What triumph! hark ! —what pain ! O wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old- world pain
Say, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn With its cool trees, and night, And the sweet, tranquil Thames, And moonshine, and the dew, To thy rack'd heart and brain Afford no balm ?
Dost thou to-night behold,
Here, through the moonlight on this English
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
Dost thou again peruse
With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes
The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame ?
Dost thou once more assay
Thy flight, and feel come over thee, Poor fugitive, the feathery change
Once more, and once more seem to make resound
With love and hate, triumph and agony, Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale ? Listen, Eugenia —
How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves !
Again-thou hearest ?
Eternal passion!
Eternal pain!
Listen! you hear the grating roar
But now, ye kindle
Your lonely, cold-shining lights,
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and Unwilling lingerers
In the heavenly wilderness,
Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak? Are even lovers powerless to reveal To one another what indeed they feel? I knew the mass of men conceal'd Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd They would by other men be met With blank indifference, or with blame reprov'd;
I knew they liv'd and mov'd
Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest Of men, and alien to themselves — and yet The same heart beats in every human breast!
But we, my love! - doth a like spell benumb
Our hearts, our voices?-must we too be dumb?
Ah! well for us, if even we,
Even for a moment, can get free
Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd; For that which seals them hath been deepordain'd!
How frivolous a baby man would be By what distractions he would be possess'd, How he would pour himself in every strife, And well-nigh change his own identity That it might keep from his capricious play His genuine self, and force him to obey Even in his own despite his being's law, Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
The unregarded river of our life Pursue with indiscernible flow its way; And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be Eddying at large in blind uncertainty, Though driving on with it eternally.
But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life ; A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course; A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats So wild, so deep in us to know Whence our lives come and where they
But hardly have we, for one little hour, Been on our own line, have we been ourselves
Hardly had skill to utter one of all The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress'd. And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well-but 't is not true! And then we will no more be rack'd With inward striving, and demand Of all the thousand nothings of the hour Their stupefying power ;
Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call! Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul's subterranean depth upborne As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey A melancholy into all our day.
GOETHE in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease. But one such death remain'd to come ; The last poetic voice is dumb- We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.
When Byron's eyes were shut in death, We bow'd our head and held our breath. He taught us little ; but our soul Had felt him like the thunder's roll. With shivering heart the strife we saw Of passion with eternal law; And yet with reverential awe We watch'd the fount of fiery life Which serv'd for that Titanic strife.
When Goethe's death was told, we said: Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head. Physician of the iron age, Goethe has done his pilgrimage.
He took the suffering human race,
He read each wound, each weakness clear: And struck his finger on the place, And said: Thou ailest here, and here! He look'd on Europe's dying hour Of fitful dream and feverish power;
His eye plunged down the weltering strife, The turmoil of expiring life
He said: The end is everywhere, Art still has truth, take refuge there! And he was happy, if to know Causes of things, and far below His feet to see the lurid flow Of terror, and insane distress, And headlong fate, be happiness.
And Wordsworth! Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice!
For never has such soothing voice Been to your shadowy world convey'd, Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade Heard the clear song of Orpheus come Through Hades, and the mournful gloom. Wordsworth has gone from us— and ye, Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! He too upon a wintery clime Had fallen -on this iron time
Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. He found us when the age had bound Our souls in its benumbing round; He spoke, and loos'd our hearts in tears
He laid us as we lay at birth On the cool flowery lap of earth, Smiles broke from us, and we had ease; The hills were round us, and the breeze Went o'er the sun-lit fields again; Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. Our youth return'd; for there was shed On spirits that had long been dead, Spirits dried up and closely furl'd, The freshness of the early world.
Ah! since dark days still bring to light Man's prudence and man's fiery might, Time may restore us in his course Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force; But where will Europe's latter hour Again find Wordsworth's healing power? Others will teach us how to dare, And against fear our breast to steel; Others will strengthen us to bear — But who, ah! who, will make us feel? The cloud of mortal destiny, Others will front it fearlessly- But who, like him, will put it by? Keep fresh the grass upon his grave, O Rotha, with thy living wave! Sing him thy best! for few or none Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.
FOUR years! and didst thou stay above The ground, which hides thee now, but four? And all that life, and all that love, Were crowded, Geist ! into no more?
Only four years those winning ways, Which make me for thy presence yearn, Call'd us to pet thee or to praise, Dear little friend! at every turn?
That loving heart, that patient soul, Had they indeed no longer span, To run their course, and reach their goal, And read their homily to man?
That liquid, melancholy eye, From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs Seem'd urging the Virgilian cry,1 The sense of tears in mortal things -
That steadfast, mournful strain, consol'd By spirits gloriously gay,
And temper of heroic mould
Yes, only four! — and not the course Of all the centuries yet to come, And not the infinite resource Of Nature, with her countless sum
Of figures, with her fulness vast Of new creation evermore, Can ever quite repeat the past, Or just thy little self restore.
Stern law of every mortal lot! Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear,
And builds himself I know not what Of second life I know not where.
But thou, when struck thine hour to go, On us, who stood despondent by, A meek last glance of love didst throw, And humbly lay thee down to die.
Yet would we keep thee in our heart Would fix our favorite on the scene, Nor let thee utterly depart
And be as if thou ne'er hadst been.
And so there rise these lines of verse On lips that rarely form them now; While to each other we rehearse : Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou!
We stroke thy broad brown paws again, We bid thee to thy vacant chair, We greet thee by the window-pane, We hear thy scuffle on the stair.
We see the flaps of thy large ears Quick rais'd to ask which way we go; Crossing the frozen lake, appears Thy small black figure on the snow!
Nor to us only art thou dear Who mourn thee in thine English home; Thou hast thine absent master's tear, Dropp'd by the far Australian foam.
Thy memory lasts both here and there, And thou shalt live as long as we. And after that-thou dost not care! In us was all the world to thee.
Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame, Even to a date beyond our own We strive to carry down thy name,
What, was four years their whole short day? By mounded turf, and graven stone.
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