The Poet to the Dead
Part I — Retrospection From the Halting-Place
Let me pause, for I am weary,
Weary of the trodden ways;
And the landscape spreads more dreary
Where it stretches from my gaze.
Many a prize I deem’d a blessing
When I started for the goal,
Midway in the course possessing
Adds a burthen to the soul.
By the thorn that scantly shadeth
From the slopèd sun reclin’d,
Let me look, before it fadeth
On the eastern hill behind;—
On the hill that life ascended,
While the dewy morn was young;
While the mist with light contended
And the early skylark sung.
Then, as when at first united,
Rose together Love and Day;
Nature with her sun was lighted,
And my soul with Viola!
O my young earth’s lost Immortal!
Naiad vanish’d from the streams!
Eve, torn from me at the portal
Of my Paradise of Dreams!
On thy name, with lips that quiver,
With a voice that chokes, I call.—
Well! the cave may hide the river,
But the ocean merges all.
Yet, if but in self-deceiving,
Can no magic charm thy shade?
Come unto my human grieving,
Come, but as the human maid!
By the fount where love was plighted
Where the lone wave glass’d the skies;
By the hands that once united;
By the welcome of the eyes;
By the silence sweetly broken
When the full heart murmur’d low,
And with sighs the words were spoken
Ere the later tears did flow;
By the blush and soft confession;
By the wanderings side by side;
By the love-denied possession;
And the heavenlier, so denied;
By the faith yet undiverted;
By the worship sacred yet;
To the soul so long deserted,
Come, as when of old we met;
Blooming as my youth beheld thee
In the trysting-place of yore,—
Hark a footfall! I have spell’d thee,
Lo, thy living smile once more!
Part II — The Meeting-Place of Old
Glides the brooklet through the rushes,
Now with dipping boughs at play,
Now with quicker music-gushes
Where the pebbles chafe the way.
Lonely from the lonely meadows
Slopes the undulating hill;
And the slowness of its shadows
But at sunset gains the rill:
Not a sign of man’s existence,
Not a glimpse of man’s abode,
Yet the church-spire in the distance
Links the solitude with God.
All so quiet, all so glowing,
In the golden hush of noon;
Nature’s still heart overflowing
From the breathless lips of June.
Song itself the bird forsaketh,
Save from wooded deeps remote,
Mellowly and singly breaketh,
Mellowly, the cuckoo’s note.
’Tis the scene where youth beheld thee;
’Tis the trysting-place of yore;
Yes, my mighty grief hath spell’d thee,
Blooming—living—mine once more!
Part III — Love Unto Death
Hand in hand we stood confiding,
Boy and maiden, hand in hand,
Where the path, in twain dividing,
Reach’d the Undiscover’d Land.
Oh, the Hebé then beside me,
Oh, the embodied Dream of Youth,
With an angel’s soul to guide me,
And a woman’s heart to soothe!
Like the Morning in the gladness
Of the smile that lit the skies;
Liker Twilight in the sadness
Lurking deep in starry eyes!
Gaudier flowerets had effaced thee
In the formal garden set;
Nature in the shade had placed thee
With thy kindred violet;
As the violet to completeness
Coming evèn ere the day;
All thy life a silent sweetness
Waning with a warmer ray.
So, upon the verge of sorrow
Stood we, blindly, hand in hand,
Whispering of a happy morrow
In that undiscover’d land.
Thou, O meek one, fame foretelling,
Grown ambitious but for me;
While my heart, if proudly swelling,
Beat—ah, not for Fame, but thee!
In that summer-noon we parted,
Life redundant over all.
Once again—O broken-hearted—
When the autumn leaves did fall,
Meeting—life from life to sever!
Parting,—as depart the dead,
When the dark “Farewell for ever,”
Fades from marble lips, unsaid;
As upon a bark that slowly
Lessens lone adown the sea,
Looks abandon’d Melancholy—
Did thy still eyes follow me!
Wilful in thy self devotion,
Patient on the desert shore,
Gazing, gazing, till from ocean
Waned thy last hope evermore.
Gentle victim, they might bind thee,
But to fetter was to slay;
As a statue they enshrined thee,
At a sepulchre to pray;
Bade the bloodless lips not falter;
Bade the cold despair be brave;
Yes, the next morn at the altar!
But the next moon in the grave!
Little dream’d they when they bore thee
To the nuptial funeral shrine,
That to me they did restore thee,
And release thy soul to mine!
Well thy noble heart might smother
Nature’s agonizing cry,
What can perjure to another
Faith—if firm eno’ to die!
Yet can ev’n the grave regain thee?
Gain as human love would see?
Darling—Pardon, I profane thee;
Angel, bend and comfort me!
Part IV — Love After Death
Cold the loiterer who refuseth
At the well of life to drink,
Till the wave a sparkle loseth,
And the silver cord a link.
But the flagging of the forces
In the journey of the soul,
If the first draught waste the sources,
If the first touch break the bowl!—
On the surface bright with pleasure
Still thy distant shade was cast;
Ah! the heart was where the treasure,
And the Present with the Past.
If from Fame, the all-deceiver,
Toil contending garlands sought,
Oft our force if but our fever,
And our swiftness flight from Thought.
Hollow Pleasure, vain Ambition,
Give me back the impulse free—
Hope that seem’d its own fruition,
Life contented but to be,
When the earth with Heaven was haunted
In the shepherd age of gold,
And the Venus rose enchanted
From the sunny seas of old.
Cease, not mine the ignoble moral
Of an unresisted grief;
Can the lightning sear the laurel,
Or the winter fade its leaf?
Flowerless, fruitless, to the dying,
Green as when the sap began,
Bolt and winter both defying,—
So be manhood unto man.
Once I wander’d forth dejected
In the later times of gloom;
And the icy moon reflected
One still shadow o’er thy tomb.
There, in desolation kneeling,
Snows around me, stars above,
Came that second world of feeling,
Came that second birth of Love,
When regret grows aspiration,
When o’er chaos moves the breath;
And a new-born dim creation
Rising, wid’ning, dawns from death.
Then methought my soul was lifted
From the anguish and the strife;
With a finer vision gifted
For the Spirituals of Life;
For the links that, while they thrall us,
Upward mount in just degree,
Knitting even, if they gall us,
Life to Immortality;
For the subtler glories blending
With the common air we know,
Ansel hosts to heaven ascending
Up the ladder based below.
Straight each harsher iron duty
Did the sudden light illume;
Oh, what streams of solemn beauty
Take their sources in the tomb!
Part V — The Pantheism of Love Passing Into the Ideal
Then I rose, at dawn departing,
Wan the dead earth, wan the snow,
Wan the frost-beam dimly darting
Where the corn-seed lurk’d below;
From that night, as streams dividing
At the fountain till the sea,
Wildly chafing, gently gliding,
Life has twofold lives for me;
One by mart and forum passing,
Vex’d reflection of the crowd;
One the hush of forests glassing,
Or the changes of the cloud.
By the calmer stream, for ever
Dwell the ghosts that haunt the heart,
And the phantoms and the river
Make the Poet-World of Art.
There in all that Fancy gildeth,
Still thy vanish’d smile I see;
And each airy hall it buildeth
Is a votive shrine to thee!
Do men praise the labour?—gladden’d
That the homage may endure;
Do they scorn it?—only sadden’d
That thine altar is so poor.
If the Beautiful be clearer
As the seeker’s days decline,
Should the Ideal not be nearer
As my soul approaches thine?
Thus the single light bereft me
Fused through all creation flows;
Gazing where a sun had left me,
Lo, the myriad stars arose!
Part VI — The Memory of Love Associates Its Consolations With Its Hopes
Now the eastern hill-top fadeth
From the arid wastes forlorn,
And the only tree that shadeth
Has the scant leaves of the thorn.
Not a home to smile before me,
Not a voice to cheer is heard;
Hush! the thorn-leaves tremble o’er me,—
Hark, the carol of a bird!
Unto air what charm is given?
Angel, as a link to thee,
Midway between earth and heaven
Hangs the delicate melody!
How it teacheth while it chideth,
Is the pathway so forlorn?
Mercy over man presideth,
And—the bird sings from the thorn.
Floating on, the music leads me,
As the pausing-place I leave,
And the gentle wing precedes me
Through the lullèd airs of eve.
Stay, O last of all the number,
Bathing happy plumes in light,
Till the deafness of the slumber,
Till the blindness of the night.
Only for the vault to leave thee,
Only with my life to lose;
Let my closing eyes perceive thee,
Fold thy wings amid the yews.