THE NAMELESS ONE.
BALLAD.
I.
“Roll forth, my song, like the rushing river,
That sweeps along to the mighty sea;
God will inspire me while I deliver
My soul of thee!
II.
“Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening
Amid the last homes of youth and eld,
That there was once one whose veins ran lightning
No eye beheld.
III.
“Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour,
How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom,
No star of all heaven sends to light our
Path to the tomb.
IV.
“Roll on, my song, and to after ages
Tell how, disdaining all earth can give,
He would have taught men from wisdom’s pages
The way to live.
V.
“And tell how, trampled, derided, hated,
And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,
He fled for shelter to God, who mated
His soul with song—
VI.
“With song which alway, sublime or vapid,
Flowed like a rill in the morning beam,
Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid—
A mountain stream.
VII.
“Tell how the Nameless, condemned for years long
To herd with demons from hell beneath,
Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long
For even death.
VIII.
“Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,
Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love,
With spirit shipwrecked and young hopes blasted,
He still, still strove.
IX.
“Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others,
And some whose hands should have wrought for him
(If children live not for sires and mothers),
His mind grew dim.
X.
“And he fell far through the pit abysmal,
The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns,
And pawned his soul for the devil’s dismal
Stock of returns.
XI.
“But yet redeemed it in days of darkness,
And shapes and signs of the final wrath,
Where death in hideous and ghastly starkness
Stood in his path.
XII.
“And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow,
And want and sickness and houseless nights,
He bides in calmness the silent morrow
That no ray lights.
XIII.
“And lives he still, then? Yes! old and hoary
At thirty-nine, from despair and woe,
He lives enduring what future story
Will never know.
XIV.
“Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble,
Deep in your bosoms! There let him dwell!
He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble,
Here and in hell.”
The burden of all his song is sad, and in his translations he has chosen chiefly themes which echoed the harpings of his own soul. He began life as a copying clerk in an attorney’s office, and had for some time to support wholly, or in the main, a mother and sister. In Mitchel’s preface there are many passages almost as fine as the verse of the poet. Here is one, long as it is, that must find a place. Mitchel is speaking of the days when Mangan was in the attorney’s office:—
“At what age he devoted himself to this drudgery, at what age he left it, or was discharged from it, does not appear; for his whole biography documents are wanting, the man having never, for one moment, imagined that his poor life could interest any surviving human being, and having never, accordingly, collected his biographical assets, and appointed a literary executor to take care of his posthumous fame. Neither did he ever acquire the habit, common enough among literary men, of dwelling upon his own early trials, struggles, and triumphs. But those who knew him in after years can remember with what a shuddering and loathing horror he spoke—when at rare intervals he could be induced to speak at all—of his labours with the scrivener and attorney. He was shy and sensitive, with exquisite sensibilities and fine impulses; eye, ear, and soul open to all the beauty, music, and glory of heaven and earth; humble, gentle, and unexacting; modestly craving nothing in the world but celestial, glorified life, seraphic love, and a throne among the immortal gods (that’s all); and he was eight or ten years scribbling deeds, pleadings, and bills in Chancery.”
There is, I believe, but one portrait of him in existence, and a copy of it hangs on the wall of the room in which I am writing, a few feet in front of my eyes. It is not a face easy to describe. Beauty is the chief characteristic of it. But it is not the beauty that men admire or that inspires love in women. It is not the face of a poet or a visionary or a thinker. There is no passion in it; not even the passionate sadness of his own verse. It is not the face of a man who has suffered greatly, or rejoiced in ecstasy. It is the face of a fleshless, worn man of forty, with hair pressed back from the forehead and ear. I have been looking at it for a long time, trying to find out something positive about it, and I have failed. It is not interesting. It is the face of a man who is done with the world and humanity. It is the face of a dead man whose spirit has passed away, while the body remains alive. The eyes are open, and have light in them; the face would be more complete if the light were out, and the lids drawn down and composed for the blind tomb.
He gives a picture of his mental attitude at about the time this portrait was taken:—