And this is life, and here existence beats
With too swift cadence for the mind, poor sloth;
And here, the inquisitive soul all dumbly seeks
The quick transplantings of an earlier growth;
And the vision of the world fades from before him,
And hopes, and fears grow blind, looking on light;
Man reaps the only harvest that can store him
For each emergence of the monstrous night:
O heaven! that this too dies, leaves us o’erweighed
By the gathered volume of defeated woe;
That grief should still be furthered, not delayed,
By joy that makes it heavier, though more slow:
Dark swells the wave, big with his comrade’s might,
Barks stemm’d the first, all own the latter’s right.
XCIX.
O paltry jingle to a coinèd note!
Words that ape thought, and thought that soils the soul;
With what a tide of emptiness ye float,
On the heart’s music, ye can ne’er control!
The sieve of words holds not the element’s sense;
The thought is the poor highway to the heart;
How should man’s tongue hold heaven in its pretence?
How should one road contain the city’s mart?
The pipings of a mind, vex’d, half distraught,
Are but as signs, of what their speech should be;
They can but show what happier moments sought;
What gilds the Future’s blank satiety;
’Tis the one only tone that echo gives;
The music dying, death in music lives.
C.
But, these are flowers of spring, grafted on winter;
Sounds, gently opening, that grow sudden harsh;
In darkness, light’s most momentary splinter;
The sometime flicker, dancing o’er the marsh.
Such visions deaden life, or else exalt:
They will not rest, they lead to Heaven or Hell,
Now charm to happiness’ more stern assault,
Now bid man sink, and more despairing dwell:
Pure vistas open, in long lanes of light,
Building reflections, mirror-like, from their forms,
And lovely angels beckon the entranc’d sight;
Too oft, alas! they’re lost in life’s strange storms:
Let those buds nestle amid memory’s weeds,
They’ll dart their purpose, quickening life’s faint seeds.
CI.
The world was young, when some Prometheus came
And snatch’d the kernel action from repose;
His flaming ministrations crown’d his name,
Earth throbb’d his glory in her godlike throes;
And immortal words have rounded, since, the soul
With love, whose sufferance is keen to act;
But some seek suffering, scorning action’s goal,
Disjoining love, from what lifts love to fact.
Far other, taught love’s founder, and love’s lord;
Far other, mighty shades have since decreed;
They would not linger by the deep’ning ford,
They plunged, they fought, and victors now proceed:
Two notes of music blended in one tone;
Rich various colours form’d their pure white zone.