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

Amidst the cloud-grey deeps afar
The Bliss departed lies;
How linger on one lonely star
The loving wistful eyes!
Alas—a star in truth—the light
Shines but a signal of the night!

If lock'd within the icy chill
Of the long sleep, thou wert—
My faithful grief could find thee still
A life within my heart;—
But, oh, the worse despair to see
Thee live to earth, and die to me!

Can those sweet longing hopes, which make
Love's essence, thus decay?
Can that be love which doth forsake?—
That love—which fades away?
That earthly gifts are brief, I knew—
Is that all heaven-born mortal too?

Severe the proof the Grecian youth was doom'd to undergo,
Before he might what lurks beneath the Eleusinia know—
Art thou prepared and ripe, the shrine—that inner shrine—to win,
Where Pallas guards from vulgar eyes the mystic prize within?
Know'st thou what bars thy way? how dear the bargain thou dost make,
When but to buy uncertain good, sure good thou dost forsake?
Feel'st thou sufficient strength to brave the deadliest human fray—
When Heart from Reason—Sense from Thought, shall rend themselves away?
Sufficient valour, war with Doubt, the Hydra-shape, to wage;
And that worst Foe within thyself with manly soul engage?
With eyes that keep their heavenly health—the innocence of youth
To guard from every falsehood, fair beneath the mask of Truth?
Fly, if thou can'st not trust thy heart to guide thee on the way—
Oh, fly the charmèd margin ere th' abyss engulf its prey.
Round many a step that seeks the light, the shades of midnight close;
But in the glimmering twilight, see—how safely Childhood goes!

Ho—ho—my puppet-show!
Ladies and gentlemen, see my show!
Life and the world—look here, in troth,
Though but in parvo , I promise ye both!
The world and life—in my box are they;
But keep at a distance, good folks, I pray!
Lit is each lamp, from the stage to the porch,
With Venus's naphtha, from Cupid's torch;
Never a moment, if rules can tempt ye,
Never a moment my scene is empty!
Here is the babe in his loading-strings—
Here is the boy at play;
Here is the passionate youth with wings,
Like a bird's on a stormy day,
To and fro, waving here and there,
Down to the earth and aloft through the air!
Now see the man, as for combat, enter—
Where is the peril he fears to adventure?
See how the puppets speed on to the race,}
Each his own fortune pursues in the chase; }
How many the rivals, how narrow the space! }
But, hurry and scurry, O mettlesome game!
The cars roll in thunder, the wheels rush in flame.
How the brave dart onward, and pant and glow!
How the craven behind them come creeping slow—
Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall!
See how Prudence, or Cunning, out-races them all!
See how at the goal, with her smiling eyes,
Ever waits Woman to give the prize!

Where can Peace find a refuge?—whither, say,
Can Freedom turn?—lo, friend, before our view
The Century rends itself in storm away,
And, red with slaughter, dawns on earth the New.
The girdle of the lands is loosen'd;—hurl'd
To dust the forms old Custom deem'd divine,—
Safe from War's fury not the watery world;—
Safe not the Nile-God nor the antique Rhine.
Two mighty nations make the world their field,
Deaming the world is for their heirloom given—
Against the freedom of all lands they wield
This—Neptune's trident; that—the Thund'rer's levin.
Gold to their scales each region must afford;
And, as fierce Brennus in Gaul's early tale,
The Frank casts in the iron of his sword,
To poise the balance, where the right may fail—
Like some huge Polypus, with arms that roam
Outstretch'd for prey—the Briton spreads his reign;
And, as the Ocean were his household home,
Locks up the chambers of the liberal main.
Where on the Pole scarce gleams the faintest star,
Onward his restless course unbounded flies;
Tracks every isle and every coast afar,
And undiscover'd leaves but—Paradise!
Alas, in vain on earth's wide chart, I ween,
Thou seek'st that holy realm beneath the sky—
Where Freedom dwells in gardens ever green—
And blooms the Youth of fair Humanity!
O'er shores where sail ne'er rustled to the wind,
O'er the vast universe, may rove thy ken;
But in the universe thou canst not find
A space sufficing for ten happy men!
In the heart's holy stillness only beams
The shrine of refuge from life's stormy throng;
Freedom is only in the land of Dreams;
And only blooms the Beautiful in Song!

Where now the minstrel of the large renown,
Rapturing with living words the heark'ning throng?
Charming the Man to heaven, and earthward down
Charming the God?—who wing'd the soul with song?
Yet lives the minstrel, not the deeds—the lyre
Of old demands ears that of old believed it—
Bards of bless'd time—how flew your living fire
From lip to lip! how race from race received it!
As if a God, men hallow'd with devotion—
What Genius, speaking, shaping, wrought below,
The glow of song inflamed the ear's emotion,
The ear's emotion gave the song the glow;
Each nurturing each—back on his soul—its tone
Whole nations echoed with a rapture-peal;
Then all around the heavenly splendour shone
Which now the heart, and scarce the heart can feel.

The Muse is silent; with a virgin cheek,
Bow'd with the blush of shame, she ventures near—
She waits the judgment that thy lips may speak,
And feels the def'rence, but disowns the fear.
Such praise as Virtue gives, 'tis hers to seek—
Bright Truth, not tinsel Folly to revere;
He only for her wreath the flowers should cull
Whose heart, with hers, beats for the Beautiful.

Nor longer yet these days of mine would live,
Than to one genial heart, not idly stealing,
There some sweet dreams and fancies fair to give,
Some hallowing whispers of a loftier feeling.
Not for the far posterity they strive,
Doom'd with the time, its impulse but revealing,
Born to record the Moment's smile or sigh,
And with the light dance of the Hours to fly.

Spring wakes—and life, in all its youngest hues,
Shoots through the mellowing meads delightedly;
Air the fresh herbage scents with nectar-dews;
Livelier the choral music fills the sky;
Youth grows more young, and Age its youth renews,
In that field-banquet of the ear and eye;
Spring flies—lo, seeds where once the flowers have blush'd
And the last bloom's gone, and the last muse hush'd.