mountain lake!
Still, as he gaz’d, the phantom’s mournful glance
Shook the deep slumber of his deathlike trance;
Like some forgotten strain that haunts us still,
That calm eye follow’d, turn him where he will;
Till the pale monarch, and the long array,
Pass’d, like a morning mist, in tears away!
Then all his dream was troubled, and his soul
Thrill’d with a dread no slumber could control;
On that dark form his eyes had gaz’d before,
Nor known it then;—but it was veil’d no more!
In broad clear light the ghastly vision shone—
That form was his—those features were his own!
The night of terrors, and the day of care,
The years of toil, all, all were written there!
Sad faces watch’d around him, and his breath
Came faint and feeble in the embrace of death.
The gathering tempest, with its voice of fear,
His latest loftiest music, smote his ear!
That day of boundless hope and promise high,
That day that hail’d his triumphs, saw him die!
Then from those whitening lips, as death drew near,
The imprisoning chains fell off, and all was clear!
Like lowering clouds, that at the close of day,
Bath’d in a blaze of sunset, melt away;
And with its clear calm tones, that dying prayer
Cheer’d all the failing hearts that sorrow’d there!
A life—whose ways no human thought could scan;
A life—that was not as the life of man;
A life—that wrote its purpose with a sword,
Moulding itself into action, not in word!
Rent with tumultuous thoughts, whose conflict rung
Deep through his soul, and chok’d his faltering tongue;
A heart that reck’d not of the countless dead,
That strew’d the blood-stain’d path where Empire led;
A daring hand, that shrunk not to fulfil
The thought that spurr’d it; and a dauntless will,
Bold action’s parent; and a piercing ken
Through the dark chambers of the hearts of men,
To read each thought, and teach that master-mind
The fears and hopes and passions of mankind;
All these were thine—Oh thought of fear!—and thou
Stretch’d on that bed of death, art nothing now.
Then all his vision faded, and his soul
Sprang from its sleep! and lo, the waters roll
Once more beneath him; and the fluttering sail,
Where the dark ships rode proudly, woo’d the gale;
And the wind murmur’d round him, and he stood
Once more alone beside the gleaming flood.
To a Gipsy Child by the Seashore
Douglas, Isle of Man
Who taught this pleading to unpractis’d eyes?
Who hid such import in an infant’s gloom?
Who lent thee, child, this meditative guise?
What clouds thy forehead, and fore-dates thy doom?
Lo! sails that gleam a moment and are gone;
The swinging waters, and the cluster’d pier.
Not idly Earth and Ocean labour on,
Nor idly do these sea-birds hover near.
But thou, whom superfluity of joy
Wafts not from thine own thoughts, nor longings vain,
Nor weariness, the full-fed soul’s annoy;
Remaining in thy hunger and thy pain;
Thou, drugging pain by patience; half averse
From thine own mother’s breast, that knows not thee;
With eyes which sought thine eyes thou didst converse,
And that soul-searching vision fell on me.
Glooms that go deep as thine I have not known:
Moods of fantastic sadness, nothing worth.
Thy sorrow and thy calmness are thine own:
Glooms that enhance and glorify this earth.
What mood wears like complexion to thy woe?—
His, who in mountain glens, at noon of day,
Sits rapt, and hears the battle break below?—
Ah! thine was not the shelter, but the fray.
What exile’s, changing bitter thoughts wth glad?
What seraph’s, in some alien planet born?—
No exile’s dream was ever half so sad,
Nor any angel’s sorrow so forlorn.
Is the calm thine of stoic souls, who weigh
Life well, and find it wanting, nor deplore:
But in disdainful silence turn away,
Stand mute, self-centred, stern, and dream no more?
Or do I wait, to hear some grey-hair’d king
Unravel all his many-colour’d lore:
Whose mind hath known all arts of governing,
Mus’d much, lov’d life a little, loath’d it more?
Down the pale cheek long lines of shadow slope
Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give—
Thou hast foreknown the vanity of hope,
Foreseen thy harvest—yet proceed’st to live.
O meek anticipant of that sure pain
Whose sureness gray-hair’d scholars hardly learn!
What wonder shall time breed, to swell thy strain?
What heavens, what earth, what sun shalt thou discern?
Ere the long night, whose stillness brooks no star,
Match that funereal aspect with her pall,
I think, thou wilt have fathom’d life too far,
Have known too much—or else forgotten all.
The Guide of our dark steps a triple veil
Betwixt our senses and our sorrow keeps:
Hath sown with cloudless passages the tale
Of grief, and eas’d us with a thousand sleeps.
Ah! not the nectarous poppy lovers use,
Not daily labour’s dull, Lethaean spring,
Oblivion in lost angels can infuse
Of the soil’d glory, and the trailing wing;
And though thou glean, what strenuous gleaners may,
In the throng’d fields where winning comes by strife;
And though the just sun gild, as all men pray,
Some reaches of thy storm-vext stream of life;
Though that blank sunshine blind thee: though the cloud
That sever’d the world’s march and thine, is gone;
Though ease dulls grace, and Wisdom be too proud
To halve a lodging that was all her own:
Once, ere the day decline, thou shalt discern,
Oh once, ere night, in thy success, thy chain.
Ere the long evening close, thou shalt return,
And wear this majesty of grief again.
Mycerinus1
“Not by the justice that my father spurn’d,
Not for the thousands whom my father slew,
Altars unfed and temples overturn’d,
Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks were due;
Fell this late voice from lips that cannot lie,
Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny.
“I will unfold my sentence and my crime.
My crime, that, rapt in reverential awe,
I sate obedient, in the fiery prime
Of youth, self-govern’d, at the feet of Law;
Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings,
By contemplation of diviner things.
“My father lov’d injustice, and liv’d long;
Crown’d with gray hairs he died, and full of sway.
I lov’d the good he scorn’d, and hated wrong:
The Gods declare my recompense to-day.
I look’d for life more lasting, rule more high;
And when six years are measur’d, lo, I die!
“Yet surely, O my people, did I deem
Man’s justice from the all-just Gods was given:
A light that from some upper fount did beam,
Some better archetype, whose seat was heaven;
A light that, shining from the blest abodes,
Did shadow somewhat
