Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PROMETHEUS: PART 2, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PROMETHEUS: PART 2, by JAMES GATES PERCIVAL Poet's Biography
First Line: Awake, thou sleeper, from thy languid dream
Last Line: On through the waste of age, to all I loved -- farewell.
Subject(s): Prometheus

AWAKE, thou sleeper, from thy languid dream
Of pleasure crowned with roses; thou must take
Anew the harp of solemn tone -- a theme
Demands thee to attune it, which should wake
The fire within thy bosom hid, and break
The flowery fetters, that entwine thee: -- Hark!
A clear voice calls thee, where the blue waves make
Music around the light and bounding bark,
That rides the shoreless sea of mind, a heaven-built ark.

Fair shines the sun to greet thee on thy way
Over the hurried ocean -- Heaven is clear
In its serenest vestment, light winds play
And sport along the billows, far and near
Earth, air, and sea, are beautiful, a sphere
Of purest light overhangs thee, full the sail
Swells, as the north-wind, in its mild career,
With the still breathing of a summer gale,
O'er the long-rolling deep doth steadily prevail.

On with thy voyage! leave the darker shore,
Where keener spirits feel their light grow dim,
And as thy white wing hastens on before
The breath of heaven, exalt thy farewell hymn;
Weave the fresh flowers to crown thy goblet's brim,
And pour thy offering to the Powers, who keep
Watch o'er the waters, while the vessel's rim
Rides low along the green wave, up the steep
Climbing, or sinking soft into the furrowed deep.

On o'er the boundless waters! thou wilt bear
Prayers for mild winds and sunshine; every soul,
That hath a portion of Heaven's fire, will share
In all thy fortunes: whether ocean roll
Calm in a mellowed brightness, or the whole
Wrath of the tempest lash it, still steer on,
Joyous or firm in courage; Man's control
Is on the sea, and proudest wreaths are won
Alone in those wild storms where hardest deeds are done.

Up with thy swelling canvass! now the gale
Woos thee to strain thy cordage, down the bay
The small waves fleet like quick streams down the dale,
Speeding o'er polished stones their babbling way;
The shrill voice of the air forbids thy stay,
It summons thee to take the gift, it throws
With such a smile before thee: -- now when day
Sits on its high throne, and the pure sky glows
Unclouded, as the form of things in beauty rose;

Now, in this noon of life, this jubilee
Of the united elements, this flow
Of soul from eye to eye, this harmony
Of all that shine above with all below
In their unfaded loveliness, this glow
Of Nature in its manhood; now expand
All to the embrace of the sweet airs, that blow
Wafting fresh odors from the bowers they fanned,
To meet the sweeter breath of a diviner land:

Where on the coast the flowering myrtles bend,
Laden with Love's own garlands; in its rear
Towers a fair summit, where all treasures blend,
That Spring showers from her full urn; one may hear
Voices that speak all melody, tones dear
To young hearts, as the tones of those we love;
Sweeter the mellow touch, the more we near
The thicket where it dwells, as from her cove
The stock-dove's widowed voice comes wailing thro' the grove.

Such is the land that welcomes thee afar
To cut thy long bright track, and proudly go,
Led by the light of a celestial star,
That from its seat of beauty sparkles so,
As mind from its dark portal; in the flow
Of the broad stream of ocean, with the sky
The dome to crown thy temple, and the glow
Of suns to light and cheer thee, send on high,
From off thy full-toned harp, sounds that should never die;

But with the hymns that have been sung, of old,
Burning on lips of inspiration, glowing
Deep in those ancient hearts of keener mould,
With tireless energy their treasure throwing
In lavish gifts around them, and bestowing
New being on the wanderer of the wild;
Those spirits nerved with intellect, all-knowing,
Whose voice now roused in terror, now they smiled,
Reading soft words of love to the delighted child;

With these, and all who have been of the train,
That hold the power of harmony to give
Joy unto others, as the melting rain
Wakens the earth, so that all freshly live,
And, as again in infancy, revive
With an intenser hue and shade of green,
When the waked bees come thicker from their hive --
O! when these lords of harmony convene,
There be the farewell hymn that paints the parting scene.

Farewell to the lost land, where life was young,
And the fresh earth seemed lovely; where the heart
First felt the thrill of ecstasy, when strung
With its fine tender chords, all could impart
Joy to its laughing innocence -- I start
To find I am so cold, where all before
Was tinctured with divinity -- we part,
Land of my early loves! thy once bright shore
Has lost its dearest charm -- Farewell! we meet no more.

The world that is, seems Eden to the child
The rainbows on a bubble are a spell
To chain him in sweet wonder; O! how wild
Do the first wakened throbs of feeling swell,
There is no music like the village bell,
That o'er the far hills sends its silver sound,
There is no beauty like the forms, that dwell
In flower and bud, and shell and insect, found,
When through the watered vale we take our infant round.

But this is for the new mind -- soon we tire
Of all this simple loveliness, we form
Within a magic fane, whose sun-gilt spire
Burns in the azure firmament -- the storm
Is portion of its majesty, we warm,
Not tremble in the lightning's vivid glare --
Sounds must be heard from Heaven, that they inform
The spirit with the life of thought, and bear,
Through all their unseen flight, the souls that upward dare.

The world imagined, to the world we feel,
Is glory and magnificence; we turn
From earth in sated weariness, but kneel
Before the pomp we dream of -- when the urn
Holds all that now hath form and life, we spurn
The shackles, that debase us and confine;
Deep in its central fountain mind will burn
Brighter in darkness, like the gems that shine
With a fixed eye of fire, the stars of cave and mine.

When the gay visions once so fair are fled,
When time has dropped his rose-wreaths, and his brow
Hath only snows to shade it; hearts have bled,
And healed themselves to be all callous; now
In the cold years of vanished hope, we plough
And sow in barrenness to reap in blight --
Then the soul in its solitude doth bow
To its own grandeur, and from outer night
Turns to the world within, and finds all love and light.

Darkness hath then no covering, but its veil
Is as a pictured curtain o'er a scene,
That hides the life of some bewitching tale,
And is itself all beauty; on the green
Before an ancient temple walks the queen
Of smiles, dispensing happiness to choirs
Of youths and maidens, whose ecstatic mien
Tells of the heart within, whose keen desires
Burn with the pure flame lit from Love's Olympian fires.

Not kindled from the altar, which below
Stood in Idalia, bowered in myrtle shades,
The shrine of him who bore the burning bow,
Whose earthly passion, ere it ripens, fades:
'T is the one Spirit, who with light pervades
The infinite of being, but controls
Alike the insect floating through the glades
On the soft air of June, or human souls
New in their merry morn, or all that lives and rolls

Wide through the waste of ether, sun, or star,
All linked by Harmony, which is the chain,
That binds to earth the orbs, that wheel afar
Through the blue fields of Nature's wide domain:
From the last glimmerer in the starry train,
To that which is to us the God of day,
From the beam glancing on the tossing main,
To the full floods, that o'er creation play,
And feed the lamps of life, all feel that boundless sway.

Love is attraction, and attraction love --
The meeting of two fond eyes, and the beat
Of two accordant pulses are above
Planets, that always tend, but never meet:
To us, that have a feeling, love is sweet,
The life of our existence, the great aim
Of all our hope and beauty -- but they fleet,
Moments of fond endearment -- years will tame
The electric throb of bliss, and quench the spirit's flame.

But yet there is to us a purer light,
And that is in the beautiful unfading,
The mould, wherein all phantoms of delight
Are fashioned into loveliness; the shading
Of earth may give it softness, kindly aiding
The weakness of our feebler nature, while
Mind has not fledged its pinions; soon pervading
Space in its daring, as a long-sought isle,
It turns with naked gaze to that Eternal smile,

Whose charm is on the Universe, the blue
Mellowed with light's full essence on the sphere
Wrapping us in its mantle, whence the dew
Falls clear and pearly, like a tender tear
Shed on the hues, that fade so quickly here,
But are awhile so beautiful -- the sea
That smooths its gold, or, as the light winds veer,
Crisps it, or decks it o'er with stars -- the sea
Takes all it hath to charm, Eternal Love! from thee.

And thee the fountains worship, where they lie
Curling in silent loveliness, or sending
Through the flowered vale, the brook that prattles by,
Twinkling o'er polished pebbles; willows bending
Wave in thy soft breath, when its fragrance lending
Balm to the new spring makes the Earth perfume:
All hues, that o'er the tufted meadow blending,
As the wind sinks or rises oft, assume
New shades and tints, in thee expand their buds and bloom.

In thee all creatures gladden, on the air
Moving their filmy wings, or calm at sail
Skimming the winding water sheeted fair,
As the sun walks above it -- their bright mail
Burns on the polished mirror, which doth vail
To the bossed form, that studs it like a gem --
Whether their serried pinions cut the gale,
Or their quick-glancing fins the current stem,
Or earth is their domain -- Thy life enkindles them.

And Man becomes thy worshipper, when first
The sense of beauty wakens him to kneel
Before the images, which thou hast nurst,
And stamped them with thy deep eternal seal;
Forums from which age and ruin cannot steal
The pure free grace of nature -- but they wear
The magic charm, in which we live and feel
That we have caught a higher sense, and bear
New wrought within our souls the essence of the fair.

And to those forms of light our wishes tend,
And our fixed longing is to stand and gaze,
Where, to the Parian stone the mind doth lend
Its own divinity, and pour its rays
Harmonious o'er the canvass, where life plays
In the flushed cheek, blue veins, and speaking eye,
And lip with passion trembling -- Mind can raise
From its unseen conceptions, where they lie
Bright in their mine, forms, hues, that look Eternity;

That send through the long waste of ages, pure
From the corruption of a grosser time,
Those models of perfection, which endure,
The guides of all the graceful and sublime
In our own nature, fashioned in the clime
Of the sweet myrtle, and the kindling vine,
Of roseate skies, green vales, and rocks that climb
Amid the never-wasting snows, and shine
In the glad Sun -- the seat of all they held divine.

It was from gazing on the fairy hues
That hung around the born and dying day,
The tender flush, whose mellow stain imbues
Heaven with all freaks of light, and where it lay
Deep-bosomed in a still and waveless bay,
The sea reflected all that glowed above,
Till a new sky, softer but not so gay,
Arched in its bosom, trembled like a dove,
When o'er her silken plumes wanders the light of love.

It was from gazing on them, when the flowers
First wakened from their wintry sleep, and flung
Their first warm tints o'er garden beds and bowers,
When from the temple roof the swallow sung,
And in the thorny thicket sweetly rung,
Through the still moonlight hours, the heart-breathed tone
Of the lone warbler -- when the loosed steed sprung
Bright o'er the sounding plain, and the charmed zone,
In one soft twine of love, round all that lived was thrown.

When there were dances in the Platane shades,
And the vine-arbors breathed with music -- Night
Looked from her starry throne on youths and maids,
Bounding and shouting in their full delight,
From the round orb of azure sparkled bright
The spirit in its ecstasy, wreathed gold
Flowed tressed behind them, as their footsteps light
Leaped in the mazy ring, and the wide fold
Of mantles waved to fly the clasping girdle's hold:

And feeling voices blended with the lute,
Raising the hymn to beauty and to love,
The parent and the infant boy -- the flute,
In tempered sweetness, flowing like the dove
In her deep sorrow, from the elm above
The dark stream sleeping in seclusion; so,
As the voice ceased, and Echo from her cove
Answered, the flute, in one continual flow,
Breathed every winding note and falling touch of woe:

And smiles were changed to tears, the dance became
Still, and the dancers breathless; you might see
In the soft dews of sorrow quenched the flame
Of buoyant passion; -- soon the sound of glee
Rang on the merry cymbal, then all free,
As the winds hurry o'er the mountains, beat,
In numbered steps attuned to melody,
Round the close-shaven green their glancing feet,
Light as the spotted fawns through Tegean forests fleet.

And there the pencil and the chisel drew
Apollos and Dianas; there they wrought
Into one form the charms that nature threw
Round the fair youth of Athens; there they sought
All the soft lines of elegance, and caught
The grandeur too of loveliness, which lends
Power to the young god; there they culled and brought
From innocent forms the perfect grace, which sends
Such magic on the heart of youth, that awed it bends.

Once they were planted in a marble fane
Built to the Power that in the statue stood,
Or underneath the blue sky on the plain,
Or in the shadow of a sacred wood,
Or where the poplar quivered o'er the flood,
Itself in air, its image glassed below:
But now they stand, the artist's holy food,
Where the high dome permits the light to flow,
Aloft above the crowd that wondering gaze below.

And there they stand, still perfect; though the stain
Of centuries has lent to them a hue,
Which tells of age and change, 't is not in vain,
But is their triumph: they have risen through
The roar of ruin round them, to renew
Taste in the land of music, and of form,
And tint, and shade -- So eagerly we view
The long-tost bark, that rudely beat the storm,
And rode unharmed, unwrecked, where all its terrors swarm.

They stand replete with life, the marble speaks,
And the cold eye looks passion; they might tell
Of cultured fields, where now the dead fen reeks,
Of pomp and feast, where bats and night birds dwell;
Though from their first-raised pedestal they fell,
Yet they revived in glory. It is sure,
Stamped by the seal of nature, that the well
Of Mind, where all its waters gather pure,
Shall with unquestioned spell all meaner hearts allure,

We gaze on them, and on the ancient page,
And read its mystic characters, which seem,
Through the expanding haziness of age,
The hiding forms of a majestic dream.
Cold is the heart, that not on such a theme
Feels the warm spirit kindle -- 't is the sound
Of a gone trumpet rolling on the stream
Deeper and clearer tones to bear its warning round,

And ever waken from the dull repose
Of peace and plenty, where we waste in rust
That love of high emprise, which ever glows,
When the roused mind hath sternly shook the dust
From off its robe, and in a child-like trust
To its own inspiration, and the power
That speaks from buried nations, at the bust
Of ancient mind gives worship, in the hour
When the waked eyes of Heaven their tempering influence shower.

Language of Gods and Godlike men! thy tone
First sounded on Olympus from the lyre
Of the glad virgins, when around the throne
They raised the joyful Paean, in a choir
Alternate with Apollo, sitting higher,
The sovereign of all harmony -- thence came
That sounding speech, whose words, imbued with fire,
Could the wild wave of Athens bend and tame,
And wreath the Poet's harp with locks of lambent flame.

Thy faintest tone is music -- when thy words
Come o'er my ear, I seem on wings at play
With every bard who sung thee, like the birds,
Who feed on dewy air, and float in day,
Speeding in endless round their lives away,
Aloft above the region of the storm,
Where nought can soil their golden plumes, nor stay
Their swift career -- no sudden gust deform
The beauty of their flight, but all is still and warm,

And the clear sun stands over them, his hair
Waves gloriously athwart the perfect blue;
There is no rustling in the deep calm air,
But one eternal tide is rolling through
The far expanse, and thus it ever drew
The waves of Ether in its willing train;
Higher than ever wing of eagle flew,
Or white curl dimmed the noon-vault with its stain,
There, bird of Eden, spreads thy pure and bright domain.

And thou too hast a voice, and oft at night,
When thy wing winds among the stars, 't is said
By those who watch the sky in fixed delight,
On fairy dreams of wooing fortune led,
When the cools winds, around the flowery bed
Hid in the garden alcove, long delay,
Because the spot is fragrant, then 't is said
The midnight gazer hears thee far away,
Like a sweet angel's voice, salute the coming day.

Fit image of those subtle kindled souls,
Who spurned at baseness, and arose from earth
Indignantly, who fixed in Heaven their goals,
Whose only rival was departed worth;
Whose restless passion labored in the birth
Of moral greatness -- whether on the page,
Statue, or canvass, round the quiet hearth,
On the loud Pnyx, or in the sanguine rage
Of fight -- they sought to charm and conquer every age.

And this with such a language, sweetly blending
All in one round of fullness, that it flowed
A streamlet or a torrent, ocean sending
Its blue waves on its rocky barrier -- glowed
Sparkles of beauty thickly o'er it -- strode
Mind on its breast, like Gods, who sail through air
Throned on a tempest cloud -- whether the ode
Burned, or the epic thundered, or the fair
Fond Lesbian sighed and wooed, the magic sound was there.

Yes, but the accent, the nice touch and tone,
Have perished with the tongues whose melody
Was Music's essence -- Yes, the sound has flown
With the keen life aloft, where it will be
Absorbed and blended in Eternity,
The spirit of a grander, purer time:
Language of Heaven, O lend thy voice to me!
Give me the perfect note, the tempered chime,
That I at times may feel and live with the sublime;

That I may read the rhapsodies and odes,
And proud harangues, and flowing histories,
Those flights, where mortals mingled with the Gods,
And threw their eye beyond the life that is;
Those sun-bright lessons of the good and wise,
Those golden songs of a diviner age --
O! could my mind but gain that long-sought prize,
O! could I take the early Grecian rage,
And pour Homeric fire along my wandering page --

There should be altars to thee, and the flame
Should be ethereal, no gross earthly fire
Should taint their marble purity, but tame
The spark of Heaven should tremble down the wire,
And with the lightest element conspire,
To roll full floods of snowy light to thee,
And I would warm my spirit in that pyre,
And all, that lives within my heart, should be
Devoted to thy will, Eternal Harmony!

Are there not moments, when we fly from earth,
And dwell in ether? Are there no bright hours
Along the dull of life? Is not the dearth
Of feeling quickened, and the dormant powers
Wakened, by living with the domes and towers
We fly to o'er the bounding sea? -- O fane
Of Grecian wisdom! that in ruin lours
Over the rage of ignorance, again
Thou shalt be bright, renewed, and pure from every stain.

And I would go, and worship at thy door;
I dare not enter, where thy form doth rear
That beaming lance, which stilled the battle's roar,
And stopped the clang of sword, the hum of spear,
Cutting the murk air in its dark career,
And thirsting for the shouting warrior's blood;
I feel within my soul a holy fear
Forbidding me to enter thy abode,
Where none but grandest minds and purest hearts have trod.

Wisdom enshrined in beauty -- O! how high
The order of that loveliness; the blue
That rolls and flashes in thy full round eye,
Thy forehead arched with such a stainless hue,
As crowns the eternal mountains lifted through
The gathered night of clouds, the smile, the frown,
Blended in sweetness -- all in thee can view
How mind and virtue linked, alone bring down
On moral heads from Heaven the star-wreathed laurel crown.

Would I might stand beneath thy temple's roof,
Closed from the entrance of all common light,
From all the sound and stir of man aloof,
Whose dark air makes thy aegis doubly bright,
As the broad flash glares through the cloud of night
With an inner redness -- could I stand
Beneath thy roof, and from thy pure lips write
The volume of all Truth, but no! my hand
Will not -- I am not one by whom thy lore is scanned.

No -- I should rather fly among the bowers
That bloom around the Idalian dome, and take
From soft Sicilian plains the leaves and flowers,
Of which a coronal of love to make --
Better for me a seat beside the lake,
Where the enchanter erst his wild harp hung
To molder in the birches -- why not wake
Those witching notes again? Shall they be flung
To the wild mountain winds from chords so long unstrung?

And now I turn me to the misty island,
Which rises with its white cliffs from the ocean,
I turn to where the storm broods on the highland,
And the sea lifts its waves in angry motion,
And there again I feel a new devotion
Come with a spell of power athwart me; light
Burns, blazes over Greece, but wild commotion
Heaves in the bosoms of the north; their flight
Is on the whirlwind's wing, their home the womb of night.

They follow nature, who hath girt their hills
With a dark belt of pines, whose fitful roar,
Far wafted on the wind, the stout heart fills
With its own wild sublimity; the shore
Breasts the rude shock of waves, that rush before
The north wind bursting from the icy pole;
Yon peaks, that lift their foreheads bald and hoar,
Where the long wreaths, that tell of tempest, roll,
Stamp mightily and deep their grandeur on the soul.

They love the rock, whose dark brow beetles far
Into the wallowing ocean, whose white waves
Join round the thundering crag in mingled war,
Where in the hollow cavern echo raves,
Like the long groans that seem to come from graves,
When sheeted spectres burst their cerements; high
The gannet wheels and screams, then, stooping, braves
The fury of the surge that rushes by,
And then rolls dim and far to mingle with the sky.

Their home is on the mountain, where in mist
They darkly dwell, and when the hollow sound
Of the crushed woods comes on, they fondly list
To hear the winds wake up, and gather round,
Till from each rocky battlement they bound,
Mingling and deepening, like the waves in war,
Which on the mid-sea heave and strive around
The rock, that dares their madness; loud afar
Rolls on the foam-lit main the rush of Odin's car.

And when the night comes down, and deeper gloom
Falls on the cloud, that wraps the height in shade,
When the mist moves away, and opens room
To catch a glimpse of lakes in moon-light laid,
For all below is by the clear wind made
Serene in brightness, then the lone bard throws
A glance on distant beauty, and the maid,
White as the foam that on the lashed wave rose,
Sits lonely in her bower, and weeps her tender woes.

Their tenderness is dark; it hath the hue
Of their own watery skies, and thence they bear
Its tints of paleness, for the light sent through
The floating veil of mist, that dims the air,
Sheds a faint glimmering on the landscape there,
So that the earth seems weeping; when they mourn
Their tones are wild but soft; they do not tear
With a new pang the heart already torn,
That finds in the still look, what kills, yet must be borne.

The soaring of their heights uplifts the soul,
And gives their heaven-ward daring to the heart,
And the tossed waves, that midway round them roll,
Seeming below, as if they were a part
Of a new ocean raging there, will dart
Their sternness on the eye, that loves to rise
From the low vale, and as it gazes start
To see above them floating in the skies
Peaks white with eldest snow, and gilt with sunset dies.

Dofra, thy brow is in that upper air,
No cloud ever went as high, the eagle's wing
Has been thy only visitant, thy bare
And pillared cone is such a glorious thing
To the far-gazing Norseman, when the sting
Of a fond love of country prompts him on
To worship at thy base, and upward spring
To thy eternal walls, which in the sun
Flash far and purely forth, when the long day is done.

Far round thy fir-shagged base the torrent winds,
Hoarse as the voice of Liberty, who bears
With open breast the tempest, when it binds
Seas in its chain of frost, whose brow still wears
Part of its once deep frown, the will that dares
All, when invasion threats -- that torrent leaps
Down the dark gulf, and with its dashing tears
The rock in deeper rents, and ever keeps
Wild music in the wood, that o'er it bends and weeps;

The roar of waters, and the rush of winds
Through the black boughs, whose tangled branches throw
Night o'er the rift, where the dashed vapour blinds,
And distant down the gushing waters glow
In their intense convulsion, as they go
Plunging and lifting high their frothy swell;
Then, as a new-sprung arrow, on they flow,
Roaring along a pit that seems a hell,
Where the shook caverns ring their echoes like a knell.

So Mind takes colour from the cloud, the storm,
The ocean, and the torrent: where clear skies
Brighten and purple o'er an earth, whose form
In the sweet dress of southern summer lies,
Man drinks the beauty with his gladdened eyes,
And sends it out in music -- where the strand
Sounds with the surging waves, that proudly rise
To meet the frowning clouds, the soul is manned
To mingle in their wrath, and be as darkly grand.

Nature! when looking on thee, I become
Renewed to my first being, and am pure,
As thou art bright and lovely; from the hum
Of cities, where men linger and endure
That wasting death, which kills them with a sure
But long-felt torture, I now haste away
To climb thy rugged rocks, and find the cure
Of all my evils, and again be gay
In the clear sun, that gilds the fair autumnal day.

I cannot look upon those cloudless skies
And not be lifted, for they seem to spread
With an unbounded vastness, and they rise
Beyond the height, where early fancy, led
By its own grand aspirings, which were fed
On hopes nursed in their shrines below, had given
To the first Powers their throne; so, o'er my head,
As by an ever-moving hand still driven,
Wider and wider spreads the azure deep of Heaven.

I gaze and I am vaster -- thought takes wing
From off the rock I stand on, and goes far
Into the pure blue gulf, and there I bring
The myriad bands of night, and set each star
In its peculiar station, till they wear
All forms of brightness, and a magic train,
Show all the fabled world in picture there,
And then I seem to range them o'er again,
Like him who read them first on the Chaldean plain.

But Nature! thou hast more beneath me bright
In their rich autumn tints, than all I throw
Over the crystal arch, whose tranquil light
Takes every hue of mellowness below;
It kindles in the orchard's ruddy glow,
And on the coloured woods, whose dying shade
Crowns the tall mountain with a wreath, whose flow,
Softly descending to the silent glade,
Seems like the evening cloud in airy tints arrayed.

And where the river winds along the vale,
Bending through sloping hills, which o'er it lift
Oaks faintly yielding to the rudest gale,
And clinging with close twining to the rift
Of the steep rocks, which, as the wild winds drift
The rain-clouds o'er their quivering tops, still rise
Contending with the gust, whose flight is swift,
Scouring with stormy wing the cold dun skies,
On which the flock look up with faint imploring eyes.

Through that low watered vale a sanguine stream
Winds, where the maple gives its leaf a hue
Of deepest carmine, and those wreathed boughs [*] teem
With the same tint of blood and berries blue;
Deeper their contrast, as they meet us through
The oak's dark russet and the walnut's brown;
There we might weave of falling leaves a new
And brighter wreath than earth ever gave, to crown
The sun of lower life, before its light went down.

There is a pensive spirit in those woods,
The sighing of the lone wind in their leaves
Has much to soften; there the sunk heart broods
Intenser o'er its many wrongs, and grieves
With a far purer sorrow; it believes,
With fond illusion, that a form is there
Who hath her sorrows too; and then he weaves,
Of the pale-tinted flowers, a wreath, to bear
On his disheveled locks, the garland of despair.

To look upon thy form, thou dying year,
To see thy brightest honors thickly shed,
As withered flowers are scattered on a bier
By pious hands, who mourn a loved one dead;
To think how all, that spring and summer spread
Of freshness and maturity, are torn
By the rude winds; how coldly in their stead
The crusted frost hangs glimmering on the thorn,
And bends the widowed boughs, that stoop as if forlorn:

To think on this, and on the breathing hues,
That wreathed the same earth in its fairest prime,
When the glad season with its life imbues
The very clods, and wakens from the slime
Of the low marsh, new forms, that spread a time
A pictured mantle o'er it; when it blows,
Mocking the beauty of a tropic clime,
Where one eternal round of flowering throws
New bloom to crown the fruit, that swells and ripening glows:

To think on infancy, and then on death,
In the wild herb, or those fair forms we bind
Close to our hearts, as if their life and breath
Were portion of our being, where the mind
Is heightened, and all sympathies refined
To that high state, where we are not our own.
To think on death -- to leave the looks, that wind
Round all our thoughts their tenderness -- alone
To sit and hear the winds make sad and solemn moan

Through the dark pines, whose foliage, in the sway
Of fitful gusts, waves mournfully, and throws
From its fine threads a sound, that sinks away
Faintly and sweetly, to a dying close,
Like a soft air to which the boatman rows,
Over the moon-lit lake his gliding keel,
Which comes more calmly, for the still wind blows
So meekly through the summer night, we feel
Scarce on our wakeful ear the whispered echo steal;

To think on death, and how it rends the links
Of long and close communion, how it tears
One and another chord, till the heart sinks
Without one friend, on whom to lay its cares,
And take his in return; -- the spirit bears
Better a loved one's woes, than those it feels
Spring in its own lost hopes; -- the heart that shares
With a long bosom friend his burdens, heals
Its wounds, and still is soft; -- alone, their closing steels:

'T is good to think on death -- it bends the will
From that stern purpose, which no man can hold
And yet be happy; -- we must go and fill
Thought with affection, where pale mourners fold
The shroud around those chill limbs, whose fair mould
Imaged unearthly beauty. Why not blend
With tears awhile, and leave that stern, that cold
Contempt of all that waits us, when we end
Our proud career in death, where all, hope lifted, bend.

'T is good to hold communion with the dead,
To walk the lane, where bending willows throw
Gloom o'er the dark green turf, ere day is fled,
And cast deep shadow on the tomb below;
For, as we muse thus silently, we know
The worth of all our longings, and we pay
New worship unto purity, and so
We gather strength to take our toilsome way,
Which must be meekly borne, or life be thrown away.

Better live long and tranquilly, if pure,
Than rush into the madness of a crowd,
Where all are eager for the prize, none sure;
Where busy voices clamor long and loud,
And man, shows in the strife, how feebly proud
Are his best aims to raise himself, and cast
His fellows in his rear -- how keen, when bowed
Beneath a firmer heel, he finds at last,
Are the condemning thoughts, that mock him, of the past.

But I must turn again to higher themes,
And, from the lifted summit where I stand,
Casting a rapid glance o'er hills and streams,
That checker with their light a happy land,
Must find again my better powers expand
To a fit harmony with earth and sky,
Which spread before me, with so vast a hand,
Those forms that seem to bear eternity
Stamped on their iron brows, where age will ever be:

The gray rocks, and the mountains wrapped in blue,
Towering far distant through the silent air,
That sleeps in noon-light, but in morning blew
Fresh o'er the russet plain, and scattered there
Shadows from flitting clouds, that earth seemed fair
Rob'd in a sheet of light, and then grew dim; --
Far distant through the haze, those mountains bear
Sky-lifted walls, that frown along the brim
Of earth, and as I gaze, in vapour seem to swim.

They rise with twofold vastness through the dun
And quivering air, that broods along the heath,
Which gilds its dark waste with the reddening sun,
Whose sinking light seems ominous of death;
Air now is hushed, and not a whispered breath,
Bears from the cedar woods one sound away
To speak of life; a lightly curling wreath
O'er the far lake alone is seen to play,
And give one fairy hue to the departing day.

'T is the fit hour of high and solemn thought;
The sun sinks lower, and a wave of flame
Burns on the distant peaks; I feel my lot
Too scanty for those inner powers, that frame
Visions of glory, which no want should tame
To the poor level of our common days;
I would be with the heights, which stand the same,
Catching through countless years the dying rays,
That every evening crown the rocks in one full blaze.

And here shall be my temple, where I pay
Devotion unto Nature, here the throne
On which my soul shall sit, and pass away
Beyond where ever wing of air has flown,
Or first-created beam of morning shone,
Through the void infinite, the far expanse,
Spread out beyond all life, by thought alone
Pervaded, where no atoms in their dance,
Ere sun and star came forth, rolled on the waves of chance.

To think is to exist, and when we go
Far in the range of intellect, we seem
Heightened in our existence: brute below
Move the dull crowd, a slow and sluggish stream,
Who think us madmen, who on mountains deem
There are more lofty musings, and new force
Caught from the purer air and clearer beam;
They know no upward hours, and as their source
Of life is in the dust, such is their being's course.

They are the pillars on which nations rest,
Useful, but rude. All beauty took its birth
In the rank mould -- now worshipped and caressed,
It once lay buried in its parent earth;
And thus the mean and sordid have their worth,
To bear aloft the finer form, and rear
The prouder seat of soul, that sallies forth
High in a purer element, to hear
The lore of minds who dwell in a celestial sphere;

Who have been in the common herd, but long
Have found a home more genial, and have grown
From this our infancy of reason, strong
In all that gives to intellect the tone
Of an exalted essence, such as shone
Faint in the bard and sage of ancient days;
Earth was around them -- now, they would not own
Those visions, where they wandered in a maze
Of dreams, that were sublime, and dazzle all who gaze.

But these were dreams of infancy; they broke
The chain of earthly appetite -- the will
To be all greatness burst the binding yoke
That ever bore their spirit downward, till
They leaped on a free pinion to fulfill
The grandeur they had purposed -- then the sky
Received them in its bosom, where they still
Haste in on eager hopes that never die,
To read all things that are, with an unsated eye.

Space is to them an ocean, where they rush
Voyaging in an endless circle; light
Comes from within, and as the mountains flush,
When morning sails athwart them, so their flight
Kindles all things, they pass by, with so bright
And searching glance, they read them in their core:
Like a quick meteor hasting on in night,
They wander through a sea without a shore,
Which still hath something new to gather to their store.

And they too have a center, where they tend;
The Universe rolls round it; there all power
Comes and goes forth; though lesser beings end
Wasting, and born, and dying every hour,
Yet like the fabled amaranthine flower,
That ever held the same unfading glow,
Shedding its fragrance through the holy bower,
Where angels took their slumbers, in a flow
That bore a sense of Heaven to purer hearts below:

Yet like that never dying flower, the whole
Lives one unchanging round, and ever draws
New motion from the animating soul,
Which acts on matter with eternal laws,
And is to each event the one first cause,
From which all changes emanate; like rays,
All spirits point to this, and there they pause,
And when all worlds are passed, the soul there lays
Its separate life aside, and mingles in that blaze.

Here we have only moments, when we speed
Round the aerial ocean, o'er whose tides
The mind goes onward, like the breathless steed,
On which the wretch, who flies his ruin, rides;
But the base will to earth forever guides
The soaring pinion in its highest flight;
We cannot go where the free spirit glides
Serenely in a flowing wave of light;
We may be bright awhile, but more of life is night.

'T is a vain toil to send our fancy on,
In quest of higher worlds than this we know;
Cold want will come, when all we sought is won,
And then our new-fledged wing must stoop below;
I am not to the hope of Heaven a foe,
It comforts, lifts, and widens, all who share
In the pure streams that from its fountain flow;
We must be pure ourselves, if we would dare
Take of the holy fire that wells and gushes there.

'T is a weak madness, or a base deceit,
To talk of hope like this, when life is stained
With all rank reeking grossness when we meet,
In a fair life, a goodness all unfeigned,
Where one long love of purity hath reigned,
And the meek spirit charms us, like the rose
That in a thicket lurks, and there hath gained
Sweetness from all it fed on, till it throws
New fragrance on the wind -- we give a Heaven to those.

They have a Heaven on earth; it ever springs
In the calm round of tender feeling, shown
By the dear cares and toils which Nature wrings,
With a most gentle pressure, from the lone
But happy parent, who amid her own,
Smiling like first-blown flowers around her, feeds
Her spirit with their looks of love; unknown
She lives within her shrine; her fond heart needs
No tongue to tell her worth, to gladden in her deeds.

They have their own reward: it is the law
Of our existence, that our hearts should cling
To those who from our life their being draw;
The favors that we render, ever bring
Closer the cherished, till they are a thing
We cannot sever from us, but they tear
Roots from our hearts; the thankless child may sting,
Even as a serpent, but we meekly bear
All wrongs, and when the storm beats on him, clasp him there.

The feeling of a parent never dies
But with our moral nature; all in vain
The wretch, by cold and cruel spurning, tries
To change that love to hate: the sense of pain
Shoots keenly through a mother's heart, the chain
Wound through life's tender years twines closer so;
Feelings, that in our better hours had lain
Silent, are often waked by some deep throe,
And as the torture racks, our loves intenser grow.

We send these fond endearments o'er the grave,
Heaven would be Hell, if loved ones were not there,
And any spot a Heaven, if we could save
From every stain of earth, and thither bear
The hearts that are to us our hope and care,
The soil, whereon our purest pleasures grow;
Around the quiet hearth we often share,
From the quick change of thought, the tender flow
Of fondness waked by smiles, the world we love, below.

But now I turn me to the setting sun,
Whose broad fire dips behind yon rock, a tower
Fit for the eagle's aerie; day is done,
And earth is hushed at evening's dewy hour;
Down the high wooded peak a golden shower
Flows through the twinkling leaves, that lightly play
In the cool wind, that wakens from its bower
Hung, where the curling river winds away
Through the green watered vale, to meet the sheeted bay;

On which the moon, who long had watched the set
Of the bright lord who gives her light, but dims
Her brightness, when they two in Heaven are met,
Casts her pale shadow, which as softly swims,
As nymphs, who cleave the wave with snowy limbs,
Like lilies floating on a falling stream,
Whose incense-breathing cup now lightly skims
The crinkling sheet, and now with opal gleam
Dips in the brook, and takes from air a brighter beam;

Which is condensed, and parted into hues
That charm us in the rainbow; each waved tip
Of the glossed petals, in that light imbues
Its paleness with an iris fringe; the lip
Thus takes a sweeter beauty, when we sip
The infant stream of life, from some bright bowl
Fretted with eastern flowers; and as they drip
From the new rose, the pearls of morning roll
Such tints upon the eye, they pass into the soul.

Sunlight and moonlight now are met in Heaven;
This, like a furnace blazing, in the west
Lifts a wide flame, that, as a banner driven,
Glows where the mountain lake unfolds its breast,
And every tree in amber locks is tressed,
Flowing in waved fire down the green hill-side;
Round the far eastern sky the blue is dressed
With blushes, like a sweet Circassian bride,
Who looks with melting eye on Helle's rolling tide.

The vast arch lifts a darker canopy,
The perfect dome of nature, reared aloft
Above the columned rocks, that send it high,
Like a round temple roof, which rises soft
Melting in evening air, where sunbeams waft
Flashes, that tip with gold the pointed spire,
And crown the statue there, and gem the haft
Of the bent sword, that, like a stream of fire,
Waves o'er the startled crowd, the sign of God's first ire.

But as I turn me to the silent sea,
Where not a wind is breathing, no calm swell
Creeps slowly whispering on; where in his lee,
Through the far deep, the sailor-boy can tell,
On the white bed of sand, each twisted shell,
That lies, where never waves in tempest sweep; --
I look, and as I hear the vesper bell
Swing solemnly afar, the moon beams keep
Watch o'er the silver tide, that now is hushed in sleep.

Day fades, and night grows brighter in her orb,
Which walks the blue air with a queen-like smile,
And seems with a soft gladness to absorb
All the deep blaze, that lit yon rocky pile,
Where the sun took his farewell glance, the while
He rested on the throne of parting day,
Which is his royal seat; -- as a far isle
Rolling amid the upper deep its way,
The moon glides on, as glides her shadow on the bay.

Beauty is doubled here, and both are fair,
But the reflection hath a paler tint,
As when from out a calm and hazy air
The first wan rays in frosted autumn glint;
The moon aloft comes freshly from the mint,
Where first she took her loveliness; the bright
And dark she bears, like bosses, by the dint
Of a deep die, give changes to her light,
As if a snowy veil with glittering pearls were dight.

Night steals apace, and brings the hour of stars,
Which come emerging from Heaven's azure flow;
First in the west the loving planet bears
The charm of light, that hath a power to throw
Hope on the impassioned heart, who in her glow
Reads the fond omen of his happy flame;
She leads the way; then thicker splendors go,
Each to his seat, as when at once they came
Obedient to the voice, whose word all power can tame.

And now the night is full; unnumbered eyes
Look on us from infinitude; the dome,
Whereon they hang, in darker azure lies
Round their intenser light; as when the foam
Crests the green wave, when barks are hurrying home
From the wild cloud, that skirts the brooding sky,
And gives the sea a frown, before it come
To plow the surge in wrath, and roll it by
The rock, which in that rush still lifts its forehead high.

They gather on the far expanded arch,
Each in their separate orders, and go on
Sweeping the long dark vault in silent march,
Until at last the western goal is won,
Or on the orient hill the morning sun
Come forth and quench their lesser light; yon plain
Is a wide list, where higher souls may run
In the bright form of star, and grandly gain
The only good reward, which here we seek in vain.

No wonder nations worshipped here, and bowed
Their foreheads in the dust before the fires
That watch o'er earth, and seem to speak aloud
The deeds of unborn ages; -- man aspires
To the high seat of gods, and never tires
To read the infinite, the past, and throw
Looks full of hope before him; so those fires,
Which are so high, and look so far, must know
All that is big with fate, and will have birth below.

Faith centers in the sky; -- 't is there we turn,
When earth is only darkness, there we send
Our vows to those we fear, and there we burn,
When the last pulse beats low, to find the end
Of all we hate, and thus in hope we tend
To the high dwelling of the stars; -- bright souls
Love with the purer elements to blend,
And so, when the deep knell its parting tolls,
They gaze on the pure light that ever round us rolls:

So those, who have been gifted with the flame
Of an ascending intellect, whose light
Kindled as death drew near, and seemed the same,
Or fairer on the verge of being's night; --
So they have fixed their last look on the bright
Clear sky, as if awhile insphered and bound
In a full sense of glory; -- their delight
Was too intensely keen to have a sound;
It spake in the long smile they cast so calmly round.

The sun was setting when the Guebre drew
His parting breath; he gazed in worship there,
Life seemed concentred in that ardent view,
His spirit wandered into worlds of air,
To mingle with his god, and dying share
In the last flash of day; -- the cold dim glaze
Fell on his eye, but yet he oft would bear
A fond look to the cloud, that drank the rays,
And then he calmly died, as one who only pays

Devotion on his pillow, ere he draw
His curtain round, and close his eye in sleep;
That fond idolater in dying saw,
As the day sank in glory in the deep,
That rolled in gilt waves o'er it with the sweep
Of a far-flashing brightness, there his eye
Beheld his god enshrined; -- his soul could leap,
At such a calm and holy hour, to lie
Serenely on his couch, and with his loved lord die.

Center of light and energy! thy way
Is through the unknown void; thou hast thy throne,
Morning, and evening, and at noon of day,
Far in the blue, untended and alone;
Ere the first-wakened airs of earth had blown,
On thou didst march, triumphant in thy light;
Then thou didst send thy glance, which still hath flown
Wide through the never-ending worlds of night,
And yet thy full orb burns with flash as keen and bright.

We call thee Lord of day -- and thou dost give
To Earth the fire that animates her crust,
And wakens all the forms that move and live,
From the fine viewless mould, which lurks in dust,
To him who looks to Heaven, and on his bust
Bears stamped the seal of God, who gathers there
Lines of deep thought, high feeling, daring trust
In his own centered powers, who aims to share
In all his soul can frame of wide, and great, and fair.

Thy path is high in Heaven; -- we cannot gaze
On the intense of light that girds thy car;
There is a crown of glory in thy rays,
Which bear, thy pure divinity afar,
To mingle with the equal light of star,
For thou, so vast to us, art in the whole
One of the sparks of night, that fire the air,
And as around thy center planets roll,
So thou too hast thy path around the central soul.

I am no fond idolater to thee,
One of the countless multitude, who burn,
As lamps, around the one Eternity,
In whose contending forces systems turn
Their circles round that seat of life, the urn
Where all must sleep, if matter ever dies: --
Sight fails me here, but fancy can discern
With the wide glance of her all-seeing eyes,
Where, in the heart of worlds, the ruling Spirit lies.

And thou too hast thy world, and unto thee
We are as nothing; -- thou goest forth alone,
And movest through the wide aerial sea,
Glad as a conqueror resting on his throne
From a new victory, where he late had shown
Wider his power to nations; -- so thy light
Comes with new pomp, as if thy strength had grown
With each revolving day, or thou at night
Had lit again thy fires, and thus renewed thy might.

Age o'er thee has no power; -- thou bringst the same
Light to renew the morning, as when first,
If not eternal, thou, with front of flame,
On the dark face of earth in glory burst,
And warmed the seas, and in their bosom nursed
The earliest things of life, the worm and shell;
Till through the sinking ocean mountains pierced,
And then came forth the land whereon we dwell,
Reared like a magic fane above the watery swell.

And there thy searching heat awoke the seeds
Of all that gives a charm to earth, and lends
An energy to nature; all that feeds
On the rich mould, and then in bearing bends
Its fruit again to earth, wherein it blends
The last and first of life; of all who bear
Their forms in motion, where the spirit tends
Instinctive, in their common good to share,
Which lies in things that breathe, or late were living there.

They live in thee; without thee all were dead
And dark, no beam had lighted on the waste,
But one eternal night around had spread
Funereal gloom, and coldly thus defaced
This Eden, which thy fairy hand had graced
With such uncounted beauty -- all that blows
In the fresh air of Spring, and growing braced
Its form to manhood, when it stands and glows
In the full-tempered beam, that gladdens as it goes.

Thou lookest on the Earth, and then it smiles;
Thy light is hid, and all things droop and mourn;
Laughs the wide sea around her budding isles,
When through their heaven thy changing car is borne;
Thou wheelst away thy flight, the woods are shorn
Of all their waving locks, and storms awake;
All, that was once so beautiful, is torn
By the wild winds which plough the lonely lake,
And in their maddening rush the crested mountains shake.

The Earth lies buried in a shroud of snow;
Life lingers, and would die, but thy return
Gives to their gladdened hearts an overflow
Of all the power, that brooded in the urn
Of their chilled frames, and then they proudly spurn
All bands that would confine, and give to air
Hues, fragrance, shapes of beauty, till they burn,
When on a dewy morn thou dartest there
Rich waves of gold to wreath with fairer light the fair.

The vales are thine; and when the touch of Spring
Thrills them, and gives them gladness, in thy light
They glitter, as the glancing swallow's wing
Dashes the water in his winding flight,
And leaves behind a wave, that crinkles bright,
And widens outward to the pebbled shore --
The vales are thine, and when they wake from night,
The dews, that bend the grass tips, twinkling o'er
Their soft and oozy beds, look upward and adore.

The hills are thine -- they catch thy newest beam,
And gladden in thy parting, where the wood
Flames out in every leaf, and drinks the stream
That flows from out thy fullness, as a flood
Bursts from an unknown land, and rolls the food
Of nations in its waters -- so thy rays
Flow and give brighter tints, than ever bud,
When a clear sheet of ice reflects a blaze
Of many twinkling gems, as every glossed bough plays.

Thine are the mountains, where they purely lift
Snows that have never wasted, in a sky
Which hath no stain; below the storm may drift
Its darkness, and the thunder-gust roar by,
Aloft in thy eternal smile they lie
Dazzling but cold; thy farewell glance looks there,
And when below thy hues of beauty die
Girt round them as a rosy belt, they bear
Into the high dark vault a brow that still is fair.

The clouds are thine, and all their magic hues
Are penciled by thee; when thou bendest low,
Of comest in thy strength, thy hand imbues
Their waving fold with such a perfect glow
Of all pure tints, the fairy pictures throw
Shame on the proudest art; the tender stain
Hang round the verge of Heaven, that as a bow
Girds the wide world, and in their blended chain
All tints to the deep gold, that flashes in thy train;

These are thy trophies, and thou bendst thy arch,
The sign of triumph, in a seven-fold twine,
Where the spent storm is hasting on its march;
And there the glories of thy light combine,
And form with perfect curve a lifted line,
Striding the earth and air; -- man looks and tells
How Peace and Mercy in its beauty shine,
And how the heavenly messenger impels
Her glad wings on the path, that thus in ether swells.

The ocean is thy vassal; thou dost sway
His waves to thy dominion, and they go,
Where thou in Heaven dost guide them on their way,
Rising and falling in eternal flow;
Thou lookest on the waters, and they glow,
They take them wings and spring aloft in air,
And change to clouds, and then, dissolving, throw
Their treasures back to earth, and, rushing, tear
The mountain and the vale, as proudly on they bear.

I too have been upon thy rolling breast,
Widest of waters! I have seen thee lie
Calm, as an infant pillowed in its rest
On a fond mother's bosom, when the sky,
Not smoother, gave the deep its azure die,
Till a new Heaven was arched and glassed below,
And then the clouds, that gay in sunset fly,
Cast on it such a stain, it kindled so,
As in the cheek of youth the living roses grow.

I too have seen thee on thy surging path,
When the night tempest met thee; thou didst dash
Thy white arms high in Heaven, as if in wrath
Threatening the angry sky; thy waves did lash
The laboring vessel, and with deadening crash
Rush madly forth to scourge its groaning sides;
Onward thy billows came to meet and clash
In a wild warfare, till the lifted tides
Mingled their yesty tops, where the dark storm-cloud rides.

In thee, first light, the bounding ocean smiles,
When the quick winds uprear it in a swell,
That rolls in glittering green around the isles,
Where ever-springing fruits and blossoms dwell;
O! with a joy no gifted tongue can tell,
I hurry o'er the waters, when the sail
Swells tensely, and the light keel glances well
Over the curling billow, and the gale
Comes off from spicy groves to tell its winning tale.

The soul is thine; of old thou wert the Power
Who gave the Poet life, and I in thee
Feel my heart gladden, at the holy hour,
When thou art sinking in the silent sea;
Or when I climb the height, and wander free,
In thy meridian glory, for the air
Sparkles and burns in thy intensity,
I feel thy light within me, and I share
In the full glow of soul thy spirit kindles there.

All have their moments, when the world looks dark
Behind, around, before them: Some have steeled
Their hearts to hope, and put out every spark
Faith lends the future -- minds, who will not yield
To aught but sense, who lurk beneath a shield
That bears unshocked the rudest brunt of fate;
They boast of their fixed hardness -- they have healed
All the heart's wounds by searing -- love and hate
Have died alike -- unmoved they sit, and sternly wait

Death, which hath lost all terrors, in the cold
Stifling of every passion and desire;
'T is the same sound, whether the bell has tolled,
Or the flute warbled out the lover's fire;
They laugh at Heaven and all who there aspire,
Who lowly crouch and bend to fear, they mock;
They strive, while they have vigor; when they tire
They sit and muse, like Marius on a rock,
And thus in calm deep thought the Book of Life unlock:

"It came, is gone, whence, whither, none can know:
Darkness behind, as deep a gloom before:
Wave after wave our generations go
Rolling to break upon an unknown shore;
Awhile we toss and sparkle, then no more
The eye beholds our being, we are fled,
And they who moved alone, and they who bore
Navies and convoys, soon, as quickly sped,
Have vanished in the waste dark vacuum of the dead.

"Graves tell no tales, but silence dread and deep
Broods over them forever; one long night
Wraps all that enter their domain in sleep,
On which no day hath ever poured its light;
But Time, as it advances, still doth write
Eternity above their dark repose;
Ages have wheeled away in silent flight,
Man ever to his long oblivion goes;
What if he hath new life? Who hath it only knows.

"We stand the center of Eternity,
Infinity around us; but we cling
To the few sands of life, that soon will be
Lost in the common mass, when Death shall fling
His clay-cold hand athwart us, and shall wring
The spirit from our forms; then dust to dust
Shall meanly molder; we shall be a thing
For worms to feast on; do we rightly trust,
We shall be then all mind, or is it a vain lust?

"So Man has questioned, since his being came
Forth from the womb of Nature; he has found
This dull life for his inner powers too tame,
And therefore he hath cast his view around,
And wandered far away, beyond the bound
Of the seen universe, to find a home
For his high soul to dwell in; though the ground
Receive the wasted corpse, yet he may roam,
On a swift airy wing, beneath Heaven's proudest dome.

"There is a lifting grandeur in the thought;
'T is the extreme of ecstasy to rear
Our now base life above its sordid lot,
And kindle in a holy happy sphere,
Where all that is of intellect is near,
And all pure feeling finds eternal food:
No wonder better souls have rested here
Intensely, as the sparrow guards her brood;
And it attracts the more, the more it is pursued.

"They live in holy musing -- mind is drawn
From all external being -- calm repose
In the one chiefest essence, as the dawn
Sleeps on the silent valley, when the rose
Drips with its seeded dew, that slowly flows
From the still leaves, all are so hushed and calm,
When the blue flowers of day their leaves unclose,
And wake their azure eyes, and breathe their balm,
And the green linnet sucks the honey of the Palm,

"Whose broad leaves hang unruffled by the sway
Of the cool air, that from the ocean steals
With breath so faint, that scarce the silk-tufts play
Round the green cane, when the night beauty seals
Her golden eye in slumber, but reveals
In tender lines of light the fringed lid;
When all that hath a life, in silence feels
The moving of that Power, whose ways are hid
Deep in the core of things, unresting, and amid

"Myriads of viewless instruments, the springs
By which the eternal round of life goes on,
Whose sleep is in the tomb, when spirit flings
Its faded slough aside, again to run
In a fresh-glowing spoil, that gives the sun
Its light in burnished beauty. Do we fly,
Thus parted, Earth forever? or does one
Take from another life, wherewith to ply
Awhile on gladdened wings, and then grow old and die?

"Nature is one eternal circle: Life
Floats through the void, and is attracted, where
The elements, in their collected strife,
From Chaos raise a world in order fair,
To float through space, and on its bosom bear
Forms, that are fashioned with unnumbered wheels
To walk, or swim, or on the buoyant air,
Float in the calm of motion -- Life there steals,
And finds its home prepared; it enters, Matter feels,

"And all awakes to energy, the blood
Courses the winding arteries, which convey
Spirit and heat in its air-kindled flood,
And send to all, the atoms which array
The form in rounded beauty, and their play
Paints on the new-born cheek the one full rose,
Which is the flower of love; we all obey,
Uncheated of our due, this charm, that glows,
And then turns sweetly pale, as passion ebbs and flows.

"Above the temple, where the Godhead sits,
Reason, the Deity and guide of man,
In the most lofty seat, as well befits
The Power, whose sacred office is to span
All that is working round us, or that can
Meet us to please, to harm us, or destroy;
Who hath his band of feelings, who may scan
All that would seek an entrance; who, as joy
Draws, or pain frights, seeks, shuns, what charm us or annoy.

"There sits the Power upon his higher throne,
In a fair palace wrought, when life at first
At the grand form, where mind alone is shown,
The elements of thought and feeling nurst
From the blank infant state, till Genius burst
All earthly barriers, and aspired to Heaven --
He sought to grasp its fire, and he was curst
By his own daring; now by fancy driven,
The victim of belief, he finds a longing given

"To dwell with angels, and to fashion dreams
Of glory, goodness, perfect mind, pure love,
Consummate beauty, in whose gladdening beams
We seem exalted to a sense above
The common life, that chills us; but we prove,
In all this ecstasy, the torturing fire
Of a keen thirst, whose fountain doth remove
Farther, the more we seek it -- such desire
Burns the lost wretch, who finds, each step, the desert drier.

"Man, in the temperate use of all his powers,
Is happy: with the simple fruit and stream,
Labour and rest in their alternate hours,
His life is golden, as fond poets dream
Of the first age, the Paradise, the theme,
Where the rapt spirit gladdens, and runs wild
Through citron shades, whose fruitage woos the beam,
To harden in its rind, through all that smiled
In the Elysian isles, where air was ever mild,

"Brushing the light leaves on its jocund way,
Borne from the breast of ocean without cloud,
Save such light streaks, as give the setting day
Its gilded glory, where the year was bowed
With an eternal harvest, in whose shroud
Earth seemed a Heaven for Gods, not home for men;
They dreamed of all these phantoms, and were proud
Of their creations, but cold winter then
Shut them to gnaw their hearts, and grovel in their den.

"Rapture is not the aim of Man; in flowers
The serpent hides his venom, and the sting
Of the dread insect lurks in fairest bowers:
We were not made to wander on the wing,
But if we would be happy, we must bring
Our buoyed hearts to a plain and simple school;
We may, as the wild-vines their tendrils fling,
And waste their barren life, overleap all rule,
And grasp all light, till age our fruitless ardor cool.

"We would be Gods, and we would know all things,
And therefore we know nothing well; our thought
Would lift itself upon an eagle's wings,
And speed through all that Deity hath wrought
And fashioned by his fiat, until nought
Should be untravelled; but the aspiring flame
Consumes the active mind, and all it sought
Becomes its torment, for the breath of fame,
Like a Sirocco's blast, will sear and scorch our frame.

"We seek the fountain-head, whence Genius flowed
Pure from the breast of Nature, where her stream
Was sparkling as the crystal, and it showed
The bright reflection of the solar beam,
Which from the Sun of mind, the high supreme
Of moral grace and beauty, and the throne
Of majesty unbounded, took its theme,
And in the Muse's morning splendour shone,
As in the dawn of light some snow-capped mountain's cone:

"And we go down the stream of ages, borne
Through cultured fields and deserts, and we take
All that is poured from Plenty's brimming horn
Of mind's collected treasures; there we slake
Our growing thirst, and thus by quenching make
Burning and wasting our intense desire;
We gather burdens, till our spirits ache
Beneath the weight of our attainments; higher,
Even on the grave's close brink, our mounting souls aspire:

''And then Death comes, which we have hurried on,
By our own longing to escape it; still
Hope points the temple we had almost won,
Its Doric columns crown the lifted hill,
And the departed great its porches fill,
And all the springs of Truth at last unlock;
Onward we leap to join them, with a will
That dies in effort -- so from the doomed rock
Prometheus saw the sea roll near, his torture's mock.

"We are the slaves of Nature -- Sun and cloud
Brighten and darken -- cold and heat compel
The spirit to their rule; we may be proud
That we are Lords of Earth, and greatly tell
How elements, obedient to the spell
Of our high reason, follow where we go:
'T is a vain pride; for Glory's upward swell,
Lifting its tides, like Oceans in their flow,
Finds in the meanest check full oft its overthrow.

"A breath may quell the tempest of a soul,
Whose gusts blow o'er a continent, and pour
Madness through nations; who, as wild seas roll,
When wind and earthquake dash them on the shore,
To bury thousands in their rush and roar,
Where ages had been calm and happy, send
One host to sweep a feebler host before
Its brute and causeless rage -- that life may end
By the dark stagnant air, whose poison doth defend

"With a securer bulwark, than the rock
Crowned with its iron jaws of death, which speak
Defiance to the invading wave, and mock
All, who, in their insatiate longing, seek
Wider and richer regions, where to wreak
The lust of a false greatness: in his snows
The Switzer finds his safeguard; winds are bleak,
And earth is barren, but his bosom shows
How hard and firmly nerved to bear and to oppose:

"And in his damp close woods the Carib dwells
Free, for the pestilence forever spreads
Its purple folds around him, till it swells
Dire as a Hydra with its hundred heads;
Where snakes and reptiles batten in their beds,
And round the boughs their bloated circles twine;
Where the dull air its fatal influence sheds
In one eternal mist -- no pure beams shine,
But all that sleeps below is rayless as the mine.

"Man would be free, but is his own worst slave;
His tyrant is his appetite; he lives
Calmly in bondage, if he thus can save
The lust he long hath cherished; then he gives
His birthright to the pander, and believes
He hath his surest safety in that power;
He rests in quiet sloth; he never grieves
For the high glories of that ancient hour,
When liberty sprang forth, and fiercely claimed her dower.

"Base passions are our lords; and thus we bend
So silently to those, who let us feed
On the rank garbage of low joys; we send
Rarely, if ever, to the hopes that breed
Strength in the heart, and give the mind the speed
Of a young courser, on its upward way;
The strong and lofty love the daring deed --
Free in their own wide circuit, they obey
No power but their own might -- the weak too are their prey.

"Weakness is vice: man first was bold and strong,
Prompt to repel all force, to spurn all rule;
He felt his wants, he knew his rights; that throng
Of prurient, pampered appetites, which fool
The soul of its true being, in the school
Of reeking cities taught, he had not known;
And therefore he was not the flatterer's tool,
Who gives the cup of Circe, but alone
He walked erect, a god, and made the earth his own.

"We tell of meekness -- 't is the very curse
Of our degraded nature; we are driven
Close in a crowd, where all mean feelings nurse
Their blackness, and the feebler thus in Heaven,
Look for the help that here they find not given,
And patiently submit to those who crush;
Fetters so galling had been sternly riven
By the first upward race; they would not hush
Wild nature in their hearts, but spend it in the rush

"Of a determined will; though now firm laws
Rear iron walls to hem us darkly in,
We can be just, and ever in the cause
Of the first liberty speak in the din
Of prating slaves, who strive, and only win
New shackles by their toil; the few will hate
The tyrant, and be nobly free within;
They live in their own world; the mean will wait
Fawning around a lord -- such is the doom of fate.

"It is our pride to conquer Nature: -- Mind
Is an internal force, that oft can sway
Things to its great dominion; 't is designed
As the one balance, which at least can stay
Awhile the haste of causes, which convey
All in their downward flood, to where they mix
Again in that great furnace, where the play
Of first attractions ever will unfix
The binding links of life, and send us o'er the Styx,

"To wander through ten thousand changes, where
All first is gross and hateful, till we rise
From the rank putrid heap, to spread in air
New forms, that veil at first their energies;
But as the tireless wing of Being flies,
Hasting forever onward, they grow pure,
And spread new beauty to the admiring eyes
Of the pleased Earth, and silently allure
To taste their fleeting charms, too lovely to endure.

"Why was the sense of Beauty lent to Man,
The feeling of fine forms, the taste of soul,
That speaks from eye and lip, and thus will fan
Love in the young beholder? Why the whole
Waste of creation sweetly can control
The fixed heart to devotion? Why hath Night
So many golden eyes? Why is the roll
Of Nature so accordant, when a blight
Withers our very lives, and poisons all delight?

"Why are we not like Nature, ever new,
Freshening with every season? It is pain
To gaze, when sick and wasted, on the blue
Arching as purely o'er us, and the stain
Of the curled clouds, that gather in the train,
Which the low Sun makes glorious with his smile:
To see the light Spring weave her rosy chain,
And sow her pearls, no longer can beguile,
When age, and want, and sin, our sinking hearts defile.

"Youth is the season, when we must enjoy,
If we would know the sweets of life; the mind
Is then pure feeling, for no base alloy
Of gain hath blended with the ore refined
By the wise hand of Nature, who designed
The beautiful years to be alone the time,
When we call fondly love, and loving find
In the adored the same glad passion chime,
As if two spirits met in one most tuneful rhyme.

"O! there are eyes that have a language -- sweet
Comes their soft music round us, till the air
Is one intensest melody -- we beat
Through every pulse, as if a spring were there
To buoy us into upper worlds, and bear
Our fond hearts with linked arms, on whitest wings,
To a far island, where we two may share
Eternal looks, such as the live eye flings,
When it collects all fire, and as it blesses, stings.

"O! could we stop, at this glad hour, the wheels
Of Time, and make this point Eternity;
Could check that onward flight, which ever steals
Hues, forms, and soul, as the twined colours flee,
Which are above the seven-fold Harmony,
Whose perfect concord meets in the soft light,
That sits upon a wave of clouds -- a sea
Of rolling vapour, pearled and purely white,
That as a curtain hangs the pale-lit throne of Night:

"O! could we dwell in rapture thus forever,
Hearts burning with a high empyreal flame,
Whose blended cones no reckless storm could sever,
But they should tremble upward till the same
Fine point of centered heat should ever aim
Higher and higher to the perfect glow;
As Dante saw from that celestial Dame,
Once loved, now worshipped, Heaven's own splendors flow,
And gather in her smile, that looked so calm below.

"It is not in us; we were fashioned here
For a more tranquil feeling, such as home
Sheds on two hearts, whose true and lasting sphere
Is round the holy hearth; hearts do not roam,
When they are pledged by the young shoots, that come,
Like the green root-twigs, sweetly to renew
Our life in their dear lives, which are the sum
Of all our after being, where we view
Heaven, as the soul's fond smile those rose-lips trembles through.

"O! had I one on whom to fix my heart,
To sit beside me when my thoughts are sad,
And with her tender playfulness impart
Some of her pure joy to me, in whose glad
Up-gazing eyes, the love, that once I had,
Might find its lesser image formed complete
In all its mellow mildness; we grow mad
In dwelling on ideal woes -- we meet
Those loved looks in their smile, and mind regains its seat.

"And as those blue eyes on the canvass throw
Their watery glances to me, where the tear
Seems gathering to a starry drop, to flow
Down the soft damask of her cheek, I hear
From her moved lips, a voice salute my ear,
That was so kind and so confiding; pain,
Which once did throb within me, now doth veer
To a calm stillness; the delirious brain
Seems by cool drops renewed to life's young bliss again.

"And I would then that pictured form could talk
Of hours, that once were happy in the round
Of thought still growing, as at each new walk,
With deeper hue the early bud is found,
Till it unfold its leaves, and scatter round
Its purest incense; -- so our life steals by
Catching new loves and hopes, which, closely wound
With every blended thought and wish, will try
The heart to its last throb, when loved ones leave or die.

"But there is one affection, which no stain
Of earth can ever darken, when two find,
The softer and the manlier, that a chain
Of kindred taste hath fastened mind to mind; --
'T is an attraction from all sense refined,
Not purer shone the sky-born vestal fire;
The good can only know it; 't is not blind,
As love is, unto baseness; its desire
Is, but with hands entwined, to lift our being higher.

"'T is like the twine of hearts from infancy
Beneath the same roof, who have kindly shown
All the fond aids of childhood; -- such we see
In minds, that have one sympathy, alone,
That answer to each other, as the tone
Of woman's voice to the deep sounds, that flow
From the fit organ tubes more grandly blown;
With a dissolving concord blended so,
On through the waste of life those happy spirits go.

"Life is to them in its revolving years
One round of fragrance, one parterre of flowers;
There is a very blessing in their tears,
They are, as to the Earth the first Spring showers,
When wakened by the music of the hours,
All loose their wintery bonds, and leap in air,
When up the mountain, which a forest towers,
The busy hands of fife their colours bear
Darkening the yellow tint, till one deep green is there.

"There is a very blessing in their tears,
Their fountain is in purity, they well
In a clean heart, whose fondness more endears,
Than all the forms and blended tints, that dwell
On a first master's canvass, and compel
Worship unto that miracle of skill,
Which can at once create, as with a spell,
On the blank sheet, such things of life, as fill
The gazer with mute awe, and bend the sterner will.

"There is a very blessing in their tears,
For while they flow in happiness, they heal
Wounds that bleed deep in other hearts; -- Grief hears,
With a sweet sense of gladness, tones that feel
The sorrow they would comfort; we may steel,
In our despair, our hearts to all, who lend
Kindness to those who suffer; but the seal
Of our shut tears is broken, when a friend
Weeps with us all our woes, and then our sorrows end.

"And we weep on and smile; the cloud gives way,
And a new light comes trembling through its shade;
We weep till all our grief is gone, and day
Again is pure above us; -- thus we aid
One in another's evils, which were made
Partly to bind more feelingly the chain,
That links existence; -- we are doubly paid
By our own calm from tears, and by the pain,
Which we have gently healed, and made it bliss again.

"I turn me back, and find a barren waste
Joyless and rayless; a few spots are there,
Where briefly it was granted me to taste
The tenderness of youthful love, and share
In the fond mutual sympathy, the care
Of those on whom our full affections rest:
I dreamed, or it was real; but in air
The charm was broken; it was mine to test
With a long pang how dark and cold the rifled breast.

"There was a madness in the feeling; fire
Seemed to rush through my whirling brain; one stream
Bathed it in torture: thought could never tire
In painting all, that I could shape or dream
Of years of mingled joys, till one supreme
And perfect sense of glory filled me: light
Was in my life -- a moment; then the beam
Sunk, and a sudden rush of tenfold night
Chilled me to my heart's core; all being seemed one blight.

"And then that deep intensity of pain; --
I could have pressed my forehead with the weight
Of a whole world, and yet my throbbing brain
Bounded beneath my strained hand: all seemed hate
And leering scorn around me, tyrant fate
Methought had stamped me for eternal woe;
There was no cool soft dew shed to abate
The fever of despair; -- tears could not flow,
But with another's tears, and then I melted so,

"As the doomed wretch, who on the scaffold hears
Pardon: -- at first he gazes wildly round,
And mocks the offer; hope is lost in fears,
But as he drinks renewed the silver sound,
With such intensest joy his heart strings bound,
It is too keen, too deadening: -- tears first start
Few to his swimming eyes, but he has found
Freshness in those scant drops, and then his heart
Flows, and his melting frame in every gush takes part.

"I wept and I was calm; as when at night,
After a stormy day, the sky turns clear,
And all the world of stars are doubly bright,
As the cloud sails away, and the wide sphere
Swells darkly pure behind it, till it near
The orb, that rules the still hours, then its fold
Whitens and shines impearled, and then we hear
The cock crow, as the silver planet rolled
On the unshaded Heaven, makes all things bright, but cold.

"The earth, that sleeps below in silence, seems
Sprinkled with light, for each clear drop of rain,
That bends the leaves, and grass, and closed flowers, teems
With her mild luster; -- now she casts a stain
On the white clouds behind her, not in vain,
Bending athwart their curls the breded bow;
And as the north-wind whispers o'er the plain,
The drops, that fell with such a silent flow,
Harden to fretted frost, and whiten all below.

"It is one land of loveliness -- but chill
Comes the pale landscape o'er me -- not a tread
Disturbs the calm -- the lone tree on the hill
Waves in its frosted foliage -- fountains fed
From earth's warm bosom, as they kiss it, shed
A fresh green o'er the meadow-grass, alone
Living amid a world, that lies as dead
In a pale corpse-like beauty, while a zone
Of a most tender tint, round all that is seems thrown.

"Such was the calm, that brooded o'er my heart,
Silent but cold; -- I wondered, and I grew
Tranquil, though but a moment; as a dart
Leaps on the lurking deer, who wildly flew,
Seeking the woodland covert, as they blew
The maddening horn behind him, so there came,
Through my hot brain, to madden me anew,
The same wild thoughts, which soon were blown to flame,
Till one convulsive throb ran quivering through my frame.

"And then I thought of death, I sternly rushed
To the steep brink, and eyed the depth below;
I stood poised for the plunge, my forehead flushed
With the hot pain within me, seemed to glow
On the cool wave; -- with a last parting throe
I yielded up my being, but a thought
Checked me, I might not perish -- some sure blow,
That would end all at once, such death I sought,
To wither in one breath, then go where all is nought.

"Again I steeled me, and the flashing tip
Of a sharp dagger met my bounding breast;
It seemed with drops of living blood to drip,
Already on the seat of life 't was prest,
And I was sinking to eternal rest,
When a loud voice seemed yelling, "Madman, stay!
Bear with a sterner will the stern behest
Of fate; "I threw the shining dirk away,
And with a deep wild groan I hasted to obey.

"My heart seemed hardened from that very hour --
Feeling was deadened in it -- smiles and tears
Were gone forever -- friendship had no power
To give me comfort -- all that so endears
In the fair face of woman, hopes and fears
That have in her their fountain, all had fled;
But life had grown eternal, countless years
At once had flown, a wider being spread,
Dark, silent, dim around -- I wandered with the dead.

"And coldly I live on, and will live on,
Till life hath ceased to torture, and the grave
Hides me from man, and that long home is won,
Which welcomes us to quench us, or to save
From all that sinks us here. O! I could brave
Hell and its fires, if with it strength would grow;
There is no pain like weakness -- Justice gave
No keener rack than this, to live and know,
Weak, scorned, that our own hand had wrought our overthrow.

"Well, let the world pass on; I stand unmoved
In all its uproar -- all, it hath of good,
Is now turned poison -- those I fondly loved,
Have died, or hate me -- as the tempter stood
In Eden, nursing in his heart a brood
Of all dark passions, so I look on life;
I find no charm without, my only food
Of thought is in the keen and quenchless strife --
I wrestle with despair, where all of ill is rife.

But evil is my good -- I cannot turn
Back to renew the freshness of young days.
Talk not to me of penitence -- I spurn
The weakness of the stooping wretch, who pays
Awe to the hand that crushes him, and lays
The weight of such existence on his soul;
I asked not to have being, nor to raise
My life from out the brute and senseless whole,
Which ever sleeps the same, though years and ages roll.

We must submit or die: -- If all would end
With the last twinkling of this lamp -- why, well.
I could bear on -- but thought will sometimes send
Questions across the dark dread gulf, where dwell
All wild and formless visions -- 't is the hell
That kindles with its fires the doubting brain;
It may be -- and those few short words will tell
Racks to the lingering heart, that longs in vain
To find some calm retreat to quell its raging pain.

There is, they say, a bending form of love,
Who spreads his dove-wings over us, and bears
The wearied in his gentle arms above
All earth has to assail us, sorrows, cares,
Toil, and disease, and want, till cool sweet airs
Breathe odors from the never-fading flowers
That grow in Heaven, where peace eternal wears
The same undying smile, and as the hours
Steal silently along, descends in balmy showers.

'T is a fond fancy -- some may find it sweet,
Full of all happy visions -- life will seem
Bliss in their upward longings -- there they meet
All their once loved ones heightened -- such a dream
Heals many a broken heart, and then they deem
All is one light around them: let them bend
Deep o'er their long devotion -- let the theme
Of all their words be, of the one Great Friend,
Who saves them from all pain, and bids all sorrows end.

"'T is not for me -- I am of sterner mould;
I must live on in my own heart, and find
Strength to sustain -- by thought; my only hold
Is on that unbent energy of mind,
Which, as the storm beats harder on, will bind
Closer its will around it, and endure;
Which shuns all concord with its own base kind,
Where it forever totters, but grows pure
And firm in solitude, which is its only cure.

"I will not look on Nature -- 't is too fair,
And hath too much of beauty, when it lies
Spread in the sunlight; -- we must hate, or share
In the same being; -- when the clouded skies
In one black front of coming tempest rise,
And bear their rolling waves in torrents on,
Then I can wander forth, and lift my eyes
With a wild sense of power -- the hollow moan
Of the far mountain winds hath music in its tone.

"I must make home in darkness -- I can sit
Days on the sunward rocks, that crown the peak
Of a long Alpine wave -- such things befit
The soul collected in its might to seek
Food in the desert: as the raven's beak
Bore life unto the lonely man, so I
Feed on the darkest forms, and proudly wreak
My wrath on Nature, who hath bent the sky
So glorious and so vast, round such as crawl and die.

"The sense of fair and lofty -- this will wring
The form, that finds itself in cold decay,
Hateful to those we loved, and thus we fling
The wooing Beauty from us, and array
All in a shroud: we cast all hope away,
As a fond thing to cheat the infant; pride
Comes where ambition fled, and when the gay
And lovely from our dark looks turn aside,
Abhorrent and in fear, our part is to deride.

"We have gone through the dusk of death, and known
All the grave hath of horrors; we have seen
Each separate form of pain, have heard the groan,
And the loud maniac laugh; we too have been
Partakers in these torments, and have then
Come out to be the scorner, and to wear
One broad cold sneer; -- we have no part with men,
But like a leering devil we must bear
Proud on our upcurled lips, the scoff that trembles there.

"We now can smile, and feel at heart a hell --
'T is a blue meteor on a cloud, that brings
Plague o'er a sleeping earth, and tolls the knell
Of a lost land, and scatters from its wings
But drops of venom; -- such the smile, hate wrings
From the crushed heart, that hardened as it bore;
So I must live, and look on men as things
That are my bane -- so hide in my heart's core
The grief I cannot tell, till life's poor dream is o'er.

"Then be my spirit firm: the storm may rush
In all its rage around me -- clouds may rend
Their gloom in one broad flash, and in one gush
Pour their wide deluge o'er me -- Earth may send
Swarms of all ills and plagues -- they shall not bend
My soul from its fixed bearing: here on high,
Where the rude rocks, and snows eternal, lend
Bulwarks to my retreat, and the clear sky
Lifts over me its roof -- I sternly sit and die."

'T is the wild rage of madness, thus to send
Defiance unto nature, thus to build
A wall of scorpions, cherishing a fiend
Within a human bosom, sternly willed
To be the common foe, and darkly filled
With all that form the worst of passions -- hate,
Till every warning voice within is stilled,
And all is nerved to meet the doom of fate,
As if man stood alone without a lord or mate;

As if these feeble bodies had the power
To battle with the elements, to stand
Sole, as an oak, to whom the wintry shower
And summer dew fall like: no heart is manned,
Or fenced in iron, that the icy hand
Of want may not subdue it, and compel
The boldest daring to its stern command;
'T is the relentless tyrant of a hell,
In whose cold sordid dens the heart turns hard and fell.

Man is a very infant, when alone; --
The desert, and the forest, and the sea
Lifting its boundless brine, and with a zone
Of azure clasping earth -- Man cannot be,
Lost in their barren silence, firm and free --
Nature will lift her voice, and bend him low;
Thirst, hunger, fear, and madness, like the tree
Whose dew is death, a chilling shade will throw,
Where the heart kindles not with a fond social glow.

Then farewell Solitude! where hate is nursed,
And doubt is cherished; I would rend away
The links that bind my spirit there, and burst
From my dark cell of silence into day,
And climb with tireless hand my upward way,
Where all, who wield the hearts of men, have trod;
Honour and love are there, and these repay
For the dull cares and toils, wherein we plod --
They have a spell to charm the slave, who turns the clod.

Why mount the higher track, that leads to fame?
Why seek to twine a halo round thy brow?
Can the wide echo of a bruited name
Stifle the cry of vulgar want, when thou
Art in the ruder conflict forced to bow
To the hard insolence of common men?
Better have dug the earth, or steered the prow,
Than gain the heights which few can gain, and then
Drudge in the sordid path, where meaner minds have been.

And wherefore doubt? Belief is doubly dear,
When truth has never drawn aside the veil,
That hides the laws of nature. All who fear,
Will find a hope -- one voice can ill avail
Amid the cry of thousands -- we must quail
Submissive to the common creed, or die,
Should fortune waft not with a flattering gale,
And send the glided bark in triumph by --
They can do all, who daze with pomp the vulgar eye.

My work is ended -- I have gained the shore,
Whose flowers are fancy, and whose fruits deceit;
And I have furled my sail to try no more
The gentle breath of favour, nor to beat
With adverse gales, nor where the wild winds meet
On the contending waters: Youth's quick swell
Is sunk to manhood's calm, and now my feet
Must take a weary pilgrimage, and tell,
On through the waste of age, to all I loved -- farewell.

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