Chapter III: Introduction: To Eidolon (2)

There are pure angels ever round the earth,
As stars are round the azure dome of heaven,
In sunshine and in twilight and in gloom,
That with the sweetness of an unseen love
Circle humanity, and like the lark
Hid in the glory of the noonday sun,
Pour o'er the world heaven's constant tenderness.
Some in the soft-hued glimmering of dreams,
Through the unfolded lattices of sleep,
Steal to the soul in visions of delight,
Pure and benignant as the evening dew
That cools the bosom of the blushing rose.
Some all unseen, save in the blessed care,
That like a lover's arm, from life's rough way
Presses the serried thorns that choke it up;
But all as with an atmosphere of love,
And peace and strength encircling man, alike
Within him and without, that the foul breath
Of pestilent corruption touch him not.
Some are there who have loved and suffered much
For earth, as a fond mother doth who sees
Her babe die in her bosom; who have traced
Man to the precipital brink of ruin,
With open arms to charm him back from death,
Rejected and despised; who on the scroll
Of conscience, as with words of living light,
Stamp the pure precepts of a holy lore,
That sin obliterates and sets at naught.

MAN.

Oh! how polluted must man's spirit show
In contrast with these ministers of heaven,
That e'en beneath frail woman's purity
Dims like a taper 'neath the light of day!--
Methinks if from our eyes sin's blindness fell,
And gave pure angels to our ravish'd sight,
Gliding around us clad in the bright robes
Of love and immortality, this earth
Would be like heaven. O! 'twere a blessed change,
And perfect as when Death's exulting sigh
Swoons through the empty chambers of the soul
His note of liberty.

SPIRIT.

'Tis man alone
Makes Earth less Paradise; its frame is full
Of perfect blessedness, which to the pure
Were Heaven in all its fulness; but mankind
Are crimsoned o'er with sin, which like blood-stains
A soundless ocean could not cleanse away.
And thus all flesh must thaw back to the dust
From which it sprang, as ice doth unto water,
Before the soul is purified for heaven.
Men little dream how near heaven is to them
In possibility, how far in deed.
As little as they dream amid their mirth,
Death stalks beside them; that his shadow falls
In the same mirror where the maiden sees
The image of her loveliness, and flits
Amongst the whirl of revelry and show.

SCENE. _A rock overhanging the Sea._

MAN.

A rock and the wild waters! 'Tis a spot
To moralize on life, and strip the world
Of all its gaudy trappings and false gloss,
That like the daubing on a wanton's cheek,
Crimsons the paleness of disease and shame,
And with life's semblance mocks a rotten heart.

O wild, wild sea! eternal wilderness
Of strife and toil and fruitless energy!
Birthplace and Tomb! whence unto being spring
Successive myriads to run their race,
Rage, labour, and grow hoar, then pass away
With all their deeds and memories, and cede
Their petty sphere of inches to another.
O wild, wild sea! thou bosom of all passion,
And thought, and hope, and longing infinite!
That struggling ever from the riven caves,
And fathomless abysses of the Earth,
As from the cells of an awakened soul,
Fling your hoarse murmurs and aspiring groans
To the strong winged winds, that puff them on
In sport and in derision; that art stirred
To tumult and to madness by the breath
Of unseen currents, unsubstantial air,
That passes on, and leaves a foaming train
To wonder at the thing that angered them.
O wild, wild sea! soul of indifference!
Lashing eternally the rifted sands
And lonely shores about ye; swallowing
The wreck of man's dependence, and the life
That struggles with ye for the prize of love,
And joy, and sorrow, clinging round its soul;
That flowest on in coldness and self-aim
O'er the dissolving frames of countless waves,
That sink like generations, and so rise,
Pausing or stilling never, numb'ring up
A myriad selfish interests to make
Thy sum of being perfect. Man may read
The lore of human nature in thee, writ
Not with the pen of flattery, that gilds
The base past recognition, but all plain
And coloured only by its truthfulness;
The good and ill alike displayed, that lie
Within the sounding of its inmost soul.
O! thought might wander o'er this briny waste,
Dove-like, without one Ark whereon to rest
From the interminable ebb and flow,
As many a soul has flutter'd o'er the earth,
Weary and faint, as mine did till it found
A haven in the bosom of sweet love.

SPIRIT.

Then thou hast loved?

MAN.

Ay! so that life is bound
About by it, as by a Gordian knot,
Inseparable, until Death's sharp blade
Divide its inmost coil. There is a time
When all that sweeten'd youth and childhood dulls
And fades to nothingness, as the faint moon
Pales at the bright foreshadowing of morn,
And leaves heaven void, when every chord is dumb
That once made music in the soul, and life
Is still and silent, though it be the pause
That presages the storm and bitter strife,
Whose fury ofttimes bends the spirit down,
And strips it of its blossoms; Then to me
O'er the blank chaos of my being came,
As from the haunted chambers of deep thought,
A glorious presence--an imagined grace,
Whose footfalls as she rose pulsed thro' my heart
With tremblings exquisite. It was sweet Love,
The Blessed! the Indwelling! that doth make
A virgin firmament for its pure light,
Then at the pleading of its own deep want,
Shines forth in glory and in tenderness.

Amongst the laughing and the gay I went,
Seeking for one to realize love's dream,
As mid the countless hosts of heaven the sage
Peers for the brightness of a new-born star.
Then, soft hands trembled in my palm, and forms
Graceful and rounded with the bloom of youth,
Flitted about me in the languishment
Of music and sweet motion; voices low,
And modulate from laughter unto sadness,
Hung on the air like perfume on the wind,
And eyes, flashing, and mild, and fond, spake too,
A very Babel of soft speech, and yet--
I sighed. Life seemed to me a painted daub--all glare,
And show, and tinsel, where the eye in vain
Sought some green spot to rest on, till a mist
Swam o'er it as in gazing at the sun.

SPIRIT.

Man ofttimes palms an artificial life
Upon the heart for that which is the true,
Though to the real it be what a flower
Is to its mimicry, a tinted rag
Unsweetened by the breath of summer's love.
Joy flows alone from an _untroubled_ spring,
Unstirred by the false whirl of giddy dreams,
That send the dregs of passion through its veins.

Amid that gay assemblage many wore,
Perchance, a laughing vizard o'er a heart
Empty and sad; many a vacant smile,
Like a sun-ray upon the winter's snow
That freezes yet beneath it. Some there were
Who flutter'd round its glitter, like a moth
That takes a petty rush-light for the sun;
And few who let the honest heart appear
Unveiled mid Fashion's frigid masquerade.
Didst thou look deeper than the outward guise?

MAN.

Ay! some there were so lovely, that the eye
Dreamt of them in its night, when they were gone;
But when I search'd them, like a single flower
The outer blossoms parted, and showed nought within.

Oh! then I fled, as one whose own wild thoughts
Bid him outstrip the curbless winds of heaven,
And storm the bulwarks of sublime desire.
Want grew within me as a famine grows
With every hour that fleets unsatisfied;
But in my wanderings there rose a spot,
Where man had wrought pure nature's counsel out,
Nor reared a shrine to mock her loveliness;
Yet this I heeded not, for there was one
Who came to me on sudden with such joy
That I stirred not, but like one weak with thirst,
Let the life draught flow o'er my powerless lips.

O! yet I see her, with those blessed eyes
Slaying my soul with beauty; eyes so deep,
That in their azure ocean of soft light
Thought shrank into a fathom length; and smiles,
Stealing their sweetness from a heaven of love,
And joy, and immortality within,
Whence all emotion, angel-like, came forth,
Clad in a vesture of celestial light.
Her face beamed on me like a glimpse of heaven
Caught in the rapture of prophetic trance,
That in all day-light thoughts, and shaded dreams,
Haunts the deep soul for ever. As she went,
Grace lapt its mantle o'er her, like the gold
On fleecy-bosomed clouds in sunny skies.
O Spirit! she was beautiful! a thing
Guileless and pure, as though her youth had past
With Heaven's own children in the light of God,
Thence come to make a paradise of earth,
And breathe the transports of transcendant bliss
Like floral exhalations through my soul.

And I--I loved her with the love of heaven,
That melts down time and space, and all between,
And clasps an essence in the soul's embrace;
And from her being there would ever flow
Full streams of holy melody, that lapt
Earth, air, and heaven, and all terrestrial forms
With charms bright as heaven's new-created light.
And as she gazed on the blue firmament,
And shrined the stars with her pure thoughts, and dreamt
Of that which lay beyond; I gazed on her,
And drew Elysian theories of Heaven,
As though borne thither by wing'd seraphims.
Oh! what is there in love that wreathes all things
With an unfading halo of sweet light,
Making the mystery of Nature clear?

SPIRIT.

Love, like the sun, clears from the soul all clouds
That darken understanding, and wrap earth
Round with a misty curtain, through whose folds
The lineaments of beauty glimmer forth
In undefined luxuriance. 'Tis a spell
That brings by sympathetic influence
The soul-deep glory from the universe.
All things are beautiful to those who love,
Whether in mind or matter. Life becomes
A pathway of soft light and radiance,
Whereon the spirit glideth unto heaven
As angels up the sunshine. Thought and deed
Are blessed in the framing and the act,
Fashioned and temper'd with pure charity,
That knits man unto man, and grants the weak
Exemption from the thraldom of the strong;--
And things inanimate, that yet are pierced
Through with the spirit of eternal love,
As with a life that circulates and glows
In ruddy currents throughout all their frame,
By gracious intuition stand revealed
In all the plenitude of Eden charms.
Then Nature's language reaches to the heart,
As through the modulations of a song
Sweet thoughts flow o'er the spirit. What was fair
Seems fairer, what was vividless grows bright.

MAN.

Ay! she made all things beautiful to me,
Drawing, with youth's pure privilege, the sting
Of guilt and wrong from life--'twas as the sun
Rose on a sphere seen but by night before.
Ah! bitter image of a transient thing,
That shineth with Promethean glory, then
Sinks 'neath the shadow of Eternity!
Oh Spirit! day by day I saw her fade,
The life within her grew more spiritual,
Triumphing in the weakness of the flesh,
And in her eyes supernal brightness shone,
As from the glory of approaching heaven.
Dear child! that kisses could not keep awake,
Or woo from the sweet love of Mother-land.
She lay within these arms, and angels came
And whispered her away with them to Heaven,
So softly, that I knew it not, but still
Murmured my heart to her. To sense she lay
Upon my breast, and yet she was in heaven;
This but the earthly mantle she had shed.
There were those silken locks that curtained her,
And her sweet lips that I had kissed but now;
From whence, as from a living spring of love,
Trickled pure heaven streams o'er my life's dull waste.
But Oh! I kissed the soft lids from her eyes,
And knew my desolation, for the soul
That was their soul, as light is day's, no more
Stood in their dewy portals, like a queen
Swaying true-hearted multitudes. Oh heaven!
'Twas wonderful to fold her thus unto me,
With life's ripe bloom upon her cheeks, and grace
Clinging round her like a bridal robe,
Yet feel that she, the verity, the self,
Was floating, worlds-off, on the stream of souls
To God. Oh mind! 'tis ever thus with thee!
Thou graspest at material shadowings,
Whilst that the immaterial substance of all good
Flies from thee like a vapour from the wind;
So that thou hast a clod within thine hand,
Life seems eternal, till the crumbling dust
Runs through thy clenching fingers, and thy gage
Mocks thee up from the mould'ring frame of Earth.
There is no mystery like Death; it comes
Sightless as the first breath of infant life,
And goes to an unsearched Eternity--
The End and the Beginning are alike.

SPIRIT.

Death strikes upon the soul the last deep chime,
That tells it Time's short hour has passed away,
Eternity's undialled course begun;
There is a trackless ocean round this life
Whose tide is tremulous with unseen gales,
And storms that lash it off to fury--shades
Of deep chaotic darkness ever hang
Above it, like the thunder crags of heaven,
And sounds, as of the swooning of a blast
Through time-worn caverns, flap their heavy wings
On the white foam crest of the surging waves.
O man! that standest on the pinnacle
Of life's abysmal heights with failing heart
And reeling brain, gaze on that troubled gulf--
It is thy pathway to the Better-Land,
Which thou must traverse with a sea-bird's flight,
Whose rest is on the bosom of the storm.
Ay! 'tis a fearful plunge! Now think of Death--
There is an angel merciful and strong,
Hovering ever o'er the weary world,
That foldeth in his arms the weak, whose feet
Totter upon the brink of the Inane,
And, like a mother, wafts them from Earth's strife
Into the bosom of eternal rest;
Is he not merciful who spares so long
The guilty for repentance, and the pure
Transplants in all their purity to heaven?
Death harms not aught that's lovely, that poor frame
Is mere corruption, which the soul makes fair
By luminous infusion, and the soul
Feels not Death's breathing on its healthful bloom,
But like a virgin doffs its earthly veil,
And gives its fullest beauty to the light.

MAN.

O Spirit! tell me, shall we meet again
As those who have loved well in Time; or drop
All memories of Earth with the sad dust
The soul shakes from it at the gate of heaven?
'Twere bitter to regard her angel there,
Unknown, and lost amid the myriad host
Of spirits glorified!

SPIRIT.

The soul is wrought
In an eternal mould, which still remains
Unscathed 'mid the vicissitudes of flesh;
And the same power that makes identity
'Twixt man and man, being the soul within,
That constitutes the _Self_ of every man,
Bears its distinctive features when it sheds
The crysalis of frail humanity;
They who have loved on Earth will love in Heaven,
Through each the current flowing unto God,
Thence shed again in blessing on their souls,
As from clear tided springs a summer cloud
Gathers its dewy freight to yield again,
In sunny showers upon the native earth.

True Love is Earth's blest blessedness. All else,
Wealth, fame, nobility, and the poor gauds
Wherewith man trinkets out his little life,
End with the dust that rattles on his bier;
But Love, like a rich heritage, ascends
With the freed spirit to the throne of God,
There to be perfected and purified
To commune with the Children of the Light.
Therefore love much on Earth, keeping the heart
Pure from the rank pollutions of the flesh,
That like a mould'ring bank hangs loose above
To launch its filth upon each errant wave;
Let thy love circle wider with all time,
Like the light ripple round a pebble plunge,
Wider, and wider till the swells subside
In the calm fulness of Eternity.
The love of heaven flows in _one_ stream to God,
As from a fountain'd unison of soul
Wherein all spirits blend inseparably;
There is no isolation but in Time,
For Death that units out mortality
Like minutes on a dial, now, will break
His arrows 'mid the ruins of the Earth,
Proclaiming _everlasting_ life and love,
The consummation of all unity.

SCENE. _Hill and Dale--Morning._

MAN.

The breath of morn is stealing o'er my brow
All redolent of life, and health, and joy,
As the first breeze that fans the prisoner's cheeks,
And welcomes him to Liberty. The Earth
Is yet in her sweet childhood innocence,
Ere the dark cloud of worldly interests
Obscure her taintless heavens, and the blue mist,
Which is the spirit of the rising dew,
Hangs o'er it like the sadness of first love,
That makes youth beautiful. The lark is up
And singing like a disembodied soul
Within the brightness of the blessed sun,
Telling of naught but heaven and happiness;
There is no dew upon her bosom now,
For the young beams have kissed it utterly;
Yet over flower, and bud, and blade there lies
The crystal tissue, trembling with soft light,
As the young day moves gaily up the sky,
And sheds his guerdon o'er the waiting Earth.

O what a charm there is in purity,
Of morn, life, love, and nature all. This scene,
So clear and calm and peaceful, that it fills
The soul with its o'erflowing blessedness,
Pales 'neath the glare of noon, and man's rude lust,
To scarce the semblance of its former self.
But with the heart--O God! Thy richest gift
Is Innocence, that like a quenchless spring
Of everlasting light, encircles life
With beauty and unfading radiance,
Keeping all sense and feeling fresh and sweet
As the untainted breathing of the morn.

How lovely is all nature, separate
From man! There is no whispering of strife
Or sorrow here, naught to inform the soul
Of man's deep wretchedness and sin. No lust
To justify the wretch who binds his soul
In the drear darkness of a murky cell,
Scraping for gold as beasts do in the earth
For carrion, and counting life-time out
By ducats; closing house and heart alike
To the benignant sunshine. If our hearts
Could lave in Lethe's cleansing stream sometimes,
Till evil vanished from its memory,
And left a virgin tablet for the pen
Of Nature, life would be as sweet as love.

What far extremes of woe and blessedness
This earth can yield! The woe create, the joy
Begotten from a never failing womb;
Woe! fashioned out of craft, and guile, and sin,
That hungereth for prey, till, as it were,
The mother eats the babe that sucks her breast;
The joy! inherent and diffused like light
From the eternal glory of the sun,
Gather'd from all things, sight, and sound, and sense,
E'en from the very breeze that whispers us
Of yielded sweetness and unhoarded gifts.

O God! preserve my heart emancipate
From all world feelings that must die with Time,
Like things unworthy of Eternity;
Sow in my spirit seed that may spring up
And bud and increase throughout life, until
It blossom fully in the light of heaven,
Grant that the evil of the world may ne'er
Harden my heart against the sweet impress
Of Beauty, that beholding there, she see
No mirror'd image of her loveliness!

Methinks life were a curse if separate
From loving of the Good and Beautiful!
To gaze upon that azure dome, so blue
And penetrate with sunshine through and through,
As lover's eyes with fondness--the far hills,
And sun-green meadows sloping to the stream
With tints of bosky shadows, yet not feel
A motion in the spirit, like the tide
Of waving woodlands rippled by a breeze;
Better return to dust from which we sprang,
And bid the winds of heaven scatter it!

SPIRIT.

Love Beauty: let it be an atmosphere
Above thee and around, whence comes the breath
Of life and health and gladness. Yet beware
Thy love be not an ideality,
That, like the smile upon a sculptur'd lip,
Freezes upon the stone nor sheds abroad
The genial influence of a loving heart.
There is an aim still nobler than the love
Of Beauty; to show Beauty forth in _act_,
And _life_, that like some fertilizing stream
It glide flower-margined to Eternity.
Beauty quiescent loseth half its charms,
As a blue eye when sleep hath closed its lid;
But in its operation, 'tis a star
That leaves a track of glory on the sky;
Worst miser he who hoards up in his soul
The blessed wealth of Beauty and repels
Unbenison'd the weary at his gate.

There is a way to make life glorious,
And nobler than the heritage of kings,
Though thy path lie along a vale in life,
With mountain pride reared up on either side--
To make thy march triumphant, trailing not
The colours of thy Purpose in the dust--
And be received as victor into heaven.
Set Beauty in thy soul like a sea-light
To warn thee from the rocks and shoals of wrong,
And guide thee surely to thy journey's end;
Let her pure promptings stablish in thy heart
A living spring of motive, that may flow
Through thought and action, like the veined life
Through man and all his members; not for praise
Let thy work be, nor gain, but heaven and right,
And for the feeling of that sweetest sense,
That from thy sowing springeth up no tare
Of grief or bitterness, but goodly fruit
That nourisheth the heart, and gives it strength
To combat manfully for life and truth;
Look manhood in the face unblanchingly,
With no rose-coloured veil 'twixt it and thee--
With pure integrity to match the great,
And humbleness to poize thee with the small;
Look at its guilt and shame, as on deep wounds
Wherefrom a life is flowing; seek thou then
To staunch them in thy measure; mark its wrongs,
The burden of oppression and the toil
That grind the sand of life down till it run
Like water through the mighty glass of Time,
And let thy voice come like a trump to call
The faithful to the rescue. Find the weak,
And weary, and the desolate of heart,
Faint with the sorrows and the cares of life,
And let no act add to their bitter cup
One drop of gall, but like a priest do thou
Tell them of hope and peace, and gladden them
With that blest balm, pure kindness, which transforms,
With more than Magian art, the meanest act
Into the brightness of the summer sun!--
Doth not this quiet hour fall on thy soul
Like music dropping from the spheres?

MAN.

Ay! sooth
It is most sweet! Methinks that such a time
Were meeter far for lover's tryst than eve,
When the dark night must sadden o'er their vows,
And hide them from each other. Now, all things
Are pure and beautiful as love should be,
The dew of youth fresh on them, and though life
Should darken o'er with clouds as it roll on,
Still love would light them on, like the bright guide
Of Israel, to the promised land of rest.
'Tis beautiful, love plighted in the morn
Of life, when not a shadow dims its heaven--
Plighted for good or ill, as fate may rule,
Enduring alike true through sun and storm,
Save when the cold blast sweeps across the way,
It knits them only closer heart to heart.

SPIRIT.

Love is no faint exotic made to bloom
In the close summer of a glassy frame,
That at the first breath of the unquelled air
Shrivels up like a parchment in the flame.
No! let it stand upon the mountain's brow,
And bid the untamed winds make sport of it;
Yet though they drive it 'fore them in their might,
'Twill be like the strong eagle that exults
In the wild rapture of his headlong swoop;
The strongest and the tenderest is Love!

MAN.

Now as I gaze upon this cloudless sky,
So soft and tranquil, mem'ry paints to me
One whose life bid as fair--that my heart said
Beholding her--"O flower! so bright and sweet,
"With the pure dew of maidenhood bestrewn,
"Thy life will be unfolded like the rose,
"That leaf by leaf adds sweetness to the spring!"
She was most beautiful! but more in this,
That she moved like an angel, minist'ring
To joy and peace and charity. The weak
Rejoiced before her as the embodied smile
Of Providence, and sadden'd when she pass'd;
And yet one short, short year and she was gone,
Her heart pierced through with thorns, who ne'er had borne
The semblance of a sorrow into life.
Is there no armour against sorrow's sting?

SPIRIT.

The highway of this world is set with thorns,
O'er which poor pilgrims still must journey on;
There are who walk it shod with iron sense,
That crushes opposition like a vice,
And puts aside the ready points like twigs
Pressed backward in the woodlands by a child.
There are who seem buoyed upward by some power
Above the level of affliction's range,
Until their term be run, and then they fall
Into the bosom of the angel Death.
And there are some whose tender feet are pierced
Evermore deeper by the rugged path,
Whose softness and whose beauty nigh invite
The cruel spoiler to his unarmed prey,
As the swift hawk high poized in the sky,
Swoops when the dove floats past on silv'ry wings.

There is a veil upon the eyes of men,
That makes all things show dimly, but if rent
Would work like resurrection on the mind,
Bringing to life thoughts dead in doubt and error;
Thus, standing on the bridge of Time, which spans
The gulf 'twixt two eternities through which
Flows ever on the tide of human life,
That troubled stream would seem a sea of glass,
And all its thick impurities appear
Clear as the outline of a floating corpse;
Gaze down upon it though it sicken thee.

There cometh one beneath whose ermined pride
Stalks the corruption of a charnel-house,
Where fest'ring flesh lies in its cloth of gold,
E'en yet the wonder of the gaping crowd.
Upon his brow the jewelled circlet rests,
His only title to nobility;
But that, unto the vulgar, symbols still
The orbit of the everlasting sun,
That fills and glorifies a universe--of clay.
Where is the mind that should have overtopp'd,
Saul-like, the level of the multitude?
Where the bold front that in the breach of wrong
Stemm'd the fierce current of insidious foes,
Flashing Truth's falchion in the van of Time?
Shame! it hath rusted in its scabbard, till
The nerveless arm can scarce withdraw it thence.
O Earth! rejoice that at his side there comes
An undimm'd light to beacon on the world;
One who upholds the honour of his line
Unsullied as the glory of the stars;
Whose voice rings clear above the battle strife,
And shakes oppression from his iron throne;
And for the purple, round his heaving breast
Folds like a vesture manly Honesty.
Is it not glorious the light that gilds
The hoary summits of the giant hills,
Spread like the standard of eternal Truth
O'er many phalanxed Ages--blazoning
The stalwart band that barrier'd from the world
The bitter fury of Heaven's huricanes!
Onward there come a thick'ning mass who drown
Defects and vices in a shower of gold;
Who crush report, like Rome the Sabine maid,
Beneath the burden of their molten wealth,
And 'neath their gilding flaunt them in the sun
Brightly as though there were no dross within;
So the eye sees them, but search thou the soul,
And part the sterling from the counterfeit.
Oh! for the sighing of the desolate,
The widow and the orphan in their woe,
Drown'd 'neath the clink of gold wrung from their need,
Like moisture from the crushing of the grape.
Oh! for the fruitless cry of misery,
The Tantalus of stern reality,
That feebly perisheth in Famine's grasp,
Whilst plenty moulders for the lust of pride,
And adds its rottenness to the hot-bed
Of wantonness and subtle infamy.
And yet the worker wears as fair a port
As he whose life is holy Charity,
Setting his footprints on the way of life
Like sunshine rippling o'er the summer sea.
Some wear their little merit on their sleeve,
Which 'neath the friction of Time's troublous waves,
Grows threadbare as the coat of beggary.
Some under rugged lineaments enclose
Treasures of truth and goodness, that like gems
Shine through the fissures of the strong Time-quake,
Showing more perfect as affliction works,
And sorrow rends the earthy covering.
Some are there with the sight turned inwards still,
Beholding but the narrow sphere of self,
And trampling under foot the weak who stand
Betwixt them and the goal of their desire.
Blessed the few who unto fellow men
Turn with the fervent grasp of Brotherhood,
Breasting the surges of tempestuous fate,
With souls fulfilled with kindliness and Faith--
Raising the ensign of prophetic Hope
Like the clear rainbow on the thunder-cloud;
And 'mid the darkness of impending care,
Pouring the cheerful daylight of the soul!
There are sweet spirits mingling with the throng,
Marked out with sunshine, like the pouting waves
When heaven looks down in sun and shadow, hearts
So leaven'd through with grace and purity,
That though sin warp and sift them at its will,
Some hidden sweetness lingers yet to tell
The perfectness of Nature's handy-work.
Are they not as the ministers of heaven,
Liveried with beauty, and deep tenderness,
Missioned in mercy to this fallen sphere
Proclaiming peace and blessedness above;
Threading the ranks of Earth's fierce battle field,
Amid the clangour of death-darting steel,
Raising the wounded from their helplessness,
And bearing life draughts to the sinking soul!
O Mother Earth! thine arms will fondle her
When ingrate man hath drain'd her spirit dry,
Fashioned in weakness, yet in weakness strong
Where honour were the foeman, what is she
Before the onslaught of satanic serfs?--
The mirror of her purity obscured,
Polluted by lust's pestilential breath--
Pluck'd like a flower to while an hour away,
Then cast to wither on the barren ground,
Shattered and bruised beneath base passion's heel,
And all the clinging tendrils of her love
Torn bleeding from the stay round which they clung.

Look thou upon that stream, rough with the whirl
Of crime, and woe, and wretchedness, that float
Like poisoned scum upon the driving flood,
Filling the breath of life with noxious blasts
That smite humanity with pestilence.
And tremble thou, though man discern it not,
Ten thousand times more foul it shows to God;
Then praise him for the twilight of thy sense.
Yet there is much of good and fair in life,
That like the glow upon the eastern sky,
Blazons the glory of approaching day.

MAN.

O! is not life then sweetest to the soul
In utter solitude, or that deep calm
When all of Earth, its cares and interests,
Are shaken from the spirit, as the moth
Doffs from its wings the natal crysalis
And wanders through the blue serene of heaven?
In this pure scene the din of man would sound
Harsher than discord amid melody.
Here no rude tongue should whisper of the things
Poor Earth bows down to worship--fashion, wealth,
And hollow mockings gilded by a name,
That makes the calf which browses on the plain
Turn to a god when moulded in the gold.
No thought should rise, that passing into speech
Might soil the purity of new-born flowers,
Fresh with the dews of morn and paradise,
But like an angel singing through the skies,
Wing the blue empyrean of the mind,
And break in music on the thrilling sense.

SPIRIT.

Is there no music in the gentle word
That falls in consolation on the sad,
Starting the crystal tear into the eye,
Filtrate through gratitude till there remain
Naught earthy in its brightness? Though the scene
Be as a plague spot on the face of earth
Sweet Charity can cleanse it, till it shine
Bright as the jewels in a monarch's crown,
That not the midnight of Earth's blackest sin
Can dim. All beauty emanates from soul,
And all deformity. The piteous straw
Where sickness writhes in suffering and want--
The cold, bleak dwelling where the winds have will
To brag o'er man's debasement, if possess'd
In fortitude and patience, with the heart
Clear in its honour, stedfast in its faith,
Is to the eye of angels, beautiful as day;
And this fair spot with all its waken'd charms
Is purgatorial torture to the wretch
Whose life shrieks in him under conscience-stings.

Let sunshine be within thee, and without
Summer will dwell in everlasting bloom,
Whether in light or darkness, in close cell,
Or 'neath the blessed canopy of heaven.

SCENE. _A Mountain Summit--Sunrise._

POET.

'Tis glorious to stand thus nigh to heaven,
And like a Prophet with the mark of god
Set on him for an everlasting work,
With outstretched hands, and earnest-hearted words,
To speak unto the Nations. This calm spot,
Emblem of Truth's serenity and peace,
With no hoarse dissonance to stir the deep
Of thought to passion, till the whirling waves
Swallow the love-steered purposes of soul,
And leave its being desolate--looks down
On Earth, and all its jarring multitudes,
Its miseries of soul and sense, as Earth
Looks on the distant glory of the stars,
All unparticipant of weal or woe,
Save as the glass is of its mirrored form;
Thus Action rises over Thought, and sets
Man over man preeminent for and great,
As mountains in the sphere of human life.
This were a throne meet for the Sent of God
To rest on, and give laws unto the world,
Rooted in the unshaken strength of Earth,
With man for footstool, and the disc of heaven
For canopy and witness to swell down
The quenchless words into the heart of Time;
Here to raise up the wand, and smite Earth's soul
Till streams of penitence and love gushed out
To wipe away her barrenness, and fill
The latent seeds of holiness with life,
To blossom for the harvest of the Angels.

O Thou that from Thy throne set on the flood
Of measureless Eternity, dost bind
The mighty thunder in its misty cave,
And still'st its throbbings with a single word;
That break'st the chain which holdeth it, and send'st
It booming o'er the boundless Universe,
Thy minister to testify of Thee,
And shake the pillars of the firm-set Earth
With knowledge of Thy majesty and strength;
That with the trenchant lightning dost search out
The limits of immensity, and bare
Its inmost soul to Thy dread scrutiny,
Before whose holiness the sun grows dim,
And vanishes to nothingness like mist;
That bidd'st the winds sweep o'er the bounds of space,
Strong in the terror of Thy mightiness,
Till stars are shaken from their seats, like fruit
From the autumnal fulness of the bough;
Breathe Thou upon me till my soul be full
Of deathless inspiration, that may flow
In burning currents through all space and Time,
And stir up generations with warm life,
To battle for the cause of Truth and Heaven.
Let my words ring upon the sleeper's ear
Clear as the trump that wakes the dead for doom,
Fright him from false security and sloth,
And rouse the _man_ within him, though it be
Feeble and powerless as a creeping babe.
Let them break on the conscience of the base,
As billows break upon the shifting sands,
Crumbling the false foundations of his hope,
And sweeping all his theories to naught:
Let them rush swifter on him as he flees,
Circle him with their terrors everywhere,
Snatch from his clutching fingers every prop
That guilt or error flings him, till he fall
Into the waves of truth a drowning man
With not a straw to grasp at. Let them smite
Wrong and oppression like a gnawing blight,
Eating into the heart, till like dead leaves,
Shrivell'd and pow'rless, beggars tread them down.
Let them fall on the pure in heart like dews,
To strengthen and to nourish all sweet thoughts,
Raising the drooping and the weary up,
And adding sweetness to the path of life.
To all may they be wafted on the wings
Of love, not the false love that shines alike
On flower and weed, until the evil rise
To choke the good seed with its overgrowth;
But let deep kindness fill them utterly,
In comfort, or in sorrow, or in doom.

Hard is their journey, and unsmooth their way
Who walk like pilgrims to eternal fame,
Raising for ever hymns of love and beauty,
Amid the jar and weariness of life,
Working through joy and sorrow equally
To stamp their names upon the world's great heart,
And piercing their own bosoms, like the bird,
For glowing streams to nourish it for aye.
Yet it is glorious to make this life
Great in the strength of Action, till it stand
A landmark and a guide immoveable,
To witness of the struggle and the end;
A life of thought is blossom without fruit.

O Life! would I could map thy minutes out,
And give to each its purpose, like a king
To claim just tribute from futurity;
Would I could freight ye with such spirit power,
That, like a huge rock cast into the sea,
Ye sent Time waving back for evermore;
Would ye could track your footsteps out in deeds,
Like prints in the soft sands that heaven's decree
Changeth into the adamantine rock,
Till time nor tide can wipe the trace away.
Let my steps march right onward, pausing none
For pleasure or for folly, for the path
Is long, and difficult, and hard to walk,
And at its limit lies Eternity.
Let no false weakness clog me in the work,
And cramp the motions of my willing soul,
But let me gird my spirit up to run
Before the chariot of the speeding age,
A Prophet, and a Poet, and a guide!

O! my heart thrills to that great watchword "Act,"
To leave no record written on the sand
For the first wave to crumble into naught,
But to materialize on thought--to raise
A standard glorious with the sign of heaven,
And set it waving o'er oblivion;
To seize on spirit like a willow rod,
And bend and fashion it to perfect use,
Curbing its wayward fancies and desires,
Until it sway true to the Poet's creed;
To move Earth's multitudes with nervous power,
And burning eloquence, as leaves are swept
Before the breathing of a mighty wind,
Urging them on for Truth and Nobleness,
And leading on the van to show the way--
No prating coward framing theories
For other men to build on, with "Do _this_"
For empty precept--but there, standing forth,
Set _deeds_ in the world's face, and cry "Do _thus_!"

The Poet's life is action spiritualized,
Words sublimate by earnestness and truth
To the reality and force of deed--
Falling upon the great world's soul like spells
That take the reason captive, and subdue
Its motions to the gentle sway of love.
His thoughts are like the moonlight that enshrines
All earth and heaven with beauty and soft grace,
Pouring rich floods of radiance divine
O'er life's reality of grief and pain,
Making e'en sorrow luminous and sweet,
And freighting sighs with gentlest melody.
His creed is--Love--Love perfect, uncontrolled;
Twining round all the good and beautiful,
As ivy twineth round the sapling oak,
Evermore growing with its growth more strong,
Till not e'en Death can tear those arms away;
Love--winging o'er creation like the morn
And show'ring light and beauty as it flies
O'er mountain, vale, and streamlet, equally--
In flowery mead and desert solitude
Making itself a presence of delight,
A radiant glory sweeter than all forms,
All shows, all substance--rising in the soul,
Like water in the desert--heaven in death!
Opening the unseen gates of Heaven, till sense
Dream of its utter blessedness and peace;
Leading life onward like an angel pure,
Through strife and sorrow scatheless and secure,
Scattering joy around it evermore,
Like benisons shed from a mother's heart,
Making the weary and the bruized glad,
Wiping the tears from sorrow's clouded eyes,
And soothing pain like woman's tenderness.

Let me love all things with a perfect love,
That would e'en coin its own heart-drops to pay
Life's ransom from the bitterness of woe,
Bear tenderly upon the weaknesses
Of flesh, and its oft seen infirmities,
And turn with hope and trustfulness to man;
Let me not be a stunted thorn on earth,
With jagged points to scare all fondness off,
Unsweeten'd by a blossom or a bud,
And branded deep with harsh sterility,
But like a soft wind breathing to and fro,
May love and sympathy wave through the Earth.
Life without love, is sorrow without hope.

O Love! thou law of Heaven! thou joy of Earth!
That like the Star of Bethlehem dost rest
Above the cradle of a Poet's soul,
The witness and the seal of holy birth;
Before whose brightness all earth's shadows fade
Like fiends before the angel of the Lord;
That rend'st in twain the veil of doubt and fear
Shrouding the perfectness of heaven's pure bliss,
Till man may worship with unsmitten soul
Before the glory of the inner shrine;
O Love! the Quenchless! Pure! and Beautiful!
Be to me as the Prophet's cruize of oil,
That wasteth not, nor minisheth with use,
To nourish me through this life's famine time,
And strengthen me unto the poet's work;
Fold my soul throughly in thy sweet embrace,
In honour, or in sorrow, or in joy,
Filling it with thy holy influence,
As air is filled with sunshine at the noon,
Till all thought feel its blessedness and peace.
Thus would I furnish me for life's long march,
Arm for its dangers, cater for its wants,
Work out its ends with confidence and truth,
And rest unstained, unwearied at the goal!

ALCESTE.

I.

Beautiful Florence! e'en thy very name
Falls on the ear with a strange magic spell,
As though upon the wings of Time there came
A breathing of sweet chances that befell
In days of old, all chronicled by Fame,
Whose faintest whisper makes the bosom swell
With kindred feelings, as a sea-flower waves
Concordant to the tale the ripple laves.

II.

Thou art entwined with all lovely things
That bind a rosy chaplet round the earth;
The life of Poets, whose sweet utterings
Have the soft cadence of an angel's mirth;
The springs of genius--high imaginings
That are the wealth of ages, and the birth
Of Art, beneath whose vivifying wand
The stone, the canvas, animated, stand.

III.

Thy very dust is hallowed, and we tread
The footsteps of the mighty, meeting ever
The prized memorials of the Living Dead,
Those whose sublimed spirits, waning never,
Hover around the struggling world and shed
Their blessings o'er it, which nor time can sever,
Nor can oblivion crush, but which endure
Strong in their greatness, in their truth secure.

IV.

Would that some faint ray of the heavenly light
Shower'd on thy children now might rest on me,
Illume my twilight thoughts and grant me sight
Into the depths of Nature's poesie;
And tune my faltering tones to breathe aright
That which my heart so fondly feels of thee,
For 'twere a music sweet as heaven's own lays,
Could love's deep soul be cadenced in thy praise.

V.

There was a garden sloping to the west,
Smooth'd downward from the giant Apennines,
The serried outlines of whose hoary crest
Blent with the distant heavens in mystic lines,
At eventide with golden splendours drest,
When the red sun its farewell greeting shines;
A palace topped it, from whose terraced height
Wound a broad stair of marble, snowy white.

VI.

And paths went wandering beneath the sweep
Of Orange boughs and trelliced vines, whose leaves
Gave in their parting many a transient peep
Of the blue sky, as through soft-tinted eaves;
And oft they led to arbours shaded deep,
As are the nooks the midway forest weaves,
And carven forms of nymphs and dryads gleamed
Through leafy screens, as though a Poet dreamed.

VII.

A fountain rippled in the midst, and threw
Coolness into the sky; the sculptor's thought
A quaint conceit--Aurora flinging dew
Upon the earth--the marble finely wrought,
Till through the Iris-tinted drops it grew
Warm with existence, all its fair limbs fraught
With grace and motion--'twas a thing so human,
The heart forgot the goddess in the woman.

VIII.

Beside the marge of this fair fountain stood
A maiden tranced with its melting sound,
For rillet murmurs are to pensive mood
Sweet as the rain-drops to the thirsty ground.
Alas! that youth so soon should feel the rude
And merciless stinging of cold sorrow's wound,
That Nature's sweetest melodies should gain
The heart's full rapture through the ear of pain.

IX.

She was a maiden, in whose gentle mien
The spirit mirror'd all its fairest hues,
As on the undimm'd summer sky serene
The noonday sun its golden splendour strews;
Her deep blue eye o'erflowed with tender sheen,
Like sadness through whose frame soft smiles infuse,
Whilst on her lip expression rippling lay,
And limned in silence what the soul would say.

X.

Her's was a beauty vivified by grace,
That made each motion music to the eye,
Beam'd from the sunny sweetness of her face,
And tuned her accents all so tenderly,
That when Alceste spake the heart could trace
A woman's spirit full of motions high,
And kind, and noble, and whose inward bent
Sway'd to all courses pure and innocent.

XI.

There were full many suitors who had sigh'd
Their amorous orisons before her shrine,
And with the flutter of a doublet vied
To win the smile they toasted o'er their wine;
There were full many who with blinded pride,
Deem'd that a title could the scale incline,
And flung their lordships, gauntlet-fashion, down,
Daring a Caesar to refuse a crown.

XII.

But there was one who loved for love's own sake,
And treasured its dear sweetness in his breast,
Whose spirit thrill'd within him when she spake,
And bowed before her as the flower down-prest
By her light step, and who could ever make
A long day happy and a midnight blest
With brooding on a word, a smile, a glance,
That haply served to sun love's young romance.

XIII.

They had been playmates in gay childhood's days,
When hearts are open as a summer flower,
And love had wound them slowly in his maze,
And knit them close ere yet they felt his power.
But once a-wandering by green-shaded ways,
The silence drew their souls out, and that hour,
Hand clasped in hand, and lip to lip united,
Their pure young vows of constant love they plighted.

XIV.

What spirit fused into the blossom'd spray,
And wreathed about them in its waving scent?
What angel echoes tuned the thrushes lay,
And gave the tones such sudden ravishment?
For sure they ne'er were sweet as on that day,
Nor with such magic to the spirit went;
If it was love, then love is wondrous sweet,
The point of life where Earth and Heaven meet.

XV.

Yet Love but drew the summer clouds away
That curtain'd heaven from their raptured eyes;
Still from attainment spread an ocean wide,
And bade them pause in sight of paradise:
Her father sternly his fond suit denied,
Nor soften'd to his prayers, nor heard his sighs;
So Julian shrined her image in his soul,
Till happier fortune brought them sweeter dole.

XVI.

Now at Verona sojourn'd he a space,
Dreaming of her, as he must everywhere;
Unconscious of the woes that grew apace,
And soon might drive his spirit to despair;
Unconscious that his love in grief's embrace
Cradled her panting soul, nigh dead with care,
And wept at noontide, wept at dewy eve,
Till e'en the light that saw her seem'd to grieve.

XVII.

There was a suitor, who with crooked frame
Crawled in the race for beauty; thither prest,
Not 'fore the gaze of heaven, but as in shame
Hid he the purpose in his own dark breast,
And serpented his motions to his aim,
Like one who stabs a victim in his rest;
For still the heart must feel in its calm time,
That to crush love's true spirit is a crime.

XVIII.

One midnight gather'd round the fatal board
Where wealth's death rattle echoes in the dice,
Her sire, Amieri, with some others pored
In full abstraction of the cursed vice.
Each golden piece raked from his precious hoard,
Froze the vext heart-pulse of the wretch like ice.
There was no sound save the cold ring of gold,
That broke the stillness as a knell had toll'd.

XIX.

Amieri staked, and lost, and staked again,
Drawn, fascinated, to his ruin fast,
Imploring fortune to his aid in vain,
Till, desperate, he staked all on one cast,
And lost--was ruined--and fell down as slain,
Life, fortune, seeming at a moment past,
Like gambling pledges raked from Earth's rich hoard
By Death's strong hand, whose gains are ne'er restored.

XX.

Better if he had staked upon a throw
His honour and his daughter openly,
And thus like some fell fiend at one swift blow
Sunk all he loved in utter misery,
Than yielding unto calculation slow,
Consent to blast them, and a witness be
While sorrow sapped the vigour of her frame,
And with her weakness stronger grew his shame;

XXI.

For in the morning the betrayer rose,
The crippled Pietro, the false lover, and
With honied phrases, and well studied shows,
Sought from Amieri poor Alceste's hand,
Whilst for his "intercession" he bestows
Full restitution of his wealth and land;
Fortune and Honour, fronted, held the field--
Ah! poor Alceste, why did honour yield!

XXII.

Amieri humbled like a guilty thing
Beneath shame's level, tremblingly agreed,
And sought by torture of the mind to wring
Her sad consent to save him in his need,
Falsehood and art together minist'ring,
To soften her weak heart, and gild the deed;
By prayers he moved her, and by childish tears,
And fann'd into fierce flame her woman's fears,

XXIII.

Till she, poor fluttering dove, mesh'd in the net,
Panted with bitter anguish and dismay,
By love and fear so grievously beset,
That each would draw her on a diff'rent way.
Her tears at night the sleepless pillow wet,
And coursed along her pallid cheeks by day,
Making life weary, sad, and full of woe,
Her hopes of bliss and rapture shatter'd so.

XXIV.

When did a woman's spirit true and sweet,
E'er close its issues against pity's cry,
E'er hold the field for self without defeat,
Nor yield to prayer, though yielding were to die!
And so she trembled to this calm retreat,
To weep her bitter doom forth silently,
Where in the sadness of the fountain's tone,
She heard a gentle echo of her own.

XXV.

A feeble step trail'd o'er the gravell'd way,
At which she thrill'd and turned in sudden fright,
Whilst in her eyes there shot a fitful ray,
That scorched the tears up with its flashing light.
He was a weak old man, and time's decay
Stood on his brow and thin locks snowy white,
And trembling hands that shook upon his staff,
As though, alive, they wrote their epitaph.

XXVI.

Slowly he came, reading with anxious eyes
The thoughts that flicker'd on Alceste's mien,
Veiling dishonour under Virtue's guise,
And avarice as though 'twere sorrow keen;
And still 'mid tears, and groans, and piping sighs,
He querulled forth his plaints the space between,
"Must thy poor father beg so near the grave,
"Be not so cruel--O! my daughter--save!"

XXVII.

"Sir!" softly said she, while the colour fled
From her smooth cheeks till they grew ashy pale,
"Cast off your mourning features--I will wed
"Though Death should be the bridegroom, and not quail;
"The sorrows of our house be on my head;
"What though a woman's--'tis no novel tale,--
"Within her _weakness_ does my comfort lie,
"For if the storm be sore, the _flower_ will die.

XXVIII.

"Think not, sir," she said on with noble scorn,
"This husband of your choosing loses aught
"In that the world doth know him basely born,
"And with a shrine that fits the inner thought;
"Think not a silly woman's heart will mourn
"A shape in Nature's merry moments wrought,
"Or weep the finding of each broad defect,
"Or wish the form less wry or more erect.

XXIX.

"No! sir! each twisted joint will be my pride,
"The blazon of my fortunes to the crowd,
"Till envy shall pursue the happy bride
"Sworn to a lord with graces so endowed;
"And fame shall bear his virtues far and wide,
"And trumpet them unto the world aloud;
"Then let them say--'Ah! she is over-bought;
"'He is a jewel rare, and she is naught'!

XXX.

"But, sir, although I would not have men hold
"My love won by his merits or his charms,
"This tongue shall ne'er the bitter truth unfold,
"Though falsehood soil me with its sneering harms;
"'Tis meet to _you_ the secret should be told,
"But henceforth a stern law my grief disarms;
"Pray heaven, sir, that your conscience may be dumb,
"And his, as my lips for the time to come!"

XXXI.