Thine are the Dreams that pass the Ivory Gates,
With prophet shadows haunting poet eyes!
Thine the beloved illusions youth creates
From the dim haze of its own happy skies.
In vain we pine—we yearn on earth to win
The being of the heart, our boyhood's dream.
The Psyche and the Eros ne'er have been,
Save in Olympus, wedded!—As a stream
Glasses a star, so life the ideal love;
Restless the stream below—serene the orb above!
Ever the soul the senses shall deceive;
Here custom chill, there kinder fate bereave:
For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows!
And Eden-flowers for Adam's mournful brows!
We seek to make the moment's angel-guest
The household dweller at a human hearth;
We chase the bird of Paradise, whose nest
Was never found amid the bowers of earth.[O]
Yet loftier joys the vain pursuit may bring,
Than sate the senses with the boons of time;
The bird of Heaven hath still an upward wing,
The steps it lures are still the steps that climb,
And in the ascent, although the soil be bare,
More clear the daylight and more pure the air.
Let Petrarch's heart the human mistress lose,
He mourns the Laura, but to win the Muse:
Could all the charms which Georgian maids combine
Delight the soul of the dark Florentine,
Like one chaste dream of childlike Beatrice
Awaiting Hell's stern pilgrim in the skies,
Snatch'd from below to be the guide above,
And clothe Religion in the form of Love?[P]
III.
O, thou true Iris! sporting on thy bow
Of tears and smiles—Jove's herald, Poetry!
Thou reflex image of all joy and woe—
Both fused in light by thy dear phantasy!
Lo! from the clay how Genius lifts its life,
And grows one pure Idea—one calm soul!
True, its own clearness must reflect our strife;
True, its completeness must comprise our whole:
But as the sun transmutes the sullen hues
Of marsh-grown vapours into vermeil dyes,
And melts them later into twilight dews,
Shedding on flowers the baptism of the skies;
So glows the Ideal in the air we breathe—
So from the fumes of sorrow and of sin,
Doth its warm light in rosy colours wreathe
Its playful cloudland, storing balms within.
Survey the Poet in his mortal mould
Man amongst men, descended from his throne!
The moth that chased the star now frets the fold,
Our cares, our faults, our follies are his own.
Passions as idle, and desires as vain,
Vex the wild heart, and dupe the erring brain.
From Freedom's field the recreant Horace flies
To kiss the hand by which his country dies;
From Mary's grave the mighty Peasant turns,
And hoarse with orgies rings the laugh of Burns.
While Rousseau's lips a lackey's vices own,—
Lips that could draw the thunder on a throne!
But when, from Life the Actual, Genius springs,
When, self-transform'd by its own Magic rod,
It snaps the fetters and expands the wings,
And drops the fleshly garb that veil'd the god,
How the mists vanish as the form ascends!—
How in its aureole every sunbeam blends!
By the Arch-Brightener of Creation seen,
How dim the crowns on perishable brows!
The snows of Atlas melt beneath the sheen,
Through Thebaid caves the rushing splendour flows,
Cimmerian glooms with Asian beams are bright,
And Earth reposes in a belt of light.
Now stern as Vengeance shines the awful form,
Arm'd with the bolt and glowing through the storm;
Sets the great deeps of human passion free,
And whelms the bulwarks that would breast the sea.
Roused by its voice the ghastly Wars arise,
Mars reddens earth, the Valkyrs pale the skies;
Dim Superstition from her hell escapes,
With all her shadowy brood of monster shapes;
Here Life itself lie scowl of Typhon[Q] takes;
There Conscience shudders at Alecto's snakes;
From Gothic graves at midnight yawning wide,
In gory cerements gibbering spectres glide;
And where o'er blasted heaths the lightnings flame,
Black secret hags "do deeds without a name!"
Yet through its direst agencies of awe,
Light marks its presence and pervades its law,
And, like Orion when the storms are loud,
It links creation while it gilds a cloud.
By ruthless Thor, free Thought, frank Honour stand,
Fame's grand desire, and zeal for Fatherland;
The grim Religion of Barbarian Fear,
With some Hereafter still connects the Here,
Lifts the gross sense to some spiritual source,
And thrones some Jove above the Titan Force,
Till, love completing what in awe began,
From the rude savage dawns the thoughtful man.
Then, O behold the glorious Comforter!
Still bright'ning worlds, but gladd'ning now the hearth,
Or like the lustre of our nearest star,
Fused in the common atmosphere of earth.
It sports like hope upon the captive's chain;
Descends in dreams upon the couch of pain;
To wonder's realm allures the earnest child;
To the chaste love refines the instinct wild;
And as in waters the reflected beam,
Still where we turn, glides with us up the stream;
And while in truth the whole expanse is bright,
Yields to each eye its own fond path of light,
So over life the rays of Genius fall,—
Give each his track because illuming all.
IV.
Hence is that secret pardon we bestow
In the true instinct of the grateful heart,
Upon the Sons of Song. The good they do
In the clear world of their Uranian art
Endures for ever; while the evil done
In the poor drama of their mortal scene,
Is but a passing cloud before the sun;
Space hath no record where the mist hath been.
Boots it to us, if Shakspeare err'd like man?
Why idly question that most mystic life?
Eno' the giver in his gifts to scan;
To bless the sheaves with which thy fields are rife,
Nor, blundering, guess through what obstructive clay
The glorious corn-seed struggled up to day.
V.
But not to you alone, O Sons of Song,
The wings that float the loftier airs along.
Whoever lifts us from the dust we are,
Beyond the sensual to spiritual goals;
Who from the Moment and the Self afar
By deathless deeds allures reluctant souls,
Gives the warm life to what the Limner draws,
Plato but thought what godlike Cato was.[R]
Recall the wars of England's giant-born,
Is Elyot's voice—is Hampden's death in vain?
Have all the meteors of the vernal morn
But wasted light upon a frozen main?
Where is that child of Carnage, Freedom, flown?
The Sybarite lolls upon the Martyr's throne,
Lewd, ribald jests succeed to solemn zeal;
And things of silk to Cromwell's men of steel.
Cold are the hosts the tromps of Ireton thrill'd,
And hush'd the senates Vane's large presence fill'd.
In what strong heart doth the old manhood dwell?
Where art thou Freedom?—Look—in Sidney's cell!
There still as stately stands the living Truth,
Smiling on age as it had smiled on youth.
Her forts dismantled, and her shrines o'erthrown,
The headsman's block her last dread altar-stone,
No sanction left to Reason's vulgar hope—
Far from the wrecks expands her prophet's scope.
Millennial morns the tombs of Kedron gild,
The hands of saints the glorious walls rebuild,—
Till, each foundation garnish'd with its gem,
High o'er Gehenna flames Jerusalem!
O thou blood-stain'd Ideal of the free,
Whose breath is heard in clarions—Liberty!
Sublimer for thy grand illusions past,
Thou spring'st to Heaven—Religion at the last.
Alike below, or commonwealths, or thrones,
Where'er men gather some crush'd victim groans;
Only in death thy real form we see,
All life is bondage—souls alone are free.
Thus through the waste the wandering Hebrews went,
Fire on the march, but cloud upon the tent.
At last on Pisgah see the prophet stand,
Before his vision spreads the Promised Land;
But where reveal'd the Canaan to his eye?—
Upon the mountain he ascends to die.
VI.