And when her time is out, and earth again
Hath travailed with the divine dust of man,
Then the world’s womb shall open, and her sons
Be born again, all glorified immortals.
And she, their mother, purified by fire,
Shall sit her down in Heaven, a bride of God,
And handmaid of the Everbeing One.
Our earth is learning all accomplishments
To fit her for her bridehood.
He is here.
Welcome.
I thought the night was beautiful,
But find the in-door scene still lovelier.
Ah! all is beautiful where beauty is.
Night hath made many bards; she is so lovely.
For it is beauty maketh poesie,
As from the dancing eye comes tears of light.
Night bath made many bards; she is so lovely.
And they have praised her to her starry face
So long, that she hath blushed and left them, often.
When first and last we met, we talked on studies;
Poetry only I confess is mine,
And is the only thing I think or read of:—
Feeding my soul upon the soft, and sweet,
And delicate imaginings of song;
For as nightingales do upon glow-worms feed,
So poets live upon the living light
Of nature and of beauty; they love light.
Bat poetry is not confined to books.
For the creative spirit which thou seekest
Is in thee, and about thee; yea, it hath
God’s everywhereness.
Truly. It was for this
I sought to know thy thoughts, and hear the course
Thou wouldst lay out for one who longs to win
A name among the nations.
First of all,
Care not about the name, but bind thyself,
Body and soul, to nature, hiddenly.
Lo, the great march of stars from earth to earth,
Through Heaven. The earth speaks inwardly alone.
Let no man know thy business, save some friend—
A man of mind, above the run of men;
For it is with, all men and with all things.
The bard must have a kind, courageous heart,
And natural chivalry to aid the weak.
He must believe the best of everything;
Love all below, and worship all above.
All animals are living hieroglyphs.
The dashing dog, and stealthy-stepping cat,
Hawk, bull, and all that breathe, mean something more
To the true eye than their shapes show; for all
Were made in love, and made to be beloved.
Thus must he think as to earth’s lower life,
Who seeks to win the world to thought and love,
As doth the bard, whose habit is all kindness
To every thing.
I love to hear of such.
Could we but think with the intensity
We love with, we might do great things, I think.
Kindness is wisdom. There is none in life
But needs it and may learn; eye-reasoning man,
And spirit unassisted, unobscured.
Go on, I pray. I came to be informed.
Thou knowest my ambition, and I joy
To feel thou feedest it with purest food.
I cannot tell thee all I feel; and know
But little save myself, and am not ashamed
To say, that I have studied my own life,
And know it is like to a tear-blistered letter,
Which holdeth fruit and proof of deeper feeling
Than the poor pen can utter, or the eye
Discover; and that often my heart’s thoughts
Will rise and shake my breast as madmen shake
The stanchions of their dungeons, and howl out.
But thou wast telling us of poesie,
And the kind nature-hearted bards.
I was.
I knew one once—he was a friend of mine;
I knew him well; his mind, habits, and works,
Taste, temper, temperament, and every thing;
Yet with as kind a heart as ever beat,
He was no sooner made than marred. Though young,
He wrote amid the ruins of his heart;
They were his throne and theme;—like some lone king,
Who tells the story of the land he lost,
And how he lost it.
Tell us more of him.
Nay, but it saddens thee.
’Tis like enough;
We slip away like shadows into shade;
We end, and make no mark we had begun;
We come to nothing, like a pure intent.
When we have hoped, sought, striven, and lost our aim,
Then the truth fronts us, beaming out of darkness,
Like a white brow, through its overshadowing hair—
As though the day were overcast, my Helen!
But I was speaking of my friend. He was
Quick, generous, simple, obstinate in end,
High-hearted from his youth; his spirit rose
In many a glittering fold and gleamy crest,
Hydra-like to its hindrance; mastering all,
Save one thing—love, and that out-hearted him.
Nor did he think enough, till it was over,
How bright a thing he was breaking, or he would
Surely have shunned it, nor have let his life
Be pulled to pieces like a rose by a child;
And his heart’s passions made him oft do that
Which made him writhe to think on what he had done,
And thin his blood by weeping at a night.
If madness wrought the sin, the sin wrought madness,
And made a round of ruin. It is sad
To see the light of beauty wane away,
Know eyes are dimming, bosom shrivelling, feet
Losing their spring, and limbs their lily roundness;
But it is worse to feel our heart-spring gone,
To lose hope, care not for the coming thing,
And feel all things go to decay with us,
As ’twere our life’s eleventh month: and yet
All this he went through young.
Poor soul! I should
Have loved him for his sorrows.
It is not love
Brings sorrow, but love’s objects.
Then he loved.
I said so. I have seen him when he hath had
A letter from his lady dear, he blessed
The paper that her hand had travelled over,
And her eye looked on, and would think he saw
Gleams of that light she lavished from her eyes
Wandering amid the words of love there traced
Like glow-worms among beds of flowers. He seemed
To bear with being but because she loved him,
She was the sheath wherein his soul had rest,
As hath a sword from war: and he at night
Would solemnly and singularly curse
Each minute that he had not thought of her.
Now that was like a lover! and she loved
Him, and him only.
Well, perhaps it was so.
But he could not restrain his heart, but loved
In that voluptuous purity of taste
Which dwells on beauty coldly, and yet kindly,
As night-dew, whensoe’er he met with beauty.
It was a pity,
