III.
LORD ARDEN'S TALE.
"Rear'd in a court, a man while yet a boy,
Hermes said 'Rise,' and Venus sigh'd 'Enjoy;'
My earlier dreams, like tints in rainbows given,
Caught from the Muse, glow'd but in clasping heaven;
The bird-like instinct of a sphere afar
Pined for the air, and chafed against the bar.
But can to Guelphs Augustan tastes belong?
Or Georgium Sidus look benign on song?
My short-lived Muse the ungenial climate tried,
Breathed some faint warbles, caught a cold, and died!
Wise kinsmen whisper'd 'Hush! forewarn'd in time;
The feet that rise are not the feet of Rhyme;
Your cards are good, but all is in the lead,
Play out the heart, and you are lost indeed:
Leave verse, my boy, to unaspiring men—
The eagle's pinion never sheds a pen!'
"So fled the Muse! What left the Muse behind?
The aimless fancy and the restless mind;
The eyes, still won by whatsoe'er was bright,
But lost the star's to prize the diamond's light.
Man, like the child, accepts the bauble boon.
And clasps the coral where he ask'd the moon.
Forbid the pomp and royalty of heaven,—
To the born Poet still the earth is given;
Duped by each glare in which Corruption seems
To give the glory imaged on his dreams:
Thus, what had been the thirst for deathless fame,
Grew the fierce hunger for the Moment's name;
Ambition placed its hard desires in Power,
And saw no Jove but in the Golden Shower.
No miser I—no niggard of the store—
The end Olympus, but the means the ore:
I look'd below—there Lazarus crawl'd disdain'd;
I look'd aloft—there, who but Dives reign'd?
He who would make the steeps of power his home,
Must mask the Titan till he rules the Gnome.
If I insist on this, my soul's disease,
Excuse for fault thy practised sight foresees:
It makes the moral of my tale, in truth,
And boyhood sow'd the poison of my youth.
"Meanwhile men praised, and women smiled;—the wing,
Bow'd from the height, still bask'd beneath the spring.
Pass by the Paphian follies of that day,—
When true love comes, it is to close our May.
Well, ere my boyish holiday was o'er,
The grim god came, and mirth was mine no more:
A well-born pauper, I seem'd doom'd to live
By what great men to well-born paupers give:
I had an uncle high in power and state,
Who ruled three kingdoms' and one nephew's fate.
This uncle loved, as English thanes will all,
An autumn's respite in his rural hall;
In slaughtering game, relax'd his rigid breast;
And so,—behold me martyr'd to his guest!
IV.
"Wandering, one day, in discontented mood
By a clear brook—through grassy solitude,
Leading the dance of light waves chanting low—
A little world of sunshine seem'd to grow
Out from the landscape—as with sudden spring
From bosk and brake—leapt the stream glittering.
Lo, the meek home, its porch with roses twined,
Green sward before, a sacred tower behind;
On the green sward the year's last flowers were gay,
And the last glory of the golden day
Paused on the spire, that, shining, soar'd to cleave
Those clouds, the loveliest, that precede the eve.
"Along the bank, beneath the bowering tree,
Young fairies play'd—young voices laugh'd in glee;
One voice more mellow'd in its silver sound,
Yet blithe as rang the gladdest on the ground;
One shape more ripen'd, one sweet face more fair,
Yet not less happy, the Titania there.
Soft voice, fair face, I hear, I see ye still!
Shades and dim echoes from the blissful hill
Behind me left, to cast but darkness o'er
The waste slow-lengthening to the grave before!
"So Love was born. With love invention came;
I won my entrance, but conceal'd my name.
A village priest her father, poor and wise,
In aught that clears to mortal sight the skies,
But blind and simple as a child to all
The things that pass upon the earth we crawl;
The mask'd Lothario to his eyes appear'd
A student youth, by Alma Mater rear'd
The word to preach, the hunger to endure,
And see Ambition close upon a Cure;—
A modest youth, who own'd his learning slight,
And brought his taper to the master's light.
This tale believed, the good man's harmless pride
Was pleased the bashful neophyte to guide:
Spread out his books, and, moved to pity, press'd
The backward pupil to the daily guest.
"So from a neighbouring valley, where they deem
My home, each noon I cross the happy stream,
And hail the eyes already watchful grown,
And clasp the hand that trembles in my own;
But not for guilt had I conceal'd my name,
The young warm passion nursed no thought of shame;
The spell that bound ennobled while it charm'd,
And Romeo's love Lothario's guile disarm'd;
And vain the guile had been!—impure desire
Round that chaste light but hover'd to expire:
Her angel nature found its own defence,
Ev'n in the instincts of its innocence;
As that sweet plant which opens every hue
Of its frank heart to eyes content to view,
But folds its leaves and shrinks in coy disdain
From the least touch that would the bloom profane.
Link'd with the woman's Meekness, side by side,
Stood, not to lose but guard the angel, Pride;
Pride, with the shield for honour, not the heart,
Sacred from stain, not proof against the dart.
Brief,—then, such love it was my lot to win
As sways a life to every grief but—sin.
V.