Richard Doddridge Blackmore - Fringilla

Thou feeble implement of mind,
Wherewith she strove to scrawl her
name;
But, like a mitcher, left behind
No signature, no stroke, no claim,
No hint that she hath pined—

Shall ever come a stronger time,
When thou shalt be a tool of skill,
And steadfast purpose, to fulfil
A higher task than rhyme?

Thou puny instrument of soul,
Wherewith she labours to impart
Her efforts at some arduous goal;
But fails to bring thy coarser art
Beneath a fine control—

Shall ever come a fairer day,
When thou shalt be a buoyant plume,
To soar, where clearer suns illume,
And fresher breezes play?

Thou weak interpreter of heart,
So impotent to tell the tale
Of love's delight, of envy's smart,
Of passion, and ambition's bale,
Of pride that dwells apart—

Shall I, in length of time, attain
(By walking in the human ways,
With love of Him, who made and sways)
To ply thee, less in vain?

If so, thou shalt be more to me
Than sword, or sceptre, flag, or crown;
With mind, and soul, and heart in thee,
Despising gold, and sham renown;

But truthful, kind, and free—
Then come; though now a pithless quill,
Uncouth, unfledged, indefinite,—
In time, thou shalt be taught to write,
By patience, and good-will.

"KING, and Father, gift and giver,
God revealed in form of river,
Issuing perfect, and sublime,
From the fountain-head of time;

"Whom eternal mystery shroudeth,
Unapproached, untracked, unknown;
Whom the Lord of heaven encloudeth
With the curtains of His throne;

"From the throne of heaven descending,
Glory, power, and goodness blending,
Grant us, ere the daylight dies,
Token of thy rapid rise,"

Ha, it cometh! Furrowing, flashing,
Red blood rushing o'er brown breast;
Peaks, and ridges, and domes, dashing
Foam on foam, and crest on crest!

'Tis the signal Thebes hath waited,
Libyan Thebes, the hundred-gated:
Rouse, and robe thee, River-priest
For thy dedication feast!

Follows him the loveliest maiden,
Afric's thousand hills can show;
White apparel'd, flower-laden,
With the lotus on her brow.

Votive maid, who hath espousal
Of the river's high carousal;
Twenty cubits if he rise,
This shall be his bridal prize.

Calm, and meek of face and carriage,
Deigning scarce a quicker breath,
Comes she to the funeral marriage,
The betrothal of black death.

Rosy hands, and hennaed fingers,
Nails whereon the onyx lingers,
Clasped, as at a lover's tale,
In the bosom's marble vale.

Silvery scarf, her waist enwreathing,
Wafts a soft Sabaean balm;
Like a cloud of incense, breathing
Round the column of a palm:

Snood of lilies interweaveth
(Giving less than it receiveth)
Beauty of her clustered brow,
Calmly bent upon us now.

Through her dark hair, spread before
See the western glory wane,
As in groves of dim Cytorus,
Or the bowers of Taprobane!

See, the large eyes, lit by heaven,
Brighter than the Sisters Seven,
(Like a star the storm hath cowed)
Sink their flash in sorrow's cloud.

There the crystal tear refraineth,
And the founts of grief are dry;
"Father, Mother—none remaineth;
All are dead; and why not I?"

Yet, by God's will, heavenly beauty
Owes to Heaven alone its duty;
Off ye priests, who dare adjudge
Bride, like this, to slime and sludge!

When they tread the river's margent,
All their mitred heads are bowed—
What hath browned the ripples argent,
Like the plume of thunder-cloud?

Where yestreen the water slumbered,
With a sickly crust encumbered,
Leapeth now a roaring flood,
Wild as war, and red as blood.

Every billow hurries quicker,
Every surge runs up the strand;
While the brindled eddies flicker,
Scourged as with a levin brand.

Every bulrush, parched and welted,
Lifts his long joints yellow-belted;
Every lotus, faint and sick,
Hangs her fragrant tongue to lick.

Countless creatures, lone unthought of,
Swarm from every hole and nook;
What is man, that he make nought of
Other entries in God's book?

Scorpions, rats, and lizards flabby,
Centipedes, and hydras scabby,
Asp, and slug, and toad, whose gem
Outlasts human diadem.

Therefore hath the priest-procession
Causeway clean of sandal-wood;
That no foul thing make transgression
On the votive maiden's blood.

Pure of blood and soul, she standeth
Where the marble gauge demandeth,
Marble pillar, with black style,
Record of the rising Nile,

White-robed priests around her kneeling,
Ibis-banner floating high,
Conchs, and drums, and sistrals pealing,
And Sesostris standing nigh.

He, whose kingdom-city stretches
Further than our eyesight fetches;
Every street it wanders down
Larger than a regal town;

Built, when each man was a giant,
When the rocks were mason's stones,
When the oaks were osiers pliant,
And the mountains scarcely thrones;

City, whose Titanic portals
Scorn the puny modern mortals,
In thy desert winding-sheet,
Sacred from our insect feet.

Thebes No-Amon, hundred-gated,
Every gate could then unfold
Cavalry ten thousand, plated,
Man and horse, in solid gold.

Glancing back through serried ranges,
Vivid as his own phalanges,
Every captain might espy
Equal host in sculpture vie;

Down Piromid vista gazing,
Ten miles back from every gate,
He can see that temple blazing,
Which the world shall never mate.

But the Nile-flood, when it swelleth,
Recks not man, nor where he dwelleth;
And—e'en while Sesostris reigns—
Scarce five cubits man attains.

Lo, the darkening river quaileth,
Like a swamp by giant trod,
And the broad commotion waileth,
Stricken with the hand of God I

When the rushing deluge raging
Flung its flanks, and shook the staging,
Priesthood, cowering from the brim,
Chanted thus its faltering hymn.

"Ocean sire, the earth enclasping,
Like a babe upon thy knee,
In thy cosmic cycle grasping
All that hath been, or shall be;