The woman of a thousand summers back, Upon his town, and all the mothers brought His beard a foot before him, and his hair For such as these?"-"But I would die," said she. Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity: And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Peep'd-but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused; And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at once, With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, THE TWO VOICES. A STILL Small voice spake unto me, "Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be ?" Then to the still small voice I said: "Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made." To which the voice did urge reply: "To-day I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did lie. "An inner impulse rent the veil "He dried his wings: like gauze they grew: I said, "When first the world began, Young Nature thro' five cycles ran, And in the sixth she moulded man. "She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast." Thereto the silent voice replied: "Self-blinded are you by your pride. Look up thro' night: the world is wide "This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse. "Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres ?" It spake, moreover, in my mind: "Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind." Then did my response clearer fall: "No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all." To which he answer'd scoffingly: "Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, Who 'll weep for thy deficiency? "Or will one beam be less intense, When thy peculiar difference Is cancell'd in the world of sense ?" I would have said, "Thou canst not know" But my full heart, that work'd below, Again the voice spake unto me: "Thou art so steep'd in misery, Surely, 't were better not to be. "Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep: Thou canst not think but thou wilt weep. I said, "The years with change advance: If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance. "Some turn this sickness yet might take. Ev'n yet." But he: "What drug can make A wither'd palsy cease to shake?" I wept, "Tho' I should die, I know That all about the thorn will blow "And men, thro' novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, "Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground? "The memory of the wither'd leaf "Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest flights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. "Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines. "I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow. "If straight thy tract, or if oblique, Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like; "And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower "Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all." "O dull, one-sided voice," said I, "Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die? "I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds. "I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven: "Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream; "But heard, by secret transport led, Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head"Which did accomplish their desire, Bore and forbore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. "He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho' curs'd and scorn'd, and bruised with stones: "But looking upward, full of grace, He pray'd, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face." The sullen answer slid betwixt: "Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd, The elements were kindlier mix'd." I said, "I toil beneath the curse, But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse. "And that, in seeking to undo "Or that this anguish fleeting hence, "Consider well," the voice replied, "Will he obey when one commands? Or answer should one press his hands? He answers not, nor understands. "His palms are folded on his breast: There is no other thing express'd But long disquiet merged in rest. "His lips are very mild and meek: Tho' one should smite him on the cheek, And on the mouth, he will not speak. "His little daughter, whose sweet face He kiss'd, taking his last embrace, Becomes dishonor to her race "His sons grow up that bear his name, Some grow to honor, some to shame,But he is chill to praise or blame. "He will not hear the north-wind rave, Nor, moaning, household shelter crave From winter rains that beat his grave. "High up the vapors fold and swim: About him broods the twilight dim: The place he knew forgetteth him." "If all be dark, vague voice," I said, "These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. "The sap dries up: the plant declines. A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs? "I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew. "From grave to grave the shadow crept: In her still place the morning wept: Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept. "The simple senses crown'd his head: 'Omega! thou art Lord,' they said, 'We find no motion in the dead.' "Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease? "Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense? "He owns the fatal gift of eyes, That read his spirit blindly wise, Not simple as a thing that dies. "Here sits he shaping wings to fly: His heart forebodes a mystery: 'He names the name Eternity. "That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find. He sows himself on every wind. "He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And thro' thick veils to apprehend A labor working to an end. "The end and the beginning vex His reason many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counter-checks. "He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would. "Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn, Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half-shown, are broken and withdrawn. "Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt. "But thou canst answer not again. With thine own weapon art thou slain, Or thou wilt answer but in vain. "The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. As when a billow, blown against, "Where wert thou when thy father play'd "A merry boy they called him then. "Before the little ducts began To feed thy bones with lime, and raa "Who took a wife, who rear'd his race, Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face, Whose troubles number with his days: "A life of nothings, nothing-worth. From that first nothing ere his birth To that last nothing under earth!" "These words," I said, "are like the rest, No certain clearness, but at best A vague suspicion of the breast: "But if I grant, thou might'st defend "Yet how should I for certain hold, "I cannot make this matter plain, But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, A random arrow from the brain. "It may be that no life is found, "As old mythologies relate, "So might we, if our state were such For those two likes might meet and touch. "But, if I lapsed from nobler place, Some legend of a fallen race "Some vague emotion of delight Some yearning toward the lamps of night. "Or if thro' lower lives 1 cameTho' all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame "I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not. "And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind. "Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory: "For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime? "Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams "Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare.' The still voice laugh'd. "I talk," said he, "Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality." "But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark, Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark. "Why not set forth, if I should do This rashness, that which might ensue With this old soul in organs new? "Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath "T is life, whereof our nerves are scant, I ceased, and sat as one forlorn. And I arose, and 1 released Like soften'd airs that blowing steal, One walk'd between his wife and child, I blest them, and they wander'd on: I spoke, but answer came there none: A second voice was at mine ear, A little whisper silver-clear, As from some blissful neighborhood, A notice faintly understood, "I see the end, and know the good." A little hint to solace woe, A hint, a whisper breathing low, "I may not speak of what I know." Like an Eolian harp that wakes Such seem'd the whisper at my side: "What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried. "A hidden hope," the voice replied: So heavenly-toned, that in that hour To feel, altho' no tongue can prove, And forth into the fields I went, I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, You scarce could see the grass for flowers. I wonder'd, while I paced along: So variously seem'd all things wrought, THE DAY-DREAM. PROLOGUE. O LADY FLORA, let me speak: A pleasant hour has past away While, dreaming on your damask cheek, The dewy sister-eyelids lay. As by the lattice you reclined, I went thro' many wayward moods To see you dreaming-and, behind, A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream'd, until at last Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, Nor look with that too-earnest eyeThe rhymes are dazzled from their place, And order'd words asunder fly. THE SLEEPING PALACE. 1. The varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains: Here rests the sap within the leaf, Here stays the blood along the veins. Faint shadows, vapors lightly curl'd, Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the womb. 2. Soft lustre bathes the range of urns Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. 3. Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs: More like a picture seemeth all 4. Here sits the butler with a flask Between his knees half-drained; and there The wrinkled steward at his task, The maid-of-honor blooming fair: The page has caught her hand in his: His own are pouted to a kiss: The blush is fix'd upon her cheek. 5. Till all the hundred summers pass, The beams, that through the oriel shine, Make prisms in every carven glass, And beaker brimm'd with noble wine. 6. All round a hedge upshoots, and shows And grapes with bunches red as blood; 7. When will the hundred summers die, THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 1. Year after year unto her feet, The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, On either side her tranced form Forth streaming from a braid of pear! The slumbrous light is rich and warm, And moves not on the rounded curl. 2. The silk star-broider'd coverlid Unto her limbs itself doth mould Languidly ever; and, amid Her full black ringlets downward roll'd, |