| |
| I KNEW 1 young Julian well;—that gentle youth, | |
| Whose heart was as a maiden’s;—by my side | |
| He grew together with me, and in truth | |
| His boyish sports were mine, whether we plied | |
| The evening smoothness of the summer tide, | 5 |
| Or met the sunbeam on the mountain’s brow; | |
| I loved him well;—alas, for me! he died, | |
| When the first Autumn winds began to blow | |
| Foliage whose bright tints mock’d the soft-hued sunset glow. | |
| |
| He was indeed a strange and dreamy boy, | 10 |
| Wild as an Indian huntress, and as proud | |
| As his young country’s eagles; and his joy | |
| Was even like theirs to listen to the loud | |
| Clang of the tempest or the rattling cloud; | |
| Yet loved all human kind, he was so mild: | 15 |
| What here is writ he gave me ere he bow’d | |
| His head upon my bosom, as he smiled | |
| His lingering life away, most like a slumbering child. | |
| |
| Free as the untamed thunder-levin rolling | |
| Athwart the blackness of this drooping sky;— | 20 |
| Free as the winds controll’d not, yet controlling, | |
| Free as the martyr’s last prayer when to die | |
| Is glorious gain;—free as despair’s deep sigh, | |
| Or as the waters when their chainless surge, | |
| Lash’d to wild wrath, speaks to the storm on high, | 25 |
| Rise up, my soul, while proud hopes onward urge, | |
| And perish in the whelming tempest, or emerge | |
| |
| To high and perilous emprise;—throw off | |
| The bondage of all such as war with thought, | |
| And trample on the fool’s unmeaning scoff; | 30 |
| Why should’st thou bow to wealth, who art unbought? | |
| What carest thou for forms, who art untaught | |
| To smile when thou should’st frown?—thou wilt not sell | |
| The holy birthright of thy race for aught;— | |
| Rise, then, my slumbering spirit, rise and dwell | 35 |
| Enshrined in quenchless thought, fearless of earth or hell. | |
| |
| The idols of my heart are fading fast, | |
| And my own fragile being will not long | |
| Endure the fatal memory of the past, | |
| Still less the gathering ills of present wrong, | 40 |
| And unforgetful sighs, a tireless throng, | |
| Which day by day sink deeper than before;— | |
| Weak sighs, which still are mightier than the strong, | |
| Soon—soon—oh, when shall the vain strife be o’er, | |
| And I repose in peace, and ye torment no more? | 45 |
| |
| Yet will I hush this voice of weak lament;— | |
| Yet will I conquer this unmanly grief;— | |
| But the strong pain of passion first must vent | |
| Its throbbing woes in words for sad relief: | |
| ’T is done,—my waning pilgrimage be brief,— | 50 |
| Though young and dying, scarcely can I mourn;— | |
| Time cannot bind my feelings’ shatter’d sheaf, | |
| Nor bid the loved, the long, long lost return,— | |
| Then welcome be my journey towards the perilous bourne. | |
| |
| Methinks it scarcely matters when we tread | 55 |
| The road which all must tread who have not trod, | |
| Though the dark journey be replete with dread;— | |
| Firm by the mercy of a pitying God, | |
| And humbled at the chastening of his rod, | |
| How sweet, this aching heart and painful head | 60 |
| Slumbering in peace beneath the grass-green sod, | |
| To join those ancient worthies who have fled, | |
| And meet the mightier spirits of the mighty dead! | |
| |
| With them and such as them I have conversed | |
| More than with men, and thus the fruit has been | 65 |
| That they and their old mouldering tomes have nursed | |
| Feelings and thoughts and hopes which do not win | |
| Men’s charity, though haply not of sin: | |
| For Roman, Grecian lore has been to me | |
| The mistress of my love;—’mid cities’ din | 70 |
| I ’ve loved all Rome while yet she was the free, | |
| And wander’d, lost in mists, through sage Philosophy. | |
| |
| Perchance it did not profit me;—at least, | |
| I learnt that knowledge doth not always bring | |
| The fabled pleasures of the mental feast;— | 75 |
| That intellectual streams might own a spring | |
| Of bitter wave, whose sun-bright vapors fling | |
| An arch of promise o’er the cheating source, | |
| Lit by the ray of man’s own hopes, which cling | |
| To all delusion with a desperate force, | 80 |
| Till doubts and darkness soon obstruct their stumbling course. | |
| |
| Perchance my draught was shallow, and confused | |
| The brain it did not sober—let it pass: | |
| Even from my childhood upward I have used | |
| To search into my being—but alas! | 85 |
| The scrutiny was fruitless;—that I was | |
| Wretched I knew—but why I could not tell,— | |
| Born but to perish as a blade of grass;— | |
| One fate awaited all, I saw full well,— | |
| Alike the sage and fool—the vile and virtuous fell. | 90 |
| |
| For one grew ripe in honorable age, | |
| And others at his voice all lowly bow’d | |
| While he discoursed as from a pictured page | |
| Most eloquent music to a listening crowd, | |
| Who ever and anon fell shouting loud;— | 95 |
| Till with a golden circlet (save this crown | |
| No other virtue had he,) terror-brow’d, | |
| Came one they call’d a king, and at his frown | |
| Blood from the old man’s silvery locks went running down. | |
| |
| Another fell in manhood’s ripen’d day, | 100 |
| In the full flow of his warm bosom’s tide;— | |
| His wasted strength like weakness pass’d away, | |
| And his heart’s lingering streams of life were dried | |
| By the enduring shame of humbled pride, | |
| Or rankling poison left by passion’s sting, | 105 |
| Or foul disease ungorged, and gaping wide;— | |
| For each hath plumed his shaft from Horror’s wing, | |
| And each ten thousand shapes of varying fate can bring. | |
| |
| And there was one who, by the kindling flush | |
| And happiness which beauty round her shed, | 110 |
| Seem’d ’mid her pure hours, lit by that soft blush, | |
| Some stray grace tripping o’er a violet bed, | |
| In spring,—but ere the lingering aster fled, | |
| They laid her ringlets ’neath the early snow;— | |
| Men marvell’d that so fair a thing was dead, | 115 |
| And when flowers blossom, blue-eyed maidens go, | |
| With memory’s garland-gifts for her who sleeps below. | |
| |
| And dreamy boys in the rathe bloom of youth, | |
| Ere frozen years had bid them cease to lave | |
| Their glowing cheeks with tears of joy or ruth, | 120 |
| Went down in silence to the marble grave, | |
| Scorch’d by the flame of passions which they crave;— | |
| Or else embarking all their hope upon | |
| Some voyage of love;—and on the fickle wave | |
| Of that false sea perchance the worshipp’d one | 125 |
| Made shipwreck of their hopes, and so they were undone. | |
| |
| And some, dishearten’d at the world’s cold frown | |
| And chilly aspect of its frozen eye, | |
| Weep like the clouds, until they seem to drown | |
| The life of their young ears, and sigh on sigh | 130 |
| Exhausts their being’s source, and so they lie | |
| Down in the loveliness of innocent youth | |
| And welcome the Deliverer, as they die | |
| Smiling for joy; yet do we feel, in sooth, | |
| How wild the loss to us—how dark the frantic truth. | 135 |
| |
| I know not if they sleep without the dreams | |
| Which grim delusion wraps around the core | |
| Of hearts which were not made to feel their streams | |
| Mix with unfathom’d lakes of guilty lore;— | |
| I know not if their pure souls upward soar, | 140 |
| Or in the green earth’s ample breast abide;— | |
| But he who wanders by the twilight shore | |
| When long slow curls climb up its silent side, | |
| May hear strange flitting notes die on the solemn tide. | |
| |
| But when in quick wild wrath the wave of fears, | 145 |
| Lash’d by careering winds from the fierce sleep | |
| Where heavily groaning late he lay, uprears | |
| The crested horror of his mountain heap;— | |
| Ah, then go stand by the tumultuous deep | |
| Alone, and if thou darest, try to cast | 150 |
| Away the mortal dread which then shall creep | |
| Into thy soul, as on the shrieking blast | |
| Mad mirth and devilish shouts peal round thee loud and fast. * * * * | |
| Away, ye pleasant fancies;—let me now | |
| Recall my vision,—and methought I stood | 155 |
| On a precipitous seashore’s craggy brow;— | |
| It was at evening,—and the level flood | |
| Where the fledged younglings of the tempest brood | |
| Sported of late, lay fair and placid, save, | |
| As thoughts of their glad play would oft intrude, | 160 |
| They now reposing in their azure cave, | |
| Sent pealing laughter upward on the curling wave. | |
| |
| Fold after fold of that long line of water | |
| Unfurl’d its sullen length,—and like the stride | |
| Of a strong phalanx ripe for battle-slaughter, | 165 |
| Came the firm slow march of the solemn tide | |
| Towards the broad beach, whose huge rocks, high and wide, | |
| Death-black as if the lightning of the thunder | |
| Had spent its wrath upon some mountain side, | |
| And half its monstrous bulk and riven asunder,— | 170 |
| There smiled on time and chance a mockery and a wonder. | |
| |
| Then as I stood by the bleak barren beach, | |
| And gazed upon its vast magnificence, | |
| While the proud waters vainly strove to reach | |
| The bulwark’d summit of that rocky fence,— | 175 |
| Came on my soul some feelings so intense. | |
| Roused by the glory of that mighty swell, | |
| The exultation of my quivering sense | |
| Joy’d in the power of some o’ermastering spell, | |
| While from my unclosed lips these prompted accents fell: | 180 |
| |
| Thou who hast grovell’d ’mid the things accursed | |
| Which the world’s dross hath spread about thy soul, | |
| And thou, whose wayward bosom hath been nursed | |
| ’Mid frantic doubts which scorn Heaven’s just control,— | |
| Oh that ye heard with me the wondrous whole | 185 |
| Of these majestic waves’ tumultuous din; | |
| For standing where their starry summits roll, | |
| Some overwhelming feeling must rush in | |
| To blot for one blest moment each vile thought of sin. | |
| |
| Oh that the monarchs of the world were here,— | 190 |
| The demi-gods of fawning slaves who pour | |
| The heartless tribute of their guilty fear | |
| At the false shrines they hate while they adore;— | |
| For musing by this moralizing shore, | |
| Its beautifully grand array in sight, | 195 |
| Methinks one little hour would teach them more | |
| How weakly faltering is their boasted height, | |
| Than philosophic texts preach’d on for ages might. | |
| |
| O that the full-swoln monsters of the world,— | |
| The rich in groaning wretches’ sighs, might stand, | 200 |
| And see these glittering ocean treasures hurl’d | |
| In proud profusion towards the golden sand;— | |
| Might see the far deep, venerably bland, | |
| In silver hoary, and the lavish shore | |
| Mock the free offering of its wasteful hand,— | 205 |
| Might feel some generous glow unfelt before, | |
| Or pious line sublime of gentle pity’s lore. | |
| |
| O that the trampled world’s nobility, | |
| Proud of dull currents of degenerate blood, | |
| And boastful of the antique pedigree | 210 |
| Which makes them worth contemptuous scorn, now stood | |
| Where the slow marching waters of the flood | |
| In solemn state majestic dash below,— | |
| Then might they see each of that graceful brood | |
| On the lone rock its destined being throw, | 215 |
| Though old Eternity saw its ancestral flow. | |
| |
| O thou illimitable ocean,—thou | |
| Shadowest the image of eternity;— | |
| Thy many-sparkling waves are wanton now | |
| Like reckless voyagers on that gloomy sea: | 220 |
| Ten thousand of thy billows momently | |
| Ripple to being, then upon the shore | |
| Shrink back to death and nothingness,—so we | |
| Wake to the energies of life and pour | |
| Our few sad sighs,—one gasp,—and then are heard no more. | 225 |
