Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843

Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world—a world how lovely then!—
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourish'd them your service of delight!
How different, oh, how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!

Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by Song, Truth's youthful beauty glow'd,
And life's redundant and rejoicing streams
Gave to the soulless, soul—where'er they flow'd.
Man gifted Nature with divinity
To lift and link her to the breast of Love;
All things betray'd to the initiate eye
The track of gods above!

Where lifeless—fix'd afar,
A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,
Phœbus Apollo, in his golden car,
In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!
On yonder hill the Oread was adored,
In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;
And from her Urn the gentle Naiad pour'd
The wavelet's silver foam.

Yon bay, chaste Daphnè wreathed,
Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell,
Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,
And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel;
The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill—
Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne;
And, for her lost Adonis, yonder hill
Heard Cytherea mourn!—

Heaven's shapes were charm'd unto
The mortal race of old Deucalion;
Pyrrha's fair daughter, humanly to woo,
Came down, in shepherd-guise, Latona's son.
Between men, heroes, Gods, harmonious then
Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine;
Blest Amathusia, heroes, Gods, and men,
Equals before thy shrine!

Not to that culture gay,
Stern self-denial, or sharp penance wan!
Well might each heart be happy in that day—
For Gods, the Happy Ones, were kin to Man!
The Beautiful alone, the Holy there!
No pleasure shamed the Gods of that young race;
So that the chaste Camœnæ favouring were,
And the subduing Grace!

A palace every shrine;
Your very sports heroic;—Yours the crown
Of contests hallow'd to a power divine,
As rush'd the chariots thund'ring to renown.
Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,
Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair
Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed
Sweet leaves round odorous hair!

The lively Thyrsus-swinger,
And the wild car the exulting Panthers bore,
Announced the Presence of the Rapture-Bringer—
Bounded the Satyr and blithe Fawn before;
And Mænads, as the frenzy stung the soul,
Hymn'd, in their madding dance, the glorious wine—
As ever beckon'd to the lusty bowl
The ruddy Host divine!

Before the bed of death
No ghastly spectre stood—but from the porch
Of life, the lip—one kiss inhaled the breath,
And the mute graceful Genius lower'd a torch.
The judgment-balance of the Realms below,
A judge, himself of mortal lineage, held;
The very Furies at the Thracian's woe,
Were moved and music-spell'd.

In the Elysian grove
The shades renew'd the pleasures life held dear:
The faithful spouse rejoin'd remember'd love,
And rush'd along the meads the charioteer;
There Linus pour'd the old accustom'd strain;
Admetus there Alcestes still could greet; his
Friend there once more Orestes could regain,
His arrows—Philoctetes!

More glorious then the meeds
That in their strife with labour nerved the brave,
To the great doer of renownèd deeds,
The Hebe and the Heaven the Thunderer gave.
To him the rescued Rescuer of the dead,
Bow'd down the silent and Immortal Host;
And the Twin Stars their guiding lustre shed,
On the bark tempest-tost!

Art thou, fair world, no more?
Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face;
Ah, only on the Minstrel's magic shore,
Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace!
The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;
Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft;
Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,
Shadows alone are left!

Cold, from the North, has gone
Over the Flowers the Blast that kill'd their May;
And, to enrich the worship of the One,
A Universe of Gods must pass away!
Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,
But thee no more, Selene, there I see!
And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,
And—Echo answers me!

Deaf to the joys she gives—
Blind to the pomp of which she is possest—
Unconscious of the spiritual Power that lives
Around, and rules her—by our bliss unblest—
Dull to the Art that colours or creates,
Like the dead timepiece, Godless Nature creeps
Her plodding round, and, by the leaden weights,
The slavish motion keeps.

To-morrow to receive
New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;
And icy moons, with weary sameness, weave
From their own light their fullness and decay:
Home to the Poet's land the Gods are flown;
Light use in them that later world discerns,
Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,
On its own axle turns.

Home!—and with them are gone
The hues they gazed on, and the tones they heard,
Life's beauty and life's melodies—alone
Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless Word!
Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng,
Unseen, the Pindus they were wont to cherish,
Ah—that which gains immortal life in song
To mortal life must perish!

I see her still, with many a fair one nigh,
Of every fair the stateliest shape appear:
Like a lone son she shone upon my eye—
I stood afar, and durst not venture near.
Seized, as her presence brighten'd round me, by
The trembling passion of voluptuous fear,
Yet, swift, as borne upon some hurrying wing,
The impulse snatch'd me, and I struck the string!

What then I felt—what sung—my memory hence
From that wild moment would in vain invoke—
It was the life of some discover'd sense
That in the heart's divine emotion spoke;
Long years imprison'd, and escaping thence
From every chain, the SOUL enchanted broke,
And found a music in its own deep core,
Its holiest, deepest deep, unguess'd before.

Like melody long hush'd, and lost in space,
Back to its home the breathing spirit came:
I look'd, and saw upon that angel face
The fair love circled with the modest shame;
I heard (and heaven descended on the place)
Low-whisper'd words a charmèd truth proclaim—
Save in thy choral hymns, O spirit-shore,
Ne'er may I hear such thrilling sweetness more!

"I know the worth within the heart which sighs,
Yet shuns, the modest sorrow to declare;
And what rude Fortune niggardly denies,
Love to the noble can with love repair.
The lowly have the loftiest destinies;
Love only culls the flower that love should wear;
And ne'er in vain for love's rich gifts, shill yearn
The heart that feels their wealth—and can return!"