The stars, and the sleeping world, and the guardian eye of God, The murmur of the distant waterfall, and nightingales warbling in the thicket, Sweet speech of years to come, and promises of fondest hope, And more, a present gladness in each other's trust; All these fed their souls with the hidden manna of affection, While their faces shone beatified in the radiance of reflected Eden: I gazed on that fond youth, and coveted his heart, Attuned to holiest symphonies, with music in its strings; For I said, Surely, O Life, thy name is love and beauty; Thy joys are full, thy looks most fair, thy feelings pure and sensitive. A man sat beside his merchandise, a careworn altered man, For his foolishness of heart, and the lie of its romance, counting Love a treasure. His talk is of stern Reality, chilling unimaginative facts, The dull material accidents of this sensual body; Lucreless honour were contemptible, impoverished affection but a pauper's riches, Duty, struggling unrewarded, the bargain of a cheated fool; The market-value of a fancy must be measured by the gain it bringeth, No man is fed, or clothed by fame, or love, or duty :— So toiled he day by day, that cold and joyless man ; I gazed upon his haggard face, and sorrowed for the change: For I said, Surely, O Life, thý name is care and weariness, Thy soul is parched, thy winds are fierce, and the suns above thee hardening. A withered elder lay upon his bed, a desolate man and feeble; For the sunshiny morning of life came again to him a vivid truth, He knew that the weeds of worldliness, and the smoky breath of Mammon Had choked and killed those tender shoots, his yearnings after honour and affection: So was he sick at heart, and my pity strove to cheer him, But a deep and dismal gulf lay between comfort and his soul. Thy storms at noon are many, and thine eventide is clouded by remorse. Now, when I thought upon these things, my heart was grieved within me : I wept with bitterness of speech, and these were the words of my complaining: "Wherefore then must happiness and love wither into care and vanity,— Suddenly, a light,—and a rushing presence, and a consciousness of something near me,— I trembled, and listened, and prayed: then I knew the Angel of Life: Vague, and dimly visible, mine eye could not behold him, As, calmly unimpassioned, he looked upon an erring creature : Unseen, my spirit apprehended him; though he spake not, yet I heard; For a sympathetic communing with Him flashed upon my mind electric. Pensioner of God, be grateful; the gift of Life is good: The life of heart, and life of soul, mingled with life for the body. And guardian spirits weep that selfishness and sorrow should destroy it. The chivalrous affection of uncalculating youth lacketh not honourable wisdom. Charge not folly on invisibles, that render thee happier and purer: The fair frail visions of Romance have a use beyond the maxims of the Real. Behold, a patriarch of years, who leaneth on the staff of religion; The false world hated him for truth, the cold world despised him for affection: Still, he kept his treasure, the warm and noble heart, And in that happy wise old man survive the child and lover. For human Life is as Chian wine, flavoured unto him who drinketh it, Delicate fragrance comforting the soul, as needful substance for the body: Therefore, see thou art pure and guileless; so shall thy Realities of Life Be sweetened, and tempered, and gladdened by the wholesome spirit of Romance. Dost thou live, man, dost thou live,--or only breathe and labour? Art thou free, or enslaved to a routine, the daily machinery of habit? The plough, or the ledger, or the trade, with animal cares and indolence, Drowsily lie down in thy dullness, fettered with the irons of circumstance, Thou wilt not wake to think and feel a minute in a month. The epitome of common life is seen in the common epitaph, Born on such a day, and dead on such another, with an interval of three score years. For time hath been wasted on the senses, to the hourly diminishing of spirit; Lean is the soul and pineth, in the midst of abundance for the body: He forgat the world to which he tended, and a creature's true nobility, Nor wished that hope and wholesome fear should stir him from his hardened satisfaction. And this is death in life; to be sunk beneath the waters of the Actual, But care and sloth and sin and self, combine to kill that life. A man will grow to an automaton, an appendage to the counter or the desk, If mind and spirit be not roused to raise the plodding groveller: For the recreative face of nature, and the kindling charities of home; If it help to expose and undermine that solid falsehood, the Material. Life is a strange avenue of various trees and flowers; Lightsome at commencement, but darkening to its end in a distant massy portal. It beginneth as a little path, edged with the violet and primrose, A little path of lawny grass, and soft to tiny feet: Soon, spring thistles in the way, those early griefs of school, And vipers hide among the grass, and briers are woven in the hedges: While hollow hemlock and tall ferns fill the frequent interval: So advancing, quaintly mixed, majestic line the way Sturdy oaks, and vigorous elms, the beech and forest-pine : And here the road is rough with rocks, wide, and scant of herbage, But soon, with closer ranks, are set the sentinel trees, With smiling light to guide thee safely through the dreadful shade: Hark, that hollow knock,-behold, the warder openeth, The gate is gaping, and for thee;-those are the jaws of Death! OF DEATH. KEEP silence, daughter of frivolity,—for Death is in that chamber! Death is here in spirit, watcher of a marble corpse,— That eye is fixed, that heart is still,-how dreadful in its stillness! Death, new tenant of the house, pervadeth all the fabric; He waiteth at the head, and he standeth at the feet, and hideth in the caverns of the breast: Death, subtle leech, hath anatomized soul from body, Dissecting well in every nerve its spirit from its substance : Death, rigid lord, hath claimed the heriot clay, While joyously the youthful soul hath gone to take his heritage; Death, savage despot, hath caught his forfeit serf; Death, blind foe, wreaketh petty vengeance on the flesh; Death, fell cannibal, gloateth on his victim, And carrieth it with him to the grave, that dismal banquet-hall, Hide it up, hide it up, draw the decent curtain : For the fearful mysteries of change are being there enacted, Leave the clay, that leprous thing, touch not the fleshly garment: Dust to dust, it mingleth well among the sacred soil: It is scattered by the winds, it is wafted by the waves, it mixeth with herbs and cattle, But God hath watched those morsels, and hath guided them in care: Each waiting soul must claim his own, when the archangel soundeth, And all the fields, and all the hills, shall move a mass of life; Bodies numberless, crowding on the land, and covering the trampled sea, |