Classic Poem

Arise, he cried,
Sternly. And wherefore? said the angel guest; —
In wise and happy idlesse, half divine,
Those live who how to spend their life know best;
Our rest is contemplation: worship our
Sole work. The weak alone unceasingly
Devote themselves to action; but for us,
We mightiest are in rest. This eve return —
And I will show thee that we worship here.

What more, in speech, hath never been divulged;
But neither was it much. Away he turned —
His heart assaulted by a storm of thought.
The day he passed in musing and in prayer
Repeated, but unsatisfied. At night,
When all the stars burned brightliest, and the bowers
Of song were silent, he in stealth returned —
And lo! the Spirit slumbering as before.

O! sweet and soft salute of sacred sleep —
The starry eyes, and lightning lids of earth,
And evening, slowly sealing, and the cheek
Of angel painting with a pearlier calm —
How wert thou mocked then!

Morn came, and he
Returned not, — poor apostate! Soul by soul
Who went to seek him stayed; so strong the spell,
One dread defection cast; in every bower,
But that wherein he was, 'twas said he hid;
And soon each flowery canopy one concealed —
The proselyte of idols — slave of self,
Who was to seek, but never to be found.

Pity them, now, ye angels! for, like you,
Equal — almost — in favour of their Lord,
Were once those lapsed ones. These are heart-wrung tears.

At these words, sympathetic tears swam o'er
For the first time, from each celestial eye,
As trees autumnal shed their leafy tears
In golden showers, shaken by sudden gust; —
Tears not to be forbid.

In saddest tone
Resumed the Heavenly Stranger his discourse.
Ne'er to be found, I said. But who can find
A limit to the mercy of our Lord?
In like estate they never may be found —
They never shall be; still, for all is hope,
Hope — the immortal virtue of the saints.

But let the time-glass of their sins run down,
Whose recollection whelms me still with woe.

Not many darkening days had passed away
Before the mighty mysteries stood revealed,
And strangest aphanisms, one by one,
Of those once loved and honoured most, made clear.

Beneath the shade delicious of a wood —
In whose Elysian glades those strangers fixed
At first their dwelling, and therein prepared
Their secret rites and sacred mysteries —
Skirting the gold sands of the sapphire sea,
Were those deceived assembled; so deceived,
The day they weened was longer, brighter, now;
And each the other hailed as happier then

Than in the ages past. Forth flashed the song
Upwards like earth-born lightning, and the dance —
Of crystalline symmetry — skimmed around the shore,
In vortices of light; the world-queen there
Now mixing with the mirthful throng, now sole,
Seeking in thought repose. Oh! this, they cried,
Is joy — the bliss of liberty.

At once
That senseless dream to dissipate, lo! there rushed,
Out of a cave, with toppling crags o'erhung,
A hugeous monster, such as never Night
With murderer's mind engendered, when his heart
Lay panting underneath the conscience pang —
Like fawn beneath a wolf's jaw. Dragonlike
In lengthening volumes stretched his further part,
Incalculably curled; but in the front,
On one wide neck a hundred heads he reared,
Which spake with every mouth a hundred tongues,
Through teeth of serried daggers black with blood
The breath he drew in day he breathed out night.
And he descended to the sea to drink,
Though close by his cave a cool bright river ran;
For it was thirst the monster better loved
Than aught that thirst could quench. The abhorrent sea
Shrank backwards, tide by tide; but he pursued,
Triumphing in its fascinating fear,

Into the very midst; — then gorged, returned,
Soul-sodden to the shore, where prone he lay
Before his horrid hold; with stormy joy
Gnashing his steely teeth, and with his tail,
Now close contorted, and now far out launched,
Sweeping the shiny slime of the wide sea sands.

In still and dreadful wonder, grouped by fear,
Astound and awestruck stood the duped allies
Of the delusive strangers. Ceased at once
The choir-maze astroeidal; shouts of joy
And gratulation, all ceased.