Orama; or, Fate and Freewill
Thin, shadowy, scarce divided from the light,
I saw a phantom at the birth of morn:
Its robe was sable, but a fleecy white
Flow’d silvering o’er the garb of gloom; a horn
It held within its hand; no faintest breath
Stirr’d its wan lips—death-like, it seem’d not Death.
My heart lay numb within me; and the flow
Of life, like water under icebergs, crept;
The pulses of my being seem’d to grow
One awe;—voice fled the body as it slept,
But from its startled depth arose the soul
And king-like spoke:—
“What art thou, that dost seem
To have o’er Immortality control?”
And the Shape answer’d, not by sound,
“A Dream!
A Dream, but not a Dream: the Shade of things
To come—a herald from the throne of Fate.
I ruled the hearts of earth’s primæval kings,
I gave their life its impulse and its date:
Grey Wisdom paled before me, and the stars
Were made my weird interpreters—my hand
Aroused the whirlwind of the destined wars,
And bow’d the nations to my still command.
A Dream, but not a Dream;—a type, a sign,
Pale with the Future, do I come to thee.
The lot of Man is twofold; gaze on thine,
And choose thy path into eternity.”
Thus spoke the Shade; and as when autumn’s haze
Rolls from a ghostly hill, and gives to view
The various life of troubled human days,
So round the phantom, pale phantasma grew,
And landscapes rose on either side the still
River of Time, whose waves are human hours.—
“What,” said my soul, “doth not the Omniscient Will
Foreshape, foredoom; if so, what choice is ours?”
The Ghost replied:—
“Deem’st thou the art divine
Less than the human? Doth inventive Man
All adverse means in one great end combine,
And close each circle where the thought began,
So that his genius, bent on schemes sublime,
Scarce notes the obstructions to its purposed goal,
But turns each discord of the changeful time
Into the music of a changeless whole?
And deem’st thou Him who breathes, and worlds arise,
But the blind agent of His own cold law?
Fool! doth yon river less reflect the skies
Because some wavelet eddies round a straw?
Still to Man’s choice is either margin given
Beside the Stream of Time to wander free:
And still, as nourish’d by the dews of Heaven,
Glides the sure river to the solemn sea.
Choose as thou wilt!”—
Then luminously clear
Flash’d either margin from the vapoury shade;
What I beheld unmeet for mortal ear,—
Nor dare I tell the choice the mortal made.
But when the Shape had left me, and the dawn
Smote the high lattice with a starbeam pale,
As a blind man when from his sight withdrawn
The film of dark,—or as unto the gale
Leaps the live war-ship from the leaden calm,—
So joyous rose, look’d forth, and on to Fate
Bounded my soul! Yet nor the Olympian palm
Which fierce contestors hotly emulate,
Nor roseate blooms in Cytherean dell,
Nor laurel shadowing murmurous Helicon,
Strain’d my desire divinely visible
In the lone course it was my choice to run.
Wherefore was then my joy?—That I was free!
Not my life doom’d, as I had deem’d till then,
An iron link of grim Necessity,—
A sand-grain wedged amidst the walls of men;
The good, the ill, the happiness or woe,
That waited, not a thraldom pre-decreed,
But from myself as from their germ to grow,—
Let the Man suffer, still the Slave was freed!
Predestine earth, and heavenly Mercy dies;
The voice of sorrow wastes its wail on air;
Freewill restores the Father to the skies,
Unlocks from ice the living realm of prayer,
And gives creation what the human heart
Gives to the creature, life to life replying.
O epoch in my being, and mine art,
Known but to me!—How oft do thoughts undying
Like rainbows, spring between the cloud and beam,
Colouring the world yet painted on—a dream.
Footnotes
A Theocrit. Id. 7.
B Mosch, Id. 3; Epitaph on Bion.
C Theocrit. Id. 2.
D The reader will perceive that this poem is intended to illustrate a dispute which can never, perhaps, be critically solved—viz., whether the true business of the poet be to delight or to instruct;—and he will therefore be disposed to forgive me if he recognize certain thoughts or expressions freely borrowed from the various poets, who may be said to represent either side of the question. Among the moderns, Schiller especially has suggested ideas and illustrations on behalf of the more earnest creed professed by Lykegenes—while Goethe has been pressed to the aid of Anthios. The Greek poets have here and there suggested a line on either side. After this general acknowledgment of obligation, it would be but pedantic to specify each special instance of imitative paraphrase or direct translation.
E “The choicest delicates from yonder mead.”—The Faithful Shepherdess.
F The valley Jehoshaphat, through which rolls the torrent of the Kedron, is studded with tombs.
G See Tasso, Ger. Lib. cant. iii. st. vi.
H Hippias, before the battle of Marathon, in which he was slain, dreamt a dream that he slept with his mother.—See Herodotus.