Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PAST, by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PAST, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The past - the past! It has a tolling sound
Last Line: A flame will burst in times we wot not of.
Alternate Author Name(s): Houghton, 1st Baron; Houghton, Lord
Subject(s): Past


THE Past -- the Past! -- it has a tolling sound,
That solemn syllable, which calls to mind
The prison of the Present rising round,
And all the bonds that Time has power to bind.

Sounds, sights, -- all else the means of sense impart, --
Seem to arouse to grief or joy in vain,
While still it clanks upon the captive heart,
That ever-moving, never lengthening, chain.

Is there no art that can an echo make,
To mock the splendid harmonies gone by?
No charm that can the long-dead hours awake,
In ghost-like silence and solemnity?

Alas! though Memory, with her wilful wand,
Can shadow forth a faint and vapid show,
What boots the colourless unmeaning band?
'Tis but a dream, -- we know it to be so.

Of all our spiritual elements -- of all
Those powers by which we feel ourselves to be --
Is there not one that can elude the thrall,
True to itself, and as its Author free?

Have we no heritage of Father-land?
No ray immortal as the Parent Sun?
No heaven-armed force, that can undaunted stand
Guarding its own eternal garrison?

Yes, we have that which lives a deathless life,
No meagre phantom, spawned by human will,
But strong to meet the Tyrant in the strife;
Time has no rule o'er what he cannot kill.

The feelings which the Heart has raised to birth,
That holy mother never will disclaim;
She is no hireling minister of earth;
They are no bastard forgers of her name.

Memorial flashes, transient as intense,
A spirit darting through material night,
Like lightning felt within the vivid sense,
Yet seeming all too rapid for the sight.

How we have joyed, when all our mind was joy,
How we have loved, when love was all our law,
Looked with half envy on the rising boy,
And thought of manhood with religious awe.

How we delighted in a thrice-sung song,
A wilding's blossom, or a speckled stone,
And how we numbered o'er the starry throng,
And chose the brightest to be called our own.

Or, when young Passion to excess had ranged,
How conscience met it with her sacred string,
And how we marvelled, what to frowns had changed
The red-rose smiles that tinted every thing.

How, when at first upon the fatal shore,
Listening the murmurings of the waves of sin,
A shivering chill came over us, before
We bared our tender limbs and glided in.

And when perchance some random bird obscene
Flew screaming by, and warned us where we stood,
With palsied feet, we turned us back to lean
Resisting those who urged us to the flood.

-- Such thoughts can never die; the fire once kindled
Lies smouldering in the ashes' dusty cove;
Though one by one the tremulous sparks have dwindled,
A flame will burst in times we wot not of.





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