Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains Yet unsubdued by man's reclaiming hand.
Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course, Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue
The gradual paths of an aspiring change:
For birth, and life, and death, and that strange state Before the naked soul has found its home, All tend to perfect happiness, and urge The restless wheels of being on their way, Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life, Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal: For birth but wakes the spirit to the sense Of outward shows, whose unexperienced shape New modes of passion to its frame may lend; Life is its state of action, and the store Of all events is aggregated there That variegate the eternal universe; Death is gate of dreariness and gloom, That leads to azure isles and beaming skies And happy regions of eternal hope. Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on : Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk, Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom, Yet Spring's awakening breath will woo the earth, To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower, That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens, Lighting the greenwood with its sunny smile.
Fear not then, Spirit, death's disrobing hand, So welcome when the tyrant is awake, So welcome when the bigot's hell-torch burns ; 'Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour, The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep. Death is no foe to virtue: Earth has seen Love's brightest roses on the scaffold bloom, Mingling with freedom's fadeless laurels there And presaging the truth of visioned bliss. Are there not hopes within thee, which this scene Of linked and gradual being has confirmed? Whose stingings bade thy heart look further still, When to the moonlight walk by Henry led, Sweetly and sadly thou didst talk of death? And wilt thou rudely tear them from thy breast, Listening supinely to a bigot's creed, Or tamely crouching to the tyrant's rod, Whose iron thongs are red with human gore? Never but bravely bearing on, thy will, Is destined an eternal war to wage
With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot The germs of misery from the human heart. Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe The thorny pillow of unhappy crime, Whose impotence an easy pardon gains, Watching its wanderings as a friend's disease: Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will, When fenced by power and master of the world.
Thou art sincere and good; of resolute mind, Free from heart-withering custom's cold control, Of passion lofty, pure and unsubdued.
Earth's pride and meanness could not vanquish thee, And therefore art thou worthy of the boon
Which thou hast now received: virtue shall keep Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod, And many days of beaming hope shall bless Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love. Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life, and rapture from thy smile.
The Fairy waves her wand of charm. Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car, That rolled beside the battlement, Bending her beamy eyes in thankfulness. Again the enchanted steeds were yoked, Again the burning wheels inflame
The steep descent of heaven's untrodden way. Fast and far the chariot flew :
The vast and fiery globes that rolled Around the Fairy's palace-gate
Lessened by slow degrees, and soon appeared
Such tiny twinklers as the planet orbs
That there attendant on the solar power
With borrowed light pursued their narrower way. Earth floated then below:
The chariot paused a moment there;
The Spirit then descended:
The restless coursers pawed the ungenial soil, Snuffed the gross air, and then, their errand done, Unfurled their pinions to the winds of heaven.
The Body and the Soul united then, A gentle start convulsed Ianthe's frame Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed;
Moveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained: She looked around in wonder and beheld Henry, who kneeled in silence by her couch, Watching her sleep with looks of speechless love, And the bright beaming stars
That through the casement shone.
"Nec tantum prodere vati
Quantum scire licet. Venit ætas omnis in unam Congeriem, miserumque premunt tot sæcula pectus."
How wonderful is Death,
Death and his brother Sleep!
One pale as yonder wan and horned moon With lips of lurid blue;
The other glowing like the vital morn, When throned on ocean's wave
It breathes over the world:
Yet both so passing strange and wonderful:
Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton, Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres, To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne Cast that fair prey? Must that divinest form, Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, whose azure veins Steal like dark streams along a field of snow, Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed In light of some sublimest mind, decay? Nor putrefaction's breath Leave aught of this pure spectacle But loathsomeness and ruin ?- Spare aught but a dark theme,
On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers
Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids To watch their own repose?
Will they, when morning's beam
Flows through those wells of light,
Seek far from noise and day some western cave, Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds A lulling murmur weave?—
Ianthe doth not sleep
The dreamless sleep of death:
Nor in her moonlight chamber silently
Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb,
Or mark her delicate cheek
With interchange of hues mock the broad moon,
Outwatching weary night, Without assured reward.
Her dewy eyes are closed:
On their translucent lids, whose texture fine Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below With unapparent fire,
The baby Sleep is pillowed: Her golden tresses shade The hosom's stainless pride, Twining like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column.
Hark! whence that rushing sound? 'Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps Around a lonely ruin,
When west winds sigh and evening waves respond In whipers from the shore :
'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves The genii of the breezes sweep. Floating on waves of music and of light The chariot of the Demon of the World Descends in silent power:
Its shape reposed within: slight as some cloud That catches but the palest tinge of day When evening yields to night,
Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue Its transitory robe.
Four shapeless shadows bright and beautiful Draw that strange car of glory, reins of light Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold Their wings of braided air:
The Demon leaning from the ethereal car Gazed on the slumbering maid.
Human eye hath ne'er beheld
A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful,
As that which o'er the maiden's charmed sleep
Waving a starry wand,
Hung like a mist of light.
Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds
Of wakening spring arose,
Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky.
Maiden, the world's supremest spirit
Beneath the shadow of her wings
Folds all thy memory doth inherit From ruin of divinest things,
Feelings that lure thee to betray, And light of thoughts that pass away.
For thou hast earned a mighty boon, The truths which wisest poets see Dimly, thy mind may make its own, Rewarding its own majesty,
Entranced in some diviner mood Of self-oblivious solitude.
Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest; From hate and awe thy heart is free; Ardent and pure as day thou burnest, For dark and cold mortality
A living light to cheer it long, The watch-fires of the world among.
Therefore from nature's inner shrine, Where gods and fiends in worship bend, Majestic spirit, be it thine
The flame to seize, the veil to rend, Where the vast snake Eternity In charmed sleep doth ever lie.
All that inspires thy voice of love,
Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes, Or through thy frame doth burn or move, Or think or feel, awake, arise!
Spirit, leave for mine and me
Earth's unsubstantial mimicry!
It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame A radiant spirit arose,
All beautiful in naked purity.
Robed in its human hues it did ascend, Disparting as it went the silver clouds
It moved towards the car, and took its seat Beside the Demon shape.
Obedient to the sweep of aëry song, The mighty ministers Unfurled their prismy wings.
The magic car moved on;
The night was fair, innumerable stars Studded heaven's dark blue vault ; The eastern wave grew pale With the first smile of morn.
The magic car moved on From the swift sweep of wings
The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew And where the burning wheels
Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak Was traced a line of lightning.
Now far above a rock the utmost verge Of the wide earth it flew,
The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow Frowned o'er the silver sea.
Far, far below the chariot's stormy path Calm as a slumbering babe, Tremendous ocean lay.
Its broad and silent mirror gave to view
The pale and waning stars,
The chariot's fiery track, And the grey light of morn Tinging those fleecy clouds
That cradled in their folds the infant dawn.
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