In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In your thoughts the brooklets flow,
But in mine is the wind of Autumn,
And the first fall of the snow.

Ah! what would the world be to us
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.

What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood,-

That to the world are children;

Through them it feels the glow Of a brighter and sunnier climate Than reaches the trunks below.

Come to me, O ye children,

And whisper in my ear

What the birds and the winds are singing

In your sunny atmosphere.

For what are all our contrivings,

And the wisdom of our books,

When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?

Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;

For ye are living poems,

And all the rest are dead.

SANDALPHON.

HAVE you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realms of the air,-
Have you read it,-the marvellous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,

Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light, That, crowded with angels unnumbered, By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered Alone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire

With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder,
By music they throb to express.

But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,

With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
Sandalphon stands listening breathless
To sounds that ascend from below;-
From the spirits on earth that adore,
From the souls that entreat and implore

In the fervour and passion of prayer; From the hearts that are broken with losses, And weary with dragging the crosses

Too heavy for mortals to bear.

And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands,
Into garlands of purple and red;

And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

It is but a legend, I know,

A fable, a phantom, a show,

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore; Yet the old mediæval tradition, The beautiful, strange superstition,

But haunts me and holds me the more.

When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,

All throbbing and panting with stars,
Among them majestic is standing
Sandalphon the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.
And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,
The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden,
To quiet its fever and pain.

EPIMETHEUS;

OR, THE POET'S AFTERTHOUGHT.

HAVE I dreamed? or was it real,
What I saw as in a vision,

When to marches hymeneal,

In the land of the ideal,

Moved my thought o'er field Elysian?

What are these the guests whose glances
Seemed like sunshine gleaming round me
These the wild, bewildered fancies,
That with dithyrambic dances,
As with magic circles, bound me?

Ah! how cold are their caresses!
Pallid cheeks and haggard bosoms
Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses,
And from loose, dishevelled tresses,
Fall the hyacinthine blossoms!

O my songs! whose winsome measures
Filled my heart with secret rapture!
Children of my golden leisures!
Must even your delights and pleasures
Fade and perish with the capture?
Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous,
When they came to me unbidden;
Voices single, and in chorus,
Like the wild birds singing o'er us
In the dark of branches hidden.
Disenchantment! Dis-illusion!

Must each noble aspiration
Come at last to this conclusion,
Jarring discord, wild confusion,
Lassitude, renunciation?

Not with steeper fall nor faster.
From the sun's serene dominions,
Not through brighter realms nor vaster,
In swift ruin and disaster

Icarus fell with shattered pinions.

Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora!

Why did mighty Jove create thee Coy as Thetis, fair as Flora, Beautiful as young Aurora,

If to win thee is to hate thee?

No, not to hate thee! for this feeling
Of unrest and long resistance

Is but passionate appealing,
A prophetic whisper stealing

O'er the chords of our existence.
Him whom thou dost once enamour,
Thou, beloved, never leavest;
In life's discord, strife, and clamour,
Still he feels thy spell of glamour;
Ilim of Hope thou ne'er bereavest.

Weary hearts by thee are lifted,

Struggling souls by thee are strengthened, Clouds of fear asunder rifted.

Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted,
Lives, like days in summer, lengthened.
Therefore art thou ever dearer,

O my Sibyl, my deceiver!
For thou makest each mystery clearer,
And the unattained seems nearer

When thou fillest by heart with fever!
Muse of all the Gifts and Graces!

Though the fields around us wither, There are ampler realms and spaces, Where no foot has left its traces;

Let us turn and wander thither.

PROLOGUE.

THE SPIRE OF STRASBURG CATHEDRAL.

Lucifer. Baffled! baffled! Inefficient,

Craven spirits! leave this labour

the Air, trying to tear down the Cross.

Lucifer. Hasten! hasten i

O ye spirits!

From its station drag the ponderous

Cross of iron, that to mock us

1s uplifted high in air!

Voices. O, we cannot!

For around it

Come away, ere night is gone!
Voices. Onward! onward!

With the night-wind,

Over field and farm and forest,

Lonely homestead, darksome hamlet,

Blighting all we breathe upon!

[They sweep away. Organ and Gregorian Chant.

Choir.

Nocte surgentes Vigilemus omnes!

I.

The Castle of Vautsberg on the Rhine. A chamber in a tower. PRINCE HENRY, sitting alone, ill and restless. Midnight.

Prince Henry. I cannot sleep! my fervid brain
Calls up the vanished Past again,
And throws its misty splendours deep
Into the pallid realms of sleep!

A breath from that far-distant shore
Comes freshening ever more and more,
And wafts o'er intervening seas
Sweet odours from the Hesperides;
A wind, that through the corridor
Just stirs the curtain, and no more,
And, touching the æolian strings,
Faints with the burden that it brings!
Come back! ye friendships long departed!
That like o'erflowing streamlets started,

And now are dwindled, one by one,

The stony channels in the sun!

Come back! ye friends, whose lives are ended!

Come back, with all that light attended,

Which seemed to darken and decay

When ye arose and went away!

They come the shapes of joy and woe,
The airy crowds of long ago,

The dreams and fancies known of yore,
That have been, and shall be no morc.
They change the cloisters of the night
Into a garden of delight;

They make the dark and dreary hours
Open and blossom into flowers!
I would not sleep! I love to be
Again in their fair company;
But ere my lips can bid them stay,
They pass and vanish quite away!
Alas! our memories may retrace
Each circumstance of time and place,
Season and scene come back again,
And outward things unchanged remain;
The rest we cannot reinstate;
Ourselves we cannot re-create,
Nor set our souls to the same key

Of the remembered harmony!

Rest! rest! O, give me rest and peace!
The thought of life that ne'er shall cease

Has something in it like despair,

A weight I am too weak to bear!

Prince Henry. The dead to life? Lucifer.

Can you bring

Yes; very nearly.
And, what is a wiser, and better thing,
Can keep the living from ever needing
Such an unnatural, strange proceeding
By showing conclusively and clearly
That death is a stupid blunder merely,
And not a necessity of our lives.
My being here is accidental;

The storm, that against your casement drives,
In the little village below waylaid me.
And there I heard, with a secret delight,
Of your maladies physical and mental,
Which neither astonished nor dismayed me.
And I hastened hither, though late in the night,
To proffer my aid!

Prince Henry (ironically). For this you came! Ah, how can I ever hope to requite

This honour from one so crudite?

Lucifer. The honour is mine, or will be when I have cured your disease. Prince Henry.

But not till then.

Lucifer. What is your illness? Prince Henry.

It has no name.

A smouldering, dull, perpetual flame,
As in a kiln, burns in my veins,
Sending up vapours to the head;
My heart has become a dull lagoon

Which a kind of leprosy drinks and drains;
I am accounted as one who is dead,
And, indeed, I think that I shall be soon.
Lucifer. And has Gordonious the Divine,
In his famous Lily of Medicine,-

I see the book lies open before you,-
No remedy potent enough to restore you?
Prince Henry. None whatever!
Lucifer.
The dead are dead.
And their oracles dumb, when questioned
Of the new diseases that human life
Evolves in its progress, rank and rife.
Consult the dead upon things that were,
But the living only on things that are.
Have you done this, by the appliance
And aid of doctors?

Prince Henry.

Ay, whole schools

Of doctors, with their learned rules;

But the case is quite beyond their science. Even the doctors of Salern

Send me back word they can discern

No cure for a malady this,

Save one, which in its nature is

Impossible, and cannot be!

Lucifer. What is their remedy? Prince Henry.

You shall see:

Writ in this scroll is the mystery. Lucifer (reading). "Not to be cured, yet not incurable!

The only remedy that remains

Is the blood that flows from a maiden's veins,
Who of her own free will shall die,

And give her life as the price of yours!"
That is the strangest of all cures,
And one, I think, you will never try;
The prescription you may well put by,
As something impossible to find
Before the world itself shall end!
And yet who knows? One cannot say
That in some maiden's brain that kind
Of madness will not find its way.
Meanwhile permit me to recomiend,
As the matter admits of no delay,
My wonderful Catholicon,

Of very subtile and magical powers!

Prince Henry. Purge with your nostrums and drugs infernal

The spouts and gargoyles of these towers,
Not me! My faith is utterly gone

In every power but the Power Supernal!
Pray tell me, of what school are you?

Lucifer. Both of the Old and of the New!
The school of Hermes Trismegistus,
Who uttered hls oracles sublime
Before the Olympiads in the dew
Of the early dawn and dusk of Time,
The reign of dateless old Hephætus!
As northward, from its Nubian springs,
The Nile, for ever new and old,
Among the living and the dead,
Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled :
So, starting from its fountain-head
Under the lotus-leaves of Isis,
From the dead demigods of eld,
Through long, unbroken lines of kings
Its course the sacred art has held,
Unchecked, unchanged by man's devices.
This art the Arabian Geber taught,
And in alembics, finely wrought,
Distilling herbs and flowers, discovered
The secret that so long had hovered
Upon the misty verge of Truth,
The Elixir of Perpetual Truth,
Called Alcohol, in the Arab speech!
Like him, this wondrous lore I teach!
Prince Henry. What! an adept?
Lucifer.

Nor less, nor more.

Prince Henry. I am a reader of your books,
A lover of that mystic, lore;

With such a piercing glance it looks
Into great Nature's open eye
And sees within it trembling lic
The portrait of the Deity!
And yet, alas! with all my pains,
The secret and the mystery
Have baffled and eluded me.
Unseen the grand result remains!

Lucifer (showing a flask). Behold it here! this little flask

Contains the wonderful quintessence,
The perfect flower and efflorescence,
Of all the knowledge man can ask;
Hold it up thus against the light!

Prince Henry. How limpid, pure, and crystalline,

How quick, and tremulous, and bright,
The little wavelets dance and shine,
As were it the Water of Life in sooth!
Lucifer. It is! it assuages every pain,
Cures all disease, and gives again
To age the swift delights of youth,
Inhale its fragrance.

Prince Henry.

A thousand different odours meet And mingle in its rare perfume,

It is sweet.

you;

You may drink all; it will not harm you,

Prince Henry. I am as one who on the brink Of a dark river stands and sees

The waters flow, the landscape dim
Around him waver, wheel, and swim,
And, ere he plunges, stops to think
Into what whirlpools he may sink;
One moment pauses, and no more,
Then madly plunges from the shore!
Headlong into the mysteries
Of life and death I boldly leap,
Nor fear the fatal current's sweep,
Nor what in ambush lurks below!
For death is better than disease!

(An ANGEL with an eolian harp hovers in the air.)

Angel. Woo! woe! eternal woe! Not only the whispered prayer

Of love,

But the imprecations of hate,
Reverberate

For ever and ever through the air
Above!

This fearful curse

Shakes the great universe!

Lucifer (disappearing). Drink! drink!

And thy soul shall sink

Down into the dark abyss,

Into the infinite abyss,.

From which no plummet nor rope

Ever drew up the silver sand of hope!

The Angel. Touch the goblet no more! It will make thy heart sore

To its very core!

Its perfume is the breath

Of the Angel of Death,

And the light that within it lies
Is the flash of his evil eyes.
Beware! O, beware!

For sickness, sorrow,
All are there!

and care,

Prince Henry (sinking back). O thou voice within my breast!

Why entreat me, why upbraid me,
When the steadfast tongues of truth,
And the flattering hopes of youth,

Have all deceived me and betrayed me?
Give me, give me rest, O, rest!·
Golden visions wave and hover,
Golden vapours, waters streaming,
Landscapes moving, changing, gieaming!
I am like a happy lover

Who illumines life with dreaming!
Brave physician! Rare physician!

Well hast thou fulfilled thy mission.

(Is head falls on his book.)

The Angel (receding). Alas! alas!
Like a vapour the golden vision
Shall fade and pass,

And thou wilt find in thy heart again
Only the blight of pain,

And bitter, bitter, bitter contrition!

(Court-yard of the Castle. HUBERT standing by the gateway.)

Hubert. How sad the grand old castle looks! O'erhead the unmolested rooks

Upon the turret's windy top

Sit, talking of the farmer's crop :

Here in the court-yard springs the grass,

So few are now the feet that pass:

The stately peacocks, bolder grown,

fire!

Through every vein

I feel again

The fever of youth, the soft desire;

A rapture that is almost pain

Throbs in my heart and fills my brain!

O joy! O joy! I feel

The band of steel

That so long and heavily has pressed

Upon my breast

Uplifted, and the malediction

Of my affliction

Is taken from me, and my weary breast

At length finds rest.

The Angel. It is but the rest of the fire, from which the air has been taken!

It is but the rest of the sand, when the hour glass is not shaken!

It is but the rest of the tide between the ebb and

the flow!

It is but the rest of the wind between the flaws that blow !

With fiendish laughter,

Hereafter,

This false physician

Will mock thee in thy perdition.

Prince Henry. Speak! speak!

Who says that I am ill?

I am not ill! I am not weak!

The trance, the swoon, the dream is o'er!

I feel the chill of death no more!

At length,

I stand renewed in all my strength! Beneath me I can feel

The great earth stagger and recl,

As if the feet of a descending God

Upon its surface trod,

And like a pebble it rolled beneath his heel! This, O brave physician! this

Is thy great Palingenesis

As if the castle were their own;
And I, the poor old seneschal,

Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall.
Alas! the merry guests no more
Crowd through the hospitable door,
No eyes with youth and passion shine,
No cheeks grow redder than the wine;
No song, no laugh, no jovial din
Of drinking wassail to the pin;
But all is silent, sad and drear,
And now the only sounds I hear
Are the hoarse rooks upon the walls
And horses stamping in their stalls!
What ho! that merry, sudden blast
And, as of old resounding, grate
Reminds me of the days long past!
And, clattering loud, with iron clank,
The heavy hinges of the gate,
Down goes the sounding bridge of plank,
As if it were in haste to greet
The pressure of a traveller's feet!