The Coming of the Princess, and Other Poems Part 10

"Take through the universe thy road; All paths lead up to His abode, Converging at the Mount of G.o.d!"

IN THE COUNTRY.

Here the suns.h.i.+ne, filtering down, Through leaves of emerald, dun and brown, Is green instead of golden And the hum and roar of the distant town In an endless hush is holden.

Twinkling bright through the shadowing limes.

The brook rains a sparkle of silver rhymes On the dragon-fly, its neighbour; It pays no duty in dollars and dimes, For its work is all love-labour.

Here are no spindles, nor wheels to be whirled, No forges nor looms from the outside world, Stunning the ear with clamour; You hear but the whisper of leaves unfurled, And the tap of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r's hammer

Here are no books to be written or read, But cus.h.i.+ons of softest moss instead, Without a care to c.u.mber; And fern-leaf fans for the weary head, Soothing the soul to slumber

Oh! come from the dusty haunts of trade, From the desk, the ledger, the loom, the spade; There is neither toil nor payment.

Forget for once, in this peaceful shade, The sordid ways in which dollars are made, And food and drink and raiment.

Consider the lilies, arrayed so fair, In robes that an eastern king might wear, Though never an eye may heed them; And the sparrows, of whom His hand takes care, For our Father in Heaven feeds them.

His rainbow spans the heavenly blue; His eye takes note of the drops of dew, And the sunset's golden arrows; And shall He not take thought of you, O man, as well as the sparrows?

SCIENCE, THE ICONOCLAST.

_"Oh! spare dual idols of the past, Whose lips are dumb, whose eyes are dim; Truth's diadem is not for him Who comes, the fierce Iconoclast: Who wakes the battle's stormy blast, Hears not the angel's choral hymn" _ THE IMAGE-BREAKER

Ah me! for we have fallen on evil days, When science, with remorseless cold precision, Puts out the flame of poetry, and lays Her double-convex lens on fancy's vision.

When not a star has longer leave to s.h.i.+ne, Unweighed, una.n.a.lysed, reduced to gases,-- Resolved to something in the chemist's line, By those miraculously long-ranged gla.s.ses.

The awful mysteries which Nature locks Deep in her stony bosom, hid for ages,-- The hieroglyphics of primeval rocks, Are glibly written out on short-hand pages.

Within that rocky scroll, her palimpsest, The hand of time still writes, and still effaces Records in dolomite--and shale--and schist, The pre-historic history of Races.

Cave-dwellers, under nameless strata hid, Vast bones of extinct monsters that were fossil, Ere the first Pharaoh built the pyramid, And shaped in stone his sepulchre colossal.

What undiscovered secret yet remains Beneath the swirl and sway of billows tidal, Since Art triumphant led the deep in chains, And on the mane of ocean laid her bridle.

Into those awful crypts of cycles dead, Shrouded and mute, each in its mummy-chamber, Her daring step intrudes without more dread Than to behold a fly embalmed in amber.

Stars--motes--worlds--molecules, and microcosms, Her level gaze sweeps down the page recorded, And withers all its myths, and fairy blossoms, Condemned to explanations dull and sordid.

Alike the sculptures of the graceful Greeks, Grey with the moss of eld and venerable, The fauns, the nymphs, the half-defaced antiques, The G.o.ds and men of mythologic fable, And legends of steel-casqued and mailed men, The old heroic tales of love and glory, Of knight, and palmer, and the Saracen, And the crusaders of enchanted story;

Grim ghosts and goblins, and more harmless sprites That peopled once our juvenile romances, And made us s.h.i.+ver in our beds o'nights, Science has banished those bewitching fancies; And given us the merest husks instead, The very bones and skeleton of nature, Filling those peaceful hours with shapes of dread, And horrid ranks of Latin nomenclature.

Blest is the Indian on his native plains, And blest the wandering Tartar, happy nomad, Fire-wors.h.i.+ppers, whose twinkling altar-fanes Still gleam on lonely peaks beyond Allahbad.

Shadows yet linger round their ruined towers, And whisper from the caverns and the islands, Their Memnon still is eloquent, but ours Stares on with shut lips in an age-long silence.

Not so! The age still ripens for her needs The flower, the man. Behold her slow still finger Points where He comes, beneath whose feet the weeds Bloom out immortal flowers, the immortal Singer!

Forward, not backward all the ages press; New stars arise, of whose bright occultation No glory of the dying past could guess: Still grows the unfinished miracle, Creation.

Oh! Poet of the years that are to come, Singing at dawn thy idyls sweet and tender-- The preludes of the great millenium Of song, to drown the world in light and splendour Awake, arise! thou youngest born of time!

Through flaming sunsets with red banners furled, The nations call thee to thy task sublime, To sing the new songs of a newer world!

WHAT THE OWL SAID TO ME.

The moon went under a ragged cloud, The owl cried out of the ruined wall, Slow and solemn, distinct and loud, His melancholy call: Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo!

Like a creature in a shroud.

Across the night in a silver chain, While a lonesome wind arose and died, Slow stepped the ghostly feet of the rain; The owl from the wall replied: Tu-whit, tu-whoo, hoo-hoo'

With a peal of goblin laughter, And silence fell thereafter.

Weird fingers of the wandering rain, Reaching out of the hollow dark, Paused and tapped at my window-pane,-- A m.u.f.fled voice cried, Hark!

Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo!

The moon is drowned in the dark, And the world belongs to me and you!

OUR VOLUNTEERS.

Where shall we write your names, ye brave!

Where build for you a monument, Who lie in many a sylvan grave, Stretched half across the continent!

Young, bright and brave, the very flower And choice of all we had to give, With you what glory ceased to live,-- Or lives again in hearts of men.

An inspiration and a power!

For when one sunny day in June, A sudden war-cry shook the land, As if from out clear skies at noon Had dropped the lightning's deadly brand-- Ah then, while rang our British cheers, And pealed the bugle, rolled the drum, We saw the Nation rise like one!

Swift formed the files,--a thousand miles Of them, our gallant Volunteers!

Deep clanged the bells, the drums did beat, And still from east and west they came; Echoed the street with martial feet, From north, from south, with hearts aflame: Ah, still the tires of freedom burn,-- Be witness, Ridgway's silent shade, No foe shall dare our land invade, While hearts like those that met the foes, Still beat like theirs,--the undismayed, The brave, who never will return.

Our Country holds them in her heart, Shrined with her mountains and her rivers; And still for them her proud lip quivers, And tears to her great eyelids start: But they are tears of love and pride, And she shall tell to coming years The story of her Volunteers, For all their names are hers and fame's-- The brave who live, the brave who died.

NIGHT,--A PHANTASY

Night! the horrible wizard Night!

The dumb and terrible Night Hath drawn his circle of magic, round Over the sky, and over the ground, Without a sound.