Selected Poems and Prose

  225Yes! I have seen God’s worshippers unsheathe

  The sword of his revenge, when grace descended,

  Confirming all unnatural impulses,

  To sanctify their desolating deeds;

  And frantic priests waved the ill-omened cross

  230O’er the unhappy earth: then shone the sun

  On showers of gore from the upflashing steel

  Of safe assassination, and all crime

  Made stingless by the spirits of the Lord,

  And blood-red rainbows canopied the land.

  235Spirit! no year of my eventful being

  Has passed unstained by crime and misery,

  Which flows from God’s own faith. I’ve marked his slaves

  With tongues whose lies are venomous, beguile

  The insensate mob, and, whilst one hand was red

  240With murder, feign to stretch the other out

  For brotherhood and peace; and that they now

  Babble of love and mercy, whilst their deeds

  Are marked with all the narrowness and crime

  That freedom’s young arm dare not yet chastise,

  245Reason may claim our gratitude, who now

  Establishing the imperishable throne

  Of truth, and stubborn virtue, maketh vain

  The unprevailing malice of my foe,

  Whose bootless rage heaps torments for the brave,

  250Adds impotent eternities to pain,

  Whilst keenest disappointment racks his breast

  To see the smiles of peace around them play,

  To frustrate or to sanctify their doom.

  Thus have I stood,—through a wild waste of years

  255Struggling with whirlwinds of mad agony,

  Yet peaceful, and serene, and self-enshrined,

  Mocking my powerless tyrant’s horrible curse

  With stubborn and unalterable will,

  Even as a giant oak, which heaven’s fierce flame

  260Had scathed in the wilderness, to stand

  A monument of fadeless ruin there;

  Yet peacefully and movelessly it braves

  The midnight conflict of the wintry storm,

  As in the sun-light’s calm it spreads

  265 Its worn and withered arms on high

  To meet the quiet of a summer’s noon.

  The Fairy waved her wand:

  Ahasuerus fled

  Fast as the shapes of mingled shade and mist,

  270That lurk in the glens of a twilight grove,

  Flee from the morning beam:

  The matter of which dreams are made

  Not more endowed with actual life

  Than this phantasmal portraiture

  275 Of wandering human thought.

  VIII

  The present and the past thou hast beheld:

  It was a desolate sight. Now, Spirit, learn

  The secrets of the future.—Time!

  Unfold the brooding pinion of thy gloom,

  5Render thou up thy half-devoured babes,

  And from the cradles of eternity,

  Where millions lie lulled to their portioned sleep

  By the deep murmuring stream of passing things,

  Tear thou that gloomy shroud.—Spirit, behold

  10 Thy glorious destiny!

  Joy to the Spirit came.

  Through the wide rent in Time’s eternal veil,

  Hope was seen beaming through the mists of fear:

  Earth was no longer hell;

  15 Love, freedom, health, had given

  Their ripeness to the manhood of its prime,

  And all its pulses beat

  Symphonious to the planetary spheres:

  Then dulcet music swelled

  20Concordant with the life-strings of the soul;

  It throbbed in sweet and languid beatings there,

  Catching new life from transitory death,—

  Like the vague sighings of a wind at even,

  That wakes the wavelets of the slumbering sea

  25And dies on the creation of its breath,

  And sinks and rises, fails and swells by fits:

  Was the pure stream of feeling

  That sprung from these sweet notes,

  And o’er the Spirit’s human sympathies

  30With mild and gentle motion calmly flowed.

  Joy to the Spirit came,—

  Such joy as when a lover sees

  The chosen of his soul in happiness,

  And witnesses her peace

  35Whose woe to him were bitterer than death,

  Sees her unfaded cheek

  Glow mantling in first luxury of health,

  Thrills with her lovely eyes,

  Which like two stars amid the heaving main

  40 Sparkle through liquid bliss.

  Then in her triumph spoke the Fairy Queen:

  I will not call the ghost of ages gone

  To unfold the frightful secrets of its lore;

  The present now is past,

  45And those events that desolate the earth

  Have faded from the memory of Time,

  Who dares not give reality to that

  Whose being I annul. To me is given

  The wonders of the human world to keep,

  50Space, matter, time, and mind. Futurity

  Exposes now its treasure; let the sight

  Renew and strengthen all thy failing hope.

  O human Spirit! spur thee to the goal

  Where virtue fixes universal peace,

  55And midst the ebb and flow of human things,

  Shew somewhat stable, somewhat certain still,

  A lighthouse o’er the wild of dreary waves.

  The habitable earth is full of bliss;

  Those wastes of frozen billows that were hurled

  60By everlasting snow-storms round the poles,

  Where matter dared not vegetate or live,

  But ceaseless frost round the vast solitude

  Bound its broad zone of stillness, are unloosed;

  And fragrant zephyrs there from spicy isles

  65Ruffle the placid ocean-deep, that rolls

  Its broad, bright surges to the sloping sand,

  Whose roar is wakened into echoings sweet

  To murmur through the heaven-breathing groves

  And melodize with man’s blest nature there.

  70Those deserts of immeasurable sand,

  Whose age-collected fervors scarce allowed

  A bird to live, a blade of grass to spring,

  Where the shrill chirp of the green lizard’s love

  Broke on the sultry silentness alone,

  75Now teem with countless rills and shady woods,

  Corn-fields and pastures and white cottages;

  And where the startled wilderness beheld

  A savage conqueror stained in kindred blood,

  A tygress sating with the flesh of lambs,

  80The unnatural famine of her toothless cubs,

  Whilst shouts and howlings through the desert rang,

  Sloping and smooth the daisy-spangled lawn,

  Offering sweet incense to the sun-rise, smiles

  To see a babe before his mother’s door,

  85 Sharing his morning’s meal

  With the green and golden basilisk

  That comes to lick his feet.

  Those trackless deeps, where many a weary sail

  Has seen above the illimitable plain,

  90Morning on night, and night on morning rise,

  Whilst still no land to greet the wanderer spread

  Its shadowy mountains on the sun-bright sea,

  Where the loud roarings of the tempest-waves

  So long have mingled with the gusty wind

  95In melancholy loneliness, and swept

  The desert of those ocean solitudes,

  But vocal to the sea-bird’s harrowing shriek,

  The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm,

  Now to
the sweet and many-mingling sounds

  100Of kindliest human impulses respond.

  Those lonely realms bright garden-isles begem,

  With lightsome clouds and shining seas between,

  And fertile vallies, resonant with bliss,

  Whilst green woods overcanopy the wave,

  105Which like a toil-worn labourer leaps to shore,

  To meet the kisses of the flowrets there.

  All things are recreated, and the flame

  Of consentaneous love inspires all life:

  The fertile bosom of the earth gives suck

  110To myriads, who still grow beneath her care,

  Rewarding her with their pure perfectness:

  The balmy breathings of the wind inhale

  Her virtues, and diffuse them all abroad:

  Health floats amid the gentle atmosphere,

  115Glows in the fruits, and mantles on the stream:

  No storms deform the beaming brow of heaven,

  Nor scatter in the freshness of its pride

  The foliage of the ever verdant trees;

  But fruits are ever ripe, flowers ever fair,

  120And autumn proudly bears her matron grace,

  Kindling a flush on the fair cheek of spring,

  Whose virgin bloom beneath the ruddy fruit

  Reflects its tint and blushes into love.

  The lion now forgets to thirst for blood:

  125There might you see him sporting in the sun

  Beside the dreadless kid; his claws are sheathed,

  His teeth are harmless, custom’s force has made

  His nature as the nature of a lamb.

  Like passion’s fruit, the nightshade’s tempting bane

  130Poisons no more the pleasure it bestows:

  All bitterness is past; the cup of joy

  Unmingled mantles to the goblet’s brim,

  And courts the thirsty lips it fled before.

  But chief, ambiguous man, he that can know

  135More misery, and dream more joy than all;

  Whose keen sensations thrill within his breast

  To mingle with a loftier instinct there,

  Lending their power to pleasure and to pain,

  Yet raising, sharpening, and refining each;

  140Who stands amid the ever-varying world,

  The burthen or the glory of the earth;

  He chief perceives the change, his being notes

  The gradual renovation, and defines

  Each movement of its progress on his mind.

  145Man, where the gloom of the long polar night

  Lowers o’er the snow-clad rocks and frozen soil,

  Where scarce the hardiest herb that braves the frost

  Basks in the moonlight’s ineffectual glow,

  Shrank with the plants, and darkened with the night;

  150His chilled and narrow energies, his heart,

  Insensible to courage, truth, or love,

  His stunted stature and imbecile frame,

  Marked him for some abortion of the earth,

  Fit compeer of the bears that roamed around,

  155Whose habits and enjoyments were his own:

  His life a feverish dream of stagnant woe,

  Whose meagre wants, but scantily fulfilled,

  Apprised him ever of the joyless length

  Which his short being’s wretchedness had reached;

  160His death a pang which famine, cold and toil

  Long on the mind, whilst yet the vital spark

  Clung to the body stubbornly, had brought:

  All was inflicted here that earth’s revenge

  Could wreak on the infringers of her law;

  165One curse alone was spared—the name of God.

  Nor where the tropics bound the realms of day

  With a broad belt of mingling cloud and flame,

  Where blue mists through the unmoving atmosphere

  Scattered the seeds of pestilence, and fed

  170Unnatural vegetation, where the land

  Teemed with all earthquake, tempest and disease,

  Was man a nobler being; slavery

  Had crushed him to his country’s bloodstained dust;

  Or he was bartered for the fame of power,

  175Which all internal impulses destroying,

  Makes human will an article of trade;

  Or he was changed with Christians for their gold,

  And dragged to distant isles, where to the sound

  Of the flesh-mangling scourge, he does the work

  180Of all-polluting luxury and wealth,

  Which doubly visits on the tyrants’ heads

  The long-protracted fulness of their woe;

  Or he was led to legal butchery,

  To turn to worms beneath that burning sun,

  185Where kings first leagued against the rights of men,

  And priests first traded with the name of God.

  Even where the milder zone afforded man

  A seeming shelter, yet contagion there,

  Blighting his being with unnumbered ills,

  190Spread like a quenchless fire; nor truth till late

  Availed to arrest its progress, or create

  That peace which first in bloodless victory waved

  Her snowy standard o’er this favoured clime:

  There man was long the train-bearer of slaves,

  195The mimic of surrounding misery,

  The jackal of ambition’s lion-rage,

  The bloodhound of religion’s hungry zeal.

  Here now the human being stands adorning

  This loveliest earth with taintless body and mind;

  200Blest from his birth with all bland impulses,

  Which gently in his noble bosom wake

  All kindly passions and all pure desires.

  Him, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing,

  Which from the exhaustless lore of human weal

  205Draws on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise

  In time-destroying infiniteness, gift

  With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks

  The unprevailing hoariness of age,

  And man, once fleeting o’er the transient scene

  210Swift as an unremembered vision, stands

  Immortal upon earth: no longer now

  He slays the lamb that looks him in the face,

  And horribly devours his mangled flesh,

  Which still avenging nature’s broken law,

  215Kindled all putrid humours in his frame,

  All evil passions, and all vain belief,

  Hatred, despair, and loathing in his mind,

  The germs of misery, death, disease, and crime.

  No longer now the winged habitants,

  220That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,

  Flee from the form of man; but gather round,

  And prune their sunny feathers on the hands

  Which little children stretch in friendly sport

  Towards these dreadless partners of their play.

  225All things are void of terror: man has lost

  His terrible prerogative, and stands

  An equal amidst equals: happiness

  And science dawn though late upon the earth;

  Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;

  230Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,

  Reason and passion cease to combat there;

  Whilst each unfettered o’er the earth extend

  Their all-subduing energies, and wield

  The sceptre of a vast dominion there;

  235Whilst every shape and mode of matter lends

  Its force to the omnipotence of mind,

  Which from its dark mine drags the gem of truth

  To decorate its paradise of peace.

  IX

  O happy Earth! reality of Heaven!

  To which those restless souls that ceaselessly

  Throng through the human universe, asp
ire;

  Thou consummation of all mortal hope!

  5Thou glorious prize of blindly-working will!

  Whose rays, diffused throughout all space and time,

  Verge to one point and blend forever there:

  Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place!

  Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime,

  10Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come:

  O happy Earth, reality of Heaven!

  Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams,

  And dim forebodings of thy loveliness

  Haunting the human heart, have there entwined

  15Those rooted hopes of some sweet place of bliss

  Where friends and lovers meet to part no more.

  Thou art the end of all desire and will,

  The product of all action; and the souls

  That by the paths of an aspiring change

  20Have reached thy haven of perpetual peace,

  There rest from the eternity of toil

  That framed the fabric of thy perfectness.

  Even Time, the conqueror, fled thee in his fear;

  That hoary giant, who, in lonely pride,

  25So long had ruled the world, that nations fell

  Beneath his silent footstep. Pyramids,

  That for milleniums had withstood the tide

  Of human things, his storm-breath drove in sand

  Across that desert where their stones survived

  30The name of him whose pride had heaped them there.

  Yon monarch, in his solitary pomp,

  Was but the mushroom of a summer day,

  That his light-winged footstep pressed to dust:

  Time was the king of earth: all things gave way

  35Before him, but the fixed and virtuous will,

  The sacred sympathies of soul and sense,

  That mocked his fury and prepared his fall.

  Yet slow and gradual dawned the morn of love;

  Long lay the clouds of darkness o’er the scene,

  40Till from its native heaven they rolled away:

  First, crime triumphant o’er all hope careered

  Unblushing, undisguising, bold and strong;

  Whilst falshood, tricked in virtue’s attributes,

  Long sanctified all deeds of vice and woe,

  45Till done by her own venomous sting to death,

  She left the moral world without a law,

  No longer fettering passion’s fearless wing,

  Nor searing reason with the brand of God.

  Then steadily the happy ferment worked;

  50Reason was free; and wild though passion went