Turn from the idle Past;
Its lonely ghost thou art!
Yea, like a ghost, whom charms to earth detain
(When, with the dawn, its kindred phantom train
Glide into peaceful graves)—to dust depart
Thy shadowy pageants; and the day unblest,
Seems some dire curse that keeps thee from thy rest.
Yet comfort, comfort to thy longing woe,
Thou wistful watcher by the dreary portal;
Now when most human, since most feeble, know,
That in the Human struggles the Immortal.
Flash'd from the steel of the descending shears,
Oft sacred light illumes the parting soul;
And our last glimpse along the woof of years,
First reads the scheme that disinvolves the whole.
Yet, then, recall the Past!
Is reverence not the child of sympathy?
To feel for Greatness we must hear it sigh:
On mortal brows those halos longest last
Which blend for one the rays that verge from all.
Few reign, few triumph; millions love and grieve:
Of grief and love let some high memory leave
One mute appeal to life, upon the stone—
That tomb from Time shall votive rites receive
When History doubts what ghost once fill'd a throne.
So,—indistinct while back'd by sunlit skies—
But large and clear against the midnight pall,
Thy human outline awes our human eyes.
Place, place, ye meaner royalties below,
For Nature's holiest—Womanhood and Woe!
Let not vain youth deride the age that still
Loves as the young,—loves on unto the last;
Grandest the heart when grander than the will—
Bow we before the soul, which through the Past,
Turns no vain glance towards fading heights of Pride,
But strains its humbled tearful gaze to see,
Love and Remorse—near Immortality,
And by the yawning Grave, stand side by side.
The Parcæ.—Leaf the Sixth.
CROMWELL'S DREAM.
The conception of this Ode originated in a popular tradition of Cromwell's earlier days. It is thus strikingly related by Mr. Forster, in his very valuable Life of Cromwell:—"He laid himself down, too fatigued in hope for sleep, when suddenly the curtains of his bed were slowly withdrawn by a gigantic figure, which bore the aspect of a woman, and which, gazing at him silently for a while, told him that he should, before his death, be the greatest man in England. He remembered when he told the story, and the recollection marked the current of his thoughts, that the figure had not made mention of the word King." Alteration has been made in the scene of the vision, and the age of Cromwell.
I.
The Moor spread wild and far,
In the sharp whiteness of a wintry shroud;
Midnight yet moonless; and the winds ice-bound:
And a grey dusk—not darkness—reign'd around,
Save where the phantom of a sudden star
Peer'd o'er some haggard precipice of cloud:—
Where on the wold, the triple pathway cross'd,
A sturdy wanderer wearied, lone, and lost,
Paused and gazed round; a dwarf'd but aged yew
O'er the wan rime its gnome-like shadow threw;
The spot invited, and by sleep oppress'd,
Beneath the boughs he laid him down to rest.
A man of stalwart limbs and hardy frame,
Meet for the ruder time when force was fame,
Youthful in years—the features yet betray
Thoughts rarely mellow'd till the locks are grey:
Round the firm lips the lines of solemn wile
Might warn the wise of danger in the smile;
But the blunt aspect spoke more sternly still
That craft of craft—the Stubborn Will:
That which,—let what may betide—
Never halts nor swerves aside;
From afar its victim viewing,
Slow of speed, but sure-pursuing;
Through maze, up mount, still hounding on its way,
Till grimly couch'd beside the conquer'd prey!
II.
The loftiest fate will longest lie
In unrevealing sleep;
And yet unknown the destined race,
Nor yet his Soul had walk'd with Grace;
Still, on the seas of Time
Drifted the ever-careless prime,—
But many a blast that o'er the sky
All idly seems to sweep,—
Still while it speeds, may spread the seeds
The toils of autumn reap:—
And we must blame the soil, and not the wind,
If hurrying passion leave no golden grain behind.