Yet whatsoever be our bondage here,
All have two portals to the Phantom sphere,—
Who hath not glided through those gates that ope,
Beyond the Hour, to Memory or to Hope!
Give Youth the Garden,—still it soars above—
Seeks some far glory—some diviner love.
Place Age amidst the Golgotha—its eyes
Still quit the graves, to rest upon the skies;
And while the dust, unheeded, moulders there,
Track some lost angel through cerulean air.
Lo! where the Austrian binds, with formal chain,
The crownless son of earth's last Charlemain—
Him, at whose birth laugh'd all the violet vales
(While yet unfallen stood thy sovereign star,
O Lucifer of Nations)—hark, the gales
Swell with the victor-shout from hosts, whose war
Rended the Alps, and crimson'd Memphian Nile—
"Way for the coming of the Conqueror's Son:
Woe to the Merchant-Carthage of the Isle!
Woe to the Scythian Ice-world of the Don!
O Thunder Lord, thy Lemnian bolts prepare,
The Eagle's eyrie hath its eagle heir!"
Hark, at that shout from north to south, grey Power
Quails on its weak, hereditary thrones;
And widow'd mothers prophesy the hour
Of future carnage to their cradled sons.
What! shall our race to blood be thus consign'd,
And Até claim an heirloom in mankind?
Are these red lots unshaken in the urn?
Years pass—approach, pale Questioner—and learn
Chain'd to his rock, with brows that vainly frown,
The fallen Titan sinks in darkness down!
And sadly gazing through his gilded grate,
Behold the child whose birth, was as a fate!
Far from the land in which his life began;
Wall'd from the healthful air of hardy man;
Rear'd by cold hearts, and watch'd by jealous eyes,
His guardians jailors, and his comrades spies.
Each trite convention courtly fears inspire
To stint experience and to dwarf desire,
Narrows the action to a puppet stage,
And trains the eaglet to the starling's cage.
On the dejected brow and smileless cheek,
What weary thought the languid lines bespeak:
Till drop by drop, from jaded day to day,
The sickly life-streams ooze themselves away.
Yet oft in Hope a boundless realm was thine,
That vaguest Infinite—the Dream of Fame;
Son of the sword that first made kings divine,
Heir to man's grandest royalty—a Name!
Then didst thou burst upon the startled world,
And keep the glorious promise of thy birth;
Then were the wings that bear the bolt unfurl'd,
A monarch's voice cried, "Place upon the Earth!"
A new Philippi gain'd a second Rome,
And the Son's sword avenged the greater Cæsar's doom.
VII.
But turn the eye to Life's sequester'd vale,
And lowly roofs remote in hamlets green.
Oft in my boyhood where the moss-grown pale
Fenced quiet graves, a female form was seen;
Each eve she sought the melancholy ground,
And lingering paused, and wistful look'd around;
If yet some footstep rustled through the grass,
Timorous she shrunk, and watch'd the shadow pass.
Then, when the spot lay lone amidst the gloom,
Crept to one grave too humble for a tomb,
There silent bow'd her face above the dead,
For, if in prayer, the prayer was inly said;
Still as the moonbeam, paused her quiet shade,
Still as the moonbeam, through the yews to fade.
Whose dust thus hallow'd by so fond a care?
What the grave saith not—let the heart declare.
On yonder green two orphan children play'd;
By yonder rill two plighted lovers stray'd.
In yonder shrine two lives were blent in one,
And joy-bells chimed beneath a summer sun.
Poor was their lot—their bread in labour found;
No parent bless'd them, and no kindred own'd;
They smiled to hear the wise their choice condemn;
They loved—they loved—and love was wealth to them!
Hark—one short week—again the holy bell!
Still shone the sun, but dirge-like boom'd the knell;
And when for that sweet world she knew before
Look'd forth the bride,—she saw a grave the more.
Full fifty years since then have pass'd away,
Her cheek is furrow'd, and her hair is grey.
Yet when she peaks of him (the times are rare),
Hear in her voice how youth still trembles there!
The very name of that young life that died,
Still heaves the bosom, and recalls the bride.
Lone o'er the widow's hearth those years have fled,
The daily toil still wins the daily bread;
No books deck sorrow with fantastic dyes:
Her fond romance her woman heart supplies;
And, to the sabbath of still moments given,
(Day's taskwork done)—to memory, death, and heaven,
There may—(let poets answer me!) belong
Thoughts of such pathos as had beggar'd song.
VIII.
Yes, while thou hopest, music fills the air;
While thou rememberest, life reclothes the clod;
While thou canst feel the electric chain of prayer,
Breathe but a thought, and be a soul with God!
Let not these forms of matter bound thine eye,
He who the vanishing point of Human things
Lifts from the landscape—lost amidst the sky,
Has found the Ideal which the poet sings—
Has pierced the pall around the senses thrown,
And is himself a poet—though unknown.