's suspense foreshowsIn the pale Indian's lock'd and grim repose.So Arden enter'd, and thus spoke; the whileHis restless eye belied his ready smile:"Return'd, I find thy mandate, and attendTo hear a mystery, or to serve a friend.""Or front a foe!"A stifled voice replied.O'er Arden's temples flush'd the knightly pride."What means that word, which jars, not daunts, the ear?I own no foe,—if foe there be, no fear.""Pause and take heed—then with as firm a soundDisdain the danger—when the foe is found!What, if thou had'st a sister, whom the graveTo thy sole charge—a sacred orphan—gave—What, if a traitor had, with mocking vows,Won the warm heart, and woo'd the plighted spouse,Then left—a scoff;—what, if his evil fame,Alone sufficed to blast the virgin name,What—hourly gazing on a life forlorn,Amidst a solitude wall'd round with scorn,Shame at the core—death gnawing at the cheek—What, from the suitor, would the brother seek?""Wertthouthat brother," with unsteady voice,Arden replied: "not doubtful were thy choice:Were I that Suitor——""Ay?""I would prepareTo front the vengeance, or—the wrong repair.""Yes"—hiss'd the Indian—"front that mimic strife,That coward's die, which leaves to chance the life;That mockery of all justice, framed to cheatRight of its due—such vengeance thou wouldst meet!—Be Europe's justice blind and insecure!Stern Ind asks more—her son's revenge is sure!'Repair the wrong!'—Ay, in the Grave be wed!Hark! the Ghost calls thee to the bridal bed!Come (nay, this once thy hand!)—come!—from the shrineI draw the veil!—Calantha, he is thine!Man, see thy victim!—dust!—Joy—Peace and Fame,}Thesemurder'd first—the blow that smote the frame}Was the most merciful!—at length it came.}Here, by the corpse to which thy steps are led,Beside thee, murderer, stands the brother of the Dead!"Brave was Lord Arden—brave as ever beThor's northern sons—the Island Chivalry;But in that hour strange terror froze his blood,Those fierce eyes mark'd him shiver as he stood;But oh! more awful than the living foeThat frown'd beside—the Dead that smiled below!That smile which greets the shadow-peopled shore,Which says to Sorrow—"Thou canst wound no more!"Which says to Love that would rejoin—"Await!"Which says to Wrong that would redeem—"Too late!"That lingering halo of our closing skiesCold with the sunset never more to rise!Though his gay conscience many a heavier crimeThan this had borne, and drifted off to Time;Though this but sport with a fond heart which FateHad given to master, but denied to mate,Yet seem'd it as in that least sin aroseThe shapes of all that Memory's deeps disclose;The general phantom of a life whose wasteHad spoil'd each bloom by which its path was traced,Sporting at will, and moulding sport to art,With that sad holiness—the Human Heart!Upon his lip the vain excuses died,In vain his manhood struggled for its pride;Up from the dead, with one convulsive throe,He turn'd his gaze, and voiceless faced his foe:Still, as if changed by horror into stone,He saw those eyes glare doom upon his own;Saw that remorseless hand glide sternly slowTo the bright steel the robe half hid below,—Near, and more near, he felt the fiery breathBreathe on his cheek; the air was hot with death,And yet he sought nor flight—nor strove for prayer,As one chance-led into a lion's lair,Who sees his fate, nor deems submission shame,—Unarm'd to combat, and unskill'd to tame,What could this social world afford its child,Against the roused Nemæan of the wild!A lifted arm—a gleaming steel—a cryOf savage vengeance!—swiftly—suddenly,As through two clouds a star—on the dread timeShone forth an angel face and check'd the startled crime!She stood, the maiden guest, the plighted bride,The victim's daughter, by the madman's side;Her airy clasp upon the murtherous arm,Her pure eyes chaining with a solemn charm:Like some blest thought of mercy, on a soulBrooding on blood—the holy Image stole!And, as a maniac in his fellest hourLull'd by a look whose calmness is its power,Backward the Indian quail'd—and dropp'd the blade!—To see the foeman kneeling to the maid;As with new awe and wilder, Arden cried,"Out from the grave, O com'st thou, injured bride!"Then with a bound he reach'd the Indian—"Lo!I tempt thy fury, and invite thy blow;But, by man's rights o'er men,—oh, speak! whose eyesOpe, on life's brink, my youth's lost paradise?The same—the same—(look, look!)—the same—lip, brow,Form, aspect,—all and each—fresh, fair as now,Bloom'd my heart's bride!"—Silent the Indian heard,Nor seem'd to feel the grasp, nor heed the word!As when some storm-beat argosy glides freeFrom its vain wrath,—subsides a baffled sea,—His heaving breast calm'd back—the tempest fell,And the smooth surface veil'd the inward hell.Yet his eye, resting on the wondering maid,Somewhat of woe, perchance remorse, betray'd,And grew to doubtful trouble—as it sawHer aspect brightening slowly from its awe,Gazing on Arden till shone out commix'd,Doubt, hope, and joy, in the sweet eyes thus fix'd;—Till on her memory all the portrait smil'd,And voice came forth, "O Father, bless thy child!"As from the rock the bright wave leaps to day,The mighty instinct forced its living way:No need of further words;—all clear—all told;A father's arms the happy child enfold:Nature alone was audible!—and airStirr'd with the gush of tears, and gasps of murmur'd prayer!Motionless stands the Indian; on his breast,As one the death-shaft pierces, droops his crest;His hands are clasp'd—one moment the sharp thrillShakes his strong limbs;—then all once more is still;And form and aspect the firm calmness takeWhich clothes his kindred savage at the stake.So—as she turn'd her looks—the woe behindThat quiet mask, the girl's quick heart divined,—"Father!" she cried—"Not all, not all on meLavish thy blessings!—Him, who saved me, see!Him who from want—from famine—from a doom,Frowning with terrors darker than the tomb,Preserved thy child!"Before the Indian's feet}She fell, and murmur'd—"Bliss is incomplete}Unless thy heart can share—thy lips can greet!"}Again the firm frame quiver'd;—roused again,The bruisëd eagle struggled from the chain;Till words found way, and with the effort grewMan's crowning strength—Man's evil to subdue."Foeman—'tis past!—lo, in the strife betweenThy world and mine, the eternal victory seen!Thou, with light arts, my realm hast overthrown,And, see, revenge but threats to bless thine own!My home is desolate—my hearth a grave—The Heaven one hour that seem'd like justice gave,The arm is raised, the sacrifice prepared—The altar kindles, and the victim's—spared!Free as before to smite and to destroy,Thou com'st to slaughter to depart in joy!"From the wayside yon drooping flower I bore;Warm'd at my heart—its root grew to the core,Dear as its kindred bloom seen through the barBy some long-thrall'd, and loneliest prisoner—Now comes the garden's Lord, transplants the flower,And spoils the dungeon to enrich the bower?"So be it, law—and the world's rights are thineLost the stern comfort, Nature's law and mine!She calls thee 'Father,' and the long deferr'd,Long-look'd for vengeance, withers at the word!Take back thy child! Earth's gods to thee belong!}To me the iron of the sense of wrong}Heaven makes the heart which Earth oppresses—strong!"}"Not so,—not so we part! Ohusband!" criedThe Girl's full soul—"Divorce not thus thy bride!Yes, Father, yes!—in woe thy Lucy wonThis generous heart; shall joy not leave us one?"A moment Arden paused in mute surprise(How charm'd that outcast Beauty's blinded eyes?)Then, with the impulse of the human thought,Prompt to atonement for the evil wrought,"Hear her!" he said—"her words her father's heartEchoes.—Not so—nor ever, may ye part!Nobly, hast thou an elder right than mineWon to this treasure;—still its care be thine;Withhold thy pardon if thou wilt,—but takeThe holiest offering wrong to man can make!"Slowly the Indian lifts his joyless head,Pointing with slow hand to the present dead,And from slow lips comes heavily the breath:"Behold, between us evermore—is Death!""Maiden, recal my tale;—thou clasp'st the handWhich shuts the Exile from the promised land;Can the dead victim's brother, undefiled,From him who slew the sister take the child!"With that, he bent him o'er the shuddering maid,On her fair looks a solemn hand he laid;Lifted eyes, tearless still—but dark with allThe cloud, that not insuchsoft dews can fall:"If to the Dead an offering still must be,All vengeance calls for be fulfill'd in me!I make myself the victim!—Thou dread PowerGuiding to guilt the slow chastising hour,Far from the injurer's hearth by her made pure,Let this lone roof thy thunder-stroke allure!—"Go hence—(nay, near me not!) behold!—the kindOblivion closes round her darken'd mind;If, when she wake, it be awhile for grief,Soon dries the rain-drop on the April leaf!"He said, and vanish'd, with a noiseless tread,Within the folds which curtain'd round the dead!So, the stern Dervish of the East intersHis sullen soul with Death in sepulchres!His new-found prize, while yet th' unconscious senseSleeps in the mercy of the brief suspense,With gliding feet, the Father steals away.Grief bends alone above the lonely clay;But over grief and death th' Eternal EyeShines down,—and Hope lives ever in the sky.
IV.
The Hours steal on. Like spectres, to and froHurry hush'd footsteps through the house of woe.That nameless chill, which tells of life that dies,Broods o'er the chamber where Calantha lies.
The Hours steal on—and o'er the unquiet mightOf the great Babel—reigns, dishallow'd, Night.Not, as o'er Nature's world, She comes, to keepBeneath the stars her solemn tryst with Sleep,When move the twin-born Genii side by side,And steal from earth its demons where they glide;Lull'd the spent Toil—seal'd Sorrow's heavy eyes,And dreams restore the dews of Paradise;But Night, discrown'd and sever'd from her twin,No pause for Travail, no repose for Sin,Vex'd by one chafed rebellion to her sway,Flits o'er the lamp-lit streets—a phantom day!Alone sat Morvale in the House of Gloom,Alone—no! Death was in the darken'd room;All hush'd save where, at distance faintly heard,Lucy's low sob the depth of silence stirr'd;Or where, without, the swift wheels hurrying by,Bear those who live—as if life could not die.Alone he sat! and in his breast beganEarth's deadliest strife—the Angel with the Man!Not his the light war with its feeble rageWhich prudent scruples with faint passions wage,(The small heart-conflicts which disturb the wise,Whom reason succours when the anger tries,Such as to this meek social ring belong,In conscience weak, but in discretion strong;)But that known only to man's franker state,In love a demigod—a fiend in hate,Him, not the reason but the instincts lead,Prompt in the impulse, ruthless in the deed.
And if the wrong might seem too weak a causeFor the fell hate—not his were Europe's laws.—Some think dishonour, if it halt at crime,A stingless asp,—what injury in the slime?As if but this poor clay—this crumbling coilOf dust for graves—were all the foul can soil!As if the form were not the type (nor moreThan the mere type) of what chaste souls adore!That Woman-Royalty, a spotless name,For sires to boast—for sons unborn to claim,That heavenly purity of thought—as freeFrom shame as sin, the soul's virginity,If these be lost—why what remains?—the form?Hasthatsuch worth?—Go, envy then the worm!
And well to him may such belief belong,And India's memories blacken more the wrong;In Eastern lands, by tritest tales convey'd,How Honour guards from sight itself the maid;Home's solemn mystery, jealous of a breath,Screen'd by religion, and begirt with death:—Again he cower'd beneath the hissing tongue,Again the gibe of scurril laughter rung,Again the Plague-breath air itself defiled,And Mockery grinn'd upon his mother's child!All the heart's chaste religion overthrown,And slander scrawl'd upon the altar-stone!
And if that memory pause, what shapes succeed?The martyr leaning on the broken reed!The life slow-poison'd in the thoughts that shedShame o'er the joyless earth;—and there, the dead!Marvel not ye, the soft, the fair, the young,Whose thoughts are chords to Love's sweet music strung,Whose life the sterner genius—Hate, has spared,If on his soul no torch but Atè's glared!If in the foe was lost to sight the bride,The foe's meek child!—that memory was denied!The face, the tale, the sorrow, and the love,}All fled—all blotted from the breast: Above}The Deluge not one refuge for the Dove!}There is no Lethé like one guilty dream,It drowns all life that nears the leaden stream;And if the guilt seem sacred to the creed,Between the stars and earth, but stands the Deed!So in his breast the Titan feud began:Which shall prevail—the Angel or the Man?
The Injurer comes! the lone light breaking o'er}The gloom, waves flickering to the open door,}And Arden's step is on the fatal floor!}Around he gazed, and hush'd his breath,—for FearCast its own shadow on the wall,—a drearAnd ominous prescience of the Death-king thereBreathed its chill horror to the heavy air;O'er yon recess—which bars with draperied pallThe baffled gaze—the unbroken shadows fall.The lurid embers on the hearth burn low;The clicking time-piece sounds distinct and slow;And the roused instinct hate's suspense foreshowsIn the pale Indian's lock'd and grim repose.
So Arden enter'd, and thus spoke; the whileHis restless eye belied his ready smile:"Return'd, I find thy mandate, and attendTo hear a mystery, or to serve a friend.""Or front a foe!"A stifled voice replied.O'er Arden's temples flush'd the knightly pride."What means that word, which jars, not daunts, the ear?I own no foe,—if foe there be, no fear."
"Pause and take heed—then with as firm a soundDisdain the danger—when the foe is found!What, if thou had'st a sister, whom the graveTo thy sole charge—a sacred orphan—gave—What, if a traitor had, with mocking vows,Won the warm heart, and woo'd the plighted spouse,Then left—a scoff;—what, if his evil fame,Alone sufficed to blast the virgin name,What—hourly gazing on a life forlorn,Amidst a solitude wall'd round with scorn,Shame at the core—death gnawing at the cheek—What, from the suitor, would the brother seek?"
"Wertthouthat brother," with unsteady voice,Arden replied: "not doubtful were thy choice:Were I that Suitor——""Ay?""I would prepareTo front the vengeance, or—the wrong repair."
"Yes"—hiss'd the Indian—"front that mimic strife,That coward's die, which leaves to chance the life;That mockery of all justice, framed to cheatRight of its due—such vengeance thou wouldst meet!—Be Europe's justice blind and insecure!Stern Ind asks more—her son's revenge is sure!'Repair the wrong!'—Ay, in the Grave be wed!Hark! the Ghost calls thee to the bridal bed!Come (nay, this once thy hand!)—come!—from the shrineI draw the veil!—Calantha, he is thine!Man, see thy victim!—dust!—Joy—Peace and Fame,}Thesemurder'd first—the blow that smote the frame}Was the most merciful!—at length it came.}Here, by the corpse to which thy steps are led,Beside thee, murderer, stands the brother of the Dead!"
Brave was Lord Arden—brave as ever beThor's northern sons—the Island Chivalry;But in that hour strange terror froze his blood,Those fierce eyes mark'd him shiver as he stood;But oh! more awful than the living foeThat frown'd beside—the Dead that smiled below!That smile which greets the shadow-peopled shore,Which says to Sorrow—"Thou canst wound no more!"Which says to Love that would rejoin—"Await!"Which says to Wrong that would redeem—"Too late!"That lingering halo of our closing skiesCold with the sunset never more to rise!
Though his gay conscience many a heavier crimeThan this had borne, and drifted off to Time;Though this but sport with a fond heart which FateHad given to master, but denied to mate,Yet seem'd it as in that least sin aroseThe shapes of all that Memory's deeps disclose;The general phantom of a life whose wasteHad spoil'd each bloom by which its path was traced,Sporting at will, and moulding sport to art,With that sad holiness—the Human Heart!Upon his lip the vain excuses died,In vain his manhood struggled for its pride;Up from the dead, with one convulsive throe,He turn'd his gaze, and voiceless faced his foe:Still, as if changed by horror into stone,He saw those eyes glare doom upon his own;Saw that remorseless hand glide sternly slowTo the bright steel the robe half hid below,—Near, and more near, he felt the fiery breathBreathe on his cheek; the air was hot with death,And yet he sought nor flight—nor strove for prayer,As one chance-led into a lion's lair,Who sees his fate, nor deems submission shame,—Unarm'd to combat, and unskill'd to tame,What could this social world afford its child,Against the roused Nemæan of the wild!
A lifted arm—a gleaming steel—a cryOf savage vengeance!—swiftly—suddenly,As through two clouds a star—on the dread timeShone forth an angel face and check'd the startled crime!She stood, the maiden guest, the plighted bride,The victim's daughter, by the madman's side;Her airy clasp upon the murtherous arm,Her pure eyes chaining with a solemn charm:Like some blest thought of mercy, on a soulBrooding on blood—the holy Image stole!And, as a maniac in his fellest hourLull'd by a look whose calmness is its power,Backward the Indian quail'd—and dropp'd the blade!—To see the foeman kneeling to the maid;As with new awe and wilder, Arden cried,"Out from the grave, O com'st thou, injured bride!"Then with a bound he reach'd the Indian—"Lo!I tempt thy fury, and invite thy blow;But, by man's rights o'er men,—oh, speak! whose eyesOpe, on life's brink, my youth's lost paradise?The same—the same—(look, look!)—the same—lip, brow,Form, aspect,—all and each—fresh, fair as now,Bloom'd my heart's bride!"—Silent the Indian heard,Nor seem'd to feel the grasp, nor heed the word!As when some storm-beat argosy glides freeFrom its vain wrath,—subsides a baffled sea,—His heaving breast calm'd back—the tempest fell,And the smooth surface veil'd the inward hell.Yet his eye, resting on the wondering maid,Somewhat of woe, perchance remorse, betray'd,And grew to doubtful trouble—as it sawHer aspect brightening slowly from its awe,Gazing on Arden till shone out commix'd,Doubt, hope, and joy, in the sweet eyes thus fix'd;—Till on her memory all the portrait smil'd,And voice came forth, "O Father, bless thy child!"
As from the rock the bright wave leaps to day,The mighty instinct forced its living way:No need of further words;—all clear—all told;A father's arms the happy child enfold:Nature alone was audible!—and airStirr'd with the gush of tears, and gasps of murmur'd prayer!
Motionless stands the Indian; on his breast,As one the death-shaft pierces, droops his crest;His hands are clasp'd—one moment the sharp thrillShakes his strong limbs;—then all once more is still;And form and aspect the firm calmness takeWhich clothes his kindred savage at the stake.So—as she turn'd her looks—the woe behindThat quiet mask, the girl's quick heart divined,—"Father!" she cried—"Not all, not all on meLavish thy blessings!—Him, who saved me, see!Him who from want—from famine—from a doom,Frowning with terrors darker than the tomb,Preserved thy child!"
Before the Indian's feet}She fell, and murmur'd—"Bliss is incomplete}Unless thy heart can share—thy lips can greet!"}Again the firm frame quiver'd;—roused again,The bruisëd eagle struggled from the chain;Till words found way, and with the effort grewMan's crowning strength—Man's evil to subdue.
"Foeman—'tis past!—lo, in the strife betweenThy world and mine, the eternal victory seen!Thou, with light arts, my realm hast overthrown,And, see, revenge but threats to bless thine own!My home is desolate—my hearth a grave—The Heaven one hour that seem'd like justice gave,The arm is raised, the sacrifice prepared—The altar kindles, and the victim's—spared!Free as before to smite and to destroy,Thou com'st to slaughter to depart in joy!
"From the wayside yon drooping flower I bore;Warm'd at my heart—its root grew to the core,Dear as its kindred bloom seen through the barBy some long-thrall'd, and loneliest prisoner—Now comes the garden's Lord, transplants the flower,And spoils the dungeon to enrich the bower?
"So be it, law—and the world's rights are thineLost the stern comfort, Nature's law and mine!She calls thee 'Father,' and the long deferr'd,Long-look'd for vengeance, withers at the word!Take back thy child! Earth's gods to thee belong!}To me the iron of the sense of wrong}Heaven makes the heart which Earth oppresses—strong!"}
"Not so,—not so we part! Ohusband!" criedThe Girl's full soul—"Divorce not thus thy bride!Yes, Father, yes!—in woe thy Lucy wonThis generous heart; shall joy not leave us one?"
A moment Arden paused in mute surprise(How charm'd that outcast Beauty's blinded eyes?)Then, with the impulse of the human thought,Prompt to atonement for the evil wrought,"Hear her!" he said—"her words her father's heartEchoes.—Not so—nor ever, may ye part!Nobly, hast thou an elder right than mineWon to this treasure;—still its care be thine;Withhold thy pardon if thou wilt,—but takeThe holiest offering wrong to man can make!"
Slowly the Indian lifts his joyless head,Pointing with slow hand to the present dead,And from slow lips comes heavily the breath:"Behold, between us evermore—is Death!"
"Maiden, recal my tale;—thou clasp'st the handWhich shuts the Exile from the promised land;Can the dead victim's brother, undefiled,From him who slew the sister take the child!"With that, he bent him o'er the shuddering maid,On her fair looks a solemn hand he laid;Lifted eyes, tearless still—but dark with allThe cloud, that not insuchsoft dews can fall:"If to the Dead an offering still must be,All vengeance calls for be fulfill'd in me!I make myself the victim!—Thou dread PowerGuiding to guilt the slow chastising hour,Far from the injurer's hearth by her made pure,Let this lone roof thy thunder-stroke allure!—
"Go hence—(nay, near me not!) behold!—the kindOblivion closes round her darken'd mind;If, when she wake, it be awhile for grief,Soon dries the rain-drop on the April leaf!"
He said, and vanish'd, with a noiseless tread,Within the folds which curtain'd round the dead!So, the stern Dervish of the East intersHis sullen soul with Death in sepulchres!
His new-found prize, while yet th' unconscious senseSleeps in the mercy of the brief suspense,With gliding feet, the Father steals away.Grief bends alone above the lonely clay;But over grief and death th' Eternal EyeShines down,—and Hope lives ever in the sky.
I.To Joy's brisk ear there's music in the throng;Glorious the life of cities to the strong!What myriad charms, all differing, smile for allThe hardier Masks in the Great Carnival!Amidst the vast disguise, some sign betraysTo each the appointed pleasure in the maze;Ambition, pleasure, love, applause, and gold,Allure the young, and baby[S]yet the old.For here, the old, if nerves and stubborn willDefy Experience, linger, youthful still,Haunt the same rounds of idlesse, or of toilThat lure the freshest footsteps to the soil,Still sway the Fashion or control the State,Gay at the ball, or fierce at the debate.It is not youth, it is the zest of life}Surviving youth—in age itself as rife,}That fits the Babel and enjoys the strife;}But not for youourworld's bright tumults are,Soft natures, born beneath the Hesperus star,—To us, the storm is but the native breath;To you, the quickening of the gale is death;Leave Strife to battle with its changeful clime,And seek the peace which saves the weak, in time!Not Man's but Nature's world be yours!—The shadeWhere, all unseen, the cushat's nest is made,Less lone to you than pomps which but bestowThe tinkling cymbal and the painted show.The lights of revel flash from Arden's halls;There, throng the shapes that troop where Comus calls;But not Sabrina more apart and loneFrom the loud joy, on her pure coral throne,Than thou, sad maiden!—round the holy tideSwell the gay notes, the airy dancers glide;But o'er the shadowy grot the waters roll,And shut the revel from the unconscious soul!What rank has noblest, manhood's grace most fair,Bend low to her now hail'd as Arden's heir?If rumour doubts the birthright to his name,The father's wealth redeems the mother's shame;And kindly thoughts o'er lordly pride prevail,"The Earl's best lands are not in the entail!"How Arden loved his child!—how spoke that loveOf those dead worlds the light herb waves above;Layer upon layer—those strata of the past,Those gone creations buried in the last!Their bloom, their life, their glory past away,Speak in this relic of a vanish'd day.There, in that guileless face, revived anewThe visions glistening through life's morning dew,Fair Hope, pure Honour, undefilëd Truth—The young shape stood before him as his youth![T]And in this love his chastisement was found—The thorns he had planted, here enclosed him round;He, whom to see had been to love,—in vainHere loved; that heart no answer gave again—It lived upon the past,—it dwelt afar,This new-found bond from what it loved the bar.Her conscience chid, yet, while it chid, her thoughtStill the cold past, to freeze the present, brought;How love the sire round whom such shadows throng,The mother's death-bed and the lover's wrong?The dazzling gifts, which had through life beguiledAll other souls, are powerless with his child.Vain the melodious tongue, and vain the mind,Sparkling and free as wavelets in the wind;The roseate wreath the handmaid Graces twineRound sternest hearts,—soft infant, breaks on thine;Child, candid, simple, frank, to her allied,Far more, the nature sever'd from her side,With its fresh instincts and wild verdure, fann'dBy fragrant winds, from haunted Fable-land;Than all the garden graces which betrayBy the bough's riches the worn tree's decay.What charms the ear of Childhood?—not the pageOf that romance which wins the sober sage;Not the dark truths, like warning ghosts, which passAlong the pilgrim path ofRasselas;Not wit's wrought crystal which, so coldly clear,Reflects, inZadig, learning's icy sneer;Unreasoning, wondering, stronger far the thrallOf Aimée's cave,[U]or young Aladdin's hall;And so the childhood of the heart will find}Charms in the poem of a child-like mind,}To which the vision of the world is blind!}Ev'n as the savage, 'midst the desert's gloom,Sees, hid from us, the golden fruitage bloom,And, where the arid silence wraps us all,Lists the soft lapse of the glad waterfall!So Lucy loved not Arden!—vainly yearnHis moisten'd eyes;—Can softness be so stern?That soul how gentle! but that smile how cold!A marble shape the parent arms enfold!No hurrying footstep bounds his own to meet,No joyous smiles with morning's welcome greet,Not him that heart—so bless'd with love—can bless,}Lost the pure Eden of a child's caress;}He saw—he felt, and suffer'd powerless!}Remorse seized on him;—his gay spirit quail'd;The cloud crept on,—it gather'd, it prevail'd.The spectre of the past—the martyr bride,Sat at his board, and glided by his side;Sigh'd, "With the dead, Love the Consoler dies,"And spoke his sentence in his child's cold eyes!And now a strange and strong desire was born,}With the young instinct of life's credulous morn,}In that long sceptic-breast, so world-corrupt and worn.}From the rank soil in which grim London shroudsHer dead,—the green halls of the ghastly crowds—To bear his Mary's dust; the dust to layBy the clear rill, beside her father's clay,Amidst those scenes which saw the rapture-strifeAnd growth of passion—life's sweet storm of life,Consign the silent pulse, the mouldering heart,Deaf to the joy to meet—the woe to part;Rounding and binding there as into oneSad page, the tale of all beneath the sun;And there, before that grave—beneath the beamOf the lone stars, and by that starlit stream,To lead the pledge of the fresh morn of love,And while the pardoning skies seem'd soft above,Murmur, "For her sake, her, who, reconciled,Hears us in heaven, give me thy heart, my child!"But first—before his conscious soul could dareFor the consoling balm to pour the prayer,Alonethe shadows of the past to brave,Alone to commune with the accusing grave,And shrive repentance of its haunting gloomBefore Life's true Confessional—the Tomb;—Such made his dream!—Oh! not in vain the creedOf old that knit atonement with the dead!The penitent offering, the lustrating tide,The wandering, haunted, hopeful homicide,Who sees the spot to which the furies urge,Where halt the hell-hounds, and where drops the scourge,And the appeased Manes pitying sigh—"Thou hast atoned! once more enjoy the sky!"Such made the dream he rushes to fulfil!—Round the new mound babbled the living rill;A name, the name that Arden's wife should bear,Sculptured the late and vain repentance there.O'er the same bridge which once to rapture led,Went the same steps their pathway to the dead:Night after night the same lone shadow gaveA tremulous darkness to the hurrying wave;Lost,—and then, lengthening from the neighbouring yews,Dimm'd the wan shimmer of the moonlit dews,Then gain'd a grave;—and from the mound was thrown,Still as the shadow of yon funeral stone!
I.
To Joy's brisk ear there's music in the throng;Glorious the life of cities to the strong!What myriad charms, all differing, smile for allThe hardier Masks in the Great Carnival!Amidst the vast disguise, some sign betraysTo each the appointed pleasure in the maze;Ambition, pleasure, love, applause, and gold,Allure the young, and baby[S]yet the old.For here, the old, if nerves and stubborn willDefy Experience, linger, youthful still,Haunt the same rounds of idlesse, or of toilThat lure the freshest footsteps to the soil,Still sway the Fashion or control the State,Gay at the ball, or fierce at the debate.It is not youth, it is the zest of life}Surviving youth—in age itself as rife,}That fits the Babel and enjoys the strife;}But not for youourworld's bright tumults are,Soft natures, born beneath the Hesperus star,—To us, the storm is but the native breath;To you, the quickening of the gale is death;Leave Strife to battle with its changeful clime,And seek the peace which saves the weak, in time!Not Man's but Nature's world be yours!—The shadeWhere, all unseen, the cushat's nest is made,Less lone to you than pomps which but bestowThe tinkling cymbal and the painted show.
The lights of revel flash from Arden's halls;There, throng the shapes that troop where Comus calls;But not Sabrina more apart and loneFrom the loud joy, on her pure coral throne,Than thou, sad maiden!—round the holy tideSwell the gay notes, the airy dancers glide;But o'er the shadowy grot the waters roll,And shut the revel from the unconscious soul!
What rank has noblest, manhood's grace most fair,Bend low to her now hail'd as Arden's heir?If rumour doubts the birthright to his name,The father's wealth redeems the mother's shame;And kindly thoughts o'er lordly pride prevail,"The Earl's best lands are not in the entail!"
How Arden loved his child!—how spoke that loveOf those dead worlds the light herb waves above;Layer upon layer—those strata of the past,Those gone creations buried in the last!Their bloom, their life, their glory past away,Speak in this relic of a vanish'd day.There, in that guileless face, revived anewThe visions glistening through life's morning dew,Fair Hope, pure Honour, undefilëd Truth—The young shape stood before him as his youth![T]And in this love his chastisement was found—The thorns he had planted, here enclosed him round;He, whom to see had been to love,—in vainHere loved; that heart no answer gave again—It lived upon the past,—it dwelt afar,This new-found bond from what it loved the bar.Her conscience chid, yet, while it chid, her thoughtStill the cold past, to freeze the present, brought;How love the sire round whom such shadows throng,The mother's death-bed and the lover's wrong?The dazzling gifts, which had through life beguiledAll other souls, are powerless with his child.Vain the melodious tongue, and vain the mind,Sparkling and free as wavelets in the wind;The roseate wreath the handmaid Graces twineRound sternest hearts,—soft infant, breaks on thine;Child, candid, simple, frank, to her allied,Far more, the nature sever'd from her side,With its fresh instincts and wild verdure, fann'dBy fragrant winds, from haunted Fable-land;Than all the garden graces which betrayBy the bough's riches the worn tree's decay.What charms the ear of Childhood?—not the pageOf that romance which wins the sober sage;Not the dark truths, like warning ghosts, which passAlong the pilgrim path ofRasselas;Not wit's wrought crystal which, so coldly clear,Reflects, inZadig, learning's icy sneer;Unreasoning, wondering, stronger far the thrallOf Aimée's cave,[U]or young Aladdin's hall;And so the childhood of the heart will find}Charms in the poem of a child-like mind,}To which the vision of the world is blind!}Ev'n as the savage, 'midst the desert's gloom,Sees, hid from us, the golden fruitage bloom,And, where the arid silence wraps us all,Lists the soft lapse of the glad waterfall!
So Lucy loved not Arden!—vainly yearnHis moisten'd eyes;—Can softness be so stern?That soul how gentle! but that smile how cold!A marble shape the parent arms enfold!No hurrying footstep bounds his own to meet,No joyous smiles with morning's welcome greet,Not him that heart—so bless'd with love—can bless,}Lost the pure Eden of a child's caress;}He saw—he felt, and suffer'd powerless!}Remorse seized on him;—his gay spirit quail'd;The cloud crept on,—it gather'd, it prevail'd.The spectre of the past—the martyr bride,Sat at his board, and glided by his side;Sigh'd, "With the dead, Love the Consoler dies,"And spoke his sentence in his child's cold eyes!And now a strange and strong desire was born,}With the young instinct of life's credulous morn,}In that long sceptic-breast, so world-corrupt and worn.}
From the rank soil in which grim London shroudsHer dead,—the green halls of the ghastly crowds—To bear his Mary's dust; the dust to layBy the clear rill, beside her father's clay,Amidst those scenes which saw the rapture-strifeAnd growth of passion—life's sweet storm of life,Consign the silent pulse, the mouldering heart,Deaf to the joy to meet—the woe to part;Rounding and binding there as into oneSad page, the tale of all beneath the sun;And there, before that grave—beneath the beamOf the lone stars, and by that starlit stream,To lead the pledge of the fresh morn of love,And while the pardoning skies seem'd soft above,Murmur, "For her sake, her, who, reconciled,Hears us in heaven, give me thy heart, my child!"But first—before his conscious soul could dareFor the consoling balm to pour the prayer,Alonethe shadows of the past to brave,Alone to commune with the accusing grave,And shrive repentance of its haunting gloomBefore Life's true Confessional—the Tomb;—Such made his dream!—Oh! not in vain the creedOf old that knit atonement with the dead!The penitent offering, the lustrating tide,The wandering, haunted, hopeful homicide,Who sees the spot to which the furies urge,Where halt the hell-hounds, and where drops the scourge,And the appeased Manes pitying sigh—"Thou hast atoned! once more enjoy the sky!"
Such made the dream he rushes to fulfil!—Round the new mound babbled the living rill;A name, the name that Arden's wife should bear,Sculptured the late and vain repentance there.O'er the same bridge which once to rapture led,Went the same steps their pathway to the dead:Night after night the same lone shadow gaveA tremulous darkness to the hurrying wave;Lost,—and then, lengthening from the neighbouring yews,Dimm'd the wan shimmer of the moonlit dews,Then gain'd a grave;—and from the mound was thrown,Still as the shadow of yon funeral stone!
II.Meanwhile to Morvale!—Sorrow, like the windThrough trees, stirs varying o'er each human mind;Uprooting some, from some it doth but strewBlossom and leaf, which spring restores anew;From some, but shakes rich powers unknown in calm,And wakes the trouble to extract the balm.Let weaker natures suffer and despair,Great souls snatch vigour from the stormy air;Grief not the languor,—Grief the action brings;And clouds the horizon but to nerve the wings.Up from his heavy thought, one dawning day,The Indian, silent, rose, and went his way;Palace and pomp and wealth and ease resign'd,}As one new-born, he plunged amidst his kind,}Whither, with what intent, he scarce divined.}He turn'd to see, through mists obscure and dun,The domes and spires of the vex'd Babylon;Before him smiled the mead and waved the corn,And Nature's music swell'd the hymns of Morn.A sense of freedom, of the large escapeFrom the pent walls our customs round us shape;The imperfect sympathies which curse the few,Who ne'er the chase the many join pursue;The trite convention, with its cold control,Which thralls the habit, yet not links the soul;—The sense of freedom pass'd into his breast,But found no hope it flatter'd and caress'd;So the sad captive, when at length made free,Shrinks from the sunlight he had pined to see;Feels on the limb the custom of the chain,Each step a struggle and each breath a pain,And knows—return'd unto the world too late,No smile shall greet him at his lonely gate;Seal'd every eye, of old that watch'd and wept;The world he knew has vanish'd while he slept!He wander'd on, alone, on foot,—alone,As in the waste his earlier steps had known.Forth went the peasant—Adam's curse begun;—Home went the peasant in the western sun;He heard the bleating fold, the lowing herd,The last shrill carol of the nestling bird!He saw the rare lights of the hamlet gleamAnd fade;—the stars grow stiller on the stream;Swart, by the woodland, cower'd the gipsy tentWhence peer'd dark eyes that watch'd him as he went—He paused and turn'd:—Him more the outlaws charmThan the trim hostel and the happy farm.Strangers, like him, from antique lands afar,Aliens untamed where'er their wanderings are,High Syrian sires of old;[V]—dark fragments tornFrom the great creed of Isis,—now forlornIn rags—all earth their foe, and day by dayWorn in the strife with social Jove away—Wretched, 'tis true, yet less enslaved, their strife,Than our false peace with all this masque of life,Convention's lies,—the league with Custom made,The crimes of glory, and the frauds of trade.Rest and rude food the lawless Nomads yield;The dews rise ghost-like from the whitening field,And ghost-like on the wanderer glides the sleepThrough which the phantom Dreams their witching Sabbat keep!At dawn, while yet, around the Indian, layThe dark, fantastic groups,—resumed the way;Before his steps the landscape spreads more freeAnd fresh from man;—ev'n as a broadening sea,When, more and more the harbour left behind,The lone sail drifts before the strengthening wind.Behold the sun!—how stately from the East,Bright from God's presence, comes the glorious Priest!Deck'd as beseems the Mighty One to whomHeaven gives the charge to hallow and illume!How, as he comes,—through the Great Temple,Earth,Peels the rich Jubilee of grateful mirth!The infant flowers their odour-censers swinging,Through aislëd glades Air's Anthem-Chorus ringing;While, like some soul lifted aloft by love,High and alone the sky-lark halts above,High, o'er the sparkling dews, the glittering corn,Hymns his frank happiness and hails the morn!He stands upon the green hill's lighted brow,And sees the world at smiling peace below,Hamlet and farm, and thy best type, DesireOf the sad Heart,—the heaven-ascending spire!He stood and mused, and thus his musing ran:—"How strong, how feeble, is thine art, O Man!Thou coverest Earth with wonders—at thy handCurbs the meek water, blooms the subject land:Why halts thy magic here?—Why only deck'dEarth's sterile surface, mournful Architect?Why art thou powerless o'er the world within?Why raise the Eden, yet retain the sin?Why, while the earth, thou but enjoy'st an hour,Proclaims thy splendour and attests thy power,Why o'er the spirit does thy sorcery cease?—Lo the sweet landscape round thee lull'd in peace!Why wakes each heart to sorrow, care, and strife?Why with yon temple so at war the life?Why all so slight the variance, or in griefOr guilt,—the sum of suffering and relief,Between the desert's son whose wild contentRedeems no waste, enthralls no element,And ye the Magians?—ye the giant birthOf Lore and Science—Brahmins of the Earth?Behold the calm steer drinking in the stream,Behold the glad bird glancing in the beam.Say, know ye pleasure,—ye, the Eternal HeirsOf stars and spheres—life's calm content, like theirs?Your stores enrich, your powers exalt, the few,And curse the millions wealth and power subdue;And ev'n the few!—what lord of luxury knowsThe joy in strife, the sweetness in repose,Which bless the houseless Arab?—Still behind}Ease waits Disgust, and with the falling wind}Droop the dull sails ordain'd to speed the mind.}Increasing wants the sum of care increase,The piled-up knowledge but sepulchres peace,Ye quell the instincts, the free love, frank hate,And bid hard Reason hold the scales of Fate—What is your gain?—from each slain instinct springsA hydra passion, poisoning while it stings;Free love, foul lust;—the frank hate's manly strifeA plotting mask'd dissimulating life;—Truth flies the world—one falsehood taints the skyEach form a phantom, and each word a lie!"Yet what am I?—the crush'd and baffled foe,Who dared the strife, yet would denounce the blow.What arms had I against this world to wield?What mail the naked savage heart to shield?To this hoar world I brought the trusts of youth,Warm zeal for men, and fix'd repose in truth—Amongst the young I look'd for young desires,Love which adores, and Honour which aspires—Amongst the old, for souls set free from allThe earthlier chains which young desires enthrall,Serene and gentle both to soothe and chide,The sires to pity, yet the seers to guide—And lo! this civilised and boasted plan,This order'd ring and harmony of man,One hideous, cynic, levelling orgy, whereYouth Age's ice, and Age Youth's fever share—The unwrinkled brow, the calculating brain,The passion balanced with the weights of gain,And Age more hotly clutching than the boyAt the lewd bauble and the gilded toy."Why should I murmur?—why accuse the strong?I own Earth's law—the conquer'd are the wrong,Am I ambitious?—in this world I standClosed from the race, an Alien in the land.Dare I to love?—O soul, O heart, forgetThat dream, that frenzy!—what is left me yet?Revenge!"—His dark eyes flash'd—yet straightway diedThe passionate lightning—"No!—revenge denied!All the wild man in the tame slave is dead,The currents stagnate in the girded bed!Back to my desert!—yet, O sorcerer's draught,O smooth false world,—what soul that once has quaff'd,Renounces not the ancient manliness?Now, could the Desert the charm'd victim bless?Can the caged bird, escaped from bondage, shareAs erst the freedom of the hardy air?Can the poor peasant, lured by Wealth's capriceTo marts and domes, find the old native peaceIn the old hut?—on-rushing is the mind:It ne'er looks back on what it leaves behind.Once cut the cable and unfurl the sail,And spreads the boundless sea, and drifts the hurrying gale!"Come then, my Soul, thy thoughts thy desert be!Thy dreams thy comrades!—I escape to thee!Within, the gates unbar, the airs expand,No bound but Heaven confines the Spirit's Land!Such luxury yet as what of Nature livesIn Art's lone wreck, the lingering instinct gives;Joy in the sun, and mystery in the star,Light of the Unseen, commune with the Far;Man's law,—his fellow, ev'n in scorn, to save,And hope in some just World beyond the Grave!"So went he on, and day succeeds to day,Untired the step, though purposeless the way;At night his pause was at the lowliest door,The beggar'd heart makes brothers of the Poor;They who most writhe beneath Man's social wrong,But love the feeble when they hate the strong.Laud not to me the optimists who callEach knave a brother—Parasites of all—Praise not as genial his indifferent eye,Who lips the cant of mock philanthropy;He who loathes ill must more than half which liesIn this ill world with generous scorn despise;Yet of the wrong he hates, the grief he shares,His lip rebuke, his soul compassion, wears;The Hermit's wrath bespeaks the Preacher's hopeWho loves men most—men call the Misanthrope!At times with honest toil reposed—at timesWhere gnawing wants beset despairing crimes,Both still betray'd the sojourn of his soul,Here wise to cheer, there fearless to control.His that strange power the Church's Fathers hadTo awe the fierce and to console the sad;For he, like them, had sinn'd;—like them had knownLife's wild extremes;—their trials were his own!Were we as rich in charity of deedAs gold—what rock would bloom not with the seed?We give our alms, and cry—"What can we more?"One hour of time were worth a load of ore!Give to the ignorant our own wisdom!—giveSorrow our comfort,—lend to those who liveIn crime, the counsels of our virtue,—shareWith souls our souls, and Satan shall despair!Alas, what converts one man, who would takeThe cross and staff, and house with Guilt, could make!Still, in his breast, 'midst much that well might shameThe virtues Christians in themselves proclaim,There dwelt the Ancient Heathen;—still as strongDoubts in Heaven's justice,—curses for man's wrong.Revenge, denied indeed, still rankled deepIn thought—and dimm'd the day, and marr'd the sleepAnd there were hours when from the hell withinFaded the angel that had saved from sin;When the fell Fury, beckoning through the gloom,Cried "Life for life—thou hast betray'd the tomb!"For the grim Honour of the ancient timeDeem'd vengeance duty and forgiveness crime;And the stern soul fanatic conscience scared,For bloodnotshed, and injury weakly spared;—Woe, if in hours like these, O more than woe,Had the roused tiger met the pardon'd foe!Nor when his instinct of the life afarSoar'd from the soil and task'd the unanswering star,Came more thanHope—that reflex-beam of Faith—That fitful moonlight on the unknown path;And not the glory of the joyous sun,That fills with light whate'er it shines upon;From which the smiles of God as brightly fallOn the lone charnel as the festive hall!Now Autumn closes on the fading year,The chill wind moaneth through the woodlands sere;At morn the mists lie mournful on the hill,—The hum of summer's populace is still!Hush'd the rife herbage, mute the choral tree,The blithe cicala, and the murmuring bee;The plashing reed, the furrow on the glassOf the calm wave, as by the bank you passScaring the lazy trout,—delight no more;The god of fields is dead—Pan's lusty reign is o'er!Solemn and earnest—yet to holier eyesNot void of glory, arch the sober'd skiesAbove the serious earth!—The changes wroughtType our own change from passion into thought.What though our path at every step is strewnWith leaves that shadow'd in the summer noon;Through the clear space more vigorous comes the air,And the star pierces where the branch is bare.What though the birds desert the chiller light;To brighter climes the wiser speed their flight.So happy Souls at will expand the wing,And, trusting Heaven, re-settle into Spring.An old man sat beneath the yellowing beech,Vow'd to the Cross, and wise the Word to teach.A patriarch priest, from earth's worst tempters pure,Gold and Ambition!—sainted and obscure!Before his knee (the Gospel in his hands,And sunshine at his heart), a youthful listener stands!The old man spoke of Christ—of Him who bore}Our form, our woes;—that man might evermore}In succouring woe-worn man, the God, made Man, adore!}"My child," he said, "in the far-heathen days,Hope was a dream, Belief an endless maze;The wise perplex'd, yet still with glimpse sublimeOf ports dim-looming o'er the seas of TimeGuess'dHimunworshipp'd yet—the Power aboveOr Dorian Phœbus, or Pelasgic Jove!Guess'd the far realm, not won by Charon's oarNot the pale joys the brave who gain abhor;No cold Elysium where the very BlestEnvy the living and deplore the rest;[W]Where ev'n the spirit, as the form, a ghost,Dreams back life's conflicts on the shadowy coast,Hears but the clashing steel, the armëd train,And waves the airy spear, and murders hosts again!More just the prescience of the eternal goal,Which gleam'd 'mid Cyprian shades, on Zeno's soul,Or shone to Plato in the lonely cave;God in all space, and life in every grave!Wise lore and high,—but for thefewconceived;By schools discuss'd, but not by crowds believed.The angel-ladder touch'd the heavenly steep,But at its foot the patriarchs did but sleep;They did not preach to nations 'Lo your God;'No thousands follow'd where their footsteps trod;Not to the fisherman they said 'Arise!'Not to the lowly they reveal'd the skies;—Aloof and lone their shining course they ranLike stars too high to gild the world of man:[X]Then, not for schools—but for the human kind—The uncultured reason, the unletter'd mind;The poor, the oppress'd, the labourer, and the slave,God said, 'Be light!'—And light was on the Grave!No more alone to sage and hero given,Ope for all life the impartial Gates of Heaven!Enough hath Wisdom dream'd, and Reason err'd,All they would seek is found!—O'er Nature sleeps the Word!"Thou ask'st why Christ, so lenient to thedeed,So sternly claims thefaithwhich founds the creed;Because, reposed in faith the soul has calm;The hope a haven, and the wound a balm;Because the light, dim seen in Reason's Dream,On all alike, through faith alone, could stream.God will'd support to Weakness, joy to Grief,And so descended from his throne—Belief!Nor this alone—Have faith in things above,The unseen Beautiful of Heavenly Love;And from that faith what virtues have their birth,What spiritual meanings gird, like air, the Earth!A deeper thought inspires the musing sage!To youth what visions—what delights to age!A loftier genius wakens in the world,To starrier heights more vigorous wings unfurl'd.No more the outward senses reign alone,The soul of Nature glides into our own.To reason less is to imagine more;They most aspire who meekly most adore!"Therefore the God-like Comforter's decree—'His sins be loosen'd who hath faith in me.'Therefore he shunn'd the cavils of the wise,And made no schools the threshold of the skies:Therefore he taught no Pharisee to preachHis Word—the simple let the simple teach.Upon the infant on his knee he smiled,And said to Wisdom, 'Be once more a child!'"The boughs behind the old man gently stirr'd,By one unseen those Gospel accents heard;Before the preacher bow'd the pilgrim's head:"Heaven to this bourne my rescued steps hath led,Grieving, perplex'd—benighted, yet with dimHopes in God's justice,—be my guide to Him!In vain made man, I mourn and err!—restoreChildhood's pure soul, and ready trust, once more!"The old man on the stranger gazed;—untoThe stranger's side the young disciple drew,And gently clasp'd his hand;—and on the threeThe western sun shone still and smilingly;But, round—behind them—dark and lengthening layThe massive shadow of the closing day."See," said the preacher, "Darkness hurries on,But Man, toil-wearied, grieves not for the Sun;He knows the light that leaves him shall return,And hails the night because he trusts the morn!Believe in God as in the Sun,—and, lo!Along thy soul, morn's youth restored shall glow!As rests the earth, so rest, O troubled heart,Rest, till the burthen of the cloud depart;Rest, till the gradual veil, from Heaven withdrawn,Renews thy freshness as it yields the dawn!"Behold the storm-beat wanderer in repose!He lists the sounds at which the Heavens unclose,Gleam, through expanding bars, the angel-wings,And floats the music borne from seraph-strings.Holy the oldest creed which Nature gives,Proclaiming God where'er Creation lives;Buttherethe doubt will come!—the clear designAttests the Maker and suggests the Shrine;But in that visible harmonious plan,What present shows thefutureworld to man?What lore detects, beneath our crumbling clay,A soul exiled, and journeying back to day;What knowledge, in the bones of charnel urns,The etherial spark, the undying thought, discerns?How from the universal war, the preyOf life on life, can love explore the way?Search the material tribes of earth, sea, air,And the fierceSelfthat strives and slays is there.What but thatSelfto Man doth Nature teach?Where the charm'd link that binds the all to each?Where the sweet Law—(doth Nature boast its birth)—"Good will to man, and charity to earth?"Not in the world without, but that within,Reveal'd, not instinct—soul from sense can win!And where the Natural halts, where cramp'd, confined,The seen horizon bounds the baffled mind,The Inspired begins—the onward march is given;Bridging all space, nor ending ev'n in Heaven!There, veil'd on earth, we mark divinely clear,Duty and end—the There explains the Here!We see the link that binds the future band,Foeman with foeman gliding hand in hand;And feel that Hate is but an hour's—the sonOf earth, to perish when the earth is done—But Love eternal; and we turn below,To hail the brother where we loathed the foe;There, in the soft and beautiful Belief,Flows the true Lethé for the lips of Grief;There, Penury, Hunger, Misery, cast their eyes,How soon the bright Republic of the Skies!There, Love, heart-broken, sees prepared the bower,And hears the bridal step, and waits the nuptial hour!There, smiles the mother we have wept! there bloomAgain the buds asleep within the tomb;There, souls regain what hearts had lost beforeIn that fix'd moment call'd the—Evermore!Refresh'd in that soft baptism, and reborn,The Indian woke, and on the world was morn!All things seem'd new—rose-colour'd in the skiesShone the hoar peaks of the old memories;No more enshrouded with unbroken gloomCalantha's injured name and early tomb—No more with woe (how ill-suppress'd by pride!)Thought sounds the gulf that parts the promised bride!Faithful no less to Death, and true to Love,This blooms again—that shall rejoin, above!The Stoic courage had the wound conceal'd;The Christian hope the wound's sharp torture heal'd.As rude the waste, but now before him shone}The star;—he rose, and cheerful journey'd on,}Full of the God most with us when alone!}
II.
Meanwhile to Morvale!—Sorrow, like the windThrough trees, stirs varying o'er each human mind;Uprooting some, from some it doth but strewBlossom and leaf, which spring restores anew;From some, but shakes rich powers unknown in calm,And wakes the trouble to extract the balm.Let weaker natures suffer and despair,Great souls snatch vigour from the stormy air;Grief not the languor,—Grief the action brings;And clouds the horizon but to nerve the wings.
Up from his heavy thought, one dawning day,The Indian, silent, rose, and went his way;Palace and pomp and wealth and ease resign'd,}As one new-born, he plunged amidst his kind,}Whither, with what intent, he scarce divined.}He turn'd to see, through mists obscure and dun,The domes and spires of the vex'd Babylon;Before him smiled the mead and waved the corn,And Nature's music swell'd the hymns of Morn.A sense of freedom, of the large escapeFrom the pent walls our customs round us shape;The imperfect sympathies which curse the few,Who ne'er the chase the many join pursue;The trite convention, with its cold control,Which thralls the habit, yet not links the soul;—The sense of freedom pass'd into his breast,But found no hope it flatter'd and caress'd;So the sad captive, when at length made free,Shrinks from the sunlight he had pined to see;Feels on the limb the custom of the chain,Each step a struggle and each breath a pain,And knows—return'd unto the world too late,No smile shall greet him at his lonely gate;Seal'd every eye, of old that watch'd and wept;The world he knew has vanish'd while he slept!
He wander'd on, alone, on foot,—alone,As in the waste his earlier steps had known.Forth went the peasant—Adam's curse begun;—Home went the peasant in the western sun;He heard the bleating fold, the lowing herd,The last shrill carol of the nestling bird!He saw the rare lights of the hamlet gleamAnd fade;—the stars grow stiller on the stream;Swart, by the woodland, cower'd the gipsy tentWhence peer'd dark eyes that watch'd him as he went—He paused and turn'd:—Him more the outlaws charmThan the trim hostel and the happy farm.Strangers, like him, from antique lands afar,Aliens untamed where'er their wanderings are,High Syrian sires of old;[V]—dark fragments tornFrom the great creed of Isis,—now forlornIn rags—all earth their foe, and day by dayWorn in the strife with social Jove away—Wretched, 'tis true, yet less enslaved, their strife,Than our false peace with all this masque of life,Convention's lies,—the league with Custom made,The crimes of glory, and the frauds of trade.Rest and rude food the lawless Nomads yield;The dews rise ghost-like from the whitening field,And ghost-like on the wanderer glides the sleepThrough which the phantom Dreams their witching Sabbat keep!
At dawn, while yet, around the Indian, layThe dark, fantastic groups,—resumed the way;Before his steps the landscape spreads more freeAnd fresh from man;—ev'n as a broadening sea,When, more and more the harbour left behind,The lone sail drifts before the strengthening wind.Behold the sun!—how stately from the East,Bright from God's presence, comes the glorious Priest!Deck'd as beseems the Mighty One to whomHeaven gives the charge to hallow and illume!How, as he comes,—through the Great Temple,Earth,Peels the rich Jubilee of grateful mirth!The infant flowers their odour-censers swinging,Through aislëd glades Air's Anthem-Chorus ringing;While, like some soul lifted aloft by love,High and alone the sky-lark halts above,High, o'er the sparkling dews, the glittering corn,Hymns his frank happiness and hails the morn!
He stands upon the green hill's lighted brow,And sees the world at smiling peace below,Hamlet and farm, and thy best type, DesireOf the sad Heart,—the heaven-ascending spire!
He stood and mused, and thus his musing ran:—"How strong, how feeble, is thine art, O Man!Thou coverest Earth with wonders—at thy handCurbs the meek water, blooms the subject land:Why halts thy magic here?—Why only deck'dEarth's sterile surface, mournful Architect?Why art thou powerless o'er the world within?Why raise the Eden, yet retain the sin?Why, while the earth, thou but enjoy'st an hour,Proclaims thy splendour and attests thy power,Why o'er the spirit does thy sorcery cease?—Lo the sweet landscape round thee lull'd in peace!Why wakes each heart to sorrow, care, and strife?Why with yon temple so at war the life?Why all so slight the variance, or in griefOr guilt,—the sum of suffering and relief,Between the desert's son whose wild contentRedeems no waste, enthralls no element,And ye the Magians?—ye the giant birthOf Lore and Science—Brahmins of the Earth?Behold the calm steer drinking in the stream,Behold the glad bird glancing in the beam.Say, know ye pleasure,—ye, the Eternal HeirsOf stars and spheres—life's calm content, like theirs?Your stores enrich, your powers exalt, the few,And curse the millions wealth and power subdue;And ev'n the few!—what lord of luxury knowsThe joy in strife, the sweetness in repose,Which bless the houseless Arab?—Still behind}Ease waits Disgust, and with the falling wind}Droop the dull sails ordain'd to speed the mind.}Increasing wants the sum of care increase,The piled-up knowledge but sepulchres peace,Ye quell the instincts, the free love, frank hate,And bid hard Reason hold the scales of Fate—What is your gain?—from each slain instinct springsA hydra passion, poisoning while it stings;Free love, foul lust;—the frank hate's manly strifeA plotting mask'd dissimulating life;—Truth flies the world—one falsehood taints the skyEach form a phantom, and each word a lie!
"Yet what am I?—the crush'd and baffled foe,Who dared the strife, yet would denounce the blow.What arms had I against this world to wield?What mail the naked savage heart to shield?To this hoar world I brought the trusts of youth,Warm zeal for men, and fix'd repose in truth—Amongst the young I look'd for young desires,Love which adores, and Honour which aspires—Amongst the old, for souls set free from allThe earthlier chains which young desires enthrall,Serene and gentle both to soothe and chide,The sires to pity, yet the seers to guide—And lo! this civilised and boasted plan,This order'd ring and harmony of man,One hideous, cynic, levelling orgy, whereYouth Age's ice, and Age Youth's fever share—The unwrinkled brow, the calculating brain,The passion balanced with the weights of gain,And Age more hotly clutching than the boyAt the lewd bauble and the gilded toy.
"Why should I murmur?—why accuse the strong?I own Earth's law—the conquer'd are the wrong,Am I ambitious?—in this world I standClosed from the race, an Alien in the land.Dare I to love?—O soul, O heart, forgetThat dream, that frenzy!—what is left me yet?Revenge!"—His dark eyes flash'd—yet straightway diedThe passionate lightning—"No!—revenge denied!All the wild man in the tame slave is dead,The currents stagnate in the girded bed!Back to my desert!—yet, O sorcerer's draught,O smooth false world,—what soul that once has quaff'd,Renounces not the ancient manliness?Now, could the Desert the charm'd victim bless?Can the caged bird, escaped from bondage, shareAs erst the freedom of the hardy air?Can the poor peasant, lured by Wealth's capriceTo marts and domes, find the old native peaceIn the old hut?—on-rushing is the mind:It ne'er looks back on what it leaves behind.Once cut the cable and unfurl the sail,And spreads the boundless sea, and drifts the hurrying gale!
"Come then, my Soul, thy thoughts thy desert be!Thy dreams thy comrades!—I escape to thee!Within, the gates unbar, the airs expand,No bound but Heaven confines the Spirit's Land!Such luxury yet as what of Nature livesIn Art's lone wreck, the lingering instinct gives;Joy in the sun, and mystery in the star,Light of the Unseen, commune with the Far;Man's law,—his fellow, ev'n in scorn, to save,And hope in some just World beyond the Grave!"
So went he on, and day succeeds to day,Untired the step, though purposeless the way;At night his pause was at the lowliest door,The beggar'd heart makes brothers of the Poor;They who most writhe beneath Man's social wrong,But love the feeble when they hate the strong.Laud not to me the optimists who callEach knave a brother—Parasites of all—Praise not as genial his indifferent eye,Who lips the cant of mock philanthropy;He who loathes ill must more than half which liesIn this ill world with generous scorn despise;Yet of the wrong he hates, the grief he shares,His lip rebuke, his soul compassion, wears;The Hermit's wrath bespeaks the Preacher's hopeWho loves men most—men call the Misanthrope!
At times with honest toil reposed—at timesWhere gnawing wants beset despairing crimes,Both still betray'd the sojourn of his soul,Here wise to cheer, there fearless to control.His that strange power the Church's Fathers hadTo awe the fierce and to console the sad;For he, like them, had sinn'd;—like them had knownLife's wild extremes;—their trials were his own!Were we as rich in charity of deedAs gold—what rock would bloom not with the seed?We give our alms, and cry—"What can we more?"One hour of time were worth a load of ore!Give to the ignorant our own wisdom!—giveSorrow our comfort,—lend to those who liveIn crime, the counsels of our virtue,—shareWith souls our souls, and Satan shall despair!Alas, what converts one man, who would takeThe cross and staff, and house with Guilt, could make!
Still, in his breast, 'midst much that well might shameThe virtues Christians in themselves proclaim,There dwelt the Ancient Heathen;—still as strongDoubts in Heaven's justice,—curses for man's wrong.Revenge, denied indeed, still rankled deepIn thought—and dimm'd the day, and marr'd the sleepAnd there were hours when from the hell withinFaded the angel that had saved from sin;When the fell Fury, beckoning through the gloom,Cried "Life for life—thou hast betray'd the tomb!"For the grim Honour of the ancient timeDeem'd vengeance duty and forgiveness crime;And the stern soul fanatic conscience scared,For bloodnotshed, and injury weakly spared;—Woe, if in hours like these, O more than woe,Had the roused tiger met the pardon'd foe!
Nor when his instinct of the life afarSoar'd from the soil and task'd the unanswering star,Came more thanHope—that reflex-beam of Faith—That fitful moonlight on the unknown path;And not the glory of the joyous sun,That fills with light whate'er it shines upon;From which the smiles of God as brightly fallOn the lone charnel as the festive hall!
Now Autumn closes on the fading year,The chill wind moaneth through the woodlands sere;At morn the mists lie mournful on the hill,—The hum of summer's populace is still!Hush'd the rife herbage, mute the choral tree,The blithe cicala, and the murmuring bee;The plashing reed, the furrow on the glassOf the calm wave, as by the bank you passScaring the lazy trout,—delight no more;The god of fields is dead—Pan's lusty reign is o'er!Solemn and earnest—yet to holier eyesNot void of glory, arch the sober'd skiesAbove the serious earth!—The changes wroughtType our own change from passion into thought.What though our path at every step is strewnWith leaves that shadow'd in the summer noon;Through the clear space more vigorous comes the air,And the star pierces where the branch is bare.What though the birds desert the chiller light;To brighter climes the wiser speed their flight.So happy Souls at will expand the wing,And, trusting Heaven, re-settle into Spring.
An old man sat beneath the yellowing beech,Vow'd to the Cross, and wise the Word to teach.A patriarch priest, from earth's worst tempters pure,Gold and Ambition!—sainted and obscure!Before his knee (the Gospel in his hands,And sunshine at his heart), a youthful listener stands!
The old man spoke of Christ—of Him who bore}Our form, our woes;—that man might evermore}In succouring woe-worn man, the God, made Man, adore!}"My child," he said, "in the far-heathen days,Hope was a dream, Belief an endless maze;The wise perplex'd, yet still with glimpse sublimeOf ports dim-looming o'er the seas of TimeGuess'dHimunworshipp'd yet—the Power aboveOr Dorian Phœbus, or Pelasgic Jove!Guess'd the far realm, not won by Charon's oarNot the pale joys the brave who gain abhor;No cold Elysium where the very BlestEnvy the living and deplore the rest;[W]Where ev'n the spirit, as the form, a ghost,Dreams back life's conflicts on the shadowy coast,Hears but the clashing steel, the armëd train,And waves the airy spear, and murders hosts again!More just the prescience of the eternal goal,Which gleam'd 'mid Cyprian shades, on Zeno's soul,Or shone to Plato in the lonely cave;God in all space, and life in every grave!Wise lore and high,—but for thefewconceived;By schools discuss'd, but not by crowds believed.The angel-ladder touch'd the heavenly steep,But at its foot the patriarchs did but sleep;They did not preach to nations 'Lo your God;'No thousands follow'd where their footsteps trod;Not to the fisherman they said 'Arise!'Not to the lowly they reveal'd the skies;—Aloof and lone their shining course they ranLike stars too high to gild the world of man:[X]Then, not for schools—but for the human kind—The uncultured reason, the unletter'd mind;The poor, the oppress'd, the labourer, and the slave,God said, 'Be light!'—And light was on the Grave!No more alone to sage and hero given,Ope for all life the impartial Gates of Heaven!Enough hath Wisdom dream'd, and Reason err'd,All they would seek is found!—O'er Nature sleeps the Word!
"Thou ask'st why Christ, so lenient to thedeed,So sternly claims thefaithwhich founds the creed;Because, reposed in faith the soul has calm;The hope a haven, and the wound a balm;Because the light, dim seen in Reason's Dream,On all alike, through faith alone, could stream.God will'd support to Weakness, joy to Grief,And so descended from his throne—Belief!Nor this alone—Have faith in things above,The unseen Beautiful of Heavenly Love;And from that faith what virtues have their birth,What spiritual meanings gird, like air, the Earth!A deeper thought inspires the musing sage!To youth what visions—what delights to age!A loftier genius wakens in the world,To starrier heights more vigorous wings unfurl'd.No more the outward senses reign alone,The soul of Nature glides into our own.To reason less is to imagine more;They most aspire who meekly most adore!
"Therefore the God-like Comforter's decree—'His sins be loosen'd who hath faith in me.'Therefore he shunn'd the cavils of the wise,And made no schools the threshold of the skies:Therefore he taught no Pharisee to preachHis Word—the simple let the simple teach.Upon the infant on his knee he smiled,And said to Wisdom, 'Be once more a child!'"
The boughs behind the old man gently stirr'd,By one unseen those Gospel accents heard;Before the preacher bow'd the pilgrim's head:"Heaven to this bourne my rescued steps hath led,Grieving, perplex'd—benighted, yet with dimHopes in God's justice,—be my guide to Him!In vain made man, I mourn and err!—restoreChildhood's pure soul, and ready trust, once more!"The old man on the stranger gazed;—untoThe stranger's side the young disciple drew,And gently clasp'd his hand;—and on the threeThe western sun shone still and smilingly;But, round—behind them—dark and lengthening layThe massive shadow of the closing day."See," said the preacher, "Darkness hurries on,But Man, toil-wearied, grieves not for the Sun;He knows the light that leaves him shall return,And hails the night because he trusts the morn!Believe in God as in the Sun,—and, lo!Along thy soul, morn's youth restored shall glow!As rests the earth, so rest, O troubled heart,Rest, till the burthen of the cloud depart;Rest, till the gradual veil, from Heaven withdrawn,Renews thy freshness as it yields the dawn!"
Behold the storm-beat wanderer in repose!He lists the sounds at which the Heavens unclose,Gleam, through expanding bars, the angel-wings,And floats the music borne from seraph-strings.Holy the oldest creed which Nature gives,Proclaiming God where'er Creation lives;Buttherethe doubt will come!—the clear designAttests the Maker and suggests the Shrine;But in that visible harmonious plan,What present shows thefutureworld to man?What lore detects, beneath our crumbling clay,A soul exiled, and journeying back to day;What knowledge, in the bones of charnel urns,The etherial spark, the undying thought, discerns?How from the universal war, the preyOf life on life, can love explore the way?Search the material tribes of earth, sea, air,And the fierceSelfthat strives and slays is there.What but thatSelfto Man doth Nature teach?Where the charm'd link that binds the all to each?Where the sweet Law—(doth Nature boast its birth)—"Good will to man, and charity to earth?"Not in the world without, but that within,Reveal'd, not instinct—soul from sense can win!And where the Natural halts, where cramp'd, confined,The seen horizon bounds the baffled mind,The Inspired begins—the onward march is given;Bridging all space, nor ending ev'n in Heaven!There, veil'd on earth, we mark divinely clear,Duty and end—the There explains the Here!We see the link that binds the future band,Foeman with foeman gliding hand in hand;And feel that Hate is but an hour's—the sonOf earth, to perish when the earth is done—But Love eternal; and we turn below,To hail the brother where we loathed the foe;There, in the soft and beautiful Belief,Flows the true Lethé for the lips of Grief;There, Penury, Hunger, Misery, cast their eyes,How soon the bright Republic of the Skies!There, Love, heart-broken, sees prepared the bower,And hears the bridal step, and waits the nuptial hour!There, smiles the mother we have wept! there bloomAgain the buds asleep within the tomb;There, souls regain what hearts had lost beforeIn that fix'd moment call'd the—Evermore!
Refresh'd in that soft baptism, and reborn,The Indian woke, and on the world was morn!All things seem'd new—rose-colour'd in the skiesShone the hoar peaks of the old memories;No more enshrouded with unbroken gloomCalantha's injured name and early tomb—No more with woe (how ill-suppress'd by pride!)Thought sounds the gulf that parts the promised bride!Faithful no less to Death, and true to Love,This blooms again—that shall rejoin, above!The Stoic courage had the wound conceal'd;The Christian hope the wound's sharp torture heal'd.As rude the waste, but now before him shone}The star;—he rose, and cheerful journey'd on,}Full of the God most with us when alone!}