The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 22

PART THE THIRD.

"I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope, but still bear up, and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?

The conscience, friend."--MILTON'S _Sonnet to Cyriack Skinner_.

I.

Years have flown by;--and Strife hath raged and ceased; Still on the ear the halted thunder rings; And still in halls, where purple tyrants feast, Glares the red warning to inebriate kings.

Midnight is past: the lamp with steadfast light A silent cell, a mighty toil illumes; And hot and lurid on the student's sight Flares the still ray which, like himself, consumes Its life in gilding darkness. Damp and chill Gather the dews on aching temples wan, Wrung from the frame which fails the unconquer'd will In the fierce struggle between soul and man.

II.

Alas! no more to golden palaces, To starlit founts and dryad-haunted trees, The SWEET DELUSION wafts the dreamy soul; But with slow step and steadfast eyes that strain Dazzled and scathed, towards the far-flaming goal He braved the storm, and labour'd up the plain O doubtful labour, but O glorious pain!

On the doom'd sight the gradual darkness steals Bates he a jot of heart and hope?--he feels But in his loss a world's eternal gain.[E]

Blame we or laud the Cause, all human life Is grander by one grand self-sacrifice; While earth disputes if righteous be the strife, The martyr soars beyond it to the skies.

Yes, though when Freedom had her temple won She rear'd a scaffold to obscure a shrine; And, by the human sacrifice of one, Sullied the million,--who could then define The subtle tints where good and evil blend?-- There comes no rainbow when the floods descend!

Who, just escaped the chain and prison-bar, Halts on the bridge to guess where glides the stream; Who plays the casuist 'mid the roar of war; Or in the arena builds the Academe?

Whate'er their errors, lightly those condemn Who, had they felt not, fought not, glow'd and err'd, Had left us what their fathers left to them-- Either the thraldom of the pa.s.sive herd Stall'd for the shambles at the master's word, Or the dread overleap of walls that close, And spears that bristle:--And the last they chose.

Calm from the hills their children gaze to-day, And breathe the airs to which they forced the way.

III.

And thou, of whom I sing--what should we all, Whate'er our state-creed, venerate in thee?

Purpose heroic; and majestical Disdain of self;--the soul in which we see Conviction, welding, from the furnace-zeal, Duty, the iron mainspring of the mind; Ardour, if fierce, yet fired for England's weal; And man's strong heart-throb beating for mankind.

These move our homage, doubtful though we be If ev'n thy pen acquits the headman's steel, When thy page cites the crownless Dead--and pleads Defence for nations in a judgeless cause: Judgeless, for time shall ne'er decide what deeds d.a.m.n or absolve the hosts whom Freedom leads O'er the pale border-land of dying laws Into the vague world of Necessity.

IV.

He lifts his look where on the lattice bar, Through clouds fast gathering, s.h.i.+nes a single star; Large on the haze of his receding sight It spreads, and spreads, and floods all s.p.a.ce with light; Nature's last glorious mournful smile on him Ev'n while on earth so near the Seraphim.

Now from the blaze he veils with tremulous hand The scorching eyes:--and now the starlight fades: Midnight and cloud resettle on the Land, And o'er her champion's vision rush the shades.

What rests to both?--the inner light that glows Out from the gloom that Fate on each bestows; There is no PRESENT to a hope sublime; Man has eternity, and Nations time!

[E] The Council of State ordered, January 1649-50, "That Mr. Milton do prepare something in answer to the book of Salmasius, and when he hath done itt, bring itt to the Council." He was present, says his biographer, at the discussion which led to the order, and though warned that the loss of sight would be the certain consequence of obeying it, did so.--He called to mind, to use his own image, the two destinies the oracle announced to Achilles:--"If he stay before Troy, he will return to his land no more, but have everlasting glory--if he withdraw, long will be his life and short his fame."

PART THE FOURTH.

"Thus With The Year Seasons Return, But Not To Me Returns Day, Or The Sweet Approach Of Even Or Morn, Or Sight Of Vernal Bloom, Or Summer's Rose, Or Flocks, Or Herds, Or Human Face Divine; But Cloud Instead, And Ever-during Dark Surrounds Me."--_paradise Lost, Book III._

"Though Fall'n On Evil Days, In Darkness, And With Danger Compa.s.s'd Round, And Solitude; Yet Not Alone, While Thou Visit'st My Slumbers Nightly, Or When Morn Purples The East."--_paradise Lost, Book VII._

I.

Its gay farewell to hospitable eaves The swallow twitter'd in the autumn heaven; Dumb on the crisp earth fell the yellowing leaves, Or, in small eddies, fitfully were driven Down the bleak waste of the remorseless air.

Out, from the widening gaps in dreary boughs, Alone the laurel smiled,--as freshly fair As its own chaplet on immortal brows, When Fame, indifferent to the changeful sun, Sees waning races wither, and lives on.-- An old man sate before that deathless tree Which bloom'd his humble dwelling-place beside; The last pale rose which lured the lingering bee To the low porch it scantly blossom'd o'er, Nipp'd by the frost-air had that morning died.

The clock faint-heard beyond the gaping door, Low as a death-watch, click'd the moments' knell; And through the narrow opening you might see Uncertain foot-prints on the sanded floor (Uncertain foot-prints which of blindness tell); The rude oak board, the morn's untasted fare; The scatter'd volumes and the pillow'd chair, In which, worn out with toil and travel past, Life, the poor wanderer, finds repose at last.

II.

The old man felt the fresh air o'er him blowing Waving thin locks from musing temples pale; Felt the quick sun through cloud and azure going, And the light dance of leaves upon the gale, In that mysterious symbol-change of earth Which looks like death, though but restoring birth.

Seasons return; for him shall not return Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn.

Whatever garb the mighty mother wore, Nature to him was changeless evermore.-- List, not a sigh!--though fall'n on evil days, With darkness compa.s.s'd round--those sightless eyes Need not the sun; nightly he sees the rays, Nightly he walks the bowers of Paradise.

High, pale, still, voiceless, motionless, alone, Death-like in calm as monumental stone, Lifting his looks into the farthest skies, He sate: And as when some tempestuous day Dies in the hush of the majestic eve, So on his brow--where grief has pa.s.s'd away, Reigns that dread stillness grief alone can leave.

III.

And while he sate, nor saw, nor sigh'd,--drew near A timorous trembling step;--from the far clime The Pilgrim Woman came: long year on year, In brain-sick thought that takes no heed of time, How had she pined to gaze upon that brow Last seen in youth, when she was young:--AND NOW!

And now! O words that make the sepulchre Of all our Past! Life sheds no sadder tear Than, when recalling what the Hours inter Of hopes, of pa.s.sions, of the things that made Our hearts once quicken with tumultuous bliss, We feel what worlds within ourselves can fade, Sighing "And now!"--Alas the nothingness Even of love--had it no life but this!

IV.

Thus as she stood and gazed, and noiseless wept, Two young slight forms across the threshold crept And reach'd the blind grey man, and kiss'd his hand, And then a moment o'er his lips there stray'd The old, familiar, sweet yet stately smile.

On either side the children took their stand, And all the three were silent for awhile: Till one, the gentler, whisper'd some soft word, Mingling her young locks with that silvery hair; And the old man the child's meek voice obey'd, Rose,--lingering yet to breathe the gladsome air-- Or catch the faint note of the neighbouring bird; Then leaning on the two, his head he bow'd, And from the daylight pensive pa.s.s'd away.

Sharp swept the wind, the thrush forsook the spray, And the poor Pilgrim wept at last aloud.

V.

Hark, from within, slow and sonorous stole Deep organ-tones; with solemn pomp of sound Meet to bear up the disimprison'd soul From mortal homage in material piles, To blend with Angel Halleluiahs!--Round The charmed place the notes melodious roll As with a visible flood: adown the aisles Of Nature's first cathedrals (vistas dim, Through leafless woodlands), far and farther float On to the startled haunts of toiling men, The marching music-tides: the heavenly note Thrills through the reeking air of alleys grim; Awes wolf-eyed Guilt close skulking in its den; Lulls Childhood, wailing with white lips for bread, On the starved breast of nerveless Penury; Fever lies soothed upon its burning bed: Indignant Worth stills its world-weary sigh; The widow'd bride looks upward from the dead, And deems she hears his welcome to the sky.

On, the grand music, more and more remote, Bore the grey blind man's soul, itself a hymn, Till lost in air amid the Seraphim.

VI.

Our life is as a circle, and our age Back to our youth returns at last in dreams; The intermediate restless pilgrimage Vexing the earth with toils, the air with schemes, Pays our hard tribute to the work-day world.

That done, as some storm-shatter'd argosy Puts to the port from whence its sail unfurl'd, The soul regains the first familiar sh.o.r.e, And greets the quiet it disdain'd before.

He who in youth from purple poetry Flush'd the grey clouds in this cold common sky, After his shadeless undelusive noon Shall mark the roseate hues, which morning wore, Herald the eve, and gird his setting sun; And the last Hesperus s.h.i.+ne on Helicon.

O long (yet n.o.bly, since for man) resign'd Nature's most sovereign, care's most soothing boon; Again, again, with vervain fillets bind Anointed brows--O Mage supreme of song!

Again before the enchanted crystal gla.s.s Let the celestial phantoms glide along-- Thou, whose sweet tears yet hallow Lycidas; Thou, who the soul of Plato didst unsphere, By chaste Sabrina's beryl-paven cell!

If now no more thou deign'st to charm the ear "With measures ravish'd from Apollo's sh.e.l.l,"

Re-wake the harp which mournful willows hide Left by the captives of Jerusalem; For thou hast thought of Sion, and beside The streams of Babylon, hast wept--like them!

VII.

Aged, forsaken--to the crowd below (As to the Priest[F] who chronicled the time), "_One Milton!_--_The blind Teacher_"--be it so.

Neglect and ruin make but more sublime The last lone column which survives the dearth Of a lost city,--when it lifts on high.

Above the waste and solitude of earth Its front: and soars, the Neighbour of the Sky.

To him a Voice floats down from every star; An Angel bends from every cloud that rolls; Life has no mystery from our sight more far Than the still joy in solemn Poet-souls.