IV.
He lifts his look where on the lattice bar,
Through clouds fast gathering, shines a single star;
Large on the haze of his receding sight
It spreads, and spreads, and floods all space with light;
Nature's last glorious mournful smile on him
Ev'n while on earth so near the Seraphim.
Now from the blaze he veils with tremulous hand
The scorching eyes:—and now the starlight fades:
Midnight and cloud resettle on the Land,
And o'er her champion's vision rush the shades.
What rests to both?—the inner light that glows
Out from the gloom that Fate on each bestows;
There is no PRESENT to a hope sublime;
Man has eternity, and Nations time!
PART THE FOURTH.
"Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me."—Paradise Lost, Book III.
"Though fall'n on evil days,
In darkness, and with danger compass'd round,
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east."—Paradise Lost, Book VII.
I.
Its gay farewell to hospitable eaves
The swallow twitter'd in the autumn heaven;
Dumb on the crisp earth fell the yellowing leaves,
Or, in small eddies, fitfully were driven
Down the bleak waste of the remorseless air.
Out, from the widening gaps in dreary boughs,
Alone the laurel smiled,—as freshly fair
As its own chaplet on immortal brows,
When Fame, indifferent to the changeful sun,
Sees waning races wither, and lives on.—
An old man sate before that deathless tree
Which bloom'd his humble dwelling-place beside;
The last pale rose which lured the lingering bee
To the low porch it scantly blossom'd o'er,
Nipp'd by the frost-air had that morning died.
The clock faint-heard beyond the gaping door,
Low as a death-watch, click'd the moments' knell;
And through the narrow opening you might see
Uncertain foot-prints on the sanded floor
(Uncertain foot-prints which of blindness tell);
The rude oak board, the morn's untasted fare;
The scatter'd volumes and the pillow'd chair,
In which, worn out with toil and travel past,
Life, the poor wanderer, finds repose at last.
II.
The old man felt the fresh air o'er him blowing
Waving thin locks from musing temples pale;
Felt the quick sun through cloud and azure going,
And the light dance of leaves upon the gale,
In that mysterious symbol-change of earth
Which looks like death, though but restoring birth.
Seasons return; for him shall not return
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn.
Whatever garb the mighty mother wore,
Nature to him was changeless evermore.—
List, not a sigh!—though fall'n on evil days,
With darkness compass'd round—those sightless eyes
Need not the sun; nightly he sees the rays,
Nightly he walks the bowers of Paradise.
High, pale, still, voiceless, motionless, alone,
Death-like in calm as monumental stone,
Lifting his looks into the farthest skies,
He sate: And as when some tempestuous day
Dies in the hush of the majestic eve,
So on his brow—where grief has pass'd away,
Reigns that dread stillness grief alone can leave.