Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

MAN NEVER TO BE SCORNED.
"Tis nature's law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good-a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably link'd. Then be assured

That least of all can aught—that ever own'd
The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime
Which man is born to-sink, howe'er depress'd,
So low as to be scorn'd without a sin;
Without offence to God cast out of view;
Like the dry remnant of a garden flower
Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement
Worn out and worthless.

OBEDIENCE AND HUMILITY. GLORIOUS is the blending Of light affections climbing or descending Along a scale of light and life, with cares Alternate; carrying holy thoughts and prayers Up to the sovereign seat of the Most High; Descending to the worm in charity;

Like those good angels whom a dream of night
Gave, in the field of Luz, to Jacob's sight;
All, while he slept, treading the pendant stairs
Earthward or heavenward, radiant messengers,
That, with a perfect will in one accord

Of strict obedience, served the Almighty Lord;
And with untired humility forbore

To speed their errand by the wings they wore.

A DESERTED WIFE.

EVERMORE

Her eyelids droop'd, her eyes were downward cast,
And, when she at her table gave me food,
She did not look at me! Her voice was low,
Her body was subdued. In every act
Pertaining to her house affairs, appear'd
The careless stillness of a thinking mind
Self-occupied; to which all outward things
Are like an idle matter. Still she sigh'd,
But yet no motion of the breast was seen,
No heaving of the heart. While by the fire
We sate together, sighs came on my ear,

I knew not how, and hardly whence they came.
I return'd,

And took my rounds along this road again
Ere on its sunny bank the primrose flower
Peep'd forth, to give an earnest of the spring.
I found her sad and drooping; she had learn'd
No tidings of her husband; if he lived,
She knew not that he lived; if he were dead,
She knew not he was dead. She seem'd the same
In person and appearance; but her house
Bespake a sleepy hand of negligence.
Her infant babe

Had from its mother caught the trick of grief,
And sigh'd among its playthings!

CHATTERTON.

I THOUGHT of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perish'd in his pride; Of him who walk'd in glory and in joy Following his plough, along the mountain side; By our own spirits we are deified;

We poets in our youth begin in gladness, But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

PICTURE OF A BEGGAR.

THE aged man

Had placed his staff across the broad, smooth stone
That overlays the pile; and from a bag
All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one,
And scann'd them with a fix'd and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by these wild, unpeopled hills,
He sat, and ate his food in solitude;
And ever, scatter'd from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers
Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,
Not venturing yet to pick their destined meal,
Approach'd within the length of half his staff.

A LOVER.

ARABIAN fiction never fill'd the world With half the wonders that were wrought for him. Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring; Life turn'd the meanest of her implements Before his eyes to price above all gold; The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine; Her chamber window did surpass in glory The portal of the dawn; all paradise Could, by the simple opening of a door, Let itself in upon him; pathways, walks, Swarm'd with enchantment, till his spirit sank, Surcharged, within him-overblest to move Beneath a sun that walks a weary world To its dull round of ordinary cares; A man too happy for mortality.

LONGING FOR REUNION WITH THE DEAD.

FULL oft the innocent sufferer sees Too clearly; feels too vividly; and longs To realize the vision with intense And over-constant yearning; there-there lies The excess by which the balance is destroy'd. Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh, This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs, Though inconceivably endow'd, too dim, For any passion of the soul that leads To ecstasy; and, all the crooked paths Of time and change disdaining, takes its course Along the line of limitless desires.

A CHILD WITH A SHELL.

I HAVE seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipp'd shell; To which, in silence hush'd, his very soul Listen'd intensely! and his countenance soon Brighten'd with joy; for murmurings from within Were heard, sonorous cadences! whereby, To his belief, the monitor express'd Mysterious union with its native sea. Even such a shell the universe itself Is to the ear of faith.

APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY.

THOU, dread source

Prime, self-existing cause and end of all
That in the scale of being fill their place;
Above our human region, or below,

Set and sustain'd;-Thou, who didst wrap the cloud

Of infancy around us, that Thyself,
Therein with our simplicity a while
Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturb'd;
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,

Or from its deathlike void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restorest us, daily, to the powers of sense,
And reason's steadfast rule-Thou, Thou alone
Art everlasting, and the bless'd spirits,
Which thou includest, as the sea her waves:
For adoration thou endurest; endure
For consciousness the motions of thy will;
For apprehension those transcendent truths
Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws
(Submission constituting strength and power)
Even to Thy Being's infinite majesty !
This universe shall pass away-a work
Glorious! because the shadow of thy might,
A step, or link, for intercourse with thee.
Ah! if the time must come, in which my feet
No more shall stray where meditation leads,
By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild,
Loved haunts like these; the unimprison'd mind
May yet have scope to range among her own,
Her thoughts, her images, her high desires.
If the dear faculty of sight should fail,
Still, it may be allow'd me to remember
What visionary powers of eye and soul

In youth were mine; when, station'd on the top
Of some huge hill-expectant I beheld
The sun rise up, from distant climes return'd
Darkness to chase, and sleep; and bring the day
His bounteous gift! or saw him toward the deep
Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds
Attended; then, my spirit was entranced
With joy exalted to beatitude;

The measure of my soul was fill'd with bliss,
And holiest love; as earth, sea, air, with light,
With pomp, with glory, with magnificence!

COMMUNION WITH NATURE.

NATURE never did betray
The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, nor disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory, be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations!

FROM A POEM ON THE POWER OF SOUND.

-THE gift to King Amphion

That wall'd a city with its melody
Was for belief no dream:-thy skill, Arion!
Could humanize the creatures of the sea,

Where men were monsters. A last grace. he craves,
Leave for one chant;-the dulcet sound
Steals from the deck o'er willing waves,

And listening dolphins gather round.
Self-cast, as with a desperate course,

Mid that strange audience, he bestrides A proud one, docile as a managed horse; And singing, while the accordant hand Sweeps his harp, the master rides ;

So shall he touch at length a friendly strand, And he, with his preserver, shine star-bright In memory, through silent night.

The pipe of Pan, to shepherds

Couch'd in the shadow of Mænalian pines, Was passing sweet; the eyeballs of the leopards That in high triumph drew the Lord of Vines, How did they sparkle to the cymbal's clang! While Fauns and Satyrs beat the ground In cadence, and Silenus swang

This way and that, with wild-flowers crown'd. To life, to life give back thine ear:

Ye who are longing to be rid

Of fable, though to truth subservient, hear
The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell
Echoed from the coffin-lid;

[ocr errors]

The convict's summons in the steeple's knell ; The vain distress-gun" from a leeward shore Repeated-heard and heard no more!

DION.*

FAIR is the swan, whose majesty, prevailing
O'er breezeless water, on Locano's lake,
Bears him on, while proudly sailing

He leaves behind a moon-illumined wake:
Behold! the mantling spirit of reserve
Fashions his neck into a goodly curve;
An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings
Of whitest garniture, like fir-tree boughs,
To which, on some unruffled morning, clings
A flaky weight of winter's purest snows!
Behold! as with a gushing impulse heaves
That downy prow, and softly cleaves
The mirror of the crystal flood,

Vanish inverted hill, and shadowy wood,
And pendent rocks, where'er, in gliding state,
Winds the mute creature without visible mate
Or rival, save the queen of night
Showering down a silver light,
From heaven, upon her chosen favourite!

So pure, so bright, so fitted to embrace,
Where'er he turn'd, a natural grace
Of haughtiness without pretence,
And to unfold a still magnificence,
Was princely Dion, in the power
And beauty of his happier hour.

Nor less the homage that was seen to wait
On Dion's virtues, when the lunar beam

Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere,
Fell round him in the grove of Academe,

Softening their inbred dignity austere;
That he, not too elate
With self-sufficing solitude,

But with majestic lowliness endued,
Might in the universal bosom reign,
And from affectionate observance gain

Help, under every change of adverse fate.

Five thousand warriors-oh, the rapturous day! Each crown'd with flowers, and arm'd with spear and shield,

Or ruder weapon which their course might yield,
To Syracuse advance in bright array.
Who leads them on?-The anxious people see
Long-exiled Dion marching at their head,
He also crown'd with flowers of Sicily,

And in a white, far-beaming corslet clad!
Pure transport, undisturb'd by doubt or fear,
The gazers feel; and, rushing to the plain,
Salute those strangers as a holy train
Or blest procession (to the immortals dear)

That brought their precious liberty again.
Lo! when the gates are enter'd, on each hand,
Down the long street, rich goblets fill'd with wine
In seemly order stand,

On tables set, as if for rites divine ;

And, as the great deliverer marches by, He looks on festal ground with fruits bestrown; And flowers are on his person thrown In boundless prodigality;

Nor doth the general voice abstain from prayer, Invoking Dion's tutelary care,

As if a very deity he were!

See Plutarch.

Mourn, hills and groves of Attica! and mourn
Illyssus, bending o'er thy classic urn!
Mourn, and lament for him whose spirit dreads
Youronce sweet memory, studious walks and shades!
For him who to divinity aspired,

Not on the breath of popular applause,

But through dependence on the sacred laws Framed in the schools where wisdom dwelt retired, Intent to trace the ideal path of right

(More fair than heaven's broad causeway paved with stars)

Which Dion learn'd to measure with delight;

But he hath overleap'd the eternal bars; And, following guides whose craft holds no consent With aught that breathes the ethereal element, Hath stain'd the robes of civil power with blood, Unjustly shed, though for the public good. Whence doubts that come too late, and wishes vain, Hollow excuses, and triumphant pain;

And oft his cogitations sink as low

As, through the abysses of a joyless heart,

The heaviest plummet of despair can go;

But whence that sudden check! that fearful start!

He hears an uncouth sound

Anon his lifted eyes

Saw at a long-drawn gallery's dusky bound

A shape of more than mortal size

And hideous aspect, stalking round and round!
A woman's garb the phantom wore,
And fiercely swept the marble floor,-
Like Auster whirling to and fro,

His force on Caspian foam to try;
Or Boreas when he scours the snow
That skins the plains of Thessaly,
Or when aloft on Mænalus he stops
His flight mid eddying pine-tree tops!
So, but from toil less sign of profit reaping,
The sullen spectre to her purpose bow'd,
Sweeping-vehemently sweeping-
No pause admitted, no design avow'd!
"Avaunt, inexplicable guest!-avaunt!"

Exclaim'd the chieftain,-"Let me rather see
The coronal that coiling vipers make;
The torch that flames with many a lurid flake,
And the long train of doleful pageantry
Which they behold, whom vengeful furies haunt;

Who, while they struggle from the scourge to flee,
Move where the blasted soil is not unworn,
And, in their anguish, bear what other minds have
borne !

But shapes that come not at an earthly call,
Will not depart when mortal voices bid;
Lords of the visionary eye, whose lid
Once raised, remains aghast, and will not fall!
Ye gods, thought he, that servile implement
Obeys a mystical intent!

Your minister would brush away

The spots that to my soul adhere;
But should she labour night and day,

They will not, cannot disappear;
Whence angry perturbations,-and that look
Which no philosophy can brook!

Ill-fated chief! there are whose hopes are built
Upon the ruins of thy glorious name;

Who, through the portal of one moment's guilt,
Pursue thee with their deadly aim!
Oh, matchless perfidy! portentous lust

Of monstrous crime!-that horror-striking blade,
Drawn in defiance of the gods, hath laid
The noble Syracusan low in dust!

Shudder'd the walls,-the marble city wept,And sylvan places heaved a pensive sigh;

But in calm peace the appointed victim slept, As he had fallen, in magnanimity:

Of spirit too capacious to require That Destiny her course should change; too just To his own native greatness, to desire That wretched boon, days lengthen'd by mistrust. So were the hopeless troubles, that involved The soul of Dion, instantly dissolved. Released from life and cares of princely state, He left this moral grafted on his fate,"Him only pleasure leads, and peace attends Him, only him, the shield of Jove defends, Whose means are fair and spotless as his ends."

CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR.

WHO is the happy warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be? -It is the generous spirit who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought: Whose high endeavours are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright: Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, But makes his moral being his prime care; Who, doom'd to go in company with pain, And fear, and bloodshed, miserable train! Turns his necessity to glorious gain; In face of these doth exercise a power Which is our human nature's highest dower; Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives; By objects, which might force her soul to abate Her feeling, render'd more compassionate; Is placable-because occasions rise

So often that demand such sacrifice;

More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
-T is he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He fixes good on good alone, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows :
-Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire
And in himself possess his own desire;

Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,

A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be call'd upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has join'd
Great issues, good or bad, for human kind,
Is happy as a lover; and attired

With sudden brightness, like a man inspired;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Or if an unexpected call succeed,

Come when it will, is equal to the need:
-He who though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,

Is yet a soul whose master-bias leans

To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve:
More brave for this, that he hath much to love:-
"Tis, finally, the man who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a nation's eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity,-
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,
Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won;
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must go to dust without his fame,
And leave a dead, unprofitable name,
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause
This is the happy warrior; this is he
Whom every man in arms should wish to be.

THE POWER OF VIRTUE.
ALL true glory rests,
All praise of safety, and all happiness,
Upon the moral law. Egyptian Thebes;
Tyre by the margin of the sounding waves;
Palmyra, central in the desert, fell!

And the arts died by which they had been raised.
-Call Archimedes from his buried tomb
Upon the plain of vanish'd Syracuse,
And feelingly the sage shall make report
How insecure, how baseless in itself
Is that philosophy, whose sway is framed
For mere material instruments:-How weak
Those arts, and high inventions, if unpropp'd
By virtue."

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY, FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

"The child is father of the man ;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety."

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and spring, The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparell'd in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore ;Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The rainbow come and goes,

And lovely is the rose;

The moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare:
Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth,-
But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief;
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong;

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng,
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the world is gay:

Land and sea

[blocks in formation]

Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other made; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss-I feel-I feel it all.
Oh, evil day! if I were sullen,
While earth herself is adorning

This sweet May-morning,
And the children are culling
On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm:-
I hear, I hear-with joy I hear!
But there's a tree, of many one,
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam!
Where is it now, the glory and the dream!
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar ;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home;
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy;

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy:

The youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,

The homely nurse doth all she can To make her foster-child, her inmate man,

Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came. Behold the child among his new-born blisses,A six years' darling of a pigmy size! See, where 'mid work of his own hand, he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes! See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly learned art: A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little actor cons another part,-
Filling from time to time his humorous stage'
With all the persons, down to palsied age,
That life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul's immensity;

Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind ;-
Mighty prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy immortality

« ForrigeFortsæt »