Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LIBELLED BENEFACTOR, by HORACE SMITH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LIBELLED BENEFACTOR, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: They warned me by all that affection could urge
Last Line: "but short-sighted mortals have christened me death!"
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Horatio
Subject(s): Angels; Beauty; Death; Life; Dead, The


THEY warned me by all that affection could urge,
To repel his advances and fly from his sight,
They called him a fiend, a destroyer, a scourge,
And whispered his name with a shudder of fright.

They said that disease went as herald before,
While sorrow and severance followed his track,
They besought me if ever I came to his door,
Not a moment to pause, but turn instantly back.

"His breath," they exclaimed, "is a pestilence foul,
His aspect more hateful than language can tell,
His touch is pollution, -- no Gorgon or Ghoul
In appearance and deeds is more loathsome and fell."

Such stern prohibitions, descriptions so dire,
By which the most dauntless might well be dismayed,
In me only wakened a deeper desire
To gaze on the monster so darkly portrayed.

I sought him -- I saw him -- he stood by a marsh,
Where henbane and hemlock with poppies entwined;
He was pale, he was grave, but no feature was harsh,
His eye was serene, his expression was kind.

"This stigmatized being," I cried in surprise,
"Wears a face most benignant; but looks are not facts,
Physiognomy often abuses our eyes;
I'll follow his footsteps and judge by his acts."

There came from a cottage a cry of alarm,
An infant was writhing in agonies sore,
His hand rocked the cradle, its touch was a charm,
The babe fell asleep, and its anguish was o'er.

He reached a proud mansion where, worn by the woe
Of consumption, a Beauty lay withered, in bed;
Her pulse he compressed with his finger, and lo!
The complaint of long years in a moment had fled!

He paused where he heard the disconsolate groan
Of a widow with manifold miseries crushed;
Where a pauper was left in his sickness to groan:
Both were healed at his sight, and their sorrows were hushed.

He sped where a king, sorely smitten with age,
In vain sought relief from the pangs he endured;
"I come," said the stranger, "your woes to assuage;"
He spoke, and the monarch was instantly cured.

Astounded by deeds which appeared to bespeak
In the fiend a benevolent friend of mankind,
From himself I resolved a solution to seek
Of the strange contradictions that puzzled my mind.

"Chase, mystical being," I cried, "this suspense;
How comes it thou'rt blackened by every tongue,
When in truth thou'rt the champion, the hope, the defence
Of the king and the beggar, the old and the young?"

"Thou hast witnessed" -- he answered -- (his voice and his face
Were all that is musical, bland, and benign),
"Not a tithe of the blessings I shed on the race
Who my form and my attributes daily malign.

"All distinctions of fortune, of birth, of degree,
Disappear where my levelling banner I wave;
From his desolate dungeon the captive I free;
His fetters I loose from the suffering slave.

"And when from their stormy probation on earth,
The just and the righteous in peace I dismiss,
I give them a new and more glorious birth
In regions of pure and perennial bliss."

"Let me bless thee," I cried, "for thy mission of love,
Oh say to what name shall I fashion my breath?"
"THE ANGEL OF LIFE is my title above,
But short-sighted mortals have christened me DEATH!"





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