From his embrace abrupt the maiden sprang
With low wild cry despairing:—In the shade
Of that dark tree where still the night-bird sang,
Stood a stern image statue-like, and made
A shadow in the shadow;—locks of snow
Crown'd, with the awe of age, the solemn brow;
Lofty its look with passionless command,
As some old chief's of grand inhuman Rome:
Calm from its stillness moved the beckoning hand,
And low from rigid lips it murmur'd "Come!"—
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PART THE THIRD.
"I argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope, but still bear up, and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, friend."—MILTON'S Sonnet to Cyriack Skinner.
I.
Years have flown by;—and Strife hath raged and ceased;
Still on the ear the halted thunder rings;
And still in halls, where purple tyrants feast,
Glares the red warning to inebriate kings.
Midnight is past: the lamp with steadfast light
A silent cell, a mighty toil illumes;
And hot and lurid on the student's sight
Flares the still ray which, like himself, consumes
Its life in gilding darkness. Damp and chill
Gather the dews on aching temples wan,
Wrung from the frame which fails the unconquer'd will
In the fierce struggle between soul and man.
II.
Alas! no more to golden palaces,
To starlit founts and dryad-haunted trees,
The SWEET DELUSION wafts the dreamy soul;
But with slow step and steadfast eyes that strain
Dazzled and scathed, towards the far-flaming goal
He braved the storm, and labour'd up the plain
O doubtful labour, but O glorious pain!
On the doom'd sight the gradual darkness steals
Bates he a jot of heart and hope?—he feels
But in his loss a world's eternal gain.[E]
Blame we or laud the Cause, all human life
Is grander by one grand self-sacrifice;
While earth disputes if righteous be the strife,
The martyr soars beyond it to the skies.
Yes, though when Freedom had her temple won
She rear'd a scaffold to obscure a shrine;
And, by the human sacrifice of one,
Sullied the million,—who could then define
The subtle tints where good and evil blend?—
There comes no rainbow when the floods descend!
Who, just escaped the chain and prison-bar,
Halts on the bridge to guess where glides the stream;
Who plays the casuist 'mid the roar of war;
Or in the arena builds the Academe?
Whate'er their errors, lightly those condemn
Who, had they felt not, fought not, glow'd and err'd,
Had left us what their fathers left to them—
Either the thraldom of the passive herd
Stall'd for the shambles at the master's word,
Or the dread overleap of walls that close,
And spears that bristle:—And the last they chose.
Calm from the hills their children gaze to-day,
And breathe the airs to which they forced the way.
III.
And thou, of whom I sing—what should we all,
Whate'er our state-creed, venerate in thee?
Purpose heroic; and majestical
Disdain of self;—the soul in which we see
Conviction, welding, from the furnace-zeal,
Duty, the iron mainspring of the mind;
Ardour, if fierce, yet fired for England's weal;
And man's strong heart-throb beating for mankind.
These move our homage, doubtful though we be
If ev'n thy pen acquits the headman's steel,
When thy page cites the crownless Dead—and pleads
Defence for nations in a judgeless cause:
Judgeless, for time shall ne'er decide what deeds
Damn or absolve the hosts whom Freedom leads
O'er the pale border-land of dying laws
Into the vague world of Necessity.