THE PALACE OF REPOSE.
Helpless we start before the break of day,
And grope along an unknown path our way,
Or follow leaders blind, and many fall;
But on we press, heedless and joyous all,
As happy fledglings fluttering in the brake,
That nothing reck of prowling fox or snake.
When over us at last the daylight dawns,
We bear the marks of many cruel thorns;
But brightly on the far horizon gleams
(Of more than earthly grace the vision seems)
The Palace of Repose, that rears on high
Its golden domes against the western sky,
While warm and tender as a poet’s dreams,
The restful radiance from each tower that streams.
Now through the early morning air we fly,
As the young shepherd sped with beaming eye
Fast fixed upon the rose-born butterfly.
Toward flowery vales and hills our pathway leads,
But when we reach them all their beauty fades.
Hills that were fairer, ere their paths were won,
Than the long slopes of fountained Helicon,
Are marred by poisonous weeds and flinty stone;
And forms that seemed, against the distant skies,
Winging their snowy way to Paradise,
Are birds unclean, whose wings are like a breath
From some great charnel-house in lands of death.
And shifting sands beneath our feet are spread,
And pitfalls numberless beset our way,
Where noisome reptiles fill us with dismay;
On either side lie, fathomless and dim,
Wide plains where wander phantoms stark and grim.
Noon comes; the goal no nearer, on we haste,
Nor note the lengthening shadows of the past.
Luring us on we hear the far, faint moan
Of music, weird and sweet as Memnon’s tone,
Heard in the desert by the traveller lone;
Bewildering as the sounds the shepherds erst
Heard in the vales of Thessaly, when first
Apollo’s wondrous music on them burst.
Of all that started with us, hand in hand,
Only a few are left, a dwindling band.
With haggard faces fixed upon the goal,
E’en as the needle to the steadfast pole,
Swifter and swifter, till the evening air
Sings like a serpent through our back-blown hair.
But lo, the night has come,
The sun goes down,
His trailing robes with crimson glories crown
The palace we had almost deemed was ours.
Dearer than ever seem those fading towers,
Whose oriel windows gleam like soul-lit eyes
For one bright moment ere thick darkness lies
On earth and sky, then trembling, faint, and sore,
Closing our pathway, lo, we find a door,
The entrance to a narrow house that still
Blocks up the way of every human will.
Wander where’er we may, this self-same goal
Is reached at last by every weary soul.
Our burdens fall unheeded, and our gains,—
This is the end of all our toil and pains.
Over the threshold hangs a shrunken lute,
Upon a tree where grows nor flower nor fruit;
Bewildering odors fill the heavy air,
The nightshade and the wolf’s-bane mingle there;
The faint perfume of rose and lily, too,
Is swallowed up by asphodel and rue.
We enter in, behold, a lowly bed,
How sweet the poppied perfume o’er it shed,
Where the red poppy swings its censer head.
There sleep shall seize and bind us, sleep supreme,
That knows no waking morn, no troubled dream.
The years shall swiftly cover us from sight,
In silence and insuperable night.