Читать книгу Eidolon; or, The Course of a Soul; and Other Poems - Walter Richard Cassels - Страница 7

How still are all things now in earth and heaven!

From the green-tided woods no rippling stir

Breaks on the shore of silence; the sweet birds

That sing, like naiads from the crystal deeps,

Amid the murmurous coverts, now are mute

As dreams of faded happiness, and life

Seems calmly slumb'ring in the arms of death.

The far waves alone are rocking in unrest,

With moonlight flashing o'er them, but their sound

Dies in their own wild bosom, like a song

Murmuring in the spirit of a man.

Thus is a poet's soul!—around it hangs

The darkness of this world's reality,

Its cares and struggles and necessities;

But in its firmament for ever shines

The starlight of divine imaginings,

Shedding upon the waves of restless feeling,

And aspirations for the undefined,

The glory of a cloudless hemisphere.

O Stars! that gaze upon me from on high,

Like angels from the gates of Paradise,

That weave your myriads in a golden chain

To bind creation with the Beautiful,

As locks are interrun with precious gems

To deck a queen out for her royalty:

Hear me, ye bright ones, for a poet's love,

And let light fall upon my swelling soul,

To crest each rising thought with purity!

There was a time—in youth, ere yet the sands

Of life clogged 'neath satiety, but ran

Lighter than blithe rills down a mountain's side;

There was a time, when in my soul a voice

Rang faintly like a huntsman's horn afar,

Sounding along a forest; and I arose,

And listed, as the bounding Antelope

Starts at the echo of a falling bough.

Louder it grew, and clearer—"Search for it!"

What?—It melted from me, but the voice still came.

Then up I gat, and to the pressing world

Sped on the wings of passion, striving on

Thro' pleasure and thro' pain, alike unchecked.

Then, what were lets to me? Amongst the strong

I wrestled for ambition's upper seats—

Clung to the slippery shrouds of policy—

And in my fury prayed for eagle's wings

To poize me in the shadow of the sun.

At wealth I grasped as a poor crippled wretch

Grasps at the crutch that steadies him along;

Yet not for it but for the power it brought,

For, Timon-like, within my heart of hearts

I cursed the yellow dust I trampled on.

But by the wayside I sat down and wept

As a child weeps above some shattered toy.

Oh Misery! to climb the steep of life

Led by a phantom without form or truth—

To find reality still rising up

To crush hope's fabrics with relentless force.

All was a fiction, but the voice said "Search!"

And glory flashed before me like a wisp,

Dazzling me on to bloodshed, and to strife.

Upon the field I stood with Victory,

And Death in all its ghastliness—Around

The dim watchfires stood like a burning wall

Betwixt the dead and living. On that night

Ye saw me, ye pure ministers of heaven,—

Shone on my anguish and my bitter tears.

Then, when the mangled forms of fellow-men,

With hideous passion stiff upon their lips,

Blanch'd 'neath the twilight of your glimmering!

Oh! there lay one beside me—a mere youth—

Whose dying hands had pressed unto his lips

A long fair tress, through which his dying sigh

Crept, as in happier days perchance did love's.

Witness, ye stars, of my abasement then,

Judged and condemned by that poor lover's pledge,

Lying there like a messenger of heaven,

Breathing of peace and love, mid deadly hate.

Glory! thou mirage on this desert life,

Charming the weary on to water springs

That shrivel up to barrenness ere reach'd!

Thou shadow of a shadow that departs

As the eye scans its bodiless outlines!

Thou golden-imaged Ruin and Despair!

When this earth cracks, like a poor blasted rock,

Before the burning of Almighty wrath,

Thy pallid spectre shall rise up to judge

The wretched victims that did trust in thee!

"O Heaven!" I said, "lead me to love and peace;

Love, that makes all things calm and beautiful,

And like the sun, e'en in its setting, flings

A glory o'er the cloudy peaks of Time.

Peace—that doth hush the throbbing voice of life,

Till through the stillness of the Poet's soul,

The echoes of Seraphic harmonies

Float like a spirit through the blue eterne."

I said—"I will sit neath the ancient woods,

And list unto the voices of the winds

Coming from far o'er spirit lands, and full

With stolen snatches of their utterance."

I said—"I will lay bare my soul unto the sun,

And let its glory rest there till it charm

Forth from its womb, as flowers from the cold ground,

All lovely thoughts and high imaginings

That shed sweet perfume o'er the waste of life.

And when the sickle of autumnal time

Gathereth in the harvest of ripe thought,

Nourish and strengthen long futurity."

Then as an eagle fleeth to his crag

High in the stillness of the dim cloudland,

Fled I from man into the trackless woods,

To sate my soul with quietude and song.

Then, too, ye saw me, ye pure orbs of heaven,

And sent your blessed radiance to my heart

In the still twilight of my calm content!

Then came an answer to the unseen voice—

"O holy calmness of the inner soul!

Treasure of treasures! sweetness of all sense!

Athwart the smoothness of whose liquid tide

Floateth the spirit of eternal love,

Tracing a pathway to the All-Divine!

Thine is the perfectness of earthly bliss,

The brimming of life's chalice o'er with peace,

Till thro' all thought and feeling, the pure draught

Sheddeth its gladness and serenity.

Thine is a joyance passing utterance,

A deep delight, that like the songs of heaven,

Swell through its fulness, but are mute without.

Thou art the goal of most sublime desire,

The haven that all longing seeketh for,

Where, shaded from the storms and blasts of life,

The bark glides gently down the stream of Time."

How cloudless is this azure firmament!

Brighter than all the dreams of sinless youth!

Deeper than the deep heart of woman's love!

Now as I gaze upon each shining star,

What visions steal upon me with its rays,

Of that which makes its glorious excellence!

Can there be revelation of high truths

But through the channels of weak sense alone,

Thus like a fountain filt'ring thro' the clay.

Or doth the soul hold converse spiritual

With powers unseen that fill the universe,

Receiving, as by intuition, things

That man attains not by intelligence?

Is not the spirit perfect in itself,

Unmingled with the base alloy of earth

That prisons it within this narrow sphere?

Hath it not apprehension natural,

Attributive as immortality,

Unshackled by an organ that will die

Beneath the friction of a few short years?

O there is blindness on us in this life,

That seeth not the things which lie around,

E'en in the circuit of our littleness!

But death will loose the scales from off our eyes,

And smite our fleshly dwelling place in twain;

Freeing the spirit, till with joyous wings

It cleave the limits of immensity.

Yet now the soul will shake its fetters off, And yearn unto the freedom of the skies, Like a poor bird whose life is liberty.

Yon star, methinks, must be a glorious world,

Where Nature hath a spiritual life

And bloometh on in Spring perpetual,

Unsatiating in its loveliness.

Verdure of herb and leafy plenitude

Spread o'er it like a vesture, and the glow

Of sunlit waters smiling from afar,

Half as in fancy, half reality.

The skies above it glassy and serene

As the reflection of its own repose,

And every new alternation of the light

Shedding new beauties on the scene below.

Thus far in fashion, kin to Earth as Time

Beareth the impress of Eternity,

But differing henceforth as the gentle dove

Doth from the vulture on its carrion:

The dwellers on this paradisal sphere

Methinks, must be of glorious lineament,

Clad with the brightness of eternal youth,

And buoyant with internal blessedness.

Spirits that shining with untarnished light,

Radiate, and make matter luminous,

Filling the eyes with sweet felicity,

And love, and peace, and all emotions pure.

No sorrow there to make the vision dim,

And wash the mellow ripeness from the cheek;

No guilty deed to brand the heart with shame,

And write its direful sentence on the brow;

No rankling venom struggling through the veins,

And blasting all the kindliness within,

Till like a torrent bursting o'er restraint,

It spread its desolation on mankind;

But a pure regnant holiness and love,

Directing impulse with most queenly sway

To ends of tenderness and charity;

A nature purified by fellowship

With angels and bright ministers of Heaven,

That wander thither from their homes above

On missions of benignity and grace.

And in this pleasaunce, as by holy need,

There reigneth deep communion of soul,

That frameth as it were one atmosphere

Of joy, and hope, and blessedness for all;

No selfish pleasures fluttering before

To woo satanic emulation forth,

But all combining for one common weal,

Moved still by sympathetic influence.

How passing beautiful must they not be,

Thus dower'd with Virtue's highest attributes,

That from the spiritual springeth up

A living fount of light and loveliness.

Soul is the life of Beauty, as the sun

Is of the universe it luminates.

O what were matter, fashioned ne'er so fair,

But for the beaming of that quenchless light

That plays around it, like the radiance

Of heaven's own glory stamped upon its work?

What were the charm of the soft arching brow

White as the snow-flake 'neath its golden braid?

What were the dimpled cheek with roseate shades

Spread o'er it like the budding of a flower,

The lips' ripe crimson, and the melting eye,

Unbrightened by the sunshine from within,

The emanations of seraphic thought,

And full emotion, kindling into life

Light, grace, the temple that they glorify?

Oh Death! when thou dost bear the soul away

The charm is shattered—the illusion gone!

Ay, they are beautiful, and as bright forms

Make fair the mirrors that they image in,

So are their courses glorious and glad.

Still doth their swelling harmony ascend

In thrilling cadence to the gates of heaven,

Making the air about them sweet with joy,

As summer's breath with floral incense fumes;

And every echo learns the words of love,

And wonders at its sweet deliciousness,

Repeating o'er and o'er the honied tones

Till they infuse into their secret souls.

O ye bright orbs! your shining would be dimmed

By sin and all its pallid consequence,

Till scarce a glimmer fluttered on the sky

To 'lume the dreamer to your sadden'd sphere.

But ye have held your priceless birthright sure,

And walk among the panoply of heaven,

Clear and true-hearted as the sons of God.

Yet may we gaze upon you from afar

As the unstained gaze on the innocent,

Lovely and peerless in their purity,

Smitten and wondering with humbleness

Of that which is your everlasting dower;

Quenching within us pride and earthliness

Before the glance of your serenity;

Aspiring ever for the spirit life,

That casting off this fleshly tenement,

With all its weakness and infirmities,

Entereth on the cycle of the just,

Unstained, immortal, glorious and strong!