Roll on, my song, and to after ages Tell how, disdaining all earth can give, He would have taught men, from wisdom"s pages, The way to live.
And tell how trampled, derided, hated, And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong, He fled for shelter to G.o.d, who mated His soul with song.
--With song which alway, sublime or vapid, Flow"d like a rill in the morning beam, Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid-- A mountain stream.
Tell how this Nameless, condemn"d for years long To herd with demons from h.e.l.l beneath, Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long For even death.
Go on to tell how, with genius wasted, Betray"d in friendship, befool"d in love, With spirit shipwreck"d, and young hopes blasted, He still, still strove;
Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others (And some whose hands should have wrought for him, If children live not for sires and mothers), His mind grew dim;
And he fell far through that pit abysmal, The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns, And p.a.w.n"d his soul for the devil"s dismal Stock of returns.
But yet redeem"d it in days of darkness, And shapes and signs of the final wrath, When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness, Stood on his path.
And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow, And want, and sickness, and houseless nights, He bides in calmness the silent morrow, That no ray lights.
And lives he still, then? Yes! Old and h.o.a.ry At thirty-nine, from despair and woe, He lives, enduring what future story Will never know.
Him grant a grave to, ye pitying n.o.ble, Deep in your bosoms: there let him dwell!
He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble, Here and in h.e.l.l.
Thomas Lovell Beddoes. 1803-1849
666. Wolfram"s Dirge
IF thou wilt ease thine heart Of love and all its smart, Then sleep, dear, sleep; And not a sorrow Hang any tear on your eyelashes; Lie still and deep, Sad soul, until the sea-wave washes The rim o" the sun to-morrow, In eastern sky.
But wilt thou cure thine heart Of love and all its smart, Then die, dear, die; "Tis deeper, sweeter, Than on a rose-bank to lie dreaming With folded eye; And there alone, amid the beaming Of Love"s stars, thou"lt meet her In eastern sky.
Thomas Lovell Beddoes. 1803-1849
667. Dream-Pedlary
IF there were dreams to sell, What would you buy?
Some cost a pa.s.sing bell; Some a light sigh, That shakes from Life"s fresh crown Only a rose-leaf down.
If there were dreams to sell, Merry and sad to tell, And the crier rang the bell, What would you buy?
A cottage lone and still, With bowers nigh, Shadowy, my woes to still, Until I die.
Such pearl from Life"s fresh crown Fain would I shake me down.
Were dreams to have at will, This would best heal my ill, This would I buy.
Thomas Lovell Beddoes. 1803-1849
668. Song
HOW many times do I love thee, dear?
Tell me how many thoughts there be In the atmosphere Of a new-fall"n year, Whose white and sable hours appear The latest flake of Eternity: So many times do I love thee, dear.
How many times do I love again?
Tell me how many beads there are In a silver chain Of evening rain, Unravell"d from the tumbling main, And threading the eye of a yellow star: So many times do I love again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1803-1882
669. Give All to Love
GIVE all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame, Plans, credit, and the Muse-- Nothing refuse.
"Tis a brave master; Let it have scope: Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope: High and more high It dives into noon, With wing unspent, Untold intent; But it is a G.o.d, Knows its own path, And the outlets of the sky.
It was never for the mean; It requireth courage stout, Souls above doubt, Valour unbending: Such "twill reward;-- They shall return More than they were, And ever ascending.
Leave all for love; Yet, hear me, yet, One word more thy heart behoved, One pulse more of firm endeavour-- Keep thee to-day, To-morrow, for ever, Free as an Arab Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid; But when the surprise, First vague shadow of surmise, Flits across her bosom young, Of a joy apart from thee, Free be she, fancy-free; Nor thou detain her vesture"s hem, Nor the palest rose she flung From her summer diadem.
Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay; Though her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive; Heartily know, When half-G.o.ds go The G.o.ds arrive.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1803-1882
670. Uriel
IT fell in the ancient periods Which the brooding soul surveys, Or ever the wild Time coin"d itself Into calendar months and days.
This was the lapse of Uriel, Which in Paradise befell.
Once, among the Pleiads walking, Sayd overheard the young G.o.ds talking; And the treason, too long pent, To his ears was evident.
The young deities discuss"d Laws of form, and metre just, Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams, What subsisteth, and what seems.
One, with low tones that decide, And doubt and reverend use defied, With a look that solved the sphere, And stirr"d the devils everywhere, Gave his sentiment divine Against the being of a line.
"Line in nature is not found; Unit and universe are round; In vain produced, all rays return; Evil will bless, and ice will burn."
As Uriel spoke with piercing eye, A shudder ran around the sky; The stern old war-G.o.ds shook their heads; The seraphs frown"d from myrtle-beds; Seem"d to the holy festival The rash word boded ill to all; The balance-beam of Fate was bent; The bounds of good and ill were rent; Strong Hades could not keep his own, But all slid to confusion.
A sad self-knowledge withering fell On the beauty of Uriel; In heaven once eminent, the G.o.d Withdrew that hour into his cloud; Whether doom"d to long gyration In the sea of generation, Or by knowledge grown too bright To hit the nerve of feebler sight.
Straightway a forgetting wind Stole over the celestial kind, And their lips the secret kept, If in ashes the fire-seed slept.
But, now and then, truth-speaking things Shamed the angels" veiling wings; And, shrilling from the solar course, Or from fruit of chemic force, Procession of a soul in matter, Or the speeding change of water, Or out of the good of evil born, Came Uriel"s voice of cherub scorn, And a blush tinged the upper sky, And the G.o.ds shook, they knew not why.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1803-1882
671. Bacchus
BRING me wine, but wine which never grew In the belly of the grape, Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through Under the Andes to the Cape, Suffer"d no savour of the earth to "scape.
Let its grapes the morn salute From a nocturnal root, Which feels the acrid juice Of Styx and Erebus; And turns the woe of Night, By its own craft, to a more rich delight.