PRINCE ATHANASE: A FRAGMENT. THERE was a youth, who, as with toil and travel, Had grown quite weak and grey before his time; Nor any could the restless griefs unravel Which burned within him, withering up his prime And goading him, like fiends, from land to land. Not his the load of any secret crime, For nought of ill his heart could understand, Baffled with blast of hope-consuming shame; Had left within his soul their dark unrest: For none than he a purer heart could have, What sorrow deep, and shadowy, and unknown, Sent him, a hopeless wanderer, through mankind?— If with a human sadness he did groan, He had a gentle yet aspiring mind; In others' joy, when all their own is dead: That from such toil he never found relief; His soul had wedded wisdom, and her dower Pitying the tumult of their dark estate- Those false opinions which the harsh rich use But like a steward in honest dealings tried, With those who toiled and wept, the poor and wise His riches and his cares he did divide. Fearless he was, and scorning all disguise, What he dared do or think, though men might start, He spoke with mild yet unaverted eyes; Liberal he was of soul, and frank of heart, If words he found those inmost thoughts to tell; And mortal hate their thousand voices rose, To those, or them, or any whom life's sphere He knew not. Though his life, day after day, Through which his soul, like Vespers' serene beam Piercing the chasms of ever rising clouds, Shone, softly burning; though his lips did seem Like reeds which quiver in impetuous floods; Were driven within him, by some secret power, O'er castled mountains borne, when tempest's war Though such were in his spirit, as the fiends A mirror found,—he knew not-none could know; He knew not of the grief within that burned, The cause of his disquietude; or shook To stir his secret pain without avail;— Between his heart and mind,-both unrelieved Wrought in his brain and bosom separate strife. That memories of an antenatal life Made this, where now he dwelt, a penal hell; From God's displeasure, like a darkness, fell By mortal fear or supernatural awe; And others," "Tis the shadow of a dream "But through the soul's abyss, like some dark stream Through shattered mines and caverns underground Rolls, shaking its foundations; and no beam "Of joy may rise, but it is quenched and drowned In the dim whirlpools of this dream obscure, Soon its exhausted waters will have found "A lair of rest beneath thy spirit pure, O Athanase!—in one so good and great, Evil or tumult cannot long endure." So spake they: idly of another's state |