But for words, it must pack them as on floors, cumbrous and perishable
To be pained for a minute, to fear for an hour, to hope for a week--how long and weary!
But to remember fourscore years, is to look back upon a day.
An avenue seemeth to lengthen in the eyes of the wayfaring man,
But let him turn, those stationed elms crowd up within a yard;
Pace the lamp-lit streets of some sleeping city,
The multitude of cressets shall seem one, in the false picture of perspective;
in sweet treachery, dealeth the aged with himself,
He gazeth on the green hill-tops, while the marshes beneath are hidden,
And the partial telescope of memory pierceth the blank between,
To look with lingering love at the fair star of childhood.
Iife is as the current spark on the miner's wheel of flints:
Whiles it spinneth there is light; stop it, all is darkness:
Life is as a morsel of frankincense burning in the hall of Eternity;
It is gone, but its odorous cloud curleth to the lofty roof!
Life is as a lump of salt, melting in the temple-laver;
It is gone,--yet its savour reacheth to the farthest atom;
Even so, for evil or for good, is life the criterion of a man,
For its memories of sanctity or sin pervade all the firmament of being
There is but the flitting moment, wherein to hope or to enjoy
But in the calendar of memory, that moment is all time.
I LEFT the happy fields that smile around the village of Content,
And sought with wayward feet the torrid desert of Ambition.
Long time, parched and weary, I travelled that burning sand,
And the hooded basilisk and adder were strewed in my way for palms;
Black scorpions thronged me round, with sharp uplifted stings,
Seeming to mock me as I ran; (then I guessed it was a dream,—
But life is oft so like a dream, we know not where we are.)
So I toiled on, doubting in myself, up a steep gravel cliff,
Whose yellow summit shot up far into the brazen sky;
And quickly, I was wafted to the top, as upon unseen wings,
Carrying me upward like a leaf: (then I thought it was a dream,—
Yet life is oft so like a dream, we know not where we are.)
So I stood on the mountain, and behold! before me a giant pyramid,
And I clomb with eager haste its high and difficult steps;
For, I longed, like another Belus, to mount up, yea to heaven,
Nor sought I rest until my feet had spurned the crest of earth.
THEN I sat on my granite throne under the burning sun,
And the world lay smiling beneath me, but I was wrapt in flames;
(And I hoped, in glimmering consciousness, that all this torture was a
Yet life is oft so like a dream, we know not where we are.)
And anon, as I sat scorching, the pyramid shuddered to its root,
And I felt the quarried mass leap from its sand foundations:
Awhile it tottered and tilted, as raised by invisible levers,—
(And now my reason spake with me; I knew it was a dream;
Yet I hushed that whisper into silence, for I hoped to learn of wisdom,
By tracking up my truant thoughts, whereunto they might lead.)
And suddenly, as rolling upon wheels, adown the cliff it rushed,
And I thought, in my hot brain, of the Muscovites' icy slope;
A thousand yards in a moment we ploughed the sandy seas,
And crushed those happy fields, and that smiling village,
And onward, as a living thing, still rushed my mighty throne,
Thundering along, and pounding, as it went, the millions in my way;
Before me all was life, and joy, and full-blown summer,
Behind me death and woe, the desert and simoom.
Then I wept and shrieked aloud, for pity and for fear;
But might not stop, for, comet-like, flew on the maddened mass
Over the crashing cities, and falling obelisks and towers,
And columns, razed as by a scythe, and high domes, shivered as an egg. shell,
And deep embattled ranks, and women, crowded in the streets,
And children, kneeling as for mercy, and all I had ever loved,
Yea, over all, mine awful throne rushed on with seeming instinct,
And over the crackling forests, and over the rugged beach,
And on with a terrible hiss through the foaming wild Atlantic
That roared around me as I sat, but could not quench my spirit,-
Still on, through startled solitudes we shattered the pavement of the sea,
Down, down, to that central vault, the bolted doors of hell,
And these, with horrid shock, my huge throne battered in,
And on to the deepest deep, where the fierce flames were hottest,
Blazing tenfold as conquering furiously the seas that rushed in with me,And there I stopped: and a fearful voice shouted in mine ear, "Behold the home of Discontent; behold the rest of Ambition!"
Law hath dominion over all things, over universal mind and matter;
For there are reciprocities of right, which no creature can gainsay.
Unto each there was added by its Maker, in the perfect chain of being,
Dependencies and sustentations, accidents, and qualities, and powers:
And each must fly forward in the curve, unto which it was forced from
the beginning;
Each must attract and repel, or the monarchy of Order is no more.
Laws are essential emanations from the self-poised character of God,
And they radiate from that sun, to the circling edges of creation.
Verily, the mighty Lawgiver hath subjected Himself unto laws,
And God is the primal grand example of free unstrained obedience:
His perfection is limited by right, and cannot trespass into wrong,
Because He hath stablished Himself as the fountain of only good,
And in thus much is bounded, that the evil hath he left unto another,
And that dark other hath usurped the evil which Omnipotence laid down.
Unto God there exist impossibilities; for the True One cannot lie,
Nor the Wise One wander from the track which he hath determined for
For his will was purposed from eternity, strong in the love of order;
And that will altereth not, as the law of the Medes and Persians.
God is the origin of order, and the first exemplar of his precept;
For there is subordination of his Essence, self-guided unto holiness;
And there is subordination of his Persons, in due procession of dignity;
For the Son, as a son, is subject; and to him doth the Spirit minister;
But these things be mysteries to man, he cannot reach nor fathom them,
And ever must he speak in paradox, when labouring to expound his God
For, behold, God is Alone, mighty in unshackled freedom;
And with those wondrous Persons abideth eternal equality.
So then, start ye from the fountain, and follow the river of existence,
For its current is bounded throughout by the banks of just subordination:
Thrones, and dominions, and powers, Archangels, Cherubim, and Seraphim,
Angels, and flaming ministers, and breathing chariots and harps.
For there are degrees in heaven, and varied capabilities of bliss,
And steps in the ladder of Intelligence, and ranks in approaches to Perfection:
Doubtless, reverence is given, as their due, to the masters in wisdom; Doubtless, there are who serve; or a throne would have small glory. Regard now the universe of matter, the substance of visible creation, Which of old, with well-observing truth, the Greek hath surnamed ORDER: (9)
Where is there an atom out of place? or a particle that yieldeth not obedience?
Where is there a fragment that is free? or one thing the equal of another? The chain is unbroken down to man, and beyond him the links are perfect: But he standeth solitary sin, a marvel of permitted chaos.
AND shall this seeming error in the scale of due subordination
Be a spot of desert unreclaimed, in the midst of the vineyard of the Lord!
Shall his presumptuous pride snap the safe tether of connexion,
And his blind selfish folly refuse the burden of maintenance?
O man, thou art a creature; boast not thyself above the law:
Think not of thyself as free: thou art bound in the trammels of dependence.
What is the sum of thy duty, but obedience to righteous rule,
To the great commanding oracle, uttered by delegated organs'
Thou canst not render homage to abstract Omnipresent power,
Save through the concrete symbol of visible ordained authority.
Those who obey not man, are oftenest found rebels against God;
And seldom is the delegate so bold, as to order what he knoweth to be
Yet mark me, proud gainsayer! I say not, obey unto sin;
But, where the Principal is silent, take heed that thou despise not the
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