Читать книгу Eidolon; or, The Course of a Soul; and Other Poems - Walter Richard Cassels - Страница 6

How lonely were I in this solitude,

This atom of creation which yon wave,

White with the fury of a thousand years,

Might gulf into oblivion, if the soul

Knew circumscription. Far as eye can reach

Around me lies a wild and watery waste,

With every billow sentinel to keep

Its prisoner fetter'd to his ocean cell—

What were it but a plunge—an instant strife—

Then liberty snatch'd from the clutch of Death

The Tyrant, who with mystic terror grinds

Men into slaves—But he who thinks is free, And fineless as the unresting winds of heaven, Now rushing with wild joy around the belt Of whirling Saturn, then away through space Till he and all his radiant brotherhood Dwindle to fire-flies round the brow of Night. Thought is the great creator under God, Begotten of his breathing, that can raise Shapes from the dust and give them Beauty's soul; And though my empire be a continent, Squared down from leagues to inches, what of that? The mind contains a world within its frame Which Fancy peoples o'er with radiant forms, Replete with life and spirit excellence. O! there is glory in the thought that now I stand absolved from all the chilling forms And falsities of life, that like frail reeds Pierce the blind palms of those that lean on them, And from the springs of my own being draw All strength, and hope, and joyance, all that makes Lone meditations sweet, and schools the heart For prophecy. In the o'erpeopled world We seem like babes that cannot walk alone, But fasten on the skirts of other men, Their creeds, conclusions, and vain phantasies, Too languid, or too weak to poize ourselves; But here the crutch is shattered at a blow, Dependence made a thing for winds to blast, And paraphrase in bitter mockery.

From this retreat, as from a cloister calm,

I dream upon the busy haunts of men

As things that touch me not. An empire riven,

A monarchy o'erthrown, here seem to me

Importless as a foam-bell's death. The world

And all its revolutions are now less

Within my chronicles, than is the ken

Of a star's orbit on the fines of space;

But like a mariner saved from the wreck

On this calm spot I stand, unscathed, secure

From the rough throbbings of the sea of strife,

And woe, and clamour, wherewith this world's life

Ebbs and declines unto the printless shore

Of death. O! blessed change, if there were one

To love me in this solitude, and make

Life beautiful. My soul is wearied out

With earth's fierce warfare, and its selfish ease;

The slights and coldness of the hollow crowds

That are its arbiters; the changeful face,

The upstart arrogance of base-born fools,

Who crown them with their golden dross, and deem

That the all-potent badge of sovereignty.

O thou, my heart! hast thou not framed for life

A golden palace in all solitude,

Whither the strains of quiet melodies

Float on the breath of memory, like songs

From the dim bosom of the evening woods,

Peopling its chambers with sweet poesy?

Hast thou not called the sunshine from the morn

To circle thee with a pure spirit life,

And with the softness of its tender arms

Clasp thee in the embrace of heav'nly love?

Hast thou not heard the music of the stars,

In the calm stillness of the summer night,

And read their jewell'd pages o'er and o'er,

Like the bright inspirations of a bard,

Till glowing strophes rung within thy soul

Of glad Orion and clear Pleiades?

Hast thou not seen the silv'ry moonshine thrill

Upon the dusky mantle of the night,

Like radiant glances through a maiden's veil,

Till shaken thence they fell in a pure shower

O'er flood and field and bosky wilderness,

Wreathing earth with the glory of a saint?

O! thus to dwell far from the stir of life,

Far from its pleasures and its miseries,

Far from the panting cry of man's desire,

That waileth upward in hoarse discontent,

And here to list but to that liquid voice

That riseth in the spirit, and whose flow

Is like a rivulet from Paradise—

To hear the wanderings of divine thought

Within the soul, like the low ebb and flow

Of waters in the blue-deep ocean caves,

Forming itself a speech and melody

Sweeter than words unto the aching sense—

To stand alone with Nature where man's step

Hath never bowed a grass-blade 'neath its weight,

Nor hath the sound of his rude utterance

Broken the pauses of the wild-bird's song;

And thus in its unpeopled solitude

To be the spirit of this universe,

Centering thought and reason in one frame,

And in the majesty of quenchless soul,

Rising unto the stature of a man,

That is to make life glorious and great, Dissolving matter in the spiritual, As the green pine dissolveth into flame; Not on the breath of popular applause That is the spectre of all nothingness; Not on the fawning of a servile crew, Who kiss the hem of fortune's purple robe, And lick the dust before prosperity, Waiting the cogging of the downward scale, To turn from slaves to bravos in the dark; Not on the favours of the politic, Who in the smile of honour, Persian-like, Pamper the pampered from their banquet halls, But to his starving cry, when fortune frowns, Mutter their falsehoods through the bolted gate; But in the brightness of the inner soul, The placitude of peace and holy thought, The joyous lightness of the spirit's wings, Sweeping with equal strokes the azure sky Of Present, Past, and wide Futurity; In the high tidemarks on the sands of life, Where thought hath swept her purifying wave, Bearing the treasures of the unsearched deep To swell the riches of humanity. That is a happiness apart from man To aid, to sympathise with, or destroy; In its calm solitude alike secure From the broad adulation of the weak, And the strained condescension of the great, Both insults to the mighty soul within, That is not prized but for its golden shrine. Here there is that which makes the spirit free And noble in the measure of its strength, Untrammelled by conventionalities That make the very light of heaven take worth According to the casement it shines through.

O solitude! thy blessed power hath swept

All earthly passions from my soul like weeds

That choke the issues of eternal love.

What now to me are hatred and revenge?

Thoughts that if fleeting through the mind would fall

Like unknown birds upon a foreign shore,

Strange, wonderful; where no false hearts are nigh

To poison life with variance and strife.

O holy Nature! thou art only love

And peace and universal unity,

From thy sweet bosom springeth up no seed

Of bitterness and sorrow, that like thorns

Cling to the vesture of mortality,

Piercing the spirit through with cruel woe.

With thee my soul could dwell for evermore,

Expanding all good feelings day by day,

Till, at the last, like roses in full bloom

The blossoms fall from pure maturity.

Pride! Here no scale of inches is set up

For man to strain his littleness against,

But o'er me hangs the majesty of heaven,

Bright with the glory of the noontide sun;

Beneath, the Earth, that whispers "Thou art dust,

"Gat like a child forth from my fertile womb,

"And bone of my bone, thus, flesh of my flesh!"

Thou glorious firmament that like God's love

Enfoldest all creation utterly,

Making the pathway of the wheeling spheres

A splendour, and a triumph, and a joy,

That on the brightness of thine azure breast

Settest the constellated stars like gems,

To flash the glory of thy loveliness

Through all the fulness of unmeasured space.

Can madness in its raving cast a thought

To soar unto thy blessed perfectness,

Nor stand subdued with reverence and awe

In contemplation of the Infinite?

O Earth! thou Mother and true Monitress!

Can thy frail children close their ears for aye

'Gainst the deep-hearted warnings of thy voice?

In the wild whirl of life the tones may die

Amid the clangour of contending foes,

But here, as in the stillness of the night,

Thy solemn teaching falleth on the soul

To the vibration of the low heart-beat.

Then what is there to charm me back to life?

To wrestle with the guilty and the vain,

And lose identity amid the crowd

Who struggle onward after base desire.

This quiet scene doth teach me how to weigh

Your pleasures and your vanities aright;

To hold as dross the honour that is flung

Around man like a winter covering,

Which the same hand can pluck away again,

And leave the outcast shivering in the blast.

There is no honour saving that within,

Which none, nor man, nor Death itself can snatch,

But which falls from the spirit in its flight

Like a prophetic mantle upon Time.

Pleasure! O World! in thine insanity

Thou sinkest Soul into a poor buffoon,

Garbëd in tinsel and false ornament

To play its antics on the stage of life,

A thing for fools to laugh at in their mirth.

Thou sat'st thy lust upon the sapless husks

That strew the highways of this pilgrimage,

Closing thine eyes unto their emptiness,

And out of folly turning sour to sweet.

Hast thou the joy that nature's converse sheds

Thro' all the pulses of the quiet soul?

The gentle calm that like a whispered song

Steals o'er the sense with sweetest languishment?

Hast thou the magic of the Beautiful,

Wreathing about thy spirit evermore,

In sunshine and in shadow; when the stars

Gather around the azure dome of heaven,

And the pale moon glides like a virgin bride

Humbly behind the footsteps of her love:

When the sweet morn dawns on the sleeping world

To bring reality to visions bright;

And on the curtain of dissolving mist

Arches the many-tinted sign of heaven?

Hast thou the minstrelsie of the wild woods,

Clear-tided strains floating along the sky,

Swelling, subsiding, like a silvery sea

Beneath the dulcet breathing of the south?

Hast thou that essence of all joyousness—

The glorious independence of the soul—

That spurneth man's usurpëd tyranny,

The power of wealth, and hapless circumstance,

And, sweeping on its own unaided wings,

Measures the circuit of the boundless sky?

What is thy wealth, that fadeth in the use,

And all the pomp and vanity it buys,

To the rich treasure of undying thought,

Encreasing evermore, till like a dower

It benizon humanity for aye?

All thy poor gold resolveth into dust

Before the test of such a scene as this:

Can it charm forth the blossom of a flower

Ere summer bids it with her gentle smile?

Can it restore the verdure to the leaf

When yellow Autumn marks it for her own?

Or, in the noontide bid the dew-shower rise

To fill one rosy chalice to the brim?

Go! gild thee with it, worldling, as thou wilt,

Yet all thy pains will leave thee but a fool!

Ay! there is love to beckon me away

And lead me to a fountain of delight,

Gliding before me in its purity,

Like some bright angel guiding souls to heaven.

O Love! have I not drained thee to the dregs,

Thy pleasures and thy sorrows equally;

Clinging unto thee as the Arab doth

To his low fountain in the wilderness?

Have I not gazed into thy tender eyes

And read the secret of thy holiness,

Cleansing my soul in humbleness and faith,

To shrine thee in thy fulness evermore?

Have I not clasped thee in my frenzied arms

And heard thy heart-beats answer back to mine,

Fainter and fainter till the deep voice stilled

In the eternal silence of the grave?

O be to me henceforth but some sweet dream

Illumining the sky of Memory:

A fixëd star of everlasting light

To pilot me along the sea of life,

And keep the bearings of the spirit true.

Visit me in imagination's train,

The sweetest and the fairest child of Thought,

Till thro' my being, as thro' columned aisles

When incense from the altar upward wreaths,

There float the fragrance of thy breath divine.

Circle my soul in its far wanderings

Thro' spirit lands and empyrean heights,

Where though it sink in wide bewilderment,

Thou wilt enfold it in thy dewy arms,

And pillow it to strength and fearlessness!

Be to me like a heaven beyond all Time,

Dreamt of, and worshipped in this pilgrimage—

The habitation of all pure desire,

Solace of sorrow, and the home of rest,

Where I may lay me from life's troublous way,

And feel Eternity rise in my soul!

No, World! the cords that bound me unto thee

Are snapt in sunder ne'er to join again,

Thy voice is waning fainter on mine ear,

And thine allurements powerless and vain.

There springeth up within me a new want,

A perfect yearning for the spiritual,

That shaketh from its pinions all the cares

And interests of earth, like cleaving dust

That clogs its upward winging to the skies.

Wend onward, as thou wilt in weal or woe,

Swell the rude triumph of thy battle march,

Spread thy gay banners broadly to the wind,

And let thy clarions ring among the spheres;

Laurel thy heroes and thy favourites,

And pluck the crowns again from off their brows;

Worship thy follies, and thine empty gains,

And barter life for mammon—gold for dross.

Here let me lie upon the rear of Time,

Unheeded, unremembered, and alone,

Like a quick seed dropt by a flying dove,

That groweth unto blossom and to fruit!