Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HYMN OF THE LOST SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, by RICHARD SOLOMON GEDNEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HYMN OF THE LOST SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Pilgrims of life are we!
Last Line: Ye are doomed and damned for ever!
Subject(s): Angels; Death; Despair; Guilt; Soul; Dead, The


SPIRITS.

PILGRIMS of Life are we!
We have trodden our toilsome path through tears,
We have walked amid thorns and flowers;
We have lived in a world of hopes and fears,
Bleak wilds and beautiful bowers.
Misery, oh, misery!
Impassioned desires and dreams,
And the Paradise-glimpses of bliss
Were ours—for an instant ours,
Who thought of no Night like this:
But they faded away, like the fabled streams
Of the desert, and mocked us with falsest gleams;
And we woke, to wander thus, hand-in-hand,
In the Still and Shadowy Land!
Misery, oh, misery!
Sorrowing Pilgrims of Life are we,
Who flit by this gloomy shore,
Despairing, like one on a boundless sea
Without helm, or sail, or oar!
Darkness, cloud, and terror,
Still hang o'er these Solemn Isles,
On whose misty coasts, the gliding ghosts
Still dream of the Past and Gone!
Dreaming, and dreaming on,
In a night that has no day
To illumine its sorrow with smiles;
But is Darkness still alway!
Ever we wander,
Ever we ponder,
Cursing the madness that tempted astray;
No sunlight to gladden our eyes,
No rose to delight with its breath,
No lute to awake with its sighs
The thoughts that are lulled by Death!
Misery, oh, misery!
Sunshine, and garden, and dulcet strain,
Oh, shall ye never be ours again?
Sparkling goblet and violet-band,
Smile ye not here, in the Shadowy Land?
No!—beauty and bliss have fled
From the Pilgrims of Life, alas!
Like the shapes in a wizard's glass,
O'er the cold, hard souls of the Dead,
Bright thoughts of their by-gone pleasures pass,
Till Despair effaces
The rosy traces,
As lightning withers the vernal grass!
And Sorrow and Darkness reign
In our silent souls for ever!
That wildly desire to regain
What the destinies yield us never!
And we wander about, the Accurs'd and the Bann'd,
In the Dark and Silent Land!

Pilgrims of Life are we,
But Sons of Eternal Night:
The future that looms in the distance afar,
Of remotest times and ages, opes
No heavenly vista of cheering hopes
That a day may come, when the Stain and Blight
That darken us now, oh, misery!
May vanish, and each shine out like the star
Of morning, washed in the emerald sea!—
No!—no!
Woe!—woe!
We are Despair's
Unhoping heirs;
Souls of the Dead for ever lost!
On our own anguish tempest-toss'd;
Cursing the ever-existing flowers
Of God's great essence, that glow within;
Bearing, wherever we go, hot shame's
Deep-set brands as the Sons of Sin!
Oh!—oh!
Woe!—Woe!
Ever and ever we wander, wailing,
Such is the just divine command!
Grief for the Past is unavailing,
When we are once in the Shadowy Land!

Mercy! God's forgiveness! pity!
Unto us who writhe and shiver,
Buried in this noisome river,
Dark, and deep, and fiery burning,
Rolling in its waves of flame,
That our secret sins proclaim.
Still we sigh for that Blest City,
From its shores our spirits spurning,—
Mercy! God's forgiveness! pity!
Unto us who float in terror,
On this river's frightful mirror,
Where we read in lightning written,
The black pictures of our vices,
Till we groan with anguish smitten.
Still we look to that Blest City,
Which in rainbow grandeur rises,
Where our souls may never dwell.
Mercy! God's forgiveness! pity!

ANGEL.

Down seducer, murderer, drunkard!
Ye are doomed and damned for ever!
Lower than the lowest creatures,
Toad or viper;—dare ye murmur?
Dare ye hope to reach that City,
Where the Pure and Sunny-Hearted
Only enter?—never! never!
Ye are doomed and damned for ever!

SPIRITS.

Mercy! God's forgiveness! pity!
Tortured phantoms of these waters,
Oh, condemn us not for ever!

ANGEL.

Ye are Hell's own sons and daughters,
Exiled from the Holy City
By your crimes.—Hope never, never!
Ye are doomed and damned for ever!





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