Sweet ideals feed the soul, thoughts of loveliness delight it, The chivalrous affection of uncalculating youth lacketh not honor able wisdom. Charge not folly on invisibles, that render thee happier and purer; The fair, frail visions of Romance have a use beyond the maxims of the Real. BEHOLD, a patriarch of years, who leaneth on the staff of religion; His heart is fresh, quick to feel, a bursting fount of generosity; Lofty aspirations, deep affections, holy hopes are his delight; His abhorrence is to strip from Life its charitable garment of Ideal. The cold and callous sneerer, who heedeth of the merely practical, And mocketh at good uses in imaginary things, that man is his scorn: The hard, unsympathizing modern, filled with facts and figures, Cautious, and coarse, and materialized in mind, that man is his pity. Passionate thirst for gain never hath burnt within his bosom, The leaden chains of that dull lust have not bound him prisoner: The shrewd world laughed at him for honesty, the vain world mouthed at him for honor, The false world hated him for truth, the cold world despised him for affection; Still, he kept his treasure, the warm and noble heart, And in that happy, wise old man survive the child and lover. For human Life is as Chian wine, flavored unto him who drink eth it, Delicate fragrance comforting the soul, as needful substance for the body: Therefore, see thou art pure and guileless; so shall thy Realities of Life Be sweetened, and tempered, and gladdened by the wholesome spirit of Romance. Dost thou live, man, dost thou live, or only breathe and labor? Art thou free, or enslaved to a routine, the daily machinery of habit? For one man is quickened into Life, where thousands exist in a tor por, Feeding, toiling, sleeping, an insensate, weary round: The plough, or the leger, or the trade, with animal cares and in dolence, Make the mass of vital years a heavy lump unleavened. Drowsily lie down in thy dulness, fettered with the irons of circumstance, Thou wilt not wake to think and feel a minute in a month. The epitome of common life is seen in the common epitaph, Born on such a day, and dead on such another, with an interval of threescore years. For time hath been wasted on the senses, to the hourly diminishing of spirit; Lean is the soul and pineth, in the midst of abundance for the body: He forgat the world to which he tended, and a creature's true no bility, Nor wished that hope and wholesome fear should stir him from his hardened satisfaction. And this is death in life; to be sunk beneath the waters of the Without one feebly-struggling sense of an airier, spiritual realm: If mind and spirit be not roused to raise the plodding groveller; And remember, thou that laborest, thy leisure is not loss, If it help to expose and undermine that solid falsehood, the Ma terial. LIFE is a strange avenue of various trees and flowers; Lightsome at commencement, but darkening to its end in a distant massy portal. It beginneth as a little path, edged with the violet and primrose, A little path of lawny grass, and soft to tiny feet: And vipers hide among the grass, and briers are woven in the hedges: Shortly, staked along in order, stand the slender saplings, While hollow hemlock and tall ferns fill the frequent interval: So advancing, quaintly mixed, majestic line the way And here the road is rough with rocks, wide, and scant of her bage, The sun is hot in heaven, and the ground is cleft and parched; But soon, with closer ranks, are set the sentinel trees, With smiling light, to guide thee safely through the dreadful shade! Hark, that hollow knock, - behold, the warder openeth, The gate is gaping, and for thee; - those are the jaws of Death! OF DEATH. KEEP silence, daughter of frivolity, -for Death is in that cham ber! Startle not with echoing sound the strangely solemn peace. Death is here in spirit, watcher of a marble corpse, That eye is fixed, that heart is still, how dreadful in its still ness! Death, new tenant of the house, pervadeth all the fabric; He waiteth at the head, and he standeth at the feet, and hideth in the caverns of the breast: Death, subtle leech, hath anatomized soul from body, Dissecting well in every nerve its spirit from its substance: Death, rigid lord, hath claimed the heriot clay, While joyously the youthful soul hath gone to take his heritage: Death, cold usurer, hath seized his bonded debtor; Death, savage despot, hath caught his forfeit serf; Death, blind foe, wreaketh petty vengeance on the flesh : Death, fell cannibal, gloateth on his victim, And carrieth it with him to the grave, that dismal banquet-hall, Where in foul state the Royal Goul holdeth secret orgies. HIDE it up, hide it up, draw the decent curtain: For the fearful mysteries of change are being there enacted, ment: Dust to dust, it mingleth well among the sacred soil : It is scattered by the winds, it is wafted by the waves, it mixeth with herbs and cattle, But God hath watched those morsels, and hath guided them in care: Each waiting soul must claim his own, when the archangel soundeth, And all the fields, and all the hills, shall move a mass of life; Bodies numberless, crowding on the land, and covering the tram pled sea, Darkening the air precipitate, and gathered scathless from the fire; The Himalayan peaks shall yield their charge, and the desolate steppes of Siberia, The Maelström disingulf its spoil, and the iceberg manumit its captive: All shall teem with life, the converging fragments of humanity, For in some dignified similitude, alike, yet different in glory, This body shall be shaped anew, fit dwelling for the soul: The hovel hath grown to a palace, the bulb hath burst into the flower, Matter hath put on incorruption, and is at peace with spirit. but now, the scene is drear,— AMEN, and so it shall be: - Yea, though promises and hope strive to cheat its sadness; To be heedless, if indignity or folly desecrate those thine ashes: Keep them safe with careful love; and let the mound be holy; And, thou that passest by, revere the waiting dead. NAPLES sitteth by the sea, keystone of an arch of azure, Crowned by consenting nations peerless queen of gayety: She laugheth at the wrath of Ocean, she mocketh the fury of Vesuvius, She spurneth disease, and misery, and famine, that crowd her sunny streets: The giddy dance, the merry song, the festal, glad procession, The noonday slumber, and the midnight serenade, all these make up her Life; Her Life?. -and what her Death?-look we to the end of life, Solon, and Tellus the Athenian, wisely have ye pointed to the grave. For behold yon dreary precinct, wells, (44) A pit for a day, a pit for a day, -a pit to be sealed for a year: Old men and maidens, young men and infants, mingle in hideous corruption; Fling in the gnawing lime, seal up the charnel for a year; |