Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

Alas! that they are withered leaves, sapless and fallen from the chaplet

of fame.

Speak, Etruria, whose bones be these, entombed with costly care-
Teil out, Herculaneum, the titles that have sounded in those thy palaces—
Lycian Zanthus, thy citadels are mute, and the honour of their architects
hath died;

Copan and Palenque, dreamy ruins in the West, the forest hath swallowed up your sculptures;*

[remembrance! Syracuse how silent of the past!—Carthage, thou art blotted from Egypt, wondrous shores, ye are buried in the sandhills of forgetfulness Alas! for in your glorious youth, Time himself was young, [Space; And none durst wrestle with that Angel, iron-sinewed bridegroom of So he flew by, strong upon the wing, nor dropped one falling feather, Wherewith some hoary scribe might register their honour and renown. Beyond the broad Atlantic, in the regions of the setting sun, Ask of the plume-crowned Incas, that ruled in old PeruAsk of grand Caziques, and priests of the pyramids of MexicoAsk of a thousand painted tribes, high nobility of Nature, Who, once, could roam their own Elysian plains, free, generous, and happy, Who, now, degraded and in exile, have sold their fatherland for nought, Sink and are extinguished in the western seas, even as the sun they follow

Where is the record of their deeds, their prowess worthy of Achilles, Nestor's wisdom, the chivalry of Manlius, the native eloquence of Cicero, The skill of Xenophon, the spirit of Alcibiades, the firmness of a Macca[of Regulus?

bæan mother,

Brotherly love that Antigone might envy, the honour and the fortitude. Alas! their glory and their praise have vanished like a summer cloud: Alas! that they are dead indeed; they are not written down in the Book of the living.

"Copan and Palenque," &c.] The remains of these ancient cities, buried in the forests of Central America, have been recently made known to our wonder in the entertaining Travels of Mr. J. L. Stephens. A brief and apt quotation, to illustrate the line, occurs in vol. i. p. 103:—“ * * Some fragments with elegant designs, and some in workmanship equal to the finest monuments of the Egyptians; one, displaced from its pedestal by enormous roots; another, locked in the close embrace of branches of trees, and almost lifted out of the earth; another, hurled to the ground, and bound down by huge vines and creepers; and one standing, with its altar before it, in a grove of trees which grew around, seemingly to shade and shroud it, as a sacred thing in the solemn stillness of the woods, it seemed a divinity mourning over a fallen people."

HIGH is the privilege of Authorship: I purify mine office

Albeit earthly stains pollute it in my hands.

[chus;

For it is to the world a teacher and a guide, Mentor of that gay Telema-
Warning, comforting, and helping-a lover and a friend of Man:
Heaven's almoner, earth's health, patient minister of goodness,.
With kind and zealous pen, the wise religious blesseth:

Nature's worshipper, and neophyte of grace, rich in tender sympathies,
With kindled soul and flashing eye the poet poureth out his heartful:
Priest of truth, champion of innocence, warder of the gates of praise,
Carefully with sifting search laboureth the pale historian :
Error's enemy, and acolyte of science, firm in sober argument, [ciples.
The calm philosopher marshaleth his facts, noting on his page their prin.
These pour mercies upon men; and others, little less in honour,
By cheerful wit and graphic tale refreshening the harassed spirit.
But there be other some beside, buyers and sellers in the temple,
Who shame their high vocation, greedy of inglorious gain;
There be, who, fabricating books, heed of them meanly as of merchandise,
And seek nor use, nor truth, nor fame, but sell their minds for lucre:
O false brethren! ye wot indeed the labour, but are witless of the love;
Olying prophets, chilled in soul, unquickened by the life of inspiration!-
And there be, who, frivolous and vain, seek to make others foolish,
Snaring Youth by loose, sweet song, and Age by selfish maxim;
Cleverly heartless, and wittily profane, they swell the river of corruption:
Brilliant satellites of sin-my soul, be not found among their company.
And there be, who, haters of religion, toil to prove it priestcraft,
Owning none other aim nor hope, but to confound the good: [nation:
Wo unto them! for their works shall live; yea, to their utter condem-
Wo! for their own hand-writing shall testify against them for ever.

PURE is the happiness of Authorship: I glorify mine office;
Albeit lightly having sipped the cup of its lower pleasures.
For it is to feel with a father's heart, when he yearneth on the child of

his affections;
[ment.
To rejoice in a man's own miniature world, gladdened by its rare arrange-
The poem, is it not a fabric of mind? we love what we create:
That choice and musical order-how pleasant is the toil of composition!
Yea, when the volume of the universe was blazoned out in beauty by its
God was glad, and blessed his work; for it was very good. [Author,
And shall not the image of his Maker be happy in his own mind's doing,

Looking on the structure he hath reared, gratefully with sweet compla

cence?

Shall not the Minerva of his brain, panoplied and perfect in proportions Gladden the soul and give light unto the eyes of him the travailing parent Go to the sculptor, and ask him of his dreams, wherefore are his night. so moonlit?

Angel faces, and beautiful shapes, fascinate the pale Pygmalion:

Go to the painter, and trace his reveries-wherefore are his days so sunny
Choice design and skilful colouring charm the flitting hours of Parrhasius:
Even so, walking in his buoyancy, intoxicate with fairy fancies,
The young enthusiast of authorship goeth on his way rejoicing:
Behold he is gallantly attended; legions of thrilling thoughts
Throng about the standard of his mind, and call his will their captain;
Behold-his court is as a monarch's; ideas and grand imaginations
Swell with gorgeous cavalcade the splendour of his Spiritual State;
Behold he is delicately served; for often-times, in solitary calmness,
Some mental fair Egeria smileth on her Numa's worship;
Behold-he is happy; there is gladness in his eye, and his heart is a
sealed fountain,
[pleasure!
Bounding secretly with joys unseen, and keeping down its ecstacy of

YEA, how dignified, and worthy, full of privilege and happiness,
Standeth in majestic independence the self-ennobled Author! [purity,
For God hath blessed him with a mind, and cherished it in tenderness and
Hath taught it in the whisperings of wisdom, and added all the riches of
Therefore, leaning on his God, a pensioner for soul and body, [content.
His spirit is the subject of none other, calling no man Master.
His hopes are mighty and eternal, scorning small ambitions:
He hideth from the pettiness of praise, and pitieth the feebleness of envy:
If he meet honours, well; it may be his humility to take them:
If he be rebuked, better; his veriest enemy shall teach him. [eyrie:
For the master-mind hath a birthright of eminence; his cradle is an eagle's
Need but to wait till his wings are grown, and genius soareth to the sun :
To creeping things upon the mountain leaveth he the gradual ascent,
Resting his swiftness on the summit only for a higher flight.
Glad, in clear, good conscience, lightly doth he look for commendation,
What if the prophet lacketh honour? for he can spare that praise:
The honest giant careth not to be patted on the back by pigmies:
Flatter greatness-he brooketh it good humouredly: blame him-thou
tiltest at a pyramid:

Yet, just censure of the good never can he hear without contrition; [costly. Neither would he miss one wise man's praise, for scarce is that jewel, and Only for the herd of common minds, and the vulgar trumpetings of fame, If aught he heedeth in the matter, his honour is sought in their neglect. Slender is the marvel, and little is the glory, when round his luscious fruits The worm, and the wasp, and the multitude of flies, are gathered as to banquet;

Fashion's freak, and the critical sting, and the flood of flatt'ries, he scorneth; Cheerfully asking of the crowd the favour to forget him:

The while his blooming fruits ripen in richer fragrance, [their savour. A feast for the few—and the many yet unborn-who still shall love

So, then, humbly with his God, and proudly independent of his fellows,
Walketh in pleasures multitudinous the man ennobled by his pen :
He hath built up, glorious architect, a monument more durable than brass;
His children's children shall talk of him in love, and teach their sons his

honour;

His dignity hath set him among princes, the universe is debtor to his worth, His privilege is blessing for ever, his happiness shineth now,

For he standeth of that great Election, each man one among a thousand, Whose sound is gone out into all lands, and their words to the end of the world!

OF MYSTERY.

ALL things being are in mystery; we expound mysteries by mysteries; And yet the secret of them all is one in simple grandeur:

All intricate, yet each path plain, to those who know the way;

All unapproachable, yet easy of access, to them that hold the key:
We walk among labyrinths of wonder, but thread the mazes with a clew;
We sail in chartless seas, but, behold! the pole-star is above us.
For, counting down from God's good-will, thou meltest every riddle into
[ubiquity,

him,

The axiom of reason is an undiscovered God, and all things live in his
There is only one great secret; but that one hideth every where;
How should the Infinite be understood in Time, when it stretcheth on
ungrasped for ever?

Can a halting Edipus of the earth guess the enigma of the universe? Not one: the sword of faith must cut the Gordian knot of Nature.

GOD, pervading all, is in all things the mystery of each; [its beauties
The wherefore of its character and essence, the fountain of its virtues and
The child asketh of its mother-Wherefore is the violet so sweet?
The mother answereth her babe-Darling, God hath willed it.
And sages, diving into science, have but a profundity of words;
They track for some few links the circling chain of consequence,
And then, after doubts and disputations, are left where they began,
At the bald conclusion of a clown-things are because they are.
Wherefore are the meadows green? is it not to gratify the eye?
But why should greenness charm the eye? such is God's good-will.
Wherefore is the ear attuned to a pleasure in musical sounds,
And who set a number of those sounds, and fixed the laws of harmony?
Who taught the bird to build its nest, or lent the shrub its life,
Or poised in the balances of order the power to attract and to repel?
Who continueth the worlds, and the sea, and the heart in motion?
Who commandeth gravitation to tie down all upon its sphere?—
For even as a limestone cliff is an aggregate of countless shells,
One riddle concrete of many, a mystery compact of mysteries,
So God, cloud-capped in immensity, standeth the cohesion of all things,
And secrets, sublimely indistinct, permeate that Universe, Himself:
As is the whole, so are the parts, whether they be mighty or minute;
The sun is not more unexplained than the tissue of an emmet's wing.

THUS, then, omnipresent Deity worketh his unbiased mind,
A mind one in moral, but infinitely multiplied in means:
And the uniform prudence of his will cometh to be counted law,
Till mutable man fancieth volition, stirring in the potter's clay:
God, a wise father, showeth not his reasons to his babes;
But willeth in secresy and goodness; for causes generate dispute:
Then we, his darkling children, watch that invariable purpose,
And invest the passive creature with its Maker's energy and skill.
Therefore, they of old time stopped short of God in idols,

Therefore, in these latter days, we heed not the Jehovah in his works.
Mystery is God's great name; He is the mystery of goodness:
Some other, from the hierarchs of heaven, usurped the mystery of sin.
God is the King, yea, even of himself; he crowned himself with holiness

« ElőzőTovább »